6 New Year Gifts For Employees & Corporates

What is the best way to tell people that you value them and care about them?

Okay, don’t over-brainstorm. Yes, it’s Gifts!

Just like family and friends, businesses too present gifts to appreciate each other’s involvement in their mutual progress. And which occasion can serve for the purpose better than New Year. Across the globe people from different walks of life celebrate it. And that is the best part. You don’t have to wonder whether your business associates – located at different corners of the world – celebrate it or not?

Now, gifting someone from the corporate structure can be really tricky because you don’t want to leave the impression that it’s just a formality gift, and want to tell that you truly appreciate them. And this is where the concept of corporate gifting comes into picture.

But before moving right along, for all those who have doubts over “What in the world a corporate gift is?”, a corporate gift is simply a gift that businesses give to each other – for instance, to clients, investors, partners, or for that matter to employees.

Now, let’s not let the question “what should we gift?” keep hanging there alone, and march towards it. So, here are 6 good options you can gift to your corporate connections this New Year that they will surely appreciate, and eventually it might bring you more business or investment in future.

LYVEHOME

Price: $299

Product Page: http://www.mylyve.com/products

LyveHome is an external harddrive with a 5-inch display touchscreen where you can move and store thousands of pictures and videos from your smartphone, computer, tablets, etc. through WiFi connection.

Here are some more awesome features that this picture frame of tech world is stuffed with.

It offers a 2TB space. Yes, two-Terabytes. So, saying that it stores thousands of pictures might be an understatement. Better would, every picture or video you have ever taken.
A 5-inch touchscreen, allowing you to browse through the pictures in a pretty similar way as in smartphones.
Lyve Home is compatible with all Apple and Android devices, Windows PCs, and Kindle Fire HDX.
It also offers an in-app camera to capture and save photos directly to the device.
With Lyve Home mobile app, you can access all your pictures and videos stored in Lyve Home from any other part of the world.
LyveHome allows a maximum of 3 users to share storage within a single device with individual accounts.
It automatically and regularly imports photos and videos from Dropbox, GDrive, iPhoto, and selected desktop folders.

This could prove to be a highly likable gift as it’s a device that could help connect people with their families even when they are not around.

GROVEMADE DESK COLLECTION

Price: $29 to $119

Product Page: http://grovemade.com/collections/wood-desk-collection

The Grovemade desk collection is handmade & laser-cut set, individually available in some of the finest woods available on the planet like walnut or maple wood. These items range from a monitor stand, keyboard tray, mouse pad, mobile stand, basic paper-clip holder, to a desk lamp. Once placed on your desk, the collection will make it look far more elegant.

Other than that, the company also offers some unique art of collections such as: –

Custom engraved leather goods with your or your company’s name imprinted on it.
Gift Cards with a free wooden card-shaped ornament which can be broken into pieces to make a star.
Wooden & leather iPhone cases
Wooden Sleeves for your iPad and Macbooks
Wooden Wrist Watches– a must check

This could make an intriguing gift for your employees as this product is good for health as it helps in releasing stress and is environmental friendly too.

PIPER

Price: $199

Product Page: https://getpiper.com/

Piper lets you manage your home in the most unique way! It gives you the access to your house to make sure everything is okay, even when you are away from home. The Gadget has an inbuilt camera that gives you a 180 degree live feed of your house through a mobile app and WiFi connection.

Piper is more than just a security camera and can also be connected to lights or other appliances in the house to control them like schedule a washing machine wash, turning on and off your refrigerator, etc. and other such tasks, even while being far away.

Some of the most prominent features that piper holds are mentioned below:

It gives you Full Customizable Security Modes.
It has a Motion and Sound Detection facility with an Intruder Deterrent Siren.
It provides you the information via push message, text, email, phone call or via any combination of these.
It holds a Panoramic View with a HD video camera that can Pan, Tilt, Zoom, Split Screen and give you a two way audio facility.

Choose this gift for someone in your business connections that travels a lot or it would be best to pick this for a lady working away from home.

LIVESCRIBE ECO SMARTPEN

Price: Starting at $202.19

Product Page: http://www.livescribe.com/en-gb/smartpen/

Livescribe smartpens literally allow you to turn your “words into action”. Once paired with your smartphone, or mobile though Livescribe+ app on WiFi connection, it creates a digital copy of whatever you write with the pen on notebook – Livescribe dot paper. Apart from taking notes, it also allows you to record whatever you hear or say during a meeting, save it, and play it back or store on another digital device.

Some of the most notable features of Livescribe smartpens are:

Your notes instantly appear on your tablet or smartphone and converted into text format.
Organize your notes, tag them and make them searchable.
Easy wireless and USB cable transfer of your interactive notes and audio recordings on laptop, desktop and other digital devices.
Up to 800 hours of audio recording (depending on the pen model).
Livescribe dot paper comes in different sizes, so you can choose in accordance with the size of the device you have.
Cloud storage of notes on Evernote account for anytime, anywhere access of notes on nearly any device.

Being one of the most expensive gifts of our list, this product is best suited to be gifted to a person from the media who needs to keep recording things for later use. The features of the device provide one of the best “carry-along” gifts in the startup market this winter.

iGrill2 Bluetooth Smart Meat Thermometer

Price: $99.99

Product Page: http://store.idevicesinc.com/igrill2/

Like thousands of gadgets are dedicated for music junkies, this is the gadget for food junkies. iGrill2 Bluetooth Smart Meat Thermometer lets you know when your food is ready through your smartphone, even at a distance of 150 feet. Just feed in what you are grilling in the iDevice Connected app, leave the probe in the meat, and it will notify you when your food is properly cooked.

Here is more on why every food junkie (or even no food junkies) would love to have it:

It has four probe capability with two Pro Meat probes, which can be mounted conveniently and allows it to monitor multiple at once.
With a temperature range of -22°F to 572°F (-30°C to 300°C), it works fine even in the extreme grilling environment.
It has a battery life of 200 hours and can be connected to multiple devices at once.
It works up to 150 feet line of sight through a Bluetooth connection.

This product made to our list as it would make a perfect inexpensive selection for an investor or a business interest who loves weekend get-togethers, cooking with a backyard burner.

AeroPress

Price: $29.95

Product Page: http://www.aeropress.com/

Work and coffee go hand in hand. And what better gift can you present to your business associates than an instant coffee maker. AeroPress by Aerobie, Inc. uses a unique gentle air pressure brewing to produce rich flavored coffee without bitterness and lower acidity. And that, within a minute.

Put a spoonful of coffee into the plunger, add water, then pressplunger gently down the Aeropress chamber for about 20 seconds while your coffee drips down into your coffee mug through a filter, and – tada! Your coffee is ready!

Did anyone say, “WOW!”? Well, it deserves at least that after receiving the “fantastic coffee” review by the BonAppetit Magazine!

Here is how AeroPress gives you a rich coffee experience and save money as well.

Smooth, rich and low acidity coffee without bitterness
Micro filtered – means, no grits left in your cup
Easy to clean
Will save you lots of dollars, which otherwise, you would be spending on either buying coffee every morning and evening or through fuel/electricity charges.

One of the cheapest and finest gifts that we found is this coffee express that is sure to please all who can’t survive without their share of caffeine and hate running to a store every now and then. This product is sure to save time, money and is bound to give you a better coffee every time you make one. All this makes this product one of the best choices for a personal gift as well as a handy one for others.

Times are changing and traditional corporate gifts like pens, diaries, calendars, etc. are becoming passé and only end up in drawers or stores. Gifting something that people can make use of is naturally a better gift and is a good way to tell people that you truly appreciate them.

Have something to add to the list? Share your gifting ideas with us in the comments below.

MikeMe – The Wireless Microphone With An App!

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When you ask a musician; what is the key element to a perfect song, the definite answer would be ‘Emotion’! But again the problem is that you don’t know when it will hit you and when it does you don’t wana be rushing like a stupid, preparing stuff to record it.

Generally, in such a situation we end up using either our phones with a not-so-good audio quality or we use a microphone which are passé and takes a 100 years in setting up the cable, the software, make required updates, manually set the gains, choosing the drivers and required inputs, etc and mannnny more! And by the time we get done we either end up losing the inspiration or we just don’t feel like doing it anymore.

Audio recording should be quick, simple and soaring quality.

But the question is how do we get that?

One word – MikMe!

What’s MikMe???

A prodigy of Philipp Sonnleitner – former AKG engineer from Germany, MikMe is a compact, handy & wireless microphone with the help of which one can practically sit anywhere in the house and record at a studio-grade audio, which is forwarded to a live recording MikMe app that is connected wirelessly.

It’s like a three-way thing between you, the microphone & finally the app!

At present, the MikMe device is still in its prototype form which was designed in Austria but is expected to be released soon. MikMe app will first be made available to download on the App Store for iOS which will later be followed by Android systems.

MikMe is a square-shaped microphone with a 1-inch gold-plated condenser that converts 96 kHz at 24-bit. It also comes with a cardioid polar pattern which is considered to be one of the best for recording voices or instruments or a full-fledged band for that matter.

The app allows you to capture a maximum of 8 tracks per song and the best part is that it also helps you mix, edit and share instantly too! On the other hand, the microphone captures a maximum of 180 hours of recording and saves all the music on MikMe’s internal 8 GB memory. Later, these files can also be transferred from the microphone to any computer with the help of USB cable.

To top all that, one can also record directly or use it for various other purposes (like: Skype) on Windows or Mac OS computers by just connecting the MikMe Microphone via USB.

Other-than-that, MikMe does not require any external setup, cables or device to begin recording. All you need to do is tap the small button on the top of the microphone and you’re sorted! As a matter of fact the wireless device comes with a built-in rechargeable battery that records upto 7 hours of audio.

There is also a ‘mini jack audio-out connector’ placed on the microphone which helps in monitoring the audio signal of the microphone or audio playbacks with headphones. But the most unique thing is that you can connect the microphone to your DSLR camera and record in studio-quality along with your videos.

After many speculations, the management has cleared that they do not use any Bluetooth audio profile and they only use Bluetooth as a transport layer for certain internal purposes.

Specifications…

In regards to their audio specifications, they offer Capsule – 1 inch gold plated condenser, Polar pattern – Cardioid, Audio frequency bandwidth – 20 to 20000 Hz, Sensitivity – 18 mV/Pa, Signal to noise – 75 dB-A & Pre-attenuation pad – 0 to -30 dB.

Apart from that, their Internal Audio Recorder contains an internal memory of roughly 8 GB, a recording time of 180 hours of MP4 & 16 hours of WAV; a bit depth of 24; Sampling frequencies of 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz & 96 kHz; an amazing processor of 168 MHz Cortex M4 and a highly advanced rechargeable Li-IO battery with a capacity of 1000 mAh which can last for more than 7 hours.

The dimensions of the device are 70 mm x 70 mm x 35 mm; it weighs 200 g and uses Bluetooth 2.1 for their transport layer.

Present…

MikMe is currently backed by Kickstarter with the help of whom it aims to raise USD 217,000 and is selling its units at a price of USD 179. So far, they have managed to raise USD 28,601 from 161 backers with 24 days still to go.

As mentioned on their campaign, they intend to spend the money on three major things which include; ordering tools for manufacturing at their German partner’s facility, getting all the necessary certifications like CE & FCC and lastly manufacturing a minimum quantity of one thousand pieces.

An Entrepreneur’s Secret to Success

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Success is one word which differs in meaning from person to person and is the most sort-after secret in the world too. To some success might means money and to others it may be another word for fame. When it comes to entrepreneurship, for some success might mean higher revenue for others- wider reach. However, to achieve success it is very important to define your goals first so that you can measure your feat and define a better path to success next time. In our opinion, an entrepreneur is successful when he is able to let others know exactly WHY they need his/her product or service. Once the need is defined and accepted by the target segment, the business is sure to ladder success and gain respect from customers.

While in conversation with some of the rising, first generation entrepreneurs we took it upon us to extract the success nectar from their brains so that others on the similar path could learn and get guidance from what has given these stalwarts their share of success. Following infographic includes the ingredients that became the recipe of success for some of the entrepreneurs of the Yo! Success Entrepreneurial Community.

Brydan Hall

Founder– Travelerrr

Entrepreneurial Success Secret- Business Vision, Passion and Personality to connect to people.

Divesh Bathija

Founder– Dinasim Learning

Entrepreneurial Success Secret- Passion, Risk bearing appetite and A long term vision.

Rana Atheya

Founder– DogSpot

Entrepreneurial Success Secret- Passion, Perseverance and Patience

Rashi Narang

Founder– Heads Up For Tails

Entrepreneurial Success Secret- Persistence, Optimism and Self- confidence

Tarun Bhalla

Founder– Avishkaar Box

Entrepreneurial Success Secret- Scaleablity, Confidence and Sellers Grit

Nakul Bhatia

Founder– ForkMyCity

Entrepreneurial Success Secret- Patience, Hard Work and Integrity

What we observed from the answers we received was that ‘Patience’ is one of the things you sure need to lean if you wish to see yourself attaining your goals. What, according to you, are some key factors that help define your success ratio?

Ditto – Defining “Less is more”!

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Technology is a very tricky aspect of our life and along with it comes many hazards too, one famously being “Addiction”!

Although technology solves many problems of ours and gets us the luxury of convenience but the fact remains that eventually we become so dependent to it that we forget the human essence and presence!

In attempts to fix that, we present to you market’s latest entrant – Ditto!!!

DITTO & ITS FEATURES!!!

Ditto – the invention of founders Bob Olodort & Marc Guren of California based Simple Matters, is a thumb-sized device and you have to wear it close to the body to be notified about the calls, messages, email or anything that you mark as important via simple vibration.

The beauty of the device is that it comes with a built-in clip which can be smoothly clipped to any of your clothing like tops, shirt or waistband!

Ditto comes with a complete package of battery, wristband, slimming coin slot door, and Smartphone app & will be made available in three colors i.e. black, white & crystal. To top that, the device has been made waterproof! The device weighs only 8 grams and measures 22 x 37 x 10mm.

With the help of this screen-less device, you don’t have to worry about missing either the important notifications and / or human presence.

Ditto connects to your Smartphone with the help of Bluetooth LE and apart from notifications it also vibrates when you walk out from the predefined reach of your phone. This reach can be anything from 50 to 300 feet of distance, depending on local conditions. You can modify the frequency of the vibrations to understand the kind of alert.

Just like a wrist watch only to be better, it does not require any charging because the battery that it uses is a low-cost, easy-to-find lithium coin cell battery CR1632 and you get notified when the battery needs replacing which is normally somewhere around 4 to 6 months.

It also comes with a system wherein one can also set alarms which only vibrates to wake you up without disturbing anyone around.

Apart from that, you are also provided with a free app where the favorites need to be created according to which the vibrations take place. This app can be downloaded from the app store and shall initially be made available only for iOS & Android.

The device has an in-built wireless tether which reminds you by vibrating when you leave your phone somewhere. That happens when you go beyond the predefined range.

All-in-All, Ditto is compact, classy & at the same time elegant! It one of the very few devices with a clear-cut focus with no add-on flashing lights, switches, buttons, cables, display, etc!

A unique product with a definite motto, “Less is more”!!!

PRESENT…

It has taken more than 2 years to reach the production of prototype from conceptualization and finally their hardware is ready too.

At the moment, they have completed all the tooling & every kind of testing and are coordinating with their high-end quality manufacturers in china. They soon expect to begin with the production by the end of 2014 and hopefully aim at beginning with the delivery by the first quarter of 2015.

The company or rather the product has successfully been backed by the Kickstarter Crowdfunding program and has crossed their target of USD 100,000 by receiving USD 129,500 from 2002 backers.

As per their pitch on Kickstarter, they aim to use the funds for the following purposes: –

Final payment on initial manufacturing production order

Final development of app software for iOS and Android

Final development of manufacturing processes – including Quality Assurance, certifications, supply chain management and ramping up of production

Final development of packaging

Shipping, importing, fulfillment and customer delivery of product

Operating expenses including marketing and customer support

Now, the credibility of the product can also be easily judged by looking at the vast inventions made by its co-founder bob in the past; which include the first computer label printer, the first folding computer keyboard, and Samsung’s UpStage music phone.

But what worries and needs to be looked at is that, how will they overcome the many challenges which are yet to comes such as the changes which possibly might be brought in the phone devices or its softwares.

Carbon Flyer – The Unbreakable Paper Plane

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Technology has taken over our lives so much that, the toys we played with in our childhood days are completely lost back in time. The kids now-a-days are seen to be playing with cell phones, Xbox, highly advanced gadgets and Drones!!!

Drones seem to be the next most fascinating thing amongst kids. The latest entrant testing it’s waters in this market is – Carbon Flyer!!

As mentioned on their pitch on Indiegogo, Carbon Flyer is the world’s first all carbon fiber personal drone, controlled by Bluetooth & Smartphone app, with an on-board video camera.

The concept of Carbon Flyer is pretty much similar to the paper planes we used to make and throw around, back in our days; the only difference here is that this is far more advanced.

Let’s give you a brief insight about how it came into existence!

Chris Hawker – the Ohio-based, president of Trident Design- creative design company, who created the Powersquid; always had a fascination for flying toys!

In May 2013 while taking a walk at the park, he along with his friend Abraham got this idea to make a carbon fiber free flight plane. One thing led to another and their idea started to make more sense and while the brainstorming was going on, another friend of theirs hit the nail by giving his input of adding Bluetooth control; this was the needed final touch.

Now, with these ideas in place Carbon Flyer looked more practical than fiction.

Hence, without further delay they put the idea to paper (not literally) and created a rough design of the product. After that, for 18 months every bit of the product from Carbon fiber airframe development, airframe prototype, Electronics and plastics development to creating the app and a lot more was seen to be under rigorous testing & development.

After its final testing was completed and once the team felt satisfied, in November 2014 they launched their first Crowd-funding campaign via Indiegogo.

Features…

Carbon Flyer has some really powerful features that will blow your mind. For instance: –

Carbon Flyer’s airframe or body is completely made up of Carbon Fiber. Carbon Fiber is a material that is a 100 times lighter than steel in terms of weight and is a 1,000 times stronger than the toughest foam. It is usually used for building aircrafts, high-end cars or for that matter branded sports equipment.

The durability of the product is so high that it is easily capable of enduring an inevitable crash.

It has high output LED running lights which can be found at all the motors and helps in locating the drone at sundown or night. These LED lights have been placed with different colors at each wing which helps in understanding the position of the drone.

Carbon Flyer is an extremely light-weight drone which has its own battery & does not require any external power source to fly and is controlled by a long range Bluetooth 4.0 along with a Smartphone app! It also comes along with a tiny camera attached to the drone and can be streamed through your phone itself.

Carbonflyer Details — Image Credit: CarbonFlyer

The miniature aircraft weigh’s 42.5 g with a length of 14.75 inches, wingspan of 7 inches, height of 3 inches and also its camera is 640 × 480. Its Bluetooth supports distances upto 240 feet which is roughly the size of a football field. The batteries attached are rechargeable lithium ion batteries which have the capability of roughly 3 minutes of flight time. After that, these batteries can easily be recharged by connecting the drone with the Micro-USB cable within just 15 minutes. With the help of the app you can also receive real-time indications about the battery life and signal strength.

Carbon Flyer being stiff, light weighed and tough can fly at a top speed of approximately 40 miles per hour.

You can steer the aircraft simply by going to the app and tilting the Smartphone in the direction you wish to take the drone and can increase or decrease the speed by moving your thumb up or down.

The beauty of the drone is that, it designed in such a way that it simply won’t break when it crash lands. To prove that, they have also made a video of the drone crashing over 30 times into a concrete wall; which remained unaffected apart from a few scratches.

As of now; the drone is available in black color but as per the makers, offering different colors would only be possible if they achieve their Crowdfunding goal on indiegogo.

Carbon Flyer colors — Image Credit: Carbon Flyer

Till now the Carbon Flyer is being offered to its customers at a pre-order rate of USD149 via indiegogo and has over-achieved their goal of USD 50,000 by receiving USD 69,307 with 38 days still left to go. The product is also being prepared to be launched on Kickstarter soon and is expected to get more than expected funds.

The company intends to ship the drone to all its backers by September 2015 with a limited guarantee that you shall receive the product free of manufacturing defects.

The only but high–enough risk that surrounds the drone and its functioning is that; although it has been designed by trident designs in Columbus but most of its other parts are being produced by other companies which shall finally come together and will be manufactured in China. So how reliable would it be to trust other companies.

Nanu – A Tough Competitor for Skype & Viber

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It may not being much of a surprise to anyone when we say that “you can make free calls” but so far that was only possible through your computers, with the help of Skype, Viber, Line, etc!

Although, these services were and are available but there are two major problems which still remain unresolved. First, it is just not possible to get a clear line in a 3G network and having said that, there is no question of even remotely getting a service in a 2G network. And secondly, if you have to make calls to a landline or a mobile then you got to pay for the service, much like any other phone!

Well, that’s the gap what “Nanu”, the latest entrant in the market aims to bridge!

What’s Nanu?

Nanu is the world’s first app that allows you to make free calls not through your computers but via phones!
It is an app that provides high quality free calls even on ‘2G network’ with the help of their owned ultra low bandwidth VoIP technology. The concept of Nanu was made possible by a combination of technical solutions & hybrid network infrastructure provided by Gentay Communications Pte. Ltd – a Singapore startup which is run by the father-son duo Martin and Daniel Nygate.

Because of its highly advanced technology, it doesn’t need a fast network and unlike its competitors Skype or Viber, it works on 2G and congested networks with crisp and clear voice. While using Nanu 1-mb of data is equal to 10 minutes of call time so going by that calculation with 1 GB of data one can speak for 10,000 minutes! That’s roughly more than a week full-of rigorous talking. In fact, Nanu consumes 80 percent less bandwidth than its competitor Skype.

How do you use it?

Using the app is pretty simple; it’s just like any other dialer. To make it even simpler, you don’t even need a credit card or email id to download it. All you got to do is, visit the app store, download the app and then follow the instructions to install the same. The application will automatically guide you to register your phone number on it and followed by that the same will be verified if you’re the rightful owner of the number, and your done!

All the people from your contact list that have downloaded the app will automatically get listed on the app which will help you make free calls. From here onwards, calling someone using the app will be as similar to making normal calls. To be able to download the app, you must have at least Android Froyo (2.2) or above operating systems with 3.8 MB empty space.

At present, Nanu is available only on android phones but as per its makers, it will soon be made available to other phones as well. On android phones, it offers unlimited app-to-app free calls and limited app-to-non app calls. Apart from that, Nanu also offers the similar package for overseas calling too but with an even dense free calling. The makers predict that the limit shall increase as more users will join in.

They offer their free calls to landline service to forty countries for now which includes United States and United Kingdom whereas free calls to mobile phones can only be made to countries like Spain, Hungary, India, Germany, Singapore, Israel, Ireland, Thailand, and the US!

Now the trick which the company has yet not openly conveyed is that; the free calls the company is open heartedly showering is only restricted to 15 minutes after which the time limit expires and there is absolutely no way to call phones with the help of the app, even if you want to pay the app for the calls. And to top that, this offer of theirs is only limited to first million users who download the app!

Wondering how does Nanu offer free calls?

One word – ADVERTISMENTS!

Nanu includes un-intrusive advertisements in various ways like while making calls, etc. which pays eventually pays for the free calls. As reported on the next web, it is also in talks with companies like KFC, Nestle, PayPal and HTC to promote its service.

As per Google play, the app has managed to get a 3.7 rating with over 1,000,000 – 5,000,000 downloads already. It was recently reported by the company that India has become their No. 1 market in downloading the app. The company also anticipates of reaching 15 million users by the end of the year 2014 and 150 million users by the end of the year 2015! Presently, the app does not support text messaging service but may introduce the same in the near future.

Have something to add to the upadate? Share it with us in the comments section.↓

7 Mantra’s To A Successfully Online Business!

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As the masses are quickly moving towards online shopping, it is becoming even more difficult to sustain the competition and keeping up with the ever growing customer needs is becoming next to impossible.

Some may feel that the customers are becoming too demanding with the rise of the internet but if we have a look at it from the customers point of view, all they need is good customer service, reliability & trust, decent pricing and / or discounts, less time consumption, ease of payment & delivery process and to be honest its quite fair to ask for these things.

And if we look at the broader picture, all that is happening is the internet industry is becoming more organized more sophisticated, more legit & most importantly more customer-centric; which in actuality should be the primary factors of any business. Now isn’t that good for everyone?

Here is a list of some of most important requirements of the customers that shall help you better understand your customers and will lead to a successful business model!

Quick Search

When we say quick search we don’t just mean creating a website with a few basic details, you need a lot more to get customer response. It is more like creating a virtual setup for your business with more crisp details along with up to date social media accounts.

Now the best thing with having online presence is that the internet never sleeps and you never know which customer might order or check you out at what time! Unlike a physical store, you don’t have that many costs plus you don’t have that many restrictions too, so your store can stay open 24/7 with bare minimal costs of maintenance.

And the fact remains that having an online presence is becoming extremely important too! As per reports from Google, ninety-seven percent consumers search for local businesses on the internet. To add-on to that, seventy-three percent of the mobile searches generate additional action and conversion whereas fifty-five percent of the purchases happen within one hour of the initial search.

Quick Connect

Now when it comes to providing good customer service, speed is your best friend which will provide you the competitive edge and the consumer would not mind paying extra for that too! It is very clear that whatever the customer wants, they want it fast and now! Now some would think, how did the customers become so impatient? Well, it has happened over the years in an attempt to cut the competition, many online portals and sites came up with options like online chat, FAQ’s, same day or next day delivery, etc and hence, now be it sales or service or support customers want it instantly. They seriously don’t even mind paying extra for it too.

Did you know?

68% of the customers consider for another option due to poor and slow customer service, 41% of the customers look forward to a reply within six hours and most importantly a mere 5% growth in your customer retention can increase your business by approximately 125%.

Quick View

Literally, in today’s world no one has the time to listen or read everything. Now in such a situation whatever you have to say “you gotta be quick & quirky!” This is where quick view also known as quick look is the best solution! It lets the visitors have a quick look at the details of the product – its picture, price, main features, etc! The benefit of having a quick view feature is that it changes a multi-step process to a simple and quick one.

And it shouldn’t be of worry to the sellers because even though they are not taking a complete view of the product, they are definitely and equally engaged to it and as a matter of fact, by FY14 the transaction through e-commerce is expected to cross 1-trillion dollars, which itself proves the same.

Quick Payment

When someone shops online, they expect a quick payment process and frankly if the process is slow then doubts start to enter their mind leading to abandoning of the purchase. And the more consumers are buying products, the more frustrating it is becoming for them to go through the same payment process, over-&-over again.

Now many new options such as payments through credit & debit cards, online banking, PayPal, etc. are coming up to ease this process. Cash on delivery and e-Wallets remain the customer favorite. As a matter of fact, Apple Pay has initiated a new option wherein a payment can be made through just one step of Touch ID fingerprint confirmation.

Quick Delivery

In a survey done by UPS and ComScore amongst more than three thousand consumers; Shipments arriving on time and easy return policy were one of the most important factors driving the customers to purchasing it. In that survey, 41% of the consumers said that they received the shipment on time and proactive communication regarding delivery time led them to recommend the retailer to their friends.

For Sixty percent of them, an approximate or confirmed delivery date was of utmost importance. According to their report 48% of the customers are not comfortable waiting for more than 5 days and tend to abandon that purchase.

According to a separate survey done by Toluna survey tool, a massive 50% customers leave the sale at the point when they are dissatisfied with the delivery options that are provided along with that a fixed-date was the most popular choice amongst thirty-one percent consumers whereas twenty-four percent consumers opted for next day delivery.

Thus, going by the figures mentioned above we don’t have to say much as to how important quick delivery is.

Quick Refund

When we say a quick refund it does not mean that every customer would want to return their product. But just like the retailers are worried that they may loose on the sale similarly the consumers are often worried about the product not meeting their expectations too.

A lenient and easy to understand refund policy helps in referrals and retention of the customers. The retailers must understand that almost 40% of the users abandon the sale only because of the unsecure pricing and by offering a lenient and easy-to-understand refund policy you get an edge over your competitor by gaining a loyal customer.

Quick App

For those who do not know, 80% of the customers make use of their cell phones to research about their shopping items. Hence, it is of utmost importance to have a mobile presence as well. This makes it a thing of utmost importance that online, as well as offline service providers pay required attention on getting a well built app available for customers to access via iTunes, Google Play and other App stores. After all an amount of USD 5-billion spent on purchase through mobile phones is not less enough to leave a share from.

All-in-All, the more customers are becoming tech-savvy, the more it is becoming important for the retailers to keep up with the technology. This need to keep up with the pace is also becoming one of the major reasons behind innovations, establishment of more businesses and a greater number of failing startups.

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Prizm- The Mood Sensing Music Player

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How often does your music player or cell phone play the songs you like depending on your mood or environment? Huh, is that even possible?

Well, till now it wasn’t but with the introduction of Kickstarter backed Prizm this will soon become reality.

Confused? Excited? Want to know more?

Let’s first give you an idea of what Prizm is?

Prizm is a learning device that instantly plays the perfect music on your speakers, based on people in the room and the context. Just hit a single button and it will instantly play the perfect music based on people in the room, their music tastes and habits, and even the current atmosphere.

It is a prodigy of Ubithings – a French startup company which was founded in September 2013 by Arthur Eberhardt, Olivier Roberdet, Pierre Gochgarian, and Pierre Verdu.

After 18 months of rigorous coding & designing of the prototype, Prizm has been made to bring the product to life.

FEATURES…

Prizm music player — Image Credit- Prizm

Prizm is a 3.8 inches tall pyramid which runs a Linux Operating System on an ARM Cortex A8 at 1 GHz with 256MB RAM.

Prizm comes with three listening modes; discover mode – where it will discover songs automatically, library mode – where it will play the standard songs from your personal library and a mix of both!

You only require one account to stream music via the device but you can always create multiple accounts for different users.

The beauty of this device is that it is part offline and part online. So for instance, if you visit your friend who also owns the device then Prizm will automatically identify you and your music profile and accordingly play the music that is liked by both you and your friend.

It also comes with a companion app which helps you to remotely control the device. At the moment, this app is compatible with only iOS 7 and Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and higher versions but will soon be available for other systems too.

With the help of acoustic sensors, it automatically learns when you want to listen to which mode. To do that, it takes multiple things into account like the time of day, day of the week, noise level in the room, etc! So for instance, after coming back from gym you set library mode, then the next time when you come back from the gym it will automatically play the library mode.

There are two buttons on the device which help you choose if you like the song or not. And eventually the device understands your likes and dislikes and automatically decides by itself.

During the setup of the device you have to match your device/s to the Prizm profile and then later whenever you’re around with the device, it senses you. Prizm uses the MAC address to capture your Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals of all the wearable devices or your phones to trace you. With the help of that it also, knows what’s happening in the room, who’s in the room, what is the current environment (party, soothing, etc!) and accordingly plays the music. And if it detects multiple accounts then it mixes up the playlist and randomly plays songs.

Along with these, Prizm also offers some really interesting features like you can set it to wake you up in the morning and it will play a new song everyday as an alarm tone. Also, it automatically goes-off to sleep after you do, at night!

PRESENT…

Prizm is in its last week of the campaign worth USD 129, and has already raised USD 138,600 which is way over their target of USD 70,000. Soon the company will begin with testing the designs and hopes to start full-scale production by April 2015 which will be shipped by June 2015. The French telecom giant ‘Orange’ is helping them with the manufacturing of the product.

The team aims to bring in new features in future like making it compatible with more streaming services and these new updates shall be automatically pushed into the devices.

Although, how it works is still a mystery but then it definitely is a proven fact that their design reflects that Prizm is a form of artificial brain, adapting to the environment and acting accordingly. Hoping this idea turns successful, this is going to be the biggest revolution to the way of listening to music.

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