The mobile market has drastically changed over the years. Smartphones and tablets have become more powerful, faster and even more affordable than ever. With the rise of more and more people using these devices and having access to the internet virtually anywhere, it makes sense as a business owner to want to target that growing audience.

You might think investing the time and money into the creation of a mobile website, especially with the smartphone/tablet market still in its “infancy”, is unnecessary, but there are several benefits if you do so.

Mobile internet usage is up: The number of mobile users and the amount of internet ready smart phones and mobile devices is increasing all the time. Mobile users now-a-days use their phones almost more than their desktops and laptops to search on the internet for anything from news, product information, price comparisons, customer reviews and more.

Faster Surfing: Mobile sites are built with the theory “less is more”, in favor of sites with fewer graphics, a single column layout and immediate access to specific content through condensed menus and search features. Making a user’s time spent on the phone as painless as possible is a sure fire way to receive more traffic.

Increase your page rank with Search Engines: Having a mobile version of your website is technically doubling the amount of content for your site. Mobile websites are also getting priority in mobile search; therefore placing you’re non-mobile website in the rear of search results.

Become a leader: Staying ahead of the trend, or becoming the trend, is a big plus. Based on the current rate of change and adoption, mobile web will be bigger than desktop internet in the coming years.  If a user has a poor experience with a website on their mobile device, odds are they will not go back. A very large portion of websites do not have a mobile version of their site. Having a mobile site not only makes you more accessible for mobile devices, it can prove to be a winning point in online marketing strategies and show your website to be geared for the future.

In the coming years the mobile market is going to do nothing but increase in size. Don’t make the mistake of not taking advantage of this increasing market. Let Next Horizon help plan your future in mobile marketing.

Great Event today at the Westin in Lake Mary regarding Google Tools and Social Media tactics. I know we ran over but I appreciate everyone coming!! Next time we will break this out into two sessions in go in more depth of what we covered today.

We wanted to provide a copy of today’s presentation. Download it using the link below.

   Google Tools and Social Media tactics .ppsx
   Download Slideshow
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As Computer Forensic Examiners and Data Recovery specialists we are constantly torn between various constitutional amendments. The Fourth Amendment is the most common amendment we come across. This amendment gives the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. We must specifically narrow our forensic scope to the topics described in the search warrant or statement of work, if we go beyond the “seeing eye” we have potentially violated a person’s constitutional rights. This can be easily avoided by having a clear understanding of the data recovery scope that clearly outlines the files needing to be recovered or forensic analysis to be performed.

However, now with data encryption what do we do? Data encryption is not like a wall safe or a key lock that is “physical per say” where we can require or subpoena a key. If we subpoena an individual they can plead the 5 amendment which protects a person’s right for self-incrimination. The “key” is in the person’s mind which is protected under the 5^th amendment. Forcing a data decryption is also an act protected by the Fifth Amendment because the government cannot identify the evidence it hopes to find without any specificity prior to the search and the act of force decryption may in fact damage or alter the data being decrypted which would prevent the evidence from being produced in a court of law as a “factual unaltered piece of evidence”.

So what do we do? Currently there is a case flowing up to the Supreme Court Ramona Fricosu vs the state of Colorado. We will soon find how unconstitutional or constitutional Hard Drive Encryption is.

Have you ever asked yourself what all this craziness over the Facebook “Like” button is about? It seems this one word button is almost everywhere and anywhere. Well it would seem this way for a good reason.

Let’s ask ourselves the first obvious question:

What’s this “Like” button everyone keeps talking about?

The “Like” button is a button placed on a page of your site. This button allows a visitor to your site to “Like” the content of your page.

Now that you know what the “Like” button is, the next logical question should be:

Should I care if people “Like” my homepage?

In a word, Yes! Once a visitor hits the “Like” button from your site, it sends a status message to that visitors Facebook account. Anyone with access to that persons profile or wall will see a status message telling them that that person “Likes” your site.

The act of one person clicking your “Like” button has now sent an advertisement for their friends to see what they liked about you, thus resulting in more traffic to your site. Here are a few more key benefits to placing a like button on your site.

• It’s FREE advertisement. It costs nothing to place a “Like” button on your site. You don’t even need a Facebook account to add a like button to your site.
• It adds the ability for your site to go “viral”, and target even more people in your target demographic. One “Like” from a person is going to reach out to many of their friends, friends who generally share the same interest, who can further spread the “Like” fever.
• Having the Facebook icon or logo on your site helps your site feel more legitimate and trustworthy.

The “Like” button is also becoming a more prominent placement item when it comes to e-commerce sites. The number of “Likes” is slowly trumping user reviews and comments as the primary way people show support for online products and services.

Adding a like button is simple, click here for directions on inserting the like button to your web page.

Hopefully this article has helped to inform you of one of the top social networking strategies in today’s online world. Leave a comment below or feel free to click on the “Like” button below.

Whether you are running a personal or business website, knowing as much as you can about your visitors is the most important factor in determining your success. The other  is actually delivering what they need. Web Analytics help to provide you with the information you need to achieve these goals.

We will being with defining what analytics are first.

The Official WAA Definition of Web Analytics: Web Analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage.

Great, sounds neat, how does that help me?

Plenty!

Do you have a business selling items online?
Analytics tells you which products are attracting more visitor, and which products are being view more than others.With that information, I can figure out whats trending. I can also figure out what about a product may be peaking interests

Do you have a site that directs clients to one of your locations?
Analytics tell you if users are spending more time on your directions page or contact page.

Web metrics and analytics are important tools for any business. Using these tools will help you as a site owner to monitor what your site visitors are viewing, their interests and where these visitors and potential customers are coming from. Here are a few benefits:

• Analytics help to monitor and gather information about your visitors and users
  
  Analytics lets you know how many visitors your receiving. These visitors leave information gathered by analytics. such as:
  
  • • how long they are staying
    • what source they came from
    • what pages they are viewing
    • the number of times they returned
    • there preferred pages
    • where and when they leave the site
    • and much more.

• Analytics can help you optimize your website
  
  All the information gathered from analytics helps you make informed decisions on how to improve your site, such as streamlining your site navigation to help assist the viewer in finding what they want faster, and how to improve your seo.

• Analytics can help you formulate a sales and e-marketing plan
  
  Because you know what your visitors are looking at, you can use that information to improve your e-marketing plan, write better-targeted ads, and strengthen your online presence towards your target demographic.

A service like Google Analytics can help get started. With the help of a knowledgeable team to incorporate the above, your online presence will have nowhere to go but up.

Social Media is everywhere online and it seems like everyone and their grandmother has some form of presence online through one of the many social media sites available. Social Media has made it possible for anyone anywhere to find out about almost anything online. But how can it be applied to business ?

It comes as no surprise then that businesses themselves are incorporating social media in some form or another. While not everyone may want to know what your CEO had for lunch or that your secretary watched an all-night marathon of Bridezilla’s, it stands to reason that these sites can benefit on some way or another from social media.

Below are 5 quick ways to use social media and how your business can take advantage it to help promote business.

Facebook

Facebook currently has 500 million users and is rapidly growing. This is potentially the largest audience that any business could hope to reach out to.

Start off small and create a profile page for the company, place some basic information and link to it from your site. Invite customers and colleagues to become fans. Then as you start to grow you can add new content in the form of new product information, upcoming events, and industry related content.

Twitter

Twitter allows you to let your customers know what is going on with your company right now. You can stream Tweets from Twitter to your Facebook or LinkedIn account and even to your own website.

Use your tweets to let customers know about a new promotion or sale happening, announcements for new products and services, and any relevant information you think the customer would want to know now.

LinkedIn

This site is more of a community for professionals and businesses who exchange information, ideas and opportunities. You can easily connect with past and present colleagues and network with other business professionals who can become a potential costumer, exchange advice, and make introductions to other professionals. Networking on LinkedIn  is also a  great way to receive referral traffic to your website.

YouTube

Who doesn’t like to watch videos? YouTube is one of the highest trafficked sites on the web, allowing billions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. Creating a YouTube account is free and once you have an account you can start posting videos relevant to your company and industry, or some thing to spark interests in a product or service.

Blog

Business blogs provide your business the opportunity to share your company’s knowledge and experience with a larger audience. Blog software is easy to use and simple for anyone to write their thoughts, link to resources and share information about their company. Blogging is also an affordable solution to gaining higher search engine rankings, because search engine feed off of content and what better way to feed out lots of content than with a blog.

There are many other social media sites and options that could be added to this list, but the 5 above examples are the strongest, easiest and most affordable options when it comes to branching out into the social media universe. Start off with one and work on producing quality content and once you get into a steady rhythm you can branch out to the other options.

I hope this article was helpful; if you have any other tips or comments regarding social media and its benefits to online business, feel free to leave a comment below.

Trust plays a central part in consumers to overcome threats of security on the web.  However, does the latest marketing trend of site seals actually diminish this threat or play a more active role of deception and sense of false security when it comes to consumers sharing personal information.  These behaviors on the web are essential to research due to the adoption of e-commerce, thus trust is a critical marketing concept for web site adoption and used more as a sales tool of deception.

Background:

The average consumer does not know the technology used in e-commerce transactions thus they rely on media coverage and trends for information on what to watch out for when buying online. It starts with the SSL encryption. Media has over used the word SSL and encryption. Again early e-commerce sales were marketing based on “SSL encryption” but if you ask the average Joe what SSL encryption is you will get average Joe Answers. “The key in the browser”, ”it encrypts my credit card”, “It protects my information”. All of this information is marketing propaganda. SSL encrypts the web browser traffic from the client to the web server.  It does keep prying eyes that are watching the traffic stream from capturing the data, but once it hits the web server your data is free game. So why is this important in the research for privacy seals? It sets a background to show that marketing directly affects the sense of trust and security without knowing what the technology is actually doing.

The problem:

The problem is human nature it is our nature to trust. However, online it is our nature not to trust. So when marketing ploys are shown to us we change our mental state, our moral choices, and rationalistic reasoning.  A computer or program has no moral sense and relies on programmatic computations. So our trust is questioned, are we trusting a computer or are we trusting a company. In actuality you would be trusting the designer, creator, and management of the computer or technology who has implemented the programmatic computations into the computer. In this scenario marketing can over shadow a violation of trust in this chain and could cause a breach in security with your personal information.

Theory:

Trust is important to establish to help consumer overcome perceptions. Most e-commerce sites produce trust through marketing and attempt to engage the consumer with trust-related behaviors. So if establishing SSL keys and Web site privacy seals create that sense of trust then what if hackers ploy off of the “accept it and forget it” attitude and setup sites that market to trust to collect your personal information. The Theory is consumers on the internet are driven by visual representation of safety. The research will show that consumers will handover unquestioned, personal information to sites that advertise privacy and security without investigating the company’s legitimacy over a legitimate company that does not deploy trust based marketing.

Think about it, share your thoughts below:

Three hundred and forty undecillion, two hundred and eighty-two decillion, three hundred and sixty-six nonillion, nine hundred and twenty octillion, nine hundred and thirty-eight septillion, four hundred and sixty-three sextillion, four hundred and sixty-three quintillion, three hundred and seventy-four quadrillion, six hundred and seven trillion, four hundred and thirty-one billion, seven hundred and sixty-eight million, two hundred and eleven thousand, four hundred and fifty-six Ip addresses. Or you could just say 2 to the 128th power.

6 to 4 Tunneling source: http://arstechnica.com

So the big boys, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, ect.. will perform an IPv6 test flight on June 8th 2011. Once the big boys adopt the IPV6 they will use a dual-stack/ NAT architecture which will allow them to tunnel IPV4 address space into their IPV6 networks, which hopefully by some time for the rest of the world to adopt the technology. Be prepared windows 98 users You will have to upgrade!

If its not important, you shouldn’t see it

Almost, every email client has the ability to filter, organize, & junk  mail as soon as it hits your inbox. This process is normally consider to be a rule. Setup these rules to filter important from non important, thus minimizing the amount of mail your have to sift though on a day to day basis.

Avoid the fluff

When writing your emails, try to keep them short and to the point. This approach helps to save  time for both parties. You will be will be writing less, and the recipient will spend less time reading it. All important information your including should be clear and concise.

Clean is organize, is efficient, is peace of mind

Keep you inbox clean. Once an email has been read, file it away, label, or archive it. It is also OK to delete mail, unless it something you think you will would  like/need to reference later. I think we all gone to the hassle of have to crawl through 50 emails to find 1. That is a headache in the making.

Decide when to check your mail

Alot of us have a bad habbit of checking and responding to emails as soon as they arrive. This constant disruption of completing your tasks, dramatically decreases your productivity. Try checking your mail at particular times in the day, possible morning, lunch, and before end of day. With these schedules in place you’ll have large blocks of time dedicated to productive work.

The infamous subject line

The subject line is a really important part of an email. It is one of the first things the recipient sees before opening you mail. It should be informative and deliberate. The subject line can also be used to organize male for future use. For expample

Subject: NH – Project Name: I used the begining of the subject to organize me emails

In this example I used NH for Next Horizon, then place the project name after.  This can help when try to recall an email for later for the recipient and sender. If using the search, I could simply reference ” NH” & “Project Name”

Use a signature

Don’t forget to use a signature at the end of your e-mails, it should include your name, company information, contact information, website links, social networking sites. This information is reference from email more times then people think. It can also be used to promote a new website, build your social follow, or promote product /service.

Its ok to use the phone

I know this is an entry about emails, but sometimes its more efficient to just pick up the and talk to some one, rather than exchange multiple emails on one subject.

Did we leave anything out. Let us know in the comments below…

1.) Scroll to top:

Next time you are on a long web page, & want to jump to the top of the page, just tap the top bar and it will immediately send you to the top of the page.

2.) Quick Speed Up

iPhone running a little sluggish? We many iPhone users that aren’t used to multitasking applications, never realize they have an enormous amount of applications running in the back ground. So there are two options:

1. Restart your phone
2. Double tap the home key and hold your finger on the app until it starts shaking then tape the minus icon.

3.) In my own words

Every industry has those “words”, that no matter what program you use they are spelled wrong. Well just like in Microsoft word you can add to your custom dictionary.

• Go to Settings > General > Keyboard > International Keyboard > Add New Keyboard and then choose Japanese Ten Key.
• Next, go to main keyboard screen and select “Edit User Dictionary”. Tap “+”. You will find it on the top right-hand corner. Next, tap “Word”.

4.) ALL CAPS

Want to type in all Caps but find it difficult to hit the up arrow aka the shift key for every letter? Hit the shift key twice, it will turn blue, and you will now type in all caps.

5.) Quick Screen Shot

So you are on the phone with “Next Horizon” and you phone starts acting up. Under normal circumstances we can’t see the error or what it is doing, so next time take a screen shot of the phone by pressing together the power and home button quickly. It will place an image of the current items on the phone and place it in you images folder.