Nintendo Wii U: Why the Console Isn't Selling

As Nintendo slashes sales expectations for the Wii U, Games Correspondent Ed Smith looks at why the console is struggling to sell 

A cashier stands in front of a display of Nintendo Wii U gamepads and consoles in a store in Times Square, New York last November. (Credit: Reuters)

Despite Nintendo reporting that within three months of launch the Wii U had made $300 million (£190m) compared to the original Wii's $270m during the same period, sales of the new console have slowed down. 

In the seven days leading up to Christmas 2012, the Wii U sold just 122,000 units in Japan, compared to a week before when it sold 130,000. The Wii U also struggled in its opening week, shifting 400,000 units in the US between 18 and 24 November compared to the original Wii's 476,000 units during a similar period in 2006.

Tablet Sales up 75% as Samsung and Asus Gain on Apple

The tablet market has grown by more than 75 percent in the last year, and while Apple still tops the list, Samsung and Asus have gained ground on the iPad-maker.

Microsoft's Surface shipped 900,000 units in the final three months of 2102, failing to make a significant impact on the tablet market. (Credit: Reuters)

The growth in the tablet market is reflected in the continued decline in the PC market, with consumers choosing to replace their laptops with tablets rather than purchasing both. Lower average selling prices, a much wider range of form factors and sizes; as well as increased Christmas spending pushed shipments in the final three months of 2012 to 52.5 million - up from 29.9 million the previous year.

Intel Broadens Smartphone Push With Acer Liquid C1

 

 

 

 

The Acer device is the latest overseas move by Intel to gain traction in the booming smartphone chip market now dominated by ARM.

Intel is continuing its push into the mobile chip space with the launch in Thailand of a new smartphone from Acer powered by Intel’s new low-power Atom Z2420 processor, codenamed “Lexington.”

Officials from Intel and Acer unveiled the new phone, the Liquid C1 smartphone, in Thailand Jan. 31, saying they expect the $335 device to hit store shelves in other countries in Southeast Asia over the next few months. The phone, which runs Google’s Android, is the latest device from Intel to launch in overseas markets as the company looks for a foothold in the highly competitive mobile device market, where the predominant chip platform is from ARM Holdings.

Microsoft's Bing team launches new series of Office 365 apps

Earlier this week, Microsoft officially launched Office 2013 and the new Office 365 Home Premium service. The new productivity software suite also supports downloads of apps via the Office Store and Microsoft said at the time there were over 200 apps available for users.

The rumor that won’t die: Apple’s perpetually pending video game console

Aurich Lawson

There are some things you can always seem to count on in the video game industry. Activision is always working on a new Call of Duty game. Ubisoft's Beyond Good and Evil sequel is always "just around the corner." The PlayStation 3 is constantly hitting its stride. And Apple is perpetually on the verge of releasing a living room video game console that will revolutionize everything.

NPD: Apple's iTunes takes biggest piece of online video on demand pie

As sales of Blu-ray disc and DVDs continued to slip, Apple has taken the leading share of the emerging Internet video on demand market, according to a new report by The NPD Group. 
NPD issued a report today, noting that conventional discs have dropped from 64 percent of the home market in 2011 to 61 percent in 2012, blaming lower average prices of discs as contributing to share declines. 

HP, Acer See Promise in Chromebooks Over Windows 8: Reports

 

 

Hewlett-Packard and Acer are looking to boost their laptop sales figures, which haven't been booming with Windows 8.

Hewlett-Packard and Acer are looking to market more laptop computers that run Google's Chrome OS, rather than Windows 8, which both companies say have had disappointing sales, according to recent reports.

HP is about to launch its first-ever Chromebook in February, according to a Jan. 28 report by The Verge.

The information came from a leaked specifications sheet that was found on HP's Website, according to the story. The spec sheet has since disappeared from the site.

Microsoft sold 900K Surface RT tablets in face of muted demand

Computerworld - Microsoft shipped an estimated 900,000 Surface RT tablets last quarter, barely missing the top five device makers, but illustrating that demand was "muted at best," IDC said today.

"There is no question that Microsoft is in this tablet race to compete for the long haul," said Ryan Reith, analyst and program manager of IDC's mobile device tracking, in a statement. "However, devices based upon its new Windows 8 and Windows RT operating systems failed to gain much ground during their launch quarter, and reaction to the company's Surface with Windows RT tablet was muted at best."

Microsoft has not disclosed sales numbers for the Surface RT, and has generally shied away from even general statements of its progress.

IDC's Surface RT estimate was based on the firm's ongoing tracking of Asian component suppliers, said Tom Mainelli, IDC's research director for tablets, in an interview today. Its number was in the same ballpark as earlier estimates that had pegged Surface RT sales at around 1 million.

"Microsoft faces an uphill battle," said Mainelli. "They were damned if they did [their own tablet], damned if they didn't."Microsoft launched the Surface RT in October, and until late in the quarter sold it exclusively through its online mart and its several-dozen retail stores. Only in December did the company expand distribution to other retailers, such as Best Buy and Staples in the U.S.

Mainelli laid part of the blame for the Surface RT's performance on the upcoming Surface Pro, which unlike its predecessor runs the full Windows 8 operating system and existing Windows desktop applications.

"There was a fair amount of confusion about what [Surface] RT is, and also a fair amount of interest in the Pro version," Mainelli said. The combination led some potential buyers to delay a decision until they had a chance to see and evaluate the more expensive Surface Pro.

Both Mainelli and Reith also pointed to the Surface RT's price point as a flaw in Microsoft's launch-quarter strategy. The Surface RT starts at $599 with a keyboard, the accessory Microsoft has aggressively promoted as key to the tablet's usefulness.

"Microsoft and its partners need to quickly adjust to the market realities of smaller screens and lower prices," said Reith. "In the long run, consumers may grow to believe that high-end computing tablets with desktop operating systems are worth a higher premium than other tablets, but until then [average selling prices] on Windows 8 and Windows RT devices need to come down to drive higher volumes."

The one bright point in the quarter for Microsoft, said Mainelli, was that it was close to making the top five list, outsold by fifth-place Barnes & Noble by only 100,000 units.

Link: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9236411/Microsoft_sold_900K_Surface_RT_tablets_in_face_of_muted_demand?

Lenovo records record profits; thinks Windows 8 will drive PC demand

Lenovo was one of the biggest supporters of the Windows 8 launch in October as it introduced a number of new touchscreen-based notebooks, tablets and convertibles. It continued that support earlier this month by announcing a bunch of upcoming Windows 8 products at CES 2013, including the impressive looking 27 inch IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC all-in-one, which will be able to be laid flat to serve as a really big tablet (kind of).

To support Lenovo's bet on Windows 8, it looks like the company has managed to sell a lot of PCs in the fourth quarter of 2012. The China-based company announced today that for the last three months of the year, it had revenues of $9.4 billion, up 12 percent from the same period a year ago. Net profits came in at $205 million, up 34 percent from the same period a year ago.

Lenovo said it shipped 14.1 million PCs during the fourth quarter, up 7.6 percent. This is in contrast to the overall PC market, which saw shipments go down for the same quarter. CNet.com reports that during the company's conference call with analysts, Lenovo's chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing was upbeat that Windows 8 will help the company continue to grow in the new year, saying, "New technologies like Windows 8, ultrabooks, and convertibles will drive new demand. 2013 will be better than 2012."

It just goes to show that if you have a company that makes products that people want to buy and use, you can still be successful even though the market contracted during the same time period. It also shows that the launch of Windows 8 was perhaps not as slow as certain companies, such as Acer, would lead people to believe.

Source: Cnet.

SSD market consolidation expected

Storage vendors are anticipating some serious consolidation in the SSD market as the large number of players starts to be reduced.

The issue of consolidation is going to be a challenge for resellers trying to work out which brands to carry as well as for customers.

At a recent MicroScope roundtable the SSD market was given plenty of attention with many expecting the current number of players to be whittled down.

"In the SSD market there are about 40 different vendors out there, including start-ups. As SSD vendors start going to the wall that will become an issue going forward and customers will be looking at financial stability," said Peter Godden, vice president EMEA at Coraid.

Others drew parallels with other parts of the storage world with Thomas Pavel, director of channel sales at LSI, commenting that the current situation reminded him of the hard disk world.

"It happened in the disk world and now there are just two to three there and in a couple of years there is going to be consolidation of the SSD suppliers," he said.

Jacco van Achterberg, EMEA sales director at Nexenta, said that there was not that much difference between a large amount of the SSD offerings and that was also a weakness for some vendors in that market.

"If you take an SSD device from a factory and out some software on it is the same world over and over again," he said.

Link: http://www.microscope.co.uk/news/2240177275/SSD-market-consolidation-expected?

Valve's Newell: Biggest threat in the living room is Apple

Given its efforts to bring Steam into the living room, you'd think Valve would be worried about the next generation of consoles coming later this year. Yet according to Valve CEO and bearded messiah Gabe Newell, the "biggest challenge" in that space isn't so much new console hardware—rather, it's Apple making a play for the living room "before the PC industry . . . gets its act together."

Newell dropped that bombshell during a lecture at the University of Texas' Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. The folks at Polygon have posted some other choice quotes from the talk, including this interesting overview of the situation:

"The threat right now is that Apple has gained a huge amount of market share, and has a relatively obvious pathway towards entering the living room with their platform," Newell said. "I think that there's a scenario where we see sort of a dumbed down living room platform emerging — I think Apple rolls the console guys really easily. The question is can we make enough progress in the PC space to establish ourselves there, and also figure out better ways of addressing mobile before Apple takes over the living room?"

Newell also brought up Miracast wireless display tech and Nvidia's Project Shield. Based on his statements and the wording of the Polygon article, I'm getting the impression that the hotly anticipated Steam Box may not be a dedicated living-room PC. Now, I'm imagining more of a small, low-power system with the ability to stream games from a full-featured PC. I kind of like the idea, too—why buy a whole other gaming PC when you could just extend your current one to the living room?

I can see Newell's point about Apple, as well. Even today, AirPlay mirroring with an iOS device and a $99 Apple TV can deliver a reasonably compelling gaming experience. If Apple makes a stronger push in that market—which the rumor mill suggests it will—then we may see more games take advantage of the technology... and more folks questioning their need for a dedicated console.

Link: http://techreport.com/news/24297/valve-newell-biggest-threat-in-the-living-room-is-apple?

Apple To Stop Mac Pro Sales In Europe From March 1st

No matter how large and influential an entity is, and regardless of your war chest, you will still need to bow down to regulatory requirements in a particular area. Case in point, Apple, the second most valuable company in the US on the stock market, will stop selling their Mac Pro desktop in Europe when the calendar hits March 1st, simply because new regulatory requirements in the region would come into play from that day onwards.

Apple made know of this stop in sales for the Mac Pro desktop via a letter that they sent to resellers today, citing Amendment 1 of Regulation IEC 60950-1. Unfortunately, the letter itself failed to shed light on just what is inside the Mac Pro desktop that violated said regulatory requirements. This should not come across as negative news to be reflected in the share price, since the high-end professional desktop is more or less a niche product for the company, and sales of the machine in Europe would hardly be a drop in their bucket. Rumor also has it that Apple intends to update the Mac Pro this year, which would mean it will comply with the new European regulations.

Link: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/01/apple-to-stop-mac-pro-sales-in-europe-from-march-1st/

Pictured: What an iPad 5 in a post-mini world could look like

Credit: Martin Hajek

It's getting harder and harder for Apple to announce a product that everyone hasn't already seen before thanks to photo and info leaks. Case in point: iPhone 5 and iPad mini. We already knew what they looked like months before they were officially revealed.

And if there's one thing that makes Apple ever more predictable, it's that the company's established products right now are largely iterations on previous design. So why wait for Apple to announce the iPad 5? These 3D renders from artist Martin Hajek show how the 9.7-inch iPad's dimensions can be reduced by a sizable margin using the iPad mini's design language.

Hajek's design is not without merit, either. Just earlier this week, images of the back of the alleged iPad 5 surfaced, suggesting Apple will indeed give its larger tablet a redesign to mimick the iPad mini and iPhone 5. How does an 9.7-inch iPad with thinner bezels and a slimmer chassis sound?

Link: http://www.dvice.com/2013-1-31/pictured-what-ipad-5-post-mini-world-could-look?

HTC to release the M7 in UK stores from March

HTC seems to be having a hard time keeping its next flagship away from the news. Only a day ago, the Taiwanese smartphone maker had sent out invites for two press conferences simultaneously in New York and London on February 19, and there are speculations doing the round that it may indeed be the launch of HTC M7.

According to the website htcsource.com, HTC M7 is expected to start retailing from March 8, 2013. It further claims that this smartphone will be available in the UK and European markets before it find its way to United States.
Even in the past there have been news reports suggesting that HTC has sourced components to manufacture 4-5 million units of the HTC M7 during the first quarter of 2013. The strategy behind launching this device ahead of MWC is that the company wants to get their flagship out before their rivals.
So March release may give HTC a few weeks advantage over it’s main rival Samsung with it’s imminent release of the  Galaxy S IV.
Over the past couple of months, HTC M7 smartphone has been leaked extensively over the Internet. However, till now there was only the black colour option of this smartphone that has been spotted. However, htcsource.com claims that it will be available in one more colour option, which could either be white, silver or even red.
Just to recap, HTC M7 is expected to come with 4.7-inch 1080p display. Other specifications that this smartphone may have are 13-megapixel rear camera, 1.7GHz quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM. and sporting the Android 4.2 along with the brand new Sense 5.0 UI.

Via: htcsource

World of Warcraft movie gets Moon director onboard

Duncan Jones set to direct live-action blockbuster based on Blizzard's fantasy world.

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Moon and Source Code director Duncan Jones has confirmed he will direct the upcoming movie for Blizzard's Warcraft franchise.

Legendary Pictures' adaptation of Blizzard's world-conquering RTS and MMO series will be a live-action movie with a budget "north of $100 million" , according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Shooting for Warcraft is expected to start later this year for an intended 2015 release. The eight-year-old MMO World of Warcraft, which still boasts 9.1 million monthly subscribers, saw its fourth expansion, Mists of Pandaria, released last year.

"So the gauntlet was thrown down ages ago: Can you make a proper MOVIE of a video game. Ive always said its possible. Got to DO it now! ;)" wrote Jones on Twitter last night.

The script for Warcraft --which is being kept "under wraps" according to The Hollywood Reporter--has been penned by Charles Leavitt, who has previously worked on The Express, Blood Diamond and K-PAX.

Spider-Man director Sam Raimi had originally been down to direct the film, but had to leave the project in favour of the upcoming Oz the Great and Powerful.

For more information on World of Warcraft, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.

Aliens: Colonial Marines getting $30 DLC pass?

GameStop listing suggests Gearbox Software's upcoming shooter will offer Season Pass featuring four expansions delivered by summer 2013.

Aliens: Colonial Marines will feature a $30 downloadable content Season Pass, according to a GameStop product listing. The page states the pass will include four expansions to be delivered by summer 2013. These are to include extra campaign content, additional multiplayer maps, new modes, and further character customization options.

Developer Gearbox Software has not announced an Aliens: Colonial Marines Season Pass, and a representative from the company was not immediately available to comment.

A Season Pass for Aliens: Colonial Marines would not come as much of a surprise. Gearbox's latest game, Borderlands 2, featured a $30 pass that gave gamers access to four expansion packs.

In addition, such initiatives are becoming widespread, and can be found in games like Halo 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Max Payne 3, Gears of War 3, Saints Row: The Third, L.A. Noire, and UFC Undisputed 3.

Link: http://uk.gamespot.com/news/aliens-colonial-marines-getting-30-dlc-pass-6403201?

5 Ubuntu alternatives worth checking out

Linux is a free and open-source desktop operating system, and is recognized as the third most popular desktop operating system in the world. Unlike OS X or Windows, there are many different versions — called distributions (or distros) — that all fall under the “Linux” umbrella. Among the many flavors of Linux, the Debian Linux-based Ubuntu is the distro that tends to receive the majority of mainstream attention. Interestingly, according to the ever-popular DistroWatch, much as Ubuntu has surpassed Debian in popularity, Ubuntu has been overthrown by its own forked distribution: Linux Mint.

Linux Mint is merely one of many Ubuntu forks. Whether Mint is actually more popular than Ubuntu is up for debate, but the important part is that the Linux community has taken the Ubuntu code (you know, the Debian c0de) and customized it to add new features, serve a specific purpose in niche markets, and to offer up unique twists on user experiences.

So while Ubuntu is generally a good choice, it might not be exactly what you need. There are many other options out there that are worth knowing about.

BackBox Linux

Although BackTrack Linux is generally-considered the de facto distribution for penetration testing, BackBox has emerged as a promising Ubuntu alternative. The latest release isBackBox Linux 3 and it features an Ubuntu base with Linux kernel 3.2, a customized XFCE 4.8 desktop, and a number of computer forensics tools. The project began as a small project led by Raffaele Forte approximately three years ago.

Popular vulnerability assessment and cracking tools such as aircrack-ng, Wireshark, XHydra, ophcrack, and w3af (among others) come pre-installed with the OS. BackBox can be used in a live environment from a CD or USB flash drive, or installed permanently onto a system. Thanks to the Ubuntu base and included desktop applications (multimedia, email, web browsing, and document editor), BackBox can be used as a day-to-day OS on your main machine while also being capable of venturing into computer forensics, software exploits, and password cracking on the weekends (with permission, of course).

Bio Linux

The scientific community has heartily embraced the open-source Linux operating system on systems ranging from desktops to workstations to supercomputers. Bio Linux 7 is a perfect example of scientists using Linux as a workstation OS for data analysis that is free and can be used by anyone around the world. Specifically, Bio Linux 7 focuses on providing a platform for bioinformatics, with is a biological science that studies the storage, retrieval, and analysis of biological data (the IT parallel to biochemistry). Bio Linux 7 is the latest release, and is based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

Along with the traditional pre-installed applications found in Ubuntu 12.04, Bio Linux 7 also packs in several applications used in the sphere of bioinformatics. These applications include database and analysis tools that are used for tasks such as DNA and RNA sequencing, drug design, and software development. The operating system is developed by community contributors and the NEBC, which is the Environmental Bioinformatics Centre sub-group of the Natural Environmental Research Council. Its open-source nature allows it to be freely shared and used by researchers worldwide to study bioinformatics from a common platform.

PinguyOS

Developed by Antoni Norman, PinguyOS is a general-purpose operating system that is packed with features and ready-to-run with little-to-no user tweaking required. It focuses on a simple user interface that is friendly to new Linux users — especially those who are migrating from Windows or OS X computers.

The latest release is PinguyOS 12.04 Final, which (as the name suggests) is based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. On top of the Ubuntu OS, PinguyOS features a customized Gnome 3.4.1 desktop and a wide breadth of pre-installed applications. The OS includes applications for web browsing, email, messaging (Skype, IRC), torrenting (Deluge), remote desktop, media playback (Clementine, VLC, XBMC, PS3 Media Server), gaming (Wine, PlayOnLinux), word processing (Libre Office), backup, Ubuntu One cloud storage, video and photo editors, and even support for burning LightScribe discs. Needless to say, just about any task that you are used to performing on Windows or Mac OS X can be done using PinguyOS out of the box.

The PinguyOS desktop includes two Docky application docks along the left and bottom edges of the desktop. Meanwhile, the right side of the screen hosts the Conky resource monitor which displays CPU, hard drive, RAM, and network utilization graphs. The Docky bars with its application shortcuts will be familiar to OS X users, while ex-Windows users longing for a Start menu will be right at home with the Cardapio application menu. According to a review by RefuGeeks, PinguyOS tends to require more system resources than most Ubuntu-based distros. On the other hand, PinguyOS does not require any tweaking or tracking down programs to get rolling — that step is already taken care of — and for new users that is a huge advantage.

Link: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/144885-5-ubuntu-alternatives-worth-checking-out?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ziffdavis%2Fextremetech+%28Extremetech%29

What Do Developers Really Think of BlackBerry 10?

In its formal announcement regarding BlackBerry 10, Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) published a list of quotes from developers that were intrigued by the platform.

Dennis Crowley, co-founder and CEO of Foursquare, said that his company is “extremely excited” to be part of BB10′s launch. Bob Rosin, VP & GM of Business Development for Microsoft’s Skype division, is also excited.

(What does Mark Zuckerberg have to say about BlackBerry 10?)

Petri Järvilehto, an EVP at Rovio, said that his firm is “delighted” to bring Angry Birds to such a “great platform.”

Cisco’s Raj Gossain is “proud to extend Cisco’s WebEx technology to the BlackBerry 10 platform.”

These are the official comments that were approved by BlackBerry (NASDAQ: BBRY) for publication within the firm’s press release. What do other developers think of BlackBerry 10?

“They’re happy to have another platform to develop for,” Jan Dawson, Ovum’s Chief Telecoms Analyst, told Benzinga. “It’s a good installed base that they should be able to sell into, so there will be some demand for the apps. That will be something that developers will be excited about.”

“Overall, the functionality works great,” Tim Richard, co-founder of Weever Apps, told CBC. “It takes a couple of minutes to adjust, but I think Android and iPhone type touch screen users would find it easier to adjust.”

“I think the BB10 will have a tough fight ahead to win back their market share. It is not always the best technology that wins out,” Daniel Jeppsson, founder of Funkoi Games, told FierceDeveloper. “That said, I think there is a significant, entertainment-hungry, fun crowd of people that developers can cater to on the BlackBerry platform.”

“I’ll be honest, it (BlackBerry) is my third choice,” Andrew Kamondy, founder of Toronto-based app developer 99cents, told FierceDeveloper. “But it could be my first choice depending on the app and the opportunity.”

FierceDeveloper also interviewed Harvey Elliot, the COO of Marmalade, who said that he liked BlackBerry’s distinction between apps and developers.

“They’re not targeting apps, they’re saying, ‘We want developers,’” he said. “That’s an important distinction. And they’re not just using a single channel. They’ve been hosting webinars, there have been port-a-thons. They’re really spreading their communication options.”

This may only be a small sampling of the thousands of developers that are working on BlackBerry 10 apps, but the general response seems to be positive (if not a little cautious).

“They’re gonna have a base of developers, probably mostly people that developed for BlackBerry before,” Dawson added. “Beyond that I think they’re gonna struggle to attract new developers until they prove that there’s a big base of users there. Developers don’t want to [build apps] that are only going to be used by a few people. They want to develop for platforms that have a lot of users [and] ideally make a lot of money selling the apps. It is not clear that BlackBerry 10 is the platform that fits those criteria right now.”

Link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzingainsights/2013/01/31/what-do-developers-really-think-of-blackberry-10/?

Facebook Card's Big Implications for Advertising, Shopping New gift card business could help tie online ads and offline purchases

During Facebook’s earnings call on Wednesday, CFO David Ebersman said the company’s Gifts service contributed a "very small" portion of the company’s $5 million in miscellaneous revenue—and the expectation is that its future contributions would remain “very small.”

Then on Thursday Facebook announced a new Gifts-related service that could become very big.

Starting today Facebook is rolling out Facebook Cards to U.S. users. Here's how it works: when a user sends a Facebook Gift to another user from a participating retailer—Target, Jamba Juice, Sephora and Olive Garden are on board at launch—the recipient will be mailed a physical Facebook Card carrying the present’s value.

The recipient can then take that card into a restaurant or retailer’s store and use it to redeem the gifted item or a product of his own choosing.

Once a user has received a Facebook Card, they can opt to keep the card, or divvy it up among other brands—for gifts or for themselves. For example, a user could send $50 to be used at Sephora or split that into $25 for Sephora and $25 for Jamba Juice. The spokesperson said Facebook doesn’t have any plans right now to roll out a digital version of its gift card, though people can user their cards to purchase digital gifts, like a Netflix subscription or iTunes.

Facebook has partnered with financial services company Discover to serve as the payment processing vendor for gift cards (a Facebook rep didn't shoot down the theory that other credit card companies could become involved down the road).

Facebook Card appears primed to tie in with Facebook’s Offers products—which nearly 42 million unique users have claimed, per yesterday’s earnings call—but that’s not the case at launch. A spokesperson declined to discuss whether a retailer like Target would be able to promote Offers to users with Cards holding balances for Target or for another retailer, such as a gym running an Offer to someone with a Jamba Juice balance on their Card.

Besides helping drive e-commerce on the site, Facebook Card have the potential to help the company better connect advertising and sales, assuming users adopt the product. For example, at a grand scale Sephora would be able to see how many of the users who saw one of its ads and ended up buying something. The brand could even theoretically track which ads influenced purchased, where and when they ran, what else they might have purchased, and what offline stores they visited.

As American Express has shown, the power of closed-loop conversion data is incredibly potent, and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg emphasized during yesterday’s earnings call the need for marketers to measure Facebook’s impact beyond the click, specifically discussing Facebook’s impact on conversions and sales.

That conversion data surfaced through Card could also be applied to ad targeting, which is something that has Amazon primed to rival Google’s online advertising dominance. The idea there is that a marketer could run ads targeting users with Card balances dedicated to his or her brand (or who previously had balances) and segment out the ones who redeemed and those who didn’t. Card data could also be rolled into a signal for Facebook’s existing ad targeting options, so that users with a given retailer’s card balance could be prioritized when that retailer runs an ad on Facebook targeted to a specific segment. Alas—and even though Sandberg repeatedly pointed to Facebook’s targeting capabilities during the earnings call—the Facebook spokesperson had nothing to share regarding these possibilities, stressing that the company is focused on rolling out the product and receiving feedback.

Interestingly, Facebook has christened the new e-commerce product Facebook Card, instead of Facebook Gift Card. That could simply be a preference for brevity or suggest larger ambitions. For now users cannot themselves add to their card’s balance and a card’s value is designated to specific retailers, but should that change, so too will the product’s significance. For what it’s worth, the Facebook spokesperson said the company had nothing to share when asked if it would eventually be possible for users to add value to their own Card and provided the same non-answer regarding any future ability to apply the Card to online or mobile purchases.

In the past two years, the mobile wallet space has heated up as companies like Google, PayPal and Square race to convert consumers’ smartphones into their credit cards, thereby conjoining online and offline behaviors. Though Apple’s introduction of Passbook last yearcould position it towards the front of the pack—should Apple ever choose to connect its users’ credit cards with the app—no company has yet emerged as a frontrunner in the space. Facebook might as well try.

Whether or not Google et al. have reason to be concerned by Facebook Cards, companies likeWrapp that have built their businesses on helping retailers promote gift cards to Facebook users are likely in a cold sweat.

Link: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-cards-big-implications-advertising-shopping-146913?