Posts by EricMack

More of us could be taking Linux with us wherever we go in the coming years - that according to a pair of reports from ABI research that predict a big chunk of both smartphones and non-smartphone mobile devices will be Linux-based by 2015.

"The number of Linux-oriented initiatives recently seen in the mobile industry indicates that Linux will be a key technology in the next generation of netbooks, media tablets and other mobile devices," said ABI Research analyst Victoria Fodale following the release of the second part of the research, which deals with non-smartphone devices. "Despite the growing number of Linux distributions in the mobile market, Linux has a unified base of upstream components, notably the Linux kernel."

Those Linux initiatives go by names in the consumer market that include Google's Android and Chrome, meeGo from Nokia and Intel and Palm/HP's WebOS. ABI says in their report that 62 percent of non-smartphone mobile devices will be based on Linux by mid-decade. An earlier ABI report released in June predicted that roughly one-third or 33 percent of all smartphones will have Linux at the core of their OS, and that they expect growth in Linux smartphones will outpace all other system types.

Google, champion of the "free will set you free" model, is expected to lead the way, shining a light into the brave, new, Linux-based wireless world. The company's CEO noted that over 60,000 Android-based phones have been shipping on …

As goes Google, so goes the rest of the universe -- or at least that's the fear this week after the start up-turned-giant-turned-common verb reported disappointing earnings that sent the Silicon Valley stock over a digital cliff after-hours Thursday.

The company pulled in 1.84 billion dollars for the quarter or $5.71 per share, less than analysts' average projection of $6.52 per share.

Taking the blame for the disappointing figures are Europe's lackluster economic situation -- Google does a significant chunk of its business in the Euro zone -- and a recent ramp-up in hiring that bumped up total expenses.

But lurking below the surface here are worries about the Adwords Economic Indicator -- you saw the phrase coined here first, folks -- which could be telling us that retailers aren't buying as much online advertising as they should be, and, more importantly, indirectly telling us the economy is still pretty crappy.

Of course we should point out that Google, the company, its ad sales and those vital pay-per-clicks that underwrite its googol of tentacles forever invading the information universe, are all actually on the upswing.

"(Google saw) solid growth in our core business and very strong growth in our emerging businesses drove 24% revenue growth year over year," said CEO Eric Schmidt. "We saw strength in every major product area, as more and more traditional brand advertisers embraced search advertising and as large advertisers increasingly ran integrated campaigns across search, display, and mobile."

To translate …

Gentlemen, your suspicions have been confirmed - your lady/girlfriend/wife is addicted to Facebook.

That's the finding in a new survey of 18-to-34-year-old ladies by Oxygen Media (think Oprah). It found that over a third of the 1600 women polled - 39% to be exact - describe themselves as "addicted" to the pervasive social networking service. In fact, not even the call of nature can rival the siren song of social media in the morning, as 34 percent admitted that they even check Facebook before using the bathroom in the morning.

More evidence from the survey of a society's priorities gone horribly wrong:One-fifth of the women asked say they wake up in the middle of the night to check Facebook
42 percent see nothing wrong with posting photos of themselves wasted.
26 percent of women have checked for text messages in the middle of the night, which might explain why...
37 percent have fallen asleep clutching their smartphone or mobile device.

The undeniable influence of "the 'book" isn't just about sleepy-eyed status update spying, though. The survey also discovered that a whopping 63 percent of females polled use the service for career networking, 48 percent for news and 44 percent for TV and movie reviews.

Unfortunately, it also provides more grist for the paranoia mill for parents of millennial daughters, with 56 percent finding no problem with posting their current location on Twitter, and 50 percent say they're willing to meet …

At Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington, D.C. this week, the digital diplodocus will announce its lumbering movement into the cloud along with an appeal for its partners to hold hands and make the leap as well. For those partners that are still a little hesitant to make the jump, Microsoft seems more than ready to provide an "encouraging" shove. Sessions at the conference tackle several variations on the theme of making money off the cloud, like "Open Government and the Cloud: A Perfect Storm for Partner Opportunities," "The Cloud Opportunity in Education," and the more straight-forward "Winning the Cloud with Microsoft Online Services." All in all, no less than 150 sessions come up in a search for panels tagged "cloud."

Microsoft's "Azure" cloud package is the main focus, but other new products like WebMatrix and Shareconnect have cloud-ish components, and CEO Steve Ballmer has been hyping the cloud in recent months.

Of course, it's tough to see this new cloud campaign as much more than Redmond playing catch-up once again. Google is already set up on the largest, free public clouds in the sky, and Apple can be seen basking in the clubby atmosphere of their own cloud, separated from the rest by a pay-wall low enough to get a view of the rest of the world, but just high enough to be a little irritating for anyone looking to hop over.

Thing is, in its rush to get …

Months after its release, with over 3 million units already sold, Apple's iPad was still eliciting excitement among consumers of all ages during a recent visit to an Apple store in West Nyack, NY. Such a high-level of consumer engagement combined with Apple's notorious reputation for tightly controlled user environments should have publishers and advertisers banging down Steve Jobs' door to get their content in front of all those users' i-balls. Anticipating this, Apple is pitching app sponsorship as an easy way for would-be advertisers to hop aboard the iPad locomotive, a ride complete with unlimited servings of marketing gravy in the dining car.

Oh by the way, the cost of a ticket to ride that train will run you a half-mil - that's right, $500,000 - according to Razorfish exec Domenic Venuto .

But it's not just the steep price tag for entry that's giving digital agencies and others pause. The real problem is Apple has put some policies in place aimed at shutting out its main competitor, Google, which also prevent publishers and advertisers from taking full advantage of the iPad community. As Venuto puts it:

" ...as a media opportunity, the iPad is untested and almost entirely un-trackable. By banning apps from transmitting data to third parties, Steve Jobs clearly does not want the iPad to become a traditional direct response medium filled with fat-belly ads. His hope is that this policy will suck the lifeblood out of ad …