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With the exception of the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet, the Android tablet race is starting to look like the PC race of the early 2000s: SPEEDS AND FEEDS ... and not a lot else. Case in point is Asus' Eee Pad Transformer Prime, the first quad-core tablet to hit the market. That's right, people, four whole cores!

quad-core tablet

For $499, the price of a 16GB iPad, you get 32GB, and can get up to 64GB for just $100 more. It will ship with Android 3.2 Honeycomb, but Asus promises that it will get an over-the-air update to the eagerly anticipated Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich "at a later date." Great, terrific, you know?

a survey administered by Jive Software that found both executives and knowledge workers believe social software will become a necessary part of doing business — even though the return on investment for this kind of software is still pretty squishy. 

Improving customer loyalty and service levels and driving increased revenue or sales were among the top reasons for using social software mentioned by survey respondents.

they shouldn't become so focused on attaining a hard ROI that they miss opportunities to use social to solve business problems.

The first GSMA Mobile Observatory report to focus on Africa has come back with some fascinating conclusions. First among them, Africa has passed Latin America to become the world's second largest mobile market. The global mobile association examined the 25 African countries that account for 91% of mobile use (calling them the "A25"). Here are some of the most interesting of the report's conclusions.

The report "integrates data from a wide range of existing sources to provide a comprehensive picture of the African mobile industry. These include public sources such as the ITU, World Bank and research by National Regulatory Authorities as well as commercial providers such as Wireless Intelligence, Informa, Gartner, Buddecomm and ID." Africa now has 620 million mobile connections, passing Latin America Regional penetration has risen from 2% in 2000, to 57% this year Over the last decade, the number of mobile connections has grown an average of 30% per year, forecast to reach 735 million by the end of next year Mobile provides 3.5% of African GDP Highly competetive sector has resulted in price decreases of up to 60% in some areas, with an overall average of 18% decrease in the last year 96% of is pre-paid with voice services currently dominating, however data is increasing rapidly - Kenya data revenues, for instance, including SMS, have increased at a 67% annual growth over the last 4 years, representing 26% of total revenues in that country

As we heard earlier today, Thanksgiving proved to be a lucrative day for online retailers. IBM reported online Thanksgiving 2011 sales were up 39 percent over Thanksgiving 2010, with mobile shopping on the rise. eBay and PayPal are seeing similar trends. PayPal Mobile just announced a 511 percent increase in global mobile payment volume when compared to Thanksgiving 2010.

On Thanksgiving in the U.S., consumers shopped on mobile via PayPal most frequently between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. PST. Around the world, consumers shopped on mobile most frequently between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. PST.

There was a more than three-fold (350%) increase in the number of global customers shopping through PayPal mobile on Thanksgiving 2011 compared to last year. These shoppers were mainly located in New York, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago.

A slideshow here on how hospitals are using Twitter

Quotes on the importance of strategy with social media marketing from some of the top social media experts and brands online including: Chris Brogan, Peter Kim, Joseph Jaffe, Jason Falls, Katie Payne, Debbie Weil, Jay Baer, Mari Smith, David Meernan Scott, Valeria Maltoni, Scott Monty and about 40 others.

It’s a debate that’s more common than you might think. Strategy or Tactics first when it comes to social media? Many companies approach their participation on the social web tentatively, picking a popular tool like Twitter, Facebook or for the more adventuresome, a blog. The exercise of setting up and populating a profile, friending others and seeing what happens is akin to the proverbial “throw spaghetti against wall to see if it sticks” school of marketing. There’s a time and place for tactics, for strategy and for experimentation. I think it’s perfectly reasonable for a company to test certain channels without a broad corporate wide commitment to being more social. However, that effort should be guided by smart analysis of audience, tools and with the aid of goals and measurement methodology. Without a plan, social media efforts often fail, waste time, money and detract from the brand experience.Read more at www.toprankblog.com

A new way to measure word-of-mouth marketing Assessing its impact as well as its volume will help companies take better advantage of buzz. APRIL 2010 • Jacques Bughin, Jonathan Doogan, and Ole Jørgen Vetvik

Exhibit 1: Word of mouth is influential throughout the consumer decision journey. Exhibit 2: By looking at impact as well as volume, marketers can measure the effects of word-of-mouth messages more accurately.

Consumers have always valued opinions expressed directly to them. Marketers may spend millions of dollars on elaborately conceived advertising campaigns, yet often what really makes up a consumer’s mind is not only simple but also free: a word-of-mouth recommendation from a trusted source. As consumers overwhelmed by product choices tune out the ever-growing barrage of traditional marketing, word of mouth cuts through the noise quickly and effectively.Indeed, word of mouth1 is the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions. Its influence is greatest when consumers are buying a product for the first time or when products are relatively expensive, factors that tend to make people conduct more research, seek more opinions, and deliberate longer than they otherwise would. And its influence will probably grow: the digital revolution has amplified and accelerated its reach to the point where word of mouth is no longer an act of intimate, one-on-one communication. Today, it also operates on a one-to-many basis: product reviews are posted online and opinions disseminated through social networks. Some customers even create Web sites or blogs to praise or punish brands. Register to read this article.

1. You don’t have to jump immediately into hiring a social media expert.

2. You don’t have to spend on high-tech gadgets.

3. To help you maximize your allotted time for social media marketing, don’t spread yourself too thin.

the Ctrip team has once again delivered the strong results in the first quarter, marking an encouraging start to the year 2011. Our net revenues grew 30% year-over-year and net income grew 23% year-over-year. With the solid execution, Ctrip has further enhanced its strategic partnerships, improved operating efficiency and elevated its customer service level. The Ctrip team has continued to build the brand’s strength and demonstrate industry leadership. Our hotel [ph] supply network continues to expand to satisfy the growing needs of travelers, reaching approximately 18,000 hotels by the end of March 2011 compared to 10,600 hotels at the same time in 2010. The number of hotels with guaranteed allotment rooms accounted for approximately 75% of the total hotel supply. We rolled out more options for making hotel reservations to keep for different needs of our customers. For example, Ctrip has launched the most expensive hotel group buying platform in China, with the daily participants reaching over 100 hotels. Our hotel group buying 2.0 platform features the most convenient booking process elevating service levels industry wide. Thanks to the great effort and strong execution on the product of IT, Ctrip has continued to outpace industry growth in the air ticketing sector growing far ahead of the industry average.

(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/f92935/global_mobile_br) has announced the addition of the "Global - Mobile Broadband - Location Based Services Insights" report to their offering. Despite the hype regarding this technology since around the year 2000; we have just recently begun to see applications for this technology become available to mass audiences. This is thanks to services like FourSquare and Facebook Places offering users the ability to check-in. The future of mobile Location Based Services will continue to emerge as handsets with smarter capabilities, new apps and user interfaces continue to permeate the market. This report provides a broad global overview of trends and developments in the mobile location based services industry, including a brief overview of GPS.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/f92935/global_mobile_br

PARIS — Nokia, the cellphone giant battling to maintain its position in the face of competition from the iPhone and Android, said Tuesday that it was abandoning its 2011 profit targets after an unexpectedly poor second-quarter showing. Shares in Nokia tumbled 17.5 percent, closing at €4.75 in Helsinki, after the company, which is based in Espoo, Finland, said “multiple factors are negatively impacting” sales, particularly lower selling prices and a reduced sales volume.

“The Symbian portfolio is in terminal decline,” Mr. Jeffrey said, “so the importance of the Windows phone is even greater now.”

Nokia lowered its forecast for second-quarter sales in its devices and services business to “substantially below” the range of €6.1 billion to €6.6 billion, or $8.8 billion to $9.5 billion, it had previously forecast.

EBay and its online payment unit, PayPal, on Thursday sued Google and two executives for stealing trade secrets related to mobile payment systems. The two executives, Osama Bedier and Stephanie Tilenius, were formerly with PayPal and led the launch on Thursday of Google's own mobile payment system in partnership with MasterCard, Citigroup and phone company Sprint. The suit highlights the growing battle by a wide range of companies from traditional finance to Silicon Valley trying to take a major stake in what has been described as a US$1 trillion ($1.2 trillion) opportunity in mobile payments. The mobile phone is seen as the digital personal wallet of the future. The eBay suit said Bedier worked for nine years at PayPal, most recently serving as vice president of platform, mobile and new ventures. He joined Google on January 24 this year.

Micro-targeted ads were only the first step; now companies can easily link anyone's social media profile to their web-browsing habits, and sell that information to anyone who's interested. Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and others are, predictably, jockeying for lead position

Transformations of this magnitude are never confined to the market. Eventually, they spill over into the realm of politics and society. It's a familiar pattern: new technology enables new business practices. These practices, in turn, raise important social, political, and

Transformations of this magnitude are never confined to the market. Eventually, they spill over into the realm of politics and society. It's a familiar pattern: new technology enables new business practices. These practices, in turn, raise important social, political, and legal questions

A common mistake for those seeking to cope with this profound disruption is to confuse technology with innovation. Algorithms, apps and search tools help make data useful but they can’t replace the value judgements at the core of journalism.

Genuine innovation requires a fundamental shift in how journalists think about their role in a changed world. To begin with, they need to get used to being ‘curators’; sorting news from the noise on the social web using smart new tools and good old fashioned reporting skills.

I find it helps to think of curation as three central questions: * Discovery: How do we find valuable social media content? * Verification: How do we make sure we can trust it? * Delivery: How do we turn that content into stories for a changed audience?

Computex trade show in Taipei.

“Investors want to know which tablet is better, which has the best price-performance, and when the non-iPad camp is going to get going,” said Angela Hsiang, an analyst at KGI Securities Co. in Taipei. “Previously, people couldn’t actually see the products. At Computex, we’ll be able to touch and use them.”

Global shipments of tablets will climb to 215 million units in 2015 from 17 million last year, Toni Sacconaghi, a New York- based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., wrote in a May 26 report. Fifteen percent of all tablets will cannibalize the sale of consumer PCs, reducing computer-sales growth by 2 percent annually between 2010 and 2015, Sacconaghi wrote.

Source: http://enipedia.tudelft.nl Enipedia is an active exploration into the applications of wikis and the semantic web for energy and industry issues. Through this we seek to create a collaborative environment for discussion, while also providing the tools that allow for data from different sources to be connected, queried, and visualized from different perspectives

*Theory mashup of AR and cyborgs.

http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/05/09/cyborgs-and-the-augmented-reality-they-inhabit/

*Actually, it’s more of an argument about the definition of Augmented Reality and the definition of Cyborgs, until you can get ‘em to click together like puzzle pieces. But so much debris is left on the floor when they’re done with the theory tin-shears, that the debris looks more interesting than the remainder.