Category Archives: Business

iPad 3 Announced In March?

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While rumors about releases and announcement of any new Apple products are ubiquitous, certain outlets seem to refrain from announcing them until they seem legitimate. This seems to be the case with the Announcement from All Things D this week.

Sources say the company has chosen the first week in March to debut the successor to the iPad 2, and will do so at one of its trademark special events. The event will be held in San Francisco, presumably at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Apple’s preferred location for big announcements like these. No word yet on a street date for the iPad 3 (assuming that’s what it’s called), though my guess is retail availability will follow roughly the same schedule as that of the iPad 2: Available for purchase a week or so after the event.

Luckily this rumor gives a relatively concrete date in the near future so we’ll be able to validate this in a few weeks. We’ll see where it leads us.

Pinterest Escalating In Referrals

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Pinterest is now on the top half of the Top 10 lead referrals across the web, according to the Shareaholic traffic report for January 2012. This now puts Pinterest above Reddit and YouTube for referrals on the list The rate of growth is quite impressive too.

Pinterest grew from 2.5% of referral traffic in December to 3.6% of the referrals in January. That’s impressive growth from just owning .17% of the traffic back in July.

The report goes on to discuss the fact that YouTube did actually grow for the month as well, and it addressed that MySpace even still holds a good size of the market of referrals.

Full report here.

Will 2012 Be The Year Of The Facebook IPO?

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The expert analysts in the industry think that 2012 will bring us the Facebook IPO. Possibly even between April and July, according to some although nothing official has come from Facebook itself about the initial public offering. The speculation whirls though as analysts believe we will see a $100 Billion IPO when the day comes.

The company itself is preparing to raise $10 billion this year, according to reports, to push the company’s public value to $100 billion. More than Disney ($61 billion), Amazon ($88.3 billion) and McDonald’s ($95.6 billion).

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The source also includes an infographic that breaks down comparable IPOs both in cost and in industry to show how momentous this will be. It also breaks down owners by percentage in terms of who will gain what when the time comes.

Google’s Privacy Policy Changes

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After Google changed their privacy policies, many people expressed concern. There was enough (possibly unnecessary) concern that members of Congress issued questions to Google about the changes. In order to clarify some of the issues and alleviate some of the concerns, Google re-addressed the issue with further explanation and basically simplifying their motives by explaining there are just trying to…simplify their policies.

By folding more than 60 product-specific privacy policies into our main Google one, we’re explaining our privacy commitments to users of those products in 85% fewer words.

They continue on to point out the important things that are NOT changing. You still won’t have to be signed into any Google accounts in order to use them. You can search whatever you want on any of their services without ever logging in so that the searches will never be attached to your account. They still will never sell the data they collect when you are logged in.

These changes will still go into effect on March 1st. Feel free to read more about this at the Google Public Policy Blog.

Kindle Fire Sales Hitting A Possible 6 Million For This Quarter

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It looks like things are coming up roses for the Kindle Fire. According to All Things Digital, Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan has raised his estimate of 5 million sales this quarter to 6 million.

“Kindle Fire has staked out an important market position due to its loyal Amazon customer base and attractive (low) device pricing,” Rohan said in a note to clients. “We believe the lower hardware price will correlate with high e-book and video content attach rates.”

Since Amazon was taking the gamble of selling the device low, hoping to make the money back in eBook and other digital sales, these reports are great news for the business. Amazon knows that whatever loss they may incur from selling the Kindle Fire at such a low price, they can make up continually with digital sales. It’s hard to even quantify a gain that has no solid end-date. People will keep buying eBooks and movies for use on the Kindle Fire, long after they make money back from any possible loss from the initial device purchase.

Apple’s Success Divides Tablet Market

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Apple’s iPad number are out reflecting the increase in sales over the Christmas season as compared to the quarter before the holidays. Looking at just the sales of the iPad, Apple sold 15 million units up from the 11 million in the previous quarter. This is an excellent jump but Apple also saw the sales of 37 million iPhones and 140 million downloads…on Christmas day. In other words? An excellent quarter that went above and beyond what analysts predicted.

So what does this mean for the rest of the tablet market?

According to this Op-Ed it looks like the market may be dividing in half with iPad taking the majority of the “higher end” tablet sales and the Kindle Fire taking the majority in the “lower end” of the market.

The obvious conclusion, which many have predicted: The tablet market is splitting in two. The iPad continues to be the gold standard, backed by iOS and its 170,000 tablet-specific apps. But the Kindle Fire points users directly to Amazon’s popular content platforms, and many owners see its smaller size and focus on media as advantages — especially when you consider it’s $300 cheaper than the least-expensive iPad.

The real story will also be how these tablet sales reflect on associated sales for both companies. How does the sell of an iPad affect the sales of iTunes or Apps? How does the sale of the Kindle Fire affect the sales of eBooks and movies? Either way – it does seem to all point to a split market for the time being.

Privacy Changes At Google

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Google has decided to change privacy across all of their properties without giving users the ability to opt out of any of the changes. The idea is that by monitoring user actions across all Google properties (Google Search, Gmail, YouTube) and retaining that data as it associates with individual users, then Google will be able to create more user-specific ads on all platforms. For example, “If someone watches an NBA clip online and lives in Washington, the firm could advertise Washington Wizards tickets in that person’s Gmail account.”

Google also claims that the retention and analysis of this data will help the platforms deliver the proper information to the user. “When someone is searching for the word “jaguar,” Google would have a better idea of whether the person was interested in the animal or the car.”

This type of connection between web sites is what may concern many users. People who many not want the information in their emails to be connected to themselves as a user on properties such as YouTube.

“Google’s new privacy announcement is frustrating and a little frightening,” said Common Sense Media chief executive James Steyer. “Even if the company believes that tracking users across all platforms improves their services, consumers should still have the option to opt out — especially the kids and teens who are avid users of YouTube, Gmail and Google Search.”

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This is all supposed to go into effect on March 1st. We’ll see if any adjustments are made to the changes before then.

4 Billion Videos Play Daily On YouTube

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YouTube is now playing 4 billion videos per day to users, according to Reuters. Is this just part of the steady increase of users as can be expected on a popular platform, or could the recent redesign be playing a part in the recent growth of the service. There are 12 hours MORE uploaded every minute as compared the the numbers from May, 2011. That brings the current total to 60 hours of uploads a day. Considering the original programming they have on track down the line, these numbers could continue to increase exponentially in the months ahead. All of this growth increases revenue, especially with new ad formatting.

Last week, Google said that its business running graphical “display” ads – many of which are integrated alongside YouTube videos – was generating $5 billion in revenue on an annualized run rate basis.

Tablet/E-Reader Ownership Doubles

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Even though ownership of e-readers and tablets stayed stagnant during the latter part of 2011, the numbers jumped through and after Christmas. Of course, this also coincided with the lower prices of the Amazon Fire and Nook Tablet which gave those who couldn’t afford an iPad cheaper options.

The number of Americans owning at least one of these digital reading devices jumped from 18% in December to 29% in January.

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Even more specific, if you’re just looking at the table numbers we are now seeing 19% of adults owning tablets. As they become more affordable this number will surely rise as consumers opt to ditch the straight e-readers for the tablets.

A Wide Spectrum SOPA/PIPA Roundup

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There has obviously been a lot discussed on the internet today regarding the SOPA/PIPA legislation. One of the funniest things around today seems to be the animated GIF from the comic The Oatmeal. This is especially poignant as he has been dealing with piracy concerning his content for awhile now. Yet he still took the time to create an informative response to the legislation as a protest. And it’s quite funny as well.

Another unintentionally humorous response came from Mark Zuckerberg. Many find this humorous as he sustains his own criticism with how he runs Facebook in terms of security and privacy. But today he stands on the same side as a lot of his detractors with this statement:

The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can’t let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet’s development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet.

The world today needs political leaders who are pro-internet. We have been working with many of these folks for months on better alternatives to these current proposals. I encourage you to learn more about these issues and tell your congressmen that you want them to be pro-internet.
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While most of those detractors tend to take the stance that the writers of this legislation are just clueless, one writer at Mashable has adopted the opposing stance. That maybe the writers understand EXACTLY how content generation on the internet works and are looking to change it all intrinsically.

Yet the language in SOPA is so irrational that I can only assume that the authors and backers wanted nothing more than to fundamentally change the rules of the web: To shut down the open post fields, kill reposting (goodbye, Tumblr), end shared videos (sorry, YouTube), expand the definition of what it means to infringe (sorry, Twitter, no sharing links that aren’t yours).

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And finally, the main motivating group behind the legislation (MPAA) speaks out against…the protests.

A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals. It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.
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