Mac Insides

I want this wallpaper for my desktop.
I want it! I want it! I want it! I want it! I want it!!!

Anybody got the download link for the wallpaper?

The 10 Commandments of Social Optimisation

By: Chris Lake, Editor in Chief - Econsultancy
Posted in: Industry Articles Posted in: Loyalty Today
October 08

What is social optimisation? For me, it’s about how you structure your business in a way that increases engagement and participation.

Social optimisation (‘SOCOP’) is broader than social ‘media’ optimisation (optimising your presence on third party sites) and bigger than social ‘search’ optimisation (boosting your universal search results). I think of it as an umbrella term that combines both of the above strategies, and then some. It covers the wider businesses issues like customer service, usability and organisational structure.

While there remains a lot of hype in the social space we are starting to hear about some excellent results from companies that have embraced their communities, wherever they choose to hang out. We believe that a user-centric, community-focused business is one that will go a long way, assuming that a few other basics are put in place (such as competitive pricing and amazing service).

So to help you to see the light, I have defined 10 commandments that should help you to plan and structure your business for a more sociable future...

Thou must publish compelling content

I know you’ve heard this before but it bears repeating: the first rule of internet marketing is that content is king. Content IS marketing.

Content comes in many forms (blogs, forums, reports, comments, features, images, reviews, videos, audio, testimonials, competitions, third party content) and can be self-produced or user-generated.

Simply put, you need to give people something to talk about. An investment in content is a no-brainer, and a must-have for social optimisation.

Thou must give people the tools they need

Help people to tune in and spread the word beyond the four walls of your lovely website. Sharing tools. Bookmarking tools. Mobile apps. Feeds and alerts. Personalisation tools.

Social flavoured tools are like payment options in the checkout: the more of them you have, the higher your conversion rate will be. Your social conversion goals should include content sharing, so make it easy for people to share content.

Thou must connect

Optimising your website to harness the crowd is one thing, but you also have to actively engage people on the key social sites. This might mean leaping out of your comfort zone, but it’s worth doing. There’s so much you can talk about.

The first thing to do is to claim your social media profiles. There’s no time like the present if you have yet to do this, but you should assign somebody to the ongoing task of signing up to the free social sites (even if you just do the placeholder thing).

Claiming your profiles allows you to respond to good / bad noise in the customer’s chosen channel of choice (without a profile on Twitter you cannot tweet / answer questions / retweet).

Note to that claiming profiles can be hugely important for brand and SEO reasons. And besides, who knows what the next Twitter or Facebook will be?

Thou must communicate

It’s about being sociable, after all. People are social creatures. Robots are not. Plugging in feeds to auto-update the social media sites is all well and good, but there must be a strong element of human interaction. Your Facebook fans and Twitter followers must know that somebody is listening, and able to respond. Don’t let your social profiles stagnate.

Thou must measure

I don’t think there’s much point in zooming in and measuring everything in the finest detail just because you can, but measurement remains hugely important. In terms of KPIs you should think macro, not nano (profits rather than clicks). And give it time: let your social strategy breathe. Look at the bigger picture, somewhere down the line (sales, profits, engagement, satisfaction).

Thou must create a usable website

An obvious commandment for sure, but one of the basic tenets of participation is that it needs to be easy to get involved. There should be no barriers to interaction. A usable website is absolutely key. There’s no point in doing brilliant things on Twitter and attracting thousands of visitors if your website sucks.

Additionally, thou must iterate. Measure, listen, analyse, finesse. Repeat! This applies to your web usability, your content, your social strategy. The best companies rarely stand still for too long. Evolution is revolution!

Thou must get better at listening

It is important to tune into the background noise. Learn from what people are saying (be they complaints, compliments, requests or recommendations). Your social strategy shouldn’t be about one-way communication.

One of the downsides of social media is that consumers are finding it easier to complain in public than to talk to you directly. That’s because customer service is almost always broken (how about trying to fix it, as part of your new and improvement engagement strategy?). So be prepared to tune into individual murmurings, and to respond in a timely manner. Be vigilant, and don’t go burying your head in the sand.

Thou must let your brand go free into the wilderness

You don’t control your brand anymore. Your customers do. So do your prospects. And so do your ex-customers. Learn to live with that knowledge, and move on.

Thou must invest and plan

Resources, resources, resources. Social optimisation requires a strategy, a team, some realistic planning, and some goals. You need people to help manage and monitor. Creating the world’s greatest social optimisation toolset is no good unless you have people assigned coordinate interaction. Sort out your organisational structure and divert budget towards strategies that boost customer engagement.

Thou must Just Do It

I’m sure that many brands will survive and grow without embracing social optimisation, just as some avoided e-commerce in the past decade. But the smartest companies evolved their businesses quickly and reaped the rewards (e.g. increased sales and search engine land grab). People wanted to buy online, and e-commerce helped them do exactly that.

Nowadays people also want to talk about your brand online, on your website and on other sites (they’ll do this anyway, whether you get involved or not: it's easier than ever to comment in public). Furthermore, people want to engage with brands and to personalise their brand experiences. A solid social optimisation strategy will help you make the most of this desire (if your brand / products / services / content is strong enough).

Hopefully you’ll be able to make a strong case for an investment into social optimisation and will secure the support of C-level execs / the board.

For the best results SOCOP should surely be an initiative instigated from the top down, and right across the business.

copy pasted from loyalty360

Sony's Second Flexible OLED Notebook Concept

Wow!! This is a notebook from Sony that combine both display and keyboard into a single, flexible OLED panel.

It's just a concept...:( It is actually the second mock-up of a flexible display notebook from Sony. We've seen the first one on last January. Still we can only drool from afar. At least for now haha..
Anyway, do you want me to test it for you, right after Sony launch it? =p

Slashgear

6 Daily Habits That May Make You Sick

They say that home is where the heart is. But what you may not know is that it's also where 65% of colds and more than half of food-borne illnesses are contracted. The things we do around the house every day have a big impact on both our long- and short-term health.  Here are six common household activities that may be making you sick.

1. Using a Sponge

The dirtiest room in everybody's home is the kitchen, says Phillip Tierno, PhD, director of clinical microbiology and diagnostic immunology at the New York University Langone Medical Center and author of The Secret Life of Germs. "That's because we deal with dead animal carcasses on our countertops and in the sink." Raw meat can carry E. coli and salmonella, among other viruses and bacteria.

Most people clean their countertops and table after a meal with the one tool found in almost all kitchens: the sponge. In addition to sopping up liquids and other messes, the kitchen sponge commonly carries E. coli and fecal bacteria, as well as many other microbes. "It's the single dirtiest thing in your kitchen, along with a dishrag," says Tierno.

Ironically, the more you attempt to clean your countertops with a sponge, the more germs you're spreading around. "People leave [the sponge] growing and it becomes teaming with [millions of] bacteria, and that can make you sick and become a reservoir of other organisms that you cross-contaminate your countertops with, your refrigerator, and other appliances in the kitchen," Tierno explains.

Solution: Tierno suggests dipping sponges into a solution of bleach and water before wiping down surfaces. "That is the best and cheapest germicide money can buy -- less than a penny to make the solution -- so that you can clean your countertops, cutting boards, dishrags, or sponges after each meal preparation."

In addition, once you've used your sponge, be sure to let it air-dry. Dryness kills off organisms. Another way to keep bacteria from building up in your sponge is to microwave it for one to two minutes each week. "Put a little water in a dish and put the sponge in that," Tierno advises. "That will boil and distribute the heat evenly [throughout the sponge] and kill the bacteria."

2. Vacuuming

Conventional vacuum cleaners are intended to pick up and retain big pieces of dirt, like the dust bunnies we see floating about on our floors. But it's the tiny dust particles that pass right through the porous vacuum bags and up into the air. So, while our floors may look cleaner after running a vacuum over them, plenty of dust, which can exacerbate allergies and asthma, remains.

Pet allergens and indoor dust, which contains the highest concentrations of hazardous materials like heavy metals, lead, pesticides, and other chemicals, are found in higher concentrations in the smallest particles of the dust, explains David MacIntosh, MD. He is principal scientist at Environmental Health & Engineering (EH&E), an environmental consulting and engineering services firm based in Needham, Mass.

"The everyday habit of cleaning with a conventional vacuum cleaner results in a burst of particles in the air and then they settle back down over the course of hours," says MacIntosh.

Solution: Look for a vacuum cleaner with a high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter. Unlike those in conventional vacuums, HEPA filters are able to retain the small particles and prevent them from passing through and contaminating the air you breathe in your home.

3. Sleeping With Pillows and a Mattress

The average person sheds about 1.5 million skin cells per hour and perspires one quart every day even while doing nothing, says Tierno. The skin cells accumulate in our pillows and mattresses and dust mites grow and settle.

If that's not gross enough for you, Tierno explains that a mattress doubles in weight every 10 years because of the accumulation of human hair, bodily secretions, animal hair and dander, fungal mold and spores, bacteria, chemicals, dust, lint, fibers, dust mites, insect parts, and a variety of particulates, including dust mite feces. After five years, 10% of the weight of a pillow is dust mites. This is what you're inhaling while you sleep. 

"What you're sleeping on can exacerbate your allergies or your asthma," says Tierno.

Solution: Cover your mattress, box springs, and pillows with impervious outer covers.

"Allergy-proof coverings seal the mattress and pillow, preventing anything from getting in or out, which protects you," Tierno says. He also suggests that you wash your sheets weekly in hot water. Make sure the temperature range of the water is between 130 to 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

4. Grilling Meat

So much for the summertime staple: Barbecuing meat creates the cancer-causing compounds polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heterocyclic amines (HCAs). When fat drips from the meat onto the hot grill, catches fire, and produces smoke, PAHs form. That's what's contained in that delicious-looking charred mark we all look for on our burger. HCAs form when meat is cooked at a high temperature, which can occur during an indoor cooking process as well.

Solution: "Limiting your outdoor cooking, using tin foil, or microwaving the meat first is a sensible precaution," says Michael Thun, MD. He is emeritus vice president for epidemiology and surveillance research with the American Cancer Society.

Wrapping meat in foil with holes poked in it allows fat to drip off, but limits the amount of fat that hits the flames and comes back onto the meat, Thun tells WebMD. Some of the excess fat can also be eliminated by first microwaving meat and choosing cuts of meat that are leaner.

5. Opening Your Windows

When the weather turns nice, many of us throw open our windows to breath in the fresh spring air. But that may be an unhealthy move, considering the combination of seasonal allergies and poor air quality of many cities throughout the U.S. According to a recent report by the American Lung Association, 60% of Americans are breathing unhealthy air. And the pollution inside our homes may be worse than outdoors. The Environmental Protection Agency lists poor indoor air quality as the fourth largest environmental threat to our country. Bacteria, molds, mildew, tobacco smoke, viruses, animal dander, house dust mites, and pollen are among the most common household pollutants. 

Solution: Shut the windows and run the air conditioner. All air-conditioning systems have a filter that protects the mechanical equipment and keeps them clean of debris.

"Pollen and mold spores that have made their way indoors will be run through the air-conditioning system and taken out of the air as they go through the duct work," MacIntosh says.

But much like with the vacuum cleaner, these filters can only capture the largest particles. "The conventional filters just pick up big things, such as hair or cob webs," says MacIntosh. "Filters intended to remove the inhalable particles, which are very small, exist on the market and some are very effective."

They may also be worth the investment. A recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that cleaner air might add as much as five months to a person's life.

Tierno says that air purification systems are important, particularly in a bedroom where bacteria are teaming.

6. Sitting in Front of the TV

Sitting in front of the television has become a national pastime and one of our least healthy behaviors, particularly because we often do it while snacking on food that is high in calories. 

"When you're sitting there in a trance, you can really pack on some calories," says Thun. "Today, more than one-third of the U.S. population qualifies as obese and one-third qualifies as overweight. Thirteen million Americans are morbidly obese."

Excess body weight puts us at greater risk for heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and a host of other diseases, Thun says. "That poses a greater health risk than the toxic cleansers under our sinks."

Solution: Turn off the TV, put away the bag of chips, and go for a walk.

copy-pasted from webmd