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Smartphones – Microsoft Launches a New Range to Target Social …

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Be the first to comment - What do you think?  Posted by - May 5, 2010 at 5:00 pm

Categories: Technology   Tags: , ,

Cell Phone Cat: Nokia To Introduce N8 Smartphone Powered By …

(Apr 13, 2010) Nokia Presents New Messaging Handsets: Nokia C3, C6 And E5. Nokia has announced three new handsets – the Nokia C3, Nokia C6 and Nokia E5 – designed to put better messaging and social networking tools in the hands of more people around the world, at affordable prices. ..

(Mar 3, 2010) Nokia and T-Mobile USA Announced Nokia 5230 Nuron Smartphone. Nokia and T-Mobile USA today announced the upcoming availability of the Nokia 5230 Nuron, a smartphone solution for the masses packed with applications, maps with turn-by-turn directions, and more. The Nokia Nuron is the first U.S. carrier-supported Nokia smartphone to pre-load Ovi Maps, a solution from Nokia that offers consumers free turn-by-turn directions and navigation…

(Dec 8, 2009) Nokia Announces the U.S. Availability of the Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition. As millions of travelers get ready to hit the road for the holiday travel season, Nokia announces the U. ..

(Nov 26, 2009) The ‘All-You-Can-Eat’ Music Powerhouse, Nokia X6, now Shipping. The Nokia comes With Music Flagship phone, the Nokia X6, is now available in selected markets. “The Nokia X6 comes With Music edition is a stellar offering, that gives music fans the power to download all the music they could ever want – quickly, easily and for free,” said Ole Feddersen, vice president, smartphones, Nokia…

(Nov 24, 2009) New Nokia 6700 Slide And Nokia 7230 Unveiled. Nokia today unveiled two new 3G slider phones, the Nokia 6700 slide and Nokia 7230, made for the design-conscious consumer and optimized for socializing and sharing with those closest to you. Available in various fresh colors, with great imaging features and quick access to popular social networking communities, the Nokia 6700 slide and Nokia 7230 make a real style statement…

Cell Phone Cat: Nokia To Introduce N8 Smartphone Powered By …


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Be the first to comment - What do you think?  Posted by - April 28, 2010 at 7:00 pm

Categories: Technology   Tags: , , ,

Video games see social networks as growth engine – MarketWatch

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By Dan Gallagher, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — For those wondering when the video-game industry will enter its next console cycle, some argue that the new cycle has already started, with social networks as the next big opportunity.

Such was apparent this week at the Game Developers’ Conference in San Francisco, an annual gathering of video-game designers and publishers. while the event saw some big developments among traditional gaming — most notably, Sony’s new motion-control system — a big theme running through the event was the rapid growth of social networking and the related opportunity for game makers.

The opportunity is big indeed. The largest social-network site — Facebook — alone has more than 400 million monthly users. MySpace, its closest rival, has 100 million monthly users. Those numbers are far above the number of people who own traditional video-game consoles.

“We have a new mainstream mass audience,” Gareth Davis, platform manager at Facebook, said during a panel discussion at GDC. “We think this is a lot of opportunity for game developers to tap into.”

Games are becoming hot property for social networks. The soaring popularity of games such as “Mafia Wars” and “FarmVille” over Facebook has attracted the interest of both game makers and investors looking to pump money into the next Big thing.

Such was apparent at GDC this week. Among the crowd of programmers and designers were venture capitalists, financial analysts and private equity funds, sniffing for opportunities in the market.

These investors are not looking to sink money into the next PlayStation or Xbox game; rather, they are looking for the next Zynga — the San Francisco-based company that makes “Mafia Wars,” “FarmVille” and other social-network games. still privately held, Zynga landed $180 million in funding late last year from Digital Sky Technologies, or DST, the Russian outfit that also bought a large stake in Facebook.

Media reports said the investment gave Zynga a market valuation between $1.5 billion and $3 billion. The company reported 100 million unique monthly users in November, and reportedly has about $250 million in annual revenue.

“Amazingly, there are over 200 million people playing games on Facebook each month, out of 400 million total Facebook users, suggesting a 50% penetration rate,” said Todd Greenwald of Signal Hill Capital, who also noted that more than 500,000 gaming apps have been developed to date.

Competing for gamers — and developers

For game makers, the growing interest among social networks provides a new opportunity beyond the industry’s typical channels — which are largely consoles such as the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and associated handheld devices.

These social networks are competing against each other to lure developers — and each offers its own unique set of advantages and disadvantages.

Sony moves toward Wii-like motion

Sony unveiled the details of its new motion-control video game system called PlayStation Move, which is expected to hit the market later this year. MarketWatch’s Dan Gallagher and Walt Mossberg explain why we’re likely to see this technology play a role beyond video games in the near-future.

Facebook offers the largest base of users, by far. Offsetting that is recent developments whereby the social-networking giant will be taking a portion of the revenue generated by games in the form of virtual goods sales. The company has also changed some of its policies that had previously allowed game makers to market their games more aggressively, after several users compared the efforts to spam.

“When you have 400 million people, it’s important to protect the user experience,” Facebook’s Davis said.

MySpace — which runs a distant second to Facebook in terms of market share — is taking a slightly different approach.

Video games see social networks as growth engine – MarketWatch


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Be the first to comment - What do you think?  Posted by - April 10, 2010 at 7:00 am

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Videogames See Social Networks As Growth Engine

for those wondering when the videogame industry will enter its next console cycle, some argue that the new cycle has already started, with social networks as the next big opportunity.

such was apparent this week at the Game Developers’ Conference in San Francisco, an annual gathering of videogame designers and publishers. while the event saw some big developments among traditional gaming–most notably, Sony’s (SNE, 6758.TO )new motion-control system–a big theme running through the event was the rapid growth of social networking and the related opportunity for game makers.

the opportunity is big indeed. the largest social-network site, Facebook, alone has …

Videogames See Social Networks As Growth Engine


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Be the first to comment - What do you think?  Posted by - March 16, 2010 at 2:00 pm

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Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Advertising

I have read some articles around social network advertising and thought I’d start a blog of my own to document some experiences I have had with the social network advertising functionality of Facebook.

 

Advertising on Facebook is relatively easy if you are new to the game. They recently rolled out a newly formatted advertising page that gives you an overview, preparation section, and a step by step guide. They show you the guidelines which they accept for advertisement and make creating an ad pretty simple.

 

In a nutshell there are two ways to advertise on Facebook. The first is a Cost per Click (CPC) model or what Facebook calls “Pay for Clicks”. The second is a “Pay for Views” strategy. We will discuss both in a breakdown below.

 

Pay for Click Advertising

 

This form of advertising allows you to pay only for clicks on your advertisement. It’s a pretty simple theory. You create an ad then allocate your daily budget limits to spend on that ad including the amount you are willing to pay for each click on your advertisement.

 

Goals and Objectives

 

Generate Website Traffic

Exposure

Cost per click – Can be Low to Medium

Cost for an impression – Low


Example:

 

You create an ad that you want to spend $2.00 a day on advertising on Facebook. You allocate a $.20 pay per click on the ad. This gives you 10 clicks on your website a day before your maximum daily budget is reached. Once the daily budget is reached Facebook will stop publishing the ad for that day. Each day the ad will be displayed until the daily budget is reached.  

 

 

Pros

 

This is a good model for online business. You are only going to pay for views of your website. This model also helps you control your advertisement a little better I feel. In reality you are trying to get people to click on your advertisement right? If you want to sell product then you need to translate ad impressions ( we will get to that in a moment) into clicks.

 

Cons

 

There are drawbacks to both models. If you have a small daily budget and a low “Pay per Click” allotment on your ad you will not get a lot of impressions. Impressions are the amount of times your ad actually appears on Facebook. Don’t be fooled it does not mean your ad appears anywhere in particular just that it “appears”.  You must also manage your bids constantly to increase the impressions which in turn generate clicks.

 

How to get those needed impressions

 

In order for you to get more impressions Facebook makes a recommended bid amount for each ad that you create. I have experimented with this a lot and can give you some pointers. Facebook gives you a suggested bid amount for each ad. I found this varies from day to day. The recommended amount is based on many factors. From what I can see it depends on the ads running that day in comparison to the traffic the site is getting during your advertising hours. If you are trying to get your ad to run in the top sections of Facebook and on the right sidebar the recommended bid amount for the ad is actually low. Most times you will not see your ad appear even though in your management screen, which shows you how many impressions of your ad are being shown, you may see thousands of impressions being made.

 

What is a Bid?

 

A bid is the amount you are willing to spend per click. What happens is this. Facebook puts you into a bidding war with other advertisers. Whoever has the highest bid on their ad gets the best visibility on the site. This returns more profit for Facebook logically so it makes sense for them to create the most impressions for the highest bids.

 

My suggestion  

 

Give your advertising budget some flexibility. Start out with a $.25 bid on your ad and work your way up. Each time you raise your bid you will see more impressions being generated. I have raised my bid up to $.60 and still have not seen my ad appear. Be careful with this as well. I have noticed more clicks on my ad and my budget being reached must faster at this higher bid level.

 

Pay For Views

 

This form of advertisement allows you to create impressions rather than focusing on overall clicks. It is independent of clicks so to speak. You are paying for impressions which are “appearances” on Facebook.

 

Goals and Objectives

 

Brand Awareness

Exposure

Cost per Click – High

Cost per Impression –Low

 

Pros

 

If you are confident your site will generate many clicks this may be the way to go. This translates into your click per impression ratio. You don’t have to worry about how many times your ad is clicked on so you aren’t paying for them. It works well with viral marketing ads, high traffic sites, popular advertisements, and high profile ads. One good thing is that you can generate large amounts of impressions while controlling the cost to do so.

 

Cons

 

Okay, so this sounds great get your add shown to possibly millions of people. Well first question is where the ads are being published. This again goes back to how much you are paying for the impressions. Ever see that “more advertisements” section on Facebook? Your ad may just as well be showing up in the gutter if you don’t pay enough for your impressions. This is costly if you are selling niche products and services.

 

My Suggestion

 

Use this method if you want to get your name out but aren’t as concerned with people visiting your site as a result. Brand recognition is important today. You must differentiate yourself from the competition. It is sometimes more valuable to get people thinking about your products and services rather than having them make a purchase that day. Use this for sites you think provide a vast value to many people.

 

Overall

 

Both methods offer pros and cons so use your best judgement to pick which one will work for you. Experiment, it isn’t set in stone that you can only advertise one way. If you try both ways you will know for sure which works best for you. Facebook offers some nice guides to getting started. I was actually contacted directly from their staff to assist me in my ad campaigns which was a nice surprise.

 

Facebook Advertisement in General

 

To be honest some of my colleagues have told me that they haven’t generated any sales as of yet from Facebook advertisement. It leads me to believe that clicks on the site are taking place only to collect from the advertiser. This is the reality of advertising. Facebook needs to make money and the way they do that is through advertising. It wouldn’t surprise me if people were just sitting around clicking on ads so they get paid.

 

To access Facebook Advertising visit:

 

http://www.facebook.com/advertising/

 

Any comments or suggestions are welcome. Please submit any additional information to us so we can share the experiences and know-how of our reader community.

 

 

Thanks,

Mr. Foil

3 comments - What do you think?  Posted by slacker - December 16, 2008 at 4:56 pm

Categories: Education and Learning Principles, Making Money Online   Tags: , , , , , , , ,