Today I took a break from SXSWI and went over to Apple’s Popup store in Austin on Congress Avenue to pickup my new iPad 2. My wait was only 10 minutes and Apple employees were coming out and giving free Smart Waters and making sure the model of the iPad that you wanted was in stock.

Once I got into the store I had my iPad and new cover in less then 5 minutes. Once I went to checkout I actually saw the stash of iPad’s in the corner. It was like seeing a palette of gold!! Now I know why they had uniform State Trooper at the door.

My first impression of my new white iPad is good. The iPad 2 is faster then my original iPad and I didn’t think my original iPad was slow. I do like having the front and rear facing cameras. The new iPad is noticeably lighter and I like the new magnetic cover.

About the Author: Bill Baker

Rule #1: Don’t give your clients a 600MB download to a program that isn’t compatible with the software they pay you to use each month for the past four years!

Rule #2: If your going to put the link on your clients page even though you know it won’t work for them, please put a big ole warning on the link that says “you have to get on a waiting to list to get your account updated before you can use the software!”

Today my hosted exchange server provider put a download link on my account page for Microsoft’s Outlook 2011 for Mac. Since Entourage isn’t going to be updated anymore from Microsoft, I went ahead and downloaded Outlook 2011 and started to configure it. This shouldn’t be a big deal — right?

Well it turns out Outlook 2011 won’t work with Exchange 2003.

When I called technical support they told me there is an easy solution for this, just get on the waiting list to have all of your profiles migrated to Exchange 2007 and then you can upgrade to the new version of Outlook or use Apple’s native email client to access your exchange email.

About the Author: Bill Baker

As of today all Yahoo organic search results are being delivered by Bing in US and Canada.

This morning when I was checking my Twitter feed I came across a tweet by Barry Schwartz about Yahoo Finally & Officially Gave Up On Search.  After reading his article at Search Engine Roundtable I quickly opened up Bing and Yahoo is separate tabs and did several searches.  Each of my searches had the same results on both Bing and Yahoo.  The only difference was Yahoo has kept (at least for now) it’s current look and feel in displaying the SERP.

So the organic search conversion is done for US and Canada searches.  Now we wait for the paid search results to merge.  It’s rumored it will be completed by September.  It needs to so everyone can get their Holiday PPC campaigns online.

Bing search results for dui attorney

About the Author: Bill Baker

After running our internal mobile market share reports for DWI.com and DUI.com, we have found month-after-month that Apple has dominated our smartphone/mobile devices.  Each month the iPhone has been #1, the iPod/iTouch has been #2 and Android has been #3.  The interesting new player for us has been the iPad.  Since being released in April, it has been #5 on our mobile market share report, but it’s been getting closer and closer to the #4 BlackBerry.  I predict that my August report will have the iPad passing up all of our BlackBerry traffic.  Not to bad for the iPad considering you can’t make a phone call from it.  We also have found that iPad users average the most page views.   I’m sure this will be true for the Android Tablet as well when Google releases it later this year.  I believe that our next two big spikes in mobile traffic will be when the Android Tablet gets released in a few months and in January when Verizon starts selling the iPhone.

You might ask why is all of this important?

Well, we have noticed that more people want (and expect) to get everything from their smartphone/mobile device and if your website doesn’t work well for the major mobile players then your missing a great opportunity for new visitors.  Part of the marketing solutions we provide for our customers is to make your site not only visible on mobile devices, but make it work well for mobile devices.  After all, I bet you had your website put together to make a profit, not to chase off potential new customers and sales, because your website doesn’t work well from a smartphone.

It’s easy with Google Analytics or Omniture’s SiteCatalyst to find out how much mobile traffic your website actually receives and what mobile devices are actually visiting your website.  We have noticed that both Google and Omniture  are adding new reports in their mobile sections of their analytics programs.  This just proves that smartphone traffic is growing.

What does all this talk about Smartphones mean and why do I care?

Well if you don’t understand the importance of smartphones and how they can affect your businesses website then you should read the following article released from compete.com.  http://blog.compete.com/2010/07/06/local-search-social-networking-and-mobile-gaming-coming-of-age-on-mobile-devices/

Local Search on Smartphones Now a Powerful Lead Source for Businesses

Consumers increasingly rely on their mobile phones to search for retailers. Nearly one in three smartphone owners has called or stopped into a local business after finding it using a local search application. In Q1 alone, close to a third of Android and iPhone owners discovered at least two new businesses that they were not previously aware of as a result of using local search applications.

“With the increasing popularity of local search, retailers should ensure their sites are optimized for mobile browsers,” said Danielle Nohe, director, technology and entertainment for Compete. “Making it easy for consumers to discover businesses via their devices opens local companies up to a whole new customer demographic, and savvy businesses should make sure they’re maximizing this opportunity.”

About the Author: Bill Baker

The rumors are back in play that Verizon will be selling the iPhone in January 2011.  I hope Apple and Verizon have worked out the details to make this happen, because Apple is going to have to open up to the CDMA market in order to keep their smartphone sales moving strong.  With Google’s Android phones getting better with each release and being available on all three major US carriers, it’s only time before Google catches up with Apples Smartphone Platform Market Share.  comScore reported yesterday that Apple had 24.4% and Google had 13% of the market share for 3 Month Avg. Ending May 2010 compared to 3 Month Avg. Ending Feb. 2010 in the Top Smartphone Platforms.  With Apple releasing the iPhone 4 in late June and reporting that it sold 1.7 million iPhone 4s in just 3 days should put a big spike in Apples smartphone market share in June.  Google is releasing the Droid X July 15th, so that should put a small spike in it’s July smartphone market share, but it won’t be anything like the spike Apple will get when it finally starts selling the iPhone on Verizon.

Related articles on the Verizon iPhone being release in January:

• Verizon Wireless reportedly offering Apple iPhone in January – USA Today 6/30/2010
• Bloomberg: Verizon iPhone coming in January? – CNET 6/29/2010
• Verizon iPhone in January? Wait a Minute… – PCWorld 6/29/2010

About the Author: Bill Baker

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About the Author: Bill Baker

Mr. Apple himself, Tom Parish, breaks down “Apple’s release of OS4 for the iPhone, iTouch and iPad.” Thanks Tom for taking the time to share this article. -Bill

Avinash Birnale provides a useful overview with some analysis of the lastest ‘Tent Pole’ additions for the iPhone and soon the iPad running OS4, all recently announced by Apple. He covers the following changes or ‘tent poles’, as Apple calls them, because these features are really more a set of APIs that will be used by Apple developers in ways I’m sure even Apple hasn’t  dreamed up. And that’s the power of working with creative technical types.

• Multitasking Support
• True Enterprise Support
• Local Push Notifications
• New Addition – Game Center
• After iBook, now iAd!

Avinash covers some good news and the not-so-good news. For example, the new OS4 upgrade will not be coming to the older iTouch and first-generation iPhones. The second-generation iPhones will get an upgrade, but no multitasking. The 3Gs will have the full upgrade (lucky me).

The iPad will get the OS4 upgrade this fall. I’m somewhat bummed about that as I’m looking forward to these new capabilities in the iPad, which I’m using more and more each day.

Avinash downloaded the SDK and BETA firmware upgrade where he observed some crashes and one instance of things freezing up. Well, we all know how it goes. It’s going to take some time to sort out some of the bugs before  fully testing and then delivering apps with  this rich new array of APIs.

Avinash also mentioned something I did not know:

“I did the firmware upgrade on my iPod Touch (2G). It has a nice home screen, enhanced folder feature on the menu icons and nice iPod features to create my own playlist, folder view of the playlist! I like it  ”

He has a follow-up article where he talks more about additional technical aspects of the OS4 upgrades from a developer’s perspective. This is where I think things get more interesting. It’s the developers that work with these tools on a daily basis and really know what’s possible with enterprise mobility. It gets complicated fast when you work in the enterprise arena where apps have to be ported to multiple smartphones, and services are being accessed from a combination of public and private  clouds. It’s important to step back and ask myself what am I wanting to accomplish and will it be perceived as a benefit to the business. Helps to work with people who have done this before too.

Reminds me of when I was a kid and the skate arena guy would say, “OK, it is guys and girls. Now pick a partner for this tune.” Yeah … pick your partner but make sure they can stand up without falling. That skating arena was tricky.

OK, back to work.

Tom

Tell us what you think about Apples’s new OS4 release…

About the Author:

Content Strategiest Tom Parish jumps in and answers the big question “How long should a video be on your web site for lead generation?”  Sometimes too much information kills the lead generation process. – Bill

Useful links: Twistage •  YouTube

I get asked this question by clients, and I’ve been curious about it for some time. Why do we humans seem to want to watch a video for only 1-2-ish minutes when it comes to introducing an idea? What is it about that slice of time that feels like we’re getting something of value, yet watching any longer (and occasionally any less) just doesn’t seem to appeal to us?

In 2009 I read two surveys that showed in detail that most viewers dropped off from watching videos after 2+ minutes. Earlier this year I did an informal survey of all my video podcasts, which tend to run as long as my audio interviews (10-20 minutes), and I looked at my clients’ videos, too, which run 3-10 minutes in length. What I saw in the engagement metrics at Twistage.com (a hosting company I admire, respect and use) showed clearly that I’d lost half my audience after 2 minutes of the video podcast, and by 10 minutes only 10% of the viewers were left. Same results happened to my clients. However, based on feedback from listeners, the audio versions are getting listened to the entire time.

Part of the deal here is two heads talking (interview style) doesn’t offer the eye a lot to look at. Clearly an audio version gives you all you need.  However, people seem more and more interested in video versions of long conversations, but getting them ‘into’ the meat of the conversation takes some extra effort. A short version can do this along with front-loading the longer interview with a ‘call out’ or ‘hot point’ that is pulled from the conversation to keep people hanging on for more. But I digress ….

There was one exception around length, especially with B2B content: Any time a video had well-defined ‘how to’ steps in it, the viewers stayed on for the entire video, almost without regard for length. But that’s been the case even for audio podcasts. If the content is compelling and impacts what you do in your job or at home, you’re going to listen and get the scoop for yourself. That’s a key message I’ve used for years in my podcasting with clients. Now that there’s greater emphasis on video, what is the best strategy for including video podcasts in a lead-generation process?

First, why 2-3 minutes for videos? My thinking is we’re all subconsciously programmed in some way for that amount of time. Music singles (remember 45 rpm records?) were rarely longer than 3 minutes. More relevant, I think, is the length of movie trailers, which are almost always less than 2.5 minutes – really, check for yourself. They are carefully crafted to draw you into the movie (some better than others) within that 2.5-minute limit. Sometimes you’ll see a movie trailer that is 1-1.5 minutes, and so often you feel kinda cheated. It was not long enough to give you a good feel for the plot. Like with my 45s, songs that were short made me feel a bit short-changed because I had to pay for those records, and they broke if I wasn’t careful, and they scratched easily. But those were the old days …

So the lesson here is take the “how to” approach and create a 1- to 3-minute introduction as your lead generation to draw people in and get the most interested to follow you back to your site for the longer version and maybe an accompanying white paper or other related resources on your site.

We’re all familiar with YouTube, and the average video length of the most popular ones, if I recall, is less than 3 minutes. Likely the best way to use video for a website that has really valuable long-form content (interviews) is to focus on keeping the interview fairly tightly edited and less than 10 minutes. Then create a 1- to 2-minute YouTube short version to capture people’s attention and bring them back to your website. The reason for this is YouTube allows you to insert a lot of keywords into your description and tags, and YouTube videos rank well (meaning, very visible) in Google searches. Reminds me of the old days of SEO when you focused on putting lots of tags on web pages to improve ranking. Now people put those tags on videos. But remember, you want to drive people back to your website for your lead-generation purposes. So put the longer version of the interview there, where you can include a sign-up form for viewers to get more information, or to see the entire interview for free.

Tom

Tell us what you think below…

About the Author:

Nice article from Tom Parish on OS4 SDK Insights: Making the iPhone More Enterprise Friendly. Tom presents some insights on  the OS4 SDK for the iPhone. – Bill

I was perusing some blog posts and found an article from Techendeavour ’s Ramanda Shetty titled “Deep Dive into iPhone 4.0 Features“. I am extremely curious what is possible to build with this new SDK so I can provide more strategic insights to clients who are asking about a business strategy and marketing strategy that includes or really requires an iPhone app.   You’re going to like what you see here.

This is the first nuts and bolts blog posting I have seen that gives practical insights as to what is possible with the new SDK from Apple. The iPhone 4.0 SDK (software development kit) promises the ability to do multitasking and customizable desktop displays and other goodies. However under the hood there are  quite a new API’s (application program interfaces) that provide data protection for third party apps, core telephone capabilities,acces to calendar events, the ability to compose and send a SMS message from a third party app (nice) and location notification.

This last one, location notification, gives a user the ability to schedule notification of an event based on their current location. Remember the new 4.0 (OS) operation system give you the ability to have multiple applications running. This location notification will be delivered to an app whether the app is running or not. Once the notification is scheduled the system will manage these notification without the need for going over the Internet to access a server.  I’m think this might be useful to remind me to do certain things when I get home after being gone all day. The iPhone will recognize I’m getting near the house and up pops this notification to remember to pay a bill that night. You get the idea.

Shetty’s article also has a section called ‘Improvements Towards Making iPhone Enterprise Friendly’.  By the way if you’re just catching up on the OS4 updates you’ll want to check out the high level review at Apple first.

Mobile Device Management:

Deploying and managing enterprise applications will be lot more easier with iPhone OS 4. New Mobile Device Management APIs can be integrated with third-party solutions to wirelessly configure and update settings, monitor compliance with corporate policies, and even wipe or lock managed iPhone device.

Seems like this feature has not provided in the current Beta release. See the release note “Mobile Me” section. (will need Apple Developer login for access)

Wireless App Distribution:

iPhone OS 4 enables enterprises to securely host and wirelessly distribute in-house apps to employees over Wi-Fi and 3G. Apps can be updated without requiring users to connect to their computers.

SSL VPN Supports:

SSL VPN support in iPhone OS 4 gives users another way to securely access enterprise resources. These new protocols can even be leveraged to connect seamlessly to a corporate network via VPN on Demand. Forthcoming apps from Juniper and Cisco will support SSL VPN on iPhone.

Multitasking:

With the multitasking support for the new OS release iPhone apps can do few of the processes from the background but not all. Application can finish the current task before going to suspended states giving the expiry time period. Local Notification is an advantage of background process.

For those wanting to delve into strategies for enterprise mobility there is another excellent article that does a deep dive on “Native Mobile Apps versus Mobile Web Apps” where Avinash Birnale discusses the tradeoffs between these two approaches. The article saved me a great deal of time having to find this out myself on a recent project. Recommended reading if you are just getting on how to persue a broad based enterprise mobility strategy.

Tom

Tell us what you think below…

About the Author:

Another great example of video podcasting using Skype from guest author Tom Parish. Tom presents a B2B example using the popular chatting, video and telephony software Skype which is available for Macs, Windows, Linux and smart phones.

Useful links:  Skype •  ECAMM

I have hosted a weekly podcast show at BMC Software for five years now and there are more than 200 episodes. This type of video podcasting is a highly informative conversation around IT thought leadership topics. Length is roughly 10-15 minutes. I get questions about how I produce these, so here is a short summary of what I do and how I craft them for the video aspects of the production. I’ll post another article on the particular style of show notes that we use and how that impacts visibility in the search engines.

Though the majority of the interviews are audio, listeners have expressed a growing interest (no surprise) for these to be in both video and audio. In the B2B world, experts in IT technology reside all over the globe, and the only reasonable way to capture their interviews is to use Skype. I’ve completed a lot of testing on how to capture thought leadership-style interviews from remotely located experts. These days you can’t send a video crew out, even if you work in an enterprise.

This last year I’ve experimented extensively with Skype and iChat video webcam recording for the remote caller. I typically use a local camera in the studio for my side of the video. It’s extra work but worth the trouble. I’ve also asked some people who were up for it to use their video camera and send me the files via DVD later (or FTP).

So as background, I use a Sony EX1 camera in the studio and convert both the camera’s video and the Skype video to Apple ProRes 422 so I can easily edit my video and the interviewee’s, despite the original files’ being from different video hardware. I’ll use the 720P setting at 30 fps. The conversion to Apple ProRes is an extra step, but it’s just the best way to do this for maximum quality and to simplify the editing process when you have video that is encoded from such entirely different sources.

As you can imagine I have no control over the mic that the interviewee is using. With Skype and iChat, the built-in laptop mic or headset is what you get and it turns out the quality is surprising good – better than a phone line. I just have to watch the levels and be careful how the headset mic is placed so there is not too much ’splat’ noise coming from the interviewee’s microphone circuit being overloaded. On my end, I’ll either use a Sennheiser wireless mic directly into the Sony EX1 (preferred approach) or the Sennheiser shotgun mic into the Sony EX1. I’ll always record an audio track of my side with Skype as a kind of sync track and backup if something goes wrong.

On a couple of a video podcasts I’ve used a USB headset for the audio on my side and it’s been ok – but not nearly as clean and clear as the higher-quality Sennheiser mics.

To see all the videos produced with the approaches mentioned here, visit TomParish.com/media

The topic of this particular podcast is “Enterprise Mobility Trends and Applications with Dan Turchin” and we used Skype. I only had video being recorded for his side – ‘only’ to maximize quality. To record Skype calls, I use a software package from http://ecamm.com/ which has worked flawlessly for dozens of calls. Recommended.

This article is cross-posted with permission from Tom Parish.  The original article of “B2B Example of Video Podcasting using Skype” is located at TomParish.com.

About the Author:

Some rather amazing news has been released about Apple’s intentions to put iTunes into their own cloud infrastructure. The TechCrunch article below talks about the impact on their bottom line as they increase sales of music and, of course, make it significantly easier for us users to access our iTunes library like we access our gmail or Google Docs – easily from any computer anytime. Means we don’t have to keep it all locally and remember to back it up.

About the Author:

To create this app I had the honor of being involved throughout the entire development process with Techendeavour. They are an both technically competent at building mobile apps for a variety of smart phone platforms and an extremely kind and fun group of people to work with.  Special thanks to BMC Software to make this project possible and be willing to test the waters with this initial idea of making BMC news and technical media available in a mobile format.

The BMC Today mobile app is currently an Apple iPhone/iTouch application created to make it simple to monitor and filter BMC Software news, blogs, podcasts, videos and Thought Leadership white papers to the mobile user. This includes podcast and articles from the BMC sponsored site at EnterpriseLeadeship.org where there are some 500 interviews with CIOs, CTOs and CEO of enterprises.  There are 10 very active bloggers at BMC that you can follow who talk about a variety enterprise IT related topics.  The BMC Today app makes it easy to grab some interesting content on the go and listen to it later while on a trip.

This application is intended for use by IT professionals, enterprise executives, BMC employees and partners, customers, stock holders and students interested in products and services of BMC Software.

My most favorite feature in the app is the ability to create your on tags to filter the content so you only see what you’re interested in topic wise.  You can also share what you’re reading with your own social circle of friends via email, Twitter and Facebook.

There is an extensive FAQ page and a dedicated BMC Community group for the app to help you and provide a way for you to provide feedback so we can make it better.

Let me know your thoughts and what else you’d like to see the app to make it more useful for you.

Tom

About the Author:

Assuming this upcoming Apple event January 27th is actually about the so called (mythical) Apple Tablet then yes I have a sense we may feel disappointment. Why? Partly because there is so much wild speculation and expectation surrounding this charming yet mythical new device.  I remember seeing devices like this at Disney World where there was a display of the future home. People sitting around with some kind of thin electronic tablet being entertained in some way. Talk is cheap, mockups are easy. Creating a real product that does things we’ve never done before – well that’s the kind of legendary design work Apple is known for and so often the source of unbridled speculation.

About the Author:

First of all let me give you a little background about me and my Smartphones.  I currently use a BlackBerry Curve on the Verizon network.  I have been using a BlackBerry since 1996.  Prior to getting my CrackBerry I used the Palm Treo.  My office tried using the BlackBerry Storm last year when we switched to Verizon from Sprint, but we returned all of them within 14 days.  No one liked them, including me and I tried real hard to make the phone work.  With the Storm I went from sending 50-75 messages a day (and being productive) to sending less then 5 messages day (and not being productive).  Each message that was composed on the phone was a challenge and a very short message.  The Storm was just not a productive solution for me or anybody in my office.  When the first person said, I don’t like it and I want to swap it out for the regular BlackBerry, it was like a sigh of relief had gone through our whole office.  I have an old iPhone that I use to test our websites with over WiFi.  The reason I’ve taken a big interest in the Google phones is because I truly believe that Google will dominate the mobile market in searches and advertising.  Because of this I bought the G1 to see if I could make it work in my everyday life.

In October 2008 when Google released the HTC G1 through T-Mobile, I bought one the fist day the phone was released.  I liked the concept of the phone, but it had some issues and was clearly a version 1 phone.  My biggest complaint was the battery life.  For as much as I use my Smartphone for talking, e-mailing and instant messaging the battery would be dead in a short period of time.  My second complaint was the lack of native support for Microsoft Exchange E-mail.  I like Gmail, but my office doesn’t use Gmail for its corporate mail.  Quite frankly I was really surprised that the phone didn’t have Exchange support built into it since the iPhone had started supporting Exchange email prior to the G1′s release date.  I had always felt that when Apple added Exchange e-mail support to the iPhone that it had increased it’s potential market share considering most businesses have their e-mail on an Exchange Server.  I had a few other minor issues with the G1, but once I upgraded the phones operating system to Android 1.6 most of those issues had worked themselves out, except for the battery life and Microsoft Exchange E-mail.  I found the camera on the G1 to be decent, but it didn’t have a flash, so the lighting had to be decent inorder to get a decent picture from the phone.  When I would take pictures outside with the G1 I would almost always get a great picture.  With Twidroid, FaceBook and Flickr app’s installed on the G1 having a decent camera and flash would of made picture sharing more better.  At first I didn’t like the slide out keyboard on the G1, but I found myself liking it more each time I used it.  I noticed Motorola Droid’s keyboard only has four rows of keys and the HTC G1 has five rows.  I like the fifth row a lot.  For everyday geek typing I preferred the G1′s keyboard.

Ok now to the Nexus One!  I bought an unlocked Nexus One from Google’s website on the day they were released.  The phone had free overnight shipping and was delivered in two days.  What can I say, other then I think they got this one right for an all touch screen phone.  I prefer a regular keyboard, but I can type on the Nexus One decent and I’m becoming more productive in my typing and thats coming from a BlackBerry keyboard.  The Curve is very forgiving on fast typing!  I do hope they add AutoText like the BlackBerry has.  This was one of they perks of having a BlackBerry.  I found AutoText to be a very productive and necessary tool.

The battery life seems to be doing well considering how much screen real estate has to powered.  I have always had to charge my BlackBerry’s each night, so charing the Nexus One each night isn’t a big deal to me.

The email is awesome and it has native Exchange e-mail support.  If your office uses Gmail, then you will have nothing to worry about, because it works great.  I had my Microsoft Exchange E-mail setup within five minutes of turning on the phone.  It was very easy to setup my Exchange e-mail, calendar and contacts on the Nexus One.  I like how I can manage my contacts on the Nexus One to show my Exchange contacts or not to show my Exchange contacts.  I have also been testing in my office Google Apps Premier E-mail as a possible solution for getting away from Exchange e-mail (you can’t beat the price of $50 a year per user for 25 gig).  The Nexus One makes it very easy to switch between Google Apps Premier E-mail and multiple Gmail accounts.

The camera is great.  It’s a 5 megapixel camera with a flash.  It’s very easy to share your pictures with instant messengers, FaceBook, e-mail, Twitter and other installed apps.  You can even record video on the Nexus One.  I haven’t used this feature yet.

I have found the Nexus One to be light weight and not to big.  It’s about the same size as the iPhone.  The phone is very slim and came with a carrying case (pouch) to put the phone in, but I prefer a holster for my phones .  I will have to go find an aftermarket holster for the Nexus One.

Google’s Android Market Apps Store has added a lot of apps since the G1 debuted.  I’m sure over time it will be as full as Apple’s App Store.  So far I’m finding the a lot of the same apps in both stores.

I will try to post more updates on the Nexus One as I use the phone more.  Verizon is suppose to get the Nexus One in the Spring of this year, so I bet I will end up hanging up my BlackBerry and use the Nexus One for my everyday Smartphone.  Congratulations to HTC and Google’s Android Team for putting a phone out that can compete with the iPhone.

About the Author: Bill Baker

I bought the G1 in October of 2008, but I must say that I was a little disappointed at first. Once I was able to download 1.6 to the G1 the phone ran much better. My only complaints still with the G1 was the battery life and lack of support for Microsoft Exchange e-mail. If the G1 gets 2.x then the Microsoft Exchange e-mail won’t be an issue anymore.

It looks like that all of these issues have been taken care of in the Nexus One. One of the members on my Google team has one and he said it was a great phone and that’s coming from an iPhone user.

The Nexus One should be here tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it.

Matt Cutts was doing live blogging today on the Google Android Event.

About the Author: Bill Baker

As host and overseer of the EnterpriseLeadership.org community I’m making some end of year changes to get us going for 2010. One rather fun update is building a Twitter list list of 21 amazing individuals who have been interviewed by me and Elizabeth Ferrarini.  The Twitter list widget sits on the home page and updates every 5 seconds and cycles through Tweets from 21 people we’ve interviewed. Special thanks to Elizabeth for pulling all the Twitter addresses together from our community of interviewees in 2009.

About the Author:

Let’s have some fun. For just a moment stop and think about what you’re doing differently online now versus last year. What software, what device where and how you’re using the Internet. Email me or leave a comment below.

What’s different?
Tom

About the Author:

For those who follow me on Facebook I am posting my more technical geeky topics and projects on the Tom Parish Inc. fan page on Facebook.
I still post of course nearly the same things at http://twitter.com/tparish. Clearly I need to spruce up the fan page but for now it’s there and functional and thankfully quite a few people have already signed up. As always me know if you have any feedback.

Tom

About the Author:

Late last night I was checking MyFoxAustin for possible school closings for today. The only school district to post a comment was Lake Travis ISD. The posting pointed out that there will be early release tomorrow for all grades due to the possible bad weather, BUT the Lake Travis High School football playoff game was still scheduled.

You have to love Texas High School Football – it never gets canceled. Not for bad weather, not for H1N1, never closes.

About the Author: Bill Baker

The e-commerce sector and on-line shopping have reported a surge in traffic and sales for Cyber Monday compared to 2008.

Web analytics company Coremetrics, Inc. reported at 6:30 PM EST on Cyber Monday that web shopper had spent 11% more in the same time period for Cyber Monday 2008. Coremetrics tracks on-line shopper behavior of more then 500 U.S. brands.

About the Author: Bill Baker