Archive for the ‘tablet’ Category

Surf’s up for Kiwi entrepreneurs

Tuesday, December 31st, 2013
Photo credit; Guzm??n Lozano on Flickr

Photo credit; Guzm??n Lozano on Flickr

Reuben Cairns-Morrison and business partner Gene Hogan are riding high on the success of their surf app Sherpa Surfguide, which is an iPhone application that tells users where the best surf is anywhere in New Zealand. The app is basically a digital surf guide plus a surf forecasting service which are two services that have yet to be combined. Cairns-Morrison says it is a huge advantage to surfers who are on the road, as they can get information updated hourly about the conditions and the surf breaks on their phones.

He also says this summer the pair plan to improve the content of the app by travelling the country and taking detailed notes and photos, as well as promoting the app in surf stores. When they are totally happy with the New Zealand version, they will take the idea elsewhere.

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NZ business embracing mobile banking

Tuesday, December 24th, 2013
Photo credit; Asim Bijarani

Photo credit; Asim Bijarani

It seems Kiwis are embracing mobile banking, if ASB’s claims are anything to go by.

The company says its relatively new Mobile Business app has seen a “remarkable uptake” in its first few weeks.

“Since the ASB Mobile Business app was launched in September, we’ve seen a rapid uptake with users authorising tens of millions of payments on-the-go every week,” says Steve Jurkovich, Executive GM of Corporate, Commercial and Rural, ASB.

“Usage of the ASB Mobile Business app is increasing rapidly week-on-week,” Jurkovich says. “This tells us that businesses owners and managers are embracing the flexibility that the app is giving them to check balances and authorise payments while balancing family and travel demands.”

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New Zealand company takes art gallery experience online

Thursday, December 5th, 2013
Photo credit; Les Haines on Flickr

Photo credit; Les Haines on Flickr

Auckland-based Ocula.com takes the Asia-Pacific art world into the 21st century.

The aim of the site, co-founded by Chris Taylor and Simon Fisher, is to help collectors do due diligence on possible purchases, enabling them to see exhibitions close up and providing them with details of each work’s provenance, history and creator.

“It’s like a virtual version of an art fair with the galleries all in one place. Except we’re on all the time – that’s where our model came from,” says Taylor.

Taylor says Ocula is selective, choosing galleries in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and North America whose works it displays.

The new business has a number of platforms. It has a consultancy service for collectors and an auction website, Ocula Black, which has sold works worth $3 million since 2011.

For the Ocula.com portal, galleries choose a monthly, quarterly or annual subscription which includes a range of marketing and advertising services.

With nearly 150 galleries on its books and $1.35 million invested of their own money, Fisher and Taylor are looking for just over $1 million of funding, an 18 per cent shareholding, to market Ocula to more international galleries.

“The potential funder or funders could be from the online, e-commerce, technology, publishing, marketing or media sectors or they might be a significant art collector or private art institution,” says Fisher.

He envisages hiring about a dozen more staff, adding to two in Hong Kong and three in New Zealand.

The company is forecasting revenue in 2015 of $2.365 million rising to $6.2 million in 2018.

Sales this year are running at $400,000.

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Mobile food ordering turns out to be big business in New Zealand

Tuesday, December 3rd, 2013
Photo credit; Sam Howzit on Flickr

Photo credit; Sam Howzit on Flickr

Ordering food over mobile devices has proven to be a boon for Wellington-based web and mobile food ordering system Mobi2Go.

Mobi2Go allows customers to place orders from tablets and smartphones at places like Hell Pizza and other eateries. It processes $2.5 million orders a month up from $1.5 million a year ago.

Chief executive Tarrik Mallet said Mobi2Go was in talks with investors to fund expansion into Australia, which has quickly become the company’s biggest market since launching there in March. Pita Pit and California Burrito are among its clients in Australia.

Mobi2Go is aimed at companies that have invested in their brand and want a dedicated website. Many of its customers are franchises.

It charges a flat monthly subscription rate regardless of the number of orders processed, so Hell Pizza pays the same as the Mt Vic Fish & Chippery.

“We spent a lot of time trying to work out what was the best model because the majority, if not all portal sites, will take a percentage of the sale,” Tarrick says. “With franchises, who are a large number of our clients, that doesn’t work, so we charge a monthly fee for as many or few orders a site has. We don’t have any term contracts and our customers attrition rate is next to nothing.”

The product was designed to be self-service so customers can go to the website, sign up and be up and running within a day for a basic site.

Most of Mobi2Go’s customers are now in Australia, with more in Singapore, Canada, Ireland, China and Costa Rica.

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Tech-savvy small and medium businesses earn more, hire more: survey

Tuesday, November 26th, 2013
Photo credit; Karl Baron on Flickr

Photo credit; Karl Baron on Flickr

MYOB’s latest Business Monitor Report has found that businesses with a website are more likely to increase revenue and hire full-time staff in the year ahead. It also found the number of New Zealand firms going online is rising, albeit slowly.

In its survey of about 1,000 New Zealand small and medium enterprises, the accounting software firm found 38% of businesses with a website saw revenue increase in the year to August 2013, compared to only 26% of businesses without a website.

Half of businesses with a website said they expected to see their revenue increase in the year ahead, compared to 37% of those without.

And confidence was even higher among businesses with both a website and social media site with 63% expected revenue growth in the coming year.

MYOB’s James Scollay said businesses with an online presence were also more likely to take on new workers.

While 16% of small and medium enterprises with a website were planning to increase their full-time staff this year, only 6% without one had the same intentions.

However, Scollay also said he is seeing a “digital divide” emerging in the New Zealand economy.

“Businesses with an online presence reach more people and become more engaged with their customers. They also earn more, have more work in the pipeline, and are more likely to be hiring staff,” Scollay said.

The overall proportion of SMEs with a website was still concerning – less than 50% – but Scollay said he was encouraged to see it increasing.

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New New Zealand-based sports picking app engages audiences

Tuesday, November 19th, 2013
Photo credit; Andrew Evans on Flickr

Photo credit; Andrew Evans on Flickr

A new a business-to-business sports-picking app that was developed in New Zealand is garnering a lot of attention in marketing circles.

The app, Go Team, features an engagement programme that enables brands to connect with customers, clients, VIPs and staff.

Developed by Auckland-based bkaBoom, Go Team has already been officially adopted by the All Blacks and is the official sports tipping game of New Zealand rugby. Already 10 companies are running competitions in the ITM Cup national provincial championship.

Go Team is designed to accommodate a variety of team sports across various high-profile competitions both nationally and globally.

Brands pick a competition, invite a range of audiences to participate — clients, friends, staff, endorsers and the like — add prizes and kick off. Players compete to predict results, make their way up the leader board and collect prizes along the way, simultaneously being exposed to brand messages.

predicts  apps such as Go Team are the future of staff and customer engagement.

“The tradition of the rugby sweep goes back generations and supports the premise that sports picking is the most fun way to engage with the people. Go Team is where the sweep and digital meet,” says bkaBoom CEO Barb Anderson.

The Go Team app is available on iPhone, Android, iPad and Windows and Mac.

To read more on this story, click here.

Kathmandu bolsters online presence

Thursday, November 7th, 2013
outdoor-gear-jennifer-morrow1

Photo credit; Jennifer Morrow on Flickr

Outdoor clothing and equipment retailer Kathmandu has launched a new mobile website, which it says will be more convenient for customers browsing its online store on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers.

“The mobile site makes navigating and searching for information far more convenient, with less tapping, clicking and scrolling when using mobile devices,” Kathmandu said.

And the company says it’s in the process of developing additional online initiatives such as international shipping, mobile apps and services such as “click and collect”, where customers can buy a product online, then pick it up from a store.

The retailer said last month that online sales had grown by 55% in the year to July 31 and contributed 4% of total revenue.

That would equate to around $15.4 million of Kathmandu’s $384 million total sales figure in its last financial year.

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Majority of NZ money not in digital realm yet, but that’s changing

Friday, October 11th, 2013
Photo credit; Blaise Alleyne on Flickr

Photo credit; Blaise Alleyne on Flickr

New Zealanders spent $5.4 billion online last financial year according to Roy Morgan Research’s Digital Universe report, but despite that seemingly large number, Kiwi money largely remains outside the digital realm.

“The bulk of New Zealand’s net wealth is not yet in the digital universe,” Roy Morgan client services director Howard Seccombe says.

The reason for that is the baby boomers who have the wealth only deal in the fringes of digital technology. That will change over time as the boomers age out and the next generation who is more familiar with digital technologies take over.

Other findings from the report included:

  • This year’s survey shows 61% of New Zealanders are worried about their privacy,  up 11% from the survey carried out four years ago.
  • Smartphones have seen spectacular growth, with 1.4 million users. That’s a growth of 227% in four years.
  • Right now 39% of New Zealanders have smartphones.
  • The Roy Morgan numbers show smartphones amplify people’s digital behaviour. Smartphone owners are ten times as likely to shop online as non-smartphone owners, eight times as likely to bank online and nine times as likely to view video clips.
  • Roy Morgan notes a dramatic 20% decline in desktop ownership. This echoes the fall in traditional PC sales. Meanwhile tablets have grown 557% in the past four years.

To read more on this story, click here.

PC market slows

Friday, January 14th, 2011

Stuff.co.nz reports today that sales of the PC worldwide have considerably slowed due to the emergence of tablet devices such as the iPad and technology developments in game consoles. Especially mini notebooks, which seem to have been hit the hardest with competition from the tablets.

Growth in PC sales worldwide was forecast at 4.8 percent but instead grew by only 3.1 percent.

Winners in the stats are Lenovo and Toshiba, which posted the most improved growth in the fourth quarter of 2010. Lenovo’s worldwide market share grew 21.4 per cent while Toshiba’s was up 12.1 per cent.