With over 500 million Android and iOS devices on the market, and global mobile 3G subscribers growing at a rate of 35% per year, it’s no wonder the big game players are developing their apps and software specifically for Smartphone and tablet platforms. Experts estimate the number of devices activated will surge past the 1 billion mark by the end of 2012, so it’s fairly safe to assume the recorded 40 million applications downloaded already will also double.

It’s a new phenomenon and the largest shift we have seen in consumer behaviour over the last forty years – a shift likely championed by Steve Jobs and his creation of the iPhone, which first entered the world in 2007. That’s right, it’s only 5 years old and virtually dominates the way we communicate. In comparison Google is 14, and Facebook 8 – we don’t even want to know what that is in dog years.

Mobile computing has a rate of adoption that is outpacing both the PC revolution of the 1980’s and the Internet boom of 1990’s. The average time spent in mobile apps has increased from 43, to 94 minutes per day in just over 18 months, while web consumption has more than stagnated; decreasing from 74 minutes to 72 in the past 12 months. Even social media giants likes Facebook are noticing the shift, with users now spending on average, 9 minutes less per day on the website.

We’re a society of convenience. We want to access information wherever we want, whenever we want, in the fewest clicks possible. The new internet age is upon us, and those who adapt the quickest are the ones who will succeed.

This plugin was built after one of our clients asked for integration from the back end of Magento into their e-Parcel portal. We initially sought to use a third party solution, but after scouring the internet we decided to go ahead and build the functionality ourselves. Noticing a lack of any real plugins on the marketplace, we then decided to take this functionality and build it into its very own plugin.

So what does it do?
The e-Parcel plugin provides functionality to export your orders from Magento to a CSV file, and then using that CSV file to import into the e-Parcel portal to create Consignments.

The plugin also provides and extra shipping method in the back end of Magento, where merchant account settings can be input – including Signature Costs, Merchant ID, Return Address, etc. Currently we only support one Shipping method, the ability to add express methods will be added in subsequent Plugin updates.

What is it compatible with?
Currently the plugin is compatible with all versions of Magento Community Edition (up to and including 1.7) , but the import into e-Parcel is only available to PC users running Firefox. This is a Australia Post compatibility issue, which is outside our control.

Why haven’t you released it to Magento Connect?
Currently this plugin is in Beta, meaning it shouldn’t used on any Live (Production) servers. We’re currently looking for 10 – 20 Beta testers to provide feedback on the current functionality, suggestions for improvement and of course, reporting on severe bugs in the plugin.

How do I get it?
Just email through to info@twenty4.com.au and we’ll send you out the install and installation/user guide for you to get started.

Yes – for those living under a rock, Facebook bought Instagram. You know, the app that would allow even Ray Charles to produce award-winning photos

Acquiring businesses like he’s playing monopoly prompted us to ask the question: Why exactly did Zuckerberg decide to make this purchase?

“For years, we’ve focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family,” Zuckerberg said in a post he shared on his Facebook timeline last week. “Now, we’ll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.”

Fears arose that the company would scrap users ability to publish their Instagram photos on other social networks, however the FB team assures there are no plans to do so. Zuckerberg stated the the company planned to build on Instagram’s strengths and features, focusing on growing the app independently rather than just “trying to integrate everything into Facebook.”

“We will try to learn from Instagram’s experience to build similar features into our other products,” Zuckerberg said. “At the same time, we will try to help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook’s strong engineering team and infrastructure.”

From Instagram, to draw-something, one thing is reining true – simple ideas are usually the best. So, how do we make that idea of yours a reality?

Surprisingly, even in this day and age, a large amount of small and medium sized businesses across the world’s top 20 economies have failed to embrace the opportunities of the Internet.

The Boston Consulting Group conducted an 18-month study at more than 15,000 companies that operate within the world’s biggest economies and employ fewer than 250 people.

We have done the leg-work for you, pulling out the 5 must-know facts that reaffirm why it is important for SME’s to not only have an online presence, but be actively engaging with consumers and sourcing new opportunities to promote business through this medium.

1)   High-web companies are twice as likely as their low or no-web counterparts to have a national and international customer base, as opposed to selling only locally.

2)   High and medium-web SME’s generate more jobs.

3)   If it were a national economy, the Internet economy would rank in the world’s top five, behind only the US, China, Japan and India and accounts for 4.1% of the GPD in the G-20 countries.

4)   In 2010, online retail in Australia was estimated at 5.8% of total retail, with that number set to rise to 8.9% by 2016.

5)   By 2016, online advertising is tipped to account for 34% of total advertising, making it the highest single medium.

Aside from the obvious ability to function on 45 minutes sleep and a never ending supply of caffeine, a platform to be able to test the functionality of mobile apps across all browsers is pretty high on the priority list.

Today mobile app developers are battling with multi-platform functionality, often having to create a new version for each device – iPhone, Android and so on.

Can anyone say time-vacuum?

HTML 5 promises to give mobile apps another option, allowing them to run directly on the mobile browser, rather than the device. However as mobile browsers are not all the same, and because HTML5 is still so young, it is quite difficult for developers to verify their apps functionality on all browsers, across all devices.

Developed by Facebook in conjunction with Bocoup, Ringmark is a new mobile browser test suite designed to help developers understand which mobile browsers support the functionality of their app needs, such as orientation lock for games or camera functionality for social apps.

Matt Kelly of the Facebook development team explains “As part of our work on the mobile web over the past year, we’ve often wished that there had been a test suite for mobile browsers that is comprehensive, fair and tests the feature sets that developers really need. We decided to solve this problem and solved our own need.”

We hear your cries of joy already developers.

Want to know the best part? It’s open source, meaning anyone can use it for free and contribute their own tests.

2.7 billion daily likes and comments.

Yes – we are talking about the world’s truest superpower, well at least the cyber world’s greatest power, Facebook.

The social networking site filed for an IPO in February of this year, with a stock valuation of over $100 billion, making it the biggest tech IPO in history.

It raises the question – how and why have our status updates and holiday snapshots become such a valuable commodity?

Whilst the real life dollar value of a ‘like’ is still in question (recent estimates suggest the average fan is worth approximately $136.38) the key to Facebook’s worth and effectiveness as a marketing engagement platform is in the authenticity of its users persona. You see, most Facebook users are primarily using the site as a space to socialize with friends and family; thus the information they provide about themselves is usually incredibly accurate. Facebook unsurprisingly boasts about the accuracy of its consumer profiles as a benefit to advertisers, although they didn’t need much convincing with companies spending almost 4,000 million on advertising in 2011 alone.

So you advertise, and they like you. But what does it all mean?

On a most basic level, Facebook advertising is extremely targeted, meaning you decide who sees your ads. Secondly, any click throughs are just that – voluntary click throughs, which means the consumer is choosing to opt in to your updates and actively engage with your brand.

When advertising is combined with Facebook’s “off-site” traffic, applications and websites integrated with Facebook, Facebook becomes a powerful catalyst for the “hidden sales cycle”. That is, real people sharing real opinions about the products and services they use, the articles and blog posts they find valuable.

In terms of building a customer list, Facebook is the place to start. Whether you have 20, 200 or 2000 likes, one of the most important factors to remember is that each fan you have is capable of sharing your brands information with their entire network. Creating and providing material that your consumers can engage with and share is imperative to the success of any businesses online presence.

The latest figures from the ABS show that retail figures are flat, as sales have contracted sharply by more than three per cent over the past year. In comparison, Internet shopping is picking up the pace with online retail consumption growing rapidly. A recent report from the Commonwealth Bank shows that online retail stores knocked 1.3 percentage points of b-a-m retail stores top-line growth in 2011, with similar trends expected for the remainder of this financial year. The total amount of precious money spent online by Australian consumers in 2011 was – hold your breath: $248.5 billion. That’s one very big pie for brands without an online presence to be missing out on.

So, why are so many consumers making the shift from brick-and-mortar, to online? It’s pretty straightforward really: Lower prices, due to fewer overheads, and of course, convenience. Yes – shopping online means you can purchase goods at 3am and you don’t even have to get dressed. Win.

Analysts at Frost & Sullivan have predicted Australian online retailing to grow by up to fifty per cent over the next four years, sparking huge demand from many companies to invest in non-traditional means of delivering their product and/or services.

It would be naive to suggest that brick-and-mortar retail is completely dead, it isn’t. But the fact remains that as technology allows consumers to purchase goods in a fast and easy manner, from anywhere in the world, brands are going to be expected to keep up, or lose out. The era of E-commerce is well and truly upon us.

You can now add Pinterest as a sharing option on your Shareaholic social media toolset. If you’re a WordPress user, you’ll want to edit your settings on the Shareaholic Bookmarks plugin in your WordPress dashboard. We also recently launched Shareaholic’s Pinterest Extension for Chrome. This means that with a simple Chrome extension, you can collect your favorite findings into a Pinterest Board. If you’re not a Chrome user, you can login to your Shareaholic account and add Pinterest as a service for your current Shareaholic plugin.

Check out this Pinterest slide presentation to find out everything you need to know about;

How the idea came about, What’s the big deal?, Stats, facts and demographics, Getting started, What are people pinning?, It’s not just imagery
Some of the more unusual uses, What else can I do?, Which brands are using it?, How are they?
Pinning on the move, Extending the experience off platform, Key take-outs

Click Here to view the full info graphic.

For some, dressing sharply comes naturally, whereas for others, simply getting into something other than a pair of tracksuit pants can be quite a challenge. Fits, fabrics and pairing colours can seem like the most daunting of tasks, but there’s no shame in that and the new men’s online stylist, One Stop Stylist agrees.

A lot of men struggle with shopping and are loathe to take their girlfriends in case they end up in a—god forbid—pink polo shirt, so One Stop Stylist puts the power back in their hands. Members can review their extensive database anytime, which allows them to search for items by, price range, online or offline shopping preferences and location. Each month, members receive a personal wardrobe selection based on personal colour and style guidelines. There is a basic free membership and a paid membership, with paying members receiving more selections across six different categories.

It’s also a handy reference for colour, fit and style guides so that you’ll never find yourself in an ill-fitting suit or anything that’s going to make you look like a harlequin. That is, unless you’re fond of a knickerbocker and a diamond print.

Need some help? Check out the One Stop Stylist Website