Scan, Browse, Shop

Black Friday was a prelude to the Christmas shopping season, and by all accounts this holiday season is going to be a watershed coming-out-party for mobile shopping…
“GSI Commerce, a division of eBay that hosts commerce-related websites for several large retailers says that it saw a 345 percent increase in US mobile sales compared to last year’s Black Friday… In addition, PayPal saw a year-over-year 350 percent increase in the number of customers shopping through PayPal mobile.”
via GigaOm

ESPN’s 4-Screen Attack Pushes Women’s World Cup Into Mainstream

There are many ingredients mixing together for this year’s Women’s World Cup that have helped make it a winning recipe with fans. Exciting games, an American protagonist, and some wonderful built-in marketing appeal…

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The Women’s World Cup has provided an ideal team-first antithesis while the perils of modern money-ball sport grips the NFL and NBA as they fight over billions and lock out their players. 

The numbers don’t lie. The Women’s World Cup semifinal match between U.S.A and France was watched by an average of 3.35 million people (U.S. Nielsen) which made it the most-viewed weekday Women’s World Cup match in U.S. history. Hope Solo’s twitter account has ballooned from 10,000 followers to now 130,000+ since the tournament kicked off in June and it is doubtful the majority of Hope’s new followers are women, further stoking the growing cross-gender appeal of the tournament.

ESPN’s ‘best screen available’ broadcast strategy has also had a heavy hand in the success and growing popularity of this tournament. ESPN has made live-streaming available on most tablets, computers, mobile phones and by all accounts consumers are engaging deeply on all screens. USA’s semifinal match generated almost 500,000 unique video streams most of whom were engaged for the full 2 hours. Watch Tim Connolly, VP Digital Distribution for Disney/ESPN talk about the importance of streaming Women’s World Cup games on the iPad and other mobile devices.

The ESPN Equation: Live Sports + iPad = Killer App for “TV Everywhere”

The future of reality is augmented

Augmented reality is still very much in its infancy, but it is an undeniable rising star technology application with a big future for both marketing and entertainment. I’ve been following the AR scene for a few years now and things are really heating up in this space as marketers increasingly look for ways to engage and interact with consumers in the physical world.

Untethered, the next frontier

“Mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access devices worldwide by 2013… Gartner estimates the combined installed base of smartphones and browser-equipped enhanced phones will surpass 1.82 billion units by 2013, eclipsing the total of 1.78 billion PCs by then.”

via MediaPost.

It’s all phone and games until someone…

With oil prices tickling new highs almost daily, food prices on the rise and housing values on the decline – what do we consumers do? We buy new phones and/or get some new video games.

Apple sold 1 million iPhone 3Gs in its first three days of availability. (to compare) Apple sold 1 million 1st-generation iPhones in 74 days….U.S. sales of video game hardware and software rose 53 percent in June from a year ago …“These numbers are mind bogglingly large,” said Michael Pachter, a Wedbush Morgan analyst.

iWant the iPhone Pro!

845655-media_httpwwwjamescogancomimagesiphoneprojpg_IbkyymDzaIpxmjJMy primary reason for not owning an iPhone has to do with the fact that I really enjoy my Nokia N95 which I’ve used for about 18 months now. The N95 doesn’t have the sexy touch-screen interface that the iPhone has, but in many ways, and I’d argue in the ways that matter most, the N95 is still a better phone than the current iPhone 3G.

When I took the plunge a year and a half ago and bought an unlocked N95 from Finland, I did it with the hopes that it would replace my video camera, my still camera and my phone, and put it all in a light-weight, pocket-sized package. I have two young kids that are growing up too fast, and the ability to capture DVD-quality video and 5-megapixel photos on-the-go was paramount in my decision to buy the N95. The N95 did not disappoint. It’s an excellent all-in-one multimedia device. But it’s no iPhone.

The one achilles heel of the current iPhone are its poor optics. The 3G camera is the same 2-megapixel version that shipped with the original iPhone, and it still does not record video. I’m sure some 3rd-party developer will release an App to get it to record video at some point, but at 2-megapixel quality, it won’t be that usable.

So that leads me to the ‘iPhone Pro’. When is it coming, Steve? Oh, you know its coming. Let’s not forget that Apple is steeped in movie making software. This is a company that pioneered the .MOV QuickTime video codec. This is a company that produces Hollywood studio-quality editing software in Final Cut Pro, and has further leveraged their editing prowess to create iMovie for Joe Consumer. Don’t you think we’re going to see iMovie Mobile on the iPhone?

Sooner or later, Steve Jobs is going to walk on stage at the Moscone Center and he’s going to unveil the iPhone of all iPhones. An iPhone that isn’t just going to continue to revolutionize the cellular handset industry, but an iPhone that makes every digital still and video camera manufacturer quiver with fear. Everything from 8+ megapixels, 30-frame-per-second video, zoom, autofocus, image stabilizer etc., and combine all of this with the ability to edit and compose your photos and videos with Apps like Aperture Mobile and iMovie Mobile. Steve Jobs may even bring Steven Spielberg on stage to help demo it and suggest that we are eventually going to witness full-length feature films edited and shot entirely on an iPhone. Heck, we can’t even be that far off from an iPhone HD.

So when is the iPhone Pro coming? I have no idea, but when it does, you can be sure I’ll be buying my first iPhone.

Dumb pipes, smart pipes

As mobile devices like the iPhone gain in prominence and usage, one has to wonder if the telecom company’s worst nightmare is indeed coming to fruition. Will flat-rate data plans and sexy mobile computing interfaces turn telecom carriers into a bunch of dumb data pipes? While I can understand on a very ‘old skool’ business level the fear of losing grip over their customers mobile user experience – was this not inevitable? Which is precisely why the iPhone is seen as both a boon and a boondoggle for cellular carriers.

On the one hand it’s a boon because better devices will lure new customers and speed adoption of mobile data consumption. On the other, it is a boondoggle because without the constraints of a limited/controlled experience the customer no longer needs to be shackled to the paltry content offerings and archaic tools the carriers want to force-feed to their customers handsets.

Q: What does this ultimately mean for telecom companies?
A: Extend your brand – acquire content companies / destination brands.

Scott McNealy, former Sun CEO (now Chairman) appears to agree.

Telecommunication companies need to go beyond just providing bandwidth and look into acquiring Internet destination sites … I think the telcos have to make sure they don’t get marginalized to being just bit providers and bandwidth providers … There will be some very interesting challenges of who owns the subscriber and who owns the financial and advertising rights to those individuals. … Stay tuned, the landscape’s going to change enormously..

via network world

Steve Jobs’ Historical Day

845603-media_httpwwwjamescogancomimagesstevejobsjpg_HFIusyqkDcCrlHEOh to be Steve Jobs. Whether you love him, hate him or ignore him (pretty hard to do these days) you will be hard-pressed to find a day that compares to the one Steve Jobs will experience today in business.

Wayne Gretzky said the best and most memorable game he played was in the 1987 Canada Cup, when Canada beat the Soviet Union in Game 2 and Gretz had 5 assists in that game. I’m guessing, when/if Steve Jobs retires, June 29th, 2007 is likely to be his best, most memorable day in business.

Yes, today is the launch of the much-anticipated Apple iPhone, and by all accounts we are likely to witness the most successful product launch in Apple’s history. That alone would make June 29th a pretty special day in Steve’s books. But the iPhone is not the only launch for Steve Jobs today. Steve’s ‘other gig’, as the largest shareholder in Disney/Pixar, is also launching their big summer animation blockbuster ‘Ratatouille‘ today.

Just pause for a moment and think about this. A major Hollywood blockbuster – likely to do $100 million in opening weekend business, combined with a surefire successful electronics product launch that will catapult Apple into a massive market and likely to yield millions, and eventually billions in annual sales and perhaps change communications forever – both launches for companies he founded.

June 29th, 2007 – truly Steve Jobs’ Day.