Pebble — Sleek #Smartwatch Connects to Your #iPhone
1 month ago
It’s (virtually) official.
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Smartphone Usage Estimates to 2016
eMarketer estimates the number of US consumers with a smartphone will more than double from 93.1 million at the end of 2011 to 192.4 million by 2016, when 58.5% of the total US population will have a smartphone.
Coca-Cola Encounters Backlash After Failed Marketing Stunt
Because vomit on the sidewalk and topless bead hunters are way less offensive. Geesh, New Orleans.
Why Facebook Dropped $1 Billion for Instagram
By now you know Facebook just spent $1 billion to buy Instagram, the social photosharing app on the iPhone and recently added to Android.
If not, just Google it.
The pundits are buzzing about the news and speculating on the various ways it helps Facebook, a soon-to-be public company. But as far as I’m concerned, there’s only one reason Facebook wrote such a big check for what’s tantamount to a fancier Flickr …
They did it for the kids.
Facebook has an age requirement for membership set at 13 years old. While they don’t really verify age, it serves as an alert for parents and remains a solid filter for keeping out the youngest among us. Instragram, by contrast, has no such requirement. If you have an iPhone (or the popular-with-kids iPod Touch) or Android phone, you can share pics, no matter your age.
As a result, Instragram is huge with tweens and teens. As one mother points out in Business Insider, “… these kids are crazy about Instagram, it is a dominant form of communication for them. And, these kids (affluent, Chicago suburbanites) don’t have Facebook accounts yet and won’t for 4 or 5 years - if I were Facebook this would concern me. A whole bunch of kids running around who may decide they don’t need Facebook.”
Facebook was once the upstart - which wasn’t that long ago - and has a vested interested in stamping out “the next Facebook.” That’s what this acquisition did.
Look, I don’t doubt Instagram will bring some great tech and brainpower to Facebook, but that isn’t worth a billion bucks. This was much more about the threat than the opportunity.
This is all about mobile; it’s all about showing shareholders [that Facebook no longer has] a mobile weakness.
Ian Shafer, Deep Focus, on Facebook Buying Instagram
SMS is another communication channel that helps cut through the clutter with high open rates. In some cases, text messages have up to a 90 percent read-through rate compared to something such as email that might be 10 percent.
Matt McKenna, founder and president of Red Fish Media
If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect.
Ben Franklin
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