SEARCH CLINIC

Facebook has announced a major addition to its social network – a smart search engine it has called Graph Search.The feature allows users to make “natural” searches of content shared by their friends.

Search terms could include phrases such as “friends who like Star Wars and Harry Potter”.

Founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg insisted it was not a web search, and therefore not a direct challenge to Google- however, it was integrating Microsoft’s Bing search engine for situations when graph search itself could not find answers.

Mr Zuckerberg said he “did not expect” people to start flocking to Facebook to do web search.

“That isn’t the intent,” he said. “But in the event you can’t find what you’re looking for, it’s really nice to have this.”

Earlier speculation had suggested that the world’s biggest social network was about to make a long anticipated foray into Google’s search territory.

“We’re not indexing the web,” explained Mr Zuckerberg at an event at Facebook’s headquarters in California.

“We’re indexing our map of the graph – the graph is really big and its constantly changing.”

In Facebook’s terms, the social graph is the name given to the collective pool of information shared between friends that are connected via the site.

It includes things such as photos, status updates, location data as well as the things they have “liked”.

Until now, Facebook’s search had been highly criticised for being limited and ineffective.

The company’s revamped search was demonstrated to be significantly more powerful. In one demo, Facebook developer Tom Stocky showed a search for queries such as “friends of friends who are single in San Francisco”.

The same technology could be used for recruitment, he suggested, using graph search to find people who fit criteria for certain jobs – as well as mutual connections.

Such queries are a key function of LinkedIn, the current dominant network for establishing professional connections.

“We look at Facebook as a big social database,” said Mr Zuckerberg, adding that social search was Facebook’s “third pillar” and stood beside the news feed and timeline as the foundational elements of the social network.

Perhaps mindful of privacy concerns highlighted by recent misfires on policies for its other services such as Instagram, Facebook stressed that it had put limits on the search system.

There are a number of ways of making money online- but one BannersBrokers is a pretty unique company.

The usual online business income development process are through advertising and publishing. But BannersBroker have a third method- combining the two processes.

Website	Advertiser	Publisher	Combined

If you have a Facebook account then you don’t get any money when businesses advertise on your pages.

If you have a Google AdSense publishing account on your website then Google only gives you one per cent of the income that they make from your website.

However BannersBroker will give you a massive seventy five per cent of the money that they make when your website promotes their advertising.

All you have to do to get started is to click on the how to make money Banners Broker link

BannersBroker (BB) make money by renting advertising space on publisher sites to you, the members. When you buy a package of space from BB you will share in the profits they make.

Start with the Ad Pub Combo program- please see the red oblong below:

Then Click on the green getting started button, half way down on the right hand side. This form then appears:

PLEASE NOTE: Please copy and make a note of your username and particularly your password as BB do not seem to send you a confirmation email.

The user name is usually based around your name. It can not be changed in the future, so please make sure that it is memorable to you.

The password should be at least 12 characters long, with CAPITAL and lower case letters and numbers. Special characters are not recognised.

As such it makes sense to create the password in Notepad or a third party program and then copy and paste the password into BannersBroker.

If you own a website that receives a significant amount of traffic, BB can help you grow your business through a new revenue stream. As a BB publisher, your website is included in our database of viable advertising space.

When we make a match, advertisements are placed on your website. For every ad impression generated by your website, you earn a pre-set amount of money. Through our program, BB publishers are able to grow their corporate revenues by taking full advantage of their web traffic.

BB is an online advertising network that manages the sourcing, publishing and performance tracking of ads that make the connection between advertisers and publishers around the world.

We connect advertisers with effective ad space and publishers with the most relevant ads to market on their websites. With an extensive online network consisting of hundreds of thousands of publishers and advertisers from around the world, we help our clients increase sales and earn additional advertising revenue.

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eBay has paid just £1.2 million in tax in the UK an investigation has found.The Sunday Times newspaper said that its tax bill in 2010 comes despite eBay’s UK subsidiaries generating sales of £800 million.

The auction site – which also owns the PayPal payments system – responded that it “complies fully with all applicable tax laws”.

The report comes after coffee giant Starbucks was also accused of paying just £8.6 million in corporation tax in the UK over 14 years.

According to the Sunday Times, eBay had sales of £789 million during 2010 in the UK at its four British subsidiaries.

Using its worldwide profit margin of 23%, it would have made a profit in the UK of £181 million, leading to corporation tax owed of £51 million. Instead, it paid just £1.2m, the report said.

Accounts for one of its units, eBay (UK) Ltd, show that for 2010 – the last year available – it owed tax of £766,000 on profits of £4.4 million.

Other large online international companies have also been accused of avoiding tax in the UK.

Facebook UK paid £238,000 in tax last year, according to its accounts. Its sales were £20.4 million.

Most of the company’s income is believed to be legally going through its European base in Dublin, where corporation tax is lower than in the UK.

And a report in the Guardian in April said that online retailer Amazon had generated sales of more than £7.6 billion in the UK over the past three years but had not paid any corporation tax on the profits from those sales.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Association (ASA) watchdog has banned a Wayne Rooney Nike Twitter campaign.The ruling follows tweets by Manchester United footballer Wayne Rooney and his Arsenal rival Jack Wilshere who posted on to Twitter at the request of the sportswear firm.

The Advertising Standards Authority said that the messages did not make clear they were “identifiable as marketing communications”.

It is the first time that the ASA has acted against a Twitter based campaign.

The authority said it had intervened after receiving a single complaint earlier this year about two tweets – one from each of the sportsmen posted to their personal accounts.

Wayne Rooney’s tweet read: “My resolution – to start the year as a champion, and finish it as a champion…#makeitcount gonike.me/makeitcount”.

Jack Wilshere had posted “In 2012, I will come back for my club – and be ready for my country gonike.me/Makeitcount”.

Rooney has close to 4.8 million followers on his account. The offending tweet was posted on 1 January.

The complainant challenged whether the tweets were “obviously identifiable” as adverts.

Nike responded that the presence of its web address alongside a hashtag with its marketing campaign strapline distinguished the tweets from other personal posts by the players. It added that both sportsmen were well known for having being sponsored by the company.

But the ASA said the elements did not make the tweets “obviously identifiable” as adverts, bearing in mind that many Twitter users scroll through a variety of messages at speed. It added that not all of the social network’s users would have been aware of the “make it count” campaign, or the footballers’ relationship with Nike.

It suggested that in future firms should add #ad or some other clear indication that a message had been paid for.

Whilst this action by the ASA does break new ground, the fact that it has only just been announced- some six months after the event indicates that they don’t currently expect to be upholding many social media complaints.

However it does act as a reminder that people and business much take care and not assume that some sort of online impunity exists.

Facebook’s share of the UK online usage has fallen by more than seven percentage points in the last year- raising concerns that it may have hit saturation point.The social network – which is expected to make an initial public offering (IPO) this year – still attracted significantly more online time than its nearest competitor, accounting for 52.6pc of all visits to social networks in December.

However, Facebook has lost substantial ground since the previous December, when it took a 58.5pc share of the UK’s social networking market, according to data from Experian Hitwise.

It slipped 1.3 percentage points last month alone.

The decline has raised concerns that Facebook is running out of steam in the markets where it is best established, whilst its competitors gain ground.

“Facebook’s growth is levelling out,” said James Murray, market research analyst at Experian. “Because Facebook had such a clear lead, it was always going to be difficult for Facebook to maintain [its position]. It has probably reached near enough its maximum growth.”

The figures will come as a blow to the company, which has been investing heavily in extending its reach and enticing users to click on its adverts, ahead of its long-awaited IPO. Facebook is expected to float with a possible valuation of  £65 billion ($100 billion)- the biggest technology IPO ever.

By contrast, YouTube, the user-generated video site owned by Google, grew its traffic by 45pc last year.

It accounted for just over a quarter of all UK visits to social networks in December, putting it 7.4 percentage points ahead of the previous year.

“We’re expecting video to be even more influential as a marketing channel, and marketers will have to adapt their strategies to incorporate a multi-channel approach in order to secure customers both on and offline,” said Mr Murray.

Twitter and Yahoo! Answers also made gains, but remained tiny by comparison, with 3pc and 2pc of all visits to social networks respectively.

Google’s social network, Google +, did not register in the top 10 most visited social networks at all.

However, Google grew its share of search engine usage market in the UK, edging up from a 91.3pc share of the market to 91.8pc.

Microsoft, its nearest competitor, was a minnow by comparison. Its suite of sites accountted for 3.6pc of all search engine visits in the UK in December, whilst Yahoo!’s popularity for searches fell nearly a percentage point to 2.5pc.

Facebook has outlined plans to encourage users to share more of the media they consume – including music and movies with friends- as well as once again changing their users’ security options.Its founder Mark Zuckerberg also unveiled a dramatic redesign to the website, replacing user profiles with an audio visual timeline of their life.

The updates were revealed at Facebook’s annual F8 developer conference.

A wave of new features in recent weeks have been welcomed by some users and caused annoyance to many others.

Facebook’s latest changes point to a desire to keep users engaged through new features, in the midst of rapid innovation from social networking rivals.

The site’s application platform has been redesigned to allow users to share what they are consuming on streaming music services such as Spotify, and the movie rental site Netflix.

Depending on privacy settings, users will be able to see what friends are doing – for example, playing a song – then listen-in themselves.

Mr Zuckerberg said he wanted to create, what he called, “real time serendipity”.

“Being able to click on someone’s music is a great experience, but knowing you helped a friend discover something new and they liked your taste in music, and that you now have that in common is awesome,” he added.

Facebook said that users would only be able to do as much on the site as its media partners allowed in each country, so free music sharing through streaming apps would only work where that service was already available outside Facebook.

Alongside the deeper integration of media content, the restyling of Facebook’s profile pages is also likely to prove a hot topic among users.

Identities will now be defined through a densely packed vertical timeline of major life events, made up of photos, videos and other items. The level of detail diminishes the further down a reader scrolls.

Profile pages had previously been limited to basic information along with a stream of every single item posted by a user.

Facebook stressed that all of its new offerings could be controlled by members using its recently simplified privacy controls.

In particular, it stressed that timeline items could be modified within the new “activity log”, allowing users to limit who can view certain events from their past.

The updates are expected to start appearing on users’ computers in coming weeks.

Online video content creators are now making significant amounts of money from a range of ways.

Since the explosion of streaming video several years ago, hosting sites have become home to a growing numberof video makers attracting devoted followings for everything from music and sketch comedy to make-up tips.

Meanwhile, online video has become a career for thousands of video creators, with some making hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

As online video viewership has grown – YouTube draws 500 million unique visitors each month – marketers hope to take advantage of the dedicated audiences and low barriers to entry.

Video creators in turn are making money from hosting sites such as YouTube, DailyMotion and Blip.tv, which share a portion of the profits derived from video and banner advertisements.

YouTube, for one, has distributed millions of dollars in advertising revenue to its 20,000 most popular amateur producers since 2007.

A still from an episode of Annoying Orange on Blip.tv Blip.tv, which hosts the Annoying Orange comedy show describes its content as “the best in original web series”

“We share millions of dollars with our partners every year,” said Tom Sly, the site’s head of strategic partner development.

The amount advertisers pay varies with the popularity and quality of the videos, with creators receiving as much as $20 (£12.70) per thousand views.

“Across the board we’re seeing those numbers increase as we see higher quality content and the ability to target users so that advertisers have more fine-grained control,” Mr Sly said.

In 2010, the number of YouTube partners making over $1,000 (£600) per month from advertising revenue went up 300%, the company said.

The company declined to release specific figures, but Mr Sly said “hundreds” of video creators make more than $100,000 a year and “thousands” make more than $10,000 a year.

The top performing web shows on Blip.tv are on target to take in more than $1m in advert revenue each, said Eric Mortensen, senior director of programming.

“There are certain class of people, and it’s not that they are rejecting TV, they never even thought to be like TV in the first place,” he said. “And because of that they are doing new and different things and that’s how they end up making money.”

Industry analysts say that online video audiences are loyal and attentive and feel a connection to the creators.

In addition to advert revenue sharing, some video creators make as much as $150,000 a year by cutting sponsorship deals with major companies, said former YouTube executive George Strompolos, founder of Fullscreen, a start-up that aims to facilitate connections between corporate sponsors and video creators.

Aware of the power of recommendations from such seemingly personal relationships, companies like Ford, GE, and Lancome are directly reaching out to video makers to hawk their products.

Online video creators work without the need for teams of agents, managers, markets and developers, Mr Strompolos said.

“Online video tends to be a one-stop shop solution,” Mr Strompolos said.  “You get not only the creative development and the authenticity of voice you’re looking for, but you also get distribution and reach.”

As the online video advertising and merchandising infrastructures become more sophisticated, analysts say more and more people are likely to strike out on their own in web video.

This is becoming the new television- a place where the average person has a much better chance of getting noticed and making money than if they were to go the traditional route via Hollywood.

Alan Lastufka, author of YouTube: An Insider’s Guide to Climbing the Charts, said: “The money may not always be headline-worthy, but it’s enough to quit your day job, stay in the basement on your computer and spend your time connecting with fans.”

Twitter has said that the number of active users have passed the 100 million mark.The company’s chief executive told a news conference it was preparing to increase its business range by broadening the areas of its service where adverts appear.

But Dick Costolo also said he wanted the business to remain independent.

He said active users, who log on at least once a month, rose 82% this year. Half of these 100 million log on at least once a day.

Twitter raised £250 million in venture capital funding this summer.

Mr Costolo said: “We want to be able to remain independent, grow the business the way we want to, and not be beholden to public markets until we feel like we want to be.”

The company began showing adverts in limited areas of its service in 2010. But it is concerned that commercialisation sometimes alienates users of social media.

Mr Costolo said the results had exceeded Twitter’s expectations: “We now feel that based on the engagement rates we’re seeing… that we’re ready to expand this further.”

Twitter plans to allow adverts on its service known as promoted tweets.

Previously, promoted tweets, such as a message promoting a coffee chain, would only appear if the user already followed that particular company.

Mr Costolo said the business could work relying solely on advertising income: “It’s our firm belief that our advertising platform is the only revenue component that we need to have in the market in order to be a huge independent business.”

All businesses make mistakes – but how those mistakes are handled may often decide whether the business retains or loses its customers.Businesses are not philanthropic institutions: they exist to make money in the form of profit. To make money businesses have to anticipate and satisfy customer’s demands, so that customers provide the necessary income to the business in return for the goods or services that they require.

Identifying enough potential customers who have the requirement for the goods and services on offer, is the primary problem for every business. Having identified the potential customers, the next difficulty is to convert them into customers that pay for their goods and services.

It often costs businesses more than they realise in order to gain a new customer – and considerably more than it does to retain them, so it is surprising how businesses can often take a casual attitude to their customer relations and to retaining customers for their repeat business.

Gaining and retaining customers is a privilege not a right. Customers don’t have to give their business and they are not obliged to remain customers, especially if the marketplace is filled with competing offers for products and services.

Maintaining customers depends largely on how the product or service is delivered.

As a minimum standard customers should always receive their goods and services at the price agreed and delivered in the manner and time expected. This is certainly the case in business to business transactions, where delivery to price and specification have particular importance to companies involved in manufacturing, or where their supplies inventories work on “just in time” deliveries.

From time to time, mistakes will be made – products may fail to meet their specification, deliveries are incorrect or are late, or perhaps there are mistakes in the invoicing.

When a customer complains, the customer is not always right.

But customer complaints need initially to be treated in the first place, as if the customer were right. It is easy for some employees not directly involved with the customer to treat such complaints as a nuisance, but complaints are a valuable source of information about how customers perceive the product and service  for which they are paying.

It is all too easy for  employees not directly in contact with the customer to be unaware of how their actions can alienate both potential and existing customers; for example a delivery not being made on time, a credit level exceeded that prevents delivery, incomplete orders.

When such events occur, provided that customers are informed of the problem at the earliest opportunity and kept informed about progress to its resolution, the harm to customer relations will be minimised.

The worst situation is to not inform the customer of any problem, but allow the customer to find out the hard way, which may create problems for the customer, and breaks the trust of reliability between the customer and supplier.

For managers responsible for getting and retaining business, it is important to ensure that all employees understand that however remote their jobs appear to be from a direct relationship with the customers, their actions can have a significant role in the acquisition, retention or loss of a customer’s business.

Getting customers and retaining their custom is hard work which can easily be undone and negated by others who don’t appreciate the consequences foreseen or unforeseen of their activity or lack of it.

If a customer complains, and there is shown to be a problem, the first action is to admit it to the customer and apologise. It is the job of the manager responsible for getting and retaining business to investigate the complaint, its possible causes, and to provide a swift remedy for the problem. In doing so, managers should consider the following principals:

• Don’t assume that approved business procedures are followed, always check.
• Can procedures and policy it be verified?
• How do you know?

Managers who are responsible for getting and retaining business, must take ultimate responsibility when customers are lost through failings of company staff.

Managers must check that the policies, procedures and results are maintained by their employees, and be ready to help when foreseen and unforeseen problems arise that effect the customers.

All businesses make mistakes, but how those mistakes are handled may often decide whether the business retains or loses its customers.

From: http://businessperformancemaximized.com/it_is_easier_to_lose_business_than_to_get_it

The taxman is to use improved surveillance software to target online traders using marketplace websites but failing to pay tax.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has warned that its new campaign would try to identify regular sellers on eBay, Auto Trader, E-auctions, Amazon, Craigslist and Gumtree.

Occasional sellers of personal items do not need to pay tax, but people earning a living as self employed traders may need to pay income tax, national insurance and VAT.

HMRC said the data it gleaned would be compared with its existing computerised records for income tax paid under self-assessment or PAYE, tax credits and national insurance.

“It shines a light onto previously hidden relationships, uncovering anomalies between such elements as bank interest, property income and lifestyle indicators before homing in on unexplained inconsistencies,” an HMRC spokesman said.

The taxman is also planning to launch more disclosure campaigns in this current tax year, aimed at specific groups of individuals, such as private tutors and fitness coaches, and tradesmen.

In the past couple of years the authorities have been making special efforts to get doctors and dentists, plumbers, and more recently restaurateurs, to come clean and pay the right tax.

HMRC first used computer software four years ago to track down tax-dodging internet traders on eBay.

Tens of thousands of people are thought to make part or all of their living by selling goods on online market places.