Local Online Ad Business Has Changed

The economic downturn over the past three years has forged a new landscape for local online media, according to Borrell Associates.  The slice of land held by the Internet“pure-plays” has stopped growing, and has stabilized at about half of the market. The biggest online entities also have increasingly formed partnerships with local newspapers, TV, radio and directories.

Newspapers still tend to generate the most money from an online venture in a given market. But for the first time, the pure-plays, principally Autotrader.com and the upstart Groupon, are the top providers in about 20 percent of the markets. Groupon, which didn’t exist two years ago, is already siphoning off hundreds of thousands of dollars in many markets and several million dollars in some. Both entities might wind up in the top position in more markets this year as Autotrader aims for 40 percent growth this year and Groupon seems bound for threefold growth.

TV stations and yellow pages companies continue to do well with about 11 percent share each, up from the past year. Radio stations, meanwhile, are languishing at a two percent share of all locally spent Internet advertising and appear to be barely treading water.

The future should be even more interesting as yet another disruptor — mobile media — emerges. Without mobile injecting new excitement into the “online” landscape, the traditional PC-based World Wide Web would likely see its ad revenues flat by now, having reached maturity.

In 2010, local online media accounted for 14.9 percent of all local ad spending, or $13.5 billion. Borrell forecasts growth to $15.9 billion this year, or 17.8 percent more. By 2015, for the first time ever, the firm expects newspapers to be toppled as the perennial king of local as online media reach $24 billion, for a 22.7 percent share of all local advertising.

Marketing the Way We Do it These Days: Mobile is the New Online

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Mobile and Display Top Marketer Spending Priorities

At least some marketers are pushing for more display and mobile advertising time according to a recent survey by Bizo. The survey finds that most marketers believe display and mobile options are their best chance to engage and convert consumers. In fact, many will spend more on display ads in 2011 than they did in 2010.

Bizo-Online-Marketer-Survey

Mobile Apps Will Change the IT Market

According to a Forrester Research survey of over 2,100 North American and European software decision-makers, 41 percent say that increasing the number of mobile apps for both employees and customers was a high or critical software priority.

The development of this mobile “app Internet" will also open up new services opportunities around the creation and management of consumer and business applications, many would argue.

This second wave of innovation, building on mobile ubiquity, will leverage cloud-based services. Forrester believes that three service lines will grow significantly during the next 36 to 48 months. First, building initial apps is itself projected to be at $5.6 billion a year market globally by 2015.

Second, managing apps and devices is projected to be at $3.8 billion a year market globally by 2015. Third, re-inventing the business processes and back-end systems is projected to be at $7.6 billion business by 2015.

That likely is just the start. At least some observers might argue that cloud-based apps, accessible from mobile devices, might change the way businesses and consumers buy and use applications. Perhaps the biggest upside will be an increased ability to sell and provision applications about as easily as downloading an app from an app store. The changes should be seen in the software sales business, allowing many additional types of sales organizations to sell and support business software where it might have been burdensome in the past.

Forrester: Mobile Apps Will Change the IT Market and Drive Software Innovation

Mobile Banking and Payments: Value Beyond Payments

According to Doaud Fakhri, a retail banking analyst at the Datamonitor consultancy, the mobile channel could be the main channel to market for a number of different financial services in future years. Credit smart phones for driving mobile banking.

Accenture studied 10 banks involved in mobile financial services from across all regions of the world and concluded that when banks enable their customers to use a mobile device to check balances, transfer money, pay bills, apply for credit or use personal finance management apps, they can achieve large returns on investment.

One Middle East bank got a a 300 percent return on investment by educating its two million customers how to use new services to pay bills online using their mobiles. A European bank whose customers can check balances, initiate transfers and trade stock achieved a 60 percent growth in mobile banking consumers, while one in Asia got a return on investment of 230 percent by moving to interactive online services, away from text messages.

The point is that the business value of mobile payments, banking and person-to-person payments extends far beyond the transaction value that underpins some business models. In some cases, existing providers, such as banks, might find that operating efficiencies, customer growth and retention and revenues from traditional services can provide the return on investment.

Special Report: One world, one love, one banking device? | Banking Technology

Osborne 1, iPad 2: 30 Years of Device Evolution

You often hear it said these days that, for many users, the smartphone will be "the computer" people use. For others, it might be the case that a tablet becomes the PC. Compare the features of the Osborne 1, the first "transportable" personal computer, with an Apple iPad 2, for example.

Kind of an industrial-looking device, the Osborne was. read more here

U.S. Social Commerce: $14 Billion in 2015

Social commerce is a hard concept to grasp. In principle, though, it is the idea that people will influence what other people buy.

The new wrinkle is simply that social software, networks and recommendations are starting to play a significant role in the process, where it once was a word of mouth process.

The difference is that the magnitude of such online and social word of mouth is amplified.

Dish Buys Blockbuster

Dish Network Corp. has won a bankruptcy auction for Blockbuster, offering about $320.6 million for the movie-rental chain. Dish, unlike some of the other bidders, has said it would keep some of the stores open as retail locations to support sales of Dish services.

Some may question the wisdom of that move, but Apple also was highly criticized for opening its own retail stores. There now is recognition that the retail outlets now play a huge role in Apple's sales and support process, though. Likewise, mobile service providers have found retail locations to be crucial for selling mobile services.

Dish Network Corp. has won a bankruptcy auction for Blockbuster, offering about $320.6 million for the movie-rental chain. Dish, unlike some of the other bidders, has said it would keep some of the stores open as retail locations to support sales of Dish services.

Some may question the wisdom of that move, but Apple also was highly criticized for opening its own retail stores. There now is recognition that the retail outlets now play a huge role in Apple's sales and support process, though. Likewise, mobile service providers have found retail locations to be crucial for selling mobile services.

But Blockbuster also brings other assets that do mesh with the current Dish strategy, including the Blockbuster online and kiosk vending services. Dish also has been making other moves in the mobile and on-demand video business, though some analysts might claim they do not yet fully understand what the grand strategy is. Neither would Dish CEO Charlie Ergen, either, at this point. Rather, Ergen seems to understand that the TV business is changing, and that mobile and online services are part of that future.

The Blockbuster acquisition therefore would seem to complement a growing interest by Dish in alternative distribution channels and business models.

Dish also earlier acquired DBSD North America, Inc., a hybrid satellite and terrestrial communications company, for approximately $1 billion. DBSD has a license to operate in 8 MHz worth of spectrum.

Frontier Wireless, the wholly owned subsidiary of Dish, also owns 168 licenses in the 700 MHz range, covering about 76 percent of the U.S. population. The licenses represent 5 MHz worth of spectrum. There has been speculation about what Dish might plan to do with such spectrum, but the purchases of other assets supporting terrestrial mobile service with satellite backhaul suggest a possible move into a video service usable by mobile devices.

It is possible to use the same approach to deliver signals to fixed locations such as homes, but bandwidth constraints would make an on-demand service difficult. A more logical approach would be linear video or multicast services based on use of mobile devices.

Sister company Echostar, for its part, owns Slingbox and now Hughes Network Systems, which gives Echostar a new international business revenue stream, enterprise networks and an owned satellite network offering significant new wide-area distribution capability. Whether those assets might play a role in Dish strategy is not immediately clear.

What does seem logical is that a couple of the Dish assets could be used to create a mobile-focused video service. A technology known as TDtv supports mobile multicast content, delivering as many as 14 high-quality, 300 kbps video streams channels using only 5 MHz of unpaired spectrum. It contains a built-in uplink capability that will allow for some digital video recorder features as well.

For its part, Clearwire also has been talking to satellite concerns about creating some sort of mobile TV service as well, though nothing concrete seems to have emerged from those talks.

CEO Charlie Ergen has not been shy about suggesting that if an entrepreneur wanted to get into the TV distribution business today, that person might well take a "Netflix" style, over the top approach, rather than launch satellites or even build cable networks. Another analogy Ergen has used in the past is fixed and mobile voice service. Essentially, he has likened satellite-delivered TV to fixed-line voice, while online video is more like mobile voice. In other words, the original business was TV by satellite, but the future business will be online.

There might not yet be a clear grand strategy for how Dish uses all the new assets, but it is clear enough that Ergen wants to fashion a business model that is built more on mobile and online video, and less on satellite video delivered to fixed locations.


But Blockbuster also brings other assets that do mesh with the current Dish strategy, including the Blockbuster online and kiosk vending services. Dish also has been making other moves in the mobile and on-demand video business, though some analysts might claim they do not yet fully understand what the grand strategy is. Neither would Dish CEO Charlie Ergen, either, at this point. Rather, Ergen seems to understand that the TV business is changing, and that mobile and online services are part of that future.

The Blockbuster acquisition therefore would seem to complement a growing interest by Dish in alternative distribution channels and business models.

Dish also earlier acquired DBSD North America, Inc., a hybrid satellite and terrestrial communications company, for approximately $1 billion. DBSD has a license to operate in 8 MHz worth of spectrum.

Frontier Wireless, the wholly owned subsidiary of Dish, also owns 168 licenses in the 700 MHz range, covering about 76 percent of the U.S. population. The licenses represent 5 MHz worth of spectrum. There has been speculation about what Dish might plan to do with such spectrum, but the purchases of other assets supporting terrestrial mobile service with satellite backhaul suggest a possible move into a video service usable by mobile devices.

It is possible to use the same approach to deliver signals to fixed locations such as homes, but bandwidth constraints would make an on-demand service difficult. A more logical approach would be linear video or multicast services based on use of mobile devices.

Sister company Echostar, for its part, owns Slingbox and now Hughes Network Systems, which gives Echostar a new international business revenue stream, enterprise networks and an owned satellite network offering significant new wide-area distribution capability. Whether those assets might play a role in Dish strategy is not immediately clear.

What does seem logical is that a couple of the Dish assets could be used to create a mobile-focused video service. A technology known as TDtv supports mobile multicast content, delivering as many as 14 high-quality, 300 kbps video streams channels using only 5 MHz of unpaired spectrum. It contains a built-in uplink capability that will allow for some digital video recorder features as well.

For its part, Clearwire also has been talking to satellite concerns about creating some sort of mobile TV service as well, though nothing concrete seems to have emerged from those talks.

CEO Charlie Ergen has not been shy about suggesting that if an entrepreneur wanted to get into the TV distribution business today, that person might well take a "Netflix" style, over the top approach, rather than launch satellites or even build cable networks. Another analogy Ergen has used in the past is fixed and mobile voice service. Essentially, he has likened satellite-delivered TV to fixed-line voice, while online video is more like mobile voice. In other words, the original business was TV by satellite, but the future business will be online.

There might not yet be a clear grand strategy for how Dish uses all the new assets, but it is clear enough that Ergen wants to fashion a business model that is built more on mobile and online video, and less on satellite video delivered to fixed locations.

Google Tackles Privacy

These days, Google is facing more scrutiny from regulators on a number of consumer protection issues, including privacy and sharing of information. Google won't be the only firm affected by growing concern about information sharing by mobile and other applications.

9% of Mobile Video Users Consume 38% of Bandwidth

An analysis by Bytemobile suggests that nine percent of mobile subscribers consuming video content represent 38 percent of total data volume on the network. About 10 percent of mobile data users generate approximately 90 percent of total traffic, the analysis also finds. But you might be quite surprised about some of the other findings.

Bytemobile measured the video data volume of the top three percent of videos requested on the network, representing about three million videos in all. The analysis also suggests that 40 percent of total video data volume on wireless networks is generated by just the top three percent of videos.

Also, though Internet videos average approximately five minutes in length, users watch them for an average of less than 60 seconds. In fact, the majority of mobile data subscribers watch only the first few seconds of any given video.

The Bytemobile data includes devices such as Android and  iPhone devices, iPads and laptop data.

read more here

House votes to overturn FCC on Net neutrality

By a vote of 241 to 178, the House of Representatives has adopted a one-page resolution that says, simply, the regulations adopted by the Federal Communications Commission on December 21 "shall have no force or effect."

The Senate has not yet voted on the resolution of disapproval. A parallel version of the legislation in that chamber has 39 sponsors, close to the majority of supporters required to pass the resolution in the Senate.

House votes to overturn FCC on Net neutrality | Privacy Inc. - CNET News

Will Africa Be the First "Post-PC Continent?

Africa might become the first "post-PC" continent.

IDC, for example, estimates that in South Africa, 800,000 PCs were shipped in 2010 and the number is expected to decline by about four percent annually to reach 650,000 by 2015. Meanwhile, 1.3 million mobile handsets were shipped in 2010 and that rate is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of nine percent to reach two million annually by 2015.

In the rest of Africa, 3.7 million PCs were shipped in 2010 and annual shipments will rise to 6.9 million 2015. Still, the number of smartphones shipped is expected to rise at a higher rate.

In Nigeria, IDC projections show that 1.5 million smartphones and 17.2 million feature phones will be shipped in 2011. By 2015, both markets are expected to grow, reaching, respectively, 3.2 million and 21.3 million units shipped. For smartphones, that's a CAGR of 21.7 percent.

"In Kenya, 64 percent of users listen to digital music by mobile phones while 24 percent access via PCs, 45 percent prefer to chat via mobile and 25 percent use PCs; in Uganda, 48 percent listen to music via mobile while 26 percent use PCs and 40 percent chat via mobile compared to 23 percent who prefer PC," said Melissa Baker, CEO of TNS RMS East Africa.

Research indicates that in a typical sub-Saharan African country, a 10 percent increase in mobile penetration results to a corresponding 0.8 percent GDP growth," said Woon Peng, Nokia Head of Services in Middle East and Africa.

Africa banking on mobile to be first post-PC continent

Cord Cutting Accelerating or Not?

Though perhaps just 1.4 percent of consumers have "cut the cord" in the last two years, abandoning multichannel TV services, about 7 percent of current subscribers are considering canceling their service, according to a survey to be published in the May issue of Consumer Reports.

But L.E.K. surveys recently found little actual evidence of increased cord cutting, though. To date, only two percent of L.E.K. survey respondents are cord cutting.

A more serious issue facing cable and satellite providers is “cord trimming,” the term for consumers who keep – but reduce – their monthly cable or satellite TV services. L.E.K. found that 16 percent of consumers reported reducing their monthly pay TV bills during the past year. Those cord trimmers reduced their pay TV bills by an average of 25 percent.

Cord Cutting Accelerating or Not?

Mobile Video Usage Up 40%

The number of U.S. mobile subscribers watching video on their mobile devices rose more than 40 percent year-over-year in both the third and fourth quarters of 2010, ending the year at nearly 25 million people, according to Nielsen. These mobile video users watched an average of four hours and 20 minutes of mobile video per month in both the third and fourth quarter of 2010–a 33 percent and 20 percent year-over-year increase in each quarter respectively.

The growing popularity of mobile video is due, in part, to the rapid adoption of mediafriendly mobile devices, including smartphones. Whereas in the fourth quarter of 2009 only 23 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers had smartphones, by the end of 2010 smartphone penetration had reached 31 percent. Over time, it also has become easier to find, view and share mobile video, either via mobile apps or the mobile web.

Early Tablet Adopters Were Different in Lots of Ways

Early adopters of Apple iPads and tablet devices of various types, including e-readers, are, as you  might suspect, more likely to be "high consumers" compared to the rest of the population.

Much the same pattern holds for other forms of media as well: tablet owners consume more of everything. Tablet owners report they watch 48 hours of TV a week, compared to 37 hours for non-tablet owners. Table owners listen to 11 hours of radio a week, compared to eight hours for non-tablet owners.

Tablet owners listen to 11 hours of music a week, compared to 6.6 hours for non-tablet owners. Tablet owners watch 10 hours worth of movies, compared to four hours for non-tablet owners. Tablet owners paly 18 hours a week worth of games, compared to six hours for non-tablet owners. Tablet owners report consumng 14 hours worth of published material, compared to eight hours for non-tablet owners.

In fact, L.E.K. argues that online digital media consumption actually is declining for nontablet owners, while digital consumption is surging for tablet owners. Over the last 12 months, the study of 2,000 respondents suggests, 19 percent of non-tablet owners say their consumption of online newspaper content has declined. Likewise, 20 percent of non-tablet owners reported that their online book consumption has decreased over the last year. Also, 20 percent of non-tablet owners reported that their consumption of digital magazines has declined as well, over the last 12 months.

By way of contrast, 28 percent of tablet owners reported more consumption of online newspaper content, 30 percent reported higher e-book readership and 29 percent said they were consuming more online magazine content.

read more here