With the overall Android smartphone industry generating total profits of $5.3 billion during this period, Samsung’s Android smartphone shipments generated $5.1 billion of profit. To put that into context, its closest rival LG made only $0.1 billion profit, or 3% of global profit share. Other rivals like Sony and HTC didn’t even register in this report, suggesting that the smartphone market is very much a case of Apple versus Samsung.According to Strategy Analytics’ report, “An efficient supply chain, sleek products and crisp marketing have been the main drivers of Samsung’s impressive profitability… LG delivered a small profit during the quarter, but it currently lacks the volume scale needed to match Samsung’s outsized profits.”

The figures given only include Android smartphone profits and do not include tablets, making those figures all the more impressive. What’s probably more worrying is that rival Android smartphone manufacturers will have to change their strategy since it’s clearly not working. Also, with Android having already activated 900 million devices this year, the chances that many of them will have the Samsung logo on it.

Specifically, they discussed the need to track location more accurately through Android without draining battery power, and making it easier for developers to use. To demonstrate the issue, they showed a demonstration of a user being tracked through GPS. Tracked against actual location data captured by a Googler (the green path), they showed it to be ineffective as soon as you entered a building (the yellow path).

The reverse happened when you relied on WiFi. While it will work perfectly inside a building, your position is lost as soon as you leave. In response to this, Google announced the introduction of Fuse location, which combines GPS, WiFi, cell and sensors to track your location whether you’re inside or outside.

In addition, it also announced a new geofencing API, which will allow developers to draw ‘fences’ around locations. The opportunities for this could be significant, particularly for advertisers that want to offer real-time offers based on location.

Perhaps most exciting was the third of its announcements: Activity Tracking. Through machine learning, Android is now able to learn what activity the user is actually engaging in.

This is put into action with the Move app, which will allow users to see a history of their activity. A live demo showed the app recording activity changing from ’tilting’ to ‘walking’ to ‘biking’, picking up the correct activity instantly.

Reassuringly, it has also launched a new activity recognition permission which will function in apps using this feature. Developers will be able to start using this API right now.

]]> http://www.simplyzesty.com/mobile/android-announcements-tracking-you-inside-buildings-and-physical-activity/feed/ 0 http://www.simplyzesty.com/mobile/online-video-is-the-fastest-growing-digital-ad-format/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=online-video-is-the-fastest-growing-digital-ad-format Thu, 16 May 2013 11:43:20 +0000 Lauren Fisher http://www.simplyzesty.com/?p=74165 Digital advertising is experiencing positive growth across the board with digital publishers in the UK experiencing a 16.2% increase in revenues in Q1 2013. Looking at annual growth, video advertising led the charge here with a 56.4% increase in revenue, according to a study by Deloitte and the Association of Online Publishers (AOP).

Old Ads Die Hard

Even though all areas of digital advertising are growing year on year, some are showing signs of slowing down. Lagging behind the 56.4% growth experienced by video, online classifieds grew just 3.1%, falling well below the industry average for digital ad growth of 16.2% overall.

This downturn in growth is reflected in other markets. Australia saw annual growth for 2012 halve to 8% compared to 16% in 2011,  and globally, Zenith has predicted share of digital ad spend to 2015. Its forecasts, published in 2012, show that while online classified spending will continue to grow, its share of the overall market will drop.While a stalemate of the ‘Craigslist’ area, classified ads are failing to keep up with the younger, sexier ads entering the market.

Video Ads Come Of Age

There’s no doubt that everyone’s pretty excited about video ads right now. Publishers are able to sell an interactive ad format to brands that (almost) crosses over perfectly from desktop to mobile, and brands are able to experiment with a new type of advertising that can entice the user to become a part of the ad experience instead of just tolerating it.

While Zenith predict a more modest 30% year on year growth for video ad spend globally (which closely mirrors Forrester’s prediction of 26% compound growth to 2017), compared to Deloitte’s 56.4% year-on-year growth in the UK, the market is looking incredibly optimistic.

However, what we don’t yet understand is what format is going to drive this growth. The industry is currently lacking from a set of standards and there is no clear definition between ‘branded video’ and ‘video ads’. When we talk about video ad spend fuelling the digital ad market, we can often get confused between digital ad formats such as pre-rolls on in-play and video content, which a brand could use to populate social channels.

It’s difficult to find the figures that distinguishes between the two so at the moment, the figures are a little muddied. We know online video is big, but we don’t yet exactly where the revenue will come from or just how monetisable it is. Google doesn’t hide the revenue figures for YouTube for no reason, after all.

We know the appetite for video is huge. We know that online video, whether in pure or ad format, lends itself perfectly to mobile to allow for an intuitive, tactile viewing experience. Brightroll’s annual video survey revealed last year that 69% of advertisers believed online video advertising was more effective than social media, while 87% felt it was now equal to or more effective than display advertising.

If we compare Zenith’s predictions for online ad spend across classified, display and search and overlay eMarketers predictions for year on year growth for video, you can see the huge growth for video ad spend compared to the rest of the market.

The figures released by Gartner showed Apple’s iOS to be a distant second with only a 18% share or 38 million units and the overall total number of smartphone sales amounted to 210 million during this quarter.  This marks a significant change from this time last year where Android accounted for 57% of all sales while iOS made up 22%. The change was mostly down to the large increase in Android units sold during the start of 2013.

Among the manufacturers, Samsung is leading the pack having shipped almost 65 million smartphones during the first quarter, giving it a 30.8% market share. Apple came in a distant second only having 38 million units and having 18% of the overall market. After that, other smartphone manufacturers pale in comparison with LG accounting for 10 million. Still a decent figure, all things considered, but one that shows just how wide the gap is between the big two and everyone else.

Also, the figures will be discouraging to RIM whose units sold has dropped from 9.9 million to 6.2 million or a drop from 6.8% market share to 3%. On the other hand, Microsoft can look at the figures with optimism as the number of units sold increased from 2.7 million to almost 6 million, bumping its share price up from 1.9% to 2.9%.

This isn’t a massive boost by any means, but it does show that Microsoft is beginning to get a foothold of the market again and is hoping that the new Nokia Lumia 925 will help when it’s released in June.

Although for Apple, it has some positive news to look forward to as it’s predicted that it will surpass Android’s market share by 2105 if customer loyalty trends progress the way they’re expected

With that in mind, here’s what you could look forward to with the brand new iOS 7. Welcome to the future of the iPhone.

New Look Apps

There has been a lot of discussion around how apps will be displayed on the new OS. We’d like to see improvements to native apps on the iPhone, stripped of their gloss and sheen. While it’s now easy to think of Apple’s aesthetic as clean, bold and white, we forget how much it has integrated colour into its products and advertising (take the coloured iMacs and rainbow coloured iPod ads, not to mention the invites for next month’s WWDC.).

The content and visuals of calendar and camera remain front and centre, bringing up certain features only when you need them.

A New Lock Screen

The current lock screen on the iPhone is pretty uninspiring, just bringing up your background photo and date/time. This improves upon the current experience, ensuring a more visually pleasing experience.

The Music Experience

While there hasn’t been much discussion around a redesign of the music experience on iOS 7, here’s what we think it could look like.

Apps: From Old To New

We do know that the new iOS 7 design is likely to be a lot ‘flatter’ and that app icons will lose their rounded edge.

Customisable Home Screen

Since Apple introduced app folders on the iPhone in 2010, there’s been very little change to the home screen. People are crying out for more customisation, and here’s what we think they should be given.

Siri

We’ve given everyone’s favourite mobile voice assistant a makeover too, looking at deeper integration across the OS.

From The Designer

Skeumorphism: Probably the most misused and overused word in tech over the past year or so. Everyone has said how Apple needs to rid its software of visual metaphors, e.g, faux leather stitching in the iPad’s calendar and the ripped paper effect in the Notes app.

While skeumorphism is actually not always a bad thing, one thing is certain – Apple’s prized iPhone software is beginning to look a little stale.

I set out to see what the industry was speculating about the new look iOS. Everyone seemed to be saying the same thing. ‘Flat’ – the current buzzword in design.

While adding this new look and functionality to the OS, it still had to be iOS, which is simple, easy to use and familiar to regular iPhone users, not just the tech savvy users. So it still feels like iOS, while still getting a major visual overhaul.

Mapping The Musical Landscape

For those unfamiliar with the app, Soundwave allows users to see people in their area are listening to through an intuitive draw method. By drawing a radius on a map (either in your own area or somewhere else), you will get a selection of tracks from that area to listen to.

Available for both iOS and Android in beta mode, but aiming for a release later this summer, it’s smart as it shows the type of music and genres a specific area listens to, and understand the culture that little bit more. Recently, we spoke to the app’s founder and CEO Brendan O’Driscoll about the app and where it fits into the social music spectrum. The interview begins at 9:50.

As a portal for discovering new music, there are two social elements at play. There’s the online element, which allows you to show what you’re listening to and discover new tracks and artists. The other is the offline element. When you’re selecting a track, you’re told the time that track was played at so theoretically, you could pick out people that listen to the same music if you’re in the vicinity. At events like a music festival, you could easily strike up a conversation with someone based upon that detail.

It’s probably the only music app we’ve come across so far that uses location in such an effective manner. Every major city has a music scene, Dublin has a vibrant indie scene, New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz, and France would be associated with electronic music (you can blame Daft Punk for that). Having access to this will give you an idea of its culture and will tell you much about a city or town.

Music, Social & Discovery Together

In terms of discovering new content, it more flexible than other methods. Even if you don’t share what music you’re listening to, the discovery function on its own is handy. Most kinds of discovery is based on what your friends listen to or suggestions generated through an algorithm.

The latter isn’t always a bad thing, but it means that the scope for discovering new music is limited. Here it’s not defined by genre or listening patterns, it’s the love of music that features, and that’s the real value of discovery. There has to be some emotional attachment or approval for a recommendation to have any kind of weight.

An algorithm recommending content doesn’t mean much to us, but if a person recommends it, that has more value and if it’s from a friend, that’s even better. That human element is vital for the success of any social product and doing it in a way that extends beyond ‘your friend listened to The XX’ is bound to get more traction.Also, there is one element that will make things more interesting for music lovers. When you access a song through the app, you can play the track through YouTube or Soundcloud.

From first impressions, this doesn’t sound particularly amazing, but it is for two reasons. The first is that for a lot of lesser known artists, Soundcloud is their way of showcasing their music to the world, and providing an avenue for people to discover and enjoy their music without having to shell out cash is always going to be a positive. The second is that it also brings together remixes and cover versions together, and provided they’re done right, they can give songs a new lease of life.

And isn’t that the point of discovery? To hear new sounds that you wouldn’t be exposed to through normal means. So far, the reception towards the app has been positive with news of the beta app being spread by word of mouth, so just be ready when it’s finally unveiled to the world in the summer. Trust us, you’ll be hearing much more about it later this year.

However, after a disagreement with their previous employers two months ago, the team parted with Newstalk, followed by speculation concerning what its next step would be. Fast forward to today, it was revealed the Second Captains would be joining the Irish Times for a new podcast show. This would cover the major sporing events this month with members of its sports team.

This is a significant coup for the Irish Times and perhaps the most unprecedented since few would have predicted the team to move online. It’s just one of the many initiative it’s taken to become a digital-first platform.

Digital-First Strategy

In Ireland itself, The Irish Times has been developing its digital-first strategy, following the launch of a redesigned site, a regular live news blog, and now convincing the team of a major radio show to join.

It’s important to note that for the many things we use smartphones for, the main use is media consumption. Since we’re on the go regularly to work or elsewhere, podcasts are the most accessible medium since it’s passive, you can listen to them at any time, and they don’t require the same amount of attention as video.

Recently, a survey was carried out by Eircom which found that 1.6 million people now have a smartphone in Ireland, the proportion of people using them rising from 39% to 50% in the last six months. Even if you halved that, there is significant scope for a new audience to be developed through this medium.

This ties into the next advantage. As mentioned earlier, Second Captains was well established within the Irish sports scene. The problem that faces many podcasts – that is building up a reputation and getting subscribers – is already taken care of as the team’s reputation speaks for itself.

From the news alone, it will already have a sizeable audience to work with, many of which were eagerly awaiting their return. Currently, it’s only for a month, but this relationship arguably makes Second Captains the most high-profile members of the organisation’s sporting team.

Strength In Depth

So what do the Irish Times get out of this deal, apart from the initial publicity? For one, it sends a clear statement of intent about the direction it’s heading, and will do much to build up its credentials.

It follows the example of major news organisations in the UK, who already have podcasts and video coverage featuring personalities from TV and radio. The most obvious comparison would be The Guardian which hosts the widely popular show Football Weekly. Part of the show’s success is down to its presenter James Richardson, who has significant experience on TV and radio and manages to bring out the best in anyone who features on the show.

Not only would this help the Irish Times’ reputation, it will also expose their sports team to a wider audience. Much like Football Weekly, it not only builds up the brand of the organisation, it shows off the knowledge and personality of their team. Most of its readers would be familiar with Gerry Thornley, Matt Williams and Brian O’Connor but for those who aren’t, it gives them another opportunity to show off their expertise to a potentially wider audience.

Chances are it will be a while before a similar feat is accomplished in Ireland, but as a signal of intent, it’s a pretty large one.

(Original image via irishtimes.com)

It functions much like Facebook tagging, except that only the owner of a photo can tag. To tag a photo, just click on more by tapping the three dots on an image you’ve uploaded, then click on ‘add people’.

Running Competitions

Right now, there are fewer restrictions for running competitions in Instagram than on Facebook, and the new photo tagging functionality is great news for brands. This is a great opportunity to run competitions around the feature with your users. As the update from Instagram also includes a section in user profiles which contains ‘photos of you’ , by tagging your followers in a (non-spammy) competition, you can gain awareness in front of other users who might not be connected to you.

A competition using tagging should be considered carefully as randomly tagging your followers won’t do much for you. However, if you’re a fashion brand, for example, you could tag pictures of items of clothing that you know a particular follower would like. A tag could mean they get a discount on that item, or even get it for free.

Cataloging photos

The ‘photos of you’ option is useful for brands who maintain an active Instagram account, gathering hundreds of photos. Images of you are shown in the top right hand side of your profile.

Separate from the social sharing aspect, there may be particular photos you want to draw your users to like pictures of your latest collections, or current dishes on your menu. If you tag and untag yourself strategically in photos, you can effectively keep a smaller, current catalogue of the most relevant photos you want people to see.

The link to the ‘photos of you’ section can also be promoted to your users through other marketing channels, ensuring they’ve access to all your content if they need it, but are seeing the content you’ve prioritised first.

Events

This new feature is great for organisations who run events or can gather photos of large groups of their consumers. We’ve seen great mass photo tagging campaigns run by the likes of Orange and Manchester City, and the new Instagram feature allows brands to do this in a platform built natively for mobile.

This gives the Instagram platform a huge plus over Facebook and allows brands to encourage fans to tag themselves in a simple one-tap process. Brands not on Instagram should already think about how photo tagging can be run at events, encouraging word of mouth among followers.

Internal Comms

Photo tagging is also a nice way to encourage social sharing and communication among employees. Many brands will now run named Twitter accounts, or will sign off tweets with the name of the actual person who wrote the message.

As the Instagram platform isn’t complicated by different categories for personal and business profiles, you can more easily include employees in your social communications. So tagging your social reps in photos will help give visibility to employees for customers, or tagging your CEO can help encourage more crossover between the company’s platforms and those individuals influential in the business.

When you take a picture of your food in the app, it will determine approximately how many calories it contains through image recognition. These calories are then translated into dollars so a snack of 200 calories might be $2, and you can then connect through PayPal to donate this instantly.

Within the app, you can see how many calories have been donated around the world so far with a live feed of calories donated.This is a great idea for an app as the action for the user is so simple and it also taps into the guilt-factor. If you’re taking a photo of all the nice meals, snacks and drinks you get to enjoy, it would be a bit of a no-brainer to donate a small amount of money to someone in the world who doesn’t have that luxury. Money donated within the app will go to Action Against Hunger, who this app has been produced in collaboration with.

The app is currently available to download on iPhone only.

With news that the app will be arriving on Android devices pretty soon, and the latest update bringing front-facing camera support and a improved search funtion, now’s as good a time as any to learn the many ways to use the app.

While we featured a number of brands using the service well recently, here are the techniques that will ensure that your video will be noticed over everyone else’s.

Stop-Motion

The obvious use and one that’s particularly effective with a number of brands. The stop-motion style video works because you can fit in a lot more than you would in a straight clip. Provided you space out your recordings, you can create something fun although it may require a lot of trial and error to create something like the example below.

Quick Cartoon

Following the idea of stop motions, showing off the creative side is something you can always fit into six seconds. Following the progress of a drawing – it can be something as simple as a flowchart – is a nice way of getting your message across and even if the drawing in particular isn’t something you can follow immediately, the constant looping will help get the point across.

Create A Narrative

Of the few updates that Vine has received, one feature that you may not have noticed is that all recordings are saved onto your phone under photos. This can come in useful if you’re creating a narrative or story through a number of Vine clips. It could be used to preview a competition, offer a story featuring your mascot, or just some random clips thrown together.

If you’re creating something more grandeur than that, you could do something like what Canadian actor and comedian Wil Sasso did with the below clips.

Offer Previews

If you’re offering a product or deal, why not show your followers what they could hope to get if they avail of it. The medium allows you to show off different angles and give them a more comprehensive view of what to expect. Either show multiple products on their own or simply show different shots of the same product to build up hype.

Celebrate A Holiday-Themed Clip

The easiest thing to prepare for are the number of holidays that come up during the year. It doesn’t need to be really clever or smart (although that certainly helps), but something to commemorate the event will generally go down well.

How-To Videos

It’s rather obvious, but Vine is a rather effective way of fitting a tutorial into a short time frame. Provided the instructions aren’t too complex, you can pretty much explain anything (within reason) in the space of six seconds. This also sets itself up nicely for jokes if you feel your humour will transfer well.

Behind The Scenes Glimpses

So everyone knows what you offer, but do they know just how everything comes together? While you can show off how you work (in most cases, this might be rather boring), you can use it as an opportunity to show off your offices and why your company is such a great place to work for, or show a side of your brand that people mightn’t usually see.

Provide Event Summaries

Most people take photos of events and maybe round them up later on, but Vine gives you the potential to create clips that you can later use to tell the whole story. One great example of this is for events, particularly music events. Yahoo! Music is a great example of this, where it covers events by providing snippets of performances to show what’s going on. Such an approach works well for music since you can easily capture the entirety of a song by recording the chorus.

Entertain Your Audience

Not everything needs to have a brand message. if you’re feeling creative, you could post almost anything so long as there’s some kind of connection to what you’re about. If you’re the opportunity to create something fun or enjoyable, then it’s no harm to go off the beaten track every once in a while and post something lighthearted.

If you’re looking for examples that are more advanded, you should follow Twitter’s video producer Ian Padgham, who is a master at Vine. That’s no surprise considering his role, but if you want some brilliant examples, look no further.

Yet a network of leaked documents, reports from test developers and the internet has lead to rumours flying around as to what will feature. Rather than put together a wishlist for iOS 7, we’ve rounded up the rumours as they stand today with links for each one so you can read more and decide for yourself. We’ll be updating the post as the days/weeks go!

Swype Keyboard

While many things have changed on the iPhone over the years, the way in which you type has been consistent. While apps have launched to offer a different typing experience, the native keyboard has remained the same. While the addition of a Swype keyboard (which allows you to swipe to write words, instead of tapping keys) hasn’t been officially announced or discussed by the senior heads at Apple, the VP of Swype Aaron Sheedy said in response to the question on Reddit:

“Hah. The million (okay billion) $ questions. Yes, we have chatted with them. They are very smart and nice.”

The Release Date

The one we’re all waiting for, when will it be released? A leaked document suggests that iOS 6 could be available on the iPhone 5S-6 to pre-order on June 20th. This could hit the shops in early July, which would go against Tim Cook’s assertion that no new products would be launched before Autumn this year. Who to believe? Either way, it’s a near certainty that the new iOS7 will be revealed at Apple’s annual developer conference in June.

[Update] A report on Bloomberg claims that a drastic overhaul of the software by Jonathan Ive could see the release date pushed back further. Apparently, internal deadlines for submitting new features are being set later than on past software releases.

A Flat Appearance

A well-established rumour by now concerns the appearance of iOS 7. The appearance of buttons and icons will supposedly have a ‘flatter’ appearance, and will lose the bubbly effect that’s been a standard feature since the original iPhone. According to those who had their hands on it, it will be “very, very flat“. So that clears things up.

The Camera

According to most reports, circulating from the original leaked document, the new iPhone will feature a 13MP rear camera, although details of the front-facing camera have yet to be confirmed/discussed. The iPhone 5 (below) has a 8MP camera.

Polarising Filters

An interesting one here. Apparently, devices currently running on iOS will have polarising filters to help prevent people sneaking a peek at your screen. In our age of privacy hysteria, if this is true, this could actually be a huge selling point for the new software and device.

Fingerprint Scanner

To help improve security, there will reportedly be a finger sensor beneath the home button on the new iPhone (5S or 6). There are very few details available on this right now, but it’s likely this would serve as an addition to the keypad lock, or could replace it entirely if it exists. Not sure what this means for Jobs’ vision of ‘one button’.

Maps

The fiasco from the last iPhone release has surely paved the way for an overhaul of maps on iOS 7. One source suggests we could see a 3D street-view style interface on maps this time around. The founding for this particular rumour seems quite concrete as it follows news that Apple filed for a patent relating to 3D imagery navigation.

Finger Swiping

Keen to improve productivity through its next release, one expected feature of iOS 7 is that you will be able to see more information by swiping your finger to the left or right within a screen. This could bring up information similar to what you currently see in the notification centre. A four finger swipe on the iPad could also be introduced.

[Update] Integration with cars

According to more leaked details, the new iOS 7 could see deeper integration with vehicles, through Siri and Apple maps. This could even go so far as to feature in the dashboard of cars. Apple would be on the backfoot here and this would see them competing with Google, when their maps product is currently questionable.

iPhone 5S or 6?

What is still a complete mystery is whether by June we will be talking about the iPhone 5S or the iPhone 6. Given the negative press around maps on the iPhone 5 and the somewhat lukewarm reception compared to previous handset releases, Apple should really go with the 6 here, though that would run against previous naming conventions.

[Update] iPhone 6 release

If you wanted to get your hands on the iPhone 6 this year, then you might have to just hold on for a while. The latest speculation is that the iPhone 6 could be released in June 2014, as Apple are hesitant to rush this one.

The Codename

If you want to get real geeky with it, you might be interested to know that the new software is supposedly code-named ‘Innsbruck’. This translates roughly as ‘the bridge over the inn’. So there you go.

Emerging at a time when wearable computing is coming to the fore, there will most certainly be a market for this product. I’m regularly hearing from parents of their kids’ fascination with their iPhones or iPads, where children as young as four are teaching their parents things about the devices they didn’t know. So a product that takes this interactive experience to the next level could be a good thing, and prepare children for the world of wearable computing that they’ll soon be entering anyway.

Now, I don’t have children so admittedly I can’t speak from experience here, but by all accounts, bedtime can be a pretty hectic and emotional task for all involved. Surely encouraging your children to be switched on with a piece of technology right up until they shut their eyes might be counter-productive.

I even find it difficult to sleep this way, usually having to read something ‘offline’ to get my brain into sleep-mode. That said, I am not one of the youth of today so it may well be the case that children are beginning to be wired differently and can handle an interactive experience like this when they should be getting ready to sleep.

If you do want to order these though, you can get boys’ and girls’ versions from the site, for a pretty reasonable $25, with the option to ship outside of the U.S.

If you’re a little fed up with all the ‘likes’ flowing through Facebook, then relax, turn that smile upside down for a while and download the Hater app. I interviewed CEO Jake Banks at The Next Web to see exactly what they’re trying to do by getting people to hate things. Banks explained that the system is built on an Instagram set-up, where you have your home feed of everything your friends have hated as well as trending ‘hates’ worldwide.

This is basically the app for you if you want to share the things you hate with the people you love. Hater is the ultimate antithesis to the Facebook ‘Like’ button and answers the popular demand by users for a dislike button on the same site. The app is currently available to download on the App Store and they expect to launch on Android in around two months. Having launched officially at SXSW this year, it’s already up to five employees and have reached 80,000 downloads. It seems our appetite to hate might be quite big.

There is a somewhat nice concept to this though. Rather than being about hating on other people or things, this is about sharing the things you hate like waiting in queues, traffic and first dates. We all like to moan so why not do it within a forum built just for that? Of course, if you want to take your hates elsewhere, you can connect via FB and let everyone know what you hate today.

Puck Meerburg: “Why I Love Programming”

From the age of five, Puck has shown an interest in computers and programming when he and his brother were given their own iMacs as Puck’s work was beginning to interfere with his parent’s work computers. He went on to learn the basics of HTML and quickly adapted this learning to pick up PHP and Javascript. His achievements are pretty far-reaching and he seems to have benefited from supporting parents.

Indeed, when his mother (a designer) was invited to a week long event to learn how to build apps, she asked if Puck could go along instead, when he was ten. The organisers accepted and by the end of the week he’d built his first ever iPhone app TableTrainer. A mobile game that helps you learn your times tables, it even includes a time trial to really put you to the test. So impressive was his app that when he met with the Prince of Orange, he put the app on his phone for his kids to use.

What was endearing about Puck was his clear love of code. He loves what he does as he gets “to do fun stuff and meet good people”. But showing promising signs of entrepeneurship he likes it as it’s an “actual job I can earn money with”. You can find Puck’s live apps by searching ‘puckipedia’ within the app store.

Jordan Casey – The World’s Youngest CEO

At 13 years old, Jordan Casey is among the youngest CEOs in the world. From Waterford in Ireland, you could call him a late starter compared to Puck, as he only learned to code at the age of 9. Casey is clearly business-minded, as not only does he love to programme, but he founded Casey Games, which is one of Ireland’s most successful independent mobile video games companies (FML)His first game was Alien Ball vs Humans.

Which led to a spinoff Easter version.
As well as Save The Day – the official game for Children’s Day in Brazil.
And not content with just building mobile apps, he’s also expanded into desktop games with his latest project “Food World.”
The site itself is currently under construction as his staff member – Aidan (who is 15 years old) is revising for his exams. Incredibly, programming skills aside, Casey has some poignant learnings for his success, including support from Adobe which allows him to programme freely.

The app features some nice functionality such as a personalised shopping list for your ideal diet, which you can then order directly from the online retailer of your choice. Nutrino was officially released just four weeks ago yet claims it has already ‘treated’ more people than the average nutritionist will in their entire life.

Data In Your Body

Nutrino fits in with the popular trend of allowing us to analyse data in our own bodies: The quantified self movement. The risk with products like this, however, is that they end up being too gimmicky. We were all excited by the Nike fuelband, but what’s the likelihood that someone who purchased one six months ago is still wearing it?

An app like Nutrino will function on the amount of data that you choose to share within it. It’s not necessarily doing the thinking for you as it can only do this to the extent that you support it with the data it needs. This fits in with Nutrino’s ultimate aim, which is to help scientists around the world understand how the food we eat affects our health in a new way. Through the sharing of data, we can start to understand real-world problems like never before.

Can Nutrino really eliminate the world’s biggest problem? Probably not, but with a combination of tools like this with a pool of active users who are happy to generate data about ourselves, we can get a step closer. Nutrino has just launched worldwide in the app store  and Google Play now.