Magazine-style reader Flipboard has announced its partnership with Levi’s in a move that could be the next step in launching a new mobile shopping platform.
“For years now, reader apps have slugged along with an advertising business model that hasn’t exactly been lucrative,” notes Digital Trends. “With the debut of Flipboard’s new social shopping catalog, however, its e-commerce strategy could break ground for the experimentation of new business models among reader apps.”
The mobile-only app’s new Style category (located in the Content Guide) will include images uploaded from Instagram, articles by Levi’s staffers and a behind-the-scenes feature.
Flipboard is not the first to tackle m-commerce. Marie Claire and ELLE magazines are two examples of magazine apps in the iTunes App Store that integrate shopping within the magazine reading experience.
“This strategy could get the folks at Zite, Pulse, News.me, and other mobile readers thinking about supplementing their revenue with an m-commerce business model, and we couldn’t blame them,” concludes Digital Trends. “M-commerce is one of the fastest growing subsets within e-commerce.”
Last week, we reported on ETCentric that the new lineup of Amazon Kindles would include advertisements that did not provide an opt out option for users.
Now the company has announced it will provide Kindle Fire HD customers with an option to purchase their way out of the ads for $15.
However, Business Insider suggests users may opt not to avoid the ads because they “won’t realize that they can turn off the ads, will be too lazy to turn off the ads, or, most likely, won’t want to turn off the ads.”
According to the post, “the ads look cool” and customers will most likely get used to them quickly and possibly find them helpful.
“But having the option to turn off the ads will silence everyone appalled by the idea that Amazon will shove ads down people’s throats while perfect Apple and Google won’t,” says Business Insider. “So it’s very much the right move.”
LinkedIn announced it is adding Company Pages and a Facebook-style notification stream in its effort to increase user engagement.
“Launching today is our new notifications feature, which will keep you notified in real-time when someone likes what you’ve shared on LinkedIn, views your profile, accepts your invitation, and much more,” explains a September 5th blog post from Angela Yang, associate product manager at LinkedIn.
CNET reports that the notifications feature will take several weeks to go live to all members, “and push notifications for Android and iOS devices are also in the works.”
“LinkedIn is trying to graduate from a simple resumé-and-headhunting site into something big — Facebook big — in a sector where increased communication pays real dividends,” Ryan Tate writes in a related Wired article.
“LinkedIn’s ambitions are no doubt stoked by enthusiasm from Wall Street, which has bid up LinkedIn stock 36 percent since the company’s May 2011 IPO,” notes Tate. “Since Facebook went public in mid May, LinkedIn stock has climbed 14 percent, compared to a decline of 51 percent for Facebook shares.”
“Never mind the fact that nearly 40 percent of mobile ad clicks are either accidental or fraudulent — the folks from eMarketer say that mobile ad revenues in the U.S. will grow from $1.45 billion in 2011 to $6.62 billion in 2014,” reports GigaOM. “The New York-based research group projects that by 2016, the U.S. mobile advertising market will be close to $12 billion.”
The posts notes that Google (Android OS) dominates the mobile ad industry, while Pandora and Twitter also stand out.
“On a net basis, Pandora Media has emerged as one of the strongest U.S. mobile display-ad sellers, and its share of the total U.S. mobile display market is expected to reach 20.5 percent in 2012,” according to the eMarketer press release.
However, Om Malik argues that mobile ads in heavy rotation could eventually have a negative impact on the Pandora audience.
“While Twitter is beating Facebook as of now, it won’t be long before Facebook makes a comeback,” notes GigaOM. “Apple’s iAd continues to struggle” and is expected to steadily decline, according to eMarketer.
Projections from eMarketer suggest that by 2014, U.S. net mobile display ad revenue share will be comprised of: Facebook (20.5 percent), Google (17.6 percent), Pandora (16.3 percent), Twitter (14.5 percent), Millennial Media (5.3 percent), Apple iAd (4.8 percent) and Other (21.1 percent).
Business Insider discusses the evolution of online video and its potential future impact on content creation and distribution. It cites video streaming providers like Netflix and Hulu, the emerging success of YouTube’s original channels and the influence of social media and crowd-funding site Kickstarter.
“So what’s this mean for online video?” asks the article. “Web series and their increasing popularity are extremely revealing when it comes to foreseeing the future of online video.”
“The emerging popularity of online video can most definitely be accredited to the obsession and dependence on social media present in our world today. Online videos are going ‘viral’ because of the accessibility of a simple click of a button to share with our ever-connecting networks.”
Cisco predicts that the number of people accessing video via the Web will nearly double over the next four years. However, advances in Internet TV and a surge in mobile subscribers will lead to fewer viewers using PCs to view content.
By 2016, Cisco expects mobile devices to generate dramatic growth in video traffic, while HD video streamed to Internet TVs will grow sixfold, and comprise 6 percent of all worldwide consumer Web traffic.
“Our smartphones and tablets are predicted to be responsible for an 18-fold growth in mobile video traffic between 2011 and 2016,” notes Business Insider. “Not to mention, the number of worldwide mobile users will reach 1.6 billion, sooner rather than later.”
Verizon FiOS views cord-cutting as a potential game-changer that could launch a new revenue stream through a la carte content.
Cord-cutting “is not stopping. It’s growing. The question is: Is it growing enough for us?” asks Maitreyi Krishnaswamy, Verizon’s director of interactive video services, responsible for the company’s FiOS TV.
Verizon is planning a Netflix competitor with Redbox to launch later this year. GigaOM notes that “cord cutting is fundamentally changing the parameters of Verizon’s TV business.”
“Is the migration to a-la-carte enough that we can go that route?” says Krishnaswamy. “It impacts how we negotiate TV contracts with studios. It’s not something we can do overnight, but definitely something we’ve been looking at.”
“Krishnaswamy didn’t spell out all the details, but here is what I read between the lines of this statement: Cord cutting isn’t just about some people not paying for TV anymore, but also about enabling new and innovative business models, including unbundled subscriptions to individual channels,” suggests Janko Roettgers, writing for GigaOM. “And Verizon is apparently ready to take the plunge as soon as the wave is big enough.”
According to new data from Ericsson, 62 percent of people each week participate in social media activities during their TV viewing time, an increase of 18 percent over last year.
Four in 10 of those consumers are using social media to discuss the TV content they are watching.
Additionally, 67 percent of consumers are using tablets, smartphones or laptops for “their everyday TV viewing, both for video consumption and to enable a social media experience while watching TV,” according to Ericsson.
“But despite the growing popularity of on-demand viewing across many platforms, watching broadcast TV programming live is still the dominant viewing preference, the study found. Pair that insight with the social TV stat and you can see why a social TV strategy is so vital,” reports MediaPost. “Yes — consumers are watching on other devices, but by and large they’re watching on TV and they’re often also talking about the show thanks to social networks on their phones or mobile devices.”
“This research underscores how deeply habits are changing, and how essential it is for programmers and marketers to capture the TV viewer not only on the ‘first screen’ but also on the screen they use for interaction — the mobile one in most cases,” explains MediaPost.
Fox Filmed Entertainment is planning a new digital window for its films by offering HD versions at newly lowered prices about three weeks prior to disc and VOD availability.
The new model will begin this month with director Ridley Scott’s sci-fi thriller “Prometheus,” which will be made available via digital purchase on September 18. The film is slated for DVD, Blu-ray and VOD release on October 11.
Fox will join the UltraViolet digital locker system used by Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures and others.
“The new system is an aggressive bid to revive consumers’ interest in the purchase of movies, by giving them an earlier shot at films for about $15 each, down from a purchase price that is currently about $20,” reports The New York Times.
“That will nibble into what has been a waiting period of roughly four months in which pictures play exclusively in theaters before their release in home entertainment formats,” notes the article.
Home video sales have dropped from a $21.8 billion high in 2004 to $18.4 billion in 2011.
“According to figures from the Digital Entertainment Group, an industry consortium, digital sales of films and television shows — as opposed to revenue from rentals or on-demand viewings — rose almost 22 percent in the first six months of this year, to $329.4 million, from $270.3 million in the first half of 2011,” according to the article.
We’d like to remind our readers that Silicon Beach @ USC is scheduled for this week. USC’s Marshall School of Business and the School of Cinematic Arts will host the event on the USC campus September 12-13.
For those attending the conference program on Thursday, September 13, please note the start time has been changed to 9:00 AM (with registration and coffee at 8:00 AM).
Presenters and panelists for the September 13 conference will include Andrew Stalbow of Rovio, Paul Bricault of Amplify.LA, Chris DeWolfe of Social Games Network, Mitch Singer of Sony Pictures Entertainment, David Wertheimer of Fox and others.
The event will also feature the first-ever Silicon Beach Award competition (September 12, invitation-only) for new ventures pursuing opportunities in innovative media platforms and digital content and services, in which teams will compete for three awards totaling $50,000 in prize money.
Silicon Beach @ USC — led by the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, the Institute for Communication Technology Management, and the Entertainment Technology Center — will focus on innovation and entrepreneurship in digital media and technology.
Keynotes and panels will focus on the intersection of technology and digital content, the future of media, and the monetization of new applications, devices and services.
For more information or to register for the September 13 conference, visit the Silicon Beach @ USC event website.
Each month, SMPTE presents a one-hour, online, interactive webcast that addresses a hot-topic technology.
“Each educational webcast is designed to address specific technology and technical challenge facing the motion imaging industry,” explains SMPTE. “These convenient, non-commercial webcasts provide an excellent opportunity to learn more about highly relevant technology related topics.”
ETC members may be interested in the September 13 session with Jim Whittlesey of Deluxe: “High Frame Rates — A Technical Discussion on the Impact it Will Have on Motion Imaging Workflows.”
The session will address how HFR technology affects production, storage, delivery, distribution and the theatrical experience.
You can register via SMPTE. The sessions are offered for free to members and for $49 to non-members.
Cambodian police have arrested 27-year-old Gottfrid Svartholm Warg in Phnom Penh, months after his one-year prison sentence was due to begin in Sweden.
Svartholm, one of the individuals behind file-sharing website The Pirate Bay, was arrested in connection with the alleged illegal use of information technology. The Pirate Bay was launched in 2003 by Svartholm and Fredrik Neij.
“In 2009, Messrs. Svartholm and Neji were tried in Stockholm with Peter Sunde and businessman Carl Lundstrom for facilitating the breach of copyright law,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “The four men were found guilty, and each was sentenced to one year in prison. They appealed, and all except Mr. Svartholm received reduced prison terms.”
“Svartholm left Sweden before the appeal verdict, and an international warrant for his arrest was issued when he failed to return to Stockholm to serve his sentence,” notes the article.
WSJ suggests the case could potentially reignite “the debate over how the Internet should be used to share copyrighted material.”
The U.S. Patent Office has published a new Apple patent that suggests the company is developing an advanced graphics application that could take on Adobe’s popular Photoshop and Illustrator programs.
“The new app will also be aimed at Macs and the iPad,” reports Patently Apple. “The system is being designed to work with both the mouse and touchscreen gestures.”
The detailed report includes sections describing an overview of the virtual drawing space application, the proposed graphical display system, the display system related to object layer management and more.
According to the report, the “invention relates to systems, methods, and computer-readable media for changing graphical object input tools.”
“Apple is patenting a way in which someone using an illustrator of digital image editing program can adjust the settings of the current tool they are using — such as a brush’s size or opacity — by using gestures at or near that tool, which would then visually change the tool to represent the changes,” notes Cult of Mac. “You would also be able to change tools with gestures. And these gestures would work using a mouse, a trackpad or a touchscreen.”
At a Santa Monica event Thursday, Amazon revealed a new Kindle Fire HD, an updated version of the original Kindle Fire and a self-lighting Kindle e-reader, much like the rival Nook e-reader from Barnes & Noble.
The new 7-inch Kindle Fire HD with Wi-Fi, stereo speakers, dual antennas and a front facing camera will sell for $199. The updated version of the original Fire will sell for $159 — down from $199 — and is set to ship on September 14.
The 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD will be available November 20 starting at $299, while the 4G version starts at $499. Specs on all models can be found in the Amazon press release.
“We’re taking on the most popular price point for a tablet, $499, but doubling the storage and incredibly, adding ultra-fast 4G LTE wireless,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO. “Kindle Fire HD is not only the most-advanced hardware, it’s also a service. When combined with our enormous content ecosystem, unmatched cross-platform interoperability and standard-setting customer service, we hope people will agree that Kindle Fire HD is the best high-end tablet anywhere, at any price.”
“The company showed off some new software, such as one measuring tablet usage for children and a voice-recognition technology for book reading,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “It will also release eight new serialized novels for $1.99 each under a new unit called Kindle Serials.”
“Like last year’s cheapest Kindle e-reader, all three new models — that’s the Fire, the HD 7, and the HD 8.9 — will display Amazon’s ‘Special Offers’ promotions and advertisements on their lock screens,” notes The Verge. “Unlike the low-end Kindle, however, Amazon isn’t offering the devices in more expensive, ad-free models, nor is it making mention of any way to opt out for a fee.”
“Google has extended its Patent Search facility to include European patents and has added a Prior Art facility,” reports I Programmer. “With the patent war over Android going on, one has to wonder whether this was to meet an in-house need.”
Google’s Patent Search has been available for U.S. patents since 2006. Its traffic has recently doubled.
“Jon Orwant, the leader of Google’s Patent Search team, says, ‘People are thinking about patents a whole lot more’ and thinks this trend is ‘correlated’ to interest in the various high-stakes mobile patent lawsuits,” notes the post.
Google’s partnership with the European Patent Office “enables Google to improve its machine learning technology for technical language and in return Google provides its improved translation service free of charge to the EPO.”
The Prior Art facility will be of value to inventors and the legal profession. “In order to be granted a patent the inventor has to establish that it is a novel idea — and in the current litigious environment companies and their lawyers might want to show that patents should not have been granted,” suggests the post.
Sources suggest Barnes & Noble will unveil a new Nook tablet at a press conference later this month. The device could be running on Windows 8.
“The Nook Color was Barnes & Noble’s answer to the 7-inch tablet, but the device never quite left its roots as an e-reader,” reports Digital Trends. “According to our source, who had discussed the to-be-announced Nook with a Microsoft employee close to the matter, that may change.”
“The existing Nook tablet’s selling point has been the ease of its use as an e-reader, but the new Nook may have a renewed focus on tablet features,” notes the post. “If that’s the case, Barnes & Noble clearly has its sights set on competing more aggressively with the Amazon Fire, Google’s Galaxy Nexus 7 and the to-be-released iPad mini.”
If the history of earlier Barnes & Noble tablet releases is any indication, we should expect to see the new Nook on shelves somewhere in the two months prior to the holiday season.
“With Microsoft’s $605 million investment in Barnes & Noble in exchange for a 17.6 percent stake in a subsidiary, the question that looms is whether the new tablet would scrap the Android OS and run Windows 8,” concludes Digital Trends. “From what we’ve heard, we’re more inclined to believe that the unannounced Nook will run on Windows 8, as many have already speculated.”
