However, Adobe Systems, Inc. still beat analyst profitability expectations last quarter by three cents a share. Creative Cloud subscribers jumped from 220,000 to over 700,000 in just the one quarter. Regardless of the huge jump and extra profitability, Adobe is still considering an option for those who are not happy with subscription-only services.

Net income for the business last quarter was a smidge over $259 million. While the company’s revenue has decreased around 10% in the last year, shares still jumped 4.5% percent (or $1.98).

While Adobe took plenty of time to make their decision about subscription-only services, the company says they “acknowledge the difficult transition”. Currently, the subscription-based version of Adobe costs $50 a month and requires a full one-year commitment. The Creative Cloud includes Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, and tons of tools for Web publishing that can only be found on the Cloud. In general, people are simply complaining about being unable to work offline and, in addition, being able to split the programs for individual pricing.

“While we will continue to offer CS6 on a perpetual basis, the feedback from our community is important, and we are evaluating additional options that will help them with the transition,” Chief Executive Shanatanu Narayen said. “Our goal is to over-deliver on customer expectations, which we believe will make the entire community ultimately embrace Creative Cloud.”

Hopefully, we’ll see a-la-carte prices, downloadable versions or a reduction in price depending on how long you’ve been a customer. Time will tell what Adobe will decide to do.

Photo Credit: Adobe 

Used with permission from Article Aggregator

Send Them a Note                                                                 

People are all too used to receiving emails to their inboxes. They’re so used to it, in fact, that sometimes a simple letter in the mail not only excites them, but pleases them as well. A short ‘thank you’ note won’t cost you more than a card stock card and postage, and it can mean a lot to someone, especially if you’ve personalized it with your own words.

Learn About Them and Use That Knowledge

Let’s say you have a client that loves hard-rock candy. Every once and awhile, you send a few pieces in the mail for him, and he expresses that his daughters are a bit jealous that he gets all of the candy and they don’t get any. While this kind of statement is obviously playful, sending more candy along for his daughters is not only a personalized gesture, it’s one that shows the customer you’re listening – and it probably didn’t cost you more than a bit of time and a few dollars.

Focus on Them When They Need You

You’re a small company, which means you should act like one. Most small businesses actually get to know their customers simply because that’s how they acquire new ones. This means you should carefully consider their needs with they have a problem or complaint. While larger companies have to streamline care, smaller companies get the opportunity to take care of their customers in a more personal way. Take advantage of this and treat your customers like they deserve to be treated.

Your customers do matter, and they are the backbone of everything you do. Focus on them, make sure you get to know them, and keep good tabs on who they are and what they need. You’ll be surprised how much more they’ll appreciate you.

Used with permission from Article Aggregator

Currently, Amazon only sells 3D printing supplies from well-known and well-trusted 3D printer manufacturers, like Makerbot and Cubify. They have even begun to sell a small assortment of actual 3D printers. The cheapest up for sale right now is the JET/Open Source 3D printer Replicator G, which starts at $1,099 for just the printer without any of the accessories. The high end is the MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D printer, which costs $2,500 just for the bare bones.

While these prices are still extremely high and out of the price range for many people, they’ve dropped significantly since introduction, making them almost affordable for the general population, and definitely affordable for small and medium sized businesses. Recent projects such as HomeBrew have also provided more pricing information on 3D printers, proving that one can be built for about $1,000.

Because of the sudden affordability of these printers, free and low-cost models for them have begun to grow in popularity. Some of these designs are more practical, such as bowls, but designs for models are also interesting and obscure as well. Recent deviations include a hermit crab shell that a hermit crab may actually use and mini-dinosaurs with moving legs and heads.

Amazon is currently in the middle of expanding their store to lesser-known brands and is working on diversifying the printers they sell. Meanwhile, Staples is the first home-and-office store that has decided to start selling 3D printers on their shelves.

While we may not have many practical uses for 3D printers as of yet, time will tell if the 3D printer is simply a simple fad or if it will become an important part of businesses and homes alike.

Used with permission from Article Aggregator

In general, the amount for reporting a bug has more than doubled from the previous $3,1333.70 to $7,500 when reporting a bug from Google Accounts. For Google Wallet and Gmail the reward has actually tripled, making a bug report worth $5,000. Significant authentication bypasses and information leaks was also bumped up to $7,500.

“Our vulnerability reward programs have been very successful in helping us fix more bugs and better protect our users while also strengthening our relationships with security researchers,” said the Online Security Blog Google runs.

This program has led to the identification of 1,500 vulnerabilities across all of Google’s services, resulting in over $800,000 in payout by Google to around 250 people. Most, but not all, of these vulnerabilities were found my security research teams.

Used with permission from Article Aggregator

Facebook’s failed ad unit allowed people to put their company at the top of search results. For example, if someone searched for “eHarmony”, but OKCupid had paid for the top spot, OKCupid would be at the top of the search results, regardless of the search.

While the large social media company did find some success with this campaign, it simply did not generate enough income. This indicates that  Facebook may still be having a problem with monetizing searches.

Part of the reason they are ending the ad program is because of Graph Search, a new way to search that will be released in a few months. Graph Search not only takes your search term into consideration, but your age, interests, location and “likes” on Facebook. Currently, Facebook is testing ad blocks on Graph Search’s results, though the ads are not currently targeted based on the query.

This is just one step in Facebook’s long decision to kill off sponsored results as a whole in addition to being part of “simplifying” advertising. Several other changes that have been made recently is the ability to “x” ads on your phone and on the desktop version as well as provide feedback on why you didn’t like a particular ad.

While this does mean that businesses will not be able to push their results to the top of your search, Facebook promises there will be new, more successful ways to get your business seen.

Photo credit: Facebook

Used with permission from Article Aggregator

However, even though the concept of iWork is similar, it does have some pretty distinct features that make it stand out among the crowd. Namely, it includes all of the well-loved Apple features, such as Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, but it also includes Apple versions of Microsoft products such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Currently, iWork has some excellent features as well as some downfalls. For example, the interface is extremely easy to navigate and drag-and-drop for editing is a cinch. On the other hand, not all browsers are supported yet, though Chrome, Safari, and IE are currently supported. Firefox and Opera are currently having issues running iWork at all, much less effectively.

Currently, iWork is in beta with limited features, and many collaboration tools are left to be desired. However, Apple is working on it and listening to its beta testers, and reportedly the program continues to improve each and every day. Hopefully, a general beta will be released to the public in the next few months, and the program will shine among the rest.

Used with permission from Article Aggregator

Niche Boards

If you look at Pinterest, you’ll see that most people who find success there are those who have many boards. Sometimes they even have over a hundred. How could one user possibly have so many things to pin to so many boards? It’s mostly because they have very specific niches for each board. For example, let’s say there’s a board named “technology.” How many ways can you break down technology? “Medical technology” might be a niche you could separate into its own board; so could “computer technology,” “Apple technology,” and “Windows technology.” Refining your boards will help you with traffic that is specifically searching for one of your board topics.

Watch for the New Trends

Like everything, people and events go in and out of vogue, meaning if you don’t take advantage of it while it’s in vogue, you won’t be able to take advantage of it at all. Even if you can’t have an entire board devoted to what’s hot, you can at least find a couple of pins to post to some of your more popular boards. For example, if 3D Robohands for children are trending, you can post a few pins of pictures, articles and videos to your “new, cool technology” board.

Keep up with Your Popular Boards

Which boards have the most followers? Even if those boards aren’t boards you love the most, it’s what your audience loves the most, and those are the boards you should pay the most attention to. Your chance of repins and happy new followers lies in the ability to figure out which boards need your attention and when they need it.

While Pinterest is still small relative to Facebook and Twitter, it is by no means something any company should ignore. Build your audience by being street wise and watching your boards once they begin to build an audience and you’ll be well on your way to making big things happen for your company on Pinterest.

image credit: Pinterest

Used with permission from Article Aggregator

Over 40 new features and improvements have been introduced in the last 30 days or so. A few of the most notable ones are below.

Hashtags

While many people use hashtags on other forms of social media other than Twitter, they haven’t really made a difference – until now. G+ has introduced their own version of hashtagging, and now you can click on a hashtag that’s on your feed to see related content.

More Columns

This feature has been introduced by Google to increase sharing, and it’s actually working. Multiple columns allow you to see more on your feed at one time, including status updates, photos, and your groups’ posts for the day. This new feature also makes it easy to scroll through a day or two of information, so you never miss anything important.

High Quality Photo Upload

While Facebook and other photo uploaders require that you sacrifice the quality of your photos, G+ has decided that that should be a thing of the past. Google says you can upload photos of “tablet resolution”, or 2048 px, for free. If you want to upload larger photos, no problem – you’ll just have to use a portion of your free fifteen gigs on Google Drive. There are also new photo editing and resizing tools.

Along with auto backup, auto highlights, and “auto awesome,” which merges several photos to make the best possible single photo, G+ is really beginning to step up their game and compete with other popular social media websites. While it took a few years, patience is a virtue, and it’s obvious Google knows that.

 image credit: Google

Used with permission from Article Aggregator

Strangely enough, this makes Google more popular with twenty year-olds than chocolate, which only 90% of respondents had a “very favorable” opinion of.

A little over 75% of respondents said that they had the same opinion of Facebook. Apple came in with 71% “very favorable” opinions.

But Google’s good ratings don’t stop there. Apple and Facebook also lagged behind Google in the older age groups, though the margins were not as high as they were with the younger generations. If age is not taken into account, some 80% of applicants that called in to participate in the survey for 72 hours starting May 29th thought highly of Google. Overall, only 60% felt that way about Facebook.

Some experts believe that timing has everything to do with Google’s popularity during this survey. For example, Google has been developing the very popular Google Glass. Several improvements for current services were also announced, including some for Gmail and GoogleTalk, two of Google’s flagship services. Improvements to organizational tools for Gmail have already happened, and new versions of the app have been rolled out to Apple and Android products in the past few days. Overall, they have been received well, and this only contributed to Google’s popularity over the past few months.

Microsoft and their newest Windows 8 version were not included in the poll, though the popularity of Windows 8 has been slowly creeping up on Windows 7.

Used with permission from Article Aggregator

Bad Attitudes Can Poison The Office

A salesperson doesn’t have to get the program right off the bat; learning how to sell a product takes a little bit of time. Within two or three months, however, the salesperson should have a good idea of what they’re doing. Often employees who are not successful are simply negative or have a bad attitude about being in the office. This kind of attitude can spread to your other employees and affect everyone. Talk with employees that have negative attitudes and find the problem. Retrain or get rid of these people as fast as possible, regardless of how well they are doing.

Allow For Employee Feedback

Pay attention to your employee’s recommendations. Employees want to feel like they are part of a team. They also want to feel that they are contributing something to the company’s success. If you pay attention to input from your staff, you may find some great ideas to implement. This makes your team feel more important.

Learn From Successes

Recognize your top leaders. Make sure you find out what those salespeople are doing differently and share it with others at your sales meetings. Show your other employees what you are looking for on a daily and monthly basis and celebrate success when you see it. You can also create an incentive program. Offer gift cards or other prizes for people that have the most improvement or the highest number of clients.

All in all, making the office feel like a more positive place isn’t always easy, but it’s always necessary. Take the time to worry about the right things, make the right decisions, and encourage success in all sizes to fuel the passion your office needs to make your business succeed.

Used with permission from Article Aggregator