Surprise surprise, it’s not all cake and roses for the hippest music streaming site around right now.
Last month, European digital music site Spotify arrived in the U.S. and has already made a large splash among early adopters. If you haven’t heard of it yet, Spotify allows users access to more than 15 million songs for free. Their ability to do this is supported mainly by audio and banner advertisements although the main goal is to get users to trade up for paid subscriptions. There’s a $5 per month computer-only version sans advertisements or a $10 per month package that can be used on mobile devices. If you are just tinkering around with it, there are a ton of upsides to Spotify.
Up until recently, the only drawbacks of the service seemed to be figuring out the interface or the pesky audio advertisements. However, over the last seven days, Spotify has come under fire for several reasons including a patent-infringement lawsuit filed against them several days ago and more recent news that they were caught using an indestructible cookie for the sake of tracking their users. I won’t be pedestrian and say that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is, but it shouldn’t be shocking that Spotify has dirt on its shoes. It is a little surprising, however, that the dirt was discovered this early into its U.S. tenure.
Flip the Media is always looking for local tech disruptors to feature, so when a MCDM student approached us with a contact at RootMetrics, we couldn’t resist. RootMetrics is a Seattle based business that crowdsources data in order to offer a free, independent source of cellular carrier performance ratings. We threw a couple of our best questions at Julie Dey, the VP of Marketing for RootMetrics and found out it’s even better than we originally thought! If you’re in the market for a new network, we think you’ll agree, skipping the carrier’s marketing funnel and going straight to RootMetrics’ Carrier Coverage Map will save some big headaches.
Rise of the Mobile App Store and Mobile App Development
Earlier this year, Apple’s App Store reached its 10 billionth web application download goal. What is amazing is that they did this in about 30 months’ time. Apple’s first iPhone was released to the US market at the end of June in 2007. At the time, the smartphone was seen as a huge leap forward in innovation. Users were able to interact with this new device in ways that they never could using just a cell phone on a wireless carrier. This was more than a phone – this was the beginning of the mobile web.
When the iPhone was released, Apple announced that the iPhone would support third-party web applications written in Ajax (asynchronous Javascript and XML) so long as the apps maintained the look and feel of the iPhone interface. In March 2008, Apple released a software development kit to third-party developers and a slough of developers set out to create native applications for Apple mobile devices.
Apple’s App Store opened for business on July 11, 2008. The apps that were offered in the beginning were primarily Apple developed educational programs, mobile commerce and business productivity tools. There was no Angry Birds, Bejeweled, or my personal favorite, Flick Fishing. Games hadn’t really come along yet – they came along later and have proved to be “crazy popular” with users–dominating all app store categories over the last two years.
Last night, popular Seattle-based music group Blue Scholars threw a thank you party/secret show for a throng of their fans who financially supported the creation of the group’s new album, Cinemetropolis. Contrary to far more traditional avenues that many musicians use to fund their albums such as record labels or scraping together personal finances, Blue Scholars opted for the relatively new and increasingly popular digital fundraising tool Kickstarter do the job and it greatly exceeded their expectations.
Over the course of a 45 day campaign, Blue Scholars aimed to raise $25,000 and yet garnered over $62,000 in personal donations from 2,243 loyal fans who wanted to help their favorite group put out a new album. It’s worth noting that these are not casual supporters of the group and there is a level of super fandom involved in order for something like this to work. But under the right conditions, this could be the future of bands further connecting with their audiences and raising capital in the process. One of the women at last night’s thank you party, Anna Meyer, says she donated $100 despite being out of work and wishing that she could have donated more. “I’d never heard of Kickstarter until of [Blue Scholars] and it seems really cool,” Meyer said amidst dancing at the party. “If I could have given more, I would have.” Read more…
The second annual Integrated Marketing Communications Conference is taking place in Johannesburg, South Africa on June 6-7, 2011. Presenting the latest trends in global media and innovative marketing to industry leaders this conference is where South Africa’s leading communication voices are.
Over 200 people from various fields including public relations, digital media, marketing, advertising and communications are gathering in a Sandton hotel to figure out ways brands can develop an open ear to its consumers. The opening keynote speaker was Vice President of Africa for InMobi, Isis N’yongo the world’s largest mobile advertising network spoke about the rapid growth of mobile technology on the African continent. With 489 million mobile phone subscribers Africa is without a doubt a market segment that can no longer be ignored. “This continent has the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world. If you combine this with the fact that more Africans access the Internet from mobiles than any other platform, it means the market for mobile advertising is set for strong levels of growth.”
A Consumer Reports study from May 2011 shows that an estimated 7.5 million U.S. kids under 13 are on Facebook, and about 5 million of those are under the age of ten. Yet federal regulations concerning the collecting and sharing of personal information of minors puts the age cutoff for having an account on Facebook at 13.
What’s the big deal about letting young children onto Facebook? Isn’t it just natural for these digital natives to connect with their friends and share information and updates with each other online?
Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg thinks it’s a great idea to let kids into the online community. In an interview following the Consumer Report, Zuckerberg said to Fortune Magazine that it would be a great “educational experience” for kids to be on Facebook.
It is a jungle out there in mobile communications. The mobile application markets are particularly chaotic. How do you know which Sudoku app is right for you when there are literally thousands of Sudoku apps out there? Thousands on each mobile platform: iOS, Android, Windows Mobile 7. Thousands.
With every seemingly insurmountable online/mobile/content challenge that has emerged over the last two decades, smart entrepreneurs have recognized a corresponding opportunity. Google? Google emerged out of a need to sift through and evaluate the deluge of internet content developed during Web 1.0.
AppStoreHQ homepage
In mobile applications this is where market research, filtering technology and social networking come in. Instead of an anonymous algorithm, researchers are turning to your social networks for inspiration–finding out what works from people in your network that you trust. It seems like a natural and healthy progression. In an age when consumers are increasingly leery of advertising and have many channels to turn to in avoiding commercials, these consumers are also increasingly connected to each other.
This is the third article in a series exploring social network trends in online commerce and how some Seattle companies are navigating the landscape. Read more…
E-commerce in the (social) networked environment is different from e-commerce in the past. We are all familiar with being bombarded with commercial messages, through online video commercials, banner ads and pop up windows. We have learned to avoid, deflect and tune out most of these marketing strategies.
Increasingly, If we are looking for something, we will shop around, consult user reviews and ask friends for advice. More and more these conversations are happening online and marketers are angling to be a part of these discussions. This is the second article in a series exploring social network trends in online commerce and how some Northwest companies are navigating and even changing the new landscape.
The ancient method of people making recommendations to each other for products and services using word of mouth is suddenly the hottest advertising strategy on the Internet. Facebook and other social media networks are giant marketing tools. But so far, most consumers have lacked a way to buy products or services without leaving the site. For the founders of aptly named DIY Media in Seattle, this conundrum seemed like a great business opportunity.
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