Once again, Google has bought something only to open source it. This time it’s ReMail, first acquired, then put on Google Code as open source under the Apache 2.0 license. (It previously did the same thing with DocVerse.) ReMail was more efficient in terms of system resources than Apple’s own mail.app, it offered full text searching, and it had other neat ... [
Apple’s suit against HTC could end one of two ways. Either Apple becomes the next SCO, which ran itself aground claiming rights to Linux, or it becomes the next Microsoft, which is prospering while claiming to own Linux. The answer depends on how hard Apple presses its case. You can get a clue by looking at who Apple has sued. While ... [
The low-hanging fruit in the renewable energy business still lies with efficiency. Cutting your energy use without crimping your lifestyle gives you a faster payback than turning into Ed Begley Jr. It’s still good to be a little Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) on energy use, even if your politics are to the right of Rush Limbaugh, because there’s money in saving, ... [
The 311 service has been a “red headed stepchild” for American cities practically since it was launched in the mid-1990s as a phone service. (Picture from Moonbattery, a conservative blog.) The idea was to make 311 the 911 for non-emergency calls. A burning building call 911, a burning question call 311. But that charge was so broad that most cities did ... [
In all the talk about New York financier Paul Singer’s plan to go all Gordon Gecko on Novell, one word has not been mentioned nearly enough. Microsoft. Microsoft needs a viable Novell, and Novell’s Linux business was on the verge of becoming viable when Singer’s Elliott Associates swooped in with an offer to break up the company, seize its cash, split ... [
Dries Buytaert of Drupal and Acquia is warning that Software as a Service is becoming a threat to open source and that clouds could create the same vendor lock-in customers sought to avoid with open source. (This is Dries at last year’s Drupalcon in Paris, in a close-up of a photo by Pedro Lozano. From buytaert.net.) Even where SaaS companies let ... [
That first step is interoperability. Getting proprietary gear to work together, to transform reports among proprietary standards, is the first step on the road to an open world. The HIMSS show takes that step every year with what it calls its Interoperability Showcase. At this year’s show in Atlanta it occupied the whole end of one hall of the Georgia World ... [
The announcement by Twitter that it is switching to Cassandra for its database lookups puts new attention on a project that has yet to reach Version 1.0. Cassandra had been underway long before Oracle bought Sun and mySQL. Facebook first launched it in 2008 to power their inbox search feature. It was released on Google Code in 2008 and became an ... [
Today Matt Asay urges government buyers to support open source, open data and open standards. Why? Because it’s better. Because it promotes competition. Because it gives government flexibility. But after watching government on every level, in various countries, for over half my lifetime, I can tell you the last thing any government wants is to make a decision its successor can ... [
Since I began writing this blog in 2005 I have watched open source move from a fringe idea to something embraced by the IT mainstream. But there are still extremists out there who want to destroy open source. Some of their names may surprise you. What they have done is retreat into a group where they seek not to be identified. ... [
No. Matt Asay hits the nail on the head. In full “knock this board off my shoulder mode,” the Ubuntu COO dares Microsoft to sue Canonical, or Google, or someone else over its Linux claims who might fight back. To torture my recent analogy (analogies can’t fight back), Microsoft isn’t Neville Chamberlain. It’s the guy on the other side of the ... [
In response to my piece yesterday, my Italian friend Roberto Galoppini referenced a piece he did last August called the Open Source Innovation Backbone. Packaged software companies may just use open source to build a common base on which they can innovate. Or they may copy a proprietary product, competing against it together in order to drive out a competitor’s monopoly ... [
Open source may become the default position of customers, but it is still not the first option when a market is new. This is a point open source executives like Matt Asay continue to struggle with, one that closed-source advocates continue to hammer on. (Picture from the Breakthrough Institute.) Open source is shared freeloading. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. ... [
Another day, another Microsoft patent deal. This time with Amazon. And more whining from Linux advocates that this is a “Microsoft tax” aimed at making Linux users pay Microsoft for the open source operating system. I have thought that too. But let me play devil’s advocate a moment, using as my text Marshall Phelps’ Burning the Ships. Isn’t Microsoft just buying ... [I’ve been talking quite a bit lately about SEO Tools that I use to improve search results for my own site(s) and others that I work on. Most of these tools are free, but I have to confess that I use a variety of paid tools too.
An interesting attribute for some of these tools is they can actually help with other important business and marketing functions. In particular, I use some of the SEO Tools for doing actual Market Research and Business Analysis. As I mention these tools I’ll point out how and where I use them for these functions.
If you use SEO Tools for other marketing tasks please post a comment. I’m sure a number of people would be interested.
SEO and other InBound Marketing activities are typically low cost in dollars but require a lot of work initially and on an on-going to be successful. There are significant differences between building results using SEO and InBound Marketing techniques and using PPC {Pay Per Click} services such as Google Adwords.
Don’t get me wrong. Each approach has it’s place and best practical use case. For example, using Google Adwords PPC service is probably a good approach when first starting out. For the money you pay, you’ll get a consistent level of clicks and traffic to your site for the money you pay. The problem with this is that if costly and yeilds little long term benefit for the business. Essentially, when you stop using Adwords your site traffic pretty much goes away.
On the other hand SEO and InBound techniques give your site meaningful traffic that grows and builds upon itself over time. Moreover, click trough rates for organic search results Vs those of PPC are shown to be three times higher. The Organic results are trusted more by people and are in fact in very real terms a result of people referencing or recommending the sites. These sites are even viewed as more relevent by people performing the searches.
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