I finally had a chance to look at Google+ tonight and in all honesty it is everything I expected it to be. It isn't much at the moment since being on a social network without many friends is like being at a rock concert by yourself. However, the user interface really appeals to me. In fact, all of the UI changes implemented by Google in recent days are exceptional. Yes, people will still find faults but I like the consistency across the services. The design itself makes really good use of soft lines and subtle highlights. I've also loaded the new design for Gmail, which is particularly stunning. The additional white space and sparing use of color as prominent call to actions is really exceptional. I suppose it will only be a matter of time before this is rolled out across the other properties. I know this would be a welcome change to the Google Docs section.

All in all I like the direction that Google is taking. Consistency in branding is always a big plus.

Picture this:

You are sitting on the bus,  your commute is 45 minutes long so you whip out your iPhone and start browsing Twitter. Your friend posts a link to this awesome article on social marketing, you follow the link and then sit for the next 15 minutes frustrated with:

1. waiting for the page and all it's ads to load
2. not being able to read the content because you keep having to pan back and forth on the screen.

This tends to happen to me a lot. There are VERY few sites out there that seem to understand that today there is a need for a mobile version of a website. Sure, you can get an app for your favourite site on your iPhone, Android, Symbian or Palm powered phones but these apps usually don't offer the website content or experience. The modern mobile OS and browser technology allows most websites to load and operate just as they would on a laptop or desktop but the experience is poor. With limited screen real estate, I want to execute my tasks quickly and effectively. I don't want to pinch or zoom on anything other than a map!

Two sites that have provided excellent mobile versions are:

1. Amazon - who understands user behaviour better than the users themselves, provides a slick, easy to use interface which makes shopping a breeze
2. Wikipedia Mobile - utilizing a minimalistic design, Wikipedia provides quick, relevant information on the go, no matter what your screen real estate!

These are just a couple examples but there are countless businesses and website owners out there who choose to ignore the tremendous mobile market to be tapped. Wake up people, it's 2010!

So, there are more than just a few rumors about the possible Apple Tablet and why wouldn't there be a lot of buzz around the company that has a knack of delivering products that changes paradigms? I personally don't think there will be one. Now, to be clear, I would very much like there to be one but one question keeps coming up for me. Where will the Apple Tablet fit into the company's product line? A lot of buzz today seems to think that Amazon's changing of the Kindle royalty fees to publishers is some indication of the iminent arrival of the iSlate. I can't seem to connect the dots. How will Apple benefit from developing a tablet that would directly compete with the Kindle? Reading books on the iPhone or iPod touch are just as enjoyable. There is definitely a gap in the market for a tablet device, techies have been after it for years and let's face it, who would be better to develop one than Apple? However, what is the market segment that this fit into?

Schools - Apple's devices have never been cheap, hence I don't see it replacing paper notebooks in the short term.

Business - Executives could walk around with their slick tablets and look ace in the boardroom but other than that, who in the organisation would benefit from a tablet? Assistants? Would the market be big enough? I may be being very short sighted here but are there any others who would benefit?

General Consumers - Why would home users choose a tablet over a laptop or a desktop? I wouldn't, would you? Why? How will a tablet provide a better user experience?

The iPod and iPhone were part of the master plan for creating the AppStore and iTunes which are the real cash cows for Apple. Apple is happy on the desktop and laptop fronts because if they wanted to compete head to head with Microsoft or Dell they could be churning out low cost machines with the same awesome OS X. Although, they have cornered the design, music production, video production and now developer communities with their hardware. Where will the tablet fit and how will it benefit Apple?

Forget the hardware, what is Apple planning in the long run? This is the question that everyone should be asking. I guess on January 27th 2010 we'll all find out.

While checking out the new Nexus One from Google I stumbled across this article from the TimesOnline. Even though the information on the phone was decent, I really liked the way there was both video and text content on the site. This is the way all online news sources should be, a perfect mix between both forms of traditional news sources (TV/Video and Newspaper). Granted not a lot of sites have the ability to deliver the content in this form because of the lack of licensing for video content, but this is where independent video and content providers can really shine. Imagine, people with video cameras on the ground at the annual Consumer Electronics Show or the New York International Car Show partnering with talented writers to deliver up to the minute on the ground news content that can be spread via the social web like wildfire.

I know, it's being done already but content creators and content providers need to be able to meet and really distribute the information in an organised way. Both parties need to have a medium for matching content and pulling them together to form a unified content delivery network. Is it out there?

Anyone who has ventured to start their own business knows that cash flow is important. Marketing and sales budgets are usually non-existent and the need for such budgets are often not apparent when you are working to generate revenue to pay rent. Email marketing is one of the lowest cost marketing tools available especially with the rise of social media networks that allow businesses to send mass "emails" to potential customers. The problem with most micro/small businesses is that they do not understand how email marketing can help them. Simply sending a message to 1,000 people is not enough, especially if you send the same message each and every time. So how does one use email marketing tools effectively?

1. Think in campaigns - each email you send should be part of a bigger picture, telling a story to your audience
2. Personalise - send relevant content to your customers, use gender, age and location data to assist in personalising content
3. Ask your recipients to share - provide an easy, obvious way for your recipients to send the message on to others
4. Analyse results - one of the biggest problems with small businesses is that they don't use systematic (scientific) methods for determining success of an email. Track your messages and analyse the data that contains to help with streamlining the messages you send in the future

This is one area where small business should really invest more time and money. Email marketing is not dead (yet) and will continue to be an excellent medium for reaching, attracting and converting potential customers.

I've been reading Gary Vay-ner-chuk's book Crush It! and there was a line in there that says business is not only about making money. Gary says that something is wrong with you if you think otherwise. I've had this discussion before with my very good friend @Jahriv. He shares the views of Mr. Vaynerchuk and believes that business should be rooted in passion with money being the side effect of that passion. I still tend to disagree with this theory. I believe that the only reason for a "business" is to generate revenue and it is possible for someone to look at the cash in the bank as the only reason for being in that business.

Why is passion important?

1. Motivation is derived from passion. We all know someone who sits in a cubicle ruing the fact that their higher ups rake in all the profit while they slave away at their tasks. The successful people among us usually like what they do, this allows them to go to work with the "can do" attitude, which in turn, usually, translates into success in their career path.
2. Passionate people are excited about the thing they are passionate about, they spread the word, they try to infect you with it as well. Which can't be a bad thing in business.

How can one truly do something well without passion?

1. Motivation can also be derived from other sources. People can do things simply out of necessity. For instance, Gary ended up in the wine store founded by his parents because he had to. His passion at that point was something else, however he still successfully built the business into a multi-million dollar wine empire.
2. Simple twists of fate. I had my heart set on becoming a Chemical Engineer but a clerical error put me in the department of Natural Sciences at college so I chose Computer Science, not because it was what I wanted to do but because of the available choices at the time it was the one most likely to provide me with a decent job and potentially a decent life. I believe I do my job well and I do it because I'm good at it and the pay is good.

In the end though, it comes down to the individual, depending on circumstances you should find the right motivation for whatever you decide to do. If you find a niche market for slug farming and are sufficiently motivated to work hard and do what it takes to be the best slug farmer then you will succeed. But let's not kid ourselves, if your dream is to buy the New York Jets, then you are only growing your business so you can have the money to buy the Jets. I don't think that can be termed passion.

I may be wrong, since I'm obviously not on the level of success with Gary. Do I have to find a passion for what I do? Or maybe the problem is that I'm not doing what I want to do but what I have to do? Is the source of motivation the difference between mediocre and excellent?

I've teamed up with Rolling Star Limited, an email marketing and sms marketing firm based in London, UK to perform integration services between their top notch email and sms platform and third party CRM systems. RSEmail is a full featured platform with a powerful feature set that allows you to perform very advanced email and sms campaigns. The system also provides a rich API which can be used to integrate the product with external systems. It is 100% rebrandable and contains advanced reporting.

I love doing integration work. Many people talk a lot about web services but don't really know or have the resources to implement or make use of them. So you have an API and another company has an API, what now? I write the bridge that links these two APIs. Although the data formats exposed by most web services is standard the APIs themselves are not standard and can sometimes not be as straightforward to work with. 

So, do you need an email or sms marketing platform? Give Rolling Star Ltd (info@rollingstar.co.uk) a shout and if you need it to integrate with your system or vise versa, contact me (donnie.bachan@gmail.com) and I'll be happy to work with you to get it up and running!

I am sure that most of the sites developed today end up with statistics provided by Google Analytics (GA), but does anyone care about the data provided by this service? Okay, okay so you know you've had 10 buzillion hits this week but what does that really tell you? How many of those hits (or should it be visits) are from actual humans? How many are from customers? Do people look beyond the default dashboard view of GA?

I use GA pretty extensively but even I have to admit that some of the more relevant features related to strategic planning and user interaction design have been neglected. Site analytics can be a hugely useful tool in ensuring that you are delivering the right content to the right people. Many clients are overly concerned simply about traffic and aren't knowledgeable enough about how their site is being used.

If you are a developer who provides GA (or any site analytics) as part of your solution it is your responsibility to ask the questions to determine if the client understands why you are giving this to them and how they should use it. Some people may disagree with me but I think it is important for me to do this for my clients and I believe that may small shops or individual developers perform full service tasks for their clients.

If you are a website owner then site analytics can provide you with a wealth of information about your visitors. This information can be used to help with your marketing and sales plan. For example, after reviewing the statistics for the category level pages of a magazine subscription site we noticed that very few people were using the View All link, but rather using the Previous and Next links. This showed that customers were browsing more and wanted the information in smaller chunks. We were able to reorganise this page to make it easier for visitors to navigate and get information and this lead to a significant increase in conversions. Without making use of GA we would have missed this.

So do yourself a favour and ask your website consultant to school you a bit on your chosen analytics package and see how it can help you!

Google has just announced Google Ventures, an initiative to help build businesses by providing funding and support. This is an excellent move by Google, not just because it provides a way for entrepeneurs to get funding but also for the continued existence of Google itself. There has been a lot of critisim about Google and its business model which is heavily centered around search advertising. This move by Google could possibly give them alternative revenue streams that would benefit the company going forward. I would have thought they would have done this a lot sooner but everything in its time I suppose.

So, get your business plan in order, throw up that prototype, do your patent research and fire off an application, you never know!

As a person who hopes to rule the world, I am always reading as much as I can about startups. The book Founders at Work is one of the most inspirational books that I have come across and here is another piece of wisdom from one of the Y Combinator alumni Mr. Paul Graham: http://www.paulgraham.com/13sentences.html.

These are some really good points and I think I'll try to follow them a bit more rigidly moving forward. I can really relate to the bit about distractions. I was looking over some code that I had written for a survey application about 6 years ago that could have been a seriously viable product by now. I started building a CMS product 4 years ago that has features that are only now becoming available in CMS packages like visual content layout and the ability to drop different content types on a page. Neither of these are production ready. There are several reasons for this but the one that is by far the biggest reason for them not being completed has to be distraction.

The influence of money on small businesses is tremendous. A lot of the time start ups don't have a constant revenue stream and it is difficult to live (especially for those of us with families) without taking jobs that pay the bills while your next killer app is in development. I am beginning to realise this and moving to focus more on the things that will enable my ideas to see the light of day. I am not saying that my ideas will be hugely successful, I just need to be able to deploy them to find out!