The Hit that is the Hudl, Was moving into the tablet market a smart move for Tesco?

The tablet market, a vast scary landscape filled with hundreds of small and large companies all fighting for a slice of market share. Fighting for overall supremacy you have, Apple, Samsung and Amazon all armed with their weapon of choice, Ipad, Galaxy and Kindle respectively. But despite all this strong competition there's still a lot of money to be made. There is still roughly 50 million people in the UK who don't own a tablet or a mobile computing device.

Que Tesco, the UK supermarket chain is no stranger to moving into unfamiliar markets such as car insurance and banking which it has done in the pass. It now looks to grant itself a seat at the table of the tablet production big boys, but how is it planning to do this, it's simple, Hudl.

The Hudl is a Tesco exclusive tablet aimed at families and those taking their first steps into the world of mobile computing. The product is an amazing addition to the Tesco brand as it shows off great internal specifications at an affordable price of just £119. Tesco also goes a step further by allowing their customers the option to double up their clubcard vouchers so they can purchase the Hudl and accessories for even less. With some customers paying less than £10 for theirs.

Lets look at how the Hudl can be used by all the family. One of the key features exclusive to Hudl is the Tesco T highlighted in the bottom left of the touch screen. This button is a direct link to all things Tesco so parents and older children can search Tesco Direct from here or even process a weekly shop and have it delivered to their door. Another feature of the Hudl is that it runs on the Android operating system, this will allow the user to access the Android market and the opportunity to download thousands of great apps for free. Examples like Facebook and Twitter for all your social networking needs, Polaris Office for all your word processing, graph and presentation building. Thousands of free games for both the parents and children to enjoy such as Candy Crush Saga and Angry Birds.

The Hudl also offers front and rear facing cameras allowing customers the freedom to take photos and video and Skype as they wish. The option for expandable memory is also there, the Hudl has a standard memory of 16GB but this can extended to 48GB with a 32GB microSD card.

Tesco have made a bold move here, stepping into a market that is unfamiliar to them, but they have clearly done their research and have really thought about what their existing and new tablets customers want. Which is reliability and value for money. Which I believe the Hudl more than offers. So back to the title question, Was moving into the tablet market a smart move for Tesco? I'd have to say yes.

Please leave a comment or a question and check out my other posts.

Thanks for reading this part of a little bit of everything.

References:

Engadget. 2013. Tesco Hudl review: Can a supermarket chain put out a decent tablet?. [online] Available at: http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/27/tesco-hudl-review/ [Accessed: 11 Nov 2013].

The #followback experiment

What was the #followback experiment? Well since I've joined twitter I've seen quite a few of these follow related hashtags flying around and I began to wonder if they actually work or was it just a ploy by the user to gain retweets. So with these thoughts I decided to conduct a simple study from the 08/09/13 to the 15/09/13 to see how many followers I could gain in that time. I would retweet random #teamfollowback tweets once or twice each day and then collect the results at the end of the study.

There were fluctuations thought out the study of the number of people following me after each retweet but this I assume was down to the popularity of the original tweet itself and the time in which I retweeted. If more people were actively using their own twitter when I retweeted the number of followers I would receive would dramatically increase.

Over the course of the study I gained over  30 new followers,  which to an individual like myself who is relatively new to the world of twitter can only be appreciated, so thank you to those who did follow me. However I would like be followed by individuals with similar interests to myself. Obviously I know that twitter suggests people its thinks you should follow, but I think it would be so much better if you get these followtrains so suit certain people. For example a marketing follow back train, a gamer follow back train. I just think this way individuals opinions would be more appreciated on twitter as they'd be preaching to the right audience more often.

What makes a great video game?

The video game, the great creation. Regardless of your gaming preference most people could highlight a couple of titles they have fallen in love with over the years. But what is the main component within a video that creates a special bond between player and game? 

One of thing that never fails to get me absorbed in a game is a great story. Being able to follow a character from the opening scene to the end credits, there's nothing better. Feeling their fear, their pain, their sadness, their triumph. A couple of personal favourites would be the Gears of War and Mass Effect franchises. Both these stories pulled me in from the word go, whether I was Commander Shepherd flying round the galaxy in the Normandy or Marcus Fenix stamping on a grubs head, I always felt like a standing along side these characters ever step of the way.

But it isn't just a games storyline that can win over a gamer. Oh no, a character can make all the difference with a gamers experience. Furthermore additional characters can make a gamer fall in love with a game all over again. I recently experienced this with Gears of War 3 and its Raams Shadow add on campaign. Within this add on you get to play along as General Raam himself. You experience this foes formidable wrath in the first gears of war game however you have no true idea of his true power until you said into his shoes. With your shield of cryl around you you can't even be hit by bullets, lets repeat that you CAN'T BE HIT BY BULLETS!!, you might aswell be a tank. A true envisionment of a killing machine, a god amongst grubs.

However an obvious part of a video game that can have it's fan playing it for days and days on end is its overall gameplay. My personal example that I'm going to use here is "Supreme Commander", for those of you that aren't familiar with this game, to put it in simple terms the Command and Conquer franchise on steriods. The steer size of some of maps is mind blowing. But back to why the gameplay is so good, its so addictive, I could spend hours just on one match. These huge levels contained multiple enemy obsticles to overcome, multiple upgrades that were needed to make your army progress. Every second of gameplay was important to the overall matches outcome.

Every gamer is different, please leave your thoughts below, did you agree with me? Are there some video game areas that I've missed?

      

My Re-interest in Pinterest

Recently I re-entered the world on Pinterest after what I worked out must of been a couple of years absence. On my return I began to wonder how it had slipped out of my life? This social media platform has it all, its possibilities are endless. However this time round I did come across some more sides to the world of Pinterest that I didn't notice before.

The main one of these sides being that it can used as a business and marketing tool. Companies can operate several boards to match their variety of products and services. These boards within themselves can operate in different ways. One of these ways is that they can operate as virtual shop windows, the first step on the road to a sale. A browsing customer is a potential customer, so the images and text chosen to go the boards are so so crucial to company, get these wrong and no interest will be generated.

Another way in which companies can use Pinterest boards is as a product research platform for new or re-invented products. Customers can engage with the standard like button the gauge their initial views. But further research can be taken from the number of repins a product gets and the comments left on the image itself, these two further points can give the company a rough idea of the reception the product would receive if it was brought to market.

But I realised recently there's another way in which companies can use Pinterest. A company I recently followed have boards that cover matters within the business itself, by this I mean they have images of their employees and general activities from within their offices. What a great way to engage your customers, bring them inside the company itself. With this method companies can allow customers to become familiar with staff and the general way the company operates.   

Overall i'm so glad I've got back into Pinterest, I forgot just how many wonderful things there are in this world and how someone just needs to pin them down.

Feel free to follow my Pinterest account just search Will Harwood      

My life in photos edition 1

A recent passion of mine has been photography, so today I thought I'd share some of my recent photos with you. Enjoy

Gears Of War: The game franchise I could always depend on

Since first finding its way into our disc trays in 2006 the Gears of War gaming franchise has just gone from strength to strength from the early exploits of Marcus Fenix all the way up to Baird's story in 2013.

But what makes these games so great? The first point of call has to be the storyline. How the story progresses is so well done across the three games and the prequel of Judgement you really feel a link to the struggle these characters and the whole of humanity has gone through after the events of emergence day. Another amazing aspect of the story are the landscapes in which it unfolds, the variation amongst them all is just incredible and breath taking, you ever battle inside a giant worm, now if that does say great gameplay I don't know what does!!! 

The second thing you have to address with these games is there gameplay and the simplicity of it. With simple covering options, weapon selection and grenade throwing controls, any individual can just sit down grab the controller and get stuck in. Coming back to the weaponry, the backbone to any COGs arsenal is his/her chainsaw lancer. What an amazing weapon! If a couple of shots to a grubs chest just doesn't do it for you, saw him in half instead, a genius idea a round of applause for Epic games for that one.

Another reason for these games being so great are the thorns in humanity's side. You've got the Locusts and the Lambent from GOW3. The Locusts come in all shapes and sizes and different strength levels, my personal favourite is the Butcher who literally just strolls round the battlefield with a massive meat cleaver saying "hunger" in a low toned horrifying voice it gives me the shakes just talking about tham. The Lambent come in two forms you have the imulsion infected locusts, who can actually shot you and explode weird plant things out of their bodies after taking damage and then the plants shot you. Or you have the imulsion infected humans which are like your standard zombies, lots of screaming, lots of running straight at you and obviously lots of them. Very irritating.

I guess the final amazing aspect of this game franchise to discuss in this article is its online capabilities. With most third person shooters nowadays you'll always be given your standard team death match which holds true for Gears. However its the other online gaming modes I found the most interesting. My first example is horde, horde allows a team of players to face wave after wave of enemies increasing with difficulty as they go which is an amazing amount of fun. However Gears of war 3 changed hordes layout to allow players to build base defences to aid them through harder waves, a clever addition I thought. The final mode I'm going to discuss in this article is beast mode. The one all Gears fans had been waiting for, within Gears 3 players had the chance to play the new horde format in reverse and play as the locusts. As each player racks up more kills they unlock stronger more aggressive locust characters to play as.

This article has been my view of why of the Gears of War franchise is just so good please leave any of your own thoughts and comments below.

Thanks for reading and keep killing those grubs!

           

Why did I put off Twitter for so long?

I finally allowed the little blue Twitter bird to nest itself within my devices early this June but I keep asking myself why did I put it off for so long. Twitter is great and so so so addictive. I love the closeness of it as a social media platform, celebrities from all fields can interact with their fans with just a few characters in a few seconds. 

Compared with other social media sites such as Facebook and Myspace that i'm not digging at here i'm just voicing an opinion. Twitter has a more personal touch, in some cases it's actually like your the little Twitter bird by the individuals side, especially in the celebrity case where you would be exposed to a second tier of they life which you wouldn't see on a Facebook or Myspace profile, this could come into a recent restaurant experience of theirs, backstage at a concert or time at home.

The ability to promote through Twitter is also an amazing feature and not just for a business or a brand but for individuals as well. I'm currently taking the first steps into the marketing and PR industry and by using Twitter I have one been able to engage in conversations with marketing companies directly and show off some marketing knowledge. Furthermore I have been able to advertise this blog through Twitter which will allow any marketing and PR companies to browse through my work and comment with their thoughts. 

Additionally I love how Twitter keeps me up to date with all my favourites brands, bringing the hot gossip of any sales or events they may be having that I wouldn't want to miss. 

The only thing I need to work out now is how to really increase my number followers. But for the time being I'm quite content with my blue feathered friend.