Cross motion sensing and analytics and you'd get Shopper Tracker

If you combined Kinect, the Microsoft motion-sensing device, plus Google Analytics, the dashboard for website usage statistics, you'd understand Shopper Tracker.

Shopper Tracker uses spatial recognition software, heat sensors and proprietary algorithms to analyze customer movements, such as which store shelves are most popular, which items are most touched, which taken and then put back. Spying on Your Buying



Shopper Tracker: tracking real world conversions like web analytics

Technology Reshapes Software, Marketing

One often hears it said that "content marketing" has "been around forever" in the form of newsletters, brochures and custom publishing. So what accounts for the explosion of interest in "content marketing" now?

One way or the other, though it would be a mistake to attribute everything to widespread changes in technology, that would seem to be the best answer. 


In the software business, it often is said that dramatic changes in computing technology now mean a new start-up can launch with about 10 percent of the capital investment required a decade ago. Dramatically lower startup costs


In fact, some venture capitalists say underlying computing costs, resulting from a combination of lower hardware and software tools, mean a software company can be launched for 10 percent of what would have been required in 2000. Venture capitalist Mark Suster says that when he built his first company in 1999 it cost $2.5 million in infrastructure just to get started and another $2.5 million in team costs to code, launch, manage, market and sell our software.



“So it’s not surprising that typical “A rounds” of venture capital were $5 to $10 million,” Suster says. “We had to buy Oracle database licenses, UNIX servers, a Sun Solaris operating system, Web servers, load balancers, EMC storage, disk mirrors for redundancy and had to commit to a year-long hosting agreement at places such as Exodus.”



With the introduction of open-source software, most notably what was called the “LAMP” stack, including Linux (operating system), Apache (Web server software), MySQL (instead of Oracle) and PHP.



“Suddenly infrastructure software was nearly free,” he notes. “We paid 10 percent of the normal costs for the software and that money was for software support.” The point is that a 90-percent disruption in cost spawns innovation. Infrastructure costs 90 percent lower


At the risk of oversimplifying matters, those same technology trends explain why content marketing has gained new prominence.



You may not be able to afford to buy a television network, but nothing's stopping you from creating your own YouTube channel, the argument legitimately can be made.



The cost of launching a newspaper or magazine is prohibitive, not to mention risky. But blogs can be set up for free or very affordably. And every trend in media represents a vast multiplication of channels and sources. All mass medium have been fragmenting for decades, starting with cable TV, then satellite radio, then, most importantly, Web-based media.



Consider the role of “search.” Some 90 percent or more of buying decisions begin with a Web search. Throughout the purchase cycle, users are searching for information, recommendations, research, reviews, authority and credibility.



And once they find the information they seek, they're sharing it with others involved in the purchase decision: a friend, a spouse, a colleague, or their boss, or perhaps they're throwing that information out to a trusted network to vet it, or to validate their position in the decision-making process. Why PR is Poised to Own Content Marketing


Now you can add tablets and smart phones to the list of reasons why fragmented media environments, explosive amounts of new content and always-with-you content consumption devices mean the role of content in all marketing processes has suddenly assumed such new importance.



Not only is it harder to get attention, and keep it, the cost of “going direct” to the audience, without using gatekeepers, is easier than ever. It would not be inappropriate to argue that technology platforms are the fundamental enablers for content marketing’s rise, as technology advances likewise account for new global interest in mobile payments, mobile wallets, mobile commerce and mobile banking.



Marketing, no less than telecommunications, television, audio, print media, banking and retailing are being reshaped and disrupted by fundamental technology changes.

U.S. Broadband Penetration Unchanged at 84% of Internet Households

Internet use in the United States seems to have remained flat at 82 percent of Americans, the  Center for the Digital Future at USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism reports. Also, broadband penetration remains at 84 percent of U.S. homes who use Internet access services.

The expense of using the Internet is cited as a reason for not going online by seven percent of respondents to the latest Center for Digital Future study.

Internet use dipped slightly to an average of 18.3 hours per week, the first time the weekly use has declined, but for the first time, home use of the Internet has passed 12 hours per week

The largest percentages of users reported going on the Internet at least weekly (several times a day, daily, or weekly) to browse the Web (79 percent), use online banking (47 percent), get product information (46 percent), visit social networking and video-sharing sites (46 percent), play games (39 percent), download or watch videos (39 percent), download or listen to music (38 percent), listen to online radio (22 percent), and pay bills (22 percent). Study of Internet behavior

A large majority of respondents report more than one computer in their home; the households with three or more computers (17 percent) and four or more computers (15 percent) reached an all-time high.
 
In seven years, the percentage of computer owners who have a laptop has increased from 18 percent to nearly 75 percent of users.

The number of hours that Internet users report they are online at work remained unchanged from the previous study, at 12.9 hours per week. But Internet users continue to report increasing active use of the Internet at work.  For the third year in a row, the hours that users said they are actively using the Internet at work has increased to 9.2 hours per week, a new high for the Digital Future Project.

43% of Firms Will be Blogging in 2012

Some 43 percent of all companies will be blogging in 2012, according to estimates by eMarketer and others. If nothing else, those sorts of statistics illustrate the explosion of ways firms can get their messages out to potential customers, as well as the explosion of all kinds of "user generated" content.

Those blogs are used for a variety of business purposes, including the creation of content marketing that can be propagated on social media.

Some 70 percent of respondents say they use social media as a way of assessing what people think about a company.

About 61 percent say they use social media to prospect for new customers.

Breaking such forecasts out by firm size, some 65 percent of small business owners now publish a blog for their company, for example. Small business blogging

Apple Patent Infringement Strategy Backfiring?

Is Apple's aggressive patent warfare strategy about to backfire? After winning legal cases that have blocked sale of Android devices in Australia, will Apple become a victim of similar legal actions?


Motorola won the first of two patent-infringement cases against Apple’s European sales division based in Ireland, granting Motorola an injunction against all of the infringing products in Europe. 
 

The products Apple can no longer sell in Germany include the:

• iPhone
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4
• iPad 3G
• iPad 2 3G
• function

Motorola filed the suit in April 2011, which is likely the only reason the iPhone 4S is not included in the injunction, as it wasn't launched at that point. Europe-wide injunction

At issue is a Motorola patent for cellular data transmission, part of wireless data transmission standards that are encumbered by an agreement to license the patent on "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" terms. 

The ruling suggests that, at least in Germany, raising a "FRAND" defense against standards-essential patent infringement claims could be a difficult proposition, and may force Apple to accept Motorola's licensing terms for "past infringement."

The FRAND defense has worked for Apple elsewhere, including in lawsuits brought by Samsung in The Netherlands and France. 

The basic argument is that suing over standards-essential patents instead of working out a FRAND agreement amounts to violation of anti-competition laws. Without some legal barrier to suing over such patents, they could potentially be used as a club to thwart any would-be competitors once they have built products incorporating a particular technology standard. Motorola wins lawsuit

The European patent in suit, EP1010336 (B1) "Method for Performing a Countdown Function During a Mobile-Originated Transfer for a Packet Radio System," is part of the General Packet Radio Service standard upon which 2G and 3G data services operate. 

Basically, that means that all Apple products that use 3G data, including all iPhones and all 3G-capable iPads, use the patented technology.

Sprint orders all OEMs to Remove Carrier IQ

Sources at HTC have told Geek.com that, as a result of the lawsuits targeting Carrier IQ, Sprint, and other CIQ-using OEMs, Sprint has asked all of their partners to get rid of Carrier IQ.

Starting with the high-volume and high-profile devices on the network, each of the OEMs has been asked to quickly release binaries that do not contain Carrier IQ so that over-the-air updates can be pushed to those devices as quickly as possible.

The eventual plan is to remove Carrier IQ from all of the devices on Sprint’s network.

This is being done as soon as possible and, according to our source at HTC, anyone who is working with Sprint in testing labs have even had their vacation time over the holidays seriously restricted. Sprint orders all OEMs to remove Carrier IQ

With other handset suppliers and carriers backing away from Carrier IQ, you have to wonder what the prospects for the company are, in the future. Apple dropped Carrier IQ

Carrier IQ also faces government scrutiny, which almost certainly means the company will have to drastically revise its revenue model, once restrictions, voluntary or otherwise, start to become a business factor.

Once again, we see how much impact regulatory actions now are having on the shape of the communications business.

Live TV On Android Devices in-Home, for Some Time Warner Cable Subs

Time Warner Cable expects to let subscribers watch live TV on Android devices over in-home Wi-Fi early next year, as it does today for Apple iOS phones and tablets.
TWC Eyes Live TV On Android Devices

The application is available to video customers with standard or higher subscriptions, and can only be used by customers with a compatible Navigator set-top or DVR.

Analog users and owners of Motorola set-tops cannot use the application. The app allows users to view up to seven days of content and can also turn the Android phone into a remote control.