Archive for the ‘national holiday’ tag
Closed for Canada Day
The Social Media Group Toronto office will be closed Monday July 2, 2012 for Canada Day or “Canada’s Birthday”.
For our non-Canadian readers, Canada Day is the national holiday to celebrate the anniversary of the Constitution Act, which united three colonies as a single country to be known as Canada.
We’re back in the office on Tuesday July 3, 2012.
Have a safe and happy long weekend and Happy Birthday Canada!
The Lumia 900 Becomes Amazon’s Best Selling Phone, Topping The RAZR MAXX And Galaxy Nexus
And we’re off! Even though the Nokia Lumia 900 launched yesterday and was largely unavailable thanks to the Easter Bunny, the phone quickly skyrocketed to the top of Amazon’s best sellers list. The phone hovered around the 5th spot yesterday but jumped to the first and second spot today with the black version preferred over the cyan edition. This puts the Nokia’s large Windows Phone over top of Android’s star players, the Droid RAZR MAXX and Galaxy Nexus.
Part of the instant popularity likely comes from Amazon’s price of $50 with a two-year service plan. That’s $50 less than AT&T’s price and $150 less than the previously most popular phone from Amazon, the Droid RAZR MAXX.
The other factor could be that for some reason AT&T and Nokia launched the phone in the US on Easter Sunday. Brian X. Chen of of the NYT’s Bits blog found most NYC-based AT&T stores and resellers were understandably closed, making the phone rather difficult to find in person. Launching a pivotal phone on a Sunday is strange but launching it on a major national holiday is downright idiotic.
Amazon has long been friendly to Windows Phone. Out of the top 100 best rated cell phones, the top three are slightly older Windows Phones with Verizon’s HTC Trophy occupying the top spot. Judging by the Lumia 900′s current high rating, Nokia’s Windows Phone could soon join the rest of the family on that list as well.
Happy American Boxing Day
In the U.S., we don’t have Boxing Day. In the U.S., the day after Christmas is, well, the day after Christmas. However, when Christmas is on Sunday, the federal holiday is Monday, the 26th. That means that today is an official national holiday and all the businesses are closed. Well, except for all the businesses that are open. And that means stores that want to sell you stuff with the gift-cards and cash that may have come your way in the past 24 hours.
Alas, today is what Boxing Day has become in the UK — a big shopping holiday. An unnamed black friday. A day to return stuff and exchange stuff and buy more stuff.
While I’m typically put-off by exhibitions of conspicuous consumption, I’ve decided to forego my judgmental attitude for this one-day only. We’ve got an economy to save, people. Get out there and buy. Indeed, if someone is between you and something you’d like to purchase, know that today, while it is not cool to use pepper spray, if I understand this UK holiday correctly, it is okay to clear a path with a swift left upper-cut.
Happy Boxing Day.
Shubh Diwali and digital lights
Diwali is a national holiday in many countries around the world. It is a celebration of light and family.
The digital connections we’re now making are a different sort of a light and create a different sort of family. Knowing who is out there, what they need and what they can offer inevitably makes the world smaller, safer and more productive.
On a commercial level, when you know who your customers are, you can stop propositioning strangers and get down to the serious work of satisfying the needs and wants of those you know. A light goes on and you are no longer stumbling in the dark.
The digital light also transforms medicine. Alert readers have heard about the push to swab, to light up the truth of your DNA by swabbing your cheek and registering for a database. Painless and fast. Not merely on behalf of one person, but for everyone.
Bone marrow transplants are misnamed–they should be called bone marrow transfusions, because most of the time, that’s exactly what they are. No organs, no surgery, little discomfort. The most difficult part is registering, the shedding of light, sharing information about yourself.
It’s hard for me to remember how disconnected the world was 25 years ago when I started out on my own. It really was a dark ages–information, people, relationships–finding just about anything was most of the work. The world is lighting up, and just in time.
Happy Diwali.