So Who Is Winning - iOS Or Android?
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This is a great article taking into account everything from market share to subscribers to profits. So who is winning — iOS or Android? On some level, it’s too crude a question to take very seriously. There are just too many ways to define "winning," and neither platform leads in every area. But here’s the closest thing to an objective answer: "Android if you’re talking about market share; iOS if you mean financial success. So far, this is a strikingly different market than the PC business back in the 1990s, when market share translated directly into financial success." Read >
DEMO Mobile: Big Themes In Early Stage Mobile Companies (BI Intelligence)
We were in attendance at the DEMO Mobile Conference yesterday, watching companies present their pitches to the crowd of investors and other attendees. There were several big themes to take away:
- Mobile Health: There is quite a lot of activity in this space, mainly focused on changing patient behavior and relationship with the doctor or health care provider and how that improves health-related outcomes.
- Mobile Enterprise: Workplaces are being streamlined. For example, email is being reengineered around mobile to help employees work faster, and documents and forms are being handled on mobile devices.
- Mobile 2.0: The Internet of things and virtual realities are coming into play.
- Mobile Platforms: There is a real focus on security as well as cloud infrastructure.
- Social Mobile: Taking online chatter and creating real and measurable value offline.
Congratulations to the winners: Kinsa, PanaCast, Volio, MakerSwarm and BeerHunt.
The Emerging Glasshole Culture (ZDNet)
There's a not-so-flattering descriptor that has already been applied to this group of digital cognoscenti who have been seen recently at industry conferences and public venues wearing Google Glass: Glassholes. It could certainly be argued that whenever a new consumer technology enters society, those who are quick to adopt it are typically ridiculed by the have-nots. Eventually, many of these technologies become commonplace and are more accepted by the mainstream, particularly when they become more affordable. Read >
Amazon Takes Its App Store Global (TechCrunch)
Amazon took a big step forward in its strategy to take its app distribution business — and its Kindle Fire hardware business — global: it announced that its Android-based Appstore will expand to cover "nearly 200" countries, including adding Australia, Latin American countries like Brazil and Mexico, Canada, South Africa and South Korea. Up to now, the only countries where the Amazon Appstore was available were the U.S., UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan. Read >
Microsoft Bullies Foxconn Into Paying Up (Digital Trends)
Microsoft has signed Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn to its Android and Chrome patent licensing program. While the exact terms of the deal haven’t been made public, it’ll mean Foxconn will pay royalties to Microsoft for any of their devices running the Android or Chrome operating systems. This isn’t anything new. In the last decade alone, Microsoft has made more than 1,100 patent licensing agreements for just this kind of deal: if you want to use Android or Chrome OS on your device, you’ve gotta pay up to Microsoft. Read >
Yahoo Boasts About 300 Million Mobile Users (Mobile Marketing Watch)
Yahoo may have its fair share of problems today, but maintaining a largely mobile audience isn’t one of them. According to details announced during the company’s earnings call this week, Yahoo now has 300 million mobile monthly users, which is up substantially from the 200 million mobile users it counted at the end of 2012. "Mobile is not only at the center of our users’ daily habits, it is at the center of a huge industry shift in Internet access," says Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. "This presents a tremendous opportunity for us and we are working hard to take advantage of it." Read >
Mobile Advertising To Reach $7 Billion This Year (IDC via Digital Lifescapes)
According to IDC, strong growth in mobile advertising spending in the U.S. continues, even if annual growth rates continue to decline: the market grew by 88% in 2012 (down from 125% in 2011) to a total of $4.5 billion (up from $2.4 billion in 2011). Mobile market share within all digital advertising reached 11% in 2012, up from 7% in 2011. For 2013, IDC expects a growth rate of 55 to 65%, with spending coming in around $7 billion. Read >
At the start of 2013, McAfee Labs researchers had counted 36,699 mobile malware samples — and an astounding 95% of those samples only appeared over the course of the previous 12 months. In comparison, McAfee threat researchers gathered just 792 samples of mobile malware in all of 2011. Will 2013 display a similarly amazing climb? All signs point to yes. The growth of mobile malware shows no sign of slowing and this threat will likely continue to explode as mobile devices remain particularly attractive to cyber-criminals and malware authors. Read >
50% Of Mobile Apps To Be HTML5-Native Hybrids By 2016 (Gartner via NDTV)
Hybrid apps, which offer a balance between HTML5-based Web apps and native apps, will be used in more than 50% of mobile apps by 2016, according to research firm Gartner. While native application development offers the ultimate user experience and performance for mobile applications, the trade-off is often a fragmented set of development tools and multiple versions of an application to serve the same user need — because different versions must be made for each type of device or operating system, Gartner said. Read >
The Truth About Mobile And Online Cyber-Bullying (CollegeStats via Mobile Marketing Watch)
From harassing text messages to demeaning social network comments, teens face a barrage of all-too-common digital bullying tactics in today’s world. But is it really a hazard or generally just hype? That’s the question regarding cyberbullying that thousands of parents find themselves considering. Read >
