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6 Ways to Use QR Codes in Your Advertising

2011/05/17 By 2 Comments

There were a couple good articles published recently about QR codes on some blogs that I frequent. One article offers a variety of examples for how these bar codes can be used in advertising. The other challenges their potential widespread use, and also offers some practical use for them. Both articles refer the bar codes’ origins to Japanese auto makers.

The example uses provided include:

  • Posting one in your shop window or website discounting a visitor’s first purchase
  • Post it on a Facebook Page sending the individual to your website
  • Visit a landing page on your website and track activity
  • Adding them to your business cards offering your contact information instantly
  • Present announcements about a new product line and where to find it
  • Including them in places to make your vCard downloadable

The RoundPeg blog with Lorraine Ball does a phenomenal job producing timely relevant content with practical real-world use for things like QR codes. You will see she challenges the potential widespread acceptance of QR codes, but does not rule them out as a passing trend. On the contrary, QR codes, like all types of bar codes, make a lot of sense and can be expect to be adopted extensively. [Read article...]

The AB2BC blog is new. It approaches topics like this from an experiential perspective, that is, the human experience. it concludes with the reminder that customer engagement is the key and that QR codes help accomplish this. [Read Article...]

“Customer engagement is key to having them come back for more.” -Bruce Aristeo, AB2BC.net

Have a look at these readings and let us know what your experience is or has been with the use of QR codes as an end user, marketer, or a small business owner. We do offer a solution for creating and using these scan codes so if you would like more information on the subject you may contact us or download the free White Paper on QR Codes that we plan to make availbale shortly.

Filed Under: Mobile, Technology

Piwik Site Analytics Now Included with Hosting Services

2011/03/15 By 1 Comment

A recurring issue we have encountered in our years providing web hosting services for clients is lost or inaccessible website analytics. For the most part we have relied on Google Site Analytics but we have experienced problems and limitations such as reaching the maximum number of accounts Google permits and then not having tracking code to insert. In an effort to continually improve the customer experience, we have chosen to start providing our own analytics solution by including Piwik with all of our hosting services.

Piwik is an open source (GPL licensed) real-time web analytics software program that aims to be an open source alternative to Google Analytics, and it is already used on more than 150,000 websites. It provides you with detailed reports on your website visitors: the search engines and keywords they used, the language they speak, your popular pages…and much more.

In laymen terms, you can check out who has been visiting your page, when, how and why. You can create Goals and track conversions. You can track unlimited number of websites, and create users with permission to view or administrate one or several websites.

If you don’t speak English, fear not. Piwik is available in more than 40 languages (and growing!).

What makes Piwik unique from the competition:

  1. Real time web analytics reports: in Piwik, reports are by default generated in real time. For high traffic websites, you can choose the frequency for reports to be processed
  2. You own your web analytics data: because Piwik is installed on our server, the data is stored in our own database and you can get all the statistics using the powerful Piwik Analytics API
  3. Modern, easy to use User Interface: you can fully customize your dashboard, drag and drop widgets you want to display.
  4. Piwik features are built inside plugins: you can add new features and remove the ones you don’t need. You can build your own web analytics plugins or hire a consultant to have your custom feature built in Piwik
  5. Vibrant international Open community of more than 100,000 active users (tracking even more websites!)

Here is the example of the Real Time Visitor Log showing you all visits, their actions on your site, how they reached the website (which keywords they typed or link they clicked on), Custom Variables, and more!

Piwik Has a Mobile App, Too!

One of our favorite features with Piwik is that there is a mobile app that iOS (iPhone) and Android users can install on their smartphones to view their website analytics on the go. This is handy for when you have some downtime to kill while waiting for someone, or for a meeting or appointment. Maybe you are with a client or prospective customer and could use access to some information you know is contained in your website analytics. Or maybe you are watching TV and just want to see what sort of activity is occurring on your website. Whatever the reason, you can install Piwik on your phone to access this data. A separate blog post about the mobile features is on its way…

To learn more about Piwik, use the links below which take you to the Piwik.org website.

As an AutoBurst customer there is nothing you need to do to benefit from this new service. It is included with our website hosting service and we are in the process of setting up all our existing customer websites with Piwik tracking. You can expect an email notification from AC Assist that contains information about your Piwik service along with your login credentials.

Filed Under: Announcements, Technology Tagged With: , , , , ,

Bing Changes Internet Marketing Game with Temporal Search

2010/10/25 By Leave a Comment

Bing has recently put into effect a new patent involving temporal search, which will return time-relevant search results to users.  Depending on when a query is searched, different results will be delivered.

If, for instance, a searcher queries ‘Valentine’s Day’ around February 14, they will receive results for the holiday; however, if at another time of year a movie named ‘Valentine’s Day’ is released, the user at that time will be delivered results for the movie.

Here’s the abstract of the patent:

“Techniques and systems are disclosed for returning temporally-aware results from an Internet-based search query. To determine if a query is temporally-based one or more query features are collected and input into a trained classifier, yielding a temporal classification for the query. Further, if a query is classified as temporal, the query results are shifted by determining an alternate set of results for the query, and returning one or more alternate results to one or more users. Based on user interactions with the one or more alternate results, the classifier can be updated, for example, by changing the query to a non-temporal query if the user interactions identify it as such.”

This new Bing feature represents greater user awareness on the part of Bing, which can now take into account click-through rates for specific keyword phrases.  If a site receives less click-throughs at a particular time of year, it may be moved down the list of priorities.

What does this mean for search engine marketing?  It may mean that internet marketing experts should be aware of temporal searches and create content relevant to specific times of the year.  No matter what the strategy, Search Engine marketers will have to approach internet marketing with a greater awareness of time-sensitive queries.

Filed Under: Marketing, Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Can web hosting not have overdraft protection?

2010/10/14 By Leave a Comment

The other day one of our websites went offline. It was down for more than an hour. Most of that time was waiting on our host provider to address the situation. After about an hour we took it upon ourselves to do a hard reboot on the CPanel, which is the server administration software installed on a Linux box that gives us the ability to manage our resources. About 10-15 minutes later everything was back to normal.

I don’t know if it was the hard reboot that restored things or if the host provider worked some mojo at the same time, but the experience led to some disheartening realizations about our host provider that has me wondering about the web hosting business all together.

Just about every host provider has a 99.9% uptime guarantee. With 24 hours to a day and an average 30 days per month, this means that your site should be online for at least 719.28 hours out of 720 hours. With more than one hour offline, this guarantee was not met, especially when you consider it was the third time in a 30-day period where it went offline.

To be fair, things happen. Computer technology is not perfect and servers go offline. In our case, it was most likely due to us breaching our allowance of resources which if you buy web hosting know that there is a limit to the resources allocated to your account. When that limit is met, the server is at risk of going offline. The provider could argue that this is our responsibility and not theirs, and I am fine with that.

What I am not fine with is how the matter was handled. When we called about the issue, Tier 1 Tech Support could not pinpoint the problem and so escalated it to Tier 2. Fine, but after waiting an hour I called only to find out that our ticket was sitting in a queue and that it could sit there for 12-24 hours. This seemed odd to me.

If the provider has a 99.9% uptime guarantee, then how can you knowingly allow a server to remain down for such a long period of time? Seems to me that a downed server would receive immediate attention. I am confident that if it was their website that went down, it would not sit in a queue for that long before getting addressed. So why should a customer’s website?

Now that I know how this host provider handles situations like this, I have much less confidence in running my websites through them. Adding salt to the wound is the fact that the Tier I tech support team should have and probably could have resolved the issue within the first 10 minutes or so by attempting the hard reboot. But considering that this host provider is one of the largest in the world, I suspect this situation would have been handled about the same no matter who it is.

And this has me thinking. In banking, you can typically have a line of credit or overdraft attached to your checking account so that if a transaction comes in when funds are not available, the overdraft kicks in and let’s the transaction go through, usually for a small fee. Same with credit cards. You can exceed your credit limit, but you will be charged a fee.

So why can’t web hosting be this way, at least for shared server environments which is the majority of hosting. Resource allocation limits are necessary, but in a shared hosting environment, more resources technically exist on the box. Seems to me, the admin software restricting this should be able to permit additional resources when necessary, and then charge me a fee when it occurs. I will be happier because my site wasn’t down. The host provider would make additional revenue and also not exhaust resources dealing with the issue.

I could be oversimplifying this or maybe what I suggest is not technologically possible. What I can say however is that the described current experience is a lose-lose for everybody that doesn’t seem like a long shot to keep from occurring.

Filed Under: Blogging, Technology Tagged With: ,

Make the needle come to you with Google Instant

2010/09/08 By 3 Comments

According to a recent article on HubSpot, search giant Google launched a new version of its search engine interface today called Google Instant. It provides real-time suggested results as a user begins to type a keyword into Google.

You may have noticed when you search Google that your search term appears below the input form along with other suggested search terms from Google which I imagine display as such for good reason. Now when you select these phrases new information can appear in your search results.

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Google Instant means a shift toward focusing even more on higher rankings for specific long tail keyword phrases. The Google Instant interface reduces the need to scroll down the page looking for better results and essentially eliminates the need to look at anything other than the first page of search engine results. Users will look at the first three to five results at the top of the page without having to scroll; if they don’t see what they are looking for, they will adjust their search phrase instead of scrolling or visiting the next page of results.

This makes more sense in that you won’t have to look for the needle in the haystack if you will and instead and make the needle come to you.

Filed Under: Marketing, Technology Tagged With: , ,

The Google + Facebook + Foursquare situation

2010/08/23 By 1 Comment

A lot of buzz is taking place between industry giants Facebook and Google.

You have the release of Facebook Places, and then you have the general effect Facebook has on brand sites such as Starbucks and Coca-Cola. With so much on which to chew, you must give heed to the fact that Foursquare and Booyah have been mentioned in this mix too.

Internet marketing is not just about search engine marketing anymore. Location-based and relationship marketing are becoming more and more digital and mobile now too. This presents new technology avenues  for people and and challenges for businesses to tackle age-old marketing objectives.

Local advertising is nothing new, but giving people and businesses the ability to do this using mobile phones and devices opens up new space in the technology marketing front that shows promise for future generations.

Foursquare is one of numerous new applications available today for location-based customer experiences to occur and with the recent roll out of Facebook Places, some people have expressed concern for how this might affect Foursquare. Facebook’s Zuckerburg was genuinely humble about the fact that the local market is a “big space.”

Much more will come out of this arrangement of players in the years to come, with new ones likely too. The need for mobile apps will increase, the ability for businesses to adapt to new technologies will improve, and service providers will be able to flourish in the new capabilities that are created. It’s a beautiful thing, but not without it’s own worries and challenges.

Look for more information from us about how your company and brand can be affected by these growing technology trends by signing up to receive and email alert each time we update our blog. Our goal is to bring timely topics and events into perspective to help you make informed decisions about today and tomorrow, plus to train and equip you with tools and technology that solve real business and organizational problems for you.

Filed Under: Marketing, Technology Tagged With: , , , ,

Jailbreaking your iPhone now legal, as it should be

2010/07/27 By Leave a Comment

Imagine not being able to change the spark plugs in your vehicle. Or think about the prospect of purchasing a car and not being able to put water in the radiator, or put on your spare tire. That’s essentially what Apple has done with its attempts to ensure that users don’t jailbreak their iPhone. Thanks to changes in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, however, jailbreaking the iPhone is now just as acceptable as jailbreaking your automobile.

The new rules are centered around six classes of copyrighted works.

  1. Motion pictures on DVDs
  2. Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications
  3. Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable used wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telecommunications network
  4. Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works
  5. Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete
  6. Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book’s read-aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format

For purposes related to this blog post we’re going to discuss the second class:

Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.

Evidently, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington believes that iPhone owners should be able to use their iPhones for computer programs not specific to the iPhone. Quite frankly, I don’t know why Apple executives don’t feel the same way. I mean, you’d think they’d want to sell more iPhones.

Despite being a big Apple fan, this is the right decision, and it doesn’t just apply to Apple. It applies to all phone manufacturers. Reality is, you are buying the phone so you have the right to do with it what you please. It’s as simple as that.

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: ,

Be your own producer with social magazines

2010/07/21 By Leave a Comment

Many years ago, just prior to the birth of the World Wide Web in 1995, a friend and I attempted to create something unheard of at the time. The idea was based on that of a print magazine but would feature two things uncharacteristic of a magazine:

a.) Interaction
b.) Personalization

We weren’t sure how to pull it off, as print media does pose limitations. We didn’t even have a clear idea all that it would ent

ail.

What we did know was that we wanted to come out with a periodical print, probably once a month, featuring stories, local businesses, local people, local events and activities, all the normal stuff that would appear in a local journal, but we wanted a way to interact with people as close to real-time as possible and also keep the publication personalized, letting readers influence their own experience.

Not surprisingly, the idea never went anywhere. Primarily because we couldn’t figure out technologically how to achieve what we desired. We didn’t even get far enough with the idea for funding to become an obstacle. But we spent months with the idea in our think tank.

In recent years, I have come to realize that it blogs have been achieving some aspects of this  idea since the late 90s, so in a way when I think back to our efforts I recognize that while the idea at the time may not have been possible, it was this type of thinking that led to the innovation of blogs and social media.

But now something new is on the horizon that is almost PRECISELY what we ultimately wanted to achieve nearly 20 years ago. It’s called a social magazine and you can read about it on a recent post at HubSpot called The Next Big Thing for Marketers: Social Magazines.

A social magazine is based on the notion that tablet computing, such as the iPad, is here to stay and that consumers now need and have the ability to custom tailor their marketing experience.

Already there are applications such as Flipboard and Pulse for the iPad that give users the ability to pipe in content from various sources and organize it in a way that allows them to consumer the information to their taste.

As HubSpot points out, social magazines are important for marketers because they a.) reduce info-noise; b.) are rich with visuals; c.) result in social segmentation.

The noise reduction benefit is huge. People are overwhelmed today with information and the pursuit is on to filter and reduce this noise to its most useful and beneficial purpose for each individual.

The visual aspect is important because micro-blogging, which arguably has dominated conventional blogging, is limited when it comes to multimedia. Social magazines keep micro-blogging on the forefront and incorporate rich multimedia experiences.

The segmentation aspect, which in a way coincides with noise filtering, gives consumers the ability to custom tailor the information they consume. Essentially makes the consumer the architect of his own experience.

Ultimately what social magazines bring into the world is the possibility of making sense of the ever-chaotic Internet for each individual. Unlike radio and television programming, which packages choice select content determined by the producers and delivers it to viewing and listening audiences, social magazines let the consuming recipient be his or her own producer.

How will this impact your marketing efforts as a business?

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , ,

Brightcove Publishes, Distributes and Monetizes web video for iPad and other Apple devices

2010/04/05 By Leave a Comment

iPhone Blue CubeLast month Brighcove announced Brightcove Experience for HTML5, a framework for publishing and delivering high quality, interactive and advertising-supported Web video experiences for HTML5-compatible devices.

The new solution enables you to easily expand the reach of your online video initiatives to popular consumer devices including the Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

The Brightcove Experience for HTML5 provides support for intelligent device detection, playlist rendering, and playback of H.264 encoded video content. Over the course of this year, Brightcove will expand the Brightcove Experience for HTML5 to include full support for customization and branding of the player environment, advertising, analytics, social sharing, and other capabilities currently found in Brightcove experience solutions for other platforms.

The Brightcove Experience for HTML5 is provided at no charge to customers with subscriptions to Brightcove Professional, Enterprise, and Express $499 editions. An early version of the automatic device detection and HTML5 player template are available in the Brightcove Developer Center.

As Brightcove customers, we are pleased with this announcement for a couple reasons.

  1. It demonstrates Brightcove’s commitment to innovation, something which played a big part in our decision recently to Brightcove’s video hosting & streaming platform.
  2. It gives credence to the direction Apple is headed on the web by abandoning Flash and counting on web developers and software makers to adapt.

Brightcove is a Web-based platform that makes it easy to deliver professional-quality video experiences through your website. Unlike free video sharing sites, Brightcove gives you complete control over the video experience you put on your site. Organizations of all sizes choose Brightcove for its ease of use and its power to scale from the simplest project to the most complex

For more information about this and similar topics, visit our website at www.autoburstwebs.com

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , , ,

Using TweetDeck to socialize your information on the web

2010/03/30 By 1 Comment

Sign up to learn more about TweetDeck
Twitter is a great tool for reaching customers and prospects, building relationships with folks, educating your followers on your business values, products, and services, and ultimately for driving sales. If you have been using Twitter then you know that success is directly impacted by the amount of time you spend using the tool.

Fortunately there are ways to make your Twitter efforts more efficient. One of these ways is with the use of TweetDeck.

TweetDeck is a browser for select social media networking sites allowing you to manage information on Twitter, facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. In fact with TweetDeck you can even manage multiplate Twitter accounts, plus any facebook pages to which you are an admin can be managed from TweetDeck too.

For example, we recently launched a new Twitter account for AutoBurst and are using to TweetDeck to manage it along with other Twitter accounts we have in addition to customer Twitter accounts.

This week we are holding a webinar dedicated to the use of TweetDeck and Twitter as part of our AC Social Webinar Series. Our guest presenter will be Ryan Taft from Catalyst Marketers who assists us in managing information on Twitter and facebook for some of our customers. Taft posted to his blog recently offering some extended uses of Twitter and TweetDeck in the post No time for Twitter? Use TweetDeck to save time, but you can benefit from this information first hand by attending this week’s Webinar at 11:30 am EST on Thursday April 1.

In this webinar Taft will be exploring the following topics:

  • Quick Twitter for Business Intro
  • TweetDeck Overview
  • Download for computer & mobile phone
  • Add Twitter account
  • Add Facebook account
  • TweetDeck helps maximize your time on Twitter
  • TweetDeck helps show activity at a glance
  • TweetDeck recap & summary

As with all our webinars we aim to make them useful and applicable in the real world, this way you can walk away with new skills that can be applied to your endeavours on the web right away.

To attend this webinar you must be registered with the AC Social Webinar series which you can do by clicking here or the button below. By registering you will receive an email notification from GoToWebinar reminding you of each webinar within that series. If you are not able to or are not interested in attending a specific webinar witin that series then there is no obligation to attend. You can disregard the notification.

Likewise if you have an interest in attending webinars from another series we run then you can register with those from the AC Webinar Series page too. Additionally, by becoming a fan of our facebook page or by subscribing to our website then we can notify you of our upcoming events and webinars plus we can share information like this that you can utlize on your own time.

Click here to register for the AC Social Webinar Series

Filed Under: Social Media, Technology, Videos Tagged With: , , ,
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