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Smartphones are on a fast track to become the primary device for both creating and consuming digital content. According to the Pew Internet for the American Life Project, already a full 31% of Americans who own internet-capable phones browse the web primarily from their phones. These numbers are actually higher in emerging markets. What's more, there are at least three other factors at work here. First, images are global. They eschew all language and cultural boundaries. Photography is the only true universal medium. Nothing comes close. Second, images are distributable. The bandwidth required to transmit photos is minimal, yet the opportunities for quick, creative expression are plentiful. As of this writing, Apple's App Store alone has over 10,000 iPhone apps in its photo category -- many of them for editing. Photoshopping has been democratized. Finally, images are digestible. You can glance at a picture for as short or as long as you want. Photos are a non-linear, shared consumption experience. The same can't be said for video or even text.

The frogs are slowly getting cooked.

Eventually we'll get to SF-quality hard AR, but it'll take a while. I'd be surprised if it was sooner than five years, and it could easily be more than ten before it makes it into consumer products. That's fine; there are tons of interesting things to do and plenty of technical challenges to figure out just with soft AR. I wrote one of the first PC games with bitmapped graphics in 1982, and 30 years later we're still refining the state of the art; a few years or even a decade is just part of the maturing process for a new technology. So sit back and enjoy the show as AR grows, piece by piece, into truly seamless augmented reality over the years. It won't be a straight shot to Rainbow's End, but we'll get there - and I have no doubt that it'll be a fun ride all along the way.

A recent study from marketing firm Performics shows that 33 percent of people are most likely to respond to brand offers when they are reposted by a friend. The study states that 27 percent will do so on the brand's page, 26 percent from the newsfeed, and 20 percent from a social ad. The study also touched on some valuable information about branded content engagement. Consumers are most likely to engage with branded content containing images (44 percent). A close 40 percent of people said they are likely to engage with Status Updates and 37 percent with videos.

bratz dolls are implementing AR to their products.  girls can hold up a mask to a webcam to trigger an ar game by Total Immersion.  she can paint the mask or her face and print/save the image.

"A new report confirms the significant and growing influence of the Internet and social media in the shopping decisions of U.S. moms. In preparing to go shopping, mothers are 43% more likely to go online to gather coupons and 38% more likely to look at store Web sites than food shoppers as a whole, according to Packaged Facts' "Moms as Food Shoppers: Grocery Store and Supercenter Patterns and Trends" report.  Further, moms are nearly twice as likely as food shoppers overall to have used social media to plan their most recent grocery shopping trip (20% versus 11%). And in addition to consulting blogs prior to shopping, they are increasingly using mobile apps to ensure that they're getting the best deals while shopping. "

"Sam Glassenberg, CEO of Funtactix, which develops social games for major motion pictures like The Hunger Games, said the in-game ad market presents both huge opportunities and new risks for brands and agencies. He cited statistics from NPD and said that there are almost 200 million online gamers out there who play games for an average of 13 hours a week. Yet, the majority of ad spend still goes to TV or banner ads and only a fraction to games, he noted. "How are we going to close that gap?" he asked. The discussion was organized by SponsorPay, a Berlin-based engagement advertising company whose application rewards users that watch an ad with virtual currency and other goodies. SponsorPay is one of a handful of companies out there including SocialVibe, Flurry and WildTangent seeking to help games developers monetize their product and brand advertisers engage consumers with such ads. Games entrepreneur Wilson Kriegel, formerly with Zynga, addressed this potential by discussing his involvement with mega-hit Draw Something, an online drawing game developed at his former company OMGPop, which Zynga acquired in March. The game allows people to draw things and share them with their friends. Since its launch early in 2012, it has seen over 90 million installs, 10 billion drawings created and was a top trending topic on Twitter.  Companies including McDonald's, Disney and Sprint have incorporated their ads into the game. Kriegel said that ad features including in-game banners, game features and in-game call to actions seen a clickthrough rate of 1 percent to 10 percent-unheard of in an industry where average CTRs are 0.7 percent."

Instagram images are not displaying on Twitter cards as of Sunday afternoon. Instead, users are being shown an empty white space where a photo should live. A link to the Instagram photo is still included.

Brands are ten a penny on Facebook and Twitter, but with Instagram and Tumblr continuing to welcome more users, brands are broadening their social horizons. Coke, Levi's, Tiffany & Co and Aldo are all amongst brands that have new projects underway.

- Truthdive reports that 700,000 Droid smartphones are activated daily; - Mobile searches, according to Google, increased by 400 percent in 2011; - Digital Buzz reports that half of all Internet searches are conducted on mobile devices; - Fifty eight percent of mobile shoppers are between the ages of 18 and 34, according to Millennial Media; and, most amazingly, - Spyder Trap reports that 70 percent of mobile searches result in action within one hour.

A new survey by mobile ad network Greystripe suggests mobile shoppers are more likely to evangelize brands or products than people who prefer to make purchases in physical stores. The study found almost half (49%) of mobile shoppers routinely writing reviews about their product experiences, compared to only 31% of their traditional counterparts.   But if a mobile shopper is unhappy with a purchase, that also indicates they are more likely to complain about it online. The study showed that mobile shoppers are more likely (31%) to visit a brand's Web site or app first when looking for product information than in-store shoppers (24%).

Flock is not just a brand new app; we see it as a brand new *kind* of app.  While most apps today jockey for our ever-dwindling time and attention, attempting to become one of the apps that we think about the most, Flock is different.  We designed Flock so you don't have to think about it at all.  You just live your life like you already do.  Spend time with your friends and family; take photos with whatever camera app you prefer.  There's no work for you at all, really.  Flock uses new battery-friendly location technology and sophisticated algorithms to magically know which of your Facebook friends you are with when photos are taken.  After you leave your group hike, or the night out on the town, or Thanksgiving dinner, Flock will check if anyone wants to share the photos they took and then bring those photos together into a single group album for everyone to enjoy.  And because most photos taken by iOS devices are geotagged, Flock can even work backwards in time from before you installed the app!  So if you and your friends and family install the app today, you'll likely unlock lost memories that were trapped on each other's phones for years.

"Not surprisingly, social media are a major force behind the trend, as advertisers seek creative ways to engage with consumers  and harness the energy surrounding major televised events, like this year's Olympics.  The real-time ads arrive at a time when social media are playing a newly prominent role in the Games. In 2008, Twitter was still in its infancy; now virtually every high-profile American athlete has an active account on the microblogging site, and by the time they're over, the Games of the XXX Olympiad are expected to have become the most tweeted-about event in history. In order for advertisers to stay timely and relevant, "our content needs to move at the speed of social media," says Kevin Burke, head of global consumer marketing at Visa."

In terms of video completion and engagement rates, opt-in video ads see 98 percent and 3.5 percent respectively, while industry averages are just 64 percent and 1.2 percent. Jun Group found that Facebook engagement fell 9 percent over the year, while advertiser website visits shot up by more than 20 percent. In particular, consumers are utilizing website features like store locators and coupons. Facebook remains the most popular form of interaction with 31 percent of overall engagement, but advertiser site visits are now nipping at the social networks heels at 28 percent.

Nest Labs has released a new report based on data from hundreds of thousands of Nest Protect devices. The anonymous data shows that carbon monoxide leaks are more frequent than many may have expected, and that at least one million households in the US, UK, and Canada are exposed to high levels of carbon monoxide each year. Around 400 people are killed by carbon monoxide poisoning every year in the US, so Nest's data could help safety experts better understand why and when leaks happen

"McDonalds beacon case study (retail) 26 McDonald's franchises in Columbus, Georgia tested out iBeacon technology with its customers. Over the four week trial, the franchises were pushing special deals for McChicken Sandwiches and 10 piece Chicken McNuggets. The iBeacon powered promotions pushed McChicken Sandwich sales up 8 percent and Chicken McNugget sales up 7.5 percent. Based on the initial results of the pilot it looks as though McDonald's will continue to explore the technology for an additional 263 retail stores in the southeast. "Everyone is looking at their phones, millennials especially, and that's where we've decided to engage," Jack Pezold, a McDonald's franchisee of 40 years, said in a statement. Spotless beacon case study (enterprise) Spotless is an Australian owned and managed provider of integrated facilities management services. In 2014, Spotless partnered with Lighthouse to build and deploy a custom workforce management solution with the goal of reducing litigation claims in the commercial cleaning service line. The solution allowed Spotless to understand when cleaning KPI's are missed in real-time and produce employee location reports that can be used as legal defense against slip and fall litigation claims in shopping malls. Spotless has also been able to optimise their workforce and reduce operating costs by analyzing Lighthouse powered heat mapping of employee movements. The solution has been so successful that Spotless are extending the capability across other service lines including facilities management, security and maintenance. Read the full case study here. Pause Fest beacon case study (events) Pause Fest is Australia's premier digital event, aimed at supporting and showcasing the best in creative and tech from Australia and all over the world. In 2015, Pause Fest partnered with Lighthouse to deploy a network of beacons that delivered proximity based content and experiences to attendees, while enabling real-time event analyt

disposable incomes in india are increasing- so people are more focused towards quality over price. also bc of media and e-commerce more people are shopping in rural areas of india.

A recent IBM study found that only 26 percent of CMOs are tracking blogs, 42 percent are tracking third party reviews and 48 percent are tracking consumer reviews to help shape their marketing strategies. The study was conducted across 1,700 chief marketing officers in 64 countries and 19 industries as a means to determine the focus on market circumstances versus individual consumer feedback.

Tuition costs are skyrocketing, rising by double digits at some major campuses. About 47% of students receive financial aid and 57% are working at least part time to make ends meet, found textbook-rental company Chegg in a recent survey. So, it's no surprise that today's college students are more budget-conscious than ever.