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One Of The Most Amazing Things About The iPhone’s First Five Years (AAPL)
The iPhone turns five this week. One of the most impressive things about the iPhone’s five year run is that the average selling price of the phone has remained just about the same around $600, notes Horace Dediu of Asymco. Meanwhile, Apple’s rivals pull in less than $400 per device.
Think about that for a second. Apple defined the modern smartphone market with the iPhone. It then faced an onslaught of competition from Google, Microsoft, Palm, and Research In Motion. Despite their various efforts to dethrone the iPhone, Apple has managed to stay on top. This is evident by the fact that since 2008 Apple has never had to slash its prices.
With all the competition, and pressure from carriers, if Apple was losing the smartphone battle, you’d expect it to cut the price of the phone. Instead, it’s been steady.
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How to Make $1,000 a Day on Pinterest
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5896926/this-man-makes-1000-a-day-on-pinterest
And you thought Pinterest was only useful for lonely pastry fantasy. This anonymous conman talked to the Daily Dot, and boy does he have an easy job: fooling Pinterest’s lonely materialists into clicking Amazon spam links. For money.
It works like this. Pinterest Spammer creates thousands of fake accounts, probably with regular breaks to stare into the mirror, bleary-eyed, and ask if this is really happening. Then he proceeds. Thousands more accounts. He won’t reveal his method, but let’s assume, for our sanity and his, that it’s automated. Then his spam accounts “repin” the same goddamn picture of boots or Christmas ornaments or sequined sock puppets, ad infinitum, rocketing each image to the top of the site’s popularity charts. When you click the thing, you’re delivered to This Guy’s Amazon account.
The terrifying part? People then proceed to buy the things they’ve clicked on. Enough to generate thousands:
As the days came my earnings increased and increased and increased. First week of doing this I made around $2,000 which was Feb. 20-29. I stepped my game up and changed the way I was doing some things, and I saw a dramatic increase in my earnings. Went up to $500-800 a day. Kept at it and for the past two weeks I have made over $1,000 a day with the highest earnings being around $1,900.
I fully expect next week’s earnings to be $2,000-2,500 a day. There are no guarantees in this business and it could all come crashing down soon. Not a matter of if, but when will it happen.
Think about what you did at work today, or think about the fact that you’re unemployed, and then think about this, and then punch a hole through a car. [Daily Dot]
The Rise Of Pinterest
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-the-rise-of-pinterest-2012-2
After less than two years in business, Pinterest is already one of the most popular social networks in the world, as measured by engagement, according to data from comScore, via BI Intelligence.
As you can see here, it’s ranked just below Facebook and Tumblr as the most popular site to hang out on.
One other thing of note on this chart is Twitter’s low engagement rate. It’s somewhat surprising, but we’d guess it’s a mix of factors. One being that mobile app usage is big for Twitter. The other being that clicking on links on Twitter takes you off of Twitter, unlike the other sites which encourage you to click to content they host.
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See Also:
- Every Single Social Network Explained Through Donuts
- The Reason Eduardo Saverin Isn’t Listed As One Of Facebook’s Top Shareholders
- Facebook Valuation Surges Past $100 Billion On Private Markets
Executive compensation is one of the most ironic hotly-debated topics out there. It’s hotly debated because people often complain that CEOs are overpaid. It’s ironic because most of the people who complain about excessive pay have the capacity to do something, yet they do nothing.
You see, every year shareholders of a company are mailed a Form DEF 14A, also known as the proxy statement. In the proxy are the details of the company’s executive compensation plans, and they are typically written plain English. If shareholders don’t like the plan, they vote it down.
But many shareholders will receive the proxy in the mail and throw it right into the trash. And by default, they vote in favor of whatever plan is recommended by the Board.
Anyways, research firm Obermatt (via The Economist) computed the excess pay of CEOs of the S&P 100 companies. Excess pay is calculated as deserved pay less actual pay. Deserved pay is measured considering earnings growth and shareholder return and the compensation practices of peer group companies.
On the top of the “Most Overpaid” list is Occidental Petroleum’s Ray Irani. Irani is widely considered the poster child of excessive pay.
On the bottom are fan favorites Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett.
Here’s a chart of Obermatt’s rankings courtesy of The Economist:
SEE ALSO: These CEOs Were Paid $100+ Million To Quit >
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See Also:
- INFOGRAPHIC: It’s Not Easy To Be A CIO
- Apple Might Lose A $1.6 Billion Lawsuit For Using The Word ‘iPad’
- DOUG KASS: SELL EVERYTHING! EVEN ROUBINI IS BULLISH!
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Android leads US market share, iOS may have stopped growing, RIM is still falling
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/14/shocker-android-grew-us-market-share-after-q2-ios-was-static/
NPD just published its latest plotting of the great American smartphone OS rivalry, and although the report covers annual rather than quarterly trends, it’s perhaps more interesting to hold it up against the previous set of figures we saw — those for Q2 2011. Back then, Google’s OS had a 52 percent share, but these new figures suggest a marginally better performance of 53 percent between January and October. Meanwhile, iOS’s 29 percent share is identical to what we saw in Q2, hinting that its growth has slowed right down or even stopped. RIM’s share of the pie is 10 percent, compared to 11 percent in Q2, showing that the Summer flurry of new BB7 handsets like the Bold 9930 and Torch 9810 had little immediate impact. WP7 obstinately refuses to overtake Windows Mobile, although these figures are pre-Titan, while the doomed Symbian and webOS are barely clinging to life. Aside from all that, perhaps the only stats that are genuinely still shocking are those at the top of the column for 2006. Click below for further detail’s in NPD’s press release.
Continue reading Android leads US market share, iOS may have stopped growing, RIM is still falling
Android leads US market share, iOS may have stopped growing, RIM is still falling originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Search Ads versus Display Ads
UPDATED: April 10, 2012
AdSafe study shows that a quarter of display ads are never in view on publishers’ websites. And it gets worse from there — 41% never in view for content networks and 46% never in view for ad exchanges. Users are there to view content, not ads. And they are conditioned to avoid the top, right side, and bottoms of web pages (see eye tracking at the bottom of this post).
Image Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1008965
ORIGINAL POST: March 25, 2011
Hands down, search ads beat display ads in click through rates (CTRs). In every one of the examples below and the several dozen more that I did not screen shot, search is more effective than display because the ads are brought up when the user types in the search term and are looking for something, vs display which is served up alongside content.
Facebook display advertising click through rates are even sadder (i.e. worse) as you can see from the chart below — like an order of magnitude
lower (0.024%)
digital display vs search ads
Eye tracking studies show that most users are already conditioned to avoid looking at the top and right side of web pages because they know that is where banner ads or display ads go.
Inexplicable rise in iPhone dev’s App Store sales connected to iTunes account hacks?
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/04/inexplicable-rise-in-iphone-devs-app-store-sales-connected-to-i/
We’ve received a handful of tips this morning claiming something’s rotten in the state of the iTunes App Store, namely via the Book category. As of this writing, 42 of the top 50 books by revenue are from the seller Thuat Nguyen, whose company website (“mycompany”) leads to parked site www.home.com. A vast majority of these book apps were released in April, have little to no customer ratings or reviews, appear to be in Vietnamese (despite claims in the side bar that the supported languages are English and Japanese), and may or may not be infringing on copyrighted work — we’re noticing a lot of Dragon Ball art here. To give sales a sense of scope, Twilight series conclusion Breaking Dawn is hovering only at 34 right now.
So, how did these books hit the top of the charts? The other half of this story has to do with a claimed rise in iTunes account hacking, with a number of people reporting up to hundreds of dollars being spent unwillingly from their account to these specific books. Coincidence? Let’s not mince words here, something is definitely amiss, and it’s not looking good. Just to be safe, might wanna check your purchase history under Apple Account information. We’ve reached out to Apple and will let you know as soon as we hear back.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Inexplicable rise in iPhone dev’s App Store sales connected to iTunes account hacks? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Jul 2010 14:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Vapor4 May Be the First Bumper Worthy of the iPhone 4
The ecosystem for the iPhone4 has begun in earnest.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5576923/vapor4-may-be-the-first-bumper-worthy-of-the-iphone-4
The iPhone 4 shatters easily, and its tiny plastic bezel offers no protection. On top of that, touching its metal rim causes interferences. The Vapor4 bumper—made of aluminum—may solve most of these design problems. And it looks great:
Of course, nothing looks as cool as the iPhone 4 on its own, but if you want to avoid the antenna problems and the shattering, you are going to need one of these. They are made of aluminum, and they have an interior liner that separates the metal from the antenna, insulating it. The manufacturer—the same who makes the beautiful Joule iPad stand—told me that their tests showed no interference whatsoever across all models of iPhone:
We basically wrapped it in an inch thick of anodized aluminum all around with our special secret liner inside, nothing impacted the reception.
We will have to test this, but it definitely is the first bumper that actually looks cool. Especially the way you put it together, with those hex screws.
The Vapor4 is not cheap, although not as expensive as the beautiful exotic wood back replacement: The Vapor4 is $80. For $100 you also get the V4Carbon, a carbon fiber back plate that will further protect the iPhone 4 fragile glass back. [Elementcase]
When ads invade license plates, you know the end is near
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5568729/california-license-plates-to-become-electronic-billboards
You probably paid a bit too much for your car, but you know what would really be the cherry on top of that upgraded paint job? A mini electronic advertisement that’s completely out of your control!
The California Legislature is considering a bill that would begin the research process of digital license plates—license plates that would replace age-old stamped metals. From what we can tell, the system would display your normal license plate number whenever your car was in motion. But stop for four seconds, and the plate switches over to advertise a service or product.
Of course, politicians are quick to remind the public, the ad revenue for a state that’s $19 billion in debt is only a small reason for turning every citizen’s car into a cheesy mobile billboard. Drivers will also be able to further customize the plates with personalized messages and support for their favorite sports teams.
It’ll be a tragedy when California eventually falls into the ocean, but I’ll tell you, the state is really taking proactive steps in shortening the mandatory 3-week mourning period. [MercuryNews]
Digital Consigliere
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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