Yet Another Proof that Social Media Works

what-is-forex-tradingAfter a long three months of job searching using every available tool, looks like I have landed myself a position as a Content Manager at a Forex startup. At the risk of giving myself a huge jinx before I even start the job, I wanted to share with you my experience over the last three months, and how I reached the indisputable conclusion that social media is the way to go.

Over this extremely trying period of looking for my next job, I used pretty much every tool available to me. That includes the traditional job websites, as well as outsourcing companies, and placement agencies. I must have sent out a 100 CVs a week, each with a really impressive cover letter as well as a CV customized for the type of position for which I am applying. I will not say that was a total failure. I did get a handful of interviews from them, but nothing came of any of them. What seems to count more than a nice cover letter or CV is people’s opinion and recommendation of you as an individual. In addition to those tools, I used Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, emails to all my contacts as well as community lists, and let’s not forget a whole lot of IMing.

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So in the hope that one or more of my readers will benefit from this information, I decided to share with you some of the tools that I found to be useful. Let’s start with the one that ended up closing the deal, Facebook (with a little IM help on the side). I know people today seem to think of Facebook as a waste of time and one of those things “I just do not need”, but my experience proved otherwise. Yes, it is true, Facebook can be a huge distraction and occupy a lot of your time, but the exposure that one can get using Facebook is unprecedented. At a simple click of a button, you can let hundreds if not thousands of people know you are looking for a job, and that is what I did.

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What ended up happening with me is that, the fact that I was looking became known to pretty much everyone I ever knew, and an old friend of mine, who, the truth be told, would probably have found out via IM anyway, heard I was unemployed. Now, remember, I was working in the technology and cellular industry in my last job.

This particular friend works in the Forex industry, and has built various sites, one of them being a Digg style website for Forex news , as well as others for the Forex community. Well, he made a connection through one of his sites with an individual who has recently started a company and was looking for a content manager. He then made the match.

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This story could never have happened five years ago, when there was no social media and all these tools were unavailable to us. Now, it is important to emphasize that this particular opportunity worked out for the best, but for every interview I got through the job sites, I got five from networking. Wherever I was, whoever I was talking to, I put aside the embarrassment of being laid off from my last company (although, in today’s economy, it is not so bad, who doesn’t know someone that lost their job recently? Check out this list.), and pretty much let anyone and everyone know I am looking.

Just to sum up, if you or someone you know are looking for a job in almost any field, I would recommend making use of the old fashion tools as well, but spending much more time developing your profile and networks on the various social media tools.

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If you want to know more details about the exact manner in which I did this networking, or alternatively, if you want more information on the traditional side of things, the sites I used etc., you can message me on Facebook here, DM on Twitter here, write me on LinkedIn here, email me here. Or, you can also call me if you have my number, I have not stopped using that means of communication, YET.

-Hillel

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Come on Microsoft – Who Made This?

Microsoft released a new product called Songsmith, an application that helps you write your own songs for PC only. In concept it’s a cute app but after you watch this ad I wouldn’t go near it, ever. Besides the fact that the ad is incredibly painful, they use a MacBook Pro as the computer they are demonstrating the program on. They try to cover it up with a few stickers, but this is really shocking. Who is responsible for this ad???

-Aryeh

Source- TechCrunch

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Samsung/McCann Digital Use Web 2.0 To Market Omnia

samsung-omnia-1A lot going on in the cellular world lately. Somehow though, even with the iPhone, the G1, and the new Pre, the Samsung Omnia is able to stand its ground. Yes, a lot of these new phone have more bells and whistles, but the Omnia’s feature set still keeps it at the top of the bunch. Just to give you a quick run down, the Omnia boasts a huge 3.2 inch screen (bigger than the Pre), a 5mp camera (better than the iPhone and the Pre COMBINED) with a built in flash (hear that Apple?), insanely fast HSDPA, WiFi, a blazing fast 624 mhz processor (I do not believe anything faster exists), has 8 or 16GB built in memory AND an expansion slot, stereo bluetooth (I am still talking to you Apple), plays DIVX movies, pocket Office, built in GPS, a high quality video camera, and all that in a ridiculously tiny 12.5 mm package (that is 4 mm thinner than the Pre).

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I had the chance to play with the Omnia a little and the thing is just beautiful looking, and feels great in your hand. There really is not much missing in terms of the specs. The screen is resistive, not like the iPhone’s but somehow anyone that has reviewed it, cant stop talking about its responsiveness. It runs Windows Mobile 6.1, which is said to be a huge improvement over the older WM5. All in all, we got a winner of a device here.

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OK, but there is another reason why I love this phone so much. It is the first phone that Samsung is marketing by using the tool that we have all grown to love so much, social network marketing. Samsung has joined forces with McCann (click on the McCann link to see a really cool ad campaign for Web advertising) digital to market the amazing Omnia using various blogs. One of these blogs is actually one of my favorites; Blonde 2.0. Ayelet writes a lot about the Web 2.0 world and she has acquired for herself quite the reputation amongst the social networking enthusiasts like myself.

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Samsung and McCann have cooperated in the past as well, marketing a Samsung SC HMX10 high-def camcorder, but this is the first time they are using this tool with a mobile device, and I am loving it. As a blogger, a social networking addict (click that link to follow me on Twitter), and a mobile lover, I say great initiative from McCann and Samsung. I only hope the campaign is successful and they decide to continue with this concept.

-Hillel

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Would You Eat Here?

Depending who you ask (my wife or me), this is either some genius marketing (that would be me), or some seriously demented black humor that assists in creating a restaurant in which no normal person should consume anything (do I really need to elaborate on who took that stance?)

Eating there might kill you (in reality, it is no worse than Burger King or any of its siblings), but you can watch this highly entertaining video at no risk at all. Putting the issue of cholesterol and heart attacks aside, you gotta admit that the food looks really good.

-Hillel


Watch CBS Videos Online

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CES is Coming up And We Are There

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If you are reading this blog, chances are you know that CES is approaching. You also probably know that MacWorld is upon us, and that Steve Jobs does not have any sort of cancer, just a small curable hormonal imbalance.

Well, I am not a doctor and do not understand Jobs’ condition, and I have no friends at MacWorld, so I will be focusing on CES. I have an old friend that contacted me a few weeks back with a very interesting proposition. He said he is going to CES as a press analyst and he would be glad to represent Tech N Marketing by bringing us the latest and greatest from the show. Zvi is a blogger himself and works in the industry, so I am sure he will have only interesting news for us.

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He will be sending us pictures, videos, and info from the show as soon as new products are announced. So, we will finally know more about Nova and other rumors that have been circulating. I told him to focus on Palm, Microsoft, and any other mobile news, along with anything else he deems interesting and blog worthy. If you have specific requests, please leave em in the comments, and I will ask him to focus on them as well.

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Anyway, just to tell you a little bit about Zvi, read the following summary.

” I was born in Baltimore and grew up in Israel from 1986. In 1999, I returned to Baltimore and went to Towson University and graduated with a BS in business and finance. I was the credit manager for TESSCO technologies. TESSCO supplies wireless communications, as well as networking products and solutions to business professionals. For the past three and a half years I have been the senior underwriter for Atradius trade credit insurance. My analysis focuses on the consumer electronics, telecommunications,  and semiconductor industries.

I work hand in hand with a handful of major manufacturers and distributors along with many other CE channels. My main focus is credit and finance and the viability of companies making payment on goods and services within the CE industry. I have extensive knowledge in product life cycles, inventory management and SKU information and of course what products are moving in the market.

OK, to sum things up, Zvi knows a lot about a lot, and I am sure he will send us some awesome updates. So check back here regularly during the show for frequent updates, you never know, we might be the first to report a huge announcement by one of the main industry players.

-Hillel

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Zune Touch: Too Little Too Late, iPod Touch HD is Coming

zunetouchAs usual, Microsoft seems to be playing catch, this time it’s with Apple. Rumor has it, Microsoft is going to be announcing their Zune Touch, which is supposed to compete with the iPod Touch. OK, so first of all, couldn’t they come up with a better name? Second of all, I do believe Zunes will never compete with iPods.  More importantly though, seems like Microsoft has missed the boat, again!

Since we are talking about the Zune Touch rumor, let’s look at what current rumors there are about Apple’s next line of iPod Touch. OK, sit down Bill, the next gen iPod Touch, according to some serious and unofficially confirmed rumors,  will not have a 3.5′ screen like the current one. Nope, not 4 or 5 either. Depending on who you ask, the device will boast either a 7′ or 9′ screen.

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You heard right! Apple is going to be releasing an iPod Touch HD. It will be a gigantic iPod (obviously it will be more like a tablet device than an iPod) with all the amazing advantages of an iPod Touch, including its OS, accelerometer, and most importantly the App Store. According to Arrington, we have no info on pricing but it is expected to go for significantly more than the $400 32GB iPod Touch.

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So what do I mean when I say these rumors are unofficially confirmed? Well, Techcrunch has 3 independent sources for this scoop, including one that has supposedly held the device. That’s good enough for me! Does the thought of an MP3 player with a 3′-4′ touch screen, made by Microsoft, still excite you?

-Hillel

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Huge Like Mob and Tech N’ Marketing News

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It’s a good morning for my friends and I. So there is good news and…better news! Let’s start with the good news. Like Mob, our podcast about mobile world developments, is live on iTunes. We have recorded two episodes so far, but we are going to be recording weekly, so check it out if you have even the most remote interest in anything cellular. Here is the link.

The better news is that Tech N’ Marketing has made it to Apple.com. We are quoted giving a review of the app that has been in the top 10 apps since its introduction, iFart. I have to admit again, when Aryeh posted about this app, I told him I thought it was not news worthy and that the whole fart (I was considering using the word flatulation, but c’mon, who am I kidding?) app industry is a ridiculous one.

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I was quickly put in my place when iFart made its developers $40,000 in two days and is the top downloaded app in the App Store. Well, it turns out that Aryeh was right on another count because the exact quote that I thought was not worthy to be on our blog, made it to Apple.com. It also made it to the top of the app’s description in the App Store.

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I  guess that is why Aryeh is the marketing expert. I think I’ll stick to the tech aspect of this blog, and let the experts do their thing.
-Hillel

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Article On $99 iPhones Misleads

I just came across something that really bothered me, thought I would blog about it. Everyone who has a site or a blog knows that traffic is important. There are many ways to attract traffic to your site, the big one and the the buzz word you probably hear a lot about is SEO (Search Engine Optimization). It basically gets your site higher up on search engines like Google or Yahoo.

Without getting into the debate about the legitimacy of these methods, I think we can all agree on one thing, misleading your readers to gain traffic is not a legitimate method. OK, now that we agree on that, let me tell you what happened. A lot of the people I am following on Twitter all of a sudden posted the following message: “Wal-Mart Sells Apple iPhone, $99 Models Available – InformationWeek http://tinyurl.com/9yh5jd“. The posted link was to this article, the title being “Walmart sells Apple iPhone, $99 model available“.

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When I saw these messages on Twitter, I assumed that someone was misinformed, but was then surprised to find out that the author of the article was the one doing the misleading. The title is simply not true. Walmart is NOT selling $99 iPhones. OK, it does not explicitly say Walmart is selling them, but it is extremely implied, and that in my opinion, is not the way to do things. First of all, I just think it is ethically wrong to mislead someone, but more importantly, I know I will never go to that site again for any information.

FYI, what the article says is that Walmart is selling iPhones, and at the very end of the article there is one sentence about AT&T selling refurbished iPhones for $99, nothing to do with Walmart.

The readers will read the article, see that it was misleading, and lose trust in the source. So maybe the site will accomplish their immediate goal of increasing traffic, but long term, it just causes damage, to the reader, to the source, and to the integrity of the Web as a whole. Dontchya think?

-Hillel

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I Would Buy An iPhone Pro; Would You?

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This morning a very interesting photo appeared on the Web. No one is claiming that it is real, it is just a very interesting concept. It is being dubbed the iPhone Pro or Elite (I believe the first time anyone uttered the words iPhone Pro can be seen in the video below), and it is pretty darn impressive.

I always find it kinda silly when talking about what features a mock up has because, um, it does not exist.  I guess we can talk about what Apple could add to make the iPhone even more awesome. So this phone would have a full QWERTY keyboard, which might actually turn people away from the iPhone due to the thickness it would add, but I am assuming it would attract more users, especially business oriented consumers.

The result of a Google Images search for the words iPhone Pro

The result of a Google Images search for the words iPhone Pro

According to the creator of this Photoshop piece of art, the iPhone Pro would have 60GB of memory, although I personally think 32 is more than enough for 99% of people. It would also offer a one megapixel front camera for iChat, and a high quality camera, with good lenses, optical zoom, and video capability, all things that I think everyone agrees are missing on the current iPhone.

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Gizmodo went ahead and mocked up the mock up. They added two hardware keys and a D-Pad that can be used for gaming. Being as I am not much of a gaming person myself, I am not feeling it.

To just add a few things of my own, I don’t think I am telling you anything you do not know, but here goes:

  1. We need some copy and paste functionality, but that really goes without saying.
  2. I truly believe the addition of MMS functionality would be a blessed one, although my colleagues dispute this point and believe that no one uses MMS today.
  3. Stereo Bluetooth or A2DP.
  4. Ability to save email attachments. Yes, you cannot do that on the current iPhone.
  5. Ability to search your emails.
October, 2008? Did you mean 2009?

October, 2008? Did you mean 2009?

To land a little, MacWorld 2009 is approaching us, and I do not think anyone believes we will see an iPhone Pro. What people do believe is that Apple (not Steve Jobs) will announce an iPhone Nano and possibly a 32GB iPhone.

What I believe is that if they do not implement at least half of the above features in a firmware upgrade soon, I am not going to be happy, and we know already know that when Tech N’ Marketing is not happy, Apple is not happy.

-Hillel

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“If Apple Can Do It, So Can We”

12-16-08-lenovo_ophoneLooks like the cellular market is far from being  exclusive to corporations like Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, or HTC. Apple saw their own success in the world of computers and media players and decided there is no reason not to take that and apply it to the cellular world. I think it is safe to say now, two years and  more than 10 million iPhones later (that number might actually be low compared to the reality), they have succeeded.

Comes along Lenovo, and says “anything you can do, I can do better”. We do not know a lot about the new Lenovo phone besides of course its iPhone-dominating looks. We also know it runs 624MHz CPU, which, correct me if I am wrong, is the fastest available on any phone today.  It also has a mini USB interface, a 5-megapixel camera, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Oh, and it is running on this operating system designed by a small company called Google. If not for anything else, this gives them one point over Apple.

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The experts say it will not make it to the US, but that does not mean Americans cannot buy it. That’s what we have the Web for, right? So the “Ophone” is a little bit bigger than, who else would they be comparing it to, the iPhone on all sides, but not by much. The way I see it, if I could get an open Lenovo phone, running Android, that looks like that, for a few millemeters extra, I am so there. I mean, cmon look at that screen!

-Hillel

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