Mobile Marketing and Local SEO...of iADs and Siri...Catalysts for Businesses

The importance of mobile marketing and local SEO are increasing with the rapid deployment of mobile technology and ever increasing subscriber base.

Mobile marketing, broadly is the process of using mobile technology, communication and media to promote a brand, product or business, selling something, through an MARCOM campaign. This encompasses advertising, brand awareness and reputation management, increased visibility/eye-balls, acquiring bigger audience or consumer market, improving conversion rates, website optimization, SMS or text messaging ads, social media, SEO, and much more

The most common forms are mobile web marketing, mobile application marketing and SMS marketing/advertising.

Mobile web marketing focuses upon website creation, visibility and promotion and focus on user access of the mobile web or website through a browser or search engine, working more or less like regular online website marketing, except that strategies are focused solely within mobile communications.

In the case of mobile application marketing, the main focus is on the use of mobile software applications or apps, rather than mobile browsers or search engine. The classic example are the host of apps available on the Apple iPhone ecosystem. The way this is works is the app (client device side software) is downloaded to the mobile device (mobile phone, tablet etc.), and is installed on the device. This is same as downloading software on a PC/desktop. The mobile software application can have thousands of possibilities for functionality, purpose and use, online or offline dependence, and may range from  apps with simple functions that can work without the mobile or WiFi network (games, flash apps etc.) to work, to more complex  apps that open to a particular online destination (Facebook app, Twitter app, iTunes, Apple Store,  Amazon shopping app, eBay app, Weather Channel app etc.).  

In April 2010, Steve Jobs launched Apple iAd, a technology built into iPhone iOS, to help developers incorporate advertisements into iPhone Applications (available for iPad and iPod Touch as well, through mobile or WiFi networks). This is an great example of the use of mobile application marketing, for promotion and to draw more mobile consumers to sites for making purchases.  iAd uses simple HTML 5 to create interactive in-app ads, with the advantage that one can get back to the app being used, back to where you left, by simply closing the ad. Developers and brands can use the iAds network to make interactive ads, bringing visibility of their products to billions of users of Apple devices and help promote their apps and in turn make revenues as Apple sells, hosts the ads, and gives 60% of the revenue to the developers.

By introducing iAd, Apple has increased the scope of mobile advertising to an enormous extent. Companies are now seeing the potential of this form of advertising, as they are able to tap into a huge audience. Apple iAd has made a great impact on mobile advertising and has changed the way companies regarded this as an effective means of promoting their products.

Such usage of  mobile marketing through a process where mobile technology and communications are used to achieve business goals, to increase visibility and consumer market, drive optimized conversion rates and for brand management, is gaining high significance quickly and making it an invaluable service to any business, small or large.

Further, with the iphone 4S launch, apple has introduced the new voice recognition app, the Siri, that allows users to control their iphones, through voice interaction, allowing one to use voice to send messages, schedule meetings, place phone calls, get directions etc. Unlike other traditional voice recognition software that requires one to remember keywords and speak specific commands, Apple’s Siri, understands users natural speech, and even asks the user questions interactively, in case more information is required to complete the requested task.

The bigger impact of Siri, currently in its Beta, is on Mobile SEO, and ability of Siri to mine depth of information by accessing built-in apps, public data sources, use search and location services to provide relevant and variety of service as per the request made. Some of the apps and services that Siri works with are FaceTime, Mail, Messages, Weather, Stocks, Web Search, Find My Friends, Wolfram, and local search with Yelp! (at present available in US). The list of Third party applications and additions to language support is expected to increase in coming months, making usage more widespread, consequently decreasing the traffic to traditional sites. This is significant as there is increase in the percentage of local component  in searches, making local SEO more important for businesses.

Such local search automation is expected to change the current SE result pages/pay-per-click business model followed by traditional search engines and hereby diminishing their utility/importance.   

Integrated Digital Signage Solution - Inform, Entertain & Promote...

Digital signage refers to a variety of technologies used to replace traditional retail signs. Instead of static print signs and billboards, digital signage is composed of electronic signs dispersing content and messages in the most targeted, interactive way.

 

Importance of Digital Signage is growing day by day. A shift from paper based bulletins to high valued additional information of images and moving pictures, in clearly seen in the corporate environments. In government facilities (schools or exhibition halls), increased use of electronic bulletin boards relay desired on-the-spot information to customers. There is increased need for the presentation of informative media to attract potential customers in commercial businesses and new business models brought on by the popularization of networking.

The human eye is drawn to dynamic movements and so advertisers are now putting their visual campaigns on plasma or LCD screens in public places. This works very effectively in retail stores, hotels, university campuses, schools, transit stations, food courts etc. Retail Digital Signage messages of advertised brands produced a weighted average increase of 22% in volume and 24% in sales, 59% of shoppers recall seeing the digital signs. Digital Signage can substantially influence  behaviour of the target audience and is an extremely effective medium for communicating information.

Stages of a Digital Signage program includes Content Preparation and Schedule setting followed by Distribution and finally displaying it on the final Visual medium, via a LCD Panel or Projector.

 

Applications of Digital Signage:

·         Public information - news, weather and local (location specific) information, such as fire exits and traveller information

·         Internal information - corporate messages, health & safety, news, etc.

·         Menu Information – pricing, photos, ingredients and other food information including nutritional facts

·         Advertising – either related to the location the signage is in or just using the audience reach of the screens for general advertising

·         Brand building – in-store digital signage to promote the brand and build a brand identity

·         Enhancing customer experience – applications include the reduction of perceived wait time in restaurant waiting areas, bank queues, etc., as well as recipe demonstrations in food stores

·         Enhancing the environment –with interactive screens (in the floor for example) or with dynamic wayfinding

Virtual Desktop Computing - a perspective

Virtualization has taken over as the most sought after trend in the IT space in the past few years.

A virtual desktop is an individual user's interface in a virtualized environment.

The core concept is to "move PCs to data centre" to maximize security and manageability while maintaining the current usage and convenient features of business PCs.

The virtualized desktop is stored on a Centralized server rather than locally. Virtual desktops enable enterprises to centralize their desktop infrastructure in the data centre, dramatically improving remote access while retaining workspace personality. More and more organizations are increasingly becoming more aware of their environmental footprint and are deploying virtualization as a tool to reduce power utilization and computing waste. The idea of virtual desktops and their associated business value have inspired businesses to embrace virtual tools which can be a natural extension of the virtual infrastructure. 

Virtualization is a key technology for the future Enterprise Computing platform. Virtual client solutions have advantages on data security, system manageability and TCO reduction over PC environment.

Virtual desktops provide a number of benefits that make them a preferred choice over normal desktops and notebooks. Some of the merits of desktop virtualization include:

• Increased security

• Better utilization of resources

• Reduced operational and maintenance costs

• Better manageability

• Mobility and flexibility

• Low Power Consumption

• Environmentally friendly

• Realize vendor independence

The overall market for virtualization in India is emerging, desktop virtualization is emerging as one of the major technology trends in enterprises among other verticals. Virtualization adoption in India, both on the server and the end point (desktop) side has been restricted largely to the IT intensive sectors, IT/ITES, telecom, and BFSI, apart from very large enterprises. With companies moving towards cloud computing, desktop virtualization will play a major role. However, this is expected to change over the next few years.

Although, the adoption of this technology is picking pace, there are certain hurdles that are restricting its wide spread deployment.

Some of the limitations are:

• Potential security risks in case the network is not properly managed

• Not suitable for graphics intensive applications

• Driver maintenance for peripheral devices is a challenge

• Multimedia operations can get tedious and complex

• It might cause increased downtime in the event of network failures. This can be prevented by the use of HA options, but will increase the cost

• WAN deployments are challenged by technology limitation

With popularity of cloud computing, application virtualization and reduced bandwidth cost, desktop consolidation will be able to penetrate the Indian market in coming years.

AV Global tackles downtime challenge

Downtime in any business results in loss of business opportunity. Hence, corrective measures need to taken to ensure business continuity at all times.

EXPRESSCLUSTER family of integrated High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) software enables fast recovery and continuous protection of critical applications and data by monitoring system operations, detecting failures and automatically transferring operations to a standby server that continues to carry out application workloads.

Unplanned downtime mitigation against hardware, software, and site failures and planned downtime mitigation against periodic hardware and software maintenance tasks that require system restart are also addressed by the solution.

This solution can work with heterogeneous environments and offers powerful and accurate failure monitoring features, failover features that quickly inherit jobs to a healthy server when a failure occurs, and operation management features that determine where failures have occurred at a glance.

With NEC’s fault tolerant server, ExpressCluster X solution provides synchronous data mirroring technology which guarantees data integrity between productions.

EXPRESSCLUSTER software was chosen to achieve fast, automatic failover that ensured business continuity and disaster management at AV Global for its mission critical logistics application, and hereby ensuring its customers experience quality services without experiencing any downtime even during peak workloads in the most efficient and cost effectively manner.

(http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20110815/expressintelligententerprise04.shtml)

Projecting Future Trends

Holistic IT solutions/wide product and solutions portfolio offered, helps education institutes increase operational efficiency and lower their total cost of operation. A focused learning environment for students is the key for excellence. Incorporating technology in the curriculum at any level can greatly increase the effectiveness of teaching. The world is quickly learning the benefits of adding multimedia capabilities to educational environments.

Emerging technologies, market trends, product strategies for the education segment.

http://www.digitallearning.in/interview/interview-details.asp?interviewid=790

Ensuring Business Continuity in the event of planned and unplanned disruptions

Due to recurring natural disasters and increasing security threats in India, business continuity and disaster management have assumed significant importance in the enterprise community. Unified middleware Expresscluster family of integrated High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) software provides wide range of solutions enabling fast recovery and continuous protection of critical applications and data, ensuring business continuity in the event of planned and unplanned disruptions.

The series offers powerful and accurate failure monitoring features, failover features that quickly inherit jobs to a healthy server when a failure occurs, and operation management features that determine where failures have occurred at a glance.

The solution addresses unplanned downtime mitigation against hardware, software, and site failures and planned downtime mitigation against periodic hardware and software maintenance tasks that require system restart. The series supports non-disruptive failover for virtual machines through reinforced linking functions with virtualization software. Moreover, the time required to initially synchronize data between the active server and the standby server gets significantly reduced, in addition to usability improvements in the graphical user interface (GUI).

http://www.cxotoday.com/story/nec-india-unveils-expresscluster-x-to-ensure-business-continuity/

Indian Educational Institutions focusing on leading edge in-classroom technologies for better knowledge delivery

Leading edge technologies as adoption of 3-D technology makes education a little more relevant, specifically because its impact is probably 10 times more than the audio or plain words. If a student wishes to design a skyscraper or wants to plan a town, with the help of 3D technology he can have an immersive view of the entire project. He can fly through it; rotate it; move it up and down; have multiple angle snap shots, and thus plan it in a better way.

Educational content providers are working towards generating 3D enabled content—as content is the key for 3D usage. Progressive 3D usage in projection and other technologies will be experienced as soon as the content becomes available. Besides this, Digital Signage is expected to catch up among the most important in-classroom technologies.

Efforts are being made towards combining projection technologies and interactive multi-touch technologies. With incorporation of such a combination, current teaching methodology is in for some big changes. It will be possible to interact, have discussion boards, whiteboards and comments coming in on the same screen with multiple people contributing online.

In-classroom technologies are just tools. Unless a basic infrastructure exists on a sustainable basis, to run and utilise the tools, and the people are trained, it may not be possible to derive total benefits and ROI by deploying the technology. This pertinent aspect needs to be focused upon on priority.

(http://www.edu-leaders.com/content/indian-educational-institutions-make-learning-fun#)