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>O2 > Guide To The Social Media Landscape

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DEMOfocus Cloud Technologies - Wappwolf

The CMO’s Guide To The Social Media Landscape

[3/14/11 Editor’s Note: Our second annual “CMO’s Guide To The Social Landscape,” an up-to-date analysis of the rapidly shifting world of social media channels, is now available.]

Social media marketing is expected to dominate this year — so much so that 81% of CMOs plan to link their annual revenues to their social media investment, according to a recent survey by The CMO Club and Bazaarvoice. But the growing list of online social media sites makes choosing the right route complicated. From Facebook to YouTube to Digg and beyond, which media outlets will net the most bang for the buck in terms of customer communication, brand exposure, traffic, and SEO?
For an analysis of which social media tools are your best bet, CMO.com turned to 97th Floor, an SEO and social media firm. (Full disclosure: CMO.com is a 97th Floor client.) Here’s 97th Floor’s take on 10 social network choices. A downloadable PDF version of the chart is also available at the bottom of this page.

Attachment Size
CMO-SOCIAL LANDSCAPE-R5.pdf 455.14 KB

Download … Great digital marketing info graphic

Let us know what you think about this guide.  Post your comments or send an email to feedback@cmo.com. And, as always, please share this with your colleagues.

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>O2 > YouTube Video Editor Makes Online Editing Simple

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Post-interview video editing with Final Cut Pr...Image by mobilechina2007 via Flickr


 , About.com Guide

The Bottom Line
There’s a certain beauty in the simplicity of the YouTube video editor. It’s just a single track timeline with basic transitions and effects, and a simple soundtrack feature. But it’s easy to learn, quick to use, and pretty awesome.
It may be simple, but just for being on YouTube it’s a success and has the potential to change the way millions of producers interact with the site.

Pros
  • The YouTube video editor is easy to learn
  • The YouTube video editor processes video quickly
  • The YouTube video editor is free
Cons
  • The YouTube video editor only has the most basic features.
Description
  • The YouTube video editor makes it easy to edit and remix your YouTube videos.
  • Video editing on YouTube is very basic, lacking any complex editing features.
  • As part of the Test Tube program, the YouTube video editor is still under development.
  • You can only edit YouTube videos that you’ve uploaded to your YouTube account.
  • Effects include black & white, image stabilization, brightness and contrast.
  • Transitions include basics like crossfade and wipe, as well as cheesy ones like heart, star and jack-o-lantern.
Guide Review – YouTube Video Editor Makes Online Editing Simple
The YouTube video editor is getting better and better. When it was originally introduced, all you could do was trim your clips, arrange them in a timeline, insert basic transitions and add a soundtrack.
Now, you can also create multiple projects and add effects to change the look of your video. These improvements make the YouTube editor – already a great tool – even better.
Even with its recent additions, the YouTube editor remains a simple tool. And simplicity has its benefits. In the case of the YouTube video editor it translates into speed. We all know how slow video editing can be on a desktop computer, and you’d expect editing online to be even slower.
That’s not the case with the YouTube video editor, which processes your videos much more quickly than you’d expect from an online video application. And it’s much easier to learn, so you can start editing your YouTube videos in no time.
Obviously, such limited video editing software is not suitable for many projects. But I can imagine many instances where the YouTube video editor will come in incredibly handy.
For instance, it’s great for making mashups of your recent videos. And web series producers could use the YouTube video editor to add opening and closing credits onto their videos.
The YouTube video editor is nothing complex. It’s just a simple tool that has the power to deeply impact the way we publish and interact with online video – much like YouTube itself.

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>O2 > Microsoft Office 365 > Fresh BIG BIZ Potential

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Front entrance to building 17 on the main camp...

 

Microsoft Office 365: What’s on tap for big businesses, federal users?

By Mary Jo Foley

While Microsoft has begun detailing some of the planned packaging and pricing for its Office 365 suite of cloud-hosted applications, a few details still remain murky.
One of those is whether Microsoft will carry over from its current Business Productivity Online (BPOS) suite the “D” (dedicated) and “F” (federal) SKU options.
I’ve heard from some of my contacts that Microsoft is poised to offer a public beta of Office 365 the week of April 18, in anticipation of its early June launch of the Office 365 suite. So maybe we’ll hear more about the company’s SKU plans next week. Or maybe not….

Check out Office 365 in pictures: 70 slides showing SharePoint Online, Lync Online, Exchange Online and more
Office 365 is Microsoft’s successor to BPOS, its bundle of hosted SharePoint, Lync (unified communications) and Exchange services. It is Microsoft’s head-to-head competitor with Google Apps.

With BPOS, Microsoft currently provides users with a choice of “S” (standard, i.e., mulitenant); “D” (dedicated); and “F” (federal) SKUs. The BPOS-F option is a highly locked-down bundle of Microsoft-hosted SharePoint, Exchange and Communications Server. (“Physical access to those (BPOS Federal) systems is limited by biometric access controls to a small number of individuals who, in compliance with International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), must be citizens of the United States who have undergone rigorous background checks, including fingerprinting,” according to the Microsoft press release announcing BPOS-F last year.)
When Office 365 ships, those three SKUs may not carry over, from what I’m hearing from some of my contacts.
When I asked the team whether there’d still be S, D and F options with Office 365, I received this rather vague response from a spokesperson:

“There will definitely be an offering for those government organizations that have additional regulatory needs, like ITAR-compliance (included in the FAQ on the Office 365 website), but Office 365 for enterprises works well for most federal, state and local governments, because the services have been certified as compliant with ISO 27001 standards, completed SAS70 Type I and II audits, and achieved the EU Safe Harbor seal. Microsoft has also added controls for helping customers comply with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act).”

So does that mean there will be an Office 365 D offering or not? Your guess is as good as mine. I (kind of) think there will be some kind of F option for Office 365, but again, I am not 100 percent sure.
BPOS-D currently requires a minimum of 5,000 seats and requires an automatic three-year licensing agreement. It offers users more options for customization. BPOS-S has a minimum requirement of five seats and is the version of BPOS that Microsoft targets at SMBs.
Any customer out there care if Microsoft does away with the Dedicated option for Office 365?

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>O2 SCIENCE >> Clever Windows

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Turning windows into powerplants 

 A prototype of the MIT researchers’ transparent solar cell is seen on top of a promotional item for MIT’s 150th anniversary celebrations. Photo: Geoffrey Supran

Turning windows into powerplants

by David L. Chandler
  Turning windows into powerplants

If a new development from labs at MIT pans out as expected, someday the entire surface area of a building’s windows could be used to generate electricity — without interfering with the ability to see through them.
 Richard Lunt, one of the researchers who developed the new transparent solar cell, demonstrates its transparency using a prototype cell. Photo: Geoffrey Supran

The key technology is a based on organic molecules, which harnesses the energy of infrared light while allowing visible light to pass through. Coated onto a pane of standard window glass, it could provide power for lights and other devices, and would lower installation costs by taking advantage of existing window structures.


These days, anywhere from half to two-thirds of the cost of a traditional, thin-film solar-power system comes from those installation costs, and up to half of the cost of the panels themselves is for the glass and structural parts, said Vladimir Bulović, professor of electrical engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. But the transparent photovoltaic system he developed with Richard Lunt, a postdoctoral researcher in the Research Laboratory of Electronics, could eliminate many of those associated costs, they say.

A paper by Bulović and Lunt describing their new system has been published online in the journal , and will appear in a forthcoming issue of the print edition.
Previous attempts to create transparent have either had extremely low efficiency (less than 1 percent of incoming solar radiation is converted to electricity), or have blocked too much light to be practical for use in windows. But the MIT researchers were able to find a specific chemical formulation for their cells that, when combined with partially infrared-reflective coatings, gives both high visible-light transparency and much better efficiency than earlier versions — comparable to that of non-transparent organic photovoltaic cells.
In a new building, or one where windows are being replaced anyway, adding the transparent solar cell material to the glass would be a relatively small incremental cost, since the cost of the glass, frames and installation would all be the same with or without the solar component, the researchers say, although it is too early in the process to be able to estimate actual costs. And with modern double-pane windows, the photovoltaic material could be coated on one of the inner surfaces, where it would be completely protected from weather or window washing. Only wiring connections to the window and a voltage controller would be needed to complete the system in a home.

In addition, much of the cost of existing solar panels comes from the glass substrate that the cells are placed on, and from the handling of that glass in the factory. Again, much of that cost would not apply if the process were made part of an existing window-manufacturing operation. Overall, Bulović says, “a large fraction of the cost could be eliminated” compared to today’s solar installations.
This will not be the ultimate solution to all the nation’s energy needs, Bulović says, but rather it is part of “a family of solutions” for producing power without greenhouse-gas emissions. “It’s attractive, because it can be added to things already being deployed,” rather than requiring land and infrastructure for a whole new system.

Fine-tuning the cells
The work is still at a very early stage, Bulović cautions. So far, they have achieved an efficiency of 1.7 percent in the prototype solar cells, but they expect that with further development they should be able to reach 12 percent, making it comparable to existing commercial solar panels. “It will be a challenge to get there,” Lunt says, “but it’s a question of excitonic engineering,” requiring optimization of the composition and configuration of the photovoltaic materials.
The researchers expect that after further development in the lab followed by work on manufacturability, the technology could become a practical commercial product within a decade. In addition to being suitable for coating directly on glass in the manufacture of new windows, the material might also be coated onto flexible material that could then be rolled onto existing windows, Lunt says.
Using the window surfaces of existing buildings could provide much more surface area for solar power than traditional solar panels, Bulović says. In mornings and evenings, with the sun low in the sky, the sides of big-city buildings are brightly illuminated, he says, and that vertical “footprint” of potential light-harvesting area could produce a significant amount of power.


Max Shtein, associate professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan, says, “This work demonstrates a useful effect, and is based on very sound science and engineering.” But he adds that “it is but one of the many other methods by which a similar functionality could be achieved,” and says the biggest uncertainty at this point is that because they are so new, “the lifetime of organic PV cells is a bit of an unknown at this point, though there is some hope.” In addition, Shtein says, “The potential of this technology is good if projected far into the future,” but only if the efficiency can be improved as the researchers expect it can.
As added benefits, the manufacturing process for the MIT researchers’ solar cells could be more environmentally friendly, because it does not require the energy-intensive processes used to create silicon solar cells. The MIT process of fabricating solar cells keeps the glass panes at ordinary room temperature, Bulović noted. Installations of the new system would also block much of the heating effect of sunlight streaming through the windows, potentially cutting down on air conditioning needs within a building.

The research was funded by the Center for Excitonics, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Source: http://www.physorg.com

This story is republished courtesy of MIT News (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/), a popular site that covers news about MIT research, innovation and teaching.

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