Mobile Insights is a daily newsletter from BI Intelligence delivered first thing every morning exclusively to BI Intelligence subscribers. Sign up for a free trial of BI Intelligence today.
In 2013, The Internet Will Become A Mobile Medium: Who Wins, Who Loses? (The Economist)
The year 2002 was a turning-point for the telephone, invented 126 years earlier. For the first time, the number of mobile phones overtook the number of fixed-line ones, making the telephone a predominantly mobile technology. During 2013 the same thing will happen to the Internet. The number of Internet-connected mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablet computers, will exceed the number of desktop and laptop personal computers (PCs) in use.
That does not mean that mobile devices will displace PCs altogether. Yet the center of gravity of the Internet will have shifted. All this will have far-reaching consequences for technology companies, which are being divided into winners and losers by the growing significance of mobile devices. The biggest winner in all this, without question, is Apple. The biggest losers are also obvious: the giants of the PC era such as Dell, HP and Microsoft, which seem to have missed the boat on mobile; mobile-device makers such as Nokia and RIM, which were too slow to put the Internet at the heart of their products; and games-console makers such as Sony and Nintendo, which are suffering as gaming goes mobile too. Nokia and Microsoft, once bitter enemies, are now allies, and may merge in 2013. Most companies, however, are somewhere in the middle. The question now is how easily they can shift their business models towards mobile?
Top Mobile Marketing Predictions For 2013 (Mobile Marketer)
Mobile has taken many strides this year and was incorporated heavily into brand marketing efforts. With new technologies such as augmented reality and mobile payments taking over, there is no doubt the medium will make an even bigger impact next year. Here are some top mobile trends, in terms of mobile marketing, for 2013:
- The context dream will come true
- Augmented reality
- Mobile experiences
While 2011 and 2012 were the years of trial and error, 2013 will help marketers cement their initiatives and better reach consumers. Industry experts agree that the space will gain even more momentum next year.
Just 8 Percent Of Consumers Have Mobile Payments (eDigitalResearch via Econsultancy)
A new survey from eDigitalResearch seems to confirm that consumers still haven’t got on board with mobile payments. When the survey was run in May this year 33 percent had never heard of contactless mobile payments, and that number only dropped slightly to 28 percent when the survey was run again in November. Furthermore, almost two-thirds of respondents (63 percent) said they were aware of the technology but hadn’t used it. Awareness of mobile wallets is even lower with more than half (54 percent) of respondents have never heard of the technology and 19 percent had heard of it but never used it.
Just 8 percent of respondents said they have a mobile wallet or NFC enabled on their smartphone, which is still quite low despite the fact that it has doubled from 4 percent in May.
Security concerns (36 percent) were the most common reason for avoiding mobile payments. The eDigitalResearch report surveyed 2,000 people in total: 1,165 smartphone owners and 835 who don’t own a smartphone.
Sunday Was eBay's Biggest Mobile Shopping Day (TechCrunch)
eBay continues to see record mobile sales during the holiday shopping season. The company says December 9 was the single-biggest mobile shopping day ever, with U.S. transacted mobile volume up 133 percent from last year’s biggest mobile shopping day, Sunday, December 4. The day topped three consecutive Sundays of record mobile transacted volume for eBay U.S.
eBay’s VP of mobile, Steve Yankovich, says the company has seen an unprecedented shift in transactions on mobile. He says that currently, one-third of all eBay transactions are “touched” by mobile, meaning users access listings or post via mobile even if the sale isn’t made on a mobile phone. "We’re seeing a change in the way people are shopping because of mobile, and this has turned the holiday shopping calendar on its head."
10 Incredible Facts That You Probably Didn’t Know About The Mobile Web (BeVisible Associates)
The latest big disruptor in our digital world is going to be (and already is) the staggeringly rapid increase in the use of mobile devices. How fast is this happening and how pervasive is it? There are a lot of eye-opening statistics that I want to share. Here are some of them:
- There are 4 times as many smartphone owners as computer owners in the U.S. today.
- Apple sold 48 million mobile devices in 2011; they sold 4.9 million desktops and laptops during the same period.
- 48 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers use a smartphone.
- Smartphone usage grew by 50 percent from 2011 to 2012.
- 91 percent of Americans have their mobile device within reach 24/7
- In 2013, mobile phones will surpass PCs as the primary means of accessing the Internet.
- 1 in 7 Internet searches are performed on a mobile phone.
- 24 percent of Black Friday 2012 online shopping was done on a mobile device.
- 94 percent of smartphone users look for local information on their phone and 90 percent take action a result, such as making a purchase or contacting the business.
- Only 20 percent of businesses have invested in a mobile website.
Are you amongst the 80 percent who hasn't? You'd better get on that.
Nine Ways To Improve User Experience In Mobile Design (CSS-Tricks)
It’s now a reality that every company and publisher on the Web needs a mobile Web strategy. Here are nine tips from the book for optimizing your site for all those mobile site visitors:
- Hint and reveal
- Accordions can play sweet music
- Carousels make users happy
- Respect the fat fingers and tipsy taps of your users
- Save time with font-based icons
- Use some asset management magic
- Know your usable viewport size then keep it fluid
- Make your default font size at least 14 px
- Embrace the wide world of device APIs
Ben Terrill, who works for Mobify, recently co-authored a free e-book 50 Ways to Please Your Customers: A guide to mobile web design best practices. Check it out for more information.
2012 Internet And Mobile Trends (backgroundcheck.org via Erik's Weblog 2.0)
As the year is coming to a close, take a look at the explosive growth of Internet access in developing countries as well as the ever increasing shift to smartphones and mobile devices.
Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.
Join the conversation about this story »
