Mediaboss Marketing

Advanced social-networking tools arrive in a new preview build of Opera's most popular browser, while its full-featured sibling Opera Mobile powers up with WebGL.

BARCELONA, Spain--The maker of the second-most popular mobile browser in the world has given its feature-phone fans something to tweet about, as Opera Mini Next debuted and brought several smartphone features to "dumb" phones.

The big new feature that's kicking off the inaugural build of Opera Mini Next, the developer's preview of the browser, is "smart" page called Home. Home will live next to Opera's Speed Dial, its customizable collection of regularly visited Web sites that occupies top billing across all Opera browsers, and it serves a similar function. It will let you bookmark regularly visited, regularly updated sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail, so that you can quickly check for updates without having to load the site in full. In an interview last week, Phillip Gronvold, Opera's product manager for mobile, said that because of the Turbo feature's data compression the automatic updates only cost 1 KB of data per update. The feature is on by default but can be turned off in the browser's settings. He also clarified that Turbo works slightly differently on different versions of Opera. On Opera Mini, which has more than 160 million users worldwide, can compress Web traffic up to 90 percent. That compression, Gronvold said, can come at a high cost sometimes: occasionally, a site will break. Opera Mobile and Opera for PCs use a slightly different compression methodology that doesn't compress the data quite as much, he explained, but it also doesn't bork sites. Those huge bandwidth savings are must for many people on rate-limited plans. Gronvold also said that despite the in-development designation, he expected most people who installed Opera Mini Next to find it to be stable. "It's not fully ready because we haven't finished yet setting up local content in all the different markets," he said. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to test out Opera Mini Next before this story was written.

The Home tab keys into site feeds, so you can see site update notifications in Opera Mini without loading the site in full.

(Credit: Opera) Also in Opera Mini Next is the ability to set more than nine sites to Speed Dial. However, the Android and iOS versions of Opera Mini won't include the Home screen. Instead, smartphone versions of Opera Mini Next will see smoother browsing powered by hardware acceleration. Opera Mini Next installs concurrently to the stable version of Opera Mini and can be distinguished by a white icon as opposed to the standard red one. Joining Opera Mini Next 7 on stage is the latest full update to the Mini's smartphone counterpart. Opera Mobile 12 for Android, leap-frogging the version number of Opera for PCs, which are still on version 11, includes several notable changes. Opera Mobile 12 brings WebGL support for 3D rendering on your smartphone, native HTML5 support, the same unlimited number of Speed Dial sites as Opera Mini Next has, and in-browser support for your device's camera. Gronvold suggested an Opera-built demo Web site at shinydemos.comfor testing WebGL on the mobile browser. As for the future of Opera on mobile devices, Gronvold expressed high hopes but he said that it's going in a different direction from competitors such as Mozilla. "A Boot-to-Gecko system is something that we're not interested in. We dabbled in it with Opera Platform in 2004, but we don't see it as a solution for our product portfolio with our partners," he said. Instead, Opera will continue to develop Mini and Mobile concurrently. Mini will focus on feature phones, lower-powered smartphones, or those devices on rate-limited networks, while Mobile will be a more precise replica of the PC version of Opera.

Updated at 5:09 p.m. PT: The final version of Opera Mini 7 for iOS is now available in the iTunes Store.

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Social goes big on Opera Mini

Degan marak nya Social Networking akhir akhir tahun ini, tidak dapat dipungkiri lagi bahwa internet adalah lahan yang luas yang dapat menghasilkan emas! Dan pertanyaan yang dipikirkan para freelancer adalah sama, ‘Apakah dengan menggunakan segala macam social network yang ‘eksis’ dapat menambah pendapatan?’ Jawaban nya adalah, pasti bisa.

image by billr317 on flickr

Sudah bukan hal yang unik lagi bahwa network sosial dan ilmu marketing bekerja sama dalam dunia maya ini. Sang freelancer harus cerdas dan cermat dalam memerhatikan perkembangan social network. Misalkan pilih Twitter sebagai platform, dengan saja mempunyai satu profile, kita bisa mempromosikan hasil karya kita ke seluruh Negara bahkan ke belahan dunia.

Banyak kala writer atau designer nge-‘link’ hasil karya mereka supaya bisa dipublikasikan ke dunia maya dan bukan sedikit lagi kantor rekruitmen yang melihat dan meneliti karya karya ini. Bisa saja ini merupakan tulisan, gambar, design ataupun screenshot kita yang akan menangkap rasa penasaran dan penawaran para recruiter untuk bekerja sama.

Jangan pula anda lupa bahwa kerajaan Internet adalah luas. Bahkan, hampir setiap bulan ada saja website atau wadah yang baru dan bisa untuk mengoptimasilkan karya anda. Contoh nya Dribble adalah salah satu situs sosial yang di design khusus buat para designers yang ingin memajang hasil kerja keras mereka untuk para developer yang selalu mencari hal hal yang unik, baru dan menarik.

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“Apakah Social networking dan marketing dibutuhkan oleh seorang freelancer?”

To me, the most interesting news stories always seem to come out on Friday or over the weekend -- and the news agencies didn't disappoint.

On Friday, an article was published by Reuters which looked at a recent poll of 2,277 adults conducted by the Pew Research Center. The poll, conducted in April and May of last year, concentrated on people's interactions within social media websites. Needless to say, I found the results of this small sampling incredibly interesting.

Of those polled, a definitive trend was seen toward creative, more private, and actively managed profiles. Of the respondents, 63% noted deleting someone from their profile page, up from 56% two years prior, and 37% admitted to untagging themselves in photos, up from 30% in 2009.

Another independent study by the Polytechnic Institute of New York confirmed this trend. From March 2010 to June 2011, the amount of Facebook users hiding their friends list jumped from 17.2% to 52.6%.

Social media companies are really seeking two things. They want to keep the user active and involved with the site, and they want that user to interact and connect with other users so the best possible data can be collected about the user and his or her friends by the social media site. This way the data gathered can be specifically targeted at the individual user or sold to a third party.

But what if social media users begin clamming up? That trend is clearly already happening, and it could become a problem for businesses partnered with large social media networks.

Facebook, LinkedIn's (Nasdaq: LNKD  ) professional user base, and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG  ) with Google+, don't have a lot to worry about. Their platforms and user bases are so large that in order to become a member, users essentially agree to share their information.

The concern I have is for social media "cling-ons" that rely on user interaction to drive sales. Zynga's (Nasdaq: ZNGA  ) Farmville could see a slowdown if the trend toward privacy continues. Being reliant on Facebook for 90% of its revenue, the move toward privacy could become worrisome.

Daily deal site Groupon (Nasdaq: GRPN  ) could also have trouble finding its target audience. Not only does Groupon have to deal with the fact that its e-commerce platform has an extremely low barrier to entry, but it's already receiving daily deal competition from Facebook. If privacy settings continue to tighten, it makes targeting those 845 million users even more difficult.

Even Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX  ) , which is trying the best it can to make amends for a trio of errors last year, isn't immune. Netflix has integrated its advertising platform with Facebook and stands to lose a chunk of its target audience if privacy trends continue.

I'm likely premature in my worries, but it's never too early to be skeptical about the growth prospects of companies that are attached at the hip to social media users. It's definitely a trend that bears watching. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a few privacy settings I need to check...

What do you think: Is the trend toward private accounts a genuine concern or not really a big deal? Share your thoughts in the comments section below with your fellow Fools.

Increasing privacy trends is not a problem for a company our top-notch team of analysts has discovered. Get your copy of "The Only Stock You Need to Profit From the NEW Technology Revolution," and find out for free which company has our analysts excited.

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What Happens if Social Networking Stops Working?

Enterprise social networking (ESN) software can improve communication and collaboration among employees, but most companies aren't implementing and using these products properly, leading to unmet goals, according to a new study.

ESN software can help organizations by boosting information-sharing among employees and improving cross-departmental collaboration, among other benefits, but missteps in planning and execution abound, according to the Altimeter Group study "Making the Business Case for Enterprise Social Networking."

The main mistake organizations make is not defining clearly the reasons for adopting ESN software, which offers features and capabilities like profiles, status updates and microblogging popularized by consumer social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, but adapted for workplace use.

"What is the pain point? What is the problem you're trying to solve? If that's not clear, then you shouldn't be using [ESN]," said Altimeter founder and the study's lead author Charlene Li. "This isn't easy. There is no magic bullet to it. It requires a rethinking of the relationships inside your organization, and therefore a rethinking of your culture."

Altimeter, which interviewed 13 vendors and 185 end users and surveyed 81 IT decision makers from companies with more than 250 employees, found that most ESN implementations end up stuck in one or more significant roadblocks.

These include a sharp drop in interest and usage after initial enthusiasm; strong adoption in only one department; confusion about proper use of the software, due in part to a lack of executive involvement; and lack of clarity and maturity of the organization's social business strategy and goals.

Particularly surprising to Li was the finding that few organizations properly gather and analyze usage metrics for their ESN software, focusing too much on raw engagement figures and very little on stats that show whether goals are being attained and problems solved.

Companies also often fail to integrate ESN software into the existing business applications already in use by their employees, like email, collaboration platforms, CRM, ERP and office productivity suites. ESN software thus becomes yet another stand-alone tool that is under-used.

Adding to the problem is that IT decision makers tasked initially with evaluating ESN software face a very confusing market, with many offerings that often vary greatly in features and functionality.

Vendors in this relatively nascent market range from "pure play" companies like Yammer, Box.net, Jive Software and Socialtext to bigger players that are embedding ESN capabilities into broader platforms like Microsoft, Salesforce.com, Cisco and IBM.

To improve their chances of success, organizations need to define clear objectives for using ESN software, and once it's implemented, they must monitor and analyze usage in a way that gives them an idea of whether these goals are being met.

Moreover, organizations need to devote the necessary staff and resources not only to implement but also to maintain and manage ESN software, and also get executives involved in using it.

If implemented and used properly, ESN software can yield significant benefits to organizations, such as encouraging employees to share information, expertise and best practices; improve efficiency through better coordination and reduced duplication; and empowering employees by giving them a "voice" within the company.

"The organizations that have been successful at doing this are ones that are very focused on their culture: they understand it, they understand their shortcomings and are using these tools to solve these shortcomings," Li said.

Juan Carlos Perez covers enterprise communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.

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Study: Enterprise Social Networks Failing to Meet Expectations

SALT LAKE CITY -- Lizzy Early is a college student at BYU and created the cooking blog "Your Cup of Cake." While at first it was just for fun, it's now become a money-maker - - thanks in large part to the social networking site Pinterest.

"It really started to get huge," Early said. "Seventy-five percent of my viewership is from Pinterest directly, which is pretty insane and crazy just to know that because of Pinterest my business is where it's at today."

Pinterest is a visual-bookmarking site that allows people to build collections of photos, or pins, that hyperlink to sites. Once a pin is created by a user, the pin is then categorized by the user according to which pin board they add it to, and it is shared with the user's friends on the site. Friends and other users can then repin the photo to their pin boards, giving them access to it again at anytime. Recipes, home decor, and fashion are popular categories on the site, giving businesses like Early's a leg up. Early says in just one day she can post a picture of her newest recipe and it will be pinned thousands of times.

"If you are a small business that has great images to post, then you don't have to do anything," Early said. "You just sit back and watch the numbers go up."

Early says the first Pinterest posts of her recipes were put on the site by someone else, and she took notice when they started going viral and sending a lot of web traffic her way. Before then she didn't even know what the site was.

According to the research and web analytics site comScore, in January alone there were close to 12 million unique users on Pinterest browsing. They also say the average user spent 98 minutes browsing through the online posts.

The president of the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City John Hopkins says Pinterest is still far behind social media sites such as Facebook, but that it's something for businesses to keep an eye if it continues to grow.

Randall Jeppesen, Utah County Reporter

Randall Jeppesen joined the KSL News team full-time in 2004 after doing some occasional work for the station while finishing up his college degree at BYU. Full Bio ?

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Social networking site Pinterest sending traffic to small biz