Digital Business Today

"1 billion Smartphones, $56 billion spent on mobile apps by 2016 according to new Forrester research...."

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 08:26:41 +0000

“1 billion Smartphones, $56 billion spent on mobile apps by 2016 according to new Forrester research. Are you ready?”

- This Forrester Research featured in the NYT - I’ve updated a reference in Rob Thurner’s post on the importance of getting the mobile experience right.

Interesting that NextWeb - B2B publisher - are on Pinterest -...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:05:48 +0000

Interesting that NextWeb - B2B publisher - are on Pinterest - fits their visual style. Still I’m still not sure Pinterest will be as big as everyone is saying - see my thoughts on one example of the hype.

Source:

brooklynmutt:

(via @sharonvak)

You can find us on Pinterest here:

"Focus on Impact Move Fast Be Bold Be Open Build Social Value "

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:08:32 +0000

“

Focus on Impact
Move Fast
Be Bold
Be Open
Build Social Value

”

- Do you recognise this?

It’s from Facebook’s Letter to Investors for their IPO announced this week see Wired Summary

The future of communications - for me, this is definitely the...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:15:36 +0000

The future of communications - for me, this is definitely the most entertaining video on marketing from this year or maybe any year. Well there is Bill Hicks on Marketing, but that’s not entertaining… This one is a must show for teaching on digital marketing courses or anyone who grapples with predicting the future of tech.

Originally titled “Telecommunications services for the 1990s”. They actually got pretty close - although think it was closer to 2010 when these became true - made in 1969 at the Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill. My personal favourites are:

Video phones (0:20) - the benefits of which are exemplified by a very 60s negligee
Skyping (2:30) - A call between the UK and Australia
Google Maps on iPhone (4:10) - In B+W of course
Online mortgage application (6:40) - Dig the wooden cased VDU

Thanks to Tim Faircliff, ex AOP Chairman and Publisher at the Telegraph and Reuters for showing this at the Dovetail Services Annual conference last week.

An update on my Amazon case study - now on Smart Insights. Image...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:09:00 +0000

An update on my Amazon case study - now on Smart Insights. Image reminds us that everyone has to start everywhere with the tech available at the time.

Minority Report Tech is nearly here… from CES 2012: Many...

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:20:37 +0000

Minority Report Tech is nearly here… from CES 2012: Many are saying I want one!

CES - Samsung’s Smart Window (by MobileNations)

It’s not even April yet…

"Digital marketing statistics: Most useful free UK,European,US,Global statistics resources for..."

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:39:04 +0000

“Digital marketing statistics: Most useful free UK,European,US,Global statistics resources for digital marketing”

- I’ve updated my post of the top 10 digital marketing sources as I see them, adding a Google custom search engine so that your search is restricted to these sites. I hope you find it useful.

Enjoying this use of video to change perceptions - attacking...

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:14:43 +0000

Enjoying this use of video to change perceptions - attacking competitors direct. I love this even though I own an iPhone.

"With Social Search, we improve your results by relying on the context of your friends, family,..."

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:29:00 +0000

“With Social Search, we improve your results by relying on the context of your friends, family, coworkers and other people you may care about across the web. We’ll sometimes improve the ranking of results if they’re more likely to be relevant based on your social connections. We’ll also highlight your connections by showing their names and pictures in the results when they’ve published or commented on content, for example by clicking the +1 button.”

- Interesting - this new post by Google Fellow Amit Singhal confirms that sites/posts your friends like will be boosted within the Google Search results.

It’s an indirect social signal and benefit of encouraging social sharing of content on your blog. It’s also another reason to use the great new “Verbatim” feature to manually check rankings.

Amazon case study update. Well, this grab shows Amazon has come...

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 11:00:30 +0000

Amazon case study update. Well, this grab shows Amazon has come a long way since their original sit was launched. To make you feel better maybe, if your site isn’t evolving as you hoped - it’s probably better than the this!

I’ve included Amazon.com as an example to learn from in the last few editions of my books and recently did an update on the Amazon case study page that may help lecturers and students reading this.

If you like learning from Amazon, there was a great interview on Wired recently with the owner Jeff Bezos.

smarterplanet: IBM: Mobile Retail Traffic Will More Than Double...

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 19:08:16 +0000

smarterplanet:

IBM: Mobile Retail Traffic Will More Than Double This Holiday Season | TechCrunch

IBM’s Coremetrics Benchmark is releasing data around holiday shopping trends we can expect over the next few months. Big Blue says that mobile retail traffic will more than double this holiday season.

During this year’s November holiday season, an unprecedented 15 percent of people in the U.S. logging onto a retailer’s web site are expected to do so through a mobile device, says IBM. All online sales in November will experience a growth of 12-15 percent over the same period in 2010.

IBM reports that in October nearly 11 percent of people used a mobile device to log onto a retailer’s site, up from 4.2 percent in October 2010. Additionally, mobile sales continue to increase, reaching a high of 9.6 percent in October 2011, up from 3.4 percent in October 2010.

One of the new trends expected to take place is among Android users. And for the first time, the growing number of Android users will demonstrate similar levels of mobile shopping as iPhone users. These October 2011 numbers show iPhone accounting for 4 percent of mobile traffic and Android 3.5 percent. The iPad will also play a big role in holiday shopping this season. In October, iPad conversion rates reached 6.8 percent as compared to the overall mobile device conversion rate of 3.6 percent.

"You can buy attention (advertising) You can beg for attention from the media (PR) You can bug people..."

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 19:07:41 +0000

“

You can buy attention (advertising) You can beg for attention from the media (PR) You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales)

Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an ebook, a Facebook page.

”

- A great tool for explaining social media marketing to a group via the great David Meerman Scott.

Case study - redesigning a site with 3m+ monthly uniques

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:30:31 +0000

Web managers may be interested in this case study of refreshing a large / huge site. Further details at the Government Digital Service blog.

This slideshare from this post shows how the wireframes for the project were conceived.

Wireframes for gov.uk corporate platform

View more presentations from Neil Williams

"“When you want to create a breakthrough product, when you want to do something totally new,..."

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:18:13 +0100

“

“When you want to create a breakthrough product, when you want to do something totally new, when you want to create a hit, something that resonates with people, something that inspires people, where that emotion comes thru, you’ve got to be willing to back away from the data.

“Because after all, great content … is art. And art creates emotion. And emotion defies the data.”

”

- Flipboard Mobile App CEO Mike McCue on why his product has done well, and his inspirational message to others

"As use of mobile devices continues to skyrocket across the globe, we’re seeing more ways to..."

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:41:00 +0100

“

As use of mobile devices continues to skyrocket across the globe, we’re seeing more ways to tackle the challenge of creating great web experiences across multiple devices. But which approach is right for any given project?

For us site performance and speed of development were crucial. So many of the decisions we made were designed to make both of these as fast as possible. As part of our focus on performance, we also had a philosophy of “just what’s necessary”. This meant sending things to devices (and people) that didn’t actually need them made us squeamish. We liked to optimize. With a dual template system we felt we had more optimization of: source order, media, URL structure, and application design (more on each of these below).

”

- With many now taking the decision as to whether a separate mobile site is necessary or the desktop version is sufficient for smartphone/tablet use as resolutions improve, this is a timely case by ex eBay designer LukeW. He suggests that a separate mobile site has clear benefits as the quote above shows:

"Google+ is a prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms from the very highest..."

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:57:00 +0100

“Google+ is a prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms from the very highest levels of executive leadership (hi Larry, Sergey, Eric, Vic, howdy howdy) down to the very lowest leaf workers (hey yo). We all don’t get it. The Golden Rule of platforms is that you Eat Your Own Dogfood. The Google+ platform is a pathetic afterthought. We had no API at all at launch, and last I checked, we had one measly API call. One of the team members marched in and told me about it when they launched, and I asked: “So is it the Stalker API?” She got all glum and said “Yeah.” I mean, I was joking, but no… the only API call we offer is to get someone’s stream. So I guess the joke was on me.”

- This tirade is fascinating lunchtime reading (if you have a long lunch) and SOA means something to you and if you work in a large company. Its great insight into the way two of the biggest ebusinesses operate today - digital platform strategy decisions. My highlight is the Bezos 7 point SOA edict. You can see Googlers stay up all night. It’s official according to Googler Matt Cutts and is doing the rounds on G+.

Google goes “clicks and mortar” with Chromezone For...

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 09:23:00 +0100

Google goes “clicks and mortar” with Chromezone

For years Google was online pureplay, no ads or offline comms other than PR and buzz and it worked well. But you can’t be sufficiently targeted reach through PR alone, so it’s been interesting to see how Google has been using direct mail/inserts for a while to promote its Adwords offering to business and more recently TV, outdoor ads for it’s Chrome browser.

The next step is a physical store and we can see this trial - Chromezone is now in place in London to sell Google’s Chromebook.

Take a look at Dan Barkers excellent post for more - you can see that visually (but maybe note stylewise) Google are out-Appling Apple!

The influence of Steve Jobs who died today will live on for many, many years.

I’m “liking” this engagement campaign -...

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 13:46:00 +0100

I’m “liking” this engagement campaign - featured in the Sat colour supplements to drive visitors to the Facebook page. Don’t worry, I won’t be entering…

A clear indication of the shift in popularity of mobile...

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:25:45 +0100

A clear indication of the shift in popularity of mobile operating systems from Blackberry and Nokia OS to Android. With Apple surprisingly static.

Experiments: A Million Virtual Monkeys Randomly Mashing Typewriters Have Almost Written Shakespeare

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:57:28 +0100

Experiments: A Million Virtual Monkeys Randomly Mashing Typewriters Have Almost Written Shakespeare :

Jesse Anderson developed a program that simulated a few million virtual monkeys randomly mashing keys on virtual typewriters in an attempt to re-create Shakespeare.