“The iPhone has changed everything about how we relate to technology, for both good and bad,” said Larry Rosen, a psychologist and professor who is the author of “IDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming Its Hold on Us” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). According to his research, almost 30 percent of people born after 1980 feel anxious if they can’t check Facebook Inc. (FB) (FB)’s website every few minutes. Others repeatedly pat their pockets to make sure their smartphones are still there.
In addition to Rosen’s “IDisorder,” there’s Gregory Jantz’s “Hooked: The Pitfalls of Media, Technology & Social Networking” (Siloam, 2012) and James Steyer’s “Talking Back to Facebook: The Common Sense Guide to Raising Kids in the Digital Age” (Scribner, 2012). While much of these authors’ concern focuses on social media, the smartphone is what lets people stay constantly connected.
“The great thing about the iPhone is that we carry it with us all day long,” Rosen said. “The bad part is that we carry it with us all day long.”
Read more here
Saturday, July 21
NFC Stickers Make Smartphones Smarter
Programmable tags (are) pieces of paper or plastic that sell for a few bucks apiece and communicate with gadgets via a short-range radio technology known as near field communication, or NFC. They can be customized to trigger an action on any phone with an NFC chip: Tap the phone against a tag on a business card to automatically download contact information, for instance, or tap a tag on your nightstand to set the morning alarm.
NFC tags are gaining a following as the number of smartphones able to scan them skyrockets. This year the research firm IHS iSuppli (IHS) expects manufacturers of smart devices will ship nearly 21 million NFC-enabled handsets in the U.S. and 186 million worldwide, up from 93 million last year. According to press reports, Apple (AAPL) is considering adding an NFC chip to the new iPhone expected this fall, which would give the technology a significant boost.
Read more here
NFC tags are gaining a following as the number of smartphones able to scan them skyrockets. This year the research firm IHS iSuppli (IHS) expects manufacturers of smart devices will ship nearly 21 million NFC-enabled handsets in the U.S. and 186 million worldwide, up from 93 million last year. According to press reports, Apple (AAPL) is considering adding an NFC chip to the new iPhone expected this fall, which would give the technology a significant boost.
Read more here
Thursday, July 19
Chinese Web Users Hit 538 Million
The number of Internet users in China has grown to 538 million, according to a report from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). More Chinese users are accessing the Web from mobile devices than a PC - 388 million vs. 380 million. The new pattern is partly a result of China's mobile Internet prosperity, including easier Web access and lower gadget price tags. More than 100 million Chinese citizens use cell phones to watch video, a 27.7 percent growth from the end of 2011.
Similarly, micro-blogging services like Twitter are on the rise in China, attracting 43.8 percent of the nation's population.
Read more here
Similarly, micro-blogging services like Twitter are on the rise in China, attracting 43.8 percent of the nation's population.
Read more here
Why the Washington Post will never have a paywall
The Post is unlike most other newspapers in a fairly critical way: because of the impact that news coming out of Washington, D.C. has on the rest of the world, the paper’s influence and/or potential readership is much broader than its print distribution. So in print, it seems more like a small or medium-sized metropolitan paper — with about 500,000 readers, according to recent figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations — but its online audience is about 17 million unique visitors a month.
There’s another reason the Post hasn’t jumped on the paywall bandwagon: because the Washington Post CEO’s inclination leans far more towards experimentation with new media formats and platforms than it does towards backwards-looking efforts like paywalls. It’s no coincidence that the Post is probably (next to The Guardian) the newspaper that has tried to innovate the most in digital media, with projects like the Trove news-recommendation service and the Post‘s Facebook social-reader app — or even Social Code itself, which in many ways is a potential alternative to traditional newspaper banner advertising.
As Graham described in an interview with Om last year, the reason why he is interested in experiments like the Facebook reader is because he wants to “go where the readers are” instead of pursuing the traditional media model of trying to convince readers to come and spend all their time at the newspaper’s website.
Read more here
There’s another reason the Post hasn’t jumped on the paywall bandwagon: because the Washington Post CEO’s inclination leans far more towards experimentation with new media formats and platforms than it does towards backwards-looking efforts like paywalls. It’s no coincidence that the Post is probably (next to The Guardian) the newspaper that has tried to innovate the most in digital media, with projects like the Trove news-recommendation service and the Post‘s Facebook social-reader app — or even Social Code itself, which in many ways is a potential alternative to traditional newspaper banner advertising.
As Graham described in an interview with Om last year, the reason why he is interested in experiments like the Facebook reader is because he wants to “go where the readers are” instead of pursuing the traditional media model of trying to convince readers to come and spend all their time at the newspaper’s website.
Read more here
Wednesday, July 18
Why internet scams seem so obvious
Many crooks (on the Internet) make puzzlingly little attempt to hide their origins (often from Nigeria). In a new paper*, Cormac Herley of Microsoft Research has used maths to show why: blatancy is a means of weeding out all but the most credulous respondents.
He argues that scammers are rational actors. A big cost for them is the time they spend coaxing fully into their net those who show initial interest. So they need to select the most promising targets, rather than timewasters or the wary. “By sending an e-mail that repels all but the most gullible, the scammer gets the most promising marks [victims] to self-select,” he says.
Read more here
He argues that scammers are rational actors. A big cost for them is the time they spend coaxing fully into their net those who show initial interest. So they need to select the most promising targets, rather than timewasters or the wary. “By sending an e-mail that repels all but the most gullible, the scammer gets the most promising marks [victims] to self-select,” he says.
Read more here
The viral Internet
(Memes) is derived from genetics, describing the evolution of ideas and cultural phenomena by natural selection. These days, meme is the catchall for freely copied and altered tidbits of amusing online content, from animations and photo captions to viral videos that inspire a flood of parodies. Within weeks, most fade to oblivion, but those with endurance make the leap to the commercial world.
Read more here
Read more here
Campaign Fundraising Gets a Text
You can already send money to your favorite charity via text message. Now it may not be long before you’ll be able to do the same for political candidates. On June 11 the Federal Election Commission unanimously agreed to let campaigns begin accepting modest political contributions via mobile messaging, a ruling that even campaign finance watchdogs lobbied for as an antidote to the influence of billionaire-funded superPACs.
Read more here
Read more here
Tagging TV Ads
Shazam seemed like magic when it debuted in 2008 on the iPhone. The app can identify nearly any song playing on the radio, even over the din of a coffee shop. It’s been downloaded more than 200 million times and become modestly successful; by steering buyers to iTunes (AAPL) and other music services, it generated about $24 million in revenue for the 12 months ending June 2011, the most recent figures available.
Now Shazam Entertainment is moving away from its musical roots. Over the past 18 months Shazam has built technology so viewers can use the app to take an audio snapshot of TV shows and ads as they would a song.
Read more here
Now Shazam Entertainment is moving away from its musical roots. Over the past 18 months Shazam has built technology so viewers can use the app to take an audio snapshot of TV shows and ads as they would a song.
Read more here
YouTube Offers Face-Blurring Tool to Protect Dissidents
Saying it wanted to help to protect dissidents who appear in videos shared on YouTube, Google launched a tool Wednesday that can blur their faces in footage uploaded to its servers.
Google hopes the tool will encourage more people speaking out, though it was careful to call it only a “first step” towards providing safety to people who could face harsh repercussions from governments or drug cartel if they were identified in a video.
Read more here
Google hopes the tool will encourage more people speaking out, though it was careful to call it only a “first step” towards providing safety to people who could face harsh repercussions from governments or drug cartel if they were identified in a video.
Read more here
Growing Strength of E-Books
E-books continued their surge in 2011, surpassing hardcover books and paperbacks to become the dominant format for adult fiction last year, according to a new survey of publishers released Wednesday.
Publishers’ net revenue from sales of e-books more than doubled last year, reaching $2.07 billion, up from $869 million in 2010. E-books accounted for 15.5 percent of publishers’ revenues. But as digital revenue grew, print sales suffered, dropping to $11.1 billion in 2011 from $12.1 billion in 2010.
The annual survey, known as BookStats, includes data from nearly 2,000 publishers of all sizes. It was conducted by two trade groups, the Book Industry Study Group and the Association of American Publishers.
Read more here
Publishers’ net revenue from sales of e-books more than doubled last year, reaching $2.07 billion, up from $869 million in 2010. E-books accounted for 15.5 percent of publishers’ revenues. But as digital revenue grew, print sales suffered, dropping to $11.1 billion in 2011 from $12.1 billion in 2010.
The annual survey, known as BookStats, includes data from nearly 2,000 publishers of all sizes. It was conducted by two trade groups, the Book Industry Study Group and the Association of American Publishers.
Read more here
Tuesday, July 17
Why study journalism? Because web audiences want quality, too
In Aaron Sorkin's new drama The Newsroom, idealistic twentysomethings rush about with BlackBerrys plastered to their ears, creating a groundbreaking quality TV news show, pausing only long enough to give set speeches about how to make quality journalism.
There's just one problem: there are hardly any journalists in it.
The development of freely available web publishing systems, free and low-cost video hosting platforms as well as social media - read ''audience building tools'' - have stripped traditional media companies of their monopoly on the production and distribution of content.
Read more here
There's just one problem: there are hardly any journalists in it.
The development of freely available web publishing systems, free and low-cost video hosting platforms as well as social media - read ''audience building tools'' - have stripped traditional media companies of their monopoly on the production and distribution of content.
Read more here
Monday, July 16
Is ‘new’ media becoming old hat in the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign?
Despite the rapid increase in numbers of politicians on Twitter and Facebook — a trend that also has been seen in Canada — television remains the main source of election news for citizens, Owen said.
Four years ago, 68 per cent of Americans reported they were getting election news mainly from TV. This year, that’s up to 74 per cent, she said, citing studies by the Pew Research Centre.
However, this doesn’t mean that American politicians are abandoning social media, Owen said. In fact, mindful of Twitter’s and Facebook’s clout in 2008, Republicans and Democrats are flooding social media with all kinds of messages, in a far more systematic and organized fashion. But it’s not the interactive dialogue that was once predicted when social media began to be used in politics.
Read more here
Four years ago, 68 per cent of Americans reported they were getting election news mainly from TV. This year, that’s up to 74 per cent, she said, citing studies by the Pew Research Centre.
However, this doesn’t mean that American politicians are abandoning social media, Owen said. In fact, mindful of Twitter’s and Facebook’s clout in 2008, Republicans and Democrats are flooding social media with all kinds of messages, in a far more systematic and organized fashion. But it’s not the interactive dialogue that was once predicted when social media began to be used in politics.
Read more here
Tablets, Smartphones Drive Engagement, Ad Response
Consumers are more responsive to ads on tablets than smartphones, but both devices are driving high levels of engagement with advertising and media, according to a new study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The research found nearly half (47%) of tablet owners and a quarter of smartphone users interact with ads on their devices at least once a week.
The study also emphasized that mobile no longer means merely “on-the-go,” with virtually all tablet and smartphone owners using their devices at home—the most common place for mobile activity. Tablets are viewed mainly as media consumption devices; smartphones are considered “mission-critical” tools that 70% won’t leave home without.
The increased content consumption via mobile is coming at the expense of traditional media, especially on tablets. Almost a quarter (24%) of tablet owners said they’re watching less TV, and 32% said they’re reading less print news or magazines. (At the same time, 14% are watching more TV, and 17% reading more print material.) For smartphones, 15% and 19% have cut back on TV viewing and print reading, respectively.
Read more here
The study also emphasized that mobile no longer means merely “on-the-go,” with virtually all tablet and smartphone owners using their devices at home—the most common place for mobile activity. Tablets are viewed mainly as media consumption devices; smartphones are considered “mission-critical” tools that 70% won’t leave home without.
The increased content consumption via mobile is coming at the expense of traditional media, especially on tablets. Almost a quarter (24%) of tablet owners said they’re watching less TV, and 32% said they’re reading less print news or magazines. (At the same time, 14% are watching more TV, and 17% reading more print material.) For smartphones, 15% and 19% have cut back on TV viewing and print reading, respectively.
Read more here
Major news organizations find they have to lighten up to thrive on YouTube
Last year, YouTube celebrated its one trillionth video upload. The site is now the third-most visited site online after Google and Facebook, with more than four billion video views a day, according to a study out today from the Pew Research Center for Excellence in Journalism. Seven years since its inception, YouTube has created “a new kind of television news” that embraces an interplay of professional- and citizen-produced content, according to Pew. Five times in the past 15 months, the most searched term of the month on YouTube was related to a news event, according to Pew.
Even though news organizations uploaded heavily trafficked videos, Pew points out that “the power of the raw pictures and images” — not the expertise or skills that come with professional news training — are what made them popular.
Read more here
Even though news organizations uploaded heavily trafficked videos, Pew points out that “the power of the raw pictures and images” — not the expertise or skills that come with professional news training — are what made them popular.
Read more here
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