Posts tagged experience
Survey: 41% Of Teens Experience Cyber-Bullying On Their Cellies
Jan 20th
Teenagers are endlessly fascinating, strange balls of neurotic/sexual energy. What company isn’t interested in collecting data points about teens’ behavior toward technology? (If you can think of one, please tell me in the comments. I promise to send you a shout-out on Twitter.)
A new study from Openet, a provider of Service Optimization Software (SOS) conducted a small-scale survey using data from 503 U.S. 13-17 year-old cell phone users. The survey discovered that cyber-bullying on cell phones was a major issue. Interestingly, only 1% of teen sext, which dispels a myth perpetuated by the teen texting trend wave. And apparently cyber-bullying on social networks is not an issue for the teen set as people previously believed. The real problem starts and ends with phones.
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The survey reveals both the bullies and victims of cyber-bullying. So even though 41% of teens have been cyber-bullied on their cell phones, it’s 25% of those kids are the actual cyber-bullies. The survey also found that heavy cell phone users were more likely to engage in inappropriate behaviors. Only 23% of teens fit this category of heavy cell phone users, sending approximately 1,800 texts per month. Of these types, 46% experience cyber-bullying on their phones versus 23% of normal users.
Don’t Fall Asleep With Your Phone, Kid
These days, it’s common to be glued to your phone, mobile device, mini-computer, whatever you want to call it. Heavy users admit that they’re more likely to use their devices during inappropriate times. A total 94% of this type say they’re using their phones at night when they should be asleep versus only 70% of lighter users. They’re also more likely to use their phones at school during class (74%) as opposed to only 41% of regular users.
Image via decoder.drugfree.org.
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Share the Experience: Send Your Team to SMX West…and Save
Dec 27th
Shared knowledge, experiences, vocabulary…they’re all part of building an effective internet and search engine marketing team. And Search Marketing Expo – SMX West provides an exceptional opportunity for teams to learn and network. Choose from nearly 60 sessions covering SEO, PPC, social media…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
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100 Million Apps Later, Apple Pushes the Desktop Toward a Mobile Experience
Dec 13th
Not even a year after launching, the Mac App Store has logged its 100 millionth download, Apple reported yesterday. The app directory, which went live in January of this year, gives developers a place to sell applications for desktops and laptops running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and higher.
The Mac App Store takes the model Apple established with mobile and tablet apps for iOS and applies it to the desktop. Developers who opt to charge for apps get a 70% cut of the revenue, just as mobile developers do.
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After the huge success achieved with the iTunes App Store for mobile devices, Apple decided to try a nearly identical approach for desktops. It’s not the only way to get applications onto Mac computers, but it offers a simple, well-organized repository for apps that have met Apple’s approval standards, complete with informative aggregate user reviews. It also simplifies the process of keeping apps up to date.
For developers, it provides a tried-and-true method of monetizing their work, if they’re willing to accept Apple’s revenue cut. From the looks of it, the platform is popular enough that, if nothing else, the Mac App Store gives developers increased visibility for their finished products. It’s become a resource for not only independent, lightweight desktop apps, but also for heavy-duty programs like Logic for audio-editing, Final Cut Pro for video and Photoshop Express.
From Apple to Microsoft, Desktops Begin to Resemble Mobile
The desktop app marketplace is not the only aspect of Apple-manufactured computers that recalls the user experience of using a tablet or smartphone. When the company released Mac OS X Lion earlier this year, it baked in several elements of iOS, from the mobile-style layout of apps in Launchpad to the multitouch gestures supported by the trackpad. Browsing the Web and scrolling through documents and menus on Lion feels more like doing so on an iPad or iPhone now, with a two-finger swipe up resulting in the page moving down (and vice versa).
Apple isn’t the only company merging the experience of using the desktop with that of smaller devices. Microsoft is taking things even further. The next generation of their PC operating system, Windows 8, borrows heavily from mobile design and user experience concepts. It features a touch-friendly UI, a new breed of HTML5-driven applications and a relatively seamless user experience between smartphones, tablets and the desktops.
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Bing Becomes Hub Of Microsoft’s New Xbox Experience
Dec 5th
As promised, Bing is the focus of a new Xbox experience that’s launching this week. Beginning on Tuesday, Xbox Live users who also have Kinect will be able to use their voice — and Bing’s search technology — to find different types of content that are available on their…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
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Red Hat Beefs Up Java Experience for OpenShift PaaS
Nov 15th
Red Hat’s PaaS, OpenShift, is getting an upgrade that will make Java developers happy. Starting today, OpenShift is adding in “Build-as-a-Service” to its features for Java. Developers write code wherever they like, then build software in OpenShift.
Using JBoss Tools or another IDE, developers can push their Java code up to OpenShift, and then the rest is going to be done “in the cloud.”
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As OpenShift PaaS Master Issac Roth writes, the standard procedure for Java developers is to “develop locally on their workstation, pull updated libraries (such as log4j and Hibernate) in from the Internet over the wide area network, and compile their projects using local compute power. This would result in a generally quite large, binary bytecode file (often a .war or .ear file) that would need to be uploaded to the cloud for deployment.”
Now? OpenShift lets developers push code to OpenShift and the compiling and dependencies are dealt with remotely. In fact, once the code is in OpenShift, developers only need to send a diff to the cloud after that.
One concern that developers might have is that there would be a lag in compilation. Often when using shared build services, there’s a wait queue for packages or software to be built. But Roth said yesterday that might happen, while OpenShift is still in development, but the plan is that when OpenShift is in production, “the intention is that this should be instantaneous.”
After code is deployed, OpenShift is capable of auto-scaling applications, and has the monitoring and management features you’d expect in a PaaS. Red Hat has two plans for OpenShift currently, Flex and Express. The Express plan is the free tier for developers to get used to OpenShift or deploy small applications that don’t need scaling, etc. Flex provides the scaling, monitoring and management features, plus a wider selection of databases. (MongoDB and Membase, plus MySQL as with Express.)
When will OpenShift be production ready? Red Hat isn’t giving a firm date, but Roth says that it should be the middle of next year. But he does note that some developers are already using OpenShift heavily.
Evaluating OpenShift
When OpenShift launches, it has the potential to be a front-runner in the PaaS market depending on pricing. While there’s plenty of competition in the PaaS market, OpenShift has a few things going for it. First, OpenShift has comprehensive language support. OpenShift not only supports Java EE6, but PHP, Ruby, Python and Perl as well. Though Red Hat doesn’t make much of Perl support, I think this actually has the potential to allow a lot of “legacy” apps to move into the cloud with minimal hassle.
The other big thing in OpenShift’s favor is its openness. Eventually, Red Hat will be releasing the source to OpenShift. Roth re-affirmed yesterday that it would be open sourced, but since OpenShift came through an acquisition, it’s taking time to do due diligence on the code before release.
Right now the service runs on top of Amazon Web Services (AWS), but Roth says that Amazon will eventually work with other providers. This means that there may be more of an ecosystem around OpenShift than PaaS services that are closed or constrained by a single service provider.
Unfortunately, it’s wait and see to find out what Red Hat’s pricing model is going to be with OpenShift. Red Hat hasn’t announced its pricing yet, and doesn’t yet have an ETA for that. Roth says that OpenShift saw a bump in users after Google revamped its App Engine pricing but wouldn’t say how many users OpenShift caught after the update, nor how many users are on OpenShift currently.
I’d be curious to hear from developers who are already using OpenShift, especially as compared to services like Google’s App Engine. How’s it looking, and do you think you’ll stick with it for production code?
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Will Amazon Offer The Best Tablet Commerce Experience? [Infographic]
Nov 14th
With two iPad apps, a tablet-optimized site, and the KindleFire tablet, Amazon is positioning its tablet experience around pure media consumption. Tablet owners are already shopping more on Amazon than other sites around the web, according to the Moxery Tablet Commerce Guide. Will that those numbers increase once the Kindle Fire tablet gets into the hands of U.S. Internet users later this week?
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In September 2011, nearly half of tablet owners made purchased on their devices. Currently, 12% of Internet users in the U.S. own a tablet.
To push media consumption even further, on November 10 Amazon boosted its KindleFire sales to 5 million.
Will Amazon come out as the top retailer in the tablet commerce space? Let us know what you think in the comments.
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Storify Update Feels Like a Cleaner Social News Experience
Oct 28th
Today Storify launched its new editor interface, featuring slicker, easier-to-use tools for fast content curation.
The new foundation flip-flops the search and editor sides of the interface, and places a higher priority on each content curator writing their own text for the story. Photo searches are big and bright, and the results are displayed in a handy gallery format that mimics a slick, white cube art space. The drag-and-drop functionality makes story curation more user-friendly. Previously, Storify didn’t have a logo – now it does.
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Storify’s previous user interface made searching for social media content feel more difficult than it should.
With the new interface, searching for content is incredibly easy. The drag-and-drop feature makes it even simpler to add social media to the curation stream.
Why Does Storify Want To Be More Blog-Like?
In July of this year, Storify “grew up”, becoming blog and SEO-friendly. Our own Marshall Kirkpatrick writes: “…social media curation is becoming a first class citizen of the open Web, just like blogging.”
The new Storify makes it feel like you’re writing a blog post and adding social media to it, rather than dropping a ton of social media into a stream.
Installing the Storify bookmarklet into your other social media lets you Storify anything you find on the web, including stuff you find on Facebook. It’s even more ubiquitous feeling than the Like button. Try installing the Storify bookmarklet, then mouse over a post on your Facebook news feed. The Storify button will come up.
This radically shifts the way stories are being found and created on the web. Facebook and Twitter users may be content creators, but their content doesn’t go anywhere outside of the social network. With Storify, the ability to instantly gather Tweets and Facebook posts into one longer story make the new version of Storify even more powerful.
How Storify is Trying to Make the News More Social
Last month, The Guardian and The Washington Post went social with Facebook apps. Anything you read will be automatically sent into Facebook, with the intention of making the news you’re reading more social.
In today’s Storify announcement, they note that their goal is to “make Storify a great place to read the news in a social way.”
Whereas Facebook is feeding news you’re reading on outside sites into the network itself, Storify encourages users to grab news and manually bring it into the network. The frictionless sharing element does not exist on Storify, making users feel in control of their content – whereas Facebook elicits the opposite feeling from its users.
This new update comes on the heels of the SoundCloud integration into Storify, which gave users an easier way to drop audio into their streams.
Storify logo via jeffthechimp.
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The YouTube Live Coldplay Concert Is The Future Of The Live Music Experience – ReelSEO Online Video News (blog)
Oct 26th
 ReelSEO Online Video News (blog) |
The YouTube Live Coldplay Concert Is The Future Of The Live Music Experience
ReelSEO Online Video News (blog) He is also founder of The Viral Orchard (http://www.viralorchard.com), an Internet marketing firm offering content writing and development services, viral marketing consulting, and SEO services. Jeremy writes constantly, loves online video, … |
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Greg Gianforte on The Future of Customer Experience
Oct 25th
At the Right Now customer summit today, CEO and founder Greg Gianforte laid out a very compelling vision of where he sees the future of customer experience. If only just a few of our humdrum daily interactions with call center agents, support techs, and phone problem resolution situations were anything close to this nirvana. Nevertheless, it was an interesting perspective and I will share some of his thoughts with you. RightNow sells its own SaaS-based solution for self-service customer portals and is used by many of the largest corporations.
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I have known Gianforte for nearly two decades and watch him build RightNow into a powerhouse organization, and now sell it to Oracle as was reported earlier this week. He demonstrated during his keynote how the nature of customer support has to change to make businesses successful.
First, there has to be a pluralism when it comes to which device a customer uses, meaning that customer-facing apps need to become device-aware and device-independent. A customer could start a support call via phone, Tweet a response on their laptop, move to a tablet and finish with an email. This makes it harder for any app to keep track of the conversation as it shifts from device to device, but it the way things are going. “Any agent will need to drop into any conversation on any channel, either when they initiate it or when a customer initiates a call,” said Gianforte. He mentioned that they have to have better “device awareness, which means that consumers are constantly connected and will move fluidly between devices.” Any customer-facing app will have to become device aware.
One of RightNow’s customers, Blurb.com (which we have written about here), mentioned this exact experience that happened last year, and it is certainly happening more frequently.
As part of the keynote, we also saw this engaging video. While a bit Minority-Report-esque and a bit far-fetched, it was interesting to see what could be possible.
Second, as part of this flexibility, there will be APIs for every device. “This means that apps will know everything about everybody and all data will be available for every app,” he said.
Third, customer call center agents will not just work from home, but be located everywhere. “They will be spread all over the world. And the most loyal customers must be able to act as agents, too,” he said.
In their video, they showed an avatar of an automated agent interacting with a customer trying to change his flight. “Our automated agents have to be so good that customers won’t even know they aren’t talking to a real person,” he said. (Good luck with that. I would settle for a voice response system that could act on most of my queries, rather than behaving like a tempestuous six year old.)
Next, he mentioned that “it is time to take personalization beyond shopping and into service: consumers want real intimacy with their trusted brands. ” Part of this is understanding why a customer is calling: “We need to know if a customer intends to purchase, complain, or want service for every single interaction. We need to become pro-active and have hyper-personalized interactions.” Part of this is putting in place real time predictive analytics that can prompt for the best agent action and customer intent.
All of this is part of redefining what customer service means in the near future. “Service is marketing, service is sales, service builds your brand,” he said. “Customer care is no longer just about problem resolution.”
As part of this new mantra for service, Mike Morris, the CRM lead for Newell Rubbermaid and a RightNow customer, gave a testimonial where he spoke about how they tied in various systems together so that they could better service their customers. The return authorization ticket, customer contact record, and repair record are all entered at the time a customer calls, and their customers can now submit online their returns 24 hours a day without having to wait for their call center to open or answer the phone.
Finally, he cautioned to “get on Facebook and Tweet with your customers.” Seems obvious, but worth stating. RightNow has an exciting vision for customer care, and for many of us it can’t happen soon enough.
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