Case Study #3

Magazine Subscriptions Through the Apple app store

The Ipad has revolutionized the world of print media. Magazines and newspapers have started to make their publications available in a digital format in order to adapt to the current technological trends. Until very recently digital versions of magazines/newspapers were only available through the publishers website. Now, publishers have the chance to offer digital versions of their publications through the apple app store. This allows Ipad users to pay for magazine subscriptions in the same place that they buy all of the other apps for their Ipad.

Integrating magazine subscriptions into the apple app store has both advantages and disadvantages for the publisher.  According to the apple press release “Publishers set the price and length of subscription (weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly or yearly). Then with one-click, customers pick the length of subscription and are automatically charged based on their chosen length of commitment (weekly, monthly, etc.)” While selling subscriptions through the app store provides publishers with a certain degree of flexibility there are some drawbacks to partnering with the apple app store as well. Apple stated in the press release “when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing.”  Partnering with apple also means that subscribers have the opportunity to opt out of providing publishers with their name, e-mail address and zip code when they subscribe. This makes it hard for magazines to analyze their core demographic, which is information publishers need in order to attract advertisers.  While there are definitely some disadvantages to partnering with apple, according to the article “Popular Science Finds Success With Apple’s App Store Subscriptions” the magazine Popular Science sold its 10,00^th digital subscription as a result of making the magazine available through the apple app store.

The target audience for this marketing strategy is individuals who enjoy reading print publications, but are also technologically savvy and want to be able to read their favorite print publication in a more accessible digital format. The target market consists of people who live an active lifestyle and are constantly on the go and want to be able to have an easy and convenient way to read their e-mail, check their facebook page/twitter account, and also quickly read a magazine/newspaper.  This target audience also chooses to purchase a digital magazine subscription because they want a more personal and interactive experience with their favorite publications.  For example, the Elle magazine app that is available through the apple app store allows subscribers to upload their image to the app and then “try on” outfits that are featured in the magazine. The subscribers can also take their favorite looks from the magazine and create a style collage.  These unique and interactive features provide digital magazine subscribers with an experience that they cannot get from just reading a print version of  the magazine/newspaper and therefore, they are getting more value for their money.

Partnering with the apple app store is a very effective marketing technique for publishers. Ipad users are very familiar with the apple app store and they are more likely to purchase a digital subscription for a magazine if they are able to view the app and pay for the app in the same place that they buy all of their other apps. Ipad users feel that the app store gives them a sense of control and privacy, which means that consumers are more comfortable with purchasing a digital magazine subscription from the apple app store than from another less reputable website. From reading consumer reviews it is clear that having the option of purchasing a monthly or yearly magazine/newspaper subscription is very important to consumers.  Therefore, while some publishers may be unhappy about some of the apple app store subscription terms, ultimately, partnering with the apple app store is the only way for publishers to create a strong digital readership for their magazines/newspapers, which allows the publishers to continue to keep their advertisers happy, which then means that the publication is able to stay in business.

Sources:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/02/15appstore.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/03/popular-science-finds-success-with-apples-app-store-subscriptions/73296/

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/elle-us/id394838174?mt=8

Mobile phone market

This is an interesting article from USA Today about the droid and its expected growth in the smart phone market.

Apr 07, 2011

Study: Android will rule

 half of smartphone 

market by next year

By Stan Schroeder, Mashable

CAPTION

By Justin Sullivan, Getty Images

Following a similar recent prediction by IDC, market research firm Gartner has predicted big growth in the smartphone market in the next couple of years, with Symbian all but disappearing and Android leading the way.

This is where we get skeptical about predictions such as this one. Yes, based on Android's track record it's fairly safe to say that it will grow significantly in the next year or two, but we'd stop shy of saying that it will actually lose some of its projected market share three years later.

Symbian, now more or less abandoned by everyone, will lose a tremendous amount of market share in the next two years, ending with a meager 0.1% in 2015, Gartner predicts. Windows Phone 7, largely due to Microsoft's partnership with Nokia, is predicted to grow to 10.8% market share in 2012 and should further increase to 19.5% in 2015.

Apple's iOS is predicted to have a 17.2% market share in 2015, followed by BlackBerry with 11.1% and other platforms are predicted to have 3.3% market share.

Again — just like in IDC's prediction — this positions Windows Phone 7 as the number two platform on the smartphone market, and again, we think that this is a very bold prediction. A lot can go wrong with Microsoft and Nokia's partnership in the next couple of years, and Apple has been doing almost everything right when it comes to the iPhone and other iOS devices.

Job Opportunities in Social Media

Here is an interesting article from the LA Times about career opportunities working for social media companies:

High-tech industry on hiring binge

in California; Google, Facebook and Zynga

lead the pack

(3)

(13)

(66)

March 25, 2011 |  4:15 pm

It's the Silicon Valley hiring boom being felt all over California.

California added nearly 100,000 new jobs in February, and the state's unemployment rate dropped by two-tenths of a percentage point, to 12.2% from 12.4% in January, in part led by a hiring surge in high tech, the California Economic Development Department reported Friday.

Top technology companies are competing fiercely for engineers, designers, computer scientists, data crunchers and other workers with specialized technical skills. But the hiring frenzy has also begun to reach workers with other kinds of skills.

Take Josh Persky, 28, who was working for Fox Sports Radio in Los Angeles when he was laid off on his 26^th birthday. He subsisted on unemployment benefits, then odd jobs, for two years before landing a job in January as an office manager with Causes, a San Francisco start-up that helps people donate money to their favorite charities on Facebook and the Web.

Switching cities and industries changed his life, Persky said. "Every company in the technology industry is growing. Causes employs 24 people and plans to be over 35 people by the end of the year. Every engineer has three offers on the table," he said. "Working in technology is the kind of job you think you are going to have when you are 14 and you have never had a job before."

Silicon Valley is looking like an economic Shangri-La as companies here hire aggressively and court prospective recruits with free food, lots of perks and loads of cash. Competition for talent is especially fierce among Internet and social media companies.

Internet search giant Google gave all of its 24,000 employees a 10% raise this year. And it announced in January that 2011 would be its biggest hiring year ever. Google does not disclose specific hiring numbers, but its previous biggest hiring year was 2007, when it added nearly 6,200 people around the globe.

After Google announced the plans to increase its workforce 25% to more than 30,000, it received a flood of job applications, including more than 75,000 in one week. Google would only say that "a significant percentage" of its employees work in California, but a person familiar with the breakdown said more than a third of Google employees work in the state. YouTube, Google's video-sharing website, also said it would increase hiring more than 30%.

Google faces particularly stiff competition from Silicon Valley rivals such as Facebook, which is also sparing no effort or expense in recruiting engineers and other workers.

"Facebook will be hiring throughout 2011 for all parts of the company," a spokesman said in an email. 

Facebook has more than 2,000 employees, 1,400 of whom are in Palo Alto, and it's growing at a rate of about 50% a year. Last year it opened an engineering office in Seattle and a sales and operations office in Austin, Texas. This summer it's moving from Palo Alto to a 57-acre Menlo Park, Calif., campus that has already been permitted for 3,600 employees, the target growth for Facebook in 2011, a person familiar with the company's hiring plans said.

Popular social gaming company Zynga, which has more than 1,500 employees, expects to double that number in the next year. The San Francisco company is on a hiring streak: Zynga has hired 224 people in California so far this year, and it hired 563 last year.

San Francisco's Twitter, which is valued by investors at billions of dollars, has more than 400 employees and plans to grow to 3,000 employees by July 2013. A year ago, it had just 140 employees.

Bindu Reddy, chief executive of social media advertising start-up MyLikes, hails from Google and has a vast network of contacts in Silicon Valley. Still, she spends more than 70% of her time trying to recruit engineers. Reddy hired nine people for the 12-person team at MyLikes in the last five months, a process she called "intensely crazy." Going up against teams of recruiters at Facebook, Twitter, Google and Zynga, as well as start-ups loaded with cash, she has had to offer 15% over other offers to land recruits.

MyLikes opened a small office in Los Angeles to hire engineers because competition isn't quite as intense in L.A. as it is in Silicon Valley. Reddy landed a couple of former colleagues from Google, which  is expanding its own footprint by leasing more than 100,000 square feet of office space in three buildings in Venice.

Dice.com said it continues to see strong gains in the number of technology job postings in Silicon Valley. There were more than 5,000 open positions on Dice.com starting in March, up 41% year over year. 

In addition to long hunts to fill key positions and sharply increasing salaries, Silicon Valley companies are wrestling with retention as competitors make lucrative offers to try to pick off their key employees. In January, Google successfully beat back an effort by Twitter to hire one of its product development vice presidents, Sundar Pichai. Google also recently gave a top engineer a $5-million bonus package to keep him from defecting.

Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/03/high-tech-industry-on-hiring-binge-in-california-google-facebook-and-zynga-lead-the-pack.html

Cool Burton Snowboard app

I found this interesting article on usatoday.com

Mar 10, 2011

Nokia's smartphone app calculates 

snowboarders' rush

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By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY

                                            Nokia and Burton snowboards 

                                            have teamed up to deliver a prototype smartphone  

                                            app that requires intense physicality to activate.

Professional and amateur snowboarders this week are testing the technology, dubbed Push Snowboarding, at the 29th Burton US Opensnowboard contest at Stratton Mountain, Vermont.

An array of digital sensors feed data into Nokia's app, which calculates downward force, heart rate and galvanic skin response, along with the speed and orientation of the snowboard in real time. The output gets displayed on a Nokia Symbian smartphone. Here's a video showing the technology in action:

"This gives you some insight into what the rider is emotionally going through," says Stuart Wells, who's managing this project for Nokia. "It gives you an insight into the mind of the rider."

In other words, this app is designed to measure the "rush" a snowboarder experiences while of pulling off a big maneuver. The data being crunched comes from:

• A standard heart rate monitor stuck to the rider's chest.
• A galvanic skin response, or GSR, wrist band measuring skin moisture.
• Pressure pad on insoles of rider's boots that indicate release of weight, or air time.
• A matchbox- sized sensor on the snowboard that measure the board's orientation in space, or rotations.
• A GPS unit on the handset programmed to calculate speed.

In earlier tests at the European Open, Nokia and Burton were able to document that amateur snowboarders tend to experience elevated emotions approaching and during a manuever, says Wells. By contrast, old-school pros like Terje Haakonsen remain relatively calm on approach and during execution, only registering a rush after they land a big move.

Similar research is under way at London's Imperial College: a digital sensor that fits behind an athlete's ear gathers data about posture, step frequency, acceleration and response to shock waves travelling through the body. A miniature processor fitted inside an earpiece collects this data and wirelessly transmits it to a laptop so that the performance of an athlete can be monitored in real time.

Case Study #2

Viacom vs. YouTube

For this case study I chose to focus on the Viacom vs. YouTube court case. This case exemplifies many of the ethical & legal issues we discussed in class. Viacom filed a $1 billion dollar lawsuit against YouTube in march 2007. Viacom claimed that YouTube was intentionally hosting and profiting from pirated material. According to Viacom, YouTube has a responsibility to take down all pirated material. YouTube, which is owned by google claimed that the content on the website is protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

During the court case, which took place in June 2010, both sides presented very damaging evidence. Viacom showed e-mails, which demonstrated that YouTube and google executives had knowledge of pirated videos being on the website and did not intend to take any action to remove the videos until they received cease and desist requests.  Viacom tried to prove that YouTube should not be protected under the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act because YouTube was intentionally hosting illegal content in order to make as much money as possible from the website. Google claimed that Viacom had hired numerous marketing firms to upload videos of shows from Viacom owned television networks as a marketing effort. According to google, Viacom would have marketing firms distort the quality of the television clips in order to give the impression that the television clips had been recorded by viewers. This was a way to prevent the television clips from being traced back to Viacom.

While both sides presented strong evidence, ultimately the district court ruled in favor of Google’s request for summary judgment. U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton, who delivered the decision stated that when YouTube was given notices about copyrighted material it removed the content from the site and therefore, “it is thus protected from liability’ under a provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.” Judge Stanton further supported the court decision by stating “it was against the DMCA’s purpose to hold YouTube legally liable for every video uploaded on the website – some 20 hours of video every minute – even if they might have had a general idea that the site was being used to violate copyright laws.” In December 2010 Viacom filed an appeal in a federal appeals court in New York.   According to the article, “Viacom replays copyright claims in YouTube appeal” the appeal will not happen until at least next summer.

This is an incredibly important court case, which will have a drastic impact on the future of modern technology. The district court decision protected distributors, such as YouTube from being guilty of copyright infringement unless the distributor was intentionally  hosting copyrighted material. According to the article “What the Viacom vs. YouTube Verdict Means for Copyright Law” the Viacom vs. YouTube decision “put the onus on content producers – not distributors like YouTube – to police the Internet and seek out when their copyright material is being illegally uploaded.” If Viacom wins the appeals court case Internet based content will experience a drastic change. The countless number of video sharing websites will never be same. The public will not have access to the content that everyone has become accustomed to viewing for free. I understand that companies such as Viacom need to make a profit and that the internet has greatly impacted its profit margin, but if Viacom is willing to work out a licensing agreement with Youtube both companies would benefit and both companies would be able to serve the needs of the  general public to the best of their ability. 

Sources:

Arcamona, Rob. "What the Viacom vs. YouTube Verdict Means for Copyright Law."  Media Shift: Your Guide to the Digital Revolution. PBS.org, 2 July 2010. Web. 2 Mar. 2011. <http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/07/what-the-viacom-vs-youtube-verdict-means-for-copyright-law183.html

Lieberman, David. "The juicy details behind the Viacom-YouTube lawsuit." USA Today 19 Mar. 2010

Pham, Alex, and Meg James. "Judge rules against Viacom in copyright suit against  YouTube." Los Angeles Times 23 June 2010

"Viacom replays copyright claims in YouTube appeal." New York Post 3 Dec. 2010

google starts incorporating social network websites

here is another interesting article from the new york times:

FEBRUARY 17, 2011, 12:40 PM

Google Search Results Get More Social

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

Google is taking its biggest step yet toward making search results more social.

Though Google remains many people’s front door to the Web, people have increasingly been turning to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to search for shopping tips, what to read or travel information from people they know. Google said Thursday that its search results would now incorporate much more of that information.

“Relevance isn’t just about pages — it’s also about relationships,” Mike Cassidy, a Google product management director, and Matthew Kulick, a product manager, wrote in a company blog post announcing the new features.

Google has had a version of social search since 2009. People could link their Google profiles to LinkedIn and Twitter, for instance, and posts their friends had created would show up at the bottom of search results. But only a small percentage of people did this, and the chances that one of your LinkedIn contacts has written a blog post on a city you’re planning to visit is relatively slim.

Now, links to posts from friends across the Web, including on Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, will be incorporated into search results, not hidden at the bottom of the page, with a note and a picture telling you the post is from your friend. So if you are thinking about traveling to a beach in Mexico that a friend has visited, a link to her blog could be a top result.

Google will also let you know if a friend of yours has shared a particular link on the Web. This is a big change, because before, Google would only highlight material that acquaintances actually created.

You might be more likely to read an essay on a topic related to your job if a professional contact on Twitter shared it, for instance. That is a point that many Web publishers, including The Huffington Post and Forbes.com, have taken to heart.

Finally, Google users will be able to privately link their social networking accounts to their Google profiles. Before, those connections were made public, which might have discouraged some users. People will see social results only if they are logged in to their Google accounts and have connected their social networking accounts.

Notably, there is no mention of Facebook in Google’s announcement, through the company blog post says social results will appear only “if someone you’re connected to has publicly shared a link.” Facebook posts are generally private, and Facebook has made it difficult for Google to import social information, as several Google executives have complained in the past.

Amazon the new netflix?

here is an interesting article I found in the New York Times:

FEBRUARY 22, 2011, 5:40 PM

Amazon Couples Movie Streaming With Shipping

By MATT RICHTEL

Movie-watching has gotten so confusing. My wife says, “Let’s watch a movie,” and I say, “Sure, satellite, Netflix, Xbox Live, Sony’s PlayStation Network or how ’bout the old-fashioned DVD, or the Blu-ray player?”

And she gives me an exasperated look that says: “I had any number of suitors. Pick a medium and let’s watch.”

Yet the options keep growing. Today, Amazon.com joined the increasingly aggressive suite of contenders for our attention by ramping up its own movie offerings. Members of the company’s Prime Service ($79 a year for unlimited two-day shipping) can now tap into a library of 5,000 movies they can stream for free.

The movies come from 16 studios and include a few recent notable titles, like “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” and a few old big-name titles, like “Amadeus” and “Chariots of Fire,” as well as shows like Ken Burns’s “National Parks,” for when you have no other way to kill 400 hours.

Movies as a complement to free shipping? Sounds odd, right? Like the Postal Service tossing in a Jay-Z single or a bucket of popcorn with the stamps. So what gives with this unusual coupling? And what does it say about the intensifying competition for our attention?

To the first question, Amazon can hope to achieve two aims by offering free movie downloads to its Prime members. One is that it sweetens a service that creates loyalty for Amazon as a retailer. After all, if you’ve already paid it for shipping, you’re more inclined to visit it to buy the toaster or book or loafers.

Second, Amazon is trying to create attention for its movie download business, which sells downloads on a per-title basis ($3.99 for a new release), and which in general hasn’t gotten near the recognition of competitors like Netflix. (Netflix’s cheapest service is $96 a year.) By offering free movies to Prime shipping customers, it begins to associate itself as an entertainment portal in the minds of people already using it regularly.

Apple changes business model for apps

February 15, 2011, 10:24 AM

Apple Offers Subscriptions for Apps

By JEREMY W. PETERS and MIGUEL HELFT

8:31 p.m. | Updated Apple on Tuesday cleared the way for media companies to begin selling subscriptions to their magazine, newspaper, music and video content on the iPad and its other devices.

But Apple is exacting a steep toll: 30 percent of the cost of the subscription and ownership of subscriber data like names and e-mail addresses if the purchase is made through its App Store. The arrangement left many in the media business cool, and few ran to embrace it.

Much of the unease with Apple’s model for selling iPad applications has been in the publishing world, as magazine companies have pushed for the option to offer both subscriptions and single issues, and to gain access to information about who is buying their content.

Apple’s announcement appeared to do little to assuage those concerns at the nation’s three largest magazine publishers. All three — Time Inc., Hearst Magazines and Condé Nast — declined to say on Tuesday whether they planned to sell subscriptions under Apple’s new terms.

“This is an important step, but it really needs to go further,” said Nina Link, chief executive of the Association of Magazine Media. “There’s probably some sense of frustration because publishers would like it to be more flexible. I think everybody realizes it’s early in the game and there will be other tablets that may have friendlier business terms and that this may evolve.”

The new sales process could have implications beyond publishing, forcing companies like Amazon, Netflix and Rhapsody, the music subscription service, to share income with Apple for the first time. Under the new guidelines, they would be subject to the same 30 percent fee if the subscription — or in the case of Kindle books, a single title — is bought through the App Store, as many consumers are expected to do because they would not have to navigate to another Web site. Only if consumers buy subscriptions outside the App Store — for example, through the Web site of a magazine or Netflix.com — would the companies keep 100 percent of the sale price.

Amazon and Netflix declined to comment. In a sharply worded statement, Rhapsody called Apple’s conditions “economically untenable.”

In an interview, Jon Irwin, president of Rhapsody, said, “I would have no choice but to pull the app out of the App Store.” In the statement, Rhapsody said it would work with its “market peers in determining an appropriate legal and business response to this latest development.” Mr. Irwin declined to clarify what the company meant.

Apple said that it would not allow discounting outside the App Store. A company must offer the same deals to customers buying through Apple as it does through its own Web site.

Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, said in a statement: “Our philosophy is simple — when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing.”

Another issue that will most likely prove problematic for those who sell iPad apps is that Apple will no longer allow links in apps that direct consumers to an external Web site where they can buy a subscription. Consumers who wish to buy directly from a site will have to find their way there themselves.

As part of the new arrangement, publishers can provide free access to existing subscribers. This was a major concern for Time Inc., which had an arrangement with Apple to allow print subscribers to People to download the People iPad app free.

A Time Inc. spokesman said that the company viewed Apple’s announcement as a positive step, but that it might not go far enough.

“It seems like Apple is taking a step toward our position on subscription offerings,” said the spokesman, Keith Cocozza. “But the announcement also raises many questions around consumer data that we would need to work through and agree on.”

Though Apple has agreed to share some data about subscribers with magazines — provided that subscribers consent when they make the purchase — publishing companies have been pushing for unfettered access to the information.

Many in the publishing business feel that few consumers would willingly hand over that information, but Apple said the decision about whether to provide personal information would be up to consumers.

“Publishers may seek additional information from App Store customers, provided those customers are given a clear choice and are informed that any additional information will be handled under the publisher’s privacy policy rather than Apple’s,” Apple said in its statement.

On Tuesday at least two magazines, Elle and Popular Science, said they would begin selling subscriptions through the App Store. Elle is owned by Hachette Filipacchi and Popular Science by the Bonnier Corporation.

Beyond economics, Apple’s tight control over subscriber data, its insistence on keeping 30 percent of the sale price and limiting consumers’ abilities to go outside an app to buy a subscription could raise antitrust concerns.

“It is possible that regulators will look into them,” said Brian Pitz, an analyst with UBS. “And I think competition and pressure from others will push Apple to open up.”