Internet Psychologist
The latest articles from Internet Psychologist and Business Academic, Graham Jones
Yesterday I met a successful businessman who runs his own company and who has been “thinking about writing a blog for over a year now” – his exact words. Last week I met a woman whose web site has been in the “planning stage” for nearly 18 months and by …
According to the advertising trade magazine, Advertising Age, some corporate web sites are now getting more viewers than the TV programmes in which the companies also advertise their products. The report shows that the companies that are getting the highest numbers of visitors are those that go beyond simply having …
According to a new study of accessibility, 97% of web sites are not geared up for disabled Internet users. That means your site (and mine) probably fail the basic tests of being accessible for a variety of disabilities. Interestingly, the study found that 89% of sites had “poor navigation”. Considering …
A study just published on search engine advertising reveals that UK-based Internet companies are spending more than twice the amount per user as their American counterparts. In the USA, advertisers in 2006 will have spent $37.78 online for each Internet user. In the UK, advertisers will be spending $83.33 for …
If you were to look at a web design magazine these days you would notice that the web sites being hailed as “suberp”, “perfect” or “brilliant” are full of images, multimedia, clever bits of technology and so on. But when you ask Internet users, outside the web design industry, you …
The annual Mediascope survey confirms that the Internet is fast becoming a “lifestyle” thing. By that I mean it is being incorporated into everyday living for many people; as normal as watching TV, reading a newspaper or driving to work. No longer is the Internet seen as something “new fangled”. …
People just love being members of a community. Years ago, when we all lived in small settlements, our community was the group of people we lived with; for many people in the world this is still the case. Nowadays, we are members of several different “communities”. Our locality has taken …
In the UK, the wine and spirits retailer Threshers is front page news because of a discount voucher. It offered an online 40% discount voucher to a few selected people. But the voucher was posted on a blog and was downloaded by 800,000 people. Threshers say they are surprised, but …
Having a single blog is not enough, particularly for those running a business online. Here’s why. The vast majority of blogs get very little traffic; only a handful of people read a typical blog. Indeed, one study suggests that 40% of all blogs receive less than 10 readers per week. …
Every year there are studies of leading web sites to see how close they are getting to providing a good experience for their users. Every year, major businesses and well known brands are criticised in a range of studies for not making their web sites usable. So it comes as …
One of the difficulties that governments face is that the global nature of the Internet makes their job more difficult. Even in relatively open societies like the USA and the UK, it’s possible for governments to exert some control over their citizens using taxation policies, for instance. However, with the …
Have you noticed how you always seem to see the same names and faces on the Internet? Why is it that all these top gurus seem to have a closed-door “Internet Marketing Country Club” and HOW did they break into this club? It’s easy to stand on the outside and …
As if the power of Google, MySpace and other big players isn’t enough to convince you of the need for user-generated content, consider a report in this week’s New Media Age magazine. A report on page 6 is headlined News International seeks user content for new free-paper site. The story …
Reuters, the world’s leading financial information and news organisation, has just invested $7m in blogging. They have announced that they are to use the services of Pluck, providing the outputs of blogs as part of their news service. The fact that such a respected news information organisation like Reuters is …
If your web site doesn’t include the option for user-generated content, the chances are it won’t be the kind of web site that is required in the near future. Up until recently the web was one-way – someone published a web site and someone else read it. Now, new technologies …