Tom Anthony Personal Blog

Unlike most other technologies introduced in the past 20 years it seems that Google wants to defy the Diffusion of Innovations adoption curve. The What? It’s the theorem by Everett Rogers that says any idea or technology is accepted slowly at first, then takes off for a while, and finally is slowly adopted by the remaining group. For a little better explanation see the Wikipedia page here

Apparently that does not include Google since the most recent stats show an increase in usage. You would think everybody who is going to use Google is already there – but according to the firm comScore – Google’s Market Share went up by a half percent in September 2011.

Search engine rankings for September 2011, according to comScore were:

Other interesting stats from comScore are in this press release

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I have an Attorney client who was rightfully disturbed by the news of a case before the Virginia State Bar regarding Richmond Lawyer Horace Hunter. Basically the Bar is arguing a complaint that Hunters writing on the firm website blog constitutes advertising and should be accompanied by some sort of disclaimer identifying it as such.

By the way I looked it up and do not find a current link to any blog so apparently Mr. Hunter is seeking a lower profile these days. At first it seemed to me like a case of David and Goliath. A two man law practice in Richmond standing up for their First Amendment right to free speech… Imagine – posting your thoughts as a blog comment and because you are in a certain business “The Man” makes you say it’s advertising because you may get some business out of it… (I use the archaic 60′s term “The Man” because while it’s not actually a demand of Bureaucrats as much as it is a Judicial Branch regulatory agency forcing an action – it’s still well… “The Man”.)

Watch out for "The Man"

I had a similar issue come up with a client in the financial consultation industry some time back – there the perceived and equally bogus issue was “Insider Information” – in both cases I believe it is too much a burden to determine the merits of each and every comment. In the case of my clients who were senior worker bee level in the local office of a national investment and insurance firm – they decided it was going to be more of a drain on their time with their internal compliance group then the potential PR value to be worth the effort so they canceled plans for an email newsletter. Of course in the case of Horace Hunter and any other Attorney out there it’s an even more slippery slope than regulation compliance. The nature of each comment being evaluated for intent? Who is going to regulate? Big Brother?

That would have been the end of my two cents worth UNTIL I looked old Horace Hunter up on the internet to see if his blog was still active. Amazingly there were 737,000 results in Google under the search phrase “virginia attorney horace hunter”. Horace must really get around! The truth is that a lot of Attorneys are watching this situation closely – and the irony is – a lot of them are blogging about it!

The other truth – and this is just an aside – is that I found thousands of “law blogs” who were just picking up a story originally published in the Washington Post. What I found were a lot of scam sites headlined with some variation of “find an attorney” and automatically posting news items relating to law.

Back to the point – we’ll be watching the Virginia State Bar and let you know what happens.

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Mobile phones have become a near-ubiquitous tool for information seeking and communicating–83% of American adults own some kind of cell phone–and these devices have an impact on many aspects of their owners’ daily lives. In a nationally representative telephone survey, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that, during the 30 days preceding the interview:

Cell phones are useful for quick information retrieval (so much so that their absence can cause problems) – Half of all adult cell owners (51%) had used their phone at least once to get information they needed right away. One quarter (27%) said that they experienced a situation in the previous month in which they had trouble doing something because they did not have their phone at hand.

• Cell phones are an important tool in emergency situations – 40% of cell owners said they found themselves in an emergency situation in which having their phone with them helped.
• Cell phones can help stave off boredom – 42% of cell owners used their phone for entertainment when they were bored.
• Despite their advantages, some cell phone owners just need an occasional break – 29% of cell owners turned their phone off for a period of time just to get a break from using it.
• With advantages comes frustration – 20% of cell owners experienced frustration because their phone was taking too long to download something; 16% had difficulty reading something on their phone because the screen was too small; and 10% had difficulty entering a lot of text on their phone.
• Cell phones can help prevent unwanted personal interactions – 13% of cell owners pretended to be using their phone in order to avoid interacting with the people around them.

The report cited has a lot more information on how we are using cell phone, and you may view it free Here: http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Cell-Phones.aspx

from
Americans and Their Cell Phones
by Aaron Smith
Aug 15, 2011

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The social news website Digg has released a major re-working called Version 4. The site was first launched as an experiment in November 2004, then re-launched the following July with Version 2.0. In that version the creators featured a “friends list” which made the site one of the pioneers in social media. The concept was to bookmark or “Digg” web pages that your friends could see if they were following you. This was still a year before Twitter came along so at the time it was quite innovative.

In 2006 version 3.0 came along with changes that included being able with specific topics such as Entertainment, World & Business, and Technology. By that point I had become a subscriber but by no means a power user. Also by version 3 the site had gained enough momentum that submissions could suddenly gain popularity and cause a surge of traffic to the “dugg” website.

Earlier this year the top brass at Digg announced that the entire website would be re-vamped and on August 25, 2010 Version 4 was officially launched. When I got the notification I took a look at the new Digg I decided to give it another chance at holding my interest. Something it had failed to do from the beginning. I thought that since I am now more in tune with Facebook and Twitter, perhaps I would enjoy using the new “faster better” Digg. We’ll see.

If you want to follow me I would be honored. The username is tomanthonycom and my profile on Digg is located here: http://digg.com/tomanthonycom

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Google announced a new feature this week that you should know about. It’s called Google Instant.

Apparently we search users can save 2-5 seconds per search by making a selection from a text box that appears as we start to type. Google is now placing suggestions of key phrases Google thinks we are looking for before we actually finish typing in the search phrase. Is that good or bad?

For consumers it may actually be a little distracting. I believe it is too early to tell the extent to which this new feature is embraced, but in a sense there is no choice. Google is by far the most widely used search engine, and what they say goes.

You may have already noticed Google give you choices for narrowing your search – introduced in the past several months along the left margin are category and time filters. After searching for “Tom Anthony” for example you can further select “Videos” and see a corny Street Parade I filmed during a summer trip to Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Or you can select “Images” and see me standing with Renegade Warrior author Dick Marcinko or you can click on “”blogs” and see this posting.

The point is, Google is very good at making it increasingly easy to find stuff on the bloated World Wide Web. So at some point we’ll all just get used to Google Instant and save a few seconds here and there.
For me the bigger issue will be how to leverage the results of partial searches in terms of Search Engine Marketing. It’s too early to tell what kind of strategy will deliver best results when people start to type one thing and Google suggests something else, but I’ll be watching.

Here is a short video from Google to explain the new feature Google Instant

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I don’t have much use for most of our politicians from Virginia – with one notable exception: Congressman Randy Forbes.  He seems to share my core values, and he appearsto be a “real” person. I mean anyone who rides a big bike at the head of the Rolling Thunder Ride for Freedom in Washington, D.C. on Memorial Day Weekend can’t be all bad.  Perhaps even more importantly Forbes appears to “get it” when it comes to the Internet based threat we face from foreign powers. 

Congressman Randy Forbes in Rolling Thunder Ride for Freedom in Washington, D.C.

In a recent Newsletter Congressman Forbes wrote about an Electronic Pearl Harbor describing in interesting detail how cyber security attacks against the United States are rising drastically every year. Let me tell you how close this hits to home. I am a small business owner who was impacted this summer by two such attacks.

In late June a SQL Injection Trojan compromised all my Word Press based websites – about two dozen on my servers – and almost half were my own business sites. This was not because the Word Press content management platform had evident flaws. The people who perpetrate these kind of attacks are not pale and pimple faced geeks living in their mother’s basements.

According to Congressman Forbes report the most serious and potentially the most dangerous have come out of China.

Some of the more sophisticated military analyses from China’s armed forces propose to enhance the ability to attack an adversary’s satellite communications and sensor systems, critical transportation and energy infrastructure, ports of air and sea embarkation, and military command systems. (see http://forbes.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=202509)

Just this week there was news out of the UK that a members of a Russian organized crime gang had used a SQL Injection Trojan as the tool to steal over $9 million dollars from the bank accounts of unsuspecting Brits over the past year alone. I believe it is only a matter of time before we discover this kind of massive fraud here in America.

As a result of that WordPress SQL Injection Trojan we lost two weeks restoring client’s websites in July that obviously we could and would not charge them for. Then add two weeks restoring my own personal and business sites. Since we could not work on new client business at the same time as restoring my own business sites it effectively cost me a month’s income.

“But wait, there’s more! …”

Since that SQL Injection Trojan in June I discovered that an old and forgotten Forum type website I had on my server had also been compromised – this time by a different method. The end result was almost the same however, and my business and personal sites - including this one – went down again.

So the first almost two weeks in August are spent missing my company’s earning potential re-building my business and personal sites again. On one hand it has made me much more expert at launching custom Word Press sites quickly and more securely. On the other hand it has cost my business precious time. Not unlike losing sleep, the reality is that while you still move forward the next day, you really never catch up. Thanks China.

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I just finished up a new video – this time for my own company, IMS Strategic Internet Marketing. This was a fun but really important project. Google Business Center was renamed and re-launched a couple of months ago and it’s now called Google Places. That’s where every business owner can claim their own listing – and add content such as business hours, types of payments accepted… that sort of thing. But Google Places also allows you to add other content such as Photos, coupons, even blog type posts and up to five videos to help make your case. That’s pretty powerful.

I decided to make a video specifically to be viewed from within Google Maps under the listing of my own marketing company to illustrate what could and should be done in Google Local. I also wanted to create it using hardware and technology my company owned and operated to make the case for selling the production of such videos. To this end I used a portable backdrop stand we own, with a big roll of special chroma key paper. This is also known as blue screen. I used a photographers light with reflector screens to not only illuminate the subject – which in this case was me – but also to create an even light on the blue screen.

That’s important when you are editing the video – if the blue screen is well lit it is easier to remove the background so you can replace it with something else. That’s how your local TV weather forecaster does it, only for this video instead of a weather map I used a loop of video showing an office building. It looks like I am in front of a window and you can see the office building and street activity below.

Laptop Teleprompter

I think the best item is the wireless mouse which powers a PowerPoint file containing the script. The PowerPoint is being displayed on a laptop that is located immediately in front of and under the camera so it acts like a teleprompter. I have been on both sides of the camera for over 30 years and even if you memorize what you intend to say it ALWAYS comes out better with a teleprompter or similar device. Of course a lot of my early professional life was behind a radio microphone with a script so perhaps that’s just my comfort zone.

I would enjoy your feedback on the video – call me.

You should be able to view the video directly from Google Maps if you type in the following:

“IMS Internet Marketing Services, Chesapeake, VA” or just click here.

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I just finished a new flash banner for Joe Cipriano’s client site and am reminded of what fun it is to be associated with a guy who is in such good company. I have been doing all of Joe’s Internet marketing for over 10 years and the relationship goes a little beyond client-vendor. I take a lot of pride in having Joe voice my podcast open and close – it’s the same voice that introduces America’s Got Talent and well – listen to a “Web Strategies Podcast” episode when you get a chance and you’ll know what I mean.

Here are Joe’s instructions for the new animation and below is the work I just launched earlier this evening.

Signature Voice of:

Fox, CBS, Hallmark Movie Channel, The Simpsons, Two and a Half Men, Rules of Engagement (CBS), Mike and Molly (CBS), Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, America’s Got Talent.

Radio Imaging: Boom 973 Toronto, Star 941 San Diego, The Fish stations (portland, cleveland, honolulu), Country 105 Calgary, KLLY Bakersfield, ED FM Albuquerque, 102.3 The Wave Vancouver Island, Mix 106 Owen Sound, Magic 93 Charlottetown.

Live Shows: Emmy Awards, Grammy Awards, PGA Awards

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Back in April 2007 I uploaded this Today Show segment which featured featured Don LaFontaine, Joe Cipriano, George DelHoyo and Mark Elliott. About a year later Don passed away (September 2008) and the clip generated over 250,000 hits in a short time – and at this posting is now well over 300,000. Recently I found the original HD DVD master and in response to the incredible interest now re-posting in a higher quality. enjoy.

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Boy is it ever frustrating to have a medical condition to deal with. For me it is a Thyroid situation that is mostly under control – at least for the moment. Back in April I parted ways with Web Teks to pursue opening IMS – a company focused on strategies for internet marketing. At first things went very smoothly.  I put together various supporting web sites, updated social media venues, and re-established business banking accounts that had been dormant for a long time. Next I prepared to update my Web Strategies Podcast programming when I started to lose steam.

It’s a little hard to explain if you don’t have some experience with Thyroid conditions – but what started to diminish uncontrollably was my personal energy level. So I pretty much lost the month of May 2009.  Keep in mind that it was not drive, desire, or intent that faded – just the ability to execute. I know I was slow to respond to some long time friends and colleagues, but I honestly could not focus on anything but my immediate health situation.

Late last year I had pre-paid for a vacation to Bermuda scheduled for the first week of June – and it was a close call for me not to cancel. Also scheduled before my May downtime was my participation at the Online Marketing Summit in Atlanta during the second week in June.

As it worked out I found myself gaining back my energy and took both trips.  Although I find myself looking back at time lost, it is time to get back at it.. Today I am working on posting meaningful materials from OMS and  I hope you will find some benefit from the experiences I brought back from the Online Marketing Summit in Atlanta.

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