Internet Psychologist
The latest articles from Internet Psychologist and Business Academic, Graham Jones
Twitter users love the system and are very passionate about the benefits it brings them. But increasingly, Twitter is looking like it is on its deathbed. High profile celebrities, such as Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) have left Twitter and Stephen Fry threatened to leave but returned. Facebook continues to rise, …
Many bloggers and those “Internet gurus” are alike in one respect – they often hold viewpoints which don’t quite match up with the rest of us. Indeed, you might think that much of what is written online is somewhat extreme in its position. Take, for instance, making money online. You …
Two-thirds of people who are searching for local businesses have no intention of buying anything from them online. That’s the startling statistic from new research conducted on why people search. The study of search intentions shows that 66% of people are merely trying to find a business location, phone number …
Your local postie is dong you a favour if you are in online retail. Every day their cheery face brightens your morning as you open the door to be handed your letters and parcels. They have been an essential part of the UK community for over a century. Yet their …
People who have never used the Internet before get a significant brain boost once they start going online. New research from UCLA shows that Internet “newbies” have dramatic increases in brain activity bringing them up to the levels seen in Internet “savvy” people – all in the space of a …
Web designers are keen to explain the predominance of the “letter-f” approach to the Internet. This comes from eye-tracking studies which show the way we look at web pages follows, broadly, an f-shape. We start in the top left hand corner, scan across and down with a quick glance across …
Search engine users – that’s you and me, amongst millions of others – are being fooled. The likes of Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL and others have helped us believe that search is fantastic, that it is productive and that it really helps us in ways that were not possible without …
Now don’t get paranoid, but as you sit there reading this, someone, somewhere in the world is probably talking about you. If you are in business – and particularly if you run a big business – there’s little doubt that people are mentioning your name, or your products, in pubs, …
Customers like to look sales people in the eyes. They love to see if they are genuine, or if the sales person is trying to pull a fast one. Few major purchases are completed without personal contact. And even for small things, we often prefer to be physically connected to …
Internet marketing gurus are fans of the “squeeze page”. This is a device where you are given some basic information and you are enticed into giving your email address to get the rest of the free material. You are then on a series of autoresponder email messages which eventually try …
Blogging for Business is the new book by Chris Garrett – a leading UK consultant on blogging and new media. It is, without doubt, the best book on blogging I have seen in ages. Over the years I have bought every book going on blogging and this surpasses even the …
Business leaders in the corporate world are showing double standards as far as social networking is concerned. A new study reveals that half of American companies ban the use of Facebook in the office. Yet at the same time businesses use Facebook to research potential employees. It seems that what’s …
The current wave of email scams using Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo! mail are down to two simple psychological factors. And one of these is so common, you are bound to “suffer” from it as well. And thanks to that, many people are innocently helping the scammers do their worst. Cybercriminals …
Online retailers are missing a trick if they don’t have products which are “sold out” from time to time. That’s the conclusion of research from the University of Alberta which looked at buyer behaviour when a product was not available. Traditional wisdom is that the lack of availability of a …
Most business people are social networking “wallflowers”. They sit on the sidelines looking in, but don’t take part. Indeed, in spite of all the buzz about Facebook, for instance, 80% of the world’s Internet users haven’t even signed up for it. And of the 300m people who have joined, most …