Report identifies the 11 key elements for future of mobile
By Chris Hogg
Polar Mobile, a company that makes mobile applications for more than 150 customers including Time, BusinessWeek, and Sports Illustrated, to name a few, will release a paper today that will identify the top trends in mobile for 2011.
Digital Journal obtained a copy of the report ahead of its release.
Among the 11 major trends to watch out for in 2011: Security threats, major fragmentation across various platforms and devices, and massive growth for the tablet market. According to the report, social media will play an increasingly important role in mobile and marketers and businesses will need to start focusing on engagement rather than number of downloads.
“Mobile will start to become part of every business’ marketing and distribution strategy in 2011,” Kunal Gupta, CEO of Polar Mobile, said in an email statement. “That’s where we all spend our time and brands, marketers and publishers will want to capture that opportunity.”
Gupta was also a speaker at Digital Journal’s Future of Media event held in September.
Going into 2011, Polar Mobile says the following areas are key to the growth of mobile over the next year:
Mobile strategies will extend beyond iPhone and iPad. Polar Mobile says simply having an iPhone app is not a true mobile strategy.
Research firm Gartner forecasts mobile App downloads will top four billion this year and grow to 21 billion by 2013.
Furthermore, more than 1 billion smartphones are expected to ship by 2013, with players other than just Apple (Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Symbian, Samsung and more)
For developers working with Android, fragmentation will become a challenge because Google has released seven versions of its Android OS (1.1, 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.01, 2.1, 2.2) in less than two years.
Polar Mobile says older Android devices will suffer from performance lags.
Furthermore, OEMs such as HTC, Samsung, LG and Motorola each customize their version of Android to distinguish their phones on the market. This will compound the Android fragmentation problems.
Tablets are going to be a major part of the growth of the mobile industry. Polar Mobile believes tablets will become as commonplace as computers, appearing in every home.
Going into 2011, Samsung, RIM, HTC, LG, Acer, Cisco, Dell, Motorola, OpenPeak, Viewsonic, Apple and others will all have their own tablets.
Customers will be drawn to new distribution channels and have more options when purchasing tablets, from OEMs, carriers and retailers.
Apple is expected to sell more than 10 million iPads and Samsung is expected to hit 1 million units sold this year. Gartner believes more than 55 million tablets will be sold in 2011.
Right now advertisers, marketers and businesses typically focus on number of downloads rather than number of active users. In 2011, that will change.
Polar Mobile says most businesses have no clue what happens inside their apps, which is why most only report on the number of downloads. In 2011, improved analytics and tracking capabilities will allow companies to build products that promote user engagement, and enable them to tweak based on real-world feedback.
Companies will shift priorities to focus more on continued usage than number of downloads.
Like the Web, social will play a huge part in the future of mobile.
Polar Mobile notes that 35 percent of Twitter’s active members use the service on their mobile device.
[url=http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics t=_blank]According to Facebook[/url], there are more than 200 million active users who access the site via their mobile device and those users are twice as active as non-mobile users.
Polar Mobile says mobile consumption habits are different than online user experiences and social will play a role in making mobile unique.
With the rise of usage on mobile platforms, the world will see more mobile-exclusive brands and content emerge.
Polar Mobile says new, mobile-only brands will be launched by traditional publishers and niche and focused content will be used to create “greater user stickiness.”
Companies that expand on mobile will also be able to leverage new distribution channels to acquire new users.
Paywalls are going to suffer on mobile. Outside of iTunes, Polar Mobile says it’s very difficult to buy physical or virtual goods on your phone, and limited infrastructure will be the stumbling block for paid content.
Polar Mobile says the industry needs major infrastructure updates and billing improvements before paid content and micro-transaction businesses will see mass adoption.
Applications and mobile websites will be more intertwined, offering a better user experience. Polar Mobile says apps will leverage the mobile Web to scale utility and add custom features across multiple devices.
As the app and mobile web markets mature, average users eventually won’t be able to tell the difference between a mobile website and an app.
Apps will begin using near-field-communication (NFC) technology to enable them to become mobile commerce tools. For example, retailers will be able to use NFC to increase in-store purchases by pushing notifications to shoppers about deals or specials.
Polar Mobile says Android Gingerbread, the recent release of the OS, also supports an API for NFC, giving developers the tools they need to build functionality into apps.
In addition to NFC, RFID chips implanted in smartphones will turn them into payment tools.
Companies and individuals will need to pay more attention to App security and threats, as mobile adoption grows into 2011.
Polar Mobile says smartphones often store far more personal information than desktops that is easily accessible by mobile apps, and App distribution channels do not currently mandate security testing.
The company warns that nefarious developers could use techniques such as spoofing, tampering, repudiation, information disclosure, denial of service, and elevation of privilege to get personal information.
Finally, Polar Mobile says fragmentation across operating systems and devices will grow exponentially. Going into 2011, there will be a huge number of mobile platforms, including Apple iOS, Google Android, RIM BlackBerry, Windows Phone, HP Palm, Samsung Bada, Nokia Symbian and Intel MeeGo.
The device market will also expand, including smartphones, feature phones, tablets, smart TVs, automobiles, netbooks and browsers.
Study: iPad news apps will hurt newspaper print subscriptions
By Chris Hogg
According to a new report from the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, more than 50 percent of print newspaper subscribers who use their iPad at least an hour a day for news are likely to cancel their print subscriptions over the next six months.
Furthermore, nearly 31 percent of iPad users surveyed said they don’t subscribe to printed newspapers and 10 percent indicated they already cancelled their print subscriptions and switched to reading digital versions on the iPad.
The report is the first phase of a multi-year research project to understand how Apple iPad users consume news content. The data was collected based on the responses gathered from more than 1,600 iPad users.
Among the findings, respondents who read at least an hour’s worth of news on their iPads every day — more than 90 percent of everyone surveyd — are either very likely or somewhat likely to use a newspaper’s app for reading news. Even among light news readers, the study indicated apps are the preferred method of delivery for news consumers over websites.
“These findings are encouraging for newspaper publishers who plan to begin charging for subscriptions on their iPad app editions early next year, but our survey also found a potential downside: iPad news apps may diminish newspaper print subscriptions in 2011,” Roger Fidler, RJI’s program director for digital publishing and the research project leader, said in a statement.
In total, the survey found three-quarters of respondents consume news for at least 30 minutes on their iPad, with nearly half saying they do so for an hour or more. iPad users are typically more male, well-educated, affluent and between the ages of 35 and 64.
According to the report, the iPad also encourages other news consumption, as the study found the more a person uses an iPad to consume news, the more he or she is likely to use other digital media to consume news.
When it comes to overall experience consuming news on an iPad, respondents were asked to rate their reading experience on the iPad compared to other media on a five-point scale. Respondents said iPad reading experiences were somewhat better than, or about the same, as experiences reading printed newspapers or magazines.
A total of 48.1 percent said the iPad news experience was better than the iPhone’s.
Age also plays a role in iPad experience, as older users tend to say the device is worse than the traditional newspaper-reading experience. Older users, however, said the iPad was better than other electronic devices with smaller screens for news consumption.
The study noted iPad users would be more likely to buy newspaper apps for “a price lower than the price of a print subscription.” Reliability and ease-of-use were also important among iPad users.
So which news organizations have the highest-rated news apps? According to this survey, the most popular responses were: The New York Times, USA Today, The Associated Press, and The Wall Street Journal.
More details on this report can be found here.
Report: Newspaper advertising expected to rise in 2011
By David Silverberg
A new report on newspaper advertising and operations is dubbing 2011 “the year of return to positive growth.” Respondents to a survey expect digital advertising to rise 18.1 percent among North American newspapers.
While 2010 might have been a gloomy year for newspaper advertising, a new report says 2011 should see an uptick in advertising on most fronts. The extensive Preview 2011[PDF] report from Kubas Primedia in Toronto surveyed more than 400 newspapers in Canada and the U.S., and concluded “improvement is expected in all categories of newspaper advertising revenue in 2011.”
The biggest growth area will be digital. In 2011, Kubas projects digital ad revenue will rise 18.1 percent, compared to the next highest category, retail display at 4.3 percent. On the flip side, National display advertising is expected to decrease by 1.4 percent and real estate classified will sink by 1.7 percent. Overall, advertising in all categories will rise by 3.4 percent (based on a weighted average).
In Canada, digital ad revenue will rise slightly more compared to its U.S. counterparts (although no specific numbers were given). Also, “Canadian newspapers are more optimistic about both national and display advertising, but more pessimistic in most classified categories, as compared to U.S. newspapers.”
In an interview with Kubas executive vice-president Ed Strapagiel, Future of Media learned Canadian newspapers are in better shape than American media outlets. “A lot of Canadian newspapers are hanging in there, they have trimmed staff and cut costs and I don’t know of too many cases of imminent closures,” he says.
The survey found smaller circulation U.S newspapers (under 25,000) tended to more optimistic in most categories, except for digital.
The report stated digital ad growth is seen as a driver of the overall advertising climate. Strapagiel explains expectations for digital ad revenue is higher than any other category, and newspaper often link digital growth to print growth.
The Kubas survey also looked at operating initiatives, such as cost. An area where newspapers on both sides of the border want to strengthen is their website features and design. Also, many newspapers have completed plans to narrow the width and shorten the newspaper pages’ cut-off.
Strapagiel surveyed newspapers on their plans to charge website visitors for content. Fifteen percent of outlets have plans to start charging for online content, and 36 percent are considering the idea.
Strapagiel notes Canadians were 50 percent less likely to charge for content compared to American newspapers.
Since the data in the report is based on the respondents expectations, are media executives over-optimistic? Strapagiel says newspaper executives tend to have “this online-will-save-our-bacon attitude which is probably not justified.” In his 2010 Preview, respondents were also unrealistic about digital advertising’s potential. “eReaders and iPads are certainly perking up digital possibilities but it’s difficult to know how much or when these technologies will pay off for newspapers,” Strapagiel says.
Groupon adds Stores, Deal Feed to select cities
by David Silverberg
Groupon, the popular daily group-buying deal site, is on the verge of boosting its online cred by adding two key features: Groupon Stores and the Deal Feed. These features are available to Chicago, Dallas and Seattle so far, with more cities rolling out soon.
In a blog post yesterday, Groupon announced it will soon be introducing Stores to merchants. This features allows retailers to skip the middleman and set up their own deals whenever they want. The blog post said merchant can setup a permanent free e-commerce presence on Groupon, with Groupon taking a 10 percent commission on all sales, compared to its usual 50 percent commission on approved daily deals.
Interested merchants can also allow people to “follow” their business, similar to Twitter. Groupon subscribers can be notified of deals via email or the Deal Feed.
Inspired by Facebook’s News Feed, Groupon’s Deal Feed is a stream of personalized deals (Groupon rolled out personalization requests to subscribers recently). The blog post explains: “Your deal feed includes your featured daily deal, deals posted by merchants you follow, and deals posted by merchants that we recommend based on what we know about you.”
Why is Groupon going e-commerce 2.0? The post ends by saying, “With these new features, we can feature more merchants and deliver a more relevant experience for customers, while maintaining the curated, serendipitous and simple experience that’s at the core of Groupon.”
These features come at an opportunistic moment — Google is rumoured to be considering buying Groupon for an estimated $6 billion, and Groupon’s board is reportedly meeting today to discuss the buyout.