Android and Motorola vs Apple and iOS vs Microsoft … and … Nokia:
REDMOND, Washington and ESPOO, Finland – Sept. 2, 2013 – Microsoft Corporation and Nokia Corporation today announced that the Boards of Directors for both companies have decided to enter into a transaction whereby Microsoft will purchase substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, license Nokia’s patents, and license and use Nokia’s mapping services.
Let’s see if this changes anything.
Fun read of an insanely expensive yet pretty awesome setup…
So it was decided. New Mac Pro. Will buy.Or so I thought. A couple of months ago a change in circumstances meant my girlfriend’s need for my 11” Air went from “After you buy a new Mac Pro” to “Yesterday”. Since the Mac Pro was still months away I had to make a decision.
via I couldnt wait for the new Mac Pro – Hopefully Useful.</p
If you use Twitter for anything marketing related, you’ll occasionally bump into the need to delete or expire a tweet (or series of tweets depending on the campaign).
Here’s a nifty tool that helps solve that problem:
A former Twitter engineer has released an app that lets you schedule your tweets to be deleted. Enable Spirit for Twitter and append a hashtag like #1m, #2h, or #3d, and your tweet will disappear after the specified timeframe. It’s introducing even more ephemerality to a service that’s already heavily focused on the moment.
via Add an expiration date to your tweets using a simple hashtag | The Verge.
I’m watching a great BBC production on YouTube about the Syrian conflict while getting some Labor Day work done (and while Willie chews a bone) via Chromecast.
I didn’t immediately understand what Chromecast meant for my media consumption but it really is revolutionary in bridging the gap between web content and my ‘tv’ which has basically become a dumb screen for content via Roku and Chromecast now.
Posted from WordPress for Android
Favicons have been handy for web browsers for years. However, with the proliferation of devices (not talking just computers and mobiles here), you need to keep up with your favicon optimization (never thought I’d type that). Here’s a nifty “cheat sheet” that walks you through proper sizes for everything from iOS and Android to the Chrome browser to GoogleTV and iPads…
Obsessive cheat sheet to favicon sizes/types
via audreyr/favicon-cheat-sheet · GitHub.
While there’s no demonstrable SEO gain to having a favicon on your site, it definitely helps if your affiliate or marketing site is in anyway brand related (there’s nothing worse than seeing the SquareSpace, BlueHost, Drupal etc default image in the navigation bar).
I can’t be the only person that finds this insanely useful.
How are things going with your email newsletter as we head into the all-important holiday season?
Trends don’t look good if you’re doing your email marketing the same way you did things in 2004…
Before the tabbed layout, open rates to Gmail had been above 13% for 15 weeks. They never dipped below that threshold unless there was a specific holiday. For instance, weekday opens for Gmail fell to 12.5% on the week of Valentine’s day. Open rates between Christmas and New Years are an abysmal 10.5%. Something about spending time with loved ones just isn’t conducive to combing through your inbox. Weird, right?
What bothers me in this case is that open rates stayed down for 3 consecutive weeks. From looking at a year and half’s worth of data, I can say that kind of behavior isn’t normal. I’m not willing to declare an emergency just yet. After all, I don’t even know what the adoption rate is on Gmail’s side. However, I would say this is an early indicator, and we’re definitely keeping our eye on it.
via How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates | MailChimp Email Marketing Blog.
Of course, GMail isn’t the only email provider but you’d be downright ignorant if you chose to ignore the new tabbed interface of the service. Since the changes started rolling out earlier this summer there have been handy “how to survive” guides that you should read (such as this one). Whether this is anti-competitive or helpful to users (or somewhere in the middle), the reality now exists and marketers must deal with it.
While it may only be Labor Day, you should be in full swing of planning out your holiday season promotions. There’s a very specific calendar mindset that successful email marketers use (you should read that), so it’s time to dive into your email marketing provider analytics (we love MailChimp but affiliates and marketers should be careful when using the service and look to others like AWeber) and see what kinds of trends you can spot from the data over the summer.
One of the most helpful things you can do for your own lists and subscribers is education. Even outlets such as No Agenda, one of my favorite podcasts, is relying on user education to make sure their email newsletter (via MailChimp) gets delivered to listeners’ inboxes after seeing a dismal drop in user contributions (they don’t run ads) since the GMail changes.
Email marketing is just as important, if not more so, than ever as we enter into the 2013 holiday season. Make sure you’re doing your homework before things really heat up and plan for success.
