"[On Digital Ground] did an outstanding job on our web site as well as made up a greatbrochure for our business. Clients are always asking us who did thesethings for us they are so impressed by them. Thanks Tom, great job!"

Wayne B. Bailey
AllClean Carpet Care, Restoration& Maintenance Service, Inc.
"Delivering The Ultimate Cleaning Experience"
Brunswick ME
(207) 725-7277

As a business owner of an e-commerce site, we want to believe that if we build our online store they will buy.  According to the latest statitics, more site visitors are putting information gathering at the top of their 'purchase funnel'.  Below are the top reasons Internet users visit e-commerce websites.

Below are the locations/situations where US Social Media Users say they have accessed social media via Twitter - August 2009.

Below are the top 5 Social Networking sites amoung US Internet Users...Ranked by Market Share of Visits for September 2008 vs September 2009

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• In the US, approximately 74.4% of the population use the Internet.
• Americans now spend on average of 11 hours per week on the Internet outside of work.
• The average time spent on a website is 51 secs.
• In 1998, Google logged 10,000 searches per day.  Only one year later, in 1999, that jumped to 500,000 searches per day.
• In July 2008, Google logged and average of 235 BILLION searches per day.
• As of February 2009, Google was reported as handling 73% of all searches performed on the Internet.
• As the monitor resolution and Internet speed is advancing, the trend has shifted to the use of over-sized photo or illustrated image as a website’s background to enhance the visual effect of the site.
• In 2008 more and more companies turned back to the use of a site map to assist site visitors and web spiders in finding all the pages within the site.  Toward the end of 2008 and into 2009, that trend has turned to the use of the site footer as the site map.
• It is reported that 42% of US companies still do not have a website.

Even with all the options available to me online, I still enjoy going into a book store and holding a book in my hand before buying it. This is unfortunately becoming more and more difficult for me to do. Sites like Amazon and Half.com consistently beat brick and mortar bookstores on price and customer service. The inventory for computer related books has dwindled to almost nothing, except for the 'dummies' series, which is always well stocked, and should be a good indication of how bookstores view us.

Today I was at a local big chain bookstore looking for a baby book. I was unable to find it on my own, and so I opted for the self serve information kiosk, which was occupied. After waiting in line for a bit, I found my way to what they call the 'Information Station'. There was no-one there. Walking up to the front of the store, I asked the checkout clerk if he was able to help me find a book with his register. His answer was, 'No, but I can call someone to the Information Station for you'. After walking back and waiting about 15 minutes (no kidding!) at the Information Station, I went back to the front of the store and attempted to get the attention of the same clerk I had spoken with before. He was busy talking with another clerk... a female.

While I waited for them to finish their conversation, I fiddled with my iPhone. Ahhhh... free Wifi. It took me about 30 seconds to find the book I was looking for on Half.com, and another minute to purchase it. When the clerk finally acknowledged me there... I politely said, 'Thanks, but I found what I was looking for.' By then, I had already purchased the book on their dime using the free internet they were so nice to provide for guests.

If you have a brick and mortar storefront, it is now more important than ever to go above and beyond for your customers because they have so many more options available to them, many of them much more competitive than you are able to be. Sometimes the only thing that differentiates you from your online competitors is a smile, handshake, or the simple attentive acknowledgement that your customer is patiently standing right there with money in hand. It is vital to your organization for you to reach out to those of us who still value these things, and who value the ability to hold what we are buying in our hands before we purchase it. There are so few of us left, and some of us are getting frustrated with paying so much more for so much less.

Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but rather to changes in the ways software developers and end-users utilize the Web.  Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information.  They give the user the ability to interact with the site choosing what they want to see and how they want it presented. 

The term "Web 2.0" describes the new trend in web design created to enhance your online experience.  Web 2.0 is constantly evolving and includes communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. Web 2.0 developments have led to the evolution of web culture communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites (MySpace and Facebook), video sharing sites (YouTube), wikis (Twitter) and blogs (Blogspotter).