Teens: Social Media, Not Email

Some 93 percent of teens use the Internet, and more of them than ever are treating it as a venue for social interaction. Those of you around children and teens know that much of their social life is programmed and scheduled. To a greater extent than used to be the case, their lives are restricted for safety reasons. Social networking is a substitute for "hanging out" in the physical world with friends.

Despite the important of email for adults as a major mode of personal and professional communication, it is not a particularly important part of the teen communications pattern.

Only 14 percent of all teens report sending emails to their friends every day, making it the least popular form of daily social communication on the list researchers at the Pew Internet and American Life Project found.

Even among highly-connected teens who have access to multiple communication modes, just 22 percent say they send email to their friends daily.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has found that 64 percent of online teens ages 12-17 have participated in one or more among a wide range of content-creating activities on the internet, up from 57 percent of online teens in a similar survey at the end of 2004.

About 39 percent of online teens share their own artistic creations online, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos, up from 33 percent in 2004.

About 33 percent create or work on Web pages or blogs for others, including those for groups they belong to, friends, or school assignments, basically unchanged from 2004 at 32 percent.

Some 28 percent have created their own online journal or blog, up from 19 percent in 2004. About 27 percent maintain their own personal Web page, up from 22 percent in 2004.

About 26 percent remix content they find online into their own creations, up from 19 percent in 2004.

The percentage of those ages 12-17 who said “yes” to at least one of those five content-creation activities is 64 percent of online teens, or 59 percent of all teens.

It isn't rocket science to suggest that social networking is a fundamental trend, not a fad, as some seem to think.

Mobiles as Lifestyle

It's been a pretty significant year for the U.S. mobile industry and its users. First, a computer and consumer electronics company essentially dictated a new business model and took device usability to a different level.

Second, a shift to mobiles as "lifestyle" devices has accelerated. The expressiveness of design now is as important, if not more important, than device functions and features.

Third, a shift to "open networks" began, and even-faster innovation will be the result.

The lifestyle focus, in turn, will help drive mobile ad spending. That's partly because the mobile Internet is emerging, and partly because video, audio, games and entertainment are a bigger part of the "lifestyle" than the "work" device.

That, in turn, means many more ad-supported features, as is the case for the broader Internet and Web.

First Steps at Sprint

New CEO Dan Hesse says his first priority will be to tackle the customer-service problems and customer defections that have plagued the company in the past year.

An internal Sprint document recently disclosed described the company's "inferior results" in customer service. It pointed out that Sprint resolved just 53 percent of problems on the first call, compared with 71 percent for T-Mobile USA, despite Sprint having nearly three times as many customer service reps.

One would expect no less. Hesse is viewed as a highly-competent manager, and this is the sort of problem a good manager can fix. But later, recall that Hesse was the pioneer of AT&T's "Digital One Rate" plan, which introduced flat-rate pricing to U.S. wireless consumers in the late 1990s. That one move revolutionized mobile pricing in the U.S. market.

Once he gets the churn and customer service problems under control, we'd be watching for more innovation from Sprint than one typically sees.

Media, Voice, Mobile, Broadband Tipping Points

In a historic first, online media companies collectively will sell more ads in local markets this year than such individual hometown media as newspapers, broadcasters and yellow pages, says Borrell Associates. That's a tipping point, a stage of development when critical mass for some new phenomenon is reached.

Five years ago business phone systems hit a tipping point: most new systems were IP-capable. A couple years ago another tipping point was reached and new phone systems mostly are IP-only. These days most new phone sales are for IP systems.

Likewise, Internet usage and access hit similar tipping points earlier this decade. Most people now use the Internet, and that wasn't true 10 years ago. Also, there was a tipping poin when broadband caught and then surpassed dial-up access as the dominant access medium.

Then there was some tipping point reached where access speeds accelerated beyond the "affordable mass access in the hundreds of kilobits per second range" to "affordable mass access in the megabits per second range."

You can see tipping points for text messaging and mobile phone use as well, even though it is only within the last decade that most people started carrying mobile phones and only within the last five years that most younger users began texting heavily, dragging older users along with them.

One watches for tipping points for all sorts of practical reasons, including evidence that it now is time to restructure the way marketing, sales, production, business models, distribution, industrial design, menus and all sorts of very practical things get done.

And the point is that all media are approaching tipping points of their own, and for reasons largely analogous to how communications is changing because of Moore's Law, IP, peer-to-peer, cheap storage, optical fiber, wireless and Web services.

In the newspaper local advertising area, a new tipping point appears to have been reached.

Online-only media companies will have claimed 43.7 percent of the $8.5 billion spent in 2007 on local advertising, usurping the long-time lead of newspapers. While newspapers three years ago controlled 44.1 percent of the local market, they will capture only 33.4 percent of sales this year.

The growth of the online media companies “came mainly at the expense of newspapers and yellow pages publishers,” who have lost a combined 19.6 points of local advertising share in the last three years, says Borrell.

Having spent some time working at newspapers, as well as at publishing companies with multiple products, a concrete way to view tipping points is the impact on structuring of sales forces.

Typically, newspapers and other local media try to build their online businesses by selling new media to their legacy customers. Sometimes they try to use a single sales force to sell online and legacy products. That doesn't work, long term.

In fact, it doesn't quite work even short term, as sales forces direct their behavior to where they can make the most money, and that never is in the emerging businesses.

So one winds up with a strategy akin to launching a Boeing 777 into the air by rolling forward slowly on a long runway. No matter what you do, you crash at the end, because there never is enough runway if you don't get your airspeed up pretty quickly.

Companies that rely on their legacy sales forces to sell the new products--even though it seems logical--will crash their planes at the end of the runway. The only way to succeed is to cut the cord. Build separate sales teams with separate incentive structures; not "converged" sales teams.

One does not "incrementally" jump a very wide ditch. One leaps. One makes it or not. But it can't be done incrementally and slowly.

IBM, Cisco Eat Own Dog Food

Cisco, touting the power of telepresence, really is pushing for use of telepresence inside its own organization. Likewise, as IBM touts the value of Web-based tools for enteprises, it is rolling out Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, mashups and virtual reality technologies to help its employees be more productive.

IBM's Metaverse virtual reality software is one of these areas. Apparently some 2,200 IBM staffers are testing ways to collaborate with colleagues in the Metaverse.

Ackerbauer said IBM staffers leverage IBM's internal virtual conferencing application through Web services to have online meetings in 3D.

BlackBerry with Touch Screen?

Ray Sharma, GMP Securities analyst, says the next generation of BlackBerry devices will target two markets: the touchscreen and feature phone segment.

"We believe that the screen will possibly include a tactile response mechanism akin to the Nintendo Wii controller," says Sharma. "We also believe that the device will have differing hard key positions as well as programmable keys."

"We believe that the new touchscreen BlackBerry will be positioned at the high end of devices with a C$450-C$500 carrier per unit price."

"The device will feature a half VGA (roughly equivalent to an iPhone) that will be written on a new generation operating system," Sharma says.

How do People Use Their Smart Phones?

The Nokia Smartphone 360 survey shows that mobile users spend an average of 48 minutes per day on their smart phones, says iLocus. About 12 percent of the time is spent on making voice calls while messaging consumes 37 percent of user time; multimedia 16 percent; PIM 14 percnet; Games four percent; Browsing eight percent.

Browsing accounts for 72 percent of data traffic while entertainment accounted for four percent of the traffic in 2006. That pattern changed in 2007, though, with entertainment grabbing a sharply greater share of time spent with the mobile device.

In 2007, browsing represented 44 percent of time spent; entertainment 26 percent. Messaging increased from 11 percent of the data traffic to 21 percent year over year.

Nokia assumes that messaging traffic increased because users were sending photos using multimedia messaging service, while entertainment traffic increased due to increased podcasting.

Usage also peaks at different times of day. Music usage peaks at around 8 am and then again at 6 pm, suggesting music gets used when users are commuting. Voice usage peaks around 4 pm to 5 pm. Browsing peaks at around 10 pm.

Obviously mobiles are being used at home in the evening for browsing, and the question is why the home PC is not used instead.

Nokia assumes that the mobile phone is using Wi-Fi to download Internet content. According to Nokia, podcasting also is a later-in-the-evening activity.

About 47 percent of outbound calls are made on the move. About 29 percent of outbound calls are made from home. About 24 percent of outbound calls are made from the office.

About 35 percent of packet data is consumed when users are on the move. About 44 percent is used at home and 21 percent is used at the office.

Data traffic use increased from 6 mbytes a month in 2006 to 14 mbytes a month in 2007.

Wi-Fi or wireless LAN connections accounted for 31 percent of data use while mobile access accounted for the rest of use. WiFi sessions were longer with an average session duration of 4.5 minutes.

About 31 percent of the respondents used instant messaging. Some 38 percent of respondents listen to music at least once a week. Some 47 percent of the panellists say that mobile is now their primary music player.

About 59 percent are regular gamers. "Snake" and "Card Deck" are the most popular games. About 81 percent of users regularly use browsers, and the typical user visits two sites a week.

Mobiles Displacing Landlines in Africa

Mobility increasingly is the way human beings talk, though in many cases the use of Subscriber Information Management (SIM) cards might outpace the propagation of devices.

The substitution of cell phones for landlines is increasing across Morocco, Algeria, Sudan and Tunisia, for example.

In Mauritania, the number of SIM cards per landline was 29 in 2006, compared to 14.7 in 2005, which is the highest rate among the seven countries of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia.

In 2006, Egypt and Libya counted the lowest ratio of SIM cards versus number of
landlines, respectively, at 1.7 and 4.9. In Libya, 2006 marked the year whereby SIM card numbers topped landlines.

Enterprise iPhone, Courtesy of Avaya

Avaya's one-X Mobile client software, expected to be available in Europe in the first quarter of 2008, will enable the iPhone to be integrated into most enterprise IP telecommunications networks.

From the first quarter of 2008, an easy-to-use, downloadable interface will convert mobile devices from Apple, RIM, Palm, Motorola, LG, Nokia, Samsung, Sanyo, Sony Ericsson and others into another endpoint on the corporate network. From the iPhone, users will have iPhone-optimized access to the Avaya one-X Mobile interface, making the iPhone their personal remote control for enterprise communications.

Increased Online, Event, Direct Marketing in 2008

According to BtoB magazine's 2008 Marketing Priorities and Plans survey, 60.1 percent of marketers plan to increase their overall marketing budgets next year predominantly in online, events and direct, despite the softness in the overall economy. Some 29.6 percent plan to keep budgets flat, and 10.3 percent plan budget decreases.

Last year, 62.6 percent of respondents said they planned to increase their marketing budgets in 2007; 29.4 percent said budgets would be flat, and eight percent said they planned to decrease their marketing budgets.

In 2008 the primary marketing goal is customer acquisition, cited by 62.4 percent of
respondents, followed by:

Brand awareness (19.3%)
Customer retention (11.7%)
Other objectives (6.6%)

Of those planning budget increases next year:

27.8% plan a 5% to 9% increase in spending
24.6% plan a 10% to 14% increase
12.7% plan a 20% to 24% increase
10.3% plan an increase of less than 5%

The biggest budget increases will be seen in online marketing, with 79.1 percent of marketers planning to boost their online budgets next year, up from last year, when 75.6 percent of marketers said they planned to increase their online budgets in 2007.

BtoB's survey found that the average percentage of the marketing budget spent next year on online marketing will be 33.8 percent, up from 26.5 percent in 2007.

Among the online areas that will see increases next year are:

Web site development (74.0%)
E-mail (70.1%)
Search engine marketing (64.3%)
Video (39.5%)
Webcasting (39.1%)
Banners (36.4%)
Sponsorships (29.6%)
Social media (26.2%)

Event marketing will see a spending boost in 2008 with 49.5 percent of marketers planning budget increases in this area, as will direct mail with 49 percent of respondents planning to increase their direct budgets in 2008.

LTE: 160 Mbps Bandwidth in Test by Nokia Siemens

Nokia Siemens Networks has completed the world’s first multi-user field trial in an urban environment, reaching speeds in excess of 160 Mbps.

The test of Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, which supports mobile data rates up to 173 Megabits per second, was conducted in a real urban outdoor environment with multiple users using the new 2.6 GHz spectrum.

It confirms that LTE performance requirements can be met using 3GPP standardized technologies and it realized data rates of more than 100 Mega bits per second over distances of several hundred meters, while maintaining excellent throughput at the edge of typical urban mobile radio cells.

700-MHz Bidders Surface

Some 266 bidders for 700 MHz spectrum auction have surfaced so far. Not all the bidders will content for the national C block, though. Many of the bidders are small, independent telephone companies angling for local blocks of spectrum. But a few cable companies also are on the list. Of course, over time those fragmented allocations probably will be rolled up into larger networks, as has always happened in the past.

The bidders include Google (GOOG) Airwaves Inc.; Towerstream; Vulcan Spectrum;
Alltel; AT&T Mobility Spectrum; CenturyTel Broadband Wireless; Chevron; Cincinnati Bell Wireless; Cox Wireless; Iowa Telecommunications Services; MetroPCS 700 MHz; Qualcomm
Cablevision (CSC Spectrum Holdings); Verizon Wireless (Cellco Partnership) and Advance/Newhouse.

Google Apps on WildBlue Home Page

WildBlue Communications will be making Google Apps available to its broadband access service directly from the WildBlue.net home page in the first quarter of 2008. The apps include Gmail webmail services, Google Calendar shared calendaring, Google Talk instant messaging and Google Page Creator web page creation tools.

The new WildBlue.net home page will also feature a mix of news, weather, sports, and entertainment, plus powerful new customizable features from more than 2,000 available Google Gadgets that can be easily added to each customer's individual WildBlue.net home page.

To be sure, any Web user can access any of the Google Apps on their own. But the WildBlue deal should help increase awareness of, and use of, the Web-based apps. Some observers say most Web users aren't aware of Google Apps, so the deal will help popularize the tools.

The deal is reminiscent of the way the old SBC used Yahoo as a way to drive the usability of its Internet access services. Sure, the deal is not exclusive. Users can get access to the functionality some other way. But the packaging should help, in the same way that apps benefit from placement on mobile provider "main decks."

Amazon DevPay: Getting Paid for Cloud Apps

Amazon DevPay is a simple-to-use billing and account management service that makes it easy for developers to get paid for applications they build on Amazon Web Services.

Amazon DevPay allows app providers to quickly sign up customers, automatically meter their usage of services, have Amazon bill users, and collect payments.

Amazon DevPay provides a simple Web interface for pricing applications based on any combination of up-front, recurring and usage-based fees.

To use Amazon DevPay, users develop using Amazon S3 or an Amazon EC2 Machine Image (AMI), register the apps with Amazon DevPay, provide a product description and configure your desired pricing.

The Amazon DevPay purchase pipeline is linked to the app Web site. Activity is
monitored on the Amazon DevPay Activity page.

There are no minimum fees and no setup charges. Activity is billed at three percent of the transaction amounts and $0.30 per bill generated.

Amazon SimpleDB: Boost for Cloud Computing

Amazon now offers SimpleDB, a Web service for running queries on structured data in real time. This service works in close conjunction with Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), collectively providing the ability to store, process and query data sets in the cloud.

Traditionally, this type of functionality has been accomplished with a clustered relational database that requires a sizable upfront investment. In contrast, Amazon SimpleDB is easy to use and provides the core functionality of a database--real-time lookup and simple querying of structured data--without the operational complexity.

Amazon SimpleDB automatically indexes data and provides a simple API for storage and access.

Amazon SimpleDB provides streamlined access to the lookup and query functions that traditionally are achieved using a relational database cluster, while leaving out other complex, often-unused database operations.

Amazon SimpleDB allows easy scaling of applications as well. For the Beta release, a single domain is limited in size to 10 gigabytes and 100 domains. Over time these limits may be raised, Amazon says.

The service runs within Amazon's high-availability data centers and fully indexed user data is stored redundantly across multiple servers and data centers.

Amazon SimpleDB is designed to integrate easily with other web-scale services such as Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3. For example, developers can run their applications in Amazon EC2 and store their data objects in Amazon S3. Amazon SimpleDB can then be used to query the object metadata from within the application in Amazon EC2 and return pointers to the objects stored in Amazon S3.

Developers and users pay only for what they use; there are no minimum fees.

Machine use costs $0.14 per Amazon SimpleDB Machine Hour consumed. Data transfer in
$0.10 per gigabyte. Data transfer out varies based on volume. Costs are $0.18 per GB for the first 10 TB per month; $0.16 per GB for the next 40 TB and $0.13 per GB over 50 TB.

Structured data storage costs $1.50 per GB-month.

The point is that it is becoming easier by the day to create, store and execute applications based entirely "in the cloud," without ownership or lease of data facilities, access pipes or servers to support those apps. At some point, highly-distributed workforces or end user bases will find it congenial in the extreme to support remote users with services always available through a standard Web browser, with the latest version, with no need for loading updates, patches or extensions.

As software becomes a service, computing infrastructure also is becoming a utility or service as well.