Internet Psychologist
Graham Jones The other day I was lecturing at the University of Buckingham on the potential for new technology to disrupt business. The students are studying for a degree in entrepreneurship, and they are all running “live” companies as part of their studies. They were keen to discover how they could predict …
This week Twitter decided to roll out an experiment in which certain people (I’m not one of them) were provided with the opportunity to write Tweets that are twice as long as normal. The company has increased the maximum length of a Tweet from 140 characters to 280. To understand …
Here in the UK, the coming week is “Recycling Week” where a national campaign will invite us all to recycle more. In spite of increased opportunities to recycle, with more roadside collections than ever before, it turns out that Brits are recycling less. And there is a clear psychological reason …
There is, it seems to me, a generalised air of cowardice on the Internet. This struck me again when I was in a conversation this week with a delegate who had attended one of my masterclasses on web success for business leaders. His company was in a traditional sector. Like …
Email users and businesses agree on one thing, it seems. Email marketing needs to improve.
Social media is full of hashtags – whoops, sorry – I mean #hashtags. But why? Well, maybe a bit of history will help us understand. Many people think that hashtags were invented by Twitter or someone using the network about seven years ago. While that is true – the first …
This week I was with a client when we started discussing a range of services they needed to help them improve their website. “Not more monthly spending,” they said. We chatted for a while about it, and then we realised something. The Internet has quietly crept up on us and …
Three times this week the same issue has come up for discussion. Time. Yesterday, I was running an all-day seminar for entrepreneurship students at the University of Buckingham where we explored how they could cope with all the pressures of running an online business. They realised there was a significant …
This week I was running a masterclass when I asked what I thought was an easy question. I simply said, “What, exactly, are you hoping to achieve with each item of content on your website?” There was a pause, some puzzled looks and then a mumbled, “What do you mean?” …
Online shopping is a minority activity. Forget the “mobile first” nonsense too. Most people want to go to real shops.
This week saw a surprising announcement. The person who told the world back in 2003 that we needed to have complex passwords that we changed every 90 days has admitted he was wrong. Security expert Bill Burr now says he was barking up the wrong tree. He is not alone. …
Business buyers are interested in detail, lots of it. Forget video, social media and podcasts. What business buyers want is specific written information.
Yesterday saw the start of the World Athletics Championships at the Olympic Stadium in London. Leading athletes like Sir Mo Farah and Usain Bolt have been amongst the participants. And like all top sports people, they will have prepared for months for this event. Part of their preparation will have …
The highest conversion rates from websites come from people who phone in their order. They also spend more and stick around longer. The phone is crucial.
There might not be a connection between these two things, but productivity in the UK is lower than most other top economies, AND the UK is the part of the world with one of the greatest amounts of Internet activity per head. Indeed, since we have started using the Internet …