Software : Twitter continues its efforts to make Instagram irrelevant |
- Twitter continues its efforts to make Instagram irrelevant
- Industry voice: Cloud Comes of Age: Love it or loath it, just don't ignore it
- Download of the day: Google Chrome
- Industry voice: From discovery to action: big data in the boardroom
- Google Inbox will let you hit 'undo' on sent emails
| Twitter continues its efforts to make Instagram irrelevant Posted:  Who needs Instagram when you can put cheesy filters over your crappy phone photos from right within Twitter itself? Twitter first began offering photo filters in 2012, and it's continued its efforts to make Instagram irrelevant ever since. Not that it's working - Instagram is still hugely popular - but maybe the set of new photo filters Twitter just added in its iOS and Android apps will help. But why?There is an argument to be made for simply posting to Twitter instead of going through Instagram. Your accounts are probably linked anyway, so your Instagram photos get tweeted automatically. And this way your photos will actually appear natively in your tweets, instead of in a link your followers have to click. But most users who care about this are probably already invested enough in Instagram that they don't want to quit, barring some moral objection to Instagram owner Facebook - which, to be fair, isn't that far-fetched. |
| Industry voice: Cloud Comes of Age: Love it or loath it, just don't ignore it Posted:  Is it a fad, just a buzzword? While these questions have been debated, the reality is that our children are already enjoying life in an increasingly cloud-enabled world. Gaming with 'friends' on different continents and backing up smartphones online via services like Apple iCloud; major enterprises have been extolling cloud's virtues; and IT departments everywhere have been working away to achieve some of the promised technical and financial benefits of cloud solutions. If it was tempting to see this as a technology conversation two or three years ago, now is the moment to jump back in. Let me be clear: cloud computing will have as big an impact on business as factory production lines had during the industrial revolution. It's a revolution in the way computing services are delivered and will have an irreversible impact on the way virtually every industry is run. Technologists will be familiar with the three flavours of cloud, but management teams may still be trying to get their heads around them. The 'public cloud' involves a service provider making resources such as software or data storage available over the Internet either on a free or pay-per-use model. An example of this is Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and this can be a quick, cost-effective approach for projects where information is not commercially sensitive or heavily regulated (although the process of removing your data from these platforms – should you need to manage it in-house at a point in the future – is somewhat unclear; more on this in a future post). A 'private cloud' offers similar services but does so through a business' own infrastructure, made available online via secure remote access. This is often needed for computing services that require higher performance, reliability, security and management controls. Lastly, as the name suggests, a 'hybrid cloud' offers some combination of the two and enables a company to manage more sensitive or higher value information via a private cloud, and run other operations on a public cloud to benefit from greater flexibility and scale at a lower cost. Cloud adoption is picking up pace: nearly half of EMEA decision makers think cloud architectures will overtake traditional ones in the next three years. We're seeing organisations adopt one or other variant of cloud computing as commercial pressures mount and business needs escalate in keeping with the rest of the digital universe – which anticipates storage of digital data to grow 300-fold between 2012 and 2020. Despite the hype, cloud is already reshaping corporate computing and business leaders should consider where the greatest opportunity lies for their company. For example: ScaleOne of the key benefits of the cloud is scale. Most businesses have regular times of the year when the demand for computing resource leaps, including seasonal sales trends or the end of a quarter or financial year. As cloud develops, limitations around processing power, storage capacity and eventually bandwidth become less significant and it is easier for a business to 'switch' on additional computing. Corporate leaders can now plan ahead and decide which departments may need rapid access to scalable computing power, which will boost productivity. MobilityThe personal benefits of mobile working are widely accepted but cloud also opens up operational benefits. If staff are able to access systems through the cloud from wherever they are, without being limited by the processing power of a mobile device, then companies can rethink working practices. For example, does the company still need to spend as much on office space if teams can work effectively by combining mobile and cloud? Does the company need to invest as much in physical IT, as the cloud makes it possible for staff to use less expensive client devices but still access corporate systems and data? Disruptive innovationCloud is redefining agility and accessibility in the enterprise: where it would once have taken six months or more to launch a new application, the cloud means business leaders can turn on a dime, rolling-out new applications within hours. The IT-controlled and IT-limited paradigm of old has given way to a new world order that is business-controlled and self-provisioned, albeit where governance remains an open issue. Equally disruptive is the combination of the cloud and more extensive, readily available structured data from within an organisation – as well as unstructured data available online – which has the potential to create a wealth of valuable new business insight. Cloud is evolving from being solely the domain of the CIO to a topic for the entire management team. In a sense, many of the talking points around cloud migration – the questions of writing down legacy investment, of shifting operational practice, of evaluating risk in a new context – are similar to those taken by a business that's evaluating diversification or entry into a new market. Make no mistake – yesterday's cloud hype has become today's reality. New companies starting up today are building their entire IT infrastructures using cloud tools, and businesses that don't have an IT department today are unlikely to employ one in the future. For most mid-sized and large businesses, which have legacy infrastructure – or for organisations in regulated sectors – a balanced and realistic approach which tailors the different 'flavours' of cloud to a particular organisation will be vital.
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| Download of the day: Google Chrome Posted:  A super speedy, lightweight browser stacked with nifty features, Google Chrome packs a mean punch. Why you need itBy many estimations it's the most popular internet browser in the world – surging past both Internet Explorer and Firefox – and with some fantastic features, slick UI and speedy operation, it's easy to see why. Chrome combines a fast and fun browsing experience with Google's search know-how and powerful tie-ins. Type a phrase into the URL bar and Chrome will search Google for it, making it quick and simple to find what you're looking for. Sign in to Chrome to get your bookmarks, history and settings wherever you are, on whichever device you're using, so you can pick up where you left off, even if you're not at your usual computer. And with such services as YouTube, Google Maps and Drive under the Google label, signing in to Chrome also logs you in to all of Google's products. So you can upload a video to YouTube or a document to Drive without having to worry about signing in multiple times; as before, the disruption caused by switching computers or locations is minimised by a handy Chrome feature. Customising the look and feel of the browser is also simple with the Chrome Web Store, which has thousands of different apps and themes to boost what is already an impressively powerful browser. And added to that, Chrome lets you specify what opens when you launch it (be that your tabs from last time, a specific list of pages or the New Tab page), while Incognito windows allow you to browse without your history being recorded. Chrome is a great browser that crams an awful lot of power into a tiny package. Download it here today. Key features
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| Industry voice: From discovery to action: big data in the boardroom Posted:  As with the adoption of Hadoop in enabling more flexible data storage and analysis, discovery must take place in the context of where there is a clear understanding of how analytics can deliver against the organisation's broader objectives. Put another way, discovering nuggets of information will only be of real value if they are incorporated as part of new business initiatives. The granularity of the available data enables this to operate both at a strategic (longer-term) and, increasingly, a tactical customer or transactional level. So how can the business take this process of discovery and turn it into action – in the boardroom and on the shopfloor – as the basis of a more competitive business? First, the big data roadmap needs board-level support from the outset, from executives who understand the value of data as the driving force behind business improvement. This not only requires that they have a basic familiarity with the concept of analytics, but also they need to recognise the value of experimentation. Many of the nuggets found at the discovery phase need to be tested in a real world environment to assess their potential value, making senior buy-in critical. Businesses with a web presence tend to be better placed here, as experimentation in the web sphere is far easier. As a simple example: if an online retailer wants to trial an alternative website in a new colour, this can be made available to a controlled subset of customers and the outcome on buying behaviour and profitability assessed, with no impact on the retailer's core customer base. Although this is harder to achieve in a physical environment, in many cases performance improvement will be well worth the time and effort invested. Again, the ability to experiment is key. Retailers are especially good here, through their willingness to allow individual store or area managers to try out different initiatives. However, unlike much of the distributed power of decades past, the head office usually has full visibility of all activities. Equally important is the impact can also be tracked and monitored at individual shopper as well as at store level. There are however a number of other hurdles to be overcome: First, it is important for senior management to understand and be sensitive to the practicalities in implementing discovery at ground level. For example, it may be that all tests have shown that adoption of key phrases as part of a call centre process will deliver more effective results. However, if operatives are uncomfortable with the proposed change and are not persuaded by the scale of benefit, anticipated results will not be realised. Second, the resulting outcomes and impact must be measurable in order to determine the effectiveness of any initiative, which can then be used to build confidence and secure buy-in for broader rollout across the business. Finally, in the spirit of fail fast, the business must be brave enough to admit when things aren't working – both in existing parts of the operation and in new initiatives – and take immediate corrective action. In an iterative environment with rapid measurement of results, such decisions can be taken swiftly and repeatedly in order to optimise outcomes. Visible best practiceA business that has successfully scaled the heights of a seamless strategy – from initial experiment through analysis to final business execution – can be distinguished from a business still in the foothills of Hadoop implementation for example, in a number of ways. Although much of the effort to deliver this integrated approach takes place behind the scenes, a data-driven organisation is more likely to change visibly over time, as it responds rapidly and effectively to what competitors and customers are doing. The organisation also tends to be more willing to embrace disruptive concepts and introduce radical change within the business in order to differentiate itself and gain a competitive edge. A good example of an iterative discovery approach is Amazon - to frequent customers, Amazon's site has not changed over time, but if we compare snapshots of the website from five years ago to today, there would be a notable difference. This perception is because Amazon has taken advantage of incremental discoveries and subtly enhanced their website – delivering service innovation and improvement without dramatically disrupting their customer's experience or routine. The site has evolved with a continual drive to making the customer shopping experience as intuitive and easy as possible. Changes will be subtle so returning customers know what to do and where to go on the site, but benefit from constant enhancements. So why is a data-driven approach a key component of business success? It makes for better value-driven decisions by offering facts on which to base comparisons of relative options and accurately measure their effectiveness. Greater granularity enables greater competitive edge, through the ability to measure the value of new offerings. A Unified Data Architecture ensures the most efficient use of people, processes and technologies. It also creates an agile, future-proofed infrastructure, which can adapt and incorporate new solutions, enabling the business to evolve in time with market demands. Many of today's businesses have recognised that a good data strategy is no longer about measuring the past but instead enables management to both predict and influence future outcomes. In short, this transparency and control moves the business decisively from being at the victim of circumstance to master of its own destiny.
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| Google Inbox will let you hit 'undo' on sent emails Posted:  We've all fired off that one unfortunate email only to wish we'd waited another few seconds, to realize it was sent to the wrong person or you left the subject line blank or something even worse. Now Google proposes to ensure that will never happen again - or at least that it won't matter, hopefully. That's because a new Google Inbox feature called "Undo Send," revealed during a Reddit ask-me-anything session, will let you quickly recall emails as if they were never sent in the first place. It's happeningAs GigaOM points out there are two likely ways this might work. Firstly, judging by how BlackBerry Messenger does it, Google Inbox could just let you rescind emails sent to other Inbox users. On the other hand there's also a somewhat buried Google Labs feature that lets Gmail users un-send emails no matter who they were sent to - as long as they do it within 30 seconds of actually pressing the "send" button. In the Reddit AMA Google Inbox Software Engineer Taylor Kourim said the undo button is the feature he most wants to implement, tied only with cross-browser support. And in case you think it's just a pipe dream, he clarified: "Yes, we're working on it right now. Other Inbox team members answered that they most want to add customization for snooze times and tablet support, but the ability to un-send emails is undoubtedly the most exciting feature that Google Inbox may one day boast. Google opened Inbox up to all comers for a short time today, but currently it remains a (mostly) invite-only service. |
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