Whether you are a business owner, a business professional or simply love doing things smarter, these blog postings hopefully inspire you to innovate your web strategy, help you achieve something quicker and help accelerate your impact online.
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- Dec
22Interviews on Het Nieuwe Werken Blog
As you probably have noticed, it’s been quiet with postings over here. That’s because I have extremely been busy with other projects such as Digitale Mobiliteit and my Dutch blog about the ‘New World of Work‘.
Anyway, in the end of November we did a series of video interviews for Het Nieuwe Werken Blog that I want to share with you today. My apologies to my international readers as the video’s are in Dutch, however I feel they are still very interesting to share!
Read more… Give me 3 minutes – and I’ll give you 3 insights about Runkeeper
Don’t you just love to run outside, catch some fresh air and unwind your brain? Running is a great exercise for almost anyone.Since a couple of weeks I have been using a tool which makes it even more fun. It’s an iPhone application called Runkeeper which tracks your running efforts.
Now what’s so special about that you might ask?
It’s brilliant. Not just because it is good software but even more because it allows you – the runner – to share your run with your friends. Next to that, the team behind Runkeeper is doing an excellent job in marketing their product, using social media and their fans to get more people to use it.
Any brand can learn from Runkeeper’s online approach. Why? I’ll explain below…
You become the publisher
After you completed your run, the application allows you to share it with your friends on twitter and facebook. It sends out a short message that will tell them you just completed your run, a link to your personal page on runkeeper.com that includes a map, your trail and your statistics. It also includes the @runkeeper twitter account and #runkeeper hashtag.
Social Proof
Think about it…when you are running you know that your friends will actually see your results when you complete it. That is definitely a motivator. Next, they see you use the application and get a direct link to the runkeeper website. Runkeeper uses ‘social proof’ for marketing their product. If you use it, it is almost a ‘silent recommendation’ to your friends, isn’t it?
Using the hastag #runkeeper, you can easily find other people that like to run and use the application. I even got recommendations from someone on where to run next. Awesome experience I must say.
Great niche
It is estimated that Apple will sell 45 million iPhone units by the end of 2009. That’s a lot of potential customers for any iPhone application. Runkeeper focuses on a great niche; people that run or bike (it also has a mode for biking). By providing a free version and a pro version, they make it very easy to get to know the product and switch to the pro version once you have sampled the application. The pro version allows you to listen to your stats in real-time during your activity and it comes with training workouts that can be completed by voice guidance.
Overall a great piece of software and I definitely recommend you take a look at it. What’s even more interesting is to take a close look at their online approach.
Can you reuse any of it in your business?
Interviewed on Frankwatching.com
As you have noticed, it’s been relatively quiet with new postings over here.That’s because I have been extremely busy with a fantastic new project:
Het Nieuwe Werken Blog.It’s an independent blog were information, experiences, knowledge and expertise around ‘The New World of Work’ is shared by more than 20 authors.
We launched it last week and it already picked up some great press on blogs suchs as Lifehacking.nl, Microsoft.nl and others.
I was also recentely interviewed by Denise Lappain of Frankwatching.com, one of Holland’s biggest independent blogs that covers digital trends, events, startups en tips & tricks.
You can read the full interview here (in dutch).
And while you’re there, please don’t forget to vote for us at the end of the article for the ’site top 50′. Thanks!
- Aug
04If You Depend On Disqus For Commenting, Don’t Count On Technical Support
When you have an issue and you need a company’s support organization to fix it, what is the most important driver that impacts your satisfaction?A quick solution to your problem.
That’s because you did not even wanted the problem in the first place. When there is no quick solution available, other drivers become important that impact your satisfaction:
- Response time
- Technical knowledge of the support engineer
- Support engineer’s ability to communicate (empathy, understanding, managing expectations, etc)
Very often, when you are not satisfied with a companies’ support, it’s because they failed to deliver on one or more of the drivers just mentioned.
Now how does this relate to the title of this post?
- Jul
27You Don’t Have To Stop Following People To Get Rid Of The Noise
When you just start Twittering, it feels like having a conversation in your living room with all the people at the same time. Right?
As you start following more people, you almost automatically move your conversation to a larger room and some even to a stadium, so there is room for everyone and you can still hear them. However, you also notice that it becomes more difficult to listen to everyone.
At the same time, there are new people ‘entering your stadium’, as they are interested in what you have to say. This is the equivalent of people following you on Twitter, effectively saying ‘Hi, nice to meet you! I am interested in getting to know a little bit more about you’. Still with me?
Personally, I think it is decent that you say ‘hi back’ by following them too, when someone introduces him or herself this way. It is also fun to open new connections!
- Jul
22How to Move Your Blog Into The Era of the Real Time Web
A couple of weeks ago, there were post flying around the web claiming once again that blogs were dead and that you should drop it in favor of lifestreaming. While I am a big fan of lifestreaming (I have a dedicated lifestream page on my site), I do not believe that blogs are dead.
I believe the opposite is true and that blogs are evolving. In the past, a blog would be a ‘single voice of a person’. Nowadays, blogs have become the voice of a community, driven by technology that is starting to make real-time conversations possible. With this post, I’d like to share some solutions that can help your blog stay ahead of the game and move into the era of the real time web.
Read more about how to move your blog into the era of the real-time web... - Jul
18How a Tough Decision Made It Easy To Become An Internet Strategist
Remember my last post about change?
It got 15 inspiring reactions, pretty awesome!
The thing about change, as one of the commenters pointed out, you just have to go ahead and do it.
So why do I mention my previous post again? Because last weekend I had an epiphany that led to a change in personal strategy and with this post I like to share that story. Read more about my epiphany... - Jun
17Top 10 Quotes That Inspire You to Change
What Everybody Ought to Know About Project Natal
Yesterday during the E3 game expo, Microsoft announced their latest innovation that will likely change the world of gaming forever. The solution dubbed Project Natal, allows you to control a game with without the need for the usual game controller. Or as the Senior VP of Xbox likes to put it:
We are using the best controller ever invented: You!
Read more how Microsoft is changing the world of gaming forever
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ABOUT ALEXVE
My name is Alex Vermeule and I am an internet strategist, interim manager, consultant and coach.
Friends call me an innovation addict, a lifehacker and someone that helps you get the most out of the web!
Read more at my about page...
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