Alberta Business Marketing

Now it is time to forget about those expense, complex and perhaps unreliable network servers for simply sharing information amongst members of your team!  Small Business now has a robust, easy to manage, pain-free solution to manage their day-to-day sharing of information across team members everyday.  During a recent trip to Tampa, my partner David stumbled upon a fantastic solution that solves most of our file sharing challenges and at a price that fits our business budget.

Have you heard of Dropbox?

Dropbox is a web-based file storage, online backup and synchronization platform for small business and also can scale to support larger teams.  Dropbox was easy to install and flexible enough to support our small business needs.  No complex setups, no super high IT costs for a simple service like sharing information and we have the peace of mind knowing our business information is safe and sound, accessable wherever our travels take us and our overall cost of ownership is next to nothing.

At Ulistic we run a number of different platforms.  David and I both run Apples Macintosh systems of some flavour, we have the odd Windows machine kicking around the office and David runs Linux when he is on the road.  For a small business we have a wide variety of business systems.  Dropbox provides us the flexibility to run our business and access our information on all of these robust platforms.  Did I mention…with no headaches and no super high IT bills each month.

In addition, with its synchronization abilities when a file stored our team Dropbox account changes we have the ability to be notified.  Great when you are working and collaborating on a project together.

Are you ready for the price?

2 GB of storage and under is FREE! That’s right, it doesn’t cost you a cent to set up your own Dropbox account and copy your critical files to your account and off of your computer system.  Dropbox once installed shows up as a resource in Finder and also in your Windows Explorer.  It was so simple, even I installed it without the help of anyone.

For those concerned about security.  Dropbox allows you to lock down who has access to what.  All access is encrypted using AES-256 encryption and they claim that Dropbox employees do not have access to your information.  That is pretty good security in my eyes and especially for the information we work with daily.

Web and Mobility is also looked after.  Dropbox has applications for the iPad, iPhone and Android operating systems plus is fully accessible via a web browser.

Give it a try.  Pricing for storage is pretty reasonable after 2 GB.  For 100 GB of storage…$20 a month.  Wow, pretty reasonable!

Tags: android, business systems, Cloud storage, Computing, Data synchronization, David, Dropbox, fantastic solution, File hosting, File sharing, iPad, iphone, Linux, Microsoft Windows, online backup, Online backup services, Online Solutions, operating systems, pain-free solution, tampa, Technology/Internet, Ubuntu One, USD, using AES-256 encryption, web browser, web-based file storage
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Apple has approved a Paypal mobile payment solution that works across different applications on iPhone. What this will mean is travelers will soon be able to pay for goods and services from within a wide variety of applications on iPhone within Paypal. Ditto for Android phones.

The next phase of development for tourism business apps will be to integrate Paypal payments; making it easy for mobile phone users to pay for tourism services from the palm of their hand.

Frankly, I’m not sure why more restaurants haven’t offered diners the option of paying their tab using the existing Paypal app. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Tags: android, apps, iphone, paypal
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Declaring Foursquare is officially removed from my iPhone!  But why?

I have officially pulled off Foursquare this week.   I am working hard and continuing to determine what social media services work best for business and of course those business who put their trust in Ulistic for online marketing recommendations.  Foursquare on the surface appears it can attract restaurants, hotel owners and retail stores who can jump all over it and offer some great specials and draw in visitors who check-in with close proximity to their business.  However, for me and for some others the novelty and quirkiness of the check-in process, points and badges is something that quickly became boring and really pointless.

What was it that killed the novelty of Foursquare with me?

Is it a simple lack of adoption in the business community or was it just a lack of value and results.  Was Foursquare just a few months or a year ahead of its time?  I still believe location aware services are the up and coming thing when it comes to online marketing.  Just look at Google’s initiatives around “click to call” with mobile browsers.  For business to adopt leveraging these services it needs to be able to draw in prospects who are looking for what you have to offer, not just visitors who perhaps don’t have the dollars to spend on your products and services.

Where I see location aware services really working is in making recommendations based on your location.  If I go to Toronto and want to get a listing of restaurants close to where I am and meet my budget I can easily open up Yelp and it knows where I am and what is close by.  This can easily work for Realtors with open houses, restaurants with specials, hotels looking to fill up some empty rooms or any other retail shop with specials or sales going on.  There are lots of opportunity but it has to show return for business to adopt it full on.

I think at the core this would have worked well with Foursquare but its major flaw is business relying on folks checking in.  I guess we still need some kind of opt in and as long as we rely on people to opt in, this will continue to be a flaw.

Foursquare you are out…my iphone Starbucks application stays.

Foursquare rating for small business = To early and needs to attract those with real dollars to spend, not just those of us who like to play a quirky game.

Tags: Apple Inc., Business/Finance, foursquare, Google Inc., Internet Marketing, iphone, location aware services, Online social networking, retail shop, Social Issues, social media, starbucks, Starbucks Corporation, toronto
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In today’s hi-tech, fast paced, socially connected world, how does one relax? Maybe it is heavy metal music like me. Maybe it is curling up with a good book or simply just unplugging from the world. Wow! The past two or three weeks the world is complete blur.  David and I got Ulistic up and going.  I [...]

Tags: 403.775.2205, Basketball, Basketball player, Calgary, David West, Facebook Inc, Geoff Tate, heavy metal music, Human Interest, information technology, Internet Marketing, iphone, military member this hits home pretty hard, music, Next Magazine, online marketing consulting, professional social media consulting, rap/metal, Relax, search engine, search engine optimization, Singles, Small Business Specialist, social media, Technology/Internet, Tweet, Uncategorized, Web Design guy, web development, web needs
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My conversation with David Janes @dpjanes (Discover Anywhere Mobile) asks the question:

Are a you Destination Marketing Organization or a Destination Make-them-spend-more-money-in-your-region Organization?

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In this 40 minute conversation, David and I cover a number of interesting content ideas for destination apps including:

• underestimating the growth of mobile
• understanding the needs of digital traveler
• the importance of finding the right partners
• marketing Web apps in a destination
• the importance of GPS location relevant data for the traveler
• the irrelevance of regional boundaries
• how Discover Anywhere Mobile does the work of integrating destination content into the app including: remapping the themes of experiences, events calendar, tracking changes (adding, modifying and deleting content for the host dmo) – so there is no need to upload your content to a content management system.
• why an app living on a device is more valuable than a Web app and why hosting data on the app is vital for minimizing data pull (roaming charges) for out of country users
• augmented reality
• integration of social media with real time communication from twitter users in the destination
• direct communication with the dmo from the app
• the importance of having Web Savvy staff at your DMO and partners in your community.
• issues and opportunities with making handheld payments from within an app.

Check out apps discussed in this podcast:

• Discover St. John’s app on the iTunes store
• Near Me BC app on the iTunes store

What do you think are the obstacles and opportunities of handheld applications for regional destination marketing organizations?

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Tags: apps, blackberry, dmo, iphone, mobile web, podcasts
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