交友網站 愈來愈有料
【記者陳瀚權／報導】
誰說相交滿天下，知音難尋？隨著網路越來越發達，各種以社群為訴求的交友網站紛紛成立，網友不但可以找到志同道合的朋友，甚至可以透過交友網站與線上好友分享心情，而以動畫人物「阿貴」竄紅的春水堂，則是推出新型態的交友網站「MyPlay」，不但可以在網路上隨時與同好分享自己的影音秀，甚至還可以自己做DJ，在網路上開設廣播電台。
春水堂娛樂科技公司董事長張榮貴指出，「MyPlay」娛樂社交網主要是要營造新的網路人際關係，網站中不但有個人影音網頁、變臉換身造型機、站內即時通訊以及同好社交網絡，還可以透過網友自己的麥克風，直接在網路上開啟廣播電台，與網路上的朋友即時互動。
至於「MyPlay」中的「變臉換身造型機」，則提供網友做出和自己一模一樣的網路卡通人物，不但眼睛會眨、表情會變，身材還可以還可放大變小，張榮貴表示，未來更將開放專屬動畫，如果網友想送禮物給心儀的對象，收禮的人絕對不會只收到一個圖片，而是送禮網友的卡通人物，跑進電腦螢幕將禮物送給對方。
另外，以個人文字發表平台為主的「明日新聞台」，目前則累積15萬個新聞台，並刊登有超過330萬篇文章。由於許多網友透過「新聞台」撰寫生活日記、各類評論與感想，並且互相交流每天的心情故事，因此不但成為另類的網路社群，也讓許多網友在新聞台中交到好朋友。
除了以社群為訴求的交友網站外，也有專門強調愛情的交友網站，像是「愛情公寓」網站，不但可以讓網友在網路平台中尋找另一半，為了讓網友間能互相了解，也提供交換日記的功能，如果找到心儀的對象，「愛情公寓」還提供網路的虛擬公寓，讓網友來一場網路同居。
【2004/08/13 民生報】
駭客公然上網販售原始碼
CNET新聞專區：Robert Lemos 15/07/2004
一群自稱駭客的組織在網路上開店，明目張膽賣起據稱內含機密軟體原始碼的檔案，還準備接受顧客訂貨。
該組織稱為原始碼俱樂部（Source Code Club；SCC），提供據信是偷來的軟體原始碼，包括Enterasys Networks舊版的Dragon入侵偵測系統，以及Napster的用戶端及伺服器端軟體，開價分別是1.6萬美元和1萬美元。
為證明手中的確握有原始碼，該組織在網路上公告一份檔案清單，並聲稱會用電子郵件手法和加密技術隱匿買賣雙方的身分資料。
「企業可以安心跟我們做生意，因為一切與顧客有關的資料都會加密，而且成交之後，會把所有加密的紀錄銷毀，」自稱為Larry Hobbles的發言人在答覆電子郵件查詢的回函中寫道。
SCC提供的Napster軟體似乎擷取自這個檔案共享服務的原始版，而不是現已合法的音樂服務，Napster智慧財產權所有者Roxio公司表示。
安全公司Enterasys則回應，已向聯邦調查局（FBI）報案，目前正查證SCC所言是否屬實。該公司表示，檢視SCC網上公告的軟體清單後斷定，倘若檔案真的遭竊，駭客應該不是入侵Enterasys的網路取得，可能是偷走儲存檔案的媒體。
該公司並指出，網路上張貼出售的Dragon原始碼，已是落後兩代的產品。
招牌軟體原始碼外流或遭竊的公司，不只Enterasys和Roxio兩家而已。今年5月，思科（Cisco）發現網路設備軟體的原始碼被竊賊貼上網路。今年稍早，微軟Windows 2000和 Windows NT4作業系統的一部分程式碼，也開始在網路上流傳。上周，微軟程式設計師被檢方起訴，罪名是在跳槽到微軟前，竊走前雇主搜尋引擎公司AltaVista的程式碼。
原始碼俱樂部則在網站上聲明，可賣的貨不只Enterasys的原始碼而已，還接受顧客指定下單。
該組織說：「若你要的是財星100大企業的原始碼，我們極可能已經有貨了。如果你要找的貨還沒到，只要付一筆錢，我們會考慮幫你把指定的資料找到。我們的團隊會需要多達兩個月的時間完成任務。」
原始碼俱樂部還打算永續經營。該組織網站宣稱，一旦網站遭執法機關查封，就會另起爐灶，並且在軟體安全郵寄名單上宣傳。這可能讓主管當局查不勝查。
該俱樂部說：「儘管本網站可能關閉，但只會是暫時性的。SCC會長期營運，必要時會重現江湖。」（唐慧文）
fr.: http://taiwan.cnet.com/news/software/0,2000064574,20090891,00.htm
How to Write Email Messages That Get Better Results
Internet marketer, Ewen Chia.
Would you be interested in getting 10 times better results from your current e-mail marketing campaigns? While the above is a hypothetical figure, it sure got your attention didn't it?! Though most successful marketers use email marketing as an income generator, only the ultra successful are truly maximizing their profits with it. What sets them apart? And more importantly, how can you create profit-pulling solo emails that put thousands more into your bank account fast? It's not rocket science. You've basically got to get your readers excited and give them a reason to respond quickly. There IS a simple formula to achieve this. It's nothing revolutionary, in fact it's the same ormula for writing good copy. If you want to experience increased sales from all of your email promotions, start writing your solos based on the age-old formula known as...AIDA!
The basics of copywriting must be applied anywhere words are used to gather responses, especially in your emails. Here's a quick look at how you can structure your messages using AIDA as a guide:
(A) Attention
Create subject lines that get your emails opened. Think of this as the headline of your ad, as any good copywriter would tell you. Grab the attention of your readers by using curosity, fear, happiness, etc.
For example: "Have you heard about...?"
Heard about what? They'll want to find out.
Extend such attention-grabbers to the first sentence or paragraph of your message body to encourage further reading.
(I) Interest
Once you've got their attention, it's time to get them interested in your message. An easy way to do this is to simply highlight or 'create a problem' they may be experiencing. This puts them on alert and piques their interest.
For instance, you could highlight the pains of how getting hundreds of spams daily could affect their businesses, and how there are no good solutions in sight.
(D) Desire
The desire section of your message is where you introduce your proposed solution to the problem stated. Fact is, people need solutions to problems. To be an ultra successful email marketer, your job is simply to give them what they want!
(A) Action
Getting your readers to take positive action and act on your message is probably the most important part of your entire campaign. But a high response rate is only possible if you've created the flow of attention, interest and desire successfully.
To encourage immediate action, you should tie in a specific deadline or give 'scarcity' to the solution you're offering. For example, offer a 40 percent discount for the next two days only. Let them know that if they miss this deadline, the discount will end and they will ultimately have to pay a higher price for the same solution.
Use the AIDA formula today in all of your email campaigns. You'll love the phenomenal results and extra profits from doing so.
Ewen Chia is a successful information publisher and Internet marketer. Learn how you can instantly get more traffic, sales and increase your profits by visiting his web sites: http://www.Marketing-Make-Money.com, http://www.InstantMarketingSecrets.com, and http://www.MarketingEbookReview.com
fr.: WebAdvantage eMarketing Newsletter
Making Your eBay Store Search-Savvy
By Beth Cox
June 30, 2004
Anyone with much experience as an eBay seller will tell you that driving traffic to your eBay store is crucial to success -- largely because the listing fees are so drastically reduced from what one has to pay for an auction or a Buy It Now listing.
Everyone should be linking from their regular listings to their eBay stores, of course. But what if you want to draw customers from outside eBay?
Well, it's a no-brainer to put your store URL in all your outgoing e-mails, and on your business cards and paper correspondence. You should also point to your eBay store through your regular Web site, if you have one. I've been doing that for quite a while and we get a few customers that way.
But we want a lot more eyeballs looking at our products on eBay, and one of the best ways to drive traffic, of course, is through search engines.
Like a lot of small eBay business people, I know a great deal about our products, but I don't pretend to be an Internet search engine marketing expert. We have a little Google ad campaign for our main Web site (Google makes it amazingly easy with AdWords), and we sometimes run a keyword campaign on eBay itself to direct people searching for orchids to our listings.
eBay knows that its sellers need assistance, and has been making serious efforts to make it easier for search engines to read the content of eBay stores and display those URLs in search results. The auction giant recently changed the default structure of URLs for eBay stores to make them easier to get picked up by outside search engines.
And it's working. I've noticed that when I do general searches on Google and Yahoo!, eBay store listings for our little orchid business are showing up more and more frequently.
Ironically, eBay's own search engine generally does not pick up Stores results, although in April, eBay rolled out a modification that allows Stores results to appear if there are fewer than 10 regular eBay listings returned from a keyword search. For those of us with lots of competition (which is the case for most eBay sellers, I'd guess) that really doesn't help much, though.
When I ran a Yahoo! search for "cattleya orchid," one of the paid listings was from eBay itself, and a click directed me to an eBay page that displayed the results for the same search terms on eBay. eBay has a similar arrangement with Froogle. I thought those were a nice touch, although the pointers are to auction and Buy It Now listings, not to eBay Stores listings.
As a result, it's still tough to ensure that your Store items are listed in the major engines.
Taking it to the next level
eBay also allows its store operators, most of whom are PowerSellers, to export their inventory in a file and send to those search engines that accept data feeds. That capability seems likely to reap the most rewards -- at some point. But when I decided to take eBay up on its offer to create a file of our eBay Store listings for distribution to the search engines, I ran into some stumbling blocks.
Initially, the process of creating a data feed is easy, and eBay provides simple directions:
1. On the Manage Your Store page, click on the "Export listings" link.
2. Click "Make a file of my Store Inventory listings available," then Save Settings.
Within 12 hours, eBay will create the file and post it to a URL based on your Store's URL, and will be available for anyone (or any search engine) to download.
But after that, it gets a little harder. That's because, as eBay tells you, it "is then up to you to make arrangements with third-party partners to download the file from the URL. eBay is NOT responsible for coordinating how the file will be used with a third party."
eBay's Help file on the process can be found here, but unfortunately, I found it distinctly unhelpful.
So, here I am with a nice URL for all our store listings, but I kind of need a search engine for a dance partner (better yet, a half-dozen) and there's no real good information on which search engines accept the file.
I tried Google's shopping search engine, Froogle, but their support for picking up eBay Store URLs is questionable. Their FAQ says they don't accept data feeds from affiliate marketing sites, and it's unclear what how they consider an eBay Store. (Google itself often picks up our store listings, however. When I searched for "paph" -- a kind of orchid -- one of our store listings was the 45th result.)
When I searched Froogle for our company name, I found bunches of our individual eBay auction and Buy It Now listings, but none of our Store listings. I learned long ago to put a link to our eBay store in each listing, so anyone who finds us via a listing that shows up on Froogle is really only two clicks away from our store.
The problem is, I want the customers who are searching for more generic terms, like "orchid" or "cattleya."
When I asked Froogle about eBay store feeds, a spokesman said only that "we don't provide specifics on the feeds of Froogle merchants."
You might think eBay would go the next step and offer a list of search engines that accept their store URL data feeds, but no. So I sent eBay customer support an e-mail, asking for a list of the search engines that accept the XML files.
I was pleasantly surprised to get a response in less than 24 hours. But I wasn't really happy with the answer, which amounted to a reiteration that it remains up to me to make arrangements with third-party partners.
"eBay is not responsible for coordinating how the file will be used with a third party," the e-mail read. "Unfortunately we do not have a list of product search engines that may use this."
I asked Chris Sherman, associate editor at SearchEngineWatch.com (in my opinion, it's the place to start if you want to learn more about search) for his take, and he said he's not sure which of the shopping search engines would accept the eBay data file.
"They all have their own formats and guidelines, so it's likely the eBay feed would have to be tailored for submission to another service," he said. "That said, some of the shopping engines will crawl XML files, so even though it's not a pure feed submission, content in an eBay file might get picked up by some of them."
You can find a list of major shopping search engines here, including links to BizRate, Shopping.com, DealTime, Yahoo! Shopping, Froogle, MSN Shopping, mySimon, NexTag, Kelkoo, PriceGrabber.com and others.
Clearly, this is a complex subject, and few people I talked with seemed to have good answers. Indeed, consensus among many knowledgeable online auction watchers was that the situation is pretty much uncharted territory.
Said one, "... as for eBay's XML file, I think it's not of any use to anyone, but was a diversion for eBay Store owners who wanted to submit to Froogle."
That said, eBay has at least responded publicly to concerns about utilizing the search engines. On recent post said eBay is beginning to experiment with submitting some Stores listings to Froogle and is encouraging individual eBayers "to follow up with them."
The last line of the post reads: "Thank you very much for your patience as we work through this!"
fr.: http://se-daily.blogspot.com/2004_07_11_se-daily_archive.html#108985875044079703
Ad Agencies & Search Engine Marketing Firms Beginning to Play Together
By Shari Thurow, Guest Writer
July 8, 2004
Advertising agencies are spending more on search engine marketing, with one in five marketers buying in excess of 1,000 keywords, according to Jupiter Research.
A special report from the Search Engine Strategies 2004 Conference, March 1-4, New York City.
"A lot of brand name products, consumer package goods, automotive, financial services those are the sorts of verticals we are seeing moving into this space," said Jupiter Research Senior Analyst Gary Stein, kicking off the Search Engines and Ad Agencies panel. "With them come agencies that are already attached to them as well as a specific set of needs. Percent of ad agencies and interactive agencies providing search engine marketing say 46% are claiming to provide 'full' and better than a third outsource to search engine marketing specific agencies either totally or in part."
However, many search engines that sell paid listings, as well as search engine marketing (SEM) firms, feel that ad agencies have yet to fully tap into one of the best ways to gain qualified traffic. Many SEM firms feel that agencies understand media buys but still do not comprehend the search industry as a whole. In contrast, many agencies feel they have a better grasp of search engine marketing than SEM firms give them credit for.
This session addressed the topic from two perspectives: the ad agency and the SEM firm.
The ad agency perspective
"An advertiser has 3 choices," stated Kevin Ryan, Director of Market Development at Wahlstrom Interactive. "They can staff up. They can hire an search engine optimization (SEO) firm. Or they can force their agency to adopt."
Jason Shulman, Senior VP of Business Development at Carat Interactive, had to make that decision. "Do we staff up, hire an SEM or just ignore it," he said. "Challenged with building a search practice for ourselves, that probably tells you what we decided to dowe decided to build our own."
Shulman felt that the search industry is a confusing landscape. "I still think that is the case that people, by and large, don't know the difference between paid inclusion and an XML feed and a cost per click engines and natural search," he said. "We try not to frame it in that way. Technology tends to confuse the higher up marketing people. But over time they can understand it and that is what they look to an agency for - understanding."
In fact, one of the legitimate criticisms ad agencies have about SEM firms is the use technical jargon. "SEMs tend to hoard technical knowledge and use technical jargon to protect their turf," said Dana Todd, Executive VP of Sitelab International. She also felt that many SEM firms are short-sighted, not looking at the big picture of branding and marketing goals.
Another common pitfall Ryan sees is lack of client stewardship. "Client stewardship leads into the secondary, which is quibbling over budgetary real estate," Ryan said. "Everyone wants a piece of the pie. On top of that, everybody is fighting for a piece of the interactive pie. What you end up with is a huge frappe of anger."
"Agencies live in a fee environment or commission environment," Ryan continued. "Search engine firms largely build their fee structure on value-added or flat fees. People often refer to search engine marketing as the 'Wild, Wild West.'"
By the time the SEM firm marks up a click and the agency marks up a click, the return on advertising spend is difficult to achieve, said Todd. Additionally, hiring an SEM can be too expensive for the value provided.
"At the end of the day, the people I talk to want one vendor," concluded Shulman. They don't want to be talking to a ton of vendors."
The SEM firm perspective
One of the biggest criticisms that SEM firms have about ad agencies is the lack to technical knowledge. With optimization, particularly with large database-driven sites, technical expertise is a must.
"When talking about search and organic search in particular to a bunch of ad folks, you see the eyes glaze over and their heads kind of nod," said Chris Copeland, Partner and Managing Director at Outrider. "It is not a pretty picture. They don't understand it."
"SEM isn't just media buying," said Todd. SEM includes advertising as well as optimization.
"Some online agencies do not consider SEO as advertising," said Ryan. "It is often viewed as an afterthought or a necessary evil." With SEM firms, optimization and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising are an integral part of the online marketing mix.
"Agencies require a great deal of hand-holding and support, from sales to implementation," Todd continued. It can result in high project management costs to SEM firms.
So what is the solution? Are ad agencies and SEM firms destined to be at odds with one another? Todd felt that ad agencies need to evolve -- they need to understand the intricacies of both optimization and advertising. She also felt that SEMs need to stop operating in a vacuum. "If you want the ad agency money," she said, "you have to play the agency game."
Ultimately, she said, both agencies and SEM firms need to work together for the benefit of their customers.
Shari Thurow is the Marketing Director at Grantastic Designs, Inc. and the author of the book Search Engine Visibility. She has been designing and promoting web sites since 1995 for businesses in a wide range of fields.
fr.: http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3378131
Local and Regional Search: A Primer
BY Kevin Lee | July 9, 2004
With Overture's recent launch of local search listing targeting, Google's enhancement of local search targeting, and renewed interest in Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), local search marketing is heating up. Is local search just for local businesses? How do local search providers differ? Should national marketers use local search as part of their campaigns?
These questions require in-depth exploration, much more than I can cover in one column. But because local search is new to many readers, it makes sense to do an overview of the local search space.
Each major player in local search approaches the opportunity differently. Although some differences may seem trivial, they can influence both campaign strategy and execution. Many types of local search advertising deserve dedicated columns, and I plan to get to these soon. In the meantime, this overview will point you in the right direction if you must put a local campaign together sooner rather than later.
IYPs have had a local search solution for years. Unlike the current crop of search media, IYPs started out selling search result inventory much the way they sold print display adverting. The advertiser pays a fixed cost per month on an annual contract. In the case of SuperPages.com (Verizon's IYP), that cost was billed to your monthly phone bill. Costs were determined by ad size, format, elements included, categories included, geographies covered, and a tier. The higher the tier, the higher the listing appeared in the results. Other IYPs launched with similar plans. Many placements and plans included small graphic elements or logos. Recently, many IYPs embraced the auction-style pay-per-click (PPC) search listings. A sample of major players includes:
Verizon SuperPages. SuperPages listings are purchased from Verizon and powered by customized FindWhat.com technology. The tiered results are syndicated to other portals, including MSN, but the PPC listings are not.
Switchboard.com. Switchboard.com (recently acquired by InfoSpace) sells listings directly by category. It's partnered with Google to show relevant ads to searchers. However, my tests indicate the Google ads shown aren't locally targeted based on search query but instead are national directories for the category searched.
Yahoo! Yellow Pages. The Yahoo Yellow Pages uses a tiered approach. Monthly fees are based on the tier and category. Yahoo's yellow pages don't (yet) use Overture's local targeting or paid placement results.
YellowPages.com. This service sells listings directly by category and is partnered with ePilot.com (Interchange Corporation) to show relevant ads to searchers.
YP.com. Like Switchboard.com, it sells listings directly by category and is partnered with Google to show relevant ads to searchers. I did see more instances of geotargeted Google results at YP.com.
CitySearch is like an IYP, but it's organized around content and editorial. Text listings are sold directly on a pay-for-performance basis. Overture results (standard, nongeotargeted) are also displayed.
I covered Google's local search in an earlier column. Since then, Google has improved IP-based targeting and has empowered marketers to go beyond designated-market-area- (DMA-) and state-level targeting to polygon-level targeting. Marketers can draw a polygon around the area they want included.
The thing to remember about Google's local targeting system is it pits local ads against national ads in search results. The IP-level targeting uses the current searcher's location to determine if local ads should have an opportunity to compete for position and attention.
Overture's local search advertising solution is more recent, having launched June 28, 2004. Displayed within Yahoo results for searches deemed to have local search intent, the new Overture listings allow a searcher to voluntarily select a local area for refined results. Once the searcher has selected a locality, sponsored listings returned by Overture are a mix of local and national advertisers. If the locally targeted ad listing is clicked (selected), the searcher is presented with a map page indicating the business's location. The map also includes a link to the advertiser's Web site.
The premise is the searcher is interested in a local result. So a phone number, address, and map are all that are needed to meet the searcher's needs. Remember, though, the payment event for the marketer is the first click, the one that delivers the searcher to the local map/address/phone page, which includes only a modest hotlink to the advertiser's Web site. This setup may appeal to local merchants who don't expect to consummate business on their Web sites. But many major national marketers prefer to send traffic to their national sites before showing store locators or other local content.
Local results integrated into search results is just beginning. I'll cover the rapidly evolving segment with more examples and case studies in coming months.
fr.: http://www.clickz.com/experts/search/strat/article.php/3378501
How to get your RSS feed listed in the Yahoo! search engine
(July 6 2004) Sometimes the Yahoo! search engine will add a link to a relevant RSS feed beside a regular search listing -- provided, of course -- that the site has its own RSS feed.
An RSS feed is a text file (XML) that can be used to list the latest news headlines from that site, together with relevant links and descriptions. There are newsreaders and software that can read these files and present the information in a readable way.
Yahoo! has been including links to RSS-feeds for some time. However, it has not been including links to all relevant RSS-feeds, even if the sites have one.
Now there is an easy way for you to get your RSS feed listed in Yahoo! - for free!
Loren at the Search Engine Journal has made the following discovery:
If you are a registered Yahoo! user, it is easy to add your RSS feed to your My Yahoo! page. This will make the Yahoo! search engine aware of the RSS feed and - presto - it will appear in a Yahoo! search.
Go to your My Yahoo! home page (if you don't have one, you may register for free).
Go to the end of that page, and click on the "Choose Content" button.
On the new page, under "My Yahoo! Essentials", tick off "RSS Headlines (BETA), and click on the link.
In the pop-up window that then appears, type or paste the address of the RSS feed. Click on the Search button.
Click Add in the next window.
The headlines from the RSS feed now appears on your My Yahoo! page. Moreover, Yahoo! has become aware of the feed, and will include it in its search engine database.
It is a fair guess that Yahoo! will follow the links included in the RSS feed when spidering your site, which means that the search engine will find new pages more easily.
For more information on the use of RSS feeds, see XML.com and Webreference.com. See also Syndic8.com, which has more detailed info on the Pandia RSS feed.
Pandia's RSS-feed -- which presents the headlines found in our Searchworld search engine news column -- can be found at www.pandia.com/searchworld/pandia.rss. The RSS feed can also be syndicated through NewsIsFree.
fr.: http://www.pandia.com/sw-2004/31-rss.html
