Internet Business and Design Topics
Coffee Talk is a resource for businesses, IPD partners, designers, and students of online business to learn more of practices within our field of interest. Within CoffeeTalk, we discuss issues in the field of web design and development, contemporary issues of business, give advice and suggestions, provide articles and topics of further discussion, and helpful hints, clues, and free things.
For internal IPD news, see: project and company annoucements
Does Social News Affect Democratic Reporting?
Thoughts:
As the news becomes more and more driven by direct and immediate user response and interest, does the quality of news become less: either less investigative or more homogeneous? In the sample image below, news is filtered or given a more prominent feature the more users click or interact with it. Convenience of accessibility and immediacy, will basically drive more traffic to the top results--thus fueling a perpetual circle of few, highly trafficked results. However, if this feature is nested along-side other news aggregation systems or human selected news, then the news becomes multi-perspective and quality is highened through choice.
IBM To Focus On A Next Generation Browser Platform
IBM is going to focus on developing a browser based platform called Blue Spruce. Blue Spruce will be a completely browser based application development platform. As of November, the project is only five months old. This technology will take on the proprietary rich internet platforms of Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight. Blue Spruce wil not be a browser--it will be a platform.
Gmail adds video and voice chat
Google announced an update to video and voice chat in its email program "Gmail." To enable video and voice in Gmail, users simply have to install a small plugin to their browser. This feature will be enabled on Nov. 11th 2008 on Gmail and other Google Apps. The new video and voice chat functionality will work on PCs with Windows XP or Vista, as well as on Macs with OS X 10.4 or later--and it will work on all the major browsers.
Economic Woes Boosts LinkedIn
LinkedIn has seen a 25 percent spike in new sign-ups since Lehman Brothers folded in mid-September of 2008. In addition, LinkedIn was able to score $22.7 million in funding as part of a second round of funding. Of course the daily round of layoffs from corporate sactuaries, gives more value to the application as so many new job seekers attempt to leverage their connections using LinkedIn.
Motorola Bets Big On Google
"Motorola is trying to simplify its production process by limiting the number of operating systems that they support," said Fred Boxa, an analyst with IBB Consulting. "They have issues of high production costs and inefficiencies." Source: Red Herring Magazine October 2008
France To Unveil New Digital Plan
The president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, announced his plans to unveil his strategy for the "digital economy" on October 13. In general terms, the goal of the plan is to catch France up with other developed nations in terms of broadband internet distribution. It is likely to call for faster expansion of broadband access toward of a stated goal of providing 100% of France's population access to the Internet by 2012--thus snarrowing the digital divide between rich and poor in France.
Clickjacking: A New Security Threat Gains Ground
Clickjacking has been identified as a vulnerability for the Adobe Flash player, as well as for every major browser, including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari and even the newly released Google Chrome. Clickjacking is a hacking technique that can be used to fool web-surfers into revealing confidential info while clicking on seemingly harmless webpages. Clickjacking can also secretely activate a person's webcam or microphone.
World of WarCraft Gains 11 Million Subscribers
Blizzard reports that its most popular PC game World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online (MMO), expanded its audience to reach 11 million subscribers. World of Warcraft has only cost Blizzard $200 million to maintain World of Warcraft for the past five years, with monthly membership costs to users at about 16 dollars per month.
US Male College Students Spend 21 Hours Online Per Week
A study of college students published in August 2008 by EDUCAUSE revealed that 35% of male college student Internet users spent 21 or more hours online per week.
U.S. Venture Capital Fundraising Decreases 30%
As the fallout of the global credit crunch expands, venture capital is directly affected. Thirty-eight venture funds raised $9.3 billion in the third quarter, which represents a 56 percent decline from year earier - 2007 - quarter as well as a 22.5 percent drop from the second quarter of 2008 (world wide) according to Preqin, a London-based tracker of alternative assets.
Facebook and Microsoft Partnership: Live Search
Microsoft's product, Live Search, is now active on Facebook. In addition to the implementation of Live Search within Facebook, AdCenter ads will also be the advertising engine behind the social network. Currently the implementation of the two products is undergoing a period of evaluation after which Facebook will decide whether to more deeply integrate the Microsoft products.
Virtual Worlds Own
Venture Capital has invested over $148.5 million dollars into 12 companies during the third quarter of 2008. The list of companies include: Gaia Online, Knowledge Adventure, MindFuse, and Trion World Network. Over $493 million has been invested in virtual worlds up till now in 2008. The industry may continue to do well since their product essentially is an escape from reality during these uncertain times. This industry has been rocked by such notable players as Second Life and Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft.
2008 Advertising, Stats for 1st Half
The Interactive Adverising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers published statistics for internet advertising for the first half of 2008. Internet advertising, for the first six months of 2008, increased by 15.2% from 2007--equaling $11.5 billion in revenues. The second quarter of 2008 was up 12.8% higher than Q2 of 2007-- yet it showed a slight decline, 0.3%, from the first quarter. Display advertising approached $3.8 billion, up 19%.
2006 - 2011 Online Social Network Advertising Forecast
eMarketer now sees social networking ad spend in 2011 at $3.4 billion, a sharp reduction from previous forecasts of $4.1 billion for the same period. eMarketer reports ad spending on social networks is still projected to outpace online advertising on the whole by a wide margin: 65% to 23% in 2008. Note: Advertising budgets are commonly one of the first things to get cut in a recession.
SEO: Google Algorithm Change
Google's search ranking algorithm appears to be changing. The change appears to give more weight to user behavior and site "quality". Links are obviously still a key factor, but it is notable to see a growing interest in bounce rate and content quality.
A Second Time's An Upgrade
In the December issue of the Journal of Consumer Research there was a new study that indicated users who are frequently interrupted while shopping online tend to select more upgrades when they have calm moments. This study also states that users who shop with fewer interruptions tend to be more price conscious and make purchases with cost at the forefront of their decision making process. Wendy Liu, UCLA assistant professor stated that of the 656 participants in the study those who were interrupted would return with a sense of clearity of mind towards personal comfort and their original shopping goals.
"For example, consider a consumer shopping at an online store—as she ponders a particular purchase, she might be interrupted by a pop-up ad that informs her of the various events happening at the store; alternatively, she may be diverted by a prompt on her computer to check an incoming email." .... "Extensive research in consumer behavior suggests decision making is often a process of information processing and preferences are constructed as a result, rather than simply retrieved from memory (Bettman, Luce, and Payne 1998)."
Focusing on Desirability: The Effect of Decision Interruption and Suspension on Preferences. Journal of Consumer Research
Here's the full paper: PDF: The Effect of Decision Interruption and Suspension on Preferences.
Web 2.0 Tools Redefine Contemporary Management Practices
45% planned growth rate in the use of “software that links to social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn) or other communities of practice.”
Source of data: "State of the Market 2008" Aberdeen’s July 2008 Benchmark Report. aberdeen.com.
52% of the organizations who use blogs, wikis, and social networking have achieved Best -in- Class performance levels in contrast to only 5% of organizations who do not.
18% average year over year improvement in employee engagement from organizations that use the tools in contrast to 1% for organizations that do not use them.
Google's Big Dollar Dreams In Mobile Markets
Google’s Android mobile operating system ( Cell phone OS ), which was just released by T-mobile, is expected by some analysts to bring in roughly $1 billion in advertising revenue for the search king by 2010. The G1, sporting Google’s brand and operating system, will go on sale in U.S. stores October 22nd, 2008 for $179--a very competitive price.
Google Launches Its Own Web Browser
Google launches a BETA version of a web browser called Chrome. Is Google competing with its longtime pal: Mozilla? Our guess is probably not. Even though 85% of Mozilla's income is due to a search service contract with Google, Mozilla does not compete with Google's key services. Most likely Google's web browser, Chrome, is a straight forward attack on Internet Explorer and Microsoft--since they are trying to take on Google directly in the game of search and paid advertising. Google's browser may not kill Mozilla, but it may recruit IE users.
Some key features of Chrome:
- Simplified design: Changes to traditional tab structure design and layout (address bar appears within the tab).
- Type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and web pages.
- Access your favorite pages instantly with lightning speed from any new tab.
- Get desktop shortcuts to launch your favorite web applications.
Local Search Is A Must Have For SEO Marketing
Local Search Builds Online Success
The total volume of local web searches continues to grow. Marketers, advertisers and SEO experts must pursue the challenge of addressing the needs of both local and national search traffic. This pursuit must account for the variances between geographies, develop local keyword traffic drivers, avoid exposure roadblocks between local and national campaigns, engage the local user through customization and track results from both a micro and macro perspective to gain a better understanding of how users think, feel and behave.
> Tools and concepts to be considered within a local search campaign:
- business search results on Google Maps: both the map view and the text view
- landing page customization for local traffic
- local content networks for aid in organic query growth and advertising traffic
- Social media wed to local interest content
and much more...read more about: SEO Marketing
Web and Business
Hewlett Packard Jumps Deeper Into Networked Storage
Hewlett Packard purchases Lefthand Networks (lefthandnetworks.com) for 360 million, taking them further into the world of network storage. The nine year old company had venture backing by Boulder Ventures, Sequel Venture Partners, Ironside Ventures and the Sprout Group.
Hewlett Packard, the number one company, competes against EMC and other companies in the storage market.
iPhone 3G Revives Mobile Data Innovation In US
Mobile data revenue has been sagging in Europe and Asia, but with the advent of the new iPhone 3G, researchers expect data revenue in the US to rapidly expand at a compound annual growth of 24 percent ( from $24 billion in 2007 to $100 billion in 2017 ). In contrast, total wireless service revenues should grow by a mere 5 percent for the same period.
Tellme Next Year by Microsoft
Topic: iPhone Applications
Microsoft is working on its first iPhone application. Microsoft's "Tellme unit" is the department responsible for the new app. Tellme offers voice-activated search for a variety of phones (even the BlackBerry). "I'm not sure we can squeeze it out this year, given everything we've got going on," stated the Microsoft group. Althought Tellme is supposed to be a voice driven application, Tellme relies on a physical button to determine when to start listening to a query. This paradox will symbolize a larger design struggle companies will have when different human interactions are melded into technology: ie. hearing, touch, sight, and physical location perception using GPS.
Delta Airlines Will Offer Wifi on Flights
Delta Air Lines Inc. stated that it will begin to offer broadband wireless Internet access on its entire domestic mainline fleet by the middle of next year. Could this be in response to an earlier statement by Continental Airlines also to provide wireless service on the majority of its mainland fleet? The wireless system will enable Delta customers traveling with Wi-Fi enabled devices ( laptops, smartphones and PDAs ) to access the Internet while in flight. This service will come at a charge however: a flat fee of $9.95 will be charged on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours.
Social Media To View "The Now"
Surchur.com provides search results that display what is happening right now, in the moment, in blog posts, news, photos, video, etc. This is a great way to test new ideas and view the reception of new products and services.
TV Advertising Innovation
Google has commenced a television advertising program, which it has been testing for some time now. The TV advertising platform uses an auction model ( which it initiated in June of 2007 ). It will support an analytics tools that will show the length of time a viewer was tuned in to the ad, as well as, the quantity of impressions (including how many watched from start to finish). The marketing platform will have the ability to reach an audiance of up to 13 million on Dish Network as well as 94 different cable networks.
Google To Launch Venture Capital Arm
Google is planning on using it's 12.7 Billion in cash and short-term investments to create a venture capital unit. The Wall Street Journal stated that David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer and senior vice president of corporate development, will be the boss of this new Google unit. In very similar moves, Nokia, Intel, and the Walt Disney Company have also set up formalized venture capital divisions. It has been notable that, up to now, Google has bought out companies in whole to make use of their inventions---for example, Google shelled out $140 million to own ZAO Begun, a Russian context advertising service.
Mobile Video Markets Horror To Young Males
Stephen King, best selling horror writer, in connection with CBS will use video episodes to market his coming book. CBS is hoping to attract the mostly young and male consumers of mobile and online video.
Google Launches Wikipedia Threat
Knol ("A unit of knowledge") is Google's shot at Wikipedia. Knol conbines parts of Wikipedia and Squidoo to create a leading user generated knowledge base that will "share" ad revenue with the author of a page's article. "A knol is an authoritative article about a specific topic." Google kept this project under lock on key, until recently when it launched Knol to the public. Here is a brief discription of the project as described by Google: "Knol will encourage these people to contribute their knowledge online and make it accessible to everyone."
Quote: “We expect that there will be multiple Knols on the same subject, and we think that is good,” Google said.
MySpace Drops While Facebook Grows
While MySpace declines by 6 percent, No. 2 social-networking site grows 40 percent, as reported by research firm, Hitwise.
Twitter Buys Search Company Summize
This deail will help the micro blogging company, Twitter, marketing it's technology to users using Summize's contextual search features.
Business 2.0 Thoughts and Responses
In the research paper "Strategic Meetings Management, February 2008" by Aberdine, 60% of enterprises indicated that the amount invested in meetings has increased over the last two years.
Web Search Trend Statistics 2004 - 2008
Graphic search patterns from Google Trends.
Data for Key Term Queries: Web design, ecommerce, graphic design: web statistics 2004 - 2008
Coffee Talk Pages
New York web design
Base location of operations: New York City, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens.
Secondary regions: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Oakland California, Lexington and Louisville Kentucky, and Miami and West Palm Beach Florida.