To begin, earlier this year we rolled out a new demo of our mobile-friendly website solution known as Smart Sites. A smart site is a WP site with the AC Smart Site theme, a theme that simplifies the view of your product or business with a minimalistic design that is compatible across multiple web browsing platforms. It was derived from the AC Merchant Theme which was created for use on merchant sites at AutoConverse.com.

The theme design is ideal for tablets such as iPad or Samsung Galaxy. It is also fresh on smart phones such as iPhone and Droid.

Smart sites are also functional and aesthetic on a desktop or laptop, no matter what browser resolution. You can demo the smart site in action by texting AUTOBURST to 41513 from your phone. You will be sent a link to our demo smart site.

The Mobile Factor

Why is this important? Because connecting and communicating with customers is now a real-time ordeal that must be in synch across multiple platforms at any given time. People and customers are going from PC to laptop, to mobile, to car, etc., often consuming the same information across more than one platform. Businesses ability to cater to this will have a growing impact on the customer experience in years to come.

We are well poised for this future with the early adoption of this Smart Site technology. It makes for a terrific compliment something else that will be new for us this coming year…the CMP Mobile theme.

The new CMP theme is a skin that can be used to create a mobile-specific site for any product or business. Inspired by the .mobi system that arose early in the mobile computing space, the CMP theme is a WordPress theme designed to give users a web-based interface that is similar in design and function to the famous iPhone app view of icons displayed neatly in 3 columns on your phone, giving you one-click access to everything available on the site.

We will be offering a demo soon of this new product.

Change in Supply and Demand

So while 2010 proved another difficult year for many small businesses, those who have been able to weather the epic storm could be in high demand soon as the economy improves and small businesses obtain access to more capital. The market has been saturated in recent years with Internet marketing specialists and while the number of new people and businesses entering this space compared to the number of those exiting this space might cancel each other out, more and more businesses are expected to start embracing a lot of the inbound marketing practices that are proving to be highly effective for some agencies.

It goes without saying that anytime demand increases and supply decreases, suppliers may finally get to earn their keep soon.

Famous Quote

I heard once that…“[T]he more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing”. I don’t remember where I came across this, but it has stuck with me for a long time.

So this year, we will be making a point to be more diligent with our postings here about product updates. If you would like to receive these updates, plus information about the types of things we do so you can learn or at least understand, then subscribe to the site to receive an email alert each time we publish something new to the site. This could be as often as once or twice a week but more likely once or twice month. Subscribing is free and you may cancel your subscription at any time.

Also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Thanks and let’s make 2011 a spectacular year!

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?