 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
||
 |
|
||||
        
|
 |
|
|||
|
Marketing Savvy Hello Everybody, Happy 4th of July! For all those hard working business owners, take some time off and enjoy the freedom that is ours to appreciate. It's summer, but life hasn't slowed down a bit, so it's up to us to "make" the time available for relaxation and pleasure. Even if you only take 5 minutes off, do me a favor and promise me that you'll take off your shoes and walk barefoot in some cool grass. There's nothing like it anywhere. :-) Have a safe holiday. Now...on to the news. ********************************************************************************
Digital signatures are now accepted as legally as a handwritten signature. To prove it, President Clinton signed the new law "both" ways. Using a "smart card", he swiped it in, it confirmed that it was his signature and signed his name electronically. This new acceptance of digital signatures will speed up the process of business to business contracting, procurement, and other transactions. We have truly joined the technology age. This is quite a milestone in the history of the electronic revolution. http://computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO46596,00.html?pm ******************************************************
82.7 million people surfed the Internet in May. They spent an average of 30 minutes online each time and looked at an average of 36 pages each time. More statistics can be found in this report from CyberAtlas. http://cyberatlas.internet.com/big_picture/traffic_patterns/article/0, ********************************************************
According to Business 2.0, most businesses online do not provide good customer service and they are still "playing around" in the Internet sandbox. Most businesses set up websites, but really don't expect to get orders. When they do, they simply aren't ready to handle them. They put 70 businesses to the test - find out how they failed and in what ways. The important thing to remember is that the customer is still number one and we have to please that customer if we want repeat business from our web sites. http://www.business2.com/content/magazine/indepth/2000/06/28/13698 ********************************************************
Jesse takes statements made by top tech CEO's and explains why they are so stupid. The funniest one is AOL's comment to the federal regulators that asked them to allow others to connect to their instant messaging program. It seems that they "can't do it right now". Something about being concerned about the privacy of their users. <giggle> I wonder where their privacy concerns are when they sell their subscriber list to advertisers? Maybe the federal regulators haven't offered up enough "monetary incentive" for AOL to comply. ;-) Gotta love AOL and its privacy concerns. It does come in handy, when necessary, for keeping a stranglehold on the instant messaging market. http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2596262,00.html ********************************************************
And who says corporate espionage is old hat? Oracle admits to hiring private detectives to do a little snooping. Another article I read said that they even offered to pay for Microsoft's trash so that they could sift through it. Oh my. http://computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO46451,00.html?pm ********************************************************
This isn't surprising. Look what they did with the operating system. Ironically, the DOJ punishment requiring the "break up" of Microsoft has caused them to "re-think" their business and that's probably been better for Microsoft than anything else that's happened to them lately. Talk about taking lemons and making lemonade. Wow! None of this will effect us today, but look for it to make an impact in the next several years. Will Microsoft be able to pull it off? I don't know, but it's definitely in our best interest to keep an eye on what they are doing and how they plan to do it. Jakob Neilsen explains this fairly clearly in his article. If you're a glutton for more punishment or interested in more, follow the links at the end of the article. This is some scary stuff for those of us in the industry, even if it didn't make the "media" headlines. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000625.html Jesse Berst asked his readers about this and they had a whole lot to say. He is paying attention too: http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2595479,00.html ************************************************************************ “I've learned that going the
extra mile puts you miles ahead of your competition.” --Age 66, Live and Learn and Pass It On ************************************************************************ ©1997-2000 CreativeWriting.com, LLC |
|
||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||