Technology Revolution

Getting your target audience to repeatedly visit and engage in a niche online community running on Jive Software, Cisco Quad, Salesforce.com Chatter, Pathable, Drupal, Liferay, or other social software platform is challenging — even with great content and a terrific community manager. With some exceptions, unique visitors, repeat visits per user, and behavioral engagement metrics have a tendency to plateau or at best trend slightly upward within a band. Now consider something disruptive — a complementary online experience that can penetrate and engage the same target audience as your social software platform but that periodically produces comparatively huge spikes of online audience for 1-2 days. I’m talking about virtual event platforms. These software platforms let organizations create large online gatherings – kind of like a Webex meeting on steroids – for internal meetings, conferences, exclusive briefings, product launches, lead generation, online learning/training, job fairs, ...

If your business is looking to develop its first mobile app, deciding which mobile application development framework to build it in, and what skill set you’ll need from developers, can be tricky with so many types of development frameworks emerging. Here’s a breakdown of some basic types of frameworks, with a few leading examples of each, and a look at some of their strengths and drawbacks to help you make the right choice for your business’s app: Native platform mobile app development frameworks. The iOS (Apple) platform and Android (Google) platform are the market leaders. Developers write code using the native tools of the platform. iOS developers use the iOS SDK, Xcode IDE, Objective-C, Core Animation, Core Graphics, Accelerometer and Cocoa Touch UI framework. Android developers use the Android SDK, Eclipse IDE with ADT plugin. Android apps are written in Java, or via plug-ins, can be written in a variety of languages including C,C++, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Ruby On Rails, Sc...

With the widespread of the trend of internet marketing , one of the best things the online entrepreneurs can do is to create a squeeze page and start building a list on it. A squeeze page may seem to be very unattractive to your eyes, but its role in the facilitation of your online business is critical.  However, the role of squeeze pages in the growth your website is often overlooked by most online entrepreneurs and many of them are also totally unaware of the various benefits of a squeeze page. If you’re keen on maximizing your SEO and online marketing profits, have a look at the benefits so that you can get intrigued in creating a squeeze page and starting off. What are the benefits of a squeeze page? The primary goal of an online marketer is to increase the traffic to your website by compelling the visitors to stick to your page. In order to boost the visitors to your website most entrepreneurs spend time in operations that ensure better and profitable results....

Microsoft has prohibited developers from using GPLv3-licensed open source software in any application distributed on the Windows Phone Marketplace. But Redmond is pushing mobile application developers to use packages based on an open source licence created by Microsoft. The Windows Phone Marketplace Application Provider Agreement says applications "must not include software that... in whole or in part, are governed by or subject to an Excluded License," and says excluded licences "include, but are not limited to the GPLv3 Licenses." But developers can use code approved by the Microsoft Public License, an open source licence created by Redmond. Microsoft has pushed developers to use so-called "Windows Phone recipes," which are open source projects that became available last month under the Microsoft Public License The GPLv3 restriction in the Microsoft application provider agreement has been public since at least September, but resurfaced this week when Re...

Last night I was talking with programmers from India with my iPhone via Skype. The clarity via Skype was impressive both with me talking (there wasn’t any echos) and on me hearing them talk (the sound came through perfectly. Even more of a test was the fact that I was talking with two programmers who had me on a conference call (they had me on speaker) – and throughout the entire conversation there wasn’t any delays or lack of clarity while talking. Needless to say, I’m now a big fan of the Skype iPhone app. Which leads me to think that the Skype app can also be installed on an iPad and iPod Touch. Since the iPad and iPod Touch are “app” capable, all you need to do is install the Skype app and start making calls – that’s my theory anyway. I don’t have an iPad or an iPod Touch so I haven’t tested it out yet, but I known plenty of people who have both and I will be testing this out probably by the end of today. If you have an iPad or iPod Touch, go ahead and install Skype and give me a...

Mobile Application Development has gone Multi-platform, with Apple iPhone and Google Android , Blackberry , Window Phone   the top preferences by developers, according to a Forrester Research report released late in 2010. To avoid being overwhelmed by Multi-platform complexity, Forrester recommends developers establish a multidevice strategy for both development and testing in 2011. Single device support is giving way to multidevice accommodation, Forrester said. Multiple majority Multidevice shops are now in the majority, with one in four IT shops supporting all types of personal mobile devices employees bring to work. Some employers let employees choose from a list of approved devices and OSes. "The year 2010 was when mobile application development began crossing the chasm from early adopters to mainstream application development shops," said analyst Jeffrey Hammond in the report's executive summary, along with associates Mike Gilpin and Adam Knoll. "But what ...

An Adobe Mobile Study found that consumers prefer the mobile Web over smart phone applications, which has huge implications for mobile advertisers, retailers and content providers. Within the consumer products, shopping, media and entertainment categories, 66 percent of respondents cited that they prefer the mobile Web for accessing content compared to 34 percent who cited a preference for down loadable applications. “I am not a great proponent of apps as a commerce destination to drive reach and frequency with your shoppers,” said Gary Schwartz, president of Impact Mobile, New York. “There is tons of value for the shopper in certain apps but they do not necessarily drive your retail sales goals. “The app can become lost on the phone top,” he said. “Phone fragmentation makes development costly. And your first sales job is selling the consumer on the app and not on your product. “Finally, with Web you own the relationship with your shopper. With an app, Apple is managing this for you. ...

That's the potential of a smartphone from LG, which has a large 4.3-inch touchscreen capable of displaying three-dimensional images without the need for special glasses. A pair of cameras on the back allows users to take 3-D photographs and videos. LG is hoping its groundbreaking phone, with the hottest entertainment-focused technology on the market, will ride the 3-D wave being pushed by Hollywood, TV networks and other creators of media content. The method LG uses to accomplish this effect is called "switchable barrier," which is similar to how Nintendo's 3DS can do 3-D without requiring the player to wear glasses. LG showed the phone, called the Optimus 3D, this week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The company didn't provide a release date or price, though spokespeople have said it will be affordable. Demonstration units on display at the conference let attendees watch 3-D movies. They also provided a few 3-D games to play. That...

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Microsoft has finished work on Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and will begin pushing the update to systems on February 22nd via Windows Update. Microsoft has today hit the RTM (Release to Manufacturing) stage for both Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and has started shipping the code to OEMs. If you are a TechNet or MSDN subscriber you will be able to get your hands on the code from February 16th. So what’s new: For Windows 7, SP1 will help keep your PCs well supported by delivering ongoing updates, many of which have been made previously available through Windows Update. It also includes client-side support for Remote-FX and Dynamic Memory which are two new visualization features enabled in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. Read more about those updates here from the Windows Server Team. In my experimenting with the beta and leaked versions of SP1 for Windows 7, there’s no new cool stuff to see, no UI tweaks and no performance boosts. This is primarily a bugfix r...

Unlike Motorola, which will apparently sell its new Xoom tablet for a whopping $800 starting in a couple of weeks, Research in Motion is taking a saner approach to pricing its forthcoming PlayBook tablet. Crack Berry received a leaked internal document from Office Depot that shows that the PlayBook will be priced at $499.99 for the 16GB model, which puts it in line with the cost of the equivalent Apple iPad. The document also lists an on-sale date of late March/early April, which will precede the rollout of the HP TouchPad by a few months. While RIM’s pricing is certainly more reasonable than Motorola’s, it still shows an unwillingness to undercut the price of the iPad. There are dirt-cheap tablets running Android from no-name vendors, but no major manufacturer is even trying to price its product at $399 to see if it bring a competitive advantage. (Granted, the Dell Streak can be had for $199.99, but only with a two-year mobile contract with T-Mobile.) It suggests that ...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, keynoting the Mobile World Congress conference on February 14, announced a set of features that Microsoft is promising it will bring to Windows Phone 7 in 2011. Ballmer also confirmed, as expected, that the first Windows Phone 7 update, codenamed “NoDo,” will be out in early March 2011. Microsoft’s press release outlining today’s announcements did not specify how many Windows Phone 7 updates Microsoft plans to release this year. Nor did it use the codename “Mango,” which is the first major update for Windows Phone 7 , expected to be available on WP7 devices this fall/holiday season. Ballmer did mention “a significant release” due later this year during his remarks, which, presumably, is a reference to Mango. But Microsoft did announce that the following updates will be added to WP7 in calendar 2011: Twitter integration directly into the People Hub Support for Office documents in the cloud (Skydrive Docs), going beyond the current OneNote integration ...

The Microsoft keynote at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is still underway, but the company thoughtfully leaked the official press release detailing what will be shared by Steve Ballmer. Besides throwing out the 2 million licenses sold spiel we’ve heard previously, Microsoft is sharing the following features that will be added to Windows Phone 7 later this year: Copy and paste functionality via first major update, coming in the next month Twitter integration directly into the People Hub in 2011 Support for Office documents in the cloud in 2011 Dramatically enhanced Web browser experience based on IE9 in 2011 A new wave of multitasking applications in 2011 Targeting significant volume of Nokia Windows Phones in 2012 The browser update is the biggest news as it brings the WP7 mobile browser more inline with the desktop version of Internet Explorer. Mary Jo Foley recently published a preview of this update which is spot on, as usual.

Looks like there is a new certification that IT types can look to when it comes to ratings for green IT. Well-known notebook maker Lenovo has earned the first Gold rating for Laptops under the UL Environment Sustainable Production Certification (SPC). The rating was granted for the upcoming ThinkPad420, a notebook computer that is slated to be launched later in February. The video below provides some perspective, but some of the factors that helped Lenovo earn this distinction were a focus on the use of low-halogen and post-consumer recycled content in the product as well as its choice of a design that make this notebook easier than average to disassemble for recycling or reuse after its own life. Some of the ThinkPads slated for release this year contain more than 10 percent post-consumer recycled content, while some of Lenovo’s ThinkCentre desktops and ThinkVision monitors contain up to 65 percent of the stuff. Specific things that are examined during UL Environment’s review process ...

Facebook wants to be everywhere. They’ve made this very clear. They want to be on your desktop, on your laptop, on your smartphone , on your tablet, and on your dumbphone. The latter, they directly addressed today with a new SIM card made in conjunction with Gemalto which magically gives basically every dumbphone — aka “feature phone” — a simple entry point to use the social network: SMS. It’s a great idea, and very cool for emerging markets. In fact, you could make a case for it sort of being a “Facebook Phone”. But it’s obviously not the mythical one which Facebook absolutely wants you to believe doesn’t exist.   Nor are the phones that HTC may be releasing tomorrow at Mobile World Congress. (Update: Yep.) PocketNow was apparently able to snag some images of these Android-powered HTC devices that carry a special Facebook button at the bottom. Again, potentially cool and useful, but not the Facebook Phone. And that INQ-built Facebook phone? Also cool, but also not ...

Something unusual happened last Friday night at Bar Basic here in San Francisco. When I walked in, the entire room was fixated on on a screen above the bar, which displayed what looked like a musical game but wasn’t karaoke. The game? Roqbot, a unique iPhone app that allows you to yes, pick the music playing at a bar. Like a combination Pandora and traditional jukebox, Roqbot allows you to control the tunes without getting up from where you’re sitting. The inspiration for Roqbot came when one of the co-founders got frustrated using the jukebox at a bowling alley — Every time he had to walk across the bowling alley he would miss his turn. Roqbot, which shares the space with jukebox networks TouchTunes and eCast, is the first startup that I’ve seen experimenting with bringing social music to real life businesses like bars and cafes. Up until now plenty of people have deployed this concept for private settings, but no one has touched public because of the many challenges involved. Co-foun...

Today office scenario has greatly changed. The traditional office-based work environment is giving way to one that’s mobile and decentralized. Your systems may not be flexible and efficient enough to handle this change. And your data that’s captured and stored everywhere is probably not being processed efficiently or securely and converted into the useful information that your company needs to maintain its competitive edge. Android Mobiles arrive from the dwelling of Google that adds up to the choices that you have to select from in the market. Similarly, Android application development presents numerous choices for conceiving submissions that are certain to make an affirmative influence on your business. Android market is an open submission programming development circulation scheme that permits the vendors and developers to take their submissions exactly to their aimed at audience. This very structure makes Android submission development and plentiful choice as ...