...They know what your are watching (and when and where)...
Coming sometime soon?
TV-aware apps know what is being watched on TV and can “pop-up” extra content to enhance the viewing experience. For example they know if a person is watching from the real-time broadcast or watching from a show pre-recorded on a DVR. The apps are also aware of the current time and the viewer’s geographic location. That allows them to trigger a small notification at the bottom of the TV screen when relevant, informing the viewer that extra content is available if they want it. They can also be aware of what is being watched from Amazon on Demand or Netflix on Demand video stream. Pizza with your show?
They can provide ad spaces that broadcasters (or for interactive apps) at a premium rate, conduct a survey or prompt for a purchase transaction. This could make broadcasters more open and accepting of Internet TV. Makes Apple, Yahoo and Google TV efforts more mainstream and less objectionable to broadcasters, cable channels.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Google Voice Number Porting
..New features allows users to port existing number to VoIP service...
A new feature inserts Google between customer and carriers; could mature into a service that competes with Skype.
In a “test run” a select few users of Google Voice* can port their existing mobile number via the “change/port” option. People who do this will pay a $20 fee to Google for the service, on top of any contract termination charges they’re subject to from this current carrier. Then users will have to go back to a carrier and get another plan with a new number, and then add that number to their Google Voice account if you want the service to work with a mobile phone. It has however been reported that some people are just asking their carriers for a replacement phone number and keeping their existing contract until it expires. However as more carriers purvey Android phones, there’s a possibility they could work with Google on porting numbers. Texting in a timely manner with Google Voice is still problematic.
One nice feature of Google Voice is that it allows one to play or view transcripts of voicemails. Also one number for work, home, mobile with user-set rules. When someone calls that Google Voice number, it rings first at Google's servers, then quickly checked against any rules set by customer and sends call to specified number.
Sometime ago I set up Google Voice on my iTouch - so it only works in WiFi -- but the rules allow calls to go to other numbers I specify. I especially like being able to read my voice mails.
* free web-based platform for U.S. telephone service and texting.
A new feature inserts Google between customer and carriers; could mature into a service that competes with Skype.
In a “test run” a select few users of Google Voice* can port their existing mobile number via the “change/port” option. People who do this will pay a $20 fee to Google for the service, on top of any contract termination charges they’re subject to from this current carrier. Then users will have to go back to a carrier and get another plan with a new number, and then add that number to their Google Voice account if you want the service to work with a mobile phone. It has however been reported that some people are just asking their carriers for a replacement phone number and keeping their existing contract until it expires. However as more carriers purvey Android phones, there’s a possibility they could work with Google on porting numbers. Texting in a timely manner with Google Voice is still problematic.
One nice feature of Google Voice is that it allows one to play or view transcripts of voicemails. Also one number for work, home, mobile with user-set rules. When someone calls that Google Voice number, it rings first at Google's servers, then quickly checked against any rules set by customer and sends call to specified number.
Sometime ago I set up Google Voice on my iTouch - so it only works in WiFi -- but the rules allow calls to go to other numbers I specify. I especially like being able to read my voice mails.
* free web-based platform for U.S. telephone service and texting.
Social Micropayments
...Show how much you ”like” with a cash donation...
Flattr, Rewrd and Kachingle are all social micropayment startups that allow people to demonstrate how much they like a website or content by making a small donation to that site or content provider by pressing a donate button. Those who wish receive peer-to-peer donations, sign up for the service and place one or more donation buttons on the sites.
People who wish to donate place a certain amount of money in their donation accounts each month via a credit/debit transaction or Paypal. At the end of a month, that money is divided equally among the web sites or content providers that a person “liked” during that month. More recently, rather than equal apportionment, a user could decide to donate a specific amount ranging from 2 to 50 Euros to a site or specific content.
There is a Flattr app that enables smart phone users scan a QR code off-line. The code is tied to a Flattr account, making it convenient for users to submit and Flattr content via a mobile device.
Sites charge a percentage of each donation to cover costs; provides an opportunity for casual commerce -- to donate for "likes" while creating a small revenue stream for digital content providers.
In another version, PayPal offers support for micropayments to merchants for US to US, GB to GB, AU to AU, and EU to EU transactions for Business and Premier accounts. This feature is offered at a special rate of 5% + $0.05 per transaction. I've seen several Silicon Valley blogs with a "Donate" Button.
Flattr, Rewrd and Kachingle are all social micropayment startups that allow people to demonstrate how much they like a website or content by making a small donation to that site or content provider by pressing a donate button. Those who wish receive peer-to-peer donations, sign up for the service and place one or more donation buttons on the sites.
People who wish to donate place a certain amount of money in their donation accounts each month via a credit/debit transaction or Paypal. At the end of a month, that money is divided equally among the web sites or content providers that a person “liked” during that month. More recently, rather than equal apportionment, a user could decide to donate a specific amount ranging from 2 to 50 Euros to a site or specific content.
There is a Flattr app that enables smart phone users scan a QR code off-line. The code is tied to a Flattr account, making it convenient for users to submit and Flattr content via a mobile device.
Sites charge a percentage of each donation to cover costs; provides an opportunity for casual commerce -- to donate for "likes" while creating a small revenue stream for digital content providers.
In another version, PayPal offers support for micropayments to merchants for US to US, GB to GB, AU to AU, and EU to EU transactions for Business and Premier accounts. This feature is offered at a special rate of 5% + $0.05 per transaction. I've seen several Silicon Valley blogs with a "Donate" Button.
Elastic Beanstalk
...Amazon Web Services creates new offering -- Platform-as-a-Service...
There is a renewed interest in Platform-as-a-Service since Salesforce.com acquired Heroku and Red Hat acquired Makara, and several startups have acquired significant funding.
Adding to its Elastic Compute Cloud ( EC2 resizable compute capacity) and Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon Web Services is now offering developers a platform out of a box, to simplify the deployment of apps to its core EC2/S3 services.
Developers can provision and manage their AWS app with the Elastic Beanstalk which automatically handling deployment issues such as capacity planning, load balancing, scaling, and monitoring the health of applications.
Initially targeted at Java developers but Amazon said it will support other programming languages in the future (in public beta Jan. 2011).
Now AWS becomes even easier for developers to build powerful and highly scalable Web applications and encourages wider use of AWS EC2/S3 cloud infrastructure.
There is a renewed interest in Platform-as-a-Service since Salesforce.com acquired Heroku and Red Hat acquired Makara, and several startups have acquired significant funding.
Adding to its Elastic Compute Cloud ( EC2 resizable compute capacity) and Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon Web Services is now offering developers a platform out of a box, to simplify the deployment of apps to its core EC2/S3 services.
Developers can provision and manage their AWS app with the Elastic Beanstalk which automatically handling deployment issues such as capacity planning, load balancing, scaling, and monitoring the health of applications.
Initially targeted at Java developers but Amazon said it will support other programming languages in the future (in public beta Jan. 2011).
Now AWS becomes even easier for developers to build powerful and highly scalable Web applications and encourages wider use of AWS EC2/S3 cloud infrastructure.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Qwiki
...Qwiki - rich, multimedia narrative search results...a hint of things to come...
Qwiki is a Flipboard-meets-Wikipedia “search engine”. A Qwiki search pulls up a Wikipedia-like page with a "rich media narrative" of videos, photos, and audio clips relating to the topic. Users can contribute content to a Qwiki entry or embed them on another site or share them via a social network. Presented as an interactive video, Qwikis are created on the fly from web sources.
Bankrolled by one of the founders of Facebook, Qwiki’s ultimate success will be based on how much information it can collect/encompass. The site is visually attractive and the on-the-fly audio and visual presentations hints of things to come.
As an alpha user, they send me an interesting topical link each day. And as soon as I stop with this blog stuff I'm going to add some photos of Berlin including one particular image I took at the Hauptbahnhof in January 2010 of a very large poster hanging in the station commemorating the what I believe is the 20th anniversary of the Solidarity-led Polish revolution (1989) (photo also post here). You may have to be "of a certain age" to immediately get the meaning of it -I am of that age, and as I stopped to look at it (actually it stopped me, I was on my way to some place for a meeting)it took me a while to understand - it's very creative - . This post certainly became tangential to its original purpose.
Qwiki is a Flipboard-meets-Wikipedia “search engine”. A Qwiki search pulls up a Wikipedia-like page with a "rich media narrative" of videos, photos, and audio clips relating to the topic. Users can contribute content to a Qwiki entry or embed them on another site or share them via a social network. Presented as an interactive video, Qwikis are created on the fly from web sources.
Bankrolled by one of the founders of Facebook, Qwiki’s ultimate success will be based on how much information it can collect/encompass. The site is visually attractive and the on-the-fly audio and visual presentations hints of things to come.
As an alpha user, they send me an interesting topical link each day. And as soon as I stop with this blog stuff I'm going to add some photos of Berlin including one particular image I took at the Hauptbahnhof in January 2010 of a very large poster hanging in the station commemorating the what I believe is the 20th anniversary of the Solidarity-led Polish revolution (1989) (photo also post here). You may have to be "of a certain age" to immediately get the meaning of it -I am of that age, and as I stopped to look at it (actually it stopped me, I was on my way to some place for a meeting)it took me a while to understand - it's very creative - . This post certainly became tangential to its original purpose.
QR - Quick Response Codes
...Leveraging social media and technology for marketing...
I just reprinted my business card and put a QR (Quick Response) code on it for my personal website. At a Silicon Valley networking event a few weeks ago, during the obligatory biz card exchange ritual, someone asked me what it was and another person commented that they are all the rage on biz cards now.
I first started noticing QR codes in the wild on some food item labels I was buying from the
local grocery store -they were so tiny, less than a half inch square and even smaller, one could hardly notice them. Now I am used to seeing them in the New York Times Sunday Magazine and maybe, if I recall correctly, the Economist. I also recall very careful written instructions in the advert on what to do with it :) ah - a way to bridge the printed media world with the digital.
Quick Response or QR codes are beginning to appear in major print publications, on storefronts and buildings, on posters attached to kiosks and bus stops, on food item labels and clothing tags. Much of this is due to the proliferation of smart phones, apps that can read QR codes and act upon them and people who recognize and use them. In print, businesses are using them to send people to web sites, their social media site, or directly to specific apps.
It is said that in 2009 Google has sent thousands of decals free to US businesses with instructions on how to create QR Codes, place them store fronts to enable them to be found on the the Place Page on Google where people find reviews, find an offer, place a star for future reference or create a favorite place for others to see on Google Maps. – all on their mobile phones. But I can't remember ever seeing one.
I went to Kaywa, one of several online sites to generate my web site's QR code. These sites can create a QR code for a URL, text, phone number or SMS(and give you both the image and the permalink for the QR code and apps that can read them are easily found in your phone's app store. Then using an app on my iphone, I tested it by reading it from my laptop display and from my paper biz card. It worked! But it did take a while for the the app to acknowledge "I got it." Maybe too long for me to make use of it while I am out in the wild. But I am looking forward to innovative and creative ways of using them in the future.
...As one German-speaking person proclaimed “QR-Code - 2011 - Jahr des 2D Barcode Marketing”...
I just reprinted my business card and put a QR (Quick Response) code on it for my personal website. At a Silicon Valley networking event a few weeks ago, during the obligatory biz card exchange ritual, someone asked me what it was and another person commented that they are all the rage on biz cards now.
I first started noticing QR codes in the wild on some food item labels I was buying from the
local grocery store -they were so tiny, less than a half inch square and even smaller, one could hardly notice them. Now I am used to seeing them in the New York Times Sunday Magazine and maybe, if I recall correctly, the Economist. I also recall very careful written instructions in the advert on what to do with it :) ah - a way to bridge the printed media world with the digital.
Quick Response or QR codes are beginning to appear in major print publications, on storefronts and buildings, on posters attached to kiosks and bus stops, on food item labels and clothing tags. Much of this is due to the proliferation of smart phones, apps that can read QR codes and act upon them and people who recognize and use them. In print, businesses are using them to send people to web sites, their social media site, or directly to specific apps.
It is said that in 2009 Google has sent thousands of decals free to US businesses with instructions on how to create QR Codes, place them store fronts to enable them to be found on the the Place Page on Google where people find reviews, find an offer, place a star for future reference or create a favorite place for others to see on Google Maps. – all on their mobile phones. But I can't remember ever seeing one.
I went to Kaywa, one of several online sites to generate my web site's QR code. These sites can create a QR code for a URL, text, phone number or SMS(and give you both the image and the permalink for the QR code and apps that can read them are easily found in your phone's app store. Then using an app on my iphone, I tested it by reading it from my laptop display and from my paper biz card. It worked! But it did take a while for the the app to acknowledge "I got it." Maybe too long for me to make use of it while I am out in the wild. But I am looking forward to innovative and creative ways of using them in the future.
...As one German-speaking person proclaimed “QR-Code - 2011 - Jahr des 2D Barcode Marketing”...
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Knowledge Discovery: Questions & Answers, Clues & Response
Question and Answer startups are popping up all over Silicon Valley and one in particular, Quora, has been getting a lot of press recently and Quora enthusiasts abound. There is a great deal of community building and knowledge discovery that can happen with Q&A sites of high quality and Quora is one of them. As Quora builds in collections of Q&As and expands its topics, it should appeal to a more general audience rather than the "tech-heavy" persona it now presents.
But one Q&A, actually Clues and Response, that I am looking forward to is the IBM Watson challenge, an official Jeopardy tournament competition with Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, those famous Jeopardy champions playing against IBM's supercomputer Watson. A brief article, Building Watson: an Overview of the DeepQA Project (AAAI-Fall 2010) can easily be found online.
IBM says that Watson is an application of advanced natural language processing, information retrieval, knowledge representation and reasoning, and machine learning technologies to the field of open domain question answering. Watson took three years of intense R&D with a core team of 20 or so people.
At its core, Watson is built on IBM's DeepQA technology for hypothesis generation, massive evidence gathering, analysis, and scoring. Watson is a workload optimized system designed for complex analytics, made possible by integrating massively parallel POWER7 processors and the IBM DeepQA software to answer Jeopardy! questions in under three seconds.
Watson is made up of a cluster of ninety IBM Power 750 servers (plus additional I/O, network and cluster controller nodes in 10 racks) with a total of 2880 POWER7 processor cores and 16 Terabytes of RAM. Each Power 750 server uses a 3.5 GHz POWER7 eight core processor, with four threads per core. The POWER7 processor's massively parallel processing capability is an ideal match for Watsons IBM DeepQA software which is embarrassingly parallel (that is a workload that executes multiple threads in parallel).
While primarily an IBM effort, the development team includes faculty and students from Carnegie Mellon University, University of Massachusetts, University of Southern California/Information Sciences Institute, University of Texas, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Trento, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
If you are even more curious about this topic,do what I did and download the eBook from Amazon "Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything" and the final chapter will be downloaded to your Kindle after the Jeopardy matches are concluded. Or, if you want to wait until after the outcome of the match is known, you can wait for the print version to arrive at your local bookseller.
Shades of the chess match Deep Blue vs. Garry Kasparov in a former era, the Jeopardy episodes will be aired on TV from February 14–16, 2011.
Question answering technologies have a business purpose, they can help support professionals healthcare, customer service and support, business intelligence, knowledge discovery and the like.
Disclosure: I'm a Jeopardy fan - and I'm looking for a good Jeopardy game for my game console - the ones that are out there are insipid. Does anyone have a recommendation?
But one Q&A, actually Clues and Response, that I am looking forward to is the IBM Watson challenge, an official Jeopardy tournament competition with Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, those famous Jeopardy champions playing against IBM's supercomputer Watson. A brief article, Building Watson: an Overview of the DeepQA Project (AAAI-Fall 2010) can easily be found online.
IBM says that Watson is an application of advanced natural language processing, information retrieval, knowledge representation and reasoning, and machine learning technologies to the field of open domain question answering. Watson took three years of intense R&D with a core team of 20 or so people.
At its core, Watson is built on IBM's DeepQA technology for hypothesis generation, massive evidence gathering, analysis, and scoring. Watson is a workload optimized system designed for complex analytics, made possible by integrating massively parallel POWER7 processors and the IBM DeepQA software to answer Jeopardy! questions in under three seconds.
Watson is made up of a cluster of ninety IBM Power 750 servers (plus additional I/O, network and cluster controller nodes in 10 racks) with a total of 2880 POWER7 processor cores and 16 Terabytes of RAM. Each Power 750 server uses a 3.5 GHz POWER7 eight core processor, with four threads per core. The POWER7 processor's massively parallel processing capability is an ideal match for Watsons IBM DeepQA software which is embarrassingly parallel (that is a workload that executes multiple threads in parallel).
While primarily an IBM effort, the development team includes faculty and students from Carnegie Mellon University, University of Massachusetts, University of Southern California/Information Sciences Institute, University of Texas, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Trento, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
If you are even more curious about this topic,do what I did and download the eBook from Amazon "Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything" and the final chapter will be downloaded to your Kindle after the Jeopardy matches are concluded. Or, if you want to wait until after the outcome of the match is known, you can wait for the print version to arrive at your local bookseller.
Shades of the chess match Deep Blue vs. Garry Kasparov in a former era, the Jeopardy episodes will be aired on TV from February 14–16, 2011.
Question answering technologies have a business purpose, they can help support professionals healthcare, customer service and support, business intelligence, knowledge discovery and the like.
Disclosure: I'm a Jeopardy fan - and I'm looking for a good Jeopardy game for my game console - the ones that are out there are insipid. Does anyone have a recommendation?
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Mobile-to-Mobile Photo Sharing.
... consumers take, enhance, share and view photos on mobile phones...
A new wave of startups are focused on “mobile first, web second ”photo sharing with social networking hooks. Capitalizing on improvements in mobile phone camera technology with the ability to enhance images with filters and then share them instantly from one’s mobile phone are popularizing these new generation mobile photo sharing services. They also provide the ability to add geo-location or other tags and allow for recipients to add comments or “likes”.
Picplz with over 100K registered users ( and $5 million in a Series A November 2010) allows users to upload photos, apply photo-editing filters, attach locations and then share photos with friends on Facebook, Foursquare or Twitter and is platform agnostic.
Instagram (with over 1 million downloads in little over 2 months) works in a similar way – as an iPhone app for photo sharing, users can add filters and then shares them with sites like Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, and Facebook.
Path’s approach to photo sharing it to keep it limited to a small, pre-defined group of friends. Path is also experimenting with sharing 10 second videos as well.
These apps typically allow one to follow their Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter friends.
Monetizing data collections of things, people, locations that its users find interesting will be an interesting challenge.
A new wave of startups are focused on “mobile first, web second ”photo sharing with social networking hooks. Capitalizing on improvements in mobile phone camera technology with the ability to enhance images with filters and then share them instantly from one’s mobile phone are popularizing these new generation mobile photo sharing services. They also provide the ability to add geo-location or other tags and allow for recipients to add comments or “likes”.
Picplz with over 100K registered users ( and $5 million in a Series A November 2010) allows users to upload photos, apply photo-editing filters, attach locations and then share photos with friends on Facebook, Foursquare or Twitter and is platform agnostic.
Instagram (with over 1 million downloads in little over 2 months) works in a similar way – as an iPhone app for photo sharing, users can add filters and then shares them with sites like Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, and Facebook.
Path’s approach to photo sharing it to keep it limited to a small, pre-defined group of friends. Path is also experimenting with sharing 10 second videos as well.
These apps typically allow one to follow their Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter friends.
Monetizing data collections of things, people, locations that its users find interesting will be an interesting challenge.
Dazzling Dual Core Mobile Devices
...High-performance, new-generation smart phones and tablets will enter the market in 2011...
The next generation of smart phones and tablets will be powered by dual core processing units (each one running at 1 GHz). This will enable multitasking services and allow multiple apps to run at the same time. When optimized for dual core, existing apps will perform faster.
Supporting higher resolution screens, and appealing to consumer interest in HD video, the devices will capture and playback 1080p. An HDMI port can pipe and mirror the video to a larger screen and Wi-Fi Direct, the standard for device-to-device Wi-Fi connectivity without a network, can enable the device to stream HD video to other, larger screens.
The new devices, some with dual graphics processing cores will allow for impressive graphics-intensive games and, riding the consumer wave for 3D viewing experience, many will support complex 3D rendering engines for more realistic gaming. When combined with an auto-stereoscopic display, the viewer will have a complete 3D experience without the need for special glasses.
The new generation of smart phones and tablets will influence other product categories and markets. As they come to market, the current generation of Androids and iPhones will become less expensive and available to a new base of consumers.
High-performance smart phones and tablets are being positioned to become a new market segment.
3D-enabled smartphones will account for almost half (45 per cent) of all 3D-enabled mobile device shipments by 2012 according to research firm InStat.
Consumers may have to wait 6-12 months for some existing apps to be optimized for these devices and for compelling new apps to appear.
The next generation of smart phones and tablets will be powered by dual core processing units (each one running at 1 GHz). This will enable multitasking services and allow multiple apps to run at the same time. When optimized for dual core, existing apps will perform faster.
Supporting higher resolution screens, and appealing to consumer interest in HD video, the devices will capture and playback 1080p. An HDMI port can pipe and mirror the video to a larger screen and Wi-Fi Direct, the standard for device-to-device Wi-Fi connectivity without a network, can enable the device to stream HD video to other, larger screens.
The new devices, some with dual graphics processing cores will allow for impressive graphics-intensive games and, riding the consumer wave for 3D viewing experience, many will support complex 3D rendering engines for more realistic gaming. When combined with an auto-stereoscopic display, the viewer will have a complete 3D experience without the need for special glasses.
The new generation of smart phones and tablets will influence other product categories and markets. As they come to market, the current generation of Androids and iPhones will become less expensive and available to a new base of consumers.
High-performance smart phones and tablets are being positioned to become a new market segment.
3D-enabled smartphones will account for almost half (45 per cent) of all 3D-enabled mobile device shipments by 2012 according to research firm InStat.
Consumers may have to wait 6-12 months for some existing apps to be optimized for these devices and for compelling new apps to appear.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
A Single URL for Everything Video - Vid.ly
...well someone had to get the ball moving and ease things up for mobile devices...
Encoding.com is a large commercial video encoding service provider and just launched a private beta of Vid.ly, a universal video URL service. With Vid.ly, pre-transcoded videos are available in popular web and mobile formats . When a user requests a video, Vid.ly detects the kind of device and serves the correct and optimized video.
Vid.ly simplifies preparation and delivery of video to all mobile devices (smart phones, feature phones, tablets) and browsers which has been a constant challenge to video content providers. Content providers can share the provided short URL via SMS, Facebook, Twitter, or other social media sites and embed the vid.ly-provided HTML5 code into their video (browsers support different HTML5 video formats such as H.264, WEBM, Ogg, and, oh, of course, there is Flash as well).
Encoding.com is a large commercial video encoding service provider and just launched a private beta of Vid.ly, a universal video URL service. With Vid.ly, pre-transcoded videos are available in popular web and mobile formats . When a user requests a video, Vid.ly detects the kind of device and serves the correct and optimized video.
Vid.ly simplifies preparation and delivery of video to all mobile devices (smart phones, feature phones, tablets) and browsers which has been a constant challenge to video content providers. Content providers can share the provided short URL via SMS, Facebook, Twitter, or other social media sites and embed the vid.ly-provided HTML5 code into their video (browsers support different HTML5 video formats such as H.264, WEBM, Ogg, and, oh, of course, there is Flash as well).
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Kindle Singles
...novellas, short stories, essays, school lessons, long form journalism for mobile devices...
Kindle Singles range between 5,000 to 30,000 words (about 10-20 e-pages) with a price range of $.99 to $2.99. With some Singles, Amazon is working directly with the author (providing the opportunity to sidestep traditional publishers, giving both Amazon and the authors a larger share of the revenue pie).
Something between and full-length book and a long magazine article, it is the ideal size for reading material for small capacity devices such as smart phones that could download the Single directly to the device.
Instapaper, Read-it-Later (which I use) and similar services have demonstrated an audience (and devices) for this type of content, the 99 cents emulates the success of the iTunes price point thus more conducive to impulse buying (well, for me it is); authors and publishers can “chunk” digital content easily and inexpensively. All is well.
Kindle Singles range between 5,000 to 30,000 words (about 10-20 e-pages) with a price range of $.99 to $2.99. With some Singles, Amazon is working directly with the author (providing the opportunity to sidestep traditional publishers, giving both Amazon and the authors a larger share of the revenue pie).
Something between and full-length book and a long magazine article, it is the ideal size for reading material for small capacity devices such as smart phones that could download the Single directly to the device.
Instapaper, Read-it-Later (which I use) and similar services have demonstrated an audience (and devices) for this type of content, the 99 cents emulates the success of the iTunes price point thus more conducive to impulse buying (well, for me it is); authors and publishers can “chunk” digital content easily and inexpensively. All is well.
Bling Nation Gets Friendly
...mobile payments connecting users to merchants using social media...well, this is the year of mobile payment systems..
Startup Bling Nation, a close partner of Paypal, is set to roll out its payment system in the U.S. sometime this year. Bling Nation’s method is to pair RFID-enabled stickers with a back-end system that charges purchases to credit cards (via PayPal) and sends text-message receipts to cellphones. This requires that the mobile phone have a Bling Tag affixed to it and that the user have a Paypal account which can then link to a major debit or credit card account.
While the current current system relies on business owners obtaining BlingTags and distributing them to customers, (which Bling Nation distribute freely to the merchants), Bling Nation is negotiating with handset manufacturers to incorporate the technology into the handset (and perhaps a Facebook phone if you’re into rumors?).
Bling Nation’s biggest online alliance is Facebook which will enable Facebook to observe the location and spending habits of Bling Nation users and takes the credit/debit card company out of the loop. As Facebook fans, Bling Nation users will be enticed to do many friendly things.
Startup Bling Nation, a close partner of Paypal, is set to roll out its payment system in the U.S. sometime this year. Bling Nation’s method is to pair RFID-enabled stickers with a back-end system that charges purchases to credit cards (via PayPal) and sends text-message receipts to cellphones. This requires that the mobile phone have a Bling Tag affixed to it and that the user have a Paypal account which can then link to a major debit or credit card account.
While the current current system relies on business owners obtaining BlingTags and distributing them to customers, (which Bling Nation distribute freely to the merchants), Bling Nation is negotiating with handset manufacturers to incorporate the technology into the handset (and perhaps a Facebook phone if you’re into rumors?).
Bling Nation’s biggest online alliance is Facebook which will enable Facebook to observe the location and spending habits of Bling Nation users and takes the credit/debit card company out of the loop. As Facebook fans, Bling Nation users will be enticed to do many friendly things.
Hyperlocal Mobile Advertising
...targeting coupons, offerings, recommendations within a few blocks of a user’s location...the rage is upon us...
One-third of all Google mobile searches is driven by “local intent” – the searches pertain to some aspect of the mobile user’s local environment or location. As mobile devices with geolocation capability continue to penetrate the consumer market, hyperlocal advertising is gaining momentum and increasing its share of the total ad revenue pie.
Google Mobile Ads introduced new hyperlocal advertising in late 2010. The feature called hyperlocal distance only charges advertisers when users click to visit the website or on the phone number shown in the ad.
uLocate Communications reinvented its mobile ad network, now called Where Ads, with a focus on hyper local ads resulting in dramatic increases in click-through rates and permitting ads to be sold at higher prices.
Facebook acquired (Jan 25, 2011) 8-month old stealth startup “Rel8tion” to boost hyperlocal mobile advertising for its 200M+ mobile users and help monetize its “Deals” geo-location service.
One-third of all Google mobile searches is driven by “local intent” – the searches pertain to some aspect of the mobile user’s local environment or location. As mobile devices with geolocation capability continue to penetrate the consumer market, hyperlocal advertising is gaining momentum and increasing its share of the total ad revenue pie.
Google Mobile Ads introduced new hyperlocal advertising in late 2010. The feature called hyperlocal distance only charges advertisers when users click to visit the website or on the phone number shown in the ad.
uLocate Communications reinvented its mobile ad network, now called Where Ads, with a focus on hyper local ads resulting in dramatic increases in click-through rates and permitting ads to be sold at higher prices.
Facebook acquired (Jan 25, 2011) 8-month old stealth startup “Rel8tion” to boost hyperlocal mobile advertising for its 200M+ mobile users and help monetize its “Deals” geo-location service.
Google Android Road Map 2011
...In-app payment system, carrier billing, better Market app discovery, playing better at being social...aren't we all???
To be better able to compete with Apple, Google will introduce an in-app payment system so consumers can make purchases within an app, in addition to paying for the apps themselves most likely an expansion of Google Checkout.
In December 2010, Google introduced carrier billing with AT&T, so consumers could directly charge apps to their phone bill giving them another convenient way to pay. Google will expand this to other carriers around the world.
To facilitate app discovery in the Market, Google will continue to tune their Market ranking algorithm and use humans to weed out apps that do not meet their terms.
To better play in the mobile-social market, developers can access the Android address book which aggregates contact information from multiple sources. Google also acquired (Jan 27 2010) Fflick, a company with a sentiment analysis engine for making social video recommendations to users based on Twitter tweets and Facebook connections.
...from Chu's talk at Inside Social Apps
To be better able to compete with Apple, Google will introduce an in-app payment system so consumers can make purchases within an app, in addition to paying for the apps themselves most likely an expansion of Google Checkout.
In December 2010, Google introduced carrier billing with AT&T, so consumers could directly charge apps to their phone bill giving them another convenient way to pay. Google will expand this to other carriers around the world.
To facilitate app discovery in the Market, Google will continue to tune their Market ranking algorithm and use humans to weed out apps that do not meet their terms.
To better play in the mobile-social market, developers can access the Android address book which aggregates contact information from multiple sources. Google also acquired (Jan 27 2010) Fflick, a company with a sentiment analysis engine for making social video recommendations to users based on Twitter tweets and Facebook connections.
...from Chu's talk at Inside Social Apps
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