Yahoo has seen some young competitors in the business lately. The company has now got engaged in a patent right fight with Facebook and has also issued a warning to the company over the usage of its intellectual property.

Yahoo has warned Facebook that some of the technologies that it is using have already been filed by Yahoo in its 10 or 20 patents. According to Yahoo, some other companies have also used the Yahoo patent technologies but there is no issue relating to it as they have got the usage licensed by Yahoo.

Facebook can also resolve the issue by getting a license and by paying the license fees. In case Facebook does not opt for the license then Yahoo will be suing the company. Representatives of the two companies met with each other in this regard.

A spokesperson of Yahoo said that Yahoo has a right to protect its intellectual property and the company has also got a responsibility towards its stakeholders, shareholders and employees. Therefore they have to insist that either Facebook goes for the licensing arrangement or they will be protecting their patent rights in a unilateral manner. This message was conveyed by Yahoo to New York Times in an e-mail.

The spokesman for Facebook, Barry Schnitt says that they have not yet been able to completely evaluate the claims that have been made by Yahoo.

Silicon Valley has witnessed many cases relating to patent rights with smart-phones leading the sphere. A whopping sum of $ 12.5 billion was paid by Google to Motorola Mobility last year. This amount was paid by Google in order to access the intellectual properties of Motorola. The defunct communication equipment manufacturer Nortel received an amount of $4.5 billion that was paid by a consortium of companies led by Microsoft and Apple for the 6,000 patents which Nortel had. The different areas of world have witnessed many cases. These cases involved leading smartphone makers like Samsung and Apple.

Yahoo’s warning has come at a very delicate time for Facebook as the company is planning to go public this spring. The event is also one of the most anticipated debut events of times.

Yahoo has last year reviewed it patents to be sold to outside investors also. People who are close to the company have said that these patents included the ‘firsts ‘ also that were awarded to Yahoo. By buying Overture Services, Yahoo has been able to acquire many more intellectual property rights in the year 2003. Overture Services had sued Google over patent issues and was search advertising company.

It is still not clear how much amount will the licensing agreement will cost to Facebook and how much Yahoo will gain if the two companies reach an agreement. Yahoo received around 2.7 million shares in Google when it settled the acquired company battle with it in year 2004.

Yahoo’s patents were rated as being the most valuable in all of the internet and communication services by a technology publication called IEEE spectrum. According to investors the intellectual property rights of Yahoo will give the company more power against Facebook. According to Eric Jackson, a managing member of Ironfire Capital, Yahoo can use the patents for getting a good amount from Facebook.

About the Author:

Margaret is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on hometone and styleguru.
She recently did an article on Facebook fever. These days she is busy in writing an article on angelina jolie wiki.

1) Highlight People

What’s better than highlighting people? Many companies are using Facebook Cover on their Facebook Pages to highlight their human resources. Such as

New York Times

NYTimes has used Facebook timeline to highlight its people very well – world’s best journalists.

Dr Pepper

Dr Pepper’s Facebook Timeline Cover is creatively made with small avatars of people which looks really neat if you take a closer look. Also has the soft drink popping out from the profile picture itself. Creative indeed – but who the people in the avatars are is not clear.

2) Highlight User Testimonials

Facebook Timeline Cover doesn’t allow direct promotion of products. But testimonial by customers? That should be just fine. And it can be updated easily too.

HTC

HTC used client as testimonial – and an amazing one too – freefall fashion photographer on air – with signature. Quietly Brilliant!

Dunkin’ Donuts

Dunkin’ Donuts highlights its weekly fans. Thus it is updating Facebook cover every week as well as showing real customers.

3) Highlight Vision / Strength

Since the Facebook Cover is such a big part of the brand’s Facebook pages, it is best place to start showing what your brand is about.

CloudFactory

For a startup using crowdsourcing to develop the livelihood of people in developing nations, CloudFactory has used childish art very well on its Facebook Timeline Cover.

Ncell

Ncell doesn’t mention its name on Facebook Cover but simply tells what it does – connect within Nepal.

Bing

Bing does well to not only show that it is a search engine, but also add interesting photos as background images. Updated daily to reflect their main site. You could visit it just to see the images! Google’s Facebook cover is comparatively dull.

How does your brand use the Timeline Cover in Facebook Page?

First, what is SEO?
Here is a video on SEO in simple language for those who are not too familiar with it.

Each Search Engine such as Google, Yahoo or Bing rank websites based on their algorithm (set of rules). While the algorithm are different for different search engines, the important factors for SEO are

• Content of the website or the words and the keywords
• Titles and META tags
• Number of links pointing to the website or the backlinks
• Anchor text or the words in such backlinks
• Reputation of such backlinks

While the basics of SEO are simple, due to huge number of website, the implementation and execution part aren’t always easy. Many small business often go to creative agencies that produce great looking websites that do not bring visitors through search engines. The result? There is no business through the website. Also due to lack of knowledge, SEO is often mistaken as separate segment or a value added service of an online business and left to external experts or a separate team. This is not right. SEO should be part of the marketing strategy of a business for best results and the top level should also be involved in what is expected.

Here is a video on some common SEO mistakes and ways to correct them.

Each business should have a value proposition to the target market and it applies to websites as well. Why should a user come to your website and use your product/service/brand or recommend it? Knowing those help understand what customers want and which keywords to target for SEO.

For lasting SEO, it is best to focus on user and user experience rather than search engines. Since the SEO basics appear easy and results are quickly visible, it is common to overdo the stuff (such as being obsessed with keyword density, PageRank or Alexa Rank) rather than enhancing the user experience. It is however, best to focus on what your customers actually need or want. When more users like and recommend the things on the website, search engines are more likely to rank such sites naturally. For this use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter or Google+ is a great way to start. Understanding and following the best SEO practices above are always important.

Which factors do you consider for SEO of your website and business?

Consider this for what happens every minute (60 seconds) in the social networking sites:
Facebook: 700K messages sent
YouTube: 2 million videos viewed
Twitter: 175K tweets
LinkedIn: 7K searches
Pinterest: 1K visitors

Still think your business can afford to miss the social media?

1. The Last Hour Person

This unfortunately is the most common type of person/team in our part of the world. When they get the deadline, they start off slow (or think the deadline has a long way to go). And then there is the inevitable final hour acceleration mode, which could mean staying awake many nights before the deadline itself.

2. The Consistent Workhorse

This should have the ideal way of doing things, where people do things based on the total work. Unfortunately, for many, this is just for good for the theory. If you are in this category, good for you or your clients. It is important to notice that even the most ideal team will undergo acceleration in terms of their speed or effort at some time during the project.

3. The Irresponsible

They are most likely not to finish project on time or meet deadlines. They are the ones who generally wait for external inputs to speed up their efforts. Once the inputs stop coming, the deadlines are bound to be missed. The best way to work with such people could be to give them shorter deadlines again and again and send reminders. If not, stay away from these people/team.

So, which one are you?

Some staggering data regarding social media engagement are:

• Facebook is the most visited website in the world
• 11% of the world population use Facebook
• There are more Facebook users than vehicles in the world!
• 30 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook each month
• There are about 150,000,000 tweets in Twitter each day
• Average tweet is only 40 characters long
• 35 hours of videos are uploaded on YouTube every minute
• 3500 photos uploaded every second on Flickr
• Every executive of fortune 500 company is listed on LinkedIn
• 60% admit they are using mobile devices even in bathroom!
• Women are more active than men on social media

Start using today.

• Actively into management or
• Passive part of the organization

In general the issues covered are the role of management, in particular CEO in educating the board of directors. The common cause of passive board is that they are believed to have little or no knowledge of the domain so they have no role in strategy formulation or implementation (which is true in many cases here in Nepal where the board is extension of management and vice versa). Some management don’t have board in strategy due to lack of knowledge that they should be a part too.

The truth is that the board should be a part of the strategy at three levels: company portfolio, strategic business units (SBU) and functional capabilities in the external context. In Owning Up, the suggestion is for the management to engage the board more in the strategy with the following process.

• Discuss External Trends
• Capture the Essence of the Strategy in Writing
• Iterate the Strategy with the Board
• Conduct a Strategy Immersion Session

After all since the board and management are on the same page, directors too need to be engaged in the corporate strategy. Especially in the ever changing environment, external viewpoints are equally important too.

What is your Strategy?

Social Media is the electronic technology that foster interactive communication. Essentially, social media is any internet or mobile applications that allow creation and exchange of user-generated content.

Earlier forms of media were one way only that allowed companies to tell their views or information and wait for users to respond. Now, with what is called as web 2.0, it has become possible for anybody to talk, share information or content such as image or video, or network using the internet. These are the social media tools of the modern age. Some of powerful and popular social media where users can participate in generating ideas and content are Blogs, Forums, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Digg, Flickr, Delicious among others.

While it was possible for companies and brands to get away with having just a website 10 years back, this is not the case now with all users using social media. If you are not there, your competitor will be. So the best is to start using some of the social media basics yourself first.

Blog

Blog is the initial form of social media which allows updating regular information/content where users can participate through comments or feedback. Having a blog is one of the best way online to letting know that your company is alive. There are free blogging platforms available such as www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com to get started with. However customization works best for company blogs. Companies such as Starbucks have used a different approach to user engagement through their blog, whereas companies such as General Electric (GE) or Southwest Airlines have successfully taken the traditional role of brand awareness through their blogs. There isn’t much corporate blogging culture in Nepal, though some organizations post regular updates through blogs. Personal blogs on the other hand have grown substantially in Nepal, including ones like mysansar or others that blog to monetize.

Forums

Forums are good place to allow targeted users to communicate. You can find forums on endless topics ranging from travel to sports or movies to politics to technology. Or very specific forums such as macro photography or ice-cream or Ferrari. While maintaining forums, it is important to foster discussions in the appropriate topics.

Facebook

Facebook is one of the most popular and powerful social media. Whatever your business, Facebook is a great way to reach out to the users. Facebook currently has 800 million users worldwide. To start with Facebook, create a Facebook Page for your brand or company. Once you create a page, complete the basics (such as uploading a profile picture and filling the information) and add contacts. Users can then become a fan of your Facebook page and interact on it. Popular Facebook pages such as that of Coca-Cola have millions of fans interacting everyday in it. Even local Nepali companies such as Ncell or AceTravel have used it to good effect along with Facebook pages for social causes, such as NepalUnites. Facebook advertising on the other hand is a quick way to reach to more uses.

Twitter

Twitter is another social media that allows only 140 characters of public messaging service. Twitter has been used for many purpose such as interacting real-time with customers, feedback system, contests, organizing events or just updating with news. You can reply real-time in twitter privately or publicly. Using hastag(#) is a good way to start discussion in certain topic, such as #elections2011 or #twitter. Companies such as Best Buy have effectively used twitter through @twelpforce for real-time customer service. Even local Nepali organizations have used it well, such as @ibloodnepal and @tfcnepal for social causes.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social media for professional networking. It can be used as a personal resume on the internet or by companies to find employees. This business related social media can be used to foster interaction through LinkedIn groups, LinkedIn Answers or through job openings. It is very powerful in the sense that you get direct leads for your business. Again, advertising is an option to reach to potential users.

YouTube

YouTube is the most powerful social media for videos sharing. It is one of the most viral tools that spreads lot of buzz online as well as offline. Not only is it powerful for musicians or movie makers, this is equally useful for companies of all sizes. Consider the Old Spice Campaigns made totally on YouTube or the wacky Annoying Oranges. In Nepal too users such as lexlimbu have used YouTube to good effect.

These are only few of the popular social media. Each organization or brands have specific requirements and needs to select the social media accordingly. Also there are bookmark tools such as addthis or shrethis that allow users to share contents.

It is also important to understand that it is best to maintain only those social media that one can manage in the long run. Because not managing social media is worse than not having social media. In case your social media strategy backfires, you have to be ready for that too.

Need to know more? Glad to help.

You can see the responses to the new Twitter Activity here.

What do you think of the new Activity feature on Twitter? Do you like it or dislike it?

• Product or Brand
• Company, Institution or Organization
• Local Business or Place
• Arts, Entertainment or Sports
• Other

Google+ pages are similar to the regular Google+ profiles in the sense that it allows profile owners to add or block people to chosen circles, share content, +1 on others’ content such as comments or photos, and create and join Hangouts. Google+ Pages can be identified with the square shape next to the name at the top of the page.

However there are some important differences that must be taken into consideration. Using Google+ personal profile for promoting business can get the person to be banned from Google+ altogether. The differences between Google+ page from normal profiles are:

• Pages can’t add people to circles until the page is added first or mentioned.
• Pages can be made for a variety of different purposes as mentioned above whereas profiles can only be made for people.
• The default privacy setting for elements on your page profile is public. So Google can index everything on Google+ Pages for their search results unless you change the settings.
• Pages have the +1 button at the left navigation. (similar to Like Option at top of a Page in Facebook)
• Pages can’t +1 other pages, nor can they +1 stuff on the Web.
• Pages can’t play games.
• Pages don’t have the option to share to ‘Extended circles’ (that is circles of circles – or friends of friends).
• Pages don’t receive notifications via email, text, or in the Google bar.
• Pages can’t hangout on a mobile device.
• Local pages have special fields that help people find the business’ physical location.

In future users will be able to reach to a Google+ Business Pages by directly searching in Google for “+BusinessName”, such as +Coke or +Pepsi.

You can start creating Google+ Pages now here.