Cloud Computing: When to Use it; When Not To

There's an old set of tradeoffs between buying services or "doing it yourself," where it comes to computing or communications infrastructure. Hosted VoIP virtually always makes more sense than buying systems for a smaller business. But premises-based solutions typically are more economical for large enterprises.

Something of the same argument can be when companies or people choose between cloud computing services and building their own data centers. Obviously, large enterprises often justify building their own data centers. Others might be able to justify renting space in somebody else's data center. Smaller organizations might well find that renting computing cycles is the better choice.

Google Sr. Manager, Production Network Engineering and Architecture at Google argues that the decision is highly dependent on duty cycle. Steady, predictable loads, especially at a high rate of utilization, will tip economics in favor of self-operated or co-located facilities. Highly-variable demand, and low volume, will tend to tip the economics in favor of a cloud computing solution.

"Think of it as taking a taxi vs. buying a car to make a trip between San Francisco and Palo Alto," says Gill. "If you only make the trip once a quarter, it is cheaper to take a taxi." But "if you make the trip every day, then you are better off buying a car."

"The difference is the duty cycle. If you are running infrastructure with a duty cycle of 100 percent, it may make sense to run in-house," says Gill. The detailed assumptions and analysis are here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgWfa8v6EGzjdElXQVFzU1plSXdEQmVHZ3M5YjlsNVE&hl=en&authkey=CM_RzL0E#gid=0

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Smartphone Application Market Bigger than Mobile Ad Market?

The worldwide smartphone applications market grew more than $2.2 billion dollars within the first six months of 2010. At that rate, mobile app store sales volume is bigger than all mobile advertising revenues.

Mobile application download numbers reached a total of 3.8 billion in only 6 months, compared to 3.1 billion in 2009.

The Smartphone Application Market has Reached more than 2.2 Billion Dollars in The First Half of 2010

Get Double Battery Life On Any HTC Smartphone

There are lots of practical things one can do to reduce battery demand on any smartphone, such as turning off radios that aren't being used (Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, for example) or reducing the frequency of updates and notifications for any service with update processes.

This is the most interesting tip I've run into: a cycling process that appears to condition the battery. I'm running it now and it takes 10 hours. Some say it will double battery life.

1) Turn your device on and charge the device for 8 hours or more
2) Unplug the device and Turn the phone off and charge for 1 hour
3) Unplug the device Turn on, wait 2 minutes and turn off and charge for another hour.

HOW TO: Get Double Battery Life On Any HTC Smartphone | LucaFiligheddu.com

Top 5 Mobile Advertising Trends To Watch

If you look at the base of mobile users, text messaging will still be the channel that reaches the most people.
For that reason, mobile marketing remains anchored by use of text messaging. The texting audience is large and still growing, and text messaging remains the "lowest common denominator." Virtually all mobile phones can receive and send text messages.

The global market for ad support of mobile messaging will reach nearly $12 billion in 2011, up from about $1.5 billion in 2006, according to eMarketer.

But it is video and rich media which is the more-glamorous of the channels at the moment.

The number of mobile video viewers in the United States will grow nearly 30 percent in 2010 to reach 23.9 million, according to eMarketer, representing a reach of about 7.7 percent of the total U.S. population and just under 10 percent of mobile phone users. Those numbers are set to double by 2013 and increase still further in 2014.

By 2013, some even believe that video will be so widely adopted that it will be a significant driver of mobile data usage, representing an estimated 66 percent of mobile traffic, Cisco forecasts.

Marketing and advertising always follows end user engagement, so it is a safe bet video-based and rich media mobile advertising and marketing will continue to grow.

With video taking an increasingly important role in the mobile market, advertisers should keep their eyes open for opportunities to try out new advertising options.

Top 5 Mobile Advertising Trends To Watch

Top 5 Mobile Commerce Trends for 2010

Comparison shopping, mobile ticketing, banking, shopping and marketing are the five trends most in evidence in the mobile commerce business, Samsung suggests.

By 2015, it’s estimated that shoppers from around the world will spend about $119 billion on goods and services bought using their mobile phones, according to a study by ABI Research.

In the United States alone, mobile shopping rose from $396 million in 2008 to $1.2 billion in 2009, and mobile campaign spending also increased by 25 percent to 30 percent over the past year, with companies spending about $313 million.

Top 5 Mobile Commerce Trends for 2010

People Text All Day Long, U.K. Survey Finds

New research from Ofcom, the U.K. regulator, shows that people use text communications throughout the day.
Text communications and voice communications both made up a fair proportion of media activity during the daytime, but both were less popular in the evenings. However, after the end of television peak time, text communications accounted for a similar proportion of media activity as in daytime.

What U.K. Consumers Do With Their Time

Not that U.S. consumers and U.K. consumers have behavior patterns that are identical, but new research from Ofcom, the U.K. regulator, indicates that media usage in highest in the evening. No surprise there. The findings also suggest that multitasking falls off during the primetime TV viewing hours.