Toluu

Web Development SE Optimization and Internet Strategy

or random thought of Samuel Lavoie

How to NOT use Social MediaDecember 9 2008

Communication has always been used by marketing people using medias to make us buy and think in a certain way. Nothing new here, and yes its a good thing as we now live in a time where basically everyone can be a media outlet. With industrial media also referred as traditional media, marketers were able to control the production to get global reach. Media production required high cost and specialized skills and training. Not anymore! with the Internet and social media, its been years we have been saying that, preaching and educating marketers how to fit in that new paradigm. Marketers need to let the information go its way without any control of the end result and more importantly lets the masses take control of the information.

Social media is primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. [..] Wikipedia

As one of the hottest buzz words of 2008 I thought it would be great to see how big companies are actually using it in a bad way. Maybe they are just unaware of their web presence, maybe they get bad advice from their web design and marketing department or most likely a mix of both.

Let see how it turns out for Mercedes Benz Canada with their micro site for the

iPhone Applications hit 10k & my top5November 30 2008

Originally launched on July 11th, the App Store have reach the 10k applications that can be downloaded. With around 25% of them for free this is plenty of them to fill your shiny iPhone. That’s pretty amazing taking into consideration that the iPhone hardware limit you to 144 applications… which I wont rant about, its pretty decent for a 600mhz machine (under clocked around 440mhz).

As I said in July the Application are the killer app (literally) of the iPhone and it success can’t be denied as it’s now the third most sold cellphone in the US. The future of the iPhone is exciting, not only a cellphone or even a smartphone but a new platform

Appstore Application Analytics for November 30th 2008

Top5 iPhone 3G App

My humble top applications I’m using almost everyday:

Twitterific: Using Twitter on the field is really what make that conversation system useful and with a

iPhone 2.2 updateNovember 21 2008

The yesterday rumors were right about the upcoming 2.2 firmware update for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. With the yesterday release of a small iTunes 8.0.2 update, the chance of this 2.2 release was greatly anticipated by website such as macrumors. One of the best blog covering all about mac stuff, from a very dedicated blogger. They are primarily known for their great Mac Buyer’s Guide, the guide to check every time you want to buy apple products.

Cool new features

• enhancement to Maps application including Google Street View (not Canada)
• improved stability for Safari
• better html email handling
• downloading Podcast directly from the iPhone
• the ability to turn on/off the keyboard auto-correction

www.samuellavoie.com on Safari iPhone 2.2

What’s missing

• copy/paste within all the iPhone’s application

Don’t forget to check out the new Google Mobile App with Voice recognition… its simply amazin

Quebec is an information-age laggardNovember 7 2008

Quebec is an information-age laggard and we need to fix this problem. As a group of business bloggers said in an open letter to the Quebec Government: Quebec need a digital plan. Business need to have the tools to sell online to the Quebec population. As a fact actually only 52% of Quebec small and medium business have their own website. This is a huge space of the economy where our companies aren’t doing any business, so international and especially US based enterprise are taking this virtual space. Statistics from Quebec stat agency SOM Recherches et Sondages, reveal that only half of the $300 million spend by Quebecers online went to non Canadian websites.

More information technology training for youngers

The letter point out this problem and that struck me how really this is need when I realized that one of my younger brother who just get to CEGEP (Quebec institution comparable to colleges) wasn’t able to use a word processing software. Some basic stuff like this should be done at school… I clearly remember word, spreadsheet and basic Internet course when I was in high school. How can they figured out to cut those course is beyond me. Younger are surfing the interwebs, sure they are also gamers but they need to have the basic kno

How to Own the SERPsOctober 19 2008

Personal Branding is something too much people, even in the Marketing space, are missing to play with. First you need to realize that people will search for you whatever you do against it. There’s no place to hide on the Internets so why not use this powerful tool to promote yourself, your passions or whatever that make sense for you.

So the goal is to have all the Google results related to you when people are searching for you. Can be done also for a company, an association, etc. So let me tell you the secret! after the break.

Personal Branding in Google

samuel lavoie query on Google.com

The trick to Own the SERPs

If you’re not able to take the time and only want a quick fix, there’s not, like for SEO and this site isn’t for you, really.
So be part of your community of interest, have a presence in those places and be heard. This is commonly name as Social Media, but really its just like in real life; making connections and enter conversations.

This personal blog is of course one of my ways to be heard and as you can see with this google query there’s plenty of them