Google donates $2 million to support Wikipedia

Google donates $2 million to support Wikipedia

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Wed Feb 17, 4:10 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Google Inc., the Internet's most profitable company, is giving $2 million to support Wikipedia, a volunteer-driven reference tool that has emerged as one of the Web's most-read sites.

The donation announced Wednesday matches the largest grant made so far to Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit group that oversees the 7-year-old Wikipedia. Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar also donated $2 million to Wikimedia six months ago through one of his investment arms.

The latest largesse has catapulted Wikimedia beyond its $10.6 million revenue target for its fiscal year ending in June. That goal had looked ambitious, given that it represented an increase of more than 20 percent from $8.7 million a year earlier.

But the worst recession since World War II evidently didn't dampen support for the Internet's most popular encyclopedia, which has more than 14 million entries written and edited by some 100,000 unpaid contributors in about 270 languages.

Wikimedia, which gets most of its revenue from donations, has collected contributions from more than 240,000 individuals so far this fiscal year, mostly in small sums.

The outpouring has allowed Wikipedia to expand while keeping its Web site commercial free, spokesman Jay Walsh said. "We intend to keep it that way, too."

Wikimedia, based in San Francisco, plans to spend about $9.4 million of its revenue this year, mostly to pay salaries and benefits to a staff of more than 30 people. The second-biggest expense is for operating Wikipedia's Web site.

The donation is a pittance for Google, which ended December with $24 billion in cash. Google makes much of its money from ads that run alongside Internet search results, many of which send people to Wikipedia.

In a statement, Google co-founder Sergey Brin hailed Wikipedia as "one of the greatest triumphs of the Internet."

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Is Article Marketing Still Effective In 2010?

Is Article Marketing Still Effective In 2010?

Don’t exactly know what it is about starting a new year of marketing online, but I always stop and take a hard look at all my marketing tactics and methods. Article marketing is always at the top of my list, mainly because it is and has always been the cornerstone of everything I do on the web.

By cornerstone I mean it is the key to basically all of my online earnings. Without article marketing I wouldn’t be a full-time online marketer – it’s as simple as that. No articles,

no income.

Articles bring in the targeted traffic. Articles build those all important one-way backlinks. Articles build those even more important top rankings in Google for your chosen keywords. Articles build your online reputation and credibility in the eyes of your visitors.

I was struggling on the web for around three years before I wrote my first article. “10 Reasons To Put RSS On Your Site” which is still on around 8,000 sites around the web.

Writing was always a passion of mine, but it was more on the creative side, although I did work briefly as a reporter for a very small community newspaper. Looking back on it, I believe (perhaps falsely) that I had to gain all those years of experience before I could start writing articles about it.

Which was the totally wrong attitude to take since anyone can research a favorite subject or topic and write a short informative article on it. Most of us have been doing that since grade school – it is the same as writing a report or an essay.

Only with article writing you actually see monetary returns almost immediately. Surfers search for an answer in the search engines, your article pops up, they read it and then click the link to your webpage where you have conveniently placed your affiliate links or your own products.

A Small Percentage of Those Article Readers Will Buy Your Products and You’re in Business.

Over time, all those backlinks in your resource box at the end of your article will make your keywords rise in the search engines, especially Google. Then as someone searches in Google – your site pops up, they click thru to your webpage and a small percentage of these visitors will buy your product or affiliate product displayed on your page.

Smart marketers will also start building a large list of prospective customers by offering a free guide, ecourse, ebook or software program to get those visitors to sign-up to your opt-in list. These marketers can then do follow-up with all these potential customers.

That in a nutshell is an article marketing model or funnel which thousands of online marketers and webmasters are using. And have been using for years.

But Will Article Marketing Remain Effective in 2010 and the Coming Years?

More than likely the answer would be yes but the web is constantly changing and there are other games worth playing. The same kind of marketing system could be done with Videos, Blogs, Social Networks and even with Twitter. Your options are more varied…

However, I find article marketing can be integrated into all these elements. For example, EzineArticles lets you Tweet your articles to all your followers. I turn my best articles into Videos and place them on YouTube which opens up a whole different flow of traffic to my webpages and affiliate links.

Likewise, you can place your articles or links to them on FaceBook, MySpace and the other social networks. I find getting your articles on Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon… can bring in a lot of traffic and increase your rankings.

But the Question Remains – is Article Marketing as Effective as It Once Was?

My own answer and personal opinion is no since it’s effectiveness has been watered down somewhat because every “tom dick and harry plus sally” is doing it. Everyone has discovered how writing short informative articles on the topic of your site can be very lucrative.

When I wrote that first article five years ago, I was ‘writer #1561′ with Ezinearticles. Now they have over 242,000 writers!

Back then, I found your article was placed on a lot more sites mostly because there wasn’t that many articles out there and competition was much, much less than it is now. More people writing more articles simply means your article falls into a bigger pool of other articles.

I believe video marketing is at the stage article marketing was at around five years ago. So turning your articles into short “how to” videos would probably be a wiser move and you would have a lot less competition. You can also place your marketing into the whole Video/Youtube craze that is still bringing in tons of traffic and interested customers.

However, the popularity of free article directories have grown and some of these sites have very high traffic numbers. Here are some of the main ones I use:

• EzineArticles
  
• GoArticles
  
• iSnare
• IdeaMarketers

And I also like to place my articles on important but perhaps lesser known sites such as:

• PromotionWorld
  
• SelfGrowth
  
• American Chronicle
  
• Buzzle

However, article marketing is still a very good way to get your site and name on the web. It can still bring in traffic and help build those all important backlinks and search engine rankings. This is one marketer who will not be giving up article marketing any time soon.

Some of my most effective techniques for article marketing are:

• Place your targeted keyword phrase in the title, usually at the beginning.
  
• Make sure your article is informative and supplies the information a reader is searching for – but always try to motivate the reader to click your links in the resource box for further information since your main objective is to get the reader to click thru to your site.
  
• Most experts say to keep your article short, around 400 – 700 words, but I have found longer articles of 800-1500 words do really well.
  
• Place your targeted keywords in the anchor text of your resource box links, that’s the underlined clickable part. Vary these keywords to avoid keyword spamming.
  
• For very important sites, try writing an exclusive unique article for that site alone.
  
• Always spell-check and proof-read your articles. Grammar has never been my strong point so what I do for finding the correct usage of some tricky phrases or words – I do a search in Google with “quotation marks” to find out which one has the most links/usage… I go with one that has the most links, even if it’s wrong. Thousands of people are making the same mistake. Many marketers do the same thing with misspelled keywords.

While they can be expensive, I also like using paid article submission sites such as SubmitYourArticle, ThePhantomwriters and Isnare… mainly because article marketing has been so profitable for me, I don’t mind pouring some of those earnings back into those sites. It saves me time and extends the reach of my articles.

Article marketing will continue to be one of your best ways to build backlinks, raise your rankings and bring in potential customers to your site. It still works for me and hundreds of thousands of other webmasters – it should also work for you.

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The author is a full time online affiliate marketer who operates numerous niche sites, as well as two sites on Internet Marketing, where you can get valuable marketing tips for free: internet marketing tools (http://www.marketingtoolguide.com) or try here: free marketing courses (http://www.bizwaremagic.com/ Free_Marketing_Courses.htm) Titus Hoskins Copyright 2010. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

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Article Re-Posted By: Ashi Software: Software Development Company offer TYPO3 Development Services

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7 reasons why Apple’s I-Pad may fail

7 reasons why Apple’s I-Pad may fail

Amidst a lot of hype as always, today 27th January, 2010, Apple launches the I-Pad. While it is being viewed as the product that will rejuvenate Apple’s revenues for years to come, a question many staunch Apple fans (and those who are not fans of course) will ask, is it really worth the hype? Apple has always created a market even when there is none. Will it be successful yet again this time?

Image Source: http://tnmg4u.com/i-pad-launch/

1. While it looks sleek and captures the mind of all tech-enthusiasts, every one will admit that this product can not be the replacement of a smartphone or a palmtop due to its size.
2. It has the potential to be a great e-book reader and internet browser, but will users like a gadget only suited for that purpose, given that tablets of that size pack the same features (except the wireless carrier connectivity) and lots of processing power and data storage capacity. Also, colored screen may not increase the overall ebook reading experience on the i-Pad, given its shorter battery support, as compared to the other e-book readers
3. Is it worth the time for serious gamers, given its processing and memory configuration?
4. It does not sport a 16:9 aspect ratio, the standard for wide-screen entertainment, and by not doing so makes the iPad much less interesting for watching movies. This may affect sales.
5. I-phone’s huge list of applications will also run on the I-Pad. But will the usage of I-Pad revolutionize the development of applications as never before? Unless applications are developed custom made for I-Pad, the product will not see the meteoric success of the i-Phone.
6. The users would be keen to experience something radically different from the windows mobile, the Android sets and the ever stable Symbian phones. This the I-Pad may not be able to deliver, given its technical configuration.
7. Lastly, the price tag may appear too high even for the brand exclusivity, even for staunch Apple fans.

Apple has always been a great marketeer and has added value to the consumers even with products which were present before the “Apple way” became popular. What Apple provides its customers is the ooomph factor of being associated with the company, the exclusivity maybe. This positioning amongst its fans has always been the USP for the company.

Because of its size, processing capabilities and functionality, it may be rejected as yet another gadget which fall in between the mobile phones (iPhone) and the laptops (Macbook), and thus fails to meet both requirements.

But will that be enough to ensure a great reception of the i-Pad from the Apple’s fans? Will the early adopters be inclined to try out the hype? Only time will tell.

Source: tnmg4u.com

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China: We Are Biggest Victim of Cyberattacks

China: We Are Biggest Victim of Cyberattacks

China on Tuesday denied any role in alleged cyberattacks on Indian government offices, calling China itself the biggest victim of hackers.

When asked about Google's allegation that cyberattacks launched from China hit the U.S. search giant, foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said Chinese companies were also often hit by cyberattacks.

"China is the biggest victim of hacking attacks," Ma said, citing the example of top Chinese search engine Baidu.com being hacked last week.

Google last week said it might exit China after being hit by recent hacking attempts largely aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. It also said it planned to hold talks with Chinese authorities about whether it could offer an uncensored version of its local search engine.

Ma said he did not know if Chinese authorities had started talks with Google. A Google spokeswoman did not confirm a Bloomberg news report that Google and China had already started the talks. "That's not what we've been saying," she said in an e-mail.

An Indian official has reportedly said local government offices including that of India's National Security Advisor were also targeted last month by hackers believed to be from China.

Ma said the allegation was baseless.

Source: pcworld.com

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