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Three Great Ways To Get Your Website Banned From Search Engines

By Ricky Weber in Featured

A large amount of Internet users come to their computer looking for specific information, and most of the time they will use a search engine to find it. It stands to reason, therefore, that if you have a website related to their topic of interest, you can benefit by having your own web pages show up at the top for what they are searching for.

However, if you commit any one of these following three search engine optimization sins, you run the risk of having your website deleted from the search engine listings and you minimize the amount of Internet users that your website will be visible to.

Since search engines first acquired their widespread popularity, people have been trying to figure out the ways to outsmart them, and today there is a reliable list of the strategies that will most definitely get your website banned from the search listings. Some of these techniques might have experienced limited success in the earlier days of the Internet, but today using any of the following three techniques can do much more harm than good, and they should be avoided like the plague.

The first way that you can get banned from the search engines is to create something called a doorway page. This is when you build a web page filled with keywords about one topic in order to garner a good listing in the search engines about that topic, but then automatically redirect the visitor to a different website with a totally unrelated topic. This is a practice that makes a person’s Internet viewing experience unpleasant, and it is easy to understand why such behavior can get you banned from the search listings.

The second way to prevent your website from being listed in the search engines is to use invisible text on your web pages, where you set the font color the same as the background color and fill it with keywords that are only visible to search engines but not to people. This trick is easy to spot, and it will not be of any real benefit to your website if you try and use it.

The third way to get your website banned is something called keyword stuffing, where you create a web page filled with keywords for the search engines but no real content for your visitors. You can tell that such a behavior is ethically questionable, and while it might work for a short time, the long-term losses it can cause means that it is not worth doing.

It is important to view your search engine ranking with a long-term perspective, instead of looking for a quick search engine optimization shortcut that can end up doing damage. Since having a high ranking for a competitive and popular keyword can deliver a large amount of visitors to your website, make sure you take the time to do it right so that you can reap the rewards.

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Do you want to increase the search engine rankings of your website and earn much more money? Go to www.NinjaSeoMethods.com and discover the top three “must have” search engine optimization tools that will help you to skyrocket the success of your business in record time!

Phishing – Don’t Get Caught

By Chris Holgate in Featured

Last year the major financial institutions lost billions refunding customers who had suffered financial loss after being tricked into giving out their bank account details to online thieves by using a method known as ‘phishing.’ I thought that it might be an idea for me to concentrate this week on what to look out for when trying to identify a fraudulent e-mail, although most of them are so obvious that you shouldn’t need too much help identifying them.

I also wanted to publish this guide without meaning to sound harsh as I honestly don’t think that these customers should be reimbursed by their banks when they are tricked because at the end of the day it will be costing customers such as myself – It isn’t the fault of the financial institutions that you were silly enough to give a fraudster all your bank account details so surely they shouldn’t take it upon themselves to pass the costs on to their other more alert customers. I personally think that there should be more education on the matter to stop people from making these mistakes in the first place and that before you sign up for an Internet Banking service that you agree to their terms and conditions that insist that you will show due diligence.

The majority of ‘phishing’ e-mails will appear to be sent from a particular company and will usually say that they require you to confirm some account information and will provide you with a hyperlink to click on. When you click on this link you are taken to a spoof site that will have been made to look like the website of the company that the e-mail claimed to have been sent from. You then merely fill out all of your security details as requested by the e-mail which the website will then pass along to the fraudster who will then raid your account. I find it quite concerning that this money could then be used to invest in further illegal activities.

There are several rules that you can use to protect yourself against phishing:

- Treat all e-mails with a reasonable degree of suspicion; the senders address can be forged and the e-mail header can be manipulated to disguise its true origin.

- Rather than using the link provided in the e-mail to get to the page they’re requesting type the URL directly into your browser. Rather than clicking on a link in an e-mail claiming to be from Barclays for example you should just open your browser and type www.barclays.com into the address bar.

- Never send personal or financial information to any one via email

- Regularly log into your online accounts to check for any fraudulent activity and scrutinize your statements to ensure all transactions are legitimate.

- Do continually update your Operating System, ensure that you have installed up-to date anti-virus software, Spyware software and a firewall and make sure you regularly use this software to run a check on your system.

If someone came up to you in the street dressed as a banker and asked you to confirm all your bank account details you obviously wouldn’t do it

It’s amazing how far a little common sense in this world can get you but unfortunately with many users this common sense goes straight out the window as soon as they sit in front of a computer! The Internet is technically one of the most secure areas to conduct financial transactions but the human factor often lets it down

Follow the points above and you can be sure that you’ll be kept safe.

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Chris Holgate writes a weekly article of all things tech related. He is a director and copywriter of the online computer consumables business Refresh Cartridges www.refreshcartridges.co.uk. An archive of the articles can be found at www.computerarticles.co.uk.

Business Startup Costs: What Expenses Are Involved Online?

By Cynthia Minnaar in Featured

Although you may have funds available you still want to pay attention to your business startup costs when you first get your Internet business going. Something that is great about starting an online business is how little you actually have to pay.

There are Internet marketers who earn over $1 million a year and brag about only spending about $.10 a month per website. These same individuals also spend very little money on their auto-responders.

These are two of the primary expenses you will need when you first get started. Having your own website and auto-responder are important regardless of the business model that you choose to join.

For example, affiliate marketers are given a website they can use to sell their products from. Those who build their own websites are the most successful people in affiliate marketing.

Ideally what you want to do is create a website and either review your affiliate product or pre-sell it to your website visitor. Then you include links to your affiliate sales page where your traffic is sent to make purchases.

Website hosting is cheap today but you still want to go with a quality company. Host Gator and BlueHost are hosting companies that are very inexpensive.

It costs less than $10 a month to host a website. You can also add new websites and often are not billed anything extra to host those.

A business tool you will need to use is an auto-responder. An auto-responder is where you store your prospects name and email address.

Take a look at any well designed website and you will see the Internet marketer using a sign up form to capture your contact information. As these names and email addresses are stored in an auto-responder you can follow up with them to make sales in the future.

A good auto-responder will cost you a little under $20 a month. You can build multiple lists in your auto-responder. It is a very hands-off way to keep in contact with your prospects and you can also pre-program your auto-responder to send out messages in the future.

You may want to outsource some aspects of it when you first get started depending on the type of business you are in. There is inexpensive labor available to do everything from designing and building your website to writing fresh content articles for it.

These are a few things to keep in mind regarding Internet business startup costs. The good news is it will not take very much money for you to get going.

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Cynthia Minnaar works full-time from home and is the owner of www.cyns-home-biz.com She invites you to visit her site for a variety of internet business startup ideas. Please click here: www.cyns-home-biz.com.

How To Check Search Engine Ranking Strategies

By Anthony Harris in Featured

Your search engine ranking is the position of your website on any particular search engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc).

Because search engines favor the high-ranking sites, you need to check your search engine ranking continuously and find ways to improve your ranking. There are many free tools that can allow you to do this. Page ranks range from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest (and virtually impossible to achieve). Even a rank of 1 on Google is considered high.

In order to obtain a high search engine rank, you need to employ SEO (search engine optimization) techniques. And this can take a significant amount of time and/or money depending on whether or not you do it yourself of hire someone else to do it. SEO software is also a viable option to consider.

If you’ve decided that you want to be the one to check your search engine ranking yourself, and to take care of the SEO for your website, you’ll need to make a daily habit of performing activities that build incoming links to your website and using the right keywords. Incoming links greatly influence your page ranking. If you can get a high-ranking site to link to your website, you will bypass a great deal of your competition.

However, obtaining these links can often take quite a bit of time and patience. There are several ways to go about this. You can write to other webmasters and ask them to link to you. You can submit your site to online directories. You can do article marketing. You can use a social bookmarking strategy. The list goes on and on. But the most important concept of all is that the information you offer on your site must be valuable. It is much easier to obtain links to your site when you are offering information that your visitors (or other webmasters) find valuable.

Keyword optimizing your site is also part of the SEO strategy, although less important than incoming links. The best ways to go about using the right keywords is to use the free keyword tools offered by all of the search engines. These free keyword tools tell you exactly what people are searching for on the internet.

Check out the words that pertain to the industry and use these words on your website. If you’re just starting out, go with very detailed keywords and not the general highly-searched and highly competitive ones. It’s estimated that about 60% of searches online consist of two to three keywords so try to stick with phrases that fit that. Make sure you use your keyword phrases in important places on your website like titles, headings, sub-headings, etc.

Whether you manage to optimize your website on your own, with the help of a consultant or agency, or with software programs to check search engine ranking, you will see that your position continues to climb and this will bring in more traffic to your website.

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Anthony Harris is an expert online marketer, trainer, and teacher. Head here to www.theheavyhitters.info to discover how to get up to 19 checks per month, earn upwards of $519.17 per day, make more than a full time income in your online home business in 60 days or less.

Top 5 Tips to Grow Your Social Media Tribe – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Jack Harold in Featured

In 2010, social media became an integral part of most businesses many of which committed to spend a significant portion of their marketing efforts on social media engagement. In 2011, this trend will only continue as businesses realize that it can naturally result in more buzz, leads and therefore, more sales!

You may have already established a social media presence for your business. However, you – like many others – may be facing the challenge of getting loyal followers and fans. You want to grow your authority and influence in the social networks. You want to earn the trust and interest of your blog visitors, but where do you begin?

Okay, so now that the scene has been set, let’s dive in. Listed below are 5 great tips that I have been using to grow my tribe of followers and fans. Pretty successful so far. My influence now extends beyond my blog and I am actively engaging my followers and fans on a myriad of social media platforms. How do I achieve that?

Provide Exclusive and Unique Content

The number 1 bait to attract visitors to your blog or website is to have compelling content. Personally, I spend around an hour a day to update my blog with fresh, great content. Every single day – without fail. That is the only way to satisfy my tribe which is always thirsty for knowledge. With a little creativity, you can even use premium content as a means of getting fans to “like” you on Facebook. I also use controversy to generate lots of buzz and interactions on my blog. Controversial blog posts usually get viral very rapidly. Controversy sparks emotions and makes it compelling to share that sparked emotion with others. If you can do it correctly, it will create a flood of new visitors and readers for your post. However, be mentally prepared for the backlash when people start to debate on the points you have made.

Webstock: An Extraordinary (Un)Conference

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

I recently had an argument with a fellow non-New Zealander who disagreed with me about how innovative New Zealanders are.

It went something like this:

Me: “Look at that, she’s making a business from broken china. I love how innovative kiwis are.”

Him: “No they’re not.

Me: “Yes they are”.

Him. “They *think* they are, but they’re not.”

Me: “Two words for you: Number 8 Wire.”

Him: “That’s three words.”

Me: “Shut up.”

Him: “Kiwis are too isolated to be innovative.”

Me: “That’s total crap! How the heck do you think they became so innovative? They were forced to innovate because of tyranny of distance, to quote Tim Finn.”

Him: “Who’s Tim Finn?”

Me: “Please tell me you’re joking.”

Him: “Is that someone you met on Twitter?”

Me: “#%%**&^!!”

Him: “Ok, so name some innovations that came from New Zealand.”

Me: “I already did.”

Him: “Something not related to farming.”

Me: “SilverStripe. Weta Workshops…”

Him: “Not…”

Me: “The first iPhone app in the world.”

Him: “I didn’t…”

Me: “Jet boats… bungy jumping… Pavlova.”

Him: “That’s not an innovation, that’s a dessert”.

Me: “A very innovative and complex dessert”.

Him: “You’re kidding.”

Me: “Xero software… America’s Cup yachts.”

Him: “You’re forgetting the long drop toilet.”

Me: “The long drop toilet….”

Him: “Oh come on!”

Me: “Ski planes, egg beaters and… ooh! I know – Webstock.”

Him: “Ok, fine. You win.”

And that’s pretty much why I’m here in Wellington this week. Webstock is as much a celebration of kiwi ingenuity and bravado as it is a web conference.

As I recently learned from the article Raising Webstock, the whole she-bang started out as a bunch of geeks meeting at the library to discuss web standards. This progressed into regular gigs featuring guest speakers, which in turn led to discussions about organizing a proper web conference to be held in New Zealand. But organizers Mike Brown and Natasha Lampard were insistent that it should be less of a formal conference and more of a geek love-in where they could meet and mingle with Internet legends. Rejecting advice from important conference types, in true Kiwi spirit, they forged ahead with their ingenious plan.

According to legend (well @hadyngreen anyway) during discussions over a few wines one night, Natasha announced:

“F*ck it, let’s get Tim Berners-Lee!”

And get him they did. Berners-Lee opened the inaugral Webstock in 2006 via video link up and the rest is history. Serendipity may have played a role, but so did balls. This joyous combination has created the world’s best (un)conference that is now in its 6th year.

I don’t say *world’s best* lightly. I’ve attended bags of web conferences and I can assure you that Webstock is the finest of them all. You don’t attract speakers like Amanda Palmer, John Gruber, Ze Frank, Bruce Sterling and Merlin Mann without a radical reputation. And you don’t get speakers like David Recordon, Tom Coates, Amy Hoy and Michael Lopp coming back year after year unless you offer an incredible experience.

And it’s the experience of attending that I get the most from Webstock. Not so much the content of the presentations, although they are usually incredibly inspiring. But no, it’s the thrill of being part of something extraordinary that I cherish the most about Webstock. It’s the only conference I know of where the buzz starts at least a month early – or at least that’s when I feel the need to create a dedicated TweetDeck column for the #webstock hashtag.

Everything about Webstock screams Geek Cool. The barista coffee bar on site, the all-you-can-eat Kapiti icecreams, the grapefruit and lemon Frujus (a new addition for 2011), the Lego building stations, the massage chairs, the luxurious swag, the trading card game, not to mention the incredible after (and after-after) parties. Absolutely no corners are cut for this event and attendees couldn’t be happier. I’ve seen complete strangers high-five each other in the street when they spot matching Webstock gear.

This year’s programme reads like geek viagra. To top off the impressive speaker list, Mike and Natasha have somehow convinced Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley to not only deliver presentations, but also to provide a private concert *just* for Webstockers at the Friday evening wrap party. News of this was enough to make me pay a change-fee penalty and switch my flight home to Saturday.

Such is the prize of being a Webstocker that two Aussie IT guys, desperate to attend after the 2011 event had sold out, turned to begging online this week for help in sourcing the elusive golden tickets.

I feel their pain. I truly didn’t understand how very much Webstock inspires me until I had to miss 2010. I could only watch jealously from afar, scanning the tweetstream, trying to understand the back channel jokes, hanging out for twitpics from the ONYAs, oohing and aahing at the dodgy YouTube version of the amazing $40K light show I’d missed. I was absolutely GUTTED not to be there. And I think my level of guttedness made me love Webstock even more.

So hand me the pavlova – I’m back for the love-in.

High Search Engine Ranking Optimization: Top Google Website Ranking

By Peter Nisbet in Featured

Check out the title of this article: ‘High Search Engine Ranking Optimization’, then a colon followed by ‘Top Google Website Ranking’. When I first used the term ‘ranking’ with reference to search engine listing positions, I was cried down by those ‘in the know’ because ‘ranking’ and ‘listing’ do not mean the same thing. Know what? I didn’t care because the people using the terms didn’t know that and it’s those I want to read my articles.

I found that stating the titles of my articles as I have done above gets me better listings for them on Google than if I focused only on the first or second part of that title. That benefits both me and the article directory. The title is legal and acceptable to article directories, and enables me to make good use of the best keywords I have found through my keyword research. If you find the two best, why use only one? Lesson #1: You should do the same!

The point is that not too long after these know-alls made their comments, my website was listed higher on Google and Yahoo than theirs were. So let them bleat and shout, but what counts for me are results and not claims or complaints about doing things right. I am going to give you some insight here into why you should not just do what others tell you to do, but should do what you find works for you. This is all legal, and no ‘black hat.’

Googlebot is Google’s ‘spider’ and it works by requesting the URL of the page it is to scan. It finds that URL from links on other web pages (websites, article directories, social networking, forums, etc), from URLs submitted via Google Webmaster Tools, or from a link on your own website.

Google lists web ‘pages’, not web ‘sites’ or domains.

When it reaches a web page it first removes the links on that page for further scanning. The page is then sent to Google’s indexing software that indexes it according to a large number of specific factors. There are algorithms that check semantic relevance to the search term used by Google’s user (LSI algorithm), Google PageRank (based on links back to the web page) and all the other factors that lead to high search engine optimization.

You will find it more difficult to get a top Google website ranking if you don’t understand how Google works, and how to take advantage of your knowledge. Knowledge is king, as they say, and knowing how Google works is one major step to that throne.

The links may then be scanned to find more pages either within your website for internal links, or within other websites for external links. By arranging for your links to be seen ‘last’ by Googlebot, it can focus on the text of your page first. Many have berated and ridiculed me for arranging my web pages and links that way, but it works!

Visitors see the links in my left hand navigation, but Googlebot finds them at the end of the page HTML. I have a trick to achieve that.

I have been ridiculed for more of my ideas, such as that the Google ‘nofollow’ attribute stops search engines visiting links. They all claim that it means only that the search engine algorithm will not give PageRank points to such pages. So much is obvious, because that was the intention of Matt Cutts who designed the attribute. However, Google Webmaster Central states:

“In general, we don’t follow them. This means that Google does not transfer PageRank or anchor text across these links. Essentially, using nofollow causes us to drop the target links from our overall graph of the web. However, the target pages may still appear in our index if other sites link to them without using nofollow, or if the URLs are submitted to Google in a Sitemap.”

In other words, if you want Google to see your text rather than links, by adding the ‘nofollow’ attribute to these links you can stop Google following them, and focus instead on your content. There are situations where this is a very useful attribute to use to enable you to get a top search engine ranking. You can also use this attribute to maximize the Google PageRank measurement for any page you want – I generally focus on my Home Page. Get a high listing with that and visitors will easily find the other pages.

There are many other ways in which you can manipulate the way Google works for high search engine ranking optimization and a consequent top Google website ranking.

These are only two of dozens of white hat legal SEO tricks you can use to take advantage of the way Googlebot works in practice rather than what others will claim.

It is always best to carry out your own testing and acting on the basis of your results. Perhaps equally high listings on Google can be attained without doing these things, but these are what my tests have shown me to work, and I have yet to read about Google stating definitively that they are wrong.

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More information on how Pete used his knowledge of how Google works to get a top Google website ranking for pages on his first three websites can be found on www.onlinenetincome.com/how-google-works.html where you also find out how you can achieve high search engine ranking optimization for your web pages.

The 3 Big Reasons Why Minisites Still Outsell Social Networking Sites

By Ian Greenwood in Featured

Today on the net there’s huge interest around social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter. It seems that anyone, who is anyone, has an account and is tweeting or being friends. However, there is something that your social networking page wont do as well as a traditional sales minisite… and that is sell!

There are several reasons why minisites are still way ahead in the Internet selling world. These powerful features mean that, when it comes to selling on the Internet, the single page minisite still outsells social media. This is why you really need to weigh up the pros and cons of the minisite against the time you spend on the social media sites. You need to ask, “Would this time be better spent developing a sales minisite to present your sales message online?”

So, here are the top 3 reasons why the single page minisite still outsells the mighty social media giants!

1. Single Purpose
A social media page is there to present information, and it does this in several different ways. You may have friends, comments, posts, tweets, video, invitations, etc – For the media page, this is how you communicate with others on the site.

All this activity helps your readers hang around your page, and read your information. You can clearly see from this how a sales message could easily get lost. It’s just another message in the constant steam of thousands of other tweets, posts video and content.

Conversely, the single page sales site only has one focus, and that is to push your sales copy. This focused marketing gives the sales minisite a huge ability way above it’s simple construction or small size. Everything on the minisite’s single page is designed to support the purpose of the sales message – that is, to get that buying click from the reader.

2. Not in a Buying Mind
If someone comes to your minisite they are looking for your pitch. They know exactly what they’ll be reading when they land on your sales site – that’s right, they will be sold to! They are expecting to see what your product is about, and if it can solve their problem. This means that when someone finds your sales site they are more likely to be in a buying fame of mind.

Contrast this with the social networking site where it’s common practice to have no sales message at all. When was the last time you went to Twitter or Facebook to buy something? This is only one reason why you really can’t pitch effectively on your social networking page. Your followers or friends are there to mix and socialize. Not buy your latest product!

It’s like being invited to go to dinner with a friend. When you get there you are subjected to a pitch to try to sell you a new watch. Are you really interested? Would you rather he just stopped and chatted to you like a friend would? Sales pitches on social media is just is the wrong message at the wrong time.

3. Only One Page
Social networking sites, by their nature, will have multiple pages covering different subjects. It’s common for readers to click between pages while following links, or themes, through the content. This is great for browsing, but would be disastrous for a sales page.

The single page format of the minisite means that when a reader lands on the sales page they don’t need to navigate away from that page. Everything you need to see is posted right there on that one page. They don’t need to make decisions about where to go next, or which link to click on.

On a minisite you are in control, and the reader follows your message through, in the intended sequence. This is the primary reason why minisites continue to outsell social networking sites.

So, if you have been tempted to transfer your selling from minisites to social media pages on the back of all the Internet hype then think again! This step could seriously damage your ability to sell.

The real way to Internet marketing success is to use social media pages, and sales minisites, together. The way to do this is to use your social media pages to pre-qualify your readers and then invite them to read your sales message on your minisite.

This will ensure that the visitors that land on your sales minisite are those that are most interested in your message, and your product. This ultra targeted traffic will automatically translate to more sales, and to higher profits.

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Get some expert coaching for your minisite project! Ian Greenwood teaches the full process of minisite building in his step by step video course Creating Websites That Sell. He has just released a full update of the course, and you can snap it up on the ‘special release offer’ saving you over 35%. This special discount is limited, so you need to go now! Get all the details and see a full video preview at www.BuildWebsitesThatSell.com.

Top 14 Benefits of Social Media Marketing

By Wendy Suto in Featured

There’s a lot of fuss surrounding social media these days. If you still haven’t jumped on the bandwagon and aren’t sure why so many people are making such a big deal about it, here are 14 benefits of social media for your business and you from Success magazine.

For Business:

Establish a Brand and Raise Awareness

Since the majority of the population is already visiting social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, getting your brand name all over those networks can help let people know that you’re around. If you have yet to create a company image online, social networks are the place to do it.

Create a fun YouTube video that entertains and informs. Funny videos tend to make their way around the Internet a lot faster than any other kind, so when making a video, keep in mind that you want it to be interesting enough for your target audience to want to share. Using Facebook and Twitter to create a fun online community that your customers will want to visit will boost brand loyalty and drive traffic to your Website, allowing you the chance to make more online sales.

Facebook rejoices at Mubarak departure?

By John Sylvester in Featured

It is  being claimed throughout Google News that the fireworks that lit Cairo’s skies and the joyous tears of the protesters that ended 30 years of despotic power of President Hosni Mubarak, is all down to Facebook.

On Friday, President Hosni Mubarak stepped down as Egypt’s after widespread anti-government demonstrations. The country is now in the control of the armed forces. US President Barack Obama called Egypt an “inspiration”, and said that “Egypt will never be the same again”.

However, the advocates of social media quickly claimed victory for themselves, in that social media had “helped build an international community of support for the Egyptians” and was somehow instrumental in bringing about an end to Mubarak’s presidency.

Wael Ghonim, Google’s marketing manager, led the charge with: “They lied at us, told us Egypt died 30 years ago, but millions of Egyptians decided to search and they found their country in 18 days,” he wrote on Twitter, while a New York City-based digital strategist opined that: “Social media was a driving force in the revolution.” Apparently, Mr Ghonim dubbed it “Egypt 2.0″ in a cliche delivered in an interview to CNN.

Meanwhile, CompterWorld chimed in with the headline: “How Facebook Toppled Hosni Mubarak” and that in a battle with the dictator of the largest nation in the Middle East, “it took Facebook 18 days to help topple the Mubarak regime in Egypt”.

But doesn’t this sound all too obsessive? Not according to some, as ComputerWorld continued with its ruminations: “The significance of social media isn’t lost among political and military observers, as Facebook served as the key tool used by protesters to organise huge, effective protests.”

In another article from the same source, it seems as if another writer held the voice of the opposition to these far-flung claims in: “Is the role of social media in Egypt being overstated?” In this article he went on to explain that Facebook in Egypt is extremely small, about 5.2 million users, or less than 7 out of every 100, while only about 31% of Egyptians who have internet access have a Facebook account. So, a minority of educated Egyptians changed the face of a nation and brought about democracy. Hardly.

I had always thought that Facebook was merely a communications tool and not one that can claim to be the mastermind behind toppling repressive regimes. And while social media certainly played a dissenting role in disseminating information on the end of the Mubarak era to the rest of the world, and amplified what was going on, the idea that “the combination of Facebook, Twitter and mobile phones left Mubarak and his security forces powerless to stop the protests,” is simply too fantastic a statement to take it seriously.

Mr Ghonim, perhaps, was in a state of fevered intoxication when, in a conversation with CNN he claimed that, “Social media brought democracy, at least for now, to Egypt.” Democracy? But Egypt is in the hands of the military, if the mainstream media have any right of voice in this.

Robert Fisk, a staff writer for The Independent newspaper, who has been covering Egyptian political affairs since 1976, writes: “History may later decide that the army’s lack of faith in Mubarak effectively lost his presidency after three decades of dictatorship, secret police torture and government corruption.” He continues: “The chains which bound the military to the corruption of Mubarak’s regime were real. Are they to stand by democracy – or cement a new Mubarak regime?…As yesterday afternoon’s events proved all too clearly, it was the senior generals – who enjoy the luxury of hotel chains, shopping malls, real estate and banking concessions from the same corrupt regime – who permitted Mubarak to survive.”

Predictably, Mashable weighed in with: “Egyptian president steps down amidst groundbreaking digital revolution” and led into the piece with: “From the beginning, the revolution in Egypt was propelled by the use of social media…Subsequently, the government blocked Facebook and Twitter and eventually shut down internet access completely…For perhaps one of the first times in history, history itself has been recorded instantaneously, as reporters took to Twitter to share 140-character updates…Images of the turmoil spread around the world via Flickr and Youtube, too. Al Jazeera made its images available by a Creative Commons license and its work reached an even broader audience around the world.”

Well, perhaps, but the claims that social media has somehow usurped this tyrant and brought “democracy” to the Middle East, sounds to me just quaintly absurd.

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