Forget Google, think social

Teenagers are becoming like their parents. Plus ca change…as the French might say. What is happening is that the younger generations are now seeking answers to their difficulties, to their questions, to their problems, from other people. Instead of resorting to search engines, they ask each other. In the past, …

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Internet generation may have poorer memories

Researchers in the USA have found an interesting way in which we can improve our memories. But it means that the growing numbers of people who spend their life online could suffer. The psychologists at the University of Michigan have discovered that social interaction helps boost memory skills. It appears …

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Where should you blog?

Windows Live is the latest blogging system to become available. It has been in beta testing for some time, but Microsoft has now made the system mainstream. For anyone thinking about blogging this throws another spanner in the works. Now you can blog at Blogger, or Windows Live. You can …

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Young entrepreneur shows us how to run an online business

Mark Berriman has just been named as a “Young Business Person of the Year” for his Viverdi company based in South Tyneside. Working in two distinct areas – pet supplies and gift drinks – the company is set to bring in £2.6m this year, with growth predicted to £20m within …

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Podcasting? That’s old-fashioned – video is the online future

Professor Jeffrey Cole reckons that before too long we will be watching several hours of video programming on our mobile phones. At a conference in Sydney, Australia, he told digital marketers to expect a major shift to mobile video. We all know that video has taken off online – YouTube …

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British supermarkets show small online retailers how to succeed

British supermarkets have said a collective “thank you” to investigators who were looking at suggestions the stores were anti-competitive. The Competition Commissioners found that all was OK with the supermarkets. This is in spite of the fact that many small store owners complained that the large superstore owners were driving …

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Don’t get too excited about the MySpace and Google deal

All over the news sites in the past 24 hours you will have found plenty of coverage about the Google deal with MySpace. In essence it means that Google is working with developers at MySpace to allow applications to be built that work on any social networking platform. In other …

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Trust is a key issue in email marketing

Readers of email messages designed to sell them something are much more likely to buy if the top of the email carries a security logo. This is the conclusion of a study performed by a publishing company. What they discovered was the fact that if an email contained an isolated …

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Tricks or treats? How should you revive those email ghosts?

Ghosts exist in your marketing system. They are the subscribers and people on your email list who actually don’t read what you send them; everything you provide goes into some kind of void, into the ether. Clearly having ghosts in your machine for marketing is doing you no good. You …

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Successful blogs could make millions

Bloggers who have built up a loyal following of readers could be set for rich rewards. According to Business Week magazine, several blogs are being eyed up by traditional publishers as potential take-over targets. Great news for the bloggers. However, there is a revealing comment, almost as a throw-away line, …

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Back on the BBC again

BBC Radio has just interviewed me about the whole concept of “virtual assistants”. Nice little piece about getting your life organised by someone else!

Christmas shopping for The Scotsman

The Scotsman newspaper just called to interview me about Christmas shopping. They wanted to know why so many people do their shopping online – and what they should look out for in terms of any scams.

GAP trouble provides important message for online businesses

Children in India have been making clothes for the retailer GAP, in spite of the company’s well publicised policy on not using child labour. Now the company has launched an investigation into the incident. However, the company could have easily avoided this embarrassment with two simple pieces of technology – …

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