Connecting the Dots / An Agency Blog

Whenever one of the big tech co’s does something even remotely of interest, and even more often when it’s under the radar, the tech blogs light up with speculation and criticism instantly. Even when it’s as insubstantial as the Microsoft Bing.com team’s recent internal use of their new Binged.It URL shortener.

Microsoft seems far less
concerned with an extra
character in their URL
shortener, or even the
prospect of using a truly
short URL than they are
about building a solid and
recognizable brand around
the Bing product.

The service isn’t yet public, and for all we know, it may never be. But with URL shortening becoming commonplace and creating some interesting business opportunities – tracking audience interest for example – it would be surprising if the Google’s, YouTube’s, and Microsoft’s weren’t exploring the space with some level of interest.

Microsoft’s Binged.It URL shortener caught some heat recently on TechCrunch.com, with the blog and most of the commenters jumping all over the fact that Bing’s short URL (Binged.It – 8 characters) is longer than the service’s main URL (Bing.com – 7 characters). Fair point, considering a URL shortener should, er, shorten a URL, right?!

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Web Apps are fun. Especially when they’re useful. We’ve been working on a few concepts over the past year, and this one has begun to evolve. We’ll be working to jam this out in the new year and when we’re ready to launch we’ll be sure to make some noise. For now though, we’re keeping quiet as to what Chym.In will actually offer. Feel free to post your best guess in our comments below.

In the meantime, please follow Chym.In on Twitter and visit Chym.In to sign up for our launch email. Those signed up to the Chym.In email list and following Chym.In on Twitter will get first invites to the beta.

The theory of value is subjective. In regards to a product or service, value must be useful in satisfying the wants and needs of the consumer, we’ve also seen value generated when something is in limited supply. While this idea holds up in the comparison of two products side by side, it does not induce a desire of want in the customer who is inundated with hundreds of choices for nearly the exact same product or service.

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Social media is unavoidable for anyone with a desk job and a finger (at least a little bit) on the pulse of things. Let’s face it, for those of us connected, sooner or later you’re going to get the distraction and head over to Facebook. For some employers, time equates 100% to money and every minute wasted is a dollar lost – an unfortunate but realistic factor of capitalism. But for many on the employee side, powering through the day can be a challenge when the social sphere is only a click away.

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“Engage young people where they are hanging out – and that’s online.” That was the mandate from Vancouver’s Wasserman + Partners when they engaged Engine Digital for this year’s WorkSafe BC’s Raise Your Hand campaign. For the three years that we have worked with this brand, the strategy has been to educate young people about the importance of work place safety and the rights that safeguard them. In order to get people excited and involved with the Raise Your Hand message, we had to swap the negative undertones of a safety campaign into a movement backboned on positivity.
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