US Cities Churning Out Highest Millionaires per Capita

Last year, almost 5.2% of the US’ 119.2 million households had more than $1 million in investable assets, according to [pdf] a study from Phoenix Marketing International (PMI). But those per capita figures varied widely from one state to the next, with the top state by this measure having more than twice as many millionaires per capita as the bottom state. From 2006 through 2013, three different states have held the top rank, while one has lagged at the bottom each of those years save for 2012.

In 2013, New Jersey and Connecticut each moved up a spot, taking the second and third positions respectively. Each of their millionaire household ratios (7.49% and 7.32%) would have taken the top spot in any of the prior 7 years, a function not only of rising millionaire ratios across the country, but also of above-average growth in those states.

Rounding out the top 5 in 2013 were Hawaii (7.18%) and Alaska (6.75%), with Massachusetts narrowly missing out (6.73%) after taking the 5th spot in 2012.

America’s 10 “Most Powerful” Brands of 2014

America’s 10 “Most Powerful” Brands of 2014:

Coca-Cola has topped therankings since their inception in 2008, while Amazon is this year’s fastest riser, up 25 spots to 91. The overall BrandPower average score for the top 100
rankings is at its highest point this year since 2009, fueled by an increase in
familiarity rather than favorability.

About the Data: Drawn from CoreBrand’scCorporate Branding Index (CBI) for close to 1,000 companies across 50industries.

Impact on Mobile Media Consumption: Mobile Ads vs Mobile Apps

InMobi Mobile Media Consumption Global by sumitkroy

InMobi 

70% of 2.4billion Internet users access the web via Mobile

The Mobile World getting smaller: The majority of the world online population is doing that via the mobile .  These 5  Statistics below  shows how much the world is shrinking as more and more users  connect online 

1)There are over 2.4 billion Internet users in the world, of which 1.5 billion access the  Internet through their mobile devices either as a primary or a supplementary device 

2)In less than 7 years, the number of smartphone users has already crossed 1 billion as  against 1.5 billion PC users. The PC shipments declined by 10.9% in Q2 2013, the  sharpest decline since 2001

3)Shipments of Android-powered Internet devices exceeds that of Windows-powered devices

4)Average time spent on mobile (non-voice) globally has already grown to 82 minutes per  day

Facebook Integration and Privacy Policies

Yahoo Buys Social Data Visualization App Firm Vizify

Yahoo Buys Social Data Visualization Firm Vizify, WillShut It Down | TechCrunch: "Vizify announced 

that Yahoo has acquired it and it is shutting down. Vizify was a social technology app that helped users

 better visualize and graph their social lives via an infographic  and tag clouds in the format of a personal website 

Vizify  was founded in 2011 is an app which turns your social media data into interactive infographics and videos. It became very popular at the end of 2013, when it turned many people's twitter

feeds into a 30 second video clip demonstrating their most popular posts and their most interactive friends and fans.

Earlier the start up company had raised $1.46 million in its life. Given that its last round of funding

came in 2012, the takeover by Yahoo makes sense as it will “ get the funding

and the attention, without which it would have closed down

Microsoft Office finally comes to your iPad

By Sarah Morgan

As of 27th March, the iOS 7 compatible versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint are available in the App Store. Microsoft Office is finally coming to your iPad.

At last week's press conference, Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella said the company wanted “to empower people to be productive and do more across all devices… Office 365 will be everywhere from here on out.”  
He added: "It is to make sure that the one billion Office users have access to the high fidelity Office experience on every device they love to use. Today's announcement marks one more step in that direction."

The newly available apps allow you to view Office files and documents on your iPad, however creating and editing are only enabled, after purchasing an Office 365 cloud subscription.

It was time to make this move

Microsoft’s move to a devices-and-services business model is essential to ensure a prosperous future. The company has to show commitment to delivering those services promptly on any platform. The iPad release of Office is an example of doing just that; delivering a new set of high-fidelity endpoints for the Office 365 services.

About the Author:       
Sarah writes for Firebrand Training on a number of IT related topics. This includes exams, training, certification trends, project management, certification, careers advice and the industry itself. Sarah has 11 years of experience in the IT industry. 

Why America has the biggest Technology Billionaires

Challenges and Trends in Mobile Geo Location Marketing

Top  3 Trends in Mobile Location-BasedAdvertising  via emarker 

UK Media Cross Platform Media Consumption Pattern

eMarketer Webinar: Blurred Lines—UK Media Consumption In a Multichannel World from eMarketer

UK Cross Platform Media Consumption patterns

Google and Facebook Fights it our for the Mobile Marketplace, control 70% Mobile Ad Market

After controlling the online Space.Facebook and  Google are both Jostling for  the next big "  Technology  Space.. which is the Mobile Marketplace

Starting off in 2007 by opening it across all users .Facebook's late push into mobile advertising is paying off big time. Less than two years after the company began serving targeted ads to mobile users, the social network is by far the second largest player in the quickly growing market.  According to Analysts Facebook  is set to  rake in $6.8 billion from mobile ad sales this year, trailing only Google which remains the clear industry leader.

eMarketer's data shows how heavily concentrated the mobile ad market is. In the past year, the Top 4 ad publishers accounted for more than 70 percent of mobile ad revenues and, perhaps even more impressively, Google and Facebook alone pocketed two thirds of every dollar spent on mobile advertising in 2013.

Geo Targeting Mobile Display Ads " 3 Ways to Ensure Greater Reach for your Brand

eMarketer Webinar: Top Trends in Mobile Location-Based Advertising from eMarketer

The Cost of Gaming Devices : PS 4 Costs in Latin America vs US

PS 4 prices Across Nations :

High import fees have resulted in Brazil having the most expensive PlayStation 4 prices anywhere in the world. In fact, the Sonyconsole actually costs four times as much as in the United States. The PlayStation 4 also has a high price tag in another South American nation, Argentina, while Sony’s native Japan has remains the cheapest place to purchase one.

Staffing struggle: project managers

By Sarah Morgan

According to the recent ESI 2013 Project Manager Salary and Development Survey by ESI International, organisations may soon face a shortage of project managers in their teams. Needless to say, it is a huge a disadvantage as the global economy is recovering.

The problem

“Those responsible for project teams face short- and long-term challenges when it comes to the staffing and development of their project communities. As projects continue to increase in complexity and size, many project organizations find themselves with understaffed and underdeveloped work forces. In light of budget constraints, an aging base of experienced professionals, and a likely talent war on the horizon, those without a strategy for hiring, developing, and retaining top project talent are going to find it difficult to meet the increasing demand of their organizations.” - ESI 2013 Project Manager Salary & Development Survey

Mark Bashrum, Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Open Enrollment at ESI, said : "Budget constraints, an aging base of professionals and a looming talent war all contribute to a talent crisis that should be addressed from the highest levels of the organization". He also added: "The growing needs of businesses demand a more strategic view of the staffing, development and promotion of their project managers since project execution impacts an organization's bottom line and its ability to satisfy its customers."

Three main reasons

It’s important to highlight that the problem is not the lack of project managers; it is the lack of experienced, mid- and senior-level project managers.  According to the findings of the survey, 44% of shortages are for senior project managers. Furthermore, 48% of respondents stated it was “very difficult” to find senior staff.

CIO.com summarised the problem, in three points:

• Many organisations are now expanding quickly as the economy is recovering and they’re either starting new projects or continuing projects that had previously been put on hold
• Experienced, senior project managers are reaching retirement age or leaving for other reasons
• Several organisations stopped actively training and developing new project managers internally due to financial cuts

Project Management training with Firebrand

Do you have the experience; you just need a certification to prove it? Or are you new to project management? Wherever you are in your career, we’ll have an accelerated project management course for you! Learn more about them here.

About the Author:       
Sarah writes for Firebrand Training on a number of IT related topics. This includes exams, training, certification trends, project management, certification, careers advice and the industry itself. Sarah has 11 years of experience in the IT industry. 

Digital Badges for ISACA Credential Verification

By Sarah Morgan

ISACA has decided to take countermeasures against fraudulent security credentialing with the use of Open Badges. Open Badges by Mozilla are digitally displayed badges and in this case, they will be awarded to those who have completed training and acquired an ISACA certification.

How does it work?

Open Badges are secure digital representations of ISACA credentials, such as CISA, CISM, CGEIT or CRISC. They can be embedded into emails, personal websites, a résumé, as well as social and professional networking websites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Displaying your open badge across social platforms offers potential employers an easy way to verify and evaluate your competencies and achievement.

Once someone clicks on the badge, it calls up a set of metadata, verifying the certification and sums up the qualifications and the process, which were required to earn it.

“ISACA credentials are in demand by employers worldwide, and we are glad to offer our certification holders the opportunity to utilize open badges to demonstrate their accomplishments… Open Badges offer an efficient method for current and potential employers to validate a certification, and also give certification holders a simple and effective opportunity to tell their professional story and enhance their recognition.” said Allan Boardman, International Vice President of ISACA and Chair of ISACA’s Credentialing and Career Management Board, in a recent statement.

Which is your ISACA course?

CISA, CISM, CGEIT, CRISC. We run them all, just pick the one that suits you best. Visit our course page and view more details about accelerated ISACA training courses.

ISACA’s exam registration deadline is near

ISACA only runs its exams three times a year, with the next one coming up on 14th June. If you want to take your exam as early as possible, you have to register by 11th April, which is the final registration deadline for the June exam.

Have you already completed your course and registered for the exam? Well done, here are some revision tips for passing your exam! 

About the Author:       
Sarah writes for Firebrand Training on a number of IT related topics. This includes exams, training, certification trends, project management, certification, careers advice and the industry itself. Sarah has 11 years of experience in the IT industry. 

India Consumer electronics facing heat from ecommerce upstarts

Indians Unfolding Online Consumers

Tech brands lock horns with e-com firms over 'predatory' pricing | Business Standard:

The Davids  of Indian Ecommerce Start Ups seem to be standing up against the Goliaths , The Consumer Electronics OEMs as Consumer Electronics brands like Lenevo, Samsung, Dell. Apple, LG, Motorola and HP  are up in arms against Online  ecommerce Portals .. that seem to capture a part of their online pie via predatory pricing"

India’s $500-billion (around Rs 30-lakh-crore) retail sector already seems to be facing the heat from the much smaller e-commerce segment, the present size of which, excluding online travel, is a mere $3.1 billion (Rs 18,600 crore). 

Joining technology product companies’ online versus offline battle, Lenovo India on Wednesday issued an advisory to its buyers against doing business with e-retailers.

Dubbing e-commerce players like Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal as “not authorised resellers”, Lenovo has put a notice on its website urging consumers to buy products only from its exclusive stores or its own e-commerce portal. In doing so, the Chinese electronics maker joined Japanese counterparts Toshiba and Nikon which put out similar advisories earlier."

Facebook To Slash Your Page’s Organic Reach Even More |

Facebook Is Reportedly About To Slash Your Page’s Organic Reach Even More | WebProNews: "Facebook is showing Pages’ organic posts to fewer and fewer people as time goes on.

In December, the company pushed out an algorithm change to its News Feed, which severely impacted the organic reach for many Pages, but recent research from Ogilvy shows it was already getting bad before that, and is on a steady path downward with reach as low as 6% of Pages’ audiences by last month."

Now, Sam Biddle at Gawker’s Valleywag is reporting that it’s about to drop even further:

Targeting The Aussie Mobile Australia : How to get it right

TARGETING MOBILE AUSTRALIA :The biggest opportunity in APAC region

Optimizing Your Mobile Engagement : 3 Strategies to increase 40% Mobile Leads

Mediamind Mobile Advertising 

Hour of Code UK - over 2 million participants so far

By Sarah Morgan

On the first week of March, Hour of Code UK launched a week-long event to promote computer sciences and more importantly to get students, teachers and parents excited about coding. As of today, over 2 million participants in the UK have tried an Hour of Code.

Recap: What’s Hour of Code?

Participants of Hour of Code will learn the basic skills of computer programming in 60 minutes, through fun tutorials and interesting activities. Hour of Code is suitable for all ages and abilities, neither students nor teachers need to have any experience to use the self-guided materials that are accessible for free on the UK Hour of Code website.

Testimonials

Code.org UK and its YouTube campaign video have seen some excellent feedback from students, teachers and parents alike. Here are a few great ones:

“I just did this in class an I LOVED it” – Student

"I have NEVER, EVER seen my students so excited about learning" – Teacher

"My 3 kids came home from school yesterday yelling about the Hour of Code. My six-year-old instructing me on how to program Angry Birds, my 10-year-old boy proclaiming 'I am going to be a software engineer. It is the job I was made for. It is my DESTINY!'" – Parent

Are you interested in learning the basics of coding in just 60 minutes? Get started with Hour of Code now! 

About the Author:        

Sarah writes for Firebrand Training on a number of IT related topics. This includes exams, training, certification trends, project management, certification, careers advice and the industry itself. Sarah has 11 years of experience in the IT industry. 

How LPI certifications can be your key to success

By Sarah Morgan

Entering the world of Linux engineering can be quite challenging even for the most committed individual. Add this to this year’s Linux Jobs report, according to which 90% of employers find the recruitment of Linux professionals as either “somewhat difficult” or “very difficult” (an increase on last years’ results), and it becomes clear that a new approach is needed. The importance of raining has to receive more recognition.

Linux experts of UKFast on LPI qualifications

UKFast, founded in 1999, is a business-to-business (b2b) hosting provider, currently looking after 250,000 e-commerce websites. Linux plays a key role in service delivery and technical support at UKFast; therefore it is essential that the company has well trained engineers.

Although LPI Certifications won’t make you a system administrator (sysadmin) overnight, they do provide you with a range of massive advantages in the workplace. One key benefit of the LPICs is standardisation. The training provides the basics which will enable you to approach other systems with the confidence that you will be able to work out ways around the different deviations on your own.

What the LPI qualifications give you

The LPI qualification is a great way of initialising and developing your knowledge.

LPIC1 - provides you with the basic knowledge and skills common across all distributions of Linux, such as system architecture, administrative tasks and GNU and UNIX commands.

LPIC2 - builds on this and covers advanced skills for your role as a Linux Professional. To pass this level and obtain your certification, you are required to be able to administer a small to medium sized site.

LPIC3 - is designed for ‘Enterprise’ level engineers as it introduces specialised areas of expertise such as mixed environments and security.

Firebrand is an LPI Approved Training Partner

As a leading hosting company, UKFast receives a lot of CVs and applications from engineers who have taught themselves the LPIC essentials by using books or watching training videos online. This dedication shows that you’re dealing with a motivated individual, which is the key to success.

However, self-study is not an option for everyone, as the process can be very long and often hard to manage. If you’re committed to getting your LPI certification, visit Firebrand’s LPI page and pick the one best suits your needs.

For more information on LPI certifications and an interview with Bill Quinn, CEO of LPI UK & Ireland, read Going Pro with Linux.  

About the Author:       
Sarah writes for Firebrand Training on a number of IT related topics. This includes exams, training, certification trends, project management, certification, careers advice and the industry itself. Sarah has 11 years of experience in the IT industry. 

80% of LInkedin Lead Conversion happens between 1 to 4pm

 Conversion Time period   from Linkedin Post 

Can you predict at what time your consumers will "  convert during your marketing campaigns ? Is it possible for business to know during which part of the engagement process a lead is likely to be converted ? well if you think this was  never possible ,  It actually can  !

According to recent post by  Oktopost, B2B leads are most likely to convert between 1 and 4 PM at Linkedin

 Here are the most popular posting methods on LinkedIn to generate leads, followed by conversions: 

•  Discussion Groups – 96.22 percent of posts, 86.30 percent of conversions
• Company Pages – 0.59 percent of posts, 10.07 percent of conversions
• Personal Profiles – 3.20 percent of posts, 3.63 percent of conversions 

That means ' discussion" about  your Posts "  create the maximun buzz across linkedin  and are the " best qualifiers for a lead "

Also interestingly "The average length of a B2B-related LinkedIn post is 248 characters, and one out of every three posts contains a question mark in its subject line."

source :80% Of Social Media B2B Leads Come From LinkedIn (Infographic): "

Biggest Smartphone Markets in US : Dallas and Washinton DC tops

Smartphone penetration continues to grow, exceeding 65% of the US mobile subscriber market during the fourth quarter ( between Oct 2013-2014 Jan), according to comScore. 

A recent report  from Nielsen pegs smartphone adoption a little higher, at 67% as of November 2013. to  January 2014 period )The study identifies the leading 10 markets in terms of penetration rate: 

Topping the list is D and number 1  in the charts was Dallas, with 76% penetration..Closely following were Washington DC and Los Angeles (each at 75%), with San Francisco (74%) and Miami (73%) rounding out the top 5

4 December 2014 – the day Google predicts mobile queries will reach 50%

Global Mobile search will finally match the Global Search via Desktop . And brace yourself for the date , as this is going to happen right this year ( 2014 )4 December 2014 – the day Google predicts mobile querieswill reach 50% | The Drum: "Google has put a date on when

searches made on mobile devices will equal desktop – 4 December 2014. This was announced by Google’s global agency business leader Kelly Twohig  who stated that " This is the day we’ll see queries made onmobile devices reach 50 per cent and 50 per cent from desktop."

A recent research published by  ' Comscore also projects the same   saying that by December this year ( 2014) 40% of display ad impressions will be on mobile phones and added that by the month, 40 per cent of all video views will be on mobile.

Meanwhile according to the above chart by BIA Kesley :  shows that the number of mobile searches is going to surpass the number of searches done from desktop computers by 2015 and keep  rising from there . This is  being led mainly by the  " Smartphones and Tablets and the convergence of Digitally connected Devices  across a "common Mobile OS Platform (  Android/iOS/ Windows 8)

Mobile Web Access Speed show 30% Rise

The Speed by which consumers surf the web via mobile has shown a marked increase .. this year "Mobile browsing got significantly faster over the last 12 months, according to a new report from Google, and the average page load times on mobile are now comparable to desktop page load times. On mobile, web pages now load about 30 percent faster than a year ago, . In Desktops the size of the average web page increased by over 56 percent in the last 12 months.

According to google ,a mobile page should not take more than 7-8 seconds to load 

A  Recent report ( via marketingcharts )  "claims that the average time it takes to load a Fortune 100 company homepage on a smartphone is about 5 seconds,

The report is based on aggregate data from Google Analytics’ Site Speed reports,Technically this reason for the ' downtime for mobile web load time is  due to the fact that  limited CPU capabilities of mobile devices, the high round-trip times of mobile networks, and the rapid growth of mobile usage, it is even more critical to understand and optimize for mobile performance than for the desktop..The average time it takes to load a Fortune 100 company homepage 

Internet Penetration   |    Consumer Technology |      Mobile Computing |

     

Windows XP retirement puts ATMs at risk

By Sarah Morgan

As we mentioned in an earlier post, Microsoft will be discontinuing the support of Windows XP on 8^th April. Windows XP has been one of the most popular operating systems ever created and its endgame is certainly going to impact more than just individual users. According to Gartner’s experts, around 10-15% of XP-using businesses will fail to migrate to a different operating system, but this is not the most worrying news.

ATMs at risk as XP is set to retire

This may come as a shocker, but over 2 million (95% of all) ATMs in the world are running on Windows XP and they will become easy targets for hackers and viruses once the support for XP has to come to its end.

To make matters worse, only about 1/3 of these ATMs are ready for an upgrade and preparing the remaining 2/3 would cost about £60 million.

However, we must also point out that ATMs are equipped with sophisticated, customised additional security. Therefore it is unlikely that they’d just “start shooting out money into the streets or things like that,” said James Lyne, Director of Technology Strategy at Sophos.

They knew the day would come

Microsoft already announced its plans to stop issuing security fixes for Windows XP in 2007. So it really shouldn’t have struck any bank as a surprise, yet quite a few failed to take action. Banking giants like RBS, Santander UK, Lloyds or HSBC have decided to sign up for three years of custom support, before migrating their ATM operations to Windows 7.

According to James Lyne, these changes have been hanging around for so long, so banks really should have thought about addressing them a long time ago. 

About the Author:       
Sarah writes for Firebrand Training on a number of IT related topics. This includes exams, training, certification trends, project management, certification, careers advice and the industry itself. Sarah has 11 years of experience in the IT industry. 

Why Retail Apps continue to grow 3 times than other Mobile Apps

The Rise of Retail App and what is Power the Rapid Growth

With the Growth of Mobile Commerce, the growth of retail Apps has surpassed any other mobile apps . As Smartphone penetration  begin to gain critical mass and surpass 50% across the globe, The biggest winner would be the “ retail Apps “,  (According to comscore ,(as of   January 2014 )US ,had crossed 65% mark in Smartphone penetration).

3 Reasons why Retail App Continues to See Exponential Growth

  While the Mobile Web has been the single largest factor  to power the rapid rise of the retail app , there are other factors at play  on  why Retail App has seen a phenomenal growth than other Mobile Apps 

1)For one the growth of Mobile commerce.. meant that “ more consumers” started shopping for apparel, merchandise, books, consumer  electronics among a few.  .As Mobile sites became easier to use, with faster loading times, consumers started to experiment ... With the zooming growth  and penetration of Smartphones, connected devices including tablets, the supply side also grew, as consumers could simply download an App.. check its rating.. decide on the “ options and place an order in a jiffy

2)More Brick and Mortar Stores moving to Online Marketplace . With more retailers moving to :’  the mobile web , and as more physical stores expands into  the mobile ecosystem,  by launching a mobile website and a Mobile app, The supply side tends to increase ...  which in turn causes the demand size to increase ( More mobile sites with their ap, leads to more options for user, which in turn “ leads to creation of more Retail Apps

3) Smartphone Penetration : Also The   EU Countries (  (Spain, Germany, Italy, France and the UK) have already reached  50% Smartphone penetration .. which in turn  will " continue the Power Mobile Commerce  ,leading to  an exponential growth in "Retail Shopping Apps '" a next finave years. Mobile applications will be part of the amazing growth.ion

Smartphone Penetration in Italy at 64%,Retail apps show highest growth

In Italy Smartphone users represent 64.1 percent of the total Italian mobile audience, an increase of 23.5 percent from the previous year. 

Mobile commerce   Shopping /Online Retail)  is already playing a major role in online retail in Italy. The increase in smartphone usage has been instrumental in driving online retail  sales in Italy according ti Comscore ) Among them are

1. "  Usage of retail apps  showed the strongest year-over-year increase of 74.8%  followed by the Health category with 66.6% growth. The e-payments and money transfer category came third with 65.2 %  and over 2 Million additional users over the last year
   
2. Among those, the  Financial and retail / m-commerce/related services belong to the most popular usage categories accessed by Italian smartphone owners. Online retail sites and apps were visited by 23.8 percent of smartphone owners, followed closely by shopping and price guides (22.6 percent). Accessing electronic payments or money transfer services  via  smartphones has also been popular, with 21.7% t of Italian smartphone owners using those services