As you may know having a fancy, full featured site is great, but if you make it and no one views it, or no one can find the information you post to it, it is ultimately useless. Webmastering is 5% site creation, and 95% marketing.

Thats where search engine optimization professionals enter the picture. They have techniques and the know-how to get your site some traffic, and to make it show in the search engines. We aren’t talking about the quick fix here, but solid methods that show us time tested results, if you are in it for the long haul, you should be looking at Apogee SEO Company in Austin to increase your visibility, and consequently , your site traffic.

So, you invested time to learn to make a site, and the effort of actually doing it. Its a great site, with outstanding content. Now you want to show the world your creation and share with them your data. How do you do that? You need to be very visible, and to do that you must rate high with search engines. Great way to do that is use a directory submission service. these guys know all the tips and tricks to get you highly visible is a short period of time.

Another fine avenue to go down in conjunction with directory submission would be contextual advertising which is advertising that targets a specific demographic. For example, if you were a company that specialized in high end personal computer components, then having your link on a site that was trafficked to PC modders would generate you more traffic than having it on a site about cartoons.

When I look for a company to assist me in my online planning, I seek one that has been around and shows a proven track record. One that hires professionals that care about their clients. I am sure you do as well.

One whose employees understand the business end of web development. The company I work with should be proficient in things like search engine marketing, and search engine optimization. These people should love what they do.

I am happy to tell you I found that and more with MatrixMT, a San Diego Internet Marketing firm with more than 8 years of internet experience. MatrixMT uses a strategy to bring their customers success.

The Strategy consists of 4 steps, Plan, Create, Market, Grow. It works because they are effective, the fact that they still exist is a testament to their skill. Its hard to make a internet presence thats worthy, you are competing against the world. Make sure you have solid help in your corner.

Your younger daughter a bit bored? Does she need a fun healthy activity that she care share with friends? I have the answer!

Cartoon Doll Emporium.

Its curiously addictive. Cartoon Doll Emporium is one of the fastest growing online communities for “tween” girls. They have fun online activities, like dressing some of their favorite stars in fashions they choose, and often times they can choose to change the colors of clothes, hairs, etc. Its YOUR style after all!

Cartoon Doll Emporium also has “webkinz”. These are hand drawn dolls that you take care of online, dress up and play with. Theres even tools that allow you to send the dolls and webkinz to your MySpace.

Another big thing alot of tweens enjoy is dressing up the Hannah Montana superdoll at Cartoon Doll Emporium. Yeah I tried it, its interesting because there was so many different combinations of clothes and accessories, plus I even got to pick my own pet.

 Skype is blaming last week’s two-day nonservice on “massive restart” of user computers worldwide.

Skype says that in a very short period of time users worldwide rebooted their PC’s because of the Microsoft Windows Update.

The Skype system crashed after a flood of request from users requesting authentication to the skype servers, this appears to be a large flaw in Skypes network resource allocation.

Skype claims it cannot confirm  there was no activity that might be called malicious.

How does this look for skype? Not well. Of course Skype is Ebay’s black sheep. Ebay bought skype in 2005 for almost 3 billion. People have always wondered why.

This outage will only serve to make people very leary of Skypes ability to deliver the service.

I like Zookoda, allow me to elaborate.

Zookoda makes things super simple, and by simple I mean a kid could do this. Head over to Zookoda.com to follow along.

You just sign up, and enter the pertinent information for your blog. Let zookoda know when and how often to send a newsletter comprised of your rss/atom feeds to your subscribers. Readers subscribe via a little registration box made fo code zookoda supplies to you. Easy right?

Its quite apparent that sending blog summaries to your readers will boost your site traffic. It reminds your readers that your blog is active and shows them what current content looks like.

I thought I would need to make a second account for a different blog, but I was wrong! Zookoda allows me to have multiple blogs and contains settings for each blog I add. Did I mention Zookoda is free? Yeah, its free and it works!

I am boggled by the length of time it took to get a service liek this to the blogging community, but now that its here I cant imagine not having it. I am pleased I have a way to reach my readers, especially those that may not understand how to use a rss aggregator. Now I can send them my posts at regular intervals. This is email marketing simplified!

AT&T censored the popular band Pearl Jam.

At this past Lollapalooza AT&T played a pink floyd song during a song with lyrics that the media giant disagreed with. The Blue Room webcast that showed the concert to many many viewers was obfuscated.

When Pearl Jam was made aware of it, they posted a letter to all of their fans. Its available on their site. Whats more, I agree with them.

Pearl Jam is concerned about soemthing, and that something is media consolidation. SUppose that all the media corporations merge, in a sense, theres just one ISP, one tv station, one radio provider. And they dotn want a message to get to the masses, what then?

Hey as far as I know the constitution is still valid, and the bill of rights is intact…. But they cant sing a song because its not flattering to the white house?  Do i smell the “third reich”? Indeed, no apology, or court settlement can right this wrong. A grave action has occurred, and if you are remotely aware of it, then you shoudl be worried, very concerned.

Suppose theres no net nuetrality? Then your emails just get lost… They remove your ability to communicate, or edit your communications to serve their needs. I think the possibilities are great, and worse, just frightening. AT&T is a big player in global communications, and i think their actions are completely appalling and grievous.

Pearl Jam is referring to the event as a “wake up call.” I am inclined to agree.

Video game creation is difficult. Developers must make a quality, function product, it has to be enjoyable to play, they must dance around the ESRB so they can reach their target market, then the publishers have to liek the game as well. And hopefully the creators will still be proud of it when this is all said and done.

The creation of games is chaotic, you throw things about, shift it in and out, like pieces of a puzzle, finding things that fit and things that do not, what works and what wont. After a few weeks of that, the process really begins.

Often things areleft out of the game, but the code remains intact and within that game. Thats odd you think. But if ti were removed then it may create other bugs in the code.

Example: A dev creates a jumprope minigame and he decides it should be a rhythm type excercise, he goes on to develop the system for the rhythm(algorhtyhms and such), he adds some things like related graphics, and gets it approved and ready to go

Now,the other developers will review this work and see what of it they can build upon, the graphics people will add good graphics to the original devs stuff. These graphics might be exclusive to the jump rope sequence, and they may also be found elsewhere in the game.

In a few months time, the original coders work is used by several other devs in their code, and the art is spread around as well. Then suddenly some higher up cuts the jump rope sequence.

How can you remove such an embedded portion of development? It is present, and functional. Other portions of the development are built upon it, dependant even, the praphics are there as well. What now? Simple, you simply never have the jump rope sequence called by the game, essentially the main program never calls for that function. It doesnt alter any of the code, the sequence is just never seen by consumers.

Most games have “easter eggs”. We see this all the time, and the example above is likely what happened in GTA:SA. Most hidden code is not sexual, but then again GTA:SA is a “mature” rating.

Do we blame the ESRB? Of course not! The hot coffee minigame is only there if you hack it. Sure, its just a single bit, but its a modification to the game files, to play the game in a manner not intended by the publisher/developer.

1. Video games lead to violence in youth.

Citing national crime statistics, youth violent crime hasnt been lower in 30 years. 99% of gamers dont commit antisocial acts. In fact, studies have shown that mental stability and home life are the contributors to violence and not games. How can the guy at home pwning his friends be out and commiting crimes?

2. Video games are marketed at children.

While most kids do play video games, the market is shifting to adults. In fact, 62% of platforms, and 66% of pc gamers is over 18. The original gamers have hit adulthood and are now the focus of developers.

3. Girls arent gamers.

Once that was an accurate statement. The female population of gamers has increased steadily for years. Females out number males on web based games. World of Warcraft is also played heavily by the female market.
4. Video game play is isolating.

On the contrary, much video game play is social. 60 percent of gamers play with their friends. 33% percent play with their brothers and sisters.
5. Video game play will desensitize the masses.

Animal studies show that primates differentiate between play fighting, and that of true violence. Sometimes they seem to be quite amused wrestling each other. Other events see them ripping each other to shreds. Are we not smarter than the apes?