Best Links week 17-19

Welcome to the Hybrid Age (link)
"The changing nature of technology, the geopolitics of technology access and the inclusion of the bottom billion will make the Hybrid Age a hotbed of opportunity and prosperity, but also chaos and uncertainty."
Related: NYT interview

How Amazon Controls Ecommerce (link)
"In these 72 slides, global consulting boutique faberNovel breaks down Amazon’s business and strategy. The keys to Amazon’s success are 1) the Internet imposes no limits on how much Amazon can sell; 2) its control of customer accounts and loyalty, and 3) and a growing ecosystem that is helping it cement its place in the world of digital goods as well."

Digital Economics: Think Value of Content, not Products (link)
"In the digital world, one product can be replicated again and again - without any extra cost. It is a completely different form of economics. How do you price something with an endless amount of supply? Another thing that the digital world changes are that it is not about a specific outcome. A movie doesn't have to watched as a DVD. You can just watch the file, stream it, etc. The digital world remove the concepts of making products, and replaces it with the concept of selling content."

One Size Does Not Fit All: Asia’s Multi-Channel Opportunity (link)
"Changing lifestyles is one factor driving consumers’ migration to multiple and non-traditional formats. As time becomes more precious, people put a premium on convenient solutions that make life easier. At the same time, technology – particularly mobile – has enabled consumers to hit the Internet for a range of activities such as entertainment, socializing and information gathering. It is only natural that they would like to indulge in one of their favorite hobbies – shopping – online as well."

Phone Tipping Point Countdown Reset (link)
New comscore data: "In March an additional 3 million Americans became smartphone users. That translates to 700,000 every week or 100,000 every day switching from a non-smart or feature phone to a smartphone."

Smartphones and Women Help Check-ins Take Flight (link)
"Location-based services are still traveling a long road toward mainstream adoption but the growth of smartphones and acceptance by women appears be accelerating the rise of check-in services. According to new figures out from comScore  16.7 million U.S. mobile subscribers used a check-in service from their mobile phone in March, which represents 7.1 percent of the entire mobile audience."

Mobilism: Devices, Designs & Behaviors (link)
Luke W shares some learnings from Mobilism:
"– There are Analog, Digital, and Physical interactions. Touch screen devices are an example of mass-market application of physical interactions. The next major battle will be about audio input.
– Another way to make things more physical: haptic feedback. We shouldn’t have to only use our eyes to interact with devices. Can feel information and then dive deeper visually if we need to."
Related: Luke's notes from other Mobilism talks

Connected Devices: How We Use Tablets in the U.S. (link)
"Around half of all tablet owners reported being the only ones in their household using their particular tablet, while 43 percent said they shared the tablet with others. Eight percent said that while they own a tablet used by other household members, they do not use it themselves."

Demographic Profile of an iPad Owner in the U.S. (link)
"Owners of iPads in the U.S. showed the heaviest skew toward 25-34 year olds (27%) in relation to the total mobile audience (17.6%). iPads also exhibited significantly above average skews in the 18-24 year old and 35-44 year old segments. However, this demographic profile was similar to that of the overall smartphone user base, indicating that the advanced mobile capabilities rather than the device itself might be primary driver behind this age profile."

One in Four US Internet Users Will Be Social Gamers This Year (link)
"Nearly 62 million US internet users, or 27% of the online audience, will play social games at least once a month in 2011. That is a spectacular number considering that this form of gaming took off in earnest less than two years ago. By 2012, there will be 68.7 million social gamers in the US."

The Future of Media: It’s Not Piracy, It’s Marketing (link)
"It’s not just books that can benefit from this kind of strategy, however. As Mike Masnick at Techdirt has noted, some of the most popular movies on file-sharing networks have gone on to sell record amounts in their traditional formats as well. In some cases, it seems, the availability of low-quality copies on pirate sites can actually help fuel demand for a better-quality experience in the theater. And video-game makers have also talked about how piracy has effectively helped them to market their work to new audiences."

A Sit-Down With Joichi Ito (link)
The Drop-Out VC Leading MIT's Media Lab.

Welcome to Think Insights with Google (link)
"At Google we believe data beats opinion. So we work hard to study the worlds of consumer behavior, digital and media, and we’re pleased to share what we’ve learned with you. Our first feature is all about mobile trends."

Speaking Up in Class, Silently, Using Social Media (link)
"With Twitter and other microblogging platforms, teachers from elementary schools to universities are setting up what is known as a “backchannel” in their classes. The real-time digital streams allow students to comment, pose questions (answered either by one another or the teacher) and shed inhibitions about voicing opinions. Perhaps most importantly, if they are texting on-task, they are less likely to be texting about something else."

ArtFinder brings social media to art (link)
"Startup's software offers identification and recommendation tools, as well as easy-to-build apps for galleries."

How Microsoft Can Leverage Skype in the Living Room (link)
"Much focus since the deal has been on the consumer space, and, in particular, on the possibilities of connecting Skype with Kinect. But there are many more ways to leverage Skype in the increasingly competitive digital living room. Microsoft’s intentions aren’t yet available, but as we wait for more news, here are a few potential ideas: Skype as Smart-TV Platform, Skype as Social Glue Platform, Skype as Mobile/TV Messaging Platform."

In Japan, Twitter Users "Tap to Follow" Friends Using NFC (link)
"NFC is not just for mobile wallets. It can also be used to facilitate simple tasks or data exchanges. For example, Foursquare experimented with NFC-based check-ins at this week's Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, Rovio is experimenting with NFC in its new Angry Birds Magic game and DoubleTwist is allowing Android users to share MP3's with each other using NFC."

Why The Future of Greentech Needs to Sound Awesome (link)
"As inventor and entrepreneur Saul Griffith put it in the kickoff talk for our Green:Net event last month (embedded below), “the future needs to sound awesome,” for 10 year olds, while shaped by optimistic realism and backed by science. Here’s 7 reasons why I’ve been worried lately during a seeming slump, followed by 7 things to still get excited about."

Stunning iTunes Visualizer, Powered By Bold Experiment In UI Design (link)
"Planetary, a free iPad app from the data-artists at Bloom, analyzes your iTunes music library and visualizes it as a 3D galaxy. Artists become stars that form constellations, albums are planets orbiting those stars, and individual tracks are moons that spin around the planets."

Breaking Bin Laden: visualizing the power of a single tweet (link)
"A full hour before the formal announcement of Bin-Laden’s death, Keith Urbahn posted his speculation on the emergency presidential address. Little did he know that this Tweet would trigger an avalanche of reactions, retweets and conversations that would beat mainstream media as well as the White House announcement."

The 5 must-knows about how readers navigate news online, drawn from new Pew study (link)
"How do readers get to news sites? How long do they stay once there? And where do they go when they leave? The study confirms many truisms about online behavior but also yields some surprises."

/J