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U.S. Mobile Culture is an Embarrassment!

August 18th, 2010 by Erin Posted in Business, Technology | No Comments »

I just got back from a trip overseas. I thought I was cool because I had my new BlackBerry Storm 2 with me – equipped with cutting edge global capability, super speed, navigation, and a whole lot of other bells and whistles.

I was not cool. Far from it.

As soon as I set foot in Italy, I realized that, yes, Italians do lead a simple, slower lifestyle. But part of that lifestyle stems from their efficient use of mobile devices and the services provided to them.

The mobile culture among Italians, along with many other Europeans and beyond, is surprisingly well more advance than here in the U.S.

How?

Well, according to a mobile culture survey conducted by Sybase 365, Americans are simply not adopting mobile technologies as fast as other parts of the world.

Their key finding: The United States finished dead last in the use of text messaging and instant messaging. Only one in three U.S. respondents take advantage of these services. In comparison, nine out of 10 respondents in China text on their mobile phones.

Parents of US teenagers who spend the bulk of their days texting would probably disagree… but wait, there’s more.

Sybase indicates that Americans have also been VERY SLOW to adopt the use of mobile commerce and mobile customer relations solutions. Want to pay your cable TV bill or buy office supplies? Most people here still get on the computer or pick up their land line phones to complete the transaction.  In other parts of the world, it’s quite the opposite.

According to Diarmuid Mallon, product marketing manager at Sybase, people in Africa can pay for goods with a simple text message and a payment card that acts as currency. That is, they don’t need a bank account. In the United States, however, most people have access to banks and ATM machines.

People around the globe are using their mobile devices to gather information, check finances, and manage their social lives. Here, well, we still use our mobile phones as… phones. Our problem, perhaps, is that we have too many choices; too many ways to buy things, communicate, and help us manage our personals lives and businesses.

Reflecting back on my trip to Italy, I realize that the Italians (and so many people in other countries) have it right. They value mobile speed, mobile services, and connectivity. While technologically advanced, their lives are still simple – easier to manage. Their mobile devices help them enjoy life a little bit more.

Of course, a bottle of Chianti doesn’t hurt either.

 Tags: blackberry storm 2, instant messaging, mobile commerce, mobile culture, mobile customer relations, text messaging

Keep the Tone of Your Emails in Check

August 4th, 2010 by Erin Posted in Business, Small Business, Software Development | No Comments »

It’s happened to the best of us. You fire off an email to a friend or colleague, only to have a snide reply sent back. Your email was misconstrued and now a potential business deal (or dinner date) has fallen by the wayside.

You ask yourself, what just happened?

It was the tone of your email, my friend. The recipient opened it, read it, and thought, “Who does this S.O.B. think he is?”

One wrong salutation, phrase or punctuation can – believe it or not – spark World War III via email. BUT, it can be avoided with a handy new tool I just discovered. It’s called ToneCheck by Lymbix.

With ToneCheck, a simple thought will no longer be interpreted as hostile, threatening or something far different than you intended. ToneCheck actually checks your outgoing email for any false “tones.”

Simply specify your “tone tolerance” and the program will flag any phrases or sentences that look angry – then, offers a substitute. And, get this, ToneCheck also flags lines that appear too “contented” or overly cheerful when you are actually trying to strike a tougher tone.

The program’s sensitivity can also be adjusted and it offers eight different ‘emotional ratings’  - like affection and amusement- to help you get the tone of your email just right. Anger, fear, and humiliation are generally the emotions users will try and avoid.

Lymbix has also developed a program which monitors your updates on Twitter for any unintentional deviation in tone. Brilliant!

You can download ToneCheck and use the service free for 30 days.

I’ve been using it for several days now and while I have ignored a few of ToneCheck’s warnings, the program has indeed stopped me from sending the wrong message on one occasion.

As the saying goes, impressions count – even when you’re trying to make one by email.

 Tags: business deal, download tonecheck, email program, email tone, misconstrued emails, tone of your email, tonecheck

Why Your Small Business Should Be on Facebook

July 20th, 2010 by Erin Posted in Business, Small Business | No Comments »

The land of status updates, Fan Pages and Farmville is even bigger than any of us ever imagined.

In some parts of the world, Facebook is more popular than search engines. That’s right, Facebook is bigger than Google!

That means, if you’ve ever had any doubt about what Facebook can do for your small business – it’s time to give the social network another look.

Here’s why.

According to the analysts at Hitwise, Facebook’s overall web traffic pulled ahead of Google’s for the first time in the U.S. in March of this year. They also found that people in the UK are visiting social networks more than they’re visiting search engines.

When compared to the Web as a whole, Google gets around 9.3% of all web traffic, while Facebook captures just over 7%. BUT, in the UK, Hitwise stats show that social networking sites accounted for .55% MORE traffic than search engines. An unprecedented finding.

Check out the graph below. Long term stats from Alexa show global page views for Facebook and Google are neck-and-neck.

What does this mean for you?

It means that not only are people using Facebook to socialize and network, but they’re using it to FIND CONTENT and LEARN about it.

Facebook’s “like” feature is a brilliant way to spread the word about businesses, products, and services. And, quite frankly, if no one “likes” you on Facebook – you’re out of the game.

Search engines are by no means on their way out. But, just like Facebook, they’re morphing into something different… something bigger. Both entities will probably look very different – again – in another five years. Until then, do yourself and your business a favor, and join the fray on Facebook. Set up a Fan Page and get yourself seen.

These stats speak volumes about what’s to come.

 Tags: facebook business, facebook google, facebook stats, fan pages, hitwise

What to Consider Before Developing a Mobile App

July 14th, 2010 by Erin Posted in Business, Small Business, Software Development | No Comments »

If your small business doesn’t have a mobile app yet… it’s time to start thinking about developing one.

In fact, some say the mobile app today is what the website was ten years ago –  one of those tools that’s almost a necessity for all businesses.

Of course, unlike a website, developing and designing an app is easier said than done. There are factors to consider. What kind of platform is involved? How will it be used? Who will use it? Is geo-location necessary?

These are all questions you – as a business owner – must take into account.

Thanks to Christina Warren’s article on designing mobile apps here are 5 things to consider before you begin the design process.

1. Mobile app or mobile Website?

Do you need a mobile application, a mobile website, or both? Before even starting the design process, you need to figure out what format or formats are best suited for your goals. Sometimes this can be really easy. For example, if you want to build a utility or game, you may be better served building a native application rather than worrying about how different mobile browsers will interpret your content.

Other times, the distinction isn’t as clear. For instance, at Mashable, we have both a mobile optimized website and applications for the iPhone and iPad. The mobile optimized site is available on a variety of devices, while the iPhone and iPad apps are designed to provide a more full experience to our users on those platforms. Because Mashable has a tech savvy readership, it makes sense for us to have our own standalone mobile app. However, depending on the app idea or business at hand, a mobile app may not be fitting.

Here are some questions to think about when deciding between an application and a mobile-optimized website:
Do you already have a full-featured website? If the answer is yes, how many of those features are you looking to integrate into the app? If your app is going to be largely a re-creation of your website, you may want to focus on creating a mobile site first.
Is this an app that can be used without an Internet connection? Some examples include note-taking or calculator apps. If so, a mobile application makes more sense.
Are you going to be integrating with other parts of the mobile operating system, like the dialer, the GPS and the mail client? If this is the case, consider building a native app.

2. Consider where the app will be used.

Once you’ve decided to make a native mobile app, you’ll want to consider where your application is most likely going to be used. This is important because where and how an application is used can directly impact how it can be designed.

For instance, if you have an application that is going to be used while walking around  a geo-location app or an app that takes advantage of a device’s GPS  making sure that core app functions are easy to see and access is very important.

Likewise, if your app is used to sell products or services, make sure that the price and the “buy” or “add to cart” buttons are large enough so that they can be easily accessed.

If you have designed an app that may be used while sitting on a train or in a stationary spot, make sure that text is readable and legible and that it is easy to move through content.

3. Be mindful of screen sizes.

Even on the same mobile platform, screen sizes and resolutions can vary based on device type. For instance, the screen size and resolution on the HTC Incredible is different than that on the HTC EVO 4G. Consequently, for an application to have a consistent look and feel across both devices and across a variety of other devices, user interface elements and graphics need to be scalable.

Likewise, the iPhone 4 sports a higher resolution screen than the displays on the iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. However, because the big difference is in pixel density, the same amount of screen real estate is used. Basically, two pixels on the old iPhone displays equals one point on the new retina display. Josh Clark, author of the fantastic new book Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps, has written a must-read post about designing for the iPhone 4’s retina display.

The Android Developers site has a great guide for supporting multiple screens on Android and a look at how to best achieve screen independence so that your apps will run and display properly on a number of different display types.

The Android Developers site also has tips for how to test your app in different resolutions with an emulator.

4. Don’t stray from existing user interface conventions.

On desktop computers, there are certain user interface elements that make a Windows app a Windows app or a Mac OS X app a Mac app. There are user interface conventions tailored for mobile apps as well. While you don’t have to follow these guidelines 100% of the time, sticking with consistent methods of displaying data and interacting with content will make your app easier to pick up by end-users. Following these conventions will also ensure that your app is consistent with the other applications already on a mobile device.

Each major mobile platform has documented user interface guidelines. Apple, for example, has a very extensive overview of iPhone Human Interface Guidelines, detailing and offering examples of standard UI conventions that should be considered when building an iPhone app.

While not nearly as complete, the Android UI team has its own User Interface Guidelines, complete with overviews of icon, widget, menu, and activity and task design guidelines.

Likewise, RIM has a complete section on its site for UI Guidelines for BlackBerry devices, including sections on touch screen BlackBerry devices, the different theming systems available for BlackBerry, and how to handle the trackball or touchpad.

5. Design for touch.

In almost all cases, mobile apps are going to be used while in someone’s hand. Therefore, designing your mobile app around touch and ergonomics is very important.

Think about how you hold your phone in your hand. Now, think about where you thumb sits. That’s why many applications have main menus and selectors at the bottom of the screen and content near the top of the screen. Apps with that type of layout are designed for touch, and yours should be too.

Beyond button layout, think about how you want to indicate touch feedback  physically or visually. While the BlackBerry Storm tried the whole clickable screen thing, the truth is, haptic feedback (such as vibrations), while great for games or for alerts, doesn’t usually work very well for touch-based devices like mobile phones.

Instead, use visual cues to show that an item is either touchable or has been touched. For instance, think about how the various keys on the iPhone keyboard grow in size when you touch them. That increase in size is feedback.

Lastly, designing your apps so that they take advantage of gestures, like swiping forward and back, pinching to zoom and pulling-down to refresh, can add a lot of usability to your applications without taking up tons of space for a designated button.

Sure, when it comes to developing mobile applications – anything goes.

But with a little careful planning and ingenuity your next app won’t only be “new”…. it’ll be killer!

 Tags: designing an app, designing mobile apps, developing a mobile app, mobile application

3 Business Blogging Platforms BESIDES WordPress

June 23rd, 2010 by Erin Posted in Business | No Comments »

There is life outside WordPress.

According to those who voted at Lifehacker, there are three other business blogging platforms that serve as good stand-ins if you’re adverse to WordPress or its plain stepchild, Blogger.

As any small business or powerhouse company will tell you, blogging is an ideal way to spread knowledge and ideas. It’s also a great marketing tool. And, most importantly, it’s cheap!

If you haven’t started a blog yet – like some people I know – do it NOW for the sake of your business.

Here are three other blogging platforms – besides WordPress – that’ll get your blog up and running in no time.

1. Tumblr

Tumblr is an interesting fusion between a full-fledged blog and a Twitter feed. Known as short-form or micro blogging, the style of blogging on a Tumblr blog is focused on short and frequent posts that are normally longer (or more focused on media like images or video) than Twitter updates but not as involved and formal as a regular blog post.

It’s a style that appeals to a lot of people and the ease of setup coupled with the informality of Tumblr is a winning combination for people who aren’t looking to commit to a blog as an involved and time-consuming project.

2. SquareSpace

SquareSpace is a commercial blogging platform with packages ranging from $8-50 per month. One of the nice things about their pricing schedule is that it’s based almost entirely on volume.

Aside from a few features, mostly focused on volume and big site management, the user experience from the smallest users to the biggest power users is consistent. SquareSpace’s strongest focus is on making good blog design easy for design/coding newbies. They’ve built their system around a modular design so building a brand new blog is as easy as snapping the pieces you want together.

3. Posterous

This is the no-fuss and zero-stress way to blog. You don’t need to sign up, you don’t need to know any code, you don’t need to know how to do anything but send an email to set up your own Posterous blog and start sharing your ideas and media. Simply email post@posterous.com from any email account and Posterous will create a YourName.Posterous.com blog for you.

You can write posts and long as you want, attaching photos and media files. (You can use the site’s rich text editor to create or edit posts, but its by-email updating is what its best known for.) The only micro part about Posterous is the amount of time you’ll spend setting it up. While email-based blogging might not be for everyone, it’s impressive how much you can do through the Posterous system with a single email.

If you already have a blog set up, chances are you’re probably deep into WordPress and wouldn’t even consider giving another blogging platform a shot. But check out these others – at the very least, for peace of mind in knowing that you wouldn’t be happier using anything else.

 Tags: blogging, blogging platforms, business blogging, marketing tool, posterous, Small Business, squarespace, tumblr, wordpress