R. Colin Johnson | Date: 12-27-11

The business model by which software and services are offered free-of-charge for basic features, but require a payment for advanced features, is predicted to become the norm in 2012.

• The use of freemiums–in which applications are free for basic use, but payments are required for advanced features–will intensify in 2012, making it entirely possible that by this time next year all relevant iOS applications will be free in most categories. In 2011, the number of freemium applications in the top 250 at the Apple App Store topped 88 percent, according to Allied Business Intelligence (ABI Research). The freemium business model uses in-application advertising and purchases for income, a trend that ABI Research predicts will extend to 100 percent of the top iOS applications by the end of 2012.”Freemium isn’t just about monetizing anymore, it’s also about marketing,” said ABI Research senior analyst Aapo Markkanen. “The threshold for consumers to download free apps is really low, so more people end up using and recommending them, which gives those apps a bump in distributors’ rankings that paid apps fail to draw.”Apple’s App Store has a head start over Google’s Android Market, since iOS started offering in-app purchases in 2009. Google’s Android Market, on the other hand, is slated to convert to the freemium in-application purchase model in 2012.

  To be sure, some categories of iOS application will continue to be paid, such as navigation applications because they require complex online databases for the street indices. Today, more than 25 percent of the top iOS navigation applications are still on the paid model. However, in some categories, such as lifestyle, entertainment and games, the freemium model has almost completely taken over the iOS application space, with only with 3, 5 and 6 percent of those applications still being paid, respectively.

  Freemium cloud services are also spurring the whole mobile enterprise social-collaboration market, which ABI Research predicts will top $1 billion in 2011 and grow to $3.5 billion by 2016. Today, the number of social interactions over mobile devices is increasing exponentially, according to ABI Research, prompting cloud-based platforms to leverage their multi-modal capabilities of delivering the same content to different devices.

  The popularity of these multi-modal social-media applications is fueling the expectation that cloud-based services should also offer user communication and collaboration tools. Likewise, expectation for freemium, rather than paid-based services, is also rising, allowing cloud-based services to offer their social-media tools for free to boost their ratings, and in-turn, paid subscriptions.

Taken from: http://www.smartertechnology.com/c/a/Social-Business/Freemium-Spreading-to-All-Apps/?kc=STNL01022012STR4

Getting listed in Google Places has become very important with Google’s recent algorithm change for local results. Taken from Axandra’s news archive http://www.free-seo-news.com/newsletter446.htm#facts

If you offer local services, you should make sure that your website is listed correctly. This week’s article will help you to improve your results.

In the news: Google Places causes problems, Google seems to support anonymous reviews, Google’s position on slow websites and more.

If you offer your products or services in a particular area, it is very important that your website is listed in Google Places.

How to optimize your Google Places listing

How your website is listed in Google Places depends on several things. For example, bakeries in Los Angeles are listed differently than Honda dealers in Knoxville. The location of your business, the industry that you’re in and the keywords that you are targeting and other things influence your listing in Google Places.

You can submit your website to Google Places by going to http://www.google.com/local then click on
You can submit your website to Google Places by going to http://www.google.com/local then click on
Put your business on Google Maps

Read the rest of this entry

Smarter Approach: How To Achieve True Virtualization

Dec 7, 2010

1:00 p.m. Eastern / 10:00 a.m. Pacific (60 minutes)

Register: https://enterprise-secure-registration.com/index.php?page=register&assetId=726&partnerref=ESMSmartIT

Event Details

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Featured Speakers

Aaron Goldberg – VP, Market Experts Group – Ziff Davis Enterprise

Dave Sobel – CEO – Evolve Technologies

Elliot Markowitz – Vice President of Strategic Content Development – Ziff Davis Enterprise
Today’s businesses need to be more agile. When your IT staff is worrying about security, uptime and capacity, they are not driving innovation. Embracing virtualization for your IT infrastructure will streamline your IT operations, make your organization more efficient and competitive in the marketplace.

But there are many ways and entry points inside your IT infrastructure to embrace virtualization. Looking at a complete overhaul can be overwhelming and not necessarily the right approach. Many organizations first look to storage virtualization. Storage virtualization is arguably the most critical component to any overall IT virtualization approach. It’s where on demand capacity, security, privacy, compliance and new corporate capabilities all reside.

Join eWEEK for this live, interactive webcast, sponsored by IBM, and hear directly from industry experts as they discuss the importance of adopting a virtualization strategy. Attend this online-only event and learn the key areas to look at first and important role storage virtualization plays.
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Sponsored By IBM

Have you ever gotten e-mails that have group after group of names and addresses from forwarded e-mails?

Every now and then I do a reply-all and ask the addressees if they realize that their e-mail addresses are being forwarded to others. I do not have any nefarious intentions, but who knows where these things end up, especially in the ones that say ‘please keep this going’.

It’s been an interesting week.  I get a weekly update from HiTechEdge and this week they had a link to a video and article on how not to get your site banned by Google. Read what they said below.

No one wants to get banned from Google, but unfortunately, it does happen. As Michael Stebbins of Market Motive explains, it is important to understand why some websites do, in fact, get banned from Google in order to prevent it from happening to you.

First of all, he suggests using Google’s Webmaster Tools to know for sure if you are banned. The dashboard offers very helpful information in this type of situation.

To make sure that your site doesn’t get banned, Stebbins tells WebProNews that you should think like a search engine. In other words, you have to realize that they are looking for genuine relevance and genuine popularity. If you try to fake either of these elements, Google will not want to partner with you.

Some people fake relevancy and popularity by linking to questionable websites, taking advantage of JavaScript redirects, and selling links. All these factors could result in Google banning your site.

To get re-included in Google’s index, Stebbins says you need to first decide if it is worth investing time in the re-inclusion process. There are some cases in which users commit so many “mortal sins” that is nearly impossible to rebuild a relevant and popular website.

At this point, he advises users to invest in another a site and apply a 301 redirect from the old site to the new one.  However, if you have not violated many of the guidelines, Stebbins says you could send a letter detailing what you did wrong and how you have fixed it. By doing this, it increases your chances of getting back into the index.

Are you taking preventative measures to make sure your site doesn’t get banned?

Watch the video at http://videos.webpronews.com/2010/07/20/how-not-to-get-banned-from-google/

Every now and then I get something I think is worth sharing with you. Here is one something.

“Internet Safety: Keeping Your Computer Safe on the Internet”

“Internet Safety” almost seems like an oxymoron these days.

However, to help you stay safe, our friend Leo Notenboom of Ask-Leo.com, has created a 99 page ebook that covers “the things you must do, the software you must run and the concepts you need to be aware of – to keep your computer and your data safe as you use the internet,” including firewalls, viruses, spyware, mobile security, backing up and physical security.

And did we mention that it’s free?

http://media.ask-leo.com/ebooks/InternetSafety.pdf

We highly recommend you download it now — and be sure to recommend it to a few people you care about as well.

from Audri and Jim Lanford [yourinspiration@famous-quotes-quotations.com]

My suggestion to anyone designing a web blog is to create a minimum of 3 admin accounts and if one fails, use one of the others to log back in and then update the failed user with a new password.

I originally created this blog back in November of 2009. Then after a furious week of coding and tweeking, I shut down my computer, being very careful to log out of Word Press.

The next day when I powered up, I discovered that I was locked out. I tried everything, first I followed the directions and requested a new password, since the system did not recognize the one I originally used. Actually I tried this a few times in several different ways. Then I queried my Digital Women Yahoo Group. I tried all of their suggestions; backing up data; updating my version of Word Press and a lot of other things. I got so frustrated that I just stepped back and said let it go.

It took me a while but I finally bit the bullet and uninstalled Word Press and deleted all my backup files. I just could not find any way to salvage my original work. I must say my second installation went a whole lot easier. And as you can see, I am able to update this blog.

My system is running Windows XP. I am not sure exactly where the glitch is but I was able to duplicate the error in both IE7 and Mozilla simply by logging out.

I am so glad that I was able to salvage this template so I am able to re-create this blog with it. Looking forward to sitting down with a cuppa and talking to you through this blog.