Happy Monday: Samsung Making fun of Apple users in Galaxy s3 video?

This morning one our QA Analysts brought this Samsung Galaxy SIII teaser video to our attention. While the end of the video seems to be a clear jab at Apple, suggesting that all iPhone owners are but simple sheep to Mac’s overwhelming marketing power, our Analyst pointed out that Samsung sells more mobile devices than Apple, which confuses the metaphor a bit.

Nonetheless, the video shows that the most highly anticipated Android phone of 2012, the Samsung Galaxy S3, is still stirring up some serious hype.

We look forward to seeing what other features, like “unpacked,” the Android version of the cloud featured in the video, will be included in the final new product.

Are you excited for the Samsung Galaxy S3? Tweet us @plasticmobile and let us know.

Mobile News from VentureBeat by Sean Ludwig

Yesterday’s big news was the purchase of photo-sharing app Instagram by social media giant, Facebook, just days after finally launching an Android app and reportedly closing a $50 million second round of funding. It seems that Facebook is determined to make its mark on iOS and Android, which makes sense since Facebook is on the mark, wanting to be avaialble to everyone, every where, all the time! Go Mobile!

But, according to sources, the good news for  Instagram keeps on coming. Just a day after Facebook announced that it would acquire Instagram for $1 billion cash and stock, Instagram’s new Android app has attracted 5 million downloads in just six days.

Last week was really exciting for all of us here at Plastic Mobile. We were really pleased with the launch of our latest mobile application innovation,  ETF Central , created in partnership with Claymore Investments, a subsidiary of Guggenheim Funds Services Group, Inc.

Apparently our enthusiasm was mirrored by our media buds, as ETF Central got a lot of love from the press. Check out what the likes of the Financial Post and Mobile Marketing, among others, had to say about ETF Central:

Plastic Mobile in the News:

Advisor

Investment Executive News

CNW News

Digital Journal

Financial Post

Mobile Marketing

Tech Vibes

iPhone in Canada

Reports listed in a Venture Beat article this morning state that Cyber Monday is set to kick Black Friday’s butt in overall sales.

This year, the two made-up shopping holiday’s book-ending the US Thanksgiving weekend will once again likely post dramatically different numbers. Cyber Monday sales are estimated to hit 1.2 billion, with 122 million Americans expected to participate in the online shopping extravaganza. While Black Friday sales were up 26 per cent from last year, they still fell short of the billion mark. Shucks.

The mania continued this year as news reports of pepper spraying moms, and dads and kids coming to fist-a-cuffs over Xboxes, hit the airwaves. In spite of that, the shopping holiday raked in $816 million in sales. But, thanks to e- and m-commerce, Cyber Monday is still expected to be the reigning champion.

Shopping chaos can be avoided via e-commerce

The physical experience of “shopping” continues to morph into an entirely different beast as the amount of consumers using their smartphones to shop is expected to double, according to a recent survey by BigResearch.

Cyber Monday’s rising popularity is, of course, directly correlated to the increase in e-commerce and mobile shopping in general. Andrew Lipsman from ComScore points out that Cyber Monday was just the 12th-biggest online shopping day back in 2006, but it steadily rose throughout the years, reaching the No. 1 spot for the first time last year.

It was shop.org that dubbed the Monday online shopping extravaganza with the moniker “Cyber Monday” back in 2005. They used the term to identify the noticeable rise in online shopping sales the Monday after US Thanksgiving when it was suspected that consumers followed up with purchases they didn’t make over the weekend.

This isn’t actually that peculiar once you consider just how dramatically Cyber Monday’s mobile shopping has exploded in recent years. In fact, 3.6 million consumers used their phones to shop for deals in 2009, a number which is expected to triple to 17.8 million for 2011 and is double last year’s figures (7.3 million).

Do you have a Cyber Monday wish list? if so, will you be purchasing any or all of your must-haves via your mobile smartphone? Let us know on Twitter, @plasticmobile.

Congratulations are in order as Research In Motion’s Blackberry App World has finally reached 1 billion downloads last week. For those who don’t follow tech news, RIM has been struggling for the past several months (understatement). Approximately three years ago, RIM shares were trading at $150.00 apiece; currently they are trading at roughly $26.00.

Shareholders must be ripping their hair out!

Although we are happy for RIM, we cannot side track from the fact that it took about two years to accomplish this whereas, Apple’s app store has a total of 15 billion downloads to date and hit it’s 1^st billion in just nine months. Google’s Android has a total of 4.5 billion downloads to date.

In the latest shareholders meeting, RIM confirmed that it is planning on releasing seven new phones in the upcoming months. SEVEN? RIM hasn’t stated what new smartphones they will be launching but they are most likely to be upgraded models. The two most talked-about Blackberries to be released are the Bold 9900 and the Torch 2 (9860), as for the other five, we will just have to wait and see.  Also, RIM announced that the new Blackberry OS 7 would be the OS running on the Bold 9900.

We are thrilled to see the new operating system but rumor has it that current blackberry users would not be able to upgrade to OS 7. Let us hope that this is just a rumor.

But could this be the beginning of a comeback or the coming of Rimageddon?

Most will agree with the latter, it’s just too difficult to stay optimistic! Just a couple of days ago, RIM announced they plan to lay off 2,000 employees, which is equivalent to approximately 11% of their workforce. The intended purpose for this is to help RIM achieve higher growth, realign strategic objectives, and restructure senior management. These lay-offs will allow RIM to reduce costs and supposedly, introduce products to the market in a more timely manner (i.e. faster).

The next couple of months should be exciting.

Good or bad move by RIM?

Good luck RIM, you’ll need it.

Watch Melody Adhami, also known as the Queen of Apps / Mobile Maven, provide the latest mobile and tech news on CTV News with Jennifer Ward. Please excuse the low quality video.