Great Video about the daily life at the Twitter Universe.
Via Loic.
DIGITAL. TRENDS. FUTURE.
27
Mar
Mar
Vodafone UK has signed an agreement with Twitter that will allow its customers to send updates to, and receive SMS notifications from, the messaging network of the moment.
As of today, Vodafone customers will be able to receive text messages from people they choose to follow via SMS on Twitter and send text messages to a dedicated Shortcode, 86444, for their ‘tweets, @replies, or to follow someone on the go. When receiving a text message from Twitter containing a URL, customers will be able to click on the link and access the webpage directly from their mobiles.
The SMS updates posted on Twitter will be free of charge for the first few weeks from launch; after that, they will be part of customers’ bundles. After the free period, regular charges will apply to customers without bundles, but all text message updates sent from Twitter will remain free of charge.
“We are delighted to be the only operator in the UK today to offer Twitter on SMS to our customers,” says Al Russell, Vodafone UK’s Head of Vodafone Internet services. “Since we made social networks on the move both simple to use and great value, customers have flocked to using these services, which have exploded in popularity.”
Twitter’s Director of Mobile Business Development, Kevin Thau, adds:
“Mobile texting extends the power of Twitter’s real-time network in a simple but significant way. Twitter is the messaging network you didn’t know you needed until you experience it over SMS.”
Vodafone says the new service is easy to use on any mobile device and offers fast mobile access to one of the most popular social networks in the world. Twitter joins a long list of social networks available through Vodafone live! since December 08.
Vodafone adds that since it began including mobile Internet access in its price plans, giving customers unlimited access to the mobile Internet, social networks have topped Vodafone’s popularity charts for the most visited sites on mobiles.
26
Mar
Mar
At next week’s CTIA Wireless Show, Opera Software will be announcing the new Opera Mobile 9.7 server-accelerated browser for smartphones and mobile devices. Opera Mobile 9.7 features Opera Turbo, Opera’s breakthrough compression technology, along with the company’s latest Presto 2.2 rendering engine (also used in Opera 10 desktop) and full support for dynamic Web technologies such as Ajax and Flash (for accessing popular sites like Facebook and YouTube).
In today’s tough business climate where customer expectations are ever-increasing, Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo can help carriers reduce network congestion while helping mobile device manufacturers bring increased speed and a more rich Web browsing experience to their customer and users.
For carriers specifically, Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo provides a more consistent and compelling full Internet experience by compressing data up to 80%, thus reducing unwanted traffic and congestion and allowing users to access the Web regardless of network limitations.
For mobile device manufacturers, Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo can make for a faster, more rich browsing experience by leveraging current device capabilities and utilizing hardware resources more effectively. Opera Turbo offloads Web page rendering to Opera servers freeing up device resources. Even devices with limited hardware capabilities show improved page download rates and better overall performance.
“Today, carriers and mobile device manufacturers alike are looking for solutions that take advantage of existing technologies and investments while trying to maintain a high level of service for their customers,” explains Rod Hamlin, Senior Vice President for the Americas for Opera Software. “Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo gives our business customers to ability to bring a rich Internet browsing experience to their mobile device and to the end-user without having to allocate new resources and development costs.”
Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo also features better standards support (100% Acid 3 test) and developer tools, hardware acceleration Open GL ES, and support for Google Gears.
To learn more, check out the Opera Mobile 9.7 with Opera Turbo demo video:
http://www.opera.com/discover/video/mobileturbo/
23
Mar
Mar
Christophe Langlois of Visible Banking interviewed Matthias Kroener during a conference in Paris. The event was focusing on Social Media and its impact on the financial industry.
Matthias Kroener, CEO of Fidor AG, talked about their Social Media Marketing Strategy realized in teamwork with Ahead of Time.
18
Mar
Mar
I just read “A better Street View comes form Canada” at ReadWriteWeb and I had to think back to a meeting I had in Shanghai, China, last year with an innovative StartUp.
City8 offers a much better quality, zoom function and interaction. The StreetView has been created using high resolution photography. City8 has already digitalized most of the big cities in China and is expanding its service rapidly.
The technology and the team surprised right away when we visited them during the Trend Tour for our client. It seems to be even better than the Canadian Street Maps.
See an Shanghai Street View in the streets of Pudong:
09
Mar
Mar
VentureBeat has written about Yahoo-owned email and collaboration software Zimbra before, but it looks like they’re far from being the only fans. In fact, Zimbra announced that has crossed the 40 million user mark. And those are paid mailboxes, not free accounts.
Zimbra has flown a bit under the radar — it’s not exactly obscure, but I don’t watch it as closely as, say, Gmail. It turns out, however, that Zimbra actually has 31.4 million users in the United States, squeaking by the 31.2 million unique monthly visitors Gmail received in the US during the month of January (according to comScore). And while we’re beating up on Google, we should also note that Google recently reported having 10 million users for the free and pay versions of its business application bundle Google Apps — again, well behind Zimbra. These numbers also imply Zimbra might soon pass other popular webmail services like AOL Email and Windows Live Hotmail.
Granted, you risk entering “apples and oranges” territory when you compare a consumer-driven webmail product like Hotmail with something that’s more focused on businesses and institutions like Zimbra. (Update: A lot of Zimbra’s growth was likely fueled by the big deal it struck with Comcast in 2007, as several commenters note below. A spokeswoman says deals with Comcast and other service providers “represent a large number of Zimbra’s user base” but adds that the company isn’t at liberty to offer details.) Throw in the fact that we’re measuring Zimbra’s self-reported numbers against numbers from comScore and Google, and things start looking pretty dodgy. But even if we stick to Zimbra’s numbers alone, the growth is quite impressive — a year ago, it reported less than 12 million paid mailboxes. Let’s hope Zimbra continues that growth despite the departure of founder Satish Dharmaraj.
The news also ties into a blog post by Hitwise’s Heather Hopkins earlier today. Pointing to new Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz’ remark that email is becoming “increasingly critical” to the struggling company, Hopkins notes that email accounts for more than third of Yahoo traffic. Of course, Yahoo Mail and Zimbra are separate products, but Zimbra’s numbers underline Hopkins’ and Bartz’ message — if there’s a way for Yahoo to get out of its current mess, email is going to play a huge role.
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