For the first time ever US mobile users spend more time using Apps than accessing the Internet from traditional means such as browsers.

Convenience and user experience are reasons that apps are blazing ahead of traditional Internet use…but why?

Delivery

Similar to the way e-books have now surpassed traditional printed book sales. The key differentiators and drivers have been a new method of delivery and experience; in this case the trusted e-reader allows convenience and a more functional method of use when reading books on the go.

In the case of apps:

Quite simply it is easier and again functional to click a button (rather than type in a URL) and the benefits in the case of social networks and news ad games is a quicker load time, an optimised experience and quicker access to the desired application.

This shift relates to usability and is a natural progression when users are given easier options of access.

Games and Social Networks:

Games

Looking at the chart we can clearly see that Games take sup close to 50% of all consumers time, with one third using Social Networks, when combined the total reaches approximately 80% of total app time, with users of these categories using them more frequently and for longer.

This result is predictable when both categories currently offer the most engaging experience on mobile phones.

Social networking:

With Facebook being used by such large quantities of people are such long periods of time, we wonder just what will happen with the HTML5 based “Project Spartan” which aims to allow Facebook users access to apps from within the browser, this sounds like a very clear tactics to dominate use even further.

This space is likely to see three major players dominate, Google, Apple and we predict Facebook in time.

What are your thoughts on apps?

Do you prefer them over the Internet for browsing news and playing games….or is a traditional web page a preference for news or indeed your gaming desires?

Yes, drivers in the US could be affected by a move to ban mobile phones while driving, and we are not taking about blatantly engaging in a call with the device to your ear, we are talking about engaging on twitter, texting, updating to facebook, etc.

National Transportation Safety Board cite smartphone increase as reason:

The National Transportation Safety Board has raised their concerns after pointing out that the increased functionality of smartphones has lead to more people feeling the need to use their device when they should be more concentrated on the road ahead.

Ban on texting, tweeting and even calling on bluetooth?

I am not one for rash decision making when it affects a persons overall freedom and criminalizes more for stupid errors.

But, I can see how texting and tweeting and generally meddling with a phone while driving could be dangerous.

I do however strongly object to anyone criminalizing a driver for talking using bluetooth, otherwise it would surely have to be law that you would also have to drive without talking to your passenger, or changing your air temperature or dials for volume etc and how dangerous would that be!

In fact I would argue that excessive noise while driving was more dangerous than talking on bluetooth due to the lack of awareness that is created when deafened by loud music.

Growing concern over gadgets in general:

NTSB chairwoman Deborah Hersman has stated that they are worried about devices in general:

“Every year, new devices are being released, people are tempted to update their Facebook page, they are tempted to tweet, as if sitting at a desk. But they are driving a car.”

Not likely to be adopted:

There are no statutory obligations for states to adopt the recommendations, and initial polls appear to show that no state will.

But a seed has been planted, and I dare say that some measures suggested will be implemented in time.

Perhaps the economic misery of the US may have more of a say right now rather than seemingly “draconian” measures to reduce road accidents.

Current law situation on driving in the US:

Unlike the UK which banned talking on a mobile while driving years ago (Bluetooth/Hands-Free is OK), the US only sees 9 states with the same ban on talking while driving, and 35 states have made texting and driving illegal.

As a last statement against the naysayers to these proposed laws, the National Transportation Safety Board say:

“We’re not here to win a popularity contest. We’re here to do the right thing. This is a difficult recommendation, but it’s the right recommendation and it’s time.”

While many believe that the move will not be a vote winner in general, the fact that a ban on in car communication via mobiles could hurt industry in the US in terms of manufacturing products for cars and general consumer devices, seems to be one of the other main reasons that these measures will not be adopted any time soon.

International pressure mounts:

In 2010, Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, had looked to address the culture of multitasking while driving. And, some 30 countries have laws restricting the use of mobiles while driving, including complete bans in Germany and Portugal, so is the US being slow in looking after its Citizens or is the rest of the world being overly cautious with full bans?

Apple have own an unfair dismissal case in the UK.

A British tribunal has ruled that Samuel Crisp was not unfairly dismissed for criticising Apple’s products and his role working at the company.

Crisp was a specialist in the Norwich branch of the Apple store in the city, and had posted a series of rants about the company on Facebook and social networks.

He was apparently seen to complain and ridicule Apple on Facebook in particular, but Apple have a clearly defined role for staff using Social Media when related to their company, and they ban any criticism of their products or service by employees.

Apple’s decision to sack ruled “harsh” but not illegal:

So while the sacking was ruled “harsh” Apple was deemed to be within their rights to do this under the circumstances.

It is reported in EweekEurope that Crisp was hoping to get a move to the US as part of his career progression at Apple but had not been granted the role he had hoped for, bitterness ensued and this is what caused him to vent steam on Facebook about Apple in general.

Crisp had claimed in defence that his posts were private and not open to the public, Apple disputed this heavily.

“We take into account their position that the Facebook posts were not truly private and could in fact have been forwarded very easily with the claimant having no control over this process,”

With over 500,000,000 users on Facebook, many companies are now banning access to social networks and starting to define a clear social media policy that will help stop disgruntled employees from having stabs at them online and ruining corporate reputations.

Similar to the way Amazon have approached the Android O/S, it looks like Facebook will be releasing a branded smartphone sometime in the next 12-18 months according to reporters at All Things D.

Buffy the Google slayer?

The codename I keep hearing mentioned is “Buffy” after the vampire slayer, (Facebook v’s Google irony I presume?) and as mentioned it will likely have a version of Android that has been tailored to Facebook’s own aesthetics and functionality requirements as Amazon have done with their new tablet the Kindle Fire.

So what will a Facebook phone offer, and are they really going to compete with Google on a social network playing field (Facebook V Google+) and then jump into bed with them on a technology basis?

Well in my mind I am unsure how they will make this device work, and what is more make it truly unique, though I expect they will take some cues from the way Windows have brought in social networking to a much more higher level than most smartphone operating systems currently offer.

Facebook’s mobile strategy in their own words:

Well it is a mixed bag of reports that have been released from the Facebook camp relating to their agenda on mobile devices.

Facebook have not come out and said that this news is true or false, but have released an interesting note related to their overall mobile strategy for the coming months and years:

“Our mobile strategy is simple: We think every mobile device is better if it is deeply social. We’re working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers and application developers to bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world.”

And going in the opposite way to the AllthingsD assumptions, Head of business development at Facebook, Dan Rose, has publicly stated:

“this is really just another example of a manufacturer who has taken our public APIs (application programming interface) and integrated them into their device in an interesting way.”

There is no doubt that the new smartphone (assuming it arrives) will be heavily HTML5 based, and I can see a chance that Facebook credits may become a little more “real” as more and more mobile transactions are introduced after certain security barriers have been overcome, the future is certainly mobile.

Well it seems to be one up for the good guys at long last.

We are firm believers that the concept behind net neutrality by and large should be championed, it is the reason that any site can compete with more established ones on speed and bandwidth issues which ultimately can dictate a sites popularity or its Achilles heel.

So the judgement from the US senate that shows that the pro’s (to the FCC’s proposed open internet rules) out gunned the nay’s by 52-46 is a nice reminder that some common-sense is still in play at the highest level. Though the scary part is that the ruling was only just won by a small margin.

20th November key date:

This is when the net neutrality package will come into effect, with a rumoured lawsuit coming from Verizon to challenge the initiative coming in the short term.

The win will also mean that a much anticipated show down between the White house and Congress will not happen just yet, with the Whitehouse being advised to veto any legislation that attempted to stop the net neutrality initiative.

Support from the big boys:

The Open Internet initiative has the full support of the big players in the industry state side including: Amazon, Netflix, Google, Facebook and eBay, with Netflix taking up around 1/3 of peak bandwidth in the US download space it is interesting to see that they are so happy to be seen as good guys.

Bandwidth is an issue:

There is an issue underlying all this and one that is not easy to solve though we fully support the Open Internet initiative it is perhaps unfair that one company take sup so much bandwidth undoubtedly slowing the whole internet experience down of the rest of the users.

Though I personally think the solution should come with technology and not an ability to buy bandwidth at source by giving ISP’s the opportunity to throttle sites that do not pay them an effective “ransom”…this is not the way to move forward.

What we need is better technology to maximise the space available and ensure that the speeds needed are available though for a period I sense that with the growing use of tablets and smartphones and access to the web being more and more common for more and more data hungry applications including video, trouble does lie ahead in the short term.

But I say lets stay in this together and not start developing tiered internet access, this is undoubtedly against Tim Berners Lee’s vision which should be a benchmark for the continuing success of the Internet as a whole.

One Web, One World……yuck…sorry!

Freedom of speech:

The big reason to support net neutrality is that this will stop any of the established sites such as Youtube or Netflix from simply putting the brakes on sites that can not afford the extra bandwidth from an ISP who is happy to take a premium payout to stifle part of their service for the gain of another, and we all know how fickle users are, if things are slow then they are gone, this undoubtedly will slow down development of new sites and be a negative for the Internet as a whole.

What do you think?

Do you see “throttling” happening anyway and sense that this kind of heavy handed control is needed to effectively manage peak traffic for certain sites, and is this the best way to manage the situation, or should we allow companies to buy extra space to ensure their service shines through at all times?

After an early culling of people who tried to claim “keywords” and brand names on Google +, the search giant has finally rolled out a new face to the facebook copycat with their version of “pages” that aims to give brands a voice on the social network, and allow people to build relationships with local businesses and brands within the framework of Google Plus.

How this will manifest is unclear just yet but it seems that with Google plus the aim will be to build a seamless bridge between “switched-on” companies who will benefit from an easier to reach and communicate channel, this could be in the form of a band on tour or a local furniture shop.

The amount of interaction will depend on the owners of the page but we can see voice and video chat being one simple aspect that could be tapped into with creative uses being developed to help improve or promote brands and companies.

Google’s engineering headman Vic Gundotra states:

“So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people, but we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about – from local businesses to global brands – so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”

Benefits of even more connectivity with consumers?

Feedback – Sometime a good thing, though sometimes manipulated, but always worthwhile if constructive.

Loyalty – Giving more and more of your time to listen to your clients promotes loyalty, and as competitors are not getting in the way of your customers the benefits are even more potentially.

Google Direct Connect:

A new search option that will connect Google users directly to Google pages:

Using the “+” option as a prefix you will be taken directly to that brands Google + page.

This should help in bringing more people to Gmail services and Google + over time, which let’s face it is vastly superior to Yahoo or MSN in terms of Gmail and ancillary services and products never mind the actual social networking aspect which users can take or leave.

With Google banning the “+” symbol as a valid term in the Boolean search options we can now see why that was implemented.

How to add a Google Plus Page?

Giving a brands page the right to pass information on to you requires the Google + account holder to actually add that page to their circle.

With page shaving a “+1” button and an “Add to circles” button, it would seem like an obvious like to click the +1 and expect that that had given the page the right to assume you wanted to know more, but currently only the “add to circles” option will give that amount of google love to approve this type of communication from page to Google + user.

I sense that this could be an issue that was given some thought and was deemed that only the later option woudl be sensible given that “+1” buttons could be abused by simple copying of code to a popular page…..(my point being that you may not realise you are +1’ing a brands page until you start getting a stream of content, so having the only option to allow this being to actually add a brand to your circles should mitigate con artists)…got that?

How to create my own page:

Well you need to go here: Google Plus Pages and see if your Google account is eligible yet…enjoy.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade, you know that digital pictures are quickly replacing printed photos. DSLR’s are still popular—and getting more popular and more sophisticated all the time—but the number of photos printed each year is much smaller than it was ten years ago, and continues to steadily decline.

Social media platforms like (and especially) Facebook have developed a new stage and storage space for candid photos of our friends and family and have all but erased the need for printed photos. We can easily upload photos to our profiles and share them instantly with a huge network of people, and even choose who can see them and who can’t.

With all the free storage online, why pay to have the same photos printed, especially when you can view and comment on friends’ photos without every physically seeing or holding them?

In an effort to stay relevant and competitive, Kodak is partnering with Facebook and offering 20 free prints of your Facebook photos if you Like their page—you’ll get a voucher which you can print and present at any participating photo developing center.

Kodak has made similar efforts over the past few years, and has done a pretty good job of remaining powerful in a market that has nearly forgotten photo prints. You can find Kiosks at various retailers that let you access Facebook and print photos directly from the site, without even carrying a flash drive or SD card to upload photos.

The real news here isn’t so much that Kodak is offering free prints, but that the entire concept of social photography is changing. It is comforting to know, for those of us that grew up with prints, that there is still room for printed photos in today’s world, but the field is quickly…ahem, developing…and it is exciting to see where social media takes other conventional forms of media sharing and distribution as it grows.

Blackberry’s message system BBM is famous for being a closed messaging service meaning that services such as the police can not easily intercept the data that is transferred between private group chats.

This has proven popular for business users who want to make sure sensitive information is kept as safe as possible in the airwaves, this has however meant that Blackberry devices have become popular with criminals and it now would appear rioters in London.

Blackberry have issued a statement on their twitter account stating:

“We feel for those impacted by the riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can”

Blackberry have become very popular in the UK teen market with 37 percent of UK teenagers citing the Blackberry as their smartphone of choice. This is mainly down to the free and confidential BBM message service which replaces the usual SMS text messaging service.

Blackberry’s are the smartphone of choice for “Yoof” of Britain:

Blackberry’s BBM group messaging service is perfect for covert communication, it is a totally encrypted means of sharing text like messages with people who have access to your own personal pin, this keeps communication totally closed.

Blackberry could be accused of targeting the “urban youth” element of society, their phones are a little cheaper than more sophisticated smartphones, and they have even been the recent sponsors of a ‘secret gig’ in Shoreditch Town Hall with huge names from the UK rap scene taking the stage.

Indeed Mark Duggan the young man shot dead who is now perhaps unfairly linked to the appalling riots was last known to be using a Blackberry phone texting his girlfriend that:

“The Feds are following me.”

Jonathan Akwue – one of the first people to raise the BBM connection – points out:

BBM is fast, free and private. It’s also created a ‘shadow social network‘ which is invisible to Police snooping.

Will Blackberry bow down to police and legal requests to decode BBM messages from suspect rioters?

Blackberry has a somewhat solid stance at defending its right to keep the encrypted data sent by its users to itself, I am unsure just what would be needed in order to force Blackberry to actually go against one of its selling points and allow the police access to users confidential and encrypted BBM messages.

Social networks blamed for riots:

Facebook and Twitter are being blamed for escalating the riots in London and Birmingham, this is totally pointless blame, they are merely a means of communication and people have used any form of communication at hand, riots are a part of Britain’s fabric though the recent unrest does seem to have a much more sinister undertone in the totally random nature.

Facebook’s seven year itch?

Could Facebook’s demise be imminent?

With a reported decline of usage globally it appears the signs are visible that the general public is getting bored of Facebook and leaving.

For me the time could not come sooner.

Here are Facebook’s plus points:

Sorry here “were” it’s plus points:

A) Share information between friends.

B) Contact people on mass.

C) Play fairly average games.

D) Yep that’s about it.

Facebook now = “Tower of Babylon”

The reality is with people adding any old Tom, Dick or Has been. It is now very difficult to keep up with what has been going on between a circle of friends and this makes Facebook a bit random, a little faceless and more disjointed than it should be.

Is Facebook bigger than its parts?

The other point to be made is Facebook does nothing at all that well. It is like a mash-up of styles and applications that just manages to become bigger than it’s parts….but only just.

Great for time-wasting not for production:

It is a time wasting application. I am yet to find anything of particular use on the site despite some great articles being pushed my way and some occasionally funny photos of nights out….it bores me totally.

And what’s more your bloody mum is more than likely on there now!…man that’s just soooooo uncool!

I will admit it I have always hated Facebook. I was an early adopter, I have very good friends on there but seriously I detest it and here is why:

[arrowlist]

• It allows mindless bol***ks to become the norm – please just shut up about your life. I never cared that much and never will. In fact, why are you my friend? I will probably never know, maybe I am lonely and in need of someone familiar to moan about.
• There is no way to communicate beyond a crappy IM option – I hear this is about to change though.
• Mobile version is rubbish.
• Trying to develop any kind of “page” is like pulling teeth.
• Now this maybe me but Facebook just does not do what I expect, its like my deep seated aversion to Microsoft operating systems, I just seem to be designed for more logic or maybe it’s less logic, either way I detest Facebook for its TERRIBLE user interface.

[/arrowlist]

Facebook got lazy?

Now this last point is actually the crux of it for me, and it is undoubtedly where MySpace fell down.

Now the question I pose is this; will Google make things that little bit slicker, quicker, and more intuitive to do things that are in all honesty, pretty damn basic?

Facebook is nothing more than an emailing client that works for groups. It is both dull and unintuitive, by and large, but fills a gap between people who work at computers all day and want to idle some time sharing tit-bits; fair play I suppose.

Can this kind of “social network” be done better? A massive whopping yes. And with the rise of smart phones allowing better access all round with video, images, audio, and location based sharing, I just hope Google can emulate and then better Facebook because for me it is both tired and seriously dull.

We also posed the question is Google + a LinkedIn rival the other day?

Would you leave Facebook to go to Google +…?

Some of the reasons people left MySpace was that it was both ugly and had a focus on music.

What Myspace did do was to educate an audience that another way of keeping in touch other than email existed, and when an alternative came along the migration was swift.

Could this happen to Facebook with Google plus?

Though alternatives have sprung up in the last five years, no company with the clout of Google has entered the frame, and with many people getting a little tired of Facebook in general (the seven year itch is pretty long in tech land).

My hunch is Facebook needs to do something seriously amazing soon or feel the wrath of a contender like Google + which could leave Facebook with nothing more than pubescent kids and “cool” oldies to share what they had for tea with the world, albeit a smaller world…….just like Myspace ended.

What are you thoughts?

Is Facebook simply too big to fail? Is the adoption of Facebook by business a sign that there is more to the social network than meets the eye and Google + have a big fight on their hands to topple the current giant?

Techcrunch are reporting that the unlimited spotify plan will cost around $4.99 a month.

Spotify US version will cost more then the European equivalent?

Whereas the premium service will cost $9.99 a month; this will allow access to mobile music (using your smart phone or tablet to access spotify via an application) plus off-line access or through a music system such as Spotify’s brother in beats, Sonos.

Is this fair?

Well lets do some calculations:

US version

Unlimited Plan:

$4.99 = £3.13

Premium Plan:

$9.99 = £6.26

UK version

Unlimited Plan:

£4.99 – (an extra £22 a year)

Premium Plan:

£9.99 – (an extra £45 a year)

While nit-picking about small fractions of prices seems a bit crass, the truth is the Premium plan difference compared to the US is 1/12 of an average UK smartphone contract per year….i.e one months bill.

The McIndex replaced by the Spotify Screw:

We all know the US is seriously in a mess so could the much vaunted “McIndex” now be replaced by the “Spotify Screwing”?

Yes, it would appear that Spotify’s accounts team could know a little more than we do about the expendable income of your “average Joe”, and have priced accordingly.

Facebook Collaboration?

With news that Facebook have something “BIG” up their sleeves, many listening closely to the technological grapevine belied that a collaboration is in place and the final deals have yet to be sorted, causing the slight delay in the release of an official US Spotify.

Will the prices be as quoted above?

Spotify says:

“No details are set for the pricing or details of our US service yet – we’re still testing a number of different options. We’ll be sure to let you know when we have something to announce.”

Do you think a price fluctuation such as the one detailed above is fair? Or, do you think that mobile bill payers already pay too much in the UK/Europe and deserve a balancing up of costs in light of their investment so far?

We have recently learned that deep within the source code are references to two areas that we believe could have some serious influence in making people decide to give the new social network a try.

Namely:

Google Games – Social Gaming

Social gaming is huge, with Zynga taking stakes on a large percentage of downloads in all app markets on every platform.

The key thing Zynga games offer is a social function to most games (rate, score, collaborate) and therefore these games are both played longer and adopted by more people sooner.

Google seem to be taking a step in the right direction if they seek to monetize the gaming experience and allow people to play together within a closed system, which seems to be the holy grail right now.

Questions – Social Wikipedia?

We are also aware that there is an aspect of the code that offers clues such as “you might try rephrasing or tagging your question to make it easier for someone to answer”.

This alludes to a social question and answer forum area which does have potential and could potentially allow “experts” to offer help and advice in exchange for status and we assume work, credibility within a social network.

Google to offer greater privacy control to users?

As a differentiation to Facebook’s more “complicated” privacy policies that seem to change all the time. Google are noted as stating that testers who are invited to trial Google+ can leave at any time and take their data with them via what they codename a “takeout’ function.

This is also perhaps an initial means of making sure users are not expecting a Google buzz scenario when Google was slapped for imposing and going against its own privacy policy by signing all Gmail users up to the botched attempt at a Facebook type rival that has since died a death.

Do you think Google+ is starting to sound intriguing? Reports are that the demand has been enormous and the invite option has been temporarily suspended due to the volume of interest.

A serious Facebook rival perhaps?

But is Facebook really the platform that Google are wanting to challenge….keep reading to see what I think should be Google’s focus:

Knowledge is indeed powerful – and inherently valuable:

If the old adage “knowledge is power” is true (which it obviously is) then it is no wonder that Facebook was recently valued at somewhere in the region of $85-100 billion, the recent figure bandied about related to its likely move to an IPO (initial public offering) this year or next in order to sell shares in the company.

With Facebook claiming well over 500 million users who are mostly active on a daily or weekly basis, Google has been seeking ways to divert some of this attention to its own social network considering it already has a huge email and search user base to leverage.

The challenge has not proved simple though, with first mover advantage going to Facebook (seen as MySpace was so utterly useless in the end) the rise of Facebook has been a phenomenal success.

Google have tipped a toe into attempting to offer real time social networking via Google Wave (which was a total washout) and Google Buzz but this had such a poor adoption rate and was never really understood in terms of its benefits or its penetration (who cared that you pressed a buzz button) and has since died a slow death by and large.

With the release of the Google +1 button the other week as an alternative to the popular Facebook like button, people in Internet land were curious as to what was really going on at Mountain View.

Along with SEO experts, people in the know were very curious to learn more about what this would mean for search results, ranking and whatever else might be behind the obvious Google buzz revamp.

The answer we find today is Google has a rival social network called Google Plus.

Bringing a blend of the familiar, image sharing, messaging, commenting etc the company will also integrate its maps and image areas into the service.

Project Spartan scares Android and Apple:

With the news that Facebook is bringing in a new HTML5 Facebook app marketplace codenamed “Project Spartan” a function that aims to retain more people within the Facebook browser by offering users a chance to buy and use apps from their own store. Android owners Google must have felt there was a real need to push through this alternative to Facebook as soon as possible….seen as Facebook seem to be treading on the toes of Apple and Google Android at the same time.

Missing features Facebook wants:

Some areas that Google Plus can instantly brag about will be its chat function ported from Gmail, something many Google mail users are already pretty smitten about, a truly quality rival to Skype that also offers video.

Other than this there seems to be very little difference between the two platforms.

Here are the terms that Google will use to rival Facebook’s own social language:

[arrowlist]

• Circles – a functionality that allows individuals to place friends into groups, allowing users to share different forms of content with targeted clusters of friends
• Hangouts – live multi-user video conferencing that permits friends to drop in and out of live group conversations
• Huddle – group instant messaging
• Sparks – a feature that connects individuals on the network to others with common interests

[/arrowlist]

There is nothing radical about the above but I do personally like the Sparks feature and see potential in this and also look forward to seeing how the group video chat works and also the circles interface.

A LinkedIn/Facebook hybrid for business:

Could Google+ be the Facebook/LinkedIn Hybrid that the business world has been seeking?

With Gmail already enticing a large percentage of business people, freelancers and Internet workers and Google offering business tools such as Google docs and its new cloud applications, maybe Google+ can market itself as the social network for business.

Goolge+ the business persons Facebook?

Google+ could offer a means of creating useful connections like happens currently on LinkedIn rather than simply telling people you already know that you have a raging hangover.

Marry a Facebook like interface and you have potential in my eyes…plus the advertising potential could be more valuable and pertinent.

The difficulty Google face:

In its current form Google+ is only by invitation only and released to a small amount of users. In the near future and assuming all goes to plan Google aims to release the service to its millions of daily users, and will have its fingers crossed that adoption is significant.

With Facebook already the commanding force in the social networking arena, with groups, visitors, and networks already formed, many people will want to know why they should make the effort to go to a smaller network that offers very little extra in the way of features, and nothing currently that Facebook could not roll out at the drop of a hat (rumours were that Facebook could have been the buyers of Skype before Microsoft bought the VOIP company)

Debra Aho Williamson is quoted saying:

“People have their social circles on Facebook – asking them to create another social circle is challenging.”

Will Google+ simply enroll all its Gmail users like it did with Google Buzz Initially?

We doubt Google will fall prey to this after getting its fingers wrapped by the US justice system for deceiving its users and violating its own privacy policy but it may be the only way that will make this new social network….well….work!

What are your thoughts does the World need a new social network, or should Google+ focus on a niche such as LinkedIn users who want a Facebook interface?

Smart Phone Revolution:

Watch and learn how the mobile phone just got a little smarter and is taking your lives over bit by bit…wah ha ha ha ha!

Hope you Enjoyed and SHARED THIS POST!!!

And here are the main points and facts pointed out in the video:

Attack of the smart phones:

Will smart phones be the nail in the coffin for desktop PC’s?

SmartPhone Revolution 2011:

SmartPhone ubiquity is changing the way we access and use the Internet forever:

Top 10 Smart Phone Facts 2011:

Quantity:

1 – Over 50% of US mobile users to own SmartPhones by the end of 2011.
Global Figures:

2 – Over 95 Million SmartPhone sales in 2011 — Becoming the highest selling consumer electronic device.

Insane Growth:

3 – Gartner predict over 500 million SmartPhones to sell in 2012 – By 2013 more people will be surfing the Internet using SmartPhones than with PC’s.

Android No1 Operating System:

4 – Google Android most popular operating system followed by Nokia Symbian and Apple iOS.

SmartPhone = Smart Shoppers:

5 – 79% of SmartPhone owners use their mobile device to research before they buy.

Coupons, Offers, Reviews
.
Internet Use To Soar By 2015:

6 – To 4 x current levels, mainly driven by mobile devices.

Paying For Content:

7 – Unlike PC owners, up to 93% of SmartPhone owners are willing to pay for content.

Mobile Adverts:

8 – 33% would agree to ads if it lowers their monthly bill, and 42% click on mobile ads — Revenue expected to rise from $3.5 Billion in 2010 to $24 Billion in 2015.

Privacy Issues:

9 – More than 50% of users across all age groups are concerned about mobile privacy.

Facebook App Is Perfect For Mobile SmartPhones:

10 – Facebook the most popular app in the world and over one 1/3 of use now comes from SmartPhone access. – 10 Billion Apps downloaded in 2010.

Now please spread the video far and wide we thank you!

MOD wants to spread the news to not spread the news, socially.

With a dig at Twitter, Facebook and FourSquare the MOD have set the tone of the videos as pretty surreal humour with a balaclava wearing “terrorist” making friends with the videos protagonists.

I personally think they are done quite well for the message they are trying to convey.

Why?

They fall into a number of set criteria for good viral video, around 1 minute or under, mildly humorous, different..i.e a bit surreal, and a clear message.

What good it will actually do with the unseen threat I am unsure.

Though it does seem like we are fighting teenagers, so maybe it is an inspired move to clamp down on nosey mobile phone obsessed youths on social networks.

So anyway here are the videos:

Personal Security Online 1

“Cor’ blimey your fit Mr terrorist”

Checking into FourSquare while utterly pretend wired, does seem a touch ironic.

Personal Security Online 2

“Fancy a cuppa Mr terrorist?”

So make of them what you will, they are well produced though.

Ah the tower of Babylon calls…manically of course!…we are all doomed!

Mobile tickets come raving into town:

I feel they have made a bold and wise move, here is why:

Utilising TicketScript a new mobile ticket service provider, Hed Kandi are now offering tickets to their events via a Facebook page and also on it’s very own Ibiza Application.

Mobile marketing manager Tom Bulwer has clearly stated that they have a strategy within the mobile and digital
markets, and is quoted as saying:

“To deliver our digital and mobile strategy, it’s essential to use the right technology partners and to work collaboratively with the best minds in the market,”

Holy Grail Of Retailers

He then goes on to explain that TicketScript offered the flexibility to deliver tickets via an Internet presence and also via mobile phones all fully integrated within social networking applications, having a one-stop-shop method of purchasing is exactly what they needed and is indeed the holy grail of retailers.

Marco Meijer, the group sales director of Ticketscript, says:

“We strive to be at the forefront in online ticketing by providing new innovative sales channels for our customers and the addition of Hed Kandi as a client is testament to this. The integration of social media and mobile technology compliments traditional sales channels and provides a comprehensive solution for ticketing.”

With the growth of SmartPhones coupled with the growing presence and integration of social networking sites like Facebook, we predict that more and more retailers with digital goods to sell such as tickets will start looking at ways they can integrate an e-commerce section to their existing media outlets (web, apps, social networks)

And this makes perfect sense, because making a purchase as easy as possible by simply clicking a button, improves the chances of making the sale, plus you can do all the cool sales parts via the interface that the visitor is using making the product or service seem even more appealing if done right.

Have you made an e-ticket or m-ticket purchase yet?

Did all go to plan, and would you do it again if it was an option?