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Tagging Plus Facial Recognition: Face.com to be Acquired by Facebook?

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May 30, 2012
  • According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, Facebook will acquire Face.com for $100 million.
  • TechCrunch suggests this is a logical acquisition for Facebook: “Photos are core to Facebook’s lock-in strategy and facial recognition allows tags to better reflect the social graph, which then feeds into making its advertising platform more efficient.”
  • “Face.com’s popular Facebook application Photo Tagger allows people to scan their (or their friends’) photo albums for known faces,” details the post. “It also has the iOS facial recognition app KLIK and a public API that could benefit Facebook.”
  • In a related article, Digital Trends agrees that the deal makes sense: “…add to the equation that Facebook is trying to do a better job with mobile (as partially evidenced by its Camera App), and the added incentive a mobile-only feature like this gives it seems perfectly logical.”
  • “One of the most convincing elements of the Camera App is that you can tag friends from it, and the ability to simply take, filter, and upload a picture without having to manually find the corresponding name would make it a fundamentally better user experience,” notes Digital Trends. “It’s also a fun novelty to hold up your phone and have an app simultaneously identify your friends.”

Apple Announces WWDC Schedule, Tim Cook Drops Hints at D10

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May 30, 2012
  • Apple has released scheduling details for its Worldwide Developers Conference to take place June 11-15 in San Francisco. It’s likely that Apple CEO Tim Cook will be leading the event’s festivities.
  • “The big question mark, however, revolves around the possibility of Cook unveiling the new iPhone. Over the last several months, the rumor mill hasn’t come to a consensus on whether the iPhone will be announced at WWDC or sometime later this year,” reports CNET.
  • “We have some incredible things coming out,” Cook hinted at last night’s D10 Conference, providing few details but noting that Apple TV remains “an area of intense interest for us.”
  • He added that Apple would be more forthcoming regarding its position on labor rights in China and promised to manufacture more components in the U.S. Cook also addressed Apple’s relationship with Facebook. “I think we can do more with them,” he said.
  • AllThingsD reports that during D10, Cook hinted at new plans for Siri: “…there’s more that it can do, and we have a lot of people working on this. And I think you will be really pleased with some of the things you’re going to see over the coming months. We have some cool ideas about what Siri can do… Sure, it can be broader, and so forth, but we see unbelievable potential here. We’re doubling down on it.”
  • Apple has launched a WWDC 2012 app intended to help attendees keep track of events and updates.

Study Suggests Live Viewing is Driving Force Behind Social TV Activity

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May 30, 2012
  • According to a new Viacom study, live viewing is driving social TV as a growing number of consumers are leveraging new forms of interaction.
  • “The study found that viewers engage in an average of seven different types of social TV activities — online or offline — on at least a weekly basis,” notes Broadcasting & Cable. “The most common activities were watching TV with others, searching for extra content and viewing clips from shows on social networks.”
  • “Overall, when it comes to chatting, 56 percent of those involved in the study preferred communicating through a social TV app, 53 percent through Facebook, and 50 percent use individual or group texts,” explains the article.
  • Viewers want more content than what is available with an online search. The study suggests that full episodes and behind-the-scenes extras top the list.
  • The study also notes that fans are looking for rewards such as merchandise and prizes from games and trivia. Fans look for comments from people they know and especially from cast and crew members.
  • “Viacom also found that live viewing is a key to social TV activity,” adds B&C. “Communication, content and comments were twice more likely to be used during live viewing than delayed viewing. Social TV enthusiasts feel left out of the conversation if they missed an episode of a favorite show live, Viacom found.”

NDS Demonstrates Immersive Surfaces: The Future of Television?

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May 29, 2012
  • Isreal-based TV services provider NDS, which Cisco purchased for $5 billion in March, recently came to San Francisco to share its vision of television five years in the future, reports GigaOM.
  • According to a related Wired article: “NDS, a company that develops DRM security and DVR technology for pay-TV providers like Cox and DirecTV, has developed a proof-of-concept called Surfaces that shows how television could become the center of a much more compelling, immersive living room experience.”
  • “The prototype jettisons the single, static screen that’s been a hardware mainstay since the golden age of television. In its place is a slick, highly customized room-sized desktop that hosts not only a traditional widescreen TV image, but also windows for a plethora of digital accoutrements,” explains Wired. “It could be exactly what the TV industry needs to stay relevant.”
  • Rather than one large screen, NDS envisions a modular approach using smaller 6- to 8-inch squares that can be configured into a matrix to fit any size you desire. These squares would be designed to work together and could support multiple inputs simultaneously.
  • Besides video content, for example, the display might also be used to display art, calendars, clocks, a Twitter feed, home automation, and more. Using e-ink would allow you to use the display for long periods without consuming large amounts of power.
  • “NDS showed how Surfaces could be used to get the most from 4K video displays — displays with horizontal resolutions in excess of 4,000 pixels,” notes Wired. “Currently, 4K seems a bit ludicrous, even on a 90-inch display. But when you’re displaying full-screen video on an entire wall, those extra pixels definitely prove useful.”

LG Gets Ready to Take On the Retina Display with 1080p, 440ppi Screen

By
May 29, 2012
  • LG announced it plans to launch a 5-inch LCD screen that will feature 1080p resolution and 440ppi pixel density.
  • The new screen, which LG claims will be the first to offer full HD on a smartphone, is slated for release later this year.
  • “Specifically designed for smart devices, LG’s screen uses AH-IPS technology — that’s Advanced High Performance In-Plane Switching — allowing a wide viewing angle, fast response times and a realistic color palette,” reports Digital Trends. “The resolution is 1920 x 1080, which is more commonly found on HDTVs and high definition monitors, and the 5-inch panel will have a 16:9 ratio.”
  • The 440ppi pixel density should be an attention-grabber as well. When Apple introduced its Retina Display for the iPhone 4, it touted 330ppi.
  • Although LG has yet to announce any devices to feature the new screen, the post suggests the potential of Samsung’s Galaxy Note and the next generation of LG’s Optimus Vu.

Yahoo Shuts Down Livestand, Announces New Focus on Mobile

By
May 29, 2012
  • After only six months, Yahoo announced that it has officially shuttered Livestand, its news aggregating app for the iPad.
  • “While we received great feedback on Livestand’s design and it earned a 4-star rating in the App Store, we committed ourselves to continuously measure and scrutinize what’s working and what isn’t,” explains the Yahoo blog.
  • “What that basically means is that Livestand must not have been getting enough downloads, holding the interest of users, or competing with competitors like Flipboard well enough,” reports Digital Trends. “The company points to Yahoo Axis as an example of the new direction it’s headed in. Axis is a visual ‘search browser’ — a plug-in for desktop browsers like Chrome and a standalone iOS app.”
  • Yahoo expects future apps from Livestand, despite its cancellation. “The company claims it is ‘pivoting to a mobile-products-first development model,’ which will produce more mobile products like Axis,” explains the post. “Innovating in mobile is now one of, ‘if not THE biggest,’ priority for Yahoo.”

Will Instagram Play a Role in Rumored Facebook Smartphone Venture?

By
May 29, 2012
  • According to comScore, Instagram’s traffic increased by an impressive 78 percent between March and April.
  • Digital Trends credits the release of a new Android app and the $1 billion acquisition by Facebook.
  • The question remains: What are Facebook’s plans for Instagram, especially following the announcement of competitor Facebook Camera?
  • “It’s entirely plausible that while Facebook is slowly developing its mobile experience for users with new Facebook branded apps and increasing its brand presence on mobile phones, the company is slowly preparing for its first horizontal integration via the rumored Facebook phone,” notes Digital Trends.
  • “After Facebook has comfortably developed and grown its core suite of Facebook mobile applications, while at the same time maintaining acquisitions including Instagram, we could expect these apps to be ported over to the Facebook phone, and displayed as Facebook’s native applications,” adds the post. “Thanks to Instagram that could mean the potential for 50 million Facebook phone owners.”

Detailing the Key Takeaways from the paidContent 2012 Conference

By
May 28, 2012
  • Industry leaders gathered in New York City last week to discuss opportunities and strategies involving digital media at the paidContent 2012 conference.
  • According to paidContent, the following are the five key takeaways from the day:
  • 1) “Data helps destroy containers, and that’s a good thing. Data creates new content and information experiences and helps bring an end to the notion of content silos.”
  • 2) “Digital storytelling is a native art. Stories on the Internet are not a new form of magazine or newspaper stories, but a medium in their own right — just like radio or TV. Publishers should develop their platforms accordingly rather than just repurposing other print vehicles.”
  • 3) “Not all ‘media’ are created equal. Union Square’s Fred Wilson and Betaworks’ John Borthwick gave a rude awakening to Big Media executives, urging them to give up control of their content — and even to stop calling it ‘content.'”
  • 4) “Publishers have to sell their brands directly to consumers.”
  • 5) “It’s time to toss CPM as a yardstick for online advertising success… it’s time for advertisers to adapt their ads to the evolving nature of the Internet itself. That means forgetting about CPMs and focusing on data and social dynamics. On a broader level, it means re-imagining basic precepts of advertising and product discovery in a world where Web pages are being eclipsed by new types of online discovery and interaction.”
  • It’s worth noting that proposed projects being developed by the ETC will address the first 3 of these 5 bullets.

Personalized Video News: NewsLook Announces Free iPad App

By
May 25, 2012
  • Streaming video news service NewsLook has launched a free iPad app that allows users to create personalized video channels that feature curated news content from more than 50 worldwide sources.
  • “Our NewsLook iPad app offers unprecedented personalization and engages users by greatly streamlining video search and discovery, enabling them to weed out unrelated content and get just what they want, from trustworthy sources,” said Fred Silverman, former CBS producer and current CEO of NewsLook.
  • According to the press release, sources include the Associated Press, Bloomberg, and Reuters — and users can customize channels based on interests such as “sports, politics, lifestyle, fashion, art, and entertainment.”
  • “NewsLook curates and publishes 150 videos daily in real-time and maintains a vast archive of over forty thousand videos,” notes the release. “This content is also available across a variety of platforms like Sony BIV and Google TV as well as via seamless syndication.”

Photographers Go Social: Google+ Draws New Community of Artists

By
May 25, 2012
  • Google+ is ready to take on Flickr and Instagram by offering photo sharing with real-life meetups and its Google+ mobile app.
  • The Hangouts video chat is gaining in popularity, especially with photographers who share their work online and chat with fellow artists.
  • GigaOM interviewed photographer Trey Ratcliff this week at the Google+ Photographers Conference in San Francisco (the post includes the interview video).
  • For those pundits who have argued that Google+ is becoming a ghost town, it’s interesting to note that Ratcliff “is hosting Hangouts about photography, sharing his latest pictures with his more than two million followers, and meeting people all over the world for real-life events,” according to the article.
  • GigaOM cites the influence of Bradley Horowitz, VP of product management for Google +, who “studied image recognition at the MIT Media Lab and built a visual-information retrieval company” before overseeing the acquisition of Flickr while employed by Yahoo.
  • Horowitz is bringing his vision of social photography to Google+ and hinted during the San Francisco conference that photo processing is next.
  • According to the article: “’Today, the tools are too segmented,’ he said, summing up the discrepancy between an Instagram filter and a full-blown app like Photoshop. ‘Either they are toys, or they are for the pro.’ Google+ has some rudimentary online editing for photos built in, but Horowitz hinted at the possibility of extending these much further.”

IPO Fallout: Shareholders Take Legal Action Against Facebook

By
May 25, 2012
  • Now that the stock has fallen following Facebook’s IPO, shareholders are suing the company and the underwriters of the IPO for hiding “severe and pronounced” reductions in Facebook’s revenue growth forecasts.
  • Mark Zuckerberg is listed as one of the defendants in the suit, which was filed in a U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Wednesday. A similar suit was filed against the company in California earlier this week.
  • “It probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that while the company’s initial stock offering was a boon to the company and insiders, it’s been a costly disappointment for the general public,” suggests a Los Angeles Times editorial.
  • “Now, some investors are accusing the company and its bankers of playing the public for suckers, sharing pessimistic revenue projections with a few insiders but not average investors.”
  • Regulators are investigating whether investment bank and lead underwriter Morgan Stanley “selectively informed clients of an analyst’s negative report about the company before the stock started trading,” notes the article.

FCC Chair Throws Support to Broadband Data Caps and Tiered Fees

By
May 25, 2012
  • Julius Genachowski, chairman of the FCC, has officially announced his support of usage-based pricing for broadband services.
  • “Usage-based” refers to a tiered-fee model that allots more bandwidth to users who are willing to pay extra.
  • Speaking at the NCTA Cable Show in Boston on Tuesday, Genachowski said that tiered pricing could help spur industry innovation and competition.
  • “Public interest groups and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings have criticized the practice, saying users will be punished for watching streaming video services, for example, that tip them over their monthly limits,” reports The Washington Post. “Hastings has also cried foul over how Comcast isn’t counting video use of its own XFinity services against data plans.”
  • Comcast recently announced it would begin usage-based pricing on a trial basis.
  • “Business model innovation is very important,” Genachowski said. “There was a point of view a couple years ago that there was only one permissible pricing model for broadband. I didn’t agree.”

Social Video: Mixin Offers New Level of Online Video Interaction

By
May 24, 2012
  • Social video start-up Mixin helps users mix personal comments with online videos and share the content via social graphs online.
  • “It allows people to start customizing and sharing videos within minutes on either a partner site or on mixin.com,” explains VentureBeat. “You can add comments or a number of icons. The sharing is compatible with Facebook’s privacy settings so that users’ comments are only seen by their intended audience.”
  • The company has announced initial distribution partners. AnyClip and Viumbe, for example, will integrate the tech into their players.
  • More than 200,000 users tested Mixin during its live beta mode over the past month.
  • Rivals include Chill, Frequency, Socialcam, and Viddy, but CEO Jon Goldman believes that “Mixin tries to be more consumer-friendly with easier authoring capability,” notes VentureBeat.
  • “Most online video is all about searching and algorithms with some minor social features tacked on,” adds Goldman. “Mixin’s technology starts with social interaction as the foundation so that videos serve as a way to connect friends and increase sharing. The customization, commenting and posting to Facebook allows users to add their personal stamp and humor to the videos they love.”

Primetime: Adobe Announces Live TV Coming to its Multiscreen Suite

By
May 24, 2012
  • Adobe has unveiled Primetime Simulcast, in addition to other enhancements to Project Primetime, its video platform for delivery of ad-supported TV viewing across connected devices.
  • “Primetime Simulcast will support apps across Apple iOS and Android devices and within major computer browsers,” reports Multichannel News. “The new service complements Adobe’s Primetime Highlights, introduced earlier this year, which lets broadcasters convert live streaming to short, ad-supported video clips.”
  • Adobe demonstrated Primetime Simulcast at the NCTA Cable Show in Boston this week.
  • “Primetime with full integration of all major components will be available in late 2012 with support for Windows, Mac OS, Apple iOS, Google Android, Samsung Smart TVs and other platforms,” notes the article. “Components of Primetime will continue to be available as separate, individual products.”
  • Adobe also introduced Adobe Media Server 5 and its Adobe Access 4 DRM solution.

OoVoo Upgrade Delivers 12-Way Video Chats to iPad and Facebook

By
May 24, 2012
  • Video chat service ooVoo has announced new product upgrades, including a new app for Facebook that allows for 12-way video chatting.
  • “The company, whose name represents two sets of eyes looking at each other, lets users access video chat rooms from the iPhone and Android phone over Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G LTE as well as via Web and desktop apps,” reports the Los Angeles Times.
  • An upgrade to the company’s iPad app also includes the 12-way video chat feature, and allows users to view four video streams at once.
  • “One of the most convenient aspects of this service over, say, Skype or Facetime, is that users can invite people by sending them a user-specific ooVoo link, so friends can participate without having to download the application,” explains the article.
  • The service offers the ability to record and upload video chats to YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, free of charge.
  • Currently, ooVoo has 46 million users worldwide, 60 percent of which are under the age of 25.

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