Versatile Amphibian

I’m of the belief that participants in the TMT industry need to read widely in order to understand the present and future dynamics of the market. To that end, this post is a collection of the articles that have caught my eye. This week: BBC turns to Adobe for Olympian effort, Facebook rapidly turning into disaster, Apple quarterlies, MS avoids $1000 tablet howler Digital media A really interesting article on how the BBC is using Adobe Primetime to stream the huge volumes of video generated by the Olympics. Adobe are really on the up. I hear great things about their products in digital video and electronic publishing. Time to buy? http://gigaom.com/video/london-olympic-games-bbc-adobe/ iPhone is the best platform for mobile advertising; rich media is the most effective ad medium on mobile... but it’s expensive to make, Opera... An interesting set of statistics, nonetheless. http://www.opera.com/sma/2012/q2/ Corporates find Twitter more appealing than Facebook for their social ...

I’m of the belief that participants in the TMT industry need to read widely in order to understand the present and future dynamics of the market. To that end, this post is a collection of the articles that have caught my eye. This week: All bad news for Zuck, Penguin in self publishing hedge, Sky in Sun wrap & network vendors feel pinch Digital media The number of Facebook accounts in the US fell 1.1% in the last 6 months. Their share price is commensurately down. Unfortunately, this is likely to put a cloud over tech stocks and IPOs for the foreseeable future. Such a shame, since many of us saw it coming from a mile off. Banks to blame, I’m afraid. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/18/facebook_user_growth_declines_stock_tanks/ It’s all bad news for Zuck right now – here the BBC demonstrates how worthless “likes” are. Their fake bagel product managed to get 1,600 likes despite representing a totally fictitious brand. How much are those likes worth? Nada. http://www.bbc.c...

"1 in 4 Americans is on MySpace, in the UK it’s as common to have a MySpace as it is to own a dog" was the wonderfully obscure quote that accompanied the social network's 2008 annual report. Myspace's subsequent decline is well known, but curiously when I was asked for a summary of social network membership I struggled to find a single source. To that end, here's my assessment of the current and historic state of three social networks: Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. This clearly shows how Twitter has accelerated customer acquisition in the last year. Arguably I've been conservative with my 2013 forecast too - growth could well inflect again considering the amount of positive press the service gets and its extreme compatibility with mobile usage. Part of that popularity is driven by celebrity stalking. The next chart shows the most popular Twitter celebs. Note that Stephen Fry - often cited as the archetypal celebrity tweeter - is in fact a shrinking vi...

We were expecting to wait until September, but late last week Interfax reported that Russian regulators had successfully auctioned off spectrum bands between 2.5 and 2.7 GHz, suitable for the deployment of LTE mobile networks. All four of the major Russian operators - VimpelCom, Mobile TeleSystems, Rostelecom and MegaFon - have acquired spectrum. But details are typically sketchy, particularly regarding the size of the spectrum lots and the price that was paid. So I thought I'd do my own estimate as to the spread of prices. Assuming that the lots were the almost standard 2*20MHz and that they were national, I'd expect the spread to be EUR30.5Mn for the lowest successful bidder to EUR42.6Mn for the highest. I'll keep track of the news on this one and see whether my "fair" price - calculated with reference to other similar spectrum auctioned globally, matches the real result in this notoriously grey market.

I’m of the belief that participants in the TMT industry need to read widely in order to understand the present and future dynamics of the market. To that end, this post is a collection of the articles that have caught my eye. This week: Branson asks for more runways, launches satellites, Nokia & RIM get in more trouble, US Army gets Quake gun and EVs get overhyped. Digital media I love these reports: [insert tech’ company] is worth $1Tn to the economy even though it only employs 7 people and pays its taxes offshore. Shame on you, Google – you’re better than this. http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-blog/2012-07-03-how-good-is-google-for-america-funny-you-should-ask/ It’s commonplace in the most developed digital markets to have simultaneous live online streaming of premium content, particularly sports content. This press release shows that the burgeoning Turkish market is getting in on the act. Turkish football will be live streamed from later this year. http://finance.yahoo.com/n...

I've completed my analysis of the trends in African telecoms for the first half of the year and thereby amended my forecast for the remainder of 2012. Overall, investment was up 54% over the same period last year, however it remains 33% down on H1 2010. As the table shows, much of this decline is due to the destabilising effects of the Arab Spring, which has almost completely halted investment in North Africa. In 2010 and 2009 countries in this region accounted for a third of all investment in the continent. In 2011 they represented 3% of the total and are on track to be the same this year. Overall only Central African countries are likely to show an uptick in investment from 2010, driven by the nascent emergence of the continent's third most populous country - the DRC - and coincident investment by telecoms groups who are keen to find a non-Nigerian market to focus on. The market I'm most worried about is Kenya, so long a leader in digital Africa, but now, t...

I’m of the belief that participants in the TMT industry need to read widely in order to understand the present and future dynamics of the market. To that end, this post is a collection of the articles that have caught my eye. This week: too many Cooks could spoil Apple’s broth, augmented reality unpleasant for HP, TF desperately hoping for new phone OS and Youview dinosaur finally squeaks Digital media American parents think that it’s best for the kids to be in 2-income family, but regret the impact on family time. It’s important to understand these lifestyle factors, as they will influence the type of technology and media that these parents will offer their kids in recompense. iPads make excellent babysitters. http://www.burson-marsteller.com/values/Presentation.aspx UK ad spending is expected to show a 3.4% growth this year, easily exceeding flat forecasts for the rest of Europe. I remain very bullish about the UK economy as it’s emergence from the downturn will be fuelled by...

Nearly $2.4Bn of new investment in African telecoms infrastructure was announced in June 2012, making this the most lucrative month for the continent. Logically, this investment was concentrated on the most populous parts of the continent, with Nigeria (population c. 155Mn) and Democratic Republic of Congo (66Mn) taking $1.3Bn and $0.6Bn respectively for cellular network upgrades. Most investments are currently focused on installation of 3G Node-B infrastructure and smaller - yet still meaningful - investments were announced in Liberia, Mozambique, Botswana, Swaziland, Tanzania and Namibia. But possibly the most significant investment relative to the state of the market was in the world's newest country. ISP iBurst has commited around $1Mn to install fibre and switching in the capital, Juba. All of South Sudan's backbone and much of its access infrastructure was destroyed during the civil war, so this money, however small, is a significant step on the road to recovery. ...