70% of Sprint’s Devices to be Android-Based

Sprint’s Fared Adib, who replaced Kevin Packingham, Sprint VP, says that 70 percent of Sprint devices would also be running Android in 2011. That's what a company does when it cannot sell the Apple iPhone. It worked for Verizon, and AT&T, without iPhone exclusivity, plans to ramp up Android device sales as well.

70% of Sprint’s Devices to be Android-Based, Bigger 4G Push in 2011

Social Sign-In Works

Allowing online consumers to conduct social sign-in for an e-commerce site rather than create a new user account can produce higher levels of spending and customer satisifaction, according to a new survey from social user management platform provider Janrain and Blue Research.

Data from “Importance of Identity Solutions” indicates that during the 2010 holiday season, 21 percent of those who consider social sign-in desirable (fans) expected to spend more than in 2009, compared to 16 percent of critics.

Survey data also shows that 75 percent of consumers will avoid creating a new user account for an e-commerce site, with 54 percent leaving the site or not returning, 17 percent going to a different site if possible, and four percent leaving or avoiding the site.

Furthermore, of consumers who have created a new user account, 76 percent admit to giving incomplete or incorrect information. About 55 percent of consumers agree they are more likely to return to a site that automatically recognizes them.

Social Sign-In Produces Profits

Multichannel Video Cord Cutting Still Rare?

You can get a robust argument about the future of multichannel video, but less argument about the current amount of such cord cutting. Some would argue the danger still remains low. The issue, just about anybody would argue, is what lies ahead.

The Multichannel Cord Cutting Mystery

Power Track for Monitoring Tweet Traffic

Many brands now monitor social media streams, such as provided by Twitter, to monitor conversations about their brands. But that can be a daunting task, if conducted manually. A new commercial Twitter product called Power Track, supplied by Gnip, automates those chores.

Power Track allows keyword-based filtering of the full Twitter stream, providing 100 percent coverage over a stream.

In addition to keyword based filters, Power Track also supports boolean operators and many of the custom operators allowed on Twitter Search API. With Power Track, companies and developers can define the precise slice of the Twitter stream they need and be confident they’re getting every Tweet, without worrying about volume restrictions.

Announcing Power Track – Full Firehose filtering for the Tweets you want

3% of SMBs Accept Mobile Payments

The SMB Group, a research firm focused on the small and medium size business market says three percent of SMBs accept mobile payments today and this number will increase to seven percent in the next 12 months, and 16 percent by the end of 2012.

Can Square, Intuit and Other Mobile Payment Providers Compete With A 12-Cent Debit Card Transaction? - Bank Systems & Technology

Android US Mobile Market Share Jumps 34%

While Google Android remained the second-most-popular US smartphone platform in the three-month-average ending December 2010 with 28.7 percent market share, that share improved about 34 percent from 21.4 percent in the three-month-average ending September 2010, according to new comScore data.

In contrast, number one RIM saw its market share drop 15 percent, from 37.3 percent to 31.6 percent. Apple’s share of the US smartphone platform market grew about three percent, from 24.3 percent to 25 percent.

Android US Mobile Market Share Jumps 34%

OpenX Upgrades Ad Platform

OpenX, a provider of digital advertising technology for Web publishers such as Groupon, has updated the ad technology platform in use by Groupon, Orange-France Telecom and Excite Japan.

OpenX ad-serving products are used by more than 200,000 websites in more than 100 countries, and serve more than 350 billion ads monthly.

OpenX Upgrades Ad Technology Platform

HTC Buys Gaming Company

HTC has bought mobile video specialists Saffron Digital and OnLive, suggesting HTC soon will launch a cloud-based, gaming-on-demand service.

HTC Puts $40 Million In Gaming Co OnLive

Email is Going Mobile

More people are using their mobile phones to access their email, causing a drop in web-based email usage.

Web-based email has always been about ease of access. If you’re only using Outlook then your work emails stay at work and home emails stay home. Forwarding emails from one computer to another was the only way to gather all of the information in one place and if you were traveling the you were stuck.

According to comScore’s stats, the number of people visiting a web-based email site went down 6% over last year. Not a huge number, but look at the other side. Mobile email usage grew by 36% over last year.

Age plays a huge factor in the web vs mobile saga (surprise, surprise), with a 53% decline in web-mail usage in the 12-17 age group.

Like Everything Else, Email is Going Mobile | Effective Marketing Strategies

Allot MobileTrends Report, H2 2010 - Allot

http://www.allot.com/MobileTrends_Report_H2_2010.html

Third French Bank Joins Mobile Payment Test in Nice

Credit Agricole has joined the pre-commercial trial of near field communications services in the French city of Nice.

Credit Agricole joins Credit Mutuel-CIC and BNP Paribas in launching mobile payment for the Nice project. The two other banks had launched services during the latter part of 2010.

About 3,000 users can tap to pay at a limited number of merchant outlets in Nice, along with paying fares on buses and trams and tapping NFC tags in posters for information.

Third French Bank Launches M-Payment in Nice, Hires Gemalto as TSM | NFC Times – Near Field Communication and all contactless technology.:

Scoial CRM 8% of Total in 2012

By 2013, spending on social software to support sales, marketing and customer service processes will exceed $1 billion worldwide, out of a total of about $12 billion in spending for all CRM, according to Gartner. Social CRM will represent approximately eight percent of all CRM spending in 2012, up from approximately four percent in 2010.

By 2015, a third of spending on new CRM software will be delivered using software as a service, and hosted in the cloud.

In 2009, 24 percent of the CRM software market was delivered by SaaS, and this rose to more than 26 percent in 2010, up from virtually zero in 1999. By 2015, Gartner forecasts that 32 percent of the CRM software market will be delivered by SaaS.

Gartner Says Spending on Social Software to Support Sales, Marketing and Customer Service Processes Will Exceed $1 Billion Worldwide By 2013

Square's Market Segment: 16 Million Non-Traditional Retailers

Square, which makes a card reader that plugs into the headphone socket of an iPhone, Android Phone or an iPad, is designed to allow anyone can accept credit card payments anywhere. And Square has a clear idea of its niche in the market, though it is a large "niche."

“Most of our competitors (including the likes of VeriFone and Intuit) focused on seven million merchants who have the ability to get merchant accounts from say Visa or MasterCard,” says Keith Rabois, Square COO.

Many have good enough credit to be approved for taking credit cards, but many do not. “We are going after 26 million folks who are not merchants in a classic sense,” he says. "Nearly 60 percent of these wouldn’t qualify for the more traditional merchant payment solutions."

Who’s Afraid of NFC? Not Square: Tech News and Analysis

Facebook Got 10% of U.S. Page Views in 2010

Facebook accounted for 10 percent of U.S. page views in 2010, while three out of every ten Internet sessions included a visit to the site.

Users spent about 26 minutes a day on Faceook, comScore reports.

Click on image for a larger view.

In December, Facebook’s U.S. audience grew to 153.9 million, an increase of 38 percent from the same month in 2009, and the social network became the 4th most visited web property. The total time spent on Facebook in December 2010 vs December 2009 surged 79 percent to 49.4 billion minutes. Total page views grew 71 percent to 76.8 billion.

comScore: Facebook Keeps Gobbling People’s Time

Groupon Pulls a "Go Daddy"

Go Daddy now makes a practice of proposing Super Bowl ads racy enough to be rejected, then runs the acceptable ads on TV, with the "rejected" versions online and gets lots of incremental viewership and attention.

Groupon worked the same sort of approach and has gotten a serious bump in attention. One can argue about whether "negative" attention is a good thing or a bad thing, but there is an argument that even arguably "negative" attention is still valuable. Chitika data shows the spike in online traffic for Groupon and its ads.

If one measures success on the "branding" benefits, with traffic as a proxy, it worked.