'Net Features : ipad

Brands on Knotice for Complete Customer Profiles

Amberly Dressler — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:15:00 GMT

Creating coordinated brand experiences that extend across digital channels and device types can help companies better engage customers through consistency, helpfulness and value, according to Patti Renner, director of marketing at Knotice whose company recently announced an expanded relationship with Fender Musical Instruments.

Fender is using the Knotice platform to unite its campaign data and customer information. This relationship will allow Fender to inform highly tailored content across email, mobile, display, SMS and on their website. They will also be able to have a complete view of the customer across device types. Below, Renner offers an in-depth explanation of why this is important for all brands and the challenges that businesses face when creating complete customer profiles on their own.

How can unifying data and getting a complete customer profile help in a brand’s marketing efforts?

Patti Renner: Today’s customers are always connected, always looking for information and messages on whatever screen is handy at the moment. They could be browsing your site on an iPad, looking up information about your product on their mobile device or making a purchase on their PC. It doesn’t matter where they are or what device they’re using – they simply expect a consistent, relevant, enjoyable experience across channels. Connecting the channels across device types requires data management where the customer preferences and activity is stored within individual data profiles that can be automatically updated and appended as things happen.

Unfortunately, some marketers don’t think in terms of providing a cohesive consumer experience regardless of devices they use. They view each consumer by channel, focusing on their email audience as separate from their website visitors, separate from their online display views.

Having all their data unified within a universal profile management system, brands have the ability to connect the digital dots with each consumer, allowing them to provide a truly useful, relevant experience to each person as individuals. Here’s how a profile-based data management works. Let’s use Joe as an example. With proper data management, the brand knows Joe has opened their last 3 emails on a tablet, searched for the address of their nearest retail location on his iPhone, saw 4 ads for a blue sweater, then clicked on the sweater section of their website from his PC. Now, that brand can send Joe tablet-optimized emails, let him know when his favorite sweaters go on sale, and serve him with the content that interests him. The ability to cater to the interests of the custom based on available first-party data makes the brand experience better for Joe since he gets what he wants faster, and it also provides increase efficiency and a higher likelihood of conversion for the brand. Unifying your data makes this possible. Instead of pushing random offers to Joe, they’re now able to serve him with the information and products that best suit his needs.

What challenges are there for a company to try and do this on its own?

In most organizations, customer data lives siloed in separate systems or it’s difficult to access due to internal departmental hurdles. Trying to integrate customer data into a single system with just your IT team can be a real challenge as important data can fall through the cracks (or not integrate properly) when attempting to combine into a single system. If a company is able to get all its data into one place, it then faces the challenge of being able to create those unique customer profiles to wrap all that data around, with automation in place so the data profiles update and append as new information is received. On top of this is usability and actionability of the data so you can use it to inform content going out (so Joe sees sweaters and Mary sees the item she left in the shopping cart last week). You also want to be able to inform advanced analytics, so you send and spend smarter. There also is the issue of having a storage environment large enough for you to collect and quickly access all the information you’re taking it.

Working with a data management partner takes the stress of the organization by seamlessly uniting all that data, storing it safely in a powerful Big Data profile-based environment, which can then be easily used to inform messaging, content and analytics. For instance, our system has email, website, SMS and display options already built into the platform seamlessly. Everything can be simultaneously fueled by the same data environment, which makes response and relevance faster and simpler compared to pieced-together DIY integrations. We also offer analytics dashboards so you can better monitor what’s going on and make adjustments to help shorten the sales cycle. While you might be able to integrate a few points on your own, your time and money may be better spent working with a professional data management platform provider to get there faster.

For more information, visit www.knotice.com.

CVS iPad App Gives Shoppers a Virtual Storefront Experience

Michael Garrity — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 18:45:00 GMT

Earlier this week, CVS launched an innovative new iPad application for online shoppers that provides them with a detailed, virtual 3D e-commerce experience in the palms of their hands.

With the app, customers can explore a digital version of a CVS/pharmacy store to shop for products or access services from the Pharmacy, ExtraCare, Photo Center or MinuteClinic departments. This interactive pathway provides customers with a personalized shopping experience and brings the virtual drugstore to life, so that they can access it on-the-go, or from the comfort of their own homes.

Some of the features in the app include: enhanced prescription management, access to weekly ads, an online and mobile Photo Center and a catalog-style shopping experience.

“The new CVS iPad app provides the millions of customers who visit CVS.com on a tablet device each month with a virtual feeling of visiting their neighborhood CVS/pharmacy from their homes or on-the-go,” said the company’s Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer, Brian Tilzer.

The development of this new e-commerce application marks one of the first times that a major retail brand has released a virtual 3D store for a mobile device. But as mobile shopping, particularly on tablets, continues to rapidly gain popularity among consumers, it seems safe to expect to see these kinds of digital storefronts proliferate, especially from major large-scale retailers that have the technology and development teams to create them.

What do you think about virtual storefronts? Would you like to see them become more commonplace in mobile e-commerce? Let us know in the replies!

iPad Traffic Falls After Holidays

Allison Howen — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 16:35:00 GMT

There has been a bit of a shake-up in the tablet world, thanks to the Kindle Fire’s popularity over the holiday season.

In fact, insights from online advertising network Chitika reveal that the iPad’s tablet Web shares fell by 7.1 percent following the Christmas holiday, while the Kindle Fire’s Web tablet Web shares rose by 3.03 percent. That being said, the iPad still maintains the overall largest share of tablet traffic at 78.86 percent. It is also important to note that Chitika expects the iPad’s share of tablet traffic to return to the 80 percent range as consumers return back to work and decrease their browsing habits on their new devices.

Chitika’s insights analyzed hundreds of millions of smartphone and tablet impressions from the Chitika ad network in the U.S. and Canada from December 1st through December 27th. The results also found that the iPhone 5 gained 1.1 percent of the smartphone usage share after the holidays, while the Galaxy S III gained 1 percent. Moreover, just as Apple’s iPad rules the tablet market, the iPhone also currently maintains the largest share of smartphone traffic at 8.27 percent.

Get Analytics on the Go with Webtrends

Allison Howen — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Need analytics on the go?

If the answer is yes, you might want to check out the new iPad app from Webtrends – which offers marketers insights into trending data from websites, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The free iPad app provides current Webtrends customers with an innovative extension of the company's digital intelligence solutions. However, the iPad app can also be leveraged by all digital marketers, regardless of whether they are current Webtrends clients or not.

In fact, after downloading the app, all users can input their Facebook, Twitter and YouTube account credentials. The app provides users with an iPad-optimized view of relevant data from these properties, which is formatted for easy sharing within organizations.

"We developed the new Webtrends Today iPad app with the needs of our customers and modern digital marketers in mind," says Benjamin Diggles, director of digital marketing with Webtrends. "Our customers told us that they were looking for a better, more convenient tool for accessing key digital intelligence data and sharing it. Our iPad app is specifically designed and optimized to make important digital data beautiful, mobile, meaningful and, most of all, shareable, so that the insights it inspires can reach throughout organizations and make them more successful."

The Webtrends app allows digital marketers to measure the engagement of their Facebook communities and Pages with access to data such as the number of likes and conversations, as well as clear graphic visualizations of social impact across demographics and trending comments. Additionally, relevant Twitter influence data is also represented, including current Klout score, number of followers, retweets and total number of tweets sent.

Webtrends also integrates relevant YouTube data into the company's iPad app, including total number of views on each YouTube video that is tracked, as well as total channel views. Users also have the ability to sort YouTube videos by most recent or most viewed, and play any of their tracked videos within the app if desired.

It is also important to note that the iPad app for current Webtrends customers also accesses and integrates data from the Analytics 10 platform, which enables them to compare performance metrics and analytics across digital channels – including websites, mobile and social properties.

Mobile Traffic Declines in July (And More Statistics)

Michael Garrity — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 14:30:00 GMT

Affiliate Window, one of the United Kingdom’s leading performance marketing networks, has unleashed upon the world its July report concerning mobile and m-commerce statistics.

Most curiously, the company found that the share of Web traffic through mobile devices actually dropped from over 12 percent in June to making up around just nine percent of total traffic in July. This isn’t terribly peculiar, as May saw a slight decrease, as well, following month-by-month increases for the first four months of the year.

On the upside, however, the volume of mobile clicks actually increased. And not only that, but the share of sales through mobile devices also rose, finally crossing the nine percent threshold at 9.42 percent. Ultimately, this figure, coupled with the drop in traffic, seems to show a closer alignment between mobile conversion rates and those of their desktop counterparts, as mobile conversion rates improved throughout July, increasing to 3.14 percent.

The report also breaks down mobile and m-commerce statistics by mobile device. It shouldn’t really be a surprise that Apple is (still) leading the pack, with the iPhone driving 38 percent of all mobile traffic by the end of the month. However, it’s not all sunshine for the brand, as iPad traffic actually ended up dropping below 40 percent. On the other hand, iPad sales reached a high of 63 percent of all mobile sales by the end of the month, and the iPhone ended up accounting for 24.87 percent.

Android devices saw traffic increases in July, with the number resting between 18 and 19 percent, up from June’s 17.5 percent. BlackBerry and “Other” devices both decreased, driving 1.5 and two percent of July’s mobile traffic, respectively. In terms of sales, Android saw another increase, ranging between 11.5 and 13 percent throughout the four weeks of July, while BlackBerry and “Other” devices both stayed below two percent.

From a year-to-date perspective, iPads have driven 57 percent of all mobile sales, with iPhones coming in second at 27 percent, and followed by Android (11 percent), BlackBerry (3 percent) and other devices (2 percent). Adding to this, Affiliate Window found that the iPhone, Android and “Other” devices allow showed an improvement in conversion rates in July; in fact, they were all almost identical at around 2.1 percent.

I think it’s fair to say that if you take anything away from this report, it’s not to put too much stock in the future of BlackBerry.

Create an iPad App with DIY Magazine Publishing Platform

Allison Howen — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 06:00:00 GMT

By now we all know how important it is to have a mobile presence, yet this task is still easier said than done.

However, that does not have to be the case – especially for content publishers who leverage the DIY app-publishing platform MAZ.

MAZ is a New-York based startup that enables content publishers to roll out iPad apps in as little as 15 minutes. The company’s core platform, MagAppZine, is targeted toward magazine publishers, but the company also has two new platforms that are currently in beta – BookApps and CatalogApps.

Publishers can upload PDF files into MAZ to create content for their app. MAZ apps include in-app web browsing, Twitter access and built-in social sharing buttons, as well as come with a built-in web browser and media player so that publishers can add an unlimited number of links and multimedia items into their apps. Users also have the ability to preview apps on their iPad before they are published.

All MAZ apps take advantage of iOS 5 features, including the ability for users to add in-app purchasing, in-app subscriptions, Newsstand integration, push notifications, background downloading and automatic issue metadata updates to their apps. Once an application is created, users simply hit submit and MAZ takes care of the rest, including dealing with platform providers like Apple, to get the app launched. Furthermore, MAZ users have the ability to add advertisements within their apps, and are also fully equipped with analytics and reporting so that they can monitor their app's metrics.

Publishers can try the platform for free, however plans to create one app normally cost $299 a month. This package offers users the ability to upload an unlimited amount of issues, make an unlimited amount of changes to their app, add as many links and multimedia items as desired, and offers unlimited access to MAZStatz.

Social and Mobile Encourage Optimism in Small Businesses

Michael Garrity — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 22:30:00 GMT

Recently, j2 Global, a provider of cloud-based communications and storage messaging services for businesses, released the results of the j2 Global Small Business Survey, and the results are overwhelmingly optimistic.

According to the report, 76 percent of the small business owners surveyed said they’re optimistic about the growth of their companies through the rest of 2012. Just seven percent said they weren’t optimistic at all. More importantly, however, were insights that the survey provided that detail how these business owners are utilizing mobile and social technology.

Although email and search are still the two primary promotional tools for most online businesses, 39 percent of the respondents said that a quarter of their marketing strategy is now based around social media, and 26 percent said that social was the focus of half (or more) of their marketing efforts.

Facebook was widely considered the most important social platform for business owners at 37 percent (LinkedIn was second, and Google+ came in third); however, the usefulness of each social network varies greatly by industry. Facebook was most popular with restaurants, but LinkedIn was the go-to destination for consultants, and medical professionals love Google+. Most e-commerce businesses utilize Twitter, and tech firms prefer YouTube. Surprisingly, just one percent of the owners said that Pinterest was the most important social network, making it the least valuable of the bunch.

As for mobile, small business owners seem to be embracing the technology in order to keep up with their larger competitors. 38 percent of the respondents said that they currently use at least five mobile apps to run their business, which correlates with a Business Journals study that recognizes iPads as the fastest growing new technology for small and medium-sized businesses.

Popular uses of the Apple tablet include email (the highest reported at 76 percent), Web browsing, document management, product demonstrations and sales, communication (phone and video) and online faxing. Use of these devices is primarily driven by restaurants and other food service industry companies.

Create an iOS-Ready Site with This New Tool

Michael Garrity — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 03:00:00 GMT

International domain name registrar and cloud hosting provider Gandi wants to help you be iOS-ready with its latest product, Gandi Basekit.

This new website creation tool was built for compatibility with Apple iOS devices, meaning iPhones and iPads. Customers create sites that will be easily, automatically viewable on these mobile devices; and, of course, they will be hosted by Gandi.

Oh, and it’s totally free.

Websites can be created using HTML5 and CSS style sheets, an important component in developing for iOS, which doesn’t support Flash. This does away with the need to set up Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) systems for similar functionality.

The tool comes with a variety of features and benefits for users. For instance, it was designed for ease-of-use, and offers preconfigured and customizable theme templates, so users can start building their websites in no time. That being said, it also comes with a powerful infrastructure for more advanced developers, providing tools that allow experts to directly edit their sites’ HTML and CSS codes using preset or user-supplied graphics and images.

And, one cannot forget the integrated social media tools (including link installation for the most widely used social media sites), e-commerce integration with a Google Checkout widget for payment functionality and intuitive content management that allows users to edit block text, add more blocks, reposition images and add a submit button or navigation menu using a simple drag-and-drop interface.

Basekit is the latest in Gandi’s portfolio of free tools. It is currently available for all of Gandi’s customers.

Most Tablet Users Also Video Consumers

Linc Wonham — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 17:30:00 GMT

A new report from comScore has found that tablets have quickly reached a “critical mass” in the U.S., with 1 in every 4 smartphone owners using tablets during the three-month average period ending April 2012.

The study also found that tablet users were nearly three times more likely to watch video on their devices compared to smartphone users, with 1 in every 10 tablet users viewing video content almost daily.

“Tablets are one of the most rapidly adopted consumer technologies in history and are poised to fundamentally disrupt the way people engage with the digital world both on-the-go and, perhaps most notably, in the home,” says Mark Donovan, comScore SVP of Mobile. “It’s not surprising to see that once consumers get their hands on their first tablet, they are using them for any number of media habits including TV viewing.”

Adoption Jumps Nearly 12 Percent
In just two years since the launch of the iPad, the first tablet to reach a meaningful market penetration, tablet adoption has exploded, fueled by the introduction of new devices that appeal to various price and feature preferences. In April 2012, 16.5 percent of mobile phone subscribers used a tablet, representing an increase of 11.8 percentage points in the past year.

Growth in market penetration was even more apparent among the smartphone population with nearly 1 in 4 using a tablet device in April, an increase of 13.9 percentage points in the past year. A lower 10.4 percent of feature phone owners use a tablet, suggesting that smartphone ownership is highly predictive of tablet adoption in the current market.

Older Users on the Whole
A demographic analysis of mobile device audiences indicated that tablet and smartphone audiences closely resemble one another in terms of gender composition, with tablet users just slightly more likely to be female than smartphone users. However, the age composition of audiences showed that tablet users skewed noticeably older than smartphone users.

For both devices, the heaviest overall audience concentration was between the ages of 25-44. Compared to smartphone owners, tablet users were 28 percent more likely to be in the 65 and older age segment, and 27 percent less likely to be age 18-24.

Tablet users also skewed towards upper-income households, likely a function of the high price point of these devices still considered a luxury good to many consumers. Nearly 3 in 5 tablet users resided in households with income of $75,000 or greater, compared to 1 in every 2 smartphone users.

Video Content Consumers
A closer look at content consumption on tablets found that more than half of tablet users watched video and/or TV content on their device in April 2012, compared to just 20 percent of the smartphone audience, with larger screen sizes making tablets more conducive to video consumption than their smaller-screen cousins. Not only were tablet users more likely to watch video, but they were more likely to view video habitually, with 18.9 percent of tablet users watching video content at least once a week, and 9.5 percent watching video nearly every day on their devices.

Of those viewing video at least once during the month, 1 in 4 (26.7 percent) paid to watch content, highlighting the tremendous monetization potential this platform represents for content providers.

Two Tech Giants Reach for the Cloud

Michael Garrity — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 23:00:00 GMT

The race to the cloud is heating up, and the last week has seen some pretty big cloud-related news from two of the largest technology companies in the world.

Microsoft SkyDrive
Like other major names in the tech industry, Microsoft has moved to the cloud with SkyDrive, an online storage service that is the meat of its cloud computing services (think: Amazon Web Services). Just yesterday, Microsoft rolled out some impressive new apps for SkyDrive that may prove to be a breakthrough moment for the company, at least in the cloud.

Perhaps the biggest revelation was desktop integration with Windows and Mac (although only the OS X Lion version).

In a move that is highly reminiscent of Dropbox, users will be able to access and save files in SkyDrive as if it were just any other folder on their computers, and everything they put in there will be automatically backed up in the cloud, safe and sound, as well as synced to other computers with access to the account.

A new preview application will allow Windows users to access, browse and stream files using a remote PC.

Microsoft also updated its mobile apps for iOS and Windows Phones, as well as launching a SkyDrive iPad application.

One major downside to this update is that the company is drastically reducing the amount of free storage it offers, from 25 GB to a paltry 7 GB. But maybe it’s not that bad, as Microsoft claims that less than 0.1 percent of current SkyDrive users actually use more than 7 GB. Plus, current customers who are using over 4 GB of storage will be upgraded to 25 GB for free, and new users will obviously be able to buy more storage, with a starting package that runs just $10 a year for 20 GB.

Google Drive
Google has also announced Google Drive, the company's first major attempt to bring its brand into the cloud.

After a long period of speculation, Google finally came clean with its announcement of Drive, which will work pretty much like SkyDrive, AWS and most other cloud services.

Users will be able to create, share, collaborate on and, of course, store all kinds of content in Drive, including photos, videos, documents, PDFs and more. This content will be available from basically anywhere, as Drive can be installed on both Macs and PCs, along with an app for Android mobile devices; the iOS version is in development.

Google has built Google Docs right into Drive to make it easy for users to create and work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. All shared content will allow users to add and reply to comments on anything (including image or video files), and Drive will notify them when other users comment on shared items.

And, no surprise, Google built in some handy search features, allowing users to search for keywords and filter results by file type, owner and other considerations. The service will even be able to recognize text in scanned documents with Opitical Character Recognition technology.

Drive is another component of Google's attempts to create a seamless experience for users across all facets of the Web, and it integrates nicely into other Google properties like Google+ and Gmail. It will also work with third-party applications for faxing documents, editing videos and more. These apps can be installed in the Chrome Web Store, with more additions on the way.

To start, users will get 5 GB of free storage. From there, they can upgrade to 25 GB for $2.49 a month, 100 GB for $4.99 a month or 1 TB for $49.99 a month. Paid accounts will also automatically expand a user's Gmail storage to 25 GB.

The King of Mobile Shopping Devices

Allison Howen — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:00:00 GMT

A new report from RichRelevance reveals insights about mobile shoppers – including iPad users, who are driving most of the shopping, browsing and purchasing behaviors within the mobile channel.

"Twenty years later, Apple's ground-breaking 'Think Different' ad campaign can be recast as 'Shop Different' for the iPad," said RichRelevance CEO David Selinger. "To succeed in this quickly evolving landscape, retailers need to understand how shopping behavior changes as consumers hop between devices, and be prepared to tailor the shopping experience in every channel, ensuring continuity and seamlessness regardless of choice of access.”

According to the study, iPad users spend significantly more time and money on retailer sites than other mobile users, accounting for 68 percent of shoppers. Additionally, iPad also has the greatest conversion rates (1.5 percent), and accounts for 90 percent of all mobile revenue.

Another noteworthy statistic shows that iPad users purchase more expensive items than mobile phone users and spend more on orders. According to the study, the iPad has the highest average order value (AOV) at $158, ahead of other mobile devices ($105) and even more than desktop users ($153). However, even though the purchases are more expensive, iPad shoppers purchase fewer items per order than other shoppers.

One way retailers can create a better brand experience on the iPad is by collaborating with catalog apps such as Catalogue from The Find and Google Catalogs, which feature products and catalogs from retailers, and provide an interactive shopping experience for consumers.

Think Inside the Box with Enterprise App System

Michael Garrity — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:00:00 GMT

It’s time for enterprise-level companies to starting thinking inside the Box. Specifically, the cloud services company of the same name, which has just released numerous enterprise-class applications that will use a Box.net cloud-based workspace and create a “virtual desktop” around it. This new app system is called Box OneCloud.

The idea is an attempt to position Box to be a major force in the post-PC world by establishing a cross-platform cloud system that lets users create and edit all of their files from within the cloud. OneCloud will be the first mobile framework built for enterprises that brings together mobile content and the applications designed to work with it.

The new solution comes in the form of four premiere apps for the iPad that are meant to represent best-in-class functionality and implement a round-trip connection to Box. When a file is edited or modified outside of the system, it can be saved back to Box in its original location.

These apps include the following features:

- QuickOffice allows users to edit Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents on-the-go, with any important changes that are made automatically saved back to the Box account.

- PDF Expert from Readdledocs is for adding annotations to documents by drawing, highlighting or making notes on the files, and then saving them back to Box where the changes can be viewed by the whole team.

- PaperPort Notes lets users record ideas and to-do items while they’re out and about with tools like voice dictation and recording, for when sitting down and typing is just not an option.

- Finally, Adobe’s popular EchoSign e-signature platform helps with signing crucial documents electronically with the greatest of ease, as they can be opened, signed and sent back all from an iPad.

All of these apps will be directly tied to an enterprise’s Box account, making files accessible to anyone within the organization. To find more compatible apps, users can open a file in Box and click the cloud logo on the top menu. A dropdown menu will appear and list all of the compatible apps installed on the device; it also features a button that will let users add compatible apps that aren’t currently installed.

PixelMags Offers HTML5 Compatibility to Advertisers

Michael Garrity — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:30:00 GMT

PixelMags, the content distribution software and publishing tools provider, has recently amped up its Ad Network, Ads by PixelMags, by introducing full HTML5 advertisements.

The company specializes in magazine application publishing and have established services for both publishers and advertisers. Ads by PixelMags is designed for the digital magazine industry.

Now, in conjunction with Starz and Anchor Bay Entertainment, PixelMags is allowing digital publishers to take advantage of their content delivery software (CDS) and HTML5 capabilities and third party companies are able to promote themsevles to PixelMags' readers. The new HTML5 pages are fully interactive and can do things like display videos and allow users to buy products without ever leaving the app.

The first advertisements displayed are for the Blu-Ray releases of the popular shows Spartacus and Camelot.

PixelMags makes it possible for advertisers to run adds in multiple magazines, rather than just one, which gives them the opportunity to reach as broad or specific of an audience as they want. The entirety of PixelMags' reader database, which includes over 200 different magazines, is now open to advertisers.

Among the new features introduced by Ads by PixelMags are enhanced ad placement opportunities, the ability to choose the ad page of an issue and allowing advertisers to control and edit their advertisements. There is also the option for advertisers to specifically target certain demographics, such as age, sex or device (iPhone or iPad).

Adobe Flash Webcasting on the iPad

Allison Howen — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 08:30:00 GMT

MediaPlatform, an enterprise video software, has announced that its WebCaster software is the first to deliver live webcasts to the iPad using HTTP live streaming.

The WebCaster software allows iPad users to view and interact with live presentations that integrate video streaming from Adobe Flash Media Enterprise Server 4.5 and PowerPoint slides. The company now provides webcasting to many different tablets since it started offering webcasting to Android devices earlier this year.

"Getting Flash video on to the iPad is an absolute 'must have' for so many of our large enterprise clients," says Andrew Irving, director of Webcasting at Mediaco, a Canadian event production company. "The MediaPlatform iPad solution is an important innovation that fits with our mobile webcasting vision."

According to a recent study from Interactive Media Strategies, 51 percent of corporate users would view business video more frequently if they had access to it on a tablet.

"Enterprises need their employees to be able to access webcasts and other corporate video from whatever device, browser and platform they're using," says Greg Pulier, president, MediaPlatform. "Our introduction of interactive, live HLS webcasting to the iPad satisfies this enterprise need while delivering all the technological and network benefits of the Adobe Flash Platform to the corporate IT department."

Newsstand App Coming from Digital Publishing Suite

Michael Garrity — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 02:00:00 GMT

I don't know how something like this hasn't been developed yet for the iPad, and how it wasn't Apple that jumped on the idea, but Adobe's Digital Publishing Suite is currently developing Newsstand, a brand new application for iOS5 that will play the role of digital storefront for magazines and newspapers.

First, let's drop some knowledge. Facts and figures show that iPad sales continue to push forward, with over 2.5 million of the tablets sold over the last fourteen months. That's a lot, to be sure, but what's important to note is that with more people buying tablets, the purposes many have for acquiring them are also expanding. No longer are users just young people who want to play games and use the Internet and social media; in fact, now over half of all tablet owners use them to read newspapers and/or magazines.

However, the folks over at Adobe noticed a problem: the discoverability of magazine and newspaper apps is much lower than that of their counterparts, such as games, videos, plug-ins and other content. Moreover, since these tablets have a limited screen area, these reader apps can quickly get pushed to the back. While a Forrester study shows that tablet owners typically download an average of 17 applications, some feel that if iPad owners start (or, in some cases, continue) to download apps as ravenously as iPhone owners, these reader apps will get lost in the shuffle.

But if digital publishing is supposed to be the future, and trust me, publishing companies are banking on it, driving awareness of these various reader apps is crucial. Promoting an app, marketing digital content to print subscribers and leveraging social media are just a few of the methods that companies currently use to metaphoically get their publications into customers' hands. This is why Adobe's Newsstand can be a powerful tool for publishers.

Newsstand will provide readers with access to their favorite subscriptions from one central location as soon as they become available and, this is key, allow the readers to view the issue from outside of the magazine or newspaper's regular application. The application will offer full support for subscriptions so that publishers can created Newsstand-enabled apps, which will drastically incread the discoverability of their content and, if all goes according to plan, increase subscription sales and advertising revenue.

Here's the best part, or at least the most convenient. Applications that are created with Digital Publishing Suite to be detected by Newsstand will automatically be downloaded to the Newsstand app's shelf. This means no long download times to bother with on the user's part; in fact, it means no downloading at all on the user's part. The latest issues of their magazine or newspaper subscriptions will just be immediately placed on their shelf and ready to go as soon as they become available. These Suite-created Newsstand apps will also display on the shelf with the covers of the latest issue, which gives the whole thing a very inviting look.

According to Adobe, publishers will be able to start building apps for Newsstand shortly after the release of iOS5 and the Newsstand application.