The new Leica M is the most innovative and versatile M, which has spawned the modern M system. It combines decades of experience with the rangefinder system with cutting-edge digital technology: It has a newly developed, high-resolution CMOS full frame sensor that achieves together with its high-performance processor and the legendary M lenses outstanding image results. With live view, video and new additional focusing methods, it is the M, for all who want to give up anything that modern camera technology offers.
With live view, video and new additional focusing methods, it is the M, for all who want to give up anything that modern camera technology offers.
It has a newly developed, high-resolution CMOS full frame sensor that achieves together with its high-performance processor and the legendary M lenses outstanding image results.
Splash-proof camera housing
Based on the experience of our engineers in the construction of the new Leica M camera bodies is uncompromisingly designed for maximum stability and strength. Your deck and its floor covers are milled from blocks of brass. Your all-metal housing is closed and consists of a high-strength magnesium alloy.
Splash-proof camera body – htt://leica-camera.com
All new features of the Leica M at a glance
Together with the new sensor, the Leica Maestro processor ensures that the vision of the Leica M sets new standards in terms of speed. At top speed he prepares for the coming from the sensor image data and generates image files.Even complex calculations he performs at extremely high speed. Thanks to the energy-saving processor and the electronic image sensor convinced the new lithium-ion battery (1800 mAh) Leica M with a particularly long term.
Maximum picture quality through newly developed LEICA MAX CMOS sensor
New applications with electronic viewfinder and Live View
Simple, high precision focusing with Live View Focus and Focus Peaking
Fully digital format for Leica R lenses, the Leica R Adapter M
Extended sensitivity range up to ISO 6400
As we increasingly move past the point of sufficiency, manufacturers will continue to try filling ever-smaller niches. It becomes more about something you like/ want to use more than something you need. Is there room for one in your arsenal? Only you can answer that.
LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD), Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) and Twitter are collectively responsible for 95% of visits to corporate websites from social media sites like LinkedIn, leading the pack. Corporate websites are boosting their presence on the world’s largest professional network, LinkedIn, owing to its engaging user base and favourable features for professional purpose.
According to a research conducted by Investis IQ, which tracked an average of 2 Million monthly visitors to 60 corporate websites over a period of two years, LinkedIn dominated the social media referral rate for driving traffic to corporate websites.
LinkedIn Dominates With A 64% Share
According to the report, LinkedIn accounted for 64% of all visits to corporate websites from social media sites. LinkedIn users indulged in serious business related activities, to keep in touch with business associates, clients, and former colleagues. Nearly 87% of users find sources on LinkedIn trust-worthy and it affects their decision-making process.
Job seekers generally spend time on LinkedIn, digging information about company’s progress, information and statistics. Employers can also list their jobs on the site, and screen potential candidates. LinkedIn makes it easier for employers to view candidate’s profiles and look for required criteria/skills rather than having to go through every single resume. Connections on this website are built through known channels and the focus is on building trust among users.
People like reading blogs/news about companies and participating in business related discussions on LinkedIn. If a company is actively updating their information on LinkedIn and provides readers with interesting blogs, sharing helpful articles with clear signposting back to the corporate website, then the chances of users clicking the company’s website are high. Currently, more than 2.6 Million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages.
LinkedIn has remained remarkably stable when it comes down to services offered. It also offers premium services that allows users to access more information and the ability to directly contact people in their 2nd or 3rd degree contact list. Doing this ensures that only interested users subscribe to develop networks thereby enabling companies to build required interest groups. LinkedIn’s API for commenting on news and articles is not available on third-party websites mainly to avoid random people spamming the website and ruining the healthy discussions on the website.
The Role Of Other Social Media Websites In Driving Corporate Website Traffic!
Micro-Blogging site Twitter, which known for its virality quotient pertaining to news discovery and delivery, is widely used by corporate firms as a news distribution media. Major changes that take place in corporate firms, breaking news and new deals are spread through Twitter. But this hasn’t helped corporate firms in driving traffic to their site and Twitter’s share is just 14%, up from 4% in 2011. Companies should definitely maintain their presence over the micro-blogging sites but news distribution is not the only thing companies need to pursue on social media.
Facebook’s share has decreased by nearly 50% over 2 years, its share has taken a beating and stands at 17%, down from 30% which indicates that its performance will continue to effect B2B corporate marketing. Facebook is a fun social networking site and B2B corporates don’t seem to find engaged users. Comparatively B2C firms have derived maximum benefits from its presence and Ad-campaigns on Facebook, due to direct interactions with their target customers.
Traffic derived from YouTube, Google Plus, Flickr are all negligible currently. YouTube continues to emerge as the benchmark for viral video marketing as video content is preferred by information seekers. B2C firms are bound to derive maximum benefits by designing informative video content about their product. Even B2B firms and corporates can attain consumer attention provided the content they offer is exciting enough.
Search giant Google’s social media front is progressing and lot of changes are being implemented to attract companies towards Google Plus. A Google Plus powered search engine is a possibility in the future which might replace the current search capabilities of Google. This might compel entire industries to shift their bases to the Google Plus platform.
After much of hue and cry, finally, Blackberry BBM is out – officially. Blackberry Ltd. (NASDAQ:BBM) has started rolling out BBM for Android and iPhone today, and the app is going to be available on Google Play, Apple App Store and in select Samsung App Store. The mobile messaging app, known for its secured conversation, is available on all App Stores for free. However, even after downloading, you may not be able to use BBM immediately if you did not register yourself for early notification on Blackberry Messenger website. You may have to wait in queue for next few days till BlackBerry approves your registration. Unfortunately, company hasn’t mentioned anything about the ‘itching’ wait period.
In early this year, rumors started flowing on internet about possible roll out of BBM for Android and iPhone. The much-awaited roll out was first planned for October 22, 2013 when Blackberry first witnessed the enormous craze towards BBM among smartphone users other than Blackberry. Within first 8 hours of the scheduled launch, nearly 1.1 million Android users installed unreleased version of BBM. Alas , their excitement couldn’t last longer as the company found its difficult to cope-up with sudden load on server and deactivated all BBM on Android platform.
This time Blackberry has taken all precautionary measurement to make sure the smooth launch of BBM for Android and outlined few guidelines to download and install BBM on your Android and iPhone:
Instructions To Download BBM
Download BBM – This could be done either by visiting BBM.com or download it via Google Play Store.
Once the installation is done, it’s time for you to register yourself in BBM Database. The process will take you through the registration process and the very first screen asks you to enter your email ID.
If you are among the millions that took the time to register themselves for the pre-launch at BBM.com, you can immediately start using BBM else you would be queued into the wait list.
The company has promised to spill more beans on-line up (wait list) in tomorrow. But it would be more interesting to see the faith of other prominent mobile messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, WeChat, Nimbuzz etc. serving to 750 million users, which were enjoying the reign while BBM confined itself into the skin of Blackberry.
A fighting bull stands alone surrounded by a crowd of runners on the second day of the San Fermin Running Of The Bulls festival in Pamplona, Spain (photo by Pablo Blazquez Dominguez). Four people have been injured so far in the nine day festival that takes over the whole town.
The idea for the event came to Rob Dickens and his business partner as they were looking for ways to expand their 20-employee Boston business beyond its Rugged Maniac obstacle course, a five-kilometer run-slide-climb-slip-stumble-swim trek that has expanded to 20 markets nationwide.
We wanted to do something unique that nobody else was doing
Since records began in 1924, 13 people have been killed during Pamplona’s bull run. Many of those who run are full of bravado (and/or drink), and have little idea of what they’re doing.
The Running of the Bulls
El Encierro, the running of the bulls from their corrals to the bullring for the afternoon bullfight, takes place in Pamplona, every morning during Sanfermines. Six bulls are let loose from the Coralillos de Santo Domingo to charge across the square of the same name (a good vantage point).
People on balconies watch runners – Pedro Armestre/AFP
Every year, the Festival of San Fermin, including the “Running of the Bulls”, attracts thousands of visitors to Pamplona, Spain. Lasting nine days, the festival kicks off with massive crowds at the Chupinazo in Pamplona town square, followed by a carnival, fireworks, the running of the bulls, and many bullfights. Held since 1591, San Fermin remains a popular, if also dangerous and controversial, event — dozens of people were injured this year.
The Big Picture
A fighting bull stands alone surrounded by a crowd of runners on the second day of the San Fermin Running Of The Bulls festival in Pamplona, Spain (photo by Pablo Blazquez Dominguez). Four people have been injured so far in the nine day festival that takes over the whole town.
A third rocket goes off when all the bulls have made it to the ring, and a final one when they have been rounded up in the stalls.
They can become isolated from the herd and are then always dangerous.
A very treacherous stretch comes towards the end, where Calle de la Estafeta slopes down into the final turn to Plaza de Toros.
The 2006 event passed without serious injury to any of the runners, but with even greater demands on the authorities, including 145 fire alarm call outs and four stray cats collected; no stray bulls reported. For dedicated Encierro news check out www.sanfermin.com
With less than 50 days left for Thanksgiving day, Cyber Monday, Black Friday; Online retailers, Brands in the U.S are hustling to get things online for upcoming shopping season. Major retailers have opened extremely early and offered promotional sales to kick off the holiday shopping season.
Next-generation social media marketing platform provider, Offerpop released an Infographic to assist marketers and help them prepare for ad campaigns on Facebook for prime occasions like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving Day. Few interesting facts derived from the infographic about performance by marketers a year ago were:
A whooping 59.1 Billion worth sales took place on Black Friday, 2012; marking an epic beginning of Christmas shopping season.
Nearly 16.3% of Black Friday shoppers looked for promos and deals on Facebook; and close to 28% of shoppers used mobile phones to visit retailer’s site.
Panic level amongst shoppers is very high on prime occasions; 28% of them end up camping outside for midnight openings.
Small business Saturday, a counterpart to Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day; encourages holiday shoppers to patronize brick and mortar businesses that are small and local. Last year, Small business Saturday had overall sales of $5.5 Billion.
Top 500 retailers saw 240% spike in referral rates through Facebook on Cyber Monday. About 13% of total sales on Cyber Monday were registered through mobile devices.
About 48% of shopaholics preferred using Social media to plan their holiday shopping; out of those, 54% were looking for deals and 53% for gift ideas.
From above stats, it is vital for retail brands to make use of social media platform, especially Facebook, for promoting their offers during the special occasions. Various attractive deals and offers must be levied both online and offline to derive maximum profits, as consumer is much more tuned into how and when they can get the best deal. More emphasis must be on promotion through mobile devices as majority of people prefer holiday shopping on smaller screens; shoppers should promote their products through various apps, mobile advertising techniques. Promotion should begin well in advance, prior to special occasion day, as shoppers are more excited about holiday shopping plans and start using various social media platform to workout schedule much before the actual date.
Search engine giant Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Social media titan Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), in spite of being fierce competitors on social media front, have joined hands in advertising section to dominate the Digital Advertising industry. The 2 web giants have struck a deal by which Google’s DoubleClick Bid Manager will allow its clients to buy inventory on FBX, Facebook Ad Exchange.
Google Likely To Be Trigger-man In The Deal
The deal might have surprised many as Facebook is likely to get slightly more benefited than Google in terms of revenue, as DoubleClick would be simply directing its advertisers to FBX platform and major share of monetary benefits rests with Facebook. Facebook is probably looking to increase its advertising revenue by this deal and boast about its dominance over advertising sector, and encircle more advertisers into its client list. On the other hand, Google is playing smart by striking the deal as a measure to keep DoubleClick’s client list happy and encourage long-term association with them. Google has been frontier in making announcement of this deal and its benefits to advertisers; claims the reason for the move as betterment of services to its clients. But actual reason is quite visible as they foresee major problems upfront and are looking for negotiation and not battling social media favorites out.
Until now, DoubleClick allowed advertisers to buy ads on various advertising exchange except Facebook, because of which majority of advertisers had to explore elsewhere for fulfilling their media buying needs. For services, like those of DoubleClick, it requires a massive amount of inventory; tie up with Facebook will definitely enhance its advertising inventory and encourage long-term association with its existing clients. DoubleClick will be largely benefited by this deal in terms of driving more clients and be a one-stop-shop center for advertisers, whereas monetary wise Facebook would gain major share.
Facebook’s massive user-base attracts majority of advertisers across the world and its recent developments have helped them in enhancing their Ad performance in consecutive quarters. Although Google owns bigger share of advertising revenue, it foresees a challenge from Social media giants as most of the advertisers getting accustomed/ attracted more towards advertising on Facebook. Currently, Facebook is marketer’s first choice, as a result of continuous innovations and addition of new features in last few years. When Facebook had earlier launched FBX – an ad exchange platform to let advertisers buy cookie-based re-targeted ads on its site – it welcomed a crowd of ad-tech companies (Except Google) to its real-time bidding party. Google Plus (343 Million) is still not in race when it comes to social media front when compared to Facebook (1.15 Billion users), although former is striving hard to encourage marketers to adopt Google Plus for advertising purposes, Facebook’s innovations have successfully outplayed them.
Amidst the war between the 2 online giants for gaining higher revenue, marketers are more benefited in terms of wide options to buy ads and more outreach due to large user base of Facebook. Advertising world will be totally dominated by Google and Facebook in future as the DoubleClick-FBX deal progress further.
A review gallery post with full width featured image enabled. Anyone who bought one of Jawbone’s much-hyped Up fitness bands last year found themselves an unwitting participant in a beta test. The brand-new platform promised to get you up and exercising, help you sleep and eat better, and make you more stylish to boot — and we liked it. But there were some missing features, and some overly simple software for the device.
And then the Up started breaking. Weeks and months after being purchased, our review unit and many others simply stopped taking charges or turning on. Jawbone acknowledged the fault, offered its buyers a no-questions-asked refund (even if you just didn’t like the thing, you could return it), and went back to the drawing board.
Are you dealing in calories and carbohydrates, or points and badges?
I wear my watch almost everywhere, but I take it off when I sit at my laptop. It’s just uncomfortable having the band scratching and scraping around the palmrest, and it forces me to perch my arms awkwardly above the keyboard. That’s not a problem for my watch, which doesn’t need to be worn all the time, but I had to take off the Up as well because it caused the same problems.
Tracking your life
The Up tracks three things: activity, sleeping, and eating. The first is simple, requiring only that you wear the bracelet. Its engine turns the motion of your wrist into calories burned, steps walked, and active versus inactive time.
UP by Jawbone http://jawbone.com/up
The Up’s vibrating motor is used for two different alarm features, both of which I’ve come to love. When you’re sleeping at night, you can set your alarm, and the Up will rouse you up to 30 minutes before that time based on when you’re in lighter sleep and will wake up feeling better.
Wrap-up
I’ve now lived with both the $99.99 Jawbone Up and $99.95 Fitbit Ultra fitness devices so you’re probably wondering which I would recommend? So am I, honestly.
Continuous innovation in advertisement section by Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) has resulted in terrific growth of ad performances Q-O-Q. Facebook is steadily optimizing its ad units and launching new ad-targeting products, as most of advertiser are narrowing down their target audience and looking for users who find ad engaging. Facebook has done well in responding to sophisticated demands of advertisers and is still striving hard to bring in changes to keep the trust of advertisers for long-term association.
Global social marketing platform Kenshoo Social compared performance of its Facebook advertising clients in the Q3, 2013 with the Q2 in an infographic; Couple of interesting facts and stats observed were:
Number of Ad impressions rose by 13% across various ad campaigns launched by online brands.
Cost per Click (CPC) fell by 9% and Click volume was up 14.4%.
Converting a customer who browses your site to a paying customer; known as conversion rate was up by 2.36 times. Overall Conversion Volume rose 2.85 times.
Revenue rose by 2.16 times and ROI was up by 3.04 times.
Revenue per click rose by 1.76 times when compared to previous Quarter.
Facebook is continuously bringing in new features to attract advertiser and drive wider reach for their ad campaigns. Introduction of location-based ad campaign, Introduction of FBX, improved analytics report, has resulted in better insights of investment performance for advertisers. Even Advertisers are getting well accustomed to Facebook advertising methods and implementing strategies to drive their direct response goals.
Social media marketing is on rise and majority of online firms/brands across the world are well aware of its usage in brand amplification. But, when it comes to effectively framing marketing strategies to use the customer centric social media platform, very few have knack of it. Online firms generally feel that investing lot of funds and gaining large number of impressions would suffice the purpose of a successful social media marketing; very few concentrate on designing exciting content and regularly modifying strategy based on response from users.
ShopIgniter – a leading provider of solutions that help brands promote and sell their products on the social web – had conducted research over two thousand news feed posts of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) between Q1 and Q2 2013; their 2 billion plus impressions and their post-click performance and derived few interesting statistics.
Impression Is Not Equal To Engagement!
Don’t get fool with the number of impressions as it could be generated via any means; all it matter are Story Rate and Consumption Rate that have direct effect on ROI. One of the most significant type of user engagement mode in Facebook is Stories, actions that lead to a post on the engager’s Timeline. Although investing on paid products trigger impressions, very few users engage themselves by clicking on it or checking website.
According to the Graph below, almost all cases, the Story rate decreased when paid media was applied, except in case of Offers. Viral impressions for paid products of social media sites is high, but story rate was low mainly because of poor content. It is important for marketers to have a dedicated team for content designing; to make a better appeal to viewers by posting effective, unique content. Online brands should analyze user’s choices and post rich informative content and make sure majority of them like brand pages with feeling of attachment and not expecting only coupons and offers.
Consumptions are the actions that have inherent value, such as watching a video or clicking on a link. Consumption rate decides ROI of any online paid/unpaid ad campaign. Although majority of ad campaigns drive wide-spread impressions, very few of those have higher consumption rates.
The average Consumption rate increased significantly for Photos and minimally for Offers; and fell for Links when paid media was used. Page admins must have 24/7 moderation of their Facebook page to avoid spammers misusing the platform by pasting suspicious links on their brand page. Generally users avoid clicking on random links mainly because of increasing spam’s on Facebook. Even video updates, which are considered to be viral was unable to drive interest amongst users mainly because of poor content, long version, inadequate effects and theme. Majority of advertisers are failing to realise the importance of content part; investing on an ad campaign is never sufficient. Equal importance must be given to content part and its effects/ reviews/ feedback must be analysed at regular intervals.
Negative Feedback From Users Must Be Analyzed
It is important for Brand page admin to analyze negative feedback along with positive ones. Negative feedback helps in improving marketing strategy by making required changes in initiatives adopted, as most of the users dislike particular ad even if smallest part of it provides negative impact. Care must be taken to rectify the part which might be hurting sentiments of users and not changing entire marketing strategy. Negative Feedback arises because of difference in opinions between user and the content writers. It is not recommended to totally modify strategy for sake of handful of people, but minor changes made to bring the content and user’s view into same line of sight can act as a smarter option.
Negative Feedback helps online brands in discovering potential markets for their product. If Facebook Ad campaigns of certain online brand in particular demography does not click well into advertiser’s favour (due to dominance of local players), in such cases they can migrate their investment elsewhere. Facebook’s promoted products can be targeted to specific location.
Proper analysis/moderation of brand page is mandatory after investing on any online ad campaigns. In above graph we can see that ‘’Paid ads via note, photo, video’’ received maximum negative feedback from majority of users. When a particular brand invests in promoted products, care should be taken to provide rich media content to users else they might be fed up continuous flow of less attractive Ads on their news feed. Although, Video and image content are more viral than other modes of advertising, above graph conveys different story. Negative feedback need not necessarily mean that mode of advertising (Video, photo inclusion) is wrong, but certain rectifications can make it better and more profounding.
If a brand is promoting its product through video ad campaign, it make sure to make it attractive and informative by including every single detail about the product. Story line creation, avoiding mismatch of audio-video, contact info, mode of conveying info (inclusion of music track), boost views and conversions with clear calls to action, and making ad attractive to watch are few measures that should be taken care of. Status updates consisting of images must be monitored with care, as conversion rate of users highly depends on first impression of your image. Pictures with Human touch especially close-ups derive higher CTR, provided image is relevant to your product. It’s best to upload horizontal (landscape) images to make sure you’re maximizing the space available.
Adoptable Measures
Social media marketing especially Facebook Marketing is emerging as most important marketing tool; majority of online brands are widely using it but very few have grabbed the knack of making it effective. Pouring heavy investment on social media ad campaigns wont suffice the cause; proper planning is required to earn every single user. Every firm should have separate divisions taking care of content writing, social media marketing, 24by7 service to online queries, monitoring Facebook page to keep it spam free. Strategic and effective use of social networks serves as your word of mouth. Systematic planning and knack will help you make it a referral marketing machine. Proper timing, Catchy updates, including effective images, videos,
Full width featured post generally considered the most beautiful post in the Caribbean, Cartagena in Colombia grew unimaginably wealthy as the port through which the looted gold of the new world sailed eastwards to Imperial Spain.
Turns out we have, with the likes of Sir Francis Drake (one man’s privateer is another man’s pirate) plundering the city as far back as 1586. In subsequent years, particularly those of the late 20th Century, Colombia was famous for other exports: mountains of pure cocaine, left-wing guerrilla ideology and “magic realism” from the pen of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Remember at all times that while you are seeing the world, the world will see you.
These childhood friends have overcome some serious setbacks — guitarist and vocalist Adam Haworth Stephens was in not one but two road accidents last year — so this new album’s a bit of a boon. With buddy Tyson Vogel, he certainly sounds glad to be alive on a boisterous folk-rock album that shows two mild-looking men can, like The Black Keys, make a hell of a noise.
Two Gallants
Why now?
July sees concerts on the beaches and events in the bullring and yet more excuses to party thanks to the Summer Festival. Alternatively, the literary/arty Hay Festival Cartagena de Indias rolls into town each January. Wales or Colombia, Wales or Colombia? The sound smacks of the KoL’s brand of macho melancholy, while Brown’s voice lends a rockabilly twang.
For all her extraordinary talent and work ethic, Bly’s appearance was decidedly unremarkable — a fact that shouldn’t matter, but one that would be repeatedly remarked upon by her critics and commentators, something we’ve made sad little progress on in discussing women’s professional, intellectual, and creative merit more than a century later.
The massive 1.15 billion user base of social media titan Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) provides best of chances for news to go viral amongst masses by the use of Hashtags. Even if 50% of Facebook users, brand advertisers learn and make best usage of Hashtags to discuss or promote any news/info, virality will be much more than the total number of users of any other social media sites such as Twitter (500 Million users, 232 Million MAUs) and LinkedIn (200 Million users). Usage of Hashtags is important for online brands as it provides users to join the discussion stream to voice their opinions, and analyze the prevailing trend.
The below infographic from piJnz highlights few interesting facts and information about the usage of hashtags for online brands.
Hashtags help you to expand your reach, as people interested in niche topics are able to find each other and join the conversation.
Online brands should create their own special hashtags, to spread the message about any new idea or product or promote any special event to the masses. It acts as a major tool in brand amplification and helps other brand fans to capture voice/opinion of other people.
It also helps in reaching like-minded individuals and potential leads within key audience and get them to engage with brand page.
Brand page admin must encourage people to make their posts with brand related hashtags public to widen its reach.
Hashtag shouldn’t exceed beyond One Word, and its usage must be limited. There should relevance between Hashtags used and Promoted event/product. Brand advertiser should use shorter hashtags to make it easy for users to remember.
Majority of social media platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, has introduced hashtag feature to enhance user experience. Usage of hashtags is growing prominence and most of the brands are using it for product promotion and ad campaigns. As people get more aware about its usage and benefits, majority of online brands can expect heavy traffic on their site and brand visibility will scale up. It’s important for advertisers to learn to use hashtags wisely to direct potential users to main stream and educate them with prevailing trend.
Full width gallery post without sidebar. The other, more subdued Delevingne is most certainly a Woman We Love. None of the fireworks, all of the heat. No wonder the fashion industry has been so dismayed by news that Poppy Delevingne has left these shores and headed Stateside to take up residence in Fergie’s New York pad
Besides being known for his work for the Storm modeling agency, it is followed by fashion blogs and lifestyle, as it has a very distinctive style, blending both the natural beauty of your garment over the season IN .
Selected for the 1932 campaign, where Chanel celebrates the 80th anniversary of its online Bijoux.
Educated at the liberal £26,000-a-year Bedales School in Hampshire, she was talent-spotted by Storm model agency founder Sarah Doukas (who also ‘discovered’ Kate Moss at the age of 14), whose daughter was in the same class as Poppy’s sister. Poppy did her first magazine shoots at 16, then, after A-levels and a gap year spent travelling, found herself the toast of the town.
Poppy Delevingne: Fashion’s it girl
The other, more subdued Delevingne is most certainly a Woman We Love. None of the fireworks, all of the heat. No wonder the fashion industry has been so dismayed by news that Poppy Delevingne has left these shores and headed Stateside to take up residence in Fergie’s New York pad.
Fashion’s It Girl
Nowadays Pandora works in the private-shopping department of London retail emporium Selfridges. The fashion plate still has her wardrobe from the ’70s and ’80s, though it’s been kept under lock and key from her daughters since she noticed a few things missing.
This fun-loving British transplant is blooming on Manhattan’s party circuit.
Still, it’s clear where Delevingne inherited her nonchalant sense of style — the one that enables her to throw a leather bomber over a sundress for a polo match at Governors Island or swan without a second thought into a charity gala in a Chanel jumpsuit. Her style has also been influenced by a couple of years in New York. She’s updated her English-magpie ways, now cleverly mixing quirky bits and bobs with sleeker hard-edged pieces.
Mahesh Murthy is an endearing VC. If you Google the word endearing, the Google Ngram Viewer would tell you that the usage for this word has gradually declined over the last 200 odd years. However, if you Google the phrase endearing VC, the Ngram Viewer gives you a cold stare as if to say – that phrase has never existed. The exact error it throws is “Ngrams not found – Endearing VC”. I will come back to this reference later in this article.
Mahesh Murthy: Venture Capitalist
Dazeinfo had a chance to catch up with the Founder and CEO of Pinstorm and pick his brains with regards to the Indian start-up ecosystem and the growth of social media in India, among other things.
Social Media Growth In India
Unlike most other Indian entrepreneurs who take social media growth for granted, Mahesh is actually quite sceptical of social media growth in India. He points out that if social media is to achieve its real potential in India, then the industry needs to bridge the regional language barrier and add to the English-speaking market, which as he rightly points out is limited at about 200 million. Maybe there is a case here for Indian entrepreneurs in the social web space to learn from their Chinese counterparts – Ren Ren and Sina Weibo.
E-Commerce Potential In India
Mahesh believes that the conversion factor (doing a product research and then going ahead to buy it online) in Indian e-commerce suffers because the process involved in carrying out a transaction is cumbersome. He sights reasons such as an OTP (One Time Password) as turn-offs for consumers who wish to perform online transactions.
Mahesh, the former country head of Channel V, widely credited with turning the ailing channel’s fortunes around, believes that the growth of the e-commerce industry in India, which promises to be a $1.2 trillion dollar opportunity in 2013, will only see the light at the end of the tunnel when mobile e-commerce finds a simpler method of transaction where the seller doesn’t have to pay a hefty transaction fees to the telecommunication companies.
Despite the recent success of Flipkart, Mahesh points out that the Indian e-commerce start-ups need to stop copying US business models if they are to find any success in the long run.
The Start-Up Culture In India
Being a college-drop-out-success-story himself, Mahesh emphasizes the need for inculcating a start-up mindset in youngsters. Not a big fan of the IITs and IIMs, Mahesh feels that if parents in India would just let their children take control of their careers, then the Indian start-up culture can surely produce more Mahesh Murthy and Bharati Jacobs. Forcing children to study still eternity and break into Ivy League colleges to guarantee a fat paycheck is not his idea of an ideal entrepreneurial society.
The start-up culture in India is on the rise.
This Co-Founder of Geodesic believes that the times are changing and the next generation of Indian entrepreneurs are likely to start companies that make a difference.
IITs and IIMs are factories for producing employees. We don’t have factories for producing employers!
The Art Of Entrepreneurship
This is the endearing part about Mahesh Murthy.
Mahesh is a successful VC, make no mistake about it. He is the Managing Partner at Seedfund and a Founder and Principal at Passionfund. Some of his most notable investments include Webdunia, Doolally, Carwale, Vaatsalya and RedBus and yet in a widely cited presentation on Slideshare he refers to VCs as the second best option for raising funds. The best option, he honestly accepts are customers. He wants Indian entrepreneurs to build profitable companies from the ground up with or without VC support. Now, how many Indian VCs do that?
He also endorses the view that learning by failing is the best approach to the entrepreneurial journey and in a market where a new start-up is born every second day, creating companies that are truly worth a billion dollar valuation might be a difficult proposition now but not an improbable one, a few years down the line.
Check out this free-wheeling interview in which Mahesh Murthy tells Dazeinfo exactly how he feels about the Indian start-up scene and the idea of entrepreneurship in India.
Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has managed to beat Industry prediction on third-quarter revenue with a negligible margin as the search giant announced its Q3, 2013 earnings report on Thursday, October 17, 2013. The company reported $14.9 billion as revenue for Q3, 2013, up by 12% compared to the third quarter of 2012. The revenue attainment resulted in $2.97 billion in net income, up from $2.18 billion in same quarter of last year.
“Google had another strong quarter with $14.9 billion in revenue and great product progress,” Larry Page, Google’s CEO, said in a statement. “We are closing in on our goal of a beautiful, simple, and intuitive experience regardless of your device.”
The major highlights of Google’s earnings Q3, 2013:
$14.89 billion in revenues in Q3, 2013
Operating income increase to 23% of revenue, from 21% a year ago.
Google-owned sites contributed $9.39 billion, or 68 percent of total Google revenues, with Google Network bringing in $3.15 billion and “other” a total of $1.23 billion.
56 percent of Google revenues originated from countries other than the U.S.
Google now has cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities totaling $56.52 billion.
Earnings Per Share of $8.75, up from $6.53 last year
Motorola Mobility Performance Disappointed
The bad part of such overwhelming performance came in the form of Motorola Mobility – a company that Google acquired in 2012 for $12.5 billion. The revenue of Motorola Mobility declined to $1.18 billion in Q3, 2013 from $1.78 billion during the same period in 2012. By contributing mere 8% to Google’s total revenue, Motorola Mobility posted loss of $248 million in Q3, 2013.
Online Publishers Must Be Worried?
The interesting fact of the complete report remained the growth in Cost-Per-Click (CPC) that has a significant impact on Google’s revenue every quarter. The number of paid clicks, though, went up by 26% over a year, decline in Cost-Per-Click (CPC) continued and it dived down by 8% compared to Q3, 2012. In last quarter, the company registered the decline of 4% in CPC. This can attract direct impact on publishers’ earnings, which is pegged to Google CPC. As CPC continues to fall, majority of online publishers could face nearly 6% – 8% in their total earnings from Google Adsense.
The low CPC indicates the growing competition in Online advertising market for Google. Emergence of multiple local advertising networks and social media – especially Facebook – has forced Google to offer its advertising inventory at reduced 8% price.
Increasing website traffic is an indirect sign of growth of any online company or brand. Referral traffic is most valued as it sends interested readers and qualified potential customers to your site and helps in boosting SEO ranking. Therefore, conversion rate in referral traffic is higher than direct and search generated traffic. Social media sites play a massive role in driving referral traffic to a website and social marketers must make an intelligent move to ensure the highest ROI to their client in form of referral traffic.
According to a report released by Shareholic, based on data collected from 200,000 publishers with more than 250 Million unique monthly visitors, Pinterest out-casted rest of social media sites with 66.52% increase in generating traffic for websites over a year. However, with 10.37% share, social media titan Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) maintains its top spot by sending the maximum number of visitors to websites in September 2013. Facebook , Micro-bogging specialist Twitter and image-network Pinterest collectively accounted for 15.22% of overall referral traffic in September 2013. In last one year share of each of them in traffic referrals increased by more than 50%; Facebook grew by 58.1%, Twitter by 54.12% and Pinterest by 66.52%. Pinterest scaled up its referral traffic growth due to introduction of ”Promoted pins”, which blends in seamlessly with rest of pins and encourage users to follow the brand. The similar magic was created by “Promoted posts” and “Promoted Tweets” that resulted in growth of referral traffic share for Facebook and Twitter.
StumbleUpon And Reddit Disappointed
YouTube, 2nd largest search engine after Google Inc. (GOOG), increased its share in referral traffic by 52.86% between Sept’12-Sept’13. With increasing demand for video content, YouTube is likely to scale up its share further in driving traffic to websites. Professional network LinkedIn also registered positive growth of 34.71% in Referral traffic share. Influencers program, “LinkedIn Today” has attracted many users and thereby indirectly contributed to increase in referral growth rate.
Unlike Social networking sites, social bookmarking sites seem to loosing traction; StumbleUpon, Once a leader of referral traffic that enables users to browse interesting content, declined in its growth rate by 27.47% in last 1 year. Its recent acquisition of “5by”- a video network start-up – hasn’t helped it much to improve referral traffic growth index. However, with most of information seekers shifting towards video contents, StumbleUpon is apparently to grow in referral rates in future. The faith was no different for another social bookmarking player Reddit that too faced declination in growth rate of referral traffic by 35.16%. Although Reddit has rolled out few changes in its interface and it attracts 4.6 Billion page views, 70 million unique visitors every month, progress in Referral traffic growth rate is disappointing.
Google Plus Yet To Make A Mark In The Race,Future Trends!
Google Plus – a social media arm of Search giant, was surprisingly failed to secure a position amongts leading sources for referral traffic; People are finding it no charm in discussing and debating the same activities and topics on two networks, which is causing low-engagement and referral traffic for Google+. The very discouraging performance is also keeping brands away from Google+. In spite of its strong efforts to emphasis importance of building an audience on Google Plus platform (answers questions and creates video content via hangouts) to increase search rankings, its share in referral traffic was disappointing (under 7%).
