Where to, smartphone manufacturer?

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At the moment the battle is mainly driven by Apple and Samsung. Just watch this new TVC from Samsung USA. It seems to be that the top five are just observing each other and nobody of them wants to make the “first move” before Apple has released the new iPhone 5. I believe this “strategy” is quite dangerous as Cupertino has no hurry, as last weeks New York City “Educational Event” has shown that they have enough trending topics to keep their pacemaker status. Let´s watch out!

(c) Samsung Mobile USA

How to make choosing easier?

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How many choices did you make every day? How many in a week? Interesting lecture from Sheena Iyengar. Watch it to gain insight of her survey and also to know how many the average CEO has to make.

A better way to handle choice overload and more.

(c) TED

Facebook Timeline – another perspective!

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First of all: Facebook Timeline is a great new functionality which I didn´t expected it to be. Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg! When it was announced a few weeks ago I first thought it is just about to show my whole life in one piece and I honestly dislike that approach in case of (data) privacy.

After playing around with the new options I have to reconsider my opinion. The new profile option “Timeline” gives you a more advanced toolbox of managing your status update, posted links, user generated content. Especially when you lost the overview of your posts after a membership of 3-4 years, it could be necessary to review your own history. In the old version without “timeline” it´s so tough to manage your profile and archive because you honestly never go back than more of 15-20 older posts.

Right now you can make up your Facebook profile “room” to have it nice and tidy. You can easily ”clean-up” your profile and keep it really updated.

I am positively surprised and appreciate the new Facebook.

The empire strikes back!

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Google´s Icecream Sandwich, Apple´s iOS 5.0 and Microsoft Windows Phone that is what we´ve got so far.

But I guess we can expect some great developments from Redmond as pressure is increasing onto MS Corp. mobile business. WP 7GA was just recently announced and Mango, Tango and Apollo will follow to sharpen the mobile footprint of the company.

The ecosystem develops further and further, not only by the cloud and cloud services. The whole integrated/connected solution. Anytime. Anywhere. And most of the market players don´t know tomorrows competition. Would it be Facebook? Would it be Amazon? Yesterday was the cloud. Tomorrow it will be the television. Entering the living rooms. But only the next move.

All your x-mas gifts ready?

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Today: smart x-mas sale level three. After Apple is pushing x-mas sales so far in two directions by iPhone 4s and iPad 2 messages into several consumer touchpoints it seems to be that Apple is introducing today the major x-mas product No. 3: the MacBook Air.

So iPhone, iPad and MacBookAir are making it´s way under the christmas tree.

Whilst Microsoft and Nokia are pushing Windows Phone and the Lumia 800. The timing of Googorola is also quite smart to introduce the new Motorola RAZR exactly for the x-mas sales period. In my eyes a really smart move.

I guess this is the start for a very though battle in 2012 for these kind of products. I promise you a new device and manufacturer ranking. Happy consumers – guaranteed!

MacBook Air

No smart x-mas sale?

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Hello, consumer electronics – where is this years christmas sale? We are writing the 29th November 2011.

My touchpoints with smartphone or netco´s christmas sales are short and mainly driven by one manufacturer: I have seen the Apple iPhone 4s TV commercial several times (up to 6 times), introducing the new great camera or alternatively the SIRI feature. Same with Online – Apple E-Mails me to buy the 4s or the iPad 2 as X-Mas-Gifts (up to 4 times). And eCommerce? Well, Apple Store introduces one big shopping day for the 25th November 2011. With discount up to 91 Euros (see older article). No matter, if I was thinking about buying new devices for myself or as a christmas gift: beside Apple there was only one Microsoft Live E-Mail Newsletter to myself to introduce the new Mango OS with Nokia Lumia 800, which was honestly message overloaded and the new Amazon.com Kindle TV Commercial to buy the new device for 99 Euro.

No more Tablet-PC offers, no more new smartphones for Santa Claus & Co.? Maybe we will see great x-mas campaigns shortly.

As far as I have learned and read from latest market research: the impulse-shopper is more or less dead in year 2011. Good job, Cupertino: I guess you guys have done some well done front loading.

So, what do we have? Smart shoppers, smart phones – but more or less no smart x-mas sales.

iMessage: “What is next?”

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iPad 3 and iPhone 5 rumors are already out there. I guess Foxconn and Pegatron are already preparing themselves for the official launch, even after Apple has increased its order for X-Mas/Q4 sales – especially on iPhone 4s largely. Despite the fact that some market players have corrected their sales forecast with less sold units due to the economic downstream in some regions. Some experts have said that Apple could not continue their smartphone success story, as Android´s market position is getting stronger and stronger. Honestly: it seems to be that Apple is probably not the world´s best smartphone, but it´s beloved user-friendly eco-systems still drives the highest profit margins to Cupertino. Which was a 40,3% in this Q4 in Apple´s fiscal year 2011.

One is enough, two is too much, three is dangerous!

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Facebook, Twitter, Google+? Is three at least one too much?

Who is next? Who would die? Where is it going the social network eco-system?

1st = as long as there was only one, the world was easy to handle for all of us users. Everybody was happy just to increase fans & followers and to post user generated content or links, vids and stuff

2nd = after a little education, getting common and increased functionality knowledge consumers intent to have multiple accounts for different activities in their life (e.g. private, business, fake, junk and testing/more)

3rd = with more (cross)-related-Apps running on those social media plattforms for extended services such as foursquare, yipit, instagram, rating functions and more the complexity of handling your posts, status and contents starts to driving you nuts. Every single one of them! And that is only your part of the story and your perspective. How to handle this on different accounts simultaneously?

Beside all that you will never find all your contacts on one of these platforms. Maybe nearly all on Facebook, but you still have people who are reluctant and unconvinced to join this garden party. So at the end you still need your Phonebook/Outlook/Mac contacts database to ensure interaction with all your social contacts via Phone and Mail. And this shows as long as potential competitor Google+ will not have critical mass of users combined with permanent/regular user interaction Facebook will still be the No.1 and the major place to be! Even if you dislike the forthcoming Timeline-Feature, as I do. But just for a single moment, just a twinkle in the eye: what is next? Intelligent Search with recommendations that are cross-checked and combined with your Friends ratings and tailor made for you? The timeline function – everything compressed in a story of your life? Your individual One-click online Store of your favourite brands? TV, Books and Games online based on your likes? Woo-hoo.

And: will the giant Microsoft get the job done? Sync/Cloud, mobile OS and Social Media? Imagine: from about 95% of every online connections that have been operated with Microsoft Windows OS a few years ago to nearly under 50% this year. Every second internet connection to the internet is without Windows OS. Forecast: still decreasing. Thank you, smartphones and tablets.

All you Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards – where do you follow in the future?