Zynga chief technology officer Cadir Lee provides a guest post to CNET, detailing his four predictions for 2012.
Lee expects that more games will be written in HTML5 and says mobile payments will become commonplace.
He also suggests e-books will embrace streaming technology and more big sites will switch to HTTPS for secure browsing.
On the recent launch of browser-based Zynga games: “Developed using HTML5, the games deliver faster load times, smoother game-play and near-immediate responses to player actions — all within a mobile browser. We’ve also released open source tools to help make games in HTML5 possible.”
On mobile payments: “Square and Google Wallet are just the beginning. We’re seeing it already in games, and also at the local level in San Francisco: big chains like McDonald’s and Subway are among the first to join the growing leagues of local food trucks and eateries using mobile payment systems, which are arguably more secure than traditional pin-driven payment methods.”
Nielsen released its “Tops of 2011” lists the end of December and, not surprisingly, Google and Facebook are ranked as the top two U.S. Web brands.
“Over on the smartphone side, Apple came out on top with a 29 percent marketshare in data pulled from August to October 2011, followed by HTC,” reports Engadget. “Despite a fairly tough year, RIM managed the number three spot.”
“Nielsen reviewed the top online destinations, social media sites, and smartphone devices. Google was the most-visited U.S. Web brand, while Facebook held its lead among social networks and blogs. Smartphones were popular in 2011, making up the majority of new phone purchases with Apple as the top smartphone manufacturer and Android as the leading OS,” according to the report.
Top U.S. Social Networks & Blogs: Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, WordPress, MySpace, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google+, Yahoo! Pulse and Six Apart TypePad.
Top U.S. Online Destinations for Video: YouTube, VEVO, Facebook, Yahoo!, MSN/WindowsLive/Bing, AOL Media Network, Hulu, The CollegeHumor Network, CNN Digital Network and Netflix.
Reporters from The Verge recently toured Microsoft’s Building 99, where the company conducts much of its most compelling research.
In this report, we get a glimpse into Kinect Fusion and Lightspace — “two technologies that bridge the physical and virtual worlds with sensors and imaging.”
“Kinect Fusion is a system that uses the Kinect’s sensors to create an interactive, real-time 3D model of the environment,” explains The Verge. “Microsoft’s Kevin Schofield is quick to point out that the $150 Kinect sensor can accomplish the same tasks as industrial versions of the technology that cost about $50,000.”
“Lightspace works in the opposite direction: with a combination of depth cameras and projectors, it can create linked interactive screens on different surfaces,” adds the post. A video demo shows “how objects projected on a table can be moved around, re-sized, and even carried to another display using his hands.”
Microsoft Labs has 850 researchers dedicated to 3D capture and real-time modeling. Don’t miss the video.
Awareness Networks recently published insights from a collection of marketing leaders as part of its 2012 Social Marketing and New Media Predictions report.
The 28 page report examines how leading social marketing thinkers see the landscape evolving. One of the key problems is separating having a social media presence from having a social media strategy.
Brian Solis of the Altimeter Group chimes in on some of the key points…
On the evolution of Social Business: “Companies of all sizes will need to transform their business and existing infrastructure, and reverse engineer the impact of business objectives and metrics. Businesses will have to embrace all of the disruptive elements, such as mobile and social technology, in a new, cohesive organization that is focused outward and inward.”
On the concept of Big Data: “No organization, no matter how large or small, is ready for big data from a process, collaboration and innovation perspective. Business Intelligence (BI) is still siloed. In marketing, insights usually are still driven by community managers. Companies will need to centralize BI to feed every aspect of the business — marketing, product, innovation and customer service.”
On the future challenges for marketers: “Recognizing that they are part of the problem. Today, much of what we see is still traditional marketing disguised as social media. It’s still 1-to-many. And, by default, they have created a marketing silo in their organizations. Marketers need to connect the entire organization and put everyone to work for marketing. We need to move to an era of 1-to-1-to-many.”
Digital Trends offers a snapshot of its favorite tech startups launched in the past year.
Included in the list: Lytro, Turntable.fm, Code Academy, Square, Instagram, Path, GetAround, Pinterest and Giftly.
On Turntable.fm: “Since its debut, the hype has definitely died off, but its use hasn’t. Turntable.fm is one of the many music apps integrated into the new Facebook Open Graph and will also be part of Spotify’s app platform.”
On Instagram: “The filter app for iOS has more than ten million registered users and has no intentions of stopping there. An Android app is in the works, a new service is launched to make use of your Instagram photos every day, and there have even been hints that a video element could be included in the future.”
On Lytro: “[It] inarguably stole the startup spotlight this year. When it debuted in June, it had already managed to accrue $50 million in investments and immediately caught the attention of the entire tech world. Since then, it’s only piqued our interest by releasing its very mysterious camera. So what’s next? We’d love to see Lytro turn out more, varying types of devices [that use] its plenoptic camera mechanism, or possibly lease the technology to other manufacturers.”
According to new research by the NPD Group, 73 percent of small to medium businesses (SMBs) with less than 1,000 employees are planning on purchasing tablets over the next 12 months.
Apple’s iPad is the most widely considered tablet among those planning a purchase.
“The iPad, just as it is in the consumer market, is synonymous for ‘Tablet’ in the business market, leaving Apple poised to take advantage of the increased spending intentions of these SMBs,” says Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD.
“NPD’s research shows that iPad purchase preference is higher among larger firms than smaller ones,” he adds, “which is an important indicator that Apple is gaining traction far outside its typical consumer space.”
Analysis by Advertising Age magazine and social TV analytics firm Bluefin Labs places FOX as the leader among television networks generating social TV comments in 2011.
“FOX accounted for 13.2 percent of all the TV-related social-media comments collected by Bluefin from Jan. 1 through Dec. 27 (primarily on Twitter and in public Facebook updates),” reports Ad Age.
Programming winners for FOX in terms of social chatter included the Super Bowl, the World Series and “The X Factor.”
ABC took second in 2011 with the American Music Awards, the NBA Finals and “Dancing With the Stars.”
Following FOX and ABC in social ranking: MTV, CBS, NBC, ESPN, TNT, BET, VH1.
Just how much has social TV grown during the year? “When the Oscars aired in February, there were close to a million — 996,000 — social media comments about the telecast,” explains Bluefin’s Tom Thai. “Fast-forward to November: Even the telecast of a comparatively smaller awards show, the American Music Awards, activated more than 2 million social media comments.”
The article includes a pie chart that illustrates which broadcast and cable networks dominated social TV for the year.
After a great deal of speculation, Facebook has quietly activated its desktop chatting client.
Digital Trends reports, “you can now keep tabs on your notifications, friend requests, ticker, and chat all without opening your browser.”
Facebook’s Messenger could potentially serve a deathblow to other message systems such as AIM and Yahoo Messenger, suggests the post.
The review is generally positive, but offers the following caveat: “The one feature we wish were available would be the viewing and commenting controls that you have when you’re visiting Facebook in-browser. Via Messenger, the ticker won’t actually reveal the items it’s announcing: instead, you’re redirected to the site. Included items like listening in with friends or viewing pictures via the desktop app would be a huge improvement.”
Microsoft has reported record holiday sales for its Xbox 360 game console. During the week of Black Friday, the company moved 960,000 consoles in the U.S. alone, while 750,000 Kinect sensors were also sold during the same period.
Digital Trends provides some interesting tips to help change your Xbox 360 from a simple game console into a full home entertainment system.
The post offers details on Xbox Live; personalizing the dashboard; recommended apps including ESPN, iHeartRadio, Netflix and Hulu Plus (with HBO Go on its way); the Kinect add-on and more.
At the heart of the Xbox 360’s entertainment ecosystem is an Xbox Live account ($59.99 for a 12-month subscription). “XBL gives users access to the Xbox marketplace, streaming, apps, and the friends list which makes the Xbox great for online gaming,” notes the post. “Using the friends list, players can jump into games with friends and see what they are playing, plus they can join a party and talk to them no matter what game or app they are in. It’s great for setting up impromptu gaming sessions, as well as keeping in touch with friends scattered around the world.”
“Make sure you check out the Live Marketplace to download games, extra content, demos, and trailers,” suggests Digital Trends.
Also highly recommended: “When you are setting up your console, if you have an HDTV we recommend using an HDMI cable, which is not included with the Xbox 360.”
Netflix is expected to face significant challenges in 2012, as its customer-satisfaction ratings have fallen below those of Amazon and new competitors continue to emerge with original video plans.
“There’s many more digital players that will command the attention of studios and consumers in 2012, from would-be Netflix rivals to those sporting entirely different business models and aiming to deliver TV programs and movies to every screen in U.S. homes,” reports Variety.
The success of the Netflix model has led to a new category known as subscription VOD, which is expected to spawn imitators. “Hulu, for one, built an SVOD component, Hulu Plus, off its massive ad-supported base that has nabbed 1 million subs in over a year,” notes the article. Both Netflix and Hulu have commissioned original content and continue to secure exclusives on catalog fare.
Amazon’s SVOD spinoff could present a challenge to Netflix, as Amazon Prime is also closing catalog deals. And Verizon “may enter the space in conjunction with Redbox.” We may also see SVOD models from Walmart’s Vudu and Dish Network’s Blockbuster.
The article cites the possible impact of a la carte digital rental options, such as iVOD offerings through Apple’s iTunes, and the one-off movie offerings Facebook has been testing.
Variety notes an additional possibility: “Microsoft’s Xbox Live was the first to try a third digital-distribution model for video that everyone from Verizon to Sony has been reported considering: the virtual MSO model, which bundles a bunch of linear channels akin to how a cable operator does, but with much fewer channels at a much lower price point. All the while, Xbox stays in the iVOD biz via its Zune marketplace.”
Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing service allows authors to upload changes or even new versions to published books. This allows mistakes or typos to be corrected. New information can also be incorporated.
However, governments and school boards can alter works to create politically correct versions. And readers can be tracked to discover how they progress through the material.
“An e-book, I realized, is far different from an old-fashioned printed one,” writes Nicholas Carr in The Wall Street Journal. “The words in the latter stay put. In the former, the words can keep changing, at the whim of the author or anyone else with access to the source file. The endless malleability of digital writing promises to overturn a whole lot of our assumptions about publishing.”
“The promise of stronger sales and profits will make it hard to resist tinkering with a book,” suggests Carr. “What will be lost, or at least diminished, is the sense of a book as a finished and complete object, a self-contained work of art.”
Are we losing the sense of having a finished work? Will unfinished videos and films be next?
Analyst Nathan Safran, writing for Mashable, discusses the emerging shifts regarding the creation, delivery and consumption of visual media.
“Content creators make it, cable providers deliver it, and viewers consume it on the big screen in their living room,” he writes, in regards to the traditional model.
“In the last few years, however, we’ve seen a fundamental shift in the visual content landscape,” he explains. “For the first time since the advent of cable television in 1948, the lines are blurring as the quality of content created by non-prime networks — and even individuals — continues to improve. Plus, content increasingly reaches us over the Internet, consumed on whatever screen we happen to be in front of.”
Safran suggests this will have an impact on the rumored Apple television offering and what that might entail in terms of possible subscription packaging and licensing issues.
“Perhaps it’s time for Apple to get into the content creation business and license its own content. Imagine if the company approached a number of successful producers and convinced them to create an Apple series, for instance, ‘TV Series X by Steven Spielberg, exclusively on iTunes,’ or Quentin Tarantino, or Tom Hanks.”
However, Safran adds that the term “content creator” does not suggest that Apple will become the next Disney. He believes “content facilitator” is a more accurate term, “suggesting that Apple target other established, successful creators to generate compelling content that Apple would then exclusively distribute.”
Apple’s TV will still require participation from the usual content creators/owners, but if the company offers exclusive content, it may help drive hardware sales. According to Steve Rubel, EVP at Edelman: “Seems like Amazon and Apple are really opposites. Amazon uses devices to sell more content. Apple uses content to sell more devices.”
Last March, a federal district court ruled that artist Richard Prince had broken copyright law by using a series of photographs without permission to create his own artwork, which was later sold for $2.5 million. The artist is appealing under Fair Use laws which allows for re-use if the new piece “adds value to the original,” reports The New York Times.
The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan filed papers supporting Prince based on “the strong public interest in the free flow of creative expression.”
The tradition of appropriation is evident in the art world over much of the last half century. One could argue that appropriation is becoming even more pronounced with the digital flow where one can access almost any image or clip and share it with the world.
Digital tools are evolving to encourage re-use. A new iPad app called Mixel, for example, allows you to grab images, create a collage and share with your social network.
The case centers on the intention of the artist. Fair use allows one to copy for the purpose of criticism, comment or news reporting. Should, in the words of the artist, “to make great art that makes people feel good,” be covered under Fair Use?
Samsung’s Galaxy Note, the 5.3-inch Android tablet/smartphone hybrid with stylus that Engadget calls an “unconventional powerhouse,” has shipped one million units in under just two months.
The phone has yet to arrive in the U.S., but European and Asian fans are already devouring it, which “bodes well for the device’s eventual reception in the U.S.,” reports Engadget.
“The rapid global sales of Galaxy Note are notable since it is creating a new market for something between smartphone and tablet PC,” suggests the company’s press release.
Digital Trends adds that rumors suggest the U.S. launch may include “a revised front panel with the traditional Galaxy home button removed, and the usual four-button Android layout instead, plus the potential for a 4G LTE model.”
We should expect to hear more about the Galaxy Note at CES in January.
ADR Studio has designed a new concept called the Apple iCam (tagline: “Photography becomes smart”), which builds upon the iPhone’s design and camera system.
“The iCam takes the minimalist design Apple is known for and adds an aluminum body, front touch screen, LED flash, Siri compatibility, and a front pico-projector,” reports Digital Trends.
According to the ADR Studio site, the 10.1 megapixel concept also features interchangeable lenses, a motion sensor, ISO range from 100 to 3200, full HD at 60 fps, and Bluetooth connectivity. The site includes a photo gallery and brief video demo.
“Not every great idea has to start in some company’s expensive R&D department,” comments Digital Trends. “ADR Studio seeks to do for the point and shoot camera what Apple has done with the mobile phone.”
