Hasta La Gadget!

Having sensibly retired its Genius adverts, Apple has attempted to wash away the sour taste with a new iPad promo that takes things back to basics. “All on iPad” is, as the name suggests, a testament to how tablet owners can handle all their computing needs with Apple’s iOS slate in the “post-PC” era, including image editing, using the tablet as a hub for video entertainment, and mobile payments.

It’s safe territory for Apple, which has built a reputation for its glossy but content-straightforward commercials. Each usually plays on one key feature or theme – Siri has been a recent focus – showing how simple it can be to use it and what real-world benefits it can bring.

That approach was markedly different from the recent Genius adverts aired during the Olympics. Rather than showing iOS and OS X as easy to use, they pitted troubled owners against one of the Apple Store employees, counting on the comedy of his being pestered with questions in unusual hours (and situations) to highlight one of the services on offer.

Unfortunately many found the theme counter-productive, certainly when you consider Apple is normally keen to stress how small the user-hurdles are with its products, and the comedy element fell flat. This new iPad commercial may not break new ground, but it does at least bring the PR behemoth back on message.

New Apple “All on iPad” advert wants you to forget the hapless Genius is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Rapid turnaround just may be the name of Facebook’s game. Just a few weeks after its SDK 3.0 for iOS reached beta, the new developer tool has surfaced in a polished version. As it’s shipping, the SDK continues to emphasize a more iOS-native experience, better API support and slicker session management. Any iOS 6 integration will still have to wait until Apple finishes its software update; Facebook is keeping a separate beta track active to serve forward-thinking developers. The social network’s regular members aren’t quite getting the same reward, however. The expanded app support is being followed just as quickly by a mobile ad beta. While Facebook is still sparing us from a full-bore marketing assault, it’s letting developers pitch their Android and iOS apps from Facebook’s mobile portals, with a quick hop to the relevant app store if the title isn’t already loaded. While there’s no estimated completion date, we have a feeling that this is one Facebook beta where most customers won’t mind a delay or two… or ten.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Software

Facebook SDK 3.0 for iOS arrives in finished form, mobile ads tag along in beta originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Aug 2012 19:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has pulled its controversially underwhelming “Genius” adverts, which debuted during the Olympics to a litany of criticism. The trio of clips – which showed a slightly bemused Apple Genius being pestered with questions at inopportune times – showed up interspersed in Olympics 2012 coverage a week ago, but according to the ad agency responsible have now been retired. However, the agency also insists that the short run was the intention all along.

In fact, the adverts were only meant for a “first run” during the Games, agency TBWA/Media/Arts told Mashable, “which meant just the first weekend of the Games.” Apple has not commented on the promotions.

The three clips differed from Apple’s recent promotional strategy, which has generally been to highlight key individual features of devices and demonstrate them in crisp close-up, or otherwise to show the Siri virtual personal assistant interacting with one of a number of celebrities. Instead, it took a more comical approach, with an off-duty Genius unable to escape questions from iOS and OS X newbies.

However, the reception proved cold, with many unimpressed at how they portrayed Apple users. The adverts are still available on Apple’s YouTube channel – and viewable below – but it’s unclear whether the company will revisit the theme with a future campaign.

Apple yanks unloved Genius adverts is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

As Facebook’s public persona ramps up another new month, less than a year after it’s first put itself on the public market with an IPO of some great disaster, the social network faces several allegations of advertising network faux pas. The most recent bit comes in as a release in their very own company filings, a note on how more than 8.7% of its 955 million active accounts are “rule breakers” or completely fake accounts altogether. The second and third negative news bits come from 3rd party groups saying Facebook’s advertising network relies too heavily on “likes” that may not even be real, so to speak.

The Facebook company filings shown this week by Facebook say that the Zuckerberg-owned company is made up of 4.8% duplicate member accounts. That’s a fairly massive number when you consider that it’s more than half of what the company suggests are simply rule breakers. An amount of 2.4% of the total number of members on Facebook then are user-misclassified, that being personal profiles for pets, businesses, or objects. Finally there’s the eerily titled “Undesirable” category which makes up 1.5% of the members on Facebook.

The “Undesirable” category is made up of what Facebook says are profile “intended to be used for purposes that violate our terms of service, such as spamming.” This is not good news for the company that also notes in its most recent filing that, “the loss of advertisers, or reduction in spending by advertisers with Facebook, could seriously harm our business.”

Earlier this week the digital distribution firm known as Limited Press let it be known that they were quite suspicious of Facebook’s ways and means of charging them for advertisements and clicks on the social network. They noted that based on their own 3rd party analytics software, they found 80% of clicks on their advertisements to have been made by bots – aka not real users in the least.

Limited Press now notes that after substantial attention from the press, Facebook is now looking in to the matter.

Meanwhile the BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones had a hankering last month to investigate Facebook’s recent round of fake “likes” allegations. He created a fake company by the name of VirtualBagel and found that a large majority of the interactions the company had were from non-English-speaking regions in the Middle East and Asia. Cellan-Jones also observed that many of the accounts – if not a majority of them – were entirely fake and/or created for spam.

Have a peek at the timeline below to find our more about Facebook’s recent past and see if you can track their movements with several pointed news bits.

Facebook faces loose Likes at crucial ad crux is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google announced today that it has purchased Wildfire, a social media marketing startup. Wildfire is only four years old, and since its inception its been helping businesses keep track of their presence across various social networking sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus. Neither company is talking about how much Google paid for Wildfire, but AllThingsD says that sources close to the deal reckon the amount is somewhere around $250 million.

Both companies are also being a little unclear about what Wildfire will be doing at Google, but it isn’t hard to guess. Google will want to incorporate Wildfire into its social marketing efforts, and Wildfire will likely become an invaluable tool for Google when it comes to expanding those efforts. That being said, Wildfire users can rest assured that the company will continue to offer its current services, as Wildfire says “there will be no changes to our service and support for our customers.”

On the Official Google Blog, Product Management Director Jason Miller said that this team up between the search giant and Wildfire will result in more businesses getting involved with their customers. “The ultimate goal is better and fresher content, and more meaningful interactions,” Miller wrote. “People today can make their voices heard in ways that were previously impossible, and Wildfire helps businesses uphold their end of the conversation (or spark a new one).”

We can probably expect Wildfire to help Google with the ongoing development of Google Plus at first, but really, the exact plan is only known by those at Wildfire and Google. This isn’t the first time Google has attempted to buy a company that focuses on social marketing, however, so you can bet that Google has a plan for Wildfire already formed and ready to be carried out. Stay tuned, because this could turn out to be a major win for the big G.

Google announces Wildfire acquisition is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.