Instead, Samsung will be presenting it at its own-branded event, with less of a gap between the product launch and actual roll-out.

“Samsung is looking forward to introducing and demonstrating exciting new mobile products at Mobile World Congress 2012. The successor to the Galaxy S II smartphone will be unveiled at a separate Samsung-hosted event in the first half of the year, closer to commercial availability of the product. Samsung stays committed to providing the best possible mobile experiences for customers around the world,” a spokesperson told paidContent, via email today.

The Android-based S II (pictured here with its best enemy, the iPhone 4S) has been one of Samsung’s best sellers since launching last year—although Samsung hasn’t given exact sales figures—and many have been anticipating the upgrade, which will apparently feature a faster processor, better camera and other enhancements.

One of the big issues with the S II, however, was that while Samsung unveiled the device at the 2011 MWC event, it didn’t launch in Europe until summer, and the U.S. several months later, in September.

Did that possibly steal some thunder from the launch? As smartphone competition hots up—including leaks of the first BlackBerry 10 “London” devices and even a new iPhone coming this year—that’s a variable that Samsung probably doesn’t want to explore again.

But while Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has pulled out of CES, and Apple has been running its own launch events for years, Samsung doesn’t seem to be bowing out of the trade show peep show altogether. There have been rumors of Samsung unveiling its first Tizen handsets—that is, the new linux OS that it is developing with Intel (NSDQ: INTC) from the ashes of MeeGo—which could point to a new direction altogether for the Korean handset maker. There are also reports of further tablets on the cards.

Related

• Samsung: Smartphones Up 30 Percent But You Have To Guess How Many We Sold
• Samsung Galaxy S II Hits U.S., Will Cost $199 At Sprint
• Update: Patent Plot Thickens: Apple Sues Samsung; ITC Pushes For Nokia, HTC

Some numbers out from eMarketer (via Memeburn) seem to imply that up to now, advertisers have not ignored connected TV. But nor has interest in it grown:

Looking just at investment in just in digital video advertising (itself only a part of overall spend in digital ads), only eight percent of advertisers said they invested in connected TV video ads in 2011. That’s a modest number, and smaller than other mediums like mobile, where respectively 42 and 41 percent of advertisers said they would spend on iPhone and iPad platforms, and 31 percent said they would invest in ads for Android devices.

Perhaps more tellingly, that eight percent was flat on the year before—that implies that interest in the medium of connected TV seems to have stalled.

Publishers, meanwhile, seem to also be trying to play catch-up in this area: in 2011, 17 percent said they supported video advertising for connected TVs, while only 11 percent supported it in 2010. According to eMarketer’s numbers that puts connected TV video ads on par with video advertising support for non-Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) tablets, but still a ways behind iPhone and iPad (both 35 percent) and Android smartphones (28 percent).

Judging by announcements last week during CES, consumer electronics companies still laying the groundwork for how advertising on connected TV platforms might work in the years ahead:

—Samsung is forging its Smart TV strategy on its own, proprietary platform (complete with Kinect-like gesture recognition and lots of content options). And last week it also launched its own AdHub connected TV advertising services. Premium Interactive Advertising (PIA) is Samsung’s very first ad initiative for its Smart TV platform, and offers advertisers banner advertising on its home screen with functions like click to microsite (interactive multi pages), click to video, and click to application.

—And while Google (NSDQ: GOOG) had a mixed showing for its Google TV connected platform at CES, it continues to make headway into how it is helping more traditional broadcasters sell and manage their advertising inventory. (Their latest customer win: Cox Media.) As those broadcasters begin to consider how they offer advertising on connected TVs, I think it’s a safe bet to say that Google will step up to offer their services there, too.

—Sony’s music and media technology company Gracenote, meanwhile, launched an interesting-looking new service called Entourage, which uses “audio fingerprinting technology” to listen to short clips of content via a mobile device that can trigger the service to then look up content on a smart TV, be it a film to purchase or an advertisement. Gracenote, of course, will need buy-in from smart TV players to make this into an actual service; given that Gracenote is owned by Sony (NYSE: SNE), their might be the first TVs, mobiles and other products where you will see it work first.

—Meanwhile, Sony inked another interactive TV ad deal: Yahoo’s connected TV services, which serve content related to programs and advertisements on regular TV, will now be embedded in Sony Bravia sets. Like Gracenote, it offers an audio-based trigger to deliver advertising (its technology comes from its own subsidiary, IntoNow). Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) says its 180-odd connected TV apps already work on connected TV services from Samsung, VIZIO, Toshiba, Haier and HiSense. Yahoo is also starting to roll out new ad units around its these: it says that Toyota is the first company to use such a service, with display ads placed into Yahoo’s Fantasy Football TV app.

—Ooyala is another online video player that is linking up with a vendor, in this case Panasonic for its Viera line of connected TVs. Advertisers and content publishers now using its platform will now also be able to publish their content on Panasonic’s TVs as they are now able to do on mobile and Internet platforms. The Country Network will be the first broadcaster to use the service to offer selections of its content on-demand and live through Panasonic’s platform.

Considering this is CES we are talking about, it’s unsurprising to have a profusion of device- and platform-led announcements, although in the bigger scheme of things broadcasters will inevitably also be playing a role.

“I think traditional broadcasters want to be seen to be involved in new media today,” says Simon Murray, an analyst with Digital TV Research in the UK. “They were slow before and now want to be involved in new technologies and providing information and serving advertisers in different ways.” But he also notes that “Broadcasters have a bit of a dilemma. Obviously they want to diversify but they don’t want to alienate existing advertisers and traditional ways of advertising because it’s still their bread and butter. Puttng too many ads on to programs outside their traditional market might upset their ad base.”

But regardless of who controls the game, perhaps the biggest issue of all is that, unlike internet or even mobile penetration, we are still a long way from critical mass in connected TV services. Figures from Strategy Analytics estimate that by the end of 2011, there were only 12 million connected TV devices distributed globally by the end of 2011. The U.S. had a penetration of only eight percent while Europe’s connected TV device penetration was seven percent.

That, too, appears to be changing, though. Digital TV Research forecasts that it will take until 2016 for there to be a global penetration of 20 percent in connected TV services—that includes not just connected sets, but also other devices such as blu-ray players; games consoles; retail set-top boxes and pay-TV set-top boxes. Highly anticipated updates from the likes of Apple and its Apple TV could also advance the market.

While today games consoles are the most common way for making a TV internet-friendly, Murray says he thinks that connected TVs will overtake games consoles by the end of this year (2012) as the main route to accessing Internet services via televisions worldwide, driven by more widely-available

“The thing about advertisers is that they want traffic. Some will experiment earlier. It might appeal to advertisers selling highly priced items such as cars, where you might want to demonstrate features of, say, a new model of the BMW, but I don’t know how much P&G or Unilever would benefit TV interactive advertising today,” Murray told paidContent. “I think it will be a fairly minor and experimental feature for at least the next five years, until the market becomes more established.”

Related

• Challenges Ahead Before 2012 Is The Year Of Connected TV
• @CES: Samsung Hat-Tips Kinect On Smart TV Gesture Controls, Content Bonanza
• T-Mobile Parent Deutsche Telekom Inks Multiscreen Deal With MobiTV
• What The Burst Of Hollywood A-Listers Will Mean For Online Video
• What's Coming In 2012: The Age Of Ubiquity (For Some)
• Connected TV: BBC News On Sony, Absolute On Samsung, PlayJam Adds Games
• TV Traction: BBC Gets Comcast Leap, Al Jazeera Relies On Online
• France Telecom's Orange Looks To 3D And Xbox For New TV Bells And Whistles
• Apple Wants To Offer Subscription TV Packages, Analyst Says
• Can Apple Shake Up TV Like It Has Mobile With Its iPhone?
• Updated: Apple TV Streaming Quietly Goes International

Much more in our CES archives.

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• @ CES: No Signature Magic This Year But The Winds Are A-Changing
• @ CES: YouTube Thinks Web Video Is Big, Also Pretty Sure Sun Rises In East
• @ CES: Available Now - Android OEM. WLTM Caring, Ambitious, Strong Partner
• @ CES: Unprofitable Motorola Says It Has to Be Different To Make Money
• @ CES: A Year Later, iPad Competitors Much Quieter
• @ CES: Dell Sets The Stage For Yet Another Stab At Making A Tablet
• @ CES: Intel Gets The Mobile Partners--Motorola and Lenovo--It Badly Needed
• @ CES: Apple Is Scouting The Competition
• @ CES: Qualcomm Reminds Intel That It Is A Force In Mobile
• @ CES: Microsoft Mails In Last Keynote Appearance, Wasting Everyone's Time
• @ CES: The Smartphones, They Are Everywhere!

With our intense focus on newsworthiness, paidContent 2012 is being programmed in real time to make sure we capture what’s top of mind for you, today, in your industry. Our theme this year, At the Crossroads, explores convergence—how entertainment, advertising, publishing, television and news companies are finding ways to be meaningful and profitable online, uncovering the overarching lessons applicable to all industries as they forge new paths in the digital space. 

The speaker roster includes some of the top leaders in the news and magazine publishing industries, including Bob Sauerberg, President, Condé Nast and John Paton, CEO, Digital First Media; Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director, FT.com and Liz Schimel, EVP and Chief Digital Officer, Meredith (NYSE: MDP) National Media Group. We’ll hear from entrepreneurs, VCs and investors, including Brian Bedol, Founder and CEO, Bedrocket Media Ventures, Bijan Sabet, General Partner, Spark Capital and Amy Banse, Managing Director and Head of Funds for Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) Ventures; from executives at the forefront of the e-reader battle, including Jonathan Shar, General Manager, Digital Newsstand and Emerging Content, Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), BN.com;  and leading analyst James L. McQuivey from Forrester Research. We’re adding new speakers every day, so stay tuned.

As with all of our events, the conversation is 360 degrees—not only on the stage—so get ready to join your mentors and your peers to take an active role in this networking opportunity. Register today—our early registration discount expires Monday, January 16. For travelers, we’ve made arrangements with hotels near The TimesCenter for special rates.

Contact us if you’d like to suggest speakers (please read this first), if you’d like to advertise with us, or if you have general questions.

Check out coverage of paidContent 2011 and paidContent 2010.

Figures for Q3 from Gartner note that LG is still the world’s third-biggest phone maker overall, which includes not just smartphones but also lower-end feature phone devices. But its share is in decline. In the quarter it sold 4.8 percent of all mobile handsets worldwide, compared to 6.6 percent for the same quarter a year before. That means Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), which grew its market share to 3.9 percent from 3.2 percent in the same period, is inching up closer. And since Apple is doing that with a higher-priced, smartphone-only lineup, it’s likely making far better returns on those sales than LG.

In smartphones, LG is doing better than some of the many Android-based makers out there, but it’s also doing worse than others. LG’s name doesn’t make Strategy Analytics’ list for the top vendors in that same quarter, falling instead into “others” (the top three, they say, are Samsung, Apple, and Nokia (NYSE: NOK), in that order).

In smartphone figures that analysts NPD released directly to journalists (so no link) earlier this week, it said that only one LG device, the LG Revere, made the top-10 sales rankings for October and November. It was at number-10, while Apple took the top-three slots and Samsung the next two.

LG has seen a few high-profile management changes in its mobile division, and has raised some $1 billion in the markets, to try to turn things around, while at the same time showing commitment to the business. And it is also going for another route to change: a partnership.

And it is looking high and low for Mr Right: “We’re looking into almost every alliance that the mobile industry can think of,” the chief executive of LG’s mobile business, Park Jong-seok, told Reuters. He further said that some of those talks are “quite active.”

Partnerships in the mobile industry are certainly nothing new.

Some, like the now-concluding alliance between Sony (NYSE: SNE) and Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC), demonstrate how hard it can be to make them work. Others, like Nokia and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), or Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Motorola (NYSE: MMI) (if regulators approve it, and neither side backs out), still need to play out before we can say whether they were a wrong move or not. One thing for sure is that one company that was integrated from the word go, Apple, is doing something very right, and others are trying to follow in its mold.

That kind of vertical integration could give us a clue as to what kind of company LG has in mind when Park says “alliance”—but with all other eligible platforms otherwise engaged, it makes LG’s position a little more challenging.

As with other companies, like Dell, which are looking to renew their attack on the mobile market, another area that LG will need to consider is content, and the ecosystem that will exist on their devices. With many of the world’s big media brands very far from the vertical integration question where mobile is concerned, but still harboring ideas of what they could do if they had it (think Facebook here), that could be more fertile ground. Life may be Good for LG, but it can definitely be so much better.

It will certainly be when all of them start branding their connected TVs “Smart TVs” from the get-go. If that and sales of those TVs were the only way we measured the success of Smart TVs, then, yes, 2012 is going to be the year of the Smart TV.

But will they actually be Smart TVs? That is to be seen. As far as I am concerned, offering over-the-top (OTT) services and perhaps an app store does not suddenly make the TV “smart”.

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Personally at this point, I would query if anything the TV manufacturers bring out this year will be as good as the Xbox’s latest dashboard with Kinect, which I think is currently setting the bar. It is not only because the UI looks nice and lets you quite easily move from one type of service to another. It also offers a social network. Perhaps most important is Kinect.

The iPhone brought about the smartphone not just because it changed the software UI but also the hardware UI with the use of a full touch screen. These two things together are important.

Smart TVs are arguably being held back by reliance on the old TV remote. Although at CES this year manufacturers finally seem to be taking alternatives seriously, LG (SEO: 066570), with its wand remote, had the most mature offering - but Samsung is now promoting limited voice and motion control embedded in their top end TVs. 

Connection rates are low for connected TVs right now. The Xbox 360 only has connection rates of between 50-60 percent and this is a device that is used by a tech savvy user base who get real benefits from connection, like downloadable content, online multiplayer, new games, as well as OTT video and music. The PS3 – a similar audience – has about 80 percent, entirely due to the fact it integrated Wi-Fi from the get-go.

There are a number of factors behind this:

1. Manufacturers aren’t making it easy enough. The majority of connected TVs sold in 2011 can only be connected with Ethernet. Wi-Fi remains a premium, additional feature. Yes, some manufacturers offer Wi-Fi dongles, but these are in the region of £70, which can be quite a significant amount of a TV buyers budget.

2. Are consumers buying TVs because they are connected/smart? Some are, no doubt. But most are quite likely just buying a TV that happens to be connected.

3. The failure of retail. We recently undertook a mystery shopper project to see if retail was pushing Smart TVs this Christmas. In the high street, the answer was categorically “no”. It is well known that there is no internet connection in the majority of shops, reducing the chances of showing off all the functionality that connectivity brings. But, on an even more mundane level, shop assistants do not have access to remote controls to let users actually interact with the Smart TV, see the enhanced UI and the services that are actually available. Instead, TVs are being sold in the old fashioned way -  ‘this TV has a large screen with a nice picture’.

Finally, there are a lot of pay-TV subscribers in the UK for whom the set top box is the box that needs to be connected. Sky customers get Anytime+, Virgin customers get all of the catch-up services it provides. These services are pushing connectivity from the get-go and the services that they bring.

Andrew Ladbrook is senior analyst for connected home at Informa Telecoms & Media. He is currently at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Related

• What's Coming In 2012: Internet TVs Out-Box The Boxes
• Connected TV: BBC News On Sony, Absolute On Samsung, PlayJam Adds Games
• Xbox 360 Leads The Way To Engaged TV
• Forget Smart TV, Is 'Dumb TV' The Next Big Thing?

Samsung is a behemoth in consumer electronics already: Boo-Keun Yoon, president of Samsung Consumer Electronics, said that 1.7 billion units of Samsung electronics goods were sold last year, or roughly two items every second. However, even if the company remains very focused on unit sales, it is also attempting to lay more groundwork for a future where it will also need (and want) to compete on the services beyond the hardware. That’s an area where people like David Eun, who was recently appointed to oversee global media initiatives, will be expected to contribute some bright ideas. And that was, essentially, where the bulk of its TV announcements fell today:

No more new TVs? Well, just one more. Samsung said that Smart TVs sold from 2012 will be equipped with card slots in the back that will let the TVs get updated with all their latest software updates (note: Samsung is using its own proprietary platform for its connected TVs—not Google’s as it has done with smartphones and tablets). These cards will start to ship from 2013. “Our smart TV will get smarter every year, without you needing to buy a new TV set,” promised Samsung’s president Tim Baxter. With the company silent on pricing today, you can probably expect that these newest, no-need-to-renew devices will be sold at a premium. One unveiled and showcased today: the ES8000.

Gestures. A big nod to Kinect here and what it is doing in the connected, interactive TV space at the moment. Also a possible precuror of what we might see coming from Apple? (NSDQ: AAPL) In Samsung’s version, users will be able to use their voices and movements to navigate and control their sets, starting from its SmartHub UI, where all interactive content resides. Samsung also showed off some of the other features that will come with it, such as Fitness, a personal training service that will tailor special workouts for each user.

Samsung Apps. The company has had 20 million TV apps downloaded to date, from among some 25,000 TV apps, with the numbers still growing. The newest addition: those loveable Angry Birds from Rovio. They will come both in the form of games—as well as at least one (possibly more) dedicated channels featuring shorts with the characters. This is also a sign of how Rovio is diversifying and getting as much mileage from those birds as it possibly can. (The Mickey Mouse theory of merchandizing and branding.) This may be Rovio’s first connected TV deal, but it probably won’t be the last. Nor will it be the only content aimed at younger folks: Samsung is also launching a dedicated portal for kids.

Cloud-based content. Samsung will be extending its Media Hub, already on tablets and smartphones, to TVs: it will give users the ability to watch on-demand movies and TV shows seamlessly between different devices. This kind of service has essentially become table stakes in the connected TV world, so no surprises here. However, here’s a thought: while you might assume the Media Hub will only work on Samsung devices, that’s not entirely clear yet, either: the company is keen on releasing APIs—right now to developers wanting to work on its own platform, but potentially I can imagine this also working to make different vendors’ devices more interoperable, too. Other cloud based services included a nice-looking photo-sharing service it calls “Family Story.”

3D services. Another buzzy concept that has yet to really take off. Samsung’s take will be a 3D streaming service, which it will run in partnership with content partners. Today it named NBC (NSDQ: CMCSA) Universal as one, which will contribute shows like a 3D version of Battlestar Galactica to the mix.

Related

• What To Expect At CES: Tablets, TVs, And Transition
• Samsung Electronics Reorg: Apple's Friends On One Side; Foes On The Other?
• Digital Content Vet David Eun Joins Samsung To Lead Global Media
• Connected TV: BBC News On Sony, Absolute On Samsung, PlayJam Adds Games
• Samsung/HTC: Two Sides Of An Android Coin. Why's Samsung Winning The Toss?
• U.S. Consumers Cool Somewhat On iPhone; Remains 'Most Wanted' Handset

First, the numbers: for the three months that ended in December, the Korea-based Samsung reported operating profit 5.2 trillion won ($4.5 billion), versus 3.01 trillion won a year ago, beating average analyst expectations of 4.6 trillion-won (via Bloomberg). Revenues rose 12 percent to 47 trillion won ($40.4 billion). Late last year, Samsung noted that it was on track to sell more than 300 million phones, a record for it.

HTC, meanwhile, saw its first drop in operating profit in two years. The Taiwan-based company today reported operating profit of NT$13 billion (NT$11 billion after tax) ($430 million; $364 million), compared to operating profit of NT$16.7 billion the year before. That fell short of Bloomberg’s estimates of post-tax profit of NT$11.6 billion. Revenues were also down on the same quarter a year ago: NT$101.4 billion ($3.36 billion), versus NT$104 billion a year ago. The statement from HTC did not give unit sales numbers for the quarter but the company had already issued warnings that they would not be as high as they had earlier hoped.

So why is HTC not doing as well as Samsung? Some areas to ponder:

Product mix: Samsung says it will be releasing its full results after board approval, so we don’t know how sales of its feature devices compare to those of the smartphone and tablet lineup, but one boost could come not from Android but its other line of mobile devices: its bada-based feature phones.

Gartner, which actually classifies those bada-based handsets as smartphones, showed that in Q3, Samsung’s feature phone line grew its share of the market and is at the moment actually surpassing the likes of Windows Phone 7 in terms of volume.

Bada, it should be pointed out, was in fact the only other “smartphone” platform besides Android that grew both market share and unit sales in that quarter. Market share was up to 2.2 percent from its previous share of 1.1 percent, and sales more than doubled to 2.5 million units in the quarter.

HTC, on the other hand, has taken the approach of pushing a smartphone-only line of products. That has limited its appeal to different segments of the market—especially with so many Android makers now looking to make cheaper and cheaper smartphones. Also, it doesn’t give HTC the same kind of entry-level device roadmap to tie in non-smartphone users to its brand for the longer run.

The 300-lb Apple in the room: HTC’s smartphone-only approach has another consequence. It puts HTC more directly in competition with another device maker that focuses only on smartphones, the high-end, and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). On top of the existing heat from Samsung, as a Nomura analyst describes to Bloomberg, HTC has not yet found its “competitive edge” against these two.

Brand strength? Ironically, that competitive edge, it could be argued, may have been dulled by too many products within the smartphone-only category. Samsung and Apple have coalesced their smartphone ranges around single brands, respectively the Galaxy and iPhone lines.

And HTC? There are the Sensation, Wildfire and Rhyme—among many others—with no “Rhyme” or reason to the naming, and even different launch names in different markets (the allegedly-bad-selling Status nee Cha Cha being one).

“There’s a balance to be struck between giving consumers a good set of options and just confusing them with too much choice,” noted Benedict Evans, an analyst with Enders Analysis in London, to me. “Nokia (NYSE: NOK) made that mistake a few years ago and HTC has made it now. Even the naming is confusing - which is the better product out of the Sensation, Wildfire, Desire or Incredible?”

Some of these phones had some eye-catching differences—again, the Facebook-friendly phones like the Status/Cha Cha among them—but perhaps not enough to build a single identity, and even with HTC’s own UI skin, Sense, connecting the lot of them.

On the horizon: From reports out today, possibly spun out by HTC to divert attention from the quarterly results, the company will be adding even more devices to that lineup: it is reportedly gearing up to show off its first super-fast quad-core devices in February at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. Again, that could be preaching to only a niche market; by the time that such speeds are in widespread demand there will likely be others producing them, too. Still, it does happen that 4G devices is a category that HTC happens to be leading at the moment, according to NPD.

One dark horse for HTC could be this alleged Facebook phone that it is reported to be developing: if that really materializes, and if Facebook manages to keep from upsetting the world over privacy any more than it already has, and if that phone really does offer something more than what the current crop of devices do for the average user, then this could help turn things around.

For now, though, it looks like Samsung’s called heads on that Android coin toss, and it’s winning.

Related

• HTC Hunkers Down Until 2012 When New 'Flagship' Products Launch
• HTC Highlights How Fickle The Mobile Market Can Be: That Spells Opportunity
• HTC Led Q3 U.S. Smartphone Sales, Nokia To Wait Until 2012 To Challenge It
• Samsung Electronics Reorg: Apple's Friends On One Side; Foes On The Other?
• Biting At Nokia's Heels, Samsung's Device Sales In 2011 Pass 300 Million

Tequila Mobile says that the funding comes from unnamed private investors in Poland and the UK, and that the investment will be used to expand its mobile gaming platform to third-party developers. The company, which only announced five million users in December before today claiming six million, says it is on track to have 30 million unique users on the platform this year, and is aiming for 100 million in 2013.

Tequila distributes games through mobile app stores, with one of its most recent being Bubble Universe for iOS and Android, as well as via social networks, mobile operators and mobile and web portals, and makes content for both smartphones and feature devices.

Unlike some games that focus on paid downloads, Tequila bases most of its games around the increasingly popular free-to-play model: the basic games are free, and users make in-game purchases to unlock certain features and virtual goods. Tequila says it currently sees conversion rates of eight percent of users moving from the free offering to paid content—although it doesn’t specify what kind of average revenue it is getting from those paid users.

Although Tequila is based in Poland, the target is very much to expand globally; the company’s own in-app billing platform works in some 85 countries currently.

With that in mind, here are some of the sessions we’re developing:

Discoverability: When everything is everywhere, how do you get the right content to surface at the right time in front of the right people? How do you avoid search-engine syndrome? A look at who’s leading in discoverability, how it ties into branded content distribution, and the results of getting this critical piece of the puzzle right.

Tablets: Not Just an iPad World: A look at the latest research on how tablets are being used—how are people using tablets differently than smart phones? When the post-holiday numbers come in, what other tablets have gained market share and consumer attention?  As a content creator/producer/seller/distributor, how do you survive in a world with one dominant player, but where there is increasing fragmentation?

The New Publishing Landscape: Who Profits Now?: Tablet momentum is spreading beyond Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and the iPad with the less expensive Kindle Fire from Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) and other contenders. Add that to the e-reader finally taking hold thanks to the price war between Amazon and Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) and you have a new publishing landscape with e-books bringing in real dollars. But who will win the battle for readers—the standalone or media devices? And how much of an effect will the cloud have in determining the victor?

The App Economy: Holy Grail or Dead End?: Seems like there’s an app for almost everything today—or will be. But is this a deep well or are we headed to rock bottom? Is app success at the expense of the web? Can the “appified” web bring in the same kind of revenue? What are the benefits and limitations of native apps vs. web apps? Is HTML5 the solution? A look at the limits and possibilities of the “app economy.”

Paying the Way: Spotify has 2.5 million paying customers. One year in, The New York Times’ pay wall is proving successful. Once a question of “will they?/won’t they?”, consumer online content payments appear to have a rosier future. In these new frontiers, how do you effectively price your content when there are few comparisons and free alternatives elsewhere? Meet some of the companies making it work globally—and find out.

Getting Creative: Finding the Nexus of Digital Content and Value: Creatives from the advertising, music, film and television industries talk about the changing marketplace, offering first-person accounts of how they were able to take advantage of the accessibility and opportunities the digital space offers—and make money doing it.

You’ll find the rest of the preliminary agenda here. Stayed tuned for more.

At paidContent events, attendees have come to expect unparalleled business intelligence and networking opportunities with bold-faced names both on stage and in the audience. We hope you’ll join us to explore this pivotal moment in the growth of digital. Sign up now to take advantage of our early registration discount.

Register now.

Contact us if you’d like to suggest speakers, if you’d like to advertise with us, or if you have general questions.

Check out coverage of last year’s paidContent 2011 conference and the previous year’s paidContent 2010 conference.

It’s the third year for our one-day, cross-sector signature event bringing together industry leaders and entrepreneurs, innovators and disruptors from across media, book and magazine publishing, entertainment and information—and it couldn’t come at a more pivotal moment.

Tablet momentum is spreading beyond Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and the iPad with the less expensive Kindle Fire from Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) and other contenders. Add that to the e-reader finally taking hold thanks to the price war between Amazon and Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), and you have a new publishing landscape with e-books bringing in real dollars. Branded content from marketers large and small is becoming more sophisticated and more prevalent. The cloud is shifting the way media is sold, stored, shared and distributed. Meanwhile, efforts to add digital revenue streams with various forms of paywalls, new subscription products, apps and more are multiplying. Coincidentally, we will be meeting at TheTimesCenter just as the The New York Times completes its first year with a meter ticking.

paidContent 2012 isn’t just a conference: It’s where digital media news breaks first. paidContent 2010 participants were the first to meet with New York Times (NYSE: NYT) top brass following the metered paywall announcement. paidContent 2011 heard first hand from Current’s Keith Olbermann during his off-the-air transition from MSNBC (NSDQ: CMCSA) to Current; from NBCU’s Lauren Zalaznick in her first post-Comcast merger interview; from The Daily Publisher Greg Clayman post-launch, and from Arianna Huffington and Tim Armstrong in their first New York City appearance following news that AOL (NYSE: AOL) was buying The Huffington Post.

What stories will break at paidContent 2012? Find out. Get ready to join the conversation and take advantage of our early registration rate. 

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Contact us if you’d like to suggest speakers, if you’d like to advertise with us, or if you have general questions.

Check out coverage of last year’s paidContent 2011 conference and the previous year’s paidContent 2010 conference.

Androidland, which has been developed by Australian operator Telstra in cooperation with Google (NSDQ: GOOG), looks like it is the first Android-based retail setup in Australia and may be the most extensive Android-dedicated retail operation that we’ve seen anywhere yet—although if you have been to one of the big trade shows, like Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, some of the installation concepts may look familiar to you.

The shop is actually a “zone” within Telstra’s flagship retail store in Melbourne, and its purpose is to educate and delight people with all things Android.

There is a section dedicated to games; a spaceship that lets people “Androidify” themselves and fly through Google Earth; and a giant touchscreen device to play with apps. All the major Android makers, including HTC, Samsung, LG (SEO: 066570) and Sony (NYSE: SNE) Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC), are represented. It’s not clear whether any of the devices sold at the store are unlocked to use with carriers besides Telstra.

Although Australia is in the middle of its summer right now, that has not stopped Telstra and Google from riffing on the winter theme in the entrance way, as you can see from the illustration here. It will form a central part of the carriers’ holiday season promotions, a key time for all consumer tech companies to pick up business and longer-term customers.

One company that has had yet another setback in that marketing game, though, is Samsung, whose 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab tablet was most definitely not a part of the display at Androidland when it opened today.

Over in Sydney, an appeals court has granted Apple yet another week’s extension in its injunction against Samsung over alleged patent violations concerning that tablet. That injunction was due to be lifted this Friday afternoon, after a panel of appeals judges decided that Samsung had been treated unfairly and that it should be allowed to sell the device, despite the ongoing court case.

According to Reuters, the ban will now stay in place until at least December 9, when Apple is due to make its formal response to the appeals’ court decision. In all, Apple and Samsung are filing injunction requests against each other’s devices in some 20 separate cases, although the only other case where Apple has succeeded in blocking a Samsung tablet is in Germany.

But as we noted when the appeals judges thew Samsung a tablet lifeline on Wednesday, it may be too late in any case to do anything for the device, which has not exactly overtaken the iPad in markets where it is being sold.

If only Androidland had a time machine that let Samsung go back and review its tablet strategy afresh…

»  @ pcE11: Tercek: The Content Is The Container

»  @ pcE11: Lessons Learned From Netflix And Others On New Digital Video World

»  @ pcE11: Where Do You Build Your Brand?

»  @ pcE11: Cutting Clutter To Build Love, Make Money In Web Video

»  @ pcE11: Google TV Is Not A ‘Cord-Cutting’ Product

»  @ pcE11: So You Want To Be A YouTube Star?

»  @ pcE11: Angry Birds ‘The Movie’ Or ‘The App’? It’s Just ‘The Experience’

»  @ pcE11: The Intersection Of Gaming And Gaming

»  @ pcE11: CBS’ Lanzone: If You Want Our Content, You’ll Have To Pay—A Lot

»  @ pcE11: Measuring The Twitter Effect On TV Viewing And Programming Choices

»  @ pcE11: Dawn Ostroff: Streaming Is Better Than DVRs For Advertising

Many thanks to our sponsors ElasticPath, Google and Freewheel, media partners The Guardian, OPA and PromaxBDA and to everyone who participated in making our second paidContent Entertainment a day to remember.

Technologies like Twitter have changed the way that the television business thinks about live event programming, said Morgan Wandell, executive producer for ABC (NYSE: DIS) Studios.  “There’s a social phenomenon around television driving viewers to want to watch the shows live so they don’t miss things or have spoiler implications if they waited two days to watch the show.” He cited the X-Factor (U.S.) as an example: the show allowed viewers to vote for their favorite performer via Twitter direct message, and they saw 3,000 tweets a minute.

But this really only works for a few big shows, said Christy Tanner, general manager and executive vice president for TV Guide Digital: most people aren’t going to be disappointed if the next episode of Ice Road Truckers is spoiled by those watching it live. “What that means is we have a very challenging environment to create mass events that scale, particularly live mass events at scale,” she said.

Those types of events don’t come along very often and are tricky to pull off in the U.S., spread out across three time zones.  But the unique nature of these events, often consumed with a mobile device in hand, allow advertisers to reach a bigger audience because they create complementary opportunities for advertising, said Steven Treinen, vice president of advertising sales and marketing solutions for Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) Digital Entertainment.

And they also present both a challenge and opportunity for those who can provide the most massive metrics as to how people are engaging with content on other devices and through media like Twitter, said Gregory Markel, founder and president of Infuse Creative.

“There is a massive amount of fraud in third-party advertising options for content owners,” Markel said. Companies like Google (NSDQ: GOOG), who has done a pretty good job eliminating fraud from their search advertising business, have a chance to capture more business in this space if they can draw viewers to things like Google TV and the newly launched YouTube Channels.

Related

• @ pcE11: Tercek: The Content Is The Container
• @ pcE11: Lessons Learned From Netflix And Others On New Digital Video World
• @ pcE11: Where Do You Build Your Brand?
• @ pcE11: Cutting Clutter To Build Love, Make Money In Web Video
• @ pcE11: Google TV Is Not A 'Cord-Cutting' Product
• @ pcE11: So You Want To Be A YouTube Star?
• @ pcE11: Angry Birds 'The Movie' Or 'The App'? It's Just 'The Experience'
• @ pcE11: The Intersection Of Gaming And Gaming
• @ pcE11: CBS' Lanzone: If You Want Our Content, You'll Have To Pay -- A Lot

You can also follow us via Twitter @paidContent and Facebook.

The hashtag for the event is #pcE11.

The TVGuide.com Fall 2011 survey generated more than 5,800 responses from TVGuide.com’s 10,000-member research panel and is being released today at paidContent Entertainment in LA.  According to Christy Tanner, EVP and GM of TV Guide Digital, the panel’s demos and habits usually correlate with mass market general studies and tend to reflect the general U.S. population.

Overall, it found that the number of people watching more than 30 hours of TV per week (that’s more than four hours per day) has rocketed up to 32 percent of the population, a rise of 14 percent over the last year. In general, 93 percent of respondents said they were watching more than before.

That growth is largely coming from the rise of new technology, with some 55 percent of users said that they are watching TV online. The amount of time that people are spending watching online is growing fast: 15 percent of people are watching six or more hours of online video per week these days, a big spike on the four percent a year ago. Overall some 62 percent said they were watching for more hours than before.

That could be a reflection of user habits, but it’s also a testament to the growing amount of content that is available for them to view: the rise of services from Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN), as well as the existing offerings from the likes of Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) and Hulu, will be joined by more programming offerings from Google (NSDQ: GOOG)—giving users potentially a far richer catalog of content via the internet than they have through their traditional TV sets.

That’s not to say that TV-based viewing is disappearing, but it is shifting—time-shifting, that is… Some 71 percent of respondents said they were watching more time-shifted content, using their own DVRs or those from their pay-TV providers, than they were a year ago.

Time (NYSE: TWX) shifting has been great news for those of us who are not able to keep to the timetables set by networks, but as many expected would happen, the technology is also leading to another inevitable problem: decreasing attention being paid to advertising.

An astounding 96 percent of respondents say they fast-forward through ads on DVR content these days—although some 44 percent did point out that they “don’t mind” ads as a general rule. Still, the number of people skipping ads on time-shifted content, and that growth of time-shifted content consumption seem set for some kind of collision course in the future.

Ad industry aside, there are other business models emerging to finance content and make revenues as a content owner: the survey revealed that 19 percent are paying more for their TV content than before, and that model is also translating to the growth of online and streamed video content: some 34 percent said that they pay for these.

But even so, the big challenge remains: how do premium providers get people to pay when there is so much on offer that is free? The survey showed that some 81 percent watch streaming and online services for “free” (not counting their broadband bills), even if 69 percent also use paid content or subscription services.

And pay-TV providers have opportunities in enabling new services like time-shifting to viewers. Today, 41 percent are paying for time-shifted viewing, although it’s not clear from the survey whether that represents much growth over the last year.

Just as technologies are enabling new kinds of consumption habits, new devices are also having a big impact on usage.

Tablets present one of the biggest opportunities for TV consumption—with their large screens and improved processing power, they have effectively taken the place of the smartphone as the key wireless TV device. (The smartphone, of course, does drive lot of video usage but it has not proven to be the ubiquitous TV-viewing device that everyone thought it could or would become by now.)

The survey found that 27 percent of consumers planned to buy a tablet in the next year, and that the iPad is still the device of choice—77 percent said they would get Apple’s tablet if price weren’t a factor. That could leave the door open for the cheaper alternatives out there, such as the new Kindle Fire from Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN). The survey notes that 30 percent said they were likely to buy a Kindle Fire, with 47 percent like to buy the iPad.

And two endnotes that alternately point to a challenge ahead, and a big opportunity for those opting for the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) product universe to distribute their TV content: only 14 percent of respondents knew what Ultraviolet was, while 44 percent recognized the term “iCloud.”

Full slide deck below:

»  Dawn Ostroff, President, Condé Nast Entertainment
»  Jim Lanzone, President, CBS Interactive (NYSE: CBS)
»  David Maisel, Special Advisor to Rovio, Former Chairman, Marvel Studios
»  Mario Querioz, Vice President of Product Development,  Google (NSDQ: GOOG) 

A look at the devices changing the way we get media by
»  Jim Louderback, CEO, Revision3

And insights from
»  Mark Suster, Partner, GRP Partners
»   Robert Tercek, Digital Content Veteran / Former President, Digital Media, OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network

The hashtag for the event is #pcE11.

In this constantly changing and fast paced industry, sometimes it’s important to stop and see how all the pieces fit together. Consider: in the space of a few days, Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) canceled plans to completely separate streaming from DVD and signed an eye-catching deal with the CW; cloud-based VOD scheme UltraViolet went live; Universal announced a premium VOD, then canceled when exhibitors threatened a boycott; and Disney (NYSE: DIS) and News Corp. (NSDQ: NWS) took Hulu off the block. Then there’s the upcoming launch of the Kindle Fire, which will unlock Amazon’s media assets for mobile use, and ... you get the picture.

We’ve added some new speakers to help us put the puzzle together, including two successful entertainment execs applying their considerable skills to new endeavors:

»   Dawn Ostroff joined publisher Condé Nast just last month as president of Condé Nast Entertainment, a new endeavor for the development and distribution of video and film initiatives as well as creating original web content. Ostroff launched the CW as president of entertainment, greenlighting Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries and the other programs that netted that deal with Netflix—worth up to $1 billion for the Time (NYSE: TWX) Warner-CBS (NYSE: CBS) joint venture.

»   David Maisel, who launched Marvel Studios and was chairman until Marvel Entertainment was sold to Disney, is now special adviser to game developer Rovio. Maisel is helping the company build its entertainment strategy, including bringing game franchise Angry Birds to the big screen. He’ll serve as executive producer for any Angry Birds films; his executive producer credits already include Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.

Other new speakers include: Christy Tanner, General Manager and Executive Vice President, TV Guide Digital; Lisa Donovan, Co-Founder, Maker Studios; Dana Settle, Founding Partner, Greycroft LLC; Lisa Donovan, Co-Founder, Maker Studios; and digital entertainment vet Courtney Holt. Stay tuned—more announcements to come. Until then, here’s our speaker list so far.

Be part of the conversation on what’s happening now and what’s coming next-and how you can stay ahead. Register now.

The hashtag for the event is #pcE11.

However, Microsoft also noted that the deal has not been approved everywhere. “The acquisition remains under review in a few countries, and will be completed in those countries when such reviews are closed,” noted the release. The countries that have yet to approve the purchase are Russia, Ukraine, Serbia and Taiwan, a Skype spokesperson told paidContent. It’s not clear at this point whether the clearances in these markets are a formality or whether there is still a question of approval, and what that might mean for the bigger picture.

In any case, today Microsoft has taken a moment to proclaim that Skype will now officially become a division of Microsoft. It will be led by Tony Bates, who used to be the CEO of Skype and now becomes president of that division, according to the release.

Now comes the challenging part.

Chief among them will be whether Microsoft will be able to make money out of a company that has seen explosive growth but a challenge so far in converting that to profit.

Skype, founded in 2003, currently has some 30 million users online at any given time, and claims to have 145 million active monthly users, making it the biggest provider of internet-based telephony today, which it offers through its PC-based client and also an array of mobile apps. Although these services have options for revenue generation—among them, the ability to purchase credits to call numbers outside the Skype network, offering users extras like voice mail, and the option to have “real” telephone numbers—Skype’s main traffic comes from free services. In 2010 it reported an operating loss of $7 million.

It will be worth watching to see whether that basic business model changes drastically: for example, incorporating either more metered services, or further forays into advertising and freemium-style services, making the service, for example, a platform for advertising from Microsoft’s own ad network.

But that points to another challenge for Microsoft: integrating Skype into its existing structure. Microsoft says it largely plans to keep Skype’s current corporate structure intact, with offices to remain in countries like Estonia Estonia, the Czech Republic, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States. That speaks to a relatively de-centralized way of working, and one that specifically will not be centered around Redmond with the rest of Microsoft.

Will that lead to a culture clash? It was certainly the case that Skype’s previous owner, Ebay, was never able to figure out a way of working with Skype in a useful-enough way: the company eventually sold Skype to a group of investors in 2009, five years after buying the company.

The one goal that might prove to be the easiest of all to reach will be the company’s growth strategy, Microsoft writes in its announcement of the deal that the goal is to reach 1 billion Skype users daily. That’s a figure that might have been a challenge for Skype as a standalone product, even with its popular apps. But since Microsoft says that eventually Skype will also be integrated into many of its existing products, both for enterprises and consumers, Skype may well become as ubiquitous as Windows or Word in the longer run.

Related

• Nearly There: EU Expected To OK Microsoft's Deal To Buy Skype
• Telefonica's O2 Tries Its Hand At Skype-Like VoIP Calls With O2 Connect
• T-Mobile Gets Its iPhone Moment...Via Its Bobsled Internet Calling App
• Updated: Shifting Sands In Mobile Could Be A Boost For Microsoft And WP7

As the company entered its third day of service outage in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina, Stephen Bates, the head of the company’s UK operation, covering some seven million BlackBerry users, ducked out of a key RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) event in London while the company continues to try to get to the bottom of the problem that has left millions of users without messaging and internet browsing services. Now, users in the U.S. and Canada might find themselves impacted, too.

RIM’s most recent public statement on the outage, made last night, noted that “a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible.”

But in an interview this morning in London, Rory O’Neill, VP of software and services in EMEA, told paidContent that, in fact, the company is still trying to figure out what it is that has caused the fallover in its system.

Update: there are now reports emerging that the problems are now also affecting users in the U.S. and Canada. O’Neill would not explain how and if RIM’s services are running on the same infrastructure or whether it is regionally separated, but this latest development implies that the problem is affecting more of the company’s infrastructure that previously known or admitted.

O’Neill had to step in at the last minute at an annual company event, the BlackBerry Innovation Forum, to take over the keynote presentation in place of Bates, who is the MD of RIM in the UK. After making an apology to the audience, Bates left the event to fight fires elsewhere. “Stephen has gone back to talk to other channels, customers and partners to make sure they stay one hundred percent informed,” said. O’Neill.

O’Neill provided paidContent with a bit more detail on what is going wrong—or at least where RIM is standing at the moment.

He said that RIM’s software and engineering teams are working “24 by seven” right now still trying to figure out just what has gone wrong and get services restored. “The fundamental cause as far as we know is the issue with the core switch and a failing in the component architecture,” he said. “It has to do with how our networks speak to each other, and we are trying to fix that while preserving all messages.”

Overnight, he said, the system was actually performing “fairly well,” but then the components didn’t behave as expected.

It’s not clear if RIM itself shut down the system this time around to work on this issue, or if the system is simply not working any more. From O’Neill’s description, it sounded, in fact, like RIM could be forcing the shut down right now itself: “‘[Engineers] would be monitoring traffic loads and performance of the service. If they notice any component is failing, they will try to remedy or isolate it. When we see the service levels performing normally, we will put services back on as we see fit.”

He noted that currently, the problem is not a blanket one: in other words, some may still have email and/or BBM messaging functionality, while others might still be able to browse the Internet.

The way that the BlackBerry system works is that all data services except for text messaging are routed through RIM’s servers, regardless of whether they are enterprise-class customers or consumers. “I’ve had to relearn how to text,” he noted to me wryly.

Will enterprise users get compensated in any way for the service collapse? “It’s way too early to say whether there will be compensation,” he noted. But surely there will be something because of the SLAs that RIM will have in place particularly with corporate customers.

When the system is up and running, RIM moves about 20 petabytes of data per month worldwide, pushing millions of messages to BlackBerry customers in real-time, he noted.

Related

• BlackBerry Users Revolt Against RIM As Disruption Spreads
• BlackBerry Service Crash Affects BBM Messaging For Millions In Europe
• RIM, Chasing Its Own iCloud, Buys NewBay For $100 Million