Existing users of ad blocking software may be a lost cause. Once consumers decide to block ads and experience the cleaner Web pages and faster load times that ad blocking delivers as it filters out bandwidth-hungry animations, video and other advertising content, they’re less likely to want to give it up.
But will mainstream consumers in the U.S. turn to ad blockers in a big way? “The numbers have not reached the point where publishers are panicked,” says Chapell. “But if those products were on 80% of computers, we’d be having a very different conversation.”
Tag Archives: business model
Many eyes on Earth
By contrast, the swarm satellites’ cameras will always be on, photographing everything in their path and, owing to their numbers, will pass over the same points on Earth with a frequency of hours to a few days, depending on latitude.
The biggest customers of conventional commercial imaging satellites are governments, in particular intelligence agencies and the military. Prices can be prohibitive for many other potential users, including researchers,
via Many eyes on Earth : Nature News & Comment.
Because the swarms are still to be launched, scientists have yet to fully assess the quality of the imagery. But the satellites’ spatial resolutions of 1–5 metres are much higher than those of most scientific satellites. Landsat, NASA’s Earth-observation workhorse, for example, has a resolution of 15–100 metres depending on the spectral frequency, with 30 metres in the visible-light range.
Swarm Mobile gets $3.5M to track shoppers in physical stores
The goal is to put physical shops on a similar playing field as e-commerce stores, which already have a wealth of data about customer buying habits. According to the website, Swarm treats smartphones like “offline cookies,” so stores can personalize the experience for new and repeat shoppers. Swarm does this through its cloud-based platform that integrates into a store’s public Wi-Fi network.
New York Just Subpoenaed Airbnb to Hand Over Its User Data
The city is fighting the startup for breaking local laws against operating an illegal hotel out of your home, worried that hustlers are abusing the online service to turn a profit. To that end, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman just slapped the company with a subpoena to hand over the user data of all New Yorkers who’ve listed their apartment on the site, the New York Daily News reported today. That’s about 225,000 users.
via New York Just Subpoenaed Airbnb to Hand Over Its User Data | Motherboard.
Most Innovative Carrier WiFi Deployment
The WiFi deployment plays a dual role for Virgin Media Business, however. The company uses fiber backhaul connections to ensure the network’s performance, but also to lease to mobile operators that can use it to bolster their 3G and 4G networks. It’s a win-win for everyone: Residents get free WiFi, Virgin gets access to prime real estate for small cells, and the city gets a cut of the revenue it earns from the wireless operators.
via 2013 Leading Lights Finalists: Most Innovative Carrier WiFi Deployment | Light Reading.
‘Patent trolls’ put brakes on S.F. transit app
As far as anyone on the outside can tell, this is their sole business model: leveraging patents not to build competitive products, but simply to strong-arm others into forking over money when they create something that stumbles into the broadly worded language of the intellectual property protections.
via ‘Patent trolls’ put brakes on S.F. transit app – SFGate.
He was confident the patents in question were bogus, loose legalese describing obvious ideas. Moreover, the service that he received his data from, NextBus, already had a license to use those patents.
Why are US cell carriers suddenly pushing you to upgrade faster? For the money
So why is this happening all of a sudden? Put simply, the American mobile market is highly saturated—there are fewer and fewer new customers for these carriers. Only 1.1 million Americans got mobile phones for the first time in the first quarter of 2013—the lowest ever growth for that market. Q1 2012 saw around 1.83 million new additions, which shows a quarter-over-quarter loss of 60 percent this year. Meanwhile, there was a modest quarter-over-quarter gain in prepaid customers.
via Why are US cell carriers suddenly pushing you to upgrade faster? For the money | Ars Technica.
Open Source is Not Just About Cost
While some in the past have associated open source with cost – it’s the cheaper alternative to proprietary approaches – that’s not the point anymore. The innovation model for open collaboration enables multiple competitive vendors to co-operate on core functionality and then compete on value added support and services.
via Red Hat CEO: Open Source is Not Just About Cost – Datamation.
Microsoft outlines their system for used games, licenses, and family sharing
The real question is how publishers will deal with used games, and the possibility of “transfer” fees. Suddenly online passes, or their equivalent, are being supported at the console level. One thing is for sure, this is not a good system for any retailer that relies on the sale of used games, and it’s going to be very hard to rent games as well.
via The PA Report – Microsoft outlines their system for used games, licenses, and family sharing.
Yahoo: Expect Ads On Tumblr To Ramp Up Significantly In 2014
In the conference call, Mayer made an early reference to how Tumblr would be able to make good use of Yahoo’s advertising technology, in ways that fit Tumblr’s so-far successful, image-based, quick-blogging, youth-oriented format — what she called “native advertising formats.”
via Yahoo: Expect Ads On Tumblr To Ramp Up Significantly In 2014 | TechCrunch.