Posts Tagged ‘web’

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Google Christmas present might have strings

Monday, December 7th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Have you heard that Google is giving travelers free wireless-network access in 47 airports through January 17? What a great Christmas present! That’s a pretty smart move on Google’s part. They’re making online customers happy and generating publicity at the same time. It’s a win-win scenario. However, there could be something beneath the surface of this goodwill effort.

I read about this interesting development in the CNET News article “Google’s holiday gift: Free airport Wi-Fi.” Google started doing this in November, so that’s two and a half solid months of free Wi-Fi for flyers in those airports. If you want to see if your local airport is included in this promotion, you can check out Google’s Free Holiday Wi-Fi website. It has a helpful map and a list of all of the participating airports.

Google wi-fi airports - eHarbor, Inc.

The airports near Burbank, California and Seattle will get free Wi-Fi from now on through Google. The promotion won’t end at the January 15 cutoff date like it will for the other 45 airports.

Perhaps Google chose those two locations because they are close to Microsoft’s (their biggest competitor) stronghold in Redmond, Washington and their own headquarters in Mountain View, California.

The Google Map containing all of the airports with free Wi-Fi is the copyright of Google.

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Posted in Search Engines | No Comments »

Which Web browser is the best?

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Google Chrome is the best Web browser by far, according to a study by Jacob Gube, the founder and chief editor of Six Revisions. Chrome v. 3 beat Firefox v. 3.5, Safari v. 4, Opera v.10 and Microsoft Explorer v. 8. Take a look at the results below.

Web browsers ranked by performance

You should definitely check out the whole chart by clicking on this link to the blog entry, “Performance Comparison of Major Web Browsers.” Fascinating stuff. I’ll discuss some of the highlights and their impact on ecommerce and Internet marketing.

I’m a Firefox user, myself, so some of this study’s results came as a surprise to me. I’m not sure if they will change my mind about which browser I use right now, but it’s definitely helped me think more about why I prefer one over the others. Here are some of the highlights of the study’s findings:

JavaScript Speed

Chrome won this competition with an average download time of JavaScripts in just 542.3 milliseconds. Safari was No. 2 with 863.9 milliseconds and Firefox was No. 3 with 1,230.6 milliseconds. Explorer was last with a comparatively long download time of 6,305.5 milliseconds.

JavaScripts are important because they are heavily used on websites like Digg, as well as in Gmail. It’s no surprise Google is the leader in this category because it definitely wants people to be able to quickly use its own applications.

You can read the rest of this blog entry in the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog on November 16. It will be entitled, “Google Chrome is the best Web browser.” The graph of the results of this study is the copyright of Jacob Gube and Six Revisions.

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Posted in Web Design | No Comments »

If Nikola Tesla created the Internet

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Few people are as intriguing and visionary as Nikola Tesla. If this American immigrant had been as beloved and accepted as Thomas Edison, we would have had 2009 technology back in 1909. Unfortunately, this revolutionary genius was given short shrift by many and his image has become obscured by history.

Tesla CoilIf you’re like me, you first heard about him in 2006’s “The Prestige,” an excellent movie, by the way. I’ve been thinking a lot about him recently, and I want to share my thoughts on this great man and what he might have accomplished if the world had been ready.

Without Tesla, we wouldn’t have car engines, long-distance radio, radar, fluorescent lights, energy-efficient light bulbs (which Tesla created more than a hundred years ago, but was not allowed to manufacture until a few years ago because of patent issues on the socket) and many other useful inventions.

If Nikola Tesla had created the Internet, I’m sure it would be many times better than what we have come up with. First of all, he would have come up with a much better means to transfer information online than comparatively inefficient phone lines, coaxial cables, fiber optics or copper wires. He probably would have started with a wireless system and made it faster than we’re used to. Then he would invent something truly amazing to replace that, just like he always did.

You can read the rest of this blog entry in the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog on November 9. The photo of the Tesla Coil is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of maveric2003.

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Posted in Movies, Web Design | No Comments »

Is Internet access a human right?

Monday, October 19th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Talk about a captive audience. The government of Finland says it’s a human right to have access to the Internet, so companies must provide Internet with a speed of at least 1 megabit per second. Doesn’t that seem a little strange? You can read about this in the CNN article, “Fast Internet access becomes a legal right in Finland.”

Cat dangling from ironing board

Apparently, it’s not an unalienable right to own a car or a house, but somehow it is an essential right for every person to be connected to the Internet. To me, that is faulty logic. We can all work hard to gain access to new tools, like cars, cell phones or the Internet, to make our lives easier, but there is no guarantee we’ll get those things without effort.

Ninety-five percent of Finland’s 5.2 million citizens are already connected to the Internet. This law makes little difference to the vast majority of the population. However, officials say they are trying to not only bring Internet access to rural areas, but also increase the speed for everyone to at least 100 megabits per second by 2015.

If you ask me, this whole thing is silly. I don’t have the right to a fast Internet connection. I have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, according to the Declaration of Independence. I also have many other rights enumerated in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. But luxuries or necessities like the Internet or food, respectively, are not among them.

You can read the rest of this blog entry in the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog on November 9. The photo of the dangling cat is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Al Abut.

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Posted in Web Design | 3 Comments »

Google-Microsoft face-off benefits ecommerce

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The Bing decision engine is the most-visible sign of competition between Microsoft and Google, but the two technology giants are competing in many ways besides their search engines. And online companies and users are benefiting from their rivalry.

Microsoft vs. Google

According to a Wired magazine article, “Google vs. Microsoft: What you need to know,” there are several ways Microsoft and Google are trying take market share from each other. Some of those ways could be good for us who work in ecommerce and Internet marketing.

We’re starting a new blog on the newly redesigned Submit Solution website, which will debut soon. We’ll be shifting attention from the eHarbor Blog to that one soon. You can find the rest of this blog entry there. Stay tuned!

The Google vs. Microsoft photo is from Flickr, and it is courtesy of michperu.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Search Engines | No Comments »

Google can’t keep up with Twitter

Monday, July 13th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

Have you noticed there is no definitive search engine for Twitter? There are certainly many attempts to search this social-networking site, such as Collecta, OneRiot, Scoopler and Twitter’s own search engine. But none of these delivers a structured, comprehensive view of what’s being said on Twitter.

Twitter's Over Capacity logo

The conversations are simply too fast to keep up with right now.

Google is a great tool for searching most websites, but it’s completely inadequate when it comes to finding or following a conversation on Twitter. Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, is at least making an effort to jump into the social-networking arena, according to an article in ComputerWorld, entitled “Bing beats Google to the punch, launches Twitter search.”

Bing has gone through and selected a number of Tweeters with the most followers and added their most recent tweets to their search results when you search for them. For instance, if you search for “Tony Hawk Twitter” you will find Tony Hawk’s latest tweet at the top of the page.

These are just baby steps into a whole new world of social media. The Internet was a big jumble of information before search engines came along to create some sense of order from the chaos. Chaos seems to rule social-media sites at the moment, but some structure could be coming soon. The algorithms will have to be even more complex and extremely fast to keep up with the instant nature of Twitter.

Search engines will have to find a way to rank Twitter results by the authority of the tweeters, how new the tweets are and how many people are talking about a specific topic, among other things. Important conversations could easily slip through the cracks if no one with much authority is talking about them and search engines focus too much on that aspect in their rankings.

There needs to be a balance between the chaos of conversation and the order or rankings. We’ll see what happens.

You can follow eHarbor, Inc. on Twitter to stay updated on all of our eHarbor Blog entries and other important ecommerce news.

The fake Twitter “Over Capacity” logo is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Mykl Roventine.

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Posted in Search Engines | 2 Comments »

Do you hate customer service?

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

By Robert Lockard

You’re not alone if you do. Customer service has gotten a bad name in recent years, but customers are trying to fight back. According to a CNN article, entitled “Customer service ‘vigilantes’ target executives,” customers who receive poor customer service from a company are turning to social media to vent their frustrations and get service.

"No Whining" customer service signThe CNN article includes several funny and interesting stories of people’s attempts to get the attention of companies’ management in order to solve a problem. One person tweeted an executive on Twitter, while another person made a YouTube video and sent it to a company to get a response. Some people taped conversations with customer-service representatives and posted them online. This could be good or bad, depending on your level of customer service.

Do you want to do business with a company that seems to ignore your service requests or that takes too long to respond to your messages? Customers want to be respected. Companies depend on happy customers to stay in business. Word of mouth is more powerful than almost any other form of persuasive communication, so it’s essential to cultivate positive feelings in customers so they will react positively to your brand when speaking with family members and friends.

This topic harkens back to my discussion of earning online shoppers trust. We must be vigilant if we want our customers to use our services or buy our products.

I think it’s strange that any company could forget to take care of its customers, since they ought to be their central focus. Perhaps stress, limited resources and other factors can lead to poor customer service, but companies that make an effort to please their customers and work out problems kindly often live longer than companies that don’t.

The extra effort is worth it.

So do you hate customer service? Hopefully, if you’re in the ecommerce industry, you love it. Even more than that, your customers should love your customer service.

eHarbor, Inc. prides itself on strong customer service. If you call us or any of our affiliates, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by our high level of care and attention.

The photo of the whining sign is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of yummiec00kies.

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Posted in Ecommerce, SEO | 2 Comments »

Marketers cut social media presence when they need it most

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

I have discussed the growth of ecommerce many times in the eHarbor Blog. You can find lots of information on marketers joining ecommerce in my blog entries, “Bucking recession, ecommerce keeps growing” and “Strong sales attract retailers to ecommerce.” I will continue my streak by talking about ecommerce, though in a slightly different way.

Scissors cutting ethernet cable

The main reason companies keep moving into ecommerce is the revenue growth this industry is experiencing each year. During this recession, consumers have cut back on most spending, but they continue to spend more online, making it a popular alternative for businesses to thrive in hard times.

However, according to an article in B to B, a magazine for online marketers, companies are starting to spend less money advertising their services and brands in social networks, such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. The article I am referring to is entitled, “Social network ad spending projected to contract this year.”

The growth of advertisement spending on social-media sites has slowed in recent years, from a 129-percent increase in 2007 to 33 percent in 2008, and now an estimated 3-percent loss in 2009. To put it in real numbers, $1.18 billion was spent on social-media advertising in 2008.

Social media is an excellent way for businesses to interact with customers and even gain new ones, so it makes sense for them to jump into this arena. Maybe with all of the cuts businesses are making to compensate for the decline in consumer demand for many products, social media just doesn’t seem as important at the moment.

Ironically, it seems like social-media spending is one of the best investments a business can make, especially in a struggling economy. Consumers are shifting their time and money online, making social networks popular places to reach them. Companies that shy away from social media might be shooting themselves in the foot.

I discussed social media’s many strengths and weaknesses in my blog post, “Facebook’s growing pains could transform social media.” There are plenty of reasons to stay connected with your customers online. Keep trying and stay positive!

The photo of the scissors cutting an ethernet cable is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of nrkbeta.

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Posted in Ecommerce, eHarbor | 4 Comments »

6 tips to earn online shoppers’ trust

Monday, May 18th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

A large number of consumers need more than promises of good deals to get them to shop online. According to a report by the Office of Fair Trading, a third of Internet users don’t trust websites enough to buy products on them.

Credit card shoved into a computerI read this in a BBC News article, entitled “Fear holding back online shopping,” which gave empirical evidence of a fact I had suspected. Twenty percent of potential online consumers said they don’t use shop online because they might put themselves at risk for identity theft or other dangers. Another 15 percent said they don’t trust online retailers enough to do business with them.

This topic goes right along with my eHarbor Blog entry on the disadvantages of ecommerce, such as consumers’ inability to touch products they see online like they can at shopping centers.

Just because technology has improved our ability to market to consumers doesn’t mean we will always reach them. Identity theft has become quite sophisticated and prevalent in our digital age, putting smart consumers on the lookout and retailers on the defensive.

We must earn our customers’ trust. How do we do this? Here are six suggestions:

  1. Include testimonials of satisfied customers who can vouch for your products and services. You might be surprised how willing happy customers are to speak highly of you on your website.
  2. Provide secure payment methods, using credible sources. I’m not going to advertise any here, but do a Google search and you’ll find a number of good ones.
  3. Tell customers the actions you take to preserve their security. Don’t assume they know all the trouble you go through to make sure they’re not improperly charged. You can include a prominent link to this section on the billing page.
  4. Make sure your customer service is top-notch. If your service staff is readily available, knowledgeable and helpful, you’ll be able to resolve problems and help customers develop confidence that you have their best interests at heart.
  5. Put a face on your website. People tend to feel more comfortable doing business with a person rather than a faceless organization. If you can put yourself or a spokesman out front to build credibility, you might be able to win over more customers.
  6. Keep your promises. If you make bold claims, make sure you can back them up with impressive actions. Words are good, but they must be built on the truth to foster trust.

Those are my suggestions on how to build trust. Don’t be afraid to take a chance and do something inventive to earn your customers’ confidence and, thus, their business. Consumers are holding back a lot of their money as they weather the recession, so you’ll need to be creative and forthright to win them over.

By the way, some good news from the BBC news article is that the amount of online shoppers who feel just as comfortable shopping online as at a store increased from 26 percent in 2006 to 54 percent in 2009. This is a welcome trend.

The photo of a credit card in a computer is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of garethjmsaunders.

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Posted in Ecommerce | 3 Comments »

Will Kindle hurt book publishers?

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

By Robert Lockard

The Kindle DX’s launch last week brings up an interesting discussion on the value of content in the digital age. I couldn’t cover this whole discussion before, so now I’ll follow up on that discussion, as I promised to do in my first blog entry on Kindle.

Kindle atop a stack of books

I read another article on Kindle in Information Week, entitled “Amazon’s Kindle DX Poses Profitability Challenge To Publishers.” This article focused on a different effect Kindle DX can have on publishers. The publishers it discusses are not in the news media, but the textbook industry.

Apparently, a comparatively lightweight, digital copy of textbooks appeals to schools looking to save money for themselves and students. Textbooks can be expensive and heavy to carry from class to class, so Kindle’s new version offers a useful option. But the idea of turning their products into electronic copies doesn’t appeal to textbook publishers because of the negative impact that would likely have on their value and, thus, company profits.

The reason behind publishers’ hesitance to include their textbooks on Kindle is quite intriguing.

In the article, the author points out, “One fact that’s sure to keep shareholders up at night is the drop in the value of content once it becomes digital, sometimes as much as 50%, analysts have said.”

By publishing a written work in an electronic format, its value falls. The printing press, introduced centuries ago, made books much less expensive and time-consuming to create, lowering their value to a level attainable by more people. Perhaps the Internet is our new version of the printing press, allowing information to be shared cheaply and quickly, compared to traditional media forms.

By avoiding the costs of printing, binding and distributing books, these publishers could maintain their profits while lowering prices. But change is often scary, even if it has many positive points.

The article points out that the world is changing, and it’s becoming more difficult to ignore new technologies. I covered a similar topic on businesses that have yet to enter the ecommerce industry in my previous eHarbor Blog entry, called “Strong sales attract retailers to ecommerce.” We can look to the music industry to see the consequences of failing to take advantage of online services in a timely manner, the article also notes.

The photo of a Kindle atop textbooks is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of KNK.

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Posted in Ecommerce, Media | 3 Comments »

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