Conversion rate optmization - the practice of improving the quantity of visitors who take a desired action on your site - has been a hot topic this year. There’s both an art and a science to the process of turning browsers into buyers and drive-by readers into email subscribers, Facebook fans and Twitter followers. In my opinion, no marketer should be engaging in this work without having read Robert Cialdini’s seminal work - Influence: Science & Practice. I agree wholeheartedly with Guy Kawasaki’s assessment on the subject:
The problem is, not every marketer will read the book, and that leaves a lot of head-shaped holes in a lot of walls. Thus, this post is here to help do the next best thing - explain, through illustrations and descriptions, the broad concepts of persuasion. The book covers six major "weapons of influence." For each, I’m going to illustrate the concept then give tips (and some examples) on how you can apply them to marketing and conversion on the web.
#1 - Reciprocation
Hold open a door and you receive a "thank you" and a smile. Send a birthday present to a friend and you’re almost certain to get one in return. Pay for a co-worker’s coffee and she’ll pick up the next one. As Cialdini painstakinly details in the book, there is no culture on Earth without this unspoken, yet powerful rule of reciprocation.
The power of reciprocation relies on several conventions. The request must be "in-kind," which is to say, commensurate with the initial offering. The power is increased if the give-and-take happens in a short time frame. Reciprocity’s influence increases with closer relationships, too - it’s much harder to resist/refuse to reciprocate a favor to a friend who’s down the street than to an anonymous site on the web.
Leveraging reciprocity through web marketing:
Give away free data and analysis through tools, but ask for permission to send an email marketing message in exchange
Tweet or blog about a prominent person or business in a positive fashion, then email them asking if they’d help spread the message
Email a site owner about a problem on their site and offer a solution/fix; they’ll often follow up by asking how they can return the favor
Provide exemplary answers to questions posted in online forums with a signature or final note asking that if they found your answer valuable, to consider visiting your site and sharing it with friends
Share great information on your blog and ask your readers to subscribe to your feed (see what I did there? :-) Pretty meta, eh?)
#2 - Commitment & Consistency
As humans, we have an insatiable desire for consistency in our behavior. It’s why we abhor hypocrisy and embrace leaders, politicians and beliefs that "stick to their guns," sometimes to the point of foolishness. This consistency can be observed through the effectiveness of political tactics like push polling, wherein a paid "surveyer" will call numbers and ask voters whether they’d cast a ballot for "a man who refused to say the pledge of allegiance," thus getting a response and commitment verbally that will transfer into votes come election day after the follow-on ad campaign alludes to precisely that inaction from an opposition candidate.
A case study from the book illustrates this principle quite elegantly. Researchers on a New York City beach staged thefts to see if onlookers would risk personal harm to stop the "criminal." A research accomplice would listen to music on a blanket near their "test subjects" and after several minutes, stand up and stroll away, leaving a personal radio on the blanket. A "thief" would then approach, grab the radio, and attempt to hurry away with it. On average, only 4 in 20 bystanders would intervene.
However, when the experiment was changed slightly, the results altered dramatically. In this second scenario, before strolling away, the research accomplice would ask the test subject to "watch my things." Now, under the influence of consistency and commitment, 19 of 20 subjects became "virtual vigilantes, running after and stopping the thief, demanding an explanation, often restraining the thief physically or snatching the radio away."
Commitment and consistency can’t happen without that initial action of a reponse or promise. Cialdini notes that this power increases tremendously if the agreement is written, rather than merely verbal. E.g. last week, you told us you wanted XYZ… Guess what? Here it is!
Leveraging commitment and consistency through web marketing:
Asking users to answer online questions about their habits/preferences, then marketing to them based on the answers they’ve given
Getting visitors to a site to sign an online pledge to take a certain action and then email/message them at a specified day/time (example - the "Quit Facebook Day" movement)
Asking your users/members/fans to commit to taking an action if a certain event occurs (like a charity pledge for a marathon runner). For example, you could say that your startup is up for an award and if you win it, you’d like them to commit to emailing a friend about their service. If/when you do win, send members who commited an email requesting the action.
Using a landing page / funnel process that asks a question where users must choose to define themself in a set number of ways, then crafting sales messaging that speaks to how your product/service is the right choice for people like them.
#3 - Social Proof
If you’re walking along a street and see a crowd gathered around watching something, it’s nearly impossible to resist the urge to go over and investigate yourself. If you’re at a party and everyone is drinking, the pressure to have a drink yourself rises dramatically. We all hate the horrifyingly over-the-top laugh tracks on TV sitcoms, but TV producers know that the social signal of laughter makes us laugh along, too.
This same phenomenon applies when we judge exceptionally important life decisions - who should we date or marry, where should we go to school, where should we work. The influence of our peers is a powerful influencer and one that can’t be overlooked in the sphere of marketing.
Social proof becomes more powerful when the numbers increase and when the action-takers become more relevant and, especially more like the target. In other words, if you’re selling games to rebelling teenagers, don’t show testimonials from middle-aged parents who loved it, show other teens.
Leveraging social proof in web marketing:
Services like MyBlogLog that display the picture and username of recent visitors to the site
Facebook-leveraging visit tracking software that shows recent friends of yours who’ve engaged with the site you’re visiting (even more relevant and social proofy)
Testimonials on landing pages and in sales copy. Those that feature photos, have titles and full names and relate to the visitor work best
Network-effect services like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn touting their fast-growing and far-reaching memberships and usage
#4 - Liking
We’ve heard the phrase a thousand times - "People do business with people they know, like and trust." It turns out, there’s quite a bit of science to support this. Research confirms that things like physical attractiveness (we like good-looking people), familiarity (we trust people we know), similarity (we like people like us) and compliments (we like people who say nice things about us) all factor into to the principle of "liking."
It’s hard to argue with the power "liking" has on us as consumers. When Will Critchlow (whom I like a lot, despite constantly losing presentation-off battles to him) recommends that I read a book or try a service, it’s practically a guarantee I’ll do it (note to Will: please don’t abuse this power). Similarly, movie executives realize that asking Tom Hanks to go on the late-night circuit is a great way to drive viewership of a film, while sending Tom Cruise on a similar mission may have the opposite result.
Leveraging liking in web marketing:
Start a blog, twitter account or email list and share your thoughts in a personable, personal and friendly way.
Employ the power of celebrity, in microcosms. If Seth Godin wrote a blog post saying that SEOmoz was a valuable resource, that would likely drive many people who like Seth to take commensurate actions.
Join in conversations on the web (on forums, in blog comments, on Twitter, via other social services) in ways that engender you positively to those community members. Follow up personally with community leaders and organizers to help spread the liking effect in a more scalable way.
#5 - Authority
A story from the book illustrates this principle so well, I couldn’t resist sharing:
Professors of pharmacy Michael Cohen and Neil Davis attribute much of the problem to the mindless deference given to the "boss" of a patient’s case: the attending physician. According to Cohen, "in case after case, patients, nurses, pharmacists, and other physicians do not question the prescription." Take, for example, the strange case of the "rectal earache" reported by Cohen and Davis. A physician ordered ear drops to be administered to the right ear of a patient suffering pain and infection there. Instead of writing out completely the location "Right ear" on the prescription, the doctor abbreviated it so that the instructions read "place in R ear." Upon receiving the prescription, the duty nurse promptly put the required number of ear drops into the patient’s anus.
Obviously, rectal treatment of an earache made no sense, but neither the patient nor the nurse questioned it. The important lesson of this story is that in many situations in which a legitimate authority has spoken, what would otherwise make sense is irrelevant. In these instances, we don’t consider the situation as a whole but attend and respond to only one aspect of it.
The power of authority can come from a variety of sources - clothes (think of the movie "Catch Me if You Can" in which Leonardo DiCaprio becomes a doctor or pilot simply through attire), titles and prefix/suffixes (Dr., Senator, President, C-level executive), and context (the famous Milgram study in which ordinary people commit horrifying acts simply because they are told to do so).
Authority only influences when the target believes in the power and authenticity of that authority. The stronger the authority association, the more powerful the impact, but not all authorities work on all people.
Leveraging authority in web marketing:
Has a well respected individual or organization endorsed your product/company? Make that a prominent feature when you request an action from your visitors.
In a product or software service that provides information users rely upon, the product itself can influence actions by recommending them and showing the data to back it up.
Experts in your field can make for great testimonials and endorsements. They need not be recognizable or even speak to social proof elements if they carry credentials and weight that will make your target audience respond.
#6 - Scarcity
Ever notice that some shops seem to be perpetually running "going out of business" sales? It’s no mistake - the power of potential loss is a remarkable influencer. The Rolling Stones’ "last ever" tour, the final can of Crystal Pepsi, the limited edition collectors keepsake (only 70 ever released!). All are examples of scarcity principles at work.
As Cialdini notes:
The feeling of being in competition for scarce resources has powerful motivating properties. The ardor of an indifferent lover surges with the appearance of often for reasons of strategy, therefore, that romantic partners reveal (or invent) the attentions of a new admirer. Salespeople are taught to play the same game with indecisive customers. For example, a realtor who is trying to sell a house to a "fencesitting" prospect sometimes will call the prospect with news of another potential buyer who has seen the house, liked it, and is scheduled to return the following day to talk about terms. When wholly fabricated, the new bidder is commonly described as an outsider with plenty of money: "an out-of-state investor buying for tax purposes" and "a physician and his wife moving into town" are favorites. The tactic, called in some circles "goosing ‘em off the fence," can work devastatingly well. The thought of losing out to a rival frequently turns a buyer from hesitant to zealous.
Scarcity becomes more powerful when it’s clear that the resource is finite (houses are great for this reason) and when immediacy is added to the scarcity (as in the case of another buyer on the horizon). Auction sites like eBay combine the powers of these persuasion tactics with remarkable results.
Leveraging scarcity in web marketing:
Offer a special version of your product for a limited time in limited quantities
Feature messages like Expedia’s - "only 2 tickets left at this price" - or Zappos’ - "only 3 pairs left in this size" - next to results/products to help encourage timely conversion
Create an incentive for the first X visitors who take an action; you’ll likely get many more
Show the number of people viewing an item right on the product page (e.g. "6 others currently on this page") to help create excitement and a feeling of immediacy (particularly for one-of-a-kind or limited quantity products)
Individually, these are powerful instruments of persuasion. Together, they’re a marketing force to be reckoned with. Let’s try an experiment and see if I can effectively employ the six principles as they related to SEOmoz (please note, I’m not normally this self-promotional, and this is meant somewhat tongue-in-cheek):
This blog post is the result of many hours of studying, writing and illustrating. If it’s helped your business in some way, we hope you’ll say thanks by sharing it through tweets, links or an email to someone you think would appreciate the reference.
Are you the kind of SEO who bases their decisions on data or gut feeling? Close your eyes for a minute and think. If you said "data," I’d urge you to check out the new Keyword Difficulty tool. It will help make decisions about where and how to compete from a much more data driven perspective.
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Danny Dover is impossible not to like. Make Danny happy by following him on Twitter.
The Search & Social Awards named SEOmoz the best SEO Blog, top SEO community and favorite SEO tool suite this year.
This summer we’re launching a new software suite and SEOmoz PRO prices are going up to $100, $500 and $2,000 per month (respectively). There’s less than 60 days to get PRO at the current rates.
The next time you make a landing page or try to drive actions on the web, think about how you might leverage these principles of influence to improve your conversion rate.
As always, looking forward to your thoughts in the comments - I’d particularly love to see examples of the principles in action at on the web. It’s something I wanted to do when authoring this post, but simply ran out of time.
Friday, June 4, 2010
an overdue update
Ok, a lot of time has passed and I've had a lot happen. My pain in my hands and knees has been joined by my back as well. I've been on enbrel, which helped a lot, and now humira, which has helped more. The problem is since starting humira, I've been sick pretty much all the time. I've had to go to stronger pain medicines, now ms-contin for pain control and norco for breakthrough pains. At least while taking the injections, my back pain pretty much goes away and my hands are a lot better. My knees, however, are another story. There is no controlling the pain I'm having there. A new mri showed my acl is torn in my right knee again. I don't know what kind of surgery, if any, will happen yet. I'm still waiting for an appointment with a surgeon that specializes in people like me.
Every day that passes, I think more and more that I'm going to have to go on to disability. I've been on medical leave from work since January and I'm simply not getting better. My right knee was the worse of the two, but now there about the same. The pain is different in the different knees but equally bad just the same.
Most days I feel more like a burden than a husband since I'm not able to do much of anything that involves standing or walking. That means I can feed, bathe and dress myself but that's about it.
The best part of all is that my medical leave insurance is a pain in the you-know-what. They nit-pick everything they get and try to find excuses to stop paying me. Then it takes a month to get things fixed just in time to start all over again. So, not only am I in complete misery, but I'm not getting paid regularly either. Yet another reason I'm thinking of filing for disability, just to get paid regularly. So, the stress of not getting paid and them trying to force me to go back to work when I'm not physically able to do it is causing my psoriasis to return, which makes my psoriatic arthritis flare up even more which causes more pain and more disability. It's a vicious circle.
Every day that passes, I think more and more that I'm going to have to go on to disability. I've been on medical leave from work since January and I'm simply not getting better. My right knee was the worse of the two, but now there about the same. The pain is different in the different knees but equally bad just the same.
Most days I feel more like a burden than a husband since I'm not able to do much of anything that involves standing or walking. That means I can feed, bathe and dress myself but that's about it.
The best part of all is that my medical leave insurance is a pain in the you-know-what. They nit-pick everything they get and try to find excuses to stop paying me. Then it takes a month to get things fixed just in time to start all over again. So, not only am I in complete misery, but I'm not getting paid regularly either. Yet another reason I'm thinking of filing for disability, just to get paid regularly. So, the stress of not getting paid and them trying to force me to go back to work when I'm not physically able to do it is causing my psoriasis to return, which makes my psoriatic arthritis flare up even more which causes more pain and more disability. It's a vicious circle.
Steve Jobs at D8: Tablets and iPad Can Surpass PCs
Speaking at the Wall Street Journal's D8 conference this evening, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said he expects tablets such as the iPad will eventually supplant the personal computer for most people; and that the idea for the iPad actually came before the iPhone. He also commented on Flash, the "lost" iPhone, the Foxconn suicides, the competition with Google, and even his sex life, in a wide-ranging conversation with the Journal's Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.
When asked if tablets replace will notebooks, Jobs used an analogy of trucks versus cars: all vehicles used to be trucks, but now more are cars. Cars added things like windshield wipers and automatic transmission, so they attracted more people, but trucks continue to sell--just in less volume. He said the same thing would happen to PCs (explicitly indicating Windows- and Mac-based personal computers) , and that would be very jarring for those of us used to the PC era.
"I think people can create a lot of content on the tablet," Jobs said. He noted that people can use Bluetooth keyboards with tablets, and that the software will get more powerful over time. He said he can imagine everything from productivity applications to video editing to music on a tablet.
Jobs actually started work on a tablet first, long before the iPhone. He said he had the idea or typing on a glass display in the early 2000's and took it to people on his team who invented things such as inertial scrolling. But the company was working on a phone at the time, so he applied his idea to the phone and put the tablet "on the shelf." Once the iPhone business was established they took the tablet project off the shelf, and that became the iPad.
More after the jump.
According to Jobs, the problem with earlier tablets was the stylus. When you take it out, you take out the precision of a desktop operating system, so you need a completely different user interface, he said.
When asked whether the iPad and tablets can save journalism, Jobs spoke about the difficulties facing newspapers and other editorial organizations. "I don't want to see us descend into a nation of just bloggers, myself," he said, and anything they could do to help the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal get paid enough to keep their editorial operations going was a good thing.
His advice to publishers was to "Price it aggressively and go for volume," and he suggested that electronic content should cost less than print because it doesn't have the expense of printing and delivering.
Regarding pricing for books on the iPad, he said the changed model would make publishers more responsive to demand as a driver for pricing.
On the decision not to support Flash, Jobs said that Apple has been successful by choosing which technologies to ride. "We try to choose things that are in their Springs," he said, saying the company chooses to focus on emerging technologies and do that well, rather than supporting old technologies. He talked about how Apple was first in adopting 3.5-inch drives and USB 2.0, and in removing things like serial and parallel ports and floppy drives.
75 percent of video is in Flash today, but 25 percent is also available in HTML 5, and that 25 percent will be 50 percent shortly, according to Jobs. "There are holes in some Web sites, but those holes are getting fixed really fast," Jobs said, adding that the holes that are there are mainly ads. He said Apple decided not to support Flash on the iPhone years ago, but it was only when the iPad came out that Adobe "made a stink about it."
Things are packages of emphasis, he said. "Different people make different choices," he said, and if the company makes the right choices of technology to invest in, customers "will buy them; if we don't, they won't," he said. And with the iPad, "We've sold one every three seconds since we launched them."
He said Apple supported one open platform--including browsers and HTML 5--and one "curated platform" where a bunch of people make sure the application does what it says, doesn't crash, and doesn't use unsupported APIs. He said Apples approves 95 percent of the applications it receives for the App Store and that the company has a policy of not allowing applications that deface people, but made an exception for political cartoons.
Jobs said the opportunities for content owners to get closer to their customers are enormous. Movie companies used to spend a lot of money running trailers on TV; now they can spend money more effectively online targeting customers directly. He said he thought studios need new ways of communicating with their customers - and need to let customers watch the content whenever they want, wherever they want.
iPhone on Verizon?
Jobs was evasive about whether Apple would support multiple U.S. carriers for the iPhone, such as Verizon. Would there be an advantage in having multiplen carriers? "There might be." Will Apple do that? "The future is long."
He said AT&T was "doing fine in a lot of ways," and noted it is handling a lot more data traffic than all its competitors combined; its biggest issue is getting equipment from its suppliers, and it has the fastest network. Jobs thinks any of the other carriers would have had the same problem, and that AT&T would end up with the most robust network because of its early experience.
In response to an audience question about dropped phone calls, he said he understood that a lot of equipment had to be replaced, and things typically had to get worse before they got better. But he said he had a lot of faith that things would be a lot of better in most places by the end of the summer.
On Google, he said, "They decided to compete with us." When pressed about his relationship with Eric Schmidt or Google, he replied, "My sex life is pretty good. How's yours?"
Jobs isn't going to remove Google or Google Maps from the iPhone, or go into the search business. What he likes about the consumer market against the enterprise market is that each person votes for themselves , and if enough people vote for your product, you stay in business. "Just because we're competing with somebody doesn't mean we have to be rude."
"We never saw ourselves in a platform war with Microsoft -- maybe that's why we lost," he said. Instead, "We were always trying to build a better product.... And that's how we still think about it."
He noted that every modern Web browser, including Google's Chrome, is based on WebKit, Apple's browser project that was made open source; and he said making it open source helped make it a real competitor to Internet Explorer.
Apple is going into the mobile advertising business in order to lets its developers make more money, so they could continue to offer free or low-cost applications, according to Jobs. He said the free and low-cost application was changing how people used their devices, and said that as a result, on phones people aren't using search as much as on PCs. Instead, he said, phone users need advertisements that don't take them "out of the app" and into the browser, but instead leaves users within the application.
He also said he thought Apple took privacy very seriously, more than most other Silicon Valley companies. For instance, he said, rather than telling applications they had to ask to get location information, Apple provides the data and always puts up a screen asking for permission. "A lot of people in the Valley think we are really old-fashioned about these things."
On the lost iPhone, he said one of Apple's employees was testing a phone. It wasn't clear whether it was lost in a bar or taken from the employees bag, and the person who took the phone tried to sharp it around. He said the person under suspicion's roommate was the one who called the police, not Apple; and that courts were making sure the police were only looking at relevant data on the confiscated PC.
On the Foxconn suicides, he said flatly, "Foxconn is not a sweatshop." He said it's a factory, but it has restaurants, movie theaters, swimming pools, etc., and said that the suicide atempts were very troubling." He said the suicide attempt rate there was less that in the U.S., but the company was very interesting in studying and improving the environment there.
Jobs said Apple passing Microsoft in market capitalization was "surreal" but not all that important, saying it has nothing to do with why Apple employees go to work, or why people buy Apple products.
He credited Apple's resurgences to the employees, talking about how when he got back he found lots of people who said they "bleed in six colors," a reference to the old Apple logo.
He said Apple was organized as "the biggest startup on the planet" with no committees and with people who trust each other. He said what he does all day long is meet with product teams and help them make better products..
He said Apple's core values were the same today as they were five or 10 years ago, to make products that people like. And he said the same would be true in the future.
News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch opened the conference by talking about how the worlds of content and technology have come much closer together over the eight years of the D conference.
"As human freedom advances and human beings have more chance to interact, innovation increases," Murdoch said. Thanks to technology and the crumbing of barriers to trade, men and women who live in even the most remote places have access to innovation, he said, expecting an asymmetric benefit for countries and companies that are innovating.
Users and carriers of content have recognized the status quo has to change. Just as Steve (Jobs) needs to be paid to keep producing iPad, so do content creators need to be paid. Murdoch said, noting that News Corp. was successfully charging for access to web sites and its iPad applications.
When asked if tablets replace will notebooks, Jobs used an analogy of trucks versus cars: all vehicles used to be trucks, but now more are cars. Cars added things like windshield wipers and automatic transmission, so they attracted more people, but trucks continue to sell--just in less volume. He said the same thing would happen to PCs (explicitly indicating Windows- and Mac-based personal computers) , and that would be very jarring for those of us used to the PC era.
"I think people can create a lot of content on the tablet," Jobs said. He noted that people can use Bluetooth keyboards with tablets, and that the software will get more powerful over time. He said he can imagine everything from productivity applications to video editing to music on a tablet.
Jobs actually started work on a tablet first, long before the iPhone. He said he had the idea or typing on a glass display in the early 2000's and took it to people on his team who invented things such as inertial scrolling. But the company was working on a phone at the time, so he applied his idea to the phone and put the tablet "on the shelf." Once the iPhone business was established they took the tablet project off the shelf, and that became the iPad.
More after the jump.
According to Jobs, the problem with earlier tablets was the stylus. When you take it out, you take out the precision of a desktop operating system, so you need a completely different user interface, he said.
When asked whether the iPad and tablets can save journalism, Jobs spoke about the difficulties facing newspapers and other editorial organizations. "I don't want to see us descend into a nation of just bloggers, myself," he said, and anything they could do to help the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal get paid enough to keep their editorial operations going was a good thing.
His advice to publishers was to "Price it aggressively and go for volume," and he suggested that electronic content should cost less than print because it doesn't have the expense of printing and delivering.
Regarding pricing for books on the iPad, he said the changed model would make publishers more responsive to demand as a driver for pricing.
On the decision not to support Flash, Jobs said that Apple has been successful by choosing which technologies to ride. "We try to choose things that are in their Springs," he said, saying the company chooses to focus on emerging technologies and do that well, rather than supporting old technologies. He talked about how Apple was first in adopting 3.5-inch drives and USB 2.0, and in removing things like serial and parallel ports and floppy drives.
75 percent of video is in Flash today, but 25 percent is also available in HTML 5, and that 25 percent will be 50 percent shortly, according to Jobs. "There are holes in some Web sites, but those holes are getting fixed really fast," Jobs said, adding that the holes that are there are mainly ads. He said Apple decided not to support Flash on the iPhone years ago, but it was only when the iPad came out that Adobe "made a stink about it."
Things are packages of emphasis, he said. "Different people make different choices," he said, and if the company makes the right choices of technology to invest in, customers "will buy them; if we don't, they won't," he said. And with the iPad, "We've sold one every three seconds since we launched them."
He said Apple supported one open platform--including browsers and HTML 5--and one "curated platform" where a bunch of people make sure the application does what it says, doesn't crash, and doesn't use unsupported APIs. He said Apples approves 95 percent of the applications it receives for the App Store and that the company has a policy of not allowing applications that deface people, but made an exception for political cartoons.
Jobs said the opportunities for content owners to get closer to their customers are enormous. Movie companies used to spend a lot of money running trailers on TV; now they can spend money more effectively online targeting customers directly. He said he thought studios need new ways of communicating with their customers - and need to let customers watch the content whenever they want, wherever they want.
iPhone on Verizon?
Jobs was evasive about whether Apple would support multiple U.S. carriers for the iPhone, such as Verizon. Would there be an advantage in having multiplen carriers? "There might be." Will Apple do that? "The future is long."
He said AT&T was "doing fine in a lot of ways," and noted it is handling a lot more data traffic than all its competitors combined; its biggest issue is getting equipment from its suppliers, and it has the fastest network. Jobs thinks any of the other carriers would have had the same problem, and that AT&T would end up with the most robust network because of its early experience.
In response to an audience question about dropped phone calls, he said he understood that a lot of equipment had to be replaced, and things typically had to get worse before they got better. But he said he had a lot of faith that things would be a lot of better in most places by the end of the summer.
On Google, he said, "They decided to compete with us." When pressed about his relationship with Eric Schmidt or Google, he replied, "My sex life is pretty good. How's yours?"
Jobs isn't going to remove Google or Google Maps from the iPhone, or go into the search business. What he likes about the consumer market against the enterprise market is that each person votes for themselves , and if enough people vote for your product, you stay in business. "Just because we're competing with somebody doesn't mean we have to be rude."
"We never saw ourselves in a platform war with Microsoft -- maybe that's why we lost," he said. Instead, "We were always trying to build a better product.... And that's how we still think about it."
He noted that every modern Web browser, including Google's Chrome, is based on WebKit, Apple's browser project that was made open source; and he said making it open source helped make it a real competitor to Internet Explorer.
Apple is going into the mobile advertising business in order to lets its developers make more money, so they could continue to offer free or low-cost applications, according to Jobs. He said the free and low-cost application was changing how people used their devices, and said that as a result, on phones people aren't using search as much as on PCs. Instead, he said, phone users need advertisements that don't take them "out of the app" and into the browser, but instead leaves users within the application.
He also said he thought Apple took privacy very seriously, more than most other Silicon Valley companies. For instance, he said, rather than telling applications they had to ask to get location information, Apple provides the data and always puts up a screen asking for permission. "A lot of people in the Valley think we are really old-fashioned about these things."
On the lost iPhone, he said one of Apple's employees was testing a phone. It wasn't clear whether it was lost in a bar or taken from the employees bag, and the person who took the phone tried to sharp it around. He said the person under suspicion's roommate was the one who called the police, not Apple; and that courts were making sure the police were only looking at relevant data on the confiscated PC.
On the Foxconn suicides, he said flatly, "Foxconn is not a sweatshop." He said it's a factory, but it has restaurants, movie theaters, swimming pools, etc., and said that the suicide atempts were very troubling." He said the suicide attempt rate there was less that in the U.S., but the company was very interesting in studying and improving the environment there.
Jobs said Apple passing Microsoft in market capitalization was "surreal" but not all that important, saying it has nothing to do with why Apple employees go to work, or why people buy Apple products.
He credited Apple's resurgences to the employees, talking about how when he got back he found lots of people who said they "bleed in six colors," a reference to the old Apple logo.
He said Apple was organized as "the biggest startup on the planet" with no committees and with people who trust each other. He said what he does all day long is meet with product teams and help them make better products..
He said Apple's core values were the same today as they were five or 10 years ago, to make products that people like. And he said the same would be true in the future.
News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch opened the conference by talking about how the worlds of content and technology have come much closer together over the eight years of the D conference.
"As human freedom advances and human beings have more chance to interact, innovation increases," Murdoch said. Thanks to technology and the crumbing of barriers to trade, men and women who live in even the most remote places have access to innovation, he said, expecting an asymmetric benefit for countries and companies that are innovating.
Users and carriers of content have recognized the status quo has to change. Just as Steve (Jobs) needs to be paid to keep producing iPad, so do content creators need to be paid. Murdoch said, noting that News Corp. was successfully charging for access to web sites and its iPad applications.
Credit Card Debt – 10 Ways to Take Control & Pay it Off Fast
1: Make a budget – In order to get out of credit card debt you need to figure out where you went wrong and ensure it does not continue to happen. Write down a list of all your monthly incomings such as wages (after tax), interest or dividends from savings and so on. Then write a list of all your regular outgoings such as mortgage or rent payments, loans, utility, phone and internet bills, fuel & vehicle maintenance, insurance, health, groceries and clothes. You also need to work out how much you are currently spending on other aspects of your life such as entertainment, eating out and clothes shopping. Add up your total incomings and take away your total outgoings. This will leave you with your current monthly cash flow. If your outgoings exceed your incomings you will have negative cash flow and therefore are pushing yourself further into debt each month. Look through your expenses and look for areas where you could cut back. Perhaps you are eating out to often or treating yourself to those nice shoes or clothes more than you need to. You need nice treats to look forward to but make a budget for non-essentials and stick to it. You can then use the spare cash flow each month towards paying off your debts.
2: Pay more than the minimum balance – credit cards have traditionally had a minimum payment each month equivalent to 3 – 4 percent of the credit card balance. Now they can be as low as 1.5 percent. At that rate it can take years to pay a card off due to the interest charges. Pay as much as you can afford each month over the minimum. You will find your repayments exceed the interest charges and you debt starts to reduce,
3: Pay off highest interest cards first – If you have more than one credit card then focus your efforts on paying off the card with the highest interest rate first. Rather than paying a few extra dollars off every card each month, pay the minimum balance on all cards other than the one with the highest interest. Pay all you can afford off this card until you have paid the balance off in full. Once this is done you should move onto the card with the next highest rate of interest and repeat the process.
4: Credit card interest is calculated daily. – You receive your credit card bill once per month but your interest is calculated daily. Make repayments as often as you can afford. For example, if you get paid each week and can afford to pay $100 off from each pay packet, pay $100 off each week rather than waiting until the bill is due. That way you could save several weeks worth of interest on the money you pay off. Over time this can make a big difference,
5: Consolidate your credit card debt into one place. – When you have several credit cards it can be difficult to manage the debt and remember which cards you have paid off. Many credit cards have hefty penalties for late payment which will set you back from reducing the debt. Having all your credit card debt in one place makes it much simpler to manage and gives you a clearer picture of your financial situation.
6: Balance transfers – one way to consolidate your credit card debt into one place is via a balance transfer to a new credit card. Many credit card companies offer introductory balance transfer offers such as 0% interest for 6 months. This is a very effective method; however you should try to ensure that you pay your debt off within this introductory period. You also need to consider what interest rate the debt will default back to after the introductory balance transfer period ends.
7: Low interest credit cards – Credit cards have traditionally been an expensive form of debt with interest rates around 18-19%. With increased competition a new breed of low interest cards have emerged. These cards have an ongoing interest rate around 10-13%, sometimes even lower. Low interest credit cards are useful if you carry an outstanding balance from month to month. They tend to have less frills such as rewards schemes but will save you far more in reduced interest payments
8: Talk to your credit card company – If you are having real trouble paying off the debt then you should try calling your credit card company and explaining the situation. Many are very helpful and may arrange special payment terms to help you pay the debt off.
9: Use a debit card – If you are struggling to keep your spending under control then you could consider using a debit card for new purchases. A debit card has similar acceptance to credit card but is linked directly to your savings account. As a result you can only spend what you have. You can keep a credit card for existing debt while you pay that off and for major purchases.
10: Finally, don’t stress. – While credit card debt can seem very stressful it can be brought under control. Use the methods outlined above to get you started. There are also non-profit organisations which help with credit card debt management and financial advisers who can devise a detailed strategy for debt reduction to suit your needs.
2: Pay more than the minimum balance – credit cards have traditionally had a minimum payment each month equivalent to 3 – 4 percent of the credit card balance. Now they can be as low as 1.5 percent. At that rate it can take years to pay a card off due to the interest charges. Pay as much as you can afford each month over the minimum. You will find your repayments exceed the interest charges and you debt starts to reduce,
3: Pay off highest interest cards first – If you have more than one credit card then focus your efforts on paying off the card with the highest interest rate first. Rather than paying a few extra dollars off every card each month, pay the minimum balance on all cards other than the one with the highest interest. Pay all you can afford off this card until you have paid the balance off in full. Once this is done you should move onto the card with the next highest rate of interest and repeat the process.
4: Credit card interest is calculated daily. – You receive your credit card bill once per month but your interest is calculated daily. Make repayments as often as you can afford. For example, if you get paid each week and can afford to pay $100 off from each pay packet, pay $100 off each week rather than waiting until the bill is due. That way you could save several weeks worth of interest on the money you pay off. Over time this can make a big difference,
5: Consolidate your credit card debt into one place. – When you have several credit cards it can be difficult to manage the debt and remember which cards you have paid off. Many credit cards have hefty penalties for late payment which will set you back from reducing the debt. Having all your credit card debt in one place makes it much simpler to manage and gives you a clearer picture of your financial situation.
6: Balance transfers – one way to consolidate your credit card debt into one place is via a balance transfer to a new credit card. Many credit card companies offer introductory balance transfer offers such as 0% interest for 6 months. This is a very effective method; however you should try to ensure that you pay your debt off within this introductory period. You also need to consider what interest rate the debt will default back to after the introductory balance transfer period ends.
7: Low interest credit cards – Credit cards have traditionally been an expensive form of debt with interest rates around 18-19%. With increased competition a new breed of low interest cards have emerged. These cards have an ongoing interest rate around 10-13%, sometimes even lower. Low interest credit cards are useful if you carry an outstanding balance from month to month. They tend to have less frills such as rewards schemes but will save you far more in reduced interest payments
8: Talk to your credit card company – If you are having real trouble paying off the debt then you should try calling your credit card company and explaining the situation. Many are very helpful and may arrange special payment terms to help you pay the debt off.
9: Use a debit card – If you are struggling to keep your spending under control then you could consider using a debit card for new purchases. A debit card has similar acceptance to credit card but is linked directly to your savings account. As a result you can only spend what you have. You can keep a credit card for existing debt while you pay that off and for major purchases.
10: Finally, don’t stress. – While credit card debt can seem very stressful it can be brought under control. Use the methods outlined above to get you started. There are also non-profit organisations which help with credit card debt management and financial advisers who can devise a detailed strategy for debt reduction to suit your needs.
5 Practical Tips for Generating Targeted Traffic to Your New Blog
You have been inspired by the successful bloggers who have made a nice living from blogging. You began to like the idea of blogging for cash and started to sign up for courses, blog RSS feeds and newsletters to learn about blogging. You followed the steps and finally got your first new blog launched on the Internet. You published a post daily. But after week, you found that only a few visitors have read your posts. You started to think about how to drive targeted traffic to your new blog…..
In this post you’ll find several ways that you can use immediately to get targeted traffic.
Blog Commenting
Commenting on large traffic or popular blogs is any easy way to get some targeted traffic to your blog. I’m sure you have no problem finding the popular blogs in your niche. Take time to read about their posts and probably you’ll learn something more which can help in your content creation. When you like to express your opinion, you can post your comments in. Most blog allows your name to link to your blog. So, your comment could potentially attract traffic when the visitors are reading your comment.
Participating in Forum Discussion
There are also popular forums in your niche as well. You could find the popular forums of your niche through Google search engine. These forums can be your quick sources of targeted traffic. Forums allow member to add link in their signature. So, you can make sure of the signature to get traffic.
The key to getting traffic from forums is participation. You should be active in discussions. Be helpful. When someone started a thread asking for help or advice, you may take the opportunity to post your reply with answers to their questions. You might also start your own threads to discuss about something interesting. This way you’ll get good exposure in the forums and people who read your messages will see your signature link as well. Those who click your signature link will be directed immediately to your blog.
Pay Per Click Traffic
The advertising network like Google AdWords can generate quality targeted traffic for your blog. As far as I know, Google often offer $100 or $50 free advertising credit to ‘first-time’ advertisers. So if you haven’t used AdWords before, think about signing up a new Google AdWords account to get the free advertising credit and start testing drive targeted traffic from AdWords. If you are happy with it , you might continue your campaign. Make sure you do some calculations to find out how much you can spend on AdWords every month.
However, if you advertising budget is tight, you can look for those cheaper ppc advertising networks. Bidvertiser can be a good option when it comes to buying cheap ppc traffic. The quality isn’t as good as AdWords but traffic is still targeted.
Guest Posting
Quite a lot of blogs are accepting guest posts for publication these days. My blog MoneyMakerInfo.blogspot.com is one of them. You can write a few posts exclusively for the publication on the blogs that accept guest post. You’ll include a few lines with your link in the author bio of your post for promoting your blog.
The good thing about guest posting is that your post will be display on the homepage which can potentially generate a good amount of traffic for the first 24 hours of publication. But guest post often needs to be quality and unique. So, make sure you take the time to do research to come up with some good quality posts so that your posts get accepted for publication.
Article Marketing
Article marketing works much the same with guest posting. You write articles and public on article directories. You are allowed to included your anchor text links in the author bio of your articles. The article doesn’t have to be great quality to get accepted for publication. Informative articles with more than 400 words are ideal for publishing on article directories.
If you can write articles on daily basis, then article marketing could become your source of traffic as well. When you submit your articles, only look for large traffic article directories such as Ezinearticles.com, Article Dashboard, Isnare and etc. These are the article directories that can potentially generate consistent traffic. Try to submit at least one article daily. Keep this practice for a month and you’ll targeted traffic coming from article directories then.
Press Release
Press release sites are great places to announce your new blog. While PRweb.com seems to be good press site to announce your new blog but it’s quite expensive to publish a press release on the site. There are alternatives. In fact there are free press sites that you can publish your press release on. Go to Google and search the ‘term’ free list of press release sites and you get to know what press sites are free. Also if you run a contest on your blog, you can publish a press release on the press sites as well.
Press release in different than articles. If you haven’t written press release before, you are advised to hire someone to create the press release for you because press release is in different format.
Once you see targeted traffic flow in to your blog consistently, it will be good idea to monetize those traffic. There are several ways to make money from your blog. You can use AdSense, sell ad space on your blog, promote affiliate products and etc. Make sure you do testing to find out what works best for your blog to generate income online.
In this post you’ll find several ways that you can use immediately to get targeted traffic.
Blog Commenting
Commenting on large traffic or popular blogs is any easy way to get some targeted traffic to your blog. I’m sure you have no problem finding the popular blogs in your niche. Take time to read about their posts and probably you’ll learn something more which can help in your content creation. When you like to express your opinion, you can post your comments in. Most blog allows your name to link to your blog. So, your comment could potentially attract traffic when the visitors are reading your comment.
Participating in Forum Discussion
There are also popular forums in your niche as well. You could find the popular forums of your niche through Google search engine. These forums can be your quick sources of targeted traffic. Forums allow member to add link in their signature. So, you can make sure of the signature to get traffic.
The key to getting traffic from forums is participation. You should be active in discussions. Be helpful. When someone started a thread asking for help or advice, you may take the opportunity to post your reply with answers to their questions. You might also start your own threads to discuss about something interesting. This way you’ll get good exposure in the forums and people who read your messages will see your signature link as well. Those who click your signature link will be directed immediately to your blog.
Pay Per Click Traffic
The advertising network like Google AdWords can generate quality targeted traffic for your blog. As far as I know, Google often offer $100 or $50 free advertising credit to ‘first-time’ advertisers. So if you haven’t used AdWords before, think about signing up a new Google AdWords account to get the free advertising credit and start testing drive targeted traffic from AdWords. If you are happy with it , you might continue your campaign. Make sure you do some calculations to find out how much you can spend on AdWords every month.
However, if you advertising budget is tight, you can look for those cheaper ppc advertising networks. Bidvertiser can be a good option when it comes to buying cheap ppc traffic. The quality isn’t as good as AdWords but traffic is still targeted.
Guest Posting
Quite a lot of blogs are accepting guest posts for publication these days. My blog MoneyMakerInfo.blogspot.com is one of them. You can write a few posts exclusively for the publication on the blogs that accept guest post. You’ll include a few lines with your link in the author bio of your post for promoting your blog.
The good thing about guest posting is that your post will be display on the homepage which can potentially generate a good amount of traffic for the first 24 hours of publication. But guest post often needs to be quality and unique. So, make sure you take the time to do research to come up with some good quality posts so that your posts get accepted for publication.
Article Marketing
Article marketing works much the same with guest posting. You write articles and public on article directories. You are allowed to included your anchor text links in the author bio of your articles. The article doesn’t have to be great quality to get accepted for publication. Informative articles with more than 400 words are ideal for publishing on article directories.
If you can write articles on daily basis, then article marketing could become your source of traffic as well. When you submit your articles, only look for large traffic article directories such as Ezinearticles.com, Article Dashboard, Isnare and etc. These are the article directories that can potentially generate consistent traffic. Try to submit at least one article daily. Keep this practice for a month and you’ll targeted traffic coming from article directories then.
Press Release
Press release sites are great places to announce your new blog. While PRweb.com seems to be good press site to announce your new blog but it’s quite expensive to publish a press release on the site. There are alternatives. In fact there are free press sites that you can publish your press release on. Go to Google and search the ‘term’ free list of press release sites and you get to know what press sites are free. Also if you run a contest on your blog, you can publish a press release on the press sites as well.
Press release in different than articles. If you haven’t written press release before, you are advised to hire someone to create the press release for you because press release is in different format.
Once you see targeted traffic flow in to your blog consistently, it will be good idea to monetize those traffic. There are several ways to make money from your blog. You can use AdSense, sell ad space on your blog, promote affiliate products and etc. Make sure you do testing to find out what works best for your blog to generate income online.
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