The do's and don'ts of delivering rich content experience on mobile devices

Editor's note: Keynote Systems' Startup Shootout Index provides some insight into the three-screen challenge now facing anyone with a web presence. We'll be bringing you a fresh set of data from Keynote every month. Check out previous Startup Shootout results.

It's a common challenge we see frequently with customers. In past articles, we've looked at some standard best practices Keynote recommends for delivering the best graphical experience without killing performance. This month, we'll dig a little deeper into some of these techniques, specifically for the mobile environment, and look at how our startups on the Keynote Startup Shootout Index are handling these challenges.

Keeping the Connection Clear

Behind every web experience is a complex process of establishing network connections and making requests for specific content. There can be a lot of communication overhead needed to get the content from a web server to the web browser. Today, the standard is to make multiple HTTP requests over a single web server connection. Known as "persistent connections" or "HTTP Keep-Alive", this is now a standard supported in all current browsers, so there is really no reason not to use it.

Even the fastest sites on the web can overlook optimizations like persistent connections. One site on the Startup Shootout Index that is not using HTTP Keep-Alive is Rovio. Rovio is already the fastest site in the Mobile and Social Gaming category of our index, but their user experience could be further improved by turning on persistent content connections.

Optimum Ways for Managing Images

Images, we know, can be the prime suspects in slowing mobile performance. How many images you place on a page and how you manage them are critical to the user experience. Keynote has identified four key areas for optimizing the use of images for maximum mobile performance.

1. Serve images at the same resolution that they are actually displayed on screen. 

For many site owners, creative content often starts out in enormous high resolution, which makes them a big problem for smaller mobile screens. The 3G network then strains to transmit them. Many sites struggle with this problem. The smartphone-optimized site for social retailer Gilt has a small number of images that are being served at higher resolutions over the network and then are scaled to a smaller size for display on the device. Although in the case of the Gilt home page this is only impacting a small number of images, the site is transmitting over 65% more bytes of data for those images than are necessary. Serving the images at the proper scale would not only reduce the number of bytes that need to be sent over the network, but would also enable the browser to display them on the screen more quickly.

2. Use compression tools

Web designers have many image formats to choose from. PNG and GIF image formats are "lossless" in that they encode exactly the content of the original image. The JPEG image format, on the other hand is a "lossy" format, where there is a tradeoff between higher levels of compression versus high levels of image quality. JPEGs are best suited for photographic images, where some compression is less noticeable. GIF and PNG files are better suited for image content with sharp edges or straight lines, such as buttons or images with text.

It is important to choose an appropriate level of compression with JPEGs, but many web designers could also optimize their images stored in the "lossless" image formats. Lossless compression techniques can optimize images stored in GIF or PNG formats. They accomplish this by stripping out unneeded meta-data like comments or by optimizing color palettes to remove data about colors that are never used in the image. There are several excellent (and often free) lossless compression tools available. For PNG images, tools such as OptiPNG and PNGOUT can even work as filters in a production deployment process to make sure that every image is compressed automatically during the release process.

3. Reduce the number of small images requests.

It still surprises us how many web sites – approximately three quarters of the sites we look at, and especially mobile sites – could significantly enhance performance if they just looked at ways to reduce the number of image requests on each page. This can be done with a technique called CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) sprites. Doing this takes time and effort but there are a number of tools that can help. CSS files are used by the browser to decide everything from what fonts are going to be used and background colors or images to where to display content on the screen. CSS rules can be written that pull out a small region of a larger image file, for example, to display at a certain spot on a web page. This means that each small image you want to place on the page does not need to be stored in its own file. A collection of smaller images can instead be placed into a single image file, and clever CSS rule-writing can make sure that the image content is displayed exactly where you want it on the page.

By replacing many small image files with a single larger image file, you may not be sending any fewer bytes over the network, but you can reduce the network overhead of making many separate file requests. This is especially helpful on mobile network connections where the network latency is much worse than the throughput. CSS spriting is something that every mobile site designer should at least consider in the site design process, as it can greatly improve performance.

4. Look at alternatives to CSS Sprite.

An alternative to the CCS Sprite is the Data URIs (uniform resource indicator). For images being used only once, it's a quick solution. To use a data URI, you convert an image to a string of text using a tool that does Base64 encoding. What looks like a string of garbage characters can be decoded in the browser and used as the original image data. By inserting the Base64-encoded image data directly into the HTML for the page, small images can be included without the need to make separate network requests.

There is one major caveat to using data URIs, though. Images encoded as data URIS do not get cached separately from the HTML file they are included in. So, if you have a collection of images that are used on multiple pages on your site, you will be best served with using CSS sprites. For a single image that is unique to one page on your site, you might consider using a data URI to optimize the performance.

So a common theme emerges – avoid round trips to the server. If you are unable to keep the number of images on a page to a small number, then this is the area that will bring down performance.

Conclusion

Given the unique challenges of the mobile environment, here's what we would suggest as the main three best practices to stay close to:

1. Avoid redirects wherever possible. This is time critical to the user experience.

2. Keep the number of DNS (domain name system) lookups on a page as small as possible as every new domain lookup adds time to loading. If you do need to have domain lookups, choose them carefully. We recommend limiting them to two domains. Be particularly aware of the third party domains, such as Google Analytics and Adobe to name just two common ones. Also make sure they are loading at the end to avoid delays which you, the site, operator, have no control over. Again this is critical for mobile performance – it is less impactful on desktops.

3. Keep the number of overall requests to ten or less. For example, one JavaScript file, one CSS etc. – anything to avoid the number of round trips on a 3G network.

Keynote tests the sites in the index hourly and around the clock from four locations over the three largest U.S. wireless networks, emulating the browsers of three different devices. Data is collected from San Francisco and New York and then aggregated to provide an overall monthly average in terms of both performance and availability.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

Filed under: Dev, Mobile

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'Big data' startup Sociocast has served 700M 'Prediction API' calls since shifting to SMBs (exclusive)

Big data and analytics startup Sociocast recently shifted its focus from enterprises to small and medium-sized businesses, but the move has already paid off with it serving more than 700 million calls from its flagship Prediction API in just a month.

"One of the biggest challenges with targeting enterprise is that sales cycles are very long, and it was hard to get traction," Sociocast CEO Albert Azout told VentureBeat. "But our new shift aligns better with the market. A lot of companies out there want smarter data now, and we can help with that."

Sociocast's Prediction API does exactly what you think it does — it helps companies make actionable predictions based on their data. Specifically, it can help give predictions in two categories: 1) Entities (number of users, devices, cookies, social media IDs, and so on) and 2) Clustering (grouping together various entities).

Azout said the majority of its customers use the API for advertising and audience targeting, but there are also businesses using it to serve media recommendations. Pricing starts at $39 per month for tiny developers and goes up to $4,999 per month for demanding big data users.

Sociocast announced last month that it had raised $1 million in new funding and would move its Prediction API to a self-service model tailored to small and medium-sized businesses. 42 new customers have been signed up since that time, and Azout expects the company will have 150 customers by the end of Q2. The company also plans to continue building out features on top of the Prediction API, including churn and anomaly detection.

"We're one of the only prediction companies trying to convince developers to embed our solution into their products," Azout said. "And the trajectory of the business is to eventually offer it as a virtual appliance behind the firewall."

New York-based Sociocast was founded in 2010 and has attracted nearly $6 million in funding to date. Customers using the Prediction API include Quicken Loans, StyleCaster, Are You a Human, and FlxOne.

Fortune teller photo via Everett Collection/Shutterstock

Filed under: Big Data, New York

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Funding Daily: Analyze it

So, we've got all this data out there. We collect it, we store it, we think it's awesome and we boast about all the types of stuff we now know. But when it comes down to it, to really know it, we've got to analyze it.

That what investors were thinking today when they put their cash into companies like the ones below. MyBuys takes that data and help businesses make sure their products are reaching the people who would be interested in them. If it actually works, can you say, ca-ching? And Visual.ly doesn't just analyze the data, it makes it beautiful through its graphical renderings of data.

Veritrix might be the odd one out here, though it does collect a lot data — that is, your face and your voice every time you log in to your company's system.

For more funding news as it happens, subscribe to our Deals Channel feed. You can also follow VentureBeat on Twitter, @venturebeat, to view funding news as it's published.

Veritrix takes authentication to the next level by recording your image and voice, gets $2.4M

Veritrix believes that you'll only be able to truly "authenticate," or know who's logging into your system by physically identifying them. The company raised $2.4 million in a funding round today, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. eritrix's software as a service product, which it calls the Sovay Sever, makes sure that the person logging in is really the person in the chair by taking video and voice recordings of the person to let them in. That is, you can your traditional login and password combination, but then the Sovay Sever will step in and make the person record a statement through the computer's webcam. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

Data visualization startup Visual.ly grabs another $2M to take on ad agencies

Big data may be cool, but it's not pretty. Visual.ly, a startup focused on data visualizations and infographics, has raised a new $2 million round of funding, the company has confirmed to VentureBeat today. Visual.ly's platform is like a "basecamp" for design projects that want to utilize big data from multiple sources. It's clients (brands, businesses, and news organizations) subscribe for access to the platform, which can match them with Visual.ly's community of over 55,000 designers. Once matched,the designer and the client work together using the platform, with Visual.ly's team acting as a project manager. Essentially, it answer the question of what do to for companies after they've hired a designer and don't quite know what to do next. Read the full story on VentureBeat.

MyBuys gets $1M to watch your customers and predict the products they'll want most

MyBuys works with retailers to follow customers around the Internet and provide them with advertising and opportunities to interact with not just your brand, but the specific products MyBuys believes they'll want. The company's technology looks at your customers' behavior, such as whether they interact with emails, click on advertising, abandon their shopping carts, what items they like, what prices they're willing to pay, and what they've bought in the past. After compiling that data, it pushes out the products it deems most likely to get purchased through email promotions, advertising, and even snail mail. The company raised $1 million in funding, according to a filing with the SEC and is backed by Palomar Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and RHO Ventures.

Analysis image via Shutterstock

Filed under: Deals

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Essential questions to answer properly whilst talking to a VC as a startup

1.     What do you do?
2.     What's the problem you solve?
3.     Why do you solve it better than competitors?
4.     What's your vision?
5.     Why are you the best people to make this work?
6.     What are your financial forecasts?
7.     How much money do you need?
8.     What are you going to do with funding?
9.     Who is on your management team?
10.     Who is on your board of advisors?
11.     What is your exit strategy?
12.     What is your business model?

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Twitter Forecast Up After Strong Mobile Showing

 

 

Mar 28, 2013

Twitter ad revenue to near $1 billion in 2014

eMarketer has raised its forecast for advertising spending on Twitter for 2013 and 2014, estimating the company will earn $582.8 million in global ad revenue in 2013 before nearing $1 billion next year.

According to the new forecast, more than half of Twitter's ad revenues—about 53%—will come from mobile advertising this year, up from virtually no ad revenue from mobile in 2011.

Advertising on mobile devices will be where Twitter sees the most incremental growth over the next two years. By 2015, Twitter is expected to pull in $1.33 billion in worldwide ad revenue, more than 60% of which will come from mobile advertising.

The upward revision comes as advertisers have shown more interest in spending money on mobile advertisements on Twitter, and as recent audience figures from multiple research sources analyzed by eMarketer have suggested Twitter's reach is improving.

eMarketer believes Twitter has ultimately benefited from the increased focus on mobile by competitors like Google and Facebook, which have both expanded their own mobile ad offerings and worked to convince advertisers to shift dollars to mobile devices. The launch of the Ads API will also contribute to incremental growth for Twitter this year, though eMarketer had already built that product into its December forecast for mobile ad revenues.

Twitter also continues to benefit from what has been termed the “native” nature of its ad products, whose integration with the core user experience of the platform allows the company to deliver similar ads seamlessly across multiple devices at high volume. It also means the company has been able to build its mobile advertising business quickly.

eMarketer estimates Twitter will earn $308.9 million in mobile ad revenue in 2013—which is more than the company earned in total, from any ad type, in 2012, when it made $138.4 million from mobile ads.

The bulk of Twitter's ad revenue is expected to continue to come from the US—about 83% this year, down from 90% in 2012. By 2015, Twitter’s continued expansion of foreign sales operations is expected to help non-US ad revenue reach $319 million, up from just under $100 million this year.

eMarketer forms its forecast through an analysis of estimates from many research sources that track media buying trends, advertising and other revenue indicators; Twitter usage statistics from research firms and user surveys; and eMarketer interviews with executives at ad agencies, brands, online ad publishers and other industry leaders.

While eMarketer's estimates for Twitter's revenue in 2012 remain unchanged compared to the previous forecast, the figures for future years have increased significantly to reflect the company's recent trajectory. eMarketer forecast in September that Twitter would earn just over $800 million in 2014, and did not issue an estimate on 2015 revenue.

Digital's Share of Local Ad Spend Poised for Gains

 

Mar 28, 2013

Digital media to grow, traditional media to shrink

Digital has a special role to play in local advertising, especially as mobile has come into the picture and offered better opportunities for targeting consumers.

As such, according to BIA/Kelsey’s March 2013 forecast of US local media ad spending, the role of digital in the local ad market will continue to expand. BIA/Kelsey expects total local spending to reach $132.7 billion this year, essentially flat relative to 2012, when it was $132.5 billion. The composition of that spending will shift, however, as traditional spending declines from $109.4 billion to $107 billion in 2013 and digital spending increases from $23 billion to $25.7 billion.

BIA/Kelsey predicts local ad spending to resume growing in coming years, reaching $145.2 billion in 2016, for a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2012 and 2016 of 2.3%. Most of this growth is projected to come through additional ad spending on digital media. Local digital ad spending’s CAGR is predicted to be 12.6% in the same time period, while traditional media is set to decline slightly, with a CAGR of -0.3%.

Accordingly, digital’s share of local ad spending will increase throughout the decade. By 2016, more than one in every four local ad dollars will be spent on digital media. By 2017, local digital ad spending will reach $41.1 billion, accounting for 27.6% of the $148.8 billion US local ad market.

The BIA/Kelsey data indicates that local advertisers are transitioning to digital slightly more slowly than advertisers overall. In December 2012, eMarketer estimated that 24.6% of total US media ad spending will go toward digital by the end of this year—BIA/Kelsey estimated that digital will account for 19.4% of the local ad market at that time. This gap is expected to narrow over the course of the decade: By 2017, eMarketer projected that digital spending will account for 29.1% of US total media spending, while BIA/Kelsey expects the local market will be 27.6% digital by then.

Aceleradora Ventiur.net

 

Começou a operar a Ventiur.net, uma aceleradora de empresas que reúne nomes de peso do setor de TI e amplo apoio entre entidades, parques tecnológico e órgãos de governo do Rio Grande do Sul.

Compõem a aceleradora 12 sócios-investidores com planos de investir R$ 9 milhões em negócios inovadores até o final de 2015. O capital inicial é de R$ 600 mil.

Participam do grupo empresários gaúchos como Cesar Braga (Gestum), Fabio Defferrari (Defferrari), Fábio Furtado Ramos (Grupo Ciberbras), Márcio Coelho (Gad'Brivia), Siegfried Koelln (SKA) e Alexandre Costa (Perseus e Energy Telecom).

Também estão no grupo nomes conhecidos no meio empresarial como Carlos André Maltese Klein, ex-diretor executivo do Sebrae-RS e CEO da Esade, José Fernando Mattos, idealizador do PGQP e presidente da consultoria Index e Lando Kravetz, ex-VP do Citibank e diretor de vendas da com.

Ao todo, os participantes já investiram R$ 12 milhões nos últimos três anos a título pessoal em startups.

Também participam 17 profissionais atuando como mentores. Eles dedicarão de 4 a 12 horas mensais para os projetos da aceleradora.

O grupo inclui André Marcelo Knorst, diretor adjunto da AGDI, Carlos Eduardo de Souza Aranha, coordenador da Unitec, incubadora tecnológica da Unisinos, Dario Azevedo, professor da PUC-RS e ex-diretor técnico da Secretaria de Ciência e Tecnologia, Helio Galvão Ciffoni, coordenador do Escritório Ásia da Softex, Oscar Kronmeyer, gerente regional da Abinee-RS e Susana Kakuta, gestora executiva do Tecnosinos.

A gestão cotidiana da aceleradora será feita pela Venti Inteligência em Projetos, que cederá espaço físico, em parceria com Nós Coworking, Ionatec, Partec e Softsul. Um segundo momento deve incluir espaços em incubadoras da PUC-RS, Unisinos, Feevale e UFSM.

Em termos de apoio institucional, embarcaram na iniciativa todas as entidades empresariais de TI do RS (Assespro, Seprorgs, Softul, CETI, Abinee, Internetsul, ATIVales, CentroSoftware, TrinoPolo, AGETI), as prefeituras de Porto Alegre e Pelotas e o governo do estado, por meio da Procergs e Badesul.

“O Rio Grande do Sul estava ficando para trás quando o assunto é incentivo às startups. Conseguimos unir o setor de TI em torno disso”, comemora Sandro Cortezia, um dos diretores da Venti.

Cortezia foi diretor executivo da Associação do Polo de Informática de São Leopoldo e consultor responsável pelo Projeto Setorial de Software do RS, articulando cerca de 200 MPEs do setor de TI no estado.

De acordo com o diretor da Venti, a ideia da Ventiur.net é promover seleções de empresas interessadas trimestralmente, dando início a um processo no qual os interessados participariam de cursos e receberiam coaching para melhorar seus modelos de negócio e finalmente receber um investimento da aceleradora, do tipo feito por investidores anjo.

Fonte: Baguete

Solving for Media Fragmentation

 

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2257346/solving-for-media-fragmentation

Leah Block  |  March 26, 2013   |  0 Comments

Media fragmentation, that pesky trend that keeps occurring, is making it increasingly more difficult for marketers and advertisers to keep up. In a world of ever-changing technological developments and shifts in consumer behavior, what can brands do to maintain relevancy and impact? The answer is integration.

No, I'm not talking about having similar creative messaging across paid search, display, and email to appear consistent in the minds of consumers. Though this is important, it alone does not solve the problem. I'm also not talking about retargeting to link behavior from one part of the funnel to the next. This is also important, but it too will not help solve the problem.

The best way to create an integrated campaign is to share data, and share it quickly. The teams that find a way to build integrated reports that can be reviewed regularly are the ones that will succeed best in this new world. Why? It's simple. The easier it is to share data, the more insight the team has to work with when planning and optimizing a campaign. Nimbleness with data opens up the opportunity for cross-tactic optimization, cross-device optimization, and ultimately, the ability for advertisers to more easily find and be where their consumers are digitally.

Cross-Tactic Optimization

Knowing when to use paid search versus display versus social or email is important, but knowing how to optimize between them is even more important. When data is shared between each tactic and the team can look at the date holistically, better, more qualified decisions can be made to help allocate funds to what's working and where there are gaps that need to be filled. It's no longer effective to simply set a budget by tactic and leave it. Budgets now need to shift around based on how consumers are moving through the digital landscape.

Cross-Device Optimization

Just as important as looking across all the tactics is looking across all the digital devices that a consumer uses. Numerous studies show that consumers are now multi-screen and that their primary screen of interest changes by time of day. Being able to easily shift strategy and dollars by device will help marketers and advertisers stay with the consumers as they move through their new multi-screen lives.

So how can teams be more nimble with their data?

For starters, attribution modeling is the most accurate way to know how all tactics and devices are working together and what levers are best to pull when optimizing results. However, you do not necessarily need attribution modeling to begin building campaign integration. Regular meetings with the entire team will help begin the process because they will allow for:

1. Sharing of data and insight.
2. A stronger view of what your target audience is doing online and where you should be focusing your efforts.
3. Ideation for both tactical and larger solutions.

It's easy to get caught up in all the daily tasks associated with your part of the campaign, so you may never stop to see what the other teams are doing. It's also easy to get siloed when competitive agencies handle different parts of the business. If you push to share data and more closely work together though, the overall benefits are well worth the effort. Being able to think through the nitty-gritty details of a campaign as well as through the larger picture that the client is wrestling with will help the team move toward integration, and ultimately, toward better allocation of funds to reach the consumer in her fragmented media world.

Fragmentation image on home page via Shutterstock.

14 Tips on How to Become a More Efficient SEO Professional

 

Richard Kirk, March 26, 2013

•Text Link Ads is the premiere targeted traffic and link popularity ad firm.

If you’re at work, you know there are things that you could be doing right now to improve your website’s SEO. Chances are you probably have a social network open in another browser tab right now as you're reading this, and you've probably checked your email at some point in the last 10 minutes.

How much work have you actually done in the last hour? The last few days? This month?

Would you have expected more from that time if you had been paying someone by the hour to do your job? Just how productive are you?

In today’s tough economy, SEO professionals who constantly try to boost their productivity are going to go far. The "optimization" in SEO implies that there is always something more which can be done to improve organic search visibility, so the faster and smarter you can work, the better results get and happier your stakeholders will be.

However, most SEO professionals live on the web, where distractions are myriad and something new crops up almost every minute. How do you improve productivity in the face of so many things to do? Even more importantly, how do you stop a slow slide into idleness and unproductivity?

In the past I found myself slacking off at work and I had to confront myself with the truth that my productivity level and low attention span was something I couldn't afford to ignore.

The following ideas are all tactics I have tried and tested in the past 12 months to help me boost my output. I’m proud to say that at a recent appraisal I was commended for how I had boosted my productivity in 2012, so some of them must be decent ideas!

Stay Focused With Helpful Software and Browser Extensions

A good place to start is by installing useful software and browser extensions.

1. Stayfocusd

Browser extension Stayfocused allows you to create a blacklist of websites you know kill your productivity and sets an amount of time you can spend on them each weekday. It also includes sites you visit from your blacklist (good if you’re a reddit addict) and can suggest sites you might want to add to your blacklist based on behavior.

It's also fiendishly difficult to change Stayfocused's settings once installed, so it’s unlikely you will go back to your old ways!

2. Quick Login for Google Accounts

Do you have multiple logins for personal and professional Google Accounts? I do and the Quick Login for Google Accounts extension is an absolute godsend!

Quickly switch between up to 10 Google accounts and never forget a password again. Working in an agency, I reckon this saves me at least an hour a week.

3. WriteMonkey

WriteMonkey is a word processor with a totally stripped back user experience that can help with longer consultancy documents or blog posts. This boils the writing process down to just me and my words and I can get through the writing stage of producing a document much faster.

4. Pocket

It’s important to stay up to date when you work in search and every SEO should be spending some time each day learning or keeping up with industry news. However, all that reading can be a real killer when it comes to getting work done.

Pocket is a useful tool that allows you to easily store interesting articles, videos, or snippets of text in an accessible place for consumption at a more appropriate time (e.g., during your commute or while you’re sitting on the sofa at home).

5. Timer

Use timers to build your concentration span. Timer is a good example.

If you really struggle to concentrate on a piece of work, start off by trying to focus on it for just 10 minutes of your time then build that time up and up. If this works for you then you should investigate the Pomodoro technique further (see tip 12).

Increase Your Excel and PowerPoint Productivity

Most SEO professionals will spend time in Microsoft Office. If you can get things done faster here, then you can start to outpace your colleagues.

6. Increase Productivity in Excel

• If you’re editing a lot of data you might need to view how changes in one area make a difference somewhere off-screen, perhaps in another worksheet tab. Moving back and forth takes time, so a great feature is a small Watch Window that can show the area of the workbook your changes are affecting. Highlight the cells you want to watch. Then click Formulas > Watch Window > Add Watch. Simply return to the area of your worksheet that you're editing and the Watch Window will hover in the corner as you work.
• I quite often need to format several worksheet exactly the same way. Excel's grouped worksheets feature makes this easy: Ctrl-click the tabs that you want to group together, and the grouped tabs turn white. While sheets are grouped, anything you enter in one sheet also gets entered into the others.
• Hold Alt+I+C to insert column left – this shortcut saves so much time!

7. Increase Productivity in Powerpoint

• Using the clipboard pane saves endless cycling between slides copying and pasting various objects as it can store 24 items – useful for when you are constructing slides that "build" or you are using a range of icons to represent characters in your presentation’s story arc.
• Highlight multiple text items and use shift+f3 to toggle between various capitalization options – loads easier than changing individual letters manually – something I see happening all the time and it drives me nuts!
• Ctrl+D duplicates an object – stop using ctrl+c, ctrl+v.

Change Begins With You

If procrastination is a problem though, fancy shortcuts and browser extensions aren’t going to make a long-term improvement to your productivity levels. Unfortunately, you're going to have to make a real effort to change yourself and your working habits. I know, because this was where I was 12 months ago.

8. Music

Some people find that setting suitable music to match the task you are working on leads to productivity gains. Some people find it easier to work with classical or jazz music playing. This is known as the Mozart effect, although its effectiveness has been questioned.

9. Create Dead Time

Another great lifestyle tip is to get rid of variables within your life: choices which are redundant and simply create dead time. I love this approach even though it involves acknowledging when dead time occurs in your life (and for me there was a shocking amount).

Stuff like:

• Buying every day essentials at a store is dead time (set up consistent repeat grocery deliveries using online shopping tools).
• Time spent waiting for spreadsheet downloads is dead time (use APIs to bring the data directly into Excel).
• Time spent topping your subway/bus card is dead time (set it up to refill automatically).

When you realize that for all of these problems there is a quicker automated solution and you make the small, one-time effort to implement it, you free up lots of time in the future. An additional benefit is that this technique focuses your creativity on the times where it could really add value.

10. Limit Your Email Time

A huge timesaver for me has been changing to a "surgery hours" model for email; this means only checking and responding to email three times each day. This allows you to dedicate larger blocks of time to concentrating on specific tasks.

Unscheduled interruptions do happen, and some initial frustration will arise with colleagues, but after explaining the system and demonstrating that it allows you to get more done, people shouldn’t mind. An added bonus is that people will come and talk to you directly when something is urgent rather than emailing; in almost all cases this leads to quicker reconciliation.

11. Benefits vs. Time: Prioritizing Tasks

In order to better plan your week more effectively, take your to-do list and plot tasks on a benefit (most impact on success to least impact) vs. time to implementation axis. This allows you to visualize which of your tasks will bring most benefit in the shortest time.

One example could be to prioritize emailing a client a mini-success story about a weekly performance improvement before completing the whole weekly report, a task which will take longer and in which your success story might be buried.

12. The Pomodoro Technique

If you suffer with low productivity or a poor ability to plan your day the Pomodoro technique can make a real difference.. Pomodoro Technique allows you to structure tasks and set aside time to complete them while allowing you the time to have regular breaks in your day.

To get you started here are the five basic steps to implementing Pomodoro technique:

• Decide on the task to be done.
• Set the pomodoro (timer) to 25 minutes.
• Work on the task until the timer rings; record with an x.
• Take a short break (3-5 minutes).
• Every four "pomodori" take a longer break (15–30 minutes).

13. Sleep

One final tip is a little extreme and could probably only work for those of you with flexible working arrangements, but changing your sleep cycle could prove to be beneficial.

A short burst of intense work on priority topics very early in the morning followed by a short power nap before starting “normal” work can help make the working day less stressful and more productive as the most pressing issues are resolved early.

14. Want It Bad Enough

Ultimately, my top tip if you feel you are being unproductive is to take a step back and question your underlying thoughts about your job: through my own attempts to improve my output I realized I could only boost productivity (especially through ending procrastination) if I wanted “it” bad enough. I think the same is true for a great many procrastinators.

“It” could be anything, from marketing success, to great feedback from a client or boss, to a pay raise. However, if you don’t want "it" bad enough, you will continue to struggle with procrastination because there will always be a reason to put off knuckling down and getting on with work.

If this is the case, ignore online zealots who say "life is rubbish, stop whining and get on with it." Acknowledge that your unproductiveness is a big issue you should spend some time (downtime, not work time!) trying to deal with.

To reach your full potential, will you need to change your job or career? Are you genuinely doing something you want to be doing? What are the real mid- to long-term consequences going to be if you walk away from your role?

Answering these questions will help you realize what “it” is; the reward that will act as kryptonite to your procrastination.

Bottom Line

When it comes to being more productive, if you have the appetite to succeed you will, through hard work, become more productive. If you don't, you won't. It’s as simple as that.

Has anyone else worried about their productivity at work? How did you tackle that? Do you have an awesome Excel or PowerPoint tip? Tell us all in the comments!

The Future Of Radio In The Car Discussion Makes It To USA Today

 

http://www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/116690/the-future-of-radio-in-the-car-discussion-makes-it?ref=mail_news

March 25, 2013 at 4:41 AM (PT)

The discussion over the battle for the car dashboard has made it very mainstream -- with USA TODAY writing, "Radio broadcasters face being squeezed off the dial as stereo makers offer an array of new apps with thousands of new listening options in new cars," but concludes traditional radio is likely to remain the first choice for most consumers.

The report notes that new audio units "not only offer satellite or HD radio, but apps that bundle signals from Internet radio broadcasters across the country. The result is that conventional broadcasters are being forced to adapt by emphasizing quality local or targeted content, working different distribution channels or maybe becoming part of a bundle themselves," and adds "The competitive path will only get tougher as the newest stereo units arrive either through new car purchases or the aftermarket."

Webcasters and various apps in the car are likened to cut into traditional radio much as magazines and newspapers have lost readership to bloggers and other content creators on the web, but USA TODAY noted that "So far, though, radio broadcasters haven't see a ratings drop-off, even among younger listeners, ARBITRON reports. Nearly six of 10 adults listen to AM/FM radio either all or most of the time they are in the car, the ratings agency reports, far ahead of listening to CDs at 15%, portable digital players at 11% or satellite radio at 10%."

Despite much talk about AM/FM radio potentially disappearing from the dashboard, automakers "have no plans to yank radios from cars," the article finds. "We see a bright future for radio," said GENERAL MOTORS spokesman SCOTT FOSGARD. "While AM/FM is not at 'peril,' FORD MOTOR spokesman ALAN HALL told the paper, 'you're going to see more options' for in-car entertainment amid 'fierce' competition."

26 Ways to Use Visuals in Your Social Media Marketing

 

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-tips-visual-social-media-marketing-strategy/

By Debbie Hemley
Published March 20, 2013

Have you noticed more photos on social networks?

Do you have a visual component as part of your social media marketing strategy?

Do you need some help in getting started or maintaining momentum in sharing more visual content and in creating a visual conversation with your audience?

In this post, you’ll find 26 tips, an A-Z guide, for getting started with a visual strategy.

#1: Add Text to Your Photos

Do you want to get more mileage out of the photos you share on your social sites? You can, when you add text to your images.

Adding text to a photo can help you get your message across faster. And these messages are more likely to be shared by others on social media.

Add text to images to heighten the message.

Do you want to find some easy tools to include text in the photos you share on social media? Check out the photo editors in #4 below.

#2: Break Through the Clutter

There’s a lot of content out there vying for our attention. As Krista Neher suggests, “Optimize your social content to break through the clutter with images. Most leading businesses are making use of images in their content on all social networks. Your Facebook, Twitter, blog and even LinkedIn strategies should include images.”

Visuals will help break through the clutter.

Consider varying the types of content you share on your social channels and be sure to include photos and other forms of visual content to keep your readers interested.

#3: Create a Collage

When you have several great images to choose from and can’t decide, why not create a collage? Here are some instructions for how to make a collage with PicMonkey and other free collage-making tools.

PicMonkey was used to make this collage of Social Media Examiner images.

Collages communicate a number of brand messages and offer a simple yet effective way to engage users. Think about your different social media outlets and see if there are places where a collage would work well for you.

#4: Desktop Photo Editors

Is the photo you have perfect for your needs? Or does it need some editing?

There are many paid and free options for desktop photo editors on Mac and PCs to help you crop, resize, enhance, add text and more.

Screenshot from the Mac App Store's selection of photo editors.

Photo editing apps have come a long way over the years. Years back, the average user may have felt that editing was out of their league completely but programs have made it possible to make quick and easy edits that strengthen a photo andcreate a better overall image of your business.

#5: Encourage People to Share Photos With Your Business

The photo-sharing tools available today provide companies another communication avenue with their audience.

One fun way to get users to submit photos is to make it part of a contest that you’re sponsoring.

Example from Nestle Kitchen All Things Chocolate Contest on Facebook.

Users enjoy sharing photos. And contests help businesses reach out to their users in a creative way, while at the same time making it possible to gather a large crowdsourced photo library of images related to your products.

#6: Facebook Covers

The cover photos for Facebook give you a lot of real estate (specifically 851 x 315 px) to demonstrate visually what your business is about. There are a number ofgreat resources to help you create cool Facebook cover photos.

Cover photo from Starbucks' Facebook Page.

Create an inviting Facebook cover and don’t be afraid to change it periodically. For example, Starbucks currently has a photo album of 25 cover photos and may choose to profile one that shows a new drink or holiday theme.  The photo used above was replaced by another photo within one week.

#7: Generate Leads With Facebook Photos

Companies are finding that they can generate more followers and leads by posting a high percentage of photos on social sites.

Some of the brands with largest followings on Facebook have posted an impressive number of timeline photos; for example, Coca Cola 6,459 photos, Oreo 2,359 and Red Bull 5,299. And consider these Facebook facts, “Photos get 7 times more likes and 10 times more shares than links.”

People love Facebook updates that contain visuals. Brands of all sizes are beginning to use more and more.

Do you know what type of visuals will work for your business? Or are you struggling to keep up a good momentum? Think about visuals as part of your strategyand allocate time to brainstorm and create a library you can tap into over the next week, month or even longer.

#8: How-to Images

Sometimes photos can make things simple for your audience. What does your audience struggle with?

Photos are a powerful way to show your readers a step-by-step guide on how to carry out specific tasks.

From WikiHow, example of how to use Instagram.

Users respond well when you show how to carry out a task that may otherwise seem complex to them, even with simple screenshots.

#9: Infographics

Infographics are visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present complex information quickly and clearly (from Wikipedia). Users love them and they’re shared often on social sites.

There are a number of tools to help you create your own infographic.

Example from Wikipedia: Infographics.

Of course, yours may not be as intricate as the one above of the Metrorail, but taking a number of facts from a few studies and showing them visually may help to effectively communicate information and capture the attention of a user who may otherwise not have the time to read long reports.

#10: Just the Facts

Are there any other ways you can use visual content? There are times when a simple chart or visualization will help drive home the facts.

Example from Social Media Examiner's Social Media Marketing Industry Report 2012 .

Writers are often told to “show, don’t tell” and a simple visual representation of the information can do this well. For marketers, charts and illustrations can be very effective tools—for example, seeing the difference between percentages can give users a better picture of the significance of the statistics.

#11: Keep Landing Pages Simple

Many components of your marketing collateral can benefit with strong visuals, including landing pages.

Randi Lucius writes, “Have clear, relevant images—either of the product or something closely related. Don’t overdo it though—usually a large banner image is sufficient.”

Talk about what separates you from the competition.

The visual may be part of the message and it’s an important one. A distorted or out of proportion photo can even subliminally create a poor image of a business and their products and services.

#12: Lettered Quotes

Maria Popova of Brain Pickings worked with illustrator Wendy MacNaughton to create this amazing illustrated description of Susan Sontag and art.

A combination of words and illustration makes this visual highly eye-catching and memorable.

This type of image can help communicate a lot of information; for example, who you are, the benefits of your products and services, mission statements and how prospects can reach you.

#13: Make Certain Every Blog Post Has at Least One Pinnable Image

Pinterest is a fantastic way to have your posts shared with an even wider audience. When someone selects Pin It, they will see the image choices for  your article. Terry League suggests you make sure every post has at least one pinnable image.

The pin bookmarklet is an easy process for users to share articles on Pinterest.

Even while I’m in the process of writing this article, you can get the idea of what users would see if they tried to pin this post:

Example of some of the pinnable images in this post so far!

Pinterest has made sharing images incredibly easy and fun. An image pinned on Pinterest may help tap into users who may not have come across your blog post through other channels.

#14: Notetaking Visually

Wesley Fryer describes visual notetaking as a “process of representing ideas non-linguistically… visual notetaking can include concept mapping, but also more artistic ways of visually capturing and representing ideas.” Image below from Leo Babauta.

Example from The Map of Distractions and Focus by Leo Babauta.

Some people learn better visually than through the written word. When done well, visual notetaking is an effective communication tool and can also be a fun resource to take users on a journey with you.

#15: Optimize Images

JC Parmley emphasizes it is important that your images are properly optimized without sacrificing too much of the quality.

Optimize without losing image quality.

Your blog may also have specific dimensions for images, yet just resizing to fit within those dimensions may do the visual a disservice. There are times when one image works better than another—train your eye to recognize the difference.

#16: Photo Ideas

There are times when you may feel at a loss for how to create more exciting original photos. Anjelika Paranjpe provides some wonderful creative ideas represented below.

And keep in mind too that Instagram filters and a host of other mobile phone apps will provide a number of ways to make an ordinary photo look more unique.

Look for ideas to spark your photo creativity.

There are photos and there are photos. What draws you in? What makes you take a little extra time looking at an image? What feelings does the photo evoke? Users are making those types of conscious and unconscious decisions every day. How can your images stand out and stand the test of time?

#17: Quotes Are Highly Shareable

The sharing of quotes on social sites has also increased in the past year.  There are a number of tools to create quotes from something you’ve read online and even your own articles.

To make this quote, I used Quote with Quizio on my browser’s toolbar, highlighted the text I wanted to use and then was presented with choices for fonts, background color and attribution.

Step 1:

Highlighting the text you want to quote helps make a great visual from the written word.

Step 2:

You can create the look for your visual with a few easy selections.

Quotes have a way of generating a sense of authority and make readers take notice of a statement that could easily get lost.

#18: Reviews as Images

Positive reviews can go a long way. Why not take a screenshot of a review and save it as an image to include on your social sites?

Share customer reviews on social sites.

Reviews can be spread out and shared on different pages. Some users may not be inclined to see a review on Yelp, for instance, but posting it on your Facebook Page can ensure that more followers will see it.

#19: Stock Photos

Kevin Mullett‘s list of stock photography sites demonstrates that there’s no shortage of companies to choose from. Some stock photography sites offer a free image on a regular basis. And if it works for your business, how perfect!

Here’s a recent offering from iStockPhoto that had been promoted on their Facebook Page.

Example of a free stock photograph. What can be bad?

Some businesses may find that opening an account with one stock photo company that has images that speak to their audience works well. And others may choose to vary the sources. Allocating time to find applicable images will be an important step in your visual social media marketing strategy.

#20: Try to Make Your Visual’s Filename a Good Description of the Subject Matter

As Google writes, “my-new-black-kitten.jpg is a lot more informative than IMG00023.JPG. Descriptive filenames can also be useful to users. If we’re unable to find suitable text on the page where we found the image, we’ll use the filename as the image’s snippet in our search results.”

The name of this video on the New York Times website included Willy Burnett's name and that it was from an article.

Naming an image may take a little extra time in preparing it to publish, but it will be well worth the extra effort!

#21: User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) covers a range of media content. National Geographicis a great example of a site that asks for photos from their audience in the column, “Your Shot.”

Readers submit their photos to "Your Shot" on National Geographic's website.

How can you solicit creative ways for users to submit photos of them using your products or services?

#22: Visual Content Types

While it would have worked well to have covered video for the letter “V,” I wanted to be sure to include at least mention of a couple of other types of visual content that Maria Pergolino and Jason Lankow point out in their presentation—namely, comics and memes (an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture [from Wikipedia]).

There are many visual content types to choose from. Mix them up!

The Old Spice Guy is an example of a highly successful meme.

For video, there are a number of good articles on Social Media Examiner including this one by Cindy King with 29 Tips from Social Media Examiner writers.

Use a variety of visual content to strengthen your visual social media marketing strategy.

#23: Word Photos

I have to admit, I’ve always been very drawn to these word photos. Why not take a great image and see how it looks generated in words?

The app WordFoto was used to create this word photo.

Carefully selected photos and words are a win-win—communicating visually and with words all at the same time.

#24: e(X)treme Close-Ups

There are close-ups and then there are extreme close-ups: “tightly framed and shown at a relatively large scale.” Extreme close-ups are dramatic and can capture and hold a user’s attention.

In this extreme close-up from from a photo contest on BetterPhoto.com you can almost feel the bristles on the brush.

Extreme close-ups can be quite beautiful and help your audience see the details they may have missed in a regular close-up.

#25: Your Big Moments

You’re proud of your accomplishments and you should be. So why not show your big moments? The award, the handshake. It’s very compelling.

Example from Smart CEO 100.

This kind of image helps spread the word about your accomplishments and is a good example of visual brand storytelling.

#26: Zoom In to Engage Users

Good short videos can say a lot about your business. And zooming in is a great way tobring attention to a particular product, service or point you want to draw your audience to.

Zooming in takes control and literally puts a subject in the viewer's face.

What do you want to emphasize to prospective and existing customers?  Zooming in helps represent visually what’s important, while also distinguishing important features and aspects of a business.

Using more visual content

In the past year, there’s been an increase in the use of visuals across social sites, and for good reasons. As Ekaterina Walter writes, “Brands can use visual content on their social media to increase engagement and inspire sharing and viral marketing.”

Here are some recommended resources:

• Visual Social Media Marketing (new book) by Krista Neher
• The Importance of Developing a Social Media Image Strategy by Alexandra Reid
• 3 Tips for Creating a Social Media Image Strategy by Terry League
• Are You Prepared for Visual Social Media Marketing? by Krista Neher

How have you been using visuals in your social media marketing strategy? While 26 tips may seem like a lot, it’s probably the tip of the iceberg. What would you add to the list? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Tags: debbie hemley, facebook photo, image, infographic, marketing strategy, social media marketing, social media marketing strategy, stock photo, storytelling, visual content, visual marketing, visual storytelling

10 Tools for Creating Infographics and Visualizations

 

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-tools-for-creating-infographics-visualizations

 

Hello there! I'm Miranda Rensch, Product Manager at SEOmoz and lover of visual communication. Communicating visually is one of the most effective ways to explain complex concepts and relationships, and can be a great way to explain your services/products and create valuable site content. I often use diagrams and whiteboarding in order to communicate new features and concepts internally with my team.

I've compiled a list of tools you can use to create visualizations, or simply use to communicate visually with your teammates. Enjoy, and feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments!

Tools for creating simple infographics and data visualizations

1. Piktochart

Piktochart is a web-based tool that has six decent free themes (and a whole bunch more for the paid version) for creating simple visualizations. You can drag and drop different shapes and images, and there is quite a bit of customization available. You can also add simple line, bar, and pie charts using data from CSV (or manual entry). You can export to PNG and JPG in either print or web quality. Note that with the free version, you get a small Piktochart watermark on the bottom of the PNG / JPG downloads.

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2. Easel.ly

Easel.ly is another free web-based tool for creating infographics. You cannot create graphs using real data with this tool, but its really good for conceptual visualizations and storytelling. It has a beautiful user interface and the themes you can start with are gorgeous. The themes support many common purposes: map, flow-chart, and comparison/relationship graphing. This tool has the best selection of well-design objects (people, a bunch if icons, landmarks, maps, animals, etc.) and backgrounds that I've seen throughout this list of tools. Additionally, you can upload your own images with the free version. You can download a web-quality version as JPG. This tool is still in beta, but it seemed to work pretty well to me!

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3. Infogr.am

Infogr.am is another free, web-based tool with some really nice themes and a great interface for creating simple infographics. This option also allows you to create charts using real data. There are 31 chart options that offer some really cool displays, like a radial bar graph, scatter charts, bubble graphs, and map charts. You can also add your own images and video. When you're done creating your infographic, you can embed it on a website and publish it to the infogra.am site (I wasn't able to find a way to download). This app is also in beta, but again, seemed pretty solid to me.  

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4. Visual.ly

Visual.ly (I know, these visualization tools love their '.ly's!) has some simple free tools worth mentioning, many of which integrate with social networks to analyze Twitter and Facebook data. You can create fun Venn diagrams, Twitter account show-downs, visuals that analyze hash tags, and a few others, but there's almost no customization available. However, they offer a marketplace where you can get connected with visual designers and motion graphics artists who specialize in infographics. The site itself also has a ton ofgreat info graphics to inspire you or your designers. There is some serious data visualization eye candy in there, people.

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5. Tableau

Tableau has some free tools for creating data visualizations. It is not web based, so you have to download the software. Once you do, you can upload a spreadsheet or CSV and create a variety of interactive data visualizations types, including heat maps showing density of an activity by location, Venn diagrams to show associations, bar charts, line graphs, and others. This tool is for Windows only. See Tableau's gallery for examples of the types of visualizations you can create or learn more about how it works.

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[Bonus!] Looking for some more fantastically geeky data viz options?

Datavisualization.ch has created an excellent list of packages, libraries, and data visualization frameworks for creating more complex and interactive visualizations using your own data sets and dev environments.

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Tools for diagraming and wireframing

6. OmniGraffle

This is a desktop application that I use all the time at work. The interface is very intuitive, and it's quite an effective tool for wireframing in detail. You can customize and stylize objects to the extent that you can use the tool to create whole infographics exactly as you want them using this tool (it's difficult to do data visualizations with actual data, though). There are tons of free downloadable stencils which make it super easy to diagram mobile and web interfaces, architecture diagrams, and even office/home layouts. This tool has its cons, though; it's not the cheapest tool at $99 for standard and $199 for the pro version, and it's offered for Mac only.

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7. Balsamiq

This is another nice wireframing tool good for creating simple diagrams of web and mobile interfaces. It's $79 for the desktop version, but there's also a free web demo which is sufficient for simple diagramming.

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Other tools for visual communication

8. Make a video

The RSA Animate series (illustrations done by CognitiveMedia) is a really good example of using visual communication to accompany a verbal explanation of something. You can hire an illustration artist to do something like this, or do it up yourself Whiteboard Friday-style and draw on a whiteboard while you explain your topic (this works great in internal meetings too; try it next time you're trying to explain a concept to someone and see how it goes). If you hire an illustration artist, deliver the verbal script that they'll need to animate to and add points where you can see visuals supporting the topics, but give them freedom to explore creative ways to visualize, too.

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9. TimelineJS

TimelineJS uses a google spreadsheet with links to YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Sound Cloud, and other media sources to create really nice-looking timelines. You could use this tool to create an interactive visualization of the starting of your company, your client's company, tell the story of an industry, etc.

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10. Present.me

Present.me allows you to create presentations where you record yourself talking next to the slidesyou're presenting. This tool might be a good way for people working remotely to share a proposal or concept, or for documenting presentations you've given on your blog or site.

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Planning your infographic

So now you've got a bunch of tools you can play with, but before you go too crazy adding bubble charts and radial bar graphs, take some time to really plan out your infographic and what you want people to take away from it. Here are some tips on researching and planning a great visualization:

1. Learn from others

If you're not sure what type of info graphic to create, these sites can be great places to see what other people are doing:

• Visual.ly has a ton of great infographics to inspire you or your designers.
• Informationisbeautiful.net has a ton of great data visualizations.
• Datavisualization.ch has a variety of interactive data visualizations and information graphics.

2. Understand graph options and themes

It can also be helpful to think about the different types of visualizations that exist and the purpose they serve. Many Eyes by IBM Research made a really great list of graphing types and when to use them (i.e. when to use a stack graph vs bar chart vs scatterplot). Visual-literacy.org also made a really awesome Periodic Table of Visualizations that shows examples of every kind of graph type you can imagine.

There are also a few themes you can identify in the world of infographics; I've listed some of them below. Consider where yours might fit in.

Humor and social commentary: Make an observation about humanity, wine, beards, etc.

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Communicate relationships: Show density, proportion, and differences.

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Decision flow chart: Clarify options and paths.

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Timeline: Show a sequence of events.

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3. Plan your visualization

When you're beginning to brainstorm and develope your visualization, here are a few steps you can take:

1. Identify the take-away. What do you want your audience to learn from this visualization? Is there an action you want them to take? Is there a way you want them to feel (e.g. amused, surprised, like they understand an issue better)?
2. Brainstorm a "script" or flow for your infographic. Sit down with a notebook (or, better yet, with a whiteboard) and a few creative people, and list as many options for conveying your story as you can in thirty minutes or an hour. Don't get too attached to any one concept; just get a bunch out there to start. Consider the types of data available to you and how you could represent it (timeline, flow chart, relationship/proportion graphs, etc.).
3. See what other people are doing (there are some sites for inspiration listed above). Add any ideas you get for layout and graphic representation to your list of ideas. 
4. Choose one idea and wireframe it (again, there are a couple tools listed above). Run the concept by a few people. Ask them if any of it is confusing, or if there's something else related to what you've planned that they're curious about that you could consider adding. 
5. Create the graphic using one of the tools listed above, or hire someone to help you out. Here are some options for hiring contract infographics designers that we love: Freelancer, 99 designs,Designcrowd, Elance, Odesk, Nowsourcing, Columnfive, Infog8, and Mikewirthart.
6. Promote it! Justin Briggs wrote a nice article a while back about strategies for promoting infographics.

Good luck, visualizers! If you have any other suggestions for great ways to communicate visually on the web or IRL, please feel free to share!