Blake Munro
CIT110 Basics
Date: Feb 18, 2015
Wall Street Journal week- 3
Article 1- Mobile-Games Revenue is Outpacing other content, for Now, Feb 18, 2015
Summary: Competitive mobile game downloads and their purchases are being projected to increase by
16.5%. This means that they will be bringing in a total of 3.04 billion dollars in 2015. The two reasons
why mobile games are believed to be ahead is because of the “ad-supported and subscription services”.
Another factor to the increase is due to games like supercells or clash of clans, these games are free to
download but there are upgrades that you may purchase in the game to advance quickly. Clash of Clans
itself is expected to bring in 60% of the growth which would account for 1.82 billion dollars. All in all the
mobile revenue is expected to rise 10.3% in 2015 which would produce 9.82 billion dollars
Relevancy: The relevancy of this article is not only the fact that this game is played by many students I
know but the fact that it’s a free app that somebody made that in our future, we might be able to make
and who knows, even become rich due to it. I also thought the article was interesting because I had no
idea that a simple app like this was able to bring in so much revenue.
Article 2- ‘The League’ Dating App’s Velvet Rope- and How to Get Past It, Feb 18, 2015
Summary: “The League” is this new app that is for dating like the other dating apps out there, but what
sets this app different from the others is that it’s for a specific class of people. This app is designed for
the higher class or as the article refers, the “elites”. The online dating industry accumulates about 2
billion dollars. Due to the amount that these apps are bringing in there is grave competition among
these sites, because of this there is a long waiting list for this app, approximately a waiting list of 80,000
people. The goal of the app is to bring together couples that are both equally ambitious and successful.
We know this because in order to be a part of the app you must have a college degree rather than
matching with a person who sits on their parents couch.
Relevancy: This new “high class elite” app is relevant because we are all college students and plan to
graduate with some sort of degree, so for some of us we may actually come across this app in our future
years after we graduate and are looking for that special someone. I feel like this is a good and interesting
idea but personally I disagree with these kinds of apps but it was still interesting to learn about how this
app also brings in a big stack of money.
Article 3- Sony to Offer ‘Premium Sound’ Memory Card, Feb 19, 2015
Summary: Sony is coming out with a new memory card that is engineered to make the sound quality of
music or whatever you are listening to that much better. This memory card is a 64GB memory card that
will be sold for about $160 in Japan. This price is nearly five times the cost of the standard card with the
same amount of storage. The difference being this new card produces less electrical noise when reading
data or playing music. The company doesn’t even know if the product is going to sell but for audio freaks
likes myself it’s more than likely that it will.
Blake Munro
CIT110 Basics
Date: Feb 18, 2015
Relevancy: The relevancy of this article is the fact that this simple memory card is being sold for 5x’s the
price just because it’s a better quality. This memory card in my opinion is going to bring in a lot of
money due to the fact that the quality is obviously 5x’s better than the card before it which should make
it 5x’s as expensive. This article was really interesting to me because when it comes to music quality is a
must and the amount of time I listen to music every day, quality become a big aspect.
11:21 am ET
Feb 18, 2015
Mobile-Games Revenue
Growth Is Outpacing
Other Content, for Now
Supercell’s “Clash of Clans”
In the competitive mobile-apps market, games have an edge.
Blake Munro
CIT110 Basics
Date: Feb 18, 2015
Revenue from U.S. mobile-game downloads and in-game purchases is projected to grow 16.5% to
$3.04 billion in 2015, according to a study released Wednesday by the research firm eMarketer.
By contrast, mobile-download revenue for e-books, music and video will rise by 4.4%, 5.4% and
13.8%, respectively.
The report gives two reasons why mobile-game revenue is out ahead: ad-supported and
subscription services like Spotify cutting into media purchases, and the rise of “freemium” games like
Supercell’s “Clash of Clans” that are free to play but sell in-app upgrades. These in-game
purchases, such as virtual coins that can be used to advance more quickly, are expected to account
for nearly 60% of the growth in mobile-game revenue, or $1.82 billion, this year.
Overall, mobile-download revenue is expected to rise 10.3% to $9.82 billion in 2015, the study said.
Games are making up an increasingly bigger share of that pie. They are expected the account for
30.9% of such revenue this year, up from 29.3% in 2014 and 26.4% in 2013.
Downloads of e-books are still expected to bring in the most dollars — $4.25 billion — compared
with $850 million for video and $550 million for music. (The data include downloads on smartphones,
e-readers and tablets, but not laptops and other PCs.)
“There’s more room to grow in terms of demographics for gaming,” said eMarketer analyst Martin
Uteras. “Mobile opened the gate for a lot of people who were not traditionally gamers,” such as older
folks and children with access to their parents’ devices.
The pace of growth for all mobile-download revenue has slowed dramatically in recent years as the
U.S. became saturated with smartphones. Games might not sit atop the growth chart for long. In
2016, eMarketer estimates video-download revenue will grow 9.5%, compared with 8.9% for games
and 4.4% for music.
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3:23 pm ET
Feb 18, 2015
APPS
‘The League’ Dating App’s
Velvet Rope – and How
to Get Past It
Blake Munro
CIT110 Basics
Date: Feb 18, 2015
The League
Ever wanted to date someone who was really, well . . . elite? Now there’s an app for that.
The League, which launched in January and has raised $2.1 million, is for people who are “too
popular as it is,” according to its site. Thirty percent of the app’s users have advanced degrees, and
18% are executives, vice presidents or founders, according to The League’s founder and CEO
Amanda Bradford.
Trouble is, the app has a wait list. A long wait list: 80,000 people currently are waiting for admission
to what amounts to an exclusive singles club. There are, however, ways to hop the line and increase
your odds of being accepted – more on that in a moment.
The League isn’t the only player trying to get a piece of the more than $2 billion that the online dating
industry is worth in the U.S., estimates Mark Brooks, CEO of Courtland Brooks, a firm that helps
dating companies with business development and media relations. Online dating stalwarts Match
and eHarmony launched nearly two decades ago. More recent entrants Tinder and Plenty of Fish
logged the most downloads among dating apps in the fourth quarter of last year, according to App
Annie.
Bradford claims The League’s market lies somewhere between those of staid Match or eHarmony,
which focus on marriage, and gaudy location-aware apps like Tinder, where “you think Vegas, you
think call girls, you think porn site.” She says her app is different because it’s an efficient way to find
people who have a college degree, have ambition and aren’t living on their parents’ couch. Like an
Blake Munro
CIT110 Basics
Date: Feb 18, 2015
elite college or a competitive workplace, she says she wants to curate an interesting mix of people.
“The goal is to keep The League well-balanced, diverse and classy,” Bradford says.
Here are Bradford’s tips on how to join The League:
The easiest way, Bradford says, is to have a friend who is already a member. Get your buddy to give
you the one ticket all members receive to bring in a friend.
Without a ticket, you’ll need to join the waiting list. Before trying to sign up, though, make sure your
social media info is up-to-date. The League scans your profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn to
analyze your alma maters, degrees, professions, industries, social influence, neighborhood and age,
says Bradford. Make sure to list your college degrees and best jobs, and friend the most important
people you know (ahem, social influence).
Dare to be different. The app’s admission algorithm considers the diversity an applicant would add to
the community. Workers in the tech industry are hugely overrepresented, as are graduates of
Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Bradford jokes that the app now includes nearly all the
singles in SoulCycle, the luxury spin class that has San Francisco locations in the Marina and SoMa.
The algorithm also takes into account how picky you are — hopefully not very, because Bradford
wants to ‘draft’ you into The League only if she thinks you’ll find what you’re looking for. To increase
your odds of making it in, tell the app you’re willing to date folks 20 years old to 50 years old, fivefeet tall to 6’9″ who live as far as 100 miles away. This is about getting in the door, folks!
If the algorithm deems you worthy, The League’s human reviewers will give your photos a check: No
sunglasses, group photos or pics of your golden retriever, no matter how cute. Also, you can do
without the selfies you took in the mirror.
In the long term, Bradford plans to replace the human-element part of the screening process with
technology. But in this early stage, she says she wants to validate everything manually before
automating.
Correction: The online dating industry in the U.S. is worth more than $2 billion, estimates CEO of
Courtland Brooks Mark Brooks. A previous version of this story incorrectly said it was worth $82
billion. $82 billion is the amount people spend on dating in the U.S.
______________________________________________________
2:19 am ET
Feb 19, 2015
COMPANIES
Blake Munro
CIT110 Basics
Date: Feb 18, 2015
Sony to Offer ‘Premium
Sound’ Memory Card

By

TAKASHI MOCHIZUKI
Sony Corp. Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai outlines its turnaround strategy at the company’s headquarters in Tokyo
Wednesday, Sony 6758.TO +1.64% will spin off its video-and-sound business.
Associated Press
For audio freaks, the quest to reduce noise never ends, even if it means sometimes paying a high
price for equipment–say, $1,000 for a one-meter audio cable.
Sony Corp. has been more than happy to try to cater to their passion for clean sound,offering a
$1,200 Walkman and other high-resolution audio technology, including high-end headphones and
wireless speakers.
Now comes a memory card engineered for sound quality. Beginning next month, the 64 gigabyte
SR-64HXA micro SDXC memory card will be sold for around $160 in Japan, roughly five times the
Blake Munro
CIT110 Basics
Date: Feb 18, 2015
cost of a standard card with the same amount of storage. The SR-64HXA produces less electrical
noise when reading data, the company says.
Will many people buy it? Even Sony doesn’t know.
Sony Corp.
“We aren’t that sure about the product’s potential demand, but we thought some among people who
are committed to great sound quality would want it,” a Sony spokeswoman said.
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