Inside this month's issue:

How did your agency stack up against others that completed TAAR’s 2009 survey?

The role of the traditional sales manager needs to change.

Are you checking the financials of potential prospects before you dedicate your time to them?

Learn why Gmail is so popular and why it’s growing so rapidly.

SalesForce offers many benefits—and it is dramatically less expensive than traditional CRM systems.

Tips and tricks for using the Flip Video Camcorder.

Meet Ning—an online social media service that allows users to create their very own social networking sites.

Several useful—and free—translation services are available to decipher Internet content not written in English.

A new, intriguing iPhone application; sending crime tips via text messages; Secret Session at AMS Users Group Convention.

The Insurance Information Institute makes it easy for you to use their videos on your site to inform and educate.

April 2009

Bits & Bytes

Point, Shoot, and Shop

A new iPhone application allows you to find detailed information on any product simply by taking a picture of it. With the SnapTell Explorer application, you can take a picture of a book—and within seconds the screen will display the right book with reviews, links to other Web sites (including a Wikipedia entry), and online prices from multiple retailers. Welcome to the future of shopping.

How does it work? According to SnapTell's Web site, "SnapTell has created core patent pending proprietary technology for image matching that works with databases of millions of images. This highly accurate and robust algorithm for image matching is called Accumulated Signed Gradient (ASG). Our technology works effectively on pictures taken with any camera phone in the world, including ones that have VGA cameras or relatively low resolution (320x240) cameras. Also, our robust matching engine can handle pictures taken in real life conditions that may have lighting artifacts, focus/motion blur, perspective distortion, and partial coverage. The technology work...

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