Groupon - its spreading fast

Is anyone else out there tracking the rise of Groupon? It seems to be growing very fast in the UK. I judge this on my own personal experience. I signed up two or three months ago and just lately the service has gone from one rather poor and mostly irrelevant 'deal of the day' to at least 6 really good deals a day. I mean good enough to take advantage of.

So what is Groupon? It's official tag is that its the 'leading social commerce site' or put another way its the 'leading social shopping site' or even 'collective buying'.

Ok but what does that all mean? Well actually its a pretty simple concept. You sign up for the service. The service emails you a deal of the day (or many actually). If you like the deal and want it you pay upfront. The deal only takes effect if the specified number of customers buy-in (thats the social bit). The deals expire after a day.

So why so popular?

Well for merchants its a results driven no cost ad meduim (they dont charge up front, it shares the proceeds)and for punters its another targetted deep discount channel.

We are very interested in what the effect of this fast growing meduim will be on business. There are clearly opportunities for media owners to joint forces with Groupon to leverage the hyper local ad market (or to offer their own perhaps?)

More on the opportunities and challenges posed by Groupon soon, but in the meanwhile watch this space.

Defination of a tech start-up

Reid Hoffman founder of Linkedin coined the definitive description of a technology start up. It is, he says, like 'throwing yourself off a cliff and trying to assemble a plane on the way down'

pretty appropriate defination we say

and if you are involved in the tech patent business we could add ".......whilst monkeys try and steel all your tools"

e-book Milestone

Amazon has announced that sales of digital books for its e-reader, the kindle has outstripped US sales of hardbacks on its website for the first time.

Amazon has sold 143 digital books for every 100 hardbacks sold over last 3 months.

Does this spell the end of the musty old book shop? Well it appears not. The growth of ebooks is not damaging sales of physical books. According to the Association of American Publishers, hardback sales are still growing in the US, up 22% this year.

The US market is 2 to 3 years ahead of UK where digital books are still small. The kindle has only been available here since October and it still has to be shipped from US. The books catalogue is available only through the US site and the books are priced in dollars. That said the US market dynamics must be a sign of things to come here.

iPhone 4 flies of the shelves

Shoppers in the United States, UK, France and Germany bought 1.7m iPhone 4s in the three days after they went on sales on June 24th.

By comparison the iPhone 3GS sold 1m in it's first weekend of sales in 2009.

Battle for online content hots up

Couple of interesting developments in the battle for online content:

Rupert Murdoch has acquired Skiff from Hearst and a stake in Journalism Online. These two deals are significant because Skiff is an online store for content and an e-reader and Journalism Online is a platform that alllows content producers to charge for content. This is clearly Mr Murdoch buying up the pieces or building blocks required to let people buy and enjoy content online from a wide range of producers over a wide range of access devices. Sound strategy

Google looks likely to launch its own content payment platform newspass. This was rumoured last year but now it appears that its happening and will be live by end of the years according to PaidContent.org.

As the battle hots up the race is on to get the access platform and the payment technology out there and adopted by consumers. Who would you back to win that race?

Home Printing - exciting new frontier

Taken by the news that HP are rolling out next generation of printers.

Central feature is printers with email addresses. This is brilliant. First no more cables and secondly ease of printing from where ever you are and whatever device - simply email whatever you want printed and its waiting for you when you get home. Brilliant

Perfect for our increasingly mobile lifestyles.

What's also significant about this generation of HP printers is the partners they've lined up for their version of the App store. With lots and lots of partners on board printing just got much more interesting.

Now this is something I've long toted. Home printing is going to become really, really important.

We started with word processing docs, moved swiftly to pics and now I believe we will print everything from colouring books for our kids to our favourite daily newspaper.

I forecast that home printing will become an important component in the transformation of the publishing sector in same way smart phones and iPads are.

Web-only TV

We've long taken a keen interest in web-only TV and its been a surprisingly quiet market. But now it seems to have burst into life with the imminent launch of 2 high profile web-only launches in UK.

First off comedy star David Baddiel is debuting in FA Dave, a web-only series on (yes you've guessed it) UKTV's Dave channel.

Fashionistas Trinny and Susannah are back on screen with a web-only series entitled Trinny and Susannah - What They Did Next.

Their 16 episode mockumentry goes out exclusively on ivillage.co.uk and is then available across the web via a group of super distributors.

You can view the trailer of the show right now on their website.

The T&S model might give us a clue about how future commercial models might work. Producers TM5 have sensibly underpinned the show with sponsor money from ivillage and Westfield and are augmenting with ad sales.

Let's see how these two perform but I suggest that if these shows go well they might provide some much needed impetus for the web-only format.

Apple’s market value overtakes Microsoft

on the day that the iPad lands in the UK Apple has overtaken Microsoft to become the largest technology company by market value, crowning a stunning corporate comeback.

After more than three decades of rivalry between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, the founder of the iPad maker saw his company take the lead on Nasdaq.

When the New York markets closed on Wednesday, Apple was worth $222bn – short only of ExxonMobil. Microsoft was valued at $219bn.

The moment says much about how technology and business strategies are changing. But it is above all a triumph for Mr Jobs who has consistently defied conventional wisdom and taken big risks in new industries with entrenched powers, overthrowing the establishment in the music and mobile phone businesses and staking out new ground.

This clearly says alot about Apple but what does it say about Microsoft? After 3 decades on top and once so powerful it was viewed as anti-competitive and many thought it should be broken up its stumbling.

Beaten in mobile, beaten in games consoles and with software moving to a pay-as-you-use service in the cloud its truly a gloomy moment for them.

Vanity Fair comes to iPad

Conde Nast continues its promised roll-out of print titles for the iPad. Vanity Fair was released late last week for both the iPhone and iPad at $4.99 an issue.

The mobile iterations follow closely the model used in GQ. The full contents of the magazine can be thumbed in facsimile format when the iPad is in landscape mode.

Apparently recognizing recent complaints by iPad users that the single issue pricing of these apps is multiples higher than a subscription rate, Vanity Fair is giving a price break to customers. Once one buys the first iPad edition for $4.99, subsequent months will cost only $3.99. This is still extremely expensive if you consider their current 20 week (2 year) print copy subscription offer is $20.

Having given their content away online for years for free are publishers in danger of now over charging for it!

Maybe? Maybe not?

I suggest that they are pricing high to capture those who will pay a premuim for digital access whilst using high price to illustrate the value of their print subscription offers.

Remember that however well the iPad sells its penetration will never give enough coverage to sustain a digital only model so publishers have to grapple with subscription versus digital price comparision fro years to come.

I dont mind premium prices for the digital format and low prices for the print subscription model particularily for magazines not least because magazine print subscription prices have been historically extremely low and now is certainly not the time to raise subs prices

Happy Birthday YouTube

YouTube turned 5 years old yesterday.

Its proud parent, Google announced that its video-sharing site now has more than 2 billion views -- a day. Amazing

What's more, YouTube, is the third most visited Web site in the world according to Alexa and offers local versions in 23 countries across 24 different languages (70% of its traffic is from outside the United States), receives 24 hours of uploaded video every minute, and garners 45 million home page impressions every day.

Whilst it yet to turn a profit its future looks very bright indeed.

Happy Birthday

FreeIndyStandard?

Interesting to see that while the rest of the media industry stresses about digital strategy, convergence and up and coming technology driven consumer trends, the Lebedev's are focusing very much on the nuts and bolts of the "old" media world.

We've been suggesting for a while that the Independent and Standard would end up sharing editorial resource, though in our view, it may go further than the reports this morning that the process may be starting. Currently this looks likely to extend to a shared foreign reporting presence at the World Cup, cutting the cost of content generation for both loss making titles.

Well, it makes sense, and would be a good start in combining the newsroom. Rolling forwards, would Standard readers mind if their content was written with an Independent hat on? Probably not, but vice versa?

Reports also that the Indy will be going free within the M25 - presumably piggybacking the existing Standard distribution network. Lebedev is saying that the Standard should be profitable in 2011 as the new ad reveneues gained since the Standard went free are starting to beat previous combined ad+circ rev. If so, well done, a brave move that has paid back, and one that I doubted would work out. But, and it's a big but, the Independent spent the best part of 20 years "breaking even next year" without ever quite making it.

So long iPlayer

We've just taken delivery of our first Apple iPad and it is as lovely in the flesh as we've been told.

I dont intend here to add to the rave reviews but rather point out something that startled me.

As you've read elsewhere Apple and Adobe don't like each other and as a result there is no Flash on the iPad (nor the iphone). You know what this means - no BBC iplayer! and what that means is the millions and millions of users who now use hugely popular iPlayer weekly will not ne able to so on their shiny new iPad.

In many ways this is a shame. The iPad is a device that might as well have been made for the iPlayer. It's absolutely perfect for it.

So whats the BBC to do? Two choices:

They could create a non flash version of iPlayer for the soon to be millions of iPad customers or as is more likely stick with Adobe and lose the custom of the iPad crowd.

So long iPlayer my loyalty is with the iPad.

Newspaper market is bad - Music is worse

Global recorded music sales shrank by 7.2%, from $18.3 billion to $17 billion, through 2009.

What this means is the industry has been sale decline each year since 1999.

Digital sales grew 9.2 percent and now make up over a quarter of all music income…

But the extra $363 million brought in by digital last year still wasn’t even close to offsetting $1.74 billion lost from physical sales.

Source: International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s Recording Industry In Numbers report.

What to do?

Well our tonic to improve the health of the music sector would be the following:

1. Understand buyers better - who they are and what they buy. This basic knowledge is critical (but still largely absent).

2. Build greater sense of community around listening types. Last FM etc has proven people are drawn together by shared musical taste. Build communities around taste and market to them

3. Recognise and actively reward the few who pay for digital music. Continue to chase out the illegals but not at expense of the legals. 

4. Dont be afraid of useage rather than ownership model pushed by players like Spotify and Beyond Oblivion and recognise its better to get small payment from everybody than as currently a large payment from a few.

6. Love the talent. Without it there is no industry!

7. Don't be afraid to go digital retail only. Saves on production, distribution, sales commission and critically stock risk. 

8. Merchandising. Hugely under leveraged by the industry and worth a fortune. Recognise that recorded music powers broad and valuable consumer lifestyle habits. Get in on the act directly.

Apple's stellar universe

85m iPhones and iPod touches sold from zero in 2007

4 billions Apps downloaded

10 billion songs downloaded

33m movies downloaded

250m tv shows downloaded

iPhone users who represent 2.2% of total mobile phone market but chug 64% of all browsing minutes

500,000 iPads sold since launch

185,000 apps on App store

125,000 app developers on contract but effectively working for free

iAd which lets advertisers make inventive messages appear inside apps launches in summer

Share price $3 to $247

Historic Ninety Minutes that could change the Election

Today marks a historic day. Its the first ever live UK TV Election Debate.

I have high hopes that even in the completely de politicised UK the debate will cause a wave of interest and excitement amongst voters. The Independent suggests this morning from a poll it commissioned that 30 million people will tune in and of those 50% say that the debate could influence the way they vote. Wow - thats 15m votes up for grabs.

Inspite of the oh so very typically British need for rules (and in this case 70 rules) to govern the event I am looking forward to a contest that reveals more to the public about each of the candidates than we are able to glean from PR prepared set pieces and carefully orchestrated policy statements.

The Q&A will be dull. All possible chance of excitement killed off by Candidate preparation, schooling and spin. The part that interesting is the debate itself where the 3 of them are let loose on each other. Its a relatively short segment so make sure you're back from making cup of tea or you risk missing it.

Alongside 30m others we will be listening in but not just as voters but as insight managers. We will be monitoring, analysing and reporting on all the chatter on Twitter and Facebook to see how the candidates are performing. We will be recording personal sentiment and comparing it regionally. With the stakes so high its going to be fascinating evening.

Social media channels and clever insight technology is giving us the opportunity - for the first time - to listen to the groundswell and to reveal actual sentiment. Check back with us as we will be posting results from all 3 of the live debtaes on a specially created Market Evolution election blog.

Mobile drives 5th Major Technology Cycle

The modern world is presently experiencing its fifth major technology cycle of the past half a century, according to the latest "State of the Internet" report from Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley's managing director and global technology research head.

In what shouldn't come as a shock to readers of this blog, the two key trends driving this latest shift are mobile and social networking.

Within the next five years "more users will connect to the Internet over mobile devices than desktop PCs," according to Meeker.

Also -- based on adoption rates of iPhone/iPod touch compared to that of AOL and Netscape in the early 1990s -- Meeker says that mobile Internet usage is increasing substantially faster than desktop Internet usage did. Indeed, adoption of the Apple devices is taking place more than 11 times faster that of AOL, and several times as fast as that of Netscape.

Supporting this trend is 3G technology, which Morgan Stanley says recently hit an "inflection point" by being available to more than 20% of the world's cellular users.

Read the whole story at GigaOm.

Disappointing news from Apple

Apple has delayed the international launch of the iPad until the end of May because it has sold more devices (over half a million) than it anticipated.


Here’s the official announcement:


“Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks as more people see and touch an iPad™. We have also taken a large number of pre-orders for iPad 3G models for delivery by the end of April.

Faced with this surprisingly strong US demand, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the international launch of iPad by one month, until the end of May. We will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders on Monday, May 10.

We know that many international customers waiting to buy an iPad will be disappointed by this news, but we hope they will be pleased to learn the reason—the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far.”

The End of Bebo?

It looks as though the once wildly popular Bebo is on the rack.

If memory serves it was the hottest property around and was fought over by the likes of Yahoo only to fall to AOL on an exuberant valuation for $850m two years ago.

Well its no longer seen as 'core' at AOL and as they readily admit they don't have the money for the fight against Facebook.

Here a snip from the AOL memo:

“Bebo, unfortunately, is a business that has been declining and, as a result, would require significant investment in order to compete in the competitive social networking space. AOL is not in a position at this time to further fund and support Bebo in pursuing a turnaround in social networking"

All this is a long way from what was said at the time :-

"This is a tremendous acquisition and one I think is game-changing for AOL," said the company's chairman and chief executive, Randy Falco. "Bebo will be the cornerstone of our strategy."

Apple iPad sales update

Apple sold 300,000 iPads in the U.S. as of midnight Saturday, April 3, the company announced Monday.

That total includes pre-ordered units delivered to customers and sales partners as well as Apple store sales.

iPad sells quicker than iPhone

The latest estimates for iPad sales may surprise even the most optimistic Apple watchers:

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster puts the number at 600,000-700,000 this weekend, including pre-orders.

By comparison, it took Apple more than 70 days to sell 1 million iPhones after the initial launch.