Apple to make 3-5 million smartwatches monthly, sales begin October: report

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc is preparing to sell its first wearable device this October, aiming to produce 3 million to 5 million smartwatches a month in its initial run, the Nikkei reported on Friday, citing an unidentified parts supplier and sources familiar with the matter.

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Email Security Is Important. Here’s What Google Is Doing to Help.

You rely on your technology vendors to ensure that they’re providing you first in class services to run your business. You hope they provide not only great customer service, but also great security, ability to growth with your business and more.

One of the areas you should pay careful attention to is the security of your email and other online services.

The Wall Street Journal reports how Google encrypts all of its email, since 2010. Google published a list of email providers and their encryption policies here.

Google says it best in this post, “Many email providers don't encrypt messages while they're in transit. When you send or receive emails with one of these providers, these messages are as open to snoopers as a postcard in the mail.

A growing number of email providers are working to change that, by encrypting messages sent to and from our services using Transport Layer Security (TLS). When an email is encrypted in transit with TLS, it makes it harder for others to read what you're sending. The data below explains the current state of email encryption in transit.”

The post Email Security Is Important. Here’s What Google Is Doing to Help. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

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Remote Workers Are Happier Employees But Companies Need To Make It Safer And Easier

Working in a home office is something I’ve done for several years and I enjoy it.

However, as a home office worker, security concerns and better communication is always top of mind.

Staples, in a recent survey , shared that 65 percent of employers who allow their workers to telecommute report happier employees and that 33 percent of employers report less absenteeism in the workforce when telecommuting is allowed.

In my experience when technology fails a remote worker, finding quick help is a challenge. You’re not “in the office” so access to the companies IT support is not near by. Companies who invest in

Here’s what the Staples survey reveals:

• Only 25 percent of employees have been trained on data backup/security best practices.
• Sixty-four percent of employees name a poor VPN connection as their biggest tech challenge when working from home.
• Fifty-eight percent of employers report that their telecommuters have connectivity problems several times per month or more.
• Only ten percent of employers offer furniture services to new telecommuters.

Staples has a solution to these challenges and recommends:

• Equipping the Workforce – With IT connectivity issues a main concern, telecommuting programs should ensure easy access to email, document sharing, instant messaging and video conferencing. Providing remote VPN capabilities to telecommuters is also important for easy network access.
• Employee Actions – Having employees set up lock screens is one simple step businesses can take.
• Implementing Security Measures – Encrypting device-side data by adding another layer of protection is important in the event an attacker manages to bypass a lock screen or finds a backdoor.
• Furnishing Office Spaces Appropriately – It's important to consider furniture options in telecommuting programs, from ergonomic furniture to items like desk and drawer organizers. This will help telecommuters make their home offices more productive. In addition, more and more offices are designed with telecommuting in mind. In Staples' Workplace of the Future Design Competition, many of the finalists focused on layouts and furniture options that accommodate a more mobile workforce who telecommutes occasionally, providing open spaces that allow people to move throughout an office based on their work needs.

 

Views on Telecommuting from Staples Advantage

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New Microsoft Office Version, Digital Payment Options and More

In this week’s small business news roundup, a new Microsoft Office version is on the way. And some new digital payment options could make a world of difference to your business. Entrepreneurship takes plenty of time. That makes it hard to keep up with the news that’s important to you. The Small Business Trends editorial team has you covered. Enjoy!

Tech Trends

Android Users, You May Be the Next to Get a Tablet Version of Microsoft Office. If you’re a fan of Android but need some core Microsoft software like Word, Excel and PowerPoint for business, there’s some exciting news coming out of Redman. A touch screen tablet version of Microsoft Office is coming for Android and could be here by the end of 2014.

Google Says the Wrong People Could be Reading Your Gmail. If you use Gmail for business and regularly send messages with sensitive information, did you know it may not be safe? Google now says 40 to 50 percent of Gmail sent to recipients on another email provider aren’t encrypted end-to-end. This means there’s no way to guarantee that only the recipient of your emails sees your message.

Lookout! This Security Software Uses Selfies to Battle Phone Theft. You’re on a business trip or at an event. Suddenly you realize your phone is missing. As a business owner, you probably have much more than vacation photos and a couple of personal phone numbers on your phone.

What is “The Internet of Things” and Why Should You Care?. It’s not just your phone and your watch that are smart anymore. These days, many more devices than just your computer are connected to the Internet. As we know, scads of other devices, software and many other tools are now connected and exchanging data – creating this Internet of Things.

Digital Payment

After Months of Testing, Square Now Officially Offers Cash Advances. The testing began back in May with a small number of merchants. Now the new merchant cash advance program, from credit card reader and online eCommerce services provider Square, is officially up and running. Called Square Capital, the program seems pretty simple. According to the company’s website, eligibility is based (obviously) on being a registered Square merchant.

Flint Mobile Lets You Scan Rather Than Swipe Credit Cards With A Smartphone. You’ve heard of tablets being adapted into a POS. Flint Mobile has created an app it says will allow businesses to accept credit card payments outside the typical retail setting without even having a card reader. The Flint app lets you scan a credit card rather than swipe it using only your smartphone.

20 Digital Transaction Options for Small Businesses. The digital transaction field is getting more and more crowded. Sure, there are industry standards like PayPal and Square. But small business owners have a lot of digital payment options when it comes to accepting payments from your customers and clients. Many of the options we found go way beyond being able to accept credit cards at affordable rates with little up-front cost.

Political & Legal

Is the USDOJ Trying to Shut Down Businesses it Doesn’t Like? What if government officials suddenly decided they didn’t like your business? Then they went to your bank and warned them you were a bad risk and that the government had its eye on you? Suppose the government brought so much pressure to bear that before long, your bank closed down your account or refused to open new ones in your name or the name of your business.

Guess Who Is Having Second Thoughts About the Minimum Wage in Seattle?. You’d expect certain objections to approval of a $15 minimum wage in Seattle this week. The International Franchise Association, for example, isn’t happy. The oldest and largest trade organization of its kind represents franchises worldwide. And it wasted no time in filing a discrimination suit against the city over the new rules.

Research

85% of Small Businesses Get Customers Through Word of Mouth. Verizon, in conjunction with Small Business Trends, conducted a survey of Philadelphia small business owners in May of 2014. One of the questions was: How do your customers find out about your business? The answer was telling – and not because it was a surprise.

Researchers Determine the Perfect Way to Ask an Online Favor. As a small business owner, you may never have considered posting a request online for beer money or enough cash to cover your take-out pizza bill for the weekend. That’s just as well, because as it turns out, requests of this kind are not the ones that get the most positive response on the Web.

Fund Raising & Financial Management

Patreon Offers Crowdfunding for Content Creators Like You. If you're familiar with crowdfunding and sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, you know these are often intense projects that require a lot funding in a short amount of time.

Tallie Takes You From Receipts to Balance Sheet in the Cloud. Imagine a world where receipts are collected digitally without the need for paper and where they could be imported directly into your expense sheet without manual input. Imagine a world where your sales team or other employees while traveling wouldn’t need to waste their time (and yours) typing in receipts.

Marketing & Customer Service

Restaurants, Facebook Has Streamlined the Process of Posting Menus. Facebook is trying to become the go-to place for finding local restaurants. For those that already have a Facebook fan page, you’re aware that it gives you the opportunity to post updates like specials and special events. And, of course, the page also allows your most loyal and enthusiastic customers to “like” you.

Trustpilot To Business Owners: Online Reviews Are Your Friend. If you own a brick and mortar business, Yelp is the best way to spread the word through word of mouth from your customers. But if your business is online, consider directing satisfied customers to a Web service called Trustpilot. The site claims to be gaining 300,000 new users and 400,000 new reviews every month.

Use SocialCentiv to Strike While the Iron is Hot with Your Customers on Twitter. Twitter is awesome. It's growing and there are so many of us Tweeting away – all kinds of things. The challenge is that since there is so much on Twitter, you can't possibly keep up to what's relevant to drive leads (and customers) to your business. SocialCentiv, from the team at HipLogiq, helps you not only keep up, but respond to users as well.

Startups

Bloomforth Offers Bundling Small Business Services in the Cloud. This week we shine the spotlight on Bloomforth. The company, founded by CEO Quy Vo, has 16 employees and is still a new startup, just 4 months old. Its ambitious goal is to create small business cloud software that handles newsletters, point-of-sale, inventory management, appointment booking, and employee time keeping. Here are more details.

Two Moms Create Business Niche With Prenatal Vitamin Water. When Stacy Rauen and Amber Wilcox were going through their respective pregnancies, they couldn't believe there wasn't an easier way to get their necessary prenatal vitamins. Both women had difficulty with the standard pills due to their size and taste. Those factors, mixed with persistent morning sickness, made getting the necessary vitamins tough.

Other Services

Scribd Now Offers 400,000 Books to Read on Monthly Subscription. Scribd started out as a site where anyone could upload and share any kind of content — from legal documents to sheet music to historical documents. It calls itself the world’s largest digital library. The site, launched in 2007, last year made a major shift in its business model.

Reading Photo via Shutterstock

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Different Ways to Display Infographics on Your Site

Whether you're hiring someone to create an infographic for you or you are creating it on your own, it's an exciting content-type to start working with. Infographics are a great way to keep a readers interest and help explain complicated or boring subjects. So once you finally have your infographic ready to go, it makes sense to get ready for that increase in clicks and engagement.

Unfortunately, your amazing infographic isn't going to do any good if you don't know how to display it. There are different options you have for embedding your graphic onto your website, so it's important to take the time to really understand how to display your graphic correctly. Lucky for you, it's pretty easy.

Getting Technical: How to Display Infographics on Your Site

Whether it be that you can't fit the entire infographic on your site or something is going on with the images, there always seem to be challenges that people have to face when trying to use infographics on their websites. Fortunately, there are tools and techniques out there to help.

Below are a few different ways to help you successfully display an infographic on your website:

Embedding

This is probably the most popular option that you've seen in the past.

Embedding on your site means you use an embed code, which is provided by the company or person who has made the infographic. You copy and paste this embed code to put it on your website and you're set to go.

Unfortunately, many companies are not offering correct embed codes because it is so easy to make an error, which can lead to a problem when others try to copy and paste these codes to use the inforgraphic on their site. This is where the Embed Code Generator plugin comes into play. It helps you generate an embed code right within the Add Post section of WordPress.

All you need to do is install the plugin and fill in the information—URL to the image, where the image should link, title, alt attribute, etc. It will generate the code for you so that others can then take this code and re-post on their own site.

Lightbox

This plugin will help make sure the infographic is sized correctly.

Most blogs have a width of around 600 pixels for posts, but infographics typically range from 800-1000 pixels, causing problems for those trying to display the graphic. What many companies do to compensate is simply shrink down the infographic so that it fits, but as you might imagine, these infographics are never very successful because the print is too small to read and the images are too small to really see.

You have two options to solve this problem:

• First, you can make it so that people can click on the image and then have the image open to its normal size in a different tab.
• Second, and probably the best option to solve this problem, is to use a plugin called Lightbox. All you need to do is install the plugin, link to the image itself, and then readers can see the infographic as an overlay over the content. There is a dark or light background that will make sure the background page is dimmed so you can easily see the infographic. In other words, they will be able to see the full size image without having to leave the page.

The Takeaway

Getting infographics on your site correctly means more than just generating the right codes. Keep in mind that embedding an infographic incorrectly can be very obvious on some websites and look unprofessional, so not only will some of these tools help you simply get the infographic on your site and help people share, but they'll also help ensure that people aren't clicking away.

Extra Tip: Remember to really do your research before deciding if an infographic is right for you. Infographics work best if they are focusing on something specific and they aren't too cluttered with numbers and images.

Do you have any ideas about how to effectively display infographics on a website? Has anything worked for you or not worked for you in the past?

Republished by permission. Original here.

Working Photo via Shutterstock

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How to Use the Social Network Polyvore to Drive Your Product Sales

If you think you have covered all the social network platforms to promote your brands, then there’s a little surprise for you. Have you ever tried using Polyvore, a social networking platform, for your online store? If not, then it might be time you explore this big powerhouse to drive high-value traffic in terms of style, fashion and design influence.

If you want to discover new products, shop for things you love, or feature your own products for sale, Polyvore may be the platform for you. It is an online community where users mix different products with the help of Polyvore's visual set of creation tools to create collages named “Sets” that are directly linked with the online store for purchase. These collage sets consist primarily of home goods, fashion items and style accessories.

If you’re business caters to those industries, Polyvore is worth noting:

• There are more than 80 million products in Polyvore.
• There are more than 4 million users creating new Sets every month.
• There are 1 billion monthly Set impressions.

How to Use Polyvore

How Do You Get Started With Polyvore?

You can use products from your store, products from other users or any other products you find on the Internet or even a mixture of the three and create a Set within the Polyvore platform.

Click on the Create button on the Polyvore menu and go straight into the visual editor. You can drag-and-drop default images, imported products and/or use the editor. Images can be magnified or resized, thereby enabling you to showcase your products efficiently.

How Does Polyvore Overtake the Traditional eCommerce Style?

Createa a Personal Customer Experience

Shopping is a fun activity. Once people discover new products they like or how to match products, their experience gets automatically enhanced. This giant book of discoveries inspires people to buy more.

In a nutshell, when a customer is on Polyvore, there is no limit on new products and trends. You can use well targeted product references to suggest other products to users.

Sets are Directly Linked to Your eCommerce Site

Users can have direct access to your eCommerce site. If they click on your Set, it will take them directly to your site to make a purchase. Moreover, if buyers want to learn a bit more information before they jump in, they can use the Quick Look function.

Provides Better Visibility

As people share their Polyvore Sets on other social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, your online store can better engage and gain more visibility from your brand fans on those social media platforms. This community-based platform is a great way to engage new fans and interact with customers.

Offers Analytical Tools to Measure Your Product

Polyvore offers an analytical tool to track every single product uploaded on Polyvore. This tool is packed with intelligence reports on the site. The information collated helps your brand understand your customers, competitors and potential leads. Designers can get feedback from the report and use it in their design process accordingly.

Provides Visitors the Option to Create Their Favorite Product Lists

Pre-purchase steps always involve research. People search for new products to bookmark and organize them. You can insert a Wishlists option or Save for Later in a place where visitors keep their favorite products. When they are actually ready to make a purchase, they can come back and find the collection of products. The Wishlists can also remarket and reengage visitors.

How Do You Use Polyvore to Drive Traffic?

Bring Innovation and Creativity into Your “Sets”

Your visitors should not see the same cliché product images and items floating against a boring background. Instead, try something new – show them how to style one piece of product in multiple ways or show what to wear on special occasions. The more creativity you show, the better.

Search, Set Up and Join Different Groups

With countless groups, your brand is bound to fit into a few. Join and share your Sets with as many groups as possible. With each acceptance, you can engage with your existing customers and content and draw attention towards what your brand has to offer.

Conduct Polyvore Contests

Once you hit a decent number of followers on Polyvore and create your own group, you can host contests and giveaways. This encourages participants to create their ideal outfit and enter other contests to see the best ways to go about it.

Share Your Sets

You will find some effective sharing options in Polyvore that will allow you to embed Sets directly into your website or blog. Start moving your Sets around the Polyvore community.

Contribute Likes and Comments

The more you like and comment on other Sets, the more they will like yours. That's a simple reciprocation for both online and offline business. Don’t simply throw the products out there and expect a response. The Polyvore community is expansive. Put a little effort in to bring out the best of it.

Image: Polyvore

The post How to Use the Social Network Polyvore to Drive Your Product Sales appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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U.S. spy agency joins Facebook, Twitter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA, which has long trolled social media to try to uncover global trends and track evil-doers, officially joined Twitter and Facebook on Friday.

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Uber snags $1.2 billion in new funding; seen valued at $18 billion

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Uber Inc has raised $1.2 billion from mutual funds and other investors in a funding round that valued the fast-growing rides-on-demand service at $18.2 billion in one of the highest valuations ever for a Silicon Valley startup.

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