The Next Web |
- Bitcoin vs. Coin: Which will have the most success in 2014?
- GiffGaff, the UK people-powered mobile network, launches native Android app
- Apple expected to launch iOS in the Car auto integration next week
- Imo to discontinue support for third-party messaging services on March 3 to focus on own platform
- How to build effective mobile in-app ads without irking your users (too much)
- What coworking spaces can do for you, your company, and your community
- Reddit will donate 10% of its advertising revenue in 2014 to the top 10 non-profits chosen by its community
- A guide to getting everlasting traffic with keyword research
- Pinterest now lets you create as many secret boards as you want
- How does your fitness tracker know when you’re asleep?
| Bitcoin vs. Coin: Which will have the most success in 2014? Posted: 01 Mar 2014 04:00 AM PST  Joe Polverari is the General Manager of Yodlee Interactive, which powers global financial innovation happening outside of banks. The recent attention given to Bitcoin and Coin - the two newest stars in the financial technology world – vividly illustrates that there exists a major demand to simplify the financial lives of consumers. Coin packages up to eight cards (debit, reward, membership, etc.) into one "Coin" swipeable card. Bitcoin is the Internet of Money and makes online purchases anywhere faster, simpler and anonymous. While the popularity of both innovations has grown quickly (even though Coin is not yet available), they still face key uphill battles because of their unconventional path to success by not partnering with a trusted financial service provider first. I've worked with hundreds of companies in the financial space – and I've seen what common denominators need to be addressed for a service or product to be successful. Let's take a look at three key obstacles to success that will affect Bitcoin and Coin's quest for consumer adoption – and which technology currently has the advantage in each category. 1. SecurityIf you're not confident that a product or service that is handling your money is totally secure and legitimate, then you're unlikely to use it. When we're talking money, consumers want an endorsement from someone they trust before they use a new service. Square Wallet's partnership with Visa gave it a huge advantage over competitors in the mobile payments space due to public validation from such a well-known financial services brand. Looking at Coin: Upon launching, Coin hit its campaign goal in 40 minutes, trending on Twitter and receiving 200,000 mentions on Facebook. The viral sensation has seemingly tapped into deep market demand, even though it is in a prototype stage and is not publicly available.
However, a major concern remains: will credit card companies want to validate Coin by allowing the company to mimic their cards, without any of the branding that is so important to them? This is an important question mark in the future of Coin. If Coin can secure one partnership with one of the big three credit card companies, like Square did, it would start the snowball effect of shoring up consumer confidence. Looking at Bitcoin: Many trusted technology leaders have already publicly backed Bitcoin and an increasing number of retailers are accepting the new currency. Marc Andreessen, a venture capital titan, has poured $50 million into Bitcoin-focused startups alone, while The Social+Capital Partnership founder, Chamath Palihapitiya, who owns $5 million in Bitcoins, is also bullish on the service. Congress seems interested in legitimizing the positive uses of cryptocurrencies. New companies like Coinbase are launching, highlighting the opportunity and interest for simple and useful services built on top of the Bitcoin protocol. Although these companies and solutions are quite legitimate, the upstart nature of Bitcoin means that it is still in a big grey area, which in turn naturally makes consumers wary of Bitcoin's security. U.S. banks have so far tacitly allowed converting dollars into Bitcoin – but they could easily cut off this access. Meanwhile there have been a string of hackings and thefts in which thousands of dollars worth of Bitcoin are stolen, with little legal recourse, which will cause serious security concerns for consumers. Additionally, the price of Bitcoin is highly volatile and much of the enthusiasm comes from its sky-high price, ranging anywhere between $500 and $1200 per Bitcoin in the last two months. If this wave of favoritism crashes, Bitcoin's value may also see a subsequent crash. After the People's Bank of China banned financial institutions from trading in Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency's value dropped by 50 percent. Other countries such as India were not far behind. While the value bounced back, the volatility of the currency is problematic for average investors. Who's got the advantage? Coin Coin is more likely to drive consumer confidence in the near term. Bitcoin is both a completely new concept, and can have a much larger impact on our financial system, however it is still poorly understood and not well regulated. The U.S. government will likely wait and watch for some time before making any big regulatory moves around Bitcoin. In addition, Coin isn't threatening credit card usage and, in fact, it may be promoting usage by simplifying the use of multiple credit cards. 2. Overcoming preconditioned consumer behaviorsFor over two hundred years Americans have used printed money for bartering. The introduction of credit cards in the mid-twentieth century garnered mass adoption, however, outside the US, many countries remained more cash-oriented, or developed other forms of cash-less payments for many years after the availability of credit cards. In truth, mass-market adoption of new payments technologies and systems can take decades. Looking at Coin: Coin is addressing a universal consumer problem: the "fat wallet." The product's familiar form factor and ease of use—which looks and functions like a credit card—should make its everyday use by consumers and merchants nearly seamless. Unlike Bitcoin, Coin is a simple product rather than a platform that can be built upon and expanded. However, if only a fraction of the population uses Coin, will enough merchants know about it and be willing to accept a new, unfamiliar type of credit card? Looking at Bitcoin: Bitcoin is starting to see tremendous consumer traction. Major retailers like Overstock and TigerDirect, and companies like Zynga, have agreed to accept Bitcoins as payment. Meanwhile, the world's first Bitcoin ATM launched in Canada last fall. But compared to Coin, Bitcoin is still quite complicated. While a recent survey found that 42 percent of Americans know about the cryptocurrency, how to use, acquire or "mine" for it is still not readily understood. Paying for goods or services in person via Bitcoin is also not yet streamlined. Until more companies build tools to address these issues, Bitcoin will continue to seem unapproachable to mainstream consumers. Who's got the advantage? Coin The simplicity of Coin, utilizing a familiar form factor and augmenting an existing method of payment (rather than completely changing it) gives Coin the advantage. 3. Providing technology that is functional for everyday useLike early electric vehicles (which lacked the battery power for the average daily commute), sometimes the technology is initially exciting, but its everyday application does not meet consumers' needs. For financial technology products and services to get to mass consumer adoption, they need to be used on a daily basis to stay top of mind for consumers. Looking at Coin: Coin is very easy to set up and use. After uploading credit cards onto the device, the user only needs a Coinand smartphone to make a purchase. Additionally, Coin's security — which, for example, deactivates the device, if physically separated by 55 yards from the paired smartphone — is arguably safer than traditional credit cards. Still, there's concern that merchants will not recognize the brand-le ss Coin. If some merchants refuse to accept the card, consumers will be forced to carry at least one credit card as insurance, defeating the reason to carryCoin in the first place. Another concern around Coin is that the "fat wallet" issue is not actually that big of an issue. It is possible that once the novelty wears off, Coin may not impact peoples' lives enough to warrant carrying it around as an everyday product. Looking at Bitcoin: There's no cheaper way to pay for goods internationally than Bitcoin. As consumers continue to rely on digital marketplaces, Bitcoin becomes an increasingly advantageous option. There are also now thousands of physical stores, up by 300 percent since last November, which are accepting the new currency. With low fees and no chargebacks, Bitcoin has the potential to address some of the biggest issues in our financial system today, especially when it comes to micropayments. However, without a familiar form factor like paper money, Bitcoin remains abstract and unapproachable to average consumers. Meanwhile, the government has prohibited entrepreneurs who want to make a physical version of Bitcoins from addressing this problem. Who's got the advantage? Bitcoin Bitcoin is an open protocol and essentially a decentralized platform that anyone can access and even build services on top of; thus, hundreds of startups are rapidly working to make Bitcoin easier to use, and give it extra functionality. People can build services to make Bitcoin as useful as possible. Coin on the other hand, is a single product that is unlikely to become a true platform and may have a limited shelf life. Who's best positioned to succeed in 2014? CoinGiven the parameters set forth, Coin is my favorite to succeed with consumers in 2014. Both advancements' enthusiastic acceptance clearly illustrate that there's a consumer demand for simplified services to handle money. However, the financial technology space is fraught with security and regulation obstacles. In the end, both of these technologies have overcome the first key hurdle: gaining consumers' interest. By earning consumer's trust and continuing to build upon the technology to provide consumers easy-to-use services for everyday purchases, both technologies can and will succeed — it's just a question of when. Who do you think will gain mainstream adoption in America first? Please reply in the comments section below. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| GiffGaff, the UK people-powered mobile network, launches native Android app Posted: 01 Mar 2014 01:17 AM PST
GiffGaff, the UK-based mobile network that uses its members to help run key aspects of the business, has quietly rolled out an official Android app, letting users check their allowance, top up their credit and liaise with the GiffGaff community. Launched in 2009, GiffGaff is a subsidiary of Telefonica and runs on the O2 network. There are no call-centers and no contracts – it's a SIM-only pay-as-you-go service that also offers monthly call, text and data bundles called 'Goody Bags'. All customer service is administered through the online community forum, and users can receive remuneration by spreading the word and helping out with technical queries. An Android app has been a long time coming, and this is in addition to its existing My GiffGaff app for iPhone. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Apple expected to launch iOS in the Car auto integration next week Posted: 28 Feb 2014 06:27 PM PST After announcing its iOS in the Car initiative at last year's WWDC, Apple is expected to launch the program next week with partners Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo, according to a Financial Times report. When it arrives, iOS in the Car will integrate Apple's mobile OS with the in-dash displays and controls of supported vehicles, opening up access to Siri, iMessage, iTunes and Maps. In addition to the aforementioned auto makers, Apple has also signed partnerships with companies like Chevrolet, Honda, Jaguar and Nissan. ➤ Apple software to drive smart Ferrari [Financial Times] This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Imo to discontinue support for third-party messaging services on March 3 to focus on own platform Posted: 28 Feb 2014 05:16 PM PST Imo messenger has announced plans to drop support for third-party services, such as Facebook and Google Hangouts, on March 3 as it redirects resources to its own platform. Users will have until March 7 to export their chat history from third-party networks. While Imo's original mission was to offer an in-browser service that connected to all major IM services, the company has decided that building its own communication service will "make the biggest impact." Imo recently ramped up its video chat capabilities by adding WebRTC support to its service. The integration allows Web-based users to make cross-platform video calls without having to download a plugin. Ralph Harik, CEO of Imo, provided the following statement to The Next Web:
➤ Discontinuing support for all third-party messaging networks [imo.im] This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| How to build effective mobile in-app ads without irking your users (too much) Posted: 28 Feb 2014 12:31 PM PST  Robert Weber is the co-founder and senior vice president of business development at NativeX, the leading native advertising platform for mobile games. Thousands of apps launch each day, so the mobile app business must be booming, right? Not exactly. Sure, thousands of apps are launched daily, but how many actually make money? Last I checked, products must generate revenue to qualify as a business. And generating money is where apps fail, miserably. A recent Gartner report spells out the harsh forecast facing developers, which their industry still has yet to confront: Over the next few years, only an estimated .01 percent of consumer apps will be considered a financial success by their developers. Currently, according to a global survey, 60 percent of developers make less than $500 a month off of their creation. So, what are the .01 percent doing right? And what can developers do to increase that success metric? The answers to these questions range from simple to complex. But, regardless of the approach, there's one simple word that developers can't escape if they want to succeed: Advertising. While there are no revenue guarantees, developers who specifically study in-app advertising and engagement strategies are on the right track to success. Balancing in-app engagement with paymentsDevelopers' first mistake is focusing their business model only on in-app payments. Though in-app payments account for a majority of revenue currently being made by apps, even within game giants the percentage of overall users who make in-app purchases is less than 10 percent. Instead of trying to squeeze more out of the small minority of users that make purchases, developers need to embrace advertising, refocus on the other ninety-plus-percent of their users and think about the characteristics that define any successful ad to keep those users engaged. Developers can monetize the vast majority of their user base by integrating ads in a way that doesn't disrupt the intended experience to earn maximum revenue with minimum annoyance to users. Sure, in-app purchases – fueled by a small, but devoted user base – remain a vital revenue driver for most games in the market. However, to build a business that will not only survive but thrive in the long-term, developers must learn to strike a healthy balance between purchases (call to action) and entertainment (engagement). Design your success nativelyDevelopers and designers alike do their best work when thinking about the user experience. So, in order for in-app advertising to be effective, ads must follow some basic elements centered around Native Design. In essence, Native Design seeks to make the ad look like it's part of the app by being contextual and complementary to the content of the app, not above, below, or beside, but a real part of the user experience. Surprise breaks the pattern and attention of the user. In order for ads to follow seamlessly and keep the attention of a user, they need to seem like they were conceived with the app at the origin using the following tactics: Associations Using characters and settings from within and app or game gives ads a better chance of engagement due to the relevance of the assets. Because of their familiarity, associations should be used to create positive emotions and credibility, feeling more welcoming to players than ads without such connections. Color and Contrast Colors like red draw attention to users, but keep in mind the associated colors of the app to appeal to the overall Native Design aspect. For example, colors of yellow and orange might bring out more feelings of optimism and friendliness compared to blues and greens, which are more associated with calmer feelings, but those colors need to correspond with what a user has already seen in the app. Lines and Gaze Eyes attract attention and gaze creates curiosity. Using those images along with the proper lines to lead a user's view can cause immediate attention. For example, having an associated character from the app or game looking toward a video or advertising offer can guide a user's eyes toward keep words or actions such as downloads. Movement and Action Moving parts, either from associated characters around the ad or within the ad content, can cause an immediate reaction and engagement from a user, but learn the lessons of the Web – the movement can't sour the original content. The playable, often annoying flash-animated banner ads on websites were quickly scorned for being too distracting. Subtle movements can go a long way without being tiresome to players. Audio Does the ad have sound? Is there a video component that requires a voiceover or call to action? Often overlooked, ill-conceived sounds can be just as jarring for a user as poor visual design. But these design elements don't create the final checklist for an effective ad. There are three other aspects to keep in mind in order to build the best foundation for a campaign. Time and place can trump all
Why? Think about it. They haven't even had a chance to play the game yet. Similarly, placing ads at times during a coherent or long engagement period can cause users to turn away from the app all together. Instead, think about inserting points between levels. And use your data. Identify where user "drop offs" are, and use incentive-based ads during those times. The three biggest guidelines for high-engagement placement include: User Emotional State Players go through four separate emotional states during engagement with a game. Serving ads that are in-synch with those emotions continues the tactics of Native Design and not shocking or distracting from the user experience. Players are typically in a positive emotion state after completing a level or increasing a character's abilities; during these times non-incentive based, interstitial ads are best. During negative or challenging emotional states players may encounter when losing a level or failing a character upgrade, serving incentive based video ads are best. And during neutral emotion states like exiting to main menus, serving non-incentive based videos is best. Format Variety Ideally, apps need five to six different formats within an app or game. Whether it's a home screen that has a banner ad or a half time screen that turns into a video, campaigns need to mix in different formats and even different ads. By doing this, campaigns are helping ensure that users are not seeing the same ad over and over, decreasing app enjoyment and building brand annoyance. Segmentation Not all users are equal when it comes to advertising. For example, developers should not bother top users (especially ones that make in-app purchases) with ads that will annoy them and potentially decrease their usage of an app or game. Once developers start to collect analytic data about users, they may find power users don't respond well to ads at all. And that's okay, because developers may find that a small minority of their players (maybe 3 percent) like the offer wall ads or incentive campaigns — i.e., "watch this video to get a power-up," and then developers can focus on the other 97 percent of their users with additional A/B testing to see what works with what group. Go forth and build your app empireDeveloping effective ads that users respond to positively is an ongoing process, but it's a process developers must invest as much time in as development if they want to turn all their hard development work into money. By following the above guidelines, remaining agile and responding to user data, developers will be better equipped to increase revenue several times over while not distracting from the core experience of the great app they've put so much time into creating. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| What coworking spaces can do for you, your company, and your community Posted: 28 Feb 2014 11:52 AM PST  Adam Benzion is the founder of Entirely—a Seattle startup focused on social innovation, keen on connecting more people in more places to create special things together. Your day is finally here. Your two-to-three person team is ready to rock after freeing yourselves from the golden claws of your highly disappointing day job. And you are hell bent on making your new venture a success, as you should be. First stop, you need an affordable place to work. You try working from home, but you can't sit still. The laundry, the dog, your roommate (or if you're like me, your kids) provide endless distraction. You venture out to coffee shops, but after a few weeks you feel sick from overdosing on courtesy caffeine or frustrated by the lack of power outlets and available seats. You also feel lonely and isolated. You need a better place to work. Your dream office is nothing but a dreamYou know that cool office you saw in the movies? The one with high ceilings, red brick walls, exposed steel beams and a Stella beer fountain right by the printer station? Keep dreaming. A marginally desirable 500 square foot space in a major city will cost you at least $1,000 per month (folks in NYC are laughing loudly while reading this). While most landlords will pay for your electricity, water and cleaning, you'll be footing the bill for telecommunications costs, equipment, office supplies, desks, chairs, lamps, trash cans, pens – it can be a shock for a first-time self starter. You can't handle the cost yet, and even if you could, why would you? I asked myself the same question and eventually dumped my office plans, joined a coworking space (and never looked back.) Network without really tryingIt's time to tap into the growing number of coworking spaces that are springing up all over the globe. For an average of $300 per month, you can land a desk at one of the world's best and coolest shared work spaces. This isn't just about costs and amenities. Weekly events, meetups, and happy hours are business as usual in these communities and provide priceless networking opportunities. When you spend your days working next to like-minded creatives, you're bound to network without that forced feeling of getting to know someone just to get ahead. These peers might even be able to offer feedback to your product. And if you're really lucky, your coworking-mates may potentially become clients as well. Benefit your local communityInstead of relocating your business to Silicon Valley or large, expensive tech hubs, staying local helps keep the talents in your local community. As your company continues to grow, you are also flexible to hire locally and preserve your city's economy without forcing new employees to relocate or commute extensively. With the various types of talent to be found at your local coworking space, you can also learn a new skill or two from your peers. Who knows, maybe your next big idea will launch from these discussions! With all that said, here are some of my personal favorite spaces. WeWork, Seattle's South Lake Union Neighborhood My office at WeWork in Seattle is cool, energizing and complete. It's a stunningly beautiful workspace that has everything I need to grow my business and be successful, including ridiculously fast Internet, awesome conference rooms, an app the manages everything from meeting rooms to printers (and even acts as an internal social network), and a friendly staff. Throw in free coffee and beer, and I'm having a hard time finding reasons to pass this up. Best of all, I get to set up in other WeWork offices around the country when I travel, and they are open 24/7. The Fueled Collective, NYC's SoHo District This is one of the coolest coworking spaces in the world. It houses 150 people across 35 of the most exciting startups in NYC on plush leather couches, with year-round ice cream and ping pong tournaments. Let's not forget amazing views of lower Manhattan and a killer snack bar! But the best thing about The Fueled Collective is its founder, Rameet Chawla. Rameet leads Fueled, a top mobile and digital agency, and makes himself available to his resident startup founders on a regular basis as a hands-on mentor You can't beat it, and there's a wait list to prove it. Hubud, Bali, Monkey Forest Road (yes, for real) Hubud (short for Hub-in-Ubud) is a collaborative working space which has become home to a diverse community of local and visiting creatives, techies, entrepreneurs, downshifters and truth- seekers. And it's located in Bali's magical town of Ubud. The open-air space draws you in with bamboo beams, rice paddies, and an occasional visiting monkey, but also features a high-speed fiber backbone, an all-organic snack bar, and air-conditioned meeting rooms with flat screen TVs. It makes you wonder whether you really want to make that return flight home. During my visit to Hubud last month, I spent time with Peter Wall, a co-founder of the hub, and found myself dreaming of becoming a digital nomad, spending half my time here on Monkey Forest Road. And why not? I saw an Israeli woman collaborating with her Polish developer over Skype about a new social startup, and an independent film maker going over screening plans of his movie Jalanan, just to name a few. Park yourself here for a couple of weeks this year and learn how to work and refresh at the same time. Shoes are totally optional. Coworking is an awesome option for startersThe spaces we occupy shape the way we think and how well we create. It only makes sense to pick a space that is fun, functional, inspiring and affordable. Give coworking a try. I'm already in and loving it. Related: 5 Coolest Coworking Spaces in New York City This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Posted: 28 Feb 2014 10:42 AM PST  Reddit today announced plans to donate 10 percent of its advertising revenue receipts in 2014 to 10 non-profits chosen by its own community. The company says no ad revenue will go excluded: everything from a $5 sponsored headline to a large ad campaign will be added together before one tenth is donated. Reddit will ask its users to nominate non-profits at the end of the year and will then hold an election based off of eligible nominees. Funds will be distributed proportionally based on the percentage of votes given to the top 10 non-profits. There is one important detail worth noting though: if the voting system is tampered with, Reddit reserves the right to choose the non-profits. Reddit may act as a democracy most of the time, but it's still a business at the end of the day. "Ultimately, it will be up to all of you what happens – if things go well, the community will be responsible for disbursing a very real amount of money to a set of causes of your choice," Reddit CEO Yishan Wong said. "If it doesn't go well – then we'll simply just pick by ourselves." Wong made a point to emphasize that "this isn't a game," that this is "real money going to real causes doing real things in the world," and urged Reddit users to "put aside the game-playing and be serious." Reddit says it will fight rigging with its usual "anti-vote-manipulation" code, non-profit nominees will be limited to verified 501(c)(3) organizations, and poor suggestions will be filtered out. Reddit has had financial issues trying to keep the site afloat as its userbase has exploded over recent years. In October, the Reddit community made an effort to raise money for the site via donations, and it looks like Reddit now wants to give back. See also – Reddit's 2013 stats: 56 billion page views, 731 million unique visitors, and over 40 million posts and Reddit offers free ads of 100,000 impressions each to the first 250 'deserving' crowdsourcing projects Top Image Credit: Eastop This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| A guide to getting everlasting traffic with keyword research Posted: 28 Feb 2014 09:54 AM PST  Denis Duvauchelle is CEO and co-founder of Twoodo, helping your team organize itself using simple #hashtags. When you look at any of the thought leaders in marketing and copywriting, read any top keyword research guide (from Hubspot, Copyblogger, Moz) they will all tell you the same thing: You gotta get your keyword research right. What will keyword research impact on?
Why? Language links to identity. You need to know the language your (potential) customers are using. If you do not use similar language, you cannot attract more and will alienate the ones you have. We are a team collaboration tool. We found that amongst others we appealed to people interested in the GTD (Getting Things Done) movement after our keyword research. Sure, it had crossed our minds but we assumed it was not that important. Language is a tool you can use to build data about your ideal users, where they are, how to find them and how to attract them. The language you use impacts the copywriting of your website, email transactions, tweets, blog posts, press releases, customer support messages. People identify with the things they use – here are some amazing survey results about iPhones, Androids and Blackberry users:
…and without having to go into detail, you can instantly imagine the ads for each of these products and nod in agreement. Apple appealing to the vain? Blackberry appealing to the business class? Yes, that sounds right. These companies got their language right. They got their keywords right. This allowed them to target the people who would get the most value out of their products. This is customer discovery at its most primitive stage. And a lot of people get it wrong. Validate your assumptions with keyword researchLet's start by mentioning a few well-known facts. You are not going to rank for a singular word. If you are selling wine online, you are not going to rank for "wine." It's going to be at least a two-word phrase, if not more. As a newcomer, you will have to get a) specific and b) creative with your keyword targeting. Specific: To target the exact niche. Creative: Say it in a way that still makes sense to the core product. It's harder than it looks. Let's make a hypothetical case study for "tailored suits." Don't forget to use quotation marks at all times in your search to keep the search accurate. Next: Step-by-step guide Here are the steps to take1. Start with assumptions Make a list of as many grammatical variations as possible about the core things your product does/offers/solves. (eg. black tailored suits, affordable tailored suits, tailored suits are better, luxury tailored suits, tailored suits for events, tailored suits for rent, buy tailored suits online….) If you are having trouble feeling inspired, sometimes the WebCorpLSE tool works (but it is a little limited). It is a database of online language that allows you to see the most common phrases that people use around a word. In the filters on the side, you can choose how many surrounding words are visible (more gives you more context, but less gives you focused keywords): What I learn from this is that "tailored suits" are often accompanied by luxury words such as "exquisite." This indicates the section of society I should look to and the style of copy I should use. Also, black accessories are mentioned twice. I may need to consider black as an important color on my website. Pro tip: if you feel overwhelmed, start with 10, run them through the process, and then return and try the next 10. 2. Google search Scroll to the bottom and check out what the suggested phrases are; list the most likely (eliminate question words like "what is…") Also, it can be useful to see what Google predicts you are typing – this indicates how someone would find what you are trying to offer them. Make a note of relevant suggestions. If you have doubts about Google's trustworthiness, try an alternative search such as a forum or Bing. I decided to use a personal favorite (Quora) just out of curiosity: So far, just from the first step, we have learned that there is interest in a) the cost of tailored suits, b) people want to get them online, c) they want to know if tailored suits are really worth it and d) there is a strong interest in the USA and China. This is fantastic! You can help answer those questions and solve those pains. Before you get over-excited though, put these bits of data to the test through the rest of the steps. 3. Run them through Google keyword planner The Google keyword planner is made for Google Adwords, rather than organic searches. However, it is one of the most common industry search tools to indicate the popularity of search terms in general. Go to Google AdWords – tools – keyword planner. Choose the first search options, type in "tailored suits," hit enter and then choose the tab "keyword ideas." Let's compare a general search to a search based on some of the information we have gleaned from step 2: Unfiltered search (ie. default search settings): …and with filters? Interesting! It seems that "custom made" and "tailor made" are candidates. That's not to say that the general results are not useful – it depends if you think your service needs to be geographically limited or not. But the filters make a huge difference in the keywords you can end up targeting. 4. Run them through Moz keyword difficulty tool Take advantage of the 30-day free trial if you are not sure about signing up. Moz has great research tools, with my favorite being the "keyword difficulty" tool. The first column is the "keyword difficulty" rating. Aim for < 50 percent difficulty (but preferably < 25 percent). Beyond that it is difficult to impossible to expect rank for that keyword. Note that in the filters you can choose between different countries and Google, Yahoo and Bing search engines. If you happen to know what search engine your users use most, great! If not, Google is the most common. 5. Export the data You can export the Google keyword planner results and Moz results to .csv and start eliminating keywords that just don't fit your product (keyword research does tend to get out of hand at times). 6. Cross-check which keywords fit the criteria of Google's low competition Select words that have high monthly searches and low Moz difficulty. 7. Create a shortlist of keywords. Search each keyword and mark the wikipedia URL closest to the keyword. Why? Wikipedia results rank top of Google search results more often than not. You'll be looking for what the Wikipedia pages are ranking for, and if you can fine-tune your shortlist. 9. Run the URL of wikipedia page through Google keyword planner and see what it ranks for. …and you should get something like this (after applying filters – mine were >1000 and low): 10. Test these keywords in Moz – and make your final list Run them through Moz and find out their difficulty rating, just as in step 4. Take anything with less than 50 percent difficulty. What now?Now, hopefully you have a massive database of information about a) the social and cultural status of your ideal customer, b) the language they use, c) the locations where your company may be more/less successful and d) what parts of the market are saturated. You now have key information to support the website design, the copy style and a content marketing strategy. You can use these keywords to find influencers, find trending stories, or find followers for your social accounts. Oh, and you're ready and set to go with the next part of what the keyword research is the base of: building backlinks to increase rankings and improve SEO. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Pinterest now lets you create as many secret boards as you want Posted: 28 Feb 2014 09:36 AM PST Pinterest today announced everyone can now create an unlimited number of secret boards. For those who don't know, secret boards let you keep track of holiday gifts, plan a special event, or work on a project you aren't yet ready to share with the rest of the world. In November 2012, Pinterest launched secret boards and we noted at the time that while you can keep them to yourself, you can also invite family and friends to pin with you, contrary to the name. That was just a test, however, and you could only have three secret boards in total. That limitation has now been lifted. Image Credit: Alessandra Favetto This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| How does your fitness tracker know when you’re asleep? Posted: 28 Feb 2014 09:27 AM PST  Belle Beth Cooper is the co-founder of Hello Code. This post originally appeared on the Exist blog and was republished with permission. Sleep tracking is a big part of what we do at Exist. We currently have Jawbone UP and Fitbit integration, so we can import sleep data from trackers in both of these lines. We're also planning to let users choose to optimise either sleep or activity using Exist, so we want to know as much as we can about how these devices track sleep and how accurate they are. I dived into some research to work out what's going on when you set your Jawbone UP or Fitbit to sleep mode. Both devices use accelerometers to track your movements, including the speed and direction of your motion. This is how they track your activity during the day, and how they tell when you're asleep. When you set your Fitbit or Jawbone UP device to "sleep mode," it monitors your movements. When you sync your device the next morning, the software translates those movements into sleep data. If you've ever edited your sleep times the next morning, you'll have seen a glimpse into how this works—data about your movement during "awake" time gets re-analysed when you tell the software you were actually asleep then, and you then see it charted as sleep data. This method of using a device to track movements in order to measure sleep is called actigraphy. What is actigraphy?Actigraphy is often done in sleep studies using an "actigraph" device—similar to a Fitbit or Jawbone UP, it's usually a device worn on the wrist that tracks movement while you're sleeping. Software then translates those movements into periods of sleep and wake. For people with sleep disorders or general sleep disruptions, actigraphy is a convenient way to have their sleep patterns studied by a clinic without having to sleep in the lab. An actigraph device can be worn at home, and isn't usually too uncomfortable—most of them look like a watch: An actigraph can also be worn 24/7 and track sleepiness during the day, based on movement. Thus, actigraphy might be used for sleep studies where convenience is important. Generally, sleep researchers use polysomnography, or PSG, to study sleep in a lab. This is known as the "gold standard" for measuring sleep. This means that sleep researchers have agreed that PSG is the definitive way to measure sleep, and most studies on the accuracy of actigraphy compare it to PSG data. A PSG test involves sleeping in a lab where your brain waves can be monitored by an EEG test, where electrodes on your scalp measure your brain waves. This can be inconvenient, but is more accurate. Cool fact: PSG tracking is really inconvenient in space, so actigraphy is sometimes used to easily track the sleep of astronauts! Here's a picture of an actigraph device used in a NASA-funded, Harvard University study of scientists living on Martian time, with a fake watch face painted on it: Research into actigraphyMost research into actigraphy has used a purpose-built actigraph device, rather than a Fitbit or Jawbone UP (although a Fitbit was included in this study) and has been focused on measuring the accuracy against a PSG test. Study results have varied, but for the most part the consensus is that actigraphy is generally accurate enough to track sleep in healthy adults with "normal" sleep patterns. Problems arise when your sleep is disrupted—for instance, if you have a sleep disorder or you just have disrupted sleep on a regular basis. The more disrupted your sleep, the less accurate actigraphy will be at tracking it. Mostly this is because actigraphy just tracks one thing: movement. Sleep researchers know that there's much more to accurate sleep data—most importantly, brain waves and eye movements are required to assess sleep phases. In an article on sleep tracking accuracy, Michael Scullin, a post-doctoral fellow at Emory University School of Medicine's Department of Neurology was quoted as saying this:
Which means if you're using a fitness tracker that claims to tell you how long you spend in each sleep stage, it's probably not very accurate after all. As far as time asleep and sleep quality, actigraphy devices generally have a high margin of error. They either under- or overestimate time asleep. If you've tried one of these, you've probably noticed that either it thinks you're asleep when you lie still in bed, or it fails to realise you're awake when you start moving around. My co-founder Josh has found this with his Fitbit One, which has both a "regular" sleep mode and a "sensitive" sleep mode. In regular mode, his sleep time is overestimated, while sensitive mode underestimates how much time he's asleep for. Wake time has been found to be the most tricky for actigraphs to get right, since periods of no movements will almost always register as sleep. So if you don't move "enough" while you're awake, you might have more sleep time recorded than is actually accurate. In Josh's case, when he lies still, trying to fall asleep, that time is often counted as if he is already sleeping. Another issue with using actigraphy is that it's open to user error. For instance:
Usually, wearing a tracker on your trunk (clipped to your waistband) or your ankle will pick up fewer movements. If you're finding that your tracker overestimates your time asleep, you could try switching the position, especially if you have a clip-on style tracker like Josh's Fitbit One. Lastly, it's important to know that the software used to analyse your movement data makes a big difference to how accurate your sleep stats are. There are a few different ways of analysing movement data, and some devices employ multiple methods for a more accurate reading. In addition, different methods of analysis might be more accurate. For instance, having a lower threshold for movements (i.e. fewer movements required to count as awake time) is a more accurate way of predicting time asleep. This could be how Fitbit's sensitive sleep mode works—just a small movement counts as time awake, so the "time asleep" stats are usually spot on, but restless time asleep is often counted as "awake time." Having a higher threshold (i.e. you have to move a lot to register time awake) is better for predicting awake time, but leads to lower accuracy in tracking of sleep time. Fitbit's regular sleep mode counts a lot more of Josh's time in bed as him being asleep, since he has to move a lot to tell it he's awake. This means the "awake time" data is right more often, but his sleep time is overestimated. Should you trust it?So what does all this mean? Should you trust your fitness tracker to know when you're asleep or not? I'm no sleep expert but from what sleep researchers are saying and the results of studies into actigraphy, it seems like it's okay to trust it as a general guide of your sleep time and efficiency, so long as you generally sleep well. If you have (or think you have) a sleep disorder, it's not a good idea to trust actigraphy. In that case you really want to visit a sleep clinic and get a PSG test done. In terms of different sleep phases like deep sleep and REM sleep, I haven't come across a sleep researcher yet who is willing to vouch for accuracy in sleep phase prediction based on movement alone. So it seems like we should be using the overall sleep time as a guide and not giving much credence to supposed sleep phases our trackers are measuring. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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