One week ago a new four-colored dialog box appeared in my Gmail account.  And I don’t mean some clunky square computer dialog box that we’ve all grown accustomed to, I mean an honest to goodness comic book style dialog box.

Clearly this was some new sort of chat functionality, which surprised me, as I already had a GTalk session open.

Apparently Google was launching it’s answer to Facebook and Twitter, and you know what, I couldn’t be bothered.  I already have all the personal social media tools I need.  In fact, I have more social media tools at my disposal than I …

Apple is playing a dangerous game with its new iPad release.

Like the iPhone before it, the iPad seems positioned to sell itself as a digital multi-tool: all the apps of an iPhone, same G3 wireless connectivity, additional functionality as an e-reader, multi-touch recognition (allowing true on screen keyboards) and the size and processing speed of a laptop.

However the iPad also has one of the same shortcomings of the iPhone, no Flash.

In a handheld device where all internet access is still something of a novelty visitors who can’t load a page will simply (and correctly) assume that it does not have …

No, this isn’t the 6-Million Dollar Man we’re talking about, but your telephone.

The combined market share of smartphones has been growing, and not even the Great Recession could slow it down.

$6 million is a pittance to this behemoth.  Palm alone grossed approximately $20 million on smart phones last year, and they aren’t even considered the industry leader.

Proof in the Usage

The NPD Group found that smartphones made up 28% of all cell phones purchased in the 2nd Quarter of 2009, up from only 12% at the end of 2007.  On top of that, Gerry Purdy of Frost & Sullivan predicts that …

Mobile devices have become an integral part of how American’s shop.  According to eBay, shoppers used their Blackberries, iPhones, Androids, &c. to purchase 1.5 million items from E-bay, three times what they bought the previous year, with luxury items acting as a favorite to these online, on the go consumers.

A recent Deloitte survey predicted that consumers would turn to mobile devices to help them with their shopping.

According to their results, roughly one in five consumers expected to use a mobile phone as part of their holiday shopping experience.

Of those using …

Augmented reality refers to any technology driven display or device that provides you with information on a scene beyond what you could experience with your five senses.

You can find examples of AR in many televised sporting events.

• In baseball, a pop up display will show you a batter’s statistics.
• In football, the line of scrimmage and first down lines are highlighted to make them easier to view.
• In racing, a moving line or overlaid image of previous footage lets you track the current field against an earlier time.

Imagine What You Could Do If You Could Take That Ability With You

Mobile AR combines several …

Across the country we see shopping centers struggling to keep their storefronts filled with tenants that their individual communities support. Community Marketing Group works with individual shopping centers and commercial real estate owners in order to create mapped resources for towns and cities.

Each map is indexed by a sophisticated database that allows Google to crawl each business and the information they provide. We provide customizations to these maps including user accounts allowing each business to update their information, add events or promotions, and adding multiple links such as websites, reviews, or blogs.

Our maps are designed for both the user and …

As Twitter continues its meteoric rise towards becoming the largest, easiest vehicle for mass personal communication, advertisers and marketers continue to experiment with how the social media tool can be monetized and/or integrated into their campaigns.

Three concerns in particular have driven these experiments: Cost, Impact, and Disclosure.

Cost

As anyone with a Twitter account can tell you, Twitter is a free service.  It costs you nothing to set up an account, and there is no charge for posting to Twitter.

However, there is another price associated with marketing through Twitter, and its coin is time.

If you wish to grow a successful Twitter presence …

A month-and-a-half ago Google launched Sidewiki - a service that lets web browsers with the Google Toolbar view and write comments along side of any website.

Setting aside my professional mask for a moment, Sidewiki is one …

If you are unfamiliar with Google Voice, it is a new online telephone routing service available for public beta testing. In order to enroll in the service you must request an invitation at https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/

The Good:

• Google Voice lets you set up a single telephone number that will simultaneously forward to any number of other telephone lines.
• When adding a telephone line to your Google Voice account, you must demonstrate that you can pick up and answer on the line.
• Once a line has been added to your Google Voice account, you can route your calls out through Google Voice so …
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