http://moconews.net/rss/topic/social-media/ mocoNews news watch | Social Media Unhealthily Obsessed With Mobile Content 2012-02-11T10:59:00Z Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews ExpressionEngine http://moconews.net/images/site/logo_mn_secondary.png Zeebox Searches For Money In TV's Social Second Screen tag:contentnext.com,2012-02-09:article/419-zeebox-searches-for-money-in-tvs-social-second-screen 2012-02-09T19:28:43Z 2012-02-10T12:28:45Z Robert Andrews http://moconews.net/member/47/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews After quickly gaining a warm reception and a rapid post-launch investment from BSkyB, the social TV app startup co-founded by ex BBC iPlayer head honcho Anthony Rose is making its first real play at monetisation.

]]> After quickly gaining a warm reception and a rapid post-launch investment from BSkyB, the social TV app startup co-founded by ex BBC iPlayer head honcho Anthony Rose is making its first real play at monetisation.

From Thursday, Zeebox is starting to include “click to buy” slots in its iPad and iPhone app and to sell second-screen ads to brands, so that each generates money from people watching TV shows with Zeebox on their laps.

It works like this…

Thanks to speech-to-text, subtitles and other metadata including from Philips’ Civolution fingerprinter spin-off, the Zeebox iPad app already shows users a live stream of info “tags” corresponding to material in shows they are watching on their lounge TV. Right now, they link to Wikipedia articles.

But Zeebox also had always hoped to leverage them to start linking to marketing messaging as well as to purchase options during the commercial breaks between shows.

So, during those breaks, Zeebox will denote actionable tag links with icons for songs, products, travel services etc. Those links will send users through to merchants like iTunes (for music), Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) (for DVDs), Tesco (for food) and Boots (for cosmetics) via Zeebox affiliate codes, so that it generates a percentage commission of any subsequent sales.

Zeebox is running the system so far on about 20 percent of UK TV’s commercial break ads, mostly for ITV (LSE: ITV) hcnanle.s

Will it work?

“Our consumer research told us that people want an easy way to buy things they see on TV,” Rose’s co-founder Ernesto Schmitt says in a press release.

Do affiliate links add up to a business model? Not in isolation. Shazam claims to make a percentage of music purchases worth $100 million a year that its app sent to stores last year. But it has tried to diversify its revenue streams.

Using just the affiliate commission model, Zeebox will need to generate click-throughs and actual purchases at a large scale in order to clock up significant total income. But the startup appears to be seeking other streams, too.

The prospect of selling specific second-screen tag ads to advertiser brands is exciting as an innovation. But brands would likely consider this experimental until such time as Zeebox is being used by large numbers of TV viewers.

Zeebox last month claimed “250,000 users” - but simultaneous prime-time users metrics are not publicised.

One route to scale for Zeebox is through BSkyB (NYSE: BSY). The UK pay-TV platform leader in January took equity in the startup with a deal through which it will leverage Zeebox features in a social-centric upgrade revision to its EPG app for its Sky+ PVR.

But, still, the whole prospect, for all such operators, depends on the usage scale of tablets or smartphones as engagement facilitators during TV shows. On that hinges the very notion of the second screen but, so far, much research points to a growing trend there.

]]> Path Apologizes For Address-Book Data Snafu, Promises To Delete Data tag:contentnext.com,2012-02-08:article/419-path-apologizes-for-address-book-data-snafu-promises-to-delete-data 2012-02-08T22:26:13Z 2012-02-08T22:31:15Z Tom Krazit http://moconews.net/member/18417/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews Path, a company hoping to build a kinder, gentler social network based on sharing within a limited number of people, has apologized for a contact-finder feature in its software that uploaded users’ entire iPhone address books to its servers and said it has deleted that personal information.

]]> Path, a company hoping to build a kinder, gentler social network based on sharing within a limited number of people, has apologized for a contact-finder feature in its software that uploaded users’ entire iPhone address books to its servers and said it has deleted that personal information.

In yet another case of the tricky line between sharing, mobile data, and transparency, Arun Thampi, a developer for Anideo, discovered Tuesday that Path was uploading the contact information of his iPhone address book when he created an account. Path’s intention was to make it easier for users to find friends using that information, but Thampi and several others found it “a little creepy” that the company felt entitled to the data in one’s personal address book without explicitly warning them first.

On Wednesday, Dave Morin, CEO and founder of Path, apologized (sort of) in saying “we are deeply sorry if you were uncomfortable with how our application used your phone contacts.” A new version of Path has been released that no longer uploads that data unless you explicitly choose to do so, and the data collected from current Path users has been deleted, he said in a blog post.

Once again, we see the dance that mobile apps tied to location and social networks have to do around show they handle of private information. Path’s misstep is just another signal that people are willing to share information with mobile service providers up to a certain point but they are not pleased when that sharing happens without their knowledge.

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]]> Mashable CEO Beats Oprah In Influence—At Least On Reuters' New Site tag:contentnext.com,2012-02-02:article/419-mashable-ceo-beats-oprah-rupert-murdoch-in-reuters-new-social-pulse 2012-02-02T17:14:01Z 2012-02-02T17:30:03Z Laura Hazard Owen http://moconews.net/member/19747/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews In a new business-oriented social media site, Reuters (NYSE: TRI) aims to index “the most talked-about news, companies and influencers across the Web.” A better definition might be “what people are doing on Twitter.”

]]> In a new business-oriented social media site, Reuters (NYSE: TRI) aims to index “the most talked-about news, companies and influencers across the Web.” A better definition might be “what people are doing on Twitter.”

The “Reuters and Klout 50” ranks CEOs by Klout score, but mostly by who is most active on Twitter. The rules: “To make the list the user has to be a CEO, active on Twitter, tweeting in English, and have their own handle separate from their company’s (sorry @zappos).” The top three “most influential execs on the web” are Mashable’s Pete Cashmore (with a Klout score of 89), Oprah Winfrey (81), and Rupert Murdoch (80). Others in the top 10 include Square CEO Jack Dorsey and Carnival CEO Micky Arison.

At the top of the page is “The Hit List,” links to stories “being talked about by the newsmakers we follow.” “The more a story is shared on Twitter by these influencers the more likely it is to appear here,” the site explains.

“The Conversation” curates journalist tweets—and is supposed to “track social-media spats and chats between two Twitter parties,” though the storyline at this point is hard to follow—and “Reuters Bloggers & Reporters” features Reuters journalist tweets.

Overall, the site’s reliance on Twitter as penultimate social gauge seems somewhat limiting, with other sources—stories read and shared across Facebook, for instance, as well as stories trending on blogs and other news sites—not included. (You can see the stories shared on Facebook by your friends but not more broadly in the “business community” this site is aimed at.) “It’s not simply about how customers view a particular company, but how everyone engaged in the social realm views that company,” said Reuters’ director of news product Alex Leo in a statement. Or at least how much they tweet about it.

]]> 2.7 Billion Daily Likes And Other Key Numbers From Facebook's S-1 tag:contentnext.com,2012-02-01:article/419-2.7-billion-daily-likes-and-other-numbers-to-be-divined-from-facebooks- 2012-02-01T23:28:26Z 2012-02-02T16:52:28Z Ingrid Lunden http://moconews.net/member/34/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews Facebook‘s nearly 200-page S-1 filing appears to have crippled the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Edgar website with the mass of people going there to take a peek at the social network’s numbers. That traffic may well be matched by the weight of numbers in the filing itself. Here’s a look at some of them:

]]> Facebook‘s nearly 200-page S-1 filing appears to have crippled the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Edgar website with the mass of people going there to take a peek at the social network’s numbers. That traffic may well be matched by the weight of numbers in the filing itself. Here’s a look at some of them:

845 million active users, 100 billion “friendships”, 250 million photos uploaded daily

That works out to an average of 118.3 friends per user, and an average of 3.4 0.3 pictures uploaded each day by those active users. Among those 845 million active users, more than half—483 million—are actually daily active users (taking the photo average up to 0.5 uploads per day, or around 15 per month). They’ve gone up by 48 percent since December 2010, when they stood at 327 million DAUs. Those numbers sound big on one hand, but not so big on another: doing some very basic math, this works out to average revenues per user of only $4.39. As a point of comparison, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) currently makes about $36 per user; Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) $16 per user (via CBS).

$1 billion in net income on revenues of $3.711 billion

That works out to net income at about 30 percent of revenues in 2011, up slightly from the previous two years when net income was at about 29 percent of revenues. A sign of improving efficiencies?

$3.2 billion in ad revenue

That’s the ad revenue figure for 2011, out of total revenues of $3.7 billion. The rest of its revenue is made up by Facebook Credits and other payments. The growth in ad revenues at the moment appears to be slowing down: Facebook says between 2009 and 2010, ad revenues grew by 145 percent, but then between 2010 and 2011 it grew by only 69 percent. There’s a clear sign that Facebook will need to further diversify how it makes its money if that trend continues. Credits and other fees are still very much on the rise and becoming a more prominent part of the overall revenue pie. In 2011 they amounted to 15 percent of revenues ($557 million); in 2010 they accounted for only five percent ($106 million).

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$0 in mobile advertising

Facebook currently makes nothing from advertising on mobile devices because it has yet to extend ads to its mobile platforms. The S-1 didn’t specify whether it planned to introduce this and in fact cast its mobile prospects in the most sober light possible: Facebook thinks that growth in mobile monthly active users will exceed the growth of overall MAUs “for the foreseeable future” as Facebook continues to encourage more mobile use of its platform. There must be a business agenda in that but Facebook doesn’t spell it out here. In fact, it cautions that as more people could just start using the mobile platforms more than the desktop version, where ads do appear, “if we are unable to successfully implement monetization strategies for our mobile users, our revenue and financial results may be negatively affected.”

Zuck’s salary is going down to $1 from next year. At the moment Facebook has 3,200 employees in total. That works out to an average revenue per employee of $1,159,687.50.

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]]> Facebook's Status Update: $5 Billion IPO Filed tag:contentnext.com,2012-02-01:article/419-facebooks-status-s-1-filed-for-5-billion-ipo 2012-02-01T21:51:07Z 2012-02-02T08:50:08Z Ingrid Lunden http://moconews.net/member/34/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews It took the whole day, but Facebook finally—as many expected—filed its S-1 with the Securities Exchange Commission for its long-awaited IPO. While guesstimates for how much Facebook would try to raise ranged from $5 billion to $10 billion, in the end, it looks like it is the lower of that range: $5 billion.

]]> It took the whole day, but Facebook finally—as many expected—filed its S-1 with the Securities Exchange Commission for its long-awaited IPO. While guesstimates for how much Facebook would try to raise ranged from $5 billion to $10 billion, in the end, it looks like it is the lower of that range: $5 billion.

There’s no firm idea yet on what that $5 billion might mean for a valuation of the company. But here are some quick early numbers: Facebook made $3.71 billion in revenue in 2011, almost twice what it did in 2010. Of that $3.71 billion, $1 billion was net income.

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It has 845 million active registered users with 483 million of them termed “daily active users”.

Advertising accounted for 85 percent of its revenue last year. Zynga accounted for 12 percent of its revenues overall and over 80 percent of its payment revenues.

And to confirm the rumors we heard about which banks are involved: Morgan Stanley is leading the IPO filing with J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital, and Allen & Co also participating.

Several folks are in line for a big gain on their investments. Facebook listed Accel Partners, DST Global Limited, Goldman Sachs, and T. Rowe Price as its major institutional shareholders. Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook co-founder and CEO of startup Asana, is also a major stockholder listed in Facebook’s statement. Notable among the individual investors is Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and will serve on Facebook’s board of directors.

It’s not just the IPO price, bankers and valuation that had people busy guessing. People have been speculating about other aspects of this IPO, including how much of a fee the banks will get on the deal (the range we’ve seen: between one percent and seven percent).

Now, with the IPO finally out, people will begin to pore over the numbers to figure out all sorts of things about Facebook that have not been completely clear while it was still in startup mode: What are its margins? What does it expect its growth rate to be? What are the comparative sizes of different business areas like advertising versus Facebook credits? What’s the geographical spread of its business?

However you cut it, the company has been a ground-breaker in the online world. You can argue about whether or not Facebook introduced the concept of social networking, but it has certainly run away with it, and now has 845 million users. And counting.

The question today is whether it will be able to convert that into a sustainable financial juggernaut, too?

More S-1 detail and number crunching here.

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]]> Videoplaza Raises $12 Million For Its Multiscreen Video Ad Platform tag:contentnext.com,2012-02-01:article/419-videoplaza-raises-12-million-for-its-multiscreen-video-ad-platform 2012-02-01T08:00:19Z 2012-02-01T20:01:20Z Ingrid Lunden http://moconews.net/member/34/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews The rising popularity of streaming video services is causing a knock-on effect for companies serving ads around that content. And here’s another example of that in action: today UK-based video ad platform Videoplaza is announcing a new $12 million round of funding.

]]> The rising popularity of streaming video services is causing a knock-on effect for companies serving ads around that content. And here’s another example of that in action: today UK-based video ad platform Videoplaza is announcing a new $12 million round of funding.

Leading the second round of investment were Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM) Ventures and Innovacom, along with participation from prior investors Creandum and Northzone; and takes the total amount of funding in the company to almost $18 million.

Videoplaza says that it will be using the investment to help fund its international growth and product development. Those two areas appear to be running fast at the moment anyway: the company says that its client base already spreads across 17 markets, and in the past year its ad serving volumes grew five-fold. Some of its clients include the publisher Dennis, French commercial broadcaster M6 and Spanish newspaper group La Vanguardia and the France-Telecom-owned interactive ad network Unanimis, and it partners with other established names in the business, like Brightcove, to help monetize their video ad traffic.

Videoplaza’s target is to tap into some of the $160 billion that is estimated to be spent on TV advertising annually at the moment, and following those ad budgets as media buyers try to chase down viewers as they start watch more and more of that TV content on an ever-growing variety of screens, from IP-enabled TVs to smartphones, tablets, cars and desktop computers—and who knows what else. Videoplaza projects that by 2020 there will be more than 10 billion connected devices in consumers’ hands that could be used for consuming streamed video.

It is not the only one: companies like YuMe, spotXchange, BrightRoll (a Videoplaza partner), Hulu, CBS (NYSE: CBS) and many, many others are also scrambling for substantial market share in this space. It’s still a fast-growing area, with the amount of ad-funded, streamed video content still very much on the rise—both in terms of volumes and consumption—but there is bound to be some consolidation on the cards among these ad players, too.

A stake from a company like Qualcomm—which plays a central role in making processors and other parts and software for mobile devices—could potentially give Videoplaza a leg up in that respect. At the moment the vast majority of video ad consumption for Videoplaza is still coming from PCs: only eight percent came from other devices. But the company believes that by 2013 (that is, in a year) that will shift to a 50-50 balance.

]]> Report: Facebook IPO Could Arrive Next Week With Hopes Of $10 Billion tag:contentnext.com,2012-01-27:article/419-report-facebook-ipo-could-arrive-next-week-with-hopes-of-10-billion 2012-01-27T19:08:54Z 2012-01-27T19:12:55Z Tom Krazit http://moconews.net/member/18417/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews The long-awaited Facebook IPO might arrive as soon as next week, according to a new report. When the company does get around to filing the paperwork it will set Facebook on the path toward one of the richest IPOs in tech history.

]]> The long-awaited Facebook IPO might arrive as soon as next week, according to a new report. When the company does get around to filing the paperwork it will set Facebook on the path toward one of the richest IPOs in tech history.

Facebook could raise as much as $10 billion when shares of its stock are sold to the public, and the usual “people familiar with the matter” are telling the Wall Street Journal that the first step could come by next Wednesday. It is believed to be preparing an offer that values the company between $75 billion and $100 billion, according to the report.

That will also allow the public to get a peek at Facebook’s financial statements, a chance to see how effectively the social giant is making money on its 800 million users.  Facebook is believed to be solidly profitable, unlike a few other tech IPOs from last year, and is increasingly making Google (NSDQ: GOOG) nervous with its ability to provide extremely targeted data to advertisers.

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]]> Jesta Digital Finally Kills Bitbop Mobile Video Service tag:contentnext.com,2012-01-27:article/419-jesta-digital-finally-kills-bitbop-mobile-video-service 2012-01-27T17:39:05Z 2012-01-27T18:20:06Z Ingrid Lunden http://moconews.net/member/34/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews It looks like the death spiral that was the Bitbop mobile video service is finally no longer. PaidContent understands that the service—once built and owned by News Corporation (NSDQ: NWS) and sold, along with the rest of Fox Mobile, to IT services company Jesta when News Corp. couldn’t make a business out of it—is today laying off most of the staff that worked on Bitbop and shutting down the service.

]]> It looks like the death spiral that was the Bitbop mobile video service is finally no longer. PaidContent understands that the service—once built and owned by News Corporation (NSDQ: NWS) and sold, along with the rest of Fox Mobile, to IT services company Jesta when News Corp. couldn’t make a business out of it—is today laying off most of the staff that worked on Bitbop and shutting down the service.

According to a source, there are about 50 people getting laid off—people who worked on the Bitbop mobile video service. A small group will stay on to help with the final wind-down of operations, which should take about four weeks. The services that were live in the U.S. and Germany are getting shut down today, we have been told.

There were once big hopes for Bitbop, but things took a challenging turn as competition in the form of Hulu, Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) and others invested heavily in their streaming services and delivering them to mobile devices.

However, this is not the end of Jesta Digital. The Jamba ringtones business—a German company that News Corp. once paid nearly $400 million to purchase in 2008—is still a healthy cash generator, and it will continue to operate.

Bitbop is understood to have some 20,000 subscribers who pay $9.99 per month to receive premium mobile video services. But with the service never getting a coveted outlet via an iPad app, it’s had a hard time scaling up, and with many of its original content deals up for renewal at the moment, it looks like it became clear that Bitbop’s business model was no longer sustainable.

Earlier in January, we noted the problems at the company, including some executive departures. At the time, Jesta told paidContent in a statement that it would continue to develop new mobile products in the future, without specifying what they were.

We will update this story as we learn more.

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]]> Jon Miller, News Corp.: It's All About Video For Us Right Now tag:contentnext.com,2012-01-24:article/419-jon-miller-news-corp.-its-all-about-video-for-us-right-now 2012-01-24T11:33:14Z 2012-01-24T11:52:16Z Ingrid Lunden http://moconews.net/member/34/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews Jon Miller, the chief digital officer for News Corporation (NSDQ: NWS), described his company’s digital strategy today as very “focused on video”, with a view that even properties that come from a print tradition should be producing more video content than they are today.

]]> Jon Miller, the chief digital officer for News Corporation (NSDQ: NWS), described his company’s digital strategy today as very “focused on video”, with a view that even properties that come from a print tradition should be producing more video content than they are today.

“I actually think we’re entering the age of video now…some people think we’re already there but I think we’re just getting started,” he told an audience at the DLD digital media conference in Munich, Germany.

He predicted that digital video consumption will “rise for the next many years” as bandwidth to the home continues to grow, and new devices make it easier to consume more content than ever before.

News Corp. like many other TV producers, has long been preparing itself for a time when that TV content is watched on anything but a TV, with the launch of online video and apps for new screens like those of tablets and smartphones. “TV is no longer a device,” he said. “It is a concept, and people go where the best screen is.”

And rather than simply ramping up the amount of content that News Corp.‘s video properties produce—they include broadcasters like Fox as well as the film studio 20th Century Fox—Miller says that it is turning to News Corp. businesses that are traditionally more tied with written content, in what sounds like a very decentralized, try-everything-and-see-what-works approach to the space.

“We’re producing everything across the board now,” said Miller. “[Because] we’re focused on video…we’re trying to move our print publications into video, too.” That includes training Wall Street Journal reporters to “take videos on their iPhones,” as well as write.

And gaming site IGN, which originally started life as a collection of titles reviewing games, is running a dedicated channel on Microsoft’s Xbox, as well as the YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) channel dedicated to gaming. “We won the bakeoff for the YouTube channel last year,” said Miller, referring to YouTube’s strategy to launch 100 new premium content channels covering a variety of interests.

He also noted that through IGN News Corp is once again looking at how it might develop its own gaming content—this is something that it had tried to do through its old subsidiary Fox Mobile, although that content division, including the production studios, was sold off last year to Jesta Digital. The company seems to be taking a more cautious approach than in the past: “We are putting our toe into the water with casual games,” said Miller. “Playing games is a bedrock so we want to learn and earn our way into that.”

Miller was interviewed on stage by DLD’s chairman, Yossi Vardi, who noted that he once worked with Miller for four years, and also that DLD had been trying to get Miller to speak at the event for the past three years.

These two hooks might be part of the reason why Miller was thrown quite a few softballs in the interview. In other words, no questions about how News Corp. can avoid another MySpace or Fox Mobile investment (both written off and sold off) in its search for the next big revenue stream.

Nor were there any questions at all about the best business models for delivering that new material: News Corp has been strong on paywalls for its written content so far—with paid subscriptions required for much of the Wall Street Journal and The Times in London—would Miller and News Corp consider extending that to more of its video content?

One area where Vardi did press Miller a bit was on the Megaupload closure and how content companies are going after the “little guy” in their pursuit of copyright protection. Aren’t you ashamed your industry is chasing small kids who want to have some fun, asked Vardi.

“I think you’re confusing us with the music industry. We don’t do that,” answered Miller. “What you’re getting at is what is the proper way to protect copyright….There has to be a way for freedoms to be respected and for copyright to be respected.”

That is an issue that has yet to find a definitive solution from many of Miller’s peers, and perhaps Miller himself. “The industry takes a while to embrace new technologies,” he said. “We’re doing it as an industry but it’s a different world.”

That world, in Miller’s view, has discounted content to almost nothing, in order to shift value to other parts of the ecosystem—a complaint often heard from those in the content industry in the face of juggernaut’s like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Google, which respectively are more interested in pushing hardware sales and advertising for their own business models, offering easy and cheap access to content as part of the deal for consumers.

“Distributors have different businesses now,” he explained. “It’s not just to make money on the content as before.” “[Those who make hardware, or sell advertising] would like to keep the value of content low.” He said that this will eventually need to get “rebalanced” in the future. Whether that means more moves to paid content, or more advertising initiatives—or even partnerships on devices—remains to be seen.

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]]> Updated: Rutberg: Mobile Accounted For Over 40% Of All Tech VC In 2011 tag:contentnext.com,2012-01-23:article/419-rutberg-mobile-accounted-for-over-40-6.3bn-of-all-tech-vc-in-2011 2012-01-23T15:44:31Z 2012-01-23T17:23:33Z Ingrid Lunden http://moconews.net/member/34/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews Some revealing numbers out from the analysts at Rutberg & Co. that point to how big mobile is in terms of tech investments today, and how consumer applications are the source of the most action at the moment.

]]> Some revealing numbers out from the analysts at Rutberg & Co. that point to how big mobile is in terms of tech investments today, and how consumer applications are the source of the most action at the moment.

The analysts say that mobile investments accounted for 42.4 percent of all technology investment in 2011—or $6.3 billion for mobile startups in a year where, overall, venture capital investment in technology totaled $14.9 billion.

That’s a record proportion for the sector, and a massive spike on 2010, when mobile represented 30.4 percent of all tech investments worldwide, or $6.1 billion of investment. (See table at end of post.)

Ironically, while mobile is representing the greatest amount of investment, $6.3 billion falls just short of the biggest-ever year for mobile investment: that honor goes to 2006, when VCs pumped $6.4 billion into mobile technology.

Drilling down: As for the single-biggest category for investment in 2011, it’s consumer applications that have won the day—a sign of how the smartphone boom is leading to a big rise in the amount of companies rushing in to service those new consumers, and a subsequent rush of money men scrambling to finance them and get a piece of the action.

While no single consumer application made it into the top-10 mobile investments of 2011, the sum total of all the investments in the category pushed the total number of consumer applications investments to $1.33 billion.

Media infrastructure was the second-largest category for investment with some $900 million put into companies working in the category (services like mobile advertising are part of this latter group). Collectively, infrastructure was the biggest sector receiving VC money.

Infrastructure covers a diverse range of mobile-related startups, from mobile advertising (InMobi’s $200 million from Softbank being the second-largest deal of 2011), to technology used in backhaul and radio towers (Tower Cloud’s $155 million, and Eaton Towers’ $150 million respectively in these categories).

While consumers apps didn’t make the top 10, plenty of them made the top 20. The biggest of them all was for a service that is disrupting more traditional telecoms business: video calling service Tango picked up $50.7 million. Swiftly behind that was note-taking application maker Evernote, news aggregation site Flipboard, and check-in darling Foursquare—each picking up $50 million. Further along, Angry Birds maker Rovio picked up $42 million and photo sharing company Color picked up $41 million.

All these companies certainly saw a lot of attention in the last year, and they all cover hugely different areas of services. But one of them, Color, has already had to make a major pivot, losing one of its key founders in the process, and it’s still unclear what will happen with it next. Similarly, while Evernote has had a huge amount of attention for its core, note-taking app, the follow-up services have made significantly less impact on the mobile public.

Mobile is certainly a volatile area, with more than a little of a tech-bubble feel to it: Which of these, do you think, will be able to sustain their momentum and become profitable businesses in the years ahead?

Worth pointing out that this is not just the case for consumer apps, though: the single-biggest VC investment in mobile this year went to LightSquared, the LTE startup that picked up $265 million from a consortium of investors. The company is still trying to build out a network for its services, hence the huge capital buy-in. However, there are still big question marks over what will happen: the most recent report is that Carl Icahn has picked up $300 million in LightSquared debt, perhaps in anticipation of the company being unable to get its services off the ground after some regulatory hurdles around spectrum interference.

Sequoia Capital was the biggest VC in 2011, making 24 investments including several in mobile apps and media services. They included Bubble Motion, Bump, Clickatell, Color, Cotendo, DailyBooth, Evernote, Flite, Inkling, Inkling, Just Dial, MeLLmo, Meraki, MobileIron, MoboTap, Onavo, Quantenna, Sencha, Sourcebits, Square, Stoke, Synapsense, Trippy and Unity.

Rutberg also notes that more than one in five of all VC investments this year were strategic investments: those buy-ins made by companies like Intel (NSDQ: INTC) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) that might potentially acquire the companies or use their services in the years ahead.

A couple of other notable points from Rutberg’s numbers: investments in mobile advertising services increased nearly five-fold last year: to $592 million from $128 million in 2010; and mobile payments investments more than doubled to $558 million from $276 million in 2010.

How does all this stack up for 2012? Mobile will continue to figure big: “We expect mobile to continue to be significant percentage within venture overall,” says Rajeev Chand, MD and head of research for Rutberg, but the fate of upcoming IPOs will also play a role. “Right now growth of overall venture is uncertain, depending upon how tech IPOs play out and what impact that has to late stage pre-IPO financings.”

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]]> Social Media Gets Stickier: Twitter/Summify; Facebook/Apps, Video Too? tag:contentnext.com,2012-01-20:article/419-social-media-gets-stickier-twittersummify-facebookapps-video-too 2012-01-20T13:53:57Z 2012-01-20T21:44:58Z Ingrid Lunden http://moconews.net/member/34/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews This week saw a number of developments at Twitter and Facebook, two of the world’s biggest social networking sites, that are signs of them looking to capitalize more on their already-hefty user bases by creating services that keep them on their sites for longer.

]]> This week saw a number of developments at Twitter and Facebook, two of the world’s biggest social networking sites, that are signs of them looking to capitalize more on their already-hefty user bases by creating services that keep them on their sites for longer.

Twitter bought up Summify, a news summary service, and Facebook introduced some 60 new apps to its network. And Facebook could soon be extending time spent on the site even more: a report out today says that Facebook is in talks to replace YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) as the host for premium music video service Vevo.

The report, from CNET, says that Facebook has held talks with Vevo to move its video service over to Facebook when its contract with Google’s YouTube expires in a year. The report cites sources close to the matter, but has not confirmation from any of the named parties.

The arrangement, CNET writes, would be similar to what Vevo already does with Google on YouTube: Facebook would host and stream the videos, and Vevo and Facebook would both sell and share revenues for ads that run alongside those videos.

Vevo could be a lucrative partner for Facebook in its bid to grow advertising on the site. According to November 2011 figures from Nielsen, Vevo is second to YouTube in terms of unique users (43 million versus 130 million). Facebook itself has made a lot of moves to add video partners to its service too, and it comes in fourth at 30 million. When it comes to the total number of streams, however, Vevo pales to YouTube (535,000 vs 13.4 million), and Facebook does not rank at all. Ditto on time spent per user, where neither Vevo nor Facebook make the top ten, and YouTube is in fourth place (Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) is the king of time spent per user, by the way).

A deal with Vevo would also follow a pattern of moves that Facebook is making to increase user engagement.

The company this week also introduced a lineup of new apps—some 60 of them—specifically designed for users to add into their Timeline, the new graphical homepage view that Facebook has introduced.

These apps will add more functionality—and hence, the hope is, engagement—in its new Timeline feature. They cover all manner of special interests, from food (a Foodspotting app) to crafts (a Pinterest app) and travel (TripAdvisor) and of course those social games that are a cornerstone of Facebook’s regular apps catalog. Facebook says that the list will grow over time.

Timeline has seen some controversy—some complain they don’t like the look of it; others question how Facebook will use the new layout and information manipulation for commercial gain. In that sense, the apps will either win skeptics over with their usefulness, or make them even more suspicious of how Facebook is encouraging information sharing, even when it does provide some options for limiting that.

When you think about it, it’s not too surprising to see Facebook adding more usefulness and stickiness to its site, as it seeks to grow its primary form of making money: advertising. Eyeballs are the currency of online advertising and so social networks have to figure out not just how to grow their user bases, but how to keep them interested once they are there. That’s an area where Twitter is also focusing:

Yesterday, it was announced that it would be acquiring Summify, a Vancouver-based startup that developed a way to read users’ feeds from Twitter, Google Reader and Facebook and pull out relevant news into a summarized list. The selections, which can be viewed via an app or the web, are made based on your own browsing history, as well as the popularity of particular stories (eg, those that have been retweeted a lot).

Twitter has not revealed much about the deal: no details of the price, or how, exactly, Summify will work as part of Twitter. From a blog post at Summify, we do know that the company has stopped taking new users and will evenutually shut down the standalone service. Also, its employees are packing their bags and moving to Twitter’s HQ in San Francisco.

But given that Twitter, too, is looking to grow engagement on its site—a recent hire in the UK from BBC’s Sports division also demonstrated that—you can see where a service like Summify could potentially fit in: a secondary view of your followers, perhaps, maybe integrated to have a better experience around a user’s lists and favorited tweets. The added information a curated list of news would provide on content consumption could also come in handy for figuring out what ads to point a users’ way, too.

]]> Updated: Google Miss Sends Stock Down 9 Percent On Cost-Per-Click Questions tag:contentnext.com,2012-01-19:article/419-google-misses-earnings-expectations-during-q4-stock-down-9-percent 2012-01-19T21:11:23Z 2012-01-23T17:23:24Z Tom Krazit http://moconews.net/member/18417/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews Google (NSDQ: GOOG) missed analyst expectations for earnings per share during the fourth quarter, sending its stock plunging in after-hours trading Thursday. The company had been expected to produce earnings per share of $10.49, but it chalked up just $9.50 in earnings per share excluding special items and also missed revenue targets.

]]> Google (NSDQ: GOOG) missed analyst expectations for earnings per share during the fourth quarter, sending its stock plunging in after-hours trading Thursday. The company had been expected to produce earnings per share of $10.49, but it chalked up just $9.50 in earnings per share excluding special items and also missed revenue targets.

It’s important to note that Google has never provided its own earnings estimates on a quarter-to-quarter basis; these estimates are those of financial analysts that follow the company. They were looking for more than $2.71 billion in GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net income, which was a six percent increase compared to net income of $2.54 billion a year ago.

Google’s revenue growth was strong, up 25 percent to $10.58 billion before traffic-acquisition costs are factored in. Analysts tend to focus on that latter number, and they were expecting net revenue of $8.41 billion, as compared to the $8.13 billion in net revenue it otherwise recorded.

Without directly acknowledging the estimates of financial analysts gathered on Google’s earnings conference call, CFO Patrick Pichette noted the negative effects of currency fluctuations and an impairment charge related to a previous Google investment in Clearwire (NSDQ: CLWR) on Google’s earnings during the quarter. That might account for much of the disconnect between Google’s performance and the expectations of the financial community.

Analysts peppered CEO Larry Page with so many questions about the eight percent decline in the important cost-per-click metric—the average cost that advertisers pay Google per a click on their ads—that he half-jokingly asked for a break from discussion of the issue. Google doesn’t think it’s that big a deal: overall clicks increased as the result of site improvements, said Susan Wojcicki, senior vice president of advertising, who also said this was positive for both Google’s revenue and for the campaigns of its advertisers.

The surprise miss overshadowed what was otherwise a pretty decent quarter for Google, but seems right at home amid the disastrous few weeks the company has had to kick off 2012. Google+ now has 90 million users, Google said (without defining what a “user” is in this context) and advertising revenue on the core search site was up 29 percent compared to last year at this time.

Page and Wojcicki defended the decision to integrate Google+ into the company’s core search project, which Page said allows Google to provide a better product because it helps the search engine understand the differences between how two different individuals with identical search queries perceive the world. If Google had as much social data as Facebook or Twitter, that might be true, but it does not, and Page admitted that those companies don’t seem very interested in sharing that data with Google.

Page also said 250 million Android devices are in use, and the company also said that its display-advertising business is on pace to do $5 billion a year in revenue.

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]]> Updated: In-App Purchases To Overtake Sales From Paid Apps By 2013 tag:contentnext.com,2012-01-17:article/419-do-you-buy-this-free-apps-with-in-app-purchases-will-dominate-over-paid 2012-01-17T14:47:16Z 2012-01-18T01:07:17Z Ingrid Lunden http://moconews.net/member/34/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews The consumer draw of free apps over paid apps has been well-documented, and so has the rise of in-app payments as a route to making money from those free apps. New research out today predicts that in-app purchases will, in fact, become the most dominant way that app developers will make money in years ahead.

]]> The consumer draw of free apps over paid apps has been well-documented, and so has the rise of in-app payments as a route to making money from those free apps. New research out today predicts that in-app purchases will, in fact, become the most dominant way that app developers will make money in years ahead.

The report, from its IHS Screen Digest division, notes that in-app purchases accounted for about 39 percent of app revenues in 2011, and it predicts that in 2012 that proportion has gone up to 49 percent. By 2015 it will account for 64 percent of all revenues.

In terms of actual value, IHS says that in-app payments were worth $970 million in 2011, and will be worth $5.6 billion in 2015. (Sound too big to you? Please comment below.)

Update: More on why those revenues will be so big. Ian Fogg, head of mobile for IHS Screen Digest, pointed out to paidContent in an email that the $5.6-billion figure “is driven by the vast numbers of new smartphones that will ship over the next few years. As the number of smart devices is so great, the app market revenues will grow greatly, and hence so will the in-app revenues.” He also noted that many pay-to-download apps also feature in-app purchasing options; that will additionally contribute to the total size of in-app revenues. [original article continues]

This represents a big opportunity for app store operators like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG), as well as mobile payments companies like Boku, Zong and PayPal to manage these payments.

And it also represents something of a success, too, considering how much opposition there was to in-app billing when it was first launched by Apple with requirements to pay it 30 percent of each transaction.

“Apple has nailed the mobile gaming and mobile app payment business,” noted Wilhelm Taht, marketing director for mobile social media service Flowd, earlier today. “It’s super frictionless.”

Strangely, the report does not take account of mobile advertising as a route to making money from an app. That could be because the only apps that can actually make any significant money from advertising are those that get the very highest amount of traffic—other long-tail apps that lack scale will face a challenge in trying to use advertising as their main business model.

Today, free apps already have significantly more traffic than paid apps: Nielsen last week noted that consumers mainly use a mixture of these, or a free-only selection of apps; those who only opt for paid apps account for low, single-figure percentages in different categories (around two-three percent). Ironically, paid apps today remain the main way that many of the most successful apps (such as games) are making money.

Free-to-download apps that come with in-app purchasing—so-called “freemium” apps—represented 45 percent of all top-grossing iPhone apps, and 31 percent of the highest-earning Android apps in the U.S.

IHS Screen Digest estimates that some 68 percent of all top-grossing apps had at least some form of “additional content or functionality” available through in-app purchase, which could mean features like extra levels in games, virtual currency to continue playing or extra editions of a publication.

Virtual currency, it says, is the most common form of in-app paid content available today, accounting for 63 percent of all revenues made from in-app purchases.

But while we hear a lot about newspapers and magazines, and increasingly video-based apps looking to in-app payments as a way of getting their users to buy mobile content, overall, this represents a very small part of revenues today: in the UK in Q3 2011, publications accounted for only five percent of in-app payment revenues (no figures for the U.S.), while video accounted for only two percent of in-app revenues in the U.S. and none in the UK.

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]]> Russia's Mail.ru Launches Its Own Twitter After China's Microblog Explosion tag:contentnext.com,2012-01-16:article/419-russias-mail.ru-launches-its-own-twitter-after-chinas-microblog-explosi 2012-01-16T10:27:56Z 2012-01-16T12:39:58Z Robert Andrews http://moconews.net/member/47/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews Russia’s big Mail.ru portal is trying to ape Chinese companies’ microblog boom by launching its own Twitter clone. Futubra launched in beta Monday.

]]> Russia’s big Mail.ru portal is trying to ape Chinese companies’ microblog boom by launching its own Twitter clone. Futubra launched in beta Monday.

Alisher Usmanov, who owns almost a third of Mail.ru Group, also owns a majority of DST Global, which took a stake in Twitter itself with a 2011 investment.

Twitter has two million Russian-speaking users after translating its site to Russian last year, according to Yandex (via RIA). But the example of China, where microblogs - or, “weibo” - have exploded, shows indigenous services have gained more traction than foreigners.

Weibo use rose 296 percent to 249.9 million there through 2011, according to China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) data published today (via Reuters).

The growth is beginning to usher in a new era of greater transparency in society, as well as creating a huge new business opportunity for market-leading operator Sina (NSDQ: SINA) and Tencent, although China’s government has lately instructed operators to police messaging.

If Russian groups like Mail.ru can replicate their success, they could have a hit on their hands.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has already endorsed the original Twitter when he appeared at the company’s San Francisco HQ in 2010 to send his first tweet on an occasion Biz Stone called “one of the most special days in the history of Twitter” (via TechCrunch). Some citizens used Twitter to protest the re-election of prime minister Putin but their messages were purportedly swamped by a pro-Putin botnet.

Mail.ru Group CEO Dmitry Grishin (announcement): ”We are excited by the opportunity facing Futubra as microblogging is a fast growing segment which fits well into the Mail.Ru Group vision of the growth in internet communications. The focus in the near term will be product development and the building of new online communities.”

]]> T-Mobile Parent Deutsche Telekom Inks Multiscreen Deal With MobiTV tag:contentnext.com,2012-01-10:article/419-t-mobile-parent-deutsche-telekom-inks-multiscreen-deal-with-mobitv 2012-01-10T00:23:14Z 2012-01-10T00:35:15Z Ingrid Lunden http://moconews.net/member/34/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews MobiTV, one of the more established mobile TV companies in the market today with deals in place with several major U.S. mobile operators, today revealed a significant deal to grow out its business in Europe: a deal with Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT), one of Europe’s biggest operators, to develop a multiscreen IPTV platform.

]]> MobiTV, one of the more established mobile TV companies in the market today with deals in place with several major U.S. mobile operators, today revealed a significant deal to grow out its business in Europe: a deal with Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT), one of Europe’s biggest operators, to develop a multiscreen IPTV platform.

Under the terms of the deal, Deutsche Telekom will work with the California-based MobiTV to develop an integrated video service for its customers that will work across mobile phones, tablets, PCs, connected TVs and set-top boxes.

It will be based on MobiTV’s TV Everywhere product, which provides a seamless digital TV experience, letting a user, for example, start watching a program on one device and continue watching it on another. That’s an area where many other device makers and operators are likely to be making moves in the year ahead—an idea being fuelled by all the speculation around Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) making moves in TV.

The companies say the deal announced today is the progression of a trial the two had already been working on for multiscreen services in Germany, and comes at a time when many players, from device makers to other pay-TV operators, are all looking at similar, multiscreen offerings.

It falls short, however, of some of the more innovative services we are increasingly starting to see: today’s offering from Samsung for a large selection of content across its multi-device Media Hub plus gesture control. And France Telecom, for example, recently announced a deal with Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) to link up its IPTV service with its Kinect box for motion control and other kinds of interactivity.

France Telecom (NYSE: FTE), it should be noted, is more ahead in the TV game than most: it has been offering a kind of multiscreen service for some time now.

What a service like MobiTV and Deutsche Telekom’s could offer, potentially, is something that could work across multiple, multi-platform devices that are not vendor-specific.

TV Everywhere, announced formally by MobiTV last October, had been in the works for some time before then (it was demonstrated to me almost a year ago during the 2011 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona).

MobiTV, which filed for a $75 million IPO last September, has made other moves to enter the European market before with less success: it inked an early-stage—probably too early—deal with France Telecom’s Orange to offer mobile TV in the UK, but that deal ended in 2007 with no further big developments, until now.

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]]> Univision Launches 'Noticias' Spanish-Language News App For iPhone, Android tag:contentnext.com,2012-01-09:article/419-univision-launches-noticias-spanish-language-news-app-for-iphone-androi 2012-01-09T16:18:33Z 2012-01-09T19:52:34Z Ingrid Lunden http://moconews.net/member/34/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews Hispanics, according to Nielsen, have the second-highest penetration of smartphone usage among U.S. ethnic groups, and today brings news of a news app specifically targeting that demographic: Univision is launching its first news app, “Noticias Univision,” based on the broadcaster’s TV brand and website of the same name. It is also the latest example of a broadcaster tapping into the mobile market in a bid to extend its existing online and TV content businesses.

]]> Hispanics, according to Nielsen, have the second-highest penetration of smartphone usage among U.S. ethnic groups, and today brings news of a news app specifically targeting that demographic: Univision is launching its first news app, “Noticias Univision,” based on the broadcaster’s TV brand and website of the same name. It is also the latest example of a broadcaster tapping into the mobile market in a bid to extend its existing online and TV content businesses.

The ad-supported, free app is now available for iPhone/iPod and Android, with an iPad version in the works, says a spokesperson for Univision, and comes on the heels of a rush of other news apps announcements as publications and broadcasters gear up for the increased audiences that will be turning to news in the run-up to the U.S. (and Mexico) Presidential elections.

Other launches have included the Associated Press in content deals with newsreading apps Flipboard and Pulse.

For now it looks like “Noticias Univision” is launching only in the U.S. We have asked Univision about rollouts to other markets and will update this post as we learn more. A spokesperson confirms it is launching in the U.S. App Store, covering the U.S. and Puerto Rico only. We understand from a separate source that there are no plans for further international markets at this time.

Like its other apps—which include the eponymous Univision app, Deportes (sports), Cocina (cooking), and another dedicated to video—Univision looks like it intends to keep the app free, selling sponsorships to advertisers in lieu of charging readers. Units will include videos, banners and rich media ads. Univsion’s CEO is Randy Falco, the ex-ceo of AOL (NYSE: AOL), another major media brand that is banking on audience growth to drive advertising as the primary source of revenue.

Univision says that it has incorporated a few bells and whistles into this app that mark it apart from many other news apps—namely with social features. “Tu Opinion” is the company’s second-screen experience (a growing trend among broadcasters, as evidenced by UK broadcaster BSkyB’s investment in social TV startup Zeebox) with Twitter integration to interact with live shows and comment on the topics and stories of the moment.

To add to that, Univision says it will also be adding a citizen journalist feature to the app. With “Tu Camera”, viewers will be able to use their devices to record stories and submit them through the app to Univision Noticias.

Tu Camera could become especially relevant in future iterations of the app: Univision says later this month it plans to offer a location-based, more personalized option that gives users the ability to get local news and weather as well as user-generated content, in addition to the content created and supplied by Univision itself. That update should also include a feature to also share content via Facebook, in addition to the existing ability to use Twitter.

Figures out today from Nielsen note that Hispanics have the second-highest use of smartphones among ethnic groups in the U.S., with a penetration of 50 percent. Asians have the highest penetration at 60 percent; African Americans are at 48 percent and Whites have the lowest at 39 percent. Among all groups except Asians, Android is more popular than iPhone, say the researchers.

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]]> BSkyB Buys Stake In Social TV Start-Up Zeebox tag:contentnext.com,2012-01-09:article/419-bskyb-buys-stake-in-social-tv-start-up-zeebox-for-15-million 2012-01-09T00:57:30Z 2012-01-09T11:23:32Z Robert Andrews http://moconews.net/member/47/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews News Corp-controlled pay-TV firm BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) is buying itself a foothold in the looming social TV field by acquiring 10 percent of the startup Zeebox for a sum that is “double-digit millions” in both pounds and dollars.

]]> News Corp-controlled pay-TV firm BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) is buying itself a foothold in the looming social TV field by acquiring 10 percent of the startup Zeebox for a sum that is “double-digit millions” in both pounds and dollars.

“This is 100 percent new funding,” CEO Ernesto Schmitt tells paidContent. “It’s a major deal. Sky consider social TV to be the biggest opportunity for innovation since Sky+ (PVR). Now we are launching in the U.S., Europe and Australia.”

Co-founder Anthony Rose tells paidContent: “The Sky deal is a significant new deal in addition to our previous $7 million funding, which this new deal dramatically exceeds.”

“As part of the deal, BSkyB’s advertising-sales house, Sky Media, will sell sponsorship and product placement opportunities around Zeebox’s ‘Zeetags’, accompanying text that highlights actors, characters and topics being shown on screen,” reports FT, which broke the news.

“The deal secures exclusive rights in the UK to integrate Zeebox’s technology into (BSkyB’s) own array of 20 mobile apps, while providing the London-based start-up with capital to expand internationally. Zeebox will first appear in the Sky+ app.”

Founded by former EMI executive Schmitt and former BBC online product leader Rose, Zeebox, which paidContent exclusively previewed in August and which launched in October, is a collection of technologies, currently available as iPad app, which let TV viewers watch and chat together, gives them contextual information about on-air material and, as a possible eventual business model, may let them buy products mentioned on screen.

Early in 2011, the project had been codenamed Tbone, but was renamed after raising nearly $7 million early in the summer. Albeit with a small audience, Zeebox has won admirers in a short space of time.

“Zeebox has attracted 250,000 users in eight weeks in the UK through word of mouth only,” Schmitt added. The space also includes social TV app peers like GetGlue and Miso but Zeebox eschews their “check-in” paradigm.

The company is currently pitching the technology at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Arguably, Zeebox technology could gain a wider audience inside Sky’s own apps.

Other major Zeebox shareholders are not clear.

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]]> Updated: Exclusive: AP Branches Out, Adds Pulse To Its Digital Mix tag:contentnext.com,2012-01-05:article/419-exclusive-ap-branches-out-its-digital-syndication-adds-pulse-to-the-mix 2012-01-05T21:10:32Z 2012-01-06T18:34:34Z Ingrid Lunden http://moconews.net/member/34/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews Over the years, the Associated Press has made a profile for itself by syndicating its news across thousands of newspapers both in the U.S. and abroad. Now as newspaper readers move to new platforms like tablets to consume their news content, the AP wants to make sure it is syndicating there, too. Today it is announcing a deal with one of the bigger tablet news-reading apps, Pulse, to run AP text, video and photographic coverage via Pulse. It will be the first time the AP will appear within the service.

]]> Over the years, the Associated Press has made a profile for itself by syndicating its news across thousands of newspapers both in the U.S. and abroad. Now as newspaper readers move to new platforms like tablets to consume their news content, the AP wants to make sure it is syndicating there, too. Today it is announcing a deal with one of the bigger tablet news-reading apps, Pulse, to run AP text, video and photographic coverage via Pulse. It will be the first time the AP will appear within the service.

From today, AP will appear as a featured content provider on Pulse’s service, which currently works on the iPad, iPhone and Android devices. Included in the service will be AP’s mainstay text-based reporting, but also photography and video content, and users will have the option of selecting all or just specific streams of AP content, such as news, business, entertainment, health, politics and sports.

Pulse tells me that this “one of the first times that AP has opened all their content to a partner (and they have very few mobile partners).” It complements AP’s own efforts to create tablet and smartphone apps for its content such as this one for the iPad.

Update: A spokesperson for AP tells me that, in fact, AP is “providing Pulse a selection of international and national news and associated images. It is a portion of AP’s total content.” So perhaps not all content after all.

Crucially, one of Pulse’s biggest competitors in the newsreading-app space, Flipboard, is featuring only a subset of the AP’s coverage. Coincidentally, Flipboard announced its own AP deal only two days ago: a special focus on the next Presidential race to the White House.

Given that AP does not have a web site that anchors and aggregates all of its content for public consumption, initiatives like this one with Pulse become all the more useful, if a little quirky: Articles that get viewed and saved in Pulse subsequently show up on Pulse web pages—normally, content viewed in the Pulse app would link to the content from the original online source.

Apropos of the Iowa Republican Caucus this week, and in keeping with its Flipboard content campaign, the AP will also be offering a special channel covering November election. Included will be real-time coverage of candidates, polls, voting results and analysis from AP journalists and its partners.

Pulse and AP are not disclosing any financial terms for this deal.

Related

]]> Real Name Checks On Weibo Won't Come Cheap For Sina, Tencent tag:contentnext.com,2012-01-05:article/419-real-name-checks-on-weibos-wont-come-cheap-for-sina-tencent 2012-01-05T15:31:06Z 2012-01-05T15:51:08Z Steven Millward http://moconews.net/member/22143/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews With it now certain that China’s popular Weibo (microblogging) services – prime among them being Sina’s (NASDAQ:SINA) and Tencent’s (HKG:0700) – will have to implement real-name ID checks in the coming months, it appears that the system will not come cheap.

]]> With it now certain that China’s popular Weibo (microblogging) services – prime among them being Sina’s (NASDAQ:SINA) and Tencent’s (HKG:0700) – will have to implement real-name ID checks in the coming months, it appears that the system will not come cheap.

Indeed, each single online check of a user’s name and national ID number will cost a rumored 2 RMB (US$0.20). And so for Sina (NSDQ: SINA) and Tencent, the government-mandated checks could end up costing them hundreds of millions of RMB for their 250 to 300 million Weibo users.

But it was never going to come free. And it raises the complex issue of potential government ties to the company, called id5, that will process these real-name checks. That little-known company will be the prime beneficiary of these sixteen new regulations for microblogs. It is the government that charges the fee, but it’s id5 that will handle all the processing.

Sohu (NSDQ: SOHU) IT reports that the Beijing-based Time (NYSE: TWX) Weekly newspaper has tried repeatedly to question staff at the mysterious id5 about this, but journalists have been turned away.

If, say, 75 percent of Sina’s 250 million Weibo users turn out to be real people or companies – i.e. not spammers or zombie accounts – who wish to continue using the service, then all those checks would cost Sina a total of 375 million RMB (US$59 million).

Being Held Accountable For Your Tweets

The official line is that the real-ID clampdown will help stop false rumors (and maybe spam as well) spreading via the numerous Twitter-like services. But other analysts fear it’s a move to suppress free speech on these lively and increasingly popular sites. (Note that microblog users can still use cutesy and wacky nicknames – but Sina, Tencent, Netease (NSDQ: NTES) (NASDAQ:NTES), and all those other operators, will have every user’s actual name and number on file).

These charges have been levied before, and industry insiders believe that Baidu (NSDQ: BIDU) (NASDAQ:BIDU) had to pay up for its (failed and shuttered) microblog, Shuoba – but that the search engine giant ended up paying more than the rumored 2 RMB that it’ll cost in 2012. It’s not clear if the real-name requirement deterred users, or if Shuoba simply failed to take off because it arrived too late to be a contender.

Sina’s and Tencent’s shares have been stable since the new regulations were outlined on December 16th – but the full pain of implementation has not yet begun. It will be costly for the companies, and could drive some users away from using any Weibo platform.

Follow this developing issue on our ‘real-name’ tag as it becomes mandated on other areas of the Chinese web as well.

[Source: Sohu IT news (article in Chinese), via Bill Bishop’s Digicha]


» This article originally appeared on Penn Olson, Asia Tech News For The World, and is reproduced here with permission.

]]> Sky Sports News Relaunches iPad App, With Fee For Non-Pay TV Subs tag:contentnext.com,2012-01-05:article/419-sky-sports-news-relaunches-ipad-app-adds-paid-option-for-non-paytv-subs 2012-01-05T10:08:13Z 2012-01-05T11:48:15Z Ingrid Lunden http://moconews.net/member/34/ mocoNews http://moconews.net/ Copyright (c) 2012, mocoNews When the News Corporation-controlled UK satellite broadcaster Sky launched a free iPad app for its Sky Sports News channel in September 2010, some wondered if it would also start to offer a paid version of the product. Well, it’s taken 15 months, but it’s happened.

]]> When the News Corporation-controlled UK satellite broadcaster Sky launched a free iPad app for its Sky Sports News channel in September 2010, some wondered if it would also start to offer a paid version of the product. Well, it’s taken 15 months, but it’s happened.

Sky’s newest edition of the app, still free to pay TV subscribers, now includes a £4.99 monthly fee for those who are not—another example of how broadcasters are looking to use their apps not just as complements to their core TV services, but as revenue generators in their own right.


The new app, currently only available in the UK (sorry, overseas British sports fans), offers a significantly expanded list of services on top of those from the earlier version.  Users can now get a live feed of the channel (before there were on-demand clips from the live feed as well as a link to Sky Sports News Radio, which are still available, too).

David Gibbs, director of mobile for Sky, also notes that they have added in some new features that were in response to requests from existing users. One of these is a more extensive graphic interfaces with up-to-the-minute match data as it happens. Match data, he says, probably the most-used part of its existing sports news app.

The app is a signal of how broadcasters are looking to apps as a way of growing revenues beyond those that they are getting from pay-TV services and advertising. Those who subscribe to Sky’s sports bundle via satellite TV, which includes Sky Sports channels as well as Sky Sports News, will continue to get the app for free, which works as a kind of perk for those who are paying for the TV content.

Those who do not get Sky Sports by satellite—and that includes those who might pay for Sky Sports but via cable or IPTV services—can now pay £4.99 ($7.80) per month to get the app. That payment goes through Apple’s in-app payment system, meaning that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) will get a 30 percent cut on the fee.

“If you look at comScore/GSMA data, we have four of our apps in the top 20, and two of them are sports apps, Football Centre and Sky Sports News,” Gibbs noted.

As before, the app will also offer a selection of content to users that integrates text posts from the channel’s web site (still free), as well as video from the TV channel. While the app still gives users full lists of the day’s games, it still does not offer direct links to Sky’s video coverage of those games—but it does have links to Sky Go, the company’s separate video app that lets users watch that content. Down the line, it sounds like that move from fixture info to actual game will be more seamless in later iterations of the app.

As cool as all this sounds, it looks like the full whack of bells and whistles will be something for iPad eyes only for now. An Android version is “coming soon,” says Gibbs. “It’s easier to build for iOS but we are pushing ahead.” Ditto a web-based app: “Video at the moment is always built in the native application environment,” he explains. “It’s the ony way we can really protect our premium video content.”

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