YouTube Represents More Than Half of All Mobile Streaming Bandwidth

Any way you look at it, YouTube is a big part of mobile application usage, at least as measured by bandwidth consumption and demand. YouTube seems to represent 22 percent of all consumed application bandwidth, according to Allot Communications.

YouTube also represents more than half of all streaming video as well.

Read more here.

Video is the Prime Driver of Bandwidth Consumption

Data published by Allot Communications shows high and growing mobile video bandwidth consumption over the last year, a finding that will surprise nobody.

http://www.allot.com/MobileTrends_Report_H1_2011.html?campid=701D00000004YRW

101% Increase in Mobile VoIP, IM

A new study by Allot Communications suggests use of VoIP and instant messenger applications by mobile users increased 101 percent over the past six months.

"Consumers’ willingness to pay for voice calls has decreased over time," Allot says. It also is becoming more obvious that consumers’ appetite for paid SMS/MMS services also has also diminished, Allot says.

Made-for-mobile, operating system-agnostic IM applications like Viber are becoming increasingly popular, and it isn't simply carrier-provided messaging services that will start to feel increasing competition. Apple’s iMessage and Google Disco also will allow consumers to use messaging clients "over the top."

Twitter also grew by almost 300 percent in six months, providing enriched personal and multi-recipient messaging capabilities, which can easily replace SMS, Allot says. "In the past couple of months, we have also seen operators like KPN openly reporting their revenue loss to OTT applications like Skype," Allot says.

The Last Nail in the Operators’ Legacy Services Coffin?

Tablet Usage Similar to Smart Phones, Notebooks are Different

With the caveat that the market is in motion, it nevertheless remains true that notebooks are used in different ways that tablets or smart phones.

According to Akamai, tablet data consumption really is not all that different from the smart phone profile. PC devices are in a different category.

In the context of smart phone data plans, which tend these days to feature 2-Gbyte to 5 Gbyte plans, the plans do provide sufficient "headroom" for most users.

That might not be the case for notebook users, though.

http://www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet/

Is the iPad outselling all Android tablets 24 to 1?

Is the iPad is outselling Android tablets at a rate of over 24 to 1? Some think so. Strategy Analytics estimates iPad shipments at 61 percent of the market, with Android tablets garnering 30 percent of shipments. But shipment rates are not the same thing as sales rates, of course. Most observers expect the gap to close, over time. Until recently, there were no tablets to buy, other than Apple's devices.

Still, given the complete dominance Apple has in the MP3 player market, some have to wonder whether Apple can create an "iPad" market where others see a "tablet market."

is the iPad outselling all Android tablets 24 to 1?

How Retailers Create Customer Service Issues

The amount of money a firm has to spend on customer service often is directly related to the way it sells, and what it sells. Mobile phones, for example, can be complicated products for consumers to learn how to use. As any mobile retailer will attest, device complexity ("I can't get it to work") is a major cause of device returns in the first several weeks many users have new devices.

One way to reduce the volume of such returns is to design user interfaces so they are more intuitive. The other tactic is to conduct better in-store training for consumers, or to automate set-up processes. For some Android retailers, the processes haven't been optimized, with predictable results.

"Most manufacturers are facing: the return rate on some Android devices is between 30 and 40 percent, in comparison to the iPhone 4′s 1.7 percent return rate as of Antennagate in 2010," says John Biggs of TechCrunch. Returns cost money, because they require time taken away from other revenue-generating activities.

It appears many developers of Android devices, and their retailers, haven't quite gotten the "ease of use" and therefore "ease of sales" issues resolved.

Android’s Returns Are 30-40%

How the Internet Changes Advertising

Meraki Moves Enterprises into the Cloud

Meet Dave, the IT guy. Once upon a time, Dave was at peace with his network. But one day, Dave’s network began to change, his users went mobile, and their apps moved to the cloud. 

They guzzled bandwidth, and from so many different devices Dave couldn’t keep count. But Dave had to serve them with the same old networking technology. It was expensive, complex, and there was no budget to hire more people or go out for more training. 

Meraki's cloud-controlled hardware is the solution, Meraki says..

56% of U.K. Mobile Subscribers Use Text Messaging Daily, 47% Use Voice Daily

The findings won't surprise you but European mobile users now spend more time texting than using voice; and much more time texting, using multimedia messaging, instant messaging and email than they do voice, the Yankee Group says.

Netflx Misses On Revenue And Subscribers

Netflix posted second quarter 2011 earnings that beat expectations, but on light revenue and middling subscriber numbers.

U.S. subscribers came in at 24.6 million, and global numbers were at 25.6 million, about in line with expectations.
Subscribers on hybrid plans -- DVD and streaming -- declined a little bit during the quarter, possibly because Netflix raised prices.

Netflx Misses On Revenue And Subscribers

It's Hard to Avoid Becoming an End-to-End Service Provider

It may not always seem like it, but wherever an enterprise information technology staff is responsible for providing applications or communications to end-users, it takes on the mantle of being a service provider.

If, or more normally when, a user calls to report a problem with the app that they use, they’re not calling to report a congested network or server with memory exhaustion or any of the other components that make up the delivery chain, what they are concerned about is the experience they receive at the point of delivery. This makes IT responsible for delivering an end-to-end service, even when there are no agreed service levels.

As more services move to cloud-based mechanisms, it does not take much understanding or imagination to assume similar pressures will arise even for consumer services. It is hard to imagine an application provider or service provider selling a gaming, video or other service and not being called upon to provide some level of service assurance beyond "best effort."

Of course, a strict network neutrality regime that prohibits anything but "best effort" service will be a key problem, in that regard.

End-to-end service assurance

The Top 25 "Most Social" U.S. Cities

Some of the cities where social applications are most often used are probably obvious. But lots of communities are not.

http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-americas-25-most-social-cities-2011-7?op=1

U.S. Debt Downgrade Seems Inevitable at This Point

All three major credit-rating firms have threatened to lower their top triple-A rating on U.S. debt if the White House and Congress don't come to an agreement to raise the debt ceiling. We now have a total of eight days to get legislation written and passed, and in any case, the rating agencies will require both spending cuts that seem unreachable, as well as some reasonable assurance that actual will to get spending under control exists.

At the moment, neither of those requirements seems to exist. Get ready: U.S. debt is about to get a historic downgrade.

Why Tablet Commerce May Soon Trump Mobile Commerce

Mobile commerce and mobile app use now has become a sort of bifurcated phenomenon. Traditionally, "mobile" tended to refer to use of mobile phones to support some category of usage. These days, "mobile" apps and usage refer both to mobile "small screen" devices and "larger screen" tablets, plus notebook and other "large screens" used in an tether-less context.

And there now is some thinking that widespread use of tablet devices could change user behavior in the e-commerce area. Ownership of tablet devices in the U.S. market, for example, is estimated by Forrester Research to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 51 percent from 2010 to 2015. So why might that matter?

Arguably most e-commerce takes place on PC type screens, though more commerce, especially digital content sales, happens on mobile phones and smaller screen devices such as iPods. So the obvious question is how behavior could change as more users have tablet-sized screens with them in a mobile and untethered context. Inside the home or office, it is likely that more e-commerce will start to occur on tablets simply because those are the devices people carry with them.

Outside the home or office, there might be greater e-commerce activity, though one suspects much of that activity will consist of digital goods purchases, ranging from books to music to games to digital products used in the context of gaming.

Forrester expects that as tablet device ownership and usage grows, consumers will also adopt tablet commerce rapidly, as this simple and portable device both expands the opportunities that consumers have to shop and has the potential to make the experience of shopping more engaging.

Furthermore, the most-innovative web retailers will also accelerate the tablet commerce trend by using tablets to supplement existing sales tools (e.g., kiosks, POS devices, even sales associates) in stores.

Why Tablet Commerce May Soon Trump Mobile Commerce

Google+ "Real Names" and Identities is an Issue for Some

Google has come under some criticism by users for not allowing pseudonyms of various types, such as names using odd characters or fake names. Google VP Vic Gundotra acknowledges the issue, but says the issue is not "use of pseudonyms.

He says, instead, it is about having common names and removing people who spell their names in weird ways, like using upside-down characters, or who are using obviously fake names, like 'god' or worse. That might be a design philosophy aligned with Google+ efforts to connect real people in natural ways. That task arguably is harder, or subject to "gaming," if "non-real" or "non-natural" names are used.

Gundotra says Google has made some mistakes, in that regard, while doing the first pass at Google+ and that they are learning. The issue is different from the "anonymous" poster or anonymous identity considerations that in some cases can be important.

Robert Scoble - Google+