Get the tissues out – Blackberry and Alicia Keys have called time on their partnership. Surprising? Not to most. How amicable the split is has been hot topic this morning. Was she fired? Did she jump ship? Or was it really a case of creative differences? Last January Blackberry unveiled the songstress as the ‘global creative director’. Giving the title of ‘creative director’ has become the new way of large companies using celebs to flog their products whilst trying to be smart about it. So what does this mean for Blackberry? Well, they say all news is good news but the former telecoms king can’t seem to catch a break. In November they lost CEO Thorsten Heins and a number of other top executives followed suit. Alicia Keys was the wrong choice – by far. In her defence there aren’t many of us who’d turn down top dollar to be pictured using a company’s products every few weeks. Alicia Keys is an Apple girl – remember the faux pas of her sending a tweet from her iPhone some weeks after her Blackberry appointment? Major fail.
So, as of 30th January the union of Blackberry and Alicia Keys is no more. Who do you think Blackberry should hire next? Tweet us or leave a comment…
AtomPark’s Atomic Email Studio claims to control all your email campaign needs which include collecting contacts, managing mailing lists and creating and sending newsletters. We set out to conduct a full review and overall were really impressed by this software.
Atomic Email Studio is an all-in-one email marketing tool designed to help individuals and businesses manage and create email marketing campaigns. The software aims to change the way users interact with their customers. This particular email marketing solution comprises of nine essential marketing programs that aim to activate your business in viable ways. It gives you access to everything you need to promote your business online in one place. We liked the step-by-step system for managing emails with HTML options to customise templates for different use. It is easy to setup and the user friendly interface makes Atomic Email Studio our best email marketing solution for 2013.
Features/ Bundles
Atomic Mail Sender: This uses an SMTP wizard for easy setup and has approximately 3000 free SMTP relays. Other features include an automatic add and unsubscribe command, social media integration in messages (Facebook & Twitter), text spinning and spam check. Although the trial version limited us to only 50 emails, the Atomic Mail Sender made our jobs much easier.
Atomic List Manager: The Atomic List Manager came in handy when we needed to ‘clean up’ our mailing list as it deletes duplicates, non-existing or invalid e-mail addresses.
Atomic Subscription Manager: This feature was designed to manage your subscriptions automatically and as a publishing company we were really intrigued by this feature. It was very easy to add or remove subscribers from our list by sending them automated notification emails.
Atomic Mail Verifier: One of the frustrating things about mailing lists is the unverified emails. The Atomic Mail Verifier has three levels of verification to validate all your emails.
Atomic Email Hunter: Extracts email addresses from the internet.
Atomic Email Logger: Extracts email addresses from your local files.
Atomic WHOIS Explorer: Extracts contacts from the global WHOIS database.
Atomic Web Spider: Extracts contacts from visited websites.
Atomic Newsgroup Explorer: Extracts contacts from newsgroups.
Email Campaign Creation
The process of creating emails with the Atomic Mail Studio allows you full creative control whilst simplifying the task which is especially appealing if you are new to email marketing.
Once your campaign is created the Atomic Mail Tracker enables you to analyse all your campaigns with the aid of statistics from Google Analytics. It also tracks how many contacts opened your emails and verifies emails prior to sending to avoid bounce-back.
Ease of Use
Atomic Mail Studio really sets the bar high in terms of ease of use among email marketing software. The tools for creating emails, auto responses, surveys and polls are very user friendly. Each feature takes you through the process step-by-step, so even if you are a novice, you will be able to create a campaign you can be proud of.
Help & Support
Customer support from AtomPark is impressive. The website is packed with FAQs and other information that is easy to find. If you do not find a solution on your own, the company’s customer service representatives are quick to respond by live chat, email and telephone.
The most appealing factor is that AtomPark’s Atomic Email Studio only has a one-time activation fee. So if you are on the hunt for a cost effective, easy to use email marketing solution then Atomic Mail Studio will not leave you disappointed.
Web giant Facebook has introduced the refreshing concept of video advertisement which has lead to a boost in stock prices. A series of ads from the upcoming movie Divergent has inaugurated this aggressive advertisement strategy, which has paid off immensely.
These auto play ads can be seen on selected news feeds and can be un-muted if the user clicks on it, as mentioned on the Facebook for business page. The Firm announced,” Ads on mobile devices will have been downloaded in advance when the device was connected to Wi–Fi.”It also mentioned,” This content will not consume data plans, even if you’re connected to Wi–Fi at the time of playback”. Hence, reassuring mobile users and negating their complaint on such ads as prospectively leading to extensive consumption of their data allowance.
Facebook has been testing innumerable ways of watching the videos on their social network since September, after delaying their original plans of introducing this strategy in the summer subject to Mark Zuckerberg’s uncertainty of user’s response. Facebook has also reassured people with no interest in watching advertisements by stating,” Simply scroll past and the video will stop playing”.
Morgan Stanley has predicted that Facebook could earn close to £613m for video ads by 2014
A representative of IDC said “It sounds as if they are doing it in a reasonably sensitive way but if they get this stuff wrong people may stop being active and posting new content, The question is do they have rich enough analytics to target ads correctly? It isn’t just about an ad for a film. I care about being sent the correct movie to try and sell me the right thing,”
We all have had photographs of a crazy party with the closest of friends. The photograph is to be shared among the closest 15 friends but the uncle, aunt and college professor do not need to see them. What should we do? E-Mail is one option, but what if we miss someone? Or the photo goes to someone else through a friend. Instagram Direct is the solution to this problem. The service offers the user to share a photo with a group of close friends, without the fear of getting leaked or missing someone in the gang.
The app is available to i-phone and android users and works more like a messaging service. It allows the user to select and share a photo or video with 15 friends at a time. Once the photo is received the friends can ‘like’ the photo.
The company has taken adequate privacy measures. It has ensured that you do not directly see the photos received from people not following you. There is absolutely no risk of getting images the user does not want to see.
Instagram’s Direct feature comes at a time when the social media companies are in a neck-to-neck fight for capturing the messaging market. In the ever-changing face of social media and with Twitter coming up with a functionality of sending photos in direct messages, it seems to be the ‘clash of the titans’. Social networking companies are in a continuous battle to capture the young users. Facebook has continuously been improving its messenger to include creative stickers, group chat feature and photo comment which became a rage among the youth.
BLOW Hookah Pipe is a two feet tall Battery powered Hookah/Shisha pipe made for the purpose of e – smoking. BLOW e – Hookah provides its customers, mainly club owners, low purchase points, low overhead and almost zero maintenance.
BLOW e – Hookah is one hundred percent electronic, that is, contains no tobacco, no water, no coal and no flame, and runs completely on vaporiser. It is one hundred percent legal and hence requires no permits.
There are a variety of flavors available at smoke shops as well as at BLOW and the web in the form of cartridges and are inserted beneath the tip of the hose. The density of the smoke can also be adjusted with the help of the voltage regulator in the form of a knob near the base of the Hookah. The power supply can be adjusted between the range of 3 – 6 volts and according the density of the smoke will also be adjusted. The flavors are made with friendly chemicals and contain nicotine and vitamins.
The tall stand provides a battery capacity of 6 – 8 hours it even contains LED lights which shoot out towards the ceiling which enable it to blend in with club atmosphere. At the touch of a button the whole stand turns red and waiters can be notified that the flavor needs to be added or changed if the customer wants to change it.
It costs about £491 and the LED backed up stand costs about £900, but considering that it is for the club owners to purchase, it seems like an apt, fun and economic investment and it is definitely worth it.
The technology which has drastically changed our living, thinking and our functioning is Google. Google has changed the way we live. What started as a search browser has now become an important part of our day-to-day activities. Name a web based service and its Google product. Starting from our mail accounts to watching videos, even the browser we use is sometimes Google Chrome. Even if all that fails, we all use the android based smartphones. Yes! That’s the power of Google.
In a recent development in technology world, Google took over Boston Dynamics. Boston Dynamics has to its credits the most advanced robots with remarkable behaviour: mobility, agility, dexterity and speed. The company has to its credits robots like:
BigDog: A quadruped robot which can climb muddy hills and is being tested by US military to be used as a robotic mule.
Cheetah: Another quadruped robot. It can run faster than the fastest human. (Usain Bolt)
PetMan: This is the most ambitious robot developed by Boston Dynamics. It is the first anthropomorphic robot that moves dynamically like a real person.
The deal is the 7th such deal for Google. Before this the company has already acquired 6 other robotic companies. With the take-over of Boston Dynamics Google is venturing into the fast growing world of artificial intelligence.
The man behind the Google’s robotic division is Andy Rubin. Last time when Google and Andy Rubin did something big, they ended up placing a computer in millions of pockets, in form of its android based smart phones. With Google now playing with artificial intelligence and robots, ‘Only sky is the limit’.
The Scosche Rhythm is the world’s first lightweight, pulse monitor that attaches to your forearm. Via Bluetooth technology, the device can be controlled wirelessly through a smartphone or tablet application, allowing the user to manage their pulse, calories burned, distance, speed and pace through it’s free downloadable app. The Rhythm also allows it user to have their own personalised home page, route mapping and work out summary that is tailored to its user’s workout schedule. Additionally the Rhythm also streams music wirelessly whilst you work out. The Scosche Rhythm is available in yellow or pink.
