I don’t know about you but I am finding that I am turning more and more to web based applications and data storage in the “cloud” rather than desktop software applications and a hard drive that resides on a single machine, for my day-to-day computing needs.

Huh?

Let me explain.

Traditionally the standard approach to running software on a computer is to install a copy of it on the machine that it was to be used on. The User then works with that software as needed at that particular computer. A cost per User in the form of a ‘license fee’, payable to the software issuer is needed to keep things nice and legal and any bugs or problems with the software are solved by installing ‘patches’ or ‘updates’ either from a floppy disk (as was), CD or as now; from the software vendor’s website over the Net. In time the software becomes outdated and the User is pushed into purchasing an ‘upgrade’ which they then re-install into their individual computer.

Think of Microsoft Word™. That’s a piece of word processing software that as a User, you buy a license for, install onto your PC from a CD, download updates from the Microsoft website and in time, purchase an upgrade to the next version. It’s how Microsoft and most other software vendors such as Sage™, Adobe™, Norton™ etc, make their money and is serious business on a global scale. If a second User in your office also needs a copy of Word on their PC, then the whole license purchase, install and update process has to be replicated for each additional machine that requires the software on it.

Times are a Changing

However there’s a new kid on the block when it comes to computing that is really putting the wind-up the major software houses such as Microsoft as it’s hitting them hard where it hurts, namely in the license fee revenue department.

The new kid is called Cloud Computing.

Cloud Computing allows Users to access and work with software applications centrally, over the web through their web browser and without the need to purchase and install a piece of software on their computer.

The big benefits of this as far as the User is concerned are:

• The same application can be used on any number of computers so long as they each have a web browser and an Internet connection. There’s no need to install the software on to each machine.
• Updates and upgrades are done centrally by the application host (the company that maintains the software on the web). No need to download updates, install patches etc.
• There are no large licensing fees needed each time an upgrade is needed. Applications in the “Cloud” are paid for by subscription which depending upon the level of subscription, allows any number of Users to access the application.
• Data is stored centrally on remote servers in the ‘Cloud’. This makes the working environment totally portable and independent of any single machine. Imagine, you work on a document in the office using a web based application. Save it. When you get home or move to another office during the day, so long as you can access the web, you can continue working on the same document even if it’s someone else’s computer.

It’s Already Here

Computer applications that are based on Cloud Computing concepts are already here and are being used by people like you and me, half the time without us even realising it.

For example, if you use any of the applications that come with Google Apps, you’re already into Cloud Computing. Similarly if you use one of the web based business accountancy applications that are starting to spring up, then again you’re into Cloud Computing. Similarly Facebook, Flickr and many other social networking sites that store their data online and offer interactivity are a form of Cloud Computing it can be said.

I myself use Google Apps, our online project management tool is based in the Cloud and I manage my Twitter account using a web application called Twithive having switched from a software based one called TweetDeck (which is also very good by the way).

So if you want to free yourself from your PC start to look at Cloud Computing applications. Admittedly I haven’t come across Cloud based equivalents of Microsoft’s Office™ range that are as powerful (that’s the key phrase here) however, no doubt in time some will arrive on the scene.

The modern wonders of mobile internet computing, my BlackBerry and cloud computing mean that even though I was camped up in the middle of a forest, I was able to keep in touch with my associates, monitor e-mails and access files as I needed them in order to keep my business ticking along until I got back.

Who Needs an Office?

Thanks to an internet dongle plugged into my laptop’s USB socket and a suitable airtime subscription, I enjoyed an internet connection of up to 3G speeds. In practice during this break, it was a lot slower than this being in the middle of some trees and all that; but hey, work with me here! This handy device allows me to access files such as word processing documents and presentations across the web that I have stored in the “cloud” using my Google Docs account as well as a spot of web surfing where needed. This together with access to our online project management application which allowed to keep up to speed with current live development projects my team of developers were working on I was still connected, yet back to nature.

My BlackBerry™ allowed me to send and receive emails as though I was in the office, keep up to date with Twitter and my Facebook friends and keep in touch with my associates using Google Talk and Yahoo! Messenger: all in real time! Not to mention the ability to make calls (I don’t do texting in case you’re wondering).

I tell ya! Who needs an office?

I Know What You’re Thinking

Now I know what you’re thinking! You’re thinking “what’s the point of going on holiday if I’m still going to be tooled up as if I was in the office?”

I can subscribe to this view. However, if you’re a small business owner you’ll know that the cord between you and your business is thick and strong. Business and social lives become blurred at the edges and without regular contact with your ‘baby’ you start to twitch and scratch! Having good connectivity whilst you’re away alleviates the itch and keeps the twitching at bay whilst preventing your business from becoming neglected.

So if you’re in the lucky position of not having to fill in a holiday chit, get yourself mobile web-connected, leave your office behind for a while and take a well deserved break.

Excuse me, can I just ask you to stop what you’re doing whilst I attempt to sell you something that you may not be interested in, open minded about or receptive to?

If you’re in business for yourself you probably get a fair amount of unsolicited telephone sales calls, emails and mail shots on a daily basis. How you react to these attempts to grab your attention and more importantly for the issuer, your cash; depends largely upon the skill of the marketer who is trying to grab your attention and your desire or need for the product/service they are attempting to sell.

There’s a whole industry out there which is geared towards creating the ultimate sales call, the perfect email or the most innovative mail shot which will grab your attention and motivate you towards a purchase.

These techniques are tried and tested and if appropriately targeted, are very powerful in themselves for generating business. You may use them yourself and if you get business from them, I’ll have no need to explain further.

However the problem with this type of marketing, often called “Interruption Marketing”, is that it’s increasing becoming ineffective for the very nature of its definition. That is to say it “interrupts” which in turn just adds to the unwanted clutter in the already cluttered lives of your average business person. As a result many of us simply switch-off to the message that is being delivered.

Angelo Fernando gives an excellent overview as to why illustrated with a scenario we can all relate to, in his article “So, Interruption Marketing Isn’t Working!” Worth reading!

Now I’m not saying that unsolicited mail-shots, emails or telemarketing doesn’t work and should be canned as a technique. This is not the case so long as such “interruptions” are targeted at named and pre-qualified individuals (by “pre-qualified” I mean that it is known that the recipient has a need or desire for the product being marketed).

However there is another technique.

Into the marketing mix comes a new upstart when it comes to using the web as a marketing tool which is a form of “Push Marketing”, namely; RSS Feeds.

RSS Feeds and Feed Readers

The best way to explain what RSS feeds are is to show you an example on a website that most Brits can relate to.

Take a look at the BBC News site at http://news.bbc.co.uk

In the top right hand corner you’ll see a little orange icon next to the link “News Feeds”

This icon and link indicates that RSS feeds are available on the site. Park this thought as I’ll explain more shortly!

Time to get your imagination working!

If you’ve decided to keep abreast of the news using the BBC News site; to ensure that you get the latest news as it’s reported, you’ll need to make sure that you visit the site every half-hour or so just to make sure you don’t miss anything.

This is fine if you’re only following the updates on one website, in this case the BBC News site; as it’s easy to make a mental note or even put a reminder in your Outlook™ or on your phone to keep re-visiting the site.

However, things start to get complicated when you follow multiple websites that update their content regularly.

For instance, let’s imagine, in addition to the BBC site, you also want to be informed of news articles as they happen on the Times website or on those favourite blogs that you like to read.

If you keep abreast of changes on many different blogs or websites, then it starts to become a chore to visit each different website in turn, read what’s new, and then move on to the next site. If you relied upon email updates then you’re going to get inundated with the things and before long you’re into “Interruption Marketing” territory and you’ll quickly start to ‘blank’ what’s being sent to you.

This is where RSS Feeds are the Killer App!

RSS feeds allow you read updates from numerous websites when it’s convenient to you in a single place i.e. on a webpage or in a piece of software on your desktop, without having to visit multiple websites.

If a website “Pushes” its content to you via an RSS feed and you may “Subscribe” to that feed, after which you can then read that content from each website in a single place using an RSS Reader when it’s convenient to you and without being interrupted by emails.

That’s what those orange feed icons are on the BBC, Times Online and Google Blog sites that I mentioned earlier, namely their RSS Feeds. By subscribing to each RSS feed in an RSS Reader (sometimes called an RSS Aggregator or RSS Newsreader) such as Google Reader, you can choose to read each favourite websites’ updates quickly and easily from one single web page which can be set as one of your browser’s Home Pages.

This is all fine and dandy as far as informational sites go; but where do RSS Feeds make an impact when it comes to marketing a product or service?

Again using your now practiced imagination, think of your own website.

Could you write content that is of value to your potential customers? Perhaps it could be reviews of your products with case studies of how they can be practically used, or perhaps you could offer tips and techniques that people in your industry would value. If you can, then start posting articles to your website. If people value your content enough they’ll start subscribing to your RSS Feed (assuming it’s set-up to produce one) which means you’ll start to get a subscriber list of people you know are interested in what you have to say. Worth its weight in marketing gold!

All this and without having to interrupt people to tell them about your company, services, products or expertise!

Now I’m sufficiently travelled to have seen that most societies display similar kinds of behaviour towards each other; the French for instance, have a particular knack at displaying snobbish tendencies to just about everyone and anything that isn’t ‘French’. However I feel we Brits, having conquered half the known world at some-point: have a particular talent for it across the board and can still master the ability to place people into a ‘class’ even in today’s so called class-less society (yeah right!), without a second glance. Still I suppose that’s what makes us what we are and the lack of our former ‘empire’ ain’t gonna stop us now!

This nice little comedy sketch from late 1960’s TV — demonstrates the idea and our ability to laugh at ourselves, quite nicely I think.

The art of snobbery is not just limited to real world communities: the on-line world of the web and the Internet falls under its spell and is no exception. So prompted by Stephen Fry’s recent interview with BBC Radio 4 (to admit that I listen to Radio 4 in the first place, probably displays some sort of snobbish tendencies I’ll wager); I began to ask myself:

Am I an Internet Snob?

In his interview Mr. Fry quips about the social death attributed to having a MySpace account if you’re over 14 and the leper qualities associated with an @aol.com or @hotmail.com email address. I agree with both of these points (awful aren’t I?) but I’m not the only one. I once came a across a UK based web design company who stated on their site’s feedback form that they “would not answer enquiries” from people with “free web mail email accounts”. Whatever the reasons behind this instruction, it can be said it’s blatant snobbery. At least I’m not that bad.

As for the MySpace thing. Yes sure — I’m with Stephen on this, same goes for Bebo and Friends Reunited in my book. But not Facebook I feel (well not yet anyway).

Extending this attitude onto other web related stuff. In the same vein as the MAC/PC hierarchy (you ask a MAC owner what he thinks of PCs), I feel there’s a good case to be had for ‘browser snobbery’ of which I’m guilty of I do admit. We Firefox browser users tend to ‘look down our noses’ at Internet Explorer users. Why is anyone’s guess, as IE is a perfectly good web browser, but I suppose it’s the ‘marginal user’ community thing that is so prelevant amongst MAC users that tends to breed an aloof attitude amongst such people. Incidentally I’m actually a PC user but am aspiring to be a MAC user. It’s the “Apple-Tax” that’s putting me off!

I’ve also come across people who, when declared that I bought my CDs/Books/Games etc from Amazon, responded with a distinct intake of breath as if I’m contributing towards the extinction of the White Rhino personally. “You use Amazon!” I was asked, before being lectured on the virtues of some obscure Internet site alternative that whilst being perceived to be “cooler”, was in fact more expensive than my trusted portal! Huh! How does that work then?

There’s even a snobbery element, especially amongst geeks, about which on-line music player software is THE one to use. Microsoft’s Media Player might as well be contaminated with Ebola (mainly because it’s Microsoft to be honest, which in itself is a snobbish thing) whilst RealPlayer is cool and Apple’s QuickTime is considered to be pure aristocracy.

Hopefully you get the idea and can see how snobbery knows no bounds when it comes to the Internet. Post your own examples — I’d like to hear them.

Oh, by the way; in answer to the question “Am I an Internet Snob?”

Well perhaps a little bit!