Digital Lifescapes

If there's a limit to the upside growth potential of online video consumption, then apparently it's still nowhere in sight. comScore released data showing that 184 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in October for an average of 21.1 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience viewed 42.6 billion videos, representing an all-time high. Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in October with 161 million unique viewers and reached a record high of 20.9 billion videos viewed. Facebook.com ranked second with 59.8 million viewers, followed by VEVO with 57 million, Microsoft Sites with 49.1 million and Viacom Digital with 48.2 million. More than 42 billion videos were viewed during the month, with the average viewer watching a record 21.1 hours. Google Sites demonstrated the highest engagement with 7.1 hours per viewer. Americans viewed 7.5 billion video ads in October, with Hul...

comScore reported U.S. retail e-commerce spending for the first 25 days of the November through December 2011 holiday season. To-date, $12.7 billion has been spent online, marking a 15 percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. Black Friday (November 25) saw $816 million in online sales, making it the heaviest online spending day to date in 2011 and representing a 26 percent increase versus Black Friday 2010. Thanksgiving Day (November 24), while traditionally a lighter day for online holiday spending, achieved a strong 18 percent increase to $479 million. "Despite some analysts' predictions that the flurry of brick-and-mortar retailers opening their doors early for Black Friday would pull dollars from online retail, we still saw a banner day for e-commerce with more than $800 million in spending," said comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni. With brick-and-mortar retail also reporting strong gains on Black Friday, it's clear that the heavy promotion...

Mobile device apps adoption has created many new business opportunities for software developers with unique domain expertise. A case in point is the sports and health related mobile application market. Together they will grow to over $400 million in 2016 -- up from just $120 million in 2010. Much of that growth will be spurred by the ability of mobile handsets to easily connect to wearable devices that in turn can deliver new functionality, accuracy, and appeal to sports and fitness applications. As the mobile handset adds new ways to access and support healthcare applications, it will become increasingly important within the healthcare market -- including home monitoring systems for aging users, personal emergency response services, and remote healthcare monitoring applications. However, sports and fitness will dominate the mobile health application market. "Downloadable apps are moving the sports tracking device market from proprietary devices to mobile phones, b...

Media tablets are the latest consumer electronics device to gain adoption at home and then slowly infiltrate the enterprise IT environment. I first noticed the growing use of tablets by numerous early-adopters at the SXSWi event back in March of this year. While media tablet devices have only been available for a couple of years, the Apple iPad early-adopters have applied their personal experience and brand evangelism to help drive the rapid increases in ownership and usage. eMarketer estimates that by the end of 2011, 33.7 million Americans will use a tablet device at least monthly -- that's a rise of 158.6 percent over last year, the year the iPad was released. Growth will slow to double digits beginning in 2012, but the number of users will rise to nearly 90 million, or 35.6 percent of all internet users, by 2014. eMarketer's previous media tablet forecasts have focused on unit sales and the total installed base of devices. Current estimates now highlight...

Global mobile network service provider subscriptions will reach over six billion by the end of this year. The Asia-Pacific region will account for more than half of the worldwide total in 2011, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. Asia-Pacific added nearly one billion connections from two years ago. That growth is being fueled by rapid economic development in the region -- where increased rollout of mobile network infrastructure, citizen prosperity, and affordability of mobile handsets have increased adoption. That said, less than 18 percent of the three billion connections in Asia-Pacific are 3G and 4G enabled, but that is expected to change quickly as more subscribers create new demand for data services. "Mobile broadband connections will experience rapid growth over the next two years, driven by 3G network rollouts in India and China and 4G deployments in Japan and South Korea,” says Dan Shey, practice director at ABI Research . China successfull...

Did you know that there's a mobile applications (apps) ecosystem in China? Were you aware that the total mobile application downloads for both smartphones and feature phones in China will reach 5.5 billion next year. This is an emerging market opportunity with immense potential. "As the app market in the West gets crowded, content providers and developers are eyeing new markets, such as China, which has the world's largest subscriber base," says Dan Shey, practice director at ABI Research . The ongoing expansion of China's 3G mobile service subscriptions -- which are expected to jump from 102 million in 2011 to 540 million in 2016 -- are driving app download growth. "Feature phones are an important market for app developers, maintaining a large share of the app store user base over the next few years," says ABI research analyst Fei-Feng Seet. "Regardless of device type, successful apps in the Chinese market are those with a local look an...

The UK superfast broadband arena finally has some new players. They're focused on building fiber networks in places that desperately need it. This was encouraging news for the British government and digital industry stakeholders that gathered for the recent NextGen 11 conference in Bristol. "Our regular survey of alternative superfast infrastructure projects shows a second wave of players with new money entering the market," says Annelise Berendt, Senior Analyst at Point Topic . "While BT's plan to increase the pace of its next-generation network rollout, Virgin Media's 100Mbps network upgrade and Fujitsu's challenge for government money are well known, they are joined by several smaller players who have persuaded financiers to put up cash." These new players include CityFibre, Gigaclear, Call Flow Solutions and Hypnotic. "Meanwhile, Kingston Communications, the incumbent in Hull, has begun upgrading areas of its network for fibre-based s...

According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, they now forecast that eReader shipments will reach 67 million by 2016 -- that's nearly triple the 25 million devices they expect to reach the market in 2011. While this is less than half the 55.2 million media tablets that will be shipped this year, the price of the market-leading Amazon Kindle eReader has fallen significantly (from $349 to $79) since it was launched. According to Juniper's assessment, electronic ink technology will ensure that eReaders continue to carve out a significant niche in the portable wireless device ecosystem. Amazon recently announced its first media tablet, the Kindle Fire, which many thought might signal a shift away from dedicated eReaders in its overall device strategy. However, in tandem, it announced three new Kindle eReader models -- two of which include touchscreen technology, borrowed from tablets, and now considered as a must-have feature in many of the new devices. ...

IDC Canada released highlights from its third quarter of 2011 (3Q11) market assessment for the PC industry. The overall Canadian Client PC market proved to be fairly resilient with strong shipment numbers despite a negative year-over-year growth rate of -0.4 percent -- just behind the 0.7 percent growth in the U.S. and 1.3 percent growth worldwide. Total PC shipments in Canada reached 1,921,032 units in 3Q11, which is a mere 6,833 units shy of the all-time high set in Q3 2010. Portable PC market performance posted a strong 5.7 percent year-over-year growth on 1,368,432 units. Portable shipments in 3Q11 were the highest on record and just short of the total shipments for the full year 2005. Portable PC shipments in Canada made up 71.2 percent of all shipments, which is higher than the worldwide share for portable PC shipments of 64.7 percent. As expected, desktop PC shipments were down 12.7 percent year over year with only 552,600 units shipped. HP led the overall Canadian Clien...

Americans are expected to hold back on their winter holiday shopping spend this year, because of rising prices for basic commodities such as food and utility services -- as well as their concerns about the overall economy. In fact, several pre-holiday surveys have already confirmed that shoppers intend to spend either the same or less on purchases during the 2011 holiday season, when compared to last year. That being said, the convenience and anticipated cost-savings from online shopping will likely bring more people on the web for the holidays -- spending a greater share of their gift budget with a variety of online retailers. eMarketer estimates that U.S. retail ecommerce holiday-season sales, which include all retail ecommerce sales during November and December, will rise by 16.8 percent this year to $46.7 billion. "This marks three years of strong online holiday sales and demonstrates the web’s ability to help consumers achieve their holiday gift buying goals i...

Infonetics Research released excerpts from its latest global market study of the telecom service provider sector, which analyzes capital expenditures (capex), operational expenses (opex), revenue per user, and subscriber trends by network operator, operator type, region, and telecom equipment segment. Overall, the 6 percent increase in global telecom carrier capex in 2011 over 2010 is due in large part to the AT&T ramping 4G LTE wireless network deployments, HSPA+ upgrades, and investments in Wi-Fi hotspots for traffic offload. The AT&T increase somewhat offsets the Verizon Wireless slowing of mobile infrastructure spending -- since their 4G LTE deployment peaked earlier this year. In the EMEA region, a capex hike in Africa is partially offsetting delays in telecom investment in Greece, Italy, and Hungary. Asia Pacific remains stable, and in the Caribbean and Latin America (CALA), America Movil and Telefonica -- the two telecom giants that control 75 percent of mobil...

As the year comes to a close, 2011 will be remembered as a difficult time for many players in the video entertainment industry. The growth of online video viewing on-demand, and other significant market transitions, have taken a toll on the pay-TV marketplace. The worldwide satellite set-top box (STB) market has experienced slow to negative growth in recent years as both the number of subscribers and the conversion from SD to HD has changed the market dynamics. That trend is about to change. According to the latest market study by In-Stat , they are forecasting that digital satellite STB unit shipments will grow by nearly 14 percent in 2012. "New technology in many ways is powering the expected uptick in unit shipments," says Michelle Abraham, Research Director at In-Stat. Increasingly powerful processors enable a more personalized viewing experience with downloadable apps and recommendation engines. An improved graphics capability also enhances the user expe...

More people will purchase their first media tablet, or a similar device, this coming holiday season. IDC Canada shared some insightful findings from their latest market study of new device owners. Today, Canadian consumers have many alternatives to choose from when making a media tablet purchase decision. This week, the launch of the Amazon "Kindle Fire" and the Barnes & Noble "Nook Tablet" will likely establish yet another segment within this device category for consumers to explore and consider. IDC now tracks 50 different media tablet models in Canada alone, compared to just a handful at this time last year. The plethora of devices has made it challenging for the average person to evaluate and select the device most suitable for their needs. Yet, in some ways, the market has not changed much at all. For the time being, Apple remains the market leader. But the market is about to evolve -- with a continuous change in the mix of portable device vendors,...

comScore released data outlining the key trends in the U.S. mobile network services marketplace during the three month average period ending September 2011. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile service subscribers. For the three-month period, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.3 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, followed by LG with 20.6 percent share and Motorola with 13.8 percent share. Apple strengthened its position at #4 with 10.2 percent share of mobile subscribers (up 1.3 percentage points), while RIM rounded out the top five with 7.1 percent share. 87.4 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in September -- that's up 12 percent from the preceding three month period. Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform with 44.8 percent market share, up 4.6 percentage points from the prior three-month period. Apple secured ...

Infonetics Research released excerpts from their "Pay-TV Services and Subscribers" report, which forecasts and analyzes the telco Internet protocol television (IPTV), cable video, and satellite video services markets. Back in 2008, cable video made up 59 percent of the global pay-TV market, satellite video brought in 38 percent and IPTV was a much smaller piece of the total addressable video entertainment marketplace. Today, cable operators are being challenged not only by attractive pricing and services from IPTV and satellite operators, but by all over-the-top (OTT) video service providers -- such as Netflix and Amazon On-Demand -- which are prompting some consumers to disconnect traditional services. Based on the study findings, there should be no doubt that the global pay-TV market is in a period of transition. Net new cable video subscribers continue to decline in North America and EMEA, and the small increases in Asia and Central and Latin America are not offse...

eMarketer reports that online retailer sales are growing fast, but the vast majority of consumer spending still takes place offline in local stores. Are retailers prepared to re-design their online presence, optimized for mobile device interaction, to capitalize on their customer's evolving shopping behavior? A large portion of those in-store sales are influenced by online research, most of which is conducted at a consumer's home. But increasingly, consumers are taking advantage of the just-in-time access to information via smartphones -- to perform more of this online research while in a store, or while in transit between stores. "While online sales are measured in billions of dollars, the store sales influenced by web research are worth trillions of dollars," said Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer principal analyst. The desktop has been the prevalent place for cross-channel shoppers to do online research, but there are signs that a significant share of this activity...

Preparations for the London 2012 Olympics includes plans for broadband infrastructure upgrades across the UK. Coverage of the sporting events will create a multitude of digital media content, but the ultimate legacy will be a platform for long-term socioeconomic development within the nation. Point Topic predicts there will be over 10.5 million superfast broadband lines in Britain within the next five years. With another 4.6 million cable broadband connections this means that almost 60 percent of broadband customers -- and more than half of all homes and businesses -- will be using superfast speeds of 30 megabits or more by the end of 2016. "It's still a risky and controversial forecast," says Tim Johnson, Chief Analyst at Point Topic. "It is always difficult to predict something which is expected to grow so fast. If the forecast is correct, the number of superfast lines will grow 50 times over between mid-2011 and the end of 2016." But there's unce...

International Data Corporation Canada ( IDC Canada ) released key highlights from its latest market study of online video entertainment, and provided details from IDC Canada's Online Video Index. At present, the Canadian online video market remains very complex: each service has a different approach and is at a different stage of development. As a result, there are no accepted or proven business models to pave the way. "Innovation will continue to drive this market," said Emily Taylor, Consumer Technology & Services analyst at IDC Canada. "The introduction of new devices and new platforms -- including consumer cloud services -- will strengthen services as well." Competition will only get more intense, given that major brands like Walmart are active in the U.S with online video services -- with its VUDU offering -- and it is only a matter of time before they enter the Canadian market. In the Index, IDC evaluates Canadian online video services across...

There are people in developed nations who simply don't want broadband access to the Internet -- clearly, they're now in the minority. Increasingly the most significant barrier to further broadband adoption around the world is affordability -- or the lack thereof. Now leaders across the telecom sector are working together to bring broadband services into the reach of the digitally deprived, according to the latest market study by Point Topic . With superfast broadband solutions finally reaching the marketplace, it is more important that infrastructure suppliers are able to align their network offerings -- and service providers implement delivery solutions -- that are cost effective. Standards are core to the effort says Point Topic CEO Oliver Johnson. "The next wave of broadband, commonly entitled Superfast, is gathering momentum." With more than half a billion fixed lines already in use and many markets extending the reach of fixed broadband across thei...

comScore released an analysis of mobile financial services usage showing that 32.5 million Americans accessed mobile banking information on their devices at the end of Q2 2011 in June -- representing 13.9 percent of all mobile users. The study also revealed that 12.7 million mobile users reported using banking applications (apps), showing a notable increase of 45 percent from Q4 2010. “The investments in mobile made by financial services institutions, along with the continued growth in smartphone adoption, have had a truly positive effect on the use of mobile financial services,” said Sarah Lenart, comScore vice president for Marketing Solutions. New apps and mobile-enhanced sites have made it easier for customers to seek out financial information using mobile devices. With media tablets gaining popularity in addition to smartphones, financial service institutions can anticipate additional growth in demand. Nearly 14 percent of the total U.S. mobile audience (32.5 million ...

Mobile devices, such as low-cost smartphones and small media tablets, will become the consumer platform of choice for accessing the internet and social networking sites in Latin America (LatAm). In fact, if the mobile social network market continues to develop at the current rate, then the region can achieve 116.8 million mobile social network users by 2015, according to the latest market study by Pyramid Research . Their recent report outlines the current state of mobile social networks in Latin America and the changes that Latin American mobile network operators and device manufacturers need to make -- in order to catch up with the developed world, where mobile social networking is increasing business opportunities. This report discusses those changes and how much progress Latin American service providers have made thus far. Latin America has an extremely high penetration of active social networking site users. Currently, 96 percent of the online population accesses some so...

My recent independent consulting efforts have been focused partly on the research and development of new and emerging media applications -- with multiplatform transmedia projects in particular. The discovery of creative new forms of visual entertainment has been a focal point of my work in this area. Moreover, experimenting with consumer electronics (CE) devices that facilitate increased consumption of online video content has changed my perspective of the future of in-home entertainment. During that exploratory process, I’ve abandoned traditional linear broadcast television -- and fully adopted on-demand service delivery offerings. Streaming online video content to my primary TV set, via a first-generation media player, helped me evolve my perspective of the upside potential for Web-based multimedia. My prior online content experience revolved around my viewing video on a much smaller notebook computer screen. Clearly, a typical PC display is not the best way to consume long-fro...

I've been thinking about the numerous ways that marketers are connecting with their customers and prospects via mobile devices -- smartphones and media tablets. Mobile apps that utilize a digital magazine (or eZine) format are particularly interesting, because they offer the potential to enable new forms of multimedia publishing. Granted, substantive editorial content development is very labor intensive, but I believe that it's more likely to engage a marketer's target stakeholders than the typical mobile advertising campaign. eMarketer reports that U.S. mobile advertising spending will grow 47 percent in 2012 -- reaching $1.8 billion. Search and display -- banners, rich media and video content -- are emerging as the dominant mobile ad formats. “Mobile advertising is no longer a question of if - it's about when,” said Noah Elkin, principal analyst at eMarketer. “A key factor pushing mobile advertising toward the mainstream is that mobile web access is fas...

As more consumers transition to smartphones that are intended for internet access, their device performance expectations evolve -- sometimes in ways that were not anticipated by device manufacturers or mobile network service providers. According to the latest market study by In-Stat , the rapid adoption and growth of smartphones -- and of other mobile computing devices -- have pushed the expectation needle for the ideal feature set to new levels. As a result, most handsets today already include a multitude of features like a digital camera, GPS, email capability, touchscreen, and speakerphone, among others. In-Stat's latest study of U.S. mobile phone service subscribers provides some insight into what features are included in respondents’ ideal phone. Surprisingly, 75 percent of the surveyed respondents included 4G in that category. It appears that the perceived need for greater broadband speed is apparent to most users. “Although 4G is an important feature for ...

Once again, the balance of power has shifted within the mobile ecosystem marketplace. In the second quarter (Q2) of 2011, Google Android overtook Apple iOS to become the market share leader in mobile application (app) downloads. According to the latest market study by ABI Research , the market shares of Android and iOS were 44 percent and 31 percent, respectively. “Android’s open source strategy is the main factor for its success,” says Lim Shiyang, research associate at ABI Research. Being a free and open platform has expanded the Android device install base, which in turn has driven growth in the number of third-party multiplatform and mobile operator app stores. These conditions alone explain why Android is the new leader in the mobile application market. Recent quarterly shipment growth figures also explain Android’s ascent to the top app download position. Apple iPhone shipment growth in Q2 2011 slowed to 9 percent -- from 15 percent a quarter earlier. In contrast...

As the number of mobile phone-based payment users grows worldwide to over 375 million in 2015, the demand for devices enabled with near field communications (NFC) -- the underlying communications technology behind many mobile payment solutions -- will grow as well. According to the latest market study by In-Stat , the adoption of this technology will push global annual shipments of NFC chips to over 1.2 billion by 2015. NFC is a set of technologies that supports wireless communications between two devices in close proximity to each other. An NFC link is very quick to set up, enabling small amounts of data to be exchanged over short distances. This capability is unique compared to other wireless technologies, and it makes NFC an ideal solution where quick exchange of small amounts of data is paramount to a quality user experience -- such as payments made using a mobile device. “As the costs of NFC chips decline, and NFC radios are combined with other chip functions, the...

The next one billion people on the planet who are first-time users of the internet will likely gain access via a smartphone, not a computer. Moreover, the internet offers them the prospect of new hope and socioeconomic advancement. Why? Many of these people are poor, very poor. In most developing nations, the typical Android smartphone -- typically selling for $400 to $500 -- is way out of reach for many consumers that currently have a feature phone or perhaps no phone at all. These potential smartphone owners currently only have one operating system (OS) choice in the low-cost category, (the under-$150 segment) and that is Google Android. Besides, the only mobile service they can afford will most likely be pre-paid. According to the latest market study by In-Stat , they now forecast that unit shipments for low-cost Android smartphones will approach 340 million worldwide in 2015. “The low-cost Android handset segment will cause some fragmentation in the Android platform,” says ...