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Barometer of Google – Google Buzz Has Struggled Since Launch

By
Tekedia Editors
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0

We continue our evaluations of Google products and major acquisitions and how they have fared against the competitions. The unveiling of Google+ positions Google to challenge Facebook on the social media turf. How that will turn out, no one knows. But one thing is known, Google has got great hits and also big misses, over the years. The barometer of Google presents Google Buzz today.

 

Opened to the public in 2010, Google Buzz brought some of the features of Twitter into Gmail, Google’s email system. Nothing revolutionary happened, except that the launch was plagued by privacy concerns. This was billed to somehow take traffic away from Twitter. But that did not happen.

 

Google Buzz is a social networking and messaging tool from Google that is integrated into the company’s web-based email program, Gmail. Users can share links, photos, videos, status messages and comments organized in “conversations” and visible in the user’s inbox.

 

So as we watch Google+ which some have termed Google social app 5.0 in its quest to dominate the internet as it has ruled over search, we will see how it plays out. But preliminary results show that Google+ could be the el dorado that Google has been waiting for. Millions have signed and many money are waiting. Facebook should be worried because as Tekedia noted, its valuations just got a hit.

Web Statistics Must Evolve From Number Of Visitors To Their Intensity And Engagement On Site

By
Tekedia Editors
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0

The structure of modern media business relies much on the size of audience to ascertain the advert potentials for firms. In the broadcast TV, the goal is to raise ratings measured by Nielsen in order to command more advert rates. This model is anchored on the construct that advertisers have to pay based on the number of viewers seeing their products. The CPT (cost per thousand) that measures the cost of reaching a thousand viewers is an industry standard.

 

Yes, a news aggregator gets a lot of bounce on the site and as soon as people arrive, they depart. But people spend hours on social media sites. And when it comes to advertising dollars, most people quote the number of visitors, despite the obvious skewed nature of that statistics. Is it the number of visitors of the visitor engagement or intensity that ad managers should focus on when determining where to put money?

 

Imitating the broadcast TV, the web business has a similar strategy that focuses on the number of people that visit a site. In other words, many web businesses have strategies that work to monetize the number of hits they receive on their sites. Any effort that gets customers to the web is a winning one. Advertisers will pay based on the numbers of site visitors and they can calibrate their investments with metrics similar to CPT.

 

Increasingly, we have seen that the structure of websites is designed to enable more hits because that is the most important metric that can be monetized. The web has followed the magazine, newspaper, cable and broadcast TV models despite the fact that it has evolved in many better ways that any of those industries.

 

While this model works, it is very deficient, especially for web business. Unfortunately, the use of CPT like model continues to affect how marketing directors allocate marketing dollars. From my perspective, while the size of a web audience matters, the most important thing is the intensity that website can create with potential advertized products.

 

This is important because audience intensity offers a more potential reward to ad dollar that web audience size. Understandably, you have to bring people to a site before you can access the intensity the site brings to them. However, it is safe to examine audience intensity within the context of niche-media strategy where advertisers spend money on sites where audience intensity is a higher metric than the size of the audience.

 

Let me illustrate my case using an example. Facebook is #1 website in United States in terms of the size of audience; more people visit the size daily than any other one. Naturally, it would be the most natural place to advertise. However, the demographics on Facebook do not make it the best place to advertise the release of a new Lincoln MKS.

 

The reason is that Facebook may not create enough intensity for a product like Lincoln MKS which is usually associated with people over the age of 50 years. They will see the ad, but few will connect to it.

 

The same argument can be made for different products and websites. What is important is the level of intensity the viewers and site visitors have and how that could match a product being advertised. This brings the need of measuring web intensity.

 

The Internet era needs new statistics that transcend beyond what the traditional broadcast TV has used for decades.  We must bring that element of ascertaining the engagement of site visitors.

 

We already see websites that use many distractions to get web hits. Unfortunately, that statistics does not reveal how connected the visitors are to the site. We need to push more and get that intensity data for the future of web business.

 

Closely related to this intensity is the need to ascertain how web contents engage their visitors. You can have a passive website like many news organizations where you just come to read news and without a section to make comment. Interestingly, many news organizations have tried to solve this problem by making sure that readers can post comments on contents. This engagement of visitors to post is very vital as it can help to access the level of intensity they really have on that site. An intense visitor has a higher chance of clicking an ad than a passive web visitor.

 

This makes a case why I will be ready to spend more ad money on a website where people play online video game that one where people just come passively to read headlines. The former brings intense visitors, while the latter may not be ideally intense.  You may not easily get them to start clicking ads easily. This makes it very interesting. It is possible that one group will be passive in one site and be intense in another one, making it more important to align ad products to site contents.

 

Quantitatively, I will prefer a website with 1000 daily visitors where the intensity of visitors is higher than one with 1500 visitors that have passive visitors. I can access that intensity by looking at how many clicks they performed on the site when they visited. The necessity of measuring how many clicks, not just time, a visitor makes on a site visit is very important to ascertain how likely that person can click an ad. That statistics is very important to know the attitude of site visitors and the essence of selling ads to that site.

 

Take an example; many websites suffer what I will call ‘content shocks’. During the election period, the hit rates of many politics focused sites go up, few weeks after election, they drop. The same thing applies to sports websites. Buying multi-year ads on such sites without accounting for those shocks will be irresponsible.

 

Personally, I have noticed that I rarely click many news contents in the morning since I have to get to work. However, in the evening, I do click those contents when I visit news sites. Understanding the attitude of customers depending on the time of the day will help marketing directors spend money wisely. You may focus on display ad in the morning since in most cases the visitors are not searching; they just want to read the headlines and get ready for work. In the evening, you can ask for text ad when they are back and can actually spend time on the web.

 

In conclusion, we need more statistics to turn web business into pure science. An introduction of metrics that go beyond size of visitors to site intensity is a necessary model to decouple web advertising from the frameworks that have been used in traditional media industry for decades. It will provide a more transparent vehicle to web advertisers and possibly help site designers focus on things that will help businesses advertise their products, efficiently.

Suggested Courses For Embedded Systems And Semiconductor Programs In African Universities

By
Tekedia Editors
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2

The following are some courses we propose for universities and polytechnics in Africa to adopt to revamp their embedded systems, semiconductor and VLSI programs. We understand that many African schools have  relevant and related courses in electronics, logics, microwave, computing, etc which are complementary to these ones. The major difference is that these new courses will go further to develop critical thinking, problem solving abilities and advanced knowledge with practical components in microelectronics.

 

These ones will be project based where the students will be required to design and develop systems which could range from controllers for solar panels to chips for water purifiers. Fasmicro Lab Outsource can help to develop these programs.

 

Students would learn the practical design cycle of mixed signal integrated circuits with fundamental principle of semiconductor devices and their applications in medicine, robotics, telecommunications, healthcare, power generation, etc.  The summaries of the courses as as follows:

 

CAD DESIGN OF DIGITAL VLSI SYSTEMS

This an introductory course in which students- manually and through computer simulations- will design digital CMOS integrated circuits and systems at the level of transistors. The design flow covers transistor, physical, and behavioral level descriptions, using SPICE, Layout, and VerilogHD1 VLSI CAD tools. After design computer verification, students can fabricate and test their semester-long class projects.

 

FPGA SYNTHESIS LABORATORY

This is an advanced laboratory course in the application of FPGA technology to information processing, using VHDL synthesis methods for hardware development.  The student will use commercial CAD software for VHDL simulation and synthesis, and implement their systems in programmable XILINX 20,000 gate FPGA devices.  The lab will consist of a series of digital projects demonstrating VHDL design and synthesis methodology, building up to final projects at least the size of an 8-bit RISC computer.  Projects will encompass such things as system clocking, flip-flop registers, state-machine control, and arithmetic. The students will learn VHDL methods as they proceed through the lab projects, and prior experience with VHDL is not a pre-requisite.

 

MICROPROCESSOR LAB: This course introduces the student to the programming of computers at the machine level. General concepts relevant to microcontrollers are presented, including memory access, numerical representations, programming models, and coding techniques. A CAD will be used along with development platform like PIC, SX-48 chips.

 

Advanced Analog Integrated Circuits: Analysis and optimized design of monolithic operational amplifiers and wide-band amplifiers; methods of achieving wide-band amplification, gain-bandwidth considerations; analysis of noise in integrated circuits and low noise design. Precision passive elements, analog switches, amplifiers and comparators, voltage reference in NMOS and CMOS circuits, Serial, successive-approximation, and parallel analog-to-digital converters. Switched-capacitor and CCD filters. Applications to codecs, modems.

 

SEMINAR & PROJECTS ON VLSI: Research seminar devoted to current research in the engineering of large-scale integrated analog systems and project management. Topics include opamps, comparators, vision and auditory processing systems, RF circuits, etc. Group of students will work on projects.


MICROFABRICATION LAB: This laboratory course is an introduction to the principles of microfabrication for microelectronics, sensors, MEMS, and other synthetic microsystems that have applications in medicine, automotive, telecoms, biology, etc. Course comprises of laboratory work and accompanying lectures that cover silicon oxidation, aluminum evaporation, photoresist deposition, photolithography, plating, etching, packaging, design and analysis CAD tools, and foundry services.

 

ADVANCED TOPICS IN FABRICATION AND MICROENGINEERING: This will be graduate-level course on topics that relate to microsystem integration of complex functional units across different physical scales from nano to micro and macro. Topics will include emerging fabrication technologies, micro-electromechanical systems, nanolithography, nanotechnology, soft lithography, self-assembly, and soft materials. Discussion will also include biological systems as models of microsystem integration and functional complexity.

 

Mixed Signals Microsystems: This is a course on the design of integrated mixed signals and domain microsystems. The emphasis is in micro-power sensor interfaces for instrumentation and automation in the life sciences. The course comprises weekly lab lectures, laboratory sessions where students make measurements on fabricated devices and circuits and CAD laboratory assignments. There will be a final group project.

 

ROBOT SENSORS AND ACTUATORS: Introduction to modeling and use of actuators and sensors in mechatronic design. Topics include electric motors, solenoids, micro-actuators, position sensors, and proximity sensors and how they can be designed, used in systems. This course is a full lab course with 20% devoted to lectures.

 

BIOSENSING AND BIOMEMS The course discusses the principles of biosensing and introduces micro- and nano-scale devices for fluidic control and molecular / cellular manipulation, measurements of biological phenomena, and clinical applications.

 

Semiconductor Physics: Crystal properties, symmetry and imperfections. Energy bands, electron dynamics, effective mass tensor, concept and properties of holes. Equilibrium distributions, density of states, Fermi energy and transport properties including Boltzmann’s equation. Continuity equation, diffusion and drift of carriers

 

Africa Must Innovate Technologically And Become Tech Creators For Sustainable Prosperity

By
Tekedia Editors
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4

Technology is the leader of the enterprising world. And it leads using a constitution. Unlike the traditional political structure, this constitution is Algorithms written by engineers, scientists, etc and not congressmen and politicians.

 

The global competition is largely who has the best technical group to write the best one; in this regard, Algorithms that comprise of patents, technical processes, tools, and so on. As a nation develops, adopts, applies and diffuses appropriately the contents of this constitution, it elevates the lives of its citizens.

 

Economists have shown a correlation between Knowledge Economy Index (KEI), productivity and standard of living. The challenge is improving the KEI number. Doing that involves good education, economic regime and other variables that help to improve technology capability.

 

The age of natural resources dominating global commerce and industry is gone. What matters now is creating knowledge and applying it. Some nations will create, others will merely consume. But wealth is concentrated at the creative stage and nations that focus on consuming, without creating technology will not prosper.

 

Even with abundance of natural resources, which in many instances, the consuming nations cannot independently process without the knowledge partners cannot change this trajectory of limited national wealth without technology creation.

 

Let me illustrate using Nigeria where they speak the language of petroleum. In the petroleum industry, there are the downstream and upstream sectors. While the upstream focuses on exploration of crude oil, downstream does the distribution and marketing.

 

The money is in the upstream sector, a major reason we have the foreign partners concentrated therein. That is where the knowledge creation is done and utilized in the industry. I am cautious to say, without the knowledge partners in Nigeria, helping to explore this crude oil, Nigeria cannot mine this product. Verdict: the oil will be there and of no tangible economic use.

 

This will follow a pattern where villages have water underneath them but no drilling expertise to harness the water for cooking and drinking.

 

Similarly, Africa has embraced ICT, but we are just focusing on the downstream. We are not creating it and we will not benefit much from the technology economic benefits unless we move up on the pyramid.

 

Upstream ICT will involve designing computing systems, cellphones, routers, device drivers, and all other infrastructures that enable ICT revolution. Instead of importing the latest cellphones, we will think how to design them.

 

How do we do that? We need fundamental changes in our national policies on technical education. That is the answer. I believe in knowledge and education creates it. Specifically, technical education is the engine that will move up the ICT movement from downstream to upstream operation as we expand our commitments on microelectronics, nanotechnology, biotechnology, mathematics, etc. This will be a good path to improve our national competitiveness and transform Africa into a global outsourcing hub. If our students have the skills, the multinational companies will come to tap our comparative cheaper labor.

 

In conclusion, there is an opportunity in the upstream ICT sector and it is time Africa gets there. Our government can facilitate a national ICT transition by funding major investments in microelectronics to enable our universities, research labs, polytechnics and small enterprises acquire and diffuse the technology. This will create jobs and diversify our economies out of minerals and hydrocarbons.

Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) In Nigeria Must Innovate – Implementing Feedbacks From Students Is Important

By
Guest Author
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0

By Adebola Daramola

The news caught my attention; ACCA commences online examination in partnership with Summit Consulting Group; the development was a result of feedback from employers and students who preferred flexibility in the timing of ACCA exams currently held twice a year.

 

ACCA as a global professional accounting body recognized the need to be innovative, in order to stay relevant and competitive among her contemporaries (other professional bodies) and customers- employers and students.
Some few days ago, I found a school in Nigeria established for skilling and re-skilling existing and prospective banking employees, an Innovation Enterprise Institutions (regulated by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE)).

 

I was impressed by what I found on ground while I visited; a banking hall, with all the construct of a real retail bank. What a wonderful teaching environment to learn the basics of banking, in addition they have created linkage opportunities with the professional banking institution, firms in the industry and recruiting agencies.

 

Ever heard of Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona GSE), it is a joint venture of four academic institutions ( Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, IAE-CSIC and CREI. The combination of these institutions in forming Barcelona GSE has attracted immeasurable value on the institution and community, Catalan, Spain. Quantifiable value will include the scholarship support and research funding from private institutions, the Catalan state government and Barcelona City council.

 

From the short cases above, the management of Nigeria Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs), professional bodies inclusive need learn the following;

  • There is so much insight from their constituency as an education provider. Engage your customers: employers, students, faculty in developing products
  • Foster experiential learning as much as possible above our present pedagogy methods
  • Engender support for your products through well coordinated linkages system
  • Employ economies of scale; a basic micro economics concept. It will be useful in managing HEIs and professional bodies (not with their proliferation).With several universities in a Nigerian state offering same courses/ discipline, limited faculty and strained resources, economies of scale will help HEIs obtain greater benefits in terms of access to specialized faculty and cost advantage in average cost per unit (In finance, staff development, marketing, technology) leading to a fall as the scale of output increase.

 

The absence of institutionalized innovation process has left our HEIs rusty. I cannot overemphasize the role of our HEIs in driving the national’s competitiveness through the creation of new knowledge and the use and adaptation of knowledge developed elsewhere.

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