Hey Microsoft – How About Free Windows 7 in 2011? It’s Not Really That Crazy

Microsoft was probably glad to see 2010 in the rearview mirror. Apple and Google grabbed most of the headlines, and almost everything Microsoft attempted sort of died on the vine. Its announced attempt at introducing an electronic tablet to compete with Apple’s iPad never appeared. Its KIN social networking phones died a quick death as well.
Meanwhile, Apple iPad and Google’s entry into “cloud” technology with the Chrome OS stole a lot of the headlines and most of the sales last year.

In fact, the only thing that seemed to work for Microsoft in the last 12 months or so is Windows 7, which was actually released in 2009.

Its success must be giving Microsoft some relief; Windows 7 has generated nearly $13 billion in sales so far. However, industry experts say it isn’t going to last. What’s more, one commentator has gone so far as to suggest that maybe Microsoft should think about simply dropping the price on Windows 7, or even start offering it for free.

Sounds crazy, right? Well, hang on a minute. Currently, Microsoft retails Windows 7 for about $300. Preinstalled versions are sold to computer companies for up to $100 per unit.

It’s good money if you can make it, but indications are that Microsoft may not be making that kind of money for long.

Google recently began offering its Chrome operating system free to OEMs. With more people jumping to Smartphones for their business procedures, having computers that can connect with phones is a big must-have. Installing the free Chrome OS means computer manufacturers can charge less for Chrome-based computers than they can for Windows-based computers.

Google is doing this because it understands that the money isn’t in operating systems anymore. Instead, it’s in the services that the operating system offers while serving as a gateway. These include search services, geo-location, advertising and social media.

So it stand to reason that within these new parameters, Microsoft will not be able to get away much longer with offering Windows for $300 and up. If the company wants to stay competitive, it needs to play with the same rules as the competition. It needs to offer reasonable alternatives to the products offered by everyone else.

That, however has never been one of Microsoft’s strong suits. But it’s a struggle that Microsoft must overcome if it doesn’t want to be seen as an also-ran in the near future.

Are You Wishing Your Customers the Wrong Thing During the Holidays? New Evidence Could Make You “Merry” Next Year

You hear a lot of salutations during the holiday season. However, the two that get the most use are, of course, “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays.” Some people say the latter is more preferred because it encompasses everyone and their various beliefs, traditions and customs during the season.

But is “Happy Holidays” necessarily that best thing to say if you’re trying to run a business this time of year? A recent article in a New York Times blog says “Merry Christmas” is infinitely more popular than “Happy Holidays,” at least as far as printed media goes. What’s more, it’s been that way since at least 1800.

Does that trend continue when the merry wishing is meant for commercial purposes? The folks at Conversion Voodoo decided to find out. Using a 100,000+ customer list for one of their clients, they tested three different Email headlines on December 21. Each subject headline was sent to an equal number of people on the mailing list:

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

The Results:

“Merry Christmas” was far and away the front runner, garnering over 1800 clicks. That’s nearly twice what “Happy Holidays” or the combination greeting was able to generate.

Why “Merry Christmas” is so much more popular is open to conjecture. It could be that it simply sounds more exciting to be wished a happy single even rather than a pleasant group of days. Regardless, make a note now. If you used “Happy Holidays” this year, you missed out on sales. And if you used “Merry Christmas,” don’t change it. It’s been working like a charm for at least 200 years.

Will Yahoo! Be Around in 2012? That is the question in 2011

Yahoo’s recent layoff of more than 4% of its workforce leads one to ask what everybody’s been thinking for a while:

Is this it? Will 2011 be the last year for Yahoo?

Like any good company in trouble, the Yahoo PR department has been trying to put the best light possible on the layoffs (roughly 560 people worldwide):

“Today’s personnel changes are part of our ongoing strategy to best position Yahoo! for revenue growth and margin expansion and to support our strategy to deliver differentiated products to the marketplace. We’ll continue to hire on a global basis to support our key priorities.

Yahoo! is grateful for the important contributions made by the employees affected by this reduction. We are offering severance packages and outplacement services to these employees.”

One has to ask why these layoffs are happening at all. Search has proven to basically be recession-proof. If Yahoo isn’t cutting the mustard, then the problem must lie within. Unfortunately, with Google, it lies at the top.

The appointment of Carol Bartz to the head position at Yahoo! appears now to have been a mistake that looked good on paper. She’s a no-nonsense money-saver. That’s good. However, innovation and creativity is not her forte. Consequently, the company seems to change its mind almost daily about what it’s trying to be. Apparently, not even Bartz could explain what Yahoo was as a company until very recently.

By turning over its search engine capabilities to Bing in 2010, the assumption was that it would free up the time for many Yahoo! employees to work on new, exciting projects. Apparently, that’s not the case at all. More and more, this appears to be an attempt by Bartz to save some money while keeping Yahoo’s relevance as a search engine alive.

Disgruntled employees are not known for their ability to keep quiet, and Yahoo is no exception.

Tweets and emails to industry bloggers report an atmosphere of a company in “shambles,” and digging a hole from which it may not be able to escape.

Here’s hoping that Yahoo! is able to get its act together in 2011, before it becomes the latest name at the top of a list that includes such past also-rans as Alta Vista, Infoseek, Cuil, etc.

Because quite frankly, if that happens, a lot of us are really going to miss it.

Content Marketing Institute Presents Three Ways to Keep Bloggers from Getting Bored and Tired

When it comes to blogging, the biggest challenge any company faces is ultimately keeping up the momentum. Writing is, after all, hard work. You can’t be brilliant all the time, but you don’t want to lose any power on your blog just because your contributors have a dose of writers block. So what do you do?

Heidi Cohen at Content Marketing Institute (CMI) has three suggestions on how you can keep your blogging team on track:

1. Set goals and related metrics for your blog. Give the blog goals that must be set to be of worth to your organization. Make sure your bloggers understand blog analytics so they can see how popular their posts are. As a result, bloggers will feel more compelled to write more exciting copy, since they know they are competing with other bloggers for rank. The elements to track include the amount of content provided, content effectiveness, page views, Social media shares, Email shares, Comments and Business-related actions to the post.

2. Incorporate blog responsibilities. Create corporate guidelines for your bloggers to follow. Involve senior management; get them to put their feedback on blog posts. A little encouragement from the guys upstairs does a lot to boost a blogger’s ego. And while this sounds odd, if you hire a blogger, make sure human relations requires blog participation in his or her job description.

3. Celebrate Your Bloggers. Everybody likes recognition. Cohen provides a variety of ways to show your bloggers that you appreciate what they do, including:

Create “About the Author” blurbs with pictures that appear at the bottom of each post.

Credit bloggers in company tweets. Let everybody know when a blog post is worth reading, and who wrote it.

Mention posts with the author’s by-line in marketing emailings.

Reward your bloggers. Gift certificates, recommendations, cash bonuses; all go towards creating a happy blogger.

In short, Cohen says if you keep your bloggers in the spotlight, they’ll write highlight copy almost every time out of the gate.

Blogger Tim Peter Contemplates Business in a World Without Google

Imagine doing business without Google. For some companies, it would be like the sun going out. They wouldn’t exist. Yet, says Tim Peter on Moran’s Biznology Blog, marketing online without Google is a very real prospect that every business faces. It can happen every time Google makes a change to their algorithm. Those changes can suddenly turn you from a page-one contender to a bottom of the list has-been.

Peter asks: “If (Google’s) next algorithm update—or a future regulatory-mandated change—knocked you out of their index, would your business survive?” He then offers seven tips to help keep yourself in the game should the worst ever happen to you:

1. Go where the customers are. Sure, Peter says. Everyone uses search. But everyone also uses email, social media and mobile phones. B2B companies also have the advantage of LinkedIn. Facebook could be a great way to contact your customers, but don’t forget to look at marketing channels that play to your target audience.

2. Set your objectives. Once you’ve located your customers, determine what you expect out of each of these sources. Leave yourself plenty of options for rethinking your marketing channels as things change.

3. Improve your web presence. That includes everything about you that your customers react with online. This is more than your website Peter is discussing here – it’s Facebook pages, Twitter, Yelp, LinkedIn, etc.

4. Continue to grow your opt-in contact list. Find out how your customers wish to be contacted. Then use those tools to communicate. Eliminate the methods that your customers ignore.

5. Blog. If you can do it well, Peter advises blogging. Allow for plenty of keyword-rich content that flows and provides valuable information for your customers.

6. Explore additional media. There’s still life in display advertising ; simply remarket your online message. Email and affiliate marketing can also work for you.

7. Investigate other additional media models. There are CPM and CPC, but Peter advises looking into Cost per acquisition as well.

In conclusion, Peter says that even with Google, you should be doing these things. But if you ever find yourself trying to battle your way back to the top, these tips will help keep you in the game.

Companies Griping About Google Local Search Have Nothing To Complain About

Even when Google tries to better itself, it can’t catch a break in the press. An article by Clint Boulton at eWeek.com covers Google’s reaction to a story published on December 12 that many startup companies are accusing Google of favoring iGoogle Places, Places Search and Place Pages over those of businesses that rely on Google results to generate business and provide decent search rankings.

Representatives from TripAdvisor.com, WebMD.com, Yelp.com and Citysearch.com complained that Google tends to promote links to its own services that are similar to the services they provide.

They point to Google boosting the profile of its Google Places local search directory. The lettered “pins” on any local search are typically sites listed with Google Places, and found within its Place Search Service.

If your company is on the map, and you’re one of the lettered locations on the map, you will rank higher than other businesses in your area that don’t. By favoring their own sites, companies say Google is makes it harder for people to find results from the startups, pushing them lower on the page.

One business, TripAdvisor.com, even reported a 10% drop in visits via Google-based searches.

In its defense, Googlesays this is not an attempt to take money from its advertisers, but rather to simply get information to people as quickly as possible.

For once, Google may have a point. By improving its product and trying to use new technologies to expand its brand, Google is doing what any business would do.

Plus, Google says Pages and Places get a lot of the information that they use from the websites that are complaining. Google’s only goal appears to be to get the information required to the person who wants it.

Seven Blog Housekeeping Tips You Learned from Your Mom

If you blog regularly, you know how hard it is to keep up a steady stream of ideas over time. However, there are some basic things you can do to help maintain your blog that you’ve known ever since you were a little kid. That’s because, believe it or not, they were taught to you by your mom.

That’s the message behind a recent article at DailySEOTip.com, “7 of Your Mother’s Housekeeping Principles to Apply to Your Blog.” It’s true – several simple rules your mom once told you about keeping your home clean can also be sued to keeping a clean, presentable blog. Here are a few:

1. Keep ahead of tasks. Out with the old blogs, full of irrelevance; in with the new blogs for fresh, interesting content. That helps keep your ratings up. .
2. Keep your software up to date. Updates are your friends. If you have worries about viruses, etc., make sure you have a good virus protection software and do your homework to make sure the update you’re about to apply is legitimate.
3. Take out the trash. Get rid of garbage from your computer, such as plug-ins or default templates. Anything you don’t need, toss.
4. Tidy up. Occasionally clean your blog database. It’s getting easier for most software to do so. Updating Wordpress, for example, is an extremely easy, one-click process.
5. Clean up your messes. Have people been putting spam links on your blog messages? Get rid of them! Check all comments and backtracks to make sure they’re not spam
6. Lighten the load on your site with smaller-sized attachments and photos.
7. Adopt new technologies. For example, slow sites can often by remedied by changing hosts or getting more memory from your current host.