Blog articles from 01/2011

CES was a great experience! The energy of the show felt entirely upbeat and positive, full of optimism for this New Year and the new technologies that will literally dominate our lives. With such an abundance of amazing technological innovation happening all around us, I find it hard to believe that anyone can not be absolutely thrilled about the direction we are moving! So with that, I’d like to present a few of the technologies that I feel are going to be major influencers...

Facebook is rolling out a new advertising format called Sponsored Stories, which allows advertisers to prioritize content from the News Feed by turning your Facebook activity into promoted content. Sponsored Stories are seen only by your friends that would normally see your stories in their News Feeds. However, according to the product's help page , there is no op-out option for Sponsored Stories. Already, similarities are being drawn between Sponsored Stories and Twitter's...

More significant headlines from this week: Hulu considers a strategy shift - becomes an online cable company? The Wall Street Journal had a very good article yesterday on the internal workings at Hulu. Among some of the inside conversations taking place: News Corp. (Fox) and Disney (ABC) are considering pulling free content from the site and offering more fee-based on-demand programming to other sites. Also, some at Hulu are considering turning the site into a "virtual...

Adobe Systems Inc. signed an agreement with a Seattle-based company that affords media publishers enhanced security when distributing Flash-based transactional video-on-demand (VOD), subscription, electronic sellthrough and rental on PCs, mobile devices and pay-television. Adobe said thePlatform’s mpx video management software gives content owners easier tools to deliver Flash-based premium video across multiple platforms. The top 10 video sites in the United States use Adobe...

Join us for the SMB Technical Support Services: Taking Care of Business Webcast on February 10, 2011 at 1 p.m. Central time sponsored by PlumChoice Business Services. Register at: http://www.parksassociates.com/events/webcasts/2011/webcasts_plumchoice.htm The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that there are more than 11 million small and medium business (SMB) enterprises in the United States (businesses employing between 1-99 employees). According to Parks Associates...

There is perhaps no company more entrenched in the cloud than Google . To prove that point, the search giant has created the first computer operating system that's entirely online, so your computer won't even work without a Web connection. The operating system -- named Chrome after the company's popular Web browser -- replaces traditional standalone computer applications. Google is hoping to rival the hold of Microsoft's Windows and Apple's Mac more traditional operating...

After a slighly lull following CES, earnings announcements and a full bevy of newsworthy announcements in the digital media and consumer electronics spaces have my e-mail inbox bursting. Here are a few items worthy of noting: Netflix Subscribers Surge Past 20 Million The guidance provided by Netflix's executives in Q3 2010 was subscriber gains of 2.7 million, and total subscribers between 19 and 19.7 million subscribers. In actuality, the company gained 3.08 million subscribers...

Parks Associates is supporting the DECT World & CAT-iq Conference on January 26th-27th in Amsterdam. Bringing together the industry, the summit will analyse developments over the past 12 months and discuss the future of DECT and CAT-iq. With examples of DECT products live in the market and new technologies which are set to drive DECT use in both residential and enterprise markets, this year's conference is not to be missed. For more information, please click here .