Last year I blogged about North Carolina being ranked in the top 5 states for entrepreneurs and am proud that the state I have built my business in is now in the top 3 states for business in the United States. Yes, I’m biased because I have lived in Charlotte, NC for over a decade, but the truth is North Carolina is an amazing state filled with transplants like myself who make this state a great place to call home and start a business.
This year is no different as CNBC has scored all 50 states on 43 measures of competitiveness developed with input from business groups including the National Association of Manufacturers and the Council on Competitiveness. States received points based on their rankings in each metric. Then, they separated those metrics into ten broad categories, weighting the categories based on how frequently they are cited in state economic development marketing materials. That way, the study ranks the states based on the criteria they use to sell themselves.
Internet commerce changed how we do business, and now the rapid expansion of mobile is morphing the retail environment again.
Thanks to their mobile phones, consumers can get information to help with purchase decisions at the touch of a button, whether they’re shopping online or in-store. Here’s what you need to know to reach these new shoppers and those joining their ranks every day.
Ways to Shop:
Scan a tag (or qr code)
Call a friend
View a website
Use an app
Methods to gather information:
Discuss on a social network
Read a review
Make shopping lists
Compare different products
Collect loyalty points
Read more info
Join an online chat
View store location using maps
Look up location specific coupons
Benefit with others using group deals
Forms of Payment
Pay using phone number
Buy in store
Pay using card on phone
Pay online
Mobile Shopping Breakdown
10% don’t have a mobile phone
40% don’t shop using a mobile
40% are light mobile shoppers – have a narrow outlook towards mobile with regards to shopping and see their phone primarily as a mini computer.
10% are heavy mobile shoppers – love their phone & are really into mobile shopping. They do everything on their phones: share photos, check news, download music & shop.
Shopping Habits Changing:
World eCommerce sales in 2009 = $210 billion online; $1.2 billion via mobile.
Predicted 2015 world eCommerce sales = $14 trillion online, $119 billion via mobile.
I recently came across an amazing video from Tether, a talented group who build brand stories that are irresistibly true, by helping brands remember who they are and discover who they can become.
Some brand videos tell grand, sweeping stories that cover every nitty-gritty inch of the brand’s history. Others are more like chapters—offering insights into particular milestones that become interwoven into an even bigger picture—a bigger, richer story.
For Gatorade, we chose to focus on one 16-month period in time. A Tether-perspective on what it’s like to help evolve this global brand into what they are today.
In the end, we created a little over seven minutes of pure stop motion marvelousness. (Currently, there is no such word; but there should be.) A more intimate story. A story that is solely Gatorade’s. That simply captures the recreation of a brand in motion. One. Fantastic. Frame. At. A. Time.
March Madness is well upon us as the men’s college basketball final four teams will be decided today. Google has created a events page just for the 2011 College Basketball Tournament. Google gives you all the tools you need to follow the tournament:
The college basketball tournament is here and you can explore the games, schools, and 3D venues on Google Maps. Download basketball apps from the Chrome Web Store, set up your bracket with Google Docs and follow Realtime updates on the tournament.
Engage in some friendly rivalry with our College Basketball Brackets template. View the 2011 NCAA tournament bracket. Create and manage your pool in this online spreadsheet. Automatic scoring for up to 10 people. Publish a bracket as a web page. Both men’s and women’s tournaments.
Google also gives you access to get more from your game experience from the Chrome Web Store to get the latest content and games for your browser.
My favorite part of the website is the Hotpot Challenge, which is a simple game of click and shoot a basket. See if you can beat my top score of 220. Warning, this game can be addicting.
Explained as “the search bar for your life,” Greplin allows users to to search across your social graph. Greplin CEO Daniel Gross, who is 19 years old, came up with the idea while he was on his way to a party in 2009. He couldn’t remember where it was and needed to search through Gmail and Facebook, separately, to find the address a friend sent him.
Addressing the problem of when someone is searching for a message from a friend, a link to a video, blog post, or a digital invitation to a party, Greplin can find that content whether it is in their Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter account.
As TechCrunch points out: There are some really nice touches to the product. Search results are shown before you hit enter, much like Google’s instant search product, and you can also filter by a variety of message types and sources (by people, for example, or Facebook).
Twitter (your tweets, timeline and direct messages)
Dropbox (titles and filenames only)
LinkedIn (your status updates, contacts)
Evernote*
Google Apps Mail*
Google Apps Calendar*
Google Apps Docs*
Yammer*
With Google recently releasing Social Search, Search Engine Journal points out that:
Google has thrown its hat into the social networks ring. With social networks growing and expanding wildly, Google has decided to get its share of the action. It all started with the launch of Google’s Social Search as a beta for English speaking users. Social Search was previously in the Google Labs section. It displays its results at the bottom of the search window, and searches based on your list of contacts in Google, for relevant information to the topic you are currently researching.
It then posts whatever photos, posts, blogs or links the people in your social network have posted on your topic. An added feature allows your friends photos that relate to your topic to be published.
In a major update, Google has almost completely overhauled the Social Search network. The company has added Twitter, Flickr, and Quora to its servers, integrating all the information available on all those websites into one place. Now Social Search results will appear anywhere in the listing according to search relevance. Annotations will let you know when someone from your social circle has posted any kind of information relevant to your search, and on which website it was posted.
Mashable weighs in on Google’s Social Search by adding:
The first major change is that Google Social Search results will no longer appear only at the bottom of the page, but will instead be “blended” throughout the page. This is done through an annotation system that lets you know when a friend has shared a specific link or search result. If your friend writes a blog about how to create honey, that result will have an annotation that your friend has “shared this,” either via Google or through one of Google’s three major social integrations.
If you want to give Greplin a try I have 5 invites to give to the first five people who leave a comment.
