Technology

Buying CRM: A 10-Step Guide

Since customer relationship management (CRM) connects to all aspects of an organization, purchasers must know the intricacies of their own businesses as well as the products and vendors available to them. That’s why we divided this guide in two parts: Know Yourself and Know Your Requirements. I. Know Yourself Buying CRM starts with the question, “Why do I need a CRM solution?” Many CRM projects fail because that question is never asked. With that in mind, here are four steps that will help you provide an answer and prepare your organization to evaluate CRM solutions

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Buying CRM: A 10-Step Guide

Technology

Creative Ways to Use QR Codes for Your Small Business

What are QR codes? Glad you asked. Quick response codes, or QR codes, are quite similar to barcodes in that they can be printed on virtually any surface. They originated in Japan and were seen on the sides of buildings, in brochures and even on public transport. The little codes became so popular that other countries wanted to cash in on their popularity. Why use a QR code at all? Many times consumers may want to know more about an advertisement, but they don’t have pen or paper while putting information on your phone can be time consuming and a hassle. So QR codes truly are the perfect solution. To put it mildly, QR codes are quickly becoming local internet marketing’s best assets

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Creative Ways to Use QR Codes for Your Small Business

Technology

Mobile Payments Vs. Mobile POS Payments Race Is On! – A SPN Exclusive Article

Can Anyone Catch Square With Their $4 Billion + a Month Head Start? The answer probably lies somewhere between PayPal and another mobile POS payment solution. If you’re the owner or manager of a small to medium sized business, a key part of our national economic engine, then you recognize the importance of mobile and using today’s technology; and you want to utilize it and capitalize on the opportunity that it presents, however you’re not quite clear on a few things. You’ve tried PayPal sometime back and you were astonished at what you found out. In order to use PayPal you must first accept their terms of service. By doing so, you in effect waive your rights to credit card consumer protection laws and you acknowledge that you cannot issue a chargeback for unauthorized use of your credit card and PayPal account. If you do, they have the right to limit your account.

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Mobile Payments Vs. Mobile POS Payments Race Is On! – A SPN Exclusive Article

Technology

Technology and the Invasion of Privacy Snatchers – A SPN Exclusive Article

On February 5th, 1956, a science fiction movie titled “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” was released in the US. The movie is about a small-town doctor who discovers that the population of his community is being systematically replaced by emotionless alien duplicates. Fast forward to today, and life is imitating art, with a real life version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers being played out. But it’s not just happening in one small town. It’s happening in cities and towns all across America. Only it’s not bodies that are systematically being snatched, it’s our individual right to privacy

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Technology and the Invasion of Privacy Snatchers – A SPN Exclusive Article

Technology

MC Hammer unveils new search venture

MC Hammer, once known for baggy trousers and rap music, is these days a web entrepreneur, who demonstrated his new search engine – WIREDoo – at the Web 2.0 Summit. WIREDoo technology combines what he calls ‘Deep Search’ and ‘Relationship Search’ to produce relevant results for users. “Hammer, cognizant of the presence of Google co-founder Sergay Brin in the audience, said that the technology isn’t meant to replace existing search, but to add value. Specifically, search queries add the notion of data relationships to results,” Information Week’s Fritz Nelson reported . Examples of this ‘added value’ were given during the presentation. A search for ‘car’ with WIREDoo revealed information on costs, specifications, insurance and mileage. A search for a postcode would show on a single screen the homes, schools, shops and even the crime rate of the relevant area. Digging further, searching for schools in that area displayed school quality ratings, examination scores and truancy rates. The technology appears to be aimed at those looking for useful related information to their subject with the added ability to dig deeper with each search

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MC Hammer unveils new search venture

Technology

Apple Store Mobile POS Payment Technology Gaining Momentum – A SPN Exclusive Article

Businesses Large and Small Clamoring for New Technology The advent of mobile technology and the iPad in particular, along with other tablets, have ushered in an era of innovative solutions in the retail space that is revolutionizing how people shop, buy, sell and even communicate. Innovative mobile solution developers such as ABC Mobile Pay are helping to blaze the trail by providing a robust mobile POS payment solution that enables merchants of any size from large national chain stores to small ‘mom-and-pop’ stores to capture payments on iPads, iPods, iPhones, Windows devices (Android devices by summer’s end) and almost any other mobile device. What is exciting to both large Level 1 national merchants, with yearly transaction volumes of over the 20 million mark, and to small ‘mom-and-pop’ stores that process under a million transactions a year, is that they can utilize this technology to increase sales and profits by employing POS features traditionally found only in large national chain stores, the cost of such systems being so high that most smaller merchants can’t even consider their use. Although large national merchants such as Apple, have already begun using the technology in their national retail stores, others like Sketchers are rumored to be rolling out an in-store mobile POS payment solution by the end of the year.

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Apple Store Mobile POS Payment Technology Gaining Momentum – A SPN Exclusive Article

Technology

Dolby drops patent lawsuit against Blackberry makers

Dolby has withdrawn its lawsuit against BlackBerry makers Research in Motion (RIM), after the two companies reached an agreement on the use of patent protected technologies in the phones and in PlayBook tablets. The lawsuit was launched earlier this year when Dolby decided to sue RIM for use of its audio compression technology without having it licensed first. “Litigation was regrettably our last resort after RIM declined to pay for the use of Dolby’s technology,” said executive VP and general counsel, Andy Sherman, back in June. Dolby audio compression software, which greatly reduces file size, is used in a range of smartphones, tablets and music players, to allow for MP3 and AAC digital playback in such devices. During the ongoing patent infringement case, Dolby took steps to ensure that the Blackberry models and tablets that used their software were not sold in Germany and the United States. But now the suit has been dropped after the feuding companies managed to reach an undisclosed financial agreement, and RIM have sought licensing for the technology through Dolby subsidiary, Via Licensing Corporation

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Dolby drops patent lawsuit against Blackberry makers

Technology

Is Your Brand Worth Professional Treatment?

You may not remember the 1950s but the so-called “Golden Age” of television was in general pretty bad. Yes, there were some great, groundbreaking programs, but there was also a lot of crap, especially the commercials that for the most part were emotionally and psychologically clumsy despite their pseudo-innocence. We may be nostalgic for Speedy Alka Seltzer but it hardly stacks up to the Evian Baby T-Shirt videos that to my mind were even better than the more famous Roller Babies, a campaign where technical gimmickry overpowered the message. Of course in the 50s, the medium was new and the technology was rudimentary, especially by today’s standards. With an audience raised on radio, TV producers could get away with almost anything, but today’s audience brought up on television and big budget movies expect and demand a far greater level of presentation sophistication

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Is Your Brand Worth Professional Treatment?

Technology

Ballmer Talks Google, Bing at Search Engine Marketing Conference

During a keynote session at the Search Engine Marketing conference in Santa Clara today, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that Google’s search engine dominance came from its role as an early innovator in the space, but that Microsoft’s Bing search engine has the technology and staff behind it to make it a player in the space in the future.

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Ballmer Talks Google, Bing at Search Engine Marketing Conference

Technology

Google to Present at Morgan Stanley Technology Event

Google Senior Vice President and President of EMEA Operations, Nikesh Arora, will participate in the Eighth Annual Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecoms Conference.

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Google to Present at Morgan Stanley Technology Event

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