The Twitter-owned video clip editing and sharing network Vine is off to a fast start in the world of mobile video on that micro-blog network. According to social media metrics company Keyhole, over 400,000 Twitter users have accessed Vine, creating more than half a million Tweets. Vine allows users to knit together very short video grabs into 6-second loops that can be posted on social networks and also discovered within the app. As first reported by TechCrunch, in just a week of release, Vine has won more than 50% of voice among video services that are integrated with Twitter, leading Socialcam (25%), Cinemagram (12.1%) and Telly (11.9%) handily. TechCrunch reports that about half of the videos posted to Twitter in the last week came from Vine. A Happy Birthday video from musical artist Acid Black Cherry is the most retweeted video from Vine and on Twitter in the last week. Vine came under fire days after its release as some early adopters used the app to post adult-oriented clips. Initially, Vine is only available on IOS, but Apple is notoriously restrictive about the content it allows featured in apps on the platform. According to reports, Vine adjusted its hashtage search feature to make it more difficult for users to find clips of nude and pornographic subjects. The video clip service is Twitter's attempt to widen its content offerings and compete with app startups like Instagram and Socialcam.
Worldwide tablet shipments grew 75% in the fourth quarter to a record 52.5 million units as lower average selling prices, a wide range of choices and season spending drove up sales. Shipments were up nearly as much from the prior quarter as from a year ago, at 74%, according to new data from research firm IDC. "We expected a very strong fourth quarter, and the market didn't disappoint," said Tom Mainelli, research director, Tablets, at IDC. "New product launches from the category's top vendors, as well as new entrant Microsoft, led to a surge in consumer interest and very robust shipments totals during the holiday season.” Apple led the way with 23 million units shipped, up 48% from a year ago on strong demand for the iPad Mini and the rollout of the fourth-generation iPad. IDC noted, however, that Apple’s market share in the quarter declined to 43.6% from 46.4% in the third quarter, as Samsung and other competitors chipped away at the company’s dominant position. Samsung’s share doubled in the quarter to 15% from 7.3% a year ago, with combined Android and Windows 8 tablet shipments of 8 million. Amazon also had a strong holiday season, nearly doubling its share to 11.5% in the quarter while shipping 6 million tablets. Rounding out the top five were Asus, with 5.8% share on shipments of 3.1 million tablets, and Barnes & Noble, with 1.9% of the market and quarterly shipments of 1 million units. Asus actually saw its share slip from 7.8% despite promising shipments of the Google-branded Nexus 7 tablet. With the rollout of its two low-priced HD tablets last September, it gained some ground but remains a tiny player overall. As for Microsoft, its Surface with Windows RT tablet launched with much fanfare in October.The company ended up shipping 900,000 units in the quarter, leaving it out of the top five. “There is no question that Microsoft is in this tablet race to compete for the long haul. However, devices based upon its new Windows 8 and Windows RT operating systems failed to gain much ground during their launch quarter, and reaction to the company's Surface with Windows RT tablet was muted at best," said Ryan Reith, program manager, Mobile Device Trackers at IDC. He added that Microsoft has to adjust to the market realities of a smaller screen and lower prices to make any headway against its rivals. But it looks like Microsoft is going in the other direction. The Windows 8-powered Surface Pro, coming out Feb. 9, will sell for $899, compared to $499 for the Windows RT version.
Facebook Gifts, launched in September, allows people to buy and send each other smallish items through the social network from well-known brands and retailers. On Thursday the company introduced a reusable gift card that people can give to friends through the Gifts program for use at four partner companies: Target, Jamba Juice, Olive Garden and Sephora. After receiving a Facebook Card in the mail, subsequent card gifts will be automatically added to the balance for one or more of the participating stores. “Your card can hold multiple gift balances, and each balance is dedicated to the retailer associated with the gift. For example, you might have gift balances of $100 at Sephora, $75 at Target, $50 at Olive Garden, and $8.25 at Jamba Juice,” stated Facebook’s announcement today. People can see gift balances in their account settings on Facebook in mobile or on the desktop. A user will also get a notification when their balance changes through a real-time notification sent to their phone. The ability to send a Facebook Card will roll out gradually in the U.S. The social network first got into the gift card business in 2010, when it sold virtual credits through cards sold at big box stores like Target and Best Buy. Last year, the company did away with its own virtual currency in favor of a user’s local currency, whether dollars, pesos or yen. The aim was to give developers more flexibility and to benefit its own e-commerce efforts like Gifts. During the company’s fourth-quarter conference call Wednesday, CFO David Ebersman said Gifts, user-promoted posts, and paid messages amounted to only about $5 million in the quarter out of total payments revenue of $256 million. He added that non-games payments would remain very small through 2013, as the company focuses mainly on building out its advertising business.
Counting on a brand resurrection with the new 10 platform, BlackBerry has renewed its sponsorship of National Hockey League media, including NHL Network and NHL.com as well as League broadcast partners. The company, formerly known as RIM, will put most of its media support against the NHL Trade Deadline Day on April 3. The deal makes BlackBerry presenting sponsor of the Trade Deadline show airing on NHL Network U.S. No surprise here: the big feature will be new handsets, which will be integrated into the broadcast. BlackBerry also will sponsor the editorial content for the Trade Deadline on NHL.com. Keith Wachtel, SVP of integrated sales and marketing at the NHL, tells Marketing Daily that the deal will give BlackBerry advertising rights on game broadcasts, and big boards in game venues via the NHL's North American broadcast partners, though "players will not be involved in this specific campaign." Wachtel says BlackBerry won't actually have products at games, but the user experience will be showcased during broadcasts, online and through a NHL GameCenter app for the BlackBerry 10. The latter offers live scores and stats, live-game simulation, post-game video highlights and other free features. Users of the NHL GameCenter app can also upgrade to paid premium subscriptions for additional content. The app also allows access to live out-of-market NHL games, in-game highlights and streaming live-game audio. Aligning with BlackBerry's user interface, the NHL GameCenter has a “peek” capability that lets the user swipe one screen over to reveal additional content underneath and iconography at the bottom of the screen with quick links to additional content. "We continue to develop new platforms for BlackBerry to take advantage of,” says Wachtel. “Last year was League events as well as the EA Cover Vote." He adds that while BlackBerry is the preferred hardware partner for the NHL, "Given the importance of the category to both Verizon and Bell, our wireless partners have the ability to tie in multiple handsets understanding our preference during this promotion is BlackBerry."
Late last year, a federal judge dismissed New Jersey resident Maria Pirozzi's potential class-action privacy lawsuit against Apple. Now Pirozzi is trying again with a new complaint that offers more details about her allegations that Apple violated her privacy by allowing app developers to upload her address book and photos. Pirozzi says in her latest court papers that she has owned an iPhone since September 2011 and has downloaded numerous apps, including Angry Birds and Facebook. She says she "relied on Apple's reputation for safety" when she purchased the device. "Had plaintiff known that Apple designed the iPhone in such a way as to make these devices vulnerable to unauthorized access from third-party apps, plaintiff would not have downloaded apps and would have consequently paid less for her iPhone," she alleges in the new papers, filed in federal court in the Northern District of California. Pirozzi initially sued Apple last March, several weeks after developers first reported that the apps Hipster and Path surreptitiously uploaded users' address books. Soon after that report, other app developers were accused of retaining too much information. Those app developers, including Twitter, allegedly asked users for permission to upload their address books. (More than a dozen app developers are facing separate lawsuits for allegedly violating users' privacy by uploading and retaining their data.) In December, U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers granted Apple's request to dismiss the lawsuit, but ruled at the time that Pirozzi could add more allegations and try again. Rogers said that Pirozzi would have to show what type of device she purchased, which specific Apple statements she read before buying a device, which apps accessed her information and how she was harmed by any tracking. It's not clear whether Rogers will allow Pirozzi to proceed with the new complaint. While Pirozzi alleges that she downloaded Facebook and Angry Birds, she doesn't appear to allege that those apps accessed any of her information. Instead, she says that the apps "may have" downloaded users’ data without their explicit consent.
A digital media company -- Google -- ranks as the highest in terms of Madison Avenue’s overall brand perception for the first time in an annual survey of advertisers and agency executives. The results, which are being released today as part of the “What Advertisers Think About The Industry’s Highest Rated Media Brands,” is based on the opinions of more than 2,000 advertisers and agency executives polled by Advertiser Perceptions Inc.The ascendency of the Google brand name is a first for a pure play digital media company. Last year, ABC ranked as the No. 1 overall media brand in the minds of ad executives. In 2010, the first year of the study, Meredith ranked No. 1.Given its overall perception, Google’s brand not surprisingly also dominated the digital ad networks category with its Google Display Network scoring No. 1 in overall “brand strength,” though Tremor Media ranked No. 1 in “advertiser satisfaction,” Vibrant Media dominated “customer service” and the Meredith Women’s Network topped “sales knowledge.”ESPN had the greatest overall brand strength in the “digital content” category, while Facebook dominated the “digital portals and social” and “mobile” categories. Highest Rated Media Brands -- 2012: MEDIA COMPANY Highest Rated Media Company — Google PRINT Brand Strength — ESPN The Magazine Sales Knowledge — Cooking Light Customer Service — Martha Stewart Living Advertiser Satisfaction — Food Network DIGITAL CONTENT Brand Strength — ESPN.com Sales Knowledge — Bloomberg.com Customer Service — Economist.com Advertiser Satisfaction — People.com DIGITAL PORTALS AND SOCIAL Brand Strength — Facebook Sales Knowledge — AOL Customer Service — Yahoo! Advertiser Satisfaction — Twitter DIGITAL AD NETWORKS Brand Strength — GDN Sales Knowledge — Meredith Women’s Network Customer Service — Vibrant Media Advertiser Satisfaction — Tremor Video CABLE TELEVISION Brand Strength — ESPN Sales Knowledge — NFL Network Customer Service — The Weather Channel Advertiser Satisfaction — AMC BROADCAST TELEVISION Brand Strength — NBC Sales Knowledge — ABC Broadcast Daytime Customer Service — ABC Broadcast Daytime Advertiser Satisfaction — ABC MOBILE Brand Strength — Facebook Sales Knowledge — Fandango Customer Service — Jumptap Advertiser Satisfaction — Millennial Source: Advertiser Perceptions Inc.
“In the future,” Andy Warhol famously said, “everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” Well, that future has already come and gone. We now live in the next future -- the one where everyone pays attention for 15 seconds. Fortunately, today’s ultra-connected consumers are equipped with the perfect technology for on-the-go people who have short attention spans: mobile devices. Mobile devices that pack unbelievably strong sensors. Touchscreens, cameras, microphones, GPS, compass, gyroscope -- and wireless Internet. Combine all that with speed, sleek handsets and always-on, running-in-the-background capabilities and what do you get? For starters, you get a new computing model. You also get a total revolution in the media-cultural-social-economic atmosphere. t’s changing how we live. How we work. How we socialize. How we communicate. How we shop, learn, have fun, and even how we think and feel and perceive. The era of the four-hour, widescreen epic is over. The day (or nanosecond) of the “flash fact” presented on a handheld screen is here — whether it’s a tweet or an app or a digitally delivered news headline. Question: how can a “flash fact” possibly be worthwhile? And by consuming an endless series of flash facts on our mobile devices every day, are we just gorging ourselves on empty content, high-calorie candy -- when we really should be consuming more long-form, deep-content vegetables? Actually, no. Flash facts can be just as nutritious as long-form media. Why? Because long-form media creates its own context. Today’s mobile media figures out what’s going on in your life and makes you the context. Let me explain. Do you know the difference between trivia and an important fact? You guess it: context. Suppose you’re in the middle of Times Square. Somebody remarks that you can make an improvised compass from a needle by magnetizing it. Who cares? It’s meaningless trivia. But if you’re lost in the woods and all you’ve got is a needle, suddenly that same fact becomes a lifesaver. It is extremely valuable information -- “significa.” Popular mobile devices present bite-sized chunks of information. But great mobile platforms present those bites at just the right time, and just the right place, in just the right way to be useful to you, with your specific tastes, habits, preferences, friends, history and location. Rain expected later today in the Midwest? Who cares? But rain expected at 1:45 pm on the corner of 33rd and Madison, which is exactly where you’re going to be in 15 minutes? That’s useful information. The future of mobile media content is fun, friendly platforms, apps and programs that deliver situationally-aware, hyper-personalized, bite-sized facts (preferably told in pictures) to individual consumers at precisely the right moment. Content is king. But context is queen.
"The car won't start," my wife calls in during a torrential downpour last night. Thankfully, it stalled as she was pulling out of a convenience store/gas station, so she was safely parked. The husbandly reflex kicks in. "I will be right there." I haven’t a clue why that was going to help. I know as much about cars as I do about sports, which is nil. My wife actually does know more about cars than I do. But here I go into the sheets of rain. Worse, I had already provisioned her for this very circumstance. I got her a smartphone for emergencies and she has an AAA card as well. But I forget all of this until I am already damp to the knees. Didn’t I buy into a solution for this very problem? I thought I had already purchased gallantry in the form of a cell phone and emergency pick-up service. What good is all this technology if it doesn’t get me out of situations like this anyway? Frankly, I don’t even bother with the empty ritual of popping a car hood when something goes wrong with a car. Unless there is a green alien goblin in there eating the engine, I already know I have no idea what I would be looking at. And I learned much more from "Ghostbusters" about leveling a dimension-crossing Slimer than I know about a car. The manly thing to do nowadays is to whip out the cell phone and call AAA for the damsel in distress. I try to dial as suavely as I know how. The point of this rescue tale is the superb mobile experience I got from AAA. What was remarkable about the interaction was their sophisticated use of the very mobile technology they knew most of their emergency roadside assistance callers would likely be using. Before I even got to a person, the call-in system was geolocating me to determine in which region I likely needed help. The live operator -- who clearly was trained in talking people down from panic -- got our coordinates and then asked permission to communicate with me via SMS. They gave me a case number if I had to call back, which of course few people ever write down. But this case number was in the SMS, which she sent to me while we still were on the phone. Best of all, once this texting channel had been opened she told me that I would get an SMS alert when the service truck was close to us. None of these pieces is hard to do or even extraordinary. What impressed me about the process, including the live operator managing it all, was how AAA already understood how most people are leaning on their mobile devices and how they slipped so neatly into the mobile habits I had already established and the natural uses of mobile technology in this situation. The point is -- they got my mobile life. The mantra of 2012 was that consumers are ahead of media and marketing when it comes to device usage. From in-store shopping to tweeting about TV shows, consumers were discovering how best to weave the phone into their everyday lives. Marketers on the whole were playing catch-up. The mobile device is so intimate in such unprecedented ways that its adoption has been peculiar. From the adoption of SMS itself (which wasn’t even invented for consumer use) to ringtone fever and wallpapering home screens, this has long been the case. So when a brand intercepts the consumer in the midst of his or her own adoption curve with the technology, there is a shock of recognition and appreciation. They understand how I am using these things. We have talked a good line for years about how "personal" mobile devices are, but I am not always sure how seriously -- even literally -- we took “personal” to mean. So far we have talked more about how to be of “service” to the mobile user, how to avoid being “interruptive” on an intimate device -- essentially how not to act like marketers. All of this is well and good. But I don’t think we fully appreciate yet just how different this device is from the “media” that preceded it. In fact, treating smartphones like media is itself a misfire because that captures such a small piece of how we relate to the devices. AAA made a connection with this customer because it didn’t just “go mobile” -- it actually “got” mobile. It understood even better than I did how my phone could best be used in this situation. It took the opportunity to make me feel even more secure about their brand -- their service -- by their competent use of the technology. This was not a touchy-feely connection, although the human operator played a part. Much of the connection was made simply by watching the technology all work seamlessly and sensibly with the device I had in hand.
According to global business consultancy Capgemini, and U.K. e-retail association Interactive Media in Retail Group, E-commerce in the United Kingdom will increase approximately 11.5% this year, to $138.0 billion (87 billion pounds) from $123.7 billion last year. That growth is down from 14% year-over-year growth in 2012, says the report. Andrew McClelland, chief operations and policy officer at IMRG, says “... in spite of continued tough trading conditions... as consumers concentrate on paying down debt... we are forecasting growth... “ Mobile commerce in the country boomed in 2012, with sales via smartphones and tablets up 304% over 2011. Chris Webster, head of retail and technology at Capgemini, notes that “... visits and sales from either a smartphone or a tablet device are nearly four times higher than last year... reaching a point where we are spending longer on our phones shopping than making calls...” Shoppers from U.K. online and catalog retailer, Shop Direct Group, bought more than 61,000 tablets in December and 91,000 in the six-week holiday shopping period, the retailer says. Kids’ tablets were the top two items on Shop Direct’s toy bestseller charts in 2012, it says. The big themes of 2012 were mobile and personalization and both will continue to be at the forefront of the U.K. e-commerce strategy for 2013 and beyond, pointed out Gareth Jones, group retail and strategy director at Shop Direct. “Customer adoption of m-commerce continued apace both in the run-up to and after Christmas, with sales via mobile devices representing 37% of total online revenue,” which represents an increase of about 20 percentage points, the retailer adds. In December 2012, U.K. e-retail sales increased 17.5% year over year, and 12% from November 2012, says the report. However, conversions in the last two months of the year were down slightly. Combined with the season’s strong sales, that decline suggests that U.K. consumers are increasingly using the Internet to research purchases, online and offline, before buying. The report continues by opining that add that the continued economic slump in the U.K. could be driving consumers to use the web to seek more deals. Concurrently EMarketer, citing Portio Research, says that at the close of 2012, the UK had 83 million mobile subscribers, according to January estimates. Of these, 36 million were smartphones and 47 million were non-smartphones. representing a market penetration of 130%. Development in the market is happening around the shift toward smartphones and away from feature phones. By 2016, Portio Research expects that roughly three-quarters of UK mobile devices will be smartphones, creating a mobile advertising environment in which smartphones are the rule, not the exception. UK Mobile Connections (Millions; by Type of Device) Device TypeYearSmartphoneNon-smartphone 2012 36MM 47MM 2013 44 39 2016 63 21 Source: Portio Research & eMarketer calculations, January 2013 According to eMarketer’s forecast, UK smartphone penetration will reach 78% of mobile phone users in 2016, stretching its lead as the country with the highest smartphone penetration in Western Europe. eMarketer projects that the UK’s smartphone penetration will overtake the US’s in 2016 as well. For more information from the Interactive Media in Retail Group, please visit Internet Retailer here, and to see the eMarketer report, please go here.
The Federal Communications Commission's neutrality rules were never all that groundbreaking. The regulations prohibit broadband providers -- wireline as well as wireless -- from blocking sites or competing applications. The rules also ban wireline providers from engaging in unreasonable discrimination. Even though those rules largely preserve the status quo, Verizon immediately challenged them in court. The telecom argues that the FCC lacks authority to regulate broadband, which is considered an "information" service and not subject to common carrier rules. Now Verizon has filed new papers arguing that a recent decision regarding TV-encoding bolsters the case against neutrality. In the encoding matter, a D.C. appellate court struck down an FCC order limiting satellite and cable companies' ability to scramble video. The FCC had argued that its anti-encoding rules were aimed at insuring consumers could purchase televisions that don't require set-top boxes. But satellite provider Dish, which challenged the rule, contended that the FCC lacked authority for the restrictions. The appeals court sided with Dish. The judges specifically disagreed with the FCC that its authority for the encoding regulations stemmed from a Congressional mandate to regulate converter boxes. Such so-called "ancillary" authority "may be broad, but it is not unbounded," the court ruled. Last week, Verizon said in court papers that the neutrality rules should meet with the same fate as the encoding restrictions. The encoding ruling "supports appellants’ argument that the FCC lacked statutory authority to adopt 'net neutrality' rules," Verizon argues. Even before the recent case, the FCC's neutrality rules were on shaky ground. Several years ago, the D.C. appeals court ruled that the FCC wrongly sanctioned Comcast for throttling peer-to-peer traffic. At the time, the court said that the FCC lacked authority over broadband because it wasn't a telecommunications service. For that reason, observers won't be surprised if the court throws out the neutrality regulations. At least one pro-neutrality lawmaker is already preparing for that possibility. Last week, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) said she intends to introduce new legislation if the rules are invalidated, according to The Hill.