It has been estimated that in the first weekend since its introduction Apple would sell 4 million iPhone4S phones; the only forecasted hurdle would be ensuring supply/availability of the product would meet the expected demand.  Then came a collective sigh of disappointment from the technophiles and early adopters who closely monitor development of new gadgets.  It turned out that there was quite a bit of downgrading of iPhone4S sales estimates attributed to its lack of major enhancements from the current iPhone4.

We thought it would be fun to take a look at other new technology products and examine how their launch sales fared in the early days after their introduction.  Some of these new products have been tremendously successful, but it is also amusing to look at those that did not quite live up to expectations.

Recent technology introductions initial sales results:

2011-2012 Broadcast Season – early disappointments:

Reminder of some product misfires:

What does this mean for marketers?  Obviously it takes more than company reputation to gain and sustain public interest in your products.  Products must live up to the hype, provide a positive user experience and of course, be supported by impactful creative and well targeted media plans developed to introduce these new products to the marketplace through the most appropriate channels.

The number one search engine is celebrating its 13th birthday this month. According to the company the exact date has changed over time based on when employees feel like having cake, so we haven’t missed it just yet!

Google has clearly come a long way in the last 13 years though it feels like it has been with us forever. As the history and advancements of Google could provide for a novel, it would be easier to check out the company timeline.

Over the next few weeks I plan to spend most of my earnings in Soho for Fall/Winter gear. The best place to start is, as always, Uniqlo where once again they have released an incredible website called Uniqlo Innovation Project.

With a very clean layout and design their Fall/Winter products are presented in a way that calls out product characteristics through icons and model-animations. Check out the site and be sure to keep your ear to the ground for Uniqlo pop-up stores in NYC around the holiday shopping season.

Introducing the Pandora for books: BookLamp.

The company has launched a book recommendation engine (ala Pandora) that scans the texts of other books to create “Book DNA.”

The engine first requests you enter a favorite author or book. The technology then measures a host of characteristics such as action, third person narrative, or romance, as well as how it’s written (i.e. pacing, dialog).

The recommendations match the books style and text rather than books you have just purchased in the past. Since the company is still in the process of forming relationships with publishers some books and authors are not accounted for, but it is still very much worth a trial.

Below is an infographic created by OnlineEducation.net which has some interesting statistics on how students interact with technology these days.  1 in 4 students use videos of podcasts as study materials?  Whatever happened to taking notes in class with a pen and paper?

Via: OnlineEducation.net

I am sure you have heard the story of the marketer who purchased one of the first iPhones. One of his client’s objectives was to raise $100,000 quickly. So the gentleman waited on line for a few weeks, bought the phone, auctioned it on ebay for $100,000 and gave the money to his client. Rob Shoesmith is not that guy. But he is still leveraging the buzz that comes with all things Apple.

Rob is the guy who will be camping out soon for the iPhone 5…already…even though it hasn’t actually been announced yet- and won’t be announced for at least another month. Rob will be living in a tent outside of an Apple store in London’s Convent Garden district, surviving mostly on the attention and subsequent gifts/sponsorships he has been receiving.

The focus has shifted from the iPhone 5 to an experiment that will determine “if it’s possible to live off of Apple’s huge marketing influence”. So far Rob has received solar-powered iPhone chargers, web cams, candy and oddly…garden gnomes.

Rob Shoesmith we salute you. Now lets just hope the iPhone 5 announcement isn’t delayed past September.

Follwing the social media propaganda poster series, we’ve found another creative piece that places social media in a historical context.

French artist Anatroy has revisited some key historical events with a new social media overlay. Imagine Julius Ceasar was tweeting from his ipad while conquering Rome? Or if Neil Armstrong checked into the Moon via FourSquare?

I have seen and heard a lot of cute ways the news has been broken—ultrasound in a Father’s Day card was a really nice one I was witness to recently.

But forget the whole “human touch” thing….Now soon to be parents can more easily announce the news to their friends via the family member status option.

Users can update the Friends/Family section of their profiles to include an Expected: Child. You can also choose to add photo, name or due date of the expected.

Great collaboration between OK Go, dance group Pilobolus and Google Chrome.

The HTML5 Google Chrome Experiment visual is incredibly interactive and provides an added feature allows viewers to add their own message to the video and replay as the band dances it out. Check out the site if you have Chrome–if not, it is worth downloading.

Is anyone actively using Google+ yet? I have 20 or so people in my circle but only a few colleagues are active and messaging me. There was a lot of buzz within the first 3 weeks of the Google+ debut, and in that time over 20M people signed up. According to hitwise though, there has been a dip in traffic the last few weeks leading to the blogosphere insisting that the hype is wearing off fast and that the tool will fall to the same fate as buzz and wave.

In my opinion G+ won’t catch on in terms of usage anytime soon. There are just too many social networks we are currently using–the main of course being FB and Twitter. Google+ looks like it has tried (and failed so far) to become a hybrid of the 2.

Despite it’s shortcomings I love that it can be used as a surveillance tool as a member of my circle has pointed out.

According to Lifehacker “You can use Google+ Hangouts as an on demand remote camera viewer. First, create a second Google Account, and put the alternate account in its own circle. Then, start a hangout with just that circle. When you want to checkup on how everything’s going along in your house, you can just join the hangout with your alternate account, and you should see what’s happening”.

Though this is perfect for disocvering who keeps putting the milk back when it’s empty I don’t advise using as your main source of home security.

For information on how to setup a hangout click here.