ICEBlog

Drowning in email

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:34:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 03:13:00 +0000

From Mashable, 10 services to help you text when cell not working.

Bloove
ClearSMS
GizmoSMS
Group2call
Jaxtr
Ohdontforget
SMSgupshup
swaggle.mobi
Yahoomobile
Yellowpipe

The Downside of Outsourcing

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 11:45:00 +0000

From the Seattle Times, the stress of BPO and the burgeoning toll it is taking on its young workers.

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 04:34:00 +0000

This link will take you to the Harvard B School grouping of lists of best business books for the year:

BNet Best Business Books

Harvard B School look's ahead to the biggest business challenges in 2008

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 04:31:00 +0000

What do you think will be the big challenges for your business in 2008? asks Harvard Business, which is building a crystal ball around responses from readers. Some early comments:

* The Network as Platform. “The most important trend in networking in 2008, indeed in all of IT, will be the emergence of the “network as the platform” for productivity, profitable growth, resource management and innovation. This trend will play a key role in helping determine success in business as well as in other areas of society (healthcare and education).”
* Eco Business Opportunities. “As private and public entities respond to the extension of social responsibility, many new service provider opportunities will explode in the finance, e-waste, recylcing, remanufacturing, supply chain industry, and service entities.”
* New Geopolitics. “Politically, between US election, China’s coming out party (summer Olympics), and Russia’s new (old) president, 2008 would be an interesting year. Economically, the battle for supremacy between central banks, sovereign funds, and the “real” economy could be on the headline in various disguises.
* Volatile Markets. “The biggest challenges for the managers in the short term is to counter the impact of weakening dollar, rising crude, declining productivity in US and Europe, and outsourcing as competitive strategy.”
* Dollar Decline. “For European businesses the continued decline of the US dollar against the Euro will remain one of the toughest challenges. It will be the catalyst for many changes related to repositioning within market segments, relocation of manufacturing to no-Euro zones and acceleration of innovation drive.”
* Social Networking. “Companies must learn to effectively utilize social networking tools both inside and outside the companies to keep up with what the younger workers grew up with — fast and furious communication tools like texting, facebook, My Space, You Tube, etc. that spread the word now. Not in the next quarter, next month, next week or even next day, but NOW.”
* Soft Skills. “The development and implementation of ‘soft skills’ will be one of the greatest management challenges in the future. With changing attitudes and values it will become increasingly necessary for organisations to undergo cultural change in order to attract and retain high quality young staff and to appeal to the changing values of society in general. The establishment of a culture of community which values all stakeholders, gives a strong sense of belonging and offers flexibility within a secure and diverse environment will be important.”

Is Google going for world domination?

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 04:25:00 +0000

From the Seattle Times: Google is fine-tuning a Wikipedia rival.
All's fair in love and war. Wales is planning on rolling out a new search engine - Wikia - later this month...

PDF now ISO standard

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 05:11:00 +0000

clipped from blogs.adobe.com

ISO Ballot for PDF 1.7 Passed!

Adobe has received word that the Ballot for approval of PDF 1.7 to become the ISO 32000 Standard (DIS) has passed by a vote of 13::1.

Terrific Eye Tracking Clues

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 11:45:00 +0000

Recapitulation from Seth Godin's blog, quoting Christina Laun at Virtual Hosting.com blog
The highlights, in alphabetical order:

* Ads in the top and left portions of a page will receive the most eye fixation.
* Ads placed next to the best content are seen more often.
* Bigger images get more attention.
* Clean, clear faces in images attract more eye fixation.
* Fancy formatting and fonts are ignored.
* Formatting can draw attention.
* Headings draw the eye.
* Initial eye movement focuses on the upper left corner of the page.
* Large blocks of text are avoided.
* Lists hold reader attention longer.
* Navigation tools work better when placed at the top of the page.
* One-column formats perform better in eye-fixation than multi-column formats.
* People generally scan lower portions of the page.
* Readers ignore banners.
* Shorter paragraphs perform better than long ones.
* Show numbers as numerals.
* Text ads were viewed mostly intently of all types tested.
* Text attracts attention before graphics.
* Type size influences viewing behavior.
* Users initially look at the top left and upper portion of the page before moving down and to the right.
* Users only look at a sub headline if it interests them.
* Users spend a lot of time looking at buttons and menus.
* White space is good.

Mingle from Thoughtworks -for agile Agile development

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:27:00 +0000

Mingle - from Thoughtworks, - a project collaboration and management tool for Agile software development.

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 05:19:00 +0000

In co-founder Bismarck's words:
'...a platform that gives content owners control -- marketers accountable video advertising -- and viewers high quality interactive video with non-intrusive advertising...'

checkout Ooyala (beautiful site and one of the Amazon Web Services picks.)

Find out what users think of your site

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 04:29:00 +0000

You sign up for user testing.
We notify user testers.
You watch and listen to them use your site.
You read their review - what they liked or disliked, what would have caused them to leave...

One user costs $19, five users $95.

UserTesting.com

Power of the People

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 04:15:00 +0000

A move for privacy in the Facebook community has forced Facebook to capitulate to user pressure. They have now added an opt-in button so that users can decide whether their purchases may be blathered across Facebook in a move towards harnessing the tremendous user base for advertising.

Kudos to Facebook for buckling to the pressure and to Overstock.com who abandoned the 'Beacon' feature until Facebook added the 'opt-in button'. Read the Washington Post's story...

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 05:24:00 +0000

Bill Gates has expressed concern in an interview that the US is not producing enough qualified computer engineers-you would think this would be a call for more outsourcing, except that I know that India, one of the worlds' great outsourcers, is also facing the same shortage...
From the Seattle Times.

Stop those boring Power Point Presentations

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 10:12:00 +0000

Stop boring us, from Core 77 blog

If you are frequently called upon to create Power Point Presentations, click through, this post is for you.

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 09:20:00 +0000

It's that time of year again - when the Forbes Billionaire list is released. (Not that long ago, I remember when it was the Millionaire List).

"Of note, when speaking about the Indian billionaires on the list:
In aggregate, their wealth surged to $351 billion, a bit more than double last year's $170 billion, making India's 40 by far the wealthiest such group of all in Asia. The four richest Indians are worth an astonishing $180 billion. Together the foursome are worth more than the forty richest Chinese combined..."

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:18:00 +0000

Ok, the website looks kind of cheesy, but if you wanted to add any audio welcome message on your site, this Audio Generator seems to make it easy for you to add.

The fastest Asian computer-made in India

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 07:07:00 +0000

Tata announces that the supercomputer it built at Pune factory has been named as the forth faster in the world, and the fastest in Asia.

The rankings were announced last night during the prestigious SC 2007 Conference held last night in the USA.

This is the first time that India has made it to the top 10.
Tata's supercomputer

A faster easier way to share photos-FINALLY!

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 04:06:00 +0000

Link to story in Wired
Eye-Fi has produced a 2-GB SD memory card mated with a Wi-Fi chip. You can sync the card to a hard drive or Wi-Fi network, then plug into a digital camera and click away. Photos are routed to either the hard drive or to one of 17 photo vendors - Facebook, Flickr, etc. The card's software handles scaling and compression while privacy settings at the individual sites allow you to filter what gets published.

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 12:19:00 +0000

Another pearl of wisdom from Seth Godin about tailoring your site to fit the visitor's needs...

If you own a web page, you really owe it to yourself and to your users to pay attention to state.

Don't treat everyone the same. First time visitors want something different than repeaters. Loyal customers want to see something different from the masses.

Get your IT person to show you how to divide the world into states. Then start from scratch and make a different experience for everyone.

[PS years ago, at Yoyodyne, we had a wannabe competitor who kept stealing our ideas. We programmed the site to recognize traffic from their site and put up all sorts of fake announcements and stuff, just to throw them off. You can get really specific if you want!]

Social Networking, India style

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 06:51:00 +0000

From the NYTimes:

Using social networking to connect poor laborers with prospective employees In India, Poverty Inspires Technology Workers to Altruism

Niche TV- I am famous...

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 05:37:00 +0000

I like this step-by-step article from SEOmoz.org on using video to get you and your product known.

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 03:54:00 +0000

A useful thought from Seth Godin for sales/marketing/development teams
" I can't afford it"." That's not true.

At least it's not true almost all the time. Very few of your prospects literally can't afford it. What they are really trying to say is, "it's not worth it." As in, it's not worth reprioritizing my life, not worth the risk, not worth what I'll have to give up to get this, not worth being in debt for.

One response to repeated cries of "I can't afford it" is to lower your prices. A better response is to tell a better, more accurate story, and to tell it to the right people. The best response is to make something worth paying for."

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 11:55:00 +0000

Having trouble thinking of the right analogy to drive your point home? No more lame examples, use this handy website Size of Wales to find the right comparison.

Vinay -Analogy King- this is a site you could have done yourself.

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 10:13:00 +0000

I am test-driving the new social web browser Flock, voted by TechCrunch as one of the top 40 most innovative new products.

noreply@blogger.com (CW) — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 08:25:00 +0000

Buy an SEO Tshirt

Intro on website:

With all the brains, talent, and creativity that make up the SEO world, it surprised us that no one had risen up and given the industry some t-shirt love. Maybe everyone is too busy watching results pages, gaming the engines, or generating serious online funds. All we know is sometimes an industry just needs some t-shirts.

That's where we come in...