It was a mere month ago when the Christmas holiday was upon us and we were frantically rushing around shops making the decision to buy gifts and get drunk or pay rent!
Now it is all in the past, and a sparkly new year is upon us - and speeding past!
This year we have some amazing things to celebrate...
Of course the top of our list is our birthday - we are 10!! We have a bunch of exciting stuff planned throughout the year and we will be celebrating every month!
Also on the calendar is the Queen's Jubilee and the Olympics, not quite as thrilling but a few more bank holidays to celebrate.
How has your year gone so far? Hoping for a better February than January?
You may have heard that Ofcom want the UK to have access to 4G across the board, but what does this actually mean?
In a nutshell
4G is short for fourth generation. It will allow mobile phones to get faster internet connections, but to implement it the mobile networks need more spectrum (think of how a radio station broadcasts on a particular frequency). Ofcom are going to auction off some spectrum for 4G use, but after legal challenges to their initial plan they will no longer be reserving any for Three or Everything Everywhere who will now have to fight it out with the others.
The release of the 4G spectrum is crucial to the growth of mobile data, which is forecast to increase 500pc in Western Europe over the next five years.
Pro's
- Access to speedier mobile web
- Increase competition between mobile networks, bringing a better deal to consumers
- Faster access in rural areas
Con's
- As no network offers unlimited allowance for smartphones it is likely that the cheaper option of 500gb will go out the window
- The 4G network is already last years thang, Trailblazers in the US and Europe are already looking for the next best think and the UK is falling behind
The final decision will be made in the summer, but as the government are already prepared to offer £150bn for the project the auction is likely to go ahead.
The news from over the holidays was a little depressing – shops weren’t getting the sales that they had hoped and the January Sales came early in December, it still couldn’t save some shops such as Blacks from being taken over.
Robert’s earlier post about ecomms is extremely valid – shops need to provide a multi-offering to customers. With sites such as groupon and vouchercodes receiving high hit rates over the holiday maybe it’s time to assess what the shopper wants. Is the reason why people aren’t buying products such as clothes and electronics because they are too expensive in the first place?
Take an iPhone, it costs £500ish new but in reality the phone costs about £3 to make and the rest of the money is for the brand. Not many people can afford these luxuries when the cost of living is going up.
Of course, not everything can be discounted everyday to the extent that vouchers and sales offer – but what is the solution?
Any ideas....
Before the iPad hit the streets in 2010, everyone knew it was going to be the next big thing - a tablet computer that was a massive iPhone was the ultimate toy for the fanboi! Advertisement of the model is swayed between work and play, as are many of the apps, which could have turned this machine into an expensive fad.
But, it looks like the iPad is now coming into its own - as a useful piece of equipment. Since the beginning of 2011 more people are using tablet computers over their mobile devices to get online, click through on links and to share information with others.
More people are buying tablets, with Apple the number one seller - will it be in the top ten of gadgets that Santa leaves under the tree? Only 13 sleeps to find out!
With an Xbox update scheduled for tomorrow, Skyrim taking over as the new must have game and 3DS being pushed as the must have chrissy-pressy, it is inevitable that at least half of teenagers will be exposed to some kind of video game, but are these games helping or hindering development?
Rutgers University modified a computer game to help hand-eye coordination in teenagers with Cerebral Palsy, and Rochester University in New York discovered that computer games can improve visual attention skills.
However, a study by Tohoko University in 2001 proved that video games stunted brain growth, using a Nintendo game and comparing brain scan results with a control from the results found that the frontal lobe stopped growing, which has an important role to play in learning, memory and emotion.
This could mean that teenagers cannot differentiate between reality and the game, could have mood swings and could end up lashing out; which has been the defendants case in a number of recent murders in the US.
Of course, if games had this effect on everyone then we would see a lot more game-style murders and considering that when Call of Duty came out in Jan 2008 it sold 1.57 million for the Xbox 360 and 444,000 units for the PlayStation 3.
It could be argued that extreme gamers don't have the brain growth because they are not interacting with the world, and are in a room playing a computer game all day - that is bound to skew anyone's reality!
Have you any relevant stories, positive or negative for video games?
Google + has been around for a while now, if you have a gmail account you have probably already played with it - tried adding friends to it, and left it at that!
Now some of the leading names in the industry are talking about how it will take over the world and become a business must have.
But, does the general public really understand what it does? It isn't just a social network platform, it isn't even going trying to be the new Facebook.
It wants to be more than that - a tool that helps analyse who is interacting with you, your brand and that boosts the search of your and drives conversations, not just pointless comments.
What do you think of Google +, does it need more to make it a contender, can anyone capture what it is in one sweeping statement?!
Go on, give it a go
Keeping on the privacy lines (as per last post) what would make you trust a business, or a person? Newstransparancy.com believe that by having a Journalists every detail available, from phone number to facebook, that they will be more trustworthy.
Personally I am not sure how seeing drunken pictures of you on a night out can really show your personality or whether you are trustworthy or not. Of course, it is important for companies to have some transparency so clients can be assured that their money and brand are in good hands.
Choosing the right agency is a big step, remember that you are starting a relationship, so be strategic - do you get on with the team, do they understand your vision, can you see a future with them?
When approaching agencies, don't always go for the yes men - those agencies who challenge your perspective can provide an option you may never have thought before and take you to the next level of brand power.
Don't be tempted to read a website and only pick out words such as SEO, Web 2.0 and think you have found the dream connection, what else does the site say about that agency? However, the design of an agency site is also not typical of what they offer; a pitch process will show you all the unique skills they possess.
Trust is always important, and it should be shown from both client and agency side.
It wasn't that long ago we were writing about BlackBerry and their secretive BMM, which many says gave fuel to fires when the UK riots were taking hold. The social networks were full of disdain for those rioters, with commenter's suggesting that Twitter and BMM should be shut down. But now there are rumours that the Met Police are using covert survelliance to switch off phones, intercept communications and gather data people are beginning to shout about Human Rights and Civil Liberties.
What, as a nation do we want? Privacy is one of the most important parts of freedom, however, would you give up a small part of it to stomp out organised crime?
Click here to take survey
Facebook offers the following for businesses:
Pages; Create a space to interact with your fans, get to know potential customers and build a community.
Ads; Reach exactly the people you want with ads that let you target by age, location, interests and more.
Sponsored Stories; Take advantage of friends talking to friends with sponsored stories, a natural way to amplify word of mouth.
Platform; Transform your website into a social experience with plug-ins and custom apps.
A quick tour of Facebook and you can find most companies on there, pushing their brand or competition, acting as a point of contact and trying to gain more fans.
The dream is that the Facebook page will be a valuable marketing tool, driving people to buy the product. But, this dream rarely turns into a reality, with most cases ending in a costly bill as companies shell out for media managers!
The argument for using Facebook is usually, “because everyone else is” and “because we want to offer a resources page to target new demographics.
This sound strategically sound, but if you have been pushing Grandma juice for 100 years, will appealing to the 16-30yr olds really help sell your product? Before rolling out a fan page be aware of what you are offering and how you are selling yourself.
Fan pages can offer extra value, a business can upload videos, vouchers and offers that, unless you like the page, you won’t get anywhere else. A fan page needs to continuously grow, adapting to Facebook and its changes. Creating a page may be easy but it takes dedication and time for its upkeep.
Paying for adverts and sponsorship can boost your fan pages profile, but make sure it is worth it. Some businesses spend thousands on increasing their fan base, putting their effort into offering value over product pushes, but receive no sales conversion.
You may be thinking, well we have thousands of fans and our sales are great, but do you think about the bigger picture – how are you marketing yourselves elsewhere? TV, Twitter, POS, blog.
Having a blog is one of the most important parts of social media, it can boost Google listings, give your company a presence in the industry and can be interacted with.
So think about Facebook and whether it really is working for your business, don’t just go to the party for the sake of it, your business is about making money – ensure all of your marketing is doing that for you.
The term planned obsolescence has been bandied around since the 20s, where manufactures deliberately make products that will depreciate quicker than they should.
This con allows companies to make more money from consumers and the technology industry is one of the biggest perpetrators.
However, it could be argued that those companies have to get the money from somewhere to develop more impressive technology so they can release newer models. But it is frustrating when your phone stops working two months shy of the contract renewal.
Of course, building a product like a phone to last forever, would be pointless as the tech inside would soon be outdated and the phone unusable.
But other products such as TVs and DVD players should have longevity as they only get replaced when a new fad (HD anyone!!!) comes to town.
However, the real problem isn’t that products aren’t build to last it is the fact that consumers are letting these manufacturers get away with it.
Once upon a time they were king – demanding new products that would help their life, forcing down prices by shopping around and withholding funds when a product didn’t do what it said on the tin. Now, times have changed, consumers are meek they have no voice, they aren’t even complaining when their 2 year old laptop dies due to a rubbish processor, they just obligingly go and wait in a queue to buy a new one for couple of hundred pounds.
No wonder household bills are increasing when every other year the average person buys new technology, they sign up to a ridiculously high monthly phone contract – just to have the new, expensive must-have phone – and have to pay for internet/sky contracts just so they can be the same as everyone else.
It is time to take some of the power back people - what do you think?