Can Wearable Computing Products Find Success in a Mainstream Market?
Actress Sarah Jessica Parker tries on Google Glasses at the Diane Von Furstenberg show in New York City.
Source: Getty Images
In the first century A.D. , wealthy Romans were the first to use stained glass in their villas and palaces. What was formerly considered a domestic luxury, glass technology has become a modern medium for all. The latest advancement, Google Glass, is a lensless glasses frame which sits on your right ear and contains a mobile computing device built into the stem. It’s like a handy bluetooth for your cellphone that displays your camera, mail, maps, and text messages right in front of your eye, freeing you of the compulsion to stare down at your glaring phone.
Sounds like a relief doesn’t it? Not to most Americans. According to a recent survey by Bite Interactive, a whopping 90 percent of Americans won’t wear Google Glass because it’s socially awkward. But many new and unusual inventions eventually become a social norm, so time will tell if consumers adapt to devices such as Google Glass. It’s certain that the next step in man’s technological evolution is moving computers from our desks to our active lives with wearable technology.
What to expect from wearable mobile devices:
CNN recently reported that Samsung is in the process of creating a smartwatch, a project that has been in the works for years. Business Insider reports that Google is working on its own smartwatch, which will run on its Android operating system with a flip-up display. However, it seems like Apple will win the smartwatch race since they recently announced that the Apple smartwatch (running on iOS) would be available later this year.
The Verdict:
Wearable technology may become the next big thing, but consumers from the look of recent surveys don’t want to look like Jetson characters with Google Glass. But like any new trend time will tell and maybe, just maybe, we will all sport the robot look on the street.
- Joanne
Joanne is our Jr. PR Account Manager here at Appular. She began her writing career in 2010 and graduated last year from Brooklyn College with a B.A. in Journalism.
Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/tech/mobile/samsung-watch/
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-is-working-on-a-smart-watch-of-its-own-2013-1
Do You Think Social Media Makes Us Stupid?
What is the Internet doing to our brains? Everyone loves the Internet, whether it’s your coworker right next to you or your mother who’s surfing Netflix at her leisure. Do you feel more empowered & intelligent or dumber having to unconsciously squeeze your thoughts into 140 characters or less?
I think services like Twitter and Facebook are absolutely brilliant and have changed the way we communicate. Not to mention, the flow of information/news has been revolutionized and everything is done at the tap of your finger. People used to read books, spoke in paragraphs, reflected on life, felt empathy and pursued things with meaning instead of blurting out tweets in 140 characters or less. It also kills your attention span, it’s making you lazy and it’s making us use less of our brains. There’s so much information and yet we retain so little of it.
Don’t get me wrong, I think social media is great to pass information, thoughts and news on a massive scale, but what are your thoughts on the way we think now. Are we too dependent on the Internet? Do you feel enclosed and that there’s a ceiling on your thought processes?
-Joe
Joe is our Senior Account Executive here at Appular. Joe focuses on account management and direct communication with clients.
Source:
Are Messaging Apps The New Social Network?
Image via Gigaom
SMS was so yesterday! Internet messaging has rapidly overtaken traditional SMS, giving mobile operators the opportunity to challenge Facebook’s dominance as a form of social networking. Chat apps (like WhatsApp, KIk and Viber) that feature voice memos, location-sharing, stickers, and group messaging have become a favorite way for friends and family to communicate. Now, chat services such as Apple’s iMessage, BlackBerry Messenger and Facebook’s Chat Heads are competing with these popular start-ups.
According to AllThingsD, WhatsApp has reached gained over 200 million users since 2009. surpassing even Twitter. The company processes eight billion inbound messages and 12 billion outbound daily. In addition to being the oldest chat service, WhatsApp is the only chat app that appeals to multiple generations and geographic locations due to its traction outside the US.
Ultimately, alternative social networks are a huge trend and traditional networks will have to find a way to improve upon popular chat app rookies.
Food for thought:
Although WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum has an anti-advertising philosophy, the company manages to overshadow Twitter thanks to its simple $1/yr subscription fee. Koum sees relying on advertising as a big waste of time: “Our phones are so intimately connected to us, to our lives. Putting advertising on a device like that is a bad idea. Our monetization strategy is simple. One dollar a year. If we did something besides that, it would just get in the way.”
- Joanne
Joanne is our Jr. PR Account Manager here at Appular. She began her writing career in 2010 and graduated last year from Brooklyn College with a B.A. in Journalism.
Sources:
http://allthingsd.com/20130416/whatsapp-bigger-than-twitter/
A Single Mobile Messenger for All?
One of the first tech-related conversations I had with Brian, Appular’s founder, was about my preference for chatting with Adium and whether or not there could ever be a similar service aggregator for mobile messaging. We didn’t get too far past our initial questioning before we were both back to work at our desks. Fortunately, Ellis Hamburger from The Verge recently published an article that shines more light on the topic.
For those unfamiliar with Adium, it combines desktop messaging services like Google Chat, AIM, and Facebook Messenger into one common buddy list. You’re then able to contact friends from that buddy list from a shared messaging window. It’s great because I don’t have to sign-in to numerous accounts to reach people using their specific services.
Mobile messaging apps like What’s App, Facebook, Line, and Kik are becoming the standard for texting. Unfortunately, there’s no service like Adium that allows you to reach out to numerous messaging apps from a single hub. Simply stated, if your friend only uses What’s App to text, you can only reach her through What’s App. People using competing email providers like Yahoo and Google are able to email each other because they’re both using an ‘open spec’ standard. According to Hamburger, this isn’t something that we should be expecting for mobile.
The reasoning behind mobile apps’ unwillingness to conform to a standard is that it inhibits innovation within the messaging network. Apps would be unable to add new features to their products without first ensuring that other messengers are up to speed. The example that Hamburger provides is that developers wouldn’t want to integrate video messaging into their product, only to find out that a competitor using the same standard is not able to accept it.
Although it would be nice to stick to a single messenger service, the annoyance of dealing with multiple services is one that most users are willing to overlook (rather than pay) for SMS messages.
- Zack
Zack is our Jr. Sales Manager here at Appular. He has an extensive history of managing advertising and digital production initiatives and is dedicated to growing client relationships.
Source:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/2/4293460/one-messaging-app-to-rule-them-all-one-app-to-find-them
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