Source: Mashable.com  Facebook snapped up the hugely popular photo-sharing app Instagram Monday, for roughly $1 billion in a combination of cash and stock. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the acquisition in a post on his Facebook Timeline Monday. The sale is expected to close later this quarter, and will bring the nine-person staff of Instagram to the social network. “For years, we’ve focused on building the best experience...

The year 2011 is showing great signs of retail growth due to solid Black Friday sales. Shoppers with pent up demand are now looking to open their checkbooks this holiday season and make up for the past few years of shying away from making discretionary purchases. However, 2012 will be a challenging year for inventors and retailers alike. When times are tough, people tend to stay close to home and gravitate towards things that are familiar...

June 19, 2011 by Harish Kotadia, Ph.D. One year ago (June 15th, 2010 to be precise), I wrote a post titled Social Media: The New Front End of CRM System in which I highlighted that in spite of undergoing a fascinating technological transformation over the last decade, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems essentially record transactional information using pre-determined fields on the screen (front-end) and store that...

Should people be disciplined for harassing Facebook posts? If so, where do you feel the discipline authority should reside? At school? At work? At home? Culpable negligence has some profound implications and I think it’s getting way out of hand! Author: John Wind, a Martin County resident, is a marketing executive in the telecommunications, digital media and cloud computing industries. News Posted September 17, 2011 at 4 a.m. TC...

I am constantly asked by telecom professionals “John, the telecom landscape is really changing but, where is it headed”? So, I thought I would share of few of my view points here: While not a new concept but one that is finally ready for primetime… As Apple demonstrated with their FaceTime app on the IOS 4 with AT&T, they slipped a communication app that uses the data network right under AT&T’s nose so to...

Did you know that a large percentage of the millions of products that are sold on the Internet everyday are sold through affiliate networks? That’s right. You know that banner ad you clicked on for more information? That was likely an affiliate partner that pays to have that ad there and “gets paid” on a performance basis (a commission if you buy or take whatever action the merchant was looking for). I can create a...

1. Social media is an important SEO tool. Links from social media are playing an increasingly important role in your site’s search position. Since 80% of consumer purchases start with search, this reason alone is a good argument for embracing social media. 2. Your customers expect you to be social. 60% of Americans spend time on a social network at least once a week. YouTube reaches 36% of all business decision makers, more than...

Facebook has 610,736,920 MEMBER PROFILES. That’s one for every ELEVEN people on the planet. Facebook has 610,736,920 MEMBER PROFILES. That’s one for every ELEVEN people on the planet. Based on page views and users, Facebook is the NO. 2 site in the U.S., behind Google and ahead of YouTube and Yahoo. EVERY 60 SECONDS ON FACEBOOK, USERS send 230,000 messages, update95,000 statuses, write 80,000 wall...