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Twitter has added SMS notifications for the Activity Stream, which was recently added to the service’s web interface. Now, Twitter users that have enabled SMS notifications can get text updates when other users retweet them, follow them or favorite their content.
For more details on Twitter’s SMS features, check out the video above. For step-by-step instructions on how to turn the new notifications on, visit Twitter’s support site.
At some point last week Google Analytics quietly released an apparently small change to its Landing Pages report (Content tab => Site Content => Landing Pages). This report was almost useless before this change and now it joins the list of the most useful reports on the tool. In a few words the change was simple: we can now link landing pages to goals, i.e. we can see the value of each landing page out of the box.
Up till now, the landing pages report was very limited, having only three metrics available on the report:
Entrances: the absolute number of visits landing on this pageBounces:the absolute number of visits that bounced when landing on this pageBounce Rate: the percentage of bounces from entrances in this page
This is all we got. We could not drill down into landing page performance even when it came to simple actions like understanding time on page (for non-bounces), not to mention goal conversion and ecommerce transactions that were completed during a visit that was initiated on this page (there were some work arounds, but they required many clicks). As of this week we see the following on the same report:
As we can see in the screenshot above, we now have other metrics available in this report, such as Pages/Visit, Avg. Time on Site and % New Visits. This would already be a great improvement, as it allows us to instantly see engagement metrics for visits started from a specific landing page. However, if we look at the top of the pages, we see that, besides site usage, we can now view this report by goals and ecommerce. This means that we can now have an instant picture of landing page performance from this report
Finally, Google is now allowing businesses, brands and any non-human entity to participate in its Google+ social network, through new Google+ Pages that are launching today, promised to be available to everyone shortly.
Businesses Weren’t Allowed, Initially
Businesses have wanted to be part of Google+ from the start. In fact, many businesses and brands made use of regular Google+ accounts as a way to participate on the service despite their non-human status.However, in July, Google terminated any business accounts that it spotted, including one from Sesame Street, promising that formal business pages would come — and that they’d be worth waiting for.
Google+ Pages Now Welcome Businesses
Now businesses are being welcomed in, through the new Google+ Pages program. Beginning today, and rolling out over the next two days, businesses will be able to create Google+ pages for themselves, using the Create A Page tool (and assuming you already have a regular Google+ account — more on this below).Not everyone who goes to that page will get in (many will get a “Google+ Pages isn’t ready for everyone” message). Again, it’s a random rollout happening over the next two days (NOTE: Google tells us now everyone should have access). But once you gain access, you’ll be asked to create a page in one of five categories:
Local Business
PlaceProduct
BrandCompany, Institution or Organization
Arts, Entertainment or SportsOther
Local Is Different
If you’re creating a page for a local business, you have special options including the ability to enter a phone number. From Google’s help page on the topic:Local Google+ pages are unique from other categories of pages because they have features that allow customers to easily connect with that business’s physical location. For example, local pages include a map of the business’s location and feature its address, phone number, and hours of operation.Of course, many local businesses have already claimed their pages in the completely separate Google Places. Much of the information that Google+ Pages for local businesses wants — and more — are on those pages. But they remain unconnected. Google tells me:Currently, Place pages and Google+ Pages must be managed separately. A Place page provides information about a business and makes it easy for customers to find local businesses on Google Maps and local search; while a Google+ page provides business owners with additional ways to engage, build relationships and interact directly with customers.
Creating A Google+ Page
Here’s a look at the initial page creation form, which asks for basic information such as a brand name and a URL:
At first, whoever creates the page initially will also be the page administrator. No one else will be able to admin that page after them, at first. Nor can that page be transferred to someone else.Multiple administrator support is promised in the near future, but until it arrives, it seems important that if your company has a social media manager, that person should be the one to create the account.Unlike Facebook, there aren’t “vanity” URLs yet available that use a business name rather than a long string of number. The same issue is true of personal accounts. Google provided no update on when this might change.Don’t like the name of your page? Unlike with Facebook, you can change that at any time. However, if you have verified status, doing this will cause you to lose verification, requiring that process to start again, Google told me.
Read Full Article on Google+ Pages Now Open For Businesses, Brands, Places & More from Search Engine Land
Facebook has become an essential part of promoting a website or service online. Small blogs, discussion forums and huge commercial companies such as Coca-Cola and McDonalds are all using Facebook to promote their brand and interact with fans and customers. Facebook fan pages are at the heart of any Facebook promotion campaign. A great fan page will not only encourage people to like their page; it will also effectively promote their brand and connect with readers on a regular basis so that fans don’t reach for the unlike button. Today we will be showing you some examples of great Facebook fan pages. We hope that they will inspire you and give you some ideas for your own fan page See all 40+ Great Examples of Facebook Fan Pages
Hamilton Chan is CEO and founder of Paperlinks, which provides the leading QR code infrastructure for businesses. Codes generated through Paperlinks app can be scanned by the free Paperlinks iPhone app or by any QR code reader on any smartphone platform.
While the debate rages on whether QR codes are a passing fad or a marketing phenomenon, those little suckers continue to pop up all over the place. From product packaging to retail signs and even to food, almost any surface in the universe seems fair game for a QR code.
However, if brands deploy QR codes merely to claim they are using the latest social media marketing tool, then QR codes are doomed to fall in the “fad” bin, never to realize their full potential. The task for marketers is to use this interactive tool to deliver useful and meaningful experiences to their users.
So, how can you assess whether you are using QR codes to their full potential? Although very few QR marketing statistics exist, here are a few tips for businesses looking to deliver a meaningful QR code experience.
1. Define Your Purpose
The first thing to realize is that QR codes can be as much about utility as they are about marketing. The more your QR code enhances or streamlines the lives of customers, the more engagement you can expect. As such, the most important step in making your QR campaign a success is to think clearly about the purpose of your code.
Is the purpose to provide an instructional video, a photo catalog of products, contact information or product suggestions?
Or are you looking to incentivize mobile purchasing behavior through coupons and loyalty rewards?
What is the advertiser hoping to garner – an email address, social media engagement, a phone call?
Are you seeking to provide information about a single product or about the entire brand line?
The clearer you are about the purpose of your campaign, the easier it will be to discern whether your goals have been achieved.
2. Call On Your Customers
Now that you have defined your purpose, craft a customer call to action. Think of your QR code as a doorway, only you need to explain what’s hidden behind the door. The brief text sitting next to your code should be the world’s shortest elevator pitch.
For instance, you’ll see high scan rates if your code says, “Scan this code for an exclusive gift” or “Scan this code for our lowest price.” Be sure to explain any incentive associated with the code truthfully — it will increase trust, consumer interaction and the overall return on your campaign.
3. Design and Usability Is Key
Understand that looks matter. Ideally, opt for a designer code rather than a black-and-white checker box. Designer codes earn higher scan-through rates, look better on your materials, and even provide an element of security to assure users that this is indeed the brand’s QR code (and hasn’t been somehow covered over).
In addition, the design of the mobile landing page is critical. The cardinal sin in QR code campaigns is directing users to your desktop website. Not only does a desktop site provide little added value over what a user could have obtained without the code, but the site usually looks and functions terribly on a mobile phone. If you do not have a mobile-friendly version of your website, consider using one of the many available tools to create one. Using one of these platforms makes it easier to update content in real time and track campaign analytics
4. Measuring Scans
The most important metric of a QR campaign should not be the number of daily scans. Rather, the length of engagement time that your code is generating should be a marketer’s primary indicator of campaign success.
If people are spending two to three (or more) minutes on a link, the campaign is a success. The power of a QR code is to transform the user experience from a “quick glance” to a “deep dive.” When users spend a lot of time on your QR site, it shows that you have developed something captivating — a brand worth the interaction.
On the flip side, having a low number of scans should not discourage the advertiser, although generating zero scans is a definite red flag. If no one is scanning the code, it’s likely that something is wrong its scanability, or that its placement is not conducive to scanning (think high-up ads on the subway).
Another thing to keep an eye on is the number of scans over time. If your QR code has been constant displayed (e.g., in your retail window or on your cashier counter), you should see a long tail of interactivity as people continue to engage with your code. Achieve this by providing fresh content and incentives. Unlike other marketing vehicles (TV commercials and newspaper ads) that typically only generate one big spike in impressions, QR codes allow businesses a consistent promotional tier. If the number of scans drops to zero after the first week, this is a sign that there wasn’t enough allure to the experience.
5. Social Metrics
Finally, businesses should look at the points of interaction beyond the QR code experience to judge the success of a campaign. Did a business receive more hits to its website, more followers on Twitter, more fans on Facebook? While trying out the latest high-tech marketing tools is fun, we must ultimately be driven by results.
The QR code experience is limited only by your imagination. The more creatively you can provide a meaningful customer experience, the more interaction your QR code campaign will enjoy.
QR codes provide metrics by tying real-world marketing (outdoor signs, magazine ads, etc.) to the mobile web. By being imaginative, purposeful and experimental with campaigns, advertisers and consumers alike can reap rich QR rewards.
Whether you use Social Networks for games, video and photos, or just to re-connect with old friends, you should be aware of how your Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is protected. This infographic details several of the ways Google and Facebook handle Privacy and Security.
It may come as no surprise, but Americans are watching more and more online video. In fact, they’re practically jonesin’ for it. According to comScore’s numbers, 182 million Americans watched online video content in September (for an average of 19.5 hours per viewer), while the U.S. video audience tallied a total of 39.8 billion video views. But what may be a bit more surprising is the extent to which people are now watching their video on tablets.
Ooyala, the provider of online video technology and services just released its first quarterly review, which you can find here. While the data is skewed slightly as it only takes into account those who actually watch online video, as comScore’s numbers show, at least in the U.S., there are more than a few watching online video. And Ooyala’s data set, too, is considerable, as the platform handles more than 1 billion analytics pings per day — revealing the global viewing behavior of 100 million monthly unique users.
From Ooyala’s study comes a number of interesting interesting conclusions. First and foremost, tablets are seeing a significantly higher level of engagement in online video viewing, as tablet viewers watch longer than viewers of desktops or mobile devices. For each minute watched on a desktop, tablets recorded “1:17 in played content”, which works out to 28 percent longer than the desktop average.
What’s more, tablet viewers are more than twice as likely to finish a video than desktoppers, as the completion rate for tablet viewers was double what it was for desktop viewing in the third quarter of this year — and is 30 percent higher than that of mobile devices.
Of course, the high level of video engagement compared to desktops isn’t just limited to tablets, it seems it’s true of all mobile devices, too: In Ooyala’s words, “viewer engagement was generally higher on mobile devices than on desktops — even for long term videos”. Yup, mobile viewers completed three-quarters of a long-form video at a rate of 20 percent, compared to 18 percent for desktops.
In terms of long-form videos, the study found that desktops and laptops are more likely to be used for short video clips, whereas videos that are 10 minutes or longer make up 30 percent of the hours watched on mobile devices, 42 percent on tablets, and nearly 75 percent on connected TV devices and game consoles.
While desktops still make up the bulk of total video displays, plays, and number of hours watched, mobile devices, tablets, and connected TV devices are increasingly shaping (and changing) viewer behavior. For non-desktop video media, mobile devices owned the biggest share of total hours played, with 48 percent, while plays on tablets accounted for 45 percent.
While connected TV devices lagged behind in most categories, as the industry is still in its nascency, Ooyala believes that these devices are closing in on the tipping point, as video plays on connected TVs tripled in Q3 alone.
Of course, when it comes to video being watched on mobile devices and tablets, it’s all iOS and Android. Combined, Android and iOS devices make up 90 percent of the video hours for tablets and mobile devices. For tablets, unsurprisingly, iPad is king. iPads were responsible for 99.4 percent of displays, 97.7 percent of total plays, and 95.7 percent of total hours streamed.
However, thanks to its growing lead in marketshare among mobile devices, Android is seeing an average conversion rate of 45 percent — one that’s considerably higher than that of iPhones at 22 percent. For tablets, Android devices were also higher at 47 percent compared to iPads at 13 percent.
In terms of viewer engagement for tablet viewers, the percentages were close, but iPads grabbed the higher percentage of completion rates (at 38 percent compared to Android’s 36 percent).
Also of note: As Erick reported back in August, Facebook had jumped into third place among the biggest video platforms, with an estimated 51.6 million people watching videos on Facebook in July. Facebook’s numbers have since dropped slightly, but the point remains: When it comes to display advertising and now video, Facebook is growing at a scary rate.
To this point, Ooyala found that Facebook is across the board a more popular means of sharing video than its social media rival, Twitter. In the U.S., for every one video shared on Twitter, over eight are shared on Facebook. As to how much more popular Facebook was than Twitter as a video sharing platform — that varies widely depending on the region. In Japan, there’s a 1:1 ratio, whereas in Italy Facebook is 17 times more popular.
In the end, Ooyala’s study seems to prove how it is becoming of increasing importance for content publishers to develop strategies for tablets. With viewers watching 28 percent longer per play on tablets compared to desktops, the publishers are now beginning to be guaranteed to have access their viewers’ eyeballs for a longer period of time. No doubt advertisers will be taking note of
Are people who buy daily deals at sites like Groupon actually new customers, or just people who would’ve bought at that particular merchant anyway?
A full 51% of deal buyers surveyed in a new report would’ve bought at those merchants without the deal, according to Forrester Research. That means daily deal sites are not necessarily driving incremental revenue, according to Sucharita Mulpuru, analyst at Forrester who wrote the report. The problem is especially bad for restaurants and clothing and shoe stores.
It’s not an idle question, given Groupon’s sky-high market cap following its IPO last week. With the millions of subscribers to Groupon and other daily deal sites, are people actually buying them? About 47% of flash sale subscribers and 36% of daily deal subscribers have never bought one, Forrester found. The firm surveyed 9,500 and 14,000 people who subscribe to flash sale and daily deal sites, respectively.
The daily deal model can’t sustain its recent level of growth, Mulpuru believes. The large sales force required makes it too expensive at large scale. Customers also begin to focus just on deals, and become “deal-hunting gremlins,” and therefore are less likely to pay full price, the report says. (Who says industry reports aren’t colorful?) Also, email becomes difficult to use as a medium to market deals once more and more companies crowd consumers’ inboxes. However, there are other models emerging with new startups I’ve covered.
Mulpuru believes that daily deals will survive but have to change their businesses as growth slows. Some deals company will require merchants to “pay to play,” she believes, a more traditional advertising model. Many daily deal sites will become part of loyalty programs rather than customer acquisition programs.
In terms of companies, Groupon and LivingSocial had a big piece of the market, with 83% and 41% of daily deals subscribers respectively in the report. Eversave with 4% and BuyWithMe with 3% followed way behind.
Another interesting fact about “breakage,” or deals that are not redeemed: About 43% of people who have purchased a daily deal have at least once not redeemed the deal before it expired.
Judging by the age selector option in the new Google+ Pages that lets admins limit features to those over the age of 18, users under 18 will eventually be able to join the social network. Currently, Google+ is limited to those ages 18 and over, and excludes those ages 13-17 who are permitted to set up a Gmail account. While it was assumed that Google+ would lower its age restriction to the COPPA-compliant 13 and over demographic when it completed its “field test”, the age selector option makes this all but assured.
Using the age selector on the Google+ Pages product launched this morning, admins can set it so “interactive features that require the user to be logged in will be limited to users that are that minimum age or older” according to Google+ support. The age options include ‘Any Google+ user’, and ‘Users 18 and over’. The second option would only be necessary if users under 18 could some day use the service.
When Google+ first launched and again when it was opened to the public, some were surprised it excluded a demographic known for sharing high volumes of content. That sharing and the willingness of younger demographics to invite their whole network to new services could have helped Google+ grow. Google may have assessed that building in walls to separate minors from the rest of the user base wasn’t a priority.
That might not have been the wisest move as I see Google+ as having squandered its initial growth momentum such that it will never attain the wildfire spread of Facebook. That growth may not be crucial to Google’s plans or the service’s longterm success. It could also have helped set more mature norms about the types of content and relationships hosted on Google+. Still, raw user count is important to attracting developers, brands, and more users.
Now it seems that when Google+ is ready, it will admit those ages 13-17, and Pages related to topics unfit for minors such as tobacco will be able to exclude logged in youngsters. Furthermore, the potential ability for Google+ Pages to target posts to specific age groups such as minors could be away to one-up Facebook’s Pages product.
Today, Google announced a change to its search algorithm that the company says will impact 35% of Web searches. The change builds on top of its previous “Caffeine” update in order to deliver more up-to-date and relevant search results, specifically those in areas where freshness matters. This includes things like recent events, hot topics, current reviews and breaking news items.
Google says that the new algorithm knows that different types of searches have different freshness needs, and weighs them accordingly. For example, a search for a favorite recipe posted a few years ago may still be popular enough to rank highly, but searches for an unfolding news story or the latest review of the iPhone 4S should bring the newer, fresher content first, followed by older results.
For searches about recent events and news, Google may now show search results towards the top of the page that are only minutes old, the company says. For regularly occurring events, like the Presidential election, the Oscars, a football, company earnings, etc., Google knows that you’re likely most interested in the most recent event, even if you don’t specify keywords indicating that.
That means a search for “Apple earnings” won’t (in theory) require you to also type in “Q4 2011″ in order to see the latest information. It will be implied that you meant this latest quarter, without the need for the extra text.
For items that see regular updates, like consumer electronics reviews, reviews of a particular kind of car, etc., Google will also feature the most current and up-to-date information above the rest.
This “freshness update,” is an extension of what Google begin last year with Caffeine, an under-the-hood improvement that, among other things, helps Google index content quicker, so results were more realtime. This year, Google also brought out its Panda update, which was meant to decrease the rankings of so-called “content farms” – SEO-optimized entities that critics said filled Google search results with low-quality results.
Now, it’s clear that Google understands that the most relevant search result is more often the one that’s relevant now – the one that’s bringing you new information. The update’s impact on Google Search is fairly substantial, with Google claiming that roughly 35% of search results will be affected by the changes.
Google used to have a search vertical specifically for the most recent updates at www.google.com/realtime, where it was indexing Twitter updates. However, when the contract with Twitter expired, Google shuttered the site (it now redirects to the Google homepage). Google said at the time that it planned to re-open the site with Google+ search results alongside other realtime sources of information. But with the new Google search update, a specific vertical for realtime information feels less necessary.
In an interview at TechCrunch Disrupt Beijingtoday, YouTube co-founder Steven Chenreminisced about selling his company to Google. “Was there any way you could not have sold?” Sarah Lacy asked? Hindsight is 20/20 Chen replied.
Chen revealed that the entire $1.65 billion YouTube acquisition was completed in one week’s time. Chen met with executives from both Google and Yahoo, including Yahoo’s Jerry Yang, at a Denny’s in Palo Alto, “We didn’t want to meet at offices, so we were like, ‘Where’s a place that none of us would go?’”
Chen said he ordered the Mozzarella sticks.
The deal was set to be announced at the closing of markets on Monday, so Chen and company were up until the last-minute completing paperwork at Wilson Sosini’s offices. In a historic moment for TechCrunch, our own Mike Arrington ended up breaking that news.
Chen said that his meeting with then Google CEO Eric Schmidt was instrumental in the decision to go with Google. Schmidt basically promised the founders unlimited resources in return for an “infinite amount of happy users” and an “infinite amount” of good content; “Here are all the resources that Google has around the world, and you can pick and choose”
“For twelve months, whatever we wanted to do, we were allowed to do,” Chen said “It was tremendous courage from Eric, allowing this group of 20 year-olds to run the company.”
No matter how modest your launch, your business will need a web presence. Maybe you've been putting it off. After all, we weren't all put on earth to write code on the web--and hiring someone who was is expensive. Luckily, you don't have to know a thing about programming to build a respectable website these days. There are loads of affordable--even free--tools that do the grunt work for you.
You'll need a sense of what you want your website to do for your business. As long as you have a germ of an idea, the best do-it-yourself services will guide you along. You'll also find plenty of options for syncing your website with other online tools like Facebook pages, Twitter profiles, YouTube channels and PayPal accounts. It's surprisingly easy to get a simple but powerful website up and running in a few hours.
Here are our top five picks for launching your business on the web without skimping on quality
1. Yola
What it does: Yola lets you build a basic website by picking a template and filling out a few simple forms. Once you have a rough outline, you fine-tune your site with an in-place editing tool. Yola has the goods to let you really dig into the web. You can integrate your site with an impressive list of third-party services such as Google Maps and PayPal, Flickr for photo sharing and Picnik for photo editing.
What it costs: The basic web-building tool and a Yola.com address are free. For extra features, better-looking templates and the ability to use your own domain name, the Yola Silver upgrade is $100 per year. Bottom line: If you're looking for a basic, professional site at a reasonable cost, Yola's your answer.
. jimdo
What it does: Jimdo's free version does what a respectable website builder should do, and not much else. We suggest springing for the upgrades (which are reasonably priced) to unlock some cool business features, such as custom newsletters to keep in touch with your customers, page-view stats, PayPal stores and password-protected employees-only pages.
What it costs: Basic features and a Jimdo.com address are free. Jimdo Pro is $5 per month. Jimdo Business is $15 per month, including unlimited data storage and online selling, two domain names and business-specific site designs.
Bottom line: The free tool isn't worth your time. But what Jimdo does well is hold your hand with nice templates and good overall tools. If you want to sink a little more effort into a site that looks and feels unique, Jimdo is your best bet.
3. WIX
What it does: Wix lets you build a great-looking website in no time with its easy-to-use, what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor. Here's the downside: The web development tool is based on Adobe Flash, which works on most PCs but isn't supported by some mobile devices, including the all-powerful Apple iPad. If that isn't a problem for you, Wix has lots of elegant templates that are easy to customize and can fit every business need. Wix's image-heavy sites are especially great for photo galleries, which really show clients what your business can do. A new mobile tool lets you build a simple, smartphone-optimized site to reach on-the-go clients.
What it costs: The full-featured website-building tool and Wix.com address are free. Paid subscriptions, which let you do things like remove ads and link a site to your own domain name, run $5 to $16 per month.
Bottom line: If you must have that slick, designed look and don't mind alienating a couple of potential users, Wix is the answer. Just be sure you understand the limits of Flash, as it can be surprisingly tricky to work with.
4. Intuit Websites
What it does: Starting a business takes creativity, but maybe you're not the artistic type. Luckily, even the most design-challenged among us can squeeze a respectable-looking website out of Intuit's somewhat bland but reliable web-editing tool. A quick survey helps you pick a template that's based on what your business does and your goals for the website. The template sorter goes into more detail than many website builders that make you wade through thousands of templates. From there you can tinker with the look and layout, but with some quick text and picture entries you'll be well on your way to a reasonable web presence.
What it costs: The starter package is free for 30 days, then $5 per month. Business and Professional packages are $24 and $50 per month, respectively, and include features like custom domain names, online selling tools and search engine optimization. Insider's note: Intuit has several resale agreements with large telecom companies like Verizon, so don't be afraid to dig around to find a package discount.
Bottom line: This is by no means the slickest tool, but for a basic business site, Intuit isn't bad, and it's especially effective for QuickBooks users.
5. Google Sites
What it does: This service can give you a simple Google web presence for free. But you probably don't need that when there are better, faster and easier options from the likes of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. What Google Sites does best happens outside the public eye. With this tool you can create private, team-based websites within your business--which turns that Google Apps account of yours into a powerful business organization tool. Google Sites puts nifty collaboration tools like announcements, documents and task lists in one online location, allowing you and your colleagues to access them from anywhere. It's a great way to bring some sanity to the startup chaos.
What it costs: It's free.
Bottom line: Don't use this tool to develop a traditional website unless you have a solid coding background or are hiring a coder who does. For the average user, Google Sites is best for creating a company intranet.
world-shaker:
Reddit user immabluedevil’s chemistry teacher used Mac Minis, Wii remotes, and projectors to install pseudo touchscreen computers into his students’ lab tables.
Awesome doesn’t even come close. Click through for the 31 photo album.
It’s become a firm fixture of everyday life, loathed by some but essential to nearly all of us, and yet its future is far from certain. Email is forty years old this month, with the first message having been sent in October 1971.
The birth of email
Like many technological innovations, email has its roots in military technology. In the late 1960s, MIT graduate Ray Tomlinson was working at research and development firm Bolt, Beranek and Newman. His work included contributing to technologies related to the ARPANET, the military communications network that was the earliest form of the Internet. This included a file transfer program for mainframe computers.
With this file transfer experience, Tomlinson was assigned to modify a program called SNDMSG, which allowed messages to be sent between different users of the same computer – this was in the days when computers were incredibly expensive, and the idea of one person having a computer to themselves was impractical. His task was to allow messages to be sent between two different computers, and in October 1971 he cracked it.
As Tomlinson told The Times in 2008, he doesn’t remember what that first email actually said – perhaps ‘QWERTY’ or another string of characters, but whatever it was, it traveled a distance of one meter between two separate computers. One small step for a message, one giant leap for mankind.
Besides inventing email, Tomlinson is also the man to thank for the popularity of the ‘@’ symbol. He established the convention of an email ‘address’ in order to identify the recipient and the computer or network that they were using. To separate these two pieces of information, he chose ‘@’. He told The Times, ”It conveyed a sense of place, which seemed to suit.”
The growth, growth and growth of email
Email use on ARPANET quickly took off after that first message in 1971, but it wasn’t embraced on a wide scale until the 1990s when the birth of the World Wide Web led to consumers embracing the Internet. By the end of that decade, it had become an essential part of working life in many offices around the world.
Back in 2001, the School of Information Management and Systems at UC Berkleyreported that around 31 billion emails were sent daily. By 2008, that figure hadrisen to 170 billion each day, at a rate of 2 million per second. It hasn’t stopped accelerating; Pingdom reported that in 2010, the daily rate was 294 billion.
Email pain
Despite its convenience, many of us have grown to see email as a bit of a chore.
Spam is the best known problem with email. From unsolicited marketing messages to scams attempting to trick recipients out of cash, spam is a true scourge of the Internet. Areport by Nucleus Research in 2007 claimed that email cost businesses $712 per employee per year, with that figure coming from factors like the working time spent deleting unwanted messages and the cost of anti-spam technology.
While spam blocking has become more sophisticated over the years, shielding some of us from its immediate impact, and high profile cases have seen spammers prosecuted, the problem is far from dead. Pingdom claims that 262 billion spam messages were sent daily in 2010, that’s 89.1% of all emails sent.
Even disregarding spam, dealing with the legitimate messages has become a significant task for many. In 2008, The Times quoted stats that said office workers spent an average of 49 minutes per day managing their email, checking their inbox 30-40 times per hour. With the increase in the number of emails sent since then, the amount of time spent reading, writing and replying to email is likely to have risen too.
It’s a situation that has led to some people to attempt abandoning email altogether. While that’s impractical for most of us, a little bit of discipline goes a long way. One of the most popular strategies in recent years has been Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero, a way to “reclaim your email, your attention, and your life. Even when email was a much smaller deal, co-founder of The Next Web, Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten had a simple but effective routine for getting through over 500 customer support emails at V3, the startup he co-founded in the late 1990s. This proves that it’s possible to tackle even the most daunting inbox if you have a strategy.
Is email doomed?
The very fact that many of us need to think strategically just to deal with the messages we receive proves just how much of an impact email has on our lives, but the future may well see its usage decline, replaced by more effective ways of keeping in touch.
It’s a well documented trend that children an young people opt to communicate via methods such as Facebook messages and BlackBerry Messenger over email. A ComScore study on 2010 digital trends in the US found that Web email usage saw an 8% year-on-year decline in 2010 overall, with a 59% decline in use among people aged between 12-17.
Why would young people opt for methods other than email? Mark Zuckerberg saidin 2010, “High school kids don’t use email, they use SMS a lot. People want lighter weight things like SMS and IM to message each other.” It’s true that if you use Facebook’s Messages platform it feels faster, more nimble and more ‘alive’ than email. When the company overhauled its messaging service last year it made an email-style message on the platform equal to an IM or an SMS. In fact, someone can send a standard message, composed like an email, within Facebook and the recipient can receiving as an SMS, replying by text message. It really does feel like an evolution of what email achieved.
Email is an essential business tool, and it’s unlikely to be replaced by Facebook any time soon, but internal communication within companies can be more effective by replacing emails with online collaboration tools likeYammer and Convofy. Replacing sprawling group emails with structured discussion threads keeps everyone in a team informed about each other’s activities in a much clearer way than email can.
Services like Basecamp and Podio allow external clients and contractors to work alongside internal team members too, putting an end to the need for much of the email conversation that takes place during projects. While still in their early stages of adoption, these types of tools could easily eat into email usage in the workplace on a vast scale.
Still, while proprietary platforms like Facebook and Yammer may replace a lot of email in small, closed or semi-open groups, nothing has arrived yet that beats the open, universal nature of email. If you want to get in touch with someone, you can bet they probably have an email address. If you can find it, you can contact them.
So, while its usage may well decline, email’s far from dead. H@ppy birthday email!
Apple's stock price has risen more than 9,000% since Steve Jobs returned in 1997, and doubled in the last two years
News of Steve Jobs's death drove the Apple share price down more than 5% in Frankfurt on Thursday morning.
The visionary co-founder of Apple - regarded as the mastermind behind an empire of products that revolutionised computing, telephony and the music industry - died of a rare form of pancreatic cancer in California at the age of 56. He stepped down in August as chief executive of the company he set up in 1976 with his childhood friend Steve Wozniak.
Apple shares are now trading 3.5% lower at €273, after hitting a low of €270 in Frankfurt. The shares are not traded in London. They are expected to open lower when Wall Street opens at 2.30pm London time.
Apple was briefly the most valuable company in the world in the summer, knocking oil giant Exxon Mobil off the top spot. Revenues have soared from $7.1bn (£4.6bn) in 1997 to $65.2bn a year now.
Jobs was ousted from the company in 1985 and went on to buy animation studio Pixar, before returning to Apple in 1997. It was near bankruptcy then and worth just $2bn. But then it came up with the first iMacs, and in 2001 the first iPods appeared.
Apple's stock price has risen more than 9,000% since Jobs returned in 1997. The shares have more than doubled in the past two years, while Microsoft has gained just 5.1% and Intel has risen 14%. Hewlett-Packard is down 48%.
The Sad news of Steve Jobs Death and the announcement on the Apple Website: