The “Arab Spring” uprisings and even the recent uprisings in the U.K. proved one thing: In some places, SMS is very much alive. Even without smartphones, protesters, journalists, and activists were able to share visual information with the rest of the world. Twitter is looking to take advantage of that. READ MORE
Blackberry has got your back in an emergency–or, at least, they’ve developed an app for that. READ MORE
Those looking to photo-bomb Google’s Street View will have a bit farther to travel: the 360-degree panoramic mapping service is heading for the Amazon river. READ MORE
Netflix has announced that they’ll be reaching out to a total of 43 new countries in coming months. The company is expanding to markets in Latin America and the Caribbean despite little information on how much demand there may be in these areas for streaming videos. READ MORE
In a few years time, Silicon Valley may not be the only haven for app developers. Tapulous co-founder Mike Lee, creator of the successful iPhone game Tap Tap Revenge, is establishing a new home for app developers in Amsterdam. READ MORE
First-class travelers on American Airlines now have yet another reason to feel even more special. According to Mashable’s Todd Wasserman, the airline is selectively scrapping its current entertainment system and replacing it with the Wi-Fi-enabled tablets. Currently offered on certain coast-to-coast flights, the tablet will soon be offered on some international flights to and from Europe and South America. READ MORE
Facebook may be experiencing traffic drops in North America, but globally, Mark Zuckerberg’s social network is attracting more visitors than ever before. READ MORE
Facebook today announced via its Facebook blog, a new social media feature known as the “Send” button. The button now allows a user to take information from the web (the example was an Orbitz.com vacation deal) and directly share the link to the members of a particular group. “As a Californian with a brother living in Peru and parents back in Wisconsin, we use our group to update each other about our lives, share vacation photos, and discuss where we’re going to meet up next,” explained Facebook engineer Elliot Lynde in the post. READ MORE
High-speed Internet access for small businesses in especially remote areas, such as rural towns or mountain communities or blighted urban communities, has been hard to come by. The nation’s largest providers of broadband Internet service — telephone carriers offering DSL and cable companies offering cable-modem broadband access — haven’t typically extended their services outside of well-to-do cities and suburbs because such a build-out is expensive. Being off-the-Internet is not an option for any business these days. Not only is high-speed Internet access essential to gather information and communicate and exchange information with partners, clients and potential customers, but your company needs to maintain a presence on the Web to exist in today’s global marketplace. The solution might just be Wi-MAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access). WHAT IS WI-MAX? Wi-MAX is a radio technology that utilizes fixed antennas to provide two-way broadband connections to users at up to 30-mile distances, although in practice the better range tends to be three to five miles. But this range is still great enough to be attractive as a broadband option to businesses that otherwise might be off the grid. The Wi-MAX Forum, which was formed in April of 2001, has described the technology as “enabling the delivery of the last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL.” Today the forum has more than 400 members, including such companies as Sprint and Intel. HOW DOES IT WORK? Wi-MAX refers to the standard interoperable implementations of IEEE 802.16, an air interface standard. It isn’t designed to replace Wi-Fi (which is the implementation of the IEEE 802.11) just yet, and in fact it can’t be accessed directly by a laptop PC on the go. Some cable and telephone companies see a potential for Wi-MAX in use to connect remote communities, where the cost to update underground lines or wires would be prohibitively expensive. Wi-MAX can be used to deliver direct Internet access to a wireless LAN for businesses in these communities. In addition, the technology is seen as having the potential to add more wireless hotspots in urban areas for true city-wide broadband almost anywhere. “Wi-MAX can deliver broadband all the time, almost anywhere for voice, video and data,” says Carlton O’Neal, vice president of marketing for Alvarion, a telecom solution provider. He compares the technology to mobile phones, and how landlines where everywhere, adding, “Today the cellular phone is the personal communicator. That is what Wi-MAX can do for computer users.” HOW CAN YOU USE IT FOR BUSINESS? Small businesses in rural or remote areas might be able to access broadband Internet service where it has never been available before. The cost of Wi-MAX is higher than traditional DSL or cable, but is actually far less than standard T-1 lines and any customer within a radius of the central tower can pick up the system. The infrastructure to create this mobile broadband is only starting to come together, with the first Wi-MAX networks, but some supporters of the technology believe it could provide high-speed access and deliver that “office quality broadband everywhere.” As it is essentially a radio technology, Wi-MAX users will have to use a transmitter/receiver for service, but rather than another dish or large antenna it merely needs a base station placed by the window. Currently, the antennas are 12-inch square boxes, and some of the developers of the technology, including Alvarion have plans in place to provide even smaller plug-and-play receivers. More importantly because the technology is different from that of Wi-Fi, users won’t face the same problems such as finding that sweet spot in the hotspot to get a strong signal. “It won’t replace DSL as a broadband technology, and in cities and urban areas users are use to getting broadband easily,” adds O’Neal. But he says that the Wi-MAX shouldn’t be seen as merely filling the holes that DSL can’t cover. “In smaller towns, the suburbs and especially in developing countries there just isn’t the infrastructure available to always deliver DSL, and for those users (including businesses) Wi-MAX can supply the broadband.” This year Wi-MAX networks went live in several locations across the world, and as with cellular telephone adoption, which allowed many developing nations to suddenly be “un-wired” practically overnight this could be the next technology to get more people connected. In places in South America, a region that has limited landlines, and thus almost no broadband, the technology has made high-speed Internet access available overnight. . Likewise, Pakistan is already working on plans to become the world’s largest Wi-MAX Network. And in the United States it could mean that whole cities would suddenly be blanked with Internet hotspots. American cities like Philadelphia have already had plans to make broadband available anywhere in the downtown, with up to 300 hotspots covering the area. Some providers already believe that Wi-MAX will get country completely unwired; “It may not impact your life tomorrow,” says O’Neal. “But Wi-MAX will be more engrained in your life in five years. It is coming to a device near you.”
Nate White started selling fine custom coffee blends from the website of his company, West Coast Roasting Company, because he didn’t have a physical store and didn’t have any other way of easily reaching customers and letting them reach him. “I started selling roasted coffee before our business was set up,” says White, who is based in the Los Angeles area. “Once the business was set up, it quickly became obvious that the website was necessary to streamline things. It was taking five to eight e-mails back and forth to sell a pound of coffee to someone, and it was very difficult to keep track.” A website today is as essential as the name of your business, your phone number, or the façade of your retail store. Every business — from a restaurant to a biotech research firm to an industrial laundry — needs one. Yet research has indicated that about only 50 percent of small businesses in the U.S. actually have websites, with those numbers lower in less tech-savvy markets, according to a report by Internet consultant Peter Krasilovsky, of Krasilovsky Consulting, in Carlsbad, Calif. The Yankee Group puts that number close to 43 percent. Here are some compelling reasons why you need a website: Reason #1 – To set up a store front Many a small business has found that even if they can’t afford rent on Main Street, or in the Mall, they still can exist in cyber space and sell their goods and services. “The Internet has changed the way people shop. It’s no longer about getting in the car and driving down to the store, or even looking in the phone book,” says Mike Walton, of Mobius Designs, a Web design firm that focuses on Flash animation and scripting and has helped numerous small businesses create a Web presence. Walton also teaches website design at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Having an address on the Internet gives you a place to describe your goods and customers a place to find you. Reason #2 –As a cheap way to advertise Creating your online presence needn’t be expensive. A very basic Web presence can be had for as little as $1,500, a standard website for $3,000-$5,000, and a full Flash site for $8,000 and up, Walton says. Compared to other forms of advertising, websites offer very good value to money spent, he adds. Reason #3 – Customer service A website is essential to establish your businesses’ credibility and to provide support for customers so that they can find easy answers to their questions about your business – such as where you are located, what products or services you sell, and how to contact you. This self-serve information for customers can help you, as a business owner, save time by leaving you free to focus on business. Reason #3 – Remain open 24/7 Few businesses keep their doors open around-the-clock. But a Web presence can make it seem as if your business does. Through click-on e-mail, customers, clients, or partners can contact you when it’s convenient for them. Potential customers can find out information about what you sell and how you sell it at all hours — on weekends, in the middle of the night, or in different time zones. Reason #4 – Think globally Having your signpost on the Web allows your business to do business all over the world. It lets potential customers in, say, Buenos Aires know what products you sell in Hoboken, N.J. A trick to expanding your business internationally is to offer translations of information on your website into the languages spoken in the countries you want to target (although this can get very expensive). Reason #5 – Launch promotions easily On the Web, it’s much simpler to change your product or service offerings, or your prices, than in a print catalog. You can also launch new promotions with a few keystrokes. Walton suggests adding fresh content and incentives to bring customers back for more. “If the website remains static, there’s no reason to return,” he says. “Weekly updates with web-only deals and coupons is a great way to keep your customers checking back if you don’t have any actual content to add. For a small company, a regularly-updated news page is often enough to keep you in the loop.”
