Have you ever come across text that is littered with acronyms and jargon, that is just incomprehensible and dense?

Acronyms and abbreviations can be especially difficult to decipher when you are reading text that is specific to a field or niche that you aren’t very familiar with.

HTML Abbreviations

Luckily, HTML allows you to specify the definition of a word without messing up your presentation.

Abbreviation tags are very simple; there’s the tag, <abbr>, the definition, title=”meaning of the term goes here,” the word you are defining, and the closing tag, </abbr>. Here are some examples:

And the results:

SCUBA diving lets you dive to much deeper levels than snorkeling.

NASA announced a new space capsule today.

So now you can scrub your XHTML + XML with SOAP and AJAX and people will actually know what you’re talking about!

DiamondLime is a year old today. Hurray!

It’s been quite a year. DiamondLime is on it’s third design (which I’m not completely happy with yet) and second blogging system. I’ve written 67 posts, or about one every 5.45 days. I have moved, graduated, and started a full-time job, and I will be moving again in the next few weeks.

I’m excited for the future, too. I “get” this blogging thing better, I have some real work under my belt that I can show off, and I have some neat-o projects to work on.

Hopefully DiamondLime and The Lime Blog will continue to become more useful, interesting, and entertaining as time goes on.

When you buy something that is expensive, difficult to research, quickly outdated, or that you don’t truly need, you often feel a twinge of regret or doubt about your decision—did I really get the best deal? Was this the correct product for me? Will I need to buy the new model soon? Could I have done without this? This is called buyer’s remorse.

Overcoming Buyer’s Remorse

As a customer, there are certain purchases that you will make where you will feel buyer’s remorse. Chances are good that if you did your homework, you don’t need to feel this way. Otherwise, if there is a good reason for your remorse, such as new information about the transaction, it might actually be a good thing that will motivate you to seek corrective action. In either case, carefully review the information you have—what is it that made you choose to buy? What were your concerns? Has anything changed?

Marketing and Buyer’s Remorse

As long as you aren’t marketing a product or service that people don’t truly need, it’s ok for you to help your customers overcome their buyer’s remorse. It’s also a very powerful marketing tactic. For example, I recently subscribed to BusinessWeek magazine. On my first issue, I received the following note printed on the wrapper that was added to the normal cover:

You made a smart decision to subscribe.

Welcome to BusinessWeek — The world’s leading business magazine. We deliver the insight, information, and inspiration you need to make smarter decisions about business, finance, and your career. As a subscriber, you also have access to our broad network of business resources.

By emphasizing the benefits I would receive from my decision, BusinessWeek is trying to help me feel good about the decision I made and to quiet the dissonance I may feel as a consumer.

As a marketer, you can help your customers feel better about the purchase they made with you by re-emphasizing the benefits of your product or service. The good feelings your customers will have can reduce returns and late payments and increase positive word of mouth for your product.

Do you have any experiences where a company (un)successfully managed your buyer’s remorse?

I receive Marketing Vox’s Daily E-mail Newsletter—which is a great source of Internet marketing news—and I recently read this article: Search Marketers Wear Many Hats.

Search Marketers Wear Many Hats

I think it would be more correct to say “Internet marketers wear many hats.” Search engine marketing, paid search advertising, web site design, email marketing, etc., are all part of the broader Internet marketing category—they’re all methods for increasing traffic and sales online.

But lexical issues aside, I agree with this statement—all of the Internet marketers I know perform at least three of the functions listed in this article.

Is Wearing Many Hats Bad?

Well, yes and no.

Being spread among so many different responsibilities makes it more difficult to focus laser-like on any one thing at a time. It’s difficult to become a master of all the different tasks that are involved. It can be a pretty steep learning curve.

However, I think that it is possible to master all of the necessary skills. Scheduling, focus, and discipline can overcome the distraction factors.

I also think that wearing many hats is often part of the success of online campaigns—it allows for an over-arching, coordinated strategy.

Finally, I personally love the challenge and variety of having many different Internet marketing responsibilities.

What Hats Do You Wear?

So, what Internet marketing hat(s) do you wear?

Out of those listed in the Vox article, I wear, or have worn, the following hats: search engine optimization, paid search advertising, web design, email advertising, marketing communications, market research, and competitive intelligence.

Microsoft is taking MSN adCenter out of beta, renaming it as Microsoft adCenter, and formally releasing it today.

PPC Party

Hurray! This means there is going to be a PPC party. All the extra ad space will help (temporarily) drive per-click prices down. We have a fresh set of keywords to bid on, and the competition will force Google, Yahoo, and the other smaller players to keep innovating.

Birthday Presents at the PPC Party (New Features)

Microsoft’s adCenter includes some new features that are (potentially) beneficial to advertisers. The most exciting ones, in my mind, are the day-part, geographic, and demographic targeting that Microsoft adCenter offers. These features will allow advertisers to further refine and improve their targeting, hopefully resulting in even better ROIs from PPC campaigns.

Results?

I may have the chance to create and manage a Microsoft adCenter account soon—if I do, I will let you know how well the system works, what kind of results it gets, and how it compares to Google, Yahoo, and Miva. If any of you have experience with MSN or Microsoft adCenter, please leave us a comment!

My graduation from BYU was fantastic. I really enjoyed myself.

Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve

Commencement was last Thursday, April 27, 2006. It was held in the Marriott Center, which was full all the way to the top row seats. President Samuelson, Merrill J. Bateman, Robert D. Hales, and Richard G. Scott were all in attendance.

The theme of commencement was most definitely centered on the BYU motto, “Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve.” It was great to feel like my 4 years at BYU had actually prepared me to do that. I learned a lot and met some really neat people that I am still in touch with, and these skills and contacts are great tools for serving people—both for compensation and out of the goodness of one’s heart.

My favorite part of commencement was that my parents were able to come and my sisters offered to babysit, which meant my wife and I had great company and were able to pay attention. After the ceremony was over, we went out to dinner at Ottavio’s on Center St. in Provo. We also went looking for a graduation present, a tent that Lindsay and I can use for camping.

Enter to Be Served, Go Forth to Earn

Convocation was the next day, and of all the schools at BYU, the business school gets made fun of with this quote the most. After our ceremonies, though, I must say that the graduating students of the Marriott School have their heads screwed on right.

Our dean, Ned Hill, had the students who fit various criteria stand so that we could see who matched those criteria. Something like 90% of Marriott School students have served missions and speak a second language. Nearly 3/4 are married.

The student speaker was a convert from Austria. He impressed me as a prayerful, and very grateful, man. His talk was more about the Gospel of Jesus Christ than it was about BYU or education. The whole ceremony was about service and gratitude. I would challenge anyone who truly believes that business students at BYU enter to be served and go forth solely to earn to go and meet a representative sample of them. You will be amazed.

Kevin Rollins from Dell also spoke. His talk was about the “magic formula to success.” He concluded that there is no single magic formula that will work for everyone, but that following the Lord’s will for each of us is the “magic” formula that will guide each of us on a unique and successful path.

The Rest of My Life

The prospect of life without school is both exciting and sobering to me. It’s nice to be free of homework and classrooms and grades, but it is sad to leave such a great environment of learning and friendship and to go separate ways with many friends and acquaintances. It is also exciting and sobering to think of “real” life and all the projects and work and opportunities ahead of me.

Luckily, many of the good habits that I learned in school are just as applicable, and maybe even more important, now that I’m done with school. Constant reading and study make great sense. Networking will help you to enjoy life and to know the right people. Finding time for the three F’s, family, friends, and fun, is also very important. Balance is always difficult and vital.

Now that I’m done with my undergraduate degree, I have a chance to focus on some of the other elements that are important to building a great future. I’m going to be spending a lot of time catching up on a few things that have been neglected a little during school. I’m also putting together a list of goals that I want to pursue. Is an MBA or some other graduate school in the plan? I don’t know. Is alll sorts of entrepreneurial activity part of my dreams? Definitely. I’ll keep posting as things move forward.