Knowing your customers is vital to the success of any business. Today, a great deal of customer information is readily available. What to do with all of that data is the question many of us face. So what is a business to do? Use a map. A GIS (geographic information system) map, that is.
Geographic Information Systems Applied
GIS is all about mapping places, measurements, demographics, and conditions to identify the relationships between each piece of data. The results can vary depending on your needs; usable locationbased data, geographically organized reports, or any number of data-rich charts are among the options.
A Geographic Information System is made up of hardware, software, and data that enable an organization to understand location or geospatial information about a particular area of interest, and apply this information to meet the needs of their business.
GIS involves using the “geographic approach” to gather, process, and model data. According to GIS.com, an effective method for solving a business challenge geographically is to ask, acquire, examine, analyze, and act. For example, if you’re managing a consulting business and you need to look for a more efficient way to conduct Web research, you might collect consumer data; compare available schema, topology correspondence, and metadata; and implement a plan to reduce the amount of time your employees prepare information for their clients.
We see GIS as a combination of basic computer mapping with deep dive analytics: so being able to join facts about people and property happening at a place to the place itself. The difference between GIS and what we see as typical consumer mapping applications is the ability to perform your own analytics [and] combine that with the sort of information that you think about generally in databases or in tables.
Geospatial information has actually penetrated all areas of our lives, from GPS devices integrated into smartphones to Google Maps replacing hardcopy street atlases to 3D map flythroughs as part of every evening newscast.
We (humans, collectively) are continually presented with GIS data, making us more spatially aware than any previous generation. Traditional GIS organizations like national mapping and defense agencies use geospatial information to make time-critical decisions every day, while state and local governments may use geospatial information for tax assessments, allocating green space, and preparing for disaster and emergency response.
The most mature business space using GIS at this time is the retail marketplace,says Thompson. Think about globalization; but there’s also glocalization (a combination of global and local). [There is the] driving idea that I can give the ability to a local store manager to make decisions in their own marketplace, customize the merchandise, so I can deal with different ethnicities, incomes, or locations.
GIS In The Cloud
Advancements in GIS have now reached the cloud. Cloud computing and GIS are ideal partners because cloud innovations make collaboration, map sharing, and data collection all the more seamless. For instance, a geospatial application such as GIS Cloud (www.giscloud.com) provides the tools to create, manage, and integrate geo data on the public GIS Cloud itself or in private behind a company’s firewall. GIS Cloud lets colleagues edit mapping projects anywhere, publish updated maps to the Web, retrieve data via mobile device, stylize thematic maps, and incorporate maps into existing applications such as Google and Bing Maps.
The concern associated with GIS in the cloud is the same concern for any business using cloud computing, which is the security of data. The fear is rapidly becoming less common due to remote management and access capabilities. Besides eliminating the need for in-house hardware and IT staff, GIS cloud-based products provide shared infrastructure costs and lowmanagement overhead, and with a preconfigured, monthly package, there are no surprise costs to ownership.
ESRI offers its own SaaS platform called Business Analyst Online. The service processes demographics, consumer spending, and other commercial data to produce analytics about trade areas, buying trends, and customer service communications (based on the criteria you’ve entered). You can go in (Business Analyst Online) and type a location (store, site, etc.) and everything from starting a business as retailer to things like dry cleaning, tax, or service franchises and you can minutes, ZIP code, or town.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
Web technology and softwares:Use WI-FI hotspots wisely
Protect Yourself
The ugly fact is that someone with enough skills and determination can hack into any network, and all but the most secure, private connections can be hacked by someone of average skill and enough determination. Consequently, the most important thing you can do to use Wi-Fi hotspots wisely is to lock down your data and system.
Do not to surf without a firewall. If you do not have firewall software installed, turn on Windows’ built-in firewall protection. Because many users have third-party firewall software, we won’t detail these instructions here. You can locate available firewall programs by browsing to windows.microsoft.com and searching under Firewall (your version of Windows).
The next step is to secure your data. Windows Vista/7 give you the option of selecting a network profile (Home, Work, or Public) when you connect. Always select Public unless you trust the network and its members. Doing this prevents other computers on the network from discovering your PC and turns off the File And Printer Sharing feature. You can tweak any of these settings in the Network And Sharing Center: right-click the network icon (a monitor or series of bars, potentially with a red X or starburst on top) at the bottom right of your display. Select Network And Sharing Center in Vista; Open Network And Sharing Center in Win7.
In WinXP, File And Printer Sharing is turned off by default. To enable this feature, right-click the network (monitor) icon at the bottom right of your display and select Open Network Connections. Right-click the icon for your wireless device and click Properties. Under the General tab, deselect the File And Printer Sharing For Microsoft Networks checkbox to turn sharing off globally. When you return to a safe environment, you can re-enable this feature when necessary. In Vista/Win 7, you can also turn off the File And Printer Sharing feature manually through the OS’s Network
Connection Properties feature, but it’s easier to let Windows do it for you.
How to Connect through Windows
To connect to a wireless network, right-click the network icon and select View Available Wireless Networks (WinXP) or Connect To A Network (Vista). InWin7, select the Network icon.
A menu will pop up displaying available networks. Each OS will identify whether networks are secure. If the network you want is open, select it and click Connect. We advise not connecting to an open network unless you know it is the one you seek. Hackers set up open networks with friendly sounding names hoping that unsuspecting individuals will hop onto them.
If you are connecting to a secure network, or if you don’t know the name of the network you want, contact the network host. You’ll need the network name (also called a service set identifier or SSID) and, if the network is secure, a security key or passphrase. Select the desired network and provide the key if prompted. (See the “How To Evaluate Security” section before you complete this step.)
If you use WinXP, your network card may manage network connections, leaving you unable to connect using our instructions. To give Windows control, click Start, select Control Panel, click Network And Internet Connections, and select Network Connections. Right-click your wireless connection and click Properties. Click the Network Settings tab and select the Use Windows To Configure My Wireless Network
Settings checkbox.
Set Up Manual Connection
If you cannot locate the network you want (because some networks choose not to broadcast their SSIDs), you can set it up manually. In addition to the network, name, and credentials, you will need the network security protocol and encryption type (TKIP or AES).
To set up a manual connection in WinXP, open the available networks list as described previously and click Advanced or Change Advanced Settings (depending on the service pack that you have installed). On the Wireless Networks tab, click Add. In Vista/Win7, open the Network And Sharing Center. In Vista, click Set Up A Connection Or Network at the top left of the display; in Win7, click Set Up A New Connection Or Network (under Change Your Network Settings). Select Manually Connect To A Wireless Network and click Next.
Provide the information exactly as you were given it (uppercase and lowercase). In Vista/Win7, you can opt to see the characters as you type for confirmation. If the network is WEP and you do not see this option, select Shared. Select an encryption type if you have one. Otherwise, keep the default. After entering all this information and configuring the desired settings, click OK or Next to connect.
Evaluate Security
Most private, as well as some public, networks use one of several security standards to protect users and themselves from intrusion. You’ll encounter WEP, WPA, and possibly WPA2. The Wireless Network Connection dialog box may provide the network type. If not, here’s a hint: WEP security keys always contain 26 characters; WPA and WPA2 security keys are eight to 63 characters in length.
WEP is the least secure and easiest to crack; treat a WEP network as you would an unsecure network, setting its profile to Public unless you absolutely must communicate with other PCs. WPA and WPA2 are more impervious to cracking, so you can use a profile that is more open, such as Work, if necessary (or tweak the settings in the Public profile to open things up as needed).
At the end of the day, the responsibility for protecting your assets lies with you. Using common Internet precautions is also a good idea. Before you provide sensitive information, be sure you are at a secure site. The Web address should begin with “https” instead of “http,” and your browser should display a padlock icon or other security confirmation. Check with your email provider to see if you can encrypt your email messages. Another precaution you can take is to turn off your wireless adapter when you are not using the Internet. To turn wireless off, right-click the icon for your wireless connection in the System Tray and select Disable.
The ugly fact is that someone with enough skills and determination can hack into any network, and all but the most secure, private connections can be hacked by someone of average skill and enough determination. Consequently, the most important thing you can do to use Wi-Fi hotspots wisely is to lock down your data and system.
Do not to surf without a firewall. If you do not have firewall software installed, turn on Windows’ built-in firewall protection. Because many users have third-party firewall software, we won’t detail these instructions here. You can locate available firewall programs by browsing to windows.microsoft.com and searching under Firewall (your version of Windows).
The next step is to secure your data. Windows Vista/7 give you the option of selecting a network profile (Home, Work, or Public) when you connect. Always select Public unless you trust the network and its members. Doing this prevents other computers on the network from discovering your PC and turns off the File And Printer Sharing feature. You can tweak any of these settings in the Network And Sharing Center: right-click the network icon (a monitor or series of bars, potentially with a red X or starburst on top) at the bottom right of your display. Select Network And Sharing Center in Vista; Open Network And Sharing Center in Win7.
In WinXP, File And Printer Sharing is turned off by default. To enable this feature, right-click the network (monitor) icon at the bottom right of your display and select Open Network Connections. Right-click the icon for your wireless device and click Properties. Under the General tab, deselect the File And Printer Sharing For Microsoft Networks checkbox to turn sharing off globally. When you return to a safe environment, you can re-enable this feature when necessary. In Vista/Win 7, you can also turn off the File And Printer Sharing feature manually through the OS’s Network
Connection Properties feature, but it’s easier to let Windows do it for you.
How to Connect through Windows
To connect to a wireless network, right-click the network icon and select View Available Wireless Networks (WinXP) or Connect To A Network (Vista). InWin7, select the Network icon.
A menu will pop up displaying available networks. Each OS will identify whether networks are secure. If the network you want is open, select it and click Connect. We advise not connecting to an open network unless you know it is the one you seek. Hackers set up open networks with friendly sounding names hoping that unsuspecting individuals will hop onto them.
If you are connecting to a secure network, or if you don’t know the name of the network you want, contact the network host. You’ll need the network name (also called a service set identifier or SSID) and, if the network is secure, a security key or passphrase. Select the desired network and provide the key if prompted. (See the “How To Evaluate Security” section before you complete this step.)
If you use WinXP, your network card may manage network connections, leaving you unable to connect using our instructions. To give Windows control, click Start, select Control Panel, click Network And Internet Connections, and select Network Connections. Right-click your wireless connection and click Properties. Click the Network Settings tab and select the Use Windows To Configure My Wireless Network
Settings checkbox.
Set Up Manual Connection
If you cannot locate the network you want (because some networks choose not to broadcast their SSIDs), you can set it up manually. In addition to the network, name, and credentials, you will need the network security protocol and encryption type (TKIP or AES).
To set up a manual connection in WinXP, open the available networks list as described previously and click Advanced or Change Advanced Settings (depending on the service pack that you have installed). On the Wireless Networks tab, click Add. In Vista/Win7, open the Network And Sharing Center. In Vista, click Set Up A Connection Or Network at the top left of the display; in Win7, click Set Up A New Connection Or Network (under Change Your Network Settings). Select Manually Connect To A Wireless Network and click Next.
Provide the information exactly as you were given it (uppercase and lowercase). In Vista/Win7, you can opt to see the characters as you type for confirmation. If the network is WEP and you do not see this option, select Shared. Select an encryption type if you have one. Otherwise, keep the default. After entering all this information and configuring the desired settings, click OK or Next to connect.
Evaluate Security
Most private, as well as some public, networks use one of several security standards to protect users and themselves from intrusion. You’ll encounter WEP, WPA, and possibly WPA2. The Wireless Network Connection dialog box may provide the network type. If not, here’s a hint: WEP security keys always contain 26 characters; WPA and WPA2 security keys are eight to 63 characters in length.
WEP is the least secure and easiest to crack; treat a WEP network as you would an unsecure network, setting its profile to Public unless you absolutely must communicate with other PCs. WPA and WPA2 are more impervious to cracking, so you can use a profile that is more open, such as Work, if necessary (or tweak the settings in the Public profile to open things up as needed).
At the end of the day, the responsibility for protecting your assets lies with you. Using common Internet precautions is also a good idea. Before you provide sensitive information, be sure you are at a secure site. The Web address should begin with “https” instead of “http,” and your browser should display a padlock icon or other security confirmation. Check with your email provider to see if you can encrypt your email messages. Another precaution you can take is to turn off your wireless adapter when you are not using the Internet. To turn wireless off, right-click the icon for your wireless connection in the System Tray and select Disable.
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Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Web Technology and Softwares:Green cost cutting measures
Energy consumes a significant portion of a company’s expenses; it’s the energy your company uses, converts, and discharges that produces its profits. Getting a handle on how you use energy, how much energy costs you, and how much energy you waste can be a real eye-opener. Small changes in energy usage can have dramatic effects on a business.
Analytics
Many business intelligence providers offer sustainability management tools designed to measure, manage, and provide data on key energy, environmental, economic, and social indicators. In addition to helping you meet your company’s green goals, sustainability management tools can also help you use your resources more economically.
Automating reporting will ensure end-to-end data gathering and presentation to those who need the analytical data. Performance monitoring can be used to look at how energy is used within your business and makes you aware of how various areas are
meeting planned goals.
Real-time energy monitoring can help to reduce a company’s overall energy consumption pinpointing where energy is being used with no real benefit, such as leaving production machinery running when workloads are low, heating areas when not in use, or fully lighting areas that only need a minimum amount of light. Real-time energy monitoring lets you identify which facilities are underutilized or operating at peak usage, allowing you to make production decisions on the fly.
Supply chain monitoring may seem counterintuitive, but not paying attention to a supplier’s energy use could result in higher production costs for your company. It can also help companies uncover anomalies early, signaling possible production delays.
The ability of business analytics to consolidate data into quickly understood information can be applied to the greening process. By monitoring current usage against desired goals, and tracking your usage over time, you can use business analytics to increase your overall efficiency, as well as to document any compliance goals you need to meet.
The Cloud
The average business PC only uses up to 20% of its computing capacity. Most of the time, corporate PCs sit idle, consuming energy but not accomplishing much of anything. We’ll get to that point later.
Cloud computing is promoted as a way to store data so that it’s available to any device, anytime, anywhere a connection to the cloud (Internet) is available. Although that’s true, that’s only half the picture. The cloud is also a post-effective way to provide software services, virtualization, and scalable computing resources. Instead of purchasing new, faster desktop computers for everyone, you can grab the necessary computing power from the cloud. Remember that 20% usage rate? Move to cloud-based services and you extend the life of your PCs. You obtain a green benefit by reducing short-term recycling needs; an economic benefit by reducing short-term PC purchases; and a long-term green effect by concentrating your computing needs into a more easily manageable central site.
There are powerful economic factors pushing us toward cloud computing. One of the major reasons is the more efficient use of power by cloud computing providers. Spreading computing loads across many users as well as time zones improves hardware utilization, while at the same time spreading fixed costs over more servers and users.
Cloud-based services aren’t limited to classic office productivity applications. A wide range of commercial services is available to address almost the entire range of business needs. By moving these applications to the cloud, you also open up the possibility of true mobility. Some of your staff may be able to perform some or all of their work from home, reducing the overall energy footprint at the office. And of course the cloud keeps everyone connected when they’re traveling.
Analytics
Many business intelligence providers offer sustainability management tools designed to measure, manage, and provide data on key energy, environmental, economic, and social indicators. In addition to helping you meet your company’s green goals, sustainability management tools can also help you use your resources more economically.
Automating reporting will ensure end-to-end data gathering and presentation to those who need the analytical data. Performance monitoring can be used to look at how energy is used within your business and makes you aware of how various areas are
meeting planned goals.
Real-time energy monitoring can help to reduce a company’s overall energy consumption pinpointing where energy is being used with no real benefit, such as leaving production machinery running when workloads are low, heating areas when not in use, or fully lighting areas that only need a minimum amount of light. Real-time energy monitoring lets you identify which facilities are underutilized or operating at peak usage, allowing you to make production decisions on the fly.
Supply chain monitoring may seem counterintuitive, but not paying attention to a supplier’s energy use could result in higher production costs for your company. It can also help companies uncover anomalies early, signaling possible production delays.
The ability of business analytics to consolidate data into quickly understood information can be applied to the greening process. By monitoring current usage against desired goals, and tracking your usage over time, you can use business analytics to increase your overall efficiency, as well as to document any compliance goals you need to meet.
The Cloud
The average business PC only uses up to 20% of its computing capacity. Most of the time, corporate PCs sit idle, consuming energy but not accomplishing much of anything. We’ll get to that point later.
Cloud computing is promoted as a way to store data so that it’s available to any device, anytime, anywhere a connection to the cloud (Internet) is available. Although that’s true, that’s only half the picture. The cloud is also a post-effective way to provide software services, virtualization, and scalable computing resources. Instead of purchasing new, faster desktop computers for everyone, you can grab the necessary computing power from the cloud. Remember that 20% usage rate? Move to cloud-based services and you extend the life of your PCs. You obtain a green benefit by reducing short-term recycling needs; an economic benefit by reducing short-term PC purchases; and a long-term green effect by concentrating your computing needs into a more easily manageable central site.
There are powerful economic factors pushing us toward cloud computing. One of the major reasons is the more efficient use of power by cloud computing providers. Spreading computing loads across many users as well as time zones improves hardware utilization, while at the same time spreading fixed costs over more servers and users.
Cloud-based services aren’t limited to classic office productivity applications. A wide range of commercial services is available to address almost the entire range of business needs. By moving these applications to the cloud, you also open up the possibility of true mobility. Some of your staff may be able to perform some or all of their work from home, reducing the overall energy footprint at the office. And of course the cloud keeps everyone connected when they’re traveling.
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Sunday, September 11, 2011
Cloud based Tools
Cloud-based tools make keeping contacts, calendars, and other data synced across all your mobile devices and PC platforms a lot less difficult than you might expect. People are no longer tied to a specific location or device as they roam about working on laptops, tablets, or even smartphones. The challenge is to keep everything synced so you can access the same data from each of the platforms you use.
Default systems are in place for some platforms. For ex ample, smartphones and tablets running Google’s Android operating system work best when they are connected with Google services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, and Contacts. BlackBerry devices work best with BlackBerry Enterprise Server. And Microsoft Windows Phone 7 devices work best with a Microsoft infrastructure.
If you use Microsoft Exchange Server or Office 365, keeping your data synced is relatively simple. Exchange Server maintains the e-mail messages, contacts, and calendar information, so you can ac cess the data from pretty much anywhere and any device. Laptops can connect to Exchange over any Web connection, and most smartphones and tablets can stay synced using Exchange Active Sync. BlackBerry smartphones and tablets use Blackberry Exchange Server rather than Exchange Active Sync.
If you are not using Exchange Active Sync, or if you need to keep data in sync with another PC, the above solutions won’t help. For both iOS devices and secondary PCs, the easiest path to syncing runs through Google.
If you rely on Gmail, Google Calendar, and Contacts rather than on e-mail, calendar, and contacts maintained locally, as with Microsoft Outlook, you don’t really have multiple copies of the same data to keep in sync. You can simply connect to the Google data from your various devices, and any changes or additions will occur the Google service itself, so they will be refl ected when you connect from another device.
If you use Microsoft Offi ce and Outlook, Google Apps Sync for Outlook will sync your e-mail, contacts, calendar, and notes between Google Apps and Outlook—but you must be a paying customer of Google Apps.
Alternatively, Google Calendar Sync will perform two-way syncing between Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook. You can set up e-mail on multiple computers as long as you configure each system to leave messages on the server as well, so they can be downloaded at each location.
As for syncing contacts, software can help. For example, using a product like Sync2 ($30), or gSyncIt ($20) for each system that you want to keep in sync will ensure that changes and additions on one PC will make their way to the other computers.
With your data synced to google, you can then set your iPhone or iPad to use google sync for e-mail, calendar, and contacts so those platforms will have access to the current, synced data. Google uses Exchange Active sync, so you add google sync to your iOs device as if it were an Exchange e-mail account, and then set your calendar and contacts to update using google sync.
Keeping spreadsheets, presentations, and other data synced among devices can be more challenging. such files can also quickly exceed the storage capacity of mobile devices, many of which have a meager 8gB or 16gB of storage.
Carry it with you: store your files on an external usB hard drive or thumb drive that you carry around.
Use the cloud: the most elegant solution is to use cloud-based storage, such as Microsoft Windows Live skyDrive or google Docs. then, as long as you have an internet connection, you can access the files from anywhere.
Ideally, you want to work offline when necessary and still have the data stay in sync. skyDrive provides a Microsoftcentric solution. When you use Windows Live Mesh, data automatically syncs from the desktop to the cloud and Windows Phone 7 smartphones integrate with data stored on skyDrive, too.
Google doesn’t offer a way to work with google Docs offline (though such a capability is expected this summer), but tools from Memeo can provide offline access to google Docs data. And the free google Cloud Connect add-on lets you sync files from Microsoft Office software to google’s cloud.
You can also turn to services like Box.net, Dropbox, or sugarsync. With each of these, designated folders on the local desktop are automatically synced with the data that’s stored online.
Default systems are in place for some platforms. For ex ample, smartphones and tablets running Google’s Android operating system work best when they are connected with Google services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, and Contacts. BlackBerry devices work best with BlackBerry Enterprise Server. And Microsoft Windows Phone 7 devices work best with a Microsoft infrastructure.
If you use Microsoft Exchange Server or Office 365, keeping your data synced is relatively simple. Exchange Server maintains the e-mail messages, contacts, and calendar information, so you can ac cess the data from pretty much anywhere and any device. Laptops can connect to Exchange over any Web connection, and most smartphones and tablets can stay synced using Exchange Active Sync. BlackBerry smartphones and tablets use Blackberry Exchange Server rather than Exchange Active Sync.
If you are not using Exchange Active Sync, or if you need to keep data in sync with another PC, the above solutions won’t help. For both iOS devices and secondary PCs, the easiest path to syncing runs through Google.
If you rely on Gmail, Google Calendar, and Contacts rather than on e-mail, calendar, and contacts maintained locally, as with Microsoft Outlook, you don’t really have multiple copies of the same data to keep in sync. You can simply connect to the Google data from your various devices, and any changes or additions will occur the Google service itself, so they will be refl ected when you connect from another device.
If you use Microsoft Offi ce and Outlook, Google Apps Sync for Outlook will sync your e-mail, contacts, calendar, and notes between Google Apps and Outlook—but you must be a paying customer of Google Apps.
Alternatively, Google Calendar Sync will perform two-way syncing between Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook. You can set up e-mail on multiple computers as long as you configure each system to leave messages on the server as well, so they can be downloaded at each location.
As for syncing contacts, software can help. For example, using a product like Sync2 ($30), or gSyncIt ($20) for each system that you want to keep in sync will ensure that changes and additions on one PC will make their way to the other computers.
With your data synced to google, you can then set your iPhone or iPad to use google sync for e-mail, calendar, and contacts so those platforms will have access to the current, synced data. Google uses Exchange Active sync, so you add google sync to your iOs device as if it were an Exchange e-mail account, and then set your calendar and contacts to update using google sync.
Keeping spreadsheets, presentations, and other data synced among devices can be more challenging. such files can also quickly exceed the storage capacity of mobile devices, many of which have a meager 8gB or 16gB of storage.
Carry it with you: store your files on an external usB hard drive or thumb drive that you carry around.
Use the cloud: the most elegant solution is to use cloud-based storage, such as Microsoft Windows Live skyDrive or google Docs. then, as long as you have an internet connection, you can access the files from anywhere.
Ideally, you want to work offline when necessary and still have the data stay in sync. skyDrive provides a Microsoftcentric solution. When you use Windows Live Mesh, data automatically syncs from the desktop to the cloud and Windows Phone 7 smartphones integrate with data stored on skyDrive, too.
Google doesn’t offer a way to work with google Docs offline (though such a capability is expected this summer), but tools from Memeo can provide offline access to google Docs data. And the free google Cloud Connect add-on lets you sync files from Microsoft Office software to google’s cloud.
You can also turn to services like Box.net, Dropbox, or sugarsync. With each of these, designated folders on the local desktop are automatically synced with the data that’s stored online.
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Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Wireless Carrier knows
Consumers use phones and tablets to access everything from work email to bank accounts, but can users be sure that the data on their devices is for their eyes only?
Without physical access to the device, reading personal data on a smartphone is very difficult. the one party that has constant access to the data running to and from your phone, however, is your wireless carrier. How much does your provider know about you? Quite a lot—but for the most part, the carrier sees the information in an aggregated form that is not associated with individual users.
Hardware: Wireless carriers need to know what kinds of devices are connected to their networks so that they can provide the appropriate amount of bandwidth. For example, if the carrier knows that its users’ smartphones typically have large screens, it can conclude that those devices will probably consume a large amount of streamed video.
Alcatel-Lucent, for one, makes analytical equipment for learning what devices are connecting to a specific radio, and from how far away. Operators can then gauge where to point the antennas, and how much power to supply. Operators don’t use network intelligence equipment to find any one device’s physical location on a map. Instead, they focus on the position of devices relative to the cell tower.
‘Metadata’ about data packets: each data packet sent has a “wrapper” that includes the origin and destination, the protocol (Ip), whether the packet holds data from a real-time service such as VoIp, and the amount of data. the operator uses the information to get a rough idea of the content’s purpose, without discovering details about the content itself. Besides measuring the broadband usage of subscribers with metered plans, the wrapper helps the carrier prioritize time-sensitive data, like VoIp packets, over other packets,
such as mp3 downloads. Network intelligence data also lets carriers identify where bandwidth-hungry applications are heavily used. For instance, if mobile video chat becomes popular in a downtown area during business hours, the carrier might increase the bandwidth available to that area during that time period.
Deep Packet Inspection: DpI software captures a few packets of data flowing to or from a device, and then quickly analyzes the details of the content. This practice allows the carrier to quantify which websites users are visiting, plus what kinds of services they’re using.
DpI intelligence can help the carrier identify revenue opportunities. If, say,
subscribers are spending a lot of time on Facebook, they might be willing to pay for a higher-priced data plan if the service could guarantee them unlimited use of the app every month.
On the dark side, carriers might use DpI software for “lawful interception”—that is, to capture data for law enforcement from the data streams of “persons of interest.” And critics have cited DpI as a tool that operators may use to detect and then inhibit or block certain kinds of content—bittorrent downloads, for example—a violation of the principles of network neutrality.
Targeting individual devices may not always be a bad thing, however. Carriers might map the Ip address of a device to the subscriber’s account if, for instance, a connected device becomes infected with a virus and begins to abuse network resources. In that case, network engineers may either suspend or limit its access until the device is fixed or the offending app is terminated.
A Wealth of Information
Clearly, wireless operators can look pretty deeply into their networks. But carriers are far more interested in the habits of large groups of users than in those of single users. Carriers are looking to see if something is changing in a bad way; they are looking for trends, he says. When a wireless carrier gets a general sense of what’s going on under its umbrella, that means your service could become a whole lot smoother.
Without physical access to the device, reading personal data on a smartphone is very difficult. the one party that has constant access to the data running to and from your phone, however, is your wireless carrier. How much does your provider know about you? Quite a lot—but for the most part, the carrier sees the information in an aggregated form that is not associated with individual users.
Hardware: Wireless carriers need to know what kinds of devices are connected to their networks so that they can provide the appropriate amount of bandwidth. For example, if the carrier knows that its users’ smartphones typically have large screens, it can conclude that those devices will probably consume a large amount of streamed video.
Alcatel-Lucent, for one, makes analytical equipment for learning what devices are connecting to a specific radio, and from how far away. Operators can then gauge where to point the antennas, and how much power to supply. Operators don’t use network intelligence equipment to find any one device’s physical location on a map. Instead, they focus on the position of devices relative to the cell tower.
‘Metadata’ about data packets: each data packet sent has a “wrapper” that includes the origin and destination, the protocol (Ip), whether the packet holds data from a real-time service such as VoIp, and the amount of data. the operator uses the information to get a rough idea of the content’s purpose, without discovering details about the content itself. Besides measuring the broadband usage of subscribers with metered plans, the wrapper helps the carrier prioritize time-sensitive data, like VoIp packets, over other packets,
such as mp3 downloads. Network intelligence data also lets carriers identify where bandwidth-hungry applications are heavily used. For instance, if mobile video chat becomes popular in a downtown area during business hours, the carrier might increase the bandwidth available to that area during that time period.
Deep Packet Inspection: DpI software captures a few packets of data flowing to or from a device, and then quickly analyzes the details of the content. This practice allows the carrier to quantify which websites users are visiting, plus what kinds of services they’re using.
DpI intelligence can help the carrier identify revenue opportunities. If, say,
subscribers are spending a lot of time on Facebook, they might be willing to pay for a higher-priced data plan if the service could guarantee them unlimited use of the app every month.
On the dark side, carriers might use DpI software for “lawful interception”—that is, to capture data for law enforcement from the data streams of “persons of interest.” And critics have cited DpI as a tool that operators may use to detect and then inhibit or block certain kinds of content—bittorrent downloads, for example—a violation of the principles of network neutrality.
Targeting individual devices may not always be a bad thing, however. Carriers might map the Ip address of a device to the subscriber’s account if, for instance, a connected device becomes infected with a virus and begins to abuse network resources. In that case, network engineers may either suspend or limit its access until the device is fixed or the offending app is terminated.
A Wealth of Information
Clearly, wireless operators can look pretty deeply into their networks. But carriers are far more interested in the habits of large groups of users than in those of single users. Carriers are looking to see if something is changing in a bad way; they are looking for trends, he says. When a wireless carrier gets a general sense of what’s going on under its umbrella, that means your service could become a whole lot smoother.
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Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Killer Email Newsletter
As a marketing tool, the e-mail newsletter might seem archaic compared with new media such as Twitter and Foursquare. Yet e-mail remains one of the most effective means of building relationships with customers and driving sales. Most people look at everything in their inbox, even if it’s just the subject line. In fact, e-mail newsletters have experienced a recent boom, with companies such as Thrillist and Groupon profiting largely on the strength of their mailing lists. Here’s how to make an e-mail newsletter work for your company.
Make a compelling offer
People need a good reason to add more e-mail to their overflowing inboxes. That makes the sign-up form almost as important as the newsletter itself. (Adding an e-mail address to your list without the owner’s permission is a no-no.) Clearly state what benefits subscribers can expect, such as exclusive discounts or insider industry tips. Just make sure the incentive to sign up is closely tied to your business. You shouldn’t raffle off an iPad, because the people who sign up will probably only care about the iPad, not your company.
Send often—but not too often
No business owner wants to gain a reputation as a spammer. But if you communicate too infrequently, customers may become less likely to remember your brand and less receptive to your sales pitches. A lot of companies make the mistake of not being in front of customers all year long, but then in November and December, they’ll start e-mailing every day. For most companies, sending newsletters once or twice a month is optimal.
That rule of thumb has worked well for The Girl & the Fig, which operates three restaurants and a catering business in Sonoma, California. The company publishes a monthly e-mail newsletter called Figbits, which typically includes recipes and information about upcoming events. The newsletter helped garner hundreds of reorders for her first cookbook as well as about 300 downloads of the company’s new iPhone app in two days.
Choose a clean design
Be sure to include enough white space so each element of your newsletter is easy to find, says Tornquist. Another design tip: If you include images in your newsletter, bear in mind that many people read e-mail with graphics turned off. If your e-mail consists of large graphics, readers will see blank space. E-mails in which the first thing you see is the ‘unsubscribe’ message, which isn’t good. Make sure there’s a mix of text and images.
get personal
To cater to subscribers’ interests, you will need to know more about them than their e-mail addresses. But take it one step at a time. If the newsletter signup form includes too many questions, visitors will be less likely to subscribe. Instead, send new subscribers a quick note a few days after they sign up.Send new subscribers an e-mail that asks about their careers and interests,surveying the entire subscriber list once a year to get feedback on the content.
If readers have divergent interests, divvy your mailing list into segments and send targeted variations of the newsletter to each group. Some companies also use customer data, such as recently viewed or purchased items, to create custom e-mail marketing missives. For instance, after a customer books a trip on Kayak, a travel site based in Norwalk, Connecticut, the company e-mails a roundup of deals on hotels, car rentals,and other services in the destination city.
encourage conversation
In addition to surveys, offer subscribers regular opportunities to interact. One way to do that is by including quick polls in newsletters. A site that sends users serialized versions of books by e-mail, regularly includes polls in the company’s newsletter, which has some 350,000 subscribers. In the December newsletter, asked subscribers to submit New Year’s literary resolutions— books they had always wanted to read— and linked to a forum on her website in which readers could post their answers. Included links to some of DailyLit’s classic titles, including War and Peace and Anna Karenina.
Make the subject line count
Without an attention-grabbing subject line, subscribers may not open your e-mail. Choose a specific, succinct phrase that highlights the most crucial information in the newsletter. More subscribers will open an e-mail titled 20 Percent Off Spring Styles than one called March Newsletter.
Don’t oversell
Though the ultimate goal of an e-mail newsletter is to boost sales, be careful that your missives don’t become a relentless bombardment of pitches. The best newsletters provide expert information that benefits readers. A fashion boutique, for instance, could publish a seasonal style guide; an enterprise software company could offer productivity tips for the office.
One rich source of inspiration, is the questions customers regularly ask sales and customer service reps. A great way to do a newsletter is a question-and-answer format. It invites dialogue. Business-to-business companies, can often draw newsletter ideas from the guides and white papers they send to clients and prospects. Of course, newsletter subscribers love deals and discounts, but don’t cram a lot of promotions into one newsletter, or the deals might get lost in the shuffle. For maximum impact, focus on a single offer and highlight it at the top of the page, so that subscribers see it as soon as they open the e-mail.
tie in blogs and social media
If you already publish a blog, there is no need to create even more content for your newsletter. Having a separate newsletter, a separate blog—it’s almost overkill. In fact, a newsletter is a great way to drive traffic to your blog and your social media content.
Publish excerpts of your blog posts, with links to the full content. Some e-mail
marketing services, including Constant Contact, offer tools that let subscribers share the newsletter with their Facebook and Twitter followers.
Keep tweaking
Open rates and clicks are the primary metrics used to determine a newsletter’s effectiveness. The open rate, the percentage of recipients who view the body of an e-mail, primarily gauges the quality of the subject line. The links clicked within the body of the e-mail are a direct indicator of what content subscribers find most compelling. Target numbers vary by company.
After establishing a baseline, many companies conduct A/B tests, in which portions of the mailing list receive slight variations of a newsletter, to see which version is most effective. IDES, a Laramie,Wyoming–based company that provides information about plastics to engineering and manufacturing companies, regularly tests the subject lines and content of its newsletter, which is sent twice a month to 340,000 subscribers. In November, IDES tested two versions of a newsletter promoting the company’s new search tool. Half of its subscribers saw an image-based ad with a blue button inviting them to click for more information. The others saw a text ad with a basic link. The text ad received 33 percent more clicks.
Make a compelling offer
People need a good reason to add more e-mail to their overflowing inboxes. That makes the sign-up form almost as important as the newsletter itself. (Adding an e-mail address to your list without the owner’s permission is a no-no.) Clearly state what benefits subscribers can expect, such as exclusive discounts or insider industry tips. Just make sure the incentive to sign up is closely tied to your business. You shouldn’t raffle off an iPad, because the people who sign up will probably only care about the iPad, not your company.
Send often—but not too often
No business owner wants to gain a reputation as a spammer. But if you communicate too infrequently, customers may become less likely to remember your brand and less receptive to your sales pitches. A lot of companies make the mistake of not being in front of customers all year long, but then in November and December, they’ll start e-mailing every day. For most companies, sending newsletters once or twice a month is optimal.
That rule of thumb has worked well for The Girl & the Fig, which operates three restaurants and a catering business in Sonoma, California. The company publishes a monthly e-mail newsletter called Figbits, which typically includes recipes and information about upcoming events. The newsletter helped garner hundreds of reorders for her first cookbook as well as about 300 downloads of the company’s new iPhone app in two days.
Choose a clean design
Be sure to include enough white space so each element of your newsletter is easy to find, says Tornquist. Another design tip: If you include images in your newsletter, bear in mind that many people read e-mail with graphics turned off. If your e-mail consists of large graphics, readers will see blank space. E-mails in which the first thing you see is the ‘unsubscribe’ message, which isn’t good. Make sure there’s a mix of text and images.
get personal
To cater to subscribers’ interests, you will need to know more about them than their e-mail addresses. But take it one step at a time. If the newsletter signup form includes too many questions, visitors will be less likely to subscribe. Instead, send new subscribers a quick note a few days after they sign up.Send new subscribers an e-mail that asks about their careers and interests,surveying the entire subscriber list once a year to get feedback on the content.
If readers have divergent interests, divvy your mailing list into segments and send targeted variations of the newsletter to each group. Some companies also use customer data, such as recently viewed or purchased items, to create custom e-mail marketing missives. For instance, after a customer books a trip on Kayak, a travel site based in Norwalk, Connecticut, the company e-mails a roundup of deals on hotels, car rentals,and other services in the destination city.
encourage conversation
In addition to surveys, offer subscribers regular opportunities to interact. One way to do that is by including quick polls in newsletters. A site that sends users serialized versions of books by e-mail, regularly includes polls in the company’s newsletter, which has some 350,000 subscribers. In the December newsletter, asked subscribers to submit New Year’s literary resolutions— books they had always wanted to read— and linked to a forum on her website in which readers could post their answers. Included links to some of DailyLit’s classic titles, including War and Peace and Anna Karenina.
Make the subject line count
Without an attention-grabbing subject line, subscribers may not open your e-mail. Choose a specific, succinct phrase that highlights the most crucial information in the newsletter. More subscribers will open an e-mail titled 20 Percent Off Spring Styles than one called March Newsletter.
Don’t oversell
Though the ultimate goal of an e-mail newsletter is to boost sales, be careful that your missives don’t become a relentless bombardment of pitches. The best newsletters provide expert information that benefits readers. A fashion boutique, for instance, could publish a seasonal style guide; an enterprise software company could offer productivity tips for the office.
One rich source of inspiration, is the questions customers regularly ask sales and customer service reps. A great way to do a newsletter is a question-and-answer format. It invites dialogue. Business-to-business companies, can often draw newsletter ideas from the guides and white papers they send to clients and prospects. Of course, newsletter subscribers love deals and discounts, but don’t cram a lot of promotions into one newsletter, or the deals might get lost in the shuffle. For maximum impact, focus on a single offer and highlight it at the top of the page, so that subscribers see it as soon as they open the e-mail.
tie in blogs and social media
If you already publish a blog, there is no need to create even more content for your newsletter. Having a separate newsletter, a separate blog—it’s almost overkill. In fact, a newsletter is a great way to drive traffic to your blog and your social media content.
Publish excerpts of your blog posts, with links to the full content. Some e-mail
marketing services, including Constant Contact, offer tools that let subscribers share the newsletter with their Facebook and Twitter followers.
Keep tweaking
Open rates and clicks are the primary metrics used to determine a newsletter’s effectiveness. The open rate, the percentage of recipients who view the body of an e-mail, primarily gauges the quality of the subject line. The links clicked within the body of the e-mail are a direct indicator of what content subscribers find most compelling. Target numbers vary by company.
After establishing a baseline, many companies conduct A/B tests, in which portions of the mailing list receive slight variations of a newsletter, to see which version is most effective. IDES, a Laramie,Wyoming–based company that provides information about plastics to engineering and manufacturing companies, regularly tests the subject lines and content of its newsletter, which is sent twice a month to 340,000 subscribers. In November, IDES tested two versions of a newsletter promoting the company’s new search tool. Half of its subscribers saw an image-based ad with a blue button inviting them to click for more information. The others saw a text ad with a basic link. The text ad received 33 percent more clicks.
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Friday, September 2, 2011
Buying Online
More and more, consumers are leaving brick-and-mortar stores to buy online. In fact, countless reports from big brands state that online sales growth continues to outpace any in-store counterparts. In addition, a recent survey suggests that consumers are embracing online venues as a way to escape higher prices, poor selection, and dwindling sales staffs associated with the traditional in-store shopping venues. Consequently, competition on the Web is hotter than ever. Many e-tailers are improving their competitive edge by mingling the human elements of the in-store shopping experience with the power of buying online. Here are a few tips to help humanize your website and keep visitors coming back:
See Your Site through the Eyes of Your Visitors
Innovations in a technique called co-browsing enable site visitors to enlist your guidance during their visit. With co-browsing software, one can see what site visitors are interacting with on the site and walk them through the buying process — similar to interacting with a sales associate at a brick-and-mortar store. Through this process, the associate and customer arrive at the best solution, together. Cobrowsing re-creates this experience by giving visitors virtual access to a human on the other end. In fact, cobrowsing gives you the power to do everything with visitors from finding that perfect product to filling out forms at checkout. If you already have a CRM, find new ways to maximize your investment. If you are looking to add a new vendor provided service to your mix, like live chat or email, make sure that you will be able to integrate those products with your CRM. For example, by integrating a CRM with live chat software your reps will have instant access to a visitor’s previous purchases, demographics and visit history. Reps can leverage this info during their chat conversations with visitors in the same way that brick-and mortar associates recognize and work with returning customers. Such interactions with visitors help build rapport and trust, further humanizing the experience of your website.
Analyze Results
Consider this: The overwhelming majority of brick-and-mortar stores are largely unable to do genuine statistical analysis on what is working best in their shops. With the exception of high-volume big brands, most stores rely largely on anecdotal associate feedback about what works for customers and what doesn’t. Perhaps one of the greatest strengths of doing business online is the availability of products that provide data about your website which can be leveraged to improve the overall user experience and positively impact sales and brand loyalty.
Standards like Google Analytics do a great deal of heavy lifting, but there are also many complementary solutions to help you work smarter, not harder. Try testing the waters with options that drill into real-time insight and visitor monitoring. Some solutions even give you the ability to set up custom alerts, like shopping cart dollar amount thresholds or number of pages visited. “Listening” to this kind of individual and trending data gives you the power to further optimize the performance and usability of your sight, keeping visitors coming back.
With technology advancing constantly and competition sprouting up faster than ever, the need to differentiate your site by implementing new ways to transform and improve the buying experience for visitors is critical to continued success. Techniques that blend the best of shopping at a storefront with shopping online are likely to be the next evolution on the path to increasing conversions, boosting sales and strengthening brand loyalty.
See Your Site through the Eyes of Your Visitors
Innovations in a technique called co-browsing enable site visitors to enlist your guidance during their visit. With co-browsing software, one can see what site visitors are interacting with on the site and walk them through the buying process — similar to interacting with a sales associate at a brick-and-mortar store. Through this process, the associate and customer arrive at the best solution, together. Cobrowsing re-creates this experience by giving visitors virtual access to a human on the other end. In fact, cobrowsing gives you the power to do everything with visitors from finding that perfect product to filling out forms at checkout. If you already have a CRM, find new ways to maximize your investment. If you are looking to add a new vendor provided service to your mix, like live chat or email, make sure that you will be able to integrate those products with your CRM. For example, by integrating a CRM with live chat software your reps will have instant access to a visitor’s previous purchases, demographics and visit history. Reps can leverage this info during their chat conversations with visitors in the same way that brick-and mortar associates recognize and work with returning customers. Such interactions with visitors help build rapport and trust, further humanizing the experience of your website.
Analyze Results
Consider this: The overwhelming majority of brick-and-mortar stores are largely unable to do genuine statistical analysis on what is working best in their shops. With the exception of high-volume big brands, most stores rely largely on anecdotal associate feedback about what works for customers and what doesn’t. Perhaps one of the greatest strengths of doing business online is the availability of products that provide data about your website which can be leveraged to improve the overall user experience and positively impact sales and brand loyalty.
Standards like Google Analytics do a great deal of heavy lifting, but there are also many complementary solutions to help you work smarter, not harder. Try testing the waters with options that drill into real-time insight and visitor monitoring. Some solutions even give you the ability to set up custom alerts, like shopping cart dollar amount thresholds or number of pages visited. “Listening” to this kind of individual and trending data gives you the power to further optimize the performance and usability of your sight, keeping visitors coming back.
With technology advancing constantly and competition sprouting up faster than ever, the need to differentiate your site by implementing new ways to transform and improve the buying experience for visitors is critical to continued success. Techniques that blend the best of shopping at a storefront with shopping online are likely to be the next evolution on the path to increasing conversions, boosting sales and strengthening brand loyalty.
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