Consumer Electronics Daily News

Hyper-local Mobile Advertising Platform Sonata Launches in NYC

SONATA, the first global mobile advertising solution focused entirely on driving real foot traffic to traditional brick-and-mortar businesses, today announced the launch of its first U.S. office in New York City.

Simultaneous with the company's U.S. launch, Sonata has named digital media and mobile veteran Evan Krauss as its Chief Operating Officer, based out of New York City. Krauss will oversee Sonata's U.S. operations reporting directly to Sonata CEO and founder, Alvaro del Castillo. Sonata has already achieved success in the European market, and the company is committed to bringing its winning approach to the U.S. market.

"Evan has extensive experience, market know-how, and vision in growing, championing, and developing successful digital businesses in the U.S. and abroad," said Alvaro del Castillo, CEO and founder of Sonata. "We are thrilled to have him on our team, and are confident in his ability to lead Sonata's launch and successful expansion in the U.S. market."

Built by former retailers, Sonata enables stores, restaurants, theaters and dealerships, large and small, anywhere in the world to bring real and measurable foot traffic directly to their points of sale. The Sonata platform offers access to over 100 billion monthly impressions, and is a real-time bidding (RTB) marketplace where customers bid on specific events, such as click-to-call, click-to-map, or redeem an offer in geo-fenced zones from 100 yards to 10 miles. Retailers pay only for results, making Sonata a cost-effective, zero risk mobile advertising solution that drives real foot traffic and revenue to traditional brick-and-mortar businesses.

Mr. Krauss has worked in the digital space since 1995, starting with agency.com. He previously worked to develop new products and businesses for companies including Excite, AOL, Yahoo!, and Jumptap. Most recently, he held the role of Executive Vice President of Global Advertising Sales at Shazam, where he led the creation of Shazam's very successful second screen advertising business.

"Local has long been touted as the key value proposition of mobile advertising because it can leverage digital advertising technologies to deliver in the moment ads that drive real consumers foot traffic," said Krauss. "However, it is only over the last year that we have enough scale and efficiency in the market to bring local mobile advertising to life in a real way. My first order of business is to quickly hire the best talent to serve our partner and customer needs in the U.S.."

According to a recent forecast from BIA/Kelsey, mobile will be the fastest-growing channel in the local advertising media market, rising from 1.7 percent share of local ad revenues in 2013 to 7.1 percent share in 2017. By then, mobile local ad spend will have grown to $10.8 billion representing 52 percent of all mobile advertising spending - about one billion more than would be spent on non-location targeted ads ($9.9 billion).

Mobile Media Summit to Unite Global Advertisers at Mobile World Congress

Mobile Media Summit, the largest mobile media and advertising conference inNorth America, has partnered with the GSMA to produce Mobile Media Summit @ Mobile World Congress, taking place Feb. 25-26, 2014 in Barcelona's iconic Fira Montjuic.

Mobile World Congress is the largest event in the mobile industry, while Mobile Media Summit's conferences engage the top brand marketers, advertising agencies, publishers, app developers and mobile/ad tech companies from around the world. The Mobile Media Summit @ Mobile World Congress will be the destination for these groups to come together to discuss the ever-expanding mobile media and advertising market.

The two-day Summit will commence with "30,000 Feet and Climbing: What CMOs Want in Mobile," with Ogilvy Chief Digital Officer Brandon Berger, Mindshare Worldwide Chief Digital Officer Norm Johnston, Universal McCann Germany CEO Sven Weisbrich, PHD Network Chief Operating and Digital Officer Craig Atkinson, and moderator Scott Swanson, President of Global Advertiser Services, Opera Mediaworks. Location targeting, hyperlocal advertising, cross-screen, RTB and much more will be covered throughout the event, which will close with "Brand Ballers," featuring Nestle Global Chief of Digital Pete Blackshaw, L'Oreal Paris VP-Global Integrated Communications Marie Gulin, Intel Global Media Director Rebecca Brown, and moderatorMike Parker, Chief Digital Officer, McCann Erickson.

"The Mobile Media Summit is the leading conference in mobile today, bringing together the most dynamic thought-leaders in mobile media and advertising from around the world. Unlike any other conference, Paran and the Mobile Media Summits tackle the critical topics from the advertiser perspective that will drive innovation and grow the market for everyone," said Jonathan Anastas, VP-Global Brand Marketing and Head of Digital & Social Media at Activision.

Mobile Media Summit founder and CEO Paran Johar shared, "I am thrilled to be working with Mobile World Congress and very excited to bring together the international advertising community to discuss how mobile is changing the world. As consumers shift from PC to mobile as their main access point for interaction with people, places, services and commerce, we can't deny that mobile is becoming the primary medium of engagement for innovative marketers."

Mobile Media Summit conference pass holders are also able to attend the mPowered Industries Programme keynotes at Montjuic and access the Mobile World Congress Exhibition at Fira Gran Via.

The event sponsors and partners include AdTruth, BlueKai, Google, Kargo, Medialets, Millward Brown Digital, OpenX, Opera Mediaworks, Sonata, Tagged, Tremor Video, Verve, WapStart, xAd, the 4A's, AdMonsters, the Ad Club of NY, Advertising Age, Chief Marketer, ClickZ, European Supermarket Magazine, Fierce Wireless, Folio, the IAB, the Location Based Marketing Association, The Makegood, MadAve Mobile, MobiThinking, VentureBeat, the Wharton Future of Advertising School and Women in Wireless.

Featured speakers at Mobile Media Summit @ Mobile World Congress include:

1. Zaid Al-Zaidy, CEO, McCann London
2. Jay Altschuler, Director of Global Media Innovation, Unilever
3. Jonathan Anastas, VP-Global Brand Marketing, Head of Digital & Social Media, Activision
4. Craig Atkinson, Chief Operating and Digital Officer, PHD Network
5. Anna Bager, VP and General Manager, IAB Mobile     
6. John Baker, President, dotJWT       
7. Mark-Anthony Baker, Global Communications Planning Director, Joule
8. Brandon Berger, Chief Digital Officer, Ogilvy
9. Saul Betmead, Chief Strategy Officer, Y&R
10. Pete Blackshaw, Global Chief of Digital, Nestle          
11. Bonin Bough, VP-Global Media and Consumer Engagement, Mondelez
12. Kevin Brown, VP & Global Mobile Product Management, Citigroup         
13. Rebecca Brown, Global Director of Media, Intel Corp.
14. Armel Bursaux, Director-Data & Analytics, Starcom MediaVest
15. Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Next              
16. Chia Chen, SVP & Mobile Practice Lead, DigitasLBi  
17. Greg Crockart, Co-President, Joule               
18. Tom Daly, Group Director, Global Connections, The Coca-Cola Company          
19. Rohit Dhawan, Director of Product Management for EMEA Display, Google
20. Marie Gulin, VP-Global Integrated Communications, L'Oreal Paris
21. John Hadl, Venture Partner, US Venture Partners       
22. Seth Hart, Global Media Director, Starcom MediaVest Group   
23. Chad Hickey, VP of Global Sales, xAd
24. Dan Hodges, President, New York Chapter, Location Based Marketing Association
25. Norm Johnston, Chief Digital Officer, Mindshare Worldwide
26. Vik Kathuria, EVP, Mediacom           
27. Erin Kienast, SVP-Director of Mobility, MediaVest        
28. Evan Krauss, COO, SONATA USA  
29. Rob Kramer, GM of Mobile, OpenX 
30. James Lamberti, VP and General Manager, AdTruth 
31. Doug Livingston, Global Chief Digital Officer, mcgarrybowen    
32. Bethany Mach, SVP & Global Digital Director,  Starcom MediaVest
33. Jeff Malmad, Managing Director of Mobile, Mindshare               
34. Paul Marcum, Head of Global Digital Innovation, Bloomberg Media
35. John Montgomery, COO, GroupM Interaction               
36. David Morgan, Director, 22 Design 
37. John Najarian, EVP and GM-Digital Media and Business Development, E! Networks
38. Alex Newman, EMEA Head of Mobile, Omnicom Media Group
39. Shelly Palmer, host of "Shelly Palmer Digital Living," FOX TV
40. Mike Parker, Chief Digital Officer, McCann Erickson
41. Ben Phillips, Global Head of Mobile, MediaCom           
42. Ali Rana, Group SVP, Emerging Media Lab, Millward Brown Digital
43. Cristina Sagarduy, Deputy Managing Director, EMEA, Annalect
44. Adam Shlachter, Head of Media Activation, NA, DigitasLBi
45. Shiv Singh, Head of Global Brand and Marketing Transformation, Visa
46. James Smith, CRO, Verve
47. Jide Sobo, Head of Mobile, MEC UK
48. Mark Squires, Online Marketing Manager, TalkTalk Telecom   
49. Angela Steele, CEO, Ansible Mobile
50. Alex Stil, Head of Digital EMEA, Mindshare
51. Scott Swanson, President of Global Advertiser Services, Opera Mediaworks       
52. Todd Thiessen, SVP of Strategy, Razorfish
53. Derek Thompson, Global Head of Mobile, Starcom MediaVest Group   
54. Ritu Trivedi, Managing Director, Digital Marketplace, MediaVest USA
55. Sven Weisbrich, CEO, Universal McCann Germany   
56. Colleen Whitney, SVP Media, Digitas             
57. Donald Williams, Chief Digital Officer, Horizon Media
58. Andrea Wolinetz, Managing Director, Connected Platforms, PHD  

SilkWords offers a unique, interactive, "choose your own" experience for romance readers

SilkWords LLC today celebrates the launch of a web site that offers a first-of-its-kind reading experience for women's fiction (www.silkwords.com).

The site blurs the line between fiction and casual gaming by offering high quality, interactive romance that allows individual readers to choose how the story proceeds. Readers can also experience the story in different ways by returning to choice points and following different paths.

SilkWords was founded by wife-and-husband team Keri and Boyd Multerer. Boyd, who works as development director for Microsoft Xbox, is no stranger to the gaming industry.

"As a working mom of three young children," Keri said, "I believe there's a potentially huge market for a site that offers high quality women's fiction that can be consumed quickly. And the marriage of two very popular forms of entertainment—romance and gaming—was a no-brainer for us."

The site offers an upscale experience—original artwork, plus paid subscriptions instead of advertisements—and a continually expanding collection of multichoice stories varying in length, romance subgenre, heat level, and sexual orientation of protagonist.

Featured at launch are new stories from award-winning indie romance author Lisa Scott (also with HarperCollins and Bell Bridge Books), paranormal and fantasy author Skyler White (Berkley, Tor/Macmillan), award-winning historical author Kim Taylor Blakemore (Penguin, HarperCollins), and sex-journalist-turned-erotica author Leigh Cowart.

SilkWords' acquiring editor is science fiction romance author Sharon Lynn Fisher (Tor/Macmillan), a Romance Writers of America (RWA) 2013 RITA finalist and three-time RWA Golden Heart finalist.

"Our goal is to offer something for everyone, from erotic to sweet, historical to sci-fi," Fisher said. "It's such a fun format for authors to play around with. Have you ever read a romance and wondered what would happen if the heroine made a different choice? Picked a different guy? Waited longer to kiss him? Our readers get to find out."

Today's launch is phase 1 of a larger SilkWords vision.

"The beautiful thing about SilkWords is there's a ton of room for experimentation," Boyd said. "Different forms of storytelling, interaction with the authors, and moving the medium forward. It's stories first, gaming second, with a lot the two sides can learn from each other."

Luna Moth, LLC Introduces "Doodlelove," a Free Electronic Greeting Card App for Sending Personalized, Dog-Themed Well Wishes to Loved Ones on Valentine's Day and Other Special Occasions

Luna Moth, LLC, today announced Doodlelove, a free, digital greeting card app for iPhone and Android that features Dudley, the lovable labradoodle dog and main character from the popular interactive storybook app Baby Comes Home: Dudley Doodle. With its clean, contemporary designs and hassle-free user interface, Doodlelove makes it easy to send hand-crafted and dog-themed good wishes to your friends and family. Doodlelove requires no logins and collects no personal information.

Doodlelove arrives on the paws of interactive storybook app Baby Comes Home: Dudley Doodle introducing the real Dudley Doodle to the world.Initially, the app offers ten free ecards and two video cards that you can email or save to your device's built-in photo library. You can also include a personalized message. "We hope that Doodlelove will continue the message of love, friendship, and understanding conveyed to children in the Baby Comes Home storybook through adorable ecards and videos sent to loved ones," said Alena Amundson, co-founder of Luna Moth LLC and designer of Baby Comes Home and Doodlelove.

Luna Moth LLC plans to expand the Doodlelove catalogue with more card designs and videos for every type of occasion. "Ultimately, we would like to incorporate other themes and designs beyond our featured labradoodle by building on our clean, contemporary interface," said Amundson. "After all, we don't want Dudley to get overconfident from too much fame."

Distinguishing Doodlelove from similar apps, Amundson noted, "While there are many greeting card apps available, we believe that people will gravitate to superior design, unique messages, and an elegant interface built upon the values expressed in Baby Comes Home. Doodlelove captures these important qualities and makes communicating to loved ones and friends effortless and meaningful."

Alicia Keys To Introduce New Interactive Storytelling App "Mookey" At The 111th American International Toy Fair

Grammy Award-winning artist Alicia Keys will attend the 111th American International Toy Fair on Sunday, February 16th, 2014 to cut the ceremonial ribbon and take part in a press conference following the opening ceremony.  The press conference will include a question and answer session and introduce the new interactive storytelling app "Mookey," the latest extension of her magical children's property The Journals of Mama Mae & LeeLee.

Singer/songwriter/producer, entrepreneur, humanitarian and app co-creator Alicia Keys, along with Jessica Walton, have teamed up with Bento Box Interactive to develop a series of storytelling app experiences for tablet and mobile devices under the The Journals of Mama Mae & LeeLee franchise. The apps engage children 4+ on an interactive journey through stories, journaling, games and beautiful, original music scored by Keys instilling important values for the target audience.

Mama Mae, voiced by Della Reese, is a grandmother who guides her granddaughter LeeLee through each vibrantly illustrated story.  Through the strength of her personality, Mama Mae and her stories inspire and enlighten children of all ages.  The important and special bond between grandparents and their little loved ones is emphasized in this family oriented app.

"Mookey" is the newest installment in the Mama Mae series, and this particular story touches on self-acceptance and bullying in a meaningful way.  In the story, children will be introduced to Bali, an imaginative boy, his not-so-imaginary-friend, Mookey and his pushy cousin, Ankita. As they follow along, children will learn about courage, acceptance, and forgiveness in the face of bullying.  The app has the ability to facilitate conversation on the issue among families, children, as well as teachers. Thought-provoking and empowering, the Mookey" app is a tool that uses creative play to help youth positively express themselves through a range of interactive activities. 

Set in the jungles of India, "Mookey" features an alluring soundscape, magical sets, and a story that appeals to both girls and boys. The "Mookey" digital app will excite, entertain and educate youth of all ages! "Mookey" also features a new song written especially for the story by Keys and performed by Arealyah Paul, titled "I Wanna Dream."

"Alicia Keys: Mookey" is available on the Apple App Store as a free to play download for iOS devices.

G2 Crowd Announces New Rankings of Best Help Desk for Customer Support Software

 G2 Crowd, which produces enterprise software reviews, today released the first-ever Grid^SM for Help Desk for Customer Support, which ranks eight products based on more than 200 user reviews from customer support professionals.

Zendesk earned a Leader ranking on the Grid; it received the fourth-highest customer satisfaction score, as well as the highest scale score based on its substantial market share and resources. Freshdesk, HappyFox, IssueTrak, and TeamSupport all earned High Performer status based upon high customer satisfaction scores and lower scale scores. Overall, help desk users report an 88 percent rate of satisfaction with their software.

This Grid charts only best of breed help desk software by scale and satisfaction and excludes broader CRM suites that also include strong help desk capabilities such as Salesforce CRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and SugarCRM, which are included in a separate Grid for CRM. Based on their budgets and requirements, buyers can use the Grids and reviews on G2 Crowd to help decide whether a standalone help desk product or a broader CRM suite is a better fit for their requirements.

"Customers today are purchasing via the web and mobile devices, and they expect to be able to seek and receive support on those same channels, and quickly. Help desk vendors are responding to these trends by adding new functionality, including self-service capabilities, automated responses, and social integration," said Godard Abel, cofounder of G2 Crowd. "In-depth reviews from users of the products combined with social data on the vendors can help customer support teams pick a product that delivers the features they need to provide the best service."

The Grid ranks help desk software by scale and satisfaction to help professionals find platforms that best match the specific needs, size, and budget of their organization. Satisfaction rankings are generated from the 60-question user reviews, and scale is calculated from vendor size, market share, and social impact. Based on a combination of these scores, each software solution is categorized as a Leader, High Performer, Contender, or Niche.

G2 Crowd users can compare products on the Grid by both overall customer satisfaction and by vendor scale and momentum data. In help desk, reviewers also rated specific features such as ticket and case management, call center, and self-service. Premium research access can be purchased on the site for $99 and offers the original data for filtering and weighting, as well as individual profiles of each software platform with the most helpful positive and negative help desk reviews, detailed company information, user satisfaction ratings, feature scores and customer metrics. Future refreshes of the Grid will provide updated rankings based on the latest reviews and social data.

See the new Grid for Help Desk for Customer Support and subscribe to the premium research here.

Leawo Gives Out Blu-ray Ripper and Tunes Cleaner Free for Christmas Holiday

Leawo Software is giving out its Blu-ray Ripper and Tunes Cleaner as free gifts for Christmas and New Year holiday, celebrating to worldwide movie and music lovers the Christmas Holiday Giveaway promotion which offers 1-year licenses of Blu-ray Ripper and Tunes Cleaner.

Leawo Blu-ray Ripper is a professional Blu-ray ripping and converting program that could decrypt, rip and convert Blu-ray/DVD movies in disc or/and folders to videos, and extract audio off Blu-ray/DVD movies, to save in multiple video and audio formats for diverse uses. This Blu ray Ripper software can convert Blu-ray/DVD to MKV, MP4, MOV, FLV, WMV, AVI, F4V, MP3, AAC, MPEG, etc. for playback on media players or portable devices including iPad, iPhone, Surface, etc., editing in professional video editing software programs like Windows Movie Maker, FCP/FCE, iMovie, etc. or uploading to YouTube or blog for sharing. This Blu-ray converter still gets an internal video editor for video customizing and 3D movie creator to convert 2D Blu-ray/DVD to 3D movies in six different 3D effects.

Leawo Tunes Cleaner is an iTunes music library cleanup program that could clean up messy iTunes music library and other music collections. As a professional music cleanup program, it could detect and delete song duplicates in iTunes, download and add music tags like album, artwork, song name, artist, year, etc. to complete music info, allow manual editing of music tags, save unfixed music files for future fixing, apply fixed music files in one-click, etc. It could work on iTunes, MP4 music library or others. With this Tunes Cleaner, customers get a well-organized music library easily.

Anyone can get a 1-year license of these two giveaway apps totally free, in either Windows or Mac versions. Leawo also offers super-low-cost deals on the lifetime licenses: $14.95 for Blu-ray Ripper Win/Mac (originally $44.95) and $9.95 for Tunes Cleaner (originally $39.95).

VTech Offers Learning App Bundles For InnoTab Learning Tablet Range

VTech® today announced that it is offering new Learning App Bundles for the award-winning InnoTab® Learning Tablet range. Available on the Learning Lodge™, VTech's comprehensive app store which includes more than 650 apps teaching key curriculum, the Learning App Bundles feature newly developed, educator-approved content packaged in age-appropriate groups, making it easy for parents to choose the right bundle for their child.

"VTech continues to recognize the importance of balancing the learning content parents look for in our InnoTab software with the fun, developmentally-appropriate content kids need," said William To, President, VTech Electronics North America. "By collecting our content into Learning App Bundles, we are making it easy for parents to select all-in-one, age-appropriate curricula for their children."

Designed specifically around the unique learning needs of individual age groups from two to five years old, the Learning App Bundles each include seven games and one e-book (except Amazing Animal Museum, with eight games). Each bundle features content focusing on a variety of developmental skills, such as language arts, reading, math, science, social studies and problem solving. The Learning App Bundles are available in fun themes kids will love, including Puppet Party, Tiny Toy Town, Lost City, Fantasy Kingdom and Amazing Animal Museum.

"Learning apps are great for children, but parents can be overwhelmed with the choices available to them," said Dr. Lise Eliot, Early Childhood Mental Development Expert and VTech Toy Development Consultant. "The Learning App Bundles give parents an assortment of age-appropriate content across various developmental subjects, making it easy to select fun, educational apps for their children."

VTech's InnoTab range offers children a variety of tablets that open up a world of age-appropriate educational content across the widest variety of curriculums, from downloads to software cartridges, combining innovative technology with a developmental learning tool that grows with a child and makes learning fun. InnoTab 3S offers VTech Kid Connect™ family communication app and wireless connectivity, while InnoTab 3 delivers a powerful punch in a compact size and at an affordable price.

The Learning Lodge gives parents and children access to purchase hundreds of engaging, age-appropriate games, videos, e-books and music, with more than 650 titles that teach reading, math, social studies, handwriting, science, problem solving, geography and more. The wide variety of educational and engaging content and curriculum is tailor-made for each age group and is suitable for toddlers to grade-schoolers, giving every child an opportunity to expand their learning potential while keeping them entertained. Parents can even track their child's learning progress online. Additional characters featured throughout the downloads and software cartridges are Team Umizoomi™, Dora the Explorer™, Thomas & Friends®, Turbo™, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Bubble Guppies and Sesame Street®.

The Learning App Bundles are available for $19.99 at www.vtechkids.com/learninglodge. For more information about the complete InnoTab range and VTech product range, please visit www.vtechkids.com/innotabrange.

New Version of Popular MP3 Converter Software Available on CNET

 Multimedia, developer of several of the most highly rated, free conversion tools online, has released an upgraded version of its MP3 Converter, one of the most downloaded converters on CNET. The new version of MP3 Converter, available on CNET now, converts files at a significantly faster rate, features a more user friendly GUI and has custom bitrate options that let users choose the exact quality of their output file. The free MP3 Converter software is one the fastest and easiest to use audio converters online.

The new free MP3 Converter, which previously only converted audio files, now has the ability to covert video files to audio as well. MP3 Converter currently supports the following formats: MP3, WAV, OGG, AAC, WMA, M4A, FLV, AVI, MPG and MP4. MP3 Converter supports single file conversions, batch conversions, importing from zip files, and has the ability to add all files from a single folder all at once. With this feature, users can import audio/video files that need to be converted from a zip file without having to extract them first, by simply selecting "file" then "add zip" and pointing to the zip file. The conversion tool will add the supported files from the zip into its file conversion queue automatically.

MP3 Converter's new custom bitrate option lets users specifically choose the quality of their files rather than just selecting from the preset high, medium or low options. And, its audio tag editor lets users pick a file and edit the audio tag if needed before the conversions.

"Don't let the simple name fool you. MP3 Converter's conversions are always the fastest, and the outputted multimedia files are always of the highest quality," said a spokesperson for the developer of MP3 Converter. A CNET reviewer echoed this of the free audio converter, writing, "Works flawlessly, fast conversion process, also good quality output files."

AnyMP4 Video to GIF Converter for Mac - Convert any Video File to GIF Format on Mac

AnyMP4 has released new software named Video to GIF Converter for Mac, which helps users convert any video file to animated GIF format. AnyMP4 Mac Video to GIF Converter owns the capability to convert any common video format like MTS, TS, FLV, MP4, WMV, AVI, M4V, RMVB, ASF, MKV, Divx, and more to the vivid GIF image format. With the powerful editing functions, users can easily edit and create their own GIF format.

The "Clip" function lets uses cut off unwanted video parts, reserving the needed part or parts from a video file. The "Crop" function removes the black edges, keeping the favorite video image. The "Effect" function helps users adjust the video brightness, contrast, saturation, and hue to make the GIF image much more beautiful. The "Watermark" function allows users to add text or image to the video to enhance the effect of the GIF image. Users can use these editing features to create their unique animated GIF image. With the easy to use and intuitive interface, the professional Video to GIF Converter for Mac is more and more popular.

Now AnyMP4 announces a 25 percent off coupon for this software. It allows users to try out the software with a free download. Existing users can get a free update to the newest version within a short time.

For more info about AnyMP4 Video to GIF Converter for Mac, visit: http://www.anymp4.com/video-to-gif-converter-for-mac/.

System Requirements for Mac Version OS

Supported: Mac OS X 10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, and 10.9 Processor: Intel® processor Hardware Requirements: 512MB RAM, Super VGA (800×600) resolution, 16-bit graphics card or higher.