Captivating Connections.

consumer electronics ride again.

According to AdAge, "consumer electronics are tried-and-true annual holiday-sales drivers. But this holiday, thanks to a long year of price drops and the influence of the one super-retailer's aggressive marketing plans, consumer electronics have become the main draw of the season."

bring on the tablets!!

The magazine industry is preparing for war when it comes to tablets.

"After letting the Internet slip away from them and watching electronic readers like the Kindle from Amazon develop without their input, publishers are trying again with Apple iPhones and, especially, tablet computers.

Although publishers have not exactly been on the cutting edge of technology, two magazines — Esquire and GQ — have developed iPhone versions, while Wired and Sports Illustrated have made mockups of tablet versions of their print editions, months before any such tablets come to market. Publishers are using the opportunity to fix their business model, too.

'It may help them reassert some, not just control, but reassert themselves and not be in the death spiral that some were in in the last years,' said Ned May, director and lead analyst for the research firm Outsell."

myspace gains imeem.

"MySpace's acquisition of imeem is complete. The company officially announced the transaction on its blog after weeks of speculation.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but sources with knowledge of the transaction say it was for less than the $1 million figure bandied about in earlier speculation. Also, the MySpace Music joint venture is the entity acquiring imeem, not the MySpace Inc. parent company.

The impact of the deal will be felt immediately. Starting tonight, imeem users will be redirected to MySpace Music. In the coming weeks, the company will migrate playlists created on imeem to MySpace Music profiles as well. On the business end, MySpace Music will also transfer imeem's ongoing ad campaigns on a case-by-case basis where possible.

Sources say MySpace Music is also very interested in imeem's mobile app and technologies. MySpace Music as yet has no mobile outlet, and extending the platform into the mobile space is of keen interest for the company in the year ahead."

droids selling like, uh, droids.

"A quarter of a million Droid handsets were sold in the first week after the Motorola smartphone from Verizon Wireless was released Nov. 6, according to a new estimate by mobile app analytics firm Flurry.

That makes the much-hyped Droid easily the bestselling Android-based phone to date, far surpassing the opening week performance of the T-Mobile myTouch, which sold 60,000 units. In comparison to the latest iPhone model, however, the Droid's debut was not quite as impressive. The iPhone 3G S sold 1.6 million in its first week in June."

could this be web tv's year?

Is this the year web tv makes its breakthrough?

"Big TV manufacturers including Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic and Vizio say that they're poised to revolutionize television this Christmas shopping season: They're about to launch the first major marketing push for a new generation of sets that can easily integrate Web content with traditional TV news and entertainment — without the fuss of connecting the TV to a set-top box.

'When we all open up the newspapers on Jan. 1, and they talk about the hot items from the holiday selling season, Internet-connected TVs are going to be at the top of the list,' says Randy Waynick, senior vice president at Sony's Consumer Group.

The campaign could be risky. Consumers may balk if TV sets become too computerlike and complicated. Manufacturers are in a race with cable companies and gadget providers — including makers of DVRs, Blu-ray players and game machines — who offer alternative ways to blend the Internet with TV.

But the new versions of Web TVs will soon become the norm in consumer electronics stores. In 2014, consumers in North America will buy 45 million of these sets, representing 69% of all TV sales, ABI Research says. That's up from 6 million and 14% of sales in 2009.

As they catch on, television will become 'a completely new ballgame,' says Matthew McRae, general manager of advanced technology products at Vizio. Software developers will flock to the new platform, making Web TVs 'the next area of innovation' following computers and cellphones, he says."

top 50 inventions of 2009.

Time has published their list of 'The Best 50 Inventions Of 2009, including tweeting by thinking, the tank-bred tuna and controller-free gaming.

This they missed any?

smartphones to be the majority by 2011.

According to new research by the Nielsen Company, "the majority of mobile phones by 2011 in the U.S. will be smartphones, with the devices used by half of cell phone subscribers, or 150 million people, by mid-2011.

'This shift could happen much faster with the right conditions such as continued competitive price points on devices, lower 'all you can eat' data packages and the increasing consumers who need to be connected anytime, anywhere,' according to a post Wednesday on the Nielsen blog by Jerry Rocha, senior director of the online division.

In just the third quarter of 2009, Nielsen estimates that smartphones accounted for 40% of new phones sold in the period, up from 25% in the prior quarter. And in the third quarter, for the first time, more people accessed the Internet from smartphones than regular phones. 'If this trend continues, we'll see more than 80% of the devices accessing the Internet being these advanced phones,' wrote Rocha.

Assuming that 150 million people will be using smartphones by mid-2011, that means 120 million will be on the mobile Internet and 90 million, or 60%, will be watching video, according to Nielsen projections based on current data trends."

the new biz traveler. minus the travel.

"Two of the world’s biggest hotel companies, Starwood Hotels and Resorts and Marriott International, are outfitting some of their meeting rooms with telepresence suites, a high-end system that leapfrogs typical videoconferencing technology. Their goal is to rent the rooms to customers who are already embracing virtual alternatives to travel, but do not have telepresence suites everywhere they would like to use them.

'Major multinational companies have this technology in their corporate headquarters,' said David Townshend, Marriott’s senior vice president for sales. 'But it’s expensive, so they’ve looked to Marriott and some other providers to really extend their footprint into regional locations.'

Telepresence technology has been around for several years, but analysts say the business model for public rooms, which rent for about $500 an hour, is converging with tight travel budgets to create a more compelling reason for companies to give it a try. The technology itself has also improved, eliminating the delays that can make the typical videoconferencing experience awkward."

how steve changed business.

CNN has a great article looking at how Steve Jobs changes the face of business today...

"How's this for a gripping corporate story line: Youthful founder gets booted from his company in the 1980s, returns in the 1990s, and in the following decade survives two brushes with death, one securities-law scandal, an also-ran product lineup, and his own often unpleasant demeanor to become the dominant personality in four distinct industries, a billionaire many times over, and CEO of the most valuable company in Silicon Valley.

Sound too far-fetched to be true? Perhaps. Yet it happens to be the real-life story of Steve Jobs and his outsize impact on everything he touches.

The past decade in business belongs to Jobs. What makes that simple statement even more remarkable is that barely a year ago it seemed likely that any review of his accomplishments would be valedictory. But by deeds and accounts, Jobs is back."

DVR to become TV's bff?

It's funny...DVR used to be a major threat to TV. Could it now be its Superman?

"In what may seem a media business version of the Stockholm syndrome, television network executives have fallen in love with a former tormentor: the digital video recorder.

The reason is not simply that more households own DVRs — 33 percent compared with 28 percent at this point in 2008 — helping some marginal shows become hits. It is also that more people seem content to sit through the commercials than networks once thought.

These factors combined mean DVR ratings now add significantly to live ratings and thus to ad revenue.

'The DVR was going to kill television,' said Andy Donchin, director of media investment for the ad agency Carat. 'It hasn’t.'

Against almost every expectation, nearly half of all people watching delayed shows are still slouching on their couches watching messages about movies, cars and beer. According to Nielsen, 46 percent of viewers 18 to 49 years old for all four networks taken together are watching the commercials during playback, up slightly from last year. Why would people pass on the opportunity to skip through to the next chunk of program content?

The most basic reason, according to Brad Adgate, the senior vice president for research at Horizon Media, a media buying firm, is that the behavior that has underpinned television since its invention still persists to a larger degree than expected."