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Facebook will double its share of online advertising in 2011

By Jemma | Posted in Social networking, Twitter at 12 | January 24, 2011 – 12:49 pm

Throughout the past year, Facebook has become not only an important and key influence in the world of social networking advertising, but in online advertising itself.

It has built up its global presence over the past six years and in 2011, it will be hard for advertisers to overlook the effects of advertising on Facebook.

eMarketer has released some interesting figures on how Facebook has evolved when it comes to advertising and it gives us something to think about in the future.

-          eMarketer estimates ad spending on Facebook will reach $4.05 billion worldwide in 2011 – more than double the 2010 figure of $1.86 billion in global ad revenues.

-          By 2012, worldwide ad spending on Facebook is expected to reach $5.74 billion, up 42 percent over 2011.

-          The 2011 forecast for online ad spending in the United States is $1 billion higher than eMarketer’s last estimate of US social network ad spending, made in August 2010.

-          eMarketer predicts ad spending on the world’s top social network will reach $2.19 billion in the US this year, more than double last year’s figures.

These are some incredible increases for the year ahead but there has also been recent speculation that Mark Zuckerburg will close the amazing social networking site for good. Here at QuadroNation, we hope that this is just gossip and he wont actually go through with it…

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The Gadget Timeline…

By Jemma | Posted in Fact Friday, Gadgets, Gaming, Google, Mobile | December 17, 2010 – 12:59 pm

Gadgets have been around forever, even over ten years ago there were exciting new Toys to play with.

In our Fact Friday this week we are doing a Doc Brown and going back in time to see the gadgets that have moulded our society of today.

Playstation 1 – 1995

It was released September 29 1995 and was a massive hit, with games like Crash Bandicoot and street Fighter.

Digital Cameras – 1995

Everyone owns a digital camera of some sort and it all started back in 1995. It is said that

Eastman Kodak invented the first ever digital camera and the technology has just grown from there.

Windows 95

Design and planning started for this three years previous to the actual release date. It was said that Windows 95 was released with the single “Start Me Up” (Rolling Stones) on it and Microsoft paid them between $8-$14 million dollars for the privilege.

DVD 1996

DVD was a massive change from VHS and it took a while for people to adapt to the huge improvements, like being able to watch a film again without having to rewind it! Toshiba and JVC are the two known companies who made the first generation of DVD players and are as popular today as they were back then.

Flat screen 1998

Even though these are now the most popular, must have necessity in our living room they have been round quite a while. They were a lot more expensive back in 1998 thus not as popular as today.

Google 1998

The one and only Google.com, this is one of the (if not the most popular) site on the web. With about 320 million hits a day this has become the search engine of the century and I don’t think things are about to change any time soon.

Nokia 3210 1999

The infamous Nokia 3210 was extremely popular and was the beginning of a revolution when it came to mobile phones. It was one of the first mobiles to hide the big awkward antenna and have a choice of three games. Everyone loves a game of good old snake!

Apple iPod 2001

This was an amazing gadget which could hold up to 1,000 songs and was very small and compact in form. You could automatically download songs off iTunes onto this tiny 6.5 ounce design.

Sky+ 2001

Sky plus has been a revelation and when it first came out back in 2001 everyone was wowed at the fact that you can record programmes and watch them at any time you want. For us busy folk this was perfect!

Facebook 2004

Social Networking site of the past six years, Facebook is forever growing in users and popularity. Even with the competitor Twitter, Facebook is still going strong.

Apple iPhone 2007

2007 brought the unveiling of the iPhone, it was known as a widescreen iPod but turned out to be much more. It came with wifi, camera, visual voicemail, email and web browsing. It was extremely popular and sought after and still is today.

Apple iPad – 2010

This year came the sensation that is the  Apple iPad. Basically like a hand held computer, this gadget has sold over two million and the number is only increasing.

So there is a look back at technology over the past 15 years. I personally used to be a fan of the Playstation 1 – couldn’t beat a bit of Crash Bandicoot on a Saturday night!

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LinkedIn

By Jemma | Posted in Social networking, Twitter at 12 | November 9, 2010 – 1:04 pm

LinkedInSocial Networking sites are used by everyone these days and LinkedIn is no exception.

LinkedIn is a business orientated social networking site and to date has over 80 million users in 200 different countries. It is increasingly becoming one of the most popular ways to connect with business people.

Where did it all begin?

It was officially founded in 2003 and launched 5th May of that year. By the end of the first month the site had 4,500 members in its network (impressive if I don’t say so myself!).

In April 2004 LinkedIn reached the half a million members mark and towards the end of the same year it employed over thirty people.

What does it do?

LinkedIn provides you and your business with amazing opportunities and a fantastic way to connect with similar people with the same goals and aspirations.

Since it started 7 years ago, LinkedIn has become a useful tool for the success of businesses around the globe and can now boast one new member every second.

  • Close deals
  • It is a great site to discover potential partners
  • Get inside connections that can help you land jobs
  • Find and be introduced to potential clients and subject experts who come recommended.
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TripTrace – The Visual Holiday Planner

By Cheryl | Posted in Social networking, Twitter at 12 | November 8, 2010 – 1:08 pm

triptraceTripTrace, formally PlaceBook before Facebook sent the lawyers in, is a location-based application, allowing you to keep track of the places you’ve been and places you want to go.

I know your all thinking “What? Another location-based service?!”, but stick with me; this is different from the rest and looks extremely promising. The application itself is visually pleasing and it’s a great idea for all those (lucky) people planning their holiday.

Books
The website contains two books called ‘Atlas’ and ‘Travel’ (PlaceBook, get it?), which is where you pin all of your destinations on the maps.

Atlas (places you’ve been)
Atlas holds all of your location information and this is the book where you will add all the destinations you have visited, which are then marked by red pins across the map.

Travel (places you want to go)
The Travel book allows you to plan an itinerary for any upcoming holidays. Like the Atlas book, this book also adds pins to the attached map, with these being blue rather than red.

TripClipper
This TripClipper tool could come in handy for planning your holiday. The application allows you to take notes as you are browsing the web, and bookmark any trips or places you would like to visit while you are there e.g. restaurants, bars; these notes are then sent to the TripTrace application and saved within your books.

But it’s not only the data you have saved that appears within your book, the application also pulls in information from around the web, this is done from location tags. This means that plenty of information on events and even pictures are pulled in from popular sites such as Flickr and Fourquare.

TripTrace gives you a good idea of holiday costs too as it can gather information for hotels and flights based on your location.

Integration
TripTrace is integrated with some popular sites including Flickr, Fwix and Eventful. While the news and events services will come in handy, for me, Flickr is the perfect union for an application such as this. Within the book, Flickr images occupy the right-pane whilst the left-pane holds the map. When the thumbnails are clicked, the location were the picture was taken will be highlighted on the map.

Work in progress
The application is currently in Private Beta, with testers working their way through the various bugs and issues. The application is currently pulling in data for around 20,000 cities, with more being added daily, and the team are hopeful that public release is only a few weeks away.

On your phone
As the application is still in the development stage, phone integration isn’t fully operational at the moment, but that doesn’t mean ideas aren’t being thrown about. The team are working on a number of applications including phone trace by location, allowing you to see what’s going on in the area you are in.

Will it be a success?
There’s a place in the market for an application like this and their dispute with Facebook has only allowed them to get their name out their further. The fact that it brings so much together visually, I think will make it a huge success and I for one can’t wait to try it.

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Facebook Gaming. The Facts.

By Jemma | Posted in Fact Friday, Gaming, Social networking | October 22, 2010 – 11:42 am

Social games are extremely popular these days and Facebook gaming is no exception. For all you gaming addicts out there, some of these figures may be of interest….

• 50% of facebook log-ins are purely to play games.

• 69% of Facebook Gamers are actually women.

• 56 Million people play daily. 290 Million play monthly.

• The average amount of time spent on Facebook per month is a 7 hours and 1 minute which is a   whopping 85 hours 2 minutes a year!

• 20% of people have actually paid cash for in-game benefits.

• 19% of people say they are addicted!

The Top 5 Games of the moment are:

1. Farmville
2. Texas HoldEm Poker
3. Frontierville
4. Mafia Wars
5. Café World


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Yahoo bids to get its cool back…Move over Facebook and Bing

By Nicola | Posted in News, Twitter at 12 | September 22, 2010 – 11:59 am

yahoo logoYahoo, formally known as the world’s most visited home page, is bidding to ‘get its cool back’ according to its chief products officer with the use of a new product strategy to make the web more personal.

Having gone head-to-head with the likes of Facebook and Bing, who it lost its number two search engine spot to in the US, Yahoo has started to go down a steep hill, which has seen its page views slipping and a number of product launches failing to excite the world’s press.

But there is one man who believes he can change all that. No, not Superman, Batman, not even Captain America… it is a guy called Blake Irving.

After just 100 days in his new job, he has decided to unveil what he believes to be a fool proof plan to get Yahoo back to its former glory.

He said: “You are going to see things that happen fast, that are innovative and that make customers and advertisers delighted. Yahoo in three years is a global series of web experiences across a variety of different devices that gives people what they want; the content, the folks that they care about.”

“There is a bunch of bringing cool back to Yahoo saying a lot of the things that you want to do on the web are here.”

So there.

In fact, in the next few months as part of his plans, Yahoo will be showcasing a number of new products. These will include:

  • a version of Yahoo mail that is faster, has an improved user interface, blocks spam and integrates with Facebook and Twitter
  • a fresh layout in Yahoo Search that presents more content around entertainment and news searches
  • a Yahoo iPad and tablet app due for release in 2010/2011
  • revamped ad formats
  • connected TV partnerships with video-on-demand content sources, social networks, games and shopping




    • Talking to BBC News, Mr Irving said: “I think in the next 15 years more than half of users will be accessing services through mobile devices. I see it with my own kids who are just as comfortable typing on glass as they are on a keyboard.

    “It’s going to be a different world and a huge percentage of what Yahoo will do, will not be on PCs.”

    Makes sense really?

    Irving looks like he is already getting the backing of the remainder of Yahoo’s committed fans, who have continued to stick with the brand when the ‘new guys’ came on to the scene.

    And even his new colleagues are loving his ideas.

    Yahoo’s chief technology officer Raymie added: “You have to be committed to building leading edge experiences and that is what we at Yahoo are doing and I think all these mobile connected devices represents a tremendous opportunity for us to recommit ourselves and to engage and delight users.”

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    New and improved Twitter on the way!

    By Cheryl | Posted in Social networking, Twitter at 12 | September 16, 2010 – 11:51 am

    Twitter New LogoTwitter has just announced a complete revamp of the site, replacing the original single-pane layout with a two-sided pane view.

    Since its creation, users have always had to click links which take them to an external site to view media; this change means that anything can now be viewed in the right pane without leaving the Twitter screen.

    There’s been a change to the profile pages too, with a bigger picture and more prominent bio with the added bonus of viewing other users’ profiles in the right pane, rather than clicking through to each page.

    The reason for Twitter’s overhaul? They wanted to integrate media from other sites, with 16 deals being made with photo and video sites including YouTube, Vimeo, UStream, TwitPic and Flickr allowing them to have visual content embedded on the site.

    From left to right
    On the left pane, under your timeline, you will find @mentions, retweets, searches, and lists, creating a single streamlined view.

    The right side will continue to show the usual features such as followers and trending topics. This will also be were user profiles and media appear.

    It’s the little things that make a difference
    One of the best of the new additions for me is the overlaying ‘What’s happening’ box. Originally, the box was confined to the top of the page and even though the box remains there, you can click the paper/pen icon on the upper right to compose a new tweet, meaning you can tweet without losing your place in the message stream.

    Going with their own ‘more keyboard, less mouse’ approach, a shortcut has also been added to the overlaying comment box, and pressing “n” on your keyboard will open a new box.

    Another subtle change made is next to everyone’s username, real names have been added in light gray so as to not be intrusive. This could be useful and is a nice touch, but maybe should have been kept solely on the profile view on the right pane instead.

    Flickr
    All Flickr fans will be excited by the integration of their favourite images site. You are now able to share a link to an entire Flickr set of pictures, view all the thumbnails in the right pane and even view pictures in a slideshow, which is automatically created.

    During their press conference, the team at Twitter said they had been focusing a lot on infrastructure and reliability, noting their growth wasn’t easy to handle but they were working on it. We probably won’t be saying goodbye to the whale soon, but with Twitter seeing around 90 million tweets a day, I’m sure we can forgive them for a small amount of downtime.

    The end of desktop apps?
    People have made a living out of creating apps, including TweetDeck, aimed at developing on the features Twitter is missing. Does this new update make Twitter clients irrelevant? Probably not. People are always going to want features that Twitter doesn’t give them, plus a lot of users don’t like to keep their browser open all day, meaning a small app running in the corner of their screen will always be their preference.

    Shortcuts…less effort!
    The new Twitter is all about keyboard shortcuts, here are some of the options you have to choose from:

    Actions
    j next tweet
    k previous tweet
    Enter to drill down into or close a selected tweet
    Space page down
    Shift+Space page up
    / jump to the search box
    . refresh and jump back to the top

    Individual actions
    f : favourite a tweet
    r : reply to a tweet
    t : retweet
    m : send a direct message
    n : compose a new tweet
    Esc : cancel a compose window or help window

    Is it available now?
    The latest version is currently rolling out and should be completed within the next few weeks.

    Improvement?
    Twitter is well known for its simplistic style and this new layout doesn’t deter far from the original. They have done a great job in
    bringing together other sites and making it easier to view tweets and profiles. Now the wait until we can try it out…

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    Facebook test new ‘subscribe to’ user feature

    By Jemma | Posted in Social networking, Twitter at 12 | September 9, 2010 – 11:26 am

    FacebookFacebook are trying out a new feature called ‘subscribe to’, which lets you know when an individual you choose, updates their status or upload photos etc.

    Facebook said “We are testing this feature with a small percentage of users. It lets people subscribe to friends and pages to receive notifications whenever the person they’ve subscribed to updates their status or posts new content, such as photos, videos, links, or notes.”

    Everyone knows that when you log on to Facebook you can easily get sidetracked and end up speaking to someone on chat or looking through a friend’s holiday snaps. This feature could be useful for people with specific needs or users that would like to know certain information.

    Sounds pretty good, but is this new feature dangerous for users?

    The feature is only at the testing stage and is already receiving a lot of criticism from industry experts. They think that it could be a tool for people to stalk users on the site.

    1 in 12 women and 1 in 45 men will be stalked in their lifetime, these are frightening figures and maybe this new ‘subscribe to’ button could cause some people serious hassle.

    Is this too much of a risk for Facebook?

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    Apple Music Event

    By Cheryl | Posted in Apple, Gadgets, News, Twitter at 12 | September 6, 2010 – 11:23 am

    This week, Apple held its Music Event 2010 where it was widely expected that they would unveil a new iPod.

    This ended up being the case, but that wasn’t the only thing that was announced…

    iPod Touch
    ipodtouch2010
    The two major improvements from the original iPod Touch are the HD display and dual cameras.

    According to Apple, this iPod touch has the highest-resolution of all previous iPods and with a HD camera on the back and VGA-quality camera on the front, this is sure to surpass previous sales of the original.

    iMovie
    With the inclusion of a HD video camera, Apple have also released a new video editing application called iMovie, which allows you to add Apple designed themes, titles and transition effects to your videos. It is now available from the App Store at $4.99.

    Game Centre
    You can now invite friends or people from around the world to join games and expand your social gaming networking. All that is needed is an iPod Touch or iPhone running iOS 4.1 and an Apple ID and away you go.

    The general look of the iPod is a cross between the original Touch and the iPhone, with Apple MD Steve Jobs calling the device an ‘iPhone without a contract’. From £189.

    iPod Nano
    ipodnano2010
    The new iPod Nano is half the size of its predecessor and is made up of a touch screen display measuring just 1.5 inches. The new Nano has a customisable home screen, multi-touch ability, FM radio, Genius and includes the usual colours available including blue, green, orange and yellow.

    For people like me who were turned off by the shuffle because of its small size, this is definitely not for you, but if you’re someone who would rather clip their device on to their jeans or bag, you can’t beat this sleek number to impress. Just make sure you don’t lose it! From £129.

    iPod Shuffle
    ipodshuffle2010
    Looking like a less snazzy version of the iPod Nano, the Shuffle looks cosmetically the same as the previous version but slightly smaller. The device originally had problems with the voice over control, which has now been corrected by adding the controls to the iPod rather than the headphones. The VoiceOver will let you know the name of your current song, multiple playlist menu and the battery status; all this AND it speaks over 25 language – Etes-vous impressionné?! From £39

    iTunes 10 with Ping
    itunes10
    The new iTunes 10 is the latest software release from Apple, but this time we have the added extra of Ping. Ping is a move in to the social music network for the company as it aims to bring a community of people together who love music.

    What does Ping do?
    Ping lets you see what your favourite artists and friends are listening to and allows you to hear 30 second previews of what music they like. You can also visit profiles of bands and keep up to date with tours or check out photos and videos they’ve posted.

    Apple TV
    Even Steve Jobs has admitted that sales for Apple TV haven’t exactly set the world alight, so how is the company planning on turning this around?

    Well for one, the price has changed. Taking a huge drop, the cost has now been cut to £99, but what new features does it have?

    What is Apple TV?
    AppleTV2010
    Apple TV connects to you Broadband, which in-turn is connected to the TV using a HDMI port, allowing you to stream content from iTunes to your main screen in the living room.

    The difference with this version is the ability to rent programmes and movies, with the original version you were only able to purchase. As with the TV set itself, the programmes themselves shouldn’t be too expensive, roughly 99p per episode. You have 30 days to start watching, and once you begin, you can watch as many times as you want in 24 hours. For any movie buffs, the inclusion of Rotten Tomatoes reviews will surely be useful to a lot of people.

    The device itself is now 80% smaller than before and is available in a sleek black colour and for an extra cool add-on, you can control Apple TV using you iPhone or iPod touch; download the free app from the Apple Store and away you go!

    £99

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    MySpace comeback?

    By Jemma | Posted in Social networking, Twitter at 12 | September 1, 2010 – 11:47 am

    MySpace logoMySpace introduced a new sync button yesterday which can be used to connect with popular social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter. The feature will allow users to sync status updates between each site and is one of many steps MySpace are trying to boost their popularity within the social networking world.

    The fall of MySpace
    Myspace was first launched in July 2003 and was extremely popular, but by 2008 is was overtaken by Facebook and the popularity continued to dwindle. We are now seven years on from the introduction of the music based site, so can it turn round it’s luck?

    ‘This is particularly exciting for artists who can now use this tool as a complement to their MySpace Music presence and share their vast library of content, including full album catalogs, to people who’ve liked their Facebook page.’ explained MySpace in a press release.

    Comeback?
    As well as the introduction of the sync button, MySpace launched a new colour scheme this year, resembling the look and feel of Facebook; an obvious attempt to attract more users back to the site.

    This looks like a great opportunity for new music artists of today and it is an all round better and faster way of updating your status.

    So MySpace is coming back on the map, but when did you last update your MySpace status?

    The phrase ‘if you can’t beat them join them’ comes to mind, and this is certainly the case when it comes to Facebook.

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