Tablets are eating away the PC share for the last couple of quarters this year and this trend is expected to surge further in 2014. Tablet shipments are expected to grow 53.4 percent in 2013 to 184 million unit shipments while PC shipments decline 8.4 percent, as per Gartner.

Latest Gartner figures show that PCs, tablets and mobile phones are expected to reach 2.32 billion units by the end of 2013, a 4.5 percent increase from a year earlier. Tablet shipments when viewed alone will increase by 42.7% this year and reach 184 million units this year. ”While consumers will be bombarded with ads for the new ultramobile devices, we expect their attention to be grabbed but not necessarily their money. Continuing on the trend we saw last year, we expect this holiday season to be all about smaller tablets as even the long-term holiday favorite — the smartphone — loses its appeal.” Carolina Milanesi, Gartner Research Vice President said in a statement.

The research firm revealed that the mobile phone market will continue to experience steady growth with shipments projected to increase by 3.7% to more than 1.8 billion units. “Growth is expected to come from mid-tier smartphones in mature markets and low-end Android smartphones in emerging markets,” it added. Gartner also expects Android to remain the leading smartphone operating system, accounting for 38% of all shipments in 2013. Windows OS devices including smartphones, tablets, and PCs are expected to see an overall decline of 4.3% this year due to declining PC sales. However, the firm is predicting a 9.7% increase for Windows overall in 2014.

India has been a strong tablet market with huge demands for homegrown and international tablet brands. A recent Tech-Sci Research report touted that tablet market in the country is expected to surpass $2 billion by the end of 2013. Giving insights on the wearable technology devices front, Gartner predicts that less than 1% of consumers will replace their mobile phones with a combination of a wearable device and a tablet by 2017.

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Google and Facebook are the two tech companies that have earned high online ad revenues. From having a zero market share in 2011, of the mobile ads market,  Facebook went to having a 5.3% in 2012 and the numbers are expected to triple by the end of fourth quarter to 15.8%. The big blue network which has announced that it will soon roll out video ads on its Android and iOS mobile apps. We all know that Facebook got a large chunk of its traffic from these mobile apps. “Now you can use video creative in your mobile app ad aimed at driving installs to bring your app to life in Facebook’s mobile News Feed“, said Facebook in company’s Developer Blog.

Video ads will appear in the mobile news feed when the user clicks the play button. They can then view video featuring the app, which gives developers the chance to try and sell them on it. Last month, Facebook announced the test of auto-play video for musicians and celebrities (that cannot be boosted via advertising).

In addition, the company has rolled out Cost Per Action (CPA) pricing. This is a simplified ad-buying process for developers, who can now set a cost per action (CPA) bid and pay only when a user downloads and installs their app. In the past, Facebook has only let advertisers bid on cost per click or optimized cost per impression.

Facebook made no mention of any limitation on the length of the video, so presumably advertisers can add as long a video as they think audiences will watch. The social network stated that the new option reduces mobile app marketer costs by 20 percent per install, Both new features will gradually roll out over the next few days, according to the company.

Video ads are definitely one of the sore points of user browsing experience. Earlier this month Instagram announced that it will roll out photo and video ads to US users.

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Most of the prominent telecom players have pulled a double whammy on their users who are availing 2^nd Generation (2G) internet. Not only have these companies halved the validity of the Plans, but also jacked up rates.

Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, who collectively control about 2/3^rd (53%) of the Indian Mobile Subscribers have all opted to increase charges of plans pertaining to 2G Internet Access. Additionally, these enhanced-value packs will have lesser validity. Essentially, the quantum as well validity periods have been restricted.

Airtel, the leading telecom player in India now offers 1GB Data at Rs. 156, which was earlier Rs. 125. The same, in case of Idea, now costs Rs. 154. Though the validity of these plans remains 28 Days, the rates are about 25% higher. Additionally, Airtel's famous Rs. 98 Internet Plan now has a curtailed validity of just 14 Days, which was earlier of 28 Days, plus the quantum of Data allowed, is halved. Essentially, subscribers will now have to pay double and will only get half of what was entitled earlier.

Mobile Internet in India has been going through a phase of change. Additionally companies have working hard to augment the next generation of Data intensive platforms, namely 3G and soon to be made available, 4G services. While 3G is at least 10 Times faster than 2G, 4G based mobile internet, is 30 Times faster than even 3G.

In retrospect, 2G internet now appears highly outdated and obsolete. Besides, companies like Reliance who will bring forth 4G services are allowed to offer All Telephony Services like Voice, SMS, Data, Video Calls and MMS on a singular 4G platform. They won't need to maintain networks running on the decades old 2G network.

Judging by the two separate instances of raising tariffs, it could mean that companies are now slowly withdrawing themselves from the 2G Space as it has continually proven to be a bottomless money pit. What better way to dissuade people from using 2G Internet than making it expensive. What do you think?

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After a failed attempt to launch BBM  across other platforms last month, Blackberry has finally rolled out the service on Android and iOS. BlackBerry originally planned to launch BBM for iOS and Android on Sept. 21 but delayed the release after a fake version hit the Web. The struggling Canadian smartphone maker announced in a blog post that about six million people had signed up for information about BBM at BBM.com.

To make for a smoother rollout this time, BlackBerry has implemented a “simple line-up system” granting access to the app on a first-come-first-serve basis. Visit BBM.com from your Android or iPhone browser and install the app. When you open it for the first time, you’ll need to enter your email address to “hold your spot in line,” and BlackBerry will then email you when it’s your turn to start using BBM.

BlackBerry Messenger is one of the company's few remaining success stories, with more than 60 million active users. It rose in popularity among the BlackBerry faithful thanks to its fast messaging capabilities, but now it faces stiff competition from other cross-platform chat solutions like WhatsApp, iMessage, Google Talk, Skype, and others.

The company has been in doldrums for years due to unsuccessful and expensive smartphones. Recently, it announced $1 billion loss in Q2 and axed 4500 jobs. Furthermore, the company is in the process of potentially being acquired, rumored to be by a group led by Fairfax Financial or perhaps Lenovo.

Although, BBM has rolled out on Android and iOS, we wonder how many users are actually going to migrate to the popular service owing to the shift to other instant messaging platforms. What do you think about BBM? Will you change your instant messenger?  Share with us your comments.

To install BBM for Android or iPhone visit BBM.com from your mobile phone browser or click here for the Android version, iPhone users click here.

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Airtel Digital TV has teamed up with Twitter to bring users tweets live on their TV screens.  Starting today, users can actually tweet while watching TV and can view tweets related to their TV shows as well. The DTH service arm of telecom operator Bharti Airtel, has partnered with Brizz TV, a digital media startup that brings web content onto the television screen without internet connectivity for this feature.

Airtel Digital TV customers will be able to see what the world is tweeting about popular TV programmes, celebrities and sports personalities on their TV screen. Initially, the service which is free, will be available on select TV channels and will be extended to others in succession. In order to access the service, customers have to press the green key on their Airtel Digital TV remote.

"We are excited to see partners like Airtel innovating with our platform and helping their audience connect with the TV programmes they love,"  said Twitter Vice President (Business Development and Platform) Jana Messerschmidt.

We all know that smartphones have become the important second screen that boasts of Facebook posts and Twitter tweets about a certain programme that is live on TV. In May iDubba unveiled ‘iCouch’ app that  lets users chat while the program is running. Earlier this month, Twitter partnered Comcast and NBC Universal to lets users watch TV shows direct from the Twitter feed.  Also, Google is in talks with a few DTH providers to bring YouTube to TV screens.

Image Credits: ta

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Social Media Portal, Facebook suffered one of its most severe outages yesterday night. Lasting several hours, users were unable to execute any tasks like Posting, Liking and such. Though the site is now back up and functioning normally, it is a severe blow to the famous quote allegedly from co–founder Mark Zuckerberg that 'People Like Facebook because it is Never Down'.

Facebook suffered one of the worst down–times since its creation. The impact was global as users around the world faced multiple issues. For some, even the simple Log–In Process was impossible as they were greeted with the following message:

“An error occurred. Please try again later.”

Interestingly, all Facebook Users, whether they were using the Desktop Site or the Mobile App, faced the same issues, indicating a more critical problem at the core of Facebook Servers. But for few users, who did manage to log–in, the problems continued as they were unable to Like a Status, Put up a Comment, Create an Update or Even Share someone else's Post. The problem even persisted for users who resorted to third–party apps.

Acknowledging the issue, Facebook released a statement,

"Earlier this morning, while performing some network maintenance, we experienced an issue that prevented some users from posting to Facebook for a brief period of time. We resolved the issue quickly, and we are now back to 100%. We’re sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused,"

Twitter Gains: Ironically, Facebook's predicament proved to be advantageous for Twitter, when Facebook users took to the Micro–Blogging network and started discussing the problems and probable remedies. #FacebookDown which suddenly became an official hashtag of sorts was shared in multiple languages from multiple countries.

Over the years, Facebook has suffered from attacks by Viruses and Hackers, but the portal has successfully warded off such attempts to bring down, what is now an entire ecosystem. But such a shut–down on such a massive scale will indeed prove a dampener on the otherwise renegade success, Facebook has been enjoying. What do you think?

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