Video Represents 99% of Consumer Information Consumption

Reduced to bytes, U.S. consumers in 2008 imposed an information transfer "load" of about 34 gigabytes a day, say Roger E. Bohn, director, and James E. Short, research direction of the Global Information Industry Center at the University of California, San Diego. That works out to about seven DVDs worth of data a day.

And that isn't even the most-significant potential implication. We are used to hearing about consumption of media or information in terms of "time," such as hours consumed each day. But Bohn and Short also look at information flows in terms of "bandwidth."

If one looks at consumption based on the "hours of use," video accounts for possibly half of total daily consumption.

If one looks at the flows in terms of compressed bytes, or actual bandwidth required to deliver the information, then video represents 99 percent of the flow volume.

That has huge implications for the design of any nation's communications and "broadcasting" networks. To the extent that virtually all information now is coded in digital form, a shift of consumption modes (from watching linear satellite, cable or telco TV to Internet delivery) can have huge effects.

Recall that video bits now represent 99 percent of bandwidth load. But also note that most of that load is delivered in the most-efficient way possible, by multicasting a single copy of any piece of information to every potential consumer all at once. It requires no more bandwidth to serve up an event watched by 500 million people than one person.

That is why video and audio networks historically have been designed as "mutlicast" networks. They are the most effiecient way of delivering high-bandwidth information.

If more video starts to move to Internet delivery, the bandwidth requirements literally explode. To deliver one identical piece of content to 500 million Internet users requires 500 million times as much bandwidth as the "old" multicast method, in at least the access link. If network architects are ruthlessly efficient and can cache such content at the edge of the network, wide area bandwidth consumption is reduced and the new load is seen primarily on the access networks.

All of this suggests a rational reason for maintaining "multicast" video entertainment networks, and not shifting all consumption to unicast Internet delivery. It is extremely inefficient and wasteful of network resources. To the extent that much "on demand" viewing of popular professional content can be satisifed by local storage (digital video recorders), this should be done.

On-demand viewing of YouTube content is harder to rationalize in that manner. For the same reason, local storage of computer games, where possible, makes sense. Interactive, "live" gaming does not allow such offloading, and will contribute hugely to Internet bandwidth demand, just as viewing of YouTube videos is doing.

“Information," representing flows of data delivered to people from 20 sources, is likely to be much higher the next time the researchers replicate the study, because television, which accounts for nearly half of total consumption, now has shifted from analog NTSC to high-definition, which imposes a greater information load.

Television consumption represents about 41 percent of the daily consumption, but computer and video games represent 55 percent of the flow. Add ratio and TV and those two sources represent 61 percent of the flow.

But there is another important implication: the researchers counted "compressed" information, or "bandwidth," in addition to more-familiar metrics such as hours of consumption.

Looked at in this way, the researchers say, "led to a big surprise." In fact, only three activities--television, computer games and movies account for 99 percent of the flow. All other sources, including books, mobile or fixed voice, newspapers, radio or music, contribute only one percent of total load.

The researches also point out that they count bytes as part of the  "information flow" only when users actually consume the information. Data stored on hard drives or TV or radio signals not being watched or listened to does not count in the research methodology.

The researchers also point out that if “personal conversation” is considered a source of information, then high-quality "tele-presence" applications that actually mimic talking to a person in the same room would require about 100 Mbps worth of communications load.

Three hours of personal conversation a day at this bandwidth would be 135 gigabytes of information, about 400 percent more than today's average consumption.

Will Firefox Mobile Displace App Stores?

Right now mobile apps are hard to develop if what one wants is access to the widest range of browser-equipped smartphones and application stores. Basically, each application has to be re-coded for each mobile operating system.

Mozilla.org thinks it has a better solution: write apps directly for the Firefox mobile browser, using HTML5, CSS and JavaScript, and be done with it.

Firefox Mobile (known informally as "Fennec") will launch for Nokia's N900 handset "soon," with versions for Windows Mobile and Android planned for 2010. In developing its new mobile browser, Mozilla.org is trying to replicate and preserve as much of the current user experience as possible, a sore point with some users.

Firefox for mmobile phones will include "The Awesome Bar" that searches a user's history, bookmarks and tags, allowing users to go to their favorite sites instantly by auto-completing entries.

Firefox preferences, history, and bookmarks can be shared between a desktop and mobile, providing a convenient way to sync important elements of the Web experience. The mobile browser will be continually synchronised with the PC.

If a user starts typing a specific address, and the user has visited that site before, the site will pop up, Mozilla.org says.

Tabs will allow users to browse multiple sites at once and one-touch bookmarking will allow users to quickly organize and add new sites. If a user is working on a PC with multiple tabs open, and then wants to resume on a mobile, the tabs will be available on Firefox Mobile when the user opens it up.

Also, users will be able to "add on" new widgets for the browser itself, something difficult-to-impossible to do at the moment.

For developers, the ability to create apps directly for the Firefox browser will simplify the development process, if not the business model. Developers who simply want people to use an applicatons will find the browser model quite attractive.

Developers who want to create a "for fee" business model might have to stick with the application stores, though, as the billing process will be an issue.

Writing for Firefox should make easier the task of integrating geolocation, camera and calling features of the phone.

Firefox Mobile will offer the fastest Javascript engine of any mobile browser, Mozilla.org says.

"Anyone who knows JavaScript and HTML can develop a great app without having to learn a specific mobile platform," says Jay Sullivan, Mozilla.org VP.

Browser Versus App: Which is Best for Mobile Developers?

Developers can just about flip a coin when trying to decide whether to write an app that runs directly in a browser compared to an application a user has to download from an application store.

According to a survey by Compete.com,. about half the time, Apple iPhone users are running apps rather than using their browsers.

So far, Android users are spending more time on their browsers than using apps, but that likely will change as more apps are made available.

Users of other smartphones tend to use their browsers more than downloaded apps.

40% Will Increase Email, Text Message Marketing Campaigns, Survey Finds

About 40 percent of email marketers surveyed in November 2009 by Silverpop say they will increase their email marketing budgets in 2010, while 47 percent said their budgets would stay the same.

In the coming year, more than half of survey respondents (52 percent) said increasing customer loyalty was a top email marketing goal.

But incremental revenue clearly is the top driver. Overall, 51 percent of respondents want to drive incremental revenue with their email program, while 65 percent of those with larger email budgets say that's their top goal in 2010.

"Inbox clutter" remains an issue for 37percent of respondents. That's an issue, but nothing like the opt in issues faced by users of text messaging campaigns, whose users often must pay "by the message" to receive them. Cluttering up an inbox is one thing, charging someone to receive your marketing message is far worse.

And social media is growing in important. About 84 percent or marketers plan to include social media into their email programs in the coming year, while 38 percent will add text messaging.

Marketers enjoying budget increases are even more likely to add these to their programs; About 89 percent of marketers will growing budgets say they will incorporate social media,  while 44 percent of respondents with growing budgets say they will add text message campaigns.

Email linked to popular social networks will work fine for PC-based users, but text messaging will be needed to reach mobile users on the go.

Who Will Lead Mobile Internet Industry?

If there is one enduring theme in the information and communications technology businesses, it is that the industry's leaders in one era are displaced by new leaders in the subsequent era.

That suggests we will see a new list of industry leaders in the "mobile Internet" era that is coming.

The main thing right now is not to worry too much about where we set the boundaries of the various computing waves.

The point is that a new wave is coming. As shocking as the notion might seem, the names that lead the Internet computing wave might not be on the list of "mobile Internet computing." Nothing is foreordained, though. Just because no leader has made a transition from one era to the next does not mean contestants will not try their best and hardest to make history by managing the transition.

Android Gaining Ground on iPhone as App Platform

Android seems to be emerging rather quickly as a "number two" choice for mobile device application development, a new analysis by comScore suggests.

“With handsets on multiple carriers, from multiple manufacturers, and numerous Android device models expected to be in the U.S. market by January, the Android platform is rapidly shaking up the smartphone market,” says Mark Donovan, comScore SVP. “While iPhone continues to set the bar with its App Store and passionate user base, and RIM remains the leader among the business set, Android is clearly gaining momentum among developers and consumers.”

Of those American consumers in the market for a smartphone, 17 percent are considering the purchase of an Android-supported device in next three months, compared to 20 percent indicating they plan to purchase an iPhone.

Although Android’s share of the smartphone market is relatively small, it has quickly doubled in the past year to 3.5 percent in October 2009.

An analysis of mobile media consumption on smartphones suggests that users of both Apple and Android-supported devices are more likely to engage with mobile media than an average smartphone user.

Users of the Apple iPhone were most likely to consume mobile media, with 94 percent of users doing so in September 2009, while 92 percent of Android device users, predominantly T-Mobile G1 users, engaged in mobile media activities, 12 percentage points higher than an average smartphone user and far higher than the 26 percent use of mobile media by feature phone users.

Apple and Android users were equally likely to engage with news using their browser and are nearly identical in their mobile application engagement. About 80 percent of both iPhone and Android users say they access news using their device browsers. About 83 percent of Apple users and 82 percent of Android users say they use downloaded apps.

Some 58 percent of iPhone users say they use mobile social networking, compared to 52 percent of Android users. About 43 percent of iPhone users use instant messaging while 46 percent of Android users say they use mobile IM.

Email is an area where Android and iPhone behavior is distinct. Apple iPhone users (87 percent) are far more likely to use email on their devices than Android users (63 percent).

Google’s Android platform has continued to gain awareness among U.S. consumers. In August 2009, just 22 percent of mobile users had heard of the Android, while in November 2009 this figure had reached 37 percent, largely prompted by the Verizon Droid advertising campaign launched in the fall.

The comScore study found that not only is general awareness increasing about Android, but intent to purchase an Android-supported device is also increasing among mobile phone users.

When mobile users were asked in November 2009 which phone they planned to buy in the next three months, 17 percent of respondents in the market for a new smartphone said they planned to purchase an Android-supported device, with 8 percent of those planning to purchase a Verizon Droid, compared to 20 percent of respondents who said they planned to purchase an iPhone during that same time period.

In comparison, when survey respondents answered this same question in August 2009, only seven percent indicated an intent to purchase either the T-Mobile G1 or the T-Mobile MyTouch -- which were the only Android-supported phones available at the time -- while 21 percent of respondents planned to purchase an iPhone in the next three months.

U.S. Mobile Handset Sales to Double in 2010?

Although 2009 was not the best year for mobile device sales most places in the world, the United States was a rather salient exception. But 2010 will be an even-better year for U.S. mobile device sales, says TNS. In fact, moble phone sales could double in 2010.

About 53 percent of American respondents and 55 percent of Canadian respondents say they plan to buy a mobile phone in the next six months, up from just 24 percent of U.S. respondents a year ago and 19 percent of Canadian respondents.

Touchscreen phones are set to be the big winners, with 29 percent of U.S. consumers and 28 percent of Canadian respondents saying they will buy one as their next phone.

Mobiles with Qwerty keyboards are also rising in popularity, with 23 percent of U.S. respondents indicating they will buy such a device, and 19 percent of  Canadians.

But there are some issues.  TNS’ research shows that consumers find it hard to distinguish one device from another. Also, 27 percent of Amercian consumers and 29 percent of Canadians consumers say "ease of use" problems as preventing them from using some of the new mobile services offered.

Another mobile device that stands to do well in 2010 is the netbook. About 19 percent of American consumers say they are likely to buy one in the next six months, compared to 19 percent for larger notebooks and only five percent for desktop PC’s.

In Canada, about 20 percent of consumers say they are likely to buy a netbook, 22 percent a notebook and five percent a desktop machine.

TNS studied 24,000 consumers in 35 markets to develop its findings.