Tool to know your website audience & keyword target

Here's a neat, free tool at Microsoft's AdCenter Labs, to give you an audience analysis (age and gender) for your website, based on MSN Search results.

Go here to a post on AdBlogArabia to try it.

STUDY | Users don't even see banners anymore!

A study conducted by the Nielsen/Norman Group found that Internet users in the US avoid viewing banner ads. This new phenomena is being referred to as Banner Blindness.

Read more here.

TRENDS | Shock: Flickr isn’t number one, it’s number six!

Bloggers in the Arab World only talk about Flickr, as the main photo sharing site they use. But, that’s not the case around the world. Flickr only has a 5.95% market share among photo sharing sites!

Here are the details, plus a chart of the top 10.

TRENDS | Video: Another new Google service!

They don’t take a break at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. It seems there are two new Google services every week!

So, here's some information on the latest.

It’s called Google Video.

DIGILIFE | The computer-illiterate still exist

Amidst our daily involvement with technology products, we tend to forget that a considerable portion of the population has little or no computing skills.
There are hundreds of thousands of people in any country, if not millions in big countries, who have never used the Internet.

Shocking isn’t it? It’s a fact.

The European Union has conducted a survey of its population, which revealed that over a third of citizens lack basic computer skills.

The data, published by the Statistical Office of European Communities, shows that 37 per cent of people aged between 16 and 74 have no basic computer skills and are unable to complete tasks such as using a mouse to copy a file or folder.

As you would expect, some of the less developed countries in Europe tilted the balance in this unfortunate direction particularly Hungary, Cyprus, and Lithuania.

But even developed countries, especially in southern Europe, showed a considerable percentage of the population to be computer illiterate, including Greece, Italy and Portugal.
As expected, the countries with the highest literacy included Denmark, Sweden, Luxembourg, Germany and the UK.

The data shows that a higher percentage of older people are illiterate compared to the young, which seems reasonable but what is worrying is that a significant percentage of these older people are part of the workforce, and therefore their lack of computer and Internet skills could be holding back the development of Europe’s economies.

Among students, only a small percentage had no or low computer skills, while more than eight in ten registered either medium or high computer literacy.

Generally, computer and Internet literacy increases as the levels of education in any country increase.

In a country like Jordan, where we pride ourselves of our education system and of the high percentage of literacy, it’s worth examining our levels of e-literacy.

Would it be a surprise if over one third of our population turned out to be e-illiterate?

It’s quite possible if it’s the case in countries like Italy or Portugal. We could, possibly, even have more than that.

Considering the percentage of poverty in our country and the fact that the majority of the working population- other than office workers- have little or no access to computers or the Internet; the numbers could be high.

On the other hand, the relative success of the e-Education initiative in introducing computers to hundreds of governmental schools could be a positive factor.

Maybe we need to find out. Either the government, or a non-governmental institution, can provide the answer through a survey.

Let’s hope we see one soon.

zanasser@gmail.com

(Published in The Star)

DIGILIFE | A connection between online media habits & shopping?

Are online newspaper readers becoming the best online shoppers?

A study by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) shows that frequent readers of newspaper Web sites are more likely to make online purchases than other Internet users.

Read more here at AdBlogArabia.

TRENDS | 'Piracy bust’ in Amman

Every once in a while, when local authorities are alerted to software piracy activities and pressured by the intellectual property owner or the BSA -or both- you hear that there’s been a ‘piracy bust’.

That what happened last week, to one of Amman’s PC distributors who was installing unlicensed copies of software onto machines sold at no extra cost.

While we all agree that piracy is theft, and that the hard work and investment of programmers and software publishers must be rewarded, the simple fact that software costs too much for the average citizen in a developing country like Jordan means that piracy will continue.

In fact, even in the world’s most advanced economies like Japan and the United States, piracy is rampant.

The BSA is active in those countries, but just can’t fight off every illegal practice. So, it has to pick its battles, and the best way to do so is to aim for businesses or big companies that are breaking the law, make a bust, get wide news coverage, and therefore get the message across to everyone else.

But is everyone else listening? Or, rather, can they afford to listen?

Back to the local piracy raid story, the National Library Department, whose task is to safeguard intellectual property, was involved and a spokesperson for the department said that the aim is to ‘stamp out this parasitic activity in Jordan, which hurts the national economy and contributes to the brain-drain.’

Well, those are strong and, may I add, not easily understood statements.

For starters, what would the impact be on the national economy if every registered company in Jordan had to suddenly pay for every piece of unlicensed software it’s using?

Surely, the result would be a massive loss to the country’s balance of payments!

And can someone explain to me the ‘brain-drain’ comment?

Maybe he means that international software companies are not setting up business operations in Jordan, and therefore are not hiring our local programmers; so they find themselves forced to leave the country to ‘copyright havens’ like Dubai, where everything is fine and dandy for software companies?

I’m not too sure about that.

Anyway, 14 years after the law was passed in Jordan, the same questions remain: Why can’t software publishers just produce cut-down, low-priced versions of their software to encourage everyone to actually but it.

Maybe because selling 10 units at full price, with wide-spread piracy, is more profitable than selling 50 units at cut-price, still with piracy.

Strange.

It’s worked for the music industry with special edition tapes and DVDs for the Middle East and digital distribution has lowered illegal music sales, thanks to a song selling for just 99 cents on iTunes.

It’s even been a successful practice in the book publishing business for decades; with cut-down, paper-back version of a book, printed regionally under license.

When will we see similar ideas in software?

zanasser@gmail.com

Published in The Star weekly newspaper

DIGILIFE | ASP arrives, from Google... where will it all end!

A few years ago, there was talk of Application Service Providers (ASPs) and how they would revolutionize the software industry.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, it basically mean that users ‘log in’ to a service or a server that allows them to use an application online without having it on their PC hard disk. Instead of owning and installing a copy of the application on your PC, you use it online on a basis of subscription (paid) or registration (free).

Thanks to the Internet, anyone, anywhere will be able to use the same application and even the same document, if given access rights; creating virtual user-groups without the complexities of physical network set-ups and hardware. The other obvious attraction is that the service could be offered free or for a fee lower than buying the application.

Microsoft was among the first to talk about ASP, seeing as the company’s applications are the ones used by the majority of PC users worldwide.

However, the concept has not really taken off, and one senses that Microsoft has not put its weight behind it or even prefers that it does not become a viable replacement for actually buying and installing desktop software.

Enter Google who, as you would expect, are aiming to revolutionize this field as they have with almost every field before it.

Google have introduced a spreadsheet program, which is a a free alternative to Microsoft Excel.
For now, to avoid overloading Google’s servers, the spreadsheet will initially be distributed to a limited audience, possibly on a first-come-first served basis.

This will also allow Google some time to sort out any problems and develop more features.
Google is accepting sign-ups for the spreadsheet through the "Google Labs" section of its Web site.

Obviously, it’s not as sophisticated as Excel and won’t create charts or provide the same wide choice of options and menus; but that’s not what Google is aiming for anyway.

It wants it to be simple, and fast; therefore enabling family, friends or co-workers to gain access to the same spreadsheet from different computers at different times.

The only potentially thorny issue is one of privacy. Google is the keeper of these documents, and is entrusted with protecting the information from unauthorized users.

It’s the kind of situation which many companies would hesitate or refuse to accept. But individuals, probably, wouldn’t look at security issues in the same way.

And there’s more to come from Google, which also acquired an online word-processing application called Writely earlier this year, and will roll it out as a service just like the spreadsheet.

It’s amazing how every one of Google’s services is accompanied by privacy issues. Whether search, email, online calendar or any other.

Google is fast becoming the custodian of all our personal and, sometimes, business info. It’s a dangerous position for Google to be in, especially as a private, non-governmental entity.

Where will it all end?

zanasser@gmail.com