Microsoft ahead of Google & Yahoo in Total Time Spent Online

Despite all the benefits reaped by other companies, this will surely come as a surprise to some. Industry tracker comScore, Inc., last week released a study showing that, in terms of time spent on sites, the Redmond-based Microsoft sites ranked as the most engaging global property in September, followed by Google, Yahoo, and Facebook.

According to the study, Microsoft websites seized nearly 15 percent of time spent online worldwide in September, and almost 70 percent of the time spent on its sites was through Windows Live Messenger.

In September, Internet users spent on the Microsoft website in total 3.9 billion hours, or 14.5% of the time surfing. Such are the calculations of market analysts comScore. In second place were the statistics page of Google against Yahoo! and Facebook. According to comScore, Internet users spent 1.4 billion hours a community party, which gives about 193% higher than in September 2008.

Own research as a basis for the results of the comScore panel studies 2 million users in 170 countries, which shall then be converted into 1.2 billion Internet users aged 15 years or more who use it at home or at work. According to analysts in September, Internet users were on the net total of 27 billion hours. Of the time spent on Microsoft’s website, almost 70% to the Windows Live Messenger. Google Pages users have viewed some 2.5 billion hours, or 9.3% of total time, slightly less than half that time falls on video website YouTube.

Twitter flying high: Lufthansa offers on board facilities

Lufthansa offers plane location info for Twitter, Facebook. Lufthansa has designed an online tool to allow air travelers to share updates during their journeys via Twitter and Facebook.

Dubbed MySkyStatus, the application takes users’ flight information, including departure and arrival data, and matches it to Lufthansa’s feed of airline traffic. The result: automated tweets or Facebook status messages when flights take-off and land, as well as updates en route.

As quoted in media, “Lufthansa digital agency Profero in New York devised the tool, available for any flight, as a simple way to prove the brand’s differentiation, which is its “passion for precision,” says Profero North America CEO Wayne Arnold.

Lufthansa plans to support MySkyStatus with a marketing campaign, and it is considering integrating that effort with the booking engine on Lufthansa.com.

Google shuts down many Products

Just recently, Google’s 3D world Lively was shut down. Now Google announced they’re canceling a couple of other products or product features. These are:

• Mobile service Dodgeball. “We have decided to discontinue Dodgeball.com in the next couple of months, after which this service will no longer be available,” Google says. The original founders of this Google-acquired company already left a while ago in frustration due to Google allegedly not evolving their product.

• The Mashup editor, which is still only available in a limited test version. This product, originally released in 2007, was letting you create programs accessing and mixing APIs like the Google Maps API. Google suggests the App Engine would now be the way to go, as far as Google products go. “Existing Mashup Editor applications will stop receiving traffic in six months,” Google notes.

• Video uploading at Google Video. For quite a while now Google had made acquired YouTube their official video upload site, at least judging by things like where Google uploaded their own content for official blog posts (and judging by how much easier it was to get videos onto YouTube in terms of speed and lack of bugs). Google Video is a meta video search engine these days. Now that change in direction has become more completed and official: “In a few months, we will discontinue support for uploads to Google Video,” Google writes, adding that existing uploaded content won’t be removed, though.

• Google Catalog. This was a bit of a precursor to Google Print, now known as Google Book Search. The scanned and OCR’d catalogs of this collection are painfully out of date by now, tough. “[W]e’re bidding it a fond farewell” Google says, stating they want to focus efforts “to bring more and more types of offline information such as magazines, newspapers and of course, books, online.”

• Last not least, Google Notebook – while not being directly canceled – won’t be worked on anymore. “Starting next week, we plan to stop active development on Google Notebook. This means we’ll no longer be adding features or offer Notebook for new users.” Google say they will continue offer the service for existing users. The Notebook extension won’t be supported anymore, though, Google adds. Google suggests users look into Google Docs, as well as the SearchWiki feature.
  

10 cost effective tips for upgrading small and medium sized businesses Web sites.

With economic slowdowns, it is critical for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) to employ the most powerful, unique and effective Web sites to maximize sales.

10 cost effective tips for upgrading their Web sites.

1. Simple Navigation: If you are going to design a website for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) means Medium Website Design, the navigation must be very simple and is essential element. . It is also very important to properly group the navigation and content on a SMB Web site. Too many navigation items can be challenging for users to understand. It is often better to group common pages together into a sub-navigation model.

2. Contents: Good quality contents, must relate with your site theme is very crucial for any websites. Now the size matter, Page word count is crucial for SMB Web sites. It is important to limit the number of words on a Web page. Pages that are 10,000 words long are not very user friendly when it comes to finding content.

3. Keywords: keywords are supposed to be the vital factors when your site will be there at web among lots of another websites providing same services. Keyword usage is critical to SMB Web site design success. SMBs should identify key one- to three-word phrases relevant to their business and incorporate them into the content of the Web site. This helps search engines to identify the Web site when consumers are searching for relevant businesses. SMBs must ensure the key words are focused to their type of business, target audience and include a local niche.

4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): SEO seeks to increase a site’s visibility in search engines and enhance its value to visitors through topical page design, consistent HTML tagging, and focusing content on core keywords. SEO is a great way to increase exposure for an SMB Web site. Reviewing the keywords and descriptions used on each page is essential for keeping the Web site listed in the major search engines.

5. Images: pictures tell, but words sell. This is largely true, although a web site without any images at all will be very tiring on the eye and dull for the user. Images really are worth a thousand words — when used correctly. SMB Web sites,E-Commerce Packages must optimize the images used on the site. Optimizing the images will help drastically with page load times. Shaving off a few 100kbs will save users’ bandwidth while allowing the Web site to open faster. By adding text descriptions to the images, search engines will have more data to index on an SMB Web site.

6. Google Analytics and Google AdWords: Take advantage of Google Analytics and Google AdWords. There is no better package for analyzing the traffic that comes to your site. Google Analytics offers a very robust package of reports on all Website traffic. The paid option of Google AdWords will list a Web site on additional Web sites that advertise with Google Ad Sense (a market standard). Implementing this capability on an SMB Web site takes some effort.

7. Web Compliance: Ensure an SMB Web site is xhtml/css 2.0 compliant. Redesigning an SMB Web site to be Web 2.0 compliant will ensure it is viewable across all Web browser platforms. The Web design industry has come along way since the days of designing Web sites in FrontPage and your business needs to be on the leading edge of design. Web 2.0 standards separate the content from the layout, making it easier for search engines to index the site’s content.

8. Blogging: A Blog is one of the best ways to open up communication with business prospects and customers. A blog is a Web journal that is an important tool for SMBs to communicate with consumers about the latest news, products and services relevant to their business. It can also identify the business as an industry leader and expert. Blogs are indexed more quickly than other pages by search engines, especially blog search engines, and can point search engines to other content on the SMB’s site via links. To maximize the power of a blog, SMB owners should provide interesting and thought-generating information; ask for reader comments, questions and opinions; and comment on readers’ feedback.

9. News Letter: An Internet newsletter can help maximize your overall communications efforts. SMBs can provide consumers with an expert e-mail newsletter that offers interesting, timely and entertaining information related to their businesses. Newsletters that feature tips and advice are especially helpful. SMBs should give consumers the ability to register for the newsletter on their Web site. This also provides an effective way to obtain valuable contact and marketing information that can lead to future sales.

10. User Friendliness: User-friendly sites ensure maximum use and profit. small and medium sized businesses Web sites should be designed to help visitors to find key information. It is important to clearly identify ways for customers to Choose the business packages for more product information, obtain customer support and buy products. If an SMB Web site offers direct sales, it must feature an easy to use commerce system that makes it simple for customers to purchase products and services.

For more information on website design and development and discuss various business packages please feel free to visit at : http://www.w3designs.co.uk