Young Dominate "Cell Mostly" Web Use

Younger adults, minorities, and lower income earners who own smart phones are likeliest to mostly use them to access the Internet, according to a July 2011 survey from the Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Project.

Some 42 percent of 18-to-29-year-old smart phone owners mostly use them for web access, double the 21 percent of 30-to-49-year-olds who do so and more than four times the 10 percent of smartphone owners 50 and older.

The obvious implication might be that users with less disposable income are likely to rely more heavily on mobile broadband, which they often must purchase in order to use the devices they prefer. The other possible explanation is that, for many users, mobile broadband is the most valuable and therefore the most-used form of access.

Young, Minorities Dominate ‘Cell Mostly’ Web Use

Microsoft's "can't lose" mobile strategy

Microsoft’s deal with Nokia should increase the company's position in the smart phone operating system market. The number of smart phones now being sold with Windows Mobile or the newer Windows Phone 7 is pretty small, perhaps less than five percent of all sales, representing licensing fees of perhaps $10 to $15 license fee per phone. Some argue Microsoft can make more money by licensing other parts of its intellectual property portfolio.

Microsoft is now seeking to get royalties from all Android handsets sold It is quite likely that Microsoft will be able to extract licensing fees (eventually) from all the manufacturers. And at $5 per handset produced, that is a substantial revenue stream.

No disrespect, as a business model is a good thing to have. At the same time, in a market seemingly driven by the likes of Apple and Google, one has to ask the question: when was that last time Microsoft actually did something "enchanting" in the mobile market?

Microsoft's "can't lose" mobile strategy

Google accounts for 92% of UK searches

Experian Hitwise data shows that Google in June 2011 had a 92 percent market share of all searches carried out by U.K. Web users, up 1.5 percent on the previous month and 0.2 percent higher than the same period in 2010.

Microsoft, Yahoo! and Ask Sites accounted for seven percent of searches, with ‘Other’ accounting for the remaining one percent.

Google accounts for 92% of UK searches

Follow any Google+ Account using RSS

While Google is yet to provide an official application programming interface for Google+, "PlusFeed" is a service that provides an "real simple syndication" (RSS) feed of any Google user’s public posts. Simply find the unique number at the end of their profile URL, and then add it to the PlusFeeds URL. So, for example, the URL of The Next Web’s Google RSS feed is: http://plusfeed.appspot.com/103907806627406122152.

Follow any Google account using RSS

Price Transparency Causing More Brand Advertising?

Oddly enough, as knowledge about pricing rapidly shifts in favor of consumers equipped with smart phones, there's trouble ahead for retailers who cannot offer the lowest prices, but opportunity for a renaissance of brand advertising, argues Gian Fulgoni, comScore chairman.

Advertising's role in this new world becomes not just a demand driver but also a counter-balancing force to price as the main determinant of consumer choice.

Ad spending trends support this conclusion, he argues. TV ad sales rose nine percent in the first quarter of 2011, while the Interactive Advertising Bureau just reported a 23 percent growth in online advertising. Tellingly, in 2010, display advertising grew faster than search, for the first time since the IAB began reporting its data, driven by a 35 percent increase in spending on video ads, Fulgoni says.

The numbers indicate a new-found focus on branding advertising at the expense of direct response or price or promotion communications, he argues. Others might not be quite so sure. Advertising is rebounding from rather deep reductions caused by the great recession of 2008.

Get Ready for a Renaissance in Advertising

87% of Google+ Users are Male

Mobile Apps and Network Performance Now are Data Centric

Text messaging now is the preferred and most-used communications mode for 55 percent of Western European mobile customers polled in May and June 2011 by the Yankee Group.

The survey of almost 5,000 European consumers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom also found that 54 percent preferred voice calls, and used voice on a daily basis. About 27 percent preferred email and 22 percent preferred instant messaging. That is as stark a reminder as one could get that "communications" these days is about all sorts of media, channels and devices.

The Yankee Group researchers predict that as smart phone adoption increases, so will the use of instant messaging. The other important insight is not so much that text messaging is displacing voice to some extent, or that other channels likewise are competing with voice, but that users want to be able to use multiple channels in different settings, depending in part on the people or communities to be communicated with.

The survey also suggests, as you would guess, that touch screen interfaces are important. In fact, a touch screen is the single most important feature for a new device, at 30 percent of responses, outstripping even "Internet access," the most important feature for about 14 percent of respondents.

Overall, the survey suggests, "data-centric" features now are top of mind for consumers, and drive their thinking about what to buy. In terms of network quality attributes, it is clear that data service performance is more important than voice service performance. Aside from consistency, "higher Internet access speed" was the second most important attribute of network service. About nine percent indicated that " fewer dropped calls" were the top network service issue.