Magazines Continue a Fall to the Absolute Floor of Decay
Like newspapers, magazines have been in a steady slide, but now, like newspapers, they seem to have reached the edge of the cliff. Last week, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported that newsstand circulation in the first half of the year was down almost 10 percent.
It’s not just consumers who are playing hard to get: advertising is down 8.8 percent year to date over the same miserable period a year ago, according to the Publishers Information Bureau.
With readership in such steep decline and advertising refusing to come back, magazines are in a downward spiral that not even their new digital initiatives can halt.
via NYTimes
Weak Overall PC Market Shipments in Western Europe
PC shipments in Western Europe totaled 13.6 million units in the second quarter of 2012, a 2.4 percent decline compared with the equivalent period in 2011, according to Gartner, Inc.
“Although we saw a slight uptake in mobile PC sales, the Western Europe PC market recorded weak overall PC shipments across all countries,” said Meike Escherich, principal analyst at Gartner.
In Western Europe, mobile PC shipments grew 4 percent, while desk-based PC shipments declined 12.8 percent in the second quarter of 2012. The professional PC market declined 5.3 percent, while the consumer PC market was almost flat, with 0.4 percent growth.
via Gartner
Top 3 Goals to Reinvent the IP-based Set-top Box
As we get closer to the end of 2012, I’m now wondering when there will be some significant change to the user experience. I can think of three key goals that need to be on a product developer timeline.
When will we see the end of STB remote controls with dozens of tiny buttons, and channel-centric program guides that aren’t user configurable? When will we witness a hybrid set-top box that truly harnesses the full potential of an IP-based pay-TV offering? When will user experience design creativity be applied to this product category?
Those are what I believe to be the primary customer-centric expectations for meaningful progress.
Transmedia: the Living Los Sures documentary
Living Los Sures is a collaboratively produced, interactive documentary that explores the legacy of urban poverty on the increasingly trendy south side of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood.
It seeks not only to capture a diverse collection of important and unusual stories from the neighborhood, but also to create new shared histories and relationships among neighbors.
For POV’s Hackathon, the Living Los Sures team will develop simple, shifting navigational features that work creatively with video assets and start to build a testing environment for artists in the UnionDocs Collaborative Studio.
via PBS
Why your Content Marketing Campaign needs SEO
According to the latest market study by eMarketer, search can help to build strong brands by bettering their brand-health metrics. But creating long-term relationships with their valued customers is usually the top priority.
eMarketer says “even though a majority of business-to-consumer B2C marketers now believe that search affects brand-building, digital marketing executives sometimes still find it tough to prove that search is a critical ingredient in branding.”
Search strategy is not just for legacy direct-response marketing. Today, its use for branding related applications tends to be far more subtle than when it’s used simply to drive a new purchase.
The Emerging Business Models of Digital London
Ian Dowson has submitted his research report to the Technology Strategy Board — adding to their understanding of how Digital Media start-ups are evolving in London, Great Britain.
The emerging business models from Digital London are certainly powerful and in light of their evolving capacity to exploit the critical ingredients of Big Data and social media, we may never see the following statement made by a Chief Executive again:
“Britain’s biggest clothing retailer said it had failed to buy enough stock in hot trends such as tribal print fabrics and coloured chinos. The Chief executive said we could have sold another 100,000 cardigans and jumpers from its core Woman collection in the fourth quarter, that was a miss.”
State of the Internet – Led by South Korea and Hong Kong
South Korea continues to offer highest average connection speed, while Hong Kong takes the top spot for highest average peak connection speed.
More than 666 million unique IP addresses from 238 countries and regions around the world connected to the Akamai Intelligent Platform in the first quarter of 2012, accord to the latest “State of the Internet” report.
When looking at year-over-year changes in IP address connections, China, Brazil, Italy, and Russia all once again maintained growth rates in excess of 20 percent.
via Akamai
Transmedia: the Alt-Minds ARG will Feature Webisodes
Transmedia is not a new phrase. The idea of combining linear content such as TV or web movies, with interactive elements delivered on phones and across the internet has been around for over a decade.
Things have been relatively quiet recently, with many media giants preferring more conventional communication streams like Twitter and Facebook.
However, launching this autumn could be one of the most ambitious transmedia concepts since Heroes creator Tim Kring launched his Conspiracy for Good two years ago.
via Guardian
How Mobile Phones are Used in Emerging Nations
For the many nations in the world with a large population of poor citizens, access to a mobile phone has become the essential tool to break free from a life of poverty.
A mobile phone can be a source of many things — such as insight about commodity prices, useful information, practical skills education, reliable news and basic communication with the outside world.
In nations where corruption and tyranny are sustained by oppression of the people and fear of the unknown, a mobile phone can become a catalyst for meaningful change.
Transmedia: from Indie Video Game to Multiplatform Story
A year and a half ago no one, beyond the team of nine working on the game, had ever heard the name.
But by the end of this year, if all goes to plan, “Hawken” the game will launch in the eye of a transmedia storm that includes a video web series, a graphic novel, feature film and plans for an animated television show, action figures, a novel — and perhaps, one day, lunch boxes.
Some, including director Scott Waugh, believe “Hawken’s” tale of a dystopic future set on an over-industrialized colonized planet featuring battling mechs could become this generation’s “Star Wars.”
via Bradenton Herald
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