Yahoo Taps IBM To Provide Customer Care In Nine More Languages, Including Arabic

Yahoo this morning announced that it will start offering customer care services for future Arabic-language versions of its products, plus support in eight more languages: Spanish, German, French, Italian, Turkish, Polish, Romanian, and Russian. The Internet company’s new support services will be operated by IBM out of its service delivery center in Cairo, Egypt. Initial support for Arabic, French, German, Italian, and Spanish is planned and will ultimately also encompass Turkish, Polish, Romanian, and Russian through the recruitment of a “significant number” of multi-lingual Egyptian workers. The move comes almost a year after Yahoo acquired Arab Internet portal Maktoob , to my knowledge the only Yahoo product that’s currently available in Arabic . From the looks of it, the company aims to expand the number of services available in that language in the near future. No word on if the center, which will deliver support services to Yahoo users across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, will result in job losses in those regions. CrunchBase Information Yahoo! IBM Information provided by CrunchBase

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Yahoo Taps IBM To Provide Customer Care In Nine More Languages, Including Arabic

2010 Red Herring 100 North America Selected

Red Herring Announces its Top 100 Private companies from the North America Region

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2010 Red Herring 100 North America Selected

Japan’s World Cup Win Over Denmark Scores Record Number Of Tweets Per Second

Last week we reported that Twitter saw a record number of Tweets-per-second (or TPS) after the Lakers win over the Celtics in the deciding game of the NBA Championship. That event generated 3,085 TPS as the game ended. On an average day, Twitter sees about 750 TPS and 65 million total Tweets a day. But with the World Cup causing massive traffic to Twitter, this record was bound to be short-lived. Today, Twitter announced that Japan’s 3-1 victory over Denmark yesterday resulted in 3,283 TPS. Of course, Twitter cautioned that it is tough to pinpoint any records set this week on a single World Cup game because many are being played simultaneously. Apparently, the Netherlands/Cameroon game ended six minutes prior to the Japan/Denmark game. And total numbers, Twitter says, were fairly similar to the first week when only one game was being played at a time. Last week the all time highs were in terms of Tweets-per-second took place after goals were scored in the following games: Japan scores against Cameroon on June 14 in their 1-0 victory (2,940 TPS), Brazil scores their first goal against North Korea in their 2-1 June 14 victory (2,928 TPS) and Mexico ties South Africa in their June 11 game (2,704 TPS). Unfortunately, as a result of this high traffic to Twitter, the network has suffered a c onsiderable amount of downtime. And the downtime even caused Twitter to reschedule its ‘oauthcalypse’ for August because of the heavy usage during the World Cup. CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase

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Japan’s World Cup Win Over Denmark Scores Record Number Of Tweets Per Second

Ning Partners With Pearson To Sponsor Free Network Access For Educators

When Ning shuttered its free service for creating social networks back in April, educators and schools who were using the platform expresses their concern at the company’s decision to include educations networks created by schools and colleges in this group. When Ning eventually rolled out its premium pricing structure in May, the company announced that it had partnered with an education company to sponsor networks for primary and secondary educators but didn’t reveal the name of the sponsor. Today, Ning is announcing that Pearson, a education-focused publishing company, is sponsoring network costs for Ning Mini platforms for educators in North America come July. Ning says the partnership will extend for three years. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Ning.com currently hosts 6,500 K-12 and 2,100 Higher Ed social networks, and range from platforms for teachers, individual schools and classes to alumni groups. Pearson will now be assuming the costs for all of these groups to use a Ning Mini model, which have access to Ning’s core features including, blogs, photos, forums and video embeds, and the added ability to run custom advertising. The price for Ning Mini is $2.95 per month or $19.95 per year. Any teacher or network creator can now apply to have a Pearson-sponsored network, and will be able to freely use a Ning Mini network when approved. Of course, the network will have some Pearson branding on it. Where a network would show that it is a “Ning” hosted network, will now indicate that it is a “Ning hosted Network Sponsored By Pearson.” Clicking on this icon will take you to a Pearson network on Ning’s platform. And these educational networks will be able to monetize through the same channels as other networks on Ning’s platform. Last week, Ning announced new revenue streams for network creators, including partnerships with branded product creator CafePress and social gaming startup Heyzap, to offer monetization options to Network Creators. Custom CafePress shops can now be integrated directly into Ning Networks, offering creators the opportunity to sell branded products, like mugs, t-shirts and more, to members and fans. With Heyzap, Ning creators can add Heyzap pay-to-play games onto their networks. Creators will earn 10% of all revenue from premium game purchases. Ning has also partnered with Chipin to allow non-profit creators to raise funds and collect donations from members. Educational networks can also serve advertising on their sites, says CEO Jason Rosenthal. Ning offers a Run Your Own Ads option that allows creators to collect revenue from running display advertisements in their site. The deal with Pearson is a win for Ning, which faced criticism from network creators following the elimination of the free model. The UK-based Pearson owns the world’s largest education publishing business as well as the Financial Times and Penguin books. And the publishing company has struck other partnerships with big-name technology companies, including Nokia. For Ning, it’s clear that educators and their networks are a priority. Amidst financial turmoil and a redirection in strategy at the company, Rosenthal has been steadfast in his commitment to keeping Ning free for educators. In April, Ning told The New York Times that “the decision to exempt teachers from subscription fees was made after discussions with teachers about the barriers to getting even small amounts of money approved by school system.” It would be interesting to see of other non-profit groups that host networks on Ning ask for a similar deal. And perhaps these types of sponsorships with big name companies are a way for Ning to create a revenue stream. CrunchBase Information Ning Pearson Information provided by CrunchBase

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Ning Partners With Pearson To Sponsor Free Network Access For Educators

Lakers Victory Sets Twitter All-Time Record With 3,085 Tweets Per Second

Twitter has been seeing record numbers of engagement thanks to the World Cup games in South Africa and as a result the network has been going through significant downtime. Today Twitter is giving us some insight into the numbers of Tweets taking place through the platform and the most Tweeted “goals” from the tournament and last night’s Lakers-Celtics championship game. These goals had the highest Tweets-per-second (TPS) count in the 30 seconds after a goal was scored: Japan scores against Cameroon on June 14 in their 1-0 victory (2,940 TPS), Brazil scores their first goal against North Korea in their 2-1 June 14 victory (2,928 TPS) and Mexico ties South Africa in their June 11 game (2,704 TPS). These numbers from the World Cup were all time records until last night. It appears that basketball fans may be the most voracious Tweets of all because last night’s Lakers win in the deciding game of the NBA Championship set an Twitter all-time record. The Lakers victory generated 3,085 TPS as the game ended. On an average day, Twitter sees about 750 TPS and 65 million total Tweets a day. The recent downtime is affecting Twitter in more ways than one. The network just rescheduled its ‘oauthcalypse’ for August because of the heavy usage during the World Cup. And while sports events are helping Twitter reach these records, comScore numbers just released today that show the microblogging network is back on the growth track. CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase

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Lakers Victory Sets Twitter All-Time Record With 3,085 Tweets Per Second

Red Herring 100 North America Finalists

Red Herring 100 North America Finalists Announced

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Red Herring 100 North America Finalists

Red Herring 100 North America Finalist

Red Herring 100 North America Finalist Announced

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Red Herring 100 North America Finalist

Linden Lab Lays Off 30 Percent Of Staff

Linden Lab, the company behind virtual world Second Life, is laying off 30 percent of its staff, according to a release issued today . Labeled as a “restructuring,” the company is consolidating its software development team in North America and is “reconfiguring” its customer support department. The move reflects a new strategy for Linden Lab, says the company, which aims make its virtual world more browser based, eliminating the need to download any software. The company is also pushing for Second Life to extend to social networks. Rumors of the layoffs emerged a few days ago, and paint a more detailed picture of the reductions. The report says Linden Lab closed their UK and Singapore offices, cut the head count of the Seattle office by half, let the enterprise group go, and made staff reductions at their Mountain View and San Francisco offices. The shuttering of the enterprise group, which creates a customized version of the virtual world that sits behind a firewall, would make sense considering the new move for Second Life to be completely browser-based. Second Life’s user base has been dwindling and clearly the company is trying to take the virtual world in the direction of social networks, after seeing the popularity of gaming on these platforms. But Linden Lab isn’t completely dead. The company was reportedly valued between $658 million and 700 million a year ago. If Linden can turnaround Second Life and push the social agenda, the virtual world could rise again. Miracles can happen. CrunchBase Information Linden Lab Information provided by CrunchBase

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Linden Lab Lays Off 30 Percent Of Staff

Client Based Keyword Research: How to Grow Plants Up a Wall

Posted by RobOusbey There are a variety of tools and techniques recommended for SEO keyword research, from the free to the expensive, from the well-known to those that are almost kept a secret. However, there’s one source of keyword ideas which is often overlooked: the customers (and potential customers) served on a daily basis. Let’s get sidetracked for a moment: I’ve lost track of the number of people at agencies who have been asked the question “If you’re so good at SEO, why don’t you rank for ‘SEO in New York’?” (Or wherever the agency is based.) The answers vary, but one important thing is almost always the same: when you look at the off-line inquiries, people rarely phone up an SEO agency and say “Hello, I’d like you to perform some SEO for me, to cover a variety of tasks including keyphrase research, on site recommendations and link building” – the phone call is more likely to begin with “Hi there, er, I have a website where I sell my widgets, but I want to sell more, and I think I need to promote the site better online. Someone said there might be stuff you could do to help me?” . To mine this rich source of keywords, you want to teach your front-line staff to spot the ‘keyphrases’ that are embedded within the first three or four statements the enquirer makes, such as ‘ sell more online ‘ or ‘ promote my website ‘. Your new, killer Keyword Research Tool Get Your Hands Dirty Of course, you don’t need to be a fashionable new industry like search marketing to make this work for you. Let’s say you work for an auto garage. One of the most popular services you offer is tire balancing – it noticeably helps improve a vehicle’s driving experience, but it’s not too expensive (though it has good margins). The page on your website is well targeted towards ‘tire balancing’ and ranks fairly well in your area, but doesn’t receive many visits or have a great conversion rate. You head down to the garage and ask the mechanic how many tire balancings he’s done recently. “We’ve had three in just this morning” , replies the helpful greasemonkey. ” And they all came here because they know we do tire balancing?” you ask, naively. “Aw, no – all three just said their steering wheel was vibrating when they were on the freeway, so it had to be the balance was off,” he replies. You’ve heard what you needed to, and without another word you race back to the office, and update the page. The new title reads ” Steering wheel vibrating? We’ll fix it in 1 hour with tire balancing ” and the rest of the page is updated too. You not only start to receive more traffic, but it converts better as well. Showing staff – whether they are receptionists, shop assistants, hard working mechanics or professionals – the value of spotting these keywords will help you gather a rich source of new targetable ideas, and it’s one that your competitors won’t be able to get to. Keyphrase research? Oooh, that’s gonna cost ya…. Next stop: New Keyphrases You can also go one-step-removed to get keyword ideas. National Express are a UK-wide coach service (a little like the Greyhounds in the US) that get you from A to B more slowly and much more cheaply than taking the train. Their site targets terms such as ‘coach trip from Bath to Newcastle’ etc. However, if I were them, I’d be calling the travel agents who have made bookings on behalf of customers, to find out what people asked for, when the booking ended up with a coach trip being the right answer. It’s possible that phrases such as ‘overnight journey to Newcastle’ or ‘cheap way to get up North’ will have actually come up in conversation, and the agents have then recommended a coach trip. These phrases should then definitely be considered for targeting on the site. Loitering with Intent to Research One final example, from a conversation overheard in a garden center, between a customer (played by a middle aged female, looking lost) and the sales assistant (an underpaid college kid, looking increasingly confused): Customer: Hi, where could I find a mopsy? Assistant: I .. I’m sorry ma’am? Customer: You know, the thing I can screw to a wall to grow plants up? Assistant: Do you mean a trellis? Customer: Ah yes! I knew it was the name of one of my daughter’s rabbits. If I worked for an online garden supplies website, I’d have immediately made a note to write a blog post about ‘ How to Grow Plants up a Wall .’ I also think I’d have spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around to listen to what else people were asking for by description or by describing their problem, rather than searching for an item by name. Whatever your niche, see if there’s a place you can hang out to get the opportunity for this kind of real world keyword research. It’s Search Marketing It’s been said many times that a significant part of sales and/or marketing is to solve each customer’s problem.

Arctic Explorer Eric Larson Becomes First Person To Tweet From The North Pole

Earlier today, arctic explorer Eric Larson became the first person to Tweet from the North Pole. After a 51-day trek over ice flows and open water, he finally made it to his destination with two companions as part of his year-long project to Save The Poles and raise awareness about global warming. What’s really amazing is that less than four months ago he was at the South Pole, and his next expedition will be to the peak of Mount Everest. Here is his Tweet : Day 51. Standing on top of the world. Getting to the North Pole is the same as stopping Global Warming. Begin with one step. Larson has been keeping a blog, and wrote a longer entry about reaching the pole. He also has a Facebook page . Bing is one of his sponsors. Larson’s Tweet comes only a couple weeks after a 15-year-old became the first person to check into Foursquare from the North Pole . But due to inclement weather the checkin was from a helicopter. So Larson is the first person to send out a status update from the ground at the North Pole. Unfortunately, Larson failed to check into Foursquare while he was up there and thus did not collect a Last Degree badge . Maybe he’ll remember to check in on Mount Everest. CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase

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Arctic Explorer Eric Larson Becomes First Person To Tweet From The North Pole