Matt Kapko

If you tend to be a Grinch when the holidays roll around, maybe Weezer can help bring you some holiday cheer and put you back into the spirit of things. The band just recorded six Christmas song classics that will be the hallmark of a new iPhone application from Tapulous, the makers of Tap Tap Revenge. Set to be released later this week, Christmas With Weezer is the latest application that’s all about one band. Earlier this summer, the company released a Nine Inch Nails version of its wildly popular application. The free version, which earned Tapulous its star power soon after the App Store launched, is one of the most downloaded applications on the storefront and shows no signs of relenting.

This project, which spanned about a week for the band, also marks the first time the group has originally recorded songs for mobile. The exclusive tracks “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” “Silent Night,” “O Holy Night,” “First Noel,” “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful” live on in new-fashioned Weezer glory on the $5 application along with two bonus tracks and a video message from the band.

Earlier this week, mocoNews.net caught up with a couple members from the band in a West Los Angeles studio to learn more about the beginnings of this project and to take it all in. “Weezer is getting in the Christmas spirit,” bassist Scott Shriner said. “People want to be able to engage with music… We want people to participate so this goes along with that.” Drummer Patrick Wilson, who did most of the studio work on the project, said it just sounded like something fun to be a part of. He and Shriner, both iPhone owners, have played the original Tap Tap Revenge application and jumped at the opportunity when it came their way. “I think in the last 10 years there’s been such an explosion of technology,” Wilson said. “I’m still figuring out just what that is, but I think this is a piece of that… I think that device, the iPhone and others like it, is how you’re going to interact with all kinds of things.”

Tapulous CEO Bart Decrem declined to say what split of revenues Weezer will take away from app sales, but the company did pick up the tab for recording and development costs. “The artist part of me doesn’t want to think about that,” Wilson said. “The money takes care of itself,” Shriner added. For its part, Weezer simply sees this as yet another opportunity to connect with fans that they hold in high regard and refer to as peers.

After two days of mediated talks failed, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is asking members to approve a strike authorization. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), representing some 350 studios and production companies, and the actors guild met face-to-face this past week for the first time in four months. But the talks broke down abruptly Saturday morning, putting the upcoming awards season and film lineup for 2010 into jeopardy. The guild wants jurisdiction over all shows created for the web and a better residual payment structure for new media and DVD sales. But the union, which is 120,000 members strong, is far from a monolithic group. Factions are already calling the union’s leadership into question and suggest more could have been done to move negotiations along. The studios, for their part, have held firm and say they’re only willing to make a deal that matches agreements recently made with writers and directors—nothing more.

All this comes while just earlier this week the writers union reported that gains made in last year’s strike have yet to bear fruit. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) alleged that studios and producers are failing to make good on payments for writers’ work being reused in new media – exactly the sticking point that brought the industry to its knees for four months last winter. The studios claim that their deal with WGA isn’t retroactive, and only applies to films that are initially released in new media after the new contract was signed in February.

LAT: Before the latest talks broke down, the actors guild hinted it would compromise on new media payment terms if the studios agreed to pay actors more for DVD sales. The studios then made some changes to their final offer from four months ago, but the union’s negotiating committee rejected the new proposal in an 11-6 vote. Internal conflict within the union and typically low voter turnout could make it difficult for SAG to get 75 percent to approve a strike if negotiations fail. Moderates recently elected to the guild’s board are also unlikely to call for a strike without an overwhelming mandate from members.

Variety: The federal mediator abandoned negotiations after neither side budged significantly during almost 27 hours of talks at the end of the week. Negotiators spent most of their time reiterating previous positions. When SAG sought approval from its members to hold out for a better deal in September, little more than 10,000 (or just one-twelfth) of its members chimed in, but it got backing from 87 percent. Still, the worsening economy puts into question whether members would give union leadership the same level of support for a strike.

SAG: “We remain committed to avoiding a strike but now more than ever we cannot allow our employers to experiment with our careers. The WGA has already learned that the new media terms they agreed to with the AMPTP are not being honored. We cannot allow our employers to undermine the futures of our members and their families.”

AMPTP: “SAG is the only major Hollywood guild that has failed to negotiate a labor deal in 2008. Now, SAG is bizarrely asking its members to bail out the failed negotiating strategy with a strike vote – at a time of historic economic crisis. The tone deafness of SAG is stunning.”

MediaFLO USA expects to nearly double the number of markets it serves by the end of next year, and is working hard at developing temporary channels and original content for its mobile broadcast TV service, according to Bob Bradley, MediaFLO USA’s Senior Director of Content and in charge of licensing and advertising, who spoke at the Mobile Marketing Forum in San Diego this morning.

– 2009 expansion plans: The Qualcomm subsidiary, which was a big participant in the last spectrum auction, is waiting anxiously for broadcasters to clear spectrum on Feb. 7, 2009 as part of the digital TV transition so that it can have more airwaves to expand its services. Today, it operates in 62 markets, and aims to be in 108 markets by the end of 2009.

– Temporary channels and live events very successful: MediaFLO hasn’t taken off as quickly as they had hoped, and it’s unclear how many users the service has through its partnerships with Verizon Wireless and AT&T, but Bradley said the company is starting to see success in offering both temporary channels and access to live events. For instance, MediaFLO just launched a Victoria’s Secret TV channel with CBS Mobile that will air exclusive content from the lingerie-maker’s annual fashion show this Saturday. The channel will feature behind-the-scene snapshots from the event and a group of short episodes that will loop around the clock. Bradley: “It’s a great way for an iconic brand like Victoria’s Secret to increase engagement with its fans.” Another hot area is live events, which are getting an average viewing time of 20 minutes. Bradley: “People are really drawn to the service as a way to connect to live events.” Last summer, when the company aired footage from the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, it saw viewership increase by 103 percent from that event alone.

– Original content coming soon: The company will also gamble on developing original content. Bradley announced a trio of new channels coming up – Guilt Free, Kissing and Self-Esteem – that it’s trying to build around consumers’ interests, passions, pet peeves and more. Going forward, MediaFLO will work with well-established Hollywood talent to help develop even more original content.

– Interactivity and ad-targeting still elusive: Bradley also re-emphasized the company’s commitment to innovate more on interactivity, measurement and ad targeting. The company’s been talking about the back-channel opportunities that could enable viewers to vote or click to buy, for example, but they’ve yet to deliver on anything commercial and it’s been hyped at conferences like this for at least 18 months now. Bradley: “Our number one priority is really to validate the platform through credible metrics and we’re talking to third-party vendors right now… We’re only beginning to understand the new marketing opportunities presented by this new innovative approach.”

Less than one month after Barack Obama moves into the White House, the FCC will be overseeing a major airwaves transition that will require TV broadcasters to hand over analog spectrum to wireless carriers who are eager to start building out 4G networks. Wireless carriers recently bought rights to the soon-to-be-cleared spectrum in the FCC’s highest grossing auction yet. The transition will have to go through smoothly in order for 4G network development to get underway.

Although the Obama team seems eager to make the transition seamless, so consumers don’t go without TV, it is just as important to clear the spectrum quickly for wireless carriers who spent billions on leasing the airwaves. Verizon Wireless was the biggest winner in the high-profile spectrum auction, and probably has the most to lose as a battle begins to brew between 4G technologies. While Verizon and others are leaning towards using LTE, they will have to compete against Clearwire, which recently got the FCC’s blessing to merge with Sprint’s 4G division, and is already in the process of building out a nationwide WiMAX network.

Obama’s transition team head John Podesta recently told reporters that the new administration is keenly aware of the upcoming shift to digital-only television and that it plans to move quickly to confirm new FCC members to see it through, TV Week reports. Some have already, but the remainder of broadcasters throughout the country will be switching to digital-only television on Feb. 17, and it’s sure to be at the forefront of whoever sits on the FCC when and if things go wrong. Podesta declined to say whether the Obama team has immediate plans to replace current FCC Chair Kevin Martin.

“We’re focused on the fact that that will be an early challenge and we need to be ready and prepared for that,” Podesta said, according to Multichannel News. “With respect to personnel announcements, I am not going to speculate… I have no doubt that the President-elect will believe that it is important to put his own stamp on the FCC.”

National Association of Broadcasters president David Rehr sent a letter to Obama earlier this week, noting that up to 19 million households still rely exclusively on over-the-air TV. In areas were some broadcasters have already cleared analog spectrum, the FCC permitted the early transition if stations were located in cold climates or areas were Qualcomm was waiting to begin rolling out its MediaFLO service in the same spectrum.

As one of the more engaging elections in recent years enters the final stretch, the Huffington Post is riding a wave of political influence and enviable growth. But will that all go away after the election? It’s a question that haunts CEO Betsy Morgan, and we raised it again today as part of a panel she participated in at WebbyConnect. She said the site expected content to skew heavily towards politics in the second half of the year, but once the race ends, they’ll begin to increase the mix of content, which hopefully users will stick around for. Those users with an “obsessive behavior” that simply can’t get enough campaign news and chatter might visit less frequently, she admits, but hopefully most of them will turn to other content—from the economy to America’s perception abroad and issues of the new administration. “We’re really ready to capitalize on those users. That’s our core.”

There’s no denying how much the site has benefited from the election season. Huffington Post’s traffic has quintupled in the past year with 4.5 million unique visits last month, WSJ reports. That’s more than double the traffic Drudge Report tracked last month: 2.1 million unique. A year ago, Drudge had 1.2 million unique visits to Huffington Post’s 792,000. Morgan said at WebbyConnect: “In the news-publishing space, there is now so many different alternatives and so many places you can go for news on the web. It can be just overwhelming.” Looking ahead, the site wants to drive more engagement with its audience and make sure they don’t “feel like they’re responding into a black hole.”

Will the print version of the New York Times still be around in 10 years? New York Times Chairman and Publisher Arthur Sulzberger tackled that question following his keynote at the WebbyConnect conference this morning: “The heart of the answer must be that we can’t care. We do care. I care very much, but we must be where people want us to be for their information… Print is going to be here, I believe, for a very long time.” The NYT is more comfortable than ever with experimentation and launching services in beta, he said. “The thought is that we have to get past the thought that it has to be perfect” on day one. “If you’re not prepared to occasionally fail, you’re not trying hard enough.”

Sulzberger began his keynote with some pointed words on the worsening economy. “It is tempting to hope that what we are witnessing is just a temporary readjustment and some massive reboot of the financial system will solve all of our problems,” but “there is a lot of bad debt out there.” He cautioned that something more significant is yet to come. “What we have learned is that we will have a far better chance of making it through” this period with a fair amount of criticism, he added. Sulzberger then dove into a series of observations on weaknesses and strengths he sees in journalism today and where The New York Times is making investments for future growth.

– Content: Sulzberger: “We now compete with companies that don’t even create content,” and yet “quality content matters enormously… it enables us to make the decisions necessary to keep democracy alive.” Throughout U.S. history, there has been “an inevitable flight to quality journalism” during particularly tough times. Regardless of where people sit on the ideological spectrum, they are thirsty for accurate information online. Blogs and pure-digital news organizations add both “superb” and “horrifying” coverage to the mix. “All news organizations are human enterprises. We will all make mistakes.” What separates quality from hyperbole is the willingness to admit to those mistakes and always committing to improve. “The flow of false information on the web is an increasingly powerful force and we all know that… The internet is democratizing the narrative by fundamentally altering how information is disseminated.” And still, there is an incredible need for journalists and readers to maintain a historical perspective. “Every weather disturbance is the storm of the century,” he gave as one example of “journalistic hyperbole.”

– Convergence and business models: Before 2000, most people talked about convergence as if media and information would come to us on one device, but the number of devices used to access content has multiplied. The convergence discussion today is pegged around the end user being at the center of the experience on multiple devices. “We call this intelligent content delivery,” and NYT is re-tooling its operations to deliver on that vision. The newspaper’s research and development division, which was created in 2006, is working toward that goal while NYT searches for business models that will sustain growth online. NYT’s goal is to attract more users, increase engagement and drive revenue from that. One example of NYT’s shift is TimesExtra, a new service that pulls headlines in from other news organizations and blogs to pair with relevant coverage from NYT. The long-held commandment in newsrooms to avoid linking to outside sites is eroding.

Post-TimesSelect: “The era of the walled garden is over… future success on the internet is about overcoming traditional thinking.” Another example is the NYT’s former pay wall for TimesSelect. While it generated significant revenue for three years, the for-fee-only content that was “hiding” the “least commoditize-able” talent at the paper had to come down in order for the paper’s online presence to grow. ”Had the wall remained we would not be seeing the growth that we see today in our numbers. We’re up 40 percent this year… We knew we could do better by freeing up that content.”

I’m not sure if it’s a sign of tough economic times or a lack of cool, but I was a little surprised to be the first G1 customer in line today. I stopped at a T-Mobile store in Laguna Niguel, Calif. on my way down to the WebbyConnect conference and couldn’t have had a better experience. I arrived at 7 a.m. and was the only person waiting for the store to open. By the time 8 a.m. rolled around, four people were congregating near the door. Contrast that to a little over three months ago, when I tried to pick up the iPhone 3G on its first day and came up empty handed after waiting in line for hours. Meanwhile, those that were able to buy one experienced activation snafus and other glitches. I won’t nag on AT&T and Apple’s shoddy customer service again, but let’s just say my first impression of T-Mobile is much better. My new T-Mobile service was activated within 30 minutes, and while my paperwork was being printed I entered my Gmail account info and all of my personal information was synchronized on my G1 within minutes.

But be warned, T-Mobile: I ended up returning the iPhone 3G after using it for two weeks—and if my G1 doesn’t work out I’ll return it as well. T-Mobile employees wouldn’t say how many devices they had in store, but they aren’t expecting any new shipments until Nov. 10. When the current stock runs out, there could be a three-week lag before new G1s arrive. I’m not sure if it’s lack of want or T-Mobile’s ability to spread out sales that’s led to the short or non-existent lines. T-Mobile was smart to pre-sell G1s to existing customers, but interest in the new device is tame compared to the iPhone. G1 availability at stores is unclear (we’ve heard everything from 35 to 60 or more) and most stores expect to sell out by noon.

Verizon Wireless is backtracking on the 3 cent per-SMS fee it told partners it would begin charging for every message delivered over its network. And yet it still sounds like a fee increase is coming. Which companies get charged, how much and when is still at play to some extent. The OpenMarket memo sent out to partners (and obtained by RCR) that shined light on the new fee was simply a “proposal” that Verizon floated for “discussion,” the carrier said. “Specific information in one proposal, which would impose a small per-message fee on for-profit content aggregators for commercial messages, has been mistakenly characterized as a final decision to implement,” spokesman Jeffrey Nelson wrote in an email distributed to journalists. “We don’t envision this type of change to in any way affect non-profit organizations or political and advocacy organizations.” The draft proposal that was sent to a group of companies that do business with the carrier was “intended to stimulate internal business discussions and in no way should have been released to the public and represented as a final document.”

Somewhere along the way though, plenty of potentially affected companies were under the impression that this was indeed a final decision. Verizon didn’t clear the issue up yesterday when it sent out a brief statement about the fee increase. Quite the opposite in fact… “We recently notified text messaging aggregators that there will be an increase in the fees they pay for the services they receive from Verizon Wireless” doesn’t sound like much of a proposal. Verizon went on to point out that the new fee “is the first increase the company has implemented since the service began in 2003.”

Singlepoint CEO Rich Begert’s still under the impression Verizon will be implementing the new fee in a few weeks, and here’s why. Verizon Wireless sent the him an addendum to their existing agreement yesterday that said the new fee was being implemented Nov. 1. There was no proposal-like language in the document. He read it as a significant change to their existing contract. “That was certainly my interpretation… This is kind of unprecedented … because nothing like this has happened in the past,” he told mocoNews.

The 3 cent per SMS fee would be equivalent to $30 per CPM, he pointed out. “That’s very expensive when you have a lot of other costs associated with it as well… That totally upsets the economic model that the industry’s been built around.” And the impacts would ricochet throughout the mobile content space: “I think it has huge implications for the industry. Not only the content delivery, but advertising as well… This is totally unprecedented across the industry.” The Verizon fees are “exponentially more” than the fraction charged for text message delivery by the other carriers, he told us. “I’m confused. I look at the fees that are already charged and I see those as reasonable.”He didn’t mince words when asked if Singlepoint might simply have to end business dealings with the carrier if the fee is put through: “I think that could be a very likely outcome.” Of even more concern is whether the other carriers will follow lock-in-step if Verizon implements the fee. Begert: “Certainly there’s a concern that others will attempt to replicate that.”

From Verizon:
As Verizon Wireless continues to review the competitive marketplace, we constantly work to provide additional value to our customers, employees and other stakeholders.

We are currently assessing how to best address the changing messaging marketplace, and are communicating with messaging aggregators, our valued content partners, our technology business partners and, importantly, our friends in the non-profit and public policy arenas.

To that end, we recently notified text messaging aggregators - those for-profit companies that provide services to content providers to aggregate and bill for their text messaging programs - that we are exploring ways to offset significantly increased costs for delivering billions upon billions of text messages each month.

Specific information in one proposal, which would impose a small per-message fee on for-profit content aggregators for commercial messages, has been mistakenly characterized as a final decision to implement.  We don’t envision this type of change to in any way affect non-profit organizations or political and advocacy organizations.

We have not increased the per-message cost to aggregators since our messaging service began in 2003, and we have never envisioned a cost to consumers or content companies, but rather on content aggregators themselves.  That draft was intended to stimulate internal business discussions and in no way should have been been released to the public and represented as a final document.

At Verizon Wireless, we strive to provide our messaging customers with maximum value, and work to implement business decisions that encourage the use of messaging between individuals and organizations in both the marketplace of ideas and the commercial marketplace, and we will continue to strongly encourage the use of our services by charitable organizations as they perform their good works.

New services like Nokia’s Comes With Music, which was announced today, are pushing (or is it pulling?) music labels to experiment with new business models they’ve been hesitant to embrace for years. All-you-can-eat music services, time to market, the economy and the seemingly never-ending pipeline of litigation that’s killing innovation by entrepreneurs were all addressed by a group of music industry executives Thursday afternoon at Digital Music Forum West. Still, there was plenty of enthusiasm about the slate of new services and opportunities coming to market that might spell changes for an industry long hesitant to disrupt the status quo. The past couple weeks have highlighted those changes through Myspace’s just launched music service and Sony Ericsson’s forthcoming Play Now Plus. For a panel titled “state of the digital union,” few would conclude that it’s strong and sound, but positive changes are afoot.

– Ted Cohen, managing partner at TAG Strategic: “The jury’s still out” on mobile music. “With the exception of the iPhone, it really isn’t a fun experience getting music on your phone.” Cohen on Comes With Music: “It’s interesting that some of the labels came to the table an hour before the party started, but at least they’re at the table so that’s good.” These changes are further proof that “it’s not about file sharing anymore. It’s about discovery and recommendations… I think the failures are in all this litigation around MP3 search engines.” On the economy: “I think we’ve learned from Wall Street over the last few weeks: we have to eliminate greed… We’ve got to look at how this future is going to play out.”

– Brad Duea, president of Napster (being acquired by Best Buy): “I think we jump in the weeds really quickly sometimes and talk about the problems.” The last six months have been “such an eventful and exciting time.” DRM-free music is now a reality and bundled music models are coming for starters. “That’s an incredible embracement of these models.”

– David Pakman, outgoing CEO of eMusic: “My general view is that the way to grow the industry is to power the entrepreneurs because they come up with the ideas.” If there was a industry-wide repository of rights with fixed business models and APIs associated with it, there would be 2,000 new websites in a few weeks. “There are technological ways to streamline access to music.” But more pressing is the industry’s “battle for consumer mindshare… It’s harder to break through… We’re losing there before we’re even worried about dollars and cents.” Finally, what good would a discussion about any business be at this time without addressing the economy? Pakman, who’s leaving eMusic to join a venture capital firm at the end of year: “In terms of the best time to invest in entrepreneurs, it’s now… There’s no liquidity window right now so you’re focused on building a service.” Startups require fractions of what they did five years ago to build a digital music business, but there’s been few entertainment startup success thus far. Pakman: “There have not been any meaningful venture-like returns in the digital space in the past five years… How many digital entertainment companies that were startups have more than $20 million in revenue?” Six or seven tops, he said.

– Ted Mico, head of digital at Interscope Geffen A&M: The labels would all make more deals if they were presented with the same boilerplate deal that MySpace made with all the labels for its music service. “I think subscription is our future … or a version of it.” Side-stepping all the criticism over labels suing MP3 search-engine startups, he went for timely political commentary instead: “I’m as qualified to talk about industry litigation as Sarah Palin is to run the country.” It got some laughter from the audience, but also capped any further discussion on the topic.

Trip Hawkins is in the middle of transitioning Digital Chocolate from a company he started almost five years ago as a pureplay mobile game company to a social media company leveraging Facebook and others. “We sort of backed into it … In the beginning, we thought we were always going to be a mobile company.” Instead, Hawkins says he eventually tuned into a concept he calls “omnimedia,” a theme he also talked about in his CTIA keynote earlier this month. Digital Chocolate has a staff of more than 300 and has raised almost $44 million in three rounds led by Sequoia Capital, Sutter Hill and Bridgescale. In all, almost a dozen venture capital firms have invested as well as Bob Pittman, of MTV and AOL fame. The bulk of the company’s revenue comes from feature phone users, with Europe as its largest market. A year in, he talks to mocoNews, insisting he’s on the right path and knocking down reports that the company was for sale. Some highlights:

‘Never been on the block’: We and others have reported on Digital Chocolate possibly being for sale, but Hawkins dismisses everything along those lines: “I just want to not have this continuing speculation out there. The reality is that we have never been on the block. In the entire history of the company there’s never been an offer. We’ve never even had an unsolicited offer.” Still, it doesn’t negate the test Digital Chocolate is now facing as it transforms the company even further into the PC, virtual and console worlds over the next year. Always the believer, Hawkins concludes: “the future is brighter once you move over to more socially driven business models.”

John the Baptist: When Hawkins formed Digital Chocolate he was one of the first gaming executives to talk about mobile games in the social aspect. Since then, an influx of social games launched on sites like Facebook has somewhat stolen his thunder, forcing him to begin building brand name awareness and a user base outside the mobile arena. Back in 2003, “it was such an alien idea and I could tell people were uncomfortable with me talking about it… I was the John [the] Baptist, who maybe got my head cut off.” Now Facebook and others have “delivered on that concept of social value.” And so the past year at Digital Chocolate has been all about gaining more attention from the 13-17 set through free trials and providing more opportunity for players to share the experience with others.

Mobile-to-web from the bottom up: Hawkins: “We try to bring some of those web business practices over to the mobile side. All those same principles can be applied to mobile… it’s just a lot harder to understand… Eventually it’s all one big beautiful world. You would no longer see all these differences between how the mobile world works and how the PC world works.” Digital Chocolate had been designing to a mobile specification and it turns out there are a lot of similarities between the various platforms it’s going after now. “That’s kind of a pleasant surprise for us. That means we have great content across any platform.”

Hawkins readily admits he wasn’t sure if their games would translate as well on richer, more capable machines like PCs and consoles. He’s found that it’s easier to begin at mobile and grow outward, rather than the other way around. “Generally speaking, software businesses pick a platform and they drill into that platform… It’s extremely difficult for a variety of reasons for big companies to innovate.” Take Electronic Arts for example: “EA’s never performed as well on the PC. EA had to make an acquisition to get into mobile.” Add to that the “very challenging business environment” that mobile is – “it’s chewed up and spit out a lot of companies.”

Licenses are tapped out: Hawkins thinks big brand and license holders have been too accustomed to being overpaid for their titles and as long as someone’s willing to pay them for that they’ll continue to expect as much. “I think the license thing is kind of tapped out.” And those that are coming to mobile seem to get older and older. “Generally speaking, a lot of films and TV shows that have been brought to mobile are five years old… We’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel here… The industry has leaned very heavily on the last 100 years of brands and still leans very heavily on brands like Tetris. A lot of these brands have actually performed very poorly on mobile. It’s really hit or miss.”

Transition Results: Digital Chocolate launched Tower Bloxx on Facebook 11 months ago and now it’s one of the 50 top performing apps on the site. Hawkins likens it to “sending out a probe to see if there was an intelligent life in the universe.” Since the company launched online, its carrier business has been growing faster as well. Hawkins: “It’s not like it just happened overnight. We just built up our reputation. More customers now recognize their brands on carrier decks because they’ve already played them online. “The operators wanted brands and that’s not what we brought to market.” Digital Chocolate never stood to lose any revenue online, but the instant marketing that the web brings (as well as converged platforms) outweigh any concerns about unintentionally cutting the value of the mobile products. “If social value is a linchpin benefit,then the consumer is more likely to want it on a platform that’s always with them.”