Monday, April 18, 2011
Flip, BlackBerry Playbook and Kindle
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Smart Phones Displacing Cameras, Flickr Data Indicates
Smart phones are displacing cameras as the devices used to take photos uploaded to Flickr, data from Flickr indicates. In fact, the iPhone 4 might soon become the single most-popular device used to take photos uploaded to the site.
The data in all likelihood understates use of smart phones, though. The graphs, Flickr says, are only accurate to the extent that Flickr can automatically detect the camera used to take the photo or shoot the video (something possible about two thirds of the time). Since that is not always possible with camera phones, therefore they are under-represented, Flickr says. In other words, the Apple iPhone 4 might already have become the most-used device.
There's another interesting angle here, namely the connection between social software and e-commerce. Since Flickr is tracking the devices used to take photos, it also can become a site where potential camera buyers can find out what devices other people are using, and get links to information, or buy those devices.
see more here
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Messaging Tops Smart Phone Usage
A recent three-week study of how 150 smart phone owners use their devices shows that the users spend an average of just over 94 minutes a day using their phones, and more than a third of that time, or as much as 28 minutes, is spent reading, writing and responding to email. The aggregated time spent on all downloaded add-on apps, including Facebook, WordswithFriends and Pandora, is the second largest, totaling just under 11 minutes. Voice calls represent 13 minutes a day worth of usage.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Smart Phone Users Consume 24 Mbytes a Day, 1/2 on Wi-Fi
A study of 150 smart phone users over a three-week period finds that panel members consume an average of 723 MBytes of data a month, an average of 24.1 MBytes of data a day. Of that, 21.5 MBytes is received, while only 2.6 MBytes is sent. Those figures include both wireless network and Wi-Fi consumption. Looking only at data sent over cellular networks, the average data transfer is 12.1 MBytes a day, with Wi-Fi representing the remaining 12 MBytes of daily usage.
The data was gathered from Feb. 9, 2011 through March 2, 2011. Some 83 of the respondents use Android phones, 57 are iPhone users and 10 use RIM BlackBerry devices.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Banks Cautious on Mobile Payments?
Thirteen of the 15 financial institutions surveyed by Forrester Research on behalf of Fiserv have a mobile banking offering of some sort. In addition to account access, the most commonly offered services are transfers between accounts, ATM and branch locators and bill payment.
All of the 13 financial institutions with a mobile banking solution offer the service to retail banking customers. Just more than half offer some type of mobile service to small business customers.
But the majority of bank and credit union executives interviewed are struggling to build a business case to support mobile payments, and many are waiting for market changes to serve as a catalyst for additional investment.
So what would make mobile payments more interesting? The first, and most obvious motivator is competition from other providers, especially other financial institutions as well as technology and payments companies. Some more certain evidence of consumer demand also would prompt the executives to move faster.
Many of the survey participants would like to see another company provide more concrete evidence of the financial model for mobile payments, as well.
Device and process standards also continue ot develop, and most of the executives wanted more stability on the technology front before they would move faster.
Banks and credit unions view merchant enablement as key to the adoption and success of next generation mobile payments. Once merchants are actually set up to receive mobile payments, financial institutions will be more inclined to invest additional time and money in mobile payments.
When building a business case, respondents considered the impact mobile payments would have on multiple business processes and outcomes. Customer retention and profitability are lead concerns. A study by Fiserv found the retention rates of Millennial consumers using a mobile channel improved from 85 percent to 93 percent.
In a separate study, Fiserv found that increased payment interactions deliver increased customer engagement and profitability. For example, consumers who routinely pay their bills electronically through their bank or credit union have almost twice the number of products (5.34 versus 3.21), deliver more than twice the annual profitability of the average retail customer and
are 3.5 times less likely to churn.
While costs associated with processing checks and cash payments vary, it is well understood that electronic payments – including those carried out through mobile phones – have a direct positive impact on the cost structures of payers, payees and financial
institutions, Fiserv says. By shifting customers away from more expensive payment forms such as cash and checks, banks and credit unions can reduce their cost to serve.
One of the big unknowns, though, is the degree to which new competitors will displace the current suppliers of credit, debit or bank accounts, or work with the established entities.
Still unknown is the extent that ultimately will be played by cross-selling and customer service aspects of mobile payments.
Banks and credit unions also envision unique opportunities (money and fraud management, authentication and customer service, for example) as possible benefits.
Eight of the 15 financial institutions surveyed now enable access by mobile browser (WAP) and six enable SMS (text) banking.
The majority of banks and credit unions surveyed support smartphones today. Notably, support for Google Android is the top priority moving forward.
In contrast to mobile banking, though, very few of the surveyed financial institutions have clear mobile payment strategies in place, Fiserv says. And while all of the respondents currently offer or plan to offer mobile payments, they are split between being a driver (seven of those surveyed) or a facilitator (six of those surveyed) of mobile payments.
Mobile payments are seen to include bill payment, person-to-person (P2P), remote retail (including social media) and point-of-sale (POS) or contactless payments. When asked how they have prioritized each of these mobile payment methods, banks and credit unions indicated they are most focused on bill payment and P2P with the other methods receiving less focus, Fiserv says.
Read the white paper here.
All of the 13 financial institutions with a mobile banking solution offer the service to retail banking customers. Just more than half offer some type of mobile service to small business customers.
But the majority of bank and credit union executives interviewed are struggling to build a business case to support mobile payments, and many are waiting for market changes to serve as a catalyst for additional investment.
So what would make mobile payments more interesting? The first, and most obvious motivator is competition from other providers, especially other financial institutions as well as technology and payments companies. Some more certain evidence of consumer demand also would prompt the executives to move faster.
Many of the survey participants would like to see another company provide more concrete evidence of the financial model for mobile payments, as well.
Device and process standards also continue ot develop, and most of the executives wanted more stability on the technology front before they would move faster.
Banks and credit unions view merchant enablement as key to the adoption and success of next generation mobile payments. Once merchants are actually set up to receive mobile payments, financial institutions will be more inclined to invest additional time and money in mobile payments.
When building a business case, respondents considered the impact mobile payments would have on multiple business processes and outcomes. Customer retention and profitability are lead concerns. A study by Fiserv found the retention rates of Millennial consumers using a mobile channel improved from 85 percent to 93 percent.
In a separate study, Fiserv found that increased payment interactions deliver increased customer engagement and profitability. For example, consumers who routinely pay their bills electronically through their bank or credit union have almost twice the number of products (5.34 versus 3.21), deliver more than twice the annual profitability of the average retail customer and
are 3.5 times less likely to churn.
While costs associated with processing checks and cash payments vary, it is well understood that electronic payments – including those carried out through mobile phones – have a direct positive impact on the cost structures of payers, payees and financial
institutions, Fiserv says. By shifting customers away from more expensive payment forms such as cash and checks, banks and credit unions can reduce their cost to serve.
One of the big unknowns, though, is the degree to which new competitors will displace the current suppliers of credit, debit or bank accounts, or work with the established entities.
Still unknown is the extent that ultimately will be played by cross-selling and customer service aspects of mobile payments.
Banks and credit unions also envision unique opportunities (money and fraud management, authentication and customer service, for example) as possible benefits.
Eight of the 15 financial institutions surveyed now enable access by mobile browser (WAP) and six enable SMS (text) banking.
The majority of banks and credit unions surveyed support smartphones today. Notably, support for Google Android is the top priority moving forward.
In contrast to mobile banking, though, very few of the surveyed financial institutions have clear mobile payment strategies in place, Fiserv says. And while all of the respondents currently offer or plan to offer mobile payments, they are split between being a driver (seven of those surveyed) or a facilitator (six of those surveyed) of mobile payments.
Mobile payments are seen to include bill payment, person-to-person (P2P), remote retail (including social media) and point-of-sale (POS) or contactless payments. When asked how they have prioritized each of these mobile payment methods, banks and credit unions indicated they are most focused on bill payment and P2P with the other methods receiving less focus, Fiserv says.
Read the white paper here.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
Personalized Billboards? Well, at Least Customized
Billboards that change messages based on environmental factors, such as who is looking at the billboard and the level of ambient noise, are coming, one company hopes.
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
FCC Chairman Talks About Need for More Mobile Spectrum
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
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