Brands now use super events like Sundance, SXSW and Comic-Con to showcase technologies they may not even deploy in any wide release, but still draw attention to their supposed sense of cool. Heineken this year is hosting a Dome complete with DJs and wirelessly connected beer bottles that will become part of the light show.

Twitter continues to flex its muscles in the entertainment media arena as it prepares to launch an app aimed at personalized music recommendations.

After cleaning out some of the questionable apps in recent weeks, Google launches its new app and media storefront for smartphones and tablets.

Magazines are using print to digital mobile activations at a sharply accelerated rate. But does a reader in analog mode really want to be pulled out of that experience once they have chosen it?

The infrastructure for contactless payments, and thus for mobile payments, will be in place sooner rather than later. But will consumers' motivation to use them be built just as quickly?

More than three-quarters of app revenue worldwide comes from Apple iOS devices, even though Android is now responsible for more than half of actual downloads.

The "magic" of the second-screen experience is not enough to sell it to consumers, nor perhaps is just "social TV." This thing is going to require some real programming smarts.

Having the iPad has fundamentally changed the way I think about the first screen. Knowing that ABC, HBO, PBS, TBS and others are giving me anywhere-access to the shows allows me to think strategically about how and where I want to experience some TV episodes.

The ambitious and apparently successful entrance of both Facebook and Twitter into the mobile advertising field in 2012 helped increase mobile ad spend 178% last year -- and will push it another 77.3% this year, to approach $7.2 billion. This is according to eMarketer's latest forecast for marketing spend across mobile display, search and messaging.

What some brands might consider engagement I regard as an imposition, and maybe even an insult. Getting people to tap on screens just for the hell of it is a kind of kinetic spam.