A Peek Through into Streaming Apps

The streaming apps have become a latest fad now. Most of the young generation has these streaming apps installed for – faster download facilities, affordable cost and easy application management.

Let’s go through a list of popular streaming apps: -

Google TV Remote

Google TV Remote

Google TV app works on almost all Android & iPhone devices. You can also send videos and web pages to the TV, and even use your own voice to search for content by connecting your Android device to the same network as your Google TV.

Size          -    2.9M

Installs      -    500,000 - 1,000,000

Requirements  -    Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later

The Google TV Remote application works on most Android and iPhone devices and has the basic features that you'll recognize from your Google TV controller, including:

     Channel Up and Channel Down

    Page Up and Page Down

    Play, Pause and Stop

    Rewind and Fast Forward

    Mute and Recall

    Use the volume buttons on your phone to control TV volume

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

VOICE SEARCH

Say a word or phrase and select 'Search' if you'd like to conduct a search in the Search Box. Select 'Send' if you'd like to send the word or phrase to the text box on the screen or select 'Cancel' if you'd like to exit out of Voice search.

YOUTUBE

If you're watching a video on YouTube or any other webpage on your mobile phone, you can select 'Menu,' 'Share,' and then 'Share this video' via Google TV Remote to watch the video on your TV screen instead.

POINTER MODE

Click the arrow at the top right-hand of the screen to enable Pointer Mode. In Pointer Mode, you can control the mouse pointer and use gestures to scroll and zoom in on webpages.

ESC

While watching TV, the Esc button will bring up more information about what you're currently watching or exit out of a window (Guide, DVR). The Esc button can also be used to exit out of an application.

BACK ARROW

Takes you back to your previous window

APPLE TV AIRPLAY MEDIA PLAYER

Apple TV

Size          -  1.3M

Installs      -  100,000 - 500,000

Requirements  -  Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires Android 2.1 and up

You can download Apple TV Airplay Media Player for free and enjoy watching & sharing millions of videos, images & songs anywhere. You can simply search the content from external sources and watch it on Apple TV or your mobile devices.

The Apple TV includes the following basic features:-

    Video Search

    Add to Favorites

    View and Manage History

    Watch on Apple TV

    Create and Manage Music Playlists

    Share

    Continuous Video and Music Play

    Upload Videos and Photos

    Access to your DLNA Home Media Servers

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

BROWSE

You can search for your favorite music, photos, videos etc. from multiple resources, including your Android devices and share them via emails, twitter and Facebook

CONTENT

You can watch any kind of content including - video podcasts, YouTube videos, shoutcast internet radio, flickr, picasa, local media servers, FB videos and photos etc.

NOW PLAYING

It displays the information about the content you are watching and you can manage the controls (previous, pause, play, next, volume) yourself.

COMPARISON ANALYSIS

GOOGLE TV VS APPLE TV

	AppleTV	Google TV
OS	iOS	Android
Video Content	ITunes, Netflix, YouTube	Netflix, Amazon VoD, YouTube, NBA Game Time, Blip.tv, VEVO
Non-video Content	Flickr	Pandora, Napster
Web Browser	X	Y
Flash	X	Y
Content Recording	X	Y
Apps	Not at present	Y
Hardware	Small, sleek, black set-top box	Slightly larger, uglier set-top box
Processor	1GHz Apple A4 Chip	1.2GHz Intel Atom Z515
RAM	256MB	4GB
Connectivity	802.11n Wi-Fi & Ethernet	802.11n Wi-Fi & Ethernet

FAN TV

FAN TV

Size         -   43.1 MB

Installs     -   NA         

Requirements -   Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 6.0 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Fanhattan has announced the brand new Fan TV, a set-top box that promises to succeed in every way other platforms haven’t.

FEATURES

    The remote is a simple panel with a touch-enabled top and no buttons

    The interface can be operated via gestures and swipes

    The device simplifies the setup by getting rid of IR blasters and cable boxes, which are necessary for the Google TV experience

    Live On-demand TV and Cloud DVR

    Classifies viewing Option  - type of Show, Movie Genre, Actor etc.

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

WATCHLIST

FAN TV lists all your "must see" movies at front and center of your devices and even gives notification when the content on your watchlist is available on your service.

FOLLOW WHAT’S TRENDING

FAN TV keeps you updated about new and latest in the entertainment field by posting the recommendations given by your friends and family.

REVIEWS, TRAILERS, CAST & CREW

Discover movies and TV with all the information you need to bring quality programming to your screen.  Fan puts the power at your fingertips with trailers, cast and crew information.

XBOX SMART GLASS

XBOX SMART GLASS

Size         -  18M

Installs     -  1,000,000 - 5,000,000          

Requirements -  Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Xbox Smart Glass lets your phone work with your Xbox 360 console to bring rich, interactive experiences and unique content about what you’re watching or playing, right to the device that’s already in your hand. Interact with your favorite TV shows, movies, music, sports, and games, and bring remote control to a whole new level.

FEATURES

    Navigate your Xbox 360 with swipe and tap

    Use your phone’s keyboard to type to your Xbox 360

    Browse the Internet on your Xbox 360 with full keyboard and zooming

    Play, pause, fast-forward, rewind, and stop videos and music on your Xbox 360

    Search the full Xbox catalog of music, video, and games

    Enjoy rich, interactive experiences from select game and entertainment content creators

    Track and compare your achievements with your Xbox friends

    Change up your 3D avatar

    Message your Xbox friends

    Edit your Xbox profile

    Requires an Xbox membership to sign in and is available for most Android 4.0+ smartphones, with WVGA screen resolution or higher 

Automobile Industry High on using Mobile Apps

According to consultant ABI Research in Oyster Bay, New York, "The no. of global users of automotive apps may rise to more than 28 million in 2015, from 1.4 million in 2010.                     Times Of India

Why is Automobile Industry using Mobile Apps frequently?

Today a car is not only a device used for transportation but a platform for innovative augmentations that increases driving experience. In this technological era, native apps are finding a prominent position with a customer as well as manufacturer. Most of the bigwigs in automobile sector like - GM, Ford, Rolls-Royce, Maruti, Toyota, BMW, Hyundai etc. are already on the mobile bandwagon to market their vehicles.

I feel that the use of mobile apps is so easy that even we would like to install these apps for our convenience in a busy and hectic life schedule.  Below, I mention some points, which I feel have marked the importance of using mobile apps: -

Integrating smartphones with cars brings mobile Internet & info entertainment in the car environment

Custom mobile apps help users to engage with automotive content

The user finds himself more connected to the car that he owns (Brand specific apps make vehicles more accessible)

Some of the commonly used apps would be penned down below, though most of these apps are widely used in USA, but some of the apps have found their audience in India too..

NISSAN INDIA

FEATURES: -

·   Smartphone App that helps a car owner to manage multiple vehicles altogether

    Helps to maintain all the information at one place

·   Offers various tools like - Mileage & Expense Calculators, Navigator, Traffic Signs Guidebook and a Reminder tool that sets up alert based on servicing, oil changes and all the basic activities that you do for the car maintenance

·   Includes a TIP Section that posts regular updates on maintenance and driving along with the pictures to give you a fair idea about your car

·   A user also gets to know about the latest offers and deals timely

FORD INDIA

FEATURES: -

     Consistent voice activation technology that offers the users a quick and an easy reference guide to popular SYNC features

·    

     Play music, use your phones, hands-free, when you are driving

·      

     Includes a phrasebook that is a audio guide for all the voice commands that work SYNC, badges that the user receives after a successful completion of simulation exercise

Chevrolet

FEATURES: -

·    Gives the users all the functional features of what a car owner would want

·    

     Find My Car feature allows a user to mark parking spot on map so as to  not find any trouble in the malls' parking slots

·   

     Provides roadside assistance, helps to find a dealer and schedule services  timely

·    Access OnStar Remote Link to get information about car operations

·      Offers manuals and current offers too

Maruti Suzuki

FEATURES: -

      Analyze the reach and factors that engage the users in a fascinating  manner

·    

      Leverage Maruti's association with cricket match, followed by IPL

·  

       Any user could get info from - m.cricketmaharathi.com

· 

       Applicable for iPhone, Android, Blackberry & Java

Hyundai

FEATURES: -

      Allows remotely unlocking or locking the door, activating the horn lights &  starting the vehicle

      Allows to schedule the appointment for servicing

·     

      Access maintenance info & Blue Link Customer Care

·   

      Access to POI history and find your car anytime

So, what are you waiting for? Download the app either from iTunes or Googleplay

Why Do My Google Rankings Drop??

Google Keyword Rank Drop

Last month, I had all the clients annoyed with me for their website's keywords showing a dip in their positions. How on earth can I explain them the protocols used by Google Guru!!

They even ask me wether these SEO or SMO activities really help, as whenever Google spins its magic wand, the rankings go down and we are left no where. I know it is difficult to explain them the algorithms used by Google and explain them the reasons for they website's low performance but then, they actually do not mind blaming me…for making such lame excuses.

So, today I thought to pen down the basic and common reasons that make the rankings of the website fluctuate. In order for us to retain their rankings, we should actually review the website in totality, every 15-days and make the necessary changes.

Identify & Analyze the Root Cause - Sometimes, you might have noticed that from a rank #1 for your particular keyword, you might have shifted to #30 or below. The basic reason to check here is whether your competitor is getting ahead of you or has the algorithmic update affected your rankings. For both these reasons, you need to check the quality back links coming to your website; what extra activities have been performed by the competitor in previous months, check your Webmaster's account and read any warning from Google.

HoneyMoon Effect - Sometimes Google boosts the website's ranking for a website that is 6 months old, in order to increase its popularity in search engines. But this ranking does not last forever and you get frustrated to find the keyword someday deteriorating from #1 to NA in the search results. This again accounts top low link popularity as it takes time for a new website to gain quality links to the website.

Content, Content & Only High-Quality Content - Google wants the users to find the best possible solution for their queries in one go. If you want to be at top positions, then you need to have the best content on the website, which looks interesting a educative to the user, along with interlinking within the website such that they can find further information about the product from the website. Make sure that the content is not at all copied and looks totally natural. Google does not only crawl the best pages, but also analyzes the quality of the page, along with how many users visited that page, calculates the bounce rate etc.

High Quality Backlinks - Get a good amount of back links to the website, no doubt directory submissions is somewhat lost these days but you need to have quality links in order to get a good ranking for your website.

Use Disavow links from Webmaster - In case you have recognized few low quality links in your website, you should then use disavow tool that makes sure that Google does not crawl those pages and cleans them up so that all the unnatural links pointing to your website get demolished.

Robots.txt Issue - Yu might be feeling as to why have I mentioned robots.txt issue here. Sometimes, you might be disallowing Google spiders from crawling every page of the website. So, recheck the robots.txt file such that it only blocks your private folders.

Broken Links -  Sometimes, a high value page that comes up in rankings, when been clicked, states broken link. This is a huge loss to the website as the users who would be coming to the website, will simply move off on finding nothing. The best idea would be to check the website using Xenu or W3c Link Checker tool.

Canonical Issue - Most of the users feel that canonical is a very small issue but this can actually lower your rankings. This is a common problem with new websites which are viewable in  versions  for e.g. one like - xyz.com and other - www.xyz.com; so Google will treat both the sites as unique and index the website as 2 different websites.

If you take care of all these issues and rectify the already coming errors, you are sure to improve on the rankings. Further, Google has its share of Panda & Penguin update, and no one knows what parameters they actually set in to mark a website's presence online

Google Panda Update

How to Increase Ranking for Highly Competitive Keywords

Ranking For Highly Competitive Keywords

I am presently handling a team of 10 people, yet I have various clients highly dissatisfied and eager to get their keywords ranked at #1 in a span of say 3-4months (sometimes 1 month!!! ALAS..). Getting rankings for long tail keyword and domain specific keyword is not challenging but if a client gives you single word keywords or highly competitive keywords, it sends a chill down your nerve because you actually need to plan your work out for such keywords. I am presently facing such issue so wanted to write this post to help people like me in achieving their goals and even getting suggestions or tips from other users.

One thing that I certainly feel is the website domain authority is an important factor that helps the website gain ranking easily in top positions. The main issue with the domestic clients that I have seen is that they do not know the basic purpose of SEO and SMO or PPC, but they generally feel that creating a website, then updating the meta tags on the same will drop them high inquiries, and they have loads of revenue generated for the same. What I fail to understand is that, how can they think the old and popular websites to just diminish away and they enjoy the best top rankings in search engines and get revenue generated for the same, without building the visibility or reputation online? This is actually a serious matter as SEO ,SMO or PPC are just not another way of MAKING MONEY!! You need to be tactful, strategical and plan out your daily activities in order to get the website meet its goal. Just creating a website and updating meta is not any way of generating leads to the website. Online Marketing is not an easy job. If you want to get ranking for competitive keywords , then you need to actually work upon it.

The starting point is - Website Development and Designing

How many times have you simply clicked on a website and closed it only after having a look at the homepage? I guess most of us do that and on an hourly basis. A website's look and feel is very important to help it gain an online reputation. It has to be developed diligently such that if it is a service provider site - it has to contain a Home Page, About Us, Services Offered, Contact Us and Inquiry Form (if any); if it is an eCommerce site - it has to contain the above details along with the hipping policy, Veri sign any other policy certifications, so that a user can RELY on it. Similarly, if it is a hospital website, it needs to have a proper about us information and details about each doctor and a proper appointment form.

A proper testing of the above factors is mandatory for a healthy functioning of a website. If a website is properly developed and designed but the contact us / feedback form is not working, then means a huge loss for that business. Hence the roles in any organizations need to be streamlined and explained to the employees and a proper process needs to be followed if you want actual leads for a business.

Keyword Targeting

After the website passes a QC analysis, the website is ready for the Optimization. But again, there are a few points that An SEO strategist needs to check -

The website design, the URL structure, the seo friendly navigation, the working of all the links, CONTENT RICH sections. Remember that a content plays a vital role in helping a website to gain the depth. Google's new algorithms are giving more importance to a website if it has supporting content to the services offered. Hence, it becomes important for every website to make sure that you need to have a proper detailed website in order to get visitors coming to the website that enhances the link juice to the website.

Then you start with the meta optimization techniques that would include - Title, description, keywords optimization, image optimization, header tags implementation, sitemap creation, robots file, ror file ( if the website has regular updates in news and announcements section) and alt tags etc.

The next step comprises of - directory submissions in - Dmoz, Google Listings, Botw, Yahoo directory etc.; bookmarking in good sites like - Reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg - but this step is not just limited to submissions; you need to build up profile here, make connection, like the relevant bookmarks and share them so that they would also like to share and bookmark your link. Your activity is not done by simply posting a link - you have to be a genuine user who has liked something and shared with others!

The Article Submissions and Blog Submissions is another way of getting better links to the website. Make sure that the article is submitted in high quality websites like - E zine, Amazine, Isnare, Searchwarp, Articledashboard etc. Insert the links to your main websites but limit it to 1-2 max. An author bio should look professional and not a sales pitch.

Think before starting with any project and never target any website using simple sales pitch but work as a genuine user and see the wonders!!!

Then start off with SMO best practices - leverage Facebook, LinkedIn, Google +, Twitter and throw some light on the services that you offer; participate in QA's ; post few updates ; build connections and use the profile in a similar way as we use ours.

Similarly, we should run a PPC Campaign too for a faster way of generating leads. It is not at all possible to get rankings for highly competitive keywords in 3-4 months time. You have to work hard for them and then you would be able to gain benefit from them. You have to be patient and let the website gain back-links, indexes, such that it makes the website a trusted one and you achieve rankings for the competitive keywords.

SEO/ SMO/ PPC is not any magic wand that will give you #1 position in search engines; but a timely work plan based on these areas will surely help you gain visitors to the website and increase overall traffic to the website. The sum of all these activities is sure to give a bounce to the website but yes you need to have PATIENCE.

Other additional activities that you need to work upon is - posting in online discussion boards like - Forums ,blog commenting in do-follow blog websites, sending out email newsletters and using links in your signatures, sending offers to your visitors and customers etc.. But some of the additional mentioned activities can be indulged only if you are ready to spend some extra bucks out of your pockets.

Rest do share your ideas and suggestions so that I too can get to learn new techniques:-)

What Is Lead Generation?? Lead Generation Marketing

What is Lead Generation?

Many times I have been for interviews and the last thing that the interviewer asks me is how many leads have you got to the website. Now, this question looks quite confusing as every client has a different requirement and goal. Lead for some maybe getting more inquiries related to product they are working on, for some it may be overall traffic coming to the website and for others it can be a simple way of getting better positions for the keywords in search results.

Achieving results via lead generation sometimes converts into sale for the company. Hence, most of the people feel that a simple way of getting "business" is via lead generation, which is solely incorrect. A lead generation method is a simple strategy for gaining better results, not better sales(We have sales & marketing team for that !!).

Lead generation is not just a simple process of getting work done via submissions in various directories and bookmarking site but an idealistic approach towards knowing the existence of the product / brand online and then carrying a systematic activity plan for it. A program or a module may be best for one company but for another company, it may not be even well enough to drive traffic to the website, forget about the leads. Hence, it gets important for everyone to know the correct strategy that one needs to follow in order to get good results in serps.

You need to look out for more and more strategies and strategies that help you in achieving leads. The first main thing to start with is - Website + Keyword Analysis - Check out similar website, find what is better in them and what makes visitors going on those sites again and again... This is somewhat boring one, but you need to do it :-)

The second important part would be played by Search Engine Optimization, that includes Website Optimization including - meta tags creation, image optimization, robots.txt, sitemap - XML and html creation, ror file etc.

After this, you need to know how to check the status of the website or overall traffic and website performance that you gain post Search Engine Marketing activities. So, you need to set up a Google Analytics account and a webmaster account for the same.

Then you need to focus on submission part including - directories, bookmarking, articles, blogging, local listings, classifieds etc.

The second phase is for brand enhancement and people involvement that would occur via networking sites, forums and online discussion board, blog commenting etc. When you create a profile on the networking site, you need to be sure of the target audience, the aim for creating the profile, whether you want a profile or  page to reach out to your audience.

The next step would be to opt for paid campaigns too. There is not much difficulty with PPC campaigns as everything is explained properly...You need to schedule the daily amount you would spend on Google ads and the revenue that you can generate henceforth from it.

Lead Generation Marketing

An online visibility would help you gain leads to some extent but giving you ads in media channels, newspaper, malls etc. would even give it an added edge against others. Remember you need to indulge in online as well as offline media to get the so called LEADS to the website. Big brands do not need that as they already have a reach of large number of audience but SMEs need that...

Lastly, indulge with your subscribers or visitors via surveys, feedback forms so that they are always in your touch and you too would know about their take on the products or services offered by your website.
It is not just the spamming ay to head forward for but to strategize your plan, techniques and then work in a systematic manner by building a trust with the visitors rather than just asking them to come and like your pge or website or link....

Online Lead Generation