Mobile Web Performance Still Frustrating, Study Finds

Despite huge advances in mobile Web browsing, most users remain frustrated by the slow speed at which Web pages are delivered on their smart phones, a study by Compuware suggests. The 2011 survey of 4,014 global mobile web users found that 71 percent of users expect websites to load as quickly, almost as quickly or faster on their mobile phone compared to the computer they use at home, up from 58 percent in 2009.

Some 57 percent of mobile web users had a problem in the past year when accessing a website and 47 percent had a problem accessing an app on their phone.

Nearly 60 percent of web users say they expect a website to load on their mobile phone in three seconds or less, and 74 percent are only willing to wait five seconds or less for a single web page to load before leaving the site. 50 percent are only willing to wait five seconds or less for an application to load before exiting.

If you remember browsing on a mobile phone several years ago, it was a fairly unpleasant experience. There was no effort to render a page the way it would display on a PC. In fact, the strategy was to strip out as much formatting as possible and render the text and basic images to allow the user to get the content of the page, but not the presentation.

That changed in 2007 with the iPhone. Web pages could be rendered very close to how the desktop did it and, with zooming, you could easily navigate the page and read the content. Mobile Web Performance Still Stinks, Users Say

Download the study here.

American Express Gets into Social Shopping

American Express is getting into the social shopping, or local commerce or daily deals space (depending on how you prefer to describe the business). American Express will be bringing personalized deals to Facebook through its "Link, Like, Love" platform.

American Express Gets into Social Shopping

Online payment company WePay targets small retailer e-commerce

Online payment startup WePay is launching WePay Stores, a new e-commerce solution for small businesses with zero tech prowess, one might argue.

It is billed as a simple solution for merchants without programming experience or technical ability. It takes a few minutes to start a store and retailers don’t need a merchant account.

WePay handles payments, hosting and shopping cart. There are no set up fees, contracts or monthly fees. Merchants sell items by uploading an image, adding a description and setting a price.

“Most merchants, including those that use PayPal, have to go figure out two different companies, one that offers payments and another that offers an online store,” says WePay CEO Bill Clerico. “It’s up to the merchant to get them to work together, and figure total cost. Instead, we hold your hand through the design and payment process."

WePay

Telecommuters Use UC, Not Backup

Nearly one in three telecommuters say they never back up their data, according to a recent survey from Staples Advantage, the business-to-business division of Staples Inc.

Telecommuters say they rely on email (96 percent), instant messaging (68 percent), video conferencing (44 percent) and unified communications technologies (25 percent) to stay connected. While more than two thirds of telecommuters said they didn’t receive IT security training in preparation for home office work, many are applying good judgment and security best practices. About 95 percent say they install operating system updates right away and 84 percent don’t store personal data on their machines.

Telecommuters Rely on Unified Communications

DSL "Obsolete?" Nuances are Important

Nuances are important. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told an audience at a meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners that copper-based DSL broadband technology is “obsolete.” That's an unexpected quip, but likely has to be put into context.

Stephenson apparently was answering a question from an audience member about how state regulators should think about new technology cycles when they are considering things like the universal service fund, and Stephenson undoubtedly was emphasizing faster technology cycles these days, where five years is about the useful life of a new access technology.

Consider wireless networks, where 3G networks are being replaced by 4G networks. The point is that access providers often cannot make investments that are amortized over 10 to 15 years. Digital Subscriber Line is not the same thing as the latest version of U-verse, nor is cable modem access of a decade ago the same thing as DOCSIS 3.0.

AT&T’s CEO calls DSL obsolete

FTC Chief: Consumers Should Control Their Data on Social Sites

"We think generally people ought to have control over their data," says David Vladeck, head of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "If you wanted to leave a social-networking site at some point, you ought to be able to." That would mean the ability of a social network user to port his or her own data to another site. But Vladeck does not think that is required by law.

In fact, under U.S. law, it is a hard thing to determine who actually owns social network data. The FTC is one of the agencies that could ultimately be called upon to settle issues of data portability between social networking sites, an important issue for Facebook, Google and all other social networks as well.

Consumers Should Control Their Data on Social Sites

A New Kind of "Network" for AT&T, Verizon, Sprint

If you ask Trevor Healey, new CEO of Amobee, what role mobile operators or telcos can play in the mobile advertising business, you have to understand that there are segments within the market. Local and small businesses will use different tools, and run different types of campaigns, from the largest brands that traditionally have used "Madison Avenue" agencies. Telcos might not have natural advantages in the "small account" portion of the mobile ad market.

But large telcos are Fortune 500 companies. That means telco CEOs have opportunities to "hang out" with other Fortune 500 CEOs, the ones whose firms spend the most money advertising and running very-large campaigns. So re-imagine the CEOs of large, global service providers as the linchpins of the relationship selling needed to generate business from the largest and most-sophisticated accounts.

Of course, the platform has to be in place. The skills and capabilities have to be there. But that done, mobile operators, especially, could have an important and substantial role to play in mobile advertising campaigns used by the largest brands and firms. Someday, people might think of Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint as "networks" in a new way. Networks of the NBC, Fox Network, Discovery Channel sort, with scores of millions of people engaging with their screens every day, everywhere they are, all day long.

Verizon to dominate Q2 wireless growth

Verizon Wireless is expected to far outstrip its biggest rivals AT&T Inc and Sprint Nextel in subscriber growth for its first full quarter selling the Apple Inc iPhone. That's the other contributing element related to Apple's record third quarter results.

Verizon Wireless is expected to add about 930,000 net subscribers in its second-quarter results to be issued July 22, according to the average of estimates from seven analysts contacted by Reuters.

Verizon to dominate Q2 wireless growth

Apple Posts Record Results

Apple posted record quarterly revenue of $28.57 billion in its fiscal 2011 third quarter ended June 25, 2011. These results compare to revenue of $15.70 billion in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 41.7 percent compared to 39.1 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue. Apple Reports Third Quarter Results 

The company sold 20.34 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 142 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple also sold 9.25 million iPads during the quarter, a 183 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 3.95 million Macs during the quarter, a 14 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter.

Apple sold 7.54 million iPods, a 20 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

Just a couple of quick observations: iPad now is the second biggest revenue contributor for Apple, and Apple continues to show it is a "mobile device" company. Read more here.

With Cable Seemingly Winning the Consumer Market, How Much More Investment Should Telcos Make in Fixed Infrastructure?

The current discussion within the European Community about the investment impact of “net neutrality” rules is not a new debate. In the wake of the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, dominant U.S. fixed-line providers argued, successfully, that mandatory wholesale rules, providing deeply-discounted rates for wholesale customers, would severely discourage investment in optical facilities. And, in fact, Verizon's FiOS effort did not get into high gear until after the Federal Communications Commission approved such rules.

These days, the EC argument revolves to a great extent around the impact “network neutrality” rules could have on incentives for broadband investment. Specifically, operators argue that restriction of services to “best effort only,” without the ability to create differentiated service plans involving quality of service measures, will be a significant disincentive to the high rates of investment EC officials would prefer to see.

Some will say the carriers are bluffing about requiring some path to revenue when investing in 100-Mbps or 1-Gbps access facilities. Some of us would disagree. The alternative is to invest in mobile facilities and applications instead. In fact, some recent global estimates of market share suggest telcos globally are losing the consumer market share battle to cable companies. In fact, looking just at triple-play accounts, it appears cable operators have roughly 66 percent market share. In other words, telcos arguably are losing the market share battle in the consumer market. http://www.digitaltvresearch.com/ugc/press/14.pdf

EC 'Broadband Investment Implications' Discussion is Not New

Are You Embracing the 5C's? | ClickZ

Google's "Zero Moment of Truth" campaign illustrates its thinking about real-time marketing, which includes the ability to engage with consumers wherever, whenever, and on whatever device they are using.

Are You Embracing the 5C's?

Cable Will Lead Triple-Play Market Globally

More than a quarter of the world’s TV households will subscribe to triple-play services (TV, broadband and telephony) by 2016, according to Digital TV Research. The firm estimates triple-play penetration was only about seven percent of households at the end of 2010.

What will stand out is the dominance cable operators hold in triple-play subscriptions.

Read more here.

Nothing Beats Experience

Nothing replaces experience, when considering how much money, time and effort to spend on search engine optimization techniques. And nothing is easier than following expert advice, unless the advice is wrong. Watch the video.

The God Complex in SEO

Google's Eric Schmidt Slams Apple Patent Infringement Lawsuits

"The big news in the past year has been the explosion of Google Android handsets and this means our competitors are responding," says Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt. 'Because they (Apple) are not responding with innovation, they're responding with lawsuits."

"We have not done anything wrong and these lawsuits are just inspired by our success," says Schmidt.

The comments follow the initial finding by the U.S. International Trade Commission that HTC infringed two of Apple's phone patents. The full ITC has not made a ruling on the matter, though, and HTC certainly will appeal.

If upheld, the decision could force other Android phone makers to pay significant royalties to their main competitor, or, worst case, prevent sales of Android devices in the U.S. market.

Whatever else one might think, Google's culture, which emphasizes providing the "best" solution in any category, would naturally lead to such thinking. Google's leaders tend to think they shouldn't win a market unless they do indeed have the best solution. So such lawsuits would tend to be seen as an attempt by a "not as good solution" to use other methods to slow down the superior solution's acceptance.

One doesn't have to agree that Android is, in fact, the best solution to understand the sentiment.

Google's Eric Schmidt slams Apple

U.S. Mobile Backhaul Networks at Capacity, More Investment Needed

Wireless networks in the United States are operating at 80 percent of total capacity, the highest of any region in the world, according to a report prepared by investment bank Credit Suisse.

The firm argued that wireless carriers likely will need to increase their spending on infrastructure, as a result. Globally, average peak network utilization rates are at 65 percent, and that peak network utilization levels will reach 70 percent within the next year, the report says.

Investors may be underestimating the level of equipment spending that is required on an ongoing basis to support rapid growth in wireless data, Chaplin adds.

Some 23 percent of base stations globally have capacity constraints, or utilization rates of more than 80 to 85 percent in busy hours, up from 20 percent last year. In the United States, the percentage of base stations with capacity constraints is 38 percent, up from 26 percent in 2010.

Credit Suisse analyst Jonathan Chaplin says "wireless capex expectations may need to increase longer-term." Chaplin thinks investors seem to expect capital intensity to start to decline in 2012, once LTE spending is largely complete, but that might not be correct.

Read more here.