Social Media for Health Care Provider

The video introduced social media concepts and importance of information technology for health care provider and using internet and social media to build meaningful conversations between patients and doctors as a marketing solution. Firstly, it showed development history of social media comparing with TV, radio, etc. And then it drilled down to how internet and social media could help implement patients' requirements on e-mail or on-line chat with doctors, and mobile device and remote monitoring. In the end, Video told us current situation in hospital on the internet, facebook, twitter, etc.

Logitech Revue: Lonely TV - Part 4

Logitech is positioning itself as part of the Google TV ecosystem. This is their latest ad. Enjoy! (also comment?--not as a user but as an analyst looking at the evolution of TV and media in the connected age).
--

Social Ads Soon to Revolutionize the Advertising Industry

How annoying are the ads that suddenly come up when we are engrossed in a thrilling scene of a movie or popup when we are reading something important. But still, there are ads that we just love to watch again and again. YouTube has thousands of those. But companies never had a way to know if the customers loved their ads till they had drained down huge sums of money in advertising.

I just saw this post on Google's blog, where the author talks about the future of display advertising. Even though there are many interesting forecasts in this post, the one that I really struck me was that 75 percent of ads on the web will be social in nature. People will be able to share ads and comment on them. I think that this will completely change the game in the advertising industry.

Today, so many companies run advertisement campaigns and have to wait for a certain period of time to measure the performance of these campaigns and see the results. Even then they hardly come to know what people who watch the ads like or dislike about the ads. If ads go social, the companies will receive one more level, but a very important one, of insight. Companies will start knowing what did people who watch the ads and purchase the product, like in the ads. Companies will know real time what their target audience doesn't like about the ads and will be able to change the ads on the fly. It will also change the business models of the advertising companies. Companies will start paying advertising agencies money based on the real-time performance and customer feedbacks. This will not only apply to the internet based ads. With Google TV, Apple TV and probably many more in the pipeline, social ads will have a huge impact in the TV industry too.

White space for content discovery

I found IBM's framework for defining the new business models in the media industry is quite insightful, and reading the complete report made me ponder the changing media stack.



Here's the traditional stack as I've drawn it out. In the traditional world of the lower left quadrant, we've seen that content discovery is a function fulfilled by the content distribution layer. Publishers, movie studios and game developers spend millions to make sure you know about the latest Harry Potter or Grand Theft Auto.







But I'm curious about the content discovery process would work in the other quadrants, and in the "New platform aggregation" section in particular, as we move into the future. My sense is that content discovery will develop into a full-fledged layer of the stack, which will look like this.

And while companies like Google, Facebook and YouTube are already playing a role in content discovery, I think there's still plenty of white space there. Google and YouTube can help me search for content - but I have to be looking for something. Facebook can help me find something even if I'm not looking, but I'm dependent on the tastes of people in my network who post links to content. There's definitely scope for something that will know what I like (or learn, like Pandora does) and trawl the "out there" for user generated content that I will enjoy. Does anybody know of something like this that already exists?

The ipod becomes an iphone?

This NY Times article details the value proposition from a $1 iphone app called line2 which also works on the ipod touch or ipad. Line2 turns your iphone into a dual mode phone and allows you to call over the internet rather than using your minutes from AT&T. This can be especially appealing in areas in which reception is spotty (indoors) which also happens to be the area where you generally have wi-fi. Updates to the app make text messaging seamless as well, further creating value for the consumer. The author claims that this technology could be a "game-changer" and render wireless carriers obsolete. I think that carriers may need to be watchful in this space because it is possible that they may lose control of their layer of the system. The numbers as they are explained here are pretty persuasive in favor of reducing the amount of money you pay to AT&T.

Playing Video Games to Make the World a Better Place?

Take a look at this video from a recent TED talk. . Love to get your reactions.

Evolving Media Ecosystem: Apple as a Case in Point

Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog had an interesting diagram attributed to UBS report. The report describes the evolution of the Global Digital Living Room.

The figure below is for Apple and apparently, the report has similar diagrams for the three other players discussed--Microsoft, Google and Amazon.  Green represents strong, while yellow represents needs improvement. Red signifies no solution.

I have not been able to easily locate the full report as of now but I think this is a good way to synthesize the comparative analysis for the space at the intersection of media and publishing.  I also believe that a more insightful comparison that puts some of the technology parameters (OS, network effects, API etc.) as part of the diagram could shed further insights.  Those working in this sector may have an opportunity to improve upon this.