January 2010

Do Businesses Need Twitter?

Twitter has by far become a great marketing and advertising tool for businesses around the world. By offering exclusive deals, or being able to help solve an issue nearly immediately, the use of the social network has been a success, but it is for everyone? Do you need Twitter to keep your business afloat it’s today’s technology friendly and social networking world?

Matt Bailey from SiteLogic told WebProNews reporter Abby Johnson, “No.” And while many have has success with Twitter, Bailey says that “you need to have a consistent marketing strategy of how to use that social media to your benefit.” (more…)

Social Media News Brief: Jan. 8, 2010

Social Media made a presence at CES, while Twitter starts nominations for the Shorty Awards! Find out all the details in today’s Social Media News Brief. (more…)

iePlexus Praised For Closed Captions

Back in November, we told you that YouTube would begin supporting a new feature which would help make it easier to enable closed captioning to your videos. Since that day, we here at iePlexus have been using the feature in all of our news briefs, to help inform the hearing impaired.  Late Thursday evening, iePlexus received an e-mail from 22frames.com. 

22frames.com described their website as “a captioned video search engine,” and the first of it’s kind.  The company searches for videos with closed captions throughout the web, to bring it all to one place since most closed captioned videos are scattered throughout the internet.  (more…)

Bringing Yahoo To Your TV

To be frankly honest, it’s been a slow week in the social media world.  However, the Consumer Electronic Show (CES), currently happening in Las Vegas is making the week a bit better.  This year, it seems everything is about TV’s.  I shared with you earlier this week that Skype plans on bringing Skype to your TV screen soon.  Then the technology has made it so far advanced, we can expect to get 3DTV in our homes later on this year.  There is even a LG television that debuted which is only 7 millimeters thick, that’s the equivalent of just slightly over a quarter of an inch! 

While it’s hard to skip over that, Yahoo has decided they want to get into the television business.  Last June, Yahoo announced they were creating a widget which would help bring an internet experience to your television.  The company calls it’s Connected TV.  Thursday morning at CES, Yahoo announced they would be expanding their partnership and would start to make the widget available to the public today. (more…)

Your Own iPhone App: There’s An App For That

It seems that there’s an app for just about everything.  Whether you are looking to play a game, trying to keep track of your finances, search the latest trends in the social media world, or even make new friends, there’s an app for it.   And with several apps profiting in the 7 digit range, everyone is trying to create an app for something or another. But actually building an app takes time and money, unless you have the skills of an advanced developer.  But now anyone can create an app for a pretty affordable option.

A service known as AppMakr launched this week, and promises to help you create an application for iTunes.  That means parts of your website could be turned into an application for iPods & iPhones alike.  Sharing news, your Twitter feed, video blogs, and just about anything else you can think of could now be part of your very own app. (more…)

Social Media News Brief: Jan. 6, 2010

Facebook decided to dominate Google once again, while Google is trying to make an attempt to bring Apple iPhone sales down.  Find out all the details in today’s social media news brief. (more…)

Google Unveils Nexus One

Google has just unveiled their long awaited phone known as the Nexus One, what Google considers a “Super Phone.”  Rumors have been swirling about the phone for some time now, and there have been a few leaks with in the past week or so, but today the company shared what the phone can actually do.  The Nexus One is designed in partnership with HTC.  (more…)

Skype To Come To A TV Near You

We have all at least seen Skype.  Oprah uses it to talk with guests from around the world!  In case you aren’t familiar with Skype, it’s a free service which allows you to video chat with other Skype users or lets you pay a small  fee to call land line and mobile phones worldwide.  As of last count, the service had more 527 million users, that’s more than Facebook’s impressive 350 million users. 

This week at the Consumer Electronic’s Show, which starts Wednesday in Las Vegas, Skype is expected to show off Skype for your HDTV.  Right now the service only works on computers, and several smart phones.  So moving it to you television would be a new experience. (more…)

Social Media In The New Decade

10 years ago at this moment, the world was relieved that nothing that they had feared about, regarding Y2K actually happened.  People were now placing their money back into the bank, while others had an endless supply of food they had stocked up on just in case.  It’s crazy to think that if someone would have said “Facebook”, “YouTube”, “Digg”, or just the words “social media,” we most likely would have given them a funny and strange look. 

It was in 2004 when social media was created.  Linkdin & MySpace took to the web and since then there has been explosion of “social media” & “social networking” sites.  When I graduated high school in 2005, if had ever wanted to share a video with the class for a certain project, I’d have to visit the library, maybe a video store, and rent the video, while worrying about some return date.  Today, my brother who is in his sophomore year of high school is able to use YouTube to share a video with just the click of a mouse.  Our world has advanced so much in the past decade, and social media has played a significant role! (more…)

2009 Online Holiday Shopping Ends High

The numbers are in from the 2009 online holiday shopping season, and it could be a good sign for the economy.  In the report from comScore, the e-commerce industry faired better than the same time in 2008. 

“During [November 1- December 24], approximately $27 Billion was spent online, which represents an increase of 5 percent over the same period a year ago,” said the comScore Press Release. For the period from Black Friday through Christmas Eve, and after adjusting for the additional shopping day in 2009, sales grew by approximately 3.5 percent.” (more…)