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Dear Customer

Happy new year to you .

By the very nature of the business that we are in, we are continuously faced with new trends in technology. These new trends such as social media, convergence and mobilization offer immense opportunity for growth.  At Symbioun, we have been serving our customers who are solution providers to cost effectively deliver technology rich solutions and plan to enhance our services  in the new year.

In this new year, we look forward to enabling you, our customer, to reach new heights of success.

May year 2010 be the beginning of something lasting!

Victor

SIX SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS FOR 2010

In 2009 we saw exponential growth of social media. According to Nielsen Online, Twitter alone grew 1,382% year-over-year in February, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US for the month. Meanwhile, Facebook continued to outpace MySpace. So what could social media look like in 2010? In 2010, social media will get even more popular, more mobile, and more exclusive — at least, that's my guess. What are the near-term trends we could see as soon as next year? In no particular order:

1. Social media begins to look less social

With groups, lists and niche networks becoming more popular, networks could begin to feel more "exclusive." Not everyone can fit on someone's newly created Twitter list and as networks begin to fill with noise, it's likely that user behavior such as "hiding" the hyperactive updaters that appear in your Facebook news feed may become more common. Perhaps it's not actually less social, but it might seem that way as we all come to terms with getting value out of our networks — while filtering out the clutter.

2. Corporations look to scale

There are relatively few big companies that have scaled social initiatives beyond one-off marketing or communications initiatives. Best Buy's Twelpforce leverages hundreds of employees who provide customer support on Twitter. The employees are managed through a custom built system that keeps track of who participates. This is a sign of things to come over the next year as more companies look to uncover cost savings or serve customers more effectively through leveraging social technology.

3. Social business becomes serious play

Relatively new networks such as Foursquare are touted for the focus on making networked activity local and mobile. However, it also has a game-like quality to it which brings out the competitor in the user. Participants are incentivized and rewarded through higher participation levels. And push technology is there to remind you that your friends are one step away from stealing your coveted "mayorship." As businesses look to incentivize activity within their internal or external networks, they may include carrots that encourage a bit of friendly competition.

4. Your company will have a social media policy (and it might actually be enforced)

If the company you work for doesn't already have a social media policy in place with specific rules of engagement across multiple networks, it just might in the next year. From how to conduct yourself as an employee to what's considered competition, it's likely that you'll see something formalized about how the company views social media and your participation in it.

5. Mobile becomes a social media lifeline

With approximately 70 percent of organizations banning social networks and, simultaneously, sales of smartphones on the rise, it's likely that employees will seek to feed their social media addictions on their mobile devices. What used to be cigarette breaks could turn into "social media breaks" as long as there is a clear signal and IT isn't looking. As a result, we may see more and/or better mobile versions of our favorite social drug of choice.

6. Sharing no longer means e-mail

The New York Times iPhone application recently added sharing functionality which allows a user to easily broadcast an article across networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Many websites already support this functionality, but it's likely that we will see an increase in user behavior as it becomes more mainstream for people to share with networks what they used to do with e-mail lists.

Source: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/11/six_social_media_trends.html
David Armano is part of the founding team at Dachis Group, an Austin based consultancy delivering social business design services. He is both an active practitioner and thinker in the worlds of digital marketing, experience design, and the social web.

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TOP 10 CONSUMER MOBILE APPLICATIONS FOR 2012 – GARTNER REPORT

Mobile is the future, concur analysts and research firms. Forecasts see a world where most technologies will converge into smartphones giving users the power to chat, do commerce, interact and all they want in their palms. Here's looking into the top 10 consumer mobile applications of the future Gartner recently identified.

MONEY TRANSFER

This service allows people to send money to others using Short Message Service (SMS). Its lower costs, faster speed and convenience compared with traditional transfer services have strong appeal to users in developing markets, and most services signed up several million users within their first year.

LOCATION-BASED SERVICES

Location-based services (LBS) form part of context-aware services, a service that Gartner expects will be one of the most disruptive in the next few years. Gartner predicts that the LBS user base will grow globally from 96 Mn in 2009 to more than 526 Mn in 2012. LBS is ranked No. 2 because of its perceived high user value and its influence on user loyalty.

MOBILE SEARCH

The ultimate purpose of mobile search is to drive sales and marketing opportunities on the mobile phone. To achieve this, the industry first needs to improve the user experience of mobile search so that people will come back again. Mobile search is ranked No. 3 because of its high impact on technology innovation and industry revenue.

MOBILE BROWSING

Mobile browsing is a widely available technology present on more than 60 percent of handsets shipped in 2009. Mobile Web systems have the potential to offer a good RoI. They involve much lower development costs than native code, reuse many existing skills and tools, and can be agile - both delivered and updated quickly. Therefore, the mobile Web will be a key part of most corporate business-to-consumer (B2C) mobile strategies.

MOBILE HEALTH MONITORING

Mobile health monitoring is the use of IT and mobile telecommunications to monitor patients remotely, and could help governments, care delivery organizations (CDOs) and healthcare payers reduce costs related to chronic diseases and improve the quality of life of their patients.

Currently, mobile health monitoring is at an early stage of market maturity and implementation. In the future, the industry will be able to monetize the service by offering mobile healthcare monitoring products, services and solutions to CDOs.

MOBILE PAYMENT

Mobile payment made Gartner’s top 10 list because of the number of parties it affects -- including mobile carriers, banks, merchants, device vendors, regulators and consumers - and the rising interest from both developing and developed markets.

NEAR FIELD COMMUNICATION SERVICES

MOBILE ADVERTISING

Mobile advertising in all regions is continuing to grow through the economic downturn, driven by interest from advertisers in this new opportunity and by the increased use of smartphones and the wireless Internet. Total spending on mobile advertising in 2008 was $530.2 million, which Gartner expects to will grow to $7.5 billion in 2012.

It will be an important way to monetize content on the mobile Internet, offering free applications and services to end users. The mobile channel will be used as part of larger advertising campaigns in various media.

MOBILE INSTANT MESSAGING

Mobile IM is on Gartner’s top 10 list because of latent user demand and market conditions that are conducive to its future adoption.  Mobile IM presents an opportunity for mobile advertising and social networking, which have been built into some of the more advanced mobile IM clients.

MOBILE MUSIC

It is unfair to dismiss the value of mobile music, as consumers want music on their phones and to carry it around. The company sees efforts by various players in coming up with innovative models, such as device or service bundles, to address pricing and usability issues. iTunes makes people pay for music, which shows that a superior user experience does make a difference.

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