Steve Jobs – Person of the Year 2011 – TIME.
An eloquent analysis of some inspirational moments with Steve Jobs written by John Lasseter of Pixar.
Now, One Scanner App to Rule Them All
Before now, if you wanted to use your phone to access online data through scanning QR Codes, Microsoft Tags or barcodes, you would have needed 2 or even 3 different apps to do all three tasks.
As of November 1, 2011, Microsoft’s Bing app on the iPhone App Store (download) now recognizes all three major 2d codes being used in marketing today: QR Codes, Microsoft Tags and barcodes. Simply launch the Bing app, select the camera button (to open a live view of what your smartphone’s camera currently sees) and point it at the code to scan. In about one second (seriously fast!), it will detect and decipher the code and offer you the option to click the link to open the page.
With more people using the Microsoft Reader to scan these QR codes, this means they’ll also be able to scan any Microsoft Tag without worrying if the code will scan correctly or not.
The next Microsoft Tag Reader App, due very soon for the iPhone and other phones, is expected to continue to offer access to previously scanned codes through it’s History button, since this is a feature available in the current version.
Bottom line: if you’ve scanned QR codes before with any other reader than Bing or the Microsoft Tag reader, do yourself a favor and get the new apps as soon as you can. You’ll only need one app to scan the 3 most popular codes being used in print and other media today. The readers are snappy, accurate and free.
What has been your favorite QR code scanner? Are you going to try these new options from Microsoft? Let me hear your take below.
Now Including 2-Dimensional Codes… FREE!
Business owners in our community are consistently amazed when I show them the potential power of 2-Dimensional barcodes. Then I tell them that we include this hot, new technology for free with each restaurant sponsored and their jaws always drop.
They can’t believe how cool it is that people can just point their smart phone’s camera at these little images & instantly visit their webpage or add their contact info to their phone’s address book! No more incorrect URL’s. No longer is it an incredibly tedious task to add a new contact to your phone’s address book!
Scan this code with your smart phone and add Eatery Ads to your phone's Address Book instantly! Get the App for free at http://gettag.mobi
Call Eatery Ads today and let us help you make the most of this great new technology. You can visit our site right now to review how some of our newest advertisers are taking advantage of QR Codes and Microsoft Tags. We can do the same for your business!
For the first 5 business owners who respond, I’m offering a FREE, no obligation 15-minute consultation to help you learn how to employ this new technology for your business. Call Tim at (727) 534-8745 and ask for a 2D Code tutorial.
Trivia Comes to Restaurant Flip Menus
In my last blog post, I explained how our ad formats were expanding to a larger size. Now 300% larger than our previous ads, our partners’ message demand more attention than ever before. We call them “HD Ads”.
We didn’t stop improving there. The integration of trivia on the reverse side of the flip menu means that customers are now treated to a mental challenge before, during or after their meal. The answer to the trivia is somewhere on the flip side of that page, deep inside of the sponsor’s ad. Potential customers will now scour our partner’s marketing message just to see if they’re right! Everyone will be looking over your ad to test their friends’ knowledge of these facts.
Test your knowledge of local trivia before and after your meal at many popular restaurants.
New Advertising Format Aims to Please!
I love it when inspiration strikes, and this past couple of months has been exciting as we get started rolling out our new designs in most (if not all) of our restaurant partners here in the Tampa Bay area. If you had ever thought to yourself, “What a great idea, but I wish there was more room to talk about all the great aspects of my business…”, well… you’re in luck!
Our exciting new format will prominently feature your business in a full page ad format. That’s 4″ x 6″ of full color goodness, designed to get area consumers hungry for your business’s products & services! Enjoy complete exclusivity within your industry to a completely captive audience. They can’t throw away your ad like a direct mail piece. They won’t drive by your ad at 50 mph like a billboard or bench ad. It won’t disappear every 10 seconds like a digital video display ad.
Your future customers will actually be able to act on your promotion! With their smartphone, they’ll be learning more about your services on the EateryAds.com online directory, seeing easy-to-read (and accurate!) maps of your location, linking to your website, and even seeing video you’ve prepared!
Exciting times! Jump in while you still can! Call Tim at (727) 534-8745 today to inquire about availability from Palm Harbor to Tarpon Springs, and from New Port Richey/Trinity to Land O Lakes.
A Very Happy Holidays!
-Tim Dohrman
Adapting to Your Successes. And Failures.
It’s Wednesday, so time for a new post on using Twitter effectively to market your business.
As with any new endeavor, it is incredibly important to judge the effectiveness, usefulness, or importance of any new process you introduce into your daily business life. The same can be said for your Twitter strategies. It is important to keep a watchful eye on the click-through rates of your various Twitter campaigns. Try to notice trends in your more successful Tweets. Mold and modify your Tweets and see how the changes affect your results.
Again, the only way that we’ve found to track your effectiveness is to use a URL shortening service like Cli.gs or bit.ly. For more information on this topic, please see our earlier blog entry entitled “Track Your Twitter Stats”.
Twitter Primer 101
Twitter. Even the name sounds confusing, doesn’t it?
To those who have never experienced the “Twitterverse”, in a nutshell, Twitter is a website where you can leave messages about anything. What you’ve been up to. What you should be up to. What you haven’t been up to. You get the picture.
But how is this useful?
