A lightbulb in my house burned out over the weekend. That would not be any big deal if these were normal, traditional lights, which they are not. They are some of the latest LED lighting technology, with the stated lifetime to be in the thousands of hours. And yet they failed, not lasting even into the hundreds of hours.

Beacons have been around for a couple of years now so that many of those using them are starting to see what works and what doesn't. While many of the little radio transmitting devices have been placed in stadiums, convention centers and other large buildings, retail has been where the real action has been occurring. Retailers like Macy's and Lord & Taylor have announced chain-wide beacon rollouts and research suggests that more than a third of retailers are testing the technology.

In somewhat of an interesting twist in The Internet of Things, there are now starting to be devices that watch devices.This evolution of home monitoring systems could add an additional complexity for marketers who look to tap into the machine-to-consumer information flow for marketing and messaging purposes.

While privacy is frequently a leading discussion point around The Internet of Things, it often is talked about in parallel with security. And it looks like with good reason, based on a new report forecasting the evolution of IoT security threats for the next year. With the growth of wearables, such as fitness trackers and smartwatches, those devices will become a target-rich environment for attacks, according to a new report.

When it comes to receiving connected devices as holiday gifts, traditional television with smarts wins out. And in terms of what smart devices consumers already own, the smart television leads that list as well. More than half (51%) of consumers already have some smart devices connected in their homes, according to a new survey.

For a business to tap into the potential of The Internet of Things is going to require some buy-in from those at the top. Of course, a CEO or CMO has to see the benefits to their customers and business, which means they need to be somewhat up to speed on what IoT is all about. If a new study of one group of business leaders is any indication of the IoT state of adoption, some have a ways to go.

The amount of data expected to be generated by billions of Internet-connected devices is almost too large to fathom. Even more bewildering is how all that data will get to where it needs to go. And that's where network speed and capacity come in, both of which have been roaring along with the growth of The Internet of Things.

Gum-chewing consumers with wearable devices have a new advertising-based incentive to allow their wearables to share the data tracked while being worn. A new campaign from Trident, of gum fame, with convenience store chain Kum & Go, will reward shoppers for healthy behavior during the holiday season.

From the consumer standpoint, the things they may consider purchasing within The Internet of Things better be priced right. Despite all the whiz bang IoT capabilities being introduced or talked about in the marketplace, the cost of a smart device leads the list of reasons for not yet purchasing. I've been noticing this in numerous IoT research studies, including the latest from McKinsey, which is based on a survey of 2,000 households.

As the number of Internet-connected televisions hits serious mass market numbers, the marketing question of the day is how consumers will deal with the actual interactivity at their fingertips. To many people, a connected TV simply means connecting their new television to the Internet so they can stream movies. The latest tally from eMarketer forecasts that 97 million homes will have connected TVs by 2019, or 78% market penetration.