DigIn! Blog

2012 International CES: Fun Finds at CES Unveiled

by Limor Schafman

Several themes are already starting to emerge as topics we will be hearing a lot about over the next few days:

1. CEA analysts project over 100m tablets to be purchased worldwide in 2012.  But the tablet market is maxing out with purchase rate increments starting to flatten.  
2. The largest buying upsurge in smartphones is going from Africa and the Middle East; and the same with tablets and all forms of mobile devices.  This is attributed largely to the lack of infrastructure in these countries which is forcing people to immediate go mobile.  China also shows the same trends.
3. Ultrabooks are grabbing the market of mobile PCs.
4. Desktop purchases are down. 
5. TV market penetration is maxed out. The belief is that most households that want TVs now own them. 
6. TV tech is going to LCDs which are shifting quickly to LED and will OLED slowly but steadily as prices continue to drop.
7. 3D TV is said to be on the rise.

The pre-conference press expo called CES Unveiled showcased several companies (Picture left show Gary Shapiro, CEO of CEA and Steven Smith Editor in Chief of Twice).  

 

I highlight here below some of the fun and interesting finds:    

House of Marley - (LVCC Central #15237) This company, started in the name of Bob Marley, always have music oriented product (headphones, radios) have fantastic design.  The product materials are strictly conservation and natural in focus- wood is FSC compliant (Forest Stewardship Council – chop one/plant one); plastics, cardboard boxing are all from recycled product; and any cloth is hemp or recycled cotton.  Visit this booth to see a good example of aesthetic, planet conscious consumer electronics.

My PowerBag - Won an Innovation Award – a bag that has a battery charger in it that can recharge multiple devices as well.  Takes 3 hours to charge the bag, and then you are good to go with plenty of power for the road.  Allegedly the bag isn’t heavy but didn’t have a chance to test that myself.

MyCharge - This is a small device – about the size of a smartphone, just a bit thicker – that can be charge through electrical outlet or USB and then used as a portable charge for up to 5 devices simultaneously.  Nice compact charger with all the cord attachments built into it. 

Kivic - This is a streaming multimedia device that takes media from the iPhone and streams it through itself to a car system.  One way to take your personal media on the road.

Eers - by Sonomax, this gadget produces custom fitted earphones within 5 minutes.  You put the SonoFit™ Custom Fitting System over your ears and adjust.  They do not go too far in so no damage to eardrums.  The silicon forms to your ears unique shape.  After 5 minutes, you remove the earpieces and place them on your own headset and you are ready to go. 

Bikn - (LVCC Central Plaza 8) Produced by Tree House Labs, this is a sensor platform for anything you want to track, find and measure.  They are developing multiple products based on the platform – one of the first is a lost and found application.  You have the sensor attached to whatever it is you want to keep track of (phone – has a special casing with the sensor built in); a pet; a child; etc. The iPhone application (Android OS is under development) shows on the phone where the item is.  You can activate the application to show location, to show how close you are to what you are searching for (in case it is not immediately visible) and you can set geographic boundaries so that if an item is suddenly outside the set zone, an alarm goes off.   Another product places sensors in a football helmet so that if a player hits his head, you can know the level of impact sustained.  They are also offering the platform to companies for license or as part of services for the production of privately developed products. 

Invoxia - (LVCC North #6406) This product produces VOIP over iPhone through an elegant handset.  The system is unique in its interface [you interact through the iPhone]; it can manage 8 mikes simultaneously so it acts like a Polycom office system; it auto-configures with existing PBX systems as well; they are beginning to offer their own telecom services (France currently, and coming to the US).  They too won an Innovation Award.

Sculpteo - This was one of the most interesting technologies I saw.  It allows for 3D sculpting based on designs that you can do yourself.  It is a cloud based system in which you can design products; they handle the production of the item in plastic or ceramic.  You can use the application for free, and then just pay for production.  The company is partnering with manufacturers to produce large orders.

3M - (LVCC South 4 #35806)was showing a multi-touch screen which offers a steady base with a min of 20 simultaneous touchpoints.  Works with a Windows 7 computer. It’s being used by the military as a flight simulator- Lockheed Martin has taken 18 screen monitors to create a cockpit and then can train soldiers on multiple aeronautic interfaces by simply choosing another flight sim software application rather than building another actual simulator.   The financial sector is using the screens in brokerage rooms, and they can be found in the retail space as well. (Yep, those are my creative doodles testing 20 points with the sales person.)

 Parrot - (LVCC South #31424 and LVCC Central Plaza CP9) This company was showcasing its flyingrcraft technology which can be used for remote controlled video capture.  Tablets (and presumably smartphones and touch screen laptops) control the drone.  What is shown here is the AR.Drone, the first quadricopter piloted by wi-fi and using augmented reality.  

Verizon Knawing Off Hand That Feeds It With 3 Cent MT Fee Increase

by Limor Schafman

Those of us in the marketing, branding, mobile, content business are delighted that text messaging is outpacing voice in usage numbers.  But wait!  It seems a company wants to bank on this at a time when "banking" is getting a bad name.  Verizon has decided to increase its MT transaction fees by 3 cents per transaction for all content owners.

Bottom line on what this means: "It will kill most people's business - this will have huge imact!", says Terry  Hsiao of HookMobile, an MMS aggregator. 

Why this dramatic statement?  There are two levels of SMS/MMS messages - one is MO or "mobile originated" message which is when you or I, consumers, send messages out from our mobile phones.  We pay for these through our text messaging plans or per message.  MT or "mobile termination" messages are those that come from content owners.  These are paid for by the content owner.  The rates they pay depend on the aggregator they work with and the fees those aggregators charge, often sliding scale per volume of messages.

Verizon is suggesting that as of November 1, each single MT message will cost at least 3 cents, on top of the usual charges they and the aggregators charge.  The bottom line cost impact is enormous both on content owners and the mobile marketing ecosystem as a whole.  Some of the companies which will be affected:
- Advertiser or brand companies that use SMS/MMS to targets and communicate its offerings: Coca Cola, Target, Ikea, etc.
- Banks doing mobile reminders or other customer contact transactions
- Political campaigns pushing messages out to constituents
- News, sports, horoscope and other similar types of content owners [note: these are some of the most successful uses of text messaging]
- Social Networks like Facebook, Twitter

Fundamentally, any company trying to build brand connectivity, invite transactions or provide customer service to their consumers will be penalized by this rate increase.

What are some of the market implications:
- Mobile marketing as we know it will shift.  SMS is currently the most advanced form of mobile marketing - it may diminish significantly as a medium, disappear, or used only when customers will perceive a real value in the message being delivered to them [ie a bill payment alert].
The mobile marketing landscape may change as a result with other forms such as WAP or client based applications taking a lead. There are significant negatives to both these forms that do not compare with SMS for certain functionality so they do not fully fill the void of diminished SMS messages.
- Content owners will push the price increase to consumers.  Consumers may agree to this if they see value, as written above, but otherwise, consumers will be forced to pay more for text and the question is, will they want to do this?  And for receiving advertising messages? 
- Content owners will diminish the amount of mobile marketing they do.
- Content owners which have smaller revenue potential will go out of business [ring tone companies].
- Advertising companies focusing on helping companies do mobile marketing will see a significant decrease in campaigns and revenue.
- Consumers may ultimately not receive the services and content they now expect.

Rumor has it that AT&T is considering raising MT message costs by 1 cent.  Has the cost of delivering MT increased.  I think not.  This move to increase fees is a taking an overreaching  advantage of a market phenomenon of exponential increase in text messaging and of a just budding mobile advertising marketplace to - effectively - kill it off.

Maybe it is Verizon's gambit to create such an outcry that when they lower the MT fee increase to 1 cent or half a cent, the content owners will be grateful and buy into it more readily. 

Whatever the reason, Verizon,  is gnawing, ripping into, and stripping the hands that are feeding its network and hurting the companies attached to those hands as well.  The market will respond - and I hope it will use its power - particularly that possessed by the large content owners [banks and brands] - to tell Verizon "No!" in no uncertain terms.

If your company is in this ecosystem, speak out loud and strong.

p.s. - if Verizon pursues this increase - this will be a huge opportunity for other carriers who do not do an increase to grab significant marketing and advertising dollars, content dollars and new consumers.