VentureBeat

When Nook e-book reader was introduced in late 2009, it was beset by so many issues it seemed a classic of a troubled launch. The company worked to fix its most glaring problems, but couldn’t quite get it to the point where it could challenge the innovations coming from Apple, Samsung, Amazon, and Microsoft.

“Amazon’s success in the tablet space is driven by its vast ecosystem of digital content that make its Fire tablets a compelling choice,” Parks Associates research analy ...read more

Last July, Google’s Chromecast made a big splash. Now, new data indicates that usage is dropping as the novelty wears off even as streaming media devices in general have taken hold in the United States.

A survey from industry research firm Parks Associates queried 10,000 broadband homes in the U.S. and found that use of Chromecast at least once a month to view Web pages on a TV dropped from 76 percent of owners in Q3 of last year to 57 percent in Q1 2014. Online video viewin ...read more

San Francisco and the Silicon Valley played hosts to several conferences recently, all of which shared an exciting discourse on the Internet of things — IoT: Parks Associates’ CONNECTIONS, TiEcon, and the William Blair Technology Growth Conference. I had the pleasure of speaking at all three and exchanged ideas with some exceptional people, from engineers to reporters to investment analysts.

...

At the same time, I question whether our industry is placing our enthusiasm ...read more

According to Parks Associates, which provides analyses on the home security industry, a quarter of all American households are currently equipped with home security systems. The industry’s largest growth occurred in the years just prior to the nation’s housing crisis, according to a report on the Parks Associates website. Since then, however, the home security industry has experienced a marked decline.

But as long as crime exists people will surely want to protect themselves ...read more

The biggest weakness of the almost one-year-old Kindle Fire is that consumers perceive it to be a low-end tablet, Parks Associates mobile analyst Harry Wang told VentureBeat.

The price point of the tablet device, combined with touchscreen sensitivity issues, and a strategy focused on e-book and media sales may be sending the wrong message to shoppers.

“[Amazon's business strategies] have created the impression that this is a piece of cheap hardware. It doesn’t give you a ...read more

Shazam has been very successful in its television efforts, said Heather Way, a senior research analyst with Parks Associates.

“I think that they’re in a good position if we’re talking about synchronized content from the TV to the mobile screen,” she said. “A lot of that comes from there built in ‘footprint.’ They already have their app on a lot of devices … so they have that brand name. People know, ‘I’m going to Shazam it.’”

Way studies digital media advertising service ...read more

A recent research report by Parks Associates on “Trends in Digital Gaming” shows that smartphone and tablet adoption has grown along with the percentage of U.S. gamers who regularly download games or gaming apps to their mobile devices. Game downloaders grew to 18 percent in 2011 from 7 percent in 2008, the firm found. Among tablet owners, 71 percent of adults and 79 percent of teens play games on the device at least one hour per month.

From the article, "Social gaming start ...read more

The number of people playing video games in the U.S. has risen 241 percent since 2008, according to a new study from market research and consulting company Parks Associates.

The study, Trends in Digital Gaming: Free-to-Play, Social, and Mobile Games, claims 135 million people play at least one hour per month compared to 56 million in 2008. Seventeen percent of all gamers have downloaded a title on their smartphones, up from 7 percent in 2008. About 80 percent play free-to-pl ...read more