Google held a session today at I/O 2013 about how to make money on Android, and in the initial few minutes it shared some updated stats around Google Play revenues and how those are progressing. Not surprisingly, the big growth is coming with in-app purchases, though Google’s recently launched subscription model is also making headway. Google said that its in-app revenues through Play are up 700 percent since the same time last year, which is reflected in the top apps as listed by highest grossing titles in the Play rankings. Subscriptions, which just launched around 12 months ago, is also making headway, doubling inbound revenue each quarter according to Google. Some apps which use subscription as their exclusive revenue model are now cracking the top grossing list, like Pandora. The momentum is still clearly behind in-app purchase, and as a result Google suggested that there’s good reason to consider that as a revenue model when building apps Read more »
Indoor Mapping Startup Meridian Adds Notification Zones To Their Strategy
Indoor mapping software startup Meridian , continues to evolve their product strategy with a recent update to their offering . Called Zones , the company’s newest update to their indoor mapping platform — and indoor is the key word here — allows geo-fence style app push notifications to be scheduled, by drawing polygons on location maps. When customers with the accompanying app walk into one of those indoor areas represented by the polygon on the map…Bam! They get a push notification. To be sure, it’s a real marketing opportunity and a concept underserved by the current, mostly GPS-based location awareness model for mobile devices. Differentiators There are several geo-fencing platforms out there — PlaceCast , Digby Localpoint , Wifarer and ShopKick all come to mind — so what is the big deal here? Meridian’s VP of Marketing Jeff Hardison, believes there are several differences in the Meridian approach. First of all, this notification system will work even when the accompanying app is not open nor in active use — essentially working while the app is in background mode — without significant battery drain. Other geo-fence providers might be able to do this via GPS or cell tower triangulation, but not by WiFi sensing, which is how Meridian works Read more »
The Most Popular Branded Boards on Pinterest
Although the vast majority of brand engagement on Pinterest is user-generated , many branded accounts have achieved an impressive reach of their own. Social media-benchmarking company Unmetric took a look at 5,000 branded Pinterest boards in mid-March to assess which boards generated the most engagement in terms of followers, comments, likes and repins. Unsurprisingly, the most popular branded boards tend to fall in categories that are already popular among Pinterest's predominantly female userbase — namely food, fashion, home and weddings. The standout brand in the study is Better Homes and Gardens , whose "Blogger Faves From BHG.com" — a group board managed by 10 guest pinners — merited the second most repins, the third most likes and the fourth greatest number of comments among branded boards. Its "Blogger Recipes We Love," another group board with 15 contributors, ranked in the top three for repins and likes. Read more »
IFC and Marc Maron Overshare Their Way to Success
Comedian Marc Maron has no problem expressing himself. "Can you hold on a second," he asks me during our phone call. "I have to deal with some bullshit." The "bullshit" Maron is talking about relates to some drama surrounding the promotion of his new show, Maron , which premieres on IFC on May 3, 2013. As with most things in his life, the situation indirectly ties into his social media personality. Maron has more than 200,000 followers on Twitter and a big following with his podcast, " WTF with Marc Maron ." Part of his appeal as a personality is his willingness to put it all out there on the Internet. Read more... More about Twitter , Comedy , Ifc , Marketing , and Media Read more »
How the NFL Is Running a Social Media Empire
As prospect draftees arrived at the 2013 NFL Draft on Thursday night, they were ushered to an iPad station set up to look like a goal post. Players smiled into the tablet's front-facing camera and posed for pictures which were almost simultaneously tweeted out to its Twitter followers. This, along with a series of other digital initiatives surrounding the NFL Draft (including a live Twitter chat surrounding what the prospects were wearing), is a part of the football organization's greater vision to connect fans at home to what's happening behind the scenes and in real-time at the league. (Note: Although the Hollywood-like fashion component of the red carpet was met with mixed reviews , it still got fans talking on Twitter.) Read more... More about Mobile , Social Media , Nfl , Marketing , and Media Read more »
The 10 Most Engaging Facebook Cover Photos
Ever since Facebook introduced its new cover photo design back in fall 2011, brands, celebrities and ordinary folks have been challenged on how exactly to use that prominent piece of real estate. For those looking for some inspiration, ZoomSphere recently took stock of the most engaging cover photos on Facebook, which is defined as the photos that drew the most overall interactions. ZoomSphere culled the list from its top 1,000 Facebook pages as measured by overall fan followings. The list of cover photos shows that just having a lot of fans doesn't necessarily mean your photo will get high engagement. In fact, of the top 10 most-followed, only one — Shakira — had one of the most-engaged cover photos. Read more »
32 Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed
As the tragic events of this week unfolded, many of us across the country sat glued to our TVs, news sites and Twitter feeds hungrily searching for updates about the Boston Marathon bombing, or the Waco, Texas explosion. In times like these, we are all forced to reexamine our priorities and come together as a nation. If you want a quick update of the news in the tech and social media spaces, we've gathered the most newsworthy announcements and changes for you here. Read on for details about Facebook's new Chat Heads for iPhone and some new apps to help make your life easier So sit back, relax, and enjoy this week's digital media download Read more... More about Features , Business , Tech , Features Week In Review , and Marketing Read more »
Facebook Home Ad Encourages Phone Use During Family Dinners
Facebook Home can make spending time in your real home a little less boring — at least that's the suggestion in a new ad for the product. Facebook's latest video for Home shows a young woman checking her friends' status updates on her phone to escape the "dull" conversation her family is having at the dinner table. Each update she sees on the phone comes to life around her — one friend pounds away at the drums in the corner of the room, another group of friends have a snowball fight around the table — drowning out the real-world conversation in the process. The social network has used this formula in several ads now to promote Home, an Android launcher that centers the smartphone experience around friends rather than apps. In one video, an airline passenger checks Home to entertain himself while waiting for takeoff; in another video, a Facebook employee turns to Home to drown out the sound of his boss Mark Zuckerberg talking. Read more »
MIT’s Luminoso Claims It’s Cracked the Code on Text Mining
A lawn care company recently discovered that people in New England were talking about their product, but mostly in relation to deals and rebates. Meanwhile, customers in Colorado seemed to be obsessed with how the brand's products killed bugs. Such insights were gleaned using technology from Luminoso , a startup hatched from MIT's Media Lab that is officially launching this month. Luminoso's not the only company analyzing text on the Internet in order to mine such relationships, but it claims its technology is a quantum leap over competitors like Lexalytics , Crimson Hexagon and Clarabridge How? Read more... More about Business , Marketing , and Startups Read more »
The Inspiring Tenacity Of Roger Ebert’s Last Words
My Leave of Presence: An update http:// j.mp/YRRHq8 — Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) April 03, 2013 Only a day before legendary film critic, Roger Ebert, passed away, he tweeted a final farewell at the Chicago-Sun Times , promising to pioneer new digital projects, in addition to a hefty schedule of movie reviews. At the ripe age of 70 and the cheery survivor of salivary cancer that left him him without a jaw or voice, Ebert proved that neither age nor disease could stand in the way of a pioneering mind. After cancer stole Ebert’s powers of speech, he turned to Twitter, becoming an instant sensation. “But there’s something seductive about it: The stream, the flow, the chatter, the sudden bursts of news, the snark, the gossip, time itself tweet-tweet-tweeting away,” he wrote for the Times. As of less than a month ago, his movie whit was still sharp as ever. G.I.JOE: RETALIATION Read more »