Posts Tagged ‘News’Android now most used mobile platformMonday, May 23rd, 2011The Q1 smartphone sales figures that were released yesterday by Gartner show that Android has surged and now leading all other smartphone operating systems. These numbers are Q1 sales figures and not reflective of overall market share but the show the direction the overall market is going.
Shopping from mobile more popular than PC in UK, with m-retail set to hit £1bn this yearWednesday, May 4th, 2011M-retailing has passed a significant milestone, if research by InMobi is to be believed, with shopping from a mobile device now proving to be more popular than on PC in the UK. The study, conducted among consumers using the mobile Internet, found that almost half of shoppers still prefer hitting the stores (42%), but around a third are now comfortable with shopping from their mobile (30%) with 28% preferring to shop from their PC or laptop, highlighting a shift to ‘shopping on the move.’
Now offering Android application development servicesWednesday, January 12th, 2011
Blue Star are happy to announce that we are now developing Android applications. As mobile platforms become more popular as a means to access content and applications online it is important to cater for these users. This has of course been popularized by the iPhone and the App Store, however Android devices now outnumber iPhone’s in the U.S. and will soon surpass here in Europe also. Mobile is ‘the next big thing’, it is redefining how we access our data and increasingly more people are using mobile search now. A lot of modern smartphones have a ton of interesting hardware features that allow for unique applications not possible before with technology at this cost. Fully loaded phones have GPS, Wifi, Camera(s), audio/video recording/playback, G Sensor. These all open up a new field of possibility. Location based services will play a major role in this new landscape of mobile data. Android development services we offer can complement an existing online presence or provide a new mobile app for an activity that is more convenient to have on the go than requiring a PC. More information on Android Application development
FireTracker Analytics now offering fully funtional Free trialSunday, June 13th, 2010FireTracker Analytics, our in-house web traffic analytics software has been some time in beta and we are now glad to deliver a much more refined product. There is still some work to do but our recent server and infrastructure upgrade has given us more to work with and an improved user experience. I hear you asking, why would I pay for an analytics service when Google Analytics is free? There are numerous reasons to add FireTracker to your web traffic analytics arsenal, first and foremost it is a lot more user-centric and user friendly, providing an unparalelled clarity in gaining essential insights into your traffic sources without delving through the bloatware and complexity that is inherent in Google Analytics. But thats only for starters, the single greatest reason to adopt this alternative is the availability of real-time reporting, no need to wait 3 hours or longer for data refreshes; you will see traffic data to your site as it happens - immediately - no waiting! Free Trial and new subscription optionsWe have now implemented a free trial by popular demand for those who wish to take a peek at the reporting capabilities without committing to buy. The free version is fully functional, only takes two minutes to sign-up, but there’s no such thing as a free lunch so tracking data is reset daily only offered reporting data on a rolling day to day basis. Subscriptions start at a very reasonable rate from €14.99/month with the first week free, or an annual subscription for €149.99 with the first month costing only €4.99.
Blue Star Data Centre scheduled maintenance 14/5/2010 - 16/5/2010Monday, May 10th, 2010We will be performing a complete migration and upgrade of our data centre during the week. There will be scheduled downtime from 5pm 14/5/2010 to 12am 16/5/2010. Email and web services will be unavailable for up to 48 hours over this weekend when we transfer DNS records for our servers. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may cause clients over the weekend. This is essential maintenance which will result in improved performance and reliability as well as additional security for Blue Star services and all our clients. Thank you for your understanding.
AOL to sell or close BeboWednesday, April 7th, 201099 Blue Star Web Design Facebook fans! Who’s gonna be the 100th! Google Apps set-up on a domain of your choosing free for 1 year for the 100th fan!Wednesday, December 9th, 200999 Blue Star Web Design Facebook fans! Who’s gonna be the 100th! Google Apps set-up on a domain of your choosing free for 1 year for the 100th fan! This will provide you with all the Google products you are familiar with such as Gmail, Calendar, Docs and more; all hosted on a domain of your own choice. You can get me@mydomain.com and use the familiarity of Gmail to manage your mail, with a simple login like http://mail.mydomain.com and you can add up 200 friends, colleagues or co-workers, you can also login to your mail from an internet phone and never miss an important email. Similarly you can store your documents on http://docs.mydomain.com and have access to them online from anywhere including your mobile phone. After year free service, the yearly cost is only €25 (€65 for .ie domain)
Two-thirds of Irish firms have an online presenceMonday, December 7th, 2009Two-thirds of Irish firms now have an online presence, new statistics released today by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show. The CSO’s information society statistics shows that 66pc of Irish firms had a website or a homepage in 2009. Online connection Internet use is nearly universal for Irish businesses, according to the CSO report, with 95pc of Irish enterprises having a computer connected to the internet in 2009. Access to the internet using broadband remained high in 2009, with 84pc of all businesses having a broadband connection. High-speed DSL broadband saw a boost in 2009, with 45pc of enterprises using it compared with 41pc in 2008. Mobile broadband use by Irish firms has also increased, with 27pc of businesses using it in 2009 compared to 24pc in 2008. http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/14614/business/two-thirds-of-irish-firms-have-an-online-presence
Social Media Marketing SeminarFriday, December 4th, 2009We are organising a Social Media Marketing seminar for the new year. Firstly we would like to guage interest and see if their is sufficient demand before setting a date and venue. Social Media has erupted in the last two years, the power to directly engage and get feedback from your customer base is now a reality. A social media campaign can be launched to promote your business and build your brand, even if you do not have a company website. The great advantage of social media is its viral nature and how quickly word spreads. The seminar will include coverage of business use for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. This will include setting up accounts with these services. We will then demonstate how to go about posting to these sites and where and how to locate information to post, we will also present strategies for gaining a following and encouraging interaction with your client base. Many businesses find Social Media a bit overwhelming and often struggle to gain ground and exposure, our goal is to ease people into these services so that they know the tips and tricks to further their reach online. If you are interested in attending this event please get in touch by email, phone or DM @bluestarweb on twitter. Places will be limited to 30 people. Given that there will be sufficient demand we are aiming to host this event mid-end Janurary.
Google Wave: First ImpressionsFriday, November 27th, 2009There has undoubtedly been a lot of hype on Google Wave in the blogosphere, and to be honest I believe most of that is noise arising due to the limited number of accounts available. It is still in preview, which gives it earlier than beta status, and it shows. I am certain that Google are working hard on the protocols and federation technology behind the system as for the moment the interface is a little clunky and takes some adjusting to. The plugin system is neat and allows for a lot of scalability and expandability within wave. Its hard to know what to compare it to, its far removed from twitter/facebook micro-blogging model, if I had to choose I would compare it to a forum, where one can add any sort of content and gadgets. This is one of the oversights in wave also, I would have assumed waves to have been non-linear and being able to jump in at any point and edit/insert anywhere in the wave. The timeline concept used does not seem immediately useful but I guess some more time will have to pass to judge this fully Drag and drop file upload is nice, tho embedding images could be handled a bit better. Things I would like to see are support for other Google services, like Docs and Calendar spring to mind immediately. Wave has potential, but seems to have quite some way to go yet.
|
