Another busy week and it’s almost the end of the month. How does that happen, anyway? I’m in Dallas, getting ready to speak at the DFW Rocks Social Media event and trying to figure out where time is going. Here are some of the things that our team found on the Interwebs this past week that we think you outta know about.
Industry
Tablet commerce expected to reach 293 billion by 2018 [Infographic]
With tablet sales expected to increase five fold by 2017, tablet based commerce is expected to reach $114 billion in 2014 and rise to $293 billion in 2018. Holy moly, that’s a lot!
Here are a few more tablet facts that you can ponder on as you consider how you need to adapt your marketing strategies:
- Tablets continue to eat into computer market share: PC sales dropped by 98% in 2013;
- 12% of all Americans access the Internet on a tablet; 72% use tablets in their living rooms; 63% use tablets in bed;
- By 2017, global tablet sales will reach 1 billion units;
- Tablet commerce is expected to reach $114 billion in 2014 and $293 billion in 2018.
It looks like tablets are set to dominate mobile. When it happens, will consumers be able to buy your product with a tap, tap, tap? If not, it’s pretty clear that you will see sales going down, down, down.
via Marketing Pilgrim
Forget what you’ve heard, the teens are still hanging out on Facebook
Forrester surveyed 4,500 kids between the ages of 12 to 17 and asked about their social media usage. YouTube and Facebook are the clear winners, with Instagram following closely behind.
Among sites not so popular with teens, Pinterest (no real surprise there). Tumblr also ranked surprisingly low, with Vine, Twitter and Snapchat all demonstrating a loyal, but small, teen fan base.
46% say they’re on Facebook more often than they were last year. That’s a big number. Tweens who are loyal on Facebook check in multiple times a day. What do they do? They chat with friends, update their status and play games. If you’re a marketer and what to reach the rest of the age group, then you might want to head over to YouTube.
Technology
via The Next Web
Everything Google announced at Google I/O 2014 in one handy list
Google conducted its annual developers’ conference this past week in San Francisco. Among the highlights: a preview of the new Android L mobile OS, featuring a new cross platform UI, new lock screen notifications and new context-based authentication features. We also got a look at Android Wear, the new SDK for the wearables market. Some of the first products to implement Android Wear include the LG G Watch, the Samsung Gear Live, and the Moto360 from Motorola.
Among other announcements included another stab at an integrated TV solution with Android TV and Android Auto, designed to create an integrated, safe solution for using connected devices while in the car.
Hot-Air Balloon to Take Tourists 20 Miles Above Earth
Tucson-based World View Enterprises said Tuesday that it successfully completed the first small-scale test flight of a high-altitude balloon and capsule being developed to let tourists to float 20 miles above Earth from Roswell, New Mexico.
Company CEO Jane Poynter said the system broke the world record for highest parafoil flight, lifting a payload to 120,000 feet. World View Enterprises is still planning to begin its $75,000 per-person flights in 2016, she said. The balloons will lift a capsule carrying six passengers and two crew members 20 miles up, where they will float under a parafoil for about two hours before floating back down to earth. The capsule will be big enough for the passengers to walk around.
The selling point, according to the company, is the view of the Earth and seeing its curve. Other space-tourism ventures under development will rocket passengers the full 62 miles into space, but on much shorter flights. Is this the kind of thing you’re into? It’s not really my thing, but I can see why people with more money than they know what to do with would think this was pretty awesome.
Social Media
Facebook improves video ranking when you upload content directly to the site
Going forward, people who watch a lot of videos on Facebook will see more videos at the top of their feed. People who skip videos without watching them, will see fewer videos. Imagine that, an intuitive interface, giving you what you show it you like. This is surely the beginning of more of this behavior-based kind of functionality.
Facebook says that early tests of this functionality have resulted in more people watching more videos. As an added bonus, businesses who upload videos directly to their Facebook Pages will have access to detailed video metrics. Hmmm. Facebook, trying to be like YouTube. No matter, this is an interesting move on the part of the social network, and probably yet another thing that will allow it to compete against The Goog. This is actually a pretty sweet suite of tools. You’ll not only see how many people watched your video, but you can see how many people watched it all the way to the end, as well as spots where they played the video over and over. Great data, if you’re paying attention.
Apps
via Venture Beat
As if Yo is not enough, get ready for Yo for Business
For those of you who were hoping the successor to the Yo app would be a reverse psychology pinger called Oy, you’ve got a surprise coming.
The creator of this minimalist appiness, Or Arbel, told The Wall Street Journal on Monday that his company is thinking about a business version of Yo and in all honesty, adding 950,000 registered users in four days can certainly compel one to rapidly consider the follow up. Also, read on for the announcement of another successor to Yo, conceived by Dilbert creator Scott Adams.
Ross Rubin, the principal Yo analyst at Reticle Research, reminded VentureBeat that the verbose-by-comparison Twitter was, in 2009, presciently compared by the Daily Show to a competing, fictional Grunter app. In hindsight, Grunter can now be seen as Yo minus the attitude. And Twitter? While you might have laughed at Twitter in the early days, it has certainly shown some value – for both personal and business uses.
“The lesson of Twitter,” Rubin said, is understanding “the value that could be brought to such a constrained medium,” with forced creativity and embedded media.
One could be forgiven for thinking that the company whose business model is two letters long might target its business-focused incarnation at, say, those businesses where “yo” is a common form of address. Bike messengers, rappers, and college campuses come to mind. I downloaded the doggone thing. I “Yo” people from time to time – and I also get my share of “Yos” back. But I’m gonna go out there on a limb and say that I don’t see much value there. Not by a long shot. And I’m a pretty open-minded gal when it comes to these kinds of things.
Miscellaneous
Verizon’s brilliant ad to get more women into tech
It’s no newsflash that this mother of four daughters is a all big fan of empowered women and how important it is to support and encourage them when they’re in their formative years. In fact, my entire team is female and we’re all pretty passionate about empowering girls, especially when it comes to STEM learning. What we love about the Verizon ad is that It centers on one alarming statistic: 66 percent of fourth-grade girls say they like science and math. My eight-year-old twins (third graders) say math is their favorite subject. Yet a mere 18 percent of college engineering majors are female.
That needs to change. Love what Verizon is doing here. What do you think?
Here’s a person who changed the world forever, and who literally gave us the Information Age — well before Al Gore invented the Internet. Sadly, we’ve never even heard of him. If you live and work in the digital space, take six minutes to watch this video – you’ll be ever glad you did.
The Man Who Turned Paper Into Pixels from Delve on Vimeo.
Elderly Couple Poses for Photos After Crash
I saw this photo online and thought it was so darling. This adorable couple flipped their car, then posed for a selfie. OMG – the selfie revolution has completely overtaken our society, hasn’t it????? You need to watch this to believe it.
Things You Need To Know This Week – June 27, 2014 is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency
