Normal People Don't "Share," They "Send"

Facebook has replaced its "share" button with "send" button. You might wonder why. Most likely, it's an attempt to leverage user behavior. People who have been using email for a long time are used to "sending," though the notion of "sharing" is not so well entrenched a behavior.

The "Send" button forwards the current Web page a user is on to a Facebook friend or Facebook group. Facebook probably guesses, and probably correctly, that the former "share" function will get more use as a "send" function.

Because Normal People Don't "Share," Facebook Introduces The "Send" Button

U.S. Smartphone Market is a Bit Like Fashion

Smartphones and other mobile devices are a bit like fashion, introducing a great deal of volatility.

According to The Nielsen Company’s monthly surveys of U.S. mobile consumers from July 2010 to September 2010, consumers planning on getting a new smartphone had a very clear preference: A third (33 percent) wanted an Apple iPhone.

Slightly more than a quarter (26 percent) said they desired a device with the Google Android operating system. And 13 percent said they wanted a RIM Blackberry.

Those same surveys for January 2011 to March 2011 show significant changes. According to the latest figures, 31 percent of consumers who plan to get a new smartphone indicated Android was now their preferred OS. Apple’s iOS has slipped slightly in popularity to 30 percent and RIM Blackberry is down to 11 percent. Almost 20 percent of consumers are unsure of what to choose next.

U.S. Smartphone Market: Who’s the Most Wanted? | Nielsen Wire

Developer Enthusiasm for Android, iPhone Pauses a Bit

Android has lost some of its momentum among developers, if not consumers, amid concerns about fragmentation, patent protection and open source credentials. However, the alternatives to the Google OS and Apple iOS are failing, as yet, to take advantage of these weaknesses. In fact, developer interest in the iPhone and iPad also has slipped a bit in recent days, an IDC study sponsored by Appcelerator has found.

Android loses momentum

Attention is the New Currency

 

You might argue it is hard to get attention from Millennials. Heck, it's hard to get anybody's attention, these days.

(Graham Brown mobileYouth) #Trends: Paid vs Earned Media

YouTube to Launch Streaming Video Service?

YouTube is launching a movie-on-demand service, TheWrap reports.

Major studios including Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Brothers and Universal are said to have licensed their movies for the new service, as have numerous independent studios, including Lionsgate and the library-rich Kino Lorber.

YouTube already sees 130 million monthly users, giving the site a huge potential buyer base.

YouTube Finally Goes Hollywood With New Movies on Demand Service

Mobile Banking Growing; Still in Single Digits

By 2015, more than 50 million U.S. adults could be using mobile banking services, says Emmett Higdon, Forrester Research analyst.

In a survey of 5,500 U.S. consumers Javelin conducted in November, 29 percent of respondents said they call their bank and 30 percent log into online banking when they receive an alert about their financial status from their bank, says James Van Dyke, Javelin Strategy and Research president.

Only four percent said they log into mobile banking. By comparison, of the survey respondents that were customers of Bank of America, 25 percent said they call their bank and 38 percent log into online banking. Another seven percent said they log into mobile banking.

Bank of America Looking to Trim Fat from Mobile Banking - Bank Investment Consultant

"UC is Free!" Might be Going Too Far

Per-seat costs for unified communications are down 50 percent since 2010, a comparison suggests. At Enterprise Connect 2011, 11 major vendors presented UC solutions, each with the four UC building blocks: IM/presence, conferencing (audio, web and video), mobility and extensibility.

Each supplier presented its UC pricing for the standard configuration. The per-user-per-year average prices for the UC-only configurations were down more than 50 percent from last year, to $38 per user per year (software, hardware and maintenance for 2,000 users for three years). Costs are dropping, no doubt.

UC is Free! @VoiceReport

Storage Failures Hamper Cloud Foundry

Cloud Foundry, the new cloud platform hosted by VMware, experienced problems with its storage infrastructure April 25, 2011. Cloud Foundry says the issues have affected its cloud controller system, limiting users’ ability to log in and manage their applications. Existing applications will continue to run, but are unable to recover if they experience problems.

“Early this morning we experienced multiple failures in a portion of our storage infrastructure,” CloudFoundry said in a notice on its web site.

Coming on the heels of the Amazon Web Services outage, at least some potential users will be reassessing their options.

Storage Failures Hamper Cloud Foundry

Netflix Now Has More Subs Than Comcast

If all that mattered was subscribers, Netflix would be a bigger company than Comcast, the largest U.S. cable company. In the first quarter of 2011, Netflix added 3.6 million subscribers, ending the period with more than 23.6 million subscribers in total. That was up 69 percent from the 14 million subscribers it had a year ago.

Comcast ended 2010 with 22.8 million pay TV subscribers. Of course, subscriber numbers are not the only metric. Comcast's average revenue per user is much higher. Netflix ARPU is about $12 per subscriber, per month. Comcast ARPU is somewhere north of about $82 a month.

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Netflix Earnings Up 88 Percent, Adds 3.3 Million U.S. Subscribers

Netflix added 3.3 million U.S. subscribers in the first quarter of 2011, plus another 290,000 interantionally, to end at 23.6 million, which is slightly below the 3.7 million analayts were hoping for but still double the growth from a year ago.


Netflix saw a rise in domestic operating margins to 16 percent, from 14.9 percent in the fourth quarter, largely due to an increase in streaming-only subscribers and price increases on hybrid subscriptions. Margins should fall back to around 14 percent as streaming and marketing costs continue to rise (offset by declines in DVD shipping).

Netflix Earnings Up 88 Percent, Adds 3.3 Million U.S. Subscribers

Content or Context? Both, but Context Might be More Important than You Think

(Graham Brown mobileYouth) #Trends: Content vs Context

View more presentations from Graham Brown

Startups Often Succeed After Failing

One of the certainties about startups is that the initial idea fails, to be replaced by something else that does result in success.

Initial idea: Allow groups of people to band together to accomplish a goal called ThePoint
Eventually: Groupon

Initial idea: Web-based massively multiplayer online game called Game Neverending
Eventually: Flickr

Initial idea: Compare two people’s pictures and rate which one was more attractive
Eventually: Facebook

5 Awesome Companies That Emerged From Crappy Ideas

In-Store Marketing Begins at Home

The Internet has changed many things, including shopping. Among the bigger changes is the amount of research shoppers do before they actually go to a retail location. In other words, a shopper's "buying" process begins before any retailer's "selling process" begins. The implication is that the sales process has to catch people when they are conducting buying research, not after they have finished that research.

Since shoppers now conduct research before they enter a store, retailers have to move up their promotional activities to match the buyer's process, instead of waiting until a shopper is physically on the premises. Saatchi X, for example, used to find that 10 percent of client projects included an online component. Now, virtually 100 percent include an online presence.

Some 62 percent of shoppers surveyed by Booz & Co. report they searched online for deals before they began shopping trips, the Wall Street Journal reports. That might explain why there is new interest in content marketing, where brands invest in various types of online content. It no longer makes sense to be invisible when shoppers are making choices. Rather, brands need to be visible online, when buying processes already are occurring.

It's well known that consumers research expensive products like electronics online, but coming out of the recession, consumers are more scrupulous about researching their everyday products such as diapers and detergent, too, the Wall Street Journal reports.

More than 20 percent of them also research food and beverages, nearly a third research pet products and 39 percent research baby products, even though they ultimately tend to buy those products in stores, according to WSL Strategic Retail, a consulting firm.

The importance of online communications obviously is much higher, and more necessary, if one assumes that key decisions are being made in the virtual sphere. If buyers are making more decisions before they go to a store, then it is important to try and steer traffic towards stores before the more traditional promotion campaigns retailers often have relied upon, in store, can take place.

Content marketing then becomes the first step in the sales process.

In-Store Marketing Begins at Home - WSJ.com (subscription required)

Proof that Shoppers are "Shopping" at Home, 8 PM to 10 PM

A study by Compete illustrates the increasing disconnect between many forms of marketing persuasion that are part of the selling process, and the increasingly disarticulated shopper buying process. In other words, people are shopping long before they ever set out to visit a retail store, and at non-traditional retail hours when shopping online.

Visits  to most retail categories peaks in the evening hours, around 8 pm to 10 pm. There is a steady increase throughout the day (from about 9 am on), and it drops off around 11 pm. The lowest levels occur in the early morning hours—between 3 am and 5 am, when the fewest people are awake.

Sporting goods retailers see a concentrated peak around 8 pm, after fairly low levels throughout the day. Home improvement sites peak in the morning and remain steady through the afternoon, with an early drop-off at night.

All of that is instructive in terms of its implications for online and mobile promotion, marketing and advertising.

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