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]]>» Watch the video of Everson’s Q&A with paidContent Editor Staci D. Kramer, embedded below. Full coverage of the conference is available in our archives.
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» Watch the video of Everson’s Q&A with paidContent Editor Staci D. Kramer, embedded below. Full coverage of the conference is available in our archives.
On mobile, where Facebook runs no advertising today: “We are holding ourselves to as high a standard as possible on mobile,” she said. “I don’t rule mobile out, but we are working hard to figure out what the right model is. We haven’t figured that out yet.”
Facebook takes advertising strategy cues from Mark Zuckerberg: “He wants ads to be as useful as the content consumed in your news feed.”
On growing partnerships with studios for premium video content (particularly relevant considering the content push announced at f8): “We can move the box office needle. We feel confident about what we can do on the studio side.”
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]]>As per the agreement, Shahrukh Khan will participate in live video chats with fans using the Google+ Hangouts feature over the next couple of weeks. In return, the Internet giant will promote Shahrukh’s forthcoming sci-fi movie “Ra.One” through YouTube and Google+.
Mr. Rajan Anandan said:
“We are very pleased to associate with Shahrukh Khan to create a unique and customised destination for Ra.One on YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG). In the last few years, Indian production houses have begun to embrace the YouTube platform to engage fans, distribute movies and leverage rich media ad formats to promote their movies online. Bollywood is now an integral part of the YouTube experience and reaches over 22 million unique users in India. With this channel we want to demonstrate how YouTube can be used creatively to connect with the highly engaged YouTube community in India and across the world.”
The movie sports a custom built YouTube channel, which Mr. Anandan claimed to be the first of its kind for a Bollywood movie. It will offer exclusive video content like unseen footage of the star cast, behind the scenes shots, videos of the Ra.One premiere and red carpet events planned in London, and host various contests to engage the fans.
In a similiar fashion, Google+ will also feature numerous social games and a digital comic based on the movie.
Speaking about this agreement, Shahrukh Khan said:
“YouTube is an incredibly powerful platform to engage fans across the globe and is integral to all blockbuster movie promotions in Hollywood. For Ra.One, I wanted to leverage the full potential of digital media and create an experience on YouTube and Google+ that has never been done for any Indian film. I am very excited about the project and am personally working with the Google team to create a destination that my fans can enjoy from anywhere in the world.”
Roping in Shahrukh Khan to promote Google+ is definitely a good move to attract the common man but I am little sceptical about whether users will come back to use the service once these promotions die down.
However, Google+ already sports 4 million early adopters from India and the market penetration of Google services in the country is pretty impressive as well.
Hence if the company manages to get more celebrities and brands on board with a localized marketing push like it did with Google Chrome, it might just help Google+ gain the required traction from users. What do you think?
[via Alootechie]
» This article was first published by Penn Olson, The Asian Tech Catalog, and is reproduced here with permission.
]]>» Watch the video of McCue’s Q&A with paidContent UK Editor Robert Andrews, embedded below. Full coverage of the conference is available in our archives.
]]>» Watch the video of McCue’s Q&A with paidContent UK Editor Robert Andrews, embedded below. Full coverage of the conference is available in our archives.
“When something scrolls, you can’t put a full-page ad there,” McCue said. “We want to create a paginated experience. That allows for full-page, print-style ads.
“The web, as wonderful as it is, is not able to render content beautifully, the monetization model has been challenging, it’s not a good experience for readers. Print is flat; it doesn’t move - there’s a lot of good things about that.
“Don’t have infinite inventory,” McCue told advertisers in the audience. “There should be scarcity to the inventory. Sell to the people who are buying print ads from you.”
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]]>The live ticker shows what your friends are talking about right now. From Thursday, this is where you’ll be able to see what your friends are listening to, reading or watching this moment.
It’s an unobtrusive little box in the top-right corner, meaning News Feed displays only the “Top Stories” from the last day – turning Facebook into “your own personal newspaper”, says Facebook engineer Mark Tokelowitz.
The idea is that Facebook addicts (sorry, users) will be able to easily catch-up on what their friends have been doing over the past 24 hours without having to scroll through endless updates. And it ostensibly nudges Facebook away from the irresistible theory that it wants people to stay on the site for as long as possible.
Here’s Tokelowitz again:
“When you visit Facebook, you should see the things you’re most interested in, like status updates from your family and closest friends. Last week, we announced improvements to Friend Lists and a new Subscribe button to help you see more of what you care about, and less of what you don’t.
But it’s not just the people you hear from that make your News Feed interesting. It also matters how much you visit Facebook. If you haven’t returned in a week, you may want to see a summary of top stories first. If you’ve already visited several times that day, you probably care more about recent news. Starting today, it will be easier to keep up with the people in your life no matter how frequently or infrequently you’re on Facebook.”
Good news: if you hate the changes, switch your settings to English (UK) and – for a few hours at least – you’ll have the old News Feed.
But what do you think about the changes? Is this the moment where you lost control – or the feeling of being in control – of what your friends are sharing (like Twitter)?
Roughly half of Facebook’s 750 million active users visit the website at least once a day, according to figures it has touted around recently. How useful will a “personal newspaper” be to the 375 million people that are tuning in relatively frequently?
“Lame,” snarks Brandi Genest Weeks on the Facebook blog. “Quite frankly I don’t want Facebook deciding who is most important in my life. I want my news feed to just go chronologically and if I want to hide posts from someone, I will. Stop changing. You’re becoming MySpace and I left there for a reason.”
Ouch. And 845 people “Liked” Brandi’s comment. Almost 500 disgrunted Facebook users concurred with Fiona Robinson, who blasted: “NOOOO! I STILL want “most recent” at the top like it used to be, so we have the OPTION of seeing what has been posted most recently instead of what Facebook deems a “top story”. This is total garbage.
“It’s been two weeks since I got this “new feed” and I’m closer and closer to ditching to G+ where they ACTUALLY listen to user feedback! I’ve complained everywhere possible and haven’t gotten a single helpful response. Geez, guys. Usability should be a main concern, and you’re kind of sucking at it.”
My static News Feed looks pretty tired right now – the top story is a comment on my wall from nine hours ago – while the most recent “ticker” update is a pretty banal one from a friend who inexplicably just “Liked” his own photo.
Once the ticker is populated with my friends’ Spotify tunes, Vevo videos or Wall Street Journal (NSDQ: NWS) stories, then I’m interested. How about you?
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]]>—The most active social media users are influential offline as well. They’re 26 percent more likely to voice their opinion on politics and current events, 30 percent more likely to give their opinion on TV shows and 5 percent more likely to go on a date.
—Females and 18-34 year olds are the most active social networkers. These active users are most often Asian or Pacific Islander, live in New England, have a bachelor’s degree and a household income of under $50,000 per year.
—Social networking and app usage is up 30 percent. 40 percent of mobile users actively use mobile for social interactions. After GPS, social media capability is the most valued function on a smartphone.
—Facebook is by far, the most popular social destination. Tumblr has also seen strong growth, nearly tripling in the past year alone.
—Social networkers want to help each other. 60 percent want to give product improvement recommendations. 64 percent want to customize products.
Lots more data, including on what social media is used for, in Subramanyam’s presentation:
Nielsen: The State Of Social Media 2011
Follow paidContent Advertising via our live stream and via Twitter, hashtag #pcads11.
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]]>The NYT’s sharper Indian focus comes more than two years after the Wall St. Journal launched its Indian effort. Given the accelerating ad market in India right now, it seems like the NYT should be able to catch the growth that’s happening there.
Earlier this year, Interpublic Group’s Magna Global has forecast India’s advertising market to rise by 21 percent this year. With the ad economy in the U.S. looking more uncertain, it makes sense for the NYTCo (NYSE: NYT) to expand its brand to India. Still, one small blog likely won’t mean much to the newspaper’s bottom line, but it does position the brand well as the Indian market remains in a robust growth pattern.
Beyond ads, the NYTCo sees India Ink as a possible extension of its metered paywall. The press release carefully notes that “initially, access to India Ink will be exempt from The New York Times’s digital subscription packages,” suggesting that free period won’t last forever.
The blog will be edited by the NYT staff in India and the International Herald Tribune in Hong Kong, led by lead writer Heather Timmons, who has covered business in India for the NYT for the last four years.
The move is also one of the first big decisions to come out of the NYT under executive editor Jill Abramson, who replaced Bill Keller this week in the position. Keller announced his decision to step down as executive editor back in June, opting to writing a column instead.
]]>Hulu Japan launches with programming from CBS (NYSE: CBS), NBCUniversal (NSDQ: CMCSA) International Television Distribution, Sony (NYSE: SNE) Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox (NSDQ: NWS), The Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) Company (Japan) featuring content from Disney/ABC Television Group and The Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros. (NYSE: TWX) Disney, Fox and NBCU are equity owners in the online video portal.
But the launch version doesn’t offer Japanese programming. Hulu promises to rapidly add more programming, including Japanese-produced content and content from across Asia.
In the launch announcement, Hulu said it has an exclusive mobile marketing partnership NTT Docomo, Japan’s largest mobile carrier, but promised that Hulu Japan subscribers “will be able to use Hulu on any mobile carrier or internet service provider on supported devices” without a long-term contract or subscription commitment.
But there are some device gaps at the start, notably Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Xbox 360 and Blu-Ray players. The only connected TVs at launch are Panasonic Vieras; Sony Bravia is “coming soon” along with Blu-Ray players from Panasonic and Sony.
In the U.S., Hulu.com is free while the subscription service is known as “Hulu Plus.” Each is ad supported. Hulu calls its service “first of its kind” for Japan but also wanted it to stand out among the many entertainment options. Hulu Japan is more like streaming video rival Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) than Hulu U.S. in one respect: TV shows are previous seasons, not current. The slate of current and library shows includes the CSIs, 24, Bones, Criminal Minds, Desperate Housewives, Fringe, Grey’s Anatomy, and NCIS. The first month is free.
International head Johannes Larcher explained some of Hulu’s reasoning and its plans on the company blog:
As we’ve done in the U.S., we will rapidly and continually add content to the service. The content lineup will only become more robust over time, including the addition of Japanese-produced content and content from across the Asian region in the near term.
We are equally proud of the user experience that the Hulu team has built for Japanese entertainment fans. We are offering an intuitive and fully localized product available in both Japanese and English, with many of the popular Hulu features from the U.S. incorporated into the experience.
As for expansion, writes Larcher:
We are committed to the success of our efforts in Japan and future international markets. Hulu in Japan is 100% owned and operated, and our growing Japan team has been hard at work building and inventing in our new Tokyo office. We are in Japan for the long term, and excited to continue building our product for Japanese consumers.
As we celebrate the launch of Hulu in Japan, we are conscious that this is just the first of more markets outside of the U.S. for Hulu. We hope that you will stay tuned for more news regarding our journey around the world.
The long-anticipated international expansion comes as Hulu collects bids for a potential sale. While speculation mounted in the U.S. over the possible suitors, believed to include Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG), among others, the Hulu team led by CEO Jason Kilar was in Tokyo to launch Hulu Japan. While the move could make Hulu more attractive by showing its potential, it’s also a major investment that will take time to pay off.
Hulu’s running a different pattern from competitor Netflix, which started its expansion by going north to Canada and goes south to Latin America this fall. The next stops are expected to be Spain and the UK in early 2012. Netflix is using the same template as it has for streaming in the U.S. at a cost that is very similar $8-$10 a month.
The emphasis on streaming and the international push for that side of its business led to a change in pricing that starts today as Netflix splits its DVD and streaming, requiring users to pay for each separately rather than a less expensive combined package. Meanwhile, Amazon’s Lovefilm is looking at ways to expand its own streaming service. So far, the only head-to-head competition is in the U.S., with Netlfix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Prime; the latter is included in a $79 annual site membership with shipping benefits, not marketed as a monthly service. Hulu Plus is the only one with current primetime programming.
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]]>Like us on Facebook.
And soon enough we’ll start seeing +1 or circle us on Google+
.I would like to talk about an inflection point in social media that requires pause. I am not suggesting that there will be a social media 2.0 or 3.0 for that matter. Nor do I see the term social media departing our vocabulary any time soon. After all, it was recently added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Instead, what I would like to discuss is the end of an era of social media that will force the industry to mature. It won’t happen on its own however. Evolution will occur because consumers demand it and also because you’re willing to stake your job on it.
]]>
Like us on Facebook.
And soon enough we’ll start seeing +1 or circle us on Google+
.I would like to talk about an inflection point in social media that requires pause. I am not suggesting that there will be a social media 2.0 or 3.0 for that matter. Nor do I see the term social media departing our vocabulary any time soon. After all, it was recently added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Instead, what I would like to discuss is the end of an era of social media that will force the industry to mature. It won’t happen on its own however. Evolution will occur because consumers demand it and also because you’re willing to stake your job on it.
From Social Network Fatigue to Deals Fatigue to Follow Fatigue, businesses are facing a crossroads at the intersection of social and media. Following the path of media continues a long tradition of what Tom Foremski refers to as “Social Media as Corporate Media.” Following the path of social is a journey towards relevance.
As Foremski states, “Social media is not corporate media…if corporations try to turn social media into a corporate sales or marketing channel then they risk losing the naked conversations, and the insight into customer behaviors.”
His point is that there’s more to social media than clever campaigns and rudimentary conversations. Talking isn’t the only thing that makes social media social. Just like adding Facebook, Twitter and other sharing buttons will not magically transform static content into shareable experiences. Listening, learning and adapting is where the real value of social media will show its true colors. Listening leads to a more informed business. Engagement unlocks empathy and innovation. But it is action and adaptation that leads to relevance. And, it never ends.
Indeed, there really are more examples of media than there are that of social media in many of the celebrated examples out there today. Even though distributing corporate media in social channels sets the stage for dialogue, there really isn’t much that’s social about it. In fact, study of many social media initiatives have led me to believe that much of what we benchmark against is actually anti-social in its approach.
The future of social media comes down to one word, “value.” Without it, businesses will find it much more difficult to earn and retain friends, fans and followers (3F’s). As adoption of social networks soared in previous years, growth is now plateauing. eMarketer estimates that Facebook growth will hit only 13.4 percent this year after experiencing 38.6 percent acceleration in 2010 and a staggering 90.3 percent ascension the year before. Facebook isn’t alone in its sobriety either. The rate of Twitter user adoption fell from 293.1 percent growth in 2009 to 26.3 percent this year.
Don’t get me wrong, people are still embracing social networks. However, the severity of competition for consumer attention is now unmistakable. Once liberal with their likes, Retweets, and follows, consumers are becoming much more guarded and realistic. Therefore brands will now have to more effectively listen to markets to make more informed decisions about how social media impacts the enterprise and in turn customer experiences.
The GlobalWebIndex “Wave 5 Trends” report delivers insight into how consumers are using social networks and technology in general. According to the report, growth in social network usage among 16- to 24-year-olds in the US is stalling. And, in a few countries usage within this group is declining. In fact, one of the key insights shared in the report is subduing, “Facebook is no longer the one stop shop for the total internet experience.”
However, the report is not a harbinger of social networking’s demise. It is merely a lens into how behavior is changing. This is important for any business to realize that business as usual in social networks is in fact anything but.
Between June 2009 and June 2011, the following changes were noted in Facebook activity:
—Uploading videos is experiencing a modest increase around the world up 5 percent in the U.S. and 7.6 percent worldwide.
—Installing apps is on the decline, down 10.4 percent in the U.S. and 3.1 percent worldwide.
—Sending virtual gifts may not be gifts worth giving after all, with numbers declining 12.9 percent in the U.S. and 7.5 percent around the world.
Twitter on the other hand is a rich exchange for information commerce, where links become a form of digital currency. For example, 45 percent share an opinion about a product or brand more than once per day. Another 34 percent of Twitter users also share a link about a product or brand more than once per day.
When asked what consumers want from brands, knowledge and entertainment soared to the top of the list. Additionally, The GlobalWebIndex Wave 5 Trends report tells us that online consumers want brands to provide services that fit with their lifestyle. They also want brands to listen to them.
What can we learn of this?
1) Businesses must first realize that there’s more to social media than just managing an active presence, driven by an active editorial calendar. Listening is key and within each conversation lies a clue to earn relevance and ultimately establish leadership.
2) Consumers want to be heard. Social media will have to break free form the grips of marketing in order to truly socialize the enterprise to listen, engage, learn, and adapt. You can’t create a social business if the business is not designed to be customer-centric from the outside-in and the inside-out.
3) Social media becomes an extension of active listening and engagement. Strategies, programs, and content are derivative of insights, catalysts for innovation, and messengers of value. More importantly, social media becomes a platform for the brand and the functions that consumers deem mandatory. From marketing to HR to service to R&D, brands will expand the role they play in social networking to make the acts of following and sharing an investment in a more meaningful relationship.
The end of Social Media 1.0 is the beginning of a new era of business, consumer engagement, and relevance.
#AdaptOrDie
Brian Solis is principal of Altimeter Group, a research based advisory firm. He is the author of the new book The End of Business As Usual: Rewire the Way You Work to Succeed in the Consumer Revolution and also Engage!, the best-selling book on strategic social media. Follow him on Twitter @briansolis
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]]>The Indian company also has several third-party blogs in its network, which it “assists” with ad sales and also features on the Instablogs site. All in all, it says sites in its network get 10 million pageviews a month.
The company says it will use the new cash in part to increase the size of its network of writers and also to launch “local sites targeting the European and U.S. audiences.” Instamedia had previously raised a seed round two years ago from Vishal Gondal, the founder and CEO of Indiagames.
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]]>In April, Zenith revised its 2010 global advertising growth from 0.9 percent to 2.2 percent—its second consecutive upgrade following 18 months of retreating from previous forecasts.
The Publicis Groupe media buyer notes that both mobile and social media ad spend are most visible and best measured in the U.S., making it a good barometer for the rest of the world. Thanks to the continued high sales rates for Apple’s iPhone and phones powered by Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android’s OS, mobile advertising is growing faster than the internet in general. The same is true for social media, thanks mostly to Facebook. Obviously, before last year, both options were still largely ignored by major marketers, except as an experiment.
Zenith is forecasting mobile ad spend will grow by an average of 43.2 percent a year between 2009 and 2012. Social media ad expenditures are expected to gain 30.2 percent a year during that period, compared to 15.6 percent a year for the internet as a whole.
There is some overlap when it comes to assessing the mobile and social media ad growth rates, since many consumers use their mobile devices to access their social profiles. Mobile and social advertising accounted for just 5 percent of online ad spend in the U.S. in ‘09, but Zenith believes that its share will rise to 8 percent in 2012.
While that growth is impressive, when we talk about online advertising, paid search remains the main engine of rising internet ad spend. Search comprised 50.2 percent of all internet ad dollars last year, and Zenith anticipates a rise to 52.6 percent in 2012.
While display started to recover in the latter half of ‘09, its contribution to total internet spend fell from 32.9 percent in 2008 to 31.9 at the end of last year. Along with social media and mobile, internet video’s accelerated growth should help display stabilize this year and increase its share of internet spend to 32 percent in 2012.
Overall, internet ads’ global market share from 10.5 percent in 2008 to 12.7 percent in 2009. By 2012, it will account for 17 percent of the total ad pie, Zenith says, nothing that’s just two percentage points below newspapers. Speaking of which, newspapers have been losing share every year since 1987, when they accounted for 40.6 percent of all ad spending. By ‘09, that share had fallen to 23 percent. Zenith says that number will fall further to 19.2 percent in 2012.
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]]>With mounting competition from Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Google (NSDQ: GOOG), Research In Motion and others, Apple cannot afford to release a mediocre update - it has to come up with something special to please investors, developers and fanboys. We will be at Apple’s headquarters tomorrow morning to find out if it passes the test. But in the meantime, here are five things we’d like to see at tomorrow’s announcement. Our list isn’t meant to predict the actual list—rather it’s the five services and capabilities that we think Apple should roll out to keep the iPhone momentum rolling. Please add your own suggestions, in the comments, for what iPhone OS 4.0 should look like.
]]>With mounting competition from Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Google (NSDQ: GOOG), Research In Motion and others, Apple cannot afford to release a mediocre update - it has to come up with something special to please investors, developers and fanboys. We will be at Apple’s headquarters tomorrow morning to find out if it passes the test. But in the meantime, here are five things we’d like to see at tomorrow’s announcement. Our list isn’t meant to predict the actual list—rather it’s the five services and capabilities that we think Apple should roll out to keep the iPhone momentum rolling. Please add your own suggestions, in the comments, for what iPhone OS 4.0 should look like.
1. Multi-tasking: This is an obvious one that many others have mentioned. Especially with the release of the iPad, Apple needs to add the ability to run multiple applications simultaneously. The devices become much more powerful when you can listen to Pandora while checking email, or receive a Skype call while also streaming TV.
2. Live Widgets: The iPhone’s home screen is embarrassingly stagnant. There’s no excuse for it to always be 73 degrees in Cupertino. The weather app should be able to track your location and update the temperature accordingly. Google Android currently has this capability, and Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7 is taking it to even further with tiles that can sift through photo albums and and provide short-cuts to the people you care about most.
3. Distribution/price points: To keep developers and advertisers happy, Apple must increase its market share. During a recent three-month period, Apple’s growth remained flat, while Android’s share rose by 5.2 percent. How can Apple compete in the U.S. when the iPhone is only available on AT&T? (NYSE: T) Price points are also important. While an entry-level iPhone costs as low as $99, it will have to compete with Android phones that will be free by the end of the year.
4. Advertising: Apple is expected to roll out a new advertising service tomorrow that is the result of its purchase of Quattro Wireless. While it’s very speculative, the service could be instrumental in keeping application developers and carriers happy. As we reported, Google is sharing advertising revenues from search with operators that adopt Android. Microsoft, as well, could offer that. While carriers are still eager to adopt the iPhone, Apple may need to provide some financial incentive in the future to keep the relationship healthy and give carriers a reason to invest in their network infrastructure. At minimum, an advertising network would potentially help application developers monetize their applications.
5. Content and services: While there’s hundreds of thousands of iPhone applications—many of them free—the phone itself does not come pre-loaded with a lot of services. That leaves customers sifting aimlessly through a mind-numbing list. Other handset makers are seeing value in partnering with content companies as a way to differentiate themselves. Google started offering free turn-by-turn navigation; Nokia (NYSE: NOK) quickly followed suit. Likewise, T-Mobile USA recently integrated an e-reader and a Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) video subscription service into the HTC HD2 running Windows Mobile; Samsung has announced content partnerships with Paramount Pictures and others for future Android phones. Apple, of course, lets you buy video and songs from iTunes to play on your iPhone, but it needs to also offer subscription services and/or pre-loaded standalone applications based on this treasure chest of music and video.
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Round 1 goes to Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). The iPad, as expected, has caused a big stir, and given people like Walt Mossberg reason to gush with enthusiasm about the death of laptops. Throughout, as various members of the press have mused about the death of Amazon’s Kindle, I feel compelled to point out that, contrary to popular belief, Amazon is in a better position now than it was before the iPad. That’s right, if Amazon comes out swinging, Round 2 will go to Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN). Here’s why:
—Amazon has the bookstore and all that entails. This is simply something that Apple can’t touch. Leave aside for a moment the fact that Random House books are still not available in the iBook app. Even if Apple could offer a full library of books, it can’t offer the decade’s worth of reviews, comments and community connections that Amazon’s bookstore has. As I told the Wall Street Journal last week: “If you’re an iPad buyer, chances are about 90% that you’re also a book buyer on Amazon. Amazon has your credit card on file, they know what you like. ...That relationship is the key to selling books.”
]]>Round 1 goes to Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). The iPad, as expected, has caused a big stir, and given people like Walt Mossberg reason to gush with enthusiasm about the death of laptops. Throughout, as various members of the press have mused about the death of Amazon’s Kindle, I feel compelled to point out that, contrary to popular belief, Amazon is in a better position now than it was before the iPad. That’s right, if Amazon comes out swinging, Round 2 will go to Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN). Here’s why:
—Amazon has the bookstore and all that entails. This is simply something that Apple can’t touch. Leave aside for a moment the fact that Random House books are still not available in the iBook app. Even if Apple could offer a full library of books, it can’t offer the decade’s worth of reviews, comments and community connections that Amazon’s bookstore has. As I told the Wall Street Journal last week: “If you’re an iPad buyer, chances are about 90% that you’re also a book buyer on Amazon. Amazon has your credit card on file, they know what you like. ...That relationship is the key to selling books.”
—iPad buyers can and will read Kindle books. My prediction is that more Kindle books will be read on the iPad in 2010 than will iBook books. Think about it, if you are about to buy a $9.99 or $14.99 e-book, would you rather buy it on the iPad and only be able to read it on the iPad—even if you have a MacBook or an iPhone—or would you rather buy it from Amazon, which gives you the ability to read that book on your iPhone, Blackberry, PC, Mac, or, yes, Kindle? Amazon will score technical points with the judges each time an iPad owner logs in to browse, buy or read a Kindle book.
Notice that I did not defend the current hardware device known as the Kindle. I don’t believe Amazon expects these devices to live for more than another five years or so. In fact, it’s very likely that the current Kindle devices will get a sharp price shave in order to sell the 3.5 million e-ink Kindles we’re estimating for 2010. And I’d be surprised if we don’t see a new Kindle model in 2011 at a significantly lower price point to exploit the fact that it’s such a great e-reader for traditional books if nothing else.
But propping up the market for e-ink devices is not where the action will be. Because for Round 3 and beyond, Amazon’s success will depend on it introducing a full-color, full-media, touch device that I have presumptuously nicknamed the Kindle Flame. Here’s what Amazon should do to fan the fire:
—Go head to head with Apple on a media tablet. HP, Dell and Lenovo are busy positioning their present and future tablets against the iPad. But none of them can offer what Apple can: an integrated content and user experience that makes life simultaneously simpler and more enjoyable. But Amazon can. Sure, it has no real hardware strengths to speak of (remember how ghastly the first Kindle was?), but we live in a world where there are a dozen companies in Taiwan and mainland China that can whip up a device to Amazon’s specs.
—Make content even more central to its device than Apple has. People spend between five and six hours a day with media, most of that watching TV and video. The iPad’s great misstep is that is doesn’t meaningfully increase the amount of that media you can centralize in that single device. Yes, it can dominate music, and the addition of apps for magazines, newspapers, and books add maybe an hour’s worth of media consumption per day. But it really doesn’t do a good job with the four-plus hours of video we watch a day.
Yes, you can buy or rent iTunes movies, but without a way to get a significant amount of TV programming onto the device, it is only marginally better than the laptop most of us have available already. But if the device could synchronize with your DVR (think TiVo (NSDQ: TIVO), not Comcast) or even if it had an over-the-air HD tuner built in, the Kindle Flame would suddenly have dramatically more consumer appeal.
—Innovate on the partner side. Make a splash with this new device by partnering with another disruptor. Google’s the obvious choice here—it has an OS it wants to promote, and it offers all the cloud-based services and productivity experiences Amazon doesn’t want to develop or compete with. Google’s an odd partner, and some have reported that partnering with the search giant is like dating a man from the Mad Men era—it’s all about him, not about “us.” But the two-headed dragon of Amazon and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) could breathe enough fire to cause fear in both Cupertino and Redmond.
Of course, my advice for Amazon can also extend to Sony (NYSE: SNE). Sony makes TVs, game consoles, laptops, and, now, the world’s No.2 e-reader. It also owns content assets, though it hasn’t always succeeded in making those assets work for it in the market. Indeed, if TV content is the biggest hole in the fabric Apple is weaving, Sony could deliver that much more easily than Apple could—imagine a connected Blu-ray player with a built-in DVR that synchronizes with Sony’s version of the iPad (I have no clever name for Sony’s version, though if the past is a reliable guide, I fear Sony will christen it the DTM-5001). There’s a device ecosystem that could finally work for Sony.
Yes, folks, this match is far from over and even if Amazon takes Round 2, there’s a lot of fight left in all these fighters. And that’s just the way it’s supposed to be: we don’t want a repeat of the iPod market, where Apple’s extremely successful device so dominates the landscape that no one else can even hope to innovate and change the market. So even if you’re an Apple fan, be grateful that neither Amazon nor Sony are going to take a dive, because the iPad’s best chance for becoming as magical and revolutionary as Steve Jobs promised is in response to serious pummeling from the competition.
James McQuivey is an analyst at Forrester Research, where she serves Consumer Product Strategy professionals. He blogs here
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]]>Unlike with chat, however, Google is actually following its two biggest e-mail rivals—Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO)—in letting users share and track status updates. (Big caveat here: We don’t actually know all of what the feature involves or what it will look like; we’ve asked and will update if we hear back).
But Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) added social networking-like features—which let users share activities around the web, along with status updates, called ‘notes’—to Windows Live way back in November 2008. And Yahoo announced in August that users of Yahoo Mail would be able to share status updates.
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]]>The company says it will use the cash in part to pursue opportunities in Japan, China, Korea and India, where it says there is an untapped market for live streaming video. There are lots of other players in the live broadcasting space, but Ustream is the biggest player, with about 50 million unique users a month (By contrast, Justin.tv says it has about 41 million unique users, while Livestream says it has about 17 million).
With the new funding, Ustream will also now have a big funding lead over its competitors. In total, it will have now raised more than $86 million, including $11.1 million in a first round from Doll Capital Management and Band of Angels in April 2008. Even more cash could be coming, since the company says “additional funding commitments are pending.”
]]>The company says it will use the cash in part to pursue opportunities in Japan, China, Korea and India, where it says there is an untapped market for live streaming video. There are lots of other players in the live broadcasting space, but Ustream is the biggest player, with about 50 million unique users a month (By contrast, Justin.tv says it has about 41 million unique users, while Livestream says it has about 17 million).
With the new funding, Ustream will also now have a big funding lead over its competitors. In total, it will have now raised more than $86 million, including $11.1 million in a first round from Doll Capital Management and Band of Angels in April 2008. Even more cash could be coming, since the company says “additional funding commitments are pending.”
USTREAM SECURES $75 MILLION SERIES B FUNDING FROM SOFTBANK
New Funding to Fuel Ustream Growth in the U.S. and Asia Pacific
Mountain View, Calif. – February 1, 2010 – Ustream, the leader in live streaming to Internet and mobile devices, today announced a $75 million Series B funding round lead by SOFTBANK of Japan, one of Asia’s largest internet and telecom companies with a large mobile presence. Additional funding commitments are pending from other investors in the U.S. and Asia. The funding will help fuel Ustream’s growth in the U.S. and Asia Pacific, specifically to pursue opportunities in Asia in Japan, China, Korea and India.
“Asia offers a significant, untapped market opportunity for streaming video,” said John Ham, Ustream founder and CEO. “SOFTBANK will enable us to develop this opportunity and deliver on our vision of live streaming video everywhere. We look forward to deploying these resources to accelerate our growth in the United States and Asia Pacific.”
The live streaming market is rapidly growing. More than 3.4 million viewers watched the live red carpet pre-show of the American Music Awards in 2009 and more than 3.8 million watched the inauguration of President Barack Obama via Ustream in January 2009.
Ustream delivers some of the most popular live streaming video programming, delivering premium and celebrity-powered events in partnership with leading media companies. The company had the first live streaming application for the iPhone available in Apple’s App Store. Its iPhone applications have been downloaded more than 1.5 million times.
Ustream’s one-to-many live streaming encourages broadcast-to-viewer and viewer-to-viewer interaction, empowering a much more engaging experience for everyone involved. Users can interact during events using Ustream’s Social Stream, which enables real-time dialogue through Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and AIM integrations.
“Since DCM’s lead investment in the Series A, we’ve worked closely with Ustream’s founders to execute upon its vision to build the company into a truly global media company,” said Gen Isayama, DCM general partner and member of the Ustream board of directors. “SOFTBANK’s involvement and financial support will be instrumental in enabling the company to connect live venues and viewers anywhere in the world through any internet-connected device.”
Asia presents a very unique environment to foster a live streaming platform service like Ustream, specifically because of advancements in infrastructure, better mobile 3G penetration versus the U.S., and a rapidly growing base of internet users.
About Ustream
Ustream is the live interactive video broadcast platform that enables anyone with a camera and an Internet connection to quickly and easily broadcast to a global audience of unlimited size. In less than two minutes, anyone can become a broadcaster by creating their own channel on Ustream or by broadcasting through their own site, empowering them to engage with their audience and further build their brand. Visit Ustream.com to start a broadcast now or learn more about broadcasting. Ustream’s Shiba Inu Puppy Cam, seen by more than 15 million viewers worldwide, was listed as one of 2008’s top 10 Web videos (Source: Associated Press). Ustream powered more than 3.8 million streams during the 2009 Presidential Inauguration.
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]]>You can’t go an entire day without encountering Facebook and Twitter – even if you don’t have an account. Whether you ride the subway or take the bus, you’ll see people young and old updating their status or talking about the latest social-networking drama. If you watch the television or listen to the radio, you’ll be driven to the Twitter or Facebook accounts of celebrities, brands and non-profits. If you do come across the rare people who are not on Facebook, they sound like cavemen – and they know it; they are talking about signing up soon. In such an environment, it is easy to conclude that this dominance will last forever.
But it won’t.
]]>You can’t go an entire day without encountering Facebook and Twitter – even if you don’t have an account. Whether you ride the subway or take the bus, you’ll see people young and old updating their status or talking about the latest social-networking drama. If you watch the television or listen to the radio, you’ll be driven to the Twitter or Facebook accounts of celebrities, brands and non-profits. If you do come across the rare people who are not on Facebook, they sound like cavemen – and they know it; they are talking about signing up soon. In such an environment, it is easy to conclude that this dominance will last forever.
But it won’t.
I concluded in a post in August that “maybe Twitter isn’t for everyone.” Twitter peaked in total reach that month, at least in terms of U.S. unique visitors, according to analytics services Compete and comScore (NSDQ: SCOR). Facebook, on the other hand, is for everyone – everyone who has friends or family, which happens to be everyone on the planet.
But it can’t be everything to everyone.
In particular, we should not conflate the fact of Facebook’s and Twitter’s dominance of social media with the reason for their dominance: the emergence of the stream as a media form. The stream as a media form is what is often lost in the narrative of the rise of Facebook and Twitter and the focus on the personalities that drove the success. As a media form, the stream will evolve away from the monolith it is today, into something differentiated, varied and dynamic.
Facebook is the broadcast television network of stream communication. It pioneered the stream as a media form and popularized it for a mass audience by connecting friends, classmates and family. Like NBC’s fuzzy black-and-white 1947 World Series, the stream of 10 years from now will look nothing like the stream of today.
Over the coming decade, at least two types of winners will emerge from the stream wars. The first set of winners will be the creators of proprietary, differentiated streams. Some of those companies will create their own programming, while others will rely on the second set of winners – production houses, the social-media equivalents of Sony (NYSE: SNE) Pictures and Warner Brothers – to create it for them. Companies like Zynga and Playfish are the modern-day production houses, churning out applications for the social networks.
Pessimists will say: “What is there to differentiate around? One-hundred-and-forty characters is 140 characters, a photo is a photo, a video is a video …” That may be true, but if you believe that the stream is an ongoing conversation, it follows that the conversations I’m willing to start with my friends and family differ dramatically from the conversations I’ll start in an effort to pick someone up in a bar, or trying to network at an industry conference, or chatting with my fellow sports fans. To put it simply, I don’t want my mom on Facebook reading my pickup lines, commenting on my status posts intended for colleagues, or liking my sports chatter – so I’ll do those things elsewhere.
The bottom line is that despite the privacy settings Facebook users may now have, they still mostly intend their communication for friends and family, not for everyone, and even if Facebook could somehow cross that chasm, the resulting user experience may well be impaired compared with a dedicated network powered by a thematic stream—one with affinity for something other than school, friends and family.
Twitter itself is proof that the stream is not a one-company affair. While it may well never rise to the level of dominance of Facebook, there is no reason to think it will not be a highly successful media company for a long time to come. It has differentiated around celebrity, simplicity, breaking news and openness. For me at least, it is the morning paper. Twitter, despite lacking the mass appeal of Facebook, continues to aggregate a tremendously valuable audience while having an important enough role to shape geopolitics.
We recently conducted a survey to poll users of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and myYearbook on why they used the various services. We provided 12 options and asked the user to pick the three that mattered most to them. You can see in the charts below why Twitter has been able to differentiate from Facebook, while Myspace, which shares three of the four main reasons for using Facebook—including the main reason—has not.
So there are at least two ways forward for social media in a stream world – even in a stream world dominated today by Facebook and Twitter. You can dedicate yourself to creating applications that play well in the stream, or you can try to come up with a new way to shape the stream itself.
myYearbook pursues both. It differentiates its own stream, myYearbook Chatter, in a number of ways. Most of all, the people posting into Chatter have a different purpose for sharing than people posting into Facebook – they want to meet new people, to flirt and to connect with people both near them and half-a-world away. This context renders the user’s real-life social graph, and Facebook’s main advantage, irrelevant. Chatter is now a geostream with 700,000 posts per day and double-digit monthly growth rates. It has become so important to the site that we are currently in the midst of a major site redesign to put Chatter at the core of the experience.
But to support the purpose of meeting new people, the stream needs to function differently than the standard Facebook stream. Our Chatter stream differs in two critical ways:
—First, users view the chatter of people near them, filtered by age and gender, making Chatter, at its core, a geostream, and one well-suited to meeting new people.
—Second, unlike other popular streams, Chatter permits users to comment on other users’ posts with photos as well as text, opening the door to interactions like the one depicted below.
If we look just a couple of years down the road, there is no question that Facebook’s U.S. uniques will have peaked. Not for any flaw in the company’s model, but for the success of it – everyone will have signed up – so their growth rates will be checked by the population. At that point, churn will grow, as users discover other niche social networks, just as the broadcast television audience fragmented across so many different cable stations.
Meanwhile, Facebook revenues will spike as the dramatic increases in inventory fueled by growth start to slow and CPMs start to rise, putting intense pressure on the social-gaming companies that, in the face of increasingly restricted viral channels, have benefited from cheap advertising to make their high-churn businesses work. The winners will be those companies who grow virally—or, put another way, the companies that play well in the stream.
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]]>The fourth round of capital was led by Globespan Capital Partners; existing investors Charles River Ventures and Helion Venture Partners also participated. To date, the company has raised $37 million. SMS GupShup will rely on advertising from brands such as Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Puma, Cadbury and others, to bring the company to profitability this year. The money will be used to expand into the Philippines and Indonesia, and to grow the organization to 150 employees by adding another 20 positions in marketing, engineering and sales.
]]>The fourth round of capital was led by Globespan Capital Partners; existing investors Charles River Ventures and Helion Venture Partners also participated. To date, the company has raised $37 million. SMS GupShup will rely on advertising from brands such as Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Puma, Cadbury and others, to bring the company to profitability this year. The money will be used to expand into the Philippines and Indonesia, and to grow the organization to 150 employees by adding another 20 positions in marketing, engineering and sales.
]]>Advertisers: If you’re interested in video sponsorships on our video page or elsewhere on our sites, please email our advertising team at advertising AT contentnext.com.
]]>Advertisers: If you’re interested in video sponsorships on our video page or elsewhere on our sites, please email our advertising team at advertising AT contentnext.com.
]]>* Profiles of a select group of digital brands, including how they’re faring and their strategies and likely challenges moving ahead
* A points-of-view section featuring contributions from thought leaders like Samir Arora (Glam Media), and Mitchell Berman (ZillionTV) and Domenic Venuto (Razorfish)
* Deep analysis of traffic metrics
The 200-plus-page book, available in either print or digital versions, is the second annual “State of Digital Media” report.
Visit our reports page to read the full report.
]]>* Profiles of a select group of digital brands, including how they’re faring and their strategies and likely challenges moving ahead
* A points-of-view section featuring contributions from thought leaders like Samir Arora (Glam Media), and Mitchell Berman (ZillionTV) and Domenic Venuto (Razorfish)
* Deep analysis of traffic metrics
The 200-plus-page book, available in either print or digital versions, is the second annual “State of Digital Media” report.
Visit our reports page to read the full report.
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