Digital Lifescapes

Scarborough Research released the results of a special analysis of newspaper website audience. The market study included a trend of newspaper website audiences among the top 50 U.S. local markets, as well as interviews with newspaper executives about their websites. Scarborough found that newspaper website audience is growing and is compensating for some of the declines in print readership. The special analysis, which examined data collected August 2004 - March 2007 for 88 newspapers, found that newspaper website audience coverage has grown 14 percent -- from 6.4 percent for the 12 months ending September 2005, to 7.3 percent for the 12 months ending March 2007. Overall, the increase in website audience is mitigating print audience losses by 28 percent. Scarborough interviewed select newspaper executives about their websites, and found several common themes for website success: a commitment to localism, developing unique and interactive content, and relentless cross-promotion. Local co...

Worldwide sales of digital TV set-top boxes broke through the 100 million barrier for the first time in 2007, according to the latest research from the Strategy Analytics Connected Home Devices service. The market study found that sales reached 102.4 million units last year, an annual increase of 12 percent. IPTV's market share rose to 5.9 percent, compared to 3.6 percent in 2006. Cable's share also rose, to 36.2 percent, while satellite and terrestrial shares declined. For 2008 the report predicts a surge in demand for digital terrestrial set-top boxes, driven by the impending switch-off of analog broadcasting in the U.S. market. By 2012 annual global sales of all digital TV set-top boxes will reach nearly 200 million units. "We expect the Asia-Pacific region to overtake North America and Europe in 2008, accounting for a third of this year's 129 million sales," says Peter King, Director, Connected Home Devices. "Sales of digital terrestrial TV boxes in Eur...

If you have an Internet connection, then chances are you are spending much more time surfing the Web than watching a TV. A new IDC study of consumer online behavior found that the Internet is the medium on which online users spend the most time (32.7 hours/week). This is equivalent to almost half of the total time spent each week using all media (70.6 hours), almost twice as much time as spent watching television (16.4 hours), and more than eight times as much time as spent reading newspapers and magazines (3.9 hours). "The time spent using the Internet will continue to increase at the expense of television and, to a lesser extent, print media," said Karsten Weide, program director, Digital Media and Entertainment at IDC. "This suggests that advertising budgets will continue to be shifted out of television, newspapers, and magazines into Internet advertising." The data also show that consumers tend to use the media they grew up with. The older the respondents, the m...

The inability of most telecom network operators to deploy robust subscriber information management platforms could put them at a serious marketplace disadvantage -- compared with next-generation service providers that are primed to attack the telecom services sector with Web 2.0 based technologies, according to the latest market study from Light Reading. "Network operators have a wealth of information about their subscribers, and as they broaden their next-generation service portfolios, they are in a position to collect even more information about subscribers' service preferences, usage, and transactions," says Caroline Chappell, research analyst with Light Reading. "But operators have a short window of opportunity to put in place a strategy and architecture for managing all the subscriber information they possess and using it to more fully capture their customers by personalizing the customer experience." As over-the-top communications services become more deep...

According to Portio Research, forecasts predict that 2008 will be the year that the worldwide mobile phone industry becomes a one trillion dollar industry. For an industry to go from zero to 1 trillion in just 20 years is a staggering achievement, equal to a CAGR of almost 30 percent sustained for 20 years -- an achievement previously unequalled by any other industry at any time in human history. 2007 became the year to see worldwide mobile handset shipments exceed 1 billion for the first time, and as 2008 begins so the world also crosses the highly significant 50 percent mobile penetration point, and the industry enters a year where gross industry revenues are set to reach 1 trillion Dollars. This is truly an exciting time to be in the mobile and wireless industry. As mobile voice prices have declined and margins have come under intense pressure, network operators have been forced to look at non-voice services to win new customers and boost their profit margins. A wide variety of valu...

Respondents to Informa Telecoms & Media's "Mobile Distribution and Retail Industry Survey 2007" believe that online unit sales of mobile phone handsets will surge to 21 percent of total devices sales by 2012. The survey reveals the industry's burgeoning belief in online retail at the expense of operator and independent stores. Angela Stainthorpe, Research Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, says "Online retail for wireless is certainly only a nascent market but the tentative steps taken in 2007 will quickly become more confident. As broadband penetration increases and online shopping entrenches its place in the retail landscape, customer expectation and the cost benefits of online distribution will be difficult for the mobile industry to ignore." Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts the online handset retail market in 2012 to be worth over double its 2007 level. Europe will lead the online market, accounting for 47 percent of global online handset...

It certainly isn't going to be business as usual within the American advertising sector. New multimedia platforms in the U.S. will capture $12.6 billion in advertising revenue by 2012, according to the latest market study by Parks Associates. Broadband multimedia advertising, the focus of the expected Writers Guild of America resolution, will account for more than $6.6 billion of that total. Mobile infotainment services follow closely with more than $5 billion, and non-linear TV services like video-on-demand (VoD) and digital video recorders (DVR) will contribute more than $900 million in ad revenue for U.S. TV service providers. "The floodgate is open, and the deluge of ad spending to these new platforms is irreversible," says Harry Wang, Senior Analyst, Parks Associates. "There must be interest alignment among major stakeholders to avoid frictions like the Writers Guild strike that hinder content flow to these new platforms." According to the report, audience...

How people connect their computer to digital media recording and playing devices is evolving. The proliferation of digital interfaces on PCs in the past 10 years has led to specialization, as well as an increasing number of choices for consumers, according to the latest market study by In-Stat. USB has become a universal interface in the PC market, and 1394 or FireWire, DVI, and Bluetooth are all available in a large number of notebook and desktop PCs on the market today, the high-tech market research firm says. In order to gauge the popularity of these various interfaces, In-Stat conducted a survey of 2,200 technology early adopters about the interfaces they have on both their work and home PCs, and to what they connect with these interfaces. "Not surprisingly, USB is the most popular interface, and is connected to the greatest number of devices in both work and home environments," says Brian O'Rourke, In-Stat analyst. "1394 (FireWire) proved to be the next most pop...

Mobile Social Networking is already an established service in some regions of the world, but in 2008 and beyond new features are attracting larger numbers of users and permitting new business opportunities. Mobile Social Networking is now a global phenomenon with expansion in all directions. The following is a brief introduction to this worldwide phenomenon that takes mobile phone applications to the next level of engaging interactive communications. Informa Telecoms & Media has published a ground breaking report entitled "Mobile Social Networking: Communities and Content on the Move." The research concludes that the number of mobile social networking users exceeded 50 million, approximately 2.3 percent of the global mobile user population on December 31 2007. Some of these users were registered in multiple mobile communities, engaging with friends, having fun and sharing their passions with others. With only low investments from mobile network operators, the growth in us...

Advertising revenue continues to follow consumers online. As more and more people spend time on the Internet, companies are redistributing advertising dollars from traditional media to online media to follow this key trend. In its quarterly wrap-up report, IDC says total U.S. Internet ad spending in the fourth quarter of 2007 (4Q07) grew nearly 28 percent over the same quarter in 2006 to $7.3 billion. For the full year 2007, online ad revenue grew 27 percent year over year to $25.5 billion. IDC research also found that Google's net U.S. market share declined for the first time in two years due to slower growth in domestic fourth quarter sales. The market leader's net U.S. Internet advertising market share was down 0.5 percentage points to 23.7 percent last quarter compared to 3Q07. Google's estimated net U.S. Internet advertising sales (excluding the traffic acquisition costs they pay out to the partners in their networks) grew by a little more than 40 percent in 4Q07, but ...

A survey of IT managers in the UK, France and Germany has identified strong demand for wireless and mobile solutions from Small and Medium Businesses (SMB) to multi-national brands. Andrew Brown, Director of the Wireless Enterprise Strategies service, commented, "Spending on wireless solutions is expected to grow by 23 percent in the UK alone over the next two years, despite flat overall IT budgets in two-thirds of companies. In France and Germany, wireless spend per employee is expected to approach 100 Euros within 2 years." Wireless Security (23 percent) and Wireless Applications (18 percent) are the top solutions where increased spend is expected in the next few years. However, there is also a strong focus on in-building wireless infrastructure as an area for increased spend -- while remote device management is also on the radar screen with 8 percent planning increased wireless spend here in 2008. Other key findings from their study include: - After email (54 percent), ...

I use a separate mobile phone and pocket PC, by choice. The conventional wisdom within the portable device industry is that consumers have a preference to use converged devices, meaning single devices that combine the functionality of previously separate mobile devices, reports In-Stat. But the idea that there will be wholesale adoption of a device that simply combines multiple devices is unrealistic -- according to the high-tech market research firm. A recent In-Stat survey of U.S. businesspeople shows that users tend to remain loyal to reliable current technology, and employers are reluctant to force the issue of convergence. "On the other hand, once a converged device proves to offer additional value and technological obstacles are addressed, adoption progresses relatively quickly," says Bill Hughes, In-Stat analyst. "The smartphone is a successful example of a converged device where a single device combines a PDA computing device and a mobile phone. In this case, the...

Nielsen Online announced the full release of their VideoCensus. Early findings reveal differences in how men and women consume video content and that online there is a new prime-time. "The growth projections for both online video consumption and video advertising revenue are phenomenal, and the market requires an innovative approach to measurement. The driving force behind the development of VideoCensus was the unanimous call from our clients to deliver the most relevant and accurate dataset possible," said Dave Osborn, vice president, video measurement and media products, Nielsen Online. "With this release, we've taken a huge step in addressing the market's need to harmonize panel- and server-based metrics and we are delighted by the accolades of major industry players who are supporting our forward thinking approach," he continued. Video streams at broadcast network TV Web sites were nearly two times more likely to be viewed by women age 18-34 than men, w...

A home communications network is slowly becoming a mainstream phenomenon. We are in the multimedia phase of home networking that has begun to blend in networked consumer electronics (CE) devices, or networked media devices, according to the latest market study by In-Stat. That said, the market has been trying to move past the early-adopter stage, but this has not been occurring very quickly, the high-tech market research firm says. Although In-Stat's consumer research shows that there has been progress, the majority of consumers still only use their home network for Internet sharing. "Improvement is still needed when it comes to consumer awareness of the new breed of PC and non-PC network-capable media devices (Media Center PCs, CE media servers, digital media adapters, digital media receivers or players)," says Joyce Putscher, In-Stat analyst. "To date, non-PC network-enabled stationary media devices have been dominated by game consoles. However, the vast majority ...

If you still believe that the term "mass media" has relevance in marketing, and that television viewership decline is a meaningless anomaly, then the following details regarding the fragmentation of the consumer marketplace is likely of no interest to you. Otherwise, read on. ComScore and Media Contacts showcased the results of a proprietary study of the online video audience at a Video Symposium in New York. The research was designed to understand the consumption habits and mindsets of Internet video users as they relate to online video, TV, and advertising and content across both media. The results revealed consumer segmentation differences in orders of magnitude -- the heaviest viewers (top 20 percent of viewers) averaged 841 minutes of online viewing per month, while moderate viewers (next 30 percent) averaged 77 minutes, and the lightest viewers (bottom 50 percent) watched just 6 minutes each. "The difference in consumption levels was astounding. The usage differen...

The semiconductor industry has been experiencing relatively balanced growth over the past few years, and In-Stat anticipates that this will continue throughout their forecast period. In-Stat says there will be some variation in growth rates among the end-use segments in terms of semiconductor consumption, but they all will track close enough to the average that none can be said to be the driver in the sense that the computer and communications segments have been drivers in the not too distant past. In-Stat expects worldwide semiconductor revenue to grow by 2.4 percent in 2008 to $261.9 billion. The consumer segment will lead 2008 growth at 5.9 percent and the consumer and communications segments will gain share while the computer segment share declines over the forecast period. The computer segment, whose share has been trending downward since 2000, is expected to remain the largest segment by a wide margin, although by 2012 its share is forecast to be 41.8 percent -- well below the 50...

Operators are now rolling out converged services on fixed and mobile networks, converting trials to commercial deployments. 2008 will see another spate of trials, as femtocell technology begins to become available. The move to FMC infrastructure is a natural evolution for the mobile network as broadband services, including Voice over IP and other Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) services, begin to be deployed. Both Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) and SIP infrastructures are being deployed and dual use Wi-Fi and cellular devices will be joined by femtocells in 2008. According to a new ABI Research report, operators are fully aware of the increasing threat from mobile VoIP services and FMC will allow them to offer similar services and tariff packages. "As we move to the end of the decade, mobile networks will emerge with a flat all-IP architecture using 3GPP standards to deliver multimedia services and VoIP," says principal analyst Ian Cox. In the meantime operators want to off...

M:Metrics announced the first large-scale study of mobile media consumption in China, the world's largest mobile phone market. According to the M:Metrics December Benchmark Survey, mobile entertainment is popular among the Chinese, with 34.8 percent reporting they listened to mobile music in the month, and 10 percent playing a downloaded mobile game. They also found that while Nokia has a substantial lead in terms of share of handset owners in China, at 30.9 percent, owners of Sony Ericsson handsets are a driving force in the mobile media sector. For example, Sony Ericsson device owners are 1.7 times more likely to send a photo message, and almost twice as likely to browse mobile Internet content compared with the market average. "While 34.8 percent of total mobile subscribers listened to music on their device, nearly 60 percent of Sony Ericsson handset owners consumed mobile music in December," said Seamus McAteer, senior analyst, M:Metrics. "Competing global handse...

ComScore released its December 2007 report revealing that U.S. Internet users watched more than 10 billion videos online during the month, representing the single heaviest month for online video consumption since comScore initiated its tracking service. Top-ranked video property Google Sites saw substantial growth and extended its video market share gains, now accounting for nearly one out of every three videos viewed online. "December represented a considerably strong month for online video viewing," said Erin Hunter, comScore executive vice president of media and entertainment. "With the writer's strike keeping new TV episodes from reaching the airwaves, viewers have been seeking alternatives for fresh content. It appears that online video is stepping in to help fill that void." Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property in December with 3.3 billion videos viewed (32.6 percent share of videos), gaining 1.3 share points versus the previous m...

Looking broadly at the small and medium-sized business (SMB) technology market over the next 12–18 months, IDC expects a variety of evolutionary and even revolutionary changes that will drive opportunities on a worldwide and regional basis as broader economic issues complicate spending growth. Increasing alignment of technology, distribution, and customer will be a key trend throughout 2008. "A growing number of technology providers will invest time, talent, and money in the worldwide SMB market," said Raymond Boggs, vice president of SMB research at IDC. "Different regions offer different kinds of opportunities, but the concentrated focus on effective messaging, innovative products, and efficient distribution will be at the heart of vendor success across geographies." Among IDC's key predictions for 2008 are the following: - Worldwide IT spending growth among SMBs will vary considerably by regions and will reach just over 7 percent in 2008, a slower rate than i...