Category: Internet

Business Web Essentials

A free e-book to help your online presence

In conjunction with Microbusiness Week, a New South Wales government initiative to help smaller and startup businesses, we’re happy to release our Business Web Essentials e-book.

This e-book is free to all subscribers of our newsletters lists the online tools that can help your website be more effective online. While it’s aimed at business users, if you’re a blogger or community group running a website you’ll find most of the information in the book will help you as well.

Business Web Essentials lists the important web hosting, search listing, social media and cloud computing services that will help you promote and track the progress of your online presence.

Subscribe now to our weekly newsletter and receive the e-book free of charge. If you’re an existing subscriber, you’ll get the link in our regular newsletter.

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Is the dot com dead?

Will private top level domains kill the search engine?

The web is about to change with a range of new domains due to appear. But does it mean the web will get easier to surf, dot com addresses will disappear and Google quietly fade away?

It’s expected ICANN, the International Committee of Assigned Network Names is set to approve custom global Top Level Domain names – known as gLTDs – which will allow big organisations to buy their own domain names.

This idea was first announced in 2008 and was expected to be in place by the end of 2009 but the Internet bureaucracy is not known for quickly making decisions.

Once this policy is in place organisations can register their own domain and not bother with a .com or other suffix.

For example Microsoft could ditch the microsoft.com domain and move the .microsoft address with websites named support.microsoft and shop.microsoft

The cost of one of these global Top Level Domains will be $178,000 with $25,000 annual fees, given the cost it’s only going to be the largest organisations who can afford them.

Even then, we’ll see many businesses simply not bother. Given the current proposal includes strong provisions against cybersquatting, there’s no need for trademark holders to rush, it’s quite feasible that many will sit out the hype and wait for the prices to drop.

Where these domains will work well are for internal networks and secure applications where system administrators can lock out unauthorised devices from their domains.

Excluding search engine robots will provide a certain level of security along with some opportunities for corporate mischief like we’re currently seeing between Google and Facebook.

The potential for misbehaviour by owners of these domains will be a barrier for small business adoption. Few businesses or groups are going to trust their online properties to a .facebook, .ibm or .apple address when they can own a domain with the current registrars.

An application being cited is using the .music domain and selling space to performers. That’s nice but it locks them into the same risks they currently have with Facebook and MySpace that at the first sign of controversy their account will be shut down for allegedly breaching some obscure term of service.

A major problem for ICANN is going to be place names, how do you decide between Birmingham, England or Birmingham, Alabama when the .birmingham name comes into play?

Better still the argument between the city of Victoria, British Columbia and the state of Victoria, Australia becomes problematic.

Even more delightful is who owns a place name? Should Australia wrest the rights to .sydney off Nova Scotia, the dysfunctional state of Aussie politics almost guarantees an unseemly brawl between the Federal, state and local governments over the name.

The corporate sector has similar problems with similar trading names being used in different jurisdictions, Woolworths in Australia and the UK is one that immediately comes to mind.

While it’s clear many of the domain registrars think these new names are going to be a nice little cash cow, it’s not difficult to see they may have misunderstood just how complex and fraught some of the registrations will turn out to be.

Most of the registrations though will be straight forward and far from killing search engines, the further fragmentation of the net into even more domains is going to make services like Google and Yahoo! even more powerful as web surfers will find it harder to guess or remember websites.

On balance it’s unlikely the new top level domains are going to put the search engines out of business or see the dot com addresses we’ve grown used to disappear.

What we are seeing though is the evolution of the web, search engines will adapt and the addresses we use will develop as the technology changes.

It is quite possible that eventually we’ll have our own personal top level domains should we want them when the price drops to the levels we’ve become used to with dot com addresses.

This won’t happen overnight and it’s a long way off if ICANN and their members keep prices high. The famed dot com is going nowhere yet.

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The learning curve

We’re still on training wheels when it comes to using social media

When new technologies appear it’s interesting how people experiment and adapt to them, we’re seeing this right now as businesses grapple with social media tools like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and discover where the benefits lie.

The second edition of the Social Media Benchmarking Study, a joint release by Sydney online consultants Community Engine and the research company Nielson, illustrated how things have changed over the last two years.

One of the clear conclusions from the study is how businesses are developing the ways to determine benefits of their social media activity with near halving of the number of organisations citing lack of measurable return on investment as a reason for not engaging online.

A barrier that is increasing is the perception that businesses don’t have the time or resources required for which is probably business owners and managers realising that maintaining a Facebook Page, Twitter account or blog isn’t easy.

Time is the scarcest asset for any business that gets more precious with smaller organisation. Even large corporates and government departments struggle with finding the resources necessary to run effective online presences.

One of the tragedies of social media is how it’s been identified as a marketing tool and in this survey with over half the respondents stated they are going primarily use the tools as a marketing channel rather than in customer support, recruitment, research or product development.

This is probably why the perception that social media is a time sink comes from. As purely marketing tools social media is time consuming and difficult. A challenge made greater by the fact we’re all still figuring out how to effectively connect with customers in what is a hostile place to more traditional broadcast based marketing methods.

Given social media is being used primarily as a marketing tool by business, it’s no surprise that the survey found larger corporations are the biggest users as they have the marketing budgets to allocate.

An interesting aspect with big business’ social media investment is how much it’s focused on Facebook. On one level this is understandable as a Facebook “like” is easy to set up and becomes a very simple measurement to follow, although the challenge still lies in converting a low friction click on a Like button into a useful customer or advocate.

What is surprising with corporate Australia’s adoption of Facebook is the apparent lack of understanding of the platform’s terms and conditions and the business risks involved. Again this is probably part of the collective learning curve.

Possibly because of those risks, public sector use is static. We can expect this given as social media is being pushed as a marketing tool which isn’t a priority many government agencies, are you going to skip registering your car because the motor registry doesn’t have a “like” button on their web page?

This liberation from being obsessed with marketing and sales is probably why the public sector is using social media a more creatively as collaborative and research tools where many of these services do an extremely good job.

Many businesses, particularly smaller organizations, believe social media doesn’t fit their objectives. A terrific quote from an SME accountant is “I run a business, not a chat show”.

That attitude’s fine as social media – like pretty well everything else in the business world – is a tool to be used the best way you see fit, just because some businesses don’t need a hammer but that doesn’t mean hammers aren’t useful.

Although when that tool is fairly new, as social media is, it’s probably best to have a play with it and see where if can help your business.

The Social Media Benchmarking Study is a useful survey that shows where businesses are using these tools and how effective they are finding them. It’s going to be interesting to see the field evolves as we all get to understand social media as both consumers and business owners.

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How safe is your net connection?

It pays to be careful on the web when travelling.

Reports last week that foreign “hackers” had intercepted emails between Australian government officials and miners raised the issue of email security, just how private are our online messages?

When the media uses the word “hacking” it’s always worth taking a step back and finding out the facts. Often a security breach is the result of a simple setup mistake or the information and passwords have walked out the building with a disaffected, lovestruck or just plain dumb employee.

That’s not to say hackers aren’t a risk organisations should to be conscious of, it’s just that often the security risks are more mundane than we would expect. A good example is the simple matter of logging onto a wireless or hotel network.

We assume when we log into our networks that the data is secure though often the user names and passwords are exchanged in “clear text”, which anyone with access to the network can view your passwords with the use of a “packet sniffer” that reads each bundle of information sent across the internet.

Poor security isn’t just a feature of unprepared computer users, every year the world’s leading hackers and security experts gather at that Las Vegas DEFCON conference which since 2001 has featured the Wall of Sheep, an embarrassing display of user information captured off the convention’s network.

This is a surprisingly common security problem made more frequent with the rise of unencrypted wireless networks which can be sniffed by anyone who can be bothered logging on, this is a common problem when you’re connecting onto free wireless networks at the local coffee shop or fast food restaurant.

The answer to all of this is to use Secure Socket Layer encryption, which creates a secure link between your computer, mobile phone or iPad and the servers. For email use, your system administrator can set this up or if you use the popular web mail services it’s a matter of ticking the box.

A similar service works when you’re browsing the web, on visiting a secure site the address should start with https instead of the usual http, the “s” on the former stands for “secure”. A padlock symbol will also appear – in the bottom left hand corner of Firefox or beside the site address at the top of both Chrome and later versions of Internet Explorer.

Before logging onto any secure service, including social media platforms, both the https address and the padlock symbol should appear before you enter passwords or sensitive information like credit card or banking details.

Sadly, the secure websites are not always foolproof as sometimes the site will use a secure connection for your password details then once you’ve logged in, return to an unsecured version. This is how the Filesheep program that was released last year works by sniffing cookies and other stored information from unsecured websites.

It’s surprising how many tourists and backpackers get caught out while doing online banking, checking their email or using social media while on the road.

Without logging into a network securely, then logging out when finished and making sure their details haven’t been saved, it’s quite common to see travellers getting their details stolen.

Assuming you’re safe because the network belongs to a high priced hotel or resort doesn’t always work either; a few years ago passengers on a major cruise liner had their bank accounts compromised when one of the crew was stealing data passing through the ship’s Internet cafe.

You don’t need to be a mining executive in China or Julian Assange to fall prey to the Internet snoops, whole industries and criminal organisations are built around using your data so it’s a good idea to be making sure your information is secure while taking a little bit of caution and using some judgement before logging onto a network.

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The Networked Business

The first of the City Of Sydney’s Let’s Talk Business looked at how business can use the cloud

The first of the City Of Sydney’s Let’s Talk Business workshops looked at how business can use cloud computing services to help improve the marketing, operations and profitability.

My presentation, Business In The Cloud covered the definition of cloud computing, the benefits for business, the risks and the case for getting on the cloud.

The text of the presentation, shown here has been broken into four segments each addressing the individual points.

What is the cloud?

The opening section looked at what cloud computing is, the underlying definitions and how it works. We discussed how the underlying concepts of cloud computing are nothing new and how the concepts of shared resources across a reliable and robust network are part of the very reason for the Internet itself.

The benefits of cloud computing

Having defined cloud computing we look at the benefits of these services, focusing on the flexibility online software delivers and how businesses can use these tools to quickly seize opportunities in our fast changing society.

Risky business

Every new technology has its risks and cloud computing is no different. In our third presentation we look at some of the online traps and how to manage them.

The business case for cloud computing

Concluding the presentation is a summary of the business case, balancing the benefits and the risks and concluding with how businesses might use cloud services.

Further information

Illustrating how businesses can use online tools, we have a list of some of popular business cloud services that can help your organisation use the web to be more flexible and innovative.

The presentation was part of the Let’s Talk Business series of workshops run by the City of Sydney and held at the Customs House. There’s three more events in the 2011 series covering the new consumer, mobile internet and business leadership.

If you’ve been along to the Lets Talk Business events, or have some ideas on how business can use cloud services, we’d love to hear your comments.

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The networked business Part 4: The business case for cloud computing

Part 4 of the Let’s Talk Business Cloud Presentation

This is the fourth and final part of the presentation given as part of the City of Sydney’s Let’s Talk Business series of events on new business technologies.

The case for business cloud computing

Cloud computing is part of the future of of business. Increasingly it’s going to become of fundamental part of our society as we become more connected.

Business is open 24 hours. Even if your office or staff aren’t working at 4am on a Sunday, customers are checking your website to look at your products. If you are selling online, everything has to be running.

The cloud is not a tool for every business. For some, the risks or limitations mean they are better served running application or storing data on their own computer.

For most businesses though the cloud changes the game, it makes them more flexible and productive.

In an era where we’re seeing massive change in our economy and society, it’s the business who can respond quickly to the new normal who will survive and prosper.

Cloud computing helps businesses adapt and are part of the key to running a successful enterprise in the 21st Century.

This is the third of a series of four posts taken from The Networked Business presentation. Parts One, Two and Three are also online. A list of the useful business cloud computing tools to accompany this article.

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The networked business Part 3: Managing risk in the cloud

Part 3 of the Let’s Talk Business Cloud Presentation

This is the third part of the presentation given as part of the City of Sydney’s Let’s Talk Business series of workshops on new business technologies.

Not always free

There are some misconceptions about cloud services though.

Just last year, the Australian Financial Review ran a front page article headlined “massive savings to be made in the cloud” stating that cloud services can save a business up to 80% on its IT spend.

Many industries have made the mistake of relying on cheap prices to get customers through the door. Think of Myer’s problems with their perpetual sales, a mistake being repeated today by dozens of smaller businesses offering 80% off meals or haircuts through the group buying services.

In the Internet based industries we’ve made the mistake of training our customers to believe we can do everything online for free.

Free is an illusion, there is almost always a cost and on the net you’ll either pay by spending time or giving away your own, or your clients’, privacy.

The better services cost. The most successful cloud service, Salesforce.com, is quite expensive although still substantially cheaper than the server based alternatives.

Many services though are based on the freemium model, when you need additional features or grow beyond a certain size charges kick in or increase with your needs.

Mail Chimp, an online email management system is an example. Late last year I resurrected a mailing list which hadn’t been used for 18 months. I chose to pay the fee for MailChimp as their management service would deal with the hundreds of invalid addresses and unsubscribes a neglected mailing list always attracts when you restart it.

Not only did MailChimp deal adequately with these problems but it also took the size of the mailing list below the 2,000 name threash hold for their free service.  So spending a bit of money actually saved a lot more money and a massive amount of time. It also illustrated the flexibility of cloud systems and their pricing models.

The risks

Nothing though is risk free. Any technological change comes with risks; electricity changed humanity but thousand of people die every year from misusing it. We can say the same for the motor car, steam engines and penicillian.

For all the benefits of Internet technologies they too have their own risks. In cloud computing we can divide them into three major groups; Reliability, Terms of service and Security.

Security

Probably the most misunderstood, and so riskiest, aspect of IT is security. Most business people over estimate the security of their own systems and are shocked when their data is compromised by viruses, hackers or, most commonly, their own staff walking out the door with vital information.

Cloud services generally have better security than most business networks as they have the resources to deal with the massive task of keeping computing systems secure, but there are still risks in using online providers.

Strong passwords begin to matter and guarding them is important as well.

Granular access, not giving everyone access to everything also becomes very important. This is also a common problem on small business networks.

Accessing cloud services from shared computers or through unsecured wireless networks is probably the biggest danger, particularly with mobile workers. It’s important any provider you use offers encrypted services, which you can tell from the login page showing https:// at the beginning, and making sure you log off when you finish using computers in Internet cafes or in other people’s offices.

Terms of service

When using cloud services you have to understand these are someone else’s computers you are occupying so you have to play by their rules regardless how arbitrary they seem.

Wikileaks is a good example of how large cloud and Internet providers use ToS to shut down customers they don’t like.

You don’t have to upset the CIA or Julia Gillard to get into trouble. Victoria Buckley Jewellers in Sydney’s Strand Arcade uses beautiful porcelain dolls to model their products. One of the female dolls has nipples and Facebook shut down Victoria’s account after a series of photos showed the doll topless, nudity being a breach of Facebook’s conditions.

A more common problem is eBay shutting down traders’ accounts on spurious piracy claims. This is very common and genuine risk to anyone running an online store relying on PayPal or eBay.

Probably the best example of silly piracy claims is when the University of Florida hit the Flickr photo sharing service with claims that every photo with a description containing the words “Florida” and “football” was a breach of their college grid iron team’s copyright.

The howls of outrage from angry Flickr users when their pictures of kids playing football while on holiday in Florida or local team photos were taken down soon convinced both organisations that their actions were hasty and ill-advised.

The problem remains though that online services are still too quick to shut down other people’s services so you need to plan for these type of disruptions.

Reliability

Tied closely into the terms of service is reliability.

Reliability is at the heart of all technologies. If something breaks down most of the time you use it, then it’s of little use to your business.

If you are using a cloud service you need to have both reliable internet connections and a provider you can trust. This is why free services often don’t cut it for business use.

One aspect cloud services and technology companies often sell is the Service Level Agreement or SLA, these offer a refund if the service doesn’t perform to set standards. While SLAs are useful, they don’t make up for the disruption a service interruption causes your business. As Virgin Blue found during their service problems late last year.

As we’ve seen with the recent natural disasters in Japan, New Zealand and Queensland, the Internet routes itself around problems. So if you are in a problem area the challenges of keeping your business operating may be increased while communications are still being repaired

Redundancy is the key, just as the Internet and cloud computers have redundant features, so too should your systems. You have to choose providers that let you easily download usuable data from their services in case you find yourself offline or unhappy with their product.

This is the third of a series of four posts taken from The Networked Business presentation. Parts One, Two and Four are also online

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