This plugin won’te lose you website traffic.

For almost all websites, it will be sufficient to install this plugin, check that it applies to what you actually do, and that’s it—you’ll be compliant with the current EU regulations.

Unlike other plugins, which insert an obtrusive popup or other UI complexity, the EU Cookies Plugin helps you comply with the EU privacy directive in a way that visitors will probably not notice unless they’re specifically looking for information on privacy & cookies. But if visitors do go looking for information on your website about privacy or use of cookies, or to check that you comply, a suitable page of information has automatically been added by the plugin for anyone who wants it (regulator or customer).

Note: EU privacy regulations apply to all websites outside the EU which cater for EU citizens, not just EU based websites, and not just to business websites. That means pretty much all websites!

Does The Plugin Create A Popup Cookies Permission Dialog?

This plugin helps compliance without any popups or discouraging messages, and your visitors will probably not notice any difference after you install it.

Some plugins and website designers have chosen to create a popup that blocks access to the website a visitor gives permission for the website to store cookies on their computer (or device). Or which lets the visitor disable the use of cookies before they proceed.

Very few websites need to go that far, which is good news because let’s face it, that will be a disaster for website traffic.

To preserve website visitor numbers you need to avoid a cookies “permission dialog” if at all possible. The good news is that almost every ordinary website can comply without this! Such a drastic measure is only necessary for a very few websites, so you should be absolutely sure that you need that before doing something so damaging.

Sceptical? Want to be on the safe side? Certainly you would be unwise to just take my word for it, because I’m not a lawyer, and given this is a free plugin, I don’t give any guarantee that what I say here is correct. Let me explicitly state that I might well be wrong! But luckily you don’t have to take my word for it, because I’m just mimicing what the UK’s Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) website does!

I created the EU Cookies Plugin to mimic what the DCMS website does. Why? Because the DCMS is the government department which oversees implementation of EU privacy directives!

So I suggest that you install the EU Cookies Plugin, check the privacy statment it has created for you (via the link in the footer of each page), and then go and check that your website is doing the same standard things as the DCMS.

Install The EU Cookies Plugin

You can install the plugin from your WordPress dashboard, or have me set-up for a small fee:

• Get peace of mind and save time!
• Purchase by 24th May to guarantee installation by 25th May deadline.
• Buy WordPress EU Cookies Plugin Installation for £10 (Approx. US$16 / €13)

Once the plugin is active, so long as your website is just doing standard stuff, you should be fine. By standard stuff I mean with access logs, website analyitcs, forms, logins etc., and not using cookies to store personally identifiable details. To confirm this, click the “Website Privacy & Cookies” link at the bottom of one of your website pages, and confirm that everything it says is true for your website.

Customisation

The plugin is not currently customisable, though if it proves popular I’ll consider any requests for this.

What you can do is provide additional links to the privacy page, such as from your main menu, or elsewhere on your website. Use the same URL as in the footer link.

What Does The EU Cookie Plugin Do?

The main things you’ll notice are a link in the footer of every page, and that when you click that link you are taken to a page about privacy and use of cookies. The page doesn’t exist in your WordPress database, so you can’t edit it, though I make that possible if start requesting it.

You need to check that what the page says is true for your website, and that what it says is indeed consistent with the regulations (which I have suggested means comparing this with what the DCMS website does). It is your responsibility to ensure compliance, because I make no guarantees (see terms & conditions, below).

Will This Plugin Damage My SEO?

Its very easy to screw up SEO by adding autogenerated content or linking unwisely. So this is an important question.

The EU Cookies Plugin includes measures to ensure that no harm will be done to the search engine rankings of your website by including this page on your website and linking to it from every page. So no, this plugin should have no effect on your SEO (search engine optimisation). Or mine for that matter, because I’m not including “follow” links or anything like that!

Be carefull with other plugins which may not be SEO safe, because as I say, this is a minefield!

Ways To Support My Free Plugins

Donate $1 to $100
Your choice!

I love sharing my work, and I get a real buz when people show their appreciation.

If you would like to do this, you can do so with an email, or share a link to the plugin on Facebook or Twitter, or make a donation (even $1 is appreciated):

Terms & Conditions

This is a free plugin and comes with no warrantee whatsoever. I give no warrantee that it is fit for any purpose, and certainly do not pretend that installing it will make you safe from action by EU or other legal consequences arising from the operation of your website. Compliance of your website with all applicable laws is your responsibilty.

While I endeavour to create reliable and useful software, I accept no responsibility for your use of this plugin, which is therefore entirely at your own risk.

A condition of your using the EU Cookies Plugin, you accept responsibility for ensuring that its use is fair and legal, and for any and all consequences relating to the operation of your website, including incorrect or correct operation of the plugin.

EU Cookies Plugin—EU Privacy Directive Compliance For WordPress Websites

theWebalyst.com Blog

Web Marketing and WordPress Websites for Small Business

Creating a sitemap makes sure that all your website pages are are indexed by search engines. This makes a sitemap a “must have” for SEO, because it helps make your website and content more visible on Google and other search engines, and helps newly published content get indexed rapidly.

I’ll show you how to create a sitemap for your website. Then I’ll refer you to my other posts which tell you how to use it to promote your content and attract more visitors. If you have a WordPress website, I’ve written a post especially for you that makes the whole process fully-automatic, so that WordPress will do the work for you.

For WordPress websites read: How To Create A WordPress Sitemap

What Is A Sitemap?

A sitemap is a file (or set of files) that lists all the pages on your website, including their full website address (URL). There are several formats, but you only need to use one, and the standard that everyone accepts is now in XML.

You don’t need to know anything about this! But if you want details, visit WikiPedia to read more about website sitemaps here.

Note: a sitemap is essentially a list of website URLs that helps a search engine find all your pages. It does not override any instructions you provide to a search engine in your robots.txt file, so indexing is still regulated using robots.txt

How To Create A Website Sitemap

This method of creating a sitemap relies on all pages being reachable by a user who starts at your homepage and explores your website by clicking on links in your pages. This is reasonable, because how else will your website visitors find those pages! Even if you have some “orphan” pages that are not linked, you will have done this for special purposes and probably don’t want those indexed anyway. Otherwise, you will need to add any “orphan pages” to the sitemap manually, but this is very unusual.

We will use a website called XML Sitemap Generator. There are other free online sitemap generators, so if you know any good ones, please leave a comment.

Now let’s create a sitemap for your website:

1. Click the link to visit: http://www.xmlsitemapgenerator.org/
2. Type in the address of your website, such as “http://theWebalyst.com”
3. The default settings are almost certainly adequate, and the “Advanced Settings” only needed if you want to control which pages are included or excluded, so you can ignore those.
4. Enter the “captcha” code (4 letters)
5. Click “Generate Sitemap” and wait. For a handful of pages this will be quick, but for a website with lots of pages it can take some time, especially if your web server is overloaded! When it is done you will be presented with a download link.
6. Click the download sitemap link to save a copy of the sitemap file to your computer. This should be a file such as “sitemap.xml.gz”
7. Click the “view sitemap” link and check that it looks ok. It is important to do this in case there were any problems “crawling” all your pages. Examine the listing to check that the links are sensible and look for errors in the output, such as “404 : Not Found”. If it doesn’t look right, or you find errors that matter, try again.

Now you have a sitemap sitting on your computer, although at this point some sitemap generators offer the option to submit your sitemap to search engines for you. Its ok to do this, but don’t rely on it.

I’ll tell you what to do with your sitemap in a moment, but remember, as your website changes you’ll need to update and republish your sitemap because the old one will become out of date.

What To Do With A Sitemap

The first thing to do is upload your sitemap file to the home (or ‘root’) folder on your website. So if your sitemap file is called “sitemap.xml.gz”, it should be accessable as:

http://yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml.gz

Next, make a note of the URL or website address of your sitemap and read the following post:

How To Get Your Website Indexed Fast In Google, Bing, Yahoo! & Ask

How To Create A Sitemap

theWebalyst.com Blog

Web Marketing and WordPress Websites for Small Business

This article is for newbies, and for anyone who has already tried SEO but not managed to generate enough business online. This article I think is a good read, or at least its a bit long, hopefully enjoyable. It explains what you need to know about SEO to make the right choices, and why SEO it is not about getting on page one of Google (despite impressions given to the contrary).

If you survive to the end you’ll have learned the essentials you’ll need to succeed with your SEO including: what it is and is not, and how to apply it to your online business. You’ll also have some practical options to consider for improving your existing website, or for creating a new website that will benefit from affordable, effective, and practical SEO.

Oh, and for the total newbie, “SEO” is the preferable abbreviation of the ugly term “search engine optimisation”.

SEO Is NOT About Getting On Page One of Google

REALLY IMPORTANT:  SEO is not about getting to the first page of Google. If someone markets SEO services to you with a promise to get you (or your website!) on page one of Google, I advise you as follows: laugh long and hard as you put the phone down, or if in person, frown disapprovingly for a moment, let out a large sigh and turn away. This may require practise, see below.

Be aware that the phrase “page one of Google” indicates a sales pitch, and not a useful goal for you. A lot of people imagine this is what SEO is about because the phrase is so often used by people offering to do SEO. But that doesn’t make it true.

It would be great though wouldn’t it? To get on page one of Google for just a few hundred dollars! They’ll swear they can deliver, offer guarantees, and you will be tempted because you want it so much! But don’t be, I refer you to my instrucions above. Practice them in the mirror whenever you feel the temptation coming on, or you’ll end up wasting $500 or more more for no return, I promise. In the UK I’ve known people pay £500 on this promise.

I’m not saying it can’t be done, or that they won’t get you on page one of Google. There certainly are some reputable SEOs who spend all day doing this for certain businesses. I even know some of them! A very specialised area of SEO is indeed about trying get to the top of the “SERP” rankings in Google and other search engines.

What I am saying is that getting to “page one of Google” is an SEO strategy that won’t benefit you. Firstly, there is always the risk of a fly by night scam, but even if you do get on “page one,” it will fail for you one way or another. For example, it will fail if you are on page one for a search that doesn’t generate many visitors, or which sends visitors who don’t buy from your website. Even done well, getting on page one would only be one part of a successful SEO strategy. Without the other pieces properly arranged around it, the picture will be incomplete, and it will fail.

There are other risks too. Highly targetted SEO of this kind almost always involves tricks. A kind of ducking and diving, while “in the ring” with a 400lb gorilla called Google (or do I mean Matt Cutts?). By this I mean that this approach is RISKY, as well as flawed.

It is risky because even if your “page one of Google” SEO is for real, he’s going to employ specialist and potentially risky tecnhiques aimed at carefully selected keyphrases, on selected pages. Note the uses of “selected” as well as “risky”. Being on page one doesn’t guarantee sales as I’ve pointed out, and it can get you into trouble.

Getting on page one will require you spending a significant amount of money, I’ll guarantee that, and could end up making things worse. Because, if he doesn’t dodge that gorilla, you might end up dropped by Google entirely. It happens, and Google is constantly training its gorilla to be cleverer and more agile. That’s Matt Cutts’ full time job, and he’s a very smart guy at the head of large team of other very smart guys.

So yes, the “page one of Google” SEO does exist, and if you’re lucky you’ll find the genuine article. But I tell you now, in words of one sylable: HE IS NOT FOR YOU. How do I know this when I know nothing about you? I know because you are reading an article called “SEO For Newbies”, that’s how!

That you’re reading SEO For Newbies tells me that you are not part of the very narrow demographic of informed risk takers, who know the pros and cons of the “page one” kind of SEO. Therefore, you aren’t in a position to make an informed choice about the risks and rewards. And for your information, neither am I; you and I are in the same boat. So let me tell you what SEO is for at least 90% of us, newbies and experienced, or do I mean grumpy old, online business owners alike.

What About Payment By Results SEO?

Surely payment by results is ok? you might say. But this is another sales pitch, like those no-win, no-fee accident lawyers and PPI claimsters. Before trying a “payment by results SEO” you need to understand the implications.

I recently had a friend come to me because his website had been doing great, from payment by results SEO as it turns out. He came to me in a panic because last month his web traffic plummetted (after a Google update code-named “Panda”) and he was panicking because his business had come to depend on his Google traffic.

You see by employing SEO’s on “payment by results” his traffic was artificially inflated by an SEO who was not incentivised to invest in his business. The SEO was incentivised towards short-term performance, and the use of risky SEO techniques to artificially inflate the performance of the website, rather than to invest in creating a website worthy of the traffic (which is what good, sustainable SEO is about).

If the “pay by results” SEO does good, sustainable SEO he won’t get to eat, because that takes time, and you won’t be paying him for most of it! The situation is made worse because many of these guys are based oversees (e.g. in India). If he knows you’ll never meet face to face, it is even more tempting, or attractive to people who will just as soon empty your wallet and then move onto the next “mark”.

Payment by results is generally a bad idea. If you want an SEO to invest in your business—which means to build your SEO performance for the long term—you need to incentivise them on this basis: not for short term gain.

So employ an SEO who you pay from day one, and expect to continue paying as the results improve even if this is slow. Expect to keep paying them in the longer term too, because to maintain performance needs ongoing work too. This incentivises the SEO because he gets to eat if he keeps you happy in the long term. If your results suddenly plummett, its as much of a disaster for him as it is for you, because you’ll probably fire him. So he’ll work hard to avoid this. So he’ll do “sustainable SEO”, and its win-win. Now if your business becomes somewhat dependent on the traffic, its ok because there’s less risk involved, though you’d be wise to plan for the eventuality all the same. That’s good business management.

Ok, so “payment by results SEO” and “getting on page one SEO” is not good SEO. So what is good SEO?

What Is Good SEO?

I’m not going to answer you What Is SEO! Instead I’m going to be more helpful! I’m going to explain it in terms of things you probably already have a good grasp of.

SEO is like:

• the care you took to proof read your business card design
• the time you spent choosing a name and logo for your business
• the strapline you crafted
• the agonizing you did over the style, colours and layout of your website, leaflets or brochure

What this means is that SEO is about being professional, doing at least the basics well so that you don’t come across to people, or in this instance Google, as incompetent, sloppy or unreliable. SEO is about presenting yourself, or rather your website, to Google as a competent, well put together online business.

Getting closer to the actual work of SEO, SEO is also:

• ensuring your website contains all the essential information your customers expect
• making the nagigation menus, clear and logical
• the crafting of relevant, informative and clear titles for the pages
• providing a range of content that will appeal to many different people
• ensuring your content focuses on the key demographics you want to address
• keeping the website fresh and useful, topical, regularly updated

Much of this is common sense and obvious good practice. But the relative importance of certain elements in getting Google to recognise your website—such as adding new or topical content—only becomes apparent when you realise how much they can impact your SEO. Without this understanding, you might dismiss this as too much effort.

Ther’s a lot more to SEO and not all of it is common sense. Numerous do’s, don’ts,”trade secrets” and so on, which are not obvious and so are easily overlooked, or which applied incorrectly will have a detrimental effect. Or which are only worth the effort in special cases.

What I’m saying here is that you should not regard SEO as a magic bullet that will make or break your business by sending you zillions of eager customers or clients. You can’t just pay someone $500 and create a money machine. Think about that for more than five seconds and you’ll realise why that isn’t possible.

What SEO Is

SEO is part of what you need for a website that works well. A website that Google will want to send visitors, and mainly visitors are likely to want what you have to offer.

SEO covers a range of activities, many focussed on the website, and some about other things such as social networks or attracting links from other websites. However, most SEO techiques or activities are still not going to be worthwhile for you. There are only a small band of businesses for whom the cost of doing a lot of  SEO is going to be made up for by the additional revenue you will generate as a result.

For most of us then, SEO is about knowing which are the most important things, and focussing on those until you have them all done, and have learned enough to be able to judge when it is worth doing (i.e. spending) more to try and boost your sales, and when it is not.

SEO Is Like Advertising

In this respect, SEO is like advertising: you can spend as little or as much as you want. But the “magic key” to success, is finding the right balance between what you spend and the sales this expenditure generates. Note for later: this means you will need to estimate the cost and the benefit of your SEO, just as you would do to try and get value from your advertising.

Reminder: What SEO is/is not

Ok, by now you probably get the gist. SEO isn’t a silver bullet, but it is important, vital even. And, like a poor website or business card, if you don’t get the basics right, business is going to suffer. If you give out a scruffy business card containing typos, you won’t get the sale. And if you don’t give the same attention to SEO that you do to all your marketing materials, Google too will throw your card in the trash and not send you its valued customers.

SEO in a Nutshell

Putting SEO in a nutsell: to make money, Google strives to be the best way to find good websites, or people won’t use it. So you need to: 1) provide a good website and, 2) make sure Google can see that it is a good website.

The Best Way To Do SEO

Remembering the analogy of SEO working like your brochures and advertising, the best way to do SEO is:

• get the basic SEO of your website right
• pay attention to SEO whenever you do anything to your website
• focus on the most effective measures first, then gradually increase the scope and time spent on SEO until it is no longer cost effective to take it further, maintaining it at this level thereafter
• monitor the cost of “extra SEO” activities, measure their impact, and assess their effectiveness

To achieve this, you have the following implementation options:

• either learn a lot about SEO, or
• get someone who understands it to advise on SEO as you go, and get training in SEO for each of the things you do yourself, or
• hand over most website and content related tasks to someone who will pay attention to the SEO impact while doing them. I call this SEO-Aware Website Management

There are other options, but they all end in tears so I wasn’t going to list them. But at the risk of boring you to death, here are a few:

• Build a website without attention to SEO and wonder why no-one is visiting it.
• Pay someone to do an “SEO audit” or “SEO Website Review” (I’ve don a few of these), which will tell you everything you need to do to fix it. You Google’d all that together yourself on a dull wet afternoon, but neither that nor the audit will tell you how important each action is to your business, or how long it will take to make a difference. That will be revealed as part of an ongoing SEO strategy.
• Get a designer who knows about SEO to create your website and then forget about it. Later, when you realise this website doesn’t get many visitors, decide unfairly that the designer didn’t do the SEO properly. This is unfair because SEO is an ongoing activity that takes time to have an impact. It is not, as explained earlier, a one-off quick fix. So it is not the designer’s fault if you don’t take it forward, it will be your fault for not following one of the options I set out above.
• There is of course also the possibility that you employ a designer who doesn’t know enough about SEO to do it properly!
• … and now fill your own scenarios here. There are many more ways to mess up with SEO.

The upshot of all this is that SEO is important if you want your website to generate business. In the same way that good design of your website is important if you want people to feel they can trust you, and make sure they can find what they want to know about you and your products. So you must do SEO properly. This almost certainly means employing someone to advise you, train you, or to do it for you. And SEO must be done not just at the start when the website is built, but afterwards whenever the website is changed, re-organised, moved or added to. And good SEO almost always requires ongoing work to create value, and build credibility online, not least with Google.

But beware. You need an SEO “expert” who doesn’t just know the ins and outs of SEO techniques. You need one who understands how to make it work for your business. You’ll need to avoid those who don’t take time to get to know your business, or who know some techniques but not about strategy. Above all you’ll need to avoid those who make a living out of a slick SEO sales pitch, but lack depth of knowledge about this complex subject. Remember, the sales pitch will be tempting, so keep practising in the mirror as instructed.

Having read this far you can relax a bit because clearly you get it, or are starting to and only one problem remains: If you don’t understand the ins and outs of SEO, how can you select an SEO expert to advise, train or do your SEO for you. How can an SEO newbie choose an SEO expert?

How To Choose An SEO Expert?

A tricky one this: How to choose an SEO expert when as an SEO newbie, you can’t test their SEO knowledge, and you can’t tell if what they say about SEO is true or a tempting sales pitch?

Well, here’s a test: do you trust what I have told you so far? Does it sound reasonable? Or are the promised benefits irresistable, results guaranteed, or have the air of being too good to be true?

Do you even remember the benefits I mentioned and gave such a soft sell? In case you don’t, the main benefit I’ve mentioned so far is not having Google toss your business card in the bin and never send you any visitors! Actually there are really great benefits, and I will get to them, but coming back to the point. How do you choose an SEO?

Well, what a good SEO tells you will make sense. It will not just sound reasonable, they will be prepared to spend time explaining and answering your questions until you understand it as much has you feel you need. They won’t be touchy about revealing techniques. They won’t be dismissive, evasive, or make you feel silly for even asking. They won’t be offering a one-off quick fix, because they know the real amazing benefits of SEO are from consistent ongoing attention to it.

An important element of SEO is applying it consistently over time, so someone offering a quick fix is feeding you a line. A good SEO can afford to take time with you because they are interested in a long term relationship with you. Even if you want to learn and do your own SEO, and they only get to give you initial advice or provide some training, you’ll still be a happy bunny and a good source of referrals for them. So, a good SEO is one who is willing to invest their time in you, and encourages you in the direction of a steady ongoing SEO strategy.

Either way, they won’t be the outfit that promises to do SEO for a one-off fee, and guarantees the results. If you get such an offer and can’t see the trapdoor in it, send or describe it to me and I’ll explain what I think about it and why.

What Are The Benefits Of SEO?

Well, aside from not being shunned by Google completely, if you do SEO properly over time, and most of your competition are doing it a little less well than you, you will gradually find more and more visitors coming to your website. But crucially, they won’t be just any old visitors, they will be people who want what you have to offer and are ready to buy.

If you do SEO well and consistently over time, you won’t only be getting just from Google but also other sources, links shared on social networks and from other websites, blogs and forums. This is because good SEO is necessarily about creating a good website, that people will want to share and link to once they’ve found it.

An SEO strategy takes time, but it works. I know, because I have done it myself.

What doesn’t work, and risks backfiring on you badly, is a quick fix that will supposedly get you on page one of Google. Like the lottery, it may work in a very few special cases, leading to convincing testimonials, but it cannot work for the many. An SEO using this as a general sales pitch is pretending that it can work for everyone, which is not true.

So if you’d like advice on SEO, training in how to do SEO, or someone who can assure your SEO while managing changes to your website, get in touch.

Helping You With SEO Strategy & Implementation

I can advise you on SEO strategy for your business. I create websites from scratch that are properly SEO’d throughout. I can take your existing website and make it into Google’s friend. I write new content (or can re-write what you already have) using SEO techniques to create copy that is clear and useful to your visitors, and will also be lapped up by Google. I can advise on changes to your visitor targetting, user experience and conversion processes. Re-organise your website structure, move it to another domain or website host, and make sure Google that doesn’t spurn you in the process. I can extend your SEO beyond your website, where it goes into attracting traffic from Facebook, Twitter, Google+, blogs, forums and other websites.

Oh, and those geeky SEO terms such as meta tags, permalinks, htaccess redirects, keywords and HTML tags are all rolled into what I do or can teach you about.

I haven’t mentioned the jargon until now because it doesn’t help understanding of what you, as a newbie, need to know about SEO. In fact, the geeky techniques tend to change all the time, so for most business owners understanding and applying SEO is more about what I’ve conveyed in this article, than it is about tags, keywords and 301 redirects. So once you understand this article, you are all set!

Is SEO Relevant To Your Business?

SEO is relevent to every online business, even the smallest, and I help many one-person businesses such as freelancers, practitioners and therapists. So don’t hesitate to get in touch, and don’t worry if you are intimidated by the jargon, or daunted by how complicated it all sounds.

I’ll guide you through what you want to know, and will find a way of applying SEO to your business which works, including a level of activity and spend that is affordable and will bring you customers and clients.

Please get in touch if you have any questions or would like some help with SEO in your business. You can call, email via the contact form, or leave a comment below. I’d love to hear your stories, questions, or just about whether you found this useful!

SEO For Newbies

theWebalyst.com Blog

Web Marketing and WordPress Websites for Small Business

My ‘pommy’ accent shows that this isn’t really an op-ed by the renowned media mogul, but don’t be surprised if one appears here soon. Because from what I’ve learned about him, if it made sense, I’m sure he wouldn’t hesitate to offer a guest post or response.

So let me tell you what happened and what I’ve learned…

Rupert Murdoch Replied To My Tweet

I’ve never met Rupert Murdoch so I don’t know very much about him. Just a few facts and overall impressions. I can be sure he’s good at getting what he wants out of people, which means he’s intelligent, skillful with people, can convey what he wants, and can motivate.

Anyway, here are the tweets:

@rupertmurdoch Newspapers would be better if they weren’t owned by a few rich individuals. That’s why the web is so good. We need both.

— markhughes (@markhughes) April 15, 2012

Rupert’s tweet to me:

@markhughes newspapers not so rich, in fact all struggling, getting overpriced as classified now on web, Amazon hurting big stores, etc.

— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) April 15, 2012

From our very brief interaction I don’t see him as a great listener, which suggests he can ignore others, or devalue them or their needs next to his own. Can’t we all! Listening is actually a rare and difficult skill.

What I Learned About How To Use Twitter

1) Engagement Is For Everyone

The first lesson is that engagement is for everyone, including those with celebrity who you might not expect it from. If you’ve read anything about using social networks, you knew that of course, although nothing drives home a point better than seeing it in action like this.

I noticed quite a lot of surprise and anticipation when Rupert Murdoch started on Twitter just a few months ago. For me the interest was heightened by his previous venture online with MySpace. This acquisition was quickly trampled on by the rapid rise of facebook, leaving News Corporation with a large loss on the balance sheet. With that in mind, I was curious about how Rupert Murdoch would take to Twitter, when he clearly hadn’t understood Web 2.0 sufficiently before.

Rupert certainly chose an interesting time for his Twitter debut. Since arriving on twitter, he and his companies have been very much in the news. He has had a lot he could have talked about, and a lot of people have had plenty to say to and about him. Hacking scandals, his and his “generals” appearing before a UK parliamentary committee, his “most humbled” moment, apologies to those hurt by his newspapers. There was even a custard pie. Oh, and the summary closure of The News Of The World, while he was simultaneously planning The Sun On Sunday as a replacement.

He has, I think engaged with his Twitter followers much more than people expected he would want to, or be willing to give the time. He’s tweeted more personally than we might expect, but then again, not that personally! While he has also left the aforementioned “events” relatively unmarked, sticking mainly to promoting his company’s movies, papers and circulation figures. He has shared his views frequently, and reactions to what is going on more generally, offering succinct opinions on the internet, media, copyright and so on.

Rupert’s dislike of red tape was his latest tweet to catch my eye. Red tape, Rupert sees as stifling progress and development, the things which he has profited enormously from. While to me, red tape can be a band aid, an inadequate brake on the excesses of the rich and poweful. If only we’d had a bit more of it in the banking and media sectors, I might not be paying off the debts of private banks for the next decade or so. I might also be able to watch my football team for the cost of the license fee and without paying a hefty subscription to BSkyB. Oh, and the football team I grew up supporting might still have some local lads playing for it, with accents that remind me of my roots. Inadequate red tape has screwed this economy, my finances, and the world’s favourite game. And don’t get me started on FIFA, we best move on!

The only thing Rupert hasn’t said much about as far as I recall are the aforementioned “scandalous” events related to News Corp and News International. He’s tweeted little about the wrongs his businesses have done, how or why it happened, or who he holds responsible. I’ve not seen any tweets about specific unethical or criminal activities. These are extremetly important matters for everyone, including Rupert. They threaten his business and family interests. They lead recently to the resignation of his son James Murdoch from BSkyB. There is still a long way to go. But they have not had much coverage at @rupertmurdoch

Clearly Rupert likes or benefits from being in the news, or he wouldn’t be on Twitter. But he uses Twitter in specific ways, and while he appears to be replying to all and sundry, I suspect he’s quite considered in what he does and doesn’t tweet. He is using twitter in his own way, to promote his products, interests and points of view: for his own benefit.

That is Rupert’s skill, and that is what we should all pay attention to when using Twitter. Let’s not just get into blindly slagging Rupert off, hand’s up all those who’ve done that (yes me too!). Let’s not waste time engaging in ways that don’t serve us.

2) Engage In Ways That Work For You

If you have read anything about Twitter you have almost certainly heard bold statements that you should engage with your followers.

But if you read Rupert’s response to me (above), you can see that he didn’t address my point. He answered as if I had said newspapers were rich, when actually I said something else. So while he replied, he wasn’t really engaging with me, and when I commented on that he has not so far followed up. So it wasn’t all that engaging. He wasn’t interested in, or hasn’t time for a conversation with me.

Rupert shows us not to engage just because someone says you should. And just because Rupert Murdoch replies to you, don’t assume that he’s really engaging with you either. Maybe he’s gaining visibility, cultivating a more friendly image, pushing his agenda, or even having fun! That’s not important, what matters is this: What do you want, and how can you use Twitter to achieve it?

Perhaps he likes to tweet his points of view, but Rupert clearly limits how far he goes into different areas, and how he engages. So what about you? Should you use a simlar approach or be more engaging. Should you respond more directly to what your followers say to you, or make oblique replies that put your views across as we’ve seen in the above example?

We can’t know what Rupert’s motives are, but we can learn from him …the main lesson is: He’s doing it this way to make Twitter work for him, and that’s what you must do.

How To Use Twitter: Lessons From Rupert Murdoch

How to use Twitter—applying the lessons from Rupert, means:

• getting involved: explore and experiment with the medium
• listening to what others recommend
• observing how others use the medium in practice (as I have in this post)
• figuring out the ways you expect this will work for you
• using Twitter in ways that are productive for you

The final point implies you should find some means of verifying this. Both to help you stick to your plan, and to measure and make sense of the results. You’ll need to define your goals and measure the outcomes.

Case Study: How Did I Apply This Learning?

After the surprise of his reply, I responded with a tweet.

A number of others joined in, some retweeted me to thousands of followers, some picked up on the irrelevance of Rupert’s response, others made pre-conceived polemical comments.

Today I shared the brief facts on my networks as:

• a tweet on twitter
• a post on facebook
• a post on Google+
• a post on Diaspora

I then wrote this blog post, which I have shared as I did the tweets.

I will invite Rupert Murdoch to read the post (via Twitter), and if he’s interested in writing a response or makes a comment at the end of this post, no doubt I’ll share that on my networks too!

Maybe you could be more creative than me: What would you do?

Leave me a comment if you have any ideas as to what you would do if Rupert Murdoch replied to one of your tweets.

How To Use Twitter, by Rupert Murdoch (News Corp)

theWebalyst.com Blog

Web Marketing and WordPress Websites for Small Business

This is an important development because Google recently forced all its users to accept a change in its service agreement, which now allows Google to put all the information it gathers together, from all the Google services you are using.

By introducing the activity report, Google are providing you with a way to track what they are tracking. This is genuinely useful, and will help you to understand one aspect of the privacy you are giving up, and keep tabs on it over time.

What it doesn’t tell us is, what impact collecting and combining all this data may have on us. It tells us nothing about what use Google makes of this information, or anyone else Google chooses to share the information with. And let’s not forget the risk from hackers.

So when you look at what data Google has on you, ask yourself: What might the consequences be, of use by Google, or of authorised use by unknown third parties, or by hackers should a security breach happen?

Oh, one more, let’s not forget the US government, or any other government and what they might do with this information, which in the US they seem to have easy access to, without judicial approval.

How To Get A Google Account Activity Report

I recommend that anyone who uses Google sign up for these reports, which will be emailed monthly, to help you understand the implications of using Google services.

With this information you’ll be in a better position to decide what services to use, and precisely what to let Google collect about you. For example you might decide to stop Google saving your search history, or remove information from your Google+ profile and so on.

Get yours here: Sign Up for Google Account Activity Reports

Here’s what Google say you’ll get:

With Account Activity Reports you can learn what’s going on in your account, e.g. how many emails you have sent and received, how often you have searched on Google, from which countries you have logged in and how often your YouTube videos have been viewed.

Let me know what you find and if it has any effect on your use of any Google services!

Google Account Activity Report – Track What Google Tracks About You!

theWebalyst.com Blog

Web Marketing and WordPress Websites for Small Business

You will almost certainly need to act, because the new rules oblige almost every website in the EU to obtain consent from users before storing a “website cookie” that might have implications for user privacy. Almost all websites store cookies, including yours!

The EU Cookie Directive applies to websites hosted inside and outside the UK, and to any organisation providing products and services to customers in the EU.

Don’t panic: you still have time to comply, so read this post to find out what you need to do, and by when, as far as I understand it.

Disclaimer: The information here is provided in good faith (with references you can follow up), but I don’t accept responsibility for decisions or actions you take, if you base them on what I provide here. To be sure you comply, please refer to official sources such as the ICO website for detailed information and guidance on compliance with the EU cookie directive and Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations.

Deadline: The Information Commissioner’s Office has delayed enforcement in the UK until 25th May 2012, which is just as well because at the time of writing (January 2012) it is hard to find a website that has even attempted compliance.

EU Cookie Directive Summary

The remainder of this post contains page number references to ICO Guidance On The New Cookies Regulations.

The ICO guidance states:

“Those setting cookies must:

• tell people that the cookies are there,
• explain what the cookies are doing, and
• obtain their consent to store a cookie on their device.” (p8)

Who Must Comply

Examples of who must comply are “organisations based in the UK even if their website is hosted abroad,” and anyone with websites “designed for the European market” or “providing products or services to cusomers in Europe.” (p11)

That means you, right?

Keypoints and Comments

Some key extracts from the ICO cookie guidance:

• Information: “You must provide clear and comprehensive information about any cookies you are using” (p8). However, this rule has been in place since 2003 and so far hardly anyone complies. At least, I’ve never come across a page that says what cookies a website uses and what they are for, have you? Also, I am not aware of any enforcement action to date!
• Consent: “You must obtain consent to store a cookie on a user or subscribers device” (p8). Hardly anyone is complying with this yet (in January 2012), and while you are supposed to obtain consent before storage, this is often impractical. At time of writing, even the ICO’s own website violates this provision. The ICO website happens to be the only website I know that is attempting compliance at this time.
• Exemptions: are granted where there is little risk to user privacy. For example if cookies are needed for delivery of a service for which remuneration is involved (p9). Example exemptions are given including a shopping cart, security in banking website, and for improving performance (e.g. load balancing)  (p10).
• Non-exempt: Example non-exempt cookies are given too: analytics, advertising related, and per-user customisation.  (p10)

How To Get Ready For The EU Cookie Directive

What Are Your Options?

1. Do Nothing. While I don’t advise this option, “wait and see” might be considered a relatively low risk for several reasons. Firstly, looking at the web it may turn out to be the default position for a lot of websites, and so there may well be safety in numbers! You might also consider it favourable that so far there appears to have been little enforcement of earlier provisions. However, take note that the landscape has changed significantly in recent years, so privacy issues are I think much more likely to be enforced (cf. privacy violations by Google street view to name one high profile example). One might choose to gamble that the big boys will have to comply first, and to wait and see what they do, and what happens if they don’t. You might expect they are more likely to be taken to task than a small organisation. Personally, I think there is some merit in wait and see, but you will have to take the consequences should it turn out badly for you. Don’t complain to me, because I do not advise doing nothing!
2. Be Ready To Comply When Challenged. A much less risky strategy is to have something implemented, tested and ready for activation, so that you can comply the moment someone official knocks on your door. This is similar to “wait and see” but designed to reduce the risk of you suffering sanction for non-compliance and let’s you see what happens in practive before doing anything that damages your website traffic. So again, very much at your own risk.
3. Act By May 25th 2012. To reduce risk further you should do something by May 25th (or as soon after as possible), but I would suggest you avoid messing with your website user experience unless absolutely necessary. Why? Because to do so will lose you website traffic and break important parts of your website. That’s hardly doing visitors a favour is it! So for example, I would avoid popups and scarey messages like the ones at the ICO at www.ico.gov.uk. They have added an simple opt-in consent banner for every page. Here is what it looks like:

Once consent is obtained, you can enable cookies and hide the banner, but if people disable cookies they will have this banner displayed forever! No, I think there is a much better and pragmatic solution that shows willing and is in the end in the best interests of users, and that is the approach followed by the Department of Culture Media and Sport (which happens to oversee the ICO).

I think you would be unwise to do nothing, but I don’t believe many people need to go the way of the ICO (banners & popups). You should avoid damaging your website traffic with this kind of measure if at all possible. My recommendations are described next.

Recommendations For EU Cookie Law Compliance

Include A Suitable Privacy Statement: This is the minimum I recommend, and I think is also sufficient for most websites for the time being. But not just “a privacy statement” you need “a suitable privacy statement”! If you have normal access logs for maintenance and security, analytics that does not allow individuals to be identified, and where personal or identifiable information is not shared (e.g. for targetted advertising), this seems enough for now. It is open, transparent, shows willing and will not adversely affect your website traffic.

This is the model I am personally following, and is the same as the Department of Culture Media and Sport (which oversees the ICO). To achieve this easily on all my websites I created a WordPress plugin. I just installed it on each of my websites, and that’s it. I’ve made this plugin available free so if you have a WordPress website you can use the same approach yourself (see EU Cookies Plugin). If you don’t have WordPress I can implement something similar for you (see EU Cookie Services).

Websites Requiring Consent: If your website is using cookies in ways which you think require consent, you should first consider changing this to avoid the need for consent. Only if you can’t avoid this should you then follow the model of the ICO (but I encourage you to come up with some better wording, and a less intrusive banner!).

Monitor Enforcement Practices: Whatever you do, it will be enforcement practice that determines what we have to do in the end, so you should also keep an eye on this in the coming weeks and months. One way will be to follow me on Facebook or Twitter, or subscribe to my Newsletter.

Deciding What To Do About Website Cookies

At this point you must either make a judgement on what to do yourself, or seek advice from someone you can trust on this issue. If you choose to do this yourself I suggest you compare your use of cookies with email signup, something we all know should only be done with consent. Consider how sensitive any personal information you gather is, and what you do with it, and whether it is shared with anyone else.

You might find this recent BBC article useful, which makes some interesting observations on the likely attitude and ability of enforcement by the ICO: Cookies: Majority of government sites to miss deadline (BBC). One might easily conclude enforcement will be limited to gross abuses or very high profile cases. The article suggests that there will be a light touch so long as you show willing (e.g. with a decent privacy page), and with serious sanction reserved for cases of willful evasion. We’ll see!

Help With EU Cookie Law Compliance

WordPress Websites: For WordPress websites I have created a free plugin which automatically adds a privacy statement for your website. You can install it free yourself, or pay a small fee for me to install and test it for you. Then read the privacy statement and make sure you aren’t doing anything outside what is stated.

Get the EU Cookies Plugin here: theWebalyst.com EU Cookie Services

Non-WordPress Websites: If you don’t have a WordPress website, I can create a similar page for you. To find out how much this will cost, reply to this email with your website address and tell me you’d like me to quote for a standard EU cookie page.

Complex Websites: If you need help assessing your website’s use of cookies, advice on what to do, or with implementation, take a look at theWebalyst.com EU Cookie Services or reply and tell me what you would like help with. This might involve a discussion, or if you want to a more detailed understanding I can perform an EU Cookie Audit: a thorough audit of the cookies your website uses, where they come from, and what they do. Then we can identify the solution that gives you legal compliance while having minimum impact on your website traffic.

If you have questions please leave a comment, or contact me for a quote.

How To Get Ready For The EU Cookie Directive (Deadline May 25th 2012)

theWebalyst.com Blog

Web Marketing and WordPress Websites for Small Business

On most hosting services these days you can use an application installer to make the application installation in a few clicks. This post explains how to do this on our web hosting service, using Softaculous (which supports hundreds of other web applications as well as WordPress).

How To Install WordPress On Your Web Hosting Service

To install WordPress takes only a few clicks, but its worth making sure you start off with sensible settings, as explained here.

These instructions apply specifically for http://ManagedWebsiteHosting.net but are fairly standard and will be applicable to most hosting services.

Step 1 – Log Into cPanel

Go to the cPanel login page by typing your website into your browser address bar with “:2082″ added to the end. So if your website is at “http://mydomain.com” type “http://mydomain.com:2082“

You should see a cPanel login form, so type in your web hosting username and password. This was sent to you in an email when you signed up, with subject “New Account Information”.

Step 2 – Start Softaculous

Once you are inside cPanel, scroll down and find the Softaculous icon (under “Software/Services”) and click it. This will start Softaculous, which contains a list of hundreds of web applications and scripts. On the left is a list of categories such as “Blogs”, “Micro Blogs”, “Portals/CMS” etc.

Step 3 – Installing WordPress

Softaculous is an application installer and is the easiest way to install WordPress.

Within Softaculous, choose “Blogs” (top left), then select “WordPress” and then click “Install”. This displays a form which is filled out with a number of default settings.

You can leave most of the defaults unchanged, but I suggest you change the following:

• In Directory – make this blank (so your website will be at “http://www.mydomain.com” rather than “http://www.mydomain.com/wp“ i.e. not in a subdirectory).
• Admin Username – choose something other than “admin” that you will remember, such as your first name (e.g. “brian”). This makes things a little more difficult for would-be hackers.
• Admin Password – please don’t leave this as “pass”! I have a blog post to help here: How To Choose A Good Password You Can Remember
• Admin Email – make sure this is a valid email address

Note: “Site Settings” can be edited now or left unchanged until later, because you can edit them in WordPress.

Before you install, I suggest you provide a valid email address under “Email installation details to :” so you will be sent a copy of everything on this form. It may be useful one day, so keep it safe!

Now click “Install” and in just a minute or so WordPress will be set up.

You should be able to see your WordPress website right away. Just type your website address into your browser!

You can then log-in to configure WordPress, and to begin adding pages.

Now Configure WordPress

Before you start adding pages to your new WordPress website you will need to log in, and should take time to configure WordPress properly for security, SEO, backup and so on. This is beyond the scope of this short post, but it is important as some things will be hard to change later.

Login To WordPress Dashboard

If you installed with the settings suggested above, i.e. not in a subdirectory, your WordPress login page will be at “http://www.mydomain.com/wp-admin”

If you installed WordPress in a subdirectory, by setting “In Directory” to “wp” for example, your WordPress login page will be at “http://www.mydomain.com/wp/wp-admin”.

WordPress Settings

You can read up and learn how to configure WordPress yourself, or get an expert to make sure it is correctly configured for your purpose. An expert can save a lot of time, and should ensure WordPress is configured properly for SEO, set up your intial pages and WordPress theme, and install the most reliable and appropriate plugins to provide the features, security and backup you need.

If you want help with this see my WordPress set-up and hosting service.

If you just want capable WordPress website hosting see my WordPress Hosting Service (all hosting plans support WordPress under Softaculous, or installed manually using FTP if you prefer).

How To Install WordPress Using Softaculous – The Easy Way

theWebalyst.com Blog

Web Marketing and WordPress Websites for Small Business

Google+ appears to have become dominated by a small elite of “big guns” (some actually paid by Google). These people have massive followings and hoover up the interaction of others who’s posts pass relatively unnoticed. Ordinary users tend to find crumbs of interaction in the comment threads of the posts from the elite few, but find it hard to find attract followers.

My impression is that in its rush to create a community large enough to compete with Facebook, Google+ has created its own version of the so-called 1percent / 99percent imbalance!

So what are the facts?

How Google+ And Diaspora* Compare—Starting Points

Google+: 40+ million users (November 2011). Opened to public September 2011.

Diaspora*: 200,000 users interacting on joindiaspora.com (November 2011)

I’ve been using Diaspora* since early October and Google+ a little longer. I am very active on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and Diaspora*.

Google+ versus Diaspora*—Analysis Of Interaction

In mid November I published an identical post simultaneously on Google+ and Diaspora*. The post was a brief, rough and ready, subjective comparison of the two services after my first few weeks using them side-by-side.

One of the points I made was that as an ordinary user, my posts were routinely getting far more interaction than any posts have ever done on Google+. This despite 200x more users on Google+ than Diaspora*. In that post I gave some thought to why that might be (see links to the post at the end).

A day later, the different levels of interaction on the two services were evident in the differing number of Likes, Reshares and Comments the post received on each service. Here are the results.

Google+ 1 Like, 2 reshares, 4 comments

Diaspora* 36 Likes, 41 reshares, 61 comments

Oh, and in that same period (1 day) my contacts grew disproportionately on Diaspora* too:

Google+ Followers 115 (+4) Followed by 71 (+4)

Diaspora* Followers 179 (+34), Followed by 204 (+42)

I was pretty active that day and my followers don’t grow at this rate every day, but I am getting more and more interactions and follows as time passes. Looks like I’ll hit the singularity in early 2012

I’d love to hear your impressions of either service whether they are consistent or inconsistent with my own.

You can read my subjective comparison of Google+ versus Diaspora*, and see how the interaction has continued. Read it on either Diaspora* or Google+ below:

Diaspora*: Google+ versus Diaspora*

Google+: Google+ versus Diaspora*

Google+ versus Diaspora*—Blog Post Interaction Analysis

theWebalyst.com Blog

Web Marketing and WordPress Websites for Small Business

Ilya Zhitomirskiy1989-2011

In this post I’ll explain why I think Diaspora* will outlast Facebook and Google+, even though it may never reach their level of popularity. I’ll explain why Diaspora* does not need to compete with them to be a success, and why I think one or both could well fail and be replaced by Diaspora* or a similar user-oriented, non-commercial social network.

RIP Ilya Zhitomirskiy – A Short Tribute

Sadly, in the last few days we heard of the premature death at age 22, of Ilya Zhitomirskiy (pictured here), one of the four founders of Diaspora*.

While details of Ilya’s death have yet to become public, the community has been awash with tributes and heartfelt messages, alongside a growing confidence that Diaspora* will continue to grow and flourish, and that this will be part of Ilya’s legacy.

Naturally Ilya’s death has drawn attention to the project, creating a surge in interest and reporting about Diaspora*, which is yet to launch to the public although there is already a healthy and active community of test users, including over 175,000 on one of the larger “pods” (joindiaspora.com). The team have recently been very active in preparing for the first public release (and moving Diaspora* from alpha to beta), and still expected within the next few weeks.

It is my belief that Diaspora*, to which Ilya contributed so much, is already a success as I will explain shortly.

I did not know Ilya, but I am grateful to him and his colleagues for taking such a bold and admirable step. They have created what is surely a great and innovative solution to many of the problems faced by millions of ordinary people who are exploited, or even put at risk by the profit imperative commercial social networks.

I offer my condolences to Ilya’s family and all who knew him.

Can Diaspora* Compete With Facebook And Google+?

Much of this discussion about Diaspora* has focussed on whether or not it can compete in terms of numbers with Facebook, and Google+. In this article I will address that question, but also some others which I think anyone interested in the future of social networks should be thinking about. These are:

1. Does Diaspora* need to compete with Facebook?

2. Could Diaspora* ever overtake Facebook?

As Diaspora* prepares to launch…

3. How does Diaspora* compare to Facebook or Google+?

4. Should I Try Diaspora* Yet?

I’ll take these in order, being brief in this post, and referring to separate posts for more detail where needed.

Does Diaspora* need to compete with Facebook?

Frankly, no, Diaspora* does not need to compete with Facebook to succeed. This is easy to see. To be a success, all Diaspora* has to achieve is to keep a bunch of users happy, and it is already achieving that before launch.

As I see it, there is no risk to Diaspora* from Facebook (or Google+). Reaching hundreds of millions of users is essential to commercial social networks, because they have to operate on a big scale to cover their enormous costs, and they use economy of scale to undercut commercial competitors and eliminate competing services. So Facebook, Google+ and Twitter must obtain very large numbers of users, and cannot all be profitable in the same market for long (without external regulation such as anti-monopoly measures).

You might think that with 800 million users (November 2011, for latest see: stats from Facebook), Facebook is unassailable. I certainly won’t argue that it is vulnerable! However where is the real threat to Facebook? Perhaps it is Google+.

Is Google+ A Threat To Facebook?

Google+ has grown rapidly since launch and has “40+ million users” (in November 2011, according to Google). However, given the enormous advantage of Facebook it looks unlikely that Google+ can survive in a commercial face-off. To overtake Facebook its going to need a killer differentiator, and that is not evident yet. In fact, comparing functionality, there is little to differentiate Facebook and Google+, or Diaspora* for that matter.

At this point therefore, Google+ seems doomed to fail and ultimately be killed off. This is because to cover its costs it needs to increase in size by a factor of at least ten before Google+ pulls the plug on the enormous costs involved. Otherwise economies of scale will give Facebook cost advantage that will starve Google+ of the revenue it needs to cover the enormous costs of running a centralised network for hundreds of millions of users.

Where Is The Real Threat To Facebook?

To threaten Facebook, a rival will need a significant differentiator. When Facebook took out the seemingly unassailable MySpace, its differentiator was that it managed to appeal to almost anyone on the internet, rather than the much smaller niche of young music consumers that had come to dominate MySpace. Facebook overtook MySpace and once this happened a tipping point was reached that caused MySpace to rapidly lose users to Facebook. Facebook won because it had broader appeal and more potential friends to connect with.

So if Google+ lacks a killer differentiator, could it be that Diaspora* has what it would take to kill off Facebook? Well, there is one very big difference that could be crucial.

Could Diaspora* ever overtake Facebook?

If there is ever a Facebook face-off, the threat is more likely to come from Diaspora* than Google+.

That may sound ridiculous to some, and I am not saying it is going to happen, but that its more likely to be Diaspora* or some other non-commercial social network that succeeds Facebook. For it is when faced by a non-commercial competitor, that the enormous vulnerability of Facebook is exposed: its need to generate massive revenues from users.

Facebook, Google+ and Twitter all have this same Achilles heel. They have shareholders to please and massive operating costs to recover. To survive they have to make a profit or they will disappear. They have to make money out of their users.

Now compare this situation with what Diaspora* needs in order to survive.

Can Diaspora* Survive Alongside Facebook?

To date Diaspora* has been funded by enthusiastic supporters. A bunch of people who were inspired by the vision of four student founders, and agreed to give them some money to get the project up and running.

The initial funding was tiny compared to Facebook’s resources, just two hundred thousand dollars. But Diaspora* does not need to pay back even this small investment. Nor does it incur significant running costs that need to be recovered. I don’t know the exact running costs but they are small, and because everything is donated, there is no profit needed to grow the investment of shareholders.

Some donate cash from $5 upwards, others donate time, others donate a server and so on. Almost anyone technically savvy can set up a server and be incorporated into the network. The software itself is developed and maintained by a large, intelligent and active community who are involved because they believe in the aims and values of the project, as conceived by Ilya and his three co-founders. So how can Diaspora* fail? It is still pre-release software (alpha), yet I’ve been using it for the last few weeks and watching the community grow rapidly with lots of positive feedback from its enthusiastic users.

There is no doubt in my mind that Diaspora* can survive indefinitely, whatever happens to Facebook or a successor, without ever needing to make a profit. All it needs is a small group of enthusiastic developers who see enough value in it to be willing to maintain it, and a community that wants to deploy it. There are lots of precedents to show that this is more than likely (cf. Linux, Apache, LibreOffice).

3. How does Diaspora* compare to Facebook or Google+?

Rather than compare a long list of features and functionality, which are frankly pretty similar across all three, I’m going to mention the main differences in features, and my experience with all three.

[please nag me to complete this in a comment!]

In the mean time you may like to read my analysis of interaction on Google+ and Diaspora*:

Google+ versus Diaspora*—Blog Post Interaction Analysis

4. Should I Try Diaspora* Out?

[please nag me to complete this in a comment!]

Can Diaspora* Compete With Facebook And Google+?

theWebalyst.com Blog

Web Marketing and WordPress Websites for Small Business

A heading in bold makes it easier for someone to spot what your post is about when it arrives in their feed, and using italics for quotations etc.

By highlighting the important words and phrases you can help busy readers assimilate the information more easily, improving readability, and of course helps your post to stand out against unformatted content.

How To Format Google+ Posts Using Bold Or Italics

To format your text all you do is surround it with * (asterisk) for bold or _ (underline) for italic. You can also use – (minus) for strikethrough style. Here are some examples:

Typing this:
To make *three words bold,* and one _italic,_ and one -strikethough.-

Will look like this:
To make three words bold, and one italic, and one strikethough.

Careful formatting of your Google+ posts can be a win-win for both you and your followers.

How To Format Google+ Posts Using Bold Or Italic Text

theWebalyst.com Blog

Web Marketing and WordPress Websites for Small Business