Zach Fuller

Social Commerce: Facebook’s Next Act?

Zach Fuller

26 Jan 2017

advertising Amazon banking

Discussions abound in tech circles over where Facebook will go next. Much in the same way as Apple’s definitive strategy in the past two decades can be interpreted through their services embellishing the company’s hardware products, (though a slowdown in iPhone sales could potentially alter this...

Cover image for Fake News 2017

Fake News 2017
Social Media’s Coming of Age

Zach Fuller

20 Jan 2017

Facebook Social media new media

By reaching the apex of cultural ubiquity, social media is being forced to answer questions it never imagined it would need to. Zuckerberg, Dorsey and Co.’s original missions could not have comprehended the way in which their communications tools would construct world-views.

Amazon’s Latest VR Play: Commerce Over Content?

Zach Fuller

19 Jan 2017

Amazon Facebook Google Daydream

As the world’s largest e-commerce retailer increasingly flexing its content muscle, following a notable presence at the Golden Globes, Amazon has announced it is hiring a ‘Creative Director of Virtual Reality’.

Cover image for Overcoming VR Adoption Hurdles

Overcoming VR Adoption Hurdles

Zach Fuller

16 Jan 2017

Streaming Radio Paid Content

When it comes to disruptive technology, emerging formats such as Virtual Reality have been here before. The part about innovation that can so often omitted by uplifting TED lectures is that whilst these technologies present incredible opportunities, amongst the hype and excitement are often serious debates on how differently various contributors wi...

Obama’s Farewell Speech Frames Filter Bubbles as a Personal Responsibility

Zach Fuller

11 Jan 2017

Facebook fakes news filter bubbles

‘For too many of us, it has become safer to retreat into our own bubbles, whether in our neighborhoods or college campuses or places of worship or our social media feeds, surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook, never challenging our assumptions.

Medium’s Job Cuts Are Symptomatic Of A Bigger Issue In Online Publishing Monetisation

Zach Fuller

6 Jan 2017

adsense clickbait Content

Twitter co-founder Evan William’s quality written content platform Medium announced yesterday it would be cutting around a third of its staff, chiefly those in its ad-sales team. In delivering the announcement, Williams pertinently wrote: ‘Upon further reflection, it is clear that the broken sys...

Sony Downgrade Playstation VR Sales Projections – What Next for VR?

Zach Fuller

2 Dec 2016

Facebook htc oculus

Following a much-hyped global release only a few months ago, Sony announced earlier this week they were downgrading their Playstation VR sales projections for 2016. Although many had predicted earlier in the year that Sony held a clear-cut initial advantage in an embryonic VR industry over competito...

Cover image for MIDiA Research Predictions 2017

MIDiA Research Predictions 2017
The Year Of The Platform

Karol Severin, Mark Mulligan, Tim Mulligan and Zach Fuller

30 Nov 2016

Streaming Streaming Music Paid Content

As we correctly predicted, 2016 was the year video ate the world. 2017 is going to be shaped by the battle for consumer attention through formatting and distribution wars. VR is likely to cede further ground to AR, bots will become established, while messaging apps add to their dominant position (even though user growth will slow).

Cover image for Paid Content Consumer Deep Dive

Paid Content Consumer Deep Dive
The Emergence Of A Sophisticated Audience

Zach Fuller

29 Nov 2016

Subscriptions Streaming Online video

In the old world, there were clear demarcations between media types, bordered with proprietary media and playback devices. However, different entertainment forms now exist in more interdependent ecosystems than they did in the analogue era, with all-in-one app stores blurring the boundaries and turning media consumption into an amorphous whole wher...

Are China’s Leading Tech Companies Building a Next Gen Full-Stack Sports Ecosystem?

Zach Fuller

25 Nov 2016

Alibaba alisports football

Chinese investment in sports is unique. True, there has been outside investment in the major European leagues for decades now, as well as the common occurrence of a former world-beater heading to obscure divisions for a final lucrative pay-day.

Why Only Now Are eSports Taking Off?

Zach Fuller

18 Nov 2016

esports Facebook Innovation

Although organised competitions featuring video gamers have existed since the medium’s rise throughout the 70s, it is only recently that the concept of lucrative E-Sports Leagues has become a mainstream proposition.

Cover image for The Death of the Monthly Active User

The Death of the Monthly Active User
Redefining User Metrics For The App Era

Zach Fuller

17 Nov 2016

Subscriptions Paid Content Freemium

The Monthly Active User (MAU) metric is the default measure of digital services but its usefulness is lessening. While it offered desktop-era services a better alternative to page views, its use for mobile apps is increasingly anachronistic. With the advent of smartphones, users are absorbing app-based services far more intimately into their lives,...

Instagram User Profile
Edging Towards Mainstream

Zach Fuller

17 Nov 2016

Facebook Mobile messaging Instagram

Instagram was far from the first image-centric service to gain prominence, but something about its simple interface, filtering capabilities and ease of sharing saw the platform become something of a visual lingua franca for the selfie-generation. Now part of Facebook and boasting impressive growth figures, it surprised many with its longevity and c...

How Snapchat’s Year of Living Dangerously Could End with a Major Win

Zach Fuller

11 Nov 2016

augmented reality Facebook flash

Despite an audience both of huge scale and engagement (150m Daily Active Users), this is an uncertain time for Snap Inc. Though they have impressively manoeuvred away from their original incarnation as the alternative ephemeral image-messaging app towards building an impressive advertising model of ...

Quick Take: HTC’s VR Arcade Revival

Zach Fuller

4 Nov 2016

Facebook virtual reality Google htc vive

Expanding the market for Virtual Reality is something we at MIDiA have spoken at length about in the past year, with pricing and the framing of its use for casual gamers remaining two major sticking points for the adoption of the technology.

Playstation VR’s Japanese Sales Spell Trouble for Virtual Reality Adoption

Zach Fuller

25 Oct 2016

Gaming htc vive Japan

Sony’s entry into the VR market came with a lot of hype and it was easy to see why. Initially developed under the codename ‘Project Morpheus’, it arrived with brand recognition (Playstation), high-profile gaming IP content (Resident Evil), and a lower price tag than both the Oculus Rift and HT...

Can NBA in Virtual Reality Avoid 3D TV’s Fate?

Zach Fuller

24 Oct 2016

3D TV BBC Fox television

US Sports fans will begin to see the fruits of the highly anticipated partnership between Next VR and Fox Sports this NBA season, following the announcement that the network will begin broadcasting one NBA game in VR per week.

Has Snapchat Learned From Twitter’s IPO?

Zach Fuller

14 Oct 2016

Amazon augmented reality echo

Snap Inc, the parent company of messaging app Snapchat, have hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley for a seemingly imminent IPO. In addition to being one of the first app generation unicorns (alongside Spotify and Uber) to go public, the company is doing so at a time when fellow social media giant ...

Disney and Netflix: A Full-Stack Media Dream

Zach Fuller

7 Oct 2016

acquisitions BAMTech Bob Iger

Previously linked as being one of many suitors for Twitter, Disney additionally emerged this week as a rumoured buyer for video giant Netflix. Only last month, Disney CEO Bob Iger declared his company had ‘cracked the code for keeping moviemaking profitable’, but through this triumphalist narrat...

Quick Take: Can Viveport Be the App Store of VR?

Zach Fuller

30 Sep 2016

app store Facebook h&c

Viveport, the online store of the HTC Vive VR headset, launches today in 30 countries with a selection of around about 60 titles across the entire pantheon of VR content - from sports to education and including notable experiences such as Wevr’s theBlu , Mars Odyssey and Stonehenge VR .

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