• Microsoft Windows 8 Public Beta will be ready in February 2012. This was announced in December but Microsoft is notorious for missing deadlines so it is nice to hear that they’re still on track.
• Microsoft is going to disrupt television. They are looking to make shows two-way interactions via Xbox. In other words, television will no longer be just a lean-back technology
• Kinect will be available for the PC in February 2012. In my mind, this is Microsoft’s admission that gaming can occur on any device, not just a specific console since NUI’s (natural user interfaces) are the wave of the future.

Full notes are below:

9:40 PM Ryan Seacrest taking the stage; explains partnership with MSFT Bing. Ballmer hugs him; Ryan makes fun of his height.

9:41 PM Ballmer to talk about innovations on phone, PC, Xbox, and TV’s. Cools to see Metro interface/ live tiles in the background.

9:43 PM Ballmer is showing it off on a Nokia device; says that Windows Phone is about putting people first and highlighting your relationships. Explains how easy it is bring information together.

9:45 PM Derek Snyder (Sr Product Manager, Windows Phone) comes onto stage. Shows off “People Hub” that brings information about favorite people together. Shows how he great it is to see information for a specific group. Talks about they’re using Facebook Chat and Window Messanger together. Can also dive into conversations across all communications with a specific user. Phone also has a voice recognition (app crash stirs audience!). Demo’s live tile that shows off critical data without forcing user to dive into an app. Showing off how apps share information.

9:54 PM Ballmer talks about new LTE phones: Nokia Lumia 900 with LTE from AT&T  with 4.3″ AMOLED display, HTC Titan 2 with 4.7″ Super LCD and 16 megapixel camera.

9:56 PM Changing to Windows PC’s. Ballmer excited about the competition. Talks about the way that Windows PC’s have spurred innovation. Ballmer mentions that people have moved from desktops to notebooks. Ballmer pumps up Intel.

9:58 PM Ballmer shows off video of various Windows 7 PC form factors. Samsung Series 9 HP NV14 Spectra — lots of awesome looking ultrabooks.

10:01 PM Tami Relleer (CMO, Windows) takes stage. Mentions how Windows 8 introduced at CES 2011. “No compromise Experience”: effortless/flexibility of tablet but the power of a PC. Lock screen shows off critical bits of info (like unread email). Device uses picture password. With Windows 8, get charms with swipe from right. Launches finger-painting app which takes over the entire screen. Windows 8 runs on ARMS and x86 chips. Apps will run on both chipsets. Windows Store in now populated (vs. empty at MSFT Build Conference). Apps will connect people to as many as possible. Shows off Cut the Rope app — partnered with ZeptoLab to create an HTML5 app game. Shows seamless app switching by swiping from left. Windows Store to launch in late February — only free apps at first. Will have free and paid apps across 200 languages later in the year. Explains semantic zoom — can see how easy to manage apps by zooming out — can rename grouping. Talks about how Win8 works with touch and pointer device (mouse + keyboard). Can also use search to find an app. Apps share via app contracts — will share info without leaving app, makes for a richer experience. Demo’s snap function where two apps can be visible on the same screen at the same time. Tablet is very responsive. Next Windows 8 milestone will come in late February 2012. Samsung Series 9 is available in 15″; Dell will announce a new PC tomorrow.

10:18 PM Ballmer says that Windows 7 is the most successful OS – 500 M users. And Windows 7 PC will be compatible with Windows 8.

10:19 PM Tweet Choir. Impressive vocals but this is the lamest part of the show so far!

10:23 PM Gaming Discussion: XBox. Ballmer claims the most successful console: 66 M Xbox Users; 40 M Xbox subscribers tuning in. About delivering entertainment that you want, making it easy. Creating a different entertainment experience — Kinect is a leading part of this experience. Sold 15 M Kinect units.

10:26 PM Greg Davidson (Microsoft Xbox Team). Shows how he can control console via his voice. Discovery powered by Bing. Says “Bing [actor name]” and it brings up movie.

10: 28 PM Broadcast temporarily suspended due to intellectual property.

10:30 PM And we’re back! Talks about 26 of the most popular channels being broadcast live from Verizon FiOS will have program guide. Additional partnerships: Comcast Xfinity (launching library of top shows and movies), News Corp (bring Fox, WSJ Live, Fox News Channel and IGN), AT&T U-Verse. All coming this year!

10:34 PM Jamie Bauer and Ansley demo-ing two-way Xbox TV. Creating new experiences with the TV. Sesame Street TV via Kinect. Shows how kid can throw a coconut into basket — kid can shift from lean back mode to active mode. Also demonstrate how kid is a part of Elmo’s world. Not just watching — being a part of the TV. Coming later on this year!

10:40 PM Steve says that it will impact things like healthcare and education. Kinect commercial plays. Announcement that Kinect is coming to Windows in February!!!

10:42 PM Ryan asks what else is going on at Microsoft? Ballmer talks about Sync installed in Fords; 4 M since 2007, 9 M additional cars in the next 3 years. Office 2010 is the fastest selling version of Office; moving to the Cloud and stunning competition to Google Docs. Since CES last year, MSFT acquired Skype: 200 M people who used 300+ B minutes of voice and video in the last year . Bing reached 30% marketshare in US.

10:45 PM Final question: what’s next? Windows 8 and dynamic, more natural user interface. Ballmer makes fun of his “developers, developers, developers” chant by saying “Metro, Metro, Metro.”

• Brand loyalty. Some people are admittedly Apple fanboys — they own everything Apple and they refuse to look at anything else because it is crap. They certainly won’t dare think about an iPhone (even for a second)!
• Lack of awareness. Most consumers do not know that Android and iPhone devices are on par both from a hardware and software perspective. In fact, certain Android devices sport better hardware (processor, expandable storage, thinner form factor) than the iPhone 4S.
• Fear of change. We’re human and so we generally resist change. In fact, we are only agreeable to change once we can ensure that change doesn’t upset the status quo. All of this requires a time investment and so it is easier to just stay the course.
• Popularity. iPhone’s popularity is greater among affluent households. By possessing an iPhone, we make a statement that we’re not commoners — it is the epitome of conspicuous consumption.

For more than two weeks I’ve been testing the iPhone 4S and researching my options and I’ve decided to go with the Samsung Galaxy S II, an Android-powered phone. Why turn my back on Apple when the iPhone is king? Here are the 5 reasons why the Galaxy is better smartphone (in no particular order):

1. Overall form factor. The Galaxy S II is one incredibly sleek device. It is thiner and lighter than the iPhone 4S — measuring at 8.89mm and 4.13oz (vs. 9.3mm and 4.9oz for the iPhone).
2. Crisp, larger display. While the retina display, an LED-backlit IPS TFT screen, on the iPhone 4/iPhone 4S is ultra-sharp, the Super AMOLED+ screen on the Galaxy S II is equally sharp. But the big different is in the screen size – the Galaxy S II packs an additional 0.8 diagonal inches into their screen that it feels more like a tablet.
3. Faster processor. Both phones are powered by a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU but the Galaxy S II sports an even faster 1.2GHz processor (vs. the iPhone’s 0.8GHz CPU).
4. Mobile application parity. While I have 50+ apps on my iPhone, I only use a select few on a regular basis. The most popular apps — like Facebook, Pandora, Skype, Kindle, Evernote, MapMyRun and the Starbucks Mobile app — have all been ported to Android so I won’t feel like I’m suddenly a second class smartphone citizen.
5. iTunes independence. I’ve been using iTunes to buy and transfer music since I owned an iPod. But over the last few months I’ve been regularly using Spotify to the point that I’ve stopped listening to my own music. Additionally, I generally buy music from Amazon and I can listen to these tracks via the Amazon MP3 Player/Amazon Cloud Drive app that iTunes doesn’t matter.

With all that said, there are drawbacks of going with the Samsung Galaxy S II:

• Unlike the iPhone, all of the carriers cram their own apps onto the  smartphone. Additionally, carriers control when you get to update your device with the latest OS. The good news is that Ice Cream Sandwich, the upcoming Android OS, runs smoothly on the Galaxy II S so I won’t feel the immediate need to upgrade in another 2 years.
• The Galaxy II S is pre-loaded with a custom User Interface (UI) called TouchWiz 4.0. Hopefully, this UI will be replaced with a standard Android UI when Ice Cream Sandwich is released.
• The new white Galaxy S II is not currently available but it is expected to ship by the holidays.

As I was crafting a rebuttal to Joe’s latest tweet, I uncovered a recent study from international accounting and consulting firm Deloitte that suggested that apps do not appear to help companies sell more smartphone. According to the study, 58 percent of US consumers say a smartphone’s size, quality, keyboard style, and price factor into their smartphone buying decisions whereas just 18 percent of respondents said that mobile applications influence which smartphone they eventually decide to buy. NOTE: survey is based on responses by 1,960 people between the ages of 14 and 75 in June and July 2010.

Now before you call your marketing agency or tech department and cancel your mobile application development project, you should consider that research firm Nielsen revealed in an earlier article that Smartphones in the US are primarily used for email, a feature that doesn’t require custom mobile applications. If email is such a critical component of a smartphone, then it could explain why application development is not key in buying process. Additionally, consumers have come to expect that mobile applications are either currently available for their platform or will be in the near future so these apps are not critical to the decision making process.

The key to the success of these smartphone devices continues to be developers. If you need more proof that applications (and app developers) are critical to smartphone and OS development companies, then just check out the recent announcement by Nokia and AT&T regarding an application development challenge with $10M in prize money for N8. Nokia is attempting to attract mobile application engineers in the US and convince them to develop apps  for N8, the next Symbian^3 device. If Nokia believed in Deloitte’s research, they’d certainly wouldn’t need to bribe entice application developers to come to the Symbian side. As Balmer says, it is about developers, developers, developers (see video)!

While earning points or rewards can make the check-in experience entertaining and interactive, LBS applications take it a step further by allowing shoppers to expose a storefront and/or products to an entire network of friends. Knowing that we tend to socialize with friends with similar values, tastes and interests, retailers can expect that the exposure will not only bring foot traffic but it will actually attract shoppers that are motivated to make similar purchases. Considering that retail sales were relatively flat in August according to MasterCard Advisor’s SpendingPulse (August 2010), retailers should be looking for every trick in the book to encourage consumers to open up their wallets this final quarter of the year and beyond.

While Roeding is promoting the success of his Shopkick mobile application with retailers American Eagle and BestBuy in the video, retailers can find the same functionality in applications from competitors, such as WeReward and SCNVGR (NOTE: SCVNGR recently integrated their application with Facebook Places). Several retailers, including Domino’s Pizza and AT&T, have recently launched LBS campaigns with these mobile applications and the campaigns  appear to be increasing both traffic and loyalty so retailers are not stuck with a single choice.

Considering the above, what other value do you see in location based services?

• Use third party development platforms, such as MonoTouch and Appcelerator, to create iPhone applications. In a blog post on the decision, Jeff Haynie signaled that Appcelerator was in the clear and thanked developers for their continued support.
• Use mobile advertising platforms other than iAds/Quattro. Google was also gushing about the new terms of service and how the mobile community will benefit by having multiple platforms in the mix.
• Use third party mobile analytics platforms, such as flurry, motally (now owned by Nokia) and Distimo.

On the third point however, the new terms reinforced the need for developers to respect user privacy.

The news terms specify that mobile applications must ask users for permission before collecting personal and device data. However, device data cannot be sent to third party providers. In essence, Apple is trying to prevent these mobile analytics software providers from leaking news of a upcoming device like they did in the past (see Flurry and the iPad).

Why the sudden change of heart?

Clearly, Apple needed to change things up. While some speculated that the projected growth of Google’s Android mobile platform forced Apple’s hand, this idea goes against the view of Steve Jobs who has always favored catering to a small, loyal crowd vs. worrying about the masses (see Doc Searls on Steve Jobs). While Apple could have forced Developers to jump through hoops to use third party solutions vs. Xcode, Apple did not want to entertain another cat and mouse game as they have with the developers that are constantly jail-breaking their iPhones. Instead, Apple shifted the focus back to the art of usability, content and design that the third party development platforms have to support. In fact, Apple provided a set of high-level guidelines that specified:

• “We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don’t need any more Fart apps. If your app doesn’t do something useful or provide some form of lasting entertainment, it may not be accepted.”
• “If your app looks like it was cobbled together in a few days, or you’re trying to get your first practice App into the store to impress your friends, please brace yourself for rejection. We have lots of serious developers who don’t want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour.”

This may be a solid strategy to encourage developers to port quality apps from Android to the iPhone platform but it will work only if these development environments don’t impose additional limitations on the developer.

I tested out the check-in process via both SCVNGR and Yelp on the iPhone.

As I allowed both application to connect Facebook, SCVNGR requested permission to publish Places check-in data on my behalf while Yelp only requested to post to my wall (see pictures below). However, both pushed data into my Places data stream.

When looking at Places data, I also discovered that checking in at the local Ace Hardware store via Yelp and Facebook generated activity at two separate locations. It is if you are living in a parallel universe where you are going to the same place but not really. In fact, data from the Facebook API shows that there were two distinct locations with the same name and extremely close map coordinates. So friends who are at the same location may not be able to see each other if they use different check-in applications and that negates the benefit of using an alternative check-in application. It is poor architectual decision by Facebook as you can’t simply aggregate the information. The only bit of good news is that Yelp identifies itself as the application used during the check-in process which means that developers who are tapping into the API can decide whether to include/exclude this bit of data during analysis if they do attempt to aggregate the information.

Finally, Places data now includes location data that extends beyond the map coordinates. Some locations now feature address information, such as street, city, state, and zip code. Since Facebook Places is not available globally, it will be interesting to see if Facebook renames the zip code attribute to “postal” code which is more universal/common. Clearly, Facebook has additional architecture/system design challenges ahead of itself.

Over the past few days, I’ve had a chance to get “under the hood” and check out Facebook Places. Below are the essential things that Facebook marketers and developers need to know about this new service.

How does Facebook Places work?

Facebook has created a short video that explains the features of Places (see below). The critical feature to note is that friends can easily add a location by completing a couple of fields (Name and description of location). However, once a location is added, friends cannot edit or delete it.

But with an iPhone, you can report on a location — you can tell Facebook that the location has closed (eg: gone out of business!) or it is a duplicate listing.

How can Facebook users access Places?

At the present time, Places works only on the iPhone or via the Places mobile site. To access Facebook Places via the website, you must have a browser that supports the W3 Geo-location specifications. This means that you can check-in on advanced browsers such as Firefox (3.1 or greater) or Chrome (assuming that you know how to enable the -enable-geolocation flag). While this service is currently available only in the United States on the iPhone, Facebook has indicated that they will offer this service in new countries and support other platforms in the near future (no specific dates were provided).

What can business owners do with Places?

Business owners can claim their location by clicking on the “Is this your business?” link on the listing page and completing a short form. They must also provide a official document and confirm that they  authorized to manage that listing. Once the information is submitted to Facebook,  they  receive a confirmation email that their information is being processed. They are also taken to the Facebook business centers where brands can learn how they can interact with Facebook users (eg: purchase ads).

How can developers and marketers leverage Facebook Places?

Facebook Places provides additional data about users on Facebook. The data is available only once a user has agreed to share their information with the application. Since this data is not a part of the standard user profile (it requires a user_checkin extended data permission), Facebook developers have to create an application that would compel users to allow/release their location information. The data that marketers can access includes, the location information, the user’s information, the check-in date/time, etc. (view diagram via MindMeister). Once a Facebook user checks-in at a location, the information is readily viewed from the news feed as Facebook has elevated the weight of these postings. To maximize exposure and access to Places data, it is highly recommended that developers add friends_checkin extended data permission. This permission would authorize marketers to collect check-in data for a user’s friends, which can enhance the overall experience. At the present time, Places data can only be read — Facebook has not exposed the check-in API calls. These calls surely exist but are available only to partners FourSquare and Gowalla who are currently working to integrate their services with Facebook Places.

Why did Facebook create Places?

At first glance, you’d think that Facebook saw the success of FourSquare or Gowalla and got location-based services envy. However, it seems that there are more compelling reasons to roll out this service, including:

• Access to more data. Google showed the world that user data is king. The people at Facebook are smart and they see how the additional location data provides one more bit of information about the user that can be used to better target the user. Places also provides Facebook with user-generated data on businesses that otherwise would have to be purchased.
• Location-based services offer an important dimension. One of biggest challenges with web searches is the lack of context. For example, a user that searches for “tiger” may be interested in either tigers (the animal) or Tiger (the golfer).  Facebook has the same problem when it comes to social media data. For example, the Like button may convey a user’s interest or preference but it lacks context, as a user may like the brand, the product or some other attribute. With Places, Facebook is one step closer to understanding what the user wants. (NOTE: Om Malik also shares my point of view on this matter; source).
• Revenue from businesses. Google monetizes each and every search using their ad network. In the same way, Facebook has attempted to monetize their network of users. Facebook is promoting Pages as the desired location where brands should engage with the user in conversations. Looking to the future, it is not unimaginable that Facebook will require brands to pay a fee for either a premium Page listing or a premium position within the news feed (which is no different than what Twitter is doing these days). By that point in time, brands will be forced to jump on board and pay a premium to differentiate themselves or ignore Facebook, which is highly unlikely.

It seems that Facebook took a page out of Google’s playbook when they considered this service. As Facebook Places gains momentum, it will be interesting to see how brands utilize this service to interact with and market to their consumers.

Second, I learned that Pandora had to be upgraded in order for the “new” multitasking feature to work. As a fan of music, I’ve been using another application called Electric FM which allows me to listen to music in the background (as a stream within Safari) since February 2010. And there have been no freezes as recently reported by some iPhone users! So for me, multitasking really isn’t revolutionary. I guess that a side benefit of introducing this feature will be that some iPhone app developers will get called to upgrade their app and subsequently the iTunes app store will get refreshed.

My last disappointment about iOS4 is that iPhone 3GS owners don’t get to enjoy the new feature called FaceTime, which allows users to conduct video conferencing calls. Granted, marketers can’t really take advantage of this new feature but it is still cool in concept. FaceTime to me is evolutionary — it introduces an set up from a phone call — an untethered (but not to be confused with mobile) video conference for the masses, or so I thought. While my device is missing the rear facing camera, I expected my processor to be good enough to support the demands of this feature. I imagined that when I would engage in a FaceTime based conversation, I would be use only the forward facing camera on my iPhone 3GS which is no major loss. So I’m perplexed by Apple’s decision to not add this feature to my iOS 4 upgraded device. It definitely feels like Apple see me as a second class citizen unless it is a ploy to simply force convince me to buy the new iPhone 4. Really? It has had to come down to this arm twisting contest where I can only use the Knocking Live application?

Last year, Apple acquired streaming music service Lala.com. Lala was unique in that members could listen to new tracks in their entirety (iTunes only allows you to listen to a clip) and then purchase the rights to stream the song for pennies. Timing of the deal was suspicious as Apple swooped in just as Lala announced the pending approval of their iPhone app, which would allow members to access their music catalog via an iTouch or iPhone. While some question Apple’s motive to make the deal (because as a standalone service Lala would pose a competitive threat to iTunes), most expected to Apple bring Lala into the iTunes Store “fold” and give members a choice to either purchase music download or streaming rights.

Lala Shutdown Notice

Unfortunately, in Microsoft-esque style Apple has pulled an embrace, extend and extinguish move with Lala. According to an announcement on the Lala website, the service will shut down on May 31, 2010. Some sites, including Gizmodo, are already questioning if this move will be followed by the release of a streaming service within iTunes but most think not. As a fan of Apple, I just find it amusing that the company, who is at odd with Adobe because of Flash performance concerns (which are valid; see my prior post on HTML5 and Flash) may get a pass for exterminating a competing music service.

While I’m not about to call Apple evil, I think that it is time for other fans to admit that Apple is no different than Adobe or Microsoft — it is all about business!