Ice Cream Sandwich - Android's New Flavor

If you think that this post is a recipe of sweet and delicious food item Ice Cream sandwich then you will be disappointed because Ice Cream sandwich is name of Google's latest Android operating system. According to Google it will be a single, universal operating system that runs on phones and tablets and can be termed as an follow up to the current OS Honeycomb which was tablets compatible only.

The version number will be 4.0 and can be expected to roll out in Q4 of 2011. The new version will be compatible to all type of Android devices and it will also be able to ease the OS fragmentation issue which was with the Android 3.0(Honeycomb).

The Android 4.0 will have bundle of features including face tracking and camera focus shifting based on voice recognition. It is just a tip of an iceberg we will get to know more about ice cream sandwich OS once it is launched.

Custom QR Codes – Make your QR Codes More Beautiful

QR Codes: Brief Introduction - A QR Code (Quick Response Code) is a two dimensional bar-code which is easily readable by dedicated QR code readers and smart-phones. These QR codes can carry plethora of information like text, URL, Telephone number, message and much more.

The QR code technology has seen a large uptake in Japan and South Korea. However, in the West there has been a far slower adoption of QR codes.

Although earlier it was used for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR codes are now used in a much broader context. With the proliferation of smart-phones it has become easy to use these codes. Users with a camera phone equipped with the QR code reader application can scan the image of the QR code to display text, contact information, or open a web page in the phone's browser.

In short QR codes are the best way to connect the offline world with the online world.

Creating Custom QR Codes – Have you thought about making these QR codes more attractive, colorful? Won’t it look more compelling if your QR code reflects your company’s color and theme?

1. Add Colors to QR Codes: It is not necessary to have your QR codes in conventional black and white pattern; you can add color of your choice in order to add branding power to your QR code.

Just consider one major point that code color must be dark with a light colored background; however the reverse is not advisable.

2. Add a Logo in your QR Code: Tweak the traditional black and white QR code and add your logo to give more branding power.

3. Make Soft Edges: You can round up some of the corners of your QR code and make it friendlier and good looking.

QR Codes are great way to connect your offline efforts with online efforts. As the QR codes have lots of marketing potential, knowledge of technology, design, and their implementation in the right way for your business, will help you to keep your brand on the cutting edge of marketing and technology.

Wordpress Servers Face Security Breach

Automattic and WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg has reported on his blog "There had a low-level (root) break-in to several of our servers, and potentially anything on those servers could have been revealed."

The company is reviewing its data logs and records to figure out the extent of the information exposed.

Matt stated that "We presume our source code was exposed and copied. While much of our code is Open Source, there are sensitive bits of our and our partners’ code. Beyond that, however, it appears information disclosed was limited."

Matt suggested users to stick to the security fundamental and also they are taking comprehensive steps to prevent an incident like this from occurring again.

Education Sector Marketing Emails have High Open Rates In India

India's leading Email marketing software company Juvlon has released a report email marketing trends in India named as "Email Trends in India". The analysis is made on the basis of over 15 million business-to-consumer emails sent through Juvlon by large, medium and small enterprises within a period ranging from October 2010 to December 2010. The report measures various metrics and highlights prevailing trends in Indian online market arena.

The report reveals that Education sector stands at top with a 14.74% open-rate, whereas sectors like Retail has an email open rate of 12.93% and Finance performed lower with 11.92% opens. Email open rate is the percentage of emails opened as against those sent.

Industry Email Open Rate:














Education Industry Email Bounce,Open,Click Rate:














Retail Industry Email Bounce,Open,Click Rate:














Finance Industry Email Bounce,Open,Click Rate














Definitions
Bounce Rate = Total Bounced / Total List
Sent Emails = Total List – Total Bounced
Total Open Rate = Total Opens / Sent
Unique Open Rate = Unique Opens / Sent
Click to Open Rate = Total Clicks / Unique Opens

This report shows that the finance industry has delivered lower (nearly half) click-to-open rates compared to that of retail and education, although, the average open rate for finance is comparable to the others.

If we compare this report with the data released by Email Experience Council for North America for the same quarter, it’s pretty obvious that there is tremendous scope to improve Indian benchmarks in email marketing and a huge scope for growth.

Facebook Acquires Snaptu to Dominate Social Networking on Phones

In a recent update on its blog, Snaptu revealed that they have agreed to be acquired by Social networking giant Facebook. However there was no official confirmation on the deal amount but if we rely on industry sources it is estimated $70 million. The deal is going to be closed in coming weeks

According to Snaptu’s blog, its goal is to provide useful services for consumers without Smartphone and as such, this acquisition will help it work with Facebook to make a bigger impact on this market.

Facebook also confirmed the news by stating “As part of our goal to offer people around the world the opportunity to connect and share on mobile devices, we’re excited to confirm that we recently signed an agreement to acquire Snaptu. We expect the acquisition to close in a few weeks, subject to customary closing conditions.”

By accessing devices in the midpoint between basic mobile phones and smartphones, it will allow Facebook to attract more mobile users to the service.

Background:

Snaptu, founded in 2007, is a free mobile application platform that runs on virtually every type of Internet-enabled mobile phones. It allows the user to access popular services, varying from social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Picasa to entertainment news, blogs, sports and local guides.