I’m struck this week by two happenings in the realm of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D for short).
The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has an interesting article pointing out that the latest cellphones are coming complete with better prices and similar features when compared to the iPod nano. Sure, Apple has sold more than 60 million iPods globally, but there are over two billion cellphone users in the world. And analysts explain that close to one billion cellphones will be shipped in 2006 alone.
The gaming industry is excited about the prospects of in-game advertising, a revenue stream widely untapped. A spokesman for Electronic Arts, the world’s largest game publisher, explains that Need for Speed: Carbon will bring in close to $5 million in advertising revenue just for the last three months of 2006.
A little more than 50% of the ad revenue will come from traditional static ads (billboards, etc. you see inside the game while driving), which can’t change after a game is published. But the remaining ad revenue, nearly half, will come from dynamic ads previously not used by EA. For anyone playing the game online (via a computer or Xbox 360), new types of ads are added and updated seamlessly into the gameplay.
Internet Jack-of-all-trades Joi Ito suggests as much in a recent interview at CNET News.com, at least in terms of dealing with the online world. Unlike the physical world, where the current copyright scheme allows casual sharing, such as lending a book to your classmate or watching a DVD with a friend, everytime something is shared online, a copy is made. Copyright laws can’t adequately distinguish between "good" sharing and "bad" sharing in the complex world of the Internet.
A just-published report by OpenBusiness.cc and the Arts Council of England reveals more interesting data about just how poorly copyright laws achieve their goals in the realm of online art.
Venture capitalists are on the look out for new battery technologies. Just since July, the following companies have received over $75 million in financing from investors to develop better energy storage: Deeya Energy, Firefly Energy, Gridpoint, Infinite Power Solutions, and Li*On Cells.
Innovations in chemistry and nanotechnology are paving the way for new, safer and more efficient technologies to become available. This is definitely a good thing, as most would agree that battery technology feels like it is way behind for our day and age.
Both Wal-Mart and TiVo had some big news today in the area of trying to commercialize the latest advances in digital media. Wal-Mart released its movie download service with a twist: you have to buy the DVD. But for a few bucks extra, you get a download too. TiVo decided to sell advertising space at the end of recorded programs and track how many people watch them. So the question of the day is:
Which of these new services is more likely to succeed (or fail)?
Last week I pointed out that the easiest way for Google to improve search would be to allow one query to bring up separated results by regular sites, blogs, news, photos, and/or video. I mentioned that the big three for me would be regular search results, blog posts, and news. I’d be able to get pertinent, organized results in one third the time. Why not put in my search query once and get the top 10 results from each category on the same page?
Well, it turns out Google does do some of that through its experimental site SearchMash.com. Though, personally, I’m even more impressed with Amazon’s A9.com, which offers more customizations for even better search results. Here’s how they compare:
The latest trend in online advertising (you know, that thing that feeds all these websites with otherwise free information) is in-text ads. If you see a word on a website with a double underline (supposedly the "double" part makes it so you won’t confuse it with a link), click on it and chances are an ad window will appear (see picture).
This embedded advertising has been online for a while even if only a few dozen larger sites have used it (such as IGN.com and
ScienceDaily.com). But that’s all changing now with mainstream journalistic
sites trying it out (such as Fox News and Popular Mechanics), which is already causing some controversy. The tradition in the print medium was to keep editorial content separate from ads, and many were hoping the tradition would hold true online.
Universities have been known to cash in on technology developed on campus. Arrangements usually include a licensing agreement with the developers, which often consists of royalties for the university. Another option is an equity stake for the university. And yet a third option is the combination of royalties and equity. Stanford, as an example, obviously has an easier time being located in Silicon Valley and having the Google success story in its past. Last year, the university cashed in $336 million by selling Google stock it owned as part of the original licensing deal.
But now university backed start-ups are on the rise again, and this can only mean good news for entrepreneurs. Listed below are the top 10 universities known for their recent support of start-ups.
This is part 3 of what I’ve decided to call the “Will Workout Series.” Part 1 was discussing how the new Nintendo Wii is causing aching backs and sore shoulders (among other things) across America. Part 2 was a poll to determine if it was just Americans or if others are experiencing this phenomenon. And part 3… The results of the poll!
The poll is still open for anyone interested, but the results I’ll analyze and discuss here are from the first 300 votes. To recap, the question was “If you own a Nintendo Wii, how much of a workout is it for you?” Here are the results (followed by commentary below):
