Google and BMW share the same vision of providing the user with more innovative and convenient services. The integration of Google’s mapping technology with BMW’s excellence in manufacturing innovative car models a partnership that will certainly achieve the vision.

The BMW ConnectedDrive is an innovative concept of model cars which intelligently integrates the driver,car and surroundings that contribute to the overall driving pleasure.

Features on the upcoming gPhone include but are not limited to… (more…)

“Developers and users alike are going to be very surprised and pleased at how great [business] applications look and work on [the] iPhone

This is a little overstated, I think. The iPhone is a nice shiney new toy that we would all love to play with a little. When it comes to business apps, though, professionals need it to be more about function than form. This pretty much negates half of what the iPhone has to offer. When it comes right down to it, the Treo is a superior business tool out of the box. The only real advantage that I see in the iPhone is that it has a superior built-in Safari browser.

With this browser, online applications have an easy way to say that their application works on the iPhone. It’s already fully capable of displaying and executing all the fancy AJAX and Javascript stuff that we have come to love in our applications. The AIMpromote CRM Software application is web-based, and is fully iPhone compatible just as-is. We haven’t needed to change anything. That’s nice, but it’s hardly novel.

We will see that with its inflated price and it’s almost standard functionality that there are other products on the market that will serve the business community more efficiently. From an Internet marketing standpoint, I think we will be adding an iPhone logo on our site to state that it’s compatible. This will really just be a marketing move though, as there was no actual work involved on our end to make it work on this platform.

If I were your boss would I buy you an iPhone? Maybe, but it wouldn’t be because it’s such a great business tool. The Nokia N800 is a far superior product at a lower price point. It has all the necessary business functionality with a price point $100 less than the iPhone. If you want something fun to play with, then get the iPhone. If you are looking for cost-benefit and ROI, get the Treo or the N800.

Apparently, these whiners were dialing in “40 to 50 times as often” as the “average customer,” and after failing to appease them, the firm chose to “terminate the relationship with those customers to allow them to pursue other options.”

This was smart. Some people might cry about how ‘unfair’ it is, but the fact is that these are at-will relationships. If Sprint doesn’t want to do business with unprofitable customers, then they should definitely not be forced to. It wouldn’t surprise me if legislation is created regarding this issue (or at least the attempt will be made to create legislation).

Sometimes it’s hard for us to realize that we don’t have to do business with every willing customer. The fact is that if we aren’t profitable, we can’t long provide our services to any customers.

This article notes more detail on unprofitable customers:

Unprofitable customers are parasites. Harvard Business Review estimates that, on average, 15% of all customer are unprofitable. The book, Angel Customers & Demon Customers, estimates that, in most industries, the best 20% of customers account for 150% of profits. The worst 20% typically lose money equal to 75% of profits.

You could always raise the prices of these customers, but that has the potential to backfire. How do you explain to one of these parasitic clients that they are being charged an additional premium due to their overuse of services that were supposed to be unlimited. It may actually be illegal to do so. It’s far easier just to cut these clients loose, and let them find another company with which to do business. There are almost always alternatives for the customer.

If you have customers that are clearly unprofitable, just cut them loose. It is ethical, and it is the only sane decision that a business can make.

The new approach is a basic, if novel, idea:

Microsoft’s tool doesn’t find spam the traditional way, by looking at the site’s content. Instead, it turns the spammers’ activities against them by using search engines to find links to potential spam pages. These links are often posted as comments on blogs, in online discussion forums and in guestbooks, also called “comment spam”.

Only time will tell, in the meantime you can learn more here: Strider URL Tracer

There are some limitations as to how many pages the service will index:

The price for Google’s “Custom Search Business Edition” will start at $100 annually to sift through up to 5,000 Web pages. Larger Web sites can pay Google $500 annually to search up to 50,000 Web pages.

I know that my websites (including this blog) have yet to cross the 5k page mark. I suppose that when I do cross that threshhold that I won’t even balk for a minute over having to pay less than $50.00 per month for a quality search feature.

How does search effect your bottom line? Providing easy access to your content is one of the proven methods of increase website stickiness. Having a good search tool is fundamental in assisting your visitors in finding the content that they are looking for. Think of how many times you have been on a website and had to use the search tool to find what you were looking for because the navigation was just not doing it for you… And you are an expert. Imagine how hard it is for normal, non-supergeeks, to find information in those cases.

Having a great search tool can mean the difference between keeping a visitor on your site, and losing them forever.