Indicator Selection Ring Missing in Some Fields in Safari 3 Beta on Mac

  Working
 Missing.  (Can you tell which field is selected?)

In the new Safari 3.0+ Beta on Mac OS X, the blue indicator ring that usually appears around activated text input fields are missing.  The screenshot above is from Yahoo! Mail.

Being used to the standard blue selection rings around activated fields, make it particularly difficult to decipher quickly which one is activated.

In fact, can you tell which field is selected in the screenshot above?

News Organizations and Online Advertising

Media organizations in general are under increasing pressure. They are facing the reality of being a 20th century business in the 21st century digitally connected world. CPM and Nielson viewer index ratings are becoming increasingly questioned for their lack of true accountability. And Cost-per-click, stickiness, and site optimization are becoming the new language in media organizations.

News organizations in particular are seeing not only their subscription base plummeting, but also their viewers. So many news media networks like CNN and the New York Times are finding themselves paying and piggybacking onto tragic events to draw in crowds of viewers. They are purchasing search engine adwords (keywords) for such events as the Virginia Tech shootings and linking them to their newly created up-to-date blogs.

Some in the industry are disgusted by this trend, calling it "the entertainment business" and exploitation of national events, others call it reality and a necessity to remain alive.

What do you think?

Adobe Apollo: What it Means for Marketing & Business

Adobe Apollo could essentially make it faster, easier, and more efficient for companies to reach and communicate more with its consumers. It adds another layer to the touch-points of reaching consumers and to develop long-term (CRM) connections.

Imagine an online distributor quickly writing a small app to track placed order. Without worry of platform, the consumer can simply download and view it on the computer and then beam to the cell phone. Immediate real time tracking data is displayed and even any urgent messages from the distributor pushed onto the applet. Moreover, contextual ads will also be fed into the applet which help both the business and the consumer (if the distributor chooses). 

Adobe's Apollo is the future for Computers & Marketing

Adobe's Apollo platform will revolutionize the software industry and also change online marketing as well. With Apollo you can "write once," and your software will work on all platforms (Mac, PC, Linux) and even on the cell phone.

But the reason why online marketing should take note is because of the fact that it uses vector based graphics that are fluid and dynamic. The graphics will look good on any size display and scale appropriately. Also, vectors are dynamic and not "hard coded" like a bitmap, which opens up the possibility of dynamic advertising.

A software developer can write a small little app once and distribute it over the internet for free for all platforms. While at the same time making money through little dynamic ads embedded into the his application.


People are talking about the next big thing for marketing is video ads..... The next next big thing is for ads on user generated applets.

PDF Printing is Fixed in Safari 3 for Mac OS X!

PDF Printing in Mac OS X is fixed with Safari 3.0 Beta!   Finally PDF Printing works like on Windows.  Now links in webpages are preserved when printing to PDF in Safari 3 Beta!

Try it yourself!

Thanks Apple!

Password Fields BROKEN in Safari 3.0+ Beta on Mac OS X

 Working Password Field

 Broken Password Field

The password fields in the new Safari 3.0 Beta for Mac OS X are broken.  They no longer display the Caps Lock indicator icon when Caps Lock is activated by they user.

Apple, could you please fix this?

Dyson to enter the Hand drying Market

Dyson will enter the hand drying appliance market with their AirBlade system soon.

Already famous for their vacuum technology that doesn't weaken, they hope they can bring their technologies over into the automated hand drying appliance world.

iTunes Online Music Store is now #3

The NPD Group has announced that a recent survey suggests that the iTunes Store is now the #3 music retailer in the United States.

iTunes grabbed about 10% market share, and is just behind BestBuy (13.8%) and Wal-Mart with 15.8% market share.   This is proving that selling something online, that may also be found for free, can actually work.  And iTunes is by no doubt the most successful and growing at an exponential rate.

Mac computer market-share DOUBLED!!!

USA Today reported recently that Mac market-share for personal computers in the United States is roughly 7.6% and has doubled!

Anybody, but people living underneath a rock, has had to have noticed more people carrying and buying Mac computers in the last few years.  And Apple's financial results each quarter proves that they are selling WAY more Macs.

And don't forget those very effective "I'm a Mac" commercials.  (It has the added benefit of also bringing lots of doubt about Windows Vista even if the viewer does not want a Mac).

"iTunes Plus" song tracks a Success!

iTunes Plus product extension was announced as a success by EMI Group, the current sole provider of DRM-free music.  This is big news for the online music companies and also to online e-commerce in general.  It signals that consumers are willing to pay for a premium for added-value features in the products they purchase online.

Currently iTunes Plus (DRM-free) are near perfect sound quality that sells for $1.29 per song track.  This compares to the lower quality (near CD quality) protected (has DRM) song tracks sold for $0.99.

NutriSystem Does it Again!

NutriSystem has another superb quarter (and is actually pretty successful at marketing to men) and ACTUALLY successful at getting REPEAT clients!  This is unheard of in the industry.

And of course they are spotlighted in numerous business journals as one of the best comeback stories, or best growth companies, or its CEO as the best entrepreneur.

But there's no doubt about it, they are doing phenomenally.  They are projected to overtake Weight Watchers, and I believe if they continue to do well (they will) they will buy Jenny Craig or Slim Fast in the future for their brand name.

Check out the stock performance which has skyrocketed under the direction and management of CEO Michael Hagan.

Microsoft Buys aQuantive for Behavioral Marketing

Behavioral marketing is the next big "context sensitive search ads."  That's why Microsoft bought aQuantive.   It is projected that by 2011, online advertising will reach over $11 billion, and behavioral ads will account for almost $7 billion.

And online marketing firms have been upgrading and buying better technologies to better and constantly track users to build-up a very precise psychographic profile.

Graduation + Job Time

School will be finished very soon now, and I have been searching and applying for jobs and internship positions in marketing, for quite some time.  (Job hunting is soo hard!!!)

So if you know of any potential opportunities please help a proactive college student out.  It would be a huge help that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Apple Trailers

The new page layout for the Apple.com trailers section does a disservice.  The new layout makes it harder to see the "just added" new movies (only displays them as images - no option for text).  Also have any of you noticed that they haven't been updated any of the movies lately?  Or just added one or two.

This is in stark contrast to Yahoo! Movies.  Yahoo! Movies has gotten SIGNIFICANTLY better and has also added QuickTime support for HD movie trailer previews.

Email Apple, and tell push them to update their movie trailer site.   (Less movies are actually delivered to Apple's FrontRow software - which is very sad).

Touch-screens could be on all Phones!

It looks like Steve Jobs' bet on touch-screens+cellphones may have been right all along.

"This new user interface will be like a tsunami, hitting an entire spectrum of devices," predicted Francis Lee, the chief executive of Synaptics Inc., a maker of touch sensors.

this is a quote from a recent news article on Yahoo! News.

iPhone: Biggest Launch EVER!

This just in....

The iPhone launch will be so big, that AT&T had to hire an ADDITIONAL 2,000 workers to handle all the anticipated people.

Push Marketing

Push marketing is all about the next generation in marketing and internet marketing.