Pinterest :Why you should be pinning right this instant!!

Many business entities have taken to social media as a great tool for advertising. It is a smart move because advertisement costs are downsized tremendously. Successful stories of entrepreneurs who did not have any physical outlets for their products or spend a dime in advertising are common. Every tech-forward entrepreneur is delving into frugal innovation, a concept that allows them to generate more income with less resources while creating a greater social value and presence; sounds like something i learned in economics called economies of scale. The cost conscious, tech savvy, Eco-aware consumer is the main drive when it comes to social marketing.

Facebook and twitter are on the forefront of advertising, Instagram as well, which mainly favors celebrities who may propel product sales through endorsements. The target audience is immense, that is why it is important for any business person to make an impression and have a huge audience in the internet sphere.

Enter Pinterest.Heard of it? It's a social image bookmarking system that allows users to share photos from the internet sites and share, like and repin photos on pin boards. It quite popular with bloggers. It allows the users to share their interests, likes and events and for businesses, acts as both a marketing and educational tool. There are free iPhone, android and i Pad apps that allow you to pin on multiple devices. Personally, I adore it. To get a feel of what i mean, log into pinterest, create an account and search for something you have a liking for. The interface design gets an A+ for its visually pleasing and engaging nature.

We are what we wear, we are what we eat.. consistent slogans that place fashion and food as popular sectors of discussion in social media; same case applies to technology. However, of late, real estate is gradually cropping up in the maximization of social and commercial collaborations. Pinterest essentially offers the critical visual element that many home buyers and sellers crave for - the eye candy dipped in large resolution and intelligent and smart content. Many potential home buyers have been known to use Internet resources as their initial search option when looking for houses. For better search engine optimization for websites, pinterest gives your audience a chance to follow links to your website after you have pinned photos of the properties available. This in turn drives traffic to your website aligning you to top spots when real estate firms are looked up. A recent study showed that it drove more traffic to sites threatening to unseat Google+, YouTube and Reddit!

If your firm has a verified website, you can use the Data Analytic tool which offers relevant statistics and business updates such as the number of people who have pinned from your site, what they pinned and whats most popular! To get your website verified, you need to download a HTML code that tags your site with the Pinterest tracking code.

Real estate companies can create pin boards in line with the niches they encompass such as having boards of beach houses, condos, homes with swimming pools, apartments and holiday destinations . Its important for companies to be aggressive when it comes to embracing technology. It will be unfruitful to adopt a Luddite attitude since aggressive internet strategies have increased returns for different business entities tremendously. Kenya's e-commerce is still growing but in the meantime, why not tap into the free advertisement and branding? Furthermore, capturing a worldwide audience is good for real estate since in most cases, most searches are generated by tourists, or people abroad who have the need to settle here. From brand studies, it is estimated that pinterest users spend an average of $180 while Facebook users average at $85. It is also the most effective when it comes to driving sales. Its all about knowing your target market and reaching out to them.

The diagram below offers a summarized insight on more ways of maximizing marketing a business through pinterest. Happy pinning!!

The Much Anticipated SAMSUNG S4

The much anticipated Samsung S4 is being released later on today (3 pm P.T and 6 pm E.T) in New York. The eye speculation software is rumored to be a major feature after Samsung filed for an Eye Scroll patent in January. With this software, screen movements will result from eye movement that the user does. The phone will be able to respond to any intentional eye movement that will allow clicking by blinking and automatic scrolling up, down and to the next page, a concept that has been previously researched on desktop computing. 

Much as it is a commendable application of artificial Intelligence, there may be certain cons that come with it. For instance, the behavior of the tracking software could be easily disrupted by public distractions and could bring some awkwardness in public for the user if they have to move their eyes in certain ways. 

Another speculation revolves around the floating touch technology that allows for screen movements with as much as the hovering of the finger on the screen without actually touching it. Wireless charging is another feature anticipated for and may even allow for the communication of the phone with charging mats and stands that may allow data transfer which will help with syncing data to the phone.

Other budding rumors include the impressive Exynos 5 processor (8 processors!!). To cater to the problem of battery life that most smart phones face, the LITTE architecture ensures 4 powerful Cortex-A15 cores for power hungry functions and additional 4 Cortex-A7 for simple functions. This way, in most instances the powerful cores will shut down unless warranted to work depending on the gravity of the functionality. 

In conclusion, key features include

·         System: Android 4.1 O.S

·         Screen : 5-inch screen

·         Resolution : 1920*1080

·         Camera 13mp rear and 1.9 mp front, LED flash, Video 1080p

·          Memory :2GB SD RAM, 32GB expandable

·         Network : GSM/ WCDMA/LTE

·         Transmission : GPS, WIFI, Bluetooth 4.0

Samsung prides themselves in being at the forefront of dynamic technology and constant innovations .From the past gadget releases, they hardly disappoint. Looking forward to the Samsung S4.

Blackberry 10 Making a Comeback!!

It was exciting yesterday when blackberry released the blackberry Z10 that runs on a new Blackberry 10 platform. A comeback for blackberry that aims at transforming mobile communications as a whole as well as its business brand. IOS and Android have dominated the market for the past five years and one wonders if the launch of this new OS is a bit too late.

Unlike its predecessors that ran on RIM, BB10 platform was specifically designed to run completely on touchscreen with new user experience. So, what makes it different?

• A software keyboard that swipes words to the keyboards and enables prediction and mimics the physical version experience.
• The BB Hub is a universal inbox that offers you a chance to get all your messages from emails, twitter, Facebook, linked In which can be navigated through swiping because it does not have a physical home or back button.
• BBM now allows video calling because of the BBM video and voice features. 
• BBM balance that allows users to separate their personal and work life.
• BB world store that has over 70,000 applications for its users. Not only does it have apps, but video and music as well with popular apps such as twitter, angry birds, Facebook and Skype available.

Specifications overview:

Design	Size	Height 130 mm / 5.12 in Width 65.6 mm / 2.58 in Depth 9 mm / 0.35 in
	Weight	137.5g / 4.85 oz
	Navigation	All-touch screen, with intuitive gesture based navigation
	Keyboard	On screen BlackBerry Keyboard (portrait/landscape), featuring contextual auto-correction, next-word prediction, and a personalized learning engine that gets to know the way you type
	Dedicated keys	Volume Up/Down, Mute, Lock (for Power On/Off)
Display	Resolution	1280 x 768 resolution, at 356 PPI 24-bit color depth
	Screen size	4.2" diagonal 15:9 aspect ratio
OS & desktop software	Operating system	BlackBerry 10 OS
	Desktop software	BlackBerry® Link software for your computer to enable synchronization of data and media
Performance	Processor	Dual Core 1.5 GHz
	Memory	2GB RAM 16GB Flash
	Expandable memory	Removable microSD memory card – slot under battery door (Up to 64 GB)
	USB Ports	USB 2.0 high speed port – allows charging and data synchronization of the device with a USB cable
	HDMI Port	Micro HDMI for connection to your HDTV or projector
Power	Battery	1800mAH removable battery
	Battery Life	Up to 10 hours talk time (3G) Up to 13 days standby time *Note: Battery life claims are for Model STL100-3
Camera & video	Rear camera	8 megapixel auto-focus camera Back Side Illumination for better low-light performance 5-element F2.2 lens Dedicated ISP (image signal processor) with 64MB frame buffer Flash, continuous and touch to focus, image stabilization Enhanced Super Resolution Digital Zoom (5x) 1080p HD video recording 4 DOF (Degrees of freedom) video stabilization Time Shift mode for pinpointing and adjusting individual elements of your picture
	Front camera	2 megapixel fixed-focus camera Image and video stabilization 3x digital zoom 720p HD video recording
Multimedia	Image formats	BMP, WBMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, SGI, TGA
	Audio & video formats	3GP, 3GP2, M4A, M4V, MOV, MP4, MKV, MPEG-4, AVI, ASF, WMV, WMA, MP3, MKA, AAC, AMR, F4V, WAV, MP2PS, MP2TS, AWB, OGG, FLAC
	Audio & video encoding/decoding	H.264, MPEG-4, H.263, AAC-LC, AAC+, eAAC, MP3, PCM, Xvid, AMR-NB, WMA 9/10, WMA10 professional, WMA-LL, VC-1, VP6, SPARK, PCM, MPEG-2, MJPEG (mov), AC-3, AMR-WB, QCELP, FLAC, VORBIS
Apps	Pre-loaded apps	BlackBerry® Hub, Contacts, BlackBerry® Browser, BlackBerry® Calendar, BBM, Text Messages, BlackBerry® World, BlackBerry® Remember, Docs To Go™, Pictures, Music, Videos, Story Maker, Facebook®1, Twitter®1, LinkedIn®1, Foursquare®, BlackBerry® Maps, Games, YouTube®, Voice Control, Weather, Clock, Calculator, Compass, File Manager, Box, BlackBerry® Connect for Dropbox, Print To Go, Smart Tags, Settings, Adobe® Reader, Phone, Camera/Video Camera/Time Shift, Setup, Help, SIM Toolkit, Search
Security		Password protection, screen lock, and sleep mode BlackBerry® Balance™ offering dedicated profiles to keep work and personal data separate and secure
Alerts & notifications		Tone Vibrate On-screen or LED indicator
Voice input/output		Integrated hands-free speakerphone Hands-free headset capable Bluetooth headset capable
Network & connectivity	Network bands	Z10 Up to 4G LTE Quad band LTE 2, 5, 4, 17 (700/850/1700/1900 MHz) Tri band HSPA+ 1, 2, 5/6 (850/1900/2100 MHz) Quad band HSPA+ 1, 2, 4, 5/6, (850/1700/1900/2100 MHz) Quad band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) Z10 (4G - Verizon) Up to 4G LTE LTE Band-13 (700 MHz) CDMA Cell-band and PCS-band (800/1900 MHz) WCDMA Band-1 and Band-8 (2100/900 MHz) GSM/EDGE Quad Bands (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
	Wi-Fi®	802.11 a/b/g/n 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz 4G Mobile Hotspot
	Bluetooth®	Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy (LE)
	GPS	Assisted, Autonomous and Simultaneous GPS Preloaded with BlackBerry Maps application
	NFC	BlackBerry® Tag with NFC technology enables communication between BlackBerry smartphones and other NFC-enabled devices with a tap
Sensors	Advanced Sensors	Accelerometer Magnetometer Proximity sensor Gyroscope Ambient light sensor
Accessibility		BlackBerry® Magnify, for customers with partial vision - Learn more Adjustable screen brightness, scalable fonts Teletypewriter (TTY) Support

Interesting trends on Apple, Blackberry and Android users.

So...what does your phone say about you? Recently, a study was conducted by a UK firm to compare the habits of Android, Apple and blackberry users concerning their relation to the holiday habits they exercised! Here are some of the interesting statistics that were found:

9% of visitors on traveling related websites were phone users of which:

• 69% are iPhone users
• 24% are Android Users
• 6% Blackberry users.

What does your destination say about you?

• Other than any other group, iPhone users love to shop and the most likely place they will visit is New York.
• Android and iPhone users love their tech more compared to Blackberry users and will definitely love to go to techno forward cities such as Tokyo.
• iPhone users are such cliche lovers and are ten times more likely to visit Paris ( The City of love) than Android and Blackberry users who ranked last.
• iPhone users are more likely to visit flirtatious cities such as Athens and risky gambling ones like Las Vegas because they are thrill lovers. Blackberry users however, love to play it very safe and will hardly visit destinations such as Afghanistan and Detroit.  
• Surprising enough, Blackberry users are more likely to be the big spenders: splashing out their money when it comes to very expensive holiday destinations.

Relationships on holiday?

• iPhone users are more likely to go away for a dirty weekend with their partner (51% chance), android users have a 47% likelihood while a blackberry user is the least likely to be enthusiastic about a getaway with their partner and are considered to be unlucky in love.
• It is more likely for a blackberry user to take their partner on a business trip with android users being last in this category.
• Also, a blackberry user is most likely to foot the bill on a date with an android user being least likely to do that. hmmm...

Work habits while on holiday?

• Blackberry users spend 38% more hours than other users searching for flights and holiday destinations during working hours.
• Blackberry and IPhone users are more likely to indulge in work related chores during their holidays than android users

The study also showed that while Android users are most likely to end up in the sack after a first date, blackberry users would rather sip on their beer.

How true is this survey?

Tips & Tricks to help you save your battery life.

Data hungry mobile android and iPhone users are having severe issues with the battery life they have to deal with. for an interesting comparison of data user trends, click here. to ensure data usage and battery drainage are minimized, here are relevant things to keep in mind:

   

• Bluetooth: ensure that its always off if you are not using it. this way, battery life is conserved. 
• Charging : When charging your phone, ensure you do it frequently rather than waiting for it to be close to dead; this is because when it is almost charge-less, the battery will do more work during the charging.

• Applications : Stay wary of the applications that  forward you with non important messages and keep on blinking or displaying messages on your screen. in so doing, you save a lot of charge.
• Data hogging applications should also be avoided. A good example is GPS. it will run alongside applications such as twitter for geolocation services. if you have it installed, ensure its off when not in use.
• Location Applications: these applications will often look for places you currently at and pinpoint it out for the sake of social media mostly. when not in use, turn them off or visit the application settings and turn off location tracking.
• Syncing Applications : these are the apps that use the push technology eg. email. the best way to deal with this is to ensure that syncing is done less frequently by setting the period to as least frequent as possible.

• Ringtone Vs. Vibrate : Vibrations tend to use up more battery power than having a vibrant ringtone. therefore  avoid being on vibration at most times.

• Screen Timeout : Ensure that it is set to the minimal time out period available. the option to set your timeout is on the Settings Menu. this particular setting ensures you dictate the amount of time your phone takes to stay lit after a tap, after receiving input or any other kind of usage.
• Brightness : Lowering the brightness of your screen will save your charge a lot. this can be done through the settings (Menu> display> Brightness.)

• WiFi : Ensure that your WiFi is constantly turned off to avoid sniffing on the network since a lot of power is used/ lost through this.

• Lastly, always monitor your battery performance and usage.( Settings > About phone > Battery use ) This helps in making the best choice concerning what actions to take to save your battery life.

Phone Cases that will drive you Crazy!!!!

A friend of mine sent me some beautiful iPhone case photos that i loved a bit too much. I therefore looked for more designs and inspiration. Some people may view them as being over the top but on the other hand, life is too short to have a boring phone case! ( I said that :-) ). The cases are actually functional since they act as protective barriers against scratches, falls, wear & tear and dust . You can get them to match with what your wearing, get them to go with your moods for the day or to match your boyfriend's outfit if your that kind of girl :-) . I stumbled upon some cool designs;  thought i would share them with you:

 and my personal favorite :-) ....

It is possible to customize your android phone case by yourself if you are feeling artsy. All you need is transparent or rubber cases that match the size of your phone. When using transparent cases, you can use paint (on the transparent case) to evoke a design you like or you can stick a picture/graphics/patterns/messages to it that you love/relate to. When using rubber cases, you can use spray adhesives to stick chunks of your old jewelry pieces, buttons and brooches in a design you find appealing. You can incorporate fabric as well by having to recycle old blanket pieces, tweed, leather and denim.
Otherwise, if you want them ready made, you can check at Mr. Price. They have iPhone and Blackberry cases that are absolutely beautiful.
Am on a project aiming to make one for myself. I will share it with you once i am through.

The Aston Martin Transparent Phone Concept: Luxury taken to another Level.

To reflect its understated classiness, Aston Martin is coordinating with Canada's Mobiado company to create a  transparent phone. how incredible!!! This luxury car brand has come up with one of the most revolutionizing concepts: a transparent phone. They are hoping to release it soon. it is intended to run on an Android operating system.

I noticed the whole transparent phone idea when i was watching the last episode of the eighth season of Weeds and found it to be too futuristic, but turns out the future is already here. Aston Martin started releasing phones sometime back with the Aston Martin Aspire being released last year and retailing at about $1500 because of the 24k gold casing.

The transparent screen is acquired by using solid sapphire crystals. both sides of the phone are made of platinum and this is where the Sim cards and electronics will reside to keep in line with the transparency theme. However, the Aston Martin logo as well as the Mobiado logo appear on the screen. 

It is intended that the device be used hand in hand with the Aston Martin luxury cars by using the GPRS of the vehicle for foursquare as well as unlocking the doors automatically; acting like a key. It will also have social networking features like Facebook and twitter for easy photo sharing of all the places you visit in your car. A feature that i find really cool is the accelerometer that can be used to indicate precautions such as airbags and seat belt stiffening in case of accidents.

Am too excited about this; even though it is still but a concept. Hoping that it comes through!! Can you estimate how much it would go for?

Am grateful that you stopped by!