Author Archives: Christina DesMarais

About Christina DesMarais:

Christina DesMarais is a contributor for Inc.com and particularly enjoys writing about how technology can support the small business. Follow her tweets at twitter.com/salubriousdish. She lives in Minneapolis.
About 555 days ago Apps | Tablets and eReaders | Telecom and Wireless

Amazon Rumored to Make Its Own Siri

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First Amazon announced the Kindle Fire, which many seem to think is going to dent Apple’s iPad sales this holiday season. Now some say the digital retail giant plans to build a speech recognition interface to rival Apple’s Siri personal assistant technology. The speculation stems from the recent revelation that Amazon.com has quietly acquired speech-to-text software developer Yap, which was founded in 2006 by Igor Jablakov, who previously worked on speech recognition technologies at IBM. READ MORE »

About 555 days ago Apps | Business Software | Cloud Computing

Mavenlink Online Collaboration Growing, Gets Funding

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When you think about online collaboration, popular options such as Basecamp, Chatter or Google Docs likely come to mind. But there’s another rising star in the space garnering the attention of investors and customers alike for not only letting people work with others online regardless of physical location, but also offering other interesting features. Irvine, Calif.-based Mavenlink just raised $3.9 million to accelerate the development of its project management platform and says it now has more than 100,000 users and is getting 15,000 new ones a month. READ MORE »

About 558 days ago Apps | Business Software

BestVendor Shows You Which Apps Your Peers Use

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If you consider yourself an early adopter of business apps (or if you want to be), you might give BestVendor a look. It just launched in beta as a free social directory that will show you applications and Web tools other businesspeople recommend. READ MORE »

About 563 days ago Apps | Business Software

SurveyBuilder Aims to Make Market Research Easy for SMBs

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If you need to do some market research but don’t have the resources to pull off an expensive study, there’s a new tool called SurveyBuilder created by California-based uSamp that might be able to help you create a statistically valid survey and get meaningful responses to it, maybe even for free. READ MORE »

About 563 days ago Apps | Business Software

Data Analytics Platform for Brick-and-Mortar Stores Launches

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Google Analytics shows you how people found your Web site, how they explored it, and how you can enhance their visitor experience. But wouldn’t it be great if there was some way to get similar insights for a physical location? Now there is. Euclid Elements just launched a data analytics platform for brick-and-mortar stores that uses sensors to map shopper traffic patterns in retail spaces. These sensors sense Wi-Fi signals on smartphones, so you can understand how shoppers move through your stores. READ MORE »

About 564 days ago Apps | Business Software | Location-based services

Google to Charge for Heavy Google Maps Usage on Sites

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Heavy users of Google Maps will be charged for using the service, reports BBC News. After January 1, Google will charge for the Google Maps API when more than 25,000 map “hits” are made in a day. READ MORE »

About 564 days ago Business Software | Innovation | Internet and Online Business

MentorMob Wants to Be the Pandora of Learning

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The standard plan of attack for many people looking to learn how to do something is to search for help online. Sometimes you get lucky and hit a good resource right off the bat, and other times you fumble around for a bit, popping around and hopping off sites as soon as it becomes apparent they’re useless. A new web site just launched that aims to streamline that process using crowdsourcing. READ MORE »

About 566 days ago Internet and Online Business | Online Marketing

Shakeout Expected Among Online Advertising Companies

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The crowded advertising technology space may be about to shake out some losers, reports Reuters. READ MORE »

About 566 days ago Apps | Business Software | Gaming | Innovation | Tools on Managing Technology | Video

Microsoft Opens up Kinect SDK for Businesses

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Microsoft just announced it will open up the use of its Kinect software development kit (SDK) for commercial applications, reports WinRumors. READ MORE »

About 566 days ago Apps | Business Software | E-Commerce | Location-based services | Web Analytics

Google Revamps AdWords’ Location Targeting

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Google AdWords is a service that enables you to create and run ads for your business that run on Google and its advertising network; you pay only when people click your ads. AdWords also includes location targeting so you can target ads to specific locations, which is great for small businesses that only have customers in certain regions or those that want to target top-performing geographic areas so more clicks translate into actual sales. Google just announced it has a revamped AdWords Location Targeting Tool that will make it easier to find and get more detail on target locations. READ MORE »