It’s a tough mobile market in Japan and China, with both iOS and Android platforms thriving for dollars. In a way, both are successful, but Apple is clearly leading the charge.
Industry tracking firm App Annie has reported that while Google Play leads the charge in terms of outperforming on a mobile scale, Apple continues to make more money. Google Play shows a growth of 60 percent more downloads than Apple’s market (a rise from last quarter’s 45 percent). However, Apple’s App Store generated 80 percent more revenue than Google Play – and in the end, that’s where the most money is being seen.
China and Japan play a big part in this market, as mobile-game spending managed to reach $16 billion in 2013, with a higher goal set for this year.
Apple managed to make a deal with China Mobile to enable iOS, which in turn helped increase the revenue for both parties. As a result, Chinese iOS revenues managed to grow by 20 percent between Q1 and Q2, creating a lead over Google Play and Android platforms.
“China is proving to be pivotal in Apple’s international growth strategy,” says the report. “In its Q2 2014 earnings call, Apple reported a records high revenue in China of almost $10 billion, inclusive of retail sales.”
In the past, Japan has leaned more towards the Android platform, but with a deal in place to sell iPhone directly through superpower service provider NTT Docomo, iOS could easily catch up there as well. Apple’s smartphone sales grew 50 percent year over year in the last year, and this has helped Apple maintain its revenue lead over Google despite Google’s increasing Android smartphone sales.
It’ll be interesting to see where the market goes from here. Will iOS continue its growth, or will Google Play find a way to catch up
Digital publisher Evolve Media has launched INgage, a new solution designed to make video ads more viewable on a web page.
The product is pretty simple. It embeds a large video ad player as an expandable unit within an article. However, the video only expands and starts playing once the user scrolls over the section of the article where it’s embedded. If the user continues scrolling and goes “out of view,” the video will stop playing, ensuring that all viewable impressions delivered by the unit are actual views by actual humans. (For a visual example of how it works, click here and start scrolling.)
Developed out of Evolve’s SpringBoard Video platform, INgage provides reporting and analytics on metrics such as video starts, stops, mutes, and quartile viewership; is VAST and VPAID compliant; and is plugged into Nielsen’s OCR module.
The value of such a product is obvious. Instead of advertisers worrying about their ads being delivered on a small video player on the side or corner of a webpage, this unit puts an ad front-and-center while a site visitor is already engaged.
That said, the nature of INgage also begs the question, what’s to stop a visitor from continuing to scroll past the ad Nothing, admits Evolve’s co-founder and president Brian Fitzgerald. And yet, the unit is already delivering an average completion rate of 35-40%, he says.
Where INgage is likely to be more valuable is in the field of branded entertainment, or native video advertising — anytime a piece of branded content isn’t just a commercial. “This way, we are serving up relevant video to users on a site and they are far more likely to view to completion,” says Fitzgerald.
“Imagine a gaming news show created in partnership with Alienware as its sponsor,” he continues. “Now imagine we used INgage to distribute that to only gaming sites or we cookie all visitors to our gaming properties, that is our first party data, and then we retarget them through INgage across our portfolio of sites, across sites in categories beyond gaming.”
INgage is the first in a “long line” of both display and video solutions that will employ Evolve’s viewability technology, according to Fitzgerald. It was developed as a solution for Evolve’s own publishing units, CraveOnline and TotallyHer, to deliver branded and social video programs, in addition to standard pre-rolls.
This article was originally posted on VideoInk and is reposted on [a]listdaily via a partnership with the news publication, which is the online video industry’s go-to source for breaking news, features, and industry analysis. Follow VideoInk on Twitter @VideoInkNews, or subscribe via thevideoink.com for the latest news and stories, delivered right to your inbox.
The Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis announced that it is contracting Google’s “smart contact lens” technology, a project that is currently being worked on by the Google X team. According to Fox News, the company has been testing a prototype contact lens that would help people with diabetes manage their disease.
The company’s eye care division, Alcon, will license Google’s smart lens and co-develop them for a variety of ocular medical uses.
According to a piece done by Mashable, the lenses have ophthalmic electrochemical sensors in them that are designed to measure glucose levels via tear fluid in the eye and offer real-time updates to an app on a connected mobile device for people with diabetes. Google secured a patent for the technology earlier this year.
“We’ve always said that we’d seek out projects that seem a bit speculative or strange,” according to the official Google Blog, “and at a time when the International Diabetes Federation is declaring that the world is ‘losing the battle’ against diabetes, we thought this project was worth a shot.”
In addition to glucose measurement, Novartis says another key issue it would like to address with these “smart lenses” is the potential to provide accommodative vision correction to people with presbyopia, an age-related eye condition that affects billions, making it difficult to focus on objects nearby. However, details on how that might work are currently unavailable.
“Our dream is to use the latest technology in the miniaturization of electronics to help improve the quality of life for millions of people,” Google founder Sergey Brin wrote in a Novartis press release. “We are very excited to work with Novartis to make this dream come true.”
Alcon’s division head Jeff George said that the companies aim to “unlock a new frontier to jointly address the unmet medical needs of millions of eye care patients around the world.”
There are no details yet about when the first smart contact lenses might hit the market . According to Mashable, Alcon’s director of global external communications, Elizabeth Harness Murphy said that it is “way too early in the agreement and way too early in the prototype development” to project when smart lenses will arrive. She also made clear that terms of the deal are not being released.
Companies sponsoring music festivals is nothing new in business, as sponsors step up all the time to partner with big artists to spread the word about mega-tours. However, some new deals with Jim Beam, Microsoft and Beats could introduce a new way this is getting done – through digital means.
Jim Beam, for example, partnered with Pitchfork in a new “Make History” campaign. As a result, Pitchfork will produce and film six after-show concerts at music festivals throughout the summer, including the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago, taking place this weekend. From there, the content will feed through a micro-site, and be used through various campaigns.
The liquor company will host an arcade lounge with vintage pinball games, as well as a VIP area where consumers can try out their latest products. “WE are creating contextually relevant creative from the events that we’ve partnered (with Pitchfork on), so all of that is in the digital space, and then we’ve been able to bring that outside the digital space to really connect with the Pitchfork readers, Pitchfork fans and Jim Beam fans live as well,” said Hailey Kehoe, senior brand manager.
Beats Music is also partnering with Pitchfork, with its own backstage VIP lounge that lets folks demonstrate their mobile app and take part in a “Beats Seats” campaign, where they can win 20 free tickets for exclusive festival events.
As for Microsoft, with the help of Bonnaroo’s RFID (radio frequency identification) technology, that company promoted its cloud-based OneDrive software, giving said attendees the chance to check-in and collect photos from live performances across six different stages. From there, they could be uploaded to a OneDrive account and be viewed at their leisure.
“In the past, we’ve done something where you can connect your wristband to Facebook and Twitter and you’d be able to check in for different shows, but this is the first time that there was a content delivery piece associated with the program,” said Chad Issaq, evp, business development and partnerships at Superfly, owner and co-producer of Bonnaroo and Outside Lands.
These programs will continue throughout the year, and it wouldn’t be a shock to see these companies return for Lollapalooza in Chicago come August.
It’s not easy being cheesy — unless you’re running DiGiorno’s Pizza Twitter account, that is.
The frozen pizza chain has taken a lighthearted approach to the social scene with its Twitter account, located at @DiGiornoPizza. On it, it not only makes general comments about its product, but also live tweets with certain events, including televised World Wrestling Entertainment programming, as well as the recent Harry Potter film event that aired this past weekend on ABC Family.
In one example, DiGiorno playfully responded to ESPN’s #AskSportsCenter hashtag by asking, “are you having pizza for lunch today and if not why not”.
During the Harry Potter films, posts included, “I ‘WAND’ SOME PIZZA hahahaha almost time for bed #potterheadweekend” and “Severus Snape is someone who acts like he doesn’t want the last slice of pizza so you can have it #hero”.
It even poked fun at LeBron James’ recent decision to return to Cleveland, stating in a humorous tone, “‘I’m coming home’ — Your DiGiorno pizza on the way back from the store.”
The Sound of Music Live event got some DiGiorno love:
As a result, more and more customers have been following the account, which now has nearly 80,000 followers. Here’s hoping more corporate companies follow its, ahem, cheesy tone.
It’s an excellent example of how to create a social media following for the most ordinary of products. While people love pizza, it’s not something you really need an endless stream of information about. Creating interest in a subject that inherently doesn’t have a lot of new or interesting information coming out is a big challenge, one that DiGiorno has met admirably. Adroit use of humor as well as connections to current events are a good way to generate and sustain interest, and create a positive brand image that can stick with consumers the next time they happen to be in the right place to purchase.
Dash Hudson, a social/mobile startup that aims to make it easier for young men to find style recommendations and make purchases, knows where it should go to drive audiences to its platform — YouTube.
The company is launching a new program called “We Dress YouTube,” which will enlist establishing and rising male YouTube stars to promote the platform via referral codes in exchange for a new wardrobe and some additional incremental revenue.
First things first, what is Dash Hudson and how does it work Using a proprietary search technology, the commerce platform pulls in available clothing items from different web sources. A group of style experts then write articles about those items, and publish them on a news feed available on Dash Hudson’s mobile app. Users can sift through these posts and determine which things they want to buy, which can be done directly via the app.
Since launching in March, Dash Hudson has been witnessing 20-30 percent week-over-week audience growth, says co-founder Thomas Rankin.
The startup also recently raised $400,000 in seed funding from a group of investors that includes former Groupon CTO Paul Gauthier.
Now, the startup is targeting its next stage of growth by tapping the influential relationship YouTube creators tend to have with their audience. Those Dash Hudson enlists in the “We Dress YouTube” program will receive $250 in free clothing and a custom referral code, which they can distribute to their viewers. Creators will then make 2.5 percent off every transaction the platform processes with their referral code.
Since Dash Hudson is focused on a “young, urban, college-educated male audience,” the startup is interested in working with YouTubers that “speak honestly” to that audience, says Rankin. Mostly, this means young, male YouTube creators — though women who feature guys in their videos can also apply.
“We are looking across verticals,” adds Rankin. “We want to work with personalities in comedy, tech, gaming, style . . . We are open to speaking to our audience in all of the different ways that they engage in content.”
The only major requirement is that all participating creators have a minimum of 100,000 subscribers. The company has already signed up a few creators, though Rankin declines to disclose names. In total, the goal is to sign up 20 influential YouTubers for the initial phase of the program.
A brand, especially within the category of fashion and style, enlisting the YouTube community to reach and engage with audiences is not uncommon — in fact, it’s becoming increasingly less so.
With the service that Dash Hudson aims to provide, it also makes perfect sense, according to Rankin. “YouTube has to be the next distribution channel for fashion,” he says. “Look at what happened with television. Fashion brands and retailers have been dressing TV personalities for decades, either through direct endorsements or through helping those personalities look better. Both parties get value. That kind of thing can happen on YouTube.”
Rankin is well aware of the problems YouTubers — especially those with 100,000 to 1 million subscribers — currently face by relying on only ad revenue, which is generally split with YouTube. “This is a great opportunity for them to add some supplemental income.”
And to Dash Hudson’s credit, beyond understanding that there is an opportunity in working with YouTube talent, the startup is also aware of how to manage that relationship. “We want [creators] to be wearing our clothes, but we also want them to be themselves,” he says. “We don’t want to get involved with the creative. We are going to trust the personalities to be who they are, and speak about Dash Hudson in a way that makes sense for them.”
The company won’t run ads on those channels, either. “We just don’t feel like it’s the right way to go about it,” says Rankin.
That said, working with the YouTube community is a long-term project for the company. This initial phase will also be used to understand and outline what works best, says Rankin, but Dash Hudson expects to open up the program to more YouTubers in the future.
This article was originally posted on VideoInk and is reposted on [a]listdaily via a partnership with the news publication, which is the online video industry’s go-to source for breaking news, features, and industry analysis. Follow VideoInk on Twitter @VideoInkNews, or subscribe via thevideoink.com for the latest news and stories, delivered right to your inbox.
Binge watching has become a new trend amongst streaming channels, and why not When a new season of House of Cards or Orange Is the New Black debuts, we can’t help but watch it all the way through to see what happens. Now, such a programming binge could helpful to advertisers as well.
A new research report from Annalect, a part of Omnicom Media Group’s marketing technology platform, suggests that 58 percent of binge viewers enjoy watching at least three episodes of a show in one sitting, and don’t have to be treated to ads as a result.
So how is this a good thing The study also shows that viewers can tolerate ads provided that the right circumstances are given. A third of binge viewers said that they don’t mind seeing ads while they take part in their sessions, as it provides a bit of a break. Others believe it’s easy to put up with as long as there’s a low subscription rate.
“Many consumers understand that there is a value equation, so if they’re getting to watch on their own terms, they have to sit through ads,” said Annalect U.S. research director Jed Meyer. “Live TV is ad-supported and people do watch ads. The good ads cut through the clutter.
Even though Netflix doesn’t partake in showing ads, other video-on-demand services, like devoted TV video channels and Hulu, do. Binge viewers of such programming are more receptive of ads compared to TV viewers who just watch casually. Approximately 20 percent of binge viewers say they often discuss ads with friends and family, compared to the 12 percent of non-binge viewers. 15 percent even go as far as sharing ads on social media if they watch via binge, compared to the 7 percent that watch normal television.
It appears that binge viewing is on the rise . . . so you don’t have to feel bad about yourself as you sit through your next Game of Thrones marathon. Indulge!
Who needs to use a default browser for surfing the web when so many applications allow you to see all the features in an even bigger way At least, that’s what a new report from comScore Media Metrix Multi-Platform indicates.
The research, which covers the month of May for this year, indicates that digital media time has grown quite a bit, with 51 percent growth over the previous period for smartphone and tablet apps.
Mobile apps have been on the rise for some time. A previous Q4 2013 report from Nielsen indicated that Android and iPhone users were spending 65 percent more time with mobile apps than they were two years prior (an estimated 30 hours, 15 minutes compared to 2011’s 18 hours and 18 minutes).
Leading back to this year, a prior April report from comScore Mobile Metrix showed that easy access and mobile optimization were the top marks when it came to using smartphone apps, with the majority of time spent with leading US digital media properties.
By comparison, browsers still managed to get a good amount of time on devices, with Wikimedia Foundation sites and Glam Media leading the charge with 88 and 84 percent, respectively. However, aside from other sites like Gannett, CBS Interactive and AOL, smartphone apps continued to get the most attention overall, out of all the properties looked over for the report.
The rise in app usage versus browsers may continue, but the distinction between the two is likely to be less clear to users in the future. Both the upcoming Android L and iOS 8 operating systems will further blur the differences between apps and browsers, seamlessly moving from an app to a browser when needed. The increasing power of mobile hardware along with better graphics drivers will make HTML 5 perform better, and some apps may switch to HTML 5 browser-based apps from native apps in consequence.
It’ll be interesting to see what more can be done with browsers, compared to direct applications. Which do you prefer to use
Photography is a great art form, but it can be painstaking to get everything just right, particularly when it comes to lighting. After all, if you can’t see your subjects, what’s the point of getting a picture in the first place Well, the researchers at MIT and Cornell have come up with an interesting lighting solution – and it involves drones. Yes, drones.
The teams have created a flying flash rig that connects a light meter, photographic flash and continuous light source, allowing photographers to get their ideal shots from any given angle. The robot manages to figure out the position of the object and the shooter when it hovers, and can also light subjects with very specific lighting, which in turn lets the photographer take the shot they want.
According to the teams, the idea of “rim width – the desired width, from the camera’s perspective, of the subject’s illuminated border” to “enable delicate rim lighting of action shots” is put into play. From there, the lighting effect “is often referred to as back light or even hair lights, (and) is simply light placed on your subject which gives the appearance of a light outline.”
“The challenge was the manipulation of the very difficult dynamics of the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) and the feedback from the lighting estimation,” said researcher Fredo Durand. “That’s where we put a lot of our efforts, to make sure that the control of the drone could work at the very high speed that’s needed just to keep the thing flying and deal with the information from the lidar (the UAV’s laser rangefinder) and the rim-lighting estimation.”
No word on if the device will be available to the public, but chances are professional photographers would jump all over it. Will wedding parties begin to includes drones to help get the perfect shot
[a]listdaily is now your source for the hottest job openings for senior management and marketing in games, entertainment and social media. Check here every Wednesday for the latest openings.
Here are this week’s [a]list jobs:
Universal Music Group – Director, Advertising and Media Strategy (Santa Monica, Calif.)
Riot Games – Brand Manager (Santa Monica, Calif.)
NBC Universal – VP International Marketing (Universal City, Calif.)
