marketing - page 2

Summer’s drawing to a close. But the deals rolling into the Cult of Mac Store are showing no signs of slowing. This week, we’ve got a guide cryptocurrency investing for beginners started in, and a digital marketing masterclass. Additionally, we’ve got a stereo pair of portable Bluetooth speakers, and a powerful but slim backup battery. Everything is massively discounted, some by more than 90 percent. Read on for more details:

When it comes to making money off of smartphones, no company is doing it as well as Apple.

The latest data on profits made by smartphone manufacturers reveals that while the iPhone doesn’t dominate the global marketshare, it takes home nearly all of the profits.

Ever feel like you got way too much stuff crowding up your life?

Well, according to Apple’s latest ad you could be living in minimalist bliss with fewer things if you just buy one more thing: an iPad Pro.

Google has confirmed plans to scrap 30-second unskippable ads on YouTube in 2018.

The clips, which users are forced to watch before their chosen video, are seen as a nuisance to viewers. Google will instead focus on “formats that work well for both users and advertisers.”

Like it or not, we all live in the age of the side gig. None of us does just one thing anymore — pretty much every digital professional must act like an entrepreneur, finding new opportunities and creating some for themselves.

If you’re wearing a bunch of different hats, we’ve got great stuff that can help you out. From educational courses on digital skills like social media marketing to must-have tools like domain hosting and animation software for websites, you’ll want to check out our latest deals for surviving — and thriving — in the gig economy.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ uncompromising demands and brutal assessments of products in development paint a picture of a CEO who cared little about his colleagues’ feelings.

That’s because he was obsessed with yours.

A report published this week points to this and shows what is arguably the most brilliant and enduring part of his legacy.

Chances are you can vaguely remember the last Apple ad you saw, but do you remember it in the same way you remember the company’s “1984” commercial for the original Macintosh, or its wonderful “Think Different” campaign? It’s been a while since we saw anything quite as iconic.

Apple still creates great commercials we can’t help but talk about, but many fans would say those ads aren’t as good as they once were. Has Apple lost its marketing magic, or is it just too difficult to create truly iconic ads in the digital age?

Join us in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac as we battle it out over these questions and more!

Are you tired of your Instagram feed being low on sponsored posts from companies trying to sell you things? If so, here comes the best news you’ve ever heard.

The company has opened up its advertising code to make it easier than ever for partners to get ads all up in the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app.

Some restaurants take pride in offering perfect food and wine pairings. Others think more in terms of food and phone pairings.

Yes, you can blame Instagram if your restaurant is a little brighter and the presentation of the food is a bit fussier. Restauranteurs are trying to cash in on our obsession with photographing our meals by giving Instagram users better lighting and compositional conditions to make more appetizing shots.

Design questions aside, the true mystery about Apple’s long-rumored iWatch lies in exactly what types of health-related sensors the wearable might include. A recent report claims the iWatch will sport an astonishing 10 different sensors, including one for sweat.

While pedometers, accelerometers, thermometers and every other o-meter Jony Ive can get his hands on might all make sense for a smartwatch, we’re wondering what Apple could do with a sweat sensor? Other than verify that, yes, your sweat glands are pouring out more fluid per minute than Niagara Falls during your jog?

It turns out that adding sweat sensors would do more than differentiate the iWatch from smartwatches by LG, Motorola and Samsung right out of the gate. It could make the iWatch the most “personal” device you’ve ever shackled yourself to, with surprising applications that go far beyond fitness and health.

SAN FRANCISCO — You created an app. You think it’s awesome. Your friends say so too. Something nags at you, though: You have zero reviews, your downloads don’t outnumber your Facebook pals, and you need to make rent.

There’s a fancy name for your problem: “discoverability.” Millions of good apps face it, gathering dust between bogus fart apps and Flappy Bird clones.

“It’s hard to make a living in the App Store,” says Michael Yacavone, founder of Individuate, which makes personal-development apps Ace It! and Affirmable.

But there is definitely money to be made in the App Store, to the tune of $15 billion Apple has paid developers so far. Apple recently vowed to improve discoverability by adding an “explore” tab to the App Store, but whether users will search for new and exciting apps remains to be seen. The basic problem remains for most developers: Nearly everyone is ignoring you. Journalists can help, but you have to know how to deal with them.

Apple has reportedly hired Karl Heiselman, chief executive officer of branding agency Wolff Olins, to join the company in a new marketing communications role.

The former CEO and branding expert has been with Wolff Olins for a total of 14 years — and during his seven years as chief executive officer has worked with a number of high profile clients, including Apple.

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Here at Cult of Mac, we’re just starting our coverage of iOS and Mac games, as our fearless leader Leander told you in the publisher’s letter for the inaugural edition of our Newsstand magazine.

Since we’re just starting up, it’s pretty easy to get our attention when it comes to promotional emails and review requests. While we can’t review all the games we’re sent, we do read all the promotional emails that you’re sending our way.

Even still, we’d be lucky to review even a minuscule percentage of games we get requests for, so there are a few things that you can do to guarantee that we’ll take a closer look. There are a few more than you can do to make sure we don’t look much closer, too.

Here’s a list of both extremes, to help guide you on your way to getting coverage on Cult of Mac.

If you are one of the owners or developers of one of the 60 million websites powered by WordPress and want to know how to integrate it with mobile, one of the most powerful marketing tools of our lifetime, then you are in the right place.

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At one point during Samsung’s tacky Galaxy SIV launch event at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, the emcee — upon asking what the point of a screen that could react to gestures in mid-air without actually touching it, and being treated to a Greek chorus of answers from a constabulary of shrill, histrionic shrews — said of Samsungs new Air Gestures: “Okay, I see how that might be useful.”

Those words really sum up everything Samsung put up on stage tonight. I see how that might be useful.

The Galaxy SIV is a phone largely unchanged from the SIII. It’s a little thinner, a little lighter, a little more powerful. It has a bunch of new features. And all of them require a small one-act play on one of the most important stages in Manhattan to explain why, in a certain circumstance, they might be useful.

It seems you can’t go anywhere these days without seeing an advert for the iPhone. They’re on billboards in the street, they’re there when you switch on the TV, and you’ll also find them in newspapers and magazines. But believe it or not, there’s one company that spends more — a lot more! — on advertising its smartphones than Apple does.

That company is Samsung. In 2012, Samsung outspent Apple by more than three to one in smartphone advertising, with a number of large campaigns on TV, in print, and on the Internet. In total, the Korean company spent $401 million advertising its phones.

Over the past several months, we’ve seen studies on the reactions that iPad and iPhone users have to mobile marketing initiatives. Often these studies suggest that the iPad is a golden opportunity for marketing professionals. We’ve also seen the ways that companies are shooting themselves in the foot by not taking advantage of the unique capabilities of mobile devices, particularly when it comes to the iPad and other tablets.

So what does it take to develop a successful mobile marketing campaign? It takes a real understanding of the advantages and disadvantages that mobile devices offer, understanding their place in a consumer’s daily life, and recognition that mobile marketing needs to treated as part of a brand strategy.

Although Apple pitched iBooks Author as a tool for educators, the company fully supports anyone who want to create an ebook using iBooks Author to do so. Apple also lets anyone that creates an ebook with iBooks Author to distribute it through the iBookstore – the catch being that the iBooks Author edition of an ebook can’t be published using another company’s store (though the text of the title can be repackaged using other apps and sold elsewhere). As usual, Apple will take a 30% cut of any sales.

There are, of course, plenty of non-education uses for iBooks Author.

We talk about the iPad’s role in healthcare pretty regularly. Many physicians and health care practices have found innovative ways to integrate the iPad into daily patient interactions. According to a new study, the pharmaceutical industry has discovered that the iPad is an excellent tool for promoting new medications and that it can influence the prescribing habits of doctors.

Over the past few months, a number of different studies have shown the iPad (and to a lesser extent the iPhone) is a near-perfect advertising vehicle that enourages ad click-throughs, user engagement, and purchase decisions in ways that generally aren’t seen with other technologies.

A truly well-crafted marketing campaign aimed at iPad and iPhone users in, however, is more than just a series of ads. Instead it’s a series of interactions that build a relation with mobile customers. According to the marketing gurus at MarketingProfs, one key to building those relationships is using push notifications – and using them in the right ways.

Studies released earlier this year strongly indicated that the iPad is one of the most effective online advertising vehicles out there. iPad users are more likely to respond to ads than users of most other devices and more likely to  purchase or research a product after seeing an ad on their device.

A new study confirms this trend and raises the possibility that the iPad may be subtly reshaping the online advertising industry.

Over the past few months we’ve learned a lot about the mobile ad market from a variety of studies. We know that iOS users are more likely to respond to ads than Android users, and that there’s often a big return on ads designed specifically for the iPad and other tablets. We’ve also learned that many ad agencies haven’t yet realized the value in either of those data points.

One company that sees the value of mobile ads is Universal Pictures. Universal has created an interactive mobile campaign for its upcoming “Savages” – an Oliver Stone thriller that opens a week from Friday (July 6) – that ticks all the right boxes for mobile ad success.

The iPad currently dominates the business tablet market so thoroughly that you can pretty much call it the entire market. A big point of debate in many business and IT circles is how long Apple will be able maintain such a position. One research firm reframed that debate by simplifying the question.

Which operating system do you think will become the preferred business tablet option over the next 12 months?

50% of respondents said that they expect the iPad to maintain its lead in business environments.

When Apple announced iBooks Author in January, the company positioned the free ebook publishing tool as a way for faculty members of schools and colleges to create their own customized and interactive textbooks. However, since Apple allows the software to be used by anyone, it has become a tool for authors or organizations that want to self-publish either for personal distribution or for sale/download in the iBookstore.

While easy self-publishing tools may bring to mind the image of someone writing their first novel or a memoir, there are any number of ways to use both the publishing features of iBooks Author and the distribution channel of the iBookstore. One of which is as a marketing and informational tool – an approach that takes the concept of a white paper to a new and powerful interactive level.