Tom Anthony Personal Blog

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.

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

One of my first clients was the New York Times Company owned Norfolk, Virginia TV station WTKR. The then general manager knew I was in the Internet business and confided that during a recent hurricane the TV station’s web site was overwhelmed with viewers looking for the latest weather – at the time they only carried the national content from CBS. (Called “CBS Now”).  The point was clear – whether you are ready or not – if it’s on the internet people will find you.

That is sort of the case with this Google owned platform, Blogger.  On March 31^st, 2008 I launched my “new blog” at http://blog.tomanthony.com and just put a forward link on my Blogger profile http://tomanthonydotcom.blogspot.com. Now every time I log into my Google account it lies there waiting for me to do something.

I did not want to have to keep up with two blogs, but I believe it is in my company’s best interest – if nothing else as a link back to the corporate site at http://www.strategicimsweb.com. But I don’t want to waste anyone’s time either, so I have decided to post unique information on my Blogger page. The next thing there will be about a secret purchase I made in the middle of a typhoon. Dang – what a great teaser line!

This is a real email from an old friend and colleague of mine – Chandler Turner

Tom, I think you told me that you were looking for e–business sites in the $10,000 to $15,000 range, is that right? I have talked to a 75 year old company here with loyal clients that IS NOT cross-selling its divisions at all and one manager who ″gets it″. However, they really do not need an e–business site but moreover; they would NEVER agree to spend that kind of money.

Here is my response

Well, first it would not necessarily cost them a do–over price. Actually it will not necessarily cost them anything at all – not if they currently have any budget allocated for generating sales. Most of what I do is strategic – not building the web site –but getting people to go there and then do something (like buy or call). If they spend money now on marketing or branding or advertising or public relations then all they need to do is shift some allocations around and get a better return on investment by using the web properly.

That said – it’s not a build it and forget it deal. In fact it is the exact opposite. I can’t tell you how many companies I work with that tell me their web site does nothing, only to find they built it three years ago and have not updated a single word. For me it’s about results. Like measuring visitors to the site, determining where they came from, and why they went to a particular page. It is counting how many sales came from the web and figuring out what works with their particular target market. It’s not about graphics; it’s about conversion from visitor to customer. Besides, these days just about anybody can build a web site. The thing I bring to the table is what happens next.

Sounds like that manager friend of yours could use a lunch with you and me to put perspective on his particular issue. What do you think?

tom