We (as in the Western world) keep on yacking about growth across the board – # of apps, how many iPhones are out there and how swell it is that Foursquare has so many users (only 2 million which is about only 4.8 % of the total population of California coming in which comes in around 43 million peeps). Aren’t we great.
But, we are so severely lop-sided in our thinking that we forget about the rest of the world which is growing by leaps and bound and using technology in a way that took us 10 years to get to as users… and the people that are making that happen are not technology superstars….they are publishers, industrialists, and some might say old world money syndicates. (yea, I have been dying to use that word)
A recent article in the Economist revealed these “new online giants” and after reading the article, we felt it worthy of a mention here along with a few exerpts about the new world order – it wont look like you think it does. -- JLH
- THEY may not have the name recognition of a Google or a Yahoo!, but they can claim to belong in the same league. The websites of Digital Sky Technologies (DST) account for more than 70% of page-views on the Russian-language internet.
- These firms are making their presence felt beyond their home markets. Between them they have invested in dozens of internet firms around the globe. The most adventurous of the three, DST, has already moved west—and paid top dollar for stakes in fast-growing American companies, notably Facebook, the world’s biggest social network.
- DST was created in 2005 when two Russian internet investors, Yuri Milner and Gregory Finger, pooled their interests in mail.ru, a Russian web portal. Today the firm controls many of the country’s leading websites and boasts an interesting mix of owners, including Goldman Sachs and Alisher Usmanov, a Russian billionaire, who holds 27%.
- Naspers is nearly 100 years old and publishes the Daily Sun, South Africa’s biggest newspaper. It is one of the most ambitious old-media companies anywhere in its move online. It still makes most of its sales—28 billion rand ($3.6 billion) in the year to March—from print and pay-television, but it uses the cash to buy online firms.
- These firms are finding promising internet companies in countries where Western investors rarely dare to go.
Posted by Tattletech on Jul 29, 2010 in
Telecoms This just in from a new report Pyramid Research, by 2011, China will overtake Japan to become Asia’s largest fiber market, with 25.9 million fiber access lines in service at year-end 2011, versus Japan’s 25.2 million.
According to Pyramid, now that the country has completed its infrastructure “initiative”, is that one of the main drivers behind the rapid rise in fiber is a strong commitment from the government to deploy the technology.
According to Daniel Yu, Senior Analyst at Pyramid Research migration to higher speeds, and thus higher-priced, fiber-optic connections, will ensure continued growth in China’s fixed service revenue.
Ok sure, but here is the number that you need to pay close attention to: The industry as a whole expects to spend $22 billion over the next three years deploying a fiber network, increasing total ports from 20 million to 80 million. That’s a whole lot of investment which means the industry is and will continue to grow. Doors opened!
Tags: Asia, China, Fiber Optic, Japan, Optical fiber, Pyramid Research, Telecommunication
Alrighty, we waited a bit for the dust to die down on this one, but we just wanted to go on record to say that we don’t approve of public spats between companies – it’s pretty classless and does your consumers no good – what is the point of behaving like a guest on Sally Jesse Raphael? It just looks bad.
So what’s the 411 on the Fring spat with Skype? To us it doesn’t matter cause everyone has overlooked the bigger issue here – the long game of mobile VoIP or as consumers/users call it – mobile voice or wait.. free long distance, depending on which generation you ask.
I asked my mother-in-law and she says she is positive that “someone” has overlooked that it’s free so we should use it as much as we can before “they” shut it down. Interesting.
But, let’s take it back a step and look at what the frack we are actually talking about, if indeed we do know what we are talking about …. what is Mobile VoIP anyway? According to Nimbuzz, it all started when folks could make calls over the Internet (VoIP). And then well you know that old Internet caught on and you could get it on your mobile and then you could make calls over the Internet from your mobile phones (mobile VoIP), instead of via your mobile operator’s network.
So, we just asked Nimbuzz what they thought (and they told us, well to be fair, they told a bunch of bloggers):
Mobile VOIP is just a piece of the puzzle, which makes up the future of mobile communications. The future of mobile communications is a unified communications platform that gives users the freedom to have free and mobile calls, IM and all your friends as well as social networks in one place. And that means from any provider, anywhere in the world. This puts the user in charge of how they connect and communicate.
And, according to Nimbuzz, you can still talk with your friends and family over Skype via Nimbuzz. Their relationship with Skype remains the same and they continue to let people talk over Skype or any other instant messaging or social network, which ever they choose. Yay!
They go onto say: (we feel like jumping up and down shouting Yes Yes!)
Mobile VoIP is the start of something much bigger in mobile communications – and openness and choice are key components of this. Nimbuzz sees mobile VoIP as an entry vehicle to create the next generation of mobile communications. Delivering a unified communications solution to the mass market through the convergence of all the ways that users communicate today – chat/IM, social and online communities, mobile voice and SMS/text – for free.
We currently see companies battling for market share around features, but the future of mobile VOIP is not about SDKs, unlimited data plans, video or other individual features. It’s about building Value Added Services (VAS) around the user’s contacts or address book. Mobile VoIP is a true VAS. Nimbuzz believes in a global mobile community across all platforms, communities, devices and operators that gives users the ability to choose how they communicate. Calls will be free. Revenue will be generated from enriched mobile communications for all industry players, including users and operators. Simply put, it will become as ubiquitous as talking face-to-face at the same cost, free.
I think that is something my mother-in-law could get behind. – JLH
Tags: Community, Connect & Share, Control, Free, Freedom, fring, Instant messaging, Mobile phone, Nimbuzz, Services, Skype, Telecommunications, Value Added Services, Voice over Internet Protocol
Posted by Tattletech on Jul 24, 2010 in
Conferences,
Connected Home,
IBC 2010,
TV We have been so busy marching, we forgot to write about the march. Ironic isn’t it? So what is new this year? Still the industry lumbers along looking for relevancy – seeing more Twitter feeds out there and the IBC Daily and VideonetNews are kicking it with their blog posts and Twitter streams… thank goodness for that. We are positive that we will get that most up to the date live conference stream from Julian Clover, Editor, BroadbandTV (Twitter: @julianclover) News since he is just about the only guy that attends the conference and tweets about. Thanks Julian!
We do know that the parties are heating up – the first one is the annual ink Communications IBC2010 soiree -which this year is going underground, wonder how many people will be able to find the location. Details are here, but you have to know someone to get in that one.
Official show hashtag is #IBC2010.
Other than that, we expect to hear a lot of junk about 3D, Social TV and all the other stuff that they like to talk about but don’t really know how to deliver. They want to, but it’s still a dinosaur of an industry that needs a new prom dress. – JLH
Tags: BroadbandTV News, IBC 2010, Julian Clover, VideoNetNews
I wish the guys at I love Charts (@ilovecharts) had a chart on this, but I am sure if they did, we would see a decline in our manners and increase in emotion since the internet, and all its little pilot fish, became mainstream.
By example, it’s truly amazing that a CEO of a gillion dollar company like Apple takes time to read your email, let alone respond to it. Steve is a pretty press friendly CEO too, so what pushed him over the edge, let alone what pushed the drunken ValleyWag guy to even start the argument in the first place? What is it that has pushed us over the edge to become an emotional lot of argumentative, belligerent, bad mannered bunch of communicators? I don’t know, but I’m Just Saying. A few cases in point below:
- Steve Jobs & Ryan Tate’s email exchange… but honestly, I’m up til 2:30 am some nights, so why not Steve? (oh and BTW, if you don’t like the products, don’t keep buying them)
- Stephen Fry’s response to malevolent comments on his blog
- A Chicago landlord sues over a Tweet made by his ex-tenant who criticized state of apartment
- Well respected and renowned thinker Umair Haque being lambasted by attendees who didn’t like the way he interviewed Evan William at South by Southwest
- Japanese girl killing a friend over an internet spat
- A petty dissing contest on Twitter between Bow Wow and Chris Brown (author says it makes you yearn for the days when rappers would just shoot each other)
Can we take it one step further into the sexes? I don’t know but according to the Scientific American, men are more belligerent than women, although woman can be just as aggressive as men. But there is a new project underway by Sep Kamvar and Jonathan Harris (BTW both of these men are absolutely on that smart is sexy list) which has started combing the internet to look for and measure emotion in a project called “We Feel Fine“.
We Feel Fine scours the blogosphere every few minutes and scans for the words “I feel” or “I am feeling.” The crawler looks for feelings of people who broadcast and renders into a dynamic, real time color map by age, topic, location, gender, etc. When you click on any one of the moving dots, it explodes to reveal the feeling sentence behind it somewhere in the blogosphere.
I think that perhaps Steve Jobs said it best when he retorted to his drunken belligerent, insolent, disrespectful emailer with this: “BTW, what have you done that is so great? Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations”
Hey Ryan Tate, go start your own company and go easy on the booze. – JLH
Tags: Apple, Bow Wow, Chris Brown, Jonathan Harris, Scientific American, Sep Kamvar, Stephen Fry, Steve Jobs
We are lucky enough to be able to peek into two tech worlds. One, is a well established, revenue producing, tactile-based yet well understood world of telecommunications, i.e. how you watch TV (set top boxes, TVs, electronic program guides, Video on Demand, PVR, etc.). The other one is the topsy-turvy exciting world of web 2.0 technology that you can’t really get a grip on but you know its there and your friend Trixie uses it, so it must be ok. These are the people that bring you Facebook, the cloud, Twitter, social networks and the like.
The telco world lives pretty much in a fact-based (although somewhat altered) world of actual subscribers, content rights and a general understanding of how to move their industry forward. Now I said “general”. They don’t succumb to hype and when they get a feature that they think will make the vertical trade press wake up and listen, they go for it with gusto – currently the red hot chili in this world is “3D”, multi-screen delivery and social TV (also the cloud). Suffice it to say, they never really cave into hype.
However, in the other world – they live in a bubble that thrives off of hype and works on the premise of “if a few are doing it, we all must be doing it”. This brings me to location based social networks.
Recently there was a great article via CNN about why location apps haven’t gone mainstream yet. When CNN writes the story, it takes on a different perspective because by the time the “hype” of the start-up technology or craze (location based social networks) comes their way, they actually decide to look into it and see what in reality is going on. The article goes on to say that only 7% of all Americans actually are AWARE of location based social networks. This would have to be 7% of all Americans (around 21 million people) But if you tune into any start up technology news source, it would read as if the whole planet is using it and its growing by leaps and bounds. So many issues affect normal users that don’t affect early adopters. Most early adopters (those with smart phones like iPhones, etc. rather than feature phones) tend to care less about privacy than those outside of that market.
VCs still are funding location based start ups and they are putting more pressure on them to monetize and gain traction with users, but how many location based social networks can NON-early adopters handle? And how many of those care more about privacy than the early adopters. If early adopters don’t care about privacy nor the fact that their sign up and usage is just paving the way for targeted advertising, what happens when it hits mainstream and they do care? How will the model be adjusted then? It could be just an issue of usage = complacency, which is normally how technology gets assimilated into our lives, we just get used to it and then we can’t part with it. Or rather, its like a drug, we crave it even though we are forfeiting some of our privacy rights. After all, no one is making you sign up for these services.
Here is our take: Location as it relates to your life where you are in the moment will be relevant to the mainstream user (not early adopter). For example, I am shopping on this street, let’s see what else is around me. Not WHO is around me, but WHAT is around me. If I see that there is something near to me, I want to get there easily, and if there is a money saving voucher or coupon, I am more incented to go there.
According to UK-based Juniper Research, mobile coupons are redeemed at a 5% to 20% rate, compared with about 1% for print coupons. They recently forecast that 1 out of every 10 mobile subscribers in developed regions around the world will use mobile coupons by 2014, generating nearly $6 billion in redemption value. The fact of the matter is that consumers like coupons/vouchers. In the fourth quarter of 2008, coupon redemption was up 7.5% in the US alone. And, according to Hitwise, internet searches for discount vouchers in the UK grew by 47.5% in 2009.
We aren’t the experts, but this sort of feels a bit like maybe how the Gold Rush felt — lots of people rushing in to get their claim, but most of the claims just pinch out. Where LB social networks go from here is up to the user, and they are a fickle lot. – JLH
Tags: Advertising, CNN, Facebook, Social network, Telecommunication, Television, Twitter
The ride-sharing, car-sharing, do better with transportation, save our planet game just heated up with the news of Zip Car’s acquisition of the car sharing service, Streetcar. And, with the international exposure (CNET article) of flinc out of DEMO Spring 2010 – it emphasized a number of other ride-sharing start ups already in the process of modifying drivers and passengers behavior. There are some established players here in Europe like France’s Comuto which is already cash-flow positive to Karzoo with its pan-European focus. Other newer start ups still in stealth mode (although not so stealth since we know about them) are Geogoer and Boston’s RelayRides bring a unique solution to the concept of ride-share and car-share.
flinc currently is in a pre-pilot stage but has a project underway to enlist the world in determining where they should roll out – if you want to participate check out the Where’s flinc tab on their website. But if you want to try out modern car-pooling and you are in France, check out Comuto. Having used the service here in France, I can honestly say that it works and is a great way to get around. They have a really nice iPhone app too. They have a map that shows you where you can go and the list of rides (with prices) is unending. We have a friend that goes from Paris to Bordeaux each week via Comuto. Urban rides or suburban rides - it is about getting from point A to point B – all you need is a lift, or to give someone a ride. These apps and services are hoping to help you save on fuel costs and change the way we think about commuting and transportation. Not to sound too sappy, but it also comes with a feeling of doing the right thing and there is nothing wrong about that. - JLH
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Tags: carpooling, Carsharing, Comuto, DEMO, flinc, Geogoer, Green, Karzoo, RelayRides, Ride-share, Zip car, Zipcar
Posted by Tattletech on Apr 26, 2010 in
Apps,
Java,
Start ups We recently met Tricastmedia - a start up based in Glasgow that has powerful SDK to create apps in Java. What we found out about this self-funded start up was that they are already cash-flow positive. Silently chugging along, they have been making Twitter and email clients for some pretty big names out there and all on the power of their development tool, TWUIK. In Q3, they will launch their own app store with a bundle of new apps, so check back later for that news.
For some reason today, Monday, we liked hearing from a company that had a solid piece of technology that is making money. Sometimes, you miss that in all the hot air that floats around out there. - JLH
Tags: Java, Programming, Software development kit, Tricastmedia, Twitter, Twuik
Posted by Tattletech on Apr 26, 2010 in
Conferences,
Wise philosophical words Recently, we posted a blurb about ANGA cable and a panel on conditional access at the show. One of the companies we mentioned in the post sent us an email about how we “missed the boat” on why their company was on the panel. And to this we say: comment. That is what the comment feature is for, to comment.
Tags: ANGA Cable, Conditional access
We had the chance to talk with a several VCs and tech experts in London about the future of location and its place in the world. Lots of discussion, agreement and disagreement, but the one thing everyone agreed on was location and indoor use. In other words, a mall, a school building — essentially INSIDE a structure.
Now, instead of a long rant about how unrealistic this probably is – both from a usability point of view and in light of more mainstream adoption of augmented reality apps by businesses and consumers — we give you this article on indoor positioning that sums it up:
…..In the meantime, your wife will simply ask some friendly person for directions, and you’ll be stranded there earnestly button-pushing like an asocial geek.
Tags: Augmented reality, Nokia
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