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Mobile search: creating moments that matter

By on April 27, 2013 in Mobile Devices, Search, Trends and Statistics

The majority of people who use mobile search to find information on consumer items and services have every intention of making a purchase.  In a study (by Nielsen and Google) researchers found that three out of every four searches trigger some sort of follow up action, including further research or a purchasing decision.

Over 400 participants logged their mobile searches over a two week period in Q4 of 2012 and were asked follow up questions by the researchers.

Key findings

  • 73% of mobile searches trigger additional actions
  • 17% of mobile searches occur ‘on the move’; 2% occur in-store
  • 81% of mobile searches are driven by speed and convenience, even when people are at home with access to other devices

Next steps after mobile search

On average each mobile search triggers 1.89 additional actions.  Of the 73% of mobile searchers who carry out follow up activities:

  • 36% went on to perform additional research
  • 25% visited a retailers website
  • 18% shared the information
  • 17% made a purchase

The research also discovered that when people use mobile search they are:

  • 57% more likely to visit a store
  • 51% more likely to make a purchase
  • 39% more likely to call a business
  • 30% more likely to visit a website

Mobile search triggers rapid activity

One of the most striking findings in the research is the speed of follow up activity.

  • 55% of conversions occur within one hour of the original mobile search
  • 85% of all follow up actions occur within five hours of the original search

The report can be accessed here: Mobile search: creating moments that matter.

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Multi-screen trends

By on April 17, 2013 in Mobile Devices, Post

We are living in an increasingly connected and mobile world.  It is critical that we understand how our customers and potential customers are using multiple devices so that we can ensure they are receiving the right content where and when it is most relevant.

Microsoft Advertising surveyed global consumers and identified four types of multi-screen behaviour:

  • Content grazing – the most common multi-screen behaviour, with 68% of those surveyed reporting that they view two screens of unrelated content simultaneously (e.g. reading emails while watching television)
  • Investigative spider-webbing - 57% reported that they view related content on two screens simultaneously
  • Quantum journeys – 46% of consumers report beginning their content journeys on one device and continuing on another
  • Social spider-webbing – 39% of people reported they share and connect with two or more devices – for example watching a TV show and using a second device to tweet, comment or update their status

In the UK Fast Web Media has looked at the TV adverts of 50 brands to explore how many are encouraging multi-screening.  Econsultancy.com summarises the key findings:

  • 48% of the brands included URLs in their adverts
  • 20% mentioned Twitter or hashtags
  • 16% mentioned Facebook ‘likes’
  • 6% sought follow up on YouTube

Extending engagement

Google undertook research exploring the ways in which UK consumers were multi-screening the London Olympics.  They found that 33% of people in the UK were following the Olympics on more than one screen. Those that were using more than one device were averaging many more minutes per day of viewing than single screen viewers – they were watching while they were out of the home and on the move.

The research also found that the Olympics was a stimulus for many consumers to try something new on their smart devices, including live streaming and joining social networks to ‘talk’ about events.  Almost one in three people who attended Olympic events were looking at online content while they were there.  They conclude that stadiums and venues are becoming as ‘porous’ as retail outlets with people sourcing relevant information to enhance their experience.

Digital Europe – the latest figures

By on March 25, 2013 in Mobile Devices, Post, Trends and Statistics, Web Technology & The Cloud

In 1996, 66% of the world’s internet audience was based in the US.  By 2012 87% of the world’s internet audience was based outside the US.  Europe is now the world’s second largest internet audience (after Asia Pacific) with 27% of the total, putting on 7% growth in the last year.

In its latest report (Europe Digital Future in Focus) ComScore analyses the latest European statistics and trends.

Key findings

The internet

  • There are 408 million internet users in Europe
  • Russia accounts for 15% of all of Europe’s internet users
  • Italy (17%) and Russia (15%) have the fastest growth
  • Once again, the UK leads the way in user engagement with an average of just over 37 hours per user per month

Mobile and tablets

  • There are 241 million mobile devices in Europe
  • At the end of 2012 all EU5 countries had crossed the 50% smartphone penetration milestone
    • Of the EU5 countries, Germany has the most mobile devices, followed by:
      • UK
      • Italy
      • France
      • Spain
      • Almost one third of UK page views are made via mobiles or tablets
        • The European average is 20%
        • The most popular smartphone activities are:
          • Accessing personal email
          • Weather reports
          • Social networking
          • Instant messaging services
          • Search

Mobile video

The EU5 has seen rapid growth in the last 12 months

  • Mobile video has grown 162%
  • PC video grew by 5%

Search

  • Google sites account for 86% of Europe’s search engine market
  • The figures show that users are not simply using search engines – they are searching within sites such as Facebook, eBay and Amazon too

Shopping and banking

  • 146 million Europeans visited comparison shopping sites
  • The Netherlands lead the way in internet banking – 66% of all internet users accessed online banking sites.  Only 18.8% of those in Switzerland did so

Newspapers

Taking the UK as a case study, the report looks at increased reach for newspapers via video and mobile.

  • The Sun has increased its reach by 16.9%
  • The Mail Online has increased its reach by 11%

The report also features country scorecards outlining:

  • Top 20 internet sites for each country
  • Top news/information sites
  • Top retail sites
  • Top online banking sites

For more information, see the comScore website.

Mobile apps – what the customer wants

By on March 18, 2013 in Mobile Devices

Smartphone penetration has reached 50% in the US and on average each smartphone user has 41 apps installed (up from 32 on average in 2012).  A billion apps are downloaded from Apple’s App Store every month.

Technology company Compuware conducted a global survey of over 3,500 respondents (in France, Germany, India, Japan, the UK and the US) to find out about their mobile app experiences and expectations.

Key findings

  • 85% prefer mobile apps over mobile websites
  • 55% consider apps more convenient
  • 47% consider apps as faster
  • 40% consider apps easier to browse

Problems with apps

Users are impatient when apps underperform.  Over half the respondents had experienced problems with apps, including crashes and freezes; slow launch times and failure to open.   79% of users would only retry a non-working app once or twice.   Only 16% would try a non-working app more than twice.  The vast majority (84%) also pay attention to app store ratings when making download decisions so bad reviews really matter.

What do users really want?

  • Easy to download and navigate
  • Speed – 80% expect an app to launch in three seconds or less
  • The right options for the device
  • Relevant/personalised information and services
  • Ability to share/recommend via social networks

Key lessons

  • Focus on user satisfaction and engagement – ease of use, optimised design and functionality
  • Focus on ‘fast and reliable’
  • Monitor app performance for all your users
  • Monitor real-user experiences
  • Identify issues via device type/browser type/geography etc

“Businesses that embrace the mobile opportunity, offer the most usable features, and provide the fastest, most consistent performance will emerge as mobile leaders in their category.”

 

The report is free to download from Compuware.

Digital consumers – the rise of the digital multi-tasker

By on March 13, 2013 in Digital Publishing, Mobile Devices, Post, Social Media, Trends and Statistics

KPMG has been researching consumer media behaviour for over five years – during which time we have seen social media go mainstream, the introduction of smartphones and tablets and the rise of digital delivery consumer companies such as Spotify and Netflix.

KPMG’s latest ‘Digital Debate’ report looks at the rise of the ‘digital multi-tasker’ and outlines action points for content providers.  Over 9,000 consumers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Singapore, Spain, the UK and the US were asked about their media consumption patterns.  The report’s key findings include:

An insatiable appetite for media

  • Consumers split their time between traditional and digital/online media
  • People still spend marginally more time offline than online
  • People spend more of their media budget on ‘traditional’ media

However:

  • Spending for every type of digital media in the last year has increased
  • Spending on CDs, DVDs and video games has decreased
  • Ever increasing numbers of people watching mobile/tablet/streaming TV (30+% in Singapore; 14% in the US)
  • These ‘digital multi-taskers’ are interacting with TV in different ways, using second – or even third – screens.

The coming wave of online consumers can accelerate the digital shift

  • An emerging class of ‘mobile first’ media consumers.  Preference for online media is much stronger among the emerging mobile-centric class – particularly prevalent in emerging markets such as Brazil and China.
    • In China most consumers are getting their media via smartphones, tablets of laptops – very few rely on print media

Media and technology companies should cooperate to address this new wave

  • Cooperation across multiple industries is vital if effective new business models are to be found
  • Effective partnerships will ensure everyone will value from the arrangement – including the consumer

The report concludes with some lessons for advertisers that truly resonate for the information professional:

Embrace the new world – some traditional models may still be working (TV may still be making advertising revenues from such big events as The X Factor or major sporting fixtures) BUT that doesn’t mean TV companies can ignore the new digital models.

Use customer metrics – make the most of the digital information available to you to really understand your customers and create stronger relationships

Get to know your digital multi-taskers – and focus on transforming their second screen experiences.

The report is available to download here.

Information security risks of mobile apps

By on November 6, 2012 in Mobile Devices, Post

Increasing numbers of employees are using their own devices (loaded with apps) at work and connecting to their company’s network.  The security specialist firm Bit9 analysed 400,000 mobile apps to explore whether they posed information security risks to organisations.  They discovered:

  • 72% of all Android apps use at least one permission that allows access to private data or control over smartphone functionality
  • 96% of respondents that allow employee-owned device access allow employees to access company email using their personal device.
  • 26% of apps access private information such as email and contacts, with only 2% of apps being from highly trusted publishers.

Although most of these apps are not malicious in intent, they are accessing such private information as GPS location data; phone numbers; contacts and email addresses.  Information can be gathered when you use any number of mobile apps including a phone flashlight or the mobile game Angry Birds (which has been downloaded over a billion times).

This issue of mobile privacy will become increasingly important as the numbers of people accessing the mobile internet continues to grow.  An article in the New York Times discusses this legal ‘grey’ area, pointing out that the majority of users simply do not read – or understand the implications of – privacy policies, even when such policies exist.  The European Union, which is currently discussing plans to bring web businesses into data protection rules, can expect to be challenged by the big companies for which advertising revenue is so important.

Sources: TheAppside.com; The New York Times via @Marydeeo

A new era of TV viewing

By on September 11, 2012 in Content, Mobile Devices, Trends and Statistics

A new report by Ericsson ConsumerLab explores the changing TV viewing habits of consumers around the world.

The researchers carried out in-depth interviews in the US and Sweden and 12,000 online interviews (1000 per country) in Brazil, Chile, China, Germany, Italy, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK and the US.

Although scheduled, broadcast TV is still dominant, the consumption of on-demand content is steadily increasing.  Almost 60% of consumers are using on-demand services at least once a week.  This increase is, at least partly, being driven by the purchase of easy to use smart TVs which mean people can take up new viewing habits without learning new skills.

Other key findings

  • A move away from separate screens for reach room to one main TV supplemented by mobile devices (‘one TV, many devices’)
  • Mobile viewing outside of the home is still an emerging behaviour – but is growing
  • ‘Linear’ (or traditional) TV viewing is increasingly being used for live events or even ‘background viewing’.  On-demand services offer focused viewing
  • 62% of people use social networking while watching TV at least once a week – and this number is growing
  • There are national differences in paid TV subscription trends.  Spending in China is increasing; spending in the US is decreasing
  • The importance of content discovery.  Rather than being driven by schedulers, consumers are using a number of sources to evaluate what they want to watch – from personal and social recommendations to IMDb

The report concludes that consumers are struggling to merge their TV viewing services and identifies opportunities for aggregated services that can help consumers in the same way that music aggregators do – for example by integrating social aspects of content consumption, or helping consumers discover new content.

Meanwhile, EU-funded researchers have been looking at how broadcasting and social media can be brought together to create a single viewer experience.  The project explored such initiatives as the use of smartphones as TV remote controllers and the development of personalised and contextualised advertising.  The project also developed the NoTube TV API, which can but used by broadcasters to make programming more interactive.

You can read more about the results of the EU project here.

 

New teaching and new learning – universities in 2020

By on August 22, 2012 in Academic Libraries, Mobile Devices, Post, Public Policy

Higher education is as susceptible to technology disruption as any other information-centric business.  Communications technologies mean that knowledge transfer need no longer be tethered to a physical university campus.  Simultaneously steadily increasing fees mean that customers are questioning the value for money and quality of higher education while the current economic climate means that a college degree is no longer a guarantee of future employability.  New competitors are entering the market – and not just in the US.

The Pew Research Center has released a report on technology disruption and higher education.  The research presented two future (2020) scenarios to which selected invited experts and members of their trusted networks responded.

Scenario one presented a future in which higher education was not significantly different to today, although some new technologies such as teleconferencing, personal wireless smart devices were more widely adopted (39% broadly agreed with this scenario).

Scenario two presented a future in which higher education was transformed.  This transformed landscape includes a significant move to individualised learning activities;  hybrid classes; mass adoption of teleconferencing to leverage expert resources (60% of respondents broadly agreed with this scenario).

Several key themes are discussed in the report including the need for universities to be highly adaptive and innovative if they are to thrive. Several respondents referred to the slow rate of change in the current system.

New teaching

  • less demand for traditional lecture based courses
  • increased demand for individualised learning
  • increasingly connected student body
  • more hybrid education – a blending of online and offline
  • improved virtual environments
  • face to face for ‘the privileged few’
  • increased focus on employability
  • a move to competency based education

Technological innovation

  • web based delivery to meet growing global demands and provide value for money
  • more ‘tele-education’
  • distance learning integrated with social networking

New business models

  • structural changes to coincide with retirement of baby boomers
  • increasing corporate involvement
  • open research
  • push for value for money by consumers

New learning

  • collaborative education and peer to peer learning
  • a focus on how to learn and lifelong learning and self education
  • and, of particular interest to information professionals, an examination of how tools can enhance students critical thinking and information skills acquisition skills

The report is available, free of charge, from the Pew website.

 

TV and video viewing trends

By on July 2, 2012 in Mobile Devices

Viewing TV and other video content on tablets has doubled according to research by NPD DisplaySearch.  And it’s not just tablets that consumers are using.  The findings indicate that over 70% of consumers are using tablets, notebooks, smartphones, desktop computers or MP3 players to view TV/video content.

14 regional markets were surveyed, including the BRIC countries and France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the UK.

There was particularly strong growth in using tablet devices in Turkey, Germany, France and the US.

Meanwhile, a report by the video publishing platform Ooyala has analysed viewing data from over 200 million video views per month.  It too highlights the increase in tablet viewing figures.  The report also highlights the following key trends:

Growth in mobile video sharing – mobile video gained a huge share of overall time spent watching videos in the first quarter. Smartphones gained 41 percent, while tablets grew 32 percent.

Longer videos – viewers are watching longer videos on all devices, but especially mobile devices.  Users are also spending more time per video play on both smartphones and tablets.

High engagement on tablets – 30% of tablet viewers view at least 75% of the videos.  The use of tablets spikes after 6pm, as people get home from work.

The Ooyala report is updated quarterly and it will be interesting to keep an eye on how these viewing trends develop.

(For more analysis on the Ooyala figures, see the go-Digital blog.

Students – leading the way or falling behind?

By on June 7, 2012 in Academic Libraries, Digital Publishing, E-books, eBooks and eReaders, Mobile Devices

Two interesting pieces of research look at how students are interacting with digital information and e-resources.

A recent CourseSmart survey finds that more students are bringing laptops to class than a print textbook.  Only 5% said that a print textbook was the most important item in their bag.  90% of respondents said that the use of digital devices, e-readers etc helps them to save study time.  68% estimate they are saving at least two hours a day by using technology.

On average, students are using three devices per day – and 40% of them claim they can’t go for more than ten minutes without using some form of digital technology.

Easybib, a service which creates citations, has analysed the websites that students use most frequently – and discovered that four of the top ten are user generated sites including YouTube, Answers.com and Wikipedia.

Easybib has created an infographic (available here) which shows the key role of librarians in helping develop students information literacy skills.  The company will also work with the American Library Association to spread awareness of the importance of digital/information literacy.