Android and iOS have been struggling over market share in the smart phone market over the past several years. However, at this point, it seems like Android has won, with over 80 percent of phones being shipped being of the Android ecosystem. Yet, when it comes to actual profits, Apple is still very far ahead of Android and Google in terms of profit. This comes from the very simple reason that many Android phones are designed to be very cheap with relatively small profit margins, while a lot of the rest comes from one company, Samsung. So while Google has a large percentage of the market share in the industry with Android, it is actually making a relatively small proportion of the profit. This also applies to app purchases, where Google has almost caught up to the iTunes store and iOS purchases, but makes smaller profits due to less willingness from consumers to purchase paid apps from them. I honestly believe that until Google’s proprietary Nexus devices achieve a greater proportion of Android sales than most other devices like Samsung, a large amount of the profits in the industry will be going towards Apple and Samsung, not Android and Google.

As recently discussed in this article from Forbes Magazine, Snapchat dismissed a $3 billion valuation from Facebook, hoping to discover a revenue model that justifies an even higher valuation. However, the problem with giving such a high valuation to Snapchat is simply the way Snapchat expects to make money. While ad revenue has been successfully applied to sites like Facebook and Twitter, Snapchat as a mobile app relies on people sending quick, short messages to each other that disappear after a few seconds. Companies are unlikely to spend much money on advertising when the ads they could send would have to operate by the rules of the platform. The simple fact is that, for the same as many apps like Instagram, despite the largest value for the company being the consumer base, finding a way to make that user base profitable without driving them away with incessant advertising is a serious problem. The recently introduced Snapchat stories that last for a longer period of time are probably a sign that snapchat is trying to pave the way for future ads. In my opinion, monetizing a service that depends on quick, throwaway messages between people is an extraordinary challenge.

In this recent Forbes article, it is discussed the change in advertising for films. Earlier, there existed a sort of Cinematic “Event” trailer for most films, such as this one for The Lion King watch?v=HwSKkKrUzUk# , which were a big deal and were often premiered in cinemas for the audience as a way for them to get really hyped about a film without giving too much of it away. However, in recent years these have fallen by the wayside as audiences view cinema trailers on youtube or Apple Trailers or other sites. Basically, companies have decided against releasing trailers in cinema because the cinema is no longer where people view most of their movies. With new companies like Netflix, movie producers are changing their advertising structure and moving it online in order to appeal to demographics moving away from cinemas. In my opinion, this is a good thing because it demonstrates how movie producers are changing advertising tactics in order to appeal to changing demographics as technology and the way people view movies changes as well. In an industry that is often fixated on the past, and repeating past victories, this new online focus is a good thing.

Recently, reports from a Forbes article and from Facebook executives here discuss how there has been a 16% fall in American teens liking pages, and even more from other countries like the Netherlands. Part of this is due to teens transferring into a more mobile space, utilizing apps like Snapchat and Instagram and starting to forgo Facebook as an essential social media tool. For a social network that relies on it’s users, losing technically proficient teens is a major blow. Facebook Messenger is seeing more usage than Facebook itself in some cases, where people are using the Facebook SMS client to chat with friends instead of following feeds, which in my opinion have become clogged up with advertisements for unneeded products and lots of garbage. When the clutter becomes to great on networks such as Facebook or Myspace and Digg in the past, users tend to migrate away to cleaner, fresher sites. Facebook is dealing with an image problem, where problems with spam and malware on games is discouraging users from becoming as heavily entwined with the site as they were earlier.

In this recent article on The Economist, it is described how certain individuals in the Blackberry structure, as it confronts failure and tries to avoid becoming another notable Canadian company to fail like Nortel, are trying to switch the gears of the company from a hardware company to a company focused on supplying applications and other services to businesses. Actually supplying the handsets has become a major monetary sink for the company. I believe that RIM’s best option is to switch gears out of hardware, because the prospect of breaking into the market after being forced out to such a large extent is almost nil. Even major Android players like HTC and Windows Phone producers like Nokia are announcing losses and being forced to sell off divisions, respectively. By switching out of hardware Blackberry has the ability to occupy a niche market and become embedded with business consumers, instead of simply dying out if it keeps attempting to become a player in the cell phone market again. The major points of differentiation that Blackberry used to offer are no longer attractive to consumers, and it’s better for the company to cut losses and cut back in order to stay in business.

As described in this article on The Economist, the US Department of Justice has finally dropped resistance to the proposed merger of US Airways and American Airlines. In my opinion, this is a good thing because it not only follows the way the DoJ is moving towards dealing with airline mergers, including not blocking recent ones such as the merger of United Airlines and Continental. It also allows the two companies to exit the limbo and operational problems of dealing with a potential merger that is being held up, and allows them to focus on how to deal with the competition. Airlines in the US have often gone in and out of bankruptcy, including Frontier in Denver where I’m from, and has been a serious problem for those seeking steady unemployment, as a bad year could almost crush airlines. This merger allows US Airways and American Airlines to have a larger base of funds and revenue, and also make it easier for American to compete with low-cost carriers like Southwest that have been a serious problem for traditional airlines.