A Good Reason to Tweet
Posted on | March 3, 2010 | 2 Comments
Something lovely and heartwarming came into my life today through Twitter, this wonderful video of a busker on the London Underground. Isn’t social media brilliant!
via @richardpeacock
First E-Commerce Site Ever
Posted on | February 23, 2010 | No Comments
Have you ever wondered where e-commerce started? Check out the founder of the Boston Computer Exchange:
Building your brand using social media
Posted on | February 19, 2010 | No Comments
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Build a relationship with your customers
If you walk into a shop and the shopkeeper sits you down, makes you a nice cup of tea and discusses exactly what product is best for you, you are more likely to return. By speaking with your fans and not just at them you can create the same warm fuzzy feeling.
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Customer services
There are instances where people may talk about your brand, make a complaint or be unable to sort out a problem through the normal channels. You can monitor social media sites and reply to these people. They may reveal problems you didn’t know where there.
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Your fans can become your brand champions
They share your content, they suggest your Facebook page to their friends, they promote your Twitter account through #followfriday. They do the hard work for you.
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Show your brand’s personality
What sort of person is your brand? What music do they listen to? What do they wear? This can all be communicated through talking and sharing stuff with your fans and followers.
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Be consistent
The way you speak to your fans across all your social media sites should be the same, your fans will expect you to act in a particular way.
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Create guidelines for your staff
If more than one person is writing your content, you need to make clear to them how they should conduct themselves and what they can and can’t talk about.
Tags: brand building > customer service > marketing > Online marketing > Social media > social networking
Google Books is a good thing
Posted on | February 10, 2010 | No Comments
Despite the fact that I love the Internet, read newspapers and magazines online and on my iPhone, never buy an actual printed newspaper and believe that in ten years time print will all but die out, I still love books. I love going to a bookshop, especially antique bookshops, I have a collection of three or four first editions of my favourite authors and one day will inherit an early 20th century edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Which is why I’m really excited about Google Books.
Bringing books back to life
Essentially, Google Books will one day be a database of almost every book ever written. According to Google, the project will bring books back to life, books that are no longer in print and have been forgotten. They will give users access to these books by digitising them, so we will be able to read them online. Authors, who never thought their work would be read again, will now be forever published in the giant database. Published books will be sold via the site, linking to Amazon, Waterstones, Blackwells etc. In the future some authors will be able to charge a fee if their books are still in copyright, but out of print.
The trouble is that this runs contrary to the established copyright laws that protect the intellectual property of authors, which pretty much undermines how the publishing industry is set up and how authors make money. So, unsurprisingly, they’re quite upset about this. Musicians and journalists are already suffering as a result of the perception that all media should now be available for free. The publishing industry probably thought they were immune, protected by their ancient laws.
Google are now the bad guys
Google, however, have little respect for the old ways of sharing information. They plough on regardless and only worry about the consequences afterwards. Google Books was first launched in 2005, but they’ve been arguing with the Author’s Guild and the Association of American Publishers about how to deal with the problem of copyright. Finally, they have reached a settlement, which isn’t perfect, but is the first step to realising Google’s great plan.
Google have been made to be the bad guys here. Ten years ago they were this cool little search engine company, the darling of the internet, but they have become too powerful. People now fear them, worry that they will one day lay claim to all the information in the world. But it is the brilliance of their products, most of which are free to use, that has made them such a giant. Instead of trying to fight them, it is important to work with them, since they are almost undoubtedly the future of media across the world.
What does the future of technology really hold?
Posted on | February 1, 2010 | No Comments
Last week there were two extremely important events in the world of technology. The first was the launch of the iPad, Apple’s netbook/giant iphone/small laptop type device, and the second was the first ever football match broadcast live in 3D.
No one is really sure what the iPad is for. Why do I want an iPhone, a laptop and an iPad? Possibly to read newspapers and books on the go. It’s certainly got a larger screen than the iPhone, but isn’t as big as my laptop, which means that it will fit perfectly in my handbag and I can easily read from it. But that alone is not enough for me to go out and buy one. Does it feels as though Apple have simply created the iPad for the sake of creating a new device?
The problem with the iPad is that society isn’t quite ready for it yet – we haven’t completely come to terms with the fact that we don’t need print anymore. One day, probably not as far in the future as one would imagine, we won’t really read printed material anymore. We will all carry around a device that will be much like the iPad.
And here lies the problem for technology. One day we will probably all sit and watch our televisions with glasses on, no longer wowed by the wonder of 3D, we will simply accept that football is best this way. Each person will carry around their own pair of glasses, ready for a mate’s house or the pub. It will become integrated into our lives.
You’re probably reading this thinking that you really like reading from paper and you don’t want to sit in the pub wearing glasses. The problem with this new technology is that we’re just not ready for it yet.
Tags: 3D television > iPhone > Mobile > newspapers > streaming live events