NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Sony is diving into the tablet race, announcing Tuesday that is working on two gadgets that will hit the market this fall.
One of the tablets, code-named S1, will be a flat slate with a 9.4-inch screen, just a touch smaller than Apple's iPad.
Its S2 tablet will be more unusual, with two 5.5-inch displays and a folding design. The displays can be combined into one large viewing surface or used separately.
Both tablets will support Wi-Fi and 3G and 4G wireless networks, and will run on Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android operating system.
Sony didn't offer a precise timeline for its tablets' release, saying only that they will be available globally in "fall 2011." It also didn't give any details about pricing for either tablet.
Sony, which said at January's Consumer Electronics Show that it was working on a tablet but offered few specifics, joins a long list of dozens of electronics makers struggling to catch up to Apple's giant head start.
So far, few of those efforts have impressed. Research in Motion's (RIMM) PlayBook debuted this month to lackluster reviews, while Motorola's (MMI) pioneering Xoom -- the first to run Google's tablet-optimized "Honeycomb" version of Android -- has sold sluggishly.
Meanwhile, Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) has sold nearly 20 million iPads since launching the device a year ago.
A fresh wave of rivals will hit the market later this year, including HP's TouchPad, one of the few tablets built around an operating system other than Android. HP (HPQ, Fortune 500) is using its own webOS, which HP inherited when it bought Palm, as the foundation of its tablet development.
Sony (SNE) went for the relative safety of Android, but it promises that its S1 and S2 will stand out from the pack. The S1 will have an "off-center" form factor designed for easy gripping, while the dual-screen S2 borrows its design inspiration from popular portable gaming devices like Nintendo's DS.
Sony also plans to integrate its Sony Reader e-book software and build in home-entertainment features. The S1 tablet will be able to serve as a universal remote control and transfer content like videos and music to compatible television and wireless speaker systems. To top of page
Wednesday 27 April 2011
Tuesday 26 April 2011
Wednesday 20 April 2011
Creative SEO
Great website - some fantastic insights into the world of creative SEO - Well worth a read :-)
http://www.james-kinloch.com/search/label/Digital%20PR#
http://www.james-kinloch.com/search/label/Digital%20PR#
Tuesday 19 April 2011
Facebook Courts Ad Agencies With New Site
(MASHABLE) In an attempt to build relationships in the advertising industry, Facebook revealed Facebook Studio, a “place to celebrate innovation, creativity and effectiveness” on the platform.
“We’ve heard from agencies, brands and the marketing community that you want examples and thought-starters for creativity and innovation on Facebook,” reads an introduction to the site. “We’ve built this site to provide a place where you can come to be inspired and showcase your work.”
In practice, the site is a place to introduce recent work. The more “Likes” the work receives, the more likely it is to be promoted in Facebook’s Spotlight, a permanent collection. Facebook also plans to give awards for the best work awards.
Other features of the site include a learning lab, an agency directory and a “what’s new” section that details new product launches, trends and resources.
The effort comes as Facebook’s relationship with agencies has been somewhat strained by the platform’s arcane system for buying ads. A handful of firms, including Blinq Media and AdParlor, have acted as intermediaries to smooth out the process.
Facebook reps could not be reached for comment on Facebook Studio.
“We’ve heard from agencies, brands and the marketing community that you want examples and thought-starters for creativity and innovation on Facebook,” reads an introduction to the site. “We’ve built this site to provide a place where you can come to be inspired and showcase your work.”
In practice, the site is a place to introduce recent work. The more “Likes” the work receives, the more likely it is to be promoted in Facebook’s Spotlight, a permanent collection. Facebook also plans to give awards for the best work awards.
Other features of the site include a learning lab, an agency directory and a “what’s new” section that details new product launches, trends and resources.
The effort comes as Facebook’s relationship with agencies has been somewhat strained by the platform’s arcane system for buying ads. A handful of firms, including Blinq Media and AdParlor, have acted as intermediaries to smooth out the process.
Facebook reps could not be reached for comment on Facebook Studio.
Saturday 16 April 2011
Friday 15 April 2011
Thursday 14 April 2011
A hot new feature for gadgets: built-in ads?
(CNN) -- Seeing ads on portable devices is nothing new. Open a smartphone app, and you're likely to get hit with ads on the screen. Same for mobile browsers.
But Amazon, maker of the popular Kindle e-reader, took this concept to an entirely new level on Monday when it announced a new version of the Kindle that is $25 cheaper and has inescapable advertisements built into the machine.
Think of an smartphone that requires its owner to watch ads as a screensaver, a TV that makes you watch an ad in order to turn it on or a gadget that requires you to learn about some used car special in order to access new features.
This could be the future if the $114 ad-embedded Kindle takes off.
The Kindle ads don't show up in the books a person loads on the device. Instead, they're built into the framework of the gadget itself, showing up as screen savers and at the bottom of the device's home screen.
"Special offers and sponsored screensavers display on the Kindle screensaver and on the bottom of the home screen -- they don't interrupt reading," Amazon says on its website.
The device, on pre-order now, ships May 3. It connects to the internet with a Wi-Fi connection instead of a cellular data network, making it similar to its predecessor except in the ads and the price. The Wi-Fi-only Kindle without ads is $139.
Although the idea seems new, this apparently isn't the first attempt by a gadget maker to put ads on the device instead of attached to media.
Apple, whose iPad competes with the Kindle as a device for reading digital books, filed a patent application in 2008 that would allow it to embed advertisements directly in several of its popular gadgets.
The New York Times, which reported on this development in 2009, notes that, as with all patents, it's unclear whether the Apple idea will really show up in products.
"The technology can freeze the device until the user clicks a button or answers a test question to demonstrate that he or she has dutifully noticed the commercial message," the Times wrote. "Because this technology would be embedded in the innermost core of the device, the ads could appear on the screen at any time, no matter what one is doing."
Reaction to Amazon's ad-Kindle has been mixed in the tech blogosphere.
The hardware-as-ad ideas is a good one, but the Kindle's price didn't drop enough to make it worth the tradeoff, writes Erik Sherman at the site BNET.
"At one time, ads would probably have come across as annoyance-ware. However, things have changed. People are used to seeing ads in browsers. Watch television and there are all those annoying come-ons for other shows that play in the bottom left corner of the screen even while the current program is running. Play a DVD movie and you have all those trailers for other films.
"Consumers are probably desensitized enough that many could consider having ads play for lower-priced products. That could open doors to expand adoption of new types of devices."
Seeing ads on a screensaver or on the home screen is fine, as long as the ads don't invade the digital book themselves, writes MG Siegler at TechCrunch.
"When I first read the new that Amazon would begin selling an ad-supported Kindle, my heart sank. This is the beginning of the end, I thought," he writes.
He says the price drop needs to be bigger, though.
"I would bet that many people would gladly accept a Kindle with get this -- two ads -- running simultaneously on the home screen if it meant a $99 Kindle."
Many users of an Amazon message board are upset about the idea of ads on the device they use to read.
"No other electronic device I own comes with ads. If it's not a book I don't want to see it on the screen, Amazon," says one commenter.
Others take a more tempered view:
"If you think about it, a lot of books (paperbacks at least) already come with advertising at the end of the book for other books. If the ad was at the end of the book then I wouldn't really care. If it were injected into the middle of the book, I would care a great deal since that would be extremely annoying," wrote another commenter on the message board.
But Amazon, maker of the popular Kindle e-reader, took this concept to an entirely new level on Monday when it announced a new version of the Kindle that is $25 cheaper and has inescapable advertisements built into the machine.
Think of an smartphone that requires its owner to watch ads as a screensaver, a TV that makes you watch an ad in order to turn it on or a gadget that requires you to learn about some used car special in order to access new features.
This could be the future if the $114 ad-embedded Kindle takes off.
The Kindle ads don't show up in the books a person loads on the device. Instead, they're built into the framework of the gadget itself, showing up as screen savers and at the bottom of the device's home screen.
"Special offers and sponsored screensavers display on the Kindle screensaver and on the bottom of the home screen -- they don't interrupt reading," Amazon says on its website.
The device, on pre-order now, ships May 3. It connects to the internet with a Wi-Fi connection instead of a cellular data network, making it similar to its predecessor except in the ads and the price. The Wi-Fi-only Kindle without ads is $139.
Although the idea seems new, this apparently isn't the first attempt by a gadget maker to put ads on the device instead of attached to media.
Apple, whose iPad competes with the Kindle as a device for reading digital books, filed a patent application in 2008 that would allow it to embed advertisements directly in several of its popular gadgets.
The New York Times, which reported on this development in 2009, notes that, as with all patents, it's unclear whether the Apple idea will really show up in products.
"The technology can freeze the device until the user clicks a button or answers a test question to demonstrate that he or she has dutifully noticed the commercial message," the Times wrote. "Because this technology would be embedded in the innermost core of the device, the ads could appear on the screen at any time, no matter what one is doing."
Reaction to Amazon's ad-Kindle has been mixed in the tech blogosphere.
The hardware-as-ad ideas is a good one, but the Kindle's price didn't drop enough to make it worth the tradeoff, writes Erik Sherman at the site BNET.
"At one time, ads would probably have come across as annoyance-ware. However, things have changed. People are used to seeing ads in browsers. Watch television and there are all those annoying come-ons for other shows that play in the bottom left corner of the screen even while the current program is running. Play a DVD movie and you have all those trailers for other films.
"Consumers are probably desensitized enough that many could consider having ads play for lower-priced products. That could open doors to expand adoption of new types of devices."
Seeing ads on a screensaver or on the home screen is fine, as long as the ads don't invade the digital book themselves, writes MG Siegler at TechCrunch.
"When I first read the new that Amazon would begin selling an ad-supported Kindle, my heart sank. This is the beginning of the end, I thought," he writes.
He says the price drop needs to be bigger, though.
"I would bet that many people would gladly accept a Kindle with get this -- two ads -- running simultaneously on the home screen if it meant a $99 Kindle."
Many users of an Amazon message board are upset about the idea of ads on the device they use to read.
"No other electronic device I own comes with ads. If it's not a book I don't want to see it on the screen, Amazon," says one commenter.
Others take a more tempered view:
"If you think about it, a lot of books (paperbacks at least) already come with advertising at the end of the book for other books. If the ad was at the end of the book then I wouldn't really care. If it were injected into the middle of the book, I would care a great deal since that would be extremely annoying," wrote another commenter on the message board.
Wednesday 13 April 2011
Soundcloud pushes into comment space with new Q&A tool
The tool was conceived for Soundcloud advocate Imogen Heap at a Music Hack Day in January, and her well-established trial is at ask.imogenheap.com. The invite-only beta version (ask, and you may receive) is also being used by
Radio One's DJ Nihal, anti-folk heroes Herman Dune and Fenech-Soler, the French electropop band.
Takes Questions gives each user a customisable subdomain on takesquestions.com and only answered questions are published, which is a simple and rather clever solution to moderating.
Expanding its range of tools through the API is part of a bigger vision for Soundcloud, said Dave Haynes, vice president of business development. "We've always wanted Soundcloud to be a platform for audio like Flickr is for photos, Twitter is for messaging and YouTube is for video. Audio got left behind a bit on the web and it was much easier to record and play video, but we want Soundcloud to make it that easy to use audio."
While Soundcloud is just one of an explosion of audio and 'social audio' apps - not least Audioboo - the developer community is an important part of expanding Soundcloud.
"Takes Questions was built by our in-house devs, but there's a bigger conversations around Soundcloud in the developer community and Soundcloud is built into music-creation tools like Korg's iMS20." That iPad app lets users create music and share it through Soundcloud, and is one of 150 apps in Soundcloud's app gallery.
Soundcloud is a slick and very compelling tool that has built a strong following among musicians, but has been careful to describe itself as an audio, rather than music platform from the outset so that it has room to grow. I discovered Soundcloud when I needed an audio version of YouTube to embed some audio on our site, and I've still yet to find a better looking or more stable embeddable tool. What more can you ask?
Radio One's DJ Nihal, anti-folk heroes Herman Dune and Fenech-Soler, the French electropop band.
Takes Questions gives each user a customisable subdomain on takesquestions.com and only answered questions are published, which is a simple and rather clever solution to moderating.
Expanding its range of tools through the API is part of a bigger vision for Soundcloud, said Dave Haynes, vice president of business development. "We've always wanted Soundcloud to be a platform for audio like Flickr is for photos, Twitter is for messaging and YouTube is for video. Audio got left behind a bit on the web and it was much easier to record and play video, but we want Soundcloud to make it that easy to use audio."
While Soundcloud is just one of an explosion of audio and 'social audio' apps - not least Audioboo - the developer community is an important part of expanding Soundcloud.
"Takes Questions was built by our in-house devs, but there's a bigger conversations around Soundcloud in the developer community and Soundcloud is built into music-creation tools like Korg's iMS20." That iPad app lets users create music and share it through Soundcloud, and is one of 150 apps in Soundcloud's app gallery.
Soundcloud is a slick and very compelling tool that has built a strong following among musicians, but has been careful to describe itself as an audio, rather than music platform from the outset so that it has room to grow. I discovered Soundcloud when I needed an audio version of YouTube to embed some audio on our site, and I've still yet to find a better looking or more stable embeddable tool. What more can you ask?
Tuesday 5 April 2011
Monday 4 April 2011
Android steals iPhone crown in UK
Android has usurped Apple's iPhone as the most popular smartphone in the UK, according to new research.
But Google shouldn't be resting on its laurels just yet, as the market dominance difference is only a couple of percentage points.
Almost one third - 28 per cent - of UK mobile users sport an Android-based handset, while the iPhone is the device of choice for 26 per cent.
BlackBerry trails in third place in the favour stakes with 14 per cent of the smartphone user base, according to the research conducted by YouGov - on behalf of Intelligent Environments.
Symbian boasts six per cent of the installed user base, while Windows isn't doing so well with just five per cent.
The four million Brits lovingly clutching a smartphone running the Android OS spans a mix of ages and professions, proving the technology appeals to both consumers and business users, young and old.
Indeed, a quarter of retired people owning a smartphone favour Android, while 36 per cent of those aged between 25 and 34 feel the same way.
"The top three mobile platforms in the UK certainly seem to attract different personalities," said James Richards, Intelligent Environments' director of mobile.
"It's fair to say that iPhone and BlackBerry have strong identities but given that Android is on a number of handsets, we are clearly seeing more of a mixed user base."
While the number who favour Android might be greater, iPhone users are more attached to their devices. Almost a fifth (18 per cent) of iPhone users spend more than four hours each day using their devices.
Whereas just four per cent of Android and BlackBerry users spend the same amount of time using their devices on a daily basis.
But Google shouldn't be resting on its laurels just yet, as the market dominance difference is only a couple of percentage points.
Almost one third - 28 per cent - of UK mobile users sport an Android-based handset, while the iPhone is the device of choice for 26 per cent.
BlackBerry trails in third place in the favour stakes with 14 per cent of the smartphone user base, according to the research conducted by YouGov - on behalf of Intelligent Environments.
Symbian boasts six per cent of the installed user base, while Windows isn't doing so well with just five per cent.
The four million Brits lovingly clutching a smartphone running the Android OS spans a mix of ages and professions, proving the technology appeals to both consumers and business users, young and old.
Indeed, a quarter of retired people owning a smartphone favour Android, while 36 per cent of those aged between 25 and 34 feel the same way.
"The top three mobile platforms in the UK certainly seem to attract different personalities," said James Richards, Intelligent Environments' director of mobile.
"It's fair to say that iPhone and BlackBerry have strong identities but given that Android is on a number of handsets, we are clearly seeing more of a mixed user base."
While the number who favour Android might be greater, iPhone users are more attached to their devices. Almost a fifth (18 per cent) of iPhone users spend more than four hours each day using their devices.
Whereas just four per cent of Android and BlackBerry users spend the same amount of time using their devices on a daily basis.
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