If you run an ecommerce website, then you know that it’s important to make certain that the products show up within the natural search results, ahead of your competitors–especially if your competitor is selling the same products. Optimizing your ecommerce website for that search engines like Google could be tricky at times, so we’ll examine what’s truly needed in purchase for the items to rank much better than your competitor’s products in the organic search results.

Optimizing an ecommerce web site isn’t that different than optimizing any other type of web site. In purchase for a page to rank well in the natural search results, the page requirements a few things: a great title tag that includes the keywords you’re targeting (usually the item name), great content on the web page that includes the appropriate keywords, and links from other internet pages to that internet page. And in order for the page to remain within the search engines’ indexes, the page cannot be a duplicate of any other web page on the net.

Search engine Friendly Website
What does it mean when I say that your site is search engine friendly? I’m referring to a web site which can be easily crawled by the search engines like google without being restricted by cookies, redirects, session IDs, and long URLs with lots of parameters in them. To find out if your site is already internet search engine helpful, go to Google and perform site:www.yourdomain.com search. Should you know you've 100 product pages on your web site and Google is showing all of them, excellent. But if Google does not appear to become indexing all of your product pages then there’s a reason–and most from the time there are problems using the website that can be fixed.

If you have a shopping cart in your web site then you’re most likely using a shopping cart which can be changed to become much more internet search engine helpful. Many popular carts like OSCommerce, Miva, X-cart, and Monster Commerce, are already internet search engine friendly or include some plugin or additional functions that may make it more internet search engine helpful. You’ll need to figure out which purchasing cart you’re site is using and see if you’re using the latest SEO-related plugins or add-ons.

The URLs of one's website ought to not include variables, parameters, or session IDs. If you've question marks in your URLs and/or if you've web page URLs that change each and every time they’re visited, then that requirements to change. You ought to be able to pick out one item web page on your website, visit that URL directly, and that page should come up–and it shouldn’t change or give an error or “not found” message. Like I mentioned earlier, numerous from the common purchasing carts include plugins or “add-ons” which will make the required modifications. If you are not utilizing these plugins or “add-ons” then you might think about installing them or moving to an additional shopping cart.

1 from the most common search engine “unfriendly” issues I see when I start to analyze a web site is really a redirect from a internet site’s real website to an additional web page about the website. The real home page of your website is www.domain.com. It is not www.domain.com/somepage.html. The mistake or “problem” is when a visitor goes to www.domain.com and it redirects to another URL. There should in no way be a redirect–your website is your website. Actually, all internet server software program has some way of “telling it” which page is the default website for the site. So, even if your purchasing cart software doesn’t use index.html (the most common default home page) it is feasible to alter your default home page to whatever it requirements to be–and you could even alter it to mycleverflashyhomepage.html. In any situation, when you go type in www.yourdomain.com it shouldn’t redirect to anything else. Why? Your real home page (www.yourdomain.com) is your most effective page, especially because more people website link to your real website and not your “other” home page (e.g., www.yourdomain.com/homepage.html).
And if you in no way allow anybody (or any search engine) to obtain to your real website, then you’re literally shooting yourself in the foot–you’re not taking full advantage from the “power” of your actual home page, the one which has all of the links going to it. (And, if you’re wondering, internet webpages that have more links from other web webpages are much more “powerful” when it comes to internet search engine rankings. We’ll talk much more about links to pages later.)

Duplicate Content material
1 reason why product pages on ecommerce sites appear within the search engine indexes and then disappear is because they’re duplicates. You may not believe your item webpages are duplicates of 1 another, but the search engines (mainly Google) frequently does. By utilizing a unique title tag, meta description and meta key phrases tag on each and every web page of one's site, you’ll possess a much better chance of individuals pages not being regarded duplicates. Furthermore, if you include unique product descriptions (not the generic ones provided through the manufacturer of items), as nicely as other distinctive elements on every web page, your pages won’t be duplicates of other webpages. It is essential to note that when Google compares 1 web page (like a whole) to an additional internet web page (like a whole) and if the majority percentage of individuals pages contain the same content material, then individuals pages will be duplicates. Google will maintain the very first page they discover and “throw out” all the other duplicate pages they find. Generally speaking, I like to utilize the figure of 25 percent–a page must be at least 25 percent different than any other web web page on the internet in order to be considered a distinctive web page.

If you are promoting products that your competitors are also promoting, then your item webpages need to be various than their item webpages. In many cases, the generic item descriptions of items are supplied through the manufacturer–so it’s too easy to utilize the description that is provided. Nevertheless, should you utilized the same item description that each and every other online shop that sold that product utilized, your product web page wouldn’t stand out. It might even be considered a duplicate page if the majority from the content material on the page may be the item description. So, you must include other extra info about the page–try rewriting the product description or, if you do not have the time or manpower to do that, include a product review, links to associated products (links to item pages with other colors, sizes, comparable functions), or perhaps a testimonial about the item.

Having a unique domain name is important–I prefer to host an on the internet shop on a separate web hosting account rather than utilizing an on the internet shop such as the Yahoo! On the internet Shop. I often advise retailers to stay away from the canned on the internet stores mainly due to the truth that you’ll have much more control over your website and your shop in general, especially if you want to customize it and/or include extra content for your website such like a blog or other static informational html pages. Keep in mind that it is essential to choose one domain name and stick to it. Should you own more than one domain name or use an on the internet shop that includes a subdomain as its address, then all other domain names you personal should redirect to your main site utilizing a 301 Permanent Redirect. Additionally, if you remove a product from your website then it is great practice to redirect that web page to an additional comparable product page using a 301 Permanent Redirect.

Product Pages and Search engine Rankings
Let’s say, for example, that your ecommerce site is selling the exact exact same item as your competitors. When it comes down towards the actual natural internet search engine rankings, the item web page that has more on-topic links and a much better optimized title tag tends to rank higher. So, it’s important that your title tag contain the lookup term or product name that someone will lookup for–and your product web page must have links from other pages on your website (ideally from other related items) and from other web websites. Since your home page is usually your most powerful web page, it is essential to feature your most essential products on your website to ensure that those item pages will possess a link from the home page. Adding a ‘related products’ type of navigation on your product webpages will assist the visitors stay on your site (in situation they want to another size, color, or item with similar price or functions), as well as help your item webpages get more internal hyperlinks. Keep in mind that you are able to also control the actual link text of the links in that area as nicely, so you might wish to use website link text that is similar or the exact same as certain keyword phrases you are targeting for rankings.

Extra Content material
You do not have to be limited to the shopping cart as the only source of content in your web site. Although the shopping cart is installed, it’s still feasible to include regular static html pages or other content material this kind of like a weblog to your website. Adding additional content material can be a good way to include hyperlinks to your product webpages, especially should you decide to add a weblog that features certain products in your website. Informational webpages concerning the items you sell, including articles about how to utilize those items or background research information can frequently be useful to possible clients, as nicely. With the manufacturer’s approval, you might even be able to consist of information such as user manuals (or info from them) on the website. Or you might choose to include recall notices, product reviews, testimonials, or a product message board/forum discussion for the clients. It is this extra content that can lead to much more hyperlinks from other web websites as well as areas where you can embed links to certain item webpages. Press releases about new items you are selling and other organization news can be useful for much more exposure and much more links, as well (include press releases to your own website as news and distribute your press releases on other sites this kind of as prweb.com). Furthermore, it’s essential to watch your web site’s statistics and keyword trends, as they can frequently result in ideas for even much more content material or similar items that visitors are searching for but aren't finding on your website.

Whether you are just starting out as an online retailer with a few items to sell or you’ve been promoting thousands of items online for numerous years now, producing sure your ecommerce website is optimized for the search engines is really a must. On the internet shoppers are utilizing the search engines like google to compare item features and prices, and if your online store’s product webpages aren’t positioned in the top internet search engine outcomes you’re missing out on a lot of possible on the internet sales. By producing a few minor modifications to your existing site or producing sure your new ecommerce site is optimized correctly, you’ll get much more internet search engine traffic which will ultimately lead to more sales.

Hispanic followers regarding online television set usually are early on adopters plus prone to build relationships entrepreneurs as opposed to typical human population, reported by an investigation published today by simply active promotion inventor BrightLine iTV. Analyzing private 2010 campaign data, BrightLine analyzed the particular mass media intake behaviors in the nation’s biggest and fastest-growing ethnic community and also discovered Latinos characterize some sort of largely under-tapped “super consumer” pressure in the state-of-the-art telly advertising world. That has while it's changed from a specialized niche in order to well known market place, requesting $1 trillion throughout getting strength.

A head inside making tailor-made, measurable fun Television set ad experiences in which gain immediate mass fast size plus effectiveness for any globe's major companies, just last year BrightLine carried out above 50 flourishing plans to get AXE, Tylenol, Burger King, Hellman’s, Dove, Turbo Tax, Abreva, and others. This company in addition created progressive encoding targeting that Hispanic industry for companies which includes Dove, Degree for Adult males and also AXE.

“Early outcome tend to be pushing to get companies trying to get game-changing ways to talk with the Hispanic visitors,” claimed Jacqueline Corbelli, Chief executive officer, BrightLine iTV. “Heavy use joined with that attain involving innovative telly has built maximum disorders with regard to leverage interactive Tv marketing and advertising plus linking models keeping this more and more useful Hispanic populace.”

Hispanic Sector Keys to press Advertisings at Prices Double the final Industry

Consistent with bigger research within the Hispanic segment’s huge receptivity for you to advertising and marketing, BrightLine’s document discovered the identical pattern with leading-edge strategies. Hispanics push ads in fees double the industry typical. Maintaining common current market fads, Hispanic visitors are dramatically keen on the cursor adverts on tv in comparison with online. On the strategy basis, BrightLine identified tailor made iTV designs pertaining to Hispanics can certainly travel up to 30 occasions your engagement involving internet on drastically more affordable storage devices fees.

Hispanic Crowd Activates Half a dozen times Extended

BrightLine's document additionally determined Hispanic audience invest prolonged durations interacting with brand name articles about the Televisions, involved on average for more than half a dozen times your period on the usual :31 identify - 2 . 5 min's. BrightLine likewise says of which over a favorite mass-targeted iTV web site, advertisings aimed towards Hispanics sketch each numerous clicks because the normal sector regardless of the group exclusively information technology intended for 16% in the visitors, recommending Hispanics are more dynamic consumers connected with active instructions as well as places than the normal sector.

Phones are developing the actual Hispanic Demographic iTV Ease Zone

Hispanic people indicate comfort and ease and also willingness to be able to combine cell along with Television for computer functionality, responding to help sophisticated Television for computer offer encounters by way of cellular text messaging in fees much like onscreen facts release.

Hispanic Women iTV Press Pace 150% Bigger compared to. Typical Sector

Factored in a new designed iTV program, woman's Hispanic television set audiences were presented the possibility to be able to subscriber outside of any :40 and ask for any $2 off of minute coupon. Consistently witnessed to get extra receptive so that you can tailor-made strategies in addition to willing to just click advertising in the media, this telescoping area By rate of one.03% could be the maximum known in addition to outperformed the typical current market ordinary by way of greater than 150%.

In summary, considerable studies reinforce the notion in which nowhere could be the bigger pattern regarding Hispanic’s un-tapped marketing possible more significant compared to advanced Television set advertising, exactly where only some entrepreneurs are generally spending. Developing obtaining electrical power, early on use as well as high receptivity to help promotion helps make this group a desirable promoting target surrounding the mother board. The particular substantial get to along with puncture of superior television system advertising are linking makes using this type of increasingly precious portion in the inhabitants.

CheapTweet.com, a leading Twitter-based social deals search engine internet site, has launched CheapTweet 2.0, in celebration of indexing over 5 million deals online to offer its users an better social shopping experience. CheapTweet's version 2.0 rollout adds upgrades to its core search engine, its voting mechanism, and a new look and feature called the DealStream that helps users find the right deal at exactly the right time.



CheapTweet has addressed a large need by harnessing the power of Twitter to help make your dollars stretch further. All day, CheapTweet indexes some 30,000 tweets about deals, filters out spam and duplicate content, and adds more than ten thousand new deals to the website - many of which are different one-of-a-kind deals from boutique sellers. Deals are then ranked by how much they're talked about on Twitter and CheapTweet user votes. With so many different deals pouring into the system in real-time, CheapTweet has developed the DealStream to help visitors find the deals that are perfect for them.

CheapTweet's DealStream is a real-time, personalized deals system where users can set up their stream to track categories of deals, brands, merchants or keywords that are filtered and organized based on a relevance algorithm that takes into account the user's preferences and deal quality. You can get these results on CheapTweet.com or via a convenient RSS feed.

As well as the DealStream, CheapTweet has recently made upgrades to their search engine, that utilizes specialised algorithms to aggregate tweets about the same deals, helping users rapidly see what deals are best-selling, as well as sort through spam. There are also changes to the CheapTweet voting mechanism, allowing you to give deals a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Finally, CheapTweet intelligibly marks official accounts so you know when they are looking at legitimate deals from a real merchant. In Concert these changes offer a clean but advanced means to save money.

CheapTweet (www.CheapTweet.com) is a social deals search engine that scours Twitter to find any and all money-saving opportunities available to consumers. To date, CheapTweet has indexed more than 5 million deals from tens of thousands of sellers. CheapTweet is operated by Appozite (www.Appozite.com), an Austin, Texas-based startup developing social e-commerce software to connect unique and interesting retailers with customers. Appozite also makes TweetReach (www.tweetreach.com), a tool for measuring Twitter campaigns.

Bill Hartzer, a website marketing expert, can provide you with a variety of website marketing services. Whether your business needs more visitors and more sales overall, or whether you need a very specific part of the online marketing process such as a Search Engine Optimization Audit, Link Building, or even Social Media Account Setup and Management, I can handle it for you.

Companies that use Facebook and Facebook fan pages to market themselves to potential clients can increase sales, word-of-mouth marketing and client loyalty significantly among a subset of their customers, according to new research from Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business. The study is featured in the March 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review.



Research for the article, "How Effective is Facebook Marketing?", was directed by Utpal Dholakia, associate professor of management at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business, and Emily Durham, a Jones School alumna and founder of Restaurant Connections, a Houston-based restaurant consultancy.

Dholakia and Durham surveyed customers of Dessert Gallery (DG), a favorite Houston-based café chain. Prior to the study, Dessert Gallery did not have a Facebook presence.

The research, based on surveys of more than 1,700 respondents over a 3 month period, discovered that compared with typical Dessert Gallery customers, the company's Facebook fans:

· Spent 33 percent more at DG's stores.
· Had 14 percent higher emotional attachment to the DG brand.
· Had 41 percent greater psychological loyalty toward DG.
· Made 36 percent more visits to DG's stores each month.
· Spent 45 percent more of their eating-out dollars at DG.

According to Dholakia, the results of the study indicate that Facebook fan pages provide an effective and low-cost way of social media marketing.

Dholakia said Facebook marketing programs may be specially effective for iconic brands, which appear to attract a higher percentage of their customer base as Facebook fans.

Bill Hartzer, a website marketing expert, can provide you with a variety of website marketing services. Whether your business needs more visitors and more sales overall, or whether you need a very specific part of the online marketing process such as a Search Engine Optimization Audit, Link Building, or even Social Media Account Setup and Management, I can handle it for you.

Back in December 2009, Google announced the integration of the real-time World Wide Web in the Google organic search results. Google told us that their goal is to strive to bring us "the freshest, most comprehensive and relevant search results over an ever expanding universe of content on the multitude of devices" we "use to access it." Google presented real-time into the search results like this:



I would compare this move to Google Universal, where they algorithmically add news, images, blog results, music (if it's related to music), and video into the natural search results. Somehow, algorithmically, the Google search engine adds these features into the organic search results. You have probably noticed that sometimes they show it in the search results (for certain keyword phrases) and Google show don't display the real-time web for other keyword phrases that you search for at Google.com.

As a search engine optimization professional, I have been intrigued by this part of the search engine algorithm. In other words, I have tried to figure out how to literally push Google to show the real-time web (the "Latest results for") for a particular keyword or keyword phrase.

Well, I am happy to be able to tell you that I have "cracked the code" so to speak, and am able to now "force" Google into displaying the "Latest result for" a certain keyword or keyword phrase. In other words, if the "Latest results" is not presently displaying for a keyword phrase in the Google search results, I am able to drive Google into displaying the "Latest results" for a keyword or keyword phrase of my selecting.

Let's take a look at an example of what I am tattling about. As an example keyword, let's use the keyword "vizionweb", as in our Vizion Interactive Twitter ID, @vizionweb. If you look at the following search result, you will see that there are no "Latest results for vizionweb".



But, after a particular period of time (which I won't reveal right now), you will see that a search for "vizionweb" does, in fact, show the "Latest results for vizionweb".



I have tested this with several other keywords and have been able to use my technique in order to drive Google to display the "latest results for", show the real-time web, for a specific keyword phrase of my choosing.

Why would you want to do this?
Frankly, I can tell you that doing this, pushing Google to show the "latest results for" a particular keyword phrase when Google currently does not present the real-time web for that search phrase, is advantageous. I have presently not tested it specifically, but most likely if the real-time web is shown in the Google search results for a particular search phrase then the Click-Thru Ratio (CTR) is going to be better than normal. It just stands out more, and more people are going to click on it, specially if it was not previously showing. And if you are able to control the content that shows up in that little real-time internet box, you may be able to get more relevant traffic to your site.

So how did I do it? What is the secret? Presently, manipulating the Google search results in this way calls for a combination of particular types active social media accounts from particular social media websites that are connected together properly. I am not going to specifically address which accounts and which social media sites are participating, but you may be able to figure it out if you take the time to look. What Is More, telling exactly what it takes is not just not in my best interest right now, especially because clients are paying for things like this.

What I will say, though, is that Google, just like all of the other search engines out there, does have its faults and holes so to speak, and there still are things that a SEO professional like myself can do to drive more traffic to your website.

Bill Hartzer, a website marketing expert, can provide you with a variety of website marketing services. Whether your business needs more visitors and more sales overall, or whether you need a very specific part of the online marketing process such as a Search Engine Optimization Audit, Link Building, or even Social Media Account Setup and Management, I can handle it for you.

I have talked about the LeapFish search engine earlier, as you might remember. I am fan of LeapFish, especially because I believe LeapFish is one search engine that might really have an opportunity of making it to the big-time. Further corroborating this, LeapFish continues to grow its user base.

LeapFish anticipates that there will be more than 20 million searches in 2010 at their search engine. They have lately reported good early adopter growth in 2009, and they have reached a 10,000 Alexa rank in one year.

LeapFish reported that at its current growth rate and with its new partnerships, the search engine anticipates more than 20 million searches to be executed in 2010. "Through website marketing, our growing affiliate network, partnerships with strategic software vendors and our continued organic adoption we are acquiring our user base by large multiples this year," said Behnam Behrouzi, president and CEO. "Our product advancements in 2009 have assisted to gear the search engine for an even larger year in 2010," he said.

In 2009 the company made essential advancements and innovations to its growing search engine including; real time search, deeper search results, personalized homepages, content sharing features and proprietary Twitter and Facebook applications, that have assisted grow the engine from an Alexa traffic ranking of 150,000 to 10,000 in less than one year. "We are the only search platform searching all that users care about in the new World Wide Web with over fifty providers including Google, Yelp, Twitter, Youtube, Mashable, Topsy, Wikipedia, and many others," said Bruggeman. "The innovations and data integrations from 2009 have set LeapFish apart and are distinctly reflected in our Alexa traffic ranking," he said.

The company also reported growing success with its unique ad model that boasts no cost per click fees. "Thousands of advertisers are securing high demand keywords that can return ROI in just a brief period of time," said Bruggeman. "Over 80% of our advertisers renew their sponsorship for one year or more," he said.

LeapFish projects to release a secondary ad program to sponsors this Spring.

LeapFish is an evolved search engine that captures the traditional, multi-media and real-time Web, through a single, connected search platform for both searching and sharing content. LeapFish is a privately held corporation headquartered out of CARR America Corporate Center in Pleasanton, California.

Bill Hartzer, a website marketing expert, can provide you with a variety of website marketing services. Whether your business needs more visitors and more sales overall, or whether you need a very specific part of the online marketing process such as a Search Engine Optimization Audit, Link Building, or even Social Media Account Setup and Management, I can handle it for you.

Offerpal Media has launched "Offerpal Tasks," a new way you can earn virtual currency to use in online games and social networks. You can earn virtual currency through Offerpal Tasks by completing simple online tasks through Amazon Mechanical Turk.

I took a look at some of the tasks and they included tasks like rating search results, categorizing web sites, categorizing articles, or even answering questions. Offerpal Tasks are available right now throughout Offerpal's network of more than 2,000 web sites and applications.

Offerpal Tasks allows online gamers to select from 1000s of what they call "Human Intelligence Tasks". This is work you can do whenever it's convenient. You can then convert your earnings into virtual currency that can be spent in online games and virtual worlds.

Offerpal Tasks are accessible as a tab within the Offerpal I-Frame, alongside various other options for earning virtual currency, such as completing targeted advertising offers, filling out online surveys and shopping at brand name retailers. You can browse through the Amazon Mechanical Turk marketplace and choose a task based on the type of work, how long it is estimated to take to complete, and how much it pays. Payment is made after you complete the task and it is approved by the requester.

Other types of chores that are regularly available through Amazon Mechanical Turk include:

-- Tagging photos
-- Moderating user generated content
-- Editing content
-- Data cleansing (cleaning up data)
-- Transcribing (like transcribing a video)
-- Proofreading internet content

Offerpal Media returns the highest Revenue Per User for online games and social networks. Offerpal Media combines more than 4,000 surveys, free trials, big brand discounts and other top ad offers with global payment options like credit cards, micro-transactions, mobile billing, offline stored-value cards and more – all in a simple, plug-and-play platform. Monetizing virtual currency couldn’t be any easier.

Offerpal Media is the leader in virtual currency monetization for online games, virtual worlds and social networks. The company's turnkey payment platform gives consumers the opportunity to earn virtual currency for free by taking part in targeted advertising offers, shopping at big-brand retailers, completing online surveys, watching videos or otherwise engaging with brands. Since its launch in 2007, Offerpal has issued more than 725 billion virtual points to over 160 million consumers across 2,000 publishers. The company is headquartered in Fremont, California. Investors include Interwest Capital, North Bridge Venture Partners, and D. E. Shaw Ventures.

Across the Internet, in news, blogs, tweets and other social media, millions of people are babbling about major brands. This “buzz” can be produced by product launches, ad campaigns, PR events, earnings reports, a single consumer‘s product experience, and many other triggers, even scandals and rumours. The volume and quality of this buzz are predictors and influencers of brand performance; these exposures “count” in the real world, sometimes even more than the advertising-derived exposure typically measured.

Marketers online have always wonderered: How much would it have cost to attract the same media exposure through traditional advertising? Many of the answers have been released in a new report called The General Sentiment Media Value Report™. This report attempts to calculates the dollar value of the buzz, content, and conversation taking place online.

General Sentiment has published its 4th Quarter 2009 Media Value Report, a breakdown of the top performing brands across news and social media web sites for October through December 2009. Generated using General Sentiment's core media measurement and sentiment analysis infrastructure, the report assigns attempts to assign an advertising dollar value to a brand's media exposure.

General Sentiment uses patent-pending technology based on 5 years of research directed at Stony Brook University. The system automatically determines the volume of mentions and sentiment value regarding a brand, company or person. Blending this data with website traffic and online news readership figures, the MVR determines the purchase-equivalent dollar value of the brand exposure across more than 30 million sources.

The technology sector has dominated once again with significant social media value generated over coverage of new product releases and innovations. One surprise was Ford rising to the seventh position, as the company benefited in the media from strong sales reports while competitors suffered from lingering bankruptcy discussion.

The top two brands in the survey, Microsoft and Google, together generated about $1.3 billion in purchase-equivalent advertising value from news providers and social media. Other notable brands in the top 20 included Citigroup, McDonald's, Disney, and American Express. Including Ford, those five companies were mentioned frequently and favorably enough to earn the equivalent of more than $1.2 billion in paid advertising.

1. GOOGLE $669,629,305
Google topped the rankings of the Q4 Media Value Report, with multiple products and innovations creating buzz in the marketplace. Google made a big push into the smartphone space with their Droid and Nexus One handsets. The company’s recent acquisition of AdMob, a mobile ad service, further highlights their strategy going forward. The new Chrome OS, which boasts a fast, simple and secure platform, was announced last quarter, generating considerable discussion on Google’s entry into the PC market.

2. MICROSOFT $648,732,726
Microsoft’s success with its earlier launch of Windows 7 continues to create buzz, particularly in News Media. However, the new Google Chrome OS raised a potential threat to Microsoft as it will be a cloud-based operating system. Also creating news exposure was Microsoft’s announcement of its plan to layoff 5,000 employees. On a more positive note, in December, Microsoft and Yahoo announced that they finalized their planned Internet search and advertising partnership agreement.

3. SONY $294,308,077
In the 4th Quarter, Sony announced the launch of its new online store, Sony Online Services, which sells videos, books, games and movies to compete against Apple’s iTunes store. However, 3D television has been the big story for Sony as they push these units out the door. This initiative has been put in place to bolster revenue as Sony perceives 3D television will be the answer to their woes.

4. APPLE $293,237,918
This December saw rumors of Apple’s latest high-tech gadget, the tablet computer, planned for a roll out in early 2010. Apple made a further move into the internet music market when it purchased one of the market leaders, Lala. Lala allows users to listen to a song once before purchasing and storing online. In other news, Nokia filed suit against Apple claiming the iPhone infringed on 10 patents held by Nokia.

5. YAHOO $291,766,667
Yahoo announced a world wide shutdown of operations from December 25th to January 1st to find new ways to cut costs in the recession. In early December, Yahoo and Microsoft announced the execution of their partnership plan mentioned above. The move is perceived as a positive one for both companies as Microsoft looks to better compete against Google and Yahoo seeks to cut costs further.

6. INTEL $285,685,964
Intel has been in the news frequently in the past few months, mainly due to the recent antitrust cases that led to a billion dollar settlement with rival chip maker AMD. Intel, which has battled anti-trust cases for years in Asia, Europe, and the State of New York, settled with AMG for $1.25 billion after offering large rebates and co-marketing arrangements to keep partners from switching to competitors.

7. FORD $185,905,704
Ford made the Top 10 list again as it continues to report strong results while other American car producers struggle. Reaction was positive when Ford announced further capital investment in its Brazil operations as it plans to invest $2.3 billion over the next five years to improve factories and increase production in the country. United Auto Workers (UAW) and Ford have been in talks over new contracts.

8. IBM $150,381,178
Blue Insight has been all over the news media in the 4th Quarter as IBM announced the rollout of its internal cloud environment with over a petabyte of information. IBM plans to make this cloud service available to customers as well, dubbed IBM Smart Cloud Analytics. Also of note in Q4, IBM acquired Guardium, a market leader in real-time enterprise database monitoring and protection.

9. CITIGROUP $131,326,011
Citigroup announced a planned $15 billion stock offering to repay its TARP bailout funds and was the last Wall Street giant to finalize the Government repayment. Amidst Citigroup’s plans to raise equity, Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund sold its stake in Citigroup at a $1.1 billion profit. The question remains as to what will happen with the US government’s equity stake in Citigroup.

10. HEWLETT-PACKARD $115,896,188
Rounding out the top 10, Hewlett-Packard made big moves in the M&A market. HP announced the acquisition of 3Com, a provider of competitive network and data center products, for $2.7 billion. Analysts lauded the acquisition as a way for HP to bolster its business in China.

The Fourth Quarter Media Value Report was created using General Sentiment's proprietary software, which "listens" to more than 30 million online sources. To see the report in its entirety, visit www.generalsentiment.com

Social Connections has released MashedIn.com (www.mashedin.com), an application that allows you to identify mutual connections across multiple social networks. MashedIn gives a widget that can be added to a website or blog where your website visitors can authenticate with either Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn to reveal common connections to the widget owner.

People have different groups of friends or connections on various social networks they use on a regular basis. Being able to realize mutual connections across multiple networks steps-up the chance you'll find common linkages. MashedIn offers a key value to companies and business professionals. You can visit a business website or profile and be able to see if anyone you know is connected. For the business, it is like finding a quick introduction to someone who is otherwise totally anonymous. Each connection you reveal offers more context for the visitor.

The MashedIn team defeated considerable technical obstacles to make the application. "MashedIn is deployed entirely in the cloud on Google App Engine," notes CTO Jason Collins. "This framework, combined with MashedIn's parallel processing extensions, allows us to query social networks in a massively parallel manner and traverse large graphs of social connections. This approach allows for relevant, meaningful social connections and recommendations to be presented to the user almost instantaneously, despite having to gather and process large amounts of data from a number of third-party sources."

Social Connections, (www.socialconnections.com) based in Saskatoon, Canada, develops software to leverage social networks and improve trust. The foremost solution released by the company in early 2009 was a reputation management toolkit for small businesses called StepRep. MashedIn is designed to have deeper applicability for individuals to improve trust and identity through social connections.

Social Connections is a wholly owned subsidiary of VendAsta Technologies, which raised $3 million in the summer of 2008.

The Bay Area Search Engine Academy has officially opened their enrollment and registration for upcoming SEO classes and Online Marketing training for companies. Registration is limited to fifteen people in each of the training classes being held in San Ramon and Santa Clara (near San Jose), California.

The Bay Area Search Engine Academy will start the SEO training by teaching a six-step process that apparently will help their students get started rapidly without having to know a lot of technological code. "Anyone can learn our six-step process and get results," Petty adds. The rest of the week is spent learning techniques that can get a business listed on the search engines many different ways.

Each student is encouraged to bring a wireless-enabled laptop and work on either their own Web site or their client's web site during the search engine optimization training class. All SEO training students are given class time to introduce problems to the other students, get positive feedback, and help the other search engine marketing training students taking the course.

The Bay Area Search Engine Academy is part of the larger Search Engine Academy, started by John Alexander and Robin Nobles numerous years ago. They teach a standardized programme at all their academies around the world.

Once a student has completed the workshop and passed the test, they receive a certificate showing they have have a thorough understanding in search engine marketing. In addition, students can request nationally-recognized continuing education units (CEUs) through the University of Southern Mississippi (an additional $60 fee covers the cost of the paperwork).

Interested students can register online at the Bay Area Search Engine Academy's registration page or contact them directly toll-free at (888) 807-5658.