Cloud resurrects the video star

Cloud traffic is set to quadruple in Africa and the Middle East over the next four years. Content marketers will need to step up.

The fifth annual Cisco Global Cloud Index (2014-2019) predicts that global cloud traffic is set to quadruple by the end of 2019. The report highlights that cloud is becoming mainstream, and the Middle East and African region is expected to see 41% growth by 2019.

One of the factors driving this growth is the rise of mobile devices and the associated cloud services among individual consumers. Whether you’re familiar with the term or not: you’re already using the cloud for all sorts of daily actions like checking your Gmail or listening to Apple Music. At its simplest, cloud just means using the internet to access your data or services rather than your computer’s hard drive.

‘South African enterprise and government organisations are moving from test cloud environments to trusting clouds with their mission-critical workloads. At the same time, consumers continue to expect on-demand, anytime access to their content and services nearly everywhere. This creates a tremendous opportunity for cloud operators, which will play an increasingly relevant role in the communications industry ecosystem,’ said Vernon Thaver, CTO of Cisco South Africa.

Consumers continue to expect on-demand, anytime access to their content and services nearly everywhere. This creates a tremendous opportunity for cloud operators, which will play an increasingly relevant role in the communications industry ecosystem.

The local launch of streaming video on demand services such as Naspers’ ShowMax and international Netflix is just the beginning. As cloud, and the quality and reliability of internet connectivity grows, content publishers are going to have to adapt.

Consumers are hungry for content – especially video. Cisco’s 2015 Visual Networking Index predicts that by 2019 more than 51% of the world’s population will be online; around 3.9 billion people. And watching videos will account for 80% of all internet traffic by 2019.

In South Africa, expect a compound annual growth rate of 53% in video traffic with video comprising 78% of all traffic in 2019.

2019: Key stats from the Cisco Global Cloud Index

  • 144 trillion hours of streaming music – equivalent to about 26 months of continuous music streaming for the world’s population* in 2019
  • 26 trillion hours of business web conferencing with a webcam – equivalent to about 21 hours of daily web conferencing for the world’s workforce in 2019
  • 8 trillion of high-definition (HD) movies viewed online – equivalent to about 2.4 hours of daily streamed HD movies for the world’s population in 2019
  • 2 trillion hours of ultra-high definition (UHD) video streaming – equivalent to about 25 minutes of daily streamed UHD video for the world’s population in 2019

* The world’s projected population by 2019 will be 7.6 billion people (source: United Nations)

Originally published on New Media Storyboard.

The Coach.me app reviewed

Here’s my latest app review, republished from Vodacom now!. I have found Coach.me very helpful in staying on track with my goals over the last few months.

Firstly a disclaimer: an app can’t fix all your problems. No matter how wonderfully intuitive and amazing an app is, unfortunately it can’t actively step into your life and slap the last slice of pizza out of your hand before you stuff your face.

Ultimately, motivation and commitment comes from within and it’s a long, hard struggle to build positive new habits like exercising more regularly, eating better and cutting down on your particular poison, be it sugar, caffeine, smoking or alcohol.

But the Coach.me app – and the strong community and coaching element it has built in– could give you that extra little nudge to help you stay on track.

Community is key

Formerly called Lift, I first downloaded the app about a year or so ago. It looked great. You set up any goal that you want to achieve, like losing weight, exercising more, meditating or flossing your teeth, and check in every day that you did that activity. The app keeps track of how many times you check in and serves as a nice reminder of your progress.

It worked well for me but, inevitably, I stopped checking in, deleted the notifications that popped up on my phone and soon fell back into most of my unhealthy habits. This year I decided it was time for a change and thought I’d give Lift another chance. Now called Coach.me, the app has a new focus on community and coaching.

In an interview with Wired, tech founder Tony Stubblemine, describes how the social aspects of the app, like giving other users ‘props’ for checking into a goal, started becoming more and more popular and led to a total re-launch that focused on the power of community rather than the technology alone. ‘You just don’t give people enough credit for how helpful they can be and how helpful they want to be,’ said Stubblemine.

And that’s exactly what’s been working for me.

Connecting with users around the world

Whatever habits you’re trying to build or break, there are people across the globe facing exactly the same challenges. They have fantastic advice based on their personal experiences to share. Since reconnecting with the app, I have made huge strides in my own goals. I am convinced that it’s the human connection that Coach.me facilitates, in addition to the nifty tracking aspect of the app, that’s making the difference.

A completely new component of the Coach.me app is that you can hire a personal coach for US$14.99 a week. While I haven’t yet tried the one-to-one coaching function – I’ve found the community enough motivation – the advice from many of my community interactions is that hiring a coach has given them the extra motivation to get over difficult moments.

It’s just the push you need to throw that slice of pizza to the ground and grab a carrot.

Get Coach.me

Go to the Coach.me website

Get the app for Android

Get the app for Apple