That’s good news for some, and bad news for others. The good news? All of the Picnik premium features will be available for free to everyone from NOW until April 19th, 2012

Go ahead: edit some photos before the service disappears altogether: http://www.picnik.com/

Or read the official announcement on the Picnik blog: http://blog.picnik.com/

Infographic by the Pay Per Click Blog

Who Should Use Google Analytics Premium and does this mean that Google is not going to invest in the free version moving forward?

Read this fantastic and very informative article on the subject to find out the answers to these questions and more! — Google Analytics Premium: Better Support & Goodbye Data Sampling

Things you like, but wouldn’t necessarily share through email or social networking sites…you plus one it.

Still confused? Straight from the horses mouth, check out this new video from Google.

Click here to view the embedded video.

That’s right! The clever google ad!

Well, guess what? Youtube will let you create your own at youtube.com/searchstories

You bet we made one too!

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Doritos spots were inventive, but not really impressive (I’m wondering if those were really the best of the submitted ads for their annual super bowl video contest).

Some of our own favorites were most definitely the E-trade babies, the Simpsons Coke ad, and The Griswold’s cameo in the Home Away spot.

The winner for us hands down though, was the Google ad. It cost practically nothing and had a storyline that was cute and could connect with both males and females (a LARGE majority of the ads this year had a machoman tint to them, which only works at alienating the multitudes of ladies that love watching the game).

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE AD SPOT?

Over the past couple of days I’ve been noticing that certain types of companies have not only survived the economic downturn but are actually increasing their successes. How have they done this?

Well, the main trend between the companies is that they are utilizing cutting edge technology making the lives of their customers and their employees much easier, as well as using this technology to market their products more effectively.

I like to call it the “lazy technology trend.” And I think we can all learn from it.

Lazy Technology in business

What do I mean by lazy technology?

I’m not talking about technology for people too lazy to get out of bed. What I’m talking about is technology that feeds the basic human instinct, driving us to make things faster and easier.

Man made fire so it would be easier to eat and stay warm. Man invented the wheel to transport people and goods with less effort and so on.
If you follow this “lazy instinct” through the ages to modern day life, you reach a world where technology is king and fast information is his sword. You can be either knighted or beheaded by it.

Google, one of the most successful companies of our time, has always made it priority to feed this “lazy instinct”.

Their products allow people to make simple searches of the internet, email and video chat, store information, share information, use of word processors, all available on the home page. The list of lazy products they offer is growing daily.

Another example of lazy technology would be Netflix. Originally started as a website where you pay a monthly fee to rent DVD’s by mail.

Now with the use of new technology they have made renting movies and T.V. shows instantly from your computer or TV (with the use of an inexpensive adapter, X-box, PS3 and coming this spring for the Wii) an included part of the monthly service: making Netflix so much more competitive that they’re even taking clients away from cable companies.

An interesting lazy tool for businesses using twitter is Twuffer. Twuffer allows the Twitter user to compose announcements or posts and schedule their release days, weeks, even months in advance.

Companies can use this technology to schedule tweets for upcoming campaigns, promotions, specials, contests etc.: letting twuffer do all the work for them at the appointed time.

Staying on top of technology

All modern day businesses should utilize new technologies to make their products easier to use and more accessible to customers.

Microsoft had to learn this lesson the hard way. They’re just now becoming more competitive online but for years they focused only on building software that you buy at the store. The problem is that the internet and web let people get what they need instantly.

This made it hard for Microsoft to sell their products and gave companies like Google an opening into the market.

A great way to stay on top of available technology is to watch companies similar to yours (especially direct competitors) and find out what they are using to make customers lives easier. Take those ideas and improve on them.

The funny thing is, because of our lazy instinct, technology just keeps building on itself getting infinitely faster and better. To some this is a scary thought because of the competition and uncertainty technology creates.

But I feel it gives us a chance to actually make money and reach more people.

What an exciting time to be alive and in business.