I am sure by now everyone has seen or heard about the TechCrunch Internet Tablet – they’ve just updated the tablet and provided some great pictures and videos of the newest version.  You can view the pictures and videos:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/19/techcrunch-tablet-update-prototype-b/

As I was reading the article, and looking at the product there are a few things that they need to do to make it more attractive (physically) and to lower the cost.  I wouldn’t spend $299.00 on it since I could buy a cheap-o laptop for around that much or even a netbook or for $100.00 or so more a fully fuctioning netbook with more bells and whistles.

Things they should consider:

• Make it slimmer – cut out more plastic from the case.
• Drop the camera.  I’ve been using computers for around 20 years now and never really used the camera – perhaps I’m the wrong demographic, but if I’m surfing the web I don’t need a camera.
• Why is there a port for a monitor?  Get rid of it.

I don’t know if this will drop the price to the $200.00 mark – but it will go some ways to lower the price to bring it in at the $200.00 mark that they initially wanted to sell the product at.

Mohamed

Technorati Tags: techcrunch, techcrunch internet tablet

Wow.  Heavy title.  I want to point you in the direction of this great article on TechCrunch.  The post is fantastic, if you want to learn more about where Social Media is heading.

The story is from Morgan Stanley, and well worth the read and view of the slide show.

Here is some summary information:

• YouTube + Facebook page views > Google or Yahoo page views (and may be bigger than both combined)
• 6/10 top internet sites are social (youtube, live.com, facebook, hi5, wikipedia, orkut); none were on the list in 2005
• YouTube has 258 million users, 50% visit weekly or more
• >50% of Facebook users log in daily, 95% of Facebook users have used at least one third party application
• Skype revenue is $1.67/user/year, up 9% Y/Y
• 14 million photos uploaded daily on Facebook
• Google + Yahoo = 61% of U.S. Online Ad Revenue
• Google: $4.4b ad revenue in Q4, paid out $1.4 billion to partners
• Yahoo: $1.6 billion in ad revenue in Q4, paid out $429 million to partners

I think what is a shocker is the first point – YouTube + Facebook page views are GREATER than Google or Yahoo!  Wow.  Is that powerful or what?

IF you still need a clue it means you NEED to have a Facebook page and social media yourself to the world.

Even the 2nd item point should be leading you to taking advantage of social media — the fact that 6 out of 10 Internet sites are social.

The next step for you is use social media to build your business, and convert those visitors into customers of your products.

One of the comments left by a visitor should be on your mind:

Is the traffic and monetisation potential from widgets (and API’s) being underestimated as a trend here, eg, where do RIAs such as Twhirl using Twitters API fit in?

In fact one traffic technique that is most popular is traffic gained from individuals that give away their plugins/widgets for various platforms – WordPress, Facebook etc., With these types of products, it does not necessarily need to be “new” or “unique” — but even significant improvements on what’s out there could spin your sites visitor count like crazy.

A few posts later on there is another fantastic article on Widgets.  The author of the post, Michael Jones makdes an valuable statement – “The top widget providers are proving that widgets can be big business.“

I don’t agree that widgets are the “cure” to the recession - but learning to how effectively monetize widgets will help companies build additional income streams.

He also goes on to say:

In April 2007, comScore estimated that widgets reach 177M people every month, or 21% of the worldwide online audience. Currently, only a fraction of widget traffic – perhaps as little as 0.5% – is being monetized. And that 0.5% is being monetized most frequently through traditional CPM models. In order for widgets to pay off in the long term, however, new models are required that will drive revenue beyond the top few widget providers and generate significant returns for all customers investing ad dollars.

…anyway have a read at the story and the comments, they are just as interesting as the story is.

Technorati Tags: morgan stanley, social media, techcrunch, the future of social media