Note that Snapchat is holding the No. 9 spot, and is clearly slipping in popularity, and Google is sitting pretty at both No. 2 (Maps) and No. 5 (YouTube). Even Pinger’s free texting and calling app is right up there at No. 6.
Tag Archives: market trends
Microsoft Surface sales Q4 2012- Less than 1 million tablets sold: Est
In a note to clients picked up by Forbes, the firm states that Surface sales in the December quarter are shaping up to fall into the 500,000 to 600,000-unit range, well below its earlier estimates of between 1 million and 2 million units. According to Detwiler, Microsoft’s tablet strategy appears to be “in disarray.”
via Microsoft Surface sales Q4 2012- Less than 1 million tablets sold: Est | BGR.
Mark Cuban: Facebook Is Driving Away Brands – Starting With Mine
“We are moving far more aggressively into Twitter and reducing any and all emphasis on Facebook,” Cuban says, via email. “We won’t abandon Facebook, we will still use it, but our priority is to add followers that our brands can reach on non-Facebook platforms first.”
via Mark Cuban: Facebook Is Driving Away Brands – Starting With Mine.
“The big negative for Facebook is that we will no longer push for likes or subscribers because we can’t reach them all. Why would we invest in extending our Facebook audience size if we have to pay to reach them? That’s crazy.
The original link has a few programming problems but the article can be read after hitting the stop button on your browser.
The Game Console Is Dead. What Will Replace It?
The pressure to evolve even further has become immense now that the quality gap between cheap-or-free games and full-price ones is narrowing. The best iPad games look like middle-of-the-road Xbox 360 games. Your smartphone is quickly getting to the point where its hardware could display good-looking games in 1080p on your television, and it won’t be long before your phone and TV can sync up without cables.
via Consolation Prize: The Game Console Is Dead. What Will Replace It? | Game|Life | Wired.com.
Gaming aficionados will pay up, they say, because the bigger games are of higher quality. But only a handful of developers can now afford to play in this rarefied and risky space, and even for these few, the returns will be smaller. The new leaders in the game, insiders predict, will be those who can shift resources into less ambitious, higher-return products, leaving the future of high-end games in serious doubt over the long haul.
Is Qualcomm the New AMD? Or the Next Intel?
With the news that Qualcomm will take over the CES keynote spot previously held by Microsoft, it really became clear what a dominant player the company has become. Quietly, while no one was paying attention, it’s become the second-most important semiconductor maker in the U.S.
via Is Qualcomm the New AMD? Or the Next Intel?.
Qualcomm started life in 1985 as a maker of cellular communications semiconductors, and it hasn’t strayed far from that formula. It’s pretty much the go-to company for CDMA chips and is now taking a lead in 4G LTE as well. So why would a company that’s so vertical become Intel’s biggest competitor? Because of where the two are headed.
The Future of Mobile News
Half of all U.S. adults now have a mobile connection to the web through either a smartphone or tablet, significantly more than a year ago, and this has major implications for how news will be consumed and paid for, according to a detailed new survey of news use on mobile devices by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) in collaboration with The Economist Group.
via The Future of Mobile News – Pew Research Center.
News remains an important part of what people do on their mobile devices-64% of tablet owners and 62% of smartphone owners say they use the devices for news at least weekly, tying news statistically with other popular activities such email and playing games on tablets and behind only email on smartphones (not including talking on the phone). This means fully a third of all U.S. adults now get news on a mobile device at least once a week.
How video games are becoming the next great North American spectator sport
They’re all here to watch professional gaming teams battle it out in the North American regional finals in League of Legends, a PC action-strategy game that has exploded in the competitive video gaming scene over the past year. The tournament’s winning team will take home $40,000 and a trip to the World Championship in October, where the victor will net $2 million and international fame.
via How video games are becoming the next great North American spectator sport | Ars Technica.
In the last year or so, though, eSports has undergone a sudden exponential growth. The Major League Gaming Spring Championship in June (which featured tournaments in four high-profile games like Starcraft II and Mortal Kombat) attracted 4.7 million online viewers over three days in June, peaking at 437,000 concurrent viewers. That’s substantially more than all of their 2011 events combined. Over 2.2 million viewers tuned in to Ustream internet broadcast of the 2011 EVO fighting game championships from a packed ballroom in Las Vegas.
Simplify the Home, Protect Fiber’s Value
“We need to collaborate as a group to help create a simple and seamless experience in the home,” Mudge said. In a conversation after the presentation, he added that this could include routers or residential gateways that enable a consistent experience and stability for the home technology user over a period of years, not months.
via Light Reading – Cable – Verizon: Simplify the Home, Protect Fiber’s Value – Telecom News Analysis.
A failure to continue to deliver on integration of in-home devices and technologies into the broadband service will cause customers to “lose faith” in their service providers, Mudge said
These service providers will hold a monopoly over FTTH so why would they care about a customer’s “faith?”
Avoiding Egypt: Where Cables Fear to Dredge
New cables are finding other ways to connect Europe and the Middle East. The Europe-Persia Express Gateway (EPEG), a terrestrial cable that routes from Frankfurt to Oman via Ukraine and Iran, is built “away from the known trouble areas,” says Gavin Tait, director of Asia network planning for Cable & Wireless Worldwide plc (London: CW), now part of the Vodafone Group plc (NYSE: VOD). “Obviously it doesn’t go anywhere near the Red Sea,” he adds. (See Euronews: Vodafone Gets the Nod on C&WW, Vodafone Appoints C&WW Execs and ancotel Provides EPEG Connection Point.)
Meanwhile, Singapore’s popularity as a network destination is making it hard to land cables there, says Genaro Sanchez, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) vice-president of network planning and engineering. “The corridor in Singapore is narrow, it’s getting crowded, [and] it’s getting more difficult to work with cables.”
It’s Official: The Era of the Personal Computer Is Over.
As of this year, personal computers no longer consume the majority of the world’s memory chip supply.
via It’s Official: The Era of the Personal Computer Is Over. – Arik Hesseldahl – News – AllThingsD.
During that period, PCs accounted for the consumption of 49 percent of DRAM produced around the world, down from 50.2 percent in the first quarter of the year. The share of these chips going into PCs — both desktop and notebooks — has been hovering at or near 55 percent since early 2008, IHS says.