Need to Know - Small Business Technology: January 30, 2012

6 Tips for Improving Twitter Link Click Through Rate - I'm going to try the tip on placing links 25% 0of the way into a Tweet. Intrigued? Click and read!

The “Four Horsemen” of an SEO apocalypse in 2012 - The four are mobile devices, analytics, personalization & content. Click through to learn about their "apocalyptic" impact on SEO.

Google Analytics Tutorial: 8 Valuable Tips To Hustle With Data! - A well written tutorial on advanced tips using Google Analytics by the co-founder of Google.

Why are America’s fastest-growing companies killing their blogs? - I read it, but I just don't believe it yet. I may have to ponder this a bit and read it again later. You?

Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong - Mind blowing! Take notes after class, study all over the place, and  don't focus on just one skill at a time.

Kendo UI Mobile (Beta) - Very cool tool to develop applications or web sites once for all the major mobile phone platforms. I'm gonna download this and play. This tool could open app development to the masses.

Need to Know - Small Business Technology: January 26, 2012

Online Marketing in Ecommerce 2012: Survey and Case Study Result -

E-retailers improve site navigation -

Too Much SEO Can Harm an Ecommerce Business -

5 Rockstar Landing Pages that Deserve a High-Five (or do they?) -

8 Crazy Things IBM Scientists Have Learned Studying Twitter -

50 new tech tools you should know about -

Need to Know - Small Business Technology: January 3, 2012

6 Ways To Dramatically Boost Your Landing Page Conversion Rate - The actual 6 Ways are in a free (no email address required) downloadable PDF. Well written guide that I would recommend professionally to clients. Download a copy now for yourself!

6 Tech Trends to Watch in 2012 - Want to know what technical "ships" are just offshore and about to land? This is the kind of article that makes me money and keeps me gainfully employed by telling me what I should be learning. Our favorite 2012 trend is #5 - Bring your own device (BYOD).

Drivers submit a photo, auto shops bid on their car repair - Really neat app that hopefully will lead to lower costs for repairs and eventually auto insurance. Hope this goes viral and has a national impact.

Free mobile internet in exchange for participation in local offers - This is clever. Who doesn't like free? Unfortunately there are no free lunches. Someone has to pay.

5 Steps To Measure The ROI Of Digital Media Channels - Fairly academic article describing the basic steps to aggregate your stats into a single system for analyzing ROI. Light on details and doesn't recommend the final single repository. Read for the underlying concept and not step-by-step instructions.

Need to Know - Small Business Technology: December 15, 2011

• Microsoft will be upgrading all Windows XP, Vista and 7 users to the latest IE browser silently | http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2011/12/15/ie-to-start-automatic-upgrades-across-windows-xp-windows-vista-and-windows-7.aspx
• Android 101: Google Launches Mobile App Training Program by @Dan_Rowinski | rww.to/uIe6mB
• On-Page Optimization Seen Critical to Search Success | http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/on-page-optimization-seen-critical-to-search-success-20424/

Mobile Phone Apps Ideas: Migraine Forecasting

Like many Americans, we suffer from occasional migraine headaches. A few of these migraine headaches become what we refer to as "grand mal" migraines. These intense headaches result in nausea and intense pain. One of our favorite mobile phone apps has been a headache diary in which we record the date, time, intensity, and environment for each migraine. While a headache diary is a good idea for a mobile phone app, it is unfortunately a post-migraine app.

We believe America is ripe for a pre-headache, migraine forecasting mobile phone app.

Here's how a migraine headache forecasting app would work:

1) Many migraines are caused by a change in barometric air pressure. From our headache diary, we know that our worst headaches occur when air pressure increases (highs) above a certain threshold. Others have migraines triggered by a drop in air pressure (lows). Thus a migraine forecasting app would need the ability to enter a warning air pressure threshold and direction (+ / -).

2) The National Weather Service issues hourly weather observations in RSS format. These hourly observations include the barometric pressure in two forms. The RSS observations feed use a standardized CGI based URL encoded with a four character identifier for the desired reporting station. Thus, a migraine forecasting app would need the ability to enter a four character NWS identifier and pull the matching RSS feed at least hourly. A bonus feature might be the ability to enter a 5-digit zipcode and lookup the corresponding NWS identifier.

3) The app would compare the previous hours air pressure reading to the current hour's air pressure reading to set a increase or decrease flag.

4) The app would compare the current air pressure against the warning threshold air pressure.

5) If the current air pressure were at or above/below the warning threshold, the app would sound an audible alarm, flash a visual alarm, and perhaps generate a system message, much like an appointment reminder.

That's my new mobile phone app idea. A simple migraine forecasting app that would alert migraine suffers in ample time to take some pills, down some caffeine, and/or adjust their environment to prevent "the big one."

If you are an app developer, go for it. You don't need my permission and I'm not very interested in royalties.