Kevin C. Tofel, writing for GigaOM, highlights several themes that emerged during the recent Mobilize 2012 event.
“Don’t count out HTML5 just yet,” he writes. Although going with HTML5 didn’t work out for Facebook, it could still have an impact.
“The ‘point of sale’ is now everywhere.” Tofel notes near-field communication (NFC) payment methods and successful companies like Square, which touts mobile payments made by 35 million unique American users.
“Video is becoming a primary mobile activity.” Tofel writes that “the granddaddy of all video sites, Google’s YouTube, is now delivering 25 percent of its content to mobile devices and the figure is likely to rise in tandem with mobile broadband subscriptions.”
“Connected homes will only appeal if the solutions are simple and add value.” Improvements are likely to be made, enabling easier, more centralized home connections.
“Developers needs to consider the broadband their software needs.” Of this, he writes: “Third party apps that eat through gobs of mobile broadband could be passed over for similar apps that use less data.”
According to new research from NPD Group, a la carte movie rentals (or iVOD) are very popular on cable VOD, which added up to nearly half of all such transactions in the first half of 2012.
“Apple’s digital storefront managed 8 percent share — less than Comcast (23 percent), DirecTV (14 percent) and Time Warner Cable (9 percent) drew individually,” reports Variety.
“Verizon finished just behind iTunes with 7 percent, but telco iVOD is growing faster year-over-year than the entire category, 24 percent to 15 percent,” notes the post.
The NPD research does not include subscription VOD services like Netflix or electronic sell-through.
“When it comes to paying for on-demand movies on an a la carte basis, cable companies are by far the primary conduit, due in large part to their widespread penetration and usage in Americans’ homes,” says Russ Crupnick, senior VP of industry analysis for NPD Group. “Even as iVOD, and VOD from satellite-media companies and telcos grow in popularity, cable companies continue to dominate the VOD movie rental market.”
Barnes & Noble announced its plans to launch a new video service in the U.S. this fall for Nook tablets (followed by a holiday release in the UK).
Nook Video will be a streaming and download service that offers film and TV content from HBO, Disney, Sony, Starz, Viacom and Warner Bros. Other top studios will reportedly be joining soon.
Barnes & Noble is also developing free apps that will allow users to access the service on other tablets, smartphones and connected TVs.
Content downloaded from the Nook Store will be stored in a cloud-based digital locker, allowing users to stop and resume viewing from any supported device.
“Nook Video will also integrate a customer’s compatible physical DVD and Blu-ray Disc purchases and digital video collection across their devices through UltraViolet,” explains the press release.
“Customers will soon be able to easily link their UltraViolet accounts to the Nook Cloud allowing them to view their previously and newly purchased UltraViolet-enabled movies and TV shows across Nook devices and Nook Video apps, as well as through third party applications,” adds the release.
Approximately 90 U.S. television stations are already transmitting Mobile DTV signals.
The Open Mobile Video Coalition held a press conference on Capitol Hill announcing that local Mobile DTV will roll out by 130 stations in 50 markets during the next few months.
Speakers at the event included several politicians; Derek McGinty of WUSA-TV in Washington; Lynn Claudy, senior VP of technology for NAB and Eric Moreno, senior VP of corporate development with Fox Networks.
“Among Moreno’s points of discussion was the advent of the new Samsung Galaxy S Lightway 4G handset, the first smartphone to come with a preloaded Dyle TV app,” reports TVTechnology.
“It is available in 12 markets where TV stations are now transmitting Dyle-branded signals, that costs north of $400; as well as what are known as ‘dongles,’ which the industry will rely on to further boost the use of the technology.” The small plug-in antennas from Belkin and Elgato will run about $100.
It will cost approximately $125,000 for stations to set up for Mobile DTV transmissions.
“There are 64 million iPhones and iPads in use in the U.S.,” Moreno explained. “If you reach 1 percent penetration, you’ve got yourself a business.”
“This is the culmination of a number of years of work from disparate sectors of the television industry,” added Claudy, “that marks the start of a new broadcast service. Now we have to convince the entirety of the industry to use it and the market to adopt it.”
Even as people in the U.S. struggle to find jobs in the tough economy, some employers can’t fill positions that require technical skills.
“There is a serious skills gap in the country. Not enough students are majoring in STEM fields — Science, Technology, Engineering and Math,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “As a result, their skills don’t match those needed for the jobs that are most in demand.”
The article summarizes the thoughts of MIT professor Richard Larson, who thinks that widespread literacy in STEM is “as important to our 21st century information economy as basic reading-writing literacy has been to the industrial economy of the past two centuries,” notes the article.
“The ‘engineering mentality’ and approach are needed in virtually all aspects of society,” says Larson. “This is good news for both men and women whose career goals are more towards societal improvement than techno-gadget creation.”
“We all need STEM thinking skills,” suggests Larson. “But perhaps the most important reason for everyone to become STEM literate is to build a more informed citizenry. In that way we individually and collectively become better decision makers about all the options that our world and we face. STEM is not only for Ph.D. researchers. It’s for all of us!”
There are an estimated 2.7 million books that are out-of-print and unavailable on e-readers. Converting these titles to digital could create $460 million in revenue for authors and publishers, according to a report from Carnegie Mellon.
“Even if sales are slow, once books are digitized, offering them continually to the public will cost almost nothing, a big contrast from the traditional cost of printing books and selling them in brick-and-mortar stores,” reports MarketWatch.
The Carnegie Mellon study anticipates sales to total around $740 million in the first year, which is equivalent to three percent of the publishing industry’s $27.2 billion revenue last year.
The process of digitizing these books is somewhat legally ambiguous. “Unlike typical back issues of newspapers and magazines, the legal status surrounding old books can be murky,” the article states. “In some cases ownership has reverted to authors; in others, new royalty rates need to be negotiated; and in still others it’s simply unclear. ‘Every contract is unique,’ says publishing consultant Mike Shatzkin.”
Even so, the conversion does hold high potential, the article states, noting author Barbara Freethy’s rise to the e-books best-seller list upon reissuing her old titles electronically.
Already, HarperCollins has published 23,000 of its titles digitally, and experts say other big publishers are likely to follow suit.
Following in the footsteps of Target, Walmart will no longer sell Amazon Kindle e-readers or tablets.
The company says the decision reflects its overall merchandising strategy, and that it will continue to sell other tablets — including Apple’s iPad, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Google’s Nexus 7 and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab — along with e-readers and accessories.
Analysts speculate that Walmart’s decision arose from its retailing competition with Amazon. “Owners of Kindle tablets such as the new Kindle Fire HD can shop on the devices for millions of items beyond digital books. This allows Amazon to compete with stores on more lines of merchandise,” Reuters reports.
Also, Amazon is believed to receive thin profit margins on its Kindles, and as such cannot offer retailers much in the way of financial incentive.
Although Best Buy and Radio Shack have confirmed they will keep selling Amazon’s products, Target and Walmart are significant losses. “Now, with two large chains no longer selling Kindle, speculation has grown that the dominant online retailer could open its stores where shoppers could try out and buy Kindles,” the article states.
Amazon recently released multiple new Kindle Fire tablets with various screen sizes, display resolutions and hardware capabilities.
To ensure a rich app experience and protect against fragmentation, Amazon has added a new tool called “device targeting” that allows developers to build multiple versions of their apps for various devices.
“Developers could simply try to manage the variances from within a single application so that their software automatically works in the proper combination of resolution and screen size, but Amazon is now supporting the ability to create apps specific to the different hardware combinations,” GigaOM explains.
Amazon says the new device targeting support offers better search relevancy for your app, reduced customer confusion and device-specific feature optimization.
“From a consumer standpoint, this should improve the Amazon Appstore for Android experience, and not just on Amazon’s Kindle Fire,” suggests the post. “Any Android device that has the Appstore loaded will benefit, which could in turn lead to more app sales for developers along with additional app revenues for Amazon.”
Many U.S. food companies are advertising to children in a new, interactive way — by creating product-infused games for smartphones and tablets.
“The mobile games demonstrate how new technology is changing U.S. commerce, drawing tighter bonds between marketers and young consumers,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
Games like “SuperPretzel Factory” and “Icee Maker” are selling successfully in the Apple App Store.
“Kids are our No. 1 consumer,” says Susan Woods, Icee’s marketing chief. “The fact that they may think about getting an Icee next time they see an Icee machine is a lot more likely if they’ve engaged themselves with something to do with Icee.”
“Makers of snacks, sweet drinks and candy have long been under government and public pressure to limit advertising to minors on TV and the Web,” notes the article. “They are now finding the unregulated medium of mobile devices an effective substitute to trigger demand and cinch brand loyalty.”
While the FCC regulates commercial time during weekend cartoons to 10.5 minutes per hour and prohibits product placement, there are no such rules in place on the Internet.
This upcoming holiday season will see more tablets for the “older-than-toddlers but not-quite-teenagers” demographic. The market was formally dominated by learning-based tablets aimed at toddlers.
Tablets like Lexibook, Kurio and Meep “are educational and entertainment devices, and they are targeting the 6-to-12-year-old demographic,” writes Forbes.
But will these youngsters want these tablets, or would they rather just have the real thing, like an iPad?
According to a Forrester Research survey of 4,750 U.S. adults, “29 percent of tablet users say they let their children older than six use their tablet.”
While Apple indisputably dominates the tablet market, the Toys”R”Us strategy is based on differentiating itself by being kid-specific. Toys”R”Us will sell a number of $149 Android tablets featuring seven-inch screens and wireless access — including its own Tabeo (pictured here).
“In the Forrester survey, 26 percent of parents said they’re concerned about their children accessing inappropriate content on their tablet,” explains the article. “On all of the kids’ tablets, however, parents can control the content children can access with a one-time setup and set limits on how long they can use it, something they can’t do on the iPad or Kindle.”
The kids’ tablets are also less delicate, built to withstand damage. But as Forbes points out, that won’t mean much unless the kids want them.
Fifteen months ago, Specific Media purchased MySpace, with Justin Timberlake taking an ownership stake in the flailing social network.
Following months of relative quiet — with the only major news being a new Panasonic partnership announced at CES 2012 — the new Myspace (now fashioned with lower case ‘s’) has finally been revealed in a Vimeo post.
Timberlake tweeted a link to a video that gives a sneak preview at the new service. Included in the Mashable post, the video makes the new Myspace look “clean and attractive.”
It shows a new login using Facebook or Twitter that allows users to bring photos or other information from the other networks. Status updates feature large photos with comments showing up below.
“There is a large music component to the service, which includes a way to browse albums, find popular songs and artists and more,” the post explains, noting that it is still uncertain whether Myspace is “building its own music service or if it has partnered with a provider such as Spotify, Rdio or Rhapsody.”
“The biggest question I have about the new Myspace is whether or not the brand is worth anything,” writes Christina Warren for Mashable. “I’ve argued in the past that the biggest asset of Myspace is also its biggest liability. What the new owners will have to do — celebrity investor or not — is prove to users why this Myspace is worth a user’s time.”
“Cybergeddon,” a new digital movie from Anthony Zuiker, starring Olivier Martinez and Missy Peregrym, premieres today online.
The film follows two special agents and a hacker as they attempt to save the world from cyber-attacks launched by e-terrorists.
“Cybergeddon” is debuting exclusively on the Yahoo! Screen video site in more than 25 countries and 10 languages. It is broken down into nine chapters, three of which will be released over the next three days.
A custom site features a more in-depth look at the characters, on-set photos, behind-the-scenes clips, and interviews with the cast and crew.
As reported earlier on ETCentric, producers turned to Norton by Symantec to consult on issues related to online security. The film’s site hosts a special section in which users can learn more about cyber-crime. The company also plays a significant role in the story.
“This isn’t the kind of product placement in which a company’s car or navigation system is used by the heroine — this is the kind in which a sponsor is turned into a heroic character,” reports The New York Times.
Coinstar’s Redbox and Verizon Communications plan to launch their Netflix competitor, Redbox Instant by Verizon, in time for the Christmas holiday season.
The new service aims to take on Netflix and Amazon with a monthly subscription plan, the option to digitally rent or purchase movies or get them from any Redbox kiosk.
Movie fans will be able to stream the content on multiple connected devices, as the joint venture (65 percent owned by Verizon) plans to launch mobile apps for iOS, Android and other mobile operating systems.
Redbox and Verizon say they will pay content providers based on number of subscribers, rather than Netflix’s model of paying a fixed amount for streaming rights over specific time periods.
“The U.S. market for subscription streaming rose fivefold to $1.1 billion in the first half of 2012 from a year earlier, according to data from the Hollywood studio-backed Digital Entertainment Group,” reports Bloomberg.
“Verizon Communications Inc. agreed to pay more than $510 million to end patent-infringement suits filed by TiVo Inc. and ActiveVideo Networks Inc. that targeted features of its FiOS TV service,” according to Bloomberg.
Verizon is expected to pay TiVo at least $250 million to end the dispute over DVR services. The New York-based company will also pay CloudTV developer ActiveVideo more than $260 million over the VOD feature.
As part of the agreement, Verizon will also pay license fees for “every Verizon DVR subscriber beyond a predetermined level.”
The trial was scheduled to start in a Texas federal court next week. TiVo was claiming three patent infringements, including one involving the time warp system that was the basis for the legal battle with Dish, settled last year.
Had TiVo won the case, Verizon could have been forced to remove DVR service from FiOS TV (Dish had been ordered to remove the function prior to its settlement).
“[Verizon] reported having 4.5 million FiOS Video connections at the end of the second quarter,” notes the article. “The wireline division, which includes the FiOS TV, phone and Internet services, generated $40.7 billion in sales last year and FiOS accounted for 65 percent of that division’s profit.”
California has the largest state population and one of the lowest rates of voter registration in the country. More than 25 percent of California’s eligible voters are not registered, according to the California Voter Foundation.
In an effort to change this for the November presidential election, the state has launched online voting registration.
“Under the new system, which saw 3,000 Californians use it in its first 12 hours of existence, an online system matches a state identity card or driver’s license with date of birth and the last four digits of a Social Security number,” explains Ars Technica. “Once a voter’s identity has been confirmed, she or he can click a button to authorize the digital signature that the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles already has.”
The online approach takes mailboxes out of the equation and significantly reduces registration time.
“We’re hoping that this new system will encourage more young people to get registered,” says Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation. “This is going to make the process more accessible to more people.’’
