What format will be the one with the biggest growth rate? What do you think? For many of us it will be video. In terms of handling, reach and simplicity. But what are the points we should think about when we produce a video? In his interview the host Christoph Magnussen gets some very interesting insights about these questions and other impressive statements from Richard Gutjahr. Read more
Years ago, I have written about various options of companies envisioning the future of mirrors and screens. Whether it was Samsung or Toyota or any other company out there. Many brands think about the future way of living with new world of screens evolving. The rising mobility trend drives companies to work on the glass of the future.
This time BMW came up with their latest world of a connected window. Is it a good innovation to have such a window in the bathroom (as a mirror), as a window (which takes your awareness away from e.g. the playing kids outside in the garden), or even as a car window (which might drag your attention to the wrong topic instead of focussing on the street)?
Have a look at it and tell us what you think…
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Source title picture: https://pixabay.com/de/architektur-hochhaus-glasfassaden-2256489/
With their annual study called “Mobile Elite” (2013 and 2014 versions here) CNBC has been focussing in the last two years on how executives use their mobiles for business, and when and how it helps them doing their business more effectively. A survey that is tracking senior business executive’s use of mobile devices across Europe, Asia and the US.
Now, they have come up with their latest update “Mobile Elite 2015” that more or less global executives have become mobile in terms of reaching a mobile device saturation point. Already more than 9 out of 10 business executives access the mobile web to get the latest business content and news updates via their tablets or smartphones (of which they have in average 6 (!) devices at home). Compared to last year, the access to “news feeds” has shown the highest growth for smartphones (45% to 60%). Their main time of reading the news is in the morning of weekdays (87%), predominantly with interest in financial news and stock prices (71%). Six in ten business leaders say they access the news via mobiles in the morning.
However, when we think that the weekend is a “news off time” for business execs, we might prove wrong. More than over six in ten business decision makers check their news and business content over the weekend. It is their time to deep-dive into content as time allows them to. Like last year’s results it becomes clear that as of the mobile options most of the top management does not differentiate between weekday and weekend any longer. Mobiles keeps them in the business all days. Furthermore, the second screen phenomenon can also be seen at business executives. TV might still be their main source of content delivery in the morning (51%), but three out of four (75%) watch TV at the same time as using their mobile device (6% more than in 2014), or maybe on their mobile devices.
“With mobile saturation at an all-time high, we’re now seeing business executives shifting their attentions towards a more connected lifestyle. With a slowdown in hardware innovation in 2015, the survey suggests that global executives are unlocking the potential of their technology to be more connected, more of the time. We could be witnessing the start of the next mobile renaissance.”
Mike Jeanes, Director of Research, EMEA, CNBC
Spot On!
Even more interesting to see is that the Internet-of-Things (IoT) has found their way into the business executives homes. Just about four in ten business leaders operate apps at home via their mobiles. This means that top decision makers become “early drivers” of technology by the use of mobile devices and wearables. More than every second respondent (54%) claimed to like the idea of hands free technology. This means they do not want to end their mobile journey with smart homes and smart security systems. Still, when it comes to cyber security business leaders are now “extremely concerned”. More than three out of four (82%) value mobile data privacy and security a “concern”, while admitting (41%) it is the most important technological influencer for 2016, followed by cloud technology (35%) and mobile e-commerce (34%).
The study shows that the C-Suite might be fully mobile but also understands and respects the responsibilities it needs to create a sustainable future.
Would you agree?
Mobile is on the rise but web is still king? Well, it is one of these findings that makes you wonder on first reading. Although websites still reach bigger audiences, web users spend most of their time in mobile apps according to comScore.
Monitoring the time between June 2014 and 2015, comScore finds in some research that the audience for mobile websites is around 250% bigger than mobile apps. Furthermore, it is growing twice as fast as apps. As a reason for this development comScore sees the closed garden phenomenon a challenge for apps. Web versions are much more fluid in terms of linking between content, social and search.
comScore also found that FB and Google own eight of the 10 most-visited mobile apps with Facebook winning the “competition” (almost 126 million unique visitors) with nearly one in two users who installed the app saying using it most frequently.
It is not surprising that Facebook’s app as of it’s reach is not the fastest growing app any more compared to Google’s audio-video sharing platform Youtube (9 to 18% growth) with 99 million users. However, after seperating their Messenger app from their main Facebook platform, the Messenger was grew double the size compared to last year.
Where people between the age of 18 and 34 spend most of their time is on Facebook (nearly 26 hours a month), Instagram (7 hours), Snapchat and Tumblr (6 hours) and Twitter (3,5 hours).
ComScore said mobile phones now account for 62% of all time spent online. Within that total, the research firm said 44% of time is spent on smartphone apps, up from 33% two years earlier. Mobile users spend more than 70% of their time in smartphone apps, dwarfing time spent on tablet apps and mobile websites.
Spot On!
The comScore mobile report gives a good indication of where the evolution of apps and their usage might lead in the future. It shows that “messaging is a very hot sector for apps” but is still early stages in the US. Looking at the time people spend with certain categories, the leading areas of interest were social networking (29%), radio (15%), games (11%), multimedia and instant messaging (6%), and music (4%).
As the research was monitoring the US audience, the two apps that were not owned by Facebook and Google under the top 10 were the music apps from Pandora and Apple Music. Furthermore, new service apps like Uber and Lyft have become more and more popular, comScore finds.
Credit: © XtravaganT – Fotolia.com
In a quantitative study with 1,200 respondents, which also included some qualitative secondary research and some new form of “blography” component, it made clear that streaming has become a mainstream behavior. Almost four out of five (78%) participants of the survey had streamed music in the past three months. The streaming habit on the way to purchase is most often (91%) a form of auditioning music before buying it – especially YouTube has an important role in this process.
The age group of 22-30 year olds is even more active than their older and younger counterparts. Streaming music has become a daily habit for them (63% do it daily). As the group sample was taken from their target audience, it might be a reason that this result is even higher than in usual user studies.
The young generation of “streamers” listens to radio as an important source of information to this group. However, the study credited broadcast and the Internet as sources of music discovery. Interestingly enough the study states that the act of listening seems to be passive. User do not seek to find their music, it basically comes to them. It could be a prove that the music industry has understood how to use big data to favor the music taste of their users.
Obviously, TV is another major discovery platform for this generation. 88% of respondents mentioned that they searched for songs on TV shows next to listening to them. This could become another important opportunity for track-identification mobile apps (like i.e. Shazam).
The path from discovery to purchase (which in this study can mean several things, including “streaming it incessantly”) is interestingly charted. The role of streaming in that path is often a form of auditioning music before buying, according to 91% of participants, who use YouTube for that purpose.
Spot On!
Not surprisingly, the respondents state that downloading music via P2P networks is not popular for them (60% see it as “risky” or “wrong”). Still, this does not mean that the idea is completely gone from their minds. Sharing music data with friends via DropBox or other sharing platforms is a common practice for music fans. However, if 81% of participants believe this is a support to bands they admire can be doubted. Maybe the music fans haven’t quite understood how their bands make money. It probably “beams up” the bands relevance and popularity more if 63% of fans follow artists on Facebook and share the bands’ news in their personal networks.
The common understanding in marketing teams is that content is key to meet the expectations of consumer. However, this might be right, most US consumers (52%) see high performance as the main quality feature of a website, according to a recent report from Limelight Networks.
The report that surveyed 1,115 consumers valued website performance (streaming with no buffering, pages that load quickly, and so on) as the most important digital experience feature. It also states that performance comes before fresh and updated content, delivering a consistent experience on mobile and desktop, and providing personalized content.
The respondents also make clear that they (59%) will wait less than five seconds for a webpage to load before being frustrated and leaving the site. Even more, more than one in three (37%) stated to leave and buy a product from a competitor if a website is slow.
The mobile experience is also becoming more critical for marketers. When 85% accessing a website with a mobile device at least some of the time, and 50% of the surveyed people do so with either a smartphone or a tablet most of the time, it shows that mobile customer experience needs to be thought about carefully. However, the good signs are that almost half of the users (44%) are more generous in terms of waiting for website response when accessing websites via mobile devices but the trend is to see fast downloads as well on mobile and desktop.
Spot On!
The report illustrates the connection between brand and website experience: 82% of consumers recommend a brand after a positive website visit.
However, marketers might think about personalization with the use of smart data now, the report also warns that more than one in three users (38%) do not want websites to remember their previous website visits. The website experience remains a business challenge “Businesses need to educate themselves on the challenges and intricacies of delivering a high performance digital experience to ensure hidden latency issues don’t disrupt a user’s interaction with the brand,” summarizes the report.
When you think a “selfie” is nothing but a “selfie” (meaning a photo of yourself), then you are still living in the past. The future of the selfie is already here – in various forms. You just need to know where to find the next evolution step, how to make it, and see who can assist your efforts. And even if you want to take it to extremes. There are all sorts of selfies ahead.
Although, I have to admit I have taken some selfies lately, I had decided to leave it from now as of bad (or mad) output. However, maybe I just need to go to the DELL Center for Selfie Improvement. No joke! Well. Maybe.
Dell is always good at jumping on the latest trends in the world of social and sharing. Their new “Center for Selfie Improvement” is meant to help people optimize (if not perfect) the art of the selfie. People shall be trained using different techniques handed down from the very original selfie taker. How this works is explained in this video and on their Tumblr website.
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Some people might say “selfies” are just for people with mega egos. Now, if you are a person of that sort, this winning Cannes Lions Innovation Grand Prix might make you happy. It’s a mega Kinetic installation which enabled people to create massive 3D selfies. The installation can transform in three dimensions. It recreate a selfie face from visitors to Khan’s pavilion. The Khan’s building was a 2,000 m2 cube placed in the Olympic Park in Sochi during the 2014 Olympic Games.
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MegaFaces: Kinetic Facade Shows Giant 3D ‘Selfies’ from iart on Vimeo.
And if you are living in Sweden or Australia, you might not even want to use the release button from your camera or your smartphone any more for your selfie. Just get the latest app from the guys at Crunchfish then. With their GoCam app (just Apple yet) you can take a selfie with their touchless-A3D-software. Simply raise your hand to “push” the release button.
The future of the “selfie” is weird, unimportant and funny. Well, it just reflects the nature of a selfie, right?
One of the questions, we often get is… What kind of apps make money? Now, an interesting recent report by Distimo and Chartboost based on data from 300,000 apps worldwide with 3.8 billion downloads per quarter sheds some light here. In the Apple App Store free mobile applications with in-app purchases (IAP) get most revenue. The report shows that in-app purchases from free apps went up from 46% to 79% in the United States in only two years (Jan. 2012 to Jan. 2014). The leading countries in this app revenue context are China and Japan with the biggest revenue share (94%) generated from freemium business models.
Not surprisingly, Germany is one of those different markets again. Here, just 70% of Germany’s revenue was generated from free apps with IAP. The report makes clear that in Germany a bigger revenue share comes from paid business models. However, this is based on the evolution of efficiency enabling tools such as education or navigation which seem to be tools that the German population uses predominantly.
The APAC region shows the highest average revenue per download (ARPD). The leader being Japan with an average per download revenue of $5.32. Japan gets followed by Australia $3.60 and South Korea $3.40 places two and three. Canada, Germany, United States and United Kingdom almost generate the same amount per download of around $2.30. China came in last with an ARPD of just $0.92.
Still, this does not mean that the profit is as high as it sounds. In order to figure the profit out, Distimo and Chartboost compared the revenue per download (ARPD) to cost per install (CPI) for the leading 250 apps in the games category in 4Q13. Here, the winners were Japan before Australia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The report shows that there is still money to be made. However, the cost per promotion in the App store or outside the app store should be calculated in. And then, the figures could look massively different…
Achieving interaction with customers is a challenging topic. Bringing content on smartphones when people want or need it, is a great opportunity and a smart step to getting people informed and creating interaction – and not only if shops want to spread their brand and reach out to their visitors via Apple’s new iBeacon technology.
The Rubens House Art Gallery in Antwerp -enabled by the guys at Prophets– offers a complete new approach how the gallery can interact with their art fans via sending native location based content on smartphones and tablets. The art gallery uses location based beacons in order to deliver intelligent content in front of paintings around the picture itself, the artist or the time period when it was created. The link between the iBeacons and the content comes from an app the visitor has to download.
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Apple iBeacon technology applied to classical art in Antwerp Museum from ProphetsAgency on Vimeo.
The guys at CHEIL in Sigapore have created a nice app for Samsung that keeps us away from texting and driving. With their “Eyes On The Road” app you can switch your phone into a “Drive Safe Mode” and stay away from taking calls, texts, or even push alerts while driving.
The app technology detects via sensor fusion technology when your speed is above 20km/hr. It then activates the “Drive Safe Mode” and blocks calls, texts and push alerts. Furthermore, it sends automated messages to the people that wanted to get in conversations and let’s them know that we are driving our car at the moment. If not deactivated manually, the app does so after 10 minutes of inactivity.
Now, up to you to use it and for Apple to come up with some similar approach. Or do you not like it…?
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