YouTube for Business

Cisco is announcing what will surely be seen as "YouTube for business." Enterprise TV, a new YouTube-like video posting and viewing service aimed at enterprises, aims to make it easier for companies to do everything related to video: creating it, capturing it, and playing it.

Employees can capture video of meetings or training programs and upload it immediately to their enterprise networks, where employees can watch it on demand.

Social Nets Used by 22% of "40 or Older" Internet Users

About 22 percent of U.S. Internet users ages 40 and over use social networking Web sites, according to JWT BOOM/ThirdAge. A separate survey by ExactTarget fount that 39 percent of 35 to 44 year-olds used social networks, use fell sharply with age.

Only 13 percent of 55 to 64 year-olds were social networkers, and only four percent of those ages 65 and older used social networking.

About 75 percent of Internet users ages 15 to 24 use social networking sites, ExactTarget finds.

The implications are most significant for marketers who rely on word of mouth. According to the JWT BOOM/ThirdAge study, more than 75 percent of 40-and-over users received promotional e-mails about products and services and then clicked through to the site being promoted.

More than 55 percent of 40-or-older users purchased a product or service promoted in an e-mail.

Some 93 percent of respondents read an article about a Web site in print and later visited the site.
About 83 percent visited a Web site after seeing an advertisement for the site in a newspaper or print magazine.

Why don't consumers 40 and older use social networking sites? Respondents say their main concerns are privacy, time and just not seeing the point.

It might be hard to find a serious observer who would argue social networking will not climb among the 40 or older demographics, though. Other innovations such as iPods, the Internet, text and instant messaging were adopted more slowly by older users than by younger users. Social networking won't be any different.

14 Million iPhone Sales in 2008?

Analysts at RBC Capital think a stunning 14 million--not just 10 million--new Apple iPhone units will be sold in 2008.

If so, it will be clear why higher-bandwidth mobile networks are needed. What isn't so clear yet is the precise impact all those new devices might have on access bandwidth.

RBC estimates that 70 percent of those 14 million units will be sold to first-time iPhone buyers. In all likelihood, that means 9.8 million new users who will disrupt traditional usage patterns.

But AT&T executives say they are confident they understand the dimensions of new demand, based on the 2G iPhone users they already are supporting. If not, they'll have time to adjust, says Ralph De La Vega, AT&T Wireless CEO.

1Q: 1.7 Million IP or Hybrid PBX Licenses Sold

About 1.7 million IP or hybrid PBX licenses were sold in North America in the first quarter of 2008, according to researchers at iLocus. That implies sales of 1.5 million licenses in the U.S. market.

Who Blogs?

A Deloitte & Touche study of blog usage by age found a direct relationship between the two. The younger the user, the more likely he or she was to read or keep a blog on a weekly basis, according to Deloitte.

For example, 55 percent of Millennials (ages 13 to 24) surveyed read a blog, and the percentages decline for every age cohort in the study until reaching just 16 percent among matures (ages 61 to 75).

Similarly, 35 percent of millennials keep a blog, whereas only one percent of matures do. The age groups in between—Generation X (ages 25 to 41) and baby boomers (ages 42 to 60)—fall between those extremes.

U.S. Smart Phone Sales Double

The worldwide smart phone market grew more than 29 percent and the North American smart phone market doubled in the first quarter of 2008 compared to a year ago, according to Gartner analysts.

Apple is the third largest vendor of smart phones, selling 1.7 million units worldwide to grab a 5.3 percent share of the market, Gartner says. In the U.S. market, though, Apple already is the second-largest vendor, with 20 percent of the market.

Globally, users bought 32.2 million smart phones in the first quarter 2008, an increase of 29.3 percent compared to the first quarter of 2007. In North America, unit sales more than doubled to 7.3 million.

AT&T Might Consider Usage-Based Access Pricing

AT&T might consider a usage-based approach to pricing broadband access, a solution to the problem of supporting very-heavy bandwidth users without resorting to blocking or traffic shaping, says CTO John Donovan. He says "one percent of the company's customers account for 20 percent of the network usage; the top five percent account for 40 percent of the usage."

In other remarks, Donovan says "traffic on our backbone is growing 60 percent per year."

"I don't view any of our customers, under any circumstances, as pirates -- I view them as users," Donovan said. "A heavy user is not a bad customer."

And users aren't dumb. If they have incentives to use P2P at off-peak hours, they will. BitTorrent use on the AT&T network peaks around 4 a.m., when other traffic is at an ebb, he says.

Peer to peer traffic represents about 20 percent of total network traffic, he adds.

You Can Say That Again!

Instead of being tied to their wired network infrastructures, most enterprise users are becoming untethered, with apps accessible from smartphones and laptopsn say analysts at the Burton Group.  This has huge implications for enterprise network infrastructures, how applications are built/deployed, and security, they say.

U.S. Users Spent 68 Hours Each Online in April

According to the latest Nielsen Online figures, the average U.S. Internet user spent nearly 68 hours online during the month of April. That's a bit more than two hours a day.

The average user visited 104 separate domains and viewed 2,361 pages.

Millennial Impact

One of the arguments to be made about where buying preferences are moving is that the Millennial generation, and to some extent "Generation X" gradually are assuming positions of influence and authority on the buying side of virtually every communications and information technology.

To simplify the argument, Millennials and in many similar ways Gen Xers, are "different" from their baby boomer parents, the lead edge of which is starting to retire.

Baby boomers essentially are digital immigrants. They have learned to use digital technology. Gen Xers have been using it for quite some time, in some cases not since they were born, but very close to it.

Millennials are totally "digital natives." They never have known a world where the Internet, PCs and mobiles did not exist.

So note that baby boomer spending is less than that of Gen X, and dropping. Gen X is growing to replace the baby boomer economic activity. By 2017, Millennials will be spending more than baby boomers are today.

Therein lies the argument that service providers and application providers might well find they are selling very-different products and services to Gen X and Millennial users than they sell today when baby boomers are doing a great proportion of the buying of all manner of communications and software products.

That might explain why Web 2.0 concepts and ways of creating and using software now are emerging in the enterprise space, as similar concepts have emerged in the consumer space.

2Q IT Spending Even with 1Q

Overall IT spending in the second quarter appears to have been at about the same level as the first quarter, a ChangeWave survey finds. About 11 percent of respondents said their company had spent "more than planned," up one percent since February.

Another 27 percent say they've spent "less than planned," unchanged from the previous quarter.

"Things haven't gotten any worse," ChangeWave notes.

Looking ahead to the third quarter, 24 percent of respondents say their company's IT spending will decrease or that there'll be no spending at all. That's one point worse than the previous survey. In addition, only 15 percent say spending will increase, unchanged from the last survey.

The softness in projected spending is occurring across companies of all sizes, although once again things have stopped getting worse, ChangeWave notes.

We asked respondents about their IT spending outlook for the entire second half of 2008 (July-December), and 28 percent think their IT budget will be less than first half of 2008, "a whopping eight points worse than previously," ChaneWave says.

Only 18 percent of respondents think their company's IT budget will be greater than it was in the first half of 2008. Another 44 percent say their IT budgets will remain the same.

Verizon to Add 25 HDTV Channels

Verizon FiOS TV will add more than 60 new channels to the lineup, including high-definition sports and multicultural content.

Verizon plans to expand its lineup to offer by the end of the year up to 150 HD channels, which will include all available major HD programming.

Other Verizon HD choices include hundreds of video-on-demand (VOD) titles per month, with 1,000 HD VOD titles by the end of the year.

Verizon will roll out the new content, region by region, to areas where FiOS TV is available, beginning in early July. The new channels will be activated in FiOS systems across the country over the following few months.

Included in the new content will be more than 25 high-definition channels, bringing the total number of HD channels to between 52 and 65, depending on the customer's location.

$55 Billion Health Vertical Spending

The hospitals, physicians, pharmaceutical companies, and insurance providers that make up the $2.3 trillion US healthcare system will be spending $55 billion on telecommunications services over the next five years, says Insight Research Corporation.

Spending by the US healthcare industry on telecommunications services will grow at a compounded rate of 8.4 percent over the forecast period, increasing from $7.5 billion in 2008 to $11.3 billion in 2013.

VoIP Market Revenues $44 Billion in 2013

The global consumer VoIP market grew from approximately 16 million in 2005 to over 50 million in 2006, says In-Stat. By 2011, 38 percent of broadband households worldwide will subscribe to VoIP services.

As a result, consumer VoIP revenue will grow from $15 billion to nearly $44 billion over the next five years.

Europe is the region where VoIP use is most extensive, In-Stat says. So incumbent service providers in other regions where VoIP is less a factor might want to pay attention to the adoption triggers in Europe.

For an incumbent telecom provider, there are lots of good business reasons for delaying full-blown VoIP marketing. A full-scale switch from legacy TDM to VoIP probably harms revenue, no matter what approach or packaging route is taken.

But there comes some point where the switch has to be made. So looking at the European triggers is an exercise worth conducting.

Cisco Ranks Top E-Tailers

The top 10 overall e-commerce sites, in rank order of flawless execution that make online shopping exceptionally easy for consumers are Amazon.com, Best Buy, Sears, Circuit City, Quelle, Otto, Macy’s, FNAC, Bol.com and Argos Home Retail Group, says Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group.

But mobile shopping and social networking are redefining the online experience, Cisco says. "Two big take-aways emerged," says Lindsay Parker, Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group director. "Most significant was mobility." The second big thing was importance of social networking, Parker says.

"We accessed the sites using mobile devices and found that of the 45, 42 percent allow viewing of product information," Parker says. "Many appear to have refortmatted for mobile screens."

"But only 15 percent support transactions," she notes. And only 10 percent support SMS communications. On some sites, customers can use SMS capabilities to check inventory and be notified when an order is ready for pickup.

On transaction side, "Amazon does a terrific job in terms of ease of use," says Parker. The Amazon site "clearly is designed for mobile navigation and completing transactions."

"Amazon really shows what a good mobile site looks like," Parker says.

From social networking angle, Parker was surprised that only 17 percent of sites provided connection to communities on the site, a place where you could interact with other customers, or with Facebook.

"Amazon did that best, as well," says Parker. But 52 percent of sites did provide shopper reviews That's important because perhaps 50 percent of shoppers indicate they checked a review before buying online, she adds.

"One big change we see is that as you talk about customer experience, it is much more of a 'pull' world rather than a 'push' world," Parker says. "The consumer is more in control."

Retailers who figure this out will be well ahead, she adds.

Cisco expects mobile commerce to follow an adoption pattern similar to that of cell phones, an important fact since there are three times as many mobile-phone subscribers (3.3 billion) as Internet users (1.3 billion) worldwide.

The Cisco IBSG study assessed 45 retailers from North America and Europe in three categories (Global 500, Web 15 and Innovators) and looked at two aspects of online shopping from the consumer’s point of view. The first is “foundational” capabilities, which are nonnegotiable, “must have” characteristics. These include an intuitive graphical user interface, search capabilities and a convenient purchasing process. The second is “emerging” capabilities, which are the more sophisticated aspects, such as social networking and multichannel integration, that add even greater value to the customer’s experience.