Honeycomb Conference on Heels of Android's Strong Q4 Performance Report

Yes, as of right now Android tablets are basically enlarged smartphones. That is the biggest differentiator between the Apple and everything else on the market. However, that dynamic should be put to the test when Google releases its tablet-optimized Honeycomb OS.

And although Honeycomb has been announced and is expected to be integrated into tablets this year, we haven't seen too many of the specifics. That's why I'll definitely be keeping an eye on Google's Honeycomb press event this Wednesday.

Even though many Android fans are holding off jumping into the tablet waters until Honeycomb's release, Android tablets continue to close the market share gap on the iPad, according to a recent Q4 sales report.

Android tablet share increased from 2.3% in Q3 to 22% in Q4, largely due to the success of the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Granted, the iPad still accounts for 75% of tablet sales, but that it is a significant drop from their 96% market share in Q3.

Either way, the tablet fever that we saw hit last year should continue to grow and evolve in 2011.

Facebook Friday: Facebook Finds Tablets App-etizing

For those who don't follow the ever-changing stream of tablet news, I'm here to help. When it comes to existing social networks/websites releasing tablet-optimized apps, there's a definite pattern.

1. First, the social network/service creates an Apple app meant only for the iPhone and iPad.
2. Third-party developers create unofficial apps for the Android platform because there is nothing being offered by the social network itself.
3. Depending on the success of the iOS app, the social network will release an official Android app a few months later.

Yes there are exceptions, but by and large that's the dance that we inevitably see from most social media channels. 

However, Facebook is taking the road less travelled and developing an official app optimized for tablets across operating systems.

This upcoming app could further cement Facebook's online dominance, and more importantly could be a big feather in the cap of the often-debated HTML5 (which should allow easier coding for developers across platforms).

Will This Really Be Our Sputnik Moment?

"This is our generation's Sputnik moment."

That was probably the most-tweeted quote from President Obama's State of the Union Address last night, and it didn't take long for the Cold War reference to start trending on Twitter.

The President was referring to the fact that it took Russia beating the U.S. into space with its launch of the Sputnik satellite to spark the widespread innovation that led to America getting to the moon (or film studio to fake the moon landing if you buy into conspiracy theories). This comparison inspired the "Sputnik moment" quote.

But is this our Sputnik moment?

Yes, we are still suffering from a slow economy with widespread unemployment, so there is definitely the opening for much-needed innovation.

However, I think the drive and technological prowess that Obama is pushing for is already there. Just look at the slew of articles from CES 2011 a couple weeks ago. The technology scene has changed by leaps and bounds and continues to change exponentially, and we will continue to see more and more innovation in the coming years.

Tumblr Gets an Oatmeal-Inspired Fail Whale Page of its Own

The much-trafficked blogging service Tumblr has taken a lot of heat over the past year for its extensive downtime issues. And while Tumblr is not alone in its downtime issues, they don't have any amusing downtime page like Twitter's Fail Whale or Foursquare's crying girl.

But that is no longer the case, because they have a downtime page featuring "Tumbeasts" gnawing away at  their server equipment. The catch? The page was designed by The Oatmeal's Matthew Inman. 

For those who don't know, The Oatmeal is an insanely popular online cartoon that garnered over a quarter of a billion page views last year. That's what makes this a smart move on Tumblr's part, because they are taking advantage of The Oatmeal's popularity to make fun of themselves during downtime. In doing so, they are relieving a small portion of the backlash from their outages.

Of course, simply fixing the outages themselves would be the best solution.

Next-flix? Amazon Buys Lovefilm

The proliferation of mobile devices has paved the way for streaming video to see huge growth over the past year. As of right now, the two giants of streaming video content are Hulu and Netflix.

Obviously there are other services out there, but those two are the ones who are dominating the market share. However, we could see a strong contender emerge with today's announcement that Amazon has bought Lovefilm, a movie streaming and rental service.

Amazon already has a similar service, but it hasn't achieved the success of some of its other service like its music downloading and e-book sales. This move should lead to a greater focus on Amazon's movie streaming, as it comes at an interesting time.

I say that given the somewhat-unclear status of Hulu after the approved merger of Comcast and NBC (which is a huge deal, by the way). And although it appears Hulu is safe from any sweeping changes, until the merger actually happens no one can know for sure. But regardless of what does happen, the speculation alone could cause Hulu to suffer a little bit, opening the door for Amazon to gain a foothold.

What I would like to see is some integration with one of Amazon's most-popular properties, IMDB. I'm envisioning some sort of "Add to Queue" button next to the movie titles on IMDB.

Either way, this is probably good news for existing Amazon customers who haven't dived in to the movie streaming waters quite yet.

CES 2011 musings

Tablets, tablets and more tablets, and a few hundred cell phones as well. That pretty much sums up the Consumer Electronics Show this year, except for the cars and off-road vehicles at the show. Yes, I said cars, which now carry more technology than the Space Shuttle. The new all-electric Polaris RANGER EV  utility vehicle (left) can go up to 50 miles on a charge on regular household current. (Full disclosure...they are an Axiom project client).


But I'm a little concerned that potential car buyers are now more interested with how the voice recognition or GPS systems work in their new cars and trucks than the technology that goes into the engine or suspension. That's because I'm old enough to remember when you could crawl under the hood to actually adjust a carburetor, replace the water pump or change the spark plugs. Now, automakers cover the entire engine with plastic shrouds in an attempt to dissuade you from ever touching anything in there, save refilling your windshield washer fluid.


To counter this trend, at least for the Ferrara household, I recently purchased a VW Jetta Sportwagen equipped with a Clean Diesel TDI engine. Most Americans are unfamiliar with how good diesels have gotten lately...no smoke, good power thanks to a turbocharger, no diesel clatter and superb gas mileage (up to 40 and then some on the highway). But what I like about the diesel most of all, is that although it's quiet, it still sounds like an engine and lets you know something's going on under the hood. And of course you have to be careful not to put regular gas in it, but that's just the point...at least you're forced to be connected to the vehicle.


I'm afraid cars are so good at what they do that people will start to think they can drive themselves. We haven't quite gotten to that point yet. Drivers, especially young ones, need to discipline themselves and concentrate on driving and not selecting what type of voice they prefer on their GPS. That's something that should be reserved for sitting in the driveway. 

New iPhone on Verizon's Horizon: But Should You Go For It?

There were a lot of happy Verizon customers when they learned they would have access to the iPhone. And they have a right to be, considering the biggest drawback to the iPhone has always been the service issues that have come up with AT&T. Add in the fact that the Verizon iPhone will have Wi-Fi hotspot capabilities, and you'd think it would be an easy sell.

Consumer Reports, however, isn't so sure. They posted a story on their blog last week that brought up some interesting counterpoints that could rain on many Verizon customers' iPhone parade. The arguments against getting the Verizon iPhone boil down to two main points:

1. Gray-Haired Gadget: Despite all of the reports and stories about the upcoming iPhone 5, the Verizon iPhone will still be the older iPhone 4. While still serviceable, keep in mind it's pretty well-aged in technology years.
2. Bait and No-Switch: The obvious rebuttal to that first argument is to simply upgrade a little early from the iPhone 4 to iPhone 5. Sorry, but Verizon made a few sneaky changes to their upgrading policy. The new policy scraps the "New Every Two" plan and requires you to wait 20 months as opposed to the usual 12 months before upgrading phone to phone. Here's a brief timeline to put it all in perspective if you do go with the Verizon iPhone right away:

• You get the iPhone 4 comes to Verizon next month. With the new Verizon upgrade policy, this is your last credited "New Every Two" upgrade.
• The iPhone 5 comes out sometime this summer. However, you have to stick with Verizon for 20 months before upgrading to the iPhone 5.
• Apple typically comes out with a new phone every year, but because you have to wait 20 months you'll still be stuck with the iPhone 4 when the iPhone 5 will be old news. Ouch.

Consumer Reports suggests waiting until this summer to consider to consider going with the Verizon iPhone, and based on these arguments they may have a point.

MySpace's Days Seem to be Numbered (For Good This Time)

Let's face it. It's been a bad week for MySpace, and I mean a really bad week.

The troubles (well, troubles other than their steady decline over the years) started last Wednesday when MySpace announced they were cutting half of their staff.

Obviously that move signaled that the MySpace ship was sinking, and the very next day News Corp, who owns the site, hinted at what everyone had already assumed: They are looking to sell off MySpace.

So although the first social networking giant tried to upgrade itself back in October, it doesn't seem like their efforts paid off. The site has been hemorrhaging money and News Corp apparently can't justify keeping it anymore.

Now, this doesn't technically mean MySpace will go away, because whoever buys it could decide to try to revive it. But if MySpace's ROI (or lack thereof) is any indication, we could very well be seeing the last days of Facebook's forefather.

Facebook Friday: No, Facebook is Not Shutting Down

Some things in life just make you shake your head and question the Internet's collective user base. For instance, when a report from the Weekly World News claims that Facebook is shutting down in March...and people actually believe it!

Okay, for those of you who saw the story and frantically began to take down your Facebook photos to avoid losing them forever, let me enlighten you for a moment. If you take a gander at the page where the story started, you'll notice their other headlines. Gems like "Florida Secedes!" and "Walt Disney's Frozen Head Stolen!" are scattered around the web page.

So no, Facebook is not shutting down. Facebook is not even struggling. In fact, recent numbers show that the world's largest social network has passed the 600 million user mark.

And although I'm sure there will still be a few people panicking over the future of their Cityville and Mafia Wars games, it's safe to say that Facebook isn't going away anytime soon.

YouTube Not Ready to Give Up Video Crown, Triples Mobile Traffic in 2010

2010 was a pretty big year in the tech industry. But lost in the barrage of tablet news and the Great Android-Apple War was this interesting little tidbit: YouTube mobile viewership tripled in 2010.

The reason this is so surprising is that YouTube, while still hugely popular on the web, faces much more competition in the mobile video market. We've seen other video sites like Vimeo gain a lot of ground, as well as more video apps like Vevo.

Also consider the fact that streaming video subscription services have made huge strides, especially Hulu and Netflix. Okay, they may not be direct competitors, since Hulu and Netflix aren't user-generated content. However, it's still online/mobile video, and the more time users spend on subscribed streaming content like Hulu is less time that they're spending on YouTube.

The point is that a few years ago your only online video option was YouTube. And although that landscape has drastically changed over the past year, YouTube still managed to see huge growth in the mobile market.

This is also great news for content creators, because it demonstrates how multiple different mobile video channels are growing.

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Lawsuits

It's been a couple months since I've covered a good blogger controversy, but the story that caught my eye today combines my passion of blogging with my love of photography.

What happened is that a popular photo blogger snapped a few photos while visiting the World Erotic Art Museum and posted them to Flickr. The museum was none too pleased by that, and subsequently threatened the blogger with a $2 million lawsuit.

At first glance, this seems like an extreme overreaction by the museum, but let's dive further into this case courtroom-style.

The prosecution (museum):

• The museum's curator stated that although photographers are allowed to take pictures, there's an unwritten agreement that the photos won't be posted online. The goal there is to protect children from seeing anything explicit.

• The blogger in question has had a history of causing trouble with museums and has a reputation for being confrontational, so a firm statement had to be made.

• The blogger was never given permission to take photographs.

• The museum is not necessarily looking to profit here, but is demanding a public apology from the blogger and compensation for legal fees.

The defense (blogger):

• The blogger states that the museum's complaint is that he violated their policy prohibiting professional photography, and he has not tried to profit from the photos. Furthermore, Flickr is defined as a non-commercial website. Therefore, the blogger didn't violate the policy.

• Unwritten/unspoken agreements like the one the museum mentions have little, if any, ground for a lawsuit. 

• While the museum claims the blogger wasn't given permission to take photos, the blogger claims he was in fact approached by a museum employee and given the go-ahead after being questioned briefly.

This is obviously an extremely messy situation. Both sides are claiming the other one is lying, and because nothing was signed or documented we probably won't know the whole story.

Personally, while I understand the museum is trying to position itself as a protecter of impressionable children, this types of blogger controversies rarely work out well for the party filing the lawsuit. That being said, the museum is most likely doing more harm to themselves than good.

Who Stands to Lose the Most from Quora's Explosive Growth? Quora

I've been using the Q & A site Quora for a few months now, and had even mentioned the site on Daily Axioms back in early December.

But over the past few weeks, numerous mentions in big name social media news sites have pushed Quora into the spotlight. This newfound fame has led to everything from a huge spike in new users to sites parodying its shortcomings. But either way, many pundits are wondering if Quora might be the "next big thing" in the social media universe.

And as a active user, I offer my own view on that very question: I sure hope not.

There are three main reasons why Quora shouldn't be happy about its explosive growth.

1. Logistics: Quora simply doesn't have the infrastructure to support the amount of new users they are getting, which has led to several crashes and spam attempts already. Obviously, those are all fixable problems, but Quora needs to patch things up quickly.
2. Steep learning curve: Many of the answers found on the site are a lot longer than 140 characters, and I even remember spending about 15 minutes working on an answer once. The problem is that the average user doesn't realize how active you have to be to get any use out of the site and quickly abandons it.
3. Alienating existing users: This is the biggest problem Quora will face in the coming weeks. Much of the site's charm revolved around the thought-out posts and internal code of conduct that the users shared. The flood of new users have troubled many of the existing users, creating a bit of an internal backlash. However, Quora co-founder Charlie Cheever wrote a post expressing his commitment to maintaining quality. Whether or not it will be effective has yet to be seen, but it is definitely a necessary step.

The bottom line is that I don't believe Quora is made for a Facebook or Twitter-like user base. It's not made to be the "next big thing" and I for one am just fine with that.

Samsung's Fridge Is More Than Just 140 Characters

Now that CES '11 is all wrapped and everyone is back from Las Vegas, we are all trying make sense of the techno-binge that took place over the weekend. There were tons of product announcements, and Dave did a great job of covering some of them.

However, it was impossible for one person to cover everything that was unveiled, so I thought I'd talk about one product in particular that's been getting mixed reactions around the web.

Rather than just saying what the product is (where's the fun in that?), let me ask you the question that this product aims to solve: Have you ever been standing in the kitchen, aching to tweet out to your followers about how the milk spoiled?

That's right. Samsung, the company that brought us one of the top Android smartphone and the first serious competitor to the iPad, announced a new refrigerator...that's connected to Twitter.

And although the tweeting kitchen appliance has been mocked quite a bit since it was announced, the Twitter-readiness overshadows some other features that are actually pretty cool.

For instance, the refrigerator allows you to access Google Calendar, check the weather, and adjust the temperature from the appliance's touchpad. Most interestingly, the refrigerator let's you look up things on Epicurious (a popular foodie website) for recipes and tips.

So while the Twitter capabilities of this refrigerator are a bit over the top in my mind, I believe Samsung has tapped into a few other features that could become big trends in the future.

CES '11, Day 2: 3D is No. 1...But Can It Last?

The following post is from Axiom's own Dave Sniadak, who is down in Las Vegas to be a part of the Consumer Electronics Show.

As predicted, the big announcements at CES today surrounded the flurry of new tablets and Smart Home technology (for instance, a refrigerator that tells you when you need to restock groceries). But the thing that struck me was just how many CE companies are hedging their bets on 3D technology.

I got the opportunity to take a look at two companies in particular. First of all, JVC rolled out a new consumer 3D camcorder, and the image quality is actually quite striking. They don't offer any super-elaborate glasses to view their 3D content, just the standard clunky ones that make you look like Drew Carey. However, the 3D products themselves are still pretty amazing, and as a video guy, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on one of these cameras.

Panasonic is also betting big on 3D technology and had a booth stadium that featured about 200 3D screens running simultaneous content. Overwhelming? That was an understatement.

But does a heavy investment by manufacturers mean consumers are going to buy into this technology? I said this last year, and I'll say it again: until manufacturers can create 3D products that don't require glasses (and a second mortgage to get all the gear), only a fraction of the general population can afford these products.

So, while 2011 offers some spectacular sights and sounds (trust me, it's absolutely amazing here) it's still a lot of hype, with little tangible substance for you and me.

Revving Up for CES

The following post is from Axiom's own Dave Sniadak, who is down in Las Vegas to be a part of the Consumer Electronics Show.

CES '11 is now in full force, and I'm lucky enough to be here in Las Vegas for the next three days to deliver some insight from the show floor as it happens. While the Consumer Electronics Show goes through the weekend, duty calls me back to the frozen tundra of Minnesota. However, while I'm here I'm planning to see a lot of neat things and hope to share a few of them with you.

Things kicked off last night several pre-CES events like the hugely popular media event by PepCom, called The Digital Experience. This years' theme was "Area 51 meets Vegas, Baby," and it was absolutely a sight to see. Over 1,000 members of the media from all over the world (not to mention 180 exhibitors) crammed themselves onto the show floor to show off the latest tech toys and gadgets.

Like Steve mentioned on Tuesday, the overwhelming trend at the year's CES is expected to be tablets. Motorola, Vizio and Asus have garnered the most tablet-related buzz so far, but there's still three days of product announcements left to go so who knows what we'll see.

But it's not all about tablets, with everything from Energizer's power-on-the-go Energistick to updated models of the Roomba and Scooba trying to get the attention of us technology aficionados.

I've also been seeing a lot of headlines about all of the different car companies, like Ford and Audi, who will be speaking here this weekend. That's a big shift from the usual gadget-only focus of past CES events.

Lastly, I also envision 3D technology, mobile apps and SmartGrid appliances to make a big impact this year. With so many great products being announced, I'll see as many as I can and let you know about more of my favorites.

Amazon's Next Step Towards Online-Buying Dominance

It's no longer a secret that iTunes is slowly losing ground to Amazon's mp3 music-buying service. I've used both services myself, and to be honest they both have their merits.

But Amazon doesn't seem content sticking to music downloads, given rumors of their upcoming Android app store. And while it will obviously be competing with the Android Market, it's still a huge vote of confidence for the Android platform since Amazon obviously believes it's a viable financial option.

The big difference between the two app markets seems to be the vetting process. Google has taken a very hands-off approach, which doesn't take any action against buggy or questionable apps until they are flagged by users. Amazon plans to spend a week or so vetting potential apps before releasing them.

Amazon seems to be doing the right things to gain a foothold in the Android app market, but until their app store actually launches we're all left to simply speculate on what app the future will hold.

A New Year is Here, and it Looks to be the Year of the Tablet

Now that we've all shaken off the cobwebs from a weekend of ringing in the new year, it's time to look at what's ahead for social media and technology in 2011. First up is the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show, which is just 2 short days away.

From January 6-9, tech geeks and gadget fans will swarm to Las Vegas, only to ignore the flashing lights of the Vegas Strip for the dull glow of backlit tablets. And trust me, there will be a lot of tablets.

If you've followed the tech world at all the past couple of months, that isn't breaking news. My RSS feed has been inundated with story after story about upcoming tablets being previewed this weekend at CES. In fact, I've heard rumors about 14 or 15 different companies who will be in Las Vegas looking to bet big money on this emerging tablet trend.

Some of the tablets have definitely peaked my interest (like Vizio's announcement yesterday), while other tablets aren't getting much more than a yawn (sorry, Acer).

However, the tablet innovation I'm most excited for this weekend isn't a tablet at all. Google is expected to unveil their latest, tablet-optimized version of the Android OS (codenamed "Honeycomb") in March, and I'm hoping that they'll have some sneak peeks available at CES.

The 2 main reasons why I'm more excited for Honeycomb than the actual tablets are:

• Most of the upcoming tablets are going to run Android. 
• The lack of tablet-ready apps for Android is, in my opinion, one of the major reason the iPad has maintained its dominance in the tablet market.

Obviously, we'll have to wait until this weekend to see whether or not these rumors will lead to anything substantial. But if you're a fan of tablets, there's a lot of reasons to be hopeful for the future.