Tag: Google Apps for Business

Google Calendar is a contact- and time-managem...
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The folks at Lifehacker took a poll on the top calendaring applications. Here are the results…

“Nothing’s more important to your productivity arsenal than a solid scheduling tool, and considering so much of what we do happens at the computer, a good calendar application is just the thing to bring order to your agenda. On Tuesday we asked you to share your favorite calendar application, and today we’re back with the five most popular answers. Keep reading for a detailed look at the top five and to cast your vote for the calendar tool you like best.” Source: Hive Five: Five Best Calendar Applications 

Me? I use Google calendars — the free one associated with my Google account as well as my business calendar in Google Apps. Go to the source to read the whole article — it’s worth it!

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Yesterday, I said…

“Speaking of sex and smartphones or maybe sexy smartphones, I’m going to take this opportunity to rant about the iPhone AND Android phones for a moment. Excuse my language, but they both suck — that’s right — they suck! Why the iPhone? Because #1 it’s a closed system — yeah, there’s an app for that but they must all be approved by Big Brother at Apple — and #2 because AT&T is the worst cellular network in the world!” Source: Sex and Smartphones, part 1

…and promised to talk about the Android today…

Over the past two months, I have been experiencing a love/hate relationship with a Samsung Moment running Android. My final take? I went back to my old Blackberry Curve. I was attracted to the Moment for two reasons: it’s Google-created operating system and the appeal of the sliding keyboard on the Samsung Moment. Personally, I think the HTC Hero is one of the most beautiful pieces of industrial engineering I’ve seen in a long time but I hated the software-only keyboard on the iPhone so I thought I’d better try the Samsung Moment first. As it turns out, most critics agreed that the Hero is pretty, but underpowered — kind of like Obama’s healthcare plan, but I digress!

The Samsung Moment was a frustration from day 1 like this author describes…

“So all that being said, I found myself standing in a Sprint store faced with two choices, the Samsung Moment and the HTC Hero. I bought the Moment. Thankfully there was a 30 day trial period!” Source: WTF was SAMSUNG thinking?? Quick Review: Samsung Moment « RichandDaveShow.com

Do go to the source and read his comments if you’re thinking about a Moment. He really nailed it here…

“Wow, the battery on this thing is horrible! There is no possible way this phone, fully charged, could make it past lunchtime if you used it for anything other than a paperweight. ” Source: WTF was SAMSUNG thinking?? Quick Review: Samsung Moment « RichandDaveShow.com

Here are some that he missed…

  • The screen is horrible. I hate touchscreen devices like iPod touches because I’m really anal about my screens and fingerprints bug me and the Moment is even worse than the iPhone…
  • Most of the cool new apps for Android are for 2.1, not 2.0 and 2.1 for the Moment isn’t coming out anytime soon…
  • While I’m at it, Android 2.0 seems pretty half-baked…
  • Not only is the battery life bad, but memory management sucks too…
  • Pandora and other streaming apps didn’t work. What’s up with that?

Had enough? I did. I reactivated my old Blackberry Curve! It syncs with Google Apps, does a great job of email and texting, Pandora rocks again, and I’m not missing any calls. Calls are easy to make. All the basics are covered. Life is good again. Basic, but good…

My trial period is over but I’m going to return it to Sprint anyway and they better take it back! If you’re thinking about stopping by your Sprint store and getting a Samsung Moment take a moment and don’t. Get a Moment that is…

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…and use Google Apps! I had a chat with a business owner yesterday who was still using a pop mail account to run his business — scheduling meetings with his partners is a nightmare! Enter Google Apps! Here’s a quick overview…


Contact me! I’ll be happy to talk you through it because your organization needs Google Apps, too…

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Image representing Gmail as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Gmail recently kicked butt in a Mashable poll asking users for their favorite email client. Adam Pash writes…

“Way back in 2006, I showed you my favorite tips, tricks, and tools for making the most of Gmail. A lot has changed in the Gmail world since then, so much so that it seemed like a good time to revisit our favorite tips, tricks, and tools for getting the most from Gmail. Most, if not all, of these tips and features will also apply to the Google Apps accounts set up by businesses and organizations, but your administrator may not have enabled everything you see here.

No one really needs to be sold on Gmail anymore. Either you like the threaded conversations, powerful search, built-in filters, and awesome Gmail Labs functionality or you don’t. I love these things, and below I’ve attempted to put together my comprehensive guide for turning Gmail into the ultimate communication and productivity hub. (I’m focusing on covering territory that I didn’t cover in my previous guide, so if you’re looking for a more beginner guide, read that first. Much of it remains true.)

I’ve broken things down into sections, starting with keyboard shortcuts, then moving down into the best Labs add-ons, third-party add-ons, search techniques, etc. Ready to power up your Gmail? Let’s get started with how to set up and use Gmail’s robust keyboard shortcuts—my favorite Gmail productivity booster.” Source: Become a Gmail Master Redux – Gmail – Lifehacker

Gmail [and Google Apps for Business] is the killer app for email. If you want to become a Gmail master and master your email, follow the link and read Adams article. Comment, call or contact me if you’d like to know more about how to leverage Gmail in your business…

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Holy shit!!! I just updated my iPhone to 3.1 a...
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While the Vikings were sticking it to the Packers on Monday Night Football, Verizon was sticking it to Apple and AT&T in the only way they really could; on the issue of reliability and connectivity…

Recently, I had the chance to use both my BlackBerry Curve and an iPhone 3Gs on a trip from Green Bay to Nebraska and back. My assessment? The iPhone excelled in every area except one: phone calls and connectivity leading me to ponder ‘what does it profit a man if he gains all the apps in the world but suffers the loss of his phone call’ [sorry, Lord!]. The BlackBerry on Sprint outperformed the iPhone on AT&T in phone calling, streaming inbound audio from Pandora, and uploading to the internet. Unfortunately, the quality of photos and videos on the Curve is less satisfactory than the iPhone making IT a less than useful tool for the social media applications I was using. So what’s the answer? There is no answer! The iPhone fails in the one thing a phone is supposed to do; make and hold calls and Verizon stuck it to them good in this new campaign…

Don’t get me wrong — the iPhone is truly amazing — but by partnering with AT&T Apple has left the door open for someone else to dominate in the smartphone space like maybe Google/Verizon. The moral of the story? Think before you buy an iPhone and ask the users where you live what their experience has been. The best advice is still to go with the best network in your area and then get the best phone they have. If you want that slick iPhone capability without the phone, get an iPod Touch — you’ll be happier!

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Asus EEE PC black
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I have great hopes for this product, but the experience of this reviewer is not so hot…

“Everex’s CloudBook aims to one-up the Asus Eee PC with a larger hard drive and a flashy new operating system. 

Along with our review of the CloudBook, we’re taking a closer look by using this new UMPC to perform everyday activities from blogging to editing images to listening to music. Follow along with our CloudBook adventures.”

The hardware is from Everex and the OS is a version of Ubuntu optimized by the folks at Google for use with Google Apps for Domains and other applications.

Based on what I’m reading here, I’m more than underwhelmed. Let’s hope these folks get their act together. Click here to read the full article online…

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via marketingsavant.com

I came across a mention of this today and thought it appropriate to share.  This is dated advice. Dated from 1885 to be more specific!

Thomas Smith, a London Businessman, wrote a guide called Successful Advertising in 1885. The sayings he used are still being used today and form the foundation for the Theory of Frequency in advertising and marketing.

  1. The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it.
  2. The second time, they don’t notice it.
  3. The third time, they are aware that it is there.
  4. The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they’ve seen it somewhere before.
  5. The fifth time, they actually read the ad.
  6. The sixth time they thumb their nose at it.
  7. The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.
  8. The eighth time, they start to think, “Here’s that confounded ad again.”
  9. The ninth time, they start to wonder if they’re missing out on something.
  10. The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they’ve tried it.
  11. The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all these ads.
  12. The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.
  13. The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.
  14. The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like this for a long time.
  15. The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can’t afford to buy it.
  16. The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.
  17. The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.
  18. The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.
  19. The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.
  20. The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what is offering.

What do you think? How much of this do you think is still applicable?

via marketingsavant.com

I was just corresponding with Dana VanDen Heuvel and thanks to Gist and the Gist gadget for Google Apps, I noticed that Dana had just posted some really good content, so I swiped it [with proper attribution of course] and I’m sharing it with you here now. It looks like King Solomon was right — there is nothing new under the sun…

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Image representing retaggr as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

I had an interesting discussion about privacy at Agritechnica with a strong proponent of privacy on the internet. To me, however, having let that Genie out of the bottle long ago I’m a strong proponent of transparency on the internet. I see it as being a competitive advantage because “consumers can relate to people much more effectively than they can a logo or brand.”

“It’s the same reason why we tell our children not to lie. It’s human. It’s in our DNA; and unless you’re a habitual liar, you practice transparency everyday in your personal relationships. Why should it change on the social web?

I just got off the phone with Wailin Wong, who is a Technology Reporter at the Chicago Tribune. She is starting a new column at the on social media/networking and we had a brief discussion today about the importance of honesty and transparency in the social web (I’ll link to the column when it is live). My brief response – since our call only lasted about 15 minutes – was as follows, and I am going of off memory here:

The concept of social media is not new. By nature we are social in the way we interact in our daily relationships with our friends, colleagues and loved ones. And generally, in those relationships we do not lie or deceive because nine times out of ten people get caught. Personally, I think lying is wrong; and it also has a tendency of pissing people off. This valuable life lesson should also be practiced in social media. For those companies that choose to ignore the simple concept of “transparency” can find that their company or brand will indeed go viral but not with the message they were intending. Social media is an opportunity for companies to represent themselves as real people and build real relationships others. Consumers (and I hate that word) can relate to people much more effectively than they can a logo or brand.” Source: Why is transparency so important in Social Media?

One of the reasons I’m a solopreneur is so that I can work with the kind of people I want to work with. In my case, my transparency is a filter that eliminates bad matches from the beginning. If someone doesn’t like my politics, my faith, etc. they probably won’t like working with me…

Now that I’ve exposed by bias, I’d like to talk about how I do it. One of the problems with social media is that each service has a profile they want you to fill out. The problem is that if you do something like change your tagline, etc., you have to remember to go back and change it at every service you use. For that reason, I’m in favor of using a few that I find useful and trying to refer people to those profile sites whenever possible. A few sites that I use and recommend follow…

Google Profiles

I am the only ‘Todd Lohenry’ in the universe [thanks, mom!] so I don’t have any problems being found on the internet [although sometimes I wish I did]. If you, however, have a name like ‘Mike Brown’ and want to be found in Google Search, nothing it more important than populating your Google Profile…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmQLOZS6E9Q

Retaggr

Long before Google Profiles became available, I was using Retaggr which is kind of a web 2.0 business card. Retaggr allows you to fill in your user name info for hundreds of social media sites so that people can see where you hang out on the internet and connect with you there. Furthermore, Retaggr provides code for your signature file that can be used in conjunction with Microsoft Outlook, Google Apps, Gmail, etc. [I wrote about this in the post ‘Socialize your email‘]. Using the WiseStamp Firefox add-on, I’m not only able to re-express the Retaggr information, but even tell people what chat services I use and what my last blog post was [but I digress]…

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When did you last check your email?

I’d bet it was within the last hour. Quite possibly within the last ten minutes. You might well have your inbox open right now, with message alerts jumping up at you.

Almost everyone I talk to feels that email takes up too much of their time. If you work for an employer, in a traditional office environment, you might have your email open from the moment you get into the office until the moment you shut down your computer at the end of the day.

(And you’ve probably checked email after hours or on the weekends, too.)

If you’re self-employed or work from yourself, it’s probably even worse. You might find yourself worrying about emails during dinner, or when you’re supposed to be having some family time.

The problem isn’t knowing what to do. You’ve read plenty of advice telling you to close the inbox, to avoid checking emails first thing in the day, and to get on with your key tasks first. But are you doing it?

via dumblittleman.com
There’s this and there’s the tool that you’re using to manage email. Have you looked into Google Apps for your business? I guarantee you it will make you more productive if you take the time to learn the paradigm! Comment, call or use the contact form to discuss how this applies to your organization…
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“I’ve had a few conversations with IT executives from Fortune 500 companies in the past several weeks, and I’ve been surprised by how often a new enterprise-software company kept getting mentioned. The company?

Google.

Google has the problem of putting finish on a lot of its products, leaving things in eternal beta, but the price point for Google Apps is forcing even the biggest of companies to seriously consider Google instead of a Microsoft Office 2007 upgrade. (Google Apps: It’s not just small customers anymore.)

We may be getting to the point where Google’s ‘cloud’ allows them to provision users so much cheaper than any given enterprise can that it will become the provider of choice.”

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via googlemobile.blogspot.com

Woot! More great reasons to use Google Apps for Business and Android…

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Gmail New features
Image by Yes, i’m guccio via Flickr

In what was considered by many to be a typical Google April Fools Day prank, Google announced Gmail 6 years ago today…

“On April 1, 2004, Gmail was launched as an invite-only beta, instantly creating a revolution in the webmail space. Googles decision to keep their webmail invite-only kept spammers at bay, leading to the widespread perception that Gmail is spam-proof. While this notion is far from the truth, Gmail to this day does an excellent job of keeping unwanted emails out of your inbox.

Furthermore, by offering storage capacity of 1 GB per user, Gmail dwarfed the competitors which long held the notion that free webmail doesnt deserve decent storage. It was a one-two combination that made Gmail one of the most popular Google services, and solidified its reputation as a kind giant, which offers free stuff where others charge for it.

Right now, Gmail is one of the most popular webmail clients in the world, and besides the giants of old such as Hotmail and Yahoo Mail, perhaps the only one worth mentioning. It offers over 7400 MB of free storage to users, and it has been the foundation for other Google services such as Google Talk, Google Apps and Google Buzz.

Today, Gmail is six years old and its still one of the most important services from Google; many thought that email was dead ten years ago, but today, it doesnt really seem like its going away any time soon.” Source: Happy Birthday, Gmail!

Gmail [and it’s corporate version Google Apps] is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT tool I use for communication — no other product makes me more productive in the critical task of effectively managing email. Here are the top 7- reasons why I love it…

  • Available on any internet-connected computer, anywhere in the world, regardless of Windows/Mac/Linux
  • You can mess it up by using Outlook or AppleMail as a front end
  • Incredible amounts of storage so I can archive, but not delete
  • Insanely low price of free with a max of $50 per user per year for Google Apps Premium
  • Super effective keyboard shortcuts help me process email quickly
  • SEARCH — I can find anything in my inbox with laser-like precision!

What’s holding YOU back?

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=357k_8t0QMw

Yeah, the iPhone is all that and a bag of chips as we say in Wisconsin, but what if you don’t use AT&T and don’t want to switch carriers? Or worse yet! You can get AT&T but they won’t sell you an iPhone because they don’t have coverage there [happened to a friend of mine]? Well, all is not lost.

Tech buddy Steve Gallimore pointed out to me that the iPod touch — which I previously thought was worthless because of the small storage space — actually has wifi [duh! How did I miss that?] which makes it the most valuable of personal digital assistants [pdas] in many ways. In my hands on testing the iPod touch does have a lot of “WOW! Factor”. My only major complaint? It’s very hard to type on and there is no stylus option. Can’t type on it with any kind of speed at all! So for most of my needs, I’m still married to my trusty BlackBerry Curve, but I can understand why the iPhone is gaining ground. Now if we could only fix the dysfunctional way that phones are distributed through certain carriers, I’d be a happy camper…

In the next few weeks I’ll be talking a lot about cloud computing, Google Apps, smartphones, pdas, etc. and how they all work together for the busy executive. Stay tuned…

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Email Overload: Download a Free Copy of David Allen’s Email Rules

Getting Things Done
Image via Wikipedia

Having problems managing email?

David Allen, author of Getting Things Done and inspiration for a lot of posts ’round these parts, gives away a free four-page PDF at his website that covers his basic principals for keeping email organized. Getting specific without going too in-depth, he explains the ‘two minute rule,’ why action-able emails should be kept separate from others, and why creating your own system—such as Gina’s [Trapani’s] modified ‘Trusted Trio‘. Great reading for GTD neophytes, and a good brush-up for the rest of us.”

Click here to get your copy! If you’re a Gmail user [and I hope you are] there’s more information here on how to use Gina’s system with Gmail or Google Apps mail.

Me personally? I use Gmail and Google Apps mail in conjunction with Remember The Milk [RTM]– the powerful task manager with the equally funny name. RTM gives me special tools to use within Gmail that allows me to convert an email to a task. In all fairness, Google now includes this feature in their task management system, however, it was not available when I built my approach to task management…

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Measuring The Total Economic Impact Of Google Apps

TCO of Google Apps for Business http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=45418041&access_key=key-wkav43yxomjyocn46fh&page=1&viewMode=list

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49% of Small Business Owners use a Smartphone

“Over the past few years, it seems that a few mobile devices — laptops, Bluetooth headsets, and increasingly, smartphones — have become ubiquitous among business people. The days of the pager are gone. Small business owners seem to be outpacing the rest of America in smartphone adoption, according to a recent survey of nearly 10,000 small business owners. While only 17% of Americans own smartphones, according to a recent Forrester study, a whopping 49% of small business owners are reported to own smartphones. Of those smartphone owners, 35% own BlackBerrys, 33% own iPhones, 25% own Androids and 7% own Windows Mobile devices. While the study didn’t include a comprehensive look at how small business owners are using their smartphones, we suspect that merchants are turning to mobile devices to stay on top of everyday business needs through e-mail, scheduling and calls. We’ve heard success stories from business owners who also tweet on the go, see the importance of location-based services, and are investing in mobile advertising.

If you’re a small business owner looking for a smartphone, don’t fall victim to the hype — know why you’re doing what you’re doing and make a smart decision. Here’s my perspective on selecting a smartphone…

#1. In many ways, the cellular provider you pick is more important than the phone you use in many cases. If you live in a large metropolitan area, this is kind of a non-issue but most Americans live in non-metropolitan or rural areas. An iPhone is worthless where I live because AT&T is worthless where I live. Before you select a smartphone, review the coverage areas of the network you intend to use and make sure coverage is good in all the areas where you do business and live…

#2. Having selected a network, the services you use should dictate the phone operating system you select. imho, all small business owners should select Google Apps for their business. Period. The Android phone operating system is developed by Google and optimized for Google Apps. BlackBerrys, iPhones, and Windows Mobile devices can all benefit from Google Apps but Android works best. My advice is that small business owners use Google Apps with the most powerful Android phone available from their carrier. Get the best phone you can afford…

#3. Having selected a carrier and a phone, find a rep at your cellular provider who has a clue. You may laugh, but finding a good rep can be a bit like Diogenes searching for an honest man. For me, my carrier is Sprint, my phone is an HTC Evo, and my rep is Cindy Otley at the Oneida Street store in Green Bay. For me, Cindy IS Sprint and she is a primary factor in my decision to stay with that carrier. She’s smart; she knows her company, their policies and the options they offer and she’ll work hard to help you select the plan and phone that will work best for you. I don’t make a move with Sprint these days without talking with Cindy. YOU need a rep like her, especially if you’re not sure about #1 and #2…

There was one more juicy tidbit in the post…

While only 12% of respondents said that they currently market their businesses through mobile — via mobile ads and apps, for example — other reports point towards an upward trend in mobile advertising budgets. In fact, spending on mobile advertising is set to grow nearly 50% to top $1 billion in 2011, according to eMarketer.” Source: 49% of Small Business Owners Use Smartphones [STATS]

More about that later…

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Graph Your Inbox

Graph Your Inbox is a Google Chrome extension that allows you to graph Gmail activity over time. You can use it to visualize your communication with friends, your Facebook activity, when you purchased items on Amazon or how often you use certain words or phrases. We provide the same search functionality used by Gmail, but instead of a list of messages we show you a graph of your email trends over time.

Download it here.

Note: We take your privacy extremely seriously. This extension does not save any personal information and does not send any personal information to any server. It does not request or record your email password. This extension does not modify the Gmail website or your email in any way.

How Do I Use It?
Download and install the extension by clicking the link above. Once it’s installed, an icon will appear in the Chrome address bar (to the right). Click this icon to open the extension and start graphing your email. (If you have problems, make sure you’re logged into Gmail.)

What Does It Look Like?

Does It Work With Google Apps?
Google Apps allows Gmail to be used with custom domains. Graph Your Inbox will work if the Google Apps account has been migrated to the new account infrastructure. Otherwise, it will not work. You can ask the adminstrator of your Google Apps domain about the status of the transition.

What Motivated This?
Our inboxes contain a tremendous amount of information. Nearly every substantive action we take online generates email, from buying goods to booking flights to social network activity. Despite this large amount of data, extracting and graphing this information can be extremely difficult. Graph Your Inbox is an attempt to solve this problem. It was created by Bill Zeller, a PhD Candidate at Princeton University.

Questions or comments? Email me at bill@graphyourinbox.com.

Note: Graph Your Inbox is in no way associated with Gmail. Gmail is a registered trademark of Google, Inc.

via graphyourinbox.com

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Yammer Debuts A Facebook For The Enterprise

Yammer, which launched as the “Twitter for businesses” at TechCrunch 50 in 2008, is launching the next-gen version of its platform today. Aiming to be a full-fledged social network for the enterprise, Yammer 2.0 is being released today at TechCrunch Disrupt. As we wrote in our initial review of the new platform, Yammer is adding a number of applications to its platform that increases its functionality beyond just a communications platform.

These new applications include polls, chat, events, links, topics, Q&A, ideas, and more. And a new Activity Feed will aggregate stories about co-worker actions within all of their enterprise apps (both on and off Yammer) and will allow users to follow content.

Similar in theory to the Google Apps marketplace, Yammer is giving third-party developers the ability to sell and create applications like those that Yammer will now offer. For example, a Crocodoc app will allow you to highlight and comment on PDFs, Word documents, images and other files that are attached to Yammer messages. And new Zendesk app will allow users to attach a Zendesk customer service ticket to a Yammer message. The company says Box, Expensify and Lithium Yammer apps are currently in development.

via techcrunch.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…

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How to Make Your Location-Based App a Success: Reward People for Their Activities

Location-based mobile applications, also now being called “check-in services” to differentiate themselves from other geo-aware apps like Google Maps, are the hottest new social applications on the mobile scene today. The lineup includes game-based applications like Foursquare and MyTown, which each provide points, credits and/or badges for “checking in” (registering your physical presence) with a particular venue. There are also dedicated shopping-related check-in services like Shopkick, which rewards retail customers with discounts and deals for patronizing select establishments.

But almost all of the check-in apps integrate some form of mobile advertising. After months of experimentation with various formats, marketers are starting to discover what strategies actually work.

Despite the media craze for apps like these, some analysts are rationally advising caution to marketers who are tempted to jump on this latest bandwagon – after all, only 4% of U.S. adults have ever used location-based check-in services and only 1% out of those that use them do so more than once per week. But businesses, hopeful of reaching their most engaged customers, see check-in apps as a big opportunity for marketing initiatives, not to mention a rich resource of consumer data ripe for mining.

Case in point: analyst firm ABI Research has just released a new study that finds businesses are primed to spend $1.8 billion on location-based ads in 2015, a somewhat surprising number given the small crowd of early adopters currently using check-in apps.

According to ABI Research’s Neil Strother, check-in apps may raise privacy concerns among some users today, but those issues can be overcome by offering consumers deals, discounts and rewards. The “value-exchange” of receiving these rewards will be high enough that consumers won’t mind giving up privacy in order to take advantage of the benefits. “If you care about getting discounts or being rewarded for shopping,” he explains, “you’ll accept having your whereabouts known.”

via readwriteweb.com

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One client to rule them all

I’m the first one to declare the desktop dead. I move from computer to computer, happily launching a few key tabs from a Google Site that I’ve created with my regular bookmarks. So whether I’m on a new netbook that some company sent me to test or I’m in a client’s office, I can quickly access my mail, ZDNet blog platforms, social networks, or whatever. It works pretty well and given that I tend to be a computer hopper, it suits my needs 90% of the time.

There are a few programs that call me back to a desktop, though. Photoshop, of course. SPSS and SAS. TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop. Office 2010. The latter is only occasional as Google Docs handles most of what I need and fits my computer hopping lifestyle. There are times, though, when I need to create a document from hell, crunch some serious numbers, or create a slide show that really wows and amazes (although SlideRocket may supplant PowerPoint as my favorite presentation software). Unlike most Office devotees, however, Outlook has never been a reason for me to use Microsoft’s productivity suite. In fact, whenever I install Office, I exclude Outlook. Why use Outlook when you have Gmail, right? I’d rather access my calendar, mail, contacts, etc., through the cloud, anytime, anywhere.

This is me, though. There are an awful lot of people who hang their professional hats on Outlook and whose professional lives are as wrapped up in Outlook as mine is in Google Apps.

via zdnet.com

Comment, call or use the contact form to discuss how Google Apps applies to your business…

Posted via email from The e1evation facebook page

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How the World Is Spending Its Time Online

So… whatcha doin’ over there on that laptop, denizens of the world? Well, according to a new study from Nielsen showing Internet usage in April 2010, 22% of the time, you’re engaging with social media.

Yeah, 22% might not seem like a mammoth percentage, but you have to take into account the fact that this finding is on a global scale. Also, a few more telling takeaways from the report:

  • Currently, three quarters of Internet (Internet) users worldwide visit a social network or blog when they go online — that’s a 24% increase over last year.
  • Joe Average (the international version) spends 66% more time on these sites than he did a year ago — for example, your average user spent 6 hours on these sites in April 2010, while last year he spent 3 hours, 31 minutes.
  • Facebook (Facebook), YouTube and Wikipedia (Wikipedia) make an appearance among the world’s most popular brands.

We’ve seen ample proof of the burgeoning popularity of social media in the past — just two months ago, Nielsen reported similar growth — and it makes sense. Facebook has been giving Google (Google) a run for its money when it comes to traffic, and YouTube (YouTube) recently surpassed two billion views per day.

via mashable.com

Soooo, American entrepreneurs — how’re you grabbing your share of that 6 hours of Facebook time?

Posted via web from e1evation, llc

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