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The coming of BlackBerry, iPhone, and Android software has left everyone googoo gaga over touch phones. The entertainment and large app stores on the web for these devices is overwhelming – in some cases saturating the market. But a handful of phones out there are still running quietly with Windows Mobile. But what will become of this operating system and its future?
I took a big risk recently, and I am curious to see where it goes. I acquired an HTC Maple smartphone with Windows Mobile 6.5 and have been playing with it vigorously for the last two days. I want to explore its capabilities and see what applications for business I can find. I briefly played with an older phone that had WM 6.0, and it was very slow. However, the Maple/6.5 combo has proven fast and reliable. And it has a potential for marketers.
Above is a Quick-Read (QR) Barcode. You can instantly transfer phone numbers, web addresses, SMS, and plain old text. So what are the applications? Think buses, trains, transit, and public places. If you download a barcode reader like i-nigma you’ll see that it takes you to our charity project Snow4Innocents website. And it only takes a fraction of a second. Microsoft MUST capitalize on this by integrating this with their Mobile OS. Push a button and “bing” you have information transferred to your phone.
I was legitimately excited when I used the Maple’s homescreen. I haven’t been impressed with the WM default homescreens, but the Maple’s is functional. I have easy access to SMS and view new emails/messages. This is key to getting a phone widely adopted by businesses. My only wish is easy home screen access to change WiFi access points and easy access to settings. The new Opera Mini browser already proves itself with a slick interface. If Microsoft can pull all of this together it has the potential to gain leverage in the market.
Very soon, I am going to try to develop an app for this phone. I want to see if I can integrate a meaningful interface with the homescreen and also plug twitter directly into it as well. Data access isn’t slow – the phone has the potential.
Do you have an app idea? Don’t hesitate to send me a message! Send me a note straight through the ACG website here: http://www.avalanchegroup.ca/#/contact.
It’s August 1st and we’ve returned from the Snow4Innocents (s4i) charity expedition in Africa. We will be wrapping up (s4i) operations for the remainder of August and will resume business-as-usual on September 1st.
We’d like to thank everyone that has participated in the (s4i) charity. Oakley, IonEarth.com, VancityBuzz.com, Children’s Hospital and Research Center Oakland, and Rwenzori Trekking Services all contributed to the great success.
Want to see more? Visit http://www.snow4innocents.org/.
Two weeks ago we posted a blog briefly describing a few new developments happening here at ACG. Our passion for social interaction is growing everyday, and we wanted to provide you with updates about the changes.
We have really changed the way we work. For those of you that don’t know, we started as a tiny design company. ACG is still humble today, but with increased attention to the social interactions that are created by our work. ACG is becoming smarter everyday in social media, social norms, and, of course, the technology that drives it all.
ACG will also be diversifying its operations. A new knowledge in social media is expanding our horizons, allowing us to develop products that can accompany our services.
Keep a lookout in the next month when we start to implement more change. We’ll keep updating the blog on new products and services, and about the happy times of the humble ACG team.
Coming next month our pricing strategy will switch from hourly rates to a new method known as the “creative coefficient”. The creative coefficient will be an easy way to understand the creative scope of each project and provide a cost estimate tailored to it.
We’re right now doing some calculations to create standard benchmarks for the coefficients. The formula for pricing is simple:
Price = Creativite Coefficient x Cost of Business
We will be adding the following modifications:
Price = (Creativity Measure x Power Required) x Cost of Business
The Creativity Coefficient was conceived by creative blog Smashing Magazine. ACG will be one of the first agencies to adopt and align it for larger agency use. We are excited to put it into effect as it will save time and reduce the cost of overhead for our clients.
To help you understand the benchmarks, here are some sample coefficients we derived from our initial calculations:
- Interactive flash website CC is 5.8
- Logo design CC is 1.1
- Corporate social responsibility production CC is 3.5
The numbers above will likely change when we release our new rate sheet. Keep a lookout in your inbox for more info.
To not disappoint, here’s the article link by Smashing Magazine where the Creative Coefficient was derived: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/.
Someone was asking me the other day how I got started in this business. I started talking about the tiny little sole proprietorship, Avalanche Marketing, that was started almost two years before ACG, and then how my great friend Gagan Singh joined the company. But I realized there was much more to the story than that tiny little company…
Back in the late ’90s I was running around as a kid watching my Dad run his software business. I’ll admit software coding wasn’t the most admirable thing to watch, but he gave me his copy of Microsoft FrontPage 2000 to fiddle with. Once I showed him my first website, he bought me my first domain (out of all things it was a .tv domain!). After school and skiing all day I’d be up late making websites to my heart’s desire.
The “paradigm shift” came when my grandfather finally published his book he had been researching for 30 years. He was on talk shows, radio interviews, quoted in newspapers…but he always had difficulty connecting to the younger crowd. My grandmother decided that a brand new copy of Dreamweaver and Fireworks 4 for my birthday might be an answer to their lacking web presence.
Not much later, my grandmother passed away and my grandfather was stuck between a rock and a hard place. His deceased wife was not only the love of his life, she was also his most valuable asset. My grandfather got much of his PR from my grandmother, and to compensate he turned to my web expertise. In a month’s time his site was almost complete and http://www.elgenlong.com was my second site on the net (I had a chance to do a site for my father’s company previously).
Just a year later, I was in Chile and Peru skiing the Andes. The trip was a gift from my grandfather, and we had the opportunity to meet a connection of his – a businessman building a new Peru company. I refused to overlook this opportunity, and immediately offered my design services. My first real client also turned out to be my first international client – sort of. Unfortunately, I learned a hard lesson and I was never fully paid for my services.
It wasn’t until I made the big move from the Lake Tahoe area to Vancouver for university that I finally became legit. My broke ass needed to capitalize my talents, and so Avalanche Marketing began. But that is another story for another day.
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