Who Uses Deal-Of-The-Day Websites?

Who uses group buying or social buying sites?

You might think it is people for whom saving money is really important because they don't make as much. Actually, says Forrester Research, the three percent of U.S. consumers who frequently use deal-of-the-day sites have a lot of money to spend.

About half of them report having an average household income of $100K or more, and they expect to spend more money online this year than last year.

They are twice as likely to be influenced by what's hot and what's not, two-thirds are willing to try new things, and 62 percent agree that they often change their mind about which brand to buy after doing some research, making them the ideal target audience for deal-of-the-day sites.

But the Forrester Research data also shows that the majority of U.S. online consumers aren’t familiar with deal-of-the-day sites like Groupon or Living Social, and another 25 percent haven't used them yet.

The Data Digest: Who Uses Deal-Of-The-Day Websites?

Social Networking is Fastest-Growing App

Social networking is far and away the fastest-growing application people of most ages are adopting.

Video and audio also are noteworthy.

read more here

What People Do Online

There are generational differences in use of apps online.

"Everybody" uses email and search. You might be surprised at how high "health information" ranks.

Apparently, for most people that is a more frequent activity than using "news."

Of course, there are some things almost nobody, of any age, does.

Virtual worlds, blogging and podcasts are among those infrequent activities.

read more here

Mobile is the New "Online"

"Mobile is the new online," says analyst Paul Kedrosky. Mobile is the new ad network, the new data substrate, the new product screen, the new shopping list.

It's rapidly become the currency as well, with people more at peace with turning your mobile phone into your wallet.

But Kedrosky warns there is a serious "scaling" problem with local mobile advertising, namely the cost of reaching local advertisers to sell them programs.

There's definitely a billion-dollar hyper-local ad market but the right way to see it is there's a $15,000 local ad market. There's a whole bunch of many, many small markets.

Why Google Dropped Groupon and Local Just Doesn't Scale

Verizon FiOS TV Changes Coming?

FCC Net Neutrality Rule Creates Tiered Internet Access, Despite Not Wanting To

The Federal Communications Commission's "Open Network" rules, which inevitably will be known as the "network neutrality" rules, ironically enshrine the notion of tiered Internet access service, even when it attempts to keep the fixed-network Internet access service a "best effort only" type of product.

There are two reasons. First, the rules applying to wireless networks are more flexible. The second reason is that the rules explicitly exempt enterprise access services from the rules.

"Mass-market retail service" is covered, meaning "a service marketed and sold on a standardized basis to
residential customers, small businesses, and other end-user customers such as schools and
libraries."

"The term does not include enterprise service offerings, which are typically offered to larger organizations through customized or individually negotiated arrangements," the official document says.

That suggests we might conceivably see wireless and business access become the places where more experimentation occurs, since those are the places that differentiated access products can be created and sold.

read the whole document here

Net Neutrality: 4-6 Years of Uncertainty

Professor Tim Wu says the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules mean at least four to six years of uncertainty, as it will take that long for court challenges to the FCC's authority to bubble up to the Supreme Court for final ruling.

"We’ll get an initial indication in about two years (the length of time it will take for the initial legal challenge), but a final answer may require the Supreme Court to get involved," Wu says. Meanwhile, if the new rule is struck down by a federal court, the FCC retains the power to reenact it using a different basis of authority (its backup power, so to speak). That will effectively reset the authority question for another two years.

The ruling will have other effects. There are lots of firms that sell software allowing service providers to create services offering priority handling of packets, and custom services built on the apps users care about most. It will now, in the U.S. market not make so much sense to try and sell such products to wireline operators, as they probably will not want to bother creating services other than "best effort."

That shifts the whole focus of sales effort to other countries where creation of such services is possible. Inside the United States, only the wireless providers will be able to create many new types of differentiated service. That's good for mobile providers, but not so good for the commodity providers of fixed broadband service.

The Art Of Kicking The Can: Uncertainty Rules When It Comes To Net Neutrality