In an annual report released today, Cisco said that wireless data traffic – videos, audio and e-mails sent via laptops, smart phones and tablets – rose 133 percent in 2011, a bit more than the 131 percent it anticipated.

Cisco’s Visual Networking Index is a key benchmark for the industry, used by wireless carriers, equipment suppliers and software developers to predict sales of their products. Faster data growth could force carriers to spend more money on new gear, following delays in upgrades that have crimped sales at Juniper Networks and other networking companies.

“Mobile data traffic will continue to explode,” said Suraj Shetty, a vice president in charge of service-provider marketing at San Jose’s Cisco. “This is a trend we don’t see slowing down.”

Mobile data growth will climb 110 percent this year, Cisco predicted. And the traffic will increase 18-fold by 2016, reaching 10.8 exabytes per month, the company said. That’s equivalent to streaming 33 billion DVDs annually.

The surge resembles what happened with wired Internet networks between 1997 and 2001, when their average annual growth was 150 percent, Cisco said.

“A lot of service providers are increasing their spending on wireless,” Shetty said.

Video is a big source of the traffic. More people are watching YouTube clips or streamed movies on their laptops and phones – activities that take up a lot of bandwidth. By 2016, video will account for more than 70 percent of all mobile traffic, up from about 52 percent in 2011, Cisco said.

The popularity of smart phones and tablets is another contributor. While laptops hooked up to wireless networks are the biggest single source of network congestion today, that’s changing. By 2016, smart phones will account for 48 percent of global mobile traffic, up from 18 percent now, Cisco said. Tablets will contribute 10 percent of the total, up from 1 percent in 2011.

Wireless consumption also is becoming more evenly distributed among customers. At the beginning of 2010, the heaviest 1 percent of users accounted for 52 percent of traffic. That percentage has come down since carriers such as AT&T curbed browsing speeds of the top users. In 2011, the top customers contributed 24 percent, Cisco said.

Meanwhile, the average consumer’s data appetite is growing. By 2016, 60 percent of mobile users – some 3 billion people worldwide – will belong to the Gigabyte Club, according to Cisco. That means they consume more than a gigabyte of mobile data a month. In 2011, only half of 1 percent of users fit that description.

That’s put a further strain on wireless carriers, which already have struggled to meet demand in recent years, especially in cities like New York and San Francisco. One remedy is to rely more on Wi-Fi networks at homes, coffee shops and airports.

By 2015, Wi-Fi networks will overtake wired Internet connections, such as digital subscriber lines, as the technology handling more global traffic than any other – reaching 46.7 percent, according to Cisco. Wi-Fi networks handled 38 percent of the total last year, while wired connections accounted for 60 percent. Cellular networks made up just 2 percent, Cisco found.

Mzinga’s flagship suite, OmniSocial, enables organizations to create end-to-end collaborative and social experiences for their employees, customers, partners and prospects. This provides insights including the identification and impact of community influencers and evaluation of the popularity of specific types of content. These insights can be leveraged to further personalize user experiences, increasing user time on the platform and resulting in a sharper competitive edge for sponsoring organizations.

Mzinga’s solutions span 15 thousand sites in 160 countries, and support over 40 million users and 2.5 billion social interactions per month.

“Our social network analysis relies on our ability to perform advanced analytics focused on identifying and forecasting connections, relationships, and influence among individuals and groups,” said Navdeep Alam, Director of Data Architecture at Mzinga. “With Teradata Aster, we are able to capture, store, and analyze critical data and provide our customers with near real-time insights to make more informed decisions on brand-building and user engagement. Being able to easily analyze multi-structured data sets to better understand and improve our ability to service our users is critical. We believe that together with Teradata Aster, we have developed a solution that is unmatched within the marketplace.”

Deep data exploration for social network analysis allows Mzinga to better serve its customers by measuring critical data related to user engagement, influence, and reputation, which ultimately enable organizations to gain a more advanced understanding of the interests and drivers that motivate their employees, customers and partners. Aster’s extensive suite of pre-built analytic functions, completely MapReduce-enabled, provide developers with the ability to easily bring the power and functionality of MapReduce to any enterprise.

Mzinga is using multiple Aster SQL-MapReduce analytic modules including Aster nPath which allows pattern analysis via a single pass over the data, and modules for easily clustering of items into natural segments, as well as graph functions to identify and weight social connections. Each function built on Aster’s analytic platform further enables Mzinga to process large volumes of multi-structured data such as user comments as well as run advanced analytics in-database to deliver faster, deeper insights without the need to extract or sample data to run analytics on a separate tier.

“We are excited to be working with Mzinga. Our delivery of SQL coupled with MapReduce makes it easier for customers such as Mzinga to take advantage of highly-advanced analytic applications that leverage the power of MapReduce for processing diverse data types – both structured and multi-structured data generated by social networks and other systems,” said Tasso Argyros, Co-President, Teradata Aster. “Enabling organizations to gain deeper insight into their businesses and ensuring our customers can leverage their data for advanced analytic applications and powerful data exploration is not only a unique capability, it is the Teradata Aster advantage.”

The power and scalability of Teradata platforms support businesses of every size whose increasingly complex business demands are driven by robust growth requirements and the emerging need for pervasive business intelligence.

Relevant News Links

Mzinga Case Study, video: Teradata Aster MapReduce Drives Deep User Analysis

The Mzinga Video Vault: CEO & associates on cutting edge social media

Get Started in Big Analytics: Teradata Tells How – video, Teradata & Aster experts

Big Data: It’s Going Mainstream and It’s Your Next Opportunity – Merv Adrian

The Rise of Multi-structured Data, Big Analytics and Why It Matters – Dan Graham

Scott Nicholson, LinkedIn Senior Data Scientist & Teradata Aster user – YouTube podcast

Database Trends webcast with Barnes & Noble on Big Data Analytics

About Mzinga

Mzinga is a pioneering provider of social software and analytics solutions that improve business performance. Through a combination of enterprise-class technology, strategy and online moderation services, Mzinga social solutions enable businesses to increase revenue and lower costs by improving brand visibility, workplace satisfaction, and customer loyalty. Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, Mzinga supports more than 15,000 communities and 2.5 billion monthly page requests from 40 million unique visitors in 160 countries worldwide. To learn more about Mzinga, visit www.mzinga.com .

About Teradata Aster

The Teradata Aster MapReduce Platform is the market-leading big data analytics solution. This analytic platform embeds MapReduce analytic processing for deeper insights on new data sources and multi-structured data types to deliver analytic capabilities with breakthrough performance and scalability. Teradata Aster’s solution utilizes Aster’s patented SQL-MapReduce® to parallelize the processing of data and applications and deliver rich analytic insights at scale. For more information, visit www.asterdata.com or for more about Teradata, visit teradata.com.

Bold Software’s BoldChat product line which allows live chat and click-to-call customer service solution will be folded into the mobile and support operations for organizations such as Best Buy’s Geek Squad and remote diagnoses.

This acquisition is a part of a larger strategy to expand the company’s Web-based services aimed toward customer care organizations — including call centers, external help desks and customer service teams.

Even after this announcement, BoldChat will still be available as a standalone offering, while it will also be integrated into other LogMeIn products.

“We’re seeing a shift in the way companies are approaching customer care, as well as the ways they are gauging its impact and effectiveness,” said Michael Simon, CEO of LogMeIn, in a statement. ”Where just a few years ago, self-help and deflection may have been the predominant approach, companies are now seeking opportunities for meaningful engagement with their customers and prospects.”

President and CEO of Bold Software since 2005, Steve Castro-Miller and his team will be joining the LogMeIn group to help build the a deeper integrated methods of customer engagement foundation, especailly in the demanding fields of customer service and ecommerce. Bold Software was founded in 2003 and is a private company that has not disclosed and venture funding since its inception.

LogMeIn (NASDAQ: LOGM) has been providing cloud-based remote access, support and collaboration solutions since 2003 and has various products used by more than 13 million people on over 100 million devices. The company went public in 2009 and experienced the initial 30% pop in early trading. The stock debuted on the public market at $16 and was trading on the heels of this acquisition near $38.46.

Earlier this month, we reported that Q4 of 2011 was a weak one in the world of acquisitions, but this quarter feels active already. The final months of last year, there were 103 acquisitions valued at $9 billion, making the fourth quarter the least active quarter of the year, according to a VentureSource report.

For the entire year, 460 companies were bought for $46.4 billion, down 13% from the activity seen in 2010. But the deals were valued much higher as the total amount spent for the purchases was 30% higher than the $35.6 billion spent in 2010.

With just a few days into 2012, there have been several noticable Internet tech acquisitons including the Bold Software purchase. We have also seen the $30 million deal that Internap cut to buy the IT solution company Voxel, Ziff Davis’ purchas of publishing forum Toolbox.com, for an undisclosed amount and the $27 million spent by KIT for the online TV platform Sezmi.

The social networking usage in businesses range from Facebook apps, games, social plugins and information sharing.  In many organizations, employers actively encourage the use of Facebook and Twitter to engage prospects and customers.  In fact, according to Palo Alto Networks, the active use of these sites more than tripled between October 2010 and December 2011.

If your organization must use Facebook or Twitter for practical business purposes, Palo Alto Networks recommends that attention is paid to the following:

• Trust: Social networking applications have trained users to be too trusting by encouraging everyone to share the story of their lives. When users receive links, pictures, videos, and executables from their social network and presumably their “friends, they are more inclined to click first and think later. The elevated trust level has many ramifications, including social engineering, malware propagation and botnet command/control channels.
• Social engineering: Old-school social engineering had criminals calling users on the phone; convincing them they were the IT department. The conversation would result in divulging a user name and password. Now, social networking sites are rich with information about users that can easily be used to for social engineering purposes. A user’s social networking activity is monitored for names of pets or kids, activities, hobbies, vacations, holiday activities, and other commonly shared information that can be used to reset a password. With those data points, the cybercriminal is able to entice a user to click on a link forwarded from a supposed friend. The Aurora attack of a few years ago and the recent TDL4 outbreak both show connections to this type of social engineering. When used in this manner, the cyber criminals’ goal is to remain hidden, looking for very specific information, often times remaining silent for long periods of time.
• Malware propagation: By taking advantage of the “automatic” elevated levels of trust, it has become very easy for cyber criminals to rapidly propagate their payload using social networking applications. As an example, a variant of the Zeus Trojan, known in the past to steal financial information, recently infected thousands of Facebook users who had viewed photos supposedly sent to them by a friend. In reality, the friend’s account had been hijacked and the photos being sent were a booby-trapped screensaver file with a .jpg file extension.
• Botnet command and control: There are numerous examples of how social networking applications can act as a command and control channel for botnets. A very detailed description of this use case is included in the July 2010 Shadowserver Foundation report, Shadows in the Cloud: Investigating Cyber Espionage 2.0. The report highlights how social networking (and other applications) applications such as Twitter, Google Groups, Blogspot, Baidu Blogs, blog.com and Yahoo! Mail were used to extract their payload from the targeted individuals.

Like every medium, you need to know who frequents each social network and to what extent.

Facebook vs. Twitter vs. LinkedIn

For example, Facebook’s advertising “wizard” tells me 15.7 million Canadians over the age of 18 are on that social network. 8.1 million of them are women. Facebook claims to have more than 800 million users worldwide. In other words, it’s a safe bet whatever demographic you might want to reach is on Facebook.

Twitter, on the other hand, has over 300 million users according to Wikipedia with 50 million active daily. Last April, the Financial Post reported Canadian Twitter penetration at 18 per cent based on a comScore Inc. study, sixth in the world. Interestingly a June 2011 Pew Internet research report pegged Twitter penetration at 13 per cent of online Americans. All of which is to say that Twitter is relatively niche as compared to Facebook.

Not only that, but Twitter demographics skew a little older than some other networks, although Hollywood stars are changing that and attracting the younger set to Twitter. According to 2010 data gathered by DigitalSurgeons.com, the typical Twitter user is:

Female 26 – 34 years old In college Income $26,000 – $50,000 Outside the USA

While Twitter may be a niche network, the demographic is a desirable one; one might say a vocal, influential minority. Quick searches reveal hundreds of Canadian journalists and politicians on Twitter, for example.

Then there’s LinkedIn, the so-called “Facebook for grown ups” although they prefer “the world’s largest professional network on the Internet”. At 135 million plus members (four million in Canada) they’re right. And LinkedIn attracts a coveted demographic. According to Quantcast.com global LinkedIn visitors are generally male, middle-aged, Asian, no kids, affluent and highly educated. In other words, educated white-collar decision makers.

Not all social networks the same

Treating all social networks the same would be a colossal marketing gaffe, yet many do just that. Looking for mainstream media attention? Try Twitter. Seeking soccer moms? Check Facebook. Headhunting executives? LinkedIn.

Luring people to your new page, site or community is hard. Taking your page to the platforms where they already hang out is much easier. The Internet is not about reaching everyone simultaneously. It’s about reaching small pockets of the appropriate people where they already are.

It’s the central gateway that connects to the Internet, then shares that connection with all of the devices connected to it, via a network cable or Wi-Fi signal. Other services depend on the router, as well, such as file sharing, voice over IP, remote access, and VPN.

A router generally has to be on and functioning 24-7. There are thousands, if not millions, of data packages going through it every day, and you expect it to work without any hiccups. Ironically, it’s also the device that most people pay the least attention to. In fact, the only time it’s noticed at all is when it’s not working right.

That said, it’s very important to pick a router that’s not just fast and feature-rich, but also reliable. Following is the list of the top five wireless routers I’ve reviewed this year that fit that description.

Note that though I have reviewed many routers this year, I can’t say that I have worked with all routers on the market. I did, however, try to cover all those from major vendors as well as some from not-so-well-established companies.

Cisco Linksys E4200 v2
This is the latest wireless router from Cisco’s E-Series and it’s arguably the best router on the market, all things considered. Though it looks exactly the same as the previous version, the E4200 v2 is a completely different beast on the inside.

The router supports true dual-band with the 450Mbps speed available on both bands. It also comes with a much faster processor running at 1.2GHz to offer excellent performance, especially for the built-in network storage feature. For the first time a router, when coupled with an external hard drive, is capable of offering storage throughput comparable with that of some dedicated NAS servers. The Linksys E4200 v2′s storage performance is about three or four times that of other routers with the same features.

The original Cisco Linksys E4200
Despite the release of the second version, the original Linksys E4200 still makes a formidable router. It’s inferior to its successor only because it supports the 450Mbps speed only on the 5GHz band, and it has a slower processor. Nonetheless, it offers great performance as a router. It’s also significantly more affordable.

It’s worth noting that Cisco did very well this year with the new and refreshed E-Series, which also includes the E3200, E2500, E1500, and the E1200. The fact that the networking company has two devices on this top-five list means it must be doing something right.

Netgear WNDR3800 (N600)
This is an accidentally top-notch router from Netgear. It’s supposed to be the third-tier model after the WNDR4500 N900 and the WNDR4000 N750, but it turned out to be the best router that Netgear had to offer this year; it provides great performance, true dual-band wireless, and Gigabit Ethernet. The router also has built-in support for a network storage feature via its USB port, which also offers personal cloud capability.

Note that the WNDR4500 and WNDR4000 also make great routers for those who care about the new 450Mbps speed and don’t mind the bulky size.

Asus RT-N56U

This is another true dual-band router that offers the traditional 300Mbps speed on both bands. This sleek and supercompact router actually offers very fast real-world throughput speeds, even faster than some routers that support the 450Mbps standard, in my testing. On top of that, it’s a fun router to use if you like tweaking. The router offers built-in support for network storage when coupled with an external hard drive.

Trendnet TEW-692GR
The TEW-692GR is the first on the market to offer true dual-band with both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, being able to handle the new and higher 450Mbps wireless speed. The router offers very good performance and is simple to use. It’s a pure wireless router since it doesn’t have an USB port for storage or print serving. When first released, the router had a very high price tag, which is now significantly lowered, making the router a great buy.

Amazon Kindle Fire;

The Native Kindle Fire Email App

If you start your Fire tablet, you will have a house screen in your favorites, the carousel, search, and category tabs. To locate the Kindle Fire native email application, you would need to click the Apps tab. The email app is known as a blue and white envelope with the email sign in the middle. If this sounds the 1st time you are usually starting your Fire, may very well not check this out app directly. Occasionally, you need to wait for the initial update that your tablet will do with an hour or so at the time you first of all turn it on.

So, what exactly is the native app able to? Will it be user-friendly? Firstly, it could actually handle some of popular email service you should be using. Not limited Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, and AOL. This really is excellent news, for the reason that majority of popular bands are using these four services. However it doesn’t end here. The fireplace will also support the so-called other email services, including POP3 and IMAP. One sad note – it doesn’t support Microsoft Exchange (more on this later).

Creating a message within the Amazon kindle fire native email application is not a worry. Somewhat do is launch this software and continue with the steps of easy setup. Usually in the setup process, you’re going to be motivated to select your email provider, specify whether you ought to set this account as the primary one, required name to our account, and present your username and password for the email service that you are implementing. You’ll be able to continue doing this setup its the email services which you use, to have all of your current emails conveniently in one location.

Enhanced Email App

Because i above mentioned, you can actually just about setup any email service account about the Fire except a Microsoft Exchange account. With the you have got to download the Exchange application from Amazon. This is usually a great little program that can bring your emails, contacts, calendar, and tasks into one simple view. Unfortunately, it’s really a little tricky to create, but once you might be used it works like a dream. If you have had any troubles while in the setup, just look in the Kindle Fire Exchange app tutorial. Among the first results may be the developer’s website with all the information that you need, including: the feature list, installation instructions, screenshots, and others. I’ve been with them for the week. Significantly as I can tell it’s free exclusively for thirty day, and then you should obtain a license roughly twenty dollars. Over time, we should always see some free Exchange apps for your Fire.

The launch is the third for a VoIP provider here in just a few months.

The netTALK Duo and magicJack Plus have also been released, though the latter has yet to fully hit store shelves here in Canada.

The Ooma Telo is a unit that comes at a heftier upfront cost of $229.99, but makes up for that with no real residual costs afterward. Users are only charged $3-$4 per month to cover government taxes.

The promise of these devices is that they offer phone service at a fraction of the cost of traditional vendors like Bell or Rogers, with a scope that covers all of Canada and the U.S., rather than just a local municipality.

Like Primus (www.primustel.ca/) and Vonage, (www.vonage.ca/) who have operated in Canada for some time, Ooma also offers the option to port over an existing number for a flat fee of $39.99. That fee is waived if you opt to go for the company’s Premium service at $9.99 per month.

The thing about VoIP nowadays is that the voice quality is vastly improved, the costs have come down and even overseas long distance rates are better than most conventional plans.

For a small business needing a cost-effective way to do business at the office, VoIP really can come in handy.

And Ooma’s launch is likely to heat up the category even more, particularly since there’s a battle on the smartphone side as well.

These apps can work on their own or as extensions of your subscription, so that you call long distance using your data plan instead of airtime minutes.