The killer app for the content will be the browser.
Yes, the future of content on tablet devices (iPad, Android, BlackBerry...) won't be delivered through apps.
Here is why:
The majority of a content's traffic comes from referral traffic such as search, share, and email, and that traffic ends up to the website. Referral traffic is lost with apps.
HTML5 is capable to deliver app like experiences on the web. HTML5 can't do the crazy game enabled capabilities yet, but it certainly can do many of the fast and speedy content effects seen in native content apps.
Readers are used to navigate within the browser. So many apps on their tablet home screen at one given time cause fatigue.
Consistent cross device experience whether you are on iPad, the multiple Android tables, the Xoom, or the PalmPad. It is hard and very expensive to create native apps that will work across all touch devices, if not nearly impossible.
The Web is meant for URLs and people sharing and linking to them. You can't directly link to a piece of content inside of an app.
Apps have horrible discovery. The best way to discover new content apps is through a pure search query. Imagine starting a new publication and putting it in the app store. How many downloads would you get? Social sharing is the key to provide real distribution and brand awareness. Readers are already trained to go a publication's website.
Intermediary app stores take alarming cut of all subscriptions (Apple takes 30 %), collect data, choose adds... Publishers want to to take decisions around monetization. Just follow the money.
All content apps such as CNN, Huffington Post and others are extensions of a website, where real traffic exists. However, others like Flipboard and Angry Birds make total sense as apps because they have born natively and don't have web counterparts.
These are reasons that I have collected through a quick research. Mainly, I got them from a Boston Innovation article.
Below is a video from two entrepreneurs who have created a company around an HTML5 solution for Websites.
While President Obama continues to use social media, mobile and other online tools to galvanize supporters, Republicans are preparing themselves to compete in the 2012 elections.
The NYT explains that this time are better prepared. Even many Republicans elected to the House and Senate are using these tools more than Democrats, especially those belonging to The Tea Party.
In 2008 Obama's team used tools and apps (like the Obama ’08 iPhone app), which made it easier for people to donate online, to volunteer for the field operation, assemble groups of neighbors, among other tasks.
Now they promise: “We will use social media and the latest technology available to fuel the energy and commitment of folks on the ground, community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, house to house, all around the country."
Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty have started brand-new Website with similar features. They have also established a robust presence on Twitter and Facebook.
In particular, Tim Pawlenty has launched a social gaming layer borrowed from Farmville and Foursquare that awards badges and points to supporters who participate in the campaign – 10 points for connecting their Facebook account to the campaign's Website and 5 points for adding their Twitter account.
Mitt Romney has introduced also the hashtag #mitt2012, among other tools.
As noted, especially important is Facebook. Because of depending on a user's privacy settings, politicians can gain access to email address, hometown and personal network. Also, Facebook's news feeds allow to deliver information into people's feeds.
Along with social media, voters will suffer the traditional television campaign advertising and direct mail.
It seems that fast-growing business of cloud computing is not yet ready for the prime time.
After technical problems interrupted twice services provided by Amazon Web Services, corporations and start ups might consider what data and computer operations send off the cloud and what to keep inside the corporate wall instead of relying fully in remote data centers.
In addition, it will be a re-examination of the contracts that cover cloud services – how much to payfor backup and recovery services.
Amazon has thousand of corporate customers, from Pfizer and Netflix to legions of start-ups like Foursquare, Quora, Reddit and Big Door.
NAB Show remains the premiere event for the broadcast and video content industry.
As every year I flocked from New York to Las Vegas with part of my video team. During the show, we produced videos for some of our clients, closed some interesting deals and examined the novelties around.
Among them, the Steadycam Segway handsfree transporter with the Red One camera.
It allows you to mount a standard Steadycam and have all of the weight carried by the Segway. I took the above's picture.
TechStars is a startup accelerator. This is a very successful concept.
How does it work?
This company invites start-ups. If accepted, they are offered $18,000 in financing, participate in a 13-week program and access to a hundred experienced mentors. In exchange, TechStars received a 6 percent stake in each company.
Then those start-ups get the opportunity to pitch to hundreds of angel investors and venture capitalists.
"Seven of the first 20 start-ups that joined TechStars were acquired by companies like AOL, Word Press and Jive Software. A number of others have received seven-figure funding deals from major venture capitalist," said its CEO.
There is a big business around reputation companies and specialists (online image fixers, if you wish) who offer to push down unfavorable search results, populate the Web with favorable content and monitor clients’ virtual image.
So when anyone Google your name, the negative sites will be buried about six or seven pages in.
Online makeovers like Reputation.com, Big Blue Robot and Metal Rabbit Media agree that social networks, online comments and oversharing online have created a threat to everyone’s reputation and privacy.
Main problem is that images, blog posts, commentary, status updates and photos posted on the Web are easily replicated by algorithms and search engines, and dissipate like a virus.
Fixing tactics involve:
Setting up new Web sites or blogs
Signing up for popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
Tricking the search engines creatingdummy Web sites.
Contacting Web masters and bloggers asking that the specific items be removed by appealing to their sense of fairness.
The NYT wrote recently that corporations, celebrities, politicians and high-level executives might pay for an online makeover program between $5,000 and $1,0000 a month.
The satirical Onion newspaper has released a free iPad application primarily built in HTML5, the new Web programming language that allows for full interactivity online.
Naturally, the folks of The Onion are taking lessons from the development of previous apps for Apple and Android devices.
”We chose to build the iPad app in HTML5 so we could avoid having to learn a new programming language.”
“We are a small company and we wanted to keep the development as simple as possible as we’re now managing a number of other apps.”
This is key. With more Android tablets coming in the marketplace, the smart choice is to build all the apps in HTML5. Otherwise, be ready to suffer the nightmare of updating continuously every single app for each tablet.
DDoS, or distributed denial-of-service attacks are growing in reach and intensity. Chaos, downtime and post-incident steps associated with DDoS attacks are a nightmare for businesses.
Is there a way to defeat those cyber assaults?
Akamai, with over 73,000 servers distributed globally, might have a solution.
Using a kind of strength-in-number approach, the Cambridge (Mass.) company has started to offer a specific security service based on managing and mitigating the impact of malicious DDoS attacks.
Facebook has started offering a free commenting tool to Web publishers.
It is a plugin, called Comments Box, that enables user commenting.
Features include moderation and distribution.
It displays user's profile picture and real name alongside their posts.
Comments are ordered to show the most relevant posts from people.
So far more than 17,000 sites have implemented Facebook Comments.
Some publishers like Examiner.com and Sporting News saw their referral traffic from Facebook more than double.
Downside is that lack of anonymity, and that could discourage dissidents or people who simply don't want to comment with their fully identity. In addition, Facebook use that info to better target its ads.
Inkling makes iPad-customized interactive textbooks than incorporate audio, video and interactive quizzes. For instance, a book can include audio of a Mozart concerto along with explanations while the music is playing.
It has 14 textbooks available, and it expects to have nearly 100 titles available by the fall. So far this company has raised $10 million from investors, including Pearson and McGraw-Hill.
Inkling's business is based on collecting commission from publishers for each sale (which is up to a 35 percent discount over print).
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