23 December 2014

2014

Time to wrap it up. And what better gift can I give than saving you hundreds of millions of dollars?

What’s the real value of social media marketing?
The news around social media is not good.  Facebook’s organic reach has tanked, people share news on Twitter and the jury is still out whether Pinterest actually offers an ROI…

The Great Unwatched
By David Segal
imageBy many estimates, more than half of online video ads are not seen, either because they are buried low on web pages or run in tiny, easily ignored video players on those pages, or run simultaneously with other ads. Vindico, an ad management platform company, deemed 57 percent of two billion video ads surveyed over two months to be “unviewable.”

Of course, NostraChuckus has been saying these same things for years:

Social Media - WOMM - Web Advertising

Most popular social media post this year:

30 September 2014
Social Media: A Sliver Of The Bigger Picture
… The mobile/social media soothsayers will have you believe that there is this unknown, magical mode of persuasion that has never been thought of before – and will reveal itself any day now.

If you believe that, I have a Blackberry in Brooklyn I want to sell you.

So I guess you can consider my gift as re-gifting.

05 December 2014

Inventing The Tablet

My previous scribbling about Tablets:

11 September 2014
A Simpler Tablet?

AARP_TABLET_FRONT_SCREEN copy…  Tablets are getting cheaper.  One major manufacturer will soon be offering a full-fledged Windows tablet for $120.00…

Since that post, I’ve been thinking about Tablets every so often, along with having a long skype with a management/entrepreneur/tech gent in The U.K.  He’s developing an easier-to-use Tablet launcher.

However, I’m convinced that someone or some team of innovators should finally tackle the Tablet.

imageSteve Jobs and  Steve Wozniak invented the people’s personal computer (there were clunky, cryptic ones around before Apple).  The evolution of the Smartphone was messier. They were miniature computers with new operating systems tucked into mobile phones. Not much has changed.  

But Tablets ended up as merely a poor relation.  They’re simply hand-held flat laptops with touchscreens.  Or smartphones made bigger – but without the phone.  

The Tablet has yet to be invented.

It won’t be yours truly concocting said doohickey, but let me pretend.

Assuming this…

23 October 2012
The Future Of Consumer Doodad Technology

CrystalBallsepiaYou should stop thinking about the next big thingamabob and whose will be best.  In five or ten years there will be all sorts of thingamabobs for just about everything.  You’ll have two or three or ten thingamabobs.  Tablets/Smartphones will be big, small, thin, simple, complex, active, passive, out the door in your purse or pocket, lost in your couch cushions. 

And this:

05 September 2011
The Obligatory Follow-Up iPad (and Smartphone and QR Codes) Post
… The perfect tablet (someday) for Baby Boomers will be big, thin, light, unbreakable – and while you’ll be able to use it for search, email, Facebooky things, etc. – it will mostly be for curling up on a couch and reading your favorite magazines, newspapers, books, watching short videos, etc.

The Tablet invented:

Forget about computers and smartphones.
You’re creating a magic window built from scratch.

It will not look like a laptop or smartphoneflexibleWhen you fire it up you will see no icons or computery stuff.  It will be sections with rounded corners and they will all be … I don’t know what … widgets (but please don’t think widgets).  It’s informational, entertaining, passive. 

Touch the section and it will open up.
It’ll be easy to slide back to the home screen (but please don’t think home screen).  Think a combination Google/Yahoo starting page you’ve put together, along with a few video services, magazines, books, personal pictures, games, whatever you like.

The Point:
To plunge into work or play, crank up the desktop/laptop. To quickly grab info about this or that, snap up the smartphone.

To ease out of the day and get away from the frenetic digital nest, have more passive and relaxing experiences – slide onto a chair, couch, bed…

And curl up with your Tablet.