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“Google announced today that they are tagging sites that are mobile friendly which could affect your SEO rankings.”

As we have emphasized so much about effective user experience in class, mobile-friendly websites should be a priority in modern website development. It’s slowly getting to the point that there are more users viewing and browsing websites on their mobile smartphones than on desktop computers. And what happens if the mobile experience is poor?

The user is way less likely to respect your company, brand, or do any business with you.

Now that Google is tagging mobile-friendly websites and could rank them higher on the search engine than sites that are not mobile-friendly, it should be a wake-up call for websites that still have not considered mobile users. Mobile-friendly websites are the winners here, as they will be winning the battle for now, at least in the short run.

Does your site pass the test? Check your pages with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test and improve your mobile user experience.

I was browsing Facebook on my mobile device, and came across a button like the one above, asking me to donate.

This came across to be very surprising to me, and almost ruined my mobile experience. I can see that there’s a huge opportunity to fundraise through Facebook users, but this also reflects on why many users are leaving Facebook now a days. The Facebook experience have gone from a simple feed, all over the place, and now with plenty of ads, targeted posts, and now a donate button.

It’ll be interesting to see where this donate button takes us, and how effective it will be! For me personally though, it ruins the overall Facebook user experience for me. But then again, Facebook has become such a crucial part to my online life that I won’t be leaving Facebook just because of this.

I recently stumbled upon 10 new digital marketing stats:

1. Facebook posts with only 40 characters get 86 percent more engagement, according to researchers Daniella Franco and Kimi Mongello.

2. Yahoo’s revenue from display ads in the third quarter, $447 million, was down 5 percentyear over year. Search, where Yahoo has a deal with Microsoft’s Bing, looked much better for the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company—price-per-click was up 17 percent leading to a 4 percent rise in revenue.

3. Kraft is collecting 22,000 different kinds of data from its 100 million online visits each year. The packaged-goods marketer employs such stats from 500 segments of consumers to buy ads against.

4. Tumblr now has 420 million monthly visitors and has grown to 205 million blogs.

5. Two-hundred-and-sixty of the world’s biggest brands are marketing on Tumblr, per Yahoo chief Marissa Mayer.

6. Visa orchestrated real-time marketing based on social data in 65 countries during the World Cup.

7. Foursquare hit 55 million registered users, increasing its audience by 15 millionsince roughly the same point in 2013.

8. During August—the first month it unbundled into two apps, Foursquare and Swarm—the company reported that it saw a 54 percent lift in users compared to the same month last year. Jeff Glueck, chief operating officer for the mobile-social app, explained that “a third of our users are using just Foursquare, one-third are only using Swarm, and a third are using both apps every 30 days. We really feel this confirms and validates our assumptions going into the unbundling.“

9. Sixty percent of the 3,044 millennials surveyed by Cassandra Report said that they leaned on social media to follow the news, per Digiday.

10. During its third-quarter earnings report, Amazon revealed an operating loss of $544 million, more than 20 times what was hemorrhaged during the third quarter 2013.

Of all the new statistics, I found that the fact that Kraft collects so much information about its users is very interesting. This really shows how technology has allowed companies to learn a lot about consumers, and use that to their advantage. They could be using this information to personalize marketing content, and generate more sales.

This also reminds me of the recent upcoming of many companies who collect marketing data for other companies. This shows how much value all this data is to companies, and how the internet and technology has completely changed the business world. Companies who are not using any digital analytics are going to suffer in the long-run!!

As the Chair of Sauder Sports, I am happy to announce the launch of our new website!

www.SauderSports.ca

I have been using the things I learned in class to develop this website to its current state.

It incorporates a blog, recipe list, general information, and other various offerings to really enhance the user experience.

I went through the 7C’s of user experience and really ensured that the online user experience was exceptional.

There’s really not much I can say about it, so you should check it out! Let me know what you like about it, and any feedback you have.

MasterCard recently announced that their new credit card will have a built in fingerprint scanner!

I found this news item very interesting since I recently blogged about Apple Pay, and Apple Pay uses fingerprint scanning technology to allow users to pay using their iPhone.

MasterCard suggests that by having a finger print scanner on your credit card, you can not only bypass the annoying 4 digit PIN code entry, but also prevent other individuals using your credit card.

Off the bat, I think that this is actually a great idea, since I have always thought that entering your PIN code during each transaction is quite annoying. Of course I can see many issues with this new and growing technology such as the fingerprint scanner only working some of the time. But these issues should be easy to mitigate with the amount of technologies available in present day. The fingerprint scanner on iPhones work amazing, and never have failed on me. Although it is much different to implement a scanner on something as thin as a credit card.

I think that with the introduction of all these quick pay systems, the annoying payment experience will be sped up, thus ultimately speeding up the entire shopping experience and also reducing line-ups at stores. Definitely a lot of potential in this market.

Apple recently announced its new payment system called “Apple Pay”. Through an app on your iPhone, you can link all your credit cards, gift cards, etc. and pay using your iPhone instead of the physical card. The technology has only been introduced in the United States and not in Canada, however we have already been able to pay with gift cards on our iPhones for many years.

Here’s what Apple wants you to know about Apple Pay.

Although I think that this is a great idea to improve efficiency and convenience, there is common debate if this technology is of any value.

One area of discussion is the security of it. How secure are our iPhones in transmitting valuable payment information? What if we lose our iPhones and someone gets a hand on it. Even though you need your finger print to confirm transactions, how do we know a skilled hacker cannot bypass this barrier?

There’s only one way to see if Apple Pay will be deemed successful. In time we will see if this will create traction, or be victim to another failed technology. Above all, this is a great leap forward to create new efficient ways to pay. Maybe we will eventually say goodbye to the wallet.

With the invention of smartphones, individuals are now always connected to the online world. It is common to see someone spending more time on their mobile device than a desktop computer.

So should web designers and marketing strategists focus on a mobile-first strategy?

Currently, a majority of website designs are focused on a desktop/laptop-first strategy. This is when they expect their users to be visiting the website from a computer. As individuals are spending more time on their smartphones than their computers today, designers and marketing strategists should consider user experiences on mobile devices.

One mistake that I always see companies do is not developing a mobile-friendly website for their mobile visitors. Having to view a large website designed to be viewed on computers on your mobile phone with a small 4″ screen ruins the entire user experience. Pinching and zooming in and out just to read or click on links on the website makes the experience very annoying and may cause visitors to leave the site. As consumers spend more time on their smartphones than computers, it is crucial for companies to create mobile versions of their websites in order to even stay competitive. Negative user experience can not only drive people away from your site, but will also hurt the company’s image and potential business.

Someone recently discovered that the iPhone 6 Plus could bend over time in your pocket if you sit on it.

Duh… If you sit on it with your 180lb body weight and your curved bottom I’m sure it could eventually bend.

But because of the recent iPhone 6 hype, and the ability for negative stores on social media to become viral overnight, everyone now knows that the iPhone 6 Plus can potentially bend. Because of social media, the story of the iPhone bending was exaggerated, and contributed to many thinking twice about purchasing the iPhone 6 Plus, even though the truth may be that it only may bend if a ridiculous amount of force is applied.

Companies took advantage of this, and recognized an opportunity for effective real time marketing. Everyone started posting about how their product doesn’t bend  like the iPhone does.

Curved. Not bent. #GALAXYNoteEdge pic.twitter.com/OTPIYlI07f

— Samsung Mobile (@SamsungMobile) September 25, 2014

We don’t bend, we #break. #bendgate #iPhone6plus pic.twitter.com/uippCg4kCi — KITKAT (@KITKAT) September 24, 2014

Real time marketing can be so effective when companies post about viral or news stories. Everyone is already engaged with the viral story, and connects with the posts companies tailor to respond to the story.

This is another reason why automated social media posts are a bad idea. Companies need to be aware of what’s going on in the market at all times, and take advantage of these opportunities to join in with a viral conversation or topic. Having automated posts for your social media channels won’t allow your company to react to stories as quick, or at all, since nobody will be observing conversations and posting in real time.

A couple years ago I found myself watching hilarious YouTube videos uploaded by a young man named Jerome Jarre. I subscribed to him, expected more videos to come, however it seemed like he suddenly disappeared of YouTube…

It turns out that Jerome went on to create his own mobile-first marketing agency called Grapestory. Jerome recognized the marketing potential of social media platforms such as Vine or Snapchat. He’s attracted over 7.2 million followers on Vine, and now charges companies over $25,000 to post a promotional piece on his Vine account.

Companies who want Jerome to advertise for them through his Snapchat account are charged over $35,000 per “snap”. But these posts aren’t simple “take a random photo of a product and upload” type of posts. Jerome spends hours crafting the perfect posts, blending the perfect amount of comedy, strategy, and marketing together. And the posts apparently work.

To me initially, discovering Jerome’s success was one of those “Wow! I wish I would have thought of that before!” moments. But the truth is that Jerome owes his success to his humorous, warm, and outgoing personality. He started off on Vine and YouTube, gaining millions of fans before he could attract companies to market through his accounts. Users who subscribe to individuals on Vine or Snapchat like the entertainment they receive from those individuals, and after subscribing, continues to view every single post. If there’s one post that they dislike out of a hundred, users are unlikely to unsubscribe instantly.

Subscribing is easy, but deciding to unsubscribe is hard. It is also effective to push media or advertisements to subscribers, as they are focused on watching the posts they subscribed to. This is a great opportunity for those who are already influencers on social media, as they can also offer marketing services to companies. Recognizing the amount of engagement one can get through a simple social media post also makes me wonder how we can add to that fact, and create even more engagement with social media.

Our in-class discussion about good user experience had an overarching theme: ease of use. Internet users prefer simple, easy to use experiences that are quick yet informative. Many believe that online user experiences depend on the specific industry, but my view is that there are many overlapping features of good user experience between different industries. The importance and effect of great user experience has clearly been identified, and since online properties are still being developed, companies are now looking at owning the best user experiences.

Amazon’s 1-Click ordering feature has not only made their website’s UX better, but also made businesses across all industries turn their attention to Amazon. Consumers are able to purchase an item on Amazon’s website and have the item shipped to their address all with one click of a button. This is an exceptional way to use customization, personalization, and communication to create an amazing commerce user experience.

If this is such a great feature to have on digital properties, why doesn’t every website or application have 1-Click ordering? Thank intellectual property laws.

In 1999, Amazon was granted a patent on the “1-Click” ordering process. This is a way for the e-commerce giant to attract customers, maintain customers due todifferentiation, and eliminate current and future competition. As the digital space is developing, and we are able to create more compelling user experiences, owners of digital properties must continue to improve their user experiences in order to stay competitive in the digital space. How will companies top Amazon’s move?