Tag Archives: traditional media

The future for smartphones, digital media and AR

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The 30 second summary of this year’s Deloitte TMT Predictions

On Tuesday I went to the Deloitte TMT predictions (that’s Telco, Media and Telecommunications) event at CodeNode in London.

I’ve covered several of Deloitte’s events in the past – they’re often thought-provoking and insightful, based on some decent consumer research and with a good amount of humour thrown in.

Smartphones

“We’ve entered the beige phase” of mobile phones – they’re all looking the same, with consumers unable to differentiate new features.

One of the stand out quotes was that smartphones are now in an area of “invisible innovation”. That is, the connectivity (e.g. 5G), camera, processors and so on, are all improving, but consumers don’t see these. Continue reading The future for smartphones, digital media and AR →

Are printed newspapers dead?

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Printed newspapers: "It ain't over yet" - if you stick your head in the sand much longer it will be
Printed newspapers: “It ain’t over yet” – if you stick your head in the sand much longer it will be

Last night I went with some colleagues to a Media Society event called “Newsprint – It’s Ain’t Over Yet?” After listening to the panel and some of the questions, I think the end of printed newspapers could be nearer than previously thought.

The panel consisted of two academics, Professor Roy Greenslade and Professor Jane Singer both from the City University London; Sarah Baxter the Deputy Editor of The Sunday Times; Christian Broughton, Editor of The Independent; and Alison Phillips, the Editor of The New Day. Professor Greenslade was the chair, and Alison sent him a text half way through the event to say she couldn’t make it. Continue reading Are printed newspapers dead? →

Watching TV in the Howard House

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Chromecast - the best bit of kit on our television
Chromecast – the best bit of kit on our television

Like many households in the UK, our TV viewing habits have changed in the last few years, and continue to change.

To set the scene, we have four kids, ranging from 9 to 14 years old (plus Mrs H and I).

Our TV package consists of the following, each of which I’ll then describe:

  • Sky TV
  • Netflix
  • BT Sport
  • Now TV
  • YouTube
  • Google Play
  • And recently… an Amazon Prime Trial

Continue reading Watching TV in the Howard House →

Friends Reunited: 5 reasons why it went so wrong

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Friends Reunited - 5 things that went wrong
Friends Reunited – 5 things that went wrong. One of which was this poor design

Friends Reunited, one of the UK’s Internet stars, announced yesterday that it will be closing in a month’s time.

In the UK, Friends Reunited was the Internet version of Woolworths – it’s a site which we all had some affinity to, but didn’t use, and are sad to see depart. How could this household name fail to succeed?

There are five reasons why the site couldn’t compete with later social networks. Continue reading Friends Reunited: 5 reasons why it went so wrong →

Reviewing the new Google Play Movies Second Screen Experience

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Last night I sat down with Mrs H last night to watch Kingsman (an except film, highly recommended) on Google Chromecast. The film was pay per view, which was selected on my smartphone and then ‘transferred’ to Chromecast.

Kingsman - a great film, and the real life gadgets are almost as good as the fictional ones
Kingsman – a great film, and the real life gadgets are almost as good as the fictional ones

I noticed a new feature last night – while the film was playing I looked at my phone and the screen showed the characters and actors currently on the TV screen, as well as the music soundtrack. It was like Shazam on steroids!

How many times have you been watching TV and wondered who a specific actor was? If this happens to you regularly, you’ll love the experience.

Continue reading Reviewing the new Google Play Movies Second Screen Experience →

20 Internet Trends in 2015

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One of my favourite annual Internet reports is out. It’s the KPCB report, from the Venture Capital company based in the US.

It’s 196 pages of fact-packed charts, and here are my favourites.

The US makes up ‘only’ 10% of the 2.8bn online users. 73% of the World has a phone, of which 40% are smartphones. So there are 2 billion smartphones.

The top 15 Internet companies (by capitalisation) consist only of American and Chinese companies.

The only company featuring in the top 15 companies in 1995 and 2015 is Apple, which has increased its capitalisation by over 190 times! The combined capitalisation of the top 15 has increased by 141 times.

ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) on Facebook is $9.36, based on advertising alone. Continue reading 20 Internet Trends in 2015 →

Deloitte Media Consumer 2015

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Sobering PewDiePie vs Corrie viewing stats. Source: Deloitte 2015
Sobering PewDiePie vs Corrie viewing stats.
Source: Deloitte 2015

I went to the Deloitte Media Consumer 2015 survey presentation presented by Matt Guest, their Head of Digital Strategy EMEA. The survey focusses on media consumption habits in the UK, and was an informal, highly interactive presentation. So interactive, that I apologise to the rest of the audience for asking so many questions.

The invite pulled out some key stats:

  • A third of us watch the same TV shows every day
  • 61% watch on average one short form video a day
  • The younger generation prefers sharing social media content with a limited amount of followers
  • 36% of adults feel they don’t need to go and see big releases in the cinema as they are available on demand so quickly
  • For up-to-date news content, 70% of users turn to Twitter

Continue reading Deloitte Media Consumer 2015 →

The Guardian newspaper Supporter Membership model

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The Guardian supporter membership model
The Guardian supporter membership model

This is a neat idea from the Guardian with some clever language – instead of pushing more traditional subscription models, they are offering “Guardian supporter membership” for £5/ month.

Whilst competitors are pushing many more adverts over their well designed pages, or moving to a pure subscription model, the Guardian have sharpened their copywriting pencils (err, keyboards?) and produced a more enticing product offering – as shown here https://membership.theguardian.com/about/supporter?INTCMP=MEMBERSHIP_BANNER_TEST_A

Continue reading The Guardian newspaper Supporter Membership model →

Web reading list for April

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Question: Is this David Cameron's rating or Apple share price?
Question: Is this David Cameron’s rating or Apple share price?

Since the week before Easter I’ve been extremely busy – there was the holiday period, followed by a big family celebration, and then last Friday I managed to fall off my bicycle and break some fingers. In short… it’s been quite hectic.

During the family celebration I heard a brilliant quote from a friend, Yehuda, an IT Solution Architect, who had travelled from Israel to join us for a week. We were discussing how IT projects have become either prescriptive (detailed requirements) or business focussed (with high level requirements and leaving the solution to the supplier partner). He tells this to all his customers:

Tell me either what you want to do, or how to do it, but if you tell me both – go and do it yourself.

Continue reading Web reading list for April →

How the NBA and McLaren are leading technology innovation

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Darren Roos gave the keynote speech
Darren Roos gave the keynote speech

Customers often ask my team how we stay up to date with the latest innovations across industries. One way is to attend industry events outside of your own.

Today we went to Leaders Meet Innovation – an event for sports organisations hosted by SAP and the NBA at the BAFTA in London. We were invited to the event because we produce several sports websites.

The event itself was extremely well organised. Most of the top brands you can think of in sport were there, and SAP – the main sponsor, gave a really good presentation on why sports is important to them, especially as a case study to other industries. They were showcasing their nba.com/stats products at the event and during some their presentations. Continue reading How the NBA and McLaren are leading technology innovation →