Time to Tell A Friend

The internet has the capacity, sometimes, to divorce not just our minds from our bodies and siphon us into cyberspace but also our common sense.

When it comes to business models the internet seems to have managed to make us forget everything we knew in the Real World (RL for the acronym lovers) and slow down the length of time it takes us to re-learn it.

How else can we explain the fact that the number one selling tool in the universe is so underused on the internet that hardly anyone remembers to implement it. All right, I've played games long enough, time to get real and tackle exactly what I'm talking about.

In the real world before you change your mobile phone, splash out for that flat-screen plasma TV or set out to test-drive the latest muscle-car at your local dealer you first discuss it with your friends. That's because you're the product of an evolutionary process that has conditioned us, as a species, to pool our resources in order to reach a decision that is far more informed than anything we could have managed on our own.

More brains than one

Left alone, on an island, without even a Man Friday to talk to our store of knowledge and our ability to make informed judgements would soon deteriorate to the point where the quality of our decisions would jeopardise our chances of survival.

The net is no different. We see a product that's hot, a web page we like or a news item that's topical and our immediate reaction is to tell a friend (or several). With the internet and email our telling a friend becomes both immediate and personalised. Except that when we're in full flow, buried in reading the text on a page, checking out the stats on a sports car or weighing up the merits of a particular product we're loathe to leave the page in order to load up our email programme and spend time firing-off a message or two.

Savvy website designers who understand this have responded with the 'Tell A Friend' facility, a nifty applet that, at a click, allows you to tell your friend or friends what you've found on the net. That way you and I, as sophisticated consumers, carry on with our online activity and still engage in the critical knowledge-sharing interaction that's a characteristic of our species.

This is a classic win-win scenario. We do our bit. Website owners get to benefit by recommendations and fresh traffic and our friends find out about websites they probably wouldn't have come across as quickly (if at all).

In website design parlance a 'Tell A Friend' facility is 'empowerment'. It's allowing the surfer to increase their interaction with the website and maximise their return from its use.

Not as easy as it looks

Of course, had all this common-sense behaviour really been as common as that I would not have written this article and, in all probability, you would not be reading it. I have no idea why website owners do not ask for it to be implemented more frequently, but I do know that when they do they don't always get it right.

Remember the reason we didn't use our email client to send a message to our friends in the first place is because by the time we find what we want on the net and launch ourselves into the web pages we're in too deep to readily want to interrupt what we're doing and send a message to anyone.

There are two types of 'Tell A Friend' facility you can use. The first takes you to another page where you can type in your friend's email address, your own and (usually) a brief message. The second type allows you to do all this, prompts you for a message right from the page you're surfing.

It is the clever use of the second type implemented by web design experts, PQL (http://www.pqlwebsolutions.co.uk/), that proved its mettle when it allowed the pages it appeared on at Cool Publications, an internet publisher website, to increase their traffic load by over 300%.

When analysing why this happened at the Cool Publications monthly traffic stats meeting it became apparent that while in the past we'd relied on valuable word-of-mouth publicity to spread through the digital equivalent of more traditional means (i. e. fire-up your email and send off a message much as you would have picked up the phone when you found a spare moment and talked to your friends about what you'd found), in this case we'd actually 'prompted' the surfer to tell their friends and, what's more, made it possible for this to happen without ever leaving the page.

"Breaking the flow of concentration of surfers is never a desirable thing to do and neither should you take them off your website in order to have them send a message to a friend. The same one-click ease of use that got them there can conspire to take them somewhere else," says Lead Designer, Paul Beardsell at PQL. "Taking advantage of word-of-mouth publicity is essential to your business but it should never happen at the expense of a sale."

So, if you have a page on your website (or a product) which you think it'd set the world alight and surfers would like to share with their friends, go ahead and implement the code to make this possible. As long as you remember that empowerment also means ease of use and additional sales, and all this should work, seamlessly together.

David Amerland is the Projects Editor at Cool Publications, an internet publishing company that has revolutionised web marketing and publicity. Prior to that he reported for The European, worked in PR for a national sports corporation and was the lead reporter for Your Money, Savings and Investments magazine.

tidy up service Glenview ..

In The News:

New Android malware BankBot YNRK silences phones, steals banking data and drains crypto wallets automatically. Learn how this advanced threat works.

FDA approves first human trial for Paradromics' brain-computer interface that could restore speech for paralyzed patients through neural technology.

New phishing platform QRR targets Microsoft 365 users across 1,000 domains in 90 countries. Learn how to spot fake login pages and protect your accounts.

OpenTable now uses AI to track your dining habits and share insights with restaurants. Learn what data they collect and how to protect your privacy.

Google's discontinued Nest thermostats still secretly upload home data to company servers despite losing smart features, raising serious privacy concerns.

New Android malware NGate steals NFC payment codes in real-time, allowing criminals to withdraw cash from ATMs without your card. Learn protection tips.

DoorDash confirms data breach exposing customer names, emails, addresses after social engineering attack. Learn how to protect yourself from scams.

Concerned about Google's AI scanning your Gmail? Learn how to disable Gemini features that access your emails, Drive files and Chat messages for privacy.

Google warns Android users about dangerous fake VPN apps hiding malware that steals passwords, banking details and personal data from phones and tablets.

Apple's digital passport feature lets iPhone users breeze through TSA checkpoints this holiday season using Digital ID technology at 250+ airports.

A new phishing scam targets family photos with fake "Cloud Storage Full" alerts. Criminals steal credit card information through fake sites. Learn protection tips.

South Korean scientists create ultra-thin fabric muscles that turn clothes into robotic assistants, lifting 33 pounds while weighing under half an ounce.

Archer Aviation has acquired Hawthorne Airport for $126M to launch an LA air taxi network ahead of the 2028 Olympics, featuring AI-powered eVTOL operations and next-gen aviation tech.

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

Fake AI apps disguised as "ChatGPT" and "DALL·E" are flooding app stores with dangerous malware that steals data and monitors users without detection.

Fake buyers demand specific vehicle reports from unknown sites to steal credit card information from car sellers, but warning signs can help identify these scams before paying.

Android users can now manage apps across multiple devices more easily with Google Play Store's updated remote uninstall button in the latest update.

NASA's Perseverance rover discovers shiny metallic rock on Mars that could be a meteorite from an ancient asteroid, containing high levels of iron and nickel.

Holiday scams spike during Black Friday and Cyber Monday as criminals exploit your leaked personal data. Learn how to protect yourself from fake stores and phishing.

Commerce Department proposes TP-Link router ban over Chinese security risks. Learn how this potential prohibition could affect your home network and devices.

Hyundai AutoEver America suffered a data breach affecting 2,000 current and former employees, exposing names, Social Security numbers and driver's license information.

Washington court rules automated license plate reader images are public records, even when stored by vendors like Flock Safety, setting precedent for transparency.

Fake airline texts claiming flight cancellations are targeting travelers with convincing scams. Learn how cybercriminals steal personal data and credit card info.

Discover how iOS 26's new Adaptive Power feature automatically extends iPhone battery life by learning your usage patterns and adjusting performance intelligently.

New TikTok malware campaign tricks users into running PowerShell commands that download Aura Stealer, which steals credentials and authentication tokens.

Time to Tell A Friend

Web Site Promotion