Android Developer Challenge - Android Annotated
Tech Confidential Blog: Damn the mobile data, full speed ahead! Annotated
ndsets and the venture capitalists funding companies to provide services via mobile devices. However, new data out from M:Metrics, a research firm in London, shows that those services aren't being used with much frequency. In the U.S., the most popular services are text messages, with only 42% of subscribers using it, and photos, with 18%. Only 3% of subscribers downloaded games with the same amount also downloading screensavers and wallpapers.
There's no data on the use of location-based services or accessing maps online in the report, but another hot topic in the mobile space — connecting to a social network on a handset — attracts less than 4% of mobile subscribers in the U.S. That's more than the European countries surveyed, but is still only 7.5 million people, many of whom are under 25. Sure, the geriatric generation who didn't grow up in the age of connectivity (I'm talkin' to you, GenX and older), probably has better things to do than check their Facebook and MySpace networks from a cell phone — or maybe the type is simply too small for their aging eyes to read — but that 4% is getting an inordinate
The fact that more than half of cell-phone users apparentl
VentureBeat » What can the VC community do to help our energy crisis? Annotated
WordPress MU › Newspaper Like Content - Pull From All Blogs? « WordPress MU Forums - Mozilla Firefox Annotated
SamG, for your second request, I'd suggest a custom plug-in to keep a list of your featured posts. See if anyone else has ideas though, I tend to do things quickly that work before giving much thought to if it's the best way to do it. lol
Your 3rd request you could just hand code in the links on the sidebar, create a Page with the list, or again do some sort of plug-in to maintain the list.
Creating the plug-ins is pretty much the same, especially if you are just creating custom ones for the main blog and don't have to worry about everyone being able to use them. I've just been doing plug-ins for a couple weeks and I'm pretty proud of what I have made so far. The best one so far is a used textbook listings plug-in for the site I'm working on. I created some custom tables in the database, placed the menu additions file in the mu-plugins folder (so everyone will see the add/maintain menu when they log in) and the main plug-in in the plugins folder.
MobileCrunch » Mobile Game Goes Massively Multiplayer - Mozilla Firefox Annotated
Fighting a war in deep space is challenging enough without having a lot of competition. But sometimes a little – or in this case a lot – of competition can really make for a more engaging experience. That’s the hope with Space Wars, a new ad-supported massively multiplayer mobile game from Cellufun. This free mobile Internet game lets players battle for control of the galaxy, and compete against up to 120 other players.
“The Space Wars experience is far-
MIT duo see people-powered "Crowd Farm" - MIT News Office Annotated
Two graduate students at MIT's School of Architecture and Planning want to harvest the energy of human movement in urban settings, like commuters in a train station or fans at a concert.
The so-called "Crowd Farm," as envisioned by James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk, both M.Arch candidates, would turn the mechanical energy of people walking or jumping into a source of electricity. Their proposal took first place in the Japan-based Holcim Foundation's Sustainable Construction competition this year.
A Crowd Farm in Boston's South Station railway terminal would work like this: A responsive sub-flooring system made up of blocks that depress slightly under the force of human steps would be installed beneath the station's main lobby. The slippage of the blocks against one another as people walked would generate power through the principle of the dynamo, a device that converts the energy of motion into that of an electric
30+ WordPress Plugins To Get More Blog Readers Annotated
Marketing Your Blog Part 1 - Essential WordPress Plugins - simple pixel Annotated
Here are some essential WordPress plugins to assist in the process of optimizing your blog for pickup and sharing by visitors, search engines, and aggregators. Make sure you know what you are doing before you go and install these, some play nice with each other, and some do not.
Social Marketing
Share This - provides an unobtrusive way for your visitors to add your posts to various social bookmarking sites.
Sitemaps
Google Sitemap Generator - automatically generates XML sitemaps for WordPress. Includes many options such as auto-ping, change and priority adjustments and selection of content for inclusion.
Pelago was founded in early 2006 with a DNA of innovation, customer obsession, bias for action and, of course, a relentless commitment to having fun. We're incredibly proud of the all-superstar team we've assembled to date, and together, we're pushing the boundaries in every facet of our business to develop truly creative consumer-facing products.
 | Jeff HoldenCEO and Co-FounderPrior to co-founding Pelago, Jeff spent almost 8 1/2 years (1997-2006) at Amazon.com. Most recently, Jeff was the Senior Vice President responsible for Amazon's consumer websites, worldwide. In this role, he oversaw the end-to-end customer experience (search, navigation, personalization, social computing, ordering, merchandising, automated email) as well as Amazon's online traffic initiatives (the Amazon Associates program, search engine optimization and search engine advertising) and the experimental platform that enabled Amazon to conduct quantitative experiments with regard to consumer behavior and measure incremental value of new initiatives. Before moving into the website-focused role, Jeff was the Director of Supply Chain Optimization Systems at Amazon (for approximately 4 years). In this position, Jeff led the design and development of Amazon's unique and powerful forecasting, inventory planning, order fulfillment optimization and transactional purchasing systems. Jeff championed the idea that fulfillment planning could be sufficiently real-time that the order pipeline could be connected directly to the fulfillment planning engine to generate optimal plans from which shipping promises are made to the customer during the check-out process. The system realizing this vision was launched in 2001 and continues to power the Amazon site today. Prior to Amazon, Jeff spent five years (1992-1997) at D. E. Shaw & Co., L.P. in New York. Jeff joined the firm as a software engineer; his first assignment was to help Jeff Bezos build and launch the Third Market strategy, one of Shaw's early sell-side strategies. After Bezos left to found Amazon.com, Jeff remained at Shaw as the Vice President responsible for the firm's front office software infrastructure. Prior to joining D. E. Shaw & Co., Jeff earned his BS and MS in computer science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. |
 | Darren Erik Vengroff, Ph.D.CTO and Co-FounderDarren has spent his career building world-class computer systems in a variety of domains. Most recently he was a principal engineer at Amazon.com with responsibilities in personalization, automated email targeting, time-series analysis, content platform architecture, attribute-based navigation, search, and build and deployment systems. Prior to Amazon.com, Darren spent six years at Goldman Sachs. As a vice president, he was responsible for trading and risk management systems that priced billions of dollars of derivative products for the fixed income, currency, and commodity businesses. See "On Top of the World: Goldman Sachs and the Culture of Risk," a cover story in The Economist that discusses the role these businesses played in distinguishing Goldman from its competitors. Earlier in his career, Darren built the first microprocessor simulator capable of booting and running a commercial operating system under load. Prior to that, micro-architectural simulation was typically done on user code only, or on static instruction stream traces. Darren holds an Sc.M. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Brown University, where he studied I/O-efficient algorithms with Jeff Vitter, and a B.S.E. in Computer Science with Highest Honors from Princeton University. |
Phones home in on gee-whiz capabilities - USATODAY.com Annotated
Upstaging Apple?: UpStage is a thin, $149 (with two-year contract) wireless phone/MP3 player from Samsung and Sprint.
Peek at one side, and you'll see a typical phone keypad and a 1.4-inch LCD screen. Peek at the other side, and you'll think it's an MP3 player with a 2.1-inch screen. A "flip" button toggles between the two.
alarm:clock: Quattro Wireless Gains Funding For Mobile Ads Marketplace Annotated
To some extent Quattro Wireless will compete with other online ad exchanges like AdMob. However, the Waltham, MA-based startup has gone a step further by developing software that will do the conversion for publishers of their Web content to fit into the confines of the mobile phone.
Quattro Wireless - GetMobile Annotated
 |
Formed in 2006 and based in
, Quattro Wireless is led by Andrew Miller and Eswar Priyadarshan, who serve as Quattro Wireless’ CEO and CTO, respectively. Both are former members of the leadership team for mobile media management company m-Qube and led that organization through its successful acquisition by VeriSign in 2006. Quattro Wireless is funded by Highland Capital Partners. Bob Davis and Jon Auerbach of Highland Capital Partners presently serve on the Quattro Wireless Board of Directors.
ColoradoBiz Magazine Annotated
 Rod Stambaugh |
FEED Tribes Inc.
Where: Boulder
Founded: 2006
www.feedtribes.com
INITIAL LIGHT BULB:
Early last year, Rod Stambaugh decided it was time to leverage his 17 years in the payment industry into a startup that turns mobile phones into credit cards.
"The original premise was to enable the mobile phone to make a payment at point-of- sale," he said. "That was the initial genesis of the company."
Stambaugh, now CEO of the
eonBusiness Funds Groundbreaking Mobile Payment and Marketing Company 'FEED' Annotated
eonBusiness Funds Groundbreaking Mobile Payment and Marketing Company 'FEED' |
Forget Credit Cards and Coupons, Use Your Mobile Phone to Pay Your Way -
and Get Discounts and Rewards for It
DENVER, July 17 /PRNewswire/ --
eonBusiness(http://www.eonbusiness.com), a strategic e-commerce investment
firm, today announced its participation in helping to fund a new mobile
payment company named FEED (http://www.feedit.com). FEED is a mobile
payment and marketing platform that lets consumers pay for goods and
services at the register and online using a secure coding system
transmitted via cellphones. The company currently has more than 200
merchants accepting FEED payments in the Boulder, Colorado market, where it
plans to aggressively begin introducing the platform this month.
"Its innovations and marketplace applications like FEED's that
eonBusiness looks to support, as the undeniable evolution towards
e-commerce continues," said Dave Carlson, CEO of eonBusiness. "Companies
like FEED are seizing practical opportunities to connect with e-savvy
consumers and retailers to the benefit of both. FEED caught our attention
because it is the only mobile payment solution available that combines
secure payment applications with the ability for merchants to market
directly to the consumer. The implications of a platform like this are
far-reaching, from the obvious banking and retailing impact, to marketing
and advertising and beyond."
Consumers at all levels can easily establish and use a FEED account,
providing both convenience and security without the use of a credit-card.
Merchants who accept FEED payments also get a break, as FEED transactions
are less costly than credit card processing and the merchant can
communicate, offer promotions and market directly to the consumer through
their cellphones.
"With cellphones becoming vital communications and information centers
that you take along in your pocket, it makes sense to have your personal
commerce available through them as well," added Rod Stambaugh, FEED's
founder. "FEED was born out of the simple concept of matching mobility with
commerce, and we're thrilled to have the funding from eonBusiness and other
supporters to aggressively begin our consumer outreach in Boulder later
this month."
With a total of $3.25 million from early series funding, FEED can boast
support from eonBusiness, The Lacuna Venture Fund LLLP and other investors
that will support the company as it aggressively expands. Additional
financial details were not disclosed.
"Having eonBusiness both financially and strategically involved will be
very valuable to FEED," continued Stambaugh. "They bring a wealth of online
marketing and e-commerce expertise to the table, including connections with
online retailers that FEED needs to reach to broaden our offering on the
web."
Thanks to the current round of funding from eonBusiness, lead investor
Lacuna and others, FEED can move full speed ahead with their aggressive
growth strategy, planning to expand to national availability in 2008.
About eonBusiness
Founded in 1997, eonBusiness is an e-commerce investment firm
recognized for assisting entrepreneurs in launching, developing and growing
innovative web-based e-commerce businesses. Infusing their own e-market
expertise and early-stage venture capital into strategically-selected
enterprises, eonBusiness advances, supports and operates several successful
Internet service and e-commerce businesses including AllAboardToys.com,
HomePoint.com, BuyerGuardian.com and several others. More information on
the company and its portfolio is available at http://www.eonbusiness.com.
About FEED
FEED is a mobile payment and marketing company that lets consumers pay
for goods and services at the register and online with their cellphones.
FEED simplifies the payment process, providing total transaction security.
FEED saves merchants money vs. credit card transaction fees while providing
consumers with unprecedented value via real-time text offers. Based in
Boulder, Colorado, FEED operates with any of the 200 million mobile phones
in the United States. http://www.feedit.com
VentureBeat » Greentech notes: SoloPower, MWOE, SNTech Annotated
Here’s a roundup of the latest green technology developments.
SoloPower announces investors — The Milpitas, Calif. make of photovoltaic solar cells and modules ,said it has $30 million more in a second round of capital. That adds to its previous $10 million. It’s well-funded, but not near nearly as well as some other players using the similar material, copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS), to make newer, low-cost solar cells. Nanosolar, Heliovolt, Solyndra and Miasole have all raised significantly more cash. We reported SolorPower’s funding yesterday, but the company hadn’t disclosed investor names. Today it released those names: Convexa Capital, which led the investment, Scatec, Spencer Energy and existing investors Crosslink Capital, Firsthand Capital Management and Musea Ventures.
MWOE Solar, yet another “thin-film” solar panel maker, raises $7M — The company, based in Ohio, received the funding from Emerald Technology Ventures and NGP Energy Technology Partners. Like all the companies mentioned above, it uses a thin-film technology. Thin-film refers to the thin layer of CIGS or other material deposited onto a substrate, which makes solar panels more flexible than traditional silicon-based solar technology (see image above, which comes from MWOE’s site).
SNTech, low-power motor maker, raises $1.2M — The company, of Seoul, Korea, makes low-power brushless DC motors for household appliances. SAIL Venture Partners won a quarter ownership of the company, in return for the investment (VentureWire; subscription required).
VentureBeat » Cleantech: Verdiem raises $8 million from Kleiner Perkins, others, to save PC energy Annotated
Verdiem, a growing Seattle company that makes computer networks use less energy, has raised $8.33 million from seven investors including big-name venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
It is one of many companies riding a wave of public commitments by cities, companies, universities and other organizations to make their IT operations more energy efficient. The City of Boston and the City University of New York are two of Verdiem’s clients.
The company has been “toiling way for four years under the radar,” chief executive Kevin Klustner told us, but has noticed a huge recent up-tick in interest from companies. As the debate about global warming heats up, corporations are gi
In Europe, the social network as digital friend - International Herald Tribune Annotated
PARIS: When it comes to social networking Web sites, Europeans see things a little differently.
While the Continent's innovators in business, social and mobile networking Web sites expect growing demand for their services, users will be looking for something like a digital cocktail party hostess.
"The ideal social network should work as a computer-enhanced friend that suggests people you ought to know," said Lars Hinrichs, the founder of the Xing social network, based in Hamburg. "Networks are filled with people who would be connected to one another if they knew their own common interests."
The Sundance Channel Adds Social Networking for a Green Cause Annotated
The Sundance Channel’s online component is looking to integrate more social features, and it doing so with the Eco-mmunity Map.
This interactive map will mark and help you find others that are interested in bettering the environment and living a more green lifestyle. You can find businesses, special attractions and action points on this eco-mmunity map as well, which is powered by Google. The purpose is to connect others that are concerned with having a more green lifestyle with the people and resources they need, based on location. Users can add their own markers to the map. Branching from this eco-mmunity map is an environmental forum, which includes blogs, news, discussions and other areas for users to contribute as well.
This attempt to facilitate the discussions that take place for the eco-conscious is a good way that an established media company can provide social tools for a great cause. This ultra-niche manner in which the Sundance Channel is affecting change is a good route to take, as it’s not overtly inserting social networking modules into its website, and it’s gaining attention from users by promoting a cause, while also raising awareness and
VentureBeat » With Bling, translate your Web site to mobile AJAX Annotated
By Matt Marshall 01.30.07
Bling Software, a start-up that launches today at DEMO, helps translate your Web site into a visually rich mobile version.
Your regular site can not be duplicated on a cellphone’s tiny screen, so you have to customize it. This can cost serious bucks.
Now, Pleasanton’s Bling has unveiled an AJAX-based software that publishers can use to transform their sites into visually rich mobile versions. Bling’s chief executive, Roy Satterthwaite, tells VentureBeat the company is the first to guarantee the AJAX application will work across cell-phone platforms, and small enough to be distributed via cellular networks.
Roeder-Johnson Client: FoneMine Annotated
FoneMine
Company Profile :
FoneMine is the first company to launch a next generation interactive mobile services platform. This platform is designed around a fundamental belief that mobile must be treated as a "first class citizen" and is neither just an extension of earlier computing models nor only for youth.
FoneMine's platform enables customers to offer mobile services in whatever way they want, to any demographic, building their offerings based on their own strategies. FoneMine's customers include major advertisers focused on customer acquisition through to full mobile commerce, international service providers focused on interactive groups and individual mobile messaging through next generation services, and financial institutions offering mobile finance services.
VentureBeat » FoneMine: Expand your business into the mobile web Annotated
By Dan Kaplan 07.11.07
FoneMine helps companies build interactive mobile web applications — including things like a shopping carts, comments , and search — that work across any mobile carriers and phones.
So far, companies wanting more than a basic mobile-friendly website have to build a customized back-end, host it, and maintain the code.
The Sunnyvale, Calif. company is the latest in a string of companies that help companies build more sophisticated mobile sites, and it claims to be the most complete and scalable service on the market today. There are companies like iLoop Mobile and Air2Web that help businesses develop mobile storefronts and manage SMS-based mobile marketing campaigns, but FoneMine wants to do that and more. Bling Software, which we’ve covered, offers a platform to build mobile sites. (It has teamed up with baseball star Barry Bonds and rap mogul Jay-Z to show them off. Bonds’ application alerts users when he hits another home run, just in time for baseball fans to track him as he closes in on Hank Aaron’s record.)
Chief executive Jagadish Bandole said Fonemine can offer a hosted, interactive mobile website with full SMS-based marketing functions within in a matter of days. More complicated sites will take a couple of weeks, instead of the months previously required. Through FoneMine’s straightforward interface (see screenshot below), we built a mobile page with photos, sub pages, a commenting section, and a “click-to-call” link that called our phone.
Jagadish showed us a mobile banking application that had been built on the FoneMine platform. You can check your balance, make cash transfers, see outstanding bills and pay them. Theater Bay Area, a company that sells half-priced theater tickets on the day of the shows, uses FoneMine to extend the reach of its marketing into SMS. Customers opt in to receive text alerts when tickets become available, and can click on a link in the message to buy tickets on their phone.
Jagadish says FoneMine will allow developers to create browser-based applications of just about any kind. For example, he says building an equivalent to Google Mobile Maps would be a “straightforward” task. All of this is yet to be seen, and we welcome feedback if any of you use it.
The company has raised around $6 million from angels and individuals, and makes money by charging companies for hosting, licensing and transactions. Depending on the needs and scale of the mobile application, the costs range from $500-2000 dollars per month for hosting and licensing, and up to $2000 extra if mass SMS-marketing functions are used.
3G - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Annotated
3G is third-generation technology in the context of mobile phone standards. The services associated with 3G include wide-area wireless voice telephony and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment. In marketing 3G services, video telephone has often been suggested as the killer application for 3G.
According to the GSA, in December 2005 there were 100 3G networks in operation in 40 countries in the world. In Asia, Europe, and the USA and Canada, telecommunication companies use W-CDMA technology with the support of around 100 terminal designs to operate 3G mobile networks.
Roll-out of 3G networks was delayed in some countries by the enormous costs of additional spectrum licensing fees. In many parts of the world 3G networks do not use the same radio frequencies as 2G, requiring mobile operators to build entirely new networks and license entirely new frequencies; a notable exception is the United States where carriers operate 3G service in the same frequencies as other services. The license fees in some European countries were particularly high, bolstered by government auctions of a limited number of licences and sealed bid auctions, and initial excitement over 3G's potential. Other delays were as a result of the expenses related to upgrading equipment for the new systems.
The first country that introduced 3G on a large commercial scale was Japan. In 2005, about 40% of subscribers used 3G networks only, with 2G being on the way out. It was expected that the transition from 2G to 3G would be largely completed during 2006, and upgrades to the next 3.5G stage with 3 Mbit/s data rates were under way.
The successful 3G introduction in Japan showed that video telephony was not the killer application for 3G networks after all. The real-life usage of video telephony on 3G networks was found to be a small fraction of all services. On the other hand, downloading of music found strong acceptance by customers. Music download services in Japan were pioneered by KDDI with the EZchakuuta and Chaku Uta Full services.
3G networks are not IEEE 802.11 networks. IEEE 802.11 networks are short range, higher-bandwidth (primarily) data networks, while 3G networks are wide area cellular telephone networks which evolved to incorporate high-speed internet access and video telephony.
Nokia Finally Embeds Skype Into Handsets; Also Rok Annotated
By
Rafat Ali
- Wed 11 Jul 2007 09:30 AM PST
Now that it figured out that Wi-Fi phones would becomes common (Nokia itself is pushing many of those), it has finally embedded Skype onto one of its “phones”...well, it is not a phone technically, it is the N800 Internet Tablet device. Skype for the Nokia N800 will be available for download for existing users...I have one and will try it out later. There will also be Skype download links on the latest release of Nokia N800 devices which will be available at retail and on the Skype online store. More here. Would be interesting to see when Skype gets embedded on other Nokia Wi-Fi compatible handsets like N95.
In related news, Nokia is embedding a trial version of mobile TV service ROK TV in its E65 and E61i phones...Two channel packages will be offered - a 5 channel ‘Strictly Business’ package, to be charged in the UK at GBP 5.00 a month, with a heavy emphasis on business news and information channels such as Bloomberg, CNBC Europe, EuroNews in 9 languages and regional news channels, and a 10 channel ‘ROK All’ TV package, to be charged at GBP10.00 a month containing all the live business news channels as well as additional sports news, music videos and comedy channels. As a trial, both TV packages will be free to view for the first 2 weeks.
The Sundance Channel Adds Social Networking for a Green Cause Annotated
The Sundance Channel’s online component is looking to integrate more social features, and it doing so with the Eco-mmunity Map.
This interactive map will mark and help you find others that are interested in bettering the environment and living a more green lifestyle. You can find businesses, special attractions and action points on this eco-mmunity map as well, which is powered by Google. The purpose is to connect others that are concerned with having a more green lifestyle with the people and resources they need, based on location. Users can add their own markers to the map. Branching from this eco-mmunity map is an environmental forum, which includes blogs, news, discussions and other areas for users to contribute as well.
This attempt to facilitate the discussions that take place for the eco-conscious is a good way that an established media company can provide social tools for a great cause. This ultra-niche manner in which the Sundance Channel is affecting change is a good route to take, as it’s not overtly inserting social networking modules into its website, and it’s gaining attention from users by promoting a cause, while also raising awareness and
VentureBeat » With Bling, translate your Web site to mobile AJAX Annotated
By Matt Marshall 01.30.07
Bling Software, a start-up that launches today at DEMO, helps translate your Web site into a visually rich mobile version.
Your regular site can not be duplicated on a cellphone’s tiny screen, so you have to customize it. This can cost serious bucks.
Now, Pleasanton’s Bling has unveiled an AJAX-based software that publishers can use to transform their sites into visually rich mobile versions. Bling’s chief executive, Roy Satterthwaite, tells VentureBeat the company is the first to guarantee the AJAX application will work across cell-phone platforms, and small enough to be distributed via cellular networks.
VentureBeat » FoneMine: Expand your business into the mobile web Annotated
By Dan Kaplan 07.11.07
FoneMine helps companies build interactive mobile web applications — including things like a shopping carts, comments , and search — that work across any mobile carriers and phones.
So far, companies wanting more than a basic mobile-friendly website have to build a customized back-end, host it, and maintain the code.
The Sunnyvale, Calif. company is the latest in a string of companies that help companies build more sophisticated mobile sites, and it claims to be the most complete and scalable service on the market today. There are companies like iLoop Mobile and Air2Web that help businesses develop mobile storefronts and manage SMS-based mobile marketing campaigns, but FoneMine wants to do that and more. Bling Software, which we’ve covered, offers a platform to build mobile sites. (It has teamed up with baseball star Barry Bonds and rap mogul Jay-Z to show them off. Bonds’ application alerts users when he hits another home run, just in time for baseball fans to track him as he closes in on Hank Aaron’s record.)
Chief executive Jagadish Bandole said Fonemine can offer a hosted, interactive mobile website with full SMS-based marketing functions within in a matter of days. More complicated sites will take a couple of weeks, instead of the months previously required. Through FoneMine’s straightforward interface (see screenshot below), we built a mobile page with photos, sub pages, a commenting section, and a “click-to-call” link that called our phone.
Jagadish showed us a mobile banking application that had been built on the FoneMine platform. You can check your balance, make cash transfers, see outstanding bills and pay them. Theater Bay Area, a company that sells half-priced theater tickets on the day of the shows, uses FoneMine to extend the reach of its marketing into SMS. Customers opt in to receive text alerts when tickets become available, and can click on a link in the message to buy tickets on their phone.
Jagadish says FoneMine will allow developers to create browser-based applications of just about any kind. For example, he says building an equivalent to Google Mobile Maps would be a “straightforward” task. All of this is yet to be seen, and we welcome feedback if any of you use it.
The company has raised around $6 million from angels and individuals, and makes money by charging companies for hosting, licensing and transactions. Depending on the needs and scale of the mobile application, the costs range from $500-2000 dollars per month for hosting and licensing, and up to $2000 extra if mass SMS-marketing functions are used.
3G - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Annotated
3G is third-generation technology in the context of mobile phone standards. The services associated with 3G include wide-area wireless voice telephony and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment. In marketing 3G services, video telephone has often been suggested as the killer application for 3G.
According to the GSA, in December 2005 there were 100 3G networks in operation in 40 countries in the world. In Asia, Europe, and the USA and Canada, telecommunication companies use W-CDMA technology with the support of around 100 terminal designs to operate 3G mobile networks.
Roll-out of 3G networks was delayed in some countries by the enormous costs of additional spectrum licensing fees. In many parts of the world 3G networks do not use the same radio frequencies as 2G, requiring mobile operators to build entirely new networks and license entirely new frequencies; a notable exception is the United States where carriers operate 3G service in the same frequencies as other services. The license fees in some European countries were particularly high, bolstered by government auctions of a limited number of licences and sealed bid auctions, and initial excitement over 3G's potential. Other delays were as a result of the expenses related to upgrading equipment for the new systems.
The first country that introduced 3G on a large commercial scale was Japan. In 2005, about 40% of subscribers used 3G networks only, with 2G being on the way out. It was expected that the transition from 2G to 3G would be largely completed during 2006, and upgrades to the next 3.5G stage with 3 Mbit/s data rates were under way.
The successful 3G introduction in Japan showed that video telephony was not the killer application for 3G networks after all. The real-life usage of video telephony on 3G networks was found to be a small fraction of all services. On the other hand, downloading of music found strong acceptance by customers. Music download services in Japan were pioneered by KDDI with the EZchakuuta and Chaku Uta Full services.
3G networks are not IEEE 802.11 networks. IEEE 802.11 networks are short range, higher-bandwidth (primarily) data networks, while 3G networks are wide area cellular telephone networks which evolved to incorporate high-speed internet access and video telephony.
Nokia Finally Embeds Skype Into Handsets; Also Rok Annotated
By Rafat Ali - Wed 11 Jul 2007 09:30 AM PST
Now that it figured out that Wi-Fi phones would becomes common (Nokia itself is pushing many of those), it has finally embedded Skype onto one of its “phones”...well, it is not a phone technically, it is the N800 Internet Tablet device. Skype for the Nokia N800 will be available for download for existing users...I have one and will try it out later. There will also be Skype download links on the latest release of Nokia N800 devices which will be available at retail and on the Skype online store. More here. Would be interesting to see when Skype gets embedded on other Nokia Wi-Fi compatible handsets like N95.
In related news, Nokia is embedding a trial version of mobile TV service ROK TV in its E65 and E61i phones...Two channel packages will be offered - a 5 channel ‘Strictly Business’ package, to be charged in the UK at GBP 5.00 a month, with a heavy emphasis on business news and information channels such as Bloomberg, CNBC Europe, EuroNews in 9 languages and regional news channels, and a 10 channel ‘ROK All’ TV package, to be charged at GBP10.00 a month containing all the live business news channels as well as additional sports news, music videos and comedy channels. As a trial, both TV packages will be free to view for the first 2 weeks.
Coming to (free) mobile phones for youths: Ads - Technology & Media - International Herald Tribune
Go Big or Go Home: Why Being Bold is Critical to Getting Noticed | Copyblogger Annotated
Why does being bold work better than being humble and understated, as I think many of us would prefer to be? Here’s why:
How to Write a Persuasive News Release » Copywriting Blog By Copywriter Michel Fortin Annotated
The most profitable and often overlooked free publicity generator is the news release (also called "press release", although news release is a better term).
News releases are not only great marketing tools but also far more credible and believable than advertising since they appear to come from an objective third party.
While publicity is the most powerful promotional tool there is, it is the one that is the least effectively used.
Go Big or Go Home: Why Being Bold is Critical to Getting Noticed | Copyblogger Annotated
Why does being bold work better than being humble and understated, as I think many of us would prefer to be? Here’s why:
VentureBeat » XLNTads and Spotzer, two different ways to make ads cheap Annotated
VentureBeat » Pluggd begins delivery of better audio search Annotated
Video Ads in Web Video: Success! ~ Chris Pirillo
WeblogMatrix - Compare them all
Online Journalism Review's Blog Software Comparison Chart Annotated
Updated May 18, 2006: This chart is a companion to the article "Time to check: Are you using the right blogging tool?," published July 14, 2005 in the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review. Do note that this chart reflects only standard features of the tools' installation, and not every possible extension, plug-in modification... or hack.
| Functionality | Blogger | TypePad Basic | TypePad Plus | TypePad Pro | Blogware | WordPress | Movable Type | Expression Engine |
iMedia Connection: Dissecting 3 Kick-Ass Emails Annotated
Many companies flood you with communications as soon as you give them your email address, but that new relationship is easy to damage.
In this article:
Award-winning emails
A fundraising email from WBFO
Occasional emails from Innocentdrinks.co.uk
A follow-up email from Rentalo.com
Award-winning emails
Before I talk about the three emails I have chosen for this article, let me just say how hard it was to unearth any really good emails. I went through emails of all kinds, from a variety of sources, including lists of so-called "award-winning" emails. I looked at promotional emails, customer service emails, retention emails and more. Some were B2B, others were B2C.
I found it a depressing search.
The underlying weakness I saw was that almost every email I read failed to take advantage of the very personal, one-on-one potential of email as a medium.
I saw too many emails that simply thrust their message into the reader's face, as if email were some kind of mass, broadcast medium.
iMedia Connection: Chicken Soup for the Confused Mobile Marketer Annotated
In This Article:
So what's so great about mobile anyway?
What would Sprite do?
What would Google do?
What would Yahoo! do?
Finally, some agreement
So what's so great about mobile anyway?
Here's a guarantee you can take to the bank: Some of the mobile players that are all the rage today won't even be a memory a few years from now. How do I know? Because nobody knows for certain what the mobile market holds.
If you're an advertiser or a brand that has tried to engage mobile users, you've doubtless been beset by an array of business models, confusing jargon and mobile firms that insist they know how to turn your campaign into gold.
But if you confused a sales pitch with mobile wisdom, shame on you. There's a reason why mobile is classified as an emerging ad platform: The answers are still in the embryonic stage.
One thing is true about mobile, it's small. Very small. But mobile isn't just a smaller interactive world, it's a different planet altogether.
Door Is Open to High-Tech Offerings That Meet Thresholds - New York Times Annotated
DAN NYE is perhaps the most publicly accessible chief executive on the planet. Anyone can contact the head of LinkedIn, a social network based in Mountain View, Calif., simply by visiting his personal profile page on the service and sending him a message.
Method Arts | A Consortium | How to Plan a Party in Five Minutes Annotated
Digital Digressions: What Marketeers Forget When Thinking of Web 2.0 Annotated
J-Board - a Job Board for Everyone Annotated
SmartSheet Raises $2.69M in Funding Annotated
, the web-based spreadsheet creation service, has raised $2.69 million in a Series A-4 of funding, led by Madrona Venture Group.
SmartSheet, which won Business 2.0’s Best of Show award earlier this year, has a good management team, some members hailing from Onyx Software. The edge that SmartSheet is looking to develop is its interactive capabilities, and auto-tracking tools that are beneficial for team projects and collaborative efforts. The social aspect of SmartSheet includes its wiki, which furthers the ability for the
B2B Lead Generation Blog: 10 Lead Generation (Prospecting) Tips for Sales People Annotated
their own lead generation.
1. Build an ideal customer profile – Focus your energy on leads that best fit your ideal customer profile. Both the companies and the individuals you covet as customers. What separates your best and worst customers? What are their attributes and demographics? What organizations/associations do they belong to?
2. Talk to your best customers – How much do you really know about your customers? A simple phone call can generate plenty of useful information. Ask your customers why they chose to work with you? Is that the same reason they keep doing business with you? How has working with you helped their business? Would they refer you to other people? Use this information to refine your message to identify more leads just like your best custom
Press Releases - DoubleClick Inc. Annotated
