Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Top Articles for Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Google's Search Tactics Under Investigation in Europe: Ryan Kim - Nine months after reports first surfaced that the European Commission was investigating Google over its search tactics, the commission is now confirming that it is indeed opening up a formal antitrust investigation looking at how Google uses its dominant position in the online search market.
Forget Net Neutrality, Comcast Might Break the Web: Stacey Higginbotham - The fight that erupted today between Level 3 and Comcast involves an esoteric agreement and equally esoteric policy arguments, but at its core this fight is about money. Yet what has begun as commercial dispute may change how the web works and who pays for it.
Flock's Newest Social Browser Launches, Finally Supports Mac - Om Malik
Beyond the Check-In, the Era of Persistent Location Beckons - Ryan Kim
Level 3, Comcast in a Cat Fight Over Online Video - Stacey Higginbotham

How to Crack China's Smart Grid Market: Jeff St. John - China plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in the next decade on a nationwide smart grid, but where are the opportunities for outside investors and innovators?
Opower Lands $50M for Home Energy Efficiency: Jeff St. John - Home energy efficiency startup OPOWER has raised $50 million as it seeks to quadruple its customer base and add new features to its age-old, paper report-based customer outreach.
DOE Chief: U.S. Is in Trouble Without More Energy R&D - Ucilia Wang
Stealth Kurion Emerges to Turn Nuclear Waste Into Glass - Katie Fehrenbacher
Is Kleiner Moving Away From Greentech & Back to Web? - Katie Fehrenbacher

Droid Pro — Bridging the Android/BlackBerry Gap: James Kendrick - Motorola has been enjoying the popularity of its Android product line, and the Droid Pro looks to take it to the enterprise worker. It starts with the Android 2.2, and adds a touch screen coupled with a keyboard that could have come from the BlackBerry folks.
Sony Joins Android/iPhone E-book Reader Fray: James Kendrick - The Sony Reader has been out longer than some of the e-readers on the market, but the company hasn't joined in the smartphone app wars until now. The company has confirmed it will make Sony Reader apps available in December for two smartphone platforms.
BlackBerry Style Review: RIM Goes Retro - James Kendrick
How to Reach Mobile Shoppers This Holiday Season - Colin Gibbs
With Perfect Timing, Acer Outs a Pair of Android Tablets - Kevin C. Tofel

Comast vs. Level 3: Netflix Didn't See This Coming: Janko Roettgers - Netflix really was just out to save some money when it decided to switch a sizable portion of its CDN business from Akamai to Level 3 in November. Instead, it started something that may turn out to be the Internet's equivalent to an international armed incident.
Vid Biz: Google TV Hacking, Cord Cutting, Porn Downloading: Janko Roettgers - Today on the Net: A new bounty challenges hackers to open up Google TV, a new study says that cord cutting doesn't exist and a new argument could help people accused of downloading pornography from P2P networks.
Oh, Inverted World: Donnie Darko-esque, With A Sweet Twist - Liz Shannon Miller
Q&A Site VYou Breaks 1M Video Views In 1 Month of Beta - Liz Shannon Miller
Bram Cohen: BitTorrent Protocol & Live Streaming Don't Mix - Janko Roettgers

Quick Fix: Get Your Music Back After the iOS 4.2 Update: Alex Layne - The update to iOS 4.2 that rolled out last Monday went pretty smoothly, but there were many cases of people who had updated to 4.2, and then seemingly lost all their music. My own iPod touch was affected, but luckily there's a quick fix available.
iPhone Owners Most Loyal, Satisfied: Liam Cassidy - According to a new survey, more than half of all smartphone owners are ready to jump ship to another device. iPhone owners are most loyal, with 59 percent saying they'll stick with Apple's device. But what do the figures really mean for the market?
The 3 Ghosts of Christmas Family "Techspertise" - Geoffrey Goetz
Consumer Guide: Where to Buy a New Mac - Dave Greenbaum
Apple Set for Record Holiday Quarter - Charles Jade

5 Common-Sense Rules for Online Meetings: Thursday Bram - Running a meeting virtually presents some special challenges that you simply won't encounter when you're able to round up your staff from within the building. The more you can do to streamline the process ahead of time, the better your meeting will flow.
Open Thread: Managing Remote Workers Effectively: Simon Mackie - One of the key topics that we'll be discussing at our Net:Work conference is how to manage workers remotely. As the workforce becomes more mobile and distributed, with people working on projects on an ad-hoc basis, it's a problem that more businesses will need to tackle.
Ultra-Lightweight CMS Perch Gets Previews and Multi-Level Undo - Simon Mackie
Where to Invest for the Biggest Productivity Gains - Darrell Etherington
Jason Fried: Why Work Doesn't Happen at Work - Imran Ali

This message was sent to ianmixraz.goodarticles@blogger.com because you subscribed on our website.

or unsubscribe immediately

The GigaOM Network, 217 2nd Street, Floor 4, San Francisco, CA 94105

Monday, November 29, 2010

[New post] Revealed: Why Your Email Newsletters Are Left Unread (and 3 Ways to Ensure That Never Happens Again)

Revealed: Why Your Email Newsletters Are Left Unread (and 3 Ways to Ensure That Never Happens Again)

Antti Kokkonen | Nov 29, 2010 at 9:36 PM | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/pJond-2e

Email marketing still works. It never stopped working. In fact, it works better than ever:

When it comes to customer relationships, newsletters must be seen as a long-term investment: they work their magic over time.

BUT email has changed, and every email newsletter owner and marketeer with a mailing list should pay attention to the Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for November 2010...

Or what do you think about study showing that the: number of new or unread messages is now 300% higher than it was just 4 years ago.

To get your emails read, here's what you can learn from Nielsen's findings (E-Mail Newsletters: Increasing Usability):

The most important thing (still) is to use clear "from" and "subject" lines to ensure your messages attract attention; in fact, busier inboxes simply make these guidelines even more important.

Focus on high-value content at the start of a message, since users are less likely now to look beyond it.

Pay attention to message previews, since users do that more and more. (mobile usage!!)

And don't leave it at those three tips...

I clipped some interesting notes below too, but the whole article is a must read for every email marketeer. Read it here: E-Mail Newsletters: Increasing Usability

Amplify’d from www.useit.com

Summary:
New research finds improved usability metrics for subscribing to newsletters, but problems with reading them on mobile devices.

It's clear that users are falling further behind in keeping up with their email. This doesn't change the old guidelines regarding the importance of using clear "from" and "subject" lines to ensure your messages attract attention; in fact, busier inboxes simply make these guidelines even more important. In the past, a newsletter might have gotten away with a generic or spammy subject line. Today, that same design will doom it.

In addition to subject lines, users now pay more attention to message previews. This change is partly driven by the increasing email volume (users can decide whether to dispose of or keep messages without opening them all) and partly driven by more mobile access (users can't see much on a small screen).

It's always been a guideline to start a newsletter with the most important stuff, but the increased use of previews makes it even more important to focus on high-value content at the start of a message, since users are less likely now to look beyond it. (It almost goes without saying that "high-value" is judged based on what's valuable to the recipients – not on what you feel like promoting today.)

Read more at www.useit.com