Thursday, December 31, 2009

Top 10....Well, Make That Top 5 List

Happy New Year's Eve to all! The end of the year always means top ten lists everywhere, from tv to music to the internet. Of course, bloggers everywhere are making their own lists of 10 things they thought were important/stupid/influential/etc. All for you to read and ponder.
But let's face it, its New Year's Eve. You, dear reader, are more than likely about to go out with friends, or sit cozily at home and watch them take Dick Clark out of the formaldehyde vat for one more ball drop countdown. You have things to do. So, out of the greatest consideration for your time, we've condensed all the top 10 lists into the top five things that caught our attention.

5.Green Things
Everything has "gone green" lately, from laundry detergent to light bulbs. Why wouldn't IT? It's not only where to recycle those computer parts anymore, either, it's the fact that companies are evaluating how to make their data centers more energy efficient, and seeing how to reduce their carbon footprint.

4.More People Use Netbooks
Tiny computers for business folk to use for internet and email. Bigger screen than a cellphone, but smaller than the average laptop. Great for buses, subways, coffee shops and park benches nationwide. Of course they're a hit!

3. More Built-In Wireless Broadband
For us at Addison Technologies, and any other web businesses, this is a good thing. More people have built in wireless cards in their phones, netbooks and laptops, thereby giving more people web access. More people on the web = more potential customers.

2. Google Chrome
Its always interesting to watch competition, especially when it involves giants like Microsoft and Google. Chrome is promising things like security, which Microsoft has been notoriously hackable on. As with all free market competition, this should be beneficial to us, the end users!

1. Flying Car
It's quite nearly 2010, and we still don't have those flying cars that we were promised way back in the day. But things are looking up, a Massachusetts company is working on a car/airplane that runs on regular unleaded, and can drive on the highway.


Happy New Year, All!

Friday, December 11, 2009

The Searches, They Are a Changing

Bing vs. Google. Google vs. Bing. As the search war heats up, its only going to get better for web business. As the search giants battle it out, the spoils of the war will go to us, the consumers, by way of better and more relevant search results. Your target audience will better be able to search for your products with the features that are to come. Competition leads to change and innovation!
Addison Technologies already provides our customers with excellent search engine optimization. As the search engines improve their results, then, our work for you becomes that much better!

More Seniors on the Web

Found an interesting article for all of us web people showing that more seniors age 65+ are using the web. They are still a small overall percentage of web traffic, but they are there and growing in number. What will this mean for us as web developers, and as businesses who have websites (beyond making the text larger, that is.) It will prove interesting as well to see how it pans out as more baby boomers become seniors, therefore making more seniors web proficient.

Google Goggles: Practical and Lazy

So, according to an article at Internetnews.com, http://tinyurl.com/ydtujv7 , Google is working on adding some new features for all of us. We all know and love (or hate, depending on who you are) some of Google's other functions, but they are adding some interesting ones this time around. While some of the other features intrigue me immensely, I think the Google Goggles feature may hold loads of potential for those of us who do commerce on and with the web.

Google Goggles is a feature where you can take a photo of something and Google will research it for you. How many times have I seen something, asked myself “What exactly IS that?" and had to reply "Heck if I know." How useful, as a consumer, to be able to Goggle something, and get a reply? Want to know what work of art you're looking at? Want to know how much amazon is selling the book on a friend's coffee table for? What subtle flavor profiles does this wine have? Google Goggles would be able to answer those questions for the buyer.

And as a goods producer, how useful would it be for you to be able to see if people were looking up your product via Goggles? I have no idea if Google has any plans on allowing us to see when/where/frequency/etc of a product's Google Goggling, but to me, it would make sense. And if has occurred to me, then one would hope that the officials there would have thought of it. The producer could then get an idea of whether or not your branding is doing its job, if the consumer is aware of your product (ie, what they're looking at.) Or, if your branding is working within a particular geographic region, or with a certain advertising campaign. With that knowledge, you can then tailor your website (from Addison Technologies, of course,) marketing and business plans.

What is interesting to me too, is how it this feature will be abused. We can already foresee that somehow your innocent look-up of a bag of exotic coffee beans will somehow garner a link to a porn site for kinky coffee addicts. Don't smirk, you know it'll happen. And additionally, how will advertisers be compensated for this feature? Will your coffee bean look up garner a Starbucks link first, even if it has no real relevance? Then there's the underlying question: how lazy are we, I mean really? (I'll give you a pass if you Goggle something with labeling in a foreign language.) You can't take the time to type out that book title, you just want to take a photo--unfortunately, yes, we're getting that lazy.