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Consumers go digital to control and filter brand interaction

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:49:00 GMT

A new survey has revealed web-savvy consumers are turning to digital technology in order to filter and control their relationship with brands.

According to Brand Republic, a new poll of 1,000 consumers and 200 marketers shows 82 per cent of consumers utilising digital technology feel as though they only receive the marketing material and information they want, when and through the media channels they want.

Marketers previously estimated just 30 per cent of consumers would feel in control of their brand interactions.

Experts also seem to have misjudged the marketing channels consumers feel are most appropriate.

25 per cent of consumers surveyed said they still receive "inappropriate marketing materials", while marketers expected the figures to be much, much lower.

Only 9 per cent of consumers polled felt SMS marketing was appropriate. Marketers expected 25 per cent of consumers to be open to SMS marketing.

Just 4 per cent of customers approved of being contacted directly by brands through social media. Meanwhile, marketers estimated that 5 per cent of consumers would like to be contacted directly through social media.

Marketing expert Murray Dudgeon told the publication that marketers, now more than ever, need further insight into how their consumers and target demographics are both using and interacting with digital platforms and channels.

He said: "For the first time, we have been able to quantify the shift from push- to pull-marketing. Consumers are using technology to filter out messages they don't feel are appropriate. We can also infer that some marketers are still working in silos and do not enjoy a 360-degree view of their organisation's marketing activity.

"In some ways, the industry has created Frankenstein's monster. By doing such a good job of marketing technology and digital services, they have breathed life into consumers' ability to control the relationship between brand and individual.

"Now more than ever, marketers need the insight to understand when and where it's appropriate for brands to join the conversation with consumers."

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Apple bites multi-billion losses as Steve Job resigns

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 08:13:00 GMT

Steve Jobs has resigned from Apple's top job, causing Apple stocks to drop by 5 per cent and the company's value to depreciate by billions.

According to The Guardian, even though news of Job's shock departure from Cupertino came after the close of New York trading, shares fell by 5 per cent through the night to effectively wipe $17 billion (or £10 billion) from Apple's stock market value.

Jobs, Apple's founding father and the architect of the iPhone and iPad, is said to have resigned on health grounds after recently taking his third period of medical leave from the firm since first developing pancreatic cancer seven years ago.

Tim Cook is set to replace Jobs as the technology giant's chief executive, though Jobs - a Silicon Valley legend - will continue as Apple's chairman.

Number crunchers told the publication that Apple will have been bracing itself for a steep decline in value following Jobs' departure, given that Apple's stock has skyrocketed under his leadership, with stellar iPhone and iPad sales recently landing the company top honours as the world's most valuable brand.

Analysts at Gartner and Ovum both told the newspaper that Apple shares will likely recover swiftly, especially since Jobs will continue to have a hand in Apple's successes from his new role.

"While this marks the end of an era for Apple, it's important to remember the there's more to Apple than any one person, even Steve Jobs," said Michael Gartenberg, research director at Gartner.

"Continuing as chairman, Mr Jobs will continue to leave his mark on both the company and products even as he transfers the reigns to Mr Cook."

Apple's shares are expected to gain in strength over the coming months, particularly with the upcoming release of the hotly-tipped iPhone5 and iPad 3.

Apple's board have led tributes to Job's dedication, success and creative-thinking, with Art Levinson adding: "Steve's extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world's most innovative and valuable technology company."

Jobs himself said: "I believe Apple's brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

"I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you."

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New Lift app by Twitter creators 'unlocks potential'

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 07:49:00 GMT

Biz Stone, a co-founder of Twitter, yesterday announced a brand new venture designed to reboot The Obvious Corporation. Although information is thin on the ground, Lift is said to be a new app that promises to "unlock human potential through positive reinforcement".

It was within Obvious that micro blogging site Twitter first found life, so understandably online excitement surrounding Lift is tangible.

Lift is the brainchild of experienced app entrepreneurs, Tony Stubblebine and Jon Crosby. In his announcement, Stone outlined that Obvious will adopt a supporting role for the Lift start up by assisting with things like strategy, design, funding and recruiting.

"Our approach is threefold: Build, partner, and invest. We've started working on some ideas ourselves, we're researching how best to create an investment vehicle, and today we're thrilled to announce our first official partnership," said Stone on the Obvious website.

The creators say that more on the exact purpose of Life will be revealed over the next few months. Until then, speculation is sure to circulate the web.

Blogger for ReadWriteWeb, Marshall Kirkpatrick, has his own views on what Lift might offer.

"It sounds like Twitter in its simplicity and from what I've seen it looks a lot like Twitter too - but with more structure, " says Kirkpatrick.

He goes on to draw a comparison with goal setting website GetMibbles.com, which interestingly now redirects to the Lift site.

He describes the now vanished Mibbles site as "a deep mix of the personal and the public...[that] has been built as a way to share daily accomplishments marking progress towards your goals with friends interested in the same sorts of goals".

Interestingly, rumours have also been circulating that users will be able to log-on to Lift via both their Twitter and Facebook accounts.

For now, the blogosphere can merely guess at the exact nature and purpose of Lift, whilst the service remains for the moment in private alpha, but the website does allow the general public to sign up for email alerts in the meantime.

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Skype expands empire to include group messaging

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 06:00:00 GMT

Online communications firm Skype has acquired mobile messaging service GroupMe for an undisclosed sum.

Founded by Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci, GroupMe is a mobile messaging service that allows users to participate in free group messaging, effectively creating a private chat room on their phones. The service also offers conference calling and photo and location sharing within groups.

In a statement, Skype CEO Tony Bates said: "The GroupMe team has created an incredible sticky group messaging experience that works across mobile devices and platforms, making this a perfect addition to the voice, video and text products in the Skype family."

Only a year old, the company has seen rapid growth and development, and in February announced it was sending upwards of a million text messages each day.

Discussions for the acquisition began shortly after Microsoft purchased Skype in May. For the time being, GroupMe will continue to operate independently from Skype, with operations still based at its head office in New York.

GroupMe wrote on its blog: "Both companies are focused on changing the way the world communicates, and helping people stay in touch with the people they really know."

The announcement comes several months after Facebook announced the purchase of GroupMe rival Beluga in March, and the Skype purchase of GroupMe shows that the market for mobile group messaging services continues to be red hot.

While Facebook's purchase eventually led to its new mobile Messenger service - setting it up against Skype - the two companies have also enjoyed a strategic alliance over the years, with Skype even set to facilitate Facebook's currently-in-gestation video calling service.

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Mountain View's mad men secretly trial new Gmail ads

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 05:24:00 GMT

Yesterday, a leaked screenshot and video revealed Google's been quietly trialling infinite scrolling for web search, in a move that could see all Google search results returned on a single page to the benefit of sites whose rankings have traditionally fallen short of Google's golden first page.

And today, it's been revealed that Mountain View's mad men have also been keeping mum about a new Adwords format for Gmail.

According to SearchEngineLand, Google's been secretly tinkering with a new AdWords format unique to Gmail, which would see graphical, interactive ads appear above text ads in the right sidebar.

The new ads will allegedly feature an image, headline and some text, topped with the name of the advertiser and a strategically placed envelope icon.

Pamela Parker, a respected tech correspondent, explained that the new ads will likely capitalise on user behaviours associated with email - not least clicking on envelope icons to view and forwarding to others - to drive clicks, views and ultimately ad revenues.

Parker credited the use of an envelope icon to be a particularly ad-savvy move, as the icon is likely to stimulate curiosity while strongly encouraging users to click, read and share.

She also praised the fact the new ad format has been designed to display larger creative units than possible previously, with multiple images and more text now able to feature.

"Generally speaking, it seems to me that Google has a winner with this new Gmail-specific ad unit, in that it succeeds in being relatively unobtrusive while also stimulating curiosity and interaction, also featuring larger imagery when a user clicks through," she said.

A Google spokesman confirmed the ads had begun trials in July 2011, adding: "The ads are designed specifically for Gmail and look and function a little differently from regular text ads."

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Facebook guns for Google+ with "awesome" new Skype deal

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 06:49:00 GMT

Mark Zuckerberg's aiming right at Google's fledgling social network Google+ with the announcement of an "awesome" new Skype deal that will bring video chat to Facebook.

According to BBC News, Zuckerberg announced the hotly anticipated development while letting slip that Facebook's site numbers have now topped more than 750 million users - making Facebook the US's fourth most valuable website and the world's most popular social network.

Hot off the heels of the launch of Google+, tech pundits are unsurprised that Facebook's called on Microsoft - a major stakeholder in Facebook and sole owner of Skype - to flex a little muscle and add more Google-rivalling Skype features to the social network.

Especially as long before the shock launch of Google+, Mountain View miffed Microsoft and finagled Facebook by building Skype-like software into its Chrome browser using technology acquired from its 2010 takeover of Global IP Solutions - a firm specialising in internet telephony and video conferencing.

Microsoft's and Facebook's worst fears were later confirmed when Google+ launched, trumpet-blowing quirky features including Circles, Huddle, Sparks and notably Hangouts - a feature which lets users drop in and out of group video conferences connecting up to ten friends.

Facebook's new video chat deal will facilitate one-on-one video chat via Skype. It may not be Google's ten person chat, but Zuckerberg says the "awesome thing" is that Facebook users won't need to download Skype before video chatting, as non-Skype-using Facebookers will receive a plug-in alert when a friend attempts to video call them. The plug-in will then download in 10-20 seconds.

Zuckerberg hinted that other "premium" Skype functions could soon be revealed, fuelling rumours that Palo Alto has a Google-killer (in the social sphere anyway) in the works.

Maggie Shiels, the Beeb's Silicon Valley tech correspondent, has noted that while Zuckerberg's unlikely to have relished losing headlines to Google's rival offering, he avoided tit-for-tat comparisons.

Instead, Zuckerberg said the launch was an endorsement of the growing importance of social media and vindicated Facebook's vision of a social web.

And Facebook could have the last laugh, as analysts have told the BBC that Facebook's latest Skype offering could bolster the social network's ad revenues - a development that's sure to miff Mountain View's mad men.

"Advertisers love anything that keeps users on Facebook for longer and that is something Facebook has been brilliant at - keeping people engaged with the platform for increasingly longer periods of time," Susan Etlinger of the Altimeter Group told BBC News.

"It stands to reason that the longer you are on Facebook, the happier advertisers will be."

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Shortmail cuts email down to size

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 05:12:00 GMT

Shortmail is a new email programme that embraces modern social networking ideas and attempts to combat communication overload by only allowing messages of 500 characters or less. The programme makes some email conversations public and therefore more 'social'.

"Shortmail is a new way to communicate. Yes, it's length-limited to 500 characters. But it's also social - linked to your Twitter account. Over time, we want to make email much more social and more efficient," said founder Dave Troy in a company press release.

Developed by 410 Labs, the programme will only deliver emails that are below the character limit and will prompt users to shorten them if they exceed it. There is no facility to attach documents and emails cannot be stored and organised in folders.

"[The] length limit on messages is long enough to express most coherent points or ask a colleague a question, while filtering out much spam, newsletters, promotions, and dissertations," said 401 labs in a statement.

"Thus your Shortmail inbox becomes the place for the to-the-point messages in sizes and quantity you can digest and respond to quickly."

Having been nicknamed 'Twitter for email', the programme uses Twitter handles to let people to claim their addresses. The user is then given access to a website with an interface that allows them to contact other users. The messages can then be delivered privately or publicly, in the same way that Twitter also offers direct messages or public messages.

Shortmail is also available on iPhone and Android. Access is available through IMAP, POP3 and SMTP.

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Google set to miff Microsoft with Skype-like software

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:25:00 GMT

Mountain View and Microsoft could be set to rumble as Google seems to be building Skype-like software into its Chrome browser just weeks after Microsoft bought the video conferencing firm for $8.5 billion.

According to CNet.com, Google's quietly begun to add real-time chat software to its Chrome browsers using technology acquired from its 2010 take-over of Global IP Solutions - a firm specialising in internet telephony and video conferencing.

Google recently used the same technology when releasing software for audio and video chat as an open-source project code-named WebRTC.

CNet.com's Stephen Shankland reported WebRTC will be likely used to improve Gmail integration, as users currently need to install a plug-in before using Gmail's audio and video capabilities.

Google previously indicated it would work with Mozilla, Opera and other browser makers to help establish WebRTC as a web standard for video conferencing and peer-to-peer communications.

Henrik Andreassson, a Google programmer, told the tech news site that WebRTC software should soon feature in Chrome.

"Our goal is to enable Chrome with Real-Time Communications [RTC] capabilities via simple Javascript APIs [application programming interfaces]," he said. "We are working hard to provide full RTC support in Chrome all the way from WebKit [the open-source browser engine on which Chrome is based] down to the native audio and video parts."

And Google's not stopping with Skype-alike software. In another move that's bound to rile Redmond, Google's released a new version of Chrome Frame - the IE plug-in that turns Microsoft browsers into Google browsers.

According to The Register, the latest version of Chrome Frame deploys a "helper process" which allows users to install the plug-in even when they don't have administrator privileges on their machines - despite objections from Microsoft.

Commenting on the release of the latest version of Chrome Frame, Microsoft said: "We believe we deliver the best out-of-the-box browsing experience enabling users to get the best of the web without needing additional plug-ins or add-ons."

Google, meanwhile, downplayed the rivalry between the two firms.

"Google Chrome Frame... is a bridge of sorts," Mountain View man Alex Russell said last month at Google's developer conference. "Instead of asking users to replace their browser - or asking IT organisations to run two browsers side-by-side - Google Chrome Frame puts the power of Google Chrome inside Internet Explorer."

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Skype falls flat for the second time in two weeks

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 05:01:00 GMT

Skype users across the world have experienced continual disruption to their service for several hours today.

The company initially announced that 'only a small number' of people were having trouble using Skype. However, the company soon had to quickly deal with the problem once it became clear the outage was more widespread.

The company cited that a configuration problem had led to many people having their software stop working. At the time, Skype said it was currently addressing the problem but did not comment further.

Users did not have to sign out of the service; the blog said they should reconnect automatically. Functionality began to return this afternoon.

"We are continuing to address today's problems, and are seeing indications that the situation is improving," Peter Parkes said on Skype's Heartbeat blog.

This is the second time in two weeks that Skype has experienced widespread outages. The service stopped working on 26 May after a software update. The desktop software crashed repeatedly at around UK noon time once the update was completed.

These two incidents will likely be scrutinised by Microsoft after the software giant paid £5.2 billion for the company last month. Critics have doubted as to whether the acquisition was a value-for-money move by Microsoft.

Skype currently has over 660 million users worldwide and recently announced a new record of having 30 million of those people online at once.

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Yahoo launches new email service integrating social media and SMS

Tue, 24 May 2011 09:49:00 GMT

Yahoo! rolled out its new email service to some 284 million users worldwide today, after introducing the beta version back in October. It's new features include social networking integration and text messaging facilities.

Yahoo! Mail is currently available in 26 languages and 43 countries around the world. As the beta status has now been removed, the new version will be made available to all users.

With this new email service, users will be able to view video and slideshows from links sent to them inside their email window. As for social networking, Yahoo! Mail allows users to respond to Facebook friends from inside a message rather than navigating to the popular social network to do so.

Yahoo! Mail will also now feature apps for utilising external services such as Yousendit, the large file delivery service, and Evite, the invitation application.

As mentioned previously, the new Yahoo! Mail lets users send texts and instant messages, archiving everything that's been sent.

The revamp also incorporates some new approaches to the prioritisation of email messages. Recent emails from your personal contacts in your address book will be pushed above incoming mail in the inbox in the new setup.

"Yahoo's vision for online communications brings together all the tools that people use to connect - email, chat, SMS, and social updates - and makes it easier for them to share content and engage in conversations with the people that matter most to them," Yahoo chief product officer Blake Irving said in a statement.

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