Spytap Industries

rafimama: Viewers Migrating From Traditional TV to Online...

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 07:46:54 -0700

Viewers Migrating From Traditional TV to Online Video

U.S. consumers also now spend an average of four hours and 20 minutes per month watching video on the web, a full hour and 10 minutes above what they spent in Q1 2010.

In addition, timeshifted TV (i.e. TV content that is recorded and watched later) also continued to grow, as did mobile video viewing, up 43% (20%) from the year previous.Departing from earlier studies that found that the heaviest media consumers consume content across all platforms, Nielsen’s latest survey shows that those who watch the least amount of traditional TV — particularly those in the 18 to 34 age demographic — are watching more online video.

One of our clients sent this article to me… it’s a very interesting read on Video viewing habits

Cable worried about poverty, not Netflix - Yahoo! News

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 08:48:57 -0700

Cable worried about poverty, not Netflix - Yahoo! News:

Reality intersecting business.

Apple Steps Up in Lodsys Lawsuits, Files Motion to Intervene

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 09:34:41 -0700

Apple Steps Up in Lodsys Lawsuits, Files Motion to Intervene:

Smart move by Apple - patent trolls threaten their entire ecosystem.

Apple Reverses Course On In-App Subscriptions

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:04:17 -0700

Apple Reverses Course On In-App Subscriptions:

A new morning brings new App Store Review Guidelines.

Tides aren’t this regular.

"If you want to make money at some point, remember this, because this is one of the reasons startups..."

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:38:41 -0700

“If you want to make money at some point, remember this, because this is one of the reasons startups win. Big companies want to decrease the standard deviation of design outcomes because they want to avoid disasters. But when you damp oscillations, you lose the high points as well as the low. This is not a problem for big companies, because they don’t win by making great products. Big companies win by sucking less than other big companies.”

- Hackers and Painters (via kevintwohy)
Smart words…

Short logic: Groupon IPO: Pass on this deal

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 08:46:43 -0700

Short logic: Groupon IPO: Pass on this deal:

shortlogic:

Groupon has filed its S-1 and hopes to raise $750M in its initial public offering. Given they’re currently losing a staggering $117M per quarter, despite revenues of $644M, they’ll be burning through that cash almost as soon as it hits their account.

At the moment, it’s costing them $1.43 to…

Good analysis on the Groupon IPO.

Future of TV According to Netflix’s Reed Hastings Tech News and Analysis

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 09:35:00 -0700

Future of TV According to Netflix’s Reed Hastings Tech News and Analysis:

Good summary, but also worth noting was his interest in WiFi connected, app-aware TVs and how they would change what we currently understand as “networks.” Hastings was very bullish on the idea that individual shows could and would become apps and be directly available to consumers, a concept that we’ve been very interested in for a few years now.

Why it's harder to make money on Android than on Apple's iOS - Fortune Tech

Fri, 27 May 2011 12:05:22 -0700

Why it's harder to make money on Android than on Apple's iOS - Fortune Tech:

This is the big reason why we generally advise paid apps to just focus on iOS for the moment - Paid apps don’t make money on Android.

Film Makers Turn to iPad for Interactive Storytelling Online Video News

Fri, 27 May 2011 08:24:12 -0700

Film Makers Turn to iPad for Interactive Storytelling Online Video News:

Now we’re talking.

"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have..."

Mon, 23 May 2011 16:00:06 -0700

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

- George Bernard Shaw (via azspot)

And thus the idea economy is born.

iOS Users Downloading 5 Million Games a Day, Report Finds

Fri, 20 May 2011 08:51:37 -0700

iOS Users Downloading 5 Million Games a Day, Report Finds:

Your Friday reading.

The Future of the Smartphone: Holograms & Folding Screens

Thu, 19 May 2011 08:24:59 -0700

The Future of the Smartphone: Holograms & Folding Screens:

Smartphones are about to go through a massive change as we move past the concept of “cell phones” and into “portable information devices.” We’re slowly starting to drop the legacy aspects of old rotary phones in favor of prioritizing the more modern aspects of overall communication that mobile devices enable.

Steve Jobs: Get Rid of the Crappy Stuff - Carmine Gallo

Tue, 17 May 2011 09:52:03 -0700

Steve Jobs: Get Rid of the Crappy Stuff - Carmine Gallo:

Good advice overall.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on HBO, Cord-Cutting and Amazon

Mon, 16 May 2011 18:36:19 -0700

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on HBO, Cord-Cutting and Amazon:

spytap:

Speaking of expired season, I’ve heard some networks talk about extending the life of shows they were going to cancel if you’re going to pay them to keep going. Does that make sense?

Yes. For example, “Friday Night Lights” wasn’t going to get continued two seasons ago on NBC, and DirecTV did a deal to extend that show. So we can see ourselves doing something like that–extending a season of something that was doing well on Netflix.

Called it.

Patent Troll Threatening iPhone Developers For Using Apple's In-App Purchasing System

Fri, 13 May 2011 08:32:17 -0700

Patent Troll Threatening iPhone Developers For Using Apple's In-App Purchasing System:

This comes very close to a “worst-case scenario” for app devs, and for Apple, who relies on their ability to sustain themselves. The iOS App Store was built on the work and efforts of thousands of small developers and cannot sustain itself solely on the larger players. Apple knows this, and I expect them to take some action once they’ve had the chance to take a legal look into the claims.

The Math of Hit TV Shows - WSJ.com

Thu, 12 May 2011 07:53:15 -0700

The Math of Hit TV Shows - WSJ.com:

To a television network executive, the pitch sounds irresistible. “Dark but fantastical cop drama about a world in which characters inspired by Grimm’s Fairy Tales exist.”

This idea for a TV show has the ingredients the industry is seeking this year: a comfortable set-up (the cop show) with a slight twist (fairy tales). It beat out about 500 other pitches. Then it survived months of second guessing, rewriting, and testing with focus groups. “Grimm” is one NBC is considering adding to its fall prime-time lineup.

Network executives are currently meeting to decide which new shows to pick up and will announce their choices next week. After a year of perfecting each show, almost all of them will fail.

How Traditional Entertainment Can Use Social Media: Tech News and Analysis «

Wed, 11 May 2011 08:07:06 -0700

How Traditional Entertainment Can Use Social Media: Tech News and Analysis «

NSA Gathers 4x the Amount of Info than the Library of Congress, Daily

Wed, 11 May 2011 08:05:42 -0700

NSA Gathers 4x the Amount of Info than the Library of Congress, Daily

"Instead of having to upload your thousands of MP3s, iTunes may be able to simply check your (much..."

Tue, 10 May 2011 08:19:03 -0700

“Instead of having to upload your thousands of MP3s, iTunes may be able to simply check your (much smaller) database file and recreate it online using a central repository of music (in other words, no huge uploads). The technology wouldn’t be new — Lala, which Apple acquired in 2009, was doing that years ago. It’s just a matter of hammering out the deals with the labels. And really, I can’t imagine Apple launching a service that tells its users to sit back and wait a couple of days. Instead, you’ll fire up the new version of iTunes, check a box saying you want your iPhone and iPad to have access to all of your content, and bam — users won’t have to learn what an online locker is, their stuff will just be where they want it.”

- Without The Labels, Google’s Music Locker Service Will Look Like Apple’s Ugly Sibling. Again.

This is the difference between companies that build solutions or platforms and companies that build experiences. Google and Facebook and Amazon can’t figure out how to compete with Apple because they don’t know how to build experiences… just solutions and platforms and systems.

(via mikehudack)

Reread what Mike just wrote. Reread it a hundred times until you understand it. Then go build awesome experiences.

More than $5 billion of venture capital investment flowed into young web companies globally in the first four months of the year

Mon, 09 May 2011 08:20:47 -0700

More than $5 billion of venture capital investment flowed into young web companies globally in the first four months of the year:

soupsoup:

In the three years that marked the height of the last boom, 1999 through 2001, the VC industry sank $96.4 billion into web start-ups, with more than 80 percent of that or nearly $78 billion in the United States alone, the Thomson Reuters data show. Of 10,755 VC deals over that run, 7,174 took place in the U.S. market.

Not so today. Of the more than $5 billion of VC money invested so far in 2011, just $1.4 billion has been deployed in U.S. start-ups. according to Thomson Reuters data. Roughly three quarters of the 403 deals have taken place overseas.

Relevant to many of your interests.