i3m Blog

3 fresh ways to look at keywords

interface, Internet News, Your Brand 243 Responses »

Mar 042013

When it comes to keyword research, there are a number of great articles out there telling you where to look, what tools to use, and how to get started. Instead of focusing on the traditional tactics, I want to focus on some other ways businesses can identify and evaluate keywords using real customer data.

Internal site search

If you have an internal site search function, you’re potentially sitting on a wealth of keyword data. Visitors coming to your website or blog often use the site search function to find information on the company and its products, or to locate pieces of content they’ve read before.

The great thing about site search is it not only helps you discover keywords your customers are using, it can also help you identify navigational or content issues. If your customers are searching for something, it likely means they are having trouble finding what they are looking for. Does that content exist on the site? If so, you need to make it easier to locate. If it doesn’t, get cracking!

Google Analytics will track these internal searches for you. To enable site search, go to your profile settings and set to “Do Track Site Search.” If you need help identifying parameters, head over to the Google Analytics site for more information.

Database House Wants You to Stop Dropping ACID

Internet News, Tech News 51 Responses »

Mar 042013

NoSQL databases have made it possible to store more data faster and cheaper than ever before. Web giants like Google, Amazon and Facebook have come to depend on them in a big way. But they have some fundamental drawbacks that prevent them from handling many software applications. And FoundationDB wants to change that.

FoundationDB is the company behind the new proprietary database of the same name, and it claims to offer the performance benefits of NoSQL without many of the well-known trade-offs. The product has been available to a small group of alpha testers since January 2012, but on Monday, the company is making it available to the world at large.

The NoSQL movement grew out of papers published in 2006 and 2007 by Amazon and Google that described data storage systems distributed across hundreds or even thousands of cheap servers. These papers inspired open source imitators like Cassandra, Hbase, and Riak. But to achieve the mammoth scale that they did, these databases had to break with an old database tradition called “ACID.”

ACID stands for “atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability.” Together, these properties ensure that when you make a change to a database — or a series of changes — those changes are either recorded reliably and permanently or rejected completely.

Outlook.com Officially Replaces Hotmail, Boasts 60M Users

interface, Internet News, Tech News 341 Responses »

Feb 192013

Outlook.com officially launched Tuesday, marking the demise of its predecessor, Hotmail.

Nearly seven months after unveiling a preview of the email service last July, Microsoft announced the end of its beta run in a blog post.

Microsoft, which acquired Hotmail in 1997, said it will switch users to the new service “soon,” but won’t force them to change their emails to an “outlook.com” address. It added that all users should expect to see the change take place by this summer.

“Everything from their @hotmail.com email address, password, messages, folders, contacts, rules, vaation replies, etc. will stay the same, with no disruption in service.”

The software giant also revealed that over 60 million people are actively using Outlook.com.

Dos and don’ts of cross-platform mobile design

interface, Web Design 377 Responses »

Feb 192013

Justin Ferrell, mobile strategist and developer at Digital Relativity, explains the fundamental differences between the user expectations of today’s most popular mobile platforms, and illustrates how developers can build cross-platform applications without neglecting the user experience

The words “cross-platform development” have a somewhat negative connotation within the mobile development community. When we think cross-platform, we immediately think of compromising designs and user experiences, with poor performance that caters to the lowest common denominator of device. There are so many people doing cross-platform development badly that we’ve started to assume that all cross-platform development is bad.

Like all things, there are bad examples of cross-platform development and design. But there are also some very good examples of applications that use cross-platform technologies and techniques.

Companies like Xamarin offer great cross-platform development products

Before we can understand going across platforms, it’s important that we understand the platforms themselves, the fundamental differences and what sort of experience they create for the end user.

4 Lessons From The Web’s Most Ruthlessly Addictive Site

interface, Internet News, Web Design 400 Responses »

Feb 192013

WITH ITS FOUR-FOOT-LONG HOME PAGES AND HUNDREDS OF SIDEBAR IMAGES, THE MAIL ONLINE BREAKS EVERY RULE OF WEB DESIGN. IT’S ALSO WINNING THE WEB AND DESIGN AWARDS.

During the average workday, I allow myself to take a couple “Internet breaks,” little bursts of Tumblr and Gawker and other forms of web candy that tug at my attention span like a needy kid. There’s one web threshold I never step over on a weekday, though: the Mail Online. The online outlet of the British tabloid is a one-way ticket to an hours-long surfing spree of celebrity gossip and moral outrage. It’s not web candy–this is web crack.

And it’s not just me. The Mail Online now outperforms The New York Times, The Guardian, and pretty much every other online news property in terms of unique visitors. It generated almost $40 million last year, an increase of 500% since 2008. I’ve always wondered at the remarkable magnetic pull of the website, which isn’t particularly beautiful and isn’t known for its in-depth reportage. “Mail Online breaks just about every web design rule in the book,” Jakob Nielsen yes, that Nielsen has said of the site. Yet, as Nielsen adds, “the traffic figures speak for themselves.” What keeps so many of us coming back for more heaping servings of non-stories, even when we know that’s what we’re getting?

MORE: 4 Lessons From The Web’s Most Ruthlessly Addictive Site

4 Ways To Amplify Your Creativity

Education, Your Brand 552 Responses »

Feb 132013

CREATIVITY IS KEY TO INNOVATION. SO HOW DO YOU EXPAND YOUR OWN CREATIVE CAPACITY AND THAT OF YOUR BUSINESS? THROUGH SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT, ARGUES BRUCE NUSSBAUM.

The holidays are over, the weather is lousy, and we’re sober again. We made all kinds of New Year’s promises, but the big one that will change our careers, if not our lives, is the promise to ourselves to become more creative. In my new book, Creative Intelligence, I show that creativity is learned behavior that gets better with training–like sports. You can make creativity routine and a regular part of your life. That’s true for big companies as well as small startups, corporate managers as well as entrepreneurs. Creativity is scalable.

The huge national policy storm brewing over “dwindling innovation” and an “innovation shortfall” also gives creativity an even greater agency. Creativity is the key to generating economic value and getting the U.S. economy to grow fast again.

So here are four specific ways to lead a more creative life and boost your creative capacities. Creativity is not about blue rooms and brain waves but about social engagement and mining the existential. Here’s what you can do.

MORE: 4 Ways To Amplify Your Creativity | Co.Design: business + innovation + design.

A keyboard that rises up from flat touch screens

Tech News 260 Responses »

Feb 132013

Increasingly, we “mobile device addicts” are favoring our smartphones and tablets over our traditional computers to meet our digital demands. Trouble is, a lot of us still despise typing on these beloved touch-screen devices. One Silicon Valley startup has created a new kind of keyboard that could help reduce typos and other fat-fingered mistakes.

Fremont, Calif.-based, Tactus Technology uses microfluidics to make physical keys bubble up from the surface of a touch screen when you need to type and disappear, when you don’t. Microfluidics may sound foreign, but if you’ve operated an inkjet printer you’ve used the technology.

MORE: A keyboard that rises up from flat touch screens | Mobile – CNET News.

DRM for the Web? Say It Aint So

Internet News, Tech News 274 Responses »

Feb 132013

So far it ain’t so, but some form of DRM in HTML is becoming a more likely possibility every day.

The W3C’s HTML Working Group recently decided that a proposal to add DRM to HTML media elements — formally known as the Encrypted Media Extensions proposal — is indeed within its purview and the group will be working on it.

That doesn’t mean that the Encrypted Media Extensions proposal will become a standard as is, but it does up the chances that some sort of DRM system will make its way into HTML.

The Encrypted Media Extensions proposal — which is backed by the likes of Google, Microsoft, Netflix and dozens of other media giants — technically does not add DRM to HTML. Instead it defines a framework for bringing a DRM system, or “protected media content” as the current draft puts it, to the web.

MORE: DRM for the Web? Say It Aint So | Webmonkey | Wired.com.

U.S. target of sustained cyber-espionage campaign

Internet News 418 Responses »

Feb 112013

The U.S. is under attack, a recently released national security document has claimed.

China is the top cyberthreat to the U.S., the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) claims, according to the Washington Post, which obtained information related to the report from unidentified individuals. The NIE, which comes from all U.S. intelligence agencies, says that China has been intensifying attacks on U.S. businesses to identify data that will help the country gain economically, according to the Post.

Over the past five years, the Chinese have focused their efforts on businesses operating in finance, technology, and aerospace, among others, according to the Post.

MORE: U.S. target of sustained cyber-espionage campaign | Security & Privacy – CNET News.

Why Your Next Website Makeover Should Incorporate Responsive Design

Internet News, Web Design 407 Responses »

Feb 112013

Attention marketing directors, creative directors and everyone else who cares about how well tuned their website is for mobile devices. Uh, that’s everyone, right?

Is your current website properly designed to render perfectly on all mobile devices? If our casual surfing observations are any indication, the answer is a resounding no.

If you haven’t already, you should seriously be considering how to revamp your digital marketing strategy to cope with the mobile takeover. Make no mistake about it, the mobile revolution isn’t coming. It’s already arrived.

Creating a web strategy to deal with the rise of mobile devices boils down to three primary options: Developing a native app, designing a separate mobile site, or recalibrating your primary website with responsive design.

MORE: Why Your Next Website Makeover Should Incorporate Responsive Design.

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