What's Good for Apple Might be Doubly Good for Amazon

Many observers would note that Apple's registered iTunes users are a potential business asset. If so, Amazon is even better placed. Perhaps 31 percent of Amazon users have a credit cards on file with Amazon. 

In a Forrester survey of 4,650 US consumers conducted online in August 2012, 31 percent reported that they had a credit card on file with Amazon, compared with 18 percent that have one stored with Apple, and five percent with Google. 

Amazon and Apple approach the respective roles of content and devices in opposite ways. Apple merchandises content to sell devices, while Amazon merchandises devices to sell content, services and goods.

Amazon reports that in 2011, consumers that bought a Kindle read four times the books (print and digital) they did before they bought a Kindle; that's up from 2.8 times in 2008. 

Also, some 23 percent of consumers Forrester Research surveyed also said they'd be interested in purchasing an Amazon smart phone,  it were available.

60% of Viewed Online Video is "Long Form," Ooyala Video Index Indicates

Long-form video content such as movies, sports and TV shows accounted for more than 60 percent of the total time users spent watching video online in the second quarter, a study by Ooyala notes. The share of time tablet viewers spent watching long-form videos also grew 47 percent in a single quarter, Ooyala says. 

The Global Video Index, derived from the viewing trends of 200 million online viewers around the globe from April 1 through June 30, 2012, shows the lines between broadband and broadcast media continuing to blur as premium content shifts to a more mobile, multi-screen environment.

Long-form video running longer than 10 minutes represented more than half of all viewing for the first time in the second quarter of 2012. 

The growth of video consumption has been rapid. Tablet, mobile, connected TV video views doubled between the fourth quarter of 2011 and the third quarter of 2011, Ooyala says. 

Web Display Advertising Dropped 5.4% in 2nd Quarter 2012

Web display advertising declined in the second quarter of 2012 by 5.4 percent, Kantar Media says. The study did not track specific changes in advertising other than display formats, though. Search advertising and other "non-display" formats are not part of that specific finding. 

What the decline means is the issue. Some might speculate that mobile ads are leading to lower average selling prices. 

One can argue advertisers are shifting spending to non-display formats, or to TV or some other form of marketing. 

Whatever the reason, the declines are somewhat surprising. The continued weakness in print media is not surprising, nor is the growth of TV advertising. 

Sprint 4G LTE Coming to100 Additional Cities

Sprint announced today that its 4G LTE network build is under way in more than 100 additional cities within its existing nationwide 3G footprint. Some of the major metropolitan areas in which Sprint 4G LTE is expected to be available in the coming months are Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Indianapolis; Los Angeles; Memphis, Tenn.; Miami; Nashville, Tenn.; New Orleans; New York; Philadelphia; and Washington, D.C.,  Sprint says.

Broadband Connection Sharing Makes a Big Difference for HD Video Viewing Experience, Study Finds

After analyzing data from all its hosted video views in the United States over the course
of several weeks, Wistia found that about 18 percent of viewers cannot watch high definition video content without buffering. Wistia defines “HD capable” as a minimum of 2 Mbps per active user.

Wistia also gathered data from 25 companies and organizations including internet firms, universities, Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and technology companies.

Across these 25 organizations, the average percentage of non-HD capable views
was 25.6 percent. “In other words, a quarter of these viewers, some at Fortune
500 companies, could not watch streaming HD video,” Wistia says.

Wistia’s data on HD viewing capability at 100 hotels, ranging from national chains to luxury
establishments, indicates that 61 percent of the time, users could not view high definition video.

What is not clear is what percentage of the video views were attempted from mobile devices, on mobile networks, compared to fixed network connections.

The data does indicate that the degree of connection sharing makes a difference in user experience, whatever the aggregate total bandwidth at any location might be.

Can Wi-Fi Compete with Mobile? How Much?

Whether Wi-Fi can be a functional substitute for mobility networks was a subject of serious contemplation a decade and a half ago. The speculation might rise again. Cable operators in the U.S. market are cooperating to build bigger Wi-Fi networks that customers of any member cable TV company can use, out of market. 

Broadcom expects most major U.S. cable operators will have vast networks of public Wi-Fi hotspots activated in their respective subscribers’ homes in 12 to 18 months, according to Jay Kirchoff, Broadcom VP.

As a simple historical matter, hopes that municipal Wi-Fi networks really could provide a functional substitute for mobile service proved to be false. 

But the original thesis was based on an assumption that phones could use a municipal or commercial Wi-Fi network as a network substitute for mobile networks. 

It is at least possible that new lead applications and devices, especially tablets, plus a greater range of smart phones that can use a Wi-Fi connection, could create at least some new deployment scenarios.

Tablets, unlike mobile phones, mostly are used in "untethered" mode, not "mobile" mode. So it is at least possible that untethered applications and device usage modes could create a different and viable role for "public" Wi-Fi networks. 

In many ways, a new lead device, the tablet, could underpin new rationales for public Wi-Fi. 

Pandora Faces Monetization Issues

Pandora faces a scale problem very similar to that of Free Mobile in France, which is disrupting the French mobile market by attacking retail prices, but has to keep scaling paying customers at a high rate to reach the breakeven point. 

Where Free Mobile's problem is the rate at which is can keep growing its subscriber base, Pandora's problem is to scale ad revenue to keep pace with its rate of subscriber additions. 

Pandora already is probably one of the five biggest mobile ad businesses  in the United States, some would argue. 

Pandora mobile ad revenue has increased by 86 percent to $60 million in its fiscal second quarter of  2013. Total revenues were $101 million. Pandora also saw a 112 percent increase in the number of ads delivered. 

But  the average price per ad declined 27 percent. Both Pandora and Free Mobile have common business problems, namely the task of reaching scale in its operations and, at the same time, matching that scale to revenue growth and operating costs.