Dr. Dre is now a Hip Hop billionaire. Apple has reportedly agreed to a deal to purchase Beats Electronics – including both the electronics and streaming service – for $3.2 billion. According to reports from the Financial Times, the deal could happen as early as next week. Apple and Beats already had a strong relationship, as Beats showcased their Dre headphones and speakers inside the Apple Store. Many suggest that the move is mostly geared towards acquiring the now-popular Beats Music streaming service, as iTunes Radio has all but flopped. The acquisition of Beats would ensure that Apple gets its hands on a popular streaming platform, one that it could properly leverage to deliver music to consumers in new and different ways. In that sense, the move isn’t surprising at all, and expect to see Apple’s intervention into the service soon.
Category: Percolate
LINE Continues Expansive Growth
International mobile messaging service LINE continues to show impressive growth, so much so that it’s finally begun to outstrip Twitter. Their revenues have increased to over 223% of last year, and 19% over the past three months alone. People compare LINE to Twitter because both companies are centered around direct – or private – messaging, something that Twitter is only now focusing on. DM’s were a more hidden feature of Twitter, while LINE has made them the prominent feature of their app and have succeeded financially as a result. LINE also offers gaming, which represents a large portion of their revenue, and advertising via direct messaging and gaming – as opposed to blasting hashtags out into the feed – has been proven to be more effective. All that is to say: this is further proof that messaging apps, as we’ve mentioned before, are an effective way to get a direct line into customers and users across the globe.
Smart Bracelet Vibrates On Call & Text
Wearable tech continues to heat up as a consumer space, in many different forms. One of the main sticking points, though, is that many wearable options simply don’t look good – it you’re going to put something on your wrist, surely you want it to look nice, and many options at present try to jam too much into a small screen that becomes hard to navigate through, or ultimately looks off. MEMI is looking to solve some of those problems through its new smart bracelet aimed specifically at women who carry their phones in handbags: it’s a simple silver piece of metal that vibrates when the users’ phone receives a text message or a phone call. The kicker? It doesn’t even look like a wearable device, which is seen as a stylistic win. It weighs as much as a similarly styled bracelets, and runs at $150 in its current iteration. Though it only aims to alert users to incoming notifications, one could make the argument that its technological simplicity is its advantage, while still maintaining its purpose as a fashion accessory instead of trying to cram an entire smartphone onto a wrist.
Moves Will Share Data With Facebook
Moves, the motion tracking app bought by Facebook, had initially reported that they were going to keep users’ data private, and not share with Facebook users’ locations, physical fitness, and the like. Now, in an about face, Facebook has convinced the company to hand over all the data mined from users of the fitness tracker; overnight, the company updated its privacy policy to say that it can share user data with other companies, “including but not limited to Facebook.” It plays into some niggling consumer fears about how Facebook is using data – as Facebook buys up more properties, it is slowly accumulating a powerfully large database of information about millions of people – and how its affiliates are keeping tabs on users. Facebook, for what it’s worth, says that it just wants to provide support for Moves. It will have to continue to keep up the charm offensive to consumer confidence high if it wants to keep people looped into the platform, particularly in light of many realizing how vulnerable their private data might in fact be on the Internet.
Coke Rewards Workers With Care Packages Sent From Drones
As part show of goodwill and part marketing stunt, Coca Cola has dropped care packages to migrant workers building skyscrapers in Singapore. Some 2,500 workers, often overlooked and underpaid, were given encouraging photos from Singapore residents as well as cans of Coke, of course. Coca Cola has been exploring all sorts of stunts as part of their “Where Will Happiness Strike Next” campaign and drones certainly fit the bill. The buzzworthy tech is capable of delivering all sorts of goods and capturing stunning aerial shots.
Tumblr Now Features Mobile Blog Edits
Tumblr finally updated its mobile app to include a full theme editor, which makes Tumblr entirely transferrable as a platform between both mobile and desktop. Tumblr has had an app for about five years, but it has been notably missing a theme editor, which means that the true potential of the platform was only realized on computers. Updating both its iPhone and Android apps, the new editor provides the ability to edit the entire theme of blogs, from colors to layout, as well as letting users manipulate different aspects of their blog within a live preview. It means that international users who are used to mobile social networks will have an easier time with the platform, and that Tumblr’s adoption numbers could see a spike from broader, global adoption.
Google Acquires Adometry
Google is aiming to help advertisers figure out how their online campaigns work across their networks; to do this, Google purchased the Austin online ad attribution firm Adometry. Though terms of the deal have yet to be announced, Adometry recently raised $8 million in funding, so the deal will likely be around that much or more. Many individual companies monitor their own advertising networks and offer their own attributions, as well as exchanges, but the logic behind this particular purchase is that Google wants to capture a larger share of online ads overall, and wants to convince brands that its ad strategy is on point. Expect Google ads to only increase in power from their current position.
Google Shopping Express Comes To NYC & LA
After offering same-day deliveries in San Francisco for over a year, Google has decided to expand its service to New York and Los Angeles. The service, which offers expedited, same-day shipping from stores like Target, Samples, and Walgreens, as well as other local businesses, can now be used by New Yorkers to deliver groceries, office supplies, and more in record time. As an incentive to get on board, Google is tossing in six free months of shipping for new users. It’s a very direct threat to the likes of Amazon, who only have fast shipping to members of higher-priced plans like Prime. As consumers find different ways of interacting with brands and products, the race to ultimately get those products in their hands as fast as possible will continue to be a sticking point for digital companies going forward.
Amazon Lets Customers Shop Without Leaving Twitter
Amazon announced a new feature, tentatively called #AmazonCart, that would allow customers to fill their shopping carts without leaving the social network at all. Users would connect their Twitter and Amazon accounts via their social settings. Then, all you’d be required to do is reply to any tweet containing an Amazon product link with #AmazonCart and the item would be automatically added to your basket. Unlike similar twitter services that have come before it, this service does not allow you to purchase the product directly – it will just save it for your basket for later, in an “add it now, buy it later” policy. As more of these twitter use-cases bubble up, it will be interesting to watch if and/or how the shift towards purchasing affects the way people – and indeed brands – use the social network.
Snapchat Adds Chat and Video Calls
Most messaging apps have become all-in-one solutions, offering video calls, image sharing and even gaming, with the notable exception of Snapchat. Now the ephemeral messaging platform is widening its functionality, adding text chat with the ability to have a FaceTime-like video call if both users are online. These, of course, will be destroyed upon leaving the chat unless you use a save for later functionality on select messages. The addition of these features will likely boost engagement but will Snapchat lose some differentiation? Video calls are not saved by default on most services and text typically does not carry the same privacy concerns as images.
