I've written another article for Wisconsin Technology Network in the ongoing series in the Buzz Networks series of columns. The article "Nowhere to hide: buyer behavior in a connected world" discusses the impact of the Internet on buyer behavior.
Paul Gibler
Earlier this week I was one of the keynote presenters at the 2nd annual National Conference on University and College Conference Centers. The topic of my talk was what Fortune magazine is calling Conference 2.0. For these Conference Centers being able to add value to their University clients as well as for outside users of their centers is something that is being sought. The use of web 2.0 tools like social network groups on LinkedIn, Photo Sharing on Flickr, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts etc. are all part of creating engagement among conference attendess and making meeting planners happy. As Seth Godin says, you don't want your attendees to say "I flew all the way here for this".
The slides that I used at the presentation were posted on SlideShare and are available here for your reference.
Today's my birthday.
Yup. I've turned the ripe old age of 52.
I'm proud to have been an early adopter of the web starting with my first exposure to its potential when I was introduced to AOL in ~1993 and when I later worked on a first generation corporate website in 1996. It is amazing to see how far things have come since that day. At the time, I worked for Ohmeda, a medical equipment company, long since gone, after first being acquired by Instrumentarium, a Finnish company and later by behemoth GE Healthcare. While working on that first generation web site, with a Washington, DC-based vendor, I took the time to learn the basics of html. I can remember having to beg for a second phone line in my cublicle so that I could dial in to the Internet. At the time, this was a rare request and considered somewhat unorthodox within the organization.
I can also remember how we took a novel approach to organizing our information assets. Instead of presenting the overall multi-divisional organization by its legal boundaries and component parts, we organized the web site by looking at the products and services and allocating them based on the audiences that they served - pharmacists, anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists, neonatalogists, hospital administrators, etc. This re-engineering of the content was quite a struggle given the divisional barriers that were based on product technologies rather than customer type. Needless to say the web site was launched and was considered to be a success for its time.
Fast forward to today - I've continued to learn and share my perspectives on the continuing evolution of the Internet through this blog, as a teacher, as a consultant, as a professional speaker and as a frequent columnist. I hope that these insights and resources provide you with additional tools to continue your development.
I had the pleasure of returning for my fourth interview by Jody Glynn Patrick and Joan Gillman for their show "In Business with Jody and Joan" on Madison, WI-based radio station WTDY 1670 AM. The show provided an informal look at some of the evolving changes being created by the Internet. You can hear the podcast of the show here.
Paul Gibler
the Web Chef
The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has released their new Mobile Advertising Guidelines (PDF). The 14 page Guidelines include standards for SMS and MMS ads.
The Global Information Technology Report was released today. The report prepared by INSEAD and sponsored by the World Economic Forum ranked the U.S. as fourth in Internet infrastructure following Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland. China advanced in the rankings to 57th. Other country rankings show up in their table "The Networked Readiness Table 2007 - 2008". Ranking at the bottom of the list was Chad. The Executive Summary of the report finds a world of growing interconnectivity with Less Developed Countries leapfrogging older technologies with the installation of WiMax.
In other interesting statistics, Forrester Research reported a precipitous drop in Internet Explorer's market share with a drop of 11% in 2007 from 88.7% to 77.7% as Mozilla Firefox continued to gain share not only in the consumer market, but also in the enterprise market according to Information Week. The article also reported that many companies had not migrated to IE7 sticking with the less robust IE6.
Fortune reports on the extreme valuation that T.Rowe Price and Fidelity have projected in Slide, one of the top widget producers given their recent $50 million, 9.1% stake investment in the firm. Their 50 million widget users, with many more projected to be on the way, are seen as providing a potential monetization opportunity well beyond the keyword ad results associated with search engine giant Google. With "engagement marketing" becoming the new mantra on the web, it is felt that what better tool to generate engagement then one where the user elects to interact for play, content acquisition or other purposes.
The article also references RockYou, "Slides" largest competitor.
In other widget news, The Wall Street Journal references Gigya a widget distributor that recently raised $9.5 million. In a brief report compiled by Scott Austin of VentureWire, the Journal states "The publisher can track the number of times a widget is installed, where it is placed and how many times it is viewed, among other metrics."
For more on widgets see my article "Widgets - web components for plug, play and pay" in Wisconsin Technology Network.
Paul Gibler
I've written a new article in the ongoing series of Buzz Network articles in Wisconsin Technology Network. The article "Big Brother is Watching; Privacy Barriers are Falling Down" examines some of the recent government and industry intrusions into consumer privacy along with providing suggestions for ways that businesses can avoid problems with their customer's privacy.
In the latest issue of McKinsey Quarterly, there was an article "Eight Business Technology Trends to Watch in 2008". The trends that they reference in the article are the following:
For each of the trends they elaborate on what they mean and include concrete examples. They also include references to 3 or 4 other sources that support each of the trends being reviewed.
For some trends that I feel will be part of the landscape in 2008, see my article "Five Fearless Technology Forecasts for 2008" in Wisconsin Technology Network.
I'm being interviewed about the latest trends and developments in e-business and marketing by Joan Gillman and Jody Glynn Patrick, hosts of the popular nightly radio show "On the Air with In Business Magazine" on Madison, Wisconsin-based WTDY 1670 AM, the pulse. The show will air on January 24, 2008 from 6:00 - 7:00 pm and can be heard live on the radio or online and will be available as a podcast following the broadcast.
Interestingly, one of my prior interviews is the most downloaded podcast of this ongoing show.
Give me a call (608) 255 4092 or e-mail me if you'd like me to speak to your group.
Paul J Gibler
the Web Chef
ConnectingDots
