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Trumba , the shared calendar and events communications software company has added the ability for users to attach "custom objects" to their Web calendars and other websites. These "objects" are in essence tables that unfold graphically, keyed to links, or can stand on their own as pages. Trumba's customers use the company's software to publish interlinked calendars and provide other modular features to their websites. Clients include media companies like the New York Times and Ottaway Newspapers, academic institutions like Kansas State and Emory Universities, and groups like the City of Seattle and the New Orleans Saints. Sponsor The custom objects advance the inherent modularity of Trumba's offerings. From Trumba : "To quickly grasp the idea of an Object, think of it as a table. Each record is represented by a row. Each attribute is represented by a column. Because Objects are tables, you can use them to store any collection of data that you might want to publish on your website." Dan Hickman, Trumba's president, wrote us: "Some of our competitors offer a canned venue or performer features that let you track and publish that information along with your calendar but our custom objects feature lets you create any type of content that might be associated with your events. The feature can even be used to publish a connected database of information that's not even related to your calendar." Examples include attaching venue descriptions and pictures to events, to provide detailed listings of departments in a sleekly retrievable fashion and the ability to solicit and utilize user-generated content. Disclosure: The author helped Trumba start their first blog many years ago. Discuss
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Trumba Offers Custom Objects to Calendars
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The arrival of Apple's App Store in 2008 changed the marketplace for mobile developers and mobile carriers alike. The App Store changed the perception of what an app store for mobile devices should look like and started a new arms race among mobile carriers and handset manufacturers. According to a new survey by market research firm Nielsen , however, Apple is still ahead of its competitors. Apple's customers install more applications on their device than users of any other platform and Apple's customers are also more satisfied with Apple's app store than the users of any other app store. Sponsor Apps Installed Per Device iPhone users have installed an average of 37 applications on their devices - more than the users on any other smartphone platform - while Blackberry users only use 10 apps on their phones. Android users have around 22 apps on their phones, followed by Palm users (14) and Windows Mobile users (13). Unsurprisingly, feature phone users don't install a lot of apps on their devices. Only 12% of cell phone users with feature phones downloaded an app in the last 30 days. In contrast to this, about 46% of smartphone owners installed an app in the last month. App Stores With regards to the popularity of different app stores, Nielsen's data isn't that interesting, as most users don't really have a choice. Apple's App Store is the most used mobile app store and has captured 25% of the market, followed by Blackberry's App World Store (16%). Carrier stores run by AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon are also still very popular and have a market share between 8% (T-Mobile) and 15% (Verizon). The Android Market only had about a 2% market share by the end of 2009, but given the small number of devices on the market at that time, this number will surely grow in 2010 as more device manufactures add Android devices to their lineup. Customer Satisfaction When it comes to customer satisfaction, Apple's App Store and the Android Market are far ahead of their competitors. 84% of Apple's users are satisfied with the user experience in the iTunes store and 81% of Android users are happy about their experience. All the other stores, however, still have a lot of catching up to do. In Nielsen's survey, the Windows Marketplace ranked the lowest (56%), followed by the Blackberry App World store (58%). Discuss
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Apple's App Store Still Ranks Highest in Customer Satisfaction, Android Close Second
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Earlier today, conversation tracking site UberVu launched Compare . The service allows you type your name and a competitor's name into search boxes to produce information on your competing brand conversations on Twitter , Blogger , Friendfeed , Facebook , WordPress , HackerNews and Youtube . After all, if social media is the lead generator and customer service tool that we think it is, then it's important for us to know where we stand against our competitors. Sponsor Being a market leader has traditionally been based on sales, page views, unique visitors, members and engagement. It's only very recently that companies have begun to look at their social media metrics in terms of the competitive landscape. Albeit, it's clear that many have forgotten why. It's obvious why we turned to Compete , Quantcast and the less sophisticated GoogleFight to measure our competitors. We wanted to visualize our traffic victories. But with social media, what tangible benefit can startups gain from having 10,000 more Twitter followers than their closest competitor? Many would argue that its akin to counting freckles. But if you look at what drives traffic to your site, then you'll understand that social media is where we're keeping our leads. Rather than just jockeying for traffic and search, we should also consider social media mindshare. But honestly, what could possibly be a metric for mindshare? UberVu's Compare is not the answer to all of your problems. It's not going to build you a positive reputation or make you a market leader. Twitter, HackerNews and the slew of other sites that your users are engaging on are somewhere you can find out if you've screwed up or if your competition has screwed up. Good leaders know how to track brand sentiment and conversation to correct themselves, generate leads and fill a void when competitors are losing consumer trust. The UberVu Compare tool is available at ubervu.com/social-media-comparison . If you've got other tools that help startups track leads or indicate a need for damage control, let us know in the comments below. Discuss
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Social Media Metrics: Why Am I Counting Tweets Again?
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