Tag: mobile

Hsuan Lee, the VP of Engineering of COBINHOOD, the first zero trading fee exchange in the world, and as of January this year - came to Webit.Festival 2018 in Sofia and discussed the topic of blockchain implementation and future.

The DApps Era is coming

Back in 1991, many of you remember when the websites obsession was huge - the largest companies began with it. The transition towards search engines like Google and Yahoo was more or less smooth until they became viral. The appearance of sharing platforms appeared naturally - youtube, myspace, blogspots, etc. Some of the platforms disrupted and stayed, others disappeared and many, many more appeared. A couple of years ago Messenger,whatsapp and instagram, to name a few - everybody talked about these and while they’re widely used today, the hype over them disappeared. In 2017 - 2018  the most talked about technology advancements are the crypto-blockchain platforms. We are, very naturally, transitioning towards DApps era - or post apps era, role of apps is increasing and becoming more important rather than steady. All of this transition may seem ‘natural’, however, appearance and longevity process is way more difficult. Geoffrey A. Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm” theory applies to basically any sphere. Hsuan explained the technology adoption cycle in the following way: The innovators are about 2,5 % of all the population. The heart of all high tech startups is a product that spawned from a small group of passionate scientists.

The early adopters take up about 13,5 %.

This is the ‘chasm’ to which companies pay little attention to once a company is over hyped by the success of market entry. This is the worst place to be, characterized by low scalability, high transaction latency and high transaction fees. The early (34%) and late (34%) majority are the largest part and the most secure phases in a company's development. There are, however, cases when the company fails - the ‘laggards’ as Hsuan calls them - are about 16% of all. Blockchain adoption by companies will be as difficult process as the transition from appearance of apps to their everyday viral usage. It will happen, however.

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Missed the 2018 edition of Webit.Festival Europe? Don’t miss the 2019! Get your super early bird 2in1 tickets – 2 for the price of 1 here!

During the last few years we have witnessed incredible growth and transformation in the digital advertising industry, which were driven mainly from the expansion of mobile tech and the new types of wearable devices on the market. According to 2016 internet advertising revenue report digital video has generated the greatest gain of any format across desktop and mobile. The revenues continue to go up, despite the mass adoption of apps and programs for ad blocking. Many experts predict that the industry will be driven forward by the need to deliver better and fewer ads to the customer. Most of them believe that 2017 will be the year that messaging services will take the lead. The reason for that is the rise of chat bots, who are attracting more and more budgets. But new types of bots are bringing some risks along with the value they add. Machines that create fake clicks and views can also steal information for our credit cards. This will put additional pressure on the cyber security and privacy experts, who will have to find out new ways to protect us from ad frauds and detect the toxic bots. Right now about 60% of Google’s net global ad revenue comes from mobile, up from about 45.8 percent in 2015. The company expects that by 2018 almost 75% of its ad revenues worldwide will come from mobile ad placements. The development of messaging apps like Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp is proving that customers want a more direct and private communication. We can expect to see entirely new options for paid content. The global practice chairman of Edelman Digital Kevin King predicts that the billions of daily users in the messaging platforms will enable marketers to make the best of new engagement opportunities. He is sure that these conversational experiences will combine past revolutions in e-commerce and text services, while in the highlighting the potential of AI. Meanwhile, the mass production of VR and AR devices will bring significant improvement in software and will increase brand efforts to penetrate this new market. If you want to keep up with the hottest trends in the world of marketing Webit.Festival is the right place for you. During the Marketing & Innovation Summit, you can listen to top level speakers such as the Global Editorial Director of Wall Street Journal Custom Studios Fara Warner, the President and Global Brand Director of Havas Worldwide Jason Jercinovic and the Head of CMO practice of Forbes Media Bruce Rogers.

Despite of having the lion share of the world’s money, financial markets are among the most conservative fields of business and are usually focusing more on the results than on development and deployment of innovative solutions. But the fast spread of disruptive companies like Robinhood, which allows free stock trading, has made 2016 really amazing for the FinTech industry and led to its moving into the mainstream. Just five years ago FinTech was not something that most people would invest in, but now, it has become one of the hottest industries in the startup world. Why? Just because it gives the chance for a new company to offer services and compete with the big banks. Let’s just think about how easier it has become to make a bank transaction online than it was few years ago. Now every big financial institution is obliged to incorporate online banking in its platform to be competitive on the market. The internet platforms for crowd-funding are just another example of how FinTech has made our lives better and has empowered people to invest in projects on the other side of the globe. This type of technology continues to dramatically change the landscape for several spheres and the process is not going to slow down in the near future. Experts predict that in 2017 we are going to see credit and debit cards becoming more and more useless in the developed world, where cash is quickly giving way to phone financial transactions. The CEO of Vena Solutions Don Mal says that now having a smartphone in your pocket is much more important than your physical wallet. His expectation is that in the next five years the market for contactless cards will double and most of the retailers will accept mobile wallets. Meanwhile the biometric sensors on our phones will work not only for the HealthTech industry, but also for better payment security. In the near future we will see an multistep process for verification, which may include fingerprints, iris scans and facial recognition. Of course the better financial technologies will benefit not only the rich. In fact, they can be even more important for people in developing countries. In Kenya the system, that locals call “mobile money”, allows those without access to bank accounts to deposit, withdraw, and transfer cash with a simple SMS. According to Science Magazine’s study the access to M-PESA, the country’s most popular mobile money system, lifted hundreds of thousands of Kenyans above the poverty line. The network was introduced in the country in 2007 by Kenya’s largest mobile service provider - Safaricom. It is now used by at least one person in 96% of Kenyan households. You can learn more about the newest trends in FinTech and Blockchain sector by attending to Webit.Festival 2017. During the two-day agenda of the festival in Sofia you can listen to top level speakers from all over the world, who will share their experience on topics, such as Marketing & Innovation, Big Data & Cloud, IoE, Digital Transformation, Security & Privacy, Health & Wellbeing and Mobility. Among them will be the Executive VP for Global product strategy of Wirecard Christian Von Hammel-Boten and the venture capital investor and CEO of Novus Ordo Capital Liliana Reasor.

Will you trust a tech pro with 25 years of experience if he tells you IoT should actually be IoH? Yes, it’s not a random mistake, but one on purpose, and maybe one of the factors shaping this guy’s opinion is his long professional path. Jonas Jacobi, Vice President, Cloud and Mobile Technology Strategy at IBM is another great speaker of ours at WEBIT.FESTIVAL 2017, and he finds the importance of the Human in today’s IoT era extremely important. He is one of those men who have seen technologies dying, rebuilt and born, uses tech every day and knows how important nowadays it is. But he says innovations are not the main ingredient to success for startups, nor for big companies. Instead of proving how far technologies can go by themselves, “Focus your effort, innovation, and company on how to best help your fellow man, and you might win the grand prize”, Mr. Jacobi advices. Maybe everyone have made the same conclusion in a certain moment without being a professional in the area of technologies. But what makes us trust Jonas’s words are his long-lasting work experience and proved strong interest in the area. Mr. Jacobi’s professional life includes key positions as owner, adviser, co-founder at corporations like Oracle, IoT Expo, and, of course, IBM. With his co-founded company, Kaazing Corporation, and the established W3C's WebSocket standard, he have participated in rewriting the way Web and and Mobile applications are being designed today. Jonas is globally known as a Web, mobile and IoT expert, frequent speaker on tech events, writer and author. Since American Airlines have recently chosen to rely on IBM’s cloud platform, we’re impatient to see and hear how Mr. Jacobi contributes in an even more tangible way to developing the current and future (Cloud) technologies market. Even if America is at (a Cloud) distance from Europe - Jonas Jacobi is coming to WEBIT.FESTIVAL Europe 2017, Sofia. To buy your tickets for Webit.Festival 2017, click here. To apply for speaking, click here. To apply for partnership, click here. To apply for exhibiting, click here. To apply for our Founders Games, click here. To see the video gallery from Webit.Festival 2016, click here. To learn more about the events that are part of the festival, click here. To see pictures from our previous events, click here. For all this information and even more, visit our website www.webit.bg. Contact: Aniela Russeva

aniela@webitcongress.com

Mobile Internet use will surpass desktop Internet use in a really short time. According to some statistics it has already done it. Customers become so dependent on mobile devices so it’s pretty clear that you and your business need to be there. If you still need some reasons why being on mobile is beneficial, here are 4: Reason No 1: You are responsive and no matter what kind of a device customers use they can reach your website. The main purpose of smartphones and tablets is to make life easier, so by making your website responsive for mobile you and your business are one step closer to the love of your customers. Just think about it - if a potential customer lands on your website via their mobile device and the user experience is bad they will never come back. Smartphones have made life much easier and users demand a pleasant experience. So, make sure that your website is responsive! Reason No 2: You are constantly connected and able to answer your customers’ questions and doubts. Except for being technically responsive, mobile makes your business fully present and close to the customers since you and your team can be in touch with them any time they need you. Reason No 3: More businesses are realizing that rather than requiring valued customers to carry yet another card either in a wallet or on a keychain, they can provide them with some rewards through simply presenting a smartphone app. Consumers are moving closer to being able to pay with a mobile device, with major players like PayPal and Apple Pay partnering with stores nationwide to enable mobile payments. Reason No 4: Mobile-based marketing is the future and even Google is recognizing that the world of search is changing. Users are more likely to ask a question into a mobile device than to type on keyboard Google is prepared to deliver those answers with its Hummingbird algorithm. For this reason, it’s important for each business to take a step back and ask themselves what questions a consumer would ask that would lead them to their website. The world is doing a gradual shift from PC to mobile, businesses have no choice but to adjust their own way of thinking, as well. To learn more about the benefits of your business being mobile, come at CEEDS’15 by Webit. Hurry up and book your tickets now.

In the beginning it was e-commerce. The customers were happy because it was much more convenient for them to shop online. It didn’t take long for mobile e-commerce to take place and become even more popular and comfortable. India, for instance, is one of the biggest е-commerce markets. With its over 250 million internet users and 900 million mobile subscribers, the market is only going to expand. Realising this, even traditionally offline retailers choose to enter the online market.

"We will never go the traditional retail route in India," said Manu Jain, India head of Xiaomi. "In a traditional retail channel, the overhead costs get passed onto the consumer.

Here comes something from the last days. Apple Pay - the new Apple’s wireless payments system. Why does it matters? For the moment, Apple Pay is still in the launching period, so no impact can be seen. Not yet. But if Apple, which reportedly has more than 800 million credit cards on file and expects to sell between 70 and 80 million new iPhones by the end of this year, thinks there’s a better way to convert customers on mobile devices, you need to be thinking about it, too. There’s also Amazon’s Fire phone, which lets you scan a real image and immediately to be directed to that product page on Amazon. Instagram is also trying to implement mobile e-commerce in its strategy.

"The online channel is a big source of data collection. We learn great insights to what products are working in which geographies," said Shivanandan Pare, head of ecommerce at Madura Fashion & Lifestyle. "This helps us in our offline expansion."

Don’t miss the 6th Global Webit Congress where the topic will be discussed by experts. Book your tickets now!

Robert Tas is the Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President at Pegasystems. He leads Pegasystems' marketing globally, including brand, advertising, communications, product marketing and field activation teams. Robert is a marketing and operations executive with over 25 years’ experience. People, working with Robert describe him as ‘a highly experienced sales professional who knows the theory and practice of the art of the sale’.

‘His ideas are always cutting edge in the digital space and his depth of experience always adds incredible value,’ says Erik Hombre Gudowski, founder of TouchPoint Orange.

He was previously Managing Director, Head of Digital Marketing at JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPMC). During his three years at JPMC, Robert built and led the Digital Marketing Group globally, which served both JP Morgan’s wholesale business and Chase’s consumer business. Prior to JPMC, Robert was a pioneer in the internet digital media industry, working at such companies as Tacoda Systems, 24/7 Real Media and a company he founded, Sportgenic, which was sold to Glam Media in 2010. Prior experiences also include a strong enterprise technology background from Sybase, CommerceOne, and eGain, where Robert held various executive sales, product, and marketing positions. Robert currently serves the boards of the Association of National Advertisers, the Ad Council, and the Mobile Marketing Association.   Meet him at the 6th Global Webit Congress in Istanbul. Book your tickets now!

Retail sales rose 2.7 percent in November and December, to $265.9 billion, while actual store visits declined 14.6 percent, according to Associated Press. Researching items online before going into stores to buy is becoming more widespread daily. Up to 20 percent of holiday season sales occurred on mobile devices, eMarketer estimated. The number was even higher—close to 25 percent—on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. These statistics are a small part of the big picture and help us to define the technological trends that will revolutionize retail. Mobile’s development and innovations is of the leading trends. Mobility is much more than a smartphone app. By incorporating mobile technologies, retailers provide valuable customer’s experience. Store employees equipped with tablets that have point-of-sale capabilities, for example. Tesco, one of the world’s leading retailers, introduced its own 7-inch tablet computer, the Hudl, which can be used for in-store shopping. Another example is the French retailer Carrefour that recently launched a mobile app designed to enhance the in-store experience for the Chinese market. PayPal, Ebay and Amazon are innovators in the area of mobile commerce as well. Infinite number of examples and new rules on the market. So book tickets for the 6th edition of Global Webit Congress now in order to learn more about the new trends.

In the late afternoon of October 1st, Webit speakers at the Red track, Digital Marketing and Innovation, will discuss Digital Entertainment & Media Stream. Amongst the subtopics you can find ‘Tips and tricks on how to adapt to the disrupted value chain of media production and distribution. Who are the game changers?’. Pretty appropriate for the current situation, isn’t it? The consumer’s behaviour is rapidly changing, so is the value chain of media production and distribution. Almost half of the video watched today in US is either “time-shifted” (using DVRs or video on demand) or “device-shifted” (from television sets to laptops, tablets, or mobile phones). Music is more digital than ever, with over two-thirds of usage from streaming services, MP3 files, and satellite radio. Mobile phones have overtaken landline voice, even among consumers aged 55 to 64. All of this has happened in the last half century and there is no intention to stop. Do you know another moment in the history with such glamorous changes? These changes in user behavior have and will continue to disrupt existing industry value chains, creating both opportunities and risks for stakeholders. One of the trends, that is impossible not to be noticed is the device shift - from PC to mobile. In the last six years (from 2008 till now), the usage of mobile devices doubled and accounts for about 45% of all personal computing time. Many companies are aware of what is going on, but still there is a room for improvement. Another trend easy to notice is the content shift - from general to fragmented. Thanks to all of the search tools, available today, we have access to lots of information, like never before. In order to illustrate this, think about the way mobile phones are used. The number of apps installed (usually for a specific, single purpose) has doubled to over 30 per phone from 2008 to 2012. So, it is obvious that no matter the quantity of information we have, we need more. That is why gradually, the online digital media is replacing the traditional newspapers and magazines, since on the Internet we can find much more points of view on a specific problem. While reading about the trends, how many companies recall to your mind? Not more than five maybe. Well, these are the game changers. The 6th Webit Global Congress will present to you both the big picture, and the details on the topic, so do not miss this opportunity. Book your tickets with early bird prices now!