Mobile data + other news

6 minutes estimated reading time

Mobile data

Consumers Want More Mobile Data, But Simply Don’t Want to Pay | Parks Associates – this analysis of mobile data makes me think that mobile providers have failed to articulate the benefits of mobile data. Secondly it is probably also a symptom of the way mobile devices are used a lot in the home and tethered to the home wi-fi. The visions of mobile lifestyle used to sell mobile data have little utility and value to customers. This attitude to mobile data likely won’t likely change until horizontality changes in the mobile device and service stack. For instance differentiated high quality voice calls

Beauty

SK-II promotes pop-up skincare studio via geo-targeted mobile ad

Business

How to tell if a merger rumor will come true – Quartz – or how good are journalists?

4 reasons why Asian tech companies are using flash sales to sell their stuff

Deloitte Report: Emerging Market Leaders Are More Confident in Their Organization’s Outlook | PR Newswire

Microsoft Ventures GM: ‘There will not be a WhatsApp-style acquisition again’ | VentureBeat – a bit harsh, I don’t think that you can categorise WhatsApp as pre-revenue or a dogs shit company – but the valuation is indicative of bubble behaviour

Consumer behaviour

54% of tablet users share their device with others | GlobalWebIndex

Nearly half of Arab youth keen to embrace modernity | Burson-Marsteller – presumably in conjunction with PSB

Infographic Snapshot: The Real Story of LGBT and Millennials | Ypulse

China’s Unstoppable Gold-Buying ‘Aunties’ Move Onto Bitcoins | Jing Daily

Rise of the tech-savvy mother: who says their place is in the kitchen? | Techinasia – I am middle-class, hear me roar

Design

Jing Daily: Zaha Hadid’s next high-profile China stop: Macau

INTERNET OF CARING THINGS | trendwatching.com – emotional design

Asian Champions of Design: Tiger Balm | Campaign Asia – strident classic design that it seems to shy away from on new products (paywall)

Home · enyojs/mochi Wiki · GitHub – design resources on user experience by the WebOS design team

Economics

There’s a Class War Going On and the Poor Are Getting Their Butts Kicked | TIME – interesting Time has written a piece on what would be considered social democrat leanings

China PMI edges up to 50.3 | South China Morning Post – (paywall)

Ethics

Nobody Cares What You Think Unless You’re Rich | Mother Jones

Are Mobile Operators Asking the Right Questions of their Subscriber Big Data? | Euromonitor Internaitional

FMCG

Rethinking Carbonates: Potential in Un-Soda – Euromonitor International

Gadgets

Samsung S5 Teardown: Loaded With Sensors | EE Times

Qualcomm’s newest mobile chips offer a clear glimpse at 2015′s killer gadgets | VentureBeat

Wearables: one-third of consumers abandoning devices | theguardian.com – this seems to be an issue of design as much as technology as the form factor doesn’t match the use case

Office for iPad: There are no incumbents in mobile | VentureBeat – interesting comparison between the original MacWrite programme and Office for iPad

Germany

German companies and China: Mittelstand and Middle Kingdom | The Economist

Innovation

Twitter CEO’s China Visit Is Interesting, but Not for the Reason You Think – China Real Time Report – WSJ – looking for Chinese innovation to emulate

Japan

Japanese manufacturers focused on high performance – Deloitte Perspectives

Toyota is becoming more efficient by replacing robots with humans | Quartz

Journalism

The Army v. The Press | Time.com

Korea

DATA POINTS: Adspend trends in South Korea | Campaign Asia – Ad spending in the country edged up 2.2 per cent in 2013 led by a doubling of mobile spending, according to Cheil Worldwide

Luxury

Watchmakers woo women to boost flagging sales | Reuters

Jing Daily | China’s Sketchy ‘Daigou’ Luxury Market Is A Hotbed For Fakes

Beware of Normcore | Slate – desperately wanting to be average

David Beckham Wants to Launch a Clothing and Lifestyle Brand | Vanity Fair – interesting that Li & Fung are being linked with this

Michael Kors Beating European Brands on Their Home Turf – Bloomberg

Airbnb Becoming a Stronger Competitor to Hotel Brands | L2 Think Tank

Jing Daily: Chinese Blogger Peter Xu Brings Us Baselworld’s Hottest China Trends – focus on fashion amongst younger consumers

Marketing

China Email Marketing Industry Report in 2013 | ChinaInternetWatch

How Real-Time Does Real-Time Marketing Need To Be? Sysomos Blog – according to marketers surveyed. It does beg the question what does real time marketing actually mean to them first of all

STB defends promotional video for Filipinos | Marketing Interactive – how much do you localise a campaign when the content ends up online whether you want it there or not?

‘No Pain’ McFlame fronts social campaign for Zippo | Marketing Interactive

Media

Mobile adspend doubles to break £1bn barrier, says IAB report

Users Engage with Major Social Networks Predominantly via Mobile | comScore

Mobile adspend rockets in Korea | WARC

VAT on telecoms, broadcasting and electronic services to be charged at rate of consumer’s country not that of supplier from 2015

Media Publications Database | We find the best Media/Advertising publications for you. – great research resource

Weibos, WeChat & Renren: how to approach social marketing in China | Econsultancy

How China is trying to get its citizens to censor themselves | Quartz – is this any different to how western governments try to interact with media to influence consumer opinion?

Payments

Here are 3 ways you can pay using smartphones in the Philippines | Techinasia

Retailing

How mobile is contributing to show rooming | Marketing Interactive

As competition heats up, retailers urged to innovate | Marketing Interactive

Jing Daily: How Lane Crawford’s ‘unique’ business model defies China’s anti-graft drive

Security

The NSA Archive | American Civil Liberties Union – Snowden leaks become searchable

Software

BlackBerry Ends Licensing Agreement With T-Mobile – WSJ.com – surprised BlackBerry is cutting off its nose to spite it’s face unless T-Mobile are consumer customers and they are trying to focus on the enterprise??

Microsoft’s open sourcing of .Net: The back story | ZDNet

Technology

The chip in the iPhone 5s is way more powerful than it needs to be—and that’s bad news for Intel – Quartz

Telecoms

Cisco, Nokia: Huawei a ‘Growing Challenge,’ Say Raymond James, UBS – no real surprise

Vietnam

VNG’s quest to build a mobile ecosystem for Vietnam | Techinasia

Web of no web

Here’s Google’s Smart Plan To Sell Its Computerized Glasses To Businesses (GOOG) | Business Insider – I would still be unhappy seeing Google Glass in a frontline customer services role like Virgin Atlanti

Five examples of how marketers are using iBeacons | Econsultancy

Bosch Plans Connectivity Push to Challenge Google’s Lead – Bloomberg

Meet Microsoft’s Cortana, a More Personal Siri – NYTimes.com – no comparison with Google | Android eco-system, interesting

WiFi Chip Tracks Indoor Location | EE Times

Wireless

Is Qualcomm losing its edge in the application processor market? | TechRadar – interesting that this question is being asked