Looks good! Google Talk for the iPhone
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I’ve been hankering after a IM solution on the iPhone for a while, and it looks like Google have come up with the goods! Google Talk for the iPhone and as usual, it looks very elegant indeed.
In your iPhone browser, just go to www.google.com/talk, sign in and start chatting. That’s it. Google Talk runs entirely in the browser so there’s no need to download or install anything.
What you do need to be aware of is your status will instantly change to unavailable as soon as you change page in Safari (open a new page for example) or if you change application or go back to the home screen. Apart from this, Google have tried to keep everything true to the desktop application, so I am off to try it shortly! Great job guys!
Downpour
No need to water the garden tonight!!!
Rain, rain, rain! from theappleofmyi on Vimeo.
Are you a supermarket snob? (I used to be)
Supermarket snobbery. A highly debated topic in the tough financial environment we are currently living in. There are of course many supermarkets all to willing to take our money off us, like:
- Tesco (capitalist pigs)
- Asda (can be pretty frightening at times in Hull)
- Waitrose (very civilised shopping)
- Netto (who?)
- Lidl (no frills)
- Aldi (really on the up and up)
- Sainsburys (hello Jamie!)
- Morrisons (Northen outposts)
- And a few others
So, who’s going to be honest here…. where and why do you shop now, and has that changed over the course of 2008? I used to be a real supermarket snob. I am proud to say it was Waitrose every time. The brand name conveyed taste, a quiet and attentive experience and great quality. It also meant some big £££ being spent. It was almost like the Ikea experience when you get to the till with what you think is not a lot, and you hear the words:
that will be £112.31 please.
Not quite what you had in mind. Nowadays thought I’ve changed my mindset and tend to shop in many different supermarkets, including the excellent Aldi - they have their luxury range which is very good (awesome fruit yoghurts) and the prices are very, very good. Yes, I do nip to Waitrose every now and again, but only for things that we cannot get elsewhere. The main weekly shop is usually at Morrisons and they have some great product lines and again, low prices.
It is not surprising therefore to see the BBC news article about this very subject. It looks like people just cannot afford M&S food all the time now (their share price has just got a serious battering), and consumers who have never braved Aldi / Netto / Lidl, are now being lured in. Aldi have actually started a pretty good TV advertising campaign with a very clear message about not having to pay too much for quality.
Right then, spill the beans (Heinz only though still) on your supermarket shopping brand loyalty and experiences in the comments!
When word of mouth marketing works
Word of mouth marketing is something that makes a huge amount of sense. If you experience something good, you tell someone about it. Word of mouth. On the other side, you experience something bad, and you also tell people about it, possibly even more!
Word of mouth marketing has always been there, but with the rise of the web, and of course Google, it has started to be recognised as a serious part of the marketing mix and even has it’s own association - WOMMA, and they do a good job of explaining what they think it is all about.
What is vital for Word of Mouth marketing is customer satisfaction, (and dissatisfaction in some cases), the ability of being able to facilitate a conversation between customers, potential customers and the company / brand, and transparent communications. The basic elements are laid out by WOMMA are:
- Educating people about your products and services
- Identifying people most likely to share their opinions
- Providing tools that make it easier to share information
- Studying how, where, and when opinions are being shared
- Listening and responding to supporters, detractors, and neutrals
There are a number of key things to understand here.
- If you have a happy customer, they are going to sing your praises
- Encourage them to tell other people if they have a good experience, and give them the means to do so if at all possible
- Listen, learn, get feedback, and actively take on board all postive and especially negative comments, so that you can act and make your product and service better
- Word of Mouth marketing really fits well with an authentic company which behaves in a postive manner with its customers. Word of Mouth is being honest, telling the truth and should not be forced
In fact, as pointed out by the WOMMA, Word of Mouth marketing can be organic (natural) or amplified (I like to use the term, stimulated). I regularly take part in natural word of mouth for certain brands and services because I am pleased with them, and have a desire to share my enthusiasm, with the honest belief that I will be helping someone, making their life better, or recommending something they will also enjoy. (Natural word of mouth could be likened to evangelism). Examples of my organic / natural word of mouth would be:
- Apple computers and the iPhone (I know, a real shock)
- 37 signals services
- Wordpress
- Method Cleaning gear
- Howies clothes
- Hasbean Coffee
- First Direct banking
- IC Berlin spectacles
All of these companies and brands make me smile, provide excellent service and great products. Stimulated Word of Mouth marketing happens when companies actively launch campiagns to facillitate Word of Mouth.
There is one BIG watch out with this seemingly great form of marketing. And that, ladies and gents, is false Word of Mouth, paying people to be positive, spamming people, providing misleading information, I think your get the idea. Word of Mouth works best when you have a great product or service. It really is as simple as that. That’s what your aiming for anyway isn’t it? If you get this right, word of mouth will come along soon enough, you may just want to be able to harness it, and perhaps stimulate it. Just don’t think people won’t notice if you try and do something a little unethical. They will, and it will always come back to haunt you.
PS I nearly forgot about why word of mouth works! Two good examples from yesterday and today. A friend recommended me to his friend, who got in touch and I get a new client. I tell my friend about the great coffee we are drinking, and he goes to investigate online and will order some. Natural, unprompted word of mouth resulting in sales and more business. If only all marketing was like this! But, it could be. Think about it 
Sydney Apple Store
It’s not often I see people’s work on flickr and then spend the next 20 minutes going through it, clicking faves left right and centre and leaving comments….
However this was the case with Christopher Chan’s shots. Wow. They were initially featured over on the Cult of Mac blog which got me looking at his flickrstream. He also has a great site here. Impressive!
Giving something back
It’s good to get the ball rolling on something that has been on my mind for a while now. And that is giving something back. Yes, I need to be earning money to pay for a mortgage and the bills, not too mention the ludicrous diesel prices, but it has always been on my mind that I don’t give anything back to the community that I am a part of.
So, from next week I am starting to do some free marketing and photography for the Hull Animal Welfare Trust.
Having been there this morning and met Sue Jewel, the Chairwoman, it was wonderful to see all the good work they are doing and they are always looking for donations and volunteers. I will keep you all updated with what is going on in the coming weeks and months but it looks like it will be great fun and very rewarding.
A very useful plugin to keep you organized
Yes, the spelling mistake is intentional before anyone points it out
iSlayer are a cool company developing some great widgets and software. The excellent iStat menus are excellent, but there new organized add on for Macs looks even better. You can download it here.
Take care of the little jobs with Organized, a new widget from iSlayer featuring a calendar with events, world clocks, notes and to do’s. The calendar and to do’s utilise OS X’s inbuilt databases, so they’re always in sync with iCal and Mail. The world clock uses our very own database with over 700 locations.
Big companies love Google Apps
Finances also came into play in their decision to move to Google Apps. Taylor Woodrow estimates that they are saving approximately £1 million on infrastructure and support costs.
You have read that correctly. Taylor Woodrow are saving £1 Million by switching 1800 employees over to Google Apps Premier Edition. That is pretty impressive and makes a lot of sense. A massive amount of sense.
Just think. 1800 people happily using Gmail, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, with zero set up costs in terms of software and hardware. Talk about putting the IT department out of business. Not only do you have cost savings but you have the ease of access to everyone’s files (all in the cloud), all backed up and available 24-7.
Looking into theappleofmyi crystal ball, I can see more and more companies doing this. Less hassle. Less money. Better reliability. What more do you want? Ok, there will be the normal learning curve of people adopting the new technology and software, but most people are getting more and more confident with online web apps. Major kudos to Taylor Woodrow for doing this. Does anyone know of any other big corporate doing this?
Another woofngrowler t shirt in the wild!
Not my photography I hasten to add!
For those of you who don’t know about woofngrowler, it’s a T shirt brand I have launched and I’m going to be seeing what I can do about promoting the brand on a budget using a variety of media. Watch this space as I have a couple up for grabs soon!
Google Analytics acting funky
Hi all, having changed the blog theme, my Google Analytics stats have gone weird. They’ve dropped off a cliff today (I had a look earlier today and they were at the normal level). Now they are showing only 2 visitors. Hmmmm….
Anyone got any ideas? I’ll check tomorrow and see what is happening, but I might have to revert back to the old theme for now.
UPDATE - a few of my site stats are looking really low… anyone else experiencing problems?
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