iPad sales have passed the 3 million mark already with analysts now speculating that Apple’s iPad could drive total tablet sales for the year as high as 10.5 million devices this year.
Although it's still possible that the iPad is not going to be a long term success, but it's off to an amazing start. We are advising all our clients to actively consider developing for the iPad now, in order to take advantage of the mass market potential of the device as it rapidly gains market share.
Read more at:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/apple-to-analysts-eat-my-ipad/7309
City Cards iPhone App Launches!
On Friday 11th June 2010, European Cities Marketing launched the first iPhone application to serve as a mobile tool for discovering 33 cities spread over 19 different European countries. The tool has been developed by Big Top Multimedia for the European City Card group. The group consists of 33 cities who work together to develop city cards for visitors. After the launch of the website www.europeancitycards.com in 2008, the group came together once again to produce the innovative tool, the “City Card App”.
“The City card application created by the ECM City Card project is a perfect example of how important it is for tourism to stay in line with the latest developments in modern technologies. City cards target active people who embrace technological innovations and if we wish to provide quality tourism services, we cannot only react to these influences but we must stay proactive,” says Dieter Hardt-Stremayr, ECM President and Managing Director of Graz Tourist Office.
Citycards
A city card is a card that offers free or reduced-price entrance to museums and attractions in a city in combination with public transport and other advantages for visitors. In recent years city cards have become more and more popular with visitors because of the value they bring to a city trip. Usually a city card comes with a map or a brochure that contains information on all the sights of the city and on everything it has to offer. With the iPhone application the visitor has a mobile tool to explore the city. The application is available for free at the iPhone store http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/city-cards/id374488671?mt=8&uo=6
33 Cities in One
The cities that the iPhone app allows you to discover and which offer a city card are:- Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bruges, Brussels, Copenhagen, Cordoba, Dijon, Dubrovnik, Dublin, Gijon, Goteborg, Innsbruck, Krakow, Lisbon, London, Lyon, Nice, Nurnberg, Olomouc, Oslo, Prague, Reykjavik, San Sebastian, Split, Stockholm, Tallinn, Tarragona, Turku, Turin, Valencia, Vicenza, Zagreb and Zaragoza.
City Cards iPhone App Launches!
The City Cards iPhone app allows users to explore the visitor attractions available in 31 European Cities!
All of the attractions listed in the application are mapped, so the user can easily find their way from their current location to the attraction that they wish to visit.
City Cards are a great way to see the sights when on vacation and at the same time, save money. City Cards give the bearer discounted admission to a range of top visitor attractions, and in many cases offer a range of money saving special offers on food, drink and shopping.
Download it FREE from the Apple App Store!
N900 - the verdict... not quite an iPhone killer.
Some months ago I wrote about the N900. It's Nokias flagship N-Series device and the only Nokia phone to use the Linux based Maemo Operating system.
I was excited to get the phone, because for many years I felt that you just got a better "phone" experience from Nokia than anyone else. And the N900 was billed as Nokias come-back device with a brand new O/S ready to take on the iPhone and win!
I have to say that my relationship with this phone has been a love/hate affair. The phone is great... Messaging, chatting on skype, making skype calls, accessing WiFi, web browsing are all really easy to use. The camera is good and the file sharing functions are simple and intuitive. It's got GPS and Ovi Maps which are excellent. There's a lot to love about the N900. If it weren't for one small thing the phone would be an all-conquering hero for Nokia.
That small thing is the existence of the iPhone. I have to say that as much as I really, really love my N900, the iPhone is an easier device to use. And at the end of the day, that's the clincher. iPhones interface and touchscreen are just better than the N900.
Don't get me wrong, the UI on the N900 is excellent, it's not quite as polished as the iPhone but what lets the N900 down is the resistive touch-screen. The screen itself is head and shoulders above my old iPhone 3G in terms of resolution and clarity, and watching video on it is a real pleasure. However, the lack of multi-touch makes the whole device more fiddley to use than would otherwise have been the case.
So if I have to be honest, and declare a winner between the iPhone and the N900 it's still the iPhone. If Nokia released the same device with multi-touch and a capacitive screen then they would really have been able to put it up to Apple.
The other thing that the iPhone (and Android phones) have that the N900 does not have is a wide range of apps. The N900 compensates by giving you a real web browser that can run Flash, JavaScript etc, so you can get a desktop experience (or pretty close to it) from the built in N900 web browser. But the relative lack of Apps for the N900 means that you miss out on some of the fun of having an iPhone or Android device.
So N900... great phone, but Nokia still need to try harder.
I was excited to get the phone, because for many years I felt that you just got a better "phone" experience from Nokia than anyone else. And the N900 was billed as Nokias come-back device with a brand new O/S ready to take on the iPhone and win!
I have to say that my relationship with this phone has been a love/hate affair. The phone is great... Messaging, chatting on skype, making skype calls, accessing WiFi, web browsing are all really easy to use. The camera is good and the file sharing functions are simple and intuitive. It's got GPS and Ovi Maps which are excellent. There's a lot to love about the N900. If it weren't for one small thing the phone would be an all-conquering hero for Nokia.
That small thing is the existence of the iPhone. I have to say that as much as I really, really love my N900, the iPhone is an easier device to use. And at the end of the day, that's the clincher. iPhones interface and touchscreen are just better than the N900.
Don't get me wrong, the UI on the N900 is excellent, it's not quite as polished as the iPhone but what lets the N900 down is the resistive touch-screen. The screen itself is head and shoulders above my old iPhone 3G in terms of resolution and clarity, and watching video on it is a real pleasure. However, the lack of multi-touch makes the whole device more fiddley to use than would otherwise have been the case.
So if I have to be honest, and declare a winner between the iPhone and the N900 it's still the iPhone. If Nokia released the same device with multi-touch and a capacitive screen then they would really have been able to put it up to Apple.
The other thing that the iPhone (and Android phones) have that the N900 does not have is a wide range of apps. The N900 compensates by giving you a real web browser that can run Flash, JavaScript etc, so you can get a desktop experience (or pretty close to it) from the built in N900 web browser. But the relative lack of Apps for the N900 means that you miss out on some of the fun of having an iPhone or Android device.
So N900... great phone, but Nokia still need to try harder.
Facebook Finding More Ways to Compete with Google
Apparently Facebook is not content with only taking over the web, but wants to get some penetration into the physical world as well. Taking a cue from another dominant company, Google, Facebook is now giving brick and mortar businesses decals to put in their windows. While Facebook tells WebProNews the decals are currently only a test with a small number of businesses, I would expect this to be expanded in the future.
Increasing Competition with Google
Google has been sending decals to businesses as part of its Favorite Places program. In fact, they even just announced the expansion of this last week. Whereas Google's decals include a QR code pointing to the business' "Place Page," Facebook's include a link to the business' Facebook Page.
Google has its fair share of competition from a variety of angles. Apple is getting a great deal of the attention in this regard (making two big moves yesterday), but Facebook is up there as well. Facebook is already a key competitor in terms of where people spend their time online. Facebook expanding its presence all over the web only increases that, and will likely play a big role in the diversification of how people obtain information - in other words, maybe a little less Googling. Some of us have even speculated on the possibility that Facebook could one day create it's own AdSense-like network.
Implications for Local Search
In a recent article, we already touched upon the idea that Facebook is positioning itself to have a greater presence in how people find information at the local level. Even before Facebook's latest announcements, business pages have been a great way to engage with local customers.
In that article, I referenced a quote from Search Engine Land contributing editor Greg Sterling, who says, "It [Facebook] could do nothing in particular or it could build the single most effective local directory and search site that exists. This data will be more valuable than anything Google has or any individual local publisher-partner possesses. That includes Yelp, YPG or anyone else that joins the Open Graph and implements these new Facebook platform tools."
All of the "liking" of local businesses that will be facilitated by Facebook's new Open Graph strategy may be further facilitated by these decals. We don't know at this point how many businesses are getting these, but if this becomes widespread, it could be pretty powerful for businesses, and perhaps even more so for Facebook itself. As Facebook notes in a letter to those who receive the decals, businesses are already including their Page URLs on various materials - receipts, napkins, storefronts, etc.
Does Facebook Want to Replace the Website?
There has been some discussion lately that perhaps Facebook was going to make Facebook Pages obsolete by putting the "like" button all over the web and changing the "become a fan" button on Facebook Pages to "like". The thinking here would be, what's the point of liking a Facebook Page for a brand, when you can just like that brand's site? I think Facebook has the opposite in mind.
As I've discussed in the past with regard to Google's Place Pages (and to some extent, Facebook Pages), maybe they'd rather make the website obsolete and have the Facebook Page (or Google Place Page in previous examples) take their place. If Facebook wants to be the new web, and it wants "likes" to be the new links, why wouldn't they want Pages to be the new sites? The decals point to Facebook Pages.
In reality, businesses are not going to be giving up their websites anytime soon and handing over full control to Facebook. However, businesses that don't even have a website may find that a Facebook Page is pretty easy to set up and can connect them with a whole lot of people (much like Google's Place Pages can). Maintenance is much less of a hassle when it comes to a Facebook Page as well, and some may find that attractive in itself.
Mashable suggests that in the battle for the more dominant decal (in terms of what businesses actually want to display), Facebook may have a leg up with its 400 million+ users and "the value of an instant Fan". While Google has no shortage of users, that "instant fan" concept carries a great deal of weight. When someone visits a Place Page on Google, they can find information about the business, sure. But if they're already at the business, how much value does that really have, when compared to the one which will put that person essentially on the business' mailing list - the Facebook version. When they're a fan, you can communicate to them and with them directly.
Facebook says businesses that promote their Page off-Facebook tend to see a 20% or greater increase in connections.
Increasing Competition with Google
Google has been sending decals to businesses as part of its Favorite Places program. In fact, they even just announced the expansion of this last week. Whereas Google's decals include a QR code pointing to the business' "Place Page," Facebook's include a link to the business' Facebook Page.
Google has its fair share of competition from a variety of angles. Apple is getting a great deal of the attention in this regard (making two big moves yesterday), but Facebook is up there as well. Facebook is already a key competitor in terms of where people spend their time online. Facebook expanding its presence all over the web only increases that, and will likely play a big role in the diversification of how people obtain information - in other words, maybe a little less Googling. Some of us have even speculated on the possibility that Facebook could one day create it's own AdSense-like network.
Implications for Local Search
In a recent article, we already touched upon the idea that Facebook is positioning itself to have a greater presence in how people find information at the local level. Even before Facebook's latest announcements, business pages have been a great way to engage with local customers.
In that article, I referenced a quote from Search Engine Land contributing editor Greg Sterling, who says, "It [Facebook] could do nothing in particular or it could build the single most effective local directory and search site that exists. This data will be more valuable than anything Google has or any individual local publisher-partner possesses. That includes Yelp, YPG or anyone else that joins the Open Graph and implements these new Facebook platform tools."
All of the "liking" of local businesses that will be facilitated by Facebook's new Open Graph strategy may be further facilitated by these decals. We don't know at this point how many businesses are getting these, but if this becomes widespread, it could be pretty powerful for businesses, and perhaps even more so for Facebook itself. As Facebook notes in a letter to those who receive the decals, businesses are already including their Page URLs on various materials - receipts, napkins, storefronts, etc.
Does Facebook Want to Replace the Website?
There has been some discussion lately that perhaps Facebook was going to make Facebook Pages obsolete by putting the "like" button all over the web and changing the "become a fan" button on Facebook Pages to "like". The thinking here would be, what's the point of liking a Facebook Page for a brand, when you can just like that brand's site? I think Facebook has the opposite in mind.
As I've discussed in the past with regard to Google's Place Pages (and to some extent, Facebook Pages), maybe they'd rather make the website obsolete and have the Facebook Page (or Google Place Page in previous examples) take their place. If Facebook wants to be the new web, and it wants "likes" to be the new links, why wouldn't they want Pages to be the new sites? The decals point to Facebook Pages.
In reality, businesses are not going to be giving up their websites anytime soon and handing over full control to Facebook. However, businesses that don't even have a website may find that a Facebook Page is pretty easy to set up and can connect them with a whole lot of people (much like Google's Place Pages can). Maintenance is much less of a hassle when it comes to a Facebook Page as well, and some may find that attractive in itself.
Mashable suggests that in the battle for the more dominant decal (in terms of what businesses actually want to display), Facebook may have a leg up with its 400 million+ users and "the value of an instant Fan". While Google has no shortage of users, that "instant fan" concept carries a great deal of weight. When someone visits a Place Page on Google, they can find information about the business, sure. But if they're already at the business, how much value does that really have, when compared to the one which will put that person essentially on the business' mailing list - the Facebook version. When they're a fan, you can communicate to them and with them directly.
Facebook says businesses that promote their Page off-Facebook tend to see a 20% or greater increase in connections.
Microsoft shelves ‘Courier’ tablet PC, e-book combo
Microsoft shelves ‘Courier’ tablet PC, e-book combo
An innovative two-screen tablet computer code-named ‘Courier’ has apparently been shelved by Microsoft. The internal team working on the project have been told it will no longer be supported.
The Courier PC is understood to have neared completion and would have heralded a new age of pen and touch-based computing.While the project has been shelved indefinitely, Microsoft believes the technology that allowed a computer with two screens to open like a book could be evaluated for use in future offerings.
Microsoft communications vice-president Frank Shaw, in response to questions from US gadget site Gizmodo, said: “At any given time, we're looking at new ideas, investigating, testing, incubating them. It's in our DNA to develop new form factors and natural user interfaces to foster productivity and creativity.
“The Courier project is an example of this type of effort. It will be evaluated for use in future offerings, but we have no plans to build such a device at this time,” Shaw said.
The timing of the news could tally with an announcement earlier this week of Windows Embedded Standard 7 which the software giant intends to make broadly available to a wide number of devices, from digital TVs to other net-connected devices.
The presence of a Microsoft-branded ‘Courier’ device with two screens might have alienated OEMs from producing their own versions. However, with the availability of an operating system and a concept that has clearly sparked a lot of imaginations, enterprising OEMs may be free to produce their own dual-screen tablet PCs.
Consider this alongside yesterday’s acquisition of Palm by HP for US$1.2bn. HP is not interested in the Palm Pre, HP is interested in webOS and creating its own new product families of handsets and computer devices with an embedded OS to compete with products like the iPad and future iterations of Android devices perhaps running on Intel Atom processors.
It may be the end of a Microsoft-branded device, but perhaps not the end for a concept that others could run away with.
What Facebook "Likes" Mean for Search & Reputation
What Facebook "Likes" Mean for Search and Reputation
Facebook "Likes" Mean More to Businesses Than Just Traffic
It's been nearly a week since Facebook rocked the world with its Open Graph announcements, and many of us are still wrapping our heads around all of the implications they have. I don't think there's any dispute that it's a huge move, and that it's important to pay attention to from a business perspective, but just what it means for businesses is still up in the air in some regards. Like Facebook itself, or even social media in general, we're going to see more benefits (and possibly negatives) as time goes on, and more sites and applications harness the power of said Open Graph.
As those wheels turn in our heads, there is plenty of discussion already happening around the subject - not just the Open Graph and the issues related to it (open web ramifications, privacy, etc), but how we can indeed take advantage of it.
Traffic
In a recent article we talked about why Facebook's Open Graph and particularly its social plug-ins will be good to drive traffic. It's pretty straightforward. The like and recommendation buttons are essentially different versions of the share buttons that people have been using to drive traffic for quite some time. The main difference is that instead of only showing up in the news feed only disappear shortly thereafter, they will remain on the user's profile page for people to see in the future - a fixed link to your content.
Have you seen more traffic from Facebook's buttons since they've launched? Let us know.
Search/SEO
Search Engine Land contributing editor Greg Sterling makes some interesting points about the search implications of the whole thing:
However, the vision here is a network of discovery tools and information that operate higher up in the funnel than search: what are my friends doing, where are they eating, what do they recommend? This clearly doesn’t eliminate the need for search. But it does represent an alternative way in many cases to discover information.
Yet the mountains of data that Facebook will gain could improve Facebook search results and potentially the coming, new and improved Bing integration. At a simple level, if Facebook knows the most “Liked” sushi restaurants in New York and those liked by my social network it can show me that information in search results. That hypothetically makes Facebook search much more social and more of a “recommendations engine” than Google at this point.
Nobody's saying Facebook is poised to replace Google, but the whole thing falls inline with the diversification of search we've been talking about a lot lately. Search is getting more diversified, meaning that people are using more and more applications to find the information they're looking for. Facebook obviously plays a huge role in this. Also consider that Facebook's search market share has been on the rise, and it stands to reason that will continue as more and more data becomes available as this Open Graph expands.
Do you see Facebook's own search becoming more of a go-to place for finding information? Comment here.
Local
Assuming that every business rushes to get like/recommend buttons from Facebook in the way that they would rush to claim a listing in Google's Local Business Center (Now named Google Places), Facebook may become a very valuable place to find out the best businesses to go to for any given category.
As Sterling says on his Screenwerk blog, "It could do nothing in particular or it could build the single most effective local directory and search site that exists. This data will be more valuable than anything Google has or any individual local publisher-partner possesses. That includes Yelp, YPG or anyone else that joins the Open Graph and implements these new Facebook platform tools."
This is mostly forward thinking, and we don't know what Facebook is going to do. It's definitely something to keep eye on. Either way, local businesses are likely to attract fans from their areas with more friends from that area, who may in turn pass it to their friends in the area. Facebook has already been a great marketing tool for local businesses, and the Open Graph will only help in that regard.
Do you think Facebook is going to become increasingly important for local businesses? Share your thoughts.
Reputation
Facebook's latest changes have plenty of implications for reputation management. Likes and recommendations are potentially great for building a good reputation, but even while there is no dislike button (at least yet), a lack of likes/recommendations may reflect poorly on your brand, particularly when your competition is getting all kinds of love from Facebook users.
On the other side of things, you may want to be careful what you like and recommend yourself. Wording of likes and recommendations can come off as inappropriate, but the bigger issue may be liking and recommending stuff that that paints you in a non-professional light. Depending on what you do and the image you are trying to portray, this may or many not be a problem, but for those who wish to be careful about how others perceive them, this is something to think about.
Should you be concerned about likes/recommendations from a reputation standpoint? Tell us what you think.
Another thing worth mentioning about all of this is that Facebook is showing suggestions for things to like and recommend to new users. Facebook has posted something of an FAQ for the new features that aims to clarify how it all works for users.
Facebook "Likes" Mean More to Businesses Than Just Traffic
It's been nearly a week since Facebook rocked the world with its Open Graph announcements, and many of us are still wrapping our heads around all of the implications they have. I don't think there's any dispute that it's a huge move, and that it's important to pay attention to from a business perspective, but just what it means for businesses is still up in the air in some regards. Like Facebook itself, or even social media in general, we're going to see more benefits (and possibly negatives) as time goes on, and more sites and applications harness the power of said Open Graph.
As those wheels turn in our heads, there is plenty of discussion already happening around the subject - not just the Open Graph and the issues related to it (open web ramifications, privacy, etc), but how we can indeed take advantage of it.
Traffic
In a recent article we talked about why Facebook's Open Graph and particularly its social plug-ins will be good to drive traffic. It's pretty straightforward. The like and recommendation buttons are essentially different versions of the share buttons that people have been using to drive traffic for quite some time. The main difference is that instead of only showing up in the news feed only disappear shortly thereafter, they will remain on the user's profile page for people to see in the future - a fixed link to your content.
Have you seen more traffic from Facebook's buttons since they've launched? Let us know.
Search/SEO
Search Engine Land contributing editor Greg Sterling makes some interesting points about the search implications of the whole thing:
Yet the mountains of data that Facebook will gain could improve Facebook search results and potentially the coming, new and improved Bing integration. At a simple level, if Facebook knows the most “Liked” sushi restaurants in New York and those liked by my social network it can show me that information in search results. That hypothetically makes Facebook search much more social and more of a “recommendations engine” than Google at this point.
Nobody's saying Facebook is poised to replace Google, but the whole thing falls inline with the diversification of search we've been talking about a lot lately. Search is getting more diversified, meaning that people are using more and more applications to find the information they're looking for. Facebook obviously plays a huge role in this. Also consider that Facebook's search market share has been on the rise, and it stands to reason that will continue as more and more data becomes available as this Open Graph expands.
Local
Assuming that every business rushes to get like/recommend buttons from Facebook in the way that they would rush to claim a listing in Google's Local Business Center (Now named Google Places), Facebook may become a very valuable place to find out the best businesses to go to for any given category.
As Sterling says on his Screenwerk blog, "It could do nothing in particular or it could build the single most effective local directory and search site that exists. This data will be more valuable than anything Google has or any individual local publisher-partner possesses. That includes Yelp, YPG or anyone else that joins the Open Graph and implements these new Facebook platform tools."
This is mostly forward thinking, and we don't know what Facebook is going to do. It's definitely something to keep eye on. Either way, local businesses are likely to attract fans from their areas with more friends from that area, who may in turn pass it to their friends in the area. Facebook has already been a great marketing tool for local businesses, and the Open Graph will only help in that regard.
Do you think Facebook is going to become increasingly important for local businesses? Share your thoughts.
Reputation
Facebook's latest changes have plenty of implications for reputation management. Likes and recommendations are potentially great for building a good reputation, but even while there is no dislike button (at least yet), a lack of likes/recommendations may reflect poorly on your brand, particularly when your competition is getting all kinds of love from Facebook users.
On the other side of things, you may want to be careful what you like and recommend yourself. Wording of likes and recommendations can come off as inappropriate, but the bigger issue may be liking and recommending stuff that that paints you in a non-professional light. Depending on what you do and the image you are trying to portray, this may or many not be a problem, but for those who wish to be careful about how others perceive them, this is something to think about.
Should you be concerned about likes/recommendations from a reputation standpoint? Tell us what you think.
Another thing worth mentioning about all of this is that Facebook is showing suggestions for things to like and recommend to new users. Facebook has posted something of an FAQ for the new features that aims to clarify how it all works for users.
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