mobile

How U.S. Millennials are Shaping Online Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Shopping Trends

Feb 6, 2019 | , ,

According to the latest Nielsen Category Shopping Fundamentals study, as detailed in our recent Millennials on Millennials report, 60% of U.S. consumers’ FMCG decisions are still made at the shelf. This is a key insight for retailers, but so is understanding the influence that digital has on influencing consumers on their way to the shelf. Not surprisingly, Millennials are more active on social media than older generations, and this affects the way they look for information as they shop. For example, Millennials are significantly more likely than the broader population to conduct online research for common items like food and cleaning products.

Source: How U.S. Millennials are Shaping Online FMCG Shopping Trends

Apple, the iPhone, and the Innovator’s Dilemma

Feb 2, 2019 | ,

IF YOU RE-READ the first few chapters of The Innovator’s Dilemma and you insert “Apple” every time Clayton Christensen mentions “a company,” a certain picture emerges: Apple is a company on the verge of being disrupted, and the next great idea in tech and consumer electronics will not materialize from within the walls of its Cupertino spaceship.

Source: Apple, the iPhone, and the Innovator’s Dilemma | WIRED

Tim Cook Says Apple Plans to Participate in the ‘Breakdown of the Cable Bundle’ With AirPlay 2, Original Content and More 

Jan 29, 2019 | ,

Apple CEO Tim Cook today commented on the opportunities Apple sees in the video market, though he declined to provide details on the company’s specific plans. 

Cook said that Apple sees “huge changes” taking place in customer behavior, which the company expects to “accelerate as the year goes by.” Specifically, Cook said that Apple is expecting an acceleration of the breakdown of the cable bundle. “I think it’ll likely take place at a much faster pace this year,” he said. 

Source: Tim Cook Says Apple Plans to Participate in the ‘Breakdown of the Cable Bundle’ With AirPlay 2, Original Content and More – MacRumors

Facebook pays teens to install VPN that spies on them 

Jan 29, 2019 | ,

Desperate for data on its competitors, Facebook has been secretly paying people to install a “Facebook Research” VPN that lets the company suck in all of a user’s phone and web activity, similar to Facebook’s Onavo Protect app that Apple banned in June and that was removed in August. Facebook sidesteps the App Store and rewards teenagers and adults to download the Research app and give it root access in what may be a violation of Apple policy so the social network can decrypt and analyze their phone activity, a TechCrunch investigation confirms. Facebook admitted to TechCrunch it was running the Research program to gather data on usage habits.

Source: Facebook pays teens to install VPN that spies on them | TechCrunch

Love in the Age of Data 

Jan 27, 2019 | , ,

Ours is the data-driven age. Arguments and claims made in the media and in the academy are backed up with harvested “empirical” information drawn from data collection technologies that make dystopian cybernetic dreams seem like relics from the ancient past. Data sets control what we see on our internet searches, social media feeds, and television screens, yet that process of selection remains deliberately obscured. Data as a methodology percolates through every area of the university, and new appointments (even in the so-called “arts”) reward scholars who apply data analytics software to understand everything from gender to poetry. Mobile apps manage everything from eating habits to menstrual cycles using data-formatted algorithms, while “smart condoms” collect sexual movements into large aggregated sets which set a new blueprint for the sexual future.

Source: Love in the Age of Data – Los Angeles Review of Books

Apple’s Precarious and Pivotal 2019 

Jan 27, 2019 | ,

The iPhone has simply been too good of a business. And it’s hard to see what tops it. Certainly in the near term. If Services is to carry Apple in the future, it will likely be only after years of relatively stagnant iPhone revenue growth mixed with a rising overall market. In other words, time and the broader world will have to catch up. And then Apple can have their “Microsoft Moment” — a services-based resurrection of growth.

Source: Apple’s Precarious and Pivotal 2019 – 500ish Words

Mark Zuckerberg, Let Me Be Your Ghost Writer 

Jan 25, 2019 | ,

MARK WROTE: “Facebook turns 15 next month. When I started Facebook, I wasn’t trying to build a global company. I realized you could find almost anything on the internet — music, books, information — except the thing that matters most: people. So I built a service people could use to connect and learn about each other. Over the years, billions have found this useful, and we’ve built more services that people around the world love and use every day. Recently I’ve heard many questions about our business model, so I want to explain the principles of how we operate.”

KARA TRANSLATES: We old now. We big now. It came from my one really good idea: AOL sucked and I could do better and I did. Now the noise has reached me up on Billionaire Mountain, so I am going to have to pretend that I care.

Source: Opinion | Mark Zuckerberg, Let Me Be Your Ghost Writer – The New York Times