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Today, we’re looking at a collection of innovative retailers using these exciting new technologies for maximum impact on their customers. Join us for a 3-D roundup of who’s using AR / VR in showrooms, changing rooms, for in-store entertainment, product information, sales, on mobile apps and much more.
North Face has several augmented and virtual reality applications worth viewing – one is product focused and the other is entertainment. Forbes takes a look at whether virtual reality can save retail and how Samsung is pushing the boundaries in AR. In 10 locations, Macy’s is testing Macy’s On Call, an app developed by IBM and Satisfi. Craig Smith’s Retail Innovation has an excellent collection of profiles of retailers using digital innovations including augmented reality, virtual reality and more. Recommended viewing!
Marxent also has a useful set of e-commerce and bricks-and-mortar examples of augmented and artificial reality used in retail. Wayfair’s new virtual reality app lets customers visualize patio furniture on a deck to help them on the path to purchase. Lowe’s Holoroom gives customers help in visualizing a new kitchen or bathroom in its popular new virtual reality room.
Whisbi highlights virtual reality storytelling by North Face and virtual test drives by Lexus. M-commerce start-up Spring launched one of the first Facebook chat bots for virtual shopping. Sephora’s new Chicago store mixes old-fashioned makeup fun with futuristic touches including augmented reality and lots of touch-screens. Best Buy is betting big on virtual reality with Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR demos and sales in-store this fall. Finally, Pokémon Go further illustrates the potential for augmented reality to drive local or in-store retail traffic in big numbers. Enjoy your roundup of these retail innovators and learn from their creativity and digital marketing savvy.
Zeetings is a unique web app which allows an event present to broadcast his slides to all of the event attendees in realtime without requiring them to install or login into any specific app. Attendees (both at the premises and remotely) can see the slides as they progress in real-time, and can ask questions, provide feedback, vote and be polled as well as take notes and network with other participants. With the free version it is possible to upload unlimited PDFs and PowerPoints as well as image files and to have unlimited events with up to 30 participants while integrating also unlimited interactive content such as polls, Q&A sessions, videos, embeds, web links and basic analytics reporting data. Free version available. Pro version info: https://www.zeetings.com/pricingMy Comment: Great tool for live events. It allows you to keep everyone on the same page, ask questions, run polls, moderate feedback, and select most voted questions from the audience without forcing them to install anything. Try it out now: https://www.zeetings.com Check out this introductory presentation to Zeetings features: https://www.zeetings.com/awesome/1861-0001#fullscreen...
Callnote is a free downloadable software for both Mac and PC which allows you to record Skype, Google Hangouts, GotoMeeting/GoToWebinar and WebEx events, including the capability to record what is shown on the screen, or the video part(s) of a call. Free version. Only limitation is a maximum of 30 recordings per month and no video editing abilities. Pro version $9.95/year (after 14-day trial!) My comment: The best tool to record any online call, event or webinar whether you are on Windows or the Mac. The free version does already everything you may have dreamt of, but these guys deserve full support and I strongly suggest to give them a heads up by buying the incredibly low-priced Pro version. Download it now: Windows - http://callnote.kandasoft.com/callnote-install-3.5.0.exeMac - http://callnote.kandasoft.com/callnote-install-3.5.0.pkg
Robin Good writes: Botpages is a crowdsourced directory of bots. Bots are apps that can carry out automated tasks for you unatteded. The directory is organized into categories and there is a search facility that allows to rapidly find anything you may be looking for. Registered users can submit new bots for review and addition to the directory. 100% free. My comment: Superuseful resource to find the perfect bot for your need. Try it out now: https://www.botpages.com...
Robin Good writes: Meinanutshell is a web app which allows you to create a dynamic personal profile page by continuosly gathering key information and images from your preferred social media accounts and composing them onto a customizable one-page layout.100% free. My comment: "I haven't seen anything as simple as Meinanutshell to create a good-looking personal profile page that can be also customized." Recommended. Try it out now: https://www.meinanutshell.com/
Every marketer worth their salt needs a trusted arsenal of tools that help you take your marketing from darn good to amazing. The foundational platform we use for marketing and sales automation is HubSpot, and we’re constantly writing about how great HubSpot is. But you need more than terrific marketing automation software to get the most ROI on your marketing efforts. We’ve discovered some really cool tools that help us understand our customers, measure our success, and improve our content for our customers. We thought you’d like to check them out. You may have heard of some of these tools, but I guarantee you’ll find a new one here you’ll want to try....
It's not quite "going where no man has gone before", but it's close. Adrian Leslie of the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) has just finished slogging through a remote corner of the Kootenays known as Darkwoods, the largest land conservancy project in Canada. The trek up and down the south Selkirk Mountains was challenging enough, but Leslie had to do it with a 23-kilogram Google camera strapped to his back....
Yes, this is another list of the best Google Chrome Extensions. You’ve seen it all before, right? Well, we thought we had too. But new extensions are continually emerging that can drastically change the day-to-day habits of social media marketers. Plus, a few classic extensions have undergone impressive upgrades. Check out this list of 18 of the best Google Chrome extensions for social media marketers, and start saving some valuable time and effort at work.
There are many reasons why Chrome dominates the browser market, but one of those reasons is definitely its large library of extensions. In fact, Chromes extensions can help Web professionals with everything from taking screenshots to grammar. Discover some of the most essential extensions for Web pros below....
MMost popular consumer drones are affordable quadcopters robust enough to fly outdoors and snap photos or video. But they don’t work very well inside buildings. The startup Zero Zero Robotics is coming out of stealth mode to announce its first product, Hover Camera, a small drone specifically designed with no exposed propellers to safely shoot footage indoors.
Hover does exactly what it sounds like: Turn it on and it hovers in midair wherever you leave it. Hover is more a flying camera than a joyriding drone, and the controls on its paired smartphone app are for delicately repositioning it, not zooming to atrial heights. But the real breakthrough feature is its sophisticated AI programming that not only keeps the platform exceedingly leve, it uses face and body recognition to lock on to a subject and slowly follow them around autonomously.
"We had a few design goals in mind: Create a personal flying camera that’s portable and very safe, but also super easy to use for everyone," says the CEO and founder of Zero Zero Robotics, Meng Qiu Wang. "Most of the drones on the market fall short in these three aspects. We wanted to up the game to the next level...."
If you’ve got a phone and a face, you’re likely looking for the perfect selfie app – something that’s fun, flattering, and capable of wowing your friends. Depending on what you’re after, there are plenty of choices out there. So we’ve curated a list of 10 of the best selfie apps that give you an array of visual effects.
This list is not meant to be exhaustive, so we’ve picked out ones that help your selfies really stand out. They’re all free, though some have an in-app purchase to remove the ads or to access certain features.
As an entrepreneur, one of your biggest concerns is to find a way hack the growth of your startup and reap its immediate rewards. Given that building an online business generally requires time and a lot of patience, it is your responsibility to find the fastest and most efficient way that will lead you to greater leads and sales. Thankfully, there are growth-hacking tools that will help you achieve success in your business in the shortest time possible. Interestingly enough, most of the tools featured in this post are also startups themselves. Using their products is like helping their startups success as well – it’s a win-win situation for both of you! Below are five tools that you need to consider using to turn your startup into a profitable venture....
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Unroll is a free web app which allows you to: a) Easily see and unsubscribe from all your unneeded email newslettwer subscriptions b) Roll-up and receive in one bundle email all of the newsletters you are interested in. Works across all devices..:
Landscape is a powerful image resizing tool designed to help social media marketers, content creators and business owners develop a standout presence in an increasingly visual social world. Our tool offers social media professionals an efficient way to produce multiple image sizes optimized for social media profiles, messages and campaigns - ultimately giving them more time to focus on what matters most: fostering engagement and authentic conversations through social.
Robin Good writes: Stencil is a web app (formerly known as Shareasimage) which makes it as easy as possible the creation of visual posts, picture quotes, visual promos and and ads for your website or your social media. The tool allows you to tap into over 600,000 images and 200,000 clip art icons, plus it provides over 40 ready-made design templates that you can fully edit and personalize. Each and every layout can be easily exported to one of 34 pre-set social media layouts perfectly respecting ideal image and sizes for different platforms. A dedicated Chrome browser extension allows you to easily select any text on a page and to instantly transform it into a visual post to publish. Free version available (max 10 images per month). Paid version: $9/month. Unlimited images. My comment: Born out of one of my favorite tool for creating visual posts (Shareasimage), I have only positive words to describe Stencil. Easy, immediate, simple and truly cost-effective. Try it out now: http://getstencil.com...
Our technology and method Using NLP (natural language processing) to turn text into data, we extract reported speech (the things people say) from the text of online news, along with the associated metadata (things like: the name of the speaker and where they work). We use this data in a variety of ways: for our article ranking, when we manage churnalism (lots of news sources use the same info), and when we display the quotes themselves to create an at-a-glance version of the news. Why do we focus on quotes Because we're convinced that a valuable news experience is one that includes a variety of points of view - so more quotes means more value. At Trooclick, we understand that news is the same as anything else you might invest time or money in: it should be a good value....
The best tool for getting more social shares isn’t a tool at all. Instead, it all comes down to producing high quality, in-depth content. When you create better content than your competitors, it won’t be long before social shares begin to pick up. But, of course, there is always help to be had. Once you create a killer piece of content, you need to do your part in getting it shared across all major platforms, including, but not limited to, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. If you need a little help getting more social shares, the following nine tools could be just what you’re looking for. It’s not likely that you will use each one every day, but you should definitely learn more about all of them....
Whether it’s your first time running social media for a company, or you’re just looking to boost your online profile, social media templates will save you valuable time and effort. And we’ve created six to help you on every leg of your journey—from planning and message scheduling, to publishing and results tracking.
26% of the web is built on WordPress and with good reason. Whether you are an experienced developer or HTML illiterate, WordPress provides an amazing base from which virtually anything can be built.
As a local business owner or marketer for local businesses, there’s a good chance you fall closer to the “HTML illiterate” side of that equation, and that’s okay.
In this guide, we’ll be taking you step-by-step through the process of optimizing your local business SEO via WordPress. We’ll show you every plugin and tool you need to maximize the benefits while minimizing the time and money you’re required to invest....
In the past, I’ve discussed a variety of ways for businesses to improve their reach through social media. From step-by-step marketing guides to advertising-based posts, I have done it all.
This time around, I want to discuss 13 tools that can make or break your social media marketing strategy. With the right tools on your side, the sky’s the limit. Without these, however, you will be facing an uphill battle.
Here are 13 tools you need to learn before going “all in” with your social media strategy...
Surely you’ve heard of 3D printing, which is the printing of objects out of materials like plastic, concrete, and even steel. But did you know the technology has been around since the 1970s? Or perhaps even more surprising is the fact that soon we will be progressing to the next stage of this technology: 4D printing. It’s hard to believe the technology has been around that long, let alone that we’re naturally progressing to the next phase in its evolution, but it’s all true. So, what is 4D printing? And how is it different from 3D printing? We’ll break it down for you....
Wondering how to improve the impact of your social media images? Looking for tools to optimize your visual content?I n this article you’ll discover three little-known tools to analyze the effectiveness of your visuals before you use them in your social media marketing....
Employ someone and you have to consider salary, workspace, and equipment; not to mention benefits like medical care and paid vacation time.
Conversely, freelancers are only paid for the work they do.
This is generally (though not always) more cost-effective than taking on someone in-house, and allows you to increase or decrease their workload as needed.
This makes outsourcing extremely flexible, which is a huge win for small businesses.
But don’t get too excited just yet… there’s a hard part: actually finding great freelancers and managing them effectively.
Thankfully there’s plenty of tools designed to help you do just that (and many more being released all the time).
Let’s take a look at some of the more recent additions to the market that can help you to outsource and manage your content creation in 2016...
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If you're a marketer, retailer or just looking for the latest trends in augmented and virtual reality, you'll find lots of inspiration from these retail innovators who are changing the face of the place formally known as stores. Dozens of the latest profiles and case studies and recommended reading. 10/10