SAN FRANCISCO--Marketers convened here this week to figure out how best to reach teens on the Internet. The answer: It's all about the mobile phone.
Advertisers are clamoring to reach teens in digital environments because that's where they're spending much of their time--either online, with cell phones or playing video games. What's more, teens wield an estimated $200 billion annually in discretionary spending.
Fuse, a marketing agency based in Vermont, talked in recent weeks to senior technology executives from companies such as Sony, MTV Networks, Yahoo, and Nokia to find out what the future of technology will look like for the teen market.
Among the predictions: Mobile phones in the United States will surpass the popularity of desktops for teens. Only an estimated 20 percent of teens currently own a smartphone such as the iPhone, but mobile phone and content companies are counting on the idea that smartphone adoption will spread fast among teens in middle America and other areas.
"The iPhone is just the beginning of the all-in-one device. Uses of mobile devices will expand to include all kinds of bar code applications and prepaid debit card payment methods," said Bill Carter, a partner at Fuse, who presented the findings here at the YPulse 2008 National Mashup, a two-day conference on teens and technology.
That's likely why geographic ad targeting to teens via the phone is expected to explode in the coming years. Right now, mobile phone providers analyze an estimated 4 billion Internet Protocol addresses to provide street-level targeting to consumers. Companies like U.K.-based Blyk, for example, are reaching teens through the phone with ads and information on nearby nightspots. Teens sign up for the service.
"When you combine this new technology with teens giving their permission to market to them, the growth could be exponential," Carter said.
But, he said, mobile phone providers likely won't succeed as the entertainment leaders for the phone, despite their efforts to sell ringtones, games, and music. Other companies like Apple, Google, and Yahoo will be more effective at "side-loading" the cell phone with services.
Case in point: Most teens download music to their iPod that's been ripped from a friend's collection as opposed to bought from the iTunes music store. "There's a natural gravitation to get content on a device that's different than the one the manufacturer intended," he said.
As a corollary, he said that most teens will eventually buy subscription-based music services, much like the cable TV model. He predicted that Apple's iTunes will offer an unlimited monthly download service for music. Mobile phone companies, too, will launch music subscriptions on the smartphone.
Another prognostication: Other technology platforms will save, not kill TV networks, Carter said. The analog-to-digital conversion will make it possible for teens to watch live TV on portable devices. The technology will help the television networks target programming to specific audiences, and that will buoy the cost of advertising, he said.
"The device is inconsequential compared to the content," he said.
XX25 powers a MiTAC V100 rugged laptop.
(Credit: UltraCell)A California company has introduced a 25-watt mobile fuel cell system designed to power a ruggedized laptop computer for up to 14 hours at a time using a single 250cc cartridge.
The XX25, as it is called, internally generates fuel cell-ready hydrogen from a highly concentrated methanol solution, providing power to a field computer and communications equipment at weight savings of up to 65 percent, according to Livermore, Calif.-based UltraCell.
(Credit:
UltraCell)
Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that use hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, and continue to produce it as long as the fuel lasts. This is not only ecologically correct, but it also weighs less. The company calculates that on a typical 72-hour mission, each soldier requires 27 pounds of rechargeable military batteries.
The Army's Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC) and DARPA (PDF) have extended UltraCell's development contract so that tests can continue. A year ago, CERDEC deemed the 25-watt model safe enough to be worn by soldiers in the field and used to power portable devices, a first for this type of fuel cell.
Hurt by declining ad sales and cutbacks, local newspapers have seen better days.
That's why at least two charitable organizations are funding projects designed to spur innovation in journalism and ensure people's access to regional news.
On Monday, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation said it will spend $24 million over five years to fund challenges for innovation involving access to local information. Its project, called the Knight Community Information Challenge, asks community foundations across the country to propose new ideas on how to serve people information on their local area.
Also Monday, philanthropist Leonard Tow said he would donate $8 million to two colleges toward the study of ensuring the survival of newspapers on the Web and training new-media journalists, according to a story from The New York Times. His foundation, the Tow Foundation, pledged $5 million to Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and $3 million to the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism.
The funding follows word that print newspapers are facing double-digit declines in advertising revenue this year because of an economic slowdown and continued migration of ad spending to the Web, according to The New York Times. Research firm TNS Media Intelligence recently reported that newspaper display ads, only one piece of the ad pie, were down more than 5 percent in the first quarter compared with the previous year. Newspapers apparently aren't getting enough of the ad spending that's flowing to the Web for their online versions.
Meanwhile, Internet publishers are continuing to experiment with new ways to serve readers. The Huffington Post recently said it would begin covering local news, starting with the Chicago area. And in a Web role reversal, The New York Times said this month that it would offer Facebook-like social-networking features to its online readers.
Local print journalism may be in its death throes, but these investments show that people see value in retaining their access to daily regional news.
More than a dozen companies that market genetic testing directly to consumers have been hit with cease-and-desist notices from California's Department of Public Health, following consumer complaints over the accuracy and cost of the tests, according to an Associated Press report.
The 13 companies that received the cease-and-desist notices include Navigenics and 23andMe, which counts Google and Genentech as its investors, according to the report.
Mountain View, Calif.-based 23andMe has been covered on CNET in the past--most recently last month--primarily because its co-founder Anne Wojcicki is married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
Health officials are focused on whether the companies meet state and federal laws. Under state law, California residents must submit a doctor's order to have a genetic test run. And the laboratories are required to have state and federal certification.
The companies have two weeks to demonstrate compliance. Navigenics, according to the report, has issued a statement that it is already in state and federal compliance.
Consumer complaints, meanwhile, center around the accuracy and cost of the DNA tests, which can range upward of a couple thousand dollars.
A number of self-administered consumer-focused DNA testing services have sprung up over the past few years, which offer to scan the DNA samples to determine ancestry or potential health risks.
According to the report, the federal Food and Drug Administration does not evaluate the accuracy of the tests but has recently considered extending its oversight on this area.
You'd think Disney or the Cartoon Network would lure the most 2- to 11-year-olds scouting for video on the Internet. But the honors actually go to YouTube, with clips of Bugs Bunny, trains, and puppies (mixed in with "Twitter whores" and frat parties).
According to a new study from Nielsen Online, the largest number of tykes and preteens go to YouTube for video (or 4.1 million viewers aged 2 to 11), followed by the Disneychannel.com at a distant second, with 1.3 million viewers in that age bracket for the month of April. MySpace.com, NickJr, and Google Video also showed up on that list.
Their habits could signal TV's future. On average, the kids watched 51 video streams from home during April, spending almost two hours on video clips. That usage outstrips the average of nearly 75 million adults who regularly view video clips at sites like ESPN.com and CNN.com. On average in April, adults of voting age watched 44 video streams, for about 1 hour and 40 minutes of their time.
As you might expect, teens between the ages of 12 and 17 spent the most time with video in April, more than 2 hours worth; and they watched the most streams of all age groups (an average of 74 per person). Slightly disturbing, the site with the highest concentration of 12- to 17-year-olds, or 44 percent of this age group, was Stickam.com, a hub for live Webcams of people in their bedrooms. Atlantic Records and Epic Records were runners-up in that category.
But YouTube trumps all video usage among 2-year-olds, teens, and adults. In April, more than 73 million people watched as many 4 billion video clips on the Google-owned video-sharing site. That's more video streams than the combined volume of Fox Interactive Media, Yahoo, Nickelodeon Kids, MSN, ESPN, Disney, and CNN--the runners-up in the category of top video brands.
If YouTube wanted to keep its competitive edge with preschoolers and their parents, it could launch a kid-safe version of its site that filters out all those risque clips of Barbie and death threats to Elmo.
Microsoft's Research group announced an Internet Explorer 7 plug-in called SearchTogether on Wednesday that turns Web searches into a group activity.
The plug-in lets people set up what amounts to search chat rooms, in which a group of people can jointly peruse search results. Users can chat, annotate specific results with comments, ratings, and recommendations. Members of a group also can return later to view the annotated search session.
The SearchTogether browser plug-in provides an interface that looks like this illustration from a 2007 paper on the collaborative searching technique. At far left are notes about the joint session; in the central pane, search results are interspersed with annotations and thumbs-up or thumbs-down ratings; in the upper right is an instant-messaging window; and in the lower right are the search results themselves.
(Credit: Microsoft)It also lets people perform a "split search," in which results are divided among different users in separate browser tabs. Many hands make light work, as the saying goes.
Unlike Wikia Search, the service doesn't actually alter search engine results.
But Microsoft clearly has the idea in mind, at least for adjusting the results particular users see if not the general list.
"There are changes to underlying search engine algorithms that could take advantage of the knowledge of a group," said Meredith Ringel Morris, the project leader and a member of Microsoft's Adaptive Systems and Interaction group.
"Groupization takes the idea of personalization techniques for customizing a list of search results to an individual and customizes a list of search results to a group, based on information you know about each member of the group. You can either exploit similarities among all the group members, to bubble up search results that would be most relevant to the group as a whole. Or you could exploit differences among the group members, send portions of the search results to different people in the group based on what you can automatically determine is their specific area of expertise.
Google, too, is exploring personalized results, though not among members of a group. For users who sign up for a service, Google tailors search results based on a person's browsing history.
Microsoft gives a quick walk-through of the technology on a video demonstration (WMV file) in which a family collectively browses diabetes search results.
Venture capitalists say the United States still dominates in technology innovation, according to a new survey. But Europe and Asia are quietly excelling in fields like clean tech and software that could eventually pull more investments overseas.
Germany, for example, is becoming a new leader in clean technology, according to a survey of about 400 venture capitalists worldwide released Tuesday by Deloitte and the National Venture Capital Association. The U.S. is still the more attractive investment opportunity in clean tech, but at least 43 percent of respondents recognized Germany for its expertise in solar photovoltaic and other green technologies.
(The study, which was conducted in March, didn't reflect hard investment dollars. Rather, it examined the attitudes of VCs.)
In the field of telecommunications, one-third of venture capitalists recognized Japan as the most attractive place for investment, just behind the United States. In the field of semiconductors, VCs said Taiwan was the leader in manufacturing chips. With regards to software, those surveyed named India as having the top technology, second to the United States, but ahead of United Kingdom and Israel.
More than half of the VCs surveyed said that they are investing overseas, and that number has gone up slightly from last year, according to executives from Deloitte and NVCA.
"While the U.S. isn't losing ground, the globalization of innovation is under way," said Mark Jensen, national managing partner of Deloitte's Venture Capital Services. "The rest of the world is finding out what they're good at."
Forget Wii parties. Wii-habilitation is where it's at.
The popular Nintendo device for playing games like virtual bowling or tennis has turned into a rehab tool at cutting-edge health care centers around the country. And now researchers at the University of South Carolina are turning the trend into a research project that will study exactly how well the Wii and other games can help stroke victims recover motor skills and overcome a fear of falling after their trauma.
The research is part of a new $2 million grant from philanthropic group the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which will be administered by the University of California Santa Barbara's Health Games Research Center. On Thursday, the two organizations announced that 12 different research projects, including USC's Wii project, will receive funding of up to $200,000 each to study how interactive games can be used to improve public health and the health care profession. The studies will last between one to two years.
"We're trying to find positive ways to use video games," Debra Lieberman, director of the Health Games Research Center, said during a press conference Thursday. "A 'good' game, which help people learn methods of self-improvement, could displace more time-wasting games out there."
The Health Games Research Center was funded about four years ago by an $8.25 million grant from RWJF's Pioneer Portfolio, and the new $2 million grant is the inaugural round of funding by RWJF to establish studies on interactive games for health. It will invest another $2 million on research projects beginning in January 2009.
Among the other research initiatives announced Thursday:
Cornell University's Department of Communication will test a cell-phone game called the Mindless Eating Challenge with a group of teens. The game uses virtual characters and nutrition tips to try to influence teens to eat right.
Indiana University's School of Health has created the Skeleton Chase, an alternative reality game that designed partly to help incoming college students fight the "freshman 15." The game, a mystery that unfolds over eight weeks through clues delivered via online and offline media, will promote physical activity and measure how college kids learn best--whether it's through competition or collaboration.
The University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts has developed Wellness Partners, a character-driven social mobile game for children and adults aged 12 to 44. The game, which combines social networking and caring for virtual pets, is designed to test how well people respond to a virtual support network when trying to form healthy lifestyle habits.
Union College's Department of Psychology will test senior citizens' "cyber-cycling," or exercising on a stationery bike with a networked 3D screen. The virtual environment lets the over 50 set compete with peers.
The University of Central Florida's College of Medicine will examine whether virtual world role-playing games can influence the recovery of former alcohol abusers.
The University of Florida's College of Public Health will study whether action-adventure games like Playstation 2's Crazy Taxi can improve senior citizen's visual attention skills. Will it help them drive better, for example?
As part of the Wii project, the University of South Carolina will compare the effects of Nintendo's device to EyeToy, a camera-based game that monitors players movements while they virtually clean windows or pop bubbles.
"The neat thing about a game is that it involves challenges to meet a goal. We take great pleasure (in that)" Lieberman said. "Stroke victims work harder. These are new ways to offer rehabilitation."
Research In Motion, the maker of BlackBerry smartphones, will meet with Indian officials again Thursday to hash out an agreement over security concerns, Reuters reported Wednesday.
India's security agencies have been pushing RIM to allow it to intercept e-mail that travels across its secure network. Under Indian law, the government has a right under certain circumstances to intercept electronic communications for security purposes. The Indian government believes that it needs access to these mobile e-mails to help thwart terrorists, who are increasingly using the Internet and e-mail to communicate with each other.
According to Reuters, Andimuthu Raja, India's telecommunications director, said last week that RIM had assured the government that it is working on a solution. But late last week, the company said that it wouldn't be able to "accommodate" any such request, the story said.
BlackBerry service is being offered by four service providers in India: Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone-controlled Vodafone Essar, and BPL Mobile. Currently, there are 114,000 BlackBerry subscribers in India.
India is an important market for RIM and other handset makers. As the North American and European markets mature and reach saturation, developing markets such as India will provide substantial growth in the coming years.
A new study says that the number of people who watch online video will top 1 billion in the next five years.
As my boss, Jim Kerstetter, points out, it's unwise to put too much faith in predictions like this, but this isn't too much of a stretch.
The rapid rate at which broadband is being adopted around the world will lead the number of Web video viewers to quadruple by 2013, according to a report issued Tuesday by technology research group ABI Research.
The study also points out that Web video sites are increasingly finding more efficient ways to distribute their content.
"These include content distribution networks that cache content closer to the user," ABI Research wrote in a statement, "peer-to-peer networks which leverage users' PCs, and hybrid networks which combine these two approaches."
There's been a lot written recently about whether Google erred by acquiring YouTube, but it's this kind of growth potential for online video that still makes YouTube a good deal at $1.65 billion--provided Google can figure out the ad model.
