Social Networking Grows as a Product Development Tool

Social media has become a bigger issue for a growing number of companies for several reasons. It represents a shift of where audiences are, so outbound messaging has to move that way as well. 

But that's the lesser factor. Social media means consumers are able to easily voice their thoughts about products and services. And most observers would agree that angry and unhappy consumers are more likely to complain than happy users are to praise. 

 

As much as retailers hate "bad press," they now also must contend with "negative buzz" from unhappy customers and users. All of that implies brands have to become more "proactive" about their reputations online. 

Still, even that is superficial in some sense. One thing product development teams have learned over the years is that bulletin boards, online comments and now blog posts and tweets can be sources of information useful for product design, upgrades and repairs. 

At a fundamental level, companies can launch products that have some element of unresolved "beta" elements and then modify products as feedback appears. 

“Naturally occurring conversations will be utilized in product innovation and design, and companies will create incentives for people's attention and engagement while repurposing and analyzing content and engagement in new ways that will deliver valuable input," says Ravit Lichtenberg, founder and chief strategist, Ustrategy.com. 

“The voice of the consumer is only going to get louder and stronger,” said Ms. Williamson. “It will shape what social media is and what it will become. Not too long ago, a company might have made major changes to its products or services based on a few focus groups, some financial planning and a degree of gut instinct," says Debra Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst. "Social media has already changed all that." 

No Way To Tell, Yet, Whether "Buzz" Has Any

Given that Google's "Buzz" application, which, depending on who one talks to is either a "Twitter killer" or a "Facebook killer," has only been live for several days, we probably should give our chattering a rest. Nobody can say whether connecting Buzz to Gmail will result in a viable and large social networking community being created, much less how it might affect Twitter, Facebook or other communities.

There's no question social networking has gone mainstream, and equally no question that "Google" is not one of the names that comes to mind when "social networking" is talked about. I don't know whether Buzz can change that.

In business, incumbency is a powerful thing. There's a reason iTunes owns the music space. You can point to ease of use, elegance or any number of other attributes that have lead to iPod dominance in the music player business, creation of a better way to buy and use music.

One can point to similar advantages for Google in search, Amazon in e-commerce or eBay in auctions. Once such leadership has been established, it is tough to dislodge.

So far, Buzz appears only to be "follower" on the technology front. It has some features of Twitter and some of Facebook, with the potential upside of being able to attract the Gmail audience. I don't know whether it is reasonable to expect people to abandon Facebook or Twitter for Buzz.

Facebook has surpassed 400 million active members. I'd say that is far past the point where switching behavior is "costless." As we like to say, Facebook has something of a moat around it. The ability to easily add third party apps or play games are examples.

Twitter arguably could be a different matter, as that app has gained less mindshare, or users, overall. Perhaps a "fast follower" approach could work there. Still, Buzz likely has most chance of succeeding if its users can uncover some new class of value that neither Facebook nor Twitter yet has done.

Right now, that might be hard to discern. But it's only been several days. We might be looking at years before any pattern emerges. Right now, Buzz does not have the feel of an innovation that creates an entirely-new category of experience. That could change. How it might change is the bigger question.

I'm using the app, but only casually. For me, that's not unusual, though. I use all my social networks quite casually.

iPhones Drive Sausage Sales

Sales of snack sausages are up 40 percent in South Korea thanks to the iPhone, says Silicon Alley Insider.  In the cold of winter, South Koreans are using the sausages as styluses instead of taking off their gloves.

That's one issue lots of iPhone users likely have encountered this winter. Kind of reminds you of the old Palm devices, doesn't it?

App Stores are "iTunes on Steroids"

New data from Flurry suggests that most iPhone and Android applications are disposable or perishable. Most people stop using them within a month and attrition continues to the point that withint two months, less than 15 percent of users still are using the downloaded apps.

That suggests a bias towards perishable content and entertainment or games. Few people watch "news" programming or read news articles more than once, for example.

Flurry tracks over 20,000 live applications and over two billion user sessions each month, and so far show either that "content is king" or that applications are becoming the dominant delivery mechanism for content, entertainment and tools on smartphones.

The most frequently-used downloaded apps are games, entertainment, social networking, news and other "lifestyle" apps.

Retention curves (the percentage of people using an app at varying times after download) for iPhone and Android applications were nearly identical. After just a month, 60 percent of people have stopped using the typical downloaded app.

That suggests a high degree of sampling. Users seem to be downloading and using many apps, but generally are not finding them sticky enough to continue using after two to three months.

That usage profile has not proven to be the case for some other foundational apps such as text messaging, social networking or email.

In some ways, app stores are becoming publishers of content in the same way newspapers, cable TV or the Web have been; "iTunes on steroids." That doesn't mean there is no room for other apps that prove more foundational. It just means we haven't created them, yet.

Social Networking is King on Android and iPhone

A new analysis by Flurry of smartphone application use confirms what earlier data had been suggesting: social networking is the smartphone "killer app."

The February 2010 data shows social networking sessions on either the Apple iPhone or Android devices approach or hit 20 sessions a month.

That compares with seven to 10 news app sessions, about five gaming sessions and three to seven entertainment sessions.

The other notable trend here is that Android users appear to use smartphone applications at a higher rate than iPhone users do. One might have thought that most of the early adopters already had opted for iPhone, and one clear characteristic of iPhone users is that they make use of the mobile Web and Internet at much-higher rates than other smartphone users.

Until the Android, that is. Android users appear to behave as iPhone users do, only more so. One might have hypothesized that Android users might be more mainstream, and tend to use entertainment apps more than iPhone users. The Flurry data does not necessarily confirm that thesis.

Aside from the fact of being heavier users, Android and iPhone usage patterns, across applications, appear to be identical. To the extent that Android devices, perhaps especially the Verizon Droid, have been seen as competing directly with the iPhone, the data suggests that early adoption fits the appellation.

Native Twitter App for BlackBerry Coming

Historically, the ability to make and receive telephone calls from a device in your pocket or purse, anytime, has been the killer application for mobile phones. Recently, other killer apps have emerged. For many smartphone users, the killer app was email in the pocket or purse.

Recently, access to the mobile Web, or perhaps the App Store could be seen as the key driver of iPhone adoption, while now social networking has emerged as the first consumer killer app for smartphones.

You could get a debate about whether users prefer to have a discrete application to get to their social networking sites, or are just as happy using their mobile browsers. But lots of people, and lots of suppliers, might vote for the application approach.

Now BlackBerry seems to be close to getting its own RIM-supplied Twitter app. There are other Twitter apps available for Blackberries. UberTwitter and TwitterBerry, SocialScope and Tweetcaster, are examples.

But the BlackBerry blog "CrackBerry" says an official RIM Twitter app is under development as well.

Apparently the RIM versiion will be integrated with other core BlackBerry applications and be tied in to the address book, browser and device setup wizard.

If one wanted to know why an official RIM version might get traction, as opposed to any other app, it likely is the degree of integration with other BlackBerry apps. We'll know soon enough.

Twitter Usage Exploding

By available measures, Twitter growth has flattened, although some say the data does not include all Twitter usage from third party sites.

Usage, though, is another matter. It keeps growing, suggesting that Twitter has an established base of users that find it useful. In December 2009 Twitter processed more than one billion tweets per month, according to Pingdom.

January passed 1.2 billion, averaging almost 40 million tweets per day. This is significantly more than Twitter was processing just a few months ago.

Pingdom's data does include all tweets made using Twitter's own sites and third-party sites and applications as well.

December 2009 was the first month Twitter processed more than one billion tweets (with 1.036 billion tweets). But January 2010 had 16 times as many tweets as January 2009.

Activity on Twitter has doubled since August 2009.

Pingdom has no data on the total number of active users.

http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/02/10/twitter-now-more-than-1-billion-tweets-per-month/

60,000 Free Apps Now Available to Sprint Feature and Smartphones

Sprint, in a partnership with GetJar, the world's second-largest app store, now offers a catalog of more than 60,000 free applications, now available to all Sprint customers with feature phones,  RIM BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices.

"We are opening up the world of apps to customers who may not have a smartphone," says Len Barlik, vice president of wireless and wireline services for Sprint.

"Our partnership with GetJar means that all Sprint customers will now have access to thousands of applications ranging from popular apps such as YouTube and Google Maps to more niche applications that address their business needs," Barlik says.

GetJar offers applications ranging from games and entertainment to education and health, plus . Facebook Mobile, Weather Channel Mobile, ShopSavvy and Loopt can be easily downloaded to most Sprint handsets.

Customers can simply click the link in the "downloads" category of the Sprint portal to access GetJar's site and browse the applications.

GetJar is the world's second largest app store with more than 750 million downloads to date. The company provides more than 60,000 mobile applications across all major handsets and platforms to consumers in more than 200 countries.

Users Prefer Flat-Rate Pricing. Duh!

Mobile internet users across the United Kingdom and United States prefer flat-rate pricing, a new survey by YouGov has found. That finding should surprise nobody in the U.S. market, given the development of the whole Internet access business since AOL dropped metered billing and went to flat rate packaging.

Unsurprisingly, respondents said they would use the mobile Web more if flat rate access is available. That does not necessarily suggest consumers would reject flat-rate plans that are tiered for usage, even if any rational consumer would say they prefer a low flat rate for unlimited usage.

Smartphone users might be used to low rate, unlimited access, but users of mobile PC dongles and cards are well accustomed to the idea that usage and price are related for "buckets" of usage.

Some 4,324 consumers,18 or older, were polled as part of the study.

In the United Kingdom, 33 percent of respondents  reported that they don't use the Internet despite having access on their phone, while 25 percent of U.S. respondents with an Internet-ready phone say they do not use that feature.

The study also found that users want Web sites and services optimized for their specific mobile device, especially if it means that they could more quickly access the services they want. About 32 percent of respondents say that would increase their usage.

About 51 per cent of all respondents said they were only prepared to spend up to three minutes surfing for a specific piece of content on their phones, emphasizing the importance of navigation and usability.

About 13 percent of U.K. users, and 17 percent of U.S. respondents now access the Internet more than once a day from their phones. About 27 per cent of U.K. consumers and 28 percent of U.S. consumers surveyed now use the mobile Internet at least once a week, if not more.

$1 TV Episodes for iPad?

Apple could begin selling U.S. television shows for $1, half of its charge on its iTunes digital media store, on the iPad, the Financial Times reports. If Apple does so, it would mean at least some U.S. content owners have decided to take the gamble of offsetting lower retail price points with higher sales.

As powerful as "free" might be for many products, $1 likewise has proven to be an enormously
successful price point for mobile application store downloads, for example. Also, Redbox DVD
rentals are priced at $1, and that price point has been gaining traction.

Apple has been selling TV episodes for about $2 each on its iTunes store, while high-definition fare that displays well on a TV set sells for $3 an episode.

Video entertainment has been a big part of thinking about what new market the iPad might be able to create, between the smartphone and the notebook or netbook PC.

Apple also has been in discussions with content owners about a “best of TV” subscription service, perhaps offered at about $30 a month, that hopefully would create a new niche in the market as well, more than one-off downloads and streaming but less than the full channel line-up that customers can buy from cable, satellite or telco providers.

The trick, of course, is to create a new niche that does not automaticaly cannibalize the value of other existing channels. That is likely one reason why Apple has not tried to create a subscription TV service for its Apple TV device.

Send SMS Messages to Multiple Recipients Using Google Voice

One of the differences between email and texting, aside from the SMS character limitation, is sending a single message to multiple recipients. Google Voice now allows such multi-party text messages.

Users just click on the SMS button at the top of their Google Voice inboxes, enter names or numbers (separated by commas) in the "To" field, write messages and click "send."

Replies from each recipient are threaded into separate conversations, so users can keep track of them in their Google Voice inboxes. To prevent spam, Google sets a maximum of five recipients per message.

It's useful.

Google to Build Fiber to Home Test Networks

In the latest version of its Internet access demonstration projects, Google says it will build some wholesale fiber-to-the-home networks. James Kelly, Google project manager, says Google is looking for communities interested in becoming trial sites, and will be accepting requests for information until March 26, 2010.

Initial plans call for building FTTH facilities serving 50,000 people, perhaps as many as 500,000. That's a bit indefinite. Assume a typical household has about 2.5 people in it and one could see perhaps 20,000 to 200,000 homes connected.

But there are lots of unanswered questions. It isn't clear whether Google means "a network passing X number of homes" or "a network serving X number of homes." Those are very different sorts of numbers if Google builds anyplace where a strong cable operator and a strong telco provider already are in business.

As a demonstration project, Google would learn as much serving 20,000 potential customers as 200,000. Frankly, there is very little that is unknown about the cost of building a fiber-to-home network, really. What Google might be interested in is the business case for a wholesale broadband network that didn't have to supply voice and traditional video services.

But again, there is very little that is unknown about that business case, either. We know the cost to build the network and operate it as an ISP. You can derive commercial rates by looking at what is charged in the local, regional or national markets, multiply by take rate of homes passed and you'd have your scenario without digging a single trench.

Kelly says "we are going to try out new ways to build and operate fiber networks and share what we learn with the world."

There likely is not much to be uncovered about the process of building FTTH, so Google likely means sharing what it learns about the business model for wholesale networks, which a few have experimented with in the U.S. market.

Broadweave, which operates in Provo, Utah, is an example, though it is unclear whether the firm will continue to allow wholesale customers to use its network. The current thinking seems to be to operate as a typical retail triple-play provider, rather than as a wholesale provider of access to third parties who may wish to do so.

Broadweave Networks took over a project originally started as a municipal FTTH network, paying $40.6 million for the assets, and struggled in 2009. The company drastically slowed its growth among residential customers to save on the high cost of new sign-ups in the spring of 2009, reports the Daily Herald.

Broadweave began asking prospective customers to foot part of the $1,000 installation bill in an effort to discourage new customers and effectively slow growth while the company grapples with ongoing financial concerns.

The company is instead decided to focus on commercial accounts and reactivation of former customers who already have optical drops in place.

The flow of new customers reportedly was slowed from hundreds a month to "tens or dozens" a month.

Google might attempt to prove the thesis that an FTTH wholesaler can make money strictly as a supplier of access services to third party partners who simply lease capacity on such networks. The big question always has been whether any such network actually is viable in markets where there are strong cable and telco competitors already in place.

Google previously has built limited municipal Wi-Fi networks as well. It isn't clear what Google believes it might have learned from those experiments.

In truth, the gambit most likely is simply another tool to be used in Google's lobbying for setting of national broadband policies, and not much more.

Broadband "Overshoot": How Big an Issue?

Fixed network operators, including cable operators and telcos, face two different problems when considering upgrades of their broadband access networks. One danger is not investing enough to keep capacity in line with the level of market demand. The opposite problem is investing too much.

In fact, that is a scenario at least some mobile competitors hope might be the case. "Fixed line broadband will overshoot the performance needs of the market, resulting in increasing data cord cutting as individuals, families, and businesses appreciate the value of mobility more than the value of excess bandwidth," says Russ McGuire Sprint Nextel VP.

That's not an unexpected view,coming from a wireless-only company building high-capacity wireless networks, but it is worth considering.Mobile broadband might, or might not, be a reasonable substitute for users who really want to watch lots of video on their PCs, smartphones or other mobile devices.

But mobile is likely to be quite a reasonable alternative for users who don't stream or download much video, especially if they are fairly mobile, either locally or over larger distances.

Video and Web Drive Mobile Bandwidth Consumption

Mobile bandwidth demand already is driven by video and Web access, a new analysis by Allot shows (click on image for larger view).

And though peer-to-peer applications were the cause of bandwidth fears several years ago, most video activity now occurs using HTTP, meaning it is now part of the Web browser experience.

As is true for backbone networks and fixed networks, voice, instant messaging, email and all other apps besides video and Web applications are a negligible driver of bandwidth consumption.

That doesn't mean revenue reflects bandwidth use. Revenue still is inordinately driven by voice and texting. Over time, that will change. If broadband is what is driving use of the network, then broadband has to become the mainstay of the revenue model as well.

Survey Finds Shockingly Low UC Adoption

Maybe it's just me, but after decades of the industry talking about, and delivering, unified messaging features, and after more than a decade of pushing other features such as unified directories, find me-follow me and other "unified" communications features, it still does not appear that all that many organizations really are using them.

Or so it would appear after a survey of 544 information technology professionals in the United States and United Kingdom by Freeform Dynamics.

The study suggests there currently is what some of us might call "shockingly low" adoption of unified communications. You might have thought otherwise, given the shift to new terminology such as "unified communications and collaboration." That might suggest saturation of UC, and a need for UCC.

The Freeform Dynamics might indicate something else: perhaps customers are not so enamored of the UC solutions they have been offered. Suppliers can react in a couple of ways. Maybe customers and prospects simply do not understand the value, in which case marketing and education should do the trick.

The other tack is to humbly acknowledge that the solutions we have been offering do not add enough value, do not offer additional value at the right price points, or that there are unarticulated problems we have not addressed.

The Freedorm Dynamics study might suggest that the industry has not yet found the "killer app" that makes UCC or UC intuitively valuable to most prospects and buyers.