Follow any Google+ Account using RSS

While Google is yet to provide an official application programming interface for Google+, "PlusFeed" is a service that provides an "real simple syndication" (RSS) feed of any Google user’s public posts. Simply find the unique number at the end of their profile URL, and then add it to the PlusFeeds URL. So, for example, the URL of The Next Web’s Google RSS feed is: http://plusfeed.appspot.com/103907806627406122152.

Follow any Google account using RSS

Price Transparency Causing More Brand Advertising?

Oddly enough, as knowledge about pricing rapidly shifts in favor of consumers equipped with smart phones, there's trouble ahead for retailers who cannot offer the lowest prices, but opportunity for a renaissance of brand advertising, argues Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman.

Advertising's role in this new world becomes not just a demand driver but also a counter-balancing force to price as the main determinant of consumer choice.

Ad spending trends support this conclusion, he argues. TV ad sales rose nine percent in the first quarter of 2011, while the Interactive Advertising Bureau just reported a 23 percent growth in online advertising. Tellingly, in 2010, display advertising grew faster than search, for the first time since the IAB began reporting its data, driven by a 35 percent increase in spending on video ads, Fulgoni says.

The numbers indicate a new-found focus on branding advertising at the expense of direct response or price or promotion communications, he argues. Others might not be quite so sure. Advertising is rebounding from rather deep reductions caused by the great recession of 2008.

Get Ready for a Renaissance in Advertising

87% of Google+ Users are Male

Mobile Apps and Network Performance Now are Data Centric

Text messaging now is the preferred and most-used communications mode for 55 percent of Western European mobile customers polled in May and June 2011 by the Yankee Group.

The survey of almost 5,000 European consumers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom also found that 54 percent preferred voice calls, and used voice on a daily basis. About 27 percent preferred email and 22 percent preferred instant messaging. That is as stark a reminder as one could get that "communications" these days is about all sorts of media, channels and devices.

The Yankee Group researchers predict that as smart phone adoption increases, so will the use of instant messaging. The other important insight is not so much that text messaging is displacing voice to some extent, or that other channels likewise are competing with voice, but that users want to be able to use multiple channels in different settings, depending in part on the people or communities to be communicated with.

The survey also suggests, as you would guess, that touch screen interfaces are important. In fact, a touch screen is the single most important feature for a new device, at 30 percent of responses, outstripping even "Internet access," the most important feature for about 14 percent of respondents.

Overall, the survey suggests, "data-centric" features now are top of mind for consumers, and drive their thinking about what to buy. In terms of network quality attributes, it is clear that data service performance is more important than voice service performance. Aside from consistency, "higher Internet access speed" was the second most important attribute of network service. About nine percent indicated that " fewer dropped calls" were the top network service issue.

Capacity Wholesalers Expect Revenue Growth

The providers of global capacity expect revenue growth over the next two years, a finding that cannot surprise many observers, given the perpetual growth of Internet capacity demands, now seemingly driven by mobile network upgrades, growing smart phone Internet usage and content.

Even given price declines on a per-bit basis, when capacity requirements grow roughly 60 percent a year, nominal revenue growth is virtually inevitable.

Still, just 44 percent of respondents to a Yankee Group survey think revenue growth over the next two years will be "significant."

Verizon has 33% U.S. iPhone Share

A little less than five months after Verizon Wireless began selling Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone 4, the carrier has claimed 32 percent of the U.S. iPhone 4 market, according to Localytics. Read more here.

While the report noted that AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) still commands 68 percent of the iPhone 4 market, Verizon’s share has been steadily growing since the February launch of the Verizon iPhone, despite Verizon launching the phone eight months after AT&T did.

Moreover, according to Localytics, the growth has been accelerating, with Verizon capturing seven percent of the market in May and June 2011 alone. Verizon’s share started at around 20 percent in February and grew to 25 percent in April and around 26 percent in May.

Verizon commands one-third of U.S. iPhone 4 market share

Netflix to Restructure Pricing

Netflix is changing its retail service plans, launching separate "rent DVD" and "streaming" plans. Among the new plans are "DVD only" plans, offering the lowest prices ever for unlimited DVD rentals and priced at $7.99 a month for the "one DVD out at-a-time" plan and $11.99 a month for the "two DVDs out at-a-time" plan.

Netflix also is  separating "unlimited DVDs by mail" and "unlimited streaming" plans, allowing users to choose a streaming-only or a DVD-only package, or subscribe to both.

At the same time, Netflix is ending its current plans that offer both unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs by mail.

The current $9.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs will be split into 2 distinct plans, plan one offering unlimited streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month, and Plan two offering unlimited DVDs, one out at-a-time (no streaming), for $7.99 a month.

The price for getting both of these plans will be $15.98 a month ($7.99 + $7.99). For new members, these changes are effective immediately; for existing members, the new pricing will start for charges on or after September 1, 2011.

Netflix says the plans reflect a new understanding that some subscribers want DVD-only access, while others want streaming-only or mixed access. Most significantly, DVD-only customers seem to be a significant percentage of the customer base.

"Reflecting our confidence that DVDs by mail is a long-term business for us, we are also establishing a separate and distinct management team solely focused on DVDs by mail, led by Andy Rendich, our Chief Service and Operations Officer and an 11 year veteran of Netflix," the company says.

People generally are not happy about the change, but you could have guessed that reaction. Some 1800 comments so far on the post, here: http://blog.netflix.com/.

The issue is whether the changes have any noticeable effect on subscriber acquisition or retention.