Information Gaga

Friday, August 16, 2019

7 Possible ways to make money that the Rich never wants you to know

1. Salary isn't the whole storyClimbing the corporate ladder will only get you so far; at some point, you reach your earning potential and plateau. The rich know that in order to grow wealth, it's important to make your money work hard for you -- not the other way around. In fact, Robert Kiyosaki, author of the No. 1 best-selling personal finance book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad," built his entire money philosophy around this concept.

Generating income from passive, rather than active, income sources is the best way to do this. Investments that yield passive income include dividend-paying securities, rental properties, profits from a business you do not directly manage on a daily basis -- even royalties on creative work or inventions.

2. Take advantage of time, not timingIf the recent Dow Jones crash proves anything, it's that no one can predict what the market will do tomorrow. The wealthy know this and make no attempt to moonlight as day traders.

"Time is more important to investment success than timing," explained Peter Lazaroff, a certified financial planner who manages portfolios upwards of $10 million for Plancorp, LLC. "Most of the population believes that timing the market's moves is the key to growing rich through the stock market. The wealthy, however, understand that time and compound returns are the most important factor in growing wealth."

Though it might seem counterintuitive, getting rich requires investors to adopt an unsexy buy-and-hold strategy, ride out market fluctuations and ignore speculation.

3. Put it in writingThe difference between having an idea and putting it on paper is often what separates the uber-successful from average folks. And if you equate success with wealth, it might be time to start writing down your goals, both large and small, in order to become rich.

Thomas Corley, author of "Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits Of Wealthy Individuals," noted that 67 percent of the wealthy people he surveyed wrote down their goals, while 81 percent kept a to-do list. If your goal is to become a multimillionaire, write it down along with an action plan for making it happen.

4. Understand value over cost
According to Justin J. Kumar, senior portfolio manager at Arlington Capital Management, "The wealthy person has three best friends: her attorney, her accountant and her advisor. The wealthy tend to use the law and tax code to their advantage when figuring out how to maximize their wealth, especially over multiple generations, and they are not afraid to spend money up front for counsel to get these answers."

Kumar explained it's common for middle-income Americans to cut corners in order to save money, yet ultimately find the results lacking. "The wealthy look at value over cost, but they are still prudent in their decisions," he said.

5. Eat out less
People who are concerned with saving money often skip the daily latte. The rich enjoy small splurges such as Starbucks whenever they want and instead look at saving from a bigger picture.

Author Paul Sullivan and colleague Brad Klontz, a clinical psychologist with an academic appointment at Kansas State University, conducted research on the difference in spending habits of the 1 percent and the 5 percent. The 1 percent spent 30 percent less on eating out and saved it for retirement instead. "And that, more than the cost of a Starbuck's latte, is what, over time, separates the wealthy from everyone else on the wrong side of the thin green line," Sullivan wrote in Fortune.

6. Be your own boss
Employees work to make their bosses rich. If you're aiming for true wealth, consider starting your own business. According to Forbes, nearly all of the 1,426 people on its list of billionaires made their fortunes through a business they or a family member had a hand in creating.

"Many middle class workers think that starting a business is too risky," noted Robert Wilson, a financial advisor and frequent contributor to CNN, NBC and CBS. "The wealthy understand that what's risky is allowing your time and earnings to be dictated by a boss who couldn't care less about whether you get what you want for your life."

7. Use other people's money
To the average person, "it takes money to make money" might sound like a tired cliche used to justify irrational spending. For the rich, it's a golden rule of wealth.

The key is leveraging other people's money to increase your own wealth.

"Trading time for dollars is a losers' game, especially as technology destroys many jobs that don't require a highly skilled human being," said Wilson. "Using money from banks/investors and hiring people to work for you is a time-tested formula for building wealth, not to mention the tax laws, which heavily favor businesses."

Whether you're fundraising to start a business or flipping real estate for a profit, relying on other people's money to do the heavy lifting greatly increases the return. Of course, it's also riskier than relying on your own funds. But if you follow the sage words of the great Warren Buffett, consider that "risk comes from not knowing what you're doing."

ISP Copyright Alert System Launching in Matter of Weeks

The Copyright Alert System (CAS), which will police illegal downloading, will “ begin in the coming weeks,” says the Center for Copyright Information (CCI).
The CAS, which was first announced last July, will provide a standardized approach that all ISPs will use. Under the system, AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon and other Internet service providers send a succession of warnings to users who allegedly share copyrighted files through peer-to-peer networks. If users continue to download illegally, ISPs will introduce “mitigation measures.”
Those measures will differ from ISP to ISP. Although most ISPs have yet to reveal specifics, TorrentFreak reported that AT&T intends to punish users who receive a fifth and sixth alert by sending them to an educational page. To revoke access denial, AT&T customers must complete an “online education tutorial on copyright.”
A temporary slow-down of Internet access speed is another, potential punishment, CCI executive director Jill Lesser wrote in a recent blog post.
Despite worries to the contrary, “termination of a consumer’s Internet service is not a part of any ISP’s Copyright Alert System program,” Lesser wrote.
“This is not a ‘six-strikes-and-you’re-out’ system that would result in termination. There’s no ‘strikeout’ in this program.”
Rather, the series of alerts is intended not only to make consumers conscious of illegal Internet activity connected to their accounts, but to offer information on how such activity can be prevented and provide information on accessing digital content legally, Lesser said.
In preparation for rolling out the CAS system, the CCI polled consumers about their views on copyright and accessing content online. Consumers, she said, responded by asking for more guidance on Internet copyright infringement.
“We understand that it is not always clear on the Web what is legal and what is not, so one important goal of the CAS is to explain these rules for consumers and provide resources, including a soon-to-be launched enhanced CCI website, to help consumers find legitimate services to access the content they want.”
To ensure the system is fair, Lesser said, the organization hired tech expert Stroz Friedberg to review the MarkMonitor system that is used to detect incidents of illegal downloading.
The system will allow consumers to seek review of alerts they deem to be errors. Under the system, which the American Arbitration Association (AAA) will operate, consumers can ask “a trained, impartial professional” to review an alert.

Google+, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn – Which is Best?

If you’re in business for yourself, then you’re likely painfully aware of the importance of social media in your marketing strategy.
“You need a Twitter account!”
“Are you on Facebook?”
“Connect with me on LinkedIn!”
Makes you wanna reach for the earplugs sometimes, doesn’t it? If you’re like most small business owners, you eat, sleep, and breathe your company 24/7. Who has time to spend hours on social networks?
To further compound the problem, there are quite a few social networks from which to choose today. The biggies that most business owners see as viable candidates include Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn. If you want to know which platform is the best for your business, here’s the short answer: it depends on what you want to achieve.

Defining Your Goals
Yes, it’s important to have a presence on most of the big social networks. In theory, you should set up accounts on each. Staying vigilant on the accounts and maintaining a unified online presence is a full-time job – and you have a business to run.
Instead, try picking one social network to serve as your main point of contact. Defining your goals is imperative to choosing the right one for your business. It helps to ask yourself a few key questions before you decide:
1. Do you want to get your business on a social network to attract new customers?
2. Are you looking for a way to increase the number of professional contacts for your business?
3. Do you want to build a relationship with your existing customers?
4. Do you want a way to announce breaking news and updates about your company and your industry?
5. Are you looking for a way to collaborate more easily with your staff and streamline other internal functions?
Once you have the answer to these questions pinned down, you’ll begin to understand which social network will best serve your small business.

The Perks of Google+
Google+ was once balked at for being the black sheep of the social networking scene, but lately it seems that Big G’s added an onslaught of new features that are simply too good to keep ignoring. The plus of G+ (forgive the pun) is the mindboggling collaborative capability the platform can offer you and your team – for free.
According to Google, the tools are great to use, and “whether you’re across the street or across the world, you can hold face-to-face meetings, share updates with colleagues and friends and work on a presentation together in real-time.”
Google+ boasts private sharing for the members of your organization through a feature called Restricted Posts. You can also conduct unlimited hangouts and video meetings that are fully integrated with Google Calendar, Gmail, and Google Docs. In addition, there are promises of more great features to come.

Facebook for Business
Facebook, of course, is the biggie. If you want to build long-term relationships with your customers, convert one-time buyers into loyal fans, and attract new customers, Facebook is where you should spend the bulk of your time.
According to Facebook, more than 900 million people are active on the website – and users like and comment to the tune of 3.2 billion times every day. A strong presence on the platform will help ensure you get a piece of that action. How? When your biz has become part of the conversation on Facebook, you’re getting one of the most powerful kinds of advertising on the planet – viral word-of-mouth.
To get started, here’s the official word from one of Facebook’s business help pages:
Image 1:

You can create traditional ads or advertise special offers that fans can claim to encourage participation on your page. Facebook tries to help your business gain as much exposure as possible by making friends eligible to view fans’ interaction with your page.
What’s really cool about Facebook is that the recent IPO has caused Zuckerberg and Co. to ramp up the tools, advertising options, and customer service offered to businesses. You get the sweet end of that deal, and you can expect more gadgets and goodies to come in the months going forward.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet
Twitter is a microblogging platform. By its very design, it’s meant to be a tool for breaking news. Look to Twitter as your platform of choice if you run the kind of company that works off of its reputation, its “coolness,” or its ability to break news in real-time. If any of these characteristics describe your business, you should jump on the T-train pronto.
When you join Twitter, begin by searching for and following people in your niche. Don’t forget to promote your presence on Twitter offline as well. Keep your profile active by snapping some behind-the-scenes shots of developing projects, news, and events and share them with your followers. Remember, when people follow your company, they want the inside scoop on your business – and you should think of every follower as a potential customer just waiting for you to sell them on your wares.
Twitter is also a spectacular way to coax honest feedback from your followers in real-time. All the biggest brands have turned to the platform to get the opinions of their customers, and many are reporting great results from doing the legwork to gauge the pulse of their client base. Ask questions about your existing and upcoming products and services, and be sure to reply to all of your followers’ questions and concerns in a timely manner. Twitter is also a great way to advertise time-sensitive specials and deals for your customers.

Should You Get LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a professional social network designed to help you develop key partnerships with other businesses in your niche. It may sound counterintuitive, but forming alliances with your competition is actually vital for getting ahead. The more connections you make in your industry, the higher the potential to grow and expand your business.
For example, imagine you have a crackerjack idea for a partnership with a competing company. All you need to do is perform a “People Search” to quickly hunt down the right point of contact for the company you wish to proposition. You can contact the person right within the platform and take things from there. If you are seeking a professional network that can grow your biz through alliances and professional partnerships, LinkedIn is the platform for you.

Measuring Success and Hiring Help
Once you’ve selected your social network of choice, dedicate time to developing relationships with people on the platform you’ve chosen. Tend to your account regularly and be relentlessly responsive to your client base. If your social media presence begins to become a monster of a task that you can no longer handle, it’s probably time to hire on some help.
If you’re seeing significant ROI for the time you put into your social media account, consider hiring a social media manager to handle things. The money you spend on the new employee stands to pay dividends for your company’s bottom line.

Nell Terry is a tech news junkie, fledgling Internet marketer and staff writer for SiteProNews,
one of the Web’s foremost webmaster and tech news blogs. She thrives on social media, web design, and uncovering the truth about all the newest marketing fads that pop up all over the ‘net. Find out more about Nell by visiting her online portfolio at Content by Nell.

Facebook Offers That Will Get You Followers

Let’s face it: Mark Zuckerberg has pretty much taken over the world and transformed it into a much smaller one through his social media site. Suddenly, larger-than-life celebrities seem not so untouchable anymore, and it’s forced large corporations to listen to the little people. On Facebook, everyone has a say. And if you’re starting a business, you’d better have a stake.
How do business owners go about gaining fans? Here are five tips to ramp up your audience numbers.

1. Advertising: It might seem obvious, but advertising is a great way to get noticed. Creating an ad on Facebook takes only a few minutes by following step-by-step instructions. An eye-catching image is paramount to attracting Facebook users to click on the ad. Have the link lead to the Facebook page or to a webpage with more information about the business.

2. Barricade: When a new potential fan visits your Facebook page, put up a blocker that forces the user to “like” the page before gaining access or any information. There are a lot of apps that can accomplish this, including Woobox. This custom tab can be created to explain what the person will gain if they “like” the page. An example: Click “Like” to enter our free giveaway for airline tickets.

3. Contest: Speaking of giveaways, everyone loves anything that’s free. Think about what your company can offer. For instance, a restaurant can hold a contest for a free appetizer. Sometimes, a piece of intellectual information can be given away; for example, a bed and breakfast can present the top ten must-have vacation items.

4. Update, Update, Update: Ever hear the saying “Out of sight, out of mind?” Unfortunately, a lot of businesses don’t update their page enough. Obviously, businesses have plenty of other things to do, and social networking isn’t at the top of that list. However, this isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it phenomenon. A live person should be posting at least one update a day. Beware: Not every update should be about the business. It will sound too much like an advertisement, and no one wants to read that every time he or she logs onto the site. On the other hand, posting too many updates will cram your company down the audience’s throat and they will respond by unliking your page.

5. Content: Behind every good Facebook page (and business) is great content. A business’s Facebook site can’t be a fluff page. The audience will know and will respond accordingly. When a customer posts negative feedback on your wall, which can happen, don’t shirk away. Engage the customer publicly, and fix the issue in the fastest, most cost-effective manner. This proves to other fans that you are listening.
Entrepreneurship can be a scary endeavor, but using social media is just one more tool in your toolbox to help spread the word.

Laura Burkey is a freelancer who writes about different topics ranging from social media to gardening.

Get Hundreds of Quality Followers to Your Twitter Account Free in 24hrs

If you work online for at least part of your income, whether it’s through affiliate marketing, list building, promoting your own product, or building a following for a brand, a large, active following on Twitter is essential.
It takes time to build a high-quality follower base on Twitter. You need to seek people who actively tweet within your niche and follow them. Twitter etiquette then requires the person you follow to follow you back – then everyone is happy. If you want to build your following in weeks instead of months, however, this is a poor approach.
It is not hard to find people who will sell you Twitter followers. Several online freelance sites have people who can quickly deliver followers in large numbers for a few dollars. But gaining followers like that brings several problems.
First, are there real people behind these accounts? If you hope to market to your followers or generate interest in a product, it does no good to send tweets to a shell account.
Secondly, if they are real, do they care about what you are saying? Random followers may make your numbers look impressive, but there is little point in buying a lot of followers who couldn’t care less about your tweets.
Thirdly, Twitter looks askance at accounts that are highly unbalanced. A “normal” Twitter user builds followers organically, over time, by following people they are truly interested in and receiving followers the same way. Therefore, most “normal” Twitter accounts have a list of followers and followed that is roughly balanced. When you get a thousand or more followers delivered in 24 hours without an equivalent number of follows, your account is clearly indicating you are trying to “game” Twitter.
There is a much better approach that allows you to quickly and efficiently build a large, balanced and targeted follower base.
It hinges on an online tool called Tweepi.com. Once you have a Tweepi account and have linked it to your Twitter account, Tweepi allows you to mass-follow the followers of anyone else on Twitter.
Confusing? Let me give you an example: You are trying to establish yourself online in the women’s health and beauty niche. You have a new Twitter account, have followed a few leaders in that niche and have a few followers in return. Set up an account on Tweepi. You can pay for an account, but I do this on the free account and it works well.
Identify the top movers in your niche. If you don’t know who they are, do an Internet search for something like: “Top health and beauty gurus.” Cross check with another term such as “Women’s health and beauty industry leaders.” You can search for the top bloggers, the top affiliates and so on.
Once you have identified five or six “movers,” find their Twitter handles. Search the name of each person or business on your list along with the term “Tweet” or “Twitter.” You’re bound to see their handle in many of the returns. It will look like: @PersonsTwitterHandle.
Now, in your Tweepi dashboard, click on the “follow followers” button. Once you put the person’s or business’ Twitter handle in the box, you will see pages and pages of followers.
Here’s the value in this: The reason people are following this leader in your niche is most likely because they are interested in what that person or retailer is saying and offering. If you are saying and offering something similar, they will be interested in you as well.
Currently, the free account on Tweepi allows you to select up to 40 followers per page and follow them with one click. You can check the box next to the top person on the list and shift-check the box next to the bottom person, and all the 38 in between will fill in as well. Then click “Follow” and zap, you’re immediately following 40 of your target’s followers. Go to the next page and do the same. Repeat as much as you like.
Tweepi will eventually prevent you from using its service due to your account’s imbalance between follows and followers. That’s no problem, however. You will fix that in the next step. Meanwhile, you have just followed hundreds of real people who are interested in your niche.
The fun starts as you watch the reciprocal followers come in over the next 24 hours. Twitter etiquette demands those you followed will follow you back. Not all, but many, will do so. Once the follower stream begins to slow up, it’s time to unfollow.
Go back into your Tweepi account and click the “Flush” button for a list of all the people you followed who are not following you. Using the same process as before, select 40 people page by page and click the “Unfollow” button. Doing this brings your account into better balance. After you’ve unfollowed a certain number of people, you will be able to pick up where you left off: following more of your target person’s or business’ followers.
If you practice this routine every day, you will have a constant stream of high quality followers adding themselves to your account. Literally, you can easily have a thousand or more in a week. When you have a large group of real, targeted, high-quality followers, you can depend on a great response to your tweets.

Bruce Clemens is a college professor specializing in jobs readiness and online marketing. His website, http://onlinejobscompass.com offers lots of resources to develop an online income quickly and efficiently. Sign up there and instantly download Bruce’s important eBook that gives lots of starters free.

More People Working From Bed, on Weekends, Thanks to Mobile Devices

Americans are working more and more hours thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices.
A recent study by mobile security software firm Good Technology shows U.S. workers are more likely to put in a month-and-a-half’s unpaid overtime due to the mobility of tablets and Smartphones.
It is not much different in other parts of the world. Continually checking work e-mails and taking calls meant British workers put in more than three weeks’ unpaid overtime.
In Australia, 88 percent of workers continue to use their mobile devices for work outside of office hours. One-third of those surveyed said it was a necessity to keep up with their workload.
Both British and American workers also claim their mobile overtime is essential to keep up — 60 percent and 50 percent respectively.
U.S. workers said mobile devices offer them the freedom to work when and how they want.
Working from bed is not unusual either, the study found. Fifty percent of American, 37 percent of British and 35 percent of Australians confessed to regularly sending work e-mail in bed. Sixty-five percent of UK workers acknowledged they could not go to sleep without checking their e-mail one last time.
Working in the bedroom was causing issues only intermittently with their partner, according to one-quarter of U.S. and Australian respondents. Just 1.4 percent of Australians admitted to breaking up with someone because of these work practices, suggesting such habits are simply seen as routine.
Working on the weekend? You bet, said 33 percent of UK workers who routinely check their work e-mails. Fifty-seven percent of Americans and 20 percent of Australians confessed to checking their e-mails while on family outings.

Facebook Hopes Users Will Pay to Promote Posts

Want more attention for your Facebook posts? Open your wallet.
Facebook’s new “Promote” feature, released Oct. 3 to a small group in the U.S., allows users to pay Facebook to promote important pictures or announcements.
Those with access to the feature say a promoted post typically costs around $7, CNN reported.
According to the story, that price tag is part of the experiment: A company spokeswoman said that Facebook is “considering a variety of prices.”
“Every day, news feed delivers your posts to your friends. Sometimes a particular friend might not notice your post, especially if a lot of their friends have been posting recently and your story isn’t near the top of their feed,” a Facebook blog post reads. “When you promote a post — whether it’s wedding photos, a garage sale, or big news — you bump it higher in news feed so your friends and subscribers are more likely to notice it.”
The feature was first tested out in New Zealand in May, then expanded to a limited number of users in 20 countries.
Facebook has not released how many U.S. users have access to the Promote option, saying only that it’s a “limited subset” of the social media site’s 166 million American users. Currently, only those with less than 5,000 friends and subscribers have been granted access.

Facebook has 1B users: Zuckerberg

Facebook has surpassed 1 billion active monthly users, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced.
That means one in seven people on Earth are on Facebook. Although Zuckerberg said the social network reached the milestone on Sept. 14, he did not make the announcement until Oct. 4.
“This morning, there are more than one billion people using Facebook actively each month,” Zuckerberg said. “Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life.”
Although Zuckerberg said the site has breached the one billion-mark, All Facebook stats show there are about 944 million Facebook users worldwide.
“You can easily notice that the overall Facebook user base has grown by more than 30 million people,” said an Oct. 3 blog post by Maximilian H. Nierhoff. “In total that means that there are more than 944 million Facebook users worldwide.”
So why the discrepancy? Facebook’s purge of fake user accounts last week could be a factor in the lower number reported on All Facebook.
The social media site has a presence in more than 200 sovereign territories, according to All Facebook, with 20 users in Vatican City to more than 166 million in the United States.
In a post on the site, Zuckerberg described Facebook as being part of ” a rich tradition” to help connect people.
“Facebook isn’t the first thing people have made to help us connect. We belong to a rich tradition of people making things that bring us together,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Today, we honor this tradition. We honor the humanity of the people we serve. We honor the everyday things people have always made to bring us together: Chairs, doorbells, airplanes, bridges, games. These are all things that connect us. And now Facebook is a part of this tradition of things that connect us too.”
Some highlights cited by Facebook, since its launch:
• More than 1.13 trillion “likes.”
• More than 140 billion “friend connections.”
• Almost 220 billion photos uploaded.
• Some 17-billion “location-tagged posts.”
• Almost 62 million songs played 22 billion times.
• Median user age of 22.
• Mobile users now number 600 million.
Facebook’s shares rose about two percent in premarket trading since the announcement, the first good news for Facebook share holders since the company went public.
Investors sued Facebook after a flawed preliminary public offering May 18. Technical glitches at the NASDAQ exchange and allegations the company deliberately divulged unfavorable information about its business prospects to privileged investors is at issue. Facebook’s stock plunged as much as 50 percent after it was introduced at $38 per share.

Google and Apple – The Rising Walled Gardens

The beauty of software-as-a-service (SaaS) was that it wasn’t dependent on what operating system you used, or what software you had installed, or even what browser you preferred.
It was the power of a computer program accessed from the Web. Centralized, ultimately compatible with any user from any platform, requiring only a sufficiently capable online connection. Cloud computing in a whole other sense, indeed.
And yet, with so many cloud-based services being designed to work solely with sister applications, rising “walled gardens” loom over various proprietary environments. Yes I’m looking mostly at you two, Google and Apple.

1984
It’s no secret that Apple wants you to only use their software apps. The term “walled garden” was coined pretty much to describe them.
The benefits are more seamless integration and data transfer between the various apps within their pool. The drawbacks are that as the Apple apps work ever more closely with one another, they increasingly work less with other, third-party applications.
But what about those apps that don’t exist within the garden, shouldn’t that mean the end-user must look outside the garden? Here comes the dilemma: in order to keep its users happily within its walled garden, Apple must continue to develop their own versions of popular apps, even if those already exist elsewhere.
Now Apple has a very large burden to bear; in order to keep its users satisfied not only in app performance but also in task variety, the computer manufacturer must create all these services themselves.
And of course, the more programs Apple makes to keep people in the garden, the more exclusive it becomes. The walled garden becomes its own self-feeding loop. That’s exactly the point.

“Do No Evil”
Google is no better. They have been increasingly expanding into many other online-based services. This itself isn’t bad, and many have found this convenience to be of great benefit. Robust online services, at no charge? Great!
But what does become an issue is when those services stop cooperating with other programs from other companies. While the search giant hasn’t been as explicit about their garden’s walls, those borders are distinctly there; especially as the company hopes to consolidate its profits from advertising and info-gathering from within those otherwise selflessly offered services.
And thus herein lies the tragedy. The whole point of SaaS was to bypass the borders that had been established by competing hardware manufacturers, operating systems, even different browsers. And yet, in their quest to provide the most attractive and seamless experience (and to corral their user-base ever tighter) the “app giants” are turning the notion of SaaS into more proprietary nation-states.
Granted, can an “app” be considered true SaaS? Perhaps not an app itself, as found on an iPhone or Android phone. But what about maps, email, calendars, etc.? The only service Apple doesn’t offer as a direct equivalent to Google is search — oh wait, they have Siri. Granted, the voice assistant still has a-ways to go before giving the search giant’s algorithms any cause for concern, but it’s a budding threat.

One Step Forward, Two Back
So how soon will it be until Google finally explicitly draws its services together, circling the wagons as it were, in retaliation to Apple’s own wagon-circle?
Instead of a divided user-base torn between physical towers running either Windows or Macintosh, now we will have redundant online services squirreled away in their respective company pigeonholes.
The point of the Web was to make things more open, not closed. Unfortunately, the trend only seems to be regressing.
What are your thoughts? Are we headed towards more enclosure, or is there still hope for openness?

Vince Ginsburg is a web designer and blogger for Corsair Media Services, which specializes
in online marketing strategies and development. He doesn’t just look at the current state of the Web to figure out what’s going on, but tries to understand why it’s happening. Always eager for discussion, you can find him at his company blog or Facebook.

Google Unseats Microsoft as No. 2 Tech Company

Microsoft has been deposed as the world’s No. 2 technology company.
Google surpassed Microsoft Oct. 1 to slide into the second place position behind Apple in market capitalization.
Google rose 0.99 percent to close the day at $761.98, gaining a market capitalization of about $249.9 billion. Microsoft closed at $29.51, down 0.82 percent, to a market capitalization of $247.27 billion.
Google’s stock has risen more than 30 percent over the summer months due to improved earnings and a Citi report that set a new price target for the company at $850, up from $740.
The search engine giant possesses 66 percent of the U.S. search market, while Microsoft has 16 percent, according to ComScore Inc. Google could also oust Facebook in the U.S. this year as the top outlet for display advertising, including banner ads, according to EMarketer Inc. Google will also remain at the top for mobile ads in the U.S., EMarketer forecasts.
Google is also dominating the mobile software market with its Android powering 64 percent of Smartphones in the second quarter, up 21 percent from the same period in 2011, according to researcher Gartner Inc. Apple’s software came in at 19 percent and Microsoft at 2.7 percent.