19 new stories on The Next Web today |  |
- Shipments of NFC-enabled smartphones to quadruple by 2014 [TNW Mobile]
- Julian Assange sees himself as “A martyr without dying” [TNW Media]
- Google overtakes Facebook as it becomes Opera’s most popular mobile website [TNW Mobile]
- Motorola teases Honeycomb tablet ahead of its CES unveiling [TNW Mobile]
- Google reaffirms Nexus One Gingerbread OTA update will happen “in the coming weeks” [TNW Mobile]
- The Palm Pre 2 Comes to Canada [TNW Canada]
- Memolane: Your social media actions become a slick timeline of memories [Invites] [TNW Apps]
- Needium: Helping businesses make money from Social Media [TNW Apps]
- The Next Web Podcast, Episode 38: Six Loco [The Next Web]
- Bell Canada violates do-not-call list; fined $1.3 million [TNW Canada]
- Bing sponsors three new mobile apps, forgets that Windows Phone 7 exists [TNW Microsoft]
- Traktor Duo: Have an aspiring DJ on your list? Get them playing, for cheap. [TNW Apps]
- The Coconatch Robot Brings Twitter Notifications To Life [The Next Web]
- Opportunities and challenges for e-commerce in 2011 [TNW Social Media]
- KILTR, like LinkedIn but for Scottish people and their mates [TNW Apps]
- Telus offers free taxi rides to Canadians until December 25th [TNW Canada]
- Sleep is Awesome. [TNW Lifehacks]
- Afternoon brain booster: Try Knoword [TNW Apps]
- The official Kinect drivers have dropped for both Windows and Ubuntu [TNW Microsoft]
- The New York Observer partners with Scoop St., a NYC deals site for the holidays [TNW Media]
| Shipments of NFC-enabled smartphones to quadruple by 2014 [TNW Mobile] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 03:25 AM PST
iSuppli predicts that 52.6 million NFC-capable phones will have shipped in 2010, with adoption increasing in the coming years by way of support by mobile giants Nokia and Google. It is thought that in 2014, 13% of mobile phones will ship with NFC technology. Nokia recently announced that Near Field Communication (NFC) support would be incorporated into all of its new smartphones released in 2011, US mobile operators Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile combined to develop a payment system based around NFC and Google recently launched its latest Android update which powers the new Nexus S smartphone, a collaboration between Samsung and the search giant. NFC is a versatile technology, it allows companies to integrate security solutions in restricted-access buildings, meaning employees can use their phone to get into secure offices or even use them in hotels or apartments to open doors. Coca-Cola recently announced it would be making its vending machines NFC-enabled. Business cards can be wirelessly exchanged, information downloaded from NFC-enabled media and posters, even initiating setup for other wireless standards like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.Image Credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Julian Assange sees himself as “A martyr without dying” [TNW Media] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 03:18 AM PST
Speaking from the mansion in south east England that he is forced to stay at under the terms of his bail (or “Hi-tech house arrest”, as he described it in the interview), Assange discussed what WikiLeaks had achieved and how he sees himself. It appears he views himself as a martyr and is still perfectly happy with himself and the actions he’s taken following his recent jail time. Here are some choice quotes from the interview: On what WikiLeaks has achieved:
On suggestions that ‘Cablegate’ is mainly nothing but simply gossip:
On suggestions that some of the Cables were highly dangerous to release:
Assange says the leaks have not been obtained illegally.
Assange on his view of himself:
Also during the interview, Assange discussed the allegations of sexual misconduct by two women in Sweden that led to his arrest. He accused the Swedish prosecution team of “Deliberately, illegally and selectively taking bits of its material and giving them to newspapers… That is an abuse of power.” Assange said he believes that the case against him will be exposed as false and it will eventually be “helpful” to the WikiLeaks cause as it will show people that there is a conspiracy against him. “People will start to see what is really going on.” Perhaps the most revealing quote of all came towards the end of the interview where he appears to cast himself as “A martyr without dying”.
It seems that whatever happens next to Assange, he’ll be happy with what he’s achieved. If you’re in the UK (or an ex-pat with the right software) you can listen to the interview for the next seven days here.Image source [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Google overtakes Facebook as it becomes Opera’s most popular mobile website [TNW Mobile] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 01:51 AM PST
Opera’s findings show that Google is the most popular destination for the 80 million Opera Mini users, snatching top spot from Facebook, which ranked top in 2009. Twitter grew once again, rising eight places to rank 13th as Russian websites dominated the top 10 listings for the most visited websites in November. In all, four Russian web portals ranked within the top 10; Vkontakte.ru, Odnoklassniki.ru, Yandex.ru and Mail.ru. Yahoo rose two places to rank seventh, demonstrating that mobile users are using their handsets to search the internet on the go. The majority of Opera’s 80 million users are Nokia users, the Finnish mobile manufacturer accounting for nine of the top ten most used devices in November 2010. Nokia’s 5130 XpressMusic gained one place to top the charts, with Apple’s iPhone holidng fifth spot. Opera Mini was approved by Apple in April and enjoyed immediate success, topping 1 million iPhone and iPod Touch downloads on launch day alone. November saw growth in three categories in November 2010: unique users, pageviews and bandwidth consumed all increased significantly. In November, Opera Mini was used by 80 million people, 44.6 billion pages were served and 6.3 petabytes of mobile data was compressed and consumed by Opera’s servers. The full report can be found by clicking here. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Motorola teases Honeycomb tablet ahead of its CES unveiling [TNW Mobile] Posted: 21 Dec 2010 12:51 AM PST
With the Consumer Electronics Show less than three weeks away, Motorola’s marketing department has upped the ante and suggests we will be seeing the very same tablet demonstrated by Andy Rubin at the D: Dive Into Mobile conference at the start of December. Motorola’s new 10-inch tablet, powered by a Tegra 2 processor and running Google’s tablet-specific Honeycomb Android operating system – we can’t wait. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Google reaffirms Nexus One Gingerbread OTA update will happen “in the coming weeks” [TNW Mobile] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 11:42 PM PST
Ever since Google launched its latest version of the Android operating system, Nexus One owners have been jumping up and down demanding to know when their vanilla Android devices will receive the Gingerbread goodness. As the Nexus S’ predecessor, Google supports all Nexus One software updates, removing operator indecisiveness completely and ensuring Nexus One owners often have the updates before anyone else.
The tweet doesn’t necessarily tell us something we don’t already know, Google told us when Gingerbread launched that updates would begin to roll out via over the air updates in the weeks following the launch, this tweet reaffirms that announcement. The Gingerbread update is of course an official release by Google. If you are impatient and want to see what all the fuss is about, you should be able to pick up one of the AOSP Gingerbread updates that many developers are releasing via XDA Developers forums and via third-party ROM developers like Cyanogen, Oxygen and Modaco. This route, however, brings its own risks. The official update will be delivered over the air, we suggest you wait for that.PocketNow, Image Credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| The Palm Pre 2 Comes to Canada [TNW Canada] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 08:37 PM PST
Although Rogers has yet to post the newest Pre on its site, it is currently being offered for $99 on a 3 year contact starting today. The pre 2 can also be purchased outright from Rogers without a contract for $399. Back in October, we reported that Palm's mobile operating system was rebranded to become HP webOS 2.0 along with posting the launch dates across the world. It was first reported (in October) that HP had plans to release the new Palm Pre 2 in France, North America and the UK over the next few months. However, it didn't turn out so well for people living in the UK, who later found out it wouldn't be coming 3 days after the initial post. After searching the Rogers site and finding nothing on the Pre 2, we called Rogers just to make sure. As expected, the rep had no idea what a Palm Pre was but he was able to find it in the system and told us it's available and ready to ship. Specs: Dual-band UMTS/HSDPA (850/1900 MHz)Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Memolane: Your social media actions become a slick timeline of memories [Invites] [TNW Apps] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 07:48 PM PST
Obviously, we really care about the memories that we create. As our society as a whole moves more online, we’re documenting these events of our lives across social media sites. Facebook understands this, as evidenced by the accidental launch of Facebook Memories. Foursquare even “gets it”, and has recently introduced a History service. While the basis is the same — allow access to your profiles, the site gathers information and then displays it for you — the exexcution is beautiful, and the value-added features of being able to create stories with friends really sets it apart. So, what are the services? How’s this for a list:
While that’s an arguably messy combination of social services, Memolane does an admirable job of keeping the information looking tidy, even with the newly-released feature of YouTube memories.
Across the top is your detailed timeline, showing social things that you posted on that day. As you can see in the shot above, I took a trip to the Winter Music Conference in 2009 and Memolane archived the whole thing. Did more than one thing in a day? Those will be listed vertically, while the horizontal scroll moves through your timeline. Typically speaking, you’ll want to navigate through Memolane by a click-and-drag function moving left to right. However, there are keyboard shortcuts if you are so inclined:
The last thing to talk about then is Stories. First off, you need to know what a Story is. Here’s the description from the site:
Combining information from your own timeline into a story is incredibly easy. To start, you’ll just give your Story a name, add some contributors and then the rest somewhat falls into place. Privacy is turned on, by default, so you’ll need to change that if you want to tell your story to the world. The end result? Pretty darned impressive. In only a few minutes, I was able to combine a couple of friends’ timelines with my own to get a better look at that trip to Miami. Here’s the rub — Memolane is in a private beta right now. If you want in, you’ll need an invitation code. Luckily, your friends here at TNW have gotten together with the Memolane crew to provide the first 1,000 people access to their memories with this code:
Just head to the signup page, enter your information with that code and you’ll be halfway to reliving the best times of your life. Or, at least the ones that you put on Facebook. So head over, sign up and then link your public timelines in our comments below. Want to get behind the scenes? Robert Scoble sat down with part of the Memolane team and got the inside scoop: [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Needium: Helping businesses make money from Social Media [TNW Apps] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 06:15 PM PST
Small to medium sized business' have different goals for their social media accounts, but generally speaking, people commonly want their social media accounts to do two things; monitor what people are saying about their brand and convert new customers. And Needium targets both. Needium offers a SMB's (small to medium sized business) a solution to manage business opportunities and talk with customers while keeping an eye on any mentions of the brand's name. Needium's dashboard (web app) gives business owners a series of tools including a way to find business opportunities on social networks like Twitter. As an example, if you owned a restaurant in Toronto, you'd receive a ‘business opportunity’ when someone tweets "I'm looking for a good restaurant in Toronto". Within the dashboard, a restaurant owner could then say something like "We're located in Toronto and we have great food" The dashboard looks similar to a desktop Twitter app however they claim it monitors “all social media sites individually”, we’re assuming this means multiple social media sites are streamed within their web-app. If it does manage multiple sites, that would be one of the cooler things about this service. Aside from the opportunity finder we mentioned, within the dashboard, merchants can also have conversations with customers through Twitter.
No time to attract new customers or use the dashboard? Needium also offers a fully-managed solution. If you choose to go this route, for an additional charge, Needium will seek out opportunities to sell and will engage your customers for you. The Needium service is currently only available in selected cities and the pricing starts at $100/month. Selected cities include; Boston, Montreal, Calgary, London (UK), San Francisco, Moncton, Austin and Paris. Aside from services like Needium, there are tons of other "free" tools to assist companies in their social media adventures. Twitter, recently launched a new guide to help companies ensure their campaigns on Twitter are successful. And, you could potentially create your own Needium-esque dashboard by using a Twitter client such as TweetDeck. By using TweetDeck, users can add columns for searched words like "your brand name" or any key opportunity words and phrases that are relevant to your business or industry. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| The Next Web Podcast, Episode 38: Six Loco [The Next Web] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 03:14 PM PST Array
This is the week where everything changes. OK, not everything, but some things do. What changes? How about the fact that we’re not only covering tech news now, but we’re also talking about why it matters. Because let’s face it, you can read tech news anywhere. You want insight? You need to listen in here.
On this week’s show: Brad McCarty (Nashville), Alex Wilhelm (Chicago), Matt Brian (Essex), Michael Backes (Hamburg), Martin Bryant (Manchester), Hermione Way (San Francisco) Download / Listen:
Twitter Launches Revamped Guide For Businesses Nearly half of all Twitter users don't read a word you say LinkedIn reveals most overused buzzwords in user profiles [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Bell Canada violates do-not-call list; fined $1.3 million [TNW Canada] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 03:13 PM PST
A few years back, the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) began to enforce the do-not-call list as a way for Canadian residents to opt-out of receiving calls by annoying telemarketers. The program allows Canadians to register both land line and cell phone numbers, and after 31 days the numbers 'should' be removed from telemarketing lists. However, between January and October of this year, Bell made calls to over 7 million Canadian homes through third-party telemarketers. The funny thing is, Bell Canada was calling people within their own internal do-not-call list and apparently they govern the entire do-not-call program. Bell Canada is also getting slapped with $266,000 in fines after being caught calling Bell Mobility pre-paid customers using an automated calling device without prior consent. A fee that Bell Canada will be paying to the Institute for Information at Concordia University.
[Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Bing sponsors three new mobile apps, forgets that Windows Phone 7 exists [TNW Microsoft] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 02:39 PM PST
It may make you smile to know that each of the three applications are worthy of checking out. The two applications for iOS are a snowboarding game and a boat racing application. The Android application, called “Holiday 100 by Bing,” is a musical app that streams music to you until Jan 2 2011. Tom Warren of WinRumors took video of the games in action, if you are so inclined. They are all free, of course. However, in the response section of the Bing blog post there were a number of comments from disgruntled Windows Phone 7 owners who were slightly put out that no WP7 apps were included in the mix:
Too harsh? We reached out to Microsoft and asked about the situation, and while they did not have a direct comment for us on the matter, they did point us to the blog post that Bing put out when the company began sponsoring applications (there had been a broken link on the page). Bing has worked with developers to reduce the price of their applications with Bing sponsorship, which in turn boosted Bing. Given that these partnerships take time, I suspect that Bing has some similar deals on the way for WP7, but that they are not finalized. For now, Bing seems to be merely continuing their old strategy publicly. Though, they could have anticipated the criticism and headed it off. Either way, if you use an iPhone or an Android handset, you have some new goodies to play with. Top Image Credit, Via WinRumors [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Traktor Duo: Have an aspiring DJ on your list? Get them playing, for cheap. [TNW Apps] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 02:08 PM PST
What, then, should a budding DJ or even music fanatic do? There are a lot of options out there, and we’ll talk about quite a few of them. But one that absolutely needs to be on your radar is the Traktor Duo system from Native Instruments. NI [Native Instruments] has been around for a long time. The company has learned some hard lessons over the years and has come out smelling like roses. In a market where DJ software runs the gamut from free to “OH MY GOD” expensive, NI has found a great niche selling quality software at a price that won’t break your bank. Traktor Duo is the entry-level offering from NI. It’s, simply, an installed software MP3 player for the Windows or OS X platform that will allow you to adjust speed, add effects, play with filters and mix music all in real time. So what’s inside? Let’s take a look:
This is the basic interface of Traktor Duo. When you first load the software, then point it to a directory where you store your music, this is what you’ll see. Of course, you can choose to show or hide nearly any section of this screen, and resize it to your liking. But for this purpose, we’ll just have you look at what it is out of the box. Up top, you see two “decks”, left and right. Each one plays a track. Within each deck, you have options to match their tempo, add cue (starting) points, adjust the mapping (where the beats show up, in a track) and more. So, load up a track in the left side and, as long as y0u’ve spent a few seconds mapping out your tracks correctly, you can choose to Sync the right side and the tracks will play with the beats matching each other.
Organization of your tracks, in the bottom pane, is really simple. You can choose any number of features by which you want to sort, add and remove data at any time and add or remove any number of display options. The left side serves somewhat like a collection of crates, by which you can organize playlists, explore your files and check history. Traktor Duo handles a wealth of formats: MP3, WAV, AIFF, Audio-CD, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, non-DRM WMA (when running in Windows) and non-DRM AAC. That means that pretty much anything in your existing collection is now able to be played, manipulated and tweaked to your ear’s content. What’s it feel like? Honestly, it feels a lot like what you’d be doing if you were playing records, just without the records. Though almost everything is controlled by mouse or button push, the premise is still the same. You load a track, wait for the appropriate time to start it, then let it roll while tweaking the sound with the effects. Traktor Duo is fluid, snappy and solid. The software has never once felt like it was on the edge of a crash and I’ve never had issues with latency even on older, lower-powered computers. Now, is this the best way to learn how to DJ? Not really. Ideally speaking, every DJ would be able to mix tracks by their ears only, without visual cues. But, as I said before, that era is closing quickly. So, if you’ve got a visual learner on your hands, Traktor Duo is an inexpensive way to get them playing, while learning the ins and outs of what makes a mix sound good or bad.
Want an even better deal? Traktor Duo normally runs $119 as well. Right now, there’s a 50-percent discount happening, so you can pick up the Audio 2 DJ plus Traktor Duo for less than $200 combined. If you’re asking my opinion, that’s a pretty solid setup for the beginner DJ, for way less money than you’d ever have been able to pay in the past. Kudos to NI for the half-off deal, and for seeing the way that DJ’ing is changing. Have more in-depth questions? I’ve been a Traktor Scratch Pro user for almost 2 years. Fire away and I’ll answer anything I can. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| The Coconatch Robot Brings Twitter Notifications To Life [The Next Web] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 01:58 PM PST
These little robots work via USB and will burst into dance after receiving a new message from its unique email address. This means you'll need to direct Twitter notifications to Coconatch's email address, and we're assuming it also means users aren't limited to just Twitter notifications–it appears that any new email will cause the robot to get groovy. If indeed all new emails are supported, users could potentially use Coconatch to work with any social network as long as the network's updates are being directed to the robot's email address. Hopefully we'll see them add a few new enhancements to help users differentiate between emails, possibly by displaying different colours and dances for various networks. The LED lights within the robot are currently capable of changing colours based on the context of a tweet, likely searching for keywords and expressions such as smiley faces. These tiny Coconatch robots are available from Japan for about $65. Sorry Mac users, from what we've seen on the site, the Coconatch software seems to only be available for Windows. And, it’s way cooler than this Twitter Monkey. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Opportunities and challenges for e-commerce in 2011 [TNW Social Media] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 01:22 PM PST
The evolution of traditional commerce to social commerce for small, mainstream and luxury brands has made its baby steps in this past year, but seems to be growing at an impressive rate. Customer experience is personalized and customers themselves are the new media outlets. Although we've seen the retail landscape change drastically in 2010, it seems like, with the fast growth of mobile and the deep influence of emerging technologies in our day to day lives, that what we've witnessed so far is merely a preview of the exponential changes that await us. According to a recent report by L2ThinkTank on GenY affluents' digital habits: 63% use social media to engage with brands, more than 50% say that Facebook, blogs, and brand videos affect their opinions about products, while websites are as influential as physical stores in shaping Gen Y sentiment, second only to friends' opinions. So what trends and challenges lie ahead? Avoiding the Old Media trap: Social Media offer an amazing opportunity to listen to customers and engage with them, building strong relationships. In order to do that though, companies need to adapt their culture to the spirit of conversation in Social Media, as traditional marketing tactics won't cut it anymore. After all, there is no point in buying a Ferrari if you intend to drive it like a Matiz. No matter how innovative a communication platform is, it is nothing but a tool, waiting to be utilized. Social Media acts like a Swiss army knife of communication tools, but it won't change your business if you use them solely as a loudspeaker to promote your products and offers. Having sponsored celebrity tweets or payed blog posts raving about awesome products is not that much different from a print advertorial campaign. The challenge, apart from listening and learning about your customers, is to find creative ways to engage online creators, like DKNY did with #CozyStyleOff breakfast, where 15 influential fashion tweeters like fashionista_com, nitro_licious, and YuliZ participated in a style competition. The concept was to give them access to the entire store in order to create a head-to-toe look that incorporated DKNY's "Cozy" cardigan wrap sweater. Photos of the completed looks were posted on DKNY's Facebook page and a week's "likes" showed the winner of two shopping sprees. Another example is the 4AM Finds at Alice + Olivia’s e-shop, a column where they ask people like Jack Dorsey to curate their own set of finds. Will social escape the traditional media fate in the coming year? Providing a unified shopping experience: Social commerce integrates social media into e-retail sites and adds e-commerce functionality to social networks. We often see one of these two happening, but not very often both. For instance Levi's has integrated Facebook into the Friend's store but doesn't have a Facebook store, (referred to as F-store), while JCPenney has a fully functionable F-store, but hasn't integrated Facebook connect on its e-shop. E-tailers have also been experimenting with alternative platforms to market and sell their products, like Tumblr and YouTube. Taking into account that multichannel shoppers spend 82% more in each transaction than those who only shop in store, retailers face the challenge of achieving the same feel in each one of these facets of the customer's experience, by using single logins (not having to login and out every time they change a shopping channel), providing great customer service, fast checkout and customized payment pages. Privacy: It's true that Facebook's constantly changing privacy rules and instant sharing through mobile has made people, especially younger generations, more open to sharing, but privacy still matters to most, with more than 71% of social networking users ages 18-29 changing their privacy settings to limit what they share with others online. The latest hacking wars with high profiled victims like Gawker Media, McDonald’s and Mastercard, as well as accidents like the Blippy "leak" of credit card numbers on Google, have only raised more concern over personal data safety. Trust over customer's data will be hard to gain and retain over 2011, the more information focused brands ask customers to share through social features. Provide your customers with a well written and easy to comprehend privacy policy, so they know what they share and with whom, and privacy options so they can opt-out from sharing certain levels of private information. Information wars will be a hot topic in 2011 with multinational brands taking the heat, so be prepared. Customer Engagement: As social networks supersize, brands will need to find ways to rise above the noise and keep an ongoing dialog with their customers. The plethora of social networks will not only confuse the consumer, but also the e-retailer. Brands will have to monitor social media platforms and define which ones fit their message best, as a lot of them with drastically different philosophies seem to thrive equally in popularity. For instance group bartering Groupon, and exclusive Gilt Groupe target different demographics but both do exceedingly well. A trend that soared in 2010 are flash sales, limited time offers and pop up stores, for which the real time feeds of social media seem to be the perfect match, like in the form of pop-up F-stores. Also e-retailers need to provide their online fans with exclusive access to unique content like Michael Kors has done on Facebook, by producing click-and-shop videos for the holiday shopping. Mobile Commerce: As competition heats up in the smartphones and tablets market, mobile commmerce is getting a bigger piece of sales. eBay has emerged as a leader in mobile commerce for 2010, reporting that on Cyber Monday, it saw a 146% increase in mobile transactions compared to last year. Amazon has also found success on mobile with more than $1 billion in sales for its second quarter, which ended on June 30, 2010. Best Buy also has a very popular app that can scan 2D bar codes in store and and provide product info, offers and rewards. Fashion brands like DVF offer mobile shopping as well, with DVF’s exclusive promotions for its mobile shoppers. The challenge of 2011 will be utility apps. Users are deleting more than half of downloaded apps within the first month, so e-retailers have to focus on functionality in order to engage their customers in the long run. Mobile should act like the "glue" between the offline and the online world, as many shoppers use it while shopping in store to discover product information, read reviews and compare prices and offer an intimate and personally relevant customer experience. Crowdsourcing: In 2010, crowdsourcing was used in marketing campaigns, like Doritos maker Frito-Lay's competition for its Super Bowl advertising, and also for product development, like Rebeca Minkoff's challenge to Polyvore's community to redesign the next Morning After Clutch. Most of all, crowdsourcing has become integral part of companies' cultures making them social to their core, a great example of this Toyota's invitation for suggestions on how the brand’s technology can be used for good in unexpected ways, My Starbucks Idea and LEGO click. In 2011 brands will have to figure out ways to leverage crowdsourcing in product design, while maintaining a strong brand identity. Get into the Game: 2010, with the rise of Zynga, V-commerce (the commerce of virtual goods) and the popularity of Foursquare badges, was also a banner year for the school of "gamification", a number of entrepreneurs and marketeers used game mechanics to engage audiences and bring on behavioral change. Most recently, indie fashion retailer Moxsie, created custom Facebook badges to promote #BuyerChat event and entice their followers to act like virtual buyers. Late this year the launch of Microsoft's Kinect, a controller-free gaming device that senses the space, movements, faces and voices in front of it, has already made a big impact on the market and businesses are already competing on finding innovative uses for it, like Chevrolet's test-drive "Kinect Joy Ride," Sprint's co-branded retail experience "Kinect Adventures" and T-Mobile's product placement throughout "Kinect Sports". Looks like 2011 is game on for e-commerce! What do you think will be the hottest trends and biggest challenges for e-commerce in 2011?Image Credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| KILTR, like LinkedIn but for Scottish people and their mates [TNW Apps] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 01:07 PM PST
According to KILTR, there are 40 million people in the Scottish diaspora and 100 million including those who also share an affection for, or a connection to Scotland.
Today, they launch in public beta, and although I am of Scottish descent (check out Clan Boyd), I had no trouble signing up.
The idea behind the niche network hatched while KILTR CEO and co-founder Brian Hughes Halferty was visiting the United States. When he began speaking with his Scottish lilt, he noticed how many people claimed a connection with Scotland, whether through direct heritage or their love of the culture.
The site offers a clean, uncluttered interface that supports contextual posts, attachments in conversation replies, embedded multimedia and links, and tagging of post types for a specific user, group or organization. KILTR differentiates itself from other social networks based on its built-in search and recommendation engine that pushes relevant opportunities to the users. The site aims to deliver valuable business and networking opportunities to professionals, entrepreneurs, companies, organizations, clubs and societies so they can network with others who have a known shared connection or affinity for Scotland. I swear I told the site nothing about myself other than my username “Courtney Boyd,” and it already suggested I get started drinking whisky. This site is obviously going to be a lot more fun than LinkedIn ever was.
[Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Telus offers free taxi rides to Canadians until December 25th [TNW Canada] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 01:05 PM PST
You'd assume this offer would be exclusive to Telus customers however, we spoke with Telus earlier today to find out that anyone can get a free ride in one of their Telus branded cabs. Canadians can grab a free ride by flagging down a taxi sporting a picture of a frog with the phrase "Hop In". According to the representative we spoke with, when a passenger enters the car, they'll also receive a free phone call to anywhere in North America using a Telus phone provided by the cab driver. Plus, passengers will receive a ride to anywhere in the city free. Pretty sweet! The offer will only be running during specific hours (11am-11pm) and will last until December 25th, Christmas day. The few cities selected include; Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon and Montreal. Telus seems to have the Christmas spirit. Earlier today, Telus brought children from Ronald McDonalds House, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and McMaster Children's Hospital on a Santa sleigh ride, on one of their private jets. Children were treated to a holiday party and were flown over Niagara Falls, Hamilton and Toronto.
[Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Sleep is Awesome. [TNW Lifehacks] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 12:39 PM PST [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| Afternoon brain booster: Try Knoword [TNW Apps] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 12:25 PM PST Knoword is a free online game with an emphasis on vocabulary, spelling and quick thinking.
Here’s how it works: When you begin, you will be given one randomly generated dictionary definition along with the first letter of its corresponding word. You must fill in the rest of the word to experience a gain in points and an added time bonus. You will start off with one minute before the game ends, and every word is an opportunity to extend your time. If you’re ever stuck on a word, just hit the skip button and a new puzzle will present itself.
The words are actually much easier than I expected. In fact, this tripped me up at first. Once you start to get the hang of the game’s simplicity, and you start to score correct answers, you will notice your Word streak counter increasing. If you sign up for an account, you can accumulate badges, save your high scores and see your rank in comparison to other players. Sign-up is free and relatively painless. The second time I got 10 words for a total of 165 point. The site is a bit temperamental (the game wouldn’t load a new word on my 3rd attempt)! The fourth time I got 18 words right for a total of 315 points and the 5th? 19 words right for a total of 335 points. Now I’m not that brilliant and to be honest, the game started to repeat many of their words. Once you’ve signed up, you will also have the option to play the advanced level.Download Squad [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| The official Kinect drivers have dropped for both Windows and Ubuntu [TNW Microsoft] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 12:03 PM PST
You may have expected the drivers to be Windows only, but we can report that that is happily not the case as Ubuntu (the popular flavor of Linux) is also supported. Sorry Mac users, you are plum out of luck. The company behind the Kinect, PrimeSense, is a founding member of OpenNI (Natural Interaction), the group that has released the new open source drivers. You can grab everything you could possibly want and more here, if you are a developer interested in working with the Kinect. There is a user manual for development work up as well. We have seen an endless stream of amazing Kinect hacks that have been impressive, funny, and downright genius. This new release is only going to accelerate that process. And we can’t wait to see what people come up with next.Top Image Credit, DownloadSquad [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
| The New York Observer partners with Scoop St., a NYC deals site for the holidays [TNW Media] Posted: 20 Dec 2010 11:40 AM PST
Gift guides are nothing new, but media outlets partnering with daily deals site is new and it’s a big deal. What makes companies like Groupon successful? Mainly two things- a large database of e-mail addresses and an active sales team. By combining forces, media outlets and daily deal sites have the potential to create a powerful deals business. What’s even more special about The New York Observer’s partnership with Scoop St. is their local focus on New York City. In fact, the New York Observer already has a daily e-mail list running of interesting things to do in New York City, focusing on a young and savvy demographic. Over the past few months, the two have teamed up to offer co-branded “Scoops” aka special, targeted NYC-centric deals for Observer readers. For example, a bus trip to Woodbury Commons Mall, a big outlet mall outside of New York City was offered to New York Observer readers who fell into the “Bergdorf Blonde” category. Scoop St. deals on the New York Observer list this holiday season include spa specials, rock climbing classes, cup cakes and wine and sushi classes.
The New York Observer’s Holiday List also includes gift ideas from OpenSky, a New York City based start-up that offers people a new way to shop, buy, and sell products. OpenSky gives anyone with an audience — bloggers, editors or celebrities — find and sell their own products. Products range from cooking ware, jewelry, tech to fine art and prints. While typically publishers have been using white label technology to push out their own deals, the New York Observer/Scoop St. partnership represents a trend of curated and more focused deals. Direct site operators like Scoop St. believe they have a leg up on the white label tech companies to provide a smarter sales force. This is the start of what I believe will be an explosive trend in 2011: the “curated” marriage of content and commerce. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.] |
Wireless market analysts 
Opera has released its monthly “
You might not get a glimpse of Motorola’s new tablet but the company has upped the stakes with its new “Tablet Evolution” video, a video that pulls no punches in putting down the iPad and the Sasmung Galaxy Tab. Hell, it even goes after the Rosetta Stone.
Google has tweeted to its 
There’s no doubting that there are a lot of sites out there which will take your information from social media sites and combine it into a viewable timeline. However, we’ve not yet seen one that’s quite as slick as 
So what’s the rest of the story? Memolane lets you keep things private if you want, or go as public as you desire. You can change your online services (networks) with a click and even choose between Amazon MP3 or the Spotify client for music playback (when music posts are included). The settings are all very straightforward and easy to find. Make some friends on Memolane? You’ll see all of the information about them in the News section.
Montreal based start-up 
Let’s start with some background — I’ve been a DJ, behind turntables, for nearly 17 years. In that time, I’ve seen trends, fads and the things that have stuck around. As the lowly Technics 1200 turntable is seeing the end of its days, the age-old wisdom of “learn to play vinyl first” just isn’t so fitting anymore.
Here’s the catch — with just the software, you’ll not be able to fully use an external mixer. Fortunately, there’s an inexpensive solution to this in Traktor’s 
Coconatch
Is there anything left online without the word "social" in it? 2010 was the year social media exploded, transforming all of our online activities. Brands have started to allocate increasingly bigger parts of their budget to integrate social media into all aspects of their business from marketing campaigns, to customer service and of course, sales.
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Next Web To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment