20 years ago, the idea of mobile phones was a bit of a fairy tale and not something most people could grasp, even though early concepts were proving promising.

10 years ago, mobile phones started growing in popularity with every household having at least 1-2 handsets.

Fastforward to 2011 and now not only does everyone have a mobile phone but our phones now have access to the Internet and everything within. We can do our banking, find our way through GPS and communicate with others next door or in the next country, with a few touches.

Unbelievable.

But the leaps in technology are not just the only unbelievable thoughts behind mobile technology. We’ve now become hopelessly addicted and reliant on our mobile devices for just about everything.

20 years ago, if you were waiting for someone, and they didn’t show at the scheduled time, you just waited and waited, eventually gave up, then went home. Nowadays, we’re constantly in touch, sending texts, leaving voicemails and of course, making calls. I don’t think we’re really ‘missing’ meetings and such things anymore. We’re a lot more in the loop.

20 years ago, if you were lost somewhere, you pulled out your map book. Or if you were walking around, you’d ask for directions or help. Or you’d do research at home and write down addresses of places or times and venues of events.

Now, you can use the Internet on your phone to guide you wherever you need to go, to find out the name of that new restaurant (and read reviews!) as well as book tickets for events.

I’ve been using an old Blackberry since my HTC Magic conked out and it’s so old, I can’t go online with it. It’s so frustrating because I’ve found myself in situations where I’ve needed to check my email urgently or needed to check an address or whatever but since my phone has no Internet, I can’t do that.

Insanely frustrating. And eye opening… since it’s showing how reliant I am and we are becoming to the Internet, our mobile devices and the Internet on our devices.

What would I be doing 10 years ago? or 20 years ago? I’d be a lot more patient, that’s for sure.

I wonder what the future holds for us – with devices like the iPhone revolutionising how we go through our days and innovation in mobile technology jumping ahead every single day, it’s scary and exciting at the same time.

I think I’m more excited than scared. Though I just hope we don’t become as dependent on the Internet in order to live, just as we do with oxygen.

Just got home a short while ago after a long drive from the PeSA Internet Conference on the Gold Coast.

It was my first time there and it was in the capacity of official company rep for the most capable SEO Company in Australia.

I figured eBay and PayPal would have a very large presence and that the majority of attendees would be eBay store owners – and I wasn’t wrong there.

What was interesting was that we were the only SEO company present. There were also just a few web design/development companies (I think I saw 2) – considering the large number of store owners who also run non-eBay stores and that many of them want to focus less on eBay and more on regular e-commerce stores, shows huge opportunities for web design/dev, ecommerce and SEO companies which are sorely being missed! I mean, if I was in e-commerce or SEO, I would target all of these types of conferences because it’s all about getting known. Being the only SEO company there meant maximum exposure for our company and it’s a worthwhile investment.

There were plenty of freight/logistics folks around and of course, eBay and PayPal had huge presences but other than that, the exhibitor variety was minimal.

Tomorrow is day 2 and the final day of the conference and I look forward to meeting even more people who are keen about e-commerce as I am. It’s so much fun!

There’s been a lot of hype surrounding the launch of Visual.ly and now that it’s just gone live and receiving a lot of reviews, what’s the big deal?
Visual.ly is a search engine for data visualisation. I know that doesn’t sound particularly appetising but for marketers, this is a gold mine.

Now infographics are one of those things that you either love or you hate and this is mainly based on quality and usefulness. Infographics are essentially data visualisations because let’s face it, who likes looking at columns and columns of numbers and a plethora of graphs?

Anyway, Visual.ly is a means of collecting and sharing infographics and other ‘data visualisation media’. In many ways, it’s just like CoolInfographics.com which is a site that has a huge collection of infographics and is already quite popular.

It’s got a few bugs to work out but with the hype and very nice design, it’s set to become a mainstay for digital marketers the world over.

I was recently playing with an app on the iPad made by Nissan called the Nissan Juke.

It’s a very cool music making app (albeit simple in structure) with lovely visuals and equally impressive samples to mix with. It was made and launched to promote Nissan’s latest vehicle, the Juke.

With the mixes you make, you can record them and send it to Nissan where it gets converted to a ringtone which is then emailed back to you. The cute part is where the ‘deck’ is on top of a building and the dials are mini versions of the Juke.

I haven’t tried that yet but I did have some observations of the app which I think others (and Nissan) can learn from:

1. Apps are the future (or at least the forseeable future) – they are proving to be amazing marketing tools which can be used for almost anything.

2. It’s all about quality. The app has clean, clear graphics and plenty of high res images of the Juke. The sounds are top notch and usability is ace. Overall, it’s a well made app with a fairly limited purpose.

3. It doesn’t have long replay value. There aren’t too many samples to choose from and apart from choosing when to stop/start a sample and how loud/soft it will be, that’s about it. What will make me pick it up and play with it again? Not much at all.

4. It would be good to use it as a tool to capture email addresses and keep people informed about the Juke and other Nissan news.

Now, the Juke isn’t available in Australia and this is also why I hadn’t heard of it (only found the app because I was looking for music making apps) but I wonder what sort of promotion went on in places where the Juke was available? How did they promote the app at dealerships? how about TV and Radio? Let’s not forget online..

This interesting article on the Guardian’s website talked about why most branded apps are a flop – and this is a statement coming from Deloitte. Citing poor quality, failure to establish themselves and a heinous lack of promotion are just some of the reasons why many branded apps fail in the app market place.

Brands get complacent. They feel like their name is enough to warrant a download. I don’t drive a Nissan and have never driven one but was curious as to what the app was about and its music making abilities. I don’t plan on buying a Nissan anytime soon even after playing the app. So to me, this is a weak spot for Nissan in its promotion of the Juke. Nevermind its non-availability in Australia – where were the selling points? Where were the reasons why I should sell my Toyota Camry and opt for a Nissan equivalent? Totally invisible. If the Juke was an amazing music making car then perhaps the app has worked well but I highly doubt it.

It’s left me agreeing with all of the points in the article above and once again, wondering why more and more companies don’t hop onto the app bandwagon with more preparation and foresight.

I’ve talked about the potential of apps by peope like Bunnings and Super A-Mart but I know it’s falling on deaf ears. We have so few apps dedicated to Australian business/corporations, it’s obscene.

I plan to write more about it as it’s certainly the way of the future.

WordPress is an amazing system that’s not just for blogs/blogging. The plugin range is growing every single day and there’s countless themes available out there that simply blow your mind.

To learn more about what makes WordPress so awesome and how you can also get into WordPress design, I talked to Bronson Quick, co-founder of Sennza.

JAAVED: you’re obviously in love with wordpress, how did you get into it all and what makes you choose wordpress over other platforms like drupal and joomla?

BRONSON: After working in web design for a few years I went through a similar process as most web developers do. I first started coding sites in Dreamweaver using Dreamweaver templates then still found it difficult to actually update the content on websites. I wanted the client to be able to update the content themselves so I decided to code my own content management system (CMS). This process was time consuming so I looked at the open source alternatives out there at the time. I tried Joomla and Modx and found they were too cluttered and too complex for clients to get their heads around even after training sessions. I also worked with some proprietary CMS at some agencies but these lacked in features and were getting dated. Even more importantly, those CMS were lacking in features that were required for SEO which was an ongoing concern.

The transition to WordPress came at a time where I was working on Queensland Government sites for an agency and we were using Joomla. Joomla was great because of the team I was working with but it was still too cluttered for clients. I ended up working on WordPress sites after hours and loved the speed that I could take a Photoshop design and turn it into a WordPress theme. Then of course I became aware of the thousands of plugins that can be used on WordPress.org to extend the functionality of WordPress and lastly, and probably most importantly, when I gave clients a username and password to login into their WordPress site they could often login and update their site before I even completed initial training with them.

JAAVED: some people refuse to label WordPress as a CMS because they consider it merely a blogging tool on steroids.. what do you say to that?

BRONSON: To that I simply respond by directing to my recent 5 minute talk at Brisbane Ignite: http://www.sennza.com.au/2011/06/ignite-brisbane-wordpress-is-not-just-for-blogs-dammit/ and the original blog post titled “WordPress Is Not Just For Blogs Dammit!” http://www.sennza.com.au/2010/06/wordpress-is-not-just-for-blogs-dammit/
JAAVED: Now wordpress has a heap of plugins that let you do just about anything.. which ones could you absolutely not live without?

BRONSON:

My top five would be:
1) Backup Buddy http://pluginbuddy.com/purchase/backupbuddy/ This is amazing for backups and also amazing for site migration.
2) Gravity Forms: http://www.gravityforms.com/ This plugin is a must have for easy to easily create and manage forms in WordPress
3) Akismet: This comes bundled with WordPress and it’s the best way to manage spam. Set it up with an API key and it’ll work it’s magic in the background
4) All In One SEO Pack:http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/  A great plugin for SEO
5) Last but not least. VaultPress! http://vaultpress.com/ I always like backups of backups. VaultPress takes real time backups of your site and stores several copies of that backup all around the world. It can also perform realtime scans of your WordPress core files…so it’s like antivirus for your website!

JAAVED: For those who are starting out with wordpress design and want to tinker around, where would you recommend they go to for the best advice?

BRONSON: The WordPress.org support forums are great: http://wordpress.org/support/ WordPress Meetup groups are great: http://wordpress.meetup.com/ and http://wordpress.tv/ is a great place for videos from WordPress Meetups and WordCamps around the world.

JAAVED: last question (for now): with the rise of many premium theme sites, are there any which you prefer (and why) or do you opt to work from scratch with the default theme for your own customised design?

BRONSON: Usually this is determined purely by the clients budget. At the moment for clients with a limited budget will get them to choose a theme from either Elegant Themes or Woo Themes. We are going to moving away from that approach now at sennza as part of our rebranding that is currently in development.

If we are designing a custom site from a Photoshop design I start with a modified version of the Twenty Ten theme which used to be the default WordPress theme but as of yesterday there is a new theme called Twenty Eleven that I will be stripping back to use as a starting point for future themes.

JAAVED: Awesome, thanks for your pro tips Bronson. You clearly love WordPress!

BRONSON: Love it? Mate, I’d marry it!

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Jaaved Khatree is a Senior SEO Strategist and Digital Marketer at DEJAN SEO, a Brisbane SEO Company.

Bronson Quick is the co-founder of Sennza, a Brisbane WordPress Design Company.