Patricio Robles

Change comes to Whitehouse.gov: President Obama has a blog

Talk about a launch: minutes after Barack Obama took his oath and became the 44th President of the United States of America, a new Whitehouse.gov launched.

And it appears that President Obama, who made extensive use of the internet as a presidential candidate, will continue to use the internet as the most powerful man in the world.

by Patricio Robles 20 January 2009 19:20pm 6 comments

Are search marketers really looking beyond search engines?

In this rough economy, it's now apparent to just about everyone that marketers are cutting back and looking to get the most bang for their buck.

Many expected this would be a boon to search engines since paid search advertising is easy to measure, quantify and analyze for ROI.

by Patricio Robles 20 January 2009 16:20pm 0 comments

Twingly's new microblogging search engine rocks

Even if you don't use microblogging services like Twitter and FriendFeed personally, monitoring what's being said on them may be of benefit to your company.

Online reputation monitoring is a rapidly growing market and our Reputation Monitoring and Buzz Monitoring Buyer's Guide profiles 16 vendors in this space. We've also provided suggestions for DIY reputation monitoring on the cheap.

by Patricio Robles 20 January 2009 09:23am 2 comments

Do European companies dislike Twitter?

Twitter, the microblogging service that has captured the hearts and minds of some of the internet's most prominent bloggers and the media, doesn't get much love in Europe.

This according to a Forbes article entitled "Twitter Not Loved In Europe" which was published yesterday.

by Patricio Robles 20 January 2009 09:50am 5 comments

New mobile phone features confuse users

When you're a techie, it's hard not to gawk at the evolution of the smart phone and to think about the implications of a growing mobile internet.

Yet for average mobile phone users, the increasing number of features is leaving many 'baffled'.

by Patricio Robles 19 January 2009 17:00pm 5 comments

Belkin: a case study in social media sin

The importance of online product reviews to retailers, manufacturers and consumers cannot be underestimated. They've become a prominent fixture on ecommerce websites and are used extensively by consumers to make purchasing decisions.

The key to their value: authenticity. Any manipulation of these reviews threatens the credibility of the reviews, and in the case of retailers and manufacturers, potentially the perception of their brands.

by Patricio Robles 19 January 2009 09:43am 1 comment

What software should you use for your blog?

The Technorati Top 100 consists of the internet's 100 most popular blogs as measured, of course, by Technorati. The blogs on the Top 100 list cover topics from technology to politics to celebrities.

But while the topics covered by the internet's most popular blogs may be diverse, the software that is used to run them isn't.

by Patricio Robles 19 January 2009 09:20am 7 comments

Yahoo files patent application on reciprocal linking

While Google may get the lion's share of attention when it comes to SEO strategy because of its massive market share, online publishers should take into account how other search engines evaluate their websites.

A new patent application filed by Yahoo provides some hints as to how the search engine may deal with reciprocal linking in the future.

by Patricio Robles 16 January 2009 15:46pm 1 comment

The benefits of 'nofollow' as an SEO best practice

The PageRank Google assigns your pages is one of your most valuable assets as an online publisher. Your SEO success on Google is dependent upon earning and maintaining PageRank.

In every sense of the word, doing so is a balancing act. Hoarding your PageRank is not good; not providing any links to other websites can be viewed as an SEO sin and it's difficult to get other websites to link to yours when you don't link out, in turn making it more difficult to earn PageRank in the first place.

by Patricio Robles 16 January 2009 10:00am 16 comments

What will Apple do without Steve Jobs?

The news yesterday that Apple CEO Steve Jobs will be taking a leave of absence to deal with medical issues that are more serious than previously admitted was a surprise to Apple customers, observers and shareholders.

While a company's CEO is just one part of the 'success' equation, Jobs is no ordinary CEO.

by Patricio Robles 15 January 2009 18:16pm 1 comment