“The Internet!” says the tuxedo-clad Nobel Peace Prize presenter.
Upon hearing her name, the Internet, dressed up in her best attire of a colorful table-based website, and with a flock of blue Twitter birds flying over head, seemed to be really surprised. She quickly got over the shock (thanks to multitude of fans updating the shock Wikipedia entries in her head), and strutted her way to the stage to accept her prize.
She really did look her best, didn't she?
“Oh, wow,” the Internet says, “I‘ve been around for a while but no one ever thought of nominating me for the prestigious Nobel Pea—”
The crowd interrupts her acceptance speech with loud and booming cheering: “W00t! W00t! W00t!”
The nature of the internet is filled with a lot of information and seeing it animated and simplified visual is certainly a blessing, since it opens our mind to new ways to see our world. Whether it’s through maps, info-graphs or psychedelic illustrations videos on the web surely added a much needed freshness to information and data on the web.
Hopefully with more bandwidth we will see more innovation in this field but for now we can enjoy some recent videos that have been noticed on the web by the Thoughtpick bloggers:
Skinput
Think of the possibilities for this one! This is actually a working prototype for the ultimate in mobile computing. Add a Wi-Fi capability to it, and make it as sexy and small as an iPod and you got yourself a decade long hit. Now I might find it difficult not to mention that I would find it uncomfortable to hold my arms in a fixed position for too long. Although it is slightly different it and definitely reminds me of Sixthsense technology.
I never saw this day coming, but now that it did, I am very impressed.
The European Union, believing that “not knowing you have a choice is no choice at all“, has made Microsoft integrate a Browser Choice window in their operating system for both new users and existing Windows PC users. This screen will provide users with a chance “to make an active choice in the source of the software that acts on your behalf to broker your online experiences, and meet your own unique needs and interests.”
This decision ends a long-running dispute over the US software giant’s dominant market position. This “browser choice screen” will present users with a list of leading browsers — including Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome — presented in a random order. The screen will be offered as an automatic download for XP, Vista, and Windows 7.
These days, everything feels like it’s being drip-fed social media. Don’t get me wrong, I love social media, but companies are over-doing it, with the latest addition to the list of extensive-stitching-together being Outlook Social Connector.
I love the name! “Social Connector”: just as unimaginative as everything else that the horn-rimmed guys at Microsoft do.
My own anti-Microsoft sentiments aside…
What the hell is it exactly?
Look, they even use MS Word created clouds!
The Outlook Social Connector is an add-on for Outlook. When a user clicks to read an e-mail message, a new pane on the main e-mail reading screen fills with the sender’s most recent Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn activities.
I blank out when it comes to writing intros, so I’m diving into my thoughts straight ahead. Everyone talks about Google’s “far into the future” vision and how it’s one of the most brilliantly run companies ever. Reading the latest news about Google Goggles, Favorite Places, image search advancements and so on, got me thinking: I am imaging that a few Google employees sat down one afternoon, just before Christmas 2004 and one of them said:
“We’re Google. Let’s create a new market that no one can follow us into!”
And that’s what they’ve been doing for the past 5 years; creating a new market share that no one can compete with them at. Think about the timeline:
“Healthy competition is the fuel for growth and development”.
Big names in the technology arena are bumping each other’s heads in a war dedicated to grab customer attention and further create loyalty! One of those names must be Apple!
Not only does Apple lead a variety of creative, well-studied and effective small battles against Microsoft, it also has a front built for Verizon as well!
In a recent article, it is made clear to us that Apple is cooking something to undermine Verizon’s network. A series of ads is to be launched by Apple “set to obliquely attack Verizon, made in the same mold as its ongoing “there’s an app for that” campaign.”
Apple take a swipe at Verizon – Apple iPhone Ad – What Time’s The Movie?
Apple backs up AT&T with the new ad “multi-people”
But will this campaign really undermine Verizon’s red-blue coverage maps campaign? I mean, if you don’t have signal, you can’t make a call or surf!
“There’s a thin line between the measures a corporation would go to over power its competitors and its social corporate responsibility efforts; the former might be pure evil yet the latter will always engulf some sort of humanitarian sense.”
Numerous talks have been circling the social media arena claiming that Google is evil and even saying that it is trying to take over the world! Well, as a corporation, a successful one, it is quite “normal” to engage in healthy competition and try to beat your opponents by hook or by crook!
Google's Swine Flu Locator
But, is Google really evil? I think not for one main reason: Google gives back! Of course Google does marketing and competitive schemes and conspiracies ( like when they announced Google Wave just in time to ruin Bing’s introduction for Microsoft ), however, with their flu monitoring system and now flu shot locator, it seems that they are working hard to pay their dues and live up to their corporate social responsibility!
Apparently, iPhone is also trying to be socially responsible by featuring applications that help fight the N1H1 virus!
From here on, I think the right questions to ask would be: What is the thin line that separates competition from evil? And how much can we disregard the conspiracies of brands and companies for the causes they “claim” to serve?
“Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake“! Napoleon Bonaparte
I wonder if, for once, Microsoft is being very very quiet while watching Apple make its mistake! The video and my analysis will explain what I mean!
The Apple/Microsoft fight seems to be never ending! Yet, since its market share is relatively low when compared to Microsoft, Apple is constantly trying hard to overcome its opponent in terms of advertising content and style, using both humor and personification to attract new potential customers and retain the current ones.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that Apple might be running out of creative brand promoting ideas and resorting to “intrusive” advertising within its latest release of Mac OS X. The video below explains it all!
Therefore, the question that needs to be asked now is: Will this new method that Apple is using result in turning people against Apple, even if it entails a free reward?
The way I see it, Apple targets a niche market since their prices are relatively high as opposed the average PC or laptop. With that said, Apple’s potential customer base should not be that different and the way for advertising to them should not dramatically differ. Apple users seek a certain type of recognition which this type of advertising might deprive them of!
Every once in a while your email spam filter lets an email slip by it and make it into the mail box that could be proclaiming anything from a bank asking its customer to “verify an account” to the Spanish lottery commission congratulating you on “winning the lottery”.
This kind of attack aims to pull a slight of hand trick on web users and fooling them into providing their private information to the attacker. In a phishing attack, the aim is to bait the user into believing that the email and website they are getting redirected to are legitimate. The scheme collapses once the user doesn’t take the bait.
The aim of this post is to discuss some of the best precautions you can take to protect yourself.
Tip 1 Be skeptical
Any legitimate organization would not ask for your user name, password or credit card information over email. Unless you are 100% sure that the email is legitimate, you should just ignore it. But if you can’t help but think the email might be legit, you should never trust the links sent to you by email. Instead, browse to the relevant website by typing the company or bank’s URL address by yourself. If there is anything that the company wants to inform its users with, then it will have it announced on their website.
Since Google Wave’s unveiling in May, it was quite interesting to try to figure out heads or tails of how the application will be received once it’s released. And now, we are inching closer and closer to when it opens for the general public. Closed Beta testing has been open for a few chosen developers who have been actively providing feedback on Google products. Will Wave be able to create a tsunami upon its release?
“Here’s how it works: In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use “playback” to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.”
Wave’s Engulfing The Islands of Sharepoint & Lotus
Given that we trust Google to provide us with intuitive user interfaces within a very low learning curve, its entry into the corporate world will be quite smooth and exponential - if we only consider those two facets - more about that later on.
The threat it poses is probably the greatest to IBM and Microsoft’s collaborative Business software. Combined with the other Google services and its source nature, it promises to take cloud computing and social networking to the next level.
