Thanks to everyone who participated in the first Marketing Test Kitchen initiative: “Add to Apps" button. Overall, it was a huge success. The number of vendors using “Add to Apps” buttons grew significantly, causing a large increase in installs driven by button traffic. Before kicking off the second Apps Ecosystem Marketing Test Kitchen initiative, we want to recognize the winners of the first one.

Congratulations to the 6 winners, who will get additional exposure on the featured and notable section of the Marketplace front page:
Outright, Producteev, Insync, Mavenlink, Zoho and Manymoon

Established vendors such as Manymoon and Zoho improved performance of existing buttons and newer folks like Outright and Producteev added buttons to capture new business. If you didn’t get your button up for last week’s contest, that doesnt mean you shouldn’t do it now! Adding a button helps improve your overall performance in the Marketplace and will prepare you for future initiatives.

Now let’s take a look at the next Marketing Test Kitchen...

The Next Challenge:
Publish your most compelling customer success stories by Thursday, Dec 2nd on your own blog and share it with us at marketing-test-kitchen@google.com. We will feature a few of the top stories on the Google Enterprise Blog (see examples here and here) and also rotate the winning vendors into the featured and notable sections on the Marketplace front page. Note we will feature every submission in the Marketplace Success Stories blog, so just by submitting a story you will end up on the front page of the Marketplace.

It’s easy to participate: Find a compelling customer, tell their story, publish it on your blog, share it with us, and track your performance.

What makes a compelling customer?
It is important to find a customer that demonstrates the value of your integrated features with Google Apps. Make sure that your customer gives explicit approval for using their story. Here are some qualities of a compelling customer.

• Highlights the value of your app: For example, their use of your app in conjunction with various other web apps, such as other Marketplace apps.
• Hard data to support success: Numbers that justify strong gains are important, ie: 50% productivity gains, 10% increase in revenue, 20% reduction in IT costs.
• Passionate about Google Apps and the cloud: A genuinely passionate customer can explain the advantages of a cloud-based business and more easily help prospects understand and transition.

How can I make it easily consumable?
You can use the standard template from the developer site or find a more creative way to deliver it. You can create your own format that tells the story of the customer’s success. Here are some ideas to go beyond a typical blog post:

• Be visual: Use tools such as Picnik and Aviary to tell your story with compelling visuals (or choose another creative tool).
• Organize your presentation: You can use Google Presentations or SlideRocket to succinctly tell your story.
• Use video: Shoot or animate a video of your customer telling their Apps Marketplace story.
• Be creative: Combine the above ideas, write a story, or come up with something totally different.

To get a feel for different tones and stories, read some customer stories from various vendors on the Marketplace Success Stories blog. Also check out this example of a strong customer story that uses many of the above elements.



It’s easy to be a part of this new Marketing Test Kitchen. Just find a compelling customer, use a clever way to tell their story, publish it to your blog and share it by email. If you need more time, email us with your ideas as well! Make sure to track the performance of your blog post (and all other marketing efforts) through Google Analytics, learn how to code links and track traffic on the developer site.

Come up with the next Marketing Test Kitchen: Submit your idea via Buzz or email. We’ll evaluate the ideas and use the best ones for future initiatives. If we choose your initiative, we’ll give you a special prize.

Posted by Harrison Shih, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Google Apps Marketplace

http://www.gizmodo.com

We took apart the next iPhone.
There are a number of interesting facts gained from the dissection, the most important of which is more concrete confirmation (as if we needed any more) that this phone is from Apple. There are three separate places, inside the case, where APPLE is written prominently.
Upon unscrewing the bottom two screws—just like with the 3GS—you can use a suction cup and pry off the back portion of the phone, not the front like on iFixits 3GS teardown. Once open, youll notice that the battery takes up around 50% of the phone, give or take. Very impressive.
Diving deeper becomes much trickier. There are a total of around 40-50 screws inside the phone, positioned at various angles that are almost frustratingly impossible to get to. Components can be removed and detached from other components. There are a handful of pieces like this. But you dont know which ones are meant to detach, because you dont have the manual. Once you get all the screws off and pry off the pieces that connect the micro-SIM, the camera, the on/off switch and volume buttons, youre ready to access the brains.
The main logic board is one very weird piece of this puzzle. Unlike the iPhone 3GS teardown, which revealed a large logic board along with another part down by the dock connector, this design only has something maybe 1/3 of the size, along with one or two extraneous parts. Basically, the guts have shrunk drastically.
Unfortunately for us, Apple intends to keep this a secret. There are no markings on the board, but even so, the board was encased in metal all around so nothing could get through and would be very difficult to remove without breaking the device. Anyone trying to take this part off the phone would damage the device irreparably. On top of this metal, there was a thermal paste-like material. And on top of that, black tape. They really didnt want people looking inside.
I wanted to make sure I didnt damage the components beyond repair, so I didnt take the metal off. So this is as much as I could learn without actually breaking the phone. And this is why I couldnt find out if there was an A4 processor—like the iPads—in this iPhone. I also couldnt really identify many parts, because they were hidden under the metal sheath.
Once the guts are out, all you have left is the screen. The back of the screen (on the inside) is a shiny mirror, and if youre not careful when taking it apart, you can scratch the face of the phone from the back, like a CD.
If it wasnt obvious by the micro-SIM card, this particular phone most likely wasnt for Verizon. Thats not to say that there isnt a Verizon phone in the works, but Im pretty sure what I held in my hand was not it.
No, the battery is not user-removable. You have to open the case to get at it.
Two lessons can be learned from the hours and hours it took to disassemble the phone. First is that everything fits in here like an intricately-designed jigsaw puzzle. This is definitely laid out like a final product. To think that theres more room left for any components for this case is unreasonable. Unless Apple decides now to go with a larger case so they can fit more things in there, this is the most that were going to see this summer. Apple put all these components in here to test, to make sure that theyre available for use if necessary. Its also possible that Apple will take out components at the last minute, be it due to a contract issue, or a manufacturing problem, or a cost comparison.
Second, Apple really, really shrunk down their parts to make this phone thinner. It might weigh 3 grams more than the 3GS, but remember, the battery is 19% larger than before. Everything else is way reduced to fit the smaller case.
After subsequently putting the phone back together, I really feel sorry for the factory workers in China who do this all day.