Internet Psychologist
People just love being members of a community. Years ago, when we all lived in small settlements, our community was the group of people we lived with; for many people in the world this is still the case. Nowadays, we are members of several different “communities”. Our locality has taken …
In the UK, the wine and spirits retailer Threshers is front page news because of a discount voucher. It offered an online 40% discount voucher to a few selected people. But the voucher was posted on a blog and was downloaded by 800,000 people. Threshers say they are surprised, but …
Having a single blog is not enough, particularly for those running a business online. Here’s why. The vast majority of blogs get very little traffic; only a handful of people read a typical blog. Indeed, one study suggests that 40% of all blogs receive less than 10 readers per week. …
Every year there are studies of leading web sites to see how close they are getting to providing a good experience for their users. Every year, major businesses and well known brands are criticised in a range of studies for not making their web sites usable. So it comes as …
One of the difficulties that governments face is that the global nature of the Internet makes their job more difficult. Even in relatively open societies like the USA and the UK, it’s possible for governments to exert some control over their citizens using taxation policies, for instance. However, with the …
Have you noticed how you always seem to see the same names and faces on the Internet? Why is it that all these top gurus seem to have a closed-door “Internet Marketing Country Club” and HOW did they break into this club? It’s easy to stand on the outside and …
As if the power of Google, MySpace and other big players isn’t enough to convince you of the need for user-generated content, consider a report in this week’s New Media Age magazine. A report on page 6 is headlined News International seeks user content for new free-paper site. The story …
Reuters, the world’s leading financial information and news organisation, has just invested $7m in blogging. They have announced that they are to use the services of Pluck, providing the outputs of blogs as part of their news service. The fact that such a respected news information organisation like Reuters is …
If your web site doesn’t include the option for user-generated content, the chances are it won’t be the kind of web site that is required in the near future. Up until recently the web was one-way – someone published a web site and someone else read it. Now, new technologies …
As the Christmas trading season takes force online, retailers are being urged to ensure their web sites don’t annoy visitors. So what’s the most annoying thing you can do? Add a pop-up advert. According to research from Taylor Nelson, 84% of people find pop-ups “extremely annoying”. Dead links are also …
I was giving a talk in Newbury the other day and there just happened to be a reporter from the Newbury Weekly news there. The result was a highly positive article on blogging for businesses. I gave away my book on blogging and they took a photo of me presenting …
I was chatting with Karen Skidmore today and we were discussing why women don’t take part in Internet activities as much as men do. I know that’s a sweeping generalisation but we agreed that on business sites, such as Ecademy, the bulk of the discussion is performed by men. Then …
If you needed any more evidence that the intermediary market is disappearing, you only need to look at the latest info from Hilton Hotels. The company has just reported that it expects to get $2.5b in online bookings for this year, compared with just over $700m four years ago. The …
I’m currently at the Professional Speakers Association’s annual congress at The Belfry. Two speakers today have confirmed something that many web site owners don’t appear to know. And that is the fact that people connect to what you say and what you write at the emotional level. They might justify …
Clearly plenty of people believe the Internet has potential. That’s obvious from the latest Netcraft survey which reveals there are now more than 100 million domains listed on the Web. However, the survey also shows that the vast majority of those (around 60%) are inactive. Over 60 million domain names …