Mediaboss Marketing

WASHINGTON & GENEVA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

The Internet Society today published the results of a study that demonstrates the far-reaching economic and societal benefits of establishing Internet Exchange Points (or IXPs) in emerging markets. The study, commissioned by the Internet Society and conducted by independent strategy and research consultancy, Analysys Mason, examined the critical cost and performance benefits of IXPs in Kenya and Nigeria two sub-Saharan countries that have been on the leading edge of Internet growth in Africa.

Analogous with the role that international airports play in airline traffic, IXPs serve as critical hubs for data traffic exchange in the global Internet infrastructure. Over 350 IXPs around the world enable local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Internet backbone carriers to efficiently and cost effectively exchange Internet traffic between them. Many emerging markets do not have well-established IXPs, forcing domestic Internet traffic onto long-distance international links, resulting in significantly higher costs and latency.

The new study quantifies for the first time how IXPs enable Kenya and Nigeria to save millions in telecommunications costs and raise additional revenues in these countries while simultaneously speeding local data exchange, and encouraging the development of locally hosted content and services. For example:

This study puts into clear context the commonly accepted but seldom quantified proposition that IXPs are essential for any country aspiring to tap into the global Internet economy, said Karen Rose, senior director of development strategy at the Internet Society. Offering more than just cost and performance benefits, well-run IXPs serve as a catalyst to dramatically enrich a countrys Internet ecosystem, opening a new world of possibilities with comparably minimal investment. We hope that this study will help inform the dialogue among government, business, and technology leaders of emerging countries still struggling with cost and bandwidth issues to show them, in no uncertain terms, the benefits IXPs can yield for developing the most fertile ground possible for Internet growth.

Michael Kende, Analysys Mason partner and lead author on the study, said, Thanks to the leadership of the Internet Society, this is a unique study that documents and quantifies the benefits of two growing and regionally important IXPs in sub-Saharan Africa. It demonstrates the central role these IXPs have had in developing the Internet ecosystems in each country and how they are paving the way for future growth, including for advanced services such as cloud applications.

Commenting on the study and the growth of the Internet in Africa, Fiona Asonga, chief executive officer of the Telecommunications Services Providers Association of Kenya (TESPOK), stated, "This year marks the 10th anniversary of KIXP and we are proud to have contributed to the tremendous growth of the Internet in Africa during that time. We are pleased that this independent study illustrates the practical value that KIXP currently brings to its members, as well as the important contributions it is making to the broader Internet economy in Kenya."

Muhammed Rudman, chief executive officer of the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), shared his thoughts on the future of the Internet in the region. He commented, "The mission of IXPN is to localize Internet traffic and reduce routing costs, thereby improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the Internet in Nigeria. At the same time, our eyes are very much set towards the future of the Internet in the region. I believe we have only scratched the surface of what IXPN will be able to do for the growth of the Internet in Africa."

The study was conducted as part of the Internet Societys Interconnection and Traffic Exchange Programme, which aims to foster robust, efficient, and cost-effective Internet interconnection environments in emerging economies, and in furtherance of the Internet Societys overall mission to promote the open development, evolution, and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world.

The full study is available for download at http://www.internetsociety.org/ixpimpact.

Originally posted here:
New Study Reveals How Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) Spur Internet Growth in Emerging Markets

PHOTO CALL: 2012 Lucille Lortel Awards Nominee Reception

By Krissie Fullerton 18 Apr 2012

The 2012 Lucille Lortel Award nominees were honored with an April 16 reception held at the Times Square Planet Hollywood.

Advertisement

The 27th annual Lortel Awards, celebrating Off-Broadway work, will be presented May 6 at the 7 PM at the Skirball Center.

Representatives of the Off-Broadway League, Actors' Equity Association, Stage Directors & Choreographers Society, the Lucille Lortel Foundation, in addition to theatre journalists and academics and other Off-Broadway professionals, serve on the Lortel Voting Committee. The Lucille Lortel Awards ceremony is produced by special arrangement with the Lucille Lortel Foundation.

The 2012 Lortel Award nominations follow:

Outstanding Play Blood and Gifts Produced by Lincoln Center Theater; Written by J. T. Rogers Milk Like Sugar Produced by Playwrights Horizons and Women's Project Theater; Written by Kirsten Greenidge Sons of the Prophet Produced by Roundabout Theatre Company; Written by Stephen Karam The Big Meal Produced by Playwrights Horizons; Written by Dan LeFranc The School For Lies Produced by Classic Stage Company; Written by David Ives

Outstanding Musical Once Produced by New York Theatre Workshop; Book by Enda Walsh, Music and Lyrics by Glen Hansard and Markta Irglov Queen of the Mist Produced by Transport Group; Words and Music by Michael John LaChiusa SILENCE! The Musical Produced by Victoria Lang, Rich Affannato, Donna Trinkoff in association with Scott Kirschenbaum, Theater Mogul, Kitefliers Studio and Terry Schnuck; Music and Lyrics by Jon Kaplan and Al Kaplan, Book by Hunter Bell, Adapted from the screenplay Silence! The Musical by Jon and Al Kaplan The Blue Flower Produced by Second Stage Theatre; By Jim Bauer and Ruth Bauer The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World Produced by Playwrights Horizons and New York Theatre Workshop; Book by Joy Gregory, Music by Gunnar Madsen, Lyrics by Joy Gregory and Gunnar Madsen, Story by Joy Gregory, Gunnar Madsen, and John Langs

Outstanding Revival Blood Knot Produced by Signature Theatre; Written by Athol Fugard The Lady from Dubuque Produced by Signature Theatre; Written by Edward Albee Look Back in Anger Produced by Roundabout Theatre Company; Written by John Osborne The Cherry Orchard Produced by Classic Stage Company; Written by Anton Chekhov, Translated by John Christopher Jones The Maids Produced by Red Bull Theater; Written by Jean Genet, Translated by Bernard Frechtman

Excerpt from:
PHOTO CALL: 2012 Lucille Lortel Awards Nominee Reception

Once again, webmasters are complaining about what may have been a major update from Google. Theyve taken to the Google Webmaster Help forums to express their grievances, although to be fair, its not all bad for everybody. When sites drop, others rise. Thats how it works.

Barry Schwartz, at Search Engine Roundtable, who wonders if it could be the overly SEO penalty Matt Cutts discussed at SXSW last month, points to 11 separate forum threads with complaints. Theres definitely something going on.

Of course, in these situations, the Panda update is always mentioned. Weve reached out to Google for more info. Sometimes they respond. Sometimes they dont. It will most likely be one of the generic we make changes every day kind of responses, and well probably have to wait until the end of April or the beginning of May to get the real list of changes Google has made.

The last time there was a known Panda update, Google went so far as to tweet about it. They know people want to know when this happens. That doesnt necessarily mean theyll tweet every time, but I wouldnt be surprised. This time, no tweet from Google so far.

For a refresher on the overly SEO penalty Schwartz speaks of, read the following:

Google Is Working On Making SEO Matter Less Google Webmaster Central Creator Talks Googles New Google Changes New Google Changes: Really A Matter Of Mom And Pop? SEO DOs And DONTS According To Google: Mixed Signals?

Other things have been costing sites lately. For one, Googles de-indexing of paid blog/link networks caused a lot of webmasters to get messages from Google about questionable links. This week, Google sent out messages to 20,000 sites informing them that they appeared to be hacked.

If youre rankings have fallen, one thing you may want to consider is taking authorship more seriously (and that includes Google+ engagement), though even that appears to be having some issues on the tracking side.

Last week, we spoke with Dani Horowitz whose site, DaniWeb, has been hit by Google, yet again, after recovering from multiple iterations of the Panda update.

Not only does Google make changes every day, it runs even more experiments, with subsets of users. Matt Cutts recently talked about how Google runs 20,000 search experiments a year.

The rest is here:
Major Google Update Suspected, Yet Again, By A Bunch Of Webmasters

Duane Forrester, the Bing Webmaster Tools senior program manager, recently unveiled a slew of new tools that can be found within the Bing Webmaster Tools interface. As Derek Edmond put it in his recap of the SES New York SEO Tools of the Trade session, what caught my eye was:

As an SEO, I find myself doing a lot of key phrase research and the tools of the trade seem like they change as fast as the search algorithms themselves. Over the years I've had the chance to get "down and dirty" with more than my fair share but also over that time more and more tools rely on data pulled directly from Google's AdWords Keyword Tool.

Now Googles keyword tool is a fine tool and has turned into the default for many an optimizer. I myself use it on a day-to-day basis for brief research (like keywords for a blog post). Its usable, but the numbers always seem off. I'm not sure if it's the rounding, the averages, the paid search data, or the fact that time and time again I see SEOs ignoring the match types, but every time I use it, I just feel a little like Google isnt giving me the data that I'm trying to see.

That's why my ears perked up when I heard about the new Bing Keyword Tool. Through Microsoft Ad Intelligence, MSN has been giving away some actual numbers for years. However that Excel plugin has always been buggy and has worked as often as it hasn't for me so I was excited to see what might come from a web interface.

Out of the box, here are the highlights of what you get from the new Bing Keyword Tool:

Admittedly there are some really cool things here and as it's in "Beta", I'm hopeful that there are improvements still to come. It's very nice to see the actual number of queries a term gets and to sort by these as well.

One thing you should familiarize yourself with as you start to use this tool is the "Strict Mode" checkbox. I like it's placement in the interface as it stands out more than Google's "Match Type" menu but the functionality here is slightly different.

If you select the Strict Mode option, it will filter the results to show you only query volumes explicit to the keyword or phrase, excluding phrases which may include the original keyword.

For example, if you type in cars, and leave strict unchecked, the total query volume shown for the phrase cars shows an aggregate number inclusive of all phrases containing the word cars.

Read more:
Bing Keyword Research Tool: Highlights & Limitations

Earlier, we reported that author stats in Webmaster Tools have gone MIA. Its missing because of a bug.

A Google spokesperson tells WebProNews, Weve currently disabled the experimental Author stats feature in Webmaster Tools Labs as we work to fix a bug in the way stats are attributed.

There were some complaints about the features disappearance in the comments section of a Google blog post discussing rich snippets updates. One reader wrote:

I went to check my Author Stats, under the Labs tab in Google Webmaster Tools. GONE!

Anyone else?

In the past, they only gave me credit for about 50% of the pages that I have fixed up with Google-required special authorship tags, according to their specifications.

At the bottom of the Labs page, their disclaimer prevails

Webmaster Tools Labs is a testing ground for experimental features that arent quite ready for primetime (sic). They may change, break or DISAPPEAR AT ANY TIME.

Nothing about the probably of return, however. (sic)

The timing of this was rather coincidental for me, as I just wrote a long piece about the benefits of authorship (for both users and Google), and talked about the feature.

View original post here:
Google Author Stats In Webmaster Tools Disabled Due To Bug