Digital Business

I can quite see why Apple has sold over a million of them since March.

By chance, yesterday I had the chance to play with an Apple iPad. A colleague from the USA had bought one for himself and had it with him when he had flown over for an important meeting in London. Funnily enough, he said “I have good reason for justifying why I spent over $700 on the iPad, but I’m glad I did”. His version was the 32GB version with Wi-Fi and 3G.

My first impression of the iPad was the size. It was slightly smaller than I had expected. It’s more compact than a netbook and it is larger than a Sony Reader. The next thing I noticed that it has looks of simple elegance. The screen is clear and sharp.

When I handled the iPad it was heavier than expected but that was reassuring in so much as that it is well made and it would appear to have some ‘good kit’ inside the casing. Not being an iPhone owner (yet) I was not used to the ease at which you can navigate around it through the apps and in the apps.

The on-screen keyboard was a lot bigger than I had expected too. It is certainly usable. The only challenge is the angle at which you type compared to seeing what you are typing. Because it is flat, you will either need the purpose-made case to enable you to put it at an angle so you can see what you are typing, or you will need to lean the iPad up against a book!

The applications I was very interested to see were the book apps. The iBook app is slick, easy to navigate and a clear reading experience. The Kindle app was as easy to read and use but you can’t have two pages open side by side like a paper book. A small concession. However, the Kindle syncs between the Kindle app on your iPhone and your iPad so it knows where you were last time you were reading between the devices. Clever.

The next impressive application is the built-in calendar. It synchronises with your work calendar or your Google calendar and it is beautifully laid out so you can see your schedule in detail and in general on the same page. You can also synchronise your work email (and personal email) through Microsoft Exchange too.

Overall, I was impressed with the iPad. It is pricey but I know it would be incredibly useful. It’s not something on which you would do a lot of hard-core office work on, but it is something I can quite see that I would have with me for much of the day, whether for reading books, watching films, listening to music or catching up on my emails and schedule.

I can quite see why Apple has sold over a million of them since March.

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If you want to do some serious research, don't just rely on search

In the same way that when people vacuum-clean their houses they say they are ‘hoovering’ it, people nowadays say they are ‘googling’ it when they are searching for information on the internet. By far and away the most popular search engine is, of course, Google. Until very recently, my perception was that all human knowledge (well, a fairly large proportion of it) was available to find on Google’s search engine. Therefore, if you want to do some research into, say, patents on a product your business is looking to develop, then you start and finish with Google.

Far more than just searching for information on websites around the world through Google, the search giant is now scanning books so that you can search across thousands of out of  copyright titles for the information you are looking for. This action in itself has created a large and heated debate in the publishing world as publishers and authors worry about their intellectual property and whether this is being abused. But that’s another discussion.

So, one might assume that carrying out market research, say, in the 21st century that you can rely on search engines to find what you need. You make the assumption that everything you are looking for is properly indexed and categorised. One might also assume that because what you searched for in Google appears at the top of the search results that that result is the most authoritative and well respected piece of information on the subject.

The reality is that serious researchers don’t rely on Google or other search engines to do their research. Much of the information is not indexed, categorised and reviewed by peers in enough detail for researchers to rely upon it to make decisions about whether to invest millions of pounds or dollars into a new product development.

Academic and corporate researchers use academic and corporate research libraries which, in turn, invest many thousands of pounds in information which is aggregated, indexed, categorised and tagged by hand and in detail, so that researchers can rely on the information to make the right decisions.

So, there is a big difference between search and research and people expect to have the same simple interface to find the information they need. It’s just that you need to trust the quality of the information you find which is not always the case when much of the results at the top of research results might well be there because someone has spent a huge amount of time optimising the content to be at the top. It might not be the best content, however.

So, if you want to do some serious research, don’t just rely on search.

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It feels as though our government is spending now so that we can pay later

By chance, I met a candidate for the position of Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, this week while travelling on business with a colleague in the USA. We were on our way back to the railway station, being given a lift by the car rental company who were also giving Mirna White a lift.

Mirna introduced herself to us when she heard what we were doing in the USA and mentioned that she was running for mayor with the election on 11th May. We duly asked about her campaign theme which centred on the issues of crime and unemployment in Newark. she recounted some of the facts about the city including their unemployment rate had risen from 8.3% in 2005 to 14.8% today. They have a steady murder rate of about 80 a year. A million people come to the city every day to work but their official population is only 280,000. in 2005, they had 1,250 robberies and 1,387 in 2008.

Newark is a stark contrast from its next door neighbour, New York. Newark is only a 15 minute train ride from central Manhattan and the journey takes you over the marshy ground between the two cities and through some of the industrial heartlands of America, which are not pretty. There are acres of containers and warehouses and a noticeable amount of derelict buildings.

Speaking with some of the people with whom we were doing business, they told us of house building companies selling houses for $1.99 as long as a highly discounted price for the house and a cheap mortgage were taken up so they could sell huge inventories of houses which had been vacated by customers who could not afford the payments. Some of our colleagues from Michigan told us about the large drop in the value of houses because large numbers of the local workers had been laid off by the failing motor industry.

All in all, it felt like there was a whole lot of pain out in America which we, in the UK, can only really guess at compared to what we have been experiencing as a result of the credit crunch.

However, in contrast, when we went back into New York, although things have slowed down compared to before the credit crisis, you would not know there was a recession happening if judged by the number of people eating in the restaurants we visited at lunchtime and in the evenings. Some of them were packed. The hotels seemed to be busy too. But I expect that is more to do with the fact that New York is bound to be recovering faster than the parts of New Jersey we visited because of the nature of the city and its strength in financial services and other leading industries.

This picture of different stages of a recession is bound to reflected in our own economy. But I can’t help thinking that the UK population has been shielded from the darkest realities of the credit crunch by our governments’ willingness to subsidise our economy. So, in effect, it feels like the government is spending now so that we can pay later.

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Are all big companies bad for business and consumers?

It would appear that most people know about the indiscretions of Tiger Woods, recently. It was splashed all over the news, both online and offline.  The story about his extra-marital affairs became the most searched for articles on the web for a time. Some news organisations saw large numbers of new visitors to their websites looking for the latest gossip and insights into why the most famous golfer in the world had crashed his car just outside his own house. Woods’ troubles were good for business for news sites, helping them to reinforce why advertisers should continue to pay them their fees.

The image of Tiger Woods had been one of sportsmanship, achievement, dedication and integrity. But, some sponsors have started to drop him because they believe it was negatively affecting their own brands to be associated with him. Tiger Woods was, and probably still is, the biggest thing in golf, helping to boost TV ratings which no other golfers achieve.

But, like all things which become big, they often creak at the seams or they become unaware of their surroundings so much so that they damage others. You can see this with the BBC, which has announced that it is planning to pare down its organisation by dropping some stations and web pages. Google has now become so big that organisations feel that it is too dominant and they want to shackle the search organisation so that others can compete with it.

The challenge for other companies competing with them is that Google is just so good at what it does. It is competing with other massive companies, like Microsoft, by providing many free services (e.g. Google Docs) for which their competitors charge. Its competitors feel stifled in their search rankings when Google has a competitive product.

But, people do have a choice when it comes to search. Microsoft’s Bing search engine will soon be joining with Yahoo!’s search engine. Bing is pretty good. But, people choose not to use Bing and Yahoo! as much because they are not yet quite as good as Google yet.

Google will soon be bringing out its own operating system to rival Microsoft Windows. I, personally, can’t wait because if it is as good as their web browsing software, Google Chrome, then I am all for Google being big so that they can invest in technology which will actually give a real choice in which operating system we use in our computers.

So, it seems counter-intuitive for the European Union (EU) to being trying to legislate against Google when it is actually this organisation which is providing choice to consumers. After all, Microsoft has been the target of the EU’s wrath for the last decade for not providing choice. Now that a competitor to Microsoft is providing choice in the market, the EU is attempting to stifle them.

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The next time you are standing at a bus stop, or you are waiting for a train, take a look around at anything that interests you and take a photograph of it with the camera on your internet enabled phone. For instance, that poster advertising a film that you have heard good reviews about, or perhaps the advertisement for a chocolate bar. Chances are that you will just have photograph of an advertisement on your phone and a pretty shaky one at that unless you are a professional photograph specialising in photos taken through phones.

But wouldn’t it be useful if that photograph led to you finding out where you could see that film in the cinema nearest to you, at what time and buy tickets for it then and there? Or by photographing the chocolate bar on the poster you received a digital voucher which you could redeem in your local corner shop on one of those chocolate bars? Another useful application of your mobile phone could be when you are driving around an area looking for houses you might be interested in buying.

Currently, you have to get the details from an estate agent or an online service about houses and then plan a tour around the area to see which ones you want to view. But, if you see a house on your tour for which you had not printed off the details you would have to mess about calling the agent or logging onto the web to get the details. It’s frustrating and the speed at which you find details on the internet at home or at work makes it all the more so because you cannot find them so quickly when you are away from the web. It would very useful if you could take a snap of the outside of the house on your phone and see details about it immediately to see whether it is in your budget.

Well, this capability is now available through your Nokia mobile via their ‘Point and Find’ service. It allows you to find information like this now. All you need is the ‘Point and Find’ software on your internet enabled phone to get instant information. The service is quick and easy to use. For marketers, it gets around a major hurdle with mobile marketing which is the fact that people don’t like having to tap out more than basic messages on their phones. The three keys activities carried out on mobiles are search, social networking and photography. But search is limited by people’s reluctance to type on their keypads so Google is developing a voice driven mobile version of their search engine.

With services like ‘Point and Find‘ or ‘Amazon Remembers‘ you just need to photograph what you are interested in to get the information you want about the product or service you have seen. The possibilities are endless. And they both meet the ‘Want It Now!’ feeling that we all experience now. Consumers hate having to wait.

Marketers will be able to understand which of their off-line marketing collateral is most effective and which locations are most productive. Marketing investment can be targeted more effectively and efficiently. Mobile marketing will become more mainstream with the reality of instant gratification as the database of products and services are increased in these services.

  
Download now or listen on posterous

Will speaking on BBC Radio – Nokia Point & Find.mp3 (26529 KB)

Posted via email from digi-business.net

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So much for the sceptics. Here’s the reality. Google draws attention and buyers to obscure books – The Boston Globe http://ow.ly/t6z4

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Everyday there are steps made towards people paying for content online which they might have expected to get for free in the past. This is a good thing so that we keep the ability to read well researched articles and information.

The Daily Telegraph is also moving towards paid-for online content through its ‘e-paper‘ program.

Google launches Fast Flip news website – Telegraph http://ow.ly/pzyP

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Kettle calling the pot black?

When Microsoft comes out with a statement that Google is being monopolistic with its digital book initiative, you know that something big is afoot. Microsoft has been in the courts for many years battling against law suits to limit its power in the world of operating systems and web browsers. But more recently, Google has started to become a threat that Microsoft has taken seriously and this would appear to be sour grapes from them towards the search giant.

Publishers are up in arms at the prospect of Google scanning books to them searchable, available and commercial again. It would appear that the amount that Google has to pay publishers for the rights to some of those books is quite small in relation to the number of titles available.

On the other hand, the publishers may well be getting an income from books which were deemed uncommercial before Google became interested in them. Either way, this has to be a good thing for making books more widely available according to how customers want to buy and read them.

Microsoft brands Google settlement ‘wrong’ | theBookseller.com http://ow.ly/oDfw

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Get your online conversations in sync

I was reminded of Google’s new communications tool today by the article below in the Telegraph.

Google demonstrated this some time ago and it looked like it was a very good tool indeed for keeping your online conversations in sync. The challenge with when you chat online is that your conversations with a friend can become disjointed.

For instance, while you are answering your friends last question they ask you another one. You hit the return button and your answer looks as though it is answering the current question. See what I mean? It can become confusing.

Google Wave synchronises email and instant messaging. You need to see it working to see how good it is and to understand it.

Google Wave: Why we’ll soon be waving at each other – Telegraph http://ow.ly/jVdr

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How does your business feel?

A few businesses appear as though they are instant winners. Some take a while to build themselves up to success. Some start with a great idea but burn out quickly as the idea does not translate itself into a commercially viable product or service (I remember meeting someone in a pub in the late ’90′s who was setting up dotcom company which was delivering a clean shirt, pants, socks, a razor and toothbrush to a customer’s office after a night on the town).

I spent some time with a business this evening which had got the ingredients right on its product. One of the keys for this business to get right was how it felt when you walked in through the front door. It felt right. It felt relaxed, welcoming, warm but not hot. It smelt right and you felt as though you were completely welcome. The business is a spa, The Grange Spa, in Lincolnshire.

It is an oasis in this very rural county. The nearest competition is about an hour away. The couple that own it, Matt & Emma Craven, are warm and welcoming. Behind their friendly exteriors are sharp marketing minds that know exactly who they are aiming at as ideal customers. Matt told me precise socio-demographic characteristics of each segment of the population they are targeting.

They started in April 2009 and “footfall” is starting to increase through their doors, finally. It’s tough but it is starting to work. Clients were walking in as we spoke having treatments, using the gym and swimming in their gorgeous pool. Matt uses Twitter and Facebook to help him reach out to potential clients.

But, these social media tools are not necessarily being used by some of their ideal customers. Nevertheless, many of their prospective customers network socially albeit not through the internet but at book clubs. Women with children in their mid to late thirties.

So, Matt and I got chatting about the possibility of combining their spa with women’s book clubs. The spa has beautiful furniture and private areas where a women’s book club could meet to talk about this month’s book, chat and then spend an hour using the spa. We then talked about the joy of using Google Chrome which is when Emma seemed to switch off for some reason.

But more, importantly, take a look at The Grange Spa’s web site and see for yourself at what this oasis offers and how it feels. If you get a chance, swing by and say hello to Matt, Emma or any of their friendly staff to sense for yourself just how good their business feels. If you have your own business, then ask yourself how it feels. Does it feel right? If not, make some changes. It’s important for your customers.

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