DIGITAL TRENDS: 9/12

iPhone 6/6+

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What is it? Apple unveiled the new iPhone 6/6+ and Apple Watch. Even with a shaky announcement plagued with technical errors, there was a massive amount of social buzz. In the past 7 days, there have been 4.6MM “iPhone 6” related tweets as opposed to just 401k “Samsung Note” related tweets (unveiled just a week earlier on 9/3).

New Features Larger Screens: Both the 6 and 6+ will feature larger screens than the 5 series, but the 6+ is considerably larger at 5.5” compared to the 6’s 4.7”. Significantly bigger screens allows for richer mobile video experiences and larger ads. Larger screens and an upgraded camera also results in a potentially significant increase of mobile social media engagement on visual apps like Vine and Instagram. Also interesting to note: iPhone 6+’s are already sold out according to CNBC, showing that people are clamoring for larger screens Interactive Notifications: People will now have the ability to engage directly within the notifications, allowing for instant interaction (liking a post, retweeting, texting, etc.). We could see some new, more engaging, opportunities with push notifications.

Apple Pay

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What is it? In addition to all of its hardware updates to the iPhone, Apple has introduced a new form of payment with Apple Pay. Nothing especially new from existing forms of NFC payments, but the fact that iPhones now offer the functionality and Apple has been aggressively teaming up with retailers could mean a major shift in how people pay for things

New Features Instead of the multiple steps Google Wallet required to pay for items (opening the app, requiring a pin to be tapped in), Apple Pay simply requires your fingerprint on the Touch ID home button to complete purchases.

Opportunities Apple Pay is trying to become the central hub for all purchases an iPhone user could potentially make, spanning everything from offline to mobile purchases.

Apple Watch

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What is it? In addition to adding NFC payment technology onto the iPhone 6, Apple is entering the wearable space with the Apple Watch: a wearable computer set to release early next year.

New Features The key trait of the Apple Watch is the digital crown, a button on the side that transitions between all the apps available, to compensate for the small touchscreen. Because of the tracker/heart rate sensor built into the back of the watch, health/fitness brands are naturally trying to work with integrating their apps into the watch.

Opportunities? Unlike the new iPhones, the Apple Watch obviously has limited screen space. The tiny screen will not be able to fill multiple ads at once or particularly rich ads, so will be interesting to see what new ad formats will come from the watch

Facebook Video Now Displays View

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What is it? This week Facebook rolled out an update to its auto play videos where it publicly displays video view count.

New Features If a video is uploaded to Facebook it will play automatically when it’s in view in a user’s news feed, and now a view count will be displayed. This only applies to videos uploaded directly to the site, not links of videos on other sites.

Opportunities Because Facebook’s news feed algorithm evaluates a videos likes, comments, shares, and watch time, and the algorithm doesn’t have access to this information within a YouTube video, YouTube videos are put at a disadvantage for showing up within a users news feed. This makes Facebook videos naturally more “discoverable”, and as users start looking to Facebook for personal content curation ,they will be more likely to see a Facebook video. Facebook is still not running ads against these videos but a recent acquisition of LiveRail, the third biggest video ad seller, points to this being the future of their ad revenue model.

TechCrunch Disrupt: Alfred

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What is it? TechCruch Disrupt 2014 winner is a service app named Alfred. Alfred is an app that aims to aid members to help automate their routines by coordinating/automating local services. Every user is assigned an “Alfred” (essentially a butler) that you then set to do your everyday task, from cleaning, to grocery shopping, to dropping off laundry to the dry cleaners. The idea is to cut the hours spent on chores and to consolidate all these new home service apps into one central hub

Opportunities Alfred’s win showcases a general trend towards consolidation of services. Consumers want a one stop shop for their needs instead of having multiple hubs. Down the line, there may be opportunities for brands to integrate themselves as “Alfred’s” brand of choice in order to advertise to the users.