Social media growth is being fueled by mobile users over the age of 55

Social networks and blogs have risen in popularity in mainstream America, now accounting for nearly one in every four minutes spent online. According to Nielsen, 23 percent of time spent online by Americans is now devoted to social networks with Facebook being the most popular. Over 53 billion total minutes were spent on Facebook by Americans in May 2011 alone. More time is spent on Facebook now than any other website in existence. Nielsen study

Not surprisingly, 40 percent of social media users access content from their mobile phone, up drastically in a short few years with credit due not just to the social networks but to the app developers and smartphone devices that make it fast and simple to use social media via mobile. Nielsen also reports, that people active in social networks are 12 percent more likely than the average web user to shop online, with a reported 70 percent of social networkers reporting that they shop online.

Social media growth is being fueled by mobile users over the age of 55

Dan York on How IPv6 Will "Kill Telecom"

Dan York talks about how IPv6 will "kill telecom."

Disruptive Telephony

Cloud-Based Services Challenge the Channel

One of the challenges Aiden Callaly, MX Sweep VP has to deal with is a change in the economics of the channel partner and distributor business. Decades ago, many firms that sold information technology products could make a reasonable living selling hardware and software.


These days, margins for software licenses and equipment have plummeted.  The typical way of describing the change is that voice services firms used to make their money on “moves adds and changes.” Software distributors used to make their money selling software licenses on a “per seat” basis. Computer networking firms used to build their businesses around gear that broke, needed upgraded and maintenance.



These days, as more features move to a cloud-based or hosted format, the challenge is how to convince partners that they actually can make a living selling different products in a new way. “Many aren’t sure a couple of bucks a month is a good business,” says Callaly. But profit margins for partners selling MX Sweep security products are in the 25 percent to 30 percent range, he says.



Right now, the buyers for cloud-based services largely are small and mid-sized businesses, the traditional “sweet spot” for channel partner sales. And, like it or not, most channel partners will have to adapt. As the economics of the software, communications and computing business change, it is possible the shape and composition of the channel also will change.

CXM Automates Call Center Agent Measurement, Training Tasks

If you assume managing an inbound or outbound call center is difficult, you’d be right. Turnover tends to be high and it can be difficult to measure agent performance or provide training on a consistent and timely basis. End user satisfaction is difficult to attain, much less measure. And many of the common metrics do not necessarily equate to customer satisfaction.

“We have discovered that average wait time doesn’t equal happy customers,” says Justin. O’Brian, CXM Recording and Quality Monitoring VP. So CXM has built software for call center managers, especially at smaller and mid-sized businesses, to better measure performance, manage in-process calls and then use interactions for training of other agents. But Zappos and Time Warner Cable are among larger enterprises that use CXM software.

Data Foundry Opens "Texas 1" Data Center in Austin, Texas

Data Foundry has opened its "Texas 1" 250,000 square foot data center, offering 130,000 square feet of facilities initially. Texas 1 offers secure colocation and disaster recovery solutions, including dedicated worksite recovery space. Its design includes independent and diverse power, water and network feeds with no single point of failure within any of these systems, the company says.

The site’s fully redundant power is fed from two independent substations with a dedicated feed enclosed in an end-to-end, concrete encased duct bank, a rare feature for data centers, says Shane Menking, Data Foundry president.




Data Foundry opens Texas 1

Google Docs Improves Collaboration with Comment-Only Permissions

Google Docs has announced a new sharing option to give people comment-only access to documents. Previously, the only options were "Can view" or "Can edit."

With the "Can comment" option, document authors can now allow others to enter feedback on a document without being able to change the document itself.

Here's how I plan to use that feature. I have found, working with too little time and too much content change, that I need a simple "wiki" style web link where anybody can access the latest version of a speaker program, which is something I seem to find myself doing more of.

Up to this point, I have made a document, essentially a program with speakers and topics, available for viewing only, so people always will know how a program line-up has changed, without having to send out all sorts of notifications to everybody who might need to know about the changes.

But that format also does not allow for me to conveniently view, and let others view, helpful suggestions about timing, format, subjects and others who should be invited to speak. With the new feature, I can capture all of that in one place, and propagate the suggestions or comments, in a convenient way. It's very helpful.

Google Docs Improves Collaboration with Comment-Only Permissions

There is an iPad Market, "Tablet Market" Has to be Created

So far, one might argue there is not an actual "tablet" market, but only an "iPad" market.

RBC Capital's Mike Abramsky sponsored a survey conducted by ChangeWave that found 85 percent of all tablet buyers plan to buy the iPad.

That doesn't mean an actual "tablet market" will fail to develop, just that it hasn't really emerged, so far. That isn't the case in the smart phone market, where Apple is a major contestant, but not the only significant competitor in a broader "smartphone market."

RBC Capital's Mike Abramsky has raised his fourth quarter iPhone and iPad estimates based on the results of a survey of 2,200 potential buyers. The survey, conducted in August by ChangeWave research, showed what Abramsky called "unprecedented iPhone 5 demand and strong back-to-school iPad buying intentions."

Abramsky says 31 percent of those surveyed said they were "very or somewhat likely" to buy the iPhone 5, significantly exceeding pre-launch iPhone 4 demand (25 percent).

With the iPhone 4 nearly 15 months old, 66 percent of existing iPhone users are very likely or somewhat likely to buy the iPhone 5.

About 54 percent of surveyed Sprint subscribers and 53 percent of surveyed T-Mobile subscribers say they are "significantly likely" or "somewhat more likely" to buy the iPhone, if available.

'Unprecedented' demand for Apple's iPhone 5