Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Charge Anywhere for Android Updated

Charge Anywhere, a provider of mobile payment solutions and payment gateway services, has released an updated version of "Charge Anywhere for Android," a free payment application for Android smartphones. The application can be downloaded from the Android Market.

read more here

Galaxy Tab Return Rate 15%, Study Finds

The Galaxy Tab, Samsung's answer to the iPad, was found in one study to have a return rate of about 15 percent, compared to a two-percent return rate for the Apple iPad.

'Consumers aren't in love with the device,' said Tony Berkman, a consumer tech analyst with ITG.

Samsung says it has shipped two million Galaxy Tabs, which run Google Android software.

The problem with the Galaxy might be attributed to use of an operating system not originally designed to run a tablet.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Groupon’s Hyperlocal Play

Groupon has a partnerhip with JiWire that provides "hyperlocal" targeted ads.

Ad formatting will roll into the JiWire Compass template, which initially appears as a standard display ad, but when clicked on, opens up into a richer, app-like experience with geo-fencing and mapping capabilities.

JiWire’s network automatically determines a user’s location and then searches for locally-relevant deals. Results show how many local deals were found and their distance from that location.

How Twitter Makes Money

Twitter now offers three "advertising format. The promoted tweets program offers classic cost-per-click pricing.

The promoted accounts program uses a cost-per-action format, while the promoted trends program uses a flat-rate, daily sponsorship that drives huge amounts of impressions, engagements, and clicks.


Sony Reader Banned from Apple App Store

Apple has rejected Sony’s Reader app from its App Store because it sells content within the app, and lets users access content that they purchased outside Apple’s own App Store, the New York Times reports.

Apple has told Sony that from now on all in-app purchases have to go through Apple. That's the downside of curation. On the other hand, few would quibble about a news stand, bookstore, cable network or radio or TV broadcaster selecting the content it wishes to carry, so long as the content is legal, tasteful and generally accurate. Okay, at least legal.

Amazon, Apple, And Their Future In Steaming Video

Not everybody thinks Apple or Amazon, not to mention others such as YouTube or Wal-Mart, can make a serious business out of streaming video. For that matter, perhaps it might be said that Time Warner doesn't think most media companies can really do so, either.

Nor is Netflix likely to have an easy time, from now on, getting access to the compelling content it needs to remain a viable provider of top -notch video programming. Content owners now see "streaming" as the key new business to protect, rather than the DVD business, as important as that latter business has been, over the last decade or two. See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/business/media/13bewkes.html.

In the late 1990s the media industry embraced Netflix as a new distribution outlet for renting DVDs. Perhaps nobody clearly understood that the move might accelerate the decline in the sales of DVDs, which for years had been the lifeblood of the film industry. Now, with its success online, Netflix has raised fears that consumers may stop paying for cable television as well.

That new perception is likely to put the brakes on Netflix, to some extent, as well as others that might like to participate in the streaming business.

The studios and networks will see to it that the streaming business is not handed to Netflix, much less to Apple, Amazon or anybody else.

Video Will be 66% of All Mobile Traffic in 2015

Worldwide mobile data traffic will increase 26-fold between 2010 and 2015, reaching 6.3 exabytes per month or an annual run rate of 75 exabytes by 2015 due to a projected surge in mobile Internet-enabled devices delivering popular video applications and services, according to the latest Cisco Visual Networking Index.

This traffic increase represents a compound annual growth rate of 92 percent over the same period. Two major global trends are driving these significant mobile data traffic increases: a continued surge in mobile-ready devices such as tablets and smart phones, and widespread mobile video content consumption.

The Cisco study predicts that by 2015, more than 5.6 billion personal devices will be connected to mobile networks, and there will also be 1.5 billion machine-to-machine nodes -- nearly the equivalent of one mobile connection for every person in the world.

Mobile video is forecast to represent 66 percent of all mobile data traffic by 2015, increasing 35-fold from 2010 to 2015, the highest growth rate of any mobile data application tracked in the Cisco VNI Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast.

Mobile traffic originating from tablet devices is expected to grow 205-fold from 2010 to 2015, the highest growth rate of any device category tracked.

DIY and Licensed GenAI Patterns Will Continue

As always with software, firms are going to opt for a mix of "do it yourself" owned technology and licensed third party offerings....