3 Ways to deal with SMS Phishing

As marketers we have become very familiar with the term phishing, a fraudulent attempt made to steal personal information. Primarily these attacks occur via email, appearing to come from a well-known organization asking for personal information – such as a credit card number, social security number, account number or password. However, as we expand our marketing communications in the digital space, we need to be cognizant and proactive in educating our customers of potential opportunities for phishing to expand into SMS communications.

Activate Instant Login Access Alerts for High Server Security

Do you know when unauthorised users login to access your server? Do you disable email alerts from your Webhosting server just because the repeated emails keep cluttering your email inbox? While most managed hosting providers offer to disable server e-mails, these automated email alerts which you get from your server are very important for server security and to keep your web hosting account and website safe from hackers

Instant Login Access Alert

Whenever anyone logs in to our server, via WHM or Cpanel, an instant e-mail alert is sent out with login details like exact time, IP addresses, and authentication method of the user. For example, these are e-mails we instantly receive when our tech support guy enters root password to gain access to our server to sort some technical hosting issues. [Side tip: it also helps to know when exactly tech support logs in to act on your support ticket]

From Social Sharing to Creative Collaboration

A Sharing Economy
The early part of the 21st century might be called the age of social media--though perhaps the era of sharing might be an even more appropriate description. Whatever we choose to call it though, there's little question that we've entered into a "sharing economy," creating an economic landscape wherein both for-profit businesses and non-profit organizations leverage the power of content sharing, to the greatest extent possible, to get the word out about their products, services, programs, and promotions.

Smaller Retailers Tap Into the Power of Digital Displays

Digital signs are becoming pervasive, whether to entertain bored shoppers at supermarket checkouts or demonstrate the latest gadgets in home-furnishing stores.

Retailers see green in these electronic displays, says Virginia Cargill, a venture partner at Alerion Partners in Rowayton, Conn., and former CEO at SignStorey, a digital media company focused on the grocery industry. During her tenure at SignStorey, the company provided in-store content that included recipes, health tips, interviews and advertisements. "If the meat department screen had an ad for Boar's Head or the produce section for Kraft, sales of those brands would usually see a 15 to 25 percent bump," Cargill says.

Although shoppers most often see digital signage at big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy, the technology is becoming more affordable for smaller businesses.
Here are four ways small-business owners are using digital signs:

5 Marketing Technologies Every Retailer Needs

You snagged your favorite URL at GoDaddy and were approved for a merchant account to accept credit cards. Awesome! Now what?

With today’s plethora of plug-and-play options, it’s realistic that someone could open up a shop online in a few days or less. But growing your business and creating ongoing revenue is more complicated than just building up a storefront and stocking it with products.

You’ll need to implement a strategy for tracking and growing revenues, and keeping up with your customers to make sure you’re offering what they’re interested in buying.

Here are 5 marketing technologies to help grow your eCommerce business:

6 Ways to Get a Tech Job Without a Tech Degree

Jobs in tech are stronger than ever. In 2011, Amazon hired 22,500 people, bringing its workforce up to 56,200, and Google hired 8,000 people — more than ever in a single year. The technology sector is booming, and while not all of these jobs require an engineering degree, getting a gig can be harder than getting into an Ivy League school. Competition between businesses is too steep for firms to hire those who aren’t qualified, and demand for these positions is greater than the skills that exist in the marketplace.

5 Ways Mobile Tech Can Improve Your Health

Just a decade ago, if someone had said that Steve Jobs would have a huge effect on how medical professionals administer care, that prediction would have been met with an eye roll.

But the reality is people increasingly access healthcare services via mobile, or “mHealth.” The result: Mobile is having a transformative effect on the way physicians and nurses care for patients. It’s also impacting how consumers manage their own health and well-being.

Ten technology trends that are already reshaping your business

As social media matures, apps proliferate and new enterprise platforms appear everyday, it’s almost impossible to track with all the changes let alone integrate them into your company. With that in mind I felt it might be useful to distill and  isolate ten trends that are reshaping the social business marketplace as we speak.

1. The future web is being re-built around people.

2. Consumers now expect real time, personalized and seamless engagement.

5 Hidden Skills for Big Data Scientists

1. Be Clear:  Is Your Problem Really A Big Data Problem?

There are many big data problems out there requiring huge compute scale, innovations in computation paradigms, vast storage space and so on. But just because your data takes up lots of disc space does not mean that you have a big data problem. Firstly, your data may be encoded in an inefficient format. XML, for example, can be incredible verbose (all those close tags and human readable text). Secondly, if your data changes over time it may change very slowly indicating that monitoring the difference between data sets is more important that importing complete data sets. Thirdly, you may be processing your information on a legacy architecture designed for low power CPUs or cores. Architecture should be data driven, meaning that you need to deeply understand the informational aspects of your data and not just the size of the data as it comes to you on disc.

Turn your digital technology provider from supplier to partner

As the online industry has grown, so have the number of moving parts we have to consider.

As the cogs in the machine continue to multiply, everyone has had to acquire cross functional skills to manage the different channels that come under the remit of the online marketer.
Whether it be PPC, SEO, re-targeting, social, mobile, or local; the one entity in this eco-system that should have a working knowledge of all of these areas is your technology provider.

Cable companies expand free Wi-Fi

Five of the nation's largest cable companies are partnering to allow their subscribers free access to each others' Wi-Fi hot spots in cities across the U.S.

BOSTON--The nation's biggest cable operators are banding together to offer free Wi-Fi access to their broadband customers in more than 50,000 hotspots around the country.
On Monday, Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox Communications, and Time Warner Cable announced on the first day of the Cable Show here that they'd enable each other's broadband customers to access their metro Wi-Fi hot spots. The companies are calling the new network "CableWiFi," so that subscribers will be able to find the hot spots when they're roaming outside their own cable territory.

Should Computer Science Be Required In Higher Ed?

Why Don’t We Make Learning a Computer Language a Requirement in High School? in the FeldThoughts blog by Foundry Group managing director Brad Feld, framed this question by equating computer programming languages to foreign language learning. The basic premise is that, while we require foreign languages in public schools and at many universities, we do not require the study of any programming languages or computer science courses at any level of education. In fact, some schools, such as the University of Florida, are actually cutting their computer science departments entirely (Salzberg, 22 April, 2012). While I personally think computer programming is unnecessary as a core requirement in education, technology literacy education in general is not.  Given that a majority of our social, political, communication, economic, and other systems rely on advanced technologies, information and communication technology (ICT) literacy should not only be a core component of education at all levels, it should be a central value of our society.

How the Tupac 'hologram' worked (infographic)

An animated image of deceased rapper Tupac Shakur performing with rapper Snoop Dogg that awed crowds at the US Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival on Sunday was not a hologram at all, but a two-dimensional video projected using technology based on an old theatre trick, a new infographic shows.

Two companies are behind Tupac's "performance": AV Concepts, and visual production house Digital Domain, whose employees created the animated version of Tupac.

                           How the Tupac 'hologram' worked (infographic)

AV Concepts used Musion Systems Ltd.'s Musion Eyeliner setup to project the animated version of Tupac onto a screen that appeared invisible to the audience, IBTimes reported.

Seven Tips for Improving Online Technology Solution Sales

Attracting customers online is essential for any business, but it’s especially important if you are selling technology products or services through your website. Here are some specific ways you can engage prospects on your site and start generating more revenue.
1. Know What Your Customers Really Want
Most people don’t want to spend thousands of dollars or more on technology products. They want to solve a problem. They want to find something that helps them get a job done so they can feel better—less stressed, more productive, more empowered.
That’s why it’s crucial to focus on how your offering benefits customers—and how customers will feel after your product helps them. Speak to this in all of your marketing efforts, and especially on your website. You’ll generate more interest than simply talking about how your product works.

Interactive Καταστήματα

Η ηλεκτρονική αγορά μέσα στα καταστήματα είναι κάτι που σίγουρα θα δούμε στο άμεσο μέλλον. Γυρίζοντας σε μια παλαιότερη ανάρτηση είχαμε επισημάνει πως "Επειδή στις μέρες μας τα περισσότερα προϊόντα και υπηρεσίες είναι πολύ κοντά στην τιμή ή/και την ποιότητα, το ανταγωνιστικό πλεονέκτημα φεύγει από τις κλασικές δυνάμεις (προϊόντα, υπηρεσίες) και εστιάζεται στην καλή εξυπηρέτηση και ανάπτυξη σχέσης με τον πελάτη μας ". Σε αυτό το κείμενο θα δούμε πως οι διαδραστικοί πίνακες και οι οθόνες αφής μπορούν να βοηθήσουν στα προαναφερόμενα. 

Αν και οι περισσότεροι από εμάς θα πιστέψουν πως οι διαδραστικοί πίνακες χρησιμοποιούνται μόνο για λόγους προβολής, θα σας ζητούσα να οραματιστείτε κάποια σενάρια διαφορετικά. Πάμε να τα "δούμε" σε διάφορες αγορές επιχειρήσεων.

Making Your Technorati Blog Claim - How to Setup Your Technorati Account

Once you understand the power of Technorati, the next step is to claim your blog. While it used to be a frustrating and time consuming process, it is now quite simple. You can now make your Technorati Blog Claim in just seven simple steps.

Difficulty: Easy

Time Required: 20 minutes

Here's How:

10 Email Design Best Practices for a Mobile World

Standard email best practices were developed to optimize email for desktop users viewing through Web browsers or email clients. However, email is increasingly being read on mobile devices. According to Return Path, mobile email open rates increased 34 percent in the second half of 2011 while webmail and desktop opens declined. Which best practices still apply to designing email for a mobile world?

In fact, most email best-practice advice leads to designing emails that are scaled down and cleaner. Based on experience, a clean and simple design is one of the best solutions to overcoming spam filters for acquisition email marketing. The bonus is that it renders nicely on a mobile device too. Here are the 10 top email best practices when designing for mobile devices:

Mobile Technology Is Changing The Face Of Business Networking – But Not The Psychology Behind It

Bree Verity is the Head of Public and Business Engagement for INTRO Labs, a mobile company creating products that connect people. She says:
Whether it comes to you naturally or not, every entrepreneur knows the value of networking to expand their reach and find people that can help them make their business a better one.

Ελληνικά blog για τεχνολογία και κοινωνικά δίκτυα

Στο άρθρο αυτό αναφέρω μερικά καλά Ελληνικά blog τεχνολογίας social media. Η λίστα αυτή σε καμμία περίπτωση δεν είναι τέλεια και ολοκληρωμένη και συνίσταται σε blogs που γνώρισα(και επίσης δεν...ξέχασα να συμπεριλάβω).
Η σειρά παρουσίασης είναι εντελώς τυχαία. Ο περιγραφές είναι των ιδίων των blog ή των bloggers όπου βρέθηκαν(About pages).
Θα παρακαλέσω τους αναγνώστες, αν νοιώθουν την ανάγκη, να συμπληρώσουν στα σχόλια τα blog που δεν αναφέρονται εδώ και σχετίζονται με τεχνολογία, social media. 
Το επιτυχημένο blogging σε θέματα τεχνολογίας είναι μια πολύ δύσκολη υπόθεση στην Ελλάδα, αλλά τα πράγματα βελτιώνονται.

http://www.jooblers.gr/
Ένα τεχνολογικό blog με  ενημέρωση, άρθρα και σχολιασμό πάνω σε θέματα τεχνολογίας

5 Reasons You Need Finance Talent on Your Start-up Team

Here’s how things go for the typical software startup: An engineer comes up with a product that he or she thinks is pretty cool. The engineer spends six months building a prototype, possibly in a garage. But to bring the product to market that engineer needs financing, and that’s a whole other challenge. 
So the entrepreneur writes a business plan and hopes hard to get a VC or an angel investor interested. There are a number of problems with this approach, one being that people who are good at creating new products are rarely also good at creating new business plans.