@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

Mobile & Technology

Apple & iPad: Credibility begins with admitting when you may be wrong, maybe…

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One of the most profound experiences may be when experts, gurus or a “know it all” steps forward and admit they may be wrong, or in fact flat out say they are wrong.

In most cases they will preface their mistake or misjudgments with what they got right, this is done to distract you from the blow about to come, the fact that they made a mistake or used their expertise to, well you get the picture.

  • Here is a great example:

At the end I will praise the iPad, especially in comparison to Android.

I Basil C. Puglisi have long held that Apple’s products are inferior and a waste of money. One of the defining features of this belief is that Apple has long failed to connect with the world at large with its technology. This connection that I have referred to is the massive restrictions that they have on their software and products, with inflated pricing.

I have long standing  praise for Apple in a brand perspective, as the very thing that makes Apple products inferior in technology has made them stand out in branding and marketing.

The technology perspective has been and seemingly always will be that Apple’s restrictive nature and discriminatory practices (tailoring to middle and upper class) has been a long standing pet peeve of mine.

When someone reviews a new apple product, they often compare it to a PC (a computer running windows), they often praise the apple product for its functionality and software as if apple brought value to the market, and in almost every case this has never been true.

The average cost of a entry level Mac Book is between $999 and $1,500 in 13″ models and $1,799 to $2,299 for some of the more advanced Pro models.

The average cost of a entry level PC running Windows is about half the price of a Mac Book, between $400 and $600, herein lies the problem with comparing apples to oranges (PC).

  • Case Study:

If you take the Mac Book Offered on apple.com and compare it to the HP Pavilion offered at HP.com.

Mac Book – 2.4 Intel Duo Core, 2GB DDR3, 250GB HD DVD Drive, GeForce 320M – sold at $999

HP Pavilion – 2.9 Intel i7, 6GB DDR3, 640GB HD DVD Drive Geforce 3000 – sold at $899

At $100 less the HP Windows based PC is three (3) times the computer that the Mac Book is, couple that with its limited interaction with the PC world and why people by a Mac Book is beyond me.

I like to say that the iPhone4 was something that strayed from this standard, but it does not. The closed world of Apple apps has lost ground in a landslide to Android (Google) and will continue to, especially when you think about AT&T and how even those that love there iPhone openly claim it does everything but make calls.

Android on the other hand has a far superior operating system and market penetration taking away the one shinny glowing hope that was iPhone. The T-Mobile commercials are a great example when you look at the MyTouch4G campaign.

iPad – Apple game changer or roadmap?

I LOVE iPAD, it’s been only a few weeks and I will say I hate Apple, but love iPad. The iPad is one of the most amazing technology accomplishments short or Gene Rodenberry imaginary warp drive and Star Trek. I had the Archos 101 and Archos 70 for a month running the Android 2.2 and while I loved the fact that I could work around issues with Android that I cannot with iPad, the truth is iPad leaves very little to work around (besides AT&T). The iPad provides a great user experience and I must say has left only a few common sense issues out and I expect they will fix those with the iPad 2 (4G) due out this Spring.

The only concern I see is that Google is a much stronger company then Apple. Google also now has a road map to work with from what the iPad has done and can do it with a larger market penetration. Should Google decide to push gTunes or Google Music, the all attractive iTunes which has really made the “i” series of products a success for Apple could be overtaken quickly. Google has two big pushes coming soon Android 3.0 which is the first Android design that will be tablet friendly and the Chrome OS which will eliminate the need for local storage and put us all on the cloud.

As for the time being, iPad is a great toy and a wonderful investment, if it gets Flash it will be hard to replace in the near future. I for one knocked the iPad as just another lousy closed market of “i” series Apple products, but I was wrong, maybe.

User Technology:

The current Technology that I have and use in my possession is:

  • Apple:
    1. Mac Book Pro,
    2. iPhone4 (AT&T),
    3. iPad,
    4. iPod Classic
  • Windows Based PC
    1. HP Desktop (2.83Intel, 8GB DDR2, 4TB HD, Blu-Ray Burner, etc)
    2. 10″ Acer Net book,
    3. Dell Inspiron 1501
  • Android
    1. G2 (T-Mobile),
    2. Archos 101 (Tablet),
    3. Archos 70 Tablet),
  • Household Members Tech:
    1. 15″ Gateway,
    2. iTouch (4thGen),
    3. Balckberry 9700,
    4.  MyTouch3G Slide, etc.

Sources:

Picking the Right Social Network for your Brand

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As for internet visibility, or digital brand as it is being called now, 2010 proved, without a doubt, the power of the social network. Facebook just passed Google in the number of hits per day. People are using the internet to connect and be connected more than they use it to perform searches.

Aside from it being a sociological phenomenon that no doubt will be talked about and researched, it opened a world of advertising not used before. Facebook makes it extremely easy to connect with almost anything that is a digital brand, with one click of a button. Just type into your Facebook page that you liked a certain television show and immediately you will be connected to their site, to see more.

As a way to advertising your brand, it is a goose that can lay golden eggs. And why not? It is free, it is simple and everyone with a little understanding of how the system works can join in and be effective. Right?

Not so fast. The problem with social media is that it is multiplying. New sites, with new possibilities for connectivity between people are popping up like mushrooms after the rain. You can join all of them and spend most of your time updating and chatting while neglecting your core business. You can hire people to do it for you, believing that bigger is better and the more sites you join will yield better results, only to find out that the ROI (return on investment) is not worth the effort.

Before you embark on the social media voyage, you should know that not all sites were born equal and knowing which one to join is the most important aspect.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself:

–          What is the strength of the site?  You have to do a little research. What can Twitter do for you? What can Dailybooth? Evaluate the site to see if it fits you and the character of your business. Think of a strategy; what do you want to achieve, how can this or that site get you there?

–          How much time you are willing to invest? How much time you can afford to spend on social networking? An hour a day? A week? Social media is, after all, just that – social. Scott Stratten (1), a man with over 74,000 followers on Twitter says the amount of followers started to grow when he dedicated time and interacted with others. You have to maintain presence for social media to work.

–          Do your customers use social network at all? Most businesses have communities. Check them out. Are they talking about your kind of business? Maybe they do on a forum of another kind. It is a bit of a detective work, but you have to find out where your potential customers are.

–          If you had to pay for the service, would you still do it? How much are you willing to spend on this form of advertisement? Granted, joining is free, but maintaining it will cost you a lot of time.

–          Social media is a long term commitment. Having a page up then not updating it for months has a worse impact than not having one at all. It shows you don’t care, don’t follow through and maybe you are out of business. If it’s up there it should be maintained.

Thinking ahead about a strategy before embarking on this trip is important. Treating social media seriously, as part of an advertising campaign, is important as well. Those are the things that will yield results. Use the questions above to get organized and start thinking in the right direction.

Sources:

New Year – Brand Marketing Educator

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What does this mean?

  • Brand – The name, image, idea or concept that is associated with something.
  • Marketing – Marketing is the processes for strategizing for the creation of campaigns that communicate, deliver, and/or exchanging offerings that have value for the general public, be it customers, clients, partners, or the society at large.
  • Educator – Someone who chooses to continually learn themselves, while teaching others what they have learned. An individual who seeks knowledge for the purpose of sharing or disseminating it to others.

As a Consulting Coach for the last decade I have taken what I have learned in Banking, Student Affairs, Public Policy, Politics, Small Business Development, Advertising and Marketing, Web Development, Social Media and more to help develop businesses, political campaigns and support non-profits. This decade long process that started as Puglisi Consulting has helped me define what role I have in society. I also believe it defines what I offer to those that I work with, work for, or have the pleasure of their company.

As a Brand Marketing Educator it will be my responsibility to continue to develop my understanding of how to reach people. In the end, a business, a political campaign, a charitable cause only finds success in its ability to get seen and be found. After all the best message, even the one that may save your business, organization, campaign or life has little value if it does not reach those who need or want it.

This blog is the collective work of so many, even in the last year as I started these articles, part or majority have come from volunteers and paid sources who helped research the topics. One person cannot claim to be a source of value alone, but can claim to be a facilitator of sources and knowledge.

I pledge to use this blog as an extension of what I know and more importantly learn during the next year. I ask for no pay, no donations and no for profit advertising on this blog. I do this in the hopes that those that visit it, will always find an unbiased opinion and suggestion for what I believe can help increase visibility, so that you can be successful.  

Why?

Because I am a SPARTAN! If those who can, choose not to, then they have lost the best of themselves or in some cases ourselves.

 Basil C. Puglisi – Brand Marketing Educator

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h9dDEUG30c]

Google Aims to Save you Time

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Google Aims to Save you Time

The long tentacles of Google are everywhere these days – in a good way.

The company is thinking ahead and making life more comfortable, more connected, more immediate than ever before.

It is no longer just a search engine. Google Chrome is gaining in popularity among the web browsers. It had 10 million users at the end of 2008, 30 million at the end of 2009 and in mid-2010 already had 70 million active users. How is that for a growth spurt?

G-mail is popular, simple to use and basically works in a “cloud” – all your information is stored on servers, not on your home computer, accessible from anywhere at any time. It can store all your contacts, all your e mails; you don’t have to back up that information because it doesn’t matter if your computer crashes. The hardware became less important and the information is safe behind strong firewalls.

Google Docs  enables you to hare documents and collaborate with others on the same page, set appointments on Google calendar, and see what’s new with Google Reader and Google Reader Play.

Google Reader

Most of internet savvy people, and especially the young ones, have a few website they like to visit often to see what’s new. The sites can be blogs, professional sites, membership sites etc. Going to each website separately takes time, and then you might find that there was nothing of interest for you this day.

Google Reader comes to the rescue. A program which was launched in 2007, in now becoming very popular. Google reader is an aggregator of feeds and news from your favorite websites, all in one place. Once you go to the site and list your favorite websites, one click only will show you all the new stuff from all your favorite websites in one place, in a headline form.

If you are interested in the subject matter, another click will get you to the website for more in depth information. It saves time and effort and makes getting updates from the sites your anyway go to, much more concise.

Google Reader Play

Lately, Google introduced the Google Reader Play which presents the information in images with a big image at the top of the screen and the different items as thumb nails at the bottom. This is information aggregated from different web sources. You can click on the right and left arrows to scroll through the items or you can click on the thumbnail to enlarge them to the main screen.

The idea that the good stuff is mostly visual is behind this service. It adapts to your tastes as you click on the icons representing marked for later, like, and share. It is still in the experimental stage and can be accessed through Google Labs. This service doesn’t come to replace the Reader but to augment it. While the Reader gives you feeds from your chosen sites, Reader Play gives you information aggregated from sites all over the web.

This forwards thinking and development in many directions at once, is what make this company what it is today. A major player and developer. Where is Microsoft gone to? Google is overtaking them by leaps and bounds. Microsoft seems to be stuck in the browser and office arenas and coming up with new things that just complicate matters instead of making them simpler.

Visibility Marketing Trends for 2011

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As for Businesses and visibility, what can be predicted to be the trends for 2011?

Here are some thoughts:

Web Design – As the reliance on websites becomes widespread for small businesses, so does the competition. How to retain the visitors and make them go to other pages on your site has been a question may want an answer to. The trend for the upcoming year in websites, points to the fact that a basic page is not good enough anymore. Sites are expected to engage, entertain and interact with their visitors. The design process has become simpler and many sites are offering, for small amount of money, templates that and already set up, making them hipper, more fun to use and interactive.

Mobile Connectivity – Smart phones are gathering speed and offer possibilities that we never had before. Almost 50% of business owners already own smartphones. Mobile devices will change how we do business. They offer another platform for advertisement as well.

E Commerce – will continue to grow in popularity. A research done in the beginning of 2010 showed that only 30% of small business websites have e commerce capability.

Social Shopping – and interacting with customers is becoming increasingly important. More businesses will get into the social media plains. First hand recommendations in a saturated world are more important than ever.

Social Media – In the past year many business owners spread themselves thin over many social media platforms. The important thing is, and will remain to be, a consistent message and brand, with exposure to consumers.

Cloud Computing – In the beginning of 2010, a group of internet experts and mavens got together and announced that “we will all be leaving in the cloud by 2020”. It seems to be happening faster than they have predicated. Many business owners realized that cloud computing is very beneficial. It eliminates the need for an office and a desk. Everything can be accessed from mobile devices (laptops, tablets and smartphones). Having the ability to see everything that goes on, wherever you are anytime you choose to, is becoming a reality with cloud computing. It is the ultimate “virtual office”.

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Blog 2.0 – Puglisi’s Blog 2011

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Happy HolidaysPuglisi’s blog has seen a slow and steady increase in its visitors, so much so, that it will undergo a few upgrades and looks for 2011. The blog founded by Brand Marketing Educator, Basil C. Puglisi will move from text based blog articles to media…. after all if it’s a blog about digital media it should include some of the web 2.0 feel.

The blogs original intention was to be a personal space for Puglisi to store research thoughts, track stages of development in digital trends and develop a base of knowledge to act as a resource to reinforce his seminars and events.

In Jun 2010 – 32 visitors that where tuning in to read about Digital Media and Visibility Marketing.  As of Dec 28, 2010 the blog had 208 visitors a month and continues to grow despite little if any advertising.

In 2011, we be stepping up the professional brand of the blog, you can expect to see everything that Basil C. Puglisi has learned over the last decade with a healthy mix of digital and academic expectations being executed.

Changes coming in 2011:

1) Citations: It’s just good practice to make sure that you share sources when writing. This reinforces that your work has research value and is developed from more than one point of view.

2) Charts, Pictures and other visuals: If we are talking about growth, locations or people, we should show you what we have seen or found.

3) Video: This is the fastest growing trend in the world, be it for learning, marketing or documentary videos is no surprise that YouTube is the second largest search engine.

The road map to developing a successful blog is a process, one that must develop a good foundation and then add the bells and whistle, or in this case the sources, and media. While some have criticized the lack of advanced features on the blog, it turns out that the development of a good content foundation still supersedes any social media or technology driven media. In this case, now that the foundation has been laid, we move into the more advanced features in 2011.

Happy Holidays!!! Social Media Do and Don’t

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So as we hit Christmas Eve, I like to take a minute and share a few Social Media etiquettes for the general year, but ring even more true for the Holidays.

1) Don’t sell anything!

At this point if you haven’t capitalized on your call to action you lost that chance by now. After all social media is about trust, consistency and professionalism, not selling.

2) Engage in genuine content.

Find ways to thank people, share info for free that has value to it, even if you hold back a little at least your getting in the spirit of giving and those on the other side might do them in return come the new year…hint, hint…

3) Be at peace with the (social) world.

This is a time for peace and relaxation, there is enough stress without you adding to it, expect the site visit to be short. Put away the sword, find things positive about what you agree with, reinforce similarities even with competitors… being the fair and honest (you) will mean everything to people when it comes time to spend money.

4) Stay engaged.

While now is not the time for long drawn out affairs, stay true to what others expect, if you check in everyday, hour, whatever, stick to this, consistency is almost as important as content.

5) Have fun.

This is what makes you different, just like someone smiling over the phone, you can tell when the person engaging you in social media is doing it because they are having fun, or because they are forcing it.

Happy Holidays!!!

Please be safe & responsible!

Social Media Trends for 2011

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2010 was a banner year for social media. It was the year in which Facebook overtook Google in site traffic. It was a year in which some surveys claim that 95% of companies are using LinkedIn to look for prospective employees.

The use of social media through mobile devices tripled. The tablet became popular and threatens to revolutionize laptops and school books.

What can we expect in the coming year? Here is what a few experts agree on:

–          Big companies will take a serious look at the social media, integrating it not only locally but globally.  Companies like Dell computers and Jet Blue are already doing it.

–          The mobile and tablet war creates social computing – the competition is heating up with new tablets and smart phones coming into the market. It will create more discussions on the web. Social media will be on the go even more than it is today – out of the house, out of the office on the move; in trains, planes and automobiles. There will be more competition, variety and affordability in devices.

–          Facebook location based services will probably overtake all the others. With the huge amount of users –over 500 million – and with tons of data and the programs behind it, they will become the biggest.

–          There will be a social media overload. The average user experiences Facebook, Twitter, G mail, chat, Skype, Tumblr etc. Many experts in social media have adopted systems to access all of them at once but average users might get a case of schizophrenia, with so many profiles on so many social networks. Integration will have to become more wide spread.

–          Social media will be integrated into other tools, making websites important again and more modern.

–          More and more companies will turn their social media connections into customer service, answering questions and complaints.

–          Social recruiting will get bigger. Even small companies will go to social media to find new and better applicants.

Social Brand Visibility: Ping.fm

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A relatively new company, Ping.fm, founded in 2008, comes to answer a burning question: how to control your social media from one place.

Posting an update on Ping.fm will push it to different social media sites simultaneously. Users can update their status only once, without logging in to different sites.

At the moment their alliance reaches to more than 30 social media sites. Users can configure their account to connect to services like: Bebo, Blogger, Google Buzz, Delicious, Facebook, Friend Feed, Friendster, hi5,Identi.ca, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr, Plaxo, Yahoo 360 and more.

Ping.fm might be a nice addition to everyday users, but for marketing professionals and social media experts it might be God-sent.

To make it even more useful the site has a character counter to make sure you don’t go over the 140 characters per tweet, and a “record video” link allows you to upload videos.

The dashboard allows you to set it up so you can ping from your e mail, instant message, mobile phones etc.

The only problem with Ping.fm has to do with your contact lists. If you have the same contacts in a few social media sites, they will be getting the same message from different sites, a fact that may annoy them.

At its core, social media sites are meant to be a communication platform, where you connect with people in a two way conversation. Ping.fm might turn it into one-way broadcasting mechanisms.

Approximately 37% of the site’s visitors are from the US, where it is ranked #746. It is also popular in Pakistan, where it is ranked #177.

Archos 101 and Archos 70 Internet Tabs ruined by Archos business model and execution.

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I have had the Archos 101 for the last several days and then added the Archos 70 Internet tablet for my wife. After a few days I am sending them off to ebay. While the Android operating system is all you have come to expect with an open market and system, the products and more importantly Archos as a company fail miserably.

Style: 10/10

The 101 and 70 Internet tablets are sexy, they are light, slim and feature stands built in to allow you to watch media. The ports and accessibility is what you would expect for a tablet hardware system built to interact with everything.

Operating System: 9/10

Android 2.2 Froyo, the system bolsters Androids supercharged operating system, which allows semi common users to customize and maneuver around any limitations attempted by companies like Archos. i.e. adding the google market and flash 10.1

Function: 6/10

As one would expect the 101 has a few issues as the tablet screen doesn’t size up to files and media that looked great on the phones we have all come to love android for. The system struggles to find media and become sluggish. No Flash means the web browsing experience is similar to the Android 1.5 OS.

Archos: 2/10

This is the real failure for the tablets, Archos tried to restrict the market by forcing you to run through their AppsLib instead of google, the tablet requires a bit of knowledge to add google products and software. The company website is a mess, navigating is sloppy and policies prevent the users from accomplishing much. Some of the most surprising failures should have tossed flags up prior to getting the tablet.

1 ) Tablet Release pushed back repeatedly.

2 ) Users that asked to be notified when the tablet released via e-mail got nothing when the Archos 70 IT and Archos 101 IT become available.

3 ) Archos did not restrict purchase quantity much, would be ebay stores bought ten at a time.

4 ) Anyone with a PO Box as their billing info was not getting one, or the software upgrades.

5 ) Customer support averages about a week to respond, if at all.

6 ) The tablet upgraded to 2.2 and wiped out the third party apps.

7 ) Archos did not get the Adobe cert so the tablets did not have Flash

8 ) The AppsLib market has less than 1% of the open market applications.

9 ) Youtube? Um No???? The second largest search engine, owned by the operating system parent company, largest media site and NO!!!

10) Sloppy storage, the tablet can’t tell where the media is, be it internal or storage without having to jump through a bunch of steps to find it.

Summary:

The use of the Froyo Android 2.2 was a great leap forward in tablets, as anyone who is not a novice can change root files, add software you expect to be a part of Android, but why should you have to know how to do it, this created the greatest problem in my opinion, you just shouldn’t have to work to make it work.

Archos was the big mistake here, trying to control the market, failing to get an adobe certificate which completely canceled the effectiveness of the Android 2.2 web experience is just a few of the many problems. The understaffed and underfunded company tried to take on a monster and got crushed in execution. I expect the value of these tablets to drop dramatically and quickly in the next few WEEKS!!!

Advice: Stay clear of the Archos Internet Tablet line.

Note: I was very excited to see this project and while I tried to find every reason to support the tablet, the ultimate test of a product is the company behind it, Archos clearly made a mediocre product terrible.