Bryan O'Rourke

I've got an iPad and have enjoyed it - particularly when it comes to reading the WSJ, NYT or the various books I am reading. However, last night after a suggestion from my friend Clint Lee I got the Flipboard app (watch video below), a free "social magazine" that debuted to great reviews, resulting in a digital traffic jam at Apple's App Store that made it hard to download the program. Wow. Now when I’ve referred to new business models that incorporate fresh ways of delivering content - this is what I was talking about. So what is Flipboard? Imagine the huge list of updates and links served up on your Facebook or Twitter feeds transformed into a handsome, clean magazine format that is easy to peruse. Imagine that this "magazine" includes Web content of your favorite newspapers or magazines. Your tablet is now a personal, virtual newsstand. "We thought the idea... (more)

Apple's Best Days Are Over - What Does It Mean for Fitness ?

David Olive's recent article titled Why Apple and Google May Have Their Best Days Behind Them is a thoughtful examination of the trends occuring in tehcnology today. There is a lot of rapid change going on. Its implications are broad and in fact relevant to the fitness industry; a traditional late comer to technology adoption. Why ? It has to do with change, adoption and open systems. Here are a few excerpts from David's article: They dominated their industries until they didn’t. General Motors, Massey-Ferguson, IBM, Sears, Roebuck – in their heyday, it was unimagina... (more)

Cloud Computing Surge Expected to Continue

Larry Dignan of ZDNet shared stats from a recent IDC report that global revenue from public cloud computing services is expected to grow at five times the rate of traditional IT. Public IT cloud services revenue is expected to hit $55.5 billion in 2014, up from $16 billion in 2009. That adds up to a compound annual growth rate of 27.4 percent. Traditional IT product growth is expected to be 5 percent over the same period. That's right; growth rates in the cloud will be 5 times the rate of traditional IT. IDC is projecting the following (statement): The cloud computing model will... (more)

Mobile Devices Meet Bricks and Mortar

A recent WSJ report Venture Capitalist's New Frontier, Where Cellphones Meet Retailing points to Reid Hoffman, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur who put money early into hot start-ups like Facebook Inc. and online gaming company Zynga Game Network Inc., now has his eye on the intersection of mobile phones and bricks-and-mortar retailing. As well he should. The explosion of mobile devices, adoption of social media and new business models that blend online and bricks and mortar components around the customer will contribute to new ways to engage shoppers.While the technology is emer... (more)

Major Ad Firms Will Struggle in Social Media

A recent WSJ article titled Social Media Draws a Crowd addressed the surge in social media advertising dollars and how traditional ad agencies are racing to get a piece of the action. The push to form a more formidable presence in social-media advertising is being fueled by the increasing number of marketers who are eager to figure out how they can use sites such as Facebook Inc., which has almost 500 million users, and Twitter, with more than 120 million registered users, as a marketing weapon. "Social media is now part of all our clients' plans; we can't not be in this space,... (more)