What is it that made Jeremy take one look, gasp in amazement and go “Unreal! It’s totally amazing!” exclaiming that whatever was in the box was also his favourite colour? What… black or white? Come on kid, take off that tie and live a little. He couldn’t have been bowled over by the S4’s looks for it isn’t so very different from its older brother the S3. But perhaps Jeremy is too young to have been interested before this. Just like the iPhone 5 the Galaxy S4 is an iteration over its flagship top grosser, S3 smartphone. Will it get as much criticism for not being a total revolution as the iPhone 5 did? Possibly, but that’s not about to bother Samsung. At least not for the moment. As they say: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If Samsung’s star is in the ascendance, why would it want to change anything, including the design of its main line, Galaxy. If and when the tide turns, the Korean giant is probably smart enough to respond, I think. Until then, the essential “design language” of the S4, is much as the same as for its older brother, the S3, which by the way, remains an excellent buy as it quite possibly begins to dip in price. If you don’t have anything particularly special planned with an eight-core processor and a 13 megapixel camera and an additional 0.2 inches, go for it. What’s more, sooner or later, you may get some of the fancy new features that grace the S4 on other top end Galaxy devices, just like the S3 finally got the software goodies that the Note 2 has. Instead of it being all about the hardware, the Galaxy S4 is all about being stuffed with features and additional possibilities via interesting accessories. If we rewind to a year ago, so was the S3, actually. Some of those features worked out well, some are iffy, and some are just lain fun gimmicks. But just as I felt last year, so I do today, that there’s no harm experimenting with features – as long as you, the user, sacrifice nothing for their presence. Like paying much more for things you’re not sure you’ll use. Like a battery that drains out like a cola going up a straw. Like usage being so complex you lose your hair figuring it out. If not, what’s wrong with a smartphone being a feature creature? We’ve become revolution-spoilt. Each new flagship device can’t possibly keep up with expectations if what we’re looking for is knock-out must-have jaw-dropping innovations. If Samsung is experimenting with software features, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Someone’s got to do it. Of course, it’s particularly a good thing for Samsung as it will give the company a head-start with something to differentiate their devices. How many ways can there be to make a rectangle? How much more crisp and clear can you make a display without it going beyond what the average user can spot? There are still camera innovations to be discovered, but even there, many software features are enhancing the way casual photos can be shot and shared. We may well have reached a peak with phone design – for now – and need to move on to usability and features. With the S4, Samsung has features coming out of its ears. It’s not only got features that others tried out, such as the hover that was introduced by Sony on its Sola phone, but has put in new ones that are yet to e proven to work out in the wild. One that is causing much chatter is the eye tracking capability that will play or pause a video with a look. Users may not want to pause a video just because they look away for a moment for example. Or, tilting the phone to scroll on the page. That too may end up in too much or too little scroll. As a user of the S Pen on the Note 2 and its Air View feature, I can say that while I do often use the pen lifted away from the screen to scroll, I sometimes find it runs away too quickly and abruptly, for example. Another capability that you could call a feature or a gimmick depending on your usage, is voice commands for the camera. When I want to stay very still and take a photo I use the voice command to click the shutter whereupon it’s a great feature. When the phone however shoots a picture because my car horn went off, it turns into a quirky gimmick. So much depends on the execution and the fine tuning to how people use devices and that’s quite difficult to know precisely beforehand because there’s so much variation in the way people interact with their devices. I do believe however that you never know until you try and for that reason, find it difficult to judge the addition of features that seem to be gimmicks today. They may work out in the future or they may be eminently forgettable, but if someone’s dreamt them up, it’s time to try them out.
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Samsung's newest, feature-packed Galaxy S4 may put pressure on Apple Inc to accelerate its pace of smartphone design and venture into cheaper devices — both departures from usual practice.The latest Galaxy, unwrapped with much fanfare in New York on 14 March, out-does the iPhone in most technical aspects. But the challenges it encapsulates run deeper than just a simple specifications comparison. "It would be overstatement to say Apple is far behind," Charles Golvin, analyst with Forrester, said, but it does need to note the quickening pace of competitive devices being released."If anything, what Apple needs to respond to is the cadence of their own releases, probably a completely new design every two years and a sort of speed bump every year is not an adequate cadence for Apple to remain at the forefront of smartphone innovation today."Samsung's apparent ability to go toe-to-toe with Apple on cutting-edge smartphones may prompt the US titan to finally make its own assault on the lower-end of the market that it has famously stayed away from — not least to get into untapped markets like China and India.Many analysts now say Apple has to respond in force to Samsung and other rivals that are grabbing attention. Much of Wall Street is now looking ahead to the next iPhone, but expectations are muted.Once the darling of Wall Street, Apple has in six months seen its shares fall 30 per cent from a high of $705. Its Maps software was panned for inaccuracies; its once-reliable financial results, that rarely failed to surpass Wall Street estimates, missed analysts' expectations.In A RutApple appears stuck in an iPhone product cycle, with a new phone typically launched in the second half. In past years, the iPhone has gotten a complete redesign only every two years.Brian White, analyst with Topeka Capital Markets, who views the Samsung Galaxy S4 as a refresh and "not a game changer," said smartphone technology is now improving so fast that timetables put Apple at a disadvantage.More importantly, White said, Apple needs to broaden its portfolio and play in more smartphone categories as the high-end market could soon be saturated, and get into new categories such as the oft-rumored television or a smart watch."They have all the components of the magic potion, which is the hardware-software ecosystem," he said. "All they need to do is take that potion and put it in a different segment of the iPhone market."While many on Wall Street believe the quickest way to penetrate fast-growing markets like India and China is a cheaper iPhone, the risk is that a cheap iPhone would cannibalise demand for the premium version and eat into Apple's peerless margins.Apple's vice-like grip on its ecosystem — with the closely managed app store and its seamless integration with the hardware — is still seen as its biggest strength, one that Samsung is trying to emulate with a larger investment in software and connectivity. The Korean giant is also emphasizing its own mobile "Samsung Hub" rather than the Google Play store that most other Android adopters point to.The iPhone has seen its sales increase to 125 million in fiscal 2012 from 40 million in fiscal 2010. But in 2012, Samsung became the No.1 in the global smartphone market with 30.3 per cent share followed by Apple with 19 per cent share.Samsung's rapid rise is partly helped by the fact that it bombards the market with close to 40 versions tweaked for regional and consumer tastes, from high-end to cheaper models.Samsung's momentum is a major issue for Apple, Ben Reitzes, analyst with Barclays, who is expecting Apple to launch a lower-end iPhone globally this summer.Apple declined to comment on Friday. But a day before Samsung's launch, marketing chief Phil Schiller attacked Google's Android operating system, saying that the majority of its users were stuck on older versions. He also said Apple's internal research showed four times as many consumers were switching to iOS from Android than vice versa. (Reuters)
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Samsung Electronics Co premiered its latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S4, which sports a bigger display and unconventional features such as gesture controls, as the South Korean titan challenges Apple Inc on its home turf.The phone, the first in the highly successful Galaxy S-series to make its global standalone debut on US soil, was unwrapped at Manhattan's iconic Radio City Music Hall on Thursday (14 March, 2013) evening. Some industry watchers were clearly dazzled by its features, setting a high bar for Apple to surpass.The S4 can stop and start videos depending on whether someone is looking at the screen, flip between songs and photos at the wave of a hand, and record sound to run alongside snapped still pictures. But other industry watchers said the phone would not overturn an industry that lives and dies by innovation.The plethora of new features "are good steps in this direction, but they can be seen as gimmicks rather than game changers. At this point, Samsung appears to be trying to kill the competition with sheer volume of new features," said Jan Dawson, chief telecom analyst at IT research outfit Ovum."For now, Samsung can likely rely on its vastly superior marketing budget and the relatively weak efforts of its competitors in software to keep it ahead."The success or failure of Samsung's latest flagship phone - the fourth in a brand launched in 2010 - will be pivotal in the world's biggest smartphone maker's battle against Apple and smaller, and key to that struggle will be phone differentiation.Apple may already be feeling the heat.Just a day before, marketing chief Phil Schiller blasted Samsung and the Google Android software in rare interviews given to Reuters and other select media, underscoring the pressure that the iPhone maker is feeling from its Korean mobile-phone nemesis.The S4, which Samsung preceded with a marketing blitz that drummed up industry speculation reminiscent of some of Apple's past launches, will be available by the end of April and rolled out to 327 carriers in 155 countries, including US service providers Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA."Samsung has fulfilled the promise of their marketing that they are the tech innovators. It remains to be seen whether it's overload for customers, whether they can really take advantage of all these features," said Forrester analyst Charles Golvin.The S4 will use either Samsung's own applications processor or Qualcomm Inc's Snapdragon central processing chip, depending on the country. But the Korean company kept mum on exact dates and prices.Samsung Hits BroadwaySamsung took a slightly different tack with the S4's launch, using actors and a full live orchestra to present the smartphone's various features via a series of skits - as perhaps befitted its theatrical platform.That marked a departure of sorts from the usual slick, high-wattage shows favored by rivals such as Apple.Investors largely shrugged off the launch. Shares in Samsung were 2.3 per cent lower in a steady market in Seoul on Friday.The stock has stood little changed so far this year, while Apple's shares have tumbled 20 per cent as disappointing sales of iPhones raised fears that its dominance may be slipping.Apple's US sales outstripped Samsung's for the first time in the quarter ending in December, even after Samsung spent a record $400 million on phone advertisements here last year.While the global smartphone market's growth rate is tapering off, Samsung still derives the majority of its annual profits from Galaxy phones.Samsung said the Galaxy S4 will sport a bigger 5-inch display than the S3's 4.8 inches. But because the new display will cover more of the phone's surface area, the device itself will be the same length and slightly narrower, thinner and lighter than the previous generation.The newest features involve different options for navigation. For example, if the phone senses someone is looking at the screen, the user can tilt it forward or backwards to scroll up and down a Web page.That feature falls slightly short of what some consumers may have expected after the New York Times reported that the phone would be able to scroll automatically by tracking readers' eyes.But what it can do is sense when it has someone's attention. When a video is playing, for instance, the stream will automatically pause if the person glances away and it will restart when the eyes refocus on the screen.This is an update on an existing Galaxy feature, which powers down the display if it senses no one's looking at it, conserving battery power.The latest phone also has a sensor that lets users move their hands to the left or right to scroll between different websites they have opened or through songs or photos in an album without having to touch the phone.The idea is to make it easier to change the song playing without having to pick up the phone while driving or to avoid putting sticky fingers on the touch-screen display while scrolling through a Web page at mealtimes.The phone will also allow users to hover a finger over an email inbox or a photo gallery to get a glimpse of more details of what's in the email or which photos are in an album.Another feature includes the option to automatically put a copy of details from a photograph of a business card into the phone's contacts database or call a number in the business card.Samsung is also promising an instant translation between 10 different languages for certain applications, as well as a separate translation application on the device.The device also has a 13-megapixel camera, compared with the S3's 8-megapixel camera."They kind of cherry-picked features that other competitors had, and then packed them up all together into one device," said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi."The story though is more about who Samsung is and where they want to be. It is clear today that they want to play in an ecosystem game, their own ecosystem. The word Android didn't come up once."(Reuters)
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Such a dizzying number of phones have been launched these past two months. First at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and then at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. And sandwiched between these events have been releases from Samsung for mid- and lower-range phones, a couple of flagships from HTC, the Z from Sony, and BlackBerry — lots of low-cost large-sized smartphones, and many others, leading up to the Galaxy S IV launch on 14 March. We may well also see a new iPhone later. Anyone wondering just how many more phones the world can handle would have to be forgiven. But guess what, things are going to get more complicated. At the top, the competition is so tight that the big players will have to give their best shot. Apple will have to re-energise its iPhone and Samsung will have to keep up the innovation and continue to carpet-bomb the planet with phones at every price point. We also know there’s a big struggle for that famous “third place” that both Microsoft and BlackBerry want. In the in-between range, there will be interesting chaos with a multitude of players from one geographical region to the other. But in the “budget” segment, the numbers are huge and many firms want to stake their claim on “the next billion” to connect to the Internet via smartphones. And this will happen, not just because of pieces of hardware but because of software that will sit on them— get ready for more operating systems (OS) to join the mix. Mozilla’s Firefox OS, which was launched at the MWC, got a great reception. Much like the browser so many of us use, the Firefox OS is built with the Web at its core. The idea is to blur the boundaries between apps and the Internet. Key in a search term and the screen will fill up with relevant apps that you can press and stick on to your device. These will be based on HTML5, so there are enough developers already for it. There is also a Firefox Marketplace, but one is not tied to using it. Mozilla showed devices from a few firms, including Alcatel and ZTE, and even has a vote of confidence from Sony, which will develop a device for the OS. Otherwise, too, Mozilla Firefox has some 16 carriers and 21 partners, including Huawei and LG, both of which have considerable numbers. It is meant for emerging markets and will not be on the really expensive devices. The lower end of the phone market is large enough, so even a few percentage points of the market share mean a lot is to be gained. But it’s not like others don’t realise the potential of the budget market. Samsung recently launched some Java-based phones in a new Rex series, aiming to take some market share away from Nokia and its Asha series. There are many other players, of course, and many of them Chinese. Samsung, not on board for a Firefox device, has an OS of its own in the works. Tizen, being developed with Intel, has features like the TouchWiz interface and Samsung’s Bada, which has now been incorporated in it. This OS also supports HTML5. Samsung may be able to spread Tizen devices across different segments. Other OSs are gesture-based Jolla, put together by ex-Nokia MeeGo developers, and Ubuntu, the Linux variant developed for mobiles by Canonical. There are plenty of sceptics who don’t think Firefox or any others can put a dent in the pie that is being fought over fiercely by Samsung and Apple. They don’t believe there’s room for more and feel that any others entering this competitive arena will have a tough time developing an ecosystem. Well, they may be wrong and I certainly hope so, because like Mozilla’s CEO Gary Kovacs, I too think no technology should be owned by one or two companies. What’s great to see is that while devices based on the Firefox OS won’t be commercially available until later this year or maybe even 2014, there’s something tangible to show already, and it looks good.mala(at)pobox(dot)com(at)malabhargava on Twitter(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 25-03-2013)
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Bigger brother to the Smart PC 500T, the Smart PC Pro 700T is the one with the power. It runs the full version of Windows 8 and you can install all the regular desktop applications if they’re compatible with Windows 8. And to make them work well, we have an Intel Core i5 1.7 GHz processor. Opinions vary on the looks of this 11.6-inch ultrabook-laptop hybrid. I think it doesn’t have charisma, but others call it “handsome”. I’ll say it looks businesslike dressed in grey-black. The bigger issues are with the ergonomics. First, it’s rather heavy for its size. All the weight is on the tablet side. When you use it as a laptop on your lap, that feels a bit strange at first. What feels even more odd is that the rounded ridge at the base of the screen sticks out enough to feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, even though the tablet is the heavier piece, it’s comfortable to hold. Putting that flat on your lap and using its S-Pen to write is a joy, and is how I wrote this review. Coupled with the exceptionally intelligent handwriting recognition supported by Windows 8, it can be a very fast and smooth way of getting things done on an everyday basis. The powerful processor ensures there’s no lag when working, including when changing orientation. The full HD 1920 x 1080 pixel screen is fluid and responsive. The keyboard is nice enough. There are all the ports you need, but the peculiar thing is that some are placed on the top of the tablet when you’re in laptop mode. That only pulls on an already top-heavy device and also makes it awkward if you have a very short cable. Thankfully, the tablet docks more securely into the slot than is the case with the 500T and there is no danger of it falling out.mala(dot)bhargava(at)gmail(dot)com(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 25-03-2013)
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It's difficult to see the all new Z10 separately from BlackBerry's troubles, past, present and future. Whether this smartphone from the once king of smartphones will bring the company unequivocally back into the game, no one can say for sure. All the same, BlackBerry users have been waiting to see what the new operating system, BlackBerry 10, and refreshed hardware is like, and India happens to be one of the first few countries to receive the top-tier Z10, though it does so at a price of Rs.43,490, a sum people feel is unreasonable for a company that many feel doesn't command the same brand value it used to two years ago. But, setting aside that backdrop, let's look at the Z10 and what it brings, specially to ex or existing Bold, Torch and Storm users. Quite Business-likeMany people's first reaction when they hold the Z10 is that it's been iPhone-ized. It is indeed close to the iPhone 5 in size at 4.2 inches. It's also got the same straight lines and is made to be held comfortably and used with one hand. It's light though heavier than the iPhone which isn't necessarily a bad thing as many people like to feel some reassuring solidity. The back of the Z10 is a soft grainy material which prevents slipperiness. The front however, is glossy. It's a professional-looking understated device with no look-at-me styling but some definite substance. The buttons are all easy to find and made with some care. The power button is on top and the volume rocker, with an extra multipurpose button in the middle is on the right. There isn't a physical -or virtual- home button. This is because the interface is all-swipe. As far as hardware goes, the Z10 now catches up with the rest. A New ExperienceThose who are already accustomed to touch interfaces, specially gesture-based ones like Windows 8, will not think the BlackBerry 10 OS much of a revolution. Windows 8, even on a PC, uses swipes everywhere. Android too has multiple screens that make swiping a daily affair. Also there are apps and customizations that put in menus that can be accessed with a thumb-swipe. But older BB users will definitely find BB10 a whole new experience specially since whatever touch BlackBerry had all this while was poorly executed. The BB10 interface is very fluid, in contrast. It's smooth and although there's a learning curve involved, as long as you know you need to swipe around, you'll discover what you need fast enough and become used to it. There are also tutorials to get you started. The fluidity built into the new OS is something BlackBerry has really worked on. You'll see it in small touches all over the place as you swipe to open up or move across the home screen and other parts of the phone. The feel is of everything being integrated into one whole and this is something BlackBerry refers to as Flow. Any time you're in any application, you can smoothly swipe up to use the "Peek" feature to see what sort of messages are waiting for you, either in mail or your social networks or messengers. This happens without interrupting anything you're doing, even watching video. The powerful 1.5 dual core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor and 2GB of RAM make sure there are no lags or compromises to the flow and navigation. It's All In The HubBlackBerry's communication philosophy is still very much the same. With BB10, it's the heart of the whole system and centralized in the BlackBerry Hub. All your messages, whether they're text, BBM, Facebook, LinkedIn or email, appear as notifications on the main screen. Swipe on the right to see the list of channels and further to see the messages collected in the Hub. For some, all communication arriving in the same bucket can be overwhelming. For others, it's just what they want. You can touch the source you want to look at and ignore the rest, keeping it for latter. You also have other filters such as those that let you sort mail by what you've received today, for example. And then there is in fact some finer level management you can to in the Hub Management options from where you can turn off certain sources altogether. You can always get to the Hub to see your messages, whatever else you were doing - which was probably reading your email anyway. The notification light lets you know when your attention is needed. Communication really is the main application on this phone and it's a great option for those hyperconnected people who are focused on quick responsiveness throughout the day. BBM is very much part of the mix and now a special data plan for it is no longer needed. You just start your BBM account and get on the messaging circuit. You can now also voice or video chat on BBM and this will work fine depending on your internet connection. You can add people to the messaging by inviting them from the menu strip. Not being a previous BlackBerry user, I found it easy enough to start using all my mail and messages on the Z10. I particularly enjoyed the video embedded into BBM options and found it far clearer and easier than any other video chats I've done so far, including Skype and FaceTime. The sound on the Z10 is a little low, which is odd for a device focused on communication, but I found it fine when pushed up to max and faced on distortion. Still An App GapThe BlackBerry World store isn't exactly brimming over with compelling apps you absolutely must have. BlackBerry insists that apps are flooding in from excited developers, adding to the 70,000 they already have, but the results are not exactly top-notch or even inexpensive. When it comes down to experiences with apps, it's quality that matters over quantity as both Microsoft and BlackBerry are discovering. The Android app ecosystem too is yet to catch up on quality and security not just sheer numbers. But a counter argument is that BlackBerry users (the segment that BlackBerry likes to call "BlackBerry People") are perhaps not the sort who really want very many apps in the first place. What they need is already on the device - business messaging and email. In fact, we do need to consider some of the other special features that add to the onboard productivity experience on the Z10. Best On BlackBerryIf you're focused on communication, there are many things that are still best on the BlackBerry compared with other smartphones and platforms. I already mentioned the ease of email, messaging and voice and video chat and how it's all in one place and yet always reachable. But there are other things too. You can also use a new feature, Screen Share on the Z10. This works from within video chat and let each person see the screen of the other person's Z10 (and future BB10 based phones). The existence of this feature plus the ease with which it's usable would make it quite an asset for business users. Another new feature on BB10 is the Story Maker. It's an application that lets you create a movie in simple steps. It's specially designed for mobile so it's not complex and editing is easy and also lets you put in professional touches such as titles and credits. Sharing is equally easy. It's a nice way to create quick demos or overviews for business use. And then there's BlackBerry Balance, which is a feature meant to separate your personal and work spaces. A swipe gets you from one to the other and you access your work content using a password and your office IT people can easily use the work space to ensure that content is secure and can even be wiped off without losing the personal stuff if needed. There's also BlackBerry Remember which integrates content with Evernote. The virtual keyboard, another unique feature, on the Z10 has been designed for users who have been addicted to the original physical QWERTY keyboard but want to make the switch to touch. It's bold and high-contrast, so it's easy to see. But to make it quick to type on, you have a highly predictive text recognition much like the one found on Swiftkey, familiar to Android users. The keyboard learnes from your input (so watch your mistakes) and offers up a word that you swipe up to make it float to the text area. It takes a while getting used to and isn't as fast as the original and nor does it let you look away - you need to be looking at the screen. Personally, I found the switch difficult because I use Swype and Swiftkey Flow and even handwriting on Android handsets. The handset with the real keyboard, Q10, is of course, still awaited though I have handled it and seen that it is much closer to the older BlackBerrys. One-trick CameraCameras have become a critical part of any smartphone today. The Z10 has an average 8 megapixel shooter, able to give decent enough pictures in daylight at 3264 x 2448 pixels,.The focus method is annoying though. You tap to shoot but you drag the square to focus except that very often the photograph takes itself in the process and you end up with an unfocused shot. Apart from this quirk, there are some basic settings to play with and even a few effects. For lovers of Instagram, that's only on Android and iOS for now. The Z10 camera has one neat trick called Time Shift up its sleeve. When taking a group shot, you have some before and after images extrapolated to select the best one. This "best shot" feature is already on many other phones, but the implementation on the Z10 is more interesting. The secondary camera is a 720p@30fps 2 megapixel. In sum, you don't buy this smartphone for its camera as is the case with some others, but you do get a better camera than with older BlackBerrys. The Z10 has an 1800 mAh battery, which may be just about enough to see you through a work day, but only just. If you're a super communicator, you'll surely need extra support such as a handy charger always or even a portable power pack. The battery is removable - with the back flap opening very easily - so you can even keep a second battery or replace it altogether after a long time of use and any signs that the battery is getting less effective. The Z10 supports NFC and this may well become useful as the whole area of mobile payments begins to hot up as it seems to be this year. If you're an existing user, migration to this new device may be a bit cumbersome but here I'm going by reports from others rather than my own experience since I wasn't a BB user. After some 18 months of working on a new operating system, suffering huge losses in market share and brand value, BlackBerry should really have come back with a portfolio of devices ready to ship instantly everywhere, specially in the US where the tone is set for perception about the company, and at different price points to capture users. Unfortunately, there's one expensive device that may see older users upgrade but will not likely draw Android and iOS users away. The Q10, keyboard based BB10 phone, is still at least a month or two away and loses BlackBerry some much needed momentum and marketing buzz. One also has no idea whether the Q10 will be priced attractively or not. At this point, it would have been better to come back with a leap forward not just with a catch-up smartphone, excellent though it is. But BlackBerry may surprise us yet. As we quiz dealers, they say the Z10 is out of stock with demand from BB fans mounts. mala(dot)bhargava(at)gmail(dot)com(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 25-03-2013)
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Find, Follow, RetweetIdentify your Twitter personality. Find the right mix of people, follow them, follow who they're following, and retweet interesting tweets.Tip: Use tools such as WeFollow and Tweepi to find interesting tweepleEngage Don't stay idle. Tweet! Use hashtags (#) smartly, follow what’s trending. Join relevant conversations by mentioning (@) people directly.Tip: Use #chats to find interesting chats and tweet at least hourly Be originalGo beyond retweeting. Blog and then tweet it out. Be clever, quick and opinionated in your tweets. Mention tweeple with large followings.Quality over quantityDon't spam your followers. Link selective tweets to other platforms (tweets don't always work on LinkedIn & FB), and retweet more carefully. Market yourselfGive links to your Twitter handle on Google+, FB, LinkedIn, your card, blog, website... everywhere. More visibility equals more accessibility.Tip: Use integration social media tools such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and Paper.li to target the maximum audience.Compiled by Shruti ChakrabortyTwitter: (at)chockro(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 25-03-2013)
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In Rocky IV, Sylvester Stallone playing Rocky Balboa trained using heavy logs, ice slabs and an overloaded sledge for his do-or-die revenge slugfest with the Russian, Ivan Drago, played by Dolph Lundgren. The latter, on the other hand, had access to a high-tech gym and a battery of trainers. Predictably, Stallone the underdog got the better of Lundgren in the climax. You may or may not be a Rocky fan, but you could certainly take a tip or two from his outdoor regimen. Your everyday park has plenty of things to make your workout quite challenging, if you don’t like being cooped up in a gym. The trees, park benches, children’s swing —improvise with them to get a workout that is as good as what you can get with high-tech machines. The PlaygroundPull-Up: Make your way to the children’s playground area and while the little ones swing away, grab the overhead bar and pull yourself up so that your chin is above the bar. In case you are unable to grab the bar by jumping, stand on some rocks and then reach for it. The kids may shriek a little louder seeing you hanging like that but don’t let that distract you. You will need every ounce of strength to hang in place. The pull-up is great for your shoulders, biceps, triceps and upper-back. Repeat at least 10 times.Hanging Knee Raise: Next, it’s time to strengthen your abdominal muscles. While hanging from the overhead bar, raise your legs till they are parallel to the ground and your body is in an L-shape. Alternate it with lifting your knees towards your chest. Repeat 10 times. Remember there’s no gain without pain. Swinging: Seeing you hanging from the overhead bar, clenching your teeth and doing things which probably appear torturous to little kids would ensure that they vacate the swings fast. Here’s your chance to have some fun while exercising. Settle down on one of the swings (do it gingerly as you want to make sure it can take your weight), and swing away, with your legs stretched straight out, perpendicular to your upper body. Hold the position for as long as you can. This is good for leg and abdominal muscles. Go ahead have some fun but don’t get lost in childhood memories, stop after 5-7 minutes. The BenchPush-Up: It’s time to head to an empty bench which will be your gym set-up for the next few exercises. Start by placing your hands on the edge of the bench and taking two steps back so that your legs are straight out behind you. Slowly lower your body, keeping your chest lifted and your stomach in and then push it back up. Vary the width of your hands to engage different muscle groups. Push-ups build your chest and arm muscles. Attempt at least two sets of 10. Squat: The park bench is a versatile object and can be used for several exercises. Post push-ups, do some squats. Stand in front of the bench with your back facing the seat, your feet shoulder-width apart and your hands on your hips. Lower yourself halfway to the bench, hold for 30 seconds and then stand up. Don't cheat, make sure your back is straight. Do at least two sets of 10. Then you can also do your tricep dips on the bench. Step-Up: Did you know that a 15-minute climb up the steps offers the same workout as 30 minutes of running on flat ground. Climbing up and down the stairs helps tone legs, butt and even stomach muscles. Don't despair if there are no stairs in the park, you always have your bench. Just step up and down. How long should you do this? Imagine you are climbing a skyscraper and you have to reach the top floor. The longer you take to get to the top, the tighter and more shapely your butt is going to be. The TreesPlank Exercises: What’s a park without trees, right? While they are lovely to sit under and relax, they are even better for exercise. Tone your chest, shoulder, back and abdominal muscles through plank exercises, using a tree trunk. Lie down flat on your stomach with your feet against the trunk. Then raise yourself so that your forearm is still on the ground while your upper arm is perpendicular to it. Move your feet up the trunk of the tree till your body is parallel to the ground. Hold for 10 seconds. Keep going till you can hold for a whole minute. Wall Sit: Another exercise you can do using a tree is a wall sit. Stand about two feet away from the tree before leaning back onto the trunk in a sitting position. Keep your thighs parallel to the ground. Basically, pretend you are sitting on an invisible chair. Hold the position for 30 seconds. This exercise helps build lower body strength. Repeat at least 10 times.smitatripathi(at)bworldmail(dot)com(at)smitabw(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 25-03-2013)
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