U.K. Marketers Will Use Fewer Agencies by 2020, Report Says | Advertising Age – focused on doing prospecting and CRM in-house. Agencies will shrink because its not that hard to media plan if you’ve decided on Google and Facebook. (Not the smartest play, but one that inhouse marketers are increasingly adopting). More marketing content here.
Apple iPhone Upgrade Plan May Imperil Carrier Roaming Revenue, Says Morgan Stanley – Tech Trader Daily – Barrons.com – is it affecting carrier business or taking on something carriers wish to abandon?
U2 on Instagram: We’re not sure if kids and their smartphones are saving or destroying our concerts | VentureBeat | Mobile | by Chris O’Brien – beyond the cliches about aging rock starts its an interesting meditation on the effect of social media
HTTP is obsolete. It’s time for the distributed, permanent web – interesting model, not sure that it’s ‘permanent’, would bring up some interesting legal implications
Baidu and CloudFlare Boost Users Over China’s Great Firewall – NYTimes.com – needed as China goes global on web services and e-commerce
How Ashley Madison Hid Its Fembot Con From Users and Investigators – failed Turing test
Does Huawei’s Mate S really belong in the top-end bracket? | WantChinaTimes – it is questionable whether the Mate S merits its high price tag, the Chuangshiji report said. Disclaimer: I’ve worked in two agencies promoting Huawei mobile devices. I’ve never wanted to own a Huawei smartphone, phablet like the Mate series, MediaPad tablet or computer. But don’t let that put you off thinking that they’re top-end devices….
Internet of Things: a game changer for cities? – what remains unclear is how IoT will revolutionize urban life and who should take the lead in this transformation. Should it be government agencies, or will we end up with a Snowcrash like corporatisation of the public sphere? A la public privately owned spaces in Hong Kong and other major cities.
Is Mobile Advertising in China Doomed? | Social Brand Watch – probably no more so than in the West. Chinese businesses ‘get’ online to offline a lot better and media companies usually go direct to the clients, avoiding the media agencies as gatekeeper. In return the client gets a commission discount. Mobile advertising probably isn’t doomed, but at least some media buying agencies might be
Nintendo is developing a mobile game to put Pokémon in the real world – it reminds me of Google’s Pokemon Master April’s fool day joke; but it also a neat idea
Another European brand has crossed the Atlantic to help satiate the American appetite for cheap clothes – interesting that Primark chose to launch in Boston
The US Marines tested all-male squads against mixed-gender ones, and the results were pretty bleak – it does beg the question why this is so?
Can Goldman Sachs Really Take On the Bloomberg Terminal’s Total Domination | Vanity Fair – if you where a rival would you want to use a Goldman Sachs terminal??? It would be like Publicis using Xaxis from WPP for programmatic ad buys….
Sludge Match | Popbitch – interesting legal case between the Daily Mail and Gawker website
Daring Fireball: Brief Thoughts and Observations Regarding Today’s ‘Hey Siri’ Apple Event – more thoughts on this to follow
A day in the life of a Chinese app addict | Quartz – really nice examples of Chinese mobile life
Qatar telecom operator offers free data services for WeChat Myanmar｜WCT – interesting move especially considering the popularity of Facebook there versus other platforms
Alibaba’s planning a Singles Day TV event by Feng Xiaogang | Techinasia – imagine Amazon doing a Black Friday TV special…
Europol’s Cybercrime Agency Has Had Some Problems With Truecrypt | Motherboard – the suspect obviously had a sense of humour too
Baidu’s Xiaodu can search too-BusinessShanghaiDaily Mobile – interesting more empathetic approach than Amazon Echo
Social network Gaption pays for your content | Techinasia – interesting idea, it changes cues for sharing
E-Book Sales Fall After New Amazon Contracts – WSJ – pricing strategy issues or something else?
Google Plans to Bring App Store to China, Without Media Sales (Report) | Variety – good luck with that
SiliconBeat – BlackBerry buying Good Technology for $425 million – BlackBerry buys the competition
Walkman to iPod: Business-Model Transformation | Re/code – interesting analysis of Samsung
Retailers to spend $2.5b on IoT in 2020 | Telecom Asia – integration of existing RFID with consumer electronics
Researchers say people are choosing public transit so they can stare at their smartphones – really?
Pando: The truth about Uber in China – oh dear (paywall)
Net Politics » New Report: China’s Internet Is Pretty Big – despite The Onion type headline some interesting stats
BBC – The world’s most influential shoppers – interesting thumbnail sketches of Chinese tourists
With new iPhones around the corner Samsung sweetens the deal for ‘Test Drive’ customers – SamMobile – this makes sense as people will have to replace a number of paid apps
Why Profit Doesn’t Come Into It For Apple Music | Music Industry Blog – really interesting analysis
Google helps iOS 9 devs bypass Apple’s encryption because adverts- The Inquirer – don’t be evil – yeah right
China general manufacturing PMI hits 77-month low | Out-Law – its 47.1. Anything below 50 is contraction
The perpetual delay of a Line IPO suggests chat apps might not be such a big deal after all – IPOs also aren’t what they used to be
People are confusing computer-generated music with the works of J.S. Bach | Quartz – interesting given that some of the first electronic music was Switched on to Bach by Walter / Wendy Carlos
Chinese people want to know “How was China’s economy destroyed?” | Quartz – when you’ve had it so good, for so long; any kind of market correction is going to seem like this
Former Apple CEO brings low-cost, high-design Android smartphones to emerging markets – yes its John Sculley and with the Chinese manufacturers upping their industrial design game I am not sure this is a long term opportunity, particularly if they don’t get the distribution right
Life with the Dash button: good design for Amazon, bad for everyone else | Engadget – not really getting the beauty of customer context
Sony’s new remote adds a boombox to your TV zapper | Stuff – interesting product design for aging Japanese consumers
The Reason You First Started Shopping at Amazon Is Disappearing | TIME – started off with discounter strategy, now uses loss leader strategy to capture market share from hypermarkets and other stores
Robots were able to make pancakes and pizza after reading Wikihow articles | Fusion – better than many people can do
Even the folders have RSS feeds – The NewsBlur Blog – OMG amazing
How to Add Facebook Author Tag in WordPress | Hongkiat – going to experiment with this
How This Agency’s Completely Blank 4-Minute YouTube Video Got 100,000 Views | Adweek – interesting experiment about viewability
Airbnb Will Make You Pay Tourism Taxes in Paris as of October | WSJ – will it become less attractive?
Daring Fireball: iSight vs. FaceTime Cameras – glad that I wasn’t the only person slightly confused by this
Tint: Display Any Social Feeds Anywhere – got to wonder about the potential legal issues around this, but could be brilliant for experiential stuff