Versatile Amphibian

This week I’m going to go counter-trend and say nothing about Surface or the tiny iPad or the sleek new Macs. You’ve all heard enough about those things and I can’t add much. Instead, this post is a collection of the less well publicised articles that have caught my eye. This week: CMOs slam mobile, Mayer prepares for Yahoo! future, Penguin House emerges from shadows, future of wearables and connected cars in focus Digital media CMOs aren’t happy with the results they’re seeing from mobile advertising. Not a surprise to me – the techniques of mobile advertising are not well established at the moment, so trial and error is inevitable. http://www.digiday.com/brands/brands-struggle-in-mobile/ Some Olympic Games sponsors saw a lift in brand awareness. I hope it was worth it! http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/topics/branding/some-olympics-sponsors-enjoyed-lift-in-brand-awareness-esteem-24181/ It is a little silly that ebooks are counted as software and therefore attract VAT in the...

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: $10 ereaders, AOL discovers social media, robots fly in formation, Vodafone eyes cheap SFR deal & Apple poaches Samsung’s chip guru Digital media CDNs account for 40% of the traffic flowing into ISP networks and I can only see their role getting more significant as the web gets richer in content terms and quality of service and latency become ever more vital in powering experiences like augmented reality. Doesn’t mean there’s much money in the industry, mind you. Moore’s Law makes the infrastructure side of the CDN business a Sisyphean task. http://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_online_vi/2012/10/cdns-account-for-40-of-the-overall-traffic-volume-flowing-into-isp-networks.html This FT article about the unexpected benefits of digital ...

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: robots, holograms, hacking save/ destroy world, Valve to make hardware, Samsung vs Apple rumbles on and authors take on sock puppets in by the numbers death match Digital media The first of many Amazon stories this week: their growing publishing arm is to sell its ebooks on other competing content ecosystems. Another step towards Amazon being fully vertically integrated in the book market. http://paidcontent.org/2012/08/29/exclusive-amazon-ny-to-sell-its-ebooks-through-bn-kobo-other-retailers/ Google have quietly given up their efforts to provider a bid style model for TV ad slots. Turns out TV is hard to disrupt... http://google-tvads.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/an-update-on-google-tv-ads.html Arguably the recent Amazon and B&N announcements a...

Plenty has been written about Everything Everywhere selling 30MHz of 1,800Mhz spectrum to the UK's smallest operator 3 (including this , which is really good). Much of the aforementioned text is a bit sensationalist or misinformed, so I thought I'd summarise what's gone on and also attempt to answer the one thing that hasn't been covered: the price. In summary: Everything Everywhere (the result of the merger between Orange and T-Mobile in the UK, for those of you who haven't been keeping up :) ) were forced by the EU to sell a proportion of their collected spectrum in order that the market remained "fair" The spectrum is at 1,800MHz ("1800") and was originally used for carrying 2G mobile signals Although that frequency can be used for LTE, it isn't often. The more common bands are 800 and 2600, although others - including 2100 and 1800 - are sometimes used In any case, the spectrum won't be fully released to 3 until September 2015,...

Despite the fact that half of the investor community are on vacation, July was a good month for African telecoms, with $2.5Bn of new infrastructure investments announced. Two things stand out. Firstly, the reawakening of the north African telecoms sector in the wake of the Arab Spring. As stability returns to the major markets, investment is coming with it. In July, Vodafone committed $50Mn to core network upgrades in Egypt. In Algeria, Mobilis will invest $1.7Bn over five years to upgrade and extend their mobile network. North Africa led investment in the continent up to the point that the revolutions started in early 2011. If they are to maintain competitiveness and exploit their geographic location then more investment will be required to enable ICT development and economic growth. I expect further big announcements before the year is out. The second characteristic of July was the large volume of spats and court cases that broke in the month. In Swaziland, MTN demanded $...