With all the focus on the recent election, it is interesting that one of the least discussed parts of the Obama campaign’s path to victory was their smart and efficient usage of emerging technology, harnessing a broad swath of internet tools to help his campaign. From the beginning of his campaign, he used resources on his website to manage organization and fundraising, and it was this capacity that allowed him to compete in a long and hard fought primary election. The rapid pace or his fundraising and the large number of volunteers the campaign brought out were all in part due to his embrace of internet technology.

Obama’s website started out fairly standard, as far as political sites go, it was modeled after Howard Dean’s success in small donor, web-based fundraising. Soon after, the team introduced a social networking style site, offering the ability to connect to other Obama supporters, and introduced the ability to easily and quickly communicate. Access to volunteers was important, allowing the ground organization to reach out to Obama supporters in every state during the primary. With fundraising came greater resources, and it was through this the Obama campaign expanded their efforts.

By the end of the election, they were regularly using text-messaging to motivate voters, and the campaign had introduced an application for the iPhone that included a number of tools to help voters canvas for Obama. In each precinct, volunteers and paid staffers worked with software provided by Central Desktop, giving them professional quality organization. The usage of social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace helped build enthusiasm among young voters, something that turned out to be a good investment of time, considering Obama won young 68% of young voters. The campaign regularly posted videos to sites like youtube, and generally harnessed the power of its supporters creating media online.

The convergence of social networking tools, making resources available to supporters, and raising money online, all helped Obama win, creating a formula for electoral success that many politicians will replicate in the future. Truly, one of the most important parts of future political campaigns will be information technology and how it can motivate voters.

Posted by Ian Logsdon.
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Search engine optimization is extremely important to the process of setting up a site or revisiting your website’s design. Indeed, it is true that most websites will not succeed without an appropriate plan to harness search engine optimization, short of getting lucky. This means that you need to consider SEO at all phases of development for your site. You need to focus on the most important aspects of search engine optimization: keyword usage, inbound links, unique content, etc. By building SEO into the design of your site, you can start reaping the benefits of your efforts as soon as your site is spidered.

If you’re building your site for the first time, there are a number of things you can do to benefit your search engine performance. First, decide whether you will be using one domain for your site. While it may cost more to host your site (or in this case sites) across multiple domains, you can reap substantial benefits by hosting a number of different websites, perhaps each serving a different function or selling a different product. One of the most reliable ways to receive good rankings on search engines is to have lots of inbound links. Having multiple domains where you host your sites means getting a head start on this process. As well, you can benefit greatly by using search engine optimization on your html filenames. By including your keywords in filenames, you can reap additional benefits from using them.

Choosing keywords is an important step in the process of developing your site, and this means you need to analyze the effectiveness of the keywords you have already chosen. Also, look at your competition; see what keywords they are using. Go after the weaker ones first, where you can get more rank, faster. By targeting keywords and using them heavily, you can start drawing traffic, this will allow you to build up your search engine rank gradually against larger sites.

The key to getting your site to take off is having a large amount of unique content. For this it is recommended you add a blog, resource center, or other area where you can keep a large amount of unique text. If you can provide expert commentary on a topic, any topic, you can garner inbound links that will provide you with a major boost. As well, posting your site to directories can garner you better search engine results, though it will likely require more inbound links than from sites with more content and less links.

In the end, search engine optimization allows you to improve the connectivity of your site. But without a way to monetize your site, a good product or a reliable advertising revenue scheme, your site will never be more than a hobby. Make sure you have a business plan and a good product, otherwise your work will be in vain.

Posted by Ian Logsdon.
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Developing a subscription based site is a difficult task, as you must find a niche that is not occupied with free alternatives that are already thriving social networks. Subscription based sites are, however, one of the most sustainable and profitable ways to make money on your website. Subscription based sites offer something other models don’t, a guaranteed revenue stream once your site is active. As common as advertising supported sites are, unless you have a great deal of traffic, it is almost impossible to maintain a website for profit without selling something.

The cost of getting a subscription site off the ground is low, as all you need to get started is your hosting, a website design, some content management software, and software for managing members. Many of the membership site applications available have content management incorporated, allowing you to keep everything on one system. And because the software tends to have a set cost, the only recurring cost to you is your hosting fees. This means you will be receiving income and your only costs will be centered on keeping your site online, which is relatively low, especially for a site that is just starting out, and the cost of maintaining content, which you may be able to manage yourself.

In the end, while many people will opt for the free option, having an exclusive site is a great way to make money off your idea. You can even manage a site with a hybrid model, offer a free mode with limited features and advertising, and let users know if they sign up for a recurring membership, they will have full access. This is commonly used for sites that are social networks, like forums, and it is important that you make your differentiating features a big enough deal that people will be willing to pay extra every month or year for a membership.

Posted by Ian Logsdon.
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Omnistar Interactive is pleased to release a series of new articles intended to help introduce the world of email marketing:

1. Email Marketing Glossary - Omnistar has compiled a comprehensive glossary introducing you to the terminology you will need to understand when working in the field of email marketing.

2. Keeping List Members Interested - Getting people to sign up with your email list isn’t everything, after all, you need them to keep reading your marketing copy. This article provides you with a number of methods for keeping your list subscribers interested.

3. How Often Should You Email Your List - Once you have an email list, choosing how often to send out your marketing emails will impact the effectiveness of your marketing. Knowing how often to send is key to maximizing the effectiveness of your individual efforts.

4. The Best Day to Send Marketing Emails - Choosing when to send your periodical emails is an important decision, because open rates and click-thru rates are greatly affected by when your customers receive your email.

5. How to Avoid Spam Filters - Spam filters have become increasingly aggressive, as spammers have developed numerous ways to bypass them, and because of this your marketing is more likely to be capture as well. Avoiding Spam filters is an important step to increasing your email campaigns success.

6. How to Increase Your Click-Thru Rate - Getting people to click links within your email is important, it makes the difference between email that arrives and gets deleted and emails that get opened and read. Improving your advertising is an essential part of improving your marketing’s success rate.

7. HTML Vs. Plain Newsletters - Using different formats for your email is necessary because so many users read in either HTML or Plain Text, this article explains why this is, and how you can take advantage of these different behaviors.