Digital Lifescapes

The American mobile communications ecosystem continues to evolve and expand, partly at the expense of the legacy wireline telecom segment -- as more attention is being directed towards this growth-oriented marketplace. comScore released the key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending June 2012. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 25.6 percent market share. Google Android continued to grow its share in the U.S. smartphone market, accounting for 51.6 percent of smartphone subscribers, meanwhile Apple captured just 32.4 percent. For the three-month average period ending in June, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.6 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, followed by LG with 18.8 percent share. Apple ranking third with 15.4 percent of mobile subscribers (that's...

I'm eagerly awaiting my review copy of a new book entitled "Managing Content Marketing: The Real-World Guide to Creating Passionate Subscribers to Your Brand" by Robert Rose and Joe Pulizzi. This book builds on the foundation of "Get Content, Get Customers" that Joe Pulizzi co-wrote with Newt Barrett at the outset of the content marketing phenomenon, back in early 2008. Today, I'm sensing that savvy marketers everywhere are ready to move their budgets away from under-performing advertising, to something that's potentially more appealing to their customers. Yes, it's about time. eMarketer reports that with the average cost-per-lead increasing -- and too many marketers competing for the same buyer's attention -- traditional tactics are no longer enough to influence the sale. Business-to-business (B2B) companies are looking to content marketing as a way to proactively boost their return on investment. “Informative, nonpromotional content i...

comScore reported key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending March 2011. Their latest market study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers. For the three month average period ending in March 2011, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 24.5 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers. LG ranked second with 20.9 percent share, followed by Motorola (15.8 percent) and RIM (8.4 percent). Apple continued to gain share following the launch of the Verizon iPhone -- up 1.1 percentage points to reach 7.9 percent of subscribers. 72.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in March 2011 -- up 15 percent from the preceding three-month period. Google Android grew 6.0 percentage points to 34.7 percent market share, while RIM ranked second with 27.1 percent. Apple grew 0.5 points to 25.5 percent share, followed by Microsoft (7.5 per...

comScore reported key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending January 2011. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers. 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 24.9 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers -- up 0.7 percentage points from the three month period ending in October. LG ranked second with 20.8 percent share, followed by Motorola (16.5 percent), RIM (8.6 percent) and Apple (7.0 percent). 65.8 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in January 2011, up 8 percent from the preceding three-month period. Google Android captured the #1 ranking among smartphone platforms for the first time in January with 31.2 percent market share. RIM ranked second with 30.4 percent market share, followed by Apple with 24.7 percent. Microsoft (8.0 percent) and Palm (3.2 percent) rounded out the top five. In January, 68....

comScore released data on key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending August 2010. Their report ranked the leading mobile OEM and smartphone operating system (OS) platforms in the U.S. market -- according to their share of current mobile subscribers. 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 23.6 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up 1.2 percentage points from the preceding three month period. LG ranked second with 21.2 percent share, followed by Motorola (18.8 percent share), RIM (9.0 percent share, up 0.3 percentage points) and Nokia (7.6 percent share). 55.7 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in August, up 14 percent from the May period. RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 37.6 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 24.2 percent share. Google continues to gain...

The U.S. will add more mobile users -- about 80 million subscribers -- than any other developed nation. As a result, mobile revenue will surpass all wireline services by end of 2015, according to the latest market study by Pyramid Research . With an estimated $362 billion in service revenue in 2010, the U.S. will continue to be more than twice as large as the next most sizable markets -- Japan and China -- throughout the forecast period. Over the next five years, Pyramid expects total communications service revenue to grow at a CAGR of 2.53 percent to reach $410.2 billion in 2015. By 2015, mobile broadband computing will comprise about 40 percent of total mobile subscription net adds. "We believe embedded 3G, WiMax, and LTE devices, including M2M communications, e-readers, and telematics, will continue to drive adoption after the market exceeds 100 percent penetration," says Ozgur Aytar, Research Director at Pyramid Research. All of the major broadband service provi...

comScore reported key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending May 2010 compared to the preceding three-month average. For the 3 month average period ending in May, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 22.4 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, up one percentage point from the preceding three month period. LG ranked second with 21.5 percent share, followed by Motorola (21.2 percent share), RIM (8.7 percent share, up 0.5 percentage point) and Nokia (8.1 percent share). 49.1 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in May, up 8.1 percent from the corresponding February period. RIM was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 41.7 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, followed by Apple with 24.4 percent share and Microsoft with 13.2 percent. Google saw significant growth during the period, up 4.0 percentag...

Being a truly distinctive online business marketer in North America may actually be less difficult than you might imagine. Despite social media marketing's supposed popularity, many business-to-business (B2B) companies are apparently laggards. Moreover, eMarketer reports that according to a recent market study few marketers have mastered the required skills -- 73 percent of B2B respondents who utilize popular online tools have less than two years of social media marketing experience. March 2010 research from marketing automation firm Genius.com and BtoB magazine found that about one-half of business-oriented marketers are not using content marketing tools -- such as blogging and microblogging platforms. The consumer-focused Facebook social network site was more popular, with nearly three-fifths of survey participants -- and business-focused social network LinkedIn was used by three-quarters of B2B marketers. Researchers say social networks offer B2B companies a variety of...

eMarketer reports that business-to-business (B2B) sales cycles are longer than a year ago, but sales pipelines are growing, according to the results of a market study by OneSource. Traditional outbound prospecting still produces the most qualified leads for U.S. B2B sales representatives, but companies are relying more on their corporate Website to attract new customers. Social networking sites were rated toward the low end of the scale -- though they were as helpful in lead generation as direct mail. According to Onesource, the most effective social network for prospecting was LinkedIn, by a wide margin. The business-oriented site was rated 3.1 out of 5, compared with ratings of 2 for blogs, 1.9 for Facebook and 1.8 for Twitter. The effectiveness of LinkedIn translated into significant increases in usage. Nearly one-half of respondents said they were now using the site more for prospecting and research than a year before. Around one-fifth of those polled were also increasing...

comScore reported key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month period between November 2009 and February 2010. Their report ranked the leading mobile phone manufacturers and smartphone platforms in the U.S. market. In the 3 month average ending in February, 234 million Americans age 13 and older were mobile subscribers, with device manufacturer Motorola ranking as the top OEM at a 22.3 percent share of U.S. mobile subscribers. LG ranked second with 21.7 percent share, followed by Samsung (21.4 percent share), Nokia (8.7 percent share) and RIM (8.2 percent share). 45.4 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones in an average month during the December to February period, up 21 percent from the three months ending November 2009. RIM (BlackBerry) was the leading mobile smartphone platform in the U.S. with 42.1 percent share of U.S. smartphone subscribers, rising 1.3 percentage points versus the prior period. Apple (iPhone) ranked second with 25.4 percent sha...

My big take-away from the South-by-Southwest (SXSW) Interactive festival this year was a further validation that big media companies -- traditional publishers of print content in particular -- are still searching for a way to halt their collective slide into eventual insolvency. Surely, given their vast resources, the very best big publishers are capable of evolving their business model. At least, that's their hope for the future. But, how does an innovation-challenged organization avoid extinction when unrelenting disruption of the prior status-quo continues to erode their once dominant market position? As I attended the various panels related to this topic, I was reminded of the book " Inside Project Red Stripe " by Andrew Carey -- the story of how six of The Economist's cleverest people tried to create the "next big thing" online and essentially failed, after investing six months in idea exploration. Hope in the Trust Economy Big media companies...

Compendium announced results from its Corporate Blogging and Social Media Trends Survey. They gathered data from 266 companies about blogging traffic, visitor trends, and their business related Twitter usage. The results counter the commonly held belief that business blogs have a core group of loyal readers. The study found that almost two-thirds of respondents reported more than 80 percent of all blog traffic was "first-time" visitors. "As more traffic is being driven to corporate blogs through organic searches and more first-time visitors are landing on blogs, companies need to develop blog and social media content that is appropriate for this audience in order to be effective," said Chris Baggott, CEO and co-founder of Compendium. Therefore, a keyword-optimized blogging and social media content strategy geared towards first-time visitors is a valuable tool for marketers to increase conversions. Of the B-to-B companies surveyed, 64 percent of respondents said tha...

Will consumers pay for online news and entertainment they now receive at no cost? In its latest market study, Nielsen asked more than 27,000 consumers across 52 countries, and the answer is maybe they will, maybe they won't. As expected, the vast majority (85 percent) prefer that free (advertiser or sponsor supported) content remain that way. Online content for which consumers are most likely to pay -- or have already paid -- are those they normally pay for offline, including theatrical movies, music, games and select videos such as current television shows. Consumers are least likely to pay for content that is essentially homegrown online, often by other consumers. These include social communities, podcasts, consumer-generated videos and blogs. In between are an array of news formats -- newspapers, magazines, Internet-only news sources and radio news and talk shows -- created by professionals, relatively expensive to produce and, in the case of newspapers and magazines, commonly ...

Web users spent more than five and half hours on social networking sites in December 2009, an 82 percent increase from 2008 -- when users were spending just over three hours on social networking sites, according to the latest market study by The Nielsen Company . Globally, social networks and blogs are the most popular online category when ranked by average time spent, followed by online games and instant messaging. With 206.9 million unique visitors, Facebook was the top global social networking destination in December 2009 and 67 percent of global social media users. Time on site for Facebook has also been on the rise, with global users spending nearly six hours per month on the site. People in the U.S. continue to spend more time on social networking and blog sites as well, with total minutes increasing 210 percent year-over-year and the average time per person increasing 143 percent. Year-over-year growth in average time spent by U.S. users, for both Facebook and Twitter.com, outpa...

eMarketer reports that business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) marketers actively adopted social media in 2009. According to research from Business.com, however, the two types of marketers have very different social site usage patterns. The market study found that those B2B companies already using social media were much more active in the space than their B2C counterparts -- especially microblogging, discussions on third-party sites, blogging and monitoring company mentions. B2Cs were ahead in a few areas -- such as social media advertising, user ratings and reviews, and online communities for target customers. B2B firms were more likely overall to maintain a social network profile. They were also managing profiles across more social sites and were significantly more likely to be present on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. In contrast, B2C companies were more likely to use Facebook and MySpace. B2B was more active in measuring most social success metrics as well. B2C f...

eMarketer reports that results of a BtoB magazine survey indicate that social media marketing will be of more importance to business-to-business (B2B) marketers in 2010. However, it's not clear how many B2B marketers are fully utilizing digital marketing tools. Website, e-mail and search spending are online tactics likely to increase, and social media is close behind. Six in ten B2B marketers planned to increase their spending on social media marketing in 2010. Fifty-four percent of respondents currently use social media for marketing. That was up 9 percentage points from November 2008 and about 4 points from June 2009. "Thought leadership" was the main intended purpose, though about one-half hoped to "generate leads" through social media activities. That said, what about all the other stages of the B2B buying-cycle? As an example, most enterprise IT leaders seek out information and guidance to procure complex technology products and services, and yet few vendo...

In its latest market assessment, eMarketer predicts an 8.2 percent decline in U.S. total media advertising spending in 2009, after a 3.6 percent decrease last year. However, some channels continue to grow -- including word-of-mouth marketing. According to PQ Media, much this growth is due to the rise of new media channels, such as blogs, social networks and other social media sites. The research firm also found that U.S. word-of-mouth marketing spending on online communities increased 26.6 percent in 2008 to $119 million. After 37.6 percent compound annual growth from 2003 to 2008, PQ Media predicts total U.S. word-of-mouth marketing spending will continue growing. They estimate an increase of 14.5 percent compounded annually between 2008 and 2013. Total word-of-mouth marketing spending for 2009 is estimated at more than $1.7 billion, a 10.2 percent year-over-year increase. Consumer goods firms were the biggest spenders on word-of-mouth marketing in 2008, with a 17.4 share of the tota...

Visited by over two-thirds of the global online population, member communities -- which includes both social networks and blogs -- has become the fourth most popular online category, ahead of personal email. It is growing twice as fast as any of the other four largest sectors (search, portals, PC software and email), according to the latest Nielsen market study. About 67 percent of the global online population already accesses member community sites, and their increasing adoption show no sign of slowing. Social networking will continue to alter not just the global online landscape, but the consumer experience at large. According to the Nielsen report, Facebook is visited monthly by three in every 10 people online across the nine markets in which Nielsen tracks social networking use. However, Orkut in Brazil has the largest domestic online reach (70 percent) of any social network in these markets. The report provides insights into the changing size and composition of the global social n...

Marketers of technology products and services have good reason to explore social media marketing techniques. Now eMarketer reports that corporations are finding that blogs can be instrumental tools for building solid relationships and gaining meaningful influence with their customers. Clearly, blogs are increasingly popular with both online consumers and people involved in business related procurement. According to an August 2008 study by BuzzLogic and JupiterResearch, there has been 300 percent growth rate in monthly blog readership over the past four years. In fact, nearly one-half of the online population reported reading blogs. The study also found that blogs have more impact on purchasing decisions than social networks. One-quarter of readers said they trust ads on a blog, as opposed to 19 percent who trust advertising on social networks. In addition, 40 percent of blog readers -- and 50 percent of frequent blog readers -- have proactively taken an action after viewing an ad mess...