New e-Miles Members Now...

New York City, NY (January 31, 2012) -- e-Miles, a unique advertising channel that engages customers with relevant advertiser messages, today announced that new members can choose to redeem the e-Miles currency they earn for watching, reading and responding to targeted advertising for Amazon.com Gift...

Nike Officially Announc...

Exercise gadgetry seems to be all the rage this season, with products like the Jawbone UP and MotoACTV entering the marketplace. Nike of all companies will certainly not be left behind, and has today announced a new wristband called the FuelBand. Not unlike its competitors, the FuelBand measures time, steps and calories during your fitness routine. It’s incredibly similar to the Jawbone UP, as its a fitness tracking wrist band. The most poignant difference is that Nike’s FuelBand measures something called NikeFuel — a measurement of your wrist movement. Nike claims that “the more you move, the more NikeFuel you earn,” according to Business Insider . The FuelBand can either sync to your PC through a USB connection or via Bluetooth to an iPhone app. From there you can keep all your stats in one place and set goals for yourself. We haven’t seen the MotoACTV gain a whole lot of traction thus far, and we all remember what a failure the Jawbone UP was . Hopefully Nike’s offering will have more success than the competition.

Sony Intros Bloggie Liv...

Now that most of our smartphones can take crisp images and stunning video, the digital imaging sector is having a tough time holding on to its market share. Still, a few players are up for the challenge, including Sony which has today announced the latest in its line of Bloggie pocket cams: Bloggie Live and Bloggie Sport. Bloggie Live is all about what’s happening right now, as it’s able to shoot video and broadcast it live to another device courtesy of the Qik platform. All videos taken with Bloggie Live are in 1080p, and are uploaded in the mp4 format so you can share quickly to Facebook and YouTube. Speaking of, Bloggie Live has built-in WiFi so whenever you’re connected to a network, you’ll be able to share directly to your favorite platforms without plugging anything in. On the still images front, Bloggie Live still has your smartphone beat with a 12.8 megapixel sensor. Bloggie Live sports a 3-inch touchscreen, along with a flip-out USB arm for charging/uploading, 8GB of memory, and an HDMI-out port. Sony’s also loaded this little guy up with some software including its PlayMemories online platform, which lets you view pictures and videos from your iOS or Android devices once you’ve downloaded the PlayMemories mobile app. Then there’s the Bloggie Sport, Bloggie Live’s ruggedized little brother. It still shoots in 1080p and has a 4x digital zoom like the premium model, but Sony opted to offer this guy with 4GB of memory instead of 8GB, bringing its video shooting time down to two hours instead of three. Still images will be 5MP instead of 12MP, and the LCD touchscreen has been reduced from 3-inches to 2.7. However, there is some added functionality there, including the ability to take this thing 16 feet under water (with full touchscreen control). Bloggie Sport is also shock resistant. It’s got a rubberized finish, and has special locks to prevent any seepage on that flip-out USB arm. Like the Bloggie Live, you’ll also find an LED light on the back to help with low-light shots. Bloggie Live will hit shelves today and has an MSRP of $249, while the Bloggie Sport won’t be available until mid- to late February for $179.

Fast Society Deadpools ...

Fast Society today announced it will shut down its group messaging app and instead devote resources to its new app Cameo that will launch next month. Group messaging seemed like such a big opportunity a few years ago. But that was before Apple launched iMessage , Skype bought GroupMe , and Facebook converted Beluga into Messenger . Suddenly, there wasn’t much to add by being a mobile group texting app without OS or other platform integration. Fast Society will apply its existing team and investors towards offering unique value by helping people share moments rather than just messages. After 9am EST on Wednesday, December 14th, all Fast Company apps will cease to function and messages won’t be delivered. Users should save any photos or other content as it will all be deleted then as well. Don’t take this as a sign of defeat, though. Fast Society’s co-founder Matthew Rosenberg tells me “It seemed dumb to just quit. We’re not quitters, we’re New Yorkers. We’re used to hustling every single day. It’s unfortunate to have launched something into a crowded space, but the benefit is we saw a lot of people doing it one way and we’re passionate about doing it a different way.” One area where I see potential in mobile sharing is unifying all the different types of content people usually publish separately. I’d love an app that lets me accumulate multiple photos, videos, status updates, location, friend tags and more behind a single shared link, creating a sort of collage of a moment. This seems to match with Rosenberg and Fast Society’s mission with Cameo. “We’re trying to capture experience and be part of fun events. Group messaging became the lowest common denominator.”

DeNA, GREE: Japan’s Mob...

GREE and Mobage are brand names that don’t ring a bell with too many people (yet) as far as markets like the US or Europe are concerned, but these mobile social gaming platforms are hugely successful in Japan. The Tokyo-based companies behind these homegrown gaming networks, GREE and DeNA , reported some big financial numbers today. DeNA (current market cap: US$6.4 billion) today announced sales reached US$457 million for the second quarter of this fiscal (through the end of September 2011), while operating income hit a mind-boggling US$203 million. That translates into 28% and 13% year-on-year growth, respectively. While these numbers are impressive (especially because about 90% of sales come from game-related transactions), DeNA isn’t as strong on a quarter-by-quarter basis: from Q1 to Q2, sales have been flat (+/-0%), while operating income dropped 3%. Their financial report can be downloaded in English from here . Competitor GREE didn’t have quarterly results to report, but they didn’t want to let DeNA steal the show: the company (current market cap: US$7.3 billion) has radically revised their earnings estimates for the fiscal year (which ends in June 2012). GREE is now expecting sales to hit US$1.67 billion to US$1.8 billion for the current fiscal (up 40-44.4% from the previous forecast), while operating profit is expected to land somewhere between US$770 million and US$900 million (up 40-50%). All of GREE’s new numbers in English can be found here . What’s impressive is that DeNA and GREE still make almost all of their money in Japan, on cell phones, and with games (avatar-related sales, in-game virtual items) only. Both companies started offering mobile games embedded in a social networking platform for Japanese feature phones around 2006/2007, with DeNA now boasting 32 million registered users in Japan, while GREE has over 26 million. The social networks are in the process of internationalizing heavily and acquired or set up subsidiaries throughout the world. In the US, for example, DeNA acquired ngmoco last year for US$400 million (and set up Mobage in English on Android as a beta in summer), while GREE acquired Openfeint in April this year for over US$100 million.