Because of Mobile, TV Now is a 2-Screen Experience

During Super Bowl XLVI,  41 percent of Google searches related to “Super Bowl ads” made during the game were made from mobile devices.



Nor is that sort of behavior unusual. About 45 percent of respondents polled by Nielsen who own both smart phones and tablets say they routinely multitask while watching television.



Separately, Velti commissioned a nationwide U.S. poll that indicated nearly 60 percent of mobile users planned to look at, or use their mobile device, during this year's Super Bowl.



The study, conducted by Harris Interactive, also suggested that 30 percent of viewers under the age of 45 would be watching the game with their device in hand, while 47 percent of all viewers age 18 and older expected to check or use their device up to 10 times during the game.



You might say much television viewing has become a two-screen experience, with complicated implications for content marketing or advertising. On one hand, the Google data suggests users were prompted to engage more heavily with brands featured during commercial breaks during the Super Bowl.



On the other hand, the Velti study suggested 13 percent of viewers were likely to use their mobile devices during game play. About 26 percent reported they were likely to look at or use their mobile device during commercial breaks.



So commercial breaks were twice as likely to be the times when users were turning to the second screen. For advertisers spending $3.5 million for each 30-second spot, use of the second screen might be seen as a positive.



“Mobile is the second screen that completes the full circle of user engagement, turning advertising into content," said Krishna Subramanian, Velti chief marketing officer.



That might be true when the content users are looking for on the second screen is related directly to a brand’s ad and message.



On the other hand, users often will be multitasking in other ways that compete with TV ads--at the Super Bowl or not--for attention. A study by Razorfish and Yahoo found that 38 percent of survey respondents found use of the Internet on a mobile or tablet device, watching TV, an enhancement to the viewing experience.



That suggests an opportunity to build more directly on television as a “two screen” experience, rather than a single screen experience. TV executives with long memories will remember the last 30 years of thinking about “interactive TV,” when researchers, suppliers and pundits looked for ways to create compelling experiences based on  viewer input and response.



As it turns out, users already have voted on how they want to interact, and it involves the Internet and a second screen of some sort, including PCs, notebooks, tablets and smart phones.

The Razorfish study suggests the top five content categories that seem to encourage multitasking are:

1. Reality shows
2. News programs
3. Comedy episodes
4. Sports events
5. Food programming

But most Super Bowl advertisers did not actively incorporate social media or overt Web addresses in their TV ads shown during the Super Bowl.


According to an analysis by Altimeter Group,  32 percent of the ads had no references to websites or social media sites, And only Best Buy had an "Act Now" promotion.


Mobile devices now make TV a "two screen" experience.

Facebook Hopes to Tap Mobile Ad Revenue

What does "display advertising" look like on a smart phone? For Facebook that might mean “featured stories,” inserted into end user news feeds. Facebook to tap mobile ads

Mobile advertising is complicated for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that on a smart phone, screen real estate is sharply limited, compared to a PC screen.

The other issue is that there are a few "mobile" screens to deal with, including smart phones and tablets of various sizes. Even where a larger tablet screen (10 inches or larger) is available, the difference in user input capabilities (touch screen versus keyboard and mouse) has to be considered.

In Facebook's case, there also is the specific challenge of creating ad formats for "Timeline," the new way Facebook shows profile pages.

Facebook also might want to create ways of linking a mobile message back to brand ads and content on other parts of Facebook, rather than leaving the Facebook environment.

Chrome for Android Launches

In 2008 Google launched Google Chrome. Now Google has launched Chrome for Android Beta, which brings many of the things you’ve come to love about Chrome to your Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone or tablet. 

Like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and sync so users can take your personalized web browsing experience with them, across devices.

Unfortunately, Chrome is only available for people using the latest version of Android called Ice Cream Sandwich. Right now, Ice Cream Sandwich is only on a few devices. Unless you own a Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S, or Asus Transformer Prime.




With Chrome for Android, users can search, navigate and browse fast. Users can scroll through web pages as quickly as they can flick their fingers. When searching, top search results are loaded in the background.

Chrome for Android is designed from the ground up for mobile devices. Tabs so they fit just as naturally on a small-screen phone as they do on a larger screen tablet. Users can flip or swipe between an unlimited number of tabs using intuitive gestures, as if you’re holding a deck of cards in the palm of a hand, each one a new window to the web.

Mobile Execs See Mobile Payments as "Breakthrough Category" in 2012

Mobile industry executives surveyed by analyst Chetan Sharma think mobile payments will be the breakthrough category for 2012. 

The next breakthrough category is seen to be mobile commerce. 

Survey respondents tend to believe financial sector participants will be  the leaders in mobile payments, specifically firms such as Visa and MasterCard that run huge branded payment networks. 

Missing from the list of options, though, are "banks" and other participants that provide the credit or debit card functions. 

Perhaps of note, since 2011, respondents have boosted their opinions of the established payment networks, lowered their view of prospects for Isis, and now take a higher view of start-ups, Amazon and Apple. 

PayPal is viewed less favorably than in 2011, which some observers might find just the opposite of what might happen in 2012. 

Mobile Internet Usage Doubles

Global internet usage on mobile devices, exclusive of tablets,  has almost doubled to 8.5 percent in January 2012, up  from 4.3 percent in 2010,  according to StatCounter.

The other important observation is that mobile broadband already has passed fixed network broadband, in terms of number of users or subscribers. 

StatCounter Global Stats data also suggest mobile access to the Internet has been doubling every year since 2009. Other studies confirm the trend.

Nokia leads worldwide, most probably driven by its dominance in India, while Apple is second globally but leads the U.S. and U.K. markets.

Global use of mobile devices to access internet
(excludes tablets)

Jan 2009: 0.7%
Jan 2010: 1.6%
Jan 2011: 4.3%
Jan 2012: 8.5%

Mobile phones and PC dongles have been  the main drivers of mobile broadband usage, so far. The big question is how much of a role tablets will play in the future.

"Everybody" Multi-tasks When Watching TV

Multi-tasking between TV and internet connected devices is now the norm for consumers, globally.

In fact, according to GlobalWebIndex, fewer than 20 percent of respondents survey had not multi-tasked, while watching TV, in the last month. 

While laptops lead, with nearly 50 percent of respondents having used them in tandem with watching TV in the last month,  40 percent having used a mobile and 10 percent used a tablet while watching TV. 

Which of the following devices have you used while watching TV?

It is not entirely clear that mobile phones are used exclusively or primarily for content consumption while watching TV. People might be answering the phone or placing a call, sending or reading text messages or email, for example. 

Still, the findings do reinforce the notion that "mobile" devices often are used in un-tethered but not mobile contexts, while TV consumption is less an experience that always demands full attention by viewers. 

There are lots of implications for "interactive TV." Some decades ago, there was more thinking about how to change the TV experience from a "passive" to an "active" experience. It now appears that is less important to people.

TV remains largely a passive experience. What is "active" is people doing other things while TV is "on." 

Top 3 U.S. Smart Phones are Apple, Apple, Apple

Some 68 percent of mobile phones sold during the fourth quarter of 2011 were smart phones, according to NPD Group. And the top five best-selling mobile phone handsets in the fourth quarter were built by Apple. In terms of sales volume, the top devices were:

1. Apple iPhone 4S
2. Apple iPhone 4
3. Apple iPhone 3GS
4. Samsung GALAXY S II
5. Samsung GALAXY S 

The NPD Group study mirrors other studies that suggest Apple and Samsung are the two most-profitable device manufacturers. Apple, Samsung are the growing volume leaders globally, as well. 

Profitability, more than anything else, now is shaping the global smart phone business, one might argue after considering the latest estimate by Strategy Analytics of market share in the global handset business.

Globally, Apple and Samsung have, over the last 12 months, surged to the top of the charts in terms of smart phone sales volume. In the past, the “smart phone” category has not been significant, as all devices were feature phones or basic phones.

As the market begins to shift to a smart phone buyer pattern, differences in firm strategy and execution have lead to a rapid change in market leadership.

Global smart phone shipments grew 54 percent annually to reach a record 155 million units in the fourth quarter of  2011, according to Alex Spektor, Strategy Analytics associate director. That apparently has proven to be a decisive change.

In the past, Nokia has been the global share leader, but Nokia has not been able to translate that prior success into smart phone success, where Apple has changed the game and Samsung apparently has been able to keep pace.

Apple overtook Samsung to become the world’s largest smartphone vendor by volume with 24 percent market share. Apple’s global smartphone shipments surged 128 percent annually to 37.0 million units, as distribution of the iPhone family expanded across numerous countries, dozens of operators and multiple price points.”

Apple took the top spot for share on a quarterly basis, but Samsung became the market leader in annual terms for the first time with 20 percent global share during 2011. With global smartphone shipments nearing half a billion units in 2011, Samsung is now well positioned alongside Apple in a two-horse race at the forefront of one of the world’s largest and most valuable consumer electronics markets, Strategy Analytics says.

In contrast, Nokia’s smart phone market share was cut in half from 2011 to 2011, dropping from 33 percent in 2010 to 16 percent in 2011.

That is one reason there has been so much focus on the Nokia partnership with Microsoft, as many would argue the Windows Mobile operating system represents the best shot Nokia will have to avoid collapse.

The other observation of note would be that profitability might now be emerging as the key differentiator, even though design and consumer demand clearly are driving the market overall.

Samsung’s most-recent quarterly earnings also set records. Samsung Electronics Co declared $4.7 billion in quarterly operating profit. jumping 76 percent year over year.

Between them, Apple and Samsung earned fully 81 percent of all profits in the mobile handset business.



Apple in the fourth quarter of 2011 shipped 37 million smart phones worldwide, up 117 percent from 17 million in the second quarter. This represented the strongest sequential quarterly growth among the top-five smart phone brands, according to IHS ISuppli.

“Samsung advanced in 2011 because of its strategy of offering a complete line of smartphone products, spanning a variety of price points, features and operating systems,” says Wayne Lam, IHS senior analyst.

On the other hand, the market share battle between Apple and Samsung reflects the competition between the two leading smartphone operating systems and ecosystems: Apple's iOS and Google's Android, says Lam.

“The relatively small growth of Sony Ericsson and Motorola may indicate that the Android smart phone market is becoming too crowded as the various licensees compete for limited consumer mind share and shelf space,” Lam says.