Steve Jobs - "Flash drains the battery of mobile devices"

Read the full blog from Steve Jobs - 

http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

More thoughts to come on this shortly..

Apple Acquires Siri

With 100,000's of developers making cool apps for your products (and customers) its no real surprise that Apple has acquired another of its IPhone developers. Siri  is a pretty neat personal assistant application (which also works through voice activation).  

I'd first seen this through one of Robert Scoble's posts on twitter 

I guess this gives developers, innovators and entrepreneurs more reason to keep pushing their cool applications out there for these kinds of results.  Not much more info on this as of now, but this could be a talent acquisition for some of apples ipad voice integration plans, of course, this is just speculation, but interesting none the less.

Alan Wake - A Gamechanger? (Video)

Splinter Cell Text In To Get More Weapons

In the USA, Ubisoft, the developer and publisher of the popular console franchise that is the Splinter Cell series.

The company used Twitter, Facebook and e-mail lists to promote the campaign, promising the in-game weapon to players who would text “WEAPON” to 44144*. When a player complied, he or she subscribed to the mobile marketing list and was given a code to unlock the item in the game. 

Ubisoft saw its mobile subscriptions triple after the promotion went live, and it’s planning to try to repeat its success with the upcoming Prince of Persia game.

Still Think Your Business Doesn't Need Facebook Presence?

As the saying goes, a picture tells a thousand words...

5 Things You Need For A Successful Social Strategy

Character. Most organizations have no character, in the traditional sense of the word. They'll never stand up for what's right, noble, or true. If they were a hyper-Dickens character, they'd be Ebenezer Scrooge squared. The character strategy utilizes social tools to help an organisations develop a moral compass, often via ethical accelerators. 

Control. Most organizations are run by bosses. By contrast, an organization with a social control strategy radically decentralizes decision-making, giving the control that was formerly vested in echelons upon echelons of managers directly to people, communities, and society. 

Creativity. Most organizations are, from an economic perspective, brain-dead: they are unable to come up with newer, better ideas consistently and reliably. The result is that they defend old ones tooth and nail: a formidable source of antisocial behavior. The creativity strategy hinges on utilizing social tools to explode how imaginative organizations are. Lego's social approach to toy production and consumption has turned the table on its rivals, by giving Lego the capacity to be more imaginative than they can be.

Culture. Culture is how an organization makes sense of the world, a set of assumptions internalized by all its members. Most organizations are the cultural equivalent of stone age tribes: focused on "the hunt," "the kill," and what's for dinner today. Like stone age tribes, they're fractious, unproductive, and easily broken. In the culture strategy, social tools are used to help an organization make better sense of the world. Accountability, roles, tasks, processes, incentives — that's what shapes culture, and in the culture strategy, social tools are utilized to reconceive them.

Clarity. The clarity strategy is perhaps the simplest. Most organizations are flying blind: they have limited visibility about changes in the marketplace. Social tools are a powerful way to gain clarity: better, faster information about what's happening not just in the boardroom, but in the real world. 

Levi's Social Shopping (Video)

Buying Apple Products or Apple Stock?

A very neat table by Kyle Conroy shows just what you could have made if you had bought shares in apple instead of (the same amount) on their products.

Theres a snap shot of the table below, but you can view the whole thing here.

Social Media Is Not The Conversation

Social media is not a way to spread your people thinner. Your people are already spread so thin that I bet they're not getting all they need done.

It's not a low-budget sales force, or a way one person can do the job of three. In other words, it's not the answer to all your prayers. If you're at the point of praying, then the business model is the one needing help.

Social media is a tool, just like the telephone is. It's not even marketing -- in the traditional sense, marketing is dead.

What social media does is simply allow you to do one thing: communicate. That's it. 


Social media is not the conversation. It's the room in which you hold the conversation. It still comes down to saying, doing, or producing something valuable for your customer. 


Social Business is managing customer relations, after care, transactions and everything else involved with doing business today. 


Companies which forget this will simply throw money down the social media hole. Companies that get it will find social media a valuable tool -- if they they are prepared to stick it out and learn how it works.

Who says business has changed? It has not. 


Fundamentally, business is still all about people, products and services.

TV and Social Networks - Why Does It Work?

Signs of the internet combining with traditional TV have been emerging for quite some time with sites like Hulu (US) and CatchupTV (UK). This past autumn, Fox experimented with live tweeting during episodes of Fringe and Glee called "Tweet-peats." Today, TV viewers and the digerati can enjoy the best of the best of both worlds to an even greater extent when social networking and online TV  merges on the same platform - with a new social media application called "Strictly Social."

First introduced with the BBC's version of The Apprentice, viewers could visit the TV show's online microsite and predict which candidates would 'get the point of doom' at the end of each episode.

The BBC's Apprentice
This year's the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing series – which can be viewed live on the BBC website –Judge the Judges have moved the needle further to elicit greater interaction with the viewing audience. The Strictly Social website allows fans to predict judges' scores, post their text comments in a real-time chat box and answer quiz questions pertaining to the show.



Viewers can also post positive or negative critiques with a simple "wow," "boo" or "gasp" and a widget will aggregate the consensus and display the critique words in small-to-large font sizes dependent on the results of the vote.

"As far as we're concerned now, social media is part of what people do Jo Twisteveryday and social viewing is part of our wider strategy for entertainment," says Jo Twist, BBC multi-platform commissioner for entertainment and BBC Switch. Like others in the entertainment space, Twist is focusing on the "fan" element to drive interaction.




"The older traditional TV audience is not all on Twitter or Facebook, but they might want to do something like Strictly Social which is part of their normal sofa experience," says Twist.

US Audiences can join in as well, by registering 30 minutes prior to the the show's start (approximately 12 Noon ET on Saturdays (1800 hours in the UK), and the the interaction continues for 15 minutes after Strictly Come Dancing finishes on TV. Viewers can read about this season's cast members and learn the results of previous episodes, at the show's Web site.

How To Share Iphone Apps

Obviously, there's an App for that - and it's called "AppSnap"

How it works

By taking a picture of the applications icon.

Basically, Appsnap is just a camera app with a lens zoomed into Apples App Store.  All you have to do is take a photo of the App in question (and line it up as directed) and AppSnap will scan it and return a list of matching apps (which when I tried it out worked really well).  Users can then share the app via email, Twitter or Facebook or install it for themselves.

Why?

Well, the lazy ones amongst us can now just snap to send or download without thinking about complicated ITunes URLS to bog you down.  The future might make collecting Apps as you browse online reviews a much easier task.

Cost $1.99 - available now

WOW! Low Prices - New Staples Ad

5 Reasons Apples iAD Will Change The Way You Advertise

Before I start on this posting, I want you to know that I'm not biast towards apple.  Sure they make super cool stuff, that looks nice and 'just works' but I have a PC and a mac (well a few of each) and still love my sony vaio stuff, so you can be sure of an unbiased summary here before I start.

One week ago, Apple announced a mobile advertising platform that it will launch alongside the iPhone's new OS 4.0 software this summer. Dubbed iAd, it will integrate interactive, rich media ads into iPhone, iPod touch and iPad apps. Apple will host and sell the ads, giving the app developers 60 percent of the profits.

You don't have to be in the business of developing iPhone or iPad apps to benefit from this program, though. Apple claims that there will be one billion ad opportunities per day, and it shouldn't be a surprise that iPhone and iPad owners are in a demographic sweet spot.

So, how will it change things - lets see...

1. More Consumers Will Experience Your Ads

While most mobile ads require a viewer to leave the app he or she is using — discouraging them from clicking to begin with — iAds operate within the app. They can be customized with interactive content, downloads, videos, and other draws, but they won't impede a consumer's task.

Here's the pitch: Because of the value added by the interactive and rich media features, and because the consumers can easily get back to what they were doing at any time, those consumers could potentially, be much more likely to choose to investigate your ads to see what you have to offer.

2. iAds Will Guide Consumers Straight to Your Product

Let's say a consumer chooses to look at your ad, and they like the message you're sending. When that consumer chooses to buy your product, iAds will provide an easy path for the user to take them straight to the purchase of the goods or services you're offering.

In the past, mobile ads would direct interested users to a Web site to make a purchase; that's usually slow and unwieldy even on an advanced smartphone. iAds will let you sell things from within the ad without confusing or interrupting the user; you won't even have to make him or her wait. And if your business is retail or local, the app can use the iPhone's GPS and maps features to direct a consumer to your nearest location.  Nice - this has already got me thinking!

3. Consumers Will Be Engaged on an Emotional Level

If you're a practically-minded businessperson, this one might not capture your fancy at first glance — but it should. Television ads are still the most popular medium for big brands because they can provoke an emotional response. Great advertising is about more than sharing raw information.

That wasn't possible on mobile ads before, but iAds can include games, videos, copy and images that connect with the consumer on a deeper level. The results could be greater brand loyalty, more engagement and increased sales.

4. There Will Be Opportunities for Business of All Shapes and Sizes

As Apple's television commercials often say, there's an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch app for just about everything. There are apps tailored to specific interests, age groups, ethnic identities and locations. The thousands of apps in the Apple App Store represent thousands of unique opportunities to reach exactly the demographics and numbers that are appropriate for your business.

For example, businesses spend hundreds of thousands of pounds to advertise in the public transport spaces within cities like London or Manchester or New York. But many of the tech-savvy pedestrians who use Chicago's El trains or New York's subways use iPhone apps to plan train routes and track arrival times. You could advertise for your Chicago or New York business by advertising in the trip planner apps in addition to, or instead of the trains.  Cool!

5. iAds Are Easy and Cheap to Produce

iAds are made with the new HTML5 scripting language, a new rival to Adobe Flash, based on the same language that's used to make web pages. HTML5 is much easier and cheaper to work with than an advanced development language like C++, which is used to make native iPhone apps from scratch. 

20 Ideas For Content That Create Buzz

Social Business Today, is now just a tiny 2 days old, and we're already posting some fantastic content into the site.  I've been meaning to write so much of this down over the last few months that this is really a great outlet for me to provide lots of valuable resources for 2 reasons.  One, for you! and Two for me! 

So, here are 20 ideas for content within your blog or site that can generate interest and buzz.  Some are simple, some you'll know - but it's a good reminder, and good practice to be reminded of good things!

1) Share good ideas!

2) Give away secrets and tips to help others become more effective.

3) Make your information real.  Include examples and real life occurrences - people learn in different ways.

4) Keep up to date with future trends and technology and talk about YOUR perspective.

5) Be Visual, include video, photos, images and drawings if needed.

6) Write something that is unusual or unexpected but is still relevant to your business.

7) Start a series.  Write a series of blogs and content to keep people interested and coming back for more.

8) Answer questions from readers, comments or customers.

9) Make a list of tips that your customers have found useful from using your product or service.

10) Include guest posts from people you admire or up and coming writers.

11) Ask really good questions.

12) Allow your readers to suggest content creation and future blog posts.

13) Package your best content so it is available in other formats.

14) Lead the news in your industry.  Write about it, break it and enjoy it.

15) Give people a tutorial (video/images or just text) on how to do something new.

16) Think differently - and push yourself to write differently about your content and your subject.

17) Find new angles to current stories.

18) Provide your content (through widgets) for other people to include on their sites.

19) Talk to people on Twitter.  Don't just feed content across twitter, engage in conversations.

20) Make your passion breathe through your content.

Funniest Pre Election Photo So Far

Funniest election picture so far (by photographer Michael Schofield via his FB page) -http://ow.ly/i/1g5M

Visual Twitter Tool: Revisit

1000's of apps and add on's have been created for twitter over the last 18 months, but if you're looking for something to show off your twitter network in a much more visual way then Revisit  is a fantastic tool for you.


As stated on Revisit 's site - Revist is " real-time visualization of the latest twitter messages (tweets) around a specific topic. Use it create your own twitter wall at a conference or an ambient display at your company or whatever other idea you come up with. In contrast to other twitterwalls, it provides a sense of the temporal dynamics in the twitter stream, and emphasizes the conversational threads established by retweets and @replies"


We just think it looks great! - and another tool to show your boss in another way how people could be talking about your product or service.

5 Tips To Get More Connections On LinkedIn

Are you desperately trying to connect with more people on Linkedin?  Well here are 5 tips to gain more connections.

1) Answer questions.  Definitely an under utilised part of Linkedin at the moment, but a great way to build up credibility and respect in your particular business field.  Simply go to the answers section type in the kind of questions or key words you are interested in and jump in.  Make sure you try and cover (both most concise and informative) everything asked in the question, include links, images and as much data as you like to back your answer up.

2) Join Groups.  Research people within your industry and see what groups they are involved with, join groups you like the sound of, and again fit the background of your professional career.

3) Don't just join groups, get involved in discussions within groups.  This kinda goes back to part one, becoming an authority and more respected within your industry by answering questions, getting involved in discussions and starting new debates within the groups you have selected.  You can join up to 50 groups (including subgroups too) so there are plenty of opportunities to get your voice out, and get valuable feedback.

4) Create a group.  If you have your own business, or are a sole trader or even just work within a specific industry, create your own group that you feel doesn't exist on LinkedIn today, and invite your connections to get involved and get started.

5) Reference the other social platforms you communicate with on your profile.  Include things like your blog, twitter, facebook profile or any other information you'd like to include.  This gives people more of an insight into you before making a connection with you.

I'm also in the middle of writing a new article on Facebook professional profiles and how they can work for your business too.  

LinkedIn is a great place to hang out and get new contacts - use it wisely and you can really make it work for you too.


Want to join our LinkedIn group? Simply click here and introduce yourself

How To: Add "Like" Features To Your Site

I've already written about how other sites are implementing these new features

from Facebook to other websites.but now its about time you started adding it 

to your site/blog/campaign too. 

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/activity

Simply click the link above to get started.