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.

But it’s crap.

A quick google of “lead in lipstick” brought up the usual websites about urban myths.  This particular crock has been around since 2003!

Whenever you get an email advising you to put your pin number in backwards, when forced at knife or gunpoint to your ATM machine, or to put lipstick on your arm and rub your jewellery on it, do a search first to find out if it is true or not.  Most of the time you’ll find out it isn’t.

Take a gander at Snopes.com or Urban Legends Online, and stop all that alarmist email in it’s tracks.  You’ll make a lot of people very happy.

Spear Phishing is an email fraud attempt that uses information in a targeted way to trick you into giving them money or trade secrets.

It is important that you know how much about yourself is on the web. This type of fraud usually happens when someone claims to know you through some social event, when they have really only read about it on your Facebook page or other social site.

This type of phishing can also happen when a person emails the victim claiming to be from their own company and wanting log in details.  They can only do this by learning about specific details of your company and who you may answer to.  So if you think that this information is readily found on the internet, be careful who you give out information to.  It could be a phishing scam.

For the definitions of all things web, go to Webopedia.

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!

This is what a bit of ingenuity, knowledge from the web, and two young men who will likely go far, can do when they try.

Watch this fascinating video. Their photos are wonderful and you can check out the video below.

And they've invited all their friends!

I’ve had this happen too.  We came downstairs one morning  (when we had two cats) to count three sitting on a chair each at our dining room table.  “Wait a minute, there is one too many”   One of the cats sensing trouble, suddenly jumped up and dashed out the cat door.  The other cats looked decidedly guilty.

Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus from Patrick Clair on Vimeo.

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!

Layout:

• The message: What are you trying to say? You really have to focus on what your message is, and getting to the point.
• Define the Audience: Knowing the type of user will help you know how they will use the site.
• Use great images: That saying “a picture says a thousand words” is still so true.

Graphics:

• Balance: You want graphics, but not so many that it takes too long for the page to load.
• Graphics look darker on a Mac than a PC. Make sure you adjust somewhere in the middle so it works on both platforms.

Information Design:

• “Three clicks to information” rule was true then and it is still true now. If you make someone click numerous pages to get to what they wanted to see, you’ll lose them. I favour navigation where you can see and get to it with one click!
• Calls to action on every page. If you want someone to buy something on a page, you need to promote it on the appropriate page.
• Keep it short. People don’t read much on the internet, so if you want to say something, keep it as short as possible.

Navigation

• Simple navigation names that are easily recognized.
• Consistency in navigation. Keep it the same on every page.
• Get your most technically challenged friend or colleague to navigate your site. You want to make it really easy, and not annoying.

Animation

• Poorly created animation can destroy the look of a website. It slows download time, and sometimes is just not necessary.
• Only use when animation is going to illustrate a point when words just won’t cut it. That means no dancing dogs running across the page, if dogs have nothing to do with your pages.

Sticky Content

• This phrase sounds a bit icky, but it just means having content that keeps your visitors coming back. Either for your blog, for your reference material, or for other changing information.
• Most important is keeping the content up to date! People won’t come back if the content never changes.
• Create a mailing list of visitors (by asking them to join) so they will know when you have new content to share.
• Create something on your site that they have to come back to use. Like a forum, for example.
• Add a voting or polling system so people can vote on issues.

Music and sound effects

• My first words on this subject is “Don’t!”  Most sites are not improved by sound and will upset people who come to your site at work (you can’t help where they look at it) when music is not part of the subject at all!.
• You must make sure any music on your site is professional and licensed. You can get into a lot of trouble just putting someone’s compositions on your site without asking permission.
• Make sure that if you do include music, you have an obvious and easy way to mute it.

Streaming media

• Embedding a file from Youtube or other video site, is a great way to bring people to your site.
• It’s good to have the best quality file you can manage.

There are some cool applications that are built into Windows 7 that you may not have noticed yet.

The Snipping Tool

You’ve always been able to press the PrtScn (or print screen) key on your keyboard and paste it to a program, but this tool lets you make little notes, circle things and then saves it without having to paste it somewhere. Type “snip” in your start menu to find it.

Sticky Notes

This is a great tool for when you want to remember something and see it on your desktop for easy access. You can change the colour (really important) and put it anywhere on your desktop! then delete it and save paper when you are finished.

One window is docked to the left and the other is docked to the right.

Docking

One the best things I have really appreciated in Windows 7 is being able to dock windows to either side of the screen and not have one disappear when you click on the other one.  Just click and drag the top of your window to the left (or right) of the screen and when the mouse “touches” the end of the monitor, the window automatically docks to that side.  Do the same with the other window, and you can do work while looking at one window while typing on the other.  This is especially helpful if you are researching something from the internet and need to record information to a document. This is one of my favourite features.