Xperia X10 reviewed
I reviewed Sony Ericsson’s newest Android offering, the Xperia X10 in Emirates Business 24/7
“The moment you take the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 out of the box, you know you’re holding on to something expensive. With a smooth curvy back and excellent finish, the phone feels solid and fits well in your hands. In fact, it is a very good looking phone but that, of course, is not its only merit.”
Click here to read the rest of the review
Tags: android, emirates business, review, sony ericcson, x10, xperiaRead More
The idea of ‘Relevant’ Social networks
Robert Scoble just put up a long and detailed post about the idea of ‘Malleable’ social graphs and minimobs. A malleable social graph is one that “changes based on conditions you set in motion.” Providing a number of examples Scoble talks about how an ideal malleable social graph would change based on where we are, what we’re doing or what we believe. And this element of Relevance is exactly what Facebook and Twitter have been lacking so far.
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Geo-Networking as the next step in Social Networks
I discuss Geo-Networking, Location Based Networking and FourSquare in an Opinion Piece in Emirates Business 24/7
“…’social’ networks were making us anything but social, at least in the traditional definition of the word. However, the advent of geo-networking or location-based networking looks to change that with services that let users interact based on their physical location at a given time.”
Read the entire article on the Emirates Business 24/7 website
Tags: emirates business, facebook, foursquare, geonetworking, location based networking, social networksRead More
Blackberry’s official Twitter application (beta) reviewed
I reviewed Blackberry’s official Twitter application – which is in beta – in Emirates Business 24/7
Click the image to see the full review.
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Socialising with Socialize
It was about this time last year I was struggling to find a topic for my dissertation, a topic that would be academically acceptable and still not make me want to drill a hole in my brain. Being the Social Media junkie I had become – talking about it, on it – meant I had to incorporate some element of it in my dissertation. Little did I know that my topic of measurement and monitoring of Social Media would get approved.
I decided to come home to Dubai to get involved with the Social Media scene here for two reasons; to witness the evolution of Social Media in the Middle East, and for my mom’s home-made food. More so for the latter.
In the few months I spent researching and covering the local Social Media market, I found there were more Social Media “Experts” than there were genuine enthusiasts. These “gurus” – who claimed perfect knowledge of what is still an imperfect and developing discipline – came across as nothing more than shady snake-oil salesmen. But things are not as dark and gloomy as I may have painted them so far. I did come across marketers with a strong foothold in and a flair for, Social Media – the likes of Abha Malpani, Reuven Proenca, Mita Srinivasan, Akanksha Goel, Baher Al Hakim and Sanjive Khosla.
Coming back to Akanksha Goel – from the very first tweets I saw of hers, I realised we were on the same page when it came to Social Media. She shared the same passion (more like borderline obsession) that I had, and expressed it in ways similar to I did. This is why it didn’t come as a shock when she came up with the concept of “Socialize”, a social media training house – a name and a project I had secretly considered myself but not given much thought to it. She happened to mention about Socialize on Facebook (where else would the Social Media geek do it) and I didn’t take too long to send her an email about it. On meeting her I realised that the idea behind Socialize was not to do with what most Social Media “experts” were offering – running your Social Media campaign for the business without their involvement – but to sit down with companies, understand their USP and personal challenges and help them enter the Social Media space. Not a lot of time passed before we were colleagues and were working on helping businesses do exactly that.
Here at Socialize, we really believe in the power of engagive marketing. We believe its time businesses started talking with consumers rather than speaking to them. While most experts will restrict Social Media to Facebook and Twitter with some video production for YouTube thrown in, we believe Social Media is tool-agnostic. It’s not just about having the technical expertise to use the various tools, it’s about understanding the reasoning behind it. Akanksha and I both believe that social is a layer which each company’s marketing plan must possess and that is the attitude we want to help companies adopt. At Socialize, we are trying to change mind-sets of and help them commit to the though process of Social Media marketing.
Tags: social media, socialize, storyRead More
Google’s hard fall reminds us of how big it really is
Here I am, blogging live from the great Gmail crash of September 2009. Every single group column in my Tweetdeck window is filled with tweets about Gmail. It took about 10 minutes for ‘Gmail’ to become Trending topic #1 on Twitter. The number of tweets posted in those 10 minutes is just shy of 24000, and this is of course only the first batch of people who happened to be online when Gmail went down. I would think the number of ‘Gmail tweets/minute’ is likely to go up.
With all this going on, I can’t help but wonder Twitter really has a long road ahead of it if it wants to become the pulse of the planet. And with Google Wave on the horizon, things aren’t likely to get any easier.
(Image via @holaphil)
Tags: fail, gmail, google, twitterRead More
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