Posts Tagged ‘Submit Solution’

Is email finished?

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

In the Wall Street Journal article, “Why Email No Longer Rules,” I found a fascinating argument against email and for social-media sites, like Twitter and Facebook. Email is on its way out as the primary means of sending online messages.

Email gravestone, rest in peaceFor a dozen years or so email was the freshest, easiest way to keep in touch with people over long distances without having to pay big phone bills. Now it’s old hat. Basically, the paradigm of online communication has changed and we’re all going to have to change with the times.

What do you think? Is it a good thing that email is being replaced by instant communications? I think it’s great for ecommerce. With the aid of instant messaging, tweets and wall posts, online marketers can serve their customers much better and faster than ever before.

If you would like help getting a great website design, I recommend you contact Submit Solution’s Web professionals. They are extremely effective at delivering captivating website designs that help increase your conversion rate of visitors into customers.

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the new Social Media Blog on Submit Solution. That blog entry is called, “How ecommerce benefits from email’s death.” Keep coming back to the eHarbor Blog for stories about eHarbor, Inc.

Bing and Google launch social-media solutions

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Google could soon change the rules of keyword Internet marketing with the debut Have you heard? Google and Bing are adding new social-media search capabilities to their search engines in an attempt to keep up with these innovative websites. Bing already has a beta version of its new search engine designed specifically for Twitter results while Google is holding back at the moment.

Chess match in color and black and white

Google and Microsoft are caught in an escalating fight over who will dominate the search-engine market for social-media sites like Twitter and Facebook. I read about this in the PC World article, “Real-Time Search: Google and Bing Rivalry Intensifies on Facebook and Twitter.” This article refers to the Google-Bing rivalry as a chess match. Quite an apt metaphor, in my opinion, because I love all of the strategy that goes into a seemingly simple chess game.

Social media has been a thorn in the side of major search engines for a few years now. Facebook and Twitter are simply updated too often and too fast for search engines to keep up with them. It looks like that might be changing, though.

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the Submit Solution SEO Blog on Monday, November 2, 2009. The photo of the chess match is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of marcusrg.

If Nikola Tesla created the Internet

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Few people are as intriguing and visionary as Nikola Tesla. If this American immigrant had been as beloved and accepted as Thomas Edison, we would have had 2009 technology back in 1909. Unfortunately, this revolutionary genius was given short shrift by many and his image has become obscured by history.

Tesla CoilIf you’re like me, you first heard about him in 2006’s “The Prestige,” an excellent movie, by the way. I’ve been thinking a lot about him recently, and I want to share my thoughts on this great man and what he might have accomplished if the world had been ready.

Without Tesla, we wouldn’t have car engines, long-distance radio, radar, fluorescent lights, energy-efficient light bulbs (which Tesla created more than a hundred years ago, but was not allowed to manufacture until a few years ago because of patent issues on the socket) and many other useful inventions.

If Nikola Tesla had created the Internet, I’m sure it would be many times better than what we have come up with. First of all, he would have come up with a much better means to transfer information online than comparatively inefficient phone lines, coaxial cables, fiber optics or copper wires. He probably would have started with a wireless system and made it faster than we’re used to. Then he would invent something truly amazing to replace that, just like he always did.

You can read the rest of this blog entry in the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog on November 9. The photo of the Tesla Coil is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of maveric2003.

Is Internet access a human right?

Monday, October 19th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Talk about a captive audience. The government of Finland says it’s a human right to have access to the Internet, so companies must provide Internet with a speed of at least 1 megabit per second. Doesn’t that seem a little strange? You can read about this in the CNN article, “Fast Internet access becomes a legal right in Finland.”

Cat dangling from ironing board

Apparently, it’s not an unalienable right to own a car or a house, but somehow it is an essential right for every person to be connected to the Internet. To me, that is faulty logic. We can all work hard to gain access to new tools, like cars, cell phones or the Internet, to make our lives easier, but there is no guarantee we’ll get those things without effort.

Ninety-five percent of Finland’s 5.2 million citizens are already connected to the Internet. This law makes little difference to the vast majority of the population. However, officials say they are trying to not only bring Internet access to rural areas, but also increase the speed for everyone to at least 100 megabits per second by 2015.

If you ask me, this whole thing is silly. I don’t have the right to a fast Internet connection. I have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, according to the Declaration of Independence. I also have many other rights enumerated in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. But luxuries or necessities like the Internet or food, respectively, are not among them.

You can read the rest of this blog entry in the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog on November 9. The photo of the dangling cat is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Al Abut.

Google tries to expand into new PPC forum

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

In September, Google introduced a new way for its customers to buy and sell online display ads. It’s called the DoubleClick Ad Exchange and it allows Internet marketers to find a variety of Web pages to advertise on and quickly make a bid. This speeds up the process for both advertisers and publishers looking for ad revenue.

Chef cooking on fiery wok

I heard about this development in a Wall Street Journal article, entitled “Google Unveils Market for Display Ads.”

Google has literally thousands of partner websites scattered across the Web that display its online ads. However, Google has never been very good at display advertising. It bought DoubleClick back in 2007 for $3.1 billion and has been trying to come up with a good way to jump into this part of the paid-search market. This appears to be its big move.

This isn’t the first online-advertising exchange service. Actually, other major search engines, like Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL have had them for some time, though none of them has been able to make them particularly big or useful, yet. Maybe Google will find a way to make this exchange service popular and profitable.

You can find the rest of this blog entry in the Submit Solution Paid Search Blog on October 20, 2009. The photo of the fiery wok is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of liber.

eHarbor Halloween party to showcase culinary talents

Friday, October 9th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

On Friday, October 30, 2009, eHarbor, Inc. will host its annual Halloween party. I can’t imagine it being anything but a lot of fun. We’ll have people dressing up in Halloween costumes, decorating the office with plenty of orange and black decorations and, best of all, competing in a Chili Cook-off.

That’s right, we’re going to enjoy some hot chili just in time for the frosty weather that’s bearing down on Utah and probably other parts of the country. Several people have signed up so far for the competition and each of them will bring their chili concoction in on October 30 to serve it at the party. I’m not sure how the dishes will be judged, but the winner will be rewarded for their efforts.

I’m looking forward to the food and the costumes. I’ve never been too interested in dressing up, but I hear some eHarbor employees are quite creative. Last year, one employee dressed up as Severus Snape from the Harry Potter books, and another dressed up as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, who famously walked through New York City in the film “Ghostbusters.” It will be fun to see what they come up with this year.

This talk of Halloween costumes reminds me of something I would like to share with you.

Each month in our company newsletter, which we call the eHarbor ePort, I write a comic and someone else illustrates it. In the October 2009 issue, I did one on the upcoming Halloween party. You can find it below. We’ve been doing these comics since February of this year, so maybe I’ll post some of them on the eHarbor Blog for all the world to see. Some of them are pretty funny, if I do say so myself, but others are inside jokes.

If you haven’t seen “The Karate Kid” recently, I highly recommend you check it out. That’s one of my personal favorite movies.

This blog entry has been all over the place. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading a little bit of my stream of consciousness. Be sure to keep coming back for company updates, and go to the Submit Solution Internet marketing blogs for the latest insights on Web design, SEO, PPC and social media.

October 2009 eHarbor comic

Merchant-service expert wins eHarbor MVP

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

It’s time to spotlight this month’s eHarbor, Inc. MVP. This month it is Jeni Lavea, an eHarbor employee who took on an amazing amount of work with our Merchant Services unit. Remember my blog entry on the new Magellan Commerce merchant services? It’s a lot like that.

eHarbor MVP Jeni Lavea

Most of the content in this blog entry was actually written by Alyssa Udall, who writes lots of great blog entries on the Submit Solution Internet marketing blogs. We included most of this in our monthly company newsletter, which we distribute to our employees at the start of the month. I’m sure she won’t mind me sharing it here, though.

When we asked people around the office, “If you had to describe Jeni in one sentence, what would you say?” we received one response that stood out from the rest: “Jeni is the girl who loves you on your worst day; she works hard and is determined to do everything the best she can!”

Anyone can see that Jeni is very friendly toward everyone and is always cheerful. She always works hard and she never complains.

Originally from Temecula, Calif., Jeni now lives in Provo, Utah. She loves spending time with friends and family. Jeni enjoys Tim Burton movies, Mexican food, Disneyland and reading books like Pride and Prejudice and the Twilight series.

Plus, her favorite holiday is Halloween. I’ll talk more about our exciting Halloween Party in my next blog entry on Friday. Be sure to stay tuned!

This is the fourth time I’ve spotlighted an MVP in the eHarbor Blog. You can read about last month’s winner, Jeff Ashby, in my blog entry, “ThemeFury.com creator named eHarbor MVP.” I’ll keep showing off our MVPs accomplishments in future blog entries.

Internet marketers brace for Google Caffeine changes

Monday, October 5th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Google could soon change the rules of keyword Internet marketing with the debut of its new Google Caffeine search engine. Right now, Google is not doing a good job of searching through social-media sites, like Twitter and Facebook. So the company is working on a new version of its popular search engine that will add them to the mix and shake up other sites’ rankings for certain keywords.

Upside-down YouTube video

The online marketing firm 360i released a study a little while back in a blog entry on Digital Connections, entitled, “6 Things to Expect if Google Decaf Gets a ‘Caffeine’ Boost.” In the post, SEO Group Director Mike Dobbs and SEO Analyst Martha Mukangara noted some pretty surprising findings.

They included 40 retail keywords in their study of the differences between the first three pages of regular Google search results and Google Caffeine search results. The 40 keywords are made up of 10 major brand names (keywords), 10 retail head terms (single keywords), 10 retail torso terms (two-word phrases), and 10 retail long-tail phrases (four-word phrases).

They pointed out six ways the new search engine will dramatically affect online marketers’ strategies. For instance, 15 percent of all first-page rankings were different for the 40 keywords used in the study. Amazingly, the single keywords and two-word phrases saw 50 percent of their first-page results change with the new search engine.

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the Submit Solution SEO Blog on Monday, October 12, 2009. The photo of the upside-down YouTube page is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of engineroomblog.

Finding Superman image on Google no easy feat

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The other day, I had an image in my mind of a strange object and I wanted to find a picture of it online. The only problem was I didn’t have a clue what it was called. The image in my head was of a scene in “Superman II” when General Zod’s henchman Non is in the Oval Office and he’s staring intently at something. It’s five metal balls tied to strings in a row and the ones on either end keep hitting the four still balls, causing the ball on the other end to bounce away and come back again.

Maybe you already know what I’m talking about.

I turned to one of my coworkers here at eHarbor, Inc. and asked her to help me. She could picture it, as well, but she couldn’t put her finger on the name. I tried searching for “metal ball attached to strings hitting each other” on Google, but I didn’t find what I was looking for. Luckily, my resourceful coworker found it on Amazon.com, I believe. I could now put a name to an image – Newton’s cradle!

This story illustrates my need for a visual search engine and not simply a text-based one. Luckily, Microsoft and Google are both heading in that direction. I read about their efforts in a CNN article entitled, “Microsoft, Google expand search-engine tools.”

You can find the rest of this blog entry on the Submit Solution SEO Blog on October 6, 2009. The photo of Newton’s cradle is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of ƒяαиcєscα яσsє.


Newton's cradle in motion

eHarbor softball ends fall season

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

After a stunning doubleheader victory to end its regular season the week before, the eHarbor, Inc. softball team played another doubleheader on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 with different results. Those two games were the first two of the fall season’s playoffs and, unfortunately, we lost both and so we won’t be moving on toward the championship.

eHarbor softball players in the dugout

The eHarbarians tried hard in the first game, but the other team proved too strong. We put up an excellent fight in the second game of the night and we almost pulled off a come-from-behind victory, but we came up just short.

This was a crazy season. It started with an impressive win and ended with two stunning victories. You can read about our two wins in my blog entry, “eHarbor softball wins dramatic doubleheader.”

Winter is just around the corner – it’s supposed to snow in many of Utah’s mountains tomorrow – so we’ll probably play softball again in the spring.

You can keep coming to the eHarbor Blog for updates on what our company is up to, as well as the newest updates on ecommerce, Web design and SEO. I also recommend you check out the new Submit Solution blogs. Their themes include:

- Paid Search Advertising

- Search Engine Optimization

- Social Media

- Website Design Services

I’ll see you again soon!