By: Herman Manson Tomas Roope has been doing multimedia since 1991. That was before most of the rest of us even realised it existed. So listen closely.

Once it might have described CD-ROMs (he did that, too) but today multimedia features in numerous consumer touchpoints, both online and off, and Roope has had a front-row view as a technical and creative director at The Rumpus Room. This UK-based company describes itself as a “hybrid communication [firm]; fusing participation, real world, interactive and social platforms”.

Roope, who has won several awards, including four D&AD Silvers and a Gold Lion at Cannes, and has presented a large number of international conferences, is visiting South Africa as a guest and participant of the Toffie Pop Culture Festival scheduled to take place in Cape Town, 30 March through 1 April 2012. The festival is a three-day conference and festival focusing on contemporary pop culture, design, music, magazine publishing, art, and everything else that relates to everyday pop culture. It takes place in the Cape Town City Hall.

Roope was also part of the collective antirom (it published a CD-ROM with arts funding in 1995), a protest against ‘multi-mediocrity,’ which was awarded at Digital Archaeology 2010 (Europe), part of Europe Internet Week. Antirom developed into a commercial venture and continued until the spring of 1999, when Rooke and two of his antirom colleagues began Tomato Interactive.

Herman Manson: What are the key elements of successful hybrid communication?
Tomas Roope: I suppose it is respecting and understanding the broad range of communication tools. Each tool operates in a different context and thus has a different relationship with the audience. The traditional vs digital argument is not really very helpful; is a spanner better than a hammer?

The key is to engage in different ways on different platforms. I expect to have to watch ads on TV (I understand its transitional nature – I watch four minutes of ads to see 20 minutes of what I want to see), but when it comes to digital platform, the same content just annoys me – what am I getting from it?

Digital platforms are mine; engagement is by invitation only. Effective communication on these platforms has to feel like I am getting more than I am giving, a very tricky challenge.

Manson: I saw a piece where you predicted that film-participation digital activations will become a popular trend this year. That’s basically consumer-generated content, facilitated by brands, to be used for advertising and branding?
Roope: Brands want to see their investment working harder across communication platforms, especially in social spaces, while at the same time people are increasingly wanting to be included; they want to make things that show, and get other people to see how talented, creative, funny, cool, for/against something they are.

We founded The Rumpus Room to harness power of people building experiences together and align this activity to with brand communication.

Here is a nice quote that kind of summarises what we are talking about: “Creating something personal, even of moderate quality, has a different kind of appeal to consuming something made by others, even of a high quality” – Clay Shirky.

Manson: You played a part in putting together the crowd-sourced video for Lily Allen’s hit The Fear. Can you tell us what was involved in a production of that scale – it wasn’t just here clips of people taping themselves on their cellphones and sending it in.
Roope: The project was a combination of a touring shoot, with traditional off-line editing (for the low-resolution grids) that dove tailed into the more complex grids created by our bespoke software.

We used our database extensively for both the offline and grid executions, as all performances were organised and rested so they could be easily accessed, and mechanically composed.

Manson: It’s also interesting that, with putting together the video for Allen, you sought to integrate physical and digital environments – getting people out and away from their computers to participate in this. What was the thinking there and was it easier than you expected?
Roope: We came on board when the performance-sourcing tour was already established, in its basic form. It was a classic product-experience approach where three teams were scheduled to tour for six weeks in shopping malls, clubs etc and film people using the game lips (an Xbox-based karaoke game).

We worked with them to establish what they should do (background colours, lighting etc.), and built a database that the touring teams could record the subjective (how good where they?) and empirical data (back ground colour, gender etc) for each performance.

This was exciting for us, as we had done some similar projects but using web submissions. The problem with this approach is that the only really low barrier to submit content is through a server-based streaming-capture system, which is reliant on really good connection speeds to get anything like good/stable content.

It was really nice to see the results from our software when we were able to use the HD content from the tour, rather than the flaky content we had been capturing from web cams on our previous projects.

It was a bit of a scary project because we didn’t really get a sense of how it would look until we had finished the touring and Lily shoot, so there was no going back if we had messed up, but luckily it all worked out how we thought. In the end it was a reasonably simple – as we had already developed some of the hard-core compositional software – but extremely time-consuming process (rendering).

It is probably the project we have done that has received the most attention, as it really seems to tap into an approach that really embodies an authentic social experience, while resulting in a pretty classic piece of slick adverting that is really a classic piece of testimonial adverting.

We have been working hard at mobile as a way of people capturing film locally and then submitting the film they have captured. This will really improve the quality of the source content, as well as getting the content out of people’s bedrooms.

Manson: How are brands using mobile apps in their marketing efforts?
Roope: Mobile is the new frontier, but for me it is a really tricky environment. If you have a good idea for an application, why would you do it for a brand? Why not just make it and sell it?

The barrier to create something you can sell is really low for creative developers, and all brands will do is compromise the experience to up their presence in the experience.

It feels like the music or games industry, where advertising has really struggled for the same reasons. Advertising is never really wanted; it just creates want, and struggles when it is up against an industry that is purely focused on satisfying people’s desires.

There are, of course, exceptions, but for me they really prove the rule.

Ideas that are going to work need to extend beyond the duration of the usual advertising campaign, provide utility (remember that fun is utility), and embody the brand communication so that the idea does not need to be compromised to deliver the brand message, and get clients to pay more for it than you could make if you just made it and sold it. These are four pretty big hurdles, but are not insurmountable.

Manson: What should marketers keep in mind when developing an approach to social media?
Roope: The key is to understand that brands are competing with people’s friends. Brands are used to communicating with people in spaces where the audience has no choice but to listen, which is not true in social spaces. Brands need a reality check; they really need to understand how interesting they really are.

This must come from a shift of creatives looking as the audience not as the object but the subject of what they make.

Brands need to be more relevant and entertaining than my friends for me to bother getting involved.

Manson: What will your talk at Toffie be about?
Roope: I suppose I am really interested in new ways of being a creative author, that harnesses people as co-creators, rather than just looking at them as them as “the audience”.

The challenge as an author is to look at chance not as the enemy but as an intrinsic part of the process.

We need to think of how we build responsive platforms, rather than fixed monologues.

All very challenging and threatening but exciting. Brian Eno sums it up really well in this video!

 Originally published on Bizcommunity.com Marketing & Media | South Africa – click to see more comments.

by Arthur Goldstuck BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) Monday announced that it was replacing its co-CEOs with Thorsten Heins, ostensibly paving the way for a new phase in product evolution, but possibly also preparing it for sale.

A civilised “passing of the baton” at BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) may well presage a messy struggle to find the right buyer for the company.

The announcement of the appointment of Thorsten Heins as President and Chief Executive Officer was couched in deeply diplomatic terms, to ensure that it is characterised as planned succession, rather than the former co-CEOs bowing to massive pressure from investors, industry and media.

A formal statement from RIM began: “The Board of Directors of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) today (January 23, 2012) announced that, acting on the recommendation of its Co-Chief Executive Officers to implement the succession plan they previously submitted to the Board, it has unanimously named Thorsten Heins as President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Heins was also appointed to RIM’s Board. The Board acted after conducting its own due diligence. Both appointments are effective immediately.”

Former Co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, who have long resisted shareholder pressure for change, each own more than 5% of RIM’s shares, giving them a powerful hand in how the company is run. It also means that they are controlling the positioning of the transition tightly.

Lazaridis has been named Vice Chair of RIM’s Board and Chair of the Board’s new Innovation Committee, while Balsillie remains a member of the Board. Barbara Stymiest, a member of RIM’s Board since 2007, has been named independent Board Chair.

As Vice Chair, said Lazaridis, he will work closely with Heins “to offer strategic counsel, provide a smooth transition and continue to promote the BlackBerry brand worldwide”.

Heins, for his part, said: “Mike created a whole new way of communicating and I look forward to continuing our close collaboration.”

Elaborating on the transition, Lazaridis, deliberately avoided mention of the challenges facing RIM: “There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim and I went to the Board and told them that we thought that time was now.  With BlackBerry 7 now out, PlayBook 2.0 shipping in February and BlackBerry 10 expected to ship later this year, the company is entering a new phase, and we felt it was time for a new leader to take it through that phase and beyond.  Jim, the Board and I all agreed that leader should be Thorsten Heins.”

Balsillie echoed these words: “I agree this is the right time to pass the baton to new leadership, and I have complete confidence in Thorsten, the management team and the company.”

He also took the opportunity to remind the market who calls the shots: “I remain a significant shareholder and a Director and, of course, they will have my full support.”

Meanwhile, Lazaridis intends to gain even greater control: “I am so confident in RIM’s future that I intend to purchase an additional $50 million of the company’s shares, as permitted, in the open market.”

That, of course, would be a clever move if the company is close to being sold. There is little doubt that any buyer would pay a premium over the current $8.5-billion market capitalisation, which is lower than the asset value of the company. Strong speculation emerged last week that RIM had tried to engage Samsung in acquisition talks, but that the latter wasn’t interested.

A more likely buyer would be one of the lesser phone brands that has struggled to get a look into the current global smartphone war, where the chief combatants seem to be Nokia, Samsung and Apple, with BlackBerry and HTC maintaining the high ground in some markets. The outsiders include Sony and LG, whose market shares have slumped in recent years. Even the emerging Chinese brands Huawei and ZTE, who are about to take on the developing world with cheap Android-based smartphones, understand the appeal of BlackBerry at the high end of these markets.

The buyer could also come from outside the phone market. Microsoft is often cited, as is Google – although the latter may not have the appetite for it after the lukewarm market reaction to its Motorola acquisition. Could BlackBerry’s e-mail and Messenger application be incorporated successfully into Windows or Android phones? That development challenge may be too costly for either organisation, even if the purchase price is right.

Then there may be candidates out of left field, who would be interested in the corporate user base BlackBerry has built up, and do not have an operating system legacy to defend. That could apply to any laptop maker, although most are already in the Android fold for their tablets.

The most likely purchaser, ultimately, would be a consortium of investors. Should that come to pass, it should also be expected that existing executive management would not be around for long, following the sale. The focus would be on turnaround, and then all bets would be off for the current BlackBerry roadmap.

However, it is likely that RIM would wish to sell to one of the market leaders in Western markets – if they have the luxury of that choice. Laziridis would prefer the market turn its attention away from that debate, saying he had decided to move to the Vice Chair role in order to return the public’s focus to what is most important, i.e. “the great company we have built, its iconic products, global brand and its talented employees.”

The announcement did not suggest a greater sense of urgency around the need for BlackBerry to respond more quickly to shifts in market demands. Quite the contrary: Heins endorsed current management style: “It is Mike and Jim’s continued unwillingness to sacrifice long-term value for short-term gain which has made RIM the great company that it is today.  I share that philosophy and am very excited about the company’s future.”

Heins joined RIM from Siemens Communications Group in 2007 as Senior Vice President for Hardware Engineering. He became Chief Operating Officer for Product and Sales in August 2011, and has thus been part of RIM’s transition from smartphone market leader to a company battling against declining market share.

However, in his sales role, he is keenly aware of the fact that the company’s demise has been severely exaggerated.

“We have a strong balance sheet with approximately $1.5 billion in cash at the end of the last quarter and negligible debt.  We reported revenue of $5.2 billion in our last quarter, up 24% from the prior quarter, and a 35% year-to-year increase in the BlackBerry subscriber base, which is now over 75 million.”

The near future is already mapped out for Heins, and he expressed no intention to change its current development path:

“Mike and Jim took a bold step 18 months ago when RIM purchased QNX to shepherd the transformation of the BlackBerry platform for the next decade. We are more confident than ever that was the right path.

“Going forward, we will continue to focus both on short-term and long-term growth, strategic planning, a customer- and market-based product approach, and flawless execution. We are in the process of recruiting a new Chief Marketing Officer to work closely with our product and sales teams to deliver the most compelling products and services.”

Nevertheless, it is inevitable that behind the scenes, the debates must be raging. Waiting for the end of 2012 for a new operating system, when the old one is clearly inadequate for the apps revolution, may be too much of a stretch for the market. However, Blackberry’s reputation for innovation and market responsiveness will, to some extent, also be riding on what the PlayBook 2.0 tablet can deliver when it is launched in the coming weeks.

RIM’s founders may have stepped aside, and they may well be hawking the company around, but the BlackBerry brand is not ready to go away.

Thorsten Heins biography (as supplied by RIM)

Thorsten Heins, 54, is a respected business leader with 27 years of broad experience and expertise in wireless networks and consumer electronics devices. Mr. Heins has a global reputation for his organizational and leadership skills and his ability to build successful organizations that deliver on their commitments. Prior to today’s announcement, Mr. Heins was one of RIM’s two Chief Operating Officers and, before that, Senior Vice President for the Handheld Business Unit.  He played key roles in the creation of RIM’s product portfolio. Mr. Heins came to RIM in December 2007 from the industrial conglomerate Siemens AG.  He joined Siemens in 1984 after graduating from the University of Hannover in his native Germany.  At Siemens, Mr. Heins rose through the ranks of R&D customer service, sales and product management positions.  After serving as Chief Executive Officer of various business divisions in the communication business, Mr. Heins moved to Chief Technology Officer and member of the Group Board of the Siemens Communications Group. He came to RIM after being impressed by the level of innovation displayed by founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie. Mr. Heins is married with a daughter and a son. Away from RIM, he is usually outdoors bicycling, motorcycling, skiing or hiking.

* Arthur Goldstuck heads up World Wide Worx (www.worldwideworx.com) and is editor-in-chief of Gadget. Follow him on Twitter on @art2gee. Reprinted from Gadget.

Eva Csernyanszky explains how publishers may make the leap into digital publishing

Print design often follows a complex design and editorial workflow process – with the end goal of generating compelling and informative magazines, newspapers, catalogues and product guides. With the rising popularity of mobile devices and tablets, designers are now challenged with creating both print and digital reading experiences. To do this, designers frequently hand off design assets to an online team, which results in an online experience that fails to convey the same aesthetic and brand qualities inherent in the original print design. All too often, the brand experience is lost in translation.

Step up

As digital publications appeal more to younger, techno-savvy consumers, what this means for print designers is that they have to adapt to the times – or risk dying out. Print designers, especially those who have been in the industry for more than a decade, and who perhaps were reluctant to go the web route because of coding, will find the transition to digital publishing quite easy as emerging tools automate the process to a large degree.

While solutions from vendors such as Twixl media and Aquafadas offer seemingly more attractive initial pricing structures, in my experience the reporting services and hosted online tools offered by Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite cannot be beaten – especially for larger publishing houses.

Adobe’s cutting-edge software opens up a brand new communications medium to South African advertisers and publishers, enabling them to publish digital content with an interactive dimension on tablet devices such as the Apple iPad, Blackberry PlayBook, Samsung Galaxy Tab and Motorola Xoom.

Suite life

Using Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite, layout designers can add interactive elements to a client’s message. Traditionally, the consumer’s experience of an advertisement would be a static image with a tag line, but digital publishing provides an opportunity to draw the user into a product by bringing the ad or entire publication to life, allowing him to navigate through the content and choose his own experience.

This offers advertisers, in particular, the chance to break through the advertising clutter currently bombarding consumers on a daily basis, and even keep readers coming back for the experience. The immersive nature of the experience makes the user feel more connected to a brand, which in turn creates more brand loyalty.

This has been corroborated by studies carried out at the University of Connecticut in Stamford, USA, which have shown that those who engage with a brand in this way have a heightened awareness of that brand afterwards.

It’s still layout

Simply told, the process starts with Adobe InDesign CS5 or CS5.5. Extensions and plug-ins, which are free to download from the Adobe website, provide designers with the tools to create, preview and bundle digital documents for mobile devices and tablets.

The key components are the Overlay Creator panel, the Content Viewer for Desktop, the Folio Bundler and the Folio Producer, which is an online tool available for Digital Publishing Suite (DPS) account holders only. The Overlay Creator enables designers to directly insert interactivity into layouts destined for tablets.

Interactivity includes panning and zooming of images, panoramic views, 360-degree rotation of objects and the integration of HTML5 content and more.

The Content Viewer for Desktop, an Adobe AIR-based application, enables designers to preview layouts and interactivity before outputting them for publication, while the Folio Producer panel provides DPS account holders with access to the full range of online hosted services of the Digital Publishing Suite.

Choose a version

Making the choice between the Professional and the more comprehensive Enterprise Digital Publishing Suite account will depend entirely on the scope of a publication’s distribution – and whether or not the online services for managing, selling and distributing a digital publication to online market places such as the Android Market, BlackBerry App World and Apple iStore are required.

Subscribing to a DPS account can be a tough decision, especially for smaller organizations, as the upfront costs seem extravagant at first, due to the fact that account fees must be paid a year in advance before a single online publication is sold.

However, one only has to examine costs of printing and transportation of the printed product (and consider the additional advantages of distributing the content digitally) to realize that these may far exceed the the initial investment.

While there are significant differences between print and digital publications, choosing a digital medium has definite advantages, not only to the bottom line. Digital magazines consume no paper, ink or chemicals, nor do they end up in landfills. Today, only a small percentage of printed publications are recycled from home, according to the Magazine Publishers Association.

Contemplate that a magazine of 68 pages, offering a small circulation of 20 000 copies, for example, would consume around 12 tons of paper, with transportation adding to the environmental burden. Furthermore, digital magazines can be indexed by leading search engines, providing an additional way in which to draw new readers to the publication.

Digital magazines are simple to update, can be viewed online, downloaded for off-line reading or archived and retrieved for future enjoyment. Long leads times are a thing of the past, too, as digital magazines can deliver breaking news faster than most print publications.

Agency model

Should either of the available account types not suit, organizations can take advantage of a newly introduced ‘agency model’ now on offer from Adobe Solution Partners such as Realm Digital in Cape Town.

This model is well suited to advertising agencies who wants to use DPS on behalf of their advertising clients, who service multiple corporations, publishers or clients or printing companies who offer DPS services on behalf of multiple publishers.

(At the time of going to press, Adobe had announced the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite Single Edition which, according to the company, allows freelance designers and small design firms to publish interactive content on the Apple iPad. With a fee of US$395 per application, Single Edition offers an affordable and flexible end-to-end workflow for the publication of brochures, highly-visual books, annual reports or personal design portfolios as an
application for the iPad. – Ed)

Folio Producer Service

The Folio Producer Service facilitates the upload of the .folio publication file to the online account to assemble and reorder content, add .folio article metadata and refine the final .folio file as it will appear in published form on tablet devices.

An Enterprise account offers the Viewer Builder Service to create the branded look-and-feel of a distinct publication, and the Distribution Service stores and hosts the digital content and distributes it across tablet devices and desktops, as well as seamlessly notifying readers within the branded Content Viewer when a update or new content is available for purchase or download.

The E-commerce service, also for Enterprise account holders, facilitates the sale and distribution of content from the publisher’s website or through online marketplaces.

The final offering, by no means the least, is the Analytics Service, a tool highly valued by advertisers in that key data reports, including total ad views and customer engagement with interactive content, can be viewed at any time to measure the effectiveness of ads and reach of the publication.

Tough choices

You also have to consider that online market places will charge for every download in addition to paying for the bundles of downloads bought from Adobe, and Apple retaining a significant 30% of revenue from sales – but global reach should make that lighter to bear.

With local magazines already signed and many more in the pipeline, all that remains is to take the creative leap by getting in touch with your regional Adobe partner and ensuring that your content remains innovative and accessible.

_Eva Csernyanszky – Friends of Design Academy of Digital Arts

Reprinted from Enjin magazine with permission.

by Arthur Goldstuck One of the highlights of the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week was the dramatic strides made in TV technology.

Every year, for a week in January, the future of TV is redefined in the middle of an American desert. That’s when the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) comes to Las Vegas, the unlikely entertainment capital in the middle of arid Nevada.

There may be a water shortage in this part of the world, but there is never a shortage of innovation. It was at CES that the era of the flat-panel TV was ushered in, where LED for the lounge first came to light, and where the Internet-connected TV was first publicly plugged in.

But at the show last week, rather than merely showing the next step up in the ever-moving race for a lead, TV took a leap into the future.

The charge was led by Samsung, which first launched LED sets at CES several years ago, and introduced the Smart TV last year. This year, it got a lot smarter. The new E8000 range includes built-in cameras with motion and voice control, as well as face recognition, allowing the user to control the TV in the same way that gamers have been controlling devices like the Microsoft Kinect.

That’s not what makes the devices Smart, however. It has more to do with what these TV sets have in common with smartphones: apps. Samsung now has a TV app store with more than 1 400 apps tailor-made for the large screens.

“A TV only needs a handful of strong applications to be successful, because the prime purpose of the device is still watching TV,” said Justin Shaw, head of audio-visual products at Samsung Electronics SA, while at CES. “In South Africa we already have 250 apps available for Smart TV.”

The TV apps also represent the beginning of a transition of the very role of the TV set.

“We can’t assume the TV set will always have pride of place in home, but it is unique in that role at present,” says Shaw. “For now, it is our favourite shared screen and content for the TV must be created with that in mind.”

Some of the early content includes fitness apps, kids’ apps and family-oriented apps for sharing content or chatting, via the TV, with others who have the same apps on their TVs in other locations. The apps have been downloaded almost 20-million times so far.

Even that, however, is not a revolution. The real leap into the future is the concept of Smart Evolution – the idea of future-proofing the TV. A hardware and software kit in the TV set will manage future updates of firmware, the software that runs an appliance and usually cannot be altered.

“People are investing in a high-end item, and they don’t want product to be outdated within a year,” says Shaw. “With a simple set-top box, the TV can automatically be reborn every year.”

All of this comes at a time when it is widely expected that Apple will announce its own re-entry into the TV market, with a device that will be driven by extensive content options. That raises the stakes for market leaders like Samsung and LG, which will find themselves competing on both a design and content level. Apple is unlikely to overtake their screen technology, however.

At CES 2012, rivals like Panasonic, Sharp, and several other manufacturers unveiled TV sets using a new screen standard called 4K2K, a name that represents 4000 lines by 2000 lines on a TV screen, doubling current screen definition.

LG unveiled a large-screen TV using OLED – organic LED, a super high-resolution screen technology first seen at the show in a tiny prototype four years ago. At the time, its cost prevented it even being used on a phone screen. Since then, OLED and its big brother, AMOLED, have become common on smartphones.

Samsung added Super OLED to the mix, showcasing a 55” device that raises the bar even further, with vivid picture quality on both 2D and 3D.

The new Smart TVs will arrive in South Africa in April and the Super OLED screen in the second half of 2012. For once, when the future arrives, we won’t be far behind.

* Arthur Goldstuck heads up World Wide Worx (www.worldwideworx.com) and is editor-in-chief of Gadget. Follow him on Twitter on @art2gee. Reprinted from Gadget.

Everything you need to know about Facebook’s IPO (infographic) 

Created by: Accounting Degree Online

by Arthur Goldstuck Forget the Mayans. The real apocalypse in 2012 will come via Facebook, and Naspers will be laughing all the way to the bank.

In 2012, the world as we know it will come to an end.

But first, let’s qualify that statement. In Internet circles, the world as we know it is the one in which social media dominates most of our online activity, and every business is told it must be part of it. Yet no one knows what it’s really worth, how to work it to maximum advantage or how important it will be in a few years’ time.

In 2012, some of that uncertainty will be dispelled by one single event. It will be the year of Facebook being listed on the stock market, in what the Americans call an Initial Public offering, or IPO.

Speculation on its likely market value has been raging.

In October 2007, when Microsoft announced it would buy a tiny 1.6% share of the company for $240-million, Facebook was given a firm value for the first time: a cool $15-billion. At that point, it had made a mere $150-million for the year, largely from advertising revenue. Microsoft were betting big on the future, with little idea of when that future would arrive.

A little less than two years later, Russian Internet entrepreneurs Digital Sky Technologies (DST) bought 1.96% of Facebook for $200-million – instantly suggesting a value of about $10-12-billion, and also that Microsoft had overpaid. Over the following year, DST carried on accumulating Facebook shares, buying them directly from Facebook employees. They were able to build up to a 10% share, revealing the impatience of Facebook staffers who were tired of waiting for what would inevitably be a lucrative IPO.

There was a strong South African interest in this process. Local media group Naspers owned a 39.3% stake in DST’s main asset, a Russian Internet company called Mail.ru. In 2010, Naspers traded its Mail.ru shares, along with a $388-million investment, for a 28.7% direct share in DST. In effect, that means Naspers owns around 3% of Facebook – or at least has an economic interest in Facebook worth close to 3% of the company’s value.

During 2010, an attempt was made to value Facebook based on the value of an equivalent company: Chinese social networking giant Tencent. The coincidence was that Naspers owned a major stake in this company too: a 35% share in an outfit with a market capitalisation, then, of $32-billion. Today that value is $42-billion, revealing the huge potential growth that lies in wait for early investors in similar operations.

In the meantime, though, Facebook’s user base has grown from 500-million to 800-million, and such values are regarded as hopelessly conservative. In 2012, it’s user number is likely to reach the 1-billion mark.

The value indicator that is now getting the most attention is a secondary shares market called SharesPost, where holders of shares in private companies can trade them as if they are publicly listed. The current value of a Facebook share is around $32, and about 2.5-billion shares are in issue. That gives the company a value of $82-billion.

The consensus is that the IPO will aim at raising $10-billion, and value the company at $100-billion. That will make it the 6th largest IPO ever in the United States. To many, these numbers represent proof that we are in the midst of an Internet bubble – and the Facebook IPO will be the final pinprick that bursts the bubble. That, in turn, will spark an apocalyptic meltdown of the world’s stock markets.

However, Facebook’s reported advertising revenue seems to justify the numbers. Last year it was believed to have made around $5-billion, which could double this year. But even those figures are mere speculation. As with rival social network Twitter, they reflect both the secretiveness and the mystique around the real value of such companies.

All will be revealed when Facebook files its IPO in the first half of this year. And, as psychologist Judith Ancer pointed out in a recent column, the original meaning of the word “apocalypse” was to reveal or uncover.

For Facebook followers, then, 2012 is truly the year of apocalypse.

* Arthur Goldstuck heads up World Wide Worx (www.worldwideworx.com) and is editor-in-chief of Gadget. Follow him on Twitter on @art2gee. Reprinted from Gadget. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com under CC licence.

by Herman Manson The rush by media owners to embrace tablets borders on the unseemly. And who can blame them given the continued decline of print revenue and resistance by folk to pay for content on the internet. Tablets, we are told, are much closer to print magazines than to the free-for-all interwebs.

Publishers like tablets because they bring people back into “closed” environments through apps. Closing the circle and getting people to “stick” around on one media property was also the purpose of the mega-portals from the 90s.

Pull people in, monopolize their attention, and revenue must follow; the argument went. Of course people didn’t stay — their reading habits had already evolved to include multiple resources. Portals meanwhile could not offer the specialised content niche sites could, while stiff competition meant inventory could not be fully utilised and ad rates stagnated.

Publishers also like tablets because they bring technology back into the magazine comfort zone — we are able to design content to look like it does in magazine form — from pages you can flip, right down to breaking a screen into two to fit two “pages” next to one another. Preferably with a full “page” ad on at least one of them.

Finally, the argument goes, if a tablet magazine looks like a print magazine people will react to it as they do to print publications — like be prepared to pay for the content they use.

It is understandable that publishers want to take what works in one medium and replicate it as closely as possible on another and then hope to duplicate the business model minus a good chunk of the costs.

But it is a strategy unlikely to be successful because it takes an antiquated view of our reading behaviour, namely insisting the magazine formatted reading experience is as relevant as it was 15 years ago when clearly it is not.

Take the research coming out of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, a collaboration with The Economist Group, which shows that while 77% of tablet owners use their tablet daily, and 53% read news on their tablet every day, only 14% have paid for content on their tablet.

And here is the crunch number for publishers — 78% of tablet owners said that content accessed from a tablet is worth exactly the same as it is elsewhere — and on the web that is free. Only 17% felt it was worth more. Ouch.

And the closed environment publishers have been hoping for? The Pew research shows that 36% of tablet owners don’t even have any news apps loaded — 40% still prefer accessing their news via web browsers, 31% makes use of web browsers and apps equally and only around 21% prefers using apps.

People also prefer accessing their news from reliable sources — i.e. a brand they already like the NY Times or CNN. Even so 65% of tablet users access up top three different news resources via their tablet on any given day.

Finally, while the use of social media is rising on the Web, and 39% of tablet users use social media daily on these devices, social sharing via tablets is disappointing, with 16% of tablet users regularly sharing news on social networks (up only 3% to 19% with the younger 18-29 year old set). Couple the disappointing social sharing rate with indications that people download apps from news brands they trust and this environment becomes closed to publishers rather than to consumers.

A positive for publishers seems to be that people are enjoying the reading experience more on tablets than on either the web or in print. This might well serve as incentive to spend on content in the future as news use on tablets mature and people get used to the reading experience they offer. App stores are in themselves doing a great job in schooling people to shop via their tablet devices. But on balance the Pew research suggest tablets, at this stage at least, isn’t the panacea publishers hoped would rid them of financial decline.

Digital replicas of print products have their place but unless media companies decide to explore the potential of tablets beyond the flip magazine products and gimmicky “interactive” page design we see today they will, like with the web in its early days, leave the space for innovative start-ups to grab the attention and the audiences.

First printed in Memeburn.com

by Arthur Goldstuck We put the new Apple iPhone 4S through a Ten Task Test.

Apple fans make many excuses for the iPhone 4S, mainly insisting that it is indeed a significant step up from the 4, and Apple never promised a 5, and there’s nothing wrong with incremental improvements, and millions are lining up to buy the 4S.

All of which is true, but it doesn’t change the fact that the hype machine that is normally so kind to Apple, let the brand down this time. Apple usually rides the tide of expectation leading up to a new product launch, and then delivers in spades. This time it did nothing to manage those expectations, and the result was a let-down to all but those already converted. The company and its evangelists put a beligerent face on it, blaming the ignorant media for creating heightened expectations. Naturally, when it worked in their favour in the past, there had been nary a word of blame.

That is still relevant because the 4S is a great phone, but suffers by comparison with the assumed leap forward that the 5 was supposed to represent. Simply because there had been such a long wait for the new version – almost 16 months from the launch of the 4 – a mere refinement of the old version would naturally result in many opting to wait a little longer for the next really big thing.

So much for the hype. What about the phone itself? We put it through the Ten Task Test to see if the long wait has been worthwhile.

1. General look and feel (aesthetic judgement, differentiation in look and feel)

It looks exactly the same as the iPhone 4. After using them side by side, we had to check the apps on each phone to figure out which was which. Eventually, we noticed the identifying mark: a ridge next to the earphone jack.

After spending more than a year with the 4, and continually comparing it with newer phones, one limitation cropped up immediately: the screen size is beginning to look decidedly pokey at 3.5”. As a result, the phone itself sends the message that it is waiting for a new look and feel. However, the iPhone 4 design remains iconic and satisfying, and still leaves most other phones playing catch-up.

8/10

2. Slippability (Weight and size, ability to slip into a pocket unnoticed)

The phone is compact, but beginning to show its size in a thin-obsessed world. Remember when the iPhone was regarded as the last word in slim design? You’re older than you imagine.

7/10

3. General performance (speed, responsiveness, multi-tasking)

The 4S uses the Apple 5 dual-core processor built by Samsung for the iPad, along with the improved iOS 5 operating system. As a result, it delivers among the finest performances to be had on a smartphone. It downloads and installs apps seamlessly, browsing is faster than its already nifty predecessor, and the double-tap on the control button to bring up active apps provides a semblance of multi-tasking. It is simply superb.

9/10

4. Life as we know it (How’s the battery life?)

The iPhone 4 battery had among the worst performances of any phone on the market. The 4S, at launch, was even worse, due to poor energy management of the operating system. The new iOS 5 sorted out that problem, and does give the 4S slightly better battery life than its predecessor. But don’t venture our for a full day’s work without a charger or back-up.

6/10

5. Vision of the future (picture, video and browsing quality)

The phone’s Retina Display remains lovely. However, there is just not enough of it, and maneuvering your way round the screen for finicky tasks can be frustrating.  Under the hood, though, there has been a major tune-up. The phone now supports full HD, allowing video recording in 1080p, as opposed to 720p on the iPhone 4. (see (9) below for more on the camera)

Music and video are separated into different icons, addressing an irritation of the 4. The browser remains one of the best in cellphones anywhere, but the limited screen size is beginning to count against it.

8/10

6. Talk to me (quality of audio)

Siri The Killer App is, outside the USA, more like the Concussion App, as you hit the phone against your head in frustration. For most purposes, you would need to activate location services – a privacy issue avoided by many, although, of course, not by 4Square exhibitionists.

It remains a mystery why so many insisted Siri would change the future of phones; it is still in beta, meaning there are numerous limitations; and most other smartphones can approximate it with apps like Vlingo, although they aren’t as well integrated with the phone. Oh yes, it talks back to you. Mostly, you will find yourself using it as a novelty and to get a gasp (or laugh) at parties. But redefine the smartphone? Get real.

The quality of voice calls is rather average, and will probably encourage many a user to default to text messaging of one kind or another.

7/10

7. Message in a bottle (range, speed and efficiency of messaging solutions)

Talking of which, iMessage is a vast improvement on what went before, which was essentially relying on third party apps like WhatsApp. In effect, it takes on the BBM on the BlackBerry, allowing unlimited threaded text chats for the cost of the data you use to send those few characters. In other words, it costs next to nothing. It is compatible across any iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch using iOS 5, allows integration of photos, videos and contact, and simply looks great. Its real strength lies in the fact that it can default to SMS or MMS when you send a message to someone using a non-Apple phone. Like BBM, it is instant, but it is so much more.

9/10

8. Keep control (How effective are hardware and software controls?)

Die-hard fans sing the praises of the single control button, but new users will find it frustrating at first, as they look for ways of calling up additional options in an app. The virtual keyboard is also too small – thanks again to that pokey screen – to allow efficient typing of anything longer than a brief message. Great for instant messaging, terrible for longer e-mails. At the same time, however, the classic simplicity of the iPhone’s controls does set it apart, and has set the tone for many competitors, who are increasingly attempting to emulate it.

8/10

9. The new new (innovations , unique features)

The camera, an 8 Megapixel monster, is magnificent. A wide f/2.4 aperture lens gives better performance in low light, and its improved ability to autofocus and control colour makes the iPhone 4 look silly. It has more options, including HDR, better cropping and colour-correction, video stablisation and a camera shortcut from the phone’s locked status, similar to that offered on the Motorola Razr. Yes, Apple has been playing catch-up in the camera department, so these are not innovations, but really a case of finally coming to the party.

In terms of storage capacity, the 64GB option (cheaper versions come in 16GB and 32GB) means the phone becomes a true storage device in its own right. That’s important and useful for those who can’t get the iCloud working for them, or don’t want that heavy data overhang in countries like South Africa where the cost of mobile data remains prohibitive.

The phone comes with two antennae built into the casing, and it defaults to the better signal regardless of how you’re holding the device. No more PR disasters around dropped signals here.

8/10

10. The wallet test (Is it competitively priced?)

At R299 a month on a Vodacom contract that includes 100MB of data per month, the typical iPhone user will need to budget another R100 or so a month to meet the insatiable data demand that builds up around the iPhone’s universe of apps. Even at that price, however, it is excellent value for money. The 32GB version comes in at R399 a month, and the 64GB at R499. Compared to its direct competitors, it’s become almost a benchmark.

9/10

Total score: 79% (excellent, but not the cutting edge)

Conclusion

If you already have an iPhone 4, you’re missing little here. Siri is so US-oriented, it’s like a bad joke on foreigners. You can also upgrade your 4 to iOS 5, so you won’t notice too many differences in the new device. For you, the long wait for the iPhone 5 continues.

However, if you don’t own an iPhone and you’ve been pining for one, there will be few regrets with acquiring the new model. If photo quality is a deal-breaker, this phone will indeed take you to your happy place.

* Arthur Goldstuck heads up World Wide Worx (www.worldwideworx.com) and is editor-in-chief of Gadget. Follow him on Twitter on @art2gee. Reprinted from Gadget.

Another great infographic from our friends at Frugaldad.com. “This infographic discusses some of the facts behind the patent industry and how it’s changed as software, technology, and the internet have developed at an incredible pace. I find the information to say a lot about the state of development and innovation; both how important it can be to everyday life, and the problems it can face on a larger scale.”

Source: http://frugaldad.com

Frugaldad.com created an infographic illustrating ‘news’ as defined by users of social media.

Source: http://frugaldad.com