From the monthly archives:
With every business on earth now running its own blog, Twitter account, and Facebook page there’s no excuse for any company not to develop a real narrative, explaining why it exist, what motivates it, and why it’s unique. This media allow for a story more developed than one limited to an About Us page on [...]
I’ve been fascinated by advertising pages in magazines. At one point I conducted an extremely unscientific study, attempting to determine the average number of advertising pages the reader is faced with before reaching the table of contents in various magazines. Esquire, of the magazines I examined, most extremely took its time in getting to actual [...]
We’ve talked a bunch about how phone technologies, and IVR especially, can enable small businesses to create a big business voice. While this idea is no longer so novel, I did not realize its sensitivities until reading Digium’s blog post, “The 15 Commandments of IVR – Commandment #2 – ‘Thou Shalt Not Create Fake Mailboxes.’” [...]
Is it possible for humans to decide that technology has become too all-encompassing, too bothersome, too invasive? Yes, of course. Is it possible that we’ve reached that point already? I’m starting to think that maybe we have. I’ve been thinking about these issues in light of the news that teens, according to a survey conducted [...]
Due to the political maneuvering that comes part and parcel of our two-party system, many Americans who had been receiving unemployment benefits have found themselves without this safety net. These benefits normally cover the jobless for a stretch of 26 weeks, but it’s usually a simple matter to extend this coverage during recessions. However, the [...]
It’s only natural. When choosing an interior designer, I look at how the designer dresses. When choosing a web graphic artist, I check out their website. One could clearly develop a case of all the interior designers who create fantastic designs, but don’t dress well themselves, or the web graphic artists who decided not to [...]
As I watched my kids (ages 3 and 5) instinctively teach themselves how to navigate an iPad this past week, I began thinking about the concept of simplicity. True, when creating business applications, you obviously don’t need to cater the app to preschool kids. Yet, the marketing value of new users being able to open [...]
You know your industry is in hot water when the news media breathlessly report that an expert is optimistic about that industry’s future. It would interest just about no one if an expert in mobile computing declared her optimism in the future of that field. Of course there’s reason for optimism in mobile computing. Everyone’s [...]
Skype’s new beta release for developers, called SkypeKit, could change the whole dynamic of the world of communication. How? SkypeKit’s developer tools extend the power of Skype from the PC, Mac and Smartphone to almost any communications device (an HDTV, MID, UMPC, Tablet PC, vehicle, etc.). Here’s the picture that Skype describes on their website: At [...]
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a consumer needs to hear a marketing message three times before she acts. Back in the good old days, this was somewhat easily accomplished: you could advertise in three consecutive editions of a periodical or in three episodes of a TV show. While some readers and viewers won’t [...]
