Black Swan Data CEO: We Use AI To Predict How Movies Will Do

Black Swan Data CEO: We use AI to predict how movies will do

Steve King discusses how his firm uses data to map out trends in multiple industries. CNBC Life video first published Jun 20, 2018.

Black Swan Data is a London-based technology and data science company with an online data analytics platform that uses predictive data science to analyze a wide variety of data to help businesses identify potential trends and customer behaviors.

• Founded: 2011
• Founders: Steve King, Hugo Amos
• Headquarters: London, England, United Kingdom 
• Type of business: Privately held company
• Domain: blackswan.com

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Tech Review 1) Perils of Tech Stocks, 2) High Growth Tech Companies

Tech Review (TR 2018-07-28)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech investing news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Perils of Tech Stocks, 2) High Growth Tech Companies, 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: Another China Crisis Looming?, 4) ICYMI Tech News: Facebook, Bitcoin ETF, Qualcomm, Apple, Intel, Google Cloud, Q2 2018 Earnings, and more.

1) Perils of Tech Stocks

RBC Capital Market’s (rbccm.com) Senior Tech Analyst Mark Mahaney gives 10 lessons in 10 minutes about the stock market and investing in tech stocks at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech 2018. Fortune.com video above published Jul 17, 2018.

How Wall Street Is Reacting to Facebook's Q2 2018 Earnings effect on $FB shares this week:

On Thursday, 26 Jul 2018, Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) closed down 19% after the disappointing user numbers and revenue growth projections, losing almost $120 billion in market value in a day, and dragging the rest of the sector lower. Before Thursday, Facebook's largest single-day loss came in July 2012 when it shed 11 percent. The company missed projections on key metrics. See also Update: The Great Facebook GDPR Debacle.

Only surprise in FB bad guidance was how obvious it was to happen yet so many chose not to see it. 90+% of 1Q earnings were B4 the trouble.

— Jeffrey Gundlach (@TruthGundlach) July 25, 2018

Editor's note: Facebook $FB closed Friday at $174.89, DOWN -19.56% since Wednesday's close (graphic below). Twitter $TWTR closed DOWN -20.54% on Friday (Jul 27) at $34.12.

$FB

2) High Growth Tech Companies

a16z.com podcast with Elad Gil (@eladgil) and Chris Dixon (@cdixon): There's a lot of knowledge out there -- and networks of talent (especially in Silicon Valley) -- on what to do in the early stages of a company, going from 0 to 1, and even in going from 1 to 100... but what about beyond that? It's not as simply linear as merely doubling or tripling resources and org structures; it's actually much more complex on many levels, communication to coordination. Because with great scale comes great complexity... and many, many more places for things to break down.

How should founders/CEOs of growing tech startups think about everything from hiring (including key executives) to product management (what is it, really, beyond common myths/misconceptions around the role?) to thinking about late-stage financing, M&A, and other key aspects of building a company? This episode of the a16z Podcast shares both specific answers to -- and general mindsets for thinking about -- these questions. Chris Dixon, general partner on a16z crypto, interviews Elad Gil, investor/advisor to numerous tech companies; co-founder of Color Genomics; formerly of Google and also co-founder and CEO of Mixer Labs (acquired by Twitter, where he also became a VP). He's the author of the new book, The High Growth Handbook, on scaling companies from 10 to 10,000 people.

The two also explore the growth -- and evolution -- of market and tech trends, including the continuation of mobile/cloud; machine learning (and silicon); crypto; and finally, longevity -- both in the near term and further out in the future. Should people -- and even companies for that matter -- really live longer?

3) Investing

The Week: NASDAQ Composite -1.1% | S&P 500 Index +0.6% | DJIA +1.6% The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) booked weekly gains, but losses in the tech sector left the Nasdaq Composite lower for the week.

“As we discussed previously, what happens in the middle of the week is of little consequence to us. We are only truly interested in where the week ends"--Lance Roberts.

G.D.P. Grew at 4.1% Rate in U.S. Q2 2018: "Some economists think full-year growth in gross domestic product could hit 3 percent in 2018 for the first time in the nearly decade-long recovery, a prospect that became more likely following Friday’s strong numbers."--NYTimes.com 27 Jul 2018.

Wall Street's Charging Bull

Investing Notes: Another China Crisis Looming?

• As China Suffers Its Biggest Bankruptcy Of 2018, The PBOC Finally Panics--zerohedge.com, and
China steps up management of cross-border financial network and information services--reuters.com. See also China Caves: The Full Details Behind Beijing's Launch Of Fiscal Easing.

• China's devaluation of its currency:

China's renminbi hit by trade and economic woes: China's currency has devalued sharply against the dollar (US$) in recent weeks. The last time China surprised the markets with a devaluation, in the summer of 2015, it prompted a global sell-off of risk assets. China’s currency has topped the Rmb6.8 per dollar mark, its weakest level in a year, reflecting slower growth and tighter credit. Financial Times (ft.com) video above published July 23, 2018.

4) ICYMI Tech News

• Facebook's plans for an innovation hub in China are apparently now off.
• Bitcoin ETF: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday stood by a decision blocking Winklevoss bitcoin ETF--SEC.gov (pdf).

• Qualcomm $QCOM says Apple $AAPL will use only modems from a competitor, likely Intel $INTC for next iPhone release, making iPhones slower than Android phones--CNET.com. Qualcomm also says it will drop its $44B offer and pay a $2B breakup fee to NXP since the latest deadline has passed with no approval from China--reuters.com.

• Uber contributes $706 million to Miami's economy, study says--bizjournals.com.
• AT&T $T is in trouble--SeekingAlpha.com.

• Google Cloud: the full breadth of Google Cloud serverless technologies--cloud.google.com.

• Q2 2018 Earnings Season this past week on DomainMondo.com: Alphabet (Google) $GOOG $GOOGL; Texas Instruments $TXN, Facebook $FB, Verisign $VRSN, Amazon $AMZN, Twitter $TWTR. 
• Q2 2018 Earnings this coming week: Apple $AAPL, Tesla $TSLA, GoDaddy $GDDY.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Tech Review | Internet Trends 2018, What Mary Meeker Missed

Tech Review (TR 2018-06-02)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news with commentary, analysis and opinion: Features • 1) Internet Trends 2018, What Mary Meeker Missed, 2) Most Hyperscale Data Centers are Operating in the U.S., 3) Investing: The Week, Investing Notes: Fallout from Italy's political crisis,  4) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Internet Trends 2018

2018 Internet Trends by Mary Meeker, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers

Editor's note--takeaways:

• In 2017 smartphone unit shipments did not increase over the previous year.
• Internet user growth slowed to 7 percent in 2017, down from 12 percent in 2016. More than half the world is now online, affluent developed and developing markets have reached saturation.
• Amount of time spent online increased, for U.S. adults, to 5.9 hours per day in 2017, up from 5.6 hours in 2016, of which 3.3 hours were spent on mobile devices. Mobile is the source of overall growth in digital media consumption.
• Global average selling price of smartphones continues to decline, and lower prices drive smartphone adoption in less-developed markets--Apple may be grabbing most of the profits, but Android continues to win market share.
• Mobile payments are becoming easier for consumers and China continues to lead the rest of the world with over 500 million active mobile payment users in 2017.
• The Privacy Paradox: technology companies are trying to use data to provide better consumer experiences yet avoid violating consumer privacy.
• Technology companies are becoming a larger share of U.S. business, corporate R&D and capital spending. In April, tech accounted for 25 percent of U.S. market capitalization. 
• E-commerce sales growth continues to accelerate, growing 16 percent in the U.S. in 2017, up from 14 percent in 2016, but Amazon is taking a bigger share of those sales at 28 percent in 2017. Brick-and-mortar retail sales continue to decline.
• Big tech now competes on more fronts: e-commerce giant Amazon is moving into advertising, while Google expands from an ads platform to a commerce platform (e.g., Google Express).

Editor's note--analysis--what Mary Meeker missed: Meeker, a partner in Silicon Valley VC firm Kleiner Perkins, was apparently afraid to deal with several important core issues now arising in technology, for example:

“The search engine is the most powerful source of mind control ever invented in the history of humanity,” according to Robert Epstein, senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology in California. “The fact that it’s mainly controlled by one company in almost every country in the world, except Russia and China, just astonishes me ... We have determined, through our research, that the search suggestion effect can turn a 50/50 split among undecided [voters] into a 90/10 split just by manipulating search suggestions.”

See, e.g., Vice.com May 31, 2018: Less than a week before the California primary, Google listed “Nazism” as the ideology of the California Republican Party:

Vice.com's screenshot of a portion of Google.com search page results

Vice.com reported "... voters looking for information by searching “California Republicans” or “California Republican Party” were getting “Nazism” next to their search results until Google took the listing down later Thursday after a query from VICE News."

Google later issued a statement: "We don't bias our search results toward any political party. Sometimes people vandalize public information sources, like Wikipedia, which can impact the information that appears in search. We have systems in place that catch vandalism before it impacts search results, but occasionally errors get through, and that's what happened here."

But Google did not disclose how many people in California were exposed to the misinformation Google propagated on the internet--California page views data available to Google via its own geolocation analytics--millions? 

What should be the consequences when a $784Billion search engine monopoly propagates obvious factual misinformation to an electorate searching for "factual information" right before an election? This "misinformation" was presented by Google as "factual content" on the right side of its search results page--not just links in response to a search query--Google makes most of its money from advertising, but Google has also chosen to be in the content publication business on its search engine results pages, and no one is holding Google accountable for its propagation of factually incorrect content to a gullible public, except, perhaps, the European Union.

In a 2015 study, Epstein and Ronald E. Robertson reported the discovery of what they consider “one of the largest behavioral effects ever identified”: the search engine manipulation effect (SEME). Simply by placing search results in a particular order, they found, voters’ preferences can shift dramatically, “up to 80 percent in some demographic groups.” See The search engine manipulation effect (SEME) and its possible impact on the outcomes of elections | pnas.org.

This is far beyond any alleged Russian manipulation via Facebook or Twitter, or "fake news" propagated in the form of "infotainment" by the likes of CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC, et al, or even the now comical Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) bias regularly exhibited by members of the Washington, D.C., press corps, including Washington Post and New York Times.

And the issue goes deeper than just manipulating elections. Tristan Harris, a former design ethicist at Google who has since become one of Silicon Valley’s most influential critics, and co-founded the Center for Humane Technology | humanetech.com, an organization seeking to change the culture of the tech industry, described the tech industry as an “arms race for basically who’s good at getting attention and who’s better in the race to the bottom of the brainstem to hijack the human animal.”

Of course, the above is just one of many issues Meeker missed--here's another: A Constitutional Conundrum That’s Not Going Away—Unequal Access to Social Media Posts | Electronic Frontier Foundation | eff.org: "Among the many privacy challenges posed by social media, one has flown largely under the radar: balancing defendants’ due process rights to access exculpatory information against the crucial privacy protections of the Stored Communications Act (SCA). Here’s the problem: prosecutors have broad powers to demand access to stored communications [data] as necessary to pursue their case, but defendants do not ..."

2) Most Hyperscale Data Centers are Operating in the U.S. | Statista.com:

Hyperscale data centers have a minimum of 5,000 servers and are at least 10,000 sq. ft. in size but many are much larger. The data in the chart considers operations by 24 of the world’s major cloud and internet service firms, including Amazon/AWS, Microsoft, IBM, Google, Oracle, Alibaba, Apple, Twitter, Facebook, eBay, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Tencent, and Baidu. See Hyperscale Data Center Count Approaches the 400 Mark; US Still Dominates | Synergy Research Group | srgresearch.com: the next most prominent locations after the U.S., are China, Japan and the UK.

3) Investing

The Week-- NASDAQ Composite +1.6% | S&P 500 Index +0.5% | DJIA -0.5% --Investors welcomed strong economic reports, including a solid jobs data for May, while shrugging off concerns over Italian politics and trade wars.

Yesterday’s #BeigeBook gave the #Fed a green light to hike #rates again in June. Not only does the labor market remain tight, but some districts even said their retail contacts were in a better position to raise prices & pass along #inflation. Keep a close eye on Fed Funds

— DataTrek Research (@DataTrekMB) May 31, 2018

Investing Notes: Fallout from Italy's political crisis (apparently averted for now)--Investors mistakenly assumed the world was in a phase of synchronized growth, economist Mohamed El-Erian said on Tuesday, noting "People are now realizing the only economy with real legs to it was the U.S. economy"-- cnbc.com.

"The European Union is mired in an existential crisis. For the past decade, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. How did a political project that has underpinned Europe’s postwar peace and prosperity arrive at this point?"--George Soros--"The strength of the dollar is already precipitating a flight from emerging-market currencies. We may be heading for another major financial crisis."

See also:

• MacroView | Forget Brexit, Fear of Italy Doing a EURO Exit Shakes Markets.
• " .... with the eurozone’s third-largest economy now in the hands of Five Star and the League, it’s anybody’s bet what will happen--John Cassidy, May 31, 2018, Italy’s Challenge to the Eurozone Is Only Beginning | NewYorker.com.
• "... Those outside of Europe may be surprised to learn that Germany's exports are roughly equal to those of China ($1.2 trillion), even though Germany's population of 82 million is a mere 6% of China's 1.3 billion. Germany and China are the world's top exporters, while the U.S. trails as a distant third ..."--Why the Eurozone and the Euro Are Both Doomed | blogspot.com.
• Deutsche Bank CoCo Bonds Plunge, Shares Hit Record Low, after US Entity Makes FDIC’s “Problem Bank List”--by Wolf Richter, May 31, 2018.
•  "Why Brussels feels so dazed and confused in 2018"-- Europe’s losing streak | Politico.com.

4) ICYMI Tech News:

• Pew Research study  of US teen internet usage finds 85% say they use YouTube, 72% use Instagram, 69% use Snapchat, while only 51% say they use Facebook.
• China Set to Approve Qualcomm-NXP Deal, a Sign of Easing Trade Tensions | WSJ.com: Chinese regulators have expressed concerns that the merged company would crowd out domestic businesses in areas such as mobile payments.
• Tencent chairman pledges to advance China chip industry after ZTE 'wake-up' call: reports | Reuters.com
• Tencent WeChat's 500+ “mini games” have 457M users, according to QuestMobile report, almost half of the app's 1.04B user base--techinasia.com
• Nvidia Rock Star CEO Hinted To Blowout Numbers (NASDAQ:NVDA)--SeekingAlpha.com
• France, Germany push for EU funding for technology start-ups--Reuters.com.
• SeattleTimes.com: ACLU to Amazon: stop selling facial-recognition tools to governments. 
• Disney Is A Potential 3X Hidden In Plain Sight (NYSE:DIS)--SeekingAlpha.com
• Facebook to remove ‘trending’ news from its site amid fake news criticism--Marketwatch.com.
• Antarctica Is Gaining Ice? Some areas of Antarctica, such as the Antarctic Peninsula and the coastal parts of western Antarctica, are losing more ice than they are gaining, but overall, the continent's ice is growing--livescience.com.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Viral Trends & Global Branding: At 88rising, East Meets West (video)

At 88rising, East Meets West, One Viral Hit at a Time

Combining elements of Asian and Western culture, 88rising (domain: 88rising.com) is a young entertainment company hoping to build a lasting, global brand that will outlive singular moments of virality. With influential artists like Rich Chigga and joji generating millions of views for the network, the next question for founder Sean Miyashiro and his team is how to translate that success into a long-term platform in a rapidly changing industry. Bloomberg.com video above published Dec 3, 2017.

Tweets about @88rising:

When the @88rising gang makes a stop in Jakarta, you know you have got to see their show. It was a pleasure to have @sushitrash, @richchigga, @keithape & @higherbrothers come in and be apart of our LIVE ETC. Stage at #DWP17!

📸: @vinodii pic.twitter.com/6FFO4ISwVN

— DWP 2017 (@DWPfest) December 20, 2017

DWP 2017: 88 Rising glows as the dancefloor blows #jakpost https://t.co/03ZQ6Kayn8

— The Jakarta Post (@jakpost) December 19, 2017

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Innovation Summit 2017 Video Interview: Kristin Russell, Arrow Electronics

Innovation Summit 2017: Video Interview with Arrow Electronics Global President

Video above from the Innovation Summit 2017: Kristin Russell, Global President, Arrow Electronics. Video published Jul 26, 2017, by Economist.com.

Arrow Electronics is a U.S. Fortune 500 company headquartered in Centennial, Colorado. The company specializes in distribution and value added services relating to electronic components and computer products.

• Stock exchange: symbol  |  NYSE: ARW  (Disclaimer)
• Principal domain: arrow.com

Headquarters: Centennial, CO

Revenue: 23.82 billion USD (2016)
Number of employees: 18,100 (June 2017)
Founded: 1935, New York City, NY
Subsidiaries: Verical, Inc., Chip One Stop, Inc., MORE
Tweets by Arrow_dot_com

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Tech Review: Mary Meeker's Internet Trends 2017 | TR 2017-06-03

Tech Review (TR 2017-06-03)--Domain Mondo's weekly review of tech news:

Features • 1) Mary Meeker's Internet Trends 2017, 2) Impact of Paris Accord on Global Warming Negligible?, 3) Tech & Advertisers Helped Kill Internet Privacy, 4) Google Tracks Your Credit Card Purchases, 5) Chrome to Block Ads, 6) Patents & Printer Cartridges, 7) ICYMI Tech News.

1) Mary Meeker's Internet Trends 2017:

Other Tech News:

2) Impact of Paris Accord on Global Warming Negligible? "... even under the same level of commitment of the Paris agreement after 2030, our [MIT] study indicates a 95 percent probability that the world will warm by more than 2 C by 2100 ..."--MIT Joint Program Principal Research Scientist Erwan Monier.

3)  Tech and advertiser trade groups helped Congress dismantle Obama-era internet privacy rules | WashingtonPost.com: Trade groups for large internet service providers, the advertising industry and tech companies worked in tandem with congressional members.

4) Google Now Tracks Your Credit Card Purchases and Connects Them to Its Online Profile of You - MIT TechnologyReview.com: "The search giant wants to know how online ads translate into offline sales, but says it is taking steps to ensure users’ privacy isn’t breached."

5) Google Confirms Chrome Will Block Annoying Ads | Digital | AdAge.com: "Publishers will be able to understand how they will be affected through a tool Google is dubbing "The Ad Experience Report." It will basically score a publisher's site and inform them which of their ads are "annoying experiences.""

6) Supreme Court Victory for the Right to Tinker in Printer Cartridge Case | Electronic Frontier Foundation: "... when a patent owner "chooses to sell an item, that product is no longer within the limits of the monopoly and instead becomes the private individual property of the purchaser, with the rights and benefits that come along with ownership." The Court emphasized that, by default, people have every right to make, sell, and use things. The limited monopoly that the government bestows upon a patent owner is a deviation from the norm of free market competition and ownership of personal property, and is subject to important limits in order to protect the public interest ..." US Supreme Court Decision (pdf)

7) ICYMI Tech News:

• Online Accounted for 17% of China's Retail Sales in Apr 2017 | ChinaInternetWatch.com
• British Airways vows 'never again' after costly IT collapse | Reuters.com
• A Bad Broadband Market Begs for Net Neutrality Protections | Electronic Frontier Foundation | EFF.org
• EU regulators say Qualcomm has not offered concessions in NXP bid | Reuters.com
• Circulation, revenue fall for US newspapers overall despite gains for some | PewResearch.org
• European telecoms firms pin hopes on 'Esports' video game gladiators | Reuters.com
• How to Abandon iOS and Switch to Android | gizmodo.com
• T-Mobile's expanded network has rivals - and suitors - taking notice | Reuters.com
• How to secure your Apple and iCloud accounts | popsci.com
• Vietnam online gaming firm VNG says eyeing U.S. IPO | Reuters.com
• EFF Asks the Federal Circuit to Fix its Terrible API Copyright Decision | Electronic Frontier Foundation | eff.org
• China to implement cyber security law from Thursday | Reuters.com
• Exclusive: Google faces hefty EU fine in shopping case by August - sources | Reuters.com
• Open Hearings | US Senate Intelligence Committee: June 8, 2017, 10:00am EDT, Former FBI Director James Comey.

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo  

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Scott Galloway: Teens as a Forward-Looking Indicator (video)

Scott Galloway: Teens as a Forward-Looking Indicator

Published Apr 27, 2017 by L2inc.com: The best forward-looking indicator for brands? What teens are into this year? Chick-fil-A, Nike, and Snapchat.

Loser: Apple, which convinced 90 million Americans to buy iPhones but can't make them use those phones to pay for products.

Winner: road safety as ride-hailing apps prevent deaths from drunk driving.

Sources:
(0:07) “Teens Throw It Back To The ‘90s With Their Stan Smiths; Spending Shifting To Starbucks, Video Games And Amazon,” Piper Jaffray, April 2017. http://bit.ly/2p9LHxv
(0:24) “Teens Throw It Back To The ‘90s With Their Stan Smiths; Spending Shifting To Starbucks, Video Games And Amazon,” Piper Jaffray, April 2017.http://bit.ly/2p9LHxv
(0:45) “Number of iPhone Users in the United States from 2012 to 2016 (in Millions),” Statista, 2015. http://bit.ly/2pDB8U6
(0:48) “U.S. iPhone Ownership Reaches All-Time High on Strength of iPhone 7,” comScore, April 2017. http://bit.ly/2pDHcM7
(0:52) “An Inconvenient Apple Pay Truth” PYMNTS.com, April 2017. http://bit.ly/2oZ2mkp
(1:02) “Apple Pay Promised to Make Plastic Obsolete. Then Came Wary Shoppers, Confused Clerks,” The Wall Street Journal, April 2017. http://on.wsj.com/2oB9tT7
(1:14) L2 Analysis of Apple App Store data.
(1:19) “An Inconvenient Apple Pay Truth” PYMNTS.com, April 2017. http://bit.ly/2oZ2mkp
(1:28) “New York City Drunk Driving After Uber,” Jessica Lynn Peck, 2017. http://bit.ly/2oDpK9I
(1:35) “Impaired Driving: Get the Facts,” CDC, 2015. http://bit.ly/2j3EUBH
(1:43) “NONE FOR THE ROAD,” The Economist, January 2017. http://bit.ly/2qcq2oT
(1:52) “Uber Basks in Phenomenal SA Growth,” memeburn, February 2016. http://bit.ly/2p7ZlR4
Music: Say My Name (feat. Zyra) - Hayden James Remix http://bit.ly/1lgAHbQ

YouTube.com auto-generated transcript:
0:02  The best forward-looking indicator for brands?
0:03  What teens are into.
0:05  Teens spend more money on food than anything else,
0:08  including apparel.
0:10  Their favorite restaurant? Chick-fil-A.
0:12  Chick-fil-A? Really?
0:13  Taco Cabana or Cinnabon - that's a real fast food chain.
0:17  Athleisure is still in.
0:19  41% of teens cite an athletic brand
0:21  as their favorite clothing label,
0:23  up from 26% last year.
0:25  And their favorite social platform?
0:27  Snapchat.
0:28  I've been told in our comments, no joke,
0:30  that I look like Ryan Reynolds
0:31  when you sort of flick in and out
0:33  of a filter on Snapchat
0:35  and if you're on meth.
0:40  A loser: Apple.
0:41  The most valuable company in the world
0:43  convinced 90 million Americans to buy iPhones
0:45  but it's struggling to get them to use those iPhones to pay for products.
0:49  Just a third of Americans with Apple Pay-enabled devices have tried the service
0:53  and few ever use it again.
0:54  The number of people who used Apple Pay
0:56  more than once in a month
0:58  peaked in March of 2015.
1:00  Apple blames the poor adoption on retailers.
1:03  Let me get this.
1:04  Your PR executives went to the same graduate school as the executives at Pepsi and United.
1:09  It's your fault, retailers.
1:11  Anyways, only five of the 100 brands in our Specialty Retail study
1:15  accept Apple Pay.
1:16  But the real reason the service hasn't taken off?
1:18  Consumers prefer credit cards.
1:21  A winner?
1:22  Road safety,
1:23  as ride-hailing apps prevent deaths from drunk driving.
1:25  After Uber launched in New York in 2011,
1:28  alcohol-related traffic accidents fell by 25 to 35%.
1:32  Every day 28 people in the US die in alcohol-related crashes,
1:37  which account for a third of traffic-related deaths.
1:40  Uber's arrival could be even more meaningful in South Africa
1:44  where almost two-thirds of road deaths are alcohol-related,
1:48  the highest proportion in the world.
1:49  The company grew faster during its first year in Johannesburg and Cape Town
1:53  than London or San Francisco.
1:56  We leave you this week
1:57  with this stunning visualization of New York City commuter trips
2:00  created by Will Geary
2:02  set to my favorite DJ.

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Smartphone Industry Disrupted by BLU: Life One X2 First Look (video)

Life One X2 First Look:

Move over Apple, Samsung, and Google Pixel--here comes BLU (domain: bluproducts.com).

Video above published by BLU on Sep 22, 2016. You can pre-order now to get a 10% discount--only for 48 hours--September 22nd & September 23rd--get the Life One X2 starting at $134.99 for 16GB+2GB, and $179.99 for 64GB+4GB at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LZHFSBC

Domain Mondo watches technology trends and Miami-based BLU is getting a lot of attention in the smartphone industry. The New BLU Life One X2 has added significant improvements in technology from the original Life One X, such as Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 430 processor, Qualcomm® Quick Charge™ 3.0, and 5.2-inch 1080p Full HD with a gorgeous curved Corning Gorilla Glass 3.

More info:

• http://bluproducts.com/devices/life-one-x2/
• PDF: http://s536785483.onlinehome.us/salesguides/images/salesguides/life-one-x2-sg.pdf
• Blu reveals latest smartphone in the $150 Life One X2 | AndroidGuys.com

The New BLU #LifeOneX2 has great features such as Qualcomm® Quick Charge™ 3.0,1080p Full HD and more! Pre-order now @amazon for 48HR sale! pic.twitter.com/ffqQNxk19U

— BLU Products (@BLU_Products) September 22, 2016

For a good wireless carrier deal, check out T-Mobile offerings (some available only online) including these money-saving plans:

If you have access to Wi-Fi, why do you need an expensive wireless carrier plan?


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2016 Internet Trends Report, Smartphone Growth Slowing, Video & Slides

UPDATE Video: Internet trends report presented by Mary Meeker, KPCB, Code Conference 2016:

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Mary Meeker delivers her annual internet trends report. She says "easy growth is behind us" as the newest internet users are coming from less developed and less affluent countries. Meeker also delves into artificial intelligence, Snapchat brand integrations, changes to live sports viewing habits, car industry innovation and the rise of millennial consumers, among many other topics. Published June 1, 2016

 

2016 Internet Trends Report from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

2016 edition of Mary Meeker’s (KPCB) annual Internet Trends report (slides above). 3 Billion global Internet users, growth flat at 9% Y/Y, 7% Y/Y excluding India. Global smartphone user growth slowing, as are smartphone shipments.

Here are the biggest takeaways from Mary Meeker's 2016 Internet Trends Report https://t.co/UfGv4FQLNj pic.twitter.com/f0ZVDPEsbY

— Josh Constine (@JoshConstine) June 1, 2016

KPCB Report offers an in-depth look at the following:

• Global Internet users have surpassed 3B; India, not U.S., is the world’s second-largest Internet market.

• Internet user growth flat (led by acceleration in India), while smartphone user and shipment growth have slowed.

• In the face of a slowing global economy, key macro growth drivers from the past 2 decades are less certain.

• Internet advertising (particularly via mobile) continues to grow, but so does ad-blocking, pushing the envelope on development of more innovative ad formats.

• New online-first brands have rapidly grown in popularity for the millennial generation with their focus on omni-channel and personalized distribution strategies.

• In communication, video and images shared are growing as a means of storytelling; creators, consumers, and advertisers are taking part.

• Messaging has evolved from simple, expressive conversation to business-focused use cases, with Asian platforms often leading the way.

• More efficient and often more convenient than typing, voice-based interfaces are ramping quickly and creating a new paradigm for human-computer interaction.

• Transportation is being re-imagined, as the rise of car computerization, autonomous driving, and sharing transform our understanding of mobility.

• Looking to China, Internet leadership continues, as the country boasts global innovation powerhouses in e-commerce, messaging, travel, financial services, and on-demand transportation.

• The proliferation of data generated by a multitude of devices has fostered tremendous business opportunity, but privacy concerns abound.

Tweets about Internet Trends

feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondo
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Apple's First Revenue Decline in 13 Years (video) & Mobile Ate The World

source: Statista

A symbolic moment for Apple:

Video above: FT.com's Lex discussion on the significance of a fall in iPhone sales:  Apple has suffered its first quarterly revenue decline in 13 years. But does a fall in iPhone sales signal a Blackberry-style death spiral? Lex’s Robert Armstrong and Jonathan Eley discuss the company’s fortunes.

See also:

• Apple $AAPL (Calendar) Q1 2016 Results, Used iPhones Resistance in India (video) | DomainMondo.com April 27, 2016
• Icahn: We no longer have a position in Apple | CNBC.com April 28, 2016

Mobile Is Eating the World (2016) from a16z.com

In this update of his past presentations on Mobile Eating the World — delivered most recently at The Guardian’s Changing Media Summit — a16z.com’s Benedict Evans takes us through how technology is universal through mobile. How mobile is not a subset of the internet anymore. And how mobile (and accompanying trends of cloud and AI) is also driving new productivity tools.

In fact, mobile — which encompasses everything from drones to cars — is everything.

• Mobile Ate the World
• Mobile is the New Tech Ecosystem
• New Productivity
• The Internet Moves to Mobile
• On Mobile, the Internet is Different

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WIPO: Domain Cybersquatting Cases Up in 2015, Driven by New gTLDs

Cybersquatting and Internet Domain Names in 2015: WIPO Director General Francis Gurry and Director of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center Erik Wilbers discuss WIPO domain name dispute resolution cases in 2015. Published by WIPO on Mar 17, 2016

Trends in Cybersquatting and Internet Domain Names in 2015: WIPO Director General Francis Gurry shares his key takeaways from WIPO domain name dispute resolution cases in 2015. Published on Mar 17, 2016

WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) issued a press release today, stating that amid ICANN's roll-out of hundreds of new generic Top-Level Domains (new gTLDs) such as .GURU, .NINJA and .NYC, trademark owners filed 2,754 cases under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) with WIPO in 2015, an increase of 4.6 % over the previous year. According to WIPO, cybersquatting disputes relating to new gTLDs accounted for 10.5% of WIPO’s UDRP caseload in 2015, which covered a total of 4,364 domain names, and "among these names, .XYZ, .CLUB and .EMAIL were the most common new gTLDs." Since new gTLDs comprised only about 3% of all domain names registered globally at the end of 2015, the amount of cybersquatting cases in new gTLDs is more than triple that percentage, based on the WIPO report. WIPO also noted:

"The increase in new gTLD registrations in WIPO’s caseload is anticipated to continue, in particular as new gTLDs contested at Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) auction, such as “.SHOP”, are yet to launch.  Meanwhile, calls are being made for a next round of new gTLDs, particularly by brand owners, such as Twitter.  At the same time, ICANN has commenced a process to review Rights Protection Mechanisms such as the URS (Uniform Rapid Suspension system) and the UDRP.  As the UDRP initiator and leading administrator, WIPO takes a strong interest in these ICANN processes."

Annexes to the release:


WIPO infographic:



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IANA Transition, ICANN Accountability, Comment Analysis, Timeline

Above: CCWG-Accountability 3rd Draft, Public Comments, Trends & Analysis (published by ICANN on January 18, 2016)

Background: "As initial discussions of the IANA Stewardship Transition were taking place, the ICANN community raised the broader topic of the impact of the transition on ICANN's current accountability mechanisms. From this dialogue, the Enhancing ICANN Accountability process was developed to provide assurance that ICANN remains accountable in the absence of its historical contractual relationship with the U.S. Government, which has been perceived as a backstop with regard to ICANN's organization-wide accountability since 1998. The CCWG-Accountability was chartered to consider how ICANN's broader accountability mechanisms should be strengthened in light of the IANA Functions transition, and to review the existing accountability mechanisms such as those within the ICANN Bylaws and the Affirmation of Commitments [AoC]. The CCWG-Accountability is in the process of refining its conclusions and proposals based on the public comment received on the Accountability Framework it identified as essential to have in place or be committed to before the IANA Stewardship Transition (Work Stream 1). Next steps include finalization of the report for the Chartering Organizations' final endorsement. As appropriate, the Work Stream 1 conclusions will be delivered to the ICANN Board of Directors." (source: ICANN Report of Public Comments; emphasis and links added)

Additional info:

• CCWG-Accountability meeting schedule
• Link to public comment box: https://www.icann.org/public-comments/draft-ccwg-accountability-proposal-2015-11-30-en
• Link to public comments: http://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-draft-ccwg-accountability-proposal-30nov15/
• Link to public comment summary and analysis: https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/report-comments-draft-ccwg-accountability-proposal-08jan16-en.pdf

Below is the CCWG-Accountability timeline published in late 2015, which has suffered slippage:

Below is the overall IANA Stewardship Transition process, scheduled to be completed in 2016 (except for WS2 / Work Stream 2 accountability issues)

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Verisign: 299 million Domain Names Registered Globally as of Q3 2015

 Above Chart: at the end of the third quarter of 2015, new gTLD (ngTLD) registrations totaled approximately 7.6 million, which represents only 2.5 percent of total domain name registrations of 299 million. The top 10 ngTLDs represented 44.8 percent of all ngTLD domain name registrations. Source: Domain Name Industry Brief, infra

Approximately 3.1 million domain names were added to the Internet in the third quarter of 2015, bringing the total number of registered domain names to approximately 299 million worldwide across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of Sept. 30, 2015, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief by Domain Name Registry (.COM, .NET) operator Verisign (domain name: verisign.com) (NASDAQ:VRSN).

Verisign ($VRSN) reports the increase of approximately 3.1 million domain names globally equates to a growth rate of 1.1 percent over the second quarter of 2015. Worldwide registrations have grown by 14.8 million, or 5.2 percent, year over year. As of Sept. 30, 2015, the domain name base of .COM equaled 120.1 million names, while .NET equaled 15.1 million names. In the third quarter, Verisign processed 9.2 million new domain name registrations for .com and .net, as compared to 8.7 million domain names for the same period in 2014. See the Domain Name Industry Brief.(pdf) to learn more about the trends and techniques in the domain name industry, such as the following:

Most Common Parts of Speech Combinations - Percent of Occurrences:

NOUN-NOUN-NOUN- 42

ADJ-NOUN-NOUN- 10

NOUN-ADJ-NOUN- 5

NOUN-VERB-NOUN- 3

VERB-NOUN-NOUN- 3

NOUN-NOUN-ADJ- 3

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Jim Scheinman, Maven Ventures, How to Build a Unicorn Company (video)

The Land of Milk, Honey and Mythical Creatures: Jim Scheinman of  Maven Ventures talks Unicorns: Jim Scheinman of Maven Ventures - who successfully achieved three 'unicorns' ($1B+) exits/valuations over 20 years - visited OurCrowd in Israel to talk about "The Land of Milk, Honey and Mythical Creatures: How to build a "unicorn consumer company." (Published on Jul 9, 2015)

Note the section on naming your startup: Skiggle or Tango?

Domain names/twitter handles:

• mavenventures.com  twitter: @mavenvc
• jimscheinman.com  twitter: @jimscheinman
• ourcrowd.com  twitter: @OurCrowd

About | Maven Ventures: "Maven Ventures is the first incubator and micro VC seed fund focused exclusively on consumer internet and mobile startups with hyper-growth potential. We invest in great founders with a vision worth fighting for. The Maven team identifies future consumer trends that will change the way we communicate and live in the next year or two. Past examples include our early identification of tech trends for the last decade: internet portals (1998), social networking (2003), virtual goods (2006), mobile apps (2008), the international groundswell of entrepreneurship (2012). Maven Ventures Fund I has already invested in what we foresee as some of the game-changing trends of the future like self-driving cars, virtual reality, and consumer software for wearables ..." (emphasis added)

About OurCrowd: 
"OurCrowd is an equity-based crowdfunding platform, built exclusively for a select group of accredited investors to provide venture capital funding for Israeli (and later global) venture capital start-ups. Membership in the community is vetted and offered only to people who meet the stringent accreditation criteria. Accredited investors who are accepted into the community can make minimum investments of $10,000 per deal. The initial focus of OurCrowd will be the dynamic early stage funding market in Israel and only companies that have passed a rigorous due diligence process will be added to the platform. All term sheets will be pre-negotiated and OurCrowd’s management company and affiliated mentor network will lead the investment with their own money. OurCrowd has become the first Israel focused, equity-based investment platform to launch and one of the world’s leading accredited investor only platforms." (source: ourcrowd.com)


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Nine Marketing Trends, Midyear 2015, Adobe (slides)

Nine Marketing Trends To Watch As We Hit Midyear 2015 from Adobe

Key Tech Trends: Where Do Marketers Go From Here?: "... Billions Of Devices - The Internet of Things or IoT is poised to be even bigger than the smartphone wave, with 25 billion Internet-connected devices expected to be online by 2020, according to Gartner. These sensored devices will be a ubiquitous part of homes, offices, airports, malls, and many other parts of our daily lives. However, despite the great potential, keep in mind a few key points: • Unprecedented user insight: Just like mobile devices, sensored devices will enable marketers to understand consumer behavior at a level of granularity and precision unlike anything available before. • Tsunami of data: All that data creates a couple of key problems–how to store it and how to create value from it. The availability of cheap, ubiquitous cloud storage will increasingly address the first problem, but drawing insight and intelligence from terabytes of this data and being able to act on it are important disciplines that are only just developing. • Privacy and regulatory stewardship ..."

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2015 Internet Trends Report by Mary Meeker, KPCB (slides)

Outline from Mary Meeker's 2015 Internet Trends Report (source: KPCB)
Below is the full Slide Presentation

Mary Meeker is a former Wall Street analyst, now late-stage venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers [domain name: kpcb.com] who has published annually an influential assessment of the Internet economy. Meeker presented her Internet Trends report at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes on Wednesday (full report below, outline above).



2015 Internet Trends Report from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

"KPCB’s Mary Meeker presents the 2015 Internet Trends report, 20 years after the inaugural “The Internet Report” was first published in 1995. Since then, the number of Internet users has risen from 35 million in 1995 to more than 2.8 billion today. The 2015 report looks at key Internet trends globally – while still healthy Internet user and smartphone subscription growth continue to slow, Internet engagement continues to rise led by consumers spending more time on their mobile devices, where they can be connected 24/7. Mobile advertising still has headroom to expand and new innovations around ad formats and buy buttons should prove compelling for consumers and businesses. 

"We are re-imagining more and more aspects of our daily lives, as mobile users and entrepreneurs continue to push innovation and creative output across new online platforms. User-generated / curated / shared content continues to rise, ranging from pins on Pinterest to videos on Snapchat and Facebook. Business processes continue to be re-imagined, led by companies aiming to make data more useful and services more efficient. Demographic shifts are helping to accelerate technology changes. Millennials are now the largest generation in the workforce and their work / life expectations differ from previous generations. As connectivity and commerce continue to rise, we have witnessed broad impacts on consumer expectations, which in turn can alter work for many, to a form of work that can be flexible and supplemental. Looking internationally, Chinese Internet leaders continue to innovate, while India is on-track to become the second-largest Internet market in the world."

Domain Mondo addendum to the above (based on an Economist research report today): three economies will dominate the 21st Century--China, India, and the U.S. Developing countries that have high GDP growth potential: Indonesia, Nigeria,  and Mexico.


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