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 (now: last) week: Samsung overtakes Nokia, Facebook & Netflix results disappoint while Apple and Amazon delight, Cameron mines asteroids ; MIT weaves a building. New business models In case you were under a rock this week, one of the biggest stories was Samsung overtaking Nokia as the world’s largest mobile handset manufacturer. My only caveat on this story is that I’m not a massive fan of Strategy Analytics’ data – it tends to have a slight slant, particularly as they’re the only people Samsung give data to. Still, the writing’s clearly on the wall for Nokia... http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/samsung-overtakes-nokia-as-worlds-largest-phone-maker-27-04-2012/ ...and all’s not well internally – here, Nokia’s Windows strategy receives a good kicking...

My latest State of the Media Democracy B-Side covers gaming, which is mentioned in the report in a couple of areas, but definitely deserves a deeper dive. Having been an avid gamer since the days of the NES , it’s good to see that traditional gaming on consoles remains strong – nearly half of households now have one and 15% have connected it to the Internet. Console ownership has increased by about 20% year-on-year, which is pretty impressive given the less than perfect economic conditions and the considerable cost of the devices and their games. Purchasing through the console was surprisingly prevalent with 28% of people who had their console Internet connected saying that they purchased something through it at least once a month in 2011. Consoles are the simplest way for many households to connect their TV to the Internet, so people’s willingness to buy through them is a positive sign for the wider on-demand content industry. Only 3% bought or hired a movie in 2011 on the console th...