Archive for the ‘Consumer technologies’ Category

Are we witnessing the demise of the desktop and laptop?

John Herlihy, Google’s VP of online sales, believes that the desktop has about three years before phones replace it. And he first made that prediction a year ago.

Previously, only those with BlackBerrys used phones for everything, including simple tasks such as email. Now, according to a new Nielsen smartphone report, 43% of mobile phone users have smartphones. People use phones to do things that used to be reserved for desktop PCs, such as surf the web, play games, and watch video.

How high up the corporate agenda is greening IT? Is the pursuit of profit really able to sit side-by-side with helping protect the planet and its people?

Yes, according to CompTIA’s survey of 650 IT and business executives involved in green initiatives or strategies in the US, UK and Germany. “IT is coming out of the server closet,” said Seth Robinson, the organisation’s director of information technology analysis.

A digital marketing approach and its associated channels are critical for overcoming the declining effectiveness of mass marketing, according to Gartner, Inc. Although marketers have been using digital channels as part of their campaign management strategies for more than 10 years, most are using them for traditional push, mass-marketed, interruption-type execution of campaigns rather than a two-way engagement approach.

“Mass marketing is no longer a long-term strategy. Mass-marketing campaigns have a 2 percent response rate and are on the decline, whereas by 2015, digital strategies, such as social and mobile marketing, will influence at least 80 percent of consumers’ discretionary spending,” said Adam Sarner, research director at Gartner. “Marketers still need to shift their traditional campaign management strategy around executing campaigns to a customer and move toward a digital marketing, two-way engagement approach.”

A bit like a child at Christmas who can’t wait for the next present, no sooner is one significant, life-changing innovation unleashed on us, that we are clamouring for the next.

Internet chatter now is all about the Next Big Thing. And when you look back over the last five years alone, the developments that have taken place, and the dramatic way in which they have impacted on our daily lives, is enormous.

But still the talk goes on. Any why not? Each new development is breathtaking in its creativity, technological innovation and social impact. So, what is next?

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2011/01/27/245103/LinkedIn-acquires-business-card-scanning-firm-CardMunch.htm

Professional networking site LinkedIn has acquired CardMunch, a startup that supplies technology for scanning and transcribing business cards.

The technology is aimed at helping users to manage business contacts by scanning business cards and storing the information digitally.

“LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and as such, provides the perfect platform for us to execute the CardMunch vision,” the company said in a statement.

LinkedIn does not plan to use the CardMunch application as a revenue spinner, but it is likely to be used to bring business card information into LinkedIn itself, according to the New York Times.