Years ago I heard a story about a person who was driving down the freeway and approaching an interchange with two possible directions the driver could choose. One person in the car was telling the driver to go right and another person was telling the driver to go left. The driver was unable to make a decision, and ended up running into a cement pylon that divided the two paths.
I have no idea if this story is true, but it illustrates clearly a common problem that businesses experience as they start to grow. I have observed this type of paralysis which results from indecision, and often the results of not making a decision are worse than either of the viable decisions that could have been made.
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Posted on November 25th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Business Management, Entrepreneurship | No Comments »
Despite a declining economy, industry experts are projecting an increase in online advertising spending. eMarketer’s projection, benchmarked against the latest Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) data, puts online ad spending at $25.7 billion in 2009. That is 8.9% over the $23.6 billion that will be spent in 2008, and pretty good considering how other advertising formats are being hit. Read more.
Posted on November 25th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Advertising, Internet Marketing, Monetization, e-Business | No Comments »
The following blog entry is a review of a movie I recently watched, titled Forever Strong.
Warning: The movies I like the best generally get poor reviews with movie critics. “It’s a Wonderful Life” is one of my all-time favorite movies. I love the epic battle between good and evil and do not think it is “over the top” when good triumphs. I love movies that make me want to be better. I realize these kinds of movies aren’t for everyone. So, if you don’t agree with my cinematic preferences, you’re probably not going to like this movie.
Forever Strong, is a movie (based on a true story) about Rick Penning, a self-centered, out-of-control, star rugby player who lands himself in a juvenile corrections facility after a repeat drunk driving accident in which he almost killed his girlfriend. The director of the corrections facility notices Rick’s love for rugby and offers Rick the opportunity to play for the longtime rival Highland Rugby team, and its legendary Coach Gelwix. Read more…
Posted on November 16th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Leadership, Life Lessons, Movie Reviews, Relationships, Self Improvement | No Comments »
One of my favorite scriptures describes a holy man named Moroni who lived during the year 72 B.C.:
If all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men. (Alma 48:8-19)
For many years I have read and pondered this scripture and tried to emulate Moroni, albeit unsuccessfully. Years ago my wife even gave me a painting of Moroni with this scripture for my office because she knew how much it meant to me.
However, though the years of focusing on this scripture, I failed to connect it with the full context of the situation in which this description of Moroni is given. Moroni was the army captain of a group of Christians named Nephites who lived in the ancient Americas shortly before Christ’s birth. Moroni’s people were ruled democratically by elected judges, yet on multiple occasions Captain Moroni had to put down revolutions from a faction of the people who wanted to appoint a king. The man who started this internal revolution, and who desired to be the king, was named Amalickiah. Read more…
Posted on November 10th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Faith, Leadership, Life Lessons, Relationships, Self Improvement | No Comments »
As many of you know, I am passionate about online missionary work. This is a topic that Elder M. Russell Ballard has been discussing lately as well. Earlier this year I had one of the most amazing experiences of my life when David Neeleman and I were able to site down will Elder Ballard and discuss this topic. His insight and vision are amazing.
In the July 2008 Ensign magazine, Elder Ballard published an article titled Sharing the Gospel on the Internet, which was adapted a commencement address he gave at Brigham Young University–Hawaii on December 15, 2007. I blogged about that address, but I am so excited about this Ensign article that I am including it in its entirity in this blog post:
With new technological tools, you can further the work of the Lord by joining the ongoing conversation about the Church.
I am in my 80th year. By some accounts that makes me pretty old. Actually, some folks think some of the Brethren may be too old to know what’s going on in your world. Let me assure you we are very much aware. Read more…
Posted on November 9th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Faith, Online Missionary Work | No Comments »
Lee Falin has released a free scriptures application for the iPhone named “The Scriptures”. This version contains all of the standard works for the LDS Church and the ability to search for a word or phrase across all of the scriptures. It does NOT yet contain foot notes, Topical Guide, Bible Dictionary, scripture marking ability, or any languages other than English. I’ve tried it and am very happy with the functionality so far.
Lee’s website for this project
Download the app in the iTunes Store
Posted on November 9th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Faith, iPhone | No Comments »
This year I started an Internet consulting practice, which has gravitated towards Internet strategy, monetization and marketing. Recently, much of my consulting work has focused on helping businesses to better monetize their websites, social media applications, and mobile device applications.
Monetization through virtual currencies and virtual goods is a topic that has fascinated me recently. Online communities have developed virtual currencies which can be purchased or earned, and then can be redeemed to buy virtual goods or services within the community. For example, a community member could purchase a suit of armor in a multi-player game, or virtual flowers to send to a friend who is sick.
Last month, the Associated Press reported that GaiaOnline.com collects $1 million per month from players buying virtual goods ranging from puppy ears to lightning bolts. Read more…
Posted on October 24th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Monetization, Online Communities, Social Networking, Virtual Goods, e-Business | No Comments »
Today ReadScriptures.com released its long awaited application which ads scriptures to the iPhone. The Scriptures app has all the LDS standard works, some General Conference proceedings, the Book of Mormon Study Guide, and the Teachings of Joseph Smith manual. They say that more content will be coming soon. The application is $14.99 but is well worth it, and with the funds they generate the creators of the application say they will soon be adding bookmarking, footnotes, highlighting, notes, etc. Click here to download.
Posted on August 1st, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Faith, Gadgets, iPhone | No Comments »
A little over a year ago Facebook empowered web developers to create applications that could run on the Facebook platform. This simple decision has propelled Facebook to become one of the most popular sites on the Internet. Now, Facebook is expanding that vision and hopes to allow web developers to use their platform to develop applications that can be used throughout the Internet and almost anywhere else developers want to use them. If Facebook is successful in this strategy, I believe Facebook will create and own an essential piece of the next generation of the Internet. This could be one of the biggest announcements in the history of the Internet. For more information, see this article.
Posted on July 28th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Innovation, Internet Marketing, Online Communities, Open Source, Social Networking, e-Business | No Comments »
For years the Adoption.com website tried to provide its own site search, yet we always struggled with the quality of search results and keeping the search index current. Then, Google launched its SiteSearch technology allowing website owners to leverage the powerful, industry-leading Google search quality and add premium features to their search such as synonyms (For example, someone searching for the keyword “Arizona” will also be shown results for synonym keywords such as “AZ”).
Adoption.com and thousands of other websites have migrated their site search to Google SiteSearch, which is a free solution providing much higher quality search results. (To test this technology, do a search in the search box on the upper right of the Adoption.com website.) However, the biggest problem has been that Google SiteSearch will only show pages in the results that are contained in the Google search index. For example, Google does not index all of the “deep” content on the Adoption.com website, such as all of the records in the Adoption.com Reunion Registry or the posts in the Adoption.com Forums. As a result, the websites which use Google SiteSearch are usually not allowing their site visitors to search all of the website content.
Also, Google SiteSearch has not allowed any preferencing of content if a website owner wanted a certain section of content to show up higher in search results than another section. However, Google SiteSearch has been the best option available, so website owners have continued to use it. Read more…
Posted on June 4th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Google, User Experience & Usability, e-Business | No Comments »
