In preparation for LOWA’s 2010 season lineup, advertisements, and brochures, Flashpoint’s Josh Yamamoto is snapping the digi to get the shots we need to make the magic happen. Note: That tripod can beat up your sister.
Wow! I’ve seen so many cool search engine ideas flash by with little or no penetration in the market I didn’t think anything could start to compete with the Google - but MS will be able to FORCE everyone to use this, and that right there gives them the edge, and it might pay off. They will bury the “Default Search Engine” preference so deep in their next IE release that slowly but surely the world will be “binging it”. Either way, from the screenshots, it looks loverly - minus the logotype, which I like better than googles anyway. I am so over googles lack of: UI, smart design, and balls (gonads, cojones, nuts, testicles), their tech is good, but I would gladly leave Google’s boring ass for something fresh and eye friendly (maybe it’s just me, but when I log into 90% of googles apps it takes my eyes 2 minutes of scanning to find what I am looking for). I just hope I don’t have to install some drivers to make the ‘Bing’ work. Check out the full article via @techcrunch.
Oh, how they come and go in my life. Netscape, Opera, Safari, Firefox, and back to Safari. I’m such a browser slut. I downloaded the newest Safari 4 beta and it is so nice. Sorry Firefox, I think you have been outted once again. First off the developer tools are unbelievable! By default they are turned off, but can be activated with a simple line in terminal.
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu
So, I’m thinking: Charles + Safari 4 + Web Inspector = Fantastical.
In the past I have used google image search and flickr searches to dive into and find comp images for all sorts of projects. It is always a crap shoot, but often I can get a few good images downloaded and placed without relying on stock comps, which is never the best solution as most all of the offered comps are way to small to use how you want. No one likes to show a nasty pixelated image wrapped in a slick design to a client, it can become a visual roadblock and kill the concept. Well, bring on compfight.com. It doesn’t troll the web as a whole, but rather just the flickr database, which often will return better quality images and less porn. Check It Here : compfight.com
inthemod.com is the home for all of Dr. WooHoo’s new and improved In The Mod apps, which he has ported to AIR and are for sale now. I have been using the your images one for about a week, and although not perfect it is really handy, so much so, that I ponied up the $20 (killer price) and purchased the app. Great Work Dr. WhooHoo!
Well today will be historic, no matter what happens. If you haven’t, please go vote!
We’re always keeping an eye on the changing e-marketing landscape. And while it’s not quite a political cage fight, here’s some interesting research.
Flashpoint’s Perspective: blogs continue to play a powerful role in the brand/consumer conversation. But they are just one part of a diversified e-marketing strategy. Finding the right blogs, pitching the product or service and following-up is more akin to public relations, and the resulting impact is harder to track. Social networks are still on the rise. Social networks like Facebook allow a measure of control that helps companies maintain brand standards, engage end users and leverage viral potential. User-targeted advertising on social networks like Facebook is not represented in the linked research. The tight targeting this style of pay-per-click (PPC) offers is more immediate and trackable. Combine a good search engine optimization strategy (SEO) with blogs and PPC and the return on investment becomes evident quickly.
Business blogs are one of the marketing flavors du jour that are being bandied about these days. Without question, there are good reasons to blog but you do need to assess what you are willing to invest and what you expect to get out of this exercise.
So if you’ve been considering jumping in as a business blogger, it’s worth taking time to answer a few questions:
1) What is the potential ROI on this project? Do you need to add depth of content to your site for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes? If you’re doing e-commerce and are fighting with your online competition over a given keyword, then yes, you’d probably benefit for the increased exposure. Google and other search engines will index sites higher that are updated often, that link to other sites and that have lots of inbound links.
2) Do you need or want to be perceived as a trusted advisor who provides good advice or hot news? Do you have unique insights or research that can truly benefit your circle of contacts? If you say yes to this, a blog is an easy tool with which to publish your pearls of wisdom.
3) Are you motivated to take this on? Can you (or someone else in your enterprise) commit to spending the time to provide fresh, useful information?
4) Does this establish you as a thought leader? Can you see a real benefit that your business or that of your clients will experience if you throw your deepest insights onto the web? Could this help you recruit new employees or develop stronger relationships with your clients?
5) Are you willing and able to receive and act on feedback from your blog, even if it’s less than glowing?
and last but not least
6) Can you resist urge to create self-aggrandizing, shameless puffery? (Because let’s face it, even our moms don’t have the patience to put up with that.)
IF you can answer YES to all of these questions, then terrific, fire up the Wordpress and go for it. And if anyone comes up with a better word than “blog” please let us know.
