Praise the Borg and Pass the Ammunition

By Carl Weiss

In a take right out of one of those late night sci-fi movies the race is currently on to determine who is going to conquer the world first: autonomous robots or cybernetically enhanced humans.  If you have been paying any attention to the newsfeeds recently, there have been a number of articles and videos that have clearly demonstrated that a major shift in the way we look at and deal with technology is now under way.

When most people think about robots today, they either get a picture in their heads of the industrial automatons that now assemble things like cars and vacuum cleaners, or they think of mama’s little helper the Roomba.  But what most folks don’t appreciate is that everyone from Google to the Dept. of Defense is on the verge of creating robotic systems that are capable of doing everything from fighting fires to driving on California’s interstates with little or no input or oversight from anyone.

Robots to the Rescue

While most firefighting is still done the old fashioned way, at least one manufacturer, Howe and Howe Technologies, have introduced firefighting robots that are designed to be used in places too hazardous for humans.  However, don’t expect these droids to break down the door and carry you to safety.   The Thermite Firefighting Robot more closely resembles a tank to 3CPO.  However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t other more ambitious designs on the drawing board or in prototype.  In fact DARPA  has created a contest replete with a $2 million prize for a more ambulatory robot that can be sent into harm’s way, such as the recent Fukushima reactor accident.

Robotics Challenge Teams Announced By DARPA

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced on Wednesday some of the top teams that will compete in its $2million contest to create robots that can be used to assist in natural disasters and other emergencies.

What’s even stranger is that there are a number of developers, universities and entrepreneurs who are creating robots that walk on 2, 4 or even 6 legs.  These includes the Army’s BigDog Robot, which resembles a metal Rottweiler that is designed to carry heavy loads over rough terrain, the Cheetah, currently the world’s fastest quadruped robot and another called the Mule.

IDGNews Service - It looks like a bull, trots at the speed of a wolf and carries equipment like a pack mule, but does it have a place on the battlefield of the future? Researchers are conducting a two-year study of a robot that promises to lighten the load that soldiers must carry and they gave it a high-profile demonstration in September.

The four-legged robot, developed by the U.S. government-funded Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Boston Dynamics, is part of DARPA's Legged Squad Support System (LS3) program, and is packed with technology. It's a development on Big Dog, a robot platform developed by Boston Dynamics several years ago.

The new robot walks on four legs and has a fast-reacting balance system that means it won't fall over if shoved from one side -- something that most robots can't handle. If it does somehow fall, it's capable of righting itself. There are also "eyes" at the front, actually electronic sensors that constantly scan the surroundings.

But wait, there’s more…

There are also robots that are currently in use that can swim or even fly.  While most people are familiar with some of the DoD’s autonomous drone aircraft, such as the Global Hawk, what many have not heard about are autonomous aerial bots that are the size of bats or even bugs. While these micro air vehicles (MAVs) are ostensibly designed to be used to for such things as searching for survivors in the wake of a disaster or even pollinating plants, it’s all too easy to see that these bugbots could all too easily be converted into flying listening devices which would give the term “bugging” a whole new meaning. 

Scientists hope to put artificial bee brains in flying robots

Scientists from the Universities of Sheffield and Sussex hope to build a computer model of the honey bee’s brain, with the ultimate hope of using it to control tiny autonomous flying robots.

The project is called Green Brain – a tip of the hat to IBM’s Blue Brain Project, the aim of which is to create a computer model of the human brain. The Green Brain team, however, aren’t actually trying to recreate all of a bee’s mental processes. Instead, they’re focusing on the systems that control its vision and sense of smell.

Also, unlike the Blue Brain scientists, they’re not using supercomputers to create their model. In order to get the performance they’ll need out of desktop PCs, they are using high-performance GPU (graphics processing unit) accelerators. Donated by the NVIDIA Corporation, these GPUs are typically used to rapidly generate 3D graphics on home computers and gaming systems. For the Green Brain project, they will instead be used to quickly perform complex calculations.

What’s worse is that once these some of these bots are out of the bottle, it is not going to be easy to put them back in.  Especially since at least one lab in England has developed a way to power these critters on biomass.  That’s right, these robots eat bugs.  Eww!

Bug-Eating Robots Use Flies for Fuel

At the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in England, researchers are designing their newest bug-eating robot—Ecobot III.

The device is the latest in a series of small robots to emerge from the lab that are powered by a diet of insects.  Most robots today draw that energy from electrical cords, solar panels, or batteries. But Chris Melhuish and his colleagues think such release-and-forget robots can satisfy their energy needs the same way wild animals do—by foraging for food.

"Animals are the proof that this is possible," he said.

Over the last decade, Melhuish's team has produced a string of bots powered by sugar, rotten apples, or dead flies.

There’s Something Fishy Going on Here

But the friendly skies are not the only realm into which autonomous robots have started to roam.  There are also a number of inventors who have created robots that can swim the seven seas.

Autonomous swimming robot inspired by the sea turtle

Well, we shouldn’t be surprised. Scientists have created swimming robotic versions of the cow-nosed ray, the jellyfish, the sunfish, the tuna, and just the generic “fish,” so why not the sea turtle? That’s what a group of scientists from the ETH Zurich research group are in the process of doing, and they’ve named it naro - tartaruga (the original naro was another robotic tuna). As it turns out, a couple of the sea turtle’s natural features make for a pretty good robot.

Although it is possible to operate the current prototype by remote control, naro - tartaruga is being created first and foremost as an exercise in autonomous underwater navigation. The research team is also interested in seeing just how energy-efficient its flapping-fin propulsion system will be.

There is currently everything from robo-tuna, to automated jellyfish, to robotic eels that are designed to sniff out underwater mines. While many of these cutting edge robots are tethered to their human operators, there are a number that are being endowed with artificial intelligence.  

SUNNYVALE, CA and KAMUELA, HI, Oct 25, 2012 -- Liquid Robotics(R), an ocean data service provider and developer of the Wave Glider(R), the first wave powered autonomous marine robot,  the world's first wave powered, autonomous marine robot.

Wave powered robots? You heard it here first.  Just like the computer revolution of the 1980’s, the next few years are going to see the emergence of robotics as an everyday event.  For instance, California has just passed legislature that makes it legal for “Autonomous Vehicles” to share the road with humanity. 

Feds ironing out rules for autonomous cars

With the increasing development of autonomousvehicles, and even some states issuing licenses for self-driving cars, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration decided it was high time to lay out a set of rules for these advanced vehicles. According to a Detroit News report, NHTSA is embarking on a research project that could take two to three years, at the conclusion of which, the administration will write rules to govern driverless cars.

According to the report NHSTA administrator David Sctrickland says the technology could possibly save "thousands of lives." It was also reported that NHTSA has been in talks with a number of companies, including Google, regarding the implementation and development of this technology. Google has been testing its own fleet of driverless cars, logging over 300,000 miles on American roads. The tech company says autonomous vehicles could be made available to the public in the next ten years.

What’s even scarier is the fact that recent developments have made it not only possible, but probable that computer and robotic technology is going to be available that is wearable or even implantable.  Most people have heard about Google Glass, which is a voice actuated computer that is worn like a pair of spectacles.  What hasn’t been as widely promoted is the fact that there are other companies developing similar technology.

Motorola HC1 “Google Glass” Wearable Computer Revealed

 You remember how we saw the unveiling of Google’s Project Glass earlier this year and how it was amazing that we could have a computer that fit into a pair of stylish eyeglasses? Well, it looks like Motorola has beaten Google Glass to the punch with the launch of the Motorola HC1 Headset Computer. This is a wearable computer that runs on Windows.

Yes, this is nowhere near as sleek as the Google Glass concept, but the HC1 is not being targeted at the stylish consumer market. Instead, this is geared more toward industry, military, aerospace, aviation, utilities and other similar commercial applications in the field. And when I said it runs on Windows, you’re not going to get the tiled interface of Windows 8; instead, this is running on Windows CE 6.0 Professional with a custom speech recognition engine.

Robotic Exoskeleton Has Potential For Space And Earth Applications

But these systems are only the tip of the iceberg for wearable hardware.  One of the most intriguing would have to be NASA’s X1 Robotic Exoskeleton.

NASA has teamed up with The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) and Oceaneering Space Systems to develop a robotic exoskeleton called X1. X1 is a 57 pound device that a human could wear over his or her body to assist or inhibit leg movements.In space, the inhibit mode would be used as an in-space exercise machine to supply resistance against leg movement. Here on Earth, the assist mode could potentially help individuals walk for the first time.

Some people have described this technology as being “halfway to the IronMan,” which is apropos for a robotic suit that looks like a cross between a storm trooper and a Transformer.  But the fact of the matter is that not only is hardware wearable, in some cases it has become implantable. 

As shocking as the concept of implantable computers may be to the average American, this technology is hardly new.  For years such things as pacemakers and implantable defibrillators have been available to the public.  Not only are these devices computer controlled, but industry experts recently issued a report that warned that these devices are susceptible to malware.  That’s right, if you are a pacemaker user, your device could get hacked.  While other implantable medical electronics such as cochlear implants designed to allow the deaf to hear and ocular technology designed to let the blind see could also be hacked, the results of a computer virus in these systems would in all likelihood not prove fatal.

EXPERTS DISCUSS HOW RISE IN MEDICAL MALWARE COULD LEAD TO FATAL CONSEQUENCES

Computers and smartphones aren’t the only technology susceptible to malware. Experts are saying computerize medical equipment is being targeted through systems connected to the Internet as well — and the effect could have deadly consequences.

Technology Review reported Kevin Fu, a medical-device security and a computer scientist at the University of Michigan and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, saying that although no injuries as a result of computer viruses infecting medical equipment have been reported yet, they are beginning to hamper patient-monitoring equipment.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology Information Security & Privacy Advisory Board panel discussed the potential consequences this malware could have on patients, how it is getting into the system and what can be done about it.

As electronics get smaller and cheaper it is only a matter of time before many of these systems will become implantable.  As farfetched as it sounds, much of the technology that we all watched on Star Trek is extremely close to becoming an everyday reality.  Remember the communicator?  Today we call this device a cell phone.  Remember the Enterprise’s talking computer?   Can anybody say Siri?  How about cloaking devices?  The military calls it Stealth Technology.  Replicators that produce food out of thin air?  The latest generation of 3-D printer has been designed by Cornell's Creative Machines to print your next takeout order.   And of course who could forget the Borg.

Star Trek technology: how 21st century scientists are making it so

Since its inception in 1966, Star Trek has familiarized us with the lingo and applications of science. At least, that was the case for me. I felt pretty disenfranchised from science at school: it wasn't until I discovered science fiction that I realized I could understand "difficult" technical concepts.

Since the show began, many of us have become more tech-savvy than we could possibly have imagined at school. More than that, we're now seeing emergent technology here on Earth that was once little more than a Star Trek scriptwriter's dream. To get you in the mood for this weekend's festivities, here's a roundup of some of the best Star Trek-inspired technology.

As time goes on it’s inevitable that cybernetic systems, robotics and even more Star Trek technology will become not only available but as commonplace as the computer is today.  Whether for good or bad, the only question that remains to be answered is, “Do you think we’ll be able to use malware to stop them from taking over the world?”

Carl Weiss is president of W Squared MediaGroup, a company dedicated to keeping clients on the cutting edge of online technology.  You can hear Carl’s Working the Web to Win radio show every Tuesday at 4pm Eastern on Blog Talk Radio.   He also owns and operates Jacksonville Video.

Websites - The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

by Carl Weiss

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder it is said.   But when it comes to website design there are really two beaus that you are trying to woo: the reader and the search engines.  The reader, or more precisely your growing audience, is vital because without readership your website will wither and die.  But it goes without saying that precious few will find your website in the first place if you can't achieve some kind of presence on page one of the major search engines.  It's this schizophrenic existence of trying to please two masters that many times makes a hash of an otherwise stellar website.  So the question becomes one of, "Can you have your online cake and eat it too?"

The Good Website

The very essence of a good website is engagement.  In other words, does your site have something to say?  And if it does, how does it speak to your audience.  The most effective sites nowadays don't rely on mere prose to capture the audience's attention.  They employ a multimedia approach that combines such things as audio podcasts and videos along with the written word.  While pictures are worth a thousand words, the best sites don't waste a lot of space on images.  When they do post a picture, it isn't going to be some nebulous stock photo that means little or nothing to the audience. The best images are photos of the business and the people behind the scenes.

Another precept of the "Good Website" is that it isn't one long advertisement.  People today are continually bombarded by ads everywhere they go.  If you hope to do business with those who do happen upon your website, then you need to do much more than merely pitch everyone who lands on your homepage.  People love to be entertained and they hate to be preached at.  Therefore if you want to make the best impression, you need to accomplish two simple tasks with your site:

     1. You need to prove to your audience that you are trustworthy.
     2. You need to get your audience to like you.

That's why blogs and social networks were created, to engage, inform and entertain.  Instead of using these media to shower the audience with ad copy, what the most effective sites do is create an ongoing steam of anecdotes, time and money saving tips and true-life stories that convey something of value to anyone who comes to your site.  Since the bulk of your site doesn't change from one week to the next, it's your blogs and social posts that will give your audience a reason to come back to your site again and again, all of which brings them ever closer to doing business with you.  These elements are also of interest to the search engine spiders, which rate relevancy and frequency of bot blogposts and social posts.

Life is the Best Reality Show

Another way to get an audience's attention is to show them what you're all about.  With the advent of podcasts and video, this couldn't be easier.  Today it is a snap to create audio and videocasts that are five times as compelling as the written word.  Face it, people prefer being shown to being told.  When you consider that everything from laptops to tablet pcs to smartphones are virtual TV broadcast stations, there is really no excuse for not availing yourself of these devices to reach out to the masses.

Here's a video of our weekly online radio show

Then once you have their attention, affection and trust, you need to meet the prospects halfway. This translates into giving the audience a reason and a means to do business with you.  Just like the ads that many businesses run on door hangars and in newsprint, online you still need to make the prospect an offer they can't refuse.  This has to be something of real or at least perceived value that will entice the prospect into either making an initial purchase or registering.  Without an acceptable offer, your chances of scoring a conversion are next to nil.

You also need to make it easy for someone to take you up on your offer.  This means having your phone number highly visible above the fold. If they have to hunt for a way to contact you they are going to do business elsewhere.  It doesn't hurt to also include an autoresponder that allows people to register for your offer via email.  The bottom line is that if you make it easy to do business with you, then you will do more business.  So designing a website that engages the audience really isn't all that difficult if you make the most of the available technology.  The problem is that somewhere during the past few years a number of people, including professional website designers have lost their way.

The Bad Website

I know that there are 130,000 websites coming online every day, but do so many of them have to act like it's 1999?  Back then there was no such thing as blogs or social networks.  Video was out of the question due to the fact that bandwidth was nearly nonexistent.  Most websites back then were what I like to refer to as e-brochures, which were in essence an online version of most company's printed literature.  As a result their engagement power was limited to verbiage interspersed with a few images. The problem is that more than two thirds of the sites that pop up day in and day out still seem to emulate this look.  Or, they are one gigantic image with dancing flash banners that are not only annoying to look at, but that the search engines can't see at all.  So what these sites do is waste space since nobody with the exception of the website owner and a few family members will ever see them.

The Ugly Website 

This toad of a website usually comes about due to the fact that the website owner is more concerned with generating high ranking than in communicating with prospective customers.  As a result the site is so stuffed with keywords that it is nearly incomprehensible to all but the search engine spiders.  This leads to high ranking coupled with abysmally low conversion rates.  It boils down to winning the battle and losing the war.  You've seen these sites all too often.  They're the ones that runs about five feet below the fold and are chock full of adspeak and bullet points and boxes full of questionable testimonials.  The worst thing is that if the site's owners had taken a little more time to create content that was compelling to the reader, rather than concentrating on carpet bombing them with ad copy, then they would have achieved both high ranking and exceptional conversion rates.

Creating the Right Balance

When it comes to creating sites that speak to the audience and please the search engines, the most important thing to remember is that content is king.  If you strive to deliver timely, interesting content then your website will be an asset to prospects and search engines alike.

Carl Weiss is president of W Squared Media Group, an online marketing firm that embraces and employs all forms of dynamic content.  He also owns and operates Jacksonville Video Production and is co-host of Working the Web to Win, a weekly radio show that airs at 4pm Eastern every Tuesday on BlogTalkRadio.com

Going Thermonuclear with Online Security

By Carl Weiss

Back in the 1950’s when the Cold War was raging, governments and individuals took the threat of nuclear war so seriously that they started building and stocking bomb shelters should the threat of nuclear war ever rear its ugly head.  Fast forward sixty years and a new threat has appeared that is every bit as serious and potentially as disastrous to good people worldwide.  Yet this threat has not yet galvanized the nation the way that the threat of nuclear holocaust did back then.  What I’m talking about is the impending threat of cyber attack.

When your head hits the pillow at night, do you fall asleep feeling that your online data, your identity and your financials are safe and secure?  Do you feel invulnerable behind your Windows Firewall and Norton Antivirus?  Are you in the habit of downloading freeware on your laptop and free apps on your Smartphone?  Do you use public wifi at coffee shops, restaurants, hotels and airports? 

If your answer to any of the above was “Yes” then I have news for you, Bunky.   It isn’t a matter of if you are going to be hacked, cracked or cyber attacked.  It’s just a matter of when.  Because the habits evinced above are tantamount to an invitation for hackers and cyber criminals to gain access to your most sensitive information, hijack your computer and Smartphone and in short turn your life into a living hell where your identity, your financial data and your intellectual property can be bought and sold like a commodity.

Does this scenario sound far fetched?  Let me provide you with a news flash.  During the past several months a shocking number of financial institutions, government agencies and the world’s largest domain registration service have all been hacked or denied service in one form or another.  Worse yet, all of these mammoth edifices have layer upon layer of protection that was designed to thwart even the most concerted attack.  Yet their security proved unable to stop hackers from entering and controlling their systems.

October 8 – Cybercrim Group Recruits Botnets for Coordinated Attack on 30 US Banks – by Ken Presti of crn.com

An organized cybercrime group is in the process of recruiting the operators of illegal botnets to participate in a coordinated attack on 30 American banks, according to security vendor RSA.  The attack, which is apparently planned for an undisclosed date this fall, would likely be the largest coordinated cyber attack in history, involving as many as 100 botmasters and their respective botnets.

According to RSA, the group will be leveraging a proprietary Gozi-like Trojan, which RSA calls "Gozi Prinimalka." The word "Prinimalka," which is derived from the Russian word meaning "to receive," appears as a folder name in every URL path to the gang's servers.

Apparently this was the same group that in 2008 stole more than $5 million from bank accounts in the US.  Botnets are networks of robotized computers owned by businesses or individuals that have been hacked and turned to cybercrime by remote control.  Many times the hacker tool of choice is not to spend hours or days trying to guess passwords, but simply to piggyback a piece of malware onto a freeware package that most people are all too eager to download.  Some exploit known back doors to operating systems and public networks.  Once inside a laptop, PC, tablet or Smartphone, the malware or spyware can gain access to and in some cases take control of infected machines.  Unless this malicious software is detected and eliminated, then the person or persons who designed the malware can rifle through your files, detect and extract credit card information, and if desired, use your machine to abet their nefarious activities. 

We Have Met the Enemy and They are Us

Sad to say, but the biggest threat to cyber security to individuals and businesses comes from the poor online discipline.  Former White House CIO and cyber security expert Theresa Payton pointed out in a recent televised interview that “In one instance we had a client that was convinced they were being bugged by a competitor.  We quickly determined that their employees were checking in on Foursquare everywhere they went.  Even worse, they revealed online who they were with and what they were doing.  So I told management that nobody needed to bug their offices.  All the competition had to do was follow them around on Foursquare.”

This problem is not relegated to the US.  Andy Prow, New Zealand managing director of Aura Information Security sums it up, "There is a growing need for privacy. More people are putting more information about themselves online - Facebook and other profiles -- but on the flip side we are becoming far more conscious that we only want our personal information given out if we give it, and we do not want it stolen.”

Is Your Smartphone Smarter Than You?

Unlike PCs and laptops, most Smartphones have little in the way of security.  According to a recent survey, 70 percent of users don’t password protect their Smartphones.  Many Smartphone users have little or no antivirus software or malware eradication software installed on their phones.  And unlike PC’s and laptops, it’s all too easy to misplace or lose a Smartphone, which if left unsecured has a 90 percent likelihood of being rifled through before being returned.

While no one, not even the government and big business are immune from cyber attacks, the most pressing need is for individuals to take the matter seriously and to take appropriate countermeasures to defend themselves.  Below are the top 5 things you need to do protect yourself:

1.      One layer of cyber security is not sufficient to detect malicious software.  You need to have at least three layers of security to harden your system.  As well as using a primary antivirus package such as TrendMicro, Norton,  or McAfee, you should also add a secondary layer of malware detection such as IOBit’s Advanced system Care 9, and/or Malwarebytes Anti Malware. 

2.      Install password and antivirus protection on your Smartphone.  AVG antivirus, Lookout Security, Dr Web Antivirus and other security and anti-malware programs are available for iPhone and Android. 

3.      Online you should always look a gift horse in the mouth.  Never plug in a flash drive or install a free software program with which you are unfamiliar.  If you are looking for software that you can rely on as being malware free, check out the ratings on CNet or Tucows. Paying for a program in most cases eliminates the adware that often come with the free programs. Buying that app you like can help protect your Smartphone.

4.      Do not respond to online come-ons or email addresses to which you are unfamiliar.  Phishing is all too common to be ignored.  And it is much more insidious than you think.  I had to explain to a colleague the other day that the reason she was getting tons of emails but no follow up calls from a Craigslist ad she recently ran was due to the high probability that her ads were being responded to by people phishing for active email addresses that can be sold to spammers.  She has since insisted that interested parties phone her for more information.

5.      Use common sense when posting on social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, FourSquare and Flickr.  Remember while it may only take you a few moments to post online, your words and images will be available for years to come.  Therefore it is likely that they could be called up by employers, officials, spammers, stalkers and identity thieves.

While the age of information warfare is not as daunting a threat as thermonuclear annihilation, it can be crippling to a business or governments, as Irani officials found out to their chagrin after having their computers compromised by the Stuxnet virus in 2011. They found out the hard way that online security is not something you can take lightly.

Carl Weiss is president of W Squared Media Group and Jacksonville Video.  He is also cohost of Working the Web to Win which can be heard every Tuesday at 4pm Eastern on Blog Talk Radio.

Giving Techno-Hitchhikers the Boot

By Carl Weiss

Nobody likes freeloaders, particularly on their computer.  But the problem is every time you upload a free game or other trial program you can also upload other applets and toolbars that you don’t necessarily want.  Not only do these unwanted hitchhikers take up valuable space on your computer, but they can also cause conflicts with other programs, slowing down or even causing your system to crash.  Below are some of the ways to clean up and speed up your system.

Using Brute Force

From time to time it is a good idea to take an inventory of the software on your system in order to decide how to lighten the load.  On Windows 7 this means either hitting the All Programs on the Start Menu or the Programs and Features option on Control Panel.  Scan the listing of programs for unused or unwanted programs to uninstall.  Don’t make the beginners mistake of erasing the icon from the desktop, as this will only delete the shortcut.  When uninstalling you may receive a message stating that uninstalling the package may remove a file shared by another program.  Always keep these files just to be on the safe side.  They don’t take up much space anyway.

Another way to shore up some needed hard drive space is to click on My Computer and run down the list of programs, mousing over files to determine file size.  If you have any video editing packages on your machine, they may create render files that can eat up large chunks of space.  Once you are finished posting the videos, you should eliminate these files. Some video packages also create other media files when importing video that can gobble up enormous amounts of space.  Find and eliminate them as well.

Downloads and Temp Files

Another two items that eat up space are download and temp files.  These are created whenever you upload an install program or import an attachment.  By clicking on the Start Menu and the Documents Tab you will find the Downloads tab.  Click on this to see all the junk that you have accumulated there.  Once you have installed the software package, this is the place to remove the installer.  If you have finished reading an attachment or have moved it to another folder, why keep the ghost of emails past locked away in the download folder.  Give it the boot.  You would be surprised at how much space this will free up.

The Temp Tab under My computer is another place to dig for buried treasure.  You would be surprised at how many old video clips and long forgotten file folders are languishing in this techno-landfill.  Time to take out the trash.

Don’t want to take the time and trouble to do all of the above yourself?  No problem.  By clicking on My computer and right clicking on the C: drive, you can activate Disk Clean, which will automatically assess and purge unneeded files from your system.  Don’t be surprised if the number of junk files it identifies are in the thousands.

Automating the Process

There are also packages available online that can automate the cleanup process.  One of them is Advance System Care, which is a package from IOBit that protects, repairs, cleans and optimizes your PC.  This free software not only frees up space and speeds up your system, but it also fixes your registry, scans and removes spyware, malware and adware.  Best of all, you don’t need to be an IT professional to use it.  Simply install and click on Scan Now and then Repair Now and ASC does the rest.  Since I started using it weekly, I have eliminated software conflicts and the appearance of the dreaded Blue Screen of Death.

Whatever it Takes

If you are tired of putting up with a PC that is slow or that crashes regularly, it’s time to identify and evict unwanted hitchhikers.  Whether you purge your system manually or automate the process, it’s time to give freeloaders the boot.

Carl Weiss is president of W Squared Media Group and co-host of Working the Web to Win on Blog Talk Radio.  

Touch Marketing – Winning the Day & Getting the Girl

By Carl Weiss

One of the first questions I ask whenever I speak before a group is, “What does WWW mean to you?”  While the responses are varied, the correct one for most small owners is, “Why Won't it Work?”  Having been professionally engaged in Internet marketing since 1995, I can tell you that the answer to this is no easy matter.  Where in years gone by business owners merely had to create an optimized website in order to cash in online, today if you want page one results you also need to busy yourself with an entire armada of online marketing, such as blogging, social networking and video.  All this just to get featured on page one of search engines like Google.  But what most business people do not understand is that having a page one position will do you little good if you don’t have a way to deal with the responses created by your website.  And by system, I mean a comprehensive method of sorting, selecting and feeding prospects and clients the information they need to either make a buying decision.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Does your company already have a formalized touch marketing system in place?  If they do, it may not have been created to work with online leads.  Many touch marketing systems have been created to handle responses generated from direct mail, cold calls or even broadcast media such as radio and TV.  Instead of just feeding your online leads into their system, the best thing you can do to maximize your online results is to create a system specifically tailored to handling online responses.  In the first place, web savvy individuals are in a hurry.  They are not going to respond to long copy, particularly if presented in written form.  So sending them a ten page white paper is not going to get the job done.  What you need to do to generate results with online respondents is to employ short copy, snappy comebacks and/or video.

What’s In It For Me?

Once you succeed in getting someone to respond to an offer, unless the offer leads directly to a sale, you need to follow up with something new and exciting.  What I mean by this is you don’t want to get a prospect all worked up with your initial offer only to disappoint with the follow up.  Emotional attachment is the name of the game if you are trying to create a dependency-based relationship between the consumer and your products and services.  In order to create dependency you first need to establish a sense of attraction.  Secondly you must inspire loyalty.

While attraction alone can spark a relationship, failure to move the relationship along will inevitably result in its dissolution.   What are relationship drivers?  Let’s look at the situation of dating.  While the thing that brought you two together in the first place was attraction, once the bloom is off the rose it requires effort to sustain and move the relationship to the next level.  Successful touch marketing is a lot like that.  In the first place there has to be something in it for the prospect.  Like offering your date a bouquet of flowers and then enjoying a night of dinner and dancing, prospects like to be wooed as well.  If all you do with drip marketing is send sales circular after sales circular, don’t be surprised if you get nowhere with the prospect.  Nobody wants to be regarded as easy.

Making the Customer the Center of Your Universe

Properly executed, touch marketing can create and sustain the kind of emotional dynamic needed to woo a prospect.  Instead of going straight for the sale, each time you reach out and touch the prospect, loyalty, confidence and continuity should be the goal.  Entertain them and make them laugh.  Don’t bury them is dry prose.  One of the best ways to get a bead on what motivates and drives a customer toward a sale is to evaluate everything from the customer’s perspective.  Face it, every customer lives and breathes to satisfy their unique needs and wants.  They are for the most part emotionally driven and will purchase from merchants whom they know, trust and like.  Many people will shop prices online, which is a battle in which you do not wish to engage.  If you want to break away from the herd and distinguish yourself as someone who is worth spending the extra dollar, then you need to let the customer know that you are a different breed of cat from the outset.

The Touchstones of Successful Online Marketing

Fortunately, the Internet is chock full of low cost or even no cost solutions to making touch marketing a snap. 

1.       Automated Newsletter Providers such as iContact, Constant Contact and Mail Chimp offer a low-cost solution to creating online forms, newsletters and emailable coupons that are template-driven.  Best of all, they allow you to set up multiple folders to collate your results.  This way you can isolate different demographic and psychographic profiles, test your offers and respond to each group with a unique message or offer.

2.       E-Card purveyors such as http://www.jibjab.com/  http://www.jacquielawson.com and http://www.someecards.com provide online greeting cards with a touch of humor.   JibJab even has video cards that you can personalize by inserting headshots of you and your staff, or your client or prospect.  Never underestimate the value of humor to seal the deal.  Remember, one of the cornerstones of relationship building is to get the prospect to like you.  Who doesn’t like a card that makes them laugh out loud?

3.       Say it with video – Aside from YouTube.com that provides you with editing capabilities for every video you upload, there are a number of newer contenders that can even turn your stills into a compelling video, such as http://animoto.com/ and full-on animation sites such as http://goanimate.com  that offer a user-friendly environment in which to create animated clips.  There are even services that specialize in video email, such as www.bombbomb.com, mailvu.com and www.iwowwe.com that makes sending videos via email a no brainer.

4.       Taking it to the next level with Send Out Cards – Want to automate greeting card and postcard mailings?  Like to reward your best customers with gifts?  https://www.sendoutcards.com/ is an online card store and customer reward program rolled into one.  Who has the time to shop for cards and gifts?  With Send Out Cards you can create customized greeting cards and postcards with the click of a mouse.  Then you can add treats, gifts or even gift cards that reward your loyal customers.  If you want your best customers to feel the luv, this is one service that’s hard to beat.

While setting up a successful touch marketing campaign can be a bit daunting at the outset, remember that once established this system will automate your customer relations program.  Now don’t you wish it was that easy with your girlfriend?

Carl Weiss has been wooing prospects and customers since 1995.  He is currently president of WSquared Media Group and Jacksonville VideoProduction.  He also co-hosts Working the Web to Win on BlogTalkRadio.com every Tuesday at 4pm Eastern.

The Ghost Says Boo!

by Carl Weiss

Less than a month after media pundits declared that Google+ was nothing more than a virtual ghost town, Google fired back claiming it has more than 100 million active users.  While this number still pales in comparison with Facebook's reported 955 million user base, this is still nothing to sneeze about.  In fact, for a number of small business owners G+ is the go to site when it comes to doing business online.  Let me count the ways.

In the first place G+ was not created in a vacuum.  It was designed by looking at the other social nets and taking the best and leaving the rest.  It was also built from the ground up to be able to integrate such things as photos, video and other multimedia components into your posts with ease.  No more cutting and pasting links.  Some of the other features that I find useful include:

1. Are all of Your Posts Picture Perfect?

One of the factors that most people downplay on social networks is the ability to edit a post after the fact.  Let's face it, nobody is perfect.  If  you have ever posted to Twitter or Facebook and belatedly realized that you had erred in creating the copy it isn't possible to go back and correct the gaffe.  On G+ all you have to do to edit a post after the fact is, click on the arrow to the right of the post which spawns a drop down, that enables you to edit, delete or lock the post.

2.Free Event Broadcasting

If you have an event that you would like to announce, one of G+ newest features allows you to schedule and broadcast any event to your audience.  Creating an event is simplicity itself. Click on the events tab on the menu at left and follow the drop downs. Better still is the fact that once broadcast the event will be synced with your Google Calendar.  Since Events are searchable by any Google+ user, this feature alone could help you build your audience much better than on Facebook, where only your friends will be permitted to view events that you have created.

3. Can you say Free Videoconferencing?

One of the most useful built-in features of G+ is Hangouts, which is a free videoconferencing facility that allows you and up to 8 friends to video chat and screen share all at the click of a mouse.  Personally, I find that Hangouts is a great way to interface with clients and prospects.  It saves on windshield time and provides the kind of live interface that most other companies charge money to use.  The connections are crisp and clear, the video stream is the next best thing to being there.  If you have more than 8 people with which you'd like to hangout, there is also a feature called "Hangouts on Air" that is a virtual video broadcast station that will allow you to be seen and heard by thousands if need be. 

4. Going Mobile

Google has also developed a number of mobile apps that not only take their social network for a spin, but also create a number of opportunities for savvy business people.  Hangouts for one is available as a mobile app. This means that neither you nor your clients and prospects need to be chained to the desk in order to teleconference.  The Events App not only will update your circles as to your upcoming event, but in "Party Mode" it also allows guests to show their photos and videos, which makes them much more likely to participate.

5. Google+ and all of their Brand Pages  post are fully searchable!

Google+  posts are searchable. If you own a business and want to generate traffic and add to your search ranking, G+ is the way to go. Facebook posts are not searchable and many other social nets limit their post search ability. Google is the search leader and owns G+. Where do you think they like to look for juicy posts about your products? Not Facebook, or LinkedIn.   As a rule, Google likes their own properties better than those of the competition. To top it off, Google+ is gaining a lot of industry support. Aggregation software giants like Hoot Suite and Hub Spot now offer support for it. This make it much easier for a business to automate their posts.

6. Who counts the beans at FB anyway?

Oh yeah, when it comes to the vaunted 900 million users touted by Facebook, that also includes more than 83 million fake, duplicate and feline profiles in the mix. Besides, it' quality and not quantity that counts when you are trying to build a following that is eager to interact with you. Google could  easily include the 400+ million Gmail users, all of whom are automatically G+ members, but instead  prefers to tout real numbers that you can count on.

A recent Business2Community post declared that, "Earlier this month Facebook updated their regulatory filing which now states that 8.7 percent of its 955 million monthly active users are actually duplicate or fake accounts.  Moreover, duplicate accounts make up 4.8 percent - equivalent to 45.8 million accounts.

When it comes to choosing and using a social network to build a business, it's all a matter of personal taste.  All I can say is that for my money, I'd much rather work with a ghost than a cat any day.

Carl Weiss is president of W Squared Media Group, a Jacksonville, Florida based firm that specializes in helping their clients work the web to win.  Carl's online radio show Working the Web to Win can be heard every Tuesday at 4pm Eastern on Blog Talk Radio.

Does WWW mean, “What’s Wrong with my Website?”

By Carl Weiss

So many websites.  So little space.  With Google owning more than eighty percent of the search market and more than a quarter billion websites currently vying for position, is it any wonder that so many small businesses are having difficulty gaining exposure online?  What many people do not understand is not only is the web getting ever more crowded, but it has undergone a sea change in the past few years that has fundamentally changed the benchmarks that search engine spiders look for in order to determine who gets on page one.  In last week’s blog, I explored the new face of search engine marketing and what website owners need to do in order to generate page one results. 

The problem is that being on page one is not the end of the rainbow by any means.  Ultimately the goal of any successful online marketing campaign is to generate new business in terms of leads and sales.  Even if you rank number one on page one of Google under a high traffic keyword, this won’t necessarily make the cash register ring.  Browsing habits and online expectations have changed over the past few years.  The old adage of “Set it and forget it” where a business owner could create a static site and walk away for two to three years no longer applies.  So if you absolutely positively need your site to turn clicks into cash, here are the points you need to address.

1.      What’s the ultimate purpose of your website?

The answer varies from site to site.  Some sites are designed to sell directly to a national or worldwide audience, while others are lead generation machines where prospects are directed to fill out a form or pick up the phone.  In order to accomplish either of these goals, the first thing you need to understand is that if someone’s first encounter with you is vie the Internet then there are several givens that you need to address.  In the first place, they don’t know you.  In the second they don’t trust you.  Last but not least, there are thousands of other firms like yours with which to do business, many of whom charge less than you.  If you are looking to instill confidence and avoid a bidding war, you need to show prospects up front that you are better than the average bear.  The best way to do this is via video.  If your homepage does not contain both an introduction and testimonial video, then don’t complain if you aren’t bringing home the bacon. 

2.      How have user likes changed in the past five years?

It used to be that prospects would come to a site and click through four or five pages looking to glean a little bit of information that would tell them whether to do business with you or not.  This is no longer the case.  Far from checking out subsidiary pages, most prospects are reluctant to click below the fold on page one.  Sad to say, but you have less than two minutes to dangle the bait, set the hook and reel in the fish.  That being said, you need to have the following 5 elements appear above the fold: Your phone number, your videos, your offer, your Google map and an auto responder form.  If you sell more than one line, you need to create a separate but branded page for each line.  If the prospect comes onto the site seeking apples, then everything from the text to the video to your offer needs to talk about apples.  If they come onto the page seeking apples and you are talking oranges, they are not going to take the time to look for the link that says “Apples.”  They are simply going to go back to the search engine and look for another site.  The secret to designing successful organic search engine campaigns is that you need to look at the keyword as the question and the landing page as the answer.

Another key to credibility is accountability.  If your site contains neither a physical address nor a phone number, why should anyone trust you.  For many consumers the letters WWW stand for Wile, Wild West where no claim goes unjumped and there is no Matt Dillon to police the frontier town.  Every day the public is inundated with stories about savvy cyber criminals whose only aim is to dupe an unwary consumers out of their cold, hard cash.  If you want a cyber-shopper to trust you, meet them halfway.  Prove to them that you’re for real.  Even if you don’t want to field phone calls you can set up a Google Voice number and then choose to either call back or text a caller.  The alternative is that if you fail to instill confidence in a customer, don’t gripe when they fail to purchase your goods and services.

3.      Are you trying to make it in this brave new world with a site that’s “Old School?"

Another thing that wastes cyberspace is to pretend that it’s 1999.  Go to your homepage and take a look at the first thing that grabs a consumer's attention when they encounter your homepage.  What’s the first thing they see?  Is it a nebulous graphic that could very well be a stock photo?  Is it some elaborate Flash banner that tells the consumer nothing about your business?  Where is your offer?  What is your USP and is it visible above the fold?  When was the last time you updated your website?  Where are your intro and testimonial videos? Do you have easily identifiable links to your blog and social networks?

All of these things are important to the buying public.  The public isn’t interested in graphically charged websites that fail to tell them what they need to know in order to make a buying decision.  They didn’t come to your site in order to be dazzled by your layout.  What’s more important is to hit them right between the eyes with your message.  In a nutshell, what’s visible above the fold needs to answer these simple questions: Who are you?  How long have you been in this line of business?  Why should I do business with you as opposed to anyone else?  The rest is just window dressing.

4.      Why don’t my visitors return to my site?

There is another conundrum faced by website owners: a lack of repeat business.  The reason that many people do not return to most websites is simply because there is no reason for them to return.  If your website doesn’t change from week to week, why should a consumer make a return trip?  They’ve already been there and done that.  If you don’t publish a blog on a weekly basis and don’t distribute online newsletters at least once a month, what possible reason does a consumer have to revisit your site?

 The bottom line when it comes to creating a dynamic and effective web presence is to be willing to accept the fact that if what you are doing isn’t working, then change the paradigm.  The most successful online marketers are those who are willing to embrace change and who are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and start working the claim in order to make the most of this interactive multimedia broadcast station we call the Internet. 

Carl Weiss has been Working the Web to Win since 1995.  His online radio show of the same name is broadcast every Tuesday at 4pm Eastern.  He also owns and operates a number of successful online properties, including Jacksonville Video and W Squared MediaGroup.