This Could Be Massive: Interactive TV + Redeemable Offers = ScreenReach

The Next Web

As we’ve discussed previously, TV is on the verge of being revolutionised thanks to Internet connected TVs and apps that make viewing a lot more social. The latest startup to enter this emerging space is ScreenReach and its product is more than a little exciting.

How it works

Imagine you’re watching a gameshow on TV. You want to play along so you pick up your phone, load up the ScreenReach app and enter that show’s unique ID number which was displayed at the start of the show. Suddenly the app is transformed into a branded experience for the show allowing you you answer questions and interact directly with . You end up being the winner of the show and a voucher for your prize is sent directly to the app.

Then a TV talent show starts. You enter its ScreenReach code into your app and suddenly your phone becomes a voting panel complete with contestants’ names and photos.

Huge potential

That’s just a taster of what ScreenReach can do. Created in the UK by a team led by Paul Rawlings, ScreenReach is a “blank canvas” platform designed to allow interactivity with any kind of screen anywhere. It doesn’t need to be TV-based. It could work in a bar where playing a TV-based game run by the bar owner could lead to drinks promotions being sent to your phone to redeem immediately, for example.

What’s more, ScreenReach doesn’t need to be controlled via a mobile app. While the company has developed iPhone and Android apps, it can also be controlled via SMS or voice commands. This is one impressively flexible platform. Because it has a rewards system built in, Rawlings hopes it will grab the attention of everyone from content producers to retailers.

ScreenReach is based on Rawlings’ earlier service Vooices (which we raved about last year). In the year since, he has developed this voice control system into a far more advanced platform. With help from UK-based startup incubator The Difference Engine, the service has developed into a commercial enterprise with eight staff and a chairman in the form of Tom Maxfield, founder of well-known accounting software company Sage.

The company’s first commission is for the Royal Armouries museum in Leeds, UK and is due to launch on 17 July. Further down the line, a contract with a national radio broadcaster is lined up, among other as-yet undisclosed projects.

By combining interactive TV with redeemable offers, ScreenReach is taking two of the most important emerging technology trends and combining them into something undeniably exciting. We can’t wait to see how this startup moves forward.

Original title and link for this post: This Could Be Massive: Interactive TV + Redeemable Offers = ScreenReach

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And Now Companies Are Buying Boatloads Of Apple's iPhones And iPads, Too (Sorry, Microsoft)

Silicon Alley Insider

Steve Jobs looks dapper

Those who are clinging to the ever-dwindling hope that Apple's iPhones and iPads are "just consumer products" that will never penetrate the enterprise won't want to read this story about how Wells Fargo, SAP, and other companies are now buying iPads by the boatload.

Microsoft's monopoly is breaking down. Research in Motion is nowhere in the burgeoning mobile platform battle. And other companies who depend on a sharp distinction between "enterprise" and "consumer" markets will likely soon suffer a similar fate.

Rachel King, Bloomberg:

Wells Fargo & Co. spent two years studying the iPhone before letting bankers use the device at work. Apple Inc.’s iPad, released in April, took just weeks to get cleared.

This time around, safeguards against security breaches are stronger from the start, according to Megan Minich, a senior vice president at the San Francisco-based bank. Her colleagues used two of the first shipment of 15 iPads to demonstrate financial products at an investors’ conference in May. More are on the way, Minich said.

“We’ve got a bunch ordered that we can’t get yet,” she said in an interview.

Keep reading >

See Also:
The Odds Are Increasing That Microsoft's Business Will Collapse

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Europe’s Facebook Growth Moved East in June 2010

Inside Facebook

[Editor's Note: The data cited in this article is excerpted from Inside Facebook Gold, our membership service tracking Facebook's business and growth around the world. Visit Inside Facebook Gold to learn more about our complete data and analysis offering.]

Growth for Facebook’s top countries in Europe dipped sharply in June of 2010, giving several eastern European countries that rarely break into the monthly top 10 a chance to show off their progress.

Germany, a central European country that has lagged its neighbors directly to the west, lead the pack with 403,860 new monthly active users. That equates to 4.2 percent growth for the month, which isn’t stellar. But the important detail here is that Germany’s growth has been fairly steady of late, instead of moving in fits and starts as it did earlier this year and last. Italy, also, is steady from May.

Surprisingly, Romania comes in third, with 253,360 new users — almost 20 percent growth for the country, in which only a third of the population is online at all, according to World Bank figures. Romania was also logging high growth earlier this year, then dropped off. But even moving in fits and spurts, it’s fast approaching 10 percent penetration.

Hungary, also, managed to claw its way up the rankings in June, along with Russia, which was actually shedding Facebook users for several months. There’s no telling whether Russia will continue growing or slip again — with under a single percentage point of penetration, Facebook is definitely not yet part of the Russian way of life, unlike a site like the Facebook doppelganger Vkontakte.

The rest of the European countries that saw decent growth in June aren’t remarkable this month, unless for their relatively lower rate of growth in June as compared to May. France, for instance, dropped from 1.4 million new MAU to 163,500 in June, while Turkey, which has been a reliable grower, isn’t present at all, having actually dropped a few thousand users. Such changes in growth from month to month are typical, though, and nothing to worry about yet.

Here’s the top 10 chart:

Greater Europe now has some 152 million members on Facebook, making up about a third of the social network’s total userbase. Its growth rate in June was 0.7 percent, leading to a total penetration of 23.5 percent.

Full data on Facebook’s audience growth throughout Europe and in countries around the world is presented in the July 2010 edition of the Facebook Global Monitor report, available through Inside Facebook Gold. An Inside Facebook Gold membership also includes data on language growth, audience demographics by country, and user behavior stats for the Facebook business ecosystem. To learn more about the membership, please visit gold.insidenetwork.com/facebook.

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Facebook’s June 2010 US Traffic by Age and Sex: Users Aged 18-44 Take a Break

Inside Facebook

[Editor's Note: The data cited in this article is excerpted from Inside Facebook Gold, our membership service tracking Facebook's business and growth around the world. Please see Inside Facebook Gold to learn more about our complete data and analysis offering.]

Facebook’s growth slowed down in the United States in June, following a burst of activity through April and May. The country picked up only 320,800 new monthly active users in June, compared to the outstanding 7.8 million it gathered in May.

It’s not uncommon to see a saturated country like the US take a breather after a spurt of growth. However, some unusually interesting demographic trends took place for the country in June that add nuance to the overall growth number.

Specifically, a number of users in the prime 18-44 age range that represents Facebook’s largest age demographic left or stepped back from the social network:

Why did several hundred thousand young, but no longer teenaged, users suddenly leave Facebook? The slowdown in growth actually verged into the older 45-54 age group, but those numbers were otherwise within normal ranges, as was the growth for the 13-17 group.

One possibility is that we’re finally seeing the backlash from heavy media attention to Facebook privacy issues — some of which were real, some the result of confusion and sensationalism. Regardless of the causes, the age groups that logged a loss in June is also the one most likely to have paid attention to the privacy debates, and the timing could be correct, since the Facebook ad tool we use to gather this data is often several weeks behind.

Less excitingly, the negative growth could simply be a blip. But in the years we’ve been tracking the demographic data, we’ve rarely seen a dip like this, so we would tend to favor the idea of a root cause.

Despite the June traffic changes, the US has a monolithic enough audience that the overall age splits did not change, when rounding to whole percentage points:

Complete data on monthly growth within each of these demographic groups, as well as monthly growth of Facebook’s overall audience in the US and around the world, is available through Inside Facebook Gold.

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BBC News website gets a new look. Twitter and Facebook built in

The Next Web

The BBC is set to launch a redesigned version of its News website and it has just posted some screenshots of the new look.

The site’s editor, Steve Hermann writes of the new look, “We have focused on design and navigation, looking to see how we can make all the existing content we produce each day easier for you to find, use and share.”

The new look promises:
• a fresh, updated design, with more space for the main stories of the day
• better use of video and images
• clearer and more prominent labelling and signposting of key stories, whether you are on the front page or a story page
• a better indication of which are the most recent headlines
• easier ways to share stories with others, for those who wish to

What do you think? We think it’s certainly cleaner and more “2010″ and the increased emphasis on video reflects the improved connection speeds many users now have. The sharing function allows easy posting of stories to Facebook and Twitter. No surprise there in 2010, but for the BBC – famously shy of endorsing individual companies and products – it’s perhaps a surprising move.

The new design will roll out over the next week or so and coincides with the launch of a specific version of the site aimed at the North American market.

See more images in this BBC slideshow.

Original title and link for this post: BBC News website gets a new look. Twitter and Facebook built in

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Android 3 streeft iPhone iOS 4 voorbij

B R I G H T

Versie 3 van Google Android kan iPhone iOS 4 op meerdere punten voorbijstreven. De hele interface gaat op de schop.

Google is van plan dit najaar Android 3 op de markt te brengen. De huidige versie, Android 2.2, is nog nauwelijks uit en heeft de meeste Nederlandse Android-toestellen nog niet bereikt, of de berichtgeving over Android 3.0 zwelt vanuit de VS alweer aan. Volgens Zdnet kan Google met Android 3 maandenlang een voorsprong behouden op de iPhone omdat er eind dit jaar geen grote update van iOS meer zou komen. Het iPhone-systeem is immers pas vorige maand naar versie 4 gegaan.

iOS 4 bevatte meerdere vernieuwingen die allang in Android aanwezig waren. Maar Android scoort nog niet goed genoeg wat betreft gebruiksgemak, geeft ook ZDnet toe. Android 3 krijgt een flink verbeterde userinterface, weet de site te melden. Die nieuwe interface moet de schillen die telefoonfabrikanten over Android heen installeren, zoals HTC's Sense, SonyEricssons TimeScape en Samsungs TouchWiz, overbodig maken. Googles designteam wordt geleid door Mattias Durte.

Een andere noviteit in Android 3 is de streamingfunctie voor muziek, waarbij Android-gebruikers muziek via een desktop-app van hun computer naar hun toestel kunnen streamen. Of 'Google Music' ook via de cloud streamen mogelijk maakt, is nog niet zeker. Er komen dan ook muziekdownloads in de Android Market beschikbaar.

Op muziekgebied kan Apple Google nog de pas afsteken. Apple zou volgens aanhoudende mediaberichten van plan zijn streamingdiensten aan iTunes toe te voegen. Als introductiedatum wordt nu september genoemd. Maar ja, die geruchten gaan al zeker twee jaar. Apple moet er deze herfst mee komen wil het Google op muziekgebied voor blijven, want Google Music verschijnt nog eind dit jaar.

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This Is Why The Kindle Is Winning

The Next Web

We have been covering the growing e-book market very carefully over the last few months. There has been near weekly movement in the sector, and with nothing less than the future of a huge slice of the media world at stake it is hard to ignore. Apple has been making waves with its iBooks platform, but no one is sure if it has a real shot against the more entrenched players in the e-book market.

Hype does not have a direct one to one correlation into sales figures.

Surely the iPad itself is selling well, but on that device Apple is forced to compete with Kindle, Kobo, Stanza, Barnes and Noble, and Borders among others. That is a stiff collection of competitors for the new iBooks application which still suffers form a title shortage that Apple has yet to fully remedy.

Not to mention its massive multi-platform strategy, Kindle appears in the mind of the average consumer to be synonymous with e-books. The Google search data sums it up:

Despite the literally endless free promotion that iPad and iBooks have received in the last few months, Kindle is burying Apple’s reading solution around the world. Its also worth nothing that the Nook is also ahead of iBooks, putting Steve Job’s market position in third place, most likely ahead of Sony.

This market is young, but so long as the Kindle has been out it has ruled the roost. iBooks has yet to live up to its massive launch.

Original title and link for this post: This Is Why The Kindle Is Winning

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The Future of Location Services: Recommendation

ReadWriteWeb

Last month, I decided to take to the road with my blogging. Armed with a 12-inch netbook, an iPhone and a 1995 Chevy Astro Van, I've hit the paved pathways with many intentions to see just how mobile technology can or cannot determine how we approach and experience the world. Just a couple weeks into the experiment, I've come to one certain conclusion - ambient awareness and the combination of recommendation engines with geofencing is the future when it comes to all of these location-based services.

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So far, almost all of these LBS apps are about me sharing my location with you, whoever you may be. While it's certainly a first step, they work primarily off ego rather than utility. They require the user to actively seek information, rather than letting the user define some conditions and receive notifications in response. There are, however, a few exceptions and they are where all other LBS apps should aspire to go.

Should "Checking In" Go Into the Background?

Foursquare, for example, recently updated to include iOS4 compatibility, but left out background location. Must we really open Foursquare and either check in to a location or browse a number of unrelated "tips" in order to find out about relevant services and locations in the area?

We spoke with one developer, Aaron Parecki, who focuses on location tracking mobile apps, and he told us that there were a number of factors involved in making apps such as Foursquare act in the background. He related his experiences living in both Portland and Eugene, Oregon, and how the place made all the difference in how he approached the data involved. Portland is a larger, more densely populated city than Eugene, which can change everything when it comes to location apps.

"In Eugene, I was able to define circles over places in the city and say 'this circle is the grocery store' and say 'if I'm in this circle, I'm at this store', but in Portland, it doesn't quite work that way because there are too many things close together and stacked vertically," he explained.

For apps like Foursquare and Gowalla, maybe automatic check-ins are not the next step. As Parecki points out, many different check-in locations can occupy the same space. Do we really want to be automatically checked in to every adult video shop, strip club and bar we go near?

On the other hand, these same services could use their wealth of geolocation data and check-in history to make location-based recommendations

Location-Based Recommendation Engines

What if I want to be able to tell an app that, today, I'd really like to go swimming while I'm out and about and have it alert me to swimming holes as I'm out running my errands. Or how about an app that lets me know, as I explore a new city, of art museums as they near within two miles? Maybe an app that alerts me to registered historical landmarks? Parecki said that this type of scenario is entirely possible, but access to location data and battery life are the primary areas holding back location apps from persistent background operation.

One app that recently updated and really gets it is Trapster, the iPhone app that keeps track of road hazards, speed traps and even roadkill. Although we ran into some general GPS issues, the latest version of the app does exactly what we'd expect - it runs in the background and responds to a series of user-defined settings. As you drive along, it will notify you of upcoming road hazards or other whatever else you set it to notify you about. One of the great things about an app like Trapster is that you know you're going to be in a vehicle, so the issue of battery life is likely eliminated, as you can keep the phone plugged in the whole time.

Another great app I've run into in my travels is Camp & RV by AllStays. Although the app does not have background location or PuSH notifications, it has extensive settings for what types of points-of-interest you'd like to know about and how close they need to be before being included in the listing. As you drive along, you can have your co-pilot look at the app and it will tell you what points-of-interest, from Walmarts with overnight parking to state campgrounds to truck stops, are off the nearest highway exits. The app would take little more than a simple addition of background location and push notifications to be fully there.

As far as location data, AllStays has been gathering this sort of data since 1999, providing a database of travel locations as its primary business, and Trapster relies on crowdsourcing its data.

The pairing of background location with real-time data and user preference is the next step for LBS services. While we're all busy worrying that the Internet is going to whittle our existence down into a series of 0s and 1s, it already has but we're missing out on the benefits. Apps that are careful to respect our privacy with appropriate settings could open the world of mobile technology up to the very real potential that's out there.

Discuss

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LG to Launch Android-Powered Tablet

Mashable!


Yet another electronics manufacturer has announced plans to launch a tablet computer powered by Google’s Android operating system: LG. According to The Wall Street Journal, the device will launch in the fourth quarter of this year, though no other details were immediately available.

Seemingly everyone is now racing to get into the tablet game in the wake of iPad (and its strong early sales numbers) and a computer market that some analysts see shifting dramatically over the next few years.

Just last week saw the introduction of the Cisco Cius, which runs on Android, with other recent headlines suggesting we’ll soon see tablets from HP (running on webOS) and RIM, in addition to Windows 7-powered tablets (LG showed one off last month).

Also looming large in the tablet competition is the data deals that manufacturers strike with wireless carriers. Back in May, Google was said to be bringing a tablet to market with Verizon Wireless, though no official announcement has yet materialized.

In any event, it appears the second half of this year will be when we start to find out if there’s going to be some viable competition for the iPad. Stay tuned.


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