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Is Android fragmented or is this the new rate of innovation?
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/22/entelligence-is-android-fragmented-or-is-this-the-new-rate-of-i/
Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he’ll explore where our industry is and where it’s going — on both micro and macro levels — with the unique wit and insight only he can provide.
A few weeks ago I sat down with the father of Android, Andy Rubin. Andy’s a super smart person, having done stints at Apple, General Magic, WebTV and Danger before starting the Android project. We talked about a lot of things, and we particularly spent time discussing Android fragmentation. I’ve written in the past about my concern that the Android platform is fragmenting much like desktop Linux has over the years, and the potential for the platform to turn into a patchwork of devices and vendor specific modifications that bear little relationship with each other. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my conversation with Andy, and I’ve rewritten this column more than a few times as a result.
Today, there are at least five different versions of Android on the market. Many of them are highly customized to allow for new features and device differentiation, but that same customization also makes it harder for vendors to update them to the latest versions. New releases and versions of Android are often outdated by newer versions in the span of just a few weeks. For example, the Nexus One when released was capable of running apps like Google Earth that devices such as the Droid could not, because it ran Android 2.0, not 2.1.Tablet vendors complain their Android offerings lack features such as Android Market because Google forbids them to install the marketplace app, forcing them to create proprietary alternatives. It would appear Android is indeed fragmenting — but perhaps there are other forces at work.
When I spoke with Andy, he pointed out there are several classical symptoms of platform fragmentation. First, older APIs no longer work and break in new releases. Second, multiple application marketplaces offer different applications that lack uniformity across platforms. Both of these are true when you look at desktop Linux. Neither are true of Android.
Continue reading Entelligence: Is Android fragmented or is this the new rate of innovation?
Entelligence: Is Android fragmented or is this the new rate of innovation? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 May 2010 20:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Stop paying Kim Kardashian $10,000 per tweet – She’s NOT Influential if no one re-tweets
Source: AdAge.com
| Yahoo Scientist Questions ROI of Kardashian’s Sponsored TweetsDuncan Watts Explains His Model for Predicting Value of Influencers on Twitter |
Ad Age Digital Conference
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Stop paying Kim Kardashian $10,000 per tweet. That’s the recommendation based on the work of Yahoo’s principal research scientist Duncan Watts, who presented his findings at Advertising Age’s DigitalConference.
“If you recruit enough people who, on average, influence just one other person, you could get a much better return on investment if you aggregated them and altogether paid them a tenth of what Kardashian gets.”
But in looking at influencers, Mr. Watts found that it’s incredibly hard to predict who will be a major factor on Twitter, a conclusion that runs counter to the prevailing wisdom of social epidemics popularized by the book “The Tipping Point.” While he acknowledges there are certain personalities such as Kim Kardashian who can potentially trigger a larger cascade of re-tweets given her large amount of “followers” (“Tipping Point” enthusiasts call her a connector), close studies of social platforms reveal that influence is spread more efficiently and more reliably when done through many-to-many connections, rather than through a few highly connected individuals.
“Most of them will send tweets, and no one else re-tweets,” Mr. Watts said. “A lot of times, not that many people are listening on Twitter.”
More supporting details here: http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/celeb-twitter-followers-have-low-authority-13297
Celeb Twitter Followers Have Low Authority

While celebrities have high numbers of Twitter followers, those followers usually have minimal reach and influence, according to social media consulting firm Sysomos.
Celebrity Followers Offer More Quantity than Quality
Celebrities seem to have large amounts of followers with low Twitter authority levels (see “About the Data” for more information on how authority levels are determined). Of five celebrities examined, the average follower of President Barack Obama had the highest authority rating on a scale of 0 to 10, 2.4. The most common authority score among Obama’s roughly 4.2 million followers is 1, held by 20%.
Interestingly, the celebrity whose fans had the second-highest authority score of 2.1, pop singer Lady Gaga, had the second-lowest following of about 4.5 million. The most common authority score of followers of all celebrities except Obama was 0.
Actor Ashton Kutcher had the highest number of followers (about 5.1 million), and the third-highest average authority score (1.8). Pop singer Britney Spears had the lowest average follower authority score (1.3) and second-highest number of followers (about 4.8 million).
Celebrities seem to have large amounts of followers with low Twitter authority levels. This could be because they attract everyone from all walks of life. Some people may only be on Twitter to see what their favorite stars have to tweet about. In addition, most celebrity followers tracked by Sysomos had few followers themselves, pushing down their authority scores.
Social Media Heavyweight Followers Have Most Authority
Social media heavyweights, private citizens who have made a name for themselves on Twitter, had the fewest followers but the highest average authority scores for their followers. Following the pattern seen with celebrity tweeters, the social media heavyweight with the fewest followers, Jason Falls (27,195), had the highest average follower authority score (4.8).
Conversely, the two social media heavyweights with the most followers, Chris Brogan (139,693) and Jeremiah Owyang (64,775), tied for the lowest average follower authority score of 4. The most common authority score for all social media heavyweight followers was either 4 or 5.
Online Media Beats Traditional Media
On the whole, the five news/media sources tracked by Sysomos show more variety among their scores than the celebrities or social media heavyweights. However, online media sources attracted fewer followers with higher average authority scores than traditional media sources.
Online media source Read Write Web, with about 1 million followers, had an average follower authority score of 3, which was also its most common follower authority score (19%). This tied online media source Mashable in average authority score, most common authority score and percentage of followers with the most common authority score. Mashable has more followers with about 2 million.
Online media source Tech Crunch ties traditional media source Time.com with an average follower authority of 2.4 and most common follower authority score of 2, at virtually the same percentage. However, Time.com has significantly more total followers (2.1 million) than Tech Crunch (1.4 million).
Traditional media source New York Times has the highest total number of followers (about 2.5 million) and lowest average authority score (2.2). It also has by far the lowest most common authority score of 0 (22%). Not surprisingly, sources that specialize in social media attract users that are more active on Twitter.
Facebook Fans More Valuable Customers
While there is variation in the value of different types of Twitter followers, on the whole Facebook fans of a brand provide more value as customers than non-fans, according to a new study from digital consulting firm Syncapse Corp.
The average value a Facebook fan provides a brand is $136.38, but it can swing to $270.77 in the best case or go down to $0 in the worst. This value is based on Syncapse analysis of five factors per fan: product spending, brand loyalty, propensity to recommend, brand affinity and earned media value.
On average, a Facebook fan participates with a brand 10 times a year and will make one recommendation. Value can differ significantly by individual brand. For example, in the case of Coca- Cola, the best case for fan value reaches $316.78 but is $137.84 for an average fan. In the worse case scenario, a fan is worth $0.
About the Data: Using its social media monitoring and analytics platform, Sysomos looked at the authority rankings of five celebrities, five social media heavyweights and five media organizations. Rankings were based on the kind of Twitter users following these celebrities, social media heavyweights and media organizations. Each Twitter user is assigned an authority ranking between 0 to 10 – with 10 signifying someone with very high reach and influence. This authority ranking is based on the number of followers, following, updates, retweets and several similar measures used by Sysomos.
Map of IP addresses around the world used to commit Click-Fraud
A recently disbanded click fraud ring in China racked up $3 million worth of clicks in two weeks. $3 million that we’re aware of. Just how detectable is this whole business of racking up fraudulent ad revenue clicks?
That intricate mess of lines above represents a portion of DormRing1, the click fraud bunch that was caught in China. The lines show the relationship of some of the IP addresses involved in the fraud and how they are connected to some fraudulent ad clicks. The whole network actually “involved 200,000 different IP addresses and racked up more than $3 million worth of fraudulent clicks across 2,000 advertisers in a two-week period.” Impressive and scary at the same time.
The trouble is that no one really knows how much ad revenue DormRing1 collected before they were caught. Click-fraud monitoring services such as Anchor Intelligence, the ones behind this catch, are evolving to keep up with the scale on which these rings are operating. It’s still difficult to judge just how well they’re doing as they’re having to infiltrate forums and gain the trust of the perpetrators in a manner reminiscent of drug busts. But as the criminals are getting more elaborate, the investigations are too.
That good news aside, do me a favor: after you read this post, comment, and all that jazz, refresh the page a few times and—Ah…I mean, heh…just kidding. [Tech Crunch]
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40 percent of iPhone sales are enterprise, Android ‘built with a very specific focus to consumers’
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/27/atandt-40-percent-of-iphones-are-enterprise-android-built-with/
It isn’t just Verizon’s Lowell McAdam with fascinating commentary at this Barclays Capital tech conference going down in New York this week. Ron Spears, who leads up AT&T’s Business Solutions division, had some notable things to say about enterprise mobility — specifically, the iPhone’s role in taking businesses to the road, a magic trick typically associated almost exclusively with BlackBerry over the past ten years. Basically, Spears says that he’s seeing extraordinary uptake on the business side with the iPhone since 2008 and the introduction of the platform’s first enterprise-focused features; in fact, he claims that “four out of every 10 sales” are to enterprise users these days and that it has all but caught up to BlackBerry for the kind of modern, tight, full-featured security that your average IT department needs. On a related note, Spears says that he hasn’t “seen the Android platform yet in the enterprise space,” but that he figures it’ll evolve over time to become “hard to ignore” to the enterprise segment. Of course, considering that AT&T has virtually no presence in the Android market at the moment, we’re not surprised that he’d take a lukewarm tack — so here’s hoping that changes fast. Follow the break for more highlights of Spears’ comments.
Continue reading AT&T: 40 percent of iPhone sales are enterprise, Android ‘built with a very specific focus to consumers’
AT&T: 40 percent of iPhon! e sales are enterprise, Android ‘built with a very specific focus to consumers’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 17:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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