Tag Archives: Internet

Best Website Builders of 2024, Wix, Shopify, and More

May 29, 2023 Nir Shein

Website builders are software tools that allow anyone to create a website without any coding or design skills. They are popular among small businesses, freelancers, bloggers, and anyone who wants to have an online presence. Website builders offer various features, such as templates, drag-and-drop editors, e-commerce functionality, SEO tools, and more.

However, not all website builders are created equal. Some are more suitable for certain types of websites than others. Some are more affordable, user-friendly, or feature-rich than others. Some are more reliable, secure, or scalable than others.

In this blog post, we will review some of the best website builders in 2024 based on our research and testing.

Table of Contents

WIX

Best for No-Code Customizations

Wix is one of the most popular and versatile website builders on the market. It offers a drag-and-drop interface that lets you create stunning websites without any coding skills. You can choose from over 800 templates or start from scratch with a blank canvas. Wix also has a powerful app market that allows you to add extra functionality to your site, such as e-commerce, booking, blogging, and more.

Key Features

– Drag-and-drop editor with over 800 templates
– App market with hundreds of add-ons
– Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) that creates a website for you based on your answers to a few questions
– Wix Corvid (formerly Wix Code) that lets you customize your site with advanced coding tools
– Wix SEO Wiz that helps you optimize your site for search engines
– Wix Ascend that provides marketing and customer management tools

Pros:

Easy to use drag-and-drop editor
Over 800 templates in various categories
Artificial design intelligence feature
E-commerce functionality
App market with various integrations
Free plan available
Affordable and flexible. You can start with a free plan and upgrade to a premium plan that suits your needs and budget
Versatile and scalable. You can create any type of website with Wix, from personal blogs to e-commerce stores. You can also grow your site with more features and apps as your business expands

–

Cons:

Free plan has ads and subdomain
Templates are not interchangeable
Loading speed can be slow
Limited storage and bandwidth on all plans. You might need to upgrade to a higher plan if you have a lot of content or traffic on your site
Wix does not allow you to change your template once your site is live. You have to start over if you want to switch to a different design
Wix does not have native backup and restore options. You have to use third-party apps or manually save your site if you want to restore it to a previous version

Plans and Pricing

Wix offers four premium plans for websites and three premium plans for e-commerce stores. All plans include a free domain name for one year, SSL security, unlimited pages and access to premium apps.

Website Plans

Combo: $16/month. Ideal for personal use or small businesses. Includes 3 GB of storage, 2 GB of bandwidth, 30 minutes of video hours and no Wix ads.
Unlimited: $22/month. Ideal for entrepreneurs and freelancers. Includes 10 GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, one hour of video hours and $300 ad vouchers.
Pro: $27/month. Ideal for complete online branding. Includes 20 GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, two hours of video hours, professional logo, social media logo files and analytics app.
VIP: $45/month. Ideal for priority support. Includes 35 GB of storage, unlimited bandwidth, five hours of video hours, professional logo, social media logo files, analytics app and VIP support.

E-commerce Plans

Business Basic: $27/month. Ideal for accepting online payments. Includes all features of Unlimited plan plus 20 GB of storage, five hours of video hours and e-commerce features.
Business Unlimited: $32/month. Ideal for growing your online store. Includes all features of Pro plan plus 35 GB of storage, 10 hours of video hours and e-commerce features.
Business VIP: $59/month. Ideal for scaling your online store. Includes all features of VIP plan plus 50 GB of storage, unlimited video hours and e-commerce features.

Overall Conclusion

Wix is a great choice for anyone who wants to create a website quickly and easily without any coding skills. It offers a wide range of templates, features and apps to suit any type of website and business. It also has affordable and flexible plans that can be upgraded as your site grows.

However, Wix also has some drawbacks that you should be aware of before choosing it as your website builder. It has limited storage and bandwidth on all plans, which might affect your site’s performance and speed. It does not allow you to change your template once your site is live, which might limit your design options in the future. It does not have native backup and restore options, which might put your site at risk of data loss.

Therefore, we recommend Wix for anyone who wants a simple and easy way to create a website with no coding skills. However, if you need more control over your site’s design, performance and security, you might want to look for other alternatives.

TRY WIX

Web.com

If you are looking for a simple and affordable way to create a website for your business or personal project, you might want to consider Web.com website builder. Web.com is a web technology company that offers various services, such as web design, hosting, marketing, and domain names. In this post, we will focus on their website builder tool, which allows you to build your own website using drag-and-drop functionality and ready-made templates. We will cover the key features, pros and cons, plans and pricing, and overall conclusion of Web.com website builder.

Key Features

Drag-and-drop builder: You can easily create and customize your website by dragging and dropping elements, such as text, images, buttons, forms, etc. You can also edit the layout, colors, fonts, and other aspects of your site.
Free domain name: When you sign up for Web.com website builder, you get a free domain name for one year. You can choose from various extensions, such as .com, .net, .org, etc.
Optimized for mobile: Your website will automatically adjust to different screen sizes and devices, such as smartphones and tablets. You can also preview how your site looks on mobile before publishing it.
Options for any business: Web.com offers over 150 professionally designed templates for various industries and niches. You can also use ready-made content blocks to add relevant information to your site.
Free 1-hour website design support: If you need help with creating or designing your website, you can get one free hour of web design support from Web.com experts. They can assist you with setting up your site, adding features, or optimizing it for SEO.

Pros:

Easy to use: Web.com website builder is designed for beginners who want to create a website without coding or technical skills. You can simply drag and drop elements and use the intuitive interface to customize your site
Affordable: Web.com website builder is one of the most affordable options in the market. You can start with a free plan that includes a subdomain and 25 MB of storage space. The paid plans start from $1.95 per month and include a free domain name and more features
Reliable: Web.com is a reputable web technology company that has been in business since 1999. They have served over 3 million customers worldwide and manage over 9 million domain names. You can trust them to provide reliable hosting and customer service for your website

–

Cons:

Limited features: Web.com website builder does not offer some advanced features that other website builders do, such as eCommerce functionality, blogging tools, social media integration, etc. If you need these features, you might want to look for another option
Limited customization: Web.com website builder does not allow you to access or edit the HTML or CSS code of your site. You are also limited by the templates and content blocks that they provide. If you want more creative control over your site, you might find Web.com website builder too restrictive

Plans and Pricing

Web.com website builder offers four plans to choose from:

Website: This plan which runs for $4.95/mo, includes a 25 MB of storage space, 5 GB of bandwidth per month, and access to the drag-and-drop builder and templates. This plan is suitable for testing out the tool or creating a simple personal site.
Website+marketing: This plan costs $7.95 per month for the first year and $21.99 per month thereafter. It includes a free domain name for one year, 300 MB of storage space, unlimited bandwidth, email accounts, SSL certificate, Social & Email marketing tools, and one free hour of web design support. Additionally, you get some selling services and access to an AI writing tool.
Online Store: This plan costs $13.95 per month for the first year and $24.99 per month thereafter. It includes everything in the previous plan plus 500 MB of storage space and priority customer support, secure checkout and social media selling options.
Online Marketplace: This plan costs $19.95 per month for the first year and $39.99 per month thereafter. It includes everything in the previous plan plus 1 GB of storage space and also bulk editing and automation tools, alongside a direct selling access to some of the biggest e-commerce websites such as amazon, Etsy, eBay and more.

You can also get a custom quote for a more tailored solution if you need more features or services.

Overall Conclusion

Web.com website builder is a simple and affordable tool that allows you to create a professional-looking website without coding or technical skills. It offers a drag-and-drop builder, free domain name, mobile optimization, and various templates and content blocks for different industries and niches. It also provides reliable hosting and customer service from a reputable web technology company.

However, Web.com website builder also has some drawbacks that might make it unsuitable for some users. It does not offer some advanced features that other website builders do, such as getting access or edit the HTML or CSS code of your site or customize it beyond the templates and content blocks that they provide.

Therefore, we recommend Web.com website builder for users who want a simple and affordable way to create a basic website for their e-commerce/business or personal project. If you need more features or customization options, you might want to look for another option.

TRY WEB.COM

Shopify

If you want to create a stunning e-commerce website in minutes, you might want to consider Shopify, one of the best website builders for online businesses.

Key Features

A fully customizable website builder with thousands of themes, apps and integrations
A free 3-day trial with no credit card required
A no-code website builder with drag-and-drop functionality
A custom domain name registration service
A reliable website hosting service with added security
An online store builder with unlimited products and access to POS
A CMS with insight into your customers and their behavior
A global network of Shopify Experts who can help you with design, marketing and development

Pros:

Easy to use and set up
Flexible and scalable for any business size or type
Offers a lot of features and functionality for ecommerce
Has a large and active community of users and developers

–

Cons:

Can be expensive depending on the plan and add-ons you choose
Has some limitations on customization and control over your website
Charges transaction fees for using third-party payment gateways

Plans and Pricing

Shopify offers four main plans for its service:

Basic Shopify: $29/month. Includes the option to manage a store with 1000 inventory locations, sell on social media, chat with customers, send invoices and accept payments., and two staff accounts, discount codes, abandoned cart recovery and more.
Shopify: $105/month. Includes everything in Basic Shopify plus five staff accounts, gift cards, professional reports, lower transaction fees and more.
Advanced Shopify: $399/month. Includes everything in Shopify plus 15 staff accounts, advanced report builder, third-party calculated shipping rates, lower transaction fees and more.
You can also choose Shopify Plus, a custom plan for large enterprises that offers more features, support and scalability.

Start for free, then enjoy $1/month for 3 months.

Overall Conclusion

Shopify is a great choice for anyone who wants to create a professional and successful ecommerce website without much hassle or coding. It offers a lot of features, functionality and support for online businesses of all sizes and types. However, it can also be costly and limiting depending on your needs and preferences. Therefore, we recommend that you try out the free trial before committing to a plan and compare it with other website builders to find the best fit for you.

TRY SHOPIFY

Squarespace

Best for Creatives

Squarespace is another popular website builder that is known for its elegant and professional designs. It offers over 100 templates that are optimized for mobile devices and various industries. Squarespace also has a rich set of features that enable you to create blogs, portfolios, online stores, and more.

Key Features

– Responsive templates with modern and minimalist aesthetics
– Built-in e-commerce platform with inventory management, payment processing, and shipping options
– Blogging platform with multiple authors, categories, tags, and comments
– Portfolio platform with customizable layouts, galleries, and video backgrounds
– Marketing tools such as email campaigns, SEO, analytics, and social media integration

More :

Designs: Squarespace has dozens of modern and minimalistic templates that can be easily modified and tailored to your wishes. You can also switch templates anytime without losing your content. All templates are responsive and mobile-friendly, ensuring a great user experience on any device.
Rich Image Manager: Squarespace allows you to add and organize images via drag and drop builder. You can also edit images with tools like cropping, resizing, filters, and more. Squarespace also optimizes your images for fast loading and SEO.
Blogging: Squarespace lets you design and manage your blog with features like categories, tags, comments, RSS feeds, social sharing, scheduled posts, and more. You can also import your blog from other platforms like WordPress, Tumblr, or Blogger.
Commerce: Squarespace enables you to sell your products through an online store with features like inventory management, product variants, coupons, taxes, shipping, abandoned cart recovery, and more. You can also use Point of Sale (POS) to accept payments in person with Squarespace’s mobile app and card reader. Additionally, you can manage subscriptions, donations, bookings, memberships, and other business needs with Squarespace’s extensions.
Analytics: Squarespace provides you with detailed analytics where you can track traffic, popular content, sales, conversions, audience behavior, and more. You can also integrate with Google Analytics for more insights.
Connected Services: Squarespace allows you to extend your website’s functionality by connecting with third-party services like Mailchimp, Stripe, PayPal, Google Workspace, Instagram, Facebook Pixel, Zapier, and more.
SEO: Squarespace gives you everything you need to have an SEO-ready website without requiring any plugins or coding. You can customize your site title, meta description, URL slug, alt text, sitemap, robots.txt file, and more. Squarespace also supports SSL encryption for security and ranking benefits.
Ad-free: Squarespace does not show any ads on your website unless you want to make money by placing your own ads through services like Google Adsense or Mediavine.
Support: Squarespace offers fast and friendly support via email and live chat 24/7. You can also access their extensive knowledge base, video tutorials, webinars, community forum, and help guides for self-help.

Pros:

Ease of use: Squarespace has a user-friendly interface that allows you to create and edit your website with simple drag and drop actions. You don’t need any coding skills or technical knowledge to use Squarespace. You can also preview your changes in real-time before publishing them
Quality: Squarespace delivers high-quality websites that look professional and elegant. The templates are designed by experts and follow the latest web standards and trends. The websites are also fast-loading and secure thanks to Squarespace’s hosting and SSL certificates
Flexibility: Squarespace gives you the freedom to customize your website according to your needs and preferences. You can change fonts
Beautiful and high-quality designs
Ideal for creative professionals and businesses

–

Cons:

Price: Squarespace is not the cheapest option when it comes to website builders. The plans start from $12 per month for personal websites and go up to $40 per month for advanced commerce websites. There are no free plans or trials available, although you can use a 14-day free trial to test the platform before committing
Control: Squarespace does not give you full control over your website’s code or hosting. You cannot access or modify the source code of your website or use custom plugins or themes. You also cannot migrate your website to another hosting provider or platform easily
Learning curve: Squarespace may have a simple interface,
but it also has a lot of options and features that can be overwhelming for beginners. It may take some time to learn how to use Squarespace effectively and make the most out of its capabilities
Learning curve: Squarespace may have a simple interface,
but it also has a lot of options and features that can be overwhelming for beginners. It may take some time to learn how to use Squarespace effectively and make the most out of its capabilities
Compatibility: Squarespace may not be compatible with some third-party services or tools that you may want to use on your website. For example, you cannot use Google Adsense or Mediavine on Squarespace unless you have a Business plan or higher. You also cannot use WordPress plugins or themes on Squarespace

Plans and Pricing

Squarespace has four plans: Personal ($16 per month), Business ($23 per month), Basic Commerce ($27 per month), and Advanced Commerce ($49 per month). All plans include a free domain name for one year, SSL security, unlimited bandwidth and storage space, SEO tools, analytics, and customer support. The Business plan adds e-commerce functionality, marketing tools, and premium integrations. The Commerce plans add more e-commerce features such as abandoned cart recovery, customer accounts, subscriptions, advanced shipping options, and lower transaction fees.

TRY SQUARESPACE

Webflow

Webflow is a website builder that combines the power of code with the simplicity of visual design. It allows you to create responsive websites using a drag-and-drop interface that generates clean HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code. You can also use Webflow’s CMS (Content Management System) to create dynamic content such as blogs, portfolios, e-commerce products, and more.

Key Features

Visual editor that lets you design websites without writing code
CMS that lets you create and manage dynamic content
E-commerce platform that lets you sell products online with custom checkout flows
Hosting service that provides fast loading speed, SSL security, etc.

More

Drag-and-drop interface: You can design your workflows using a simple and intuitive interface that lets you drag and drop actions, conditions, loops, and variables.
Pre-built templates: You can choose from hundreds of ready-made templates for common use cases, such as sending email notifications, creating invoices, updating CRM records, and more.
Workflow editor: You can edit and customize your workflows using a powerful editor that gives you access to advanced features, such as branching logic, error handling, data mapping, and debugging tools.
Workflow triggers: You can trigger your workflows based on various events, such as time, date, webhooks, form submissions, email attachments, and more.
Workflow variables: You can use variables to store and manipulate data in your workflows, such as text, numbers, dates, lists, files, and more.
Workflow actions: You can perform various actions in your workflows, such as sending emails, posting messages, uploading files, creating tasks, calling APIs, and more.
Workflow integrations: You can integrate your workflows with over 1000 apps and services using built-in connectors or custom API requests.
Workflow analytics: You can monitor and analyze the performance of your workflows using dashboards and reports that show you metrics such as run time, success rate, errors, and more.

Pros:

Beautiful and high-quality designs
Beautiful and high-quality designs
24/7 customer support via email and live chat
Easy to use and does not require coding skills
Flexible and customizable and can handle complex scenarios
Scalable and reliable and can handle high volumes of data and transactions
Affordable and offers a free plan and a pay-as-you-go plan

–

Cons:

No free plan or trial available
Editor can be confusing and restrictive at times
Expensive compared to some competitors
Does not have a native mobile app or a desktop app
Does not support offline mode or local storage
Workflow does not have a built-in testing or debugging environment

Plans and Pricing

Workflow offers five plans for different needs and budgets:

Free plan: You get 1 domain and can create up to 50 workflows submissions and run up to 50 CMS items per month for free. You also get access to basic features and integrations, plus 1GB of bandwidth.
Basic plan: You can custom your domain and can create 500 form submissions for $14 per month. You also get access to advanced features and integrations, plus 50GB of bandwidth.
CMS plan: You get a custom domain and can create 2000 form submissions for $23 per month. You also get access to advanced features and integrations, plus 200GB of bandwidth, and 3 content editors. You also get access to premium features and integrations.
Business plan: You get a custom domain and can create 10,000+ form submissions for $39 per month. You also get access to advanced features and integrations, plus 400GB of bandwidth, and 10 content editors. You also get access to premium features and integrations.

There’s also an enterprise plan to choose as an option.

Overall Conclusion

Workflow is a powerful and user-friendly platform that can help you automate and optimize your business processes. It can help you save time, reduce errors, improve efficiency, and enhance collaboration. If you are looking for a solution that can handle your workflow needs without coding or complexity, you should give Workflow a try.

TRY WEBFLOW

Godaddy

If you’re looking for a simple and easy way to create a website, you might have come across GoDaddy. This company allows you to build a website without any coding or design skills. But is it a good option for your needs?

Key Features

A drag-and-drop interface that lets you customize your site with different elements, such as text, images, videos, buttons, forms and more.
A library of templates that are designed for different industries and purposes, such as business, portfolio, blog, online store and more.
A mobile-friendly design that automatically adapts to different screen sizes and devices.
A built-in SEO tool that helps you optimize your site for search engines and rank higher on Google.
A free domain name for the first year when you sign up for a paid plan.
A free SSL certificate that encrypts your site and protects your visitors’ data.
A 24/7 customer support team that can help you with any issues or questions.

Pros:

Easy to use and suitable for beginners who have no coding or design skills
Affordable and offers a free plan with limited features and a 14-day free trial for the paid plans
Has a variety of templates that can suit different needs and preferences
Offers a fast and reliable hosting service that ensures your site is always online and secure

–

Cons:

Has limited customization options and does not allow you to access the HTML or CSS code of your site
Has limited integrations with third-party apps and services, such as email marketing, analytics, social media and more
Has limited e-commerce features and does not support advanced functions, such as inventory management, shipping options, tax calculations and more
Has limited blogging features and does not support comments, categories, tags or RSS feeds

Plans and Pricing

GoDaddy Website Builder offers four plans to choose from: Basic, Standard, Premium and Ecommerce. The prices range from $9.99 to $16.99 per month when billed annually. Here is a summary of what each plan includes:

Basic: This plan is suitable for personal or hobby websites. It includes 1 GB of storage, 150 GB of bandwidth, a free domain name for the first year, a free SSL certificate, basic SEO tools and 24/7 support.
Standard: This plan is suitable for small businesses or professional websites. It includes everything in the Basic plan plus 10 GB of storage, 500 GB of bandwidth, advanced SEO tools and email marketing tools.
Premium: This plan is suitable for growing businesses or websites that need more features. It includes everything in the Standard plan plus unlimited storage, unlimited bandwidth, social media integration tools and online appointment scheduling tools.
Ecommerce: This plan is suitable for online stores or websites that sell products or services. It includes everything in the Premium plan plus e-commerce features, such as product catalog, shopping cart, payment options, order management and more.

Overall Conclusion

GoDaddy Website Builder is a good option for anyone who wants to create a website quickly and easily without any coding or design skills. It offers a simple and intuitive interface, a variety of templates, a mobile-friendly design, a free domain name and SSL certificate, a reliable hosting service and a 24/7 support team. However, it also has some limitations that might affect your website’s performance and functionality. It does not allow you to customize your site’s code or integrate it with many third-party apps or services. It also does not offer advanced e-commerce or blogging features that might be essential for some websites. Therefore, we recommend GoDaddy Website Builder for simple or basic websites that do not require much customization or integration. If you need more flexibility or functionality for your website, you might want to look for other alternatives.

TRY GODADDY

Weebly

Weebly lets you create professional websites with no coding knowledge. It’s one of the simplest and most affordable site builders on the market, offering a free option as well as premium plans starting at $10 per month with annual billing.

Key Features

Drag-and-drop editor that allows you to customize your site with ease
Unlimited storage and bandwidth for most of its plans
SEO, email and social media marketing tools to help you grow your online presence
Mobile-responsive sites that look great on any device
E-commerce features that let you sell products or services online

Pros:

Free forever plan that lets you create a basic website with a Weebly subdomain
Competitively-priced premium plans that offer more features and remove ads
Easy to use and no programming skills required
Free SSL security that protects your site and visitors

–

Cons:

Site has Square ads unless paying for the Professional plan and above
Limited customization options compared to other site builders
Phone support only available on Professional plan and above

Plans and Pricing

Weebly offers four plans: Free, Personal, Professional and Performance.

The Free plan lets you create a website with a Weebly subdomain, 500 MB of storage and basic features.

The Personal plan costs $10 per month with annual billing or $13 per month with monthly billing and lets you connect your own domain, remove Square ads and get unlimited storage.

The Professional plan costs $12 per month with annual billing or $16 per month with monthly billing and adds phone support, site search, video backgrounds and password protection.

The Performance plan costs $26 per month with annual billing or $29 per month with monthly billing and adds e-commerce features such as inventory management, shipping labels, coupons and abandoned cart emails.

Overall Conclusion

Weebly is a great option for anyone who wants to create a professional website or online store quickly and without a steep learning curve. It offers a free option as well as affordable premium plans that suit different needs and budgets. It has a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor that lets you customize your site with ease. It also has SEO, email and social media marketing tools to help you grow your online presence. However, it has some limitations in terms of customization options and phone support compared to other site builders. If you’re looking for more flexibility and control over your site design, you might want to consider other options such as Wix or Squarespace.

TRY WEEBLY

WordPress

WordPress is a popular website builder and content management system (CMS) that offers a lot of flexibility and customization options.

WordPress has thousands of themes and plugins that allow users to create unique and functional websites. Users can also access and modify the code of WordPress to achieve more advanced customization. WordPress is an open source platform, which means it is constantly updated and improved by a large community of developers and users.

Key Features

Full site editing: Users can now edit their entire website using blocks, including headers, footers, sidebars, and templates.
Collaboration: Users can now co-author content with other users in real time, using features like comments, revisions, and workflows.
Multilingual: Users can now create and manage multilingual websites using core WordPress features, without relying on third-party plugins or services.

Pros:

Free: WordPress itself is free to use, although users need to pay for web hosting and domain name
Flexible: WordPress can be used to create any type of website, from blogs to e-commerce stores to portfolios
Customizable: WordPress offers a high level of control over the design and functionality of websites, with thousands of themes and plugins to choose from
Scalable: WordPress can handle high traffic and large amounts of content, with options to optimize performance and security

–

Cons:

Complex: WordPress has a steep learning curve for beginners, and requires coding knowledge for more advanced customization
Costly: WordPress can be expensive to maintain, as users need to pay for web hosting, premium themes and plugins, backups, updates, and support
Risky: WordPress can be vulnerable to plugin conflicts, hacking, spamming, and other issues that can break or compromise websites

Plans and Pricing

WordPress itself is free to use, but users need to pay for web hosting and domain name. WordPress.com itself is offering additional features and premium plugins and services for additional fees, with prices range between Free and up to $45 per month for the commerce website. Alternatively, there are many web hosting providers that offer WordPress hosting plans at different prices and features. Some of the popular ones are:

Bluehost: Starts from $2.95 per month for shared hosting with free domain name, SSL certificate, automatic WordPress installation and updates, and 24/7 support.
SiteGround: Starts from $4.99 per month for managed WordPress hosting with free SSL certificate, CDN, email accounts, daily backups, staging tool, and 24/7 support.
WP Engine: Starts from $25 per month for managed WordPress hosting with free SSL certificate, CDN, staging tool, automated backups and updates, 24/7 support, and access to premium themes.

Overall Conclusion

WordPress is a powerful and versatile website builder and CMS that can suit the needs of different users and projects. It offers a lot of customization options and features that can help users create unique and functional websites. However, it also has some drawbacks that users need to consider before choosing it as their platform. Users need to have some technical skills and budget to use WordPress effectively and securely. WordPress is not ideal for everyone, but it is definitely one of the best options available in 2024.

TRY WORDPRESS

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What is a Website builder?

A website builder is a tool that allows you to create a website without coding or hiring a developer. You can choose from a variety of templates, customize them with your own content and images, and publish your site online. Some of the key features that you should look for in a website builder are:

Ease of use: The website builder should be user-friendly and intuitive, so that you can create your site without any hassle or frustration.
Design flexibility: The website builder should offer a wide range of templates and themes that suit your niche and style. You should also be able to customize them with your own colors, fonts, logos, and other elements.
Functionality: The website builder should provide you with the tools and features that you need to make your site functional and engaging. For example, you might want to add a blog, an online store, a contact form, a newsletter sign-up, social media integration, etc.
SEO: The website builder should help you optimize your site for search engines, so that you can rank higher and attract more visitors. This includes features such as mobile responsiveness, fast loading speed, SSL encryption, meta tags, etc.
Support: The website builder should offer you reliable and helpful customer support, in case you encounter any issues or have any questions. You should also have access to tutorials, guides, forums, and other resources to help you learn and grow.

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Disclosure: Please note that we may receive affiliate compensation for some of the links below, at no expense to you, should you decide to purchase a paid plan. This blog does not provide financial advice, it is purely for entertainment and fun.

Accessories, Video

Best Webcams of 2024: Top Models and Buying Advice

April 3, 2023 Nir Shein

Webcams are essential devices for many people who work, study, or socialize online. Whether you need a webcam for video conferencing, streaming, gaming, or recording, you want a device that can deliver high-quality video and audio, as well as features that suit your needs and preferences. In this article, we will review some of the best webcams that are expected to hit the market in 2024, based on their specifications, performance, design, and price.

Logitech Brio 500

This is the successor of the popular Logitech Brio 4K, which is one of the best webcams for 2022.

If you are looking for the latest and greatest high-quality webcam that can capture stunning 4K video, you might want to check out the Logitech Brio 500. This webcam is one of the best on the market, offering a range of features that make it ideal for video conferencing, streaming, or recording.

The Logitech Brio 500 has a premium glass lens that can deliver crisp and clear images in any lighting condition. It also has a wide 90-degree field of view that can capture more of your surroundings. You can adjust the zoom, pan, and tilt of the camera using the Logitech Camera Settings app. The webcam also supports Windows Hello facial recognition, which allows you to log in to your device with just a glance.

One of the most impressive features of the Logitech Brio 500 is its ability to record and stream in 4K resolution at 30 frames per second. This means you can enjoy ultra-high-definition video that looks realistic and lifelike. You can also choose to record or stream in lower resolutions, such as 1080p or 720p, at higher frame rates, such as 60 or 90 fps. The webcam also has HDR technology that can enhance the contrast and color of your video.

The Logitech Brio 500 also has a built-in dual microphone system that can capture natural and clear audio. The microphones have noise-canceling technology that can filter out background noise and focus on your voice. You can also use an external microphone if you prefer.

The Logitech Brio 500 is compatible with most popular video platforms and applications, such as Zoom, Skype, OBS, XSplit, and more. It works with Windows, Mac, Chrome OS, and Linux operating systems. It connects to your device via a USB 3.0 cable that supports data transfer and power delivery.

The Logitech Brio 500 is a webcam that can elevate your video experience to the next level. It is easy to set up and use, and it offers amazing performance and quality. If you are interested in buying this webcam, you can find it on Amazon for $199.99.

View at Amazon

Microsoft Modern Webcam

This is a new webcam from Microsoft that aims to provide a simple and affordable solution for video calls. The Microsoft Modern Webcam has a sleek and minimalist design that can be attached to any monitor or laptop. It offers 1080p resolution at 30 fps, with True Look technology that enhances color, brightness, and skin tone. It also has a noise-canceling microphone and a physical shutter for privacy. The Microsoft Modern Webcam is compatible with Windows 10 and Mac OS, and works with Skype, Teams, Zoom, and other apps. It is expected to cost around $70.

View at Amazon

Insta360 Link

If you are looking for a webcam that can do more than just capture your face, you might want to check out the Insta360 Link. This is a new AI-powered 4K webcam that offers a range of features and modes to enhance your video calls, live streams and presentations.

The Insta360 Link is not your typical webcam. It has a gimbal head that can rotate and tilt to capture different angles and perspectives. It also uses Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF) to focus faster and more accurately than other webcams, and auto exposure to keep the video natural and balanced.

One of the most innovative features of the Insta360 Link is its AI technology that can automatically adjust the video according to your needs. For example, you can use the DeskView mode to show your tabletop when you are presenting something during a video call. The webcam will zoom in and out to fit your workspace and keep it in focus.

Another mode that is useful for online classes and work presentations is the Whiteboard mode. This mode can enhance your whiteboard or any other flat surface by squaring it off and making it clearer for your audience. You can also use the Overhead mode to capture a bird’s-eye view of your activity, such as unboxing a product, playing piano or sketching a floor plan.

If you are into live streaming or social media, you will appreciate the Portrait mode of the Insta360 Link. This mode allows you to shoot in 9:16 aspect ratio by rotating the gimbal head, which is ideal for mobile phone viewing. You can also use the webcam with universal accessories, thanks to its built-in 1/4″ mounting point.

The Insta360 Link is a versatile and powerful webcam that can help you communicate better than ever. It is compatible with Windows and Mac computers, and supports various video platforms such as Zoom, Skype, OBS, YouTube and Facebook. You can buy it from the official website for $299.99.

View at Amazon

Elgato Facecam Pro

This is the successor of the popular Elgato Facecam – 1080p60.

If you are looking for a new high-quality webcam for your streaming or video conferencing needs, you might want to check out the Elgato Facecam Pro 4K. This webcam offers a stunning 4K resolution at 30 frames per second, with a wide-angle lens and a Sony Starvis sensor that delivers crisp and clear images in any lighting condition. The Elgato Facecam Pro 4K also features a built-in microphone with noise cancellation, a privacy shutter, and a flexible stand that can be mounted on any monitor or tripod. You can also customize your settings and preferences using the Elgato Camera Hub software, which lets you adjust the exposure, white balance, zoom, and more. The Elgato Facecam Pro 4K is compatible with Windows and Mac OS, and works with popular apps like OBS Studio, Zoom, Skype, and Discord. Whether you are a professional streamer, a casual gamer, or a remote worker, the Elgato Facecam Pro 4K can help you elevate your online presence and communication. The Facecam Pro is listed online for $299.99.

View at Corsair

These are some of the best webcams for 2024 that you can look forward to buying. Depending on your budget and needs, you can choose from these options or explore other models that may suit you better. Webcams are not only useful devices but also fun gadgets that can enhance your online experience.

Also Read: Best Gaming Headsets | Best Gaming Laptops | Best External Drives | Best Gaming Keyboards

How to choose a webcam

Here are some tips and factors to consider when buying a webcam:

Resolution: The resolution of a webcam refers to the number of pixels that it can capture and display. The higher the resolution, the sharper and clearer the image quality. However, higher resolution also means more bandwidth and storage requirements, so you need to balance your needs and resources. The standard resolution for webcams is 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels), which is suitable for most purposes. However, if you want to stream or record in 4K (3840 x 2160 pixels) or higher, you will need a more powerful webcam and computer.
Frame rate: The frame rate of a webcam refers to the number of frames that it can capture and display per second. The higher the frame rate, the smoother and more realistic the motion quality. However, higher frame rate also means more bandwidth and processing power requirements, so you need to balance your needs and resources. The standard frame rate for webcams is 30 fps (frames per second), which is sufficient for most purposes. However, if you want to stream or record fast-paced or action-packed scenes, you may want to opt for a webcam that can support 60 fps or higher.
Autofocus: Autofocus is a feature that allows the webcam to automatically adjust its focus based on the distance and movement of the subject. This is useful for ensuring that you always appear sharp and clear on the screen, without having to manually adjust the focus. However, autofocus can also cause some problems, such as losing focus when there are multiple subjects or objects in the frame, or when there is low light or glare. Therefore, you may want to look for a webcam that has an option to turn off autofocus and use manual focus instead.
Microphone: A microphone is a device that captures and transmits sound. Most webcams have built-in microphones, which are convenient and cost-effective. However, built-in microphones may not have the best sound quality or noise cancellation features, which can affect your audio clarity and quality. Therefore, you may want to consider using an external microphone or headset instead of relying on your webcam’s microphone.
Lighting: Lighting is a key factor that affects the image quality of your webcam. Poor lighting can result in dark, grainy, or washed-out images, which can reduce your visibility and professionalism. Therefore, you should always try to use natural or artificial lighting sources that are bright and even, and avoid backlighting or direct sunlight that can cause glare or shadows. You can also use a ring light or a lamp that attaches to your webcam or monitor to enhance your lighting.
Compatibility: Compatibility refers to the ability of your webcam to work with your computer and software. You should always check the specifications and requirements of your webcam before buying it, and make sure that it is compatible with your operating system, processor, memory, graphics card, USB port, and internet connection. You should also check if your webcam supports the software or platform that you intend to use it for, such as Zoom, Skype, OBS Studio, Twitch, YouTube, etc.
Price: Price is another important factor that affects your choice of a webcam. Webcams vary in price depending on their features and quality. You should always set a budget and compare different models and brands before making a purchase decision. You should also look for discounts, deals, coupons, or reviews that can help you save money and get the best value for your money.

These are some of the tips and factors that can help you choose a webcam in 2024. We hope that this blog post has been helpful and informative for you. If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to leave a comment below.

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software, Tech

Microsoft Announces an Update to Bing Which Integrates ChatGPT Models into it

February 8, 2023 Nir Shein

Microsoft announces It’s new iteration of AI-powered Bing homepage that enables its users to ask, explore and have conversations with the latest and greatest technology of OpenAI’s engine model which it calls: Your new Co-pilot to the web.

To those who still haven’t heard, ChatGPT is a conversational language model developed by a company called OpenAI. It uses a state-of-the-art natural language processing model that has been trained on a massive amount of data and designed to generate human-like responses to text inputs in variety of styles and different human tones., making it useful for applications such as chatbots and virtual assistants.

Link to try the new Bing Experience HERE, click !

Microsoft is only providing access to a limited version of the new Bing conversation experiences for now. In the future, however, you will be able to use the browser and AI conversations to their full potential.

New features include more accurate search rankings, more added-value content for your search queries, and a chatbot that will act as a smart assistant.

In the demo, we’ve seen many interesting examples of how the Open AI chatbot integrates with Bing and answers questions submitted by users

But the company has added some ready-to-use cases to explore as well:

Things like:

Write a rhythming poem
How to create a three course menu.
How to get fit.
Help create a quiz.
Help in writing a code.
Write a rhyming poem or essay.
Creating an itinerary for a party.
Search for a fast big car

And more..

With the new and improved Bing, powered by AI and wrapped in a Microsoft-developed safety system called Prometheus, users can join a waitlist that hopefully extends its availability and use in the coming weeks. The new and improved Bing is available in limited preview mode for desktops only today.

Marketing

The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Business with Influencer Marketing

May 31, 2020 Technologer

Today, the world’s most rising form of marketing is influencer marketing. About 40% of companies have started allotting a huge budget for influencer marketing and 80% believe that influencer marketing helps them achieve their company objectives. With the internet being accessible to almost everyone in the US, plus some of the biggest ISPs like Xfinity and Spectrum internet offering cheap internet, there are a lot of influencers with huge followers online. However, still, most of the people are unaware of how to take advantage of them.

What is Influencer Marketing?

The fusion of traditional and modern marketing methods is influencer marketing. It is a technique that corporations use by working with prominent bloggers, vloggers, or social media users to market their goods and services. These influencers hold a large following and a dedicated audience with which brands can gain recognition and even generate sales.

How does it work?

Influencer marketing is considered to successfully work with companies of all types and sizes, irrespective of whether you are a startup and want to create awareness, or a major company trying to promote a new line or push a particular product to offer. Brands would typically approach an influencer and pay them to make content regarding the products or services offered by a company. The influencer subsequently updates and shares the contents with their social network – typically Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc.

The price is traditionally negotiated and paid before the content has been produced to the influencer –generally based on the following size of the creator and surprisingly not on content quality.

Creating the Plan

Since 47% of users now use Adblock technology, influencer marketing is by all means the fastest and most efficient way of creating premium content for the consumers it is intended to attract. The strategic marketing approach can instantly boost brand awareness and supercharge sales.

Only ask yourself some crucial questions to get going first…

Why Use it?

In a survey carried out by the Keller Fay Party, 82 percent of respondents indicated that they were likely to obey an influencer ‘s advice. And, 70 percent of the young generation prefers goods promoted by non-celebrity influencers, according to a major Cultural Prejudice poll. Consumers are mostly attracted by micro-influencers because they are relevant, intriguing, and amiable – promoted by real people who themselves use and are satisfied by the brand and item. The engagement rates of micro-influencers have been shown to be higher than other big celebrities. Although major celebrities can set a massive network, it is highly likely that most of their followers won’t be in your brand – most of them being passive spectators instead of being active.

Micro-influencers, on the other hand, have devoted followers that are primarily engaged in their work. According to research, 3k to 10k is the ‘top pick’ for marketing, since, the engagement rate is inversely proportional to the audience size.

What is your Objective?

It is important to provide a specific campaign goal as it tells the content creator precisely what you expect of them. The first step towards creating exclusive, entertaining content for your brand is to prepare your approach and to identify your goals. It is all down to discovering out which technique best suits you.

Try to figure out what you want: is it boosting sales? Establish the image of your brand? You want to meet customers who are unaware of your company, or engage in the main target market?

For good quality material, a simple, succinct summary is important. This may be an inspiring vision across the board of your mood, a connection to a website, a discount code, and a submission that builds visibility and dedication.

How To Choose Suitable Influencers For Your Business?

After making a list of influencers, it is about time you find out who is worth talking to about partnering with you. You surely did some of this already while creating the list, but you ought to focus on discovering the right influencers for your company.

You have to deal with trustworthy and appreciable people. People who are effective and match your style and objectives. Therefore, observe their audience engagement, the audience must match well with the people you are targeting. Perhaps you should not spend time dealing with influencers that do not have a strong identity, your best option is to create a positive product experience – growing engagement levels and the impact of your potential relationship.

How To Sustain Healthy Influencer Relationships?

Influencers are smart enough to know how to best utilize their channels to boost the message of a brand in a way that works effectively for their followers. It is also very important to address the influencers with courtesy and compassion while choosing them – it is a partnership after all!

Final Thought

Most of influencer marketing lasts a couple of months only. However, taking the right approach with planning can prove to be extremely successful for your business, fulfilling all your goals be it creating brand awareness or generating profitable sales revenue.

Internet, software

Download Managers: How to manage Internet Content Transfers

April 13, 2020 Technologer

Download managers are a great way to manage content transfers from the Internet. Very useful, always, in the current era of increased traffic by telework, tele-study and leisure consumption imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, its use is advisable to improve transfers.

It allows you to take full advantage of the performance that the Internet connection you have contracted allows, whether you have a faster fiber optic connection or an ADSL. Although the acceleration of transfers is its strong point, download managers have other advantages as they allow you to automate transfers, schedule them, resume them, and generally better manage and administer content. In this article we are going to review the operation of the software and offer a few existing free options.

How download managers work

These types of applications use mirror websites ( multiple mirrors ) with similar to speed up the download or automatically choose between several servers that have the file available, opting for the one that offers better stability and performance.

Another important point is its ability to resume deliberately paused downloads or interrupted by server or line error without losing the part of the files that had been downloaded until then. Additionally, it prevents an unfinished download from being corrupted if there is an accidental disconnection.

They also allow us to automate and schedule downloads or uploads at the time that interests us most, usually outside of the working day or at night when the networks are less saturated, in addition to downloading a large number of files at the same time prioritizing performance over those We are more interested in or limit the download speed so as not to saturate the connection and allow us to use the equipment in functions such as navigation

Other added benefits of download managers is file type management and more accurate information on transfer speed and download times. Some applications integrate antivirus for malware checking or a viewer for video and audio preview.

Download managers for browsers

This type of software has enough performance, administration and control advantages to keep a dedicated application installed. But if you think that you will only use it in these times of confinement due to traffic congestion, you can start without having to install independent applications by activating some of the existing plugins for the main web browsers, such as:

1. DownThemAll (Firefox)

It is the manager that we like the most for the Mozilla web browser and one of the best absolute integrators you can find. Its integration with Mozilla is perfect and it is even integrated in the Firefox download menu. It is capable of detecting all the media links on a web page (with the corresponding filters), automatically downloading at high speed and allowing them to be summarized.

2. Video Download Helper (Firefox and Chrome)

Ideal if you are looking for a program for occasional video downloads on the web. It does not work with some YouTube videos as it usually happens with these managers.

Chrono Download Manager (Chrome). Exclusive to the Google browser, it integrates very well with the interface and use of its download system. Includes the “Chrono Sniffer” function that detects all links, images, audio and video on a web page.

3. Fruumo Download Manager

Without as much integration as the previous one, it does its job as a manager in the Google browser with an intuitive interface. Very simple, but download, pause and resume downloads like the rest.

4. EagleGet

Without the power of the installable version, you can integrate it into Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera.

ALSO READ: Bollywood Box Office Collections and Verdict Report

Independent download managers

For those who want to keep browsers as clean as possible and the most complete options in download managers, independent applications are the ones that work best. We leave you some of the most interesting:

1. JDownloader

One of the most used especially when we work with direct download services and multiple files. An open source platform written in Java with a lot of plugins to use with the options of the previous ones, such as the separation in packages to allow to pause and continue the downloads individually.

It has captcha recognition, allowing batches of downloads without user intervention. In addition to Windows, it has versions for Linux and Mac. If you use many direct download servers, it’s a reference.

2. FlashGet

A classic download manager that has been with us for nearly 20 years and that promises to speed up transfers “between 6 and 10 times”. It includes the general characteristics of a download manager including virus checking. You can download from websites, from FTP and even .torrent files although in this case it is always better to use a dedicated P2P client.

To start a download, simply drag the download link into a small window that acts as a minimal interface. An interface that could use an update, although for many it is still the best in the industry. It also has a portable application.

3. Free Download Manager

Another good download manager (free alternative to the well-known Internet Download Manager) that can also be used in a portable version on all your Windows devices without the need for installation.

Like the previous download managers, it increases the download speed by dividing the file into pieces and connecting from various mirror sites, it allows you to resume and schedule downloads, a video and audio viewer before the download is finished, and a long etc. It includes the HTML Spider function that allows you to download entire websites.

4. EagleGet

Simple and efficient, it promises to increase the download speed by up to six times what it would take for simple direct download from a web browser.

It is multilanguage, has pause and resume capabilities, day and time programming, integrity checker, malware checker and even video format converter.

5. BitComet

You probably know it more as a client for BitTorrent, but it also includes support for HTTP and FTP protocols, which allows it to act as download managers.

Please let us know if you ever used any download manager, and which of the ones is your top most favorite.

Internet, New

Why Your Site Desperately Needs Search Engine Optimization

January 15, 2019 Technologer

You have probably heard about search engine optimization (SEO). From a scientific point of view, search engine optimization is a series of steps aimed at increasing the site’s search results. By using SEO, you can list new user sites quite high on search engine sites. High-ranking websites can be found on the first available search engine page, while lower-ranking websites can be found several pages down.

Today, Internet users are impatient and refuse to search for information for more than a few minutes. Content that cannot be found is useless. Your site needs information that can be found easily. According to HigherVisibility, it is important for online companies to optimize their website SEO.

6 Important Elements of SEO

• Your Target Audience & Niche

• Research Keywords

• Intent of User

• Analytics and Reporting

• Mobile and Technical SEO

• Crawling and Indexing

Why optimize your company’s SEO?

The Internet has been used mainly to collect information, but the situation has changed significantly. The growing number of Internet users and new technologies is a good marketing tool with many other factors. The growth of e-commerce, for example, shows that Internet technology can benefit website owners.

For any Internet user seeking similar goods or services, online advertising may be useful. Statistics show that more than a third of Americans are Internet users. With an online presence, a company is more attractive and accessible to the public. Consider this, there may be thousands of people every day looking for your products, but because your website lacks SEO, they buy from your competitors instead of you.

This is not necessarily because your competitors are better, their site has just found an effective way to top search engines. As hard as it might look, high rankings are not rocket science. Your website can also use search engines to get lots of traffic. It only requires a little optimization.

Does my site have to be the first result on search engines?

The answer, yes. There are many reasons why you need your site to rank in the top 5 sites. First and foremost, being highlighted on search engines in this way links your business to being one of the most famous companies in your city. A customer often gets a great first impression and can plan to visit your business based solely on the visibility of your site.

Your prestigious rank gives customers greater confidence in your company, even if they have never experienced your service personally. This method seems stereotypical but works almost 100 percent of the time. That is why SEO supports and often uses this stereotype to its advantage. Major sites are usually seen as the most prestigious company with the best service.

Secondly, many people will be interested in a first-page ranking site simply because Internet users are impatient. It is well known that 95% of Internet users do not look beyond the first 10 sites on the results page, so the higher the rank, the bigger the traffic. With a website on the fourth page of your search engine, you’re almost guaranteed to have a failed online business. The fourth page typically attracts less than 2 percent of Internet users. Consistently aim for the top five search results, and you can’t go wrong.

Why does the list of requirements matter?

The optimization of search engines requires time and money and the involvement of a number of experts, including customer experts. Your site cannot be on a competitive market to ensure rapid results. The promotion doesn’t stop, even after a site is secured in the top ranks. The content must be updated regularly.

Search engines also rank sites according to how much time a user spends on a page, but a large amount of text does not attract visitors. Actually, it’s known to do the opposite. Some good ways to keep your visitors’ attention would be to use thematic videos, high-quality photography and info-graphs to divide the articles into blocks. Quality content must be created, but you don’t have to do all the work alone. Experts, authors, publishers, designers, and photographers are available on freelance websites to help you add a new online article with at least 5,000 characters or more every two weeks.

Mobile, New, Phones

Why Smartphones are Such a Popular Tool

January 15, 2019 Technologer

These days, everyone who has a pulse has a smartphone. When they first came out, only the people who had a ton of money had it, and it was a tool that people have shown off with. However, the smartphone has become one of the most common tools among many different people. As a matter of fact, the other types of phones have become increasingly rare. It is not just a sign of status that attracts people to the smartphone. There is also the use that the smartphone offers.

Surf the Internet

With the popularity of the internet, the smartphone has become popular because of the ability to surf the internet and do some of the same things that are done on a full sized computer. As a matter of fact, many mobile carriers double as internet service providers in order to provide you with the services you need. Smartphones are often used to access apps. Often times, people use their smartphones in order to access their favorite video streaming sites and apps.

Connect With People

Smartphones seem to have become very popular at the same time that social media has become mainstream. People use smartphones to connect on social media. However, there are other things you can do with your smartphone as well as social media. Once you develop enough of a following, then you can use the smartphone to make money in various ways. The smartphone has resulted in more people becoming connected than ever. This has also provided people with opportunities to network and build something that is going to be great for their lives.

The Types of Smartphones to Look For

As with many other products, not all smartphones are equal. As a matter of fact, you might want to be careful with the type of smartphone you are purchasing. Some smartphones are going to be very useless when it comes to battery or other aspects of the phone. Before you decide on the type of smartphone you are going to use, you want to make sure that you are getting a phone that you can handle. You want a battery life that is reasonable and not liable to leave yo constantly looking for a charger. While you don’t necessarily have to pay a fortune for the latest smartphone, you might want to look at the features and the performance of the phone before trying to move forward with one.

High Quality Entertainment

One thing that the smartphone has done was open people’s mind when it comes to how they can watch shows. While people still look to a big screen with a large sound system, the high quality image and sound has also been translated to the smartphone. A reasonable sized smartphone is good enough to watch a show. Also, if you want high quality sound, the streaming sites have a great sound quality with really good dynamic range that translate well to your headphones. There are also some phones that support multi-channel surround sound.

Watch TV

Speaking of entertainment, the internet and the mobile web has advanced to the point where you can watch TV. This includes all of the programs and the advertising from channels in the palm of your hand. There are plenty of streaming services that offer television service with a few different channels that you can choose from in order to watch your favorite shows. You can watch them in the highest possible quality with your device and headphones.

One of the reasons that smartphones have become so popular is that there is just so much you can do with a smartphone besides connect with others and talk. It can actually be your only source of entertainment if you want it to be. This is one of the reasons that people find them to be very fascinating. Some people may find themselves struggling to live without a smartphone. Fortunately, smartphones can be used for reasons that are related to productivity as well so that they can be of greater benefit.

Computers, General, Mobile

11 Important Cyber Security Tips That Will Help Seniors Protect Themselves From Hackers

December 5, 2018 Nir Shein

With the increasing impact of the digital world, an AgeUK study shows that senior citizens are making use of emerging technologies – in fact the number of over 75s using the internet in particular has doubled in the last five years.

Seniors are not only using the internet, but the majority of seniors also own smart phones, online shop and 50% of internet users aged 65-75 have a social media account. The main ways seniors tend to use the internet is to keep in touch with family abroad, for general browsing and for entertainment purposes.

Although seeing the older generation taking advantage of the latest trends and technologies shows the positive impact of these innovations on people of all ages, there are also many potential threats they need to be aware of when using the internet. Only 32% of seniors surveyed claimed they were confident using the internet safely, and 25% of over 75s stated that technology made them feel vulnerable. Seniors particularly need to be aware of how to use the internet safely as they appear to have a lack of confidence and awareness, making them prime targets for cyber criminals. 1 in 5 seniors also don’t have anti-virus software installed on their devices leaving them vulnerable.

This infographic created by Focus Training introduces simple yet effective ways seniors can safely use the internet and protect themselves from potential cyber attacks.

Marketing

8 Ways to Strengthen Your Awesome Brand Online and Offline

October 18, 2017 Technologer 1 Comment

Your company’s brand is a work in progress, so it’s important to always look for ways you can improve it. Whether you are refining your messaging, choosing a consistent color scheme, or finding your voice on social media, strengthening your brand is an ongoing project that happens on- and offline.

How to Strengthen Your Brand Online

Learning the most effective ways to do both can help you build a stronger brand for your company overall, which can help you keep your customers coming back while reach out to new ones. Here are a few tips to help you build up your brand online:

1. Blog Frequently

Blogging is crucial for any business seeking to reach new customers online. A well-maintained blog can keep your business at the top of search engines, which makes it easier for potential customers who need the services you offer to find you.

Focus on creating high-quality, engaging and relevant content for your target audience, and add new content regularly. Consider guest blogging on related sites, or extending such an invitation from your site to industry professionals. Your blogs can showcase your expertise to potential customers and could help them decide to seek out your services.

2. Create a Social Media Presence

Social media offers businesses a simple, effective, and low-cost means to stay in touch with their current customers and to reach new ones. Create profiles on the sites most likely to be used by potential customers, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn.

You’ll be able to easily share content, post updates about your business, or address complaints as they arise. This can help to build a strong connection between your business and its customers, since they will be able to interact with your business directly and can see that their concerns matter to it.

3. Share Testimonials

A glowing testimonial from a previous customer can provide dividends for your business for years to come, especially if they are famous or well-known in your industry. Many customers determine where they will make a purchase from based on online reviews, and a collection of testimonials could help to win their business.

A testimonial provides your business with social proof and gives potential customers a chance to learn about your services and expertise from people just like them. Ask some of your customers who were especially satisfied to leave you a review, and consider posting them on a special section of your website.

4. Find Your Personality

Consumers today are more likely to frequent a business that has a recognizable personality than one which has a bland or generic voice. It may take some time, but finding your business’s unique voice can help you better connect with customers and provide them with a personalized experience.

Every business is different and will have its own way of appealing to its buyer personas. Take some time to experiment and create a unified voice for all of your communications which speaks to the customers you are trying to attract.

Whether you opt for a snarky, social-media savvy persona perfect for reaching millennials or a more reserved, sophisticated persona which can connect with professionals getting ready for retirement, finding the right voice for your company is crucial to building a successful brand.

How to Strengthen Your Brand Offline

While making effective use of the Internet is crucial to the success of any business, keeping your brand strong offline is just as important. Whether through stunningly designed business cards, elaborate print collateral or full production television commercials, brand strengthening happens at all levels:

5. Define Your Brand (in Opposition to Competitors)

What makes your brand different, or better, from your competitors? If you don’t know this, your customers won’t either. Placing this front and center in any marketing campaign can help you easily distinguish your business. This can also provide inspiration for your marketing efforts.

You’ll be able to highlight some quality of your business which is superior to your competitors, and can inform potential customers of what you have to offer, especially if you are new to the market. Buyers could immediately take an interest in your business and see what you have to offer.

6. Keep Fonts, Colors and Logos Consistent

Your customers need to be able to quickly identify your business from your competitors. The last thing you should do is confuse them with multiple color schemes, too many fonts, or chaotic logos.

Choosing a consistent font, color scheme and logo can help to make your brand more recognizable to customers and can make your own marketing efforts easier. You’ll have fewer moving parts to keep track of and can better build campaigns around a definite aesthetic, feeling or lifestyle, which itself can serve as inspiration for future campaigns.

7. Create Your Niche

Part of what makes a marketing campaign a success is its specificity. Focusing your marketing efforts on baby boomers getting ready for retirement isn’t nearly as effective as focusing on professionals with advanced degrees in the same age group who require financial consulting services to prepare for retirement in the next ten years.

Limitations can prove to be powerful aids when it comes to finding clients, as you’ll be able to automatically filter out many people who won’t be interested in your services, and can instead focus on the handful who are actively looking for your services.

8. Set Deadlines

You could have an endless well of ideas for your marketing campaign, but if none of them come to fruiting, they won’t be worth anything. You can easily spend too much time modifying your original idea to try to cover too many angles at once, and come up with a campaign that lacks a clear focus and which is ineffective at reaching any particular audience.

Setting a deadline can help you focus your efforts on a handful of ideas without losing control of them.

Building your brand is a long-term project, and it’s not uncommon for companies to change their brand multiple times. Don’t be afraid to experiment in order to find the brand that best suits your business, but always make sure each element contributes to a complete experience for your customers.

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With over 18 years in business, Silkcards specializes in unique and beautiful print that reflects a brand’s image and makes a positive first impression.

General, Internet

How Huawei and Fortune 500 Companies are completing the Digital Transformation Journey?

September 27, 2017 Mordecai Holtz

Yan Lida, President of Huawei Enterprise Business, Huawei Connect 2017 (credit: Huawei)

We live in an era of unprecedented technological innovation.

According to Forrester Research, only 12% of the Fortune 500 companies from 1955 remain Fortune 500 companies today.

Why?

Most likely because, as Forrester research discovered, only 27% of businesses have a coherent digital transformation strategy for creating customer value in place. Yet, many companies are placing digital transformation at the center of their strategies through 2020.

Over the last few years, digital transformation has become an industry megatrend. Legacy enterprises are forced to embrace this critical shift out of fear of becoming obsolete.

Innovation and growth are no longer optional to the enterprise.

Today, enterprises use ICT technology to improve working efficiency, create business innovations, and provide better customer service.
For many of these Fortune 500 companies, the challenge is to develop new business models that increase connection and engagement. What’s needed is a digital transformation platform that connects intelligence, data, and devices, enabling them to increase engagement with partners and develop applications that foster innovation.

Cloud computing, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and other new technologies are driving the human society into the smart era. The most striking feature of a smart society is the connection and fusion of the physical world and the digital world. The problems of the physical world are now being solved by the digital world.

As enterprises are constantly striving to attain new business value, the speed of innovation is crucial.

Companies need to be swift, agile and leverage all aspects of technological innovation. A truly digital enterprise uses emerging technologies as a strategic effort to go leaner, focus on agile business processes and enhance the business analytics of the enterprise. A digital enterprise relentlessly searches out, identifies and develops new digital business models, always ensuring that customers and employees are at the center of its innovation.

Digital Transformation

Digital innovation has become an essential catalyst and a driving force of economic growth. It’s a journey, not a sprint.

Designing a digital transformation framework for success is focused on innovation and attaining new business value, aimed at a creating an optimal user experience. To the point that the needs of the end-user need to be integrated into the service model. Consumers today, demand a faster, simpler, and enhanced digital experience that provides the best product and combines it with stellar service and most advanced technology.

The Digital Transformation Journey for Enterprises

Digital transformation is a massive undertaking, especially for larger, established companies. When done right, it will result in a business that is more aligned with customer demands and resilient in the fast-moving digital future.

Embracing digital transformation at the enterprise level requires a strategic approach that factors in all of the goals, people, technologies and required integration to form a proper strategy.

Digital Transformation, Disrupt and Innovate

A core function of any business is to continually advance and improve its operations, products, and services. Enterprises that adhere to a digital transformation framework are not only focused on improving, they are the key drivers of innovation and disruption. Equipped with disruptive and innovative strategies, these companies can compete in today’s fast-paced market that is being driven by consumer demands, new technologies, and new business models.

Why Embark in Digital Transformation?

Many legacy enterprises have built their business on certain methods of operation. It is these operating systems that have enabled the company to prosper and survive until today. The digital realities of today, however, are forcing these companies to reconsider and reimagine the fundamental systems that have been the keys to their success. The technological environment is changing, highlighting how ill-equipped these companies are to adapt and change.

Speed is essential in digital transformation.

While the speed of digital transformation may vary with industry, stagnation is the antithesis of the digital mindset. A company maintaining a static mindset in the digital era is paving their path to failure.

With external pressures – customer demands, emerging technologies, lean startups and disruptive business models- pushing the business towards innovation, the classic methods of operation are no longer delivering the expected results. As the impetus for change increases the need to design a strategic path towards digital transformation becomes inevitable.

While many companies may opt to slowly tweak specific inefficiencies, a true digital transformation requires a revolutionary approach. An all-encompassing digital revolution can revitalize an enterprise and pave the road to future success.
A digital transformation framework will guide the leaders and direct the business towards a path of progress. Businesses need to be in a state of constant evolution. Building a momentum and a rhythm reflects a shift in the mindset. It is a sign of a new reality and creates a paradigm shift for the entire industry.

Breaking the Silos

Digital transformation with its customer-centric marketing and business processes requires the ability to work across business verticals and silos. In fact, digital transformation focuses on cross-vertical collaboration, restructuring the organization to create methods that break down the silos. In a digitally focused enterprise, the goal is to encourage cross-department interface and to create an environment that is fertile for consumer-focused innovation.

Huawei: Strategic Digital Transformation Partner

Over the past six years, Huawei has quickly developed into a global leading digital transformation facilitators. The rapidly changing digital landscape has enabled Huawei to take advantage of the new realities by providing new ICT solutions to customers, creating best practices for digital transformation, public safety, finance, electricity, transportation, education, and media.

Before enterprises choose an appropriate digital transformation strategy, IT and CT are now converging and transforming enterprises. There is no single technology alone capable to execute the digital transformation.

What is different about Huawei’s ecosystem?

Yan Lida, Enterprise Business Group, Huawei Connect 2017 (credit: Huawei)

During my experience at Huawei Connect 2017, I was able to learn about some of the company’s strategies and gain insights into how Huawei is developing this platform and ecosystem.

During his keynote speech, Yan Lida, President of Huawei Enterprise Business, highlighted Huawei’s ecosystem that is based on three primary characteristics:

Huawei wants to become the customers’ most trusted partner. Huawei’s commercial model chooses to rely on the monetization of technology and services; it does not monetize user data. This is the biggest difference between Huawei and traditional Internet companies.
Huawei abides by its own business boundaries and is committed to becoming a platform for the platform. There are many companies that through their own experience in a specific industry have transformed into an enabler platform for that industry. It is very common to see companies such as GE, which is now providing an industrial cloud platform for the aviation and manufacturing industries. Huawei believes that it must create an open, secure, and reliable ICT infrastructure platform within its business boundaries to become the platform for its customers and partners’ platforms. Huawei’s platform is a cloud-pipe-device collaboration full-stack ICT platform; it provides all-in-one ICT services for customers and partners. The upper layer platform does not need to bother with the lower layer’s complex software and hardware systems; it can focus on its own service optimization and innovation.
Huawei is committed to becoming the ecosystem’s soil (the platform) to help customers grow quickly. This is why its plan for developers is called the ‘Developer Enablement Plan.’ This platform is the presence of Huawei in over 170 countries around the world. Developers and partners could use this platform for their global marketing and services.

In order to enrich this ecosystem, Huawei has laid out the plan of establishing OpenLabs, which cover all areas of jointed innovation with customers and partners across industries: public safety, finance, power electric, and manufacturing.

In the next three years, Huawei will continue to invest $200 million to build and operate OpenLabs (currently 13 and grow to 20) in Asia, Europe, Middle East and Americas.

Huawei provides a one-stop cloud-side collaboration infrastructure platform that integrates all new ICT technologies to help businesses stay competitive in the digital age. Huawei’s business has achieved rapid growth via industry-leading customization solutions for government and associated industries.

By carrying out joint innovation with partners centering around the business needs of customers, Huawei focuses on creating a win-win ecosystem.

In the transformation process, customers, partners, and Huawei each have their own unique advantages: customers understand their businesses, partners know how to transform the business needs of customers into industry-relevant applications, and Huawei knows how to utilize hardware and software ICT infrastructures to deliver effective business support to customers.

Partnering on the Digital Journey

In the digital transformation journey, Huawei has embraced the vision that partnership and collaboration will be a bigger driving force than the technology itself. By partnering and guiding its customers in their digital transformation journeys, Huawei is strategically guiding each enterprise to their destination. The goal is to be connected, intelligent and cloud-based.

Huawei is uniquely positioned to take enterprises on this journey because the company is able to provide a holistic suite of solutions from devices, to infrastructure, to services based in the cloud equipped with Artificial Intelligent capabilities.

According to Mr. Lida, “Huawei’s business positioning is to be a pioneer of digital social and intelligent social development processes, the industry’s digital enabler, and the best partner. In 2016, Huawei’s Enterprise business grasped the historical opportunities of digital transformation by focusing on infrastructure”.

Road to Digital Transformation Isn’t Smooth

Of course, the road of digital transformation from traditional ICT manufacturers to the enterprise market isn’t easy, even for Huawei.

Backed by six years of hard work, Huawei focused its ICT infrastructure and carefully chose partners with complementary strengths. By working together with its partners, Huawei has been able to deliver key industries with true digital transformation. The combined results have been to help public safety and government, finance, energy, and transportation enterprises to achieve digital transformation while still generating sales revenue of 40.7 billion yuan (about $5.9 billion) – a 47% increase from 2011 when the business was formed.

Smart Cities

In the field of smart cities, Huawei delivers ultra-wideband network, cloud computing, large data, Internet of Things and other facilities and technologies for cities to create a “nervous system” that enables all things to be interconnected in a smart way. Huawei has also been widely recognized for their participation in the smart city project through the “one cloud- two network- three platform”.

During the 2016 Barcelona Global Smart City Expo, Huawei was also awarded the “Southern Innovation Award” for the construction of a digital health system in Kenya.

To date, Huawei Smart City solutions have been successfully applied to more than 40 countries around the world and more than 100 cities.

At HUAWEI CONNECT 2017, Huawei and the Shandong Weifang Municipal Government ushered in a new generation of information technology. By including Internet of Things, cloud computing, and large data, Huawei is creating a NB-IoT city network and establishing the first city level based on the company’s OceanConnect IoT platform. Huawei has also used the Internet of Things to integrate various types of sensing devices to achieve data collection and management.

Public Security

In the field of public security, Huawei has continued to apply new ICT technologies such as cloud computing, large data, mobile broadband cluster, Internet of Things and artificial intelligence to the public security field. By working together with partners to build solutions to help cities achieve digital transformation, public security has improved and cities become more secure. Currently, Huawei’s safe city solution has served 80 countries, more than 200 cities and more than 800 million people in Europe, Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

Technology and the Competition

As traditional industries enter a critical period of digital transformation to drive business innovation and growth, the cloud is at the foundation for enterprise digitization. To meet this growing demand, Huawei has launched a number of industry-leading ICT products and solutions.

Huawei IT products continue to innovate thereby expanding their role as a digital transformation leader.

With Huawei’s IT products and solutions serving more than 170 countries and regions worldwide, the company is setting a new standard for the future of digital innovation and outperforming its competition.

So far, 197 of the top Fortune 500 companies and 45 of the top 100 companies have chosen Huawei as their digital transformation partner. This list includes SAP, Accenture, Deutsche Telekom, Volkswagen, Oracle, Honeywell, GM, ABB, Intel, Sony, the Russian Federal Savings Bank and more.

Internet, Marketing

5 Golden Rules for Introducing Your Business to Online Audience

September 24, 2017 Technologer

The digital revolution in India has encouraged many businesses to opt for their website. Two major things can be observed here: First, even the brick and mortar businesses that earlier refused to go for online operations have also started investing on the digital presence, and secondly, the businesses don’t stop at just building their own website and social media pages. They want their websites to be professionally and strategically designed to market their business and eventually increase the revenue. In short, the website creation is not just an option for the Indian businesses that want to grow- it is the mandatory condition. So, let us see the best practices to adopt while designing or marketing a website geared to make your presence stronger and increase the revenue:

Don’t be just another site by overselling

Millions of websites float on the digital ocean just like a number of huge ships and small boats that are laden with a number of items they are hawking to sell. Right from the world tour to mundane industrial tools, these sites sell almost anything under the Sun.

Being exposed to 5000+ messages geared towards marketing the product the consumer today has actually developed contempt towards commercially motivated messages forcing them to buy the products he doesn’t want. Hence any attempt at over-selling will ironically diminish your chances to sell your products or services. Besides, when everyone is overselling and you also join the bandwagon with the similar semblance- where lays the uniqueness, the innovative appeal. Instead of selling the products sell the “purpose-designed content presented in most natural format. Let genuineness guide the content and ensure that the content should be captivating, interesting and above all informative.

Content is really the king – Respect it

The content should complement the products you offer and subtly reveal it to the clients during the natural course of reading. Three things that will offer you a distinct appeal will be – the language, media, and knowledge. In fact, the aim should not be to make sales or acquire a client but to establish a definite rapport with the reader that would start a long lasting relation. This approach will help you to acquire loyalty and eventually converts readers into client. Whether you are finalizing the content of the website or writing company blogs, always ensure that you should use the simple language, a beautiful flow and some genuine knowledge in your content.

Change with time

You also need to assess the present scenario identify the obliterated practices and shunning them the same time you can identify the present shift in trends and predict the futuristic strategy. That will offer eh cutting edge over your clients. For example, e current trend is to value images much more than content. People of today now need something quick that does not to be read while squinting but could be seen while effortlessly. Hence employing n infographic can be the best way pp enjoy the attention.

Graphics attract but is moderate

You should also ensure that the audience should get the swift entry while they type for any search. You can offer a number of infographics that will allow you the entry a well-designed calendar. Besides the mobile search have now surpassed he desktop search. Hence a having a mobile enabled infographic can be the best choice.

While design plays a key role in impacting the audience you need to be very careful while designing your site. The major objectives of a site are not to overstuff your site with design elements but to offer a design that is most relevant with r studying habits.

Minimalism is the Mantra

Go for minimalism when it comes to eh designing. Opt for the simple design with brand specific features. Whether it is design, content, colors or programming the minimalistic approach will offer you a good rapport with the audience and will play a major role in increasing your reach while widening the opportunities to sell. There should be a Concord symphony between the design and content. The design should caress the eyes while communicant g with the audience in a nutshell.

Marketing

10 Ways To Make Your Lead Generation Website Convert On The First Visit

March 22, 2017 Technologer

You’ve invested a lot into your lead generation website to get eyes on it, but it’s not enough that people just look at it. It’s extremely important that your lead generation website is able to drive visitors to conversion, and what you might not know is that they need to convert right away. Straight North examined more than 300,000 sales leads and discovered something surprising — 84 percent of conversions happened on the first visit. When visitors came back to the page multiple times, their chances of converting plummeted.

The following presentation outlines these shocking statistics, and lays out some tried-and-true methods for re-engineering a website to drive higher conversions on the first visit. After all, there’s too much riding on your website to leave anything to chance, especially when the chances become so much slimmer with each visit.

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Author Bio: Brad Shorr is Director of Content Strategy at Straight North — an Internet marketing agency that provides SEO and PPC services — and has more than 25 years of marketing and sales experience. Brad has been featured on leading business sites including Forbes and Entrepreneur.

Design, Marketing

The Ultimate Guide to Choose the Right Image for Your Landing Pages

November 21, 2016 Technologer

Web design is an extension of page design, and when it comes to page design, there are plenty of rules and principles for putting together a winning website. Landing pages can be tricky; they have many elements to them that require careful consideration;

The main headline
Subtitle
The call to action button
Social Proof
Dedicated content
The form and fields people need to fill in
and of course the main hero image

While each element is equally important and cannot work without the other, the image and the colors we use on our landing page have the largest impact on our customer’s initial impressions of us, their experience and as a result, our conversion rates.

Since our brains process images much faster than text, the first thing our potential customer sees on the landing page is the image and it is all that’s standing between your customer bouncing from the page or choosing to read more or convert.

How to choose an image strategy for your landing page

The main hero image is meant to help potential customers see the value in our offer within the first couple of seconds, understand what’s in it for them and why they should take the next step in our customer journey vs. the competitor’s.

On average we see between 4000-10,000 messages a day, we’re constantly bombarded with ads, text messages, calls and content everywhere, the possibilities and options online are endless and tiring.

This is one of the main reasons potential customers easily and almost automatically navigate from one site to another without giving as much as thought for the page they just visited. As consumers we move quickly from one competitor to another until something clicks in our brain and catches our attention. That something is the value, the “What’s In It For Me?”

To stand out from your competitors and gain your customer’s attention (therefore increase conversion rates), the hero image on every landing page, email campaign and especially your website should project immediate value to your customer.

This isn’t an image of your product, service or features, it’s an image that highlights the emotional value customers gain from being your customers (e.g increase self confidence, get appreciated by your boss or find true love). As I mentioned at Mozcon, insurance companies don’t sell insurance policy, they sell peace of mind; a happy carefree family.

While most landing pages show an image of the product, platform or service they’re providing, we’ve ran countless tests proving time and time again that value wins almost every time.

For example, this company provides an all-in-one solution for creating birthday and party invitations. While the original landing page featured images of the different templates available and featured a product focused headline: “Custom online invitations in minutes”

The variation we created visualized the party scene for our potential customers. Utilizing different colors to enhance certain feelings, an image of the park, a picnic basket and a dog this variation focused on helping people envision the perfect party, which starts with a great invitation. The results: 65% uplift in purchased subscriptions!

Today, I’m going to show you exactly how to do that yourself.

There Are 3 Ways to Define Your Image Strategy

Before setting down to design your landing page and randomly choose your image, take some time to follow the 3 step process we use to define the customer’s value and the images we want to test:

Step 1: Talk to your customers

The great thing about talking to customers is that they have all the answers. They know why they purchased an item or service and have a clear reason for doing so. However, most customers will give you a list of tactical reasons for their purchase. This happens due to our brain’s tendency to rationalize our purchases, we may purchase on emotion but our brain quickly finds a way to rationalize that decision. For example – buying an expensive suit, or that lamp you don’t really need is then explained by attaining a good deal for it or your sudden need for more light around the house.

So a great way to discover your value and avoid technical answers is asking them how they would feel about removing certain items from your stock or certain features from your platform. This will give you a clearer understanding of the real value people find in your service. You can also ask what may have stopped them from converting and more importantly, ask them about THEM: What are their dreams, aspirations and even what scares them – get to know them so you can offer relevant, more compelling images, colors and content.

Talk to your team

Your customer success team, your sales team and anyone who talks to your customers on a daily or weekly basis can provide key insights. They know what people complain about, what their main issues are and what people find exciting. Talk to your team, interview them and learn how they view the customer, what values they believe you offer and compare these to your customer interviews.

Analyze direct and indirect competitor sites

NO I’m not suggesting you copy from your competitors in anyway. What I am saying is that you should analyse the testimonials and especially the reviews found on your competitor’s site. This comes straight from Joanna Wiebe’s research process: See what reviews customers are leaving, what bothers them and what they care about to discover what you need to highlight on your landing page and what value you should focus on.

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Once you’ve compiled all this data together you’ll be able to define the image strategy you want to test. The next step, is finding these images that highlight the value and have all of the qualities you’re looking for. Below are 6 rules you should follow once you’ve defined you’re strategy and ready to choose an image for your landing page:

6 Rules for Choosing a Landing Page Image

#1 Use Real, Relatable and Authentic Images

A successful image is one that your customers can to relate to. Either by seeing themselves in the image or someone they would want to be like, someone that reflects their challenges and values, or someone they can and want to connect to.

Use authentic images of people and avoid ones that are clearly stock photos, bought for the sake of the page. Best case scenario – use real images of your customers or your team, if you can’t use those choose your images wisely. A quick google images search can show you how many companies are already using that image. Ask yourself, is this image authentic? Will my customers relate to it? Or does it look like this (in case this isn’t clear –> this is a bad image!):

Mailchimp’s new homepage redesign (launched just a few weeks) ago baffles me. The image is clearly a stock photo image (if not… then bad execution) that feels cold and has no relation to their headline “Being yourself makes all the difference”. Does this image represent their target audience? The colorful background with different shapes, colors and palm leaves distracts the customer and has no value that I can personally detect. As a Mailchimp customer, personally I don’t feel comfortable with this women staring me in the eye and telling me to be myself. This image feels fake and I have a hard time relating to it in anyway.

Gusto on the other hand, has an image of a women sitting in front of her desk smiling. Now, granted I don’t really know if this a real photo of an HR person or a stock photo but it feels real and the connection between the image and headline is clear. I can immediately resonate with it, it’s authentic and relatable to HR personnel who do it all. Gusto makes the main image work with the strategy of the page, makes it about the customer and as opposed to the lady staring at us from Mailchimp’s new design, this women doesn’t feel alienating – she feels welcoming, someone you might want to meet. This is the difference between using authentic images that relate to your target audience vs. images that just look nice and have a “cool” composition.

#2 Reduce Visual Noise

“With great power, comes great responsibility” – As we’ve seen, our image captures most of the attentive mind of our landing page visitor, it’s almost always the first thing we see and it’s what determines if we should hang around a take a few more seconds to read and understand the offer. This means, that other than choosing a good strategic image, we also need to think about reducing the noise it creates so it doesn’t have a negative affect. We need to make sure it’s easy for customers to quickly see what’s in it for them and asses our services. How do you do that? By following these 3 simple rules:

Ensure high contrast between the image and the page content so it doesn’t “drown” out the text, making it hard for people to read, like this for example:

Ensure the photo is distraction “clean” as possible and helps customers focus only on the most important elements of it unlike the landing page below for example. There’s so much going on within this image that it’s hard to focus on anything. Not to mention the fact that this is yet another common image used by thousands of startups to show another “unique” office space. This image has nothing to do with the service. How exactly does an image of random people in an office make you feel that this a “new model for talent development”? Clean images, mean using only the objects that help get the message across, remove any details that can cause confusion or stress on the eyes.

Consider the colors you use – colors have an emotional effect on us and can assist us in saying things without actually spelling them to people. For example, you don’t have to say you’re trustworthy, you could (in Western cultures) use blue for that. Also, remember to reduce the amount of colors you use so it’s easier on the eyes and easy to take in.

#3 Use Images as Direction Cues

Our main image is there to create a certain atmosphere and feeling, but it’s also there to navigate the customer in the right direction and point them towards the next step (whether it’s subscribing, downloading something or simply reading more). You can use your main image as a directional cue to show people what to do next like the visual below.

You’ll notice that all elements (computer, paper, earphones and pens) are placed around the call to action button making that the main focal point of the page. Granted, I’m not sure this is the best image to use to sell a UX class, since it’s only showing specific elements you’re going to use during the course, but doesn’t explain why you should actually take it. However the placement of elements is done well.

Perhaps a better example is by ‘Here One’. As you can see they’re using their main character (seems authentic and wearing product) to point with his entire body towards the call to action button.

#4 Avoid carousels and auto play videos

While tempting, carousels confuse visitors and make it hard on them to focus on the action they need to take so don’t use them. This is actually a well known fact and many case studies have shown that rotating images reduce conversion rates. And so do automatic background videos! instead of reading your content and taking the next step, the visitor is now engaged in a moving video that’s distracting and has nothing to do with your goal. Have multiple images in mind? Test them, don’t use them all at once.

#5 Consider Mobile

Just because an image performs well on desktop, does not mean it will work or look well on mobile. First, you’ve got the fact that technically the image may look bad on mobile:

It may look stretched
Take too long to load
Completely dominate the page
Move all your content below the fold
or simply won’t make sense to a visitor on mobile.

Let’s look at the same example by ‘Here One’: it looks and works great on desktop. However, on mobile it’s a different story. The image of the guy and the colors they’re using make it hard to read the text. It’s not immediately clear what this product is and could be perceived as a hearing aid rather than advanced, cool earphones. The strategy of this image, doesn’t work well on mobile.

#6 A/B test your Strategies

Once you have an hypothesis for your image strategy, take the time to test it vs. the one you already have. In fact, test different strategies, for example an image of your product or someone using the product vs. an customer centric image. This is not only a great way to validate your hypothesis but also a good way to show numbers, figures and facts to your team who might have a hard time getting behind this new initiative. A/B testing image strategies instead of just simple elements such as the color of the call to action button will give you greater insights that can then be presented to your team for convincing them to get on board.

Image Checklist

Use the following checklist and process to define the images for every landing page, email campaign or website you launch:

Define the goal of your page (e.g – subscribe, download)
Evaluate current image strategy (Does it highlight the customer or yourself?)
Use heatmaps to determine current image (e.g – is it a focal point, are people clicking on it)
Conduct customer surveys
Conduct interviews with team
Analyse competitor websites for reviews and testimonials
Combine all data to define a customer centric image strategy
Choose image (using the 6 rules)
Launch A/B test of current variation vs. new variation

Over to You

Remember that the image doesn’t work alone, it’s part of a whole composition working with the copy, your fonts, colors and call to action button. All elements together should be geared towards helping the customer immediately seeing what’s in it for them and helping them take the next step.

This post originally published on Talia Wolf’s blog

Talia helps businesses plan and execute conversion optimization programs. She runs thousands of A/B tests using emotional targeting and persuasive design to grow their business.

Talia is a frequent keynote speaker at marketing conferences and was recently listed as one of the most influential experts in conversion optimization. Follow her on twitter at @taliagw and learn more about her conversion optimization training programs.

Internet, Social Media

Blogging, Social Media and SEO within Google Chrome: 15 Best Extensions

November 13, 2016 Technologer

When you’re a blogger, there are simply too many tasks you need to perform on a daily basis, from finding the right topics to link building and much, much more. However, the functionalities in your web browser can help in performing these daily tasks conveniently. Considering how Google Chrome is by far the most popular browser on the planet (according to StatCounter, almost 50% of people accessed the Internet using Chrome from October 2015 to October 2016), we’ll take a look at some of the most useful extensions, that will make your job easier.

Blogging Extensions

1. Pocket

If you want to know just how good Pocket is, just look at its credentials: in 2014. Pocket won a Webbly award for best productivity and it now has a user base of over 15 million people worldwide. It’s a rather simple tool that allows to save numerous articles, videos and notes for later reference.

2. Grammarly

While every version of Microsoft Word will keep your spelling in check, but when you write online, most of us make spelling and grammar mistakes regularly, mostly because we’re trying to type as fast as we can. Thankfully, Grammarly will ensure that you never make a typo again and end up looking stupid because of misplacing a couple of letters. It also scans your text for proper use of more than 250 advanced grammar rules in real-time.

3. Fireshot

If you want something that will eliminate the mundane print-paste-edit routine, and quickly grab screenshots of websites and save them as a JPEG, GIF or a PDF from within Google Chrome, then Fireshot is the right extension for you. You’ll be able to capture both entire pages and just visible parts, and it’ll even allow you to add comments, blur selected areas and apply other effects to your captures.

4. Google Publisher Toolbar

The Publisher Toolbar is designed to assist web publishers view data about their Ad Exchange, AdSense and DC for Publisher accounts from a single dashboard within the Chrome browser. You can also block any unsuitable creative you don’t wish to display on your site or blog. After you install GPT, all the ad units on your site will get an overlay that’ll display information like the buyer name and display URL.

5. Break Helper

Sitting in our chair for prolonged periods of time is literarily killing us – sitting 6 or more hours each day increases risk of premature death up to 40%. Now, even if you don’t care about your health that much, you have to be aware that working at a stretch without taking a break can result in a sharp decline in productivity. Therefore, you should install Break Helper extension, and it will let you know when you need to take your next break, and let your overworked brain relax for a second.

Social Media Extensions

6. Rapportive

Even though this part of our list is dedicated to social media, let’s talk about emails. I’m guessing many of your interactions still happen within Gmail, and while you’d like to start a conversation going on LinkedIn, you’re almost certainly stuck doing the delayed email back-and-forth with new contacts every other day. But Rapportive will provide you all the information you need about your email contacts, including their social profiles, which will allow you to easily add every contact on social media.

7. StayFocusd

Even if you’re making money of your blog, it doesn’t mean that don’t suffer from bouts of procrastination from time to time. But even though technology is a source of distraction, it can also be a source of discipline you desperately need. StayFocusd will limit the amount of time you can spend certain site. It also lets you choose what to block – an entire website, a specific web page and even different types of content like videos and games.

8. RiteTag Social Media Optimizer

Do you spent much time wondering which hashtag you should use for a certain story? Maybe you’re unsure whether adding a particular hashtag will add or diminish the value of your message? Thinking about these problems can be quite time-consuming, especially if you’re person that tweets more than ten times every day. However, Rite Tag provides analytics on hashtags you regularly use, which will help you save a lot of time.

9. Figure it Out

One of the biggest challenges you face when working globally has nothing to with cultural differences or even language barriers. Your main challenge is figuring out what it is in a different geo-region without doing the math. With the Figure it Out extension, you’ll be able to add up to ten different time zones, which will help you schedule your posts and even set up meetings with people from different regions.

10. VPN Extension

This item on our list is not only reserved for people who live in countries like China, Vietnam and Portugal, where the government blocks access to certain social media sites. It is also recommendable to anyone that likes to write from their dorm room or favorite coffee shop, because regularly block access to certain sites. Of course, there are many providers on the market and the selection of a VPN extension is all up to you, but we have to recommend ExpressVPN, because it offers a wide range of servers and unlimited bandwidth.

Search Engine Optimization Extensions

11. Open SEO Stats

This is perhaps the most popular SEO extension for Google Chrome, marketers often use it see PageRank, Compete Rank and QuantCast Rank and get quick access to info about backlinks, indexed and cached pages, among other things. This basically means that Open SEO gives you a complete overview of any information about any website on the Internet.

12. iPage

Google Toolbar is always great for [age ranking, but seeing how it isn’t available for Chrome, you’ll want an alternative. And luckily, iPage Chrome is just that. It allows to set your settings to show page rank in results, or show rank for individual pages and domains. All in all, it is a small, but nevertheless useful page rank checker extension.

13. Shareaholic

Shareaholic might not be a “real” SEO extension, but everyone knows the importance of social media likes, shares and general presence in search engine ranking. So, you could easily use this app if you want to increase your ranking. The extensions allows you to share your article on multiple social media platforms at the same time, which will make your workload much quicker and definitely easier.

14. MozBar

Moz Analytics one of the most popular analytics tools among SEO marketers, and MozBar is surely the favorite Chrome extension of almost all marketing professionals. Once you download and install this extension, you’ll instantly have access to almost any SEO tool you need, and see various metrics like Link Profile, KW Highlights, Domain and Page Authority.

15. SEO SERP Workbench

You’ll never need to search the SERP position of any page manually once you get SEO SERP Workbench. The tool also allows you to see the ranking on the go, and it is great when you want to look up the SERP of multiple URLs. Last but not least, it supports multiple countries, so no matter where you’re from, you can check the SERP position of a particular website in your country.

While all of these extensions are great for bloggers, it doesn’t mean that you should download each and every one of them instantly. Instead, you should download at least couple of them, and see which ones suit your specific needs. After some trial-and-error, you’ll certainly find what you’re looking for.

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By Adam Ferraresi

Author Bio: Adam always loved the Internet, so much so that he knew that he knew that he was going to become a web developer when he was just 12. He also loves the outdoors, basketball and surfing are his passions, and you can read his insightful articles at wefollowtech.com

General, News

The Top Tech Billionaires In The World In 2016

November 10, 2016 Nir Shein

For many companies, 2016 has been a riotous year. However, billionaires involved in the tech industry continue to be amongst the world’s richest people. From social media to computer technology, internet security to streaming services, the developments in tech continue to dominate the market. The world famous finance magazine Forbes Magazine recently accumulated a list of the top 100 richest individuals in tech. In fact, the tech industry is so successful that the minimum net worth on the top 100 list is $2.2 billion. If you were to combine the wealth of these tech individuals, it accumulates to over $892 billion.

Using Forbes findings, ERS created this brilliant infographic below. It features the top ten tech billionaires in the world. It reveals their current occupation, their tech achievements, estimated fortune and inspiring quotes. Although these tech entrepreneurs are in different sectors within the tech industry, they do share some commonalities. For starters, there are all based in either China or America. Secondly, they are all men and lastly, they are all heads of major tech companies. The infographic reveals a fascinating fact: out of the 51 billionaires living in the United States, 37 of them live in California. So who will take the top spot? For all the answers, let’s check out the infographic now!

Did you like the infographic? Which of these tech billionaires do you think is the most influential? We’d love to hear from you in the comment section below!

General

Family and Teen’s Cyber Security [Infographic]

November 10, 2016 Technologer

Have you ever thought about how teenagers are using the technology at their fingertips? More exposed to technology than any other generation before, 91% of American teens access the Internet through mobile devices on a regular basis. This constant use of their online devices has certain consequences including bad uses of technology such as cyber-bullying, sexting, social media addiction and inappropriate content consumption.

The team at Family Orbit, a locator, and monitoring app to keep your family safe, has gathered some surprising stats and has presented them in the infographic below. You will find out some fascinating facts about teenagers online security as well as some signs to detect Internet addiction.

An infographic by Family Orbit Blog

General, Internet

Is There a Real Future in TV?

May 6, 2016 Nir Shein

Even though online television and streaming services have become very popular, television is still a big part of households across the globe. In fact, revenue for global television actually increased by 5% to $350 billion in 2014. This growth is being led by subscription TV revenues climbing by 5.4% to $179 billion (a little over half of the complete global television revenue).

Television is still the number one source of news for people worldwide. 53% of people choose television as their go-to-source for getting their news. Compare this to those sourcing their news from search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo (at 38%) and those utilizing the news feeds of popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter (at 33%).

For more fasts facts on the future of television, how the Millennial generation is watching television and a snapshot of television viewing around the globe; see the below infographic created by Frame Your TV.

Social Media

The Future of Social Media [Infographic]

May 3, 2016 Technologer

Since the dawn of social media, it’s been evolving and growing at a rapid pace. As we move through 2016, that trend will continue, but where is all of this going? More importantly, if you’re trying to market a business or a blog, how can you stay ahead of the curve?

Today we’ll look at the future of social media, followed by an infographic that helps you make the most of your efforts on today’s platforms.

Predicting the Future of Social Media

Over at on blast blog, I’m always looking to the future, whether it’s in the world of blogging, social media, or anything in between. I’m a big fan of staying ahead of the curve. So, let’s look at social media’s upcoming trends.

The first trend we’ll see coming down the pipeline is more integration in the workplace. For years, companies tried to keep their employees off of Facebook during work hours, but now those same social tools will become crucial to the business.

Things like Facebook For Work are allowing employees to utilize the connected nature of social media to increase their efficiency. While most businesses are also using blogs, we’re going to see a lot more people stop working in offices, and instead work from home.

Entrepreneurs are beginning to see the potential of their blog post ideas in the realm of business, and that’s leading to more bloggers promoting their content on social media. In addition, new types of content like video and virtual reality will become important to implement into your online strategies.

Becoming a Social Media Master (Infographic)

Knowing the future is only half the battle. Now you should use the infographic below to understand the how’s and why’s behind social media platforms. Let us know how it helps you in the comments below!

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This is a guest post by Matt Banner. You can read more from him on his blog, OnBlastBlog.com

General

Smart Appliances & the Kitchen of Tomorrow [Infographic]

April 15, 2016 Nir Shein

Some of us might be slow to adopt new technologies, while others will have the latest gadgets and software as soon as it appears on the market. People in the latter category have most likely embraced the concept of the smart kitchen, where appliances such as fridges, cookers and washing machines are programmed with unprecedented intelligence and can be controlled from your smartphone.

With the smart appliance market growing from $40 million in 2010 to $9.7 billion today, and projected to break $26 billion in the next three years, it’s clearly a market that is rapidly growing. Already there are numerous apps and smart kitchen products on the market, including the Egg Minder, which updates you on the number of eggs you have at home; and the Prep Pad, which detects the nutritional content of any food item placed on it. Meanwhile, apps such as How to Cook Everything and Jamie Oliver’s Recipes come stocked with enough recipes to suit even the fussiest eater.

This infographic from Pennywell shows that smart kitchen appliances can provide numerous benefits and make your household chores a great deal easier. If you want to learn more about fridges that can tell you what’s inside when you’re 100+ miles away, or ovens that know how much cooking time a recipe needs, then feast your eyes downwards to gaze into the kitchen of tomorrow.

Mobile

Smartphone Apps That Measure Your Broadband Stats

October 23, 2015 Technologer

There are various reasons why you might want to have the ability to measure a variety of stats relating to your broadband connection. When you are paying for a broadband connection, you will want to know that you are getting what you have paid for in terms of connection speed. If you have a restricted amount of bandwidth each month then you will also need to monitor how much of that allowance you have been using. Mobile apps can be a great way to monitor both your broadband usage and your performance. Let’s take a look at some of the apps that are available for this purpose.

Speedtest.net Mobile Speed Test

Speedtest.net have been one of the most popular sites for testing internet speed connections for several years and now they are also offering an app for testing the speed of mobile internet connection. It is pretty much the go to app for iPhone users and it also has a pretty big following among Android users as well. This quick and easy test can let you know if your internet provider is really offering you the speed of broadband connection that they have promised and can be very helpful if you suspect that you are not getting what you have paid for.

Verizon My FiOS

If you happen to have subscribed to your internet services via one of the many Verizon bundles that are available, then you will no doubt find the Verizon My FiOS app useful. The app is available for both Android and iOS devices and allows you to monitor your usage and manage your account right from your smartphone. The app can be used to pay your bill, redeem rewards points and monitor your monthly usage. The app is free of charge and available to all Verizon FiOS Broadband customer.

SamKnows Mobile Whitebox

The SamKnows app was actually designed in partnership with the FCC and some of the United States’ top mobile providers. It measures a variety of broadband stats including the following:

download speeds
upload speeds
latency
packet loss
jitter
additional passive metrics

The app is available for both iOS and Android, with the Android version able to run in the background while you are using your phone. This is great for building up a long term picture of your broadband connection’s performance without much effort on your part!

Traffic Monitor

Another useful app which is available in the Apple App store for iOS devices is Traffic Monitor. This in a mobile speed test and data usage widget which can be downloaded free of charge. It offers an at a glance look at both speed and performance.

These are just a handful of the apps that you can choose from in order to monitor the speed of your internet connection or keep tab on your data usage. It is worth noting that although most internet providers do offer apps like this, it is sometimes best to download a back up from an independent source, just to verify what your ISP is suggesting. After all, your provider has good reason to fudge connection speed figures, so why not put your mind at rest by checking the results from more than one app to get an accurate reading.

image via chipchick

General, Hardware

Internet Of Things: How Can It Help You Improve Your Life

June 19, 2015 Nir Shein

The Internet of Things is a phrase we are encountering a lot more recently. It was coined in 1999 by Mr. Kevin Ashton to describe how specific Internet objects can communicate with each other in order to carry out a task. This info-graphic from Half Price Shutters in Australia shows how this is occurring in objects for the home which will make our lives easier.

Internet, Marketing

Report: The Real ROI of Social Media Marketing

June 2, 2015 Mordecai Holtz

Social media and digital marketing is everywhere. Any brand attempting to promote, engage, and connect with their target audience in today’s day and age is using social media to market to their constituents. While only 10 years old, social media has become a catalyst in restoring the one to one relationship between brands and consumers.

In its 2015 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, Social Media Examiner, a leader in the space, has provided invaluable insight as to how brands and individuals are using social media for marketing purposes.

Interestingly, the most important question (“What is the ROI of social media?”)remains to be answered in a concrete manner. Does that mean that social media will disappear? Probably not. What this report does seem to document is that, with the initial trend of social media integration behind us, companies and brands are now transitioning to a point requiring a more transparent and clearer reporting for concrete results of social media marketing.

The Highlights

After reviewing Top Rank’s analysis of the report, which enumerates five major benefits of social media on business, there are some additional findings which warrant discussion and should be raised for longer term consideration.

The Role of Video Marketing

While nearly 60% of marketers already utilize video in their marketing efforts, 72% indicated that video marketing is part of their short term goals to integrate into their digital strategy. Especially with recent changes on Facebook, video marketing is clearly an important channel for content creation and marketing.

In fact, in the study, learning to create videos is the number one area that marketers wish to increase their knowledge and expertise.

Growth of Podcasting in Digital Mix

To date, only 10% of marketers are using podcasting as a tool to create content and engage with an audience.

Why?

Like video, podcasting requires a significant investment in resources to produce a final product. While Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Instagram represent platforms on which content can be automated or quickly shared, podcasting can only be distributed after the raw content has been edited and modified for optimal brand promotion. Unlike blog content, which can be edited in real time, the time and energy involved prior to distributing podcast content, dissuades many marketing teams from integrating this form of content.

Interestingly, the small group of marketers using podcasting praise its value and high engagement rates since the content is automatically pushed and syndicated to a user’s phone or desktop via a platform like Itunes. While content on a blog can be sent via email, the simplicity of podcast syndication and ability to listen at one’s leisure signifies a user controlled experience with which other forms of content are unable to compete.

The Secondary Benefits of Social Media Marketing

The report does indicate that those marketers involved in social media for over two years are actually seeing sales from the relationships and communities that they’ve established. To date, the secondary benefits (branding, exposure, partnerships, lead gen, cost savings, search rankings) outweigh the direct impact of social media on business revenue.

An intriguing development in the secondary benefits of social media is the ability for content writing and social conversation to enable a brand or personality to position themselves as thought leaders within an industry.

In today’s digital space, these secondary benefits are indeed significant, within the context of a brand’s ability to solidify the opportunities into concrete sales. Briefly stated, search ranking, for example, does help a brand gain advantage over its competitors on search engines. If, however, the user is directed to a site that is not optimized for conversion or otherwise confusing, the benefit of search engine optimization has proven to be insignificant.

Measuring the ROI of Social Media

One of the most significant results that emerged from the study is that only 42% of marketers can actually measure the direct result of their marketing efforts. While the number does show 5% increase from 2014, and 16% increase from 2013, the results still do raise questions in terms of return on investment.

Many of the marketers claiming this challenge are ill-equipped with the necessary reporting tools or do not invest the necessary time on social media as the primary factors in their inability to show direct ROI.

What are some of the most effective social media platforms?

An important aspect of the report was a list of the top seven social media platforms being used by marketers. In order of usage- Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, Youtube, Pinterest and Instagram. Instagram did increase its position by 8% and, despite the common notion that Google+ is becoming more insignificant, the social media platform increased by 2% since 2014.

An important distinction made in the report is the social media platforms used by B2B vs B2C marketers. B2C marketers focus on Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest and Instagram. These four are highly visual based platforms that resonate with consumers looking for visually appealing content prior to making purchase decisions.

For B2B marketers, the focus shifts to Linkedin, Twitter, Google+ and Slideshare. The reason for this differential is that B2B marketing efforts focus on establishing relationships, industry related content and understanding the employee within the context of his or her professional role.

As marketers prepare for future social media efforts, both B2B and B2C efforts are shifting their efforts to increase usage on Twitter, learning to leverage video marketing and integrating Instagram into their overall digital strategy. Again, while many individuals in the social media sphere shy away from Google+, the report indicates that 78% of marketers plan to maintain or increase their activities on this platform.

With regards to newer social media platforms including Snapchat, the report indicates a low rate of interest of marketers to integrate Snapchat or other new social platforms into their overall marketing efforts.

In terms of Snapchat, the reasons could be lack of interest, lack of familiarity with usability or associating Snapchat with an audience incongruent with their target audience. For other new platforms, marketers could be showing a sense of complacency to constantly learn and integrate new platforms or they could be more interested in proving value in the core, more commonly accepted, platforms before venturing into new ones.

For those marketers who are comfortable with being early adopters in new platforms or are willing to risk venturing into new territories, these platforms do indeed present significant opportunities.

Like Top Rank, I agree that a very important result from the 2015 Social Media Examiner report is the ability of marketers to quantify specific objectives and show results that meet these goals. With this report, an important question that remains unanswered in the social media marketing sphere is which benefits play a more significant role direct or indirect sales benefits?

This post was originally published on noholtzbarred blog

General, Internet

Buy a Used Vehicle Without Getting Ripped Off by Car Dealers

May 14, 2015 Technologer

Purchasing a vehicle whether new or used is a great investment and you want to make the smart decision for your budget and lifestyle. You need to take your time in finding the right offer so you can avoid getting ripped off by car dealers. Here are some tips that can help you close the right deal.

Ask for a mechanical car check

You need a mechanic or any car knowledgeable friend that will open the hood of you vehicle and do a quick inspection to make sure the car is in a good condition. If you can’t find anyone at least listen the engine and make a transmission and air conditioning check. You need to be rational and don’t have great expectations if you are paying a very small amount of money.

Check the tires

Observe the tire wear. They need to be even and consistent. If there are worn out you might have to invest in new parts sooner than you’ve expected. You also need to make sure the oil is ok and make simple comparisons. Check if there is water or some additive in the oil. If it’s more brown than red, you need to check whether it smells burned. Don’t forget to check under the car as well and anything that might been hidden. Even small visible scratches may indicate there has been a more serious damage to the vehicle.

Ask for a test drive

Drive the vehicle at least 15 minutes to check whether overheating may occur. Once you are on the road pay attention if the car tracks straight down the road. Practice stopping your car on the side road with your hands off the wheel. Can you notice if the car stops straight? While driving, make sure the car doesn’t bounce all around and it has the same mileage as on the odometer. Focus on all the small details. Is the windshield sand blasted and appears old? Are the brake pads worn out? Use your test drive wisely and inspect the condition of the vehicle carefully.

Ask for a car history report

This is one of the inexpensive and trustworthy ways to check the record of the used car. The vehicle history report will give you a detailed record based on the car’s serial number and all the public record information you need. You’ll be able to find out whether there were minor damages in the past due to improper maintenance, odometer frauds and recalls. You can also identify whether it’s been stolen or owned by hire car rental agencies. However don’t rely completely on this report since only the public information is revealed and further car inspection might be required.

Never settle for the first offer

Remember, there are a lot of options online and you don’t want to settle for the first car that looks good. Do a research of the model and ask for a car comparison between two or three models you prefer. Some reputable used car supermarkets such as Fords of Winsford and others will offer you advice from automotive experts and help you make the right decision. So take your time and enjoy the car buying ride.

Good luck with buying your very first car.

Internet

Net Neutrality: Who Is For It, Who Is Against It and Why [Infographic]

April 26, 2015 Nir Shein

Net Neutrality is one of the most talked about topics at the moment. What exactly does it mean?

Essentially, Net Neutrality is the principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally. Internet Service providers want to end Net Neutrality and give priority to certain traffic, while the FCC want to maintain Net Neutrality so all Internet traffic is equal.

The overwhelming concern is that if we lose Net Neutrality the Internet as we know it will be gone forever. It will function more like cable television, where service providers are like gatekeepers who present us with the content they want us to see, rather than the user being free to explore the Internet in any way they wish. The Internet needs to remain a level playing field, and the fight for Net Neutrality is about maintaining the Internet as we know it. It is without question a fight worth fighting.

This info-graphic from Pepeyee outlines the main players in the Net Neutrality argument, the benefits of Net Neutrality, and the important wins and losses in the battle to preserve Net Neutrality since Tim Wu coined the term in 2003.

Internet, software

Google Chrome: How It Won The Browsers Battle

April 21, 2015 Nir Shein

Web browsers have become such a fundamental part of our digital lives. I mean, seriously, who doesn’t use one on a daily basis?!

The launch of Google’s Chrome in 2008 looked unlikely to knock Internet Explorer out the water but flash forward to now and it’s done that and much more.

On its way to glory, Google’s browser outpaced its Mozilla rival by taking a slice of 42.74 percent of all desktop browser market share, with Internet Explorer gaining 13.17 percent in the second place, and Mozilla Firefox with only 11.72 percent on the third.

Chrome has definitely conquered the world, with the popular browser continuing to dominate all three major channels: mobile, desktop and tablets.

Find out how it reined supreme here:

Infographic is courtesy of cloudsolutions

Accessories, Internet

New ‘Star Wars’ Emoji Available on Twitter

April 17, 2015 Nir Shein

At a recent kick-off celebration of Disney’s next big Star Wars: The Force Awakens in Anaheim, California, director and producer J.J. Abrams (who happened to wear a shiny stainless-still Apple watch on his wrist) officially unveiled to a welcoming crowd of Star Wars fans, a cute rolling droid, called the BB-8.

Meanwhile, as you plainly can see above, Twitter has added three custom Star Wars emoji shortcuts to your keyboard and such.

#SWCA is here can you feel it? Now introducing #StarWarsEmojis on @Twitter… #StormTrooper pic.twitter.com/JaoM1r4EfH — Star Wars (@starwars) April 16, 2015

Celebrate @starwars #TheForceAwakens & #SWCA with one of three new #StarWarsEmojis on Twitter. Now introducing: #C3PO pic.twitter.com/o7Q7XJbYob — Twitter (@twitter) April 16, 2015

BOOM! #BB8 #StarWarsEmojis pic.twitter.com/8Svc3hWvXQ — Bad Robot (@bad_robot) April 16, 2015

The new episode, which will be coming out on the big screen in time for the Christmas holidays of 2015, is making quite a buzz these days as the film’s second official trailer video has landed. Yeah, that’s they’re way to keep in touch with the fans and make them all feel enthused and excited.

[youtube id=”ngElkyQ6Rhs”]

via polygon

Marketing

These Numbers Show Exactly Why You Need a Digital Marketing Strategy [INFOGRAPHIC]

March 2, 2015 Nir Shein

Digital Marketing is probably the fastest growing channel for the delivery of sustainable growth and jobs for businesses and individuals. The digital space is experiencing exponential growth with the aim of bringing more marketing potential and money into the online world. This is true across all industries as the economy evolves and more marketers shift money into digital.

Here are some important statistics about Digital Marketing and why you should be considering a digital strategy as well.

Infographic is courtesy of Dot Com Infoway

Design, Marketing

Here Are Some Of The Most Important Conversion Optimization Numbers You Should Know About

December 21, 2014 Technologer

It is that time of the year again when everyone rushes to sum up the year and plan for the next. So these past few weeks we have been working on getting as many numbers as possible to understand the current conversion optimization statistics. Understanding what marketers are doing, how shoppers are behaving, what devices people are converting on and more importantly what to look forward to in 2015 can be a crucial part of your plans for the upcoming year.

Here are some very interesting numbers coming up from this year’s companies and spenders:

63% of marketers optimize websites based on intuition & best practices.
73% of companies have no idea why consumers abandon their shopping carts.
Poor A/B testing methodologies are costing online retailers up to $13bn a year in lost revenue.

Here’s what you all should look at in the conversion optimization statistics infographic below:

2014:

What marketers are doing
How Customers Are Spending
Conversion by traffic
Conversion by Devices
Mobile Apps Numbers
Where & When to Invest in Social Marketing
Making Videos Convert
Retail Numbers and Stats

2015:

What’s next?

This post originally published on Talia Wolf’s blog

Talia helps businesses plan and execute conversion optimization programs. She runs thousands of A/B tests using emotional targeting and persuasive design to grow their business.

Computers, General

The History Of Internet Copyright Rules And Why You Should Care About It [Infographic]

November 11, 2014 Nir Shein

You know how it is when you want to download a photo for your website or this wonderful song that you have heard on the radio, and you kinda wondering if they’re copyright protected and where exactly does the borderline go.

As you all probably know, the internet is a dark place when it comes to copyright issues, but the history tells us it has widely changed over the years and helped to further shape copyright law into what it is today. However, the more things changed, the more they’ve managed to remain the same, only just that bit more complex (and restrictive).

A lot of people are just not familiar with the laws or how the Internet works when it comes to copyright laws, and this infographic sketch shows us how it started, right from the very beginning.

While the Internet offers us the ultimate freedom to go and access almost anywhere and download almost anything we want, a copyright Infringement should be taken-in immediately as a possible risk factor.

Have you ever been faced with the dilemma of copyright infringement? What do you think about it?

Mobile

Here’s What The Future of Mobile Will Look Like [infographic]

February 7, 2014 Nir Shein

Mobile is a hot topic these days, everyone has a phone, or a smartphone for this matter, and wants to do all kind of daily stuff with it, from taking beautiful pictures to navigating your car, playing games, sending instant messages, emailing, and surfing the web; it’s all possible, even on a small mobile phone.

With such a promising given scenario, you’re always wondering how things are going to look in the future.

Three Mobile have used current data to predict ways in which mobile technology will change the way we live. Three estimate that by 2016, more than 309 billion apps will be downloaded to devices from the different app stores, by 2017, almost a billion of us will be connected through 4G technology, and that by 2020 more than 50 billion things will be connected to the internet, and by 2025, more than 5.4 billion people will be connected to the internet – 80% via mobile.

Clearly the future is bright for the mobile world and in the next few years we will see global adoption as this technology continues to develop. Check out the stats in this infographic:

View the latest mobile phones on Three

[Image credit: Jon Fingas]

General, Mobile

8 Instagram Web Services That Can Help You Manage and Organize Your Photos

August 2, 2012 Nir Shein 2 Comments

Instagram, the most popular photo-sharing service these days, has officially hit 80 million users who have uploaded more than 4 billion photos, since its launch in October 2010. Acquired by Facebook for a staggering $1 billion, the San Francisco-based startup behind the popular mobile photo application, was initially built for iPhone, and got extended to Android users in April of 2012.

Regardless of their popularity, If there’s one thing missing from Instagram, is a simple and intuitive web-based user interface. And while the company appears to be committed to find a decent solution for the average user, more and more third-party companies are jumping on the Instagram bandwagon.

To remedy this problem, we have gathered a list of eight Instagram web services to help you manage, sort, organize, and share your digital images, as the photo space heat up. Check it out after the break.

Continue reading 8 Instagram Web Services That Can Help You Manage and Organize Your Photos →

tablets

Google’s Android Honeycomb OS and Android Market Website Officially Announced

February 3, 2011 Nir Shein

Looking back on early January 2011, we catch a glimpse of an awesome experience of the Android 3.0 video teasers. Looking forward to what’s ahead of this year let us capture a vision of the great Honeycomb OS which will inevitably make Android the dominant Smartphone and Tablet platform of the future. The rapid ascent of Android has prompted Google to go ahead and announce the official release of its latest creation, made by Palm’s former UI designer, Matias Duarte, and best known as the Android Honeycomb – Google’s answer to many of tablet -based OS out there. And while there wasn’t much news about it, it is still worth watching – especially for those that widgets, finger gestures, or 3D rendering matters spark their interest. The one thing however, that caught most people’s eyes was Google’s Android Market which has finally turned official, as a web client, and gone live couple of hours ago with a very neat and simple Market catalog to browse (more than 50,000 apps inside) with both free and paid Android applications preloaded on board. Move forward after the break to catch up with Google’s full event.

Continue reading Google’s Android Honeycomb OS and Android Market Website Officially Announced →

Computers, Internet, News

Apple Reveals Its ‘iPad-Ready’ Websites List

April 2, 2010 Nir Shein 1 Comment

The iPad is scheduled to go live in less than 24 hours now, and there seems to be an enormous excitement across the blogsphere pond – everyone is looking forward to Saturday morning fete. Apple’s week is definitely going to be busy and long queues will start stretching along the streets – it’s going to be fun, no doubt. But the iPad, which most people would probably define as an internet surfing board, lacks Flash and that’s completely rigid, especially for the sake of web video support . Still, Apple has just released a descent list of various popular websites which are said to include latest web standard components such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript that suppose to fully support the iPad internet experience. Among those sites you’ll find CNN, Reuters, New York Times, Vimeo, Time, Major League Baseball, The White House, Virgin America, Sports Illustrated, Flickr, People Magazine and TED. Happy Surfing!

[Apple]

Computers, News

Apple’s iPad To Make Official Debut On April 3rd (Update: Now Available For Pre-Order)

March 5, 2010 Nir Shein 1 Comment

Now it’s official, the tablet everyone’s been waiting for is due out on April 3rd with Apple to start taking non-3G iPad pre-orders a week from now, on March 12th. The official announcement, which was fully added after the break, states that slate fanboys from countries like Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK will get the option to shell out their cash and buy one (3G or non-3G model) at the same exact US date of release, in the first week of the fourth month, with prices starting at $499 for a 16GB WiFi enabled iPad, and up to $829 if you’re out for the 64GB with WiFi and 3G flavors. Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs says: “We’re excited for customers to get their hands on this magical and revolutionary product and connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before”, and we say “Bring it on baby!”

Update1: It’s here! Apple’s latest and greatest tablet, AKA iPad, is now available for pre-order. Shipping date is due to April 3, as mentioned, and customers will be limited up to 2 devices each. Happy raid!

Update2: First stock of Apple’s iPad devices is SOLD OUT! and it’s not that we’re surprised, but just in case you wanted to get one and missed the train, then April 12th, a little over a week, is your next chance to jump to your close station.

Update3: Don’t color us surprise here fellows, we weren’t falling out of our chairs when first heard the iSuppli team, who thoroughly broke down the 16GB iPad components into pieces, decisively claiming a grand total of $259.60 net worth – almost half the price charged by Apple in stores (which stands at $499). Now, it wouldn’t be fair to go and look at things this way, without including R&D plus overhead expenses, would it? In any case, we still think that people should know exactly what they’re paying for, either it’s a $95 screen, or $26.80 for the 1GHz A4 processor.

Continue reading Apple’s iPad To Make Official Debut On April 3rd (Update: Now Available For Pre-Order) →

Applications, Communication, Internet, Mobile, News

Google Buzz Gets More Updates And Improvements, Reaching Over 9 Million Posts and Comments

February 12, 2010 Nir Shein 2 Comments

Only two days after turning the Buzz official within Gmail accounts, Google seems to roll out more tweaks and improvements, based on feedbacks and user requests, sent directly or to its help desk account. First and foremost, Google has closed security breach where people could actually see lists of friends and followers which automatically appeared on new Google Pages that people initially created to post their Buzz feeds. Those lists created based on interaction with people you email and chat with the most, could literally expose to the world details no one wanted to unveil. There for, from now on the first time you create a post or comment in Buzz, you will be asked to initiate a limited public profile with minimal info released outside. In addition, you can easily choose whether to turn on publicly the lists of people you follow or that follow you back and which of these species can appear publicly on your profile or not. Furthermore, Google adds the ability to block followers or unfollow them with a simple click of a button. Stay tuned.

Update1: Google says that since launched, tens of millions of people have checked Buzz out, creating over 9 million posts and comments, overwhelmingly added to the growing 200+ posts per minute, initiated from mobile phones around the world.

Update2: So you’re already involved with the Buzz, posting your stuff and following others, but you’re not exactly familiar with all those tricks and tweaks the service offers and wonder where you could have learned them all in a matter of minutes. For that reason specifically, we’ve added a Google Buzz cheat sheet where you can find all the keys and shortcuts that would make it easier for you to use the Buzz. Check it out after the break.

Update3: Google has wisely decided to remove the Buzz auto-follow model in which you automatically follow the people you email and chat with most, whenever initiate a new Google profile page. Instead of this auto-suggest model you will be taken into a welcome page, where you will be reviewing the people in your lists that you’re interested outing to the public and others, you prefer keeping them hidden (third image after the break). In addition, your Buzz will not connect with your Google Reader and Picasa shared items automatically, so your “Unlisted” albums or “Protected” reading sources won’t be revealed, unless you decide to. And last but not least, Google has confirmed it will soon add a Buzz tab to the Gmail account that would create a clear distinction between your day-to-day mailing content and your Googlr Buzz feeds (fourth image). Stay tuned.

[Google]

Continue reading Google Buzz Gets More Updates And Improvements, Reaching Over 9 Million Posts and Comments →

Computers, Mobile

Handheld US To Introduce The Algiz 7 Field Tablet PC

February 10, 2010 Nir Shein

Now, don’t you think that Apple’s iPad device is the only tablet available around (…or yet to be available in a month). A company called Handheld US has one of its own, Algiz 7 that is, which carries a 1.6GHz Atom processor under the hood and a 7-inch touchscreen display right over the top (MaxView technology to ensure easy viewing in bright). To make sure you get no scratches down the field, the company added protective rubbers at each one of the corners while connection wise, it seems you’re covered as well with WiFi, Bluetooth, built-in GPS, and optional 3G bundled inside the package. Besides that, for a non-disclosure price you get yourself 2GB of RAM, paired with a 64GB SSD storage, a swappable 2400 mAh dual battery pack and Windows 7 Professional to handle things on ground. It suppose to come out next month with IP65 and MIL-STD-810G standards to endure humidity, smacks and shakes when taken outdoor, as weight is at 2.4lbs.

Applications, Communication, Internet, Mobile, News

Google Buzz Announced, Turns Your Web Mail Socialized And Your Mobile Device Localized

February 10, 2010 Nir Shein

Google officially released the Buzz. What is it, you’re asking? It’s Mountain View’s new platform that integrates into your Gmail account and turns it into a social community center (sort of), where you can share things like updates, photos, videos and a lot more with people you email and chat with the most. Additionally, the Buzz allows you to start interacting with those people and make in-mail conversations about anything you’d like in a simple and attractive way. The purpose, according to Bradley Horowitz, Google’s vice president for product management, is to simplify things and help people …”to find signal in the noise”. The target, in our humble opinion, is to launch a successful email product that would make people stick around all day long, and by that, create their own personal streaming platform that would eventually attract potential web users to follow their buzz and turn their voice even louder. Is it a war declaration against popular services like Twitter and Facebook? Time would tell. Google’s buzz integrates with existing social networks and people can easily add their Flickr, Picasa, Twitter, Yahoo or Facebook accounts, and even Google Reader feeds, into the Buzz while creating a new social networking interface/aggregator that would gather both mailing usage and media streaming in one accessible place. So, direct war? not sure, but challenging Facebook’s social media domination? definitely yes.

Basically, no special setup is needed and Gmail users should expect seeing the Buzz in their mail accounts immediately, or later on this week, as Google rolls out its new platform across the web, at these very moments . Once receiving it you will automatically start seeing lists of people, who you have emailed on Gmail, added to your Buzz. At that point you can start sharing with them whatever you want, including pictures, messages, videos, articles, news feeds and more, either publicly or in private. It’s a dual direction platform, so in that case you will see their updates as well, but also a few “Recommended Buzz” from friends of your friends, adjusted to your personal feedback.

As for mobile phones, Google also announced mobile integration for Buzz with dedicated apps and maps and an updated homepage you can log into at google.com/buzz. Buzz for mobile makes your sharing a lot easier than expected, it ” brings location to the forefront and makes it easy to have conversations about places”. To start, just type buzz.google.com in your mobile browser address line and begin posting buzz from your phone. You can tag your location or use the suggested tag if correct and later on, search all the public buzz created by your friends or nearby strangers around you in any given location you’ve personally tagged. This way you get yourself a personal location and recommendation platform, based on people’s most basic and common opinions, carried by their smartphones. As mentioned, you can use Google Maps and create public buzz directly from the layer, and attach photos into it from your mobile phone. You can create Textual Buzz shortcuts which appear as a small conversation bubble that everyone can see and read, or go even cooler by creating Voice Buzz shortcuts which let you post buzz without typing a word – Neat! Hit the break to watch the videos.

Update1: Looks like Google Maps 4.0 with Buzz support now available in the Android Market for those who own Android-based smartphones like G1, Droid or Nexus One. Feel free to download it right away and share the Buzz with your friends!

Continue reading Google Buzz Announced, Turns Your Web Mail Socialized And Your Mobile Device Localized →

Computers, News

ExoPC Atom N270 Tablet Makes it Out With Windows 7 Onboard

February 1, 2010 Nir Shein 1 Comment

How much are you willing to pay for a brand new tablet, $400, $500, maybe $600 or seven hundred? In apple’s iPad case it may sound reasonable, but when it comes to ExoPC, a small company from France, we have our doubts. The last, as we hear, has recently gone official with an 8.9-inch Atom N270 CPU, paired with 2GB of RAM , 32GB of solid state drive, Windows 7 Premium (which means full browser support with flash) and slick rounded design (iPad anyone?). It also includes a multitouch display on top, 1.3MP webcam in front, wifi, Bluetooth, Ethernet 10/100, VGA output and 3 x USB ports – is that a netbook or what? Well, not if you count battery time – “only” four hours of work. Right now it’s available in prototype mode for a whopping $780 and non-multitouch screen, but prices will presumably drop down to $599 when this thing comes out sometime this March.

Update1: And just in case you were wondering what exactly happens inside the ExoPC bowels, hit the break and get a taste. You will find that Intel Atom N270 CPU, tucked with a 945 Express chipset, a Ene memory card controller and an open Mini PCI-Express slot. OH, and there’s also a big fan as you can see, to cool things around.

Update2: The guys at engadget were lucky enough to get a video of the ExoPC in action and from their initial impressions it seems to be responsive despite the “low-pressure” resistive touchscreen. Other than that, it looks pretty bulky in our humble opinion, but hey, it’s up to you to decide whether to shell $599 for this one or get Apple’s iPad for $100 less. Hit the break to see the video.

Update3: Looks like ExoPC has decided to wait just a few more months before going out with its most attractive 8.9-inch tablet. The purpose of this postpone is specs improvement, in order to match current components standards.

“With [CiaraTech’s] help we are improving the specs: better processor, graphics, better battery life, thinner, better screen and touch panel. We should hit FCC soon. As we have more time we are adding more features in the ExoPC UI Layer (ex. an app / media store).”

Update4: Turns out the ExoPC will not be available before September 7th of this year. In addition, the company plans to replace the old N270 processor with a new one, probably Intel’s Atom N450, along with a Broadcom Crystal HD accelerator, to improve 1080p video support. Stay tuned.

Update5: It seems the ExoPC final name will be the “Slate” and rumors claim it will be offered in four different flavors including 32GB WiFi, 32GB WiFi or 3G / GPS, and 64GB WiFi or + 3G / GPS. Check out the second hands-on video we’ve added after the break.

[via slashgear]

Continue reading ExoPC Atom N270 Tablet Makes it Out With Windows 7 Onboard →

Computers, Internet, News, Video

Apple iPad Tablet Officially Live Starting at $499

January 27, 2010 Nir Shein 6 Comments

[tweetmeme]

It’s been a wild day with big news and one single product – The iPad. Yes guys, Apple’s tablet is officially out, no more rumors, no speculations, no overpriced ($999) guesses or foolish mockups, this time it’s for real, and it would cost only $499 (16GB), $599 (32GB) or $699 (64GB), courtesy of Cupertino. As is, it looks very sexy, only 0.5-inches thin and 1.5 pounds of weight. Display is almost ten inches wide, and to be more accurate, 9.7-inches. Screen resolution is basically like every usual netbook, 1024X768, but the screen itself, as you may have guessed, supports a capacitive multitouch usability, the kind you’d find in an iPhone. It has 802.11n wifi, Bluetooth, and in some models even a 3G cellular connectivity, that will run in AT&T and around the world for a monthly fee og either $14.99 (250MB data) or $29.99 (unlimited package). Steve jobs says they are all UNLOCKED and that the processor inside is powered by Apple’s custom designed A4 chipset (which is speculated to be an Arm Cortex 9 processor). Battery wise, Stevo claims a 10 hours of work and almost a month in standby mode, while UI is basically similar to the iPhone, only revamped to support browsing, emails, photos, video (including Youtube), music, games and ebooks on a larger scale.

Yes, Apple thinks that netbooks are slow and made of low quality, and that’s why they came up with a tablet, which frankly is an hybrid creation of the company’s iPhone and Mac in one single device. Naturally, it comes with a built-in accelerometer, the kind that lets you play top-notch shooting and high speed racing games, joystick free, and GPS system if you were asking, is also part of the deal, so navigation, satellite images and street view topography are now available on the go. Like any light and sophisticated machine, you can send emails, engage your contacts, surf the net and sync music with iTunes – and this is the time to mention it has a USB connector for that mission and other collaborative tasks you can think of. But the iPad, is not just for internet and multimedia consuming, it’s also for book reading, like Yahoo’s Kindle, only with colors. But that’s not all, because Apple like Apple developed an iBook app this purpose, and to make things profitable, there is an online store – just for books – starting today! So there you have it, an all-in-one media device with music, videos, almost 150k optional apps, personal office manager, ebook reader and almost endless usage possibilities. On the down side, it doesn’t have a camera inside and we haven’t seen any HDMI output to pump your vids. The bezel is too wide, there’s no flash supported and last but not least, no multitasking – NO MULTITASKING. Instead you can work on sheets, tables and charts, through iWork, that was tweaked by Apple’s teams to fit the iPad. Want it? this ain’t come free – $9.99.

Update1: There are also some optional accessories to buy, like a standalone dock or one that comes with a keyboard, a camera connection kit, or an iPad case. Checkout the Apple store for more on that.

Update2: The iPad supports wide range of codecs including H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats.

Update3: Here are the overall prices:

16GB with WiFi: $499
32GB with WiFi: $599
64GB with WiFi: $699
16GB with WiFi & 3G: $629
32GB with WiFi & 3G: $729
64GB with WiFi & 3G: $829

Update4: Apple have partnered with five major publishers, including Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, MacMillan and Hachett Book Group, to bring into your iPad color or B/W content.

Update5: Apple PR announcement plus images plus video added after the break.

[Apple]

Continue reading Apple iPad Tablet Officially Live Starting at $499 →

Audio, Media Players, Video

iRiver's 3.5-inch K1 PMP Introduced, WiFi and Web Browser Included

January 10, 2010 Nir Shein

This isn’t the best year to find new media players at the CES show in Vegas. Still, if you look closer, you just might see a few, hidden, while walking down the halls. One of them, which looks quiet similar to the Cowon S9, is iRiver’s 3.5-inch K1, also known as “Smart HD”, which may give you a sense of what it can play, besides the usual batch of formats we all know. Screen resolution is at 480 x 320 and the PMP itself boasts a DMB TV tuner,along WiFi, web browser, a built-in mic and integrated FM tuner. Internet support is definitely the trigger that caught our attention here, but mind you, it can also be used as a mini e-book reader, out of the box, the moment it comes out in South Korea at the end of the month. No price or US release info at the moment.

Update1: It looks like iRiver’s K1 PMP will go live initially in Korea only. It will be offer in variant flavors, including the basic 8GB version, priced at ₩229,000 (about $205), while a DMB mobile TV tuner add-on will run for ₩279,000 (about $250) and the 16GB model for ₩299,000 (about $265). In case you’re into the full fledged pack with WiFi, DMB tuner and 16 gigs of storage, the K1 will cost you ₩349,000, or $310 US dollars.

Update2: We’ve added a new video after the break which demonstrates the new and surprisingly cool user interface that is installed in iRiver’s K1 touchscreen player. It has variant homescreen platforms inside along Cover Flow-like albums engine and well designed circles panel up on front. Apparently, someone in Korea was paying close attention to some worldwide trends, eh?

[Player Bites]

Continue reading →

Applications, Internet, News

Google Wave Introduced, Offering Real-Time Collaborative Interaction Between Instant Messaging, Email Notifications, Document Editing And Other Cool Meshup Extensions

May 31, 2009 Nir Shein 2 Comments

google_wave_logo Not sure if any of this necessarily relates to Microsoft’s search-engine (AKA: Bing) announcement, that suppose to take place in the following days, but this way or another, Google has definitely managed to steal some focus from Redmond’s coming events, by catching our eyes with its latest innovative meshing application – also known as Google Wave. And while many of us tend to separately use IM clients, mail services or word processing editors to work our day, Google’s Australian team has diligently strove for the past two years in putting together these three daily assignments into one amazing collaborative tool which was built into the web-browser sphere in the form of HTML 5.0 and about to be released in the following months.

What is Wave? It’s a new model for communication and collaboration on the web, as a group of people can communicate and work together with rich format text, photos, videos, maps, blogs and more, while any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add even more participants at any point in the process, with a “playback” mode, allowing newcomers to rewind the wave to see who said what and when, before joining the service. And if that wasn’t enough, the entire gathering process, which makes the Wave such a great collaborative tool, surprisingly happens on a real-time platform, where different group members can concurrently read (character-by-character) whatever you type, as you type, without waiting long (private mode is optional).

Still in an early build, with so many useful embedded features around, Google’s online sharing platform undoubtedly shaped for changing our common old-fashioned traits while vigorously aiming to completely revamp any sort of existing mailing interaction, which currently controlled by you’ve guessed right Microsoft itself. But turning Wave into such a powerful application that sincerely pretends to revolutionize our fixed behavior, certainly requires a joint effort involvement from diversified groups across the globe, which probably explains why Google has deliberately decided to widely open up its API platform for 3^rd party developers, explicitly asking their generous assistance in building extensions and outsourcing widgets in order to enhance and maximize interface usability. And speaking about widgets and extensions, it seems there are plenty interesting ways to use Wave, either collaborating together on a new document, sharing embedded photos and videos among friends, IM chatting with multiple users (real-time spelling correction and translation robots included), handling real-time RSVP invitations, or simply playing casual entertaining games – At this point, all options available – and yet it looks like Wave is only halfway through to reach its full potential. Hit the links below to start learning the protocols. Additionally, you can watch Wave’s full demo introduction after the break (long video).

Develop
Learn how to put waves in your site and build wave extensions with the Google Wave APIs.
Visit code.google.com/apis/wave.

Build
Google Wave uses an open protocol, so anyone can build their own wave system.
Learn more at www.waveprotocol.org.

google-wave

[Google]

Continue reading Google Wave Introduced, Offering Real-Time Collaborative Interaction Between Instant Messaging, Email Notifications, Document Editing And Other Cool Meshup Extensions →

Applications, Mobile, Phones, Video

SlingPlayer Mobile For iPhone Announced

January 9, 2009 Nir Shein

It was back in March, when we first reported that Sling wants to have an iphone application, and we’re glad to relize it’s actually happening, as the company announces that the long awaited app is ready to be released and will be demonstrated in San Francisco moments before the software will get to Apple app Store. Still no pricing info, but the full press release is after the break.

Update1: Regretfully, older SlingBox devices won’t be able to stream any TV content directly to iPhone machines (except Slingbox PRO). That means, if you happen to have one of those first editions, you’ll have to shell out extra money and upgrade to Slingbox SOLO or Slingbox PRO-HD in order to enjoy a complete mobility via handhelds, and not just because of technical issues, but more of a greediness from the company itself. We do hope this weird desicion will eventually end up somewhere in the history pages of “failed-to-be-executed”.

Update2: May 12th 2009 – Regretfully, AT&T has issued an official statement, claiming it’d pull the plug out of Sling’s 3G streaming capability, which was integrated into the iPhone with the SlingPlayer. According to the company, this application –

“which would use large amounts of wireless network capacity, could create congestion and potentially prevent other customers from using the network. The application does not run on our 3G wireless network. Applications like this, which redirect a TV signal to a personal computer, are specifically prohibited under our terms of service. We consider smartphones like the iPhone to be personal computers in that they have the same hardware and software attributes as PCs.”

That said, users will be able to use WiFi connectivity in order to log into any web site that lets them view videos. In simple words, 3G – Out, WiFi – In. Now, it’s up to you to search one of the 20,000 hotspots AT&T has deployed across the US, in places like Starbucks, McDonalds, airports, etc.

[via engadget]

Continue reading SlingPlayer Mobile For iPhone Announced →

Audio, Internet, Media Players, Video

Archos 5,7 Devices Get OGG / Flac Support And Better Battery Workout With The New Firmware Update

October 14, 2008 Nir Shein

Archos fans can be very pleased, as the company has just released firmware update 1.0.87 for the Archos 5 and Archos 7 internet media tablets, coming up with OGG / Flac formats support, after so many years. As an Archos avid, I must admit, it wasn’t expected at all and from my personal knowledge, many media junkies havent made any contact with the French players because of that specific reason, so I guess these are great news, wherever you are. Additionally, the new firmware version substantially improves the battery life to 22 hours of audio and 7 hours of video, together with some major bug fixes. It is also been reported that the wifi range was increased and the USB transfer rate has been raised. You can download firmware version 1.0.87 from here.

Meanwhile, we hear that the guys at Pocketables.net have compared websites loading time between the Archos 5, iPhone 3G and the Nokia N810, and the results are truly amazing, as the Archos 5 was the clear winner in every aspect, thanks to the strong 600MHz ARM CortexA8 processor. Checkout the comparing table after the break.

[via Archos]

Continue reading Archos 5,7 Devices Get OGG / Flac Support And Better Battery Workout With The New Firmware Update →

Internet, Mobile, Phones

Apple Has Launched iPhone 3G Online Buying Service

September 26, 2008 Nir Shein

Do you feel reluctant standing in another long tiresome queue to buy an iPhone 3G? It seems Apple has decided to end this torture by announcing a new online tool that can assist potential customers shorten the process. From now on, you can go online and type-in all the billing forms, including name, address, payment details, etc, choose your desirable plan and schedule the time and date you wish to get to any nearby Apple store, in order to collect the merchandise and complete the activation. Regretfully, you get no home delivery and still bound to a 2 years contract, but Apple’s intention is affirmative.

[Apple]

General, Internet, Music, News

Best Buy Acquires Online Music Service Napster For $121M

September 16, 2008 Nir Shein

Online digital music market is getting warmed up, as US retail giant, Best Buy, announces it will acquire Napser for an astonishing $121 million price tag. The transaction is set to be accomplished in Q4 of this year and we have no doubt it was carried out in order to try snatching a substantial share from iTunes’ market dominance. Napster allows its 708,000 subscribers to access an unlimited library of music or using the “Napster Mobile” platform, on their mobile phones, for a small monthly fee of $15. Having said that, the company has never turned a profit, during its long years of existence.

Best Buy president Brian Dunn confirms the company’s desire to expand Napster services and to use “Napster’s capabilities and digital subscriber base to reach new customers with an enhanced experience for exploring and selecting music and other digital entertainment products over an increasing array of devices.” Be sure it’s just the beginning and we expect more developments to take place in the near future. We do hope this move will increase the competition and at the end of the day, will be profitable for the consumers.

[via ZDNet]

Applications, Communication, Games

Nintendo DS Gets Into Twitterland

August 18, 2008 Nir Shein

Twitter users, if you happen to own a Nintendo DS device, you might be interested knowing you can use them both as your microblogging tool, thanks to DSTwitter, a cool twitter application with multilanguage support, that lets you easily twit your friends after ending another Mario Kart game playing. Actually, you can use it whenever you like but before doing so, you will have to make an effort installing the application by setting up the WiFi connection on your DS, Register to Scene Beta website, download the DSTwitter 1.3 version file, extract the contents of the RAR in the root of the memory card and run the program. Complicated but definately worth a try!

[via techdigest]

Computers, Internet, News, Phones

Aigo P8860 MID Goes Live In Asia

August 11, 2008 Nir Shein

First time we had a chance to see this amazing Atom-based MID (Mobile Internet Device) was back at the CES show in January, as Intel introduced its latest Menlow system on the Aigo devices. Now we hear that this amazing Aigo P8860 MID is about to go live in Hong Kong with a 800MHz Atom Z500 processor, a 4.8-inch display, Bluetooth, Wifi, microSD slot expansion, 4GB SSD storage capacity, sliding QWERTY keyboard, GPS navigation system and HSPDA, running on MIDLinux system, also known as Midinux. Prices start at $5,228 HKD ($679) and a Windows XP version is expected later on. Stay tuned for more to come. Meanwhile, checkout the video after the break.

Update: September 29th – The Aigo P8860 makes a worldwide debut, via an official reseller, named Direct From Japan. Just log in and order your device from all over the world, for $699 (including free shipping).

[via Pocketables]

Continue reading Aigo P8860 MID Goes Live In Asia →

Internet, News

Microsoft-Yahoo Affair : End Of Story?

May 4, 2008 Nir Shein

Alright, so Microsoft has officially backed off from bidding on Yahoo, after a roller coaster of ups and downs, that started with an official offer to buy the company for $44.6 Billion, price that reflected $31 per share, back in February. The generous bid has never made any impression on Yahoo’s management, as the company’s directors has officially decided to turn off Microsofts hostile acquisition, claiming the bid is substantially lower than its real value, and whoever wants to buy them should hit $40 per share, meaning extra $9 to Steve Ballmer’s offer. Still, Microsoft clutched to its original bid (desperately trying to stay a major internet player in the growing online advertisement and searching markets) and considered an hostile takeover, by pursuing Yahoo share holders, but at the end of the day, after taking off their threatening suit, the Redmond’s were willing to raise the bid to $33, which was rejected by Yahoo as well and lead to today’s proposal withdraw announcement.

“Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo! has not moved toward accepting our offer. After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo! do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal,” said Ballmer.

Again, that wasn’t much of a squall to Sunnyvale, as Yahoo’s CEO, Jerry Yang, has apathetically responded:

…”With the distraction of Microsofts unsolicited proposal now behind us, we will be able to focus all of our energies on executing the most important transition in our history so that we can maximize our potential to the benefit of our shareholders, employees, partners and users.”

End of story? I’m not so sure, Temporary cease-fire? definitely yes.

[via Microsoft]

Applications, Internet, Phones

Sling Media Wants To Have an iPhone Application

March 29, 2008 Nir Shein

Sling Media, the company that turns any Internet-connected PC, Mac, or smartphone into a home television, wants a foothold in the iPhone application festival. The company has downloaded the SDK package (along with other 100,000 people) and started developing a designated Sling app. (hypothetically) which means, by the time Apple officially releases the new firmware version 2.0, around June, and launches the App store, you could watch TV virtually anywhere in the world through the iPhone, and although EDGE streaming is pretty lousy, it can really work great via WiFi connection. Stay tuned !

[via slashgear]

Applications, Audio, Games, Video

PS3 Firmware Update 2.20 Enables Full Blu-ray 2.0 Capabilities

March 21, 2008 Nir Shein

The upcoming PS3 firmware update, will bring some substantial improvements to the game console. According to Sony, version 2.20, which is just days from launch, will feature Blu-ray spec 2.0 and BD-Live capabilities that include online downloading of video content, ringtones and interactive movies or audio. In addition, you will be able to copy to your PSP photos and music playlists via USB connection. The update will also add movies bookmarking function, so you can return back to the exact point and resume play from where you left off. Furthermore, “Audio Output Device” function will enable the PSP console to serve as a remote control for music played through the PS3. Check the full details after the break.

Update: users will be able to copy Blu-Ray movies directly from the PS3 to the PSP.

Update 2: update one turns to be untrue.

[via gizmodo]

Continue reading PS3 Firmware Update 2.20 Enables Full Blu-ray 2.0 Capabilities →