Economics

Google will pay cash to acquire Motorola Mobility for a total of about $12.5 billion dollars. This bold move intends to drive innovation for the Android Platform, an open source environment for mobile and online, and most importantly it aims to fill the gap left by the nearly obsolete cable entertainment services. The acquisition plans to build new and innovative programs and devices for the home market to create a seamless experience to engage users in creative ways and bring about a conversion between home and mobile devices.

Android started 6 years ago through the vision of Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile at Google, to align standards across the internet and mobile under a single Open Source platform: Android. According to Larry Page, "since November 2007, more than 150 Million Android devices have been activated worldwide through a network of 39 manufacturers 231 carriers in 123 countries. 550,000 [new] devices are lit up [activated] every day."

Blogs have called it the end of the wallet but many people don't believe this is achievable by 2015. We will just have to wait and see. Personally I believe that digital currency will only gain relevance in the years to come and as we explore the topic by means of technology, scales might shift to different ways of measuring value and spending habits.

Mobile certainly pays a part here. According to the latest 2010 numbers released by CTIA, the US has over 300M Wireless Subscriber Connections and with a population of over 307M people ('09) you can bet that nearly everyone in the country has a mobile phone! And with smartphone penetration reaching 50% coupled with services like PayPass, PayPal, Google Wallet and others, digital currency will become a reality faster than most of us think.

I just came across the review of what seems to be a great little book with a philosophy that us at Avanti Interactive always keep in mind as we go about our daily business. It is called "The Go-Giver: A Little Story About A Powerful Business Idea".

Here are the five laws outlined in the "Five Laws of Stratospheric Success:"

Informa Telecoms & Media believes that the global mobile advertising market was worth US$2.3 billion in 2009. Over the next five years, the market is expected to show strong growth and generate revenues of around US$24.1 billion in 2015.

In 2010, the Asia Pacific Developed region (which includes Japan and South Korea) is expected to account for the largest share (43.6%) of the global mobile advertising revenues, but this will fall to 21.7% by 2015. The mobile advertising revenue share of all other regions is expected to grow during the same period.

In 2015, the largest share (30.9%) of mobile advertising revenues is expected to come from the Asia Pacific Developing region, driven by strong growth in China and India. North America’s share of the global revenues is expected to grow from 16% in 2010 to 18% in 2015 and Western Europe’s is expected to grow from 4.9% to 8.6% during the same period.

Key Market Trends

From TechCrunch: Remember back in the day when Google was only activating 100,000 Android units a day? You should — it was May. By June, that number had jumped to 160,000 units a day. And today it now stands at 200,000 Android units activated a day. That’s pretty incredible.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealed as much during a sit down with a group of journalists after his panel at the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, CA. When asked about how the Android platform is doing, Schmidt was practically glowing. He cited the recent quarterly shipment numbers (the ones showing total shipments passed those of the iPhone in the U.S.) and said that he just checked their own internal numbers this morning.

By Emilio Castellanos

We are entering times where mobile geolocation will change our concept of privacy. Whether we embrace it or become afraid of it and how it is regulated greatly depends on how we choose to use it or abuse it.

Privacy has become more elusive since the internet era. Personal information posted online on social sites along with information collected through webcam services, street cameras, records stored by financial companies, etc., is all susceptible to be intercepted by 3rd parties.

However privacy issues become even more critical when we consider the mobile device: it contains a chip which constantly broadcasts your whereabouts. This locator has been monitored by government agencies since 2005 (FCC's E911) and is now standard on all new mobile phone models. Some devices will emit a signal even while turned off.

By Adam Broitman
Read the full article here

So much can change in a year. We have a new president, I have a new company, and the notion that a brand's main digital presence is its website is just about dead.

One year ago, I penned an article for iMedia Connection called "Learn to syndicate your brand identity." (In terms of marketing innovation, it feels like five years ago.) In this article, I explored the notion of the distributed web, which I defined as "a consistent brand presence across various social channels." I received a lot of inquiries about the article, as the concept was still new to many marketing executives. Upon reexamination of this article, my mind travelled back in time. Not too long ago, Barack Obama's presidential campaign schooled marketers about integrated marketing in the 21st century -- and the marketing world will never be the same.

The U.S. mobile advertising sector is likely to continue to grow as adoption of mobile handsets, particularly smartphones, rises according to "Going Mobile: The Mobile Local Media Opportunity," a report released by The Kelsey Group's new mobile local media practice, which includes forecasts for local mobile advertising through 2013.

Advertising revenues for U.S. mobile are expected to grow from $160 million in 2008 to $3.1 billion in 2013, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 81.2 percent. The ad spend for the mobile category is divided in three categories. In 2008 the split was $21 million on display advertising, $39 million on search, and $100 million on SMS. By 2013 a shift will occur with a bulk of the spending dedicated to search. The report projects $567 million will be spent on mobile display ads, $2.3 billion on search, and $270 million in SMS.

This is very cool. This scanner app for google mobile phones allows you to to check prices, reviews and product details with Android. According to Eiji Hirai, the integration of Barcode Scanner and Product Search for mobile is available in the US and UK, for Android-powered devices.

I just wish the carriers would stop looking at old models of market share gain through device placement and concentrate on core services. Markets need to be opened up to all of these new applications.

Read the original post from Google's Mobile Blog here

By Emilio Castellanos

The God machine was turned on today after 14 years of building when a beam of protons was circulated one way through the 17 mile ring that makes up the Large Hedron Collider (LHC). The most anticipated scientific event of our lifetimes aims to uncover what holds us together.

Following is the third part of a series by Alan Boyle correspondent in Geneva for MSNBC who has been covering the unprecedented event. You can visit http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26439957/ to learn more.

DAY TO DAY NEWS FROM CERN:

Mobile phones and laptop computers are closer to merging into one single device, through advances in microchip technology and user preference. Some people shun the idea of having a multipurpose device but phone, camera, and music may soon live together in harmony in the mobile internet device (MID) as companies like ARM, Intel and Apple, search for new ways to make mobile devices more efficient and powerful.