Watch The Google I/O Developer Conference Live...HERE!

Watch Google I/O as it happens right here. You can find a detailed schedule of the events you want to watch or just start off with the keynote below. The event kicks off on May 15th, 2013 at 9AM PST.

Like it? Share it!

The Future Of Mobile Is Summarization Tech, Says Marissa Mayer

Marissa Mayer, a proponent of Summarization Tech spoke at the Wired Business Conference. She predicted that “summarization will be a core technology on mobile.” Mayer put her money where her mouth is with Yahoo!'s acquisition of Summly, a news reader app based on summarization technology.

If you want to know about the trends in Summarization Tech and the reasons why it's the next wave on Mobile, read my blog post about Summarization on Google Glass.

Like it? Share it!

The '3rd Mobile OS' Keeps Popping Up Again

The WSJ posted an article about the battle to become the 3rd Mobile Operating System. The article talks about the contenders, ranging from BB10 and Windows to new entrants such as Firefox and Ubuntu (both based on HTML 5).  A couple of months ago I blogged about the 3rd Mobile OS.  In my view Ubuntu has a good chance to make it to numero tres, and maybe even challenge the top dogs who, together, own close to 90% of the smartphone OS market.

Needless to say, the 3rd placeholder is vying for the emerging market.  Currently, close to 2 Billion people are yet to come online. 

Source: Enders Analysis via ben-evans.com

A vast majority of potential onliners will connect to the internet via inexpensive smartphones as opposed to laptops or desktops, which have anyways been disrupted by Mobile. However, the race to capture the emerging market is an even more competitive one than the one to be crowned 3rd place. At the moment, the Mobile OS that has captured the number one spot (in terms of overall market share) AND the emerging market, is Android. iOS, on the other hand, is not (yet) an emerging market player due to its marriage with the iPhone hardware, which makes it a high-end smartphone. With a cheaper iPhone, the emerging market place is going to intensely heat up!

It's a long race and the player positions keep changing with new players entering the arena from different directions. May the best horse win.

Like it? Share it!

What's The Deal With Acquiring News Reader Apps?

LinkedIn started the trend by acquiring Pulse news for around $90 Million. Then Summly was purchased by Yahoo! for $30 Million and Google gobbled Wavii for around the same amount.

All three acquisitions have been in the news reader space. Summly and Wavii are especially noteworthy acquisitions because of the summarization technology these news readers are built on. Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing are the underlying  coding technologies that summarize a news article into a short paragraph; perfect for mobile snacking. But lets not leave Pulse behind. This news reader app lays out news headlines in a tile format for quick browsing and reading. The usual sharing and favoriting are built right into all three apps. I wouldn't be surprised if LinkedIn builds some kind of summarization technology into Pulse to bring it on equal footing with Summly and Wavii. In fact since its acquisition, LinkedIn has already added its latest 'LinkedIn Influencers' as a news source to Pulse. Now, instead of logging into LinkedIn to read your favorite influencer's updates, you can do so directly in Pulse - in that concise tile format.

So lets come to the meat of this post. Why is an internet search company, an internet media company and a professional networking company snapping up mobile news reader apps? In a word, content. In 3 words, content in context. We are slowly but surely realizing that mobile is the future - that's the context - mobile. Accessing news is one of the top tasks we perform on our smartphone, so that's content. So you take news (content) and shove it down mobile's throat (context) and you get Summly, Wavii and Pulse at the other end (hmmm maybe this analogy wasn't the best. don't get me wrong, I am not comparing these apps to waste matter!).

In a Mobile world, you have to keep users engaged; have them keep coming back to your app to consume your content. Increased engagement means more eye balls, which mean better advertising revenue. For LinkedIn, more eyeballs means a larger professional network.

As per comScore, accessing news on smartphone represents 49% of usage while on Tablets, it represents 59% of usage.

"

Source: Mobile Future in Focus 2013, comScore

"

Top Mobile Media Activities by Share of Smartphone & Tablet Users

Source: comScore MobiLens & TabLens, U.S., 3-month Avg., Ending Dec-2012

So this takes care of content. How about context?

"

Source: Mobile Future in Focus 2013, comScore

"

Share of Total Time Spent Online for Selected Properties

Source: comScore Media Metrix Multi-Platform (Beta), U.S., Dec-2012

We can see that mobile is growing, but not only in terms of replacing desktop usage but also creating net new usage as mobile can be used at times and places that a desktop cannot create 'usage.' Companies are realizing this trend and creating ways in which we can snack on content in the mobile context. Simplified and summarized are driving mobile engagement. We're seeing this happening in front of our eyes with news and social media updates. Google can use Wavii's technology and apply it to Google+. You'd be able to get summarized versions of updates. In fact I see Google's purchase of Wavii as a stepping stone to summarization on GLASS.


Is it too late to acquire a news reader app? Facebook, AOL, HuffPo, Business Insider, NYT, are you guys shopping around? If you haven't come across a French startup called Mobiles Republic, then let me point you in its direction. Mobiles Republic has some pretty neat and simplified news reader offerings.

What's next? How will we consume other forms of content on mobile? Videos? Let's cover that in another post. Is anyone using an app to read this blog?

Like it? Share it!

What Makes You Click On A News Post? (A Visual Guide)

As a blogger, I have to read...a lot! I have to sift through hundreds of news stories a day to form my thoughts and analysis on a subject matter. Over the years, with practice, I've become fairly good at skimming headlines and knowing when its worth my while to click and read the whole story. If you've read my blog posts, you will find that I write about tech trends. I care about over-arching tech trends in Internet, Mobile, Cloud, Ad Tech, Social, OS Development, etc. Even when I click through to read the entire story, I look for facts and the main take-away or strategy; the what and why the company did what it did. This helps me in figuring out the direction in which the tech trend is heading and what strategies players need to deploy in order to harness market potential in the foreseeable future.

I mostly use Business Insider's Silicon Alley Insider (SAI) to get the tech stories because they do a great job of producing, aggregating and distributing tech content online. I've put together a pictorial list of their headline feed to show you a visually appealing way of which headlines fit the bill and which ones are just 'nice to read' for me. Note that I am trying to figure out what the article is about  just by reading the headline and without clicking into it and reading the entire story. 

(Disclaimer: All headline news screenshots below are from Business Insider's SAI website).

Let's begin...

The top headline is sort of an eye catcher because it says that the best windows laptop is the MacBook Pro. Well, you can partition the hard drive in a MacBook and install windows on it, which is probably what the study found and led the Macbook to be the best Windows Laptop. No need to click on the headline...let's move on.

The bottom headline is self-explanatory and it doesn't offer me any information about tech trends. I know that Apple's WWDC is coming up. What I'd be interested in knowing is what products and services Apple talked about during the WWDC. We'll wait for that news story. Let's continue.

Here, the top headline is a teaser for SAI's subscription based report about location-based services. I can tell because the author is 'Business Insider' and not an individual writer. This report is going to be bustling with facts, trends and insights! The caveat is that you have to be a paid member of the service to read the whole report. I'd read this report thoroughly for all that it offers.

The second one is a reprint about Bitcoin, the digital cryto-currency making a lot of headlines the past few weeks. Most of the news about Bitcoin explains the concept or talks about the stellar price increases and drops over the last few months. But this headline seems to tell me something else. It tells me that Bitcoin is "...Becoming a Part of Your Web Browser." Now you have to take some of these headlines with a pinch of salt. To me, this post will be about some kind of tech standardization between the digital currency and web browsers. This may reveal some kind of a trend that I'd like to know about so I'll go ahead and click on it.

Again, the first post is some gossipy entertaining news about a tech celebrity, named Zuckerberg. Apparently he got famous by making Billions by founding a social site called Facebook. If I had time, I'd click on it and read about his Hawaiian adventure.

The second headline is simply a link to an article on another tech news site. Content producers sometimes share each other's stories on their news feed. Nonetheless this headline is about Twitter's app update. Good to know, but no need to read the whole thing. I'll see the update when I use the app.

If I have time to see a 2-minute streaming video just for kicks, go ahead, otherwise move on...there's no value add here.

The second post is a Quarterly Earnings report. It'll be full of financial facts (revenues, operating income, net income, margins, volumes, EPS, P/E & guidance). I'd click on this just to get my facts right and understand where the stock is going (trend). It's also about Amazon. I follow Amazon especially since they're into everything (e-commerce, Cloud, Mobile, OS, Hardware, Streaming, Content  Producing, etc, etc.). Recently news broke out that Amazon could be doing $500 million in ads a year, which can grow to a billion dollars this year. This spells trouble for Google. Lots of strategy related stuff. Anyways, in a nutshell, follow all news about trend setters.

I've taken the above 3 posts together because they're all stories about new hires and exits of movers and shakers at various tech-related  organizations. The first one talks about an exit and typically I wouldn't be interested in reading on, but it says, the VC is leaving to start something new. I want to know what the 'new thing' is because it'll give me an idea about trends in that space. VC's usually have a ton of ideas and a lot of market knowledge since they are evaluating business plans by the thousands. So if a VC is leaving to start something new, then she or he knows something that I want to know.

The second post is boring. It's not going to give me any insights. I don't really care about a board member leaving, unless he or she is a  big influencer. Yahoo's got a super-influential CEO last year and if Marissa Mayer is still around, then it doesn't matter if a board member leaves.

Next. Square is a super hot company because it operates in a super hot space, digital payments. There are several companies and several tech standards fighting for their place in the industry. There is too much going on in this space and even a bit of information related to digital payments may help me figure out where the pieces may fall. Anyways, this particular post may reveal professional background information about the the new hire, which may tell me what the company might be doing. New product development? Expansion plans? Change in strategy? In this case its a replacement for Keith Rabois.

In the above screen shot, the first post is a reprint about innovation in Ad Tech. The headline tells me how a new innovation tech (facial recognition) might shape the ad tech industry. This has 'trend' written all over it and I'd definitely click to read more. From what I've read before, I know that developers are working on a facial recognition software that will read the expression on your face and show you ads based on your mood, age, etc. This post also states that a facial recognition software has been developed. Al the more reason to get the details.

The second post is another link to a tech news site. It says that a possible competitor to Google Fiber is offering the same service as Google Fiber does, for half the price. Here, the headline tells me everything I want to know. I doubt that a state telephone company will be able to deploy gigabit internet infrastructure nation-wide and be a serious threat to Google. Lets move on.

 Let's make this the last one. So the first headline is a 'nice-to-know' story and the headline tells me enough. Executive compensation stories make for a nice 'OH WOW' read, but here it doesn't offer me any meaningful trends or insights.

The second post is so apt for this blog post I am writing because its exactly the kind of innovation I need. The post is about summarization technology, a topic I covered in my earlier blog post. You may have heard of Yahoo's acquisition of Summly, an app that uses summarization technology to summarize news articles! Hey exactly what I need, right??! This post talks about Google's acquisition of an app, Wavii, that does pretty much the same thing as Summly. Knowing Yahoo's acquisition and reading this headline tells me that Summarization is the way to go! I'd click on this for sure.

I can't wait for summarization technology to hit mainstream. It uses Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing to summarize articles you want to read. There have been 3 notable acquisitions in the newsreader app category recently. The first being the acquisition of Pulse by Linkedin for $90 million. Pulse doesn't summarize news however, it aggregates news from different sources and presents it in a minimalistic style. The other two acquisitions are of Summly and Wavii. These acquisitions show a clear trend in what mobile customers are doing on their devices and how to gain their eye balls. This is the beginning of summarization. My prediction is that most online news content will use some kind of summarization tech to appeal to the reader-on-the-go. Hope you're listening, Henry Blodget.

Like I said, Business Insider is a super-duper online news producer and distributor. Kudos to Henry and team for building an awesome online media company. I've only used BI as an example and to illustrate how I try to decipher news content by reading the headlines only. We could just as much use other news producer's headlines to illustrate the same point. 

Like it? Share it!

Google Glass Takes Summarization Technology To A New Level

The ubiquity of Smartphones has ushered a different way of consuming bits and bytes. Unlike on a desktop, we no longer want to read long articles, or watch a 120 min movie on our Smartphones. Grab one and we instantly transform into the 'Mobile' user. We can associate several connotations with the Mobile concept. For one, we are multi-tasking. Since we are 'Mobile,' we are going some place...walking, taking the subway, driving, shopping, doing a sales pitch, etc. In certain time intervals, we fish out our smartphone and try to complete a quick task before we continue on our journey of the task at hand.  The key here is "...certain time intervals..." Think of it as 'snacking' on your Smartphone; a quick read of a news headline, a timeline update on Facebook, a tweet or an email reply to a colleague.

Source: FreeWheel Video Monetization Report, Q3 2012

We can see the online trend in watching shorter-form videos is taking over longer-form videos.

Source: Business Intelligence Via Ooyala

Even though videos that are longer than 10 mins are watched more as a percentage of total time spent watching videos online, we tend to watch videos in the '1 to 3 min' category longer on smartphones than on any other device category. Note that the above data is not the number of times we watch videos of different length but how long we watch the videos of different length. So, inherently, videos of length greater than 10 minutes will take up more of your total time spent watching videos. Thus spending 25% of your video watching time watching '1 to 3 min' videos on your Smartphone is relatively impressive. This trend will be amplified as the number of smartphones takeover the number of desktops out there.

Source: KISS Metrics

My gut feeling is that the trend of consuming shorter-form content extends to all other content and not only video. Yahoo recently purchased a startup called Summly at a price tag of $30 million from a 17 year old, Nick D'Aloisio. Summly is an App specially designed for Smartphones (currently only for iOS) that provides summarized versions of news articles from hundreds of sources. In other words Summly is designed for the 'Mobile' snacking world. The App algorithmically generates summarized versions of news using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP). These technological concepts are powerful tools in transitioning our 'longer-form' professional and personal lives into summarized versions optimized for mobile snacking. Maybe the 'eat every 2 hours' applies in our digital diet too! OK enough geek jokes...lets get back to Summly. The former owners of the App outsourced the development of Summly to SRI International, a non-profit R&D institution with technical prowess in AI and other next-gen tech such as robotics, sensing and the likes. SRI also developed another App and sold it to another mainstream tech company...you may have heard of. That's right Siri was developed by SRI and sold to Apple. And just as Summly does, Siri too helps summarize your life by eliminating the need to touch or look at your smartphone screen. The reason that these high-profiled acquisitions by Marissa Mayer and Steve Jobs are important ones, is because they highlight the need to gain access to SRI's cool tech. More importantly these acquisitions show the trend of summarization technology in the mobile world.

Lets take mobile summarization to the next level. We can see whats's available on the horizon.  Yep, Google Glass and iWatch. I am going to focus more on GLASS because, its a piece of technology which is closer to being commercialized. The #ifihadglass initiative is already allowing developers and advocates to get their hands on GLASS and start developing third-party services for it. Think of services for GLASS just as you would think of Apps for your Smartphones. Check out the video below about creating services for Google Glass. Skip to the 3:10 mark to see the promo video about GLASS.  If you already saw the promo video a while back then skip to 12:30 to see a live working of GLASS and the 'cards' system.  

Cards are simply the different screens on GLASS with different information. For example, weather information or a photo or a news headline. Cards on GLASS is the technological concept that takes the summarization of experiences to that 'next level.' Watch the video from 26:50 to 27:50 and 31:45 to 34:36 to get an understanding of how GLASS is a platform built to summarize. 

Cards rely on the Google Mirror API (Application Programming Interface), the communications protocol for Apps (or services) to communicate with the host. The Google Glass API is built on three pieces of software. Firstly, ReST is web architecture used for transporting data between services using HTTP. This is the engine for developer services to connect with the Google cloud ecosystem.  The second piece of software language for GLASS is OOF2 ('O OF 2') which is basically a way to allow third-party services to post to the GLASS timeline. Lastly, JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is simply an encapsulation for the entire third-party service. Why am I boring you with this tech mumbo jumbo? (sorry engineers). What I am trying to get at is that its relatively simple to develop for GLASS. It's not built on scores and scores of software code but rather on simple code to support the cards concept of GLASS. It's a platform that is intended to give the user quick bursts of information and content and a limited set of activities (like sharing  or replying) attached to the content. Remember 'digital snacking.'

From Desktops to Laptops to Smartphones and Tablets to wearable tech; technology is physically getting closer to you and as it does, you will only and exactly want the content, information and digital interactions that matter to you at that moment. Can you imagine Summly on GLASS...with a 'Read Aloud' feature! Folks, the summarization of your life has only begun.

Like it? Share it!

Technological Singularity: Human Convergence & The Spiritual Implications Of Uploading Your Consciouness

I think I am now officially a borderline case of OCD for convergence. You would be wondering "what in the world is he going to talk about converging today?" I've talked about virtually converging the mobile OS across device categories and physically converging devices themselves (converging a smartphone with a tablet by way of foldable screens). Well this time I've definitely taken it over the top. I am going to talk about converging us. You heard right. I am talking about the convergence of you with me. Human convergence with technology, on the other hand, is nothing new. Technologist, scientists and futurists have been working on bringing technology closer to your body...literally. Ray Kurweil popularized the concept of Technological Singularity - the theory of creating super-intelligent humans with the advent of Artificial Intelligence and new technologies such as molecular nanotechnology.

Today we carry powerful computing devices in our pockets. Google and Apple are working on putting technology on our skin (think iWatch and Google Glass). Companies are working on putting technology under our skin. Students and Professors at Belgium based Ghent University and at Washington University have prototyped a computer screen contact lens.

We're are not too far off from having nano-computers embedded in our brains. Imagine the power of 'Watson' inside us! 

We will have access to all the digital information in the world - public libraries, Wikipedia, public servers, Facebook profiles...you get the point. Think of us all as connected biological devices. Do we have the processing power to hold all the world's information? We don't need to. The embedded computing power will sense our brains trying to figure out a problem or remember information. The computer will go out to the 'World Wide Minds' (which now have our brains and servers connected to it) and fetch the right kind of information to complete whatever cognitive task we were trying to figure out.

Even though some amount of cognitive processing will be individualistic, intellectual open communities will allow 100% sharing of their minds. So in essence humans will not only converge with technology, but also converge with other humans! We are all going to be clones of each other from a cognitive perspective. 

There are spiritual or karmic implications associated with the singularity or human convergence concept. For the agnostic, there is the implication of the consciousness 'living' on in the connected biological realm. Take, for example, Kim Souzzi, a 23-year old woman who died of brain cancer.  She successfully raised money to have herself cryogenically frozen (check her last post she wrote on her blog). OK so lets fast forward to the future; a time when we are technologically capable of bringing her BACK TO LIFE! I have obviously assumed several things as a given...legal, political, societal and of course technological and biological. Is she the same person? More importantly, is she the same soul? How is her destiny decided? Does she start with a clean Karma slate or continue from where she left off? Lets take another example. A tech guy (we don't know his name) wants to live long enough for him to be possible to transfer his brain (cognitively speaking) in to a machine. The same set of questions apply to him...or should we say apply to the new entity that's created out of his uploaded consciousness.

We have reached a point in technological evolution where we are thinking about meddling with the state of consciousness or spirituality. Even Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, talks about God when describing about Google's future direction.  Larry Page started Singularity University back in 2008. My take is that spirituality will evolve as societies evolve just as it has been evolving since cavemen days to now.

Like it? Share it!

Mobile-First or Mobile-Only Social Companies Are Fragmenting Facebook

This infographic from Business Insider's Business Intelligence shows some of Facebook's features being offered by social niche players such as Instagram, Twitter or Tumblr. Most of these narrower social-service offerings are being used by teenagers, who are slowly abandoning the Facebook platform.

Source: BI Intelligence

The rise of niche players in the Social Media landscape shows that users are trending towards using platforms that offer a stripped-down service; one or two features such as photo sharing or quick updates or messaging. Facebook is worried about declining teenage usage and it already said so in its annual 10-K.  Here is the statement directly from Facebook's 10-K:

We believe that some of our users, particularly our younger users, are aware of and actively engaging with other products and services similar to, or as a substitute for, Facebook. For example, we believe that some of our users have reduced their engagement with Facebook in favor of increased engagement with other products and services such as Instagram. In the event that our users increasingly engage with other products and services, we may experience a decline in user engagement and our business could be harmed.

Like it? Share it!

Are You A Marketer Or A Social Media Junkie? Fly Through All The Platforms In 30 Minutes A Day

Each social media platform is different in terms of its offering to its users and audience. Use Linkedin to recruit the best talent or shine out to get recruited. Use Google+ for longer-forms of discussion. Use Twitter for shorter bursts of info. Take a look at this handy infographics from Pardot to breeze through them all.

This infographic is brought to you by ExactTarget, a leader in social media marketing.

Like it? Share it!

Mobile Payments: A Race Between NFC & Card Readers / Apps

I wrote about the Mobile Payment industry back in February '13.  The post mentioned that the two dominant technologies vying for market-leadership are NFC and Card-reader (or software-based).

Business Insider's Business Intelligence (BI) released their latest presentation on the Mobile Payment industry. BI analyses polled data and industry players and technologies to piece together the state of the industry and where it's headed.  As I mentioned in my post, Apple is still missing from the payments industry.  With only a Mobile Non-payment Wallet, Passbook, Apple hasn't dived into the mainstream payments arena...yet.

While start-ups such as Square and PayPal have seen their payment values surge in the last couple of years, only 10% of the US and European populations use some form of mobile payment. Similar to my post, BI's analysis of the market has found it to be fragmented in terms of players and offerings to consumers. Various companies in various industry segments (from carriers to manufacturers to consumer internet solution providers) offering various solutions to the end user.  In addition to the clutter, user's are most concerned about security of their transactions.

Click on the BI presentation slides below and gain a bird's-eye-view of the industry.

Like it? Share it!

Integration Within Google+ Drives The Social Platform Past Twitter

The social networking platform from Mountain View's G-plex now boasts of 25% of the world's internet population as active users; more than Twitter's active users.

Since I've been on an integration and convergence binge, I wanted to point out the source of success for Google+. Yup you guessed it...its integration. Rather than re-writing the news post, I've posted two links to blog posts that neatly lay out how the integration of Google products helped its social site overtake Twitter. Products such as Hangouts, Gmail, Drive and of course Search are key to G-plus's growth. Let's wait and watch the impact of integrating Google Keep (Google's latest product; similar to Evernote) in to the Google ecosystem.

Google+'s growth has significantly increased some key social networking behaviors on its site, leaving Facebook and Twitter in the dust.

Read on at:

Social Media Today: Google+ Integration Allows Domination over Twitter

or

Bit Rebels: Google Authorship & Its Insane Impact on Website Traffic

Like it? Share it!

Ad Tech in the Year 2015. You Know You Want To Know!

Integration is a word similar to convergence.  On a continuum scale moving from left to right, integration would be to the left of convergence. The reason I mention this is because everything in mobile tech is integrating or converging. Two prime examples are when I wrote about the virtual convergence of the Mobile Operating System experience across multiple mobiles devices and the physical convergence of your smartphone and tablet, although the latter is still some time away.

So what exactly am I foreseeing to integrate today? It's the integration of advertising technology into your mobile experience across all screen sizes. Let me start by providing a 'cocktail napkin' overview of the ad tech industry. Firstly we have the Display Banner Ads that you see on websites and apps. Secondly, the Search Ads, dominated by Google, are the ones you see on search results pages of Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

Example of Search Ad: I searched for 'toyota' and I was also served an ad for VW.

Lastly, Native Ads have gained momentum ever since Facebook rolled out their 'sponsored stories' ad offering in early 2012. Twitter has subsequently followed with their native offering in the form of 'promoted tweets' and Pinterest, one of the fastest growing social media sites, is expected to rely on a native offering centered around  its treasure trove of grid-like pinned images. All three ad types rely on user-information tracking cookies to customize the served ad to the viewer.  For example if a user searches for a pair of jeans, she might see ads from Gap or Levis or any other jeans retailer. I've detailed the behind-the-scene workings of the ad tech industry here.

Now that we are up to speed with the different ad types, lets begin with the proposed integration of advertising technology in to the mobile experience. Imagine yourself watching your favorite streaming TV show on your smart TV. At this point it doesn't really matter which OS is powering the smart TV, but lets just say you have Google TV installed. Your Google TV login credentials will be the same as the one on your Android phone. Thus, Google will be able to track your activity across all devices while you use them simultaneously.  Imagine Google being able to track the fact that you are looking up a pair of jeans on your tablet you saw the character wearing on the show you are watching at that moment. Thereafter Google can show you ads about Jeans because its algorithms figured out you are interested in purchasing a pair of jeans you saw on a TV show. Imagine an 'Inbox' of ads on your Android account that you can access from your all your devices. These ads won't be half as intrusive as the regular ads you see because Google will serve you highly customized ads for products you are interested in purchasing. The ad inbox can also help you with price comparisons or deals for the product you've been waiting to buy. Imagine the ad inbox displayed in a grid fashion with images of the product; a layout like that of Pinterest. 

Pinterest Layout for 'Jeans'

The engagement level on Pinterest proves that its layout of crisp clear and beautiful pictures has helped the site to become the fastest growing to have reached 10 million user. 

Source: BizRate Insights via MarketingCharts.com

Source: BizRate Insights via MarketingCharts.com

You control what you want to see in your ad inbox. Think of a slider button that you can move towards 'more customized ads' or 'more generalized ads.''  Yeah you can tell I like sliding scales. An ad inbox deeply integrated with your Android-Google account that displays customized, aesthetically appealing ads with price information in a simple yet elegant design. You definitely don't want the ads to be intrusive, so the ads won't show up on your TV while you watch your streaming shows.  However, you can hit the pause button and the TV screen switches to an interactive ad billboard, featuring the ads from your ad inbox in a pinterest-like layout. Not just on your TV screen, but the ad inbox can be displayed on your smartphone home screen in the form of a auto-scrolling Widget.  In addition to the Widget or the smart TV 'billboard' concept, you could simply open the ad inbox app and view the super-targeted ads. Ad inbox getting too cluttered for your taste?  No problem, delete the ones you don't want or slice-n-dice the ads based on product category, price, retailer, etc.  Make your final purchase based on your perfect balance of product quality and price.  Once you make the purchase, the inbox will be smart enough to auto-delete the ads for that particular product...of course only until the algorithms track that you've searched for that product again in the future. Advertisers can promote their ads by bidding higher on the ad tech marketplace.  The ecosystem will allow 3rd party players from within the ad tech industry to plug in and access device activities which allow 3rd party apps to show super-targeted ads within their apps to users.  All this in real-time. Any other logical integrations in to this concept?  I almost forgot Digital Wallet.  Google Glass integration?  Let's not get carried away for now. 

Like it? Share it!

'Touch' Is So 2012. Welcome To The Future Of Input Mechanism

Another Hero product from startup incubator Y Combinator. You can pre-order a Thalmic Lab MYO arm band today!  

Control your smartphone, tablet or any other connected device with a snap...literally!  Imagine the integration with Google Glass.  Watch and be amazed!

WSJ reports they have sold 25,000 MYO arm bands at $149 a piece. 

Like it? Share it!

Watch Out Apple! Android Tablet Market Share Forecasts Amended by IDC

We know that Google's Android dominates the Smartphone OS Market Share Globally. Now Apple has reason to worry about its leading tablet market share position also after International Data Corporation (IDC) released an updated forecast for the tablet industry. As per the data analysis company, Android's share of the tablet market will reach 48.8% in 2013 as opposed to the 41.5% previously forecasted by IDC for the same year.

Tablet Operating Systems, Forecast Market Share and CAGR 2012-2017 

Tablet OS	2013 Market Share	2017 Market Share	2012-2017 CAGR (%)
Android	48.8%	46.0%	14.8%
iOS	46.0%	43.5%	15.0%
Windows	2.8%	7.4%	48.8%
Windows RT	1.9%	2.7%	27.9%
Other	0.6%	0.4%	7.5%
Grand Total	100.0%	100.0%	16.6%

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker, March 2013

The gain in Android's market share comes at the expense of Apple's, which is expected to slide from 51% in 2012 to 46% in 2013. Nonetheless, both competitors have a common enemy in the form of the Windows tablet. The Seattle-based OS developer is expected to snatch approximately 4.5% market share from the two Californian natives between 2013 and 2017.

iCharts

Overall shipments of tablets is expected to peak at 350 units by 2017, a CAGR of 16.3% from 2013.

In my earlier post titled 'The Android Vs iOS Engagement Conundrum' I had mentioned that Android-powered tablets were virtually non-existent as compared to iOS's tablet market share. We needed to give time to Android-powered tablets to catch-up since it's tablet offerings were relatively new compared to Apple's entrenched tablet offerings. It seems IDC's forecast gives a strong confidence to Android's catch-up race, which will also help close the gap in the engagement conundrum between iOS and Android.

On a slight tangent, I think Google's recent re-org, which made Sundar Pichai the head of Google's OSs (Chrome and Android), will aide in converging Google's OS ecosystem across  multiple screen categories and help boost engagement.

Like it? Share it!

Android Activation to Reach 1 Billion by Early Fall!

This is a quick update. As reported by Horace Dediu of Asymco, Google has said that the total WW Android activations is 750 million. 

Source: Horace Dediu, Asymco

Working backwards and using pro-ration to derive a per day activation, Horace Dediu forecasts Android install base to reach 1 Billion by the end of August, 2013.

On another note, Andy Rubin, the founder of Android has stepped aside to let Sundar Pichai head the Google Mobile OS. Sundar has been head of Chrome and now the management re-jiggle has brought two of Google's prominent OS programs under his wings. Best of luck Sundar!

Like I said, this was a quick one!


Like it? Share it!

Phones Getting Too Big To Fit In Pocket? Fold it!

This is my first hardware-related conceptualizing blog post. All my other posts have centered around intangible tech - software, operating systems, ad tech, trends and ecosystems. So when my niece shared this video with me and said "You've gotta write something about this on your blog!" with exuberance and marvel for this wonderful innovation, I caved in (Thanks Nits).

After watching the video, the first word that comes to mind is convergence. Yup I had to use the 'C' word.  I just love that word.  I've used it in a trigger happy way in all my posts and when analyzing or describing a certain tech trend. Yeah its over-used but in this case, no other word came to mind without me grabbing my smartphone and hopping on to thesaurus.com. Yea yea, I know there's an app for that. If you think 'convergence' is commonplace wait till you know about the second word that came to mind...disruption! I warned you.

Allow me to explain my two very carefully chosen words for the flexible screen innovation. As I mentioned, I used 'convergence' to describe mobile operating systems and the ecosystem OS developers are creating to converge the OS experience across multiple device categories. The convergence from this flexible screen innovation perspective is a physical one as opposed to a virtual one in the case of operating systems. The convergence in this case is of the likes of how the PC converged computing and media / entertainment. This video of Steve Jobs is great viewing to add some flavor to the concept of convergence.  The video is from 1998, which shows the concept isn't new.  The video quality is not great but his golden words are crystal clear.

The flexible screen innovation, similarly, has the ability to converge multiple device categories into one device category or an entire new category. In a nutshell, your smartphone will be your tablet as well. It will have the ability to morph into one or the other at your will. You won't need to settle on one screen size when purchasing your new smartphone. The new flexible screen computing device will be able to increase or decrease its screen size in a couple of ways. You may be able to fold / unfold it to go from a phone to a tablet or vice verse. You may be able to role it out, in which case, the device screen will only be able to increase its length (these methods are apparent in the video). Developers will need to figure out how apps will need to be altered to fit into changing screen ratios, especially with the case of fold-able screens.

Disruption. Well whenever two things converge, one is eliminated. So take your pick. Will the flex-screen disrupt the tablet category or the phone category? Which industry did the convergence of the PC disrupt? TVs are still around and much so as the entertainment hub of our lives. But the PC did disrupt the entertainment industry in a sense. When was the last time you bought a music album on a CD?  In fact the PC was responsible for disrupting several non-digital channels for music, videos, mail, documentation, archiving, storage, etc. Note that we sometimes use the word 'disruption' loosely. It may not be in the exact context that Mr. Christensen described. Clayton's description of disruption was this: When a lower-priced, lower-quality technology starts to gain market-share from the incumbent as the weaker technology increases in quality, finally matching the incumbent's quality. In the case of the flex-screen, the technology may not be an inexpensive alternative to the standard due to its new-ness in the market. However, since it has the ability to converge at least two devices, it will make it cheaper for the people who are in the market for a smartphone and a tablet.  In terms of quality, the flex screen may or may not be able to match the resolutions of the 'Retinas' or the 'Super AMOLEDs' due to initial restrictions in material science. So the 'Disruptive Innovation' concept may be applicable in this case.

I am not saying the first iteration of the flex-screen will perfectly converge and disrupt as I've mentioned above.  The new innovation must go through the curve in order to improve up to the point of delivering a matched or increased consumer experience of the devices that it will eventually affect. In fact the first iteration of the flex-screen may simply be to make your device screen unbreakable.  It will have enough 'flex' to absorb the shock of a drop but may not have the ability to fold or role to morph into a completely different screen size. Subsequent micro-innovations in material science and software engineering will eventually be able to deliver the near-perfect device concept as described above.  For now stay happy with your 3.5 / 4 inch iPhone or your 3.5 / 4.x / 5.x inch android mobile device.

In the next episode of screen disruption, we will talk about what will disrupt the flex-screen: virtual / holographic screens that will project the 'screen' out of your mobile device on to thin air... I am kidding...but it will happen.

Word count:
Convergence / converge - 12


Like it? Share it!