The other day, I finally accomplished one of my long-standing goals: to go from one of those “Wouldn’t it be cool…” ideas to a working, live app in less than 1 hour. 45 minutes, actually.
It all started with a design meet-up in San Francisco. I can honestly say this was the best meet-up I’ve ever been to: Even though it was announced only two days in advance, more than 200 people RSVPed, and a good number of them showed up. It was a great chance to put faces to familiar names, as well as to make new friends.
But I got to talking with so many people that I didn’t have a chance to get contact info for everybody. So, the next day, I asked the organizers about it and they suggested that everyone who attended leave a link to their Twitter account in a shared Google Doc.
That would work, but I was afraid it would prove to be too much effort. If I’ve learned one thing in my years as a designer, it’s that people are lazy. Instead, what if I built an app that lets the user add their Twitter account to a list in a single click?
The app would work something like this:
The user signs into Twitter,
A link to their Twitter profile appears on the page,
That’s pretty much it!
With my list of requirements complete, I set to work to see how fast I could build this, and I thought it’d be interesting to walk you through the process.
At first, take a peek at how the final app looked like: Our final bare-bones (but working!) app.
Once the Apple TV is connected to your TV and showing the setup screen, you just unlock the iOS 7 device, making sure that Bluetooth is enabled and you're connected to the Wi-Fi network that you want the Apple TV to be connected to. You then touch the iOS device to the Apple TV, after which prompts appear on both the iOS device and Apple TV.
After entering your Apple ID and password on the iOS device and answering two simple questions, the configuration of the Apple TV takes place. It's connected to your Wi-Fi network, activated, and is set up with your iTunes Store account.
It's a fast and easy way to set up the current Apple TV and hopefully any new devices that may be released by Apple in the future.
UPDATE: Microsoft has made the video private following widespread complaints from viewers. Business Insider managed to download the video before it was pulled and their version is embedded below.
Microsoft has done a lot of Samsung-esque Apple mocking in recent ads that have produced mixed results at best. Microsoft’s latest video depicts a supposed “fly on the wall” at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters as two Apple employees pitch new iPhone ideas to their new superiors. The video does get some legitimate shots in — the line about Apple going out of its way to explain how the iPhone 5c’s plastic casing doesn’t really feel like plastic certainly rings true — but the execution is on the whole rather awkward and lacks the polish of Samsung’s classic Apple-roasting ads. Plus, unlike Samsung, most of Microsoft’s ventures in the mobile world have been duds so far and thus take some of the bite from the company’s attempt at parody. The full video follows below.
Let's say you want to compare the airspeed velocity of various unladen swallows. You could put that data into a spreadsheet, or present it using a graph. Chances are you'll pick the latter.
The question is, how do you create a graph that not only looks nice, but presents said data in a coherent, easy to understand way? You could go the traditional route, and make something basic in Microsoft Office or your productivity suite of choice. Or, if you have a bit more skill, you could opt for the flexibility of Adobe Illustrator instead. But perhaps you have neither software nor skill, and just want to make a simple graph or chart.
Infogr.am takes the same approach that Tumblr took to blogging, by turning the otherwise daunting task of creating great infographics into a process that's dead-simple. You bring the raw data to Infogr.am, and the site's online tool can help you turn that data into a nice looking chart or full-blown infographic in minutes. It's really that simple—assuming you have a Facebook or Twitter account required to login—though, at times, to a fault.
The Infogr.am interface—inspired, no-doubt, by Apple's online iCloud portal—gives users the option of creating either a new chart or full-blown infographic, with five available templates to choose from at launch. A greyed-out store option suggests that more templates will be available for purchase at a later date (again, similar in approach to how Tumblr charges for premium themes).
Once you've selected a template, you get a basic editor wherein you can add pictures, text, and additional graphs, and swap each of these elements around into the order of your choosing with a quick drag-and-drop. Some are even animated. It's a good implementation of HTML5 web technologies, especially when compared with the more complicated user-interfaces of offerings such as Piktochart or easel.ly that still require some sense of design for anything more than basic customization.
The interesting part, however, is how graphs are edited and portrayed. Anyone who has ever spent time creating charts and graphics in either Microsoft Office or Adobe Illustrator will find the experience familiar. There is a standard spreadsheet area with which to input data, and you can modify the colour of every bar and pie slice to your liking. But what's most useful is the ability to upload preexisting data stored in, say, a local Excel file for online manipulation. This data can be portrayed as a line, matrix, pie and bar graphs that change depending on the template you use.
That simplicity, of course, comes at a cost, and it's clear that seasoned design veterans won't be ditching their copies of Adobe Illustrator anytime soon. At the moment, the site offers just five stylized templates—and though incredibly nice to look at, don't give users very much in terms of customization just yet. In other words, you're currently beholden to the charts and styles dictated by each template, and you can't mix and match. Of course, the creation tool is still in beta, and fixing layout bugs and rendering quirks are likely of greater concern (one stubborn graph, for instance, refused to change its colors, while another element displayed un-stylized text).
A finished infographic gets assigned a unique URL, and you can choose to share that link through Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest, too. But there is a potential caveat; because Infogr.am designs are interactive, you can't embed a static image. You must either link back to the Infogr.am site, or embed the design using an iFrame. In scenarios where the latter isn't possible, embedding a functional infographic can prove challenging.
And yet, if you're the sort of person that's lacking in design sense, but have a story you want to tell, Infogr.am is shaping up to be one of the best tools available for simple infographic creation. It's nowhere close to the customization you'll get from Adobe Illustrator or Microsoft Office or even other web-based tools, but it is simple—and for the masses, that's key.
The hype over “Big Data” is about to plunge into widespread disillusionment, according to a Gartner analyst.
Big Data is plunging into a “trough of disillusionment” that will dissuade many companies from pursuing analytics technology, according to a Gartner analyst.
Gartner regularly updates what it terms the Hype Cycle, in which technologies progress from rising interest, to overexposure, to the Dante-style “trough of disillusionment,” and finally to eventual rehabilitation as productive and well-integrated technologies. Everything from cloud computing to media tablets goes through these stages; and now, according to Svetlana Sicular, Big Data is about to take the plunge into widespread disappointment and discontent.
Who’s responsible for shoving Big Data over that cliff? Users have apparently realized that dealing with massive datasets and complex analytical tools is hard. “My most advanced with Hadoop clients are also getting disillusioned,” Sicular wrote in a Jan. 22 blog posting on the Gartner Website. “Their disappointment applies to more advanced cases of sentiment analysis, which go beyond traditional vendor offerings.”
Those difficulties continue in new areas of analysis, she added, that “depend on factors that have been traditionally outside of their industry competence, e.g. linking a variety of unstructured data sources.”
In addition, companies apparently have trouble formulating the right questions for their complex data-analytics systems—there are simply too many possibilities, too many sub-questions, and too many ways to frame a Big Data situation the wrong way. “Validating answers is also a tough job,” she wrote. “Big data analytics deals with uncertainty: you do not deduct the number and say that the meaning of life is 42—you get a proof of your hypothesis with a certain degree of confidence.”
Only those companies of sufficient “analytical and enterprise information management maturity,” she added, will successfully navigate the coming dip in Big Data interest. Internal support for innovation won’t hurt, either.
Sicular’s analysis runs a bit contrary to other industry reporting. Both Forrester and Gartner have published reports suggesting that Big Data will contribute significantly to IT spending in 2013 and beyond. In early December, research firm IDC issued a note suggesting that investment in Big Data will grow to nearly $10 billion in 2013, and the need for more data analysts will continue to rise in coming years.
Those aren’t exactly pessimistic predictions; increasingly disillusioned or no, it remains to be seen whether companies continue to support Big Data with their budgets.
It’s all the rage to talk about attacking huge datasets with algorithms in the hopes of mining valuable patterns. Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s safe to say we are deep into the back 9 on the Big Data hype cycle.
No, we’re not going back to hunches and gut feel, but the leading edge of analytic thinking has shifted to the quieter area of what is being called “Little Data.”
What if rather than crunching 3 billion data points in hopes of finding a pattern, the right approach is to find the right few pieces of data to make your decision? Here are a few examples:
Fast Food: Burger King noticed that last month, two of their customers purchased 5 medium sodas and 3 orders of fries. So with this insight, they launched a national roll-out of the “Five + Three-er” bundle for $4.99 – which is, you guessed it, 5 sodas and 3 fries. The roll-out will cost $10 million, not the kind of coin you want to spend without the data to back it up.
Retail: Wal-Mart saw three instances of no customers showing up between 2:00 and 3:00pm in two of its stores, so it is piloting a nationwide shutdown of its 3000 stores at that time. Again, a quick “intuitive” look at the data would indicate that they are putting over $500 million in revenue at risk, but “Little Data” analysis uncovered this opportunity to save operating costs.
E-commerce: Amazon noticed that a customer looking at a Star Wars Lego set then surfed over to a book on wedding floral arrangements. They are dedicating a home page banner promotion to similar bundles. Again, it’s counterintuitive, and the response rate for the first two weeks was 0.000002%, but Little Data analysis is giving them the confidence to stick with it
This approach is a classic example of Clayton Christensen’s Disruptive Innovation model in that it requires far less storage and computing power and chips away at Big Data from below with a “good enough” solution. It should also be noted that outside the US, there is a huge “bottom of the pyramid” market of over 200 million businesses that have 100 or fewer pieces of data.
Our firm currently has two investments in this space, Unidata and FewPoints, and are on the verge of a big announcement on a third that I can’t speak about at this time.
Salesforce.com is the recognized leader in cloud CRM solutions — and for good reason. One of the first SaaS-based customer relationship management (CRM) products on the market, Salesforce offers an easy-to-use tool with deep sales force automation (SFA) functionality. It’s a great solution for many companies, but buyers like options. And guess what? There's some great alternatives to Salesforce out there. So what other systems should you add to your CRM shortlist?
Here I conduct a cloud-based CRM software comparison and recommend five cloud CRM products that are worth testing.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
NetSuite OneWorld CRM
Oracle CRM On Demand
Sage SalesLogix
SugarCRM
Sales
Marketing
Service
Field Service
Social CRM
Mobile
Vertical Solutions
Microsoft Dynamics vs. Salesforce
Analysts and end-users alike consistently rank Dynamics CRM among the top products available on the market. With the latest release of Dynamics CRM 2011, Microsoft has made a credible move onto Salesforce’s turf.
Dynamics CRM is a flexible system built on the .Net platform. It’s great for companies already committed to the Microsoft stack. The system has a familiar Outlook-like interface and can be easily customized to fit the needs of your organization. Also, Microsoft has an extensive network of partners, resellers and ISVs with expertise in developing customized and vertical solutions for specific industries.
Dynamics CRM 2011 made some notable improvements over previous versions, making it a strong Salesforce alternative. My favorites include the improved UI and customizable dashboards. Users can navigate the system with fewer clicks and can personalize their view based on their role. The update also includes the built-in Dynamics Marketplace, a network of vendors that provides more than 1,400 add-on products and services.
One concern with Dynamics CRM used to be that updates only came out every three years. No longer. Microsoft recently announced bi-annual updates.
Do you use Microsoft Dynamics CRM? Write a review »
NetSuite vs. Salesforce
NetSuite’s OneWorld is the company’s first CRM suite designed for complex sales organizations with a global reach. It offers unlimited users, modules, third-party apps and storage, making it easy for organizations of any size to easily scale the solution to fit their changing needs.
For a while now, NetSuite has been trying to enter the Social CRM mix. It seems like it may have a way in with its Yammer partnership. The integration of Yammer with NetSuite’s SocialSuite adds internal collaboration its CRM offering. Users can create, monitor and respond to activity streams, making it easy to interact and discuss over a common platform.
Given NetSuite’s core strength in accounting and ERP, it has built its CRM product with a central focus on order management and the financial processes that relate to a sale. It has remained focused on this integrated-suite story, using it as the foundation for all innovations. If you go with NetSuite, you can expect a solid, integrated application, with great tools for sales and service automation.
Oracle vs. Salesforce
Oracle acquired CRM leader Siebel Systems, and through that deal gained Siebel’s powerful CRM On Demand. Oracle has continued to invest in that product line, and today it offers a credible cloud solution. The system offers most of the capabilities you would expect to find in an enterprise-level CRM system, but at a price and delivery model comparable to Salesforce or Dynamics CRM. It stands out for its industry-specific solutions and pre-built integration with Oracle back-office systems. Oracle users will benefit from the familiar interface and ease of integration that comes with the system.
At last year’s OpenWorld conference, Oracle announced the release of CRM On Demand 18, a hosted solution with a single-tenant architecture. This stands in comparison to Salesforce’s multi-tenant offering. The single-tenant model gives each client their own dedicated software and hardware stack. With multi-tenant, users share application servers and databases. There is a debate as to which model is best, but for buyers with a single-tenant bias, Oracle CRM On Demand is worth a look.
Oracle’s latest release targets the missing link in most CRM systems: alignment of sales and marketing. Oracle bought Market2Lead in 2010, introducing marketing automation to their stack. Sales and marketing users benefit from shared KPIs, helping them to understand how lead generation and nurturing activities directly affect sales. Previously, Oracle customers had to pay for a third-party marketing automation app to get these capabilities. With this addition, users can access these features from one integrated system that is offered at an attractive price point.
Sage SalesLogix vs. Salesforce
Sage offers multiple CRM solutions, but SalesLogix is their premium offering. Released in 2002 as a sales force automation solution for mid-market organizations, SalesLogix has been enhanced over time, with added service and marketing capabilities. It is now a comprehensive and feature-rich CRM product used by over 6 million customers worldwide.
SalesLogix’s legacy strength is in sales force automation, but its capabilities extend to campaign management, revenue tracking, campaign reporting, and workflow automation. One of my favorite features is the product’s mobile deployment options. Users can access contacts, accounts, opportunities, etc., all from their mobile phone. Also, the app is free for any smart phone platform.
Although targeted at mid-sized organizations, SalesLogix offers support for international organizations, making it a strong consideration for global enterprises. SalesLogix is sold by a network of more than 26,000 Sage partners worldwide and can be deployed in the cloud or on-premise.
Do you use Sage SalesLogix? Write a review »
SugarCRM vs. Salesforce
SugarCRM is the most popular open source CRM software available on the market. While many companies are looking for an out-of-the-box complete application, others are more interested in a system that can be tailored to meet their specific needs. SugarCRM’s open source model provides a basic CRM platform that companies can build upon using their own IT resources or add-on products available through SugarCRM’s developer communities.
SugarCRM allows for a more personalized customer experience. There are multiple dashboards that can be customized based on your role or what metrics you need to track. There is also a “wizard” tool that assists with the on-boarding process for new users. With automated tips and instructions, newbies feel less overwhelmed by the system and have an easier time learning the basic ins and outs.
SugarCRM is competitive in terms of features for basic sales, service and marketing activities, but where it really stands out is on price. The most basic offering is free to download. There are also the Professional CRM and Enterprise CRM editions that start at $30 and $50 per user, per year, respectively. This makes SugarCRM one of the most cost-effective CRM options available.
Check out each one of these products and see if they might be a good fit for your CRM software needs. Are there other Salesforce competitors that you think others should consider? Chime into the conversation by commenting below.
Salesforce.com is a leading CRM provider, but choosing enterprise software is an extremely important decision that should be well-researched. Just because one system works for someone else doesn’t mean it’s the best fit for you. For more help with your software selection process, download our guide below.
TUAW reader Aaron G pointed out an interesting Apple knowledge base article to us this morning. According to the post, 
