Mediaboss Marketing

Angela Ahrendts, Apples high priestess for all things retail, wants to harness her inventory of company stores around the world to be much more than simply places to buy iPhones and iPads.

Talking to a LinkedIn blog this week to share her vision, Apples senior vice president for retail described about how so-called influencers will be able to share their art and ideas in a communal setting within Apple stores. These thinkers, leaders, and culture-makers who feed our curiosity and reinforce our ideas will turn Apple stores into repositories of creative sparks and incubators of world-changing ideas, if, that is, things go according to Ahrendts plan.

An influencer to me is someone who shares their journeythe ups and downsand their approach to their craft or the spark that ignites a new interest allowing people to do more and go further, she writes. At their core, an influencer creates an empowering human connection. This is the essence of our new in-store experience, Today at Apple, bringing a community of people together to influence one another, to learn, share, and experience their Apple passions like music, photography, videography, art and coding. Free and open to everyone, everydaykids, parents, educators, entrepreneurs, and more.

Ahrendts goes on to say what every fanboy and girl out there already knows as Steve Jobs gospel: At Apple, we believe that people with passion can change the world. In an era of social everything, we want to spark possibility and opportunity in the creative arts, in real life, person to person. Across our almost 500 stores through our 60,000 incredible employees impacting their local communities. The goal, says Ahrendts, is to turn every Apple Store into a town square where people with similar interests can gather and share ideas and experiences.

The message then sends readers to the Today at Apple site where you can plug in your local store and pull up a list of activities at each venue.

Besides offering things like workshops like editing classes for the Mac and adding voice-over to your iPhone video, the initiative offers new sessions to learn and share ideas about using iPads for hearing loss and finding creative ways to store those billions of old photos youve got on your iPhone 7. The stores will also offer special classes for kids and for businesses. Every single store will offer a Kids Hour every Saturday morning. Atthe Apple Store in Walnut Creek this afternoon, for example, you can join others on a Photo Walk: Framing Architecture and Details.

In fact, this weekend every Apple Store on the planet will be offering photo walks, too. And stores will also offer Studio Hours, which are open work sessions where users can come in and get help from trained staff and other Apple customers with their personal projects.

Discover a new angle on photographing buildings, monuments, architectural details, and structures, says the pitch. Bring your iPhone or iPad and well share techniques for composing your shot, and show you how to consider light and shadow to emphasize details and lines. Wear comfortable shoes and bring only what you needincluding a fully charged device.

The program is not completely new by any means for years, Apple has offered classes and speakers inside many of its stores, with some of the larger locations equipped with spacious classrooms. But with Today at Apple, the Cupertino tech giant is jumping even higher onto a social-networking bandwagon that everyone from Google (Google Groups allows you to create and participate in online forums and email-based groups with a rich experience for community conversations.) to Facebook (Whether its a road trip, a bachelor party, or your concert bucket list, groups make it easy to coordinate with friends near and far. Share documents, project updates, poll your team for feedback. A group lets you communicate in one searchable space.)

Even Airbnb has joined the fray with its Experiences which allow guests to join others and do communal activities in different cities around the world.

______________________________________________________________

Cupertino, California Apple today announced plans to launch dozens of new educational sessions next month in all 495 Apple stores ranging in topics from photo and video to music, coding, art and design and more. The hands-on sessions, collectively called Today at Apple, will be led by highly-trained team members, and in select cities world-class artists, photographers and musicians, teaching sessions from basics and how-to lessons to professional-level programs.

At the heart of every Apple Store is the desire to educate and inspire the communities we serve, said Angela Ahrendts, Apples senior vice president, Retail. Today at Apple is one of the ways were evolving our experience to better serve local customers and entrepreneurs. Were creating a modern-day town square, where everyone is welcome in a space where the best of Apple comes together to connect with one another, discover a new passion, or take their skill to the next level. We think it will be a fun and enlightening experience for everyone who joins.

______________________________________________________________

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Company is adding more social-networking features to its Apple Stores - The Mercury News

WASHINGTON, May 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- MyCollege Connectis a mobile app designed to easily connect college students with fellow students and faculty members. It was envisioned by a Virginia startup,College Connect LLC, which hired Simpalm, a leading app development company in DC. The MyCollege Connect app enables students to discover and connect with faculty and students in shared and similar courses and programs. Once connected, students and faculty can easily share chat sessions, event information, news, assignment deadlines, files, and other information and resources.

MyCollege Connect isn't simply a social tool, it is a competitive edge for students who are keenly interested in knowing without delay the latest information about assignment requirements, deadlines, test dates, resources, and essential planning details. Students can link their MyCollege Connect account to a college or specific school, broadening or narrowing their community network.

How Does It Work?

MyCollege Connect is a feature-rich platform with a built-in chat platform, discussions forum, and status-notification display. Students can use the app to share and respond to status posts, questions, invitations, and discussion items. Planned attendance of classes, program activities, and events can be tracked and recorded. A Class Feed makes it easy to share files and resources with fellow students and faculty members.

Important Features For Students and Faculty members:

The native iOS app can be downloaded from the App Store using the link below:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mycollegeconnect/id1200453931?mt=8

About Simpalm:

Simpalm is a Mobile Application Development Company founded in 2009 to bring more efficiency and mobility to the world. With offices in Bethesda and Chicago,Simpalm designs, develops, deploys, and supports mobile applications and responsive websites for clients both small and large. Simpalm delivers end-to-end services including UI/UX design, development, testing, deployment, and support. It has highly skilled iOS, iPhone app developers,Android Application Developers, iPad app developers, HTML5 developers, and the business experience and technical acumen necessary to build mobile apps for any industry or vertical market. Simpalm uses Amazon AWS, LAMP and Windows Azure to build cloud-based backend support for web and mobile applications. In addition to native apps, it builds applications and websites using cross-platform technologies such as Titanium, Xamarin and Phonegap. Simpalm develops solutions for startups, SMBs, regional and global enterprises, and Government offices, agencies and departments. Among its clients are Flextronics USA, Forte Payment Systems, Bed Bath & Beyond, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and Cantada.

Media Contact

NishantJain nishant@simpalm.com

Related Links

MyCollege Connect

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/simpalm-develops-and-launches-college-social-networking-app-for-virginia-based-startup-300457224.html

SOURCE Simpalm

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Simpalm Develops and Launches College Social Networking App for Virginia-Based Startup - PR Newswire (press release)

1. Summary

We believe Momo (NASDAQ:MOMO) created a new favorable business model, a social live broadcasting app which combined built-in nearby social networking functions with live broadcasting. The new business model offered a much better ARPU than the traditional live broadcasting platform. If MOMO's MAU reaches 100 million or the ARPU reaches $4 in 2017, we believe its market capitalization could reach $10 billion with a high probability. However, if MOMO loses growth in both MAU and ARPU, it would reveal the company is overvalued.

2. What will Q1 earnings be like?

As of April 26th, the Wall Street analysts' consensus estimates for the 1st quarter were as follows:

Modeling.AI has been working hard with abundant data sources. Based on the data that we have collected so far, all of our models predict that MOMO will beat both the Rev and EPS 16Q4 consensus with a very high probability.

Our model prediction data

Q1 will be a great quarter again for MOMO because the MAU and ARPU will continually increase, and the growth of revenue will keep the momentum as well. The most amazing part of the Q1 report may be the increase of ARPU and MAU. MOMO had incredibly good ARPU in 16Q4, $3, which was the highest ARPU in the live broadcasting industry in China. Therefore, the ARPU of Q1 will be greater than $3 with a very high probability. Considering the ARPU's behavior, MOMO's live broadcasting is not the same as the traditional one, whose ARPU is only around $2.3 and is getting to the bottleneck. However, we have not seen an obvious slowdown in the company's ARPU growth rate. MOMO would be a pretty attractive investment object if its ARPU continues growing at a reasonable rate.

Based on our data, the first month of Q2 was great in terms of DAU and ARPU. If the company can somehow maintain the momentum in May and June, Q2 will be a splendid quarter once again.

We used to think of Momo as a social networking app. However, today most people classify and recognize it as a live broadcasting app because MOMO makes about 80% of its revenue from the live broadcasting business and literally has the highest ARPU in the market of live broadcasting in China. Remarkably, this figure is still growing. The company officially started its live broadcasting service in 2016 Q1. In the very first quarter after launching the live broadcasting service, 30% of MOMO's revenues were from live broadcasting and ARPU was $0.7. After only one quarter, the revenue figures and ARPU rose to 60% and $1.32 respectively. In the latest official report for Q4 2016, revenues and ARPU were at 80% and $3 respectively. We assume the figures would reach 82.3% and $3.1 in the upcoming earnings report. As its live broadcasting service soared these years, MOMO cashing in on this opportunity can bring a huge benefit to its revenues and social functions.

Data from the company's earnings reports. Chart created by Modeling.AI

Therefore, we think MOMO may create a new business model in the social networking industry: live broadcasting mixed with nearby social application, which we may call "live social broadcasting." This new business model is actually quite different from the traditional social business model and the live broadcasting business model. We will talk more about live social broadcasting in details in section 3.

3. MAU and ARPU

After a year and half of conspicuous growth in terms of monthly active users (MAU), this metric stopped growing in the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2015, which caused concern with investors.

However, from the 1st quarter of 2016, MOMO's MAU regained its growth, with an average quarterly growth of 3.8%. In the 4th quarter 2016, the MAU had an impressive growth rate of 4.78%, and we expect to see growth continue in the 1st quarter of 2017. Based on our data, it appears that this figure will grow in the first month of the 2nd quarter. If MOMO can somehow maintain the momentum, the 2nd quarter will be another successful quarter for the company.

Compared to other live broadcasting apps in China, MOMO has been leading in terms of revenues and ARPU since it first launched the nearby live broadcasting function in April 2016. We believe the company has the ability to generate much more revenue per user than its competitors, due to its unique business model.

For example, in the last three quarters, YY ARPU figures were $2.1, $2 and $2.35. In the company's latest publicly available financial report, we learned that the ARPU was already over $3. In addition, ARPU and MAU were continuing to increase in April, according to the analysis by Modeling.AI. Our models suggested ARPU and MAU would be $3.1 million and 82.3 million respectively in Q1 2016. MOMO launched the live service in 2016 Q1, and then the ARPU was equivalent as YY after only two quarters. This trend continues. These figures will be better in the near future if MOMO can keep up the momentum.

Based on our calculations, ARPU could get close to $4 later this year, which would be the highest ever in the Chinese live broadcasting market.

Data from the company's earnings reports. Chart created by Modeling.AI

4. Social App or Live Broadcasting App?

As mentioned earlier, we believe MOMO created a new business model of "live social broadcasting." Before launching the live service, many users simply took advantage of the "Nearby" function and moved on to other social apps such as WeChat (OTCPK:TCEHY) once they became acquainted with other users in MOMO, which could be the main reason why MOMO's MAU stopped growing since Q3 2015. After the live broadcasting service was released, a "chemical reaction" magically occurred between MOMO's existing functions such as "See nearby people" and live broadcasting. People tended to watch nearby live broadcasting and were willing to spend much more time and money on MOMO rather than other live broadcasting platforms. The MAU started rebounding and the ARPU soared suddenly.

5. The Future and Valuation Methods

5.1 The Future of the Live Broadcasting Industry in China

Data from the company's earnings reports. Chart created by Modeling.AI

Data from Analysys International. Chart created by Modeling.AI

The overall size of the live broadcasting market has continued to increase in China since 2016. The market has indeed become much more mature than it was in 2016. We believe the total market size of live broadcasting will continue to grow in the future. As the chart shows, it will reach approximately 15 billion RMB in 2017, a growth rate of 60% year over year from 2016. By 2020, the size will probably touch an astonishing 60 billion RMB.

The rapid growth of the live broadcasting business was mainly a result of the reduction in mobile data fees. As the price of mobile data has gone down, the number of 4G mobile users has grown in China. In February 2016, there were only 484 million 4G users in the country, but a year later the number was 806 million - a year-over-year growth rate of 66%.

While 4G data became cheaper, people actually tended to use more data. In 2016, Chinese mobile users used 0.84 GB of 4G mobile data on average, and this figure was predicted to reach 1.6 GB in 2017, representing a 90% year-over-year growth rate. According to data forecasted by the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology (CAICT), mobile data usage would be 5.4 GB per user by 2020.

At the end of 2016, MOMO's ARPU was greater than $3. We believe its live broadcasting business will definitely benefit from accelerated development of the 4GB mobile network. Therefore, MOMO is obviously on the fast lane of the live broadcasting industry in China.

Data from Analysys International. Chart created by Modeling.AI

Data from the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology (CAICT). Chart created by Modeling.AI

5.2 Valuation

5.2.1 Growth

Data from Thomson Reuters. Table created by Modeling.AI

At the moment, the P/E ratio (TTM) for MOMO is about 50 times, which likely causes concern about whether the ratio is too expensive in comparison with competitors. Yet, the key factor to determine whether MOMO is overvalued or not is its future growth.

Data from Thomson Reuters. Table created by Modeling.AI

As the table shows, the company had impressive growth in revenues and EPS in 2016. Revenues and EPS grew by 413% and 963% year over year, respectively. What about 2017? The current analyst consensus is for $1142 million in revenues and $1.42 in EPS for 2017. If the analysts are right, MOMO will have 107% growth in revenues and 84% in EPS in 2017 based on historical figures. The PEG ratio would be an impressive 0.69 for 2017 and 0.9 in 2018. When you take growth into consideration, MOMO is actually not that expensive if the company's business can keep growing as we expect.

5.2.2 Risks

As we discussed in section 2, MOMO's robust revenue growth was primarily driven by growth in MAU and ARPU. We believe the company's 2017 revenues will beat Wall Street's consensus of $1142 million with ease if the two factors can keep up the current pace or even slow down somewhat.

That being said, sluggish growth in MAU or ARPU would have a substantial impact on the company. Therefore, these key indicators should be monitored in a timely and precise manner. With cutting-edge artificial intelligence and Big Data technologies, Modeling.AI can offer real-time operational data monitor services accurately and professionally to reduce the investment risk significantly.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

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Momo: The Next Social Networking App Giant? - Seeking Alpha

Here is a German version of this text.

A few months ago I published a critical personal evaluation of the current social media landscape. During a recent podcast exchange about the same topic in which I participated (in German), what got apparent was the need to distinguish between the two components that social media is made of: the media consumption, and the networking. The first one is primarily about content, the second one primarily about people. No matter how much my skepticism about the dynamics and long-term consequences of todays social media world has grown lately, that doesnt change the fact that I still very much appreciate social medias capability to get to know interesting people, potential business partners or very simple new friends. Over the past 10 years, I have met a lot of great individuals thanks to social media. I certainly would not want to have missed that opportunity.

What I am describing here is the networking element of social media, which predated the other aspect, the consumption of content within the networked environment of social media platforms. In the early years of the so called Web 2.0, the focus was mainly on building contact lists, showcasing an online profile and on exchanging messages. The services which offered these opportunities such as Friendster, MySpace and even the early Facebook were labeled communities or social networks. Before the rise of these services, there were of course instant messengers such as ICQ or MSN. The term social media didnt emerge until around 2008. What happened at that point?

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Well, Facebook launched its news feed in 2006. Twitter appeared shortly after, also following a feed/stream approach to enable people to publish and consume content. Other services such as FriendFeed adopted a similar principle. The feed format enhanced the familiar social networking paradigm (featuring profiles, contact lists and messaging) with a convenient way to spread and consume content. Meanwhile, the broader public, media outlets and businesses started to discover the possibilities of using the feeds to broadcast information and to connect with others. These developments marked the birth of social media, which quickly became a well-established term. Simultaneously, usage of the term social networking decreased. Eventually, the trend that started back then culminated in the mess that social media is today.

Google searches for social networking (red) and social media.

If one, like me, is pessimistic about the current state of social media but does not want to give up on the benefits of its networking element, then a first consequence would have to be to clearly distinguish between social media and social networking. The verbal distinction wont change anything right away, but using language accurately and adjusting it to changing circumstances is a first step.

However, the differentiation of the terminology is tricky, as illustrated by a recent statement by Pavel Durov, the former founder of Russian Facebook clone VK and current CEO of the popular messaging service Telegram. Bloomberg quotes Durov with the following words:

Everyone a person needs has long been on messengers. Its pointless and time-consuming to maintain increasingly obsolete friend lists on public networks. Reading other peoples news is brain clutter. To clear out room for the new, one shouldnt fear getting rid of old baggage.

The media outlet covers his point of view because Durov has just unfriended all of his contacts on VK. The author of the article interprets this symbolic move and the unstoppable rise of messaging as a sign of the demise of social networking. But messaging apps are also social networks.

Exactly like on VK or Facebook, users of chat applications establish lists of friends and other types of contacts either by syncing with their smartphoness address books, or by manually adding users through user names. The contact list in WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal or Snapchat represents a part of the persons social graph. However, a major difference to social media platforms is that on messaging apps, communication commonly happens in a one-to-one or one-to-few setting, not through the (public) one-to-many approach that characterized the news feed and social media era.

In my eyes, Durov is right when he criticizes the obsession with (other peoples) news within social media and when he suggests to get rid of baggage. But thats not the end of social networking. It is an evolution. After years of excess on social media, more users know better what aspects of it they value such as being able to loosely keep in touch with people and which aspects are mostly destructive but persistent habits.

Admittedly, in a world in which Facebook is close to hitting the astonishing number of 2 billion active users, the label post-social media sounds strange. But observed over a longer period, usage patterns are in fact changing more than what gets apparent at first glance. Driving forces are both external ones, such as cultural, social or demographic trends (including the debates about fake news, trolling, disinformation and online harassment), as well as internal ones, such as conceptional modifications of the products made by the platforms in order to adjust to changing user preferences, to the competition or in order to better achieve business goals.

The currently spreading Stories concept for example will inevitably change the mechanisms of social media and the dynamics it has on the public discourse and the media landscape (provided that the stories approach wont just be a fad). The smartphone camera increasingly becomes the central input channel for the content that people share on their preferred apps (at least thats the narrative that Snapchat and Facebook are selling). This content competes for attention with the click-driven day-to-day news junk that has been thriving so much on Facebook and Twitter over the past years. Quality content which aims at informing instead of only entertaining through the triggering of emotions will increasingly be found again directly at where it is being published, or through specialized curated web services that promise people to use their attention responsibly. The fact that publishers such as The New York Times or The Guardian are pulling out of Facebooks Instant Articles is a clear statement.

Might all this be more wishful thinking than reality? I cannot rule it out completely. Predicting which trends and patterns are going to last and which will fade away quickly is as tough as assessing which anecdotal reports and empirical observations do have significance, and which ones dont. But there is one thing that can be concluded with certainty: At least in the Western world, social media as we have gotten to know it has peaked, because the enthusiasm has vanished completely. After years of relentless feedback loops and permanent orgasmic outrage, novelty has worn off and many people are tired of the nowadays too well-known dynamics that seem to serve no one other than those who are addicted to emotional roller coasters, and those who make money with it.

That being said, proclaiming a post-social media era does not mean the end of all the user activities that are typically associated with social media. Even after everyone had stopped talking about the Web 2.0, its legacy and core principles were still ubiquitous but in a more moderated, matured way. Thats what likely happens now again. Peoples desire of connecting with others will remain. Social networking wont go away, and content will of course stay an instrument through which connections are being made. But what kind of content that is, how it will be shared, and which means of distribution will be utilized this is something for which new rules are being written. Hopefully better ones than those that applied most recently.

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The post-social media era and the evolution of social networking - meshedsociety.com (blog)

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Americans are becoming less religious.

How do we know that? Recent surveys show manyof us just aren't going to church as often as weused to.

While Alabama still has one of the highest rates of attendance, citizens here are not immune to the larger overall trend. That's one reason a Tennessee Valley entrepreneurwants to create a new digital space, to help people live and grow their faith.

Rachael Jackson has an interesting background. She joined thelocal technology industryonly after a trip down a long and windingcareer path, which began with service in the U.S. Army.

As a rebellious young teenager with divorced parents, Jackson told WHNT News 19 the military gave her discipline, focus and a future.

"I became an Apache pilot, went to flight school," Jackson recalled. "[I] was on a definite trajectory."

Then came deployment to Iraq. Jackson began blacking out. As she put it, "They don't like pilots to do that." Afterbeing sent back stateside, she just wasn't sure what to do next.

She felt broken and lost; unsure what her path forward should be. Eventually she founded her company Shattered Media and began telling her own story, as well asstories of others experiencing personal struggle.

The experience sparked a renewed faith inside Jackson. "I really think God wanted me to put my identity in him," she explained.

She saw reports of church attendance dropping and saw people spending more time in digital spaces than ever before.

That's when Jackson had an idea --create an app focused on personal stories.

"I really wanted to do something to inspire Christians to actually go out and love and serve other people who don't know Jesus," Jackson explained.

The StoryBridge app is the culmination of Jackson's efforts to realize her idea. WHNT News 19 got an up close look at the social network, despite it still being in the prototype stage.

The app relies heavily but not exclusively on video. Users begin by building a profile and sharing their personal story. The app actually guides them through this process; suggesting tags to connectthem to others with similar experiences.

Someone who hada miscarriage, for example, can be linked up with individuals who have a similar story. The same goes for those who've lost parent, are starting a new job or are experiencing other important life milestones.

Jacksonwants the app to serve as a "different kind" of social network; one with "more kindness, less judgement and less bullying."

Eventually, Jackson hopes to link people up with local churches, non-profits and causes, so they can find ways to live their faith in their own communities.

She stressed that while the app is designed with a Christian focus, it's not exclusively for Christians. As she explained, it's for "anyone searching for real, meaningful connections" through story.

The app will be subscription based; eliminating the need for advertisements. Start up money is still needed to get the project off the ground and an IndiGoGo campaign is underway. Click here to contribute or learn more.

Jackson's hoping people will see what she doesand embrace her idea to help people keep their faith, in an increasingly digital world.

"Communities, ministries, churches, non-profits: They're allgoing to look different in about 15 to 20 years," Jackson said of how we connect in the modern era."[We need]to reach people where they are right now."

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Veteran designs social networking app to help you find, grow your faith - whnt.com