U.S. Smart Phone Sales Eclipse Feature Phones

It was only a matter of time before sales of smart phones eclipsed sales of feature phones, and according to Nielsen Wire, that time is now. It will take a while before the installed base of smart phones becomes a majority, but that, too, is inevitable.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/?p=28237

Okay, You've Got "Google+": Now What?

Thanks to my daughter, I now have Google+. So the next issue is to figure out how to use it in a way that is different from Facebook, right after I get thorough all the hygenic stuff of loading up profile information and navigating a bit.

One thing is clear: I don't need another "Facebook" experience, where there is no ability easily to create natural groups around friends, family, work, interests and so forth.  That is what Google+ is supposed to fix. So before I start with "circles," I've got to figure out what "circles" make sense to me, and aren't already taken care of on Facebook.

Since Facebook now seems to be the repository for most friend, family, high school and college buddies and work associates, I'm not sure it makes sense to try and move those contacts over to Google+. But I can think of natural circles that I haven't pursued on Facebook that relate more to hobbies, intellectual interests and so forth, that might make much-better sense on Google+, as Google clearly intends.

I already notice a feature that reminds me of the way I track stuff I'm interested in, largely for work, up to this point. I rely heavily on RSS feeds for that sort of thing, but I notice Google+ has a "Sparks" function that allows a user to set up topics and subjects of interest, and then Sparks automatically creates a feed. Sort of like RSS, but drop-dead simple.

Now Banks are Worried About "Dumb Pipe"

Dickson Chu, who is leading Citi’s participation in the Google Wallet effort, says the bank understands its role in the coming era of mobile commerce. Citi intends to provide the secure payment piece to mobile wallets and other m-commerce offerings.

This “bank grade” payment service would be combined with the new mobile advertising-funded models planned by emerging m-commerce players, such as its partner Google.

Chu noted that banks are not the most innovative of organizations, something that sounds familiar if you work in the telecom business. He also warned that the evolving m-commerce landscape “must not relegate us to becoming a dumb pipe." That also sounds familiar.

Citi Exec: Banks Must Not Get Left Behind in Coming Era of M-Commerce

Businesses boost their Facebook Markeiting

Online advertising channels, ranging from search engines to social networks, are attracting larger budgets from businesses across the country, a recent report from IgnitionOne indicates. But it is Facebook that seems to be getting outsized traction. Facebook advertising spend is up 22 percent year over year on a same-client-basis, with impressions up 11 percent.

Facebook advertising also has experienced high rates of growth due to new marketer adoption in the past year, which contributed to a 280 percent increase in spend across all clients and 200 percent increase in impressions year over year.  Read more here.

While companies already using the popular social network for marketing purposes have increased budgets allocated to Facebook by 22 percent compared to last year, a growing number of companies have begun to integrate the social network into their marketing mix for the first time. Overall, IgnitionOne observed a 280 percent year-over-year increase in advertising spend. See Businesses boost their Facebook marketing efforts

Google "Transparency Report" Shows How Often Governments Ask Google to Remove Content, or Block Google Entirely

Sometimes Google has to remove content from its domain because government agencies around the world ask Google to do so.

Jun 2, 2011	Syria	All Google services inaccessible. [Source: Renesys]
Mar 28, 2011	Armenia	All Google services partially accessible. [Source: Guardian]
Mar 28, 2011	Georgia	All Google services partially accessible. [Source: Guardian]
Mar 3, 2011	Libya	All Google services inaccessible.
Mar 1, 2011	Turkey	Blogger partially accessible. [Source: TurkishPress]
Feb 18, 2011	Libya	All Google services inaccessible.
Feb 17, 2011	Libya	YouTube inaccessible.
Feb 8, 2011	Syria	YouTube accessible. [Source: BBC]
Jan 30, 2011	Iran	Google Videos inaccessible.
Jan 27, 2011	Egypt	All Google services inaccessible for 5 days during protests. [Source: Renesys]
Jan 26, 2011	Sudan	YouTube was partially accessible for 3 days.
Jun 3, 2010	Turkey	Adwords, Analytics and Docs inaccessible for a week during attempt to block YouTube. [Source: ONI]
May 20, 2010	Pakistan	YouTube inaccessible for 6 days due to concerns around the "Everyone Draw Mohammad Day" competition organized by a Facebook user. [Source: CNN]
Jun 13, 2009	Iran	YouTube inaccessible following disputed Presidential election. [Source: ONI]
Mar 23, 2009	China	YouTube inaccessible.
Mar 6, 2009	Bangladesh	YouTube inaccessible for 4 days due to controversial content. [Source: BBC]

All dates are given in Pacific time.

Read more here

Why Do People "Follow" or "Like" Brands on Social Networks?

Google's Zero Moment of Truth

The "zero moment of truth" is a marketing concept that deals with the amount of time that lapses between an advertising message and a consumer taking action on the message.

Here's an ebook Google put together about the concept and what it means for marketing and advertising.

Zero Moment of Truth E-Book

You can figure out why Google thinks the concept is important. To the extent there is latency between ad and action, Google thinks it can create quite a nice business reducing latency.

PayPal Sees End of Physical Wallets by 2015

"We believe that by 2015 digital currency will be accepted everywhere in the U.S., from your local corner store to Walmart," says Scott Thompson, PayPal president. "We will no longer need to carry a wallet."

The prediction came as PayPal announced it has reached 100 million active accounts.

PayPal believes that as the lines between online and offline commerce continue to blur, the payment industry’s model for is looking more and more like PayPal’s, says Sam Shrauger, PayPal VP. PayPal has been handling mobile payments since 2006, he says.

PayPal Crosses First 100 Million Active Accounts

Debit Card Fee Rules Issued by Federal Reserve

In a move that apparently settles a nettlesome issue directly affecting the fortunes of retail merchants and banks that issue debit cards (and which indirectly affects the attractiveness of new mobile payment systems built on a transaction fee revenue model), the Federal Reserve Board issued the final version of Regulation II, which sets new rules for debit card transactions. Retail trade groups and banking trade groups have been at odds over the final rules for months.

The “Final Rule” implements Section 1075 of the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act,” known as the Durbin Amendment.

The rules will go into effect on October 1, 2011 and sets a cap of 21 cents on transactions. That rate essentially lessens the financial sting for card-issuing banks, but also lowers fees for retailers. The original rules might have resulted in limits as low as seven cents per transaction, or as high as 12 cents per transaction.

The rule as adopted allows card issuers to charge up to 21 cents per transaction, plus five basis points of the transaction value. On a $40 transaction, this represents a 48 percent cut in revenue from current rates.

On the other hand, the worst-case scenario for banks would have called for a, which is a 75 percent cut in transaction revenues.

Aside from the direct impact on retailers and card-issuing banks, the rules also create a differently dimensioned revenue stream for any contestants in the mobile payments business that hope to make a business out of transaction fees.

Read more here

Wireless: Where We are Going

There weren’t any surprises in the Federal Communications Commission’s recent report on wireless competition, but one tidbit, already made available by the National Health Interview Survey, is an indicator of where things are going.

The number of adults who rely exclusively on mobile wireless for voice service has increased significantly in recent years. According to the January to June 2010 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), 24.9 percent of adults, or one in every four, lived in households with wireless phones only during the first half of 2010.

In its most recent study, the NHIS found that 30 percent of respondents only used mobile phones during the last half of 2010, an increase of three percentage points since the first half of 2010. In addition, about 16 percent of respondents indicated they received all or almost all calls on wireless telephones despite having a landline phone in the home as well.

More than half of adults aged 25 to 29 (54 percent) lived in households with only wireless telephones. This rate is greater than the rates for adults aged 18 to 24 (46 percent) or 30 to 34 (44 percent), according to the NHIS survey.

Read more here

Tablets Are Changing User Behavior

Today’s early tablet adopters are using print media, PCs, and other devices less often than they used to, according to Sarah Rotman Epps, Forrester Research analyst. Some 31 percent of tablet owners surveyed report they are using their PCs less, while 26 percent are using their notebooks or laptops less.

Of the tablet owners surveyed, 23 percent reported using their portable game player less, while 20 percent said they are using their iPod or MP3 player less. About 15 percent reported using their mobile phone less than they used to.

E-reader use seemed to be lower in about 11 percent of cases, while nine percent reported lower use of their game consoles. Some nine percent say they use television less.

Tablet early adopters, though arguably different from tomorrow’s mainstream adopters, nevertheless seemingly are changing their content habits as well, not just their hardware habits.

Of tablet owners surveyed by Forrester Research, 32 percent reported that their tablet use has been accompanied by less use of print newspapers. About 28 percent say they have reduced use of printed books, while 23 percent indicated they use print magazines less.

Tablets Are Changing User Behavior

Mapping the Mobile Commerce Ecosystem | www.payfone.com

Here's another look at the developing mobile commerce ecosystem, with payments and banking being viewed as parts of the broader mobile commerce landscape, produced by Mooreland Partners.

Payfone | Mapping the mCommerce Ecosystem | www.payfone.com

Google Sites Goes Mobile

Google has added a new feature to "Google Sites" that allows small businesses and others to create mobile sites themselves. Google Sites "mobile landing pages" allows retailers and companies to create professional-looking mobile home pages without any coding experience.

Google has been offering the Google Sites program to give businesses and consumers a way to quickly build their own websites with no HTML knowledge required, making it relatively easy for anyone without a technical background to build a simple website. Until now, the platform has not had a mobile component.

Google Sites "for mobile" allows users to pick a template that suits the consumer’s needs, such as an e-commerce template for users who want a mobile site to sell products using Google Checkout. Google also offers customer mobile templates for local businesses, restaurants, lead generation and social.

On these mobile sites, businesses and users can include the ability to integrate their Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and other social accounts.

Read more here

Will Google+ Succeed?

I have no idea whether Google+ will be success. But I would say it seems as though Google has a shot at creating a social network experience that fixes a problem many people routinely encounter with Facebook, namely that it is indiscriminate. The whole idea of "Circles" is that real social networks come in "real" groups, not imaginary "communities." There's your family, your extended set of friends, your high school or college buddies, the circle of your business associates and then the various other groups you have in life. See Read more here.

Nobody seems to think Google+ will replace Facebook, and that's probably healthy and realistic. The issue is whether Google can tap something new, such as the fact that Facebook "friends" are a jumbled mess of all kinds of people from all kinds of natural groups, and increasingly also includes people you don't even know.

"Not all relationships are created equal," Google says. "The problem is that today’s online services turn friendship into fast food—wrapping everyone in “friend” paper—and sharing really suffers."  Read more here.

Among the obvious problems Google says Circles will fix include the fact that "we only want to connect with certain people at certain times, but online we hear from everyone all the time." Because every online conversation (with over 100 “friends”) is a public performance, so we often share less." And there is no ability to account for important nuances in real social relationships.

43% of U.S. Firms Use Social Networks for Customer Acquisition

According to a new survey by Regus, 43 percent of firms are successfully using social networking to win new customers, up eight percentage points from last year’s survey. The research also reveals more firms are using social media to engage with existing customers than a year ago

About 50 percent of businesses in the United States use applications such as Twitter to engage, connect with and inform existing customers, says Regus.

In the United States, 55 percent of firms encourage their employees to join social networks such as Linkedin and Xing. Also, 38 percent of U.S. companies dedicate up to 20 percent of their marketing budget to business social networking activity.

Globally, the survey reported a seven percent increase in the proportion of businesses successfully recruiting new customers through social networks such as Facebook.

43 Percent of U.S. Businesses Using Social Media, Social Networks to Win New Business