http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2011/04/29/99designs-raises-35-million-crowdsourced-graphic-design
The 26 staff crowdsource graphic design website, 99designs, has raised $35 million in it’s first round of funding. This has been backed by angel investors who also back eBay, Survey Monkey, Flickr and Squarespace.

http://www.getelastic.com/shopping-cart-urgency/
Ways to improve and reduce the abandonment rate on ecommerce websites during the checkout phase. A good post by Get Elastic to show what tricks certain websites have used to improve conversions

http://www.adnews.com.au/news/groupon-gobbles-first-australian-rival
Groupon buys it’s first Australian rival – crowdmass. The Melbourne based company was attractive to Groupon simply because of their talent. Looks like Groupon wants to start with the small players first to tackle the bigger later. The crowdmass website now links to stardeals.com.au

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20058652-48.html
Rolls Royce released an App on the iPhone and iPad to customize various features of their flagship model – the Phantom. It’s colour palate allows you to select from 44,000 colours, however it says that you can take a picture of any surface and make you own unique colour. The point of this? I’m not sure.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

Yesterday, Lamar Advertising rolled out a billboard that read “Follow Ashton Kutcher” with a link underneath to Ashton’s profile page.

This was put on 1,133 digital billboards within hours of request. This is to be running for a hours even after Oprah Winfrey plugs her new Twitter account on her talk show.

The time is 10:20am Sydney, Australia.

The above image is the error message I get as I try to login on Twitter. It attempts to go to twitter.com/sessions but says that The page doesn’t exists.

Upgrades?

Microsoft new search product, codenamed: Kumo

Let’s face it, Live Search hasn’t really done well in the grand scheme of online search compared to Google and Yahoo.

So the Microsoft guys have decided to test their new product. Codenamed: Kumo, Microsoft has asked their employees to test the new system internally. In fact, the changed their internal DNS to redirect live.com to the new product.

Take a look at some of the screenshots from Kara Swisher’s blog -

http://kara.allthingsd.com/files/2009/03/downloadedfile.gif

http://kara.allthingsd.com/files/2009/03/downloadedfile-1.gif

http://kara.allthingsd.com/files/2009/03/downloadedfile-2.gif

You can see that Microsoft intends to show your search results in various categories and media types all in the one page first. If you search for a particular product, you can link directly to reviews, specs, manuals and so on. If you’re searching for a music artist, you again see images, links, lyrics, videos et al.

Different? Well sort of, but the question is how many of us will change the norm in the way we search? If I wanted the video for an artist, I would put the keyword video in it. If I wanted lyrics, I would do the same. It’s only a matter of tweaking my search query to get what I specifically want.

The time and cost involved to build Live.com, hiring more engineers to maintain and build new search products sounds pretty high – maybe it’s cheaper to buy Yahoo!?

Oh well, I can only but wish them the best of luck.

Here it the internal memo from Satya Nadella, Senior Vice President of Research & Development for Microsoft’s Online Division.

From: Satya Nadella
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 4:18 PM
To: Microsoft–All Employees (QBDG)
Subject: Announcement: Internal Search Test Experience

The Search team needs you. We’ve been working hard to improve our search service and want to share the progress we are making with you. We are launching a new test program called kumo.com for employees to try and provide feedback. Kumo.com exists only inside the corporate network, and in order to get enough feedback we will be redirecting internal live.com traffic over to the test site in the coming days. Kumo is the codename we have chosen for the internal test.

In spite of the progress made by search engines, 40% of queries go unanswered; half of queries are about searchers returning to previous tasks; and 46% of search sessions are longer than 20 minutes. These and many other learnings suggest that customers often don’t find what they need from search today.

We believe we can provide a better and more useful search experience that helps you not just search but accomplish tasks. During the test, features will vary by country, but you’ll see results organized in a way that saves you more time. An explorer pane on the left side of results pages will give you access to tools that help you with your tasks. Other features like single session history and hover preview help accomplish more in search sessions.

Your Next Search…

To get started, visit kumo.com or click one of the samples below to see how it’s possible to find the right results more easily:

· Audi S8
· Taylor Swift
. Bose Lifestyle 48

You can also set your search defaults to test site using the instructions here.

Your Feedback is Critical

As employees, you are some of our most informed users and our toughest critics, and we highly value your input and feedback to help us build a better service. You have been an important voice in our efforts, and the feedback you’ve sent us since the company meeting has been amazing.

When you visit kumo.com, at the bottom right corner of the each page you’ll see a feedback badge. We ask that each time you use the test site, click the feedback badge and take a moment to answer four quick and simple questions. Feel free to reach out to give us extra feedback directly on our blog and by mailing sfeed. For answers to common questions make sure to see our FAQ.

We are committed to rapid innovation and improvement. Please give the test site a try, rate the results and let us know what you think.

Satya

When I got my iPhone, one of the few disadvantages was wireless or Bluetooth sync for my Outlook calendar items. Unlike my previous N95, I have to physically connect my iPhone via cable to get iTunes to sync with Outlook – what a pain!

But now, Google has solved this problem. You will need a Google Calendar account for this to work and my below instructions are for PC only. The setup will look like so:

First you need to download Google Calendar Sync – go here http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=98563 and click on the ‘download’ link.

Install the application (you will have to close Microsoft Outlook) and then follow the setup prompts. Enter your username and password to your Google Calendar account and setup a interval period for when the sync runs again – mine is set to 30 mins. You will also need to choose the Sync method i.e. 2 way (updates both Google & Outlook), or 1 way to update either Outlook only or Google only. I currently have mine as 1 way (Outlook to Google). 

On installation the Sync will run once – so all your calendar items should get transferred over to Google Calendar in a few minutes.

Now, plug your iPhone into your computer and make a backup on iTunes. I repeat – MAKE A BACKUP!! Don’t email me back saying you lost all your stuff, tough! The next process will delete all your calendar items on your iPhone. So I suggest doing a sync to copy all your iPhone calendar items into Outlook (via iTunes).

Once the back up is complete, take your iPhone off the laptop and click on Settings. Then open “Mail, Contact, Calendars”. Then click “Add Account” and select Microsoft Exchange as the option. Leave the Domain blank and in the Email field, enter your Google Calendar username followed by the password. Click ‘Next’ on the top right corner. It will attempt to connect to a server, but won’t find one. So the next screen will ask you to enter the Server information. Put in “m.google.com” (without quotes) and click “Next” again. Currently this setup only supports Calendar and Contacts (NOT EMAIL – yet). I only use calendars, so I selected Calendar ‘On’ and the rest ‘Off’.

You will get two pop confirmation requests, stating that your calendar will be wiped out – click Sync on both requests and wait a few minutes. Open up Calendar on your iPhone, and you will start see your Outlook items (after Outlook’s first sync to Google Calendar).

So now if a meeting is cancelled or moved around on my Outlook, within a few minutes it is pushed to my iPhone. And note I use the word “Push” – that’s because Google has used Microsoft’s ActiveSync technology to enable this set up. So your iPhone only connects to get new Calendar data when one is available – saving data transfer. 

*UPDATE* – I changed my setting to use FETCH instead of PUSH, as PUSH drained a lot battery on my iPhone. Fetch works just as good and I don’t need to charge my iPhone twice a day.

I am yet to see what happens when a new meeting request is sent – and how it will affect my calendar if I accept the invitation via the iPhone (probably won’t work, as I have a 1 way sync set up).

Going forward, I hope Google allows emails to start working in this fashion, as at the moment you have to Fetch it on a periodic basis.

So, has this worked for you as it has for me? Share your experience below.

Electronic Arts made an announcement in December that their sales aren’t doing as well as expected. Recently, they dropped the bombshell when they posted total revenue of $1.65 billion instead of the $1.9 billion expected. Hence, Earnings Per Share increased by only $0.56 instead of the expected $.088.

With the tough competition out there, EA seems to repeatedly churn out various versions of Need for Speed, Sims and the dozen other Command & Conquer games. Surely gamers are getting bored and moving on to other exciting games like Fallout 3, Fable 2 and so on.

So what does EA now do? Focuses on the Wii. After it’s plan to cut 1,100 people (11% of total staff), close down 12 studios and reduce the number of game titles it publishes, EA said it’s dedication is now on the Wii.

EA’s CEO John Riccitiello stated that his business has 3 different areas to fulfil - 

• Online
• PS3/Xbox 360 
• Wii

Combined PS3 & the Xbox 360? Hmmm… this is going to make it interesting for Microsoft and Sony given that they both like to have exclusive rights to certain games and if EA is going to combine these two categories, then console makes of the PS3 and Xbox360 will have to re-think their premium pricing (or go to another gaming developer)

Wii has great market share, and hence I can see why EA needs to capitalise on it. It can make games like Tiger Woods Golf, Tennis, various Need for Speed racing and so on. However, we’ll have to see how well EA integrates with the Wii – because unlike the Xbox360 and PS3, where some training time is needed before play, Wii should be a simple pick-up-and-play. Ideally you want your mother to pick up a Wii remote and start playing golf that easily.

YouTube, now owned by Google, still dominates the US Online Web Video market. I am basing these figures on the US simply because, we here in Australia, don’t have access to all video content (for example Hulu’s TV Shows)

Figures show that the US audience have been very keen to take up on Hulu’s Web TV site, but it has had a slow growth in comparison to other sites. Overall the US market share for online videos, grew 13% in December 2008. 

comScore have provided the results in the below image, and it has grouped up Google & YouTube together (Google Sites) – and this joint venture has in total served up 5.9 billion videos in the US (assume most of that is from YouTube).

Hulu, jointly owned by News Corp and NBC, ranks in at 7th and has served up 241 million videos. In comparison to previous stats, comScore states that Hulu has had a 6% growth in videos being served – however it’s market share slipped from 1.8% to now 1.7%. However, it’s unique visitors grew 24.6 million (+ 9.4%)

So, numbers aside, what does this all mean? Well, Hulu’s viewers are still watching the longest videos compared to any site in the below results. I believe, they even have a better revenue source in selling it’s premium videos, compared to what Google is doing with YouTube. 

I wish I could see revenue growth for these sites during the two comparison periods. I think Hulu has nudged Google as little, and that probably explains why YouTube has started new initiative to add on more premium content by signing up with Hollywood Talent Agency – William Morris Agency. I believe Hulu has a lot more to show.

http://www.hulu.com

A survey held by Morgan Stanley shows that in the US during Q4, 300,000 Android phones were sold while Apple sold 1.75 million iPhones. That’s about 6 iPhones to 1 Android.

Now while Google still has to play catch up, the above figures are only based on two of its mobile manufacturing partners – HTC & T-Mobile. Soon enough we should see Motorola, LG, Sony Ericsson et al.

Surprising figures? Not really. iPhone always had an edge over Google’s acquired Android. Best network operator (AT&T rated 1, while T-Mobile rated at 4), better user experience, better multimedia and even better software.

And software is the key point here – the infamous App Store. That’s Apple’s additional revenue model. For Google? It’s not about selling their Android platform – no no no, it’s about making it easier to get it’s users to use Google services to then see (and hopefully click) on their ads.

Does that mean once we have more manufacturers using Android, we may see a sizable increase in revenue for Google? Unknown…

Don’t forget Google can still be accessed on the iPhone. I mean, I use them when I do a web search on my phone, but do I click on their ads? Well, not really.

So where does Microsoft fit in all this? Recently, they have announced that along with the next version of Windows Mobile, they will also release – guess what – an app store!

It’s called the “SkyMarket”. And along with SkyMarket, Microsoft will also launch “SkyBox” (similar to MobileMe to sync emails, contacts, and other data) and “SkyLine” – similar to SkyBox, but for small businesses.

Now, I’m assuming that the SkyBox will be free (or peanuts) unless they plan to make it work for non Windows devices – like a Nokia N95, iPhone or Android for that matter.

However, all this has been done – it’s not cutting edge. What we’re seeing is a company following the footpaths of the successful ones.

Still, Apple is holding it’s ground pretty well.

In an article that I read, it said that recently more and more people (mainly American focused) are eating junk food because its cheaper than buying groceries and cooking it yourself.

But, when you take video games as an example, there are no cut backs.

However, that doesn’t mean we go trigger happy (pardon the pun) on giving our cash away. Yes, gamers are spending, but they are spending wisely. Because it’s no longer about just buying games and stacking them up – instead it’s about buying games that will have weeks worth of fun with.

In 2005, the top 20 titles accounted for 11% of games sold that year. In 2008, that rose to 18%. Similarly, compare 2008 Nintendo Wii’s game sales – where it’s top 10 titles account for 44% of the games sold for that console.

While this means that bigger companies like EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft Game Studios and so on will have a stable income, the smaller ones will eventually get bought out. Their games will be taken by the likes of EA, improved upon and then advertised in the market at a much higher spend than they could afford.

Case and example, Lionhead Studios (maker of Fable & Fable 2) got bought out by Microsoft in 2006. It’s an example of taking the first part of Fable, improving it – and then marketing it pretty well. May we will see bigger gaming companies swallow the smaller ones for creativity.

In the meantime, expect people to spend on games like Fallout 3, Fable 2, Grand Theft Auto, Guitar Hero and so on – because there is so much more to explore compared to buying Forza (I did 5 races and gave up!).