Just wanted to give the folks over at aspdotnetstorefront.com a quick plug for both their excellent software and their outstanding support. 

I've been using their package for over 5 years now, and it just keeps getting better and better. Out of the box it supports (just a few of the features):

• Customizing of products (see: www.bestfriendsstudios.com for an example)
• Mult-Lingual capabilities
• SEO optimized
• Built-in sitemaps
• Feeds for submitting to product search engines (google base, etc.)
• Complete web administrative site
• Automated image processing (upload one file, the system automatically creates thumbs, medium and large images)
• Verified by Visa / PABP certified
• Multiple payment gateways supported
• Can run on shared/virtual private servers
• Integration with Quickbooks is available
• Uses skinning system, allowing for complete customization over the look and feel of the site
• Real time shipping rates from UPS, USPS, Fedex, and more
  
• Source code is available ... I've used this to build out a freight shipping rating system to supplement the built-in functionality

And while I rarely have issues with the software, when I do, I've received prompt, courteous, and intelligent replies from their tech support staff. I've never received a "you're a dumb###, why did you do this" reply from them, even though I might have warranted this ... <G>. I used to build out my own shopping carts (the much missed (by me) wholesaletradeshow.com was one of my efforts), and I can't begin to describe how much AspDotnetstorefront has helped me.

And no, I don't work for them, just use their software! Have a great weekend! 

Just read about the Christian Science Monitor's decision to shift production from a daily format to online only (see: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1029/p25s01-usgn.html for details). As more print outlets cut staff, will we see additional major papers shift to online distribution?  And how will these entities make money (advertising, subscriptions, or a combination)?

Other issues involve how the information generated will be archived ... since they'll be publishing online only, how will we be able to track different versions of an article ... will there be an "article of record" for each online publisher? This will certainly have an impact on companies involved in media monitoring or reputation management or market research. Should be interesting to see how the traditional online search services react ... how will they index the content from these online only publications?

Should be interesting to follow ... the Christian Science Monitor wasn't the first to go totally online, and certainly they'll have company as traditional publishers move to web-only. 

Interesting video discussing worldwide demographics and influence of new media ...

Quick post on Joongel (www.joongel.com), a meta search engine that aggregates and searches the ten most popular sites in many categories, including:

1. Images
2. Music
3. Videos
4. Shopping
5. Social
6. Q & A
7. Health
8. Torrents
9. Gossip

I like how Joongel lists the sources they search; this is helpful to know, and it can actually help you find new sources to monitor. Thus far, I've found Joongel valuable for scoping out topics and doing preliminary research; I usually like to use advanced search facilities on the individual search engines or online services when I'm working on a project. Joongel offers a web-based search on their site, as well as desktop and browser plugin versions.

I've bookmarked Joongel and will no doubt use them again.  

Anyone needing to find/track newsgroup posts might want to go to www.nnseek.com, which just launched in what the company terms as a beta. Searching was fast, with the search results displayed, as well as a list of newsgroups that included your search terms.

I'd like to see them include the ability to setup RSS or XML feeds for search results; this would provide a valuable service to anyone needing to do media monitoring ... without some of these advanced features, there really isn't much to differentiate them with Google's newsgroup search. 

I've been asked on occasion how to find information on some of the smaller / growing economies not extensively covered by traditional online services like Dialog, LexisNexis and Factiva. If your organization has a budget for the acquistion of information (we're talking $100s per month and up), consider looking into ISI Securites (www.securities.com). I was lucky enough in a previous contract assignment to work for a company that had a subscription; having never used it before I was impressed by the breadth of information served up by ISI. While there was overlap between ISI and some of the other vendors, I found many unique sources that were only accessible via ISI. Generally they index news sources, trade journals, wires, government reports, market research reports and other information types commonly found on an online system. 

In addition, ISI allows searching in the native language and character set, which also helps retrieve articles not written in English (this can be a challenge without decent translations, however).  Searchers accustomed to the power of Dialog, LexisNexis and Factiva search interfaces might be a bit disapointed in ISI's search tools, but overall they do a decent job (resembles an advanced web search).

ISI does offer a free trial for those interested in the product; but don't get too enamoured of the service unless you have the $$ to spend! Review some of the content sources via their free RSS feeds at: http://www.securities.com/rss_feeds.html. 

I recommend ISI for companies/organizations needing to track information from non-U.S. sources in the emerging markets area.  

Moreover, an aggregator of primarily free sources of news information available via the Internet; has a free feed generator for the rest of us at http://www.feeddirect.com/. See the sample feed below for video search. 

According to Hitwise, with Yahoo (18%), MSN (4.2%), Ask (3.6%) bringing up the rear.

Full report is available at: http://www.hitwise.com/datacenter/searchengineanalysis.php.

A quick shout out to my friend and client Shah Alam, who just completed his first blog post, discussing the global recession and its implication for business. Read more at: http://blog.storm-international.us/post/2008/10/18/Global-Recession-and-its-Implications-for-Businesses.aspx.

Great job Shah!

Google has a couple of new tools for webmasters ... Webmaster tools now provides detailed information on 404 pages, as well as which pages are trying to link to your resource. This allows you to either fix the issue, or assign a 301 permanent redirect. 

See: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/free-direct-text-links/ for more information.