Four months in the making;  Emma Watson.com is now live and recieving great reviews from her fans

www.emmawatson.com

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Executive Summary

As the somber undertones of 2009 fade away, we move excitedly forward towards a year of promise, opportunity and rapid change. If the fiscal stars align, we’ll leave behind the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and move into a new decade filled with anticipation of a stronger global job market that will inevitably be fueled by new and innovative business models. Digital will surely be at the core of this evolution. 

In 2009, we saw thousands of marketing and advertising professionals lose their jobs, reputable agencies close their doors, and budgets slashed across the board. Yet among the worst headlines of 2009, Digital has continued to revolutionize and prosper. Facebook and other social networks connect hundreds of millions of users daily, over two billion apps have been downloaded from the Apple App Store in its inaugural year, and global mobile usage has reached an astonishing 4.5 billion handsets and counting.

What you’ll find in the pages that follow is the output from the 2010 Digital Marketing Outlook survey which polled in excess of a thousand executives from major global brands, traditional and Digital agencies, vendor and service providers that operate in the Digital space, as well as freelance and independent Digital practitioners. The research has confirmed our outlook: many believe the future of Digital Marketing is exceptionally bright.

And great fridays are in it :)

http://tinyurl.com/y8s6jma

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Touchscreen panels for Apple's forthcoming tablet have begun shipping, and aluminum casings are expected to arrive next month, sources allegedly told Reuters.

The report, issued Friday, claims that two Taiwanese companies are supplying parts: AVY Precision Technology will begin production of the aluminum casings in February, while TPK Solutions is manufacturing the touchscreen panels. Three anonymous sources were cited in the report.

"Production of the cases will begin in February, so everything points to a second-quarter launch right now," one of the sources reportedly said. "It doesn't take that long for the company to assemble the PC together, but a second-quarter shipment date is what we're looking at now."

For more visit:  http://tiny.cc/DZa02

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I think that this would be amazing:

Sports broadcaster to air up to 25 matches beginning with South Africa v Mexico on 11 June

World Cup: ESPN's 3D coverage will start on 11 June

American TV network ESPN is to show football matches in 3D during this year's World Cup in South Africa.

The US sports broadcaster, which won rights to show Premier League games in Britain after the collapse of Setanta last summer, said that it would debut its 3D television system during a World Cup match between the hosts and Mexico on 11 June.

Twenty-four other matches during the competition will also be shown in 3D, which will require viewers to wear special glasses. The company did not say whether viewers in the UK would, or how it planned to make the technology available to its subscribers in the United States.

The system, which relies on a network of cameras and entirely separate staff, has been in trials for the past year.

"This is an ongoing science project for us," said Bryan Burns, ESPN's vice-president of strategic business planning, at the CES show in Las Vegas.

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At last an alternative to Safari and Firefox to run my lovely iGoogle dashboard, mail, docs and other lovely gadgets!  Its a revolution...

Go download the BETA at:  http://www.google.com/chrome

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Hordes of marketing "experts" are promoting the value of wikis, social networks, and blogs. All the hype may obscure the real potential of these online tools

For business, the rising popularity of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media Web sites presents a tantalizing opportunity. As millions of people flock to these online services to chat, flirt, swap photos, and network, companies have the chance to tune in to billions of digital conversations. They can pitch a product, listen to customer feedback, or ask for ideas. If they work it right, customers might even produce companies' advertising for them and trade the ads with friends for free. Starbucks (SBUX), Dell (DELL), and Ford Motor (F) have all testified to the magic social media can create.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_50/b4159048693735.htm

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Interesting artritcle from Ben at Mashable:

http://mashable.com/2009/11/19/impact-of-chrome-os/?utm_source=feedburner&...

With the Google Revenue Equation in mind, it’s easier to understand Google’s primary motivations for creating an OS based entirely off the browser. The more time we spend browsing the web, the more money Google makes. It’s that simple. Thus, Google’s primary goal is to get us on the web more.

That’s exactly what Chrome OS does: its interface is 100% web, thus you are always browsing if you’re using Chrome OS. Every app is a web app. Plus, Chrome OS loads in seconds, getting you on the web faster.

In order for Google to accomplish its goal of getting us on the web more, it has to eliminate time sinks and anything that distracts someone from surfing the web on the computer. Thus, one of Google’s goals is to destroy the desktop.

There is no desktop on Google’s new operating system, but that’s only the beginning. Google may only be looking to launch on netbooks next year, but make no mistake: it hopes to have a strong presence laptops and desktops everywhere within the next five to seven years. Not only that, but it hopes that the influence of Chrome OS is powerful enough to push all future operating systems to be more web-centric.

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Hi all.  Why dont you give our friends at SoDA some of your valuable time to fill in the Digital Maketing outlook survey:

Now gathering SoDA's 2010 Digital Marketing Outlook data, receive the results by taking the 12 question survey http://sodaspeaks.com/survey/

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A new report launched today, reveals ten online retailing trends for the 2010s and the most important actions online retailers should take to grow their business post-recession. The findings forecast that monetisation of online retail sites could be worth up to £949m by 2013.
See http://tiny.cc/jafmb

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 Facebook accounts for 6% of all US internet traffic and is far ahead of rival Twitter, which seems to have stopped growing, according to Hitwise data. The research firm says Facebook is on its way to becoming ubiquitous, while traffic to Twitter is falling. Facebook’s share of US traffic has risen steadily from little more than 1% this time last year to 6.1% in October. Traffic to Twitter peaked at just over 0.2% in July this year, but its share of US internet visits has since dropped to 0.14%.
See http://tiny.cc/uq1Ln

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The Internet will now allow users to create web and e-mail-addresses using non-Latin characters, opening up the Web to billions of people around the world. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) has given the green light to the change at its board meeting taking place in Seoul, South Korea. This would include characters as diverse as Arabic, Korean, Hebrew, Chinese, Greek, Hindi and Cyrillic (Russian). Until now, anyone wanting to set up a website has been forced to include a few characters of Latin script in the address, or domain name, that they choose. 
See http://tiny.cc/puEY7

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As a number of usability studies have shown recently, the fold on a webpage doesn't have to be a barrier to users, and people are willing to scroll down to see more. However, the area above the fold is the first thing visitors to your website will see, so what should be above the fold? Here are a few suggestions, with e-commerce sites in mind...

See http://tiny.cc/cTTmE

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Two new pieces of research show the importance which UK consumers ascribe to checking online reviews before making product purchases. A survey by PR agency Weber Shandwick of 1,021 UK consumers found that 26% cited online advocacy as having the most influence on their purchase decisions, above friends and family at 20%. Older media was cited by 23%, combining 12% for newspapers and magazines and 11% for TV and radio.

See http://tiny.cc/hBH4T

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Choosing paint colors can be an enterprise fraught with significant (other) danger and considerable expense. (Need proof? Consider the pyramid of too-bold, not-bold-enough, not-quite-right, paint cans stacked in my basement.) Two new iPhone apps, one from Benjamin Moore and the other from Sherwin-Williams, give you tools to ease your color choice quandaries.

Both Benjamin Moore’s Ben Color Capture and Sherwin-Williams’ ColorSnap work on the same principal: Take a picture with your iPhone or select a photo from your the photo library on your iPhone or iPod touch, crop the photo for the best color selection, then touch or drag your finger across the screen to choose the color you’d like to match. Each program can also locate your nearest authorized dealer. While there are similarities to these apps, what happens when you choose a color to match varies slightly between programs.

Touch Me Once, Touch Me Twice: Ben Color Capture selects an appropriate color swatch for the color you’ve touched on the screen (left), then lets you see colors that go well with what you’ve selected (right).

After you choose a photo and select a color to match, Ben Color Capture displays a virtual paint strip across the bottom of the screen, showing the name and associated Benjamin Moore paint color that’s the best possible match. Just like a real paint strip, this strip displays six other colors in the same color family as the one you’ve selected. Tapping any of these colors once displays a larger paint strip; double-tapping adds it to your favorites. You can add notes to any of your saved favorites, and double tapping any saved paint color expands it to fill your whole screen.

Ben Color Capture also has a Harmony button that shows you related, but extremely different colors from the one that you’ve selected. I also like that when I closed and reopened ColorCapture it remembered the last photo I’d chosen and the the associated paint strip for my last selected color.

Unlike Ben Color Capture, Sherwin-Williams’ ColorSnap selects a new picture every time you open the app. I found this to be a real hassle, especially when I received a phone call before I’d saved a color selection.

As with Color Capture, you can touch or drag your finger anywhere on your selected image to choose a color to match, but ColorSnap also displays a small square swatch of color right above where your finger is touching the screen. This made choosing colors easier in ColorSnap than it was with Color Capture because my hand wasn’t obscuring the swatch as I moved it around the screen.

Finger Paint: ColorSnap displays a small color swatch above where you’re touching the screen (left), and displays complementary colors to match the color you’ve selected (right).

Once you select a color, you then touch the swatch displayed at the bottom of the screen to see the primary color you’ve selected alongside two complementary secondary colors. Clicking this colorful triad displays larger swatches, which include Sherwin-Williams color codes and let you save your selection as a favorite. ColorSnap has no notes option.

Both programs have some limitations, chief of which is that the app you choose depends entirely on the brand of paint you’re using. ColorSnap only works for Sherwin-Williams paints, Ben Color Capture only works for Benjamin Moore. Want to use Home Depot’s Behr paint? Sorry, you’ll have to run to Home Depot to get a color match.

Also, when you’re taking a picture with the iPhone’s camera lighting is key. Too little light, and your color selection ends up dull and faded; too much, and your colors end up washed out and flat. Strangely, neither app lets you search for a paint color by its name or associated number.

While both these apps work quite well, in the end I would have preferred a marriage between the two. An app with ColorSnap’s complementary color matching and chip at your fingertip combined with Ben Color Capture’s paint swatches and the ability to remember what I was doing the last time I used the app. Thankfully, both apps have kept my wife from thinking I’m crazy when I say that the Red Prairie I’ve chosen for the walls goes great with the Ecru and Tiki Hut she’s chosen for the trim.

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Halifax has launched Home Matters, an information and advice site for its home insurance customers. In its first social media activity online, it hopes to generate a community within the site by encouraging conversations and interaction around content. The site will feature blogs, competitions, facts and articles about common issues, video vox pops and an ‘ask the expert’ section for customer queries about home security and domestic accidents.
See - http://tiny.cc/wOZqU

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 First Direct has launched a site aggregating live comments about the brand from social networks. Firstdirect.com/live pulls in comments, good and bad, about the brand in real time from millions of social media sites, including Twitter. Visitors can see how many comments are positive, negative or mixed through graphs, while the most commonly used words are also displayed. The bank says the site plays on its ‘Banking’s better in black and white’ slogan by honestly displaying what people think of it.
See - http://tiny.cc/jJyZQ and interview with First Direct’s Head of Marketing - http://tiny.cc/CV45C

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Chart of the Day - iPhone Has 30% Of Smartphone Market (AAPL) - RBC Capital Markets performed a survey of smartphone users, asking 4,200 people what kind of phone they owned. According to their data, the iPhone is now at 30% marketshare, up from 25% in June. New iPhone buyers were "surprisingly strong at 81% of respondents." This, in part, explains why Apple (AAPL) is expected to deliver a blow-out September quarter.

  http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-iphone-share-in-smartphones-2009-10

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