September Industry News
How Google Sees Mobile Usage in 10 Years
Google’s Engineering Director, Andy Rubin, has made some bold predictions on the Official Google Blog this week in relation to how we’ll all be using mobile phones in 10 years time.
Andy reminds us that the humble mobile phone in your pocket is probably ten times more powerful than the PC you had on your desk only 8 or 9 years ago. His most interesting theories for mobile usage in the future include:
Smart Alerts: Your phone will let you know if something has happened that impacts you or needs your attention.
Augmented Reality: Your phone will tell you information about your location, desires or needs before you are even aware of them.
Instant Crowd Sourcing: You’ll be able to use your phone to review the most recent uploads of images, music, text, Tweets and blog posts by persons in your vicinity and you can go interact ith them (after receiving directions from your phone).
Sensory Perception: Weather updates, traffic reports, news events – these will all be at your fingertips the instant they are available.
Business Tool: Your phone as your meal ticket, allowing you to work remotely, track your investments, keep up with clients, build your business and increase your communication ability.
Intelligent Phones: Web 2.0 comes to mobile, where you can create apps on the fly, add content to your site and your phone will automatically download the latest updates to your favorite apps based on your preferences. Your phone *learns* based on your activity and makes it easier for you to use over time.
Source
Microsoft downplays search
When you’re a distant third in search, it’s easy to downplay the channel. But regardless of its position, Microsoft is making the case that search should only be one component of a marketer’s digital ad spend.
Speaking at the IAB’s MIXX conference in New York, Young-Bean Song, Microsoft’s VP of analytics for the company’s advertiser and publisher solutions group, told the attendees that they are assigning more value to search than they probably should.
“You don’t have to be in marketing to realize that there’s a lot more going on [besides search],” Song said. “People are seeing ads across many, many sites, across many, many channels, over extended periods of time. And all of those different touchpoints are making a difference.”
According to Song, the myopic view of search places a disproportionate emphasis on the so-called last click. But while Song may be right on the larger point, his insights may not carry the weight that they need to. After all, search is still incredibly important, and no one knows that more than Song’s employer, Microsoft, which went through months of acrimony in its failed bid to acquire Yahoo. That deal would have given a combined company an edge in a wide open display market, but it also would have narrowed the gap in the critical search sector. Without Yahoo, Microsoft has had to go it alone, and that means it will have to make its case to advertisers with less search muscle than it may have hoped for. Source
Pixsy Opens Up Embed Feature For All
Last year, media search platform Pixsy was in the news for forming a strategic partnership with Veoh, which would let the company play Pixsy videos directly in the page with the help of Pixsy’s new embed feature. Realizing the value of that, Pixsy will unveil a new service called Video Search Playback, that will open its embed feature to any company that asks for permission to use it.
By sending an email to Pixsy asking to use its embed feature, website publishers can embed Pixsy videos into their sites, opening them up to the millions of videos currently offered by the site. So far, Pixsy has approved a handful of publishers to participate in the service, but once it goes live on Thursday, anyone can email Pixsy for inclusion. Source
Esquire becomes the World’s first digital magazine
US magazine Esquire has become the world’s first ever magazine to have a cover partly of electronic ink. The feat is achieved using the technology Amazon employed for its Kindle e-book reader. The magazine includes a panel flashing the message “The 21st Century Begins Now” on the cover of its October issue, which marks the magazine’s 75th birthday.
The slogan and images blink on and off, thanks to a panel containing micro-capsules of ink controlled by an electric charge from a battery developed in China.
The magazine is selling only 100,000 copies of its 725,000 print run with the electronic cover and asking readers to pay a $2 premium price of $5.99. Subscribers will not be sent the electronic panel.
Each e-ink panel is said to cost US$8 and the exercise would have been impossible without a sponsor. Enter Ford, which is plugging its new Ford Flex Crossover car in a two-page spread, with another e-ink panel showing the car driving at night. Source
