Within hours – if not sooner – of the announcement of the death of former NBA basketball superstar Kobe Bryant, who along with his 13-year-old daughter was killed in a tragic helicopter crash, condolences came pouring in on social media. Thoughts and prayers came from fellow players, celebrities, former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump.

By Monday however, Twitter was also filled with posts from those who said they needed a break from the platform to process the sudden loss of the sports star. The death of Bryant and his young daughter was shocking, and for many even posting condolences or prayers for the family was too much.

This is understandable. We live in an age where social media has evolved from personal communications between friends to a broadcast tool to the world. This works well when it comes to sending congratulations – such as how it was used during Sunday night’s Grammy Awards. However, offering condolences via social media can seem wrong.

Kobe Bryant #24 of the Los Angeles Lakers (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)

“Communicating about death on social media is a tricky situation since social media is usually associated with showing off what great things we are and bragging rights,” said Josh Crandall, principal analyst at Netpop Research.

Addressing Grief

While social media may allow fans to share their condolences it is very unlikely most of the world will even pay attention. Social media certainly may not be the best way to offer condolences to a friend or family member. Despite the “social” aspect of social media, this is hardly personal or direct.

According to a report published by WebMD last summer, most people who are grieving find social media posts or messages about their loss to be pointless, irritating or even distressing. Few respondents to WebMD’s study actually thought condolences offered on social media were a good idea!

“Social media must be considered ‘public space’ and one must tread carefully when sharing intimate messages,” suggested Crandall. “Sending condolences via social media should only be posted as a direct response to an announcement of somebody’s death for the vast majority of people who lead private lives.”

In the case of Kobe Bryant, most people likely found out he had died from a news report online or via TV/radio. He was a public figure, one with a large social media following – so it was almost natural that people would want to respond publicly.

“Context or relationship matters when offering condolences, but social media has blurred the boundaries between private information and public announcements and methods for emotional expressions,” explained Susan Schreiner, technology analyst for C4 Trends.

“It’s one thing when a private person shares on a Facebook page or via Twitter the death of a loved one, and friends and family respond,” she added. “The reaction to a celebrity death is more complicated since a celebrity is a ‘public’ person. The death of a celebrity is usually made via breaking news or an official public announcement.”

This can be followed up for days or longer if this was the result of an accident or was otherwise seen as untimely – as it is in the case of Bryant. Fans will have questions and social media could be a place to turn.

“Whether it is the death of PBS’ News Hour anchorman, Jim Lehrer, or Kobe Bryant who passes, the audiences who have followed these famous people through their careers feel the need to share their grief when they pass,” said Crandall. “Sharing one’s grief about a celebrity’s passing is a way of sharing the importance that the celebrity has had on a person’s life. All are sharing from their hearts and the sentiment is almost always love. Social media is one of the few outlets where fans are able to share their loss and connect with others who are mourning the loss.”

Social Media Relationship

Even more than Facebook or Instagram, Twitter is where fans likely feel the closest connection to celebrities such as Bryant, so even though his passing wasn’t presented on this platform it should have been expected that fans would respond via it.

“We live in an interactive information society with social media often becoming the online 24/7 version of the tabloid,” said Schreiner. “We’re seeing celebrities making a ‘contract’ with their fans through social media during their lifetime. They build relationships with their fans by dribbling out information, hyping a movie or promoting a product endorsement. In turn, the fan feels connected to the celebrity.”

There it has become a venue where fans and supporters can express both grief and respect. The question becomes whether it is for the fans to get through this difficult time, or whether it is a shallow or vapid way for those followers to become part of the story.

“Is it shallow,” pondered Schreiner. “To bystanders it might, but how many of an earlier generation remember, ‘where were you when President Kennedy was shot?’ We didn’t have social media but instead people were glued to their TVs for days. The New York Times reported that more than a million letters were written to Jacqueline Kennedy after her husband’s assassination. People felt a part of this tragedy and sending letters was how people comforted themselves then, and perhaps social media is how they deal with their grief today.”

Risk Of Offense

The other problem with using social media as a tool for condolences is that it could come off as crass or even create misunderstandings with an inappropriate hastag.

Among the most infamous was in 2013 following the death of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, which resulted in the #NowThatcherisDead, which was read by some as “Now That Cher is Dead!” This eventually morphed into a joke, which itself went viral.

It was hardly a good way to honor the Iron Lady.

“Social media is public so notifying of a death is appropriate for a large audience,” said technology industry analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group. “For personal notes in either direction it isn’t a good venue as you could offend, or trigger a response tied to the emotions of the moment which could be personally damaging or cause unintended pain. This goes triple if you didn’t like the person.”

Then there is even the dangers that sharing condolences via social media can have on those who aren’t in the spotlight.

“There are risks with social media just like obituaries in that the post could trigger a hostile actor to take advantage of the grieving aging family members or there have been incidents where thieves attacked homes while family was at the funeral services,” added Enderle. “Personal details, particularly dates of events, should be handled using a more personalized and more restrictive service like email.”

Most importantly, social media isn’t the place to bring up past controversy at times such as this, even if the person was a celebrity.

“Responses should be in line with ‘sorry for your loss’ and not ‘I hope the SOB burns in hell,'” suggested Enderle. “Generally, particularly for things like this, if you can’t say something nice and brief you should likely not respond at all in social media.”

As seen in Forbes. 

Influencers are those individuals who have essentially established credibility in a specific area or industry. GETTY

Chances are even if you don’t “follow” a social media influencer or even totally understand what they do you’re likely to understand the concept. Influencers are those individuals who have essentially established credibility in a specific area or industry. To be successful they need to have access to an audience, preferably a large audience – hence their “influence.”

Apparently a lot of people not only appreciate what an influencer does, but a majority of social media consumers actually want to become influencers!

According to a recent survey conducted by IZEA Worldwide, an online marketplace that connects brands and publishers with influential content creators, many social media consumers actually see the benefits of influencers with 56% of respondents saying they made a purchase based on a sponsored/paid social media post from an influencer.

Moreover, 63% said they find the content created by such influencers to actually be more compelling than scripted advertising. That could explain why 67% of social media consumers even said they’d like to be a paid social media influencer for their favorite product or brand – and 30% said they consider themselves to be an influencer.

The Next Big Influencer

We’ve seen many famous people – even those who are in essence “famous for being famous” become influencers, but is celebrity a requirement?

“With time and commitment, and consistent effort, it is possible for an average person to become a successful influencer,” said Sinead Norenius-Raniere, vice president, influencer marketing & paid social at Valassis.

“Most start blogging or sharing on YouTube as a passion project or side hustle,” said Norenius-Raniere. “Success does not happen overnight. You must build enough content and this process can sometimes take years in order for your platforms to support you financially. But it is totally possible for it to lead to a full-time career.”

So why isn’t everyone doing it – or could they?

“In thinking about it, the greater context is that the world of social media influencers is growing by leaps and bounds,” explained Susan Schreiner, technology industry analyst at C4Trends. “There is a diverse range of segments within the social media influencer ecosystem.”

One group that C4 Trends perceives as providing an unclear career path are influencers in the world of gossip that goes well beyond the tabloids and traditional celebrities.

“These gossip influencers use Instagram accounts, Snap channels, TikTok pages,” added Schreiner. “Profitable media companies have been built around which YouTuber is dating which Twitch streamer, who’s breaking up with whom, and who’s possibly cheating. While this economy is growing, even when the people they’re obsessing over are known only to a small segment of the general population – this might be more of a career with questionable sustainability.”

Alternatively, there’s also a segment of professionals who have risen to the level of a social media influencer as a byproduct of their expertise in a given subject.

“They are corporate executives, thought-leaders, scientists, academics, corporate executives, and others,” noted Schreiner. “The Internet and platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn, provide these influencers with a social media presence and a stage to communicate their expertise to a wider audience than if they just wrote a book, for instance. For these influencers this social media presence may result in becoming a mini-celebrity and the rewards of receiving increased professional recognition along with additional associated professional benefits.”

Huge Audience Not Required

In many cases it isn’t important for a potential influencer to even have a huge following at the start, suggested Norenius-Raniere, who has been in influencer marketing since 2008 – before the world really took the concept seriously.

“A huge following is not critical – most of the influencers we use at Valassis for campaigns have between 10,000 to 100,000 followers,” she noted.”We look for influencers who haven’t used bots to grow their followings, who have a distinct voice, and produce high-quality. We understand that building a following today is way more difficult than it was even five years ago.”

Influencers aren’t likely to be a “flash in the pan” either, but their role in the future of marketing will continue to evolve and develop.

“Millennials have developed an even deeper trust for influencers with 48% noting heightened trust,” said Norenius-Raniere. “Consumers like to hear from a third party, especially when it is someone they have come to ‘know’ after following them on their respective social channels and are open to their point of view or recommendation. Influencer marketing, when done right and with the proper strategy in place, will continue to prove to be a powerful tool in your marketing mix. But it needs to be part of a multichannel marketing mix, not your only marketing tool.”

Driving Brand Awareness

Given the facts laid out above, it does seem that social media influencer could be a valid career – but perhaps not an easy one, and certainly not for everyone.

It isn’t about just loving a product, but by understand the concepts and tenets of marketing.

“The segment that actually provides a career path are social influencers who have become powerful allies in the marketing world,” said Schreiner. “There’s been an explosion of interest in influencers among advertisers, marketers, and brands. The world of micro- and nano-brand influencers is fairly new, and it’s only really been in the last two years or so that the field of influencer marketing has gained serious traction.”

More importantly some influencers could actually find their way into a larger career.

“If someone is looking for a career in marketing, knowing how to become a social media influencer is certainly a profession for this decade, and the future of work,” Schreiner added. “Increasingly, influencers are driving brand awareness, brand affinity and growth as reflected in metrics such as social and web traffic, content and sales. If you look at the state of social media and how it continues to change the way we interact and communicate with one another, I only see influencer marketing growing.”

As seen in Forbes. 

The professional league behind that game, the NBA 2K League, will return for its second season next spring with four new NBA teams attached to the Lakers, Timberwolves, Nets and Hawks. With 21 teams total, the league is aiming to have all 30 NBA franchises on board within a few years. Every NBA 2K League game next season will be streamed on Twitch as part of a new multi-year partnership. NBA 2K is likely a model for other North American professional sports leagues. NBA, NFL and MLB players and own­ers are also getting involved in esports. Shaquille O’Neal and Alex Rodriguez invested in NRG Esports. Franchise own­ers such as Fred Wilpon, Robert Kraft and Stan Kroenke invested in the popular Ove1watch League; and Magic Johnson, Ted Leonosis and Peter Guber are inves­tors in the early esports organization, Team Liquid.

Brand sponsorships that tap into esports are ramping up, with more than 600 sponsorship agreements made between 2016-2017. Esports are alluring for brands that want to tap into an engaged and young audience. While fans are mostly millen­nial males, it is growing more diverse each year, according to Nielsen. Gaming and technology brand spon­sors tell us more about the “tech” allure, since they include companies like: Acer, Asus, Best Buy, CenturyLink, Corsair, Dell, DirecTV, Dolby, IGN, Intel, Logitech, NVIDIA, Razer, Samsung, Seagate and Xfinity. Brand sponsors for consumer-packaged goods include Coke and Pepsi, Snickers, Nestle, General Foods, Red Bull, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Adidas and Gillette – with companies like Visa, FedEx, Geico and Audi falling into the aspirational brand sponsorship category.

In-Game Experiences

Augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) are two of the hottest elements in sports. Computer­generated worlds and 3D and volumet­ric video, together with data and graphic overlays, are providing sports fans with new immersive experiences. For example, Fan AI is an audience monetization platform that uses Al and machine learning to optimize fan and brand engagement in esports. Tel Aviv-based software design com­pany Vivala Technologies announced the launch of Hoopit, a mobile gan1e in which users can make real-time predictions for NBA and NCAA games. Users can down­load the free app and make predictions such as selecting the team that scores nell.’t or choosing the player next to score. Hoopit’s algorithms then determine the probability of each eligible prediction and reward users witll game coins and in-app rewards. Predicting the outcome of plays as they happen was the next natural progres­sion in the daily fantasy sports ecosystem. Although Hoopit only offers in-game tokens as prizes, offering real money to players who make successful predictions could evolve as the legaliza­tion of sports betting spreads across the U.S. Hoopit is available on the Google Play and Apple App Store. Sports tech innovation at CES has evolved from gaming to tech that enhances atllletic pe1formance and immersive ell.’Periences to smart sports arenas. Esports has captivated tlle imagi­nation and wallets of investors, traditional sports rights holders, major leagues, teams, brands, entertainment and media – and consumers on a global basis.

By 2020 there will be 30 billion connected devices and a smart home will generate 50 GB of data every day, according to Microsoft. What trends will influence the smart home’s acceptance, growth and sustainability? Whole platforms and ecosys­tems have yet to resonate with consumers causing frustration to grow around this fragmented technology not yet meeting its value proposition. Singular solu­tions are further complicating the journey to the smart home.

Three Trends for the Ultimate Smart Home

1. Simplification.

For many consumer tech creators, there’s a simple philoso­phy behind improving the consumer experience: less buttons. While the industry is further along in making new user interface (UI) technologies ubiqui­tous, the need to reduce complex interoperability is still an obstacle. To simplify UI, artificial intelligence (AI) and voice assistants are essential. While they are not yet commonplace, about 220 million voice-controlled smart home devices are forecast by 2021. Voice assistants allow for a more engaged consumer but challenges remain. For instance, a voice assistant doesn’t work with smart home devices out-of-the-box, but must be set up and linked to new products and apps. As a result, the initial setup remains cumbersome. However, the end-result removes the habitual need to use a smartphone to control the home. Each person can dim lights, view a live stream, play music or turn on an appli­ance – without needing to find the one smartphone in the house that has the passcode and apps. Tablet-styled touch panels, or in­home displays (IHD), feature another essential user interface. While IHDs allow anyone in the home, friends or family, to interact with the smart home – they need to become more user­friendly and affordable. The combination of voice and display will enable a more immersive experience, where everyone in a home can engage with the ecosystem. Prolonged voice and touch engagement will enable devices to collect data, learn routines/behaviors, detect patterns and ultimately create an autonomous experience that antici­pates your needs.

2. Comfort and security.

Increased convenience and improved quality of life is driving sales of smart home products. It’s about activating the thermostat and pre-heating the oven on your drive home in the evening, or hav­ing a smart refrigerator that orders the food items you need restocked. Similarly, peace of mind is another fundamental reason why consumers buy smart home devices. For example, security cameras enable you to see what’s happen­ing when you’re not home or monitor your baby from afar. And smart doorbells can see who’s at the door if you’re away.

3. Energy management.

Smart homes require intelligent energy management. Beyond controlling the heat inside the house to ensure it’s optimal, and that electric vehicle charging points are opera­tional, expect to see services like weather forecasting combining with other utility services rather than remaining a separate app. New services will emerge, due to the increasing availability of smart meters and solar panels. Homes will generate their own energy supply and also be able to sell the excess back to the national grid. These developments will bring the smart home closer to expectations.

Chatbots are ushering in a new era of man-machine interaction that goes far beyond information retrieval applications that rely on simple question-answer sys­tem constructs. As machines learn how to speak and perform human functions, voice and Al will enable e-commerce and retailers to deliver differentiated con­sumer experiences that will transform, disrupt and enhance shopping through the most intuitive way of interacting with devices: voice communications. Voice control products are changing customer behavior. Between Amazon Alexa and Google Home, nearly 30 mil­lion voice devices have been sold in the U.S. Today, 26 percent of U.S. smart speaker owners have made a purchase by voice. One in four people have placed an order or executed a monetary transaction on a screenless device, according to Voicebot.ai’s Sma1t Speaker Consumer Adoption Report.

Voice: Making Shopping Easier

As traditional retail faces turbulent times, e-commerce is being reimag­ined. In 2017, roughly one percent of retailers and brands said they were investing in voice experiences. In early 2018, that percentage rose to 50 per­cent, with many companies under­standing that voice is playing a pivotal role in the consumer experience when it comes to searching for and buying items on a mobile device. Many websites and mobile apps are improving the shopping experience with natural language to bring new efficiencies and engagement. For example, retail giant Alibaba is using “very simple natural language process­ing” to answer a huge volume of customer queries for their popular November 11 Single’s Day sale. “There are so many customers, if you don’t use any machines to help you to reply to their questions, you will be in trou­ble,” said Assistant Professor Lu Wei from the Information Systems Technology and Design Pillar at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. As software, Al and machine learning advance, people will be able to search, transact and create wish lists, with voice creating a personalized expe­rience. Customers will simply browse and purchase via voice rather than typ­ing, regardless of device. By 2020, more than 400 million devices will connect with voice-based platforms, including consumer tech products like watches, phones and appliances as well as Alexa and other smart speakers, according to Cowen Research.

Google vs. Amazon

The competition between Amazon and Google for voice shopping is heating­up. In March 2018 Google introduced its Google’s Shopping Actions pro­gram, to enable retailers to compete against Amazon while their customers are shopping on a mobile device. Last August, Google partnered with Walmart to enable voice shopping from Walmart only through Google Home devices. Amazon followed with a partnership enabling Amazon Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana to com­municate with each other. Google’s Shopping Actions program allows retailers to list their products on Google Search, the Google Express shopping service and the Google Assistant for mobile phones and enabled devices like Google Home. It gives customers an easy, voice-driven shopping experience across Google. A shareable list, universal shopping cart and instant checkout with saved pay­ment credentials works across Google and the Google Assistant – allowing a store’s customers to seamlessly turn browsing into buying. Target, Walmart, Ulta Beauty, Costco and Home Depot have signed up.

Technology on the Move

With the rise of Al, machine learning and deep neural networks, speech technology is becoming more sophisti­cated. Found in everything from smartphones and smart speakers to appliances and automobiles, voice tech will provide immense business value. Voice is expected to be how consumers soon will interact with retailers and brands alike to provide a frictionless experience, regardless of platform
or channel.

Music Stories “gives musicians more exposure and won’t be a problem because the number of musicians who are successful at selling on Facebook constitutes a very small group in a very large universe,” said Susan Schreiner, an analyst at C4 Trends.

“This is going to be a win-win,” she told TechNewsWorld.

Now Facebook Users Can Tell Their Music Stories

By Richard Adhikari Nov 6, 2015 3:45 PM PT

Facebook on Thursday announced Music Stories, a feature in its iPhone app that lets users post links to music they like with comments.

Clicking the link will launch a 30-second preview of the music, which is streamed from either Apple Music or Spotify. Listeners then can purchase the music from the service or save it to their account there.

Facebook plans to add other streaming services to the feature. There was no word on whether it will offer Music Stories in its Android or Windows Phone apps.

More Than Just a Link

Subscribers who participate in Music Stories can do more than just paste a link; they can add commentary and remarks as well.

Music Stories is part of Facebook’s News Feed, and it could extend the reach of the artists whose work is posted.

Spotify users have to sign into their account on the service and grant Facebook permissions the first time they use the Music Stories feature, said Spotify spokesperson Marni Greenberg.

“Spotify is not putting up and/or serving any content on Facebook,” she told TechNewsWorld. “Users are explicitly sharing content.”

Participating in Facebook Music Stories “provides Spotify listeners with a more engaging and simple way to listen to, discover and share music they love,” Greenberg said.

Music Stories is an extension of the music sharing capabilities for Spotify and Rdio that Facebook has had for some time.

Apple and Spotify

Spotify and the iTunes Store not only serve up music, but also have their own sharing capabilities.

Apple Music, which was unveiled in June, includes Connect, which lets artists share lyrics, backstage photos and videos with fans and release their latest songs directly to fans.

Fans can comment or like anything artists have posted and share it through Messages, Facebook, Twitter or email. Artists can respond directly to fans’ comments.

Spotify earlier this year introduced Touch Preview, which lets subscribers preview playlists, songs, albums or artists before playing a tune.

“Music Stories and Touch Preview are entirely different and unrelated,” Spotify’s Greenberg pointed out.

Wider Exposure

Many musicians sell their music directly through Facebook, or through services such as CD Baby, which has its own Facebook page.

Music Stories “gives musicians more exposure and won’t be a problem because the number of musicians who are successful at selling on Facebook constitutes a very small group in a very large universe,” said Susan Schreiner, an analyst at C4 Trends.

“This is going to be a win-win,” she told TechNewsWorld.

The Impact of Music Stories

Music “is one of the top five applications for Facebook,” remarked Russ Crupnick, managing partner at MusicWatch. “You have a significant number of Facebook followers engaged with music artists, following them and talking about them.”

Apple and Spotify can only benefit from Music Stories, he told TechNewsWorld, because “when you have the kind of audiences that Facebook does, the ability to create some linkage between people and Apple Music, which is really just getting started, and Spotify, which has a few years under its belt but can still grow its audience, is very valuable.”

Facebook had about 1.5 billion monthly active users in the second quarter, according to Statista.

The tie-in with Facebook, however, will “probably not” cause a surge in subscriptions to those streaming services or downloads from them, Crupnick observed. Instead, it’s “one of those small, incremental moves that makes sense for the artist, makes sense for Facebook and makes sense for the streaming companies.”

It has a repository of 20,000 Smart Replies that will continue to grow with time, Google spokesperson Emma Ogiemwanye told TechNewsWorld.

“It’s difficult to do anything at all communications-related when you’re traveling,” remarked Susan Schreiner, a senior editor/analyst at C4 Trends. “If you can find a quiet corner to do this, it certainly is a way to get a handle on the inbox.”

Smart Reply will be available in English in Google Play and Apple’s App Store.

How Smart Reply Works

The Smart Reply system is based on a pair of recurrent neural networks, one of which is used to encode incoming email and the other to predict possible responses.

The encoding network examines incoming emails word by word and produces a list of numbers, known as a vector, that captures the gist of what’s being said.

This vector is independent of syntax. For example, it will come up with similar vectors for the questions “Are you free tomorrow?” and “Does tomorrow work for you?”

The second network takes this thought vector — which can be thought of as a meme — and creates a grammatically correct reply one word at a time.

Gmail is using long short-term memory network architecture for the neural networks because it will work even when there are long delays, and it can handle signals with a mix of low- and high-frequency components.

The LSTM architecture homes in on the part of an incoming email that will be most useful in predicting a response.

Google engineers developed a machine learning system for mapping natural language responses to semantic intents. Knowing how semantically similar two responses are lets the system suggest responses that vary in both wording and underlying meaning.

There will be some mistakes at first as the system may fail to interpret memes correctly all the time, but “people will be forgiving because I think they do understand that, for anything, there’s a learning curve,” C4 Trends‘ Schreiner told TechNewsWorld.

Gimme a Good Digital Assistant!

“I’m quite bullish on the notion of digital assistants, but so far, no one has actually studied how professionals work,” commented Mike Jude, a program manager at Frost & Sullivan. “If they did, they’d focus as much on telephone answering as they do on emails.”

The ideal assistant “would be able to answer your phone, take a message, and then email the message to you,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Additionally, it would be able to filter your emails into buckets like urgent, routine and garbage” and would be able to take dictation.

Digital assistants “wouldn’t try to answer your emails because emails are evidence, and most people are becoming fairly thoughtful as to what they put into them,” Jude said.

“Most people who get lots of email approach it like this: They consider the source, consider the topic or title, and respond if necessary,” he pointed out. “Actually opening an email to see what kind of response the machine would suggest adds time,” and selecting a response from those offered “forces you to play an unending game of 20 questions.”

Guarding Users’ Privacy

The privacy of Smart Reply users is protected because no humans read incoming emails, Google said. The researchers had to get machine learning to work on a data set they could not read.

“Google is in the data-collection business,” C4 Trends’ Schreiner said. Data gleaned by the Smart Reply system on incoming emails, even if it’s just to create more fine-tuned responses in the future that will be stored in Google’s servers, “is just more information for their ad analytics.”

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“Sound is the other half of it, as in what people on the street hear,” she told TechNewsWorld.

“As we shift to electric vehicles, the cars aren’t as loud, so perhaps the sensors need to be tied to an alarm that could sound when it senses something — like a child running in the street,” Schreiner explained. “These are the pieces that need to come together for people to accept that the car is safer.”

“The older generation will likely savor the human element that comes with driving, even if many older drivers may not be the safest drivers. As a result, we may go through a transition period as people begin to accept what the car can do,” Schreiner noted.

Google Fine-Tunes Self-Driving Cars’ Kid Perception

Google last week announced that it has developed technology for its self-driving vehicles that would be able to detect people in costumes — presumably children dressed for Halloween.

“The question is, are the price point and the looks designed to penetrate the marketplace Apple’s a player in?” mused Susan Schreiner, an analyst at C4 Trends.

“Apple’s in the premium-priced products market. This is the first time Microsoft is taking that kind of approach, and I think it’s either doing this to go into the premium market or to show what can be done,” she told TechNewsWorld, “and is looking to have its OEMs come up with an equally good lower-priced product.”

Surface Book Evokes Oohs, Ahhs and Sticker Shock

By Richard Adhikari Oct 21, 2015 3:47 PM PT

Many reviewers have responded to the preproduction version of Microsoft’s Surface Book the way an average Joe would view a top-of-the-line luxury car: The features are great, but the price is daunting.

“Overall, we recommend it, especially to people who value performance, design and battery life above all else, and are willing to pay dearly for it,” remarked Dana Wollman in her Engadget review.

The Surface Book is “astonishingly expensive,” said Ars Technica’s Peter Bright.

“There’s no way around it: The Surface Book is expensive,” Gordon Mah Ung wrote for PC World.

The Surface Book starts at US$1,500. Whether that’s value for your money depends on what you are looking for.

“The question is, are the price point and the looks designed to penetrate the marketplace Apple’s a player in?” mused Susan Schreiner, an analyst at C4 Trends.

“Apple’s in the premium-priced products market. This is the first time Microsoft is taking that kind of approach, and I think it’s either doing this to go into the premium market or to show what can be done,” she told TechNewsWorld, “and is looking to have its OEMs come up with an equally good lower-priced product.”

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On the Surface

Based on our review sample, these are the Surface Book’s strong points: design and construction, screen, pen input, keyboard, battery life and performance speed.

Weaknesses: When freed from the docking base, its battery life is too short. Also, the hinge doesn’t work when the Book runs out of juice.

The Surface Book packs in good performance, Brett Howse noted on AnandTech.

The Skylake 15 W processors “are great for day-to-day tasks, and the GPU only puts it further ahead of most Ultrabooks,” he wrote. “Having a full 15 W core processor in a 7.7 mm chassis is fairly impressive, especially since you almost never hear the fans kick in.”

Results in gaming-focused tests, such as 3DMark’s Sky Driver benchmark, indicate the Surface Book wasn’t built for gamers, Engadget’s Wollman remarked. Titles ran at an average of around 30 frames per second, which is “playable, but it was slow enough that I decided against running additional benchmarks that simulated an even more graphically intensive game.” Further, games were one of the few things to “really make the fans start whining.”

The GPU in the Surface Book “does not put it in contention with an 8-pound, 17-inch gaming laptop or even a mid-range, 5-pound laptop,” PC World’s Ung said, but “Counter-Strike: Global Operations, DotA, League of Legends and StarCraft II are not a problem.” The Surface Book “will give you twice the performance of integrated graphics in those games and more.”

Move Over, Cook!

The Surface Book has won some favorable comparisons to the MacBook Pro.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display starts at $1,300 and weighs 3.4 pounds. Neither it nor the 15-inch version has a touchscreen.

“This is exactly what Microsoft needs to provide leaderships on Windows tablets as a counterweight to Apple,” said Eric Smith, a senior analyst at Strategy Analytics.

“The end goal must be to cannibalize as much laptop demand with 2-in-1 tablets as possible before the demand shifts to Apple, or to Android or Chrome devices,” he told TechNewsWorld.

“This is a long-haul game for Microsoft to gain market share,” Smith observed.

“If Microsoft can actually take on and beat Apple’s MacBook products, it will have done something very few vendors have attempted and even fewer have achieved,” said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

The Surface Book is Microsoft’s bid to fully explore and drive the capabilities of the Windows OS, he told TechNewsWorld. “If it succeeds, it could do Microsoft’s public image a lot of good.”