We are pleased to announce the launch of the web site for Bardstown Barrels (located in Bardstown, KY). The company, founded in 1988, desired a means of showcasing their services on the Internet.

The model of using keywords to promote web sites is not as effective as it used to be. Most people will agree that Google has become the dominant search engine on the Internet. However what does Google think about keywords?

In September 2009, Matt Cutts with the Google Search Quality Team posted an article on the Google Webmaster Central Blog entitled Google Doesn't Use Keywords Meta Tag in Web Ranking. So if Google doesn't use keywords, then what do they use? According to the article Google doesn't completely disregard all the meta tag data, however their web search engine primarily focuses on things, such as "links pointing to a web page."

Now how can you generate more links pointing to your web site from other sites. Two suggestions would be to utilize blogs and social media. Through these two mediums, links to your organization's web site can be generated. This can serve several purposes.

Some people have taken on the concept of striving to be an online content expert, also known as a thought leader, for their specific field of expertise by posting regular articles on their blog and spreading the publicity of those articles through social media networks (such as Twitter and Facebook). For more information about one way to do this, read my post about the Open Graph Protocol.

The team at Facebook has created the Open Graph Protocol. Once implemented on a web page it becomes a rich object in a social graph. This can then be used, for example, to turn any web page into a Facebook fan page.

So what does this all mean? Facebook is providing another means of generating publicity for web pages. If a loyal patron to your organization visits your web site and clicks a Facebook "like" button (see my article about the Facebook Like Button for more details), the Open Graph Protocol will interact with the Facebook Like Button and will treat your web page as a Facebook Fan Page. This provides the opportunity to use your loyal patrons to help generate publicity through viral marketing. When that patron clicks the "Like" button it will then be displayed to all their friends that they like your organization's web site. This in turn can lead to their friends visiting your web site to explore the products and/or services your organization offers.

For more information about how the Open Graph Protocol can be implemented on your web site please contact us.

Cyber View has completed transitioning our site to the Rackspace Cloud. We are excited about the new opportunities this will present.

Also, the new version 5 release of CyberStudio (scheduled for late July / early August) will be on the Rackspace Cloud servers as well.

To compare 2009 January to July with 2010 January to July, our hosting expenses are down 37%.

To compare a full year of expenses in 2009 to a predicted 2011, the forecast for our hosting expense should be down approx. 70%.

Thank you Rackspace for being a great web hosting partner.

Career Solutions Co (www.careersolutionsco.com) has successfully transitioned to using "cloud computing" for their web site as well as their e-mail. Their web site is now hosting on the Rackspace Cloud Servers. In addition, their e-mail, calendar, and contacts are all synchronized with Google Apps.