Posts Tagged ‘social networking’
Written on August 31st, 2009 by ADMINno shouts
Mobile internet usage will grow 39 percent in Western Europe in 2014 from 13 percent in 2008, according to a new report by Forrester Research released today. That means that more than a third of consumers in Western Europe will access Internet from their mobile phones by 2014, great news for mobile advertisers.
At the end of this year, Forrester expects mobile Internet penetration to reach 17% in Western Europe — the same adoption rate for the PC Internet a decade ago, according to Forrester analyst Thomas Husson.
“Consumers who have a flat-rate data bundle spend more and more time on the Internet from their mobile phones, brands begin to launch their mobile Web presence to monetize these growing audiences and engage with their customers via more relevant mobile content and services, which in turn attracts more and more consumers to unlimited mobile Internet tariffs. The current economic climate will lengthen handset renewal cycles, foster the development of low-cost offerings, and boost the uptake of SIM-only contracts.
At the end of 2009, mobile Internet penetration will reach 17 percent in Western Europe, the same level of adoption that PCs with Internet access had in 1999, which Husson described as being a critical mass. “In the next decade, the mobile Internet will replicate the success story of the PC-based Internet as social networks, widgets, search engines or company websites adapt for mobile presentation,” Forrester reports.
Hussan writes that the “iPhone is just the tip of the iceberg” and that many other devices and services will enable the surge of mobile internet usage in Europe over the next five years. Source: Mobile Marking Watch
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Written on August 29th, 2009 by ADMINno shouts
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) announced today that they received almost 2,200 applications requesting nearly $28 billion in funding for proposed broadband projects reaching all 50 U.S. states.
This is the first round of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding aimed at expanding broadband access, with $4 billion available through loans, grants, and loan/grant combinations.
A preliminary analysis of applicant-reported data shows that NTIA and RUS received requests for grants and loans totaling nearly $28 billion. When including about $10.5 billion in matching funds committed by the applicants, there are over $38 billion in proposed broadband projects.
The applications break down as follows:
Infrastructure
- More than 260 applications were filed solely with NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), requesting over $5.4 billion in grants to fund broadband infrastructure projects in unserved and underserved areas.
- More than 400 applications were filed solely with RUS’s Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP), requesting nearly $5 billion in grants and loans for broadband infrastructure projects in rural areas.
- More than 830 applications were filed with both NTIA’s BTOP and RUS’s BIP, requesting nearly $12.8 billion in infrastructure funding. (Applicants for infrastructure projects in rural areas must apply to BIP but were given the opportunity to jointly apply to BTOP in case RUS declines to fund their application.)
Sustainable Broadband Adoption
- More than 320 applications were filed with NTIA requesting nearly $2.5 billion in grants from BTOP for projects that promote sustainable demand for broadband services, including projects to provide broadband education, awareness, training, access, equipment or support, particularly among vulnerable population groups where broadband technology has traditionally been underutilized. (The Recovery Act directs NTIA to make at least $250 million available for programs that encourage sustainable adoption of broadband services, of which up to $150 million is allocated in this first round of grants.)
Public Computer Centers
- More than 360 applications were filed with NTIA requesting more than $1.9 billion in grants from BTOP for public computer center projects, which will expand access to broadband service and enhance broadband capacity at public libraries, community colleges, and other institutions that provide the benefits of broadband to the general public or specific vulnerable populations. (The Recovery Act directs NTIA to make at least $200 million available for expanding public computer center capacity, of which up to $50 million is allocated in this first round of grants.)
In the coming weeks, NTIA and RUS will post online a searchable database containing summaries of all applications received. The dollar figures cited today represent applicants’ self-reported totals from proposals submitted before the August 20, 2009, deadline at 5 p.m. ET.
TowerStream says it is applying for $100 million to $120 million under the Broadband Technologies Initiative Program (BTOP). The money will be used to provide “for areas in and around major cities that don’t have adequate Internet access,” including Atlanta, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Phoenix and San Diego. The company has also applied for BTOP funds in its existing markets: Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco and Seattle, says Unstrung.
Source: Dailywireless
Written on August 29th, 2009 by ADMINno shouts
It’s that time of year when SXSW Interactive puts all the approved talk submissions up for public vote. We hope you’ll take a moment and vote for these mobile and device user experience sessions. Voting ends September 4th.
1 // “Convergence: Already Here, and Gosh It’s a Mess!“
Speaker: Gabriel White, Punchcut
Convergence is here and it’s a big mess. People are using services and media within hacked-together ecosystems; systems without neat connections or beautiful symmetries. Punchcut will share the user insights and design principles needed to create applications and services that integrate into emerging digital lifestyles and convergent ecosystems.
2 // “It’s Slow, Ugly and Not What I Designed: How to Ship Good Design”
Speakers: Patricia Slechta & Christian Robertson, Punchcut
Has your user experience ever been lost in translation? You see the mobile device in the marketplace and you hardly recognize it? Punchcut will share insights and explore organizational principles that bridge design and the go-to-market reality. We will discuss ways to prevent user experiences from being lost in translation.
3 // Crowd Sourcing The Planet: How Mobile Devices Become Sensor Arrays That Can Aggregate A World Of Content
Moderator: Henry Tirri, Nokia
Mobile phones are becoming mobile computers with multiple sensory inputs such as cameras, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, light sensors, NFC and etc. Users of these devices have an enthusiasm for sharing data and content, and as more contribute the possibility of aggregating content together into new forms has wild potential.
4 // “Innovation for Hire: Innovating in the Client Relationship“
Speaker: Jodi Burke, Punchcut
Being a consultancy (or a freelancer) means working with clients to develop innovative concepts, but how do you prevent them from being pared-down, watered-down or shelved? This process-oriented session will present battle-tested techniques on how to partner with clients in order to get innovation to market.
5 // Time + Social + Location. What’s Next In Mobile Experiences?
Moderator: Josh Babetski, MapQuest
As more devices become location aware, social uses will continue to evolve beyond just who and what, to WHEN. Adding the temporal dimension creates new opportunities for social interaction. Learn about ways to leverage and use technology to add features at the intersection of temporal, social, and location.
6 // Death of the Browser
Speaker: Daniel Jacobson, National Public Radio
With the tremendous growth of the iPhone and other mobile devices, are we about to witness the death of the traditional desktop web browser? If so, how fast will it happen? Or can the browser and mobile phone live in harmony in the years to come? This panel will explore the future of the mobile space and how it will impact the way we interact with the Internet.
7 // Mobile Technology: What’s New, What’s Out, What’s Next?
Speaker: Anup Murarka, Adobe
There’s lots of talk about creating engaging experiences for consumers on their mobile phones… but what’s the reality? Hear some of the industry’s top players as they hash out what’s hot with mobile technology, what needs to be changed, and what the future holds.
SXSW Interactive 2010 is held in Austin, Texas in March 2010. Source: Idlemode
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Written on August 19th, 2009 by ADMINno shouts
Long-range, low-cost wireless Internet could soon be delivered using “whitespaces” — radio spectrum once reserved for use by TV stations. This week at ACM SIGCOMM 2009, a communications conference held in Barcelona, Spain, a computer network that uses “white spaces” in a fashion somewhat similar to Wi-Fi was outlined.
Networking over UHF white spaces is fundamentally different from conventional Wi-Fi, explains Ranveer Chandra of Microsoft Research, a main contributor to the paper. Their WhiteFi approach is a Wi-Fi like system constructed on top of UHF white spaces. WhiteFi incorporates a new adaptive spectrum assignment algorithm to handle spectrum variation and fragmentation in unused television channesl, and proposes a low overhead protocol to handle temporal variation.
Most of the prior research in UHF white spaces has focused on accurately detecting the presence of incumbent RF signals, says Chandra in the paper (pdf). Researchers are now beginning to look at the problem of establishing a wireless link between white space devices. Their research pushes the state-of-art to the next level by going beyond a single link.
Matt Welsh, a Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University, and one of the authors of the paper (pdf), tells Dailywireless that the paper was presented at the conference by Rohan Murty at Harvard University, one of his Ph.D. students who contributed to the work along with Ranveer Chandra of Microsoft Research. The paper (pdf) is a joint effort between researchers at Microsoft Research and at Harvard.
WhiteFi focuses primarily on the problem of setting up a Wi-Fi like network, consisting of an Access Point (AP) with multiple associated clients. It uses a new spectrum assignment algorithm with a new mechanism that quickly discovers APs operating anywhere in the 180 MHz white space, using any arbitrary channel width. They also described a new technique for handling disconnections where clients signal to the AP without interfering with ongoing wireless microphone transmissions.
They estimate UHF spectrum fragmentation in 3 settings: urban, suburban and rural (population less than 6000). In all 3 settings there is at least one locale in which there is a fragment of 4 contiguous channels available, that is, 24 MHz of spectrum. In rural areas fragments of up to 16 channels are expected.
Microsoft researchers tested the new protocol, called White Fi, in the Redmond campus. It uses UHF white spaces and adaptively configures itself to operate in the most efficient part of the available white spaces. TV spectrum could provide good long-range connectivity in rural areas, and help fill in gaps in city networks.
The spectrum between 512 megahertz and 698 megahertz was originally allotted to analog TV channels from 21 to 51. It offers a longer range than conventional Wi-Fi, which operates at 2.4 gigahertz. “Imagine the potential if you could connect to your home [Internet] router from up to a mile,” says Ranveer Chandra, a member of the Networking Research Group at Microsoft Research behind the project.
The FCC ruled last November that companies could build devices that transmit over white spaces but also gave strict requirements that this should not interfere with existing broadcasts, both from TV stations and from other wireless devices that operate within the same spectrum. Chandra and his colleagues say their “White Fi,” protocol can successfully navigate the tricky regulatory and technical obstacles involved with using white spaces.
A second approach, which is being considered by the IEEE 802.22 working group, involves an explicit channel renegotiation protocol between clients and APs when they detect a wireless mic. This approach, however, assumes that control messages will not induce audible interference on the wireless mic.
The White Spaces Coalition consists of eight large technology companies that plan to deliver high speed broadband internet access in unused television frequencies between 54-698 MHz (TV Channels 2-51). The coalition expects speeds of 80 Mbps and above, and 400 to 800 Mbps for white space short-range networking. The group includes Microsoft, Google, Dell, HP, Intel, Philips, Earthlink, and Samsung Electro-Mechanics. The White Spaces Database Group maps out available spectrum.
On February 27 2009, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the Association for Maximum Service Television, Inc. (MSTV) asked a Federal court to shut down the FCC’s authorization of white space wireless devices. The plaintiffs allege that portable, unlicensed personal devices operating in the same band as TV broadcasts have been “proven” to cause interference despite FCC tests to the contrary.
In (somewhat) related news, researchers at Harvard University and BBN have developed CitySense, an urban scale sensor network testbed. CitySense will consist of 100 wireless sensors deployed across a city. Each node will consist of an embedded PC, 802.11a/b/g interface, and various sensors for monitoring weather conditions and air pollutants.
Harvard’s Sensor Networks Lab has also deployed three wireless sensor networks on active volcanoes.
Read Write Web reviews on Citysense and WikiCity, iPhone applications that integrate sensor networks with social networks. A recent W3C Workshop on the Future of Social Networking, held in Barcelona in January, reviews the trend of sensors mixing with social networks and offers some real-world applications.
Both Social Networks and Sensors information can be modeled using Semantic Web technologies, says the paper. They can be connected in an interoperable and straightforward way. The W3C’s Resource Description Framework (RDF), is an open Web standard that can be freely used by anyone.
By combining social networks and social activities to Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities, the Semantic Web can map existing applications in new and innovative ways.
Products involving Web-connected devices include flood gauges, air pollution monitors, stress gauges on bridges, and mobile heart monitors. CardioSign hopes to commercialize a wearable blood pressure sensor.
Sensor Web XML-based specifications were created in consideration of Semantic Web technology, which allows data from various sources to be used with a common semantics for the data.
Source: http://www.dailywireless.org/2009/08/18/microsofts-whitefi-wi-fi-using-whitespaces/
Written on August 19th, 2009 by ADMINno shouts
In terms of usage and popularity, contemporary social networks just don’t get any bigger than Facebook.
Already providing one of the most downloaded apps currently available, Facebook is preparing to launch yet another update to its iPhone app, which offers a host of new and improved features. They Include:
- Page updating
- Video uploading
- Revamped homepage
- Create and RSVP to events
- Post notes
- Edit and zoom into photos
- Calling or text friends from their page.
- Advanced news feed
Facebook for iPhone 3.0 was reportedly submitted to Apple for approval last week, so we may be seeing the updated app much sooner than later.
At present, the last incarnation of the Facebook for iPhone app has approximately 12 million monthly users. Source: Mobile Marketing Watch
Written on August 19th, 2009 by ADMINno shouts
Smartphone apps are getting more and more comprehensive everyday it seems, and with the advent of location-based services, mobile social networking and other genres, privacy is becoming increasingly important.
There’s been a recent surge of developers and consumers that have noticed what some apps are doing behind the scenes in terms of gathering user information- and it’s raising concerns for those who value their privacy. A programmer recently discovered, for example, that Pre’s smartphone OS was sending users’ GPS information back to Palm, even though the company’s privacy policy revealed as much.
In addition, ReadWriteWeb is reporting that mobile analytics company Pinch Media allows developers to insert code into applications in order to create a user profile. The information is designed to help developers, although some consider the technique invasive. If the user profile is used with good intentions to help the app in what ever it’s supposed to accomplish, then so be it, but when that user information is used for other purposes without the user’s consent, it creates a big problem.
The regulations associated with this sort of thing are very ambiguous- app developers submitting to Apple’s App store, for example, aren’t required to reveal what types of data they’re tracking. Also, when users consent to have their location revealed, app developers don’t necessarily have to disclose what additional data they’re tracking.
Until regulation is put in place, the only defense is to go over every single line of your TOS and privacy policy associated with any new app you think will collect sensitive user information- since almost nobody will do such a thing, we’re still at the mercy of the app developers. Source: Mobile Marketing Watch
Written on August 18th, 2009 by ADMINno shouts
Social music discovery service iLike has an interesting promotion in the works.
The iLike Challenge App for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch is obviously designed for music lovers and know-it-alls.
iLike worked with Sony Music Entertainment to create an interesting challenge to see just how fast fans can identify clips from a wide variety of music genres.
According to the official word, the $2.99 app will feature questions about Sony Music acts ranging from Britney Spears to Elvis.
The iLike Challenge App offers a two-player mode for friendly competition.
And in in case you’re wondering where the “business” aspect falls into play here, the app, of course, integrates with Apple’s iTunes Store so its easier than ever for you to buy music while playing. Source: Mobile Marketing Watch
Written on August 16th, 2009 by ADMINno shouts
Rumors continue to swirl around Apple and their alleged plan to introduce a new version of iTunes next month.
But the major reason iTune 9 has so many people talking is because it may feature some form of social networking platform.
As a result of such speculation, many bloggers and Apple enthusiasts are wondering if the company will actually push through an updated software package that will take the next generation iTunes into the realm of social media.
If the development actually manifests, how will it work?
For now, it is believed that the iTunes social networking platform will be an app (presumably for the iPhone as well as desktops) that will enable users to share personal information in real time about the music they are listening to. We may also see “musical status updates” so friends and followers can see what
you’ve downloaded, uploaded, or recently jammed to.
Will it work? Will it even happen?
It looks like we’ll find out soon one way or another.
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Written on August 16th, 2009 by ADMINno shouts
YouTube is launching a new mobile website optimized for smart phones.
Unlike other social, video and content sharing sites, YouTube has been criticized by some for not having a mobile site as advanced as other equally popular websites.
The obvious goal of the update is to enable mobile users to access their account, view favorite videos, and share new content quickly.
According to YouTube, the new version has been “specifically designed to access YouTube on smartphones with capable browsers; phones like the iPhone, G1 and Palm Pre.”
YouTube’s mobile page now loads as a much cleaner-looking home page. Popular and recommended videos are easy to access with all the features for our videos that we know and love in plain sight – a preview image, title, rating, length, and view count.
For more information on YouTube’s mobile upgrade, check out www.youtube.com/mobile. Source: Mobile Marketing Watch
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Written on August 16th, 2009 by ADMINno shouts
As both a newspaper veteran and digital marketing expert, I’ve long evangelized for the industry’s shift to digital distribution. It’s all about niche for all but the most global of publications–and what’s more niche than reaching individuals on their phone, with specialized or local news they can’t get anywhere else? German media company Axel Springer gets it.
According to a report today from Apple, Axel Springer is using the iPhone in its search of “better ways to distribute its massive daily deluge of information and entertainment.” The media company uses mobile in two ways that are relevant to the news biz: To distribute its keenly-sought, unique information to readers; and as a research tool for reporters and editors.
Mobile news content begins (and some fans may say ends) with the most sought-after information in Europe: Soccer scores. “Our BILD newspaper is very famous for its sports section,” says Hans-Christian Pahlig, Team Lead for the BILD Newspaper Production Systems at Axel Springer. “So we have with ‘Mein Klub’ (My Club) a mobile application that keeps readers up-to-date with the soccer schedule.”
To keep on top of the news (and of the competition), Axel Springer editors use the Apple handset to access an Internet-based application that aggregates relevant industry press clippings and news. “The editorial guys use iPhone to keep up to date,” says Pahlig. “They can stay in constant contact with the wire agencies and watch the newswire.”
Sure, this case study is iPhone-centric, but it’s a terrific example of how newspapers can migrate their content to mobile. It shows how to leverage the kind of up-to-date information–in this case, soccer scores–that rabid consumers will pay to have perpetual access to. As we’ve said many times, increasingly more consumers are accessing the Internet on cell phones, so it’s not enough just to throw content up on a website. It also has to be optimized for handsets–iPhone and everything else.
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