Category: Internet of Things

Hang W/ launches successful crowdfunding campaign

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https://www.crowdfunder.com/hangwith/invest

Please help spread the word, Hang W/ is an awesome technology.

Disclaimer: I am an advisor.

Hang w/ sits at the intersection of several powerful digital, social and pop culture trends. Live streaming video has burst into the technology scene and is resonating at the next big trend. Monetized digital video and mobile advertising are already a multi-billion dollar industry looking for better engagement with audiences. And the cult of personality is at an all time high. Hang w/ has the technology, the team and the track record to weave all three trends together into a product that generates significant revenue through monetized live content.

What is the difference between Hang w/ and Periscope?

Hang w/ aims to occupy a very different space from Periscope. They are a live social media app with no monetization strategy – and no opportunity for users to generate revenue. We are a live content distribution platform – with an opportunity for users to generate revenue from their own content.

How does Hang w/ make money?

Today, Hang w/ generates revenue in three ways. • Pre- and Post-roll advertising generates a CPM (cost per thousand views) from advertisers and ad networks. • Pay Per View Digital Tickets allow users to sell tickets to digital content. Hang w/ keeps a percentage of all ticket sales. • Digital Tipping allows users to gift one another digital coins with real monetary value. Hang w/ keeps a percentage of the value of gifted coins.

How can a Hang w/ user make money?

Broadcasters keep a percentage of revenue from the Pre- and Post-roll advertising shown on their channel. • Broadcasters keep a percentage of revenue from their own Pay Per View Digital Tickets. • Broadcasters keep a percentage of revenue by redeeming their gifted coins for cash. • All payments are made to users using PayPal.

What will the funds raised be used for?

• Deepen our focus on music and grow the platform where it is strongest with events, sponsorships, and a focused marketing campaign. • Extend the Hang w/ platform into a number of targeted verticals. • Improve platform functionality with new features that can be implemented across the vertical ecosystem. • Build our our sales and business development team and create custom marketing integration opportunities. • Legal, Misc Fees, General Admin • Technology infrastructure, server costs, maintenance, streaming, etc.

What is the exit strategy?

The platform is expected to generate significant cash flow upon scale. The strategy is to exit through acquisition by a major media company, social media company, or content-based technology provider.

Why are you the team to do this?

Members of our team have collectively developed more than 300 mobile applications – with many of them reaching as high as #1 on the Apple App Store. • Our team has collectively driven tens of millions of downloads of mobile applications. • We have been innovating in the live streaming space and fine tuning our product for more than two years.

 

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Backed by 50 Cent, Timbaland, Elton Brand and Larry the Cable Guy
  • Millions of users with more than 3,000,000 live broadcasts
  • Average user session as high as 17+ minutes at 2-3 sessions per day

ELEVATOR PITCH

The most advanced live-streaming mobile platform – with major celebrity endorsement, millions of users and revenue generation built into the model.

TRACTION

Millions of users with more than 3,000,000 live broadcasts

NOVEMBER, 2015

Achieved 1 Million users in the first 9 months – faster than Twitter and Facebook

NOVEMBER, 2015

Average user session as high as 17+ minutes at 2-3 sessions per day

NOVEMBER, 2015

Patents filed over 2 years ago ahead of Twitter’s Periscope and other live streaming services

NOVEMBER, 2015

Users were found to be 361x more likely to “Tune In” on Hang w/ than to “retweet” on Twitter

NOVEMBER, 2015

A Hang w/ 50 Cent concert from SXSW resulted in 50,000+ simultaneous live streams

NOVEMBER, 2015

Official Live Streaming Partner for events such as Style Fashion Week, Cupid’s Undie Run, Bottle Rocket and Mysteryland

NOVEMBER, 2015

WE HAVE BEEN SAYING IT FOR A WHILE NOW- B2B IS STILL PERSONAL

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Few B2B companies are implementing truly effective customer experience programs and achieving higher revenue growth, with the majority surviving but not exactly thriving according to a new study.

An Accenture Strategy report, 2015 B2B Customer Experience, surveyed 1,350 B2B sales and customer service executives in ten countries and found that only 23% could claim to be achieving a strong return on their customer experience investment.

Some 20% were generating little or no return with the remaining 57% somewhere in between.

These three groups were categorised as Leaders, Strivers and Laggards. Accenture’s research indicated that Leaders generated an average of 13% annual revenue growth and Strivers managed 6% while Laggards recorded a decline of -1%.

“B2B companies overwhelmingly recognise the importance of customer experience to their corporate strategy and bottom line, but the majority are wasting their investments on changes that are delivering mediocre results,” said Robert Wollan, senior managing director, Accenture Strategy.

“With consumer-like expectations and a substantial threat from new entrants, B2B companies must be ready to design and execute a transformed customer experience or not invest in such improvements at all,” he declared.

More than three quarters of survey respondents thought higher customer expectations for tailored B2B solutions would have a substantial impact (78%) and that customers are now more knowledgeable, self-directed, and continually evaluating suppliers (76%).

But only one third (32%) of executives felt they were equipped with the skills, tools, and resources necessary to deliver the desired B2B customer experience.

They pointed to a lack of C-suite attention, customer experience processes, and necessary cross-organisational integration as factors that needed to be addressed.

“Strivers are ‘racing to become average’ and average is a precarious position to be in these days,” observed Wollan.

“Leaders see after-sales service as a critical part of the customer lifecycle and they invest not just in new digital technologies, but in traditional customer connection points too,” he said.

“Leaders realize that a multi-channel approach is needed to reach B2B customers seamlessly and consistently.”

NOT SO FAST BRANDS! YOU CAN’T IGNORE VR AND AR

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AUGMENTED REALITY WILL ‘REPLACE THE SMARTPHONE’: The future of mobile technology is in augmented reality (AR) — not virtual reality (VR), according to a recent report by Citi. While much of the recent commotion surrounding wearable headset devices has been focused on VR, AR technologies will likely be the most likely to disrupt major digital markets like e-commerce and m-commerce, gaming, and even smartphone hardware.

Citi estimates that, by 2025, the combined VR/AR industry will represent $674 billion. The AR industry alone is predicted to be worth $120 billion in 2020, while VR will be worth $30 billion, according to separate predictions made by Digi-Capital. Eventually, AR technologies will replace smartphone handsets, notes Citi.

Two reasons in particular explain why AR is a much greater potential disruptor to the current mobile market than VR, according to the report:

Prospects are good for AR applications. While VR content may give users a fully immersive experience for gaming and entertainment, AR technology is better suited to integrate digitized reality into the settings of the physical world; meaning, AR systems can be used without wholly interfering with work and everyday life. This could be compared to using a smartphone to watch a movie, rather than going to the cinema.
AR will prove particularly useful in enterprise settings. Although gaming and other entertainment-oriented content may be the immediately obvious use case for AR technology, enterprise and commercial applications present a much more lucrative industry in the long term. Furthermore, they are much more suited to AR. The benefits of using AR in the workplace could include facilitating work in factories and manufacturing plants, operating machinery and electronic equipment, and in areas such as material handling in warehouses and at distribution hubs.
For the time being, AR hardware is too cost prohibitive for mass consumption. While VR headsets are slightly better, they’re still too expensive for most consumers. The average price of VR headsets will likely range between $350 and $500. This price may not include other parts or the cost of a computer powerful enough to run the headset. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s promising AR device, the HoloLens, is priced at a whopping $3,000. As the prices of these devices decline over the next several years, they’ll become more popular in the consumer market.

Customers want simple…

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http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/261806/smart-homes-74-want-devices-to-be-as-simple-to-s.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline&utm_campaign=87556

The smart home may be just around the corner but consumers are somewhat leery of what they’ll have to do to make it work.

While most (68%) consumers think smart homes will be common as smartphones within 10 years, they don’t necessarily want to personally do the work to make them possible, based on a new study.

The study comprised a survey of a representative sample of 2,500 U.S. adults by TNS for Intel.

Consumers want things simple. This is how they see it:

  • 86% — Want to manage all smart home devices from one central portal
  • 79% — Want a single sign-on to a central portal where they can manage their entire home
  • 75% — Suffer from password anxiety

However, most (71%) expect that at least one smart home device will be in every home by 2025 and 65% agree that smart home technology will be a standard feature on real estate listings.

But the complexity of different systems has to be resolved before connected homes go mass scale.

The study is yet another indicator that consumers want IoT technology to work and they aren’t necessarily interested in a do-it-yourself approach. Here are consumer views on smart device setup:

  • 83% — Want smart devices bundled with other services
  • 74% — Require smart devices to be as simple to set up as a cable TV
  • 64% — Would rather lease smart devices from a trusted service provider than install themselves

It’s no secret that security is a top-of-mind challenge with the Internet of Things and the access to connected devices. This study echoed many others, with 82% of consumers seeing security as a priority and wanting all devices to be secured through a single integrated package.

Here’s how consumers would want to secure their smart home:

  • 52% — Fingerprints
  • 42% — Voice recognition
  • 37% — In-home smart sensors
  • 10% — Men who would employ a robotic guard

The wave of smart devices that make homes smart is here.

As a follow to its study, Intel even created a working model of a smart home to test what IoT technology can do.

And based on consumer viewpoints, the smart technology better be pretty smart.

A primer on technologies building the Internet of Things | Deloitte University Press

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The business implications of the IoT are explored in an ongoing series of Deloitte reports. These articles examine the IoT’s impact on strategy, customer value, analytics, security, and a wide variety of specific applications. Yet just as a good chef should have some understanding of how the stove works, managers hoping to embed IoT-enabled capabilities in their strategies are well served to gain a general understanding of the technologies themselves.

http://dupress.com/articles/iot-primer-iot-technologies-applications/?id=us:2pm:3lp:confidence:eng:cons:091415:em:dup1102:social:linkedin:sponsoredupdate:iot_insideiot:na:909805

Two of the issues with HomeKit

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HOMEKIT DEVICES HIGHLIGHT MAJOR PROBLEMS HOLDING BACK SMART HOME ADOPTION: The HomeKit ecosystem is suffering from two major problems that have held back growth in the overall smart home market, as evidenced by a comprehensive review of nine HomeKit-compatible smart home devices by CNET.

Smart home device costs need to come down. Several of the HomeKit-compatible devices simply cost too much for the average consumer. The only smart lock that currently works with HomeKit is the Schlage Sense Bluetooth Deadbolt, which costs $230. Regular front door deadbolt locks can cost less than $15. The only smart thermostat that works with HomeKit right now is the $250 Ecobee3 smart thermostat. The Nest smart thermostat, which competes with Ecobee, also costs $250, but a regular home thermostat can cost as little as $20. The wide price gap between connected home devices and non-connected ones is probably the biggest barrier to smart home adoption right now.
Fragmentation can confuse customers who are new to the smart home market. There are two versions of the Ecobee3 smart thermostat – one that works with HomeKit, and one that doesn’t. So customers have to be careful which one they buy if they want to use HomeKit, which is difficult as the two versions of the thermostat look identical. HomeKit also works with the Insteon smart home hub, which can control a full range of Insteon smart home devices including lights, locks, and switches. However, only some of those Insteon products can work with HomeKit, while others don’t. Again, this could confuse customers into buying devices that don’t actually work with HomeKit. This is a problem with other platforms for controlling smart home devices like the Amazon Echo and Nest’s Weave that only work with a limited number of devices right now.
2015 Advertised Prices Of Connected Vs. Nonconnected Home Products

Internet of Things Expands: Billions of Connected Devices & Dollars 09/24/2015

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Awareness of the Internet of Things is gaining a bit of traction, at least in some quarters.
There is now high IoT awareness in more than half (56%) of those in the retail industry, according to a new survey.
Overall, a majority (73%) of companies have deployed, or plan to deploy over the next 12 months, some types of IoT solutions, according to the 2,500-person, 15-country survey by IDC.
More than half (58%) say they consider IoT to be a strategic initiative.
The survey of companies with more than 500 employees found that IoT spending is currently more focused in the enterprise.
But it’s not just the enterprise where IoT action is happening.
Retailers this year will spend $670 million in hardware and installation costs related to the IoT, growing to $2.5 billion within five years, according to Juniper Research.
Combining IoT revenue and cost savings, Juniper pegs the IoT opportunity at $300 billion in five years. That would comprise 39 billion connected devices, up from 13 billion this year.
Much of that activity will involve in-store beacon deployments.
Almost half (46%) of retailers either have or plan to have beacons in stores, according to a survey of 100 retail executives by Retail ToughPoints. Of course, that also means the other half don’t have any plans, but the sheer number of retail stores with beacons is huge.
Smaller stores are another matter, at least when it comes to allocating their technology budget in the Internet of Things.
With less resource than major chains, about a third (35%) of independent small and mid-sized retailers globally plan to invest in data-supported marketing by the next year, according to Lightspeed. Only a third (34%) have some likelihood of introducing beacons at some point.
This is the time that businesses are investing in the Internet of Things. During and after that, the presumed payback phase arrives.
That’s also where IoT marketing kicks into high gear. At least for those who have been preparing.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/258959/internet-of-things-expands-billions-of-connected.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline&utm_campaign=86363

Your hand can now be used to control micro-activities thanks to Google’s Project Soli and Radar

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If Google has its way, our future will be nothing less than a sci-fi movie. After creeping us out with a robotic cheetah and the Google ‘Glass’, Google is all set to bring forth something really amazing. Google’s Project Soli has invented a new interaction sensor using radar technology that can capture motions of your fingers at up to 10,000 frames per second. And that is something that has never ever been done before. Simply put, this technology is so bafflingly accurate that you could operate any device (fitted with this) without having to even touch it.

Google’s New Project Is So Insanely Advanced It Will Blow You Away

Approximately the size of a small computer chip, this technology can transform your hand into a virtual dial machine to control something as mundane as volume on a speaker, or into a virtual touchpad to a smartwatch or a smartphone screen. Check out the GIF below to get a better idea of how this works.

Google’s New Project Is So Insanely Advanced It Will Blow You Away

This chip is actually a miniature gesture radar that captures even the most complex hand movements at close range, at unbelievably hyper speeds and replicates hand gestures. Given the micro size of the chip, it can almost be fitted into literally anything. This technology, if the project is successful, can make the need to touch a device to operate it redundant.

Here, the introductory video.