Category: Percolate

BitTorrent Forays Into Original Content With Exclusive Web Series

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: AdWeek

A surprising candidate has entered OTT original content market: BitTorrent has just announced its first original web series, Children of the Machine. Starting next fall, the post-apocalyptic sci-fi web series will be distributed via BitTorrent Bundle, a service that allows media owners to release content directly to consumers. Previously, musicians like Thom Yorke and DJ Diplo have opted to release new music through the bundle program.

The pilot will be free for download with commercial spots embedded. We reported back in September that BitTorrent is wooing advertisers, and this is without doubt another solid move for the company to establish itself as a legitimate marketing platform.

 

Online Black Friday Sales Breaks $1.5B As Physical Retail Slides

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: TechCrunch

It looks like online sales got off to a good start in the U.S., with Thanksgiving topping $1 billion and Black Friday passing $1.5 billion — respectively, a growth of 32% and 26% over 2013, according to early numbers from comScore. As online retailers use Cyber Monday to extend the post-Thanksgiving holiday sales rush, further growth in Ecommerce is expected this holiday season.

The good news for online sales, however, might come at the expense of subpar brick-and-mortar performance, as sales across physical stores for the past four days are down 11% to $50.9 billion from year-ago $57.4 billion, based on a new National Retail Federation report.

Revamped Google Glass With Intel Chips Coming Next Year

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: The Verge

Intel will replace Texas Instruments as the new supplier of process chips in a revamped version of Google Glass. The new version, reportedly coming next year, will also be equipped with longer battery life, as well as a reduced price tag. As Intel dives deeper into wearables, it will be interesting to see if such a redesign will finally help Google Glass to break into mainstream.

Opera Seeking To Launch Subscription-Based App Stores

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Gizmodo

Inspired by the success of Spotify and Netflix, Opera thinks users are ready to consume mobile apps via subscriptions as well. The software company is reportedly pitching curated versions of the company’s app store to mobile operators, which allows them to create their own stores. Users would pay a weekly fee to access as many apps as they wished within the selection.

Currently, Opera hosts 300,000 titles in its app store, and boasts around 100 million visitors every month. This could prove to be a good idea to encourage downloads. It will be interesting to see how Opera handles the ownership of downloaded apps after subscription expires.

Twitter Enters Brick-and-Mortar Retail With “Offers”

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Re/code

After experimenting with several ecommerce features, today Twitter is officially entering brick-and-mortar retail with Twitter Offers, a new feature that allows users to claim discounts right from a brand’s promoted tweets by linking their credit or debit card account with Twitter. Users can then redeem the discount simply by paying with the linked card in the retailer’s store.

As of now, Twitter is only charging brands for the promoted tweets. If this type of digital coupon catches on, Twitter could start charging retailers a fee for every offer claimed or redeemed. If anything, Twitter Offers would certainly provide physical retailers with a new way to measure the impact of online promotions.

Tencent Scores Exclusive Deal To Stream HBO Content In China

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Hollywood Reporter

HBO and Tencent have unveiled an exclusive content deal that will make the Chinese Internet giant’s streaming service the official online home of HBO films and series in the country. As Chinese officials continue the crack down on popular pirated-video websites, China’s major online video sites, including Sohu, Youku and Baidu Video, are reportedly locked in a billion-dollar battle for legally hosting foreign shows. Tencent might have gained a valuable head start with this deal, but it still remains to be seen how much censorship will be imposed on HBO’s mature content.

What’s The Newest Revenue Stream For Snapchat?

Posted on by Lab Team

 Read original story on: Ad Age

Snapchat employed a special edition of “Our Story” streams, its live-event based feeds, to cover Sunday night’s American Music Awards, with the first-ever brand sponsorship of the feeds by Samsung. Back when the feature first launched in June, we wondered whether it could be a new revenue driver for the messaging app, and now it looks like Snapchat has found a way via sponsorship.

 

One Thing That Needs To Be Done With eHealth Data

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Forbes

A recent survey by Practice Fusion, an e-health data company, revealed a huge gap between the “quantified self” movement, which is supported by the use of fitness trackers, and the health data that is being incorporated into the healthcare system. Only 15% out of the 353 doctors that responded to the survey said they had been asked about incorporating wearable-generated health data into their health records. Connecting individuals’ health data to the existing healthcare infrastructure will be the crucial next step for the ehealth industry.

Tech And Fashion Need To Work Together

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: TorrentFreak

Pirated luxury watch faces for smartwatches are now on the watch list of luxury watchmakers, as several high-end brands, including Omega, Tissot, and Certina, have teamed up in an effort to take the unauthorized designs off from the Internet.

While revealing issues in digital design copyrights, this development also signals a missed opportunity for luxury brands to actively work with tech companies that are developing smartwatches. This piracy proves that there’s a demand for luxury brand association in the growing wearable market. And as we spotted in a recent trend report, it’d be a good thing for the fashion and tech industry to work together.

Square To Support Apple Pay Next Year

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: The Next Web

We already knew Square had plans to support chip-based credit cards with its new card readers, but it looks like the payment company will not be competing directly with Apple Pay any time soon. In a recent interview with CNN, Square founder Jack Dorsey revealed plans to accept Apple’s new transaction standard at some point in 2015. Although not confirmed yet, we won’t be too surprised to see Square start supporting other NFC-based systems like Google Waller or Softcard as well.