NileshBabu

Visually delight stuff & some research in between
 

Small business, social media not mixing

Three-quarters of small businesses say they have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn helpful for generating business leads or expanding business in the past year, according to a survey conducted for Citibank Small Business of 500 U.S. businesses with fewer than 100 employees.

Also, 86 percent said they have not used social networking sites for information or business advice. 10 percent said they have sought business advice and information on expert blogs.

The survey found 42 percent of small businesses have made greater use of their company websites to generate business leads and sales.

Nineteen percent were doing more advertising to attract new customers in the economic downturn, 38 percent said they were doing less and 41 percent were doing the same, it found.

Also, 28 percent were using more email marketing and 25 percent using more online advertising to generate business leads and sales, it found.

via reuters.com

Filed under  //   citibank   facebook   linkedin   research   small business   social media   twitter  
Posted November 5, 2009
 

Is the Internet melting our brains?

I start with Plato's critique of writing where he says that if we depend on writing, we will lose the ability to remember things. Our memory will become weak. And he also criticizes writing because the written text is not interactive in the way spoken communication is. He also says that written words are essentially shadows of the things they represent. They're not the thing itself. Of course we remember all this because Plato wrote it down -- the ultimate irony.

We hear a thousand objections of this sort throughout history: Thoreau objecting to the telegraph, because even though it speeds things up, people won't have anything to say to one another. Then we have Samuel Morse, who invents the telegraph, objecting to the telephone because nothing important is ever going to be done over the telephone because there's no way to preserve or record a phone conversation. There were complaints about typewriters making writing too mechanical, too distant -- it disconnects the author from the words. That a pen and pencil connects you more directly with the page. And then with the computer, you have the whole range of "this is going to revolutionize everything" versus "this is going to destroy everything."

via salon.com

Fascinating read on evolution of writing / communication + impact & embracing the changes.

Filed under  //   communication   criticism   facebook   google   internet   revolution   salon  
Posted September 20, 2009
 

The Obama Speech Nutjobs Didn't Want Their Kids To Hear

Excellent speech - Obama always get the right message out - full of motivations, excellent examples - using example of common people etc; little bit of his history - amazing President.

Filed under  //   facebook   google   iphone   microsoft   obama   school   speech   xbox  
Posted September 8, 2009