Sandor Panton of Top5Jamaica.com, in association with the Gleaner Online, guides you through what's new, cool and interesting on the Internet. From Jamaica to the wider Caribbean and the rest of the World, this is the 'Week on the Web'.
WITH SUMMER almost here, and a fresh batch of high school, college and university graduates about to hit the job market, Jamaica's unfortunate reality is that there are not enough quality jobs for these graduates. The Internet holds many hidden treasures, not just as a resource for researching projects or downloading music, but also as an avenue to self-employment.
If you've been job searching for a while and can't find the job of your dreams, I encourage you to look into some of these career options which are specific to the Internet:
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - if you can figure out what it takes to get a webpage to be on the first page of Google or Yahoo when you search for a particular word or phrase, you could make a LOT of money.
Internet Marketing - traditional marketers know their way around marketing for the real/offline world. With the advent of the Internet, the need for individuals who know and understand new media marketing has grown exponentially in developing countries. Eventually, for Jamaica, it will be the same.
Content writing - did you know that there are companies and individuals who will pay you in US$ to write articles for their websites?
Considering any of the options above will ultimately allow you to look beyond the realm of having the typical nine to five job, and eventually having a certain level of independence from any negative trends associated with the Jamaican economy.
INTERNET MARKETING JARGON PART 2
Incentivised traffic - visitors to a specific website who are there only because they have or will receive some form of compensation for viewing it.
Mousetrapping - a controversial technique where the user is prevented from leaving a particular webpage or website. It usually involves either the use of a script to disable the 'Back' button of the user's browser window, or the generation of repeated pop-up windows if the user attempts to close the original browser window.
Pass-along rate - a measure of how viral a particular message is; it focuses on the percentage of people who forward or 'pass along' a specific email, message or file.
ROS - acronym for 'run of site'; a situation where a particular banner or text advertisement is displayed on every page across a specific website.
Stickiness - a measure which focuses on the average length of time that a visitor will spend on a website.
Websites of the Week
http://www.lovelyjamaica.com - a comprehensive online gallery of photographs taken at various locations across the island.
http://tools.google.com/gapminder/ - Google Gapminder is a new free online application courtesy of Google and gapminer.org. It allows you to visually compare countries (including Jamaica) over time using the World Bank's development indicators.
