Posts tagged Tell
How to tell if your business really needs an SEO retainer – Memeburn
May 2nd
 Memeburn |
How to tell if your business really needs an SEO retainer
Memeburn If you want your organisation to succeed in today's digital landscape, you need to ensure that your website is easily found on search engines, right? Right. To do this, you need to pay large amounts of money to an SEO firm over a long period of time … 5 ways you're already doing SEO |
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Ten Things Corporate Developers Are Dying To Tell Their CIOs
Apr 18th
Matt Ammerman is a co-founder and VP of client services for Apprenda.
As an enterprise software developer, I understand where frustrations lie in today’s IT organization and different lines of business.
Here are 10 things developers like me want their CIOs to understand:
1. We’re the fastest moving part of the company’s IT organization and we want the everyone else to catch up. Under the right conditions, I can develop applications very quickly. Unfortunately, the wrong conditions slow me down. Having to wait for IT to provision dependencies that I might have drastically diminishes my productivity. IT needs to offer services that streamline their processes and let me work at my pace.
2. We can work faster and for less money with the right tools. We can leverage small investments to go a long way. Every developer has a tool belt. I have tools that I prefer to use when developing software. Make an investment in the tools that I use, from text editors to IDEs to platforms and frameworks. I can use these tools to make excellent software that benefits the company.
3. Coordinating disparate teams within IT to roll out a single app is how I spend most of my time. I can typically write an application in 4-6 weeks, sometimes quicker. At that point I should be able to deliver the app to the customer. Unfortunately, I end up spending a great deal more time coordinating the rollout of the application by talking to disparate groups responsible for things like security, networking and servers.
4. Virtualization alone makes IT’s life easier, not mine. The software I write is complex. Making infrastructure easier to deploy does not make it easier to write these complex apps, even if the infrastructure is available on demand. That just makes one part of the job go faster. I prefer to tap into existing systems for complex things instead of trying to become an expert in all of them. Providing those systems is how you can make me more productive.
5. I want to know that I am a part of a single organizational vision for software and services. Sometimes I feel like I’m working on apps or pieces of apps that are part of a larger project or vision that I don’t know enough about. If I’m working on a new initiative that is strategically important to the company, let me know that. I want to feel like I’m contributing to something big.
6. Standardization on technologies within our company will make our lives a lot easier. I have my own way of doing things, and each developer here has their own way. This doesn’t bode well for our company’s software strategy. If we’re not all doing things the same way, lots of things are sub-optimized – from testing, to rollout, to overall code quality. If we standardize on systems, we have expectations that are transferrable between our projects.
7. We’d rather be building new apps or modernizing older ones than keeping up legacy apps. I go to user groups and I talk to other developers. They’re doing cutting edge things because they have initiatives to build modern apps. For example, I have friends who are building mobile apps. Meanwhile I am maintaining legacy back office software that could be modernized to provide much more value to the company.
8. Our company should be supporting mobile apps. We can build them, but can IT support them? Mobile apps have interesting backend requirements, like scalability and distribution. Any developer can build a single app for a mobile device. It becomes far more complex to build connected apps and the backend services that support them. We need systems in house that make this part easier. With that, we can build mobile apps very quickly.
9. We should run our IT infrastructure the way the best managed service providers in the world do. Our company has more developers and more end users than many companies that develop software for the public. It stands to reason that we would run our datacenters just like, if not better than, the best managed service providers in the world. I should be able to expect this from IT, because I depend on them to host my apps. It should be easier for me to work with our IT than with an external hosting provider.
10. We could build more reliable software if we had the ability to test constantly in a production-like environment. My ability to deliver quality software is only as good as my ability to test that software. I need reliable and accessible infrastructure resources so I can test quickly in order to implement solutions. Introducing differences between my testing environments and the production environments make it more difficult for me to test my software and meet expectations.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock.
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How The Internet Will Tell You What To Eat, Where To Go, And Even Who To Date
Apr 10th
I get asked what the next big thing is a lot. I haven’t had a good answer in a while. So much of what I see in technology feels iterative, or worse, derivative, especially in the social Web. All the interesting niches have been mapped out.
Lately, though, there’s one big concept that seems really exciting, and that’s anticipatory systems.
We’re starting to see glimmerings of these new, smarter systems in everything from check-in services like Foursquare to calendar apps, advertising and even online-personals services. Increasingly, rather than waiting for us to tell them what we want, in the form of a search query or command, they’ll prompt us with suggestions.
What Is An Anticipatory System?
Here’s a simple definition of anticipatory systems. Think of them as artificially intelligent services that are aware of external context — including ambient inputs like time of day, social connections, upcoming meetings, local weather, traffic and more. Taking all of that into account comes naturally to humans. But for computers, it’s hard.
The big challenge in artificial intelligence isn’t that computers are stupid. It’s that they’re ignorant. We haven’t given them enough data, nor the tools and rules to process it all. But that’s rapidly changing.
The notion of anticipatory systems in computing dates back at least to the late 1990s. Daniel Dubois, a professor at the University of Liège in Belgium, defined an anticipatory system as one ”that computes its current states [by] taking into account its past and present states but also its potential future states.”
That’s a bit vague, and the practical application of anticipatory systems has proven accordingly tricky. But all of the trends we’re kind of bored with now — social, local, mobile, big data — have laid the groundwork for the realization of anticipatory systems’ promise.
Foursquare, for example, has been collecting years of data about where people are and what places they’re interested in — not just their explicit check-ins, but their local searches, tips and likes. So far, that’s allowed Foursquare to offer personalized recommendations. But now the company is taking the next step into anticipating users’ needs, Foursquare’s head of search, Andrew Hogue, told Fast Company. Hogue gave the example of giving users recommendations for lunch spots at 11 a.m., rather than requiring users to type “lunch” into a search.
That kind of ambient awareness is at the center of the latest version of a mobile dining guide made by Ness Computing. Older versions of Ness sucked in data from Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter and other sources to offer personalized dining recommendations based on friends’ tastes. The next step Ness is taking is to tailor those recommendations based on context — time of day and location. Currently in beta, the new version should come out later this month.
Merely analyzing social data isn’t enough, says Ness CEO Corey Reese: ”Just because a computer is aware of what you’re doing doesn’t mean it will add value to your life.”
Anticipating Your Schedule
Schedule-management apps are another field getting reinvented by anticipatory computing, as startup consultant Semil Shah recently noted in TechCrunch. Apps like Twist and Leave Now alert people we’re meeting with to our real arrival times. That’s a welcome, computer-assisted acknowledgement of the reality that calendars are a perpetual act of optimism, subject to real-time revision by factors we can manage — like self-discipline — and factors we can’t, like traffic and transit delays.
Even our social lives are getting transformed. Consider Facebook’s “People You May Know” feature, which draws on both its own social graph of our connections and external cues like our email inboxes to recommend friends. That’s perhaps the most widely distributed and used anticipatory system in the world. Dating sites are getting smarter, too, relying on the implicit cues of self-presentation as well as explicit data in user’s searches to match up people. That’s what online daters are already doing, more or less manually as they sort through profiles — the trick is for personals sites to start doing the work for them.
The biggest bet on anticipatory computing at present is Google Now, Google’s intelligent mobile assistant that’s built into Android. Drawing on all the data Google has, from flight confirmations in your Gmail to upcoming events in Google Calendar to your history of Web searches, Google Now attempts to give you what you might search for without making you search.
Apple’s Siri, though more of a voice-command system, also has anticipatory elements. But it is hobbled by the thinness of the data Apple has on tap. If it wants Siri to anticipate our needs, Apple will have to partner more deeply with Facebook, Yelp and a host of other services so it knows more about us.
The true challenge for Apple, Google and Facebook is how to design a great anticipatory service around a specific need — without feeling creepy or, worse, clumsy. So much of what makes an anticipatory system great lies in the nuances of the service. Written prompts and design cues will play a huge role in getting people comfortable with computers that know a lot about us and make eerily accurate guesses.
But if people can get it right and design anticipatory systems that feel human and respond to our needs — well, I can only shiver with anticipation.
View full post on ReadWrite
Bing’s New SEO Tags Let You Tell Them Exactly Where You Should Rank (April … – WebProNews
Apr 1st
 Business 2 Community |
Bing's New SEO Tags Let You Tell Them Exactly Where You Should Rank (April …
WebProNews Attention SEOs: Bing is finally rewarding you for all your hard work. Starting today, new Bing SEO tags let you tell Bing exactly where your page should rank. Easy as that. The new SEO tags cut out the middleman and let you insert a couple of tags into … Bing's April Fools' Jokes Include A Slam On Google & A New SEO Tag Top SEO Challenges |
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What the Google SEO Guide Doesn’t Tell You – Business 2 Community
Jan 5th
 Business 2 Community |
What the Google SEO Guide Doesn't Tell You
Business 2 Community The Google SEO guide, better known as the Google Webmaster Guidelines, doesn't really tell you anything about actual Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Instead it spreads a false idealism by telling you to just write great content. Don't get me wrong … 5 Deadly Sins of SEO and Online Marketing |
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Partnering With Twitter To Tell A Bigger Story: Q&A With Vizify’s CEO
Dec 12th
Twitter is ephemera by definition. If you missed the joke, the hashtag or the pop-up account borne out of an awkward moment on stage with Clint Eastwood and an empty chair, well… the moment’s over.
But Twitter is also a repository of billions of such moments, many of them considerably more profound than the Republican National Convention’s low point. And now the social network is starting to realize that beyond being a platform where users can connect and express themselves in real-time, it’s also a vast tome of cultural data, from the missives of citizen journalists risking their lives in Syria to tracking the ebb and flow of red vs. blue during the Presidential election season.
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has promised that Twitter users will be able to download their archives in full - and connect those many moments for themselves – by the end of 2012. But in the meantime, a company called Vizify was called in to make sense of it all. Vizify is a cool little Portland, Ore., startup best known for helping users craft graphical bio pages that make Linked In look downright Jurassic.
I spoke with Vizify’s CEO and co-founder Todd Silverstein about the rare opportunity to be brought into the Twitter fold with the 2012 Year On Twitter project – and what all of those 140-character social bursts of fleeting brilliance, pop relevance or sandwich contents are good for anyway.
ReadWrite: What was it like to work with Twitter?
Todd Silverstein: It was really amazing to work with them on a number of levels. It’s Twitter, so they’re the global conversation. And what’s sort of interesting to us… is that they have that whole in-the-moment, rapid-fire, what’s-happening-now thing nailed down… and yet when you step back from it and draw a picture of it over a longer period of time it becomes a really powerful tool for self-reflection. Unlike reading someone’s stream, this is just a really accessible, playful, fun way to get a quick a feel for what someone’s all about.
ReadWrite: How did you connect in the first place?
Todd Silverstein: One of their interns as it turns out was an early Vizify user. They reached out to us, and it was one of our first services so that helped. And we were early adopters of the Twitter Card and of course have been compatible with mobile, and so all of those things I think really fit the profile of how people are using Twitter.
ReadWrite: What’s happened since the tool launched on Twitter’s blog Tuesday morning?
Todd Silverstein: It’s been really lovely to see the conversations that’ve been inspired where people have been like, “Hey, thanks for being the top follower!” And people’s Golden Tweets are really fascinating… of course we’ve had some really interesting personalities.
One that just came through was T. Boone Pickens. And I was so blown away that Jack Dorsey shared his:
The top words I tweeted in 2012: Square, San Francisco, Good Morning, SF, Twitter, Team, and of course, Bruce Lee. twitter.com/jack/status/27…
— Jack Dorsey (@jack) December 11, 2012
ReadWrite: Twitter has promised to give users their entire Twitter databases by the year’s end. What do you think access to such a huge tome of cultural data will yield?
Todd Silverstein: You can imagine… building up a larger history. Then I think you can start doing more interesting kinds of analysis. Imagine being able to look at how your language drifts across years. So you know, in 1980 I was all about “cool beans”… and now I speak in proper sentences, or whatever it might be.
I’m personally somewhat into quantified self and particularly language quantified self, and really, really intrigued by [what happens] once these sets of data become even bigger. There are going to be really fascinating kinds of things that you can do that even a year’s worth of tweets or even 3,200 tweets are not enough of a corpus for.
Of course in literature, there’s always that discussion about inspiration. And to me, once you start using somebody’s technique it doesn’t take anything away from it. To be able to follow some of those subtle influences almost sharpens where people are innovating and where they’re riffing off of others.
ReadWrite: Obviously you have a nuanced view of how all of this could be analyzed. How would you like to see the entire body of Twitter data visualized?
Todd Silverstein: There’s something extraordinarily interesting when you look at what I would describe as the meta-data. Like what is this place? What is this time? Who were you with? There’s the notion of ambient visualization too… your stream as this unique document or script of character. For me, I’m more into, “How does context affect the behavior… how does circumstance – or even the weather – affect the language?”
Already, there’s that movement for the data to be somewhat reductionist. One of the things that Vizify is really dependent upon is not reduction, but in fact adding. Because that’s where people’s personalities and quirks and the rest come out – it’s not in reducing them to, “I am this job, or this series of tweets.”
ReadWrite: How long was the Twitter and Vizify partnership in the works for?
Todd Silverstein: It came together pretty quickly. It was in the works for only about six weeks… we had 30 days to increase our ability to scale by about 10x. That was the mighty engineering war that was being fought.
ReadWrite: Are you guys hungry for more big data partners in the future?
Todd Silverstein: We love the notion of partnering with others who have these massive data sets. Our passion is for visualization… and helping people understand or share that for themselves. And so when someone like Twitter who’s all about the massive mountain of data reaches out, that’s always really interesting to us. There are so many awesome visualizations we’re itching to go build.
ReadWrite: Twitter isn’t known for playing nice with third-party companies. Did you get that vibe working with them?
Todd Silverstein: We felt exactly the opposite. We found it really easy to integrate with their API. Everyone we worked with at Twitter on this project was extraordinarily helpful. I think they were very encouraged by what we were doing… it was adding a new kind of value or a new dimension to what people were already doing.
No one owes you anything, and things change, and those are things that you need to respond and adapt to. We just understand that that just sort of comes with the the territory of working with other people’s APIs – with big companies that have their goals and strategies. Hopefully you do something that’s interesting enough to not find yourself in conflict.
ReadWrite: Do you think that the 2012 Year On Twitter undertaking dovetail with the Twitter Stories project - or the trend that Twitter wants to connect all of these little micro-moments into something more significant?
Todd Silverstein: I hope they do more of this in the future… they have the conversations. The data is there, it does tell a story – and it can be assembled.
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Australian Police Tell iPhone Users Not To Rely On Apple Maps
Dec 10th
This is a bit of bad PR: Macrumors reports that Australian police have warned iPhone owners in that country not to rely upon Apple Maps due to “safety concerns.” According to a local police statement: Mildura Police are urging motorists to be careful when relying on the mapping system…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
What No One Wants to Tell You About Email Marketing
Dec 7th
Do you get the impression that people hate email marketing? If you ask around, you’ll probably find a large percentage of people who say they don’t like it at all. I’d probably say that too. But then I check my email and…what’s that? 20% off everything at Bloomies? Groupon has a great deal for my [...]
The post What No One Wants to Tell You About Email Marketing appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
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What Google’s Webmaster Tools Tell Us About International Click Through Rates
Oct 30th
Last week, I was taking delegates on an international SEO course through their paces on using the data Google so generously provides in their webmaster tools. I’m a little puzzled that more people don’t dip into the data, analyse it and then take actions on their campaigns. So, high…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
How Will the EMD Update Your Website? Content Can Tell – Business 2 Community
Oct 18th
 Search Engine Land |
How Will the EMD Update Your Website? Content Can Tell
Business 2 Community In late September 2012, Google's main man when it comes to fighting spam, Matt Cutts, announced that there will soon follow a change in the engine's search algorithm, which would affect roughly 0.6 per cent of all English-US searches through Google. Guest Post: The Future of Exact Match Domains In Search Google Now Reports “Practically 100%” Of Manual Actions |
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