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Sunday, December 23, 2012

Mastering the Mobile Web: Content, Design, Email, and Sales

?Mobile has really been kicking butt.?

That?s what Neil Patel of Quick Sprout told us when we asked him about the future of the internet. He went on to say:

?It?s going to be more tablet and mobile based in the next few years. We?re going to start seeing a lot less laptops and computers and more and more mobile phones for everything.?

?Want to buy something? Cool. Click a button and it?s charged to your mobile phone.?

Neil?s right:? we asked 20 of the world?s top online entrepreneurs about the trends that would define the future of online business and ?mobile? was the most common answer (online video was #2). If you have a website and you?re not thinking about mobile, then you?re missing out on the biggest thing to happen to the Internet since broadband.

There are now more than 1.2 billion mobile web users worldwide and 25% of US internet users are mobile only. Mobile searches have quadrupled in the last year and this phenomenon is not going away any time soon.

Below, I?ll explain what makes mobile users different based on research from Google Mobile. Then I?ll share the mobile content, design, email marketing, and sales copy strategies that I learned directly from experts like Syed Balkhi and Yanik Silver.

What You?ll Learn:

The browsing habits of mobile users
The simple secret to writing mobile content
Why responsive web design matters and how to get it
The trick to good good mobile sales copy
How mobile readers might change your email marketing tactics

All images courtesy of JD Hancock.

Understanding Why the Mobile Web is Different

Compact Interface

Mobile users experience the web differently. First of all, the screen is smaller. This can be a problem, as Shane Ketterman points out on CopyBlogger:

?What happens when readers feel cramped or have to work hard to navigate your site or read your content? They leave.?

In order to keep visitors around, keep your pages straightforward and your links ?thumb-sized? ? especially call-to-action buttons.

Objective Oriented Browsing

Mobile users are often accessing the web on the go and therefore they?re more likely to be using the web to meet an immediate, specific need.

According to a Google Mobile Ads study, Nine out 10 mobile searches result in an action and 88% of these users take action within the first day.

Slower Connection Speed

Smartphones and tablets are becoming more and more powerful with every iteration, but they still can?t compete with the big boys (laptops and desktops) in terms of speed.

So if you?re load times are lagging on those devices, you?ll definitely be turning mobile users away. Try removing unnecessary plugins, images, and eliminating any Flash or Javascript.

Multi-Tasking Mobile

Mobile devices are so convenient to use that they?re often used as a supplement to other activities. 72% of people use their smartphones while consuming other media, a third while watching TV.

So keep in mind that you likely won?t have the full attention of your mobile audience.

Location-Specific Searches

Mobile users can access the web from anywhere and that changes what they?re able to search for online. For instance, 70% use their smartphones while shopping in a store to help make purchasing decisions.

Your online audience is no longer guaranteed to be sitting at a desk. Think about your niche:? from what other locations and situations might your audience be accessing your site?

Mastering the Mobile Web from Content Writing to Copy Writing

Make Mobile Content Easy-to-Digest

Syed Balkhi is one of the world?s most forward-thinking bloggers, especially when it comes to content. His latest project, List25, has earned over 200,000 Facebook likes in just over a year.

He told us that ?easy to consume? content is the wave of the future, as more and more people spend their online hours casually browsing mobile devices:

?We?re seeing an emergence of infographics and motion graphics. We?re going towards an age of data consumption and we need to make it as easy to consume as possible, because people?s attention span is so low. To captivate that short attention span, you have to have very, very compelling content that?s very easy to consume.?

Income Diary is a strong proponent of writing long content because it ranks better (the average front-page search result is 2,000+ words) and because it?s more likely to be shared (as demonstrated by Neil Patel).

But Syed?s right too. As more and more people go mobile, more and more web users will be browsing your site while waiting in line, watching TV, and otherwise unable to engage with in-depth content. You can make your content more ?easy-to-consume? by putting an emphasis on visuals and videos ? and keeping text to a minimum.

Responsive & Mobile Web Design

Jacob Cass is a graphic designer at NYC-based firm Ammirati (clients include Nintendo, Zynga, and Jerry Seinfeld). When we asked him about the future of web design, he immediately start talking about mobile:

?Responsive design is at the top of my list. A responsive website is a website that adapts to the screen that you?re viewing it on. For example, a website will change its look when you?re viewing it on a mobile device, versus a large screen.?

Upgrading to a responsive web design may be the single most important thing you can do to make your website more mobile friendly.

If you?re wondering how to make the? switch over to responsive web design, Jacob gave us this advice, ?For my site, I used the Skeleton responsive boilerplate. There?s really no reason to redo everything if there are already frameworks in place. Another good one to explore is Bootstrap, by Twitter.?

Email Marketing and Mobile

?More and more people are going to be reading your email on little screens.?
David Risley, from Web Domination 20

Nearly all mobile users are using their device to check their email.

According to Andigo New Media, your first priority should be to limit scrolling on the email:? ?left to right scrolling is an absolute no-no but even north/south scrolling should be limited whenever possible.?

David Risley earns a six-figure income through email marketing. In our interview, he told us that optimizing your emails for mobile devices mostly comes down to keeping it as simple as possible ? especially since some mobile devices aren?t so great at displaying email:

?The nice smart phones are pretty good at scaling the email up and down. But not everybody?s walking around with an iPhone, so you have to just keep things as simple as you can.?

If you?ve got an email list, then try opening your emails with a variety of different mobile devices to see how they look.

Writing Sales Copy for a Mobile Audience

?You?ve got to balance the device with the message.?
Yanik Silver, from Web Domination 20

Yanik Silver is the creator of Instant Sales Letters and quite possibly the world?s leading expert in online copywriting. He?s also one of the first copywriters to recognize that online sales letters should adapt for mobile users.

His first advice is to keep it short:

?You?ve got to make sure that your copy is ideal for someone coming off of a mobile device. Maybe that means even shorter paragraphs. Maybe that means keeping it really tight and engaging.?

Silver also sees a sales video as a way to level the copywriting playing field across all devices:

?For someone to scroll through on their iPhones through a twenty page sales letter is
going to be a lot tougher than watching a three minute video about it.?

These sales page videos don?t have to be flashy in order to be effective on mobile. Michael Dunlop uses a video that?s just voiceover and text for his Web Domination sales page. What matters it that mobile users can digest your entire message with just one touch of the screen.

The devices are small, but the mobile web is big? and only getting bigger.

The sooner you start running your website with a mobile audience in mind, the soon you?ll be able to benefit from this fast-growing demographic.

In this post, I reviewed mobile content, design, email marketing, and sales copy, but that?s really only scratching the surface. If you have any insights into mastering the mobile web ? or questions about it ? let us know in the comments.

Source: http://www.incomediary.com/mobile-web-content-design-email-sales

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Burger King's Whopper returns to France

Customers buy a meal at a Burger King restaurant in Marseille-Provence airport, in Marignane, France, Saturday, Dec. 22, 2012. Fifteen years after leaving France, the U.S. hamburger chain Burger King returned with the opening of a restaurant in Marseille-Provence airport. (AP Photo/Claude Paris)

A customer purchases a meal at a Burger King restaurant in Marseille-Provence airport, in Marignane, France, Saturday, Dec. 22, 2012. Fifteen years after leaving France, the U.S. hamburger chain Burger King returned with the opening of a restaurant in Marseille-Provence airport. (AP Photo/Claude Paris)

Customers eat a meal at a Burger King restaurant in Marseille-Provence airport, in Marignane, France, Saturday, Dec. 22, 2012. Fifteen years after leaving France, the U.S. hamburger chain Burger King returned with the opening of a restaurant in Marseille-Provence airport. (AP Photo/Claude Paris)

PARIS (AP) ? For the first time in 15 years, Burger King served its flame-grilled Whoppers in France, a country better known for its gastronomy than fast food.

Burger King Worldwide opened a restaurant at Marseille airport on Saturday, returning to France thanks to an agreement with Autogrill, which operates restaurants at highway service stations.

The burger chain, the world's second biggest behind McDonald's, closed its 39 French restaurants in 1997, because they were not profitable.

Burger King says their next restaurant is planned at a highway service station in Champagne in the first half of 2013.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-12-22-France-Burger%20King/id-5eb4b3e81d114e5ba26ee532a32cd2fc

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Saturday, December 22, 2012

AUDIO: Make Documentation Improvement Personal for Physicians ...

Web Exclusive

Health Story Data Standards Included in Meaningful Use Program

Just because information can be exchanged electronically doesn?t mean it can be digitally analyzed. Data needs to be structured using clear electronic standards for HIM professionals and other health IT specialists to analyze and use the data. Much of the data generated in healthcare ? like progress notes and other transcribed documents ? are unstructured and therefore not available for electronic analysis. But work has been done to add structure to this information and allow providers the chance to finally digitally analyze a patients? entire health story.

Nov 01, 2012 12:00 am ?? | ?? posted by Joy Kuhl?? | ?? Data content standards &? Data quality &? Electronic records

Source: http://journal.ahima.org/2012/12/21/audio-make-documentation-improvement-personal-for-physicians/

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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

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Source: http://www.mustreads.info/vehicle-finance-loans-do-differ-devin-hester-jersey-tremendously-so-take-a-professionals-guidance/

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Geminid meteor shower reigns in the night sky (+video)

Geminid meteor shower: Last night's annual meteor shower was a crowd pleaser. The Gemind meteor shower comes from debris shed by a 3-mile-wide? asteroid called 3200 Phaethon.

By Mike Wall,?Space.com / December 14, 2012

The annual Geminid meteor shower peaked overnight last night (Dec. 13), dazzling skywatchers around the world with a bounty of brilliant shooting stars.

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The Geminids' peak was supposed to be good this year, as it occurred in a sky left dark by the new moon. Experts had predicted that viewers in rural areas might see 100 meteors per hour early Friday morning (Dec. 14) ? and perhaps even more.

Judging by the reactions of some SPACE.com readers, the Geminids did not disappoint.

"What an incredible show we had here!" Sean Parker, who watched the shower early Friday just west of Tucson, Ariz., told SPACE.com via email. "I was able to see about 50 per hour." [Photos: Geminid Meteors of 2012]

Parker constructed a gorgeous composite image of about 30 frames, which captured dozens of shooting stars streaking through the skies above a saguaro-studded desert mountain.

"This image took a lot of work, as I had to scroll through about 400 frames and find which frames had shooting stars in them, then cut out every meteor and blend," Parker said.

Skywatchers on the other side of the world were enthralled by the Geminids as well.

"Awesome experience," said Mumbai, India-based Swaroop Hangal, who also captured a photo of a fast-moving meteor.

"Today, I had planned to see 50 streaks and then quit with or without a pic," Hangal said. "Had almost lost hope when I could capture the 50th one, just between Betelgeuse at the bottom & Alhena in the Gemini constellation."

The Geminids? so named because they appear to emanate from the constellation Gemini (The Twins) ? are one of the most dependably impressive annual meteor showers.

They result when Earth plows through debris shed by a 3-mile-wide (5 kilometers) asteroid called 3200 Phaethon. These tiny particles burn up in our planet's atmosphere, leaving bright streaks in the sky to commemorate their passing.

The Geminids' source is unusual for?meteor showers, which are typically caused by streams of sloughed-off comet particles. Debris streams from the famous Halley's Comet, for example, produce the Orionids every October and the Eta Aquarids, which peak in early May.

If you missed the Geminid peak last night, don't fret; you still have a few days to catch the shower this year. The Geminids should linger until Sunday (Dec. 16) or so before fizzling out completely.

Editor's Note: If you take a photo of this year's Geminids that you'd like to share with SPACE.com for a possible story or gallery, please send it, along with your comments, to spacephotos@space.com.

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall?or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook?and?Google+.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/FXHxmvVP7I0/Geminid-meteor-shower-reigns-in-the-night-sky-video

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Hungarian students rally against state financing cuts

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Thousands of Hungarian students rallied on Monday, piling pressure on the government to give up plans for cuts in state financing to higher education.

The protesters marched through central Budapest to the public radio station which broadcast a summary of demands from the students who sang the national anthem in the rain outside.

This was the third big rally against education reform plans since the government decided on sharp cuts in higher education earlier this month.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who started his political carrier as a student leader in the 1980s, promised on Saturday to ensure free education for those who meet certain requirements. However, he gave no details of the plans, which the government will discuss on Wednesday.

The protests could be politically damaging to the conservative government which won a two-thirds parliamentary majority in 2010 but has lost most of its lead over its Socialist rivals and has little hope to cut high unemployment before elections in 2014.

"The education issue could be damaging to the government if it becomes a topic at family tables during Christmas," said political analyst Zoltan Kiszelly.

"The government is likely to backtrack now and we will see later whether they manage to reduce the damage," he added.

(Reporting by Sandor Peto; Editing by Stephen Powell)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hungarian-students-rally-against-state-financing-cuts-213148576.html

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Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Too big to jail? Execs avoid laundering charges

FILE - In this Dec. 11, 2012, file photo, Lanny Breuer, center, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, addresses a news conference in New York's Brooklyn borough to announce British bank HSBC agreed to pay $1.9 billion to settle a New York based-probe in connection with the laundering of money from narcotics traffickers in Mexico. Among those joining Breuer is Treasury Under Secretary David Cohen, left. When the Justice Department announced its record $1.9 billion settlement against British bank HSBC last week, prosecutors called it a powerful blow to a dysfunctional institution accused of laundering money for Iran, Libya and Mexico's murderous drug cartels. But to some former federal prosecutors, it was only the latest case of the government stopping short of bringing criminal money laundering charges against a big bank or its executives. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

FILE - This May 11, 2012, file photo shows the corporate logo for HSBC hangs on a wall outside an office for the London-based multinational bank in New York. When the Justice Department announced its record $1.9 billion settlement against British bank HSBC last week, prosecutors called it a powerful blow to a dysfunctional institution accused of laundering money for Iran, Libya and Mexico's murderous drug cartels. But to some former federal prosecutors, it was only the latest case of the government stopping short of bringing criminal money laundering charges against a big bank or its executives. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

NEW YORK (AP) ? When the Justice Department announced its record $1.9 billion settlement against British bank HSBC last week, prosecutors called it a powerful blow to a dysfunctional institution accused of laundering money for Iran, Libya and Mexico's murderous drug cartels.

But to some former federal prosecutors, it was only the latest case of the government stopping short of bringing criminal money laundering charges against a big bank or its executives, at least in part on the rationale that such prosecutions could be devastating enough to cause such banks to fail.

They say it sounds a lot like the "too big to fail" meme that kept big but sickly banks alive on the support of taxpayer-funded bailouts. In these cases, they call it, "Too big to jail."

"Shame on the Department of Justice. Shame on them," said Jimmy Gurul?, a former federal prosecutor who teaches law at the University of Notre Dame.

"These are actions that facilitated major international drug cartels to continue their operations," he said. "Now, if that doesn't justify criminal prosecution, I can't imagine a case that would."

Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley shot off a letter to U.S. Attorney Eric Holder after the HSBC settlement, saying the government "appears to have firmly set the precedent that no bank, bank employee, or bank executive can be prosecuted even for serious criminal actions if that bank is a large, systemically important financial institution."

Neil Barofsky, the former inspector general of the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program and a former federal prosecutor in New York, warned that big banks could interpret the Justice Department's leniency as "a license to steal."

Since 2009, several European banks have paid heavy settlements related to allegations they moved money for people or companies on the U.S. sanctions list: Switzerland's Credit Suisse, $536 million; British bank Barclays, $298 million; British bank Lloyds, $350 million; Dutch bank ING, $619 million; and the Royal Bank of Scotland, $500 million for alleged money laundering at Dutch bank ABN Amro.

While those cases involved deals with such countries as Iran, Libya, Cuba and Sudan, the HSBC case was notable for the government's allegation that it also helped launder $881 million in drug-trafficking proceeds for Mexican drug cartels.

As bad as those allegations were, prosecutors say they could not prove HSBC executives conspired to aid drug organizations or rogue nations. Breakdowns in security controls within the company had occurred gradually, over decades, with a motive of increasing profits rather than committing crimes, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also expressed fear of "collateral consequences" ? that going further could have sunk a company that employs tens of thousands of people and is tied tightly to the economies of the roughly 80 countries where it does business.

Such a collapse has happened in white-collar prosecutions before, most notably in 2002 when the huge accounting firm Arthur Andersen was convicted for destroying Enron-related documents before the energy giant's collapse. It was forced to surrender its accounting license and to stop conducting public audits. Only after 85,000 people worldwide lost their jobs did the court case ultimately play out, with the Supreme Court overturning the conviction too late to save the doomed Chicago-based business.

"From a policy standpoint, it's a pretty compelling argument," said Kevin O'Brien, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice. "Employees lose their jobs, towns where these businesses are located are negatively affected, stockholders which include a lot of moms and pops lose their savings and none of that is really fair. Even a large fine can sometimes have a negative effect on employees and shareholders."

Bill Black, a former financial regulator who was instrumental in uncloaking the savings-and-loan crisis in the 1980s, scoffed at such a notion. "Seriously, you want to keep felons in charge of a bank for bank stability?" he said.

To Black and other critics of the government's approach, the HSBC case is a replay of the years immediately after the 2008 financial crisis, when the people most responsible for it were never really punished. No high-profile bankers have gone to jail in the wake of the financial crisis, nor has there been any well-known, large-scale effort to recover the giant bonuses awarded to executives of failed or nearly failed banks.

In the HSBC case, the bank has rescinded deferred compensation bonuses given to its most senior executives and agreed to partially defer bonus compensation for its most senior executives during the next five years.

"The guy who filed a false tax return, he's probably doing five years in prison," said Notre Dame's Gurul?. "And these guys ? transactions with Iran, threatening to jeopardize U.S. national security ? they don't even get prosecuted. The fairness of that system is very suspect."

The government's charges against HSBC are grim. They sketch a picture of a bank that systemically and purposefully skirted the law.

HSBC willfully failed to keep proper anti-laundering programs in place and to conduct due diligence on its customers, the government says. Court documents showed that the bank let over $200 trillion between 2006 and 2009 slip through relatively unmonitored, including more than $670 billion in wire transfers from HSBC Mexico, making it a favorite of drug cartels. At the same time, the bank gave Mexico its lowest risk rating for money laundering.

The cartels are a deadly force, controlling large swaths of Mexico as virtual mafias. The government of former President Felipe Calderon started reporting drug-related killings when it took office in late 2006, but stopped more than a year ago when the toll reached 47,500. Many private groups now put the number close to 60,000.

In July, the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations produced a damning 334-page report that told a similar story.

In one email cited in the Senate committee's report, an HSBC executive pushed to reopen a part of the bank's business that had been closed to a Saudi Arabian bank with possible links to the Sept. 11 attacks.

At a hearing with the committee in July, the bank's head of group compliance broke from his prepared testimony to resign.

Henry Pontell, a criminologist who teaches at the University of California-Irvine, was underwhelmed by the $1.9 billion in fines against HSBC, given its $17 billion in profits last year.

"The notion that 'Oh, they paid a big fine, that will scare everyone else,' is nonsense," Pontell said. "Those individuals that did this, they didn't pay the $1.9 billion. The company did. And that's supposed to be an effective deterrent? A white-collar criminal, the biggest thing they fear is being put into prison."

___

Associated Press Writer Michael Weissenstein contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-12-18-Too%20Big%20to%20Jail/id-2d2fad8733ab4c00926015f4b10ef877

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