That in itself is a good thing and even more surprising considering that some of the heavyweights looking for help from the government like the movie and music industries were petitioning to have the legislative changes made. The stance by the government is the latest salvo between the content creators and Internet firms that has been going on in Congress.

No doubt there’s a fair amount of lobbying going on from either side. A blog post from the U.S. chief technology officer stated in part that while online piracy was a serious threat that demanded a legislative response, the government would not be party to anything that  compromised freedom of expression. Read between the lines here and you’ll see a veiled admission by the feds that ecommerce needs to play an important role in any economic recovery. In short, even the government knows that we can’t do anything to stifle the economy created by the Internet.

Here’s one in the ‘saw this coming file.’ It seems that the censorship serpent is rearing it’s ugly head in India after some private user on Facebook held a competition calling for drawing of the Prophet Mohammed to be posted there. Vinay Rai, a journalist, brought the complaint to the Indian courts charging that 21 web companies that included Google were responsible for posting images that were offensive to Hindus, Muslims and Christians. The Indian government, in turn, has sanctioned the prosecution of those 21 companies.

This isn’t really about religion or concerns over Western decadence or Muslim fanaticism. It all comes down to respect. This is the Internet and people need to realize that with this game changing technology comes new rules for how we all deal with each other on almost a daily basis. New technology has the landscape shift constantly, but the old adage about staying away from religion and politics as topics for social discourse applies.

We need to respect other people’s beliefs and their customs. Whether we agree with them or not is hardly at issue here. Drawings of the Prophet Mohammed have always been an incendiary act that should be avoided out of respect to the people being offended. Censoring Google and Facebook isn’t the answer either. That’s only adding fuel to the fires started by people who enjoy this kind of attention.

Consider the price they pay. The Sydney Morning Herald reports recently on the plight of two teenage brothers that were caught with loudspeakers in the Damascus suburb of Douma and tortured for nothing more than plotting to have the very freedoms we take for granted. They were tortured and eventually released but the crackdown on any news getting out from that country makes what they do all the more important.

Abdullah is a 28 year old who reports in the same article that although people are scared of the nail bombs and other hideous instruments the regime’s forces use, they send texts to each other to report where the government activity is the strongest. Gone is the clenched fist of yesterday’s freedom fighter. Tomorrow’s icons hold up the tiny black box that is the smartphone with a camera.

We have a responsibility to help them from the safety and comfort of our worlds, where ever they may be. If the Arab Spring has taught us anything , it’s that the latest mobile apps, Twitter and Facebook accounts are a great distraction and way to stay in touch from our perspective here in the West. But there’s more to what this technology can do and we need to do our part without letting these opportunities slip by while we turn away from realities like Chamberlain standing on the steps to the plane, paper in hand, proclaiming  peace in our time.

The wave of the freedom fight in Syria will stop at our shores if we let it. Even when the mainstream media picks up on some of the horrendous video and other reports coming out from Syria, their spotlight is momentary and off to the next story that attracts ratings as soon as one crops up.  Bloggers need to pick the cause up and carry it. Spread evenly across the web, the fight of the people in Syria that are yearning to determine their own destinies will be heard and the pressure constant.

What’s being done in the Arab world and other diplomatic circles may have more impact, but exerting whatever influence we can on the net as people who stand shoulder to shoulder with our brothers and sisters in that part of the world can help.  We should do our part.  Write a blog or post a comment where it matters today.

The Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies has just released the findings of a new study whereby 2000 Canucks were polled and 84% expressed strong elements of trust in the way museums presented the history of their country. At the very bottom of the list, below even direct witnesses to historical events, was the Internet.

So what’s the problem, you might ask? Why not just leave the people who like museums to their own ways and the Internet followers to their preferred choice? According to the article, the problem lies with the museums themselves. They’re the ones that are interested in creating online content.

It seems that many Canadian museums are looking to the web to get the word out on the collections they have in their halls and the other things they’re interested in having people see.  Jack Jedwab is the ACS executive director and he sees the whole thing as a question of people questioning the investigative process.

“There’s a big challenge, here, no question about it,” he says. “Because on the other hand, the Internet is also the source where people can access historical information quickly and at the lowest possible cost.”

In another web based story that doesn’t present the Internet in the best possible light, a new scam has reared it’s ugly head and at least one overseas family who thought they were on their way to a dream vacation found out they’d been taken. Steve Chase owns a million dollar South Florida home and he was shocked recently when families started to show up there with rental agreements. Turns out, as you might have guessed by now, that the agreements were nothing more than Internet based scams.

Unfortunately, this scam is becoming more prevalent on the web. People actually looking to list vacation properties often use the Internet and get a deposit and some of the money from would-be customers, but more and more the crooks are getting involved and asking for the money to be sent upfront. Unfortunately, there’s not much chance of getting the money back or catching these crooks since the crime often crosses international borders.

The lesson here? A family vacation to a Canadian museum is a safe bet.

One is that while writing web copy is demanding and you need to put in long hard days to make it commercially viable, it’s a pretty fair gig as far as the writer’s life goes.

That is until you try to get paid in some cases.

Now don’t get me wrong, almost all of my clients are above board and pay on time through Paypal mostly, but every once in a while the whole machine that is my business grinds to a halt when someone decides they want to give me a hard time about the honest exchange of goods and services for cash.

Most recently I’ve had a hard enough time getting the money that’s owed to me from Web Windows and Doors Direct in Philadelphia, I feel that I should be passing along a few tips that should set the alarm bells ringing when you’re trying to get paid as a blogger.

Get complete contact in information. I’ve found that going with a company that only uses an email address is playing with fire. If they try to stiff you, it’s good to have phone numbers and even a snail mail address that you can verify through Google. In this case I got all that, but the owner, Anthony Specht, has been pushing the date back to set up a Paypal address and get me my money for several weeks. Here’s never actually refused to pay me, but the whole thing brings me to my second point.

Know when you’re getting stalled. I once had a client tell me that someone bought a motorcycle on their credit card I’d need to wait for payment. Another past business acquaintance from Australia told me the money owed was being held up because Canada didn’t have an international banking system. All excuses, and although Mr. Specht did tell me he was busy putting together a Christmas rush that kept him busy and he was going to set up the account for last Wednesday, he didn’t, and I was left with trail a of similar broken promises that stretched back far enough to concern me.

Know what you can do.  Know your rights here and how to get your money without getting yourself in legal hot waters. Never accuse someone of theft if they haven’t been convicted. Don’t write anything libelous which basically means no name calling and stick to the facts. Post in forums and on the website or social media account or the blog of the person and company that you’re dealing with and of course on your own about the situation at hand. Oh, by the way, as of the date of this column, I still haven’t been paid for the blogs that I wrote here.

Anchor Text:

Over the years, SEO people have written many articles about the importance of Anchor Text. If you not sure what it is, Anchor Text will be the hyperlinked text you see on a website page and when you click the text, you will be taken to another page. Example of Anchor Text is: Internet Marketing Company.

Well, is Anchor Text really important factor for SEO? Yes, it is since it will help be search engines to determine the rankings of website. For example, if you have a website about structured settlements and if you are providing tips regarding the purchase of structured settlements, then using the word “video Manchester united” as your Anchor text, will certainly increase your website rankings and authority.

Header Tags:

Header tags are nothing but that H1, H2, H3 tags you will see on a web page that will define the heading and subheading. But is it really important? Well, in my experience I haven’t seen any solid information which will suggest it’s important for search engine rankings. So, what I will suggest is, if you are using the Header Tags on your website just keep it there, otherwise just don’t worry about it.

Keyword Density:

A lot of people have asked this question to me: What is the right keyword density on a web page? Well the answer for this question is, there isn’t any. From my experience, Keyword density doesn’t play a significant role in Search Engine Optimization. If you focus on keywords while writing an article, you might end up creating a junk piece of content. So, it’s better to write naturally then just focusing on the keywords, because whatever we write on the web page will be read by the users not some bots from the search engines.

Meta Tags:

The usage of Meta Tags has been discussed many times over the web and the opinions were different. Well, from my point of view Meta tags were not important to SEO, as they were once before.  In simple words, usage of Meta tags won’t have any effects on your rankings. But if you want to use it, just go ahead but make sure you just don’t use the keyword stuffing black hat technique in it.

Nofollow Links:

If you think that Nofollow links doesn’t matter, then you are wrong. Google does count Nofollow links and if Google find a website has only Dofollow links and Nofollow links in their link profile, then it will get suspicious about the website and sometimes it will result in the loss of rankings. Well in simple words, Google prefers a good ratio of Dofollow and Nofollow links.

This may be contrary to what many people believe, but it’s a true fact. Having Nofollow links in your website link profile will certainly boost your overall search engines rankings, although you can’t rank for a certain keyword phrase.

I hope now you have clear about these popular SEO myths.

It’s called the world wide web for a reason and unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last few years, you’ve seen what can happen to autocrats and other despots when oppressed people get those mighty weapons, a smartphone and internet access, together. Check Arab Spring in the black and China and Russia in the red (in more ways it seems than one). Now it seems that India is getting into the fray. What you need to pay special attention to here is how downright sensitive some Indian leaders actually are.

Recently, Indian Telecommunications Minister Kapil Sibal showcased online illustrations of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi in less than flattering positions and said that the government would take the necessary legal or technical means to stop what he called ‘incendiary material.’ Once again, government officials try to  throw the baby out with the bathwater here and Indian’s right to free speech with it.

It’s all got to the point where leaders gathered at the famous Hague recently to discuss what responsibilities governments have to protect online freedom. Russia’s Federal Security Service has also asked one of the biggest social networking sites there to black the activities of those that demonstrated against the recent elections in the land of the reborn hammer and sickle. Has everyone forgotten that even though Vladimir Putin takes a cool picture fishing with his shirt off like a Rusky Rambo, he’s still ex-KGB? That alone means he’s not a big fan of the tens of thousands if people that have been cramming the streets in opposition to his rule. You know about it and those in Russia know that you know about it, and people like Putin in Russia and Sibal don’t want you to. Facebook and Twitter scare them shitless. The kind of unrest in both countries leads to real democracy and its all fanned with the uncontrolled wildfire that’s freedom of speech fuelled by the Internet and social media.

Remember we weren’t the only people watching the advent of the Arab spring. The people with the same mindset that killed Mohamed Bouazizi’s hopes for the future were watching too, and while we were hoping and praying that their struggles would end with their freedom, the oppressors were turning their attention to quashing the instruments of free expression. Unfortunately, their efforts seem to be picking up momentum too.

Developers are responding to the phenomenal demand for these articles by coming out with a new barrage of Christmas apps the way the industry used to dump toy trains, Tonka trucks and Barbie dolls on the market. Here’s a quick look at some of the ones that are available. Since some of these are free apps, they’re truly in the holiday spirit whether you’re celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah.

It’s no surprise that Apple has become the new Mattel and they’ve got some great ways to spread the cheer over the holiday season. Christmas Gifts helps you to organize things. It acts a little like a decorative holiday spreadsheet and even helps you to keep track of how much money you’ve got left to spend on each person on your list.  There are still some traditions that are pretty much the same as they were years ago and that includes giving Christmas cards, albeit they’re being given out electronically these days.

Sincerely Ink in another free app from the Apple people that lets you customize your greeting to friends and relatives. The photo can be customized here as can the text and color. Remember that in today’s busy world there’s lots of us without the time to find the right card in the store and actually snail mail it. This app allows to check through many different templates from the comfort of where ever you happen to be.

Just like there is still Mattel and Hasbro competing for you toy dollar during the Holiday season, there’s more places to get the best mobile apps than the home that Steve Jobs built. Android has a selection of ring tones in a free app for the holiday season aptly called Christmas Ringtones.

Of course you’ll need something to buy with all those apps and going back in time when we curled up in front of a roaring fire with a good book is just the thing.  Still, you’ll want to stay current with your reading matter and there’s a new offering coming out in January by  David Weinberger that furthers the debate about whether Internet is a good or bad thing by dealing with the premise that it is at least changing the way we quest after knowledge.  Too Big To Know deals with, among other things, why newspapers and encyclopedias fell at the hands of the hyperlink and how that affects the way we look for answers to the questions we have in the modern world.

Acuity Group who studies such things is saying now that 2011 is the year where mobile shopping is really taking off and their numbers support the facts. Consider… a National Retail Federation survey found that half of the shoppers polled say that they are going to use their application stuffed mobile phones as their preferred way to shop this holiday season. And the Acuity Group reports that all the buzz surrounding this latest craze is responsible for the number of retailers that have a mobile app jumping an astounding 278 percent this year.

As you might imagine, or already know if you’ve been following the wave of innovation that is the mobile app, there’s something new coming out everyday as far as the ways you can shop with your cell phone. Take the Toys “R” Us chain that’s based out of New Jersey. These are people that obviously don’t want to miss the predicted bonanza that will be cyber shopping this year. To that end, they’ve come up with apps that will look through the inventory of any store to see if the product anyone is searching for is in stock. There’s more.   There’s even a new app that can check a child’s wishlist and match up the items there with the ones the store has on it’s shelves.

Internet Retailer is one of the biggest trade publications in the business and they’re now saying that the mobile app business is booming and the industry wont be looking at a slowdown in the near future. The report says Amercians are getting ready to spend $5.4 billion at the biggest retailers that have the right Internet capabilities including mobile applications.

It’s a real bonanza this year but you really need to be connected to take advantage. Best Buy and other retailers like Lowe’s are equipping their sales clerks with smart phones so they can look in other store locations for the items that are out of stock. Still the pundits here are saying that lots of people are still clinging to their old ways, at least in one respect.

Although they are using their smartphones like never before to do comparison shopping to get the best deals and make the competition for their dollars fierce like never before, consumers are still going to cash registers to hand over the money in the end. This is spite of the fact there are payment options and delivery features offered on many of the mobile websites and apps.

The idea behind this latest invention is all about hooking the world up to the web in a cheap way and getting everyone involved. Raja Singh Tuli and Suneet Singh Tuli promise their new tablet, which will give Indians who have never had Internet access before the chance to join the world, will only cost around $60. UbiSlate also promises quality access through cell phone networks.

One of the brothers reports the problem is a common one in emerging markets—the lack of affordable Internet access that allows small rural business and even farmers the ability to use email and get the information they need to be successful.  Previous attempts to spread the solution have relied on   on Wi-Fi networks that are not all that widespread. There are 800 million people in India with cell phones and therein the two brothers have found what they hope is the answer.

The two University of Toronto-educated engineers say the product will be very good at two specific things—providing decent internet access and HD video for Bollywood.

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Almost all Canadians get their internet service from only a handful of suppliers and there’s a ongoing battle over that . Vancouver-based Open Media is one of the groups  making the most noise in the wake of a government decision that will allow more competition among smaller ISPs that are competing with these bigger firms. The whole fuss is predictably about bandwidth and the use or overuse of it and how much can be charged.  Usage-based billing was one of the sticking points and the people at Open Media got 500,000 Canadians to sign an online petition against user fees. The result is that telecom companies can charge either a flat rate or one for usage. If it all sounds crazy, that’s because it is. Things always do when any government gets involved.

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A Republican representative from Texas has introduced a bill to stop rouge websites that steal copyrighted material and websites that sell pharmaceuticals to individuals without prescriptions. Most of the provision sound fair enough, after all no one wants their intellectual property stolen, but a warning bell went off when the article about the bill got to the pharmaceutical section. Pfizer security officer John Clark was quoted as saying this type of counterfeiting was one of the bigger issues when it came to patient safety, and it may well be, but somehow there’s a sneaking suspicion this all might be more about big business than you and me.

Still, it’s important to keep in mind that sources were not named although the report is pretty specific about the facts that at least two companies have talked with Google about getting some assistance in buying the beleaguered Yahoo. This all comes on the heels of reports that Yahoo will in fact sell that have also driven the stock prices up. All the usual signs that something is lurking on the horizon with the company.

Here’s some more news about repression and how it all works in spite of the fact that the Internet is changing the way dictators inevitably lose their power and die. New reports are saying that Syria is using American software to censor the Internet. At the center of the storm is California’s Blue Coat Systems since at least some of their technology is being used to crack down on the dissidents in Syria that have been protesting against President Bashar al-Assad for months now. The American company is denying any allegations they sold to the Syrians willingly, but there are experts from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London that are saying many firms don’t always ask the right questions to avoid persecution for selling to places like Syria.

In other news, The Canada Centre for Global Security Studies at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs is saying that broadcasters that want to get information into countries that restrict access to the Internet need to tailor their approaches to each individual location. The recent study suggests that just having a wider all inclusive web isn’t necessarily the answer since each repressive regime often has a different way of suppressing information. The study looked at two years of BBC information and how it was censored by the Chinese and Iranian authorities.

We all need to keep an eye on the big names in censorship like the ones mentioned above and even the more sly wolves in sheep’s clothing like the Russian Interior Minister who has proposed a limit on the Internet. Dmitry Medvedev says he only wants to find ways to preserve the Russian culture and protect it from illegal activities like child porn, but there are fears that supporters of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin are looking for more strict control like the one that the Chinese impose. Does anyone remember the Cold War? It seems likely that an ex-KGB officer who happens to be in charge is pining for the good old days.

The Federal Communications Commission keeps an eye on more traditional forms of media but as far as mobile apps are concerned, developers are still in charge of giving themselves ratings. More fodder for those who say it’s the parent’s responsibility to stay on top of what their children see and do.

RIM and the Arrow

As you might expect, recent reports are saying that RIM could owe tons of cash to right the fallout from their recent outages. The recent numbers are $100 million US in lost revenues and there’s more to it than that, none of which is good for the Canadian company that was the biggest hope that country had since the Avro Arrow.

Making the problem worse for RIM is the fact that wireless carriers worldwide have promised to compensate their users for the downtime. The whole mess couldn’t have come at a worse time for the beleaguered company and worst case scenarios for the estimated 70 million users worldwide put refunds to 35 million as the number bantered.

The whole Blackberry mess has some interesting spinoffs when it comes to how people deal with even the temporary loss of this kind of technology. Consider a recent article from a New Jersey professional who writes that people should know someone they can call in their office to check emails on their computer there when the BlackBerry network goes down. The article goes on to point out the obvious fact that you can send a text, but I think something even more relevant is being missed here.

 BlackBerry Overkill?

Maybe the whole idea of having a Blackberry is overkill and being constantly hooked up to emails 24/7 from a device that you carry around with you is a case of too much technology. I mean, how many people can really do anything about even the most urgent email until they get back to the office anyway? I’m not talking out of school here because I have one and I find myself constantly looking for the little red light that tells me I’ve got mail like one of Pavlov’s dogs. I have to admit too, I did get a little nervous when my emails weren’t getting through regularly but I’ve still got to wonder if we all don’t need some kind of safe zone away from all of these things once in a while.

Then there was social media. Facebook and Twitter were going to change the face of Internet marketing but as of yet they’ve been unable to come up with a way of quantifying the numbers that big business needs before they invest big time. They are still big players on the social scene and something that no business can rightfully ignore, but there’s still a big question mark how it will all fit together when it comes to advertising.

What might be the real champion and the one thing that could very well change the way business does business on the web are mobile downloads. Not because they are especially better at getting the messages across that business wants you to have, but because the masses are speaking and telling ecommerce how they want things done now and in the future.

Big Numbers  

Take a look at the recent numbers that were reported by Berg Insight. Between 2010 and 2015, mobile application downloads will increase by an annual growth rate of 56.6 percent and hit 98 billion a year by the end of that time. This isn’t just a fad or a trend that will find it’s rightful place with the other options people have to get the information they want online, numbers this big are really talking about a game changing event.

So now the real question is what will business do to stay on top of the wave that’s sweeping everyone with any kind of smartphone? How will advertising find the right way to get the message out to the target audience they’re looking for? Maybe part of the answer lies in the news that a business app developer is using a SEM firm to sell their product on, you guessed it, their website.

Branded Business Apps has selected 90octane to handle their SEM campaigns using seo techniques and even a website. It all seems to lead back to that same starting point again and again, and there’s not been a better way developed as yet to get the word out on the goods and services that you’re selling than the website. Mobile apps are huge because everyone can carry them around on their smartphones, but they could very well run into the same road block that other techniques have found when they try to dethrone the website—if it works well there’s no need to fix or change it.

Here’s one. Internet activist “Huaguoshanzongshuji” recently said that his research had been erased from the popular Chinese microblogging Weibo site after he did some work on Chinese government officials wearing luxury watches. Although the work was erased from the site, the official Chinese Xinhua news agency said the fight against corruption there should follow this online method. As long as any facts proving the corruption are censored, it would seem.

Closer to home, it looks like Microsoft is getting ready to step up to the plate with Windows 8, or at least they’re getting closer. The latest version of Explorer, IE 10, was released this week for Windows 8 testers only. The new Metro interface that won’t be available until some time in 2012 will be what the releases describe as ‘touch only.’ Although you will still be able to use a mouse and keyboard, many industry insiders are already talking about a time that’s approaching when the touch screen will be as familiar as the built in web cam is today. Let’s hope the whole thing doesn’t fall into that all too familiar Vista Rabbit Hole.

There might not be an imminent internet based uprising happening in China just yet, but a version of the Quiet Revolution is taking place in the halls of academia across the world.  A recent report from the New York Times states that many librarians in hallowed halls of learning are refusing to renew their subscriptions to expensive academic publications since they have found they can get compatible information on the internet for free. In the world of academia, the worth of a published article is measured in the number of times it is cited and the Internet offers few restrictions except for the obligation to cite the work.

Back to China for the last bit here. A consulting firm there has just reported that Internet based companies have been flourishing in the second quarter. A list of 37 internet based firms there saw their profits rise 38.7 percent year on year. The company that reported the numbers, China Venture, is hoping the surge will carry over into bigger numbers on the American stock exchange.

That said, it looks like there are some new shifts in the landscape that includes Android apps perhaps upsetting the Apple app world for the first time. Ovum Ltd released their report, Mobile Application Download and Revenue Forecast: 2011–16, last week and there were some interesting findings including the fact that mobile app downloads are expected to reach 5 billion by the end of this year. That’s right, 5 billion. And what’s even more surprising is the quantum jump from the 1.6 billion downloads last year. It’s clear that part of the world is one of the bigger forces that need to be reckoned with when it comes to the flourishing mobile app download market.

There’s more. The same study says that mobile downloads are expected to reach 14 billion over the next five years and the numbers here are even showing that Apple is losing its grip in the region as the dominant supplier. The report says that 1.8 billion apps would be downloaded in Asia Pacific from the Android platform this year as compared to 1.5 billion in Apple’s corner.

Experts are suggesting the gap will continue to widen between the Android market and the Apple iPhone apps for one good reason—price. Along with the recent advances Android has made in the field, they have made good headway into what the pundits call lower price points. It’s good to know the more technical products get, some of the older more traditional models still hold true.

On that subject, here’s a few of the top apps that created a buzz in the industry this year.

There’s Spy Mouse and Angry Birds Season, both from Rovio who are making a good name for themselves in this kind of app market. For those of you that like bigger boy games, the reviews for NFL Rivals are outstanding and MadPad even lets you aim and shoot to capture the sounds of your life and then share the mixes with the world.

The Main Street Fairness Act (MSFA) would change the existing law that only required merchants to pay taxes when they had a physical state presence. BTW, don’t you just love the title of that piece of legislation? Drips with the kind of Orwellian double speak we’ve come to expect from our jackal politicians on both sides of the border. Under this new totalitarian piece of tripe, even affiliates would need to pay sales tax. Notice how none of the politicians involved talk about personally taking cuts in their pay to help rebuild the tax coffers?

Politicians are the same dolts that keep arguing the merits or horrors involved with Internet online gambling as well. Currently, that industry is illegal in the United States even though it’s worth billions and the same bills keep getting introduced and defeated like the current one back on the fryer in New Jersey.

It’s not a question of paying taxes. I pay mine and keep detailed records of all my transactions as I’m sure most of my colleagues on the Internet do. There’s just something wrong about working in the modern day equivalent of the gold rush and having old school politicians and government agencies come to us with their hands out so they can propagate their cushy government lifestyles and clunky dying ways.

Most of us came to work online from other places because we knew the world had changed and was continuing to change. It sucks to hear instances where people who are clinging to old school government troughs are telling us we need to pay our fair share. We do. Maybe it’s time they learned to pare down and stand up on their own two feet. The gravy train has long been over.