Grizzly Analytics Blog

There's nothing better than huge juicy speculation.  Usually they're Tweets starting "Google rumored to buy..." but lately, since Apple announced its $100B in cash reserves , the speculation has shifted to Apple. The latest rumor is that Apple will buy Twittter.  This blog article is the best explanation of why people think that this makes sense. The problem is that if you look closely at the two companies, it doesn't make sense. Apple exists to make money from devices. Specifically devices for content consumption , but the devices.  Store sales, even iTunes, are a minimal percentage of their profits that are there to get people to buy iDevices. I haven't seen a single move they've made that hasn't been around the business model of selling devices.  All the acquisitions they've made have been small ones that they hope will give differentiation to their devices. Twitter exists to be a platform for information and links. They have very little...

Everyone was gasping when Twitter announced that they've reached the landmark 1.5 million different applications that use their API to access or post Twitter content.  Blog articles like this one went wild with the news, concluding that Twitter was a hugely successful ecosystem just like Facebook. At the risk of nitpicking, I think if we want to understand Twitter and their success, we need to differentiate "platform" from "ecosystem."  And we need to take a look at the 1.5 million apps accessing Twitter's API, and how different they are from the apps within Facebook. I'll bet that 96% of the "apps" under discussion have absolutely nothing to do with Twitter. These are "apps" like newspaper web sites that give a button to Tweet an article you read, GPS apps that give a button to Tweet your location or something you just saw, other social network sites (like LinkedIn) that give a button to Tweet a link to something you post on tha...

Grizzly Analytics has been looking closely at indoor location technology, both technology research at major companies and technology solutions available to store-owners and other site managers .  At MWC we expected that indoor location would be prominent, and we weren't disappointed! We had the pleasure of seeing a large number of demonstrations of indoor positioning in action.  This is the first of several blog posts looking at these demonstrations, starting with Nokia. First I'll give some explanation, then below is a video showing Nokia's demo in action and hearing comments from their researchers. Nokia has been researching indoor location technology for years, and the technology has advanced each year but not yet reached market.  Their demo is, in a word, breathtaking, in the speed and precision at which it tracks people walking around the room.  People are seen on a computer screen or phone screen, in real-time, moving as they walk around the demo room flo...

For someone who makes a lot of predictions, it's great to see them coming true.  That's how I felt at the MWC conference today seeing cellphone pico-projectors reaching market. Cellphone pico-projectors were my #1 prediction in my pre-MWC prediction post . So what pico-projectors have we seen at MWC?  Samsung launching an incredible-looking Galaxy Beam, STMicroElectronics showing the fruits of their partnership with BTendo, and a start-up called Aiptek showing two new products for iPhones and soon for Android phones, one of which uses a Texas Instruments projection component. The first is the biggest news because it's hitting market soon - the Samsung Galaxy Beam.  The Beam feels great and seems to work well, given that Samsung is demo'ing the Beam in a dark room.  The projector spec's are impressive although not perfect - QHD resolution produces good images of both stills and video, and 3 hours of battery life while projecting is great.  The phone can p...

All the mobile blogs have recently run articles about what to expect at MWC 2012.  They've all said roughly the same thing: New handsets from HTC, new handsets from Nokia, new handsets from LG, a new tablet from Samsung, and lots of other new phones and tablets.  Quad-core, tablets, low-end and high-end. Unfortunately none of these articles answered the big question:  What will make someone say WOW! at MWC this year? Here are a few speculations of things that Grizzly Analytics is predicting and hoping to see. 1.  Cellphone pico-projectors: As we wrote in August , this is a new hardware feature that most people discuss for business users, but we think is coming soon for media consumption as well.  Who wouldn't rather watch a movie on the wall instead of on a 4" screen?  The more we do on our mobiles, the more a projector would be useful and fun.  Companies that have worked in the area include Apple, Samsung, LG, STMicroElectronics (MWC hall 7), T...

Google came out with a new video showing their indoor mapping and positioning in action in a mall: The whole area of indoor mapping and positioning is growing day by day.  Lots of people are talking about a new company called ByteLight, who are addressing indoor location using special LED lights: Do you know which three major world-wide cellphone companies are also working on indoor location positioning using modulated light or LEDs in rooms?  Or which companies are researching indoor positioning based on cellular signals, Wi-Fi signals, sensor-based motion sensing, and other approaches?  If you want to know this and more, check out our report on indoor location positioning technology currently in research . Or which companies are working with malls and stores to deploy indoor positioning on-site?  Check our report on indoor location services, written for site owners and managers and others who want to know how indoor location can be deployed today. What...

Indoor Location Services: What Retail Managers, CTOs and Site Owners Need to Know and Do NOW Mobile indoor location services are reaching market, both in cellphone systems from Google and Microsoft and in custom apps for malls, airports, stores, and other sites, and will spread before the end of 2012.   Whoever doesn’t prepare now for this new technology will soon find that their competitors have. A lot of recent attention has gone to location services moving indoors, including Google Maps showing your location indoors and Microsoft’s Bing Maps displaying indoor maps. Over the next 3-4 years indoor maps will become as prevalent on cellphones as outdoor maps are today. Already NOW you can give your customers or employees a mobile application with location services in your site, based on platforms recently launched by several companies world-wide.   This new report from Grizzly Analytics, Indoor Location Services: What Retail Managers, CTOs and Site Owners Need to Know and D...