Mobile Marketing

The book I read to research this post was Mobile Marketing For Dummies by Michael Becker et al which is a very good book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

This book is a few years old so some of the technology in it might have been superceded like at the time of publication Windows Phone 7 hadn't been released yet. Apparently in developing countries almost everyone who can afford it has a mobile phone because the infrastructure of a standard phone network just isn't there. This book is about marketing your company for people with mobile phones and a lot of it's geared towards the smartphone market. A lot of companies get a mobile marketing agency like www.constantcontact.com. An interesting technology is IVR or Interactive Voice Response where a customer phones you and is presented with a menu where they press a button or speak into the phone to activate an option an example is www.angel.com of a provider. Some banks like Western Union are allowing people to buy stuff direct from their mobile phone an interesting example is Amazon where you simply enter your password and your credit card details are entered automatically once set up initially. If you get a mobile website I have one at http://oldescratbag.com a good provider which I use is weebly or try

http://starcut.com .Some companies use a bluecast provider at shows or exhibitions etc where a message or photo etc is sent to people walking by your stand by bluetooth and they have the option of accepting it or not. An example is

www.aura.net . Also a website I recommend which is all the latest mobile technology news is http://engadgetmobile.com . I enjoyed this book and it has a lot of information about mobile marketing crammed into it. 

Time Management

The book I read to research this post was Brilliant Time Management by Dr Mike Clayton which is a very good book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

Time Management isn't about saving time but is about being more productive in your use of time. An important aspect is learning new skills which should partly be aimed at saving you time in the long run. If you have a high powered job it's likely it is not productive doing a job like decorating your kitchen. An expert can do it in half the time you can and you should work out what your time is worth per hour. Of course to do this take your salary and divide it by the hours worked in that period.It's quite likely there are more pressing jobs that require your skills. Another aspect of time management is delegating work and this should be done in a way that you aren't taking advantage of the junior employee. You should never give him a task as a punishment for example. You should also look at developing his abilities but not in a way that he is doomed to fail. A distinguished time management expert once said you should write down the 6 most important tasks in a given day in order of importance and then work through them sequentially until they are done which seems good advice. This book not surprisingly is aimed at managers more than others but is a great book. I also really enjoyed reading it and think it will help me in managing my time.

Home For Christmas - Susan Boyle

I am reviewing the album Home For Christmas by Susan Boyle which is very good. Susan came 2nd in Britain's Got Talent a few years ago and many thought she should have won. It's a talent show but differs from the X factor or American Idol in that the acts don't just sing. Anyway Demi Moore the actress heard her sing presumably on youtube and tweeted about it on twitter and all of a sudden she was a major pop star on both sides of the Atlantic. She has got a fantastic singing voice, one of the best you will ever hear. Anyway this new album is a collection of christmas songs as selected by her fans and is a mixture of carols and xmas pop songs. The best track is probably Greg Lake's I Believe In Father Christmas. I think the best cover version she ever did was Wild Horses which was originally a Rolling Stones song. In a way it's a shame all the songs are cover versions but it's still worth listening too. 

Google+ Marketing

The book I read to research this post was Google+ Marketing For Dummies which was a very good book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

Google+ which is sometimes called Google plus has the URL http://plus.google.com. You don't want to market exclusively on Google+, it should be a part of your social media promotion along definitely with twitter and facebook. Google+ is the kind of social media site where you will have to lure people to your website to actually make purchases although as with all the google online tools they all integrate with each other and that includes adsense and adwords. Actually google makes more money from advertising than facebook insights although the facebook service is better at targeting ads. Bear in mind if you advertise something like a blog post in Google+ the search engine will give it preferential treatment when it comes to ranking it. Also bear in mind they rank video and photographs higher than just text. One of the beauties of this social media is you have circles like classmates and friends so if you do a post you can target it to a specific audience. Also they have video hangouts where you can make a video call to upto a total of 10 people at one time and have the option of posting it to you tube also owned by google. You can also post it to a circle in Google+. Some people try to get famous people or experts together in a hangout and have a kind of conference which they can post like a podcast. One person got Archbishop Tutu & the Dalai Lama together in this way. I enjoyed reading this book and it's an interesting subject and although I joined Google+ a long time ago this book has rekindled my interest and I think I might start using it. 

Social Media Commerce

The book I read to research this post was Social Media Commerce For Dummies by Marsha Collier which is a very good book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

This book as the title says is about marketing your business on social media and selling your goods or service. Many people nowadays especially if they are buying something expensive will look on social media sites like facebook and twitter and see what there friends recommend. Even one customer having a bad experience whilst dealing with your company can turn out to be very costly in terms of potential business from their friends. One mistake a lot of companies make is spending too much time on social media sites and getting bogged down in things that are unimportant. You have to be selective and you should also spend a little time enjoying yourself on a social media whether that be having a conversation with a friend or reading retweets on twitter. Facebook & twitter are probably the best social media sites for you to actually make sales. Linkedin & Google+ are good for showing off your work and in the former case you can ask and answer questions. Bear in mind if you have a technical support problem, there are a lot of tech savvy experts on social media sites and they are often only too happy to answer any queries. Also you should avoid the hard sell when marketing your business and bear in mind ideally you want to keep the customer for life and earn repeat business. There is a site called merchant circle which has local versions and if you have a business that does most of its jobs locally might be worth checking out. I enjoyed reading this book & it is quite interesting.

Something else I was going to mention is there is a site at http://headliner.fm which is a site for marketing your website. I have used it for one of my sites and was pleased with the extra traffic. When you join they give a set amount of virtual money and if you recommend a site or blog on either tumblr, facebook or twitter you get paid in virtual money. Then you can use that to get other users to promote your site on their tumblr, facebook or twitter accounts. You can only promote 1 site at a time although you can always upgrade to a pro account and also if you run short of virtual money you can buy some with cash. Obviously you have to be careful what you promote ie no get rich quick schemes, but I think it's a brilliant idea.

Social Media Metrics

The book I read to research this post was Social Media Metrics For Dummies by Leslie Poston which is a very good book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

This book is about if you have a website or blog using online tools to measure things like the number of visitors and what pages they looked at and then using this information for marketing purposes. It also includes things like any social networks pages you may have and I think is primarily aimed at small businesses. The most famous web analytical tool is google analytics which is covered in quite a lot of depth and while the basic version is free there is a premium version for big businesses priced at $150,000 per year. Radian 6 is another product aimed at big businesses while many smaller concerns can probably settle for a free product like mint not to be confused with the finance site. The website for mint analytics is http://haveamint.com

There is of course also services like facebook insights which give you data concerning your product page and most social networks have something similiar. Sites like twitter let you advertise your account for more followers or promote a hash tag both of which are paid services. Twitter apparently has been charging quite a lot for these services and are in the process of introducing cheaper services along the lines of google adsense to make them more competitive. I assume it will be like pay per click rather than a flat rate. I really enjoyed reading this book and it has a lot of useful information.

Sugar CRM

The book I read to research this post was Sugar CRM For Dummies which is a very good book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

Sugar CRM is a customer relationship management piece of software that has a community edition that is free and open source as well as paid versions which professional and enterprise. This book does a good job of telling you what the differences are between them. Roughly 85% of the code in all 3 is identical and for most businesses the community edition is adequate. In the paid versions there is an offline client but you will need hosting for all 3 which can be self hosted, or hosted on one of Sugar CRM's servers which are competitively priced.  It works with various flavours of windows or linux and you need a database which can be the open source, mySQL also you need Apache or IIS. The paid versions integrate with Microsoft Office and in particular Outlook. You can use OpenOffice with it though to save money. A good feature in the paid versions is the manager can send messages to all his team in one go. All 3 versions contain modules like calendar, notes & also let you communicate with customers. There is also rival software by other companies like salesforce.com & Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 which generally you have to pay for. Also because sugar CRM is open source many people have written add ons to enhance the functionality of it and these are normally free. I enjoyed reading this book although to get the most out of Sugar CRM you may have to do additional reading it still provides a good introduction.

The Brazilian Economy

The book I read to research this post was Brazil Is The New America by James Dale Davidson which is an excellent book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

This book argues that Brazil is the economy to watch in the coming years and will attain the status Britain had in Victorian times & the USA currently has of being the strongest economy in the world. Brazil has had problems like debt and runaway inflation which was at around 6,000% and resulted in high speed cheque clearing systems that are only now catching on in the rest of the world. Brazil has abundant natural resources and is one of the 5 biggest nations in both area and population. Despite that it has a young population that is rapidly growing unlike China where the population is generally aging due to measures to curb any increase. Also Brazil is relatively sparsely populated with much land that is cheap and can be cultivated which has been attracting farmers from abroad. Brazil is the world's biggest producer of beef and poultry. The potential for alternative energy is huge with many fast flowing rivers and sunshine. There has been crude oil discovered which they are developing and the cost of crude is likely to rise in coming years as light crude becomes scarcer and they have to turn to more sulphurous crude which is more expensive to refine. The people in Brazil tend to be either very poor or very rich and a problem in developed countries is the cost of a benefits system which is right but does slow down the economy. I would like to read more on Brazil and I did really enjoy reading this book and it's an interesting subject.

Islamic Finance

The book I read to research this post was Islamic Finance For Dummies by Dr Faleel Jamaldeen  which is a very good book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

Islamic finance started to catch on in the 60's & 70's & was a sector of the banking industry that was quite resilient to the banking crisis partly because they couldn't sell the debts from mortgages onto someone else. Basically they aren't allowed to charge interest on borrowings or give interest on deposits. They can charge a fee on borrowings and can pay a proportion of profits on deposits however. Also the money deposited by muslims can't be invested in things connected to anything like pork production, gambling, pornography, weapons, booze, cloning tobacco or illegal drugs. Cloning is a new regulation. Also islamic banks are subject to sharia regulations and other islamic regulations like accounting. London leads the way in Europe with the Islamic Bank Of England although the Luxembourg Stock Exchange was first to use Islamic Finance. Equally with insurance they can't pay an interest dividend or no claims bonus and instead bus proportion of profits for not claiming. The islamic population is growing very rapidly especially in Asia & Africa & this is very much seen as a growth industry. The author of this book works at a university and is a specialist in Islamic Finance. I did enjoy reading this book and found it very interesting. Many banks like Lloyds TSB & HSBC are also getting involved in it.

Climate Change In South East Asia

The book I read to research this post was Environment & Climate Change In Asia by Victor R Savage which is an excellent book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

This book is quite a complex work written in sections by different professors at various universities in Asia and some may find it a bit daunting to read but it's interesting nonetheless. I certainly enjoyed reading and learned a lot about things I knew very little about. The book was financed by Shell Petroleum and a lot of it centres on Singapore which being a city state and a low lying port stands to suffer more than most if nothing is done about climate change. Some states like the Maldives accept they are going to be over run by the rising sea level due to climate change and even a rise of 60 cm would be disastrous for Singapore. Other ports at risk include Shanghai & Beijing. Particularly in Singapore which is quite a forward looking country efforts are being made to protect the coral reefs offshore & there is a tiny national park which comprises of 50% of flora and fauna found there. Elsewhere a problem is China uses 50% of the world's cement output in building which isn't sustainable. There are plenty of national parks in Asia but in the world as a whole 44% live in urban areas and of course in many parts of Asia the population is growing rapidly. Often any restrictions are lax to try and promote business with the result that rivers are often polluted and often by people dumping untreated faeces rather than factories. Many people who wash in the rivers daily have skin conditions and bowel problems. In cities the quality of life for many is very poor with many especially in places like Cambodia & Laos surviving on less than $2 per day. This book is definitely worth reading.

Prezi

The idea for people like teachers and businessmen in particular who normally use Microsoft Powerpoint to do presentations and slideshows, this them more options. This is very much an up and coming technology. Because you aren't constrained by the limitations of what you can draw in Powerpoint and also the limitations of static images in the form of slides. Prezi is online and has many templates to enable you to do a job and allows you to use animation as well as the many open source graphics many users have produced. Also if you produce a work of art you can save it and re use it. Many people draw pictures in programs like Adobe Illustrator or Smartdraw both of which it's compatible with. You can also post your work on the internet which is encouraged and it's compatible with many sites like blogs, social media & especially sites like twitter and facebook. A normal user can get a free account which gives them 100 MB of storage and watermarks their work but works otherwise. There is a normal account priced at $59 per year which gives them 500 MB of storage and obviously removes the watermark. There are also specially priced charity organisation and education accounts which are either free or paid but superior to a comparable business account in terms of cost. I think this looks like an interesting website which I may very well sign up to. There is also a useful site at http://jingproject.com where they have a tool that helps you capture what is on the screen and may prove useful in producing slides as well as a site at http://wordle.com where they display word art you can reuse. I really enjoyed reading this book which even has a section on the psychology of selling for those doing presentations to sell stuff.

Social CRM

The book I read to research this post was Social CRM For Dummies by Kyle Lacy et al which is an excellent book which I read on the website

http://safaribooksonline.com

There is a lot of information in this book which is aimed at people who are looking to promote a business on social media and integrate a CRM package with it. Most businesses will be looking to promote on facebook and twitter the 2 biggest social media sites but sometimes niche sites like frquent flyer if you are travel oriented can generate a lot of business. A CRM package which is one of the ones they mention is a little known one called Address Two which is easy to use and priced at $10-15 a month. There is also an open source free CRM called SugarCRM which might be worth checking out. Salesforce is also pretty good in that it's a whole suite of products that all integrate although it costs a bit than those 2. You may come across what they call superfans who over support your product and in extreme cases may make false claims for your product as they get carried away and can cause a bit of trouble. You should try and treat your fans equally and not be condescending to them. There is a lot more information in this book and I have barely scratched the surface. I really enjoyed reading it and it's definitely one of the better For Dummies books. 

Data Warehousing

The book I read to research this post was Data Warehousing For Dummies by Thomas C Hammergren which is a very good book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

This book was written around 2008 so lacks some of the most recent developments like facebook marketing, cloud computing & microsoft azure to name but a few. It's interesting however as I think some companies and organisations especially with sensitive information might want an onsite solution rather than something like a cloud computing database. Also it has information on vendors of different types of database ie data mining and one of the main players is

http://sas.com

but anyway a lot of the information on vendors is relevent. There is also the option of a data mart a smaller version of a data warehouse which can be for a small company or be to summarize the results. In practice a data warehouse would probably be a server with several workstations connected and programmers and analysts would be working on these. The leading program for data marts is probably SQL Server by Microsoft & the leading players in heavy duty databases are probably IBM & Oracle. Of course a good data warehouse will more than pay back in dividends what the set up costs were. Typically you will store sales information, branch by branch and competitor information and maybe company information like employers etc. Of course the trend is to use relational tables and do crosstab queries to get information. Basically this means using lots of interrelated small tables. I did really enjoy reading this book and learned a lot from it. I would suggest though see what cloud offerings there are before building a data warehouse. 

Bangerz - Miley Cyrus

I am reviewing the new album Bangerz by Miley Cyrus which is a very good album. Miley is the daughter of country and western singer Billy Ray Cyrus and is a very successful singer and actress. This album has heralded a raunchier image and her 1st 2 singles from it have been huge hits. Apparently Miley is 21 today although I decided to review her album which has just been released & was unaware it was her birthday. She is probably most famous for Hannah Montana and the songs she has done connected to that series. She has a fortune estimated at $120 million & there was a bit of a scandal when someone hacked her Gmail account and distributed sexy pictures of her which weren't intended for release. She had a long time relationship with actor Chris Hemsworth for 4 years but that has ended. The best song on the album is probably Wrecker Ball and there are 16 tracks which are quite varied & the album is better than I expected. 

Alive - Jessie J

I am reviewing the 2nd studio album from Jessie J called Alive which is an excellent album although not quite as good as her debut. She has released a single from her new album which featured her with a shaved head and raunchier new image in the pop video. Her full name is Jessie Ellen Cornish and she is from London. She had 2 no 1 singles and a total of 6 top 10 singles from her debut album which is one of my favourite albums ever. The best track on that album Who Are You? was Price Tag. Her new album features 18 tracks and each one is quite different to the others and I think it's a decent follow up. I think the last single she had is the best track on Alive. It's also the opening track. Jessie J is well known to millions in Britain for being one of the judges on The Voice, which is similiar to The X Factor & American Idol. She did 2 series and her fellow judges were Will i Am & Tom Jones. A lot of people preferred The Voice to similiar shows because the judges had more of a mentoring role with the singers. Jessie has also toured supporting Katy Perry whom she has said she is a huge fan of her music. 

Social Collaboration

The book I read to research this post was Social Collaboration For Dummies which is an excellent book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

This book is aimed at people doing charity and social projects but a lot of what is in the book applies to business. The kind of thing in this book is someone recruits volunteers to help in a project where they have to appoint a leader and stay in touch with email or CRM software to monitor their progress. There are websites like Yammer & Chatter which are social media but cater for this kind of thing. If you opt for CRM software the 2 big players are Dynamic CRM & Salesforce.com. If you have a huge project consider a wiki like MediaWiki which powers Wikipedia among others. There is also a website called Podio which is aimed at organisations like this and is a website with paid extras I think. For some low budget projects organisations use a social network to stay in touch. If you use twitter for this anyone on the site can read your messages and on Facebook & Linkedin the privacy in this respect isn't much better. I did really enjoy reading this book and I was looking for things that could be applied to work rather than charity work. I learned a lot from this book and am tempted to sign up to Yammer which is open source and free. 

Amazon Web Services

The book I read to research this post was Amazon Web Services For Dummies by Bernard Golden which is a very good book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

Amazon is the biggest cloud service provider in the world. It's also one of the cheapest and the author quoted another provider provided a similiar service for 8 times the price of what Amazon were charging. Also Amazon itemize your bill so you know exactly what you are paying for which again is something many providers don't do. AWS begin with them offering Simple Storage Service later abbreviated to S3 in the days before cloud computing existed. It allowed you to store upto 5 GB per file which nowadays is much more and you paid according to how much storage you used. Nowadays there are more than 25 separate service offered and new ones coming online every few months. It used to be if you had a computer you upgraded it roughly every 2 years so as to keep within the system requirements to keep software compatible with your computer. With cloud computing the provider has to provide the heavy duty hardware to run the cloud  service so you can upgrade your computers less frequently. Also usually when software is offered as a cloud product it's offered at a cheaper price than if if it was on cd rom or dvd rom. However you pay a monthly subscription. I really enjoyed reading this book particularly because it explain what a lot of the AWS individual products did in understandable terms.

Windows 8 Phone

The book I read to research this post was My Windows 8 Phone which is a very good book which I  read on

http://safaribooksonline.com

There are quite a lot of books on development of apps for windows 8 phone but not many on how to use one of these phones. This book does an admirable job of that. It's got lots of screenshots and is quite easy to understandable. They do say it's the best phone operating system for newbies to this technology. I have a Nokia Lumia 810 which I absolutely love but wanted to take my knowledge of it to a higher level. It integrates with Windows 8 for PC's for things like to upgrade the operating system. You can download updates on the phone but they recommend doing it via the computer and wi-fi. It's really easy to personalize your phone with things like a photograph as a wallpaper on your screen and a theme. There is a scrolling screen like other smartphones. Accessing an app is as simple as scrolling down the screen and double clicking a virtual button with your finger. If press it and hold it down a shortcut menu appears including a delete app option. Some of these phones only have a camera on the back and there is of course a video recording virtual button. On most of these cameras there is no flash and some of the better ones have a hdtv resolution on the screen. I enjoyed reading this book and have learned quite a lot from it.

Foursquare And Business

I am reviewing the book The Power Of Foursquare by Carmine Gallo which is an excellent book which I read at

http://safaribooksonline.com

There aren't many books that have been written about Foursquare which seems a shame. This book offers general information for businesses promoting themselves on this site and also presents case studies of how other companies have done it. I really enjoyed reading this book and it keeps your interest throughout. Foursquare in case you are wondering is a location based marketing site that is also a social network. It's free to join and users can review places like businesses. If you are in a strange town you can get out your smartphone, power up your app and find places like hotels, restaurants and places of interest. You can also find users also from your locality and arrange to meet them as well as current friends who may also use the site. The site requests that you either put a photo or avatar on your page so friends can find you. One person who is a museum guide in Atlanta has rated literally every relevant business and places of interest in the city. He has done this without any payment because he enjoys it. If you become the best Foursquare customer of a business at a certain location you achieve mayor status for that establishment. Sometimes a real battle can brew up giving business to that company. Also many companies give special discounts or virtual badges to Foursquare users. Finally the book also includes an interview with the 2 co founders of Foursquare.

Mint

The book I read to research this post was Teach Yourself Mint.com In 10 Minutes which is an excellent book which I read on

http://safaribooksonline.com

Each chapter is meant to take 10 minutes to read hence the name and there are plenty of screenshots of webpages. I think this book is the only one that covers this topic and although it's fairly short it covers all the essentials. I think if you went to the Mint website you could work out how to use the site but reading this book saves time. Mint.com is a finance site owned by Intuit the accounting software company that is free to use and lets you see at a glance all your financial information on one site. It does this by you connect things like the companies you bank with, get loans from, your credit card, your mortgage and any investments. It even lets you include anything expensive you own like a car or an antique. A lot of people are reluctant to include things like loans but it enables you to take advantage of the budget feature if you do. There is also a goals feature which can be something like saving for a holiday or retirement or even a custom goal. When you enter things like a loan or mortgage they will tell you if it's cheaper elsewhere and this is optional though, also they don't share your financial information with any 3rd parties. I am really tempted to join this site and I did really enjoy the book. 

Pop Art - Lady Gaga

I am reviewing the album Pop Art by Lady Gaga which is an excellent album. Lady Gaga did top the singles chart in Britain a couple of weeks ago with her single Applause and this album looks set to do the same in the album chart. The music is mostly dance music with a couple of ballads and several remixes of her recent single. I know she had health problems a while back but this album is really on form. All the tracks are rather good with Applause probably being the best track. I have all Lady Gaga's albums and my favourite track ever by her is Bad Romance although Poker Face is apparently her biggest selling single. Applause also has a very good video although my favourite video by her is probably Alejandro. She is also a very talented song writer and probably a little under rated in that respect. I am glad she appears to have stopped releasing albums that had a couple of new tracks and the rest were remixes which she has sometimes done. 

Foursquare

The book I read to research this post was Sam's Teach Yourself Foursquare In 10 Minutes which is a very good book which I read on

http://safaribooksonline.com

I assume the 10 minutes in the title refer to each chapter which are quite short and succint.The book is around 125 pages and contains quite a lot of information about Foursquare. It is a location based marketing site which in turn is a form of social media site. The idea is you have friends whom you tell where you are and you have followers who tell you where they are but aren't told where you are. This allows more privacy than say facebook and the idea is you can meet up with your friends or followers and if you are in a strange place you can get recommendations ie for where to eat. If you visit somewhere the most you become mayor until beaten by someone. Some places give a free gift to the current mayor. There is quite a long process in putting a business establishment into Foursquare and establishing ownership which typically takes 10 days and Foursquare do check you are who you say you are. Your clientele can also rate your business from 1-5. Foursquare is the biggest location based marketing site with over a million members. They offer apps for most of the major mobile devices and this is essential to tell people where you are. Finally some businesses offer virtual gifts which is still in its infancy but sure to catch on. I really enjoyed this book and it's very interesting.

Android Forensics

The book I read to research this post was Android Forensics which is a very good book which I read at http://safaribooksonline.com . This book is all about doing digital forensics on an android phone and it was released in 2011 so doesn't include Android 3.2. The most interesting part was the history of Android near the beginning and the information on doing digital forensics on an android is interesting but a lot of it is written out in steps that you probably want to go through it on an android phone whilst reading it to fully understand. I am sure if a reader was a digital forensics examiner with a bit of experience, I am sure they would fall in love with this book. Most of the exercises assume you are running linux on a computer with Ubuntu VMware & the Android SDK or software development kit. There is an overview of the various software you can use for digital forensics on this type of smartphone some of which are free and others are retail software. Some are only free to law enforcement agencies and digital forensic laboratories. There is one program called MobilEdit that will copy the data on an android with one click. Sometimes especially if the device is damaged or password protected they have to remove the chip and read it externally. They also have to put the phone in airplane mode, seal it in a special bag to prevent transmissions and temporily let the phone provider or ISP know to disable the smartphone. I really enjoyed reading this book and I must admit I find digital forensics quite interesting.

Business Gamification

The book I read to research this post was Business Gamification For Dummies by Kris Duggan et al which is a very good book which I read on

http://safaribooksonline.com

This book is a great introduction to a complex subject but if you decided to market your business in this way I would suggest doing some additional reading and employing some specialists to implement. The term business gamification is a relatively new one and refers quite literally to making you employees jobs and the process of people buying from you into a kind of game with rewards. On a simple level you can have an employee of the month award or a buy 5 of product x and get one free promotion. A lot of it is about interacting with people on social media and driving people to your website. A lot of companies will have a kind of game on their website which can be something like a one armed bandit with rotating symbols like recycled bottles if you have a waste recycling company. It can also be things like featuring a customer or employee on your website or having certain levels on your site that are only open to people with a certain achievement like they have achieved x sales or purchased x of a product or even sent your company a like on facebook. This can also be integrated with a location based marketing site like foursquare where people can be encouraged to ie visit your restaurant with their friends. There are gamification specialists like badgeville or you can try an open source solution like zurmo or open badges. 

Negotiating

The book I read to research this post was Negotiating For Dummies which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. The author is an agent who represents actors including Elizabeth Montgomery. This is one of the best books I have read on this subject and it includes sections on things like dealing with your children and also an awkward boss among other things. When you think of it we negotiate as part of everyday life and often a lot more frequently than we realise. One important point is you should remain true to yourself and set limits across which you adamantly refuse to go. It's also important to research your client and try and find out what he wants and try to accommadate him but at the same time get what you want. This is called win - win negotiating. Something I read in another book is a good negotiation shouldn't necessarily be unpleasant for either party and you should both be willing to do business again. It's also important you set out your case honestly and explain why you won't do certain things. I really enjoyed reading this book and with the author having a background in acting it was nice to see he used lots of examples of negotiating in films. Apparently the FBI uses the films, Dog Day Afternoon & The Taking Of Pelham One, Two, Three as part of their training for recruits in negotiating. The former is based on a true story and features Al Pacino as a bank robber who takes hostages and a negotiator has to try and negotiate their release. The latter film is about a hostage situation that wasn't handled very well. 

Digital Crime And Forensics

The  book I read to research this post was New Technologies For Digital Crime And Forensics which is an excellent book which I read on a subscription website at http://safaribooksonline.com . This book is a proper heavy duty digital forensics book and is probably not suitable for newbies to the subject but if like me you are quite knowledgeable it's a great book. This is definitely one of the best books I have read on digital forensics and I was so engrossed in it I forgot to phone somebody and didn't remember until after I finished it. It's written in 2011 so is up to date and I was interested to learn there are issues with using MD5 which is a hash tag program used to verify files on a digital device like a computer. Apparently they tend to use AFFLIB. This book also covers things as diverse as traffic signal systems where security is really beefed up and they have something called redundancy which means extra capacity and security. It also looks at mammograms where they use watermarking so if a doctor is viewing something first time it tells him if anyone else has viewed it along with what part they have viewed. It's a decent length book and one of the beauties of this website is they form a long page you scroll down out of a section in a chapter which is great if like me you speed read. 

Correction

I did do a post which I think said starbucks paid £8.6 million in taxes but I speed read the book I was reviewing so I think that must be a mistake.

Social Media Marketing

The book I read to research this post was Profitable Social Media Marketing by Tim Kitchen et al which is a very good book and which I bought from kindle. This book is about marketing your business on social media networks and also tells you quite a bit about how their company Exposure Ninja can do this but is good in its own right. The book contains sections on the main networks Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin & Google+ as well as a section on blogging. I always use hosted blogs which are mostly free but a business needs a self hosted platform because you can configure it more and if you use one like Wordpress there are tons of plug ins that are mostly free. Also you must watch what people are saying about your business on social media sites and give any derogatory comments a polite answer. An example is someone accused starbucks of not paying tax to which they left a comment saying they paid £8.6 million in the last year. I know quite a lot about social media and there isn't that much in this book that is new to me but it's well written and quite interesting. They maybe could have done with a section on pinterest. Also I would like to read a guide about somethiing like Rebel Mouse or Foursquare as it seems everyone who writes one of these books writes about either Facebook or Twitter. I did quite enjoy this book though.

Landscapes And Geomorphism

The book I read to research this post was Landscapes & Geomorphism A Very Short Introduction by Andrew Goudie et al which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book covers a wide variety of landscapes and events such as the dust bowl in America in the 30's to the glaciers in New Zealand to the coral reefs of the Pacific & even the low lying landscape of the hills around London. Darwin on his voyage on The Beagle became the world's leading authority on Landscapes and wrote much about it in addition to his work on evolution. His work on coral reefs still holds true despite many other's theories being superceded by the discovery of plate tectonics. One of the most interesting landscapes geologically is South Island in New Zealand where the Pacific Plate meets the Indian Plate and has resulted in the upheaval of the Southern Alps along with the huge glaciers due to the huge amount of rainfall. 1/4 of the world is permafrost including 50% of Canada & 85% of Alaska. One of the most massive upheavals is the Himalayas Kakoram Mountains where an area half the size of the United States is almost entirely above 4,000 metres and contains almost every mountain over 7,000 metres in the world. Much of the aging of rock is done by dating the radioactivity of the quartz found in it as due to its great age it generally difficult to date it by other means. I enjoyed reading this book which I'm sure you can see is very interesting.

Google TV App Development

The book I read to research this post was Sams Teach Yourself Google TV App Development In 24 Hours which is an excellent book which I read on the website at http://safaribooksonline.com which is a subscrption website that lets you read computing & technology books online. It also has video tutorials. Anyway the book is primarily about writing apps to both work directly on a Smart TV & also as a Web app on a Smart TV. I mainly read this book because I wanted to learn a bit about Open Android which is their operating system and apparently is less complex than a computing operating system. One reason is that you use a remote control rather than a mouse and also users tend to sit much further away. Hence you will primarily use a Smart TV for music and video. You can always upload video onto a Smart TV enabled website and if you are writing an app I strongly recommend the Closure Library For Google TV. It has things like ready made buttons in Javascript for this platform and will save you a ton of work. Web apps for Smart TV are written in Javascript, HTML & CSS & TV apps are written in Java. The Open Android operating system is open source and is based on Honeycomb or Android 3.2 of which it's almost the same and also you can buy a buddy box from a firm like Sony or Logitech that will upgrade a normal television and only costs around $99 although won't upgrade your picture obviously. It includes apps by Netflix & obviously Google Play as well as YouTube. I noticed on the Safari Books Online website their was a video tutorial on Open Android which I may look at a later date.

12 Memories - Travis

I am reviewing the album 12 Memories by Travis which is a very good album. This album is a few years old and marked a change of direction for the band to a more gentle typeof music  which some thought might be unpopular with some fans. Travis won the brit award for best group twice and paved the way for groups like Coldplay. They come Glasgow in Scotland and formed in 1990 towards the end of the britpop era. This was there 3rd studio album and did get favourable reviews on the whole and made number 3 on the UK album charts. They are named after the Harry Dean Stanton character in the film Paris, Texas. They have just released a new album in Britain. Apparently they are signed to someone who works for Sony Music so if he leaves he takes them with him. This is called a golden handcuffs clause in the industry. They have done quite a bit of charity work and performed at G8 & on the Bandaid 20 single. I did look at the wikipedia article on this group to research this post and recommend it.

Magnetism

The book I read to research this post was Magnetism A Very Short Introduction by Stephen J Blundell which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book is part of a series where they get an expert to write around 150 pages as an introduction to a subject and they are pretty good. I have reviewed quite a lot of these books. Magnetism can be traced back to the Ancient Greeks who were fortunate to have the rock magnetite literally nearby and it was readily magnetite. Most compounds of magnesium and iron are either readily magnetic or can be made so. It has been shown that muscles require electrical energy to function. The normal way to charge a substance like iron or cobalt is to either pass a magnet over it repeatedly which aligns the atoms so they are charged the same way or wrap wire around it and turn it into an electro magnet. In the 19th century there were something called leyden jars which would store electricity in much the same way as a battery. Thomas Jefferson showed that the charge was stored in the jar itself and not the liquid within which was assumed by many. He would invite friends around before Thanksgiving to watch him electrocute the turkeys on his farm. He also invented the lightning conductor by flying a kite on a piece of string with a strip of metal attached during a thunder storm. There were a lot of vaudeville acts that used electricity and magnetism as part of their act and it's thought he must have watched some of these. I did quite enjoy this book which does contain a lot of information despite its length and it does keep you interested throughout.

Geology

The book I read to research this post was Geology For Dummies by Alecia M Spooner which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. I learned quite a lot from this book which might be surprising because some years ago I did the first year of an A level course. It tells you all about the history of the Earth how it was formed and also the different phases of life and how this is ongoing. Oceanic crust which is the rock layer that separates the oceans from the next layer the magma, is only 5 miles thick. Continental crust and also the mountainous form is much thicker at upto 43.5 miles for the latter type. At one time there was one supercontinent initially called Rodentia which was then added to and eventually became Pangeae. This then split in 2 and the north part became Laurentasia & the southern part became Gondwona. Gradually this fragmented and interestingly at one stage India was a separate landmass. Of course as India collided with Asia the Hymalayas were formed. The study of these plates of rock that float on magma and move about causing volcanoes and earthquakes is called Plate Tectonics. Earthquakes are measured on the Richter scale named after Charles Richter who devised it and each time a whole number is increased it means the earthquake is increased by a factor of 10. Hence a category 2 earthquake is 10 times greater than a category 3 one and a hundred times greater than a category 4 one. In the Ice Ages there were many large mammals even including giant marsupials and the reason was they are more efficient at staying warm much like the polar bears we have in the arctic nowadays.

Twitter Marketing

The book I read to research this post was Twitter Marketing by Steve Weber which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. This book might be a little dated because I noticed it said there was 6 million tweeters but it is well written and very interesting. If you market by direct marketing you will maybe get what you send read by 5% but it you tweet something among your active followers it will be read by 80% and this advertising is largely free. This is heralding in a wonderful new era where you can offer special deals to followers on twitter or even do tweets like updates on a new product. Amazon at @amazondeals & Dell at @delloutlet offer special deals exclusively to their followers. There is a mobile version of twitter at http://m.twitter.com. A whole industry has grown around twitter like the twitter directories at http://wefollow.com http://twellow.com which let you search for tweeters and often have a paid option as well as a free one. You can put a twitter button on your website or blog via http://twitthis.com. You can also track tweeters presence on other social networks at http://friendfeed.com. Microblogging is gaining in popularity and the idea you are limited to 140 character means you aren't labouring for hours over an article or blog. It's best to send out several tweets a day but with blogs and social networks automating tweets even this is becoming optional. It's a good idea to look for content that is your niche and link back to it on twitter. Even the latest breaking news like the  social disruption in Iran broke on twitter before the news agencies heard about it.

Social Media Marketing

The book I read to research this post was Social Media Marketing Extreme by Ryan William which is a very good book which I downloaded from kindle. This book looks at using some of the biggest social media which are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ & Pinterest. It's a decent length so it looks at the different sites in a reasonable amount of detail and there is interesting information. I think this book would apply to marketing yourself or personal branding as much as marketing a small business. Some interesting information in the book is like if you get a Twitter account and want lots of followers consider parodying a celebrity. The author parodied Ryan Gosling with @PaulRyanGosling and put out some humorous tweets about the actor and got thousands of followers in a short space of time. He also suggests a site called http://twiends.com for finding out if someone is on Twitter as it is a good twitter directory. Searches can be done on the basis of locality, business name or person's name. If you need a landing page template for your website as obviously you will want to attract people there to buy stuff he suggests http://www.semantclp.com who will typically charge $5. A landing page is a template for a website that is optimized according to what people look at in the first few seconds of arriving at a website and believe me this can improve your sales a lot. Something else he looks at is if you sell as an affiliate on Pinterest they aren't very keen on that and were changing the links to stop them from getting a commision although that does seem to have settled down more recently. I enjoyed reading this book and the information is very relevant to anyone using social media.

Social Media Marketing For Business

The book I read to research this post was 10 Best Social Media Sites For Marketing Your Business by Michael Wiechart which is a very good book. This book is about promoting your business on social media and picks the 10 best although some of the sites are probably not that big and some like Foursquare & YouTube aren't social networks. It does give you the Alexa Ranking of each site and tells you how to set up an account along with general information on each site. Facebook with 1.2 billion members is the biggest social network and of course Twitter is second. Twitter though is a  micro blogging site. There are some sites I have never heard of namel RebelMouse & Keek. RebelMouse is a rapidly growing social network and much of your is automatically updated from other social media sites and blogs etc saving you the hassle of logging in every day. Keek is a bit like YouTube where you upload videos but the idea is you post video updates on your page instead of writing. I am tempted to join RebelMouse although most of the sites in the book I am already a member of. I think this book is of most use to people starting out with trying to market a small business or of course themselves. I enjoyed reading it and although a free ebook on kindle it is something a bit different.