The cloud computing session included the following panelists:

• Howie Wu, Co-Founder and CEO at LayerBoom Systems
• Mark Cunningham, Co-Founder and CEO at Indicee
• Ryan Storgaard, Director of Cloud Computing Services Strategy at Microsoft – no link required

Howie Wu, Co-Founder & CEO at LayerBoom Systems

The first question posed by the moderator, Rajan Sodhi, VP Marketing at Peer 1, was “What is cloud computing?”

Howie suggests we view the Youtube video on Water Vapour. He then gives us one of the best cloud computing definitions I have ever heard. He explains that it is the 3^rd generation of computing. The first generation was mainframe computing – one computer, many users and everyone shares resources. The second generation was personal computing – one computer, one user. The third generation is cloud computing – network storing, a shift caused by the internet with such sites as Flickr and Gmail.

Mark agrees with Howie’s definition and elaborates by saying businesses benefit because of the scalability; they don’t care about how it works, as long as it works. He refers to cloud computer as a “black box”.

Ryan says he struggles to define the cloud. He says he is more concerned with what does it mean our businesses. Which he says is not being locked into a long term contract.

Howie tells us cloud computing turns your fixed costs into your variable costs.

The second question is around security concerns around the cloud.

Howie tells us your virtual machine is as secure as your local machine. He uses the example of Salesforce and how much of your customers personal information you store with them in cloud and the success they have had.

He uses the analogy of having a server is like having a kid–you have to feed it and pay to keep it around–virtual server takes this risk away.

Ryan Storgaard - Director of Cloud Services Strategy, Microsoft Canada

Mark says he uses the amazon cloud, then places their applications on-top of it. So his system has two levels of security: their application security and Amazon’s. He mentions that in the later we are really talking about one of the most powerful data centre’s that has “fort knox” type security compared to the one in your basement.

The third and final question from the moderator was: Data Failure in Clouds – how can we avoid this?

Ryan starts off by suggesting your service level agreement mentions up-time. He also mentions that Microsoft has set up the cloud system so that if you hate the experience you can easily go back.

Howie suggests you look at the cost of putting together your own infustrucure and see if that outweighs the risk cost. He mentions with a cloud computing solution you will still need to maintain your system, just all the old fixed costs will become variable costs. Howie clarifies that the companies like his are really just cloud enablers, mentioning that people don’t realize they are already using cloud services like Flickr. Howie feels that the move to the cloud is inevitable. That people will eventually get used to the concept because of the accessibility and affordability and just like when we used to have issues putting our credit card online we will get over these insecurities.

Mark believes that the consumer world will drive where the business world goes. New generations expect the software to work (Serena note: this is true based on work done by Gord Hotckiss in the Buyershere Project), not the cryptic stuff that we are dealing with now as their are lots of issues to be deal with.

Ryan also mentions the “millennial generation” and the questions they have about Sharepoint: ”so you are trying to make this like the Facebook of the company?”

The panel wraps up pretty quickly. I thought the session was very interesting and well put together. It might have been nice to have someone on the panel with an opposing view, but overall worth the time.opposing view — but overall worth the time.

*Serena has been involved within the web industry since 2003 and specializes in Organic Search. She is currently employed as the Director of Marketing and Web Development for ShowTimeTickets.com. Prior to Serena’s career she earned her Bachelors and Masters Degree in Interactive Communications from Quinnipiac University.

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of attending VKI Studios 1st training session, in a series of 4, which focus on essential aspects of Internet Marketing. The training session I attended was “The Art and Science of Persuasive Web Design”, which takes a look at different persuasive methods, content techniques and examples of how they can be used online.

The session was taught by Michael “STUCK BY LIGHTENING TWICE” Straker, a very upbeat and knowledgeable Usability Analyst at VKI Studios. I have to say I was very impressed by Michael’s knowledge both inside and outside of the topic. In one instance while fielding a question he jumped directly into B2B concepts and provided a clear and concise response.

During the morning Micheal led us through a powerpoint presentation outlining the various persuasion methods, including:

• Trust
• Persuasion
• Logic vs Emotion
• The Contrast Principle
• Decide-o-Phobia
• Social Proof
• Scarcity
• Diffusion of Responsibility
• Rule of Reciprocation
• Obedience of Authority
• Disrupt then Reframe
• The Power of People we Like

After reviewing the concepts we spent the afternoon looking at everyone’s website and brainstormed ways we could use our new arsenal of persuasion to improve conversion/usability.

Session Highlights:

• #1 for me was the quality of the presentation. A concept was presented, references for the concept were then provided from trusted academic and professional sources, then examples were given and finally an engaging question to really make you think how you can use the concept. Excellent.
• The printed packages were a nice touch – I didn’t have to waste my time taking notes on the slides instead I could just jot thoughts I had on how I could implement them on my website.
• Overall the atmosphere was relaxed and inviting –thanks to smiling guys at the front for throwing out my Timmy’s Garbage for me.
• The small size of the group really gave us the opportunity to talk in length about examples specific to us and remain engaged the entire time.
• I had the pleasure to meet some interesting people in the industry: @ShermanHu.
• Overall VKI Studios really focused on quality in every aspect of the training session, and it showed.

Session Letdowns:

• Wish there was more info on VKI Studios website about this event and other upcoming events (update: I found the page via a Google search: Internet Marketing Training).
• I couldn’t get the Contact Us Map to work on my iPhone when I was trying to find the place (this might have been just me).
• I didn’t really understand if the workshop started exactly at 9 or if we were to just show up at 9. For future reference just show up at 9.

As mentioned above VKI studios is doing 3 other sessions that if are anything like the first, will be well worth the cash. Topics include: Search Engine Optimization, Google Analytics & Google Website Optimizer Bootcamp & Pay Per Click Marketing

More information on VKI’s Internet Markeing Training Sessions

*Serena Hillman is an HCI professional who has worked in the web industry since 2003. Serena currently works as the Director of Marketing for ShowTimeTickets.com and is a graduate student at SFU studying mobile commerce as a part of the Connections Lab Research Group.

Noran El-Shinnawy is a marketing analyst at iPerceptions and can be reached at nelshinnawy@iperceptions.com or Twitter: @noranshinnawy

We’ve all done it before, both on and offline. We’ve all left her cold and lonely in the middle of an aisle, or simply quit in the middle of an online transaction. Shame on us? Well… not really.

As it turns out, online and offline shopping cart abandonment occur for pretty much the same reasons- long checkout processes, obscure prices, and insufficient information to name a few. In today’s fast paced world of your boss pinging your BlackBerry while tying your shoe laces without spilling your latté, no one sticks around long enough to get around these obstacles. Studies have shown that the average attention span of an Internet user is about 8 seconds. This means squirrels are more likely to stick around your website long enough to actually make a purchase.

There are so many reasons why we fill up online shopping carts without ever having the intention to purchase in the first place. For most shopping sites, this is actually the only way to add up prices of items, check shipping costs and taxes, or simply compile everything you like in one place. Once you’ve gathered whatever information you were looking for, that’s when you commit your abandonment crime. You might get that thrill of being a fugitive and think that the Internet police are after you. But all that really does is leaves analysts like me wondering.

For e-commerce websites, it has never been more important to measure 2 very important metrics- purpose of visit and task completion. A simple online survey software can help you answer questions about why visitors come to your website and if they were able to accomplish what they came for. These answers will not only provide you with actionable insight (yes, the most overused term in our industry), but will also help you pinpoint areas that may require change or improvement. Putting it in context, it might actually be okay to have a high abandonment rate if your visitors never intended to make a purchase.

Take 4Qsurvey.com as an example. (Did you just have a flashback of one of Avinash’s presentations? Sorry to disappoint you, but the next few lines will not contain politically incorrect words). Our primary goal for the website is user account sign-up. As a free tool, this is obviously not transactional, but just as well. According to Google Analytics, our conversion rate has fluctuated between 3% and 4%, which would appear as though between 96% and 97% of visitors are “abandoning.” (tip of the day: do NOT go see your boss with these numbers).

As terrible as they may appear, these numbers mean nothing unless I put them in context. I had to dig into my survey results to find out that 15% of visitors are onsite with the intention of creating an account, and that everyone else is “pre-transactional.” The task completion rate for those visitors intending to create an account averages out to about 84%. This means that the real abandonment figure stands at only 16% not 96%. NOW let’s go see your boss.

It’s starting to seem that looking at conversion as the only measure of success is a thing of the past. Be sure to put things in context and understand the real intent of your website visitors and their task completion rates. Looks like we marketers should stop obsessing about completed transactions and start shifting their focus to pre (and post) -transactional behavior…

One of my final project ideas for my Artificial Intelligence class was to recreate expensive and cumbersome human eye tracking with Artificial Intelligence, specifically a Neural Network. Much to my chagrin, with a little Googling I find out it has already been done and done quite well:

The eye tracking video’s on YouTube claim that the application uses over 100,000 training samples. Also if you peruse through the developer’s video’s you can see examples of the computer generated results compared to real human eye tracking tests as well as being used in different mediums (ex. tv, web).

In my conversation with Dzmitry, the applications developer, he was understandably a little hesitant to reveal details on how the application works. But I sent him some more questions, namingly if he used a neural network or not. I will update the post if he responds.

Here’s a snippet of our conversation:

Hi Serena,

Thanks for your interest. … Please have a look at selected examples for www (early demos) here http://www.youtube.com/adstapler or retail and ad industry (more mature demos) http://www.youtube.com/shopperlabs. …

Best Regards,
Dzmitry

Below is my favourite example. Alright I might be a little web biaist. The results are great, considering all good PPC marketers know getting the third spot on the right hand for Adsense is ideal.

Note: I also did look at Feng-GUI’s similar application but found it nowhere near the accuracy as Dzmitry’s. For example, another blogger points out some accuracy issues here.

*Serena Hillman is an HCI professional who has worked in the web industry since 2003. Serena currently works as the Director of Marketing for ShowTimeTickets.com and is a graduate student at SFU studying mobile commerce as a part of the Connections Lab Research Group.

Finding the DNA strand that uniquely identifies your brands purpose and letting it become the building block of your usefulness or efficacy in all things web – and now all things social web. Wait to be found – be the thing – the name – the answer or the top 3 at the END of a Google search – not the hallway or corridor of comments one sees along the way.

It was for me, it was a bit digital-anthropological – a thinking man’s (and woman’s) event – not so much a “I came here to learn how to bake a cake” event. As it was so aptly stated early on – the whole social media experience is like a school bus going 300 miles an hour.  Nobody knows where it’s going or how to control it.

Information pings from a tweet to a retweet to a Google search to LinkedIn to Facebook… yikes. Absolutely no tracking, no analytics….at least not yet. And finally – anyone who purports to be social media expert is really just a charlatan….there are no social media experts. Not yet away. BTW, audience interaction was good as evidenced by the questions and the opinions cited.

Sincerely,

Steve Deller – Director IIMA

**Trim tab as a metaphor The engineer Buckminster Fuller is often cited for his use of trim tabs as a metaphor for leadership and personal empowerment. In the February 1972 issue of Playboy, Fuller said: “Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary — the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there’s a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab. It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether. But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go. So I said, call me Trim Tab.“

This will be a small, intimate gathering. Participants will get lots of personal attention and will be encouraged to ask questions and share experiences. In this seminar, we won’t dwell on obvious techniques like offering discounts or the power of “free”. Rather, we’ll teach you how to create emotional appeals that may not sound strictly logical… but work!

You will learn 14 diabolically effective persuasion tools:

Ugly Jerry and the Contrast Principle
Optimal Level of Dissonance
Distract then Reframe
Harnessing the Power of People We Like
Plus at least 10 more!

 The seminar will be held at VKI Studios’ head office in Downtown Vancouver (503-1080 Howe St.) from 8.30 to 4.30. Their boardroom only sits 10 people, so space is limited. If you think you might be interested, please call to ask for details. We’d like to ensure that seats go to those who would benefit the most.

 To register, call 1-866-733-8899 ext 242. Mention “IIMA” when registering to save $100 off of the $475 price.

Thought I would share this nifty Consumer Profile Tool which profiles engagement within the Social Media space. A great starting point when building your Social Media strategy.

Consumer:


Also here is the B2B equivalent:

Keynote Charlene Li

SES San Jose 2009 Review:
Morning Keynote: How to Prepare for the Future of Search

By: Serena Hillman

Bright and early Thursday morning co-author of Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies, Charlene Li took to the stage to review her suggestions on how to prepare for the future of search. Starting with the past she showed the audience what Google looked like in 2001, then what Google looks like today, and finally Bing. She pointed out that the innovation that has transpired in the last decade is a shift more geared towards understanding the users intent. With this she announced the theme of the keynote–people must be at the center of your search strategy, not keywords.

She predicts that in the future social networks will be like air: we don’t go to them but it is all around us, embedded within society. Citing examples of iPhone apps.

Charlene stressed the importance of social networks in marketing allowing for new ways to target users. She did mention that Facebook advertising was not the route she was talking about, but more so using Facebook like data to serve up ads in search engines. CPM and CPC campaigns should take into account demographic, geographic, and psychographic data that social media sites can provide.

She outlined the engagement pyramid and stated that the most important place for you to be is the bottom in order to create a solid base of watchers or sharers; because without the sharers or watchers the higher sections become useless. What does this translate to? Encourage people by giving them social bookmarks, linkable content and useful information– find out where you can begin the dialogue.

The Engagement Pyramid
^ Curators
| Producers
| Commentators
| Sharers
| Watchers

Here are some other notable points from Mrs. Li:

• In the future everyone is a marketer
• The ability to control conversations is over
• Enable people from your company to engage
• Get your back-end data in order
• Prepare to tap into “chain of intent”
• Deepen relationships with social technologies
• Be ready to give up control

*Serena Hillman is an HCI professional who has worked in the web industry since 2003. Serena currently works as the Director of Marketing for ShowTimeTickets.com and is a graduate student at SFU studying mobile commerce as a part of the Connections Lab Research Group.

By: Serena Hillman

The Google Booth

After a good sleep at the Hilton San Jose, I wandered to the registration booth, got my Press Badge, and was on my way to the first session: Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues

This panel had representation from all three main search engines: Bing, Google and Yahoo. But surprisingly the best presentations were by the two non-search engine representatives: Shari Thurow, Founder & SEO director of Omni Marketing Interactive and Marty Weintraub, President of aimChair.

Shari covered a lot of ground and provided great information about why you want to get rid of duplicates and technically what qualifies as duplicate content. She mentioned some testing her company has been doing regarding navigational usability.

Sasi Parthasarathy from Bing

The results indicated that the optimal amount of links a page should have is 100. She reviewed how engines determine duplicate content with filters related to: Boiler Plates, linkage properties, server/hostname properties, shingles and last but not least–content. Overall Shari tried to stress the importance of not optimizing for search engines but “optimize for people who use search engines.” I can’t agree with her more, as obviously this is what search engines are and will be optimizing for in the future.

After Shari’s serious discussion Marty Weintraub graced us with an energetic presentation where he listed specific suggestions on how to fix duplicate content issues with examples he has provided to his clients in the past. Some included: removing secure and unsecure duplication, cleaning up urls and canonicalization.

The three search engine representatives echoed similar themes of the two previous speakers. Yahoo’s Ivan Davtchev informed the attendees that 1/3 of content online is duplication.

Other key take-aways include:

• Use Google webmaster tool to identify duplicate titles and start from there
• If 10 copies of your content are out-there search engines will just pick whichever the algorithm feels is most authoritative
• We all love Site Explorer and hope Microsoft doesn’t kill it
• Duplicate content is acceptable just don’t abuse it
• Use robots tag or 301 redirects to hide the duplicate parts of your site
• Lots of filters determine duplicate content not just shingles

*Serena Hillman is an HCI professional who has worked in the web industry since 2003. Serena currently works as the Director of Marketing for ShowTimeTickets.com and is a graduate student at SFU studying mobile commerce as a part of the Connections Lab Research Group.

1. Search Engine Strategies Magazine

Every year Search Engine Strategies, the leading global conference and expo series, produces nine yearly issues of the SES Magazine with exclusive articles, event previews, and interviews specifically focused on search marketing and commerce. This magazine is an absolute must read for anyone interested in keeping up-to-date with the digital marketing world. The main reason this is my top pick-they do an excellent job of sorting through the mass amount of information and only report on the must-haves: an absolute necessity for working professionals. You can sign up for your free copy here: Search Engine Strategies Magazine

• Pros: Free, Tangible format (print), great articles, condensed information
• Cons: A little too “advertisey” at times, cycle of news is at the minimum monthly

2. WebProNews

The well known WebProNews portal is a great source for everything going on in search and technology. If you have time to read it daily you will surely impress your friends at the water cooler with up to the minute breaking news. Check out WebProNews.

• Pros: Expert Opinions, diverse RSS options to pin down your area of interest
• Cons: Usability on newsletter is quite frustrating, very ad heavy, sometimes overwhelming amounts of information

3. Alertbox: Jakob Nielsen’s Useit.com

An oldy but a goody. Dr. Jakob Nielsen’s alerts mixes traditional e-newsletter format with an academic twist (actually more like an academic paper with an e-newsletter twist). All reports published follow the scientific method and presents you with the most accurate findings on the web (not surprising from a Doctor). Useit.com is also great for viewing old usability and commerce trends since the mid 90′s. Check out the Doc’s site and/or sign up for his e-newsletter.

• Pros: Great legacy information, expert research, old research topics are frequently revisited
• Cons: Few posts (about 2 a month)

*Serena Hillman is an HCI professional who has worked in the web industry since 2003. Serena currently works as the Director of Marketing for ShowTimeTickets.com and is a graduate student at SFU studying mobile commerce as a part of the Connections Lab Research Group.