What’s the Fuss About Google Wallet?

Get ready! Virtual wallets are hitting the market. The question is: Will we use them?

Google Wallet and competitors like Visa Digital Wallet want you to make the jump from your trusty if bulky leather wallet to a virtual version of the same.

This is what Google’s saying about its new product (edited for verbosity):

• Put your credit card info into your phone and make purchases by tapping and paying, using near field communication (NFC). During this process, coupons and loyalty points are uploaded to your virtual wallet from participating vendors.
• Your credit card credentials are encrypted and stored on a computer chip called the Secure Element, which is separate from the mobile phone memory. For additional security, you set up a PIN, which is entered before each purchase.
• Someday, boarding passes, IDs and even keys could be stored on the Wallet.

I like the idea of a virtual wallet, but would I use it? Currently, Google Wallet only works with Citi® Mastercard® and the Google Prepaid card, and is compatible only with the Nexus S 4G. It will be expanding to include more cards and phones, but it’s hard to say when that’ll happen.

Maybe it launched a bit early … but maybe it has to start somewhere.

It’s a nice use of MoLo (Mobile Local), which is using your mobile device to find and pay for local services and products.

When you combine smartphones, geo-targeting technology, and NFC, you just get giddy with the possibilities. You can float through your day with nothing more than your phone. That I like.

The downside is, not all smartphones are NFC-enabled and Google’s projection is that only half of smartphones in the U.S. will be NFC-enabled by 2014. Those aren’t great numbers.

Google Wallet is being field-tested in New York and San Francisco as of late May/early June 2011. The national release is set for sometime this summer.

Google is also announcing Google Offers, which sounds like an e-version of coupons. I like coupons but I don’t like carrying them around and spreading wads of them out in front of the cashier. If I can have all of my coupons on my phone and use them just by tapping, I’ll be happy.

Google Wallet sounds like another way technology is making life simpler. But it’s not yet universal. When it is, if it ever is, I’ll use it.

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iPad Killers? The new Ultrabooks from Intel

Ultrabooks are sleek and sexy, a marriage of laptop and tablet. But are they contenders against Apple’s iPad?  Are we talking oranges and oranges here?

The Ultrabook has a 2nd Generation Intel Core processor. It’s whisper thin, less than 20mm (0.8 inch) to pinch between our fingers, and word is it’ll sell for under $1,000 come this winter’s shopping season.

It has tablet features, such as a quick start-up, days of battery life on standby, and a touchscreen.

Within months of its retail debut, another version with the Ivy Bridge processor will hit the market, and in 2013, a third version powered by the Haswell processor will be on the shelves.

Intel aims to match or beat the power efficiency of iPad.

But is the Ultrabook an iPad extreme? Will iPad users be tossing their tablets and drooling for the newbie?

Well…

I didn’t buy my iPad instead of a workhorse laptop. I bought my iPad in addition to my laptop.

The iPad is fun and lightweight, with a quick response time as I jump from website to website. It’s my e-reader and movie screen and sometimes I even do a little work on it. And, it’s the magical land of apps (ignore the goofy grin on my face, I can’t help it).

As a side note, it runs on mobile-phone chips instead of Intel’s processor, although that’s not figuring into my vote.

Intel wants us to view their Ultrabook as an iPad with the ferocious functionality of a laptop.

We don’t know enough about the Ultrabook to predict its future with certainty. If it has all of the features of the iPad and apps out the wazoo, and if the screen snaps off and on the keyboard for those times you just want the tablet, it’ll be hard to resist.  Full disclosure – we know it doesn’t snap off and on, but wouldn’t that tip the scales?

If it does all that, it just might beat the iPad. However, from what we know at this time, it’s not the contender to knock iPad out of the ring.

SEO Mistakes – A Lesson Learned from the JCPenney Fiasco

As recent as just a few years ago, creating a web presence simply meant creating a site, creating content, and publishing the site online.  Period. Individuals did not take into account how traffic would flow to their site or how it was supposed to get into the top results in page rankings by the top search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, and more recently, Bing.  Then in 2006, the words “search engine optimization” began to appear.  Since that time, SEO has become one of the leading strategies to drive traffic to one’s site for many companies across a wide range of industries.

SEO is a powerful method for companies to increase their flow of traffic and therefore increase their sales in the process.  Actually, it is fair to say that a company that does not use some form of SEO in their marketing strategy is somewhat foolish, as one can bet that the company’s competitors are using it.

As important as SEO is to a business, it is important to utilize this marketing technique in an ethical manner that follows rules that are created by the search engines themselves.  If a company does not follow rules that have been created in order to minimize unfair competition, they find out, much the same as JCPenney’s did, that there are consequences to breaking the rules.  It is important to maximize one’s potential with relevance, not with deception.  For instance, JCPenney recently had created SEO in such a way that for many unrelated items, they would be the top ranked result.  For example, when searching for Samsonite Luggage, a user would find JCPenney in the top ranked position, thereby beating out the luggage maker’s own site.

The bottom line is that JCPenney had employed the SEO firm known as SearchDex to perform their search engine optimization tactics for them.  This firm proceeded, whether with or without JCPenney’s knowledge, to perform “black hat” techniques, also known as cheating one’s way to the top, which involved paying many sites to unethically link back to JCPenney.  In short, more than 80% of the links created had absolutely nothing to do with JCPenney.  Black hat techniques do not lengthen a business’ lifespan; in fact, this brand of SEO will get a company blacklisted from the search engines, as it did for BMW a few years prior.  What every business owner needs to know is how to avoid the crisis that befell both JCPenney and BMW.

For one thing, a company has to play by the rules to ensure a fair competitive marketplace for all industries.  Search engines will not accept ignorance as an excuse for ignoring these rules.  Know what one’s SEO company is all about, and keep tabs on what is going on with his or her company’s search branding.  Be sure to communicate upfront about what will be admissible and what will not be tolerated.  It can be tempting for an SEO company to want to impress its clients with great search results, so make sure that the SEO company with which one chooses to do business is reputable and understands what one wants.

As stated, keep tabs on the SEO company’s dealings with one’s site.  Even assuming that JCPenney really did not know what their SEO company, SearchDex, was up to, it is stated plainly in every law book that ignorance is no excuse.  For instance, if JCPenney was on top of their game, they would have found out long before the New York Times ran the story that something was afoul in how they were gaining visitors.  If one’s company decides to outsource their search engine optimization, it is important to keep tabs on how they optimize one’s site.

For all intents and purposes, take the high road, and acquire one’s visitors organically, or naturally.  It is unscrupulous and unethical to purchase links from link brokers in order to increase one’s site’s visibility.  In fact, the sale of links is an unethical practice in and of itself.

In order to optimize one’s site ethically and organically, use focused keywords as anchor text from external sites related to one’s industry to link to one’s site.  Focus on the popularity of external links that one has. Have a diverse source of external links.  Check into the trustworthiness of the domain of the original link based on the distance between it and trusted domains. And finally, simply stick to search engine optimization strategies that are legitimate in order to make one’s site visible.