Internet Psychologist
The latest articles from Internet Psychologist and Business Academic, Graham Jones
Increasingly vocal criticisms of Google suggest that its halo is slipping. In psychological terms, it is teetering on the edge of falling victim to the “reverse halo effect”. The “halo effect” itself is whereby we judge a brand, a company, or a person based on just one fact we know …
People searching for restaurants online will now be shown localised results with maps to potential eating places, thanks to the latest innovation from Google. Indeed, if you are looking for anything that could be found locally, Google will now insert a map into the search results for you, largely by …
Bloggers are wasting millions of hours of productivity around the world – and it’s getting worse. Just over two blog postings are made every second of every day – and that’s only for the regularly active blogs. According to the latest figures from blogwatcher, Technorati, around 3m blogs are updated …
Google is in the final stages of negotiations to buy Twitter, according to “people close to the negotiations” who have informed TechCrunch. If this turns out to be true, it could be a disaster for Twitter users. Google’s virtual monopoly position online means it will be able to do almost …
Facebook users are better employees. According to new research from the University of Melbourne, people who are allowed to use Facebook at work are more productive than people who don’t have access to the social networking site. The study shows that in offices where people are allowed access to Facebook …
American psychologists working in London have teamed up with French educationalists to produce a new social network that understands your motives and intentions based upon what you type in. They hope to use the new system to eliminate the considerable amount of time wasting that goes on as a result …
Last year, in the USA alone, advertisers “invested” some $21bn in online advertising. No wonder we are in an economic mess – most of that money is being thrown away since almost no-one is looking at online adverts. Banner advertising has long been known to attract few people; current click-through …
Twitter is full of liars; honestly. In fact, so is the big wide world. It may come as a shock to you, but people often don’t tell the truth. Twitter is no different – except for one thing. In the “real world” you are able to spot liars using subtle …
Despite the fact that billions of pounds worth of business is done each year online, it’s still pretty apparent that many companies don’t exploit the Internet to make even more money. Indeed, a quarter of British companies don’t yet have a web site and now it seems that the FTSE100 …
Facebook is to be used by the British Government in a bid to deal with terrorism. People often ask “who is looking at my Facebook page?” – well now we know, Gordon Brown’s henchmen. They plan to monitor every conversation on Facebook because it is “needed to tackle crime gangs …
Internet marketing “experts” are fond of telling us about certain “systems” that work. They show us page after page of PayPal histories confirming that they have been paid tons of money for their work. And they tell us – “it’s easy” – all you have to do is follow their …
{{rtcode}}Phorm is a controversial online advertising system that has already annoyed the founder of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Today, the top web sites in the world have been urged to stop using Phorm since it is thought to invade privacy. Here’s how it works: it monitors what web sites …
How to retweet is a common subject people ask me about. On Twitter there is no obvious guide to the whole notion of retweeting or “rt” as some people call it. So here is a handy guide to help you retweet the messages you like – and gain extra …
Internet shopping is in a right old mess at the moment. Online retailers are being battered by conflicting information and a stunning court decision made today which could see the very existence of many Internet shops threatened. This week, retailers were warming to the news that people were planning to …
What is blogging? What is a blog? Two simple questions – but they are frequently asked. There used to be a relatively straightforward answer; not any more. Blogging is changing out of all recognition. Let’s try and consider some potential answers to the questions. Perhaps blogging is the act of …