Thursday, March 20, 2014

Online Cars

I have been fascinated by the fast adoption of driver assist technology in cars.

My daughter just bought a new Honda mini van. It has back up cameras that frame the space in colored lines to tell you how close  you are to hitting something. Then it beeps at your if you are too dense to understand the lines.

I get beeped at a lot.

It also has a right side camera so you can see the right lane behind you for turns or merging.

I drive a 1985 Ford F-150 that has an AM radio and heat. This is amazing enough for me.

But all this is nothing compared to other driver assist tech on cars today.

Today there is an article on Business Insider about augmented reality coming to your next car. Basically a heads up display.

Now I am thinking about maybe getting a new car instead of waiting for a self driving car.

While you can never argue about these improvements making cars safer, the reduction in accidents is going to have a ripple effect that will take money out of the pockets of many businesses.

If you have fewer accidents there will be fewer cars to be repaired at body shops. And fewer people to be repaired in emergency rooms. And fewer speeding tickets paid to law enforcement. And lower insurance premiums to insurance carriers. And lower commissions to insurance agents.

My Need for a Self Driving Car Recently


I spent a month in Australia and two weeks in England this year. Normally I rent cars when I travel. But I did not want to learn to drive on the wrong side of the road - I must be getting old.

I would have paid a nice premium to be able to rent a self driving car on these trips.

So Avis, lets get on that.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Todays Reading Online August 22, 2011

Content Snackers Become Cord Cutters. Is change finally coming to our best friend - the TV set?

Skye - while being bought by Microsoft - keeps acquiring companies.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Intersting News from last Week

Here are some interesting posts from this past week.


How Will Discovery Drive Transactions? Is search really being replaced by discovery through social recommendations? If not, then I believe it is certainly being competed with and supplemented big time.

Mobile technology 2011 video. Interesting short video highlighting how folks are using mobile tech.

Hand mounted sonar replaces cane for visually impaired. We are going to see a tremendous amount of technology like this to help humans interact with the physical world.

The Real Difference between iPhone people and Android people. No, it's not this weeks made for TV movie from the SciFi channel. That is MegaShark vs. Crocosaurus.


Friday, August 5, 2011

Android State or iPhone State?

Jumptap had a really fun chart and report out today. See below...


Where do you live?

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Top 3 Things that Make a Great Small Business Phone App

the world of smart phone apps is changing faster than anyone can keep up with it. Still, the basics of relationship building apply when deciding what makes a great phone app.

Here is my current list of the top three things that make a grat small business phone app"

Interaction: To be effective your agency phone app must be interactive. If not, the app experience will fall flat. A great Agency phone app allows your customers and prospects to interact with you and your business at multiple levels

Connection: A great phone app increases connection to your app users. It will increase both the number of connections and the quality of connections.

Relationship: The net result of interactive connections is establishing and building relationships. A great phone app helps you solidfy your relationship with your customers and prospects.

Features I Think You Should Have in Your App

1 - Personal connection page for each staff member with picture and contact info - phone, email, LinkedIn, etc - and a  short bio

2 - On-phone forms - short, easy forms to let your app users get you a quick message

3 - On-phone pages with contact numbers for problems and payments

4 - Interactive map for finding your office or offices

5 - Your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn feeds

6 - Opt-in Notifications so you can alert your users about specials, coupons, storms or other timely news

Our new product group - SehMobile  - builds exactly this type of great small business phone app. Check us out.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Time Spent Using App Passes Time Spent Browsing Web

Flurry released a report today showing that people now spend more time using mobile apps than they do browsing the web from their personal computer.



Talk about a major change. Your web site is still your foundation, but your phone app just got a lot higher priority.