Via Netiquette IQ - Big News - Internet Administration to Shift from U.S. to Global Stage

Shortly after the U.S. F.C.C. had its policy for equal Internet access overturned by the courts, another major announcement was made regarding the control of the Internet. See the article below for details.

The U.S. will give up its role when the current contract with ICANN expires in the fall of 2015.

Article from Politico: By ERIN MERSHON and JESSICA MEYERS | 3/14/14 5:50 PM EDT Updated: 3/14/14 9:19 PM EDT 

The U.S. Commerce Department is relinquishing its hold over the group that manages the Internet’s architecture amid pressure to globalize its functions in the wake of reports about NSA surveillance.

The National Telecommunications & Information Administration, a Commerce Department agency, said Friday it is transitioning the function to the “global Internet community.” The decision marks a dramatic change. Since the Internet’s inception, the United States has played a leading role in the management of critical back-end Web work, including management of .com and other domain names. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has performed those functions under U.S. Commerce contract since 2000.

The United States will give up its oversight role when the current contract with ICANN expires in fall 2015, NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said. He set out a series of four principles required for the transition, including that ICANN maintain the openness of the Internet. Some U.S. officials and businesses have expressed fears about the United Nations, or governments like Russia and China, taking over control of the Web.

“We will not accept a proposal that replaces the NTIA role with a government-led or an intergovernmental solution,” Strickling said in a conference call.

ICANN, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, has been pushing to transform itself into a global organization without U.S. oversight. European Union officials have strongly backed the globalization campaign, which has picked up steam in the wake of Edward Snowden’s leaks about the NSA’s sprawling surveillance programs.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, last month proposed establishing “a clear timeline” for globalizing ICANN and the duties it performs under the U.S. contract.

“We thank the U.S. government for its stewardship, for its guidance over the years, and we thank them today for trusting the global community to replace their stewardship with the appropriate accountability mechanisms,” said ICANN President Fadi Chehade, who joined Strickling on the call.

Some U.S. officials have warned about the dangers of ceding ICANN’s authority to the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency, fearing countries like Russia and China could use it to allow online censorship. Congress unanimously passed a resolution ahead of a 2012 ITU meeting, highlighting the U.S. commitment to keeping the Internet free from government control.

Daniel Castro, a senior analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, disputed the connection between NSA revelations and Internet governance in an op-ed Friday, and he warned that ICANN would not be held accountable without U.S. control.

“If the Obama Administration gives away its oversight of the Internet,” he said, “it will be gone forever.”

Some criticism of the decision immediately started popping up on Twitter.

“Every American should worry about Obama giving up control of the internet to an undefined group,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tweeted shortly after the announcement. “This is very, very dangerous.”

An NTIA official denied that this was a reaction to the Snowden disclosures, pointing out that the relationship between the Commerce Department and ICANN was always envisioned as temporary.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller applauded the government’s decision to relinquish oversight of the Internet’s critical functions, calling it “the next phase” in a transition to “an independent entity that reflects the broad diversity of the global Internet community.”

He said the decision resembles “other efforts the U.S. and our allies are making to promote a free and open Internet, and to preserve and advance the current multi-stakeholder model of global Internet governance.”

ICANN recently embarked on a controversial expansion of the Internet’s domain-name system. The group is preparing to approve hundreds of new Web endings, like .clothing, .shop or .hospital, in the next year. Industry groups have criticized the program, saying it will increase the potential for cybersquatting and add to their costs.

The group has been working to give itself a more international aura. The group announced last year it would open new hubs in Singapore and Istanbul. And it has been touting the international aspects of its domain-name expansion, which will usher in new non-English Web endings in Cyrillic, Chinese and Arabic.


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In addition to this blog, I maintain a radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newslettervia paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ and  PSG of Mercer County, NJ.

I am the president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a “best of breed” reseller of products for communications, email, network management software, security products and professional services.  We are currently developing an email IQ rating system, Netiquette IQ, which promotes the fundamentals outlined in my book.

Over the past twenty-five years, I have enjoyed a dynamic and successful career and have attained an extensive background in IT and electronic communications by selling and marketing within the information technology marketplace. Anyone who would like to review the book and have it posted on my blog or website, please contact me paul@netiquetteiq.com.

Netiquette IQ quote of The Day - Mail Nostalgia

My Last post was an article which discussed, whimsically, nostalgia for old-fashioned letters. Admittedly, I sometimes share that author's sentiments. Today's Netiquette IQ quotation is an appropriate one to those thoughts!


Nostalgia is, 'Hey, remember the other mall that used to be there?'
-George Saunders
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In addition to this blog, I maintain a radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newslettervia paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ and  PSG of Mercer County, NJ.

I am the president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a “best of breed” reseller of products for communications, email, network management software, security products and professional services.  We are currently developing an email IQ rating system, Netiquette IQ, which promotes the fundamentals outlined in my book.

Over the past twenty-five years, I have enjoyed a dynamic and successful career and have attained an extensive background in IT and electronic communications by selling and marketing within the information technology marketplace. Anyone who would like to review the book and have it posted on my blog or website, please contact me paul@netiquetteiq.com.

to be negative.

Van Morrison

Share As Image

Negative

Nostalgia is, 'Hey, remember the other mall that used to be there?'

George Saunders

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/nostalgia_2.html#dAEh2rR0THhBpR5L.99

to be negative.

Van Morrison

Share As Image

Negative

Nostalgia is, 'Hey, remember the other mall that used to be there?'

George Saunders

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/nostalgia_2.html#dAEh2rR0THhBpR5L.99

Recently, I came across this article which touched me in a nostaglic way. Growing up before the Internet and electronic mail age, I once sent many personal, hand-written letters. It was always important for me to be as correct as I could and as neat as I could with my very average penmanship.

Part of the reason I wrote my book (see below) was that I felt all of the qualities of pre-Internet mail were being severely compromised. Because of this, I also felt that greater misunderstanding and personalization was becoming rampant.

So for those of you who remember manual letter writing and the others who never knew it, enjoy the article and think about it when you send your next email!
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What we lost with email

Posted: 12/29/13, 7:26 PM EST |

My grandmother, Mary Hourihan, retired from her job as an Agriculture Department wool research scientist in the early 1970s, when I was 9 or 10. I had always loved going to her lab in Beltsville, Md., where I spent happy hours spinning yarn on an electric spinning machine or pouring “potions” from test tube to flask and back again. Grandmom knew her way through the tunnels under the sprawling campus, and lunch was always at a restaurant called the Log Cabin. She looked so official and powerful in her white lab coat and horn-rimmed glasses, yet she indulged my curiosity. She lived with my family, and I never doubted that I lived in her heart.

Her retirement was in name only, for she soon took a two-year position at the University of New South Wales and moved to Sydney. I am almost as old now as she was then, and I cannot imagine bidding farewell to my whole world to embark on a new life in such a remote place. But she was a scientist and an adventurer, and, overnight, it seemed, she was gone.

And so began my deep love of the U.S. mail. Soon, our mailbox on Weymouth Street in Kettering, Md. began to fill with thin, light-blue aerogrammes. My grandmother’s familiar script — the straight and even lines of the Palmer Method — would ribbon along those one-page tri-fold sheets. She was a frugal person, and her words were jammed into every bit of space, sometimes flowing across the adhesive strips, which tore when we pulled then open.

I kept a vigil for the mail. I would sit in the bay window of our living room, reading a book and keeping an ear out for the engine of the mail carrier’s jeep. Or I would hurry home from school, eager to see if any blue missives waited for me at command central, our dining room table.

I liked to write — and my reward was always a response from her, filled with stories of kangaroos and brush fires, her Indian roommate and various jaunts across the Outback. The mail was slow, so there was no instant gratification, but I knew that, sooner or later, she’d write back. She was always my favorite pen pal.

My letter-writing lasted for years: After high school, friends scattered around the world, and we traded ideas and anecdotes about our lives in new places. I went to a small Quaker college in North Carolina, and my lunch-hour ritual began with a trip to the mailroom in the basement of Founders Hall. The mail lady, Mrs. C., moved quickly through the narrow room filling our postboxes. If I squinted through the slits, I could see the shadowy shapes of letters. On the best days, I’d have a note to pick up a care package from my grandmother or my mother. And I loved to hear from my friends. One buddy would send cassette tapes of cool new music. A friend who had gone off to Virginia Military Institute told stories about his regimented world, such a contrast to mine.

Eventually I began to submit poems and stories to literary magazines, each carefully Xeroxed and shipped off with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. I would anxiously await replies, and I could tell what they contained by the envelope: Thick meant my work was being returned, thin meant it had been accepted. I had a pen-and-paper system for tracking what was where, and each evening I would scour the mail for good news.

Now that sense of anticipation has transferred to email, where I can spend hours each day corresponding with friends and colleagues, catching up with my children, following links to news reports or social media alerts. Years ago, I was enamored of AOL’s iconic “You’ve Got Mail!” announcement. Today, I keep my various accounts open all the time on every device I own.

It’s become a bad habit and a bit of a compulsion. On nights when I can’t sleep, the lure of those devices is irresistible. I am drawn by the hope that some late-night message will convey good things — a new connection, a happy moment, some serendipity. Most of the time, of course, it’s just junk, but every so often a gem emerges. I have no method for saving or sorting what comes my way; I just star the good ones and, every so often, search the mailbox for something I can savor anew.

But I worry about the loss of the physical manifestation of this correspondence. I know I could print my favorites, but printed typescript simply does not convey the sense of a person the way my decades-old letters did: coffee stains, for instance, or the small curve of my grandmother’s script. And emails are just too easy to pop off and can be so abrupt. I remember the rambling letters I once exchanged with friends; sometimes it took several drafts to get something just right. The ritual of collecting the mail meant something, too, as did my sense that, in holding a letter, I was holding the letter writer.

I came across a box full of those letters in the attic recently. It was a multisensory experience. Back came memories of my grandmother, dead nearly 20 years, and all the explorations and worries my friends and I shared. Reading some responses — one side of our conversation — was like finding a photographic negative of whatever was on my mind at the time. There are notes from my younger brother, 12 years old and forced to write by our parents. Cards from my other family members. A whole time of life, bundled in a small white box in the attic.

Now such things are all stored in a gizmo my grandmother could not even have imagined. But that bright attic light — or a backlit gizmo — comes on and I’m gone.

Janice Lynch Schuster is a special contributor to The Washington Post. 
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In addition to this blog, I maintain a radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newslettervia paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ and  PSG of Mercer County, NJ.

I am the president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a “best of breed” reseller of products for communications, email, network management software, security products and professional services.  We are currently developing an email IQ rating system, Netiquette IQ, which promotes the fundamentals outlined in my book.

Over the past twenty-five years, I have enjoyed a dynamic and successful career and have attained an extensive background in IT and electronic communications by selling and marketing within the information technology marketplace. Anyone who would like to review the book and have it posted on my blog or website, please contact me paul@netiquetteiq.com.

Netiquette IQ Quotation of The Day - How to Generate Interest in Your Goals

“When it comes to the Internet in general, it matters less which online community or tool you use, and more on your commitment.” –Ron McDaniel, Buzzoodle.com
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In addition to this blog, I maintain a radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newslettervia paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ and  PSG of Mercer County, NJ.

I am the president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a “best of breed” reseller of products for communications, email, network management software, security products and professional services.  We are currently developing an email IQ rating system, Netiquette IQ, which promotes the fundamentals outlined in my book.

Over the past twenty-five years, I have enjoyed a dynamic and successful career and have attained an extensive background in IT and electronic communications by selling and marketing within the information technology marketplace. Anyone who would like to review the book and have it posted on my blog or website, please contact me paul@netiquetteiq.com.

Netiquette Core Concepts to Generate More Leads and Interest in Your Products, Services or Messages!

 

How To Generate More Leads From Your Email

When it comes to email marketing, the best subject lines tell what’s inside, and the worst subject lines sell what’s inside  —   MailChimp

The subject field in an email.  Besides your name and company, this will be the first item a message reader will see. Therefore, this should never be blank. Remember, the goal is to have the email you send, opened and read.  The action of not having a subject has only negative connotations. The least of these is that the author was lazy or neglectful. The worst of these is that the message is a possible spam (at least to the spam software). Either way, the initial reaction to any email omitting a subject will be negative. If it is indeed viewed this way, then the odds of the message being read by a first-time recipient surely decrease dramatically. If the message is important, such as a résumé, introduction, or emergency, the negative implications to the sender may be quite significant. So, always include a subject description. Provide proper punctuation but do not include a period at the end. Avoid such words as free, help, percent off, reminder,  and avoid as they will affect your email open rates.

Even when there is a subject description, it may not be adequate, appropriate, or accurate to the content of the message itself. Too short of a subject, such as “info,” can also discourage someone from opening and reading the message. Conversely, a long email subject line might have a negative effect either for lack of interest (because of the way it is described), lack of clarity or because it gives away too much of the content. As a rule, it is best to restrict the subject description from two or three to ten words. Subject lines should be simple and succinct.  Ensure that a subject line is not the whole message with blank text in the email body. Some find it chic to split a message that begins in the subject line and continues into the text itself. This does not accomplish anything and as often as not, it may be lost (or misunderstood) in the reader’s transition from reading the subject line to opening the text itself. While entering the subject-line content, it is best to accurately repeat content as well as present a bridge to something important to the recipient such as “Schedule of your classes,” or “Recap of our meeting today.” Leave it to the body of text to explain attachments or provide expanded details. This has many effects (implications) on not only generating interest but also causing a rejection by setting a positive or negative tone.

Typefaces: The less clutter you have in your email, the more conversions you’ll experience. Don’t junk up your email with more than 2, or at maximum, 3 typefaces.  Personalize. Promote your resources.

 By the way, this blog is written primarily in Arial!

	Best (San Serif)	Worst (Serif)
10 Point	Arial Verdana Trebuchet Garamond	Times New Roman Georgia Century
12 Point	Arial Helvetica Trebuchet Courier (Monospace)	Times New Roman Century Palatino Georgia

Keep the Main Message and Call-to-Action Above the Fold: If your main call-to-action falls below the fold, then as many as 70% of recipients won’t see it. Also, any call-to-action should be repeated at least 3 times throughout the email.
Keep Your Email crisply formatted and kept the width of the email to seven inches or less.
Put Your Logo in the Upper Left-Hand Side of the Email: Eye tracking studies have found that people instinctively look for logos in the upper left-hand side of emails. Put your logo in the upper left-hand side to ensure it gets the most visibility.
Compelling Subject Lines are critical: A good subject line should contain no more than 30 to 50 characters. It should also create a sense of urgency, and it should give readers some indication of what to expect once they open the email.
Closely Tie Emails to Landing Pages: Your landing page should match the email in terms of headline, copy, and content. The look and feel of your landing page should also match the email. And make sure you’re utilizing tracking tools to see which emails and landing pages performed the best.
Conduct a 5-Second Test: Send a copy of the email to a friend or business associate. Can they quickly tell what your call-to-action is? If so, you’re golden. If not, keep working.

There are a lot of new tools in a marketer’s tool chest that are getting a good amount of attention these days. But don't forget about old, yet reliable and faithful tools that can still really help you get the most out of your marketing initiatives.

The primary goal is to introduce your product or service in a compelling way:
Keep your email short and to the point

1. Your email message must be laser-focused on your target audience and their specific wants and needs
2. Include a specific call-to-action attached to a compelling offer that’s appropriate for your target customer
3. Your call-to-action should offer access to content on your website that the prospects will consider valuable. A standard offer today can include a product demo, a whitepaper or a free report
4. Be sure you send these prospects to a designated landing page where they can register for the information by entering their first name and email address.

Newsletter
The easiest and most effective way to build loyalty and gain trust from your prospects is to establish your expertise. A newsletter sent by email offers you an excellent opportunity to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry by publishing regular articles on topics and trends in your area of expertise.

A newsletter is the perfect email marketing tool to inform and educate while building credibility for what you sell. Newsletters provide the content your target market wants - Give your prospects what they need to develop new skills or grow their business. The size and content in your newsletter depends on your financial and non-financial resources. It can be a clear and concise 500 word article focusing on a single topic that you write, or a complex collection of articles collected from different online content sites.

Re-purpose previous marketing content for your newsletter. Case studies, articles and blogs can all be highlighted in your newsletter.  Always include links to different sections of your website that are relevant to the content within your email and archive your newsletters on your website for later reference. Include links to your company blog and social media pages. Include links that are calls-to-action like “Schedule a call”.  Share icons such as “Email this article,” “Like this article on Facebook,” “Retweet this article” and strategically place them within your newsletter so readers can easily spread your content across their social media networks.

Offer emails
And that’s not all. Google states there are three core reasons as to why it prefers responsive design. In its official statement, Google explicitly says:  Using a single URL for a piece of content makes it easier for your users to interact with, share, and link to your content, and a single URL for the content helps Google’s algorithms assign the indexing properties for the content.

User yourself as a guide and ask yourself “Would I open and read this email?”  We all take but a few seconds to decide to read or delete.  Put yourself in your readers place and you will do well. 

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In addition to this blog, I maintain a radio show on BlogtalkRadio  and an online newslettervia paper.li.I have established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and  Yahoo.  I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and I have been contributing to the blogs Everything Email and emailmonday . My work has appeared in numerous publications and I have presented to groups such as The Breakfast Club of NJ and  PSG of Mercer County, NJ.

I am the president of Tabula Rosa Systems, a “best of breed” reseller of products for communications, email, network management software, security products and professional services.  We are currently developing an email IQ rating system, Netiquette IQ, which promotes the fundamentals outlined in my book.

Over the past twenty-five years, I have enjoyed a dynamic and successful career and have attained an extensive background in IT and electronic communications by selling and marketing within the information technology marketplace. Anyone who would like to review the book and have it posted on my blog or website, please contact me paul@netiquetteiq.com.