Archive: Articles
-
Jun 06, 2013
No CommentsDoing Real Business in the Cloud, part 3
I’ve been discussing (see part one here) how you can use the cloud to run your business, from publishing, creating and sharing sales presentations to handling all your invoicing, payroll and general accounting with cloud-based solutions. If you’re not yet convinced that running a good chunk of your business in the cloud is a feasible...
-
May 21, 2013
No CommentsDoing Real Business in the Cloud, part 2
Last time, I discussed how working with cloud-based software could take your lowly slide presentation and transform it into something dynamic that you could access and update just about anywhere and almost anytime. If that didn’t convince you to make the leap into the business cloud, don’t worry. Powerpoints and their ilk aren’t for everyone...
-
Jan 29, 2013
No CommentsDoing Real Business in the Cloud
You’ve undoubtedly heard tech geeks (like yours truly) wax enthusiastically about the virtues of “the cloud” or, more specifically, “cloud computing.” Part legitimate game-changer and part meaningless abstraction, the concept of doing things “in the cloud” may mean little more to you than another impressive-looking IBM commercial that interrupts the otherwise endless stream of beer...
-
Sep 10, 2012
No CommentsThe Bare-Bones Basics of Web Statistics
Here in Austin, I teach classes at a local non-profit organization that helps people start their own businesses. I’ve been teaching folks about building basic web sites, search engine optimization, and web marketing for about five years. Once – and only once, mind you – I taught a class on web analytics. Web analytics are...
-
Feb 16, 2012
No CommentsAre QR Codes a Retro Marketing Miracle?
QR codes are popping up everywhere these days, from store windows to packaging to magazine ads. You’ve probably seen them; they look an awful lot like a cross between a bar code and badly-pixelated artwork from a 1980s video game. They’re black and white with big squares on three of the corners and, like their...
-
Jan 16, 2012
No CommentsThe 2012 Social Media Landscape
If you’re promoting your business online, you’ve probably at least dipped your toe into the vast, muddy lake of social media. Some of you may have seen success with it, while others got wind of the time and effort required to maintain a social media presence and gingerly stepped away. Since most of you deal...
-
Jan 11, 2012
1 CommentYour World, My World: Google’s New “Search plus Your World”
Danny Sullivan has a great piece over on Search Engine Land explaining his sense of disappointment in Google’s new “Search plus Your World” feature. I think Google’s move is unpleasant but not a surprise. It’s unsettling to those of us who’ve watched Google’s rise from the very beginning and saw the company as a...
-
Jul 19, 2011
No CommentsCan Google+ Circles Clean Up Your Messy Relationships?
Is Google+ actually going to make our lives (and privacy) more organized and compartmentalized? That seems to be its primary appeal. Where Facebook bolted on group management as an afterthought, Google+ encourages you to approach your online socializing via distinct circles from the very beginning. For those who are already well-organized and mindful of privacy...
-
Jul 11, 2011
2 CommentsFirst Impressions: Test Driving Google+
If you’ve explored social networking with Twitter and Facebook, there’s a chance you might have noticed the “field trial” launch of Google’s next social networking product, Google+, last week. I say “next” because Google has thrown a number of social products at the wall over the last decade (Orkut, Wave, Buzz) and none of them have...
-
Jun 09, 2011
No CommentsIs Online Sales Tax Coming to a Head?
As an e-commerce platform vendor, we’ve been following the internet sales tax debate, well, practically since it started, and not much has changed since then. States continue to be deprived of – deservedly or not, depending on where you stand – sales tax revenue on products that consumers order from out-of-state vendors. States like Texas,...