Service Providers Do Not Rank High on Survey of "Top Customer Experience"

Video and telecommunications service providers do not tend to lead many, if any surveys of consumer satisfaction, for all sorts of reasons. (Click image for a larger view)

Aside from some cases where companies just make strategic mistakes (some years ago Sprint under-invested in its customer service personnel, and Qwest cut back too much on service and technical support personnel), cable, telco and satellite companies operate huge businesses with sometimes cumbersome back office software, sub-systems that do not seamlessly move data back and forth easily, selling products at prices that arguably do not allow as much room for "service" as one might prefer.

The recent rankings by Temkin do not deviate from the typical pattern. Video entertainment, mobile or fixed-line service providers just do not rank high on measures of customer experience satisfaction.









http://www.temkinratings.com/wp-content/themes/Temkin/assets/pdf/2011TemkinExperienceRatings_CompanyRankings.pdf

Wireless Substitution in United Kingdom

Broadband wireless substitution is the analogy to wireless substitution in voice, many would note.

At some point, as fourth generation wireless networks start to offer access speeds in the 40 Mbps range, a wider range of end users are going to conclude, for various reasons, that a wireless broadband connection can substitute for a fixed-line connection.

In the United Kingdom, as elsewhere, the trend remains relatively small, but seems to be growing.

For almost one in seven users of mobile broadband (14 percent), the use of a dongle or datacard is their only Internet access method. This figure rises to 21 percent of males, 31 percent of 18 to 24 year olds and over one third of Londoners (34 percent). See this.

DirecTV to Show Movies 10 Weeks After Theatrical Release

DirecTV says it will offer a 48-hour rentals of Sony Corp.’s movie “Just Go With It” for $29.99 just 10 weeks after the movie’s theatrical release. That test of a shorter release window and the new pricing point will test consumer demand for such earlier-release products.

Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. and Twentieth Century Fox will also supply films to the service eight weeks after their theatrical release, Jade Ekstedt, a spokeswoman for El Segundo, California-based DirecTV said.

Studios, which are looking to the new release format to counter shrinking DVD sales revenue, won't get fans among theater owners, who fear that viewers will shift some amount of theater attendance to the new TV release window. The $30 fee might seem steep, but studios and DirecTV are betting that such movie buys will be seen as an alternative to taking a whole family to the theater. In other cases the total cost of theater viewing, which includes babysitting and concessions, might be quite a lot more expensive than $30, even for one or two viewers.

DirecTV Starts Premium Film Rentals at $29.99 for 48 Hours - Bloomberg

Mobile Money Strategies for Mobile Service Providers

"Mobile money” is sometimes hard to understand for good reasons: it includes a number of different functions and many different groups of participants, each with slightly or significantly different opportunities and challenges. (Click on images for a larger view)

Among the prominent new contestants are mobile service providers, who see an opportunity to enter a new line of business with direct transaction revenue benefits, namely the transaction fees generated when payment services are provided. Up to this point, that has included both per-transaction fees of some cents per event, plus a percentage of the gross amount of the transaction.

That is changing, at least for debit card payments. But there are lots of other potential business models and revenue streams, and different participants likely will try them all, ranging from local advertising to promotions to point-of-sale apps to loyalty programs.

Mobile Money Strategies for Mobile Service Providers | Mobile Marketing and Technology

SK Telecom to Launch LTE Network in July 2011

SK Telecom plans to begin providing commercial 4G Long Term Evolution services in Seoul in July 2011 and later upgrade its LTE networks in 2013 to LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), repurposing its second generation frequencies in the 800 MHz bands. The LTE-A upgrade will offer speeds up to 75Mbps downlink speed and 37.5Mbps uplink speed on 10 MHz of spectrum

SK Telecom also is upgrading its 3G network in April 2011 to HSPA+, the fastest 3G version and operating at speeds the International Telecommunications Union says are officially "4G" networks.

As other LTE providers have done, SK Telecom plans to launch 'LTE data modem handsets' in July this year at the time of LTE commercialization and expand its LTE handset lineup to smartphones and tablet PCs within the second half of 2011.

First, SK Telecom will adopt its own cloud-based network technology named Smart Cloud Access Network (SCAN) to set up its LTE network. With SCAN, SK Telecom successfully separated Digital Unit (DU) and Radio Unit (RU), the two main components of a base station. DUs will be stored together in one area, while Remote Radio Units (RRU) - along with the antenna - will be set up in various locations, thereby enhancing network operation efficiency. Also, with full-fledged application of cloud computing technology, the network will be able to flexibly and seamlessly handle mobile data traffic that varies by time and region.

The company plans to expand its LTE coverage to 23 cities including the Seoul metropolitan area, providing nationwide coverage (82 cities) in 2013.

read more here

iPad's Great, But How Good is It as a Blender?

What Makes a Video "Go Viral"?

sme_bw2010_scott_stratten_v2 from Michael A. Stelzner on Vimeo.

85% of Software Firms Say They Sell Cloud Software Now

Cloud-based software seems already to have become a significant product for a majority of 100 software executive respondents recently surveyed by Sand Hill Group.

Fully 85 percent of respondents said their company already has a cloud product or service offering in the market.

Some 43 percent of the executives forecasted that their revenues will be dominated (81 - 100 percent) by cloud-based services and products in five years.

Some 61 percent of respondents from companies with revenues less than $250 million are driving towards cloud-dominated (81- 100 percent cloud revenue) business in five years. The larger companies will grow cloud revenues more slowly. About 16 percent of the large company respondents indicated that their revenues will be in the range of 1-20 percent in five years, and 67 percent said it would be between 41-60 percent.



The survey data shows clearly that Platform-as-a-Service is still in its infancy. Enterprise customers already have a rich suite of on-premise development tools and question the value of the platform in the cloud. They also have concerns about vendor lock-in, architectural re-design efforts, and the readiness of PaaS platforms to handle enterprise production applications. Furthermore, CIOs are waiting to see which platform will emerge as the dominant one before committing. In the near term, PaaS will be a favorite for early adopter and progressive companies.

The most popular form of cloud service is "software as a service." SaaS is a dominant delivery model with more than 93 percent of executives indicating that SaaS generates the highest revenues for them, among cloud services. However, PaaS is a strong favorite to dominate in the next three years with 85 percent of executives indicating that PaaS will generate the highest revenues.

Once PaaS reaches mainstream adoption, however, it will be a sweet spot for many product and services vendors. Half of enterprise software comprises of custom software developed on software development platforms. PaaS is where almost half of the tools, custom development, and migration revenues will be generated.

The survey was conducted betwen January and February 2011. See this for more detail.

Tablet market seen surging to $49 billion by 2015

The tablet computer market will become the third largest consumer electronics sector, after televisions and personal computers, forecasts Strategy Analytics, forecasting 149 million units will be sold in 2015, growing eightfold from 2010.

Gartner forecasts even stronger growth of 294 million units for 2015.

Tablet market seen surging to $49 billion by 2015 | Reuters

Will High Gas Prices Help or Hurt Online Sales?

Economics is supposed to be a science, but one wonders whether that is entirely accurate. Consider the question of whether higher gas prices are going to help, or hurt online commerce. One point of view is that consumers will drive less, and spend more online.

Michael McNamara, Vice President, Research and Analysis for MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, thinks online sales will benefit. "Based on what we've observed in the last three to four years, high gasoline prices typically result in consumers consolidating shopping trips, shopping closer to home, and making fewer trips to the brick and mortar locations as we get to Saturday."

"On the other hand, we've seen the e-Commerce channel benefitting somewhat from this trend," he says.

According to comScore, an increase in gas prices may actually trigger a decrease in non-essential, or discretionary spending. Instead of forgoing car trips and using the money that would be spent on gas towards online purchases, consumers are more likely to decrease online spending and use those funds towards the purchase of gas.

"I think it's fair to say that rapidly rising retail gas prices are cause for concern for the retail e-commerce sector," says Andrew Lipsman. "As disposable income shrinks, so too does discretionary spending as manifested in online retail."

"All other factors being equal, we should anticipate a two-percentage point decline in e-commerce spending growth rates versus what we would have otherwise seen.

See http://blog.comscore.com/2011/04/will_rising_gas_prices_threate.html

News Center MasterCard Advisors

Sprint, LightSquared, Clearwire in Advanced Talks About Infrastructure Sharing

Sprint Nextel is in advanced talks to rent space on its wireless tower network to LightSquared and Clearwire, the Wall Street Journal reports. For LightSquared, the deal accelerates the pace of its national terrestrial network construction.

Sprint will be paid by Lightsquared partly in cash and partly in spectrum, which will allow Sprint to deploy a new 4G Long Term Evolution network without waiting for spectrum auctions or deactivation of its Nextel iDEN network.

Somewhat oddly, given that Sprint relies on Clearwire to build the 4G WiMAX network Sprint is using, the deal also will allow Clearwire to finish national network construction at lower cost, as well.

Sprint in Talks to Share Network - MarketWatch

LTE could become available on 900/1800 MHz in EC by end of 2011

Long Term Evolution could be available in the United Kingdom sooner than many had thought, following a decision by the European Commission to open up existing airwaves used for 2G and 3G devices, making them available for use by LTE devices.

The EC decision states that the 900 and 1800 MHz spectrum must allow use of these frequencies for LTE devices by the end of 2011. So some network operators with spare capacity in those frequency bands could light LTE networks now, without waiting for a spectrum auction.

thinkbroadband :: LTE could become available on 900/1800MHz by end of 2011

Web 3.0: A Web of One?

Web 3.0, when it arrives, will be about using all sorts of personal data to create a customized "Web of One" experience. At least that's the hope.

How to Measure Your Facebook Engagement

Whether "engagement" on Facebook or any other social network actually can be measured, people keep trying.

Many businesses set up a Facebook fan page and look to their fan growth rate as the primary success metric. But number of fans isn’t really the full story. You need to track and measure how much your fans are actually consuming, engaging with and sharing your content.

Perhaps more accurately, brands and organizations need ways to measure proximate measures that we believe illustrate "engagement."

Some studies show that a whopping 90 percent of Facebook users don’t return to a fan page once they click the "Like"button.

How to Measure Your Facebook Engagement | Social Media Examiner

"It's Not About You"

"It’s not about you" might be the best single piece of advice a person ever can get. But most sales efforts are less effective than they might otherwise be because sales personnel focus so much time and effort on the products they are peddling, rather than listening to customers talk about problems they have.

Sales teams focus on their own needs and desire for success, and the customer is just a means to that end. Customers have their own problems, and frankly, yours are less important.

Sales personnel worry about their own image; they ought to worry more about the customer's need to succeed.

If you want to be successful in business, make it be about them. Not you. It's really good advice.

The Key Ingredient for Social Media Success: Social Slam Recap | Blue Kite Marketing