Patrick Oak's Blog

Making calls on your mobile phone can get quite expensive, especially when calling internationally.

Fortunately, there are now a number of great mobile VoIP services that make international calling from mobile phones dirt cheap.

With the mobile internet attracting more and more attention and use, it's getting very difficult for online businesses to ignore the world of mobile.

SMS (Short Message Service) is the technology behind text messaging and even though it's far from being the most cutting-edge mobile technology, it's often the first one companies will experiment with because it's the most widely-used. Over 200 billion SMS messages were sent in 2007.

Community features, while not right for everyone, can be a useful way for many online publishers to create more loyalty amongst users and keep them hanging around longer.

While social networks and blogs are all the rage, one shouldn't forget about message boards and chat when considering community.

Monetizing a blog can be hard. If you're using WordPress, eliminate some of the time you're probably spending managing your ads so that you can focus on producing great content and finding ways to better monetize that content.

Here are 6 WordPress plugins to help you do just that.

Earlier this week E-consultancy's own Drama 2.0 discussed current click fraud rates with PPC ad programs.

As an active user of PPC marketing, I wanted to chime in with my strategy for dealing with the issue.

On Saturday, Scott Brave of The E-Commerce Times posted a great article about seven deadly consumer biases that impact customer ratings and reviews on etailer websites.

As the world gears up for a global recession, etailers are starting to feel the pinch.

Last week, E-consultancy's Editor in Chief Chris Lake suggested 20 ways etailers can delight their customers to remain successful in these tough times.

While it's widely accepted that advertising on social networks can be a mixed bag in terms of results; for certain types of campaigns, it may be worth giving a shot.

If you're interested in dipping your toes in social network advertising, here's a list of the ways you can reach users on social networks.

Last week I received an email from Google that was sent to AdSense publishers.

It addressed concerns they may have about the economic situation.

This past weekend, the New York Times published an interesting article.

In it, Matt Richtel and Ashlee Vance discussed the computer industry's plans to offer PCs that boot up more quickly.