It’s a reality that the cloud storage industry is growing and more providers are coming in. This continuous growth is attributed to the increasing need of business organizations to keep files in a safer place in a separate server if possible. Apart from storage, this kind of service is also capable of backing up files and replicating them when necessary thereby removing the burden from organizations to manage files moving forward.

Mega is among the many cloud hosting providers in existence today that can accommodate storage of large files. Currently, the service is hosting some 50 million files and assures users of utmost security of their important data.

Free and paid plans are normally offered by these cloud storage and backup providers but users still need to do a little research before choosing a provider to make sure that their needs are met. This will help you find the best company that can give you value for your money. With numerous providers wanting to get a share of the market, it’s a must to be extra cautious and more discerning when selecting online services particularly when your vital files are involved.

Mega: Piracy or Privacy – An infographic by the team at Who Is Hosting This.com

Image: commons.wikimedia.org

Current Trends in Asia

Information Technology

Asia’s commendable economic growth is largely attributed to the rapid expansion of its IT services. Such expansion has made it possible for Asian firms to be competitive with global corporations that have long monopolized various economic sectors. Asia will continue to pose a challenge to the status quo due to global trends that trend to favor it. These include globalization and the continuous increase in online presence of individuals and companies in Asia that have the biggest potential to command influence.

Asia has ceased to be a passive onlooker in technological innovation. It is either an active participant or a leader in the various technologies being used today. Asian users have redefined the meaning of social, mobile, and convenient technology.

Consumer Trends

The strength of Asian countries are gradually shifting to the middle class instead of the high-end market. New products and services are being developed for this specific market. This is a clear sign of where consumer trends are going.

Localization of products is also a major trend occurring in Asia. Most countries in Asia have established cultural traditions and practices that are not open to outright modification. There will always be a certain taste that will be favored by Asia in general or individual Asian countries in particular. Companies that wish to capture part of the Asian market will have to modify their products accordingly. Instead of global companies forcing westernized flavors, they would fare better when they are able to develop a product that is especially made for Asian consumers. Companies that intend to make their presence felt in Thailand for example, should try to learn Thai for better communication and understanding of the country’s culture.

Technological Marketing

There is probably no better example of technological marketing than that of Japan. Its highly technological environment paves the way for the development of products that are distinct to their identified market. The technological trend existing there today is the development of products and/or services that their specific market can use.

In short, instead of creating a need for a new product, manufacturers create products that are needed or will be needed. The barcode reader system known as the QR Code for instance has long been used in Japan before it became acceptable in the US. The humanoid robots it continues to develop is expected to useful in the future.

For all intents and purposes, Asia is poised to follow its own destiny.

Thankfully, DSL and broadband have arrived making internet service so much faster than the old dial-up. But are you really sure you’re getting the fast connection you’ve been promised by your provider and the one you’re paying for? Some of you may not be particular about speed but it’s high time you know if you want to ensure seamless browsing online moving forward.

Your Need for Speed

Your internet speed will depend on your lifestyle and how often you use your computer to do tasks online. Bloggers, writers, those who run an online business and those who create and upload videos would normally require lightning-fast access to the internet. Work that involves much data including videos, music and online games need fast connection to ensure that there’s no lag in what you’re watching.

There is a way to check your internet speed. Various websites can help you do speed tests for free online or you can contact your cable provider’s technical support to help you find out about it. Otherwise, your bill or contract agreement should specify your plan’s upload and download speed.

Type of Connection

Excluding the dial-up which is very slow by people’s standards today, there are two other available options. These are the DSL (digital subscriber line) and the cable.

DSL – DSL makes use of a telephone line and is ideal for browsing that involves heavy graphics and videos. Fo some people, however, this can still be frustrating.

Cable – The cable line which is the same as that used for cable TV. Its speed can be very fast ranging from 2 Mbps to 100 Mbps and is most ideal for families who want to do so many things online including play games, stream music, watch movies and share photos.

Make sure to search for a reliable internet service provider such as CenturyLink Internet to enjoy fast and seamless online browsing all the time.

Check Your Equipment

Using a cable modem with a line provides a faster connection than a router or Wi-Fi. The copper wire connection is the one that ensures uninterrupted internet access compared to the radio waves used by Wi-Fi technology that can slow things from time to time.

The router and Wi-Fi, however, can be of great value for those who often go mobile. Just remember to update the software on a regular basis and purchase the newer models of routers if possible.

Image via coolpctips

1. Make It Easy

How easy is it to use your website?  Can the average viewer figure out how to make a purchase with a few simple steps?  If your website is too complicated and isn’t user-friendly, it’s highly likely that viewers will simply move on to the next site that offers a similar product.  Create a site that is viewable in all browsers, and not just ones that are common.  If your site appears broken to your viewers, they are not going to risk making a purchase.  Make all important clicks and buttons bold.  For example, adding something to a shopping cart or checking out should be tasks that are easy to find and easy to click.  The easier you make it for your viewers, the more likely they are to purchase your products.

2. Keep It Simple And Save Time

Don’t ask too many questions.  If your site is asking your viewers for too much information, the viewer will quickly become wary and move on.  Don’t ask for things you simply don’t need to know to help your customer.  Avoid asking for private information unless it is absolutely necessary.  Give your viewers an option to purchase and checkout without creating an account, and you’ll see an increase in sales.

3. Inspire Trust In Your Viewers

Too many online scams have made consumers very wary of purchasing a product from a new website.  It’s your job to instill a sense of trust in your viewers to encourage them to buy your product.  Provide your viewers with an actual address for your company, a phone number, and a privacy policy.  Any information you can give to your viewers gives you credibility and encourages them to buy.

4. State Your Returns Policy Clearly

Buying online is always a risk, especially when it’s a new product.  Many consumers will opt out if they are unsure if they can return or exchange the product if something isn’t as they hoped it would be.  Whether you allow returns or not, state this clearly to your customers during the purchasing process.  Those sites that maintain a good return policy are more likely to see higher sales from viewers.  Consumers relax when they learn they are able to return a product or exchange it for one that fits their needs.

5. Keep Your Customers Updated

The online purchasing process can be either incredibly satisfying or extremely frustrating, depending on how it is handled.  Customers who are happy with their service are updated regularly on what is happening with their package and when it should arrive.  Keep your customers informed of what is happening with the product from the second the sale is made, and reassure them regularly that their purchase is on the way.  This shows your customers that you care about them and their needs, and will keep them coming back.

New technology makes it easy for online businesses to develop a more personal relationship with their viewers.  With things like online video platforms and business videos available for each site to offer to their viewers, creating a relationship with them and encouraging every viewer to buy products is simply a matter of providing the right information and process for every consumer.

photo credit: Patrick Haney via photopin cc

information and giving a first impression for people who find you online. When setting up your small business website, follow several strategies to get it right the first time around.

Choose a reliable Web host. A stellar website won’t do you much good if it’s offline all the time because you chose an unreliable host. Your Web hosting provider needs to have a reputation for keeping sites online and running and for offering top-notch speeds for visitors. A speedy host will cut your load times so people don’t get frustrated waiting to get from one page to another, especially if you have lots of imbedded images or videos. This is critical if you’re going to have an e-commerce store included in your site.

Select a talented design team. Unless you consider yourself a Web design professional, hire outside help to develop and design your website. Don’t just pick the first company you find, the one with the lowest price or even the one with the best reputation. The right design team is the one that fits you and your business best. Take a look at their portfolio to see if you like the look of sites they’ve designed in the past, and take your time interviewing designers to find one who shares your vision and takes your goals into account when creating your website.

Set up analysis tools. Even if your website is perfect the first time around, you won’t know unless you set up tools to track responses to your site. Before you go live, set up Google Analytics to see how people are getting to your site and what they’re doing once they are there. Not only will these tools allow you to calculate your return on investment with different streams of advertising, but they’ll help you find weak areas to improve in the coming months.

Launch a blog. Your business website should have a blog where you and your team post regularly. Blogs promote engagement among people who already know all of the static content, and they make you more visible on search engines. Once you have a blog, write posts and schedule them to go up at least twice per week. Mix up the content on your blog, too; cover industry events, company culture and product education. Show your readers that you know your industry, value human interaction and can answer whatever questions they have about your products.

Once your website is ready to go live, take the time to test it with a sample audience to see how people respond. Having fresh eyes look at it allows you to understand what snags may still exist in navigation, first impressions and overall usability. As soon as you’re confident the site is ready, launch it and see how your business grows.

Multiple studies have supported arguments in favor of interactive learning, which has become especially valuable in our digitally dependent society. In addition to modern technological devices, students can become highly engaged in any educational activity that takes a hands-on approach. The following list provides a few more details about the benefits of interactive learning.

1. Improved social and communication skills

Working and communicating well with others is a fundamental skill for any profession, which is developed early in life through socially interactive activities and engaging with others. In conjunction with field trips to museums and other educational centers, educators should encourage students to discuss what they’ve learned as a group and apply their skills collectively through group projects and other interactive activities. For example, students can derive a more in-depth understanding of Native Americans by visiting the Chickasaw Cultural Center and discussing what they’ve learned with their peers and real Native Americans.

2. Student empowerment

The structure of educational systems used to be much more authoritative than it is today. Although students need some level of discipline in an academic setting, experiments have shown that many students also respond well to more freedom in regards to scheduling. With technology always at their fingertips, students don’t have to be limited to completing schoolwork during a specific timeframe in class. The concept of “flipped classrooms” has enabled students to complete work at their own pace and use school time instead for more collaborative applications of the material they studied independently.

3. Global connections

Technology has made it possible to expand a student’s education beyond the borders of his or her school, state, country and even his or her native continent. With tools like Skype and other digital communicative devices, connecting with students and educators around the world is made easy and affordable. In fact, Skype even offers an educational program called Skype in the Classroom designed specifically for improving the global connections of our educational institutions. Making connections across the globe not only gives students a better understanding of diversity and the world around them, but can also be a highly marketable skill for a career later on down the road.

4. Critical thinking advancement

In keeping with the previous benefit of global connections, expanding the world around them allows students to develop better critical thinking skills and gain personal experience with ethical, political and moral ideas that they may have otherwise not encountered in a traditional educational environment. Learning about important education subjects through interactive activities gives students the opportunity to dig deep into the complexity of these concepts and enrich their learning experiences.

Although technology comes with several benefits in the realm of educational engagement, it can also become an obstacle when trying to keep kids focused despite all of the distracting gadgets, websites and other more leisurely tech outlets. Because education is competing with these engaging technologies, it must be equally engaging and compelling for today’s students. The world itself has changed dramatically in the last 20 years, which is why schools should keep up the pace and equip students with real-world applications for the skills they learn in the classroom.

Sketch of Rickenbacker lap steel guitar design from 1937 patent application. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Maybe you’re always coming up with ideas for the latest new gadget or tinkering in your workshop to improve something you just bought. Maybe you watch shows like “Shark Tank” and think that you’re ideas are better than those pitched on the show. If you’re always coming up with potential inventions, learn how to take the next steps of turning your idea into something you can put your hands on and eventually sell.

Developing Your Idea

If you’ve never tried making an idea, start here. Brainstorm the shape, design, look and feel of your idea using a pen and paper or computer-aided design program. Work on the fabrication until you feel like you’ve put together the best possible example of your idea. Then, use rapid prototyping to quickly turn your idea into a three-dimensional object you can use. This helps you see what your idea really looks like early in the game, so you can fix any flaws and confirm everything really works the way it should. Investors will want to see your invention in action, so it’s important to get this phase right. If everything works out the first time, proceed with the process. If not, continue developing your idea until it works just right. During this phase, keep detailed records of everything you do; you’ll use this in your patent application.

Patenting

To get a patent, your invention must be new, useful and not obvious to those in the field. Before you apply for a patent, determine the right type: Design, plant and utility. Design patents protect the ornamental features of your idea, utility protect the function or utility and plant protect the invention of new, asexually-reproduced plants. If you can change the design of your idea without compromising function, apply for a utility patent. If you cannot change the design without altering function, you need a design patent.

Before you apply, read all the regulations and application materials carefully. The application process includes a filing fee, an oath, a rendering of your idea and a written description of your invention. Find an attorney to file the patent application on your behalf and then wait for your patent review.

Next Steps

Work on your pitch while you wait for the patent to be approved. Your pitch should start with describing the problem and how your particular invention will help solve it. Why would someone buy your particular product over someone else’s? This is where you’ve got to hook the customer; if you don’t, someone will walk away.

Once you’ve secured investment money you are ready to move to production. Prototyping and micro molding companies can turn out limited runs of your product, in some cases less than 20,000 pieces, in as little as 3-4 weeks! These companies work and exist across numerous verticals including technology, automotive, electronics, and even medical and pharmaceuticals.

This can seem like a lot to go through, and it is indeed time-consuming. But taking steps to turn your idea into reality and sell it can be incredibly rewarding and validating when you see all your hard work pay off.

Both site and search retargeters began to recognize that algorithms had to find the right user on the right page at the right time. More advertisers are buying inventory one impression at a time as site visits are recognized as different species, depending up the item(s) examined, the pages visited and even the time of day of the visit. Bidding on bundles of undifferentiated keywords has diminished. Finally, the freshness of data – its “recency” – will more strongly influence campaigns, campaign management and the timing of campaign ads.

Data freshness and relevance

Frost Prioleau, writing for Search Engine Land, said the recency of data will become much more relevant to campaigns, the ads and their timing due to studies that emphasize the importance of data freshness in boosting click-through rates. Prioleau said search retargeting campaigns “were 61 percent higher when the impressions were served within 24 hours of the user searching on the targeted keyword.”

In addition, recency is highly relevant when designing and optimizing search retargeting campaigns to cost-per-action (CPA) goals. Specifically, ad campaigns for products with “short consideration cycles” will perform more effectively with short recency settings. A specific example is provided for our understanding. If, for instance, a computer user enters the term “Chicago hotel” into his search engine but is not contacted by the retargeter for two weeks, he will probably have already made his reservations – if not actually completed the trip entirely. On the other hand, had this user entered the terms “Toyota dealer,” a two-week interval before retarget contact may still provide an opportunity to convert that search into a sale.

Predictions for 2013 & beyond

• Real-time bidding will continue to be competitive, with companies devoting more resources to these efforts
• Both site and search retargeting algorithms will continue to become more elastic as performance marketers learn that one size does not fit all
• Fixed audience segmentation will be abandoned
• Recency in search retargeting will become a larger factor in the development of successful campaigns
• According to Michael Briggs’s article in MultiChannelMerchant.com, ads will change more often to prevent ad fatigue
• Ads will be more relevant to the individual browser according to his or her demonstrated history
• More, not fewer, cookies will be used; when used correctly, a computer user should perceive a decrease in the amount of cookies as multiple cookies with different time and action parameters will be used more often

Remarketers will continue to adjust their algorithms quickly to appeal to would-be customers at the right time in the buying cycle. While companies will increase retargeting efforts, the more personalized the ads are – as Facebook has demonstrated through Facebook Exchange – the less intrusive those ads will seem, and the more likely they’ll be to result in completed sales.

Email is where people do business

Online marketers often prophesy that email is being replaced or that it is already dead. It’s an older form, so they develop an out-with-the-old mentality that just isn’t accurate. People trust email as a more serious commercial venue. Social media sites are valued as a place to connect with friends and family and sometimes businesses. Though popular, it’s important to remember that not everyone relies on sites like Facebook and Twitter for their information. Consumers use email to conduct business and marketable content is more valued via email. In a B2B situation, email is often more respected.

Email has more users

More people consistently use email than social media sites. Simple numbers demonstrate that email actually has three times as many users as Facebook and Twitter combined. This is part of the equation that makes email marketing the nut hand: if more people value email as a venue for business, and if there are consistently more users on email than social media sites, there exists a powerful argument for online marketers to place their bets on email marketing. And the numbers aren’t changing any time soon.

Social media is making people use email even more

Data shows that the more people use social media, the more they use email. This is partly due to the social media notifications that are sent to email addresses, effectively directing users’ attention to email more often. It’s also due to the fact that social media users tend to form connections on Facebook and Twitter and maintain them on email. Why? Because email is a more personal, direct venue for maintaining connections. If you’ve ever received a handwritten letter in the mail, you know how enjoyable they are to receive. Someone took the time to write the letter, buy postage and put the letter in the mail, all to communicate with you personally. Email possesses a similar personal quality. A friend, family member or colleague takes the time to write you directly and  not just because the medium is convenient.

Not every email is customized and direct, but a marketing campaign can feel more personal to a customer  when you choose to reach them through their email account. Don’t be deterred by those who say email is dead. Email isn’t dead, and the numbers show that. Instead, place your bet on creating a personal, pinpointed email marketing strategy that appeals to users in the most effective way.