And it all comes down to Google’s new search engine algorithm launched in late March of 2012, a change that has moved away from ‘literal’ searches to ‘semantic’ ones. But even that doesn’t offer much in terms of clarifying the switch . . . what’s the difference between a literal search and a semantic one anyway? Loosely speaking, the world of computerized searching breaks down as such:

Literal Search – (also referred to as a navigational search) Literal searches are fairly self-explanatory, looking for exact matches for some or all of the terms entered in your query, returning matching items whether they’re Web page results, files, specific products, or some other unit of information. Literal searches can be expanded upon with things like stem-matching, conjugates, and association that expand or restrict the search in useful ways — so searching for “bio” might also bring up “biosphere.” Literal searches are what we’re all most familiar with today, in part because it’s the simplest method for computers to perform . . . they’re exactly what they say they are: literal.

Semantic Search – This type of search (the one Google currently uses) differs from a literal search in several ways. (1) A semantic search tries to understand what a user is asking by placing it in context through analysis of the query’s terms and language. This analysis is conducted against tightly pre-compiled pools of knowledge, potentially including knowledge about the user. (2) Instead of just returning a set of files, products, Web pages, or other items, semantic search tries to provide a direct answer to a question. If you ask a semantic search engine “When did the Titanic sink?” it might answer “The RMS Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK to New York City, US under the command of Captain Edward John Smith,” where a literal search engine would most likely return links to Web pages that contain the words “iceberg,” “Titanic,” “New York City,” and say, “Atlantic.”

Literal searches are perfect when a user is looking for a specific thing, whether it’s a file, document, Web page, album, or product, while a semantic search, on the other hand, turns out to be more useful when a user is looking for specific information, like a date, number, time, place, or name of something like the Titanic example cited above.

No doubt, we’re all moving through an ‘adjustment’ period with regard to the Google search switch but still, it might be a good idea to start studying up on ways to implement ‘semantic tagging’ into our SEO. Now how exactly do we do that? Stay tuned. People are already working on it . . . trust me.

Start a small business! I’m serious . . . find something you love to do, create a market niche, build an online presence, and take a chance on the one person you can believe in 100%: yourself. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be worth it in the long run, so here’s a few online tools that’ll help you keep track of and manage your projects, finances, employees and communication.

Google Voice – Perfect for communication, this app keeps track of your voicemail through an online portal and gives users a free number so customers and business associates can reach you no matter where you go in the world. This extremely handy tool also transcribes your voicemails into email messages, allows you to send free text messages, and offers low rates for non-domestic calls. How cool is that?

Asana – For keeping track of projects, reducing email clutter, and managing multiple tasks with teams, Asana’s an ideal tool for any small business to have at their disposal. Update tasks through an email that’s simultaneously shared with all involved, easily assign duties to specific team members, and meet-up in chat rooms to discuss how it’s all progressing . . . Asana helps keep you and everyone involved well on top of things.

Wave Accounting – This free program will help you manage your finances, taking the place of a small accounting department by generating/organizing spreadsheets and expense reports. Wave also syncs up nicely with most banks and updates automatically with your banking transactions. Plus, you don’t have to be an accounting wiz to operate it . . . it’s designed for amateurs.

Clockspot – This one serves a dual function that relates to juggling payroll and employees. Basically, Clockspot is exactly what its name implies: it allows workers to clock in/out from any computer or phone. This is an awesome tool because you can track employee hours, transfer payroll data onto excel sheets, and workers can post progress reports to show what they’ve accomplished for each clock-in session. Oh, and it’s free so that’s another bonus.

This tiny list certainly doesn’t do justice to the long line of available tools out there to help get that small business of yours off the ground, but hopefully just the mere suggestion of such an idea might be all the inspiration you need to take control of your future. Good luck!

That one’s generally called the ’50/50 Rule,’ but there’s another all-important rule about blogging/tweeting that you’ve got to keep in mind as well: the ‘80/20 Rule.’ This one states that on average, 8 out of 10 people will read a headline, but only 2 out of 10 will take things a step further and actually read the piece itself. So headlines matter A LOT. Make them count. Here are some tips, broken down into 2 main components, to do just that:

• (1) Heed the ‘4 L’s’ as they’re called at all times: Useful, Urgent, Unique, and Ultra-Specific. Appealing to your readers by keeping these 4 components firmly in mind will certainly help.

• (2) Before you compose any headline, ask yourself the following 6 questions:

(a) Does your headline offer up some kind of reward for the reader? Think: 3 Sure-Fire Ways To Attract Readers.

(b) What kind of specifics could you add to make your headline more intriguing?

(c)  Does your headline illicit a powerful, actionable emotion the reader already has about the subject at hand?

(d) Does your headline present a proposition that will instantly get your prospect nodding his or her head? Referring back to (a), who doesn’t want to attract more readers to their website or blog?

(e)  Could your headline benefit from the inclusion of a proposed transaction? This one obviously won’t apply all the time but it’s useful to keep this one in mind in case the chance naturally presents itself, depending on your topic.

(f)  Could you add an element of intrigue to drive the prospect into your opening copy? This is exactly the same obstacle that journalists deal with . . . most people only bother reading the first paragraph or two of a news article before moving on. That’s why employing the inverted pyramid (hit them with all the specifics up front) is so crucial to their work. But how do you get them to even read that far?

Generating an online ‘following’ all comes down to being a better salesman/woman. And while most people would cringe at the notion of ‘selling’ oneself, that’s pretty much the reality that social media platform has dropped in each of our laps by necessity of design and function. But following these suggestions may at least give you a work-able framework by which to tackle the situation, and fashion that 80/20 into a 50/50 or even better . . .

The invention of the smartphone brought with it a cosmic shift in how people work, play, and communicate with one another. Of course, the primary use of the ‘cellphone’ is still to juggle phone calls, but our mobile devices are increasingly being utilized for a wide variety of other purposes that go way beyond what phones were originally designed to do. Email, social networking apps, internet browsing, and serious gaming capabilities mean that we have all the information we need at our fingertips and are never far away from breaking news or the latest updates about our friends and family. And with the increased demand comes the necessity for the smartphone to perform even faster . . . and that means a quicker, more efficient processor.

The evolution’s gone as such: from ‘weak’ processors to dual-core processors and now onto the coveted quad-core device that industry folks have been talking about, and the public’s been waiting for. At the moment quad-core’s only available in Androids (Apple still relies on the dual-core and Nokia making good with single-core) and as the name implies, quad-core processors are (SOC) System On a Chip saddled with four CPU’s.

Generally speaking, doubling the number of core processors should double the running speed of applications while exponentially increasing battery life, with increased cores exerting less pressure on the processor, hence more juice remains in the battery. But at this early juncture in the game, the overall efficiency of the quad-core processor approach isn’t quite so cut-and-dry.

With so few devices currently featuring quad-core, it’s hard to tell how it’s really performing. Is it actually meeting consumer expectations? At present, the only real proof of how awesome quad-core processing is (or intends to be) is in the gaming industry, with games taking full advantage of multiple threads. Until more apps are designed that can utilize and handle a quad-core load, the question of what precisely quad-core can deliver is still a question without an efficient answer . . . yet. There’s some app catch-up time that needs to happen first, but once it does, quad-core processing will off and running . . . until the advent of the octo-core of course, which you just know is waiting in th

British psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire (who claims to be the most followed psychologist on Twitter) is looking to sweeten all of our dreaming experiences by helping us to create the ideal lucid trip with his new FREE app available exclusively for iPhone called Dream:ON.

Developed with the help of a crackerjack team of techies from a company called Yuza, Wiseman officially launched his new app at the Edinburgh International Science Festival in mid-April of this year. Pitched as the ultimate experiment which hopes to find out if it’s possible to give users more pleasant dreams, the Dream:ON app was downloaded 300,000 times during its first week alone. So far, more than 200,000 dreams have been reported back to the team since the launch on Tuesday April 10th, creating the largest dream database in history called the ‘DReam Bank’ . . . a database that’s sure to keep on growing. When all’s said and done, the data will be analyzed to find out if it’s possible for us to control our dreams.

Pretty cool, but how does this thing work anyway? Well, before going to bed you indicate the type of dream you would like to have and when you’d like to wake up. You then place your iPhone on your bed face down right next to you and go to sleep. Dream:ON then activates and begins monitoring your sleep pattern. Once the app senses that you’re dreaming it starts playing an audio soundscape (that you chose before hitting the sack) designed to evoke pleasant scenes within your subconscious mind like lying serenely on a beach or strolling through a tranquil garden. To ensure that you aren’t woken up before your chosen time, Dream:ON will adjust its volume accordingly.

Of course, there’s a few obvious downsides to participating in Professor Wiseman’s dream experiment: it might take awhile to incorporate the soundscape into your dreams, and you probably won’t get a full night’s sleep either, but that’s a small price to pay for the advancement of science right? Sweet dreams all.

I did some snooping around the Internet recently and came across quite a few intriguing notions about predicted changes regarding website design, analytics, blogs, and social media that may, or may not, become reality. Read on and remember, ‘Only time will tell.’

Web Development/Analytics

• Say Goodbye to Flash – A long time dying, Flash has finally be eliminated from Androids and smartphones, so expect Flash to fade away entirely and very soon.

• The Death of ROI – It isn’t that everyone is magically no longer concerned with their ‘rate of return,’ it’s just that you can’t adequately quantify this anymore in a way that makes sense. Other types of metrics will trickle in to takes its place for sure, but thankfully, the ROI frenzy seems to be slipping away.

Blogging

• No More Corporate Blogging – It seems more and more corporations are ditching their blogs for Facebook instead. Given Facebook’s popularity (it’s slipping though; see below), why spend money on a website and worry over SEO when you can simply ‘rent’ a Facebook page?

• Text Breaks – One of the most popular trends in blogging these days in in using lots of text breaks, bullet points, and lists for the sake of readability. Turns out, people love lists, and text that’s broken-up into nice short sections of a few lines each.

Social Media

• Facebook Loosing Face – Due to all the crazy privacy scandals and other personal annoyances, Facebook lost 6 million subscribers in 2011. And with other similar sites like Tumblr and Google+ on the rise, Facebook could be overshadowed soon.

• Over-saturated Market – At current count, there’s something like 216 social media sites up and running. NO ONE has that kind of time on their hands, unless we figure out how to slow the Earth’s rotation. At most, the average person can only handle 3 to 5 social media sites effectively. So developing more of them just doesn’t make a lot of business sense anymore.

In the end, no one really knows in which direction things will go. When you’re talking about an industry that changes faster than a chameleon swaps colors, trying to guess where the Web will take us makes about as much sense as predicting the weather . . . we can get reasonably close, but it’s still just a shot in the dark.

First the WRONG way. Usually referred to as ‘Curiosity Clicks,’ this involves leaving quick, one sentence comments that really don’t further along the discussion or leave any kind of worthwhile lasting impression on whomever happens to read what you wrote. Lots of bloggers unfortunately resort to this goofy and off-putting tactic, caught up in a mindset that’s more analogous to strafe bombing every blog in their reach rather than carefully choosing targets and then taking thoughtful, precise aim. They’re hoping that if they leave a ‘quick’ comment on your blog, then you’ll be more opt to check out their blog/website. But their clicks onto your site are mere ‘curiosities’ too, so do you benefit from such a lame tactic? No, you don’t.

Plus, in their rush to leave the first comment (also a misguided approach as this does nothing to improve their standing), most of the time theirs just ends up reading like they never bothered to actually read the post or sadly missed the point altogether in the ridiculously silly rush to nab the first spot. I’ve got news for you: being first in this case usually doesn’t amount to squat. I’d rather leave a thoughtful comment in the 100th slot than a dumb one in the 1st any day.

Now the RIGHT way to leave blog comments. It’s called ‘Building Relationships’ and it takes time, care, and a great deal of effort on your part. Shocking isn’t it? By meaningfully participating in the community-driven aspect of whichever blog you’re following, you’ll invariably create the sort of useful and rewarding relationships with other people in the blog-o-sphere who can then usher significant traffic in your direction via re-tweets, social bookmarking, social media votes, and the all-important links.

It’s no mystery as to what makes for success. It’s the same thing across any and all business platforms on earth, and it hasn’t changed much at all since the beginning of time: creating and maintaining good, solid relationships with your customers/audience. It’s frustrating to watch prospective online entrepreneurs repeatedly ruin their prospects by trying to rush a process that requires time and care. In your quest to be successful, dig in for the ‘long haul;’ it’ll pay off in the end . . . just be patient and move forward with your best foot.

Signaling a shift in how businesses both large and small conduct themselves throughout the global marketplace these days, blogs have quickly become a fairly indispensable component of many websites.

Now that blogs of every nature number in the hundreds of millions worldwide, it’s no surprise that a virtual fleet of myths have sprung up over the years regarding what it takes to build a successful blog, how they should look, how often you should post, and what’s the ideal length of a post. Here’s a few of the bigger myths floating around out there to chew on:

1. I Must Post Daily – Most bloggers out there already know that this is definitely not the way to go, but the discussion is nonetheless a hot topic. If you’re a new organization with a gaggle of journalists, then yeah, daily posting is pretty much a must. But if you’re a lone writer, small company, or even a larger one, 2 to 4 posts tops every 7 days is ample. Focus on quality first and worry about quantity later on down the road.

2. Write For Yourself Or Write For Your Readers – I’m a big believer in passion, especially when it comes to both trusting and following it, but unless you’re writing your blog to appeal to your loyal band of readers, you’re doomed. The only way to build a community is to write about the things your readers are interested in. Do that and they’ll keep coming back. Ignore them and your blog efforts will come to naught. That’s a guarantee.

3. Avoid Long Posts – This one’s a bit tricky. Ask 100 bloggers this question and you’ll probably have an even 50/50 split down the middle, but I say, if getting your message across takes 1,000 words, so be it. So long as it’s your intent to keep the readers engaged in whatever you’re writing about, don’t cheapen what could have been an awesome blog post by being an obsessive word-counter.

4. You Must Be A Great Writer - Being a great writer certainly doesn’t hurt your blog’s chances at success, but thankfully it’s not a necessity either. I always say: the more you read, the better you’ll write, and the more you write, the better you’ll get. With time and a sturdy level of persistence, your writing will gradually improve. And in case you’re still a bit concerned about the quality, hire a trusted friend to do a little editing for you.

5. Blogging’s Easy – We’re obsessed in our 21st Century culture with doing things that’ll be ‘quick and easy.’ Here’s the rub though: quick and easy is just a lot of BS. Everything takes time and effort, whether you’re aiming at becoming a gifted artist or a successful blogger/writer. Blogging’s not easy, but it does have its fair share of benefits freely available to those strong-of-spirit types who stick with it

The central facet of social media is on creating and maintaining relationships. Everything you do on any social media site, whether it’s content creation or following people on Twitter, is designed to foster intimate relationships with people. But like anything, social media has its positive aspects and its equally potent negative aspects.

Pro – Networking: Maybe you’re like a lot of people out there who feel ‘stuck’ in a job that doesn’t really resonate with their deepest passions or you know someone else who is. Networking on social media sites can help pull both of you out of what might appear to be a merciless quagmire and get you moving on a professional track that makes more sense.

Con – Scams/Identity Theft: Not sharing personal information on social networking sites is virtually impossible. Sure, you’re allowed to share pretty much what you want but even the slightest amount can leave you wide open to spam and scams of all kinds. The Orwellian world of 1984 is upon us.

Pro – Sharing Information/Finding Support: Anytime you’re involved in doing research or wanting to connect with like-minded people who share your interests, affiliations, or afflictions, you no longer have to schlep miles to your local library (assuming you live somewhere that actually has one) or sign-up for a support group . . . social media sites make it possible to share tons of information and receive/give support to one another.

Con – Emotional Backlash: Nothing can replace healthy face-to-face contact with other people, and social media runs counter to that fact. While it can certainly bring others together, it can also drive emotional wedges between us, prompting feelings of isolation, unwarranted comparisons (do you think everyone tells the truth about how ‘supposedly’ great their lives are?),  and inaccurate levels of true intimacy. Buyer beware.

Pro – Promotion/Organize: If you’re a painter, photographer, filmmaker, or artist of any kind, social media platforms are perfect places to showcase your talents or let others know about up-coming events like movie premiers or gallery openings. Last year when Egyptians rose up against their oppressive government, word got out to the rest of the world thanks in no small part to folks in Cairo tweeting about it. So if you’re looking for a quick way to organize the masses, social media is the best way to follow through.

Con – Addiction: As the maxim suggests: Too much of anything is a bad thing. Living a human life to its fullest doesn’t mean spending all your waking hours plugged in to electronic gadgets . . . unless you think of yourself as just that: a machine.

Being outdoors, laughing with friends (not in the ‘LOL’ sense either), exercising your creative impulses, volunteering in your community, raising a family . . . these all bring a richer sense of balance to this unique opportunity called Life. Don’t get me wrong, plugging in is fine. Just make sure you cultivate a certain degree of wisdom that knows when to ‘pull the plug’ on a regular basis.

I have a guilty confession to make: I’ve spent many hours in the past endlessly tumbling about from one utterly enthralling Wikipedia article to the next when I should have been working instead. What can I say? I’m a naturally inquisitive person, as equally drawn-in by articles about the life of polar explorer Ernest Shackleton, to finding out who’s the only major league baseball player in history to hit 2 grand slams in one inning . . . Answer: N.Y. Met Fernando Tatis on April 23,1999 against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Reading stand alone encyclopedia-ish articles is far and away Wiki’s forte, but getting specific questions answered there, like the baseball one above, isn’t as easy to come by as you might think. So if it’s a narrowly-defined question you need answered, I strongly suggest you check out a site called Quora.

Still in its infancy (so they may not be able to handle the grand slam question just yet), Quora is a community based question-and-answer website launched in 2010 by a pair of former Facebook employees who decided to break out on their own and create a one-stop shop for queries of every kind.

Slightly more hip than Yahoo answers, Quora attracts niche experts from all categories to handle the back-and-forth while pushing a more involved social media aspect in which users can pose questions of their own to a massive audience. Sounds like a fun way to spend an afternoon right? . . . or maybe an entire weekend. Well, there’s also several things that Quora can do for you to help generate some useful content, and keep that online marketing plan of yours humming.

• Topic Searches: By looking a bit deeper into the themes behind some of the questions posed within your Quora network, you’ll be able to mine some more intriguing topics for blog posts, e-newsletters, or other types of online communications.

• Show Off Your Expertise: Contributing thoughtful and intelligent answers to key topics can only enhance your online relevance and reputation, which in turn may lead to their seeking you out for specific answers. Boom: Instant connections.

• Longer Dialogues: Places like Facebook and Twitter have inadvertently conditioned many to think and communicate in short 140-character bursts. There’s nothing wrong with that mind- you, but sometimes a lengthier response is more fitting to certain circumstances/topics and perfect for cementing better lasting relationships.

• Professional Quotes: Feel free to cull through the most well-received answers posed by various industry pros and then use them in your own blog posts. This can help add some viable information, amusement, or sweeten your own professional aura in a way that only a good solid quote from an expert can.

Quora’s got an abundance of resources designed to appeal to an extensive range of tastes and topics. Marketed as a ‘social network for knowledge,’ Quora has actively taken the idea started by Wikipedia to another, more personally interactive level. Research the competition, connect with like-minded types, engage journalists, expand your social network, flaunt your expertise, or shorten your own learning curve on the road to success . . . Quara might just be the resource you need to break-through your business barriers.