Winning fans through facebook
Posted: May 14, 2011 Filed under: Brisbane Times, Business, Sydney Morning Herald, Technology, The Age, WA Today | Tags: business, business site, facebook, fan page Leave a commentThe search giant Bing can now eyeball updates posted on “fan pages” – Facebook spaces popular as a branding tool. Bing’s attention looks set to raise the profile of fan pages, which are already making waves. Just ask new media fan James Plouf.
Exodus
“Soon, people won’t be asking if you have a web page,” Plouf wrote in a May 2010 post. “They will be asking if you have a Facebook fan page. You laugh, but big brands are already dumping standalone web sites and moving over to just Facebook,” Plouf said, adding that Google should worry because Facebook is “unstoppable” and just getting started. Read more at the Age…
Gravitating to Gravatars
Posted: May 5, 2011 Filed under: Technology, The Age | Tags: avatar, gravatars Leave a commentFirst came the avatar – typically a one-trick and makeshift badge of identity liable to be ditched like an outdated document dragged to the trash can. Now, tech wizards have conjured up a new kind of visual signature.
Meet the ‘gravatar’ (globally recognised avatar) – a personal imprint that automatically appears on gravatar-enabled sites when you post a comment.
Getting a gravatar is easy. For starters, hit the gravatar.com home page that features a multitude of surprisingly plain staring faces. Upload and crop your preferred mugshot or logo, then rate it. Read more at The Age…
August 3, 2009
http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/smallbiz-tech/gravitating-to-gravatars-20090731-e3xq.html
What’s your favourite gadget?
Posted: March 31, 2011 Filed under: Technology, The Age | Tags: gadgets, HD recorder, ipad, iphone, scanner, smartphone, universal battery charger Leave a commentThis is the age of the gadget, and we all have a handful of them for work and for play. Some we use every day and others are sitting in a drawer somewhere, an impulse buy that never quite lived up to its hype, or that was obsolete before we got to grips with it.
They can be big: like a printer that also copies and scans, or a notebook computer – or small: like a bluetooth earpiece or any size in between.
We approached a pretty good cross-section of small businesspeople and asked them to name their favourite gadget.
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Inevitably, several upmarket tactile smart devices make the cut, but so too do geeky gizmos all about substance and getting things done – rather than cachet and contours.
Even, it turns out, a humble charger can inspire devotion. Read more…
Attack of the Androids: phone war hots up
Posted: March 11, 2011 Filed under: Technology, The Age | Tags: androids, gadgets, iphone, smartphone Leave a commentThe Androids are coming!
Research suggests that Australia is becoming a country of smart phone fanatics. Aussies deploy the devices in bed, on the loo, even when driving, according to Telstra, which says that, in the last year, smartphone use has soared.
No wonder. A smartphone’s sleek shape, tactile buttons and blinking lights positively invite compulsive use. The question is which, if either, leading smartphone in a constantly escalating high-tech race deserves your dollar. Read more…
March 11, 2011
Tapping the power of service aggregators
Posted: November 30, 2009 Filed under: Business, Technology | Tags: entrepeneur, myhomeservice, service aggregators, servicecentral, serviceseeking, tradies, truelocal, whocando, yellow pages Leave a commentPhysical phone directories of a certain sunny colour are often demoted to doorstops. For the clued-up consumer in search of a service, it is much more convenient to click links than physically flip a reference bible’s paper pages.
The virtual version of the directories, yellow.com.au, addresses the itch for quick-fix business information, supposedly luring 2.5 million unique visitors each month. TrueLocal performs a similar function. But you might win more work if you drop directories and court clients through an alternative conduit with an interactive tilt. Consider the charms of the service aggregator.
Despite the clunky name, this alternative marketing tool can be powerful. Think of it as a client capture magnet or matchmaking machine, which spits out job leads to listed businesses via SMS or email. Read more at The Age…
November 30, 2009
Halloween brings out the online nasties
Posted: October 30, 2009 Filed under: Technology, The Age | Tags: antivirus, haloween, malware, porn, scareware Leave a commentLike a ghoul in a ski mask, “’scareware” is scary. Of all online nasties, scareware – programs posing as legitimate anti-virus software – poses the highest threat, thanks to its uncanny cunning.
Scareware lurks embedded in “seed pages” laced with seductively topical keywords. The hot word now is Halloween, according to the Chief Research Officer for the security firm AVG, Roger Thompson.
Over the last week , many Halloween-linked scareware cases have emerged, Thompson blogs, adding that people often ask him: “I don’t visit porn pages – I’m pretty safe, aren’t I?” ’ Read more at The Age…
October 30, 2009
The need for speed
Posted: October 1, 2009 Filed under: Business, Sydney Morning Herald, Technology | Tags: internet, internet speed, page speed, websites Leave a commentHowever spiffy that your company is in your view, remember: you only have seconds to grab and engage the visitor who lands on your website.
To ensure that your website rolls up with silky speed, you must maximise its performance.
Do not forget that some people are still shackled to dial-up connections. Or they may have cheap broadband that limps along like an ancient, dust-choked ute.
Rural areas in particular still count on slow connections. As a result, if your site is a slouch, rural visitors will flit to your rival’s in the time that it takes to say “clickstream”. Read more at The Age…
October 1, 2009
http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/coaching/the-need-for-speed-20091001-gdm6.html
Welcome to dot.Sydney
Posted: August 18, 2009 Filed under: Technology, The Age | Tags: Australia, domain names, geographic, IP address, Sydney Leave a commentA domain name that coincides with your brand name is crucial. It means that clients and prospects can remember and type it into their browser address bars more easily.
The issue is how much tell-tale detail to supply. Would you want your domain name to end with ‘dot.Sydney’, ’dot.Melbourne’ or whatever your nearest city might be? The tweak might soon be possible.
NSW Premier Nathan Rees backs registering ”top-level” geographic internet domain names such as “dot.Sydney”. Read more at The Age…
August 18, 2009
http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/smallbiz-marketing/welcome-to-dotsydney-20090818-eoro.html
Software review: Windows 7
Posted: March 26, 2009 Filed under: Technology | Tags: Bill Gates, software, windows 7 Leave a commentEven Bill Gates has admitted that Vista needs work.
In a widely publicised interview in January 2008, in response to a question about what recent product he wished Microsoft had polished more ahead of shipping, Gates pointed to Vista, the current Windows version.
(Gates has since stepped away from the operational side of Microsoft to concentrate on his philanthropic foundation, although he remains chairman.)
Widely reviled, Windows Vista sometimes seems so bad that it resembles malware (malicious software). Read more at The Age…
March 26, 2009
http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/software-review-windows-7-20090619-cqyo.html
Review: Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10
Posted: March 5, 2009 Filed under: Technology, The Age | Tags: Dragon, Naturally Speak, Speech recognition Leave a commentThe name defies logic. Quite how a hissing, spitting mythical monster became a byword for dictation software is a puzzle on par with the qwerty keyboard layout.
Still, since what feels like the days of yore, Dragon NaturallySpeaking has dominated the art of turning spoken words into text – a practice three times faster than typing, according to Dragon’s parent company, Nuance. Read more at The Age…
March 5, 2009
http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/review-dragon-naturallyspeaking-10-20090619-cqxe.html
Top 10 free software sites
Posted: January 30, 2009 Filed under: Technology, The Age | Tags: free software, free software sites, software, web 2.0 Leave a commentSo you want to fit your computer with quality software without paying a cent.
That dream is do-able in these tight times because a swathe of modern software positively wants to be free.
These are 10 of the best free programs around. Many are integrated into websites, which in the interactive web 2.0 world are increasingly blurring with software. Read more at the Age…
January 30, 2009
http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/top-10-free-software-sites-20090619-cqv2.html
David Wilson journalism 