Tag Archives: Skype

Tips on Writing Relevant Website Content

Inner Circle Media's blog offers good perspective

Carrie Hensel and others at Inner Circle Media have done a series of great blog posts on writing website content.  Their focus is on increasing RELEVANT (targeted) traffic, not just any old traffic.  I think "How to Write Relevant Website Content" is worth a read, as is Meredith Lovelace's entry on increasing traffic.

Alaine Karoleff wrote a good piece on how to write website content.  And I loved Carrie's experiment with using words like "trees with purple flowers" and "Spanish port" because those were what was hot as reported by HotTrends in early June. Her objective was to see if traffic increased and to make an analysis of whether or not that traffic was relevant to their business.  And it mainly was not.  The geek in me truly enjoys experiments like that.  She later went on to post about how she could use HotTrends to find RELEVANT terms to blog about that would drive real customers to their site, rather than just people looking for random search terms which were hot right now.

The only search term that I saw that was even marginally relevant to our business today (July 18) was Ooma.  Since listening to the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders podcast that Andrew Frame and Warren Packard did, I've been keeping an eye out for Ooma news.  Oddly, their website hasn't been updated, but I can see links to articles referencing interviews with Andrew Frame about their new hub and internet calling service.  I currently use Skype for most of my calls, but the Ooma offering looks interesting.  I'll definitely check it out as more information becomes available.

Boy, I got sidetracked there.  Back to the Inner Circle Media blog.

Carrie's prior posts are great too.  I really enjoyed her post on Starting a Creative Company.  Our company has followed much the same path, and so I definitely concur.

Anyhow, this is definitely a blog that I read and I definitely recommend reading.  Oh, and check out their geeky Scope Creep t-shirt too (I've already ordered one).

Inner Circle Media

Fun Geek Wear

Skype: Out of the mouths of babes

The toddler gets in on the hype of Skype

Question: How do you know when you’ve been talking too much about something?

Answer: When your toddler talks about it, in context

The other day, I was explaining to my 2.5 year old that we couldn’t get together with her friend (for the umpteenth week in a row) because something had come up. She piped up with, “He should get Skype. THEN we could talk to him”. She’s got it all figured out.

More Praise for Technology

Skype and a family conference call

You know that technology is becoming ubiquitous when your totally non-technical parents are using Skype (http://www.skype.com)! I’ve been promoting Skype for use within my family for a month or so now, ever since my parents got high-speed internet. My dad’s first reaction was “JOANNE! Come look at THIS!”. Somehow, the video component totally overwhelms my parents with coolness. The ability for my parents to see their grandchildren eating dinner is priceless. And since my sister recently moved to Wales (with 2 of aforementioned grandchildren), I think that Skype will end up being a lifeline to them for my mom.

So, this morning, when the entire family was on a Skype conference call, it was a bit like the dinner table at Christmas, quite exuberant! I look forward to many more conference calls in the future, but I suspect that we will end up using the 1:1 video calling more frequently because the video component is an amazing touch for families far away from one another. I’m not really wild about using the video feature for business calls (with 2 small kids, I don’t always get to shower before work!), but for family it’s great!

Ah, but then I read in the news about how Skype calls may (heck, probably are) used extensively by terrorists and such, because of their encrypted nature. EEK. Well, the whole wiretapping thing freaks me out a bit for privacy reasons. Of course, then I go watch an episode of “24” (http://www.fox.com/24) and that makes me think about the ramifications of NOT being able to tap into calls (and the geek in me wonders if Skype’s gonna show up in the show soon!).

Anyhow, Skype is cool. Anything that gets my kids’ grandma to use the computer is definitely cool. She hasn’t called us yet using it, but she’s getting close to being comfortable enough to do that. And that’s very very cool.