ILM East is coming back to Boston March 26-28 with a lineup of doers and innovators who are transforming and redefining the local space. Highlights include a featured keynote from industry legend Ted Leonsis (Groupon vice chair/AmEx board member/sports team owner/AOL mastermind), along with keynotes/interviews from Jason Calacanis, Leslie Berland, Jay Herratti, Michael Zimbalist and Michael Silberman.

Other highlights of the two-day event includes a preconference rundown on local search run by Andrew Shotland of Local SEO Guide; a full plate of top BIA/Kelsey research and forecasts; a special venture capital panel; and innovator panels on social, mobile, deals, video and hyperlocal (the latter co-moderated by Merrill Brown).

KEYNOTES/KEYNOTE DISCUSSIONS
� Ted Leonsis: Owner, Monumental Sports (Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards); Vice Chair of Groupon; board member of AmEx, former vice chair of AOL; author, “The Business of Happiness”
� Jason Calacanis: CEO, Mahalo; investor. Calacanis’ career has been at the cutting edge of local and social media and reflects all the big trends, from his development of The Silicon Alley Reporter to Weblogs (AOL), Mahalo and the creation of TechCrunch50 and Launch.
� Leslie Berland, vice president, social strategy, American Express. Berland’s a major deal maker deeply involved in AmEx’ss mega Foursquare and Facebook deals.
� Jay Herratti, CEO, CityGrid Media. Herratti always gets top rankings at our events. He runs IAC’s super quad of the CityGrid Media Network, Citysearch, Urbanspoon and Insider Pages.
� Michael Zimbalist, VP, research operations, New York Times Co. Zimbalist leads the NYT’s 12 person-research unit. He’s deeply immersed in cutting-edge social, mobile, tablet and video efforts.
� Michael Silberman, GM, New York Magazine Silberman is the mastermind of NYMag’s development of a super set of verticals catering to the “New York state of mind.”

FEATURED SPEAKERS
� Bill Bice, CEO, SpaBoom
� Merrill Brown, Cofounder, MSNBC.com, Court TV
� Jim Douglass, EVP, Cartera Commerce
� Jere Doyle, CEO, EverSave
� Walt Doyle, CEO, Where
� Adam Japko, CEO, Digital Sherpa
� Maria Kermath, Director, New Tech & Sales Apps, AT&T Advertising Sales
� Mark Josephson, SVP, AOL Local
� Charlie Kim, CEO, Next Jump
� John McIntyre, CEO, Pixelfish
� Randa Minkarah, SVP, Revenue, Fisher Communications
� Randy Parker, President, SMB Apps
� Mark Schmulen, GM, Social Media, Constant Contact
� Andy Slater, VP, Digital Agency Sales, Katz 360
� Andrew Shotland, Publisher, Local SEO Guide
� Christopher Tippie, CEO, FindNSave
� Darren Waddell, EVP, Product and Corporate Marketing, Reply.com

Join hundreds of senior level local executives at ILM East for the local community’s best networking and insights. You can register here for earlier bird rates.

Internet Pioneer Ted Leonsis

BIA/Kelsey moderated a panel on “the Out-of-Home User Experience” (click on image for link to streaming video) at MediaPost’s Digital Out-of-Home Forum (DOOH) in New York. DOOH is the third-fastest growing ad medium after mobile and online video.

Paul Lindstrom, senior VP, Nielsen OnLocation, kicked off the panel with data showing video engagement is about 80 percent correlated to advertising recall. Andy Stankiewicz, executive VP and chief communications officer, Akoo International Inc., and David Veckerelli, co-CEO, Digital Displays Network, spoke to how their systems engaged users in unique ways to create video-based user experiences that could drive point-of-purchase sales.

In Akoo’s case, its model is to have large displays in food courts and college student unions playing music videos. Users can interact with the videos using their mobile phones (text, browsers or apps) to select content and make other choices which increases dwell time and user engagement. DDN built and operates the 7-Eleven network of video displays and uses a strategy of mapping content, dayparts and featured products to drive sales lifts.

Generally, the mood of the DOOH Forum was quite positive. The technology has matured into a more capable, cost-effective and efficient buying platform that bridges the physical (i.e., place-based) world to both traditional and digital media. Planning and buying has become easier within vendor platforms but there are still a lot of vendors. Video screens that are connected with an Internet Protocol (IP) address can be interactive, targeted and provide engaging content.

DOOH leverages social context, physical location and user passion (health clubs, bars other places where users select to be based on personal interests). The challenge now is for buyers to become educated about how to understand how their brand strategies can be served by DOOH media in combination with other media. This is a matter of multiplatform planning, buying and creative execution that leverages DOOH’s many digital and interactive capabilities to drive user engagement with compelling experiences.

While Apple iOS and Google Android have attracted hundreds of thousands of apps, BlackBerry remains stuck at some single-digit percentage of that number.

Is it that BlackBerry users don’t have the same appetite for apps that other smartphone users have? That would seem highly unlikely. It seems much more plausible that BlackBerry users have not been habituated to apps because there are so few of them, and frankly many BlackBerry apps aren’t that great.

The primary reason is that software developers shy away from building native BlackBerry apps. The platform is simply much more difficult to develop for than Apple iOS and Android. Some real examples:

1. Multiple Versions/Devices: It’s hard to make one BlackBerry app that will work well for all BlackBerry devices — there’s little standardization among RIMM devices. The “smartphone” BlackBerrys are touchscreen, whereas the other ones use a scroll-ball to move a cursor and make selections. There’s not even a standardization of screen sizes, which makes layout difficult and time consuming. To understand the issue in about one second, take look at the BlackBerry Operating System version chart on Wikipedia.

2. Testing: You can test your code on a simulator in the computer — but each simulator download is 150 MB (!) per device — multiply that times the devices on the above OS chart.

3. Internet Connectivity: Getting a connection to the Internet from your app is not at all straightforward. BlackBerry is designed for security, which means that all of your Internet could be running through a central proxy somewhere. This becomes problematic for development as the app code must probe and prod in order to figure out the best means of connecting to the Internet to fetch data from any sort of Internet-hosted datastore.

4. Debugging: In iOS, the development cycle is:
- change code
- click button
- watch the app load on the device and verify your code change

Now here’s the comparative debugging process for BlackBerry:

Change code, click button, watch your app get sliced in to 64kb pieces, a window prompts for your encryption password, each 64kb is signed by TWO signing servers (meaning that you need to wait for about 40 requests/responses for even a meagerly-sized app — making a build at the end of the day? forget it — the signing servers are too busy to handle all those requests; watch your e-mail box as RIMM e-mails you for every single piece that was signed (hundreds of e-mails); wait for the device to completely reboot; wait for the debugger to attach; then dig through the menus to find the “Downloads” icon to actually launch the app; then, as standard operating procedure, the debugger throws two or three error windows for which you are recommended to “ignore” per the RIM documentation; then you may check your code changes.

Bottom line: Development for BlackBerry is complex for UI, complicated for developers, resource intensive for computers, and time-consuming to test versus the Apple and Android environments.

Not surprisingly, BlackBerry has begun taking the position that native apps are a fad (see the article RIMM co-CEO interview with Barron’s this week), much like the AOL proprietary service was.

RIM’s position is that Web-based apps will dominate in the future. But only time will tell if it is right. At least for now, consumers continue to embrace the use of proprietary apps.

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Tobias Dengel is CEO of WillowTree Apps Inc., a mobile applications developer. He is also BIA/Kelsey’s new technical editor and will be posting regularly on mobile-related topics. The views he expresses are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of BIA/Kelsey.

Content remains king on the Internet mainly because there are more ways to produce, connect and interact with content than ever before. According to Rod Smith of IBM, “there are more ways to dig into content than ever before, but it also produces more targeted ways for advertisers to interact with the audiences they are seeking.”

While content is king, the way it is presented online differs depending upon the online medium used. Joe Gregorio of Google points out that “Twitter and blogging have different voices and and different timeframes so communication has to be different. Quick updates versus longer tail content that can be searched have very different purposes.”

Now we are seeing content being merged with local commerce and the social graph in more interesting mash-ups. “Consumer commerce is moving into virtual boutiques where the average consumer can set up shop and sell merchandise and connect their social network to their store, Gregorio says. “Tying into localized information and comments are the keys to the success of this area.”

When asked where the online play will be over the next one to two years, the clear answer was the smartphone. Why? According to Bob Young of LuLu, “we have not even reached the 50 percent mark of penetration and the current demand for content and usage indicates this market will continue to rise as more smart handsets come onto the market.”

The only restriction for the smartphone growth is the data pipeline. IBM’s Smith points out: “Pipes are the issue of what will be possible versus what people want to access. This is causing poor customer experiences. Netflix, Hulu and other major content producers are pushing the networks to do a better job.”

Content will remain king as it drives searches, engagement and eyeballs, meaning content will remain the center of the Web future. Innovation continues to drive online, and the hope is that the data pipes will keep up to help fulfill the consumer promises media companies and online publishers are making.

Today, Mary Meeker gave her annual data dump of key Internet trends at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. As always it was fairly rich, including lots of mobile usage data as leading indicators for opportunities in content and ad delivery.

One of the more notable slides included global smartphone shipments plotted against PC (both desktop and notebook) shipments. They’re set to intersect sometime in 2012 — yes, a little over a year from now.

This prediction gains credence if you examine the trend lines and consider the fact that smartphones are cheaper and increasingly matching the capabilities of PCs. They’re also tied to the growth and ubiquity of mobile devices generally.

Also notable was the “refresh” of her staple slide that shows iOS device growth compared with other historical tech products during their respective first 20 quarters of growth. This really puts iPhone’s market influence and growth into perspective.

Drilling down further, 42 percent of global Q1 smartphone shipments were a combination of Android and iOS devices. This likewise isn’t a new story but the extent of this market share is eye opening.

More important, it is indicative of where to devote development resources for any media companies in the process of building apps (or Web sites). In terms of “picking a horse,” these platforms are clearly where usage momentum lies.

Lastly, a glimpse of the Japan mobile social networking market was provided as a leading indicator to where mobile social networking could reach in Western markets. Facebook leads this charge with 200 million regular mobile users (out of its total 500 million users).

To connect the dots with previous data points, see our coverage from Meeker’s presentation last year. You can also view her presentation from today on Scrib.d, and a few slides are below.

Millennial Media — the largest independent mobile ad network, reaching 63 million U.S. mobile Web users — has published its August Mobile Mix report. The report covers impression activity and trends across its network, encompassing device hardware, operating system software and applications.

Highlights from the latest release include:

- Android OS smartphone impression share climbed 7 percent month over month, capturing 26 percent of the U.S. smartphone OS mix. Only Apple is ahead of Android with 48 percent impression share. Apple OS, however, dropped 7 percent from the July report. The results mark the continuation of Apple’s summer slide, as its July impression share score was lower than June. RIM placed third in this category with 19 percent of smartphone impression share. Surprisingly, its relative share grew by 3 percent from July.

- Zooming out, overall smartphone impression share improved from 48 percent to 51 percent, distancing both feature phones (33 percent) and connected devices (16 percent) and serving as a microcosm of the hastening adoption of smartphones.

- In terms of ad requests, Android also gained ground, surging 39 percent month over month while Apple remained flat. The continued rise now brings Android’s explosive growth in this area to 996 percent since the beginning of 2010.

- Apple’s growth spurt occurred with iPad, where ad requests were up 76 percent from July.

- Among device impressions, Apple still holds a commanding lead at more than 28 percent, with Samsung (15 percent), Motorola (14 percent) and RIM (11 percent) trailing. Apple’s iPhone is the dominant branded device at almost 28 percent, with the Motorola Droid rising to a distant second at nine percent. BlackBerry’s Curve checks in at 6 percent.

Many have hailed Apple’s iPad as a salvation for publishers, and rapid adoption unequivocally certifies that it is indeed a “killer app.” But what opportunities exist for Yellow Pages providers to marry their deep content and established brands with iPad’s unique assets?

Yellowbook VP of Digital Media Mike Wilson, Yellow Magic CEO Ron Mintle and WillowTree Apps Founder Michael Prichard explored the possibilities that iPad introduces during a panel discussion at DMS `10, addressing iPad from three distinct perspectives: Yellow Pages publisher, software provider and application developer.

Yellowbook is the first YP publisher to feature an iPad app, and Wilson underscored that the device is already a “leading member” of the company’s mobile portfolio because of its volatile growth and easy-to-use interface.

Listings are easily geolocated, and all services, including watching video and posting reviews, are embedded within the application for optimal navigation. Naturally, Yellowbook’s app also capitalizes on social media sharing functions and closes the purchase loop even farther by linking to Skype to contact to businesses directly.

Mintle’s Yellow Magic incorporates distribution by replicating the print book as an iPad PDF in which all features are “hot” (click to link, click to call) and a variety of advertising options can be readily integrated (splash screens, inserted ad pages, banners). It also offers a sales force automation system for the device. This software package enables directory services to transfer a sales representative’s office in full to the iPad, including everything from contracts to proofs to revenues.

Prichard saw business management solutions such as Yellow Magic as an area of significant opportunity for iPad. Of the six attributes that distinguish it, he suggested that Yellow Pages is imminently positioned to take advantage of geolocation. In both Wilson’s and Mintle’s examples, however, iPad’s touch, ease of use, “always on” and portability trademarks are also front and center.

As for monetizing the iPad opportunity, past experiences with mobile suggest that it is commonly treated as added value, or at best, an upsell layered on top of bundled advertising packages. But Wilson emphasized that mobile is coming out of its purely experimental phase and that “the time for it to act as a standalone for monetization has arrived.”

Steve Jobs might be as adept at captivating a live audience as he is at innovating game-changing media products. For nearly the first hour of Apple’s “September event” earlier today in San Francisco, Jobs made nary a mention of Apple TV. And then, just as the invite-only crowd suspected that the festivities may be ending, Jobs pulled his latest, famed “one more thing” trick, quipping that the final “hobby” (his notorious description of the company’s philosophy toward TV) was on the agenda — a $99, rental-centric upgrade of Apple TV that streams movies and TV shows in HD and is compatible with portable devices. 

ABC and FOX are already on board as partners, and Netflix and YouTube streaming are also available. Jobs announced that commercial-free TV shows are 99 cents for a 48-hour rental, while first-run movies cost $4.99. The 99-cent price point is in-step with the iTunes song pricing model that has radically disrupted the music industry. 

Courtesy: Engadget

Also, because all premium content is rented and streamed (rather than downloaded), there are none of the storage capacity or management concerns that have weighed down iTunes video files in the past.   

The Apple TV box itself is staggeringly small — one-fourth the size of the original model — and features three simple outputs: power, HDMI and ethernet. “Silent, cool, and tiny,” to borrow Jobs’ words. He also believes that the iTunes content repository can create a sufficiently delightful user experience to prevent consumers from viewing it as merely “a computer on their TV.”

Courtesy: Engadget

Also, the AirPlay 4.2 that is featured as part of the iOS 4.2 due out in November will allow streaming of videos and pictures over Wi-Fi to mobile devices and vice-versa — from iPads to Apple TV. Apple TV debuts in four weeks.

Other announcements from the jam-packed program included:

- The iOS 4.1 for iPhone and iPod Touch will be released next week, highlighted by a game center (both an API and an app) designed for “multi-player games” and HD video over Wi-Fi. IOS 4.2 introduces a host of iPad enhancements, including multitasking within multiple apps (similar to the iPhone’s folder system).

- New designs for each of Apple’s three leading iPod brands — Shuffle, Nano and Touch. Nano in particular receives a slick makeover, ditching the clickwheel and moving to a small multi-touch interface.

- A re-branded iTunes 10 was unveiled (bye-bye CD logo), replete with a new social music network called Ping that creates a recommendation-driven chart of songs that an iTunes user would like based on the music preferences of that person’s “circle of friends.” The essence is musical discovery.

Courtesy: Engadget

Michael Zimbalist, who runs R&D at The New York Times Co., told Inman Real Estate Connect attendees in San Francisco yesterday that the rise of social networks has spearheaded a very real shift from “the paradigm of publishing to the paradigm of communicating.”

“The consumer is squarely at the center,” said Zimbalist, noting that there are now more global users of social networks than even e-mail. “Time spent using e-mail has completely flattened out.”

The new paradigm has led to a change in overall behavior, with users now active creators of content. “Every minute, 20 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube,” he said. Mobile is also integrated into everything.

The implications for the publishing and software industries are that they have to plan for multipurpose devices and services and incredibly rapid innovation. “We are seeing a Cambrian explosion of evolution,” said Zimbalist. Many things are coming up, and some don’t make it.

Features that have been seized upon include search with voice, location, image recognition, multi-touch, augmented reality and “gestural navigation” such as Wii game devices. To stay abreast, it is critical that publishers and software producers work to sync everything at all times.

Regarding the iPad, Zimbalist took note of an audience member’s disappointment with The New York Times’ initial iPad app, which is just a “best of” product (I like it, actually). A new premium version will come out soon. Addressing rumors that it will be priced as much as $360 a year, Zimbalist only joked that users will “definitely pay more” than they do for The Wall Street Journal’s iPad app.

Some speculation (and new details) about Apple’s pending and well-expected reboot of Apple TV found its way last week into The New York Times just before the holiday break. My guess is that the new and obvious name will be iTV and the functionality will mimic other Apple devices running its OS — iPod Touch, iPhone, iBook and iPad.

The time is certainly right for someone to make sense of the TV, which is perhaps the most important information and entertainment device. Just imagine if the next version of Apple TV (a.k.a. the first version of iTV) offered the consumer a user interface as simple and elegant as the iPhone. The iPhone would function as the remote, and we’d do away with the current morass of clickers and remotes that dot the living room landscape.

Of course, Google is not going to sit idle and watch this happen. It is pushing its own Android-like model to counter the much anticipated reboot of Apple TV working with Sony and Intel — two of the most important names in consumer electronics.

And then there’s Microsoft. It would probably like to forget its 1997 acquisition of WebTV for several hundred million dollars. That was 13 years ago — and to date consumers have seen little evidence of the potential of IPTV. Rather, most of us just sit and hope and pray that someone will come along and make the process of watching TV as intuitive and pleasurable as it is to buy and listen to music on iTunes.