Aided by affordability of cheap Smartphones and availability of 3G and 4G networks the number of Smartphone users is supposed to reach around 1.75 billion users. Wondering how to get the latest Smartphone or looking to compare the market for best rates we suggest Nowloan which can provide some of the cheapest interest rates on the market. Although the growth rate of mobile phone users has reached a threshold in developing countries, the burgeoning increase of users in Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa is supposed to drive the number of mobile phone users to 4.5 billion users. A report from market research firm eMarketer expects the growing market in emerging countries to boost the market.
“The global smartphone audience surpassed the 1 billion mark in 2012 and will total 1.75 billion in 2014. eMarketer expects smartphone adoption to continue on a fast-paced trajectory through 2017,”
-eMarketer
The report titled Smartphone Users Worldwide 2012 – 2017 from eMarketer, further expects that around two-fifth of all mobile phones i.e. around one fourth of the world’s population used a Smartphone at least monthly this year.
The mobile phone market which was 4.08 billion users globally in 2012 grew by 6.2% in 2013 to 4.33 billion users. The mobile market is supposed to grow by 5.1% to 4.55 billion users in 2014 and further by 4.7% to 4.77 billion users. The total mobile phone users are likely to reach 5.13 billion users globally by 2017.
In 2012 around 58.2% of the global population was using mobile phones, this percentage grew to 61.1% in 2013 and is further expected to grow to 63.5% of the global population. By 2017 around 69.4% of world’s population is expected to use mobile phones.
The rising trend of low cost Smartphones along with dual core and multiple gigabytes of RAM are fuelling the increase in sales of Smartphones. With an increased use of Smartphones we are moving closer to a smarter world.
Among the mobile phone users, the percentage of Smartphone users is expected to increase drastically. There were around 1.13 billion Smartphone users in 2012 i.e. around 28% of global Smartphone users. The number of Smartphone users increased by 27.1% in 2013 to 1.43 billion users which is around 33 % of global Smartphone users. The world Smartphone market sales grew to 250 million in Q3 ,2013. Number of Smartphone users is further expected to increase by 22.5% to 1.75 billion users in 2014, which is around 39% of mobile users. Around 49% i.e. nearly half of the mobile phone users globally are likely to use Smartphone by 2017.
Internet is being accessed on the go. More people are now accessing the internet from their mobile devices, whether it be through a Smartphone or their basic mobile devices.
In 2012 around 1.58 billion users used their mobile phones for internet, which is around 67% of internet users. The number of users using mobile phones for internet grew by 21% to 1.91 billion users, which is around 74% of internet users. This number is further expected to increase by 17% in 2014 to 2.23 billion users, which is around 79% of total internet users. By 2017 around 2.97 billion users are expected to use the internet over their phones, which is around 91% of total internet users and 58% of mobile phone users. In the near future, the Smartphone would become our primary way of connecting to the internet and Smartphone users would access major applications and data from their mobile devices.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) recorded yet another impressive year in mobile advertising market beating arch-rival Android with a distinct margin. In 2013, Apple’s iOS edged out Google Android in mobile traffic and mobile ad revenue section.
According to the latest Q4, 2013 study titled The State of Mobile Advertising Q4 2013 released by Opera Mediaworks – one of the leaders in mobile ad networks – Apple iOS accounted for 43.39% of mobile traffic during the fourth quarter of 2013, beating Android that settled with 37.71% of traffic during the same period.
However, after digging the numbers further, the tables turned in favor of Android. Mobile traffic share of Android Smartphones leapfrogged iPhone traffic in Q4, 2013. The farther one recorded 35.85% of mobile traffic, while the latter one was pushed below with 28.72%. In the tablet segment, Android failed to present any challenge to iOS as the iPad accounted for 10.59% of mobile traffic against a mere 1.86% which originated from Android tablets.
But there is another side to the picture when you put mobile traffic data for all four quarters of 2013 together. The rosy picture fades out as Apple iOS traffic remained stagnant throughout the year. Infact, iOS closed the year with a negligible loss in markets share compared to 44.5% of mobile traffic share recorded in Q1, 2013. On the other hand, Android enjoyed a significant improvement in Q4, 2013 compared to 31.3% of market share accounted in Q1, 2013.
Apple iOS vs Android: Mobile Ad Revenue War
Mobile traffic is just half the story, however. For advertisers and marketers monetization and conversion are more important aspects to look into. In this scenario, Apple iOS dominated the arena and improved its mobile ad revenue shares significantly in Q4, 2013. Apple iOS enjoyed almost half of the total mobile ad revenue during 2013 and closed the quarter with 55.7% of mobile ad revenue against 31.7% by Android.
Both iOS and Android saw a sizable up surge in their mobile ad revenues in Q4, 2013 at the expense of other OSs that saw a sizable decline in their ad revenue market share.
A large part of iOS’ revenue came from the iPhone that contributed 40.3% of the total mobile ad revenue in Q4 2013. While the iPad and the iPod Touch contributed a mere 12.7% and 2.80%, respectively. Scenario remains no different for Android as 30% of the total mobile ad revenue came from Android powered Smartphones while Android tablets contributed just 1.67% to it.
Nothing Like Entertainment: Mobile Users Are Sold
Movies and Entertainment services have emerged as the biggest mobile traffic pullers as well as mobile revenue sources. Due to a long holiday period in Q4, 2013 advertisers from the Music, Video and Media category remained more active and invested more to promote entertainment based ads. But this trend is not an isolated case, Entertainment has consistently been a high performing category over the past few years. Food & Drinks and Consumer Electronics were the other top ad types that fascinated mobile advertisers during the holiday season.
United States And Asia Pacific Driving 70% Of Traffic
Regions containing top three countries by the number of mobile subscribers and internet users, United States, China and India, are responsible for driving little over 70% of the total mobile traffic. United States and India have emerged as the top countries, followed by Indonesia, Russia, United Kingdom and Canada in Q4, 2013.
Eventually, It’s Apple vs Samsung
The above findings from the reports clearly depict that Android has largely benefited from the constantly declining market share of RIM, Symbian and others. Besides these, constantly growing market share of first time Smartphone users that have migrated from feature phones and mid-range devices market where Apple has failed to leave an impression, has also benefited Android. The iPhone and iPad maker, though, has dominated the U.S. market by making the iPhone available at the price of mid range Smartphones under the installment scheme, other emerging markets like that of China and India are yet to respond in a similar fashion to Apple.
In absence of any other strong contenders, Samsung has accumulated a large market in these countries by flooding low-priced Android powered devices. Nearly 81% of smartphones that were sold in Q3, 2013 were powered by Android and three out of four of these Android powered Smartphones were manufactured at a Samsung facility. Therefore, it won’t be wrong to say that Samsung controlled almost 60% of the Smartphone market while the Apple iPhone market share fell to 12.1% in Q3, 2013. The left over 28% of Smartphone market has become a crowded playground for more than 2,300 global and local Smartphone vendors and each of them are fighting for a bite of the rather small pie.
Android owns 81% of smartphone operating system market share. But it is not without its problems. Everyone already knows everything about Android’s ‘fragmentation’ issue in the Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) eco-system. Even after Google’s pact with popular brands to push ’18 months of support provided the hardware supports it’, many devices still get stuck on the same version of Android which they were released with. On the other hand, there’s a new kind of fragmentation happening to Android outside of Google’s eco-system.
To completely understand it, we first need to know how open source Android transforms into “Google’s vision of Android” before it ends up in the consumer’s hands. First, a completely open sourced version of Android is developed as the AOSP (Android Open Source Project). This means that anyone can use and tinker the AOSP version to create a fork (their own version), just like any open source software. Amazon [AMZN], Xiaomi [XIAOMZ:] and a bunch of other companies are doing it already.
Breakdown Of Android Features Into Google Android Play Services & AOSP
Most of the utilities that we think are a part of the core Android OS are actually developed by Google such as the Google Play Store, Google Maps, Malware Scanner etc. Google Play Store is a digital distribution platform for applications, games, music, videos, books and magazines that are designed to work on Android devices. But Google Play Store isn’t open source and Google spends huge amount of money and resources in improving as well as maintaining it. Google Play Store is available on devices which comply with Google’s compatibility requirements.
We all know how tough it is for Smartphone operating systems to survive without requiring third-party apps and content. Both Blackberry [BBRY] and Bada OS struggled due to lack of these. So how do Amazon and Xiaomi manage to sell their devices without Google Play Store? Most of the consumers don’t care which version of Android they are using so long as they have all the needed apps and services which their friends are using. Amazon has created its own content distribution platform, dubbed as Amazon App Store. Application and multimedia developers can submit their already developed content to Amazon App Store in the same way they’ve submitted to Google. We’ll have a look at every popular version of forked Android and where they’re heading with it.
Kindle Fire OS Centres Around Content Consumption From Amazon
Google has already stopped any of their OHA (Open Handset Alliance) members from producing devices for Amazon. Amazon already has tonnes of multimedia content in their digital store including movies, TV shows, music, magazines and e-books. Moreover, Amazon Prime membership gives access to ‘Amazon Instant Video’ that allows instant streaming of popular movies and TV shows at no additional cost (only on Kindle devices). The whole motto behind Amazon’s Kindle Fire devices is to push existing Amazon customers to consume more content from Amazon’s store. And this automatically negates the need of Google’s Play Store services. Moreover, they invited Android developers to host their already developed apps or games (which they’ve submitted to Google Play Store) to the Amazon App Store.
Amazon Kindle Fire OS 3.0 Home Screen Stuffed With Content
Kindle Fire OS has been modified to include a custom web browser dubbed as ‘Silk’. This web browser uses split processing architecture. A part of the heavy work to load web page components is performed by Amazon’s EC2 servers while the other part is processed locally by the device. This improves web page loading time and browsing performance. It lacks back and option buttons in the system wide UI.
Home page consists of a huge carousel which shows apps, games and other multimedia content available on the device along with a normal app launcher. Swiping down from the top of the screen brings forward the settings menu as well as the settings icon. It has a very minimal interface devoid of a lot of features. There is no file manager and you can’t install one, at least not without rooting it. File management only has ‘1-Tap Archive’ which lets you clear up unused apps and services stored on your device locally. A lot of unique features are baked into multimedia playback though, such as;
X-Ray For Music: Displays time-synced lyrics for compatible tracks.
X-Ray For Videos: Displays additional information (from IMDB) such as play-in scenes, trivia, goofs and character back stories from movies and TV Shows.
Goodreads Integration For Books: See what your friends are reading, book ratings, sharing highlights, additional information about the book you are reading currently.
Amazon Whispersync: Synchronises content from the cloud to your device. Works very much like sync in Google Chrome.
One of the better features about Kindle Fire OS is its extremely well-done ‘MayDay’ function which is an on-device 24/7 tech support. Clicking this button will let a customer support executive see your screen, draw on it to help make you understand how to do stuff and conduct a walkthrough for a user if a problem occurs.
Flyme, MIUI & Aliyun OS Are Mostly Focussed Towards Chinese Market
MIUI v5 Looks Like iOS
There are other bunch of forked versions of Android by Xiaomi, Meizu, and other brands from China. They mostly focus on beautifying Android by theming it. MIUI was the first such version of Android which was criticised for being too similar to Apple’s iOS, so similar that it lacked any kind of dedicated app drawer. It also includes many of Xiaomi’s own home-baked internet services such as MITalk, their own cloud service as well as its own app market which also includes paid themes et cetera.
Flyme OS has a similar iOS like look to its UI. It has a custom lock screen with a guest mode and multitasking menu can be opened with a swipe from bottom of the screen. Its whole UI is made keeping in mind that the content should always be in full screen mode and the additional options are hidden which can be activated by swipe gestures. It has WeiboPM, Flyme Voice Messaging and its own music streaming service instead of GTalk, Hangouts and Google Play Music.
Aliyun OS is a forked version of AOSP developed by AliBaba Group but incompatible with the code base of AOSP, so Google tried to block Acer from making devices based on Aliyun OS. It focuses on bringing cloud apps to mobile. Alibaba provides 100 GB of cloud storage to each customer. It can store text messages, call data and images in the cloud storage. Some other vendors like Gionee mobiles do use forked Android (heavily modified is a better word) but fully support Google services.
Nokia’s [NYSE:NOK] Normandy Is Just A Take On Cheaper Smartphones With Android
xiaomu Normandy A110 Android Leaked Images
If you’ve been following Nokia, you probably know about a mystery device codenamed ‘Normandy’. It is supposedly running a forked version of Android that is devoid of any Google services, replacing them with Microsoft‘s [MSFT] ( or Nokia’s) services like HERE maps, Hotmail, SkyDrive, Skype, etc, all according to the leaked screenshots and product design. It looks completely identical to their cheapest Windows Phone device, the Lumia 520. The UI has large, colourful Live Tiles like elements that we come to know from Windows Phone.
Nokia Normandy A110 Android UI
This is probably Nokia’s experiment to check if they can find a replacement for their Asha phones by using Android without compromising the user satisfaction. We don’t know, if at all, this device will see the light of the day in terms of launch and subsequent market availability, but if it did, Microsoft will definitely have problems of increased competition from this device with their all time best-selling Nokia Lumia 520.
According to tweets from Eldar Murtazin, Samsung is also working on a forked version of Android till Tizen gets ready for the prime time. Tizen is apparently on life support as there isn’t much developer interest in it. Samsung is the only company that has all the back-end muscle and cash to support their own version of Android such as app store, multimedia content and custom apps like ChatOn.
So, are these forked versions of Android a threat to Google? With the development of Android largely taken care by Google, forked versions of Android would always be one step behind in terms of adding core level features with every release. Although, Amazon is better in terms of multimedia content, Google is undoubtedly the market leader with services like Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Drive, Calendar, Chrome, Hangouts and Google Now.
Most of these services won’t ever make it to other forked Android platforms. Even if they do, features would be limited and they wouldn’t be as integrated as Google’s Android. But Google would still do whatever they can to limit them as no competition is always better than weak competition.
The year 2014 with regards to wearable technology and wearable devices has kicked off in style as we’ve seen a lot of manufacturers either showcase or launch their respective wearable devices. If you thought that was the future of consumer electronics and wearable technology, think again because the folks at Google X have just taken the game one step forward. In a statement released during the latter part of last week, Google (NASDAQ : GOOG) has stated that it is developing a contact lens that will monitor the blood-sugar levels of the wearer through his/her tears.
What you just read may seem to be straight out of a Sci-Fi movie’s script but this is not Sci-Fi. This is the real deal. Google X is the in-house R&D centre for developing future technologies. Google X labs have been notorious for developments such as a driverless car, Project Loon (a network of balloons intended for beaming internet waves to the far reaching areas), Google Glass, etc. in the past and now they’ve just announced this special kind of lens.
The Google smart lens cannot be counted in the ranks of other wearable devices that are primarily meant for tasks such as receiving notifications, viewing messages and the like. This device will try to address one of the most pre-dominant lifestyle diseases of our times – diabetes. The big news with respect to these smart lenses is that they can relay information about one’s glucose levels in real time, thereby eliminating the constant pricks and jabs of those painful needles needed to monitor blood glucose levels.
While the actual consumer ready device might take as many as five years from now to translate in to reality, the current prototype glucose monitoring smart lens, in terms of physical structure is just like any other soft contact lens but here is where the similarities end. It houses an embedded sensor unit between two layers of lenses that measure the glucose levels through the tears. There is a tiny, pinhole sized passage in the lens that lets tear fluid seep over into the glucose monitoring sensor unit. This unit features a tiny antenna, capacitor and a controller.
At present, it can monitor the glucose levels once every second but the scientists at Google are developing a variant that will be more efficient than this prototype version. This miniature sensor also has a wireless transmitter that will relay the data collected from your eyes to a nearby handheld device to display this information. The sensor unit in the lens will be powered by this device and will communicate with that particular device through the RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) technology. As a safety measure, it also houses a circuit breaker to prevent it from heating.
“Over the years, many scientists have investigated various body fluids—such as tears—in the hopes of finding an easier way for people to track their glucose levels. But as you can imagine, tears are hard to collect and study. At Google[x], we wondered if miniaturized electronics—think: chips and sensors so small they look like bits of glitter and an antenna thinner than a human hair—might be a way to crack the mystery of tear glucose and measure it with greater accuracy.” – Brian Otis, Project Co-founder.
The developers at Google have also mentioned that they’re working on incorporating a system wherein this device will be able to warn its user in case there is a change in insulin levels beyond the values which have been pre-set by him/her. They’re trying to integrate tiny LED lights that can light-up at such eventualities.
While this may seem to be a relieving piece of information for the average diabetic struggling out there with his/her glucose monitoring device, there are still quite a number of issues that need to be addressed in connection to this device.
The smart lens will be channelizing sensitive and medical data about its user and in this day and age when there are a number of apps and devices that collect data for various ‘development’ processes, it remains to be seen how Google can help safeguard this data from such data capturing entities. The response comes from Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technician at the Centre for Democracy and Technology who states, “The data will never hit Google servers.”
The practicality and adaptability of this device is also in question. One begins to wonder how one could compare information derived from blood samples to that from tears. Another burning question that might be on many people’s minds is how exactly this device will perform when there is excessive secretion of tears (while chopping onions, when in an emotional or deeply moving situation, when your eyes are exposed to gushing winds). Some may wonder if the smart lens could possibly hamper vision. Potential users may also be wary of any hidden side effects associated with the prolonged use of these lenses.
Although these lenses have been developed during the last eighteen months, this concept isn’t entirely new. In 2001, the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) approved of a wristwatch glucose monitor but sadly, that device didn’t do too well due to technical glitches. In fact, the chief scientists (Brian Otis and Babak Parvis) on this project were earlier associated with Microsoft for a similar project. Microsoft affirmed this by releasing a statement stating the same kind of developmental work being done a few years ago.
At the same time, other devices of similar nature that monitor glucose related data through non-needle technology are also being developed. There is the Israeli OrSense that has tested a thumb-cuff and is also planning to test various tattoo and saliva sensors and NovioSense from Netherlands which is a flexible spring like device that has to be tucked under the eyelid.
At present there are about 382 million people affected with diabetes and this figure will reach 592 million by the year 2035. A major chunk of the world’s diabetics (read 80%) live in the low and middle-income earning countries. According to Renub Research, the market for glucose monitoring devices is expected to cross the $16 billion mark by the end of this year. These figures should be motivation enough for the scientists at Google X labs to develop and ensure that Google’s glucose monitoring smart lenses make it to mass production and consumption stage at the earliest and therein lies their (the scientists and developers at Google) actual challenge.
Many companies considered successful today do not own an inventory or make actual products. They provide a needed service or connect people to things (or other people) which benefit them.
With the seemingly never-ending growth of the internet and social media, it’s never been easier to start a company with little or no startup capital, giving rise to thousands upon thousands of online companies who never have to make anything.
1. Netflix
DVD video rental and streaming giant Netflix brought in a revenue of $3.61 billion in 2012, making $6 million in profits. Founded in 1997 by Marc Randolph, the company relies solely on distribution deals with manufacturers (e.g., Nintendo and Vizio) and user subscriptions to make money.
2. Airbnb
Airbnb is a platform for people looking for unconventional accommodation, which comes in the form of people’s houses, spare rooms, or even couches. It has over 100,000 listings in 192 countries and has booked over 10 million nights worldwide.
Founded in 2008, Airbnb has quickly become a disruptive force in the hospitality industry with rapidly growing revenue figures, and a valuation last year of $1.3 billion. The site produces nothing at all, but charges travelers a service fee of 6-12%, and necessitates hosts to pay 3% of the booking fees they receive for renting out their space.
3. Dropbox
Dropbox has revolutionized online storage. The file hosting and sharing service offering cloud storage was only released in September 2008 but it already boasts over 175 million users, according to TechCrunch, who also note that Dropbox’s 2013 revenue has reached $200million.
The company relies on subscriptions to its freemium service to make money, and is now valued at over $4 billion. That’s an impressive sum, considering that most of its users don’t pay for the service.
4. 99 Designs
99 Designs, operated by SitePoint, is a logo design site where designers compete to create logos for clients. Clients advertise what kind of design they’re looking for and how much they’re willing to pay. Designers then compete in what the site calls ‘design contests’ and one winner is chosen by the client after all entries have been submitted. The chosen designer is then paid for their work. All 99 Designs does is provide the platform for this to take place, and charge a fee for every logo commissioned.
5. Elevatr
Elevatr is an iOS app designed for those serial entrepreneurs with too many startup business ideas floating around their heads. The app allows users to monitor and keep track of their business ideas, as well as help them to build business models, with the aim of turning vague thoughts into worthwhile ideas.
The app will take the user through business model creation, target market and market size identification, differentiation, competitors and more.
Elevatr makes its money by taking a commission from service providers that it connects its users with, for services such as website and app design, and business strategy. However, the app is free to download and the company doesn’t take a penny from its users. Company founder David Spiro states that the app hit 70,000 users in its first 30 days.
About The Author: The post is written by Ilan Nass on behalf of Fueled – New York based leading iPhone application developers and masters of mobile design.
Canada has the second highest internet usage across the globe, with users spending more than 41 hours per month online. With its high internet usage, the country also indicates which way the internet usage trends across the globe are headed. The way internet is used in Canada could provide an indicator to major advertisers and help them in formalizing internet advertising strategies across the globe.
As premium content moves online, the usage of internet for streaming videos, watching programming content, shooting and sharing video content has started occupying a major part of the online activity of users in Canada. Canada currently ranks 2nd worldwide in terms of video usage with users spending around 25 hours monthly watching videos with a video viewing rate of 291 videos per user.
Number of video users have increased by more than 140% in the last three years and more than 88% of internet users were online video viewers. The study by comScore does a detailed analysis of Canadian internet users and their video viewing activities over the internet. Watching videos over the internet is high amongst all age groups in Canada, with the younger generation responsible for watching most of the online video content.
The (12-17) age group took the top spot with 94% users watching video content over the internet, logically it was followed by the next demographic group i.e. (18-24) with 93% of users watching video content over the internet. Among the remaining demographic groups the number of users watching video over the internet remained around 90%. At the third position, there was a tie with 90% video usage in the (25-34) age group and those with 65+ age. A high percentage of video viewing among the 65+ age group was a surprising trend. The other two age groups which were studied i.e. (45-54) and (55-64) had around 88 % of users spending time online, watching videos.
Although the (12-17) age group had a high reach, the number of videos per viewer 390, was way less than that of the (18-24), (25-34) & (35-44) age groups. The users in the age group (18-24) had the highest number of videos per viewer with around 561 videos per viewer. They were followed by users in the (25-34) age group with 545 videos per viewer. The users in the (35-44) age group saw around 408 videos per user, making them the third largest group watching videos. The 65+ age group had the least ratio of videos per viewer i.e. 216 videos.
The number of hours spent every week viewing videos online by each age group has been on the rise since Q2, 2011. Analysis of data by comScore shows that in general the numbers of hours increased from 2.8 in Q2, 2011 to 4.9 in Q2, 2012 and further to 5.3 in Q2, 2013 for all the age groups in Canada. It showed maximum increase for the age group (18-24) where it increased from 4.2 hours in Q2, 2011 to 6.5 in Q2, 2012 and further to 9.9 in Q2, 2013.
The demographic group (25-54) showed the next major increase from 3.8 in Q2, 2011 to 6.7 in Q2, 2013. Age group (2-17) was the next largest group with an increase from 2.6 hours in Q2, 2011 to 4.7 in Q2,2013. The age group of 55+ spent the least time watching videos every week, but still they showed a remarkable increase from 1 hour in Q2,2011 to 2.2 hours in Q2,2013.
This increasing trend has not gone unnoticed by the advertisers. The online ad-spending on videos has seen tremendous growth in Canada. It grew from 37 million CAD in 2010 to 73 million CAD in 2011, showing an increase of a whopping 97%. It further grew by 75% in 2012 to 127.8 million CAD .The revenue further grew by 41.9% to 181.3 million CAD in 2013. The online video advertising is expected to grow to 239.2 million CAD in 2014, showing an increase of 32% Y-O-Y. Advertising revenue is expected to increase to 360.5 million CAD by 2016.
The growing popularity of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) has helped advertisers and brands to reach out massive internet users base in no time, conditionally a proper marketing campaigns are defined and deployed in an strategic manner. Though, marketers are promising sky-high results to their clients, only bunch of brands are actually able to get a significant ROI, while many are still struggling to see daily traction and increment in their fan base.
An exploding 1357% increase in demand for social media jobs has got online marketers back into the game. However, companies, including recruiters, are failing to asses performance as well as candidate’s creative ability, essential for a real marketing on online social channels. This is resulting in love-hate game between social media marketers and brand companies.
Though such challenges are making the job tougher for Facebook marketers, there are strategies that could help brands to generate high engagement along with hundreds of thousand members fan base. A recent infographc from WhoIsHostingThis.com has released an infographic that could possibly help brands on Facebook to double their likes each day.
One most important take away of the infographic is to connect with other admin of Facebook pages from related industries. This helps your brand to get access to more targeted and relevant Facebook users connected with admin and his page as well.
Try to promote as many as original photos on brand page and share in your network. An old saying each photo equals 1000 words justifies this thought as 43% fans have indicated they share more photos than any other type of updates coming to their NewsFeed from brand pages. Besides, generating an indirect brand awareness by having an association or supporting a nobel cause is also an effective way to get eye balls to your page. Nearly 84% social media users share content that allows them support causes they care about.
This is one of the most useful but ignored and hidden features of Facebook. As we all know that admins can transform their profile into a Brand page profile by a single click on, brand page managers must Like other brand pages and comment on their updates after changing their profile into brand page profile. Making use of option Use Facebook as at top right corner on Facebook, managers could easily use Facebook as brand profile.
Hosting a contest on Facebook page along with your site is also a return-oriented strategy that could be implemented easily. Availability of many third-party free apps makes the process more easier for brand admin. Page admin can integrate Page Like button with contest and can ask participants to like the page to enter into the contest. Besides, page admin from multiple brands can also host a contest jointly and ask participants to like their favorite brand page.
There is no free lunch in this world, so on Facebook. You must reserve some funds to promote posts on brand page regularly. This could easily be done by Boosting one of the best updates of the day with minimum investment that starts from $5. Avoid boosting update on Weekends, an overall $100 monthly budget for Facebook advertisement could help your page to reach few hundreds of thousand facebook users.
If the above-defined strategies are implemented on regular manner, a brand page could see multi fold higher engagement and Likes within a month.
Emerging Smartphone and Tablet market has given goosebumps to the PC and laptop manufacturers, which ultimately shocked Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC). The market leader of Chip industry has announced to reduce its global workforce by 5% of its 107,000 employees on Friday.
“This is the part of aligning our human resources to meet business needs, the job reductions may include retirements, voluntary programs and other options,” spokesman Chris Kraeuter said.
This is not the first time Intel is shredding its workforce, in September 2013 the company said it would close an old factory in Massachusetts, eliminating about 700 jobs. But this is not the case with Intel alone, PC maker Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ), has announced that internal restructure would alter 34,000 jobs or 11 percent of its workforce throughout fiscal 2014. The most awaited projects of Intel, being executed in Chandler and Arizona worth $5 billion, has also been postponed till further notice. It was expected from these factories to manufacture Intel’s most advanced chips. The reason behind this undefined step must be delaying the job offers made to the employees in factories of Chandler and Arizona. Intel is dominating every other PC chipmaker from past many years but quite slow to adapt its processors for smartphones and Tablets as compared to Qualcomm Inc (NASDAQ:QCOM) and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (KRX:005930).
PC and Laptops losing significance in the world market
The main concern still remains about the shrinking PC market. Penetration of smartphone and tablets has cut the demand of PC and made it an old school thing. As we can also say that PC is now available in pocket of the users in the form of smartphone and tablets which gave rise to New Technolution.
According to the another study, Worldwide PC shipment in Q4, 2013 totaled 82.6 million units, a decline of 6.9 percent compare to a year ago quarter that recorded 90.3 million PC unit shipments.
Is this too late for Intel ?
In 21st Century the needs and demands of the user have changed that was predicted by world’s most valuable brand Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) much earlier, therefore it successfully acquired the emerging market of Smart Phones, Tablets and able to integrate with its Laptops & PC’s also. Similarly Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) had also adopted the change for the similar variation from being a Search Engine giant to become the most valuable and widely used mobile operating system by acquiring Android. As we all know “Change is the Law of Nature”, these companies eclipsed their rivals by variation of the products and monetized themselves. Although PC’s and Laptops markets are on a continuous decline, but the chipmaker Intel should be more worried about its biggest rival Qualcomm who is developing the processors for most of the smartphone and tablet vendors. Just few years back Qualcomm entered in the market and leapfrogged everyone else in making processors for smart devices. Whereas looking at the present scenario, it is won’t be unfair if said that coming years will be more lucrative for Pocket PC’s.
Intel also looked forward to introduce some of the smart phones with Xolo in collaboration but launching some product and attracting users towards that product is quite different. As a result those smartphones had debacle experience when it comes to compete with Samsung, Apple and other smartphone vendors. It is too late for the chip manufacturer to go through the transition phase, but its good if they are able to regain their position again. In this race of selling products with maximum profit margin, it doesn’t matter if you are late, what matters the most is coming up with some new strategy and capturing the market from competitors.
The explosive growth in U.S. Smartphone market is slowing down though, but Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is showing no sign of relaxation as its smartphone market share recorded significant growth compare to other vendors in the U.S. The battle for smartphone supremacy takes another new turn. According to the NPD GROUP’s new report from Q4 2012 to Q4 2013, smartphone usage increased by 8 percent over the last quarter in U.S., which is exact 60 percent in Q4 2013, whereas earlier it was just 52 percent in Q4 2012. U.S. is one of the biggest consumer of smartphones, these stats clearly shows that in Q4 2013 six out of every ten mobile handsets, are smartphones.
Apple iPhone recorded user share of 42% in the U.S. emerging as a key player in the smartphone race. Interestingly, the growth in the users of iOS powered smartphones has widened the gap over Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (KRX: 005930), LG Inc. (NYSE:LG), Motorola and other major smartphone vendors in the region. Apple as far proved to be the most favourite brand in U.S. and is standing alone in the competition against all its rivals. Even after 6 years of existence Apple is the toughest nut to crack for Samsung, Motorola, HTC Corp (TPE:2498) and Blackberry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY). However, Samsung also fetched the attention of smartphone user’s in U.S. and improved its sales by 4 percent in Q4 2013, as compared to a year ago quarter. Market share of Samsung smartphones, powered by Android operating system, increased from 22% to 26% as more consumers migrated from other vendors. Whereas Motorola, LG, HTC and Blackberry were unable to hold their previous position and experienced a huge decline its their market share accounting less than 10 percent each. Even Windows OS powered Nokia smartphones do not have a large share on its own to merit a separate rank.
As the owners of smartphone are growing day by day, it is making a similar impact on data usage also. Earlier in Q4 2012 the overall data usage was 5.5 GB per month but in Q4 2013 it increased by 1.1 GB and this figure is now 6.6 GB per month. Clearly it can be said that in these scenario where Apple and Samsung are the most preferred brand in U.S., live streaming and data usage are supposed to increase as smartphones from these vendors offer good connectivity with high-speed internet. New smartphone user’s are more keen to use every apps installed in their devices, which ultimately gives rise to the data usage. Whereas, streaming music services have emerged as the key drivers of of increasing data usage. Nearly 52% of smartphone owner’s are optimised to use apps like Pandora, which is leading amongst all the music apps used on smartphones followed by iHeart Radio only for iPhone users’ and the rest of the spot in top five is covered by Spotify, TuneIn Radio, Slacker Radio respectively.
Only these apps are not responsible for increased average data usage in 2013, between 2012 and 2013 overall mobile app usage increased by 115%, messaging and social media apps remained the main driver of this growth. Use of messaging apps rose up to 203% and other applications also marked a good percentage in daily use. This is the mobogenic era, users can find everything they use in their daily life, installed in their smartphone as an application. It doesn’t seems like in upcoming years data usage will reduce by any means, every passing day is introducing some new technology for smartphone users that can be applied in their daily needs as their smartphone applications.
The week ended with new few new findings from Mobile App industry, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) at target of device thieves, new introduction from Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) and Google’s 2nd biggest acquisition till date. Besides, few other stories that could probably have indirect impact on the coming weeks, likes of Apple iPhone 6 launch date postponed, iPhone 6 confirmed specs and smartphone and Tablets introduced at CES 2014, also got internet users eye-balls.
Here is quick roundup of the major studies, reports, statistics that rocked the Tech industry last week.
People are fascinated towards Apple products and owning iPhone, iPad or Mac has become one of the standard symbols in tech galore. While Apple is known to produce only premium products, thieves are also well aware about the fact and have started targeting Apple devices compare to any other mobile or computer devices. According to a latest findings theft reports of Apple products are on the rise in U.S. as Apple products fetch good returns not only to legitimate buyers bout also to thieves. So if you are a proud owner of any Apple devices, its time for you to stay attentive while walking in the market or leaving your MacBook anywhere unattended. Read More
This week Google made its second biggest acquisition of Nest – a smart home appliances – for $3.2 billion. While tech giant is quite convinced about future of the product with growing technology dependency among people, this has also triggered a debate on Google’s embellished interference in people’s off-the-internet life. Read More
Every year CES previews the gadgets that companies plan to introduce during whole year. In CES 2014 few path-breaking Smartphone and Tablets, introduced by Samsung, Sony and ASUS, stole the show. Here is the concluded list of major Smartphone and Tablets that you may appreciate and expect to buy this year. Read More
The explosive growth of smartphone has revolutionised the Internet and Messaging Industry. Overall use of mobile apps went up by 115% in 2013, Adoption of Social Media and Mobile messaging apps drove this growth with 203% increase in usage. Read More
After failing to compete with Samsung, Sony and HTC are apparently planning to jump off the Android ship, expecting to gain better market traction with Windows OS. But the big question remains if Windows OS itself enjoys a market size that could satisfy new friends? Read More
As the farewell party of Steve Ballmer, CEO – Microsoft – is approaching, company is racing against the time to find Ballmer’s successor. And, with the recent confirmation on loosing top contenders, the company is finding itself in a little difficult situation to ‘poach’ a suitable executive who can fit into Ballmer’s shoes. Is the company has grown too big to manage or the board has set their expectations too high from incoming CEO ? Here we analyze the real challenge and a brief list of left-over lead contenders. Read More
Finally, Microsoft owned Nokia Corp is looking towards Android to stay afloat. And, if the company decides to adopt Android, will it arose a conflict of interest of disbelieving on homegrown mobile OS ? Here are some cranky facts. Read More
The whole India, and probably Pakistan too, is surprised with the breaking news of the shocking demise of Sunanda Pushkar – wife of Indian Union Minister Shahi Tharoor – who was battling with the Twitter controversy for last 3 days. On Friday late evening Sunanda Pushkar was found dead in her room at Hotel Leela Palace, Delhi and since then the Internet is going crazy blaming the unimpeded expose of social media. Though, no clear cause has been identified for the death of Sunanda Pushkar yet but social media is already being blamed for playing an evil role that resulted in horrifying consequences.
For those who are not yet familiar with the bizarre ‘tweets exchange’ between Sashi Tharoor, his wife Sunanda Pushkar and a Pakistani journalist Mehar Terar that caused the whole controversy, here is a quick preview of the whole scenario that possibly led to the death:
Three days back, Indian Union Minster Shashi Tharoor rocked his followers and friends with his bizarre public tweet:
@mehrtarar I love you, Shashi Tharoor. And I go while in love with you, irrevocably, irreversibly, hamesha. Bleeding, but always your Mehr,
@mehartarar Sadly my wife @sptvrock who gave up everything for found out about my affair with u Mehr
Shashi. I’m not crying any more. I’m not falling to pieces. I’m more lucid than ever. How little I knew you became visible to me.@mehrtarar
Though, it was not the first time when Sahi Tharoor caught attention of everyone for his peculiar tweets, but this time apparently it went much ahead than the expectations.
While the tweeps were finding it weird and strange to digest such tweets from official Twitter account of Shahsi Tharoor and started suspecting of possible account hacked, his wife’s statement to Economic Times spilled the beans only to make Sashi Thaoor face more embarrassment:
“Our accounts have not been hacked and I have been sending out these tweets. I cannot tolerate this. This is a Pakistani woman who is an ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) agent, and she is stalking my husband. And you know how men are. He is flattered by the attention. I took upon myself the crimes of this man during IPL (Indian Premier League). I will not allow this to be done to me. I just can’t tolerate this. I have nothing more to say,” she said, speaking on the phone.
Following, late Sunanda Pushkar openly triggered the Twitter War against Mehr Tarar – a Pakistani journalist accused for stalking her husband. Underneath are Sunanda’s tweets to Mehr:
@prasanto @MehrTarar indians who have dignity unfollow her or are there no ppl in pakistan who R desperate 4 husbands of other women SHAME
@MehrTarar the audacity of a woman desperaely in love with an Indian “please shashi dont make me go i pleaded and begged i love u Shashi ”
@MehrTarar leave us Indians alone and stop talking to my huband and pleading with him its digrading respect youself as a women
its funny on a election yr ppl want to bring down an MPusing a Paki journo who has lost her job and tries with everyone including with Omar
Or perhaps to build up twitter followers thats a cheap thing 2 do ask the Pakistanis what they think of her & yes 20 calls a day is stalking
for her information Shashi an& I are very happy together sad for her to know i guess i get sick and go away 4 treatment &the vultures pounce
As expected, the response was obvious as it all was happening on an open forum with an absolute absence of any privacy. Pakistani Journalist Mehr Tarar responded on Twitter:
I have nothing to say to a woman clearly out of her mind. To be called an ISI agent, a stalker..I have nothing to add. Just shows who she is
I’m not avoiding answering any of u. I just consider it beneath me 2 respond 2 personal attacks on me here.Not a Jerry Springer-reality show
I interviewed 2 politicians in India;Apr,Dec.Hv them on tape.Doing a show on Business+ nxt mth..And I’m a mother.Trashing me w/ ISI..grow up
The blonde’s aqal is weaker thn her grammar & spellings.From an ‘affair’ it has become ‘stalking’..make up yr mind, darlin’.Which one is it?
We are distressed by the unseemly controversy that has arisen about some unauthorised tweets from our Twitter accounts.
Various distorted accounts of comments allegedly made by Sunanda have appeared in the press. It appears that some personal and private comments responding to these unauthorised tweets — comments that were not intended for publication — have been misrepresented and led to some erroneous conclusions.
We wish to stress that we are happily married and intend to remain that way. Sunanda has been ill and hospitalised this week and is seeking to rest. We would be grateful if the media respects our privacy.
Now with the demise of Sunanda Pushkar exactly a day after such statement, Social Media has come under attack by many prominent personalities as other Indian users on Twitter. While many are blaming the illegitimate access to Shashi’s account, others are raising a question over the whole Social Media saga and its unobstructed influence over people.
Is Social Media Turning Evil ?
The question has aroused if social media is really to blame or it’s just a situation blown out of proportion. It could really be anything but the incident has triggered a debate over free-flowing adoption and use of social networks. Sunanda’s case is not a lone incident where social media got its share. Exactly 4 years back in January 2009, estranged husband killed his wife for changing her Facebook relationship status back to Single. Similar to Sunanda-Mehr-Shahi issue, back in 2008 a love triangle led to much worse situation when two ladies, fighting over the Facebook for months for a guy, decided to settle the fight once and for all all. One of them perused the other one across the city and ramped her car when he was busy in getting few things parcel at MacDonals, and eventually killed her passengers.
Similarly, Internet is filled with incidents, likes of Dad kills his ex-Wife for stopping her child for supporting his Facebook post, Teen kills his girl friend over MySpace comment, a man used Facebook to lure his ex into a death trap, so on and so forth. Here is the list of worldwide famous 25 Social Media murders that rocked the whole world in last few years.
But, these are not the only cases where social media turned evil to people. The excessive use of social media as well as Internet is making people’s life more public and many a times a person is illegitimately or naively exposed for something he is desperate to keep under the carpet.
As Smartphone penetration is increasing across the globe, people started to steal just to get hands on the smart devices or to make ignominy profit by selling the device and Apple Inc . (NASDAQ:AAPL) is targeted the most. Smartphone robberies have soared many parts of the United States, people from New York and San Francisco amongst the main victims. The recent increment in smart phone theft gave an opportunity to those mobile companies looking to make lucrative profit by offering insurance to the anxious customers. The top four wireless carriers in the U.S. will earn more than $7.8 billion in protection plan premiums from their customers this year, reports warranty week.
“If you do the math, the phone companies are making out like bandits,” said Richard Doherty, a director for Envisioneering Group, A market research firm.
According to the New York Police Department, thefts of Apple devices like iPhone, iPad and Macbook made up more than 18% of all grand larcenies in the city last year, accounting for more than 8,000 devices. Grand Larcenies is the term defined for Fourth-degree offenses include when an item is physically taken from its owner or when a stolen item is valued at more than $1,000. But rising theft crimes have given an infuriating expressions among people and NYPD. Here is a report published recently by Wall Street Journal showing the total number of grand larcenies.
This report clearly shows that criminals are quite fascinated towards Apple products. 8,465 thefts involved Apple products and that is a huge number. Many of the theft crime was committed in public transports and crowded places. Even NYPD (New York Police Department) has taken step to aware people about the crimes and giving suggestions not to use their iPhones openly in Miami beaches to keep their iPhones safe from thieves. But only Precautions can not stop the robberies and thefts, as the snatching of electronic items is also quite often. NYPD launched his new team to look after these crimes, the Special Undercover Task Forces are roaming in public places and public Transport in casual wears. But effectiveness depends on the criminals as they always come up with some new ideas to commit the crime. Even Apple has also introduced some of its apps like “activation lock”, “Find My iPhone” etc but users don’t found it more useful after their phone is stolen. As recently Apple and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (KRX:005935) both have launched their new technologies and the criminals have made their mind for the best brand available in the market as they have quite good resale value in the black markets. Specially Apple product is highly popular among criminals, because of their demand between consumers as well as outside the country.
The evolution process of smartphones with different features is quite fascinating. But entering in the global scenario also comes with a risk and people obsessed with smartphones are making profit without investing even a single penny. This gave a surge to the criminals to go for “Latest and Greatest” smartphone available, whether their purpose is to use it or to sale it in black market. If the mobile companies are giving so much efforts for the customer satisfaction, then their should be some way out to secure those smartphones also. While security is also one of the important aspects of the smartphones, the devices can be physically or virtually saved. For virtual safety there are many anti-virus available but what about the physical safety?
Mobile manufacturing companies like Samsung and LG Electronics Inc. (KRX:066570) are exploring the option of installing Killer switch – an app that make devices non-operable after they are stolen. This is the most effective way to ensure the safety of the devices even if they are stolen but will keep the personal data’s safe. But Companies have to look forward for generating optimized mobile tracking system, so that a victim can get back his stolen cell phone.
Lately, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) is working hard to provide best of user experiences by implementing cleansing process of updates and introducing new features. Many a times in the process social giant was accused of copying salient features from direct/indirect competitors. However, the Mark Zuckerberg led team is apparently committed to deliver best-of-breeds to mammoth 1.2 billion monthly active user.
The introduction of a new feature has dragged Facebook into another debate if the social media titan is running out of innovative ideas and eventually sniffing around others to fix its constant growing sustainability challenges. Today, Facebook has started rolling out another sneaked feature from Twitter that allows Facebook users to engage with most active and topics on the network. The new Twitter-style Trending Topics feature has been introduced on Facebook’s home page for India, US, UK, Canada and Australia and will go live in two weeks.
At present, this feature is in limited roll out and may take week weeks to begin in distinctive nations.
This “Trending” area which is at the right side-bar will get on most specified words and expressions on the network and draw a brief demonstration of them. This will act as a news-characteristic to draw attention on topics users are engaged with at that moment.
For instance: If Apple is drifting, Twitter does not clarify the reason behind. In any case, going above and beyond Facebook trending-section will clarify the reason for why too, so clients won’t need to ponder about the explanations.
When, anybody clicks on the pattern tag, a new page page will open with updates and mentions inlined to the topic by the user’s friends as well as others too.
This could damage Twitter exposure significantly, if Facebook’s system functions well as it is the greatest social media stage at this moment. The social media titan has been in a warmed fight with micro-blogging platform Twitter for that qualification in the course of recent years.
In the event that Facebook clients discover the Trending segment on the right sidebar of their homepage helpful, it will support open imparting and above all — make Facebook reputed to be a news hotspot for current occasions.
“Trending” will take off to all clients in the above stated nations throughout the following weeks. Besides, at present, Facebook is testing a portable rendition of the feature to make it for small screen device owners.
Facebook has The History of Dead Features
This is not the first time when Facebook has introduced a sneaked feature from its competitors. However, the massive growth of Facebook has abducted the exposure of existing features, users are not much aware of. “Interest List” and “Friends List” are few of these useful features being used a limited set of users, resulting in less exposure.
Though the feature is in quite an early stage but personalization is another challenge Facebook will have to come over. If users are seeing Trending Topic irrelevant to their interest or activities, it could just turn out to be a dead sea for a user who may struggle to find a trending topic relevant to his likeness.
Besides, contact-growing spamming and scamming are another challenges Facebook will have to counter. This could prove another bait for scammers to trigger ‘at the moment’ controversy by targeting trending updates for irrelevant updates.
Facebook is growing and growing exponentially and it is committed to provide a digital screen filled with relevant and meaningful updates powered by artificial intelligence. Few upcoming changes in April will make NewsFeed – the most used and highly engaged – section lovable with prominent updates.
Proliferation of messaging apps used on a daily basis has increased the use of overall mobile apps in 2013 by up to 115%. A plethora of apps has left the desktop far behind and the trend of using Mobile is on a rise. Offering different features in the Mobile space, Messaging apps played an important role to grab the user’s attention and even helped push the market for other apps.
According to Flurry’s new report titled Mobile Messaging App Usage 2012 – 2013, from 2012 to 2013 the use of Mobile has increased to 115%. Different messaging applications have led to the beginning of a new trend and has involved the users significantly. Whereas other applications have also shown quite an enormous growth. Reports say that social apps have also contributed towards acquiring user’s attention. If we analyze Mobile usage penetration based on different applications, it is highest in Messaging & social apps and Utilities & Productivity have shown growth rates of 203 and 149 percent respectively. While other apps like Music & Entertainment, Lifestyle, Shopping and Games have performed better with 78 , 77 and 66 percent respectively.
However, the growth of the Messaging and Social Apps has overshadowed all other applications. Apps paved out to connect with various users around the globe. In the segment of Messaging Apps there are numerous competitors looking to grab the opportunity created for their own profit. Messenger Apps such as Whatsapp, Wechat, KakaoTalk, Line, Facebook Messenger and Snapchat surprisingly attracted much more daily based users than any other apps.
No doubt Whatsapp is becoming one of the most used messenger apps which automatically add contacts, is highly customizable and quite easy to use but the Korea owned and Japan based Line is also collecting great revenue and becoming one of the most used messenger apps in Japan and widely used in Taiwan, Spain, Thailand , South America and recently launched in India, accounting for more than 300 million user s on a daily basis. Line gives some outstanding features such as free calls, voice messages etc.
Similarly We Chat also influenced its user with it’s video calls, audio clips, live chat apart from sending text, location data and contact details. We Chat has more than 400 million registered user but only around 100 million users outside China. Whereas lagging in the messaging service, Facebook also launched its Facebook Messenger for fast retrieval of messages. But monetization of becoming a messenger app is just one of the consequences of better competition in the messaging apps category. Although in comparison to other apps, facebook is outperforming others. BBM has also registered for 80 million users. Here is some data related to the active monthly users of these apps.
It’s quite interesting to see that these messaging apps fascinated users in the previous year and this can be attributed to the mobile phones. Various messenger apps are quite easy to install and use, various features available which sound good to the users, also counterpart their rivals. The intriguing fact is that whether these apps will be considered by users in the present year or whether 2014 will showcase a new level of scalability and other apps lagging behind, will give up their positions and become more lucrative than these apps by attracting users. As we can see the last year was quite explosive for the use of mobile apps, and the overall figures were enormous. This Figures gives rise to the curiosity – “What levels monetization will be seen in the upcoming years?”.
This below tweet may sound funny, but yes Google in future may have access to your house and may be monitoring your activities in the house supposedly to make it better. Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) got the keys of future smart homes by acquiring Nest a start-up which sells internet connected thermostats and smoke detectors and is working towards making smart homes for $3.2 billion. Nest’s acquisition was the second biggest acquisition by Google in recent time, second only to the $12 Billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility. Google has been a big player in acquisition and is known for acquiring companies at the right time and successfully integrating them into it’s environment. YouTube, AdMob and Doubleclick are example’s of Google’s high priced successful acquisitions.
Oh PS with Nest’s built-in sensors now Google knows when you’re home, what rooms you’re in, and when you’re out. Just FYI.
Nest was founded 2 years ago by former Apple engineers Tony Fadell & Matt Rogers. Company is known for its Thermostat, which is programmable, self-learning and Wi-Fi-enabled. Thermostat is supposed to be intelligent enough to optimize heating and cooling to conserve energy. So the question arises why did Google acquire this company ?
Why Nest?
Google today has become more of an ecosystem, it is no longer a search engine company neither an advertising company. It is currently trying to evolve itself into a more technology oriented company, it is trying to create more consumer related products like smartphones, a car without driver. With already being a dominant player in internet, Google’s acquisition of Nest is intended to make it a key force in ‘internet of things’.
” Nest’s founders, Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, have built a tremendous team that we are excited to welcome into the Google family. They’re already delivering amazing products you can buy right now–thermostats that save energy and smoke/CO alarms that can help keep your family safe. We are excited to bring great experiences to more homes in more countries and fulfill their dreams!”
– Larry Page, CEO of Google
“We’re thrilled to join Google. With their support, Nest will be even better placed to build simple, thoughtful devices that make life easier at home, and that have a positive impact on the world.”
– Tony Fadell, CEO of Nest
Google’s Acquisition of Nest is not to help it in displaying ads depending on which room you are and what you are doing. It’s acquisition of Nest is to help it to move on to the next level of technology i.e. creating smart homes. To put it simply, Google wants to use Nest’s Platform to build a smart home, which would start your coffee machine as soon as you wake up, would adjust the thermostat depending on where you are and how long you would take to reach home. These things are currently non-existent and may take another decade to actually materialize. So then, why buy Nest? Well Google wants to be there at that time and buying Nest makes it the most prominent player in Home Automation.
With the purchase of Nest ,Google has become a serious player in the ‘internet of things’, with its Android devices, Google Glasses and now Nest , Google is on its way to provide us the Google Smart Home.Though the real picture may be years away, Google has started to put the pieces together and as Larry Page said in fall of 2011, Google is now trying to create beautiful, intuitive services and technologies that are incredibly useful for people and acquisition of Nest falls under that vision.
“To create beautiful, intuitive services and technologies that are so incredibly useful for people that people use them twice a day, like you might use a toothbrush. There aren’t many things people use twice a day.” – Larry Page,CEO Google Inc.
What Does Google Gain ?
The deal currently looks like an all gain deal for Google. Google’s recent attempts to become an OEM have not been successful. Its 13 billion dollar deal with Motorola Mobility has also not done any wonders for the company.With the acquisition of Nest, Google gets its CEO Tony Fadell, who is famous for designing the iPad. Fadell has a proven record of designing tech products, be it the market transforming iPad or the sleek Nest thermostat.
Smart Home is where devices talk to each other and try to make decisions for you. Nest thermostats are currently doing the same.The devices don’t turn itself on and off based on user’s choice but their sensors train themselves to adjust the temperature based on the user’s entry and exit.The devices spread across the home, talk to each other and try to predict human behavior. Now if everything is connected to Google’s network, user’s behavior at one place could be simulated easily. So our offices would be talking to home and homes to our vehicle. So in-fact Google could use Nest’s technology to make the world around us Smarter.
Now comes the creepy part, Nest’s technology would enable Google to keep a tab on us and our behavior. In fact we may start getting ads based on which room we are in, what we are doing or which products in our homes are about to be exhausted. But this may be the price of getting connected to the ‘internet of things’.
What Nest Gains?
Well Nest gains Google’s Network, it gets to dig into Google’s coffer to continue with their market and above all as Fedell said, he gets to do what he is best at, designing products and let Google worry about rest.
“I was spending so much time in my days just worrying about infrastructure and not worrying about product. This allows us to concentrate on the stuff that differentiates us.” – Tony Fadell.
