Archive for the ‘Apple’ Category

 

2012 Holiday Season: Record Breaking Online Activity (Already)

Monday, November 26th, 2012

The term “Cyber Monday” made it’s debut in November of 2005, ushering in a new era of online marketing, promotions and early-bird specials. Six years later, it seems Cyber-Monday is trumping Black Friday, but not just in the area of online sales. A multitude of records have already been broken during the start of this year’s holiday season.

Staggering Stats

The National Retail Federation reported in a press release that “a record 247 million shoppers visited stores and websites over Black Friday weekend, up from 226 million last year. Making sure to take advantage of retailers’ promotions to the full extent, the average holiday shopper spent $423 this weekend, up from $398 last year. Total spending reached an estimated $59.1 billion.”

Forbes listed the top five most-visited online retailers on Black Friday (with auctions sites excluded from the rankings) as follows:

1. Amazon

2. Walmart

3. Best Buy

4. Target

5. Apple

Forbes also offers a Cyber Monday cheat sheet for bargain hunters who will, no doubt, help shatter the previous online sales record of  $1.25 billion dollars (up 22% from Cyber Monday 2010). More on that here. 

Instagram’s Busiest Day

Photos of beautifully brined and browned turkeys exploded on Instagram this past Thursday.

From the Instagram blog: “Over 10 million photos that mentioned Thanksgiving-themed words in their captions were shared yesterday. For several hours throughout the day, more than 200 photos about Thanksgiving were posted every second.”

“Overall, the day broke all Instagram records as we saw the number of shared photos more than double from the day before, making it our busiest day so far.”

Cyber Monday Mania

As noted above, 2011 brought sales over over $1.25 billion with a 22% increase from the year prior.

With consumer confidence increasing as well as Zillow posting home values had their biggest monthly jump in value in seven years, we may see a the perfect storm for spending this year.

 

 

 

 

Socialcam: Instagram’s Prettier and Smarter Neighbor

Friday, June 1st, 2012

For those wishing to share video on the go, there wasn’t always ‘an app for that.’

Enter Socialcam

Although Socialcam made it’s debut in 2011, it’s just now hitting the app market with the strength of an Instagram, Angry Birds or Cut the Rope. It’s currently #1 in Apple’s App Store.

Until recently, I’d only noticed it as an annoying notification in my Facebook news feed. Maybe you have too. “Sally is watching the video Two Cats Looking Cute on Socialcam.” Annoying yes. But after downloading the app, it’s growing on me.


Why Another Camera App?

Camera+. Camera!!. Facebook Camera. CamWow. 8mm Vintage Camera. Camera-Fotolr.

The list goes on with dozens of camera apps infiltrating the market. Then why has Socialcam risen above the fray?

+Simple interface.

+Quick uploads.

+Instantaneous viral capability.

Socialcam is different than the plethora of other camera apps because it shakes hands with it’s big brothers YouTube and Instagram. We’re accustomed to sharing photos on the go, and Socialcam makes it easy to share videos on the fly as well.

 

The Instagram of Video

Socialcam is quickly gaining airtime, and heavy data usage, that has many touting it as “The Instagram of Video.”

We can see why. Socialcam’s interface on the iPhone (also available on Android) is bound to produce a wow effect the first time you open it. It’s just so darn easy to add a stellar filter, shoot, and share your mini-film creations to directly to Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter.

You may choose this filter:

Or this:

Or how about a little Electronica:

There’s even a minituare post-production studio build into the app, allowing users to add music and themes such as news, classic, celebrate, journal, reporter, MTV, or ticker. And they’re pretty slick.

 

Will Socialcam Sink or Swim

There’s no doubt Socialcam is swimming. Right now.

Yet the app market is as fickle as a five year old at dinnertime: what is a big hit one day can be a big miss the next. Many users blindly install Socialcam on their smartphones and don’t adjust the settings to hide those automatic, aggravating Facebook posts. If too many people associate Socialcam with annoyance, that’s not good publicity.

Yet, Gilbert Godfried has made a career of being annoying and intrustive.

Perhaps Socialcam can do the same, but with really cool filter options.

Question: What’s your take on Socialcam?