Google

As we enter a new year it’s easy to look back and wonder about what we could have done better or differently, but it is a lot more fun to guess about what is coming in the year to come. The following are some predictions about the computer industry and how it will affect businesses in the next year. Please read this with the same attitude of fun I am using to write it.

Last week I started a general review of Google+ however this week I want to dive into the business aspects of Google+. The first thing to say is that as of right now business is persona non-grata on Google+. Do not attempt to use Google+ for business at this time.

My first impression of Google + is that there are barriers to entry that may make adoption difficult. I say this knowing full well that Google is Google and that they will resolve these problems or that a community will just deal with them. The problem that is most evident right now is that Google Apps Users (like myself) cannot have accounts (so it appears from some articles) at this time and they deleted my Google Profile. I will be blogging more about this next week as Google as made more announcements about this.

Google Analytics is a great tool for understanding how people use your website. This tool allows you to track how many people get to a page, what they click on, when they click on it, where they go after they click, and much more. Often times this data can be hard to understand because it is just numbers, like accounting, data and not very visual.

This post was a response to a question posted on a forum about the disruption that Google maps is having on the first page of Google. Google is forever evolving. This debate will be mostly irrelevant in 2 months(ish) because Google will have made enough changes to the way they decide what sites are relevant or not. Right now Google is switching (like Microsoft Bing has in more significant ways) to highly valuing social input. Search engines will use the information gathered from sites like Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Amazon and others to determine the relevance of content.

I have arrived in Copenhagen and started to figure my way around the area. I am very excited about the conference and look forward for the main events tomorrow. The city is great and the Bella Center where the conference is lives up to its name.

Denver DataMan uses technology all the time but what do we really Love? If you haven't already, check out these, the top 10 technologies that we love - we think you will too!

1. Google Maps
Now not only can you find directions to and from a place; you also know what that place looks like before you get there. Here is the link to Google's new experimental features.

This evening I taught a session at the Rocky Mountain Micro Finance Institute (RMMFI) about creating a free or almost free presence on the Internet for small businesses. We discussed that there are many options for getting started that can help you put your shingle up on the Internet before you need to spend thousands on professional web presence. We also looked at tools that everyone should be using.

At first glance it might sound silly to talk about Google food but the thing is that words on a website are nothing less than Google food. When there is text available on the Internet (Google and other search engines) eat up or index the content so it can be searched. Search engines work by finding text on websites that can be indexed and then searched by Internet users.

It has been way to long since I last posted on my blog. I am breaking my own rule that companies should blog at least once per-week. Blogging is good for establishing yourself as an expert in the community as well as for providing food (information) for Google to eat up (index). Now if I was to just right that first paragraph - that would be a cop out and not a valuable post. So, I will tell a story about a photographer I am helping build their potential blogging strategy.