Velocity Cruz Android Tablet

What if you could buy a 7″ tablet for around $300.00?  Would you buy it?

Soon you’ll be able to make that decision.  Velocity Cruz has announced that their 7″, Android powered tablet will be available for sale this fall – around the August/September time frame.

The specs are pretty decent.

Two versions, the one that I’m most interested in is 800×480, capacative touch screen with 4gb of built-in storage and another 8gb supplied SD card.  And it even includes a (gasp) USB port!  It will play most audio formats, and video formats and will also read ePub, PDF, TXT and HTML files.

Includes a web browser but is WiFi only, no wireless.

They are offering a $199.99 version and $299.99 version.

To read more about it, visit their website – Velocity Cruz.  Depending on how well this tablet performs, it could well heat up the tablet market – which no doubt will be in full-gear this fall just setting you and I up for the Christmas retail bonanza.

Microsoft Office or Google Docs?

Although cloud computing is taking the world by storm, excuse the pun I wasn’t quite sure if this was for me. 

And yes, I do realize that there is more to cloud computing that being able to write your resume using Google Docs…

I mean I’ve been a Microsoft man ever since I can remember.  I’ve always enjoyed the DOS prompt and reluctantly switched to Windows when clients I was working with wanted their staff to become more productive.  That was my first foray into graphical user interfaces – I wasn’t a complete newbie and before Windows came along and in the DOS world I used to program in Turbo Pascal and built several GUI interfaces for applications that I’d developed and transmitted over my lowly 300, then 1200, then 2400 then 38,400 baud modem to BBS’s around North America or onto the various file sharing services.

My real first experience with GUI was the Apple Macintosh at school.  I hated it.  It did not make sense to me at all.  It was then that I decided GUI interfaces were not cool.

But now all you can find is GUI interfaces, even if you decide to run Linux on your computer.  What doesn’t have a GUI front end on it anymore?

Back to my story… I’ve always loved Microsoft products.  I’ve shelled out hundreds of dollars to stay current with the latest versions of Office Professional — even if I would never use part of it.  I just wanted to have it.  The last version I purchased (I’m still using it) is about 5 years old.  I thought of buying the newest version, because that’s what I use day-to-day at work but the cost far outweighed the use.

I could have bought only Word or Excel, but what if I needed PowerPoint or wanted to do some Access programming (like I ever would – you know, been there and done that).

But then I had a need to be able to take my files with me.  So I have several external hard drives and USB keys and while it’s great that I can take my data with me everywhere – you need to have the applications on the PC you’ll be working on.  If I’m at the library, or a friends house chances are that I won’t have MS Office on the PC.  When I’ve travelled and used the hotels Internet and PCs they’ve never had Office on them.

What do you do?

Then I thought of trying Google Docs.  I was hesitant at first.  I mean, I was cheating on Microsoft.  Would I like it?  Should I really use it?  My documents are out in cyberspace for anyone to gain access to.  What if someone found out my password… so one of the first things was to generate a 12 character password, complete with upper/lower case characters, numbers and symbols.  I can’t even remember it.  It’s on my iPod Touch.  So much for security.

I first started playing with the spreadsheet.  It was being used to do some basic tracking – nothing fancy like pivot tables or massive lists.  It worked great. 

Next was the wordprocessor.  This was really the key, because this would be the one tool that I would use most often.  I mean suppose I wanted to update my resume?  I could do it on Google Docs and always have a copy there.  Or what if I’m in an interview and needed a recent copy?  Simply hop onto any PC that you can be given access to, grab the resume and print it out and you’re done.  You don’t have to search for a PC with Office on it.

The other key feature of Google Docs has been the ability to upload/download files.  So I can work locally on my PC at home with my old, and outdated version of Office – upload the documents and I’ve got instant access to them from a user friendly interface.  The key really is user friendly interface.  I’m not uninitiated when it comes to cloud storage and I know all about being able to save documents etc., using Yahoo Mail, or Google Mail – but those require workaround and Google Docs does not.

I’ve been using Google Docs for about two weeks now, and during that time I’ve noticed that my use of Microsoft Office is slowly dropping.  From using it virtually 100% of the time to down around 50% and dropping.  Will it ever get to 0%?  Perhaps, but right now I’m not willing to leave Microsoft Office entirely since I’ve not done anything that requires the professional touch with Google Docs.

Do you use Google Docs?  I’d love to hear your stories about it.

Mobile Marketing Solutions

I’ve been interested in mobile marketing for some time now – actually I’ve been waiting with PDA, and phone in hand for the time that I could zip through a shopping center and have retailers beam me their latest offers.  Unfortunatley that never happened.  I believe that that did not become a reality for several reasons:

• Consumers were slow to adapt to mobile marketing technology, since it is OPT-IN
• Retailers too scared to bombard unsuspecting shoppers with marketing messages – they didn’t want to be labelled as sending SPAM to mobile phones

I suspect more the latter than the former, especially if you have a look at this article – http://econsultancy.com/blog/5174-o2s-major-mobile-marketing-spamfail - which is pretty recent that goes into O2’s mobile marketing campaign which according to the article, failed and generated more negative publicity that perhaps was their intention.

Now, I can deal with the cold weather, annoying consumers barging past me to seek out discounted high street treasure, and wall-to-wall bad TV. But I can’t deal with the fact that a mobile operator is unable or unwilling to remove me from its marketing list. It’s a marketing basic.

But now with millions of people carrying around iPhones, and the introduction of the 3G iPad plus the dozens of new smartphones on the market and an eager public (mostly teenagers that have some money and young adults who have more money and working adults that are looking for deals without hitting their PC all the time) perhaps the time is ripe for companies to look at mobile marketing again.

Over the weekend I met someone by the name of Mohamed Amirali whose company is involved, among other endavours, SMS and mobile marketing.  This got be back into research mode to see what is the state of mobile marketing:

• Mobile Marketing Association – http://mmaglobal.com/main
• Mobile Marketing Magazine – a UK based magazine – http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.co.uk/
• Mobile Marketing Watch – http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/

Based on the little research I did and few quick searches, mobile marketing is becoming a hot topic again.

Mobile marketing really hit home a few weeks ago:

I had gone out to buy some shoes for my son, and before paying the clerk asked if I had a cell phone and if I wanted to save 30% on my purchase.  Who doesn’t want to save money?  All I had to do was send a short code to their company, who would add me to their SMS marketing campaign (AKA mobile marketing).  Within seconds of sending the short code through, I received a reply and was given a virtual one-time-use 30% coupon.

That’s what I envisioned mobile marketing to do and it’s great to see that some companies are going forward, using an opt-in method to gain eyeballs directly instead of the hit and miss method of using other forms of advertising such as radio, newspaper or flyers.

Here are three books that I found on Amazon that discuss mobile marketing – I will be picking these up this week to brush up on what I know already and where this industry is headed.

The Mobile Marketing Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Mobile Marketing Campaigns

Overall Rating:

Retail Price: CDN$ 31.62

Amazon Price: CDN$ 19.92

The first book I found is called The Mobile Marketing Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Mobile Marketing Campaigns and has 10 customer reviews on Amazon.

From the review page: Mobile technology not only lets marketers reach customers where they are, it allows them to engage mobile users by targeting their immediate and specific needs. Giving users what they want when they want it is the unique value proposition of mobile marketing, and businesses, agencies, and nonprofits of all types and sizes can create successful campaigns without breaking the bank. In this practical handbook, mobile marketing consultant Kim Dushinski offers easy-to-follow advice for firms that want to interact with mobile users, build stronger customer relationships, reach a virtually unlimited number of prospects, and gain competitive advantage by making the move to mobile now. If your organization wants to reach mobile device users locally, nationally, or within a specific demographic niche The Mobile Marketing Handbook will help you put your message in the palms of their hands.

One of the comments that stood out was this one:

If you’re looking to learn about mobile marketing – I highly recommend buying this book, it provides a great introduction to mobile marketing. And where Kim can’t get in depth on certain topics, she provides resources that you can utilize to get more information.

She provides great information on how to determine if your target demographic aligns well with the mobile crowd and whether or not it is worth pursuing. She provides great demographic hints related to both culture and age that I wasn’t aware of.

Also, she effectively presents all the different players that need to come into play for a successful mobile marketing campaign – like short code providers, aggregators, text message companies and more. You can’t just start a mobile campaign without having your ducks in a row, and Kim tells you what you need to consider before starting. Although I have created mobile websites in the past, I hadn’t considered all of these factors when it came to effectively marketing a mobile website.

The only reason I’m giving this boof 4 stars instead of 5 is because I thought it was a bit light on content in some areas – especially related to mobile search. Since this is the area that most interests me I would have liked more insight about pay-per-call, click-to-call, and examples of campaigns that actually had success. I would have liked to have seen screenshots of AdWords for setting up a mobile campaign and how ads look on a mobile browser. I would have liked to have seen the Google mobile search interface – and I am curious why Google mobile search defaults to web results instead of mobile (at least for me). But I do realize that I’m being a bit nitpicky and that in order to do all of this for each content area would have resulted in a 2000 page book.

Overall, if you’re interested in mobile marketing, I highly recommend this book. While it can’t get into the depth I would like in certain areas, it provides a fantastic jumping off point as well as links to plenty of resources to get the answers that you need.

The next book is called Mobile Advertising: Supercharge Your Brand in the Exploding Wireless Market that has 7 customer reviews.

Mobile Advertising: Supercharge Your Brand in the Exploding Wireless Market

Overall Rating:

Retail Price: CDN$ 32.99

Amazon Price: CDN$ 20.78

This book has some great Editorial Reviews:

Review

“Very rarely do books like this offer equal value to both advertising buyers and sellers, but Mobile Advertising is a wonderful primer on the mobile landscape and advertising opportunity from both perspectives. Its completeness and clarity makes it an essential resource for any company or person looking to help pioneer or participate in this emerging category.”
—Chamath Palihapitiya, Vice President, Facebook

“As mobile emerges as the last true individual ‘channel,’ understanding where the marketer fits will be critical… Mobile Advertising gives us a map of this powerful emerging platform.”
—Larry Weber, Chairman, W2 Group, and author of Marketing to the Social Web

“If you believe the future is wireless, then this book is a guide to that future. Simple, fact-filled, and astute.”
—Om Malik, founder, GigaOM

“Today’s youth spends more than fifteen hours per day with their phones. One can imagine what a tremendous business opportunity mobile advertising is. The authors of this book explore the critical aspects of this opportunity with analytic rigor, in-depth analysis, and practical insights. I strongly recommend it for anyone involved in the mobile and advertising industries.”
—Dr. Yasuhisa Nakamura, Executive Director, NTT DoCoMo, and coauthor of Wireless Data Services

A practical guide to the emerging mobile advertising market, Mobile Advertising covers all the major topics in this emerging multibillion-dollar industry. This is a complete how-to guide for anyone who wants to understand and take advantage of this hot new advertising medium. Drawing on the experience of three industry veterans, insights from key influencers and decision makers, and detailed case studies, the book gives you practical guidance for getting the most out of mobile advertising.

Mobile Marketing: Finding Your Customers No Matter Where They Are

Overall Rating:

Retail Price: CDN$ 29.99

Amazon Price: CDN$ 18.89

Finally the third book on my buy list is entitled Mobile Marketing: Finding Your Customers No Matter Where They Are.

Mobile Marketing

Finding Your Customers No Matter Where They Are

Use Mobile Marketing to Supercharge Brands, Sales, and Profits!

Using brand-new mobile marketing techniques, you can craft campaigns that are more personal, targeted, immediate, measurable, actionable–and fun! Now, one of the field’s leading pioneers shows exactly how to make mobile marketing work for your business. Cindy Krum cuts through the hype, revealing what’s working–and what isn’t. She guides you through identifying the right strategies and tactics for your products, services, brands, and customers…avoiding overly intrusive, counterproductive techniques…and how to successfully integrate mobile into your existing marketing mix. Above all, Krum shows you how to effectively execute on your mobile marketing opportunities–driving greater brand awareness, stronger customer loyalty, more sales, and higher profits.

Topics include

• Getting started fast with mobile marketing
• Understanding the international mobile marketing landscape
• Targeting and tracking the fast-changing mobile demographic
• Taking full advantage of the iPhone platform
• Leveraging mobile advertising, promotion, and location-based marketing
• Building micro-sites and mobile applications
• Performing search engine optimization for mobile sites and applications
• Building effective mobile affiliate marketing programs
• Integrating online and offline mobile marketing
• Avoiding mobile marketing spam, viruses, and privacy violations
• Previewing the future of mobile marketing

A recent user had this to say about this book:

This book came very timely. I just heard on the news that we just hit the milestone where phones are used more for data than voice. This exponentially growing communication method (Mobile devices) cannot be overlooked or dismissed by marketers – unless of course you don’t like leads and want to go out of business. That said Mobile Marketing remained a mystery to me. Perhaps an age thing. Just when I get a handle on “Web 2.0″ i.e. Social Media, now comes the vast and confusing world of marketing to mobile devices. Need help: this book is it!

Every aspect of Mobile Marketing is covered in this 300+ page book. The book is well illustrated and not written in a dense incomprehensible technical babble. The breath of Mobile Marketing is remarkable – even covering international markets. Whether you need to implement a Mobile Marketing strategy, sell your CEO on a budget, or actually have to understand the technology, you’ll get your answers here. I found Mobile Marketing helpful even as a Blackberry user and information consumer.

The print is small and there is a lot of information packed into this book. So don’t expect an easy or quick read. However it doesn’t require an engineering degree either. This is a go-to resource and must read for salespeople, marketers, and entrepreneurs. As cell phones, iPads and other mobile devices become central to communication the marketer who knows how to profit from them will be well ahead of their competition. This book is a short cut and resource for the Mobile Marketing area without having to spend months or tons of money. I am actually grateful to the author for this book – a sentiment I have seldom had before.

If your organization is serious about tapping into this market, speak to Mohamed Amirali or pick-up one of the books.

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