Epson touts "all-in-one" LCD touchscreens
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a collection of things i like and want to remember. by "scrapbooking" it on my blog i can go back and google it later
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Posted by Augustine at 6:55 PM
awesome
Posted by Augustine at 6:52 PM
Over the last year, Google's shares are only up 40%. Apple's are up well over 100%. Apple's price to sales is about 7x while Google's is 15x. Many would argue that is because Apple is a hardware company and can never have Google's margins.
But, the analysis is more complex than that. Google is really only in one market, which is search. It plays around in other businesses but they don't create any revenue. Google is first in search, by a wide margin.
Apple is in three businesses. In the iPod/iTune segment, it stands as No.1 and no other company is likely to catch it there. In the handset business, the iPhone may be a success, but, even if its sells 10 million units next year, it is up against companies like Nokia (NOK) which sells closer to 400 million units in a good twelve month period.
Apple's problem is even worse in the PC market. Worldwide, its share may be close to 6% and better than that in the US. But, Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ) sales are moving up twice as fast as the overall PC market, even though it is the No.1 company in the industry, Acer's growth rate is four times the industry average.
In other words, the idea that the Mac is growing faster than all other PC brands is something of a myth.
Apple is not Google because it is so far behind the competition in two of its three markets. The market sees that risk, and it means the level of concern about AAPL's share price will only grow.
Posted by Augustine at 2:04 PM
Samsung has just rolled out a 30nm 64Gb NAND flash memory chip, which happens to be the world's densest. By packing together the maximum of 16 of the multi level cells, a memory card containing 128GB of storage space can conceivably be created.
Samsung has managed this feat by developing a new process they are calling self-aligned double patterning technology (SaDPT). SaDPT involves a more efficient pattern transfer than used in Samsung's (older) charge trap flash (CTF) procedure, and if we get any more technical we may implode spontaneously. Both procedures are cost effective and we can expect to see higher capacity flash based drives at a reasonable price. Although a 128GB memory card at a realistic price point is optimistic, the general price of flash memory should fall as a consequence of the new development. The devices are planned to begin mass production in 2009 and an estimated market value, in a three year period, is projected to be as high as $20 billion for the new class of memory chips. [Via Press Release]
Posted by Augustine at 2:01 PM
Posted by Augustine at 1:57 PM
Hitachi may have the thinnest production LCD but it's a lard butt compared to Sharp's 2.2-inch mobile LCD that's a mere .68mm thick. For an LCD the stats aren't even horrible. You get a 2000:1 contrast ratio, 8ms response time and 176-degree viewing angle in this 240x320 display. Intended for use in one-seg terrestrial broadcast, we're just a bit confused. Why even challenge OLED in the mobile market? (Other than price, maybe?)
OLED has lightning response times (reports of < 0.01ms), viewing angles with nearly no color fallout and contrast ratios as high as the eye can see (Sony's new 11-incher claims 1000000:1). I mean, LCD, it's not that we don't appreciate the gesture. And if Sharp could make a .68mm-thin 60" TV, we'd be all over you. But...uhh...we sorta already agreed to go to the prom with OLED...and his dad's renting a limo and everything. [avwatch]
Posted by Augustine at 1:33 PM
IPG Links Up With BzzAgent
October 23, 2007
By Brian Morrissey
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Posted by Augustine at 1:26 PM
I visited with Lesa King, editor of the Graphic Reporter, author the Lynda.com training series - Graphic Secrets for Business Professionals and chief evangelist for iStockphoto for a recent edition of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast.
Lesa gave the Duct Tape Marketing Coach network a guided tour of iStockphoto at my annual gathering of coaches. For those of you who may not know about iStockphoto, you simply must. If you use images, illustrations and video clips in your marketing, this is a gold mine. Great, royalty free stock photos, that are easy to find and inexpensive.
iStockphoto is also a big supporter of Duct Tape Marketing and is offering my readers 10 free credits (good for 5-10 stock photos)
Just send Lesa an email at lesa@iStockphoto.com and ask her for the special Duct Tape 10 code.
Posted by Augustine at 1:19 PM
Posted by Augustine at 9:36 PM
Industry Click Fraud Rate Hits 16.2 Percent in Third Quarter 2007
Click Fraud Rate for Content Networks Reaches 28.1 Percent
AUSTIN, Texas - Oct. 18, 2007 - Click Forensics[TM], Inc. today released industry pay-per-click (PPC) fraud figures for the third quarter 2007 from the search advertising industry's leading independent click fraud reporting service - the Click Fraud Index[TM] (www.ClickFraudIndex.com).
Now in its second year, the Click Fraud Index monitors and reports on data gathered from the Click Fraud Network[TM], which more than 4,000 online advertisers and agencies have joined. The Click Fraud Network provides statistically significant industry PPC data collected from online advertising campaigns for both large and small companies across all the leading search engines. Key findings from data reported for Q3 2007 includ
-The overall industry average click fraud rate was 16.2 percent for Q3 2007. This is an increase from 13.8 percent for the same quarter in 2006 and from 15.8 percent for Q2 2007.
-The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 28.1 percent in Q3 2007. That's up from 25.6 percent for Q2 2007, 21.9 percent for Q1 2007 and 19.2 percent for Q4 of 2006.
-Over 60 percent of traffic from parked domains and made for ad sites was click fraud
-In Q3 2007, the greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside North America came from France (4.2 percent) China (4.1 percent) and Germany (3.7 percent).
Publishers and advertisers have recently felt the impact click fraud is having in the content networks. Increasingly, publishers are seeing a performance drop in the content network traffic quality. Advertisers are seeing their conversion rates drop significantly on content networks because of bad traffic coming from parked domains and other low quality sources.
"Click fraud activity continues to grow especially on made for ad sites, parked domains and on the content networks," said Tom Cuthbert, president and CEO of Click Forensics. "Advertisers, publishers and search engines need to take notice because content networks are becoming the fastest growing source of click fraud. Ensuring their quality is essential for the pay per click advertising market to continue its growth."
The Click Fraud Index publishes data collected from the Click Fraud Network (www.ClickFraudNetwork.com), the industry's first independent third-party click fraud detection service dedicated to helping companies more accurately monitor their online advertising campaigns for pay-per-click fraud. Click fraud data is tracked and published on a quarterly basis for specific search providers, industries and trends. The service is unique in that it monitors online campaigns for click fraud by correlating data collected from search provider campaigns and the advertisers' own web sites - providing the industry's most accurate view of click fraud to date.
About Click Forensics, Inc.
Click Forensics[TM] is the leading provider of click fraud management solutions that help online advertisers, agencies and search providers identify and eliminate pay-per-click fraud. The company also runs the Click Fraud Network[TM], the industry's top independent click fraud monitoring and reporting service with over 4,000 members. Click Forensics is headquartered in Austin , TX and is privately held with funding from Austin Ventures and Shasta Ventures. More information on Click Forensics and its offerings is available at www.ClickForensics.com.
Posted by Augustine at 9:34 PM
SAI's Apple earnings analysis is brought to you by Petsky Prunier LLC, a leading specialty investment bank serving the marketing sector. Petsky's clients include companies in the marketing services & technology, interactive advertising, digital content & commerce and specialty media industries.
Release
SAI Apple Analysis Spreadsheet
Initial Assessment: Strong quarter across the board. Easily beat consensus revenue, crushed consensus EPS, driven by strong Mac (laptop and desktop) sales. iPhone sales also well ahead of expectations.
Post-Call Analysis:
Another record quarter for Mac sales proves that Apple is more than just an iPod factory. Apple sold 2.2 million Macs during Q4, almost 25% more units than during Q3 and a 35% year-over-year unit-sales jump. Desktop Mac unit sales, which had essentially been flat for the last 2.5 years, jumped about 30% both sequentially and year-over-year, thanks to (we think) the super-thin, new iMac design, and built-up interest from the creative community, which was waiting for Adobe's CS3 suite to come out before buying new Macs.
The surprise $200 iPhone price cut doubled Apple's phone sales rate. Apple sold 389,000 iPhones in the 19 days between Sept. 11, when it announced its 1 millionth iPhone sale, and Sept. 29, when the quarter ended. That works out to about 20,000 iPhones sold per day. Prior to Sept. 11, Apple sold 730,000 iPhones in the first 72 days of Q4, averaging about 10,000 per day. (In the first two days the iPhone was on sale, Apple sold 270,000, or about 135,000 per day.) So the 33% price cut has effectively doubled Apple's iPhone sales rate. Apple management said during today's conference call that perhaps as many as 250,000 of the iPhones sold so far -- more than 15% -- were bought by people who want to unlock them to work on other networks. That's a lot, and Apple doesn't get any AT&T revenue from those phones.
Apple is expecting a monster December quarter. Management gave guidance for $9.2 billion in Q1 revenue, representing 30% year-over-year top-line growth. How will it get there? Macs, new iPods, and selling more expensive iPhones in Europe will help: by hopping the pond, Apple expands its iPhone market opportunity by 60%.
Key Stats:
Posted by Augustine at 9:24 PM
Posted by Augustine at 9:23 PM
Yesterday Jane brought news of Google actively reaching out to game developers to partner with its Adsense/Adscape network. I just got word that San Francisco-based casual game ad network Mochi Media is partnering with London-based MyGame.com, a casual game site with a user-created flavor.
MyGame.com is also an offshoot of King.com, a truly gigantic game network that boasts 10 million active monthly users (according to a spokeswoman) that recently partnered with RealNetworks (RNWK). Mochi Media's MochiAds division creates a revenue source for Flash game developers; it already has partnerships with massive casual hits like the beloved Desktop Tower Defense. MyGame has a comparable program in which developers can upload their games and — if the games prove popular — share revenue with the company. (More or less a YouTube-meets-casual games proposition, not unlike Kongregate.)
Where is all this going?
Hard to tell, but with Google (GOOG) sniffing around, there's sure to be even more activity in this space — partnerships made, buyouts offered, startups launched, and so on. At the same time, it's difficult to determine how much revenue can be generated from advertising linked to casual games.
As it happens, Gamasutra just published a great article on business models for Flash games featuring extensive conversations with Kongregate CEO Jim Greer and MochiAds CEO Jameson Hsu. While Hsu touts developers who make thousands of dollars monthly with Mochi, Greer emphasizes the modest income even at the upper level: "Let's say Armor Games gives you a sponsorship for $2,000," he says. "You get another $1,000 from ad revenue, another $1,500 from prize money, maybe Miniclip licenses your game for $5,000…you might make $10,000 to $15,000 on your Flash game — and that's a really successful Flash game." Greer prefers the model used by Electronic Arts' (ERTS) casual game site Pogo, which gets ad revenue for their free games, but also charges a modest subscriber fee for added benefits. (About 1.5 million Pogo players out of some 13 million have paid that $40 yearly subscription.)
All in all, this reminds me of the tumult over YouTube and other user-created video sites from the last few years — before Google took out its checkbook. If that history is any guide, expect a lot of furious activity and money spent over this war for casual game eyeballs, followed by the industry's morning-after question, "OK, explain again how we make money from all this?"
Posted by Augustine at 8:57 PM
Filed under: Desktops
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Posted by Augustine at 8:55 PM
Filed under: Peripherals
Wacom's 21-inch Cintiq display tablet got a little sibling today, the 12.1-inch Cintiq 12WX. The unit is basically an Intuos3 tablet with an integrated display, so it features everything you'd expect -- 1,024-level pressure-sensitivity, input device rotation support, touch strips, ExpressKeys, Tool ID, and tilt sensitivity -- with the added bonus of being able to work directly on the 1280 x 800 image itself. Wacom says the Cintiq 12WX will be shipping November 1 in the UK for £829 ($1679) and will support XP, Vista, and OS X -- no word on when it'll be out in the States, but we can't imagine it'll be long.Posted by Augustine at 8:53 PM
How to make a viral video and create viral profits
Consumers Have Changed, So Should Advertisers -- ClickZ -- June 4, 2009.
Social Media Benchmarks: Realities and Myths -- ClickZ -- May 7, 2009. The ROI for Social Media Is Zero -- ClickZ -- April 9, 2009. How to Use Search to Calculate the ROI of Awareness Advertising -- ClickZ -- March 12, 2009. Enthusiast Digital Cameras - Foveon, Fujifilm EXR, Exilim 1,000 fps A New Immutable Law of Marketing -- The Law of Usefulness -- Marketing Science -- February 17, 2009. Social Intensity: A New Measure for Campaign Success? -- ClickZ -- February 11, 2009. Connecting with Consumers: Next-Generation Advertising on the Web -- AssociatedContent -- January 30, 2009. Beyond Targeting in the Age of the Modern Consumer -- ClickZ -- January 14, 2009. Experiential Marketing: Experience is King -- ClickZ -- December 18, 2008. Search Improves All Marketing Aspects -- ClickZ -- November 20, 2008. Do something smart, not just something mobile -- iMediaConnection -- November 7, 2008. Social Commerce: In Friends We Trust -- ClickZ -- November 6, 2008. The New Role of the Digital Agency -- RelevantlySpeaking -- October 29, 2008. Make Digital Work for Your Customers -- ClickZ -- October 23, 2008. Social Networking: Make Your Product Worth Talking About -- HowToSplitAnAtom -- October 23, 2008. Social Media Ads are DOA -- MediaWeek -- October 13, 2008. Missing Link Marketing -- Marketing Science. -- September 22, 2008. The Need for Speed -- MediaPost -- September 22, 2008. SEO Can't Exist in a Vacuum -- HowToSplitanAtom -- October 8, 2008. A Different Perspective On Social Media Marketing -- Marketing Science. -- July 15, 2008. WOM: Just Don't Do It -- Adweek -- July 14, 2008. Tips for Success in a Web 2.0 World -- iMedia. -- April 23, 2008.