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Gallery: Nokia N97 hands-on part II: the reckoning

Continue reading Nokia N97 hands-on part II: the reckoning

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Nokia N97 hands-on part II: the reckoning originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Google Reader has just launched a major redesign to its interface, addressing many of the top concerns of users of the popular RSS reader.

In addition to simply looking way more clean and inviting, Google has introduced more collapsible navigation options, a new section for friends, additional feed bundles, and perhaps most welcoming to power users: the option to hide those intimidating unread items counts, which can quickly swell to hundreds or the dreaded 1,000+ when one spends more than a few hours away from the service.

Personally, I'm most stoked about the separation of friends shared items from my RSS subscriptions. While I'm a big fan of shared items, combining them in the all items view created a lot of clutter, especially since Google Reader didn't account for duplicates - multiple friends sharing the same story. Meanwhile, the hide options are handled on a per subscription basis, creating a lot of flexibility in terms of deciding how overwhelmed you want to feel inside of Google Reader.

The Google Reader team has a full explanation of the changes available on their blog.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone

Apple saw the iPhone's market share triple over the past year, capturing 12.9 percent of the worldwide smartphone market, according to a new Gartner analysis.

For the quarter ending September 30, iPhones accounted for 3.4 percent of the market in 2007. That figure was more than 3x higher on the same day in 2008.

Nokia is the leader worldwide in smartphone sales, with 42.4 percent of the market. BlackBerry maker Research in Motion comes in third with 15.9 percent. In North America, Apple is in second place behind RIM, with iPhones accounting for over a quarter of all smartphones.

Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza also noted that this quarter marked the first time iPhone sales exceeded those of Windows Mobile devices; that's pretty astonishing when you consider how many flavors of WM handsets are out there.

[Via Macworld.]

TUAWiPhone triples market share in Q3 2008 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone

Apple saw the iPhone's market share triple over the past year, capturing 12.9 percent of the worldwide smartphone market, according to a new Gartner analysis.

For the quarter ending September 30, iPhones accounted for 3.4 percent of the market in 2007. That figure was more than 3x higher on the same day in 2008.

Nokia is the leader worldwide in smartphone sales, with 42.4 percent of the market. BlackBerry maker Research in Motion comes in second with 15.9 percent. In North America, Apple is in second place behind RIM, with iPhones accounting for over a quarter of all smartphones.

Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza also noted that this quarter marked the first time iPhone sales exceeded those of Windows Mobile devices; that's pretty astonishing when you consider how many flavors of WM handsets are out there.

[Via Macworld.]

TUAWiPhone triples market share as of Q3 2008 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Last week Steve Jobs, in that special way he has of tossing out little random nuggets of chaos into the industry, basically said that Apple already had a netbook out there called the iPhone. As a rabid iPhone and netbook user, I called Shenanigans.

Then a series of articles at What's On iPhone made me stop and give it some more thought. The lines between smartphones, iPhone, netbooks, and all the rest grow increasingly fuzzy, so maybe I jumped the gun on my assessment. I spent some time really thinking about how I used each, and decided that the three features of my netbooks that I value the most are:

Portable: I can grab my netbook as I head out the door and don't need a backpack or messenger bag. Sometimes I'll even take it "just in case" I may need it, where I'll only grab my Macbook if I know for a fact I will need it along the way. Here the iPhone meets the criteria just fine. Even better, since I can't fit my Eee PC in my pant's pocket. Passed.

Powerful: I used to have a Windows Mobile phone and used it for basic phone calls, email, and in a pinch maybe getting some information off the internet (which is NOT the same as just web surfing). As I've noted before, I barely use my iPhone for the "phone" part of it at all. I use it for email, games, notes, information, and nearly normal web surfing on occasion. It's a very powerful little device. Passed.

Functional: Here's where the wheels come off. For all the power in my iPhone, I just can't get at like I need to for many things. For example, I type more on my iPhone than I did on my smartphone, but I'm still not writing a big blog post. Nor am I preparing a presentation, reviewing lots of data, or building anything complex. It's both an input (no keyboard) and output (screen size) issue. It's not a bad thing by itself, but it just limits the use cases for which the iPhone is a solution. I can't put typed data in at a reasonable speed, and the zoom and pan of the iPhone just isn't enough for even mildly complicated work I do on a netbook. Significant Fail.

So I stand by my calling of Shenanigans. The iPhone has a lot going for it, but it is not and never will satisfy the needs of netbook users. Personally, I'm hoping Mr. Jobs was just stalling because judging by the number of people out there attempting to get OSX running on existing netbooks, if Apple ever came out with their own netbook (Macbooklette? Macnetbook? Netmac?) I wouldn't be standing in line to buy one all by myself.

This morning we announced at the Beet.TV roundtable event in New York City that we are now capable of using DoubleClick's DART platform to dynamically serve and track advertisements in downloaded video within iTunes. The advertisements also travel seamlessly to iPods, iPhones and AppleTVs although third-party tracking doesn't work on these devices yet.

This is a first for video podcasts. We've been running advertisements in iTunes since last year but this is the first time we're able to serve them dynamically and offer third-party tracking.

The importance of third-party tracking cannot be overstated. Until now there's been no reliable way for advertisers to measure the success of their advertisements in podcasts. The best metric available has been downloads. The problem is that not everyone who downloads a video podcast watches it, and not everyone who watches it sticks around long enough to see the advertisements. This has meant that advertisers have been leery of spending money on podcasts. Advertisers need a way to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of their buys.

I should mention that Volomedia has a system that can do semi-dynamic insertion (insertion is done at download time) of advertisements in downloaded QuickTime. Volomedia's system can also track impressions and clicks, but only when viewers have installed their Volocast plug-in. Kiptronic can also do semi-dynamic insertion but only offers tracking of downloads, not impressions. Our implementation does not require the viewer to install any software other than iTunes or QuickTime Player, and even works in non-iTunes podcatchers like the excellent Miro.

Our system is already in production running a Puma sponsorship on Golf Girl TV (link goes to iTunes so you can see the ad in action!) and a Skype campaign on Back on Topps. The system supports prerolls, postrolls, midrolls and overlays. All ads can be clicked and clicks are tracked using DoubleClick within iTunes or QuickTime Player. Clickability is not (yet) available on devices like the iPhone because of limitations of those platforms.

We're not running any third-party ad networks in QuickTime because they don't support the environment yet, so the ads we're running in QuickTime are limited to those that we sell ourselves or that content creators sell. If you opt into run of network advertising on blip (click on Advertising from your Dashboard) we'll serve ads into your QuickTime videos as they're available. If you have your own sales force and would like to traffic your own campaigns in your QuickTime downloads you can e-mail support AT blip DOT teevee and let us know. We'd be more than happy to traffic your campaign for you (a self-service interface is coming soon!).

I can imagine that you may have some questions about this announcement. John Furrier (the former CEO of PodTech) did too. He wrote up a blog post on the subject. He seemed a little confused about what exactly we were announcing and why it was innovative. I figure that you may have many of the same questions as John, so here are some excerpts from my discussion with John in the comments on his post:

John Furrier:

thanks for commenting. are you turning on ads for all your videos or just select groups? what kind of metrics are you reporting? Views, clicks, and plays? do you guys do dynamic insertion?

Mike Hudack:

Absolutely. Any show on blip can opt into advertising from their Dashboard (http://blip.tv/prefs/). Shows that opt in receive a blend of ads from our direct sales force plus various ad networks (Google, ScanScout, YuMe, Adap.TV, VideoEgg, et cetera) for views in Flash. We have some daisy chaining and yield optimization technology that chooses the highest paying ad for any individual play.

In QuickTime we're limited to ads that we sell and ads that our content creators sell. This is because none of the ad networks that we work with can serve into QT right now. So shows that opt in will receive some ads in their QuickTime views, but we're not yet filling 100% of the inventory. Any of our 37,000 show creators can sell into their QuickTime inventory, though, and we'll traffic their ads for them.

In Flash we're reporting video views, advertisement impressions, advertisement clicks and engagement. The engagement is shown on a timeline it shows how many people viewed each second of video. This is particularly useful for brand integration and product placement (we can see exactly how many people saw the brand integration or product placement and how many times).

In QuickTime we're reporting video downloads, advertisement impressions and advertisement clicks.

In both Flash and QuickTime the metrics come from third parties (DoubleClick for ad impressions and clicks, Illumenix for engagement).

I think that the most important thing here is that, with both QuickTime and Flash, we're measuring impressions according to the IAB standard the client requests the ad, and the impression is recorded only at that time. We need no software on the client to do this. Just regular iTunes or regular QuickTime. There's no need to download anything, and the viewer doesn't have to be incented to allow measurement to take place it just works.

John Furrier:

Mike thanks for replying this is great content and thanks for basically agreeing to do an asynchronous interview Q&A here on my blog.

A few questions:
1. An you sent me a pointer or particular publisher video playing in iTunes that you can measure

2. Can you measure while iTunes is in a disconnected state? If not, then is this just streaming iTunes, and who watches video this way? Perhaps you means QT player and not iTunes?

3. Can you deal with .m4v and .mp4 files?

4. you mentioned above we're measuring impressions according to the IAB standard the client requests the ad, and the impression is recorded only at that time. - are you saying that you record an ad impression even it they don't watch it if it sits in the library of the users itunes. I'm asking to be specific between requested download, partial download, fully download, and actually watched

Mike Hudack:

You can find links to particular campaigns running in iTunes on the NewTeeVee story that you already linked to. Both are verified using DART.

We've found that between 50 and 75% (I know it's a wide delta, it varies from show to show) of iTunes views happen in iTunes while connected. Apparently *lots* of people watch video this way. For what it's worth, I do too. I subscribe to podcasts in iTunes and then watch them fullscreen on both my laptop at home and on my Mac desktop in the office. I find it to be a generally better experience for watching shows I like, rather than happening upon embeds on the Web.

Our implementation is also compatible with the standalone QuickTime player and with any software that uses the QuickTime player software (Democracy Player for example).

In terms of what file formats we work with, we deliver the videos and advertisements in a QuickTime container that's fully compatible with the entire range of Apple portable devices and with the AppleTV. We have about 37,000 active shows using blip today (they release about three new episodes a month each) and so as you can imagine we have to deal with a very wide variety of incoming video formats. Before we deliver videos we're trafficking against to iTunes we transcode them to the universally compatible QuickTime format and then modify the container to insert the pointers to DART.

In terms of recording impressions, I'm actually saying exactly the opposite. Current iTunes advertising implementations (Kiptronic, Volomedia unless you download their iTunes plugins) record impressions as soon as the video is downloaded. This is a flawed practice because not everyone who downloads the video watches it (at least not while the campaign's running and the ad is still relevant!), and not everyone who views a video actually sees all the ads. What we do is measure an impression *only when the ad is actually viewed*. This is what the IAB standards require. As far as we know no other implementation that doesn't require a download by the viewer (and I'd be curious to know what the install base is for these measurement plug-ins is) does this none of them comply with the IAB standards, and as a result they (unfortunately) overcount impressions.

It's important to note, again, that for the purposes of advertisements we're *not* counting downloads. And certainly not partial downloads. We do record those metrics, but for content creators, not to give to advertisers to measure the success of their campaigns. We are counting *impressions* - people actually seeing the advertisement. I can't stress this enough.

At the Flash on the Beach 08 conference being held in Brighton, England, Adobe's Senior Director of Engineering, Paul Betlem, confirmed that a Flash Player is in development for the iPhone. The information was provided in answer to a direct question from an audience member during the Town Hall meeting sessions held during the conference, historically a good source of Adobe news.

Sponsor

Adobe's Official Word

According to Betlem, Adobe is working on the iPhone Flash Player, but the iPhone is a closed platform. In other words, it's entirely up to Apple as to if and when they will allow the player onto the iPhone.

You may remember it was only earlier this spring that Apple CEO Steve Jobs deemed the current version of Flash Lite, the scaled-down version of Flash for mobile phones, as not being good enough for the iPhone. According to Jobs, Flash Lite would spoil the iPhone experience. He also noted that the desktop version wouldn't work either as it would run too slowly on the iPhone. What he called for was the creation of a "missing product in the middle."

Apparently, Adobe has heeded that call and has been busy building that middle-of-the-road version. The only question now is whether or not it will be good enough. At this point, Apple may be feeling the pressure to make Flash work considering Microsoft's recent licensing of Flash and Reader LE on Windows Mobile.

When Will It Arrive?

As to when we will see Flash on iPhone, it's anybody's guess. However, according to AppleInsider, the iPhone/iPod Touch software will be updated next month to v2.2 beta 1. Included in the update will be a newer version of Safari, which has been redesigned to relocate the Google Search bar to the right of the Address Bar. Also in the update will be a new App Store which will feature a new categories page with large category icons and more spacing between each listing.

We suppose it's too much to hope for that the new version of Flash would be pushed down with this upcoming update as well, but Apple has been known to surprise us before.

POLL: What Do You Think About Flash On iPhone?

We're looking forward to having Flash on the iPhone, but we're curious what you think. Has it been difficult for you to use your iPhone/iPod Touch without it? Or do you think "good riddance!" having never liked Flash in the first place? Please take our poll and let us know your thoughts.

Does iPhone's Lack of Flash Bother You?
( surveys) Discuss

One of my favorite quotes of all times was Ted Leonsis's statement in the mid-1990's that "MSN will be Microsoft's Vietnam." Ted said this around the time that MSN launched (on a proprietary platform - pre-Internet) to compete directly with AOL. 15 years later this seems like such a prescient statement.

I have no idea if Android will be Google's Vietnam. We'll have to look back 15 years from now to really know. But as I watched the T-Mobile G1 Video and read through some of the Android early criticism (and praise), I kept asking myself "why?" I have my own guesses as to the answer, and I know the public answers, but when I sit on the outside looking in, I have way more questions than answers.

If Google is really serious, they'll do what Apple did - license Microsoft ActiveSync and immediately create transparent integration with Exchange (hey - don't forget to write the 74 lines of code that will sync tasks.) I'm a month into using my iPhone and it's here to stay - it is so superior to Windows Mobile 6 on a Dash that I can't even begin to describe my pleasure with it as an integrated mobile device. I've gotten used to the keyboard and can now type on it about as fast as I could on my Dash and my old Sidekick. I continue to hear this as the major complaint from semi-converts, but I just don't see it. You definitely have to change a few things about how you type on a small keyboard, but I had to do that with the Sidekick (thumb clicks anyone?) and the Dash (keep your fingernails really short.) Yeah, there are still plenty of things that could be improved, but with each incremental release I see them get fixed.

As I ponder Foundry Group's digital life theme, including the hour long conversation I had with a new Microsoft friend at dinner last night, I realize that I believe forced migration of an individual's legacy data simply won't work. I have so much legacy data associated with all my different devices, on so many different platforms, in so many different places, across so many different people / relationships that the new devices and software I use, whether by Apple, Google, Microsoft, StartupCo, or FooCo, are going to have to "respect" all that stuff. When I dig into Android a little, I see the potential for that, but I also see resistance to that concept. iPhone 1.0 had this problem; iPhone 2.0 is doing a much better job of not having this problem.

I'm spending the day at Microsoft's Annual Venture Capital Summit and expect to hear a lot about Cloud Computing and Mesh. I have my Microsoft Venture Capital Advisory board meeting tomorrow where the topic is all around where Windows Mobile is going. Against the background of Google, Android, the iPhone, and all the various "cloud computing initiatives", it'll be interesting to see if Microsoft has really reconciled - at least conceptually - issues that led to the MSN / Vietnam problem that still hinder it today. Simultaneously, it's interesting to watch and see if Google is wandering into their own Vietnam(s), or if they will deftly sidestep them.

I love working with / on this stuff and - after watching Fred Wilson's video on the last 15 years in the New York Internet scene (and how prosaic things look like from 1995) - I'm so amused when I think about what things will be like in 2023.