Going mobile-first can be the path to success

Source: Spotify. Kaur.

Spotify launched in Asia with mobile support as a priority, not as an afterthought or nice-to-have, says CommunicAsia2015 speaker Sunita Kaur, Managing Director, Asia, Spotify, as it saw that Asia is a growing mobile-only market. 

The mobile-first freemium strategy has fuelled growth in Spotify’s user base, which subsequently bumped up premium subscriber numbers at an average conversion rate of about 20%, Kaur said.

“We’re so committed to the freemium model on mobile because we completely agree with the labels that subscribers are key to bringing the industry back to health — and we need the free 'funnel' to drive subscription,” said Kaur. "By bringing listeners into our free, ad-supported tier, we migrate them away from piracy, which is rife in this part of the world.”

Ads are a big part of the strategy. In the second quarter of this year, Spotify is announcing the rollout of a new video ad product. Sponsored Sessions give brands ownership of 30 minute ad-free mobile sessions. Users opt-in to an ad-free experience by viewing a 15 or 30 second video on their mobile device.

For Spotify, another advantage of going mobile is the ability to provide personalised recommendations to fans across their daily activities. The result of tailoring the streaming experience is that users are spending an average of over 160 minutes listening, dancing or singing along to Spotify every day, she disclosed.

"There is no cookie-cutter approach, so consider if your mobile strategy will add value to your consumers’ lifestyles. Learn to build for the user, go beyond mobile-first, and go user-first,” concluded Kaur.

Kaur will be sharing insights on how businesses can implement a mobile marketing strategy at CommunicAsia2015 this June.

CommunicAsia2015 / EnterpriseIT2015 Exhibition
Incorporating:	SatComm2015
Date:	2-5 June 2015, Tuesday - Friday
Venue:	Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, Levels B2,  1 & 3
Opening Hours:	2 to 4 June 2015: 10:30 am - 6 pm  5 June 2015: 10:30 am -  4 pm
Admission:	Business and trade professionals only
Website:	www.communicasia.com | www.goto-enterpriseit.com
CommunicAsia2015 Summit
Date:	2 to 5 June 2015, Tuesday - Friday
Venue:	Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, Level 3
Admission:	Registered delegates only
Website:	www.communicasia.com/conference/conference-highlights/

Free WooCommerce WordPress plugin hits 4 million downloads

WooThemes, which develops themes, plugins and shopping cart functionality for WordPress, announced that its WooCommerce WordPress plugin tool has now surpassed 4 million* downloads. WooCommerce is WooThemes' free flagship product, with official partnerships with companies like Amazon, Mastercard, and PayPal. 

Source: WooThemes website.

WooCommerce allows businesses to power e-commerce sites with WordPress as the underlying content management system. 

WooThemes operates on a freemium model: the basic plugin is free, with some free add-ons, but more complex extensions and themes are only available for a price. Plugins for sale on the WooThemes site include a single site licence for a customer history plugin that tracks how a customer browses and records purchases to date for US$49, whereas barcodes can be generated for every order - to be used with packing labels and other paperwork - for a single site licence cost of US$79.

The plugin is now one of the most popular shopping cart functionality plugins, a distinction recently confirmed by Builtwith, a website profiler and business intelligence tool. WooThemes said that approximately 381,000 e-commerce sites worldwide using WooCommerce, accounting for nearly 18% of all Internet e-commerce sites. 

"WooCommerce growth continues to amaze us. As its catalogue of niche functionality enabling extensions multiplies, we are seeing impressive and creative customer implementations of shops of all sizes - proving the range of scalable e-commerce solutions possible," said Mark Forrester, Co-founder of WooThemes. 

The company is looking ahead to release WooCommerce 2.2 later this quarter and expects e-commerce to reach a new level of innovation as a result. Forrester said the company is "still at the beginning of our rocket ride". 

*At the time of writing the number had reached 4,027,260 downloads.

Microsoft more than doubles free OneDrive cloud storage, slashes pricing

Microsoft announced updates to the freemium OneDrive cloud storage service on June 23 (US time), to take effect in the next month.

The improvements include more free storage, cheaper paid storage, and bonus storage for customers with Office 365. "The landscape is changing to the point that we believe it’s no longer enough to provide only cloud storage — that’s table stakes. We want to provide a complete experience that brings in the power of Office and lets you do more with everything you put in your OneDrive — whether it’s sharing your favourite photos with the people you care about in one simple click or working together in real time on an important project," said Omar Shahine, ‎Group Program Manager, OneDrive.com, on the OneDrive blog.

Current subscribers will be automatically be moved to the lower prices. Following are the changes:

· Free storage to grow from 7 GB to 15 GB, as Microsoft has found that most people use less than 15 GB of storage
· Storage bundled with Office 365 subscriptions* will increase to 1 TB. In the case of Office 365 Home, which allows up to five users, it is 1 TB per user.
· Storage prices to be reduced worldwide by over 70%. For Singapore, it will cost S$3/month for 100 GB of storage, or US$1.99.
· OneDrive users who refer friends will still receive up to 5 GB (in 500 MB increments) for each friend who accepts an invitation
· OneDrive will still give you 3 GB just for activating the camera backup feature on your smartphone.

*S$9.80/month or S$98/year for Office 365 Personal
S$13.80/month or $138.00/year for Office 365 Home (up to 5 PCs or Macs)
S$108/for four years for University; OneDrive for Business customers already get 1 TB of cloud storage per person. Monthly pricing is only available if the order is made via microsoftstore.com.

ESET refreshes Mobile Security app for Android

ESET, which provides proactive digital protection, has released an enhanced version of ESET Mobile Security in Asia Pacific that has proactive anti-theft features in its premium version, helping Android users track lost or stolen mobile devices. 

Source: Play Store.

The free version of the application provides basic protection including full device scans, scans of downloaded applications items and basic anti-theft functionalities. The premium version includes scheduled scanning, on-charger scans, advanced proactive anti-theft functionalities, SMS & call filters and security audits.

The proactive anti-theft feature detects potentially dangerous situations and eases the locating of stolen or lost devices. New functionality for premium users sends the last location of the device when the battery hits a critical level, takes snapshots from front and back camera when the wrong PIN/pattern is entered or an unauthorised SIM change is detected. All data on the device is accessible through http://my.eset.com.

"The adoption of smartphones and tablets is growing at a rapid rate in Asia Pacific, with Android being the most popular OS with 59% market share. We rely on mobile devices in both our personal and professional lives to communicate, store data and even make financial transactions. Losing your device or experiencing a security breach is stressful and can put a lot of sensitive data at risk," said Parvinder Walia, Sales Director at ESET Asia Pacific. 

"Over the past year, we have received valuable feedback from our users on the importance of quick, efficient and easy device location and tracking and two-factor authentication (2FA) for added security."

Also introduced recently is an updated version of ESET Secure Authentication in Asia Pacific. Initially available only in selected regions, ESET's updated 2FA application combines secure access to online applications and ease of installation and support. The software development kit and API extends protection to a wider range of applications and data.

CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap thrived in first 100 days, says CA Technologies

CA Technologies, which provides IT management solutions that help customers manage and secure complex IT environments to support agile business services, has announced a new version of its first freemium offering, CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap.

CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap has been downloaded by 5,000 SMBs, Fortune 1000 companies and IT service providers in 147 countries in the 100 days since its launch. The feature-rich version of CA Nimsoft Monitor shares the same code base, and proactively monitors servers, networks, storage, databases and applications in order to ensure reliable delivery of critical IT services to end-users and customers. It is free for up to 30 monitored devices each with unlimited monitors—not a limited time-trial. 

Also indicative of the success of CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap are the 4,000 members who have flocked to its online community, CA Snap Central, and the 60-plus CA Technologies partners that are now promoting the product to their own customers.

“We will continue investing in CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap and the Snap Central community to give everyone the ability to better safeguard the health of their critical service delivery infrastructure no matter how tight their budgets may be,” said Stephen Miles, Vice President, Service Assurance, Asia Pacific and Japan, CA Technologies.  

 

Family-owned and US-based Indmar Marine Engines, the world's largest privately held manufacturer of gasoline-powered, inboard marine engines with a global network which includes dealers in Hong Kong, Korea and New Zealand, has replaced Spiceworks with CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap as its primary IT monitoring tool.

“CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap was a breeze to install and immediately gave us insight into issues that we hadn’t noticed with Spiceworks that could have caused us significant business disruption,” said Kris Kirby, IT Manager, Indmar Marine Engines. “We find the dashboards in CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap more usable than what we had to work with in Spiceworks, with fewer false positives and more monitoring configuration options.”

The new version of CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap provides monitoring for a broader range of IT resources—including Citrix CloudPlatform and VMware vCloud—and a free mobile app that allows IT staff to keep an eye on the health of their infrastructure from both iOS and Android devices. 

Users of CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap who need to manage more than 30 devices can upgrade to the paid-license version of CA Nimsoft Monitor, which has been enhanced with new alarm management features, IPv6 support, additional languages and more.

CA Nimsoft Monitor Snap supports English, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. A free download is available here.