All posts by Jonathon Bowes

About Jonathon Bowes

Jonathan Bowes started his career in banking. After a few years, he took courses in business and finance and worked his way up the corporate ladder. Today, while writing part-time for Business District, Bowes assists talented people to find jobs in the field of economics. Contact Bowes at Jonathon[at]businessdistrict.com

Going Nano With the Sun

Tech News, ,

Spire (Spir) founded by Roger Little is known for photovoltaic cell production has received a patent on its nanophotovoltaic technology. Its stock trades at very low levels between 1.29 – 6.78, but with alternative energy being actively pushed as a salvation for oil starved Western Nations, Spire might have the keys to the future.

“This being our third patent issued from our original invention, we have combined our understanding of photovoltaics with our experience in the biomedical field. We are excited to have received this patent and are enthusiastic that it makes an impact in medicine,” Roger Little said.

Spire not only works in solar power developments, but also works in production and development of semiconductors, biomedical, and R&D.

iPhone 5…It’s Coming

Tech News, , , , , , , , ,

The new iPhone 5 is set to make its debut with Sprint Nextel by mid-October.  Sprint’s stock recovered from near collapse on the news.  In the last year Sprint’s stock prices have been halved and so the news of iPhone 5 sales going through it has enhanced its stock valuation. The question of how this affects the larger tech market will remain to be seen.

Apple and China

Apple may be able to do what Google couldn’t and that is break into the Chinese market. Apple is currently in talks with China Mobile (CHA) and China Telecom (CHL).  These carriers would open Apple to the huge Chinese market that increase the companies worth exponentially. Apple is currently trading at 374.35 per share. The deal will also help China Telecom. The company headed, by CEO Wang Xiaochu  saw it’s profits rise 8% in the first half and the iPhone should increase them even more.

Banking: UK Goes Mobile

Tech News, ,

In a further effort to help people save more time, the UK is enabling banking customers to deal with their banking through their mobile phones.  According to a recent article in Mobile Marketing Watch, anyone who owns a smartphone now has the option of mobile financial management.

Time Saving Opportunity

Through the phone, customers are able to enjoy services like balancing their account and reviewing transactions – anything that they might ordinarily have had to gone into the bank for previously.  This of course makes things much easier and less time consuming.  And since time is money, it has to be good for the economy too.

According to a new survey conducted through Antenna, approximately 1 out of 4 UK smartphone owners “now utilize their phone for mobile banking – which is broadly defined as an array of services spanning account balance inquiries to transaction reviews.”  Indeed, Him Hemmer, the company’s Chief Executive, told Reuters, “consumers, particularly younger ones, had little loyalty for which bank they used and therefore the banks could attract more customers if they improved their offerings.”

Increased Accessibility

These days, technology and accessibility is constantly increasing.  Through this, there will be an escalation in mobile banking users.  More and more people will start relying exclusively on this type of banking.  As Hemmer told Reuters, “mobile banking has now taken hold.  People want to take care of their banking when it makes sense to them and not when a branch is open. So banks have to rethink their model. There is not as much brand loyalty as there used to be and so they really have to think about the service they offer.”

 

 

B2B Brand Boost in SMM

Tech News, , , , ,

It seems that business-to-business brands are jumping on the social media marketing bandwagon according to a BtoB magazine study that found 93 percent of B2B marketers working in this field. This is especially apparent with LinkedIn, its 100 million members and a major increase in B2B sign-ins. BtoB is the magazine for “marketing strategists,” being the “only publication dedicated to all disciplines of business-to-business marketing.” For anyone looking for new trends in marketing or winning strategies, this is the magazine.

SMM Great Marketing Tool

Clearly LinkedIn is finding that SMM is a great marketing tool as it is opening it up to more such channels like blogging which 19 percent of respondents claimed were “the most beneficial social outreach,” in the BtoB magazine survey.

BtoB Awards

It’s a real honor for a company to be recognized by BtoB’s Social Media Marketing Awards program and 16 companies out of 120 entries made the grade. Some of the higher entries include: Cisco Systems, Sybase and Mongoose Metrics. The magazine’s editor, John Obrecht commented, “it’s clear that marketing in the social Web has come of age in B-to-B marketing.” As well, there has been a substantial increase in the social side of technology marketing campaigns.

So for B2B brands wanting to pump up the marketing volume, social media marketing seems to be the way forward. With some encouragement from BtoB’s magazine and awards system, they can be well on their way to mega-sales.

Mega-Marketing Millions: SEO Style

Economy, Japan, Tech News, , , ,

The way to go with marketing these days – if you want to be up with top technological techniques – is SEO. Japanese car manufacturer Honda, could learn a thing or two from this marketing method. It is using just one website for different selling points. For example, whether you were looking to buy a used car or were just thinking about maybe becoming a new customer. This made things very confusing since if you would put in a Google search for Honda, you would be sent to their primary site and then you would have to spend time roaming it before reaching your particular area of interest.

Honda Hails SEO Help

So how did the extremely successful and popular Japanese car manufacturer solve this issue? It brought in the SEO experts who developed a “one size fits all solution.” What they did was set up a section that just focused on used cars and then redirected all traffic to that. They then established a map based on the user’s location so that if someone from the Sacramento area was looking for a car, the map would provide them with a list nearby and then put that potential new customer in contact with the current owner.
Higher Hits for Honda!

Well, Honda couldn’t have been happier with the results! In just a few months following their SEO work, their search queries escalated “from tens to thousands.”

SEO, SEM and SES Success

It seems that if you want to be any kind of success in today’s Internet market, the following acronyms need to mean something more than just a few letters. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Strategies (SES) are today’s mandatory media tools.

Indeed, you just need to look at what’s been going on in India to have this theory proved. Figures for 2009-10 show that of the 785 crore* spent on online advertising market in the country, a staggering 368 crore of this was spent in the field of search advertising; this amount is expected to further increase for 460 crore for 2010-11.

So, no matter what business you are, if you want to market your product well and continue to grow, or to at least really start to put yourself out there, you could be well advised to become extremely familiar with SEO, SEM and SES.

*a unit in the Indian numbering system equalling ten million (10000000; 107), or 100 lakh.