A few months ago I had the opportunity to interview Doug Karr, Owner of DK New Media and also one of the founders of Smaller Indiana.
Doug has a ton of good ideas and loads of experience in the internet world. I thought I would repost the video here on my blog since the interview was mostly talking about blogging. I hope you enjoy it.
With all the ways we have to communicate with each other today, has instant messaging become obsolete? I tried to think the other day about the last time I sent an instant message and really couldn’t remember. I think it may have been when I was trying to send a file to a co-worker. I am not even sure that would qualify as a instant message, it would be more of a file transfer using the instant message platform.
I think that is what instant messaging has become, more of a platform than a action. People now use it to video chat, play games, and remotely connect to someone’s desktop. How many of us actually use it to send a message? After all we now have Twitter, Facebook, and texting for that. It seems that rarely do we need to send a message where we can’t use one of those platforms to do it.
I remember just a few years ago when it was not uncommon to have five or six chat windows open at a time in my MSN Messenger. I would be typing as quick as humanly possible trying to keep up with all the conversations. Now I have so many other avenues to communicate I don’t even really need to have a messenger client installed. I can now chat through Facebook or Gmail just as I used to do on a stand alone application. Now chat is built right in to other tools I use, and available through the browser on any computer I am using.
Are the days of stand alone messenger client over? I am curious as to what you think. I believe they will continue to be used as communicating tools using voice and pictures, however the days of typing for hours on hours to friends or co-workers are a thing of the past.
Leave a comment. When is the last time you used instant messenger to just send a typed message? What is the number one way you communicate today?
I found a interesting video today about the future of the digital world. Ironically enough it is from Microsoft and not Apple. After watching it, I realized we are approaching a time when all of this will be a reality. Take a look. It is really fascinating. What do you want to see in technology next? Leave a comment, I would like to read them.
I like to go back through my files and look at old posts. This is one I wrote a long time ago, but I still find it useful.
In this world of social media, communication can become very impersonal. Instead of picking up the phone, you can just send a message on Facebook saying, “Hi.” Rather than taking the time to let someone personally know your exciting news, you can just post it on Twitter and let all your followers know at once.
However, as impersonal as social media allows you to be, it can also be your greatest tool for connecting with your clients in a one on one way. If you just take the time to pay attention to various social media tools right in front of you, you can find out when someone’s birthday is. You can learn what books they like to read or even what motivates them at work.
Never before have we had such a database of information about our clients available at our fingertips! Yet most of the time, I see clients using their Facebook or Twitter accounts to bombard their followers with marketing messages about what they are doing. (I won’t lie. I have been guilty of this as well.)
Why not take a minute to listen to your followers or friends and make it personal again? Send them a card when Facebook tells you their birthday is approaching. Take them to lunch at a place that serves their favorite food. Give them a call when you see their son won the championship game. All this information can be found if you are paying attention to your social media tools.
Personal relationships drive business. Use your social media tools to complement your customer interactions. Simply take a moment to make communication personal again.
I can still remember the days when I fired up my Netscape Navigator and began to surf the web, at the incredible speed, of a dial up connection. There were few pictures, no music and definitely no streaming video. How the browser world has changed!
Each and every time a new browser version is released from Microsoft or Mozilla, I always think about what could they do to make it better this time? Most of the the time, pages load a little faster. I will say most of the time, because sometimes it seems as if has become slower. Normally, however, there are no major changes.
Probably the biggest improvement in my mind over the last few years has been tabbed browsing. At first I wondered how I would used tabbed browsing, but soon I found myself toggling back and forth with several web pages open at a time. How did I ever live without it?
Then came Google Chrome, and for me, everything changed. Not only is it the fastest loading browser, in my opinion, it almost doesn’t feel like a browser at all. It just gets out of your way and lets you use the Internet. I know that is what Google’s intent is. They want it to seem like your desktop. They want you to get use to using a browser for all your applications. Then comes Chrome OS. I know I am falling into their plan, but I am fine with it, because quite simply it is the best browser I have ever used.
Like I mentioned before, it just stays out of the way. There is no huge blue title bar at the top, instead a slim bar that shows your tabs, similar to the application bar at the bottom of your Windows desktop. Obviously this is not a mistake. Just think a year or two, or maybe sooner, we will be toggling between email, word processor, and Photoshop by clicking the tabs of our browser and running the Google OS in the background.
The one feature that stands out, above all else, has to be the simplest feature of all. The address bar is also a search bar. I mean, how basic is that. Why didn’t every browser company think of this. I think IE may be doing it now, but wow, I love this feature. If I don’t know the URL I can just type in what I think and the Google results come up. No more installing a Google toolbar every time I format my system. I just download Google Chrome and I am good to go.
If you spend a lot of time on the web and haven’t used Chrome, check it out. I am sure you will like it. If you have used it, I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you like it? Do you find it better than FireFox or IE? Feel free to comment. I would love to hear your opinion.
