"Shravan’s hands-on operational expertise and innovative product development talents make him the ideal executive to take Dictionary.com to the next level of success," says Garell. "Dictionary.com had a phenomenal year, strengthening its position as the #1 trusted brand for words and word meanings, and enabling users to communicate smarter and more effectively. At the same time, Dictionary.com continues to amplify Ask’s growth by driving millions of users per month to Ask’s unique features and offerings."

Goli has over 16 years of internet and technology experience, having worked at both Yahoo and Microsoft. At Yahoo, he served as General Manager for the Yahoo! Media group, overseeing operations for Yahoo Video, and as Head of Products for Yahoo Finance. He was also instrumental in setting the Social Media vision and strategy across media properties at Yahoo!

Goli worked at Microsoft for 11 years before that, where he had management roles within the Home & Entertainment Division, and the Microsoft Business Solutions Group. He was also an early member of the MSN.com client team, where he led thelaunch of several MSN online services. Most recently, Goli was General Manager of Media Business at Slide, Inc.

"It’s a great honor to join the Dictionary.com team and to have the opportunity to build on its success as the #1 brand in online dictionaries," says Goli of his new position. "I look forward to working together to build the next-generation dictionary experience to empower millions of people worldwide with knowledge and enrich their lives every day."

Dictionary.com gets over 43 million monthly customers. The company says its iPhone and BlackBerry apps have extended the brand’s potential reach to 65 percent of US smartphone users, and that the iPhone app has been downloaded over four million times and is on Apple’s "30 Favorite Apps" list. The Dictionary.com BlackBerry app is the fourth most downloaded free app in BlackBerry’s App World, and the #2 free reference application.

This year Dictionary.com also introduced new  keyword-based ad solutions, an expanded content offering, and an API.
 

Related Articles:

> Ask.com Gets New U.S. Leadership

> Google Puts Its Own Dictionary in the Spotlight

> Ask.com Expands Vocabulary With Dictionary.com Acquisition

Healthcare verticals hold a lot of promise for people seeking medical information. New startups like TauMed and Kosmix compete with tech heavyweight Microsoft’s HealthVault, while sites provided by the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic tap their resources for the public good.

Resource Shelf noted the arrival of PDRHealth.com, an outpost of Thomson Healthcare’s Physicians’ Desk Reference. Accessing the online database of the Reference generally requires a doctor to subscribe.

The value of the information available in that database now comes to the regular Internet visitor. People can sign up to receive electronic newsletters, alerts on new clinical trials, and new information about prescription drugs.

PDRHealth provides details about drugs and supplements, such as their interactions and side effects. They have indexed information on diseases and conditions, with data on the diagnosis and treatment of those.

Thomson also plans to add more health research tools to PDRHealth. The site launched with tools to help check cholesterol risks, and to find potential treatment options for conditions.

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When the Atlanta Journal-Constitution asked Randall Stephenson about criticism that the company’s $10 DSL offering, the one required under government conditions to approve AT&T’s merger with BellSouth, was difficult to find and not promoted, Stephenson responded like you might expect a CEO to:

Deny, Downplay, Redirect.

He answered:

We haven’t made it difficult to find. To be honest with you, that’s not a product that our customers have clamored for. We still have $15 offers out there in the marketplace, even $20 offers, for 1.5 megabit speeds. Those are really kind of the minimum speeds that give a good user experience. So I don’t want to necessarily offer up a product where the user experience is not what I would consider really state of the art. That $10 product is kind of in that mode.

Basically, in the basement without stairs in a filing cabinet and guarded by a leopard is on display, and nobody would want it anyway because it really sucks. Good to know those regulatory concessions had some teeth.

Oh wait, we kind of knew they didn’t, even then. Good luck ensuring Net Neutrality principles like they promised too.

TechDirt CEO Mike Masnick agrees:

AT&T actually thinks you’ll believe that they’re hiding their cheap broadband offering because, seriously, who wants cheap broadband when more expensive broadband is available? Of course, this isn’t a new strategy from AT&T. Back when it was SBC and refused to offer naked DSL, the claim was that customers didn’t want naked DSL either, despite the success many other companies were having with it, and numerous articles with people clamoring for it.

I imagine we’ll be having this conversation again in the few years when AT&T is delivering television packages, much like we have now about cable bundling – you know, I don’t want 300 channels, I just want these specific 20 channels. Only then, we’ll be complaining about trying to separate wireless, TV, landline, and Internet services from one another.

Wait and see.

And no, I’m not being a smartass and suggesting that you cut Google out of the picture (after all, Britannica and Merriam-Webster have their own sites).  Instead, Tony Ruscoe writes, “I’ve found a way you can enable the dictionary and thesaurus features now – even before they’re released!”

Should you follow Ruscoe’s instructions, don’t expect everything to work perfectly.  “It’s obvious why this hasn’t been released yet,” according to the Google Blogoscoped guru, who cites a number of bugs and strange problems.

Aside from programming issues, there’s also the matter of Google’s taste in partners.  After all, Britannica isn’t exactly a go-to resource for a lot of people, and Ionut Alex Chitu, who seems to have first found the hidden features, notes, “It’s rather curious that Google didn’t opt for everyone’s favorite encyclopedia, Wikipedia, and choose the oldest English-language encyclopedia still in print, but also an encyclopedia hard to access online for free.”

Yet Google Docs could bring in Wikipedia at some point in the future, even as the search engine giant will presumably address the minor problems Ruscoe discovered.

Opera, which I use and love, is known for having some of the best web standards support of any browser and amazing features not available in any other browser, would be an amazing platform for running Silverlight applications, and the release would guarantee Silverlight compatibility on the top four browsers (IE/Firefox/Opera/Safari) and top operating systems (Windows Vista/XP/2003/2000 and Mac OS X Tiger/Leopard), covering probably over 90% of the market.

Note that I mentioned Windows 2000. Silverlight doesn’t support it right now, but it will, just like it is going to support Opera. I can’t wait to be able to run Silverlight in Opera, since it would eliminate many reasons for loading up IE. With IE8 moving towards web standards, and websites having to follow it there, all sites will eventually run as intended on Opera, and that’s great for everybody, even those on other browsers.

See the compatibility list in the bottom right hand corner of this reference document.

More about the work for Opera compatibility with Silverlight and ASP.net AJAX here.

Comments

“There’s too much information about entrepreneurship out there, so it’s difficult and time-consuming to determine what, and who to believe,” said venture capitalist and blogger Guy Kawasaki.” What’s needed is a vertical search engine for entrepreneurs and The Biz Info Library delivers on this need.”

Biz Info Library simplifies search results and provides users with relevant information by using either keyword search, advanced search or by reviewing all articles in a particular category or subcategory.

Users can download articles and save articles online to create their own custom library.

“As a small business owner, you’re expected to be an expert on everything from your product or service to human resources, marketing and finance,” said Biz Info Library content contributor Harvey Mackay. “The Biz Info Library is the go-to resource for practical solutions and applicable strategies for individuals and organizations seeking to be winners in an ever-changing, always competitive marketplace.”

The Biz Info Library is the result of three non-profit organizations collaborating to provide support for entrepreneurs and small business. The founders are the James J. Hill Reference Library, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Edward Lowe Foundation.

“In a traditional library, you don’t get every book ever written about a specific topic,” said Hill Library president Sam Richter. “Rather, you get the best of the best as reviewed and selected by a professional. If you use the Biz Info Library, you’ll save a tremendous amount of time, and you’ll get only the best business information as written by proven business experts.”

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After I wiped the milk off my screen and keyboard from the laughter, I wondered what Matt meant by “gets it“.

So, let’s start with this we “get it” quote from Sun’s James Gosling:

“The source code is being open sourced, but the process of defining the spec is still the Java Community Process. In addition, there are massive test suites, and we will do an immense amount of testing. We expect that people who care about reliability and compatibility with the spec will use our version.”

Strange, if any project able to pass the Java SE TCK tests can claim compatibility with the Java SE spec, why would a customer choose one implementation vs. another based on compatibility issues???? Is this just Sun spreading FUD or do they just not “get it“?

As Gier points out, when you contribute to OpenSolairs or GlassFish you give Sun joint copyrights over the code, which enables Sun to re-license your contributions under any terms they wish, including a commercial license. Wow, that sounds like a company that “gets it“; You know, gets how to maintain control over code from anyone in their community’. Anyone think that Sun will handle the open sourced Java SE reference implementation any differently???

Maybe, I’m confused, and by “gets it“. Maybe Matt really means “gets how to confuse the market into thinking they are being good community members, but in fact are just out to maintain control of their own IP and claim ownership of other people’s IP, simply by developing software in the open, but with a closed, restrictive community”.

At least commercial vendors are upfront about the fact that they control their development community (i.e. everyone who works for the company).

That’s why my vote for a Java SE implementation is Apache Harmony, a truly community based product, from a community that “gets it” (but not in the way that Sun “gets it”, thankfully!)

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I am taking a semi-break from IBM life as I return to finish a PhD in Industrial Engineering. I’ve held roles in market intelligence, strategy and product management. I’m ex-product manager of IBM WAS Community Edition, and blog about enterprise open source topics.

We provide this landing page quick reference so you can pull it out every time you are creating a persuasive landing page. It is divided into 4 sections and is intended to be an all-inclusive tip sheet.

Most importantly, consider that you have 8 seconds or less to convince your visitor to act. If you haven’t convincingly made your case in this time then your visitor will move on and will be lost, as the Internet has created the most fickle customer in sales history.

Page Layout

- Place your logo at the top left. Visitors expect it there so display your branding where it counts.

- If the visitor came from a search engine keyword search or a PPC ad then place the keyword terms in bold at the top of the page. This reinforces to the visitor that they came to the right place.

- Always keep the Golden Triangle in mind. It is the most important and scanned part of the page. It is the area of the page that starts at the top left of the page moves to the top right side of the page then down diagonally to the bottom left of the page just above the fold. The fold is the area of a web page that the visitor sees without scrolling vertically. You should never force a visitor to scroll horizontally. This means that your landing pages should be able to be seen completely on an 800 x 600 screen resolution. Place your UVP in the middle of the Golden Triangle.

- Contrast your Calls to Action with respect to the rest of the page – use contrasting colors, round vs. rectangular, straight vs. slanted, warm color vs. cold color, big vs. little. Make sure you can spot the Call to Action from 6 feet away.

- Place assurances, testimonials and guarantees in the far-right column

- Place logos to appropriate associations or online companies at the bottom of the page to show credibility – Verisign, BBB Online Reliability, certified by…, Alexa rank (if good), powerseller, live support, credit cards supported, open 24 hours a day, Hacker Safe, as seen in Entrepreneur Magazine, Chamber of Commerce, etc.

- Don’t place external links on a landing page. Just allow them the option to proceed into completing the form and converting into a customer.

- Place privacy policies on the landing page. This instills confidence.

- Think of the Amazon.com website. Note their Call to Action is the hotspot at the top-right of all pages – add to cart, one click ordering, etc. This may also apply to you

Writing Style and Content

- Spend time on your Unique Value Proposition (UVP) and place it into the center of the Golden Triangle. A UVP is the core differentiation of a company’s product or service from those of competitors. A complete UVP will describe the market and a company’s competitors and the key difference between competitors and your own company.

- Ensure that you don’t have big paragraphs. Visitors tend to scan pages instead of reading all of the text on them.

- Write using headers above paragraphs that summarize the following text.

- Use bullets where possible as visitors can quickly scan them. Search engines also prioritize bullets instead of long paragraph text.

- If you want to add a picture ensure that it is going to reinforce your message. You can easily lose significant sales by having the wrong picture on the landing page.

- If the purpose of the landing page is to provide a white paper or article then create an image for the paper with enlarged text like the one below and place it on the page:

The Form

- Keep the number of fields on the form as small as possible. This is critical in getting them to complete the form.

- Add a Comments textbox asking for the visitor’s input. It can be key to qualifying leads. Those that complete this form with the services they are looking for should be contacted immediately. Here are some requests you can use for this Comments box:

- What is biggest problem that you need to solve now?

- What is the purpose of your project?

- Please list your goals for this project.

- How can we help you?

- In case the visitor doesn’t complete the Comments textbox on the first page, add a 2nd page with only a Comments textbox on it requesting the visitors comments again. Tell them that if they complete the Comments box now then they will receive an extra free white paper that is relevant to the same visitor. These visitor comments are important.

- Have the visitor check a box that says something like “YES! Send me the free white paper that will change my life.” It is the psychological method of coercing them into completing the rest of the form.

- Prominently list the benefits of completing the form. It is a major validation. Make sure to write the benefits in terms of the users benefits instead of the features of your product or service.

- Ensure you save the form information into a database and send emails out as soon as the form is completed so you can immediately contact the visitor. The lead’s effectiveness drops dramatically as time goes by. Contacting a lead within minutes is ideal.

Landing Page Mistakes to Avoid

- Graphics or text unrelated to the offer – limit copy to only the point of the landing page

- Long forms with unneeded fields – limit your form to what is absolutely essential

- Difficult to read fonts

- Navigation off of the landing page

- Placing important persuasive copy below the fold

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Michael A. Cordova is a managing partner at Mercury Leads, Inc. specializing in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)/Internet Marketing – http://www.mercuryleads.com.

We shouldn’t confuse the Java SE standard with the Java SE reference implementation.

Check out Sun’s (new) Open Source Java page.

If you look at the “OpenJDK” paragraph in the communities section, you’ll find that Sun is referring to open sourcing Sun’s implementation of Java SE.

It doesn’t mention anything about governance of the Java standard, which is much more important to open source Java if you ask me.

Now if you look at the “OpenJavaEE” paragraph, you’ll notice that they somehow tie GlassFish (Sun’s JEE implementation) to the governance of JEE:

“The community governs the development of specifications, technologies, and products that work together to provide enterprise-level solutions under the Java EE paradigm.”

Now call me crazy, but (1) doesn’t the JCP govern JEE and (2) wouldn’t a true open community like the Apache Geronimo community be a better place for the implementation and governance of JEE?

Why is open source JEE so closely tied to Sun controlled efforts? I thought this was a community story.

Based on what Sun appears to be trying to pull with JEE, I have fairly large reservations about what open source Java SE (implementation and governance) will really look like in the end.

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I am taking a semi-break from IBM life as I return to finish a PhD in Industrial Engineering. I’ve held roles in market intelligence, strategy and product management. I’m ex-product manager of IBM WAS Community Edition, and blog about enterprise open source topics.

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Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

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