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However, integrators and manufacturers should not build their strategic plans based on "doom-and-gloom" headlines. Parks Associates expects the market will start to recover in 2010 In 2010, pent-up demand for home systems will push residential sales for home systems up for a n...

Despite its innovative approach to tech support, FixYa.com runs a bigrisk that it will not be able to maintain a paid user base, according to Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst forParks Associates. That isthe challenge faced today by many sites, including very large outfits like Google's YouTube...

Parks Associates predicts that in the home of the future, one method will not dominate the other -- i.e., cloud media versus media server -- but instead, an adaptive scenario will evolve, bringing in aspects of both systems, creating a completely new networking ecosystem for the home...

Broadband penetration has increased -- over the past three years, the UK, Italy, Spain, Germany and France have added roughly 50 million new broadband households -- and brought social media usage up along with it. Currently, almost 40 percent of broadband households in those countries use a social networking site at least monthly ...

Parks Associates has found the percentage of broadband households using social networking sites is about the same across the U.S., the UK, and other major Western European countries. In the U.S., the percentage of consumers using social networking and social media sites will grow from 20 percent in 2008 to 30 percent in 2013...

In 2008, a larger percentage of MMORPG players in the U.S. played free-to-play games than subscription-based games. Parks Associates data show that roughly 46 percent of MMORPG players in the U.S. play only free-to-play games On a business-model continuum, free-to-play MMORPGs...

The prediction of 1 billion .tel identities is based on trends in mobile phone adoption around the world. Parks Associates forecasts that by 2013 there will be 4.5 mobile phone users worldwide. This compares to 3 billion in February 2008, when the International Telecommunication Union announced that the total number of global cell phone subscribers had exceeded half the population of the globe...

Roughly 50 million households in Western Europe have adopted broadband services over the past three years. Regulatory reforms in the UK and France in particular have helped boost penetration by creating strongly competitive markets. As a result, a large and growing number of households can now view video online, and the door is open to alternative forms of video distribution. ...

"Have there been any complaints about outages related to Google's other hosted services, like its productivity suite? If there have, then yes, I'd say there's room to be concerned. If not, and it's only isolated to e-mail, then -- unfortunately -- this characterizes all of the Web-based e-mail services, so I'm not sure that it does damage to their ability to offer hosted services," Kurt Scherf, principal analyst at Parks Associates, told TechNewsWorld...

As a result, Parks Associates' Home Systems Group is assessing the market opportunities that could come from upgrades to electricity distribution systems. This area includes new prospects for manufacturers of appliances, HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) systems, controls, and consumer electronics; home networking software developers; broadband Internet service providers; and utilities...

What EA and other game publishers do is push action/adventure and shooter games to the consumer segments where retail spending is strongest; that makes the launch sequence interesting, Kurt Scherf, principal analyst at Parks Associates, told TechNewsWorld "So, our 'power gamer...

Ten years ago, the "smart home" was all the rage. Almost every company in our market had a concept center or display house that showed the functionality of the digital home ...

Regulators in Europe and Washington continue to urge Internet companies to limit the length of time during which they keep identifiable user data. Yahoo's decision may not stretch to the rest of the industry, said John Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates "I don't...

For instance, Parks Associates views mobile phone-based diabetic care management applications as attractive growth opportunities, but most vendors still rely heavily on angel investors and have yet to find a sustainable revenue model. Business models that are being tested include software licensing (e.g., iPhone apps), test-strip sales (BodyTel), mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) monthly service (Generation One), and disease management (Sensei).

"The gaming industry has definitely been more recession-resistant than many other consumer goods industries," Michael Cai, an analyst at Parks Associates, told the E-Commerce Times. He sees two main reasons for this: "One, as consumers cut down on travel and dining out, they stay home more and need to entertain at home. Two, games are a cheaper form of entertainment and the whole family can entertain together." ...

The notion of cable companies as poor service providers has been borne out in numerous consumer satisfaction surveys. Recently, Parks Associates found that that subscribers to satellite television and IPTV (Internet protocol television) services are significantly more likely to be satisfied with their decisions than both basic and digital cable subscribers...

I recently read an article that featured an up and coming media measurement technology created by research firm Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI). Using cell phone based data collection, IMMI's digital monitoring system measures audience exposure to multiple media platforms via codes embedded in the audible audio portion of the advertisement. This includes ads appearing in out-of-home TV, on-demand and time-shift viewing, radio, Internet, DVDs, audio CDs, theatrical films, entertainment venues, and mobile video and games.

YouTube must play nice with the major studios -- and their lawyers, Parks Associates analyst Kurt Scherf told the E-Commerce Times. "It's sort of a dual-pronged strategy," Scherf said. "They need to make sure major content providers are satisfied, to make sure they're doing as much as they can to prevent piracy, and at the same time to go the legitimate route by offering more and more premium content...

Few homes now have sophisticated lighting systems. "About 6 percent of residences have an intelligent lighting system," Bill Ablondi, director of home systems research at Parks Associates, told TechNewsWorld To help spur additional awareness, vendors -- including AHA Design, C...

The competitive environment that characterizes today's broadband and value-added services landscape benefits the growth of many digital lifestyle products and services. Consumers are also primary beneficiaries of increased competition among carriers. Case studies reveal that when at least two service providers on relatively equal footing in terms of offerings are actively battling to acquire and retain customers, the end results tend to be 1) lower prices; 2) additional value-added offerings, and 3) improved customer support...