Businesses will again chase the promise of gains in practices using all this social stuff as the new method. However they will likely fail miserably if they don’t change how they relate to the people first. The Warning Label says: Don’t install this technology unless you can relate to people. Get it?
Read more:
Warning: Did You Read the Label?
There are some online mapping news tidbits on Tuesday.
First, Google appears to have expanded its walking directions feature from a limited test to a broader swath of Web users, according to Search Engine Roundtable.
It’s not clear how many cities are covered now, but at least San Francisco, New York, and London, according to my testing.
Google representatives did not immediately return an e-mail seeking more information.
And over at Microsoft they’ve greatly expanded the coverage of Virtual Earth, according to a Virtual Earth evangelist’s blog.
The site’s Orthoimagery, images taken from directly overhead, and the 45-degree bird’s-eye view, now include tons of additional cities in the U.S. and Europe. Meanwhile, a bunch of new countries around the world can now be seen in satellite images.
Google expands walking directions on Google Maps. This screenshot shows how to walk from the Museum of Modern Art to the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City.
(Credit: Google)
And here are walking directions between the Tower of London and a nearby coffee shop.
(Credit: Google)
Read the original:
Google Maps for walkers, Microsoft Virtual Earth expand
The concept of virtual tradeshows has been around since at least 2001. The appeal, to both exhibitors and attendees, is obvious. No travel costs. No lost productive time due to travel. No limit on the number of employees you can use to staff your booth or “send to the show.” No need to limit the duration of the show to just a few days. No geographical boundaries (assuming you have a way to staff the odd hours). No environmental concerns. No panic because your booth staff flew to Chicago—but your booth ended up in Atlanta.
Yet in practice, uptake has been very slow. This is partly for cultural reasons (can I buy you a virtual drink?) but also because the technology has never quite delivered a user experience that’s a viable substitute for physical presence. Now, the folks at ON24 believe they may have changed that. Their new Virtual Show platform combines the company’s expertise in webcasting with rich graphics to create a compelling visual environment with useful tools for presenting information and qualifying online “booth visitors.” It’s almost like Second Life for trade shows.
Virtual Show is targeted at both individual companies and show organizers/event planners, including trade publications. On the individual company side, the platform could appeal to any company that’s large enough to already host its own user group type events, but may be even more attractive to companies who are right on the edge of that—large enough to have a sizable base of engaged users, but not quite large enough to justify the expense of a live event. An online forum could be used in place of a live event for companies at this stage, while enabling firms that already host a live annual event to add supplemental online conferences throughout the year. Companies could also spread out the cost by selling virtual booth space to channel or technology partners.
The platform may have even more value for publishers. It enables them to offer advertisers a much richer and more interactive way to reach subscribers than the usual mix of enewsletter sponsorships, banner ads and white paper syndication. For aggressive publishers willing to get a jump on this, it also provides differentiation in a highly competitive online advertising market.
Virtual visitors to an event can:
Depending on the number of booths and degree of customization, pricing generally ranges from $20,000-$50,000 per event. For a large enterprise hosting its own user group or other forum, that’s competitive with the cost of a live event—and again, with no travel costs or travel-related lost productivity. Publishers should be able to provide advertisers with attractive pricing for an online presence that goes well beyond the standard webcast.
Other recent coverage of ON24 and Virtual Show:
ON24 Announces Virtual Venue Platform from Worlds In Motion
UP Media, ON24 partner for virtual trade show from DMNews
ON24 Enters Virtual Event Space with New Solution; Adds Flash to Webcasts from DemandGen
ON24 Aims to Turn Desktops into Conference Halls with Virtual Show from Streamingmedia.com
Kill the Business Trip from Forbes
*****
Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom
The rest is here:
ON24 Launches Virtual Tradeshow Platform with Real Potential
Microsoft’s big next-generation virtualization beast has arrived and the speculation pours forth like wine. Redmond’s hypervisor based virtualization system for x64 systems, Microsoft Hyper-V, has released to manufacturing and is available for deployment into production environments. So far, the verdict is out in regards to Hyper-V’s actual performance, but what about its implications for the virtualization market?
View original post here:
Microsoft’s Next Generation of Virtualization
The field of virtualization just keeps a-movin’. This time, desktop/server virtualization heavy-weight Parallels is taking server virtualization into the up-and-coming realm of SaaS. Their popular OS virtualization solution, Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, has been chosen by ProServe, one of the leading ISPs in the Netherlands, to deliver a scalable, cost-efficient Online Backup solution through a SaaS model.
Original post:
Parallels Teams Up For SaaS-Based Online Backup
