Google Maps Tells You When Your Bus is Late, in Boston, Portland, Ore., San Diego and San Francisco

"Starting now, Google Maps for mobile and desktop can tell you when your ride is actually going to arrive with new live transit updates. We partnered with transit agencies to integrate live transit data in four U.S. cities and two European cities: Boston, Portland, Ore., San Diego, San Francisco, Madrid and Turin.

Know when your bus is late with live transit updates in Google Maps - Official Google Mobile Blog

Mobile Retail Users Skew Young, Rich

Mobile retail users skew younger and wealthier than the general mobile audience, according to Millennial Media and comScore. The highest percentage of mobile retail users, 36%, are between the ages of 25 to 34. That tends to be a common profile for many new applications, services and products, though.

Mobile Retail Users Skew Young, Rich

HTML5 Can Do Anything an iOS App Can Do, Financial Times Says

"Anything an iOS app can do, the web can do better, Rob Grimshaw, The Financial Times’ online managing director says. It had better, since the Financial Times does not want to do business with the Apple App Store under the prevailing terms and conditions

“We started off not knowing what could be achieved (in HTML),” Grimshaw said. “But, one by one, we found that all the things that could be done in a native app actually could be done in a HTML5 app - and we haven’t had to compromise on anything, though we were expecting to.

“We’ve benefited from our exposure in the app store - Apple were very good, they promoted our app quite heavily and we were very grateful. But app stores are not a panacea. There are something like 250,000 apps on Apple’s app store, 150,000 on Google’s - these are turning in to pretty crowded environments. The search and discovery tools are not that great and there are limited ways to market your app.

Interview: Financial Times’ Grimshaw: ‘App Stores Are Not A Panacea’

'Great Reversal' as world's forests stage a comeback

In 68 nations studied, forest area is expanding in 45 and density is also increasing in 45, said Pekka Kauppi of the University of Helsinki. "Changing area and density combined had a positive impact on the carbon stock in 51 countries." The point is that earlier forecasts of deforestation ignored density metrics.

That trend has been underway since at least 2006. See http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/11/061113-forests.html. That 2006 study found that forests were growing, reversing an earlier trend of shrinking forests.

Previous studies on the world's forests have tended to focus solely on forest area, often measured by satellite, but according to the US and European researchers compiling the report this misses out on the fact that in many cases more tree mass is appearing as forests get denser, with taller trees and more of them.

'To speak of carbon, we must look beyond measurements of area and apply forestry methods traditionally used to measure timber volumes,” says forestry expert Paul Waggoner. 'Forests are like cities: they can grow both by spreading and by becoming denser,' says Iddo Wernick, another study author.

For example, according to US Forest Service figures, US timberland grew by only 1 per cent over the period 1953 to 2007. But this figure doesn't reflect the true story: the volume of growing stock increased by 51 per cent, and overall national forest density was well up.

'Great Reversal' as world's forests stage a comeback

63% of Mobile Data Network Traffic on Wi-Fi, Femtos by 2015

The majority of mobile broadband traffic (63 percent) generated by smart phones, tablets and feature phones will transfer onto the fixed network using Wi-Fi and femtocells by 2015. This means that the annual mobile data traffic offloaded from operators’ networks via WiFi and Femtocells is forecast to reach nearly 9000 petabytes by 2015, which equates to 11 billion movie downloads, Juniper Research says.

63% of traffic to Move onto Fixed Networks via WiFi and Femtocells by 2015

$50 Billion in NFC-Based Mobile Payments in 2014

Global mobile contactless payment transactions using near field communications will reach nearly $50 billion worldwide by 2014, says Juniper Research. North America and Western Europe will account for 50 percent of global NFC payments market by value in 2014.

Press Release: NFC Mobile Payments to Drive Contactless Transactions to Reach Nearly $50 billion Worldwide by 2014

The Key to More Leads? Create More Targeted Conversion Opportunities! [Data]

The more landing pages a business has on its website, the more leads it generates, says HubSpot, after surveying 4,000 business managers and owners. Specifically, HubSpot found that businesses with 31 to 40 landing pages generated seven times more leads than businesses with only one to five landing pages.

And the numbers get even more impressive: businesses with over 40 landing pages generated a whopping 12 times more leads than those with only 1 to 5 landing pages.

To create more landing pages, create more offers. And most of the offers relate to content: Ebooks, whitepapers, industry research reports,

live or archived webinars or recorded videos, for example.

Free trials, product demos and personal consultations can also drive more landing page traffic.

The Key to More Leads? Create More Targeted Conversion Opportunities

Average iTunes user only listens to 19% of music library

Cloud-based music storage has obvious attractions: it means a collection can be listened to on any number of devices, not just a dedicated MP-3 player.

But most iTunes users, at least, don't listen to most of the music they own. Music WithMe, which takes a competing approach to managing a music library on a mobile device, found that the average iTunes user only plays 19 percent of the music in the library.

Average iTunes user only listens to 19% of music library

eMarketer Predicts 88 Million Americans Will Redeem Online Coupons in 2011

About 50 percent of all adult Internet users in the United States, roughly 88 million people, “will have redeemed an online coupon or code for use either online or offline" by the end of 2011, eMarketer predicts.

And eMarketer sees only continued growth in the coming years. 88 million online coupon redeemers will become nearly 100 million by 2013, eMarketer projects.

“Consumer brands are accustomed to promoting their products in stores and in newspaper inserts,” says Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer principal analyst. “But as more shoppers make purchase decisions online before taking a shopping trip, brands are following them onto the internet.

eMarketer Predicts 88 Million Americans Will Redeem Online Coupons This Year

How Much Content Is Needed For Content Marketing?

"Buyers and influencers of high consideration B2B technology solutions typically use about three distinct content types during the awareness, the consideration, and the purchase phases of the buying process, a total of nine pieces," says Forrester Research analyst Daniel Klein.

But there's more: you are likely to have a minimum of three to four key buying influences for any moderately complex solution. "That means you’ll need to ensure that you’re applying the 3x3 to each buyer and influencer," says Klein. See http://blogs.forrester.com/daniel_klein/11-05-30-the_right_ratio_for_your_content_marketing_strategy_guiding_principle_number_three.

Does that mean any brand has to create 27 to 36 different content pieces? Actually, no, and the reason is the existence of the Internet. Buyers and influencing parties typically find 70 percent of the content that they consume on their own, says Klein.

All brands will create some of their specific content, but no brand should expect to create most of the content potential buyers will use. Also, "look for reuse or shared content," says Klein. That's the basic principle behind content curation: you don't have to create all the useful content, but you can aggregate and point to it.

Also, 3:1:1 is the simple but powerful ratio that should guide your content strategy, says Klein. Buyers and influencers of high consideration solutions find 70 percent of the content they consume on their own, 15 percent of the content that they consume is typically sent to them by marketers and the remaining 15 percent is delivered to them by sales (or an indirect sales channel.

The 70 percent of the content that they find on their own can take many forms. They find it via a search query, come across it while reading an online article, seek it out by coming to your website and through other means as well. Because this percent is so great, you can’t possibly control everything they find, but you can still help them find the content. That's what content curation is about.

How Much Content Is Needed For Content Marketing?

eBay "retail-as-a-service"

Online commerce will be sold as a cloud-based service if eBay creates a new "cloud commerce" platform-as-a-service for retailers, complete with an app-store fed by web developers. The company has bought shopping engine specialist Magento, and eBay already bought X.Commerce, an open-source platform group. The shopping giant had already owned 49 per cent of Magento, after it invested $22.5 million in March 2010.

eBay buy signals retail-as-a-service cloud

Verizon Personalizes Broadband, Video Packages

With a maturing market, service providers often find themselves facing different marketing challenges than in a younger, faster-growing market.

Though it has been emphasizing triple-play packages for some time, Time Warner Cable now will devote new effort to "broadband only" single-play customers, in part because most video customers seem unwilling to change providers just to get broadband services from a new provider.

Likewise, Verizon now is offering packaging with more variety for its triple-play prospects and customers as well, essentially offering end users to emphasize either broadband or video, rather than having to buy linear packages that essentially offer a "good, better, best" approach that assumes all customers value video and broadband equally.

In other words, a consumer really wanting the best broadband, but less interested in video variety, can buy a package built that way. Likewise, a consumer that wants the maximum video variety but is less concerned about broadband speed can buy that way as well.

It's hard to tell what the recurring revenue impact will be, but the customer churn should be lower. Verizon’s broadband packages increase by $5 for each 10 Mbps increase in speeds, while video packages increase by $10 as they step up from about 200 channel to nearly 400 channels.

"Choice" long has been one of the most-powerful marketing concepts. "Personalized" has likewise become key. Verizon seems to be wanting to reflect those values in its packaging.

Verizon’s Bundle Builder

Mobile Will Need to Become an "App Platform"

For European mobile operators, the next phase of business development will be about mobile service as a platform for web and other applications, displacing a more-recent phase where success hinged on new data revenues, smart phones, reducing operating costs and raising average revenue per user, says Declan Lonergan, Yankee Group analyst.

Clearly gone is the period where success could be built around text messaging, voice revenue and minutes of use.

Some executives rightly will be concerned, if only because the next phase of growth will depend on the ability to create a new revenue platform based on access and other elements of mobile service that can be sold to business partners, if not directly to end users.

Mobile Will Need to Become an "App Platform"

Apple iMessage Will Act Like BlackBerry Messenger

Apple's new iMessage service will act in a manner similar to BlackBerry Messenger. Depending on your point of view, that is a major alternative to carrier-provided text messaging, or not a factor. iMessages will be sent using the standard data connection, and could replace a text message, so long as the recipient also is on an iOS device.

So iPhone owners who are able to send iMessages to the people they most often text with might find the feature quite useful. Such users might be able to pay text messaging plans that save them money. Others will simply find they don't want to think about "how" to send a message. Also, lots of users are on unlimited texting plans in any case, so the "savings" actually aren't there.

Apple Attacked Mobile Carriers Today, But Also Gave Them A Gift

Apple's iOS 5: No More Syncing to a PC

With iOS 5, Apple finally has moved device set-up and updates away from the need to connect to a PC to accomplish such tasks. One assumes that eventually will happen with iPads as well.

Apple also has integrated Twitter, providing a single sign-on for Twitter use on the phone, and with any app you download, it will just ask you for Twitter credential permission.

There’s no need to re login. The practical advantages are that photos, maps, YouTube videos, web content and location details can be sent directly from inside the applications.

Twitter photos and @usernames can be autopulled into the phone’s contacts.

Apple's PC-Free iOS 5 Coming This Fall