The Death of Snackable Content?

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The increasing demand for long-form speciality content will shape the future of the publishing industry. An article in Fast Company highlights Wait But Why, a long-form blog that has acquired 31 million unique visitors and 87 million page views, through 80 articles that average over 2,000 words each.

“If you can blow someone’s mind — really, genuinely blow it, again, in a really well-written way — then that’s something they want to share,” said Wait But Why co-founder, Andrew Finn.

Publications will realize that there is far more value in creating a strong community around a specific topic and connecting those readers with relevant businesses than there is in mass-producing content for the masses. Readers benefit from better content, and publishers benefit from more effective monetization opportunities. Engagement, rather than eyeballs, will become the underlying drive.

http://recode.net/2015/08/07/the-death-of-snackable-content/

9 New Predictions And Market Assessments For The Internet Of Things (IoT) – Forbes

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IDC discussed The Internet of Things Mid-Year Review at a webinar on July 23, including findings from a survey of 3,566 companies in North America. IDC defines IoT as “a network of uniquely identifiable ‘things’ that communicate without human interaction using IP connectivity.” Tata Consulting Services (TCS) issued a report titled The Internet of Things: The Complete Reimaginative Force, based on a survey of 3,764 executives worldwide. TCS defines the IoT as “smart, connected products.” The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) published The Internet of Things: Mapping the value beyond the hype. MGI defines IoT as “sensors and actuators connected by networks to computing systems” and excludes “systems in which all of the sensors’ primary purpose is to receive intentional human input, such as smartphone apps.” Finally, Business Insider (BI) issued The Smart City report on IoT initiatives in cities worldwide.

The economic impact of the IoT will re-shape the world’s economy

The IoT has a total potential economic impact of $3.9 trillion to $11.1 trillion a year by 2025. At the top end, that level of value—including the consumer surplus—would be equivalent to about 11 percent of the world economy (MGI). The Internet of Things (IoT) market will expand from $780 billion this year to $1.68 trillion in 2020, growing at a CAGR of 16.9%.  Sensors/modules and connectivity account for more than 50% of spending on IoT, followed by IT services at more than 25% and software at 15%. Traditional IT hardware accounts for less than 5%

Investments in IoT technologies by cities worldwide will increase by $97 billion from 2015 to 2019. The cities’ IoT deployments will create $421 billion in economic value worldwide in 2019. That economic value will be derived from revenues from IoT device installations and sales and savings from efficiency gains in city services (BI).

There will be almost 30 billion of IoT devices in 2020

In 2015, 4,800 connected end points are added every minute. This number will grow to 7,900 by 2020. The installed base of the Internet of Things devices will grow from 10.3 billion devices in 2014 to 29.5 billion in 2020. 19 billion of these devices will be installed in North America in 2020 (IDC).

The IoT will be primarily an enterprise market

In 2018, the IoT installed base will be split 70% in the enterprise and 30% in the consumer market, but enterprises will account for 90% of the spending (IDC). Business-to-business applications will probably capture more value—nearly 70 percent of it—than consumer uses, although consumer applications, such as fitness monitors and self-driving cars, attract the most attention and can create significant value, too (MGI).

Over the next few years, North America will still be the focal point for the IoT

The IoT has a large potential in developing economies, but it will have a higher overall value impact in advanced economies because of the higher value per use. However, developing economies could generate nearly 40 percent of the IoT’s value, and nearly half in some settings (MGI). 2020 will be a tipping point year for Asia, when it will become the geographical region with the largest installed base of IoT devices (IDC). North American companies will spend 0.45% of revenue this year on IoT initiatives, while European companies will spend 0.40%. Asia-Pacific companies will invest 0.34% of revenue in the IoT, and Latin American firms will spend 0.23% of revenue. North American and European companies are more frequently selling smart, connected products than are Asia-Pacific and Latin American companies (TCS).

The telecommunication industry leads other sectors in IoT investments

The Telecommunications, banking, utilities, and securities/investment services industries are the leading sectors investing in IoT in 2015 (IDC). In gaining benefits from the IoT, industrial manufacturers reported the largest average revenue increase from their IoT initiatives last year (29%), and they forecast they’d have the largest revenue increase from the IoT by 2018 (27% over 2015). Industrial manufacturers were also in the lead for using sensors and other digital technologies to monitor the products they sold to customers (with 40% of the companies doing so) (TCS).

IoT adoption is gaining momentum worldwide

36% of companies in North America have IoT initiatives in 2015 (IDC). 79% of companies worldwide already use IoT technologies, investing 0.4% of revenue on average. They expect their IoT budgets to rise by 20% by 2018 to $103 million (TCS).

Costs and customers are the key drivers of IoT investments

Lower operational costs and better customer service and support lead the list of significant drivers of current IoT initiatives. In large companies, business process efficiency/operations optimization and customer acquisition and/or retention also top the list (IDC). Companies with IoT programs in place reported an average revenue increase of 16% in 2014, in the areas of business where IoT initiatives were deployed. In addition, about 9% of firms had an average revenue increase of more than 60%.The biggest product and process improvements reported by companies were more customized offerings and tailored marketing campaigns, faster product improvements, and more effective customer service (TCS). Cities are adopting IoT technologies because they deliver a broad range of benefits for cities including reducing traffic congestion and air pollution, improving public safety, and providing new ways for governments to interact with their citizens (BI).

Security, culture change, determining priorities, and optimizing ROI are key IoT concerns

Security issues top the list of current barriers to IoT adoption (especially with larger companies), followed by funding the initial investment at the scale needed, determining the highest priority use cases, and changing business processes (IDC). identifying and pursuing new business and/or revenue opportunities that the IoT makes possible, and determining what data to collect, are key issues. Also important are getting managers and workers to change the way they think about customers, products, and processes, and having top executives who believe the IoT will have a profound impact and are willing to invest in it (TCS). Currently, most IoT data are not used. For example, on an oil rig that has 30,000 sensors, only 1 percent of the data are examined. That’s because this information is used mostly to detect and control anomalies—not for optimization and prediction, which provide the greatest value (MGI).

Microsoft leads the IoT market

The top 5 vendors mentioned as the IoT provider companies “plan to work with within the next 2 years” are: Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon, Cisco, and IBM. For large companies (more than 1000 employees), Microsoft and Cisco lead the list (IDC).

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2015/07/30/9-new-predictions-and-market-assessments-for-the-internet-of-things-iot/

Hacking Cars is only the beginning of the security issues

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JEEP CHEROKEE CONNECTED CAR HACK ONLY AFFECTS FIAT CHRYSLER: Two weeks ago it was revealed that hackers were able to access a Jeep Grand Cherokee via its infotainment center’s radio and then could control the car from up to a mile way. In response, Fiat Chrysler sent over-the-air and USB plugin updates to 1.4 million of its affected cars. The infotainment radio maker, Harman International’s CEO Dinesh Piwali commented on the hack yesterday and said that no other cars that have Harman infotainment radios installed are at risk of being hacked, according to the Associated Press. Piwali also said that the hacked radio was developed approximately five years ago and that newer models have more advanced safety features. Despite Piwali’s claim that no other systems are at risk, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is still investigating 2.8 million Harman radios.

The true value of IoT enables personalized experiences to a single user, but who keeps the data? #IoT #personalization #bigdata

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HOW DATA WILL ENABLE “LIVING SERVICES” IN THE IoT: BI Intelligence recently spoke with Mark Curtis, co-founder of Accenture-owned digital design firm Fjord, about how the IoT will change digital experiences. In a recent report, Fjord argued that the true value of connected devices will be in delivering “living services” that learn and adapt to their users’ preferences and habits over time.

Curtis illustrated the concept with the example of a smart lock on a hotel door, which on its own doesn’t deliver a great deal of value. But when that hotel door is networked with other connected devices in its proximity it can tell who is entering or leaving the room based on the smartphone or device used to open the door. That recognition by the smart lock could then turn other devices in the room on or off and alert the thermostat to set the room temperature to the customer’s preferred setting. 

For that smart lock to deliver such an experience, data needs to be analyzed in the backend to understand the customer and personalize functions to his or her preferences. Curtis detailed three obstacles that enterprises need to tackle to deliver these personalized experiences:

  • Organizations need a platform with the scalability to ingest huge volumes of data that will be created by new connected devices in their networks.
  • To analyze relevant data, organizations will need to know what kind of insights they’re looking to get from their data. Today, a human often has to interpret data to find the most relevant information. That won’t be possible in the future – the exponential increase in the volume of data from more connected devices will require automating that selection process. Organizations will have to know before hand what data to segment out for analysis.
  • Organizations will have to think through how they will change services in real-time based on data. For example, customers will increasingly want to see for themselves all of the data being collected so they too can understand their own behaviors. This is already becoming prevalent with fitness trackers that allow the users to see data regarding their activity levels. Over time consumers will get bored looking at the same data all the time though. So enterprises need to surprise customers by learning what information they’re interested in and then interpret the data to deliver new relevant insights. For example, a fitness tracker could learn when the user’s activity levels typically drop and provide suggestions through a mobile app or web portal on how to be more active during those sedentary periods.

I love it when innovation pushes content. Why you should #explorein360

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How we engage with content has evolved in major ways since our inception in 2005. We pioneered new formats, new experiences and new ways for audiences to engage with content leveraging Adobe Flash via interactive video experiences. In about 2008, we witnessed what would be known as the beginning of the demise of Flash and the dawn of a whole new way of producing and delivering content via HTML5. YouTube embraced HTML5 and deployed tools allowing content creators and advertisers to distribute unique content across many platforms, at scale.

Our partnership with YouTube over the years has allowed for some pretty awesome branded experiences.

We are proud to announce a whole new world of content on YouTube with the launch of YouTube’s 360 video. JK Imaging Ltd. who, through a Global Licensing agreement manufactures and sells KODAK-branded digital imaging products, came to The Buddy Group with a unique business challenge — engage and identify a niche target audience in a new and innovative way. The goal was to utilize YouTube’s newly launched 360-degree video platform to get ahead of the curve and create a video experience unlike any other using the KODAK PIXPRO SP360 Action Camera. The campaign, “Take a Look Around”, seeks to excite, engage and enable “Revolutionary Creators” to capture and share their world in 360-degrees.

Launched today you will find a unique content hub that helps to educate, show capabilities and engage consumers as they explore video through the eyes of one of four personas: the visionary, the enthusiast, the wanderer, and the adventurer.

The website which launched prior to VidCon 2015 was designed to mimic the viewing experience of a 360-degree video. By dragging the mouse and cursor around the browser users can start to experience what a 360-degree camera can capture. It’s no longer about filming what’s in front of you. We’re changing the way people think about video. The KODAK PIXPRO SP360 Action Camera enables everyone to take a look around and capture life the way it’s truly meant to be seen—in all its 360-degree glory.

From 360 to personalization, how we all engage and interact with videos is about to change for the better.I am excited for this new wave of content and I encourage you to open your YouTube app on your mobile phone and do a search for “Take a Look Around“. The experience is pretty awesome!

YouTube evolves app and content creators benefit

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YOUTUBE’S NEW INCENTIVES HIGHLIGHTS DEMAND FOR VIDEO CONTENT CREATORS: YouTube redesigned its mobile app in an effort to keep its top content creators from publishing videos on rival video streaming sites, according to The Wall Street Journal. The new mobile app will showcase content produced by popular YouTube personalities and will allow viewers to expand vertical videos to take up the entire mobile screen. Both capabilities aim to increase the amount of views each video will receive. The redesigned mobile app marks YouTube’s latest move in its battle to retain top video creators amid growing competition from Facebook. YouTube’s top creators post five times as many videos on YouTube than Facebook, but Facebook’s recent plans to potentially offer the same monetization scheme as YouTube has increased pressure on YouTube to keep its creators happy. While the new strategy won’t actually keep content creators from posting videos elsewhere, YouTube is trying to retain its position as the most attractive video site for these creators.

YouTube’s top content creators are an essential part of its video strategy for two major reasons:

YouTube’s top creators drive a loyal base of users to the site. PewDiePie, one of YouTube’s most popular creators, tallies nearly 40 million channel subscribers. This loyal user base will be essential as YouTube invests more in its original content offerings. Last week, YouTube hired MTV’s former programming chief to head its original content division, which plans on creating original series around popular content creators.
Popular content creators will help the company further monetize its platform. If YouTube can keep popular content providers exclusively on its platform, it could boost interest in the video streaming site’s proposed ad-free subscription service.

Internet of Things: Where IoT Growth is Coming …

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For Internet of Things (IoT) designs, the consumer segment is a sexy siren call, but enterprise applications are where the money is, according to a top analyst from IDC.

Vernon Turner, senior vice president of enterprise systems and IDC Fellow, said consumer whims coupled with volatility among  providers — due to mergers and acquisitions — make IoT far less lucrative in the near term than the enterprise. The latter segment is where companies want to drive more efficiency into their operations and nurture loyalty among customers by leveraging IoT technology.
Turner said that by 2018 the consumer sector will account for 30 percent of the installed base of IoT devices, while the enterprise will account for the rest. However, the consumer sector will generate just 10 percent of the anticipated spend in that year, he noted.
“The real value for IoT is in the enterprise space,” Turner said during an IDC online webinar Thursday (July 23).

http://community.arm.com/groups/internet-of-things/blog/2015/07/23/where-iot-growth-is-coming-from-might-surprise-you?sf39586253=1

Destroying Customer Trust is as Simple as…

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If you shopped for a motorcycle, would you ever stop to consider that a Harley-Davidson wouldn’t deliver the power and style that Harleys have come to represent in our collective subconscious? Likely not, because you trust the brand to deliver on its promise of cruising down the open highway with a 100-horsepower engine underneath you.

Every bike Harley manufactures delivers on its brand promise, and as a result, its customers and advocates trust it to continue delivering. This dynamic is the cornerstone of the “trust economy,” a term coined by Rachel Botsman in a 2012 TED Talk. Positive interactions with a brand result in building trust. Negative interactions result in erosion of trust.

Understanding and joining this trust-based economy is relatively simple in concept: deliver on your brand’s promises to your customers. They key, according to Ray Wang, analyst for Constellation Research, is building trustworthy brand experiences—and not engaging in activities that destroy trust.

“You’re not competing with other companies; you’re competing for time and attention,”says Wang. “And that competition is for experiences and outcomes.” When a customer’s experience and the outcome of an interaction deliver on the brand’s promise, that builds trust.

Wang cites Airbnb, a digital startup whose entire value proposition has become a model for the trust economy. “Airbnb doesn’t sell rooms. They don’t sell nights. Their entire value is as a trust network.” Customers can trust the rooms they rent, and landlords can trust customers, for the same reasons: the compounded outcomes of past experiences on both sides. Customers and landlords both review interactions, building positive (or negative) trust profiles on both sides.

So how does a business compete in this trust-based economy? Deliver on your brand promises, Wang says. Here’s how in five simple steps.

Personalize experiences. Know who your customers are and what they want, and create experiences for them that deliver on your brand’s promises. For every interaction that accomplishes this, you build trust.
Operate with transparency. “Always operate with an understanding that everything eventually becomes public,” Wang says. That way nothing inadvertently sabotages your efforts.
Build credibility. Wang outlines a series of questions to ask: do you promote trustworthiness through external certificates? Do you promote trust through customer testimonials? Do you run truthful marketing campaigns? These seem simple, but if the answer is “no,” you’re damaging your customers’ trust.
Make it easy to complain. Companies often turn away from customer complaints, but Wang explains, they serve double duty: they’re data points about where you’re failing, and offer the ability to complain (and to feel heard) actually builds customer trust.
Guarantee satisfaction. The natural corollary to offering a forum for complaints—and delivering on the brand experience—is making sure that you can always guarantee a customer will be satisfied.
The trust economy can be hard to navigate, especially for companies that aren’t familiar with the principles of providing great customer outcomes and experiences. For those companies looking to avoid being left behind by the companies already offering these experiences, a great place to start is Ray Wang’s entire webinar, available on demand.

https://community.dynamics.com/b/msftdynamicsblog/archive/2015/06/17/destroying-customer-trust-is-as-simple-as-avoiding-these-5-easy-tips?CR_CC=200470740&WT.mc_id=DynGB_en_us_media_OUT_RW1TrustEconOut1_Blog&DYNCRM-DISP

#YouTube over #Facebook when it comes to video until FB figures out TV

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Creators look for reach and ubiquitous  distribution. As soon as FB figures out their role in TV, the pendulum will shift.

VIDEO CREATORS HEAVILY FAVOR YOUTUBE OVER FACEBOOK AS A PUBLISHING PLATFORM: Although Facebook has recently made some headway in narrowing the video viewing gap with YouTube, content creators have continued to find more success on YouTube, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. In recent months, Facebook has boasted an average of 4 billion daily video views, equaling estimates of historically dominant YouTube. While Facebook’s strong numbers have persuaded many premium content providers to publish content on the social media platform, YouTube content creators post five times as many videos on YouTube than on Facebook, according to the report.

Video content creators prefer publishing more on YouTube than Facebook for two distinct reasons:

First, YouTube users come to the site to watch videos. While Facebook’s audience is first and foremost a social audience, YouTube’s estimated 1 billion users access the site exclusively for its video content. This gives YouTube creators a dependable audience base. For example, 68% of top YouTube creators posted content on both YouTube and Facebook in May, but videos consistently garnered more views on YouTube than on the social media platform, according to Tubular Labs data sited by The Wall Street Journal.
Plus, YouTube allows creators to monetize their content. The video streaming giant allows creators to keep 55% of revenue generated from ads, allowing creators to profit off of their videos. Although Facebook announced plans to introduce the same ad revenue split, it has yet to fully roll out the program. Creators thus have little incentive to develop content specifically for Facebook and its evolving video format.
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KT, Nokia Networks launch first IoT lab in Korea – FierceWireless:Europe

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KT has joined forces with Nokia Networks to set up what it describes as Korea’s first Internet of Things (IoT) lab in a bid to help the South Korea-based operator fulfil its goal of becoming “the number one player in Korea’s IoT market”.

The lab will provide IoT-related technical expertise and knowledge to small and medium-sized partner companies to help foster a connected digital ecosystem.

This initiative is based on a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by both companies during this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC). KT and Nokia Networks also agreed to implement the world’s first LTE-M field trial for the interconnection of sensors by the fourth quarter of this year.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/europe/story/kt-nokia-networks-launch-first-iot-lab-korea/2015-07-20?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal