It addresses the challenges Best Buy has had to face with competitors such as Wal-Mart and Amazon and quotes,
“Transparency is one of the most powerful societal trends that is coming our way… Showing people what is good and not so good about you builds trust” Barry Judge – Best Buy’s Chief Marketing Officer
In case you haven’t heard the iPhone application development industry is in full bloom. Apple’s WWDC keynote address had a major focus on the iPhone and plugged several application development companies as part of it. Although the Apple notebook prices were cut up to $700 and a new updated Operating System, “Snow Leopard” is coming out in September (only costing $29 for the upgrade) the iPhone stole the show and its not just Blackberry that’s getting annoyed at all of this attention, digital agencies are also feeling the strain.
The application gold rush... is it over?
I recently read an article written by Mark Walsh, a Mobile Intellegencer for MediaPost Publications. The article claimed that iPhone application development was becoming over-saturated with more applications being submitted to the App-Store than sales of iPhones and although it had some great information, I must say that I feel it was tainted due to sheer frustration.
The difference is that each of the developers at Twitter Inc. only tweet 2-3 times a day. Whereas the average number of tweets per day taken from a study of 1.6 million Twitter users was 4.422 (Study taken from Twitter Grader by HubSpot). The difference may look minimal but at best it shows that the development team at Twitter tweets 32%-55% lower than the average user.
I have been preparing a PowerPoint for a class that I will be teaching, which flows through some of the basics of Social Media. It contains several recent YouTube videos and links to some great resources. I cover,
definitions of social media
the effects of social media
some statistics of social media as it relates to the current economic climate
increasing trends of mobile social-networking
and the change of philosophy that social media brings to PR and Advertising
All this information has been aggregated from several sources that are all linked to in the PowerPoint.
AdAge.com/digital released an great article called, “How to Get the Most Out of Social Networks and Not Annoy Users” I created a simple PowerPoint that reflects some of the major parts of this article. It has some great quotes from Alistair Beattie who is the head of strategic planning at award winning agency AKQA London.
Here is a great video from iMediaConnection.com with clients who talk about what they are looking for in an agency and some of the mistakes that agencies make when pitching to a client. Very useful to those of us who work in an agency/pitch environment. I hope you find this video useful.
So after all the hype of a new iTouch and we get a speaker, a bevelled back and a $70 price cut?!
Well actually that is not all, take of the hood of the new iTouch and you will see that there is more to the touch than meets the eye. You will find hardware that includes a bluetooth chip, which means with a software update it will have the potential be able to sync without being connected to your computer through the iPod cable and maybe even your phone. Although currently it is probably for the Nike iPod chip.
But here is the real juice. Microphone hardware support. What does that mean? The ability to make calls for free through VoIP. All you will need is a WiFi connection and Skype is your best friend. Free calls through Skype on your iTouch, hey I may even buy another one!
UPDATE: Now you can download FRING and have Skype on your iTouch! That means $3 a month for free calls nationwide (if you get a microphone for it}! With the new iTouch there has been proof that it can be compatible with a microphone! The following video demonstrates this. I have even heard rumors that you can buy a microphone for the iTouch now… Networks beware!
Steven Hummer on 
Tim on