March 1st, 2013 by Audrey Poulin
The Government of Canada has been busy lately working on a new Anti-Spam Law that aims to discourage the most damaging forms of Spam in Canada. First written in December 2010, the law was revised in January 2013 and is awaiting a Governor in Council order to take effect. This new law will affect anybody who sends commercial electronic messages that “encourage participation in a commercial activity, regardless of whether there is an expectation of profit”.
Simply speaking, when sending Commercial Electronic Messages, or CEMs, senders will now have to obtain consent from the recipient first, before sending any communication. This consent can be obtained either verbally or in writing, but it must contain the name of the organization, a mailing address and contact information (phone number or email address), a statement explaining on whose behalf consent is being sought, the identity and contact information of a third-party used to obtain consent. Organizations will also need to include information that identifies them clearly when sending any electronic message. The sender will also have to provide a clear and easy way to unsubscribe from the list of recipients, and must allow recipients to opt-out of all communication sent by the organization and by third-party partners. Read more on Getting Ready for the New Canadian Anti-Spam Law…
Tags: Anti-Spam Law, Commercial Electronic Messages, Email Campaigns, Spam
Posted in Digital Marketing, Trends and Technology | No Comments »
February 15th, 2013 by Audrey Poulin
Source: Adobe LiveCycle Blog
Earlier this week, Adobe announced the launch of the most recent version of its enterprise form and document platform, LiveCycle Enterprise Suite 4 (ES4). This new version introduces several enhancements that embrace the “mobile first” ideology, and which should improve accessibility and ease–of-use of forms.
One of the major improvements to LiveCycle ES4 is its transition towards HTML5 for the Workspace tool which enables the product to work seamlessly on any platform, whether it is an Android tablet, an iPhone or a desktop. Adobe has upgraded LiveCycle to be fully optimized for mobile platforms. For businesses, this means greater flexibility for in-field use of forms. For business applications like insurance on-boarding this means that forms can easily be completed and processed directly in the field, using standard mobile devices, like tablets. . Forms and workflows can be managed from any location, online or offline, enabling companies to have a more seamless integration in everyday life and ultimately improving productivity.
Read more on What do the changes to Adobe LiveCycle ES4 mean for you?…
Tags: Adobe, LiveCycle, Mobile
Posted in Trends and Technology | No Comments »
January 30th, 2013 by Audrey Poulin
If you’ve been following the social buzz lately, you’ll have already heard of Facebook’s new search engine called Graph Search. The new engine was announced to the public on January 25, 2013 and will start being implemented in its beta phase in the next few months. Integrated with the Microsoft search engine Bing, Graph Search aims to provide Facebook users with the ability to quickly find friends with similar interests. For instance, a quick Graph Search would tell you who, amongst your friends, is already a fan of INM on Facebook.
What this means for your company
If your company isn’t already on Facebook, Graph Search should be a wake-up call. With the new search engine, people will be able to immediately view recommended suppliers, brands and establishments. With one search you can find a dentist that a friend goes to, or a local restaurant your friend has visited in San Diego and liked so much he joined their Facebook page. Building your presence on Facebook will therefore be more important than ever. What used to be a nice way to connect and stay in touch with people you’ve already reached will become a word-of-mouth goldmine. Graph Search will immediately prove that you have gained the seal of approval from a person’s friends and create positive word-of-mouth about your company with minor effort.
Read more on What Facebook Graph Search Means For Your Business…
Tags: Digital Marketing, Facebook, social media
Posted in Digital Marketing | No Comments »
January 4th, 2013 by Andrea Simmons
It’s that time of year again when Adobe hosts a special webinar to preview some of the key features that are slated to be unveiled in the next generation of its web content management solution, Adobe CQ. While we still need to wait until the Adobe Digital Marketing Summit in March to see the official product announcement and the final list of features, the sneak peek provides insight into the direction and the approach the product is taking with this round of enhancements.
The first change to mention is not a feature of CQ, but a new layer of packaging on the total Digital Marketing offering that Adobe delivers. Adobe has reorganized its product line into a new package, called the Adobe Marketing Cloud.
This package includes five key segments of solutions:
- Adobe Analytics
- Adobe Target
- Adobe Social
- Adobe Media Optimizer
- Adobe Experience Manager
The Adobe CQ solution fits into this last category. Together these cloud solutions provide the ability for marketers to make, manage, monetize and optimize their digital marketing efforts. Read more on A Sneak Peek into Adobe CQ 5.6…
Tags: Adobe, CQ5, Mobile, Social, web
Posted in General, Trends and Technology | No Comments »
June 11th, 2012 by Andrea Simmons
In late May, the European Union (EU) implemented a new law that requires UK-based websites to warn visitors if they use cookies on their sites. Cookies are used for many purposes, including storing information in shopping carts, delivering targeted advertising, remembering logins and other credentials, and for remembering preferences like text size or color schemes.
In essence, cookie technology helps organizations collect profile and preference information that allows them to deliver the personalized and more targeted experiences that consumers are expecting today. More than 60 percent of tracking data today is powered by cookie technology. While there are other technologies that allow for data collection and tracking, cookies are an easy option that many technologies still leverage.
Contrary to the reactionary coverage it has generated, this law does not state that cookies cannot be used; it only states that visitors must be informed of their use and must provide “consent”. For many organizations it is the definition of consent that is still fuzzy. Just a few days before the legislation compliance deadline, the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) updated its guidance on the law to allow for implied consent. This means that if the website or application discloses the use of cookies and the visitor continues with its use, the user’s consent is implied. Read more on Understanding the New EU Cookie Law…
Tags: Canada, Cookie law, customer engagement, EU, mobile app, tracking, web analytics, website
Posted in Trends and Technology | No Comments »
May 8th, 2012 by Kent Rahman
There’s no denying the impact that mobile has today on a business. A recent study by IDC predicts that mobile devices will outnumber laptops and desktops combined by 2015, and Forrester Research has stated that by 2014 mobile will influence more than 50% of retail transactions. Even with these figures, the majority of Canadian businesses don’t have a clear strategy of how they’ll address mobile.
Essentially there are three options for going mobile, you can make your current website optimized for mobile by implementing a responsive design, you can build a dedicated mobile website or you can create and deploy mobile applications. Read more on Do you need a Responsive Site, Mobile Site or App?…
Tags: Mobile, mobile app, mobile website, responsive website, user experience, webinar
Posted in General, Mobile, User Experience/User Interface | No Comments »
April 30th, 2012 by Andrea Simmons
In recent weeks there’s been much buzz about the role of metrics in today’s increasingly complex marketing world. With high consumer expectations and an explosion in engagement devices and channels, marketers today are faced with a sprawling matrix of disconnected figures to make sense of. Sure, some tools today provide a more consolidated view of figures, but still 71% of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) feel unprepared for the data explosion they face.
After sitting through several sessions at the Adobe Digital Marketing Summit last month, it became clear to me that there are two distinct camps in marketing. There are those that get it and have intricate systems in place to measure and act on the intelligence provided by multi-channel metrics, and those that view metrics as a check-box item on their list of requirements – something they know they need but they really don’t know how to leverage effectively. Read more on CMO’s Unprepared for Data Explosion…
Tags: Adobe Digital Marketing Summit, data, engagement, Google Analytics, metrics, Omniture
Posted in Trends and Technology | No Comments »
February 18th, 2012 by Raluca Ene
Earlier this week we rolled out a new iPhone app that we built for SOSgarde, a popular website that connects parents with local babysitters, nannies, senior caregivers and pet sitters. We’ve had an ongoing partnership with Montreal-based SOSgarde (also known as SOSsitter across Canada) for several months now. We originally approached Paulina Podgorska, the company’s founder, about extending her services to the mobile space. Our plan was to build an app that would broaden the reach of her two sites to mobile parents. This would provide parents with on-the-go access to sitters directly from their iPhone.
Read more on iPhone App for SOSgarde Now Available…
Tags: iPhone app, Mobile, Mobile app development, Montreal, SOSgarde
Posted in Mobile, User Experience/User Interface | No Comments »
November 18th, 2011 by Andrea Simmons
As companies struggle today with their mobile presence, they are often faced with the requirement of offering a “one-size-fits-all” approach or are forced to tailor their site for a few select devices. One alternative that’s making waves recently is an approach pioneered by Ethan Marcotte, called responsive web design. In short, responsive web design enables organizations to create beautiful user experiences that are optimized for a wide range of devices, while minimizing the need for costly device-specific development iterations. This approach breaks the constraints of the physical page and encourages designers to create designs that are dynamic and can reflow depending on size of the viewer’s screen.
Read more on Exploring Responsive Web Design…
Tags: cross-platform design, Mobile, responsive design, user experience, web design, website
Posted in User Experience/User Interface | 2 Comments »
August 18th, 2011 by Vahe Kassardjian
A few months ago, USA Today speculated that Apple would become the first $1 trillion company. Earlier this week, Apple made great strides toward this milestone when it surged ahead of ExxonMobile Corp to capture the title of world’s most valuable company.
Whether Apple lives up to this prediction or not, it has already achieved what seemed impossible. The company saw a 300% increase in stock price in less than three years, in a very difficult economic climate. Today, Apple exceeds Microsoft in market capitalization ($213 Billion for MSFT vs $302 B for AAPL) although, just 14 years ago, Microsoft had to inject $150M into its bank account to keep from going out of business.
These facts are extremely unlikely and unpredictable, but don’t come as a surprise to anyone who has observed the last few decades with objectivity and, amongst other trends, paid attention to principles such as The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Read more on Apple’s Path to Become the First $1T Company…
Tags: Apple, iPhone, Microsoft, prediction
Posted in General, Trends and Technology | 2 Comments »
