According to mobiThinking, In 2009 there were over 5.3 billion mobile subscribers and over half a billion had a smartphone. In 2011, 85% of those mobile subscribers will have web-enabled smartphones. That’s a huge spike in web-enabled mobile users. Although many companies have adopted some of the latest trends of smartphones, there are 3 things that they have not fully capitalized to their full potential. These 3 areas of opportunity can easily help your business adopt to the fast-paced mobile world and improve your customer’s experience:

NFC capabilities: Get enrolled now!

Most of all retailers and small business have a merchant Point of Sale machine that handle debit and credit card transactions, and now is the time for those machines to get upgraded to handle the onslaught of NFC enabled mobile phones that will be soon shipping within the next 2 years. Be ahead of the curve and get signed up or upgrade soon. This will not only give you a competitive advantage over other retailers but it will keep customer satisfaction high, as many consumers will be eager to try this new form of payment.

Get Proactively Involved with E-Coupons and Rewards.

Many consumers are shifting their shopping from actual stores to online retailers like Amazon or eBay, and they do so because they have great confidence that they will get a better deal online then they would at the store. Therefore, when they’re met with a tempting deal at a store, they hesitate and choose to look it up and buy it online. Actively applying discounts and reward points will give that customer an emotional sensation to buy now, rather then later, will help your business win that sale immediately. E-Coupons and rewards can be used in conjunction with NFC enabled phones and apply automatic discounts and reward points when an enabled NFC phone is used as form of payment at the register. Such a feature is being rolled out with Google’s own offering of Google wallet and I recommend you take immediate action to differentiate yourself before it becomes the norm. Remember be proactive, not reactive. Customers always love to be rewarded without having to chase down discounts.

Compatible Websites: Make your website compatible to mobile web browsers.

Many of the huge retailers have already jumped on board with creating specific mobile applications pertaining to their company for the two larges phone ecosystems: Android and the iPhone. However, not everyone has an Android or an iPhone so creating many different types of applications for each specific mobile operating system can be expensive and time consuming, especially for smaller businesses. In addition, with the large pool of applications between Android and iPhone, only 1 of 4 applications downloaded actually get used. Therefore, when creating website for your company, make sure that your site is mobile browser friendly. Make things simple and accessible to customers without having them to zoom in on a page that’s meant for your laptop on a small 4 inch portable screen. In addition, if your website requires the user to fill out a form — for example loan applications — please make it mobile friendly. I can’t tell you how many times I started to fill out a form on my phone but just quit because it was just too much work.

Some of these tips sound like common sense but it will make you wonder why it isn’t a uniform standard across many retailers and companies. The truth is that the most of these initiatives will eventually become standard, but the key to your business is to be ahead of the curve and give your customer that friendly mobile experience and satisfaction they haven’t felt anywhere else.

Source: mobiThinking

Today marks a day in history 50 years ago when the first man , Yuri Gagarin went into space. He spent 108 minutes inside a small capsule orbiting over the earth before again landing back on Soviet land. Gagarin’s launch into space was the start of space exploration globally, leading the path for landing on the moon years later.

Big news from Pepsi this week as they announced they will stop using plastic to make their bottles! In an effort to go green, Pepsi has transitioned making its soda bottles from plastic to making them entirely out of plant material.

The bottles are made from switch grass, pine bark, corn husks and other materials. Eventually Pepsi plans to use orange peels, oat hulls, potato scraps and other leftovers from its food business.

The company plans to test these new bottles in 2012 with a few hundred thousand bottles and once they are positive they can produce the bottles at the necessary scale, they will transition all products over.

After the huge hit of the iPad release in 2010, the iPad 2 was released for purchase this morning. 14.8 million iPads were sold in the first 9 months on the market, with a predicted 30 million to be sold in 2011. The iPad 2 is promoted to be faster, lighter and have rear facing cameras with the capability for video chatting.

The pricing will range from $499 – $829.

Are you using social media in your advantage? We may feel a certain level of discomfort at first, but as we push through we will be able to get a lot of valuable comments and ideas on how to better ourselves and the product we are offering. People are going to write whatever they want on your “wall”, but, often rewards await those who push through the discomfort of the unknown. Push through the discomfort and use everything in your advantage. Building trust with your customer base doesn’t come easy – each day is a step forward towards a successful product.

One of the biggest brands out there has to be Starbucks. Well they must think so themselves because they are now going to be giving their Starbucks logo a pretty big facelift by removing their name off the logo. The company is about to celebrate it’s 40 year anniversary, and it seems that they find the best way to do that is to make a logo change.
According to the Associated Press, “Starbucks leaders say the changes to the logo are in some ways a metaphor for the company dropping the boundaries of its own business and growing into new areas. Marketing experts agree.” Starbucks is looking at other big name companies who have successfully dropped their name from their logos. Hopefully this new facelift will be as successful for Starbucks as it was for companies like Nike and Apple. You can truly say you have made it as a company if you do not even need to show your name on your company logo or any other advertising. We hope it works Starbucks!

If social networking hasn’t already dominated the news enough lately, it now has some more NEW news. Time Magazine has named Mark Zuckerberg as their PERSON OF THE YEAR! Interesting enough Facebook is being run by Zuckerberg and other management in a way that seems to be a little unique (and catching the attention of the outside world) from every other business. For instance, the Facebook office is one big space with no cubicles, no offices and no walls. All management and even Zuckerberg, do not have an office. This brilliant concept called Facebook was started in a dorm room back in 2004, and now look at what impact it is having on businesses and people around the world!
Some of the past recipients that have been named the Time Magazine person of the year were presidents, royalty and other prestigious individuals that had accomplished something very large in society. Therefore, Zuckerberg receiving this award brings not only attention to him and his brilliance, but also the award brings some more attention to social networking sites. I would like to know…. where will social networking sites and other internet related platforms be in 5 years… how about in 10 years?

It’s time to look back over the year at our accomplishments, as well as the things we wished to or still need to fulfill for ourselves and others. Our clients need us as much as we need them – we are all connected as a large network and our success is always dependent on the connections we have created and maintained. We can end the year strong and better ourselves starting today. Give back to all your partners and show them gratitude as each one of them helped you one way or another to get you where you are at. 2011 can bring you the opportunity to accomplish great things!

The anticipation of checking your email and finding out what the Groupon deal of the day will be brings excitement and many desirable discounts! If you have not heard of the website Groupon which offers 1 deal per day according to your zip code, you have probably been living under a rock.

Two years ago, 29 year old Andrew Mason founded Groupon and now employees nearly 1,000 people. The Groupon site emails its members daily with over 200 discounts on multiple retail websites – deals only become “active” or avalible to be purchased when the first person agrees to make the purchase – the deal expires if it does not reach the minimum number or people willing to purchase and becomes unavailable to anyone.

Groupon is currently described by Forbes as “the world’s fastest growing company”, which may give insight to Google placing an offer on the table to purchase the site for $5.3 billion. Yahoo reportedly offered Mason $2 billion in April of 2010, but the deal did not close because the dollar amount was not enough.

Groupon makes its money by taking a cut of each sale and has a projected turnover of $500 million this year. In June Groupon registered 8 million subscribers to its daily email, with nearly 12 million unique visitors monthly to its website.

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has introduced a new site named Jumo, which will work much like Facebook only this site is to help a project or issue of your choice. As Facebook has become a very common social network, Jumo aims to be a social network that also gives back to your community. With Jumo, issues such as cancer, public schools, poverty and 3,500 other organizations are brought to light.

Each individual one has their own page with information on the cause like how to help, locations of these places, and who you would need to contact. Providing information or “likes” about yourself can connect you to issues that you personally are interested in or local areas that may need your help.

While Facebook is concentrated on things like friends and social gatherings, Jumo offers a place for people to gather to share or explore issues that others are also concentrated on. Although many focus on the Holiday season to give back, this new site is an outlet to bestow charity all year long.

Yesterday, Google announced that they will be paying their users when they come across problems that have to do with security and bugs. Varying on the specific problem someone discovers, they can be paid anywhere from $500-$3,000.

Google tried a similar program in January with the Chromium Vulnerability reward program which showed many positive results from users finding bugs. These bugs include things such as server-side code execution, bypass authorization errors and more. Google says they are trying to protect their web properties from bugs

“…which directly affects the confidentiality or integrity of user data may be in scope…”.

Aside from a cash reward, the user who discovers a bug will also be given the option to get twice as much money if they donate it to a charity, and they will also be given notice on the credits of the new program.

Being an online company, Leadpile understands the importance of having programs that operate smoothly with as little complications as possible. Having a user involved in the process can broaden their ability to figure these types of problems out.

To help get you into the spirit this year,  iphones are offering Halloween apps to make the day a little more fun. The apps range from scary to silly and a couple of things in-between. Here are a few of the apps you may want to try out yourself;

Zombie Booth: Take a picture of yourself and see it transformed into a zombie. The app is also 3D, causing your zombie self to look at you as you touch the screen.

True Blood Comics: This app offers 6 different comics based on the HBO series.

Devil Reverse: Lets you take any type of recording from songs to dialogue and plays it in reverse.

SceneIt Horror: Based on the popular SceneIt games, this app is a movie trivia game focused on details of scary/horror movies.

Halloween Postage: This app turns a photo you take into different Halloween-themed post cards.

Enjoy and have a Happy Halloween!