Google on target to be 2nd largest social network

Google+ is well-positioned to become the second-largest social networking site in the US within the next 12 months, YouGov predicts.

As an estimated 16 million U.S. online adults plan to join Google+ in the next year, substantially higher than any other social network. As a result, Google+ is positioned to surpass Myspace, Twitter, and LinkedIn in U.S. membership within the next 12 months, according to Michael Nardis, Head of YouGov investment products.

Already 13 percent of adult Internet users in the United States have signed up for a Google+ account with another nine percent planning to sign up in the next 12 months. Those signing up are also highly engaged. Some 45 percent of users report reading content once a day or more. Only Facebook’s 62 percent daily readership is higher among social networks.

Some 46 percent of Google+ users report creating content (e.g., creating updates; posting links) at least once a week. This is on par with Twitter (42 percent).

The demographics of Google+ users are significantly different from other social networks. As existing networks like Facebook and LinkedIn have matured as products, they are attracting a more mature demographic. Google early adopters skew young, male and educated.

Google+ has three male members for every two women (that compares with one man for every 1.2 women on Facebook). Some 43 percent of membership is 18 to 29 (compared to 31 percent for Facebook.

 

Some 48 percent are single, compared to 33 percent of Facebook users.

Google on target to be 2nd largest social networking site

Facebook Accounts For 38 Percent Of Sharing Traffic

People do not share content randomly. Where it comes to content sharing, 80 percent of people share only one category of links and more than 70 percent will only ever click on one category, whether that is business, politics, or entertainment, according to ShareThis. See more here.

Facebook is especially strong when it comes to sharing entertainment and even shopping links, whereas email and Twitter seem to make some inroads when it comes to business or health.

Facebook Accounts For 38 Percent Of Sharing Traffic

"Friends and Family" Key to Social Sharing of Content

"Friends and family" might be the most-crucial audience for most shared content. A recent AOL-Nielsen study showed that 23 percent of social media messages include content and that 60 percent of that content is shared as a link back to a published piece. Another 36 percent of social media messages embed content in the message.

In other words, people share content a lot, and the majority of the time they share it as a link. What is significant, though, is that people “overwhelmingly" share content with friends and family.

Most of the sharing that people do isn’t to the public at large, but to their own smaller network of family and friends. That probably is not so helpful for firms using content marketing approaches; obviously more effective for consumer products and services.

Another study of sharing via apps on Facebook showed that auto-generated “broadcast” messages that appear in users’ social streams massively drive up user adoption of the application. When users added a personal message (like “Check out this cool app I found!”), adoption increased by another 98%. Messages in the users’ stream are 10 times more effective than banner ads for gaining adoption.

Again, content shared in the inner circle carries greater influence, especially if accompanied by a personal message.

People tend to share and click links in specific categories or genres, too. Frequent linkers on Facebook have distinctive genre, topic and source patterns particular to their interests.

When it comes to sharing, 80 percent of people share only one category of links and more than 70 percent will only ever click on one category, whether that is business, politics, or entertainment. Read more here.

That is where content marketing can work. If a brand can become a trusted source for content on specific topics, a brand has a better chance of buying entry into the inner circles of large numbers of your target customers, and increases the likelihood that users will read the content that you share.

Social media gold lies in the inner circle

$12 Billion Smart Meter Revenues in 2016?

Worldwide smart meter revenues will eclipse $12 billion by 2016, In-Stat forecasts . But it appears much of that growth will occur outside the United States, as In-Stat predicts the number of smart meters deployed in the United States each year will decrease after peaking in 2011.

Read more.

FCC Votes To Free Up Wireless Backhaul Spectrum

The Federal Communications Commission has voted unanimously to free up more spectrum (up to 650 Mhz) for mobile wireless backhaul and make it easier and more cost effective for wireless companies to use point-to-point microwave links to deliver their service, particularly in rural areas.

The new spectrum is available in areas covering almost two thirds of the U.S. landmass. The action is expected to help speed the rollout of fourth-generation (4G) broadband networks and accelerate the role of expanded wireless broadband communications.

Service providers’ use of microwave links as a cost-effective alternative to traditional copper circuits and fiber optic links has increased by

approximately 50 percent in recent years, the FCC says.

Among the changes was allowing for use of wider channels and smaller antennas, and allowing for sharing of spectrum for specialized services including cable TV relay and broadcast auxiliary services, with requisite protections for that sharing, said the FCC's wireless bureau.

The new rules permit fixed microwave operation in several spectrum bands previously reserved for specialized microwave services. The Commission also updates its rules to permit microwave licensees to use adaptive modulation, which will allow them to take advantage of the latest technology to maintain the reliability of critical links.

FCC Votes To Free Up Wireless Backhaul Spectrum

Sprint to launch cloud services in 4th quarter

Sprint Nextel plans to enter the cloud services business in the fourth quarter, CNET reports. Sprint will offer small and medium-size businesses and large corporations 'hosted collaboration services' such as software, security applications and Internet hosting, and also will sell its infrastructure as a service, which can be purchased on an on-demand model, according to Paget Alves, head of Sprint's business markets.

Sprint to launch cloud services in 4th quarter

How Big Will the M2M Market Be in 2015?

The machine-to-machine and connected device market will reach 87 million endpoints by 2015, with a compound annual growth rate of over 25 percent, according to Compass Intelligence. There is an important caveat, however. As Compass Intelligence notes, “much confusion exists around what makes up M2M."

The GSMA includes devices such as connected iPads and other media tablets in the "M2M" category. Some tier-one service providers also include connected devices such as picture frames, personal navigation devices in the category. Some would say M2M really is intended to describe a service where a sensor communicates with a server, and not instances where a human user is using a relatively non-traditional mobile device. One suspects much of the early growth will come in the connected devices area, and not the sensor to server market that many of us consider the actual M2M opportunity.

The largest B2B vertical market is the transportation and distribution vertical, with over 30 percent market share, Compass Intelligence says.

By 2015 more than 40 percent of M2M connections in the U.S. could be running on 3G, 3.5G, or 4G networks.

Compass Intelligence

U.S. Movie Rentals Grow, Purchases Decline

Revenue from U.S. movie rentals increased 11 percent from 2010 to 2011, reaching $2.06 billion, according to the Digital Entertainment Group. Sales of discs and digital purchases dropped some 15 percent to $1.93 billion from June 2010 to June 2011.

Purchases of movies, TV shows and video on Blu-ray discs are projected to total $9.9 billion in 2011, as opposed to $8.1 billion for movie rentals, according to IHS Screen Digest. Movie rental revenue will surpass movie sales revenue annually during 2014 by $9.3 billion to $8.5 billion, IHS Screen Digest estimates. Read more here.

The last time rental revenues beat purchases was in 2000, before people slowed their rentals of VHS tapes from shops like Blockbuster and began buying more DVDs, which at around $20 seemed like a bargain. The DVD first came out in 1995 and led to a revolution where people replaced their home libraries of video cassettes for the thinner, lighter discs that lasted longer. That gave a huge boost to movie studios' profits.

Alternatives such as the Netflix streaming service or $1-a-night rental kiosks such as Redbox have "taken a pretty big (bite) out of purchasing," said Tom Adams, principal analyst and director of U.S. media for IHS Screen Digest.

Blu-ray Disc spending is up more than 10 percent and overall consumer spending on home entertainment is
down five percent, despite a 16 percent drop in box-office for titles that entered the home entertainment window in the first half of 2011, according to the Digital Entertainment Group.

While first quarter 2011 home entertainment spending was down 6.4 percent, second quarter spending was down only 3.6 percent.

Read more here.

Microsoft Smart Phone Exec Quits

Microsoft is losing a mobile executive, as Charlie Kindel is leaving the company after 21 years. As general manager for Windows Phone’s developer ecosystem, he played a key role in the development of Windows Phone, which represents Microsoft’s best hope for re-establishing a presence in the ultra-competitive smartphone market.

Kindel is reportedly heading for a start-up working in "sports, advertising, mobile, social-networking and the cloud.” Perhaps that, as much as anything, tells you where many believe new opportunities now exist.

Microsoft Blow As Smartphone Exec Quits

Netflix is Bigger Than Comcast, in Terms of Subscribers

Subscriber counts aren't everything in the video business. Netflix has more subscribers than Comcast, but makes vastly less revenue from each customer. Comcast has average revenue per user an order of magnitude higher than Netflix.

On the other hand, subscriber density or mass does create a marketing platform for any future video subscription business. And Comcast executives essentially have taken themselves out of the "over the top" business outside their own current geographies.

But customer relationships also are the reasons why firms such as Amazon can never be discounted as new video subscription opportunities arise.

Shipments of Internet-Enabled Consumer Devices to Exceed PCs in 2013

Shipments of Internet-enabled consumer electronics devices will exceed PCs for the first time in 2013, according to IHS iSuppli (the survey does not include smart phones).

Shipments of Internet-enabled consumer electronics devices will surge to 503.6 million units in 2013, up from 161 million in 2010. In comparison, PC shipments during the same period will amount to 253.3 million, up from 222.3 million.

In 2015, shipments of Internet-enabled consumer devices will reach 780.8 million units, exceeding PC shipments of 479.1 million.

Shipments of Internet-Enabled Consumer Devices to Exceed PCs in 2013

Video Subscription Challenges

There was a bit more dribble of customers out of the market for multi-channel video entertainment services. Most observers tend to agree that most of the lost customers are not turning to streaming video delivered over the Internet. Mostly, those lost customers are simply not buying subscription TV, from any source. As you would expect, the assumption is that departing customers are overwhelmingly those who no longer can justify buying service.

But the business has other problems. Some households headed by Millennials simply do not see a reason to buy subscription TV, even when money is not an issue. That arguably is a bigger problem. Beyond that, some would say the strategy of trying to wring ever-higher revenue out of existing customers is going to cause more desertions over time.

"It’s not enough to blame the weak economy when things get rough and folks stop paying for cable; there’s also a structural problem with the way the industry views its subscribers," argues Ryan Lawler at GigaOm. "In the quest for higher margins and customer retention, those companies are generally willing to sacrifice subscribers at the low end if it means they can get more out of their so-called higher-value customers."

The question is how long the industry can keep pushing ARPU up before it starts to shed some of its better customers — those that aren’t necessarily poor, but don’t have $150 or more a month to spend on entertainment, asks Lawler.

That's a reasonable question.

But one gets a sense that the question of "value compared to price" is getting asked even in households that do not have a problem paying $150. The issue is that even households that can afford the subscriptions are aware that online delivery is technologically possible.

Most households are well aware they don't use most of the channels they buy, but haven't had an alternative. How much longer the value-price relationship remains tolerable is a growing question.

Company	2Q Video Net Adds/Losses
Comcast	-238,000
Time Warner Cable	-130,000
Charter	-79,000
Cablevision	-23,000
Dish Network	-135,000
DirecTV	26,000
AT&T	202,000
Verizon	184,000
Total	-193,000

Why 193,000 people stopped paying for TV last quarter

BT to Close Ribbit

British Telecom paid $105 million to buy Ribbit in 2008, which liked to call itself “Silicon Valley’s first phone company.” Now it appears to be "nobody's phone company," as Ribbit is shut down and its functions are subsumed elsewhere inside BT.

The platform allowed Web developers to add phone services into their sites and applications. Remember the phrase "communication-enabled business processes?" That essentially was what Ribbit promised. That is not to say CEBP is equally "dead." But it does indicate Ribbit never was able to jumpstart a significant business for BT, however valid the concept.

Some might say the failure simply points out how hard it is for large telcos to innovate. Others might simply say this particular effort was flawed in some way. Yet others might say the benefits of voice enabling applications has not proven as easy or valuable as proponents have insisted was possible.

Ribbit to close

Generations Divide over Mobile Devices?

Older consumers (Baby Boomers and Generation X) are slightly more likely to favor tablets and e-readers, while younger users (Millennials) are slightly more likely to prefer smart phones, according to a study by Affinity Research.

One suspects the differences are going to narrow over time as Millennials move further along their career paths and have more disposable income, though.

Although the Affinity study estimates that Generation X consumers (generally, people born in the latter half of the 1960s through the late 1970s, usually no later than 1981 or 1982) are 16 percent more likely than the average consumer to own a tablet, a study by GfK MRI indicates that when adding e-readers into the mix, the rate might be even higher. GfK MRI indicates that a Gen X-er is 25 percent more likely than the average U.S. adult to own a tablet or e-reader.

Income may play a large part in this age group’s strong adoption of tablet computers. Wealthier Gen-X consumers are more likely to own the “latest and greatest” gadgets, according to Affinity.

Gen Xers with household incomes of more than $100,000 are 63 percent more likely to own a tablet PC than other Gen Xers. Tablet adoption also skews toward Gen X males, at least for the moment.

Generations Divide over Mobile Devices

Content Creators Have a Primary Duty Is To Audiences, Always

Content Creators Have a Primary Duty Is To Audiences, Always

"Henry Luce, a co-founder of Time, disdained the notion of giveaway publications that relied solely on ad revenue," notes Ilya Vedrashko of Hill Holliday ad agency in Boston. He called that formula "morally abhorrent" and also "economically self-defeating."

That was because he believed that good journalism required that a publication's primary duty be to its readers, not to its advertisers, says Vedrashko. "In an advertising-only revenue model, the incentive is perverse," Luce said. "It is also self-defeating, because eventually you will weaken your bond with your readers if you do not feel directly dependent on them for your revenue."

Since virtually all mass media publications rely on a combination of subscriber revenue and advertising, it is not entirely clear that Luce's views are completely consistent. Nor would some agree with the observation that the role of a journalist changes, whatever the revenue model that makes the writing possible. In principle, a publication could be supported entirely by sales of some other product, with no advertising or subscription revenue.

That, in fact, is precisely the norm for brand-sponsored content. One might argue that the writer's task, in all cases, is to serve the readers, as a videographer's task is to produce engaging video, a composer or musician compelling music. The reason is entirely prosaic. Content doesn't attract people and get their attention unless it meets some end-user need or interest, and is creatively compelling to some degree.

Whatever the revenue model or reason for creating content, "bad content" simply doesn't work. It that fundamental sense, Luce is correct. A journalist, writer, film maker, musician or other content creator has to produce primarily for the intended audience. To be honest, creators often have other motives as well. Some part of content creation in the present age has to be aimed at search engines. Sometimes a subsidiary issue is content creation that, in addition to serving an audience, also impresses peers. That is true whenever prizes or awards are available, for example.

And there can be some element of peer conformity as well. Content creators might develop for audiences, but they tend to socialize and care about the opinions of fellow content creators. Does a film maker want commercial success? Yes, typically. But does a film maker also want accolades from other members of the creative community? Yes, typically.

That doesn't mean the primary task can be anything other than the needs of the intended audience. No success is possible without meeting those requirements at some consistent and basic level.

Content creators must always create primarily for audiences. All other considerations, and those considerations exist, are secondary.

Journalism's Primary Duty Is To Its Readers, Not Advertisers

Could Facebook Credits Lead to Offline Currency?

Facebook Credits could be a springboard for a broader and equally significant offline payments says Thomas Power, CEO of online business network ecademy.

"It starts with a Facebook piggy bank, payment system and credit card," he says. "Then it's a savings account and a loan perhaps for university." Later, it might be about mortgages, life insurance, health insurance, car insurance, house insurance or pension payments as well.

Payments systems intended to support buying of digital goods conceptually can be extended into the peer-to-peer lending model as well, he argues.

Could Facebook wipe out the banking industry?

There Will Be No Files In The Cloud

When cloud computing gets much more traction, one of the implications is that users will "download" and "share" files and download apps a whole lot less than they do now. Venture capitalist Fred Wilson doesn't think so. The file metaphor is necessary and fundamental when digital objects have to be pushed around like physical objects.

There is no need when objects become the equivalent of Web pages. In a cloud implementation, people do things, use things, view things and listen to things that essentially are Web addresses, not digital objects in the current sense.

There Will Be No Files In The Cloud

IBM PC Turns 30

IBM released the "Personal Computer Model 5150" in August 1981. Costing $1,265 in 1981, it didn't have a monitor, parallel ports or even a hard disk. The machine used a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 processor and featured 256 Kbytes of random access memory. In today's terms, that set of hardware would represent an investment of $2995.

IBM PC Turns 30 Today

Growth is the Only Fix

Have you had enough of this,yet?

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