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+Christine Wilson
- Web marketer, designer and geek of technologies and business.
Success Measured: Web Design, CMS, Branding, SEO, Analytics
Google: Back to physical communities
With Google’s new geo targeting added to their search, I started to think about the future of geo marketing campaigns.
It is already easier for me to search for dog walkers in my area through geo targeting and it is probably helping businesses like this grow exponentially as they are better able to get the word out to relevant potential customers.
What I imagine for the future Geo Search
In the future I’d like to see how Google’s street view will change over the years. Hopefully usability of moving quickly down the streets will improve. Imagine in the future where you would zoom into street view, go down the street and see new condominium development with pictures, videos and floor plans?
Down the street is McDonalds with their menu and latest promotions. Community events will be posted at the library, town halls and squares. Streets would show the latest street festivals coming up. I’d imagine that company’s would also post these street views on their website, to quickly communicate which geographic areas are supporting activities, events or promotions.
I wonder how it would be organized to access this information easily and not look cluttered? I can also see companies wanting to display their logos, instead of or with Google’s icons.
Geo targeting in the search will display images and links to Google’s street view, and perhaps the resources (menus, floor plans, videos, etc) associated to place. How about searching for all street festivals in a defined area you drew on Google Maps? This would be a handy feature as well.
Geographic searching is the flip side of online communities. Companies and people will always be somewhat restricted to a geographic area (unless we figure out how to teletransport ourselves and physical goods… crossing fingers!). Geo searching helps to support our physical communities and their organization systems. This in turn can help online communities grow through understanding of each geographic region without needing to be there; one can research the area and all it’s buildings and offerings from their computer.
Of course all of this is speculation. Hopefully it’s got people thinking about the future of geo searching and it’s applications. I’d like to hear others thoughts on this. Where do you think geo searching is heading?
Originally posted 2010-11-23 18:21:33. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Dropbox not working on my computer
My current work flow has been effected by my loss of Dropbox. The problem? Windows 7 and Dropbox do not like each other. It seems to be a permissions setting in my registry files. I’ve tried to fix it myself but so far have been unsuccessful. Dropbox has a note on their website that they are aware of the problem and working to correct.
Dropbox: How could you do this to me! I am now relying on your application to sync and use my documents wherever I am. Now you tell me you won’t sync my files on my home computer? I am Jack’s raging bile duct. Okay I just wanted to throw in a Fight Club reference.
It’s come to this. I am already very reliant on these systems that help to sync my files and bookmarks across various computers. If you aren’t “in the cloud” yet, I can’t tell you how useful it is to work on the fly and know that you can access the same document on a different computer. Now I am more focused on what I produce than what I backup. And that is the way it should be, right?
Now Dropbox please fix the issue so I can embrace you into my life again!
Originally posted 2011-02-17 11:18:02. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Posted in Commentary
Tagged bookmarks, cloud computing, Dropbox, files, sync, Windows 7
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Amazon Silk
A new browser only available on Kindle devices. It utilizes the cloud to process web pages faster than typical browsers. Learn more by going to www.amazon.com/silk or view the video below:
Originally posted 2011-10-02 13:33:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
What the F**K is Social Media
What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later
View more documents from Marta Kagan.
Summary of Slideshow
Social Media Uses
- Public Relations
- Customer Service
- Loyalty-Building
- Collaboration
- Networking
- Thought-Leadership
- Customer Acquisition
Social Media Rules
Rule #1: Listen
Rule #2: Engage
- namechk:
Check to see if your desired username or vanity url is still available at dozens of popular Social Networking and Social Bookmarking websites. Promote your brand consistently by registering a username that is still available on the majority of the most popular sites. Find the best username with namechk.
Rule #3: Measure
- Audience
- Engagement
- Loyalty
- Influence
- Action
Originally posted 2009-07-20 09:15:50. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Posted in Business
Tagged Customer Service, Marketing, Networking, Public Relations, Rules, Social Media
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F8 Developer
Watch the latest Facebook developer ideas here. Click the title of this article to view embedded video.
Originally posted 2011-09-23 12:52:09. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
Gapingvoid.com
Hugh MacLeod
The title of this post is a chapter title from Hugh MacLeod’s book “Ignore Everybody”, a book about cultivating creativity. A cartoonist who posts his cartoons on his blog, his cartoons are awesome and his advice is good. He really hammers in the point that although you may love what you do, other people are too concerned with their own lives to care about what you’re doing. That if you have an original idea it will be very hard to get people to accept this new idea because it threatens the safe world they’ve created which thrives on familiarity, the old and tested. That if you’re going to take a creative path get ready for lots of hard, painful work and don’t expect to be rewarded for it. Expect failure. Therefore any success you have will be an added bonus.
So then why would you go this route? Only one possible reason: because you love what you do. It isn’t going to go away. Get used to the idea of dealing with it.
And did I mention his cartoons are funny?
Originally posted 2009-07-19 23:13:27. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Posted in Inspiration
Tagged Advice, Book Review, Cartoons, Creativity, Humour, Inspiration
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After Google Instant comes YouTube Instant
Only two days after Google Instant was revealed to the world, a computer science student from Stanford University, Feross Aboukhadijeh, decided to create an “instant” version of YouTube.
- Mashable
And it’s pretty cool, go check it out for yourself at http://ytinstant.com/#th. You can watch “The Annoying Orange” that it brings up… hahahahahaha.
Anything that you type into the search engine will automatically load new videos. As you type “t” a video will load… as you type “th” a new video will load… you get the point.
I’m not sure how he’s organized this… for instance why does “Teenage Dream” by Katy Parry load when I type “t”? Meh. Either way this is a really cool use of YouTube.
Feross Aboukhadijeh got the attention of YouTube CEO, Chad Hurley, who offered him a job over Twitter. Aboukhadijeh continues to add features to his design at YouTube while finishing his degree at Stanford.
If you haven’t already, visit YouTube Instant yourself. Also read Feross Aboukhadijeh’s blog.
Originally posted 2010-10-25 11:42:16. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Posted in News
Tagged attention, automatically, blog, engine, features google, instance, instant, mashable, science, search, stanford, student, twitter, university, youtube
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Google still a search engine
I’ve been reading a lot about Google Buzz, Social Search and so on. What I think people need to remember is that Google is not Facebook or Windows Live, like is stressed in Jason Falls’ article. It may mimic some features but it won’t take over these services like Jason McCabe suggests. In fact I have no friends on Buzz yet. I am trying to get some people to join me but alas Facebook is better at social connections than Google ever has been. And since Google doesn’t offer Facebook in their list of social sites to import information, I have to rebuild my list of friends for Buzz.
I believe Google’s strength is still aggregating information, this time with a social slant. This means that they need sites like Facebook, Twitter and so on. Almost all their products rely heavily on data. Analytics, Feedburner, Search, Image Search, Earth, Maps, etc. Facebook on the other hand relies on social connections but not on data aggregation. It links people together. The first thing you look for on Facebook is a face. It’s organizing people, not data.
So saying that Google will take over Facebook holds no weight. It’s like saying that the library will replace talking to my friends because books on the shelves now have reviews from my social circle inside the covers. Instead Google and social applications are now complimenting each other by offering different view points of the connection between social information and data information. Data to social or social to data. You will choose one over the other depending on your task.
How will your task change the way you use social information? Well if you are looking for friends to join you for an event, creating an event in Facebook and sending it off to your list of friends is one of the quickest ways to collaborate. If you are looking for a book on business, asking 100 of your friends/acquaintances what books they recommend on Facebook is tedious and will likely be viewed as spam. Using Google Search and seeing a list of books read by your friends would get to the information quicker, with less hassle and you can compare your friend’s opinions to trusted experts on the web with just one search.
So that is how I see Google in comparison to social websites. Google is direct and data driven. Social websites are organic and people driven. They both have their purpose.
Originally posted 2010-02-11 13:21:50. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Posted in Business, Commentary, Technology
Tagged acquaintances, analytics, book, book cover, Business, collaborate, compliment, complimenting, data aggregation, data driven, data information, data to social, direct, experts, facebook, feedburner, friend, friend list, friends, Google Buzz. Google Social Search, Google Earth, Google Maps, Image Search, library, opinions, organic, people driven, search, social applications, social circle, social connections, social information, social to data, social websites, task, trusted experts, twitter
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Infographic: A Programmer’s Guide to Getting Hired by a Startup
Originally posted 2012-01-16 20:44:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter