Sep 252013
 

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Amazons first trick was selling a tablet so cheap, it was hard not to buy it, despite the shortcomings. Amazons next trick was to build a second, larger tablet, to show it could compete if not necessarily win in the big leagues. Amazons third trick — revealed Wednesday — is to blow past Apple and the Android rivals with flatter, faster tablets that are nonetheless priced insanely low. Weve long known CEO Jeff Bezos was content to sell devices at cost — but we didnt know his company would actually go out and pay for such nice tablets. Here comes Kindle Fire HDX.

Wilson Rothman / NBC NewsThe Origami cover, available in various colors and materials for both the 7-inch and 8.9-inch models.”We make money when people use our devices, not when they buy our devices,” Bezos told NBC News Monday during an in-person product briefing where he showed off the two new tablets.

Major upgrades from last years models, the 7-inch and 8.9-inch HDX models have the highest-resolution screens currently on the market, and the fastest chips ever put in tablets. But specs arent the only step up here: new features let you send video to a smart TV or game console, enter low-power mode while reading books, download subscription movies for offline viewing — and even call for help from a live human technician if you run into trouble.

MORE:  Amazons Kindle Fire HDX tablets pose real threat to iPad dominance – NBC News.com.

 

 


 

Sep 192013
 

 internet-web

The great thing about content marketing is that businesses — big and small — can get started and become part of the conversation. They can make true connections with consumers and, more importantly, drive sales and leads for their products and services.

Anyone can get started without spending a penny, and great content produces long-term results. I’ve seen marketers bring in tons of business from articles written years ago. The only things you need are commitment and drive to build a content marketing strategy.

Still, it takes a long time to create content. There is no sense in creating great content to use only once and never see it again. Recycling content makes it easier to supply all the different channels you have to fill on a daily basis. I’m using the term recycle and not reuse. With recycling, you’ll be taking existing content and adding to it to create something slightly new. For SEO reasons, you don’t always want to reuse the same content everywhere — that’s duplicate content and you can get a penalty for it.

Here are tips for recycling content.

MORE:  Simple ways to recycle your content – iMediaConnection.com.

 

 


 

Sep 192013
 

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Staples Inc. SPLS and RadioShack Corp. RSH have removed Amazon.com Inc. AMZN lockers from their stores about a year after starting the program as competition stiffens with the online retailer.

The chains began testing a system last year in which Amazon shoppers could have a Web order delivered to a store and then pick it up for no extra cost. This allowed customers, especially urban apartment dwellers, to avoid being home to receive a package or risking a delivery being stolen because it had to be dropped off on a doorstep or in a lobby.

The decision to enter a partnership that made life easier for Amazon’s customers came at a time when the online retailing giant was already a major competitor to both chains.

“That was a little bit odd, but what they were hoping for was that when customers would come in to pick up stuff from the locker, they would pick up additional items,” said Brian Yarbrough, a retail analyst with Edward Jones & Co. in St. Louis. If they pulled the lockers, that means they probably “weren’t seeing the incremental sales out of the deal.”

Staples ended the test with Amazon after it “didn’t meet the criteria we set up together,” Demos Parneros, president of North American stores and online for Staples, said in an e-mail. The company declined to comment further on why it ended the partnership or how many lockers it had in place.

MORE:  Staples, RadioShack Yank Amazon Lockers From Stores – Bloomberg.

 

 


 

Sep 172013
 

facebook

I have been involved in social media since the early days when Facebook was exclusively used by college students. I helped build one of the first and largest social agencies, MRY — now part of Publicis Group. I have since founded a social marketing platform for large brand marketers.

So, how can I view social media as the worst term in marketing when my career has been built upon it? In short, its a misleading term that confuses both consumers and marketers. Heres how:

Its NOT media

Its communication. Its how we communicate with groups of friends, share photos, and make plans. It is also a filter that we use to personalize what we read, watch, listen to, and do. Our social filters are key to achieve relevance in what we consume and how we remove the rapidly expansive noise.

MORE:  Social media: Why its the worst phrase in marketing – iMediaConnection.com.

 

 


 

Sep 162013
 

netflix

Netflix is following the pirates as it chooses content to add to its streaming-video service.

When rolling out its service in the Netherlands, the company looked at what content to offer based in part on what shows were popular on piracy websites. “Prison Break is exceptionally popular on piracy sites,” Kelly Merryman, Netflix’s vice president of content acquisition, told Torrent Freak, a website that tracks news about the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol.

Netflix takes the view that it can draw people away from a life of video piracy by offering the same content, only with a better user experience and less risk of legal fallout. Reed Hastings, the company’s chief executive, has said that whenever Netflix is launched in a market, the level of activity on piracy sites drops.

MORE:  Netflix Uses Content Pirates to Help With Programming.

 

 


 

Sep 162013
 

CSS3_logo

In 2013, it’s time to sit back and relax. Modern browsers have several dedicated animation technologies built in, which run at 60 fps. Now is the time to forget about the past and start building UI experiences with tasteful animations that help the user feel at home. I would like to take you on a guided tour of the four animation technologies the modern web has to offer to help you decide which one is right for your project.

Let’s start with the easiest to use declarative technology: CSS3. No need for JavaScript here, just plain old CSS, with a few modern tricks.

CSS can be used to declare animations using two basic properties: transition and animation. The transition property tells the browser to compute intermediate frames between two states, each defined by its own CSS. The animation is triggered when the CSS of the element changes. For example, because you programmatically changed its class or because a :hover CSS has kicked in.

MORE:  Create slick HTML5 animations | Tutorial | .net magazine.