Research firm BIA/Kelsey predicts that social media spending will grow at a compound annual rate of 21 percent.
The firm predicts that by 2016, advertisers will spend $9.8 billion in social media advertising. Last year, $3.8 billion was spent in social media advertising.
“BIA/Kelsey (which advises companies in the local media space) further forecasts the local segment of U.S. social media ad revenues to grow from $840 million in 2011 to $3.1 billion in 2016, driven by better performance and richer ad formats like videos,” reports The Next Web.
“The firm says Twitter and Facebook will be a boon for local businesses and ‘democratize social ads’ by offering self-service ad creation, distribution and analytics tools,” adds the post.
A new Nielsen report suggests people are more likely to shop with their smartphones when buying expensive consumer goods.
TechCrunch reports: “mobile coupons are most popular at grocery stores, (41 percent of mobile shoppers said they used coupons there), department stores (41 percent), and clothing stores (39 percent). At electronics stores, the majority (73 percent) read reviews, compare prices (71 percent), and scan QR codes (57 percent).”
People do not frequently use smartphones when at convenience or dollar stores, but occasionally use smartphones at mass merchandisers such as Walmart and Costco. Although these stores are known for their low prices, 34 percent of customers read reviews and 31 percent scan QR codes, according to the Nielsen study.
“Given the right pricing on the right products, it seems department stores, electronics retailers and online shops can woo customers from the Walmart-sized chains, when it comes to higher priced goods,” adds TechCrunch. “With brick-and-mortar stores turning into Amazon’s showroom, it’s more important than ever that merchants offer in-store shoppers some other advantage besides low prices. Expect the new crop of customer loyalty startups to have a big role in framing what that advantage might be.”
Not everyone is excited about Dish’s new ad-skipping technology. The interface allows users to skip over commercials after being exposed to them for a very short time, “maybe the first second,” details TechCrunch.
Dish records all prime-time TV automatically on its Hopper DVRs, making content available online right after airing on TV, and its “AutoHop” feature allows for skipping over commercials while watching.
“Obviously everyone with a DVR skips over commercials. It’s a given and it’s the way things work now,” comments the post. “However, for Dish to formalize the process programmatically is a wild move. It’s akin to a movie theater allowing folks to vote on whether the audience will see those inane pre-feature ads and previews.”
“Imagine if, a few years ago, ‘Lost’ or another huge, sprawling epic drama was available online immediately after it aired. This sort of episode saturation is a new paradigm for TV watching, one that even time-shifting advocates didn’t foresee,” explains TechCrunch.
Android continues to boost its global market share, according to a new study from Kantar WorldPanel.
“The firm’s latest research showed that Android picked up strong market share gains in most of the seven major nations around the world, including the United States, Australia, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The gains were measured over a 12-week period up until mid April,” reports CNET.
In both Spain and Germany, Android more than doubled its market share to 72 percent and 62 percent, respectively.
According to Kantar WorldPanel, the increases can be attributed to new smartphones from Samsung and HTC, which continue to draw market share away from RIM and Nokia.
“Android’s U.S. market share jumped to 61 percent last quarter, up from 49 percent during the holiday quarter, according to NPD. At the same time, Apple’s iOS lost ground, dropping to 29 percent from 41 percent during 2011’s fourth quarter,” indicates the post.
Anthony Mutua, a 24-year-old Kenyan man, has developed a new twist on green technology with his system that charges a phone with power generated by walking.
Mutua joins “other inventors in making mobile technology greener and more independent of traditional infrastructure,” reports Mobiledia.
For $46 dollars, consumers receive a thin crystal chip and extension cord. Users place the device inside their shoe as they walk and the pressure of each step helps to generate electricity and charge the user’s phone.
Other recent green technologies include a solar charging backpack from Ralph Lauren and a pedal-driven bike charger from Silverback.
These types of solutions are especially valuable in developing nations such as Kenya and India where traditional power sources can be costly. Exercise or solar driven devices allow consumers to circumvent government and control their own power usage.
Lilliputian Systems is developing a portable USB fuel cell capable of charging smartphones and other devices without the need for an electrical outlet.
The charger uses fuel cartridges about the size of a box of matches that are expected to cost between $3 to $5 each.
The device, targeted for release before the end of the year, will be in the $100-200 range. According to Lilliputian Systems, the device will be allowed as carry-on for air travel.
“Each fuel cell will be able to charge an iPhone 4 approximately 10 to 14 times over the life of the cartridge,” reports Digital Trends. “This device could be ideal for travelers heading overseas on short vacations as they could avoid having to purchase charging adapters. It would also be helpful for anyone using a power hungry portable gaming device like the PlayStation Vita.”
Berlin-based MoviePilot is putting a spin on traditional ways to market new movies. It brings upcoming films to fans based on their personal taste, “making better use of budgets,” according to TechCrunch.
“It focuses solely on upcoming movie projects and TV shows so that fans are less likely to miss new releases. This gives them a place to gather often long before official homepages are created, finding the right film for its natural audience and the right audience for a film,” details the post.
MoviePilot sealed $7 million Series B financing last week, including funding from venture capital firm DFJ Esprit, along with already existing contributions from T-Venture, Grazia Equity and VC Fund Creative Industries Berlin.
The funding will be used to expand into the U.S. and continue platform development.
MoviePilot has already worked with Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Disney and Paramount.
In preparation for the planned Galaxy S III launch in Europe at the end of May, Samsung has announced a special edition Olympics phone.
“Samsung has partnered with Visa and Lloyds TSB bank in the UK to create the limited edition Galaxy S III, which will come bundled with a special Olympic-themed version of Visa’s payWave wireless payment system, allowing it to make full use of the phone’s NFC chip,” reports Digital Trends.
The Olympic S III will only be available to sponsored athletes, who “will be able to use payWave at various outlets in the Olympic Village, purchase items from around 140,000 stores outfitted with the necessary terminal and even pay for taxis,” explains the post.
“What hasn’t been revealed is whether payWave will appear as an application, or be installed on the SIM card, or how the system will need to be funded,” adds Digital Trends. “As no pictures of the device have been released yet either, we don’t know if it will have a unique color scheme or other Olympic branding to make it standout beside the standard S III.”
The NFC chip will be a standard feature when the new phone ships in the U.S. this summer.
David Carr of The New York Times observes how his own family uses TV, noting a dramatic downturn in the amount of time spent with live broadcasting.
He cites TV-related apps (especially for sports), Netflix, Hulu Plus and Apple TV as resources his family uses regularly.
“My 15-year-old has a television in her room, but it’s not even on the cable-broadcast grid; it is wired instead to a Web-enabled Wii,” explains Carr. “Like the laptop and smartphone that she never seems to be without, the television is just one more Web-enabled portal for content she controls.”
Live TV “seems very last century,” he writes. In fact, live ratings for network programs have declined for 14 consecutive quarters. In contrast, DVRs and video on demand each exist in nearly half of American homes. And online viewing with Netflix, Hulu and others has increased more than 46 percent over the last year.
“Outside of the professional football season or some breaking national news event, the television at our house has become uncoupled from the commercial-driven environment that drives the broadcast and cable business,” writes Carr. “We haven’t cut the cord so much as kinked it in a way that commercials rarely sneak through.”
Still, the big four broadcast networks and the CW will book some $9 billion in advertising revenue while the cable networks take in more than $9.6 billion during the upfronts. In spite of losing viewers, TV remains the mass medium of choice for advertisers.
Social video network Twitvid has acquired Cull TV, a music video sharing site that includes a selection of about 2 to 3 million videos.
Customization and Facebook integration allow Cull TV users a personalized experience. Cull TV uses Facebook likes and posts “to determine what bands you like and turn those into continuous video playlists,” explains John Hurliman, CTO of Cull TV.
“We’re going to use a lot of the know-how and knowledge the [Cull TV] team has acquired to integrate those learnings into Twitvid,” added Twitvid CEO Mo Al Adham.
“According to Al Adham, Twitvid has more than doubled the number of video views it serves over the past five to six months, now in the range of 70 million+ views,” reports TechCrunch. “The last time they talked to press, the Twitvid network was seeing 10 million unique visitors. Today, that’s over 15 million.”
Twitvid plans to make a new product announcement in June, and then will begin working on their Cull TV integration.
Microsoft has launched “Sidebar,” a social network search update to Bing. The feature searches your Facebook, Twitter and Google+ networks to find people who fit your search criteria.
Google added a similar feature early this year called “Search Plus Your World,” but it only works with Google+.
Microsoft has also launched “Snapshot,” a feature that provides answers on topics such as restaurant reservations, hotel reviews, maps and movie trailers.
“Bing’s strategy is pointedly different than that of Google, which is laser-focused on building its own social network,” reports CNN. “Though Google+ has grown to nearly 100 million users, analysts are still trying to determine how active and engaged they actually are.”
If successful, the new features may help increase Bing’s 15.3 percent share of the search market. Google still retains a commanding 66.4 percent lead.
With company shares and contacts on their side, some of Facebook’s first employees have left the social networking giant to create start-ups or to “bankroll their friends,” reports The New York Times.
The article suggests that this could be one of Facebook’s long lasting legacies — “a new generation of tech tycoons looking to create or invest in, well, the next Facebook.”
As has happened with previous breakout successes from Silicon Valley, like Apple and Netscape and PayPal, each “public offering creates a new circle of tech magnates with money to invest,” points out NYT. “This one, though, with a jaw-dropping $100 billion valuation, will create a far richer fraternity.”
Some early executives from Facebook have already sold their shares and are now living with (and potentially investing with) millions of dollars.
“The history of Silicon Valley has always been one generation of companies gives birth to great companies that follow,” said 35-year-old Matt Cohler, employee No. 7 at Facebook and now a partner at Benchmark Capital. “People who learned at one set of companies often go on to start new companies on their own.”
“The very best companies, like Facebook,” he added, “end up being places where people who come there really learn to build things.” It’s worth noting that Cohler has invested in start-ups created by his earlier Facebook colleagues.
The International Telecommunication Union reports that social media use has reached a global audience of one billion. With a reported 901 million monthly active users, Facebook leads the social media world, capturing about 90 percent of global social media users.
Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn capture upwards of 900, 200, and 120 million users respectively, but most other social media sites have failed to globalize and instead remain localized within only a few nations.
The ITU confirms Facebook’s reports that most use now comes from mobile platforms rather than from fixed broadband networks. Analysts partially attribute this to broadband penetration as low as 4.8 percent in developing countries. Industrial countries average about 26 percent penetration.
Low broadband availability suggests Facebook and other social media providers may shift towards low-end feature phone versions aimed to provide less sophisticated usage, possibly using the USSD technology available on nearly all phones.
HP is targeting mainstream consumers with its new Envy ultrabooks that feature larger screens and lower price tags.
“The new 14- and 15.6-inch Envy ultrabooks retail at $800 and $750, respectively, which puts them squarely below even the cheapest first-gen ultrabooks,” reports Digital Trends.
“HP’s research shows that 15.6-inch notebooks are the most popular size in the U.S. and Europe, and 14-inch notebooks are the most popular in China, one of HP’s growing markets,” adds the post.
The Envy ultrabooks use Intel Core series processors, but are built on Sandy Bridge hardware, not Ivy Bridge — “one of a few possible concessions to reach these prices.”
Measuring 19.8mm thin and just under 4 pounds, they are not the thinnest or lightest of the ultrabook offerings, which could also have to do with their affordability.
New data from online video advertising firm Freewheel indicates that Microsoft’s Xbox is now the most popular non-PC device on which to watch online video.
That means that more consumers are watching online video content on the Xbox than on the iPad, iPhone and Android devices. “And when it comes to home viewing, competitors like Apple TV, Google TV and Roku are so far behind they’re not even competitors,” according to AllThingsD.
Worth noting: “Freewheel is only measuring ‘professional content’ that runs with ads, because that’s how it makes its living. So that means it’s counting stuff from companies like NBC, CBS, ESPN and Vevo, but not YouTube cat videos. It’s also not measuring Netflix usage,” points out AllThingsD. “On the other hand, this isn’t a poll or sample, but data compiled by the company’s own ad servers.”
The article suggests that this data “gives credence to Microsoft’s claim that Xbox users are spending more time watching videos on the machines than playing games, and that its deals with conventional TV programmers may be bearing fruit.”