Nov 0820
Unlike some of my friends and many staffers at Matrix Group, I’m relatively new to Twitter, the mini-blogging site that lets you broadcast your status, location and thoughts. I’ve been “twittering” for just a few months, but I’m addicted. I “tweet” all day long and read most of the tweets of the people I follow. On Twitter, btw, I’m jmpineda.
For those of you who are new to all this, you can “follow” people on Twitter and people can follow you. When you follow someone, their tweets are posted to your Twitter home page all day long. In my case, I’m following a random collection of friends, Web thought leaders and organizations. My friend Joe tweets his location, the books he’s reading, the articles he’s reading. The National Wildlife Federation tweets about promotions, events and issues. Read the rest of this entry
Nov 0818
As if it weren’t enough that Google catalogs the Web, tracks traffic to our site, and helps us get from point A to point B, a new service from Google claims to be an early warning system for outbreaks of the flu.
Google flu trends, a service from Google.org, the search giant’s philanthropic arm, analyzes search terms that are related to the flu and creates maps of the US that presumably show where there are outbreaks of the flu. So, if I type “flu symptoms” into my browser, Google will take my search terms and my IP address, and interpret that someone in VA has the flu. In typical Google fashion, typing in the words flu symptoms, aches and pains, chest congestion and other terms will register in Google flu trends because the analysis has shown that these search terms tend to go together and they are indeed related to the flu. Read the rest of this entry
Nov 0816
Earlier this week, Anne Holland, founder of MarketingSherpa.com posted her last blog entry on the Sherpablog. November 10 was her last day as a formal company employee and she used the occasion to recount how MarketingSherpa began.
If you don’t know MarketingSherpa, you should. MarketingSherpa is my favorite source for news, information, case studies, how-to guides — everything about online marketing. MarketingSherpa e-mails are the few e-newsletters that I read in their entirety. I pass the articles along to my staff and clients. The knowledge in MarketingSherpa case studies is amazing, the writing is terrific, and the know-how is real.
I remember meeting Anne at an iBreakfast, a pitchfest hosted by Alan Brody back in 1999. Anne had an idea to pitch, a marketing plan, no money, but a lot of passion and knowledge about online marketing and research. MarketingSherpa became one of Matrix Group’s first dot com clients. At first, we helped her develop her technical platform and prototypes so that she could show investors more than a business plan. Read the rest of this entry
Nov 0812
I used to think that twittering was for individuals who wanted to broadcast their whereabouts and activities to friends and family. Most of my tweets have to do with where I am, what I’m reading, yada, yada. But I’ve found a growing number of companies using Twitter to raise awareness, reach new audiences, raise money, and disseminate news.
I can’t think of a more fitting match between Twitter and CNN’s breaking news. My god, Twitter is nothing but a bunch of headlines! Today, nearly 54,000 people follow CNN’s headline news on Twitter.
The National Wildlife Federation does a great job of using Twitter to promote events, broadcast NWF news and mobilize people to do something (vote, send an e-card, donate, watch a video). Over 1,600 people follow NWF on Twitter. Read the rest of this entry
Nov 0806
President-elect Obama has a lot on his plate. Perhaps most importantly, he’s got to get the economy moving again. I’m not convinced that getting people to spend money should be the top priority, but let me tell you about Mike, a shoe salesman I met at Nordstrom at Pentagon City last weekend.
I was looking for navy shoes and Mike was my guy. While I was trying on shoes, I asked him about business. Mike said that in his 15 years in the shoe department at Nordstrom, this is the worst he’s seen. I looked around, the store was packed. The food court had been packed. A couple of weeks ago, Tysons Galleria was packed. How could business be down?
Mike said, “look around, nobody’s carrying bags.” And you know what? He was right. Very few people in the store were carrying shopping bags. I was obsessed with people watching the rest of the afternoon and Mike’s words kept ringing true. Few people were carrying bags.
As Mike rang up my purchase, he said, “don’t be a stranger.”
Nov 0804
Every election, I give everyone in my office the corny speech about how I grew up under martial law in a country where people couldn’t vote, how voting is a privilege, how every vote counts, yada, yada. Well, this is the first year where everyone on my staff is interested in the election. I think nearly everyone eligible to vote actually voted. We had a staff meeting at noon today and only people who voted (or who are not eligible to vote) got free pizza.
I polled my staff and asked them for their favorite election resources. Read the rest of this entry
Oct 0831
My favorite business guru, Tom Peters, blogged recently that “hiring is the most important aspect of business” and I couldn’t agree more. I know down to my core that if we hire the right people, they will take care of our customers, they will be passionate about our business, and they will always strive to do the right thing.
Why is why, in addition to interviewing well and having great writing/coding samples, candidates for positions at Matrix Group must have great references. Paradoxically, we’re less inclined to hire a person with a perfect track record and perfect references, you know, the person who has never missed a deadline, never gone over budget, and never had a project go south. Why?
Because top talent has experienced some serious screw ups and they have recovered, and they have seen the impact of poorly managed or poorly engineered projects.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to hear about one screw up after another, but I do want candidates to tell me what they have learned from their mistakes and those of others, and how their experiences will help them avoid FUBARs in the future.
Oct 0828
Whitney Houston sings “Where do broken hearts go?” Me, I have often wondered what becomes of broken or lost Web pages — you know, the URLs that used to work but now display a 404 or file not found error. Are these pages deleted from the servers? Or have they just been unlinked? And what do I do if I really need the information and it’s now gone?
You’ll be glad to know that there is a whole movement devoted to changing the content of the Internet from ephemera to artifacts. Internet libraries are springing up everywhere to catalog and preserve Web pages, images, even audio and video files.
The largest (I think) Internet Library is the Internet Archive, a “nonprofit organization dedicated to building and maintaining a free and openly accessible online digital library, including an archive of Web.” The archive is a collection of snapshots of Web pages from the around the world, taken at various points in time. Read the rest of this entry
Oct 0823
Sometime last year, we started designing sites to a 1024 screen resolution. Based on feedback from clients that they wanted more real estate for their content, and usage reports that showed users having a minimum 1024 x 768 screen resolution, we decided to change our default practice. Today, we design to 1024 unless circumstances warrant otherwise.
According to data from the w3schools, 86% of users use computers with screen sizes of 1024 x 768 pixels or higher as of January 2008. All new laptops and monitors ship with at least 1024 resolution, usually higher, so this statistics does not surprise. My new Sony VAIO laptop shipped with 1280 x 800 resolution. Read the rest of this entry
Oct 0816
It seems purple is the color of the season and I’m not complaining. If you know me, have been to my office, or spent any time on the Matrix Group Web site (or this blog for that matter), you know that purple is an integral part of the Matrix Group experience.
I was pleased to see that Yahoo! has launched a Start Wearing Purple campaign. Even though the logo on the Yahoo Web site is red, it seems that purple has long been the company’s official color. Why purple? Yahoo says purple is associated with innovation and imagination.
Hmmm…. I always thought purple was associated with royalty and girl power, but hey, I’ll buy the innovation and imagination connection. Jerry Yang, Yahoo CEO, says he “bleeds purple.” Hmmm…. even I’m not crazy enough to say stuff like that. Read the rest of this entry
