By Tom Anthony, Vice President of Client Relations
When I woke up this morning I was still thinking – how did it get to be 2008 already? Yet here we are reflecting on the past year and ever refining our respective visualization of what lies ahead.
An observation of the immediate future is to report on a movement in the world of commerce toward a more interconnected technological infrastructure. Most of our clients, regardless of the size of their company, already understand how the business process itself now physically extends to the public network through email and the World Wide Web. In a word, eBusiness. O.K. - that’s not new.
What may be new to you is how evolving shopping patterns at brick and mortar locations and the increased technological participation of many major distributors and manufacturers is changing the landscape. Hold on – we are not talking about a bunch of new technology here – and by no means are we saying technology itself is the path to increase business. Jim Collins, author of the Book “Good to Great” says it this way; “Technology cannot make or break a company's level of greatness, but only serves as an accelerator of greatness or demise already in progress.”
What we want to point out is that the maturing process of gathering and sharing data online is having a profound effect on the kind of projects we are asked to engage. Here is a case in point:
An automotive site we designed and maintain starts with data from Arkona, Inc. a company which provides a well known computer program that tracks, maintains, and reports on vehicle inventory. With some help from Web Teks this program feeds another service by Chrome Systems, Inc which provides extensive Manufacturer New Vehicle Data. Now combine what is actually on the lot with how it's equipped and how much it costs. Our programming goes to the next level and pulls out all the option and pricing logic needed to resolve option conflicts and package codes to manufacturer specifications and requirements.
Before your eyes glaze over - what you end up with is not the technology that makes it all work. Honestly – besides the guys who actually do the programming, who cares? What the customer gets in this case is their absolute dream car. They find exactly what they want – very quickly on the local car dealer’s website, and just as importantly, on the local car dealer’s lot, and all in real time. The result: an exponential increase in local sales from folks shopping on the internet. Like many of you, they know you don’t have to be an engineer to recognize that people shop on the internet before they visit your business location – no matter how many locations you have. So regardless of how it’s done, what the business owner can focus on is making the sale, not how the web site works.
That’s where Web Teks finds itself going in 2008. We don’t build web sites. We help our customers develop strategies to increase sales or decrease expenses. Then we build the technology to make it happen. We don’t make the dream car – we make it easier to have the dream.
Courtesy of InformationWeek
Google (NSDQ: GOOG) entered 2008 pretty much as it entered 2007, with a dominating lead over its search engine competitors -- except in one country.
While analysts and search engine market share compilers differ on Google's 2008 outlook, they all agree that the search engine leader will remain far ahead of the search engine pack. However, Google hasn't been able to do much more than dent the South Korean search market, where Naver dominates the market by a higher percentage than Google dominates in the United States.
In the United States., Hitwise puts Google's market share at 65.1% while ComScore places its at 58.4%. In the search figures for November -- the latest currently available -- Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) is ranked second with nearly 22% and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is third. Hitwise lists Microsoft searches as garnering 7.09% of the market while ComScore places the software giant's search market share at 9.8.%
In Korea, however, Google was recently ranked at less than 2% of the market while homegrown search engine Naver has more than 75%. Another Korean company, Daum.net, is ranked second with about 10% market share, according to recent figures.
One analyst, Standard & Poor's Scott Kessler, believes Google's expanding drive into a variety of new lines of work could slow down its gains in the search market, according to a report in The New York Times. Another analyst, Jordan Rohan of RBC Capital Markets, believes Google will continue forging ahead in the search competition. "It is an arms race that they've won by a landslide," Rohan told the newspaper.
Web Teks In The Media
Web Teks can be seen in recent issues of:
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Multiple Monitors
Did you know that simply adding a second monitor can increase productivity up to 50%?
Survey after survey shows that whether you measure your productivity in facts researched, alien spaceships vaporized, or articles written, adding an extra monitor will give your output a considerable boost - 20 percent to 30 percent, according to a survey by Jon Peddie Research.
Forbes.com, an internationally acclaimed business Web site, noticed a 50 percent reduction in its editorial production times after deploying dual monitors on the desks of their copy editors.
Even at a 5% productivity gain you can easily justify the cost.
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eBusiness (e-busi-ness, [e'biz-nis]): eBusiness (electronic business) is the conduct of business on the Internet. Unlike eCommerce which refers to only buying and selling, eBusiness is using the Internet to service customers, collaborate with business partners and care for employees. |
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Richard "Dick" Marcinko to speak at Virginia Beach Forum January 16, 2008
You may know him as "Demo Dick," "Shark Man of the Delta," the author of the New York Times best-selling autobiography Rogue Warrior, the creator and commander of SEAL Team SIX, the U.S. Navy's first and only counter-terrorism command, or as the host of talk radio's "America on Watch." However you know Dick Marcinko, you're going to be intrigued, entertained and maybe even a little provoked by his blunt take on national security, terrorism and the adaptation of modern technology.
Click here to purchase tickets
