Top 3 Co-Creation Benefits that Companies Experience

Based upon my own observations, as a beta test user of the original Dell IdeaStorm platform four years ago, I witnessed three primary benefits from customer co-creation activity -- new product or service concepts, existing product or service enhancement, and business process or marketing related suggestions.

eMarketer reports that those three scenarios are still valid. Customers want to form meaningful relationships with a select few companies that they care most about. Given today's consumer culture of increased online participation, savvy business leaders are rising to the challenge, realizing that customer collaboration can be very rewarding.

"Co-creation begins with focusing on customers," said Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer principal analyst. "Companies tend to take an inside-out approach to co-creation, but those that take an outside-in approach -- by listening to and observing customers -- are in a position to discover ways to create mutual value."

Customer co-creation initiatives typically focus on the early product development stages, as seen in a 2011 Frost & Sullivan survey mainly of B2B technology companies. Idea generation was the most common application of their crowdsourcing activities.

Many companies restrict their co-creation engagement to discrete moments in the product life cycle -- from product creation and refinement through the end of the sales cycle. Each interaction is a opportunity for customers to build peer-level community relationships and develop meaningful brand loyalty.

At later stages of the product life cycle companies can harness the power of co-creation to help customers make greater use of their products or services -- and in some cases create totally new applications.

Some companies already have active communities where customers can ask product questions and find answers to common problems. This provides a direct benefit to users who need help with a question, but it also builds community among power users or brand advocates.

Survey respondents to the December 2010 "Social Customer Engagement Index" from The Social Customer and Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals revealed that Facebook and Twitter were the most effective customer service channels for engaging customers.

The reason these sites were most frequently chosen is likely due to the fact that some problems can be addressed in short messages. To provide a deeper level of customer support, however, companies still rely on company-owned online platforms that allow for more substantive interactions.

The greatest untapped opportunity for ongoing customer co-creation, in my opinion, is in the areas of business process enhancement and marketing or sales related evolution.

As an example, managers in customer service roles can learn where they are alienating their primary stakeholders with bad policies and practices. Marketing managers can discover the key stakeholder segmentation clusters that have unique needs and wants, or new ways to make it easier for customers to find and buy best-fit offerings.

IPTV Providers will Use Widgets to Retain Customers

Despite representing only a very small portion of the total pay-TV addressable market, telco IPTV services have had some impact on the evolving marketplace, forcing long-overdue change across the entire linear broadcast video entertainment delivery ecosystem.

Most IPTV service providers continue to focus on customer attraction and acquisition -- by offering similar legacy broadcast video services tiers as their competition. Those services are supplemented by a limited set of more forward-looking video-on-demand (VOD) offerings.

The latest IPTV market study by Infonetics Research confirms that, finally, some new and innovative IPTV services are in development, as operators move beyond basic broadcast video offerings and begin providing consumers a more personalized, integrated and portable on-demand viewing experience.

Multi-screen viewing, interactive applications and social networking are some of the services expected to be implemented over the next year. The question still remains, however, are the much needed enhancements too little and too late to counter the growing interest in lower-cost Over-the-Top (OTT) video subscription services -- such as Netflix and Lovefilm? Does every IPTV provider also need a stand-alone OTT offering?

Although telco operators have led with technology using IP video, satellite TV and cable TV companies are quickly leveraging broadband infrastructure to offer similar services.

Delivering meaningful differentiation has becoming increasingly difficult. Many service providers resort to free installation offers, premium service discounts and other price related promotions to gain and retain customers.

"It will be important for IPTV operators to watch the competition closely to determine the direction of this market," said Teresa Mastrangelo, directing analyst for video at Infonetics Research.

Highlights from the latest Infonetics market study include:

• By 2012, 63 percent of IPTV service providers interviewed plan to support multi-screen viewing across PCs, tablets, and smartphones.
• The 2 most widely-deployed IPTV applications now and next year are widgets, such as for weather and traffic updates, and caller ID on the TV.
• About half of the surveyed IP television operators plan to offer targeted or interactive advertising by 2012.
• IPTV operators continue to approach social networking for TV cautiously, with only 26 percent offering it now, growing to 41 percent by 2012. Among those that do, Facebook and Twitter are most popular.

Shift to 1Gbps Wi-Fi Broadband Ready for HD Video

The shift toward consumer electronics (CE) devices with integrated IP networking capabilities continued in 2010, allowing more devices to directly connect to the Internet or to a home network. Increasingly, some of those devices are being used to create or consume high-definition (HD) video content.

According to the latest market study by In-Stat, there's an accelerated continuation of the trend in 2011. They're now forecasting growth in Wi-Fi 802.11n-enabled consumer devices. Annual unit shipments will increase from 53 million in 2010 to almost 300 million in 2015.

Portable CE devices such as digital still cameras, e-readers and handheld games are not the only consumer devices benefiting from Wi-Fi wireless connectivity.

Stationary devices such as digital photo frames, digital televisions and gaming consoles are also seeing increasing Wi-Fi attach rates -- as people discover the benefits of having Internet connectivity without the need for home network wiring.

"The migration to 802.11n is an impressive but interim step in the evolution of Wi-Fi. Users will see significantly greater speed and range than 802.11.b/g," says Frank Dickson VP of Mobile Internet at In-Stat.

However, looming on the horizon is 802.11ac with speeds of around 1Gbps as the Wi-Fi ecosystem looks to address the movement of HD video content with adequate bandwidth. The first shipments won't reach the market until 2013 -- and its real impact will not likely occur until 2015 and beyond.

In-Stat's latest market study findings include:

• E-readers will reach a Wi-Fi attach rate of 85 percent by 2013.
• Over 82 million, 802.11n-enabled tablets will ship in 2012.
• Mobile device with Wi-Fi will still dominate shipments. In 2013, shipments of mobile phones with embedded Wi-Fi are projected to exceed three-quarters of a billion units.
• 29 million digital photo frames will be shipped in 2014; 53 percent will be Wi-Fi-enabled.

Personal Video Communication Apps in Mobile Devices

Applications for digital imagery are experiencing exponential growth. Image sensors are now being integrated into all sorts of consumer electronics (CE) devices. As personal video communication becomes more commonplace, many mobile devices -- such as smartphones and media tablets -- will now include two sensors (one on the front and back of the device).

The Camera Serial Interface (CSI) is a serial interface between a digital camera module and mobile device platform. Adopting a set of standard hardware interfaces will help to produce peripheral hardware products from multiple vendors which work seamlessly with numerous integrated circuit processor and system-on-a-chip products.

MIPI Alliance (a non-profit corporation) efforts have led to strong MIPI CSI-2 interest, across all computing and consumer electronic devices with an image sensor. According to the latest market study by In-Stat, they have forecast that the overall CSI total addressable market (TAM) will surpass $3.5 billion in 2016.

"MIPI specifications address only the interface technology, such as signaling characteristics and protocols," says Jim McGregor, Chief Technology Strategist.

MIPI specifications do not standardize entire application processors or peripherals. MIPI's objective is in seeking to create standards for these products to communicate with each other. By enabling products which share common MIPI interfaces, system integration is likely to be less burdensome than in the past.

In-Stat's latest market study findings include:

• CSI-2 penetration to surpass 70 percent in computing and consumer electronic devices with image sensors by 2016.
• Applications that directly manipulate image sensor data are forcing a migration of many devices away from using image sensors with integrated image signal processors (ISPs).
• Smartphones and handsets will account for the largest percentage and highest growth rate of CSI-2 and CSI-3 penetration.
• Game consoles are expected to be the primary use of image sensors (and cameras) in the living room.
• In-Stat expects over 225 million tablet PC image sensors to ship in 2016, with MIPI CSI-3 representing about 20 percent of these, and MIPI CSI-2 representing 80 percent.

The Upside Opportunities for Social Participation TV

Mobile Interactive Group (MIG)  released the results of a recent market study about the trends and opportunities in participation TV (P-TV) services -- in particular, interactive social channels across global broadcast television markets.

Their research uncovered key technological and behavioural insights into the entire P-TV value chain -- from the types of devices that consumers use to interact with TV shows -- such as media tablet, internet, mobile, apps, SMS and fixedline broadband -- how they multi-task with them while watching TV and over which payment channels they prefer to purchase participation services such as voting and competitions.

The study considered the role of mash-ups between established social media channels, in particular Twitter and Facebook, with broadcast TV interactivity -- concluding that there's a potential new business model. MIG calls that model "Social Participation TV."

Key findings from the recent MIG market study include:

Mobile will become the main vehicle for interaction between viewer and broadcaster.

• 40 percent of mobile users are most likely to be multi-tasking using their phone while watching TV.

Smartphone adoption will drive TV and mobile multi-tasking in UK and U.S. markets, creating a more engaged audience, and significantly increasing program interaction.

• The majority of multi-tasking occurs during the evenings and weekends during peak TV times when online browsing declines and mobile browsing grows.

Facebook will drive a shift in interactive audience behavior away from phone calls and text with these channels becoming peripheral in the long term.

• Facebook mobile now accounts for 50 percent of its 700 million users globally. Moreover, 67 percent of all respondents indicated that the internet is the ideal way to interact with TV shows, with 50 percent of those indicating that Facebook would be their preferred channel to purchase and use participation TV services such as voting.

Interactive events via Facebook are expected to generate $51.7 million (£32.04 million) in the UK by 2012 and $2.9 billion globally by 2016.

• MIG's global research into the Social Participation TV sector, incorporated qualitative and quantitative insights from The IAB and PhonePay Plus and Adfonic, also drew conclusions from interviews conducted with 3,000 consumers in the UK.

Barry Houlihan, the CEO of  Mobile Interactive Group said, "Social participation TV is a huge opportunity for MIG and our broadcast partners, with mobile featuring as the key enabler and engagement tool. The mobile device is ingrained in our daily lives, and is rapidly becoming a core component in the ability to create an interaction between the viewer and the TV."

More Adoption of Online Map Usage via Mobile Apps

comScore released results of a U.S. market study of mobile map usage. The study found that 48 million people accessed online maps via their mobile device during the three month period ending May 2011 -- that's an increase of 39 percent from the previous year, driven in large part by the increase in smartphone adoption.

The study found that map usage via mobile applications (apps) was the primary access point for smartphone owners -- as the map app audience doubled in size over the past year.

A comparative look at map usage among fixed-Internet users (i.e. accessing from a home or work computer) found that map visitation saw a slight decline in total audience in May 2011 versus the previous year, dipping 2 percent, while still maintaining a substantially larger audience of 93.8 million visitors.

"The strong growth in mobile map usage and flattening of desktop map usage is indicative of broader behavioral shifts being wrought by smartphones," said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile.

For years, people have been able to check directions on their desktop computers prior to leaving their home or office, now smartphones allow people to skip this step and access maps on the go, as they need them, showing off one of the most powerful capabilities of mobile -- just-in-time-information.

The number of smartphone map users (which accounted for 4 out of every 5 mobile map users) reached 38.2 million in May -- that's an increase of 75 percent from the previous year and outpacing the total smartphone audience growth of 57 percent.

Applications represented the primary access point for approximately two-thirds of smartphone map users (up 98 percent), while browser map access was about half as popular as apps and grew at half the rate.

Among all mobile users (smartphone and feature phone) who accessed maps on their mobile devices, 88.9 percent did so from a car or other vehicle, with 16.9 percent doing so while walking, running or biking, and 13.6 percent while using public transit.

The most utilized types of maps were graphical maps with turn-by-turn directions (64.0 percent of mobile maps users), followed by 48.3 percent using a graphical map without turn-by-turn directions and 46.0 percent using turn-by-turn directions without a graphical map.

Google+ Avoids the Bad Perception of Social Media

Many senior executives may want to believe that an investment in social media marketing is strategic to their business, but they're apparently still not convinced. They've read all the hype about the huge amount of people that registered on Facebook, but they question how many of their customers or prospects access the social network regularly.

They wonder if people really are looking for product or service information on Facebook, when most users activity tends to revolve around sharing photos of friends, family members or their pets. The most doubtful executives hear all the talk about the power of user engagement, yet their marketing staff prefers to write checks to Facebook for consistently poor-performing ad placements.

Can the launch of Google+ help to reverse some of the bad perceptions that these senior executives already have about today's social media marketing practices? Or, can Google simply avoid the debate altogether, and gain a significant market advantage as a result?

Why Social Media is Not a Strategic Priority

eMarketer estimates 80 percent of companies with at least 100 employees will use social networks for marketing this year -- that's up from nearly three in four last year. By 2012, usage will be even greater. But many social media campaigns currently seem to be stuck in the experimental stage of development.

Regardless, most companies recognize that a social media strategy should be a vital part of the marketing plan. In fact, a study from Jive Software and Penn, Schoen & Berland found 78 percent of executives thought a social business strategy was somewhat or very important to the future success of their business.

Despite this realization, most executives are still only in the tentative stages of making social strategy a priority. Why? Meaningful strategy development is a responsibility that's typically deferred to someone else. The senior executive expects the marketing VP to do it, but the role is often performed by someone who thinks and acts like a legacy media buyer.

By default, a low-level agency employee will decide how to spend the client's social media budget.

An Opportunity to Re-Imagine Social Commerce

The survey of executives who have final say or significant input on social business strategy found that only 27 percent listed social business as a top strategic priority. Nearly half (47 percent) admitted a social plan was necessary but not a strategic priority -- and a puzzling 19 percent said a social business strategy was simply not necessary.

Meanwhile, many of the surveyed executives were not optimistic about their current social strategy. Only 17 percent felt their social strategy was ahead of the curve. About four in 10 (42 percent) believed that their social strategy was just keeping up -- and a troubling 33 percent believed that they were already behind.

A study by Forbes Insights and Coremetrics showed similar results. Only 11 percent of U.S. and UK executives said social media strategy was a priority in 2011 -- it tied for last place with mobile marketing. Regarding their plans for 2012, only 19 percent of surveyed executives listing it as a leading marketing priority.

eMarketer concludes that companies are active in social media marketing, but those that choose not to create a strategy risk investing in further misguided or wasted efforts. That said, perhaps the solution to this dilemma is to cease all "social media marketing" activity, and start over -- with a substantive plan of meaningful action.

Given the current state of the market, Google would be wise to avoid labeling their new platform with something that could have already gained a bad or poor perception. Maybe they're on to something -- "The Google+ project aims to make sharing on the web more like sharing in real life." Now, will savvy marketers create a viable business strategy around that simple notion? We'll have to wait and see.

Upside Potential for Mobile Video Service Adoption

Here in the U.S. market, the notion that people would subscribe and pay for broadcast TV content delivered to their mobile phone was a classic example of unreal expectations -- based upon inconclusive market research. In contrast, on-demand mobile video consumption is apparently gaining new interest.

Although many mobile video products have only recently launched, providers are experiencing significant growth in usage rates.

According to the latest market study by In-Stat, nearly two-thirds of smartphone owners have watched video on their device, while nearly 86 percent of media tablet owners have already done so.

While the propensity to watch full-length premium video is only a portion of these video viewers, these numbers indicate the potential market demand. These examples are indicative of a larger trend of strong growth in mobile video consumption worldwide.

As a result, In-Stat now forecasts that mobile video consumption will surpass 693 billion minutes by 2015.

"As content restrictions are liberalized and the proliferation of smartphone and tablet devices continues to expand, so too will mobile video consumption," says Amy Cravens, Market Analyst at In-Stat.

However, it is important to note that the consumption differs significantly between smartphones, tablets, and notebook or netbook PCs. Differences include content length, content genre, and content acquisition. Content providers need to customize their offerings by target platform.

In-Stat's latest market study findings include:

• There are significantly more smartphone viewers than tablet viewers currently. However, the gap will narrow in coming years.
• Tablet viewer watch more video and are willing to pay a higher price for that video compared to smartphone viewers.
• The majority of video access is occurring in a non-mobile environment, often in the home, particularly for tablet devices and in the consumption of long-form video.
• The largest barriers to mobile video growth are those erected by content owners, followed by network capacity issues.

Americans View Nearly 5.3 Billion Online Video Ads

comScore released data showing that 178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in June 2011 for an average of 16.8 hours per viewer.

The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 6.2 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month -- establishing yet another all-time high.

Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in June with 149.3 million unique viewers, followed by VEVO with 63.0 million viewers and Yahoo! Sites with 52.7 million viewers. Microsoft Sites came in fourth with 50.7 million viewers, while Viacom Digital ranked fifth with 49.5 million viewers.

Total viewing sessions surpassed the 6 billion mark for the first time, with Google Sites generating the highest number of viewing sessions (2.3 billion) and highest time spent per viewer (324 minutes, or 5.4 hours).

Americans viewed nearly 5.3 billion video ads in June, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at more than 1.0 billion. Tremor Media Video Network ranked second overall (and highest among video ad networks) with 753 million ad views, followed by Adap.tv (678 million) and BrightRoll Video Network (629 million).

Time spent watching videos ads totaled more than 2.2 billion minutes during the month, with Tremor Media Video Network delivering the highest duration of video ads at 429 million minutes. Video ads reached 49 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 35.6 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 38.8 over the course of the month.

Other findings from comScore's June 2011 study include:

• The top video ad networks in terms of their potential reach of the total U.S. population were: Tremor Media at 44.3 percent, BrightRoll Video Network at 38.5 percent and Break Media at 37.6 percent.
• 85.6 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• The duration of the average online content video was 5.4 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.
• Video ads accounted for 13.6 percent of all videos viewed and 1.3 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

Seven Leading Apps for U.S. Mobile Device Users

Almost three quarters (73 percent) of mobile phone service subscribers -- using both smartphones and other types of devices -- in the United States use them to visit social networking sites daily, sometimes more than once each day.

This latest finding comes from a recent online survey of 2,000 people, conducted in March 2011 by ABI Research.

The survey respondents were asked a wide range of questions about how they use their mobile devices and associated applications. All respondents owned at least one mobile phone, smartphone or media tablet.

ABI practice director Neil Strother says, "Operators and brands, take note: your customers are here in droves. Users like multiple modes of social interaction."

Survey respondents say the mobile phone (or smartphone) provides sufficient access to the activities they like doing with social networks: viewing content, sending media, and updating profiles.

In fact, the phone is a preferred device for doing a number of activities by nearly half of those who access social networks via mobile.

According to the ABI study, other leading activities included:

• Checking email (80%)
• Checking weather and reading news (63% each)
• Playing music or viewing stock quotes (53% each)
• Checking sports scores (51%)
• Searching for information (48%)
• Playing games (39%)

ABI believes that the popularity of these activities has implications for network data traffic, but also for the increased usage of downloadable apps, the delivery of more services (not just OTT/apps) and higher ARPU for mobile service provider data plans.

South Koreans are Adopting Mobile Money Services

South Korea is already known for its leadership in landline broadband service adoption. Many of the nation's residents are also pioneers of mobile broadband service adoption.

Nearly half (47 percent) of South Koreans polled intend to purchase a smartphone within the next six months, according to the results of a consumer survey conducted this year by ABI Research.

South Koreans already own an average of 1.6 mobile devices each, and are among the world's most enthusiastic consumers of new mobile technologies, upgrading their devices frequently and utilizing many forward-looking applications.

"South Koreans are keen adopters of mobile money services," notes practice director Neil Strother at ABI.

They're using mobile devices to do banking (a very high 69 percent of respondents), and pay bills (40 percent).

Curiously, though, most South Koreans have little confidence in the security of their mobile phones: only 7 percent believed they were completely or very secure, while 59 percent rated security as low or nonexistent.

Either they rationally accept heightened risk as the price of engaging in activities they find useful, or, like many of us, would rather not think about it.

South Koreans respond well to mobile advertising. According to Strother, "Nearly 45 percenet of those polled reported having clicked on a mobile advertisement at least once; of those, 40 percent received a coupon as a result, and a significant 27 percent actually downloaded or purchased content as a result."

Global Economic Pressures Weaken PC Shipments

Continued challenges across the global economy are impacting technology purchases. Worldwide personal computer (PC) shipments increased 2.6 percent in the second quarter of 2011 (2Q11), according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC).

The results are just short of IDC's May projections for 2.9 percent growth and represent a combination of a hangover from the more than 20 percent growth in the first half of 2010 as well as competition from smartphones, other consumer products and pressure from lackluster economic conditions.

As in 1Q11, the United States and Western Europe were among the weaker regions, reflecting constrained demand and lower spending in more mature markets, while emerging regions -- particularly Latin America and Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) -- fared much better overall.

"These preliminary results continue to reflect pressure from competing consumer and business products as well as cautious spending," said Jay Chou, senior research analyst with IDC. Nevertheless, product refreshes and promotions in the second half of the year should boost growth, according to IDC's latest assessment.

The U.S. PC market continued to contract in 2Q11, largely as a result of three factors.

The first is an ongoing contraction in the netbook market and related inventories. The second is the impact of 2Q10's difficult-to-sustain 12 percent growth rate. And third, demand has softened as corporate buyers continue to focus on increasing share of their IT budget in new IT solutions -- such as cloud and virtualization, and consumer interest shifts to media tablets.

Given the weakness of 2H10, IDC expects a better market environment in 2H11 with mid-single digit growth rates in the third quarter's back to school and fourth quarter's holiday season.

Regional Outlook for Personal Computer Shipments

United States -- With a decline of 4.2 percent year over year, the market was still downcast from a combination of exuberant consumption a year ago and a tenuous economic recovery, but the quarter also marked substantial growth from 1Q11, and total shipments topped over 17.8 million.

Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) -- The EMEA PC market continued to contract in 2Q11, in line with IDC's forecast, as sustained high levels of inventory prevented stronger sell-in, particularly in Western Europe, where budget cannibalization from media tablets and smartphones continued to contribute to weak consumer demand and slow stock depletion. However, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) continued to expand and enjoyed positive growth overall.

U.S. Consumers are Less Likely to Avoid Mobile Ads

Advertising that's displayed on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, is gaining momentum in the U.S. market. Relatively speaking, people that are exposed to it are more likely to engage with the content. In contrast, prior research has focused on the accelerating trend of "advertising avoidance" by most consumers in America. The slight difference in consumer receptiveness has started to impact marketer's budget allocations.

eMarketer estimates U.S. advertisers will spend over $1.1 billion on mobile this year -- up by 48 percent from 2010 spending levels. Of that amount, 30 percent, or $334.5 million, will go to display ads (excluding video). Moreover, eMarketer predicts that in 2012 mobile display spending will surpass messaging -- the current leader in spending.

Display banner advertising will constitute the largest portion of U.S. mobile ad spending.

As more marketers from across industries begin to embrace mobile advertising, more attempts at measuring their efforts will emerge. Benchmarking efforts by 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 click-through rate (CTR ) for mobile banners can be extended across verticals.

MediaMind found that the average CTR on mobile banners on their network was 0.61 percent. That was more than eight times as high as the CTR for standard online banners in advertising campaigns that also had at least one mobile ad.

Campaigns for the entertainment industry demonstrated the highest mobile banner click-through rates, at 1.04 percent, followed by retail industry mobile banners, at 0.84 percent. Apparel, electronics and automobile ads had the lowest level of engagement.

The research also showed click rates varied by mobile operating system. iPhone and iPad users were significantly more likely to click on mobile banners than those with an Android device or BlackBerry. It's not clear why there's a difference -- perhaps additional research may uncover the reason(s) why.

Furthermore, if successful ad engagement barely tops one percent of the total ad impressions, then perhaps marketers need to seriously consider the alternative -- and more effective -- ways to reach their customers and prospects via mobile media. The notion of celebrating "slightly less advertising avoidance" seems misguided.

Why Consumers in China Will Respond to Mobile Ads

Advertising on mobile devices and mobile money services are making strong inroads among the growing affluent segments of China's population, according to the latest market study by ABI Research.

This perhaps counters the conventional thinking that consumer response to mobile advertising -- and the use of mobile devices for financial transactions -- are limited to the mature North American and European markets.

ABI's online survey of 1,000 Chinese consumers was conducted in March-April 2011. Note, however, that given the online approach to the survey, the sample is entirely drawn from the technology-enabled part of the Chinese population.

"Respondents were asked to indicate what actions they had taken as a result of clicking on an ad displayed on their mobile phones over the previous three months," said practice director Neil Strother.

Nearly half (49 percent) of survey respondents had received a coupon, while 46 percent had investigated the product or service and 45 percent had signed up to receive text alerts. These were the most common responses.

As result of these responses, at least a quarter of respondents had also visited a local business (44 percent), downloaded or purchased some content (44 percent), signed up for an email newsletter (39 percent), or made a purchase (25 percent).

Strother adds, "These survey results highlight that commercialization of the mobile Internet through advertising is fairly strong in China. There may be a different kind of openness to advertising at work here."

Meaning, it's very possible that newly-affluent Chinese consumers are more receptive to advertising than some of their western counterparts -- whose cultures have already been saturated with ads for many generations.

Can Re-Designed IPTV Services Regain Momentum?

The initial development plans for telco IPTV was introduced with great fanfare and anticipation -- launched by service providers who promised to re-invent the traditional pay-TV experience. Instead, what they delivered was an unimaginative replica of the channel-centric legacy cable TV offering.

Regardless of the anticlimax, those new IPTV services have gained some traction in the marketplace. But the sustainability of that growth has always been in question -- and still is with some skeptical industry analysts.

The pay-TV sector is going through a transition, and therefore somewhat volatile. Worldwide set-top box revenue, as a whole, will decline slightly in 2011 over 2010, with Latin America and Middle East/Africa markets being the only regions showing any increase in shipments.

However, despite the general maturation and stagnation of the market, IP set-top box (STB) shipments are forecast to increase by over 1 million units in 2011, according to the latest market study by In-Stat.

"The most interesting development in the market is service provider solutions to distributing content throughout the home," says Norm Bogen, VP Digital Entertainment at In-Stat.

Direct TV, for example, supplies a satellite STB as the center-piece the home media space while providing IP STBs -- now referred to as thin IP clients -- for delivering content to different rooms in the home.

Can the re-designed IPTV solutions regain momentum and stimulate new growth?

In-Stat's latest market study findings include:

- North American IP set-top box revenue will increase by 22 percent in 2011.

- In 2011, 17 percent of all set top boxes will include a DVR.

- In 2011, 72 percent of all satellite set-top boxes in Europe will be high definition.

- Nearly 670,000 cable set top boxes will be shipped in Latin America in Q3’11.

Business Mobile VoIP Users Will Increase Tenfold

Applications of Mobile Voice over IP are an extension of VoIP technology that allows for IP-based phone calls to be made from a mobile handset. Voice traffic travels over the available wireless broadband connection -- whether that connection is 3G, EDGE, Wi-Fi, or GPRS.

Similar to landline VoIP, mobile VoIP service is being adopted in both the consumer and business segments, but has only recently begun to be implemented within the typical business communication environment.

Even though it's an emerging application, mobile VoIP growth rates are strong and by the end of the forecast period in 2015, users will have grown to nearly 83 million lines, according to the latest market study by In-Stat.

"There are several reasons that adoption of mobile VoIP makes sense," says Amy Cravens, Senior Analyst at In-Stat.

Some of these reasons include the ability to take the desktop telephone experience with you while mobile, the ability to utilize the benefits of IP-based communication features, a cheaper international long-distance cost, an easy implementation path, and better indoor coverage where cellphone reception has historically been poor.

In-Stat's latest market study findings include:

- Business mobile VoIP users will increase tenfold over the next five years.

- IP PBX users will account for the majority of business mobile VoIP usage.

- Mobile operators are increasingly embracing mobile VoIP as they realize that demand for these offerings is not subsiding.

- Hotspots open the potential for using VoIP over Wi-Fi as more of a mobile service rather than a residential or business service.

76.8 Million People in the U.S. Now Own Smartphones

As more Americans each month abandon landline phone service, mobile phone service growth becomes increasingly important to the legacy telecom service providers, such as AT&T and Verizon. However, Google and Apple continue to drive the upside opportunity in this market transition -- based upon the adoption of new smartphone applications.

comScore released data about the key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending May 2011.

Their latest market study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile phone service subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 24.8 percent market share. Google Android led among smartphone platforms with 38.1 percent market share.

For the three month average period, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices.

Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 24.8 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, followed by LG with 21.1 percent share and Motorola with 15.1 percent share. Apple strengthened its position at #4 with 8.7 percent share of mobile subscribers (up 1.2 percentage points), while RIM rounded out the top five with 8.1 percent share.

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 #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).

In May, 69.5 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device. Browsers were used by 39.8 percent of subscribers (up 1.5 percentage points), while downloaded applications were used by 38.6 percent (up 2.0 percentage points).

Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 1.8 percentage points to 28.6 percent of mobile subscribers. Game-playing was done by 26.9 percent of the mobile audience (up 2.3 percentage points), while 18.6 percent listened to music on their phones.

Truce Among Powerline Home Networking Standards

While there's still some competitive battles among powerline communications standards -- such as HD-PLC and UPA -- HomePlug has emerged as the victorious market leader for powerline home networking solutions.

In addition to being the leader in the sector, the HomePlug Alliance has also signed liaison agreements with the Multimedia Over Coax Alliance (MoCA), the Wi-Fi Alliance, and the ZigBee Alliance to promote cooperation and interoperability in home networking.

That truce, and the resulting cooperation, should benefit both CE manufacturers and consumers. According to the latest market study by In-Stat, HomePlug node shipments will surpass 30 million units by 2014.

"HomePlug products are expected to maintain their lead and continue to grow considerably over the next five years. We expect the European region to remain the main target market for HomePlug products, though Asia Pacific will see the highest growth rate over the next 5 years," says Vahid Dejwakh, Analyst at In-Stat.

The first HomePlug consumer electronics (CE) devices will appear around late 2013 in both North America and Europe, and will grow considerably in the European market. This will be a HomePlug celebration and a key milestone in the development of powerline communications technology.

In-Stat's latest market study findings include:

- Worldwide, over 40 million wired home networking nodes shipped in 2010.

- HomePlug node shipments currently represent 50 percent of all nodes shipped.

- The main providers of networking nodes for this market are Atheros, Entropic, Sigma Designs, and Broadcom.

- G.hn will replace HPNA and then overtake MoCA by end of year 2015.

- HomePlug dominates router/gateway home networking units throughout the forecast period. The same cannot be said for set-top boxes, which will be dominated by MoCA. However, G.hn will make impressive gains in set-top boxes, becoming the second most popular standard by 2013 and challenging MoCA by 2015.

24 Million Americans Own Tablets by the End of 2011

Introduced last year, the Apple iPad quickly established a new market for media tablets. eMarketer estimates that 9.7 million U.S. consumers owned a tablet device by the end of 2010, and that 24 million will have one by the end of 2011.

In a May 2011 survey on device ownership -- the first one taken by a research team at least a year after the iPad’s release -- the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that overall tablet penetration increased from 5 percent of American consumers in November 2010 to 8 percent in May 2011.

According to an eMarketer report, device ownership increased the fastest among young adults ages 18 to 29, Hispanics, those with the highest incomes, and people who had attended some college -- all groups that now have the highest levels of tablet penetration.

In addition, men are more likely than women to own a media tablet.

By contrast, overall eReader penetration is higher -- at 12 percent of American consumers -- and has doubled since November. Men are only slightly more likely to own an eReader.

Once again, Hispanics have the highest device penetration, and tripled their eReader population from 5 to 15 percent of Hispanic consumers. Ereader penetration grew by at least twofold among all consumers with incomes above $30,000 annually.

Besides, a demographic divide developed during the November and May time frame -- between parents of children under 18 and the rest of the populations surveyed. The eReader penetration in these two groups was equal, but parents have pulled ahead by 6 percentage points.

Pew's eReader penetration figures are higher than those estimated by eMarketer for this year. eMarketer forecast that device adoption would rise from 5.4 percent of adults in 2010 to 8.7 percent by the end of this year, for an installed base of 20.6 million eReaders in the U.S. market.

54 Million Wi-Fi Enabled HDTVs will Ship in 2013

Many consumer electronic (CE) products now include Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) connectivity using the available Wi-Fi standards 802.11b/g, 802.11n, and the soon-to-be available 802.11ac.

Most of these CE products can be categorized as portable or mobile. More recently, products typically cast as stationary -- such as TVs, DVD/Blu-ray players, and digital photo frames -- can now wirelessly connect to the Internet or a home network, providing access to digital media content.

Even though the WLAN attach rates of these stationary devices remain relatively low in comparison to their portable counterparts, the size of the combined WLAN-enabled CE markets will surpass 419 million units shipped by 2015, according to the latest market study by In-Stat.

"WLAN connectivity in portable CE devices is not a novel idea and, in fact, an absolute requirement in most cases," says Frank Dickson, Vice President of Research at In-Stat.

The global embedded base of web-enabled and smart CE devices is expected to grow substantially over the next five years, providing the connectivity necessary to support IP-based video content. Smart CE devices actually go one step further, offering online applications.

In-Stat's latest market study findings include:

- E-readers will reach a 90 percent WLAN attach rate by 2015.

- In 2014, handheld game consoles will have an 802.11n attach rate of 32 percent.

- Over 54 million WLAN-enabled digital TVs will ship in 2013.

- The 802.11ac standard will reach an attach rate in notebooks of 57 percent in 2015.

Major Boom Forecast for Mobile Device Advertising

In 2010, nearly $2 billion was spent by marketers on mobile advertising. In 2012, according to the latest market study by ABI Research, that figure will be more than $7 billion.

And by 2016, their forecasts suggest that as much marketing budget -- approximately $24 billion -- will be spent on mobile advertising as is currently spent on all online advertising put together.

"ABI Research forecast clearly indicate a major boom in mobile advertising is on the way," says practice director Neil Strother.

All the pieces are falling into place: the technology, the behavior and the funding (advertiser spending) is following.

Today mobile marketing spend is still relatively tiny, by online standards -- often just 2 or 3 percent of a marketer's overall advertising budget -- but spending on mobile ads will accelerate and grow.

What has changed? Mobile marketing is truly considered promising, but the pool of potential viewers and readers has been relatively small -- especially for display ads, interactive ads, and ads using rich media.

But two related developments have changed that.

The first is the explosion in use of mobile smartphones and other smart devices such as media tablets. The second is the proliferation of mobile applications that can include or drive mobile advertising consumption.

These applications can be related to a wide variety of activities including media content and games, but also services accessed through the mobile web browser.

The result, says Strother, is that "The population of people who access content or media or services that are ad-supported is now big enough to create a critical mass."

This story has concentrated on the higher end of mobile advertising; lower-tech forms such as text message-based advertising are still viable and useful, but content publishing sites will charge more for display, interactive or rich media ads.

Mobile Enterprise Apps for Smartphones and Tablets

According to the latest market study by ABI Research, users of enterprise B2E (business-to-employee) and B2C (business to customer) smartphone and media tablet mobile applications (apps) are forecast to grow at a CAGR of nearly 90 percent -- and exceed 830 million active users by 2016.

The growth forecast includes B2E apps -- such as line-of-business apps -- and B2C branded company apps. In both cases, enterprises are leveraging their vast stores of corporate data to make employees more efficient and to foster greater customer intimacy.

Enterprise smartphone and media tablet adoption is providing the foundation for enterprise app development and deployment. But, according to enterprise practice director Dan Shey, "Mobile suppliers are providing the critical enablers boosting app adoption."

There are two important supply-side drivers.

First, the supplier market offering mobile application platforms has exploded. With these platforms, an app can be written once and deployed across multiple devices in the highly fragmented smartphone and tablet supplier market. Many platforms also provide management and system integration capabilities, and are highly cost-effective.

Second, many mobile application and app platform providers now offer cloud services as a component of the application or app platform. This reduces the investment for businesses, opening up the market for smaller organizations.

The majority of users are B2C customers, with a large share from branded banking, airline, and shopping apps. But according to Shey, active B2C customers could be a much larger group than they are.

"There is no reason why most businesses could not offer B2C smartphone or tablet apps to their customers, regardless of business size. The challenge for mobile suppliers will be to promote and facilitate application development for all businesses with the opportunity to generate greater app service and management revenues."

The ABI study report provides a quantitative, in-depth review of the enterprise mobile application market for smartphones and media tablets. Particular emphasis is placed on dissection of the technology drivers and the opportunities and challenges for nine segments of the mobile supply chain.

Included are B2E and B2C app customer and service revenue forecasts segmented for seven world regions and by device type as well as 2010 industry B2E app estimates.

Business Tablets Create Upside Market Opportunity

The success of media tablets is raising questions about the e-reader market sustainability. E-readers still offer the best reading experience and appeal most to avid book readers, but a broader group of people prefer additional multimedia functionality -- such as web browsing, video and gaming.

Media tablets are optimized to deliver a multifunction experience, and therefore, represent a stronger opportunity for consumer electronics (CE) manufacturers. As a result, In-Stat is forecasting that tablet shipments will outpace e-reader shipments by the end of 2011.

"Of the two, the tablet market is the stronger and more sustainable opportunity," says Stephanie Ethier, Senior Analyst at In-Stat. In fact, e-reader manufacturers will likely begin adding tablet-like features to some devices in their product line.

Barnes & Noble already offers the Color Nook, which is often compared to a tablet, and Amazon, the leader in the e-reader space with its Kindle, will likely launch a tablet device later this year in an effort to compete head-to-head with the Apple iPad.

The other latest development is the emergence of business-oriented media tablets that are targeted at supporting new unified communication and collaboration apps -- this is the next upside market opportunity.

In-Stat's latest market study findings include:

- Of the 1,000 U.S. respondents to an end-user survey, 38 percenet own a tablet as compared to the 26 percent who own an e-reader.

- Fueled by low prices and continued expansion of e-book content, global e-reader shipments will reach 40 million by 2015, but tablet shipments will eventually outpace e-reader shipments.

- The total semiconductor opportunity for tablet suppliers will reach $13.8 billion in 2015.

- The total semiconductor opportunity for e-reader suppliers will reach $1.6 billion in 2015.

- Over 60 percent of future tablet purchasers plan to buy a tablet equipped with both Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.

- By 2015, 15% of all tablet shipments will go into business markets.

Americans Viewed 4.6 Billion Video Ads in May

comScore released data showing that 176 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in May 2011 -- for an average of 15.9 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 5.6 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month.

Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in May with 147.2 million unique viewers, followed by VEVO with 60.4 million viewers and Yahoo! Sites with 55.5 million viewers.

Facebook.com came in fourth with 48.2 million viewers, while Viacom Digital ranked fifth with 46.5 million viewers. Google Sites had the highest number of viewing sessions with more than 2.1 billion, and highest time spent per viewer at 311 minutes, crossing the 5-hour mark for the first time.

Americans viewed 4.6 billion video ads in May, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at more than 1.3 billion. Tremor Media Video Network ranked second overall (and highest among video ad networks) with 700.8 million ad views, followed by Adap.tv (642 million) and BrightRoll Video Network (565 million).

Time spent watching videos ads totaled more than 2.0 billion minutes during the month, with Hulu delivering the highest duration of video ads at 560 million minutes.

Video ads reached 45 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 34 times during the month. Hulu also delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 48 over the course of the month.

Other findings from comScore's May 2011 study include:

- The top video ad networks in terms of their potential reach of the total U.S. population were: Tremor Media at 47.1 percent, BrightRoll Video Network at 42.1 percent and Break Media at 40.4 percent.

- 83.3 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.

- The duration of the average online content video was 5.2 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.

- Video ads accounted for 12.6 percent of all videos viewed and 1.2 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

Service Providers are Failing Personalization Needs

 
Why do so many of today's service providers still cling to legacy mass-media marketing practices, when they know that there's an alternative? It's puzzling, especially to those who track current marketing trends.

eMarketer reports that service providers in several industries are not meeting customer needs for personalized offerings, or even fulfilling relevant communication needs, according to a recent U.S. market study.

Customers are increasingly frustrated a lack of basic personalization or targeting and believe that many businesses simply don't care about their preferences. In fact, despite the wealth of options enabled by digital media channels, most internet users are dissatisfied.

Research from customer engagement firm Thunderhead found that the banking industry was most likely to use a customer's preferred digital channels -- with 54 percent of respondents reporting positive experiences.

But just 27 percent of internet users said gas companies communicated with them through preferred channels, and other vertical industry marketers fell somewhere in between.

Overall, 42 percent of respondents said preferred digital channels were being used at least "fairly well" by their service providers. That's disappointing, when you consider that personalization is considered a mainstream marketing concept.

The lack of effective personalization extended to the content of messages, not just their delivery channel. At least 45 percent of respondents for each vertical complained that marketing communication materials were poorly targeted.

And about half or more said they would be more satisfied if service providers referenced their account information in communication, making messages more meaningful. Is it possible that savvy customers now know more about digital media applications than the typical marketer that reaches out to them?

"Today's consumers are much more technologically sophisticated than they were even five years ago, and they are demanding tailored and personal communications from those companies with which they do business," said John McGee, president and COO of Thunderhead.

Segmentation and targeting will improve marketing results. In contrast, impersonal messages can damage existing customer relationships. That said, why do service providers -- that often have a wealth of data about current customers -- fail to treat their customers as individuals? It's truly puzzling.

Mobile Cloud Services will Simplify In-Home Apps

Today's smartphones now act like full-featured media servers -- capable of connecting automatically to other consumer devices such as TVs, picture frames, game consoles and audio systems.

DLNA and Wi-Fi Direct certification programs will further simplify wireless connectivity. But new mobile cloud services may provide even easier access to people's content while at home.

"Wi-Fi Direct enables a device to connect directly to another device without a wireless network. DLNA‑certified devices discover other certified devices, eliminating the need for a consumer to configure the connection," says ABI Research senior analyst Victoria Fodale.

Both programs help mitigate the difficulties that consumers often face when attempting to connect Wi-Fi enabled devices at home, and both bring wireless technology further into the mainstream market.

ABI Research expects that both Wi-Fi Direct- and DLNA-enabled smartphones will grow strongly, at compound average growth rates (CAGR) of 63 percent and 23 percent, respectively, through 2016.

However, home networks will grow at only 4 percent -- which shows a clear disconnect between smartphone capability and use of home networks.

"Although Wi-Fi connectivity is ubiquitous in smartphones, and the number of wireless home networks is growing steadily in developed markets, network configuration remains challenging for the average consumer," adds Fodale.

There are, however, alternatives. The cloud services offered by Amazon, Google and Apple allow consumers direct access to both user-generated and licensed media.

"If they are easier and more convenient for consumers, mobile cloud services could completely bypass the need for integration with home networks or entertainment equipment," says mobile device practice manager Kevin Burden.