Microsoft Set To Launch Windows Mobile 7

On February 15, 2010, In Technology, By carol

The Mobile World Congress is expected to be the launching pad for Microsoft’s refreshed mobile platform.

Anticipated for months, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 7 is expected to be unveiled by CEO Steve Ballmer at the Mobile World Congress February 15 – 18 in Barcelona. Ballmer has scheduled a Monday press conference at the show.

After allowing its earlier versions of Windows Mobile languish, Microsoft is in the position of smartphone darkhorse to Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android phones, and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry devices. The software colossus will have to unveil something special to attract attention.

Predictions call for a consumer-oriented platform built on Microsoft’s Zune HD player, but with links to Microsoft’s traditionally strong enterprise products such as Office, Outlook ,and Exchange. Microsoft’s Xbox and Bing search engine are expected to figure into any Windows Mobile 7 announcement, as are free navigation features.

When will Windows Mobile 7 handsets see the light of day? There is no official word, but reports have surfaced that LG plans to introduce a Windows 7 handset in September.

While its market share has dropped precipitously in recent months, Microsoft’s smartphone platform still commands a respectable 18% of the market, according to research figures released by comScore. BlackBerry dominates the category with 41.6%, followed by 25.3% for the iPhone and 5.2% for Google’s Android phones. Android handsets are catapulting into the market and their shipments have jumped 100% in recent months. The iPhone, too, is growing rapidly.

Microsoft released its Windows Mobile 6.5 incremental update on phones in October, but the release didn’t generate much buzz. At least one observer believes the Windows Mobile platform needs a complete redesign.

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Google Goes Social with Google Buzz

On February 11, 2010, In Social media, By carol

It’s official: Google (Google) has just announced Google Buzz (Google Buzz), its newest push into the social media foray. This confirms earlier reports of Gmail integrating a social status feature.

On stage revealing the new product was Bradley Horowitz, Google’s vice president for product management. While introducing the product, Mr. Horowitz focused on the human penchant for sharing experiences and the social media phenomenon of wanting to share it in real time. These two key themes were core philosophies behind Google Buzz.

“It’s becoming harder and harder to find signal in the noise,” Bradley stated before introducing the product manager for Google Buzz, Todd Jackson.

Here are the details:

Google Buzz: The Details

- Mr. Jackson introduced “a new way to communicate within Gmail (Gmail).” It’s “an entire new world within Gmail.” Then he introduced the five key features that define Google Buzz:

– Key feature #1: Auto-following

– Key feature #2: Rich, fast sharing experience

– Key feature #3: Public and private sharing

– Key feature #4: Inbox integration

– Key feature #5: Just the good stuff

- Google then began the demo. Once you log into Gmail, you’ll be greeted wiht a splash page introducing Google Buzz.

- There is a tab right under the inbox, labeled “Buzz”

- It provides links to websites, content from around the web. Picasa (Picasa), Twitter (Twitter), Flickr (Flickr) and other sites are aggregated.

- It shows thumbnails when linked to photos from sites like Picasa and Flickr. Clicking on an image will blow up the images to almost the entire browser, making them easier to see.

- It uses the same keyboard shortcuts as Gmail. This makes sense. Hitting “R” allows you to comment/reply to a buzz post, for example.

- There are public and private settings for different posts. You can post updates to specific contact groups. This is a lot like Facebook (Facebook) friend lists.

- Google wants to make sure you don’t miss comments, so it has a system to send you an e-mail letting you know about updates. However, the e-mail will actually show you the Buzz you’ve created and all of the comments and images associated with it.

- Comments update in real time.

- @replies are supported, just like Twitter. If you @reply someone, it will send a buzz toward an individual’s inbox.

- Google Buzz has a “recommended” feature that will show buzzes from people you don’t follow if your friends are sharing or commenting on that person’s buzz. You can remove it or change this in settings.

- Google is now speaking about using algorithms to help filter conversations, as well as mobile devices related to Buzz.

The Mobile Aspect

- Google buzz will be accessible via mobile in three ways: from Google Mobile’s website, from Buzz.Google.com (iPhone and Android (Android)), and from Google Mobile Maps.

- Buzz knows wher you are. It will figure out what building you are and ask you if it’s right.

- Buzz has voice recognition and posts it right onto your buzz in real-time. It also geotags your buzz posts.

- Place pages integrate Buzz.

- In the mobile interface, you can click “nearby” and see what people are saying nearby. NIFTY, if I say so myself.

- You can layer Google Maps (Google Maps) with Buzz. You can also associate pictures with buzz within Google Maps.

- Conversation bubbles will appear on your Google Maps. They are geotagged buzz posts, which lets you see what people are saying nearby.

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MyTweetSuite , an application to manage multiple Twitter profiles

On February 9, 2010, In Insights, Social media, By carol

Twitter is a fast-evolving, surprisingly powerful new way to exchange ideas and information, and stay in touch with people, businesses, and organizations that you care about through Micro-blogging.

Twitter has disrupted the traditional marketing process and made way for the professional micro-bloggers. Bloggers use Twitter to give readers a peek behind the scenes of their business, provide quick notices about their plans and the posts they are working on, and answer direct questions put to them by the readers. To enable this process professional bloggers use multiple Twitter accounts.

As a Twitter marketer, our client was looking for an application that allows him to effectively manage multiple Twitter profiles, schedule tweets to go out at a later date and time, and measure his Twitter analytics. The client wanted web application which facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web; in short a Web 2.0 application.

We have developed a suite of applications for normal twitter users all the way to the power user/professional blogger. We are trying to keep the users on MyTweetSuite and have no reason to leave to use twitter or any external application.

Handling multiple Twitter accounts is much easier now. With features like Read, Write, Scheduled, Posted, Replies, Direct Messages, Searches, Feeds, Followers and Upload, the user can handle the Twitter accounts in an effective way.

MyTweetSuite application is developed in PHP. PHP is an Open Source server side scripting language which has become incredibly popular within the web development community. We used PHP because it has built-in features to handle heavily trafficked sites and to simplify common Web programming tasks. Client gained enhanced productivity of development teams and significantly reduced time-to-market of mission critical web application.

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Does Your Small Business Need an iPad?

On February 8, 2010, In Technology, By carol

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Now that the dust has settled and we know what the Apple iPad (Apple Ipad Tablet) is, many people have begun trying to answer the question, “How can I justify spending the money to get one of these things?” There is certainly no denying that the iPad is a very cool looking device, but as a small business owner, do you really need one? And what about netbooks? Apple CEO Steve Jobs claims that the new iPad fills a niche for which netbooks were failing to deliver, but is that really true for business users?

Here, then, are reasons why you should go out and buy an iPad as soon as they’re available, and reasons why you shouldn’t.

Why You Need One

There are many reasons why small business owners could justify purchasing an Apple iPad. Though clearly aimed at casual users and touted primarily for couch web surfing and multimedia consumption, the iPad also has plenty of potential business uses. By creating a special iPad optimized edition of iWork (iWork ‘09), Apple’s productivity suite, Apple also clearly sees the iPad’s business potential. Their ultra-competitive announced price of just $9.99 for the app indicates that Apple plans to aggressively court business users, even if that is not necessarily their core customer.

Essentially, the iPad is a big iPod touch that in theory provides a better typing experience (by virtue of its larger onscreen keyboard). Because the iPad will run any of the 140,000 iPhone/iPod apps right out of the box, any business use you already have for your iPod touch or iPhone (except making phone calls) will be available to you on the iPad — but bigger. With that in mind, the iPad could certainly become an asset to sales people who make presentations on the road (what’s more impressive — clicking through PowerPoint slides or manipulating product demos and data visualizations with your fingers?) or anyone who needs to easily monitor core business functions (server health, web site traffic stats, sales indicators, financial numbers, etc.) from the road using a relatively cheap and compact device.

Why You Don’t

What the iPad isn’t, however, is a replacement for your desktop or laptop computer. There are many features missing from the iPad, but two in particular could be deal breakers for serious small business users.

First, the iPad lacks a standard USB port. There will almost certainly be aftermarket accessories available to add USB support to the tablet, but the bottom line is that using the USB devices you already own, such as memory sticks and external hard drives, will not be easy or even possible with the iPad out of the box.

Second, and more egregious, the iPad, like the iPhone and iPod touch, currently lacks the ability to multitask. For Apple’s apparent target consumer — users who will use the iPad for casual web surfing, to watch movies, and to play games — not being able to run more than one program at the same time isn’t likely a big deal. But for business users, that’s a major setback. If you’re putting together a presentation or writing up a sales report, you need the ability to be able to refer to a web page or data locked in some other application while you work. For that reason alone, the iPad in its current form is not an ideal business machine.

What About Netbooks?

netbooks imageFor about half the price of an iPad you could buy a very capable netbook (some come even cheaper when subsidized by a 3G data plan subscription). According to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, “netbooks aren’t better at anything.” But in many ways, a $299 netbook outshines the $499 iPad, especially for business users. If what you’re after is a machine that offers extreme portability and business critical features for a low price, a netbook might be a better option.

Netbooks have a number of advantages over the iPad. They multitask, they often have cameras (for video conferencing), they can generally run Windows (Windows) (meaning they run Microsoft Office and Outlook), they support an open software ecosystem (meaning more choice and the ability to easily custom develop and deploy software for your organization), and they have standard ports and inputs. While they can’t match the iPad for cool factor, as far as business functionality, netbooks pack a lot of bang for the buck.

So which should you buy? That will come down to what type of device you need and its intended use. The iPad, however, is not a must-have purchase for all small business owners — at least, not in its first generation.

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Textbook Publishers Embrace iPad Apps for Education

On February 4, 2010, In Technology, By carol

Textbook publishers have already enlisted the third-party services of developers to build adaptations of textbooks for the iPad, the Wall Street Journal reports.

McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin, Pearson and Kaplan have struck deals with iPhone and iPod touch developers ScrollMotion Inc. to build applications for the iPad that bring test preparation, study guides and new types of instructional materials to the classroom.

Among the many industries potentially revolutionized by the Apple iPad, the publishing industry has been one of the early front-runners. We’re already seeing that start to play out in the e-books market with the Amazon and Macmillan dispute.

But galvanizing publishers to re-envision textbooks for new interactive devices could have a huge impact not only on Apple’s bottom line, but on education as a whole. “People have been talking about the impact of technology on education for 25 years. It feels like it is really going to happen in 2010,” said executive Rik Kranenburg of McGraw-Hill’s higher education unit.

Despite Apple’s relative lack of commentary on the iPad’s potential for the educational sector during its iPad announcement last week, it appears that textbook publishers aren’t waiting to be invited. Still, it’s yet unclear how or even if the iPad or other upcoming tablet devices will achieve wide adoption in the classroom, considering the cost of employing new technologies and the competition with other portable computing tools, particularly netbooks. But no matter what device ecosystem ends up holding sway, it’s potentially great news to students who stand to benefit from an emerging renaissance in digital learning materials.

As a student, teacher or parent, what new kinds of teaching materials would you like to see in the classroom?

Source – mashable

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Make use of E-power to Access Knowledge Anytime, Anywhere

On February 3, 2010, In Insights, By carol

With escalating demand for resources in schools, there is a scope emerging for weak monitoring and interactivity. In context to content, curriculum, interaction and administration most of the schools are lagging behind as there is no proper IT system in place.

Understanding the education system of schools, JIVA InfoTech,Inc. announces its new e-learning service. They offer a Learning Management System that covers the flow of information, communication, training, knowledge management and performance management reducing the time lag in the availability of educational statistics and improve the quality by strengthening the monitoring system

This service helps Track student progress with an efficient system in place.The record of performance, progress and improvement are automatically tracked and stored in the system which enable the user to evaluate dynamically. This will give him the overall picture of his performance and command over the subject and also helps the student in building up the confidence

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Tailoring the Facet of the Apparel Sector

On February 2, 2010, In Insights, By carol

Let technology meet fashion . . .
. . . To reach your prospects in the right assortment, at the right time and at the right place

Technology has opened the door for tailoring the facet of the Apparel sector. With increasing product proliferation and shorter product life cycles, Apparel industry incurs significant excess costs in the form of inventory carrying costs, stock out costs, and markdown costs.

Understanding the nature and importance of managing a complete cycle in apparel sector, we offer you a sophisticated E-commerce solution that lets you quickly & efficiently manage the flow of goods, information and finances, creating a major impact on both company costs and customer satisfaction.

JIVA InfoTech,Inc. provides an architecture that facilitates transparency for effective selling that helps you coordinate activities of suppliers, purchasing agents, marketers, channel members, and customers. These activities include forecasting, information systems, purchasing, production planning and point of sale, order processing, inventory, warehousing, accounting and transportation planning.

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Is Amazon Ready for the Apple iPad?

On February 2, 2010, In Technology, By carol

Days ago Apple unveiled the Apple iPad and in a prior post I mentioned how Apple’s partnerships with print media and textbook companies will peg the iPad as a possible threat to the Amazon’s Kindle. Kindle is trying to think ahead, and Kindle enthusiasts say that the iPad will not be a direct threat.

The Kindle is an e-book reader that is limited to storing and displaying monochromatic text. Newer versions of the Kindle do include web browsing capabilities, but there is nothing else really tech-y about it. There are reports surfacing about Amazon wanting to add gaming features to the Kindle to offset losses they are anticipating by Apples new e-book friendly device. According to Business Week, Amazon has enlisted the help of game developers to do just that. Is this a good move by Amazon? It might do more damage than good. The consumers that chose Kindle as their e-book reader of choice were probably not interesting in gaming. They value the device for its ability to allow them to curl up and read a good novel.

For the most part, the Kindle is marketed towards an older audience that really loves to read, and not necessarily the twenty-somethings that are looking for the trendy glitz of an Apple product. If the Kindle keeps advertising to this demographic, then the fact that the Kindle is just an e-book reader is one of its positives. As far as being a great e-book reader, supposedly the iPad does not match up due to its technology for viewing the text. Kindle’s screen is easier on the eyes, it was made specifically for reading while the iPad has and LCD screen that lights up to highlight reading and other shared functionalities. However, I believe this is all relative. The Kindle has the advantage that it looks like an actual printed page, but younger audiences might want to see graphics and images when reading printed text that go along with it. The attractive graphic display will come into play when users are able to download Marvel Comics from the Apple App Store.

Where I feel there will be a sense of competition is in the newspaper industry. The Kindle can currently provide e-reader versions of USA Today and the Wall Street Journal among others, but many reviews say the format in which it is presented is lacking. Some users are angry about paying for newspapers on a subscription basis, but do not see the whole edition.

So how should Amazon get ready for the iPad? I think they should keep trying to optimize the product they already have. The iPad has been able to conjure up some significant deals with publishing companies, but people who buy textbooks and read Marvel comics don’t necessarily want to download romance novels or travel books. Zeroing in on the right demographic and improving their newspaper and magazine reader formats will help the Kindle maintain its current leading market position.

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5 Things True Social Media Experts Do Online

On February 2, 2010, In Social media, By carol

his is a guest post by Glen Allsopp, a 20-year-old genius who has been in this industry for as long as I remember — and you can tell he’s got a knack for brilliance. Follow him on Twitter.

There are a few jokes going around the blogosphere right now regarding what it means to be a social media expert. Now that the stay-at-home-moms (and dads) are finding their way to a five-figure Twitter follow count, they’re offering all types of services and branding themselves as all-round experts.

Despite the title of the post, having worked as the social media manager for Fortune 500 companies, and a lot of knowledge here being totally personal, I do not think of myself as an expert. In fact, I don’t think becoming a social media expert is something that people should be worried about; they should be focused on becoming expert communicators instead.

Because of the less serious checklists that are being passed around the web right now, I thought it would be a good time to look at what some of the influencers online are really doing, and how you can join their ranks if you’re so inclined.

Highlight Others

Do you ever read the tweets of Chris Brogan? I know there are a lot of them, but that’s because he’s spending a large portion of each day highlighting the work of others. Darren Rowse? Brian Clark? Daniel Scocco? They might not tweet as much, but they are definitely focusing their attention elsewhere.

I’ve personally taken this concept so far that I now have a pretty new box at the end of most blog posts which highlights other bloggers that I enjoy. Right now, you’ll find the likes of Tamar, Jonathan, Lisa and Rebecca in my feed reader, and consequently, in that box.

You can help your bid to become more transparent online by sharing what you enjoy. Plus, if you know anything about how blogging works, you should know that no blog is a competitor.

Grow Biggers Ears

I did have another way of saying this, but Chris’s term sounds better. Quite simply: the true social media experts are willing to listen to the ideas of absolutely anybody in this space. That could be from traditional media, my sister, a friend, the radio, or even a small child. If someone has an idea I like the sound of, I’m not going to care about where it came from – I’m going to see if I can use it.

Remember, to make an impact in the social media space you have to become the best communicator. And, to fulfil that position, it requires you to be willing to give your time, attention, and logic to people with a variety of different ages and backgrounds.

Accept a New Normal

When I talk about accepting a new normal , I’m talking about two different aspects of life. The first is personal. Take my own situation as an example. Because I have quit my job, and I blog about personal things, I have written about quitting my job and in turn found that this interests a lot of readers.

In terms of influence though, people email me about whether they should quit their job or not, and expect that a 20-year old from England really should know the answers to such important career advice. Influencers accept that they have a position to hold and won’t abuse it for a quick buck.

Not only do experts accept a change personally, they also accept that the business world is changing and the way to get sales no longer means interrupting your audience via every medium they hate being interrupted in.

If you resist the changing times, you’ll just get left behind.

Make Everything Else Irrelevant

In aiming to be the best communicators, it’s important that we don’t discriminate anyone by age, gender or ethnicity when working with them. However, as an influencer, you must remember that while many people will praise you, lots of others in the same niche will not even know who you are. Therefore, aim to constantly focus on producing the best products / posts / services that you can, to make your previous background or achievements irrelevant.

For example, when I first started making money online, I was 16 years old. I knew that unless I went above the effort of everyone else who was blogging about my topic and offering services to clients, people just wouldn’t take me seriously. Because of this, I believe the influencers in any niche should be the people who are the most passionate about their industry doing well.

If you feel the same, then you must also realise that these people don’t fit a cookie-cutter image. Social media experts realise that you can’t control what people say about you online, but you can continue to focus on putting out your best work possible, whatever your medium can be.

Despite all the noise online, it’s still possible to become a signal.

Ignore Social Media Checklists or ‘Top’ Lists

It’s nice to be featured in press both online and off, but allowing that to influence your ego or strategy is just silly. The people that deserve to be the influencers are the ones that realise 10,000 random followers can not be compared to 1,000 or even 500 people who genuinely care about what you have to say.

You don’t become a social media expert by promoting yourself as a social media expert. In fact, if you don’t mind me letting you in on a little secret, there is no way to become an expert in the eyes of everybody anyway. Instead, what you should be pushing to become is the biggest communicator, thought-provoker and connector in your niche.

Then, and only then, will people really start to see you as an expert at something. And perhaps it will be deserved.

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50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business

On February 1, 2010, In Social media, By carol

First Steps

1. Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor’s names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.)
2. Add a picture. ( Shel reminds us of this.) We want to see you.
3. Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn’t sell more widgets, but it shows us you’re human.
4. Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you.
5. Share links to neat things in your community. ( @wholefoods does this well).
6. Don’t get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. ( @jetblue gives travel tips.)
7. Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out.
8. Promote your employees’ outside-of-work stories. ( @TheHomeDepot does it well.)
9. Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc.
10. Talk about non-business, too, like @astrout and @jstorerj from Mzinga.

Ideas About WHAT to Tweet

11. Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”
12. Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It’s nice to have a variety.
13. When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of just dumping a link.
14. Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
15. Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her.
16. Tweet about other people’s stuff. Again, doesn’t directly impact your business, but makes us feel like you’re not “that guy.”
17. When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
18. Share the human side of your company. If you’re bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.
19. Don’t toot your own horn too much. (Man, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I do it all the time. – Side note: I’ve gotta stop tooting my own horn).
20. Or, if you do, try to balance it out by promoting the heck out of others, too.

Some Sanity For You

21. You don’t have to read every tweet.
22. You don’t have to reply to every @ tweet directed to you (try to reply to some, but don’t feel guilty).
23. Use direct messages for 1-to-1 conversations if you feel there’s no value to Twitter at large to hear the conversation ( got this from @pistachio).
24. Use services like Twitter Search to make sure you see if someone’s talking about you. Try to participate where it makes sense.
25. 3rd party clients like Tweetdeck and Twhirl make it a lot easier to manage Twitter.
26. If you tweet all day while your coworkers are busy, you’re going to hear about it.
27. If you’re representing clients and billing hours, and tweeting all the time, you might hear about it.
28. Learn quickly to use the URL shortening tools like TinyURL and all the variants. It helps tidy up your tweets.
29. If someone says you’re using twitter wrong, forget it. It’s an opt out society. They can unfollow if they don’t like how you use it.
30. Commenting on others’ tweets, and retweeting what others have posted is a great way to build community.

The Negatives People Will Throw At You

31. Twitter takes up time.
32. Twitter takes you away from other productive work.
33. Without a strategy, it’s just typing.
34. There are other ways to do this.
35. As Frank hears often, Twitter doesn’t replace customer service (Frank is @comcastcares and is a superhero for what he’s started.)
36. Twitter is buggy and not enterprise-ready.
37. Twitter is just for technonerds.
38. Twitter’s only a few million people. (only)
39. Twitter doesn’t replace direct email marketing.
40. Twitter opens the company up to more criticism and griping.

Some Positives to Throw Back

41. Twitter helps one organize great, instant meetups (tweetups).
42. Twitter works swell as an opinion poll.
43. Twitter can help direct people’s attention to good things.
44. Twitter at events helps people build an instant “backchannel.”
45. Twitter breaks news faster than other sources, often (especially if the news impacts online denizens).
46. Twitter gives businesses a glimpse at what status messaging can do for an organization. Remember presence in the 1990s?
47. Twitter brings great minds together, and gives you daily opportunities to learn (if you look for it, and/or if you follow the right folks).
48. Twitter gives your critics a forum, but that means you can study them.
49. Twitter helps with business development, if your prospects are online (mine are).
50. Twitter can augment customer service. (but see above)

What else would you add? How are you using Twitter for your business?

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