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Twitter developments Speculated on earlier in the year have (mostly) arrived – say hello to OAuth and t.co.
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It’s just days away. The Masters of Business Online (MBO) Conference is an outstanding event for marketers, business owners and pretty much anyone with a pulse that has an interest in the Web.

This year’s event boasts 23 speakers, 18 sessions, and 3 tracks. That means you are SURE to find information of interest to you and your business.

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I reported Sunday that tr.im had announced it was terminating its URL shortening service which, would have the knock on effect of discontinuing all links shortened with the service starting early 2010.

Nambu, the development firm behind tr.im today announced it will be retracting this decision, making its service available once more, and with the promise that links will NOT become unavailable after 2009.

Unfortunately, its not safe to sleep at night in the URL shortening world just yet.

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In a coincidental, but shockingly relevant turn of events, the URL shortening service tr.im as of Sunday August 9th 2009 has announced it will be terminating its URL shortening service, effective immediately.

Regretfully, we here at Nambu have decided to shutdown tr.im, the first step in shutting down all of our products and services within that brand.

tr.im did well for what it was, but, alas, it was not enough. We simply cannot find a way to justify continuing to work on it, or pay its network costs, which are not inconsequential. tr.im pushes (as I write this) a lot of redirects and URL creations per day, and this required significant development investment and server expansion to accommodate.

(Read on at blog.tr.im – blog since terminated)

The coincidental part of the equation lies in my posting to the Visual Blaze blog last week about the many vulnerabilities of utilizing URL shortening services and how URL shortening should be performed with caution.

Shorten URLs with Caution. Here’s why.

As one of the larger players in the URL shortening market, tr.im’s move to shut down their service really drives home the need for users to use external URL shortening services with caution.

To the Nambu Network we express our regrets for the services discontinuation. To all URL shortening users we express our regret for any lose of link traffic that this news may bring.

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This is the third in a series of posts relating to the mobile Web. This post will focus on social media. Part 2 looked into the mobile Web in one particular area of social media, blogging. In this post I will try and address social networking for the mobile web.

‘Social Media’

There aren’t too many people on the face of the earth that haven’t heard the term ‘social media’ or ‘social network’ at least once or twice. Attributed as one of the main results of, or maybe even catalysts for, ‘Web 2.0’, social media encompasses new ways to communicate and share information. It moves users from being passive viewers of information to contributors, authors and actively engaged agents in data.
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In a recent Visual Blaze blog posting, where I briefly mentioned the TechCrunch article on the First Quarter decline in online advertising, I wanted to circle back and talk a litte further about it and what it might mean.

TechCrunch Online Ad Revenue Decline Graphic

I do not find it surprising to see the numbers gradually decline and then during the current economic recession that it drops off the table. The biggest reason for this I believe is that companies were forced to analyze where and how they were spending money to maintain longevity through the current times. Then the conversation goes something to the tune of: “We are spending X amount of money per month on banner ads and pay per click advertising. Do we have the figures that show it is generating revenue?” (In due fairness that line of thinking probably was applied to many business line item expenses like training, printing costs, employees, etc.)

So the recession then caused companies to pull in closer to their vests and not throw money out there into online advertising campaigns that they really could not configure easily. Data driven decision making is key. If impressions and click through rates aren’t tagged into the ROI, then they get dumped. And if those numbers are not there, what ability do we have to try a different strategy. Will a different image, catchier headline, or higher ad placement increase the numbers? Or, perhaps, there isn’t the data to support the ROI from online advertising and different online marketing strategies are being investigated.

So there needs to be a creative strategies to gain attention that tie into data that can then be continually analyzed and allows the strategy to grow and evolve. Just to throw out a couple of replacement techniques:

• branded Twitter campaign
• keyword-dense landing pages
• interactive viral marketing pieces

We are excited to share with you our latest Visual Blaze website!

Why the change? Well, our first site (still online for you to visit) was intended to be a viral marketing piece. Something out of the ordinary to capture attention and have people say, “Woah, that is really cool and stand out from the crowd”. It was fun to build a site based around stop-gap animation.

As we have grown over the past couple of years, a common element exists between the sites we have been developing: fun, interactive AND optimized for search engines. Since we are building these sites for our clients why not build one for ourselves?

Just like our first version, though, we wanted to make certain to separate our look and feel from the crowded world of web development. A quick overview of the core components:

• Search engine friendly
• Interactive (check out the contact form!)
• Unique design
• Scalable
• Social Media Integration (follow us on Twitter)

If you, too, find yourself in a highly competitive industry that relies heavily on Internet marketing, this Indianapolis web development firm can help you stand out and be recognized.