One thing that gets only a fraction of the attention that the iPad has generated is the question of its processing power. The iPad will be powered by a chip called the “A4″ and that’s about all that Apple has told anyone. It will be a System-on-a-Chip (SoC), similar to the iPhone and other devices, and speculation has been that it will be a new version of the Cortex-A8. One insider says it’s more like a stripped-down, “nothing to write home about” A8.
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Why Apple is Keeping the iPad A4 Under Wraps
Beginning next month, Facebook will include location-based status updates into its makeup, allowing all 400 million-plus users to update not just with short text blurbs, but with current location as well. Twitter activated geo-location on their status as well, just in time for South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas – one of the biggest tech gatherings in the nation.
Twitter activated their geo-location through the API in November, but did not incorporate it into status updates until yesterday. Facebook, meanwhile, updated their privacy settings (to much controversy) in November, setting a new policy allowing for the location-based updates. Those updates will launch late next month at Facebook’s f8 conference.
According to the New York Times, Facebook does promise to make the location updates optional so that users can participate (or not) as they wish.
Both Facebook and Twitter have been eyeballing the geo-location apps that have hit mainstream for months and many believed that either would make a move to buy out either or both of the major players in geo-location games (Foursquare and Gowalla). So far, that hasn’t happened and it’s become clear that Facebook, at least, plans to compete with them rather than try to absorb them.
TechCrunch unveiled the Twitter update, which includes overlay maps of the user’s location when a location-based tag has been added to a tweet. The update is by no means seamless, however, with some tweets appearing as place names and others appearing as map overlays. Some don’t appear at all, as I failed to get either to work on my own Twitter account. It is possible, of course, that Twitter is rolling this out slowly over accounts in the network.
In either case, it looks like the new location-based war is on with everyone getting in on the action.
With all of the buzz about the new Apple iPad, the new HP Slate has been a little overlooked. This new device from Hewlett Packard will run Windows 7 and, of course, Adobe’s Flash. The video also captures the on-screen keyboard, showcases how the hardware-accelerated Flash speeds up performance, and also shows that AIR applications will also run on the Slate.
Little is offered from HP on the technology underneath the hood of this device, but it’s obvious that HP knows where it’s strengths lie: it’s not an Apple and it runs Flash and AIR. So despite its lackluster debut at Microsoft’s CES, where all the Slate could do was run the Kindle Windows app, the Slate is definitely aimed directly at the iPad-disappointment crowd, who epxected a little more from Apple’s first touch pad computer.
Here’s the commercial from HP showing the square-off between devices:
If that makes no sense to you, don’t worry. You’re not alone. I’ve seen Super Bowl ads that were more sensical than that.
Nonetheless, the marketing video and gadget-showcase from HP show that the tablet market is set to really heat up this year, with four contenders currently in the game. Fun!
Social media is taking the business of the Internet by storm and is the marketing wave of the now as well as the future. Yet social media is not nearly as social as people might like you to think. Recent events right here in South Florida proved that many of the so-called social media experts are, in fact, just self-serving marketing whiners. The social media bubble is about to burst.
Recently, the Sun Sentinel announced this year’s Best of Blogs Awards for South Florida in which fans of various blogs could click through to vote on their favorites. The winner will be announced tonight, but the complaining and whining from those who think they should have won has already started. I learned about this because my own blog, WorstPizza.com, was up for the win and outpaced all of these complainers.
Looking at the others who complained, most of which are self-proclaimed social media experts, one thing became very apparent: these blogs have no traffic. Despite being supposed experts in media and social networking, these bloggers have an average of 10 visitors per day versus those on the short list for the win of the BOB Awards, which all have 500 or more visits per day.
Yet these self-absorbed social media mavens are busy crying fowl, calling the awards a joke, bashing those who are on the winners list. Which proves that they are not social media experts, but are instead self-serving media experts. These are people who just don’t understand social media and what it really is. Unfortunately we are living amongst several dozen down here in South Florida.
Sure, social media can be used to gain a lot of traffic and marketing, but it isn’t done by having a thousand (robot) followers on Twitter or a couple of hundred fans on Facebook. For those so-called experts, the bubble is about to burst.
No, social media marketing is about interacting with people, helping one another, and giving value. At the same time these bloggers have been bashing my own website, others on my friends lists have been extremely helpful and have shown what social marketing is supposed to be. Several commented on my great blog, wished me luck, and even asked me to go and vote for them. Most made sure that their networks were also in on the voting, getting the social crowd-sourcing on the task to get out the vote.
Social media users like @thetinyjewelbox, @malcolli (for AutoNation), @midtownchica and @vicequeenmaria are examples of how it should be done. They continually give their South Florida friends help, ideas, and value. One look at their tweets shows that they are interacting, not just playacting to gain a crowd.
Soon, those who are building empty networks and attempting to gain by sucking all they can from those social webs will find their bubble bursting. Those who really understand social networking and media and use it the way it should be used will be the ones who outlast and prevail. No matter how much crying and whining you do!
Well, readers here should already know that we’ve heard enough about the iPad already, but Apple made another announcement today. The iPad will be available in the U.S. on April 3, in stores and online, and pre-orders can be made starting a week from today (Friday, March 12).
Two models will be available: the Wi-Fi and the Wi-Fi 3G. Next Friday, they’ll both be in the Apple store at Apple.com. Store orders will ship to arrive on April 3 or you can pick up yours at a local Apple outlet store. Base price for the iPad is $499 and battery life is about ten hours.
The base model has 16GB of memory, which can be doubled for another $100 or tripled for another $200. Wi-Fi+3G models won’t be available until later in April and will have a base price of $629 for 16GB and going up in $100 increments for the 32 and 64GB options.
The other denizens of the world will see the iPad roll out throughout the year. Most of Europe plus Australia and Canada will get theirs in late April and then Asia and other markets will see it later in the year. Some apps, such as the iBooks reader and the iBookstore app for accessing electronic book titles will be a free download (books themselves will still require purchase).
Computerworld’s Mitch Wagner plans to camp out to get his iPad on release day. John Biggs at Crunchgear plans to make do with his NotePod Plus until the release date. Whatever a NotePod is.
Regardless, there are some of us who are looking forward to April 4, when all the iPod buzz will be over with. I, for one, certainly hope the iPad won’t be taking the place of this year’s iPhone upgrade..
Caffeine, Google’s most recent algorithm update has been in the works for some time, but is being rolled out over the first part of this year. The biggest change in the Caffeine algorithm is the increased importance of web site load time. Up until now, this has been a point of contention in the SEO community – some argued it was taken into account by search algorithms, while others argued it was not. With the unveiling of Caffeine, we finally have a definitive answer: sites that aren’t optimized to load fast and effectively will see a definite drop in their organic search rankings.
What type of sites are usually the slowest to load? Bingo, Flash sites. The thorn in the side of SEO’s for years. Even with Google’s latest spiders being able to crawl through Flash content, the rankings are on average much lower than non-Flash sites. After the Caffeine integration, page rankings for Flash sites will drop even further. Coincidentally, another device will be launched in the next month that has a beef with Flash – the iPad. I won’t be the one to say that Google and Apple have conspired to wipe Flash-heavy sites off the internet, but it definitely seems like a sign of the times to come, especially if the iPad is a huge commercial success as predicted. Of course, even Adobe has voiced its distaste of the overuse of flash and how it can detract from the user experience, as stated in the Flash Blog. http://theflashblog.com/?p=1698
But back to Caffeine, what other changes will we see?
An increased relevance will be given to quality outgoing links and having fresh, updated content. Google will be making a push to keep search rankings current and relevant by giving higher rankings to sites with targeted, up to date content and pertinent outgoing links. Actually, as a whole, it would seem that the caffeine update will primarily be affecting on-site SEO and not offsite SEO – good news to those who have spent countless hours building incoming links. Google is effectively using their algorithm to police the internet and banish slow or irrelevant sites to the back pages of search listings. And why not? I don’t know anyone who enjoys running a search and finding a three year old article pop up as the top result only to have to scroll through two pages to find a more current article.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if some sort of extra relevance was given to sites that were heavily linked by social networks. Google’s live feed, social circle search results, and the launch of Google Buzz all look like pretty clear indication that Google’s future looks to draw heavily from the spheres of social media.
As a final note, Google will also be rewriting their own indexing structure which will allow them to crawl sites faster and produce search results quicker. Hey, at least they aren’t hyprocrites.
Some tools for you…
Page Speed: http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/index.html
Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
You can follow me on twitter @morewillie
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, did a live interview at Search Marketing Expo West in California (transcript here). He said several things that have a lot of people asking a lot of questions and making more than a few conjectures too. The recent deal with Yahoo! that has received the OK from the European Union and will begin rolling out over the next year plus the question of who’s talking to who at Twitter are hot topics right now.
Ballmer’s remarks on the deal with Yahoo! made it clear that Microsoft wants to roll forward with their advertising and integration, through Bing, quickly. At the same time, CNBC interviewed Yahoo’s CEO, Carol Bartz, and pointedly asked her not only about the attempted buyout by Microsoft (for which Bartz was not CEO or even at Yahoo), but about whether she would entertain another MS offer today. Her answer to the latter? “Sure.”
Now the question there is whether Microsoft would be amenable to offering another buyout. With Yahoo’s stock down to around the $15 mark per share, it could be a bargain for the Seattle Giant, who offered $33/share a couple of years ago. The new question now would be whether MS would gain much from the purchase, since Bing is already beat that double-digit market share on its own.
Speaking of that, much of the conversation during the Q&A with Ballmer centered on Bing’s growth and, of course, the search giant: Google. Ballmer was willing to give props to Google for “getting it right first.” His implication, obviously, being that being first doesn’t necessarily make them best anymore, but it does give them the King of the Mountain status (for now).
Now for Twitter. During the interview, the MS CEO was asked about Twitter. Here’s his resposne to that, which you can judge for yourself:
Q: You mentioned Twitter. Buy them, should you be buying them? Should you get them out there, they’ve got that great data, shouldn’t you just own the whole company and have it out there?
STEVE BALLMER: Not clear. I mean, we have a great relationship and partnership with Twitter. Not clear to me. I mean, I would hate to not have that partnership. Whether we need to own the company or not I think is far less clear. In some senses, as an independent, they have a lot of value and a lot of credibility, I think, with their user community. Would they have that same credibility with the user community if they were captive? Not clear. And they want to be an independent company, which means we want to have a great partnership with them, and do a good job.
Coming from that outspoken CEO, a non-answer like that says volumes. Obviously, partnership or buyout are just as good as far as Microsoft is concerned.
