18% in U.S. Access Location-Based Smartphone Services | ClickZ

Some 17.6 percent of U.S. smart phone users accessed at least one "check-in"-oriented mobile platform during the month of March, 2011 representing 7.1 percent of the nation's entire mobile population, according to comScore.

Location-based service users are more likely to interact with other forms of mobile media and content than non LBS-using smart phone owners. They demonstrated a higher propensity for consuming news content through their handsets, as well as accessing restaurant information and online retail sites, based on data collected in the three-month period ending March 31, 2011

LBS users were also more likely to own a tablet, and a higher percentage recalled seeing ads on their mobile devices. In terms of demographics, 13 to 34 year olds accounted for the majority of users for location services, representing 66.8 percent of users.

18% in U.S. Access Location-Based Smartphone Services | ClickZ

App Providers Control Too Much Personal Information, U.S. Adults Say

When American adults were asked if they agree or disagree that some online companies, such as Google or Facebook, control too much of our personal information and know too much about our browsing habits, 76 percent agree. Only 16 percent disagree, according to a new survey by Adweek and the Harris Poll.

While majorities of both men and women agree that these companies control too much and have too much information about us, women are somewhat more likely to say this than men are (79 percent of women,  74 percent of men).

Yet, despite a large majority of Americans agreeing that these companies know and control too much, Americans are more likely to say they oppose government intervention to regulate large online companies like Google or Facebook (46 percent) rather than support it (36 percent) .

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom.aspx

33x Mobile Traffic Growth Next 10 Years

Mobile traffic will grow 33 times over 2010 levels in the next decade, the UMTS Forum predicts.

The report also predicts that growth will be stronger still in Europe. During the same period, the UMTS Forum estimates that mobile traffic in a typical Western European country will grow by 67 times from 2010 levels.

33x growth in mobile traffic over next decade, predicts UMTS Forum

Will Apple be King of Payments?

"Apple has revolutionized how we consume music, mobile applications, and media, in general. I fully expect them to revolutionize the retail experience, too," says Michael Koploy, Software Advice ERP market analyst.

"If Apple can revolutionize the point of sale, consumers will use their iPhone for retail checkout." That is the trick, isn't it?

"In the process, I think they will come to own a huge chunk of the payments industry," says Koploy. "We think Apple has a chance to own the later opportunity by acting as a merchant services provider."

"Consumers won’t care who’s processing the transaction or earning fees," he argues. It's true that consumers won't care. But retailers will care, as well the existing issuers of credit cards and debit cards, as well as the card associations, especially Visa and MasterCard.

From the outside, it always seems to be logical that a new provider, offering a new experience, ought to be able to change the payments experience. Starbucks perhaps is the best current example of that, in a retail setting.

But consumer desire, though necessary, is not sufficient to drive a change, as it is the retailers who also have to decide such a change in technology and experience benefits them as well. In the past, modifications of the point of service terminals have run as much as $200 per terminal, a capital investment retailers would rather not make.

The other issue is whether any new payment scheme can offer lower transaction costs for retailers. Apple might hope to do so, but has to be aware that the issuing banks and payment networks are not going to stand idly by and allow Apple to erode current industry revenues.

Apple has to be considered one of the more fearsome potential disruptors. But disruption in the payments industry is far harder than it typically appears.

Some of us might guess that Apple could play a bigger role not in the actual payments revenue stream, but as a provider of new value to ecosystem participants. In other words, Apple's biggest success could come not as a replacement for current methods, but as a partner to most of the ecosystem, including end users, retailers, banks and settlement networks.

Why Apple is Poised to Become the Future King of Payments

Chrome Now Has 160 Million Users

Google’s Chrome web browser now counts 160 million users in 41 nations, the company says. That’s more than double the 70 million users of the web browser Google reported at last year’s conference.

Chrome Now Has 160 Million Users

Sprint’s Likely Buyer May Be CenturyLink

Sprint Nextel Corp. might end up being acquired if AT&T successfully acquires T-Mobile USA, and the most likely buyer is CenturyLink, the biggest company in telecommunications without a wireless unit, analysts speculate.

CenturyLink, based in Monroe, Louisiana, is the most logical acquirer because it has the financial resources, it’s shown an appetite for big deals and it needs a wireless business, say analysts including Chris Larsen of Piper Jaffray Cos.

Sprint’s Likely Buyer May Be CenturyLink After AT&T Deal - Bloomberg

Kansas City, Mo. Also Gets i-Gbps from Google

Google has said it will extend its symmetrical 1-Gbps fiber to the home network across the river from Kansas City,Kan. to Kansas City, Mo. as well.

Kansas City, Mo., to get super-fast Google hook-ups, too - KansasCity.com

"Trust" Now a Big Issue for Media, Business and Government

U.S citizens now trust business and government less in 2011 than they did in 2010. About six percent fewer U.S. respondents say they "can trust government to do what is right." At 40 percent of respondents, U.S. levels of trust in government are nearly identical to view of Russians about their own government. About 39 percent of Russian respondents think they can trust government to do what is right.



About 46 percent of U.S. respondents say they can "trust business to do what is right."



Media fares even worse than business or government, though. Just 27 percent of U.S. respondents say they "trust media to do what is right." Media scores dropped 11 percent since 2010.



read more here

Reputation Management in a Social World

Managing Your Reputation in a Social World American Marketing Association - New Jersey Chapter

View more presentations from NJAMA

It is by now commonplace that online reputation can be affected quickly and widely on social media. For many brands, that means activities to manage, shape or respond to these threats to a firm's reputation now are necessary.

78% of IT Professionals Use Personal Devices for Work

A survey of 100 information technology professionals indicates just how much intermingling of "business issued" and "personal" devices now happens at enterprises.

The respondents indicate that 78 percent use personal devices for business-related purposes or use corporate devices to connect to personal applications. It is possible that those ratios do not apply equally to most enterprise employees, since the respondents are among the "most technical" employees at an enterprise.

And though most are worried about the impact such personal devices pose for enterprise security policies, fully 35 percent of the IT professionals say they also violating their corporate policies at least occasionally.

Enterasys Survey: Consumer devices in the workplace

Where Voice is Headed

Here's a pictogram by Dean Bubley and Martin Geddes that illustrates where they think "voice" is headed.

A couple of key points are that voice shifts from being a fixed network service to being primarily a wireless service; shifts from being a stand-alone "service" to an attribute of some other application or experience; and that it increasingly is delivered "over the top" as an application, not as a provisioned service.

None of those key observations would be unexpected, or necessarily good news for today's telecom providers. "Voice" in the future will be a feature or attribute, not necessarily a service sold by a telco as a specific service.

SAP Focuses on Mobile Apps

Germany's SAP AG sees the business-software industry's future in mobile apps. The corollary is that SAP sees cloud-based software as the future.

Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe, who took over as co-chief executives in February 2010 following revenue and profit shortfalls, have sold investors on a plan to make SAP a growth company again in part by bringing the consumer mobile-app craze to the enterprise.

By combining its business-software assets with Sybase, which it acquired last year, SAP hopes to build a mobile powerhouse, offering its customers mobile versions of SAP's business software and the ability to easily build and securely manage their own mobile apps.

SAP Focuses on Mobile-App Software - WSJ.com (subscription required)

Microsoft to Buy Nokia?

A report by a Russian blogger with good sources inside Nokia has prompted rumors that Microsoft is looking to buy the Finnish giant‘s phone business. Nokia denies the rumor.

The blogger, Edlar Murtazin, has a good track record: he predicted the Microsoft-Nokia partnership as long ago as December. Now he says that next week, Nokia will begin talks about the sales of the unit to Microsoft. The deal could close before the end of 2011. “Both companies are in a big hurry,” he writes (in Russian).

These sorts of rumors have surfaced in the past, but never in the context of an abandonment by Nokia of Symbian and an embrace of Microsoft as Nokia's key smart phone operating system.

On the other hand, some will question the logic. Microsoft always has preferred an "open" approach where its operating system can be freely licensed by many other hardware providers. Buying Nokia would put Microsoft into competition with its partners.

Buying Nokia would essentially put Nokia out of business. It isn't so clear that makes sense, either. And all such large acquisitions are fraught with integration risk. One hopes, for both companies, that the rumor is false.

Dissecting the Microsoft-Nokia Rumor

Enterprise SaaS Objections Decline Dramatically

It appears that enterprise resistance to software as a service solutions has lessened dramatically in 2010. At least that is what respondents to a Yankee Group survey seem to indicate. The big change is the dramatic drop in respondents who are taking a "wait and see" approach to SaaS.

Smart Phone Data Consumption Catching up to USB Modems

Historically, smart phone users have consumed far less data than USB modem users. "On the Orange Switzerland network, USB modems accounted for approximately 80 percent of data traffic in early 2010," says Declan Lonergan, Yankee Group analyst.

Telefónica O2 Czech Republic has had a similar ratio in early 2011. Today, Orange’s average modem user generates 4 GBytes of traffic per month. But it appears smartphone data consumption, though significantly lower, is catching up.

In part, that is a function of more smart phones being used, users consuming more data and consumers using their devices for longer periods of time.

The net result is that—in the case of Orange Switzerland, for example—by early 2011, smartphones far exceeded the number of active modems on the network, and these devices are now generating the majority of data traffic.

The trend is similar in the United Kingom, where Vodafone expects a fourfold increase in smartphone data, contributing to an estimated threefold increase in total mobile data traffic by 2015, Longergan predicts.