HP TouchPad, Mobile Web Apps, & Google Voice Free

HP announces production of more TouchPads
How sustainable is a lower-price point business model? According to the HP Company blog, the TouchPad is making a limited comeback. “Despite announcing an end to manufacturing webOS hardware, we have decided to produce one last run of TouchPads to meet unfulfilled demand.”
HP’s Touch Pad originally entered the tablet market priced at $499. Sales were dismal, and after only a few months HP discontinued the product line and cut prices to $99. Immediately following the price reduction, sales went through the roof, and many stores sold out within hours.
At first glance, this may seem like a sound business decision. By lowering the price point of the TouchPad, HP is no longer in direct competition with the market leading iPad, which is why they are experiencing a surge in sales. HP engaged an entirely different customer base with the $99 tablet than they did with the $499 tablet. However, this success cannot be long lived, as the customer base searching for a $99 tablet will soon be exhausted.
In order to maintain competition and sales, tablet manufacturers need to find the sweet spot between the price of the iPad and the extremely discounted HP TouchPad.

Financial Times FT removes iPhone and iPad apps, develops web app

Continuing an emerging trend The London-based Financial Times removed its iPad and iPhone apps from Apple’s App Store and created a mobile browsing page. Many large companies including The Wall Street Journal and Walmart’s video service, Vudu, have done the same in an effort to circumvent Apple’s stringent app requirements, and we expect to see even more of it.
FT removed the app because they could not reach an agreement on subscription data ownership. In the old model, subscriptions were done through Apple’s system, meaning Apple kept the majority of their data.
By creating web-based apps, these companies are no longer limited to one mobile operating system — any phone with internet access, including the Droid and BlackBerry, is able to use the app.
This perpetuates the trend of companies allowing consumers to create their own experience on the platform of their choice.

Google announces free calls to US for military members

Our military members make a great sacrifice every day though their service and staying in touch with them is not easy. This is all changing thanks to Google’s announcement yesterday. Members of the United States military with a valid .mil email address can use the calling feature in Gmail free of charge.
To use this new feature, military members can register their .mil email address with a Google account and install the voice and video Gmail plugin. They can then dial a US phone number and talk free.
Family members in the United States can use the service to call members of the military stationed overseas, but will be subject to a per minute rate.
Google also announced this week free calls within the US for anyone with a Google account. Both promotions will continue for at least the rest of 2011. We applaud Google for their efforts to make it easier to communicate with our loved ones serving abroad.

Teachers and Social Media & Women are Social Media Power Users

Teachers in Missouri can communicate with students via social media

Teachers in Missouri now can legally communicate with their students on social networks. A recent court ruling overturned Governor Jay Nixon’s law that banned direct social networking contact between teachers and students.
Missouri teachers argued that the law interferes with educators’ first amendment rights of free speech, association and religion. Additionally, the teachers claim that social media is one of the primary methods of communicating with students.
This week courts ruled for a 180-day injunction until a final constitutional decision is made. This raises serious concerns about the use of social media as a communication tool between adults and children.
While we expect the teachers are using social media strictly to communicate school issues, there have been many cited cases about inappropriate teacher-student relationships. Security concerns on social channels is a popular topic, especially as leaders such as Facebook roll out more advanced security features.

Young women found to be key users

According to a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey, young adult women are “power users” of social-media sites. About 89% of online women from 18-29 years old are on the sites and 69% of use social media every day.
Additionally, the overall percentage of Internet users who are on social-networking sites has climbed as well, from about 29% in 2008 to 65% this year.
This shows that social media use is drastically increasing and becoming a more pervasive, and daily part of our lives, specifically for women. Advertisers have long understood the advantage of females, specifically mom-bloggers, online and many marketing campaigns are geared specifically towards this demographic.
With the release of this study, we can expect to see more marketing campaigns aimed at young women utilizing social media tools to share their messages and engage key audiences.

Using Business Intelligence for Intelligent Business

By: Jay Osterholm, founder and CEO of The ODM Group

When I was in business school every student was required to see the movie Wall Street at least once.  Over two decades later, while watching an extremely forced attempt at a decent sequel on its opening night, I had more than enough time to contemplate the obviously wide disparities between the original and the sequel.  Albeit clumsy and obvious, it was crystal clear what they were trying to say: fundamentally people and business have not changed a bit – not just in the last two decades, but on the most basic level since the beginning of commerce.

From a perspective of desired outcomes, the whole of business challenges such as stock price, gaining marketing share, tapping consumer sentiment, and building / launching companies or brands remains constant. Gordon Gecko had it right when he said ‘The most valuable commodity I know of is information.’  Flash forward to today and no… not the sequel.  Solid business intelligence (information) is a requisite for solid business performance.

The amount, frequency, quality, and immediacy of information that is available to just about everyone is in fact supremely and absolutely unprecedented. So now absolutely everybody has access to more and more information.  In fact, it is the sheer volume of information that often gets in the way of any intelligent decision-making.  The information game-goal today is to quickly get the most appropriate, accurate and timely business intelligence.  Much like the gold-pan idealists, we inherently know that there is gold to be found in the ten tons of earth hiding it.

New companies are emerging on a seemingly daily basis, ready to try to sell you ‘must-have’ information.  The truth is two-fold: 1) yes, getting business ‘intel’ is much easier today; 2) you still need to work smarter, harder, and faster in order to sort, distill and then analyze all of it accurately.

Today, you must be highly analytical, able to dive into the details and process massive amounts of the right information quickly.  As business leaders we are expected to know how to use the latest technology to get the best information.

With every revolution and change in thought or process stand legions of charlatans trying to sell you on the quick and sexy looking solutions.  There is no easy payday, no substitutes; substance over form counts.  Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder but in the ROI, the tangible results, the ability to cross the finish line first.  Winning is still everything, as you often get one chance on any given engagement to get it right.

Stay relevant, stay informed, stay focused and look for those magic moments when the right opportunity intersects with your relentless pursuit of the right information.  With that, your clients will be successful under your helm – if you win then your clients win.  Stay grounded in solid business strategy as the endless swirl of digital options is fed by explosive and unprecedented access to business intelligence.

(Note: If you liked this article, let me know.  I plan to follow-up with additional articles that focus on specific channels of business intelligence and how to use it.)

ZocDoc Makes Online Doctor Appointments

Thanks to a new startup, making doctors’ appointments just got a little easier. ZocDoc allows users to book appointments online. According to Business Insider, more than 700,000 people use the service every month.

The service is free for patients and practices can pay a monthly fee of $250 to be included on the site. The idea seems to be taking off, as ZocDoc reports that the number of available appointments jumped from 3 million in February to 5 million last month.

More and more we are seeing companies embrace technology, specifically in the healthcare industry, to streamline processes and meet the needs of the consumer. Have you ever made a doctor’s appointment online? If so, will you do it again in the future?

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Image-Ads Move to Auto Industry

GumGum, a company that created a technology that places advertisements inside photos online, announced today that is has made deals three major automotive media publishers: VerticalScope, Internet Brands, and CarDomain Network.
These agreements will allow automotive advertisers to more creatively and effectively target consumers.

According to GumGum, the click-through rates are 20 times higher for their image-based ads relative to traditional ad networks. GumGum now reaches 110 million unique visitors a month by serving billions of in-image ads per month.

This is indicative of a new trend in online advertising. As we spend more and more time online, advertisers are challenged to create new ways of attracting consumer’s attention. Based on these deals, we expect to see a larger adoption of image-based advertisements, which will also lead to new and more innovative methods of engaging consumers.

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Virginia Earthquake Twitter & Hurricane Irene App

5,500 Tweets delivered per second following earthquake

Following the 5.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Virginia on Tuesday, people flocked to Twitter and sent out 5,500 tweets per second. A Flickr user named Eric Fischer created an animated map to show the twitter activity which we will share with you now.
According to Twitter, within a minute of the quake, there were more than 40,000 quake-related tweets. “For context, this is more than Osama Bin Laden’s death & on par w/ the Japanese quake,” the social networking site said in a tweet of its own.
As the east coast prepares for yet another natural disaster, Hurricane Irene, we expect to see just as many, if not more, tweets and social media updates.

Apps, maps and other tools for Hurricane Irene

The east coast is boarding up in preparation for the worst storm in nearly a century. As we all prepare for the worst, but hope for the best, here are some tools to help you stay informed, safe and in touch with the storm.
The Hurricane Tracker app for iPhones costs $2.99 and has links to National Hurricane Center advisories, discussions, audio updates, maps and most importantly, push alerts. A free, less robust version of this app is called iHurricane HD and created by HurricaneSoftware.com and is also available on Android devices. Twitter and Facebook will also be great information gathering tools as Irene makes landfall this weekend. Many government officials are using these channels to provide updates on travel conditions and evacuations.
The American Red Cross released a new survey that claims Americans are increasingly relying on the Internet and social media for disaster information. According to the survey, 18% of Americans regularly rely on Facebook to obtain disaster information. The survey also claims that the Internet is the third most used medium to find out information about disasters following radio and television.
Be sure to check out these apps, and Twitter and Facebook throughout the weekend, and most importantly, be safe.

Successful Marketing Is Not Just About Key Selling Points

By: Jay Osterholm, founder and CEO of The ODM Group

About 12 years ago, I thought any marketing company worth its salt would offer their clients a strategic marketing plan prior to rolling out a branding initiative. After all, it makes sense. I had seen companies who wanted a new campaign, but had not fully thought through the campaign strategy. Furthermore, I often found myself selling Strategic Marketing Plans on top of trying to get the creative business. Even if the client said ‘no’ to the planning process, we still needed to do our homework on the side to be sure that: marketing differentiators were accurately qualified, key selling points were clearly defined and articulated, target audiences were confirmed, and the competitive landscape was outlined – among many, many other strategic anchors. A battle-plan if you will.

Far too often agencies were asked to simply take orders, and not challenge assumptions with thoughtful insight. After all, the CEOs or Marketing VPs knew what they wanted and if you wanted the business, your job was to execute – period. Imagine creating 12 different campaign options because the client’s marketing team said they can’t give you any more strategic insights and instead saying, ‘Look, just show me some creative – I’m a visual person and I’ll know it when I see it.’ I really dislike that expression. It serves neither client nor agency.

Agencies were expected to know what to do and create something brilliant, often in a short time frame. You get the idea. Strategic Marketing Plans found their place in allowing agencies time to get it right, do their homework and oh yes – did I mention that agencies need to charge for that immersion process? A Strategic Marketing Plan is a milestone and a physical product in the end. A client could take the plan, say ‘thanks so much’ and give the creative business to someone else. Having written my share of Strategic Marketing Plans, the amount of time and effort is almost covered by the amount an agency can charge for it.

Strategic Marketing Plans still have an important spot in the agency/client relationship. While it immediately appears that the prospective client’s investment in the Strategic Marketing Plan is all too agency-self-serving, very few experienced businesses can argue against the value of the business intelligence and the planning process. The client invests in the agency, and the agency builds a relationship with the client and learns their business inside and out. So now having sold that idea, we are just negotiating scope, scale and timing to get the creative results.

The key take away is “always do your homework.” And if marketing agencies are going to get it right, somewhere, somehow, questions must be asked and facts must be distilled to yield an “a-ha!”

AtlantiCare

The ODM Group worked with HK Productions to produce and complete a television spot for Atlanticare Neurosciences Institute. Atlanticare’s Neuroscience Institute uses the most advanced technology to diagnose and treat stroke and stroke-like syndromes and other neurological disorders of the brain and spine. The television spot focuses on serving the community using services designed to help people achieve optimal health and features Neurosurgeon Dr. Randazzo, MD, MPH.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs Resigns

Following last nights’ announcement that Steve Jobs was resigning as CEO, shares of Apple fell by nearly 7%.

Jobs’ letter or resignation said, “I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.”

During his 35-year career, Jobs’ has changed the way we can interact with technology on a global level. Many took to social outlets to share their emotions, as Jobs’ is possibly the most renowned tech innovators of our time.

Tim Cook will replace Job as CEO of Apple. Cook has been the chief operating officer for the past seven years, and has acted as the interim- CEO on multiple. We at DMN feel the drop in stock prices is not related to the assumed capabilities of the new leadership, as Cook has proven to be capable of leading the company. However, Jobs’ is viewed as the innovator of the company and it will be interesting to see if Cook is able to take on that role and change public perception.

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