The purpose of Makovision.com is to show people how they can using existing technology to keep informed and streamline business processes. One application that is simple to use and easy to deploy is DropBox.

After GMail came back online the debate began over the viability of “cloud computing”.

What Is Cloud Computing?

It essentially works like this:

There are way smarter people who can explain it better. Look around. A good place to start would be Wikipedia.

Those Clouds Look Ominous!

Below are people’s biggest worries when they finally understand the cloud computing concept for the first time:

1. Google is too powerful and could steal my data.
2. Someone could hack into Google and steal my data.
3. Someone could hack into Google and infect my email or documents with a virus or malware.
4. When Google goes down (i.e. GMail) I can’t do ANYTHING!

So let’s take these points one at a time shall we?

“Google is too powerful and could steal my data”

It is entirely in Google’s best interests to keep your data private. They are basically betting the farm they can do this.

Let’s answer a few questions I have heard:

Can they read your data at Google?

Yes they can.

Do they scan the content contained in your emails and documents?

Yes they do.

But bear in mind this is aggregate data.  This means that while they do scan your data, they don’t really know who you are.

Why do they do that?

Google offers a powerful web-based suite of software (Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, etc) and pays for it by selling relevant ad space inside those web applications.

When they search/scan/analyze your data they don’t see

“Don Makoviney has an email conversation about penis enlargement pills”.

Instead, they see

“Anonymous Gmail user has an email conversation in his inbox about penis enlargement pills. So when this email is opened serve him a penis enlargement pill advertisement.”

The exception to this is illegal activities. If Google is served a court order they can drill down and ultimately find out who you are. But this is no different in any organization (public or private) that runs email servers. The same thing happened to Enron, WorldCom, AIG, and even the White House (thanks Scooter Libby!).

If you put it in email, whether it’s a cloud-based service like GMail, Hotmail, or Yahoo Mail or whether it’s your local business Exchange Server or local ISP, there are already multiple copies of your email out there floating around entirely out of your control. You need to understand and accept that.

“Someone could hack into Google and steal my data.”

The same point applies here that applied in the previous statement. Google has bet the farm on security, infrastructure, and redundancy.

If you have trust issues I can understand this might not be enough to convince you.

But think about it:

No doubt you have heard about financial institutions like CitiBank, American Express, and others having their data stolen. What happened? Nothing! Even when hundreds of thousands of ACTUAL CREDIT CARD NUMBERS have been stolen the damage was minimal. Often less than minimal! Large batch jobs cancel the cards. More batch jobs are run that generate new credit or debit card numbers, which feed to another batch job that actually creates new cards, which feeds to another huge batch job that mails all those new cards out.

Done. Problem solved.

(Yes, I know I oversimplified with the batch job thingy, but you get the point, no?)

The point is, once you are doling out personal information there are always risks. Whether it’s handing the waiter your credit card and he walks to the back of the restaurant out of sight, or buying a book at Amazon.com, there are always risks.

So choose your cloud computing “partners” wisely. Don’t hand over your personal information to the latest hip Web2.0 start-up just because they ask for it. Do a little research first.

“Someone could hack into Google and infect my email or documents with a virus or malware”

I’m not sure if you are a GMail user reading this or are someone contemplating switching over to GMail. Either way, let me tell you from experience GMail has one of the most up-to-date and aggressive anti-virus and malware detection tools I have ever seen. It’s a mix of good old fashioned algorithmic programming and consensus from the users. Everything that is downloaded via GMail is run through virus scanning detection and even emails with suspicious links are quarantined.

(On a personal note: They still haven’t figured out how to get rid of the fake virus alerts friends forward to me incessantly. Stop it. Please? My hard drive will NOT catch on fire if I open an email)

Additionally I don’t even run virus scanning software on my computer at all. I haven’t for almost 5 years. The biggest risk seems to be from porn sites, torrent sites and warez (illegal software) sites. And if you get a virus from one of those, well, you got what you deserved I guess

The fear mongering by many about “the cloud” has created a mindset that is not just limited to cloud computing.

Several years ago people were freaking out that websites using cookies were stealing their data. CNN/MSNBC/FOX News and network news shows were doing these ominous news segments about privacy concerns with cookies. People were turning off cookies in their browsers. As a result they couldn’t buy books on Amazon.com, save searches on retail sites, or check their bank account balance online anymore. The web was broke for them. It took a lot of education on the part of web retailers and web developers to convince clients and customers the CNN tech reporter was full of crap. Cookies were simply a necessity in maintaining state across web pages.

So you see, this mindset is usually the result of (1) fear of a technology they don’t fully understand, and (2) overblown media hype about online security that preys on the uninformed.

I feel we’re in a similar boat with cloud computing. While there are (and should be) legitimate concerns, we are experiencing a lot of ominous news pieces that aren’t telling the whole story. Mostly this is because the concept is relatively new and people just don’t know all the facts yet.

That’s fine. It’s why people like me are around

Lastly:

“When Google goes down (i.e. GMail) I can’t do ANYTHING!”

“Bullshit!” (Thanks Penn & Teller)

When I hear this I wonder if the person saying it is lazy, or simply uninformed.

Google anticipate this problem long ago with the implementation of Google Gears. Basically, Google Gears synchronizes your data in “the cloud” with your local computer. This way, if Google is down you can still access your data, compose emails or documents, and have these queued and ready-to-go when GMail, Docs, or Calendar comes back online.

This data is kept in a specific folder on your computer, and this location depends on what browser you use. Google has a simple handy guide to help you figure it out in 30 seconds or less.

If you have any sort of programming tendencies, you can even access the data through a handy SQL Query tool Google provides for free. Otherwise, you can just use your local browser and localhost server to access the data.

Sound confusing? Don’t let it worry you.

Basically this means if GMail is down and you go to GMail in your browser it will just show your local synchronized documents and not your data live online. Google Gears syncs up GMail, Docs, and Calendar frequently so chances are your documents aren’t that out of date. If at all.

(Side Note: Project management from your inbox is highly discouraged anyways. If you would like to get away from such an abomination, check out Inbox Zero.)

Yesterday when people were freaking out about not being able to use GMail, I didn’t miss a step. Sure I couldn’t receive new emails and I couldn’t send emails. In fact, I kinda missed an important one.

Noooobody knows, the trouble I’ve seeeeen …

When I think about GMail’s 99.9% uptime and compare it with the many times I have lost EVERYTHING in Outlook/Exchange Server/Thunderbird I look at the big picture and am very thankful that cloud computing is taking off in such an astounding way.

It’s like having backups without really thinking about it. This is the way it should be.

For two years in the late 90′s I worked at a dotcom. On more than one occasion the Sys Admin had to completely rebuild our company mail server from the ground up. When it’s up he says he only last ran a backup two months ago so any email I received over the last two months are lost.

For almost 5 years, I worked at a Global Fortune 1000 software company that was an MSDN Subscriber and early adopter of new products. We were always upgrading our local mail server, spam filters, and add-on services and it wreaked havoc on project communications.

So a free, cloud-based, email system that constantly syncs with my local computer and is up 99.9% of the time is a sweet deal for me.

Better Free Backup Strategies

The point of this article was to help debunk some (what I feel are) unfounded but understandable fears about cloud computing in light of yesterday’s massive GMail outage.

But admittedly, I like solid physical backups too.

Really, you’re only as good as your last backup.

So …

If the risk is still too high in your mind, stay tuned. At the end of the week I’ll show you some pretty nifty backup strategies I use in concert with cloud applications that are (a) free (b) local, and (c) not super technical.

Sweet, right?

With pride, I can name countless examples where social media has helped me personally, as well as friends, business associates, and clients. It’s a hot topic everywhere and social media communities are springing up in astounding numbers.

But there are people who over hype it.

Example: If you ask someone like Zappos (the premiere shoe experts online), their success is not based on simply opening a Twitter account.

But there’s many “social media experts” who will take your money and tell you Twitter alone is the key to small business success.

So …

Whether you are a pure internet business promoting oil change coupons, or have a retail shop (i.e. coffee shop, Jamaican restaurant, or carpet cleaning company, etc) these principles apply to you:

Site Design

In almost all cases, your business website should be clean, fast loading, with intuitive navigation. This sounds like a given, but is still an exception with many small businesses. If your website has a “SKIP INTRO” Flash presentation, or large animated clip art gifs, we need to fix that … now!

Your site design plays an important part in the successful execution of every other step listed below:

Landing/Conversion Pages

Conversion pages are what turns a visitor to your website into a customer, or sales lead. These are often also called “call-to-action” pages.

Conversion pages typically are:

Product Page
This could be an individual product page on your website. If you are running a e-commerce site this would be your individual item page. It is important that it is clear what the potential customer must do to purchase the product.

Newsletter or RSS Subscription Page
There is value in getting subscribers to your newsletter, as it gains you a footprint in their inbox, allowing you to “push” specials.

Social Media Follows
Visitors to your site that use social media tools such as Twitter or Facebook should be able to easily click to and follow your company fan page or profile on whatever social media sites work for your business.

Membership Pages
This is where someone signs up for a service on your website. Similar to product pages, membership pages should clearly identify what the visitor receives as a “member” and the signup form should be clear and concise.

Quote Request or Contact Us Page
Many service industries (carpet cleaning, pressure washing, carpentry, etc) will have “quote request” forms or “Contact Us” forms in order to secure leads for jobs. These should focus on capturing contact information more than details about the quote request. Long forms tend to discourage quote requests. Your phone number should also be displayed on this page for those that don’t feel like filling out a form.

All of these pages are crucial for the success of your business, whether it is primarily online or offline. Whether or not these pages are successful can be tracked with very detailed (and free) analytics tools from Google and others.

A great resource for creating great landing pages is Gabriella’s Urban SEO site (Follow on Twitter). Read these articles about on page optimization.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

If you began at the top of this article with a clean and intuitive design and have spent time building well-crafted landing (conversion pages), the SEO “should” almost be automatic.

The only other suggestion would be to use Google AdWord’s free keyword suggestion tool and make sure your conversion pages, product pages, and information pages are titled and named with keywords of value to Google and other search engines.

We’ll discuss keyword research in future articles in addition to other reputable easy-to-execute SEO tips in future articles.

Social Media

Contrary to what many self-proclaimed “social media experts” may claim, simply opening a Twitter account and tweeting is not enough to garner business. Site owners should make sure the items above are completed first. It’s pointless to engage potential customers and then send them to something that does not exist, or to a poorly implemented shopping cart or website.

Naturally there are exceptions to this. If you are in the middle of implementing your site, or building your business and you wish to begin building your reputation as an expert in your niche or specialty it would be good to secure your social media accounts and begin starting conversations.

A local example in my town of Asheville, NC is the Jamaican restaurant Nine Mile. While they were putting the finishing touches on their restaurant they began posting pics on Facebook and Twitter and Flickr, updated followers regarding their progress, hurdles they had to overcome and so forth. Local Twitterers began connecting with their story, rooting for them to launch successfully, and showed up en masse after opening and tweeted their experiences.

More on this in future articles as well.

Everything Else

There is more that I simply can’t advise. You know your niche and business better than I do. You know your products, who the big players are, and the unique perspective your business brings to the table.

In the pipeline at Makovision are useful articles and screencasts to help you bring that perspective to an infinitely larger audience.

Keep in mind that larger audience might not necessarily be global. If you’re a local carpet cleaning company who cares if someone 2500 miles away finds your website?

Instead, use SEO, social media tools and rock-solid landing/conversion pages together so you can dig deeper into your local or regional market.

Your market may be smaller. And that’s a good thing.

That’s the goal here anyways.

What would you like to see covered on Makovision.com?