ON24 Brings Social Media to Online Webcasting

May 18, 2011May 18, 2011 by Shy Mukerjee

You can tell from the minute you sign into an ON24 webcast that something different is going on. For one, the interface looks like the Mac operating system, with a dock-like area of icons at the bottom of the screen. This is the interface to ON24’s widgets, programs that run inside the webcasting application, including Twitter and Facebook apps. Currently, there are about 20 widgets available with ON24, with more being added each week.

I had the chance to sit down and try out some of ON24’s features recently, and came away impressed. Whereas other webcasting solutions are often dull, with a single video pane or slideshow available, ON24 seamlessly combines video, slides, Twitter feeds, sharing buttons, LinkedIn, presenter questions and even group chat into a single interface. You can move windows around, hide windows you’re not interested in seeing, and share links live all from their easy-to-use interface.

The ON24 webcasting platform brings a rich feature set together as well, with multi-presenter webcam options and desktop sharing. They bill it as a solution for “one or few to many,” meaning that a single person or a small team can manage the webcast stream (handling different tasks within the platform, like video or fielding questions) that goes out to a much wider audience.

Because the entire platform is built on Adobe Flash technology, mobile users are already able to access ON24 webcasts with their Android phones or BlackBerry tablets. Although iOS support is not possible with the current version of the product, I’ve been told that h.264 video streams are being added and that iPad and iPhone users should expect to be able to join ON24 webcasts by next release of the software, coming this summer.

To learn more, be sure to check out the ON24 Webcasting Platform 10. If you’re interested in seeing how the technology works first-hand, there are live demos coming up tonight, Friday and next Monday.

Contract-free 3G Data on your Laptop without a Contract: Introducing HP Data Pass

May 17, 2011May 17, 2011 by Shy Mukerjee

A small business owner or an entrepreneur operating on a budget can’t simply sign up for an unlimited data plan. The costs add up quick unless you know that you’re going to be constantly on the go. For those who only occasionally need 3G data on the go, DataPass-enabled laptops from HP provide a way to get 3G Internet access only when you need it.

Several HP laptops come with the technology necessary to take advantage of DataPass, which required both the 3G hardware and the latest version (4.1) of the HP Connection Manager software. New HP laptops are bundling the technology required for DataPass, including the ProBook 5330m we recently highlighted on the site, as well as newer models in the EliteBook line.

Pricing is very reasonable for those only needed occasional 3G access, starting at $5 for 5 hours of access, going all the way up to $30 for a whole month:

$5 = 5hr / $10 = 3d / $20 = 14d / $30 = 30d

Is this a technology you think you’d take advantage of? Let us know what you think!

Monday App Roundtable

May 16, 2011May 20, 2011 by Shy Mukerjee

Every week on Mario’s radio show (5-6pm on SiriusXM channel 128), the Small Biz Go Mobile writers and friends get together to discuss some of their favorite apps. Here’s what we took a look at this week:

Terrance’s Pick: Gigwalk

Small Biz Go Mobile’s Terrance (@Brothatech) is talking about a way to put the millions of iPhone owners to work, by offering them payments to complete tasks and take pictures? Gigwalk let’s you create gigs for freelance walkers to collect business info and photographs, verify map information, and capture the retail experience at your location.

Are you a freelancer looking to make some extra cash? The Gigwalk app lets you pick up these jobs, ranging anywhere from a few hundred to more than a thousand dollars. Take some pictures, write some descriptions, and get paid, all from within the app.

Though it hasn’t been rolled out across the country, Gigwalk is currently available in the following major areas: Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Philadelphia, South Florida, Boston, and Chicago.

Get Gigwalk from the iTunes store.

Ramon Ray’s pick: Qik

@RamonRay writes for Small Biz Technology, a site that shares weekly business tips with us here at SmallBizGoMobile. His app pick this week is Qik, the easiest way to share video because it streams it right from your phone or tablet device. With no need to edit or upload anything, your viewers can check out what you’re recording like right from Qik’s site.

Head on over to Qik’s website to get the app for your device.

Shy’s pick: Chrome to Phone

With so many people trying out Google’s Chrome web browser this week to take advantage of the free Angry Birds app for Chrome, I’m sure a lot of people are wondering what makes Chrome a better browser than say, Firefox or Internet Explorer. One extension that I use all the time is Chrome to phone which lets you send links and phone numbers easily to your Android phone or tablet. Need an easy way to download the apps we’re talking about today? If you had Chrome to phone, you could just send this page to your device and install the apps from the market links I’m including.

http://youtu.be/pQb243niMlg

How My Wife Replaced Her Computer with an iPad

May 16, 2011May 17, 2011 by Justin Alcon

My wife was probably the first Apple fangirl I’ve met. Years ago, when we lived on college-kid budgets, she scrimped and saved over $1300 to get her first 12-inch G4 Powerbook. It was the start of a love affair. With the laptop she read blogs, participated in comment forums, did research and schoolwork, wrote, did our family finances, designed magazines, edited videos, kept organized, and even made our wedding menus and programs. She had it open more often than not!

Years later, her cousin absent-mindedly knocked it from a high table and it broke beyond repair. She was heartbroken, and so we replaced it with a newer Intel model immediately (again, another thousand dollars). This seems expensive even now, but we really felt like she needed it. We couldn’t think of any other machine that would enable her to get as much done. We were also the earliest of our friends and family to adopt the smart phone; we had Treos and Blackberries to play with when most people were just figuring out this “texting” thing. We loved our mobile devices very much, but they were strictly for entertainment and communication (not business or school).

One day, everything changed. I got a Blackberry Torch, new in the box, free as swag. Since my wife and I both had the iPhone 4, we were set for phones. So, we found an interested party on Craigslist, went down to Kew Gardens and sold the device for about $450. The same day she took that money to the refurb iPad section of the apple store and bought the most basic iPad, 16 gigs and WiFI only. At checkout the total cost was only a bit more than the $450 we had gotten for the Blackberry.

Here’s the thing; she hasn’t touched her Macbook since. I love this, as I’ve now hooked it up to the TV for use as a media center. But, I have to admit that I was surprised. I knew that she would love the iPad, since we had always liked Apple’s mobile devices, but the iPad is so much more than a big iPod. She easily consumes and creates content for her tumblr, using tumblr’s iPad app. She is able to get into it with the folks in the forums over at the hairpin using Safari. She makes videos like this one with ReelDirector. She quickly does research to find deals or make plans, and she writes at least 750 words a day. She uses Art Studio to add text to images, Photoshop Express for cropping and adding effects, and Adobe Ideas for sketching. Calendar apps keep her organized and the alarm function of the clock app start her day. She even banks and pays bills, all without touching the laptop. It’s all done with iPad, a device that cost less than half as much as her last machine, weighs less than half as much, and lasts almost twice as long on a single charge. We truly live in the future.

GoPayment NFC transactions Demoed at Google I/O Conference

May 13, 2011May 13, 2011 by BrothaTech

This mobile transactions battle between Square, Intuit, and VeriFone is heating up! Looks as if Intuit just raised the stakes with the demonstration of its GoPayment mobile credit card processing application sporting new NFC (Near-Field Communication) technology that could set it apart from competitors in the market.

The current GoPayment system consists of a credit card reader that you plug into your smartphone’s headphone jack to swipe a customer’s credit card to complete a sale. Square and Verifone both have similar devices that you have to physically add to your phone for credit card swiping functionality.

Intuit’s GoPayment demonstration at this year’s Google I/O Conference shows NFC technology bring used to transfer credit card data via radio waves, eliminating the need for the actual card or any add-on card reader hardware. During a transaction, a user simply holds their smartphone (with their financial information stored on an accompanying mobile app) near a Point-of-Sale (POS) device or another smartphone that will read your credit card information and complete the sale. Thus making it easier and faster for customers to pay, and simpler for small business owners to get paid.

Innovation is happening rapidly in the mobile payment space and we want to be ready to help the millions of small businesses and consumers we serve benefit from the latest technology.

The mobile tech industry has been investing in the creation/evolution of the virtual wallet for quite sometime. Intuit, with this recent show of support in NFC and mobile credit card transactions, may have just fast-tracked itself to the front of the race. Look out for more mobile device manufacturers to start pumping out NFC-enabled gadgets like the Google Nexus S currently on the market (and what Intuit used for its demo) that can support this technology towards the end of 2011 and well into 2012.

[via: Business Wire]

The Viddy App for iPhone is like Instagram for Video

May 13, 2011May 13, 2011 by Justin Alcon

In business, it’s vital to connect with your target demographic. Mobile technology can really help with this effort, as it offers many different platforms on which to reach potential customers or community members. For example, Instagram has quickly become a popular way to interact visually with early adopters and younger cursomers. Instagram is great, but it’s limited to still images. If you’d like the same capability for videos, check out Viddy in the iTunes App Store, the free social networking video camera.

The Viddy App for iOS devices is pretty nifty. Basically, it adds visual effects to video and allows the user to share it. When Viddy starts, the default view is a feed of videos that have been shared by your group of connections. The interface is familiar – it’s a near-clone clone of Instagram. The user has the ability to like, comment, and tag videos as they come through the feed.

I’m a ‘sharing’ kind of guy, so I immediately went to ‘Share’. Offered the choice of using an existing video or shooting a new one, I chose to shoot a new one. I did notice a limitation here: only 15 seconds of video can be shared at one time. Then, I was taken to the effects adding screen (pictured right), where I add various visual effects, and adjusted the level of the sound captured. Next, you’re invited to add metadata like title, location, and tags. Finally, you’re given the opportunity to share across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare, and Tumblr.

Recently, the small business where I work paid a famous market research firm to test new language for an upcoming PR campaign. I was shocked to see how words with very similar meanings were sometimes judged harshly by listeners based on their own personal biases. Small tweaks in language made HUGE differences in the way our brand was viewed and our community engagement. The same is true with the visual media that we share: it has to be rich and engaging to reach the proper market share. So, check out Viddy if you’re looking for a new way to reach your target market in a way that really engages them at their level.

Android™ Phones for All Budgets

May 12, 2011May 12, 2011 by Shy Mukerjee

It’s Android Mania at AT&T Premier! We have buzzed-about smartphones for every budget, including LG Phoenix™, MOTOROLA ATRIX™ 4G, and HTC Inspire™ 4G. Experience the apps and features people are talking about—for business and entertainment. Find your Android.

(This message brought to you by our sponsor, AT&T. Elig. voice & data plans req’d. 4G in ltd. areas. Add’l restr. apply.)

Your BlackBerry can STILL make Conference Calls

May 10, 2011 by BrothaTech

As interactive as we are via Skype, Twitter, Facebook, and instant messaging, there are times when you will actually have to make a phone call. Weird right? But that doesn’t mean your collaboration and productivity has to take a nose dive if one of your colleagues, business partners, or clients can’t “connect” using new-age methods.

Three-way calling and/or conference calls are still the sure-fire way to make sure everybody is present and everybody receives all of the information if you can’t meet face to face. As funny as this sounds, with all the technology packed into our smartphones that we take advantage of to do a number of things unimaginable by previous generations, how many people actually knows how to make a conference call on their smartphone?

The folks over at CrackBerry.com have a cool tutorial that breaks down how to successfully make a three-way/conference call on a BlackBerry mobile device that includes:

– Dialing and joining calls
– How to deal with dropped calls
– Swapping calls
– Carrier limitations (how many can be on a conference call)

…and other tips and tricks to increase your phone call productivity:

BlackBerry 101: Conference Calls and Three-Way Calling

In today’s age of social networking, instant messaging, video chat, etc. you would be hard pressed to HAVE to use your smartphone to create or join an actual conference call to conduct business. Old school yes, but; just like anything else, technology can fail. So it’s nice to be able to rely on the old school just in case the new school decides it’s “too cool” to work with you in the middle of an important meeting that you need to attend while you are on the go.

The ProBook 5330m: A New Business Laptop from HP Combines Sleek Design with Pro Media Features

May 9, 2011May 9, 2011 by Shy Mukerjee

You’d be forgiven if at first glance you mistook the HP ProBook 5330m, pictured right, for a MacBook Pro. The brushed aluminum chasis and backlit chiclet keyboard are both plays straight out of Apple’s book. These are a part what HP is calling FORGE, a new design framework that brings a contemporary look to HP’s line of professional laptops.

Less than an inch thick, under four pounds, and sporting a 13.3″ HD screen, the ProBook 5330m is not a typical business offering from the company. HP reps at a recent New York City event told me that they’re starting to broaden their horizons for what can be considered a product for their corporate customers. With features like Beats Audio built-in, the new ProBook brings high-quality media playback capabilities to an attractive and rugged machine. Apparently, business laptops can no longer be sold entirely on the strengths of their corporate-friendly features—employees are increasingly demanding laptops that they want to bring home.

The 5330m is built on top of Intel’s latest notebook technologies, with Sandy Bridge-backed Core i3 and i5 dual-core processors available. It is available today starting at a very reasonable $799.

Mario Armstrong

TV Host and Motivator for the Modern World

Category: Small Biz Go Mobile