Facebook launches Instant Articles, touting faster mobile load times
A new feature aims to improve the frequently frustrating process of waiting for a story to load from users' news feeds.
Facebook on Tuesday took the wraps off a new feature it promises will yield faster load times for news stories and interactive features on users' mobile devices.
Facebook says Instant Articles aims to address the often frustrating experience of waiting for an article to materialize after clicking on a link in the Facebook feed. The social-networking giant says the new feature will improve the load times of news stories on its mobile app to as much as 10 times faster than most articles on the mobile web.
Along with the faster load times, the program will include a suite of features such as interactive maps, image zoom, autoplay videos and audio captions. Among the other sites partnering on the feature are The New York Times, National Geographic, BuzzFeed, NBC, The Atlantic, The Guardian and BBC News.
"Fundamentally, this is a tool that enables publishers to provide a better experience for their readers on Facebook," Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox said in a statement. "Instant Articles lets them deliver fast, interactive articles while maintaining control of their content and business models."
The move is aimed at improving the user experience and keeping users more engaged on the world's largest social network. Previously, users clicking on a news story on Facebook's feed would be taken to the news publication's website, adding additional time as that site loads and taking users away from the social network.
As with all social networks, mobile is a key arena for Facebook. More than 85 percent of the people who log into Facebook's service each day now do so from a mobile device. Of Facebook's $3.32 billion in revenue derived from advertising for its first quarter, ended March 31, the company said that 73 percent came from ads shown on mobile devices. That figure was 59 percent a year ago.
Besides getting more prompt attention for their articles, content publishers should also benefit from increased ad revenue. Facebook's plan allows publishers to sell ads with their content and keep the money. The feature will also allow publishers to track user data and traffic through comScore and other analytics tools.
Facebook said it is launch the feature on its iPhone app but made no mention when it would be available on its Android version. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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How AOL could help Verizon change its business
Why would a wireless and broadband company like Verizon spend $4.4 billion on a digital media company like AOL? One word: Advertising
Wireless and broadband may be Verizon's bread and butter, but the company's future relies on finding new ways to make money from its network.
And that's where the $4.4 billion acquisition of digital media company AOL comes in: A primary reason for the purchase is AOL's advertising platform, which automatically helps its business customers buy and sell online ads while it also collects data on consumers' browsing history. AOL's ad technology may be especially attractive to marketers because it also lets them see whether customers respond better to ads shown on smartphones than, say, computers and TVs.
Verizon hopes to use AOL's technology when it launches a streaming mobile video service later this year.
"For us, the principal interest was around the ad tech platform that Tim Armstrong and his team have done a really terrific job building," John Stratton, executive vice president and president of Verizon's Global Enterprise and Consumer Wireline business, said at an investor conference on Tuesday after the news was announced. "We really like the technology a lot and we think of it as a key enabler for us as we begin to generate revenue and value above the network layer."
Stratton's comment about getting sales "above the network layer" is telling. That's because mobile customers are spending less on their monthly service even as they burn through more data to stream video, share pictures and access apps on their smartphones and tablets. And it doesn't help that smaller rivals, such as T-Mobile and Sprint, are slashing prices and stealing customers from Verizon and and its chief rival AT&T. The dynamic threatens the existing business model for the two wireless giants, which together control access to 70 percent of the wireless market.
"These operators need to create new avenues of growth that don't rely on their network services, which is their predominant legacy business," said Bill Menezes, principal research analyst at market research firm Gartner.
The conundrum
AT&T, Verizon and other broadband providers like cable operators have anticipated this trend for years. All have spent the past decade upgrading their Internet connections to handle new content services, like video. It's why Comcast bought NBC Universal and why AT&T is spending $49 billion to acquire satellite TV provider DirecTV. And it's why Verizon has begun assembling the technologies it needs to launch a mobile video service to rival Netflix and Google's YouTube. The company last year bought Intel Media, a failed business from the chipmaker that aimed to develop TV products and services delivered over the cloud.
"Verizon's logic is why should Netflix, Google and Facebook make money delivering services like video, when we can do just as well as they can," said Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics.
Mobile advertising: The key to Verizon's success?
Providing video service isn't cheap. For one thing, it's expensive to license content. And for another, it's costly and technically tricky to deliver high-quality video feeds over mobile networks. That means subscriptions alone can't help Verizon increase its sales and profit. It also needs to attract lots of advertising dollars.
"By acquiring AOL, Verizon is pointing to a future where advertisers, rather than users, carry a heavier burden," Craig Moffett, an analyst with MoffettNathanson, said in a note to investors.
This is where AOL shines.
"This is about the ad tech assets. It's really the only thing about AOL that's strategic," said Brian Wieser, an analyst with Pivotal Research Group.
Over the past two years, the company has invested more than $500 million acquiring two companies focused on mobile ads. In 2013, it bought video ad marketplace company Adap.tv for $405 million, its biggest purchase under CEO Tim Armstrong, who was a former advertising guru at Google. Adap.tv so-called programmatic advertising -- helping marketers automatically buy and sell ad spots for the right viewers online.
And AOL last year bought Convertro for $101 million. Convertro helps businesses and their marketing departments understand what about their campaigns actually work.
AOL has also unified these technologies to make it easy for advertisers to market across devices and screens, said Lauren Fisher, an analyst with eMarketer.
"They've really positioned the company as one at the forefront for programmatic," she said. "They've done a lot to make cross-screen marketing a reality."
Verizon -- which commands a virtual ton of data from its mobile and television customers -- is already well-positioned to capitalize on AOL's programmatic technology: More data just makes the automated marketplace more effective at matching buyers and sellers of ads.
The content play
But AOL gives Verizon more than just advertising technology. It also provides valuable content for Verizon's emerging video service.
Over the past three years since AOL launched its AOL On online video network, it's added content. AOL On mostly comprises short-form content licensed from top-tier publishers like ESPN, the Wall Street Journal and Vogue. But it also includes movies, through a partnership with film studio Miramax, as well as clips from AOL's own original series. (Its "Park Bench with Steve Buscemi" was nominated for an Emmy award last year.)
AOL is now the third largest US online video content network after Google and Facebook, and is among the largest providers of premium streaming video content in the market. This could be a boon for Verizon and reduce expenses for programming costs. But the content could also help Verizon differentiate itself from its rivals and prompt consumers to pony up a premium for wireless service.
"Verizon is attempting to shift the wireless conversation for users from differentiation on the traditional metrics of network quality and coverage to a more consumer-friendly content offering that other providers can't match, " Moffett said.
"The strategy has the potential to drive not only usage but also market share in a way that is potentially more lasting and more fundamental than the string of more-data-for-less-money promotions that have dominated the past year."
But many observers think Verizon has little interest in AOL's editorial ventures, including Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Engadget. Recode reported that other acquirers are talking to the Huffington Post, the brand within the AOL publishing family with the broadest reach.
"Verizon has no use for the media properties," Entner said. "They'll sell them and make some money back."
Low risk, high reward
At $4.4 billion, the cost of buying AOL is practically chump change for Verizon, which reported about $127.1 billion in sales last year. AT&T, in contrast, will pay $49 billion to buy DirecTV.
To put Verizon's costs in perspective: It spent $10.4 billion earlier this year to buy spectrum licenses in an FCC wireless auction. And it's likely to spend as much or more in an upcoming auction scheduled for next year.
"They bought it for pocket change and they're paying cash for it," said Gartner's Menezes. "But if they can leverage the AOL digital advertising platform, the upside could be huge."
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SideCar rolls out medical marijuana delivery in SF
Ride-share startup's expansion into logistics comes amid fierce competition with better-funded rivals Uber and Lyft
SideCar is aiming for a new high -- literally.
The ride-hailing app, which like Uber and Lyft connects a fleet of on-demand drivers with passengers via smartphone, announced Tuesday that it has formally launched a service to deliver medical marijuana to customers' doorsteps in San Francisco, following a small pilot that began last week.
And it's not going to make anyone wait too long either: SideCar is pledging that marijuana deliveries will arrive within an hour of an order being placed with local dispensaries. Deliveries will be limited to one ounce per customer, but drivers might be shuttling around as many as four orders -- or four ounces -- at a time. The company says that medicine will be kept in a "safe, lock box during transit."
"SideCar is able to power the on-demand economy, and medical marijuana is an example of all kinds of products we can deliver," said SideCar CEO Sunil Paul, explaining his company's entry into the weed delivery business. "The motivation is also that it's high profile."
SideCar isn't disclosing how much delivering weed will cost its customers, but it says its drivers will collect 80 percent of that fee.
However, munchies will not be riding shotgun. Paul said customers will have to use a different app if they want food--think pizza, wings and a pint of Ben & Jerry's--to show up at the same time as their medicinal weed.
Pot is part of a new frontier for on-demand delivery services in which a growing host of apps help smartphone owners order an array of goods and services. With the touch of a finger, anybody with a smartphone can find someone to watch the kids with UrbanSitter or the dog--or cat or guinea pig or snake--with DogVacay; Instacart gets someone to do your grocery shopping for you; GlamSquad will send out a hair stylist and makeup artist to your home; Luxe will park your car; and Zeelwill get you an in-home massage. And that's not even the half of it.
Surprisingly, or not, SideCar isn't even alone in the weed on-demand business. Uber partnered with a Colorado pot shop in August, and at least eight much smaller marijuana delivery startups have cropped up in the last year alone. In fact, marijuana delivery startup Eaze raised $10 million in funding last month from venture capital firms, including Snoop Dogg's very own fund, Casa Verde Ventures.
Of course, there is the wrinkle that marijuana is highly regulated in California, and still illegal to grow, carry or sell under US federal statutes. So, in order to keep operations above-board SideCar is partnering with Meadow Care, a San Francisco-based startup that operates a website allowing medical marijuana patients to order from its existing network of licensed, local dispensaries.
SideCar makes a point to insist that it's following the law to a T. It says that Meadow Care only works with licensed dispensaries and that its drivers--all patients legally allowed to carry medicine in California--will "always verify that the patient who ordered the medicine is the same person who receives the delivery."
For now, SideCar's foray into weed delivery is limited to San Francisco. But the company wants customers--and investors--to know that its ambitions go way beyond delivering marijuana.
SideCar already transports everything from groceries to flowers, tacos and power tools in Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Boston and Brooklyn. And it says that half the time its San Francisco drivers are carrying paying passengers they're also on their way to deliver something else.
To further boost its delivery business, the company also announced today a new pricing plan. Same-delivery will cost as low as $4.99 while one-hour deliveries will cost as low as $7.49.
Clearly, the company hopes that today's announcement helps distinguish it from much better-financedrivals like Uber and Lyft.
"Our biggest competitor Uber has billions of dollars and a big market cap as everyone knows and they have the power and the intent to own the customer relationship for deliveries," said SideCar's Paul. "Uber wants to be Amazon."
But Paul says he sees an opening for SideCar in this increasingly competitive space.
"In this new world of on-demand services, SideCar wants to be FedEx, and we think we're very well positioned to grab that position."
And starting today, they'll be fighting for it one delivery of Sticky Icky, Purple Haze and Blueberry Kush at a time.
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Intel co-founder Moore 'amazed' his prediction has lasted so long
The brains behind Moore's Law, which says processing power should increase exponentially every couple years, says his 1965 prediction was initially made looking only 10 years out.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The man behind Moore's Law says he's "amazed" his prediction about technology advancements has lasted so long.
Gordon Moore, speaking at an event Monday celebrating the 50th anniversary of his theory that processor power improves exponentially every two years, said when he made the prediction in 1965, he was only looking 10 years out, not multiple decades.
"I had no idea it was going to turn out to be a relatively precise prediction," Moore said. To keep his theory going, Moore said, "will take a lot of good engineering."
"The next five or 10 years is reasonably clear, and that's usually the case," Moore said. "You can usually see a few generations in the future. ... I still hope Brian [Krzanich, Intel's CEO] has enough good engineers working on the problem we won't hit a dead end."
Moore is the brains behind Moore's Law, the idea that chips double in complexity about every two years as processor components shrink and become more tightly packed. The prediction about future technology -- which is what allows our smartphones to continuously get thinner, faster and more energy efficient -- still holds true 50 years after it was first posited. But Moore's Law also is facing some hurdles, particularly that it's getting more difficult and expensive to develop more advanced processors.
In 1966, a new chip plant cost $14 million. In 1995, the price tag was $1.5 billion. Today, it can cost as much as $10 billion -- roughly the annual gross domestic product of Mongolia. To cope, semiconductor manufacturers are finding ways to stretch today's silicon technology while researching alternatives.
Keeping Moore's Law going is vital for the technology industry. Each generation of processors has enabled inventions such as the Internet and smartphones and has made computing more accessible to mainstream consumers. In the future, more complex chips will power everything from wearable technology to smart homes. If processor advancement stops, the next great innovation that changes the way we live and communicate may never happen.
Moore on Monday said he's "disappointed" that the US federal government has decreased its funding for basic scientific research, something that gives other higher-spending countries an advantage.
He noted that he couldn't have predicted social networking or that other software, such as Google Earth, would be capable of so much yet cost nothing for consumers. And "the importance of the Internet surprised me."
"To me it looked like it was going to be another minor communications network that solved certain problems," Moore said.
"We've just seen the beginning of what computers are going to do for us," he added.
Tom Friedman, New York Times columnist and author of "The World is Flat," interviewed Moore, a co-founder of Intel, in front of an audience of journalists, technology industry executives and others. Krzanich, the current CEO of the semiconductor giant, gave opening remarks during the event at San Francisco's Exploratorium museum.
Moore, when asked what he has learned from Moore's Law, said to a laughing crowd: "I guess one thing I've learned is once you make a successful prediction, avoid making another one."
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