The word “TV” still dominates its name and identity, but beginning today, MTV will introduce a variety of so-called “second screen” experiences leading up to and running through its annual “MTV Movie Awards” on June 3 that may cause some users, er viewers, to question which screen is their dominant one. Not surprisingly, social media will be at the core of the new digital screen experiences, including a new movie awards category, dubbed “Real Hero,” that will be chosen dynamically in real-time by fans tweeting in to special Twitter hashtags. Twitter, which MTV has been working with for several years, will also play center stage on the second screen, as a way to augment viewers’ first-screen experiences. The awards show will also utilize a new, reimaged version of MTV’s Twitter Tracker, which beginning today will enable users to “visualize” key moments leading up to and running through the awards telecast. With an emphasis on socialization, MTV will also utilize its Facebook presence to post “memorable moments, winners and other outrageous activity” in real-time. The initiatives are all part of an ongoing progression that MTV digital executives dub “storytelling without borders,” which is designed to create greater “transparency,” and to give viewers and users a “’peek behind the curtain” during some of MTV’s highest-profile events. “The main event is still watching the live TV broadcast,” explains Colin Helms, senior vice president-digital at MTV, “but we know people multitask and we’ve created an experience to sort of track that.” The goal, he explains, is to “build and amplify” on the television experience by enabling viewers to have direct access to special content leading up to and running through the telecast and to encourage them to share it. Twitter and Facebook may be the biggest elements, but the effort also includes components involving Instagram, Foursquare and Tumblr, each of which enable users to access and share elements of the awards show -– which along with its Video Music Awards is one of MTV’s two big “tent pole” events of the year. The social voting via Twitter, in particular, represents a new paradigm for a major TV event like the movie awards, says Michael Scogin, vice president of mobile at MTV, because he says it is the first time any major awards show will enable users to see -- and presumably influence -- voting continuously in real-time. “We’re going to be completely transparent about it in real-time,” he says. The social media extensions, which are being sponsored by Sprint, are intended to impact the way people experience the MTV event before, during and after the awards telecast, and are expected to help boost overall viewer engagement -- and ideally, Nielsen ratings. “At the end of the day, we think people still like event television and storytelling, and the big screen is still the best place to do that,” Helms explains, adding that the extensions are all part of a progression that began by dabbling with Twitter a few years ago, and that MTV is simply adapting to how its audience wants to experience television. In fact, many of these same social media components will become regular, mainstay elements of ongoing series, including the new season of MTV’s “Teen Wolf,” which debuts after the movie awards. The problem, adds Scogin, may not be what to do with social media, so much as it may be what not to do. The proliferation of new and emerging social media platforms is expanding so rapidly, he says, that TV programming executives and viewers alike need to winnow the options down to key ones that matter. And while Twitter and Facebook will be the primary components for MTV, it is enabling users to create their own real-time animated images via Instagram, and will enable them to check-in via Foursquare, and will also incorporate Tumblr. That’s it for now, he says, but the MTV digital team will continue to vet and explore other new ways of involving their viewers by breaking down the borders surrounding their linear TV viewing experiences.
Worldwide mobile payment transactions will surpass $171.5 billion in 2012, up 62% from $106 million last year, according to a Gartner estimate. The number of mobile payment users will reach 212 million, up from 160 in 2011. Looking further out, global mobile transaction volume is projected to grow 42% annually between 2011 and 2016, leading to a market worth $617 billion and 448 million users in four years. Gartner expects Web access fees to account for the vast majority of payments in North America and Western Europe, at 88% and 80%, respectively. SMS remains the dominant access technology in developing markets, given the limitations of mobile devices and ubiquity of SMS. Transactions using NFC (Near Field Communication) -- the wireless technology behind mobile payments initiatives like Google Wallet and Isis -- will remain fairly low through 2015, but growth will start to ramp up from 2016. "NFC payment involves a change in user behavior and requires collaboration among stakeholders that includes banks, mobile carriers, card networks and merchants," said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. "It takes time for both to happen, so we don't expect NFC payments to come into the mass market before 2015. In the meantime, ticketing -- rather than retail payment -- will drive NFC transactions." In mature markets, the research firm also expects strong growth in merchandise purchases via mobile, pointing to leaders in the space like Amazon, eBay and Starbucks. With the coffee giant’s Starbucks Card Mobile app being rolled out nationwide after a successful pilot program, Gartner predicts a large number of retailers will introduce their own mobile payment services. For developing markets, money transfer and airtime top-ups will account for most transaction volume. Money transfers will also make up the largest portion of transaction value, due to the demand for secure and efficient ways to store and send money. Ticketing/parking is another strong area for m-payments growth in emerging regions. Eastern Europe is forecast to have the highest user growth between 2011 and 2016, in part because of a smaller user base. Asia-Pacific tops all regions in the number of users, followed by Africa. “This also contributes to high transaction volume, where the two regions combined will account for more than 60% of the global mobile payments volume in 2016,” per Gartner. Africa leads all regions in transaction value through the forecast period, resulting from a higher proportion of money transfers that have higher value per transaction than in other areas. North America will be the third-largest region by value in 2016 -- double the amount in Western Europe. Because the mobile payments arena will be defined by fragmented services and solutions for the next two years, Gartner sees opportunities for technology providers catering to local markets. "The demand of these segments can only be satisfied by specialized or local players who can better understand the segment and have specific solutions to meet the unique challenges," said Shen.
Not quite a year after Hurricane Irene pulverized the Green Mountain state, Vermont is sharpening its summer tourism efforts, with a “Why Vermont?” campaign that includes mobile, video, and a special pitch to Boston Red Sox fans. In an effort to drive traffic to VermontVacation.com, the state has been focusing on national audiences throughout the spring, since it has found most summer vacations are planned by Memorial Day. (Those efforts include a contest to win a vacation for two at a genuine working dairy farm, as well as other prizes of … cheese.) TV ads were placed through Google DISH Network and Outside TV, and supported by 15-second digital spots. Online, it’s running display and text ads on Google and YouTube, promoting the state's plentiful hiking, biking, camping and golf opportunities. And a new mobile page features quizzes, contests and quick planning links. For the remainder of the summer, it says it will continue to reach out to those within driving distance, focusing on family-oriented vacations aimed at those with household incomes of $75,000 or more per year. And since people in neighboring Massachusetts are the most likely to visit Vermont, the state is intensifying its partnership with the Boston Red Sox, sponsoring NESN’s First Pitch, as well as Red Sox Vermont Day at Fenway, scheduled for Aug. 5. Online, those regional efforts will also be supported through Google Content Network/YouTube, as well as local sites. In addition to focusing on Massachusetts, especially Boston, it is also targeting New York and its suburbs, as well as Montreal. Geotargeted media include Verve Wireless and Pandora. Tourists make some 13 million annual trips to Vermont, spending an estimated $1.4 billion. In addition to extensive damage from Irene, the state has also suffered from declining participation in skiing, snowboarding and golf.
As part of its promised massive coverage of the upcoming summer Olympics in London, NBC Universal announced last week that mobile apps will be part of the media mix. The company says that overall, a record 5,535 hours of coverage will be part of its multichannel package across network, cable, Web and mobile platforms during the games. Two mobile apps will be deployed with separate functions. One will focus on live streaming from the games and the other will feature program highlights. NBC Universal says the apps will be available for both smartphones and tablets. According to the company, “the vast majority” of content on these apps will require authentication by existing telco, cable or satellite TV customers for access. It is unclear how much of the video content and streaming will be available from the mobile-optimized m.nbcolympics.com site. NBC says that all live streams will be available to users from the desktop NBCOlympics.com site. While a considerable amount of video was available to desktop users at the main site, the mobile iteration we just checked focuses only on text stories and photos. The mobile piece of NBC’s plans are but a small part of a massive content assault planned by the company. The 5,535 hours of coverage will surpass previous Beijing Olympics coverage by 2,000 hours. In addition to live events and featured roundups across the NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo and NBCSports TV channels, most of the brands’ respective Web sites will have streaming video available to authenticated users.
Only seven months after its launch on the iPad, Yahoo’s news aggregation app Livestand is being folded. The company announced at its most recent earnings call that a number of projects were being curtailed, and at the company blog late last week Yahoo confirmed that the elaborately designed tablet app would be shelved. The long-winded spin on the decisions claimed: “Platform consolidation enables us to put many Yahoo! properties onto common key platforms and technologies to make everything more scalable and nimble. And when we discontinue products, it will be so that we can focus on opportunities where we lead and where we can create the most meaningful experiences for people using our products, and for our partners, developers and advertisers.” Citing its recently released Axis mobile browser, Yahoo says that it is “pivoting to a mobile-products-first development model,” although it is not clear what was not “mobile-products-first” about a tablet news aggregations app. The focus will be on HTML5 properties, the statement suggests. Livestand was launched promising a more personalized experience for consumers that also featured some of Yahoo’s major media partners, especially leading magazine providers. It clearly took aim at tablet phenomenon Flipboard and its success with shaping newsfeeds into attractive tablet experiences and CNN-owned Zite’s advanced personalization engine. The app competed against other aggregators like Pulse and AOL’s Editions. Despite a positive 4-star rating among its users, the app sites today is only the 94th-most-popular iPad app in the News category, right behind AOL’s Editions (#89). Meanwhile, Flipboard remains the fifth-most-popular app in the category, with Pulse at #13.
Facebook's public offering and economic promise look more than ever like a leap of faith, constricted by nagging concerns about whether it can monetize exploding mobile device use with new social search, advertising and commerce models. Facebook strongly warned about the adverse impact this great unknown could have on its financial results in its securities filings before going public last week. Even more adamant trepidation privately expressed by Facebook executives prompted its lead underwriters --Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan -- to cut their 2012 revenue forecasts from just over $5 billion to about $4.8 billion during the IPO road show, tipping off only some of their biggest investor clients. That ethics fiasco and the ineffectiveness of the underwriting process now overshadow the most critical issue: How Facebook can leverage 900 million users (one in every seven people on the planet) to crack the social mobile commerce code? The IPO fallout is being compounded by the holes in Facebook's strategic growth prospects. Facebook lacks a proven method of utilizing its detailed user social graphs to create a social-mobile-profits-driven ad model at a time when its ad expenditures fell 6% in the most recent quarter. All of the top 100 brands have FB relationships generating close to $90 billion in annual advertising revenues, or about 82% of its total income. General Motor's abrupt decision to cut its $10 million ad budget for the social network just before it went public didn't help. Facebook's enterprising efforts to lure advertisers to its social fold can't come fast enough but, remarkably, too often exclude mobile platforms or inventory. For instance, Facebook's latest efforts to provide advertisers with more premium ads on individual user home pages and news feeds through third-party providers, such as TBG Digital and AdParlor, according to Business Insider. While ad dollars have declined, payment revenues have been growing. Some analysts predict Facebook would seek 30% of third-party income generated from mining its social graphs (like its current arrangement with Ticketmaster), which eventually could comprise more than one-third of overall revenues. Even more enticing is Facebook’s e-commerce prospects, which are nascent with only 2% of Facebook users (or 15 million members) spending $557 in payments in 2011, according to BI. The most bullish endorsements for Facebook cite consumer adoption (900 million users in eight years, compared with Google's 1 billion users in 14 years), time spent (14% of time online globally, suggesting revenue potential of $14 billion globally, $6 billion of it in the U.S.), and margin expansion (up to 47% in 2011, suggesting profit growth will be faster than revenue growth). On the all-important mobile front, more than half of Facebook's monthly active users accessed the network through mobile devices, driving its daily active user growth, particularly outside the US, without any sure way to mine advertising, payments or video (in the face of service providers' ridiculously low streaming caps) to monetize. So while Needham analyst Laura Martin argues that Facebook's 14% of online time spent globally can translate to 14% of Zenith's $98 billion in global Internet revenues or eMarketer's US Internet estimate of $46 billion by 2013, no one can say how. That stumper leads some, like maverick investor and entrepreneur Mark Cuban, to take the negative stance and declare that "mobile will crush Facebook." Facebook's mobile problem is fundamental: It cannot offer unlimited games, ads or other targeted interactive opportunities in a browser -- its popular credits and new HTML-based apps notwithstanding. While the cash flows from online advertising revenues alone justify most of Facebook’s bloated public valuation, according to Bernstein analyst Carlos Kirjner, there are discrepancies. Advertisers are used to disparity, given the wide discrepancies across sources reporting number of hours of TV spent per person in the U.S., beginning with Nielsen’s estimated 5.5 hours of per person television use, based more on the “opportunity to view” rather than measured watch, Kirjner points out. While you can directly measure the effectiveness of Facebook connects through actions such as clicks, likes, page views and viewed videos, brand advertisers are struggling to turn that into gold. We’re nowhere near closing that gap, since the analytic metrics and tools used to measure the effectiveness of brand advertising in the off-line world have not yet been adopted or accepted in the online world. These include audience metrics and gross ratings points, which could become the adopted online advertising currency. "They will eventually get it right because they have to," Kirjner says. Successfully designing the new advertising paradigm and leveraging its existing 20% of global ad spending could reap Facebook $56 billion in annual advertising revenues by 2025. But how much value loss will Facebook suffer till then? Even with a domestic display ad edge, just rolling out a "like-based" search paradigm compared with Google's "link-based" search doesn't guarantee a revenue windfall. So just where and when does Facebook's value theory pragmatically give way to practice? Now that the social network company is public, the timing and delivery are intrinsically tied to its mark capitalization and overall value. No more hiding behind the screen that has so infamously defined Silicon Valley start-ups. For instance, Facebook founding CEO Mark Zuckerberg surprised everyone --- including his own board of directors -- with his $1 billion Instagram acquisition before the IPO. Now that his company is public, he has to deliver on the driving theory that one-click photo sharing with friends and family will be a lucrative proposition. According to Kleiner Perkins Internet guru Mary Meeker, more people will access the Internet on their mobile devices than on their desktop PCS a year from now. That's both an opportunity and an absolute line in the sand for Facebook, the public company.
There was no holiday from rumors this Memorial Day weekend, as the blogosphere was abuzz with tales of Facebook’s larger-than-life mobile ambitions. Slammed for going to its big and troubled IPO without a solid mobile strategy, the company may be scrambling to put together a convincing story about how it will capture all of that monthly traffic apparently migrating to devices that as yet are not being monetized by the company. Rumor #1: An Opera buyout. Both companies are issuing “no comments” according to TheNextWeb about a story first floated by Pocketlint that Facebook is looking at Norway’s Opera Software. The speculation is that in buying the company, which has among the most advanced mobile browsers, Facebook could integrate social network updates and posting with the mobile Web experience. Not a bad plan. Overlooked by too much of the coverage is that Opera also comes with recently acquired mobile ad networks Mobile Theory and 4th Screen Advertising. These companies join the existing ad-serving company AdMarvel in the Opera portfolio, which constitutes a substantial mobile ad platform. Rumor #2: Facebook is hiring former Apple iPhone engineers in advance of releasing its own phone. The New York Times reports over the weekend that about a half dozen Apple vets are working on Facebook’s third attempt at crafting its own phone. The report suggests that company CEO Mark Zuckerberg does not want to be merely an app on other people’s operating systems. To be sure, Facebook has already been playing around with bits and pieces that could add up to a mobile operating system of some kind. It recently released its camera app, which weirdly mimics some of the functionality of the Instagram app, which it just bought for a princely sum. It has internal messaging applications. It is creating an app store that promotes third-party apps. And of course it is itself already an app platform with built-in gaming. Add in a very good mobile browser and an existing ad network and you have gone much of the way to building a full-featured mobile platform that has established relationships. All of this, to a CEO suddenly flush with cash and a valuation that rivals anything else Silicon Valley has produced, leads to a sensible impression that Facebook should be playing a more substantial role in the mobile ecology. But does anyone want a Facebook Phone any more than they wanted a Google phone? Do either of these brands have the kind of stature with consumers that would merit that level of identification? Does anyone want to think of their entire mobile lives existing within the contexts of these specific digital brands? Google’s Android OS succeeded in part from separate branding and its assurances of openness. Apple has unrivaled brand cachet, but its OS had always emphasized the platform nature of it all and third-party creativity. The notion that people love or want to love most brands is one of the weird misnomers that must occur only in the bubble of boardrooms and the sycophantic marketers who yearn to serve them. Are there really any Facebook fan boys out there? Are there any silly cyber-citizens who bash bloggers at the mere whiff of disapproval for the social network in the same way Apple’s volunteer storm troopers police public sentiment? Even Android has its devout defenders, but not because anyone identifies with the Google ethos (is there one?) so much as what I detect as an embrace of some vague principles of platform openness that still have a cult among core geeks. You know they all have a Linux box somewhere and still bemoan the rise of the GUI. “Command line interfaces are so much more efficient,” my wife the computer programmer still mutters from time to time. Facebook and Zuckerberg would do well not to drink their own Kool-Aid. As with all things mobile, the intimacy of the device requires a delicacy on the part of brands and what they ask of us here. It seems to me a bold move to release a Facebook phone that requires on the part of the consumer an almost embarrassing level of identification and devotion to a brand that I am not sure people respect and love in any meaningful way. Does anyone want to walk around with a blue F on the back of their smartphone? They might do well to take a subtler iterative approach. I am still waiting for more Facebook third-party apps to work seamlessly across platforms. Build a better in-app browsing experience that turns the app into a compelling content discovery and sharing tool. Use the platform that already attracts hundreds of millions of people monthly to demonstrate to the user first that the company really does understand mobility -- that it really understands the mobile users’ wants and needs. Right now the company has proven it can make a merely serviceable mobile app, that it can attract nearly a billion users and tons of investors and cash. Which is all well and good if you want a lot of press attention. But if you want to be my personal mobile environment, if you want to be identified that intimately with all aspects of my personal and professional communication, then so far Facebook is talking past me -- not with me.
According to Kathryn Cave, Editor of IDG Connect, with an analysis of research into marketers’ opinions of tablet growth to discover how today’s marketers will impact tomorrow’s business landscape, 12% of iPad users already say the device has completely replaced their traditional laptop, while another 54% said it had partially replaced their laptop. In addition, 44% of marketers believe tablets will have a high or very high impact on laptop use in 2012. Last year, says cave, Rupert Murdoch told the Fox Business Network that he thought tablets represented the “end of laptops.” This is a strong opinion, she notes, but it is partially supported by the IDG research. The opinions of marketers on the future of laptops are divided though, says the report. The majority sit somewhere in the middle, with 37% suggesting it will have a high impact and 37% indicating it will have some impact. Marketers Anticipation of Tablet Impact on Laptop Use Within 12 MonthsExpected Impact% of Respondents Very High 7% High 37 Some impact 37 Little impact 15 No impact 4 Source: IDG Connect, May 2012 Marketers appear more certain about tablets’ impact on smartphone usage, says Cave. 62% believe widespread adoption will have little or no effect on the tablet’s smaller cousin. However, IDG iPad research contradicts this. It shows that although smartphones have only been fully replaced by iPads in 2% of instances, they have been partially replaced by 43% of users, only 10% lower than the statistics for laptops. Cave’s analysis concludes that the fact that tablets are widely used, and 79% of iPad owning professionals always use them on the move, is all the evidence marketers should need to target this medium. Bored, constantly interrupted commuters are the perfect consumers, she says, making ripe for new methods of engagement. Cave concludes that “... the increased use in tablets is clearly significant... because the average tablet user is liable to be more sensitive to the user experience than most, and have higher expectations for entertainment... “ For more about this report, and the complete four part series, please visit here.
I was passing through the baggage claim at LaGuardia Airport when I stumbled on a terribly odd contraption mounted to a wall. From a distance, I had no idea what it was. At first, it resembled those tired-looking ATM machines you often see in New York City delis, with a screen, keyboard and credit card reader. But its black handset also resembled a retro payphone. Yet it also had a black industrial-grade box with a peephole, bolted to the top. WTF was this? As I got close, it displayed signage: “Pay Email -- Read, Write, Send & Surf.” And that black box bolted to the top read “Skype Video Phone.” Apparently, I had stumbled into the world’s ugliest Internet communication appliance. I couldn’t have dreamed someone could design something so awkward and eye-soring. Steve Jobs would not have approved. Moreover, it was a ripoff! The pricing schedule read: 35 cents a minute, credit/debit cards accepted with $5 minimum charge, and $1 minimum for cash. With the ubiquity of smartphones, it seems its only utility is novelty. So I took out my own smartphone and shot this picture to share on Twitter. This begs the questions: Who would ever pay money to use one of these contraptions? Or build, run and maintain them? Perhaps the mystery is better left unsolved.