Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Multichannel Video Cord Cutting Still Rare?

You can get a robust argument about the future of multichannel video, but less argument about the current amount of such cord cutting. Some would argue the danger still remains low. The issue, just about anybody would argue, is what lies ahead.

Power Track for Monitoring Tweet Traffic

Many brands now monitor social media streams, such as provided by Twitter, to monitor conversations about their brands. But that can be a daunting task, if conducted manually. A new commercial Twitter product called Power Track, supplied by Gnip, automates those chores.

Power Track allows keyword-based filtering of the full Twitter stream, providing 100 percent coverage over a stream.

In addition to keyword based filters, Power Track also supports boolean operators and many of the custom operators allowed on Twitter Search API. With Power Track, companies and developers can define the precise slice of the Twitter stream they need and be confident they’re getting every Tweet, without worrying about volume restrictions.

3% of SMBs Accept Mobile Payments

The SMB Group, a research firm focused on the small and medium size business market says three percent of SMBs accept mobile payments today and this number will increase to seven percent in the next 12 months, and 16 percent by the end of 2012.

Android US Mobile Market Share Jumps 34%

While Google Android remained the second-most-popular US smartphone platform in the three-month-average ending December 2010 with 28.7 percent market share, that share improved about 34 percent from 21.4 percent in the three-month-average ending September 2010, according to new comScore data.

In contrast, number one RIM saw its market share drop 15 percent, from 37.3 percent to 31.6 percent. Apple’s share of the US smartphone platform market grew about three percent, from 24.3 percent to 25 percent.

OpenX Upgrades Ad Platform

OpenX, a provider of digital advertising technology for Web publishers such as Groupon, has updated the ad technology platform in use by Groupon, Orange-France Telecom and Excite Japan.

OpenX ad-serving products are used by more than 200,000 websites in more than 100 countries, and serve more than 350 billion ads monthly.

HTC Buys Gaming Company

HTC has bought mobile video specialists Saffron Digital and OnLive, suggesting HTC soon will launch a cloud-based, gaming-on-demand service.

Email is Going Mobile

More people are using their mobile phones to access their email, causing a drop in web-based email usage.

Web-based email has always been about ease of access. If you’re only using Outlook then your work emails stay at work and home emails stay home. Forwarding emails from one computer to another was the only way to gather all of the information in one place and if you were traveling the you were stuck.


According to comScore’s stats, the number of people visiting a web-based email site went down 6% over last year. Not a huge number, but look at the other side. Mobile email usage grew by 36% over last year.

Age plays a huge factor in the web vs mobile saga (surprise, surprise), with a 53% decline in web-mail usage in the 12-17 age group.


Zoom Wants to Become a "Digital Twin Equipped With Your Institutional Knowledge"

Perplexity and OpenAI hope to use artificial intelligence to challenge Google for search leadership. So Zoom says it will use AI to challen...