Digital Lifescapes

comScore released data showing that 172 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in December for an average of 14.6 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in nearly 5.2 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 December with 144.8 million unique viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 53.1 million viewers. In one year since its launch, VEVO has steadily grown to reach 50.6 million viewers in December, with much of its viewing being driven by VEVO on YouTube. AOL, Inc. maintained the fourth position with 48.6 million viewers, followed by Viacom Digital with 45.9 million. Google Sites had the highest number of viewing sessions with 1.9 billion, and average time spent per viewer at 274 minutes, or 4.6 hours. Americans viewed 5.9 billion video ads in December, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressio

As I mentioned in a recent post , web-enabled consumer electronics (CE) device shipments are forecast to grow six fold -- surpassing 230 million installed units by 2014, with the majority of these in North America and Europe, according to the latest market study by In-Stat. Many people that purchase these CE products have already discovered, and others soon will, that the essential foundation for distributing multimedia content -- particularly high-definition video -- throughout your residence is an adequately provisioned home network. To date, much of the market emphasis on home networking options has focused on the apparent convenience of wireless solutions -- in particular, Wi-Fi multiport routers. If your residence is relatively small and on one level, then the chances of having good wireless signal coverage are likely in your favor. Quest for High Speed and Performance However, signal strength can be negatively impacted by a number of factors, including the construction of

eMarketer reports that according to the results of a recent market study of business-to-business (B2B) marketers, traditional online tactics are still important. Just over half of B2B marketers surveyed told BtoB Magazine their budgets would go up this year, but by less than 15 percent. The primary marketing goal was customer acquisition (69%), with the greatest number of respondents expected spending increases for online (78%). In contrast, 44 percent of the survey respondents said they would be spending more on events and 36 percent said more on direct mail. Online, B2B marketers were most likely to report planned increases in spending on their websites and email programs, followed by social media. These results differed from those of a survey by RSW/US. Among that group, 65 percent planned to spend more on social media, followed by 47 percent on email. Overall, more than two-thirds of B2B marketers already used social media marketing, where the main focus of marketing

Faster communication networks, improved smartphone designs, combined with an avalanche of new apps, games and entertainment have resulted in a steady and increasingly rapid growth in mobile content consumption. But mobile content markets vary in their characteristics and maturity, just as the companies considering mobile content marketing vary in their goals and readiness. The conclusion from a recent ABI Research market study: some companies should push ahead with monetizing mobile content as soon as possible, while others should wait a little before entering the market. "Digital game publishers, music companies, video producers, news outlets, and app developers should move ahead, if they haven't already," says ABI Research practice director Neil Strother. They have the expertise, they have the content, and mobile consumers are already enthusiastic. On the other hand, non-media companies -- especially those without suitable content at hand -- should take a breat

The global adoption of web-enabled consumer electronics (CE) devices is growing rapidly and includes a wide variety of new products. Typically, web-enabled CE devices can execute app widgets, small software application programs that directly access an online content site -- such as Netflix, Amazon VOD or YouTube. Smart TV applications, from a multitude of independent software developers, are expected to proliferate over the next five years. As a result, web-enabled CE device shipments are forecast to grow six fold -- surpassing 230 million installed units by 2014, with the majority of these in North America and Europe, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . "Consumer adoption of online applications, using web-enabled CE devices, will be regionalized, or in some cases, country-specific," says Keith Nissen, Principal Analyst at In-Stat. For example, in China, there is very little licensed video entertainment content available for delivery over the Internet. In

According to the latest market study by MRG, Inc. , and based upon investment data from 875 IPTV service providers, the rate of growth of global IPTV operators continues at a rate of over 10 new Operators per quarter -- with about 50 percent of those in North America. That said, given the phenomenal performance of the Netflix business model , can traditional pay-TV operators in a highly-saturated market -- such as the U.S. -- maintain a positive outlook to informed industry analysts? With the 20 vendor acquisitions in 2010, the global IPTV industry is primed for a transition. The total value of the 10 reported financial transactions was $1.95 billion. If the other 10 unreported deals were added, the overall value of the transactions would be well over $2 billion. According to MRG, in 2011 vendors and service providers also are starting to embrace Over-the-Top (OTT) video services, as well as other forms of online entertainment options in order to provide value to consumers who ar

Last year, interacting with others online about TV content was named one of the ten emerging social applications by MIT Technology Review. Why? The activity could leverage online services, such as Facebook and Twitter, with the potential to rebuild fragmented TV audiences. With Facebook now having over 500 million active users, and Twitter over 100 million, socail media has gained significant mass. Moreover, Facebook revenue is approaching $1.1 billion in 2010, about double its 2009 revenue. Many consumers are using social media to connect with entertainment, like movies and TV, thereby creating the new product category -- often called Social TV. It's about using social media applications with a tablet or smartphone while simultaneously watching video content. Already, Nielsen has reported that 59 percent of U.S. Internet users browse the Internet and watch TV simultaneously. And, this number is sure to grow, especially among younger consumers -- who have grown up with smartp

2010 was an eventful year for the Over-the-Top (OTT) video market. There have been major developments in the retail segment, the Service Provider (SP) segment and the Internet segment. Some of these developments have been successful, while others are still a work in progress. According to the latest market study by MRG, Inc ., they now forecast that the global growth of OTT video services will exceed $1 billion in 2010 and $20 billion in 2014 -- based on over 40 OTT service operators and device vendors profiled in their study. "This is the most complete available analysis of connected OTT smart devices offering both live and on-demand video services," says Mike Galli, MRG Analyst. "It's a comprehensive guide to the next generation of smart home devices for video services connected via the Internet." Some of the case studies presented actually show how these services enhance the incumbent IPTV operator's broadband revenue with relatively no or low inves

The media-buyer mentality is still pervasive with most marketers. Given what we know about the typical ROI results from advertising, when compared to quality editorial content publication, why do marketers spend their budgets on under-performing ads? It's easier to buy advertising placements than create meaningful new content that appeals to your customers and prospects. Moreover, instead of adapting to the interactive engagement model of social networks, most legacy marketers would much rather purchase display advertising than invest the time to participate online. Their apathy has created a windfall for Facebook, and other social networks, as advertising budgets merely shift from traditional media to social media platforms. U.S. marketers will spend $3.08 billion to advertise on social networking sites this year, according to the latest market study by eMarketer . Spending will be up 55 percent over the $1.99 billion advertisers devoted to social networks in 2010 and will

Awareness of the numerous applications of tablet computers is at an all time high, thanks in part to the Apple iPad launch. After close to a decade of negligible demand, the tablet market is finally starting to gain some mainstream user appeal. So, what exactly do future owners say they plan to use a tablets for, once they get their hands on one? No, there's not an app for that, but there is a market study. New market research from In-Stat identifies the top-three ranked uses for future media tablet owners as -- email, personal information management, and multimedia consumption (audio, video and gaming). "Last year's small crop of tablets was being touted as potential e-readers; a way to compete against the extremely popular Amazon Kindle lineup," says Stephanie Ethier, Senior Analyst at In-Stat. Apparently, this next generation of tablets is clearly being marketed as consumer multimedia consumption devices -- positioned to compete squarely against the Apple

The worldwide PC market continued to slow in the fourth quarter of 2010 (4Q10) due to a softening consumer market, competing products like media tablets, and strong year ago sales. Despite a holiday season marked by a long promotion cycle and highly competitive price points, the global PC market saw shipments rise only a modest 2.7 percent year on year during 4Q10, according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). Fourth quarter growth was slightly less than a projected increase of 5.5 percent, but shipments of 92.1 million for the quarter still were the largest ever. Total shipments for 2010 reached 346.2 million, an increase of 13.6 percent that was fueled by a strong recovery in the first half of the year. Softening demand in Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) contributed to the slow market with shipment growth falling into single-digits following a recent peak of more than 30 percent a year ago. Other regions were generally in line with expectations

The demand for more hard disc drive (HDD) storage from PC users, game enthusiasts, and video entertainment viewers is keeping the industry growing to the degree that In-Stat forecasts HDD unit shipments will increase to over 1 billion units by 2014. The main drivers of growth have been the notebook PC market, TV set-top boxes, and external storage. "As video has gone digital, demand for storage is found in consumer applications including set-top boxes (STBs), external drives, automotive applications, personal media players, camcorders, home servers, and video cameras," says Norm Bogen, VP, Digital Entertainment at In-Stat . STBs have been a HDD application target since TiVo pioneered TV recordings and playback and Time Shifting. The 3.5" HDDs at 7200 rpm and with capacities starting from 500 GBs to 2 TBs are being offered in this DVR application market. Among consumer applications, external HDDs are the second largest segment behind DVRs and will double in unit v

Voice-over-IP (VoIP) has revolutionized voice communication services over the past several years and has reduced long-distance calling costs for both residential and business broadband subscribers. It's now spreading from the traditional landline applications to the mobile phone user. Usage is on the rise, creating significant opportunity for mobile VoIP gateway equipment suppliers -- as expenditures in this space are expected to soar beyond the $6 billion mark in 2015, according to the latest market study by In-Stat. "Mobile VoIP has only recently begun being implemented in the business environment," says Amy Cravens, Market Analyst at In-Stat . One of the key benefits of mobile VoIP for enterprises is extending desk phone functionality to mobile devices. Business-oriented solutions will essentially enable the user's  mobile phones to become an extension of their desk phones and will deliver, in addition to voice, a unified communications experience -- includi

Subscribers of broadband services continue to grow across the globe, with mobile wireless growth, in particular, exceeding all expectations. The primary driver responsible for the growth of broadband subscribers continues to be the desire to access the Internet -- and the increasing availability of online multimedia content. The growing popularity of bandwidth-intensive applications, such as viewing streamed online video, using IP-based telephony services, and streaming or downloading music files, is directly spurring demand for higher-speed Internet connections -- with global subscribers totaling 763 million in 2010. "From 2007 through 2009, there was a continued growth rate of 25 percent in broadband subscribers worldwide," says Vahid Dejwakh, Industry Analyst at In-Stat . Though this momentum is expected to slowly decrease to 10 percent growth by 2014 as the broadband market matures, there are still some substantial gains to be made. According to the latest market

According to recent eMarketer estimates, 31 percent of mobile phone users -- or 73.3 million people in the U.S. market, currently have a smartphone. Penetration is still growing, and smartphones will be used by 43 percent of mobile phone service subscribers by 2015. As advanced handsets reach more people, mobile phone application adoption has gained new momentum. But application usage still shows evidence of being most popular among the typical early-adopter demographic. Overall, Ask.com and Harris Interactive found that 69 percent of U.S. smartphone owners had downloaded a mobile app as of October 2010. Among men the figure was 74 percent, while just 62 percent of women said they had downloaded apps. Survey respondents ages 35 to 44 were most likely to report having downloaded a mobile app, followed closely by those ages 18 to 24. Overall, app downloads among smartphone users ages 18 to 44 were significantly higher than among older users. Downloading an app was actually a mi

Apple's iPad, Samsung's Galaxy Tab and RIM's PlayBook are the first examples of a rapidly growing new class of portable computer product -- the Media Tablet. Compared with other portable computing devices, Media Tablets are optimized around a limited number of content consumption functions -- such as managing pictures, watching TV shows and movies, listening to music, playing games and accessing the web. It is functions such as these that account for the majority of screen time for many portable computing buyers. According to the latest market study by Generator Research , Apple, along with a range of rival vendors will ship a total of 117 million Media Tablets in 2014. By comparison, shipments of Notebook PCs will exceed 257 million -- but Netbook PC shipments will struggle to reach 48 million. The development of the Media Tablet market will mean that sales of Tablet PCs, which are mostly based on Microsoft software, and Dedicated e-Readers will have fallen by 61 per

Due to advancements in autostereoscopic 3D technology, it's now being utilized to view a variety of video content in mobile devices -- such as high-end smartphones and handheld game consoles. Autostereoscopy is any method of displaying stereoscopic images (adding perception of 3D depth) without the use of special headgear or glasses on the part of the viewer. Because headgear is not required, it is also called glasses-free or glasses-less 3D. As an example of the applications, Nintendo plans to release its first 3D-enabled handheld game console -- called the 3DS -- in the first half of 2011. According to the latest market study by In-Stat , this will be the beginning of what will result in over 11 million unit shipments of 3D-enabled handheld game consoles by 2014. "The uptake of 3D in handheld game consoles will happen more rapidly than in other mobile device segments over the coming year," says Stephanie Ethier at In-Stat. Apparently, this is primarily because t

comScore reported key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending November 2010. Their report ranked the leading mobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and smartphone operating system (OS) platforms in the U.S. market. In summary, the November market study found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall -- with 24.5 percent market share, while RIM continues to be the top smartphone platforms -- with 33.5 percent market share. For the three month average period ending in November, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile phone devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 24.5 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up 0.9 percentage points from the three month period ending in August. LG ranked second with 20.9 percent share, followed by Motorola (17.0 percent), RIM (8.8 percent) and Nokia (7.2 percent). 61.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in Novembe

Most subscribers of traditional pay-TV services have evolved beyond the channel-centric constraints of legacy video entertainment offerings. As a result, global unit shipments of personal video recorder (PVR) products set a new record in 2009, and that benchmark is expected to be eclipsed by 2010 shipments. Fueled by growing consumer demand to time-shift television programming and thereby avoid the inherent limitations of linear programs on broadcast channels, pay-TV service providers are deploying millions of new PVR products each year. In-Stat is forecasting that the global annual PVR product unit shipments will surpass 50 million by 2014. "Historically, the PVR product segment has been a growth market, even though most unit shipments were restricted to just a few countries," says Mike Paxton, Principal Analyst at In-Stat. Over the past year PVR products are becoming more common in places such as Latin America and Eastern Europe, a development that bodes well for t

High-Speed Bluetooth, or Bluetooth 3.0 as it's also known, was designed to elevate Bluetooth connections to higher speed applications. It works by using classic Bluetooth to connect to devices, then Wi-Fi to deliver speeds of up to 24Mbps. The availability of High-Speed Bluetooth via combo chips with classic BT improves its chances of success. However, a new potential alternative -- Wi-Fi Direct -- allows peer-to-peer connections between Wi-Fi devices. If Wi-Fi Direct succeeds it could eliminate the need for Bluetooth 3.0 altogether, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . "Standard Wi-Fi is increasingly common in many Bluetooth target markets," says Brian O'Rourke, Principal Analyst at In-Stat. Until recently, lack of peer-to-peer connectivity was the most significant weakness of Wi-Fi in those markets. Wi-Fi Direct addresses that weakness and, because there is significant application overlap in PCs and mobile phones, it is a very real threat to the

eMarketer reports that executives are taking time to view business-oriented video, according to the findings of a market study by Forbes Insights. In some cases, they may prefer video content to text -- for learning about new products and services. A majority of businesspeople surveyed by Forbes in October 2010 said they watched more online video than a year earlier. Nearly 60 percent of all respondents said they would watch video before reading text on the same webpage, and 22 percent said they generally liked watching video more than reading text for reviewing business information. Three-quarters of all executives said they watched work-related videos on business websites at least once a week, and more than half did the same on YouTube. Video can be highly effective for vendor marketing. The executives surveyed reported taking a wide variety of actions after watching online videos, with about two-thirds visiting vendor websites subsequent to viewing and more than half searchi

While the local venue growth of Wi-Fi hotspots has been, and continues to be, a leading market indicator, usage growth has been phenomenal. As an example, in the U.S. market AT&T reported a fivefold increase from 1Q09 to 1Q10. Other broadband service providers have experienced similarly strong growth in usage. In-Stat now forecasts that worldwide annual hotspot connects will grow to over 11 billion by 2014. "Venue growth will begin to wane over the next several years as operator networks reach a critical mass and desirable locations become saturated. Growth in usage is expected to remain strong over the forecast period," says Amy Cravens, Market Analyst at In-Stat. In the past, usage growth has largely been tied to venue growth -- i.e., the more venues the more usage -- and the rate of usage per venue was fairly constant. Going forward, however, usage growth will be driven by increases in connects per day at each venue. This usage and application is a result, at

BT, the British telecom company, is facing a big challenge in 2011 -- delivering its new superfast broadband service, to at least half a million UK homes. Point Topic forecasts that the number of telephone lines carrying superfast broadband in the UK will leap from only about 45,000 today to over 600,000 by the end of the year. "BT has to reach numbers like this to show that their investment in superfast broadband is credible," claims Tim Johnson, Chief Analyst at Point Topic. "They have to show both that the demand is there and that they have the technology to supply it. It’s going to be very exciting to see if they manage it." If Point Topic is right, then only 3 percent of all broadband lines in the UK will be superfast, getting speeds of over 25Mbps -- using fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) or fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) by the end of 2011. Another 200,000 or so (about 1 percent) will be paying for the Virgin Media 50Mbps service over the cable TV provider'

Residential Gateways continued their growth within the broadband service provider customer premise equipment (CPE) market during the third quarter of 2010 -- rising 4.9 percent from the previous quarter and 43.2 percent from a year ago. Residential Gateway devices represented nearly 40 percent of all broadband CPE shipments in 3Q10, according to the latest market study by In-Stat . "The overall broadband CPE market grew for the 2nd consecutive quarter in 3Q10 and, as in last quarter, the growth is primarily a result of increases in Residential Gateway shipments," says Brad Shaffer, Industry Analyst at In-Stat. This growth trend is likely to continue for the next several cycles. In-Stat's latest market study found the following: - In 3Q10, 30.3 million broadband CPE units were shipped, a 1.7 percent increase from the previous quarter and a 5.1 percent increase from the same quarter last year. - Cable modem unit shipments were up 10.7 percent from the previous

Mobile SMS has proven to be a significant success ever since it started to show its first signs of adoption in the early 1990s. So much so that next year, according to ABI Research estimates, more than seven trillion SMS messages will be sent worldwide, from nearly 4.2 billion mobile subscriptions. Messaging is also more prevalent among younger mobile phone service subscribers, and as they replace older subscribers, messaging will get a further boost. Messaging includes four types of communication: SMS, MMS, mobile email and Instant Messaging. SMS is being increasingly regarded as something of a commodity by users, due to falling delivery costs and high competition. According to ABI industry analyst Aapo Markkanen, "When these trends towards commoditization are combined with the wider adoption of mobile email and IM services, the revenue proportion of SMS and MMS against the market total is expected to decline." Email has the advantage of familiarity for many consume

Informa Telecoms & Media recently revealed the top ten anticipated trends during 2011 -- for the telecoms and media sectors -- at its annual Industry Outlook event in London, England. "We have identified the key trends across our research areas that we think will shape the converging global telecoms and media markets over the next 12 months. In addition, our annual industry survey gave us some insight into how the industry feels about the issues most likely to dominate the landscape in 2011," says Mark Newman, Chief Research Officer. 1. Operators choose a smartphone platform strategy The popularity of smartphone devices has led mobile operators, developers and handset manufacturers alike to re-focus on this device. Operators are trying to decide whether to build their own platforms or accept that the Internet and OS players will dominate. The outcome of this decision will determine who are the winners and losers. 2. Democratization of mobile smartphones In

In December, Cisco Systems launched the Cisco Connected 360 Apple iPad app -- the on-the-move resource for Service Providers -- that's part of a growing trend where companies are co-creating and packaging content intended for consumption on new multimedia-enabled mobile devices. eMarketer reports that business executives have been reliant on a mobile phone for years, giving them a lifeline to their work while away from the office. Moreover, as smartphones become entrenched into all aspects of life, and more tech-savvy executives move up the ranks, opportunities for business-to-business (B2B) marketers are improving. Among C-suite executives surveyed in October 2010 by Forbes Insights, 82 percent had a smartphone -- far above smartphone penetration in the population as a whole. For a majority of executives, their mobile device is considered their primary business communications tool. The oldest survey respondents were the group least comfortable with making a business purch