NAMA

Ok, so i wasnt really sure what NAMA was about, at first when I saw it was the topic for a blog, I thought I might have missed a lecture or two and missed a topic. So after a bit of research and help from google i discovered NAMA stands for National Asset Management Agency. Basically it means it is an asset management company dealing with assets tansferred from banks. Its not a bank in the fact that it will not be taking deposits from the public, NAMA will have loans on its books based on real physical assets.

It will buy all of the land and property development loans of the six Irish banks of covered by the State guarantee. The government hopes that by NAMA taking problem property loans off the hands of the banks, those institutions will be in a position where they can continue lending. So this means that NAMA will probably become the biggest landowner in Ireland.

(Source: Money Guide Ireland)

Online Adult Industry

I thought this topic was an unusal one to do as many people find it uncomfortable and obscene. I was shocked when I learned of the statistics of the online adult industry, some of which include:

• visits to pornographic sites have doubled between 2001 and 2005
• some sites have more than 50 million hits
• 6.5% of males using the internet spend neraly 6 hours a week ehgaging in cybersex.

There are 3 general cybersex categories which are recreational, sexually compulsive and at risk. For the category at risk, it can prove to be very damaging to their lives. There are a number of physical risks such as dry eyes, migraines, eating regularities and sleep disturbances. It has also been proven that using these sites can destroy marriages. A study of men who were shown pictures of playboy models had less marital love for their wives. i was extremely shocked by the statistics and study results. I don't agree with the online sex industry but feel if others want to see it then they should have the choice. The pornographic industry is huge and continues generate a vast revenue.

Social networks / social media

A virtual comunity is a gathering place for people and businesses that do not have a physical existence, they exist on the interent in various forms, chat rooms and websites. it includes social networking sites. There has been a significant growth in using social networking sites, according to weblogs cumulative, the number of people using them are doubling every 6 months. there are a number of social networking sites including bebo, facebook, myspace and second life, to name just a few. Almost everyone is on or has been on one or more of these sites. They're a great way to chat with friends you never get to see or who live in other countries, upload pictures and videos and play games. The downside for me is they're completely addictive. I have to check my facebook account regularly during the day, plus its a great way to avoid studying. Though many people are a lot worse than me and almost all their sociallising is done online which i don't think is a good thing. In the lecture on virtual communitites, I learned about a virtual community called second life which basically is built and based on real places and you can create a character and meet people and "socialise" in these places. I think this is a bit too strange for me, id prefer to go to the real place and meet real people.
Another form of a virtual community is a brand community. Many companies use them as part of their corporate strategy as it has a number of benefits to a business.

Search engine marketing

So what is search engine marketing? quite simply, its driving your targeted online traffic to your website. search engine marketing includes search engine optimisation and monitoring and pay per click campaigns.

To explain how search engines work, il take google as an example. Firstly, google analyses your site, then it builds a list of words and notes that were they were found and builds an index about your site based on its own system of weighting.
So when somone types a word or phrase into google, from the index google has built on your site, the link to your site is displayed on the left side of the google page, the sites most relevant to the search at the top, this is organic listing. so to be at the top of these searches, you need to use search engine optimisation.

Search engine optimisation is the process of designing and updating a website such that it shows up in organic listings for relevant user queries.
There are a number of optimisation do's and don'ts. The dont's include using hidden or invisible text, keyword stuffing (in alt tags, below footer), bounce pages or other cloaking activities, page jacking (plagerised content), link farms and link spam.
The optimisation do's include focusing on one or 2 keyphrases per page, but add as many as you can as google ignores meta keyword tags, regularly check your stats for popular phrases, make it text rich, avod multimedia.

So to make sure your using search engine optimisation to its fullest potential, ensure your website is search engine friendly, that is, the website uses valid, standards-compliant HTML and css
has text links to all of the pages on the website, (if your menu links are images, google cannot fread them), is usable and accessible, uses legible urls that match page names

you can measure your online success by visibility, traffic, conversions and the return on investment.

E business

Before I had started my E business module, ill admit I had expected it to be as tedious as some of the previous computer subjects I have had to undergo in the last few years in DKIT.

Yet I find this subject a lot more interesting and relevant to the course. Its of importance to any company today as it reduces costs and improves customer service. It will continue to grow and improve businesses in the future so its important to have an extensive knowledge of this subject.