Still worried about your location data – think about funding Foursquare

Image representing Dennis Crowley as depicted ...

Image by DennisCrowley.com via CrunchBase

This is not to ridicule the outcry against Apple and Google tracking their users’ locations (after all, Apple is also adding cloud based video services and the iPhone 5 may be much faster) but the location based services and local services like Groupon and the Google afterthought in the field are set to burn up the competition and create a mass momentum that may in fact propel a new set of social media and brand services that make it impossible to serve the customer without meaningful location data. This latter solution may even be preferred by those in the building that are entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses and trading outfits like food stalls, pizza companies that are really benefiting from the social media visibility of their brands/businesses.  Meanwhile Google is probably depending on location services as it scales Latam business to twice its size this year (just 2-3% of GOOG revenue)

As of now, four square is about to hit the $5 billion valuation soon as the pe funding round envisaged by 4sq looks at pricing it for $500 million.

In the latest sign of the Internet gold rush, location-based service Foursquare Labs Inc. is looking to raise fresh funds at a price that would value the three-year-old start-up at as much as $500 million, people familiar with the matter said.

That valuation could be a stretch for Foursquare, which gives users the ability to get deals or connect with friends by “checking in” wherever they are, but so far pulls in little revenue, the people said.

Chief Executive Dennis Crowley is leading the effort and would like to raise $20 million to $40 million

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703387904576279380019110022.html#ixzz1KRQ3hKVh

 
Image representing Apple as depicted in CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

iPad vs Kindle: The Kindle finds a content niche

various e-book readers. From right to left iPa...

Image via Wikipedia

Apple created revenues of $4.53 billion from the iPad in the quarter gone by and probably closer to $10 billion in the 4 quarters to come, the iPad is now busy on reviewing its design and the product margin , incl competition from Component suppliers Samsung and even RIM where the iPhone and iPad continue to together create a new space in global professionals looking for a sleek companion

Kindle, however, has introduced design changes more on the user interface, with Ad supported $100 Kindle a cute and worthy competition to all the noise in the tablet market esp as Amazon and Netflix models have a local captive audience which is not experimenting anymore. It has just gone ahead of your wildest imagination in terms of the catalog available on your Kindle with support from 67% of the libraries in the United States whose books are now available on rent on your Kindle. That I think is true market development from both competitors

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Published: April 20 2011 19:22 | Last updated: April 20 2011 23:50

Amazon will let users of its Kindle e-reader borrow electronic books from two-thirds of US libraries as it seeks to broaden the device’s appeal in the face of competition from Apple’s iPad and rival tablets.

The world’s largest online retailer said that from later this year, customers would be able to borrow e-books from libraries and read – and annotate – them on a Kindle or any other device to which users have downloaded a Kindle app.

Image representing iPad as depicted in CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

The new post after Apple rode tech | Advantage Social

Steve Jobs for Fortune magazine

Image by tsevis via Flickr

Actually Apple re-wrote tech again in last week’s event and I still can’t deal with it. Because right now, we have to apply a wait and watch to any hardware technology based new marketing and lifestyle tools. With Facebook it was not a platform or a technology, even if there was, it was ubiquitous by its absence from user psychology. Steve Jobs, Apple, Ping, ABC and even the other networks that signed up with their largest shareholder’s hobby project, are more in the game of transforming the technology rather than Web 2.0.

Apple is usually more about design and Marketing whence both Ping and Apple TV ( which has till now been only a hobby project experimenting with a host of amateur video related features and owning the programming age of digital) are likely to be the talk of the town once they do get into their next phase as the friendly coaster in the living room to play with when fiddling around on iPhone or probably even a more refined choice of Apple gadgets for a marketing friendly and design friendly living room.

On the ebooks front, Kindle has been keeping its own too, so the war is still on the tech parts and user adoption is unlikely to ramp up to speed while it is so. i for one, don’t like my music to speak too much to me as it gets too intense and I’d rather it stays in the background even when it is my favorite tune. I am sure humans will never let tech invade their living room for tech’s sake.

Steve Jobs at the WWDC 07

Image via Wikipedia

Wow – The Apple on Main Street

Well, Steve Jobs had his work cut out for him with the iPad launch and announcements taking his toll apart from health concerns during most of 2009. And one might even add, analysts linked to Apple and people like us had a harrowing roller coaster ride whether Apple would do 1 million iPads or 10 million, whether his $9 billion quarter would improve to $12 billion or another number and despite being in marketing, we looked on with eager interest, trying to open the envelope which would tell us how rosy our future is.

The iconic Coca cola has given way to the bitten Apple without as much as a nod to Indra Nooyi’s Pepsi or the citi that never sleeps. In the brand sweepstakes, the Apple which spent a good three years battling the clutter on your desktop with usuriusly priced Macs has probably reached a turn where it will now define America, at the same time earning almost $1000 for every iPad it sells with an almost $250 in profits. And the way they are picking up the candy, the customer almost wills himself to think he is buying a soda with his sandwich.

The P&G mothers and the Walmart workers have given way to this commercial marvel, the iPad that sold 500,000 without 3G in the US in month 1, the iPod that still sells 10.9 million in 3 months, and  the iMacs that crown desktops giving Apple a head start into replacing all that has been America since Vietnam into an older version of the iMac to put away in the cobwebs. Made in America is now signed on screen n the iPad as you swipe your card for that loved one or give yourself a treat.

Did you miss the iPhone there? Well it is also doubling in sales , with $30 and more for AT&T as dividend but calling out the iPhone and the iPad starts to look like duplicity in mind and spirit now ( Did you check out the gizmodo scoop!) BTW, on the retail lifestyle front, the Big Mac is also back with double digit growth and $1 B in Quarterly profit, but already a third of what Apple can do..

iPads on sale on a rainy day in Chicago

iPads also go on sale at Best Buys across New York The 3G version comes out next month. Sales estimates for the iPad go up to 20 million by 2012 (iSuppli) with backlit LED displays and thousands of dude apps that include ones that let you run your credit card terminal at the store and read books with the right flip in display. Apple has over 200 retail outlets in the US. that means a cool 200,000 iPads before the day is out and much more if stocks are available. At a likely margin of over $150 on this model and over $250 for Apple itself on the AT&T Data plan supported version..Apple is set to become the giant on the street. Will anyone outside the Apple family go for the iPad soon is the question.

Sorry Steve, We had to lower estimates

Well, next time and in the next few ads iPad might indeed recover, but this is what was dished out while Bigelow earned her two stripes in the LA ceremony

No Malice, but you have to take the good with the bad some time. We’ll wait for you to take this off the air..Go Bezos! And Thanks Pete (mashable) Online this campaign would have been harakiri..Though New York was saved such ads till 8:43 PM when Cablevision was restored the Disney ABC stream.

Mac vs PC – Apple has come a long way

Even as Justin Long and Mr PC carried on a crusade for years and a lot of marketing teams swore by the Mac..an era passed us by, the banks washed up ashore in guilt and lot of ‘sand’ in the shoes too.

Meanwhile in just 3 years, after the iPod had already redefined the Information era landscape, The Apple Product Design Team has already managed two bigger marketing coups with the iPhone and the iPad. The key to pricing success brought around A QUICK RAMP UP FOR THE iPOD AS WELL and will probably continue this year for the iPad when it starts shipping this month

Great Job, Steve! And also Justin! tim to move on to bigger things? like a 27″ iMac with a 4G iPhone and a wireless iPad in the car or on the job ;lol

Also, TBTF is going just right on the Kindle..is it Apple vs Amazon the next generation’s favourite war? Windows 7 comeback is telling though. Wow what a hot shop!

iPad vs Kindle: MacMillan loses the plot

In a move reminding of the precipitate ways of the Music Industry, Macmillan seems to have argued with Amazon over increasing the price of ebooks in the fledgling market. Amazon, rightly moved Macmillan off its shelves, thus causing tremendous losses to MacMillan.

We can tell you as customers that even $9.99 is not going the whole way for market development of the e-books market. Apple’s iPod had revolutionalised the music industry by making songs available for $0.99 ea. However, Apple had avoided the public spat and convinced publishers to go along with it.

The pecuniary advantages of negative reinforcement may well be limited. Apple’s ibookstore is planning to price titles at a steep $12.99 and $14.99. However, amazon’s action may also be compromised if it resricts the ban to only e-books from MacMillan Titles and should go the whole way.

On the flip side, even if MacMillan sells half its inventory thru Amazon, it will lose out on those markets in the next year or so and sales will surely dip by aleast 8-10% from the defranchising. Amazon’s model may not dissuade from bestsellers or any titles already preselected in the customer’s mind but when it comes to browsing and selecting purchases and gifts based on Interests, an immediate negative impact is likely on those not available at the site.

C-NET published this shocking piece of news yesterday

Amazon.com has pulled books from Macmillan, one of the largest publishers in the United States, in a dispute over the pricing on e-books on the site. The publisher’s books can be purchased only from third parties on Amazon.com. A person in the industry with knowledge of the dispute, which has been brewing for a year, said Amazon was expressing its strong disagreement by temporarily removing Macmillan books. The person did not want to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the matter. Macmillan, like other publishers, has asked Amazon to raise the price of e-books to around $15 from $9.99. Macmillan is one of the publishers signed on to offer books to Apple, as part of its new iBookstore on the iPad tablet unveiled earlier this week.

Apple, labels work on plan to boost album sales: report| Deals| Reuters

zyakaira notes: Apple continues to ride on its current successes and hopefully would be able to get itself out of the DRM snare for customers as also improve its payments portal to accept international payments as Music Labels would earn the most out of that with an ipod than any other platform.

Apple Inc and four record labels are working on a plan to increase digital sales of albums, while the computer maker is also separately developing a tablet-sized device, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.Apple is working with EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music and Vivendis Universal Music Group on the project, “Cocktail,” with the sides hoping for a launch in September, the paper reported, citing unnamed sources.

The project with the record companies aims to offer interactive features with music downloads, the paper said.Apple also hopes to offer the tablet-sized computer in time for Christmas shopping, the FT reported.The computer will connect to the Internet like Apples iPod Touch and its screen may be up to 10 inches diagonally, the paper reported.The paper said book publishers have also been in talks with the computer maker about offering their services on the new device, which could compete with Amazon’s Kindle.Apple and the music companies were not immediately available for comment.

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