7 Personal Habits of Every Aspiring CEO

Being a CEO is an incredibly lonely experience.

You're constantly under pressure and unsure about whom you can trust, which leads to wasted time and riding a roller coaster of uncertainty. Battling a never-ending list of expectations, you can make this struggle worse by neglecting your health and the people important to you.

It doesn't have to be this way.

It wasn't until I stepped down from Contour that I realized my workaholic drive was destroying my body, my mind, and my personal life. Working six days a week, I spent my twenties stuck behind a laptop. Now, in vowing not to repeat the same mistakes, I'm making sure these seven habits are a part of my day.

1. Exercise daily

Having been a athlete, you can say that being a CEO is significantly more strenuous. It isn't confined to a two-hour practice or 90-minute game. There's an expectation that you always have to be positive, energetic, and decisive, which drains every ounce of your energy. Think of exercising as one of the most important meetings you have, everyday. Don't skip it, and don't make excuses.

2. Take a break
Taking a full weekend off is not a vacation. The pile of work never goes away, and not only does your team need you mentally rested, they need to learn how to execute without you. To break a hub-and-spoke culture, take a multi-week vacation to validate how strong or weak your leadership really is. If the company crumbles without you, take that as a warning sign — and a sign of a problem you may have created without even realizing it.

3. Get a weekly massage
Everyone carries stress in different ways, but a weekly massage can help relieve that tension. If your company doesn't have medical insurance, you might join places like Massage Envy, which have multiple locations and offer fairly affordable massages. Think of it as part of the expense of running a company. It's well worth it.

4. Listen
For a long time, I was a lousy listener. My version of listening was taking the whiteboard pen and sharing my perspective. The discussion made me feel good, but it didn't encourage the people around me to think for themselves. Being a great listener takes patience and a commitment to being open. It also teaches you that you don't have all the answers, so you'll find your level of stress will diminish as you realize the people you've hired do have great solutions to your company's hardest problems.

5. Prioritize people
Relationships matter. Whether they are business connections, friendships, or family, they'll be the only thing left when you're done with the company, so don't expect them to wait around while you prioritize work: Interrupting dinner with just one more phone call. Skipping a friend's birthday for a surprise business trip. Missing time with your kids because you had to take your client out for dinner. These actions speak louder than words.

6. Talk to someone
Every CEO needs a trusted confidant. Even if that's not your significant other you can hire a coach, therapist, or a consultant who can help. Pick someone you trust, who is a fantastic listener, and is experienced at helping people understand emotions. Running a company comes with a huge amount of personal conflicts you don't even recognize until you begin sharing. The process gets easier with time, but make sure you confide in someone outside of your company. Otherwise, it could lead to a loss of confidence in your leadership. It's okay to admit you have no idea what you are doing. Just find the right person to share it with.

7. Get some rest

As a rule, you should pride yourself on the hours you've slept, not the hours you've missed. There are dozens of research articles on mental performance and a lack of sleep, but here's the bottom line: As an entrepreneur, you are thinking about hard, stressful problems all day. You need more sleep than the average person, not less.

You Can Be Wrong As A Manager Even If You're Right All The Time

Being a manager doesn't mean you have to be right all the time. 

"I can articulate and debate a viewpoint from many angles, and I found that I could be technically right and force somebody into a viewpoint," says Jed Yueh, chief executive of Delphix, a software company that streamlines data management, in an interview with The New York Times. "But then they would slowly spiral into a place where they’re not really working hard because they feel demoralized. So I lost wars by winning battles."

Yueh says that one of the biggest management mistakes he's ever committed is not being able to manage himself. Managers need to think about the bigger picture and focus on big-picture wins. If you're set on being right and not truly listening to your subordinates, at the end of the day, you lose even if you are technically right.

"Managers can either increase or decrease motivation for their teams. They can either increase or decrease clarity for their teams," Yueh says. "They can either build cultures that are highly collaborative and capable of solving problems quickly, or they can create cultures where you have a lot of paralysis, and it’s very difficult to make decisions."

What Nokia's Collapse Teaches Us About Brand Building?

This week Nokia collapsed into the arms of Microsoft, selling its critical handset division to the software giant.

Nokia’s decline was stunning. The stock traded at over $40 per share in 2007. It now trades at about $5. It once had a market share of over 30%. It now has less than 4%.

This is partly a story about technology and defensive strategy; Nokia failed to respond effectively to changing technology and competitive attacks.

It is also a story about branding.

Nokia tried to play in all segments of the market. The company sold cheap, basic cellular phones and advanced high-end smart phones under the same brand. This approach worked well for a while. Eventually, however, the Nokia name lost meaning. What does the Nokia brand stand for? What does the brand mean? It isn’t clear.

In a competitive market, brands have to stand for something. Being a nice brand that people like isn’t enough.

Many technology companies fall into the same trap; they use the same brand to serve everyone. This is one reason these firms tend to come and go. Technology changes over time. Brands endure. Firms that rely on technology alone often struggle to hold customers over time.

You need to build a brand that people care about. These are the brands that are unique and have meaning.

Why Talented People Under-perform? And How To Stop It?

One of the most frustrating things for a manager or small-business owner is to see a smart, talented employee under-performing.

Often, this happens because people faced with tough challenges tend to revert to a primitive mindset, which bestselling author Christine Comaford calls "the critter state." They react to problems by fighting, running, or freezing, rather than intelligently responding.

They become scared or uncertain and use just a fraction of their brains and abilities as they regress to the low-risk, uncreative behavior they see as "safe." 

Comaford, author of the recently released book "Smart Tribes," has made a career using neuroscience to help people and businesses change such self-destructive behavior.

She shared a few essential tips from the latest neuroscience research and her own years of working with companies on how to motivate employees to work harder, smarter, and with greater purpose. 

Ask questions instead of making statements.

"Most leaders give orders all of the time, and then they complain that they have a culture of order-takers," Comaford says. "Well, they created that."

When leaders are asked a question, their impulse is to give an immediate answer. That trains employees to constantly ask questions instead of trying to solve problems and find solutions. 

Instead of just answering a question, she suggests asking employees what they would try, who could be looped in, and what could go right or wrong. That puts their brains into problem-solving mode rather than a state in which they're more inclined to freeze or fight back, or ignore the problem entirely. 

Be extremely clear. Don't leave people to "figure it out."

It's extremely easy to think that employees know everything that you know, and that they can figure out what you want. Often, that's not the case. Uncertainty leads people to waste time, get nervous, and revert to that critter state, says Comaford.

The more detail you put into a request, the better. Say exactly what you want — in which format, on what terms, and by when — instead of being vague. 

Make accountability central to your culture.

"The problem with accountability is two-fold," Comaford says. Oftentimes, businesses don't have clear structures. People may not know exactly what they're accountable for or the consequences of underperforming.

There's nothing more important in business than having employees do what they say they're going to do. When someone doesn't follow through, always find out why, Comaford advises.   

The first time they drop the ball, if there's no personal issue, figure out additional structure to make sure it doesn't happen again. In practice, this may mean additional check-ins or status reports at specific times every week. If it happens a second time, ask if you've put too much on their plate, and work to reduce the number of low-value tasks they spend time on, Comaford suggests. 

Consequences don't need to be adversarial, but they do need to be there if you want behavior to change.

Use these three phrases to knock employees out of a critter state.

There are three things you can say to an employee that can help you influence them in the right direction.

The first: "What if?" Says Comaford, "When we preface an idea or a suggestion with 'what if,' we remove ego, and we reduce emotion." Rather than stating a position, invite people to engage by throwing a few ideas out there and letting them respond to and build on them. 

Using "what if" is like "a leader throwing a beach ball into the middle of a concert. The people will bounce the beach ball around and make it their own," Comaford says. "We're throwing that beach ball out there and enabling people to brainstorm more easily."

The second phrase? "I need your help." That invites an employee to temporarily swap roles with their boss, to think like a leader, and step up, often to a level they may not have thought themselves capable of.

The last one is, "Would it be helpful if ..." Success breeds bigger expectations, which can be terrifying for people. By taking the focus away from an intimidating task and focusing on solutions, people start to move forward.

Microsoft Bought Nokia - Because Nokia Was Going To Stop Making Windows Phones - Analysts

In Sep, ie. this month 2013,  Microsoft bought the smartphone division of Nokia for ~$7 billion.

Nokia will present the deal to is shareholders in November, and both companies expect the transaction to close in the first quarter of 2014.

So, why did Microsoft do this deal?

Two analysts, Ben Thompson of Stratechary and Benedict Evans, assume that Microsoft had to buy Nokia because Nokia was going to stop making Windows Phones very soon.

Thompson writes:

I have argued that Stephen Elop made a massive strategic error by choosing Windows Phone over Android; coming from Microsoft, he failed to appreciate that Nokia’s differentiation lay not in software, but in everything else in the value chain. It would have been to Nokia’s benefit to have everyone running Android, including themselves. Everyone would have the same OS, the same apps, may the best industrial design, distribution, and supply chain win.

Elop threw it all away.

Today no one cares about Nokia’s industrial design, distribution, or supply chain, because their devices lack an app ecosystem, the price of entry into smartphones. Perhaps even now, Nokia was considering going to Android, or maybe even going out of business.

And thus I believe we’ve arrived at the rationale for this deal.

I theorize that Nokia was either going to switch to Android or was on the verge of going bankrupt. (I suspect the latter: part of the deal included €1.5 billion in financing available to Nokia immediately, and the fact Microsoft had to take Asha but not the brand or maps suggests they were trying to keep the price as low as possible). And, had Nokia abandoned Windows Phone, then Windows Phone would be dead.

Windows Phone has already been largely abandoned by other OEMs; Samsung and HTC make warmed-over versions of 6-month old Android hardware, and that’s really about it. Of course that will now stop, Microsoft’s protestations to the contrary, but regardless, without Nokia it would be over.

And so, I would argue that this deal is not unlike the Motorola one, where I believe Google had its hand forced by Motorola’s threat to sue other Android OEM’s for all they were worth.1 Microsoft felt they didn’t have a choice.

Evans says:

"It’s been very clear that for some time that Windows Phone was not working. It isn’t failing, exactly - sales are drifting slowly upwards and it’s ahead of Blackberry in some markets (as though that was an achievement), but it sold 20-25m units in the last 12 months where Android sold 430m or so (and perhaps another 150m in China) and the iPhone 143m. It’s irrelevant in the scope of the industry, and for Microsoft that counts as failure. For Nokia, meanwhile, simple finance was an issue: Microsoft’s announcement says that operating break-even is 50m units, a long way off at current growth rates. So, something had to change…

…the acquisition solves Nokia’s problem (running out of cash) and hence is a tactical move by Microsoft: it prevents the only significant Windows Phone OEM from exiting the market. It is possible that Nokia threatened to switch to Android otherwise (the relevant contracts are getting close to renewal), rather as Motorola threatened to sue other Android OEMs before Google bought it."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/analysts-microsoft-bought-nokia-because-nokia-was-going-to-stop-making-windows-phones-2013-9#ixzz2eCGq4aFG

Un-employment, More and more Pink Slips, Sackings and expected job loses going to touch 5,00,000 in India in 2013 -14. Is it not a local crisis creation?

Story by India Today:

Pradeep Chatterjee (name changed), 32, a senior correspondent with a media company in Mumbai, had everything going for him-a job he liked, a decent salary, and a new two-bedroom flat in Borivali overlooking the school where his eight-year-old son studied. But earlier this month, there were rumours that his firm was laying off at least 300 people, including several in the online team he worked with. On August 23, Chatterjee's worst fears came true. The HR head handed him and 44 of his colleagues the pink slip, along with two months' salary. As Chatterjee got into a final emotional huddle with his other 'sacked' colleagues, he could no longer hold back the tears. "I wouldn't have felt so devastated had I been thrown out for poor performance," he said.

Chatterjee is just one among hundreds of media professionals who have lost their jobs over the last two months, and joins thousands across various sectors such as automobiles, infrastructure, banking, and engineering as India nosedives into a dangerous vortex of economic malaise. The proportion of Indian workers gainfully employed slipped to 35.4 per cent in 2011-12, compared to 36.5 per cent in 2009-10, the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) said in June. This is a sizeable fall from an employment rate of 42 per cent in 2004-05, when the UPA government came to power for the first time.

Consultants say that if things keep moving in the direction they are, job losses across the country would touch 500,000 in 2013-14, similar to the levels at the time of the financial meltdown in 2008-09. India has lost five million jobs overall in the fiveyear period 2005-2010, the Planning Commission said in March this year, while only 2.76 million jobs were added. A hiring outlook survey by Naukri.com in July revealed a muted hiring sentiment for the remaining half of 2013 compared to what it was at the beginning of the year, with only 43 per cent of recruiters forecasting new job creation in the year's second half. "The economy is certainly not in the best of shape," says Ambarish Raghuvanshi, CFO, Naukri.com, part of Info Edge India.

"The hiring confidence can't overlook these parameters and hence reflects the slowdown." The Manpower Employment Outlook Survey for the third quarter (July-September) for 2013 said employers in India reported the weakest hiring outlook in eight years in the Asia-Pacific region. An estimated 4.5 million enter the Indian job market every year-750,000 engineers, 500,000 MBAs and at least three million other graduates.

"Given an evident slowdown in manufacturing and exports, the employment outlook by companies certainly looks weak,"  says Naina Lal Kidwai, president, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), and country head, HSBC India. "FICCI's Business Confidence Survey for the last quarter of financial year 2013 has reported bleak employment prospects vis-a-vis a year ago. A majority 65 per cent of the participants indicated no fresh hiring over the first two quarters of fiscal year (FY) 2013-14," she adds.

The situation seems worse off than 2008, when Indian companies were relatively unaffected and proceeded with expansions and overseas acquisitions. "The mood is unlikely to change, till the global and local macro economic issues play out," says Sonal Agrawal, CEO of Accord Group India, an executive search firm. "The 2008 slowdown was a global phenomenon, with its roots in the US. But Western economies are now reviving," adds E. Balaji, an HR expert and former CEO of manpower consultancy Randstad India.

That means the current crisis is a local creation in which India can hardly blame anyone else.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/job-crunch-hits-indian-markets-will-you-be-fired-next/1/304653.html

Message to Youth from the India's Youngest CEO - Sindhuja Rajamaran

Meet 17-year-old, Sindhuja Rajamaran, who became the youngest CEO, of a Chennai-based animation company called Seppan, at the age of 14 in India.

When girls of her age would go to school, study at home and spend time on social networking sites, she would be seen working from 9am to 6pm, busy taking meetings with colleagues, taking tough decisions to raise the profitability of her company.

Sindhuja was in Lucknow on Monday as a panelist at the All India Management Association convention to shape the young minds. When the girl-next-door look arrived at the Scientific Convention Centre -- the venue for the programme -- there were not many to receive her.

It was after sometime that the organizers recognized her and ushered her inside the auditorium where she was the main speaker for the final session. And when the moderator introduced her, people were surprised.

Her advice to youngsters was simple and precise: Keep the hunger of growing and pursue your dream with sincerity.

Sindhuja's journey from an ordinary school girl to the CEO of a company, that makes commercials for other companies, started at the age of 10. Her father Rajamaran, an avid animator and cartoonist, taught her animation when she was 10. Today there are five people -- all men in their early 20s -- in the company.

She has made it clear that she is not like a typical boss. “It is more of a team and I’m just a facilitator only giving the right direction to the company so that it scales new height. I’m happy all the men in the company have accepted me and it is a good young team to work with,” she said sporting a big smile.

Now it is her dream to become a successful entrepreneur and provide employment to the youth of the country.

“The education system has several flaws as it does not make youngsters employable. There is a big gap between educated youth and unemployment in the country which needs to be bridged, she said.

When asked how it feels like snatching the title of youngest CEO from another South Indian prodigy Suhas Gopinath, she says, “I had a chance of meeting him at a function in Madurai and he was very happy and also advised me how to run my company.”

By the time she was through, Sindhuja Rajamaran had indeed shaped several young minds in the audience as most of them said they too would like to employ rather than get employed.

Is Apple trying to be better than Samsung or to survive with 6 inch iPhone ?

New York: Tech messiah Steve Jobs was sure that bigger isn’t always better. Married to the Apple founder’s eye for grace and style, Apple’s design aesthetic has been hesitant to embrace very large screen sizes. But all that could change dramatically. 
As Apple prepares to unveil both a new high-end iPhone and a cheaper version for the first time on September 10 at its headquarters in Cupertino, it is already working on something bigger, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. 

Apple has begun evaluating a plan to offer iPhones with screens ranging from 4.8 inches to as high as 6 inches, the Journal said citing sources. That would be a sizable leap from the 4-inch screen of the iPhone 5 released last year, and, at the upper end, would be one of the largest in market. Getty Images Consumers were wowed at first by the black, spare seduction of the iPhone and Apple stuck with the same 3.5-inch display on the first five generations of the iPhone. It only made the jump to a 4-inch display with the iPhone 5 last year. 

To prevent fragmentation, along the way the resolution changed three times, forcing developers to update old software and design for multiple screen types. A move to a larger display with a similar pixel density would likely bring another such change. Will Apple follow the market, or set the bar for it? Clearly, Apple is now testing larger screens for its smart phones and tablets as it attempts to answer intense competition from Korean rival Samsung. 

A report from the Journal in July said Apple asked suppliers for screen designs for a new tablet measuring slightly less than 13 inches. That followed a similar report from Reuters in June that claimed the company was working on both a 4.7-inch and 5.7-inch screen for its iPhone. Samsung and Apple generated $5.2 billion and $4.6 billion, respectively, in handset profits in the second quarter, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. Despite rising unit sales for each of the top smart phone companies, 

Apple’s share of worldwide sales fell to 14 percent in the second quarter from 19 percent the same time a year prior. Over the same period, Samsung’s share rose to 32 percent from 30 percent, according to market research firm Gartner. Samsung has taken a leap in smart phone market share in part by offering an array of devices at different prices and sizes. On Wednesday, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 3, and it’s a beast of a smart phone in every regard with a 5.7-inch screen, which places the device in a category of hybrid phone-tablets. Samsung and other competitors have been hugely successful in releasing numerous products in different sizes and prices in order to cater to a broad swath of customers, particularly in India and China. Samsung has released more than half a dozen smart phones around the globe so far this year. The news about Apple testing large screens comes just days before the company’s well telegraphed September 10 event which is expected to unveil two new models — the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C. Supply chain sources told Reuters that Apple is expected to launch the 5S with new fingerprint technology and the lower cost 5C in a plastic casing. Apple plans to dress up the 5C model in a range of five or six colors, if multiple leaks are correct. The screen sizes of the two iPhones that Apple is unveiling next Tuesday aren’t expected to change, according to the Journal.

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/tech/is-apple-trying-to-take-on-samsung-with-a-6-inch-iphone-1089031.html?utm_source=ref_article

The new face of mobile marketing on chat messengers

In its initial stages, viral marketing was restricted to internet and social media. The cap placed by TRAI on the number of messages that can be sent has led to the growth in demand for chat messengers for mobile. This in turn has seen rising interest in chat applications by viral marketing teams. Nevertheless, the initial players – WhatsApp and BBM – have not seen too much enthusiasm from marketers.

Applications such as WeChat and Line are changing the game drastically by creating tools of convenience for marketers.

Internationally, a number of small and large brands have been leveraging chat applications to reach out to their TG from yet another touch point.

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For instance, a well-known chain of coffee shops in Israel recently executed a marketing campaign using WhatsApp. The campaign was to hunt for the most popular chat group on the messenger. To participate, users had to sign up through a mobile site and enter their WhatsApp group. Campaign analytics would then check for the group’s funny levels, among other things. There was also a fictional character, a café waitress, who created engagement among the groups and users. According to the brand, around 2,500 groups entered the contest.

Despite being under intense scrutiny in China, brands have been using WeChat among other messengers. Nike recently launched its ‘We Own the Night’ campaign on WeChat. The campaign was initially launched on Facebook and on its official site and offered participants an opportunity to gather in group runs and basketball or football games at night. On WeChat, the campaign received the perfect mobile extension and engagement.

While Indian marketers might not have been as outgoing with messengers, certain initiatives are seen in small pockets. A leading brand ran a Twitter contest, wherein users were urged to share the name of their chat gangs and the quirkiest name would win goodies.

This apart, Twitter recently had #WhatsAppTalks trending, which was leveraged by a number of brands, including Comedy Central and Mad Over Doughnuts.

The growing fervour regarding chatting messengers offers a huge potential for marketers. While privacy issues of these messengers are a constant concern, brands can always look at leveraging the space in a model where no private information is required to be shared on the applications. If used in an integrated and permission-based manner, campaigns on such formats will see growing traction.

Is mobile becoming the future of retail sales?

Smartphone and tablet-based transactions are rapidly emerging as the dominant source of online sales for a diverse range of Australian retailers, and are on track to potentially overtake face-to-face and PC-based sales.

According to Ticketek's head of product Greg Fahy, the ticket retailer has invested heavily in its app development team in the last two and a half years based on increasing consumer demand for mobile-based ticket sales.

"Mobile is huge for us," he said. "For our online traffic, just over 30 percent are on mobile devices and for some of our content — One Direction or Justin Bieber — 45 percent of our tickets would sell on mobile, so it is a really important area of growth for us in the coming years."

In light of this, the company has launched a new app on the Windows Phone operating system. Along with an e-commerce and e-ticket facility, the app provides location-based event recommendations as well as event recommendations based on past ticket-buying behaviour.

Ben Austin, senior product manager at CarSales.com.au, said the company's focus is quickly shifting from online web portals to dedicated mobile-based apps.

"We have really seen in the past 12 months a huge explosion of traffic," he said. "We have basically looked at a doubling of app traffic in the past year, and about a quarter of users are coming from a mobile environment."

The company has also launched a new app for the Windows Phone environment, aimed at capturing more mobile users. Among a range of car search and sales features, the app features video content and a dynamic image serving feature powered by Microsoft's Azure cloud service.

Pizza Hut's marketing manager Brad Richter said that in Australia, 50 percent of all searches for pizzas are now done on a smartphone or tablet device.

"Over the last five years, digital has come on in leaps and bounds. It delivers a higher ticket price for us — more revenue for our business — and our conversion rates are stronger when we are using digital channels, especially mobile applications as opposed to just the desktop.

"[Mobile] also enables more loyalty and engagement with the consumer, because they have to download your application onto their device to engage with your brand and transact their purchase."

Tim Lohman travelled to TechEd 2013 as a guest of Microsoft.

Is mobile becoming the future of retail sales?

Smartphone and tablet-based transactions are rapidly emerging as the dominant source of online sales for a diverse range of Australian retailers, and are on track to potentially overtake face-to-face and PC-based sales.

According to Ticketek's head of product Greg Fahy, the ticket retailer has invested heavily in its app development team in the last two and a half years based on increasing consumer demand for mobile-based ticket sales.

"Mobile is huge for us," he said. "For our online traffic, just over 30 percent are on mobile devices and for some of our content — One Direction or Justin Bieber — 45 percent of our tickets would sell on mobile, so it is a really important area of growth for us in the coming years."

In light of this, the company has launched a new app on the Windows Phone operating system. Along with an e-commerce and e-ticket facility, the app provides location-based event recommendations as well as event recommendations based on past ticket-buying behaviour.

Ben Austin, senior product manager at CarSales.com.au, said the company's focus is quickly shifting from online web portals to dedicated mobile-based apps.

"We have really seen in the past 12 months a huge explosion of traffic," he said. "We have basically looked at a doubling of app traffic in the past year, and about a quarter of users are coming from a mobile environment."

The company has also launched a new app for the Windows Phone environment, aimed at capturing more mobile users. Among a range of car search and sales features, the app features video content and a dynamic image serving feature powered by Microsoft's Azure cloud service.

Pizza Hut's marketing manager Brad Richter said that in Australia, 50 percent of all searches for pizzas are now done on a smartphone or tablet device.

"Over the last five years, digital has come on in leaps and bounds. It delivers a higher ticket price for us — more revenue for our business — and our conversion rates are stronger when we are using digital channels, especially mobile applications as opposed to just the desktop.

"[Mobile] also enables more loyalty and engagement with the consumer, because they have to download your application onto their device to engage with your brand and transact their purchase."

Tim Lohman travelled to TechEd 2013 as a guest of Microsoft.

Yahoo unveils new logo

Sales Professional: Yahoo unveils new logo

Yahoo beats Google in US web traffic

Sales Professional: Yahoo beats Google in US web traffic

Yahoo beats Google in US web traffic

Yahoo has topped the com-score's monthly US web rankings in terms of 196.5 million unique U.S. visitors for the month of July, beating out long-time rival Google.

The new data released by Yahoo, without incorporating Tumblr's figures, has revealed that the company has beaten Google to become the most visited website in the U.S. in July, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

According to the report, this is the first time Yahoo has come over the search giant Google since April 2011.

Yahoo sites have beaten the rival company with a marked difference of 4.5 million by reportedly having 196.5 million unique U.S. visitors in July as compared to Google's 192 million.

The data also showed that Yahoo! sites were seen by 87% of the 225 million American internet users in July, the report added.

Meanwhile, Google continues to dominate in search engine with 67% of that market captured in June.

Microsoft's search engine, Bing, was ranked second with 17% of search engine traffic in the U.S.

And Yahoo! came in third with 12% search engine users in U.S.

Marissa Mayer, a former Google executive, who was appointed the president and CEO of Yahoo! in July last year, had made sweeping changes at the internet giant.

Yahoo unveils new logo

Yahoo has adopted a new logo for the first time since shortly after the Internet company's founding 18 years ago.

The logo was shown both with purple letters and in white with a purple background spelling out the word Yahoo!, with no letters touching and ending with an exclamation point.

The redesigned look unveiled late Wednesday is part of a makeover that Yahoo Inc. has been undergoing since the Sunnyvale, Calif., company hired Google executive Marissa Mayer to become Yahoo's CEO 14 months ago.

Mayer has already spruced up Yahoo's front page, email and Flickr photo-sharing service, as well asengineered a series of acquisitions aimed at attracting more traffic on mobile devices.

The shopping spree has been highlighted by Yahoo's $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr, an Internet blogging service where the company rolled out its new logo.

"We wanted a logo that stayed true to our roots (whimsical, purple, with an exclamation point) yet embraced the evolution of our products," a statement on the website said.

In an effort to drum up more interest in the changeover, Yahoo spent the past 30 days showing some of the proposed logos that Mayer and other executives cast aside.

The revision is the first time that Yahoo has made a significant change to its logo since a few tweaks shortly after co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo incorporated the company in 1995.

Mayer's overhaul of Yahoo has attracted a lot of attention, but so far it hasn't provided a significant lift to the company's revenue. Yahoo depends on Internet advertising to make most of its money, an area where the company's growth has been anemic while more marketing dollars flow to rivals such as Google Inc. and Facebook Inc.

Yahoo's stock has climbed by nearly 80 per cent, but most of that gain has been driven by the company's 24 per cent stake in China's Alibaba Holdings Group. Investors prize Alibaba because it has emerged as one of the fastest growing companies on the Internet.

PULL Vs PUSH DIGITAL MARKETING

Digital marketing is marketing that makes use of electronic devices such as computers, tablets, smartphones, cellphones, digital billboards, and game consoles to engage with consumers and other business partners. Internet Marketing is a major component of digital marketing.

Digital marketing is a marketing process which leads to the development of any organization or brand by using a variety of digital channels such as email, social networks etc.
Digital Marketing can be defined as promoting of brands or products and services using all forms of digital advertising. Digital marketing uses Television, Radio, Internet, mobile and any form of digital media to reach customers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner.
Apart from using many of the techniques and practices contained within the category of Internet Marketing, digital marketing extends beyond this by including other channels that do not require the use of the Internet. Due to non-dependence on the Internet, the field of digital marketing includes a whole lot of elements such as mobile phones or cell phones, display / banner ads, sms /mms, digital outdoor, and many more.
Digital marketing is now[when?] being enlarged in vast areas to support the "servicing" and "engagement" of customers.

PULL DIGITAL MARKETING
In pull digital marketing, the consumer actively seeks the marketing content, often via web searches or opening an email, text message or web feed. Websites, blogs and streaming media (audio and video) are examples of pull digital marketing. In each of these, users have to navigate to the website to view the content. Only current web browser technology is required to maintain static content. Search engine optimization is one tactic used to increase activity. Martin et al. (2003) found that consumers prefer special sales and new product information, whereas "interesting" content was not useful.

PUSH DIGITAL MARKETING
In push digital marketing the marketer sends a message without the consent of the recipients, such as display advertising on websites and news blogs. Email, text messaging and web feeds can also be classed as push digital marketing when the recipient has not given permission to receive the marketing message. Push marketing is also known as spam. Push technologies can deliver content as it becomes available and can be better targeted to consumer demographics, although audiences are often smaller, and creation and distribution costs are higher.

Marketing - Key Concepts - Promotional Contents - Promotional Media

Marketing 

Key concepts

Product marketing 
Pricing 
Distribution 
Service 
Retail 
Brand management 
Account-based marketing 
Ethics 
Effectiveness 
Research 
Segmentation 
Strategy 
Activation 
Management 
Dominance 
Marketing operations 
Social marketing 
Identity

Promotional contents

Advertising 
Branding 
Underwriting spot 
Direct marketing 
Personal sales 
Product placement 
Publicity 
Sales promotion 
Sex in advertising 
Loyalty marketing 
Mobile marketing 
Premiums 
Prizes 
Corporate anniversary 
On Hold Messaging

Promotional media

Printing 
Publication 
Broadcasting 
Out-of-home advertising 
Internet  
Point of sale 
Merchandise 
Digital marketing 
In-game advertising 
Product demonstration 
Word-of-mouth 
Brand ambassador 
Drip marketing 
Visual merchandising

Digital Marketing - Internet Marketing

Digital marketing  Digital Marketing is making use of Electronic devices such as  computers,  tablets,  smartphones,  cellphones,  digital billboards and  game consoles   to engage with consumers and other business partners.  Internet Marketing is a major component of digital marketing Internet Marketing Search engine optimization Social media marketing Email marketing Referral marketing Content marketing Native advertising
Search engine marketing
Pay per click Cost per impression Search analytics Web analytics
Display advertising
Contextual advertising Behavioral targeting
Affiliate marketing
Cost per action Revenue sharing
Mobile advertising