Dropbox is the best application I have seen for ages

Dropbox is simply genius. Every other online file storage site out there including Windows Live’s dismal attempt, Skydrive,should fire their entire product and development teams and bow down at the mercy of Dropbox genius.

Simply download the app start your account and it’s just there, a folder on your computer just like any other, so you can store your files online seamlessly without having to go to a URL, login to anything or uploading files one-by-one (Skydrive, seriously is that the best you can do?). It’s so seamless that people wouldn’t even realise that they are storing stuff online if you installed the program for them (I’m thinking of my Mom here).

Staying on the theme of simplistic genius, you can link as many of your computers to your account as you like, so whatever is on Dropbox on your work PC is on Dropbox on your home PC.

Great features include:

• Ability to add friends to specific folders so that folder appears in their Dropbox seamlessly, but not the folder with all your naughty pics!
• Versioning for collaboration of documents although I haven’t tried this yet.
• 2 gigs of free storage!
• An online site with all your files in case you aren’t at any of your computers.
• a public link to a pretty funky gallery of your pics in case you want to share them with Mum, who’s only just learnt how to click a link on an email, but it works per folder so once again, hiding your naughties.

If you’ve got two computers, collaborate remotely, are a digital nomad,  or share files often, you have to try this program. The sheer simplistic genius is hard to appreciate until you have given it a go.

My New Blog

I've started a new blog that will focus more on communicating to current and potential clients about the need to engage in social media. It's not exactly perfected yet but I'm very happy with the look and current functionality.

I've written the first post, expaning on my Lunatic Fringe Model about how web 2.0 affects your business and what you can do about it.

Enjoy and let me know what you think.

Marketing with Twitter Revisited

 

Since my last article about Twitter marketing, I have been keeping a close eye on my stats while I network both online and offline with the key focus of growing quality following/follower relationships on Twitter.

Because of all this targeted activity, Twitter is now my seconds biggest referrer, overtaking direct referrals. The first time any referrer has done that, ever, on any site that I have dealt with! Surprisingly, I have also noticed a slight drop in RSS feed subscriptions around the same times suggesting that maybe my readers are relying on Twitter as a news source more than ever. Very interesting stuff.

One unsurprising stat is that the UK has taken over South African and America as my biggest region of readers mainly because I now do my networking in the UK.

Can you answer this question?:

There’s still one thing perplexing me about Twitter referral stats on Google analytics: If someone clicks on a link to my blog from a Twitter client, will analytics count that as a referral from Twitter?

del.icio.us Tags: twitter marketing,google analytics

Marketing with Twitter works!

 

The debate still rages: Is Twitter a useful tool for marketing online? Well for me and my marketing blog the answer is yes!

Looking back on Google Analytics, since I start my blog until today, Twitter is my 5th best referrer after Google organic traffic, direct traffic, Stumble and Muti.

Over the past 6 months, as I’ve built up a quality list of followers and followings (is that the correct term?!), Twitter has been pushed up to third spot on my referrers list, surpassed only by Google organic traffic and direct traffic (when people just type in your URL and go straight without search or links etc) which you always expect to be your top 2 referrers anyway.

Now considering that Stumble Upon, Delicious, Digg and Technorati are all parts of my blog marketing efforts, this makes Twitter a major player as a web 2.0 promotion tool. I also know that I am getting quality hits from Twitter as the people that follow my stream are mainly people in the industry I want to be talking to.

It kind of makes it easy to see why we should be recommending that our clients get active on Twitter, whether they understand it at first or not.

del.icio.us Tags: Twitter marketing,Twitter,web 2.0 marketing

How to always get an image that suits your Blog post

 

I never thought I’d be saying this about a cartoon website, but I have found one of the coolest online apps around that happens to be a cartoon creation wizard.

Whoopty doo you might say, but think about this for a minute: Darren Rouse and co always insist that you add a representative image to your blog posts but searching Flickr for rights-free images can take ages and you still only find a random images that only marginally represents what you are talking about, check out this post of mine for example. So now you can create a cartoon/image that represents exactly what you are trying to say, avoiding your viewers scowling at their screens in confusion.

But what really blew my socks off, is the ease of use when creating a cartoon strip with Bitstrips. It is really quick, once you get the hang of it, easy to use and requires no ability to draw whatsoever, yet the detail is as deep as you need it to be and the variety of scenarios, poses, expressions, characters etc are endless. 

Definitely go check it out!

del.icio.us Tags: cartoons,blogging,imagery

Need some Blogger relief?

Berocca have an interesting campaign on at the moment aimed at bloggers. I found it so simple and intriguing that I've applied for my blogger relief pack and am now even blogging about it which is obviously what they want!

Check it out here: http://www.berocca.co.uk/bloggerrelief