Friday, September 3, 2010
Angry Bird Creators on Why Such Games are So Compelling
If you like games, "Angry Birds" is worth a try. If you fear wasting too much time, don't go there.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Why Apple Hasn't Signed More Studios
Though Disney and News Corp. have agreed to allow Apple to sell content at 99 cents per episode or show, other studios are balking.
As typically is the case for changing rights arrangements in the TV content ecosystem, the issue for studios is the disruption of other parts of the revenue ecosystem.
The 99-cent price tag that represents a steep discount from the TV episodes already offered on iTunes for about $3.
Apparently some executives are worried about devaluation of the content, not just for online consumption, but also "downstream" release windows such as DVD and syndication.
As typically is the case, content owners are trying to protect existing big revenue streams while slowly growing the new channels. But the bigger risk right now is cannibalizing the big revenue channels in favor of much-smaller ancillary channels.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Prepaid Market Cracks With Verizon Smartphone Offerings
At least at Verizon, the difference between prepaid and postpaid offerings is based more on payment options and subsidized or full price phones than anything else. That is a big change, indeed.
Verizon Wireless also has launched a new "3G Prepaid" data package that lets customers access unlimited data on select 3G smartphones and multimedia phones for $30 monthly access.
Multimedia phone customers also have the option of selecting a new $10 monthly data package for 25 MB per month ($.20/MB overage). These new prepaid data packages are available at Verizon Wireless stores already, and will be available online at www.verizonwireless.com beginning Sept. 28, 2010.
Supported smartphone devices include:
BlackBerry Curve 8330
BlackBerry Curve 8530
BlackBerry Storm 9530
BlackBerry Storm2 9550
BlackBerry Tour 9630
BlackBerry Bold 9650
Palm Pre Plus
Palm Pixi Plus
DROID by Motorola
Motorola DEVOUR
DROID X by Motorola
DROID 2 by Motorola
DROID Eris by HTC
DROID Incredible by HTC
LG Ally
3G Multimedia phones available include:
LG enV TOUCH
LG enV 3
LG Chocolate TOUCH
LG VX8360
Samsung Alias 2
Samsung Renown
Nokia Twist
Casio EXILIM
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Will T-Mobile Invest in Clearwire?
Credit Suisse analyst Jonathan Chaplin estimates Clearwire will need another $4 billion to extend coverage to the 200 million people they plan to reach by the end of 2011.
That is the biggest carrot for Clearwire: it needs cash, and T-Mobile could provide some of it.
Though Sprint might have qualms about enabling a competitor, Verizon and AT&T, not T-Mobile, is the big problem.
When Sprint and Clearwire merged their networks, Sprint invested $1.2 billion in the venture. Comcast and Time Warner invested a total of $1.6 billion, and they now market Clearwire's service under their own names.
Intel put in an additional $1 billion on top of the $660 million they had invested in Clearwire earlier.
Google invested $500 million and cable operator Bright House Networks kicked in $100 million.
Whether Clearwire gets T-Mobile USA as an investor or not, nothing is going to keep T-Mobile USA from finding some way to provide 4G services. The lesser of the two evils might be to allow T-Mobile USA to invest in, and use, the Clearwire network.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Heavy Texters are Heavy Callers, Study Finds
Heavy adult texters who send and receive more than 50 texts a day also tend to be heavy users of voice calling. Light texters, who exchange one to 10 texts a day, do not make up for less texting by calling more. Instead, they are light users of both calling and texting.
Texting by adults has increased over the past nine months from 65 percent of adults sending and receiving texts in September 2009 to 72 percent texting in May 2010. Still, adults do not send nearly the same number of texts per day as teens ages 12-17, who send and receive, on average, five times more texts per day than adult texters.
Adults who text typically send and receive a median of 10 texts a day; teens who text send and receive a median of 50 texts per day.
About five percent of all adult texters send more than 200 text messages a day or more than 6,000 texts a month. Fully 15 percent of teens ages 12 to 17, and 18 percent of adults ages 18 to 24 text message more than 200 messages a day, while just three percent of adults ages 25 to 29 do the same.
The average adult cell phone owner makes and receives around five voice calls a day. Women tend to make slightly fewer calls with their cell phones than men.
Men and women are equally likely to be represented at the extreme high end of callers, with eight percent of men and six percent of women making and taking more than 30 calls a day.
link to study
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Gmail Adds "Priority Inbox" Feature
I'm just trying it, so nothing to report about how it changes, or helps, the email sifting process.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Verizon Wireless Offers Top Smartphones with Prepaid Plans
Multimedia phone customers also have the option of selecting a new $10 monthly data package for 25 MB per month ($.20/MB overage). These new prepaid data packages are available at Verizon Wireless stores already, and will be available online at www.verizonwireless.com beginning Sept. 28, 2010.
Supported smartphone devices include:
BlackBerry Curve 8330
BlackBerry Curve 8530
BlackBerry Storm 9530
BlackBerry Storm2 9550
BlackBerry Tour 9630
BlackBerry Bold 9650
Palm Pre Plus
Palm Pixi Plus
DROID by Motorola
Motorola DEVOUR
DROID X by Motorola
DROID 2 by Motorola
DROID Eris by HTC
DROID Incredible by HTC
LG Ally
3G Multimedia phones available include:
LG enV TOUCH
LG enV 3
LG Chocolate TOUCH
LG VX8360
Samsung Alias 2
Samsung Renown
Nokia Twist
Casio EXILIM
The big issue is likely to be consumer shock at the cost of unsubsidized devices, though.
link
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
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