90% Text, 40% Use Mobile Social Media in U.K>

A Deloitte study found that 90 percent of U.K. smartphone owners send at least one text message a day, compared to 40 percent of mobile users who use social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, on their phones. Half of British adults access emails on their phones.

Forget tweets, all we want to do is text, says study - Telegraph

Location Features Driving Mobile Shopping

JiWire's fourth quarter 2010 report found that location-based ads are driving mobile shopping, with 17 percent of the on-the-go audience making purchases while mobile and 20 percent visiting physical store locations after seeing a relevant ad. Additionally, the greater the discount offered, the further the mobile audience is willing to travel to redeem a promotion.

About 78 percent of respondents use location-based apps on their phone and 29 percent use them multiple times a day. Some 34 percent clicked on an ad in response to location specific message.

Some 57 percent are more likely to engage with an ad that is relevant to their location, an increase from 46 percent in the first quarter of 2010.
About 17 percent have made a purchase in response to a location-based advertisement.

Media Center - JiWire.com

Small Businesses Heavy Users of Facebook, Twitter

Tablets Displacing PCs at Hot Spots

The introduction of the iPad in 2010 has not only taken market share away from other top mobile devices, including the iPhone and iPod Touch, but is also starting to become the primary device for people on the go. From the second quarter to the fourth quarter, laptops decreased 26 percent as the primary device used to connect to public Wi-Fi, while the iPad, along with other tablets, increased 10 percent and gaming devices (including the iPod Touch) grew seven percent.

Media Center - JiWire.com

Smartphone Survey Misleading? The Limits of Market Research

A new survey by In-Stat contains some perhaps-surprising findings. “Users 55 and older are largely not at all interested in phones with a gaming-oriented form factor,” says Greg Potter, research analyst. But the results, a snapshot in time, might be misleading. Many observers might note that, over time, as has been the case for many new technology innovations, though "heavy" use might more often characterize younger users, behaviors typically spread quite broadly through all age demographics.

Out of 16,810 smartphone owners surveyed for SixthSense on behalf of marketing consultancy Lady Geek, around 10 percent (1,639) were older than 55, and around a third (510) of these were women older than 55, for example. Gaming was second most-popular within the age demographic, with one in five stating a game was their favourite app, showing that casual gaming is as popular with the older gaming market as it is across the board.

Belinda Parmar, founder of Lady Geek, says of that study that "a revolution is going on within this older group, but no one seems to notice or pay any attention to these women."

According to the report, 39% of female smartphone owners over 55 have downloaded one or more apps, highlighting a gap in the market for apps aimed at an older audience.

Broken down, 15.2 percent of women aged over 55 had downloaded one app to their smartphone, 9.4 percent between three and five apps, and 14.3 percent have downloaded more.

The most downloaded app for women over 55 is Facebook, highlighting an emphasis on social interaction.

The In-Stat report also contains some other findings that seemingly do not resonate. “Those who are 55 and older prefer, by a significant margin, the use of a numbered keypad over a QWERTY keyboard, which was unexpected," says Potter.

But consider the users of the BlackBerry, which by definition incorporate physical or virtual QWERTY keyboards. About 80 percent of BlackBerry users report using email on their smartphones, 70 percent send email, and it is hard to believe that those users do not use the keyboard. In fact, 47 percent of feature phone owners also report sending emails from their mobiles.

http://www.berryreview.com/2010/08/02/rim-shows-blackberry-demographics-in-leaked-slides/

The study also suggests users 55 and over are not interested in expanding how they use their cellphones, are less likely to have memory card slots, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and email on their phones, suggesting they use less advanced cellphones. The issue is not whether there are demographic differences. It would be hard to find any metric of technology usage that does not have a significant demographic difference in usage or demand, based on age.

The larger point is that such differences decline over time. The study also suggests cellphone users 55 and over are less likely to be using Wi-Fi hotspots for increased reception. Again, the point is not that there are differences by demographic cohort. The point is that the differences will narrow over time, and relatively quickly, if smartphones are like any other technologies people have been exposed to, and which have value.

That isn't to say there are no differences, or that the differences can be significant for relatively brief amounts of time. http://www.creatingresults.com/knowledge/tag/millennials/.

According to Pew, 70 percent of Boomers now access the Internet everyday for work or personal reasons, up from 25 percent ten years ago. Social media use among Boomers has grown by 88 percent in a year. According to Deloitte, almost two thirds of Boomers now send text messages and 37 percent access the internet on their phones. At this rate, in less than five years, the differences between Boomers, especially younger Boomers (born between 1955 and 1964), and younger generations will be negligible.

BlackBerry Consumer Preferences and Segmentation

In-Stat argues that designers should build and sell simple devices for those 55 and above. That might be the wrong move, if the direction is convergence of use modes across demographics.

In-Stat - Mobile Devices

Payment One Introduces Android Payment Method

Payment One, has announced a new payment service specifically for Android called the "Pay One Android" solution. With Pay One Android, Android users can simply click and use any of their phone numbers to securely pay for applications, in-game extras and related digital services. Android users don’t have to leave the application to bill to their Android device and it doesn’t need a credit card, pre-registration or account sign up.

PaymentOne also has partnered with BilltoMobile to offer PaymentOne merchants and customers more competitive payouts and advanced security compared to premium SMS through the BilltoMobile Direct Mobile Billing (DMB) payment service which is directly connected into the carrier billing system.

Payment One Introduces Android Payment Method

Netflix Set to Come to Android Devices

Future Android-powered devices will have the ability to instantly stream TV shows and movies from Netflix, based on the new Qualcomm "Snapdragon" chips, which run fast enough that Netflix videos can be processed with no delay.

Netflix Set to Come to Android Devices Via Qualcomm Chip - FoxBusiness.com

Blurring Lines Across Media Space

Buddy Media is a firm that specializes in building Facebook applications. In some ways, that makes Buddy Media something like an ad agency or a public relations firm. It's not, but that blurring simply shows how the media ecosystem is changing.

"We're not an agency," Buddy Media CEO Mike Lazerow said. "We don't strategize; we don't service clients or anything like that." It is a an entity engaged by brands to create media campaigns.

App-Happy Brands Bypassing Facebook to Build Content on It - Advertising Age

Gemalto Brings Facebook to All Mobiles, Without a Data Plan

Gemalto has developed "Facebook for SIM," which enables any user of a SIM-capable handset to get Facebook updates on without a data connection or data subscription, using the text messaging function only. With this announcement, Gemalto brings Facebook to millions of mobile phone users regardless of their handset type.

Gemalto Brings Facebook to All Mobile Phones

Multiscreen Viewing Habits on the Rise

Television screens and programming still command the lion’s share of Americans’ media day, but the internet is having a profound effect on consumers’ viewing habits and the proliferation of devices is altering their viewing behavior.

eMarketer estimates that in 2011, 68 percent of U.S. Internet users, or 158 million people, will be watching video content online each month. By 2015, that figure will increase to 76 percent of internet users, or 195.5 million people. In the same period, online video advertising spending will surge from $1.97 billion to $5.71 billion.

Multiscreen Viewing Habits on the Rise - eMarketer

Consumers Say They Want Priority Services

Consumers, once they understand the need for resource management, have a high acceptance of policies that enable a fair allocation of the available capacity. New research conducted by independent market research agencies YouGov, Quantinet and Toluna, and commissioned by Acision, indicate that 67 percent of respondents support quality of service and network management policies intended to preserve quality of experience. Those sorts of services are forbidden on fixed-line broadband networks because of network neutrality rules.

About 35 percent of respondents report they are willing to pay a premium for such services. About 60 percent of respondents are willing to accept video optimization policies as long as they benefit from an improvement of those aspects of the service experience they find most important, especially less stalling of videos.

Read more here

Will 21st Century Payments be Dominated by Mobile Phones?

The battle for payment method in the 21st century is with mobile devices, some believe. The Apple iPhone and Android phones will one day replace our credit cards and and the winners will be eBay’s Paypal, Google or Apple, some believe.

PayPal revenues are expected in the range of $6 billion to $7 billion in 2013, driven by consumer preferences, market expansion, and innovation in the areas of mobile, digital, social and local, for example.

Visa: Everywhere you want to be, except your Portfolio - 24/7 Wall St.

FTC’s “Do Not Track” Could Hurt Smaller Websites

The effect of Do Not Track on ad-serving websites would be to lower revenues based on behavioral ads. Relatively large websites that publish premium content would likely not be affected significantly by Do Not Track because the vast majority of their ad space is typically sold directly to marketers which may be able to rely successfully on contextual ads.

This would not be true for smaller websites that typically rely more heavily on ad networks to place their ads. For this reason, smaller websites which publish free content supported by behavioral ads could face a significant impact on revenue from Do Not Call.

For consumers, Do Not Track could dramatically affect the quantity and quality of content they see on the Web. This is due to the fact that much of the free content on the Web is supported by ad revenue. Consumers operating in stealth mode would likely see limited or reduced content, plus ads would not be as relevant.

FTC’s “Do Not Track” Initiative Portends Major Impact on Online Advertising

Cloud-Based iPhone?

Apple's possible plans to produce a cheaper, smaller iPhone might also be a test of a "cloud-based" smartphone. The new device might also come with a major revamp of Apple's "MobileMe" online storage service. One way to reduce the price of a new iPhone is to dispense with memory. MobileMe lets users store data in a central location and synchronize their calendars and contacts among computers and other devices.

That same functionality also presumably could be used to support a cloud-based storage replacement for local memory.

If a potential new free MobileMe service is available to store photos, music and videos, the issue will be experience. Will cloud storage be a suitable replacement for on-board storage?

Apple Works on Line of Less-Expensive iPhones - WSJ.com (subscription required)

PayPal is Tail Wagging eBay Dog

PayPal is eBay's future, one might well argue. PayPal serves nine million merchants and over 90 million active accounts, expected to grow to 130 million by 2013.

Despite widely-speculated competitive threats from upcoming payment systems from Facebook as well as from Apple, management believes that PayPal's revenues could double by 2013. That growth will be powered by international growth, increasing eBay penetration to 75 percent from 69 percent today; new initiatives with credit growing revenues in the 40 percent range; and merchant coverage market share increasing to upwards of 24 percent from 18 percent today.

eBay: PayPal Looks Great, Rest of Company Doesn't - Seeking Alpha