Buzzz.tv: new beta version next Sunday

A new beta version of Buzzz.tv, codenamed “Nuage” (Cloud in French) will be tested next Sunday evening during the TV show “Tout le monde en parle” on Radio-Canada. We are proud to help iXmédia on this exciting project with our cloud computing expertise.

Registration opens at 7:30pm at http://www.buzzz.tv.

Motorola developping a new “Social” Android phone

Motorola is reported to be working on a new “social smart phone”.

According to BusinessWeek, Motorola is putting $50 million into its Android project. The phone is said to include a touch screen as well as a full qwerty keyboard among its features. The new phone is targeted at mobile social-networking users, which are believed to rise to 23% of the global mobile phone users by 2012.  The phone is also expected to be cheaper than the G1’s $180 price.

Can this new phone be a iPhone killer?  Maybe not, but the Android platform keeps on driving our attention.

First look at the G1 Android smartphone

Google and T-Mobile today announced the first Android-compatible smartphone: G1.  Alhough the phone may not look as trendy as the iPhone, its feature set is interesting (given its price tag of 179$):

• 3G & WiFi support
• Camera
• GPS & Compass
• Accelerometer
• “Chrome Light” web browser
• Built-in support for Amazon MP3 Store, GMail, Google Maps and Street View
• Application market similar to the Apple App Store

You may want to watch the first G1 commercial available here.

T-Mobile to offer Android smartphone soon

According to an article on Reuters:

“T-Mobile and Google will be making an announcement this month in New York City,” two people told Reuters on Wednesday, adding Sept 23 was a likely date for the announcement.

Android will definitely make noise shortly… “Dumb phones” will start to fade out!

Update (Sept 16): It is now official. The press conference will be held on Sept 23. See article from TechCrunch.

Benefits of Crowdsourcing

You now have a basic understanding of Crowdsourcing, how it works and what can you get from it. However, we still have to analyze it better and see more of its advantages and benefits before we actually take the plunge.

There are many different advantages in using Crowdsourcing for your business. One significant benefit is producing new and innovative ideas created by a wider range of talent that’s outside your organization at a significantly reduced cost. Your company can invite your customers to participate in the development of a new product. In this way, you are minimizing your labor cost and research expenses.

Some companies use Crowdsourcing to solve company problems. There are companies that provide solutions to different and sometimes complex corporate problems by using the intelligence of the participants.

Crowdsourcing can also work by creating or generating content for your company’s website. In this case, you will spend less or sometimes nothing to update the content of your site. One great example is Wikipedia.

You can also use Crowdsourcing to perform important business tasks like research, marketing, and branding. Conducting online surveys can be inexpensive and will help you analyze your market better. Lots of money can be saved by tapping into the interests of the crowd.

All of these benefits may be yours if you know how to make crowdsourcing work for you. All you need to do is to start thinking in a different pattern, and ask yourself how thousands from the crowd may solve your needs more efficiently and effectively versus a few experts.

Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales to Grow 11% in 2008

Worldwide sales of mobile phones will reach 1.28 billion units in 2008, an 11 percent increase from last year, according to Gartner, Inc. In 2007, worldwide mobile phone sales reached 1.15 billion units.

Full press release from Gartner

iPhoneLive conference

O’Reilly introducted iPhoneLive, a new one-day event aimed at developers, entrepreneurs & enthusiasts. The conference will be held on November 18, in San Jose. You can get your pass for 625$ until October 14. After that, it’s 750$.

Links

• iPhoneLive Web Site
• Registration

Follow us on Twitter!

If you are already using Twitter, you can now follow us to receive the latest updates. Feel free to drop us a note!

http://twitter.com/mirego

iPhone growth rate vs. Symbian

Symbian just released their first half and second quarter results for 2008. At first glance, the numbers seems OK. However, TechCrunch posted an interesting article about the sales of iPhone vs. Symbian.

The most glaring element of Symbian’s release was that it only grew 5 percent over the past year. Considering mobile phone sales grew 12 percent in the second quarter, according to Gartner, and considering Apple is selling 800,000 units each week, Symbian may be losing its grip on the market.

Symbian still dominates the OS market but is the product good enough to keep its lead? With the amazing iPhone and the upcoming release of Android phones, we can expect a hit on Symbian’s market share.

Because it’s much easier to develop on iPhone and Android, developers will create greater apps on those platforms and help Apple and the Open Handset Alliance to gain market shares.

La sagesse des foules

La journaliste Marie-Claude Morin nous propose un article très intéressant sur le livre Wisdom of the crowds de James Surowiecki, dans le dernier numéro du journal Les Affaires.

En fait, c’est le regroupement d’un nombre de décisions individuelles, plutôt qu’une prise de décision concertée, qui conduira aux meilleures décisions.

Vous pouvez consulter son article sur le site de Les Affaires.