thecashzone.net

By Businessweek.com

Apple’s  iPad tablet computer costs as little as $259.60 to build, according to analysis by the research firm iSuppli.

Materials for the iPad, which went on sale Apr. 3, include a touchscreen display that costs $95 and a $26.80 processor designed by Apple and  manufactured by Samsung Electronics, according to El Segundo (Calif.)-based iSuppli.

Apple announced the iPad, which users can hold in their hands for reading and watching videos, on Jan. 27. ISuppli’s analysis means that the components of the lowest-priced iPad, which includes 16 GB of memory, constitute 52% of its $499 retail price, on par with other Apple products including the iPhone 3GS.

A midpriced 32 GB version of the iPad that sells for $599 contains $289.10 worth of materials. A high-end 64 GB version, which retails for $699, contains components that cost $348.10, according to iSuppli.

Much of the iPad’s component costs went toward making the device appealing to use, says iSuppli principal analyst Andrew Rassweiler, who supervised the “teardown” analysis of the product. More than 40% of the iPad’s costs are devoted to powering its touchscreen display and other components of the computer’s user interface—”what you see with your eyes and what you feel with your fingers,” he says. The distinctive aluminum casing on the back of the device contributed about $10.50 to the cost of materials.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Harrison declined to comment on iSuppli’s findings.

More Silicon Chips Than Expected

Research firms conduct so-called teardown analysis of consumer electronics to determine component prices and vendors, and to estimate profit margins. The estimates don’t include costs for intangible items such as software development, advertising, patent licensing, or shipping. In February, iSuppli had estimated that the least expensive iPad would carry a $219.35 cost of materials.

Once it took one apart, iSuppli found more silicon chips than it had expected powering interactions with the iPad’s 9.7-inch screen. Apple uses three chips to control the iPad’s touchscreen, for example. “Because of the sheer scale of this device, we’re seeing more here than we expected to,” says Rassweiler.

Over time, Apple may have leeway to combine many of the iPad’s electronic components, or integrate them into the display, Rassweiler says. “We’ll see a lot less silicon required to make them work,” he says.

The most expensive component in the iPad is its touch-sensitive, custom-manufactured screen. South Korea-based LG Display, Samsung, and Japan’s Epson supply the liquid-crystal display (LCD), according to iSuppli. Taiwan-based Wintek makes the glass overlay that detects the touch of a user’s fingertips. The screen’s special design makes it about twice as expensive as the screens used in comparably sized netbook computers, according to Rassweiler.

LG spokesman John Taylor did not return a call seeking comment. Wintek spokesman James Chen could not immediately be reached for comment. An Epson spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment. Chris Goodhart, a spokeswoman for Samsung, declined to comment.

Flash Memory Chips

Flash memory chips were also a significant portion of the iPad’s costs. The chips, obtained from various suppliers including Samsung, account for $29.50 in costs on the 16 GB model, $59 on the 32 GB model, and $118 on the 64 GB model, according to Rassweiler.

Apple designed the main chip in the iPad, known as the A4. South Korean chipmaker Samsung Electronics built the chip for Apple and also supplied a memory chip attached to it for a combined cost of $26.80, a difference of $9.80 over the prior estimate of $17. “We believe that this chip was designed by P.A. Semi,” Rassweiler says, referring to the chip design company Apple acquired in 2008 for $278 million.

Other chips in the iPad also proved more costly and more numerous than iSuppli had originally estimated. Broadcom supplied an $8.05 chip that handles Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless data connections, and two additional chips used to control the touchscreen, which cost a combined $3.70. Texas Instruments supplied a $1.80 chip used to help control the iPad’s touchscreen. Ciruss Logic supplied an audio chip that costs $1.20.

Broadcom spokesman Bill Blanning did not return messages seeking comment. Kimberly Morgan, a spokeswoman for Texas Instruments, declined to comment. Bill Schnell, a spokesman for Cirrus Logic, also declined to comment.

From internet news

Facebook users are on high alert this week for another e-mail scam advising that their accounts have been reset and asking them to reset their passwords through an attachment contained in the unsolicited e-mail.

But as security software vendor McAfee (NYSE: MFE) details in a blog posting, the attachment is actually a password stealer that is installed when users click on the link.

The potentially damaging e-mail is titled “Facebook Password Reset Confirmation! Customer Support,” and Facebook officials are telling users to immediately delete the message to avoid infecting their PCs and mobile devices.

Once the phishing agent is installed, it can access any username or password entered on the computer or mobile devices, putting users’ online banking account log-ins and other sensitive information at risk.

“This threat is potentially very dangerous considering that there are over 400 million Facebook users who could fall for this scam,” McAfee researchers said. “This is also the sixth most prevalent piece of malware targeting consumers in the last 24 hours, as tracked by McAfee Labs.”

With an estimated 400 million users worldwide, it’s easy to understand why hackers love to target Facebook with various phishing and malware scams on an almost weekly basis.

In January, a massive scareware campaign plagued the site for a couple days, attempting to lure Facebook users into installing bogus antivirus software on their computers.

McAfee officials said this latest malware project included “tens of millions” of spam messages sent to users around the world and would likely result in the infection of millions of computers.

McAfee recommends users install the latest version of its antivirus software to protect themselves from attacks of this type and reminds users to never click on any links or attachments contained in unsolicited e-mails regardless of how authentic or personalized they appear to be.

From the Numbers News
Alice in Wonderland comfortably held top spot at the box office this weekend, according to studio estimates released on Sunday. In these days of 60% drops for big releases, its decline of 47% can be considered a victory for Disney and earned it an impressive $62 million in its second outing. Its total cume to date passed $200 million, and the movie is already Tim Burton’s second-highest grossing movie after 1989’s Batman.

New releases all struggled individually, but collectively earned over $40 million, indicating that the high level of competition was their biggest problem. Green Zone topped the list with $14.5 million, well down from previous Matt Damon/Paul Greengrass collaborations. She’s Out of My League picked up $9.6 million for Paramount, also below expectations but not terrible.

Remember Me scored $8.3 million for Summit. Again, that’s lower than pre-weekend projections, and something of a disappointment given Robert Pattinson’s fan base. However, it’s hardly a disaster considering the likely budget of the movie and the time of year.

Our Family Wedding was the final new wide release, and it actually did a little better than expected with $7.6 million. Its Per Theater Average was comparable with Green Zone’s, making it a fairly successful niche play for Searchlight.

How to Get Traffic to Your Blog

Original post by Alan View from  Moneymakerinfo

If you enjoy making money online by promoting products or services, then the chances of you being in affiliate marketing are fairly high. You might have signed up as an affiliate with one or more online businesses, who then give you a specific affiliate ID. Many of the online businesses that are involved in affiliate marketing might have provided you with a simple marketing package like banner or text ads and your affiliate sales page link. The only thing you really need to do now is to use these great tools and drive traffic to your affiliate sales page.

This is the strategy almost all affiliate marketers follow, but there is a problem here. Though this is a good strategy, in order for you to make a decent amount of money, you will need to have thousands of people visiting your affiliate sales page before even one product/service is sold. That being the case, you can imagine how hard it can be to actually make a $10 commission. Even if you succeed in doing so, the amount of time and effort you would have spent in earning those $10 would be huge!

Not just this, there is another problem with earning these commissions too. If you look at the terms and conditions of your affiliate marketing program, maybe they don’t pay commissions till you have earned at least $30. That means another thousand or more visitors and then, you might just have a chance at looking at those $30.

But here is something you need to consider without getting discouraged. Internet marketing is an excellent way for you to make extra cash on the side, and it honestly does not need much of an investment.

Four Step Affiliate Marketing Process:

Instead of advertising your affiliate program directly, make use of this four step process.

1. Providing value-add: Before getting down to advertising, provide something valuable to your potential customers. The simplest ‘valuable’ thing that you can provide without much effort is free information. You can provide this free information in the form of a series of email courses, eBooks and so on.

2. Give when you get: Don’t give away your free information till you get the email addresses of your potential customers. It is vital to know the name and email address of all the prospective clients, so that you can move on to the other two steps in the affiliate marketing process.

3. Earn trust: The next step in this four step process is to earn the trust of people, due to the valuable information that you have provided.

Just as you would closely monitor information provided by someone who gives you good advice on managing money, time or effort; others will start trusting you, provided your information is trustworthy. Since you have the name and email addresses of the potential customers, you can send them occasional emails with valuable information. Remember, don’t spam their mailbox. Else, they may block you and you will lose sales.

4. The actual sale: If you have been providing the potential customers valuable information regularly, they will trust you enough to buy a product/service you recommend. The sale is easier, if you can somehow make them realize that what you are recommending is worth the amount they will be spending.

In affiliate marketing, try to sell products and services that have helped you personally. This way, it becomes easier for people to trust you and you can share your experiences with them too!

In light of the credit legislation that recently went into effect, card issuers have come up with new ways to make up revenue. Watch out ! Your card may suddenly sting you …

BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT SPENDING ENOUGH : 30 $ TO 90 $

Annual fee for some Citibank cardholders who spend less than 2 400 $ a year.

BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT SWIPPING ENOUGH : 19 $

Charge for Fifth Third Bank cardholders who do not use their card within one year.

JUST BECAUSE :  29 $ TO 99 $

Annual fee beign tested by Bank of America on a variety of new and existing cards.

1- Where’s the nearest ATM that won’t cost an arm and a leg ?

App : ATM HUNTER

Why it’s great : This app from MasterCard lets you search for ATMs based on your bank, surcharges, and other features. You can look for ATMs where you are or at an adress you are headed to.

Cost : FREE

2- That house i’m driving past is fabulous ! What is it listed for 6

App : REALTOR.COM

Why it’s great : it uses GPS to produce a map of properties for sale and open houses near your current location, wich you can refine according to distance, size of house, price range, and more.

Cost : FREE

3- How do i know the price i’m looking at in a store is a good deal ?

APP : REDLASER

Why it’s great : This apps scans any bar code and uses Google product Search and Thefind.com to locate the best price. At BestBuy, example we saw two Blu-ray movies for $29.99 each; REDLASER found them for $19.99 at Walmart.com. Best Buy matched the price on the spot. Result : a 20 $ savings.

Cost : 1.99 $

4- i know i’m going to lose this receipt and i need it for tax purposes.

APP : IXPENSEIT

Why it’s great : it enables you to quickly punch in receipt info, even letting you take pictures of those scraps of paper and store then digitaly.

Cost : FREE for the lite version ( stores up to 200 records ) and $ 4.99 for the full version ( no record limit )

Leading online music shop hits another major milestone with the sale of the 10 billionth song, offering one lucky customer a prize for making the right purchase at the right time.

This news is from Kenneth Corbin from internetnews.com

Apple’s popular online music store iTunes has hit a major milestone, with the 10 billionth song downloaded sometime on Wednesday.

The landmark download was Johnny Cash’s “Guess Things Happen That Way,” Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) said.

The 10 billion mark comes a little more than a year and a half after iTunes sold its 5 billionth song.

Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Ga., stands to receive a $10,000 gift card to the iTunes store for downloading he 10 billionth song, Apple said.

“We’re grateful to all of our customers for helping us reach this amazing milestone,” Apple Vice President Eddy Cue said in a statement. “We’re proud that iTunes has become the number one music retailer in the world, and selling 10 billion songs is truly staggering.”

As part of its 10 billion countdown, Apple ranked the most popular songs of the iTunes era. The most downloaded song is the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeing.” The group also took the No. 3 spot on the list with “Boom Boom Pow.” Checking in at No. 2 on the list was Lady GaGa’s “Poker Face,” with Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” and Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” taking the fourth and fifth spots, respectively.

Apple debuted its online music shop seven years ago, selling 1 million downloads in its first week. In the time since, iTunes has galloped to the top of the digital music realm, outselling by a large margin competitors such as Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Walmart.com (NYSE: WMT).

In the meantime, iTunes has been looking to expand its offerings beyond online music. The site has reportedly been in talks with entertainment studios to roll out a TV service based on a $30 monthly subscription model.

Apple began offering Web TV content in 2005 through a deal with Disney-ABC. TV shows are currently available on iTunes for $2.99, and Apple also offers season-long subscription passes to certain programming.

Anybody will tell you that to make money working online you must have at least a basic knowledge of SEO. Search Engine Optimization is just another tool in your marketing bag. If used properly it can bring you more customers, more prospects, and more clients faster than any other form of marketing. But, like any other form of marketing it requires a plan. Before you even start to optimize your site you need to know what your goals are. What kind of person do you want to attract to your site? What keywords will you use? What kind of conversion rate do you want to achieve? Whatever your conversion goal is it will involve a living breathing person on the other end of the Internet connection. Before the existence of the Internet, before the existence of direct mail marketing, conversions involved face-to-face interactions. Keep this in mind while developing your marketing plan. Search engine marketing is NOT about tricking the search engines, it is NOT about how much you pay per click and it is NOT about how many websites link to yours. At the end of the day, it is about simulating that face-to-face interaction as closely as possible.

When your prospective customer reaches your website they probably will not know who you are. They are probably not familiar with your company and, most importantly, they will not want to be ’sold’ to.

‘But wait’ you say. ‘I have to make money. I have something to sell. That’s why I spent so much time and money bringing people to my website’.

Yes, but here is something to ponder. When you are shopping in a brick and mortar store, say for instance that you are shopping for a new stove. What are you initially looking for?

INFORMATION!

You want to know what makes the £600 model better than the £400 model. You ask yourself, “do I really need all the features of the £600 model or can I live with the £400 model?” So you are sitting there reading all of the information on the tags. You are gathering information. If a salesman walks up in the first few moments, you tell him that you are ‘just looking’ to get him to back off. It isn’t until you have settled on one or two models that you ask for help. It isn’t until you have gathered all of the INFORMATION that you even glance in the direction of the salesman, fearing that even looking at him before you are ready will cause him to come running over and pressure you into buying the most expensive model in the store.

You don’t want to be sold to, you want to make an informed decision. And when you finally do ask for a salesperson, what are you looking for? MORE INFORMATION!

You are looking for more information to support your buying decision. Only when you have answers all of your questions do you ever pull out that credit card and make the purchase.

Keep that in mind when you are creating your Internet marketing plan.

The successful salesman knows that he has products to sell. He knows that he must sell X number of stoves to put food on the table. But most importantly, the successful salesman knows that in order to make the sale he must know his product. He must have the INFORMATION his customers are looking for. He must know how to communicate that knowledge and how to make the sale passively without being a ‘pushy salesman’.

So, back to how to market ineffectively online….

If you really want to lose potential customers; if your passion is to sit around all day figuring out how to trick the search engines into ranking your website in the #1 or #2 spot; if you love paying way too much for pay per click traffic; if you are absolutely sure that you do not need to pay attention to proper search engine optimization, then here are a few sure fire ways to completely waste your time with your website. Here is how not to make money online:

· Use LOTS of cute graphics… especially the dancing cowboy one… everyone loves that right?

· Put everything you can possibly think of on the first page

· Include links to every single site you can think of

· Link exchange with everyone that asks

· Ask everyone to link exchange with you

· Make your contact information hard to find

· List your contact information everywhere and anywhere it fits

· Have no form of sensible navigation whatsoever

· Name your home page ‘home’, your contact page ‘contact me’ etc

· Use images to link your inner pages

· Have at least three broken links on every page

· Use the worst possible picture of yourself and make sure it is badly cropped

· Use the same title tag on every single page

· Use the same description on every single page

· Build your entire site in flash (remember to include the broken links)

· Hide text on your website so that only the search engines can see it

And the #1 thing you can do to completely waste your time with your website is….

· Don’t include any information anywhere about anything to do with your business

May your success be more than you can hold!

From JohnChow dot com

They always say that blogging is already saturated. Saturated especially if you are going to use blogging to target a wide audience and then make money. I’m always observing the blogosphere and while I can’t argue that there are so many blogs out there on a certain topic, I think it’s not enough to call it saturated yet. Not even close if you ask me.

I always classify bloggers into three. There are those who we call professional bloggers, the medium caps bloggers and the average bloggers. Pro bloggers are those who are considered the experts, the famous ones or simply “web celebrities”. Mid cap bloggers are the ones who I describe as bloggers who do things right but not as popular as probloggers are yet. And obviously average bloggers are the pollutants, they are the majority of what comprise the entire blogosphere.

Ok, I understand that pollutants is a bit of a harsh term but unfortunately, most people don’t realize that they just fall into this category. In this post I will give a list of 10 signs why you are just an average blogger. Without further ado, here they are.

1 .You don’t have a goal (and specific goals)

Goal Setting is a very important part of every business. And blogging is an internet business, so you need to set one as well. When I ask people what is their goal, their usual response is to make money. David Risley recently made a very good post on how people should get things done. In that post, he outlined that most people just put a long haul general goal and the problem is that almost all of the times, it’s not attained.

Setting goals, targeting specific tasks and outlining subtasks are important for online success so make sure you’re not neglecting this one.

2. You don’t build a list

I used to think that list building was for spammers only. But as I’ve observed how famous people use list to their advantage, I realized that it’s really a must-have for all serious bloggers. My blog has been up for 2+ years and its just last year that I started building a customer’s list.

Remember each and every of your readers is your potential customers. They build your business for you and it’s really imperative to collect them.

3. You think of making money too much

Most bloggers get into this mistake. They start a blog then put some content, market it a bit and then go full force into making money. Most of the times they do it by plastering ads to their site or by simply switching from giving good value to their readers by having the obvious intention of making money.

Listen, do you really just want to waste all the effort you exerted by forcing your monetization tactic? It’s hard to build a loyal base of audience and once they start clicking that unsubscribe button, it’s gonna be hard for you to make them come back.

4. You have a crappy design

The problem with this is that usually people really don’t realize their blog design sucks! Just because you think it’s cool it doesn’t mean it’s great in the eyes of the majority as well. The thing is you really need to follow the majority. If they think it sucks, then ditch it!

One of my tips is to actually just make use of forum review sites. Most people think its sole purpose is for quick traffic but the use of it is still to provide reviews. Most forum lurkers are pretty straightforward so you’re going to expect some great suggestions there. People always say content is king, but isn’t it that design is part of the content?

5. You don’t utilize social media

Social Media represents Web 2.0. I’ve seen some bloggers who skyrocketed their profiles in their blogs by just maximizing its use of social media. If you’re new to social media then please consider taking some time on reading about it, understanding it more.

When I was in my early stages I even studied how each of the social sites work, built relationship with reputed people and just invested an ample part of my time. If you’re not into social media as one of the tactics in your blog then you’re missing out a lot.

6. You think blog commenting is the best marketing tactic

Blog commenting is cool especially if you just started a new blog. It’s a pretty great way to say “hey I exist!” But one thing I see most bloggers do is use it as their no.1 marketing ploy. Sure there’s nothing wrong in commenting but just doing that will bring you nowhere!

Consider who’s going to gain more traction between the two. The first blogger comments on 150 blogs everyday while the second blogger do guest posts at least thrice a week. Who’s going to get more traffic and readers at the end of one week? You judge!

7. You don’t do Guest Postings

Reading the previous one, it’s obvious that we’re going to head into this topic. Guest Posting is probably the quickest way to spit your brand out there and get noticed in a very wide scale of audience. I bet all of you guys reading this article know it but I doubt you put this into work.

Writing guest articles is not just doing it three times, four times or eight times. Man, you have to do it in bulks! You can easily notice as well that even popular bloggers do guest posting. That’s because of the unending search for a new audience that would turn into a loyal customer. Guest Posting is probably the most cost-conscious method that you can use to drive great traffic to your blog.

8. You spread yourself too thin

This is the common mistake that most bloggers make. They believe they already know the recipe for success and as a result, they create multiple blogs. In order for anyone to be successful in blogging, it takes a lot of hard work and dedication. In short, you need to spend a considerable amount of time in your blog to make good progress. Don’t fall for this common mistake, don’t spread yourself thin.

9. You mass market your blog

There is nothing anything worse than seeing someone create a thread in popular forums only to say “hey check out my blog, its cool”. Or going to a high traffic social site like BlogCatalog only to spam your link out there. This is another crucial mistake that most bloggers are still doing! They think that by letting as much people as possible see their blog, they’re going to convert well.

It’s really a huge mistake not only because you get to annoy people there who cause them not to even look at your site, but more importantly you’re most likely targeting the wrong demographics. Remember, quality is more important than quantity.

10. Your content doesn’t make sense

OK, assuming everything is in line now. You now have that good design, have done a ton of really great guest posts, have an awesome list, you focus only on one blog and stuffs. In the end it all boils down to this last point, writing good content.

This has been rehashed probably a million times already but obviously everything that you’ve done is useless if you don’t write good content. Just imagine, you managed to guest post on several authority blogs, people love what you wrote and as a result they are clicking to your link. What if what they saw in your site is post about your cat? Or how ugly is your enemy? Or how you loathe you Math teacher?

In the end it all goes to waste. You see, it’s really a tough pill to swallow isn’t it? How do you write good content then? By sticking to your niche. I discuss a lot how professional blogging isn’t about having perfect grammar, superb fluency and being boring. And writing good content doesn’t have to be like that. As long as you think you’re connecting well with your readers, you’re fulfilling their needs; you’re doing your job.

Conclusion

So to end this one, I would leave it all to you. If you have been blogging and you think you’re exerting some effort and still not growing, then maybe it’s time to re-evaluate, time to jot down notes on things that you are working hard with, yet are not producing good results for you. Remember those average bloggers never evaluate things. Just by doing your job now will put you way ahead of most bloggers.