Showing posts with label digital marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital marketing. Show all posts
Monday, October 26, 2015
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Apple Watch’s New Band to Increase Battery Life
So now that we’re certain all of us has our handy Apple Watch, we’re left no solace as the darn thing dies right before you send your boss that career-saving memo. D’oh!
No worries. Apple is releasing an Apple Watch “Reserve Strap” in November to extend by life by thirty hours. Huzzah!
WHY WE SHOULD LIKE THIS
This will free Apple Watch users from the potential woes of over-charging their watches overnight. Yes, it’s true, if you leave an electronic device plugged in for long periods of time after it’s already at full power, you will eventually reduce the battery’s total energy capacity, causing it to die younger, and younger, until finally when you press that power button it will only yawn, and blink and die again.
HOW THE BAND’S DESIGN CAME TO BE
But anyway the Reserve Strap’s been through two major redesigns since its debut in early March. Its developers, Lane Musgrave and John Arrow have worked day and night to achieve that chic look and extravagant functionality.
The final look is 25mm wide, 3-9mm thick, with a total weight of 65 grams. Initially designed to be made of rubber and metal combined into some synthetic Thermoset Elastomer Silicone band that would have been “as resistant to water as the Apple Watch,” it has since evolved into more practical forms.
WHEN YOU CAN ACQUIRE THE BAND
Set for shipment on November 3, 2015, Apple informs us that this strap could assuage users’ mulling over whether or not their Apple Watch could even make it through a full day alive. The new strap is in full compliance with Apple’s original band design guidelines for the wearable. The specs intimate that if the band and watch are both drained, the two can stay together and be charged simultaneously à la micro USB.
HOW IT WORKS
To begin charging simply press the power button once. The watch may be used during the charging process, which should take around 60-75 minutes. If the user leaves the strap on during use, the Apple Watch will drain the Strap’s power to keep itself at 100 percent, until the Strap dies. The LED will glow green, yellow or red depending on whether the charge is full, partial or nil, respectively.
Friday, June 26, 2015
Microsoft CEO Nadella wants to help the world 'to achieve more'
Microsoft has a new mission statement that goes straight to the point.
The software maker's new official goal is "to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more," CEO Satya Nadella wrote in an email to employees. The message was first obtained by GeekWire on Thursday, and Microsoft confirmed its authenticity to CNET News.
Former CEO Steve Ballmer revised Microsoft's mission statement in October 2013 so it called on the company to "create a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most." It didn't have quite the same zing as Nadella's does now.
Nadella's philosophy builds on, but doesn't erase, a few other Microsoft marketing mantras he's touted since taking charge in February 2014. For instance, "more personal computing" is still very much alive -- that's Microsoft's way of admitting that people use all sorts of devices connected together over the Internet. Focusing on that phenomenon is one of the core strategies Nadella says will help the company become the major player in the "mobile-first, cloud-first" world. Indeed, "mobile-first, cloud-first" is another favorite for Microsoft executives, who are looking to the company's fast-growing cloud services division to help sell software.
Microsoft is preparing for the July 29 release of the Windows 10 operating system, which powers more than 90 percent of the world's PCs. Most Windows users will be able to upgrade to the new version for free. With Microsoft 10, developers will be able to write "universal" apps once, which can then run on any device running the new operating system. That universality underlies the company's revised mission statement: Helping customers be more productive across all apps and devices.
Nadella has spent much of the last year and a half rebuilding Microsoft. He's emphasized getting the company's flagship software, like its Office application suite, on devices of all sizes and types, including competitors', and has stressed the power of Windows as a cloud-based service. He has also instituted companywide cultural shifts, pushing ambitious research projects like the HoloLens headset out of the lab and turning the development of Windows 10 into a transparent, feedback-driven process that recruited consumers as early testers.
The changes haven't come without some sour notes. Last summer, the company laid off 18,000 employees of its then-125,000-person global workforce A majority of those layoffs were former Nokia employees brought on after Microsoft acquired the Finnish company's handset division in April 2014 for $7.2 billion.
And just last week, Microsoft announced an organizational shakeup that included the exit of former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop. Microsoft promoted Terry Myerson, former head of operating systems, to be chief of the new Windows and Devices Group. That division rolls the consumer device businesses, like Xbox, Surface and Lumia, into the company's largest software division. The goal is to make Windows 10 the common thread among every device, product and service.
Nadella also noted the company's ongoing diversity initiatives, a topic that made headlines in October when the CEO implied female employees shouldn't ask for raises but should instead trust karma.
"We will be open to learning our own biases and changing our behaviors so we can tap into the collective power of everyone at Microsoft," Nadella wrote in the new mission statement. "We don't just value differences, we seek them out, we invite them in. And as a result, our ideas are better, our products are better and our customers are better served."
Nadella doesn't mention the word "layoffs" in his memo, but he does flick at the possibility of more employee exits or even products or divisions potentially getting the axe.
"We will need to innovate in new areas, execute against our plans, make some tough choices in areas where things are not working and solve hard problems in ways that drive customer value," Nadella wrote.
Audi is sending a Quattro rover to the moon for the Google Lunar XPrize
Google is funding a $30 million new-age space race, a competition to see who can be the first to put a rover on the moon and cover 500 meters across the lunar surface, all while beaming back high-definition footage to Earth. A series of independent teams around the world are competing, and Audi just got in the game in a big way. The car manufacturer announced Thursday that is has signed on with the German team Part Time Scientists.
We visited Part Time Scientists last year to check out an earlier version of their four-wheel-drive rover as it motored across a simulated lunar environment, testing to ensure the rover's optical systems would work in the harsh conditions on the moon.
The rover shall henceforth be known as the Audi Lunar Quattro. It certainly fulfills the naming criteria, with four-wheel independent drive, and I'd say the brushed aluminum finish fits quite neatly within the Audi aesthetic, too.
Audi said in a press release Thursday it is supporting the Part Time Scientists with its knowledge in several tech fields, "from quattro all-wheel drive and lightweight construction to electric mobility and piloted driving." In addition to know-how, Audi will hopefully give the team the funding it needs to get their rover up where it belongs.
Audi and Part Time Scientists hope to launch to the moon in 2017. But, with two other GLXP teams, Astrobotic and Hakuto, planning to make their launch in 2016, Audi may be entering the race a little bit late. Regardless of who gets there first, we all win.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Google zooms in on smart-home vision with Nest Cam
Nintendo is in a time of transition, Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America’s president, said Tuesday in the company’s Digital Event video released for the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo. Nintendo is making a push into mobile gaming and it’s working on its next console, the NX, but details of those two efforts won’t come this year, Fils-Aime said. They’ll come in 2016.
This year, Nintendo is using E3 to focus on the games it has for its two current platforms: the Wii U console and the 3DS hand-held. The big star of the video, which Nintendo released online instead of an arena-filled live event like Microsoft and Sony held yesterday, is “Star Fox Zero,” the new Wii U space shooter.
Star Fox Zero marks the return of the franchise, which hasn’t been seen on a home console since 2005’s “Star Fox: Assault,” on the Nintendo GameCube. The game creatively uses the Wii U’s tablet-like GamePad controller’s built in 6.2-inch touchscreen to display a cockpit view of the fighter-pilot action that the game centers around. A more traditional third-person view is shown on screen, and Nintendo expects gamers to switch their gaze between their TVs and the GamePad while playing the new title.
Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s famous game designer, concocted the dual-screen gameplay. The company is collaborating with Japan’s Platinum Games to finish Star Fox Zero, which should be in stores this holiday season. Playable demos are available at the E3 expo in Los Angeles this week.
The game is graphically impressive, filled with starscapes and planetary scenes of mountains, ancient ruins and oceans. But, while the game looks good for a Wii U title, it falls short of the visual breakthroughs happening on rival consoles such as Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4.
In a press event Sunday, Miyamoto said that the point of Star Fox Zero is the gameplay and the visual style of the game, which is somewhat cartoony. It was made that way with a purpose. “A lot of games nowadays look so realistic that they all look the same,” Miyamoto said.
The famed designer is right–many casual gamers might have trouble telling the difference between a “Call of Duty” and “Battlefield” game. But Nintendo’s strategy also reflects that the Wii U has far less graphical horsepower than rival home consoles.
The Wii U is also set to get another title centered on one of Nintendo’s longest-running and most successful characters: Mario. To mark the 30th anniversary of the Super Mario Bros. series, Miyamoto and other developers at Nintendo created a title called Mario Maker, set for release Sept. 11. In Mario Maker, players can design their own slide-scrolling levels in the visual style of both old-school 8-bit consoles and modern Wii U graphics.
The company showed an especially difficult level created at its Nintendo World Championships e-sports competition, which was hosted Sunday at Los Angeles’s Microsoft Theater as a part of E3. Miyamoto said he had another reason for creating Mario Maker: “I still just love making games, it’s my favorite thing,” he said. He wanted “to let other people enjoy the experience of making games themselves.”
Some Best Buy stores in the U.S. will let gamers demo Mario Maker for themselves this week. Other Mario titles are on the way as well, including Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, which will hit the Wii U later this year. Nintendo is also launching a website called LetsSuperMario.com, where people can upload their own Mario-themed videos to celebrate the game’s 30 years.
Also Missing: Zelda on Wii U
Nintendo, meanwhile, has plans for its hit line of amiibo “toys-to-life” figurines. They will work with Mario Maker, so that characters like Zelda and the Wii Fit Trainer can appear in the game with the tap of a figurine on the GamePad controller. The new “Skylanders Superchargers” Wii U game also will work with special Bowser and Donkey Kong amiibo. And the coming “Yoshi’s Wooly World,” a beautiful platform adventure game in which the dinosaur runs through a world made of digital yarn and cloth, will have plush amiibos when it goes on sale this October.
The 3DS portable console got some love at E3 as well. Nintendo has a new “Hyrule Warriors Legends” adventure game coming early next year for the hand-held, and “Metroid Prime Federation Force” is a four-player shooting game that lets friends play online. There’s also a “Legend of Zelda” game coming this fall called “Zelda Triforce Heroes,” which lets players solve puzzles and traverse through dungeons with other players online.
One thing Nintendo disappointingly made no mention: the new Zelda title for the Wii U, which it showed a brief trailer of last year at the big show. The unnamed game is still under development, but it’s a no-show so far this year.
Nintendo at E3 2015: ‘Star Fox’ Returns but Silence on Wii U ‘Zelda’ and NX
Nintendo is in a time of transition, Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America’s president, said Tuesday in the company’s Digital Event video released for the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo. Nintendo is making a push into mobile gaming and it’s working on its next console, the NX, but details of those two efforts won’t come this year, Fils-Aime said. They’ll come in 2016.
This year, Nintendo is using E3 to focus on the games it has for its two current platforms: the Wii U console and the 3DS hand-held. The big star of the video, which Nintendo released online instead of an arena-filled live event like Microsoft and Sony held yesterday, is “Star Fox Zero,” the new Wii U space shooter.
Star Fox Zero marks the return of the franchise, which hasn’t been seen on a home console since 2005’s “Star Fox: Assault,” on the Nintendo GameCube. The game creatively uses the Wii U’s tablet-like GamePad controller’s built in 6.2-inch touchscreen to display a cockpit view of the fighter-pilot action that the game centers around. A more traditional third-person view is shown on screen, and Nintendo expects gamers to switch their gaze between their TVs and the GamePad while playing the new title.
Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo’s famous game designer, concocted the dual-screen gameplay. The company is collaborating with Japan’s Platinum Games to finish Star Fox Zero, which should be in stores this holiday season. Playable demos are available at the E3 expo in Los Angeles this week.
The game is graphically impressive, filled with starscapes and planetary scenes of mountains, ancient ruins and oceans. But, while the game looks good for a Wii U title, it falls short of the visual breakthroughs happening on rival consoles such as Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4.
In a press event Sunday, Miyamoto said that the point of Star Fox Zero is the gameplay and the visual style of the game, which is somewhat cartoony. It was made that way with a purpose. “A lot of games nowadays look so realistic that they all look the same,” Miyamoto said.
The famed designer is right–many casual gamers might have trouble telling the difference between a “Call of Duty” and “Battlefield” game. But Nintendo’s strategy also reflects that the Wii U has far less graphical horsepower than rival home consoles.
You’re the Game Designer in Mario Maker
The Wii U is also set to get another title centered on one of Nintendo’s longest-running and most successful characters: Mario. To mark the 30th anniversary of the Super Mario Bros. series, Miyamoto and other developers at Nintendo created a title called Mario Maker, set for release Sept. 11. In Mario Maker, players can design their own slide-scrolling levels in the visual style of both old-school 8-bit consoles and modern Wii U graphics.
The company showed an especially difficult level created at its Nintendo World Championships e-sports competition, which was hosted Sunday at Los Angeles’s Microsoft Theater as a part of E3. Miyamoto said he had another reason for creating Mario Maker: “I still just love making games, it’s my favorite thing,” he said. He wanted “to let other people enjoy the experience of making games themselves.”
Some Best Buy stores in the U.S. will let gamers demo Mario Maker for themselves this week. Other Mario titles are on the way as well, including Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, which will hit the Wii U later this year. Nintendo is also launching a website called LetsSuperMario.com, where people can upload their own Mario-themed videos to celebrate the game’s 30 years.
Also Missing: Zelda on Wii U
Nintendo, meanwhile, has plans for its hit line of amiibo “toys-to-life” figurines. They will work with Mario Maker, so that characters like Zelda and the Wii Fit Trainer can appear in the game with the tap of a figurine on the GamePad controller. The new “Skylanders Superchargers” Wii U game also will work with special Bowser and Donkey Kong amiibo. And the coming “Yoshi’s Wooly World,” a beautiful platform adventure game in which the dinosaur runs through a world made of digital yarn and cloth, will have plush amiibos when it goes on sale this October.
The 3DS portable console got some love at E3 as well. Nintendo has a new “Hyrule Warriors Legends” adventure game coming early next year for the hand-held, and “Metroid Prime Federation Force” is a four-player shooting game that lets friends play online. There’s also a “Legend of Zelda” game coming this fall called “Zelda Triforce Heroes,” which lets players solve puzzles and traverse through dungeons with other players online.
One thing Nintendo disappointingly made no mention: the new Zelda title for the Wii U, which it showed a brief trailer of last year at the big show. The unnamed game is still under development, but it’s a no-show so far this year.
Google’s Nest adds home-monitoring camera to suite of smart-home products
Nest Labs, the home automation company owned by Google, has announced the Nest Cam, the newest addition to theirrange of connected devices.
A connected home-monitoring camera with microphone, speaker, motion sensors and night-vision, the Nest Cam is a redesigned version of the highly regarded home camera manufactured by Dropcam, which Nest acquired in June 2014 for $555 million.
Shooting video in 1080p high-definition with a wide-angle glass lens and three megapixel sensor, the Nest Cam retails for €199, and can upload 10-30 days worth of continuous video to the newly announced Nest Aware cloud service. The additional Nest Aware cloud service costs either €10 or €30 a month for the different storage options.
Nest also announced a redesigned version of the Nest Protect, a fire, smoke and CO2 alarm, with new sensors to detect fast-spreading fires.
Software announcements included upgraded software for Nest’s original learning thermostat, first launched in 2011, as well as version 5.0 of its mobile app for controlling and interacting with Nest’s suite of products.
Co-founded by former Apple vice president Tony Fadell and former Apple engineer Matt Rogers in 2010, Nest Labs was acquired by Google in January 2014 for $3.2 billion.
“At Nest, we always wanted to build more than a thermostat,” said Nest chief executive Fadell. “Our vision was to create a thoughtful home, a home that takes care of itself and the people in it. Five years later, all the pieces are in place.”
Nest’s general manager for Europe, Lionel Paillet, said “We have three products today, they work well on their own, they work better together, and they work great with third-party products.”
The so-called Internet of Things category of internet-connected devices has long been seen as a major growth area by technology companies, with numerous manufacturers now developing home automation products.
In recent weeks, both Google and Apple have focused on the area with software announcements – Google unveiled Brillo operating system for connected devices, while Apple revealed details about its HomeKit framework for communicating with and controlling connected accessories.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Deutsche Bank Reiterates Buy Rating On Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) Stock
According to a research note published on Wednesday, Deutsche Bank has reiterated a Buy rating on Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock with a price target of $55. The sell-side research firm hosted a lunch meeting on Tuesday with approximately 20 investors to exchange insights on Microsoft.
Deutsche Bank noted that the stock has been trending down modestly after hitting a peak of $49 in late April. The firm believes that the downward trend is due to unusual strong move in the stock, following the March quarter results as well as recent weak PC market news. The investors mostly focus on cloud transition, the state of the PC market, and how the stock would react if Microsoft was to acquire Salesforce.com, Inc. (NYSE:CRM).
The bull case focuses on the cloud transition story, with Office 365 and Azure now providing 7% of the revenue mix and growing more than 100%. The operating expense story and the stability of Microsoft’s Server product revenue were mentioned far less in the bull scenario. The bulls also argued that the pending Windows accounting change and associated GAAP earnings per share (EPS) cuts are in the stock already, as are weak PC market trends.
The bearish side of the investors focuses on near-term and secular PC growth concerns with consensus view mixed at best, without any Win 10 lift in the second-half of 2015. The bears also discuss skepticism about the cloud transition, mostly saying that is it a drag on margins or will it cannibalize on-premise workloads. The bears also question about Office 365 growth being offset by the decline in traditional license Office.
Deutsche Bank analyst, Karl Keirstead stated, “We conclude that the weak PC market is largely in the stock (the PC-centric Windows OEM business is now just 12% of MSFT’s rev mix), the cloud transition story is additive and will lift sentiment for some time.” He further added that Microsoft’s valuation multiple will appear more reasonable to the skeptics as EPS growth recovers in fiscal-year 2016 (FY16).
According to Bloomberg, 23 analysts rate Microsoft stock a Buy, 14 recommend it a Hold, and only seven tag a Sell. The consensus 12-month price target on the stock is $49.9 showing an upside potential of 9.6% on the current trading price.
The stock is currently trading down 0.87% at $45.43 as of 1:06 PM EDT. Since the start of the year, the stock experienced a decline of 3.42% with an average daily trading volume of 29.27 million shares.
Microsoft Corporation Shakes Up Leadership Team
In an e-mail to employees, Nadella said the change will allow Microsoft to “deliver better products and services that our customers love at a more rapid pace.”
He also emphasized that Microsoft has three interconnected and bold ambitions: (1)reinvent productivity and business processes,(2) build the intelligent cloud platform, and (3) create more personal computing.
Changes to Microsoft senior leadership team
According to Nadella, he made a decision to organize Microsoft’s engineering efforts into three groups to work together to deliver on the company goal and strategy.
Terry Myerson will lead Windows and Devices Group (WDG), which combines the engineering efforts of the current Operating Systems Groupo and Microsoft Devices Group (MDG) led by Stephen Elop.
According to Nadella, the WDG brings together all the engineering capability required to drive breakthrough innovations that would bring the Windows ecosystem forward. It would also position Windows as a service across Microsoft devices including Lumia, Surface, HoloLens, Surface Hun, Band, and Xbox.
Scott Guthrie will continue to lead the Cloud and Enterprise (C+E). The team is focused on building the intelligent cloud platform of Microsoft. It would also concentrate in building high-value infrastructure and business services that are unique to customers such as data, analytics products, business processes, security, and management offerings.
The Dynamics products development teams will join the C&E team to accelerate further the company’s work on ERP and CRM.
Qi Lu will continue to lead the Application and Services Group (ASG), which is focused on reinventing productivity. The team is leading the development of productivity services for digital across all devices. Nadella said Microsoft’s engineering efforts to build a solution for education would be transferred to the ASG team.
Stephen Elop retires
Nadella also announced that Stephen Elop’s retirement. Elop led the Operating Systems Group and Microsoft Devices Group when he returned to Microsoft after its $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V)’s devices and services business.
“Stephen and I have agreed that now is the right time for him to retire from Microsoft. I regret the loss of leadership that this represents, and look forward to seeing where his next destination will be,” said Nadella.
Three other executives including Kiril Tatarinov, Eric Rudder, and Mark Penn also decided to leave Microsoft to explore other opportunities.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Reaching ‘digital natives’ through digital marketing
Today, as more and consumers interact with brands across online channels, digital marketing has gained significant traction. From wearables and big data to personalization and multichanneling — the digital economy is transforming the way consumers communicate with each other and with brands, governments and businesses.
According to the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII), in 2014 Indonesia already has 88.1 million mobile Internet users, the sixth most in the world.
Furthermore, 95 percent of Internet users access social networking sites with more than 65 million Facebook accounts, 50 million Twitter accounts, 700,000 Path accounts and 10 million Line accounts in the country.
Mobile phone penetration in Indonesia reached 122 percent in early 2014 and is projected to hit 173.5 percent by 2017 (www.researchandmarkets.com, 2013). These numbers are set to explode in the coming years as more mobile and Internet users are expected to come online, led by Indonesia’s younger population.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the specialized UN agency for information and communication technologies, defines digital natives “as the population of networked youth — aged 15 to 24 years — with five or more years of online experience”. They have a generation’s worth of more access to information, especially via the Internet and mobile.
APJII data shows 49 percent of Indonesian Internet users are digital natives aged between 18 and 25 years old. This number provides brands with an excellent opportunity to create and sustain two-way conversations with their consumers. Innovations in technology have enabled new business and marketing models and companies can’t risk being left behind.
More and more consumers are now using a combination of channels to consume content. Advertising on mobile devices, linear TV moving online and new, innovative devices offer a wealth of opportunities for using completely new formats. Smartphones, tablets, smart watches, videos and TVs — there are more screens and channels than ever before and their variety is growing as we speak.
At the same time, consumer behavior is changing. Among those aged 16 to 45, the cell phone has replaced TV as the dominant media consumption format. Consumers now use technology in combination: they check their emails or read messages while the TV is on.
When we shop online, we use a number of different channels. Not only do we buy cross-channel, but we use different channels to compare products and collect feedback. So marketers need a single view of the consumer and a multichannel strategy.
Companies have to tailor their offerings more closely to their target markets’ needs and wishes. Consumers have also become extremely discerning when it comes to clicks and views. Irrelevant content, especially on the digital medium, not only puts them off, but also decreases chances of future interactions.
Brands must leverage the wealth of technology and real-time data analysis to understand now what content will grab consumers’ attention tomorrow and be prepared to deliver it.
This is where predictive analytics can be leveraged by forward-thinking companies to build better real-time customer segments, to allow them to develop and send targeted content to these groups of customers.
Fewer and fewer shoppers go to the store for advice. Instead, they read reviews on digital medium and trust what their social networks have to say about brands and products. Enter the social customer.
Before you develop passionate, loyal customers among today’s digital natives, you need a product that generates an emotional connect, content that relates to each consumer personally and does more than meet their expectations. And you need excellent customer service.
In this era of shares and likes and a vast amount of well-developed, intriguing and average content available to consumers at each click, unique, relatable, sharable content has become the holy grail of digital marketing. Well-presented content across different audio-visual mediums, with relevant information and/or extremely high entertainment value instead of empty phrases and one-way promotional pushes boost a company’s credibility and consumer trust.
Companies focused on e-commerce require tools allowing control of product content from all channels and systems in one place.
A master taxonomy to classify and categorize products, manage catalog versions and import multiple supplier catalogs will help provide the delivery of unique and rich product content to improve search engine optimization.
Companies collect vast amounts of data on how consumers purchase and use products. Their usage behavior on social media and digital platforms can reveal a lot of information about how to sell and when to sell. There are special algorithms to analyze this data and turn it into useful insights.
This is the domain of marketing automation. An example of this would be having omni-channel commerce solutions: state-of-the-art master data management for commerce and unified commerce processes that give a business a single view of its customers, products and orders and its customers a single view of the business.
This can help satisfy the demands of “always-on” consumers as well as of increasingly complex business requirements so as to maximize conversions and revenues by delivering an easy, engaging shopping and cross-channel experience — whether in-store, online, via social networks, or from mobile devices, important as most of the online connection is done via mobile.
Businesses must understand that this data alone holds the key to successful customer interactions on the digital platforms.
There is also a clear trend toward the digital showroom. One example is Nina, a virtual assistant that offers personalized customer service.
Users can ask it for their credit card balance, book a flight upgrade or check whether they can catch an earlier plane to their destination. Nina shows how virtual and real worlds are merging, opening up completely new opportunities for marketing.
What are tomorrow’s challenges for marketers? Marketers will rely even more on data. They will need the right tools and software to analyze and use that data. To reach customers, they will have to define target markets more precisely and fine-tune their interactions.
The customer journey has to become their vision. The marketing of the future will use past data to predict which products customers want and when. This is where predictive analytics and big data play a key role.
Programmatic buying and automation of digital channels are other major trends expected to become extremely relevant as digital marketing continues to evolve.
New digital marketing company launches in Dayton
Content Sponsored by Cox Digital Marketing
In the Dayton region, research has shown that businesses want a local, one-stop partner to guide them through the ever-changing digital landscape. While there are many national digital companies who offer prepackaged solutions, every individual business is unique and deserves a solution built specifically for them. In addition, success requires continuous review and optimization to make sure businesses are getting the best return on their investment.
The newly formed Cox Digital Marketing offers these services to a full spectrum of clients; from those launching their first website to those implementing multifaceted national marketing campaigns and all needs in between. Their approach is to make the complex simple by asking all the right questions up front about a business and their goals then customizing a solution designed to help meet those challenges.
Cox has a proven track record in helping businesses grow using multi-media marketing solutions, including innovative digital strategies. The next stage of their evolution is the launch of Cox Digital Marketing. "As more companies are recognizing the need to put their messages in front of digital audiences, we decided to focus on creating a full-service digital marketing company to meet those needs," said Tina Rezash, manager of Cox Digital Marketing.
"Our relationships with our clients are long-standing, built on trust," said Rezash. With more than 100 years in print and broadcast media, and over 20 years in digital media, Cox Media Group has been a multi-media pioneer and is a respected industry leader. "Once we partner with a client on their digital solutions, they will experience our world class customer service from idea inception to execution to optimization and analytics."
'We listen. We engage. We deliver results.'
The digital experts at Cox Digital Marketing understand how difficult it can be to find a trusted partner. "The foundation of our company is to truly understand YOUR business and YOUR unique challenges. It's not about negotiating across a desk, it's about sitting side-by-side to form a partnership that lasts." said Cox Digital Marketing's Director, Chip Beale.
12 Significant Digital Marketing Stats From the Last Week
No entertainment brand had a better weekend than Jurassic World, and we have the social stats that show why the dinosaur flick knocked it out of the park. Here are 12 intriguing data points from the last week.
1. Jurassic World raked in nearly $524 million globally, making it the first movie to surpass a half billion dollars during its opening weekend, and social media may be helping the film soar. According to Moviepilot, the summer blockbuster added 353,000 Facebook fans last week, when it also generated 1.7 million tweets and 654,000 retweets.
2. What's more, per Moviepilot, Jurassic World's official trailer was viewed 5.8 million times last week on YouTube. In total, the action thriller's clip—watch it below—has now been seen a whopping 66 million times since it was uploaded on Nov. 25. Kudos to Universal Pictures' social team behind all of these metrics.
3. Sixty-three percent of Snapchat's monthly users are between the ages of 13 and 24. Industry players have estimated more than 200 million people a month are using the mobile app. Check out Adweek's cover story about Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel for this week's issue focused on the upcoming Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where Spiegel will keynote.
4. Facebook today disclosed its best-performing ads last year to Adweek, and here's a number that stuck out: Procter & Gamble's feminine-hygiene brand, Always, ran its thought-provoking #LikeAGirl campaign on the social platform and received 76 million video views, globally.
5. Even though Caitlyn Jenner seemed to take the world by storm with her Vanity Fair cover, she actually rolled out her new identity over the course of weeks—from the Diane Sawyer interview on April 24 to the aforementioned cover on June 1. Such buzz has also benefited small e-commerce players around the globe. According to Terapeak, an eBay-focused insights company, the hundreds of people selling Bruce Jenner memorabilia collectively sold about $20 million worth of merchandise during those five weeks.
6. For Father's Day, Zefr, a YouTube-focused marketing data company, conducted research about baby brands including Pampers, Gymboree, Baby Gap and Gerber. Here's the key takeaway: Pampers has accrued 200 billion views from a total of 7,000 YouTube videos since the site's inception, and that's good for No. 1 in its category.
7. Here is another intriguing finding by Zefr: 94 percent of Baby Gap's videos are created by fans—not the retail clothing company.
8. Splash, an events marketing software maker, processed aggregated client email data to suss out the best times of day to send invitations. The New York-based company discovered that 6 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. are the best times to pitch people with events stuff. The worst time to send invitations is after 5 p.m.
9. Foot traffic to bank branches in the U.K. dropped 6 percent last year thanks to consumers using their mobile apps and Web banking accounts more and more, according to a Guardian story yesterday.
10. Apple Music will pay 71.5 percent of streaming revenues back to content owners, per Re/code. That percentage bests Spotify by 1.5 percentage points, according to Digital Music News.
11. YouTube created 25,000 video game pages for its new mobile and Web platform, YouTube Gaming. While you can't play games on the platform, it shows that Google wants a bigger piece of the ever-growing gaming market.
12. Instagram is getting bigger and bigger with the foodie set. For instance, British chef Jamie Oliver has 2.9 million followers on the social app and gets superb engagement while using the #Recipeoftheday hashtag with images like this:
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Geek Shortage Stymies Israel's Tech Boom
Israel's technology miracle is threatened by a dearth of people in the very professions that made it happen: engineers and computer scientists.
Companies such as the U.S. units of SanDisk and Broadcom say finding qualified workers is one of their biggest problems. And the shortage may worsen as fewer students sign up for the most advanced math classes, the building block for tech careers. This in an economy whose health depends on exports—about one-third of them from technology companies.
"Filling job openings is one of my top problems,'' says Shahar Bar-Or, Israel site manager for SanDisk, a data-storage chip company. "We don't leave any stone unturned.''
It's not exactly the image of Israel depicted in the 2009 book Start-Up Nation, which described how the country was able to produce more tech startups per capita than any other nation. By 2014, about 250 multinational companies had set up development centers throughout Israel, and 5,000 new companies had been born.
Now 10,000 engineers are needed on top of the current 20,000 to ensure that the sector can grow, says Yoav Chelouche, co-chairman of Israel Advanced Technology Industries, an umbrella association. There weren't enough qualified software developers to fill all job openings in 2013 and 2014, the Central Bureau of Statistics says, and engineers were in short supply for five out of eight quarters in the same period.
To emphasize the issue, new Education Minister Naftali Bennett made his first public appearance last month at a sixth-grade math class in a Tel Aviv suburb.
"We are losing the future brains of the state of Israel,'' said Bennett, an entrepreneur whose software company sold for $145 million. "These are the future entrepreneurs, the developers of the next Iron Dome, who will never come to be.'' The antimissile system deflected hundreds of rockets launched from the Gaza Strip by shooting them down in midair.
One explanation for the shortage: Engineers who emigrated from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s are retiring. "We don't truly appreciate that immigration,'' says Adam Fisher, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. "Without that I'm not sure we would be `Start-Up Nation'.''
Meanwhile, fewer of Israel's youth are choosing to study advanced math, and there's no increase in those studying advanced science, in part put off by the level of difficulty that could bring down overall grades. The number of high school students matriculating in advanced math dropped by a quarter from 2006, to 9,350 in 2014, according to the Trump Foundation, dedicated to improving education in Israel.
Israeli math and science students remain below average on tests given in 65 countries or economies by the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development. While the country's math ranking didn't improve in the latest 2012 testing, the overall score did rise slightly. The proportion of students enrolling in advanced math also increased somewhat in 2013 and 2014.
Shlomo Markel, Israel-based vice president of wireless chipmaker Broadcom, says the impact of the declining number of high school students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) was especially telling in Israel, where technology is expected to contribute more to exports than to any other sector.
"The difference between Israel and other countries is that in Israel, the only resource we have is human capital,'' he says.
High technology in 2014 accounted for 42 percent of the $46.8 billion in manufacturing exports last year.
Almost a year ago, when Bennett was minister of economy, a ministerial committee drew up a program to increase skilled manpower for the industry. Its plan includes recruiting more Israeli Arabs into the industry, training ultra-Orthodox men and women, luring Israeli engineers abroad to return home, and making it easier for non-Israelis to get work visas.
It must be approved by the new cabinet and could be passed later this year. Some parts are in place: About 300 academics were persuaded to return to Israel last year out of 4,300 who registered as willing to do so.
"We are now working to see how to take the ideas and put them into practice with the new government,'' says Michal Tzuk, senior deputy director general at the Ministry of Economy.
To cope with the shortage in the meantime, SanDisk moved 19 jobs abroad in 2013, 20 percent of the job openings that year, after failing to find appropriately trained staff in Israel, Bar-Or says. Now the company is slowing down existing programs for lack of employees.
The shortage hits startups as well. Bessemer's Fisher says Israeli companies run out of staff potential once they've grown to about 300 people. Wix.com, a company that provides free online tools to build websites, opened branches in Lithuania, Ukraine, and San Francisco.
"We will truly be a `Start-Up Nation' when we encourage people to come and create companies here,'' Fisher says. "I don't think we will ever be able to produce as many engineers as the country needs.''
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Friday, June 5, 2015
Facebook Ex-Finance Chief Starts Behavioral Health-Care Company
David Ebersman, who took Facebook Inc. public as its chief financial officer, now has a venture of his own.
Ebersman’s startup is called Lyra Health, focused on using data to improve treatment of behavioral disorders including depression, anxiety and addiction. It is backed by Ebersman and Venrock, the venture capital firm.
Ebersman, who worked at Genentech Inc. before joining Facebook, said he left the social networking company last year in part to get back into the health care industry. He left with Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s blessing, he said.
Zuckerberg “very much believed in the idea that if there’s something important to you, you have to take a shot at it, even if it’s hard,” Ebersman said in an interview. Several of Facebook’s former executives have launched startups on their own, including Quip Inc., by former chief technology officer Bret Taylor, and Asana, the workplace productivity company by co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.
Ebersman plans to make technology for employers, insurers and hospitals that helps analyze treatment outcomes and coordinate care.
“In the current system, far too many patients are undiagnosed, and those who are diagnosed aren’t getting the right treatment,” he said. “Depression and anxiety are very high on the list in terms of cost drivers and issues that negatively affect productivity.”
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Apple Is the New Pimco, and Tim Cook Is the New King of Bonds
There’s a new whale in the corporate-bond market.
Apple Inc., Oracle Corp. and the other tech giants hoarding half a trillion dollars in cash have joined the ranks of the biggest buyers of the debt, often snapping up as much as half of some bond issues, according to five people with knowledge of the transactions.
The companies are muscling into a market traditionally dominated by big bond funds including Pacific Investment Management Co., BlackRock Inc., Vanguard Group Inc. and Fidelity Investments. They’re honing in on one of asset managers’ favorite ways to juice returns, particularly as the Federal Reserve holds short-term interest rates near zero for a seventh year.
“We treat them as we treat Fidelity or Vanguard or any other investor,” said Curt Zuber, treasurer of Sydney-based Westpac Banking Corp., which has issued $6.1 billion of U.S. dollar-denominated bonds in the financial year started Oct. 1 and a total of $22 billion since October 2012.
All four of Australia’s biggest banks, heavily reliant on offshore debt markets, have sent representatives to Reno, Nevada, where Apple’s money-management unit, Braeburn Capital Inc., is based, according to people with knowledge of the trips. Oracle’s cash managers are also based in the city known for its casinos, where hotel rooms costing as little as $69 a night provide cheaper lodgings than banker stops in New York, Boston and Newport Beach, California, where Pimco is based.
Piles of Cash
Corporate treasurers looking to invest record amounts of cash have increasingly turned to debt markets in recent years as yields evaporated on safer investments such as U.S. Treasuries. No industry has amassed bigger piles of cash than tech.
Apple, Oracle, Google Inc. and seven of their biggest peers now have in excess of $500 billion of cash and marketable securities, up more than three-fold since 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The problem is much of it is stuck overseas. Bringing it home would mean subjecting it to U.S. repatriation taxes, so they invest it in the bond market.
Apple, run by Tim Cook and based in Cupertino, California, had $171.3 billion of its cash and marketable securities in foreign subsidiaries and “generally based in U.S. dollar-denominated holdings” as of March 28, according to a regulatory filing.
The trend is cutting into traditional investors’ access to new issues.
Anchoring Deals
Getting allocations of corporate bond deals is one of the easiest ways for managers to outperform benchmark bond indexes because they’re typically sold at a discount to market rates, according to Jason Shoup, the head of U.S. high-grade credit strategy at Citigroup Inc. The bonds aren’t added to the indexes investors are measured against until the end of each month. That can generate as much as 0.2 percentage point of additional gains for investors who get in early, Shoup said.
Apple, which had $193.5 billion of cash and marketable securities as of March 28, is now one of the biggest buyers of shorter-term debt sold by investment grade companies, often taking as much as $200 million of a $1 billion issue, according to four people with knowledge of the deals.
“I am sure asset managers like Vanguard and Pimco would prefer Apple call them and have them manage the money rather than competing with them,” said Kevin McPartland, the head of research for market structure and technology at research firm Greenwich Associates in Stamford, Connecticut.
Issuer Confidence
Agnes Crane, a spokeswoman for Pimco, declined to comment, as did Tara McDonnell at New York-based BlackRock.
Josh Rosenstock, a spokesman for Apple, declined to comment, as did Deborah Hellinger, a spokeswoman for Redwood City, California-based Oracle.
Apple, Oracle and their peers have largely been buying investment-grade securities maturing in two to three years, according to two of the people with knowledge of the matter. Most of the investments have been in financial firms, the people said. They’ve also targeted the bonds of highly rated companies including Exxon Mobil Corp., Merck & Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., they said.
As competition intensifies for bond allocations, tech companies are increasingly approaching other corporate borrowers to anchor new bond sales, or buy the biggest chunks, in what’s known as a reverse inquiry, the people said. They tend to get as much of the debt as they want because underwriters know they typically will hold it to maturity, giving borrowers confidence their deals will get done and maintain value in secondary markets, according to two underwriters with knowledge of the transactions.
Some Concern
“There’s obviously a greater pool of demand as a result of these big corporates playing in the U.S. corporate bond market and that helps to provide greater price tension,” John Bennett, the general manager of global fixed-income sales at National Australia Bank Ltd. in Melbourne, said in a phone interview.
Oracle has $25.8 billion invested in corporate bonds, while Google has $11.5 billion of the debt, according to their latest regulatory filings.
The degree to which the companies have been buying corporate debt is raising concern that markets will weaken if they suddenly decide to do something else with their cash.
Companies including Apple, Google and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. have been lobbying Congress for two years to approve a repatriation holiday that would allow them to transfer overseas profits to the U.S. and pay a tax levy that is lower than the current rate.
Rising interest rates also may prompt them to allocate their cash to safer government debt, Citigroup’s Shoup said.
“I do worry that if the Fed decides to hike and does so against tepid inflation there will be a lot of other valid alternatives within fixed income other than corporate credit,” he said. “They can buy mortgage securities or U.S. Treasuries and be in a much more liquid market.”
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Lutron Caséta Wireless Lighting Starter Kit review:
hasn't been a very vocal partner of Apple's HomeKit home automation system, but all that changed with this week's retail launch of the $230 Caséta Wireless Lighting Starter Kit. It comes complete with a Siri-enabled Smart Bridge hub, two plug-in light dimmer modules, two remote controls and an iOS app for your phone, tablet and Apple Watch. (UK and Australian availability has yet to be announced, but the US price converts to around £150 or AU$295.)
Although this is just the first piece of HomeKit hardware to see the light of day, it's surprisingly full-featured, responsive and simple to use. I was able to control plug-in lamps with dimmable LEDs using Siri, the mobile app and the Apple Watch with only a couple of minor setbacks. From setting up the hardware to telling Siri to "Turn on the lights," the entire experience was a true pleasure.
$230 is a lot to spend for a couple of dimmers, but Lutron's streamlined HomeKit solution is recommended if you're an iOS adherent looking to dive into home automation.
One hub to rule them all
Lutron's hardware works exceptionally well, but it's the least interesting thing about this kit. We already reviewed the original Lutron Smart Bridge last year with the same two-outlet plug-in dimmers and remotes.
This new HomeKit-exclusive hub looks pretty much the same as, if not identical to, the original. It's a slab of white plastic that connects to your router and helps translate Clear Connect to lighting accessories, so you can dim your LED, halogen and incandescent bulbs, set schedules and more via the companion Lutron Android or iOS app. That's where things start to get interesting.
You can still find the original Smart Bridge hub on Amazon for $120 as a standalone device (although it will be phased out soon) and plug-in dimmer and remote kits for 60 bucks each. That's $240 for the original hub and the same accessories -- $10 more than this new kit with the HomeKit-specific hub, two dimmers and two remotes. I really liked the original hub, but this second generation one offers a lot more features (but only if you're an iOS devotee).
Lutron told us that this kit would be in Apple Stores throughout North and South America (with the exception of Brazil) as well as on Amazon starting June 2, but we were unable to find them in our local store in Louisville, KY. It wasn't available in any other stores in the surrounding area, nor even in the NY Apple stores as of this writing. The company ended up sending us a kit directly instead. That means that you may not be able to find this kit right away, but it should be en route to an Apple Store near you soon.
Ready, steady, go
Although Lutron has updated its app to account for Siri integration since I reviewed the original hub and accessories, setting everything up works roughly the same as it did before. Connect the Smart Bridge to the router and follow the instructions on the app to pair any accessories. Since this kit comes with two plug-in dimmers and two remotes, I followed the instructions to pair those specific products.
This was really straightforward, with one small exception. To pair the dimmers and the remotes, you have to press and hold their "off" buttons until the LED indicator starts blinking rapidly (as pictured above). If you don't press it in exactly the right spot and in exactly the right way, it won't work. And if you want to reset one of the accessories, you have to follow a series of overly complicated rhythmic button presses that border on ridiculous. Setup was simple otherwise, though.
There are a lot of ways to approach this system, but it's very basic at its core. You can plug up to two lamps into a single module and each module has its own built-in controls. So where you can only control a Belkin WeMo Insight Switch from the WeMo app (or through another software platform, like IFTTT), you can actually turn your lamps on or off and even dim them from the Lutron plug itself. The paired remotes act as an extension of that functionality too.
Then, you have the Lutron app. Forgetting any of the HomeKit features for the moment, the app is very comprehensive, allowing for a whole host of custom schedules and scenes as well as standard on, off and dimmer capabilities. This gives you the opportunity to interact with your lighting whether you're connected to your home network or on a distant cellular or Wi-Fi network.
I particularly liked its geofencing feature; it worked flawlessly. You can set it to automatically turn your lights off when you leave and on when you return and even adjust the distance threshold. There's also an option you can set that will only turn your lights on if you return home after sunset. In general, though, accessing the lights from the plugs, the remotes and the app all work remarkably well. They are reliable, responsive and straightforward, even when I tested with a handful of different dimmable LED brands and models.
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Can 4K TVs make 'regular' HD content look better?
New 4K Ultra High Definition TVs promise incredible detail with higher resolution. But with most content in non-4K, 1080p resolutions, is this even possible?
If you listen to the marketing from TV manufacturers, it seems TVs with 4K resolution will deliver a massive boost in picture quality.
And, if you're lucky enough to actually have a source of real 4K video -- one with the same 3,840x2,160-pixel resolution as 4K TVs -- you may well be able to see additional detail. (4K TVs -- also known as Ultra HD sets -- are so named because that 3,840-pixel horizontal resolution is almost 4,000 pixels wide. 4K TV is less of a mouthful than 3.84K TV.)
But real 4K video sources are still few and between, which means most of us will be watching content in good, old-fashioned "regular" high-def: 1,920x1,080 (1080i or 1080p) or 1,280x720 (720p), both of which have far fewer pixels than 4K.
Since that'll be the case for many years to come, how much would a 4K TV actually improve the picture?
The short answer is that a 4K TV could improve the picture a bit in the best cases -- but don't expect miracles. Most 4K TVs use a process called upconverting (or upscaling) to convert incoming sources to fit their 4K screens. Done right, it can add to the perceived detail of the image, but you'll have to look pretty hard, and sit pretty close, to see the difference.
What follows is the longer answer why. We've covered this issue before when talking about converting standard-definition to high-definition, but with 4K TVs becoming more prevalent, it's time for an update.
Upconverting, upscaling and scaling explained
Here's the problem. Your 4K TV has a resolution of 3,840x2,160 pixels. Pretty much all cable, satellite, streaming, gaming, Blu-ray and other video content is 1,920x1,080 pixels (which is called 1080p and 1080i) or 1,280x720 (called 720p).
If you were to watch 1080p content on your 2160p TV without upconverting, it would look like this:
All 4K resolution TVs have four times as many pixels as 1080p TVs. Put another way, they have four times as much screen real-estate to fill.
The math and logic behind how an image is scaled (and scaled well) is way beyond the scope of this article. The basics are this: detail refers to how sharp the edges are. The finer the edges, the more apparent detail, for the most part. A scaler figures out what's an edge, and then makes some assumptions as to how to make that edge finer.
It's not magic
The thing is, this isn't magic -- nor is it perfect. Unlike TV shows and movies that can "zoom in" to read a fingerprint on security camera footage from 20 yards away, real-world scaling can do a little but can't work miracles.
Here's an example I made to demonstrate the subtle differences in detail when scaling images.
First is a 1,920x1,080-pixel portion of a photo I took. The second image is that same one, sized down to 540x304, then enlarged as to fill a 1,920x1,080 screen. I'm using HD instead of 4K resolutions because the process is the same and 4K images would be larger than most computer screens.
Not a subtle difference, right? Yes, this is an extreme example, but I think you get the general idea of what's going on.
Here's one more. This is that same blown-up 540x304 image, but this time scaled up with Photoshop, with a bit of detail enhancement.
A lot better, right? Still not perfect, but it definitely looks sharper.
So can good scaling make a 1080p image look good on a 4K TV? Compared to that same content badly upconverted, yes. In CNET's reviews of the better 4K TVs, we've found that 1080p Blu-ray upconverted to the 4K screens looks great, although not appreciably better than 1080p on a 1080p TV.
It's also worth noting just because content is in 4K resolution, that does not necessarily mean it's "good." I've seen some convincing demos where pristine upconverted 1080p content was shown on a 4K TV, side-by-side with the true 4K version of the same content on a second identical 4K TV. It was hard to tell the difference, even up close.
But that wasn't a real-world demo. In the real world, most content isn't pristine. In the real world, streaming 4K content from Netflix or Amazon can look worse than 1080p Blu-ray. CNET's hands-on comparisons of 4K streaming (and 4K from a Samsung UHD content pack and from Sony's 4K video player) versus Blu-ray showed very little difference for the most part, and at times the Blu-ray looked better.
That said, the best 1080p content is never going to look as good the best 4K content. It's just not possible.
Lower-than high-def sources
Upconversion is more difficult with lower resolution sources. Standard-definition TV, DVD and even 720p HDTV programs aren't going to look any better on a 4K TV. You can't get water from a stone.
And it's worth remembering that the more you sharpen an image, the more you accentuate the flaws present in lower-grade content, such as noise or macroblocking.
So will a 4K TV displaying lower resolution sources look worse than on a 1080p TV?
That depends on the TV. Will this older, lower-resolution content still be watchable on a 4K TV? Generally, yes. Some videophiles may balk, but for the most part the image will be soft, but not bad. But again, it can depend on the TV. Which brings us to...
Almost every TV
Just because a TV is 4K doesn't mean it has a good scaler built-in. On cheaper 4K TVs, for instance, you probably save money because of a sub-par scaler. So in these cases, 1080p content probably won't look any better (and possibly worse).
Sadly, as far as scaling performance is concerned, you usually get what you pay for.
Bottom line
Like any marketing, take the claims from TV manufacturers with a grain of salt. Good upconversion can improve the apparent detail in an image; I've seen side-by-side demos that make 1080p look nearly as sharp as 4K. Admittedly these were put on by a company which makes scalers, but the potential is there, just as it was in going from standard to high definition.
To get the most out of your 4K TV, you need good 4K content. There isn't a lot now, but there will be more soon. In the meantime, a TV with a good scaler can make 1080p look slightly more detailed, than it would on a similarly-performing 1080p TV. Presuming, of course, you're sitting close enough.
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