Author: Graham Jones

Create an “Internet Marketing Kit”

Most people don’t use Internet technology well. Fewer than 2% of people who access the web, for instance, actually subscribe to RSS feeds. In spite of environmental concerns, millions of emails and web pages are actually printed out, rather than read on screen. As for using social networking tools, or

Internet marketing gets even more mobile

A lucky 500 Londoners have started taking part in a trial using Nokia phones to pay for tube journeys. Essentially, the phones use similar technology to the widespread “Oyster card” that many people in London use to pay their underground fares. Barclaycard is launching a similar card that will pay

Blogging can help your soul

Still, in spite of being around for ten years, people dismiss blogging as futile, unecessary or in some way “amateur”. Far from it – some of the most successful web sites in the world are based on blog technology. Amazon, the BBC and Facebook are all derivatives of blogging. But

Where do blogs come from?

Bloggers often find it hard to locate information to write about. Indeed, at blogging workshops I run, people often say they run out of ideas for their blogs. Well, if newspapers ran out of ideas they’d soon lose money…! So, where do newspapers get their ideas from? Other media –

There’s a recession coming? Not online….!

American commentators reckon there is a recession just around the corner. And one of the people quoted, economics professor Nouriel Roubini, believes that the financial difficulties could be greater than anything we have ever seen before. Such prophets of doom make for great headlines, but they are forgetting one thing.

Online businesses need to provide even more information

How many times have you ventured into an online store, only to find that you can’t get as much information about a company’s products or services as you would like? Only yesterday I wanted to know if my new video camera could take certain memory cards. Was that information in

Front page of the Reading Chronicle

My interview with the Business Editor of the Reading Chronicle led to a front page story in the main newspaper and then the whole of the front page of the Business Review sections. Wow!

The future of Internet Psychology

My son Elliot was 8-years-old yesterday and today we had a big party for 26 of his friends. It was a Harry Potter theme party with a wizard magician who kept all of the kids “spellbound” for an hour…! So what has all this to do with Internet Psychology? Well,

Internet shoppers must be confused

Shoppers online must be a pretty confused bunch of people. After all, we clearly want to shop online – the graph for items purchased on the Internet is near vertical; we just keep buying more and more stuff online, day in day out. That is shown by recent research for

Teenagers do not need our help online – we need them to help us oldies

Teenagers have been warned by men in grey suits to be careful online. According to the Information Commissioner’s Office, teenagers stand a chance of ruining their future careers if they are not careful when using social networking sites. Oh dear – here we go again – another set of adults

Internet users need symbols of identity

American Psychologists have discovered that we need to “get the T-shirt”. In an interesting group of different studies, the researchers from New York University found that in order for us to really feel we are part of a group we have to show that we are in that group. We

Email marketing has yet to achieve anything

British consumers would rather receive traditional direct mail than an email marketing campaign. That’s the conclusion of new research conducted for the Institute of Direct Marketing. Less than one in five people surveyed wanted to receive marketing material via email – they preferred to get it in the post. So

Five ways to engage people with your blog

There are over 100 million blogs in cyberspace now and the rate of growth is phenomenal. Indeed, if blogs continue to grow at their current pace there will be more blogs on the Internet than people on the planet, by 2010. If your blog is amongst all that noise, just

What can your online business learn from the credit crunch?

Bankers are not sleeping easily these days. First, the “subprime” problems emerged in the USA, then French banks took a cautious approach, before the debacle of Northern Rock hit Britain. Clearly, all around the world banking is hitting troubled waters. Even though we hear lots of technical terms like “subprime”

Is your online business ready for your employees?

Universities are pumping out technically literate graduates at a rapid rate. Indeed, you probably can’t even do a degree in Ancient Greek these days unless you are competent using online search methods, for instance. In other words, everyone joining the jobs market nowadays is technically competent. Until a few years

Internet shopping has no limits – so what’s holding you back?

Today is my birthday – hurray..! And I’m going shopping to celebrate. Many people get money, gift cards or vouchers for their birthday and I’m no exception, so it’s off to the shops later for a bit of a spending spree. I love shopping – as do most people. Indeed,

Social

Social networking crowds have no wisdom

Social networkers love numbers; “I have 20,000 friends”, or “My profile has just had its millionth view”, for instance. But actually, who cares? Other than massaging the ego of the individual social networker, numbers do not matter much. Take for instance the latest figures on social networking viewers (shown right).