Broadband Choices Tend to Be Rational, No Matter What Experts Say

People often buy products, or use those products in ways not originally intended. People also sometimes buy products experts think they should not buy. Consider the matter of broadband access. Virtually all studies suggest that fixed line access “works better” than terrestrial wireless, mobile broadband or satellite broadband, whether the measure is peak throughput or latency.

But all the evidence suggests that people continue to buy mobile broadband and satellite access services. In fact, there is evidence from the United Kingdom that significant numbers of people in the U.K. market buy mobile broadband access in place of fixed access, even though the mobile service has limitations, compared to fixed access.

One has to assume consumers are illogical, or that they mostly are buying products based on overall utility, and that value is not defined by top download speed or even latency.

Broadband Choices Tend to Be Rational, No Matter What Experts Say

Android Leads U.S. Smart Phone Market Share and Data Usage

According to Nielsen’s April 2011 survey of mobile consumers, 36 percent of smart phone consumers now have an Android device, compared to 26 percent for Apple iOS smartphones (iPhones) and 23 percent for RIM Blackberry.

Some 74 percent of Android smart phone owners and 79 percent of iPhone owners report having downloaded apps in the past 30 days. About 43 percent of Android owners and 46 percent of iPhone owners say they streamed online music or mobile radio in the past 30 days.

Also, 35 percent of Android smart phone consumers and 37 percent of iPhone owners report having watched video or mobile TV in the past 30 days.

But smart phone users still consume little data, compared to fixed-line PC users. Android users used 582 Mbytes per month. BlackBerry users consumed just 127 Mbytes.

Android Leads in U.S. Smartphone Market Share and Data Usage

Human Brain Limits Twitter Friends To 150

Virtually all social networks, even when originally composed of people one actually knows, become "media" at about the point that any user reaches 150 people in the network, research suggests, because a human being cannot actually maintain more than 150 "strong link" relationships at a time.

Bruno Goncalves and researchers at Indiana University recently studied the network of links created by three million Twitter users over four years. These tweeters sent each a whopping 380 million tweets.

Researchers say it's not enough simply to follow or be followed by somebody for there to be a strong link. Instead, there has to be a conversation, an exchange of tweets. And these conversation have to be regular to be a sign of a significant social bond, so occasional contacts don't count.

At some point, "strong links" have to be replaced by "weak links." And turns any social network into a broadcast medium.

Human Brain Limits Twitter Friends To 150

Will Facebook Credits Work as a Real-World Currency?

Millions of Facebook users use Facebook Credits to pay for virtual goods inside games like CityVille and FarmVille. But the logical next step is to use Facebook Credits to purchase digital and real-world goods. That might have some implications for mobile payments, in some instances.

This has begun to transpire; we are seeing a robust Facebook Credit economy for virtual goods and an early stage Facebook Credit economy emerging for digital and real-world goods. Facebook Credits are used to purchase movie rentals, for example.

Will Facebook Credits Work as a Real-World Currency?

Twitter Becoming a Niche Media?

Some believe Twitter will increasingly be a one-to-a-few medium, with a small base of hard-core users, increasingly selective about the contents they broadcast and who they follow. To be sure, power Twitter users are few. About five percent of the users account for 75 percent of the page views.

As an example, a recent Pew Research study indicates that 85 percent of USA Today.com users visit the site less than three times a month. And for the top 25 American news sites, “power users” who visit a site more than 10 times a month, account for seven percent of total visits.

That has some observers questioning Twitters’s limitations as a channel to drive consumption of online news. According the Pew Research Center for Excellence in Journalism, Twitter is an insignificant referral (one percent) source for news when compared to Facebook (five percent) or Google (30 percent).

Trifling Twitter | Monday Note

YouTube Reaches 3 Billion Daily Views

More than 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, the company says. This constitutes a 37 percent increase over the last six months, and 100 percent over the last year.

YouTube also has surpassed the three billion views-per-day mark. This is a 50 percent increase over views last year.

YouTube Celebrates 6th Birthday With 3 Billion Views Per Day

Apple has Serious Brand Equity

Researcher Eric Fisher analyzed millions of Flickr photos and recorded where each was taken by using associated geotags. He determined that the four most popular places to snap photos in Manhattan: Times Square (4), Columbus Circle (3), Rockefeller Center, (2) and the 5th Avenue Apple Store (1).

That is some serious brand equity.

More People Take Photos Of The NYC Apple Store Than Of Times Square

'Please ReTweet' Generates 4x More ReTweets

Dan Zarella, writing at HubSpot, suggests that asking followers to "re-tweet" actually results in much-higher re-tweet rates. After analyzing more than 10,000 tweets and found that 51 percent of tweets that included 'Please ReTweet' were retweeted more than once, 39 percent of those including 'Please RT' were re-tweeted more than once, and only 12 percent of tweets that included neither were retweeted more than once.

New Data Proves 'Please ReTweet' Generates 4x More ReTweets

QoS is Next Frontier for Broadband, Ovum Says

Asus Launches Padfone

Asus is the latest firm to market a converged smartphone-plus-dock approach to smart phones. The Padfonecombines a smartphone and a tablet computer into one symbiotic gadget that allows users to choose the screen size that best fits their activities while sharing data and 3G Internet access.

The Padfone features a way to dock the smart phone inside the tablet to give users an expanded view. With the phone docked, it can recharge from the tablet’s larger battery and the tablet can also make use of the smartphone’s 3G Internet connection.

The dual interfaces for both the pad and phone ensure the layout is automatically adjusted for all activities such as video conferencing, web browsing and emailing.

Asus Launches Padfone, Notebooks, Netbooks

When Do "Features" Become "Attributes"?

Nobody thinks of a "battery" as a feature of a mobile device, unless the battery offers unusual performance. On the other hand, few really consider short battery life when using Internet features a key "bug," either. People just learn that their batteries won't last very long when they are using the Internet on their mobiles. That's a bit like the ability to make and receive phone calls. It isn't a feature, just an expected capability or attribute of a mobile phone.

But some features do, over time, become mere attributes. That might be happening to Research in Motion, which once dominated the "email-optimized smart phone market. It isn't so clear that the ability to use email on a smart phone any longer is a clear feature, as opposed to an attribute or expected capability.

The point is that when features become mere capabilities, the ability to build a whole market segment based on that feature also goes away. That might be one key reason for RIM's faltering market share.

So now Blackberry’s most significant feature – email – is no longer very interesting.

RIM, Caught Between Work And Whimsy, Has Lost Its Way

Google Wallet Has Advertising as Revenue Model

Advertising has become a revenue model for software. Now Google Wallet takes the concept another step by attempting to make advertising the foundation for mobile-based payments.

Though mobile payments often are seen as a mobile phone replacement for use of a credit or debit card for retail payments, Google Wallet is more of an advertising play. Sure, it will store loyalty program credentials, but the clear new revenue model is ads, promotional emails and store coupons.

http://www.mondaynote.com/2011/05/29/google-wallet-big-deal-or-another-buzz/

Twitter Is Launching Its Own Photosharing Service?

Twitter is reported ready to unveil its own photo-sharing service, according to TechCrunch, a move that will place Twitter in direct competition with some of its own third-party developers, but which some say is a logical step for Twitter to take, given the popularity of photo sharing and its obvious relevance for sharing fast-breaking news and opinions.

Twitter Is Launching Its Own Photosharing Service

24% of U.S. Internet Users Have Used PC-Based VoIP

Nearly a quarter of American adult Internet users (24 percent) polled by the Pew Internet and American Life Project say they have placed phone calls from their computer using a service such as Vonage or Skype. That amounts to 19 percent of all American adults.

On any given day five percent of Internet users are going online to place phone calls, Pew researchers say.

Both figures are marked increases from previous readings in surveys by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Using different question wording, the Project found in February 2007 that eight percent of Internet users (six percent of all adults) had placed calls online and two percent of Internet users were making calls on any given day.

The latest survey was the first time that Pew researchers had asked the question using this wording: “Please tell me if you ever use the internet to make a phone call online, using a service such as Skype or Vonage?"

Main report | Pew Internet & American Life Project

Users Trust Product Information Found on Blogs

Some 88 percent of active blog readers surveyed by Nielsen Co. on behalf of BlogHer  trust the information they get from familiar blogs. Asked why they have this level of trust, nearly half (48 percent) say it’s because they had made purchases in the past based on blog recommendations and were satisfied with the results.

Over 50 percent of the active blog readers in the general U.S. online population have made a purchase based on a blog recommendation, the study found. That number jumps to 80 percent in the BlogHer network community.

The top categories where BlogHer users turn for reviews include food and beverage (67 percent), clothing and shoes (67 percent), movies (62 percent), and cosmetics (59 percent).  

In the general online population, the top vertical for blog reviews is consumer electronics.

Every week, 78 percent of online women use some form of social media, and 40 percent read blogs that frequently, the study suggests.

BlogHer says a key implication is that, when it comes to product recommendations and information, consumers now trust the voice of any "person like me" over just about any "corporate" voice.

Women bloggers talk about brands and products regularly, authentically, and enthusiastically. Brands should find the bridge that will help them join in.


Facebook is very highly adopted in the online population, approaching the level of adoption that television enjoys. It's also clear that there are two driving forces that cause active social media participants to turn to Facebook: to keep in touch with friends and family (78 percent) and to relax and have fun (55 percent). Why? Facebook has made it very easy to quickly check in, catch up, and play a game or two. It's all about digestible, casual, friendly interplay.

Users do not go to Facebook expecting to research potential product purchases. Instead, those same users turn to blogs to spot trends (47 percent), research products (35 percent), and drive purchasing decisions (25 percent), BlogHer suggests.

But most women surveyed by Nielsen still turn to search, and the ensuing links to blog posts, websites, and articles, when they want to research and ultimately make purchases. That suggests the clear rationale behind multi-channel strategies.

Bh social media 0511 without notes

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