5 million
Roku passes 5 million players sold in the US, shows off with a few more stats
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/10/roku-5-million-sold/
Five years after the original Roku launched and just weeks after the release of the Roku 3, the company has announced lifetime US sales of 5 million units. The proclamation comes attached to a detailed infographic (linked below) that breaks down its last five years of progress, plus stats like where it’s most popular (Lexington, KY) and the most minutes streamed by one player in one week (10,080.) That’s quite a marathon session — Lost plus House of Cards doesn’t even get you halfway — but its stats claim 25 percent of players stream more than 35 hours per week.
The last time we checked in on Roku sales, it was chasing the million unit mark alongside Apple’s hobby. The Apple TV has since risen to 5 million sold in the last fiscal year, buoyed by the AirPlay feature that makes it an attractive accessory for the company’s other devices. To Roku’s favor, it claims 43 percent of owners say it’s their preferred source of video for their TV. It’s come a long way from its start as a Netflix Player with more than 750 channels available including Time Warner Cable and HBO Go, which makes CEO Anthony Wood’s claim that the “future of TV is streaming” look closer than ever.
Fil ed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Roku Blog, Roku 5 Million
A Shimmering, Tweet-Based Langauge Map of NYC
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5985892/a-shimmering-tweet+based-langauge-map-of-nyc
If you’ve ever wondered which languages are spoken where in NYC, here’s the map for you. This visualization shows exactly which languages are used in tweets across the city.
Put together by James Cheshire, Ed Manley and Oliver O’Brien from University College London, the map builds on 8.5 million tweets, captured between January 2010 and February 2013, which were all analyzed for language content. As you’d expect, it’s quite the melting pot, and the highest concentration of different languages seems to be around the Theatre District and Times Square. Best put that down to tourists, eh? Check out the full, interactive map here.[UCL via Guardian]
Facebook Is Building A Mobile E-Commerce Platform
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-mobile-e-commerce-solution-2013-1
Facebook did not get much attention last October when it officially launched “mobile app install ads,” in part because the company unveiled about a dozen new ad products in 2012 and, from the users’ point of view, many of them kinda looked the same.
Also, mobile app install ads appeared to be mainly for mobile game and app developers — and apps and games for Facebook are old news.
But several of Facebook’s big advertising clients who have used the ads in Q4 indicated that the ads can be used to develop e-commerce on Facebook, turning the social network into a mobile shopping and sales device.
The ad units simply allow users to download the clients’ app from Google Play or the App Store.
Lucy Jacobs, COO of Spruce Media, tells us “the performance is right in the strike zone to be ROI positive.” E-commerce app downloads are much more valuable to advertisers than mere impressions because someone with an app is likely to use it repeatedly over time. Each app install therefore delivers a “lifetime” of revenue — meaning an average period of monetized use until the user abandons it — rather than a one-off sale.
Fab.com CEO Jason Goldberg, whose company tested the ad unit with Fab’s shopping app, says it was “Five times more effective than any other mobile download channel that we’ve used.” Fab is one of Facebook’s biggest advertisers.
Nanigan’s, a company that buys ads for Facebook clients, also tested the app for an e-commerce company. Mobile app install ads moved that client into the top 5 downloaded apps on Facebook within 10 days of the campaign starting, the company said. The campaign cost $325,000 and delivered 32.5 million ad impressions.
And Hotel Tonight, an app that drives last-minute hotel bookings, saw a 10 times higher click-to-install rate from the ads over regular Facebook ads. (That campaign was coupled with a Facebook Offer, another of Facebook’s e-commerce plays.) “I feel like a kid in a candy store with all these choices. It performs better from a click-to-install perspective than anything except incentivized ads. From an efficiency standpoint, it’s on par with everybody else out there today,” Hotel Tonight’s director of mobile marketing Adam Grenier has said (quoted in a Facebook case study).
The fact that Hotel Tonight used the ad unit along with a Facebook Offer is instructive — Facebook has launched a number of e-commerce plays (including Offers, Gifts and Deals) and not seen much traction with users.
Perhaps mobile app install ads are where Facebook’s e-commerce sweet spot might be found — not actually doing transactions but driving traffic to those who do.
Disclosure: The author owns Facebook stock.
SEE ALSO:
Why Lady Gaga Just Lost 156 Million YouTube Views
Source: http://www.businessinsider.
When YouTubeslashed views on its site back in December, celebrities paid the price.
Since then Lady Gaga is down 156 million views on YouTube.
Beyoncé and Chris Brown are also among a number of celebrities who lost views on their channels.
A month ago, the streaming site purged video views on both Universal and Sony channels by two billion.
The views weren’t fake, rather, Billboard confirmed that YouTube removed the views as part of a site clean up.
While around 1.5 million of the views were deleted through a de-spamming which accounts for videos on auto-play and pop-ups, most of the lost views came from videos that were no longer active on celebrity channels after they transitioned to a new home on VEVO.
Since YouTube and VEVO are partner sites the old YouTube videos were no longer being used by the artists on their site.
Song Played 1.5 Million Times On Pandora Earns A Shockingly Trivial Amount Of Money (P)
Obviously, the digital revolution hasn’t been very good for the music business.
Not even apps like Spotify and Pandora are helping.
Sure, Spotify and Pandora pay musicians every time one of their songs are played – but they don’t pay much.
Take cellist Zoë Keating, for example.
In a blog post which is cited in today’s New York Times, Keating says that one of her songs was played 1.5 million times during a recent six month span?
Guess how much money she made from that…
…$1,652.74.
Shocking!
Amazon reportedly acquires UpNext, 3D map wars begin in earnest
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/02/amazon-reportedly-acquires-upnext-for-3d-maps/
We might as well call 2012 the year of the 3D map. We’ve seen both Apple and Google show their cards, but GigaOM now hears that Amazon has jumped in by acquiring newcomer UpNext. The details are scant, but the approximately $2.5 million deal would give Amazon the startup’s 3D, Android-native maps of 50 US cities, complete with navigation and extra information about notable buildings. The online reseller hasn’t confirmed whether or not the acquisition is happening, which leaves it very much in rumor territory for now. That said, it’s not hard to imagine Amazon taking that leap. The Kindle Fire is cut out of the official Android ecosystem and won’t get built-in 3D maps without effort on its creator’s part — a buyout would certainly put that mapping on the fast track.
Amazon reportedly acquires UpNext, 3D map wars begin in earnest originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Jul 2012 20:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This is What Three Years of GPS Data Looks Like
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5893151/this-is-what-three-years-of-gps-data-looks-like
There are plenty of cool GPS data projects in existence, but this is one of the most beautiful I’ve seen: three whole years of location data, taken from an iPhone.
To make it, Aaron Parecki collected the location from his iPhone every few seconds for over three years. Then he turned his data into a map—it’s Portland, if you’re trying to work it out. He explains:
“Approximately one GPS point was recorded every 2-6 seconds when I was moving, and these images represent about 2.5 million total GPS points. Collectively, they represent a data portrait of my life: everywhere I’ve been and the places I’ve been most frequently. The map is colored by year, so you can see how my footprint changes over the years, depending on where I live.”
The result may be nothing new, but it sure is pretty. It’s also well worth clicking on the image above to see the full, high-res version. [Aaron Parecki]
Twitter’s Revenue From The Start Of Last Year Leaks, And It’s Ugly
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-twitters-early-business-financials-2012-3
Ryan Tate over at Gawker got his hands on some of Twitter’s financial numbers for 2010 and early 2011 — and they aren’t pretty.
In the first quarter of 2011, Twitter brought in $23.8 million in revenue and lost $49.2 million — with a net loss of $25.8 million for the quarter.
2010 doesn’t look that great, either: the company brought in $28.5 million and had a net loss of $67.8 million.
It’s important to note that this is all before Twitter really got serious about advertising. It’s revenue should have grown nicely through the year. But, the company doubled headcount, so it could still have serious losses.
Here’s the breakdown from the Gawker piece, according to Tate’s source who “has knowledge of the company’s finances”:
Jan. 2011 – Apr. 2011
Revenue: $23.8 million
Cost of revenue: $18.7 million
R&D cost: $13.1 million
Sales and marketing cost: $5.4 million
General administrative cost: $12.0 million
Total costs and expenses: $49.2 million
Loss from operations: $25.4 million
Loss from interest and other: $404,000
Net loss (non GAAP): ($25.8 million)
Jan. 2010 – Dec. 2010
Revenue: $28.5 million
Net loss: ($67.8 million)
Assets: $221.5 million (as of Dec. 2010)
Liabilities: $221.5 million (as of Dec. 2010)
We’ve reached out to Twitter for comment, but haven’t heard back yet.
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See Also:
- Dick Costolo Tells Twitter’s Rank And File, We’re Not IPOing For Years, We Need To Get Better Earnings
- The State Of Twitter, The Startup That Can’t Kill Itself
- Leaked Internal Memo Reveals The Number One Worry For Twitter’s Employees
Social image-sharing site Pinterest, which is the toast of Silicon Valley and the VC world, has passed 10 million users after only 9 months.
TechCrunch reports that it got exclusive stats from ComScore showing that Pinterest had 11.7 million unique monthly visitors in January 2011. That’s up from only 7.5 million in December…and a scant 418,000 last May.
That’s the fastest growth ever for a standalone site.
Users aren’t spending that much time at the site — about 90 minutes a month, compared with 7 hours for Facebook. But it’s clear that Pinterest is a huge phenomenon.
Most interesting, it took off among non-techies first. That’s a great reminder for startups trying to stand out — the world is a lot bigger than your friends who work at tech companies. Sometimes, you have to get outside the bubble.
See also: The Secret To Pinterest’s Astounding Success.
Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.
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See Also:
- If You Build This Startup, There’s A Good Chance You’ll Be A Billionaire
- Blueseed Cofounder Worries That His Visa-Free Boat Will Be Full Of Dudes
- StubHub Founder: Don’t Listen To The So-Called ‘Experts’
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Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.
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