Beacons + more news

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Beacons

Data point: Beacons, retail apps and targeted messaging | JWT Intelligence – beacons powered by BlueTooth LE provide potential opportunities for retailers. Beacons can be used to help facilitate customer in-store navigation. Beacons can also be used to track customers in-store providing a more granular understanding of footfall. More related content here.

Beauty

Mobile Growth Opportunity for China Beauty Brands | L2 Think Tank

Business

Big Four mainland China banks see profit growth slowing | South China Morning Post – (paywall)

Developing Asian Manufacturing Capacity from a China Operational Base | Little Red Blog

Consumer behaviour

STUDY: Senior Citizens’ Use Of Facebook, Other Social Networks Slowly Climbing | AllFacebook

16-24s least likely to use search engines – GlobalWebIndex – tend to engage more with than other ages with Q&A sites, suggests that search has to work on context and user intent more?

Siri’s Psychological Effects on Children | New Republic – interesting ethics questions touched on as well in terms of how we relate to technology

Which Activities are Getting Sportswear Consumers off their Couches? – Euromonitor International

Do People Complain More On Twitter Or On Facebook? | Forrester Blogs – the sample size is small but it is interesting since it challenges the social customer service truism that Facebook was generally positive and Twitter was the place consumers raged

For older Americans, tablets and e-readers are the new cell phones with huge buttons – More Americans age 65 and older own either a tablet or an e-reader (27%) than own smartphones (18%)—the reverse of the proportions for the general public, according to the Pew Internet Project’s latest study on how people access the internet.

The Richest Rich Are in a Class by Themselves | Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Culture

Writing on the wall | The Economist – China’s uniquely open approach to graffiti art compared to the repressed west (paywall)

Economics

Economic View: Automation Alone Isn’t Killing Jobs | New York Times – complex interaction of technology, education and market demands (paywall)

Ethics

Chinese mobile phone users have a sneaking suspicion they’re being ripped off – Quartz – the complexity of wireless economics

Google distances itself from the Pentagon, stays in bed with mercenaries and intelligence contractors | PandoDaily

Consumer Behavior Data Could Put Predictive Analytics in Government Crosshairs | Adweek

Finance

Demystify Alibaba’s Money Fund Yu’E Bao — China Internet Watch

How to

Google Plus adds view counter to profile pages | Marketing Pilgrim – something to take account of when thinking about influence

Innovation

Samsung Claims Progress on the Next Wonder Material – Digits – WSJ – Graphene for flexible displays (paywall)

New DARPA Office Merges Biology & Technology | EE Times

Perovskite, a New Meta Material, Turns Light Into Power, Lasers | EE Times

NASA Spinoff Database – database of space age stuff

Legal

European Parliament passes strong net neutrality law, along with major roaming reforms – GigaOm

Why Mediatek don’t share source code, and why they should! – Gizchina.com – also fits a number of other Chinese manufacturers as well. Mediatek has been a block on many Chinese smartphone makers complying with the GPL v2 licence on Android derived code

Luxury

A Korean TV Show Caused a YSL Lipstick Shortage – The Cut

Marketing

The Art of Generating Market Research Insight – Euromonitor International – reg wall for whitepaper

B2C Customer acquisition costs 2014 | Smart Insights – information from DMA

Media

Survey Shows Twitter Users Find Ads On The Network Irrelevant, Random | MarketingLand – there are limitations of this kind of research but the data is interesting nonetheless, a greater degree of matching context would increase performance rather than being seen as interruption marketing

The radio trumps online services for music discovery | MacNews – I guess record companies need to bring back the art of plugging

Vice Media Is Considering Going Public | TIME.com

Online

Matt Cutts Explains How Google Separates Popularity From True Authority | Search Engine Journal

iiMedia Research: China Social Sharing Report in 2013 — China Internet Watch

Dayre.me – mobile blogging / Tumblr like platform

Why people quit Twitter – Quartz

Retailing

Mobile phone maker ZTE announces direct sales platform | WantChinaTimes.com

GWI Commerce: the latest figures for buying online – GlobalWebIndex

China already makes up 60% of E-commerce spending in Asia.

Security

Ssshhh! Secret and Whisper get cloned in China – it will be interesting to see how these get harmonised by the Chinese regulatory system

Software

Google Keep OCR | Google System – so useful

Hubspot, Marketo, Eloqua: New data shows marketing automation market share in unprecedented detail | VentureBeat

The Next WhatsApp? | Forbes – nice overview of WeChat, Momo et al

Are single-page apps becoming the norm? – Software Development News – thanks to Javascript

On The 20th Anniversary – An Oral History of Netscape’s Founding | Internet History Podcast

Why Microsoft Is Giving Windows Away on Small Devices | Recode – because Android’s chink in its armour is tier-2 handset manufacturers on razor thin margins making no money and getting no cooperation from Google

Asia’s Messaging Apps Like WeChat and Line Follow Similar Path – WSJ – going on Nokia’s Android handsets

Hong Kong government spending millions developing apps that no one downloads | South China Morning Post – this sounds like the experience of clients I’ve had in various sectors

Web of no web

Apple, Crown Castle, Splunk: Gaggle of Internet of Things Players in Morgan Stanley Report | Tech Trader Daily

THE INTERNET OF EVERYTHING: 2014 [SLIDE DECK] SAI – Business Insider

Google Glass Getting Ray Ban, Oakley Versions | TIME.com

Wireless

2014 China smartphone market and industry – Digitimes – China market to reach 422 million smartphones in 2014, with 278 million units contributed by China-based smartphone vendors. The continued expansion by international vendors Samsung and Apple will push up their sales to almost 144 million units, accounting for nearly 4% growth from 2013 (paywall)

Analyst: I’m In China, And iPhone 5S Demand Is ‘Disappointing’ People (AAPL) | BusinessInsider – Chinese brands demand catching up on Samsung and Apple

Talk gets cheaper | The Economist – Of the 1.2 billion smartphones that will be shipped this year, almost half will cost less than $200 and one-fifth will cost less than $100

Public Wi-Fi speeds to get a boost from Qualcomm’s new antenna technology | PCWorld