Why Facebook pages are a bust for brands

Why Facebook pages are a bust for brands

BY JOSEPH PIGATO 
ON NOVEMBER 13, 2013

Coca-Cola, Red Bull and Converse are the top three brands on Facebook, combining for more than 150 million fans. It’s a staggering figure, but they really can’t afford to have any fewer, given that only one out of every 15,000 fans responds to posts — slim odds. That is why Facebook pages, along with other obligatory social strategies, have largely been a bust for meaningful, two-way interactions between brands and consumers. They’ve just become a place where brands collect their customers to ignore them, right alongside the people who just wanted that free iPad. Facebook brand pages are not built to engage more than a tiny fraction of fans, and marketers need to understand this isn’t likely to change. Read more of this post

Wearable FinTech Part I: Target, Ticker; Imagine glancing with a pair of smart glasses and instantly seeing in the corner of your eye a stock quote, price-earnings ratio and price history for the company that manufactures it

Wearable FinTech Part I: Target, Ticker

13 NOV 2013 – DANIEL NADLER

In James Cameron’s 1991 sci-fi classic, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character — an autonomous humanoid robot assassin sent from the future to protect the boy who will later lead the rebellion against the computers controlling the world — enters a biker bar looking for a set of clothes and a motorcycle to start his mission. Featuring a head-up-display augmented-reality system, the Terminator can identify, among other things, the precise dimensions of every item of clothing worn by those in his field of vision. Simply by glancing at a burly biker, he sees sizing and other attributes flash before his android eyes: height, 6-foot-1; weight, 212 pounds. Were the film made today, an additional metric might have been projected on the Terminator’s retina: a real-time stock quote for the Harley-Davidson ticker, HOG. Read more of this post

Apple’s $10.5B on Robots to Lasers Shores Up Supply Chain

Apple’s $10.5B on Robots to Lasers Shores Up Supply Chain

Apple Inc. is putting a record $10.5 billion to work in new technology — from assembly robots to milling machines — that consumers will never see. To get a jump on rivals like Samsung Electronics Co. and lay the groundwork for new products, Apple is spending more on the machines that do the behind-the-scenes work of mass producing iPhones, iPads and other gadgets. That includes equipment to polish the new iPhone 5c’s colorful plastic, laser and milling machines to carve the MacBook’s aluminum body, and testing gear for the iPhone and iPad camera lens, said people with knowledge of the company’s manufacturing methods, who asked not to be identified because the process is private. Read more of this post

Koalas Tracked by Smartphone App; Scientists Ask Australians to Record Encounters Using Mobile Phone Technology

Koalas Tracked by Smartphone App

Scientists Ask Australians to Record Encounters Using Mobile Phone Technology

ROB TAYLOR

Updated Nov. 13, 2013 12:09 p.m. ET

The Koala’s Australian habitat is gradually shrinking, thanks to wild dogs and wild fires. Now, citizens are being asked to help account for the bear population by sending in spottings via smartphone app. Via WSJ’s Foreign Bureau.

CANBERRA, Australia—Former Beatle Paul McCartney once sang an ode to them, while tourists jostle to have their photographs taken holding them. Now, scientists hope to save Australia’s endangered koala using mobile phone technology. With numbers of the furry marsupial falling due to a combination of wild dog attacks, habitat loss from land clearing, wildfires and the impact of chlamydia infections, Australians have been asked to take part in the Great Koala Count, running until Nov. 17. Read more of this post

Messaging Service Snapchat Spurned Facebook Bid; Startup Is Being Wooed by Investors Including China’s Tencent

Messaging Service Snapchat Spurned Facebook Bid

Startup Is Being Wooed by Investors Including China’s Tencent

EVELYN M. RUSLI And DOUGLAS MACMILLAN

Updated Nov. 13, 2013 7:35 p.m. ET

Snapchat, a rapidly growing messaging service, recently spurned an all-cash acquisition offer from Facebook for $3 billion or more, Evelyn Rusli reports. (Photo courtesy of Snapchat) Snapchat Inc., a rapidly growing messaging service, recently spurned an all-cash acquisition offer from Facebook Inc. FB +4.52% for $3 billion or more, said people briefed on the matter. Read more of this post

Pricey Progress for Sina and Tencent; Two Popular Chinese Internet Companies Are Expanding Their Users, but Buying In at Today’s Prices Requires a Leap of Faith

Pricey Progress for Sina and Tencent

Two Popular Chinese Internet Companies Are Expanding Their Users, but Buying In at Today’s Prices Requires a Leap of Faith

AARON BACK

Updated Nov. 13, 2013 6:10 p.m. ET

China’s Internet companies differ from America’s in many respects, but one thing they share are stock prices prone to bouts of speculative excess. Take Sina SINA +11.38% and Tencent Holdings, 0700.HK -4.01% two investor darlings with the promise of massively popular social networks. At their peaks last month just before Twitter TWTR +1.67% euphoria went into high gear, shares in both were up over 80% from the start of the year. They have both fallen since then, but remain faith-based plays on monetizing deep pools of users. Read more of this post

Third-party taxi booking apps making their way to Singapore

Third-party taxi booking apps making their way to Singapore

SINGAPORE — Third-party taxi booking apps, which have become hugely popular among commuters and cabbies in neighbouring countries including Malaysia, are making their way to the Republic.

BY KOK XING HUI –

4 HOURS 55 MIN AGO

SINGAPORE — Third-party taxi booking apps, which have become hugely popular among commuters and cabbies in neighbouring countries including Malaysia, are making their way to the Republic. And at least one major taxi operator here is feeling uneasy about it, and has instructed its drivers not to use an app that could potentially allow cabbies to bypass their companies’ dispatch system and pocket the full booking fee. Read more of this post

Twitter in Asia: too open, too crowded, too difficult; That’s why some Twitter users in South Korea and Japan say they are spending less time on the site or have quit for other services

Twitter in Asia: too open, too crowded, too difficult

AP

NOV 9, 2013

SEOUL – That’s why some Twitter users in South Korea and Japan say they are spending less time on the site or have quit for other services. After selling shares in a highly anticipated initial public offering, Twitter is set to face minute ongoing scrutiny from a legion of new shareholders and Wall Street investment analysts. Read more of this post

India still wary about shopping online; Ex-Asos boss to list Indian venture on Aim

Last updated: November 12, 2013 4:54 pm

India still wary about shopping online

By Amy Kazmin in New Delhi

For largely bricks and mortar retailers such as Marks and Spencer India presents a big challenge, with an acute shortage of suitable physical space for modern shops, sky-high rents and a geographically diffuse potential customer base, spread across megacities and scores of smaller cities and towns. Read more of this post

Indonesia in frame for cinema shake-up; Indonesia’s influential Riady family is making a pitch to shake up the tightly controlled cinema industry to break the stranglehold of Cinema 21 which has nearly 600 of the country’s 700 screens

November 12, 2013 2:30 pm

Indonesia in frame for cinema shake-up

By Ben Bland in Jakarta

They have led the way in shopping malls, private hospitals and luxury cemeteries and now Indonesia’s influential Riady family is making a pitch to shake up the tightly controlled cinema industry in southeast Asia’s biggest economy. The family’s Lippo group is planning to open its first cinema next year and roll out hundreds more screens as it tries to break the stranglehold of Cinema 21, which gained a monopoly on Hollywood film distribution during the Suharto dictatorship. Read more of this post

KakaoTalk operator trapped by fund shortfall as venture business

KakaoTalk operator trapped by fund shortfall as venture business

Won Yo-hwan

2013.11.13 15:21:12

Kakao, operator of South Korea’s largest mobile messenger KakaoTalk, is facing hard times. KakaoTalk grew exponentially until last year, spurring the mantra “whatever KakaoTalk does becomes success.” But the mobile phone messenger application is not as influential as it used to be. Its competitors Line and WeChat, meanwhile, are gaining edges in the global market. Eyes are on how Kakao, the big player in the mobile start-up industry, will break through the situation. What has been undermining the KakaoTalk’s platform?  Read more of this post

Why does the new iPhone have a 64-bit processor?

Why does the new iPhone have a 64-bit processor?

Nov 12th 2013, 23:50 by G.F. | SEATTLE

SINCE its resurgence in the late 1990s, Apple has generally shied away from trumpeting processor speeds, cache sizes or other technical details in its marketing materials, preferring to emphasise what its products can do, rather than what is inside them. It does make exceptions, however, as in the case of the recent launch of the iPhone 5s, its new flagship smartphone. Executives hyped its “64-bit” A7 processor, which they asserted had desktop-computer performance and could complete some tasks twice as quickly as the 32-bit chip in its previous model. Rivals, bloggers and technology-news sites disparaged its claims, saying that there was no good reason to put a 64-bit chip in a smartphone except to claim bragging rights. Anand Chandrasekher, the chief marketing officer of Qualcomm, a rival technology firm, told Techworld: “Predominantly…you need it for memory addressability beyond 4GB [gigabytes]. That’s it. You don’t really need it for performance.” Yet the performance boost is there, as independent benchmark testing confirms. Why has Apple made the jump to 64 bits? Read more of this post

Sequoia Capital Invests in Berlin Start-Up

NOVEMBER 12, 2013, 12:01 PM

Sequoia Capital Invests in Berlin Start-Up

By MARK SCOTT

LONDON – For many European start-ups, connections to Silicon Valley are still viewed as a sign of success. In the latest deal, 6Wunderkinder, a Berlin-based maker of an online task application, announced on Tuesday that it had raised $19 million in a new round of investment led by Sequoia Capital. Read more of this post

Outside-the-box innovations seen in next generation of video games

Outside-the-box innovations seen in next generation of video games

NOV 11, 2013

LOS ANGELES – The next generation of gaming is nearly here, but what about the generation after that one? Sony and Microsoft are launching their new superpowered consoles in the coming weeks. However, gamemakers at last week’s Game Developers Conference Next in Los Angeles were already contemplating outside-the-box innovations — from wearable controllers to illuminated living rooms — that might follow the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Here’s a glimpse at five big ideas pondered at GDC Next: Read more of this post

Online fashion retailer Asos launches Chinese website

Online fashion retailer Asos launches Chinese website

Asos.cn is eighth country-specific website for e-tailer, which operates in 237 countries and has seen soaring sales

Sarah Butler

theguardian.com, Tuesday 12 November 2013 16.17 GMT

Nick Robinson, chief executive of Asos, says the fashion brand’s Chinese website will ‘break down barriers’. Photograph: Suki Dhanda

Fashion website Asos is aiming to tap into the fast-growing Chinese market with the launch of a dedicated website for the country. “China continues to impress us with its steady growth. The launch will not only help navigate and break down existing barriers, but also dramatically improve the Asos experience for our fast-growing number of Chinese customers,” said Nick Robertson, the chief executive. Read more of this post

Giving People a Glimpse of What Their Pets See; Nature’s Recipe is giving“collar cameras” to influential pet owners, and resulting photos are posted online

November 11, 2013

Giving People a Glimpse of What Their Pets See

By STUART ELLIOTT

Nature’s Recipe pet food is giving “collar cameras” to influential pet owners. The photos from those cameras are posted online.

FORGET about a bird’s-eye view. A leader in pet foods is introducing a digital campaign for a principal brand that promises to provide views from the dog’s- and cat’s-eye perspective. The brand is Nature’s Recipe, sold by Del Monte Foods, which is calling the campaign “Nature’s Recipe for Moments.” The campaign, with a budget estimated at $2.6 million, is being promoted with this declaration: “See life through their eyes. Experience the moments that Nature’s Recipe can provide.” Read more of this post

A Recharging Industry Rises; High-voltage, superfast public devices for recharging electric cars are appearing more frequently, though some are more expensive for drivers than home chargers, or even gasoline

November 12, 2013

A Recharging Industry Rises

By MATTHEW L. WALD

Michael D. Farkas, co-founder and chief of the CarCharging Group, which is buying up high-voltage recharging networks.

WASHINGTON — Tens of thousands of new electric cars are zipping into traffic this year, and with them come a trunkful of strategies about how to recharge them. There are at least four ways to go: recharging slowly through a standard 120-volt wall socket, the type a consumer would use for a hair dryer; buying a faster 240-volt home charger, about the size of a garden gnome, for several thousand dollars; plugging into the same 240-volt charger in a public parking space but paying a price; or using a $30,000 superspeedy public charger that takes only minutes but is not widely available. Read more of this post

Separating the Market-Moving Tweets From the Chaff

NOVEMBER 11, 2013, 7:29 AM

Separating the Market-Moving Tweets From the Chaff

By WILLIAM ALDEN

Carl C. Icahn wields it as a megaphone. Traders and analysts use it to chat publicly about stocks. Eyewitnesses employ it to post messages about news events before they make headlines. Wall Street has undoubtedly recognized the value of Twitter as an investing tool. But a question remains about how best to harness the stream of half a billion messages that flow through Twitter daily — and use that information to gain a market edge. Read more of this post

The Invasion of the Online Tutors; They teach 24/7 via chat windows and digital whiteboards

The Invasion of the Online Tutors

They teach via chat windows and digital whiteboards

SUE SHELLENBARGER

Nov. 12, 2013 7:21 p.m. ET

Chloe Friedman of Dallas uses Tutor.com for homework help between dance classes. In the world of on-demand tutoring, kids can log on 24/7 to sites with problems or questions. But how well do these really work? Sue Shellenbarger reports and mother Peggy Bennett shares her own experience. Photo: Justin Clemons for The Wall Street Journal.

It’s a nightly dilemma in many households: A student hits a wall doing homework, and parents are too tired, too busy—or too mystified—to help. Ordering up a tutor is becoming as easy for kids as grabbing a late-night snack. Amid rapid growth in companies offering online, on-demand tutoring, students can use a credit card to connect, sometimes in less than a minute, with a live tutor. Such 24/7, no-appointment-needed services can be especially helpful to students with tight budgets or tight time frames or those in remote areas. Read more of this post

TSMC reveals successors of Morris Chang

TSMC reveals successors of Morris Chang

Wednesday, Nov 13, 2013

Ted Chen

The China Post/Asia News Network

TAIPEI – The board of TSMC, the world’s leading semiconductor foundry, on Tuesday announced personnel appointments to succeed Morris Chang, the company’s longtime CEO. According to the company, two high ranking officers, Mark Liu (劉德音) and C.C.Wei (魏哲家) will be promoted to the position of co-CEOs, an outcome in line with the expectation of industry observers. Following the change, Liu and Wei will report directly to Chang, who will retain his post as the company’s chairman. Read more of this post

Why Twitter will keep growing: Its best ideas come from the users

Why Twitter will keep growing: Its best ideas come from the users

By Brian Fung, Updated: November 12 at 2:56 pm

Twitter’s just unveiled a new offering that’ll surely delight organizers and curators everywhere: It’s called Custom Timelines, and it lets users compile a list of selected tweets in any order for others to look at — whether on Tweetdeck, embedded in a Web site or on Twitter.com. For things you want to keep a record of but don’t necessarily update very often, this can be a good way to hand-craft (and share) an archive. For instance, if you’re an app developer, you might build a custom timeline that functions as a changelog, helping people understand how your app has evolved over the past few versions. Read more of this post

Vice Media, known for its edgy, youth-oriented online and TV programming, is more than doubling the size of its news operations, the latest sign that digital-media outlets see growth potential in news

Vice Media Bulks Up News Division

Company With Knack for Reaching Young Adults Ads More Journalists

WILLIAM LAUNDER

Nov. 12, 2013 12:02 a.m. ET

Vice Media Inc., known for its edgy, youth-oriented online and TV programming, is more than doubling the size of its news operations, the latest sign that digital-media outlets see growth potential in news. Over the past two months, Vice has quietly hired more than 60 additional journalists, increasing the size of its formal news team to more than 100, to cover everything from Middle East war zones to health-care reform through an expansion of its digital video offering, Chief Executive Shane Smith said in an interview. Read more of this post

Twitter Lets Users Build Timelines Around TV Shows, News

Twitter Lets Users Build Timelines Around TV Shows, News

Twitter Inc. (TWTR) is letting users create customized news feeds around real-time events as the microblogging service aims to boost engagement on the site. Custom timelines will help users collect tweets around conversations, television shows or breaking news so messages that are of most interest will float to the top, the San Francisco-based company said today in a blog post. “When the conversation around an event or topic takes off on Twitter, you have the opportunity to create a timeline that surfaces what you believe to be the most noteworthy, relevant tweets,” the post said. Twitter, which held its stock market debut last week, is investing in products to keep users on the site for longer and lure advertisers as it competes with Facebook Inc. for social-media ad sales. Twitter’s research and development costs surged 170 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, and the company spent more than half its revenue on R&D. Twitter fell 2.3 percent to $41.90 at the close in New York. The stock has climbed 61 percent since it started trading Nov. 7, in the biggest technology initial public offering since Facebook’s last year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah Frier in New York at sfrier1@bloomberg.net

Secretive Indian Twitter investor Rivzi, 47, makes $4.7 billion with 15.6% stake

Secretive Indian Twitter investor makes $4.7 billion

Wednesday, Nov 13, 2013

The New Paper

The man is so secretive that he is reported to have an assistant who scrubs the Internet of his personal photographs and information, the Times of India reported. So who is the secretive India-born Twitter investor who earned an estimated US$3.8 billion (S$4.7 billion) in the tech titan’s recent initial public offering (IPO)? The India-born Mr Rizvi, 47, owns a 15.6 per cent stake in the IPO darling, but what is known about him would barely fill a 40-character tweet. Read more of this post

Pay-TV Industry Loses More Subscribers; Evidence Grows on TV Cord-Cutting

Pay-TV Industry Loses More Subscribers

Worst 12-Month Stretch Adds to Evidence that Consumers Are Cutting the Cord

SHALINI RAMACHANDRAN

Nov. 12, 2013 4:55 p.m. ET

The pay TV industry continued to lose subscribers in the third quarter, analysts estimated on Tuesday, providing further evidence that some consumers are dropping their pay TV subscriptions, or cutting the cord. The industry as a whole lost 113,000 subscribers in the quarter compared with 101,000 in the year ago-period, according to a report by Wall Street research firm MoffettNathanson LLC, issued on Tuesday after Dish Network Corp. DISH +6.00% released its quarterly report. Dish was the last of the publicly traded pay TV providers to report for the quarter. MoffettNathanson’s estimate includes a calculation for performance of privately-held distributors. The firm estimates that total pay-TV subscribers shrank 0.2% over the 12 months ended Sept. 30. Read more of this post

Meet the Man Who Really Runs Amazon Web Serviecs

Meet the Man Who Really Runs the Internet

Much of the Internet Runs Under the Watch of Amazon’s Web Services Chief

GREG BENSINGER

Andy Jassy, the head of Amazon’s Web Services, wants cloud computing to be as vital to the Seattle-based retailer as diapers, books and skin-care products. Drew Kelly for The Wall Street Journal

 Nov. 12, 2013 8:25 p.m. ET

From Netflix Inc. NFLX -1.24% ‘s streaming video service to Pinterest Inc.’s social network, much of the Internet runs under Andy Jassy’s watch. The head of Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -1.37% ‘s Web Services division, which sells computing power to other companies from network of Internet-connected servers, wants cloud computing to be as vital to the Seattle-based retailer as diapers, books and skin-care products. Numerous technology startups and even government agencies rent server space from Amazon Web Services, including the Central Intelligence Agency, which recently chose AWS for a $600 million data storage contract. Read more of this post

Malone’s Liberty Global in Talks for Intel TV Service

Malone’s Liberty Global in Talks for Intel TV Service

John Malone’s Liberty Global (LBTYA) Plc, the European cable operator, is in talks to acquire Intel Corp. (INTC)’s online pay-TV service under development, said three people with knowledge of the situation. Malone would use Intel’s system outside the U.S., said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. London-based Liberty Global owns Virgin Media in the U.K., and operates in Germany, Belgium and elsewhere. Negotiations are early and could fall apart, said the people, who declined to comment on the price being discussed. Read more of this post

Ireland’s Would-Be Carlos Slim Sells Mobiles to Masses

Ireland’s Would-Be Carlos Slim Sells Mobiles to Masses

Hiking along the Kokoda Trail in remote eastern Papua New Guinea last summer, Denis O’Brien discovered he didn’t have a mobile phone signal. The sturdily built Irish telecommunications tycoon knew how to fix that. He stormed into the local office of Digicel Group Ltd., the wireless operator he’d founded in 2001, and demanded that extra phone towers be erected along the route. Read more of this post

Hulu Wants to Be Offered With Pay-TV Bundles; Online Video Outlet Could Be Centralized Location for Full Seasons of Shows

Hulu Wants to Be Offered With Pay-TV Bundles

Online Video Outlet Could Be Centralized Location for Full Seasons of Shows

SHALINI RAMACHANDRAN And AMOL SHARMA

Nov. 12, 2013 11:46 a.m. ET

Online video outlet Hulu LLC is in early discussions with several pay-TV providers about potential partnerships, said people familiar with the situation, the latest sign that the media company-owned service is trying to become integrated with pay television. Among ideas being discussed is for pay-TV operators to sell Hulu’s subscription service, Hulu Plus, as part of pay-TV operators’ TV bundles, the people said. Read more of this post