China smartphone makers join hands on apps, pose threat to WeChat | Reuters – this effort by vendors to join hands on apps reminds me of work that Google did on ‘streaming’ apps as needed that went a bit quiet. Interesting that the manufacturers are willing to go against Tencent. In a mature market handset providers want a bite of services, but is there an advantage with brands to throw in with one or more of the handset eco-systems given their disparate app stores?
Americans less likely to trust Facebook than rivals on personal data: Reuters/Ipsos poll – trust and leaving the platform are two different things. What was surprising is how low a rating Apple had compared to its tech peers given its efforts in privacy protection by design. Facebook starts looking looking like Microsoft did as a brand
South Korea fines Facebook $369K for slowing user internet connections – The Verge – why was Facebook ‘trumpeting’ their traffic about the place? This is really odd, almost like there was ‘man in the middle’ inspection of data going on. The fine Facebook faces represents about 0.05% of Facebook’s Korean revenue for a year
Having Your Smartphone Nearby Takes a Toll on Your Thinking (Even When It’s Silent and Facedown) – interesting research. Think of the relationship as similar to Gollum and the one ring
Yahoo Japan Plans To Launch Cryptocurrency Exchange Amid FSA Crackdown | ZeroHedge – interesting move by SoftBank. Yahoo! Japan brand is a strategic asset, yet Son-san is willing to risk it on cryptocurrency which I perceive to be a tactical play. I can’t see continued interest in consumer speculation on it in the longer term. More related content here
Dennis Yu on the Facebook debacle – Dennis is the chief technology officer Facebook marketing business called BlitzMetrics. If anyone knows their stuff its likely to be him