How much is my website going to cost?

How much should I spend on marketing?

from Prancer.com by Frank Byers
Those questions are complex with numerous possible answers. Your business success will depend on so many factors: Your health, your intelligence, your capital, the economy, your employees and many other factors – including your online presence.

The secret to a successful online prescience is new content, new content, new content. You must have the ability to add photography, video and the written word to your website and social media. If you possess the necessary skills in-house to write, photograph, video and otherwise add great information to your site for your customers AND you understand how to easily change and update your existing content, you will be successful. On the other hand, you will lose customers to another firm if they are more proficient than you or your company at adding content. At Prancer we believe the best website platform for almost all individuals and businesses is a WordPress CMS (content management system).

The cost, for a starter website, if you already have photos, video and art, is $3,000.00 to $5,000.00 – including basic onsite instruction. Your internet presence is very important. Your website is your introduction to the world. Your minimum ongoing labor costs, in hours, should be 8 hours a week for you, someone in your company or an outside contributor. You are the expert at what you do, you need to be in control of the data, the intelligence, the words and the art for your business. Prancer can help today. Call 208.515.2050 or email Frank Byers for more information.

Your marketing budget is so important to be able to compete effectively. A new business must allocate adequate funds to connect with new customers. Maybe an existing business could survive without online marketing, however, the business will certainly lose possible new customers to a competitor with a superior online advertising model. Your ROI (Return on Investment) from a well-crafted marketing plan will be very rewarding to you and your company.

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entire article TIOBE Programming Community Index for September 2011

September Headline: Programming Language D back in the top 20

This month the programming language D hits the top 20, replacing F# that cracked the top 20 for the first time last month. Unlike F#, The D language is not new. It has already been in the top 20 from 2007 till the middle of 2009. Wikipedia gives a hint about the comeback of D: “The release of Andrei Alexandrescu’s book ‘The D Programming Language’ on June 12, 2010 marked the stabilization of D 2.0.” In the charts we can see that the D language is gradually rising again since that date.

The TIOBE Programming Community index is an indicator of the popularity of programming languages. The index is updated once a month. The ratings are based on the number of skilled engineers world-wide, courses and third party vendors. The popular search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, YouTube and Baidu are used to calculate the ratings. Observe that the TIOBE index is not about the best programming language or the language in which most lines of code have been written.

The index can be used to check whether your programming skills are still up to date or to make a strategic decision about what programming language should be adopted when starting to build a new software system. The definition of the TIOBE index can be found here.

Position Sep 2011	Position Sep 2010	Delta in Position	Programming Language	Ratings Sep 2011	Delta Sep 2010	Status
1	1		Java	18.761%	+0.85%	A
2	2		C	18.002%	+0.86%	A
3	3		C++	8.849%	-0.96%	A
4	6		C#	6.819%	+1.80%	A
5	4		PHP	6.596%	-1.77%	A
6	8		Objective-C	6.158%	+2.79%	A
7	5		(Visual) Basic	4.420%	-1.38%	A
8	7		Python	4.000%	-0.58%	A
9	9		Perl	2.472%	+0.03%	A
10	11		JavaScript	1.469%	-0.20%	A
11	10		Ruby	1.434%	-0.47%	A
12	12		Delphi/Object Pascal	1.313%	-0.27%	A
13	24		Lua	1.154%	+0.60%	A
14	13		Lisp	1.043%	-0.04%	A
15	15		Transact-SQL	0.860%	+0.09%	A
16	14		Pascal	0.845%	+0.06%	A-
17	20		PL/SQL	0.720%	+0.08%	A–
18	19		Ada	0.682%	+0.01%	B
19	17		RPG (OS/400)	0.666%	-0.05%	B
20	30		D	0.609%	+0.20%	B

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This post is part of our ReadWriteMobile channel, which is dedicated to helping its community understand the strategic business and technical implications of developing mobile applications. This channel is sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent. As you’re exploring these resources, check out this helpful resource from our sponsors: Cultivating a Developer Ecosystem: Understanding Their Needs

Mobile analytics company Flurry released research today that shows that the available inventory for mobile advertising could absorb all Internet advertising. That means that available display ad spots for iOS and Android could take over just about all revenue for Internet advertising.

Now, while mobile growth has been staggering over the last two years, there are several aspects to keep in mind here that Flurry does not touch on. Foremost, Flurry is taking into account the total amount of inventory available for the more than 600,000 apps available between Android and iOS. That does not necessarily mean that most apps make attractive targets for advertisers.

Flurry sees four reasons why mobile advertising inventory is growing so fast:

Smartphone growth – More than a million activations across platforms per day.
Publisher growth – More developers, more apps.
Session use growth – Users spending more time using their apps.
Publisher integration of ads – More screen space, more complex apps make for more advertising potential.
Yesterday research firm comScore came out with smartphone user numbers for July that showed nearly 82.2 million Americans, or about a third of all U.S. consumers, are now smartphone users. That number is rapidly approaching the magical inflection point of 50% smartphone market penetration that signals the difference between a mainstream fad and an integral part of the consumer experience.Flurry paints a pretty picture. On one hand, they are not wrong. Yet, as a market, there is not yet full inundation that will support the entire ecosystem.
Hence, apps and their inventories have grown exponentially as well. Yet, as we have seen from other reports, even though users may download a lot of apps, they do not always use a lot of apps.

Flurry also notes that smartphone users have a higher average income and tend to hold more bachelor degrees (or higher) than the average American household. With mobile advertising expected to be a $1.1 billion market this year, certainly mobile ads are attractive to advertising firms.

“For mobile apps, less than four years into their growth cycle, a critical mass of highly attractive consumers has been achieved,” Flurry says in its report. “With growing awareness by brands and advertising agencies, we now expect digital advertising on mobile to take off in earnest.”

Yet, recall this report from research firm Nielsen a couple of weeks ago. Of all Android apps that users download, only the top 50 or so make up the vast majority (61%) of use. So, while inventory for all mobile applications has risen exponentially, only the real top-tier of apps are worth it to advertisers. Though we do not have specific numbers for iOS app usage, it is probably comparable to Android use.

Flurry paints a pretty picture. On one hand, they are not wrong. Mobile display ads are definitely an attractive option for advertisers and developers looking to make money on their content. Yet, as a market, there is not yet full inundation that will support the entire ecosystem. It still comes down to making a product that consumers will actually use. Total inventory is interesting, but advertisers go where the eyeballs actually are.

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from

Microsoft Ramps Up Google Challenge in $12 Billion Display-Ad Market: Tech

By Dina Bass - Sep 6, 2011

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the largest software maker, is adding features to its Internet display- advertising products to keep from losing customers to Google Inc. (GOOG) and Facebook Inc. in the $12.3 billion U.S. market.

Microsoft is unveiling tools and partnerships with AppNexus Inc. and MediaMath this month designed to help customers more effectively tailor ads and measure their impact. Sales of graphical display ads, including banners and videos, are poised to climb 25 percent in the U.S. this year.

The company aims to reassure customers such as Publicis Groupe SA that have questioned its commitment to display ads and the Atlas software it acquired with the $6 billion AQuantive Inc. deal. As Microsoft shifted its focus to search-related ads, some marketers have devoted more display-ad dollars to Facebook and Google.

“We have continued to invest behind Microsoft and behind Atlas,” said Curt Hecht, chief executive officer of VivaKi Nerve Center, the unit that oversees technology for Publicis Groupe SA (PUB)’s digital ad agencies. “We need a partner that’s as committed as we are. Microsoft is at a point where they need to show it’s important to them.”

Microsoft is adding personnel and dollars to bolster display and Atlas, which is used to place ads on websites and help advertisers measure performance of ad campaigns. Atlas vies with DoubleClick, acquired by Google in a $3.1 billion purchase announced a month before the AQuantive deal.

‘Intelligently’ Investing

“We’re investing more, and more intelligently, in display now,” said Microsoft General Manager Dennis Buchheim, who oversees Atlas and other ad software. “There has been this mumbling out there of, are we investing in display, and absolutely that is a major investment area for us.”

He declined to provide specific spending or personnel targets.

Atlas gives Publicis’s Razorfish, formerly a Microsoft unit, a competitive edge over agencies that use DoubleClick, Hecht said. Still, Microsoft needs to improve Atlas, he said.

“It’s every three years or so that the software needs to be rewritten,” he said. “Microsoft is now at that point in time where the market is asking, ‘What’s next what’s the big rewrite?’ Google has continued to invest in DoubleClick.”

Microsoft must modernize the design, which looks outdated and requires even expert users to run through multiple steps, said Grace Liau, who runs VivaKi’s ad operations group. Atlas users also often have to call a Microsoft engineer to help them target certain ads — an option more readily available on DoubleClick, she said.

Ads By Region

Microsoft plans new Atlas features for September that will ensure customers see ad copy designed for their region, and keep them from seeing the same ad too many times. Those are already available in DoubleClick, she said.

Microsoft’s renewed push coincides with an expected shift in the Internet-advertising market. Search-based ads — text- only links that appear alongside Internet queries — have represented the bigger part of the U.S. Internet-ad market. In the coming years, display will grow faster and become the bigger segment in 2015, according to David Hallerman, an analyst at EMarketer Inc. in New York.

Spending on display advertising, expected to reach $12.3 billion in the U.S. this year, will almost double to $22 billion in 2015, according to EMarketer.

Microsoft is now the fourth-biggest seller of display ads in the U.S. behind Facebook, Yahoo! Inc. and Google. Microsoft’s share is less than one-third of Facebook’s, and about half of Google’s. In 2008, a year after Microsoft agreed to buy AQuantive and Google announced the DoubleClick deal, Microsoft was third behind Yahoo and AOL Inc. (AOL) Google and Facebook were laggards then, Hallerman said.

Google’s ‘Impressive’ Ramp

“The ramp we’ve seen with Google has certainly been impressive,” Microsoft’s Buchheim said.

Just after Microsoft purchased AQuantive — for an 85 percent premium — prices for display ads slumped and the market for search-based ads took off. Microsoft, concerned that Google would run away with the market, saw catching up in search as a bigger priority for spending, Buchheim said.

Google had more than 65 percent of the market for software that serves up display ads, including DoubleClick and other programs, according a 2010 report from San Mateo, California- based Attributor, which tracks Internet ad data. Microsoft had 4 percent.

Microsoft’s work on Atlas in the past few years involved behind-the-scenes plumbing, not new features, said Ryan Mackle, director of display platforms at Microsoft.

AppNexus, MediaMath

The company wants to change that by adding so-called demand-side platforms like AppNexus, MediaMath and Turn Inc. as partners. The companies’ products let advertisers purchase only the ads that target a specific audience — for example, those who have recently viewed the advertiser’s website.

Microsoft is also rolling out what it calls audience- messaging tools that can ensure that a particular version of an ad is shown only to customers in certain regions, or that a customer who has already seen parts one and two in an ad series is shown the third installment, Mackle said.

The software maker also has developed a feature for its Excel spreadsheet program that makes it easier to manage media campaigns, and software that lets customers view their Atlas data in dashboards in Microsoft’s SharePoint program.

Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc. uses Atlas to make sure that customers visiting its websites in Europe are shown banners for hotels in Paris and Prague, not Tokyo, said Jason Albright, director of global online merchandising for the hotel chain.

‘Behind the Ball’

DoubleClick has surpassed Atlas in targeting capabilities in the last several years, he said. Now Atlas is spending to catch up.

“They were a little bit behind the ball, but they recognized that and are investing in the right areas,” he said.

Advertisers are increasingly looking to purchase search and display ads together, making it necessary for Microsoft to make sure it has a strong offering in both. Google has grown so quickly in display in part because it has harnessed existing relationships with search-ad customers, Hallerman said.

“Microsoft needs a piece of display to keep their overall ad business going,” he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Dina Bass in Seattle at dbass2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net

®2011 BLOOMBERG L.P. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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