Tomorrows Internet Starts Here

May 31, 2013 By Leave a Comment

CISCO have released some more exceptionally comprehensive research as part of their Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast.

In addition to the headline grabbing “Half the globe to have internet by 2017” you can access on their site both regional and about 19 countries, including the UK’s, data.

We’ve extracted a few of the figures and come up with some of our own calculations on devices per internet user rather than their preferred devices per capita.

So bottom lining it here in the UK by 2017 each of us connected users will have another 3 connected devices. And of the total nine 3 will be mobile so that’s your smartphone tablet and one other, possibly wearable!

Some of the Global figures are staggering eg imagine 10.4 billion mobile devices. If you laid these out end to end they would go from here to … a long way away!

(NB at say an average length of  6 inches we reckon they would stretch just under 1 million miles or to the moon and back TWICE!)

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We’ll leave you with CISCO’s animated video of their Global data.

Much much more (particularily on the data front) in and from their press release.

Filed Under: Mobile, Net t'internet, Technology

The Secret Social Garden at #RHSChelsea

May 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Click to enlarge

The rather remarkable Digital Capabilities garden has just won a gold award at the Chelsea flower show in the Fresh Garden Category.

In our words, there is a front garden always in view backed by a panel with numerous opening sections which are activated by certain activity levels on Twitter including the hashtag #RHSChelsea. The panels open to reveal sections of  a second “secret” more exotic garden behind the panels! The greater the tweets the greater the reveal!

It’s a collaboration between:

  • The University of Lincoln – academics from the University of Lincoln’s School of Computer Science, School of Psychology and School of Architecture who were all involved in the development of the installation.
  • Brothers Tom and Paul Harfleet of (unsurprisingly) Harfleet and Harfleet, who are a design collaboration that share an interest in modern architecture and design innovation.

Click to enlarge

You can get a (very) brief glimpse of the “secret” garden on the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) site in their montage video of the Fresh Gardens  from which we borrowed a still.

The garden itself has, not only as you would imagine its own Twitter account @DigCapabilities,  but also boasts a full blown DigitalCapabilities website!

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The RHS Chelsea runover is a bit spartan we thought and doesn’t even have the full compliment of photographs!

As you would imagine the University is rather pleased with itself and has accordingly issued a press release including a quote from their Professor of Social Computing at the University’s School of Computer Science, “One of the things we’re trying to do through our research is to understand how digital media can be made to meaningfully intersect with the physical world. The garden is an opportunity to explore aspects of how we can interweave social media data with real space, as well as how it is possible to make sense of this data by creating thought-provoking visualisations. When people tweet, the screen activates by opening various panels and permitting selected views of the ‘concealed’ garden. The planting inside represents the exotic or unknown immaterial world of the internet, moderated and revealed by our desire for knowledge and interaction.” Hmmmm!

The two H & H brothers are we are sure delighted and comment “The whole process … has evolved into a beautiful conceptual garden that represents the innovation in design that we are fascinated in.”

Neale Richards Ltd  did the garden build  and details of individual members of the overall team are on the DC website. 

All we believe deserve many congratulations for a really smart secret social garden!

Now apart from tweeting the #RHSChelsea hashtag to get the panels moving you can all VOTE for the Digital Capabilities garden via the RHS site to win a  People’s Choice Award  (You have to vote for a Show Garden as well – if in doubt the Australian one with the recorded Yarra Valley frogs is a not unreasonable choice)!

Whilst it’s a bit late in the day why not get the RHS to accept votes via twitter with a discrete hashtag for each garden plus of course the ubiquitous #RHSChelsea!

We haven’t found many/any stunning videos or even photographs to date but we will add them on discovery.

So far (May 27th) this is the, sort of best we could find which is from BBC North – We shall keep looking!

At present (pending improved discovery) we’ll leave you with the concept video which at least has some impressive birdsong!

Filed Under: Social, Technology

Techs Top Most valuable Global Brands again

May 21, 2013 By Leave a Comment

BrandZ  part of the WPP Group  have just published their consistently excellent  “Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2013” which is  commissioned by them and conducted by Millward Brown Optimor.

All you need and more is available from the WPP store (iPhone and Android apps, an iPad magazine Powerpoint presentations, videos infographics + + +)!

Enough eulogising on to the results:

  • The top 3 overall most valuable brands are from the technology sector
  • 6 of the overall top 10 are from the technology sector (our definition)
  • 10 of the overall top 20 are from this tech sector
  • Of the Top 20 risers (the greatest value increases over 2012) 4 are techs (Tencent + 52%,  Samsung + 51%, eBay + 40% & Amazon +34%
  • 2 of the 8 newcomers to the top 100 are techs Yahoo at #92 and our own BT at #94

Click to enlarge

WPP comment “The combined value of the Top100 has grown by 77% since 2006.They are now worth $2.6 trillion.” On the BrandZ sector classifications both Technology and Telecoms have sort of flatlined in value terms with 1% losses and gins resprectively. Retail which includes Amazon and eBay has risen by 17% and is the fifth highest riser Beer leads the way at 36 % followed interestingly by Global Banks ( 23%).

We’ve got together our top 20 Tech list which includes BrandZ’s Technology Telecom Providers and the Online only businesses from their Retail categories ie Amazon & eBay.

Click for Infographic (pdf)

So how will it change this year we think Google could well be vying for the top spot and Samsung will again surge forward. Amazon’s advance may well continue but at a slower rate but they could just make the top 5 – we shall see!

We’ll leave you with their Top 100 video which we thought was somewhat addictively good & catchy!

Filed Under: Brands, Technology

Google Hear and Google Things!

May 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Google kick off their three day developers conference today at the Moscone Center in San Francisco

It starts at 5pm BST (9am PST) and keynotes and much more is live streamed.

Todays Keynote & Android sessions should appear here:

After last years blockbusting Google Glass Skydivers many expect a rather lower key event this year. We’re not so sure there has to be some eyecatcher!

Rumoured happenings are:

  • Updated Nexus Tablets definitely 7 and possibly the 10 or even an 11!
  • Possibly an x phone form the Motorola Mobility stable.
  • The next alphabetically following android operating system update either Key Lime Pie 5.0 or just a rejuvinated  Jelly Bean 4.3.
  • A sort of Google Spotify on the music streaming front – Google Hear is our working name ‘cos Google Play is already taken and Google Listen may not warrant a  ressurection!
  • YouTube have already announced their pay Channels but there may be more from this source.
  • Perhaps further developments on a personal assistant front?
  • The Internet of Things (IOT) will also likely feature at some stage – Google Things has a certain ring to it!
  • The Cloud will also get more than a passing mention!
  • We do NOT think it will introduce its own currency to rival Amazon Coins although Google Bills has a certain “je ne sais quoi”!

We shall see and may report back later with some highlights

We’ll leave you with last years show stopper:

Filed Under: Google, Search, Tablets, Technology

Mother Hip Hop and the Eastenders Tech community

May 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Click to enlarge

Some rather interesting  research and an article from Dylan Williams a partner and chief strategy officer at Mother Advertising.

They carried out a survey last week of the local (Silicon Roundabout) tech community and got 114 responses to each of their three questions aimed at assessing whether marketers are welcome.

Here are the results in full (with a little rounding). So by & large a positive response and Mother is generally pleased and comments “Marketers are not dismissed as simply another source of finance and connections. This generation of entrepreneurs is keen to learn as much as possible. And they’ve spotted at least some of the ways in which marketers can provide that learning. A better understanding of branding and intangible asset value would of course be of huge benefit to young companies, as nearly 40% of respondents recognized.”

But they go on to extol the virtues of closer cooperation and engagement “Marketers need to approach East London’s tech cluster looking to strike up relationships that work for mutual benefit. Relationships based on an ongoing exchange of ideas that maximise both companies’ knowledge stocks.”

It looks as if Mother are at the forefront in this locale being a major partner in MiniBar Labs  and running experimental events at the Trampery in Shoreditch. Mother at the Trampery  which someone has aptly retitled Mampery!

The article in Marketing kicks off with a rather good runover of the “East End Hub” which is worth reading

Oh & the Hip Hop connection is the updating of the  original 1986 question  “What do marketers need to understand about approaching the NY Hip Hop community?” to “What do marketers need to understand about approaching East London’s tech cluster?”

Filed Under: Net t'internet, Technology

The Tech Rich List 2013

April 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

We have as last year produced our Technology take on the latest UK Rich List. As ever it is our subjective definition of Technology. Remarkably little change from last year  (TECH RICH LIST 2012 {Link}) in either the UK or US listings. So here’s the UK for starters.

UK Technology Rich List 2013
  Tech  All  ___ Name Link Worth £ million Source
 ’13  ’12 ’13  ’12 +/- £mn
1 (1) 7 (8) David & Simon Reuben 8,281 1,198 Property, internet
2 (2) 19 (16) Sir Richard Branson & family 3,514 104 Internet, transport, finance +
3 (3) 48= (42)= John Caudwell 1,500     - Mobile phones
4 (5) 70 (70) Michael Moritz 1,125 43 Internet
5 (4) 71 (69) Sir Terry Matthews 1,122 32 Computers
6 (6) 78 (86) Charles Dunstone 1,080 220 Mobile phones
7 (7) 98= (92)= Alan Sugar 860 60 Electrical goods
8 (9) 113 (139)= Niklas Zenstromm 785 185 Internet, software
9 (11) 117 (155) Simon Nixon 733 197 Internet
10 (10) 122 (153)= David Ross 710 170 Mobile phones, property
11 (8) 135 (112) Ruth Parasol & Russ DeLeon 667 -33 Gambling
12= (16) 158= (184)= Peter Rigby 550 70 Computers, hotels, aviation
12= - 158= (164)= Peter Wood 550 50 Insurance
12= (18) 158= (212)= Dou Steyn & family 550 130 Insurance
15 (12) 168 (158)= Mo Ibrahim & family 520     - Mobile phones
16= (13) 173= (164)= Andrey Andreev 500     - Internet
16= (14) 173= (164)= Kevin Cash 500     - Internet, property
18 (15) 192 (184)= Mike Lynch 480     - Software 
19 (19) 195 (218) Peter Jones 474 72 Mobile phones
20 (20) 258 (232) Peter Wilkinson 335 33 Internet

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The only addition, which was really an omission of ours last year, is Peter Wood of Direct Line & eSure.

Interesting to note that all of our top 20 have a worth greater than The Queen who comes in at £320 million!

At an overall level the top 20 this year have a combined value of £24.8 billion (£22.5bn) so that’s an increase of some 10.2% even in these austere times!

Just outside the top 20 there are some up and coming individuals who may well appear next year. They are:

·       Nick Robertson of Asos fame valued at £278 million

·       Daniel Ek of Spotify – £250 million

·       Charlie Sharland of AppSense - £250 million

Worthy of mention is Jony Ive (or Sir Jonathan as the Sunday Times call him) of Apple with an estimated worth of £120 million.

Overall at the top of the UK Rich List is Alisher Usmanov with a worth of £13.3 billion. The top Techie(s) have a worth representing some 62% thereof!   This is, sort of, confirmed in the Forbes billionaires listing where he comes in at #34 with $17.6 billion.

Now on to the worlds (mainly US) top tech billionaires.

Forbes Lists – World Billionaires (March 2013) 
Technology All   ____ Name   Worth $ million Source
’13  ’12  ’13  ’12 +/- $mn
1 (1) 2 (2) Bill Gates 67,000 6,000 Software- Microsoft
2 (2) 5 (6) Larry Ellison 43,000 7,000 Software – Oracle
3 (5) 19 (26) Jeff Bezos 25,200 6,800 Internet – Amazon
4 (3) 20 (24)= Larry Page 23,000 4,300 Internet – Google
5 (4) 21 (24)= Sergey Brin 22,800 4,100 Internet – Google
6 (7) 49 (41)= Michael Dell 15,300 -600 Computers – Dell
7 (9) 51 (44) Steve Ballmer 15,200 -500 Software – Microsoft
8 (10) 53 (48) Paul Allen 15,000 800 Software  Microsoft
9 (6) 66 (35) Mark Zuckerberg 13,300 -4,200 Internet – Facebook
10 (8) 91 (41)= Azim Premji 11,200 -4,700 Software – Wipro

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No change here at all but should we all feel a little sorry for Mr Zuckerberg and Mr Premji who have lost 24% and 30%  of their fortunes? Good to see Mr Bezos on the podium!

In spite of this the overall total has increased by 11.2% to $258 billion ($232 bn).

Just outside our list, at number 11 is Laurene Powell Jobs and family at $10.7 billion. It looks as if Forbes don’t have a concept of inheritance! Their profile introduction starts “Silicon Valley’s wealthiest woman, …..” Accurate but perhaps a mention of Steve might have been appropriate!

Overall at the top of the World’s billionaires is the Mexican Carlos Slim Helu & family with a worth of $73 billion. Bill Gates, in spite of the philanthropy, has a worth representing 92% of  this figure and is at #2 overall.

Filed Under: Technology

A Digital Delight from Deloitte!

April 19, 2013 By Leave a Comment

CLICK to access The Deloitte Consumer Media Survey 2013

Deloitte have just released the seventh annual edition of their research “Media Consumer Survey 2013 – Love in a cold climate”.

We will return with a few comments on the content a little later but initially would like to recommend a visit to their interactive version of the report which we found rather engaging.

There are six chapters in the study:

  • Digital Britain
  • Scatter cushion computing in action
  • Technology rides to the rescue again
  • Newspapers and magazines
  • Paperbacks for the 21st Century
  • Video games

 In the interactive version each chapter has its own graphic with a clickable READ MORE facility which takes you to the relevant part of the pdf . Forward and back arrows take you to each of the six graphics. Where they have 2012 / 2011 buttons clicking those displays the relevant years information.

All in all rather neat we thought warranting another piece of alliteration to compete with their 3Ds “ a digital demographic divide”!

Now first the shocking news. This year smartphones were found to be used primarily to ……. make phone calls!

Here’s the 2012 (2011) order (from inspection!):

  1. Phone calls (2)
  2. Text messaging (1)
  3. Take still photos (6)
  4. Browse the web (4)
  5. Email reading (3)
  6. Email composing (7)
  7. Mobile online search (5)
  8. Play games (11)
  9. Listen to music (10)
  10. Updated social network page (8)
  11. Online banking (12)
  • Read news articles (9)

At an overall level the (YouGov) survey found that the average UK citizen owns 11.4 types of media devices, up from 9.7 in 2011.” Our individual count here currently (with no double counting) just gets us into double figures!

The growth rate (or lack of it) by selected devices we found interesting with six of the fifteen having negative growth, two zero growth and seven above the line!

  • Negatives were in descending order Desktops, DVDs, Laptops, Radios, Flat Panel TVs and Mobile Phones.
  • With sort of, no growth were Games Consoles and Portable Media players
  • Positive growth in ascending order were Smartphones, PVRs,  E-readers, Connected TV’s, Blu-ray players, Handheld games consoles and Tablets.

The only real surprise there, to us are the E-readers. We thought greater displacement/cannibalisation  by tablets was taking place. Perhaps that will become more apparent this year.

We do though agree with Benedict Evan’s presentsation we noted earlier this week that whereas TV’s are limited (by & large) to a total available market of household numbers (ie 25 million ish in the UK) virtually all the personal mobile devices have around double that market.

Much more to appreciate in the report – especially the interactive version.

Filed Under: Technology

Well mannered Government Website wins Design Award

April 17, 2013 By Leave a Comment

These are extracts from just some of the, arguably objective, quotes of the awarding body and judges of this years Design Museum Design of the Year Award 2013.  “’The Oscars of the design world’ showcase the most innovative and imaginative designs from around the world, over the past year, spanning seven categories: Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Furniture, Graphics, Transport and Product.”

Many congratulations are in order for the Government Digital Service who have created GOV.UK. The Service arose out of the recommendations of Martha Lane Fox following her report “DirectGov and beyond 2010” which was the also the, sort of, birthplace of GOV.UK 

We have been supportive for some time and in spite of the inevitable problems and difficulties along the way the progress has been and likely will be most impressive.

One of the features mentioned by the judges and in the Design Museum press release  was the typeface. “ …. a revised version of a classic typeface, designed by Margaret Calvert back in the 1960s.” In fact it is based on the Transport typeface which is used on all UK roadsigns! For you typography geeks here’s a blog post which goes into a lot more detail. The site including this typeface certainly to us gives a very “clean” impression.

You can read in this typeface the Governments press release on the GOV.UK site!

Filed Under: Net t'internet, Technology

Is Denmark the most typically digital country in Europe?

March 26, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Towards the end of last week comScore released their excellent “2013 Europe Digital Future in Focus”.

It’s part of their series which we commented on before and follows the UK version.

We cannot recommend it highly enough and encourage you to download the report and any others which catch your eye.

To date they cover:

  • The UK
  • The US
  • Canada
  • France
  • Germany
  • Brazil
  • Mobile

As a taster here’s our compilation of the top 20 sites visited across an impressive 18 countries in December 2012. We’ve gone for commonality and omitted the country specific sites which don’t usually cross borders to a great extent.

Click to enlarge

The sites are, sort of, in order of highest position and occurrence.

Denmark has the greatest number of these recurring sites in their top 20 and Russia the fewest. We still are a bit old school in terms of classifying Russia as European!

Go and have a look it is very worthwhile!

Disclosure: We have no commercial relationship with comScore

Filed Under: Net t'internet, Technology

Cultural Vibes of the Tech Titan Brands

March 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Added Value, part of the WPP stable, on their rather impressive site, have revealed the results of their Cultural Traction 2013 Study.

The net effect of their machinations, as we understand them, involving 160 brands, 62,250 respondents across 10 countries, is a “Vibe” score.

We’ll let them continue ”A brand’s VIBE score is a composite of four dimensions, statistically formed from dozens of attributes reflecting cultural impact and relevance.

  • VISIONARY: brands leading the way and getting our attention
  • INSPIRING: brands that have a point of view and stand for something I want to be a part of
  • BOLD: brands that have swagger with substance
  • EXCITING: brands that are disruptive and have momentum”

On our Technology definition the major multinationals did rather well across almost all countries with the possible exception being China where the likes of Taobao, Sina  and Tencent were in their top 10 technology companies. They are, sort of their equivalent Amazon / ebay, Twitter / Facebook and an online conglomerate respectively.

Click to enlarge

The rankings we have used are simply deduced from the global and country listings (e & o e)! We have, sort of promoted Amazon (even although it has no global ranking) to reflect it’s importance in particular in the English speaking world (excluding Australia) together with China and Germany!

Much more worth investigating on their site in particul;ar their case study of Apple v’s Samsung “Frenemies at the Gate“.

 

Disclosure; We have Marketing Affiliate relationships with Google and Amazon

Filed Under: Brands, Technology
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