Two NOW Partners Named 2012 Appy Award Finalists!

The 2012 Appy Award Finalists were announced today, and we're excited to share that two NOW partners were selected.

Fox's Michael Jackson Doctor Trial app is a finalist in the News Category. It launched in September 2011 as Conrad Murray's trial took center stage in Los Angeles. The app features live video straight from the courtroom, photo galleries, documents and the latest news. It was mentioned in numerous publications and even highlighted on-air on Entertainment Tonight. Download the app

WRAL.com's Behind Bars app is a finalist in the Wildcard Category. The app features mugshots from the Triangle area of North Carolina and offers users the opportunity to buy photos from different counties. Download the app

Awards are announced on March 19.

Time Spent In Mobile Far Outpaces Ad Spending

In a new study, the mobile advertising and analytics firm Flurry says mobile is the most imbalanced medium when it comes to ad spending versus time spent, at 1% compared to 23%. That makes the split of ad spending and time spent on the desktop Web -- at 16% versus 22% -- look a lot better.

By contrast, print gets 29% of ad dollars but only 6% of time spent. Flurry derived the cross-media figures from publicly available sources including comScore, Veronis Suhler, Mary Meeker, Alexa and its own data tracking more than 140,000 iOS and Android apps.

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Tablet Market Doubled Over the Holidays

Sales of tablets and e-readers surged over the holiday period, and almost a fifth of U.S. adults now own one of the devices, according to research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Based on survey data collected in December 2011 and January of this year, the share of adults age 18 and older who own either device nearly doubled, month-over-month, growing from 10 percent to 19 percent.

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Mobile Marketing Budgets Increasing in 2012

Mobile channels such as advertising (search and display), apps and mobile websites will rake in the most in spend for brands and retailers in 2012, according to MobileMarketer. It points to increasing smartphone penetration as an indicator of mobile's place in the marketing mix.

Mobile will account for 15.2 percent of global online ad spend in 2016, according to Berg Insight. According to the Berg, the total value of the global mobile marketing and advertising market will grow from $3.4 billion in 2010 at a compound annual growth rate of 37 percent to $22.4 billion in 2016.

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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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