Blog
Best Buy and the Customer Experience
Over the last week or so, there’s been a very public debate about the future of Best Buy. It started with an article in Forbes magazine – Why Best Buy is Going Out of Business… Gradually. The article opened a powder keg of conversation about bad customer service experiences at the electronics retailer. The article illustrates how difficult it is for traditional businesses to evolve in a competitive, customer focused, environment. After several days of very public discussion about the article, with responses from the...
read moreKnow Who your SEO is Targeting
There are some tried and true rules about the search engine optimization, or SEO, game which will never change – keywords matter, linking shows value, and more. However, as search engines and their results get more sophisticated, it now matters “who” you’re optimizing your site for. There are still very few people who realize it, but as search engines have evolved (particularly Google) results are becoming increasingly customized. That means that when you search on “flat screen tvs,” the first page of...
read moreSocial Increasing, but Search Still King
Forrester Research recently released a new study, “It’s Time To Make Facebook Marketing Work,” which looks at the trends and impact of Facebook on marketing activities. While search has showed significant increases in impact over the last few years, it still has a long way to go to catch search as the place people go for purchasing information. Many in the industry believe that because the recommendations and information on social networks come from trusted friends, there is more influence within social marketing. However, the chart...
read moreFoursquare Expanding its Digital Borders
Foursquare announced today a new “Save to Foursquare” button and bookmarklet, making it easier than ever for user to save locations from other sites to their Foursquare To-Do list. Sites can add the button as an easy way for users to save places mentioned in reviews, profiles, or user guides and the bookmarklet makes it easy for users to save locations from sites without the button. Today’s announcement was made with partner publications like CBS, Time Out, and Frommer’s, and Foursquare shows (in the video below)...
read moreGoogle+ Brand Pages Hold Lots of Potential
Today, Google announced the launch of the much anticipated brand pages for Google+. They look similar to regular Google+ profiles, except for a square that indicates it’s a page instead of a profile. Users can add brands to their circles they same way they add individuals, and brands can track their follower count similarly. There is a lot of potential for Google+ business pages for both businesses and consumers, and here are a few reasons why I’m excited about brand pages from both a user and marketer perspective: 1....
read moreSmartphone Use By Age
Nielsen released a new study regarding smartphone use by age – Generation App: 62% of Mobile Users 25-34 own Smartphones - and it revealed some interesting information. 43% of phone owning adults have a smartphone. Smartphone penetration for young adults (ages 25-34) is 62%. The second fastest growing smartphone segement the 45 – 50 year category. Smartphone ownership by this group grew by 5% in just a single quarter. In terms of platform, Android (43%) and iOS/iPhone (28%) lead the category, leaving RIM/Blackberry with an...
read moreGowalla Dies, but Items Offer Promise
I’m calling it… Sept. 24, 2011. That’s the day Gowalla died. It’s also the day they released Gowalla version 4 and eliminated their biggest potential for making money. As they admitted on their blog, the design has quite a few usability issues for longtime users. They also compare their “bold” revamp to Facebook, Instagram, and Netflix. Bad news guys… those companies are leaders in their areas. Their biggest mistake however, is the elimination of virtual items. They made the announcement they...
read more14 Million in US Scanned Mobile Codes in June
RESTON, VA, August 12, 2011 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released results of a study on mobile QR and bar code scanning based on data from its comScore MobiLens service. A QR (“Quick Response”) code is a specific matrix bar code (or two-dimensional code) that is readable by smartphones. The study found that in June 2011, 14 million mobile users in the U.S., representing 6.2 percent of the total mobile audience, scanned a QR or bar code on their mobile device. The study found that a...
read moreGoogle+ Success Depends on Grandma
The success of Google+, and whether or not it will overtake Facebook will depend on grandma. Google+ has found a tremendous amount of success earl, but it’s got a long way to go to capture Facebook’s 500 million users. The newest offering from Google, Google+, is the company’s attempt to move into the social media space more aggressively. It has been described by many as a hybrid of Facebook and Twitter, allowing users to post messages, photos, videos, etc. It’s key strength is the ability for the user to...
read more
