Internet Psychologist
The latest articles from Internet Psychologist and Business Academic, Graham Jones
You will have read a few times in this web site that user-generated content, in my view, is an essential component of a good web site. (You can add your comments below if you disagree..!) However, it’s not just me bleating on about this. Every year, Time Magazine announces its …
Think back to when you were a child; did you ever try to get round your parents? My seven year old son, Elliot, took us by surprise yesterday. We had been out to the annual Christmas dinner and party held by my wife’s employers. We had left the house at …
This morning I’ve already received a press release and several links to news stories based on it, all telling me that blogging is “set to peak” next year. According to Gartner, the IT consultancy organisation, blogging and user generated content will hit its peak in 2007. Even the BBC has …
Years ago in the dim dark distant past of psychology – the 1970s – we thought that human memory was a chemically mediated function within the brain. Now, there is a growing belief that memory is based on DNA and much of it could therefore be distributed throughout our body. …
Just think for a moment about the last time you bought a major item in a store. Did you consider several options first? Did you visit a variety of stores to check prices? Did you chat with a sales assistant to get some questions clarified? If you are like most …
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 …