Vevo’s mobile-focused redesign offers smarter recommendations

Vevo has spent much of the last year or so entirely revamping its product. Most music video watchers probably first encountered the brand on YouTube; many artists big and small use Vevo to power their feeds. But the company has been focused on making its website and apps for iOS, Android and Apple TV destinations unto themselves, rather than something that powers music videos on other platforms.

Today marks another big push in that direction: Vevo is releasing a major update (including iOS and Android apps) that highlight a number of changes made across the platform. Among those include a new, portrait-oriented video player for smartphones, public user profiles that you can follow for recommendations, and a smarter and more visually engaging feed that uses Vevo’s vast amount of data to show you more relevant videos. Oh, and the company has a new logo, too.

The starting point for this new experience is the Spotlight feed that you see when you open the app. After going through the onboarding process (which involves selecting genres and artists you’re a fan of), you’ll see a feed of videos, playlists and users you might be interested in checking out. Vevo’s had this feature for a few months now, but the company says it’s a lot smarter now.

“We want to take your likes and the related artists of the artist that you’ve liked, we want to take your watch history into consideration and we want to take acoustic similarity into consideration,” says Miguel Alvarado, the company’s VP of data and analytics. “We’ll have these three buckets of data and from there we’ll create a personalized list — and we want to keep it very fresh, so every time you come to the app it’s a new list.”

Beyond coming up with music matches using its database, Vevo will make nods towards human-powered music curation trend by featuring various “Vevo Curators” in the Spotlight feed, as well. The company is targeting music bloggers, radio DJs and performers to build profiles and playlists that’ll be featured in your feed. “Because of your watch history, we can match you with a curator playlist based on the stuff that you’ve watched before,” Alvarado explains.

Being smart enough to take user behavior as the basis for serving up video recommendations is the key for Vevo, though. “Our algorithms are taking the input of millions of users, so the millions of users are the curators of the system,” Alvarado says. “It’s not that machines are doing [the curation] — people are doing it, but machines are helping to reach that massive scale.”

The next big change for Vevo is focused around public user profiles. Users have long had the option to create a login on Vevo, but now you can make a full-fledged public profile with all the artists and videos you’ve liked and playlists you’ve created. By default, these profiles will be private, but you can go public and start liking other user profiles; that’ll give Vevo another signal to serve you videos you might want to watch. And these profiles are how the company will surface its Vevo curators in your feed.

Ultimately, it’s yet another signal for Vevo to mine in order to show you better recommendations. “We’re building a venn diagram where you have algorithmic, data-powered intelligence as well as social intelligence — and Spotlight [recommendations] are at the intersection of that,” says VP of product Mark Hall. All this focus on better recommendations is key for Vevo — when I tested out the service’s new Android and Apple TV apps this past winter, I found the service’s focus on top-40 pop music to be a major turn-off. But Vevo has gotten progressively better at surfacing more diverse music based on my listening habits, and this should only help in that pursuit.

The new user profiles and updates to Spotlight will be available across all platforms, but the last big product changes are focused on making the mobile app experience more engaging. The most dramatic is that Vevo is going all-in on the dreaded portrait video format. Now, when you start up a video, it’ll go into full-screen in whatever orientation you’re holding your phone. Of course, you can flip it on its side to see the full video, but if you’re holding it in portrait, you’ll see a view optimized to that orientation instead of seeing a tiny view of the video at the top of your screen.

“We’ve done tests on some videos when you’re watching in portrait full-bleed — even though you’re only seeing a segment of the video, it’s plenty good,” says Hall. “You’re seeing most of the action, and it’s paired with the audio and it’s so nice not to have to [flip your phone on its side].” It’s an admission that most people use their phones in portrait; this option reduces friction to getting people into the video. And you can swipe left and right to go forward in back in your feed to see more videos. Swiping up from the bottom of the screen puts the video in the top third of your screen in its full, natural aspect ratio, and you’ll then see either info about the video or more details about the playlist you’re watching below.

I watched a few videos like this using a demo version of the app and I have to say I’m shocked at how natural it felt. It makes sense — most action is in the center third of the frame usually, and while some of the crops I saw definitely felt off, the general experience didn’t feel all that odd. Purists will scoff at this, but given how many people are shooting and watching portrait-oriented video at this point (thanks Snapchat), it’s a pretty smart addition to the app. “We’ve always had this historically difficult mismatch between landscape video and the portrait orientation we all use on our phones,” Hall explained. “People have been incrementally solving towards that, but I think we’ve taken the next step.”

In the same vein, the Spotlight feed has come to life with 15-second video clips that load and play automatically as you swipe through the feed. (These clips are available on iOS today and will be added to the Android app soon.) Eventually, Vevo wants to use its data to find the most engaging points of the video and load those to increase engagement and click-through; the video previews will also soon come to artist pages to make them more dynamic. “When you see the combination of the [Spotlight] video feed with the portrait video experience on mobile we think it’s a pretty big step forward in terms of viewing video on mobile,” Hall said.

Whether this will be enough to meet Vevo’s ambitions remains to be seen, but the company thinks its laser focus on making the best music video watching experience will help it in the long run. “Right now, people have a choice between going to YouTube and going to Vevo, and that’s good for us,” says Hall. “That means we have to innovate and be better. Part of winning that choice is saying this is a better experience than you’re going to get on YouTube.”

Of course, YouTube has a massive long tail of music videos, both official and fan-shot, as well as the Red subscription service that makes the entire site ad-free and a dedicated YouTube Music app. Google is clearly not sleeping on music, which means Vevo will have to be on top of its game. It has its own a subscription service and more product updates in the pipeline. YouTube obviously isn’t going anywhere, but if Vevo can continue innovating in the mobile video space, it could solidify its status as a dark horse candidate for music video aficionados.

Apple Stores Now Selling Sensor-Equipped LED Smart Jump Rope

As of this week, Apple retail stores and the Apple online store will begin selling a new fitness-related product, the Tangram Smart Rope. The Smart Rope uses magnetic sensors attached to ball bearings in the handles to count each jump, relaying the information to the accompanying Smart Gym Pro app on the iPhone and Apple Watch.

Jump data is also projected to 23 LEDs that are built into the rope, which flash thousands of times per minute to create an animated effect in mid air. On the iPhone, the Smart Gym Pro app, which syncs with the Apple Health app, keeps track of jump count, calories burned, and workout times. It is designed to offer up workout recommendations based on each individual’s fitness goals, and it includes tools for unlocking awards and competing with friends.

Jump rope is one of the most efficient cardio workouts around, burning twice as many calories as running – but offering a more total body workout and less impact to your joints. While jumping rope is easy to learn, it’s challenging to master, and it’s difficult to track your progress because intervals go into the hundreds and thousands of reps.

Smart Rope accurately counts your jumps with advanced magnetic sensors attached to ball bearings in the handles – using the exercise mechanics to generate true, relevant data.

The Smart Rope sold in Apple Stores is available in an exclusive white color, comes in four sizes (S, M, L, and XL) to meet different height needs, and is priced at $89.99 in the United States. It is rolling out worldwide and should be in retail stores over the course of the next few days.

The Smart Rope can also be purchased in Gold, Black, and Chrome from both the Tangram website and it will be available from Best Buy.

Tags: Smart Rope, Tangram
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theScore eSports can now help you keep up with Super Smash Bros. and Street Fighter

If you’re a fan of watching coverage of competitive fighting game tournaments, theScore eSports can now help you keep up with at least two of them: Street Fighter and Super Smash Bros. The eSports coverage app just added live scoring for both games, coming just in time EVO Championship Series taking place in Las Vegas this weekend.

In addition to the new live scoring and news coverage for Street Fighter and Super Smash Bros., theScore eSports also provides coverage of a number of other major games, including:

• League of Legends (NA LCS, EU LCS, LCK, LPL, LMS and more)
• Dota 2
• Counter-Strike: GO (CS:GO)
• Heroes of the Storm
• Call of Duty (CoD)
• StarCraft II
• Hearthstone

In any case, you can now grab the latest version of theScore eSports to start keeping up with your favorite competitive gamers.

A message to our daily Android Central readers about POKÉ-GATE!

Greetings, Android Central Reader!

If you’re reading this, it’s safe to assume you read Android Central on a regular basis — thank you! — and were likely surprised by the onslaught of Pokémon content that’s flooded the site over the last few days. We were caught by surprise, too!

In all our years of running Android Central, Pokémon Go has been the biggest product launch we’ve ever seen. The same is true of our sibling site, iMore. Bigger than a new Android release or Galaxy S device launch. Bigger than a new iPhone. More active users on Android than Twitter or Snapchat, and some are even saying more than Google Maps. It’s B.I.G.

Here’s the thing — We live in a world where literally billions of people own smartphones now. So, an app launch of this magnitude attracts the interest of more than just Galaxy S7 or HTC 10 owners. More than just a single carrier, region, or even platform. It attracts the interest of everybody. That’s why it’s driving greater demand for Android Central content than any single hardware or software release we’ve ever seen before. It’s something that can appeal to practically everyone, almost everywhere. And that’s why we’re covering the heck out of it.

Pokémon Go is bigger than a new Android release or Galaxy S device launch. Bigger than a new iPhone.

Now, we understand that many of you don’t like that Android Central appears to have become Pokémon Central. We totally understand that, and we’re working together so the next time a phenomenon like this happens again, we’re better prepared to continue to deliver you an Android Central experience that you value and love, while also doing our jobs to serve the mainstream smartphone consumer.

Heck, we’re starting now. Here’s a new, special RSS feed that includes everything on Android Central except Pokémon. We call it the Pokémon NO feed. So, if you’d rather not read anything about it again, this is for you:

Subscribe to Android Central’s Pokémon No RSS feed

I get Pokémon, but why so much of it?

Android Central is just that — Central. We’ve always seen it as our mission to do the absolute best coverage possible about everything Android and Android-related. That includes bandwagoning any and all major releases. We’ve done it before, and we’ll do it again. It’s simply that the nature of major releases has changed.

We do, and always have, serve many types of Android owners at Android Central. Our most engaged community is the daily reader who views and treats us a publication — those of you who see us as a daily destination, use the AC app, or follow us on RSS or social. You’re likely an early adopter and tech enthusiast and you value Android Central for its news, reviews and editorial analysis, and you value our awesome community of users.

When we launched Android Central, you were the only audience for our content, which is why we love you so much. Today, though, our early adopter core — those of you reading this — represent approximately 1% of the visitors who access Android Central on a monthly basis.

For many years now, we have also served the mainstream consumer technology audience, which has grown to make up a whopping 99% of our visitors. These are just average people — not readers in the same sense — who use Google to search, or see something shared on social and want help or advice.

This Pokémon coverage lead to Mobile Nation’s highest trafficked Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and likely Thursday EVER.

They don’t read the homepage or daily news, and we don’t have a dialogue with them the way we do with you. They view our content as a service helping them in the moment. There’s a reason that, in addition to our news and review coverage, we also produce so much help, product and app recommendation content — because there is a tremendous demand for it, and we’d rather be the ones delivering that content than another outlet (and we know we can do it best!).

Both our core and mainstream audiences are extremely important to us, and we do our best to cater to the needs of all of you. If we only picked one audience to address and not the other, we wouldn’t be here today doing what we love to do. It takes both to make this a sustainable business.

Coming back to Pokémon Go, the reaction to the game and demand for Pokémon Go content has been like nothing we have ever seen before, and we had to react to it quickly. Our editorial team shouldn’t be criticized for that, but commended for it. They gave up their weekends and abandoned their previous plans to come in and write what we think is the best Pokémon Go content on the web. It was an everyone on deck, day-and-night effort to get it done, and they did it — and did it well!

It lead to Mobile Nation’s highest trafficked Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and likely Thursday EVER. The ~100 Pokémon-related articles we produced literally doubled, maybe even tripled our entire visitor base. This is us producing content as a service to match the real-time needs of Android and iPhone owners looking for help with Pokémon Go.

It’s not link bait and it’s not click bait. The “bait” part in both means “bait and switch” — teasing one thing and delivering something else, much less desirable. We didn’t and never would try to trick any of our readers. We wouldn’t stick Pokémon on a Nougat article or Samsung on a Pokémon article. We’re delivering exactly what we promise: advice and assistant for those looking for it.

Tech media is a tough business, so when opportunities like this happen you either seize the moment or somebody else does. As a company, we always strive to our best so we can keep doing what we love to do for years to come. It’s not always fun, but crushing something like Pokémon is what helps to pay the bills so we can keep serving our core community, which is what we love to do most.

Yeah, yeah, yeah … so how are you going to fix it for me so I can quit seeing the stuff I don’t want to see?

Prior to Poké-Gate, our product team was already cooking up some ideas on how we can better serve both our audiences. The challenge we have today is that in order to reach the mainstream (as in, get the help and recommendation content published to the web), we still need to show it to our homepage, regular reading audience (you). As it gets mixed in with our news, reviews, and editorial coverage, it can get a little bit… messy. Especially for you, the core reader. For those of our visitors who come into our articles and content sideways, whether from google or social referrals, it’s less of a problem.

Short Term:

One immediate fix was already created by an Android Central member in the form of a Chrome Extension that hides content that mentions Pokémon. Brilliant! For those of you who follow us via an RSS reader, we created the new feed sans Pokémon stories.

Subscribe to Android Central’s Pokémon No RSS feed

For those of you using the AC app, we’re also looking at a way to block Pokémon stories via our API from hitting the app, which will keep the AC app Pokémon free. If none of those solutions help you in the short term, then we appreciate your patience; the good news is it’s easy to scroll or swipe past a story you don’t care about.

Longer Term:

In the latter half of 2016, you’ll see us roll out many changes that better position Android Central to serve both our audiences better than we ever have before. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll get the stuff you want in the way that you’ve always loved it before, without any of the content you care less about. And for our ever-growing mainstream audience, we’re going to deliver that content in a manner that’s more approachable and friendly than ever before.

Expect a mix of both product, feature, branding, design, and content changes through the back half of the year.

That all makes sense. Thanks, Android Central!

You’re welcome! Again, thanks for the Pokémon patience and more importantly, the passion! We can’t please everybody all of the time (even though we wish we could), but it’s the dialog and passion from our most hardcore users that we love and cherish the most.

Thank you,

Kevin Michaluk
Chief Media Officer, Mobile Nations

Google to host its first Play Indie Games Festival on Sept. 24 in San Francisco

Google has announced that in September the company will hold its first Google Play Indie Games Festival in San Francisco. The event is aimed at showcasing recent and upcoming releases of top indie games in front of consumers and industry influencers and give them the chance to try them out. This will allow the indie developers an opportunity to expand their networks, gain real-time feedback and improve discoverability in Google Play for their app.

If you are an interested developer, you can submit your app now for a chance to attend the event. There are some limitations as to who can submit though. You will need to be a U.S. or Canadian developer with less than 15 full-time staff members, and games have to be published after January 1, 2016 or anticipated to be published before December 31, 2016.

Fallout Shelter adds quests, enhanced combat, and much more

For its first anniversary, Fallout Shelter has received a major update, adding a new combat system, new enemies, and most notably, quests. With quests, you can now take a group of Vault Dwellers and venture outside the confines of your Vault, exploring the Wasteland and finding new items.

Here’s what you can expect from the latest Fallout Shelter update:

• Introducing Quests! Now you can travel OUTSIDE the Vault with your Dwellers to explore new locations!.
• New and Improved combat gives you more control over your Questing Dwellers.
• Battle new enemies like Ghouls and Radscorpions and take on powerful boss enemies.
• New items added to the store!

You can grab the new version of Fallout Shelter from the Google Play Store now.

AT&T brings back its offer of a free phone when buying another

AT&T has brought back its Buy One, Get One promotion with select phones, allowing you to get a second phone for free through bill credits when buying one. To make the deal even sweeter, AT&T is will also throw in a free Gear S2 (or slash the price of the Gear S2 Classic to just $50) when buying a new Galaxy smartphone. There are a number of catches with this promotion, like the free phone has to be on a new line of service, the two phones must be from the same manufacturer, and more.

From AT&T’s announcement:

• Purchase both phones on either AT&T Next Every Year, AT&T Next or, for business customers, on Equipment Installment Plans (EIP):
  • Both phones must be from the same manufacturer.
  • The first phone can be a new line or an upgrade.
  • The second phone needs to be a new line.
  • The phones may be bought on any combination of AT&T Next (30-month contract for up to $695 or $23.17 a month), AT&T Next Every Year (24-month contract for up to $695 or $28.96 a month), or for business customers only, EIP (24-month contract for up to $695 or $23.17 a month) or EIP (36-month contract for up to $695 or $19.31 a month).

Included in the offers are Samsung Galaxy S7, Samsung Galaxy S6, Samsung Galaxy S6 active, LG G5 and the LG V10. The offer is available through August 31, so be sure to visit your local AT&T store if you are interested in this deal.

This is the Moto Z’s USB-C headphone jack adapter

The Moto Z doesn’t have a 3.5mm headphone jack. But this little doohickey will take care of that for you.

One of the biggest stories from the announcement of the Moto Z at Lenovo’s TechWorld event in San Francisco back in June was that the phone does not have a 3.5mm headphone jack and instead relies on the USB-C port to pump out audio. Most folks are in two camps on this. That’s either a nonstarter, or it’s not a big deal at all.

And in reality it’s sort of both. It doesn’t have a headphone jack. But, Motorola is providing a USB-C adapter so that folks who prefer to listen to audio via a wired connection aren’t left out in the cold.

Today, we’re getting our first look at that adapter courtesy of the Moto Z Droid Edition and Moto Z Force Droid Edition on Verizon.

And guess what. It’s a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter. There’s really not much more to be said that that. You get about five inches of cable, with one end plugging in to the phone, and the other for your headphones. There’s also a little rubber piece that (I think?) is for helping make sure they stay connected. It’s one more thing (OK, two, I guess) to lose, sure. But it’s also not a horrible compromise.

Moto Z and Moto Z Force

• Our hands-on preview
• Moto Z specs
• Moto Mods custom backs
• Moto Z and Moto Z Force will be Verizon exclusives until the fall of 2016
• The latest Moto Z news
• Discuss in our Moto Z forums

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