Twitter is now selling its Promoted Tweets for $100,000, according to an article in this morning's Wall St. Journal. Promoted Tweets, which allow companies to buy the top spot on Twitter's search results page, is just one of the microblogging network's new advertising initiatives as of late. The idea behind these digital ads is that the service allows companies to associate themselves with a certain trend or keyword. For example, launch partner Starbucks bought their brand name so that anyone searching Twitter for "starbucks" would see an advertisement for the coffee company at the top of the results page.
But while $100,000 is a lot of money to most, Twitter's Promoted Tweets and its other initiative, Promoted Trends, are experimental, largely unproven and not worth the investment - at least that's what several advertisers and marketers cited by the WSJ claimed. Their feelings on that matter, however, may soon change thanks to plans Twitter has in store for its ads service.
Pre-loaded mobile applications - the so-called "junk" apps (aka "crapware") that come pre-installed on mobile handsets - aren't as despised as you might think. At least that's the finding of a new study of American consumers by iGR Research. The market strategy consultancy discovered that pre-installed applications actually factor into the buying decisions of smartphone owners, even more so than those available for download from a mobile application store. And worse, the majority of consumers actually like them.
Forrester Research just released its annual survey of American technology adoption, this time focusing on the generational divide. The findings, which arose from a survey of over 37,000 participants, reveal that when it comes to the adoption of digital tools and technology, the generation gap still exists, with Generation Xers and Yers far ahead of both Boomers and Seniors.
The report delves into everything from mobile use to media consumption and PCs to social networking. The takeaway, says Forrester, is that Gen Y "lives and breathes" a digital social life, Gen Xers are masters of the functional benefits of technology, but those older are much more reserved in nearly all areas.
Computer scientists at the University of California's School of Engineering have launched an Android app called Visibility, which crowd-sources the task of analyzing and measuring air pollution. Using the phone's camera, Android users simply point their phone at the sky and snap a photo. The app then taps into the device's GPS and compass to determine the direction and location of the photo and compares the visibility levels in the image with established models of sky luminance. The end result is a crowd-sourced measure of air quality.
Internet speeds 100 times faster today? Distributed wireless networks spanning the oceans and outer space? Those are some of the projects researchers are working on today to remake the world of computer networking. In coming years as IP addresses run out, telepresence technologies are adopted, the Internet of Things brings sensor networks to the enterprise, and work forces become more mobile and distributed, network admins could have some intriguing new possibilities and challenging demands for network technologies.
Nokia debuted a new feature for its Ovi Maps service at this week's Nokia World 2010 event in London: check-ins. But, thankfully, the company isn't hopping on the bandwagon of location-based social sharing with its own self-branded service (also known as "yet another social network I have to sign up for.") Instead, Nokia is taking the idea of location seriously, enabling real-time social sharing privately between friends or, with just a tap, to your social networking services of choice.
The service integrates with both large global networks like Facebook and Twitter, but also smaller, more regionally focused networks like China's RenRen and Germany's StudioVZ.
More importantly, though, the issue of privacy has been thoughtfully addressed.
This morning at Nokia World 2010 in London, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, widely known as the inventor of the Web, addressed the audience in a keynote speech where he spoke about the future of mobile technology, including both the positive impacts it brings as well as the areas of concern. After encouraging developers to build for the Web, so as to deliver applications that work on all types of devices, even the ones that haven't been invented yet, he then proceeded to detail areas which need addressing, specifically privacy, accountability, network neutrality and the 80% of the world that doesn't have access to the World Wide Web.
At this week's Nokia World 2010 event in London, Purnima Kochikar, Nokia's developer chief, announced to the audience during her keynote speech that there is a real "hunger for Java applications" out there in the world, and people are willing to pay for them.
Although the Silicon Valley tech press is caught up with iPhone and Android because they're the focus of the Valley's developer ecosystem, that group is "about to get a lot more competition," Kochikar warned, because today Nokia is launching the first touchscreen SDK (software development kit) for feature phones - the phones that still have the largest install base on the planet.
This morning at the Nokia World 2010 event in London, Niklas Savander, executive VP of markets for Nokia shouted to a crowd of international media, developers and mobile enthusiasts at the company's annual summit: "NOKIA IS BACK!" But had it ever really gone away? After all, the company's Symbian mobile operating system is still number one in terms of market share worldwide, even though it's largely ignored by Silicon Valley tech journalists.
But today's Nokia can no longer operate as the silent giant, it seems. Market share alone is not enough. Nokia is after mindshare. The company is keenly aware the competition that's snipping at its heels, specifically Google Android, the mobile operating system that is predicted to pass Symbian in market share by 2014, according to some analyst forecasts.
Is it too late for Nokia to rally?
Earlier today, ReadWriteWeb editor Richard MacManus examined the future of social objects - that is, the future of the Internet of Things. This slow-growing trend encompasses how real-world objects are connected to the Internet using various technologies, including RFID chips, barcodes, sensors, bots and, to some extent, even mobile applications like Glue, which attaches a social history of sorts to an object like a book or a bottle of wine, albeit somewhat virtually.
While on the one hand, the idea of these self-aware "social objects" is intriguing, especially when you examine use cases like the "social tennis racquet," as MacManus did, there is a flip side. Social objects can tattle on you, reporting data you don't wish to share.
