The iPad 2 embraces the vision, innovation and forward thinking of the company’s late founder and CEO, Steve Jobs. The first iPad introduced the world to the future of the computer and how it will operate. With the iPad2 already on our shelves that future we have all been eagerly anticipating for is indeed already here.
Just under one year ago, Apple shocked the computing world with a 9.7-inch touch-screen tablet that few truly expected. Some called the original Apple iPad a large-format iPhone. Now at only just 0.34 inch thin and weighing as little as 1.33 kilograms with over 55 000 applications at your finger tips, the iPad 2 has rendered all its critics speechless.
The iPad 2 feels completely comfortable in your hands sporting an extra slim design. In fact, the designers say the iPad 2 is an extension of you, the user.
What is the difference between the new ipad2 and the original iPad
If you purchased an iPad, should you be regretting it today? Short answer- yes. Long answer- let’s look at the specs on both tablets. Without paying too much attention, it may appear that these devices look basically the same but there are a number additions to the iPad 2.
First of all, there are a bunch of things that essentially haven’t changed at all between iPad and iPad 2:
The display is exactly the same as before, as is the resolution: 9.7-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD with 1024 x 768 pixel resolution.
The storage options, 16, 32, and 64GB have not changed
Wifi will still be 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth will still be 2.1 + EDR
Accelerometer stays the same at 3-axis
So what’s really improved?
You’ll be able to get your iPad 2 in black, but you’ll also have the option of a white bezel
iPad 2’s processor has been improved from a 1GHz Apple A4 to a 1GHz dual-core Apple A5
The original iPad was either 680g or 730g; the iPad 2 is 613g
iPad 2 offers a gyroscope where the original iPad did not include one
The thickness of the entire unit has been reduced by 33% from 13.4mm to 8.8mm
iPad 2 offers not one but two new cameras. The front camera being a VGA webcam and the back being capable of recording videos (this is a significant step up from having no camera at all)
iPad 2 also comes with cellular radio
Overall, the iPad2 is a better tablet and the design is an absolute stunner. There have been no drastic complaints from users of the original iPad, however the iPad 2 offers the advancements that we have come to expect from the Apple brand.
Marketing. It’s a strange beast. Constantly changing and evolving to adapt to the plethora of platforms that are available. The marketing evolution is something that has left many companies choking on the dust of their competitors whilst it has accelerated the success of many others. Online Marketing has for years, been the one area of marketing that has dominated. Without an online presence, many businesses have started drowning in their pool of competitors.
Nothing evolves quite as rapidly as the internet does. When it comes to online marketing, what worked for a business in 2011 is certainly very different to what might have worked in 2010. With 2012 peaking its head around the corner, there is much is be learnt.
Social Media dominates
One of the major online marketing trends in 2011 was the use of social media. Everyone from major corporations to the family owned grocery shop on the corner adopted the social media trend. Facebook Fan Pages and Twitteraccounts have allowed for fast, efficient communication to target markets. During 2012, Facebook will remain one of the most competitive online marketing tools available. Facebook Ads will continue allowing companies to reach targeted groups of people according to demographics and placement characteristics.
Having a Mobi- Site has become increasingly important during 2011. Mobile Apps, Facebook, Twitter, Google Places: all of these have become commonly reached on Mobile Phones. However, integrating these social media platforms with an effective Mobile Site has proven to an extremely strategic component to an online marketing strategy. Companies who have succeeded in doing this during 2011 and who have benefited from it may tell you that it is an extremely viable and inexpensive marketing solution. To say that Mobile internet usage has increased, would be an understatement. In fact, Microsoft Tag recently released statistics on how people have been using their mobile phones in 2011. They say that over half of all local searches are performed on a mobile phone and that by 2014, mobile internet will take over desktop internet. If your company didn’t take on the Mobile Website trend in 2011, we suggest you do in 2012.
Pay- Per- Click Advertising
Pay- Per- Click advertising is still and will be for a while, a huge component in an online marketing strategy. In fact Cost- Per- Click will continue to rise as companies strive to appear on the sides and bottom pages of a search engine. Although Cost- Per- Click will continue to become more expensive in 2012, it is important to keep the bigger picture of your online marketing strategy in mind. Within your industry, competitors will be paying the money, so having an online expert to assist you in choosing the correct keywords and structuring the campaign accordingly, will give you a distinct advantage.
Online marketing has become more of an investment than ever. Spending your marketing budget on online marketing more so than offline marketing, is sure to show you the results. At the end of the day, having a solid online marketing plan for in 2012 is as important as it has ever been.
We’ve been hearing about it for a while and it has finally been released publically, well in New Zealand at least. Facebook Timeline may one day be the default setting for all Facebook users, however in the mean- time it will slowly become available in various parts of the world. If you would like to enable Facebook Timeline now however, you are able to, in a few simple steps.
Facebook Timeline is in essence, a collection of items that Facebook already allows you to post up on your profile. Photos, videos, posts and other experiences appear in a chronological order. At first, your Facebook Timeline may appear to be rather “incomplete” but over time, as you fill it up and add more to it, a “story of your life” will start developing. Your friends will be able to add pictures etc. to your Facebook Timeline, as they may currently do on your Facebook profile.
Facebook first announced that they would be releasing Facebook Timeline, back in September. With its sudden release in New Zealand, it shouldn’t be too long before all South African Facebook users get to play around with it, if you haven’t already enabled it.
Allowing you to document a “timeline” from your date of birth to present, Facebook Timeline is allowing Facebook users to engage with their friend’s online scrapbook, whilst enjoying the ease of a well- designed interface. Facebook Timeline users will be able to get creative with their profile page and cover photo, a new feature that allows a personalised image at the top of the page.
We certainly think that this is an exciting step in the world of social media. Facebook Timeline shows us that there really are no restrictions to how creative and exciting a Facebook profile can be. Who knows what they will do in the future or how other social media platforms will evolve in time.
Gone are the days when a great CV and interview were enough to get a job. Most companies are taking advantage of social networking platforms to screen (social screening) potential employees and to get a deeper understanding of who they are.
There are over 535 million social networking users across the world. These users have one or multiple accounts across LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Any company looking at hiring new staff, looks for the most qualified and talented people as possible candidates. This is where social screening is an effective method.
Facebook is the ideal platform to investigate further into a person’s character and personality, whilst Twitter identifies a person’s interestsetc. LinkedIn offers a more professional insight into who the person is, as well as their working history.
With companies using social screening to find out more about the people they consider hiring, potential employees should consider “cleaning up” their social media accounts. According to mindflash.com there are 5 ways of ensuring you never get hired, based on social screening:
Digital dirt (inappropriate images)
Terrible Troll (swearing and adding annoying commentary to blogs posts etc)
Big Mouth (negative comments about previous employers etc)
Numerous contacts and comments (having inappropriate contacts and participating in inappropriate conversation with them)
Being constantly negative (never posting positive comments etc)
Although there are ways to limit the amount of information people are able to view on a personal account, being cautious about what content appears on the social media platform is the safer bet.
Numerous recruitment agencies and companies use social screening to head hunt a potential employee. However social screening is also used to dismiss staff. Although using social screening may take time and possibly cost money (Facebook Ad’s, etc) many companies find it to be the better long term option when trying to find the ideal employee to fill a position. Using social screening also increases the candidate pool.
With social media becoming more and more useful to businesses, it is important to ensure that the content that is visible to the public, compliments who you have said that you are in your CV, etc. Especially if you are looking for a new job.
What is online or SEO copywriting? Well, SEO is the acronym for the phrase “search engine optimisation.” Search engine optimisation is all about doing specific things to your website to drive more traffic to it with the aim of getting a certain reaction from the people visiting your site. Whether it’s to get them to purchase something online or simply get them to enquire about your company’s product or service, their experience on you site needs to be interesting and helpful.
What are some of these things?
There are a few but here we will discuss how SEO copywriting as a style of writing achieves those results. SEO copywriting is unique from other forms of writing such as magazine writing or a newspaper writing. SEO writing focuses on specific “key words or phrases” that make your website or specific web page on your site emerge on the first page of a search list – which is essentially where you want to be. However this is only possible provided the writer has adhered to specific SEO protocol which includes:
Finding the correct search term or phrase for your product or service (there are a few online tools which online Copywriters use for this)
Using the search term or phrase only a certain amount of times without over using or misusing it
Avoiding very long words (words with multiple syllables)
Not writing very long sentences
Having an appropriate and appealing topic if writing an online article
SEO copywriting must still be readable and persuasive like any other style of writing
Styles of SEO writing
Online writers write articles, press releases and “optimise” existing web content. The copywriter must keep in mind all the above mentioned SEO “rules” when writing articles. Press releases are similar but cover more than just one topic. Optimising web content is simply increasing the use of a specific key term or phrase on a particular page of a website with the hope of making that page rank higher during a search.
Writing for magazines, news papers, pamphlets or even bill boards, the Copywriter writes easy to read, enjoyable and compelling copy with the aim of persuading you into taking a certain action. Whilst SEO copywriting is steered in the same direction, the online Copywriter has a goal of making a company’s website or specific web page on the site rank highly in a search.
The foremost goal of SEO copywriting is to produce succinct, effectively persuasive text for a well-written web page and to make it rank highly during a search.
Google has been slowly but surely changing the way in which we use Google Search. The design and overall user experience of Google Search, that is. This mainstream search engine recently revealed that Ads will now be placed at the bottom of the search results page, instead of the top.
This transition from “top vs, side” Ads to “top vs. other” Ads is said to perform better. This is because the viewer can easily scroll from the top of the page, down to the bottom, which is a natural action. In tests that Google have been performing, results show that Ad placement at the bottom of the search results page, received better click- through rates.
Google revealed that Ads placed at the bottom of the page and those placed on the side of the page, will be exclusive. This means that these Ads will not appear at the same time, reducing the amount of clutter, with regards to advertising.
Organic search results positioned at the bottom of the page have been known to generally have higher click- through rates than Ads in that portion of the page. However, now that Google Ads will be placed at the bottom of the page, there will more than likely be an increase in traffic to the Ads. This poses the question? Is Google planning on doing away with organic search all together?
One thing is for sure… The bottom of the Google results page provides plenty more space than the top and side of the page, allowing for more Ads to appear on one search results page. But what does this mean for the Ad campaign’s success? Well if most viewers find what they need on the first Google results page, it could mean dismal results for Ad campaigns on other pages.
At this stage, it is too early to judge the success of a specific Ad campaign at the bottom of the Google results page. However if certain keywords result in high volumes of paid Ads, then a specific Ad campaign will appear at the bottom of the Google results page.
Owning a Digital Marketing Agency can be a challenging task as well as an extremely fulfilling one at the same time. It is a very competitive industry and one that’s changing every single day. If you can’t keep up with the rate at which the internet and the digital world is advancing, I am afraid it’s quite easy to find yourself in deep waters without a life boat.
I caught up with Ceri James, the founder and Marketing and Sales Director of Talooma Digital Marketing Agency. Talooma has been in the digital marketing space for over 12 years and continues to set benchmarks.
The secret to Talooma’s success lies in its leadership and the quality of its staff. “Team dynamic, passion, a common purpose and unlimited potential to learn” this is what Ceri had to add to the ingredients of his company’s success.
With mobile internet devices like Smart Phones and Tablets becoming more and more affordable and therefore accessible to most people, the internet has become available to almost everybody these days. As a result of this, Digital Marketing Companies are becoming more and more relevant as most companies realise the huge potential for a great return on investing in online marketing. The future only has bigger and more exciting things to offer for the online space and digital marketing as a whole.
Talooma has grown tremendously as a digital marketing company over the last 12 years but the journey does not end there, in fact this is what Ceri had to say, “in the next two to three years we are certainly going to be a lot stronger in the hospitality industry…our aim is to hopefully be listed as one of the top 500 companies to work for”
The Talooma story is certainly a testimony that hard work and dedication pays off but for Ceri the sky is the limit and there’s still a long way to climb.
If you are battling to keep up with social networking and new media, I certainly don’t blame you – They are growing faster than we can get our heads around them! SpyderLynk a mobile marketing and technology company has just set the next level of advertiser and consumer interaction.Social Snap Tagsallows smart phone users access to a brand offer for special discounts, video clips, coupons, promotions, store locaters, free samples, etc.
Unlike 2D barcodes, Social SnapTags does not require the download of a special software application working for any consumer with a camera phone and messaging capabilities.
What are Social Snap Tags?
You will find Social Snap Tags on any advertisement. Using one’s mobile camera phone, a consumer can get access to brands’ information, specials, discounts, retail location and so forth. Furthermore consumers can ‘’like’’ or ‘’follow’’ a brand.
How Social Snap Shots work?
Social SnapTags turn your brand logo into an interactive marketing tool. Consumers with either a standard or smart camera phone can take and send a picture of the Social SnapTag to a designated short code or scan the Social SnapTag using a Social SnapTag Reader App to instantly access offers, content, promotions, and information.
Consumers may also begin to share these promotions and offers with their friends on Facebook, Twitter and via e-mail directly from their mobile phones. This is how Social Snap Shots extend their footprint into social networking and e-mail.
The wait is over; Google (Google Plus 1) has joined the extension bandwagon. If you are a Chrome user the Google Plus icon will become more and more visible on all your favourite web sites which will allow you to Plus 1 any web page. This ingenuity was developed directly by Google Inc. and it will function similar to the Facebook “like” button you see on most web pages today.
The concern for most, however, is the fact that Google Plus sends a list of all the pages that you have visited to the Google Server but this information will not be connected to your account as a user. Normally the company may keep some information about your visit to certain pages, usually for a period of about two weeks, to maintain and clear up its systems.
So how does Google Plus 1 button work?
Whenever you search for something on Google Chrome, you will find a small transparent Google Plus button in front of your search results. When you click on it, it becomes blue. This simply indicates that you have voted for that link, it’s like telling other searchers “hey! Check this webpage out”.
If you see 2 pages on Facebook for example – one having 100 likes and other having 100000 likes – without giving it much thought, you would go for the page with more likes.
This concept is similar with Google Plus, the number of “+1s” a site gets indicates its popularity.
Google Plus 1 extension
Not all websites have started making use of the Google Plus1 button, however the extension of Google Plus allows all Chrome users to Plus 1 any web page they desire whether it is using the in-site Plus 1 button or not. By installing the extension the user is able to Google Plus 1 the page and should you have already done so, it will turn blue. The number of Google Plus1’s are also shown.
Benefits of Google 1
The launch of Google Plus buttons literary means very effective steps has been taken that combine the power of search engine optimisation and Social Media in bringing massive free traffic to your website or web page. It affects the ranking of a website on Google Search results. The more “ 1s” your website gets, the better Search engine ranking it gets – it’s that simple!
So Steve Jobs the man we have come to know as “The Apple Man” has stepped down as Apple CEO and chairman. So what does this mean for Apple and the industry at large? There are so many questions on people’s lips but one thing is certain, Tim Cook the current COO will succeed Steve as Apples new CEO.
Tim Cook, was hand-picked by Steve Jobs himself, he has handled the top position repeatedly in the absence of the sickly Jobs. Though he may not be nearly as recognisable as Jobs, Cook had been running Apple since the beginning of 2011. The company has performed really well during that time and has rolled in billions of dollars in profit from around the world.
Steve Jobs’ resignation as CEO does not necessarily mean he has left Apple completely – let’s just say he has taken the back sit, and he will continue to contribute his unique insights, creativity and inspiration. Many Apple fanatics hope that his wisdom will transcend through the newly appointed Cook.
On the other hand, Apple’s board of directors have “complete faith” that Tim Cook is the right person to replace him. There’s no doubt that Apple needs to persuade its investors and consumers that it will continue to produce innovative and trend setting technologies if they plan to retain their loyalty.
However, some industry experts don’t have full confidence in Apple’s future: Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research, said “Jobs’ maniacal attention to detail is what has set Apple apart from its competitors”. He also added “Apple’s product pipeline might be secure for another few years”, but he predicted that the company will eventually struggle to come up with market-changing ideas.
Apple’s future as the leading technology company after Steve Jobs’ departure is uncertain to some but the Apple brand is still as strong as ever. I guess from now on only time will reveal all.
Steve Jobs’ resignation as Apple’s top man due to illness certainly brings new meaning to the saying: an apple a day keeps the doctor away.
