By Jerrold Prothero, Ph.D. 4.24.2001 In the gold-rush days of the web, it was truly remarkable how little money was spent by start-ups on usability testing. What was even more surprising is how few investors insisted that usability be built into the development process. Had investors demanded a vigorous usability feedback loop and monitored the [...]
How to Bolster Your Staff During a Soft Economy By Kristin Knight 4.24.2001 How quickly things change. Twelve months ago, many companies, particularly high-tech companies, were scrounging to fill positions. It was a buyer’s market, with employees calling the shots and many positions going unfilled or staffed with talent that was, perhaps, a little green [...]
By Prue Cuper Creating a Web site can seem like a daunting task – but it doesn’t have to be if the essential planning tools are in place. Outlined below are five documents that will help in the preparation of a successful Web site project. 1. CREATIVE STRATEGY What is it? A creative strategy declares [...]
By Mark Usher and David Tunney “Before making any announcements, executives should reflect on the last time they cut back during a slowdown. They downsized, but so did their competition; they lowered costs, and the competition followed; they lowered prices, and the competition matched. When the dust cleared, their company survived but was smaller, weaker, [...]
By Mike Lande 3.26.2001 The Internet has revolutionized the customer grievance process. Before the Web, customers that recorded a complaint could expect weeks to pass before receiving resolution considering business practices of the day. Today all that has changed. With the speed of the Net, a customer’s complaint can travel from their desktop to your [...]
By Donal Daly 3.2.2001 Too many companies undertaking marketing campaigns focus their efforts on acquiring new customers while ignoring existing ones. In today’s competitive environment this strategy is short sighted. Neglected customers often turn to competitors when they purchase again and the cost of retaining customers is far less than acquiring new ones. To maintain [...]
By Cris Hagen 2.19.2001 With the slowing of the economy, failed dot-coms, etc., executives might conclude that the outlook for B2B eCommerce is rather dire. Some might further assume that there is more that’s NOT working for eMarkets than WILL BE working. In my opinion, they would be wrong. In order to provide clarity for [...]
By Elizabeth Charnock 2.5.2001 There’s a great disparity between online and offline transactions. Studies show that only 2% of website visitors perform a transaction vs. 50% of visitors to “brick & mortar” shopping malls. Why the great difference? And, even more interestingly, how much of this difference can be overcome? There are many obvious reasons [...]
By Tom LaPaze 1.22.2001 Ahh…the good old days of gut decisions. Technology and today’s tighter marketing budgets have contributed to the current focus: total-accountability marketing. The detailed tracking that companies such as Avenue A, DoubleClick, Matchlogic and others provide is becoming a must. And with the recent rumblings such as “the death of the banner” [...]
by Tim Choate 12.18.00 As Internet moarketing continues to get more sophisticated, marketers will be introduced to more effective ways to get the right offer to the right customer in the right context at the right time. Traditional means of Internet advertising, such as banners, links and affiliates, are not working as well as they [...]
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May 14 2012
Google Blinks! Bing Sings, and Slings the Arrows of Social Interface Discontent! Amazon’s Social “Denny Triangle!”
At last week’s Bing Search Summit in San Francisco, Microsoft took the wraps off a brand new Bing featuring a new, right-hand social column (“The Sidebar”) that will eventually include Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Quora and LinkedIn integration, as well as people who may know something about your most recent Bing query. The new Bing search even offers a way to ask questions on your favorite social network, directly through Bing. “The search engine has been reinvented!” wrote Mashable’s Lance Ulanoff.
In total, there are three new Bing columns in all:
* Core Search: minus many of the social annotations that Bing has added over the years (that have been relocated).
* Snapshot: providing additional information about a particular search listing, without having to leave Bing
* Sidebar: serving as the new home for social integration with search
“With this update, the competing search philosophies are clearer than ever,” opined Mashable. “Google sees the world as a deep blend of data, people and activities, all of which can be mined simultaneously for a rich and useful experience. Bing sees a more structured world, where social interactions, while extremely helpful, are kept a safe distance from the core results you desire.”
How does Bing build these “Friends Who Might Know” lists? Microsoft execs explained they’re leveraging as much publicly available data as possible from Facebook (for now) and soon Twitter and other networks. Inclusion in the list is not necessarily based on something you posted about the topic.
The sidebar includes people you know through your social networks that have, say, posted a photo about the topic, liked a certain relevant topic or searched for a similar topic in Bing, and people you don’t know, who are, for example, known Topic Experts and Enthusiasts (identified by Bing). All of them could be considered helpful in your quest for knowledge. Conversations revolving around a query topic are viewable through the social pane — you just hover over the activity and a small box will slide out to the left with the original post. You can add comments in any conversation in the activity pane or see the conversation in the slideout.
For example, a search for “Seattle restaurants” might pull up Facebook friends who have “liked” dining establishments in the metro area under a header that reads “Friends Who Might Know.” Bing users can also post comments or queries in the sidebar interface that will automatically be published to their Facebook page (provided they’re signed into Facebook) and could hypothetically flag their Seattle-based friends in posts seeking advice on where to go for dinner.
To see the new pane at work, you have to sign into Facebook and install the Bing App in Facebook. With that done, your social pane will be filled with recent Bing activity that’s also been shared on Facebook. When you enter a search query in the Bing interface on the left, the pane will also display a list of Facebook friends, and topic experts who might be able to assist with your query. Note: The Bing App defaults to sharing your posts with Everyone. If you do a lot of searching, you may want to dial that down a bit.
This deep integration with Facebook isn’t the first time the two have collaborated, and Bing has been adding social recommendations powered by Facebook to its search results for the past year. But it’s a sure sign that Microsoft — which bought a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million in 2007 — will lean on a company it’s heavily invested in to improve on the social-search product Google introduced in January. “Search Plus Your World” pulls up Google+ content deemed relevant to signed-in Google users and has gotten a tepid reception, said Adage. [24x7]
Amazon Advances Its Vision for a Social Campus Compass, Not an “Apple Circle,” but a “Denny Triangle.”
The City of Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development has posted the latest renderings of Amazon’s proposed Denny Triangle campus.
At a public design review board meeting, attendees liked proposed amenities that include outdoor artwork, a playing field, a dog park and space for food trucks.
The venue also incorporates a healthy measure of social engineering into the design. To ensure public open spaces between buildings are both lively and safe, buildings are designed so that people who park their cars in the underground garages will have to walk outside to get from the garage elevators to the elevators in the building lobbies. “That will help ensure a steady flow of people moving through the plazas.”
The project will also be a haven for bicyclists. Each of the three blocks will have a dedicated bike entrance and storage for as many as 400 bikes. That could allow as many as 1,200 Amazon employees to bike to work. [24x7]