ImaginativePRO Blog

DISTIMO RELEASES ITS TOP GLOBAL APPS LIST FOR APRIL 2013, PLUS WHICH PLATFORM IS WINNING THE APP WARS

Based on the full month and worldwide data, you can now view the most downloaded free, paid and top grossing global apps on April 2013. Our leaderboards are a great resource for anyone interested in mobile apps globally. These leaderboards list the most popular free, paid and grossing applications daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly per country and per category for the Apple App Store for iPhone, the Apple App Store for iPad and Google Play. Combining the monthly leaderboards across all countries and enriching with Distimo AppIQ data allows us to analyze the most successful apps worldwide.

Top Free Applications

The most downloaded free application worldwide in Google Play as well as in Apple App Store was the same as last month. So Candy Crush Saga was again the most downloaded app globally in the Apple App Store, while Facebook was again the most popular application in Google Play in April 2013. The top 5 free downloaded applications for Apple App Store has three new entries:   Sonic Dash (2), Injustice: Gods Among Us (4) and Dentist Office (5). Remarkably Sonic Dash was a top paid app last month and now it is a top free app, as it became a free application with in-apps in the final days of March 2013. The other two entries are newcomers, both were released in April 2013.

The top 5 free downloaded applications for Google Play showed one new name. Instagram joined the top free most downloaded global applications in Google Play in April 2013, replacing Temple Run 2 on rank 5. Google Play’s top 5 contains only communication/social networking apps and no games. On the contrary, four out of five apps in the top 5 free applications for Apple App Store were games: Candy Crush Saga (1), Sonic Dash (2) , Injustice: Gods Among Us (4) and Dentist Office (5).

Top 5 Apple Free Downloaded Apps - Distimo - April 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Top 5 Android Free Downloaded Apps Per Google Play - Distimo - April 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Top Paid Applications

Like in March 2013 four out of five applications were games in Apple’s top 5, based on most paid downloads. Temple Run: Oz was the game that was downloaded most frequently across all countries in this store. Again, WhatsApp Messenger defeated all games and was the most downloaded paid application during April 2013. However there are also some changes as Cut the Rope: Time Travel (4) and Pou (5) are new entries in the top most downloaded paid applications. Zeptolab UK Limited has another a winner on their hands as Cut the Rope: Time Travel was just released mid April.

In Google Play there is a stable top 5, the same apps in almost the same order are listed as in March 2013. The only change is a switch between Minecraft (now 3, in March 4) and Poweramp Full Version Unlocker (now 4, in March 3). With SwiftKey Keyboard as leader, paid utility applications were more popular than games in Google Play. Only Minecraft made it as game in the top 5 in terms of paid downloads in Google Play.

Top 5 Apple Paid Downloaded Apps - Distimo - April 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Top 5 Android Paid Downloaded Apps per Google Play - Distimo - April 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Most Revenue Generating Applications

Supercell was still one of the most successful developers in the Apple App Store in April 2013. With only two apps in this store, Clash of Clans (1) and Hay Day (3), and both in the top global top 5, players are still enjoying Supercell’s games. Another stayer in the top is Candy Crush Saga. The two new names in the top are Injustice: Gods Among Us from Warner Bros. (4) and Modern War of Funzio, Inc. (5). The top is dominated by free apps with in-apps as all apps in this top 5 use the freemium business model.

In April 2013 you still see that the apps in the top 5 based on revenue for Google Play included mainly apps that were localized in Asia and hence generating most revenue from these countries instead of the US. There is an interesting newcomer in the top 5: LINE: Free Calls & Messages. The games that are related to Kakao have generated a lot of revenue in Korea, which resulted in two top five positions in Google Play, 윈드러너 for Kakao (Windrunner) and 다함께 차차차 for Kakao (Everybody Cha Cha Cha!), while LINE: Free Calls & Messages gained its revenue almost solely in Japan.

 Top 5 Apple Revenue Generating Appliations - Distimo - April 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Top 5 Android Revenue Generating Applications - Distimo - April 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

COMMENTARY:  The apps economy stats are pretty staggering. In first quarter of 2013 alone, the app downloads amounted to more than 13.4 billion across four major stores – Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store, and BlackBerry World – according to the latest report by Canalys.

App downloads grew by 11% between Quarter 4 2012 and Quarter 1 2013. Total revenue generated in the apps economy grew by 9% to reach $2.2 billion. Revenue sources are paid-for apps, in-app purchases, and subscription.

Apple App Store has over 775,000 apps. Google Play is predicted to become the first store to reach the 1 million apps mark by June 2013.

In terms of revenue, Apple App Store is the king of the hill. The App Store commanded a whopping 74% of total revenue generated by the four stores, or $1.6 billion in the first quarter of 2013. As Android has the largest installed base in the world, it is no surprise Google Play is leading the number of app downloads during the period, with 51% of the 13.4 billion downloads.

Tim Shepherd, Canalys Senior Analyst said.

“Apple’s App Store and Google Play remain the heavyweights in the app store world. In comparison, BlackBerry World and the Windows Phone Store remain distant challengers today, though they still should not be ignored.”

He continued,

“The strength of app ecosystems will increasingly help to determine winners and losers in the smart device industry. BlackBerry 10 now has more than 100,000 apps available through its storefront, showing good growth from the 70,000 it boasted at launch, and the new devices on the platform have given BlackBerry a much greater chance to compete for consumer attention. Its app story is going from strength to strength, but there is no room for complacency. Microsoft, with the help of partners such as Nokia, is also making good progress attracting some important titles to the Windows Phone platform, but it too needs to do more to make building apps for its platform a priority for developers and also do a better job of marketing and communicating the already established strength of its app story.”

Full Canalys’ press release here.

Which platform has the most apps?

After years of obsessing over the sheer quantity of apps available for these two platforms, the numbers seem to be similar, and similarly impressive, on both sides. Both Apple and Google currently claim more than 800,000 third-party programs for their respective platform.

Apps in Apple Store (iOS) vs Google Play (Android) - March 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

What do the numbers look like for tablet-specific apps?

For iOS, Apple says there are more than 300,000 iPad-optimized programs. For Android: I wish I knew! As far as I know, Google hasn’t disclosed this number. But it’s safe to say that it remains piddling compared to Apple’s figure.

O.K., who has the best apps?

I hesitate to bring this up, because app quality is inherently subjective. But a company called uTest uses a system called Applause to crawl Apple’s App Store and Google’s Google Play, collecting user reviews and rankings. It then turns this data into scores from 1 to 100 for individual apps, and calculates average scores for each platform. In data published in a ReadWrite story in January, it said that the average iOS app, with a score of 68.5, is superior to the average Android app, at 63.3.

uTest App Quality - iOs vs Android - March 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Which platform’s users are downloading the most apps?

According to Canalys, just over half of all apps downloaded in the first quarter of this year were for Android. iOS, at about 40 percent share, was the only other big-time player.

Canalys App Share of Downloads by Platform - iOS, Android and Other - March 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Who’s making money from app downloads?

According to Canalys’s data for the first quarter of this year, iOS users are spending much more on apps even if they’re downloading fewer of them overall.

Canalys App Share of Download Revenues by Platform - iOS, Android and Other - March 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Courtesy of an article dated May 7, 2013 appearing in Distimo Blog, an article dated April 9, 2013 appearing in Gigaom, an article dated April 8, 2013 appearing in Forbes 
 

U.S. ONLINE AD REVS FOR THE YEAR 2012 WERE $10.31 BIL, SET NEW RECORD, MOBILE AD REVS FOR Q1 2013 WERE $3.4 BIL, +111% YOY

 

Internet advertising revenues in the United States totaled a record $10.31 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012, an increase of 12% from the third quarter of 2012 and up 15% from the fourth quarter of 2011, according to a report by IAB and PwC.

Mobile revenue surged 111% in 2012 to $3.4 billion, building on 2011’s record-breaking 149% year-over-year rise to $1.6 billion. Mobile accounted for 9% of total Internet ad revenue in 2012.

Click Image To Enlarge

Below, additional key findings from the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report:

Search and Display Continue to Lead

• Search revenues in 2012 totaled $16.9 billion, or 46% of 2012 revenues, up 14.5% from $14.8 billion in 2011.
• Display-related advertising revenues in 2012 totaled $12 billion, or 33% of 2012 revenues, up almost 9% from $11 billion in 2011.
• Digital video brought in $2.3 billion, marking a significant year-over-year increase of 29% in 2012, compared with $1.8 billion in 2011.

Click Image To Enlarge

Top 10 Ad-Selling Companies Command Market

• Online advertising remains concentrated with the 10 leading ad-selling companies, which accounted for 72% of total revenues in 4Q12, up slightly from the 71% reported in 4Q11.
• Companies ranked 11th to 25th accounted for 10% of revenues in 4Q12, down slightly from the 11% reported in 4Q11. Companies ranked 26th to 50th accounted for 7% in 4Q12, down from the 8% reported in 4Q11.

Click Image To Enlarge

Ad Revenue Percentages by Industry Category

• Retail advertisers, despite an overall decline, still constitute the largest category of Internet ad spending, accounting for 20% of revenues in 2012, down from the 22% reported in 2011.
• Financial services advertisers were the next highest spenders, accounting for 13% of revenues in 2012, consistent with the 13% reported in 2011.

Click Image To Enlarge

About the research: The report was compiled directly from information supplied by companies selling advertisements on the Internet. The study included revenue data from websites, commercial online services, free email providers, and other companies selling online advertising. 

COMMENTARY:  It is astonishing that mobile ads make up only 9% of total U.S. online advertising revenues at the end of 2012.   Search ads still dominate, representing 46% of total U.S. online advertising revenues at the end of 2012.  

In a blog post dated April 10, 2013, I reported that Facebook, by virture of its strong showing in mobile advertising in 2012 (nearly $500 million in mobile ads), according to eMarketer, will hit $964.9 million in 2013, and will double its U.S. mobile ad revenues to $1.863 billion by 2015. Pandora, the digital music broadcasting service, will rank third with $372.1 million in 2013, and will double its U.S. mobile ad revenues to $748.6 million by 2015.   

Courtesy of an article dated May 9, 2013 appearing in MarketingProfs

HOW ADOBE'S CLOUD-CONNECTED "PROJECT MIGHTY" STYLUS PEN AND RULER REINVENTED THE ART OF DRAWING ON THE INTERNET

Designed by Ammunition, the pen is an aluminum stylus that can replace your finger on the iPad screen (Click Image To Enlarge)

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE CLOUD-CONNECTED INTERFACE? HOW ABOUT A SIMPLE PEN AND RULER?

This week, Adobe announced that the Creative Suite was becoming the subscription-based Creative Cloud. It didn’t go so well. But amidst the bad news, we may have lost sight of Adobe’s rationale for pushing the cloud beyond profits. And you can see that rationale hiding inside Project Mighty.

The pen has a pressure-sensitive tip, a button to reveal onscreen menus and a glowing tip to convey modal information (designating if you’re drawing with any particular settings), and that’s it (Click Image To Enlarge)

The three standard pen colors are silver, red and black (Click Image To Enlarge)

"We took the triangular shape--this classic shape that’s easier to grip--and twisted it," Ammution’s Robert Brunner says. "So the point at which your fingers hold it, the pen is at its best." (Click Image To Enlarge)

On one hand, it’s just an aluminum stylus that can replace your finger on the iPad screen. On the other, it’s a cloud-connected pen--or humanity’s single-greatest, simplest creative apparatus, married to the entire world of digital tools and information. Today, Project Mighty allows you to draw an image on your iPad screen, then seamlessly continue drawing that same image on your iPhone screen. Tomorrow, such a tool could draw anywhere--screen or table--while constantly syncing with your creative depository in the cloud.

The Adobe digital ruler allows you to draw straight lines and perfect shapes like circles, triangles and squares with ease (Click Image To Enlarge)

Of course, the greater promise is a series of tools that constantly connect and sync to the cloud (Click Image To Enlarge)

Physical objects that login and transfer files from screen to screen, seamlessly (Click Image To Enlarge)

Now you have to admit, that’s at least a little bit intriguing.

HOW IT CAME TOGETHER

Project Mighty, along with an accompanying “short ruler” codenamed Napoleon, were both designed by Ammunition (and engineered by Mindtribe). Ammunition has been working on various concepts with Adobe for the past five years. These are the first two designs to be made public.

Ammunition Founder Robert Brunner tells Co.Design.

“One of the goals of this was just to make a beautiful, sweet object. The pen in particular is one of those simple, beautiful forms. But it actually has a purpose. We took the triangular shape--this classic shape that’s easier to grip--and twisted it. So the point at which your fingers hold it, the pen is at its best.”

When you consider that vision, it almost makes sense that Adobe wants its users using their cloud-integrated products as soon as possible (Click Image To Enlarge)

As of today, the hardware is only in conceptual prototype stage (Click Image To Enlarge)

But Adobe should release this good idea soon, lest someone else beat them to the punch (Click Image To Enlarge)

The pen has a pressure-sensitive tip, a button to reveal onscreen menus and a glowing tip to convey modal information (designating if you’re drawing with any particular settings), and that’s it. The accompanying ruler is similarly sparse. Six shapes appear on the surface (it’s unclear if these will be actual buttons), a plastic back slides easily on a glass touch screen, and a few capacitive points convey its position to software.

Brunner admits.

“When [Adobe’s VP of experience] first said he had this idea for a digital ruler, to be honest, I was like, 'I don’t know,' As we actually started to work on it and play with it, we realized that it was very smart. You can certainly set up software to draw straight lines and snap to angles, but the simple addition of this other physical thing gives you so much more confidence.”

Even still, why did the team pursue a pen and ruler at all? In the digital world, there are no physical bounds dictating a tip of a pen needs to be connected to a long channel of ink. Couldn’t Project Mighty look like an ergonomic swirly straw, or a creative pair of brass knuckles--any dream device that could reimagine the very core idea of what drawing can be, rather than the old default pen and ruler?

Brunner says.

“It’s simply because they’re extremely familiar.  That’s the thing. You can come up with something entirely unique, but the fact is, these two devices, or shapes, are incredibly embedded in our understanding of drawing and creating.”

 

THE POWER OF ILLUSION

Adobe frames Project Mighty as a high-tech, borderline magical device that stores your identity and your projects. In reality, the hardware itself is fairly dumb, but its implementation is ingenious.

The pen is just a Bluetooth stick in the simplest of senses. Software spots its unique Bluetooth identifier. That code is associated with you. And you’re associated with the files/settings you’ve stored in the Adobe cloud. In other words, Project Mighty is really just beaming software an alphanumeric string, which logs into your accounts very quickly so you don’t have to. Finding myself fairly proud of piecing this together, I ask Brunner about it.

He says.

“You’re right, it’s an illusion per se.  All the pen is doing is IDing you and the app you’re in, and contextually allowing you to do things. But that’s an important idea! Using objects as a conduit to data is a powerful and interesting possibility. But for some reason, in the world of development, there seems to be a hard line between hardware and software.”

This hard line is exactly what Project Mighty is working to erase. It’s a peek into the most basic and powerful interactions that smart design can drive as we approach the Internet of things. This pen doesn’t need to gyroscopically record your movements, save them onto some flash drive, beam them back to the computer, then beam them to the cloud every moment. It just has to be a stick with a button that’s ready to be identified by software.

In other words, there’s nothing inside the hardware that demands the pen remain proprietary. Project Mighty could become popularized for apps living in the walls of Adobe’s own products. With a little modification (maybe an optional real pen tip?) Project Mighty could become the tactile, connective tissue between you and any surface on which you’d like to draw. This semi-smart pen could become the ubiquitous way we interact creatively with the world around us.

Brunner says.

“Something I noticed: I used to always carry a pen.  I don’t anymore, whereas my iPhone is always in my pocket. Maybe this thing can bring back the idea that the pen is always with you.”

COMMENTARY:    The new Adobe "Project Mighty" cloud-connected stylus pen is a fantastic new device that compliments any tablet, converting it into a platform for creative design and self-expression.  I love the fact that the cloud-connecting software has "intelligent" drawing features built into it so that if you were to draw a circle, it comes out perfect everytime, voila.  The same for straight lines, squares, triangles, whatever.  

In the past stylus drawing systems require a stylus pad and pen.  The tablet itself serves as the stylus pad, and you see the results appear on the display immediately, so your eyes never leave the tablet.   The ability to move objects imported into the platform or drawn using the pen from one device to another (like a smartphone), is a great way to take all your work with you when you are on-the-go, and don't want to be bothered with a tablet.

I wasn't able to determine the price for the Adobe Project Mighty stylus pen, but in my opinion it's definitely worth whatever they charge.

Courtesy of an article dated May 9, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design

ADOBE SURVEY SAYS 45% OF MARKETERS STILL DON'T HAVE A MOBILE PRESENCE YET, BUT 41% HAVE MOBILE CONVERSION RATES OF UNDER .5%

From within our own mobile marketing bubble it may be hard to believe there are companies that are still outside and haven’t yet gotten that old-time mobile religion. But according to Adobe’s latest report surveying over 1800 marketers worldwide, 45% say that they have neither a mobile-optimized Web site or mobile application. This rather remarkable laggard index comes even when Adobe also saw a doubling of traffic from mobile devices to the broad sample of sites that it observes.

Of course, the glass is slightly more than half full when it comes to mobile.

• 21% of the marketers surveyed say they have a mobile-optimized Web site. 
• 7% are using applications as the main mobile presence for their business. 
• 21% are using both. 

In benchmarking the actual performance of this investment, however,

• 41% of marketers say their conversion rate from mobile is less than .5%. 
• 16% are seeing conversion rates of .5% to 2.9%. 
• 18% say they get conversions with a 1% to 1.9% rate. 
• 16% convert at 2% to 4.9%. 
• 4% of companies with mobile presence say that their conversion is between 5% and 8.9%.
• 5% are seeing conversions of 9% and above.

Adobe says that while 7% of companies are showing a conversion rate below 1%, those companies that are investing in mobile-optimized sites are three times more likely to see mobile conversion rates of 5% or above than those who are using only desktop sites.

Curiously, marketers’ opinions about what drives higher mobile conversions seem to be more susceptible to focusing on bright shiny objects than one would hope. For instance, when asked how effective various mobile tactics are in driving conversions, check-in rewards rose to the top, with 40% of marketers citing them as very effective and 40% rating the tactic as somewhat effective.

Strangely, to my mind, the least effective tactic cited in the survey was a mobile-optimized Web site, with only 24% saying it was very effective. Things like ad promotions, barcoded coupons, and social sharing all rated higher than simply making the mobile experience more fluid and convenient to the user by optimizing against their usage.

All of this seems to suggest that more people than you imagined are still ignoring the mobile migration. But even those companies that believe they are paying attention to this emerging channel may not be paying close enough attention after they check that mobile box.

COMMENTARY:    The Adobe 2013 Digital Marketing Optimization Survey received global responses from more than 1,800 digital marketers across North America, Europe, and Asia. With a focus on business-to-consumer and businessto-business commerce, the report explores the key areas in which digital marketers need to excel to ensure success, including mobile, social, personalization, and customer experience.

A recent article from Econsultancy asked whether 2013 will be the year of conversion optimization.   In a world where a small uplift in conversion rates can translate into millions of dollars of extra revenue for businesses, would this be the year that companies finally grasp how incremental improvements in digital performance can pay significant dividends?

The survey data suggests that we still haven’t reached a tipping point, even though the evidence below points to a competitive advantage for those companies making this investment.

Figure 1 below shows that the majority of companies surveyed spend 5% or less of their total marketing budget on optimization activities, including agency fees, professional services, and technology. In fact, more companies are now in the lowest tier of spending (5% or less), increasing to 53%, compared to 48% of respondents from last year’s survey.

In total, 86% of companies surveyed allocate 15% or less of their marketing budget to optimization activities, including the 53% who allocate less than 5%. At the other end of the scale, only 3% of respondents allocate more than half of their marketing budget to optimization efforts.

Click Image To Enlarge

A recent Adobe Digital Index report analyzing more than 100 billion visits to more than 1,000 websites worldwide revealed that tablets now exceed smartphones in global web traffic. Because consumers spend more time engaging with tablet devices, marketers should be prioritizing tablet-optimized experiences in 2013.

During 2012, the Adobe Analytics business observed a doubling of traffic from mobile devices, and this trend is reflective of many clients. However, almost half (45%) of digital marketers surveyed say their organizations don’t have a mobile-optimized site or mobile application, relying on desktop sites only. Only 7% have built mobile apps, and a fifth (21%) have implemented both a mobile-optimized site and a mobile app. By not investing in mobile channels, organizations risk being left behind as mobile consumers choose a competitor’s mobile-friendly experience.

Separate research exploring digital trends for 2013 showed that while mobile optimization is an exciting opportunity for 43% of the companies surveyed, only 30% consider it a top priority in 2013.

Figure 14 shows that average mobile conversion rates are below 1% for more than half (57%) of companies, including 41% who say they are below 0.5%. Further interrogation of the data showed that companies investing in mobile-optimized sites are three times more likely to be enjoying mobile conversion rates of 5% or above than those who rely on desktop sites. Not surprisingly, those who use both a mobile-optimized site and a mobile app are experiencing even higher levels of conversion.

As Asia consumers come online, they do so most often via mobile devices, leapfrogging the fixed Internet stage as seen in developed markets. It comes as no surprise then that APAC respondents indicate not only higher usage of mobile-optimized websites, but also higher levels of mobile conversion rates. Half (49%) of APAC marketers surveyed say that they enjoy mobile conversion rates of at least 1%, including 28% with conversion rates of 2% or above.

Click Image To Enlarge

While large companies are already addressing the rapidly expanding mobile audience, most businesses are only dipping their toe in the water. The reasons behind the slow progress are various, ranging from not knowing where to start, to being bogged down in complex mobile initiatives that eat up a lot of time and budget.

If your organization has just started its foray into mobile, don’t start building a mobile site or app just because your competitors have. Engage with your analytics team and evaluate the mobile device types (feature phones, smartphones, tablets) that are visiting your desktop website and the trending of mobile traffic over the past year.

Bear in mind that low mobile-browser traffic might not necessarily indicate that your mobile audience is small.   It could be that your website just doesn’t perform well on smaller screens, and this is driving visitors away.

Don’t build an app just for the sake of it. Focus on the goal of your mobile initiatives, prioritize your company’s needs, and choose a solution that can best address these needs now and into the future.

As the Digital Trends for 2013 report highlighted:

“To move forward in ‘mobile optimization’ means coming to grips with the reality that every experience we offer through digital channels—every web page, shopping cart and piece of rich content—must work well on any device in any location. The customer understands that concessions need to be made for the smaller screen, touchscreen input and slower speed, but they won’t accept unnecessary hassle or delay. Apps are a part of today’s approach to mobile, but they are not a broad answer to this challenge, as use of the mobile web increases daily.”

You download the Adobe 2013 Digital Marketing Optimization Survey Results by clicking HERE.

It's obvious that conversion rates using mobile are pathetic (41% of marketers reported conversion rates of less than .5%), and the mobile advertising experience leaves a lot to be desired, and until marketers can find a way to overcome  

Courtesy of an article dated May 3, 2013 appearing in MediaPost Publications MoBlog

HOW A PHOTOGRAPHER REDISCOVERED AND VISITED THE CRUMBLING REMAINS OF THE TATOOINE MOVIE SET FROM THE FILM STAR WARS

A PHOTOGRAPHER FINDS ABANDONED SETS USED IN THE STAR WARSFILMS CRUMBLING IN THE DESERT.

In Star Wars (or Episode IV if you want to be like that), Luke Skywalker spends the first 15 minutes whining about his misfortune for having been born on Tatooine. He can’t go to Beggar’s Canyon to shoot womp rats with pals because he has to work his uncle’s moisture farm. Then he has to clean the new droids before suffering through a perfunctory family meal that ends in a storm-out, his ego bruised and dreams momentarily crushed.

An image from Rä di Martino’s 'Every World’s A Stage' set among the remnants of films sets used in Star Wars (Click Image To Enlarge)

The second half of 1 diptych from "Every World’s A Stage." (Click Image To Enlarge)

The photo set consists of 3 diptychs, with 2 black-and-white anagogic prints depicting the same subject but from different angles (Click Image To Enlarge)

Of course, fate (or destiny, in Lucas’s lexicon) would provide Luke with an escape. The cost would be tragic, and the 17-year old Jedi-to-be would never see his home again. Neither would the filmmakers. Lucas and his crew left the Lars Homestead set to rot after filming wrapped more than 35 years ago. In that time, the domed shell of the homestead sat unprotected from the desert winds, its location known to only a few locals. That is, until recently, when Luke’s erstwhile home was rediscovered by New York-based photographer Rä di Martino.

From "Every World's A Stage" (Click Image To Enlarge)

The Lars homestead - From Rä di Martino’s "No More Stars," which documents the ruins of Luke Skywalker’s home on the fictional planet Tatooine (Click Image To Enlarge)

The sets were abandoned after filming wrapped. Located near Tozeur in central Tunisia, near Algeria, the alien structures are virtually unknown by locals, and some can only be found with coordinates (Click Image To Enlarge)

She found it by accident, she tells Co. Design. A few years ago, when Di Martino was working on a project on the Chott El Jerid, a salt lake in Tunisia, she was scanning the site on Google Earth.

"I saw a tourist photo on Google Earth of a ruin used for the Star Wars films that was attached to the location."

She tracked the structure to somewhere near Tozeur, an oasis city in the country’s central region close to the Algerian border.

Di Martino spotted the sets in the Tunisian desert while scanning Google Earth (Click Image To Enlarge)

Di Martino calls the sets "strange archeological sites," fortuitously preserved by sand and a hot, arid climate (Click Image To Enlarge)

She traveled to the site and documented what had happened to the homestead in Luke’s absence (Click Image To Enlarge)

Tozeur and the surrounding region, it turns out, have served as the backdrop to many Hollywood’s memorable epics, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, another Lucas romp, and The English Patient. Yet, there’s little glamour to be excavated at these abandoned sites. They sit in perfect stillness, at the crest of the Sahara Desert, eaten away by dust and sand.

"No More Stars" (Click Image To Enlarge)

When she traveled to Tunisia in September 2010, Di Martino had only a printout of a satellite image with imprecise markers indicating where the mysterious ruin was supposed to be. Upon arriving, however, she found it nearly impossible to track it down.

"I ended up having to ask some frontier guards close by [in Tozeur] and showed them pictures of the site."

Luckily, one of the guards recognized it and delivered her to the doorstep of the Lars Homestead.

Di Martino found the fictional birthplace of the Rebellion’s savior in tatters. She preserved Luke’s humble digs for posterity in a series of photographs entitled "No More Stars." Di Martino discovered several more Star Wars sets, which she documented in "Every World’s a Stage." In the latter, Di Martino’s lens finds a nomad in the rubble of Mos Espa, a circle of mud-hewn habitations--really, cement-covered MDF--whose walls are festooned with coiled aluminum probosces signifying high-tech gadgetry. Passing through these non-ruins, di Martino says, was surprisingly moving.

"These places have existed only in our imaginations for so long for a lot of us, yet here they were,only now biologically decayed."

COMMENTARY:   I wished Di Martino had posted the Google Earth coordinates so I could locate the Tatooine movie set site.  I think it's incredible that it is still is fairly good condition in spite of the sand storms of the Sahara Desert.

Courtesy of an article dated May 8, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design 

 

RUMOR: FACEBOOK IN DISCUSSIONS TO ACQUIRE WAZE, A MAPPING AND TRAFFIC REPORTS APP, FOR UP TO $1 BIL TO COURT MOBILE USERS

Facebook has approached Waze, the social mapping and traffic app maker, and is now in advanced due dilligence on a deal that Calcalist puts at between $800 million and $1 billion. 

Facebook appears to be close to making another billion-dollar acquisition to once again ramp up its mobile efforts: according to three reports in the Israeli press at Calcalist and sister publication Ynet and The Marker (all in Hebrew), Facebook has approached Waze, the social mapping and traffic app maker, and is now in advanced due dilligence on a deal that Calcalist puts at between $800 million and $1 billion. The negotiations between the social network and crowdsourced mapping app apparently began six months ago.

Click Image To Visit Waze Homepage

We have been digging too and have picked up confirmation from a source that both sides have privately confirmed that the deal is happening, and that the pricing reported first by the Calcalist is accurate. The main issue right now, the source said, is whether to keep Waze in Israel or take it to the U.S., as Facebook did with two previous Israel acqusitions. Those were of feature phone interface developer Snaptu (bought for up to $70 million in March 2011) and facial recognition specialist Face.com (bought in June 2012 for $50-60 million).

Waze map and real-time traffic conditions in the immediate vicinity (Click Image To Enlarge)

But! Facebook and Waze have already come back to us with flat non-responses. “We do not comment on rumors or speculation about the business,” a spokesperson at Waze told TechCrunch. The company tells me that it currently has over 47 million active users — more than double what it had in July last year when it reported 20 million.

“We won’t comment on speculation,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

However, if the rumors are true, adding Waze to Facebook makes a lot of sense in some respects: Facebook has been putting a lot of effort into its mobile business, which now has 751 million monthly active users as of March 31, 2013, an increase of 54% year-over-year. That puts mobile on a faster track at the moment than Facebook’s desktop business, which currently has 1.11 billion MAUs, an increase of 23% year-over-year.

Waze Community page provides news feed from Facebook and Twitter plus place for reporting mapping technical issues and traffic reports from users (Click Image To Enlarge)

The most recent of its movements on mobile services is Facebook Home, an Android-based launcher that lets a user embed a connection into their Facebook social graph across their entire mobile experience with services like the ever-present Chat Heads. On another track, Facebook has for years now been building up a business around location-based check-ins, which also include local deals. A service like Waze, with social networking and crowdsourcing of information part of its DNA, fits perfectly into that landscape.

This would not be Facebook’s first 10-figure acquisition in the mobile space. Just over one year ago, leading up to its IPO, Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion, a deal that had a large portion in stock and ended up being worth more like $747 million when it finally got approved. That, too, gave Facebook a big leap into mobile services: while Instagram these days also has a handy way of viewing profiles on the desktop web, at its heart it is a wildly popular mobile app that for many works as a social network in its own right.

Nor would this be the first time that Waze has been in the crosshairs of acquisition rumors. One deal that was hotly reported by many, including us, involved Apple buying the mapping company. Of course that ended up not happening, although the two clearly were talking a lot because Waze ended up being a significant part of Apple Maps. The startup has raised $67 million in VC funding from backers including Kleiner Perkins, BlueRun Ventures, Magma Venture Partners, Vertex Venture Capital, and Li Ka-shing.

Facebook earlier this year reported that it passed 1 billion users, and it’s likely that the next billion will not be in the U.S. Waze has around one-third of its users in the U.S. with the rest worldwide. Facebook’s past acquisition of another Israeli startup, Snaptu, which develops services for feature phones, was another deal that helped the social network tackle the burgeoning population of mobile users in developing markets; Waze, however, would help the company take aim specifically at smartphone users.

While Waze’s R&D is in Israel, its U.S. offices, and its CEO Noam Bardin, are based in (Facebook’s old haunt) Palo Alto, where the firm recently redecorated its front window.

COMMENTARY:   It looks like Facebook is serious about mobile by improving the mobile experience for its mobile users, as they make the shift from the desktop to mobile devices.  This acquisition, if true, raises the bar another notch in the social media wars, and presents another platform for placing Facebook mobile ads. 

Courtesy of an article dated May 9, 2013 appearing in TechCrunch

WHY IS FACEBOOK BLUE? THE SCIENCE BEHIND COLORS IN MARKETING, AND THE COLOR EMOTION GUIDE

TURNS OUT, SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS TWEAKING THE COLOR OF A BUTTON CHANGES USER BEHAVIOR OR ENDEARS PEOPLE TO YOUR PRODUCT. BUFFER'S LEO WIDRICH EXPLAINS THE IMPORTANCE OF COLOR IN WEBSITE AND BRAND DESIGN.

Why is Facebook blue? According to The New Yorker, the reason is simple. It’s because Mark Zuckerberg is red-green color blind; blue is the color Mark can see the best.

Not highly scientific, right? That may not be the case for Facebook, but there are some amazing examples of how colors actually affect our purchasing decisions. After all, sight is the strongest developed sense in most human beings. It’s only natural that 90% of an assessment for trying out a product is made by color alone.

So how do colors really affect us, and what is the science of colors in marketing, really? As we strive to make improvements to our product at Buffer, studying this phenomenon is key. Let’s dig into some of the latest, most interesting research on it.

First: Can you recognize the online brands just based on color?

Before we dive into the research, here are some awesome experiments that show you how powerful color alone really is. Based on just the colors of the buttons, can you guess which company belongs to each of them?

Example 1 (easy):

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Example 2 (easy):

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Example 3 (medium):

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Example 4 (hard):

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These awesome examples from YouTube designer Marc Hemeon, I think, show the real power of color more than any study could.

How many were you able to guess? (All the answers are at the bottom of this post!)

Which colors trigger which feeling for us?

Being completely conscious about what color triggers us to think in which way isn’t always obvious. The Logo Company has come up with an amazing breakdown that shows which colors are best for which companies and why. Here are 4 great examples:

Black:

Click Image To Enlarge

Green:

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Blue:

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ss

Clearly, every one of these companies is seeking to trigger a very specific emotion:

sss

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When we feel compelled to buy something, color can play a major role. Analytics company KISSmetrics created an amazing infographic on the science of how colors affect our purchases.

Green stands out to me as the most relaxing color we can use to make buying easier. We didn’t intentionally choose this as the main color for Buffer--although it seems to have worked very well so far.

At second look, I also realized how frequently black is used for luxury products. Here is the full infographic:

Click Image To Enlarge

How to improve your marketing with better use of colors:

This all might be fairly entertaining, but what are some actual decisions we can apply today to our website or app? The answer comes yet again from some great research done by the good folks over at KISSmetrics.

If you are building an app that mainly targets women, KISSmetrics suggests that women love blue, purple, and green, and dislike orange, brown, and gray.

Click Image To Enlarge

In case your app is strictly targeting men, the rules of the game are slightly different. Men love blue, green, and black, but can do without brown, orange, and purple.

Click Image To Enlarge

In another experiment, Performable (now HubSpot) wanted to find out whether simply changing the color of a button would make a difference in conversion rates.

They started out by trying to guess the outcome of a simple choice between two colors (green and red) and trying to guess what would happen.

“Green connotes ideas like 'natural' and 'environment,' and given its wide use in traffic lights, suggests the idea of 'go' or forward movement. The color red, on the other hand, is often thought to communicate excitement, passion, blood, and warning. It is also used as the color for stopping at traffic lights. Red is also known to be eye-catching.”

So, clearly an A/B test between green and red would result in green, the more friendly color. At least that was their guess. Here is what their experiment looked like:

Click Image To Enlarge

So how did that experiment turn out? The answer was surprising: The red button outperformed the green button by 21%.

What’s most important to consider is that nothing else was changed at all: 21% more people clicked on the red button than on the green button. Everything else on the pages was the same, so it was only the button color that made this difference.

This definitely made me wonder: If we were to read all the research before this experiment and ask every researcher which version they would guess would perform better, I’m sure green would be the answer in nearly all cases. Not so much.

At my company, we’ve also conducted dozens of experiments to improve our conversion rates using changes of colors. While the results weren’t as clear, we still saw a huge change. One hypothesis is that for a social media sharing tool, there is less of a barrier to signup, which makes the differences less significant.

Despite all the studies, generalizations are extremely hard to make. Whatever change you make, treat it first as a hypothesis, and see if the actual experiment supports your ideas. Personally, I’m always very prone to go with opinion based on research I’ve come across. Yet, data always beats opinion, no matter what.

Quick last fact: Why are hyperlinks blue?

This is something that always interested me and is actually a fun story. In short, it's offers the highest contrast between the colors used on early websites.

Click Image To Enlarge

Here is the full explanation:

“Tim Berners-Lee, the main inventor of the web, is believed to be the man who first made hyperlinks blue. Mosaic, a very early web browser, displayed webpages with a (ugly) gray background and black text. The darkest color available at the time that was not the same as the black text was that blue color. Therefore, to make links stand apart from plain text, but still be readable, the color blue was selected.”

I think it's fascinating that tweaking something as small as the color can completely change an outcome. What have been your findings in terms of colors and marketing? Tell me about it in the comments.

Solution to the riddle: Example 1: Facebook, Example 2: Google, Example 3: Flickr, Example 4: LinkedIn

COMMENTARY:   According to Harris Interative, here are the brands held in highest esteem in 2012 by the 19,000 random people who participated in the poll (along with our attempts to figure out how they got there):

1. Amazon: It could be the fact that Amazon remains the first and biggest online retailer with a reputation for security and an endless inventory. It could be the brand’s truly innovative recommendation system. Or it could be Amazon’s plan to create its own “virtual” currency – because no dishonest individual would ever make his own money, right?
2. Apple: Of course the public respects a brand that has long dominated the world of innovative technology and customer service. But Apple hasn’t released any “wow” products for a while, and the company’s new semi-desperate PR approach tells us that they probably won’t rank so high next year.
3. The Walt Disney Company: We could be wrong, but we’d like to think people trust Disney because Pixar still somehow manages to make great movies. We also feel like everyone took a cue from the horrible promo campaign and skipped John Carter.
4. Google: The “Don’t be evil” company’s “premature” earnings statement was a big PR fail, but it has maintained a reputation as a great place to work. And we don’t care how many cute videos Microsoft releases–we’re still not going to use Bing.
5. Johnson & Johnson: We find this one surprising in light of all the product recall business. But the PR team did as well as it could with damage control, and any brand known as “the baby company” has already earned some trust from the public. Keep your eye on J&J next year, though.
6. Coca-Cola: While some say that the public loves Coke because it “sells happiness”, we will attribute this position to its bold decision to admit that Americans should probably consume a little less of its product unless they want to end up like this unfortunate lady.  It can’t be because our fellow Americans trust Taylor Swift more than Beyoncé–Bey would never write a breakup song that is so obviously about John Mayer.
7. Whole Foods: It’s expensive–and its CEO is very good at placing his foot in his mouth. But Whole Foods does sell top-quality products, and it’s well-known for its CSR and purpose marketing successes. The whole “in-store drinking” experiment was pretty cool too.
8. Sony: “Green” isn’t everything–quality products like the ever-popular Playstation guarantee a good reputation for Sony, which seems to have emerged from a 2011 hacking scandal with an even stronger public image. It also gets great marks for customer service.
9. Procter & Gamble: The other “baby company” has always earned high marks for leadership within its industry. We don’t quite understand why, but we’re going to say “Moms. Moms. Moms.”
10. Costco: It’s simple: people love cheap stuff. People also love underdogs, a tag that could apply to any company competing with Walmart. Costco also doesn’t have too many problems with things like fake PR stunts, terrible labor practices, large-scale employee protests or testy relationships with major media outlets.

In January 2013, Ragan’s PR Daily and 24/7 Wall Street compiled the worst of the worst based on “stock performance, employee and customer satisfaction, and management decisions.”

Here they are, along with our past and present theories on why they suck:

1. JC Penney: The brand clearly doesn’t listen to its customers (strike one). It consistently disappoints its investors (strike two). And while the Ellen Degeneres controversy was bad news, we think we can blame consistently poor management for strike three.
2. Dish Network:  Sure, they invent cool things sometimes, but customers and employees still hate them! They’re two for two!
3. T-Mobile: The AT&T merger was the only thing that could have saved this “challenger brand.”
4. Facebook: We don’t even know where to start…
5. Citigroup: We’re going to say the decision to fire 11,000 people right before Christmas had something to do with this one (but it’s probably just the investors again).
6. Research In Motion, Ltd.: Do you know anyone who still owns a Blackberry? Neither do we.
7. American Airlines: Poor public relations? Poor employee relations? Celebrity snafus? They’ve got it all, baby!
8. Nokia: A phone company that fell behind on the smartphone trend? We don’t know if the world’s best PR can save them now.
9. Sears: Well, we don’t think it’s the obnoxious Black Friday sales or the “poor” employee reviews…but it might have something to do with a gradual 60% stock drop and the graceless resignation of a CEO who couldn’t quite point the ship in the right direction.
10. Hewlett-Packard: The “end of the PC” doesn’t bode well for one of its top two producers. Also: The company is notorious for awful management, and “accounting improprieties“–and employees who mention “misplaced priorities” don’t rate the experience very highly. All good things!

Column Five and Marketo developed the following infographic which analyzes the importance of colors to your business and what it says about your business:

Click Image To Enlarge

Courtesy of an article dated May 6, 2013 appearing in Fast Company, an article dated January 15, 2013 appearing in MediaBistro.com and an article dated February 14, 2013 appearing in MediaBistro.com

LOVE SPARK, A "PRODUCTIVITY APP FOR LOVE" THAT TURNS KINKY SEX INTO A TO-DO LIST TO IMPROVE YOUR SEX LIFE

IF YOU’VE GOT GAME, DO YOU REALLY NEED GAMIFICATION?

Tell me if this sounds familiar. You’re in bed with your sweetie. Neither of you is wearing many clothes. (Hot.) Both of you pull out iPhones. (Hotter.) You slowly scroll through your to-do lists of sexual positions. (Hotter still!) Then you send an SMS across the sheets, along with the comment “I’d tap that.” (Ooh, too hot!)

Love Spark is a 'productivity app for love' (Click Image To Enlarge)

But may I be so bold to point out… (Click Image To Enlarge)

…we all look way sexier when our faces aren’t hiding behind a.. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Now, maybe your sex life is more futuristic than mine, but this is the unlikely use case scenario promised by Love Spark, the latest iOS/Android app by Perigee that’s marketed as a “productivity app for love” and is, in no uncertain terms, a to-do list for your sex life.

Sure, it’s full of explicit sexual positions (Click Image To Enlarge)

And even some interesting workflow visualizations (Click Image To Enlarge)

But at its core, Love Spark is a to-do app for your love life (Click Image To Enlarge)

A Perigee rep tells me. 

“We don’t think a to-do feature is the total opposite of human intimacy in this case.  You could for example mark [a] couple of things as to-do as you browse, then when the time is right why not revisit your to-do lists with your lover, or mail [a] couple of suggestions to them as foreplay? We’ve heard beta testers being quite happy about this feature.”

The app offers romantic tips--bundled advice that’s part of the app’s greater monetization scheme (Click Image To Enlarge)

But something about its iBooks-style interface, mixed with tricks like this to be very specific about your preferred sexual positions (Click Image To Enlarge)

…feels oddly sexually repressed, to be perfectly honest (Click Image To Enlarge)

It’s seduction by the school of Asperger’s, complete with efficient, social, and addictive interactions that have been lifted from apps you know--add a position to a to-do list, favorite it, share it and even get an achievement for trying it! Meanwhile, each UI element has been well-considered for maximum generic appeal, with a combination of pure paper and linen textures that make me think “iBooks for sex.”

Maybe you’ll disagree (Click Image To Enlarge)

The app is free to try, so there’s no risk of losing your buck (Click Image To Enlarge) 

Perigee explains.

“We avoided any explicit language or graphics and focused on making Love Spark warm, subtle, and including.  Also, the added humor in the descriptions is there to disarm any fear or anxiety, simply remind the user that there’s no right or wrong, just trying out something new.”

But Love Spark is actually lost in its complete lack of perspective. It’s not a sex app for anyone; it’s a sex app for no one--with a level of optimistic genericism that’s borderline sociopathic. And I’m not even referring to the sexual positions (or places, incidentally) as the most unsettling part: It’s the romantic “ideas” section full of tips that will really make your stomach churn, like this one:

Rock Solid 

"While walking with your partner on a weekend getaway, pick up a smooth stone and say that you will keep it as a memento of your trip.

Later, take the stone to a jeweler and engrave a special message such as 'Our love is rock solid’ and give it to your partner."

Now, this post is a little cruel to Love Spark. In the strictest sense of interface, the app is a solid piece of layout and programming, with bespoke artwork to boot. But the fact that this app was made as anything more than a Spencer Gifts-style novelty gift shows me how out of touch mobile developers are becoming with core human interaction. By all means, have weird sex with the one you love! Just don’t make a to-do list out of it.

You know, unless to-do lists are your extremely specific fetish.

COMMENTARY:   Sooner, rather than later, someone would develop a mobile app like Love Spark.  It was inevitable.  In this age of diminished productivity caused by a constant bombardment of digital imagery and sounds, whether at work or play, there are only so many hours in the day, so I think it was logical to expect that someone, namely the folks at Perigee, would grab the bull by the horns, and try to bring organization and productivity to our sex life. To them I say a hearty "Thank You, whew."  And, not a second too soon.  LOL.  Whether Love Spark will become a huge hit, will depend largely on our individual kinkiness, quest for lust and need to increase our sex life productivity.  But, isn't doing "what comes natural," and with spontaneity preferable to a mobile app?  As a sex guide, yes, but to maximize our sex life productivity, I say NO.        

Courtesy of an article dated May 8, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design

NEW EYE-TRACKING STUDY REVEALS THAT NATIVE ADS OUTPERFORM BANNER DISPLAY ADS, NATIVE VIDEO ADS ALSO OUT PERFORM PRE-ROLL ADS

Consumers visually engage with native ads 52% more frequently than with traditional banner ads, according to a new study from Sharethrough and the IPG Media Lab.

The study, titled Benchmarking the Effectiveness of Native Ads, used surveys and eye-tracking technology to measure ad impact for major brands.

Among the key findings of the study, which reports the results of both a survey and an eye-tracking study:

• Native ads registered an 18% higher lift for purchase intent, and 9% higher lift for brand affinity, than banner ads. 
• Consumers looked at in-feed native ad placements 25% more than banner ad units.
• 32% of respondents said a native ad "is an ad I would share with a friend or family member" versus just 19% for banner ads.
• 71% of consumers viewing native ads who had previously bought a product from an advertiser said the brand was one they "personally identify with," compared with just 50% for banner ads.

Number of Views - Native vs Banner Ads - Sharethrough and IPG Media Lab - May 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Also, consumers viewed native ad units and original editorial content nearly identically. In fact, a slightly higher percentage of people tracked looked at native ads (26%) versus editorial content (24%).

Percentage Who Saw and Time Spent Viewing (In Seconds) - Content vs Banner Ads - Sharethrough and IPG Media Lab - May 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

For more, check out the following infographic: 

Exploring The Effectiveness of Native Ads - Sharethrough and IPG Media Lab - May 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

COMMENTARY:    

Native Advertising Defined

“Native” advertising can mean all things to all people. Pinning down what exactly it means in an content experience, in particular, is hard.

Digiday asked top publishers for their definition of native advertising. Most used different labels, but the agreement was that native advertising for publishers means crafting ads that fit within their experiences without feeling like intrusions. We asked publishers at the Digiday Publisher Summit to define native advertising for them.

• Ryan Manion, CTO, Politico - It’s still being defined. You want to provide the advertiser with the best experience you can and also provide the best experience for the users who want to view those advertisements.
• Will Pearson, president, Mental Floss - Native advertising is about taking what the advertiser is wanting to communicate and integrating it with what our users are expecting.
• Matt Sanchez, CEO, Say Media - Native advertising is anything that takes on the form of the medium.
• Tom Cochran, CTO, Atlantic Media - It’s similar to TV or movies. It’s a way to promote the content of our advertisers in a way that’s more ingrained way that’s built into the design of our properties.
• Carolyn Bekkedahl, svp of digital media revenue, Meredith - Advertising that stems from a brand that is more than just one piece of creative. It can be video or text that robustly describes whet a product or service an advertiser has.
• Mary Mucko, president of digital sales, Gannett - When we’re able to take advantage of the platform the advertiser’s on.

View the video below for their full responses.

 

Nielsen Study of the Resonance of Native Video Ads

While the interest and conversation around native advertising has only continued to escalate, there has been a lack of concrete data about the effectiveness of native ads. To that end, Sharethrough recently conducted a study with Nielsen to compare the brand-building effectiveness of native video ads against pre-roll video ad units. Sharethrough worked with five leading advertisers to serve the same creative message in both pre-roll and native advertising formats for each advertiser’s campaign and used Nielsen Online Brand Effect for in-depth metrics on brand lift and the campaign elements driving that lift.

So what happened?! Native advertising showed higher brand lift across all the campaigns in the study. You read that right, in 5 out of 5 campaigns native ads delivered higher brand lift than pre-roll.

In fact, in one campaign for soft drink brand Jarritos, native ads generated an 82% brand lift amongst users exposed to the ads as compared to just 2.1% for users exposed to the campaign’s pre-roll ads.

The study also found that users were actually “more likely to have negative brand opinions after being exposed to the pre-roll creative than the native ads.”

In another campaign for a consumer packaged goods product, native ads generated a 42% lift in purchase intent, while pre-roll did not generate any lift.

While we’ve always considered it to be self-evident that choice beats interruption, sometimes you just need data to help hammer home the case. This report helps illustrate the positive impact that native ads can have for brand advertisers and why they should be careful about the use of interruptive advertising mediums.

To download the full report, please visit here.

Ok enough of these long blocks of text, here’s an infographic that sums up the key findings:

What Video Advertising Methods Drive The Highest Brand Lift - Nielsen - March 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Courtesy of an article dated May 8, 2013 appearing in MarketingProfs and an article dated March 20, 2013 appearing in Digiday and an article dated March 21, 2013 appearing in Sharethrough Blog

ZYNGA LAUNCHES REAL-MONEY ONLINE GAMBLING SITES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, STOCK PRICE SURGES 14.98%

 

On Wednesday, April 3, 2013, Zynga launched its online poker and casino games in the United Kingdom, the first proof that the company’s previously announced pivot away from social gaming and toward “real-money” gaming is for real.

Zynga Poker Plus homepage (Click Image To Visit Homepage)

Zynga now offers online poker, slot machines, blackjack, and other games. The company is partnering with bwin.party, the world’s largest publicly traded online gambling company, which reported a profit of over $32 million in 2012 and is based in Gibraltar, a British exclave bordering Spain.

Zynga Casino Plus homepage (Click Image To Visit Homepage)

Barry Cottle, the company’s chief revenue officer, on a company blog on Tuesday evening wrote.

“Launching the download and web versions of Zynga’s real money games for play in the UK is an exciting move to bring players the real money games they have been asking us for.  We look forward to launching our social versions of real money games for players on Facebook and mobile in the UK throughout 2013.”

Shareholders responded very positively: Zynga’s stock is up about 15 percent on the day. This new announcement and stock surge are some much-need positive news for the beleaguered social gaming company.

Zynga Inc (NASDAQ.ZNGA) - Stock Prices May 8, 2012 through May 7, 2013 - Google Finance (Click Image To Enlarge)

Zynga's roller coaster ride

Since August 2012, we’ve been tracking Zynga’s rapid fall. The company lost top managerial talent and its stock price plummeted,it acknowledged that it overpaid for OMGPOP (paid $200 million in March 2012), and it racked up quarterly losses to the tune of $52 million. In February 2013, the San Francisco startup announced it lost more than $200 million in 2012.

Zynga Inc -  Income Statements - Years Ending 12-31-2009 through 12-31-2012 - Google Finance (Click Image To Enlarge)

Zynga Inc -  Quarterly Income Statements - Quarters Ending 3-31-2012 through 3-31-2013 - Google Finance (Click Image To Enlarge)

Analysts told Ars that the new British scheme would likely not impact Zynga’s bottom line in the immediate future, but it could set the stage for eventual expansion to the United States. Various states are moving ever-closer to legalizing and launching online gambling within state borders—New Jersey and Nevada are expected to be the first, with California, Illinois, and Delaware not far behind.

Sean McGowan, an analyst with Needham & Co., told Ars.

“It is a test, they know going in that there are a lot of reasons for it to work and a lot of reasons for it not to work.” 

“How many [Facebook users] will convert [to gambling online]? How sticky is it? How much testing is there? Those are the things you might be able to extrapolate to other markets.”

After all, as we reported in February, Zynga filed a “preliminary finding of suitability” late last year with the Nevada Gaming Control Board, the first step toward offering real-money gambling in the US.

The company's Chief Operating Officer, David Ko, told investors in February 2013.

"These are all steps that are moving us toward our long-term vision in real money games." 

Still could be a couple of years before this bet pays out

Given the company’s recent setbacks, Zynga really needs a win—and if that comes via real people gambling real money, then all the better.

Brian Blau, an industry analyst with Gartner Research, told Ars.

“There is still a stigma attached to gambling where some users are more prone to spend more real (or virtual) money so some caution is needed from Zynga and users to make sure users don't get into situations beyond their control.” 

“But for users that just want to enjoy a few simple games of slots or poker, real money gaming is a way to get your fix, and with Zynga's games you can share your results, play with friends, and have a more social experience similar to what you would find a real world casino.”

James Cakmak, a financial analyst at the Telsey Advisory Group, generally agreed—and he was overall bullish on Zynga’s prospects over the longer-term.  He told Ars.

“I think you're probably looking at 2014 or 2015 before [this move is] reflected in [Zynga's] bottom line.”

“I think it's a really good story right now, but I don't expect the bwin.party partnership to provide any meaningful contribution to the company's finances over near-term. The most important takeaway is going to be the knowledge that Zynga can leverage [online gambling] for the US.”

COMMENTARY:    

Zynga Q1 2013 Earnings Report

On April 24, 2013, Zynga reported it made $263.5 million in revenue, with $229.8 million in bookings for Q1 2013.  In terms of revenue, that’s flat year-over-year while bookings were roughly by 30 percent year-over-year.

Zynga Revenues by Game Title - Q1 2011 through Q1 2013 - Zynga (Click Image To Enlarge)

Zynga’s earnings report shows it had a net income gain of $4.1 million; up from Q1 2012′s loss of $85.4 million, and adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $29 million. The diluted net income per share was $0.00, up year-over-year from a net income loss of $(0.12).

Daily active users (DAU) decreased from 65 million in the first quarter of 2012 to 52 million in the first quarter of 2013, down 21 percent year-over-year. DAU were down 8 percent from 56 million in the fourth quarter of 2012. Monthly active users (MAU) decreased from 292 million in the first quarter of 2012 to 253 million in the first quarter of 2013, down 13 percent year-over-year. MAU were down 15 percent from 298 million in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Zynga Audience Metrics -Daily Active Users, Monthly Active Users, Monthly Unique Users - In Millions of Users - Q1 2011 through Q1 2013 - Zynga (Click Image To Enlarge)

Zynga’s revenue for Q1 2013 fall comfortably within its outlook at the end of Q4 2012, and it’s net income of $4.1 million beat it’s prediction of a net loss of between ($32) million and ($12) million. As a result, Zynga says revenue is projected to be in the range of $225 million to $235 million for Q2 2013. Net loss is projected to be in the range of ($36.5) million to ($26.5) million. EPS is projected to be in the range of ($0.05) to ($0.03), based on a share count of approximately 785 million to 795 million shares. Bookings are projected to be in the range of $180 million to $190 million.

Zynga Bookings by Quarter - Q1 2011 through Q1 2013 - Zynga (Click Image To Enlarge)

CFO and CAO Mark Varnesh said that Zynga’s top earners were Zynga Poker and FarmVille which brough in 22 percent and 16 percent of online revenue. No other Zynga game brought in more than 10 percent.

Zynga has canceled underperforming existing games and shut down studios with games in development in the past year to cut down on operating costs. COO David Ko said Zynga will continue with this strategy, and that it will soon retire The Ville, Empires & Allies, Dream Zoo, and Zynga City on Tencent.

Mark Pincus, CEO and Founder, Zynga said.

“We are encouraged by the strong execution from our teams and the breakout hit performance of FarmVille 2, which captures the imagination of nearly 40 million players every month.  2013 will continue to be a transition year as we face the challenging environment on the web and invest in developing the leading franchises and network across web and mobile platforms and offer our 253 million monthly players a connected experience that can follow them from work to school to home and anywhere in between.”

On the earnings call today, Pincus said that Zynga will “measure [its] success next quarter by its ability to bring existing users and games to mobile.”

As has been the case in past quarters, Zynga still has a lot of cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities on hand. Currently, the company has $1.67 billion in these, up  from the $1.65 billion it had in Q4 2012. After it paid its long-term debt in April 2013, Zynga also doesn’t have any short term or long term debt. Cash flow from operations in Q1 2013 was $26.4 million compared to$78.8 million for the first quarter of 2012. Free cash flow was $23.2 million for the first quarter of 2013 compared to $43.8 million for the first quarter of 2012.

Zynga Has 'Farmville' And Little Else

Zynga Inc has one asset in the form of Farmville, but apart from that, the company is struggling for a consistent revenue stream. 

Although Zynga Inc (NASDAQ:ZNGA) beat market expectations in its Q1 2013 earnings report, investors are still worried about the company’s future. The social gaming firm's principal revenue generator is "Farmville 2," according to a report from Reuters, but there is little else on the horizon in the form of social games for the company to rely on, and that puts its future in the balance.

Farmville was one of the most successful games that Zynga has ever created, and its sequel Farmville 2, is still one of the most important assets for the company. The problem is that outside of the brand, there is little else for Zynga Inc to rely on, and that is one of the firm’s biggest problems going forward.

Zynga also announced on April 24, 2013 during its earnings call it would be shutting down four underperforming game titles —The Ville, Dream Zoo, Empires & Allies, and Dream Zoo, a game on China's popular Tencent web portal. The company also canceled two other unreleased game titles it said weren't good for its longterm strategy. 

Q1 2013 earnings did manage to beat Wall Street analysts' low, low expectations, but that's not saying much, especially since the fourth quarter of 2012 saw alarmingly bad earnings, too.

But perhaps most worrisome of all for Zynga, and its investors and supporters, are the latest metrics on users (see above graph). Daily active users have continued their slide to 52 million, the lowest amount in the past nine quarters.

It now appears that Zynga's CEO Mark Pincus is betting the farm on real-time online money gambling, hence the launch of Zynga Poker Plus and Zynga Casino Plus in the United Kingdom.

Executives Leaving In Mass

Since August 2012, over a dozen key executives and key middle managers have left Zynga for greener pastures at other digital destinations like Twitter, Facebook, and Yahoo, to name a few. Here is a list of those executives and middle managers and the date they left:

• Bill Mooney, GM Farmville - August 2012
• Brian Birtwistle, V.P. Marketing - August 2012
• Mike Verdue, Chief Creative Officer - August 2012
• John Schappert, Chief Operating Officer - August 2012
• Allan Patmore, Studio General Manager - August 2012
• Nils Puhlmann, Chief Security Officer - September 2012
• Jeff Karp, Chief Revenue Officer - September 2012
• Wilson Riegel, Chief Revenue Officer - September 2012
• Allan Leinwald, CTO of Infrastructure - September 2012
• Lawrence "Lo" Toney, Zynga Poker, GM - October 2012
• Jonathan Flesher, V.P. of Business Development - November 2012
• David Wehmer, CFO - November 2012
• Roy Schgal, V.P. - November 2012
• Steve Shreck, General Manager - November 2012
• Mike Gupta, Treasurer - Noember 2012
• Dan Porter, GM N.Y. Office (former CEO OMGPop) - April 2013

If you are counting, that's 16 key executives or middle managers leaving Zynga over the last nine months.  Although most of these individuals have been replaced, it makes you wonder if Zynga has the management depth and experience to manage the company through this crisis period.  

Conclusion

If you have been following my blog posts, you know by now that Zynga has never been one of my favorite companies.  I enjoy making fun of and criticizing Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, and I make no bones about it.  Unfortunately, unlike Groupon founder Andrew Mason, who was fired in March 2013, Pincus has insured he can never be fired because he holds a controlling interest of all voting shares.  

In spite of a very successful IPO in 2011, Zynga's stock has lost -78.69% of its market cap valuation since Zynga's stock hit a high of 14.69 on March 2, 2012.  Zynga's stock has lost -67.05% of is market cap valuation since Zynga's IPO on December 2011 when the stock ended first day trading at $9.50 per share.    

Zynga is going to have a much tougher competitive environment in the U.S. real-time money-making gambling space.  Although the Feds have hinted that they will legalize online gambling, no bills legalizing online gambling have been passed.  Gambling laws also differ from state-to-state.  It will be severa years before online games is legalized throughout the 50 U.S. states.  

Most of Zynga's users live in the U.S., and getting them to play money-making gambling games is a whole lot different that buying virtual goods.  We are talking serious cash, and only about 3% of Zynga users actually pay for Zynga games.  Zynga may learn how many U.S. users will pay to gamble online once the data from the U.K. is in.  That will take at least a year, before you can draw any conclusions.   

Courtesy of an article dated April 3, 2013 appearing in ArsTechnica.com and an article dated April 3, 2013 appearing in TechCrunch and an article dated September 21, 2012 appearing in Inside Social Games and an article dated April 24, 2013 appearing in The Verge