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Rich Tehrani
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Logitech Zagg iPad 2 Keyboard: Do You Need a Laptop?

February 14, 2012

A few months back I was in Boston interviewing a number of companies in the tech space and just before one of my interviews I was reading about the Logitech Keyboard Case by ZAGG for iPad 2 and I was intrigued. I thought having a real keyboard connected to the iPad 2 was a great pain reliever for my fingers which ache when hitting glass repeatedly but I worried the addition would limit my ability to use the tablet while standing. Quite often in my office I find myself using the iPad and I figured a fixed aluminum keyboard would make this practice cease.

Owen DeLong of Hurricane Electric is an iPv6 evangelist but I found him equally good at evangelizing why I needed a bluetooth keyboard from Zagg for my iPad 2. At first I wasn’t convinced and instead thought the new TouchFire silicon keyboard would be the best choice for my aching fingers.

Google+ Growth, Dropbox Killer: Google IS the Tech News

February 9, 2012

Google has entrenched itself is so many areas of tech they have become the technology news of the day. First off, Google+ growth has been nothing short of fantastic, in part because the company has altered search results to put more emphasis on this social network. Every SEO/SEM professional has had no choice in the past few months to get up to speed on the latest social network from the search giant. And this in part is the reason why it has half the unique visitors of Twitter according to web traffic tracking site Compete.

In other unrelated news in the mobile market – hey wait, it isn’t unrelated at all – once again it features Google whose Motorola Mobility acquisition is about to get OKed – perhaps as early as next week.

The bad news now for those companies selling products with technology covered by Motorola/Google patents – you’re on the hook for 2.25% of every sale.

Rewards Network, the Social Restaurant Hub

February 7, 2012

In the last few decades it has become apparent that all companies are for the most part limited by their imaginations. Apple was thought to be a computer company but is now a leader in music, movies and phones. Amazon went from selling books to everything – even its servers are for rent via its cloud-computing solutions. Google went from search to purchasing Motorola Mobility and is well known for being involved in many projects from solar to self-driving cars and the television space.

But an airline? Certainly they aren’t adapting to the new competitive landscape – after all, many of the airplanes we fly on in the US were built in the 1960s when the cloud was defined as an IBM System/360 mainframe.

American Airlines has been a pioneer in loyalty marketing since the AAdvantage frequent flyer program was launched in 1981 and as a result their successful marketing concept spread to many other industries from toys to greeting cards.

The airline took a page from its own book and runs an AAdvantage Dining program which allows members to earn points good for travel and other services.

Need a New Car? Win a Mustang at ITEXPO in Miami Next Week

January 27, 2012



I think I may have one of the best jobs in the world. I admit it is a bit ADHD-inducing as I get involved in lots of areas from new media to the latest technologies in the market as I run this major media company which is TMC. Not only do I get help influence tens of millions of people online I also get to host live events where I meet many of the readers who frequent my blog and TMCnet - the main web portal of TMC where I am CEO.

But the most exciting part of my job comes twice a year when I give away a car to an unsuspecting attendee at ITEXPO. Next week - Friday Feb 3rd at 1:45 pm at the Miami Beach Convention Center, I get to give the next car away and it will be a Ford Mustang.

Innovation Speed = (Moore's Law*Metcalfe's Law)/Patent Lawsuit Activity

January 25, 2012

Yesterday I was engaged in a conversation with TMC senior editor Peter Bernstein and we were discussing the pace of innovation and whether there is some formula which can explain how much more quickly things are happening today. Interestingly I also had a conversation today with TMC webmaster and author Robert Hashemian where we were going over Apple’s earnings and how fast mobile leadership has changed – from Motorola to Nokia to Motorola to Microsoft to RIM to Apple to Google. And all these massive marketshare swings took place more or less in the last decade.

Back to the discussion with Peter – my takeaway from the conversation (I feel he has a slightly different opinion which hopefully he will expound upon in the future) is that Moore’s Law and Metcalfe’s Law working together are accelerating innovation and lubricating new business models. Obviously email is just one tool which has benefitted from these laws – think about how you can now create and respond to virtually all your email from a smartphone now.

Trends and Surprises Regarding Google's 2011 Advertisers

January 25, 2012

Google’s 2011 revenues were $37.9 billion last year and 96% of that money came from ads. Now I know what you are thinking. Where is all that money coming from? Well thankfully, the people at Wired put together an infographic that explains it all. Here are some highlights – a piece of the infographic and a link for the full graphic.

Finance and insurance totaled at $4B while retail and general merchandise was $2.8B and travel and tourism came in at $2.4B.

ITEXPO East 2012 Miami Out of Office Message

January 24, 2012

While I digest the super-strong, mind-numbing Apple growth numbers which propelled the stock to a high of $460 per share after hours I have just set my out of office message for next week when I will be at ITEXPO. The message is below in case you want to use something similar. And for your convenience here is the first show daily from the event – which covers news from Sprint, AT&T, Whitespace Alliance, Panasonic, Accedian Networks, Cycle30, FaxSIPit, Phone.com and Polar Media.

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Thank you for your message. Starting Jan 30th I will be at ITEXPO (www.itexpo.com) in Miami.

This is the global tech and communications conference - covering cloud, MSP, super WiFi, 4G, M2M, Patents, SIP, VoIP, HTML5 and featuring keynotes from Google, Sprint, Samsung, The FCC and Sir Terry Matthews.

On Friday, Feb 3rd @ 1:45 pm I give away a new Mustang - You must be present to win so I hope to see you there.

Monkeybars Lets Social Could Cut Out Middlemen

January 20, 2012

Think of all the ways technology has changed commerce. Most every city for example was littered with photo processing huts and with the advent of sites like ofoto, now part of Kodak and entire layer of businesses between the buyer and seller was wiped out. Likewise, mall owners have seen the pain caused by Amazon and other ecommerce sites. Craigslist crippled the newspaper classified business; Google has massacred all sorts of industries by sucking the life out of advertising profitability and moreover ravaging the direct mail industry.

New distribution models aren’t something we haven’t seen before the advent of the Internet.

Can Incumbent Companies be Disruptors?

January 14, 2012

Business disruption through technologies they never saw coming is fascinating to me. I have been fortunate enough to be in the technology and communications spaces at a time when the pace of change has been breathtaking.

Consider for example in the 1980s when Rockwell one of the leading ACD manufacturers collaborated with IBM to enable computer-telephony integration or CTI. As a point of reference an ACD is an automatic call distributor and is the machine that asks you to press one if you are calling about domestic travel and so on. Now the reason CTI was important had to do with the ability to pull customer data from a contact management database so the call center worker knew who was calling in advance of the call.

Blackberry Playbook Price Drop to $299 Crashes Servers

January 3, 2012


Blackberry has just reduced the price the Playbook to $299 regardless of model – meaning you can get a fully functional tablet which allows you to see Adobe Flash and HTML5 as well as cameras on the front and back and up to 64GB of memory for a great price. I have reviewed the Playbook and think it is a solid tablet. New apps come out for it all the time but compared to Android or iOS there will always be less variety. Moreover the lack of a native email app is a drawback which has taken a long while to fix.

You can still email with Yahoo, Gmail, etc but in order to be a serious player the company needs to solve this problem soon.

Until then it seems it will have to cut prices on what I continue to think is a good tablet and quite a value at this price.

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