Writings from Force 5 Basecamp

06/23/11

I read in a brief  from Ad-ology that nearly 35% of U.S. adults said they intend to buy a new or used car in the next 12 months. One explanation is pent up demand.  This means consumers have been holding back on their spending  like a corralled stallion and now they are finally going to let that stud burst out of its

06/07/11

Whenever I’m asked about Force 5, one of the things I say about our company is that we are“small and smart.” Most people understand immediately what half of that means. We have only a handful of people on our staff – so, we’re small – pretty easy. Small is good these days. That means we don’t carry a lot of

05/24/11

Google’s recent “Panda” update is getting plenty of notice and discussion on SEO and web marketing sites. This is an algorithm update, the formula Google uses to rank sites—using a variety of areas of your web site. It’s clear that one of the biggest goals for Google’s algorithm update is to provide higher page rankings for quality, rather than quantity,

05/18/11

According to a report by Sandvine, Netflix is now the largest source of internet traffic in North America during peak hours. Netflix streaming video service now accounts fro about 29% of peak traffic, overtaking P2P, Bittorrent, and Social Networking. Almost half of internet traffic is Real-Time Entertainment Netflix accounts for 29.7% of Downtream traffic (provided by Sandvine) These numbers show

05/10/11

I was surfing yesterday, catching up on news. I noticed an article about a man who was grieving the loss of his wife years after her death. Having experienced the loss of a loved one taken too early and overwhelming grief, I decided to read the article. The article went on to review the circumstances that lead to the woman’s

05/05/11

UPDATE: Since the posting of this article there has been dramatic improvements by the community and now this is no longer the best way to implement this feature. We now use the “Views Slideshow,” found at: http://drupal.org/project/views_slideshow. We have used this method to create the various slideshows for the City of South Bend at www.SouthBendOn.com. One of the more common

05/03/11

Information – Fast and Furious I recently read an article from the Center for Media Research that had some very interesting statistics on digital consumption. 76.7% read email and respond evenings and weekends 43.2% answer texts or emails on date/social occasion 57.4 % never turn off phone 33.0% check email middle of the night 35.2% answer work emails while with

04/27/11

Facebook on Monday launched a new way to share content online – the Send button. While the functionality is nothing new, how you share content with friends may change with this new process of sharing. Facebook’s goal is to be that “pipe” in which you share more and more information, ultimately learning much more about you so it can deliver

04/26/11

A peek at location data sorted on an Iphone For the last week, the tech news has been reporting that Apple has secret files on the iPhone that track user location and store it on the device, without the permission of the device owner. It’s unclear what the data is used for and why Apple has been collecting it in

04/19/11

Going Mobile? Listen to this projection…. A recent study by Morgan Stanley projects mobile internet users to exceed desktop internet users within the next few years. (2015) Yikes! – – Powerful stat. Believe it or not, the question isn’t “Should you go mobile?” but rather “Can you afford not to…?” Here are some more mobile stats for our Force 5

04/19/11

I recently read an article in Marketing Daily, about the growth in private-label products. No surprise there, right? The figures were pretty compelling with consumers saving 33% off their grocery bills by purchasing all private-label products. I have followed the trend, trying more private-label products than I have in the past. While I haven’t gone all private-label, I have more

02/07/11

Super Bowl ads have become an event all in themselves over the years. Unexpected hilarity, moving stories, elaborate CG effects all are pieced together to make impressions on viewers. But does their strategy pay off? The digital water coolers are crowded the Monday morning after the Super Bowl with various reactions and impressions. These commercials that have people talking are