In September StumbleUpon purchased 5by, a video recommendation service that was in its early stages of forming. Now the app is out in the open for both Android and iOS devices. It’s designed to get users to watch videos quickly and easily by taking into account the time of day and what mood you’re in. It’s organized in sections like ‘Entertaining You,’ ‘Showing Your Friends,’ or ‘In Transit,’ so as to make the most of the mood you’re in, or the situation you’re in – compounded by the fact that you can filter by length as well. Over time, the app will learn your preferences and tailor video selections to you. StumbleUpon seemed like a novelty for a while, but as the Internet operates with a currency of videos, gifs, and memes, the pivot to video makes sense.
Category: Percolate
PC’s Are Dying, & Logitech’s Numbers Prove It
Logitech has started to tail off, along with the PC market. It’s no secret that as PC sales start to decline PC accessory sales too go down the drain. But Logitech has managed to turn it around: this last quarter was its strongest since 2007. The secret? Logitech has pivoted away from the PC industry and towards mobile and tablets. Logitech has begun to produce to produce many more accessories for mobiles and tablets, and since it introduced its first line of iPad accessories in June 2011 under the name ZAGG its profits have risen from $8 million to $77 million. It’s a shrewd move for a company that’s been forced into different markets, one that doesn’t bode well for PC producers at all.
Tapstream Makes Mobile Ads Smarter
In today’s mobile ad world, consumers are used to being redirected to the app store to tell them to purchase an app that they’ve expressed interest in. A mobile ad company, Tapstream, wants to refine that process, and today announced a piece of software called Deferred Deep Links to create individualized landing pages within mobile ads that will re-direct users after the app is installed. It works like this: when a user normally clicks a link, they’ll be directed to a specific page within the app, or if the app in question isn’t installed they’ll be prompted to install it in the App store. Deferred Deep Links simply takes the step of redirecting the new app-owner back to the original link they were directed to within the app, meaning that now advertisers are guaranteed that users aren’t lost in transition. It means that mobile ads will become that much more reliable, and guarantees that users will be seeing the right add within the right app at the right time.
AOL Acquires Gravity
Gravity, the startup that showcases content and advertisements for users based on their personal preferences, was bought today for $90.7 million by AOL. The advertising startup creates an “interest graph” that profiles individual users by preference, or habit. The company using Gravity can then share this information with content creators, and others, in attempts to corral users. At present, it works with brands and publishers like Sony, Intel, USA Today, and GAP as well. AOL wants to use the technology to make its own editorial and native content to use as advertisements on its websites, as well as to generate more relevant information for readers across the web. It seems like a step in the right direction for AOL, but it might not be enough, on its own, to make AOL relevant again.
Netflix Promises To Protest Net Neutrality
While Netflix announced it’s Q4 2013 earnings, which were very positive, the company made headlines for its take on the Net Neutrality ruling. In a letter to shareholders Netflix bemoaned the decision, saying that, “In principle, a domestic ISP now can legally impede the video streams that memebrs request from Netflix, degrading the experience we jointly provide.” Netflix is imagining the scenario thought up by many, wherein the company would have to pay fees to ISP’s to prevent the degradation of service, passing that cost back onto consumers with higher member fees. But it doesn’t want to do that: the company said that were this to happen it would protest and encourage its members to do the same. Though Netflix doesn’t see this happening – the company puts faith in ISP’s to keep providing the open internet they are charged with delivering – it could prove to be a pressure point in the coming months and years: what will it take for users to protest against these sorts of changes? Would the intentional throttling of Netflix, the number one source of U.S. Internet use during peak hours, be enough to push people over that edge?
Snapped Allows For Sending & Viewing Snapchats On Macs
Snapchat just became untethered from mobile, thanks to Snapped, a third-party app that uses Snapchat’s API. The app – eventually to be made available in the app store – was developed by two UC San Diego students, and defaults to using the mac’s front-facing camera in combination with user login info. As well, you can upload pictures from the computer’s hard drive, something previously impossible by Snapchat’s design. Because it’s third party, there are some tweaks: you can choose to mark snaps as un-read, which means friends won’t know if you’ve opened the photo or not. Also, you can mark sent snaps as ‘read,’ so if you want to “take back” a snap, as it were, it will arrive pre-read and un-openable. It raises important questions about Snapchat’s security, particularly in light of the bumpy few months Snapchat has had: if a third party app can allow for photo manipulation in this way, is it also unreasonable to think that the photos themselves are inherently unsecure, savable, and permanent? Snapchat will have to address these issues in the coming weeks and months to remain as viable a medium as it is at present.
BBC Experiments With Instagram Video
Instafax is a new program launched by the BBC to bring Instagram video-length news updates to its subscribers. The idea is that three fifteen second videos will be published at different points during the day to highlight different news stories during different parts of the day.
The service, a reference to the short-form Ceefax news service, also mimics other forms of condensed news services, like NowThis News, who has been creating Vines, Snapchats, Twitter videos, and Facebook Videos of the news for some time now. The BBC clearly feels that it’s time to break into this space to build its news and brand on social media as opposed to traditional news forms. Whether it actually proves an advantageous move for the storied news network will likely depend on how sharable the snippets become. But if it does prove a shrewd move, expect to see more of this in the near future.
Amazon Considers Pay-TV Service
According to The Wall Street Journal, Amazon has approached three big media conglomerates looking to distribute their content online. The idea is to start a paid, online TV service for channels that are presently available on cable and satellite. It would be a big compliment to Amazon Instant Video, the service that allows for Netflix-like streaming of TV shows and movies, and it would allow for Amazon to finally have a step up on Netflix in terms of content. But how it would work remains murky: would it be a subscription-based package? Or would users only pay to stream some specific channels? It’s all up in the air, but the potential is vast if Amazon can indeed pull it off.
Barriers To Wearable Adoption
Wearables were undoubtedly one of the categories at CES with the most growth potential. With embedded sensors, these wearables can measure everything from calories consumed to steps taken and hours slept. As this Fast Co article points out, however, there are some serious roadblocks to mainstream adoption, chiefly battery life, technical limitations, and “aesthetic drawbacks.” Despite these issues, there are a few things that brands need to take note of in the wearable space concerning media. First and foremost, wearables require a glanceable UI that packages information in an immediately digestible and actionable way. Secondly, successful ones let data tell stories like Nike+ ability to share runs with friends or ZombieRun which marries fitness tracking with a Zombie adventure game.
JBL Converts Your Tweets To Music
As part of a new “Tweet Music” campaign, the audio electronics company will turn your tweets into sound if you tweet at them. It works through JBL’s Tweet Music algorithm, which takes words and assigns sounds to them. It has pre-assigned sound clips for certain letters, and so there are nearly 13 billion possible combinations. Users who enter into the campaign by tweeting at them will also be entered into an expenses-paid trip to the 2015 Grammy’s. JBL is pairing the campaign with physical, experiential kiosks outside of the Grammy’s this year so listeners can interact with their custom music before tweeting it out. In the first week, they’ve received 2,600 mentions with their @JBLaudio handle, and have added 3,100 new followers this week; 1,200 songs have been generated with 3,500 listens. It’s a clever ploy by the company, one that, though a tad gimmicky, is technologically interesting enough to hold Twitter’s attention.
