Mashable Lists Connected TVs as 2012 Key Digital Trend

According to Mashable, connected TV is a key digital trend for 2012. GFK Market Analysis, Piper Jaffray, and DeutscheBank, project that 35 million smart TVs will be in consumer households around the globe by the end of 2011, and 65% of TVs sold in 2012 will be connect-capable.

Xbox has added live TV channels, and it is anticipated that Apple will launch a television within the next year and a half. YouTube is also investing millions in web-only programming that will be available on connected TVs.

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Apps Provide Useful Second-Screen Supplement to TV

More people now watch TV while simultaneously using second screens like tablets, laptops and smartphones. A recent Nielson study showed 70 percent of tablet owners and 68 percent of smartphone owners said they use their devices while watching television.

Sitting down to watch TV and only TV seems like a thing of the past. WSJ's Katherine Boehret profiles three apps that allow viewers a more interactive watching experience.

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Millennial: Kindle Fire Monthly Ad Impressions in the Hundreds of Millions

Momentum appears to be building for Amazon’s Kindle Fire. According to mobile ad network Millennial Media’s Mobile Mix report for November, ad impressions on the Kindle Fire have grown 19 percent each day since its launch in mid-November.

“We’re not just seeing millions of impressions, we’re seeing a monthly run rate of hundreds of millions of impressions,” Millennial Media said.

The company said the Kindle Fire’s growth has slightly outpaced that of the original iPad in early 2010, although it acknowledged that the $199 Fire is not only cheaper than the first iPad, but it also launched to a more mature tablet market.

Last week, Amazon said that for three straight weeks, customers purchased “well over 1 million Kindle devices per week.”

Gene Munster, an analyst for Piper Jaffray, said the number, which includes sales of both traditional Kindles and the new Kindle Fire, suggests that Amazon in on track to sell 10-12 million Kindle devices in the December quarter, instead of his initial estimate of 9 million (4 million Fires and 5 million traditional Kindles).

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2011 WOW Award Winner Announced

At yesterday's annual employee appreciation luncheon, News Over Wireless (NOW) honored Support Manager Sakina Smith for all of her outstanding efforts in 2011. Congrats to Sakina on being the recipient of the 2011 WOW Award!

Mobile Video Continues Growth Pattern

In a December 8 eMarketer article "Online Video Viewing Passes 50% of Total US Population", mobile video usage was highlighted. eMarketer shares that mobile video adoption is poised to continue on a steep upward path for at least the next four years due to smartphone adoption, competition among operating systems and the continuity of content across devices.

“As tablets attract a larger share of video viewing, smartphones are benefiting because most tablet users also own smartphones and typically have the same apps on both devices,” said Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst. “With more video content flowing to these apps, users are choosing their preferred screen at any given time. Often this means toggling between tablets and smartphones, or between laptops and any number of entertainment devices.”

In 2011, US smartphone viewers represent 90 percent of the mobile video population, according to eMarketer estimates. By 2015, this percentage will rise to 98.5 percent.

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Nielsen: Key Findings from the State of Mobile Q3 2011 Report

Nielsen's State of the Media: The Mobile Media Report shares a number of key findings, including:

>62 percent of smartphone users have downloaded apps on their devices.
>28.6 percent of the U.S. smartphone market is made up of Apple manufactured devices.
>44 percent of the U.S. smartphone market is running devices that use the Android operating system.
>83 percent of all smartphone app downloaders use Android or Apple iOS smartphone devices and they mostly discover apps by searching the top app stores and relying on recommendations.
>49 percent of mobile consumers say they frequently use smartphones while they shop.

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Mobile Reach: Smartphone Penetration Hits 44%

Nielsen reported Thursday that U.S. mobile subscribers with smartphones has reached 44 percent, led by adoption among those ages 18 to 34.

That is more than double the 18 percent of two years ago and on track to meet Nielsen’s projection that half of American mobile users will have smartphones by the end of 2011. (comScore estimates U.S. smartphone penetration somewhat lower, at 38.5% as of the end of October.)

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Smartphones Now Account for 59% of All Handsets Sold in the US

According to The NPD Group, the share of mobile phone handset sales that are smartphones continues to climb in the US, reaching 59 percent in the third quarter (Q3) of 2011, an increase of 13 percentage points since Q3 of 2010.

Led by continued steady sales for Apple's iPhones, the top five best-selling mobile phone handsets in Q3 were as follows:

1. Apple iPhone 4
2. Apple iPhone 3GS
3. HTC EVO 4G
4. Motorola Droid 3
5. Samsung Intensity II

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Pew Study Infographic: 53% of Tablet Users Get News Daily

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Pew Research Center Talks Tablets

On October 25, Pew Research Center published a study surrounding tablets and how they will impact news consumption. According to Pew, 11 percent of U.S. adults own a tablet computer of some kind. More than half of those people get news on their tablet daily; however, a majority are not willing to pay for news content on these devices.

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Nielsen: 40% of Tablet and Smartphone Owners Use Them While Watching TV

Roughly 40 percent of tablet and smartphone owners in the U.S. used their devices daily while watching TV, while only 14 percent of eReader owners said they watched TV while using their device every day.

Email was the top activity for both men and women during television programming and commercial breaks. In addition, women reported engaging in social networking more than men, while men checked sports scores more often.

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Mobile Devices Account for a Growing Portion of Web Traffic

Mobile devices, which includes smartphones and tablets, now account for 7 percent of worldwide traffic on the Web, according to a report issued Tuesday by comScore, which monitors online trends.

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Michael Jackson Doctor Trial App

Fox 11 in Los Angeles promotes their Michael Jackson Doctor Trial App. The app shot up to No. 1 in the paid news apps category in less than 24 hours!

Learn more about the apps

Time Spent on Mobile Equals That of Print

At the paidContent Advertising conference on September 15, eMarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey shared that time spent on mobile among U.S. adults ranks third at 50 minutes a day, now equaling the combined time spent on magazines and newspapers.

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One in Ten Mobile Users Redeem Coupons

eMarketer estimates that nearly 20 million US adults will redeem a mobile coupon this year, including coupons or codes received via SMS, applications and mobile web browsers; quick response codes for redemption online or offline; and group buying coupons purchased via mobile. By 2013, the number using such coupons will nearly double, and 16.5% of all US adult mobile phone users will redeem a coupon that year. Among smartphone users, penetration is significantly higher.

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Promote Mobile During Weather Emergencies

Mobile can provide your viewers with potentially life-saving news and information. Don't forget to promote your mobile offerings during weather emergencies, especially if there is a chance parts of your viewing area may lose power. Check out this example from WRAL-TV, and send your promotional examples to lblake@newsoverwireless.com.

Two in Five Mobile Owners Use Internet on the Go

The US mobile web population will be up almost 25% this year as 97.3 million mobile owners log on to the internet from their device at least monthly, eMarketer estimates.

By 2015, more than three in five mobile users and almost half the total US population will be using the mobile internet, eMarketer forecasts.

“The rapidly expanding smartphone and mobile internet user populations raise the stakes for marketers and make the mobile web more of an imperative than ever,” said Noah Elkin, eMarketer principal analyst for mobile.

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Mobile Advertising: The Next Generation

With mobile device adoption enjoying hockey-stick growth, stakeholders in the mobile ecosystem--carriers, app and platform developers, and of course advertisers--are scrambling to figure out new ways to capitalize on consumers’ mobile habits. However their efforts play out, it's pretty clear that Web advertisers are no longer in familiar, banner-ad-dominated desktop browser territory.

PC World highlights some of the opportunities and challenges in mobile advertising...

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Five Guys Boosts Food Sales via Mobile Ordering App

Burger chain Five Guys Burgers & Fries is increasing its mobile presence via an iPhone application that lets hungry consumers skip the line and order their favorite meal via their smartphone.

The company released an Android version in March. The iPhone app is available for free download in Apple’s App Store.

“We had an Android app launch several months ago and we had plans to roll out an iPhone app,” said Steve Teller, project manager at Five Guys, Washington.

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Infographic: Mobile Apps, Battle of the Sexes

According to a new infographic from mobile advertising and marketing firm inneractive, men are more likely to click on mobile ads, and also more likely to be Android users. Women are far more likely to use BlackBerry devices, and a bit more likely to click on ads in IM and social networking apps.

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Millennial Media Compares 2 Years of Mobile Advertising Trends In 50th S.M.A.R.T Report

In terms of general mobile advertising growth, Millennial and Gartner reported total mobile advertising revenue in 2010 totaled $1.627B, and in June of this year, Gartner projected that the worldwide market would more than double by the end of 2011 over 2010 to total an estimated $3.309B. By 2015, however, Gartner projects total revenue to top $20.6B.

Looking at mobile vertical spending in Q2, six specific verticals experienced triple-digit growth including travel, entertainment, automotive, pharmaceuticals, retail/restaurants, and finance — the latter of which seeing an impressive 1,095% growth over Q2 2010. Retail and restaurants took the top spot for U.S. mobile verticals in Q2 while “portals & directories” took the top spot on an international scale.

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Tablets Devices Great For Consumer Engagement

Tablet devices such as the iPad are rapidly gaining in popularity around the world, and many publishers are now targeting this platform.

Advertising revenue is always a key component of any publishing businesses, so many people would like to understand the effectiveness of advertising on tablets compared to other platforms such as e-readers or even standard paper publications.

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Nielsen: Android Users Prefer Mobile Apps Over Web

According to first-reported data from Nielsen Smartphone Analytics, a new effort that tracks and analyzes data from on-device meters installed on thousands of iOS and Android smartphones, the average Android consumer in the U.S. spends 56 minutes per day actively interacting with the web and apps on their phone. Of that time, two-thirds is spent on mobile apps while one-third is spent on the mobile web.

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Android Top Platform on Millennial, InMobi Networks

Android phones again accounted for more than half (54%) the impressions on the MillennialMedia mobile ad network in June, double the 26% share driven by the iPhone. BlackBerry phones generated 15% of impressions, and Symbian and Windows Phone, just 3% and 2%, respectively.

Separate data released Thursday by mobile ad network InMobi showed a much tighter race between the two top smartphone platforms, with Android accounting for 33% of impressions compared to 29% for the iPhone in North America in the second quarter. The iPhone picked up 11 percentage points from the first quarter, while Android's share dropped by four points.

About 38% of U.S. smartphone users have Android devices, compared to about 27% who use iPhones, according to comScore and Nielsen. But the Google platform's explosive growth has recently leveled off. Among people buying smartphones in the three months ending in May, Android's share was steady at 27%, while the iPhone's jumped from 10% to 17%, per Nielsen.

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U.S. Mobile Advertising To Hit $1.2 Billion In 2011

A new J.P. Morgan report predicts U.S. mobile ad spending will roughly double to $1.2 billion this year, fueled by growing mobile usage.

That forecast is in line with an eMarketer projection that U.S. mobile advertising will reach $1.1 billion in 2011. The Internet Advertising Bureau estimates that mobile ad dollars totaled in the range of $550 million to $650 million last year.

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Advertisers Work to Integrate Mobile into Cross-Platform Campaigns

May 2011 research from Chief Marketer found that 33% of marketers had run mobile campaigns in 2010, and more than half were doing so this year. The survey also indicated that just over a third of marketers had integrated mobile into an overall, cross-platform strategy as of last year. Many more--58%--plan to do so in 2011.

Study: Verizon Commands One-Third of U.S. iPhone 4 Market Share

A little less than five months after Verizon Wireless began selling Apple's iPhone 4, the carrier has claimed 32 percent of the U.S. iPhone 4 market, according to a report from mobile application analytics firm Localytics.

While the report noted that AT&T still commands 68 percent of the iPhone 4 market, Verizon's share has been steadily growing since the February launch of the Verizon iPhone, despite Verizon launching the phone eight months after AT&T did. Moreover, according to Localytics, the growth has been accelerating, with Verizon capturing 7 percent of the market in May and June alone. Verizon's share started at around 20 percent in February and grew to 25 percent in April and around 26 percent in May.

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Pew Study: 35% of U.S. Adults Own a Smartphone

More than one-third of all U.S. adults have a smartphone, according to a survey published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, one of the clearest snapshots yet of how smartphones are changing the U.S. mobile landscape.

The survey found that 89 percent of all U.S. adults have some kind of cell phone and that 42 percent of those are smartphone owners, which translates into 35 percent of all U.S. adults. Pew broke the survey results down by varying demographic groups, and found that Android devices are the most popular, and that smartphones are more popular among the affluent.

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Mobile Ads Outperform Standard Banners

As more marketers from across industries begin to embrace mobile advertising, more attempts at measuring their efforts will not be far behind. Benchmarking efforts by digital advertising solutions provider MediaMind (formerly Eyeblaster) indicate that campaigns for different verticals should have different expectations—and that mobile banners see more clicks than standard banners on the PC-based internet.

In July 2010, MediaMind released statistics from 2009 showing that mobile banners beat standard banners in both clicks and conversions for automotive campaigns. Now, the higher clickthrough rate (CTR) for mobile banners can be extended across verticals.

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When's Prime Time in Mobile? Same as TV

Prime time in mobile is shaping up to look a lot like TV: Working stiffs turn to their phones after they've logged off their computers for the day and plopped down on the couch at home.

Users surf the mobile web and apps on phones most during the early evening, between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., and keep usage up through the night, according to a recent study from third-party ad server MediaMind. Looking at billions of mobile ad impressions across devices, carriers and operating systems, mobile ad click-through rates are also highest between 7 p.m. and midnight, with clicks reaching a peak at 8 p.m. MediaMind serves global campaigns for advertisers and agencies in all digital media, including mobile.

Mobile ad network Jumptap concurs with the findings and so does Google. The highest click-through rates -- 0.63% -- happen between 5 and 6 p.m. on Jumptap's U.S. mobile ad network, said Chief Marketing Officer Paran Johar. Findings are based on the network's 83 million unique users' 11 billion ad requests on both the mobile web and in apps.

Mobile's overlap with TV prime time especially makes sense considering so many consumers are parked in front of the tube with phone in hand. A whopping 86% of U.S. mobile internet users watch TV with their mobile devices, according to a Nielsen and Yahoo study published in January.

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Nielsen: Average U.S. Smartphone Data Usage Up 89% as Cost per MB Goes Down 46%

According to Nielsen’s monthly analysis of cellphone bills for 65,000+ lines, smartphone owners – especially those with iPhones and Android devices — are consuming more data than ever before on a per-user basis. This has huge implications for carriers since the proportion of smartphone owners is also increasing dramatically.

Growth in smartphone data usage is clearly being driven by app-friendly operating systems like Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Consumers with iPhones and Android smartphones consume the most data: 582 MBs per month for the average Android owner and 492 MBs for the average iPhone user.

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comScore: Smartphones Now Owned by 1 in 3 Americans

comScore has released data showing 76.8 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in May 2011, up 11 percent from the preceding three month period. Google Android ranked as the top operating system with 38.1 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers, up 5.1 percentage points. Apple strengthened its No. 2 position with 26.6 percent of the smartphone market, up 1.4 percentage points. RIM ranked third with 24.7 percent share, followed by Microsoft (5.8 percent) and Palm (2.4 percent).

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Nielsen: In US, Smartphones Now Majority of New Cellphone Purchases

According to Nielsen’s May survey of mobile consumers in the U.S., 38 percent now own smartphones. And 55 percent of those who purchased a new handset in the past three months reported buying a smartphone instead of a feature phone, up from 34 percent just a year ago.

Android continues to be the most popular smartphone operating system, with 38 percent of smartphone consumers owning Android devices. However, while Android also leads among those who recently purchased a new smartphone, it is the Apple iPhone that has shown the most growth in recent months.

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Google sees 500,000 Android devices activated everyday

Google is activating half a million Android devices a day, a big jump in just the last couple months, a sign of growing momentum for the platform. Google’s VP of mobile Andy Rubin tweeted out the new milestone, saying activations are growing 4.4 percent week over week.

In early May, the company boasted that activations were up to 400,000 a day with 100 million cumulative device activations, representing 36 OEMS, 215 Carriers and 310 devices.

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Report: Apple Building Navigation Service to Rival Google Maps

New evidence suggests Apple is at work on its own mapping and navigation solution for the iOS platform. MacRumors reports that a new "Map Data" section discovered within Apple's iOS 5 update lists licenses from nine different third-party companies that provide location-enabled services.

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ABI: The True Potential of Mobile Advertising

According to an ABI research forecast, spending on mobile advertising is expected to boom over the next five years.

The amount spent on mobile advertising in 2010 was just $2 billion and by 2012 this figure, according to ABI, would be more than $7 billion. By 2016, the figure is expected to touch $24 billion only on mobile advertising. This is significant because currently, this figure relates to the amount spent on all forms of online advertising put together.

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Mobile Activities Rival PC for Smartphone Owners

Rising smartphone penetration is significantly changing the way people use their mobile devices, making activities convenient—even attractive—on the go that before were barely possible. Social media quickly became a major mobile growth category, and online video usage may be following suit.

Research from Google and the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) conducted during the first half of 2011 in several countries around the world found internet usage via mobile is quickly becoming as important as internet usage via PC among those who own smartphones.

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comScore: Number of U.S. Mobile Display Advertisers More than Doubles in the Past Two Years

comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released results of a U.S. study on mobile advertising, which found that the number of advertisers using mobile display ad campaigns has more than doubled in the past two years, with mobile content and publishing accounting for half of all products advertised on mobile devices.

These findings and others will be presented in conjunction with the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and Where, Inc. via a live, complimentary webinar The State of the U.S. Mobile Advertising Industry and What Lies Ahead on June 8. For more information and to register, please visit: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/679213504.

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ABC15 Three Screens Video

Wi-Fi Direct-Enabled Digital Televisions Will Approach 80 Million by 2015

The first applications to adopt Wi-Fi Direct include mobile PCs, mobile phones, and digital televisions (DTVs). These devices share a trait: they are the respective centers of the PC, CE, and mobile device clusters, and they ship in the hundreds of millions of devices annually. Wireless display of images and video is a major aim of Wi-Fi Direct, so the main display in most homes will be a key target. In-Stat's latest research report, Wi-Fi Direct: It's All About the Software, forecasts that by the year 2015 nearly 80 million DTVs will be Wi-Fi Direct-enabled.

Other details from the report include:

• Mobile PCs will adopt Wi-Fi Direct more quickly than any other application.
• Every PC, CE device and mobile phone that ships in 2014 with Wi-Fi silicon will be Wi-Fi Direct-enabled.
• Wi-Fi Direct-enabled device shipments will reach 173 million by 2011.

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Forbes: Okay, We've Killed Our Television. Now What?

This Forbes article mentions how important mobile is today, as Nielsen data now shows that fewer Americans own TV sets.

If you are not taking mobile into account you might as well hang it up.

People may have begun watching online videos on their desktops or laptops but a lot of that content is being consumed on handhelds now.

The kicker is that, for right now at least, consumers seem to remember these ads more if they see them on a mobile screen than if they have seen them on the television. There are a lot of reasons that might explain that – we’ve grown accustomed to tuning out commercials or have the technology to skip over them. Also, by its personal nature – you are holding the device, after all in your hand, mobile videos are just more engaging.

A study commissions by Apple and executed by Nielsen hints at this. Reported by Apple Insider earlier this year, the study found that  iAd viewers were twice as likely to recall seeing the ad, three times as likely to remember its message and five times as likely to remember the brand compared viewers who saw it on TV.

This is a drum mobile ad providers have been beating for a while and no doubt will continue to do so  – that is, their ads pick up where TV leaves off or, in the case of Nielsen’s vanishing TV watchers, drops off.

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Google: Mobile Ads Driving Purchase Intent Among Smartphone Users

A study by Google Inc. found that mobile ads drive smartphone users to take actions such as visiting a Web site or making a purchase.

Google’s “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users” study found that 71 percent of smartphone users search after being exposed to ads online and offline. A whopping 82 percent notice mobile ads and 74 percent make a purchase as a result of using their phone during the shopping process. 

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Verizon Adds 2.2M iPhones, Profits Triple

Verizon Wireless posted a stellar first quarter as its earnings were buoyed by the launch of the iPhone in February and the introduction of its first LTE smartphone, the HTC Thunderbolt, in mid-March.

The company sold 2.2 million iPhones during the last seven weeks of the first quarter, about one-fifth of which were customers new to Verizon. The iPhone 4 produced the most successful first-day sales in Verizon Wireless' history when it hit shelves in February.

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Millennial: iOS apps still half of ad revenues despite Android's growth

Although Google's Android mobile operating system now powers 33 percent of all U.S. smartphones, ahead of Apple's iOS at 25 percent (according to the latest comScore data), iOS remains the driving force behind mobile advertising revenues, mobile ad network Millennial Media reports.

IOS-based applications accounted for 47 percent of Millennial revenues in March 2011, with Android at 36 percent and Research In Motion's BlackBerry far behind at 7 percent. Windows Phone, Symbian and webOS are fighting for the remaining 10 percent of revenues, Millennial adds.

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Google Activating 350,000 Android Devices per Day

During its Q1 earnings call, Google's Jeff Huber said that the company is now activating around 350,000 Android smartphones per day. Separately, Google's Susan Wojcicki said Google's AdMob mobile advertising platform is now recording 150 million ad requests per month from Android and Apple iOS devices, a figure she said has increased 50 percent during the past four months. She also said the company now counts more than half a million advertisers using the company's click-to-call mobile advertising function.

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On-The-Go Local News Readers Influence Community

According to a summary of findings from the Pew Research Center State of the News media, local news is going mobile. 47% of all American adults report that they get at least some local news and information on their cellphone or tablet computer, and what they seek out most on mobile platforms is information that is practical and in real time: 42% of mobile device owners report getting weather updates on their phones or tablets; 37% say they get material about restaurants or other local businesses.

Mobile applications, one of the newest forms of on-the-go local news, are beginning to take hold among mobile device owners, says the report. Compared with other adults, these mobile local news consumers are younger, live in higher income households, are newer residents of their communities, live in non rural areas, and tend to be parents of minor children.

Adults who get local news and information on mobile devices are more likely than others to feel they can have on impact on their communities, more likely to use a variety of media platforms, feel more plugged into the media environment than they did a few years ago, and are more likely to use social media:

35% of mobile local news consumers feel they can have a big impact on their community (vs. 27% of other adults)
65% feel it is easier today than five years ago to keep up with information about their community (vs. 47% of nonmobile connectors)
51% use six or more different sources or platforms monthly to get local news and information (vs. 21%)

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comScore: Verizon Sold 'Well Over 1M' iPhones in February

Verizon Wireless sold "well over 1 million" iPhones during the smartphone's first few weeks of availability, according to new numbers from research and measurement firm comScore. The number is perhaps the first official, independent tally of sales of the device.

ComScore obtained the figure through its monthly surveys of Americans' wireless activities. 

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Nielsen: Who is Winning the U.S. Smartphone Battle?

When it comes to consumer marketshare by operating system, Android (29%) appears to be pulling ahead of RIM Blackberry (27%) and Apple iOS (27%). But an analysis by manufacturer shows RIM and Apple to be the winners compared to other device makers since they are the only ones creating and selling smartphones with their respective operating systems. HTC follows with 12 percent of consumer smartphone owners having an HTC Android device and 7 percent owning an HTC device running a Microsoft OS. Ten percent of consumer smartphone owners had a Motorola Android device and one percent owned a Motorola device running a Microsoft OS.

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comScore: Android Platform Now Accounts for 1 in 3 Smartphone Users

According to comScore, 69.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in February 2011, up 13 percent from the preceding three-month period. Google Android grew 7.0 percentage points since November, strengthening its No. 1 position with 33.0 percent market share. RIM ranked second with 28.9 percent market share, followed by Apple with 25.2 percent. Microsoft (7.7 percent) and Palm (2.8 percent) rounded out the top five.


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BIA/Kelsey: Mobile to Play Major Role in Driving Local Ad Revenue

BIA/Kelsey is forecasting for local online ad revenues to reach $42.5 billion by 2015, nearly twice 2010’s $21.7 billion, for a compound annual growth rate of 14.4 percent. The researcher is projecting the total local ad market to hit $153.5 billion in 2015, up from $136.3 billion in 2010, representing a 2.1 percent CAGR.

Mobile is expected to play a major role in driving spending in the local space, as the penetration of smartphones has continued to rise. Back in December, BIA/Kelsey offered its prediction that the U.S. mobile ad revenues will grow from $491 million last year to $2.9 billion in 2014 for a staggering CAGR at 43 percent.

The numbers were based on expectations of rising mobile search ads, display on both apps and wap sites and text messaging. But the big spending will come in the form of local ads, which now makes up less than half of the mobile ad market. That will change significantly by 2014.

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Amazon Opens Android App Store

Amazon.com has entered the mobile app business with an Android app store.

The Amazon Appstore, which will be accessible at Amazon.com/appstore and through a mobile app, will sell applications for Android phones and tablets. It will also encroach on Google’s territory by providing Android users with a new way to buy apps that cuts Google out of the equation.

The store’s name has already prompted a lawsuit from Apple.

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AT&T to Buy T-Mobile USA for $39B

AT&T said it will buy T-Mobile USA from parent Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion in cash and stock. The deal has been approved by the board of directors of both firms, but is still subject to regulatory approvals by the FCC and Department of Justice. The companies expect the transaction to close in one year.

The merger, which would combine the No. 2 and No. 4 U.S. wireless carriers, would dramatically increase AT&T's subscriber base from 95.5 million to 129.2 million. It also will significantly broaden AT&T's current and future network footprint: The company said the transaction will allow it to deploy LTE to 95 percent of the U.S. population, or approximately 294 million people, at some point in the future.

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News Over Wireless Featured in TV NewsCheck

News Over Wireless is featured in TV NewsCheck's article "Stations' Mobile Apps Showing Promise."

Capitol Broadcasting’s News Over Wireless (NOW) has been on the forefront of mobile platforms and has licensed technology to more than 160 stations, including those of Fox, Scripps, LIN, Meredith and Gannett.

According to GM Sam Matheny, NOW mobile solutions include apps for most mobile phones and tablets as well as SMS alerts. “You can expect the core content from the local TV newsroom products, breaking news, weather content, traffic sports, national news, world news,” says Matheny. “It’s customizable by the station and we will give you content to fit your screen.”

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Survey: Mobile News Readers Show Some Willingness To Pay

A national phone survey by the Pew Research Center shows that 30 percent of mobile news consumers would be willing to pay $5 a month to access their local newspaper online or on their phones if that was the only way to access the content. The survey also showed 38 percent of mobile users who used local apps would be willing to pay.

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NOW App Featured on Poynter.com

News Over Wireless partnered with WRAL-TV to launch a North Carolina high school sports app named High School OT. The app was featured today on Poynter.com.

Everyone does breaking news in a mobile app, but what about taking a page from msnbc.com’s Breaking News and aggregate statewide or regional news in a niche app?

WRAL.com partnered with a local radio station to provide comprehensive coverage of local high school sports.

Or for sports, consider the partnership between WRAL.com and a local ESPN affiliate. They built the High School OT app that covers nearly four dozen high schools in the Raleigh-Durham area. It includes schedules, photos, videos from WRAL-TV, and live game scores.

Piper Jaffray: iPad 2 Totally Sold Out, 70% to New Buyers

Gene Munster's team at Piper Jaffray walked the iPad 2 lines in New York City and Minneapolis and interviewed 236 would-be buyers. They also called various retailers (Apple stores, Target, Best Buy, etc.) looking for product. The results of their survey were released Sunday night. Their findings:

>Munster is sticking with his estimate of 400,000 to 500,000 iPad 2s sold, compared with 300,000 iPad 1s in its first weekend last year.
>The difference is that nearly all those iPad 2s were sold in one day; stocks were essentially depleted by Saturday and not replenished. In its calls to retailers over the weekend, his team was unable to find a single iPad 2.
>70% of iPad 2 buyers were new to the iPad, compared with 23% of iPhone 4 buyers who were new to the iPhone at launch.
>Buyers were split almost evenly between Mac and PC users (51%/49%). By contrast, the split for the original iPad was 74%/26%.
>47% of buyers were purchasing a 3G model, which carries a $130 premium.
>41% purchased the 32GB iPad 2, up from 32% who bought the 32GB version of the original iPad. The 64GB models also gained a slight share. This means that the iPad 2's average selling price (ASP) at launch was considerably higher than original iPad's.
>65% of buyers owned an iPhone, 24% owned a Kindle (up from 13% of original iPad buyers), but only 6% plan to read with their iPad (down from 19% in Piper Jaffray's first iPad survey).
>17% expect to use apps and play games, up from 9%, which suggests that the App Store ecosystem is growing.

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comScore: 42.7 M Own Smartphones

According to comScore, 42.7 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones in an average month during the November 2010 to January 2011 period, up 18 percent from the August through October period.

RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 43.0 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, rising 1.7 percentage points versus three months earlier.

Apple ranked second with 25.1 percent share (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by Microsoft at 15.7 percent, Google at 7.1 percent (up 4.3 percentage points), and Palm at 5.7 percent. Google’s Android platform continues to see rapid gains in market share.

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iPad 2 Announced

Fifteen million iPads have sold since the device shipped less than a year ago, said Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the iPad 2 press conference on March 2. We can expect at least another 20 million iPads to be sold, representing 80% of all tablet sales in the U.S. in 2011, according to Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps.

As expected, iPad 2 will be faster, lighter and thinner than its predecessor. It has front- and back-facing cameras, as well as the gyroscope movement sensor we've seen on iPhones.

While the iPhone has had a camera for some time, its unlikely apps on the less portable and bigger iPad will use cameras in the exact same ways.

"I don't see it being used heavily for barcode or QR scanning, which is one of the more common uses of the iPhone cameras, but there's some interesting potential for things like augmented reality," said Jeremy Lockhorn, VP-emerging media for Razorfish. Some marketers may also test "click to call" features from ads or apps to video chat, Mr. Lockhorn said.

Matthew Szymczyk, CEO of interactive agency Zugara, said the front-facing camera will mean more people video chatting, making yet another way for consumers to get used to that type of interaction. Users can now use FaceTime, Apple's brand of video chat. But for brands the camera could also mean live, one-on-one customer service via video chat.

With faster processing, the iPad 2 will likely open doors for bigger, badder browser-based apps. While browser-based apps are popular because they can be viewed on multiple devices, what's been possible on iPad has been limited because of built-in restrictions on its browser. But iPad 2's new horsepower will likely allow more speed on browsers, thus more powerful web apps.

The device's new HDMI output -- a way to pipe what's on iPad off to to a larger flat-screen -- will also mean app experiences can become bigger and more shareable, said Sapient's Mr. Singh. "The output changes how sharing around the device can really happen," he said. "Web surfing or apps can now be shared on a 59-inch monitor." With one cord, the iPad goes from personal device to fixture in the living room.

The iPad's new speed makes media multitasking possible, said Mr. Lockhorn. "Nearly 40% of time spent on the mobile internet happens at home, and a lot of that is driven by using mobile and tablets in front of the TV," he said, which means more apps such as Nielsen's Media Sync that syncs content on the iPad with what's on the tube.

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Mobile App Revenue to Reach $38 Billion by 2015, Report Predicts

There are over 350,000 applications available for download on the iOS platform, and after the success of that app platform, downloadable applications spread to almost every other mobile platform too.

But a report released Monday by Forrester Research, the market research company, said the business opportunities associated with apps were just beginning. Forrester estimates that the revenue created from customers buying and downloading apps to smartphones and tablets will reach $38 billion by 2015.



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iPad 2 Expected to Be Announced March 2

Apple on Wednesday sent the news media an official invitation to an event that is expected to showcase the next iPad.

The e-mail said Apple would be holding an “invitation-only event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco on March 2.” Although invitations to Apple events are usually cryptic, this announcement was less subtle, as it shows a calendar page peeling back to reveal an iPad.

The iPad 2 is expected to be thinner and lighter than the current model, which weighs 1.5 pounds. People who have seen cases for the new iPad believe it will have a shape similar to the current iPod Touch. The device is also expected to have front- and rear-facing cameras.

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The Future of Smart Mobile Devices

Momentum in the mobile device market has swung in favor of smartphones, led by the allure of Apple’s iPhone and the legion of now-viable competitors it has spawned.

Most mobile owners in the US still have only a feature phone, but eMarketer predicts smartphone ownership will rise from 31% of the mobile population this year to 43% by 2015. Nearly 110 million Americans will have a smartphone by the end of that year.

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How will Verizon's iPhone change the mobile game?

When the iPhone 4 becomes available on the Verizon Wireless network beginning Feb. 10, the desirability of handsets based on Google’s Android operating system will be tested, and Reseach In Motion’s BlackBerry devices are sure to take a hit. However, if it means consumers increase their usage of the mobile Web and applications, it will mean more downloads for content producers and more impressions for advertisers.

“It is a growth opportunity for Apple, giving it access to a major new market opportunity, a whole new set of demographics for the iPhone and the applications on the iOS platform,” said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis and consumer technology at the NPD Group, New York. “That represents more potential advertising revenue and the potential for more app sales.”

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comScore Reports December 2010 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share

comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore MobiLens service, reporting key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending December 2010. The December report found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 24.8 percent market share, while RIM led among smartphone platforms with 31.6 percent market share.

63.2 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in December 2010, up 60 percent versus year ago. RIM led the ranking with 31.6 percent market share of smartphones, while Google Android maintained the No. 2 position with 28.7 percent, up 7.3 percentage points versus September. Apple accounted for 25.0 percent of smartphone subscribers (up 0.7 percentage points), followed by Microsoft with 8.4 percent and Palm with 3.7 percent.

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Most purchases, half of transactions to be mobile by 2015: Google

Two-thirds of all purchases and half of transactions will occur on mobile devices by 2015, Google executives said February 4. Consumer coupons will also transition from their current rate of 80% push to 80% opt-in four years from now, said David Shapiro, Google's director of small business marketing.

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Verizon iPhone Sales Topped 500K

Verizon's record sales of the Apple iPhone may have exceeded half a million phones on the first day.

After breaking its previous phone sales record in the first two hours of pre-orders, Verizon continued to take orders for 15 more hours until 8:10 p.m. ET, wrote JPMorgan analyst Phil Cusick in a note Monday. Based on the pace of sales, Cusick estimated that more than 500,000 Verizon iPhones were sold on day one.

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Analyst: Verizon iPhone Demand Could Reach Nearly 25 Million

R.W. Baird & Co. analyst William Power has projected 23.8 million iPhones sold to Verizon subscribers in the first year.

That’s more than a quarter of Verizon’s current subscriber base. But according to Power--who cautions that this is a “directional number” and not a forecast (there are constraints around how many devices Apple can actually ship)–-a recent Baird survey of 1,000 smartphone users supports it. From the survey:

>29 percent of current Verizon feature phone owners said they will “probably” or “definitely” upgrade to the Verizon iPhone in the next three months. The carrier has roughly 64 million postpaid feature phone users, so that’s 19 million potential iPhone upgrades, assuming eligibility.

>25 percent of Verizon’s current smartphone users said they will “probably” or “definitely” switch to the iPhone. That’s 4.8 million additional potential iPhone sales, again assuming eligibility.

Grand total: 23.8 million potential Verizon iPhone sales–from the carrier’s installed base alone. Add to that the 5.6 percent of current AT&T iPhone users who told Baird they planned to switch to Verizon and that number rises to nearly 25 million.

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Mobile Becomes Marketing Discipline For Ad Strategies

This year, mobile becomes a marketing discipline or practice in overall ad strategies, rather than an application in a campaign or on a handset or tablet, according to the white paper "Upward Mobility: Developing an Effective Mobile Shopper Marketing Strategy" that Augme will release this week.

Sitting on the front line in campaign planning sessions with consumer product goods companies like Johnson & Johnson in 2010 reveals that many strategies were based on applications or QR codes for specific products, according to David Apple, CMO of Augme. That changes this year, he says, as more consumers use mobile devices to advance consumption, knowledge and capabilities about products and services with or without assistance from the brand.

The U.S. remains far behind other countries around the world when it comes to integrating mobile tools for data transfer and m-commerce. Marketers, however, will be forced to look at mobile devices as an agnostic tool -- a connection to a campaign rather than an application, as slightly more than half -- 51% -- of the U.S. population will have a smartphone by the end of 2011, estimates Augme, citing Nielsen statistics.

Market research firm IHS iSuppli estimates global smartphone unit shipments will rise from 288 million in 2010 to 651 million in 2014.

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Verizon iPhone Commercial

Apple to start Verizon iPhone sales February 9

Apple Inc said on Wednesday that it would kick off online sales of the Verizon Wireless iPhone on February 9, a day before the device hits its store shelves.

Electronics retailer Best Buy Co Inc also said on Wednesday that it, too, would distribute the new version of iPhone 4 in its stores starting on February 10, the device's official launch day. It already sells earlier iPhone models.

Verizon Wireless will start online sales of a limited number of iPhones to its existing mobile customers starting at 3 a.m. ET February 3 for delivery on or before February 10.

Apple said people ordering the phone on February 9 can have it delivered or reserve it for an in-store pickup February 10, when both companies plan to start offering the phone in their stores at 7 a.m. local time.

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Nielsen: Among Mobile Phone Users, Hispanics, Asians are Most-Likely Smartphone Owners in the U.S.

Nielsen has reported that as of December 2010, nearly a third (31 percent) of all mobile consumers in the United States owned smartphones, cellphones with app-based, web-enabled operating systems. Smartphone penetration is even higher among mobile users who are part of ethnic and racial minorities in the U.S. – namely Asian/Pacific Islanders (45 percent), Hispanics (45 percent) and African-Americans (33 percent). These populations also tend to skew younger. Only 27 percent of White mobile users reported owning a smartphone.

They also shared some additional insight into ongoing smartphone competition. In the U.S., there is a three-way tie between Blackberry RIM, Apple’s IOS and Android OS.

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Vast Majority of Marketers Will Utilize Mobile Marketing and Increase Spending on Mobile Platforms in 2011

The vast majority of client-side marketers – 88 percent – say they will utilize mobile marketing in 2011. Seventy-five percent plan to increase their spending on mobile marketing initiatives by an average of 59 percent versus 2010, according to a new survey from the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) in partnership with the MMA (Mobile Marketing Association).

Survey findings showed that in 2010, 62 percent of marketers used some form of mobile marketing for their brands. An additional 26 percent reported their intention to begin doing so this year, elevating the expected 2011 utilization rate to the near-universal 88 percent level.


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Consumers Eager for Mobile Shopping Adoption

According to research from Yahoo! and Nielsen, US mobile internet users expect shopping-related activities in some categories to be more popular on mobile than they currently are on PCs.

Only about a fifth of respondents used their mobile phone to shop for and research entertainment, dining, digital content for the mobile phone and financial services activities, for example, and PC use was higher in every category. But even more respondents were interested in turning this ecommerce into m-commerce within the next year.



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Mobile is Key for Brands to Achieve Message Convergence

Message convergence is the answer to the problems caused by the proliferation of devices and messaging channels, and mobile is the glue connecting it all, according to a report by The Relevancy Group and Message Systems.


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Mobile Video Becomes A Reality

According to data released by Bytemobile, mobile video became the dominant form of mobile data traffic during 2010 with more than 40 percent of total volume in wireless networks.

Specifically, the report predicts that:
>In 2011, mobile video will account for more than 60% of network traffic up from 40% in 2010
>Video communications will dominate, which will result in just 10% of consumers using 90% of the total network traffic

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Pew Research: Mobile Politics 2010

In a post-election nationwide survey of adults, the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found that 82 percent of adults have cell phones. Of those cell owners, 71 percent use their phone for texting and 39 percent use the phone for accessing the internet. With that as context, the Pew Internet Project survey found that:

>14% of all American adults used their cell phones to tell others that they had voted.
>12% of adults used their cell phones to keep up with news about the election or politics.
>10% of adults sent text messages relating to the election to friends, family members and others.
>6% of adults used their cells to let others know about conditions at their local voting stations on election day, including insights about delays, long lines, low turnout, or other issues.
>4% of adults used their phones to monitor results of the election as they occurred.
>3% of adults used their cells to shoot and share photos or videos related to the election.
>1% of adults used a cell-phone app that provided updates from a candidate or group about election news.
>1% of adults contributed money by text message to a candidate or group connected to the election like a party or interest group.
>If a respondent said she or he had done any of those activities in the last campaign season, we counted that person in this 26% cohort. Throughout this report we call this group "mobile political users" or the "mobile political population."

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Who Will Win the Android vs. iPhone Race?

The iPhone may have captured the hearts and minds of many tech-savvy early smartphone adopters—not to mention marketers—with its sleek design, multitouch interface and available apps. But as Android has rolled out to more and more handsets, its popularity has surged and the loyalty of its users has increased to match that of iPhone owners.

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Study: Mobile Video Ads Outperform Online Significantly

A study by Rhythm NewMedia confirms that mobile video advertising is performing significantly better than online.

The key finding that supports Rhythm’s claim is that the mobile video retention rate is superior to online. In fact, Rhythm found that the viewer retention rate after 60 seconds was 81 percent on its mobile ad network, versus 55 percent online.

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US mobile ad spend to exceed $1B by year-end: Forrester

A new report released by Forrester Research predicts that marketers will finally allocate sufficient funds into mobile, with an estimated $1 billion in spend for mobile display and search advertising by year-end.

Forrester predicts that marketers will become masters at using mobile marketing channels to generate real leads, drive foot traffic into stores and to sell products and services.

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Apple App Store Reaches 10 Billion Downloads

In less than three years, Apple’s App Store recently hit a milestone of 10 billion downloads. Launched in June of 2008, the store has grown to over 350,000 free and paid apps with over 5 billion downloaded since last June. Apple gave the user who downloaded the 10 billionth app a $10,000 gift card to the App Store.

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Who Recalls the Most Mobile Ads??

Mobile users are becoming more accepting of ads on their devices, and as of December 2010 more than a third remember seeing them.

Overall, mobile marketing agency Briabe Media and mobile social network MocoSpace found that 37% of those polled recalled seeing specific advertisements on their mobile phone. The advertisers most commonly remembered included wireless carriers, major retailers and handset manufacturers.

There was little difference in mobile ad recall between men and women, with females just 1 percentage point more likely to say they remembered a mobile ad.

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Seven Habits of Highly Effective Mobile Ad Campaigns in 2011

Faster network speeds, the growing penetration of smartphones and tablets and the development of more engaging and relevant ad formats combined to drive growth in this space by as much 80 percent in 2010, according to industry research.

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Verizon iPhone Launches in February!

The much anticipated Verizon iPhone is coming to stores February 10!

Here are some articles about the launch.

Apple: Verizon Wireless & Apple Team Up to Deliver iPhone 4 on Verizon

CNET: Everything You Need to Know About the Verizon iPhone

Engadget: Verizon iPhone 4 Video Look

Computerworld: Verizon iPhone 4 -- pros and cons for business use

PC World: Apple's iPhone Finally Comes to Verizon Network

WRAL Promotes Mobile Apps