by Call2actionmedia | May 13, 2015 | Your Call To Action
Many people now consume their news via Social media. In a not too distant past, news was consumed by the masses typically with a morning news show and paper and unless there was an urgent need again in the evening time delivered by Television. For the most part deliverability was real time and consumed by the user in a timely manner. The reputation of the deliverer was also trustworthy for the most part. With the proliferation of the Internet came an explosion of new sources with no real standards except ones established loosly by the community. The Facebook news experience has been a work in progress. Users like News brands/sources and an algorithm determines which ones to place on your feed. Its unclear which sources are reliable although Facebook made great strides in scrubbing link baiting news sites from getting too much Feed attention. There is also the Timely factor for News distribution to be effective. As a user, I am drawn to the Headline “BREAKING NEWS” and depending on whether the issue is near and dear, start an adrenaline rush. Many times because of how the Facebook NewsFeed delivers, it was a false alarm since that Breaking News was from “yesterday @ 6pm” and quite stale. I think todays shift towards Facebook taking more control in the News function of the NewsFeed will ultimately result in a much great user experience for people who want to easily and reliably get their news fix while on...
by Call2actionmedia | May 12, 2015 | Your Call To Action
Live streaming has been a buzzword as of late with both Meerkat and Periscope providing tools to stream from phone to followers instantly. While the user experience could be rough sometimes viewing someone elses world through a shaky phone, who could pass an opportunity to instantly be watching raw video with your favorite celebrity. Of late there have been a bunch of celebrities who have embraced their Twitter followers with spontaneous streams. The commercial side of this technology could be huge once marketers start pushing live company sponsored streams or giving brand fans a view into where the magic happens. Video is the future and more applications and experiences will be enhanced as the delivery applications become more...
by Call2actionmedia | Apr 26, 2015 | Your Call To Action
It’s tough for an Entrepreneur with a background in finance to remain as focused as neccessary to succeed. The world of finance teaches you to constantly diversify and hedge to ensure optimal returns on investment in many environments. To succeed as an entrepreneur, that kind of thinking will lead to a death by a thousand cuts. Entrepreneurs must take one position and fight like hell to make that position...
by Call2actionmedia | Apr 13, 2015 | Your Call To Action
We are lucky to live in a time where we have business leaders such as Warren Buffet. In a day and age when Uber ruthlessness in business is standard and morals are always secondary to profits, it is very refreshing to see Mr. Buffet as the epitome of business success. Warren Buffet is a wellspring of knowledge for those who study him in wisdom, patience &...
by Call2actionmedia | Mar 31, 2015 | Your Call To Action
Google makes their bread and butter by having algorithms read many signals, interpret and serve accurate results to the inquirer. Knowing which signals to look out for and how to weight them is their secret sauce. But, can Google also be a provider of signals? What does this job posting signal about Real...
by Call2actionmedia | Mar 30, 2015 | Your Call To Action
Business is a competitive sport like any other. All of the essential elements of winning and losing are present in the day to day grind. Many startup gurus preach these elements to people who have these qualities in them but they are usually untapped because of the failed perception and understanding that succeeding in business takes the same skill required to win a hard fought competitive sport. Properly positioned and correctly focused, this makes succeeding in business a little easier....
by Call2actionmedia | Mar 9, 2015 | Your Call To Action
I am a huge fan of Google. I had a feeling from the begining that they would become the dominant force they became. In a world of unreliablility, Google was a solid pillar at least in terms of stable systems. Google’s strength lies in the fact that it is an advertising company creating connections between people whether it be consumer to business or business to business. It does this (and this may be debatable) by creating an agnostic system rewarding the highest quality providers with the most traffic. It has also done a great job making this system ubiquotous (case in point, my right click doing spell check on Google to check that spelling). While Google is clearly in a strong position in many businesses for example the Android mobile operating system, I feel there are some real issues under the hood with search. In February, it was revealed that Google lost 2 points of market share to Yahoo when Firefox switched their default search to Yahoo (see: http://www.zdnet.com/article/yahoo-search-share-gains-on-googles-losses-thanks-to-firefox-deal/). That means it wasnt important enough or the user did not detect (Yahoo is smart enough to make the UI/UX Google like to avoid issues) that this was not their usual Google search results. This is a big deal. Then there is the upcoming Safari deal where slowly Google’s wide net is suddenly becoming smaller. Additionally, mobile search is clearly not being dominated by any one player yet and Google has yet to show anything too sticky there. A more recent troubling sign has been Google’s recent moves into competitor territory in the lead generation business with moves into Car Insurance,...
by Call2actionmedia | Mar 2, 2015 | Your Call To Action
With the current stats on mobile data consumption, its clear people are relying on their smartphones for a large part of their content consumption. Critical information IE timely and relevant information such as planning an evening out requiring multiple sources to complete seem to be finally consolidating. I do not believe its feasible to have mobile screens with endless pages of apps or for the more organized to have many folders of categories. Mobile developers know the value of acquiring real estate on peoples devices, but at what point does it become too much. Que companies such as Vurb (see http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/26/mobile-search-david-vs-googliath/) . I believe this is the future. Consolidation, easy, bite sized content pieces coming from multiple data sources. Google Now is a great passive example of this by integrating with Gmail and pushing relevant content such as local weather, daily commute info, expected package arrivals, stock prices, sports team news etc. Vurb is aiming to make mobile search more user friendly by creating a simple path with a few taps to get users what they need and plugging into multiple partner content such as Yelp, Uber an Rotten Tomatos to provide a quick, seamless process to get users what they want in the least painful way. Cards are becoming more and more important and I believe with the amount of information being spit out at people on a daily basis, the only way a person can consume ala Twitter is through bite sized Cards. (see: http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/27/cards-transforming-web)....
by Call2actionmedia | Feb 25, 2015 | Your Call To Action
We need more of it. This is a great step by Google. Facebook should create topic based real-time chat rooms. Slack is figuring this out in a big way. There are so many benefits.. In the Google example, how many businesses already generate X incremental engagements by having real time chat.. think the secretary at work who cannot pick up the phone to do her shopping. We need more of...
by Call2actionmedia | Feb 24, 2015 | Your Call To Action
I’m a huge fan of Eric Ries of The Lean Startup. I think every startup ninja needs to implement the concepts found in this book into their everyday lives. What that means is if someone is about to embark on a new project they should break it down into 3 clear goals and those three goals should result in the minimum viable product the MVP. At this point it should be clear whether it’s worthwhile to chart out the next phase of MVP. The first phase might be getting X users to embrace the product and the next phase may entail monetizing this batch of users. Founders should have these concepts drilled into their DNA otherwise its very easy to get lost in developing full-scale projects only to realize there’s either no consumer demand or built incorrectly. A good example of mine is www.Autoinq.com, an auto shopping portal geared towards women. More details on this another time, but relevant to MVP was having to build a full service portal similar to cars.com having multiple tools, multiple search functionality multiple angles financing options all the bells and whistles when of what was only needed was a simple search path with a unique angle.c. If MVP thinking was deployed, it could have resulted in building out a marketing funnel/path based on intuitive car matching for a women buyers such as needs + personality present = results (see:http://www.autoinq.com/personality.html) . Live and learn. Until next time....
