Digital Problem Solving & Inspiration courtesy of Mads Kristensen

Workstir, a new classifieds service to help you find vendors that you can trust, is an interesting idea. Because not only does the site hold the promise that you can find a vendor for whichever job you need to get done. You’ll also have the opportunity to research whether the vendor is actually any good at what he or she does before deciding to hire the person. This is enabled through the usual palette of features including profiles, user rating, comments etc.

I think the timing for Workstir is great. Never has is been so hard to find a trustworthy vendor, as the times - until now that is - have been too good. And never have has there been a time where vendor services are going to be so much a buyers market. Having a guide to help you pick and choose seems perfect.

If I had to pick one thing we seem to have been discussing the most regarding the use of new media, and perhaps especially social media, for advertising it’s this fantastic concept of ROI. This pillar of sheer spreadsheet power, we can all go and hide behind, whenever we feel overwhelmed by what we experience and we - for some odd reason - decide not to trust our own experience and gut feel.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for measuring the things you do. But I just happen to think that the a lot of the models, we currently have are less than perfect at best - and plain wrong at worst. Yet, still a lot of people trust them. Why? [Read more →]

Google has launched a small guide on best practices for search engine optimization. While some ask why Google would do such a thing, I think it’s clear: They are trying to create their own market. Or - in their case - extend it into new territories.

By launching a guy that’s targeted at helping small businesses get the best out of Google, the search giant is in effect at the end of the day driving up demand for their AdWords program even more. Because once you as a small company have gotten engaged with Google, the step towards spending money with them is a tiny, tiny one.

Clever thinking indeed.

Six Pixels of Separation has a great post about the transition from physical products to digital and how companies are by and large very, very poor at managing that. In the post they make one particular point, which I think is spot on:

…most companies would rather hold on to what they know with everything they have than dip some toes into the blue ocean strategy that is partly the present, but mostly the future. Marketers can shape that future. As stewards of the brands, we get an exclusive glimpse into our consumers and what makes them buy and click. We need to be better at looking at our analytics and our trends to help shape not just our companies, but the industries they serve.

Marketing has never been more meaningful - if it can transform itself to this new, super critical role.

I am fully aware that a lot of people in the tech industry think of email as rather antiquated. When Google announces that they have added video chat to GMail there is some shaking of heads around. But I seriously wonder why that is?

To me the inbox still has huge unleashed potential as a connection hub for all of our communication and online social life. Companies like Xobni have been working on some angles of it for quite some time, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

I cannot help but wonder whether the next big thing after Facebo

Quite a few pundits have been speculating lately that blogs as we know them are dying. Nicholes Carr is just one of them. But is that really true?

I agree that blogging to some extend has gone mainstream with over 100M blogs created during these past few years. However statistics indicate that less than 2M of these are really active, so does that mean that we can still talk about a blogosphere as some sort of meaningful concept? [Read more →]