Study shows people want cheap tablets, most waiting for Amazon device

Consumers would purchase a tablet device running Android if it just had the right price tag. Nearly 50 percent of respondents said they’d get an Android tablet if it had all the features of the iPad, but cost less than $300, according to Retrevo.

The survey of 1,000 people finds demand jumps up to 79 percent if the price falls below $250. Asked which brands consumers would consider purchasing a tablet from, 55 percent said "Amazon."

Study shows people want cheap tablets, most waiting for Amazon device

VUDU Integrated with Walmart.com

Walmart has integrated its movie streaming service, VUDU, on Walmart.com. Customers can now shop for thousands of digital VUDU titles, including the hottest new releases, and purchase and/or rent them directly on Walmart.com at www.walmart.com/vudu.

As customers shop for movies at Walmart.com, they now have the option to select the digital VUDU title or the physical title (DVD or Blu-ray Disc). Those who select the digital title complete their transaction through Walmart.com’s checkout, and then can easily stream the movie directly from Walmart.com, VUDU.com, or from one of more than 300 VUDU-enabled devices, including select HDTVs, Blu-ray Disc players and the PlayStation 3.

VUDU on Walmart.com

Jumio, Card.io Think Cameras Should Handle Card Authentication

Though near field communications continues to get legitimate attention as the communications method "of the future" for mobile payments, there are lots of ways to handle the communications.

Jumio thinks "webcams" can do the job. And, in fact, Jumio continues to believe that payments made by plastic cards still will be relevant in the future, especially for growing volumes of online commerce.

Jumio, an online payments start-up created by Jajah founder Daniel Mattes, thinks it makes sense to read online credit card payments made by scanning a card with a webcam.

"Netswipe" is designed to support online retailers, not physical retailers.  the technology allows online retailers to easily process a debit or credit card payment by having a user just hold up their card to their webcam. The video is encrypted and streamed to Jumio’s servers, which extract the card number and information and processes the payment.



Card.io. also thinks visual verification methods using cameras will continue to make sense, while AisleBuyer thinks bar codes are a reasonable approach.

Jumio uses a computer vision approach to authenticate cards. For example, by analyzing the video stream, Jumio can confirm that it’s an actual card and not just a copy of a credit card. It can detect the raised lettering and can determine if it is plastic, or whether it appears to have metal inside.

Jumio aims to make an online payment like a card-present, point-of-sale transaction. Users still need to enter in their credit card security code manually. But because the card information is entered through the camera and the code is typed with an onscreen keypad using a mouse or track pad, malicious key-loggers can’t detect the credit card information, Mattes argues.

Jumio plans to charge small merchants 2.75 percent per transaction or 50 cents a scan if they want to use their own payment processor. Medium-sized merchants can integrate Jumio’s payment modules without becoming PCI compliant, while large merchants can directly integrate into Jumio’s payment platform.

Read more here.

71% of online adults now use video-sharing sites

Fully 71 percent of online Americans use video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, up from 66 percent a year earlier, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The use of video-sharing sites on any given day also jumped five percentage points, from 23 percent of online Americans in May 2010 to 28 percent in May 2011.

“The rise of broadband and better mobile networks and devices has meant that video has become an increasingly popular part of users’ online experiences,” says Kathleen Moore, author of the report. “People use these sites for every imaginable reason."

71% of online adults now use video-sharing sites

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