Jun 24
There are plenty of pubs that men would recommend to each other. Maybe for its great ambiance, or the friendly and personable bartender, or maybe for having some of the lowest prices in town or simply for having the tastiest shrimp available; whatever it may be, these places tend to get by on word of mouth and while this an effective form of advertising, the accessibility of the internet and smart phone technology has moved the concept of personal recommendations into a whole new field.
Before, word of mouth simply meant that the friends and family members who would actually listen to your recommendations would actually try it out. But with today’s technology, even a complete stranger might be heading off to your favorite tap on account of a properly posted Tweet.
Good customer reviews, combined with easily usable references such as recommended items on the menu, location directions and the use of technology such as GPS makes things a whole lot easier –and more encouraging for people to try out new places that they have never seen.
The presence of location based applications also affects plenty too. Foursquare not only keep track of the number of times people go to a location, but that are also ways for people to leave their virtual remarks and reviews of a store.
Of course, reviews can go bother ways. As many stores have seen how valuable getting good internet rep can be, criticisms can also mean bad news. As many of you might realize, it is far easier to discourage than to actually encourage others and if people originally had not known of a location, the less they would care about it if all they hear are complaints.
In this regard, stores these days find themselves being more rewarded and successful for being the best that the can be. Gone is the notion of having to cut down on services to save costs –the small time and energy investments to improve a store are paying themselves back more than twofold.
Jun 23
Google knows that people struggle with keeping their smart phones from running low on power. But with internet access, voice guided navigation, media playback and a whole host of other features, the device tends to lose plenty of energy from use. While this is understandable, having power drain when the phone is on standby is a waste. Here are some valuable energy saving tips that should keep the lights shining on your new HTC Desire for a bit longer!
The first thing that is recommended is to turn off the auto updates. This will keep you from seeing the latest tweets and Facebook updates, but these can also be checked manually. Unless you are already plugged into a charger, leaving this setting turned on will eat up energy.
Auto sync is another feature that will drain you battery when left on its own. This is very important especially for users that do not make use of the Google Life applications such as the Google calendar. Since the service auto syncs every now and then, shutting it off will save plenty of power.
From Android 1.6 Donut to the latest 2.2 version, Google has provided the Android with tools and functions for monitoring the battery drain of individual apps and functions. Check the “battery use” option to see a quick log of apps that take up plenty of energy.
Creating switch off widgets will make the task of moving a phone into low power mode much easier. While creating the widget itself will take several minutes, it turns all processes into a single screen tap command.
Of course, non Android tips also apply; keeping the screen lights low, using darker wallpapers, shutting off GPS, WiFi, 3G and Bluetooth when not needed. Also, the WiFi settings on the Android have an auto shut off feature that users might want to check out.
Jun 03
Smart phones are pushing technology forward, thanks to the fact that handsets, by nature, are devices that people will tend to carry around the most; it also provides the biggest room for feedback, study, analysis and direct user-reactions. Even the manufacturers themselves have one or two smart phones in their pockets all the time.
For the past couple of years, the emergence of better WiFi and 3G network technology has allowed the growth of the internet thanks to continued access from smart phones, and social networking sites such as Facebook and microblogging site Twitter has grown to new heights thanks to instant access from mobile phones.
Now, the smart phone-internet combination is getting another important new addition; GPS. Location based services for smart phones are not new, but in the past few months, they have been growing a lot. Apps such as Foursquare have become major hits as they not only allowed people to connect online, the level of interactivity also begun to involve the places they visited.
Some location based services are even taking the service one step further. While Foursquare and other similar apps offer virtual rewards, Looptstar promises actual, real life rewards to users. Ranging from free downloadable content to store discounts, Looptstar has made plenty of store deals that would make anyone’s daily errands a whole lot more rewarding.
At this point, location based networking is still at its early stages, and not many people are too keen about checking in to have this presence logged. But as the services begins to get more and more ties ups with actual establishments and more people start using it. Peer pressure is actually a lot more powerful than what one might imagine. It will have the same pull as Facebook – people have to join because opting out equates to being left out.
Feb 09
The major concern about Vodafone’s little Twitter incident made people worry as to whether the company’s account had been hacked.
With information theft on the rise, such concerns are natural and valid. Fortunately, the actual problem is a lot simpler and is not a major issue at all. Apparently, an employee of Vodafone had posted an offensive post on Twitter which promptly got re-tweeted before the original post had been deleted. The offending post apparently had discriminating remarks against the gay community and had sexist connotations towards women.
Vodafone employees had posted several other tweets to apologize and clarify the events. According to the posts, the operator already identified the offending employee and suspended the person indefinitely. The matter is being handled internally and it is probable that the employee would be terminated for the misconduct –which makes perfect sense.
The main assurance that Vodafone representatives gave was that “this is not a hack”, showing that security was the real issue in the event.
Despite this little problem, the rest of 2010 has been good to Vodafone. The company started the year by taking out the HTC HD2 and the XPERIA X2 from its 2010 lineup of mobile devices. It was later announced by Google that Vodafone will be a partner of the company in distributing the Nexus One in the UK.
The latter half of January saw the launch of the Apple iPhone –Vodafone UK sold 100,000 units in the first week alone. The number of subscribers is continuing to grow as iPhone subscribers from rival O2 are reportedly switching over to the Vodafone network. With the larger, faster and more stable 3G network offered by the company, it is easy to understand why.
Read the full article on the Tweet and Vodafone’s reaction to the event at Thinq UK.
