Neville Hobson's Shared Items on NewsGator Online

How do startups make customer service scale into awesomeness?

Guest Author — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 06:42:51 GMT

This is a guest post by Andrew Scott, a serial entrepreneur in London, CEO Rummble, Non-exec UnLtdWorld.com, Founding board m.Love & and “lover of all things mobile”.

In 1901 a Swedish immigrant to America called Johan Nordstrom founded the Nordstrom department store. In 1975, by now a national chain, a Nordstrom customer walked into one of their stores to return a set of tyres he’d bought. The salesperson gladly took back the set of car tyres and gave the customer a refund. Nothing weird about that, right? Except Nordstrom has never sold tyres.

Many of you may have heard this story before; it’s one of many legendary tales of great customer service from Nordstrom and best of all it’s true.

According to a chap called Efraim Turban “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.”

Like us all I have copious tales of despair dealing with corporate giants. I’d say the worst offenders used to be banks, but in today’s world of mobile everything, the mobile network operators have definitely claimed that crown. They whine about infrastructure costs while continuing to fleece consumers with roaming and data charges; and all while delivering a deeply inconsistent customer service experience which can drive grown men of good demeanour to the edge of sanity. I’m one of those grown men.

This got me thinking. As the internet envelopes our world, one of the biggest challenges facing online brands will be to avoid becoming the customer service dogs of the next decade.

With the expectation of “free” which the internet engenders, there’s an inherent danger of a cultural ethos in business in which non-paying “users” don’t have the right to a personal customer service experience.

This would be naïve on two counts: firstly today’s free user is tomorrow’s paying customer, but secondly we ARE paying. The personal data I give (even if out of self interest) to MyFace when I join a group, FPost when I send an email or Chatter when I update my status, is MY data. We trade this in return –hopefully– for value; and ACME Inc get, consequently, to push us advertising.

There are many better places to read about the relationship between giving up personal data in return for delivering value (my friend JMacs blog is as good as anywhere to start) because what I am interested in are the Nordstrom car-tyre returns of the online
world.

If this is all very obvious, then when was the last time you heard someone say “Awesome! ACME.com gave me such incredible service, I clicked the link and they called me back instantly”. It’s rarer than you think. That’s because at scale, it’s really hard. For excellent customer service to survive as a start-up grows into an incumbent, it has to be –and then remain– a deeply rooted driving goal of the organisation.

37 Signals have a fanatical following; but they’re almost equally infamous for a slew of “we know better than our user” style diatribes. Jeff Bezos in contrast says quite simply “Amazon wouldn’t exist if we didn’t obsess about the customer above all else”.

So which online brands are glowing examples of amazing customer service?

I have recently known very happy customers who’ve used Twitter and received prompt, sometimes exceptional, service from brands. @ahousley a friend of mine tweeted in frustration @easyjet (a large UK budget airline) when his girlfriend accidently booked four seats instead of two on the same flight after a double-click incident on the purchase button. @easyjet sorted it out: fast and without fuss.

If Alex had used “normal” channels, he’d have had to dig thru the website to find a buried telephone number, wait on hold for eons (probably on a premium rate telephone line) and then be told the tickets were binding and non-refundable. I suspect we are experiencing a temporary ‘Golden Age’ of customer service via Twitter. Enjoy it while it lasts, because sadly it’s not going to scale.

Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi claims “Brands are running out of juice.” He’s concluded that “love” is what is needed to rescue brands. He asks “What builds loyalty that goes beyond reason?” Customer service – which includes any interaction with your customer – is a huge part of this. Roberts coined the term “Lovemark” as a step beyond the concept of a simply having “a brand.” I love this idea, of a Lovemark; of irrational loyalty.

What are your Lovemarks? Mine include Virgin Atlantic, my Blackberry and Pret (a sandwich store in the UK). In all cases, I’ve at some point experienced a sub par product* but I’ve always received amazing customer service. I’ve become an irrationally loyal customer. Online that’s probably true for me with Kayak.com, but probably not Facebook.

* Virgin Atlantic on 3 flights the entertainment system didnt work, my Blackberry Bold keeps hanging and Pret? well actually Prets food has always been fantastic

Emotions being as they are, this can work in reverse. I was so frustrated with Microsoft Vista on my new laptop last year, I found myself typing “I hate vista” into Google. As a general search it gave 3,310,000 results; being a nice chap I thought I’d do an explicit search instead. Let’s have some fun…

	I hate…**	I love…	For every hater, X love you
37 Signals	2	1,070	535
Amazon	2,470	20,700	8.3
Apple	27,800	133,000	4.7
Google	16,800 (72,900,000)	132,000 (182,000,000)	7.8 (2.4)
Microsoft	37,200 (73,000,000)	48,900 (227,000,000)	1.3 (3.1)
Starbucks	10,800	53,000	4.9
Virgin Atlantic	4,700	261	0.05
Vista	37,600	21,300	0.56

(Bing in brackets) It’s all rather haphazard of course…no scientific logic was harmed during this experiment and apparently I’m rather alone on my love of Virgin Atlantic.

** BTW not to escape, “I hate Rummble” produced only one result, a tweet [rightly] complaining about the friend connect process –we’re fixing it this week– but “I love Rummble” was equally scant; so I guess we’ve got some serious work to do to.

Traditional business avoids confrontation “What ever we say people will always complain” said an executive to me recently “[Twitter] would be a minefield…” he said. This is akin to letting the bully in the playground simply carry on bullying. Brands must stand up to their customers and be human, apologising where necessary and engage (note, I didn’t say argue) when the claims are unfair. Patience and a measured response are key.

Be careful though, engagement without substance is almost worse. I was recently forwared this reply to an extended query about Facebook privacy: “Thanks for the suggestion. We will certainly keep it in mind as we continue to improve the site. Thanks for contacting Facebook,” I am Robot. Well, actually, allegedly the customer support guy was “Craig”; the point is, he didn’t actually answer the question which was asked.

As anyone in business knows, there are many tombs written on the subject of customer service, along with blogs, podcasts, qualifications, training camps, methodologies and of course the inevitable slew of government supported “standards” with customer friendly titles. In the UK these include “TICSS” and “ISO 10002:2004”.

Much to my frustration, none of these outline why customer service agents who hold ALL my personal details #FAIL on an epic scale when they refuse to give me THEIR full name, extension number or a direct email address. Don’t scream data protection, WTF should I trust you’re not a stalking axe murderer if you don’t trust I’m not? IMHO (lets keep the acronym theme going) these accreditations are all a load of crap. I’m with Johan (remember him?). Good customer service is really rather simple.

Until very recently Nordstrom staff when joining were given only one thing: a card with just 75 words written on it, the core of which said:

“Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.”

As modern health & safety madness and litigation has got worse, that same card is now accompanied with an employee handbook, but this simple guidance when combined with employee empowerment remains hugely powerful.

When building your start-up, make sure the zeal today with which you reply to tweets and emails, good or bad, continues tomorrow and into next year. As you grow, there’s no question it is going to be hard. Look at the ACME Inc’s of today; Facebook has a considerable customer service challenge. I got to 25 clicks to find a customer contact form and stopped counting. With no telephone number and “contact facebook” ranked no.1 in Facebook Help’s own search terms, one could argue they’re failing currently that challenge.

Services such as UserVoice, GetSatisfaction and even Twitter, are certainly helping empower the user to provide feedback easily, but you have to go further. My humble advice to your company is find Mr Nordstroms 75 word mantra online, replace “Nordstrom” with your own company name and stick on your office wall, today. Then stick it on the back of the toilet door. Then before you become the size of FaceSpace, work out how you’re
going to live up to it when you’ve got ten or one hundred times the number of users you have today.

I’m a customer. I don’t care whether I’m paying for the service or not; however unreasonable that sounds. Just serve me well. If I AM paying for your service, then I expect to be treated like a God. I’m your customer and I’m the reason your company exists! Johan Nordström understood that.

At the end of my last published article I said I’d write next time on the subject “It’s about the data, stupid.” Well, in terms of delivering valuable functionality to users, that statement remains true; but in terms of your brand and business, it is most definitely all about the customer, always.

I Can Now Make FriendFeed As Ugly As I Want

MG Siegler — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:24:30 GMT

When FriendFeed launched new themes back in June, I wanted but one feature: The ability to create my own. Today, I got my wish.

Despite being purchased by Facebook for close to $50 million earlier this week, FriendFeed is still rolling out new features. Today brings customizable themes, which allow you to tweak your template to make it as pretty or as ugly as you would like. Naturally, I’m going for ugly, as I stated my desire to mimic the excellent “Eggplant Orange Juice With Blood” theme I created for Gmail when that service launched customizable themes.

So far, my best effort (below) is called “Dictionary.com Cheer Carrot Theme” after my new favorite website. To FriendFeed’s credit, they make it pretty hard to make a truly ugly design, like you can easily do on Gmail. One reason is that theren’t are as many variables to change the colors of.

One interesting note about these themes is that by default, you will see other users’ themes when you click on their profiles. You will also see the themes that admin’s create in rooms that they manage. You can turn this off, and choose to only see your theme, in the settings.

And just for comparison sake, the old Gmail design I did:

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Trend: Are Friendfeed Refugees Already Flocking to Facebook?

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 04:01:00 GMT

Since Friendfeed announced their sale to Facebook earlier this week I have seen an uptick in friend invitations on Facebook, with these individuals specifically saying they follow me on Friendfeed. Now I don't know if this is a trend or not, but some others are seeing the same. (For more see the embedded conversation below.)

This presents a bit of a dilemma. To date on Facebook I have only let people into my network who I have personally met or corresponded. I don't make all of my Facebook content public. Meanwhile, on every other social network, I open my content to all and/or accept every friend request. This includes on sites like Foursquare.

Now that the two are merging, I am rethinking this strategy - once I have a chance to tweak the privacy settings. I am also wondering if opening up on Facebook will bring more interaction around my content there.

I am in no hurry to make changes but I am already starting to see Friendfeed have an impact on Facebook indirectly.

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Stat: Corp Marketing Adds Clout as Social Media Rises

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:21:42 GMT

via marketingcharts.com

Interesting set of stats from The Creative Group finds that the influence of the marketing organization in a company has increased as social media begins to dominate and marketers start talking directly and openly with their customers online. (I would love to see a further breakdown of the data to see how much of this is split between marketing and corp comm.)

Permalink | Leave a comment »

Google Apps Gives Businesses Better Email Controls

Steven Walling — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:50:00 GMT

When Google Apps left beta back in July, Google announced that it would be adding a set of enterprise-specific features to make Premier Edition more attractive to businesses. Today Google has made good on that promise by supporting email retention and delegation for Apps customers.

Gmail is an awesome Web mail program, but it was missing some functionality essential for adoption in larger enterprises. One of those aspects was the ability for businesses to set company-wide retention policies in order to comply with regulatory requirements. Another one, the icing on the cake really, was email delegation that allows users to let others manage email for them.

Sponsor

Retention

Email retention policy is an important aspect of regulatory compliance in the enterprise. Depending on your sector, there may be both industry and government rules to follow when it comes to what email is retained, how it's stored, and for how long. The Premier Edition of Apps will allow your administrators to set policies, starting today.

Delegation

Email delegation is really a specialized feature aimed at executives and administrative assistants, rather than something attractive to everyone in an enterprise. But allowing that kind of business-specific functionality in Apps is definitely an important step if Google wants to seriously compete with Microsoft and IBM as they push the "Going Google" campaign.

Discuss

Share Your Favorite iPhone Apps by Email; There's An App (Submitted) for That

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:32:11 GMT

Just 46% of iPhone users discover new apps via recommendations from friends, but that number could take a big jump if a new app just submitted to Apple gets approved for placement in the iTunes App Store.

Israeli and French project AppsFire has submitted a new app that will allow anyone to select from the list of apps they have on their phone and send links to those apps to anyone else by email. Exploring the App Store is maddening, sharing App suggestions with friends is enough fun to make almost anyone jump up and down, clapping like a little school girl. Now AppsFire aims to make that easy to do - and that's just the beginning of the company's vision.

Sponsor

The company already offers a service for sharing lists of your favorite iPhone apps, but its software requires a desktop download and is not being used by very many people. We've tested a new version of the downloaded software and it's a breeze, but not publicly available yet. The first fifty RWW readers who click can download the Mac version via this link and anyone can register for Beta access, including Windows users, via this link. The mobile version is still awaiting approval from Apple.

Sharing apps by mobile email could be the killer meta-app.

Company co-founder Ouriel Ohayon told us today that the app will be free and will be monetized through affiliate app links and other mechanisms. Here are the favorite apps of founders Ohayon and Yann Lechelle. I've posted an AppsFire widget of my own favorite apps below, RSS readers can click through to the full post to see it. Note that AppsFire has only indexed about 10,000 apps so far (!) and there are a number that you may have on your phone but won't show up right away. (Breaking News Online and PDX Bus for me.) BoomBox Pro, by the way, is super hot. It's a Blip.fm player and oh my do I love it!

"The vision is to provide many discovery mechanisms," Ohayon told us by Skype, "there are many more coming. For example, in our app we have a VIP section, a way to check Twitter and ask how many recommendations an app has, what the best app for this or that purpose is. Allowing influencers to show the world what apps they use, we'll have a top ranking of shared apps (something Apple does not provide) including geo targeting (top shared in your region). Think of it as a Connected Genius with several layers of discovery for apps with zero data input required since we read your iTunes."

Ohayon says the app was submitted about a week ago. Our fingers are crossed that it will be accepted soon. We're quite excited about it.

Discuss

Augmented Reality: A Human Interface for Ambient Intelligence

Guest Author — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:28:53 GMT

Augmented reality (or AR) is fast becoming as ubiquitous a term as "Web 2.0." The field is getting noisier by the day, and AR as a field of research now has to co-exist with its status as an industry buzzword. Knowing the difference between the two is important. To do that, we have to examine the field and then revisit the buzzword you may have heard 10 years ago.

Sponsor

What Is Augmented Reality?

Augmented reality is a human interface for information that uses spherical coordinate systems to display information relative to the position of the viewer. Its most common application today is the overlay of information on the viewfinder of digital cameras. This is already a feature in many mid-point to high-end digital cameras that overlay the position of faces on the screen.

There are currently two distinct methods of augmented reality: marker-based and gravimetric.

Gravimetric Augmented Reality

Gravimetric AR uses data from a gravimeter to calculate the precise positioning and angle of a display device to determine the center, orientation, and range of a spherical coordinate system.

The first platform that was capable of delivering gravimetric AR applications on mobile phones was the Open Handset Alliance's Android operating system running on the HTC Dream (better known as the TMobile G1).

One of those applications is Mobilizy's Wikitude, which overlay's Wikipedia data over the mobile phone's camera view. Point the phone's camera lens at the Golden Gate Bridge, for example, and see information overlaid on it. Move the phone around to find things on the bridge that you may not have noticed before.

Marker-Based Augmented Reality

Marker-based AR uses a camera and a visual marker known as a fiducial to determine the center, orientation, and range of its spherical coordinate system.

Hosted by the University of Washington, ARToolkit is the first fully-featured toolkit for marker-based AR. It is freely available under the GPL open-source license for personal use. ARToolworks Inc. is the commercial licensor of the platform.

The most popular marker-based AR applications use the FLARToolKit, a descendant of ARToolkit, which uses Flash to overlay information on video from a computer's webcam when a fiducial marker is visible.

Among the most recent implementations of this method is GE's Smart Grid information website, where readers can print out a fiducial marker and hold it within range of their webcam. The screen then displays an interactive 3-D model.

The iPhone's World

At the iPhone's launch in 2007, John Doerr, Partner at Kleiner Perkins, joined Steve Jobs on stage. Speaking of this technology's potential, he said, "Think about it: in your pocket you have something that is broadband and connected all the time. It's personal; it knows who you are and where you are. That's a big deal, a really big deal. It's bigger than the personal computer."

Over the past two years, we have seen the iPhone seed an entirely new field of mobile-connected experiences, with many mobile applications and competing platforms.

Because AR uses a spherical coordinate system to display data, it needs to know not just the orientation of the device but the direction in which the camera is pointing. To do this, it needs an accelerometer capable of gravimetry -- or, simply put, it needs a compass.

The iPhone 3GS is the only iPhone that can run gravimetric AR applications. ARKit, an open-source toolkit for creating AR applications on the iPhone 3GS, was just created and released at iPhoneDevCamp last weekend. Apple alerted its developers last week that AR applications will not be available in its App Store until September. The Palm Pre does not have a compass, and the BlackBerry Storm has no AR apps. So, for now, Android phones are the only mobile gravimetric AR devices in the wild.

Augmented Reality and Ambient Intelligence

Ambient intelligence is a human interface metaphor. It implies that the connected devices around us are all connected to some form of intelligence. We see this when we drive through an automated toll system like FasTrak on the Golden Gate Bridge. Using the RFID tag issued by the bridge authority, the bridge knows who we are and what to do. We don't have to actively submit intelligence of our own: the ambient intelligence takes care of the job.

Globally positioned data is so voluminous that not all of it can be displayed. That fact combined with the bandwidth limitations of mobile carriers creates quite a challenge for the industry: deliver the data that is relevant to the user and location, and before the user gets there.

The holy grail of the mobile AR industry is to find a way to deliver the right information to a user before the user needs it, and without the user having to search for it. This holy grail is likely in a ditch somewhere beside a well-traveled road in the district of the semantic Web, ambient intelligence and the Internet of things. Be wary of any hyped-up invitation to invest in a company that claims to have gotten the opportunity right. What we've seen in the commercial industry to date is a rather complex version of a keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

Guest author: Sid Gabriel Hubbard is a blogger, Internet entrepreneur and three-time CTO. He leads the Android Maker's group in San Francisco and the Bay Area Augmented Reality Meetup Group and is a contributing member of the iPhone ARKit open-source project.

Discuss

Happy Birthday Business Computing, You're 28 Today

Steven Walling — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 02:37:00 GMT

The IBM PC, the machine that helped launch the original revolution in business computing, burst onto the scene 28 years ago today.

Though it was far from the first personal computer available for purchase, IBM's original 5150 model quickly became the gold standard for business computing, and helped to transform our notions of communication and collaboration forever.

Sponsor

The year was 1981. While Apple and other companies had been selling to hobbyists and select geeks, there was by no means any guarantee that personal computers would be as influential as they are today.

But just a year later, Time had named the computer "Man of the Year," and 80 percent of Americans predicted that home computers would be "as common as television sets or dishwashers." The millions of IBM PCs sold and the army of clones it inspired are what jump-started that shift.

The IBM PC was a driving force behind getting people to see computing as a personalized activity at work and at home. By cementing the idea of computing as a personal activity in our culture, the IBM PC set the stage for the Web as we now know it, a phenomenon that would eventually circle back to influence the enterprise enormously.

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Discuss

Bristol-based 72 Point helps NHS Twitter campaign go global

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:16:00 GMT

Bristol-based agency 72 Point has emerged as responsible for alerting the media to the #welovetheNHS Twitter campaign this week.

Augmented reality: the game

brandrepublic@mail4.haymarketbusinessinteractive.com — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:15:00 GMT

LONDON - Interactive marketing agency Zugara has released an augmented reality motion capture game 'Cannonballz', allowing anyone with a webcam to interact with the elements flashed on their video stream, while sharing their high scores through Facebook Connect.

Sky News readies paid-for iPhone app for non-UK users

brandrepublic@mail4.haymarketbusinessinteractive.com — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:45:00 GMT

LONDON - BSkyB is working on a paid-for version of its Sky News iPhone application for sale outside the UK and Ireland, where its free app has just been downloaded by its 500,000th user.

Yahoo! asks: what kind of Twitterer are you?

brandrepublic@mail4.haymarketbusinessinteractive.com — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:30:00 GMT

LONDON - Yahoo! is promoting its new homepage with a tool that analyses Twitter messages to pigeonhole users into one of 17 categories.

More than 500 newspapers sign up for online news charging scheme

brandrepublic@mail4.haymarketbusinessinteractive.com — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:50:00 GMT

NEW YORK - A US company called Journalism Online has signed up hundreds of as yet unidentified newspapers and online news outlets to use its e-commerce system for charging readers to access online content, which it is intending to launch this autumn.

TechCrunch UK: Shiny Media’s fashion blogs go to Bright Station

Laura Oliver — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:58:23 GMT

Shiny Media, the UK blog network that went into administration last month, has sold its fashion sites to Bright Station, an original backer of the company.

Catwalk Queen, Kiss and Make Up, Bag Lady, Shoewawa, Crafty Crafty, Dollymix, Trashionista, Shiny Gloss, Star Trip and Nollie have been bought up by Bright Station’s new vehicle Aigua Media Limited, reports TC UK.

The remaining Shiny titles remain with Shiny Digital Ltd, which bought Shiny Media straight after it was announced that it was going into administration.

Former Shiny Media title Who Ate All The Pies was bought by Anorak, but has experienced problems with the site, as it remained on Shiny Media’s server. (According to a tweet from editor Ollie Irish the site should be moved as of Monday)

Full post at this link…

Similar Posts:

Paying for news

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:43:17 GMT

Publishers are finally attempting to do what they should have tried years ago: convince readers that there is no such thing as free content

Friendfeed, Facebook and Twitter

Robin Goad — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:50:00 GMT

Following today’s announcement that Facebook has purchased Friendfeed, I thought a few UK stats on the latter might be of interest. As the chart below illustrates, Friendfeed is a fast growing site, and its traffic has increased by 180% over the last 12 months. However, it remains a minnow when compared with both Facebook and Twitter. During July it ranked 334th in our Social Networking and Forums category; Facebook received 3,700 times as many UK Internet visits as Friendfeed last month, while Twitter picked up 160 times as many.

Looking at Friendfeed’s clickstream, it is clear that the site already shares a lot of traffic with Facebook and a number of other social media sites. As the table’s below illustrates, after Google UK the site’s biggest traffic source is Twitter. In fact, Twitter currently sends Friendfeed almost twice the amount of traffic that Facebook passes its way. Looking at the downstream traffic, Friendfeed is also sends more of its traffic to Twitter than it does to Facebook, although in this case the margin is a lot smaller.

But who is actually going to the site? While both Facebook and Twitter have been gradually moving into the mainstream, it is clear from the Experian Mosaic lifestyle data in the table below that Friendfeed remains a niche site. However, the good news is that the Mosaic types that do over-index as visitors to Friendfeed are typical early adopters – just the kind of people who were first to embrace Facebook, Twitter and a range of other social media success stories (as well as quite few failures along the way!).

Follow Hitwise UK on Twitter, or listen to our recent Twitter webinar.

Content driven websites receive 73% more traffic than transactional ones

Robin Goad — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:00:00 GMT

The chart on this slide illustrates the percentage of all UK Internet visits accounted for by the largest and most significant online categories – and how this situation has changed over the last three years.

As you can see, there are a number of categories that have significantly increased their share of visits – and therefore UK online time spend – over this period. They are: Entertainment sites (which includes the likes of YouTube and iPlayer), Social networks and forums (a category that is dominated by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, et al.), and News and Media (which includes broadcast news sites such as the BBC, ITV and Sky, as well as newspaper and web only news sources). Over the same period, the share of internet visits going to a number of other categories has declined. In particular: Shopping and Classifieds (i.e. retail websites), Business and finance (a category that includes banks, insurance, utilities and telecoms), and Travel.

If we look at it another way, the picture becomes even more clear. The chart below illustrates the share of UK Internet visits going to two even broader online categories drawn form the major categories on the previous graph. The blue line includes Shopping and Classifieds, Business and Finance and Travel; I’ve called this transactional sites. The orange line includes the major areas of content driven sites, i.e. Entertainment, Social Networks and Forums, News and Media, and Lifestyle (which included niche content sites and blogs).

Going back 3 years, you can see that these two broad categories attracted similar amounts of Internet visits. In fact, in July 2006 transactional sites accounted for 5% more UK Internet visits than content driven ones. But fast forward to the present, and the picture is very different.

During July 2009, content driven sites picked up 73% more UK Internet visits than their transactional counterparts. This means that an increasing proportion of online time is spent browsing content, communicating and networking, rather than buying things. Clearly this is long term trend, but the falls in consumer spending that are a consequence of the recession have clearly helped to increase the gap over the last 12 to 18 months.

This data chimes nicely with the findings of the latest Ofcom Communications Market Report. It concluded that the communications market has not been particularly harmed by the recession, and that ‘the internet and TV is regarded as a higher priority than almost anything except food.’ Hitwise would agree with this analysis but, although people are using the Internet more than ever, the way they use it and the sites they visit is constantly changing. In particular, the above charts show that just because people are using the web more, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are spending more money online..

Follow Hitwise UK on Twitter.

Holland turns to video games to help battle swine flu

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:39:53 GMT

Holland is turning to video games to help people understand how to tackle pandemics such as swine flu.

Is My Blog Working

Martin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:38:36 GMT

Found another gem at Rarst’s blog today. Is My Blog Working is an online service that can be used by webmasters and interested users to find out if a blog is responding correctly. It works by entering a blog url in the form on the frontpage of the service. The service will then do some magic and display relevant information about the blog’s status. The information are divided into two sections.

The first section will display information about the blog’s responses. This includes checking the web server’s IP, RSS feed, robots.txt file, web caching and search engine indexation in Google and Bing. The second section will display technical details about the blog which are mostly interesting to the webmaster of the website.

The technical details will display page generation and fetch times, transfer speeds, information about compression as well as the version of the blog software and the theme used.

The site links to three additional services that can be used to check out a website or blog. This includes HTML verification at W3c, feed validation at Feedvalidator and HTTP header checks at redbot.com.Is My Blog Working is a great way to quickly check various technical details of a blog. A bookmarklet is provided that can might also come in handy.

Tags: blog, check blog, check website, Online Services, ping, server, website

Which new opera has a new score and 140 characters?

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:38:05 GMT

The Royal Opera House will stage an opera created through social networking site Twitter, it announces.

Neville Hobson's Shared Items on NewsGator Online

How do startups make customer service scale into awesomeness?

I hate…**

I love…

I Can Now Make FriendFeed As Ugly As I Want

Trend: Are Friendfeed Refugees Already Flocking to Facebook?

Stat: Corp Marketing Adds Clout as Social Media Rises

Google Apps Gives Businesses Better Email Controls

Retention

Delegation

Share Your Favorite iPhone Apps by Email; There's An App (Submitted) for That

Augmented Reality: A Human Interface for Ambient Intelligence

What Is Augmented Reality?

Gravimetric Augmented Reality

Marker-Based Augmented Reality

The iPhone's World

Augmented Reality and Ambient Intelligence

Happy Birthday Business Computing, You're 28 Today

Bristol-based 72 Point helps NHS Twitter campaign go global

Augmented reality: the game

Sky News readies paid-for iPhone app for non-UK users

Yahoo! asks: what kind of Twitterer are you?

More than 500 newspapers sign up for online news charging scheme

TechCrunch UK: Shiny Media’s fashion blogs go to Bright Station

Paying for news

Friendfeed, Facebook and Twitter

Content driven websites receive 73% more traffic than transactional ones

Holland turns to video games to help battle swine flu

Is My Blog Working

Related posts

Which new opera has a new score and 140 characters?