Game app Pokémon Go is revolutionizing marketing for businesses and nonprofits

In just a few weeks, Pokémon Go has already rewritten the rules of what a mobile app game can do. Using augmented reality (AR) technology, the app requires players (known in the game as Pokémon trainers) to travel to real-world locations to locate and virtually “capture” Pokémon, cartoon critters from the eponymous 1990s television series. When the game launched in the United States on July 7, few could have anticipated just how massive its popularity would become. According to data gathered just days after the game’s release by IT company SimilarWeb, Pokémon Go isn’t just a popular app. It’s the biggest mobile game the country has ever seen.

Free software may cost more than you think.

Imagine you're in the market to buy a car. When doing research, what do you look for?

When measuring social impact, actions speak louder than words.

Nowadays, everyone wants to talk about social impact: helping society, making a difference, giving back to the community.

The topic of address verification is unlikely to become the Next Big Thing™ everyone talks about when they go out with their friends on the weekends.

For the ninth consecutive year, world-renowned research and advisory firm Gartner has positioned Microsoft as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence for its cloud-based Power BI software product.

Not one to sit idle, Microsoft has been on a big-time partnership kick over the past year.

Cooperation and partnerships appear to be the new vision for Microsoft. Since Satya Nadella took over as CEO of Microsoft two years ago, replacing Steve Ballmer, Microsoft has worked hard to cultivate its image to align with the company's new direction.

2015 was a very good year for Microsoft Office 365 — as well as for products and applications that leverage Office, such as StratusLIVE! — thanks in large part to the boom in adoption rates for cloud computing among businesses and nonprofits.

Gain insight into your nonprofit decisions with facts and figures, not guesses. 

Recently, I was having a conversation with an acquaintance of mine who happens to be the Chief Operating Officer of a midsize nonprofit. We were discussing the intersection of donor acquisition and data.

In other great Microsoft news, it was announced that the software giant recently completed the acquisition of Metanautix, a data analysis company whose aim is to tear down data silos in order to "connect the 'data supply chain,' no matter what [sic] the type, size or location of an organization’s data."

"How much am I going to have to pay to be number one in search results?"

Unfortunately, that was not a rhetorical question. Nor was it sarcasm. That was a real question I recently heard a business person ask a web development team.