Welcome back, friends.

I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays no matter what it is you celebrate, or if you celebrate at all. If you were one of the lucky ones, you probably scored a few consecutive days off last week and that’s certainly nothing to complain about…just ask John Arbuckle.

Many of us are in the process of recovering, not from overindulging in food or drink, but from spending too much. Sometimes it’s hard not to go overboard, the spirit of giving being so overwhelming and all, but other times it’s simply a matter of not keeping track.

And other times it’s a matter of procrastination.

After looping around the mall parking lot for an hour just 2 days before Christmas, and failing to find a spot, I decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and ventured into the curious world of online shopping. My mom got PJs and perfume…or at least she WILL get them…when they arrive. I ordered them on Amazon. She’ll understand, right?? - JustRyan, Web Magician, Wpromote

People flocked to Amazon this year to do their shopping

Many of you may have found yourselves in Ryan’s shoes last week, scouring Amazon for last minute deals and gifts you never remembered to get. Some of you (like me) may have even spent more than you planned in a last-ditch effort to get something worthy. Still, a countless slew of others found themselves holiday shopping on Amazon for different reasons this year - like convenience, savings, or general sanity (after all, shoppers are known to get pretty irrational during the holidays) - to the tune of a record-breaking 6.3 million items on Amazon’s peak shopping day, Dec. 15th. That’s an estimated 73 items per second being bought around the world and this news comes in the wake of reports that 2008 was the worst retail holiday season in decades.

Does Amazon’s success story mean ecommerce will skyrocket in 2009?

Maybe. But if you want a piece of the online retail pie, you better get serious about your marketing tactics. Even with the success of big fish like Amazon, ecommerce sites overall report strikingly low conversion rates, partially due to aggressive data collection practices, as pointed out by Brendan Regan in a recent post on GrokDot.com, FutureNow’s awesome marketing blog.

Of course, there are lots of factors that go into a successful ecommerce site, and if you want to make it a priority, you can always ask an expert:

If you’re in the ecommerce market, you’re up against serious competition. A combination of factors can determine your bottom line, from PPC campaigns to website creative and overall customer communications strategy. As 2009 approaches and the economy softens, now is the time to optimize your websites and partner with a good affiliate to drive sales. The more aggressive you are online, the better chance you have to make the sale - and we can help you do that. Call me. - Uncle Scott Elling, Director of Performance Marketing, Wpromote

And that’s all she wrote.

Be sure to check out “Reflections on 2008” by Wpromote’s very own Mike Mothner and stay tuned for the highly-anticipated last Wpromote vlog of 2008. Oh, and don’t forget to return next week for a special edition of Tues News!

Happy New Year!

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Amidst last-minute holiday shopping, new years resolution making, and perpetual to-do list creating, I’ve been thinking about how I’d like the web to change in 2009. Much different than a list of predicted trends that are hardly original, this post will offer up my semi-serious personal online wish list for the new year. Allow me to begin:

1) A one-stop online shop (or storefront, if you will)

I know we have OpenID, FastDial, and iGoogle and online giants are developing open versions of their most popular services, but I’d like to see everything I need and use (and everything you need and use) on daily basis all in one place. Email, calendar programs, bill paying, bank accounts, online shopping, IM services, news sites, social networking, premium video, music…I could continue, but I won’t. The idea is I want everything essential available in one location, designed in a cool way, and easily customizable. I want to login to my Facebook and bank accounts from one location, and I want to contact the same support center if I have a problem with either.

CAVEAT: I don’t know if this is safe. I guess in theory aggregating everything we do online would make us easier targets for identity theft, but I’ll leave security to the experts. I just want to make things easy.

2) Irrelevant website (and application) regulation…because it’s not quantity, it’s quality

If one more faux-authoritative news site pops up touting exclusive coverage of the latest political scandal or a productivity app I don’t really need magically installs itself on my new laptop, I don’t know what I’ll do. But if the ones who rule this virtual space are reading, listen up: I’m tired of being distracted online (and on the computer). I know the Internet = free speech, but maybe there is a way to make it more difficult for crappy content and unnecessary applications to find their way into my search results and registry.

Can we penalize these websites and developers for info-pollution (and by penalize I more than increase their PPC bids, lower their quality score, or charge them a fine)? Make it a virtual prop. I’ll vote ‘yes.’

3) A fool-proof way to end spam

At some point I’m going to start thinking the deluge of spam I receive in my ancient Yahoo! e-mail account and the increasing number of junk messages that appear in my Gmail spam folder amount to a conspiracy. C’mon, no one has found a way to put the spammers to rest? I find a hard time buying it, and I’m starting to think spammers are in bed with the ISPs. It’s annoying when I can’t delete an old e-mail account because it I am indefinitely linked to it in a myriad of ways but can’t use the account either, because it gets massive amounts of junk mail every week (and forwarding wanted mail is no option because the filters are just so-so…sigh). All of this means I miss important messages from time to time. I know what you’re going to say, and yes, I’ve sent an update to the people in my address book…years ago. I still get mailed at Yahoo! with relatively time-sensitive, quasi-important requests for introductions, phone numbers, etc.

Can’t we just fix the spam problem? It would make everyone’s lives so much easier.

4) A personal online P.I. (for everyone)

When it comes to protecting our identities online, we already know we’re screwed. Whether it’s the Yahoo! Geocities website with risky photos launched in college and never taken down or the unfortunate email sent to an ex that made it onto some NY hipster’s blog, intimate details of our lives have found their way online and aren’t going anywhere. Sure, you could consult an SEO specialist to mask the evidence but the majority of people wouldn’t know what “SEO” means.

The point here is if anyone with a little Internet-savvy can access my data, I want to access it, too. Give me a list of every place my name is mentioned or likeness featured. If a website shows my address, I want to see it, and if my phone or credit card # have made their way into an index, I want to know. It’s sort of like doing a regular background check on yourself, but this one grabs info from every nook and cranny of the web, in addition to all the regular stuff. The results would be delivered in an easily customizable PDF, and everyone and their 2nd cousin would know how to get one.

Why should Internet geeks be the ones to have all the fun?  It’s our data. Give it back.

5) A Web-Based Voting System to Shut Down Stuff I Don’t Like

Google’s got to be able to come up with something like this. Figure out the number of Internet users and drum up some equation that lets me know how many votes a site needs before it gets banished from virtual reality. This way, when I see a site I find revolting, all I have to do is email everyone I know and ask them to vote against it and email everyone they know and ask them to vote against it and on and on until the site in question is taken down. Does this ruin the open nature of the web? Eh. It’s kind of like how we put people in jail when they do a bad thing, but in this case, we just make it impossible for them to continue the bad thing. If the offenders put up another site, the same process applies. There are no 3 strike rules here…that would be far too heavy-handed. I just want to give users like myself a say in what we see online. Fair enough? I think so.

Hope you enjoyed my list of web-related things I’d like to see in the new year.

See you next time!

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It’s the holiday season, and people are stressed.

The days are shorter, nights are colder, and the deadline to finish our holiday shopping is fast approaching. We have projects to finish, clients with demands, and quotas to meet. We have family coming into town and travel to confirm. We have end-of-year medical check-ups and last-minute dental cleanings. We have birthdays and anniversaries and dinner parties with friends. We have gifts to give. We have life.

It’s easy to get caught up in the frantic pace of the holidays. While we’re constantly reminded that happiness, joy, and peace are the operative words of the season, do any of us really listen? I’m not sure if I’m projecting or relating here, perhaps a bit of both! What I am sure of is there is no better cure for holiday overload than a little, well-intended humor.

That being said, there will be no mention of SEM or PPC, affiliate marketing or social media in today’s post. There will be no weekly recaps or intellectual analysis, top 10 lists or quick tips. What I have for you today is something far more timely:  an ode to the ‘Modern Man’ by the late, great George Carlin.

Enjoy, happy holidays, and don’t forget to give thanks!!!

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Whether you’re a 23-year-old diva shopping on Zappos for silver ballet flats, or a 52-year-old engineer purchasing semi-conductors on Buy.com, you need to know how to protect yourself in the big bad world of Internet commerce.

In an effort to consume everything under the sun, from the latest techno gadgets to household items and corporate supplies, and do it all in less time for less money, consumers everywhere are going online to buy the things they need, making the Internet the most profitable (and dangerous) place to do business.

This presents an obvious conundrum. With bored preteens, desperate criminals, and unsavory crackers everywhere trying to make a quick buck by stealing your data, what does a weary shopper do to separate themselves from the billions of potential theft targets wandering the Internet?

The short answer is: “nothing.”

But before you start unplugging your computer and chucking your Internet enabled cell phone into the fireplace, contemplate this…how different is virtual life from the real thing?  Sure you can walk down the street carrying a can of mace or pepper spray; still, is that really going to stop an assailant armed with a 9mm pistol concealed inside his or her jacket? No, of course not. But stopping crazed criminals is not the point of commercially-available personal protection devices. The point of things like pepper spray is to keep the crazies and “small-time” crooks at bay. No one expects pepper spray to stop a big-time mobster.

The bottom line: even if you keep all your money in the bank, the bank can still get robbed. Always remember your information is never nor will it ever be “theft proof;” it’s just harder to steal than that of the people next to you…when you follow these 5 tips:

1) Know your source - check your URLs

A good rule of thumb when shopping online is to “look around the shop,” much in the same way you would look around a normal store.  Imagine you walk into a tiny run-down shop with frayed wires and power lines coming out of the top in every which way.  You walk inside and notice the “ATM” machine is an old arcade machine with a screen, buttons, and a card reader in it, identified by a wooden plank draped over the top of the machine with the letters “ATM” burned into the wood.

This is most likely not someplace you would use your ATM card. The same applies online.

Try to buy from brand name vendors you trust (Newegg, Amazon, etc.).  Look around the site and make sure the site at least looks professional.  Check to see that the domain is the same one you visited in the first place.  For example, if you go to “lamps.com” and when you click to buy, the URL at the top of your browser no longer reads “www.lamps.com,” but now reads “lamps.mylamps.com,” the discrepancy could be a tell-tale sign of phishing, and completing the transaction could lead you right into the hands of an identity thief.

2) Check to see if website supports SSL or “Secure Sockets Layer” (i.e. look for the little yellowish-brown lock in the bottom right-hand corner of your browser)

One of the easiest and most common methods used to steal data online is to steal it before it gets to the website from which you are buying goods.  Data thieves tap into wifi networks and watch Internet traffic as it flows over the airwaves. Thieves can also access your data via wired methods, and some times they even send you back fake data that looks like it came from the website you are trying to use (sometimes known as an MITM or “Man in the Middle attack”).  The best way to protect yourself against this kind of attack is to make sure the website you are buying from uses “SSL” encryption or a “Secure Sockets Layer.” This technology encrypts your data so only the website you are using can make sense of the data your computer is sending, and everything just looks like encrypted garbage to anybody or anything else watching the network traffic.

3) Shop with an “online-only credit card”

There are several organizations (like this one) that offer “online-only credit cards.”  These organizations provide users with transactional accounts that may be used like credit cards online, but aren’t actually linked to a credit account. Think of them as “virtual ATM cards” linked to real money.  These cards can be very useful, especially with record-keeping.  By using only one “online-only” card for Internet purchases (even if it is simply a secondary ATM or credit card from your bank), it is easy to identify things like extra charges, fraud, or other suspicious activity when looking at your billing statement.

4) Avoid public computers when shopping online

For convenience, almost every computer out there is designed to save your data once you enter it. This is horrible from a security perspective.  As soon as you put your data into any device with an Internet connection, it typically tries to save as much of your information as possible so you don’t have to enter it again. In a sense, the computer tries to “learn about your personality,” and create a profile on you, which includes your data. However, if the device learning about you isn’t yours, what’s to stop a tech-savvy criminal from obtaining your information from a publicly accessible device? Demo computers at Apple stores or Best Buy, sample cell phones at AT&T or Verizon stores, and public library or school computer terminals are terrible places to store information. Anybody with the knowledge to access the data can simply walk up to the computer after you and quietly steal your information.

5) Diversify your data – don’t put all your eggs in one basket

The best way to keep your information secure on the Internet? Don’t put it all in one place. Things happen and company servers get compromised – along with your data. In the end, the best cyber-defense is to put yourself in a position where if and when a problem occurs, not all of your data is affected. Try to use only one ATM or credit card for all your online transactions (see #3 above). Likewise, make your passwords as unpredictable as possible, and don’t use the same login or email address for more than one account. Handle yourself this way online, and if somebody compromises one of your accounts, at least the damage will be minimal.

And most of all, caveat emptor…aka “buyer beware.”

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