The Mobile industry is experiencing a true expansion across the world, and Canada is no exception. In 2009, Canada had the highest penetration rate in terms of content downloads and mobile games (Nielsen Wire, 2009). In 2010, 75% of Canadian households had a cellphone (Mobithinking, 2010). Read the full article at The Results People blog.
Seriously, there are “Googlists” behind www.thechurchofgoogle.org who offer incontrovertible proof that Google is God. Read the full article…
A few columns back, I mentioned the new book from Google: ZMOT, Winning the Zero Moment of Truth. But, in true Google fashion, it isn’t really a book, at least, not in the traditional sense. It’s all digital, it’s free, and there’s even a multimedia app (a Vook) for the iPad. Read the full story on The Results People.
In the 25 years I’ve lived here, I’ve never had to say this — indeed, I never believed I would ever say this — but last Wednesday, I was ashamed to say I live in British Columbia. I wasn’t the only one. I’m guessing the vast majority of the other 4.5 million people that call this Canadian province home felt the same way. In fact, the only people not feeling that way were the idiotic jerks that caused our collective shame. They were the ones using the Canuck’s loss to Boston in the Stanley Cup final as an excuse to [...]
My connected life is starting to drop into distinct buckets. Now that I have my choice of connecting through my smartphone (an iPhone), my tablet (an iPad), my work computer (a MacBook) and my home computer (a Windows box), not to mention the new Smart TV’s we bought (Samsungs), I’m starting to see my digital footprints (or my digital slime trail, to use Esther Dyson’s term) diverge. And the nature of the divergence is interesting. Read the full article at MediaPost.
There are lots of reasons why USB drives are awesome. Here are two that I find compelling, and use as my general pitch when asked the question, “Are USB drives really that useful?” If you have your own reason why USB drives are awesome, please post it below. Reusable storage The first great thing about USB drives is that they provide reusable storage. Anyone remember the pre-compact disc (CD) days when 3 1/2 floppy discs where the way of storing and transferring files? Before then, in the 80′s, we dealt with Super Pets’ and Commodore 64′s 5¼-inch floppies. Floppies enabled [...]
The voyages of the Star Trek Enterprise took viewers to distant galaxies, exposed them to alien species, and taught them countless life lessons (right?). But did you know there were also lots of lessons in there about buyer behavior? Allow me to explain… Red shirt, no real purpose = death. Granted, in Star Trek, including an alien battle makes the episode more exciting. But the story line is developed by the main characters, not that ensign you see for 6 seconds before he gets killed. The aliens didn’t have time to deal with insignificant, pointless Away Team members. Think about [...]
The most popular question in search is “what’s next”? There are thousands of opinions, blogs, studies and even conferences devoted to this very topic. The masses tend to head toward the thought of defining the perfect search experience, or perfect search engine. Is this really what is needed, the perfect search engine? How people access content, and how relevant and current that content is, will be the constant factors in this evolution. But can we actually see into the future by learning from the past? Teach Me, Mr. TV Executive According to the viewership numbers from Nielsen, U.S. Television grew [...]
With only around a quarter of internet users being native English-speakers, and with the majority of multilingual users placing more trust in websites written in their own native language when it comes to making purchases online, website localisation and multilingual SEO are becoming increasingly important aspects of online marketing. Indeed, Common Sense Advisory studies suggest an average return of US$25 for every $1 spent on localization. The benefits are clear, but once you’ve decided to take the plunge, you still have to decide whether to target foreign markets by language or by country. By language Many languages are spoken across [...]
Sometimes those of us who follow online technology get caught up in the noise of all the different developments that happen every week. If we’re not busy dissecting Google’s latest algorithms or discussing the implications of local search, Facebook’s privacy policies, industry conferences, Apple versus RIM (or Microsoft or…), and all the other tech news, we just might miss the real impact happening all around us. Yes, I’m talking about real people experiencing the real impact of technology. Take shopping, for example. The big buzz around the office lately is all about Twongo.com. They entered our little local market with [...]