New criteria for restricting the scope of what the US Patent Office considers patent-worthy poses a threat to numerous software patents, including Google’s famed PageRank.

Google climbed past a morass of ineffective search engines when it arrived on the Internet. Its devotion to the most relevant possible solution for a given query quickly made it the de facto search choice as millions of people shifted their browsing habits from walled garden content to the broader World Wide Web.

The essential and much-discussed PageRank technology holds a patent, a common legal protection sought by software developers small and large. Some have claimed software patents affect far too broad a scope of potential innovation, leading to lawsuits where a patent owner claims damages by multiple companies.

Those on the losing end of such suits end up paying for what they argue are obvious and non-original concepts. That could change with a shift in the way the USPTO looks at software patents, the Patently-O blog on patent law said.

A series of cases may remake the software industry, all the way to the top where Google and other companies reside:

In the most recent of these three (cases)?the currently pending en banc Bilski appeal?the Office takes the position that process inventions generally are unpatentable unless they “result in a physical transformation of an article” or are “tied to a particular machine.”

Patently-O sees Google’s PageRank, the patent for which is owned by Stanford University, as failing the first part of the test, as generating scores isn’t a physical transformation. The second part proves troubling given recent decisions made by the USPTO in a couple of other cases, not only for PageRank but other Google patents too.

“Google might have thought that the patent system would surely protect new technological developments that are highly creative and socially valuable. The PTO?s new position proves that view mistaken,” Patently-O said.

By David Utter of Webpronews

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If you use Wordpress as a CMS and publish content like jokes, poems, text messages, lyrics, then you might have this question all the time while creating a new post.

” Did I already posted this joke/poem/etc. in my blog previously? “

This is a very common problem with such content : You usually forget what you have posted in the past. But there is a solution to this that doesn’t involve you gulping down a whole bottle of memory pills. You can use the “Duplicate Post Checker” plugin brought to you by MaxBlogPress to check if other similar posts already exist or not.

This is how the plugin page looks like. In this page you can copy and paste the content to see if its already there or not in your blog.

Check out Max’s Blog for more details.

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In business, there are no guarantees and there is just no way for you to get away from all the risks associated in starting a business. However, if you are after financial freedom, then owning a business is going to be your highway to financial bliss. But if you carefully manage your risks, you can improve your chances of succeeding in business with good planning, right preparation and business knowledge. You need to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses as a potential owner and manager.
Now, are you a self-starter? Why is this important? Because how you develop your projects depend on how you organize them and make all the detailed follow-up. Do you have people skills? How do you handle situations especially if you’re faced with different personalities to manage? How good are you in making decisions? You see, as a businessman, you will have to constantly make some quick decisions. Do you have the physical stamina to run a business? Business ownership can be exciting, but it’s also a lot of work. Will you be able to work six or seven 12-hour work days every week? How strong are you skills in organizing things, planning as well as research? What about your drive to conduct business? These are the so many factors that you need to consider running a business. But let this not worry you because if you need business coaching, you can always rely on One Coach.

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Here are a few tips to create your eternal traffic machine:

1. Build lists and pre-load your AR system with follow-up messages to keep visitors coming back to your site. You can rotate these messages and ask your subscribers to opt-ín to different lists on related subject areas. Always ask your readers to recommend your content to others.

2. Use social bookmark software or links so that your visitors can easily bookmark your content which brings in both new links and new traffic. Simple programs like the one offered by Addthis.com will get your visitors building your backlinks for you, bringing in fresh visitors who in turn will also bookmark your content.

3. Write viral articles, reports and ebooks that have your backlinks in the resource boxes. Likewise, viral software programs can help bring a constant flow of traffic to your site. If your content is of a high quality and your themes universal… new sites will pick up your content and build your backlinks, creating fresh traffic. The search engines will also index these new links and your rankings will rise, bringing in more traffíc.

4. Use blogging and RSS feeds to get your content out there. You can also use these RSS feeds to bring in new fresh content to your site. Creating new content will be your main obstacle to creating perpetual traffic… you can get new content from feeds but will it be unique? Comments in your blogs could bring in unique content but if you’re not monitoring them, you must have solid software in place to fight against spam.

5. Have “Tell a Friend” forms on all your content. This will bring new traffic to your site, which can be self-refreshing as new people discover your content.

6. Encourage user generated content such as articles, comments, posts… you can even have a community monitoring system where your site’s members monitor this new content.

7. Form JV alliances with webmasters in your related field. Do co-registration so that you help build each other’s lists and traffic.

8. Likewise, if you have products to sell, create an affiliate program to get your affiliates to build your traffic for you. Affiliates are an excellent source of permanent traffic.

9. Automate all aspects of the running and managing of your website. Set up automatic payments for your AR system, hosting, domain renewal, PPC payments… thru PayPal or credít card. Likewise, receive affiliate commissions thru PayPal or direct deposit. Many advertising programs like Google Adsense provide direct deposit.

10. PPC Traffic - While we have mainly looked at free traffic systems, don’t forget creating a PTM is relatively easy with Pay Per Click advertising if you know what you’re doing. Target less competitive keywords to keep your costs down, tie this traffic into a good squeeze page for feeding your AR system with leads and have a good landing page that converts. You can create a system that delivers perpetual traffic and pays for itself from your affiliate commissions and advertising fees.

In summary, the argument for the existence of the PTM mainly relies upon the quality of your content or site. Is it unique enough to draw in new visitors? Does your topic have universal appeal that people don’t tire of? Does it solve or provide advice on a common human problem? Will or does it have a viral “word of mouth” element to it?

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What’s the big deal about search engine optimization? Isn’t it enough that you’ve put up a website, purchased some Google AdWords, and sent out an email to everyone you know announcing your site? In short, no. There is an art and science to search engine optimization (SEO), and it is critical for web-based businesses to know, understand and utilize if they want to drive quality traffic to their website via the Internet.

Where do you begin, though? How can you possibly know whom to trust or what to do first with so much information out there on SEO? Do you buy links or not? Pay per clíck or go organic? And what about those SEO companies who are aggressively promising Number 1 rankings? When it comes to search engine ranking, there are a lot of rumors and myths about what will improve your rankings and what won’t.

Debunking Some Popular Search Engine Ranking Myths

- Pay per clíck (PPC) ads will either help or hurt organic rankings. (Organic simply means the process by which web users find websites having unpaid search engine listings.)

Debunked: PPC is categorized differently than organic listings. There is no effect, one way or the other, on ranking.

- Websites are banned if they ignore Google guidelines.

Debunked: While it’s a good idea to read Google Webmaster Guidelines or Google 101: How Google Crawls, Indexes and Serves the Web, you are not banned if you ignore their guidelines.

- Websites are banned if they buy links.

Debunked: Sites are not banned. The links just aren’t counted.

- Copy must be a certain number of words, use a specific keyword density, and contain bold or italicized keywords.

Debunked: It used to be thought that there was a magic number of words used or certain times a keyword or keyword phrase should be repeated. Not so. Same with bolding and italicizing. They don’t do anything for ranking.

- Duplicate content will get your website penalized.

Debunked: It will just get filtered out and not counted.

- Reciprocal links won’t count.

Debunked: Every link counts, to a certain extent.

- SEO companies can improve your rankings without doing any on-page work.

Debunked: Run if an SEO company tells you this.

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According to SEO expert Jill Whalen, SEO isn’t magic and isn’t a crap-shoot. “SEO is about making your website the best it can be for your site visitors and the search engines.” Want to help the right kind of people find your website? Then you need to design your site so search engines can find, crawl and index your pages.

Here are 7 ways to get your website crawled:

1. It’s better to have one main website with numerous domains pointing to the main domain, than to have mini-sites or multiple sites with similar content. Mini-sites and multiple sites with similar content do not increase search engine listings and are frequently viewed by search engines as SPAM.

2. If you do have several stand-alone websites, make sure each serves a different target audience and has unique content with different domain or sub-domain URLs.

3. Search engines need to be able to follow internal links. To make that happen, use tags, text links, image links, and CSS menus. Spiders have difficulty with JavaScript menus, pop-up windows, drop-down menus, and flash navigation.

4. Choose keyword phrases that are most relevant and specific to what your web page is about. Think from the perspective of someone searching for what you are offering on your site. Ask, as if you were they: What would I search for if I am looking for something on your page?

5. Validate your keyword phrases through either paid or free services, such as Keyword Discovery, Wordtracker, or Google AdWords.

6. Check for keyword competitiveness. Take into consideration the size of your business. In this case, size does matter. If you are a major player with a major brand, you can play in a larger competitive pond than a smaller company just starting out. Know what size pond is right for you, and check for competitiveness by putting: allintitle: “keyword phrase” in your browser and check the number count.
   Once you have your keyword phrases validated and checked for competitiveness, use them in anchor texts, clickable image alt tags, headlines, body text copy, title tags, and meta descriptions. Meta tags aren’t all that important for crawling.

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I would love to access internet while flying over the Pacific to Manila! I mean, from Minneapolis or Detroit to Tokyo is about 12 to 14 hours of flying time and that’s how many Ka Pepe can I write? A lot, di ba? So, I was really happy to hear that American Airlines will be testing an in-flight Internet access on two flights. Why internet access? Of course, they are looking for more revenues and I know this will be one very good source of revenues to them, after all, fuel prices is spiralling like crazy! American plans to charge $9.95 to $12.95 for Internet service, depending on flight length.

Read the news here: American to test in-flight Web access

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Are you tired of hauling all of you trade show materials to convention centers when you are going on a trade show exhibit? Do you want to make you travel show less hassle free? Then visit The Godfry Group for all your trade show exhibit booths. You’ll have a choice of portable trade show displays to custom gallery ideas or even eco-friendly displays for the environmentally concerned businesses. Focus on your trade show marketing material instead of the hassle delivering to and from all of your trade show exhibits.

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Well, it looks like I am not the only one who has sent resignation letters. Yahoo’s VIPs keep on departing, and Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, the married cofounders of Flickr, are the latest well-known employees to quit the company. Butterfield sent one bizarre resignation letter. You can see it here re-printed by Valleywag.

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Buying a truck for farm operations is major capital investment. You want to protect your investment with a truck tarp because you’re also trying to protect your bottom line. The less maintenance expenses you have, the higher you’re operating income at least. This way, you can focus more on improving your farm harvest to increase your revenues. One way to protect your truck is tarping. You should look for a covering system that is built to last and would withstand the harshest conditions as well as extreme hauling conditions too. The tarp systems should also meet State requirements for load covering. EZ-LOC® Roll-Up Dump Trailer or Truck Tarp would be an asset to your farm operation. It is hand made in the heartland of America with galvanized hardware and powder coated parts to ensure years of service.

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