CNY Webmasters

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have heard atleast a bit about the current financial crisis that is going on on Wall Street and echoing throughout the world. Many webmasters have been watching with their own concerns…”What effect will this have on internet businesses?”

Some feel that this will help internet businesses that focus on selling webmasters tools, tips and tricks as people begin looking to the net as a way to make more money or even a place to begin a total new career. This may be true on some levels, but others of us, me included, have to worry about our own bottom lines.

With people worrying about their personal income and financial situations, advertisers may become less able to pay prices we have become accustom to on our own websites. Google, who came out with amazing earning, yet again, last week even has concerns about their own adword clients and their budget changes.

Lesson learned, world news is always important to consider when running your virtual business. My websites are nearly all in the financial niche, so I obviously have other concerns, but it is important to always be thinking outside the box. Considering what is happening in the world and how your business can use it to its advantage. Ok, so that may sound shallow but it is not meant to. I am by no means telling you to take advantage of those that are financial distraught these days, but consider how your company can use it to gain loyal customers.

If you sell products, you can consider having a sale, or offer freebies that may help them during this time. Add more interactive elements on your website that will be helpful, and keep them coming back.

Example, put up a financial calculator that will show them auto loan options, mortgage rates, CD rates etc….(you get the point)

You have to look your own personal niche and decide what relevant news effects it, obviously not everyone will be effected directly by this if your not in the financial niche, but perhaps you offer new information on how to get their own websites up and going etc.

This wasn’t meant to be a lengthy post. Merely trying to help you open your eyes and realize that everything going on in the “human” world effects our virtual businesses. Depending on what you do with it, it may greatly benefit your business.

I have had many clients that are over thinking their ideas on the web. My suggestion is simple; keep it simple stupid! There are some great, FREE resources out there as far as scripts to make your website more exciting, interactive and client friendly. Not every website project requires hiring a high prices coder to make your website work like your vision. Thanks to the OSS there a literally millions of lines of code out there for free use to you that can typically offer every possible solution for you. Here is a little insight into what exactly the OSS is:

What is Open Source Software and Why is it Used?

What is Open Source Software?

Open Source Software (OSS) is software that is available under a special license that allows everyone to access the program code as well as the executable program. This means that anyone is able to edit the program code and therefore customize the software for their own needs.

This ability to access the source code is protected by the license under which the software is released. There is a great many Open Source licenses, but they all have one thing in common, they protect the right of the user of the software to access and modify it in any way they desire.

This ability to modify applications is in direct contrast to the Closed Source Software model. In Closed Source only the creator of the application has access to the source code, and therefore, only the creator is able to modify the application.

Being able to change the way an Open Source Software application operates is critical in many business environments. No two businesses are identical and therefore it is unlikely that any one piece of software will satisfy the needs of all potential users. Without the ability to modify their software a company is restricted in its operations by that software.

While it is true that no two businesses are identical, it is also true that there are a great many common business practices that are repeated across organizations. These common practices can be well served by “standard” software. The remaining practices, those that are different from competitors are, typically, the ones that give a business an advantage in the marketplace.

Since these non-standard practices are key to the organizations success it is critical that any software solutions adopted by the company also support these non-standard processes. It is in this need to adapt software to a companies specific needs that makes Open Source Software attractive. Since the company has access to the source, the application can be freely adapted to suit the unique requirements of each user.

Who Pays for Open Source Development?

The ability to customize software is critical to allow an organization to continue to improve their business processes, but how does a company afford to pay for such customizations?

One of the side effects of allowing any user access to the source code is that the cost of acquiring the software in the first instance is massively reduced. In most cases the source code is available for no cost. This enables the user to divert resources normally allocated to pay software license fees into enhancing the software.

A successful Open Source Software project has a large community of software developers. Many of these developers work as independent contractors and can be employed to customize the software, alternatively, if a company has internal developer resources, they can leverage those skills to perform the customizations.

Does it Really Work?

This all sounds fantastic, but does it really work? Are there Open Source Applications in use in the real world?

Here are a few facts to convince you that it most certainly does work:

- Around 70% of web sites are served by the Open Source Apache HTTPD server.

- In a 2002 survey it was found over 31% of UK and nearly 42% of German companies were using or planning to use OSS.

- In 2001, Debian (an Open Source Operating System), contained over 55 million lines of code and was estimated to have consumed over 14,000 person years in development time. That is a development cost of around 1.89 Billion Dollars (US) yet it is still available with no license fees.

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Ian Del Carmen is an online business professional running his main site at http://www.ianDelCarmen.com. His other sites include http://TheOnlineBusinessProfessional.com, http://MobileEbooks.net, http://InfoProductLaboratory.com, and many more…
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A great places to look for free code and scripts is hotscripts.com which contains a catalog of scripts for nearly every program need in every code language whether you want html, php, cgi, perl etc.

Take advantage of what is out there, save yourself some money and get the website working the way you envisioned it could. Keep your clients happy and interacting with your website. To your success!

Google is pressing The Federal Justice Department to extend its ruling against Microsoft’s in 2002 for its antitrust case citing that Microsoft recent, “Microsoft’s hardwiring of its own desktop search product into Windows Vista violates the final judgment”

Google who was recently in the news, reluctant to stand forward in their own claims against Microsoft saying their Vista platform was unfair to all other search engines. Google’s claimed that Vista purposely slowed down user using third party search results, and was preferential to Internet Explorer. Microsoft had agreed to alter their Vista software to make it more user friendly to other search engines but said they felt that they had adequately testing Vista prior to its release date to make sure that it would work with all programs outside of Microsoft’s platforms.

Google, acting like the red-headed step brother, continues to complain and attempt to discredit, and tarnish Microsoft, perhaps in order to ultimately better themselves.

Google, who currently is the leader of search result used by the world, seems to always attempt to decrease others productivity when they can not compete. Webmasters have recently been highly critical of Google’s new webmaster resources and guideline to webmasters in which they may now be penalizes for selling advertising from their websites.

Webmasters view this as a way to hurt our business and question, “Why is Google allowed to make millions every year selling advertising yet the webmasters, that make their business possible, will be penalized in their SEs for selling ads on their own sites.

I believe Google will soon come under close scrutiny by justice department for their own practices, and therefore calling constant attention to Microsoft will only eventually turn the spotlight back on to themselves… or so many webmasters hope.