Half of Shoppers Spend 75% of Time Conducting Online Research

According to a survey by Power Reviews, 50 percent of consumers spend 75 percent or more of their total shopping time conducting online research.

This includes 15 percent of shoppers who spend 90 percent or more of their shopping time online doing research. Research is most of shopping

Statistics such as those illustrate the importance of online marketing presence, as the retail experience starts to incorporate more digital elements, especially heavy research before a typical shopping action.

The data also suggests the potential for proposed mobile wallet services that integrate more online promotion elements.

Some 34 percent of shoppers spend a few days conducting online research about information-intensive products such as computers, appliances, and TVs before making a purchase, which is the most popular period of time for shoppers to spend doing online research in 2011.

About 44 percent of shoppers start their online product research process with a search engine, looking for top search results relating to the product they're seeking.

Half of Shoppers Spend 75% of Time Conducting Online Research

Deutsche Telekom has no Plan B for T-Mobile USA

Deutsche Telekom executives appear to have so completely sure the AT&T purchase of T-Mobile USA would be approved that there is no "plan B." That will probably strike some observers as management irresponsibility. Should the deal collapse, as a growing number of observers believe is a real possibility, T-Mobile USA might face unpleasant options.

Strategically, T-Mobile USA is a segment "no man's land," some would argue. It cannot compete with the industry's true "value" providers, nor with AT&T and Verizon Wireless for the "premium" customer. T-Mobile USA continues to face a difficult challenge in the fourth generation network area, as it needs lots of spectrum it does not own.

T-Mobile USA therefore faces a real need to invest billions of dollars it cannot spare, in a U.S. business with challenging prospects.

Beyond that, there could be repercussions for Deutsche Telekom in a broader sense. The firm had been counting on using the proceeds from the T-Mobile USA sale to fund strategic initiatives elsewhere. Now all that remains "on hold."

Deutsche Telekom Has No Plan B

Slightly More Online Video Viewing in 2011

People are spending slightly less time watching scheduled broadcast TV, and that they are spending more time watching streamed on-demand TV online, says Ericsson.

For observers anxiously awaiting any new signs of an inflection point in online video, that inflection point still hasn't occurred.

More than 44 percent of respondents surveyed on behalf of Ericsson reported watching Internet-based on-demand TV more than once per week, while about 80 percent watch broadcast TV more than once per week.

Data was collected in Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK, the US and South Korea. In all, 22 qualitative and 13,000 quantitative interviews were conducted representing almost 400 million consumers.

The study also shows that social media usage has impacted the way we watch TV. More than 40 percent of the respondents reported using social media on various devices such as smartphones and tablets while watching TV.

Slightly More Online Video Viewing in 2011, says Ericsson

Small Businesses Use Social Networks for Promotion

Some 48 percent of small businesses surveyd by BIA/Kelsey say they are using Facebook for advertising or promoting their business. Among those surveyed, 40 percent said they have a Facebook page specifically for their business.

Some 25 percent also report using other social networks, 22 percent use a blog and 19 percent use Twitter to promote their business.

Small and Local Businesses Use Social Advertising

PCs Have Changed in 30 Years

via

And these are just some of the changes for desktop machines. For most users, the equally-important changes are computing in e-reader, tablet, smart phone and game console form factors.

Mobile App Ad Inventory Hits Inflection Point

Inflection points are important, representing the point at which some activity, behavior or trend dramatically changes its growth rate and adoption pattern. It appears mobile app ad inventory has reached that point.

U.S. mobile application inventory is not only growing at a staggering rate, but also poised to absorb the equivalent of the entire U.S. Internet display advertising spend by the end of this year, according to Flurry.

That could have some interesting implications. Exploding inventory generally leads to significantly lower prices. And that could have implications across the online and mobile ad market, not just within the mobile app business.

Observers have pointed out, repeatedly, that advertiser spend on mobile and online advertising significantly lags end user engagement with various forms of media. The explosion of mobile app inventory is likely to momentarily make that situation worse.

Another way to look at this is that, in approximately two years, mobile app inventory is growing so aggressively that it could easily meet the demand of a mature, 15-year-old form of online advertising (display ads). 

Flurry's analysis shows that, for the first time ever, daily time spent in mobile apps surpasses desktop and mobile web consumption. This stat is even more remarkable if you consider that it took less than three years for native mobile apps to achieve this level of usage.

Growing at 91 percent over the last year, users now spend over 81 minutes on mobile applications per day. This growth has come primarily from more sessions per user, per day rather than a large growth in average session lengths. Time spent on the Internet has grown at a much slower rate, 16 percent over the last year, with users now spending 74 minutes on the Internet a day.

Flurry found that the average user now spends nine percent more time using mobile apps than the Internet. That was not the case just 12 months ago. In 2010, the average user spent just under 43 minutes a day using mobile applications versus an average 64 minutes using the Internet.

Mobile app inventory explodes

Have AT&T and Verizon Reached the Limits of Their Subscriber Market Share Gains?

In any mature market, there comes a point where the biggest players simply are not allowed to get any bigger. That might be the case for the U.S. mobile industry, in the wake of the U.S. Department of Justice decision to sue to block the deal.

It isn't just that the DoJ opposition suggests a view that this deal would be anti-competitive in a serious way; it might also suggest that other mergers, such as Sprint with T-Mobile USA, or Verizon Wireless with Sprint, might also fail to be approved.

AT&T reportedly will offer concessions in an attempt to settle the matter before it goes to court, probably by offering divestitures of subscribers and spectrum representing perhaps 25 percent of T-Mobile USA assets, in the areas of subscribers and spectrum. The issue is whether any of that will matter, if the real issue is the fact that both AT&T and Verizon Wireless are beyond the levels of market power economists and regulators often use to measure market concentration.

One of the ways to measure market concentration is the Heffindahl-Hirshman Index or HHI, often used as a measure of market concentration. The HHI is the square of the percentage market share of each firm summed over the largest 50 firms in a market. Here is the pre-merger market HHI which already suggests that the market is not competitive. HHI is the problem

Department of Justice Acting Assistant Attorney General Sharis A. Pozen says “the conclusion we reached was clear: any way you look at this transaction, it is anti-competitive.”

“T-Mobile has been an important source of competition among the national carriers through innovation and quality enhancements,” Pozen says. “Unless this merger is blocked, competition and innovation in the mobile wireless market, in the form of low prices and innovative wireless handsets, operating systems, and calling plans, will be diminished and consumers will suffer.”

A combination of AT&T and T-Mobile would reduce the number of nationwide competitors in the marketplace from four to three, and the DoJ appears to believe that is anti-competitive, at least this particular pairing.

Have AT&T and Verizon Reached the Limits of Their Subscriber Market Share Gains?

How Journalists use the Internet to Find Story Ideas

Much of content marketing is about the use of content in an owned media setting. But much still remains in the earned media domain. So where do journalists go to find story ideas on the Web? Arketi Group says almost half of all journalists surveyed say they blog or read blogs regularly. One wonders why the percentage is even that low.

Business-to-business media continue to have a healthy appetite for social media tools, as well. Some 92 percent of journalists have a LinkedIn account, an increase from 85 percent in 2009. In addition to LinkedIn, 85 percent of journalists are on Facebook (up from 55 percent in 2009) and 84 percent use Twitter (24 percent in 2009). How journalists use the Web

It comes as no surprise that more BtoB journalists are participating in social media sites, especially LinkedIn. Journalists are constantly seeking industry sources for story ideas and LinkedIn provides an online outlet for them to research and connect with potential source Earned media: use LinkedIn and Facebook

The survey shows that 92 percent of the survey respondents are on LinkedIn while less than half have a blog site.

So where do story ideas come from?  While most get story ideas from industry sources, 39 percent of respondents come up with articles from social networking sites, like Facebook or LinkedIn.

That is one reason brands that seek earned media exposure should figure out how to use LinkedIn and Facebook. How journalists use the Web

Is Patent System Corrupt?

If you've even casually read issued "process" patents issued over the last couple of decades, you might have the same reaction others do: these processes should not be patentable. Some of you will have been taught that the laudable purpose of a patent is to protect and reward intellectual property that takes a specific form and implementation. Patents, you were taught, cannot be issued for "ideas."

The problem is that the patent system appears to have gotten sloppy at best, corrupt at worst. "Corrupt" not in the sense of dishonest, but in the sense of "decayed and rotting."

Firms have their own financial interests to consider when making public pronouncements, and when Google chairman Eric Schmidt slammed regulators and patent trolls at Salesforce.com’s annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, there was a mix of serious Google vested interests and serious higher public policy purposes at play.

“All the patent fights that are interesting are done in one district in Texas, how this is possible is beyond me, it just doesn’t feel right” Schmidt said. “With the device revolution coming, I fear patents will slow it down.”

He said that most patents issued in the 1990s and 2000s were overly broad. Many would agree.

Google’s Eric Schmidt lays the smack down on patents

HP Touchpad a Deal at $99?

Lots of people obviously thought the HP TouchPad was a steal at $99. Is it?

AT&T Lawsuit Might Have Broader Implications

The lawsuit seeking to block AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile USA shows a more aggressive antitrust stance by the U.S. Justice Department that limits prospects for other big telecommunications deals, antitrust analysts said.

Translation: It might not be possible for Sprint to merge with T-Mobile USA, or Verizon Wireless to buy Sprint, either.

That doesn't mean, in hindsight, that such a policy is always an optimal approach long-term. Think back to June 2000, when WorldCom wanted to acquire Sprint, a $152 billion deal. That combination of two long-distance concerns was seen to have undesirable anti-competitive concerns.

WorldCom went bankrupt and Sprint no longer is primarily a long-distance company. Would that merger have done much other than delay WorldCom's collapse? Probably not.

The point is that markets change. Long distance has for all intents and purposes disappeared as a discrete business for most providers of communications services, with the exception of small specialists such as Skype, which have huge traffic, but relatively small revenue. At least for the moment, though, some observers think the Department of Justice objection might make any significant mergers among the biggest four providers impossible.

Henry Levine, a partner at Washington-based law firm Levine, Blaszak, Block & Boothby LLP, which represents large companies in telecommunications cases.

“It’s a line in the sand,” he said. The suit signals “you cannot buy one of the major players in the market,” he said. A merger between number three wireless carrier and number-four T-Mobile might raise similar competition concerns, Levine said.

AT&T Lawsuit Marks U.S. ‘Line in the Sand’ for Telecoms - Bloomberg:

Mobile Search is Highly Contextual

Mobile devices are viewed, rightly, as an unusually important platform for targeted information because the use of mobiles is highly contextual, not just personalized. Mobile searches also are highly social, with results often being shared with others.

People often search for local information (a restaurant, store, gas station, or attraction) from their mobile device, research conducted by Microsoft shows. In a survey of 929 mobile searchers at a large software company, local searches tend to be highly contextual, influenced by geographic features, temporal aspects, and the searcher’s social context.

While location was reported to be very important, respondents looked for information about places close to their current location about 40 percent of the time. Users often were in transit at the time of a search 68 percent of our searchers) and wanted information related to their destination (27 percent of searchers); en route to their destination (12 percent) or near their destination (12 percent).

Additionally, 63 percent of participants’ mobile local searches took place within a social context and were discussed with someone else.

Mobile Search is Highly Contextual

Mobile and Video Emerge As Significant Online Ad Platforms in the U.K.

Mobile and video advertising is gaining traction, reaching a sizeable percentage of the total U.K. audience, comScore says. In June 2011, 63.1 percent of online video viewers in the United Kingdom were exposed to video ads. Among the total number of smartphone users in the same time period, 25 percent recalled seeing an ad while browsing the Internet or using an application on their devices. In comparison, 95 percent of fixed line Internet users were exposed to online display advertising.

Mobile and Video Emerge As Significant Online Ad Platforms in the UK

Online Advertising Reach in the United Kingdom March 2011 vs June 2011 Total Audience* - Home & Work Locations Source: comScore Ad Metrix**, Video Metrix** and MobiLens***
	Online Ad Audience
	Mar-11		Jun-11		% Change in Unique Audience
	Unique Audience (000)	% Reach	Unique Audience (000)	% Reach
Exposed
Fixed Line Internet Audience: Exposed to Display Ads	39,683	96.1%	40,020	95.3%	0.8%
Online Video Audience: Exposed to Video Ads	18,446	54.9%	21,233	63.1%	15.1%
Recalled
Smartphone Audience: Recall Seeing Web/App Ads	4,240	21.4%	5,415	25.4%	27.7%

Mobile App Consumption Now Exceeds Desktop and Mobile Web Consumption

Daily time spent by users with mobile apps now surpasses desktop and mobile web consumption, Flurry has reported. Mobile app use rivals desktop

Looking at mobile Web usage, users spend more than 2.5 hours a day interacting with Web content on their mobile devices.

When will mobile usage exceed desktop?

Peak mobile engagement with Web resources seems to mirror that of desktop PCs, namely that usage peaks in the early evening.

Like PC usage, which occurs nearly all hours when people are awake, mobile Web usage happens all day long. Usage pattern similar on desk, mobile

Odds of AT&T Getting Deal Approval Drop to 40%

Barclays Capital now says the odds of a successful AT&T acquisition of T-Mobile USA at about 40 percent, down from 75 percent.


Only a couple of days before the Department of Justice lawsuit opposing the deal, analyst sentiment that the AT&T purchase of T-Mobile USA will win regulatory clearance had dropped, at least among 32 analysts polled by Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analysts Rebecca Arbogast and David Kaut.

The observers rated their expectation for approval on a scale of 0-to-100 percent, and the average of their answers fell to 50 percent in August from 55 percent in July, the analysts said. Odds drop

Odds of deal approval drop to 40% from 75%