Matt Mullenweg was the mind behind Wordpress. WordPress is used by more than 18.9% of the top 10 million websites as of August 2013.
Wordpress is a plug-in, and theme based blogging site, and is the largest in the world.
The following are the big plug-ins for 2014 for:
1. Google XML Sitemaps This plugin should be mandatory for all websites. It is so essential; it is absolutely a must have item. This plugin will automatically create and update an XML sitemap for you. This allows search engines to quickly and easily index your website, which will greatly increase its performance in searches. If that wasn’t enough, the plugin will notify the search engines every time you publish new content. When setting up a new WordPress site, this is really the first thing you should include.
2. WordPress SEO by Yoast< This plugin walks you through every possible step to optimize each and every piece of content you publish. The plugin will let you know if your content is fully optimized, and if it isn’t, the plugin will tell you what changes need to be made in order to increase the optimization. This plugin is great regardless of whether you are new to SEO or if you’ve been working with it for years. Even the most seasoned veterans can overlook things. Additionally, with the changes in Google algorithms, the rules of SEO change pretty frequently. This plugin can easily be updated, keeping you up-to-date on all changes.
3. Premium SEO Pack This plugin is loaded with features and data and from what we understand you can now use it alongside SEO by Yoast although that’s not recommended. What I like about this one is all the additional tools it packs in, things like video sitemaps, media smushit to reduce image sizes, and a local seo module. Premium SEO Pack sells for $35 on CodeCanyon.
Prezi is a Hungarian software company, producing a cloud-based presentation software and storytelling tool for presenting ideas on a virtual canvas.The product employs a Zooming User Interface (ZUI), which allows users to zoom in and out of their presentation media, and allows users to display and navigate through information within a 2.5D or parallax 3D space on the Z-axis. Prezi was officially established in 2009 by co-founders Adam Somlai-Fischer, Peter Halacsy and Peter Arvai.
It is a great tool which I have used on a couple of occasions, with great success. The transitions are great and work intuitively.
It's not as good reading about it, it's better to see it in action:
Prezi has raised over $14 million in venture capital to grow its business. However, despite rocket-stick growth and a massive user-base that just passed 30 million, the company has not used a single dime.
Which doesn’t mean the company won’t, of course.
“The only reason we haven’t dipped into the investment is that the user growth has been so strong that it has exceeded all our expectations,” co-founder and president Peter Arvai told me this week. “But absolutely, as soon as we find investment opportunities, we will invest.”
Prezi
Prezi user growth
The key is cognitive science, Arvai says. Prezi’s visual mapping presentation style works by combining two important elements about how we learn and remember information: we remember landmarks, and we combine landmarks with direction or action. That spatial relativity is something that, cognitive scientists say, enhances our ability to store and recall data.
And it was almost an accidental discovery.
“It’s something we didn’t know ourselves as we launched the company,” Arvai says. “I’m learning it now as I’m talking to more and more cognitive scientists.”
Prezi’s current 30 million users is a 50 percent increase in just six months, and 1.5 million new users are currently joining the company every month, Arvai says. The software is huge in education, with special pricing for schools and districts — my kids are using it all the time — but it’s also making a significant impact in business.
As we all know, LinkedIn is a professional space for people to network and generate contacts, and find the necessary links to develop business ideas, or their businesses already.
Joining groups on LinkedIn is a great way of expanding your contact list and making new connections. It allows you to converse with other users with similar interests. Seek out a group that is related to your career or interests and be vocal in it, make contributions and talk to users within the group. An easy way of talking to people with the same interests and career.
Not only should you follow your favourite companies and brands to keep up to date with their movements, you should follow your rivals too. This helps you be more aware of the competition and see what other businesses within your sector are up to. This can help you decide where you should focus and what your next steps should be.
Spotify is a subscription based streaming service, however in December 2013, subscriptions for use on mobile phones was made available to non subscribers. This was both a smart move but costly in my opinion as it has allowed other, more advertising based, companies such as Pandora to make more of an impact on the music industry.
The founders of Spotify are Daniel Ek & also Martin Lorenzton, and was launched back in 2008.
Here is an interesting Interview regarding the future of Spotify with Daniel Ek.
Here's a breakdown of the two leading streaming players of the industry. Source: qz.com
Spotify is already exploring ways to bundle its service with other subscription products to expand its reach. It recently struck a deal with News Corp to grant subscribers to the Times of London newspaper 12 months access to its premium service for free. Remember when Twitter started cleaning up its house a few months before it filed IPO documents last year?
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The Twitter analogy could prove instructive here. Spotify’s financial losses mounted last year, despite surging revenue growth. But as Twitter’s IPO last year shows, US investors have a ravenous appetite for growth, and are prepared to pay top dollar for businesses with promising value propositions that are nonetheless losing money. With 6 million paying subscribers and 23 million active users, Spotify falls into this camp.
Path was launched in November 2010 and is a form of social media, through sending photos and messages to friends and family. It's all about sharing content
Path is a bit more like a private Facebook, with more of an exclusivity based business model, as users are limited to a reach of 150 friends, this makes for a very interesting, but limiting concept, but it has seemed to work so far.
Here are some ways in which Path could be used for Businesses:
1. Personal-Professional Network Like many people today, their online and social network lives virtually intertwine personal and professional interests. Twitter and Facebook are basically mass-media channels now, and somehow should be treated as such. But Path can become the social network of your closest business associates and confidantes, of which you can share more about you or your business, even sharing confidential issues with your trusted circle, or asking for feedback on certain issues or ideas.
2. Industry Contacts If you’ve worked for years in a certain industry, you’ll be bound to know personally almost all of your key competitors, and even becoming friends to an extent. And many times, an industry-wide back channel to discuss issues that might impact a whole industry would become much more beneficial for the industry in general. Let’s say there’s a new tax law that would have significant impact on your industry – discussions on Path would help find the best solution and leverage the industry’s lobbying group. Another example would be, top executives sometimes like to update each other on what they are doing, although they are competitors – just so they can plan better, and or even just to share information. This can be done effectively on Path.
3. Industry Gossip Any industry is not without gossip – from the funny to the serious. Using Path with a select group of industry people can be a place to trade rumors, gossip or even clarify things, and serve as an unofficial ‘exclusive industry news’ channel.
4. E-commerce Virtually any social network known to man has been penetrated by e-commerce, by some kid trying to sell t-shirts to stores setting up virtual storefronts on chat forums. Path could become that exclusive store with select members, where only the most exclusive stuff is sold to. Example: a gadget store has a rare, new product to offer; they would offer that product to their exclusive early-adopter club on Path before offering anywhere else.
5. Exclusive Content Let’s say I was an artist or musician – I could offer my most recent work to my Path friends first, either for feedback or as a reward for the most hardcore fans. I could even charge a yearly membership for people who want to get this exclusive content, and approval on Path would depend on payment. The content could range from web art, web comics, music, videos, photography, news… anything.
According to Business Insider, there are six social media jobs that are going to explode in 2014: SEO Specialist, Social Media Strategist, Online Community Manager, Social Media Marketing Manager, Social Media Marketing Coordinator, and Blogger or Social Media Copywriter.
Forbes outlined the top seven social media trends it predicts will dominate 2014. The most interesting? MySpace will make a comeback, Google+ will “become a major factor” and there will be more micro-video.
PR Daily took a look at 10 social media moments in 2013 that it believes are precursors to major trends in 2014, including Oreo’s tweet during the Super Bowl, Facebook launching hashtags, and Pinterest’s makeover. Source: Business Insider
The 2014 Consumer Electronics Show was filled with interesting, revolutionary new tech products. Unfortunately, many of them will never see the light of day. Others will make it to the market, but won't have a major impact on the tech landscape. As told by Sam Mattera
The following could be deemed as the most significant products from this year's show:
NVIDIA unveils revolutionary new mobile chipAs the market for traditional PCs has declined, chipmaker NVIDIA has branched out into mobile processors -- NVIDIA's Tegra mobile chips power a number of tablets, including Microsoft's Surface RT and Surface 2.
Intel diversifies with lineup of wearablesIntel will be hoping that tablet-makers choose its chips over NVIDIA's in 2014, but the Dow components focus this year at CES was on new wearable technology. Intel's new CEO, Brian Krzanich, unveiled nearly half a dozen different wearable gadgets last week, including a smartwatch, earbuds, and a headset. More significant than the actual gadgets themselves, however, was Intel's new "Edison" chip that powered them.
Sony unveils the future of video game distribution Sony's big announcement at CES wasn't a physical object, but rather a service. Later this year, Sony will launch "PlayStation Now" -- an on-demand, subscription-based video game service that gives gamers access to a catalog of older PlayStation titles.
Microsoft challenged by Google-powered devicesMicrosoft didn't announce anything major at this year's CES, but the company's future looks to be affected by the products of firms that did. Both Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo -- the world's largest PC OEMs -- unveiled desktops powered by Google's Android.
The Superbowl is an international event, watched by millions, and this year's one was no different. Nowadays, many people are watching with their mobile phones in hand, so Social media goes hand in hand with the event itself.
The following were some social media highlights of the Superbowl, and some ideas for international businesses to use in future big sporting events, most notably the Winter Olympics in Sochi at the moment or the World Cup this Summer.
No one was really sure what was going on with JCPenney’s Twitter feed during the Super Bowl. The company later apologized and said it was “tweeting with mittens.”
Seahawk Celebrations
It’s starting to feel like a commercial inspiring a debate about race in America is inevitable during the Super Bowl these days. Cheerios’ follow-up to its commercial featuring a mixed-race family predictably drew remarks, but nothing like a Coca-Cola commercial featuring the song “America the Beautiful” sung in a different languages.
Social Media platforms are increasingly becoming more important for marketers than the actual Super Bowl ad, which cost $4 million for a 30-second spot this year. This graphic from Offerpop breaks down some of advertising’s biggest moments on the Internet during the Super Bowl.
Source: Offerpop
International companies could take advantage of team's colours, particularly in food industries.
I particularly liked this marketing idea from Skittles :
This worked wonders for the company, and the fact they won could only have been a positive for them.
Pinterest is a visual discovery tool that people use to collect ideas for their different projects and interests. People create and share collections (called “boards”) of visual bookmarks (called “Pins”) that they use to do things like plan trips and projects, organize events or save articles and recipes. The site was founded by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp. It is managed by Cold Brew Labs and funded by a small group of entrepreneurs and investors.
Pinterest also allows businesses to create pages aimed at promoting their businesses online. Such pages can serve as a "virtual storefront". In one case study of a fashion website, users visiting from Pinterest spent $180 compared with $85 spent from users coming from Facebook. These users spent less time on the company's website, choosing instead to browse from the company's pinboard. Further brand studies have continued to show Pinterest is more effective at driving sales than other forms of social media.In 2013, Pinterest introduced a new tool called 'Rich Pins', to enhance the customer experience when browsing through pins made by companies. Business pages can include prices of products, ratings of movies or ingredients for recipes.
In May 2012, Pinterest was valued at $1.5 billion. In February 2013, it was valued at $2.5 billion. In October 2013, it was valued at $3.8 billion.
The following is a link to my pinterest account where I have started to follow interest that I have, particularly links like the following which will hopefully prove to be true, Ways for businesses to make money through social media. There will hopefully good things for future assignments and interesting articles for this module too.
David Karp was the founder of Tumblr , and it has global ranking of 30 in the world. According to Forbes, Karp's net worth exceeds $200 million, and Tumblr has been valued at $800 million.
Here is an interesting article of an interview with David from the Guardian
An this is an interview I enjoyed.
Since being bought by Yahoo last year, Tumblr has stopped increasing in traffic, which is bad news for the company. In May, the month the deal was announced, Tumblr reached an audience of 47.49 million users across desktop and mobile, according to SCOR +0.35%. Only once in the subsequent six months, in July, did its traffic exceed that level. That’s not to say traffic has fallen off, just plateaued abruptly. Forbes.com
Here's a graph of recent activity for the company: As reported by Jeff Bercovici from Forbes.com
How to explain this? The easiest theory would be that Tumblr, having become part of a faceless corporate colossus, has “lost its cool.” Certainly there was no shortage of predictions at the time of the sale that this would be the case, and no shortage of users vowing to take their business elsewhere. But history suggests mass defections of that sort are rare. (The promised post-Facebook Instagram exodus was all talk, for example.) When users flee in droves, it’s usually because of a change to the product, not the ownership. There is also an Irish music blogger who I follow, here is his website with links to his Tumblr.
Here is also a link to my page, which I don't actively use much, but do follow a few good pages.
Facebook announced their new big application which will no doubt become huge!
Paper is the first product born of Creative Labs, a new space within Facebook for small teams to develop ideas and apps and see if they stick. To build the app, Zuckerberg enlisted Mike Matas, who designed software for the original iPhone, Nest's trademark thermostat interface, and Al Gore's pioneering interactive eBookOur Choice. His work has cemented touch-based interfaces in the modern vernacular — especially as they pertain to manipulating text and photos on a screen with your fingers.
When Facebook acquired Matas’ digital publishing company Push Pop Press in 2011, it asked him to apply his skills to Facebook content. Paper was initially conceived to make Facebook look better, more like the interactive, always-relevant "personal newspaper" Zuckerberg hoped Facebook would be. Paper turned out a little bit differently: the app abandons Facebook’s singular News Feed in favor of several — each containing a different kind of news. One is your regular old Facebook feed, and you choose the others among 20 categories like Headlines, Planet, Cute, Tech, Pop Life, and Score. Each section includes a stream of stories laid out horizontally inside cards — you swipe left and right to scroll, not up and down as Facebook has trained us all to do.
This is a big deal for Facebook, and could be another step in them taking over the world!
Personally, I've been limited to my usage of augmented reality technology so far, but I can see the advantages of it, particularly in a business/marketing sense. The video shown in class showed Lego boxes being shown to the camera and visual representation of the final product being shown, that was very interesting.
My Nintendo 3DS also has gaming capabilities, but it's more of a gimmick at the moment more than anything.
My most recent and also the most interesting usage of Augmented Reality was with music, and a forthcoming album I've pre-ordered, from Reverend & The Makers.
You need to download the app "Aurasma" and then hold the camera over the album cover, and an exclusive video is shown. This is particularly exciting to me as someone who loves exclusive content, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out. It also could be a big thing for the music industry as they need to differentiate if they want people to continue to purchase music, as piracy continues to rise. But companies are doing well to tackle it, such as Spotify.
Augmented Reality in Video Games and the Military
Video game companies are quickly hopping aboard the augmented-reality locomotive. A company called Total Immersion makes software that applies augmented reality to baseball cards. Simply go online, download the Total Immersion software and then hold up your baseball card to a webcam. The software recognizes the card (and the player on it) and then displays related video on your computer screen. Move the card in your hands -- make sure to keep it in view of the camera -- and the 3-D figure on your screen will perform actions, such as throwing a ball at a target.
Limitations and the Future of Augmented Reality
Augmented reality still has some challenges to overcome. For example, GPS is only accurate to within 30 feet (9 meters) and doesn't work as well indoors, although improved image recognition technology may be able to help [source: Metz].
People may not want to rely on their cell phones, which have small screens on which to superimpose information. For that reason, wearable devices like SixthSense or augmented-reality capable contact lensesand glasses will provide users with more convenient, expansive views of the world around them. Screen real estate will no longer be an issue. In the near future, you may be able to play a real-time strategy game on your computer, or you can invite a friend over, put on your AR glasses, and play on the tabletop in front of you.
The future of augmented reality is clearly bright, even as it already has found its way into our cell phones and video game systems. For more information about the subject and where it's headed, take a look at the links on the next page.
As reported by Jeff Bercovici from Forbes.com