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GAFYD.net* can redefine CELL PHONE messaging

Posted on September 13, 2011 by GAFYDguy

Voice mails and text messages are a critical part of everyday communication. Billions of text messages are sent daily. Yet, the paying customer has limited access and control over storage management, viewing and retention of their own messages. Consider the following facts.

Voice Mail was introduced commercially by IBM in the late 70’s. Gained wide acceptance in the 80’s, became pervasive in the 90’s and is used everywhere today. It’s so prevalent, the leading wireless Mobile phone providers (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint) just include it automatically in their service plans. But remember their main business is “wireless signal transmission” NOT voice mail systems. Their fiscal investment in the research or feature capability of voice mail is the bare minimum. Voice mail is offered primarily as “competitive necessity – the other vendor has it so we have to have it”.

What does that mean for the customer? You buy a “state-of-the-art” iPhone, Droid, HTC Evo Smart-phone / Web Device which ends up using 10+ year old voice mail techniques and policies. Systems designed to assure they would work no matter how in-expensive your cell phone was. This was good for the vendors, it assured they could provide some level of service to every customer. How else would you explain these limitations that people live with today:

you are limited to a 2 minute message (maximum)
only allowed to keep 20 stored messages at any given time
each message is permanently deleted 30 days after its creation regardless of space being available
having to pay $5-6.00 to the vendor and wait 3-5 days to get a permanent recorded copy of 1 voice mail message?

Each of the above is an actual condition that exists in the Terms of Service contracts of at least one of the leading providers. Would you possibly accept anything even remotely close to those limitations in your email messaging service? Never!

The wireless mobile phone industry effectively invented “Text Messaging”, a type of messaging that people today are madly in Love with (2.5 billion text messages are sent each day in the USA, more text messages are sent per phone than phone calls). Yet do you know the limitations? How many you can keep? Can you easily find 30 day or 1 year old messages with a simple Search command? Can you easily broadcast a text message to a list of people in your email contact list? (without having to have a Twitter account).

Texting is known as a $$Profit gold mine for wireless providers – yet the service retains some major limitations. All impacting the customer that pays for them. Consider what happens to your critical business text messages — if — you lose your mobile phone? Can you just call the provider and have them instantly restored, or access them immediately from any available internet connected PC? Yea, I don’t think so, forget about doing that.

This is a big topic and will take more than one post to cover. Come back in a few days and read about how you can not only overcome these problems and limitations – but get features you haven’t even thought about. Plus you CAN DO IT ALL using your existing cell phone number, existing mobile phone (any brand) and your existing email accounts.

* GAFYD.net – Google Apps For Your Domain

Posted in AAA Computing, Android, Blackberry, cloud computing, eMail, Independence, iPhone, mobility, Smartphone, Text Messaging | 1 Comment

Using Google Apps (For Business) to help save email marketing costs – PART 2

Posted on August 22, 2011 by GAFYDguy

"article by B. Eric Rhoad...says that the power of marketing lies in repetition."

Do What Works, Repeat – Do What Works, then Repeat. A simple marketing concept, not complex but often easier said than done. Because it takes discipline and a vigilance for consistency and detail – tasks well suited to software, such as Google Apps for Business.

Everyone likes to be recognized, that is why timely replies to prospect inquires are a successful way of building positive relationships. But lets face it, first time inquires from total strangers are hard to gauge regarding potential value – and how much time to invest. Using automated “canned responses” can provide a lot of value – by assuring the prospect you respect their time and interest, plus it provides opportunity to further qualify an opportunity – all in a professional yet low cost manner.

Google Apps For Business includes Google’s 3 core Message/Collaboration apps (Mail, Calendar, Docs) plus multiple others (i.e. Talk, Groups, Sites, Video etc). What really makes them powerful is the the ability to have them professionally administered and operating under privacy of your company’s WWW domain.

Here’s one way to use these services in an integrated manner to perform a sophisticated followup to a marketing campaign without any additional Google Apps monthly costs, regardless of volume of responses. Sample scenario:

REQUIREMENT	SOLUTION
Your company receives inbound email as result of a marketing campaign	Use Gmail “trigger filters” to reply with timely automatic responses
Company needs to send timely / immediate “pre-scripted email reply” based on the inquiry	Use a Gmail “canned response” to provide a professionally pre-scripted and signed reply.
Include simple 2-5 question online survey in reply to prospect, get fast and simple prospect qualification	Use “Docs / Forms” to include survey questions or an online link right in the auto-reply.
Digitally compile survey results without having to gather, process or print paper forms	Use “Docs / Spreadsheet” to auto capture survey reply data plus review & tabulate right online.

Timely followup is a critical component to successful marketing campaigns, yet seldom happens due to the complexity, effort and cost. This automated approach;

is performed 100% via standard Google Apps For Business – no special software.
captures Prospect replies in a database absent of storage space concerns,
sends data over an encrypted connection and data gains company Domain privacy protection (versus stored with another third party),
not to mention the value of Google Apps storage disaster recovery benefits.

The referenced features are included in the standard monthly subscription cost for a registered Domain. Any employee with some macro and file processing knowledge can develop the process, or it can be pre-built by an Google Apps authorized reseller (i.e. GAFYD.net) and loaded to the company’s Domain for private use.

———- Part 1 and Part 2 SUMMARY ———–

Specialized email services like Constant Contact, MailChimp, Vertical Response and others do more than enable sending large volume emails and basic survey emails. Their monthly subscriptions reflect this, $15-$50/mo would be a fair range to support a mailing list of say 2500 names.

Considering the same dollar amounts would cover FULL Google Apps for Business subscriptions for 3-10 employees ($4.17/person/mo) one has to strongly consider the Google Apps option. Not only do you get Google’s amazing Gmail, fully branded with your Logo and Private Company Domain but also the Calendar / Docs / Talk / Sites / Groups and Video cloud apps. Industry leading Web based email, plus “collaboration services that just work”, for marketing as well as every other company department.

A managed services approach to using Google Apps For Business

It’s even available in a “Managed Services” package offer – GAFYD.net (Google Apps For Your Domain) frees you of all administrative tasks. A modest monthly Domain maintenance fee assures they are handled by the qualified experts of an authorized Google Apps reseller.

Posted in cloud computing, eMail, Google Apps, Legal, Privacy, Security | 1 Comment

Using Google Apps (For Business) to help save email marketing costs

Posted on August 17, 2011 by GAFYDguy

Many statistics exist showing how companies must both avoid SPAM email that comes their way, PLUS steps they must take to avoid being considered a SPAMMER.

Google’s Gmail system is considered to have one of the best SPAM filtering systems in the industry. Many people actually get a @Gmail.com account, and forward their other email accounts to it just to benefit from the exceptional Spam control. Gmail can also help prevent email you send from being labeled as Spam by other email services.

Email remains one of the most commonly used and powerful communication systems for business – particularly marketing. So how does a small/medium company do email marketing cost effectively and keep it simple?

Many businesses must determine whether or not to use specialized “email services” just for marketing related mail. These services add direct expense, as well as indirect costs of time and man-power to learn and manage the external system and the email lists it needs.

However, these specialized services have the value of being able to send “large volumes” of email for you without getting “blacklisted as a Spammer” by other email services like AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, Comcast etc. This is important, because you don’t want your legitimate marketing promotion emails being refused or placed in a SPAM folder just because one day you send a larger number of emails than typical.

For example, lets say you normally originate 75-150 emails a day from a given address. Then one day as part of a special promotion you send 1,000 emails – very often that will place you on a “watch list” by other providers as a spammer. This can result in your legitimate email being immediately declared as Spam by the recipient’s email service and thus likely never read by the intended recipient.

If you are sending from a “trusted email provider” such as GMAIL that will not happen. But it’s also why gmail LIMITS the number of emails you can send (typically 500/24 hrs), it helps assure they stay on the trusted list. It prevents Spammers from using Free @gmail.com accounts to abuse the system by sending tens and hundreds of thousands of emails daily from one account.

Google Apps for Business is also a “trusted Gmail provider” but allows 2,000 emails/24 hrs (max 500 at a time) from a given user account. So even though your email is fully branded with your private domain name (key feature of Google Apps for Business) it enters the system from a trusted provider (Google). Therefore the email is more likely to be read by the recipient, versus placed in the intended recipient’s Spam folder by their email service.

A small/medium business using Google Apps for Business could logically send out 10,000 emails in one week branded with their company’s private domain (i.e. GAFYD.net) and not be blacklisted. That limit likely would satisfy the vast majority of businesses in this category.

Another important email marketing related feature is the ability to send consistent and timely replies to inbound email inquires sent to your company. I’ll explain how Google Apps for Business can do this task, also at zero added cost – in a subsequent post. For further information about Google Apps for Business feel free to call 303-932-8146.

Posted in cloud computing, eMail, Google Apps, Legal, Security, Solo Practitioner, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Cloud Computing Matters – because IT Connects all MY DEVICES

Posted on July 26, 2011 by GAFYDguy

Roger McNamee, courtesy of Business Insider

An early Facebook Investor, Roger McNamee (well known co-Founder of Elevation Partners) gave an amazing talk recently offering his view of some of the biggest trends affecting the technology industry.

One result of that talk was a main stream news article titled “WHY SOCIAL IS OVER” born out of his remark “Social is “done”, it’s now a feature, don’t go do a social startup.” Many may debate that issue depending on the context of the conversation – but I believe another statement he made is relevant regardless of the conversation context:

…The fact that most people now have more than one device means the cloud is vital, because you want to have all your stuff on all your devices. It also means the old PC paradigm is dead, because the old PC paradigm means everything stored on one device, instead of everything in the cloud synced to many devices.

Click HERE to view the full article and a 10 min video of his presentation.

A large portion of the population (all age groups) now own wired (PC) and wireless (Mobile Device) computing devices. This creates high demand for integrated “Cloud” Apps that synchronize data between all your devices with 24 x 7 reliability, plus provide continuity in the user experience regardless of device.

Apple is one company that has done a pretty good job of making this happen. But Apple is also a completely “closed” system, controlling all standards, programming languages, protocols and even the software purchasing of its Apps. This can severely limit creative competitive startups and even Apple admits they are still perfecting iCloud, their just recently introduced cloud offering.

Google, alternatively was “born in the cloud” and provides a 99.9% up time SLA, open systems compatibility and non-ownership of data as a general theme. So their Cloud Apps (i.e. Google Apps For Business) work on virtually every device and platform (Apple, Windows, Linux etc). Each Google service and application is architect-ed for the cloud from inception. However, Google is still new to the world of creating the physical devices which access the cloud (i.e. Android based Smart-phones and Chrome based PC’s).

So the big three (Apple / Google / Microsoft) have specific expertise and unique competitive advantages – which one will ultimately become lead Gorilla in the “cloud computing” jungle? I can’t say! But I know today, Google offers the best APPS solutions for cloud environments. I also believe, only companies that are blending a quality “cloud” solution like Google Apps For Business with their technology portfolio will be able to effectively compete, short term and long term.

A managed services approach to using Google Apps.

GAFYD.net (Google Apps For Your Domain via Net) places the power of Google Apps within the native protections of a Private Domain. Add in “Google Groups for Business” to your Google Apps deployment to obtain the 5 common attributes of Internet based tools while establishing Maximum Privacy. Additional info available at 303-932-8146.

Posted in AAA Computing, Android, Anytime Access, change in IT, cloud computing, Google Apps, iPhone, mobility, Smartphone, Social Network, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

PUBLIC vs PRIVATE Identity and Google+

Posted on July 12, 2011 by GAFYDguy

In the last month Google released multiple changes to their Gmail and Calendar services plus released a new service called Google+. This post does not describe Google+ or its capabilities, there are many blogs and articles in process of doing that. As summary statement I’ll say that it’s a suite of new powerful and sophisticated “Social Networking” features (i.e. Circles, Sparks, Hangouts, Huddle etc) layered right on top of your everyday Google universe of services.

However, your Google Identity is a critical component for gaining Google+ benefits. So I have clarified certain aspects of what makes up your Google Identity. Digital ID’s are simple in concept, but often have elements we may not think of or be aware of. Awareness of these items can help protect privacy and retain the desired control over your online digital presence.

First you must be a member of the Google Universe (just as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live etc. require you to be members of their universes)
Membership is identified by having an Account (each account is an email address + a password). Every person with a Gmail.com email address automatically has a Google Account.
NOTE: You are also free to have a Google Account WITHOUT having a Gmail.com email address. For instance a Google Account can be associated with an AOL.com email address.
Each account can have a PROFILE. Original Google Accounts did NOT require you to make the Profile public (referred to as a Private Account).
Google has stated that PRIVATE accounts will no longer be allowed after July 31, 2011 (see following article There Will Be No More Private Google Profiles After July 31 — Here’s What That Means

The PUBLIC profile that is associated with the email address that identifies your Google Account stores the information Google search engines index so that others may find you. Indexing is the magic behind how search engines work. But remember you have extensive control over what you put in your Profile, so, therefore you can limit what is indexed about you. Such as:

Keywords, Occupation, Places of Employment …
Education, Places Lived, Nicknames …
Links to other sites which contain information related to you such as your Facebook Page, LinkedIn page, company website, Blog etc

As you can see, the degree of visibility you have in the search engine is under your control. Here are some other articles that relate to the matter.

Google Privacy Center “…In order to use the Google +1 button, you need to have a public Google Profile visible to the world…”

Google Profiles Decide what the world sees when it searches for you.

Posted in Anytime Access, change in IT, cloud computing, Free, Legal, Privacy, Social Network, Web Presence | Leave a comment

WEB news and – Oops watch for lingering DOCS links

Posted on June 20, 2011 by GAFYDguy

Wow, almost a month since I’ve made a blog post. One reason is because of all the major industry announcements and changes recently. Here are a few highlights before getting to my post:

Apple fully embraces “cloud computing” with announcement of iCloud at WWDC 2011.
LINKED IN first social media company to IPO, sees price JUMP 90% in one day
Pandora, first IPO of a social music site has price DROP of 24% in one day.
ICANN makes major changes to allowed Web Top Level Domain addresses

Hang on because things are just getting rolling for cloud computing! If you have not yet considered how your company can benefit from “cloud computing” please give us a call 303-932-8146.

In the meantime, here is a “word to the wise” to those using Google Docs with their @Gmail.com accounts. Be sure to specifically clear any outdated “share links” you don’t want active.

Golden Web link - Using Google Docs is like having golden Web links. As owner of a Google doc, via a simple Web-link (URL address) you can grant virtually anyone instant browser access to a doc, no fussing with email attachments, fear of multiple versions, use of memory sticks and other hassles. You easily share and control who views it, who edits it and various other features. This is allowed with word processing, spreadsheet or presentation files. You can even do it for PDF files, a tremendous benefit for providing “secure” access to finished format docs.

However, remember that you must deliberately REMOVE those links also. Recently I sent out a link to a PDF file stored in my Google Docs library. I later deleted that file from my library (placed it in the TRASH). I had created a new file with a new name I wanted people to use. I thought deleting the file would make the link unavailable.

Well a few days later someone sent me the link for the old file and low and behold, when clicked the document showed up. I double checked and searched my Google Docs directory for the file and didn’t see it any where. How could this happen? I didn’t want this document to exist any more! I learned that a regular search doesn’t look in the TRASH and also that links to files in the trash stay alive until either: you empty the trash or specifically cancel all sharing for that file.

This is consistent with traditional use of TRASH being a holding place until specifically deleted but with sharing to other people (vs just on my PC) it can have unanticipated consequences. So word to the wise, ALWAYS be sure to turn off “sharing” for any doc you no longer want anyone to access, even those docs you place in the trash

Posted in Anytime Access, cloud computing, Google Apps, Security | Leave a comment

Google IO – 2011 new Dessert for Android

Posted on May 23, 2011 by GAFYDguy

A tech company tradition is to assign non-descript and often funny code names to future products. While comical, the true intent is to thwart competitors before formal release. A stoic type of humor in a very serious and ultra-competitive business. This post outlines the Android OS “Dessert name” history and critical elements of the forthcoming Ice Cream Sandwich release.

Mobile Phone Oriented
— Ver 1 releases – Cupcake / Donut
— Ver 2 releases – Éclair / Froyo / Gingerbread
Tablet Device Oriented
— Ver 3 releases – Honeycomb (larger screen devices and multi-core processors)

Ice Cream Sandwich (announced 5/10/11 @ Google IO for release Q4 2011) is a combination of Gingerbread (Mobile Phone) and Honeycomb (Tablet) releases into a “cohesive whole”. What’s sweet, is that Apps developers only have to create one code-base of their software to work on many Android devices: mobile phones, tablets and even future devices with new or similar form factors.

This is critical for assuring both developers and the buying public get the best ROI on their tech investments. In early days of Microsoft Windows (mid-late 80’s) people screamed and hollered endlessly about how Windows based standards would kill and stagnant the imagination. Yet to the contrary, due to a well documented high quality UI (User Interface) and certain operational standards, arguably made Windows one of the single greatest contributors to the PC’s global success. Hundreds of millions of units could be designed, built and sold at affordable prices.

Developers must invest massive amounts of time and money to create quality Apps. They want assurance their product (software App) will run on as many brands, models and formats of computers as possible – Microsoft Windows helped achieve that result for the PC. Equally, once users get accustomed to a basic interface style (i.e. the mouse) they want assurance their new knowledge will apply to every App, again Microsoft Windows helped achieve that for the PC.

Smart mobile-phones, super-slim keyboard-less tablets and iPad style devices that are also Internet centric are shaping the new post-PC era. The devices of the new era use a touch / swipe UI and other operational standards (similar condition to the early Windows days).

Android / Ice Cream Sandwich represents one key step Google must take to assure their OS becomes prevalent for running Apps across a very wide-spectrum of new touch centric and WEB centric devices. Some key elements of this next release:

Tech – 3D holographic UI for phones and tablets
Tech – Virtual Camera Operator for tracking motion
Tech – NFC chip (Near Field Communications)
Tech – will also be the base for Google TV
Tech – can be a foundation for the Chromebox
Business – One Apps store can supply all devices (phones, tablets, TV etc)
Business – Cell phone carriers can effectively manage over the air updates

Check out the recent post Defining future Web tech via Google IO – 2011 for insights on CHROME, Google’s WEB browser software and the new CHROMEBOOK. These announced devices and software are fully compatible with www.GAFYD.net, a Managed Services offering of Google Apps for Business.

Posted in AAA Computing, Android, Anytime Access, change in IT, Chromebook, cloud computing, Google Apps, Microsoft, mobility, Smartphone, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Defining future Web tech via Google IO – 2011

Posted on May 16, 2011 by GAFYDguy

Photo: Tom Krazit

Google IO – the company’s namesake annual event (held May 10-12^th) is one many have never heard of! That’s because its primary audience is “technology developers”. A gathering of geeks, nerds and mystical genius types who actually create and build the Apps and tech products we all buy and use.

So if you want to spy on what the future of tech looks like – the best place to look is at the technology that developers are getting access to! Lets take a peek at just a few of the highlight announcements at this year’s Google IO event (Hint: Microsoft and Apple are definitely paying attention!)

Angry Birds comes to Chrome: A quick reminder – “Angry Birds” is the wildly successful puzzle video game made famous on Apple iOS devices (including iPhone and iPad). Near 15 Million copies have been purchased from Apple’s App Store since 2009. What is VERY significant about this announcement is NOT that Google now is selling a video game — but that a popular video game can run in their Chrome “browser program”. A gigantic departure from needing a brand and version specific stand alone computer device like Apple’s iPhone or iPad. It’s also a major shift for the video game software market since Google announced it will be offering developers 95% revenue cut on Chrome Web Store apps. Microsoft and Apple offer their Apps store developers a revenue split in the area of 70% on product.

Chromebooks available in June, with subscription pricing for students and business users. Cloud Computing is a material departure from traditional computing in regards to pricing as well as technology. It generally follows a “subscription model” versus the “capital expenditure and depreciation purchase model”. This is significant to organization CFO’s that desire predictable and consistent budgeted expenditure for computing resources. The Chromebook takes the subscription price model a giant step further. Not just the software service but ALSO THE HARDWARE and its support will be available to students and business users for a simple per-month fee. Announced as $20/mo for students and $28/mo for businesses – that is an extremely affordable price.

Chromebooks are laptop style devices (made by Acer and Samsung initially) that don’t require any effort by users to load, configure or update the underlying operating system. The devices have near instant startup time (8 sec) and all-day battery life. They use Web apps exclusively via the Chrome browser and Chrome Web store. Will they replace Microsoft tablet PC’s or maybe Apple iPads? Who knows, but regardless of that, schools and major corporations represent gigantic potential markets for this new pricing model and support approach.

Chrome OS: this is the non-operating-system OS that powers Chromebooks, that now does a lot of the things it couldn’t last year. Unlike many tablets and iPads your can PRINT direct from a Chromebook. It’s USB capability allow plugging in cameras, headsets, USB thumb-drive storage and all sorts of USB devices! It even has a built in music/video player! Sort of sounds like…. Windows, MacOS and Linux. Holy Batman! But it is also addressing a key obstacle to the cloud computing world – what to do when you are not connected to the Web. It sounds like Google is going to provide offline access for Google Docs, Mail and Calendar (by the time the Chromebooks are shipping in June, it sounds like).

Microsoft has a major push into Cloud computing but still requires you to acquire and own license for all the regular hardware (Windows OS based device) and software (i.e. Office) that you’ve had before in order to process any data in offline mode. This offline processing of cloud computing based data will be an interesting evolution – it’s not as simple as it seems. Connectivity continues to spread and be more and more available plus offline tasks seldom demand the extensive sophisticated features found in Microsoft’s full size products.

Google IP 2011 offered many other major announcements, specifically related to Android, (i.e. Ice Cream Sandwich) the OS powering 100’s of new mobile smart phones coming out. I’ll address those in a future blog post. The Mobile phone market may be super hot right now – but Google clearly has it’s sights set on redefining classic desktop computing of WEB connected PC’s and laptops via the Chrome browser.

Posted in AAA Computing, Android, Anytime Access, change in IT, Chromebook, cloud computing, Microsoft, Web 2.0 | 1 Comment

Google Groups – now “for Business”

Posted on May 2, 2011 by GAFYDguy

Company Groups need Privacy

Over a year ago I made 2 posts (below) about social networks with respect to use with business groups. Facebook.com has since grown by another 10 Million users, Twitter.com continues to expand, LinkedIn.com now has 100 Million profiles and Meetup.com has added 1,000’s of new social events.

We continue to “expand our public social exposure” sharing all type of data via these group services – but how can we reap the benefit of group dynamics while maintaining privacy and avoiding exposing proprietary organization data that must be shared by executives, employee groups and project teams?

Social Networking with Maximum Privacy (1 of 2)

Social Networking with Maximum Privacy (2 of 2)

Internet based Social Networking gives convenient worldwide 24×7 access to individuals and social groups. A key value of Facebook is instant exchange of rich media data (messages, photos, videos, web links etc). Twitter gives the value of broadcasting brief text messages (140 characters) instantly to large groups across the globe. While Meetup seeks to establish in person “face to face meetings” between people with common interests in a world becoming more virtual all the time.

These “group dynamic” methods have equal value within a single business or organization. Leveraging the Internet’s inherent power and cost effectiveness for connecting PC’s, mobile devices and smart-phones one can gain competitive advantage. However, use of the above public services creates significant liability exposure, when organizations start to share proprietary, confidential or unique intellectual organizational data.

Interesting, the public social-networks are actually adding “grouping” features to allow reducing (filtering) your audience’s size, but still lack the crucial element for business privacy – “an electronic container or bounded perimeter” that satisfies physical, legal and compliance needs demanded by private organizations. GAFYD.net (Google Apps For Your Domain) now provides such a “container” mechanism for private group exchange.

By combining native Internet control systems (i.e. DNS system and advanced two factor authentication servers) with Google’s newly released “Groups for Business” many elements of social networking can be achieved WITHIN THE PROTECTED BOUNDARY of a privately managed domain.

You gain a social network process, usable for confidential and proprietary data absent of the fear of exposure that could result on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In via a simple inadvertent share or friend request. A properly configured and administered Domain naturally defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, and control – crucial for effective privacy.

A managed services approach to using Google Apps.

Posted in Anytime Access, cloud computing, CRM, Google Apps, Legal, Privacy, Web 2.0 | Leave a comment

“Please & Thank You” in 58 languages via Google Android

Posted on April 20, 2011 by GAFYDguy

Any international travel club will tell you that much power exists in knowing how to phrase and communicate just 3 words of a foreign language. Correctly expressing “Please” and “Thank You” in a person’s native tongue can be one of your greatest aids when traveling in foreign lands.

As of Apr 14 2011 Google Android 2.1 based phones or tablets (with the Translate app) can help you learn the magic “Please and Thank You” in 57 other languages. Plus actually speak the words for you in 24 languages, a huge advance from just 2 years ago when Google announced instant translation for 41 languages.

Text-to-speech is one of the most popular features of this mobile interface. Whether you’re learning how to say one word, an entire foreign phrase, or trying to share information with someone in their language, simply tap the Speaker icon after doing a translation and you’ll hear the difference. This latest app release:

dramatically improves the quality of spoken translations in over 15 languages
which now include Russian, Chinese and Portuguese
and has ability to listen to three new languages: Japanese, Arabic and Korean.
Watch the following video to see it in action.

Please remember, world wide cloud computing accessible language translation is a fantastic aid – but not a perfect science. Be sure to incorporate patience, humility and appreciation that the other person may be equally challenged in communicating to you. Even with computer based translation apps – your most powerful tools may be: a smile, relaxed body language and abundant use of PLEASE and THANK YOU. Happy Travels.

Posted in AAA Computing, Android, Anytime Access, cloud computing, Free, Google Apps, IP, mobility, Smartphone, Solo Practitioner | 1 Comment