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Online Real Estate Technology Blog- Social Media College Updates
- Mike Andrew Technology Podcast Series
- Social Media - Is Quantity over Quality More EffectiveIn this episode, Mike Andrew discusses social media and whether having large numbers of followers actually converts into sales. […]Mike Andrew
- Social Media & BusinessMike Andrew looks at the growing number of consumers using social media whilst business lags behind in utilising this powerful marketing opportunity. […]Mike Andrew
- Women and Social MediaMike Andrew looks at the influence of social media amongst US female Internet users following new research from SheSpeaks. […]Mike Andrew
- Creating a Blogging DisciplineIn this episode Mike Andrew looks at Blogging and how creating a blogging discipline will help new bloggers keep their blogging efforts on track. […]Mike Andrew
- Social Media - Becoming the Trusted AdviserMike Andrew looks at new research showing social media is now a trusted adviser in our daily lives. […]Mike Andrew
- Social Media - Is Quantity over Quality More Effective
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- Mike Andrew’s Ezine Articles RSS Feed
- Using Facebook & Twitter Alone is Not a Social Media Strategy
- Banned Social Media From Your Business? - You Need to Think Again, But Set the Rules First
- The Importance of Setting the Rules With Social Media
- Webmasters Out of Control
- Social Media Business Plan For Real Estate Agents
- Small Business Web Sites and SEO
- Creating a Digital Media Strategy
- What is Augmented Reality?
- How to Fake Twitter & Facebook Followers and Become a Social Media Expert
- Why Business Should Blog
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This week the Full Federal Court unanimously upheld the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s appeal filed in October 2011 against Google. The Full Court declared that Google, by publishing the four advertisements that were the subject of the ACCC’s appeal on result pages of the Google Australia website, engaged in conduct that was misleading or
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This week, thousands of cities across the globe will dim their lights at 8.30pm for an hour, joining in the world’s largest voluntary environmental action: Earth Hour. Scheduled for the last Saturday of every March – closely coinciding with the equinox to ensure that most cities are in darkness as it rolls out around the
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Marketers Say Social Media, Search Are Industry’s Hottest Ad Tools
By mike, Mar 31 in blog with 0 commentsSocial media and search advertising are projected to be the most popular advertising tools this year, each cited by 24% of respondents to a PointRoll survey [pdf] of US marketing professionals, conducted by Kelton Research and released in March 2012. Display advertising followed closely, chosen by 22% of respondents. There was then a significant drop-off
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1 in 4 online shoppers, who shop at least quarterly online and login to their Facebook account at least monthly, have made a purchase based on a social recommendation, details Sociable Labs in a March 2012 report. 62% of survey respondents said they had ever read a comment on their Facebook page from a
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New technology has helped the British arm of Rupert Murdoch’s publishing company, HarperCollins, post its highest revenue figures in three years, says a report released in London. Turnover for the business rose 4.7 per cent to STG254 million ($A389 million) in the year ending June 2011, with the sales of e-books up sevenfold, reported the
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Facebook will make its stock market debut in May with a record-setting initial public offering of shares, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The world’s leading online social network has stopped selling shares on the secondary market in order to get a precise count of investors, the Journal said on Wednesday, citing
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Purchase Recommendations From Blogs Highly Influential to Women
By mike, Mar 26 in blog with 0 comments61% of women who are active blog users say they have made a purchase based on a recommendation from a blog, a proportion that rises to 87% among BlogHer network members, according to a March 2012 survey from the company, which polled a sample of women from the general population and a sample from
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Social network users are 27.3% more likely to say that the sites are important for making entertainment-related decisions than not (56% vs. 44%), according to The Hollywood Reporter (THR) and Penn Schoen Berland, in March 2012 survey results. And the influence of social networks appears to be overwhelmingly positive: 82% of users say they
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Coles has become the latest major brand to experience a social media backlash after posing the statement: ‘In my house it’s a crime not to buy….’ elicited a string of hostile comments towards the supermarket. The retail giant published the tweet from its @Coles account at 8.25pm, but by 9.18pm quickly back tracked claiming the
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Microsoft this week let consumers start trying out its upcoming touch-based Windows 8 operating system, which aims to power a new wave of computer tablets and traditional PCs designed to counter Apple’s big gains in the market through its Macs and iPads. The test "beta" version of the revamped system was introduced at the Mobile
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Maybe you’ve seen this error message on your computer: “Oops … the system encountered a problem (#700).” Or this one: “Arrggh! Our tubes are clogged!”. Or, sometimes most distressing of all, a notice that a site will be shut down. These are no ordinary messages. They’re attached to online services that store your mail and
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A Chinese high court has begun hearing an appeal brought by Apple against a Chinese firm, Proview Electronics, over the use of the iPad trademark. Apple Inc is in several legal battles with Proview Electronics Co, which the US company says sold it the rights to the iPad trademark in 10 different countries, including China,
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Coca-Cola is the latest company to have a social media marketing attempt go wrong. The company invited fans to post one-word comments in addition to previous posts on the company’s Facebook page, but it ended in customers attacking each other. ‘Here is a little social experiment Add a word to the person above you to
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GPs in the UK are set to ‘prescribe’ smartphone apps to patients to help them manage their own health. The Department of Health says the technology can put patients in charge of their medical records, and help them manage chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. More than 500 apps were nominated as part
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Flash sale sites and the fashion industry’s maturing web presence boost sales to young consumers As Generation Y grows up and gains more buying power, the 18- to 34-year-old age group is increasingly purchasing luxury goods. According to a survey by American Express Business Insights, Gen Y consumers upped spending on premium, full-priced luxury goods
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Since the days of Google Buzz, the +1 button has been a mystery to users and content producers alike. It’s different from Facebook’s “Like” button, in that it doesn’t directly share content to a user’s social stream. But the cultivation of a social graph has long been the goal of Google, and its connection to
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Legal authorities say a judge at England’s High Court has allowed lawyers to log on to Facebook to serve legal claims. The Judicial Office for England and Wales said Justice Nigel Teare had agreed to the use of the popular social networking site to serve a claim in a commercial dispute. Lawyers had been seeking
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Internet users will receive a warning if sites do not respect their privacy thanks to new tools being developed by the web’s standards setting body. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) wants to help users control how their personal data is managed. It is designing controls to shield personal data and reveal when sites do
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Google has been accused of bypassing the privacy settings of users of the Safari web-browser. The Wall Street Journal said Google and other companies had worked around privacy settings designed to restrict cookies. Cookies are small text files stored by browsers which can record information about online activity, and help some online services work. However
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Although roughly 3 in 4 SMBs use email marketing tactics such as organic list growth and web-based sign-up forms to generate leads, just 41% include a sign-up form on their Facebook fan pages, according to a survey released in February 2012 by GetResponse. And while a majority optimize their newsletters with clear, recognizable, branded from
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The popularity of Google+ has showed dramatic growth recently, according to February 2012 analysis from Compete, which tracked the the landing page for the main feature of the social network, the +1 button (google.com/+1/button, or plusone.google.com), beginning in November 2011. The page drew over 40 million unique visitors in December alone, with more than 10
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Microsoft has taken out full-page newspaper adverts to criticise changes to Google’s policies. Google has touted the changes it announced last week as a simplification of detailed but obtuse policies and a way to provide a better user experience. However, Microsoft’s adverts say the changes allow Google to internally merge the data it collects on
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Google has removed hundreds of web pages relating to former Formula 1 boss Max Mosley’s sex life from its search results index, Britain’s Leveson Inquiry on press standards has heard. But the internet giant said it dealt with requests for material to be excluded on a country-by-country basis, meaning articles and videos might remain accessible
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Twitter has refined its technology so it can censor messages on a country-by-country basis. The additional flexibility is likely to raise fears that the short-messaging company’s commitment to free speech may be weakening. It comes as it expands into new countries in an attempt to broaden its audience and make more money. But Twitter sees
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Facebook will start requiring people to switch to a new profile format known as Timeline, making photos, links and personal musings from the past much easier to find. Timeline is essentially a scrapbook of the user’s whole life, compared with a snapshot of today found on Facebook’s traditional profile page. Once activated, Timeline replaces the
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A McDonald’s Twitter promotion backfired after customers hijacked the hash-tag #McDStories, using it to share horror stories instead. The fast food giant launched the 24-hour promotional campaign last week to promote its use of fresh produce, inserting paid-for tweets into the streams of Twitter users. But things went wrong after the corporation changed its promotional
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Price-conscious consumers do more online research, download coupons and compare prices in-store via smartphones Despite some bright spots on the economic horizon, shopping remains more of a battle than a pleasure for financially skittish consumers. Some of them cope by using digital tactics to help save money. A SymphonyIRI Group MarketPulse survey on how the
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Marketing efforts spreading beyond Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Social media sites beyond Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are seeing significant boosts in usage, both in the US and elsewhere in the world. And where users go, marketers will follow. Research from social marketing software firm Awareness Inc. indicates US marketers plan to do just that this
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Five days before a critical vote, US senators are abandoning an anti-piracy bill after an outpouring of online opposition to tinkering with internet freedoms. Senate Democratic leaders still plan to vote on Tuesday on taking up the Protect International Property Act and supporters are scrambling to make changes before then to answer some of the
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In case you missed all the news on the proposed bill to Stop On Line Piracy, or SOPA as it has become known, is a bill that was introduced into the US house of representatives in October last year. The bill, if made law, would expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders
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The number of internet users in China has surged past 500 million as millions of new web surfers go online using mobile phones and tablet computers, an industry group reports. The popularity of the internet in China has driven the explosive growth of profitable web companies and made fortunes for some Chinese entrepreneurs despite government
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Most Consumers Still Don’t Talk About Brands on Social Sites
By mike, Jan 17 in blog with 0 commentsConsumers occasionally post about brands on Facebook and Twitter, but offline and non-social online methods keep them informed While most marketers leverage Facebook and Twitter to communicate with customers, not nearly as many consumers comment about these companies and brands on the social sites. AYTM Market Research found that 57.8% of US Facebook users had
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B2B Marketers Struggle With Compelling Content 41% of B2B marketers say that producing the kind of content that engages prospects and customers is their biggest content marketing challenge, representing a 14% increase from 36% of respondents in 2010, according to [download page] a December 2011 study by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute. Data
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Mobile Marketers Most Interested in Apps, Barcodes Mobile apps (43%) and mobile barcodes (41%) rank highest as mobile marketing strategies companies would be interested in deploying in the next 12 months, according to [pdf] a December 2011 survey from AT&T. Data from the survey indicates that banner ads (40%) follow closely as a potential strategy,
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Facebook has officially started rolling out its new Timeline feature that will enable users to show off the most important moments of their lives on their profile page. The new feature, which was unveiled in early September, will first be introduced in New Zealand before it is rolled out to other countries, the company revealed
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The Reserve Bank of Australia board has cut the official interest rate by 25 basis points to 4.25 per cent, giving mortgage holders and borrowers a pre-Christmas reprieve. The RBA announced the rate cut at 2.30pm AEDT today following the board’s final meeting for the year. It’s the second interest rate cut in as many
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Economists are divided on whether borrowers will get a second interest rate cut in as many months on Tuesday. Seven of the 14 economists surveyed by AAP say the RBA will cut the cash rate to 4.25 per cent from 4.5 per cent on December 6. On Melbourne Cup day, the Reserve Bank of Australia
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More than a quarter of Australian employers use social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook before hiring staff, according to new research. Telstra’s Cyber-Safety survey found that almost half of those employers who admit to checking candidates’ social profiles have turned down applicants based on something unfavourable they’ve seen online. The research also revealed
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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has blasted the mainstream media, Washington, banks and the internet itself as he addressed journalists in Hong Kong via videolink from house arrest in England. Fresh from accepting a Walkley award for journalism on Sunday, Assange spoke to the News World Summit in Hong Kong on Monday before keeping a regular
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Bloggers comment on brands and post to social media, expanding reach Bloggers, from hobbyists to professionals, often write about brands, and their growing influence should make brand representatives continually evaluate the relationships they have with these bloggers. Most bloggers write about brands in some way or another. According to the “State of the Blogosphere 2011”
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China has overtaken the United States to become the world’s largest smartphone market by volume although the US still leads in terms of revenue, a market research firm says. Strategy Analytics said that smartphone shipments hit 24 million units in China during the third quarter of the year compared to 23 million units in the
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Australians work some of the longest hours in the developed world, with many feeling obliged to do extra work because their employer has supplied them with mobile phones and laptops, new research says. The study by the left-leaning Australia Institute terms this extra work ‘polluted time’, as work increasingly intrudes on leisure. Institute deputy director
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Before you launch your next big social media campaign, you may want to ask: Is anybody really listening? A new TNS report reveals that as many as half of all social media marketing campaigns are going unnoticed. Matthew Froggatt, the company’s chief development officer, says in a press release that 57 percent of consumers in
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Many marketers still ignoring dissatisfied customers on social media Marketers are well aware that social media is a double-edged sword when it comes to word-of-mouth. Not only does it give rave reviews and glowing recommendations a chance to be seen by millions, but it also does the same for negative feedback. How to best deal
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We’re wired to be social creatures, and sites like Twitter and Facebook have capitalized on this to great success. According to its COO Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook draws 175 million logins every day. But with this tremendous popularity comes a dark side as well. Virus writers and other cybercriminals go where the numbers are — and
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Brands that include photos and calls to action see higher engagement rates with those posts Companies on Facebook and other social sites are always trying to determine what to post to get fans engaged. While each brand is different, and its fans will respond to different things, there are some common threads that companies can
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There is a lesson to be learned for all companies in the following story, as Internet marketing consultants, we are constantly advising our clients to ensure they have secured all variations of their domain names, and given the very cheap cost of these valuable pieces of on line real estate, you would think it would
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A majority of social shoppers trust user reviews and recommendations on social network sites more than other sites, according to a study released in October 2011 by Performics and conducted by ROI Research. Data from the “2011 Social Shopping Study” indicates that among participants who use social networks at least occasionally during the shopping process,
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Suppressing social networks or mobile phones at times of unrest is ‘unacceptable’, the UK Foreign Secretary has told a global summit on cyber-crime. Human rights such as privacy and freedom of expression should apply as much online as they do offline, William Hague said. His remarks appear to rule out any clampdown of Twitter or
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Qantas is the talk of the town on social networking sites after CEO Alan Joyce took the unprecedented step of grounding the airline’s domestic and international aircraft. Twitter account holders have been looking for the businessman’s personal account, taking the search for Alan Joyce to the fourth most popular trend topic in Australia on Sunday.
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Boomers still prefer TV during workday Facebook is gradually attaining parity with TV as a mass medium. During working hours, the social network has already beaten the boob tube in consumer media time spent. The Frank N. Magid Associates Generational Strategies study surveyed consumers of various ages about how they spend their media time throughout
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Although tablet owners spend more time consuming news than poking around on Facebook, they’re reluctant to pay for news content. That’s according to a study released on Tuesday by the Pew Research Center’s Project for the Excellence in Journalism. It found that 11 per cent of American adults own a tablet of some kind, and
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6 in 10 Twitter Followers are Existing Customers More than six in 10 (64%) people who follow a brand on Twitter are existing customers of the company, according to [pdf] a study released in October 2011 by Chadwick Martin Bailey. Results from “10 Quick Facts You Should Know About Consumer Behavior on Twitter” indicate
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Yet marketers have concerns with the communities they’ve built on social sites Social media marketers feel that having a presence on social sites is more important than advertising there, but there are still challenges related to keeping a community running online. In July 2011, Microsoft Advertising and Advertiser Perceptions surveyed social media marketers in six
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The boss of the company building the national broadband network says reports of cheaper entry-level internet plans under the NBN than current internet connections are in line with his company’s analysis. Chief executive Mike Quigley told a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday that NBN Co’s aim had been always to set the wholesale prices to
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Marketers considering negative, mocking or even charitable social media promotional campaigns should first carefully consider how consumers may react, according to [pdf] a new report from WaveMetrix. Results from “Q3 2011 Benefits and Limits of a Social Media Fanbase” indicate a poorly designed social media campaign can create the wrong type of online buzz. The
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Steve Yegge, a senior engineer at Google, has accidentally and publicly posted a critical analysis about his company’s understanding of platforms, calling Google Plus a "complete failure." In a 4,000-plus-word deconstruction of Google+, intended for his co-workers’ eyes only, Yegge critiqued his former employer Amazon before mentioning Google’s failure to create a platform that works
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European anti-trust officials have approved US technology giant Microsoft’s $US8.5 billion ($A8.76 billion) takeover of Internet voice and video leader Skype. ‘The deal would not significantly impede effective competition across the single European market’ of half a billion consumers, the European Commission said in a statement on Friday. Microsoft’s purchase is aimed at boosting its
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Chiropractors are warning of a rise in a new condition called ‘text neck’, as people spend more time hunched over their mobile phones. The affliction is caused by flexing the neck for extended periods of time and can cause permanent arthritic damage if not treated. In some cases, patients can adapt to the flexed position
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The initial demand for the iPhone 4S has made it the most successful iPhone launch ATT has ever had. The telecommunications giant said on Friday that it received more than 200,000 pre-orders for the iPhone 4S within the first 12 hours that the Dallas company began taking orders for the popular Apple smartphone. ATT and
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A look at the top social networking brands worldwide released by comScore in September 2011 revealed that, perhaps unsurprisingly, Facebook.com ranked as the top social network by a wide margin. In June 2011, 734.2 million people visited Facebook.com globally, an increase of 33% from the previous year. Meanwhile Twitter.com climbed its way to the #2
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An online gaming system has been launched in the UK that could revolutionise the industry. The ‘cloud’-based OnLive service gives users access to on-demand games via the internet with no need for a console. Gamers can play around 150 games on various devices including PCs, Mac tablets and net-connected televisions. It was launched at the
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Picture in your mind a happy scene from your past and then imagine being able to record it – maybe even upload it to YouTube. It is still a distant possibility, but researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a system which can scan your mind and create a visual reconstruction of your
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Females make up the majority of visitors to social networks and blogs, and people aged 18-34 have the highest concentration of visitors among all age groups, according to a September 2011 report from The Nielsen Company. Data from “The Social Media Report Q3 2011? indicates that during Q3 2011, women were 3% more likely than
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Websites all over the world are being told to pay a US company for the rights to their own .xxx domain name or risk having their trademarked names associated with pornography sites. Australian web companies have until October 28 to pay US business ICM Registry for the rights to their own .xxx domain name. If
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An expert says cybercrime is soaring, it already costs Australians more than burglary and will only increase as more people use smartphones. Marian Merritt, internet safety advocate with computer security company Norton, said a new global study showed 69 per cent of adults around the world experienced cybercrime in their lifetime, much more than previously
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Facebook doubled its revenues in the first half of this year, to 1.6 billion dollars ($A1.5 billion). The Wall Street Journal reports that, with 750 million Facebook members worldwide, the online site has attracted major interest from advertisers. Share and Enjoy
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Facebook wants you to try to hack into its site — and if you succeed, it will pay you for the details. Facebook said this week that that it has paid out more than $40,000 under its new "bug bounty" security initiative. Launched three weeks ago, Facebook’s program invites security researchers — both the professional
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While propensity to click-through on Facebook is positively correlated with age, propensity to like is not, according to data released in August 2011 by Facebook marketing consulting firm SocialCode. Age has a strong positive effect on whether a user will click, but has a less pronounced opposite effect on the likelihood of them becoming a
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A meeting on Thursday between the British government and Internet communications firms was friendly, not confrontational, according to people from the organizations that took part in the meeting. At the meeting, the government "did not seek any additional powers to close down social media networks," the British Home Office, the government’s home security department, said
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Google has struck its biggest ever deal – to buy Motorola’s smartphone and tablet business for $12.5 billion in cash. Both companies say the move will give a ‘supercharge’ to Google’s Android platform. Android-based devices, which include Motorola’s smartphones and tablets – are the major rivals to Apple’s iPhone and iPad. As such, the acquisition
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Facebook lawyers have revealed evidence they say proves a New York man fabricated a contract that he says entitles him to part ownership of the $US50 billion ($A47.68 billion) social network. Included in an after-hours court filing is an image of a two-page contract signed by Paul Ceglia of Wellsville, New York, and Facebook founder
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Facebook is attempting to play a strong card against telcos with the release of a new instant messaging app that will also send free SMS. The world’s largest social media company released Facebook Messenger for iPhone and Android phones earlier this week in the US, with Australia to soon follow. The application allows for instant
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Google+ added games, including the hugely popular Angry Birds, to the fast-growing social network vying with Facebook to be the hub for people’s online lives. ‘We want to make playing games online just as fun, and just as meaningful, as playing in real life,’ Google senior vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra said in a
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“Super Greenies” (adults who engage in 10 or more environmentally friendly activities on a regular basis) tend to use the internet more heavily than average adults, according to [pdf] an August 2011 study from Scarborough Research. For example, data from “All About the Super Greenies” indicates 51% of Super Greenies have visited Facebook in the
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Even when local merchants make money, many remain unhappy with deals The long-term profitability of participating in daily deal promotions remains an open question for local businesses, even as services like Groupon remain popular and more businesses jump on board with deal offers. July research from UK-based Cooper Murphy Copywriters found that nearly two-thirds of
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Facebook Monthly Visitors More than Double MySpace, Twitter Combined
By mike, Aug 10 in blog with 0 commentsAs of May 2011, the number of unique US visitors to Facebook.com was roughly 2.5 times the combined number of unique visitors to MySpace and Twitter.com, according to a July 2011 white paper from comScore. Data from “The Power of Like” indicates in May 2011, Facebook had almost 160 million unique US visitors, while MySpace
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Computer giant Apple has launched legal proceedings in Australia against Samsung Electronics, accusing the South Korean firm of infringing its patents with its Galaxy Tab 10.1, court papers show. Samsung is already embroiled in a patent dispute over smartphones and tablet computers with Apple in the United States, in which both sides have filed infringement
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An outdated law meaning millions of people are unknowingly copying music illegally is due to be swept away by the Government. Business Secretary Vince Cable has backed proposals to update what some have called the country’s ‘archaic copyright laws’. At the moment it is technically illegal to transfer content from CDs and DVDs onto a
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Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co zoomed to the top of the list of global smartphone makers in the second quarter, blowing past Nokia Corp and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd, according to research firm IDC. Korea’s Samsung made the biggest jump, from No 4 in the first quarter to No 2 in the
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Facebook Social Sign In About four in 10 (39%) users of the Janrain Engage social connection service used Facebook for social sign-in (SSI) during Q2 2011, according to data from Janrain. This was 30% more than the 30% of users who used number two SSI site Google. Yahoo (12%) and Twitter (8%) remain well behind
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Astroturfing on the web–Creating your own grass roots movement
By mike, Jul 29 in blog with 0 commentsFunny sounding title I know, but the very essence of what you and I read on the net is under threat from companies and lobbyists taking over social media sites to lobby or to create artificial grass roots movements. Online forums and blogs including Twitter are being taken over and hi jacked by people who
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Hacker groups Anonymous and Lulz Security have called for a boycott of PayPal to punish the electronic payments firm for its refusal to accept donations for WikiLeaks. PayPal, Visa and MasterCard have stopped accepting donations for WikiLeaks in December after the website began releasing sensitive US State Department cables. PayPal says the decision to restrict
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Twitter will begin placing advertisements known as ‘Promoted Tweets’ in the timelines of users who follow a particular brand or company. Twitter said it will begin testing the new advertising offering with a number of companies including Dell, Gatorade, Groupon, JetBlue, LivingSocial, Microsoft, Red Bull, Starbucks and Virgin America. Promoted Tweets from non-profits such as
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The National Broadband Network will on Friday plug the first East Coast site into the super-fast grid. It is coming a day after NBN Co released the third edition of its Wholesale Broadband Agreement and a discussion paper providing an overview of its planned Special Access Undertaking. It sets out the arrangements for the delivery
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A German hacker group has called for online users to circulate altered versions of the 1500-page manifesto by Norwegian terrorist suspect Anders Behring Breivik, until the original document is drowned out by copies. ‘Ensure that Anders becomes a joke, so nobody takes him seriously any more,’ declared the hacker group Anonymous on Tuesday. In the
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More businesses are taking advantage of the internet, with many finding the move online creates more revenue, a new survey has found. Research by accounting software provider MYOB has found that the number of Australian businesses now online has increased to 39 per cent, up from 35 per cent last November, with a further 22
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Global online consumers say that books and clothes are the items they most plan to purchase in the next six months, according to analysis of Nielsen Company global data by My Coupon Codes. Forty-four percent of global online consumers say they will buy books online in the next six months, while 36% plan to buy
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Microsoft has apologised for a ‘tweet’ that has been blasted for seeming like a blatant effort to cash in on the death of 27-year-old British singer Amy Winehouse. ‘Apologies to everyone if our earlier Amy Winehouse ‘download’ tweet seemed purely commercially motivated,’ Microsoft UK PR said at a ‘tweetbox360′ account at microblogging service Twitter. ‘Far
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A new social networking site for ultra-Orthodox Jews takes customary segregation of the sexes online and also bars pictures or ads deemed immodest in ultra-Orthodox society. Go to www.faceglat.com and the home page has signs in Hebrew and English directing men to click on to the right of the page and women to the left.
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Recognizing its importance is not enough to make social strategy a reality Social media marketing has gained its place at the table. eMarketer estimates 80% of companies with at least 100 employees will use social networks for marketing this year, up from nearly three in four last year. By 2012, usage will be even greater,
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Households will pay at least $60 – and up to $190 – a month for internet services on the National Broadband Network, data from an internet provider shows. The first retail pricing for services over the $36 billion NBN were released by internet provider Internode on Thursday. Packages start at $59.95 a month for a
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The federal government says education, rather than legislation, is the best way to protect children using Facebook and other social media. But the government has agreed to look at proposals being prepared by South Australia, including tighter age limits on use of the social media and giving parents more rights to access their children’s Facebook
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Author JK Rowling’s website devoted to fictional wizard Harry Potter will feature a bit of Google magic when it debuts later this year in the United States, according to the internet titan. Rowling’s beloved Potter titles will be available on Google eBooks platform at Pottermore.com and Google Checkout will be the preferred payment system, according
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In the face of an outcry over so-called ‘naked’ body scans at airports, US authorities have announced plans for a new scanning system that eliminates ‘passenger-specific images’. Transportation Security Administration administrator John Pistole said the agency would begin installing new software on its scanners ‘designed to enhance privacy’. The new software ‘will auto-detect items that
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Pre-, mid- and post-roll best video ads for brand marketers Interactive marketers can’t help but look to online video to take advantage of branding potential richer than that for previous online display ad formats. But like its static display counterpart, banner ads, online video advertising can appear in numerous ad sizes, placements and creative types,
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Computer hackers have targeted The Sun website with visitors being redirected to a hoax story about Rupert Murdoch’s suicide. The group LulzSec, which has previously targeted companies including Sony, says it carried out the hijack, via messages on Twitter. Internet users trying to access thesun.co.uk were redirected to new-times.co.uk and a story entitled ‘Media mogul’s
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It is predicted that in five years everyone will own a mobile phone and half of these will be smartphones. The head of Ericsson’s mobile infrastructure group says global mobile penetration will reach 100 per cent by 2016. Australia is leading the way, with active SIM cards ownership making 115 per cent of the population.
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Internet users follow retailers for more than just deals and discounts Social commerce may be on the minds of retailers everywhere, but buying through Facebook is still far from mainstream. But it is hard to say whether shoppers are being restricted by the lack of “f-commerce” opportunities on Facebook, or whether retailers are hesitant to
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comScore today released a report on the online video market in Australia from its comScore Video Metrix service. The report showed that more than 10.7 million Australian Internet users watched online video in May, with viewers averaging more than 10 hours of total viewing time during the month. YouTube delivered video to more than 8.6
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But still more likely to address complaints to brands more directly Many social network users are using channels such as Twitter and Facebook to discuss shopping decisions and experiences with their peers. Although often this means they are using social networks as another channel to hunt down the best deals, consumers are also turning to
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New Zealand Females Spend Significantly More Time Social Networking than Males
By mike, Jul 15 in blog with 0 commentsComscore today released a study on Internet usage in New Zealand from its comScore Media Metrix service. The study found that Social Networking ranks as the leading online activity in New Zealand, accounting for 1 of every 5 minutes spent online in May. The study also found that females spent more time on social networking
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A poll of Australians by blogging network, Nuffnang, has found that almost 90 per cent of respondants are swayed by blogger reviews. While blogging is still relatively new in Australia, Nuffnang says it has seen an explosion of new bloggers in the last three years. “It was no surprise to find out that 89
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Whether in bed, on the loo, in a business meeting or during a first date, a new survey suggests no place or moment is sacred when it comes to using a smartphone. Forty-six per cent of Australian mobile phone users are now using smartphones, up from 31 per cent in 2010, according to a survey
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Boosting ‘likes’ and comments a balancing act as fan base grows March 2011 research from link-sharing solutions provider Visibli found that among Facebook pages with at least 100,000 “likes,” engagement dropped as the number of fans increased. Each individual post by brands and media organizations received fewer “likes” as a proportion of the page’s fan
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A new security hole has opened up in Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices, raising alarms about the susceptibility of some of the world’s hottest tech gadgets to hacker attacks. Flaws in the software running those devices came to light after a German security agency warned that criminals could use them to steal confidential
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Comments on social sites about brands and products are encouraging users to take action Social networks are becoming a part of everyday life for many users, and their offline habits are affected by their participation. In November 2010, the Pew Internet & American Life Project surveyed US social network users for the “Social Network Sites
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Twitter users are sending 200 million tweets a day, up from 65 million a year ago, the micro-blogging service says. ‘For context on the speed of Twitter’s growth, in January of 2009, users sent two million tweets a day,’ Twitter said in a blog post on Thursday. The San Francisco-based Twitter was founded in 2006.
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News Corp. has sold Myspace for a fraction of its purchase price, bringing the curtain down on Rupert Murdoch’s tie-up with a one-time social networking star that ended up being eclipsed by Facebook. Myspace, which was bought by News Corp. in 2005 for $580 million, was bought by Specific Media, a digital ad-targeting platform, which
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Google, the king of internet search but not on the social front, has launched its rival to Facebook, a social networking service called Google+. "Online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it," Google’s senior vice president for engineering Vic Gundotra on Tuesday said in a blog post about the long-awaited social
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Social networks continue to prove their worth as a marketing channel Social media marketing has been top of mind among marketers and is becoming a worldwide phenomenon. Earlier this year, eMarketer estimated that worldwide social network ad revenues alone, not including money that companies spend developing presences on social networks or hiring staff to manage
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One in three (34%) of parents of children age 13-19 have used Facebook to learn more about the parents of their children’s friends, according to data from Retrevo. This makes parents of teens the most likely of all parents of children younger than 20 to snoop on Facebook in this way, followed by parents
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The average age of social network users rose between 2008 and 2010, according to data from the Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Project. For example, the percentage of social network users age 18-22 fell 43%, from 28% to 16%. Percentage of SocNet Users 36 and Up Rises In addition, the percentage of social
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US President Barack Obama has launched an initiative to develop new manufacturing jobs, in a move that will see more than 500 million dollars invested in advanced technologies. The initiative will team up government, companies and universities and aims to speed the development of a new generation of American-made high-technology products. The program will leverage
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Microsoft is racking up the records with its motion sensing gaming device – the ‘Kinect’ Released late last year, it has already entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest-selling consumer device of all time. Kinect is a controller-free gaming system that competes with the Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 Move. It has
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There was plenty of smiling and hand-shaking as Telstra and the government put pen to paper on an $11 billion deal – seen as one of the last major hurdles on the road to a National Broadband Network. But as the government celebrates – Internet service providers around the country are sifting through the documents
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The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is poised to open a formal antitrust probe into whether internet search giant Google has abused its dominance on the web, The Wall Street Journal reports. The newspaper, citing ‘people familiar with the matter,’ said the FTC is preparing to serve Google with civil subpoenas ‘signalling the start of
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Men are leading the way when it comes to forging professional connections online, a new study has found. LinkedIn, a professional web-based networking site, studied the details of men and women across a range of industries and looked at the ratio of their online connections. Of their two million Australian users, they found that men
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Telstra Corporation Ltd has confirmed it has reached agreement with the federal government to progressively disconnect its copper network and participate in the rollout of the national broadband network (NBN). Telstra says the agreement will deliver approximately $11 billion in replacement revenue through disconnection payments, and new revenues through payments for access to its infrastructure.
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The online community has been rattled by a decision by Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names (ICANN) to allow new domain names to be launched next year. The changes will allow up to 1000 new web variations at a price of $185,000. This new move will significantly expand the existing regime, although the changes
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The world’s fastest 3G hotspot has been launched in Australia by Telstra. The battery-powered device is capable of sharing mobile broadband connectivity with up to five devices simultaneously. Warwick Bray, Executive Director of Telstra Mobile Products said a surge in laptop, tablet and smartphone ownership meant Australians need fast mobile broadband connectivity on the go.
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Companies that answer questions more attractive to users Social sites like Quora are designed specifically as question-and-answer venues where users can get expert help, but Twitter often serves as an informal tool for the same purpose. Users might ask their followers for advice, ask the world what a particular trending topic means, or hope
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Social media friends and followers still say they’re more likely to buy Early research on becoming a fan of brands on Facebook or a follower on Twitter indicated that social media users with brand connections were more loyal and more likely to say they would buy the brand’s products than average. Over the past
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Despite common industry wisdom that consumers are much more likely to publicize negative experiences, consumers express satisfaction on social networks more frequently than disappointment, according to an April 2011 study from ROI Research and Performics. Data from “S-Net: A Study in Social Media Usage and Behavior” indicates in the case of restaurants, 60% of online
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Users ages 55 and up increasingly likely to connect with companies It took older web users a few years to begin social networking after it had been popularized by the younger set, but they soon became the fastest-growing segment of users on sites like Facebook. Now it appears they are also growing into a specific
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McDonald’s has found itself in serious damage control after the circulation of a discriminative image on the internet. The photograph appeared on Twitter on the weekend and shows a hoax sign that was allegedly posted on a McDonald’s staff notice board. The sign says an insurance measure due in part to a recent string of
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Telstra’s original broadband proposal was an ‘illusion’ that could never have worked, the boss of the national competition watchdog says. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chairman Graeme Samuel said Telstra’s proposal for a fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) broadband network, or fibre to the street corner, was never going to work. ‘I can now summarise that 2006
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A $9 billion deal between Telstra and NBN Co on delivery of the national broadband network is being delayed by speculation over Australia’s political future. The Australian Financial Review reports that NBN Co. and Telstra have drawn up a series of ‘wipeout clauses’ in the event the $36 billion project is cancelled or scaled back
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Facebook has apologised for the way it rolled out new software that automatically recognises users’ faces without informing them. The social networking website admitted it should have done more to notify members about the global launch of the system. The new feature scans uploaded photographs and attempts to match faces to images already stored on
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While Facebook has the highest engagement rate of the “big five” social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube), the highest percentage of online consumers think having a LinkedIn account is important, according to an April 2011 study from ROI Research and Performics. Data from “S-Net: A Study in Social Media Usage and Behavior” indicates 59%
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Facebook’s move to enable facial recognition across its entire social networking site is raising some eyebrows – and possibly some legal woes — over its privacy implications. On Tuesday, Facebook announced in a blog post that it was working to make it easier for uses to tag photos of their friends and family members. To
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Apple Inc took a big step toward getting people to store and access their data on the Internet as CEO Steve Jobs emerged from medical leave to present the iCloud music-streaming service. A thin Jobs walked out on Monday (June 6) to a standing ovation from the more than 5,000 Apple faithful at its Worldwide
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Forget Gen Y and Z – the new wave of kids are being called I-babies. Women are now using phone applications to help them know when the best time is to conceive. They are the new generation of iBabies, children born with the help of an application telling a couple the best time to conceive.
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Social deal site users ages 25 to 44 share offers most Growth in daily deal site usage is still rapid, according to April 2011 site rankings from Compete. The analytics firm reported that visits to Groupon rose 5.4% over March and a dramatic 655.8% over the previous April to 24 million uniques. At the same
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88.2 million US adults will redeem an online coupon this year A digital revolution in couponing coupled with the belt-tightening of the recession have combined to make coupons cool among more than just those clipping the Sunday circular. Digital coupon usage is now firmly a part of the online shopping experience of millions of
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Coupons and discounts among most popular Whether it’s exchanging stories about shopping bargains, offering product reviews or sharing parenting advice, moms love to trade information and engage in online conversations about themselves and their families. But moms say they would be significantly more inclined to refer a brand or product to friends when offered an
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A new cutting-edge technology that detects and diagnoses breast cancer has become available in the US. Breast-Specific Gamma Imaging (BSGI) can detect lesions that are so small, they don’t show up on a traditional mammogram, providing early detection and treatment. BSGI requires the patient to be injected with a low-dose radioactive tracer. That tracer is
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Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple Computers, is convinced that within his lifetime he will see computer intelligence the equal of mankind. That’s the future according to one of the smartest geeks on the planet, Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple Computers and is convinced that in his lifetime he will see computer intelligence equal that of
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A Google search has helped tracked down an Australian girl US police believe was one of many young victims of alleged child predator Stephen Vosilla. US Authorities recognised a logo on a video of one of Vosilla’s victims and logged on to the internet search engine, Google, tapped in the logo, and within seconds he
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Australian retailers should be more imaginative if they want to dominate the online shopping landscape like their international counterparts, Sue Morphet says. The Pacific Brands chief executive officer told a Brisbane business lunch on Thursday that online shopping was both a threat and an opportunity. It’s just a matter of attitude, she said. Comercial survival
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An English local authority said on Sunday it had taken US micro-blogging site Twitter to court in California and forced it to release the details of a British user. South Tyneside Council, in northeast England, took the legal action in a bid to discover the identity of a blogger behind allegedly libellous statements. The blogger,
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Pokies technology that allows players to choose whether or not to curb their spending is the best way to stop problem gambling, Victoria says. Gaming ministers from around the country will meet in Canberra on Friday to discuss federal Labor’s plans to crack down on pokies, based on an agreement it made with independent MP
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More than a third of bosses say they check potential employees’ Facebook profiles before offering them a job. Your potential new boss may have already checked you out on Facebook. A new survey by recruitment firm Robert Half has found that more than a third of employers in accounting and finance admit to checking potential
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A combined 89% of marketers use (53%) or plan to use (36%) social media marketing, according to [pdf] a study conducted in Q4 2010 by Unica. Data from “The State of Marketing 2011? indicates of those planning to use social media, 26% plan to use it in the next 12 months and 10% plan to
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Online retail giant Amazon said sales of digital books for the Kindle electronic reader have surpassed sales of print books. ‘Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books,’ Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said in a statement. ‘We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined
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Facebook’s chief technology officer said the social network will start scanning for child pornography and images of missing children. Facebook is teaming up with Microsoft and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to use photo ‘fingerprint’ technology to search for pictures matching those in the US organisation’s data base. ‘We care deeply’ about
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Marketers must look beyond fan count to find real success Having a branded Facebook page has become near-essential for many businesses. As such, companies should give as much thought and energy into planning and managing their Facebook page as they do a traditional website. “The rapid adoption of the ‘like’ button and the rise of
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Prime Minister Julia Gillard has switched on a glimpse of the future in Armidale, the first mainland community to receive national broadband network (NBN) services. The NBN roll-out in the northern NSW city will ultimately bring super-fast broadband to 4882 premises, including the University of New England, but the first to benefit are the Presbyterian
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The head of the company behind the national broadband network (NBN) has apologised for mistakenly misleading the public about his previous responsibilities at communications firm Alcatel-Lucent. Alcatel-Lucent was fined $US137 million ($A130 million) after a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation found it had paid bribes to government officials
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The number of internet users in China, already the world’s largest online market, hit 477 million at the end of March, a senior government official said. The official from the Telecommunications Administration Bureau, which falls under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, announced the figure at a meeting in Beijing, the official Xinhua news
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Why Do Affluent Consumers Connect with Brands on Social Networks?
By mike, May 16 in blog with 0 commentsMotivations differ from general population Luxury marketers take note, according to a February 2011 Affluence Collaborative survey, wealthy internet users connect with brands on social networks for significantly different reasons than the general population. The social networks they use to do so are different, too. Among the general population, the main reason cited for connecting
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Google has paid tribute to US dance pioneer Martha Graham by transforming the celebrated logo on its homepage into a dancing animation. Instead of the usual colourful logo, the internet search giant’s homepage features an animated dancer who spells out the word "Google" in a series of elegant dance moves made famous by Graham. Graham,
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Business owners preyed upon by petty thieves hope they will be caught more quickly thanks to new web technology which passes CCTV evidence to police. The Facewatch website has been set up to allow traders to upload video images of shoplifters and bag-snatchers, so they can be followed up by local forces. ‘It saves valuable
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A bankruptcy attorney in Indianapolis has the same name as the creator of Facebook; they’re both called Mark Zuckerberg. The lawyer, Mark S. Zuckerberg has had his personal Facebook account shut down because the social networking website thought he was lying about his name. Mark S. Zuckerberg told WishTV it wasn’t the first time Facebook
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Social networks are ‘lucrative hot beds’ for cyber scams as crooks endeavour to dupe members of online communities, according to a Microsoft security report. ‘Phishing’ attacks that use seemingly legitimate messages to trick people into clicking on booby-trapped links, buying bogus software, or revealing information rocketed 1,200 per cent at social networks last year, it
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Some 7.5 million of the 20 million minors who used Facebook in the past year were younger than 13, and a million of them were bullied, harassed or threatened on the site, an American study shows. Even more troubling, more than five million Facebook users were 10 years old or younger, and they were allowed
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Microsoft has announced plans to buy internet phone service company Skype for $US8.5 billion ($A7.9 billion) in a move aimed at carving out a bigger presence in an online arena dominated by Google and Facebook. The acquisition of Skype, which had reportedly also attracted interest from Cisco, Facebook and Google, is the largest ever by
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Defence Minister Stephen Smith says the use of social media by Australian Defence Force members could put the ADF’s reputation at risk. The defence minister’s warning came a day after charges were laid against a former ADF member over the setting up of a gay-hate Facebook page. Mr Smith on Friday announced an external consulting
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Four people were taken to hospital and a glass door smashed as a near-riot broke out at Beijing’s top Apple store among crowds rushing to snap up the popular iPad 2 tablet computer, state press said Sunday. Angry consumers began rushing the store on Saturday afternoon after a "foreign" Apple employee allegedly stepped into the
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Tablets encourage new shopping experiences The features of Apple’s iPad and competing tablets have made them an ideal entertainment and media consumption device, but many tablet owners also have a strong interest in online shopping, and retailers are taking note. “The iPad’s portability, tactile screen and vivid graphics foster a casual and exploratory shopping experience
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A California firm has released software that lets Android-powered smartphones recognise people’s faces. Viewdle’s free SocialCamera application was billed as the first of its kind for US smartphone users. ‘Viewdle SocialCamera is the first mobile camera app to encourage socialising and communication,’ said Viewdle co-founder and chief executive Laurent Gil. ‘Consumers can now instantly share
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The government has admitted it was unaware the two top executives in charge of the National Broadband Network were being investigated for ongoing corruption during their employment. It has been revealed by The Australian that when the former Alcatel-Lucent executives Mike Quigley and Jean Pascal Beaufret were appointed to NBN Co. in mid 2009, they
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Facebook and email are the two dominant forms of online communication used by US moms, according to data collected in January 2011 by Lucid Marketing. Results of “How US Moms Share and Spread Information” indicate slightly more than nine in 10 moms use Facebook (93%) and email (91%) to communicate. 1 in 3 Moms Tweet,
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Facebook is the social network with the highest rates of satisfying small-to-mid-sized businesses (SMBs), according to a Q1 2011 survey conducted by Borrell Associates. Data from “SMB Survey – Wave 3? indicates that a total of 76.5% of SMBs are somewhat or very satisfied with their Facebook pages. MySpace Least Satisfies SMBs In contrast,
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Nokia is fighting to regain share of the smartphone market. The firm is still the world’s largest mobile phone maker, but has been slipping badly in the smartphone market, where it now has a 26% share – down from 42% a year ago. Its profits in the three months to March were AU$464m, down only
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Users of smartphone-based geolocation apps are most likely to see connecting to other people as their primary benefit, according to a new study from digital marketing agency White Horse. Results of “Lost in Geolocation” indicate 41% of smartphone owners cite connection to other people they know or could meet as the most important benefit geolocation
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Savings tips to help put more eggs in your loan basket Undeterred by a steady cash rate, abundant retail store sales and holiday destination discounts, many Australian borrowers are determined to save these Easter holidays. A national survey by Australia’s largest independently-owned mortgage broker of first homeowners who purchased in the last two years found
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Janrain: Facebook Has Eclipsed Google As Most Popular Sign-In Choice
By mike, Apr 15 in blog with 0 commentsJanrain, a user management platform that enables third party sign-in with 18 different providers, including Facebook, Google, and Twitter; is releasing its Q1 2011 report today. Janrain’s report analyzes data from networks for social login and social sharing across the 350,000 websites worldwide that use Janrain sign-in product, Engage. For the first time in a
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Most people know the importance of having up-to-date security on their computers, but many are not as vigilant when it comes to smartphones. The phones allow similar access to the web and store all your personal information, making users an easy target for hackers. Experts say the best way to protect your personal information is
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Software engineers reverently refine Google’s search algorithm so consistently that it often ends a day a tad different from when it started. Scott Huffman’s team tested ‘many more than’ 6,000 changes to its search engine in 2010, with 500 of them passing the grade to become permanent. ‘We have changed engines on a flying plane
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When Prince William and Catherine Middleton marry on April 29, they will be the 16th royal couple to wed in Westminster Abbey – but they will be the first to have their nuptials played out, in real time, as a global web event. But the royals aren’t the only ones using multimedia for the wedding.
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Most read deal emails and newsletters every day The hype around daily deal websites and mailings, and the rush of established online companies like Google and Facebook to get into the space, has some industry watchers wondering whether consumers will quickly tire of the offers. Research from Yahoo! Mail and Ipsos OTX MediaCT suggests that’s
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Seven in 10 (71%) marketers who use social media plan to increase their use of search engine optimization (SEO) in the near future, according to the “2011 Social Media Marketing Report” from SocialMedia Examiner. Furthermore, only 1% plan to decrease their use of SEO and 8% have no plans to utilize it, with 20% intending
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Nine in 10 marketers (92%) use the Facebook social network as a marketing tool, according to a new survey from SocialMedia Examiner. Data from “2011 Social Media Marketing Report” indicates Facebook is the most popular social network among marketers by a wide margin. Twitter, LinkedIn Also Popular The second-most-popular social network among marketers, Twitter, has
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Roughly seven in 10 (72%) marketers who engage in social media marketing efforts do not outsource those efforts, according to the “2011 Social Media Marketing Report” from SocialMedia Examiner. However, SocialMedia Examiner notes the number of those who are outsourcing social media efforts has doubled since 2010, from 14% to 28%. Design/Development Most Often Outsourced
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Boomers spend more time and money online than any other demographic Boomers’ lives are going in many different directions, as empty-nesters, step-parents, grandparents and caregivers. For all of these roles, the internet and digital media are absolutely essential. eMarketer estimates 78.2% of this cohort is online, nearly 60 million adults. Even as their numbers decline,
