iPhone and iPad Apps Gone Free – June 28 | iOSnoops

 

Looking to fill up your iPhone or iPad with free apps? Great deals are constantly popping up in the App Store, and here are 60 iOS apps that are now free.

This apps gone free alert includes Codename Cobra, Mole Kingdom, Bullistic Unleashed, Sea Stars, Aurum Blade, Doodle Movie Challenge, Jurassic Park 1, Winter Pop, Hero Wars, Dino Rush, and many others.

Remember, prices can change quickly and without notice, these apps may not be free anymore when you read this post. For the latest app deals, check out our Real-Time Deals section, as well as our App Charts and Top 5 Matrix. You can also check out our Apps Gone Free section, as many free apps uncovered over the last couple of days are still free today.

via iPhone and iPad Apps Gone Free – June 28 | iOSnoops. 

 

 

The Best Android Apps of 2012 So Far

 

Okay, okay – retrospective “best of” pieces are sometimes best delivered with a 12-month time-frame in mind. But we’ve had so many Android apps hit our radar in the year to date, we thought the 6-month (ish) mark would be a good time to revisit some of the best and notable apps to hit Google’s mobile operating system so far in 2012.

Some of the apps we’ve covered on Android this year are completely new to any platform – be it from young startups or work-at-home freelancers. Others are from well-established tech firms that had either ignored Android completely, or were launching a new app.

Without further ado, here’s our pick of the Android bunch in 2012. So far…

 

via The Best Android Apps of 2012 So Far.

Pinterest for Android to launch at Google I/O? | Ubergizmo

Will you be making your way to Google I/O this year? If you have answered in the affirmative, then do remember to download your Google I/O Conference Companion App from the Play Store to find your way around, and who knows, we might even have the Android Jelly Bean announcement made there as well? Yet another rumor has also cropped up, which is Pinterest for Android that was spotted in the Google I/O app sandbox, where it clearly states “Now available for Android”. You can check out the rather revealing screenshot from the I/O app on the right. It would seem that should the news break concerning Pinterest for Android, we will bring such word to you as soon as possible. As with many things in life, patience is a virtue, so waiting for Google I/O to pass us might be difficult, but no way is it impossible.

via Pinterest for Android to launch at Google I/O? | Ubergizmo.

7 Deadly Social Media Posting Sins You Need To Avoid | Social Media Today

A lot of businesses are posting day after day, with absolutely no idea that they are publishing the worst kinds of posts on their social pages. These posts make people cringe, drive fans away or worse – they bore people to death.

If your business is guilty of one of these 7 deadly sins of social media posting, then you need to correct it now!

#1: Lusting To Sell More To Your Fans

If nearly all of your posts try to sell your fans something, then you’re guilty of lusting after their money. You’re also guilty of making the #1 mistake in social media – direct selling, instead of letting your reputation, knowledge and community sell for you. If your Facebook, Twitter and blog pages are strewn with sales talk, get rid of it all right now!

#2: Being Gluttonous About Information

Most social marketers spend their days working to collect or encourage interaction on their pages. This could involve all sorts of marketing tricks, in a desperate attempt to get some comments, likes or shares. Don’t be gluttonous about information – the more you give, the more you’ll receive. Help people, teach people, comment lots and lots!

#3: Having a Greedy Attitude About Who You Are

You must have noticed that the businesses that do really well with social media, are the ones that highlight the people that run their platforms. It’s far more interesting listening to Greg than it is reading something from a stationary company. Don’t be greedy about who you are, you are your business – so share your personality with your fans.

#4: Moving Like a Sloth on Your Posting Plan

A torrid sin in social media posting, is posting too little. Fans like to visit your page each day and see something new there, even if it’s something small. If you’re like a sloth when it comes to strategies and plan implementation, then you need to change your ways – or your social media sites will go one way – down.

#5: The Wrath of The Online Business Guru

It’s nice to be respected in your field, but don’t forget to be humble about it. Being overtly negative in your posts, or overly hostile to an incredibly angry commenter – is not going to elevate you in the eyes of your fans. Settle disputes by email, or at least calm the person down with promises of free samples, incentives and customer service.

#6: Envious of Other Pages Resulting in Copycat Syndrome

If your competitor is doing something great and you feel compelled to copy them all the time, keep in mind that it takes a lot of resources to make an idea work. You could be driving away the fans you have, for the sake of posting something you ‘think’ will work. Find what works for you, use your analytics systems and test out your own campaign.

#7: Too Proud to Ask For Help

No business is an island – I say it all the time. In social media, it takes a community to make a page work, so don’t be too proud to ask them for help. After all, they use your page as well. Get ideas, knowledge and help from your pool of fans, and improve your pages the old fashioned way.

Do you know of another deadly social media posting sin, that small business owners need to avoid? Tell me about it here!

via 7 Deadly Social Media Posting Sins You Need To Avoid | Social Media Today.

Japan’s Funniest Tech Commercials – Slideshow from PCMag.com

 

In Japan, the “Mad” in Mad men seems to come more from the magazine than the avenue. Japanese television commercials veer from the frantically funny to the fantastically flummoxing, and this sensibility suits no industry perhaps as well as it does tech.

While there are certainly memorable spots in the United States, they lack the flair of their Japanese counterparts. Bunny-suited lab techs dancing to Wild Cherry might be mildly amusing but they’re certainly not hilarious or innovative. Even the commercials that came with hype (and a $300 million price tag) like the Jerry Seinfeld spots for Windows Vista, fall far short of funny. In the first one, Seinfeld struggles in a sneaker shop to not just get Gates into “the Conquistador”, but to make the entire bit (which seems to go on for just as long as it used to take Vista to start up) work.

And as for artistry, we’re sometimes treated to commercials by haute auteurs Wes Anderson and Spike Jonze, but their work for the Japanese market reads a little truer to their aesthetic than their spots here.

Flip through the story to judge for yourself and to see Brad Pitt, Quentin Tarantino, and, oh yeah, some technology in action.

via Japan’s Funniest Tech Commercials – Slideshow from PCMag.com.

iOS 5.1.1 JAILBREAK for iPhone 4S, iPad 3, iPod touch, iPhone 4/3GS, Apple TV!! Absinthe 2.0

 

iPhoneArena – YouTube.

NY Times asks is social media a fad? | Creativity_Unbound

 

soIt’s surprising to me that the New York Times even asks the question in its Room for Debate column this morning, inviting six guest authors and the Twitter community to weigh in. Suggesting that Facebook’s “worrisome IPO” begs the question, the headline is a bit misleading as you’d be hard-pressed to find even a hint from the guest opinions that the phenomenon is a fad.

Most of the writers reiterate much of what we already know or have seen and read from countless other sources over the past few years. The positive:  New levels of interaction that transcend geographic isolation. A transfer of power from the few to the many. A voice for people previously excluded. An easy way to stay constantly connected. The benefits of instant answers. And the negative: concerns about privacy and who ultimately has access to all of our online content and at whose discretion. Our increased inability to focus as we jump from one intrusion to another. The long term ramifications for teenagers who create public online identities before they’ve developed their real identities.

Perhaps the Times feels compelled to cover a worn out topic because its readers are a year or two behind social media’s early adopters or the blogs that cover them. But is that possible when there are nearly a billion people on Facebook? Maybe it’s just that it’s hard to fill up an online newspaper when bits are endless and social media is still a hot enough topic to attract readers. Or better yet, the Times might just be practicing its own version of social media by giving others a voice, a say and a way to participate. There’s a hashtag #socialRFD if you want to join in.

I think the Times knows the answer. Of course social media are here to stay. Not because of the technologies or the platforms. Rather because Facebook and Twitter and Instagram allow us to resume the kinds of interactions that always defined human relationships until they were interrupted by the post industrial age when we moved to the suburbs, lost our sense of neighborhood and turned to TV for our solace. Thanks to all the new digital platforms on our iPads, phones and laptops, we can once again connect, albeit digitally, with people who share our interests, passions and concerns, maybe even meet and discover new virtual neighbors. (Granted, the fact that we tend to connect with people just like us, reinforcing existing beliefs and opinions is problem of which we should all be cognizant.)

The real question the Times should be asking is: “How else can we use social media to accomplish something good — make college education more affordable, increase cross-cultural understanding, invite new ways to serve our communities, or simply identify better topics for Room for Debate.”

The question isn’t whether or not social media are here to stay. It’s whether or not we continue to find really meaningful ways to leverage them.

via NY Times asks is social media a fad? | Creativity_Unbound.