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Personalized content marketing company Idio secures $2.35m to take ‘Big Content’ to US

The UK-based personalized digital content marketing company Idio has secured $2.35 million from Notion Capital in its first round of external funding since the service launched in 2006.

The cash will go towards fueling its expansion into the US, where it already has customers and a freshly opened East Coast office with “a handful of staff” – a number that looks set to increase in the near future thanks to the injection of cash.

Its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, essentially, allows brands and marketers to personalize content sent out to subscribers in real-time, thereby increasing engagement, and ultimately, hopefully, revenue. Helpfully, it already integrates with a multitude of different digital marketing channels, whether that’s email, social media, web or mobile – a combination of big data and content marketing that has been referred to as ‘Big Content’.

By tracking individual customers across a brand’s marketing activities, whether that’s web and email campaigns or some other combination, Idio builds up a better picture of the type of content each customer is more likely to interact with, giving the brands better insight into what works and allowing Idio to inject its own personalized stamp on the communications.

Idio’s co-founders, Edward Barrow and Andrew Davies, told The Next Web that with several industry experts predicting a growth in the personalized digital content market for the coming years it was the right time to seek external investment.

“We’ve been going for quite some time. [We’ve been] bootstrapped since back in 2006 but what we realized was that the opportunity in content marketing and personalization and big data was really coalescing very quickly,” Barrow said.

The rest of the cash will be used to rapidly increase overall expansion in terms of the product roadmap and sales, Barrow added.

For the privacy-conscious reader concerned about recent data leaks and scares (although most notably brought to global attention again recently thanks to the NSA’s PRISM surveillance system), Barrow points out that the service only uses natural language processing, and on systems where a customer has already opted-in to having a relationship with that company, by signing up to an email newsletter, for example.

“One of the key things is that this data is being used directly with clients you actively engage with and in a transparent way,” Barrow said. “We’re quite staunchly against the use of third-party cookies and using this data for ulterior motives where it has been gathered with no benefit provided to the end customer. This is all about saying how can an organisation deliver you relevant information that is valuable for you.”

Image Credit – AFP/Getty Images

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Personalized content marketing company Idio secures $2.35m to take ‘Big Content’ to US

China’s Youku Tudou collaborates with Qualcomm to boost quality of videos on mobile platforms

Chinese online video giant Youku Tudou has announced a collaboration with chip giant Qualcomm today, which would allow viewers access to higher quality videos on the site when using most devices powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors.

Snapdragon processors are mainly used in tablets and smartphones – it powers HTC’s flagship smartphone HTC One and, in some markets, Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S4. This collaboration shows how keen Youku Tudou is to boost the quality of its videos when accessed via mobile, given the rising trend of people using smartphones in China.

Qualcomm’s H.265 technology, referred to as the HEVC codec, will enable videos to be transmitted using less data bandwidth, Youku said in a statement. H.265 allows a compression efficiency of up to 40 percent compared with the current video compression technology H.264.

Youku Tudou’s latest move comes hot on the heels of its announcement of a partnership with microblogging firm Sina Weibo, which would see the microblogging firm help promote the video giant and its content to its 500 million plus registered users. Search results for TV-related content will bring up thumbnails that link through to a page that provides links to the Youku and Tudou video sites.

Amid efforts to improve the quality of video viewing experiences for its users, Youku Tudou has also been reaping benefits off Qualcomm’s Snapdragon brand campaign. The Chinese firm said the campaign, which launched on May 24, “achieved the highest click-through-rate in Youku history”.

Youku Tudou said advertising revenue from IT brands in Q1 2013 were up 110 percent over the same quarter in 2012. However, it missed estimates for its Q1 2013 earnings. The company recorded a loss of RMB 1.42 ($0.23) per ADS, coming in under analyst expecations of a loss of RMB1.39 per ADS, despite revenue surpassing estimates of RMB 510.49 million ($8.3 million).

Youku Tudou isn’t the first Chinese Internet giant to collaborate with Qualcomm recently. Late last year, Chinese search giant Baidu formed a strategic partnership with Qualcomm to offer free personal cloud storage to Android devices powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors.

Headline image via Spencer Platt /Getty Images

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China’s Youku Tudou collaborates with Qualcomm to boost quality of videos on mobile platforms

Logitech launching Harmony remote for iOS and Android in US/Europe in August, priced $99.99

Logitech announced plans to scale down its work force in March, the result of which would see it focus on mobile products. Step forward then, the Harmony Ultimate Hub, which Logitech says will transform iOS and Android smartphones into “personal universal remote” controls.

The Harmony Hub is included with a range of Logitech’s pricier offerings but now it will be available standalone. For just $99.99, couch potatoes and smartphone-addicts alike will enjoy the opportunity to control up to eight separate devices from their phone using the hub. The system works by using an app which communicates with the hub to provide IR, RF and WiFi support.

The product will become available in the US and selected European markets this August.

Logitech also reiterated that it plans to keep ownership of the Harmony remote product line, claiming that doing so is in the best interests of its shareholders — that’s despite revealing plans to sell its entire remote control division in January. The firm says the launch of the Harmony Ultimate in April has seen the brand “gain momentum” among consumers.

Headline image via iwantanimac / Flickr, product shot via Engadget

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Logitech launching Harmony remote for iOS and Android in US/Europe in August, priced $99.99

Tesco and VEVO land in the Windows Store as Microsoft preps for BUILD and Windows 8.1

Microsoft’s Build developer conference is next week, but the company today announced a new round of applications for the Windows 8 platform. The timing isn’t curious: Microsoft wants plaudits for this new round of third-party support, and can’t let the news be buried amongst the noise of its coming conference.

At Build this year we can expect a deluge of Windows news on the platform side of things, as Microsoft will release the beta of Windows 8.1, the next generation of its operating system platform. However, work continues apace inside of the firm concerning the support it has cultivated for the newly app-store’d Windows operating system. To wit, today’s news.

There are two new key applications out now for Windows 8: Tesco, and Vevo. Also out today are Time Out, social DJ service edjing, and video sharing site Vyclone. The former pair, however, are the meat of today’s news.

Tesco’s application is for the UK, so if you are in Bavaria, or San Francisco, I apologize. Not that we externals would have high use of the app, but there are always whiners. The new app, in Microsoft’s verbiage, offers “the best online shopping experience on the platform.” Wherever you shop, the Tesco Windows 8 app wants to be your bestie. Consumer reaction will be the arbiter of its success.

Vevo’s arrival on Windows 8 is a win for its younger demographics. If you fuse Vevo’s new play-for-you channel, and a tablet, you are enabling a group of lesser age to better interact with the Windows 8 platform. Let’s be frank, the Snapchat generation isn’t living on Windows; but to bring Vevo to the platform could woo them to a more Windows centric action flow.

The app integrates into the Search Charm, allowing users to “discover” their favorite artists or “discover new music with the various filtering options.” The app also fits with other Windows 8 user interface elements, such as Snap.

–

Let’s be frank. Windows 8 needs more and better applications. Microsoft has been hard at work with dollars and bodies to expand its corpus; the issue is that as the platform remains nascent, convincing top dogs to build is not simple.

The conversation is a sale not a satiation.

Vevo and Tesco are good pick ups for Microsoft, but they remain small notes in a larger belt. Frost, however, has the proper context:

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

The bulk of Microsoft’s work lays ahead of it. Let’s see what it can enact at Build.

Top Image Credit: Oli Scarff / Getty Images

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Tesco and VEVO land in the Windows Store as Microsoft preps for BUILD and Windows 8.1

TripAdvisor acquires GateGuru, a mobile app with real-time info on airports, flight times and more

TripAdvisor has continued its acquisition spree today by snapping up GateGuru, a mobile app that displays all of the information that a user might need on their day of travel.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it’s been confirmed that the GateGuru team will continue to work in New York City. Company employees will not report to Bryan Saltzburg, General Manager for New Initiatives and leader of the TripAdvisor Flights product and SeatGuru brand moving forward.

GateGuru is a robust travel app that combines all sorts of useful travel information, including their itinerary and flight times, a section for information about their chosen airport – tips, amenity information, a visual map and the like – and rental car bookings through Avis.

“Flying is often an essential part of a trip and we have continually developed our suite of flights products, from the pricing and availability search on TripAdvisor, to our award-winning SeatGuru.com, with seat maps and more,” said Steve Kaufer, co-founder and CEO TripAdvisor, Inc.

“GateGuru nicely complements our existing flights products and we look forward to working with the GateGuru team as they continue to manage the GateGuru app and add great functionality to the TripAdvisor mobile experience.”

TripAdvisor acquired Wanderfly, a New York-based “travel inspiration site” last October. It then picked up Tiny Post, a mobile photo storytelling app in March this year, hinting at a renewed push to improve its mobile presence. JetSetter, a service that notifies members of special travel deals, was then added to the list in April, rounding out TripAdvisor’s growing shopping list.

Image Credit: ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images

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TripAdvisor acquires GateGuru, a mobile app with real-time info on airports, flight times and more

Report: Tablets and mobile devices accounted for a record 10% of all online videos played in Q1 2013

It is already a well-established fact that a mobile revolution is taking place across the world, as people access the Internet via their smartphones and tablets first, abandoning the desktop experience in the process.

This preference for mobile is extending to online videos, according to a report from online video firm Ooyala. Smaller screens aren’t deterring people from watching more videos on their tablets and mobile phones, and they are even spending more than half of their total online viewing time watching long-form videos on these platforms.

According to Ooyala’s report, tablet and mobile video viewing broke records in the first quarter of 2013. The share of tablet and mobile video grew 19 percent in Q1 2013, and made up more than 10 percent of all online video plays during the period. The growth rate for Q1 2013 was similar to the pace seen in 2012, Ooyala says, when the share of mobile and tablet viewing doubled between January 1 and December 31.

“TV is no longer a single screen in the living room. Video publishers who fail to deliver and monetize mobile content on tablets and smartphones are leaving digital dollars on the table,” Ooyala says.

In a further indication that screen size is not the key concern for viewers, Ooyala’s report showed that both mobile and tablet video viewers spent more than half of their total video viewing time watching long-form videos (referring to those more than 10 minutes long) last quarter. Out of this, a quarter of total tablet viewing time is spent with content more than 60 minutes long.

In particular, viewers in Asia are avid long-form video watchers. Viewing of such longer-duration videos accounted for nearly half (45 percent) of the total time spent watching video online in Malaysia last quarter. Viewers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and Thailand spent more than one-third of their total online viewing time watching videos longer than ten minutes across all device types.

Ooyala’s findings also show that live video continues to dominate on-demand video content – desktop viewers watched live video an average of 40 mins, 13 times longer than VOD last quarter.

“Breaking news, live sports, and special events have an inherent immediacy that hooks connected viewers and leads to longer viewing times across all devices,” Ooyala says.

In particular, the Asia-Pacific region is seeing an upptick in live video viewing. Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea all watch live video at least 20 times longer than VOD content, with Singapore leading the region in time per live play, chalking up an average live viewing session of 52 minutes.

Ooyala measures the anonymized viewing habits of nearly 200 million unique viewers in 130 countries every month.

Video is not the only trend that is being mobilized now. According to a recent Nielsen ‘State of Social Media Report’, half of the world’s social network users visit sites via their phones, with 59 percent of social media users in APAC interacting with Twitter, Facebook and other services directly from a mobile device.

Headline image via Thinkstock

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Report: Tablets and mobile devices accounted for a record 10% of all online videos played in Q1 2013

Microsoft’s social network So.Cl gets a new user interface with imaging app and meme creator

First created purely as a research project, Microsoft’s social network site So.cl has now launched with a new user interface offering beefed-up features, in a sign that the company is keen to keep the cogs turning on its social experiment.

Based on daily feedback from So.Cl’s global community, the site has updated its collage feature, added in the option to create dynamic media via an app called BLINK and is allowing users to make their own memes and share videos. (All of these links are clearly visible at the top of the So.Cl website.)

So.Cl is incorporating an imaging app called BLINK, a project from Microsoft Research Redmond, that allows users to take a burst of images - 16 shots that start from before you press the shutter to about a second afterward – and creates a photo flipbook, known as a “BLINK.”

The BLINK app can be used with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 devices. The original app, which debuted in early February, didn’t have the feature of a flipbook. The current BLINK also comes with what is called “Cliplets” for Windows 8 devices, in which you can overlay a dynamic, videolike animation atop a static background – like a photograph, but with the object in the foreground in motion. Cliplets are created from bits of video – 10 seconds or less.

In a bid to appeal to the younger crowd (after all when it started, So.Cl was touted as being targeted at students), the social network has also incorporated a meme-generator called Picotale. All you have to do is type a few words – kind of like a status update – then click Go within Picotale, and an image is generated to match your words.

The ability to create collages came from the original So.Cl, but with the new interface users can upload personal images from a device to mix and match them with content from the Web.

So.Cl is also moving into video sharing by allowing users to create video playlists. Content can be grabbed from sites such as Bing, YouTube and Vimeo to be assembled into a collection that can be viewed, discussed, and shared with people you know and people you might like to meet.

The So.Cl project came out of Microsoft’s FUSE Labs, a division of the company that is working on other research tools that compliment social networking sites like Facebook. It was opened to the public late last year.

Headline image via Thinkstock

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Microsoft’s social network So.Cl gets a new user interface with imaging app and meme creator

Yahoo says US officials made 12,000-13,000 requests for data in last 6 months

Yahoo! has spoken up to clarify claims made over the US government’s PRISM program two weeks after the news broke. CEO Marissa Mayer said Yahoo! received between 12,000 and 13,000 requests between December 1, 2012 and May 31 2013. Those requests are inclusive of criminal, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and others.

Developing, please refresh

Our Commitment to Our Users’ Privacy

By Marissa Mayer, CEO and Ron Bell, General Counsel

We’ve worked hard over the years to earn our users’ trust and we fight hard to preserve it.

To that end, we are disclosing the total number of requests for user data that law enforcement agencies in the U.S. made to us between December 1, 2012 and May 31, 2013.  During that time period, we received between 12,000 and 13,000 requests, inclusive of criminal, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and other requests.  The most common of these requests concerned fraud, homicides, kidnappings, and other criminal investigations.

Like all companies, Yahoo! cannot lawfully break out FISA request numbers at this time because those numbers are classified; however, we strongly urge the federal government to reconsider its stance on this issue.

Democracy demands accountability.  Recognizing the important role that Yahoo! can play in ensuring accountability, we will issue later this summer our first global law enforcement transparency report, which will cover the first half of the year.  We will refresh this report with current statistics twice a year.

As always, we will continually evaluate whether further actions can be taken to protect the privacy of our users and our ability to defend it.  We appreciate—and do not take for granted—the trust you place in us.

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Yahoo says US officials made 12,000-13,000 requests for data in last 6 months

Microsoft introduces global program to sell massively discounted Surface RT tablets to schools

Today Microsoft announced a new program that will see schools around the world able to purchase the company’s Surface RT tablet hybrid in bulk at a reduced per-unit rate.

The program is quite simple: Surface devices will be sold to schools at low prices. The restriction is that only the 32 gigabyte, Windows RT-based model is part of the program. Here are the prices schools will be offered:

Surface RT (32GB) – $199 USD (Estimated Retail Price is $499)

Surface RT (32GB) with Touch Keyboard Cover – $249 USD (Estimated Retail Price is $599)

Surface RT (32GB) with Type Keyboard Cover – $289 USD (Estimated Retail Price is $629)

As you can see, those discounts stretch past the 50% mark. The program will last from today, June 17 to August 31, 2013. Both K-12 schools and universities are eligible. The following countries are where the program is active:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China (via Digital China), Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Microsoft published a short question and answer segment on the blog of its loyal denizen Ryan Lowdermilk. From those passages, why Microsoft is being “aggressive” in the sale of Surface units to schools:

Microsoft has a long tradition of offering special pricing to education customers. Microsoft’s mission in education is to help schools, students and educators realize their full potential. We do this by investing in education institutions through software, hardware and services at affordable prices. We think Surface RT is a terrific tool for teaching and learning, and we want students and educators to have the best technology on the market today.

Here’s a thought: At $250, Microsoft is selling a full tablet computer and keyboard that contains Microsoft Office for less coin than it costs to buy Office by itself in certain SKUs. Far, far less, in fact.

This, as you surely have noticed, is not the first time that Microsoft has in recent months enacted a steep price decline on its Surface line of devices. At TechEd North America, and Europe, the company sold heavily discounted first generation Surface hardware. And the company announced a 10,000 unit giveaway to teachers at an educational technology conference.

The company quite obviously has stock on hand to distribute.

I floated the idea that Microsoft is working on channel clearing, either to prepare for higher-capacity devices, or perhaps the next generation of devices. If the company has forecasted that it would not sell through its Surface RT stock before the next model was released, it would have been a simple choice to offer those units at a discount to get them into the hands of folks who want them. That remains speculation, however.

Microsoft introduces global program to sell massively discounted Surface RT tablets to schools

Microsoft defends Xbox One’s $499 pricetag, claims it will deliver “thousands of dollars of value” to users

Microsoft’s console business is on the backfoot, despite unveiling new hardware that will power the Xbox line for years, and an updated Kinect sensor that will greatly sharpen its accuracy. However, issues regarding used games, required Internet connectivity, market locks, and the price of the coming Xbox One have slowed Microsoft’s momentum.

In response to complaints that its $499 pricetag is too high, Microsoft is taking a somewhat hard line. In an interview with Bloomberg, Don Mattrick, head of the company’s interactive division, pushed back:

We’re over-delivering value against other choices I think consumers can get. Any modern product these days, you look at it: $499 isn’t a ridiculous price point. We’re delivering thousands of dollars of value to people, so, I think they’re going to love [the console] when they use it.

Sony’s new Playstation console will retail for $100 less, or $399.

I’m unsure about the market dynamics of the console market in regards to the purchase flexibility of consumers looking to pick up their next device. Given that console lifecyles have increased, the higher price could have less impact than one might think.

That’s not to say that Microsoft hasn’t taken a firm beating in the past week. Gamers have put a bit of stick about, mostly onto the company’s back. These wounds are self-derived, however, as Microsoft has managed to turn a purely metal ear to gamer issues; certainly every single soul inside of the Xbox team knew that the Internet connection requirement would lead to a public relations backlash. The company went ahead with its plan.

The other perspective to this is technology does need to advance, and sometimes that process is bloody. When Apple first yanked drives from some of their computers – floppy drives from iMacs, later DVD drives with Macbook Airs – there was complaint. But it was the right thing to do.

The Xbox line in my view had a momentum lead heading into the holiday season before the E3 set of mishaps. The company is now firmly lagging.

Top Image Credit: Luke Hayfield. Via Verge.

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Microsoft defends Xbox One’s $499 pricetag, claims it will deliver “thousands of dollars of value” to users

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Tag Archives: shareables