The Comunicano Daily for Friday December 27 2013

The Comunicano Daily

Most of the news today has been about the holiday shopping/shipping woes. So we'll start with that and look at some other facts and information surrounding the holiday season. Now..on to the news..      Many shoppers blame online retailers for stealing Christmas: Shipping delays left many people with little under the tree Many shoppers are blaming online retailers for stealing Christmas. Companies from Amazon.com Inc. to Kohl's Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. promised to deliver items from headphones to television sets before Christmas, but shipping delays left gift-givers across the country without anything to put under the tree.     [continue...]     Apple's iOS Completely Blew Away Google's Android For Shopping On Christmas Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, continues to blow away Google's Android in mobile commerce, according to IBM analytics.IBM put out a press release about what it saw during Christmas. It's not good for Android: iOS vs. Android: As a percentage of total online sales, iOS was more than five times higher than Android, driving 23 percent vs.     [continue...]     Amazon Reveals a New Hint About Prime Membership Rolls Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press SEATTLE - The world's biggest online retailer has mastered the art of talking a lot about its holiday sales, while saying very little. For years, Amazon has blasted out a press release, a day or so after Christmas, filled with a string of tantalizing-sounding factoids about the holidays at Amazon without actually providing a very meaningful picture of its business.     [continue...]     Learning by Shipping Rather than predict anything that will suddenly appear at the end of 2014, this post offers some trends that are likely to double by some measure this next year. This will turn out to be an exponential year in many technologies and what seems far-fetched could very easily be trends that are doubling in relatively short periods...     [continue...]     As much as a third of all Internet sales gets returned, by one estimate Free shipping and lenient return policies have given online retailing a huge boost. Now, chains are mining their order data to get shoppers to keep more purchases. Behind the uptick in e-commerce is a little known secret: As much as a third of all Internet sales gets returned, according to retail consultancy Kurt Salmon.     [continue...]       With mobile Internet traffic growing, its a sign that more people are also consuming and contributing more data from tablets. If you're a company that's in the Internet space and not designing for tablets and phablets, you're out of the game before it starts. What's also clear is people are using their devices away from the home and office more, and as time goes on this will only increase. We're already seeing Verizon Wireless network in the USA stressing and straining...it will get worse before it gets better.     U.S. Mobile Internet Traffic Nearly Doubled This Year Andrew Burton/Getty Images Two big shifts happened in the American cellphone industry over the past year: Cellular networks got faster, and smartphone screens got bigger. As a result, people's consumption of mobile data nearly doubled.     [continue...]       This leads to our next story about app usage tracking. Let's face it, government that governs best, governs least is an old axiom. When one sees the trade organization for mobile making a move to put out a app usage reporting tool that tells people how much each app consumes you know they're not just doing it to be nice. They're doing it with dual intentions. One for the consumer, but another for themselves. Expect more apps from Mobile operators in 2014 that help consumers and the operators know more, make more better informed decisions and be more aware of just what their options are.      CTIA Releases Know My App To Prevent Excessive Data Usage Seth Fitzgerald | On 26, Dec 2013 As more and more services move to mobile devices, data usage is skyrocketing, which makes monitoring usage an incredibly important task. Only a handful of carriers still offer unlimited data while the others have restricted their plans, although many people stay within their limits, others have a hard time doing so.     [continue...]       Yesterday, our lead off story was about T-Mobile and Sprint. Well here's an opposing point of view on the possibility of their merger...     Analysis: In telecom merger mania, skeptical eye from Obama administration    With both cable and mobile phone operators grappling with slowing growth, speculation has intensified recently about potential takeovers of No. 4 wireless service provider T-Mobile US Inc and No.       [continue...]       It's no surprise that BlackBerry is canceling their Live event. Some would say it's better than having smaller numbers than in the past, as the naysayers would have been quick to call it, BlackBerry Dead....     BlackBerry cancels BlackBerry Live 2014     Sponsored links, if any, appear in green. Troubled smartphone vendor and enterprise service provider BlackBerry has announced that it will not host its signature event, BlackBerry Live, next year. So how will developers, buyers, and other participants in the BlackBerry ecosystem connect? There's a plan for that as well.     [continue...]       The iPhone is a wonderful product. But what makes it so great is what Apple is constantly doing to make it more useful....Soon it could save lives.     Apple patents accurate touch and hover panel, embedded heart rate monitor Apple on Tuesday was granted two iOS device-targeted patents, one for a "touch and hover" display panel that is made more accurate by compensating for signal drift, and another for heart rate monitor that can be seamlessly integrated into a handset. Touch and hover The newer of Tuesday's patents, Apple's extensive U.S.     [continue...]       China is adding MVNOs. This means they have built out the infrastructure to support competition. The question in my mind is what non Chinese company or global mobile operator will be the first to partner with one of the MVNO's to break into the market...      China's Telecom Regulator Awards Virtual Telecom Licenses to 11 Companies   China's telecom regulator has awarded licenses to 11 private companies to run mobile telecom businesses based on services leased from China's state-run carriers. The new licenses mark a concrete policy change after years of discussion by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which regulates China's telecoms sector.       [continue...]       Just to show another side of things, Quartz has a nice counterpoint to the runaway enthusiasm of the tech press. To them, 2013 was more the year that wasn't.      2013 was a lost year for tech All in, 2013 was an embarrassment for the entire tech industry and the engine that powers it-Silicon Valley. Innovation was replaced by financial engineering, mergers and acquisitions, and evasion of regulations. Not a single breakthrough product was unveiled-and for reasons outlined below, Google Glass doesn't count.     [continue...]

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