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Happy responsive christmas

TechDept — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 14:40:42 +0000

Check out this awesome responsive site.

Tech firm implements employee ‘zero email’ policy

TechDept — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 09:48:06 +0000

You’ve got mail–not. Employees of tech company Atos will be banned from sending emails under the company’s new “zero email” policy.

CEO Thierry Breton of the French information technology company said only 10 percent of the 200 messages employees receive per day are useful and 18 percent is spam. That’s why he hopes the company can eradicate internal emails in 18 months, forcing the company’s 74,000 employees to communicate with each other via instant messaging and a Facebook-style interface.

Caroline Crouch, a spokeswoman for the company, told ABC News the goal is focused on internal emails rather than external emails with clients and partners. Atos has already reduced the number of internal emails by 20 percent in six months.

By Susanna Kim for abc news, 29 Nov 2011.

Born with IOS: techno-toddlers: a is for apple

TechDept — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:00:41 +0000

In the last chapter of her novel A Visit From The Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan imagines a dystopian near future in which toddlers in the year 2020 download music to their ubiquitous “kiddie handsets”, which also feature “finger drawing, GPS systems for babies just learning to walk, PicMail”. But if that’s the future, it’s already here. There are dozens of “finger painting” apps in the iTunes App Store, and child-tracking GPS devices have been available for years. A recent Financial Times story was headlined: “Companies target children’s tablet aptitude.”

Earlier this year, AVG Technologies, a firm that makes antivirus computer software, conducted a survey of mothers of children aged between two and five with internet access at home. They found that more of the children knew how to play a computer game than swim or ride a bike, and that more pre-schoolers knew how to use a smartphone than tie their shoelaces. Research by Plymouth council, meanwhile, found that 72% of children under five spend on average half an hour a day online.

By Thomas Jones for The Guardian, 18 Nov 2011.

Hardware companies will have to quit the tablet market in 2012

TechDept — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:00:38 +0000

Because hardware companies like Dell, HP, and Acer have so few advantages over companies that offer content as well, DigiTimes reports that they may be getting out of the tablet game entirely next year.

Content companies like Amazon or Barnes & Noble can subsidize their tablets like crazy — they’ll make their money back after the fact as customers buy content to make the tablets more useful.

Consider the $200 Kindle Fire — Amazon has no problem selling it at a loss because it can pull itself back into the green with e-book sales.

By Dylan Love for Business Insider, 17 Nov 2011.

For those who have heard Dan talking about social objects for beginners (and those who haven’t)

TechDept — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:00:52 +0000

As y’all will know, I’m fond of talking about “Social Objects” and how they pertain to“Marketing 2.0″. Even so, some people still get confused by what a Social Object actually is. So I wrote the following to clarify some more:

The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the reason two people are talking to each other, as opposed to talking to somebody else. Human beings are social animals. We like to socialize. But if think about it, there needs to be a reason for it to happen in the first place. That reason, that “node” in the social network, is what we call the Social Object.

Example A. You and your friend, Joe like to go bowling every Tuesday. The bowling is the Social Object.

By Hugh MacLeod for gaping void, 31 Dec 2007.

From a social brand to a social business

TechDept — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:00:05 +0000

I spoke at an IBM Social Business breakfast briefing the other week and was tasked with addressing the following question:

“Social brand vs social business – is there a correct order of play?”

It’s a good question and one that seems to be being asked by clients and the wider industry alike. Luckily it’s also a question we’ve spent a fair bit of time thinking about and working on recently.

I think we would argue that while there might not be a correct order of play, there is certainly a preferred order of play – perhaps best conceived as a divide between a ‘Managed’ or Forced’ approach (more on this shortly).

By Simon Collister for we are social, 16 Nov 2011.

Building a case for your mobile site & app

TechDept — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:00:49 +0000

Did you know?

ebay sell 1 item every 2 seconds via mobile
In 2014 there will be 300m mobile coupon users
7.1 million Brits now access the internet through their mobile

In my recent ‘60 second mobile review’ post, I explained a very simple health check for your business to determine whether you should be building a Mobile offering. Even though you may feel your company or industry is not ready, your Analytics may prove otherwise. A quick check will illustrate just how popular your website already is with mobile users.

By Gary Robinson for It’s Digital Marketing, 22 Sept 2010.

Predict how you will watch tv in 4 years

TechDept — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 09:00:57 +0000

By WatchTheDaily for YouTube, uploaded on 02 Nov 2011.

Trend report: is the industry ready for mobile?

TechDept — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:00:45 +0000

Since 2007 the media industry has been proclaiming it as the “year of mobile”, however it looks like 2012 might finally prove to be the “year”. Mike Fletcher speaks to some leading agencies to find out how the industry will finally take advantage of mobile.

There’s an in-joke that’s been doing the rounds for a while now among people who work with mobile.

As far back as 2007, influencers and analysts have pinpointed each subsequent year as “The Year of Mobile”, the year when finally, the mobile market will explode and marketing spend on the mobile device will rocket in line with consumer behaviour.

As each ensuing year came and went, the prediction carried increasing ridicule, while the medium continued to struggle into maturity.

By Mike Fletcher for Media Week, 10 Nov 2011.

Introducing gomo from google

TechDept — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 09:00:26 +0000

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