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I’m Pinterested
I had a friend email me last week to tell me that she had posted an image of mine from my website (of penguins) and it had six “likes” and twelve “pins”. Great, I thought, but what does that mean?
I’ve heard of Pinterest a few times before, but to be honest, I spend WAY too much at my computer already. But I did set up an account on the invitation of my friend and pinned a few things from her board to mine, and I have to admit, it is addictive. It’s like an organized Google/images. You see hundreds of images that are popular, and if you see one you like, you can pin it to one of your own categories and you can follow people who have similar taste to you, and other people follow you.
If you have a great image on a website and someone sees it, they can pin it to their board and in no time it is generating interest and being “re-pinned” to other boards. I suppose the hope is that those people will go to the website that had the image on it in the first place. I felt a little special for a few hours last week when my penguins went “viral” (okay, 12 isn’t viral, but I don’t know any of those people) and who knows where it could lead.
Posted in Free stuff, fun, internet, promoting, selling, social media, Website Traffic | 
images, like, marketing, pinterest, Social | 
Leave a commentSocial Media Trends from 2011 still going in 2012
Social networking is continuing to grow. We saw the introduction of Google+ and it has grown quickly (mainly with web developers). Facebook keeps evolving, Twitter is still an important player and other less known social groups like Instagram (an app for iPhones that allows users to share photos) quickly becoming popular with millions of users. StumbleUpon has become more mainstream as well. (choose your interests and this site takes to you topics that are all over the web).
Here are some of the trends that are really going wild at the moment and getting larger. Some of them may be right for your business.
Geo-Locators
Smart phones have helped to add the dimension of GPS to your applications so that you can have recommendations on where to shop or where sales are happening based on where you are. Called “check-in” services, if you allow your location to be available to these services, you can stay in touch with friends, get instant sales or deals from stores near your location. Foursquare is one of these groups. You can get recommendations from other Foursquare members on where a good restaurant is in an area, for example.
Apparently, women aren’t as keen to sign on to these types of services as men. Citing privacy and worries about stalking, for some the promise of bargains nearby isn’t enough of a lure. Plus, people are already sharing so much on tweets and facebook, does everyone need to know our exact location at any one time?
Commerce
The first item isn’t exactly commerce, but a site called HelloWallet (which Canadians can use, but is set up for U.S. banking and taxes) sounds like a great service that is not tied to any financial institution, so is not selling you credit or ways to get hold of your money. It helps you manage your money, and helps you balance your budget, save for your goals (be it vacations or just getting out of debt).
There are a lot more places to sell things than eBay and Craigslist. I’ve always preferred Kijiji myself, but there are a lot of mobile marketplaces that I’ve never heard of!
Goshi, is an iPhone app that shows you things for sale in your own neighbourhood. A “mobile storefront in your neighbourhood”. taap it, another app to help you eat, shop and see what’s going on locally. Skyfer is a place for professionals to put their credentials online (think plumber, babysitter, dog walker) and then for people in that neighbourhood to find those services. Grabio is another location based classified app.
Food sites
I’ve been looking up recipes for a few years now online. I have a few favourite cookbooks that have my seasonal favourites and I make a lot of things without needing to look anything up, but once in a while I want to make something with an ingredient I have, or I’ve never made before. I often do searches now for recipes and don’t bother looking at my cookbooks to see if there is a recipe in there. There are thousands of sites and blogs that are all about food. Raw Food, Diabetic recipes, French cooking and everything in between. Some sites are more about the photography of food than the recipes themselves. And food apps are on the rise too!.
Feastie is a site that asks you what you want to cook, and it creates a grocery list for the ingredients. And it features recipes from all sorts of sites so you find new great cooking sites in the bargain! Yummly claims to have every recipe in the world! Punchfork claims to have the best new recipes from top food sites. The photographs are awesome and lists the top image (and recipe) from each site. Keeprecipes.com lets you find recipes and keep them safe “in the cloud” when you sign up. Most of these sites have a full site and mobile version.
Subscription based service
Now this is a great marketing idea. A lot of these sites aren’t available to Canadians, but a good idea to think about. And I’m sure it will catch on in Canada too!
- babba box. A monthly subscription of materials and instructions of things to do (crafty stuff) with your kids.
- Birchbox.com samples of beauty products.
- Lost crates is stationery and accessories.
- Umba box - handmade goods (connected to Etsy) each month.
- Lollihop - healthy snacks monthly!
- Smart-ass Knitters/World Domination – bi monthly hand dyed wool, pattern, and small gift. This is in Haliburton, Ontario!
Mobile Money
A lot of countries in Africa already can make payments and put money onto their mobile phones. And that is catching on here (as in U.S. mainly) too. Here are a few sites that are doing it.
- Square - – a mobile square card reader that allows you to swipe a credit card on your phone! Pretty cool. Think of all those markets you go to in the summer! How handy would that be!
- Go payment – similar to square, this one is by intuit. And will soon be launching in Canada.
- Dwolla – Send money to friends through social networks, pay for things using your mobile phone, merchants accept payments for a set .25 cents per transaction.
- google wallet – store your credit card details in the cloud and when you go to a merchant that accepts google wallet, you pay by tapping your phone.
Mobile Rewards
This is similar and tied in with mobile money, where you are offered for example 20% off while in a store if you sign up for a link to their Facebook page or to agree to receive texts from that store.
QR Codes
I mentioned these a couple of months back. These are getting a bit more creative. For example, the Iron Man movie poster had a QR code in the corner, so that when you took a picture of the code, you went to a trailer to find out more about what the movie was about.
Shopping Recommendations
Shop Socially is the idea of getting your happy customers to do your advertising for you. The old fashion way was word of mouth, but now with Facebook and Twitter, you can “Like” a product and it will go on your Facebook wall, and your friends can not only see what you bought, but some retailers can offer them a discount because you referred them.
There are sites that manage this for you, for example ShopSocially or addoway. You can do this for yourself though by having a “Like” button on your site connected to your Facebook page.
This is just a small taste of what has started this past year and is going to be bigger in 2012. And I’m sure there are things that we haven’t even thought of yet!
Posted in internet, social media | babba box, craigslist, ebay, feastie, foursquare, geolocators, grabio, hellowallet, indigodragonfly, keeprecipes, kijiji, marketing, media, mobile, money, punchfork, skyfer, Social, square, subscription, taapit, yummly | Leave a commentBest Videos of 2011
The results are in, The dog that is teased about some bacon flavoured bacon, came in #1 in YouTube results for the UK, but only #2 here! Some girl won as number 1. But if you haven’t seen it yet, Here is it again for your enjoyment.
Here is a cartoon about Ormie the pig. He really wants those cookies! This doesn’t have a share feature, so you are best to just check out Ormie here.
And just to round it out, here are these really scary taekwondo dudes. They need helmets and padding for these great moves!
Posted in internet, YouTube | dog, fun, ormie the pig, popular, tease, videos, youtube | Leave a commentPatent Trolls don’t live under bridges!
In the last year I’m sure you’ve read about the end of companies like Nortel and the scramble to buy up the patents. Apple, Microsoft and Google were among the companies that bought the patents as part of a consortium. Now I’m sure that you are thinking that they wanted them in order to create new and better products or technology with these items? Unfortunately, it was more of a protection measure.
In a term coined by Peter Detkin patent trolls are companies that buy up patents with the expressed intent of using them to sue other companies. The term applies to companies that do the following:
- Purchases a patent, often from a bankrupt firm, and then sues another company by claiming that one of its products infringes on the purchased patent
- Enforces patents against alleged infringers without itself intending to make the product or supply the service that the patent covers
- Enforces patents but has no manufacturing or research base, often they are just a P. O. Box
- Focuses its efforts solely on enforcing patent rights, meaning that is their only business
- Asserts patent infringement claims against non-copiers or against a large industry that is composed of non-copiers, meaning, they just sue someone because it is so expensive to even go to court, so often companies pay a settlement to make it go away, when in fact both parties know that they haven’t infringed any copyright.
Laws are being looked at and implemented, but they will need to be make so that they help small start ups and not the Patent Trolls and lawyers that seem to make much of the money at the moment.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Detkin
Posted in canada, innovation, internet, patents, programs | canada, innovation, patent, research, trolls, U.S. infringement | Leave a commentInformation Overload
Sometimes it feels like your head is going to explode. Here is a humorous video from Xerox.
What is Chrome and where did it come from?
I am asked from time to time to look at client or friend’s computer and “clean it up” as it has slowed down and they don’t understand what all those icons on their desktop are. Often, they will have numerous different browsers such as Chrome and Firefox, as well as their standard Internet Explorer and they have no idea how they got there, or what they are for.
How they got there
Whenever you install a program from the internet or update a program, it is important to read all the windows that come up during the process. It is often here that you get these programs installed onto your computer. They aren’t viruses and aren’t harmful, but if you didn’t ask for them, it is a bit daunting to wonder how this strange stuff ended up on your computer. Imagine if “stuff” just started appearing in your home when you went to the grocery store, without you actually asking for it! Not free nice stuff, just more clutter. That’s often how people feel about it. And it makes me laugh as they always claim that they didn’t put it there.
When you install an update or a program you are often given the option to do a Standard or a Custom installation. And they usually recommend the Custom unless you are an advanced user. Don’t be put off. It isn’t complicated and most of the options you can just accept (and click NEXT), but this is where you can often cancel these extra sneaky programs. Just take a good look at each window as it advances through the stages. Often those added programs are included with a little box that you need to untick in order to avoid it downloading.
What they are
Often the programs are different browsers. Browsers are programs that allow you to, well, browse the web. The most known one for PC computers is Internet Explorer, but Mozilla Firefox is quite popular now. For Macs it was Safari, but you can download that for Windows now as well. But Google has come out with Chrome. Then there is Maxthon, Rockmelt (no, I don’t know where they get these names from either), SeaMonkey, and Opera.
Reasons to choose something different from IE
I first started using Firefox because of the increasing threat of viruses that targeted that browser, and shared files in your computer that made it easier for it to infect more of your whole computer. A program that was separate from the Microsoft operating system was a good idea. Plus, previous versions of IE were just awful at letting me choose how a web page printed, while I could often get the whole page or a page and a quarter to print on one sheet. Each of these browsers work in basically the same way but have different features that you may like better than another. Chrome claims to load faster, has an integrated address bar and search engine (which means if you type in a word in the address bar, and it isn’t a domain it will search for websites and has more space for the screen itself rather than the various tabs and buttons.)
All of these are free, easy to download and if you don’t like them, you can delete them again from your computer. Just know that when they ask the question “would you like “X” to be your default browser?” say no. If you say yes and end up not liking it, every time you click on a link in an email or other linked document it will open this new browser rather than your standard one.
Now you know where those “stray” programs came from.
Google +? Argh….
I’m just overwhelmed with all the new things that are happening in the world of the web. I sometimes feel like I’m on one of those airport walkways going the wrong way. Learn one thing and six more pop up. You must all feel the same. I was in my favourite electronics store a week or so ago and saw all the shiny new tablets that are out now. I resisted the book readers (thankfully) mostly because I like reading a real book, and like to share the books that I’ve read with my friends. Also, I don’t have to worry that my book will run out of power on a six hour flight and I’ll be stuck with nothing to read. HORROR! Last year when going to the UK, I read the second in the series of “The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo” non-stop on the way to my holiday (stopping for the meals, but not movies) and the third one on the way home. (Okay, I slept quite a way on that flight) I’m not sure any reader could have lasted!
Now you have Facebook, Twitter, Linked In (which I quite like for the wealth of information) and now Google+. Their argument is that you can have levels of friendships or “circles” so you can share with some people your drunken escapades, but exclude others. I’m sure Facebook will add this soon enough, and I have to learn all of this stuff, but frankly, I’d rather talk to you on the phone or go for lunch. Here’s a video explaining it all.
Stop the Meter and Stop the Spying bill
Open Media has petitions on at the moment to Stop the Metering of our internet. The companies that own the cable networks that we have previously been watching are worried that they are going to lose that revenue stream as more and more people watch content on their computers. With movies online, YouTube and music, more and more people aren’t even subscribing to cable any longer.
Here is a video that explains it better than I can.
Another contentious bill that will be debated and voted on when Parliament goes back in session (after their long summer holiday) is
an invasive, anti-Internet set of “Lawful Access” electronic surveillance laws within the first 100 days of Parliament. If passed, these laws will turn Internet service providers (ISPs) against their own customers by making them collect our personal information without court oversight.
go to rabble.ca to read more
Not only is this scary for our privacy and civil liberties, this will force a lot of smaller Internet Providers out of business because of the cost of putting the software in place to collect the information needed.
Open Media is asking us to sign their petition about this as well. Both of these initiatives have long reaching implications for all of us. We already have one of the most expensive internet systems in the world, and these two initiatives will make us even more expensive and our use of it even more limited.
Compare between 350 indie ISPs at CanadianISP.com, and show Big Telecom that you’re not buying!
Email Etiquette
Millions of emails are sent every day, and sometimes it feels like we are getting all of them! If you want to annoy your friends less, here are a few ways to make sending emails to your friends a less stressful event for both them and yourself!
- File sizes. If you are sending images to people of your dog, cat or your latest artwork, don’t forget that some people are still on dial up and it takes a long time to download each attachment they receive. Photos or other files shouldn’t be any larger than 500kb if you can help it, and if you reduce an image to 72dpi (dots per inch) and 6 x 8″ in size, it will often be under 100KB. Most camera programs will allow you to resize your images. If they are only for your friends to look at and not print, then 72dpi is fine to look at on your screen. And if you are in the position that one email seems to be blocking the rest from coming through, you can go to www.mail2web.com and type in your email address and password and see all of your emails that are still on your ISP’s server and look at and delete the offending email. Nothing worse than spending half an hour downloading something only to find out it was a silly movie that you didn’t want anyway!
- Sending to groups of people. Do you get emails from your friends that include 300 email addresses that you have to scroll through to get to the point of the message? Isn’t it annoying? It can also be dangerous if you or your friends get a virus, it can spread to all those people as well, not to mention that your email address is now broadcast to all and sundry. It is always best when sending an email to lots of people to put your own email address in the To: section, and all of the other emails in the BCC (Blind carbon copy) section. You can get to the BCC by clicking on the CC in your emails if you use Outlook Express. In a lot of mail programs you can also organize your friends and families into groups so you can click on a group and it sends to all in the group at once. But still send them as a blind carbon copy.
- Dire warnings! I have to say that the Neiman Marcus store never billed any woman $500 for a cookie recipe, the police won’t come if you put your pin number in backwards (you’ll just get shot for your trouble) and Bill Gates is definitely not going to give any of us money by sending on a message. If you get an email about some virus warning or other, the best thing to do is to google the main idea of it. For example put in pin number + reverse and you will get up pages with the helpful names like urbanlegends.about.com and snopes.com. These two websites have information that debunk all of these emails that seem to last for years! It’s an easy way to see if the email warning is for real and save thousands of emails being sent out as a result of you blindly sending it to all of your friends. Plus, some of those sites are pretty funny reading!
- Finally, the jokes, and those emails that are the equivalent of the chain letter. You know, the one that if you don’t send it on to six more people you will have bad luck/you won’t get good luck/you may die etc. They are just annoying. If you get one just delete it. I’m pretty sure your friends will thank you for not sending it on to them, I know I will!
What is a Permalink?
A permalink, or permanent link, is a URL that points to a specific blog or forum entry after it has passed from the front page to the archives. Because a permalink remains unchanged indefinitely, it is less susceptible to link rot. Link rot, what a great expression. It basically means a broken link to a page that doesn’t exist any longer, or at least in that location.
Posted in internet, search engine, site traffic | broken, link rot, permalink, url | Leave a comment
- May newsletterThe May version of my Newsletter was published last week. Please check out the news page to read it, or sign up with the form on the left of the page and get them sent to you each month. I only send out one a month (if I manage it) and promise not to forward […]
- Facebook and Job HuntsFirst it was that potential employers would search to see your Facebook page and decide whether to hire you, now that people are getting clued up about their privacy, companies are now coming right out and asking for your password! Do you give it to them or risk losing the job? Is this even legal? […]