Courtesy of GeoSmart, the Local Innovation Awards have been launched today (thanks to Geekzone for the tip).

Starting from today and open until mid-February, developers can submit both concepts as well as developments of location-based applications specifically for mobile phones or mobile devices.

There are four category prizes available;

1. Proximity-based Marketing
2. Social Networking
3. Location-based Games
4. AA Maps Widget

Each of the category winners above will win a variety of mobile devices.

The overall winner, selected from one of the four category winners and announced at the Wireless and Broadband Forum’s Convergence 2009, will receive a trip to the San Jose “Where 2.0″ conference in May 2009 including flights, accommodation and registration fees.

If you’re a developer and are interested in building something for the awards you can find more information in the GeoSmart SmartFind Development Center.

Begin??? The spring time change is near, and it has probably popped into your mind over the last few weeks.. when does daylight savings start?

The answer to your question is next Sunday, September 28, when 2am becomes 3am.

We first experienced the much appreciated extended daylight savings (an extra three weeks!) last September, amidst a little confusion from many of our computers. While we’re all hoping these issues have been fixed this time around, make sure you read up on the background of how your computer and daylight savings interact, and what you may still need to do manually.

Bring on the 27 coming weeks of extended daylight! For more info on stat holidays in New Zealand and when they begin (daylight savings signifies the beginning of the public holiday season!), check out the article on NZS.com.

You’ve probably seen it before, that heart jolting computer monitor sight: the Blue Screen of Death. The Blue Screen (BSoD) message can pop up on computers running Windows operating systems letting a user know that a problem has been detected, and Windows will be shut down - often loosing data and anything a user is working on.

The BSoD is a common poke by techies at Microsoft’s bug-prone systems, so you may be asking yourself, why are the words BSoD and Olympics popping up together today on message boards and forums worldwide?

Yet another opening ceremony flaw has retrospectively come to light today: a projected image of the BSoD onto the roof of the Bird’s Nest stadium while veteran Chinese gymnast Li Ning was suspended on his way up to light the Olympic flame.

Images of the malfunction message have popped up on Chinese websites early this morning, and news of yet another opening ceremony mishap has spread like wild fire. This news comes in just hours after last night’s lip synching revelation, and yesterday’s fake fireworks drama.

What is in store for us tomorrow? Check back to the NZS.com blog for Olympic Games 2008 updates.

Image from Flickr.

Olympics fans across the world were stunned and amazed by the quality of the Olympics opening ceremony on Saturday morning over the weekend - with many noting their favourite segment to be the 28 fireworks footprints leading to Olympic Stadium, signifying the previous 28 modern Olympic Games.

Breaking news this morning just revealed that those fireworks were faked - at least those which millions of viewers saw from home in the televised version. While the Beijing opening ceremony organisers did let off 28 fireworks footprints into the sky leading to the Bird’s Nest, this was not filmed, as they believed it was going to be too dangerous and difficult to have a helicopter following them so low down in the skies.

Instead, a 55-second computer generated sequence was made, taking over a year to compete, which featured camera shake and even Beijing smog to create a realistic and stunning fireworks display.

With some promising efforts from Mahe Drysdale, Emma Twigg and Moss Burmester last night, New Zealand can hope to see its first Olympic Medal in finals over the coming days.

Image from Flickr.

Have you been looking for a place to go to find tips for website owners all bundled together? NZS.com is your new source for Webmaster Resources!

We’re building a centre of information for Web-friendly site owners like you, aiming to help you improve your online presence.

After search engine optimisation tips? Check out the SEO resource section, where you can learn about keywords, linking, Pagerank and more to help improve your rankings within search engines in the World Wide Web.

Need some help with your website design? Learn what you can do (or ask your Web developer to do) to quickly and easier update the look and feel of your website.

Eager to understand your website’s visitors? Want to know why they behave they way they do, and how you can keep them on your site? Read up on usability - user behaviour tips and learn how to interpret user-related statistics and what you can do to entice your visitors and keep them coming back for more.

We’ll be adding new categories throughout the year and the entire NZS.com team will be continually adding to the resources available, to keep you covered when it comes to your New Zealand web presence…so keep posted! You can find the Webmaster Resource section in the left-hand navigation menu on the NZS.com homepage.

If you have any suggestions on how we can improve this new section, e-mail us on info@nzs.com and let us know!

The latest version of the Apple iPhone, the iPhone 3G has just been announced to be released in New Zealand, Australia, Italy and Portugal on the 11th of July. In New Zealand the iPhone is being launched on the Vodafone network.

“We are very excited to bring iPhone 3G to many of our customers across Europe and emerging markets in the coming months” said Frank H. Rovekamp, global CMO, Vodafone Group.

“Vodafone’s extensive, high speed and reliable networks mean customers can enjoy a great Internet and communications experience on their iPhone 3G.”

There are very few phone manufacturers who could have launched a new version of one of their phones in the way that Apple have done over the past few days. Their new iPhone is being heralded as a break-through device that will change the smart phone market.

Vodafone have been careful not to annonce any pricing of the iPhone 3G for the New Zealand market yet, however the iPhone 3G is being shown for sale on Apple’s US site starting at $199 USD. In New Zealand their media release says;

“iPhone 3G will be available via Vodafone on contract price plans which will include great value data bundles.”

Hopefully the NZ pricing will follow suit and look to be substantially subsidised by Vodafone.

Image from Flickr.

One of the biggest blockbusters has hit screens worldwide this week, but it doesn’t star any $20 million Hollywood scarlets or muscle-bound teen heartthrobs. In fact, those screens aren’t even silver - we’re talking about an in-home blockbuster: Grand Theft Auto IV.

The much hyped Playstation 3/Xbox 360 game is getting rave reviews worldwide, even being toted as “the best game ever” by many gaming magazines. After less than 48 hours on the market, first week sales predictions are looking towards US$400 million.

This would put it on par with the current entertainment record holder, the film Pirates of the Caribbean III, which eclipsed all previous records in May of 2007 with its opening weekend takings.

The current leader in video games is Halo 3, which was released in September last year and raked in US$300 million in its first week on sale.

To experience this visually stunning masterpiece, pick up a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV from video game stores and the usual outlets nationwide.

Image from Flickr.

Online shopping has become a way of life. Groceries are bought online. Pizzas are ordered online. Cars, houses, furniture - all available online. Globally, more than 50% of the world’s internet users have made a purchase online in the last month.

What makes an online shopping website successful? Is it frequent offline advertising like Ferrit has done, or word of mouth like Trademe?

Latest research has concluded that the power of peer recommendation is one of the strongest in terms of selling goods online. Consumers now count on each other, rather than marketers, for insights on purchasing decisions. Recommendations have become the new currency of e-commerce.

35% of online shoppers say they are more likely to return to an online shopping website if that site makes personal recommendations to them - suggestions on what they may like, based on the purchasing habits of others who have bought the same product. Another survey has determined that 66% of New Zealanders regularly buy from one site, and 1 in 4 buyers completely relies on recommendations to find out which website to browse when intending to buy.

With the strong impact of personal recommendations realised, a market gap has recently been filled by social networking websites which link the things one user likes to the online store which supplies them. Have you just listed Titanic as one of your favourite movies? Your friends can now follow the link to buy it on Amazon.

Personal recommendation does not necessarily apply to just products either, but also suppliers. When was the last time you bought someone in an online auction without checking their feedback first from their previous sales?

Next time you click that ‘add to cart’ button, think about how important feedback and personal recommendations are to you, and how they shape your purchasing habits.

Image from Flickr.

Traditional advertising is still an extravagant expense for many businesses in New Zealand. It can cost thousands of dollars to get a page in a printed magazine, tens of thousands for billboards and even over 100K to buy television spots.

Often, most real world advertisements just want people to visit the virtual presence of a product or service via a website, which requires providing a URL in an ad. We often run into URLs in the offline world: on billstickers, business cards, on the side of cars. For someone to actually remember and write down a URL in order to type it into their web browser, they will probably have a strong interest in the product or service already, meaning they are perhaps consumers that do not need to be ’sold to’ as heavily as the general public.

One crucial thing that advertisers often forget about is the power of links. A major part of web traffic is users clicking links, whether they have a genuine interest in them or not. It costs a user nothing, and is effortless to connect them with a destination instantly. If we think about the concept of the web, it is a source of connectivity between people and information, whereby it is a global network that makes anything obtainable by a single click. This is done largely by links.

As users of the New Zealand web space, your first experience with linking your current website may very well have been on NZS.com, as we provide a link to your website - and in exchange you can provide a reciprocal link back to us. To thank you for doing this, we make your link stand out in bold amongst other links, which are in a standard, less visible font.

It is one thing to move your cursor a few centimetres to click on a button, it is quite something else to see a URL in the outside world and remember it for the next time an internet browser is handy. Getting your website link available in various places the online world is a sure-fire way to increase awareness of your business or organisation, and stay up to speed with the advertising game.

Image from Flickr.

If you’re one of the many who have been waiting impatiently for mobile Internet to take off, you’ll be excited by the news that (after much investment and talk) wireless broadband Internet services are finally coming of age.

Combining the Internet with mobile technology can now deliver a high speed - and high quality - wireless Internet service. This technology lets you browse the internet on your mobile, with the same ease and speed at which you’d surf the Web from your PC at home. Check your emails, download songs and ringtones, play online games, read news online…

The question is: Who will make the most of this opportunity in the global market? Which giant (take your pick from Google, Microsoft, Apple and Nokia) will be dominant? And will there soon be fierce competition in the New Zealand market?

The Gphone - a phone built on a Google open software platform - will allow the Internet heavyweight to extend the power of its online advertising into the mobile realm. Mobile phone giant, Nokia, is expected to introduce mobile Internet services for ‘entertainment on the run’ - from music and video sharing to gaming. Yahoo is pushing to refine its mobile search technology and team up with a telco operator.

Mobile Internet technology was top of the agenda at the Mobile World Congress, held in Barcelona this week, where Telstra Australia emerged as a downunder forward-thinking telecommunications company. Faced with dropping market share and flat revenue, Telstra’s focus has shifted to mobile broadband capabilities. Download speeds of 21 Mbps (megabits per second) are planned for later this year, with faster 42 Mbps speeds from 2009.

And while there are currently few mobile phone devices on the market that can support the new technology, launching the A$1.1 billion Next G wireless high speed Internet service places them at the cutting edge - this is a gamble that will surely pay off. Look to Telecom and other New Zealand providers to take similar steps forward in the sphere of mobile phone technology this year.

Image from Flickr.