Big tech competing for the Virtual Reality market

Not only Google, Facebook and Samsung are in the race to gain the market of VR devices, but many of the big entertainment companies such as Walt Disney are already producing the content that VR Devices’ users will demand.

Google’s Cardboard inexpensive device is definetively targeting the massive consumption, maybe in contraposition to what it was a big failure so far, the extremely expensive Google Glasses.

Walt Disney, has teamed up with Google and Verizon to hand out thousands of free Cardboard viewers featuring characters such as R2-D2. The initiative follows a partnership with the New York Times last month, in which viewers were sent to the newspaper’s subscribers.

Samsung and Facebook, on the other hand, just teamed up to launch a $99 VR gear headset. While Cardboard is designed for simplicity, Gear VR offers more sophisticated hardware and tighter integration with Samsung’s smartphones.

On the content side, Star Wars became the first highest-profile entertainment brand yet to join the Cardboard platform, this week.

In 2015 alone, more than $600m has been invested in 119 deals with most of that going into content companies such as Jaunt, NextVR and 8i.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/df7f388c-9974-11e5-95c7-d47aa298f769.html#axzz3tHT0NShw

Let’s talk SELFIES

Selfies are all up in the news these days. I came across two topics that I want to talk about: 1) how marketers are stalking your selfies and 2) how Samsung plans to find its next selfie moment. Remember the epic selfie from the Oscars? Ya, that was Samsung.

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal talks about how some new startups are using your selfies to give brands information and targeting opportunities. I’m assuming y’all know that if you have a public profile on Insta, anyone can view your pictures, selfies included. Well, now companies are stalking your selfies and re-purposing these images for big-brand advertisers. One example is Ditto Labs, which uses its software to scan for brands showing up in selfies. For example, if you’re holding a Coca-Cola can in a photo, Ditto can find this photo and send targeted ads your way. Other companies like Piquora store these images to show marketers what is trending in popularity. Pretty cool and creepy, right? Well there are some pretty blurred lines in terms of the privacy issues that are coming up as a result.

Ok so now that we’ve gone over the creepiness of selfies, let’s talk about something more fun! I bet many of you have seen the selfie below where Samsung planned a Samsung-shot selfie of host Ellen DeGeneres and actress Meryl Streep…along with a few other beauties:

This selfie got so much buzz, and many people (including a bunch of CBSers) replicated this selfie after it was posted. Samsung didn’t expect so much success, but when it saw just how big the buzz was, the brand donated $3 million split between DeGeneres' two selected nonprofits: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Humane Society. This highlights Samsung’s agility and the importance of brands being able to think and react quickly. Apparently only Ellen and Meryl were supposed to be in the selfie – but sometimes things go better than planned! A recent AdWeek article talks about how Samsung is constantly monitoring opportunities like this. Samsung’s Director of Media & Partnerships says: “The goal hopefully should be that you’re looking for another fun, additive, organic and authentic moment for the brand you’re partnering with and yourself. So in that, there’s no time for sleep.”

BI: Why The iPhone's Market Share War With Android Actually Matters

http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-android-market-share-2011-12

This article had a very interesting discussion following our class on the market for smart phones and specifically the battle between the Iphone and Samsung's android. It talks about many of the things that we were going over in class...operating system comparisons, market domination, etc and where the battle between the two is going.

Ultimately, the outcome remains unsolved, but it clearly seems as though the competition is good for users particularly in product innovation, and at the lower end of the market.