BBM has long been considered one of Blackberry’s strongest exclusive offerings and now they will be releasing this feature as a free app on rival Smartphone Operating Systems. Chief Executive, Thornsten Heins said that the time was right for such a move. As can be imagined, the announcement came as an unexpected Tuesday surprise. Many Blackberry loyalists (and the world at large) must have been left with a question of;

“But why would Blackberry do this?”

Well, it’s simple. Not everyone is dying to get a BlackBerry. Today, users have more options when it comes to Smartphones. Smartphones, which have expanded the world of chat applications- leaving the BBM feature to become somewhat redundant.

When asked the same question Heins simply replied “It’s a statement of confidence.”

With this move, one would say that Blackberry hopes to become the preferred Smartphone chat service, thereby making things awkward for WhatsApp. But let’s hope it does not get there.

And in other news…

“Out of sight, out of mind,” says Google SA CEO

Ensure your customers can find you online. These are the words of advice from Google SA’s CEO Luke McKenz. As the number of internet users in South Africa continues to rise from the reported 8.5 million in 2012 (World Wide Worx), it’s been inspiring to see many businesses utilising the web to market their goods and services by taking advantage of a host of online tools (including Google’s), and even more inspiring to see how these business are benefitting from increased revenue and exposure, both locally and internationally.

Will Yahoo buy Tumblr?

Yahoo may be trying to acquire Tumblr for $1 Billion.  All Things D reported that the two companies were in “serious” talks about some kind of deal, and now Adweek is saying that Yahoo is looking to do a straight-up acquisition. The deal could reach as high as $1 billion, say Adweek’s sources, putting it in the same league as Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram last year.

Google launches free Gmail sms service

Google has launched the Gmail SMS Chat service in South Africa, which allows Gmail users to chat with mobile phone users via SMS – for free. With Gmail SMS Chat, users can send text messages from their desktop Gmail Chat interface directly to mobile phone numbers via SMS. In return, the mobile phone users can reply via SMS and their responses will appear in the original sender’s Gmail Chat interface. Gmail users are not charged for outgoing text messages and the mobile users are charged standard text messaging rates for the replies.

Trending topics on Twitter lastweek:
#TheGreatGatsby, #AfricaAllStars, #MyGalaxyS4,  Karrueche Tran, Bafana, Richard Quest, Roadlink, Snoop Dogg

Infographic of the week

That’s what we thought before we discovered their latest campaign. Last week Microsoft South Africa launched a Free Pizza promotion with Debonairs to Internet Explorer 10 users. On the day of launch (07 May 2013), if users placed a pizza order online  using Internet Explorer 10 (IE10),  they received R100 discount on their order.

“Download and upgrade to Microsoft Internet Explorer 10, order pizza online from Debonairs using Internet Explorer 10 and get the first R100 of your order free of charge”

Those were the words from the horses’ mouths. Microsoft has since explained that the pizza’s were only available on the day of launch and they also said that they used the promotion to kick-off the campaign which started on the 7th of May and ends on the 15th of  June 2013.  Beyond that however, Microsoft  hopes to encourage consumers to discover some great advantages of the latest version of IE10; saying that it is faster, safer and makes browsing easier. Users will apparently enjoy free security, free speed and even free pick-up lines.

But wait!  The free prizes continue;

“We are now in the next phase of the competition along with Debonairs Pizza where if you use IE10 to place an order you stand in line to win great prizes like Windows 8 laptops, a Nokia Lumia 920, an Xbox 360 and more Debonairs Pizza vouchers. We’re naturally excited by the longevity of the competitions in that they’re encouraging people to look at the new IE10 and take advantage of some of the great new features, like security,” said Microsoft.

Well, it looks like Microsoft has definitely stepped up its game to give Chrome and Firefox a run for their money. On the downside, we won’t be making Internet Explorer jokes anymore .

And in other news…

Marketing Spend Makes the Move to Digital

For many marketers, an increased focus on digital methods reduces costs, allowing brands to reinvest the savings for continued development and departmental growth. Though today’s economy remains unsteady, most companies must spend money to make money.

AdWords Ad Group Mobile Bid Adjustments Roll-Out

Google announced that Ad Group-level mobile bid adjustments started rolling out last Wednesday and will continue over the next few weeks in the Web UI. The added feature went live in the AdWords API the week previous week.

Trending topics in Cape Town this week: #capetown,  @scooterbraun, moyes, @goodhopefm, manchester, #nelsonmandela, durban

Infographic of the week

Yahoo Stream Ads, as the name implies, are going to be be sponsored posts that show up in a stream of content (across desktops/laptops, smartphones, and tablets) including the news stories in the new Yahoo Mobile app.

The new Billboard ads unit will look like a fairly traditional banner ad that sits on top of the Yahoo page. Mayer says that it is different because it will ink to content that is more “fun and engaging” for Yahoo visitors.

The two new ads formats will look something like this :

And in other news…

CERN The World’s first Website Ever, re-launches

The world’s first web page was dragged out of cyberspace and restored as part of a project to celebrate 20 years of the Web, organisers said on Tuesday.

The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said it had begun recreating the website that launched the World Wide Web, as well as the hardware that made the groundbreaking technology possible.

Mobile Ads Jump In 1st Q; Presage Rest of Yea

According to the recently released Mobile Advertising Marketplace Report from MoPub, showcasing 2013 Q1 trends in mobile advertising monetisation and demand for smartphone ad inventory, the three core metrics used to track demand, eCPM, Clear Rate and Bid Depth were higher.

Infographic of the week

According to industry experts, the device adds a number of innovative features that have not been made available on any other Galaxy device before. These include Smart Pause, Smart Scroll and Samsung Adapt Display, as well as updated features such as S Voice Drive, Air View and Air Gesture. The device officially went on sale across SA operators and service providers on Saturday 27 April 2013.

And in other news…

SA Printers flounder in digital age

The newspaper industry is struggling to survive as consumers migrate to digital news forms, the Print and Digital Media Transformation Task Team heard on Thursday.

Counsel for Media 24, Ashoek Adhikari, told the hearing in Braamfontein that newspaper companies were faced with having to scale down operations and sack employees.

Google rumored to be in talks to acquire WhatsApp for $1 Billion

A Digital Trends report reveals  that Google has been in talks to buy the hugely popular messaging app for the past few weeks and the current offer is said to be “close to” $1 billion. WhatsApp is the most popular of a crop of mobile messaging apps that some say pose a threat to bigger companies like Facebook and Google.

 A Nielsen study that pairs Facebook interaction with TV viewership

Much has been made of the symbiotic relationship between TV and Twitter and the company’s recent activity to attract both broadcasters and marketers to the platform.  Now, a new paper from social advertising platform, CitizenNet, looks at how Facebook activity correlates with TV-viewing habits.

Infographic of the week

The previous week they launched their new music app. Last week saw the roll-out of  keyword targeting. Do these people ever rest? Twitter on Wednesday announced the newest feature to their ad platform, keyword targeting in timelines, which will be in all languages and markets where Twitter Ads are supported.

Marketers can now target audiences based on the Tweets they send, reaching them at the right moment with contextually relevant ads. But what does this mean for the consumer?

Twitter’s Revenue Product Manager, Nipoon Malhotra, assured users that they would not be bombarded with more ads. Instead, the former would not see any difference in their use of  Twitter as the latter will ensure that they see more relevant Promoted Tweets.

“In our tests with a small group of advertisers and agencies like Everything Everywhere, Microsoft Japan and Walgreens, users were significantly more likely to engage with Promoted Tweets using keyword targeting in timeline than other forms of targeting in the timeline,” he said in a blog post.

The product will be available in the full Twitter Ads user interface and through the Ads API.

And in other news…

How location-based data is making mobile advertising explode
With 770 million of the 1.2 billion smartphone devices worldwide equipped with GPS, location data has begun to permeate the entire mobile space. Location-enabled mobile ads have generated excitement for their effectiveness and the impressive prices they command.

A Facebook fan is worth $174

Syncapse worked with research firm Hotspex on a survey based on data collected from more than 2,000 U.S. panelists in late January and early February. The study compared Facebook fan and non-fan based and their corresponding product spending, brand loyalty, propensity to recommend, media value, cost of acquisition and brand affinity to arrive at the figure.

The critically important role of  Bing ads in search marketing

Bing Ads has a lot of potential besides just Search. They have tremendous reach into almost everyone’s lives through Windows 8, Office and Xbox, as well as to a lesser extent, Windows Phone.

Also, there is their partnership with Facebook. One can only hope that one day soon they will unleash this massive proprietary asset and turn it into an ad network to threaten Google’s marketplace hegemony.

Infographic of the week

Over the past year, mobile has grown to be the preferred medium for advertising.  Mobile advertising is today an integral part the digital advertising network; it’s reportedly also one of the fastest growing mediums. India and other emerging markets like Brazil, Indonesia, and South Africa are amongst the fastest-growing mobile advertising markets globally. According to  iAcquire, 70% of mobile searches lead to action on websites within an hour and 45% of users 18-29 use mobile search on a daily basis. The purpose of these statistics indicate just how important for companies to have their mobile advertising on track.

At DigiVOX, we understand this first hand. As a specialist digital agency we want to ensure that our clients get the most out of their marketing campaign. It is our job to make sure that your overall campaign is optimized for mobile devices and that you are speaking to the consumer percentage that is mentioned in the study.

LinkedIn acquires Pulse News reader

Business social network LinkedIn acquired Pulse, the company behind the popular Pulse News reader which is available for iOS and Android devices. Pulse was started in 2010 as a class project at Stanford’s d.school to create the best-possible mobile news reader.

Twitter Music goes LIVE

Twitter’s new music site went live on Friday morning.Well, almost. Users can currently log in with their usual Twitter credentials, but there are no features as of yet. According to AllThingsD, only a select few will get access to the service over the coming days, with Twitter planning a more extensive rollout after that.

Desktop Search Activity Hits All-Time High In March: A comScore report

The company’s latest report estimates that there were just under 20.4 billion searches during March — that’s desktop-only and it’s an 11 percent increase from February. It’s also the first time comScore has ever estimated search activity be above 20 billion searches in a month. The previous record of 19.5 billion was set in January.

Infographic of the week

Furthermore, individual cards now have an info button that when pressed, gives you quick settings for that particular card. Users will need to be running Android 4.1 or later in order to get the Google Now update.  If so, then a quick visit to the Google Play app should prompt you with a new Google Search download.

And in other news…

Investec launches banking app
The application only works on Apple’s iPad, though an Android version is on the cards. Investec has become the latest South African financial services institution to launch a transactional banking application. The app, which is available for Apple’s iPad tablet only, offers mobile banking and trading tools to Investec customers. The app is available in the South African version of the App Store. It provides a “consolidated account dashboard where clients can view all the relevant information for their Investec Private Banking and global Wealth & Investment accounts”, the company says.

WBS dispute with ICASA goes to court
Wireless Business Solutions (WBS), the company that owns iBurst and Broadlink, owes the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) R57,9m in spectrum licence fees, the telecommunications regulator has claimed in court documents.

iBurst said on Friday however, that it expects all of its business support services to be restored by the following day. This follows the return of the company’s equipment by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) after the issuing of an interdict by the South Gauteng High Court against the Regulator on Friday.

The Facebook Home backlash
The announcement of Facebook Home, the social network’s adapted Android sleeve, has been received with a fair amount of criticism. The world’s largest social media network, Facebook, is receiving criticism from various quarters following the launch of its Android layered Home system at the Facebook and Android event last Thursday.

Infographic of the week: