Writing for Business Insider, Jay Yarow says the 2000s have been the decade of gadgets. Many of the devices now populating homes, offices and everywhere in between are based on technology made approachable and mass marketed in the past ten years. Yarow rounds up the 15 consumer tech gadgets that have had the most profound effect on people’s lives.
Read more at Business Insider {link no longer active}.
Writing for Ad Age, Natalie Zmuda and Kunur Patel look at the surge in retailers using social media in their holiday marketing campaigns. As the writers point out, a survey from researcher BDO Seidman shows that the percentage of retailers using social media has jumped more than tenfold since 2007. More than half of those surveyed say they now incorporate social nets into their marketing, with 76 percent on Facebook and 50 percent on Twitter. Zmuda and Patel look at holiday campaigns being executed by ten major retailers, including Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Toys ‘R’ Us and Amazon, to highlight which ones are hitting homeruns, and which haven t exactly stepped up to the plate.
Read more at Ad Age {like no longer active}.
Nintendo of America marketing head Cammie Dunaway has suggested that Rockstar might see better sales for its DS game GTA: Chinatown Wars with a more sustained marketing campaign. Kotaku reported on her comments made in a video interview with MTV News. Dunaway says Nintendo thinks the game will have a long tail if there’s continued marketing support to help people discover it. She added that the old method of running a TV campaign for some weeks and expecting sales momentum doesn t work because new consumers are constantly coming onto game platforms.
Read more at Kotaku.
Research firm Insight Media has a study forecasting booming growth for 3D displays and 3D games over the next five years, reports Edge-Online. The firm predicts the worldwide market for 3D capable displays will reach 40 million sets by 2014. That will represent a huge market potential for games as systems such as PS3 start to support 3D games. Insight Media analyst Dale H. Maunu told Edge that the firm monitored hundreds of hours of Stereoscopic 3D gaming without any reports of eye strain.
Read more at Edge-Online {link no longer active}.
December 12 is shaping up to be passive entertainment day for gamers. IGN Entertainment has paired up with Fox to air a holiday videogame gift guide TV special on Saturday, Dec. 12, the same day that Spike is broadcasting the 2009 Video Game Awards. IGN’s show is hosted by Jessica Chobot and fellow IGN editors. It s focusing on what games people should be playing now or buying as holiday gifts, but IGN has managed to get a high-profile preview exclusive for the program. They’ll be debuting the cinematic trailer for EA’s Mass Effect 2. Listings for air times are at IGN.
Read more at IGN.
A fourth quarter 2009 study by Nielsen shows U.S. viewing habits on digital platforms growing but television still dominating, with 99 percent of all video content still viewed on traditional TV. As reported in Adweek, the researcher’s A2/M2 Three Screen Report shows significant growth in online video, up nearly 35 percent since Q3 2009. The study showed average Americans spent four hours per week on the internet, with 22 minutes of it watching online video. In comparison, TV viewing took up 31 hours per week on average.
Television viewing using DVR is also on the rise, up more than 21 percent since last quarter. The study shows the average person spent 31 minutes a week watching programs on DVR. Nielsen also released figures from the quarterly report showing mobile video usage is highest among teens, measured at seven hours per month.
Read more at Adweek {link no longer active}.
It s not that the[a]listdaily would eat crow just because someone served it. Ok, maybe if it s in a Broodwich. But it is hard to argue with numbers.
Ubisoft pointed out to us that the videos for No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle called out in yesterday’s newsletter for being too quick and quirky have been getting solid traffic and high marks. A quick check today on GameTrailers showed that the three shorts had pulled in well over 100,000 views, and 8 or higher out of 10 average ratings from viewers. Ubisoft says the videos were part of a larger video campaign giving major game sites exclusive content to get top billing, including a couple more meaty videos for GameSpot and IGN.
Facebook has implemented new privacy controls giving users the ability to flag specific pieces of content as public or private, reports AP. The social net started requiring its more than 350 million users to review their privacy settings and learn about the new function yesterday. Facebook users can now select specific pieces of content and make it accessible to friends only, friends of friends, or everyone. The everyone setting is not available for users under 18 years old. Users can also create custom groups, such as AP’s example college buddies, to give them access to specific content. Read more from AP.
In a separate report covered by Mashable, Facebook revealed that Facebook Connect has more than 60 million users connecting 80,000 web sites. The company launched the feature a little over a year ago. Mashable calculates that the current tally means nearly 160,000 new users have been adopting Facebook Connect every day. Read more at Mashable.
Ubisoft released a trio of trailers for its upcoming Wii sequel No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle that defy logic. They’re quirky, much like the IP. In that sense the positioning makes sense. But at least one of them has the distinction of actually making 20 seconds seem like time thrown away. It’s a clip of game hero Travis Touchdown smelling his armpits. It will be interesting to see if Ubisoft continues in this direction with marketing the title, if only to see if this wasn t what the publisher considers off the deep end.
The one titled Haunted has the most chuckle factor, with an acceptable reference to Silent Hill. They re all exclusive to GameTrailers and available through the link. Check out the Haunted trailer at this jump to GameTrailers {link no longer active}.
Sports Illustrated is giving a peak at the future of digitized magazines with a video of what one of its issues might look like on a tablet computer. It s not as much groundbreaking technology as it is a slick combination of the modes and methods with which people now interact with digital content. The word is that publishers other than Sports Illustrated parent Time Warner are looking at formatting their content similarly for tablet computers. Given the focus on interfacing with rich media and interactive content, it’s easy to see a game magazine taking a similar approach.
Watch it at YouTube
