By now, you’ve probably heard about Pinterest . It’s an online “image” grabbing site that allows users to group images captured (pinned) from websites onto pages which can then be shared with others who have a similar interest. Think of it as online scrapbooking except that, this being the internet, you’re able to follow the graphic image back to the original website. Let’s say that someone I follow has a page of “Hardware, You Gotta Have.” If I see a photo of a new Ultrabook™ , I might be inclined to click on that photo to get more information from the original website. It is in those traffic clicks where lies the possible advantage of Pinterest to your company. Pinterest is yet another possible way to drive consumers to your website. Source: intel.com via Intel on Pinterest Quite frankly, the platform is so new that the jury is still out on whether or not Pinterest is helpful for generating leads. But this is what we know so far: people are flocking to Pinterest and creating all sorts of groups which are then attracting the attention of lots of other people. And when people are interested in something on the internet, that means there is an opportunity to get involved and to get your marketing message heard. As an example of how a software company effectively uses Pinterest to engage its audience, take a look at Microsoft’s Pinterest page . Not only does this page highlight new apps, software, and some of the latest products and services, but if you look through the “pins,” you’ll also see links to things like “Foods that boost you immune system” and pictures of the Microsoft main campus. This diverse visual combination results in a page that both sells product and gives value to its audience by presenting “nice to know” information right alongside the important marketing information. It all works together in grabbing the potential customer’s attention. For now, what should your company do about Pinterest? Set up a page and let your presence be known When you set up your Pinterest page, you’ll be asked to invite others to follow you (usually from your email list) go ahead and invite everyone you think would be interested. Just the fact that you are willing to give Pinterest a try might be enough to get someone interested in your company. Click here to sign up for Pinterest. http://pinterest.com/landing/ Don’t spend a lot of time on it I know, I know, it sounds a little counter-intuitive but Pinterest is new and still has some problems, most notably regarding image copyright. For now, set up your account. Do searches and follow those who have similar likes and interests, but resist the urge to spend huge amounts of time creating lots of groups. Like some other Social Media platforms, this could fizzle out fairly quickly. Have everything in place, though, in case it doesn’t. Have outstanding graphics on your site that someone might be inclined to pin People can’t pin your image if there is no image to pin. Not only should you have an outstanding graphic on your landing page but you should put a little “Pin this” tag near the graphic to remind people to pin it. The more people who grab the image, the more people are going to see it and possibly click back to your website. Use Pinterest to check out who is pinning your site Pinterest can be used for customer demographics. Do a few searches on your name and your images to see the types of people who may be pinning your company to their pages. Are they who you had hoped would grab the images? If not, do you need to rethink your image and perhaps use another one that might be more attractive to your desired demographic? A quick way to search on Pinterest is to go to: www.pinterest.com/source/YOURWEBSITE Find the people on Pinterest who are interested in your field and start following them Like people share like things, and eventually learn to trust each other. If you follow the people who have an interest in your field, you will establish yourself as a member of that community and soon others in that community will start to follow you. What have you heard about Pinterest? Do you see the use of collected images drawing traffic to your site? Have you seen good examples of Pinterest accounts highlighting software?
Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft’
Is Pinterest Useful to Software Businesses?
Posted in Software Tools 
Tags: business and marketing, digital marketing, Field, Images, intel sw partner program, Internet, Marketing, Microsoft, People, social, social-media 
Comments OffIntel Developer Forum is coming to São Paulo, Brazil!
Intel Developer Forum (IDF) is coming to Brazil for the first time in Intel history! We’re partnering with members of the Intel® Software Partner Program in our booth and sessions, and we’re extremely excited to meet other software developers and ISVs in Brazil. If you’re not attending in person, we’ll make sure to keep you updated on the announcements and excitement online in both Portuguese and English. Check out of our upcoming software sessions below and the full IDF Brazil website for full event details. Next week, we’ll meet the Intel Software team in Brazil, share some exciting news from IDF, and announce some new opportunities for developers to partner with Intel! Pre-IDF Activity on May 14: Gaming roundtable: Intel representatives, CEOs, Software developers, Game Associations, professors and investors will meet to discuss the game industry in Brazil Intel Software Booth Demos: Totvs & Pixeon – Success Stories, Intel® Software Partner Program Totvs is a leader in emerging markets, one of the largest ISVs in Latin America, and the world’s 6th largest ERP developer. Totvs offers a wide variety of vertical solutions for virtually all sizes of companies, allowing growth in different market segments. In the booth, Totvs will showcase how they benefited from partnering with the Intel® Software Partner Program and Intel® Software Network. Pixeon , a Brazilian ISV of approximately 50 people, was founded in 2003 and specializes in digital medical imaging. Its solutions provide high quality imaging for diagnosis and speed to generate medical reports (“laudos”), as well as technologies that allow visualization and analysis through the internet using mobile devices. Pixeon joined the Intel Software Partner Program in early 2012. Through the Intel Software Partner Program, Pixeon has made performance improvements that impact user experience and making it better and more productive. Pixeon continues to work with Intel development tools to improve their software and incorporating new technologies into their products. McAfee®: Complete Cross-Device Protection McAfee offers extensive protection for all your devices to safeguard you wherever you connect. This comprehensive protection is always on, protecting every facet of your digital life. It delivers a worry free online experience from the latest malware protection to keeping your kids away from inappropriate content. Incorporated in McAfee’s consumer portfolio is McAfee Mobile Security that will locate, lock, or wipe a lost or stolen device. Improve Cloud Efficiency and Manageability with Intel® Intelligent Power Node Manager Power takes a large part in Cloud Operation TCO. This demo will show how to take advantage of the Intel® Intelligent Power Node Manager to monitor and control the power cost of your cloud in an intelligent way. In the Cloud System, power and thermal information is retrieved from host servers through Intel® Intelligent Power Node Manager. Based on predefined policy, the Cloud System makes use of the power information both for resource monitoring and power control, as well as intelligent VM scheduling and life-cycle management. The demo also shows the application of this technology in top cloud vendors. Intel AppUp(SM) Developer Program Get the most out of your PC and Ultrabook™ with apps and digital content from the Intel AppUp(SM) center. Discover how to create apps with the free resources found in the Intel AppUp(SM) Developer Program. ISN – Developing optimized Windows applications for Intel Platforms Learn about performance analysis and how to improve your overall user experience on PC systems. Tutorials and sessions will be given throughout the day. Both Intel and Microsoft* tools will be showcased. Using the Yocto Project* Open Source Hob GUI for Embedded Linux OS Image Creation See the Hob graphical user interface in action as it’s used to create a personal NAS device on an Intel® Atom™ based platform. Hob is an efficient customization tool which provides several well defined processes to efficiently assist users with varied experience levels to quickly create a Linux OS image using the Yocto Project. This tool will allow those with limited Linux skills to easily generate a target board image, while providing more depth to hackers and experienced Linux users. Android* Ice Cream Sandwich Demo Running On An Intel® Z2460™ This is an Android* Ice Cream Sandwich demo running on an Intel® Z2460™ processor. This demo shows the value added software optimizations done by the Software and Services Group at Intel to improve Dalvik* execution by orders of magnitude, smooth 1080P video playback, best-in-class HTML5, and power optimizations that take advantage of the silicon to provide fast, responsive, all day performance. Creating Robust, Scalable, High Performance Software with Intel® Parallel Studio XE Intel® Parallel Studio XE Unites Development Tools for Improving Application Performance and Code Robustness For the Latest Generation of Multicore Processors via these Industry-Leading Components: Intel® Parallel Advisor – Threading assistant tool which provides step-by-step proposals for simplifying the transition from serial applications to parallel ones Intel® Composer XE – Optimizing compilers and high-performance libraries for the latest generation of processors Intel® Inspector XE – Powerful thread and memory error checker Intel® VTune™ Amplifier XE – Advanced performance profiler with hotspot and threading analysis IDF Software Sessions on May 15: Rethinking Information Security Jose Antunes Bruno Domingues The security paradigm is changing, just in the last decade the cybercrime growth in a two digits rate year by year. The main reason is the cybercrime motivation, profit, stole of intellectual property and hacktivism. Today, Intel and McAfee, combine software and hardware capability to combat IT security threats, allowing consumers and organizations take full advantage of connected computing experience in a secure way. Intel Business Client Solutions: Intel® vPro™ Technology and Intel® Small Business Advantage Marcio Paulino Edison Rodrigues This session will delve into the powerful new 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ vPro™ processor family and the innovations we are delivering for business customers to “compute with confidence” via enhanced security, simplification/automation, and solutions. This session will illustrate how key stakeholders including end users, SI/ITO’s and Channel MSP’s implement solutions based on Intel vPro technology and unlock the full value of the platform. Additionally, this session explores strategies and tactics for winning with the brand new Intel® Small Business Advantage (Intel® SBA) platform in 2012. Intel SBA is a purpose built platform that delivers out-of-the box value to enhance security and productivity and is targeted for the fast growing commercial segment of small businesses that lack a formal IT department. Develop Optimized Microsoft* Windows* 7 or Windows 8 Applications on Intel® Platforms Miguel Ferreira Luciano Palma Intel brings you the technology to deliver amazing experiences on Windows* running on a tablet, an Ultrabook™ or a desktop. This session will show how to optimize your current applications for the Windows* platform and how to get ready for building optimized Windows 8 applications with Intel® Software Tools and Technologies. Make your application even more attractive, with better performance, enhanced security and greater graphics experience. Cross Platform Development with HTML5 Eugeni Dodonov Jomar Silva Developing cross-OS, cross-device applications has been a challenging problem for many years. HTML5 is the key and being an open standard, it is a great choice for interoperability. HTML5 comprises of a set of web standards that enable innovation on web apps, from rich user interfaces through advanced networking, multimedia resources. This session will introduce HTML5 and its new features and cover its role in the next generation of mobile and desktop based apps. Another topic is PhoneGap, an Open Source Software that allows you to author native mobile apps created with HTML5 web technologies using a single codebase and deliver apps for multiple mobile platforms. Included is a demonstration on how to create an HTML5 Applications using PhoneGap and, using PhoneGap Build Services, enable a remote compile and deployment to multiple platforms. Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI): Foundation Technology for Next Generation Platforms Luis Pollo Fadi Zuhayri Topics in this session include: • UEFI technology overview • Latest UEFI specifications news and industry adoption • Microsoft* Windows* 8 UEFI requirements • Intel® UEFI Development Kit 2010 SR1 features and capabilities for implementing UEFI 2.3.1 specifications • UEFI Development and training resources
Posted in Software Tools Tags: appup, brazil, digital, Game, game development, intel, Microsoft, Phone, Platforms, technology Comments OffNo More Beating Around The Bush At Yahoo: Thompson Is Out, Levinsohn In As CEO, Effective Immediately
Well, after days and days of nothing, suddenly things are moving at a fast clip. After news came out just hours ago that Thompson might be leaving the company tomorrow, moments ago Yahoo officially confirmed the news, as we reported earlier : Ross Levinsohn is now interim Chief Executive Officer, replacing Scott Thompson, and Fred Amoroso is chairman of the board. Scott Thompson’s departure and the reasons for it are not mentioned at all in the statement, which simply says he has left the company. (Earlier a report in AllThingsD had said he would resign for personal reasons, although at least in this statement nothing at all is mentioned for why he has left.) The announcement from Yahoo also underscores how activist shareholder Third Point is very much a key player in all of this. Third Point, led by Daniel Loeb, is a 5.8 percent shareholder in Yahoo and had been behind some of the strongest statements against Scott Thompson and his continuing tenure even after it emerged that Thompson had not been entirely honest in stating his past experience, and for the board’s responsibility in putting him there in the first place and then not taking decisive enough steps to remove him and put the company back in working order. All of that looks like water under the bridge… for now at least. Yahoo’s statement says that with the changes being announced today Third Point has agreed to settle its pending proxy contest related to the company’s 2012 annual meeting of shareholders. “We are committed to working with new leadership to unlock Yahoo!’s significant potential and value,” said Loeb in the statement. Amoroso replaces Roy Bostock, who was one of the key people who had appointed Scott Thompson as CEO earlier this year. Yahoo gives the reason for his departure as being done to “accelerate the leadership transition for the new Board.” Other board appointments are as follows: Three Third Point nominees — Daniel S. Loeb, Harry J. Wilson, and Michael J. Wolf — will join the Yahoo! Board, effective May 16, 2012. In addition to Bostock, Patti Hart, VJ Joshi, Arthur Kern and Gary Wilson and Thompson are all stepping down from the board immediately. The big question now is what next for Yahoo. Thompson — in very quick order, something he had been determined to do — cut a lot of staff (numbering in the thousands); slashed several programs (including some 50 properties, mobile sites, and more) and looked like he was trying to turn around the big purple ship to sail in a different direction from the one it was going in before, initiating for example a new commerce division, and – quite amazingly — Yahoo also lodged a patent lawsuit against Facebook in the process, setting out a position for itself as a defensive company using more than just current business initiatives to make sure it remained competitive. So will Levinsohn be continuing with any of that, or will he be starting yet another clean slate for the company? As I mentioned in the earlier post , Levinsohn’s experience is pretty radically different from Thompson’s and if his interim position is any longer than five minutes he may have a chance to play some of that out. Some have already speculated that we may see a settlement to the patent suits . That would at least help Yahoo’s image problem among those in the tech world who were disheartened to hear of the suit and what it signified both for Yahoo and the state of patent litigation. Release below. SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) today announced that the Board of Directors has named Fred Amoroso as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Ross Levinsohn as interim Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. The Company also announced that its Board has reached an agreement with Third Point LLC (“Third Point”) to settle its pending proxy contest related to the Company’s 2012 annual meeting of shareholders. Mr. Amoroso replaces Roy Bostock, who has stepped down from his role as Non-Executive Chairman in order to accelerate the leadership transition for the new Board. Mr. Levinsohn replaces Scott Thompson, former Chief Executive Officer, who has left the Company. Under the Board’s settlement agreement with Third Point, three Third Point nominees — Daniel S. Loeb, Harry J. Wilson, and Michael J. Wolf — will join the Yahoo! Board, effective May 16, 2012. Mr. Bostock, along with Patti Hart, VJ Joshi, Arthur Kern and Gary Wilson, all of whom previously disclosed their intentions not to stand for re-election, as well as Mr. Thompson, have decided to step down from the Board immediately. As a part of the settlement agreement, Third Point, which owns an aggregate of 70,545,400 shares, or 5.8% of Yahoo! common stock, has agreed to withdraw its previous Board nominations for consideration at the annual meeting and vote its shares in support of Yahoo!’s nominees. Yahoo!’s slate of director nominees for election or re-election at the 2012 annual meeting of stockholders will now include Fred Amoroso, John Hayes, Peter Liguori, Thomas McInerney, Maynard Webb, Sue James, David Kenny, Brad Smith, Daniel S. Loeb, Harry J. Wilson and Michael J. Wolf. As interim CEO, Mr. Levinsohn will manage the Company’s day-to-day operations with assistance from Yahoo!’s existing senior leadership team. “The Board is pleased to announce these changes and the settlement with Third Point, and is confident that they will serve the best interests of our shareholders and further accelerate the substantial advances the Company has made operationally and organizationally since last August. The Board believes in the strength of the Company’s business and assets, and in the opportunities before us, and I am honored to work closely with my fellow directors and Ross to continue to drive Yahoo! forward,” said Fred Amoroso, Chairman of the Yahoo! Board of Directors. Mr. Amoroso continued, “On behalf of the entire Board, I would also like to thank Patti, VJ, Arthur, Gary and, in particular, Roy, for their dedicated long-term service and contributions to the Board and Yahoo!.” Third Point Chief Executive Officer Daniel S. Loeb stated: “Harry, Michael and I are delighted to join the Yahoo! Board and work collaboratively with our fellow directors to foster a culture of leadership dedicated to innovation, excellence in corporate governance, and responsiveness to users, advertisers and partners. We are confident this Board will benefit from shareholder representation, and we are committed to working with new leadership to unlock Yahoo!’s significant potential and value.” Third Point Director Nominee Jeff Zucker stated: “I have been supportive of Third Point’s efforts since Daniel asked me to join the slate. When I became aware of Yahoo!’s offer of three board seats to Third Point, I approached Daniel and let him know that I would be happy to step aside to quickly facilitate a settlement. I believe that it is in Yahoo!’s best interests to avoid a prolonged proxy fight and have new board members immediately to help move the company forward. While there is clearly much work to be done, this is the right combination of talented executives to do just that.” About Yahoo! Yahoo! is the premier digital media company, creating deeply personal digital experiences that keep more than half a billion people connected to what matters most to them, across devices and around the globe. And Yahoo!’s unique combination of Science + Art + Scale connects advertisers to the consumers who build their businesses. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit the pressroom ( pressroom.yahoo.net ) or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal ( yodel.yahoo.com ). About Third Point LLC About Third Point LLC : Third Point is an investment firm headquartered in New York, managing $9.0 billion in assets, including a London Stock Exchange listed closed-end fund. Founded in 1995, Third Point follows an event-driven approach to investing globally. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning such matters as Yahoo!’s new directors and strategic activities and plans. Risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from the results predicted. The potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, the impact of management and organizational changes; the implementation and results of any strategic plans as well as Yahoo!’s ongoing strategic and cost initiatives; Yahoo!’s ability to compete with new or existing competitors; reduction in spending by, or loss of, advertising customers; risks related to Yahoo!’s regulatory environment; interruptions or delays in the provision of Yahoo!’s services; security breaches; acceptance by users of new products and services; risks related to joint ventures and the integration of acquisitions; risks related to Yahoo!’s international operations; failure to manage growth and diversification; adverse results in litigation, including intellectual property infringement claims and recent derivative and class actions; Yahoo!’s ability to protect its intellectual property and the value of its brands; dependence on key personnel; dependence on third parties for technology, services, content, and distribution; general economic conditions and changes in economic conditions; transition and implementation risks associated with the Search Agreement with Microsoft Corporation; and risks that the benefits of the Framework Agreement Yahoo! entered into with Alibaba Group, Softbank Corporation and certain other parties regarding Alipay may not be realized. All information set forth in this press release is as of May 13, 2012. Yahoo! does not intend, and undertakes no duty, to update this information to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. More information about potential factors that could affect Yahoo!’s business and financial results is included under the captions “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Yahoo!’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2011, as amended, and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2012, which are on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and available at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov . Important Additional Information Yahoo! has filed a preliminary proxy statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) and will be filing a definitive proxy statement with the SEC in connection with the solicitation of proxies for its 2012 annual meeting of shareholders. Shareholders are strongly advised to read Yahoo!’s 2012 definitive proxy statement (including any amendments or supplements thereto) when it becomes available because it will contain important information. Shareholders will be able to obtain copies of Yahoo!’s 2012 proxy statement, any amendments or supplements to the proxy statement, and other documents filed by Yahoo! with the SEC in connection with its 2012 annual meeting of shareholders for no charge at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov . Copies of the proxy materials may also be requested from Yahoo!’s proxy solicitor, Innisfree M&A Incorporated, by telephone at (877) 750-9499 (toll-free) or by email at info@innisfreema.com . Yahoo!, its directors, executive officers and certain employees are deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies from shareholders in connection with Yahoo!’s 2012 annual meeting of shareholders. Information regarding Yahoo!’s directors, executive officers and other persons who, under rules of the SEC, are considered participants in the solicitation of proxies for the 2012 annual meeting of shareholders, including their respective interests by security holdings or otherwise, is set forth in the preliminary proxy statement Yahoo! filed with the SEC on April 27, 2012 and will be set forth in the definitive proxy statement for Yahoo!’s 2012 annual meeting of shareholders when it is filed with the SEC.
Posted in Software Tools Tags: Board, chairman, Industry, Microsoft, nominee, press-release, science, tech, yahoo Comments OffIntel Announces the New Intel® SDK for OpenCL* Applications 2012
In support of the recent announcement of the 3 rd Generation Intel® Core™ Processors , Intel has released the Intel® SDK for OpenCL* Applications 2012. For the first time, OpenCL* developers using Intel® architecture can utilize compute resources across both Intel® Processors and Intel® HD Graphics Driver 4000/2500 From a person who, for the last couple of years has closely followed the emergence of the OpenCL standard, this announcement was something worth waiting for. Less than a year ago, on this blog, I posted the news that the Intel® OpenCL SDK 1.1 gold was released , This was the first production OpenCL implementation from Intel targeting Intel® processors on Windows* OS. This current announcement is special, the Intel SDK for OpenCL Applications 2012 now supports not only the CPU but also the Intel HD Graphics 4000/2500 for Windows* 7 users. We’ve come a long way in a year. OpenCL on the 3 rd Generation Intel® Core Processor Family extends Intel’s line of tools and APIs on Intel platforms and adds interoperability with other graphics APIs like DirectX*, OpenGL* and Intel® Media SDK, directly on the Intel HD Graphics device. So what else is new in this release? A Single OpenCL* platform enables shared context for OpenCL applications running on both the CPU and Intel HD Graphics 4000/2500. The OpenCL platform with both CPU and HD Graphics devices is available seamlessly on the Intel® HD Graphics Drivers . Interoperability with the Intel Media SDK with no memory copy overhead Improved performance for OpenCL applications running on Intel® Xeon® Processors and Intel® Core™ Processors. This CPU support is also available for Linux* OS developers. Intel® SDK for OpenCL* applications development tools includes an offline compiler and a step-by-step OpenCL Kernel debugger (for CPU) integrated in Microsoft Visual Studio* 2010 integrated development environment. 10 OpenCL code samples, three of them new, are now available for independent download. The list above is just a sample of what is available with this new SDK. I recommend you read the product brief or watch the introduction video to get started with this new SDK. Download the SDK for free at www.intel.com/software/opencl and begin optimizing your applications for the 3 rd Generation Intel® Core™ Processors today. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter at @IntelOpenCL
Posted in Software Tools Tags: academic, announcement, game development, Graphics, graphics & media, graphics-driver, Microsoft, News, opencl, parallel programming, permanent-link, Processors, Server, vcsource_product_oclsdk, vcsource_type_event Comments OffGoogle Wins $35 Million U.S. Government Contract Over Microsoft
Google and its partner Onix Networking just won a $35 million contract to run the U.S. Department of the Interior ‘s new cloud-based email and collaboration system. This wasn’t always a sure bet for Google. In 2010, the Department of the Interior awarded Microsoft a $59.3 million contract to run its email and collaboration system. Google and its Ohio-based partner Onix Networking quickly filed a suit to block this contract. In Google’s view, the Interior Department’s procurement process unfairly favored Microsoft and never gave it a fair chance. Google finally withdrew its lawsuit last September after the Department scrapped its plans to use Microsoft’s solution because its original decision was “now stale in light of new developments in technology and entrants into the market.” The arguments between Google and Microsoft got rather heated at one point last summer. Microsoft even alleged that Google falsely advertised that its solution was certified by the General Services Administration for use in government agencies. Once this migration is complete, the Department of the Interior will become the largest major U.S. government agency to switch to Google’s cloud. Other agencies already using Google Apps for Government are NOAA, the GSA, the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and the Idaho National Laboratory . A number of state governments also made the switch to Google’s solution recently . ( Correction : This story previously stated that the DOI is the second agency to switch. It is actually the fifth one. The story now reflects this correction .) This being a government contract, things are obviously not as easy as just moving all the existing mailboxes over to the new system. Instead, this contract gives Google and its partner the right to “demonstrate they can meet the Department’s objectives for an integrated suite of tools and services, information assurance and regulatory compliance.” The actual migration is expected to be done by December 2012. In total, this process will involve the migration of over 90,000 mailboxes away from the Department’s aging systems to Google Apps for Government . Microsoft, of course, was not too happy with this decision and has issued the following statement: Microsoft has a positive, longstanding relationship with the Department of Interior and we are working on a number of enterprise-wide initiatives with the agency. Although we are disappointed by this award, we will engage with our partners and DOI to review and understand the reasons for this decision. Microsoft remains committed to providing our customers with the cloud services that have the performance, security, privacy and other capabilities they expect and deserve.
Posted in Software Tools Tags: Decision, department, government, idaho-national, interior, made-the-switch, Microsoft, Migration, noaa, Performance Comments OffBing Strips Down Results Page To Make Google Look Like “Search Overload”
While Google keeps cramming its search results pages full of tools and social content, today Bing confirmed with me the full roll out a redesigned search results page that completely clears the left sidebar, and replaces the tabbed header with a cleaner set of links. Bing’s Facebook integration is also more subtle now, instead of plastering names and faces beneath Liked results. This more relaxing, dare I say zen, design gives Google a more claustrophobic and exhausting feel by comparison. Microsoft seems to have realized that if it can’t match Google’s algorithmic prowess, it could win with sleek design that doesn’t bombard you with a thousand options. Bing has been testing several of these changes for a few months. Here are the rest of details on redesign that’s supposed to reach everyone by the end of Tuesday if it hasn’t already: Related Searches have been shifted from the now-gone left rail to beneath the ads in the right rail A ‘thumbs up’ icon now indicates that friends have Liked a search result, and you can see who did by hovering over the icon The “narrow by time range” filter formerly in the left rail now only appears if you select the “News” search type from the “More” options Personally, I dig minimalist product design that keeps things focused. If there’s a tool or option I only need sometimes, I’m okay spending an extra click to reveal it. The desktop Internet is brain-frying enough with so many applications and windows and tabs displayed at once. That’s why it seems more people are championing streamlined apps like Path, ad-blockers, and services that strip clutter out of news articles. When faced with a much more established competitor, your only move is to differentiate or die. For a while that meant Bing getting cozy with Facebook and Twitter. It appeared to be working as it surpassed Yahoo in search query volume in January, though the product was still bleeding billions of dollars. But then Google Search went social, sparking controversy and solidifying the public as uncomfortable with personalized results . In fact, Google’s disastrous Search Plus Your World created an opportunity for a clever Bing pivot. Microsoft heard that people were asking for a return to the simple results pages of yesteryear. Today that’s what we got. Now we’ll see if less really is more — more market share for Bing and less for Google, that is. [Image Credits: Old Bing Diesgn Tnooz , Mr. Clean ]
Posted in Software Tools Tags: beneath-the-ads, clean-bing, clears-the-left, facebook, google-search, image-credits, Microsoft, tool-or-option Comments OffDevelopers see multi store monetization models for Ultrabook and mobile
While in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress I was fortunate to attend the WIPJam conference and participate in a round table discussion on app monetization. The discussion was lively, with nearly a dozen developers tossing out their ideas, perspectives and experiences. While I learned a lot, I was unsure if the experiences would hold true outside the session. I decided to run the same discussion with 6 cross platform AppUp developers. The findings were consistent. Below is a summary of what we discussed and discovered based on notes from both sessions. Note – In full transparency the quotes are not exact and based on notes and recollection. Also I have not identified the developers with each quote to keep their anonymity. This is my personal impression of the discussion with approximately 20 developers. Where and how are developers finding monetization success Both groups discussed success, “is anyone making money” was quickly tossed out at WIPJam. In response many developers expressed they are having success, but that it is work. “We are making money, as long as we price the app right and can be found. We do a lot of work get listed and reviewed by sites like Touch Arcade and that helps” said one developer. However concerns were expressed that the average price is being dropped significantly. “Price is an issue, top quality apps are being sold at a sub $5 price.” said one developer. The sentiment is its getting harder to make money by monetizing the download. All agreed they are increasingly looking toward additional revenue models such as In-App purchase features and In-App advertising. There is a strong belief by some that apps are moving to a free model and that you have to monetize in the cloud. Regardless of what monetization model is deployed, developers agree that a “build it and they will come” is not enough anymore. Developers said they have to be shrewd and responsive marketers. During the WIPJam round table there was a lot of discussion on technologies and services that enable real time feedback from users within the app, allowing developers to then target updates, roadmaps and features that have a greater chance of being monetized. Where and how are things difficult for app monetization While many have success with large app stores the worry is discoverability is getting harder, gamed by a few, and a challenge for most. “Publishers who pay for downloads to increase their ranking is a real concern, while it’s not allowed, and you will get booted, it seems to be going on”. Also there is a general consensus that not all stores are equal in terms of monetization. “Is anybody actually making money outside iOS” asked one developer in the WIPJam session. Those who raised their hand explained advertising and In-App purchases were making some headway for them, but in general they are still not where they’d like it to be. However one developer ran against that thinking. “We’re seeing a lot of success with Kindle. We put our app there because we felt the Amazon model lent itself to more of purchase behavior. We are looking to add more monetization and purchase features for our Amazon version because of this” What alternative means are you taking to monetize apps Developers are looking beyond pay to download and In-App purchases. Some developers expressed success in all stores by leveraging existing or traditional transaction channels. “We are making money on all platforms by monetizing SMS features our app and splitting the revenue with the carrier” explained one developer suggesting there is a way to make money if you monetize and existing transaction channels. Another alternative model has been to monetize outside the store. “We are also doing very well across platforms but our model is to use apps as a lead generator to send users to ecommerce websites for purchases.” As with SMS the solution here is to monetize a captive audience by leveraging an external and possibly more palatable transaction channel. Insights and conclusions The conclusion by these developers is the store perception and OS brands are factors for monetization. “Apple has captured a user who likes premium products and is willing to pay for them” said one developer, and another explained that Apple is reaping the benefit of its well established iTunes store, where many consumers already perceive Apple as a marketplace. Developers also expressed store requirements for credit cards are a factor. “If you keep getting that credit card request in front of you each time you want to download an app you are less likely to compete the purchase. Apple has reduced that purchase friction.” A contrast was made against other stores that have captured a more frugal audience, not willing to give hand over purchasing power to a store. “I’m not sure many folks especially in Europe or Asia feel comfortable handing their credit card over” Interestingly, both groups believed the Amazon Kindle model, is more like iOS, than Android marketplace, believing there is existing trust in the Amazon and Apple stores. As one developer put it, “The store is more important than the device” when it comes to monetization. The belief here is the brand that manages that transaction is a bigger part of the equation than they had thought. Thus they need consider these things in terms of planning their apps for distribution. When looking to monetize they suggest putting premium purchases at stores that have an established transactions system with the customer. For stores that are perceived as a “free zone” the recommendation is to leverage advertising, In-App solutions or direct your user to external and more tradition commerce sites that have a purchasing relationship with the user. Looking forward to Ultrabooks In the smaller group session we discussed Ultrabook. It was discussed as we look toward Ultrabook apps, developers will have multiple store solutions. On the OS side Microsoft will have a Metro app store. While this will be the best store to get metro apps, it will not be the only way to get content and applications for Ultrabooks. The Intel AppUp Center will also be a solution for Win8 Desktop and Legacy Windows applications, providing another channel for discoverability across a family of Windows devices. As well AppUp as an affiliate store enables retailers, OEMs and services providers to create store-fronts powered by AppUp. One developer expressed his enthusiasm here. “Discoverability is a huge problem for us, we’d love to see Intel solve this with curation, specialization, or differentiation of apps via AppUp.” Another developer expressed interest in the affiliate model. “The Metro looks to be right up front and center for Win8, so I’d like to see service providers and manufactures preinstall an AppUp affiliate store” The sentiment from this small group is that preinstalled affiliate stores could provide that curation and differentiation of apps to give them exposure on Ultrabooks. Final thoughts Either way developers seem to agree they need to look at the various store solutions and determine the right monetization model for each store. The belief is not every distribution system is perceived by the customer the same way. It is very possible that distinct and discreet monetization models, app marketing, and discoverability plans may need to be deployed in order to maximize a capital return on apps. If you have additional thoughts and experiences please reach out to me on Twitter @bobduffy and or share them by responding in our comments section.
Shasta Ventures Leads $1.6M Round In Enterprise Performance Analytics Startup VoloMetrix
VoloMetrix, an enterprise analytics application that helps businesses streamline their communications and performance, has raised $1.6 million in Series A funding led by Shasta Ventures. VoloMetrix essentially analyzes various business applications to help managers understand what’s going on in a business. Specifically, VoloMetrix ties in with collaborations systems, email, IM and CRMs to pull in data from employees and give managers actionable insights into what works and what doesn’t. VoloMetrix currently support Microsoft Exchange and Google apps, and can tell businesses what the best sales teams doing differently than everyone else when it comes to communications or, how much effort is going into product development. Other areas where the startup’s software dives deep include What topics and activities consume the most organizational time, how indirect people cost can be more accurately allocated to products and across groups and how well aligned resources are to the best customers vs. worst. As CEO and founder Ryan Fuller explains, VoloMetrix doesn’t want to be a big brother type of application. The startup aims to replace the data gathering process that consultants often have to go through in order to help their clients (e.g., tons of interviews, surveys, etc.).
Posted in Software Tools Tags: across-groups, Clients', communications, Data, data-gathering, help-managers, Microsoft, software-dives, startup, tell-businesses, volometrix Comments OffHow The IPO Ruined Google
Editor’s Note: Ian Lurie is CEO of Portent Inc , an internet marketing agency that he founded in 1995. He co-published Web Marketing All-In-One for Dummies , where he wrote the sections on SEO, blogging, social media and web analytics. He also wrote Conversation Marketing: Internet Marketing Strategies. I’m a Google-phile. Or at least, I was. Lately, my gut’s felt a bit wobbly every time someone mentions the big G. Page, Brin and company have lost their focus. Once, they helped us all find the stuff we needed. Now, they spend their time in slap fights with Facebook. It’s almost like the Googlers are no longer in charge at Google. That’s because they’re not. The Google IPO put the company’s fate in the hands of investors. And it’s ruined the company. IPO-bashing is popular right now. But I’m not just jumping on the bandwagon here. The evidence is pretty damning: Pre-IPO, Google was laser-focused on being the best tool on earth for search-and-discovery, and they appeared unstoppable. Post-IPO, the company has lurched from one social media debacle to another. Google’s total victory Google owns search. According to Search Engine Land, Bing still only holds 15% market share. Google? 66%. That’s a mind-boggling lead when you consider the money Microsoft has poured into promoting their search engine. Put an average apartment complex next to the Empire State Building. That’s the difference between Bing and Google. Google has the closest thing to total victory they’re likely to get. The also-rans don’t compete with them—they compete with each other. And everyone’s an also-ran. How Google makes money Google makes its money with their pay-per-click network, Google Adwords. Advertisers purchase clicks, one click at a time, in a modified, keyword-based auction. The Adwords model is brilliant. Correctly implemented, it’s a money-generating machine for everyone involved, including Google. In 2011, Adwords accounted for at least 95% of the company’s income. But it has its limits: In an Adwords model, clicks are your inventory. When you run out of inventory, your revenue stops growing. That’s OK. You can make incremental gains by getting more clicks, and you can get more clicks with better, more ubiquitous search tools. The IPO trap But post-IPO, incremental revenue growth isn’t enough. Stock prices are emotional, and incremental isn’t exciting. If you want shareholders to love you, you have to make them a lot of money. That means dramatically outperforming last quarter’s numbers. In 2011, Google earned $103 million per day. That’s a staggering amount, particularly if you’ve got shareholders clamoring for you to crush your past numbers. To do so, Google will have to find an entire new line of business: A new source of advertising revenue to match Adwords. Or, they’ll have to find a massive new venue in which to place Adwords. Ironically, Google’s penalized by their success: They’re so dominant in search that they must go far, far outside their expertise to maintain their share price. IPOs force a company to forever outperform past results, no matter how miraculous. That’s where Google is, right now: Pushed to surpass total victory in their space, they have to move on to an entirely different one. Suspicious timing Google didn’t attempt to create their own social network until Orkut. That was early 2004, just before they filed for their IPO. At that point, the pressure was already building to find a new way to generate shareholder value. How’d Orkut do? Do you remember it? Didn’t think so. Sidewiki? Failed. Friend Connect? Gone. Google Wave didn’t even get past testing. Now we’ve got Google Plus, which is showing some of the worst engagement numbers of any major social media site. Success is beside the point I think Google Plus has a lot of strengths. It could succeed. But even if it does, the social media red herring so distracts Google from search that the giant will become vulnerable, for the first time. And understand: Search generates Google’s dramatic revenue numbers. Not social media. And make no mistake: Google’s work in social is compromising their search supremacy: They’ve ended their ‘firehose’ agreement with Twitter. That agreement allowed them to deliver near-real-time results from one of the internet’s biggest social networks. Now, they don’t get instant access to Twitter posts. In addition, Google’s started showing Plus posts in search results. That works if Google Plus reaches critical mass, where most Google users are also Plus users. But that’s not currently the case. By stuffing Google Plus posts into search results and excluding Twitter/Facebook results, they’re cutting off two huge content sets, and replacing them with a smaller, less relevant one. That is not good for the relevance of their results. So, even if Google Plus survives and grows, it’s unlikely the benefits to Google will outweigh the costs. And Google wouldn’t be doing this, I think, if not for their shareholders. What’s next? Google is now beholden to shareholders. They can’t change that. What they can do is stop pandering, and start leveraging their greatest strengths: They own two of the largest search engines in the world: Google and YouTube. They know more about information discovery than any of their competitors. They have a dominant e-mail toolset in GMail. They have the biggest information corpus in the world. They have a mountain of cash. It’ll be hard to do. Shareholders get excited about social media, not about a better search tool. But for shareholders and Googlers alike, real success will come from strong, sustainable growth. And that depends more on growing their strengths than struggling against their weaknesses.
Posted in Software Tools Tags: google-plus, googlers, internet-marketing, ipo, Marketing, Microsoft, Orkut, Search, search-engine, search-engines, social, time, world Comments OffHooking Users In 3 Steps
Editor’s Note: Nir Eyal is the founder of two acquired tech startups and an advisor to several Bay Area companies and incubators. Nir blogs at NirAndFar.com . The truly great consumer technology companies of the past 25 years have all had one thing in common: They created habits. This is what separates world-changing businesses from the rest. Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter are used daily by a high proportion of their users and their products are so compelling that many of us struggle to imagine life before they existed. But creating habits is easier said than done. Though I’ve written extensively about behavior engineering and the importance of habits to the future of the web , few resources give entrepreneurs the tools they need to design and measure user habits. It’s not that these techniques don’t exist — in fact, they’re quite familiar to people in all the companies named above. However, to the new entrepreneur, they largely remain a mystery. I’ve learned these methods from some of the best in the business and put together an amalgamation of them that I call “Habit Testing.” It can be used by consumer web companies to build products that users not only love, but are hooked to. Habit Testing Habit Testing fits hand-in-glove with the build, measure, learn methodology espoused by the lean startup movement and offers a new way to make data actionable. Habit Testing helps clarify three things: 1) who your devotees are; 2) what part of your product is habit forming, if any; and 3) why those aspects of your product are habit forming. A prerequisite to Habit Testing is having some kind of product up and running. Of course, before launching even a minimal viable product , it’s a good idea to take a stab at your business model hypotheses and how your product will create user desire . Once you have a site or app live, you can begin collecting data. Habit Testing does not necessitate collecting data about everything — just the right things — so setting up the appropriate analytics is critical. In order for Habit Testing to be successful, you need to date stamp the path users take while using your site. Step 1 — Identity Now that you have the requisite site and stats, you need to answer the first question of Habit Testing: “Who are the habitual users?” First, define what it means to be a devoted user. Ask yourself how often a user “should” use the site. That is to say, assuming that some day all the bugs are worked out and the product is perfectly “lickable,” how often would you expect a habitual user to be on the site? Be realistic and honest. If your company builds a mobile social networking app like Foursquare or Instagram, you’d expect habitual users to be on the app several times per day. However, if you’re building a movie recommendation site, a la Flixster , you wouldn’t expect users to be on the site more than once or twice a week. Don’t come up with an overly aggressive prediction that only accounts for uber-addicts; you’re just looking for a realistic guess to calibrate how often users will interact with your site. A good short-cut might be to take an average of how often you and the people in your office use your own product. Of course, more is better. Twitter was born within Odeo , the company Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey originally founded, because the engineers couldn’t stop playing with it. One thing to note: the more frequently your product is used, the more likely it is to form a user habit. That’s not to say that web products that are used rarely can’t be good business, they just aren’t habit forming and thus have different characteristics. Viable, though non-habit forming businesses tend to be more transactional and require constant outreach to customers to stay top-of mind. For example, think of the travel industry’s relentless war to convince us to use one site over another. Expedia, Travelocity, and the rest, are used too infrequently by their average customers to form a habit, so they constantly compete for attention. These are viable, even profitable companies, but since they are non-habit forming products they are open to greater competitive threat. Products used daily naturally create barriers to entry in their markets. Who’s Got The Habit? Now that you know how often a user “should” be using the site, it’s time to crunch through the numbers and identify how many of your users actually meet that bar. This is where hiring a stats wiz can prove exceedingly helpful. Instead of pulling your engineers away from their crucial jobs building the product or even worse, getting your business people to do it, consider hiring a grad student fluent in statistics to help you quantify how many of your users are hooked. The best practice here is to get create a cohort analysis to provide a baseline by which to measure future product iterations. Step 2 — Codify Hopefully, you’ll have at least a few users who interact frequently enough for you to call them devotees. But how many devotees is enough? My rule of thumb is 5%. Though your rate of active users will need to be much higher to sustain your business , 5% is a good benchmark to being Habit Testing. However, if at least 5% of your users don’t find your product valuable enough to use as much as you predicted they should, you have a problem. It may be time to go back to the drawing board and rework your vision. But assuming you’ve exceeded that bar and you’ve identified your habitual users, the next step is to codify the steps they took using your product so you can understand what hooked them. Each user interacts with your product in a slightly different way. Even if you have a standard user flow, how users engage with your site creates a unique data fingerprint which can be analyzed to find patterns. Sift through the data to determine if there are similar behaviors that emerge. What you’ll hopefully discover is a “Habit Path”, a series of similar behaviors shared by your most loyal users. For example, in its early days, Twitter discovered that once new users followed enough other members, they hit a tipping point which dramatically increased the odds they would keep using the site. Every company has a different set of actions that devoted users take; the goal of finding the Habit Path is to determine which of those steps were critical for creating devoted users. Get In Their Heads Now that you know the Habit Path, the next step is to create hypotheses about what it was along that path that tipped users from passers-bye to devotees. Granted, this step can look a little like assuming causation from correlation; but in the murky fog of launching a new product, it’s often the best thing we’ve got. This phase is also a good time to talk to users in person to learn more about why and how they use the product. Habit Testing is meant to illuminate what is unique about these “earlyvangelists” and find insights that can be generalized to the rest of your users. Step 3 — Modify With new hypotheses in mind, it’s time to get back inside the build, measure, learn loop and take new users down the same Habit Path the devotees took. For example, leveraging their Habit Path, Twitter’s onboarding process now guides new users to start following others immediately. Habit Testing is a continual process companies can implement with every new feature and product iteration. Tracking users by cohort and comparing their activity to habitual users should guide how products evolve, improve, and foster habit formation. Too often tech entrepreneurs find themselves alone with their vision because they fail to realize the importance of creating user habits. And unfortunately, when it comes to consumer web and the ever-increasing distractions we all face daily, if the product doesn’t create a habit, it may as well not exist. By using Habit Testing to determine what is most valuable and habit-forming about a product, entrepreneurs can better serve their users and increase the odds of creating world-changing companies. Josh Elman, Max Ogles, and Mark Williamson collaborated on this essay. Photo credits: Robby Mueller and NirAndFar.com