 |
 |
| Top Business |
Sony
Ericsson Sales Exceed Expectations
Sony Ericsson reported a higher than expected growth in fourth-quarter sales thanks
to 3G handsets and camera phones...
Intel
Platformization Quicker Than Expected
Yesterday, Intel announced that it would reorganize its major product groups as
part of the company's strategy to drive development of complete technology platforms
based on Intel ingredients...
Krispy
Kreme Replaces CEO
Krispy Kreme has named Stephen F. Cooper to replace CEO Scott A. Livengood, who
has retired, but will become a consultant to the company on an interim basis...
Airbus
Unveils A380 in France
Airbus held a ceremony to unveil the first A380 superjumbo jet today in Toulouse,
France...
|
|
|
Folksonomies: A New Opportunity
For Marketers
One of the most important social media trends to watch this year is the increasing
influence of tags, also known as folksonomies.
Quick. How many of you know what a folksonomy is? And how many of you know
they can help market a product, too? Share your thoughts and questions about folksonomies
at WebProWorld.
According to Wikipedia,
folksonomy is the collaborative categorization of user-generated content using
simple tags. Folksonomies are wildly popular on
Flickr, a photo sharing site, and on del.icio.us,
a social bookmark site. However, it doesn't end there.
Increasingly you will see many sites adopt tags to create more structure around
user-generated content. Just this week, Technorati
launched a tagging
mechanism for blogs. Here's their Apple
tag, for example. In the months ahead I bet we will see other sites - including
open source news sites like OhMyNews, mainstream
news sites and even wikis - incorporating tag structures. For more on folksonomies,
read Adam Mathes' terrific
paper on the subject.
Folksonomies present both a threat and an opportunity for marketers. Tags make
it easy for consumers to share and discover user-generated content in the subjects
they are passionate about. On the downside, I predict that this year at least
one company will watch in horror as its top-secret, stealth product shows up on
Flickr, thanks to the handiwork of an ambitious
moblogger. And there will be
little they can do but watch.
Although tags are far from perfect (they generate a lot of false/positives), you
should nevertheless be using them to keep your finger on the pulse of the American
public. Right now, at a minimum, you should be monitoring your company/brand tags
on Flickr as well as your competitors' folksonomies. I wrote
about this last week. Jeremy Zawodny smartly
advised marketers to take in del.icio.us
as well. Good advice.
Although it's natural to view folksonomies as insignificant or even a threat,
they hold tremendous potential as well. For example, you can use them to get some
early buzz going around your product/service before it officially debuts by planting
links and/or photos on these sites. However, be careful. While some
praise this approach, others criticize
it. In addition, tags also make it easier to find your true customer evangelists.
Regardless of whether you view folksonomies as a threat or an opportunity, they
are here to stay. I am going to be blogging about this topic throughout the year
so I have created a new category on my blog and also set up a PubSub
subscription as well.
Discuss this at
WebProWorld.
About the Author:
Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with more
than 10 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience.
He currently serves as Vice President, Client Services at CooperKatz & Company,
a mid-size PR firm in midtown New York City. Rubel evangelizes the application
of Weblogs and RSS in traditional public relations campaigns.
He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog,
which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations
practice. |
|
 |
 |
| Articles:
14,184 |
Contributing
Authors: 2,391 |
|
|
|
|
What
Makes A Design Seem 'Intuitive'?
 By
Jared M. Spool
In a recent usability test, I once again witnessed something I've seen a hundred
times before: a frustrated user claiming he knows exactly what is wrong with the
interface he was fighting with. What was his suggestion? "These guys need to make
this thing a lot more intuitive. The problem is that this program isn't intuitive
enough. It needs to be more intuitive!"
I think he used the I-Word no less than 25 times during the session. His frustration
was real and his desire was great. So, why wasn't the interface ‘intuitive'? Well,
it's probably because it's really, really hard to do.
People Intuit, not Interfaces
To those who police the English language, interfaces can't be intuitive, since
they are the behavior side of programs and programs can't intuit anything. When
someone is asking for an intuitive interface, what they are really asking for
is an interface that they, themselves, can intuit easily. They are really saying,
"I want something I find intuitive."
 Read
the Full Article
About the Author:
A software developer and programmer, Jared founded User Interface Engineering
in 1988. He has more than 15 years of experience conducting usability evaluations
on a variety of products, and is an expert in low-fidelity prototyping techniques.
Visit http://www.uie.com/ for more usability
information. You can reach Jared by calling our office or by sending mail to jspool@uie.com. |
In Search of Missing Websites...
Today's post comes from dj4uk.
Their site used to rank really well in Google. They are normally around 1st
through 4th position most of the time. Now however they have dropped
off the face of the earth as far as Google is concerned, and they don't know why
this has happened. When searching for their selected keywords they came across
another site with the same title and description as theirs and when you click
on it redirects you
to dj4uk's site.
Could this have caused dj4uk's site to be banned? Tell us your
thoughts at WebProWorld.
|| Rafael||
Google
Hijacking - Advice please!
By dj4uk
Our website has been ranking very well in Google for some time (usually ranked
1-4). All of a sudden the site disappeared.
I did a site search for various keywords and bizarrely another domain was listed
top result for one keyword. The Title and Description were identical to my homepage.
When I clicked the link it took me to my website (seemed to be just a redirection
page).
Is this site hijacking my Google results? What can I do about it? Is Google penalizing
me?
|
"Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are
the ones who will be writing about you."
- Cyril Connolly
|
My site has been up for months and has hundreds of backlinks,
but still nothing in Teoma. How do you get in this search engine?
- subnet_rx
Comment
|
|
|
|
|
|
View
Profile
,
Inc. 880 Corporate Drive, Lexington, KY 40503
