Tweet Leads to Steak at Airport

When social media entrepreneur, CEO and investor Peter Shankman landed at the Newark Airport on Aug. 17, 2011he was greeted with a porterhouse delivered by a waiter from Morton's Steakhouse.

Shankman was surprised by the gesture, tweeting "Oh. My. God. I don't believe it."

But perhaps he shouldn't have been, since he asked Mortons directly for the item two hours earlier, also via Twitter: "Hey @Mortons - can you meet me at newark airport with a porterhouse when I land in two hours? K, thanks :)"

The case of the airport porterhouse delivery may be an extreme example of actionable social media monitoring, but it also illustrates how restaurants are increasingly leveraging the service.

More restaurants monitoring social media activity

Smart Phones Not Optional for Today's Workers

Some 91 percent of mobile workers report they checked their smart phones during their otherwise unoccupied moments of the day. The latest iPass survey found that some 38 percent of mobile workers use their mobile devices to check their email the first thing in the morning, before their commute, 25 percent worked during their commute, and 22 percent worked again on the way home, each and every day.

In fact, for many, work is a never-ending cycle. About 37 percent report they work each evening. Some 33 percent work again when they arrived home, 26 percent after dinner, and 19 percent said they work again after they put their children to bed at night.

About 49 percent said they would work in the middle of the night when they were unable to sleep, at least on an occasional basis. The largest percentage recorded was in the category “work before my commute to the office,” with 62 percent responding that they did so at least one to two  times per week.

Some 37 percent of survey respondents also report they worked during lunch every day, 66 percent at least once or twice per week. Not surprisingly, workers in North America were the most likely to work through their lunch hours.

Some 45 percent of mobile workers in North America connected to technology during lunch every day. This trend was slightly lower in other geographies. Just a third (33 percent) in Europe worked during lunch every day and 31 percent of those in Asia Pacific.

Mobile workers are not only shifting their work periods to different times of day, they are also working from a variety of different locations. The most common place outside the office is the homes, with 47 percent working from home daily and 99 percent at least occasionally.

But these mobile workers do get out from time to time. 88 percent worked from the road; 84 percent from a coffee shop, restaurant or bar; and 77 percent worked outside using a city-mesh Wi-Fi at least on an occasional basis.

Some 72 percent of the 3,100 respondents said that they used a mobile device on a daily basis within the office, as well.

Some 75 percent of respondents worked more hours because of the increased flexibility in when and where they could work. More than half (55 percent) were working at least 10 or more additional hours each week.

But some were working significantly longer. About 12 percent were working 20 or more additional hours each week as a result of the freedom to choose when and where to work.

In addition to working more hours, these mobile workers also felt more productive when their schedules were flexible. Some 54 percent said that their productivity was substantially improved and an additional 24 percent stated they were marginally more productive. Only three percent felt that the additional flexibility in work times and locations decreased their productivity.

Smart phones have reached close to 100 percent penetration among mobile workers. Across the generations, 96 percent of mobile workers under the age of 45 have a smartphone and 91 percent of those over the age of 55. Relatively new on the market, tablets continue to be the big story of 2011. Currently, 41 percent of mobile workers have a tablet and an additional 34 percent of mobile workers intend to purchase a tablet in the next six months. Taken together, we expect to see 75 percent of mobile workers with a tablet this fall.

Among tablet-owning mobile workers, iPads dominate with 72 percent of the current marketshare in this study. It looks like this will remain the case this year with 63 percent of mobile employees indicating that they plan to purchase or receive an iPad 2 in the next six months, bringing the potential future market share for iPads to 71 percent of tablet-carrying mobile workers.

Google to Offer $49 1-Gbps Service?

Some observers think the really significant aspect of Google's symmetrical 1-Gbps networks in Kansas City, Mo., Kansas City Kan. and at Stanford University will be the pricing. Google apparently plans to offer 1 Gbps symmetrical broadband access at a price consistent with services offered by other broadband providers, suggesting a monthly price in the neighborhood of $49 a month.

Google wants a test bed to see what sorts of apps might develop when users and developers have access to that sort of bandwidth. But some may say the bigger long-term challenge will be the ability to price such services, and even lower speed 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps services, at standard consumer rates.

Many observers would say that, at such prices, and without other services to contribute to revenue, that no commercial operation could offer and stay in business.

Google's 1-Gbps service $49 a month?

Sprint Files Lawsuit, But Winning Wouldn't Address Fundamental Issues

Sprint Nextel has filed a new lawsuit against AT&T, AT&T Mobility, Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile USA seeking to block the proposed acquisition as a violation of Section 7 of the Clayton Act. The Clayton Act allows contestants and the federal government to act in advance of potential antitrust activities in a preemptive way. Clayton Act is an antitrust statute

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in the District of Columbia as a related case to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) suit against the proposed acquisition.

Sprint’s lawsuit focuses on the competitive and consumer harms which would result from a takeover of T-Mobile by AT&T

There remains substantial disagreement about what might be possible if the wake of a Justice Department and further Federal Communications Commission ruling that the proposed AT&T deal would be anti-competitive. Some believe the same logic might now bar Sprint from attempting to merge with T-Mobile USA, something Sprint clearly has thought about.

Sprint would clearly breathe easier if AT&T did not acquire T-Mobile USA. But that would not resolve any of Sprint’s other fundamental problems, including its lagging rate of subscriber additions, churn issues, liquidity or market share issues.

Needless to say, T-Mobile USA, which has struggled for a decade, still would have to face issues even greater than Sprint's challenges. Sprint already has its 4G network operating, and soon will add Long Term Evolution. T-Mobile USA does not own spectrum allowing it to do so.

28% Use Location Services

More than a quarter of all American adults—28 percent—use mobile or social location-based services of some kind, mostly to get directions or recommendations related to their current locations.

A much smaller number (five percent of mobile device owners) use their phones to check in to locations using geosocial services such as Foursquare or Gowalla.

About nine percent of Internet users set up social media services such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn so that their location is automatically included in their posts on those services.

Google: 44 Percent Of Searches For Last-Minute Holiday Gifts Will Be Mobile

Google now predicts, based on the past two years worth of data, that in the upcoming 2011 Christmas and holiday shopping season, “44 percent of total searches for last minute gifts and store locator terms will be from mobile devices."

That's a fairly staggering prediction. Google believes that 44 percent of all searches for the gift shopping purpose will be generated by smart phones. There are some potential implications for mobile advertisers, who will have to compete for limited screen real estate.

But the findings also are illustrative for the broader trend of mobile use for real-world shopping activities. That has implications for use of mobile coupons, location-based check-ins and offers and mobile wallet applications, even in advance of a widespread shift to use of mobile payment services.

One of the clear "big trends" now is that mobile and online applications and features increasingly are being applied to offline commerce. 

44 Percent Of Searches For Last-Minute Holiday Gifts Will Be Mobile

Sprint "Simplicity" Demand is Really "Protect Me" Demand

Sprint bases much of its retail pricing strategy on "simplicity." Some might say that is another way of saying "no worry about overage charges. The strategy is well founded, in the Internet access era. Some will not be able to remember it, but America Online, even before that firm began calling itself AOL, and before it decided to essentially abandon the ISP business, used to charge users by the minute.

When AOL switched to "unlimited" usage, freeing users from the need to deal with metered access, usage exploded. For that reason, fixed broadband service plans in the U.S. market have been "unlimited" until quite recently.

That approach generally has not been used in the mobile business, which has more stringent capacity issues. Sprint, for the moment, remains the carrier most associated with "unlimited" access plans. Some Yankee Group research data from the United Kingdom shows the continuing power of the "don't worry about overage charges" approach. About 29 percent of U.K. consumers surveyed indicated they were willing to pay a 10-percent premium to receive protection from unexpected overage charges.

They also were willing to pay more for higher speeds, especially when available "on demand."