Good morning! A LOT of news:
* Zynga raised a gigantic $147 million round from Softbank Capital to fund an Asian expansion.
* Twitter rolled out its "Places" feature allowing people to tweet their exact locations. Twitter integrated Foursquare and Gowalla check-ins with the feature.
* RIM is working on another touch screen smartphone and a tablet. These new units are expected before year end.
* iPhone 4 pre-orders start today. The store is down for now, so you can read our guide to buying an iPhone in the interim.
* Apple released an updated Mac mini model this morning also. It starts at $699 and sports an HDMI port.
* The hackers that exposed the AT&T iPad flaw, are now saying there's a big hole in the Safari mobile browser.
* Tesla updated its IPO. peHUB says it hoping for a $1.46 billion valuation.
* Margit Wennmachers, the founder of OutCast communications, is joining venture capital group Andreessen Horowitz as a partner. She'll help with marketing portfolio companies.
* Google's music store could be launching by fall.
* When Meg Whitman was CEO of eBay she shoved an employee named Young Mi Kim. Kim threatened to sue, but eBay paid a $200,000 settlement to Kim.
Read more: Business Insider
Showing posts with label iphone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iphone. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Six Pixels of Separation: The iPhone Of The Future
How many articles can one person read about another newer version of the Apple iPhone?
Apple head honcho Steve Jobs launched the iPhone 4G this week in San Francisco at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. This is the fourth generation of the smartphone that changed (and continues to change) the world. And, while no one knows how cool, fast and impressive this next generation smartphone will be, there are some key lessons all businesspeople can take away from the presentation and promises of what this device is and what it can do.
Let's start with the raw features: Jobs did not invent video conferencing and the fact you can now multi-task (have multiple apps open at once, instead of one at a time) is not that big of a breakthrough (the Palm Pre -which was an industry flop -offered this years ago as does BlackBerry and other smartphones). Having a battery that now lasts up to seven hours also is tablestakes when you look at the average person's work schedule and how long other mobiles can go without a charge.
In the end, the new iPhone is not about the new features, but it's about where we are going with both computing and connectivity.
Remember when nobody paid for a cellphone? The culture of "free phones" permeated the mobile carrier business for years and what Apple did with their first generation iPhone is shift the mass mind-set from free to paying close to $600 for a mobile device. That mindshift opened the floodgates and, suddenly, the everyday person was comfortable (no, happy) to shell out their hard-earned dollars for a mobile device that was not only feature-rich, but would offer them a level of social status among their peers. The iPhone became a product of envy for those who didn't have one and an object of pride for those that did.
Design is everything.
One of the best business books of the past decade is Re-Imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age by Tom Peters (DK, 2006). Beyond the beauty of the book design and page layout, Peters continually highlights - in words -the importance of brilliant, jaw-dropping design in relation to the brands that have truly created businesses that are built to last. If Apple does one thing magically great, it is their industrial design. Apple products are beautiful. They fit with the times and they give us a glimpse into the future. This new iPhone also is an object of beauty. Every micro-inch of space was optimized and rethought and - by the looks of it - nothing was spared (not the weight, overall size or even how it feels in someone's hand). Creating a product that people will marvel at is no small feat in a world like ours. It's not the inside, it's not the outside and it's not what goes into it ... it's how those pieces all come together that make it so special to consumers.
It also is not about the phone.
When you pull together all of the features of the iPhone 4G, what becomes abundantly clear is that this is no longer about telecommunications. The phone (or calling) part is now shadowed by everything else. The new iPhone offers us some preliminary glimpses of what our world of connectivity, communications and computers will be. It's less of a phone and more of a remote control for your life. A fully featured computer that has all of the necessary moving parts for what a mobile device should be. When everything from the quality of pictures and videos become comparable with devices that only serve those individual purposes, we begin to really see how - in the not-too-distant future - we won't be trudging around laptops, iPads and mobile devices. There will be one device to rule them all -great text, images, audio and video in one hand-held/portable device.
It's all about the resolution.
Apple calls it Retina Display, and it boasts four times the pixel count of previous generation iPhones. Apparently, the pixels are so dense that the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels. Jobs made a comment during the launch that the iPhone displays content so clearly that it is virtually indistinguishable from text on paper (everyone from Amazon and Sony to every book, newspaper and magazine publisher's ears must have perked up). Funny enough, everybody thought the existing resolution of the iPhone was already pretty impressive. You have to respect a company that iterates and innovates when what was presently in-market seemed more than above average.
Finally, it's all about the media and apps.
Music, movies, books, television, newspapers, magazines, games and more. Apple is as much of an entertainment company as they are a design and hardware company. They not only provide the hardware and connectivity, but also get a fair chunk of change by charging for the content and applications that run on devices like the iPhone. And, as if that were not enough, their new iAd advertising platform also is going to go gangbusters for the launch of the iPhone 4G. Apple will get money for the apps and they will get money from the ads. And while many are highly critical of the fact Apple is not more of an open environment, that didn't seem to stop 2 million iPads from flying off the shelves in under 60 days, and by the looks of things, the iPhone 4G will experience a similar effect.
The iPhone 4G is newsworthy beyond the innovation of the hardware, software and connectivity.
Apple turns people from consumers into loyal evangelists and they also are perfectly fine with those who can't stand them. What great bands aren't polarizing? The lessons of innovation, pushing technology and providing a product, brand or service that consumers don't even realize they may need are the real lessons that every business can learn from Apple -time and time again.
Have your say below...Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications Insights - By Mitch Joel at Twist Image
Apple head honcho Steve Jobs launched the iPhone 4G this week in San Francisco at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. This is the fourth generation of the smartphone that changed (and continues to change) the world. And, while no one knows how cool, fast and impressive this next generation smartphone will be, there are some key lessons all businesspeople can take away from the presentation and promises of what this device is and what it can do.
Let's start with the raw features: Jobs did not invent video conferencing and the fact you can now multi-task (have multiple apps open at once, instead of one at a time) is not that big of a breakthrough (the Palm Pre -which was an industry flop -offered this years ago as does BlackBerry and other smartphones). Having a battery that now lasts up to seven hours also is tablestakes when you look at the average person's work schedule and how long other mobiles can go without a charge.
In the end, the new iPhone is not about the new features, but it's about where we are going with both computing and connectivity.
Remember when nobody paid for a cellphone? The culture of "free phones" permeated the mobile carrier business for years and what Apple did with their first generation iPhone is shift the mass mind-set from free to paying close to $600 for a mobile device. That mindshift opened the floodgates and, suddenly, the everyday person was comfortable (no, happy) to shell out their hard-earned dollars for a mobile device that was not only feature-rich, but would offer them a level of social status among their peers. The iPhone became a product of envy for those who didn't have one and an object of pride for those that did.
Design is everything.
One of the best business books of the past decade is Re-Imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age by Tom Peters (DK, 2006). Beyond the beauty of the book design and page layout, Peters continually highlights - in words -the importance of brilliant, jaw-dropping design in relation to the brands that have truly created businesses that are built to last. If Apple does one thing magically great, it is their industrial design. Apple products are beautiful. They fit with the times and they give us a glimpse into the future. This new iPhone also is an object of beauty. Every micro-inch of space was optimized and rethought and - by the looks of it - nothing was spared (not the weight, overall size or even how it feels in someone's hand). Creating a product that people will marvel at is no small feat in a world like ours. It's not the inside, it's not the outside and it's not what goes into it ... it's how those pieces all come together that make it so special to consumers.
It also is not about the phone.
When you pull together all of the features of the iPhone 4G, what becomes abundantly clear is that this is no longer about telecommunications. The phone (or calling) part is now shadowed by everything else. The new iPhone offers us some preliminary glimpses of what our world of connectivity, communications and computers will be. It's less of a phone and more of a remote control for your life. A fully featured computer that has all of the necessary moving parts for what a mobile device should be. When everything from the quality of pictures and videos become comparable with devices that only serve those individual purposes, we begin to really see how - in the not-too-distant future - we won't be trudging around laptops, iPads and mobile devices. There will be one device to rule them all -great text, images, audio and video in one hand-held/portable device.
It's all about the resolution.
Apple calls it Retina Display, and it boasts four times the pixel count of previous generation iPhones. Apparently, the pixels are so dense that the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels. Jobs made a comment during the launch that the iPhone displays content so clearly that it is virtually indistinguishable from text on paper (everyone from Amazon and Sony to every book, newspaper and magazine publisher's ears must have perked up). Funny enough, everybody thought the existing resolution of the iPhone was already pretty impressive. You have to respect a company that iterates and innovates when what was presently in-market seemed more than above average.
Finally, it's all about the media and apps.
Music, movies, books, television, newspapers, magazines, games and more. Apple is as much of an entertainment company as they are a design and hardware company. They not only provide the hardware and connectivity, but also get a fair chunk of change by charging for the content and applications that run on devices like the iPhone. And, as if that were not enough, their new iAd advertising platform also is going to go gangbusters for the launch of the iPhone 4G. Apple will get money for the apps and they will get money from the ads. And while many are highly critical of the fact Apple is not more of an open environment, that didn't seem to stop 2 million iPads from flying off the shelves in under 60 days, and by the looks of things, the iPhone 4G will experience a similar effect.
The iPhone 4G is newsworthy beyond the innovation of the hardware, software and connectivity.
Apple turns people from consumers into loyal evangelists and they also are perfectly fine with those who can't stand them. What great bands aren't polarizing? The lessons of innovation, pushing technology and providing a product, brand or service that consumers don't even realize they may need are the real lessons that every business can learn from Apple -time and time again.
Have your say below...Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications Insights - By Mitch Joel at Twist Image
Business Insider: 10 Things You Need To Know This Morning
MORNING:
* AT&T was hacked, resulting in the exposure of the email address of over a hundred thousand iPad 3G owners, including major hot shots like Mayor Bloomberg and Rahm Emmanuel.
* Google is freaked because Apple is not going to let it advertise in iPhone apps. Now the Feds are getting involved.
* Bill Gates, John Doerr, and Jeff Immelt want the U.S. to triple spending on energy research.
* Here's a cool rumor: T-Mobile will make all phones free for one day -- June 19.
* Apple updated its Safari browser and added extensions. Here's 25 extensions available to install today.
* A year after Zynga unleashed FarmVille on the world, it is releasing FrontierVille, a new game that's similar to FarmVille, but has a few twists says TechCrunch.
* Linden Labs, the company behind Second Life laid off 30% of its staff.
* The Netflix/Hulu effect: The percentage of people watching full length movies on the web has doubled in the last year, writes Joesph Tartakoff at PaidContent.
* iFixYouri, a site claiming to have an iPhone 4 minus the circuit board
, did some tests on the screen. Turns out it will break just like an other iPhone, despite all the talk of a super strong screen.
* If you haven't yet, do read the big feature we have on the "Startup Con Man," it's quite a tale.
Read more: Business Insider
* AT&T was hacked, resulting in the exposure of the email address of over a hundred thousand iPad 3G owners, including major hot shots like Mayor Bloomberg and Rahm Emmanuel.
* Google is freaked because Apple is not going to let it advertise in iPhone apps. Now the Feds are getting involved.
* Bill Gates, John Doerr, and Jeff Immelt want the U.S. to triple spending on energy research.
* Here's a cool rumor: T-Mobile will make all phones free for one day -- June 19.
* Apple updated its Safari browser and added extensions. Here's 25 extensions available to install today.
* A year after Zynga unleashed FarmVille on the world, it is releasing FrontierVille, a new game that's similar to FarmVille, but has a few twists says TechCrunch.
* Linden Labs, the company behind Second Life laid off 30% of its staff.
* The Netflix/Hulu effect: The percentage of people watching full length movies on the web has doubled in the last year, writes Joesph Tartakoff at PaidContent.
* iFixYouri, a site claiming to have an iPhone 4 minus the circuit board
, did some tests on the screen. Turns out it will break just like an other iPhone, despite all the talk of a super strong screen.
* If you haven't yet, do read the big feature we have on the "Startup Con Man," it's quite a tale.
Read more: Business Insider
Friday, May 28, 2010
Experience Matters: iAd Won’t Be an iFad: New Opportunities for Mobile Advertising
Molly Hop & Anna Mer | Critical Mass Chicago
It’s clear consumers are hungry for mobile applications, having downloaded more than 3 billion apps from the Apple app store as of March 2010, according to eMarketer. The growing popularity of this channel has led to an increased desire to find a way to market to our mobile consumers. In response to this, Apple has recently acquired Quattro Wireless (after having AdMob snatched up by Google) to create the iAd advertising platform that will launch with the iPhone 4G this summer. Now the question is, how will iAd change how brands approach marketing within mobile applications?
A common debate among the Critical Mass Experience Distribution team is whether there is a “correct approach” to mobile applications.
When do you recommend creating one?
What value will the mobile application serve vs. that of the mobile website?
How should we market this application?
How much money, time and effort should be put into it?
One might argue that building an application but not putting a marketing effort behind it is similar to the “if a tree falls in the forest but no one is there to hear it” concept. If we determine that we don’t have the money, resources or rationale to build and market our own application, do we sponsor a relevant existing app that another brand hasn’t gotten to first? Please continue reading here: Experience Matters
It’s clear consumers are hungry for mobile applications, having downloaded more than 3 billion apps from the Apple app store as of March 2010, according to eMarketer. The growing popularity of this channel has led to an increased desire to find a way to market to our mobile consumers. In response to this, Apple has recently acquired Quattro Wireless (after having AdMob snatched up by Google) to create the iAd advertising platform that will launch with the iPhone 4G this summer. Now the question is, how will iAd change how brands approach marketing within mobile applications?
A common debate among the Critical Mass Experience Distribution team is whether there is a “correct approach” to mobile applications.
When do you recommend creating one?
What value will the mobile application serve vs. that of the mobile website?
How should we market this application?
How much money, time and effort should be put into it?
One might argue that building an application but not putting a marketing effort behind it is similar to the “if a tree falls in the forest but no one is there to hear it” concept. If we determine that we don’t have the money, resources or rationale to build and market our own application, do we sponsor a relevant existing app that another brand hasn’t gotten to first? Please continue reading here: Experience Matters
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