As economists predict slow growth for the U.S. economy over the next few years, companies are turning to emerging markets such as Africa, Brazil, China, India and Russia to grow their business.

This week, Coca-Cola announced that it will be making a $4 billion investment in China over the next three years. Coca-Cola’s sales in China grew 24% in the most recent quarter; in addition, China is Coke’s third largest market. Coke CEO Muhtar Kent stated, “We don’t see China only as a great growth market. We see China as a future market for further innovation that will benefit our business globally.”

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The jQuery Mobile Framework allows developers to build mobile websites in the same way that they would build websites for desktop browsers. jQuery Mobile is a touch-optimized web framework for smartphones and tablets. It acts as a unified user interface system across all popular mobile device platforms, built on the rock-solid jQuery and jQuery UI foundation. Its lightweight code is built with progressive enhancement and has a flexible, easily themeable design. To ensure cross-browser/-device compatibility, jQuery Mobile is built on clean, semantic HTML.

This blog post just touches the tip of the iceberg by listing some key features, supported platforms and the basic mobile page structure and by sharing some useful links. The use and role of the jQuery Mobile framework in developing mobile websites is huge. Read further to learn more about this awesome framework. (continue reading…)

It’s well known that the best and most reliable form of effective marketing is “Word of Mouth.” A person is more inclined to buy/use a certain product that has been referred by somebody they know. It’s also known that marketers have zero control over word of mouth marketing, but thanks to the advent of social media, this is not true anymore. Brands can have an online presence on various social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. where real people can Like, Follow or Subscribe to their brands and show their friends, followers and connections what they use and prefer, giving an indirect word of mouth.

This is just one of the benefits of having your brand present on social networking sites. Another big advantage of being in the social realm is the interaction with your clients. We’re getting lazier (or smarter!), and we would prefer to have things in the fastest, most convenient way possible. With the advances in technologies and everyone having BlackBerries, Androids, Windows and iPhones, people are getting used to doing everything with the touch of a finger using the same tool. The point is that you and I would rather have everything in one place than having it at a hundred different places. For the same reason, it’s easier for a customer to give feedback to a company using a tool that he uses (already) to connect with his family and friends, rather than filling out a feedback form on the company’s website. It’s also a great way to inform people about the latest news and reviews about the brand’s products, share offers and deals, or engage in a general conversation about the brand or the industry.

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What is Web 3D?

Web 3D is a technology that enables 3D graphics to be displayed on a website. This technology is becoming more popular and is rapidly developing. This article will explain the recent technology trend of Web 3D and how to prepare for a 3D advertising future.

Figure 1. Web3D Body Explorer by Google

History of 3D advertising

Table 1.Chronicles of Web 3D

3D advertising was born during the 2^nd generation of Web 3D. Wildtangent and Viewpoint created several experimental advertisements for Nike, Coke, Ford, and Toyota[4]. However, there was no standard for 3D graphics, so companies created their own format using ActiveX control. ActiveX control often irritated users due to features such as installing additional toolbars in a users’ browser or monitoring users’ information without their knowledge[5]. It was unfortunate that the success of these early 3D advertisements was limited due to being built black hat and without a standard. Also, at the time, another factor limiting the success of 3D advertising was that most computers didn’t have enough computing power to run 3D graphics in a browser.
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It’s springtime in Philly and the streets seem to get more crowded each day with the fair-weather exercisers. With longer days and warmer temps upon us, it’s the time when many individuals’ thoughts turn to getting in shape.  This is a great time to make the commitment since the weather is nice and it’s mentally easier to becoming active and adhere to a program.  Starting an easy, inexpensive exercise program is an excellent way to combat the generally unhealthy lifestyle that Americans have become notorious for.

In America today a majority of the workforce lives a sedentary lifestyle.  We sleep in comfy beds, wake up to sit on a sofa while watching our favorite morning show, ride in a car or on a train to the office, sit in front of a computer, then travel back to our homes where we sit and watch TV until it’s time to get back in our comfy beds.  This routine is truly killing us.

Sitting or remaining inactive for most of the day with little or no exercise characterizes our sedentary lifestyle. This lack of exercise can cause shrinking and weakening of the muscles and increases our likelihood of injury. The accompanying reduction in physical fitness is generally associated with a weakening of the immune system. Yet, despite the many known benefits of exercise, most adults continue to lead a relatively sedentary lifestyle and therefore never achieve the health benefits of exercise.

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Mobile phones are the fastest growing segment of the online market. Half a billion people accessed the mobile internet worldwide in 2009¹. Usage is expected to double in the next five years as mobile takes over the PC as the most popular way to get on the web¹. Many mobile web users are “mobile-only,” i.e. they do not use a computer to access the web – ever. In countries like Egypt and India, those numbers are as high as 70% and 59%, respectively. Even in the U.S. 25% of people access the internet solely on their cellphones. Almost one in five global mobile subscribers has access to fast mobile Internet (3G or better) services and according to emarketer.com, U.S. mobile ad revenues are expected to hit $1 billion in 2011, which is a 35% annual growth – that’s quite a number when compared to the expected 10% growth in the traditional online advertising market*. Now for the hundredth time we’ve asked this question on Domus Dish – ARE YOU READY TO MAKE YOUR WEBSITE MOBILE-FRIENDLY YET?

Sheesh.  If you were unaware, (although if you’re on the DD blog I don’t know how you could be) I’m sure these stats must have raised an eyebrow. And I’m also sure you must be thinking of going mobile. Now that you’re (FINALLY) ready to take the plunge, here are some Do’s and Dont’s to keep in mind: (continue reading…)

Learn the URL schemes of iPhone App, how it works, types of schemes, how to utilize them.

Do you know how to create a mobile website? Or more importantly, do you know what a mobile website is? Domus Dish has covered this topic quite a bit, but in case you’ve missed it, a mobile website is what smart phone users see when looking at your webpage from their phones. There are many differences between mobile and traditional websites, which is why your website may not work for many smart phone users. For one Apple doesn’t support Flash (perhaps because Steve Jobs hates Adobe, but we’ll save that for another time), so we need to focus on HTML5, which is the next major revision of the HTML standard and is still in development.  It can be frustrating that there’s such a disconnect, but learn it and move on – you don’t want to miss out on the mobile website movement.

I encourage you to look on the bright side – once you have mobile web mastered you’re opening your business to millions – some analysts even say BILLIONS – of mobile web users. Mobile websites are a new way of digital marketing, and a completely different approach compared to the development of traditional websites. Therefore, you can’t just treat it like a regular website with a smaller layout – there are distinct differences in the website’s development that will drastically affect the final result if they’re ignored. Read on as I list the top ways of making your website mobile friendly.

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Facing a new reality

In the past 2 years, the percentage of consumers who are using smartphones to access the web has skyrocketed to more than 49 million¹. A recent study by Morgan Stanley predicted that by 2015 there will be more mobile web users than there are desktop users².

As the mobile audience continues to grow, our mobile devices continue to shrink in size and increase in functionality. They’ve gone from oversized “Crackberries” we used for constantly checking email to organic extensions of our hands and minds that nearly do everything for us. Need to pay a bill, make a dinner reservation, turn off your house lights, video chat with a customer service representative or kill zombies? There’s an App for that.

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How important is your website? In today’s marketplace it’s everything.  Your website is your number one means of providing your brand, consistency, and message to potential customers.  We live in an Internet world, if your website isn’t first rate it will be detrimental to your business.  Is it time for your website to have a makeover?  More importantly, is it time for your website to start delivering the ROI that your products or services demand?

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The obsession with social media is obvious, especially Facebook, so it’s no surprise that the movie “Social Network” ranked #1 in box office.  According to Mark Zuckerberg, there will be over 1 billion “likes” across the web in the just first 24 hours of the “Like” button – which launched April 21^st.  OK, pick up your jaw and continue reading.

The “Like” button is now the alpha and omega of media conversions, leading to the fact that most traffic has been driven from the “Like” button, and it’s good enough to be considered a final goal in social media engagement. Quick question for you:  Do you track “Likes” and calculate how much money you spend per one “Like” or how much value one “Like” generates? If your answer is no, go to the movie theater and watch the Social Network and see what 500M friends means.

Embedding the “Like” button on your website as most of you probably have gives you the most basic connectivity with Facebook; however, if you don’t set up toolbox to track the “Likes” then you’re cheating yourself.  Facebook has announced their simple analytic tool, “Insights,” which allows you to count “Likes” in addition to the click rates of your fan page, applications, and your website outside Facebook.

As far as tracking your Facebook fan page goes, it’s already set up for you.  You can use the “Insights” menu on the left side of the fan page, but you also need to put Facebook meta tags on your web pages as well. In order to obtain the meta tag, go to http://www.facebook.com/insights and press “Insights for your domain.” Then you can bind your domain with Insights and get a meta tag such as <meta property=”fb:admins” content=”xxxx” />. Put this meta tag on your web pages’ headers, then Facebook will count “Likes” from your website.  Easier than you thought!

Although Facebook “Insights” gives your website useful statistics of social activities, it can’t be combined with your media conversions through campaign, landing page, website, email blasts, direct mail, mobile page, or mobile app by itself.

Additionally, there are two tricks to combine “Like” activities into existing analytics solutions, such as Google Analytics. The first trick is to create a script to monitor “Like” clicks.   Facebook provides a javascript SDK with an event handler object named “FB.Event.”  With “FB.Event” you can trigger every “Like” click by putting “FB.Event” subscribe(‘edge.create’, function(response) { … }); on your page.  Track away!

Another trick is to integrate Facebook Insights with Google Analytics using Facebook’s Graph API. Utilizing this solution, you can pull analytic data from Facebook Insights by time range using Graph API, and cross-reference it with Google Analytics using the Google Analytics API.  Then, you can finally merge all data into one unified report. This solution can give you significant views of which users clicked “Like” grouped by campaign, age, sex, location and etc. The only drawback to this solution is that it requires several programming techniques including Web Service, FBML, Facebook Graph API, the Google Analytics API, oAuth, and etc.   But in the end, all the sweat and tears are worth it.

Social Media, tracking, and programming is a capability and product offering of Domus Digital.  We’re here to help!

Domus is a leading edge internet marketing agency that brings its full range of classic marketing expertise to its hi-tech digital capabilities. For more information on how Domus can help you accurately analyze your internet presence and develop effective strategies to further your brand, visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.CodeProject