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Gmail Rolls Out the Priority Inbox

Written on August 30, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

Starting tomorrow, Gmail users will have a little help setting their priorities at the start of the day thanks to the new Priority Inbox. The concept is pretty cool. From day one, Gmail will take a look at your incoming email messages to determine which ones are important and which ones not so much. The important messages get a gold flag and they stay at the top level of your Gmail inbox while everything else falls below the line.

The system is designed to use a variety of criteria to determine which emails are important and which aren’t. It looks at frequency and which senders you read and respond to and it also learns if you demote or promote items that the system got wrong the first time around. It also looks at keywords and is smart enough to read your behavior and make deductions from that. For example, if you star a particular email message, then a similar message will be deemed more important the next time it shows up. Delete without reading, then the followers will go to the bottom of the pile.

If you don’t fully trust the system, you can use filters to tell it which senders should always be marked important. You can also add three custom dividers, such as work contacts, friends, or all email devoted to a specific project, to further categorize your email.

Get a lot of mail in a day? You can close the “everything else” tab and leave only the Important and Unread items in plain view to reduce the anxiety that comes with seeing over 100 unread messages at 9:00 in the morning.

For the average person, the new Gmail Priority Inbox will do a great job of sorting out the newsletters, marketing emails, and website notifications from the actionable messages that need your immediate attention. This is NOT a spam filter. Gmail already has one of those. The Priority Inbox system is a tool designed to help you kick off your daily To Do list, while still hanging on to those emails you need or want to read when you have some spare time.

Right now, I only use Gmail for overflow with all of my important mail going to my Outlook account where it’s filtered with flags and category colors. It’s not an automatic process, so if this new Gmail system works as it says it does, it might be the incentive I need to begin using it for more of my daily correspondence.

Click here to watch a video that explains everything I just wrote, except in a cuter, more entertaining manner.

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Gmail Rolls Out the Priority Inbox

Outlook Integrates Facebook

Written on July 13, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing

There are few areas of any ‘traditional’ communications outlets anymore that are just that outlet alone these days. In fact, finding a standalone product that doesn’t integrate with your Facebook account, for instance, is becoming more rare.

Now you can add Microsoft’s Outlook to that list as Facebook integration is complete and being rolled out according to Mashable

Microsoft is announcing today that it has integrated Facebook and Windows Live Messenger into Outlook, bringing the streams of millions of Facebook users into inboxes across the world.

Last year, Microsoft launched Outlook Social Connector, a plugin that syncs social networking feeds with your Outlook contacts, giving you immediate data on what they are doing and thinking. It started last year with LinkedIn integration, but soon the company announced MySpace and Facebook were coming.

Today, Outlook completes the cycle with not only Facebook integration, but support for Windows Live Messenger as well. Not only that, but the company is releasing the plugin for Outlook 2003 and 2007 users as well, bringing Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Windows Live Messenger to millions of business and personal inboxes worldwide.

As with anything that has layers of information it is best to see the video version of the explanation be sure to check it out over at the Mashable site. Here is a look at a screen shot as well.

Here’s my take. I don’t use Microsoft Outlook anymore so obviously this is not directly impacting me. I did use it in the past, however, and there’s reason to think that there could be another time in the future. Having said that I am pretty ambivalent on the whole e-mail and social integration craze. Google has tried it and it’s not going so well. That doesn’t mean this won’t work but at what point is enough enough?

E-mail for me is more of a business function than it is a social one. Of course, the idea of having more information about who you are e-mailing could produce something of use but fighting through the clutter to find it takes time that I may not want to give during the day. Also, what if you are just beginning a business relationship with someone and they simply share too much in their social world and you get a serious case of TMI (too much information)? As with all of these social interactions there is a double-edged sword effect that can do great good and /or great harm all at once.

So while there is potential here I think, like anything else, it will come down to personal preferences. What do you think?

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Outlook Integrates Facebook

I Want My GTV: Will Google TV Soar Or Sink?

Written on May 23, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: Object, book

Notwithstanding the glitches, the demo last week was impressive: the seamless blending of TV and web content, the beautiful UI, the smooth search and browse capabilities. Now, a few days after the heady discussion and CEO briefings at Google’s I/O developer conference, we can reflect a bit on what the outlook might be for this [...]



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I Want My GTV: Will Google TV Soar Or Sink?

How I Get Things Done - And How You Can Too

Written on May 9, 2010 by admin

Filed Under: book, seo

Posted by willcritchlow

Warning - this is a more personal post and one that isn’t about hardcore SEO tactics. Despite this, I think that I have some useful lessons to share and I hope you find it useful. For thoughts on similar principles but more from an SEO project perspective rather than an individual efficiency angle, you could read project management for SEO.

How I get things done as founder of an SEO agency

After becoming a dad 6 weeks ago, I have been trying desperately to squeeze efficiency gains out of my day. Just before my daughter was born, I was stretching my day out and was regularly at my desk by 8am and still there well after 7pm at night plus working in the evenings and at weekends. Many of you may work even longer hours than this. I don’t think it’s uncommon among business owners. In a previous life, I worked in management consulting and the hours were brutal. I always wanted to build a company that didn’t rely on long hours, but somehow even (generally) succeeding at that didn’t stop me working long hours.

As a general rule, I was fine with it and not coping too badly.

However

I don’t want to be the kind of dad that is never home. I want to be there for bathtime.

But I also don’t want to compromise my ambition. I don’t want Distilled to suffer and I don’t want to hold up or let down my team or our clients.

So, I’m left with finding a few hours a day of ‘efficiency savings’. I need to get better at what I do and more efficient at how I do it. It’s not like I wasn’t trying before, but now it’s serious. Since I’ve been putting so much effort into it, I

Conference Recap: ExactTarget Connections ‘09

Written on October 20, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing, seo

Posted by great scott!

We don’t talk about email marketing on the blog much, but any of you working in the internet marketing space (and that’s likely all of you) probably know that it’s still one of the most effective marketing channels out there.

Yipee! Microsoft Enters the Social Media Monitoring Space

Written on September 24, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Advertising, book, marketing

Microsoft is building a social media monitoring tool called Looking Glass.

Now, at this point, you’re probably thinking that I’m panicking. After all, isn’t that what my own company, Trackur, does? Aren’t I scared stiff that Microsoft will hurt my business?

Nope. In fact, when I spoke to Microsoft executives in 2008, I asked them why they didn’t already have a tool like this? If I can build Trackur, shame on Microsoft for not having its own offering.

Am I insane? Possibly, but for different reasons. Let’s explore this announcement.

The idea is to connect social-media-monitoring tools to the rest of a marketer’s organization — customer databases, work orders, customer-service centers and sales data. Looking Glass will pull in a variety of feeds from platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr and work with third-party data sources as well (the folks behind it have already talked to some firms such as Meteor Solutions and Telligent). All of the data collected will connect into Microsoft’s enterprise platforms, such as Outlook and Sharepoint.

If you read the entire Ad Age article, it becomes clear that Looking Glass will be tightly integrated with other Microsoft products–a feature that will delight some and completely repel others. In addition, there’s no news on how much Microsoft will charge for Looking Glass–will it be free or come with a hefty licensing fee.

Either way, I’m actually excited that Microsoft is getting into this space. They have many more dollars to throw into advertising and awareness campaigns. Let them spend the millions of dollars that are needed to convince businesses they need to monitor the web. Not all of those potential customers will feel comfortable with Microsoft, its platform, or its pricing, and so they’ll likely compare Trackur as an alternative. What is it they say about a rising tide?

In fact, Visible Technologies has more to lose than Trackur–Microsoft currently pays them a hefty fee to use their social media measuring technology. I suspect, we’ll see that relationship come to an end at some point.

OK, but Andy. What if Microsoft offers Looking Glass for free?

So what? When Google rolled out Google Analytics for free, many suspected it would be the death knell for other analytics firms that charge for their product. There are 1.8 billion reasons why those fears didn’t materialize.

Personally, I expect Microsoft’s entry to the space to be a wake up call for its mid-size competitors. Do they build a competing social media measurement product or acquire existing technology? If it’s the latter, they know where to find me!

(via)

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Yipee! Microsoft Enters the Social Media Monitoring Space

Aspiring Doctors May Have Knowledge but Aren’t Always Smart

Written on September 24, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing, seo

Social media has become the newest and possibly best way to expose just how stupid people can be. Last week we talked about the rocket scientist burglar who left Facebook’s equivalent of breadcrumbs to his front door. Hey, he is 19 years old and probably not the sharpest knife in the drawer anyway so maybe it’s not that unusual (actually it is but for this post we’ll say it). Well, let’s jump to the other end of the spectrum and find out just how stupid aspiring doctors can be when it comes to social media.

Yup, that’s right, doctors. Those people who need to go to school forever so they can carry huge loans into the workplace and then hopefully help us regular human beings stay healthy. According to an article by the BBC there appears social media shows no discrimination when it comes to exposing stupidity

Research in the Journal of the American Medical Association found examples of web gossip by trainee doctors sharing private patient stories and details.

Over half of 78 US medical schools studied had reported cases of students posting unprofessional content online.

One in 10 of these contained frank violations of patient confidentiality.

Most were blogs, including one on Facebook, containing enough clinical detail that patients could potentially be identified.

OK, so no one is perfect. I get that. Shouldn’t someone who is deemed “smart” enough to become a doctor at least use a little common sense when it comes to social media? This is more evidence, unfortunately, of just how disconnected from reality some Millenials appear to be (yes I am making an assumption that most aspiring doctors will fall into this group).

The overriding point of this is the need for boundaries when it comes to social media. While most would say that social media should be wide open all the time I say you are completely wrong. Imagine if human beings in general were allowed to be “wide open all the time” meaning what if there were no laws or boundaries for society in general. What would you have? I’ll let you take that one but anarchy is a likely result.

It is critical for organizations and professions to be defining exactly what is and is not acceptable as it relates to social media. While there is likely to be a degree of ‘figuring this out as it goes’ it is incumbent upon any responsible group to at least put in a social media policy framework. In Britain, at least, it appears as if the medical profession has not stepped up to the plate yet.

A spokesman for the British Medical Association said: “Patient confidentiality is paramount and medical students and doctors obviously need to be very careful about any information they post online.”

The UK’s regulator of doctors, the General Medical Council, does not have guidance that covers medics’ blogging.

But a spokeswoman advised doctors: “You must make sure that your conduct at all times justifies your patients’ trust in you and the public’s trust in the profession.”

While this shows recognition of the need this is not even close to having a policy in place and rings very hollow. Does your organization have any policies in place as it relates to social media? Are you aware of any social media policies for professions in general? If so please share them with us because it looks like there is a real need for some simple common sense in the application of social media beyond just telling people what you are up to.

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Aspiring Doctors May Have Knowledge but Aren’t Always Smart

Facebook Launches Lab-like Prototypes

Written on September 16, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: book, marketing

Remember back, years ago, when we had something to report about Facebook almost every day? I guess they’ve moved along the hype cycle now, so tit’s only natural that we see fewer stories about them—but every once in a while, two in a day can’t hurt. Especially not when Facebook’s out there launching something like Facebook Prototypes.

Product Designer Lee Byron says on the Facebook blog:

Facebook Prototypes let us share the experimentation going on inside the walls of Facebook with the rest of the world. You'll be able to test any of the products and features we launch as Facebook Prototypes and then provide feedback directly to those of us who built them. To access Prototypes, visit the Application Directory and filter by “Prototypes.” From there, you can activate or download any of the Prototypes listed.

Byron notes that these prototypes are “unfinished versions of products we’re testing that may have some kinks to work out.” Additionally, successful prototypes may eventually be added to Facebook as full-fledged features.

Let’s see. A place where users can test new, experimental features and enhancements which might not be totally ready for primetime. That doesn’t sound familiar at all. (*cough*Google Labs*cough*)

Seriously, though, whether or not Facebook is a copycat, this is pretty cool. Some of the first prototypes include a desktop notifier/status client (for Mac), a filter to sort your news feed by most recent comments, a search for photos by people tagged in them, and additions to event emails to let you add the event to Google Calendar, Outlook and other calendars.

At present, it appears that only Facebook programmers will be creating prototypes. I understand the reasoning there, but it’d be cool to see this opened up to Facebook developers, too (with a reasonable app testing/vetting process before adding to Prototypes).

What do you think? Will you be adding any new prototypes—or what features would you want from a prototype? Would you like to see Prototypes open to developers, and if so, how would you recommend that working?

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Facebook Launches Lab-like Prototypes

Google Tries to Patch Its Talent Leak

Written on June 18, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Advertising, marketing

Google is often a victim of its own success. While there is little cause to go out and throw a pity party for them, it is an interesting study to see what a Google does to manage the pains that come with getting so big so fast. The Wall Street Journal examines the continued problem of Google bleeding top talent as employees leave for start-ups, often taking with them the innovation that Google needs to expand beyond its King of Search status. It’s a good problem to have considering the times but one that is getting real attention from the C-level folks in the company (in between trips to Washington, DC, of course).

The gist of the problem is

The Mountain View, Calif., company famously lets its engineers spend one day a week on projects that aren’t part of their jobs. But Google has lacked a formal process for senior executives to review those efforts, and some ideas have languished. Others have slipped away when employees left the company.

“We were concerned that some of the biggest ideas were getting squashed,” said Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt in an interview.

While many might start to wonder if innovative thinking is slowing down at Google that’s not the case. It’s the process that handles this innovation that has suffered under the weight of going from a freewheeling, cool start-up itself to the 20,000 employee corporate behemoth it is now. There is a price to being the most recognized brand in the world after all.

So what is happening to slow this talent drain down?

Google has recently started internal “innovation reviews,” formal meetings where executives present product ideas bubbling up through their divisions to Mr. Schmidt, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and other top executives.

The meetings are designed to “force management to focus” on promising ideas at an early stage, Mr. Schmidt said.

Whenever you see the word ‘force’ used to describe a technique it looks like some of the fun may be leaving Google along with its talent. Once again, is this kind of thing avoidable when a company becomes the size, scope and influence of Google? Few have enough experience to even know this especially in a company that has gone from 0 to world leader in such a short amount of time.

Recent new product introductions like Wave and the ability to integrate Google platforms with Outlook (which is another story in itself considering the finger pointing from Microsoft around initial troubles with the offering) have gone through a new process to help the innovative products / features actually see the light of day.

Here’s where it is actually tough to be Google as well. We have often noted how disappointed people can get with double-digit growth numbers that Google has turned out. The Journal’s article does it again

Google needs new products to jumpstart its growth. While it remains a juggernaut with one-third of all U.S. advertising dollars spent online, its year-over-year revenue growth has slowed from 56% in 2007 to 31% in 2008 and was just 6% in the first quarter of this year.

In a day and age company performance is flat year over year most are thrilled, Google gets bit because it isn’t doing what it did several years ago in a ‘healthy’ economy and a rapidly expanding new industry. This kind of unreasonable scrutiny may be influencing how Google handles their internal innovation process. Pressure, whether it is valid or not, can make people do silly things.

Google is trying to make sure this exodus is at least slowed.

Google has taken cracks in the past at the retention problem. In March, it repriced millions of employee stock options whose value had been wiped out as Google’s share price has fallen over the past two years. The company has also begun testing a mathematical formula to try to predict which employees are most likely to leave, based on factors like employee reviews.

What Google experiences, however, is still very different than most of the rest of the world. Just one look into the thought process of a former employee will tell the story

Sean Knapp, a former Google engineer, left the company in 2007 and started Ooyala Inc., a start-up that distributes and manages advertising around online video.

Mr. Knapp said Google managers offered him the chance to start the project within the company, but he declined. He worried he wouldn’t feel the same pressure to succeed. “If you’re really aggressive, you want that sink or swim environment,” he said.

Most companies have to figure out how to motivate employees just to do the jobs their job description outlines. Having a company full of alpha dog, intellectual talent can present unique situations. Google CEO Eric Schmidt wants to foster that young company feel as the company tries to make it possible to be “part of a start-up within Google.”

Good luck. Here’s to innovation!

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Google Tries to Patch Its Talent Leak

Ten Resources That Changed How I View the Internet

Written on May 20, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: book, seo

Posted by Danny Dover I can always pick out a fool when I hear someone claim they fully get the internet, whether it be a social media snake-oil salesman or a Twitter user with too many followers. The fact of the matter is that while it’s possible (and exciting) to understand one sub-sphere of the internet, there are simply too many spheres for one person to really understand all of them

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Ten Resources That Changed How I View the Internet