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Widespread Mobile Innovation Will Be Fueled by Platform Competition (Qualcomm)
Scott Ellison, vice president of Mobile & Connected Platforms at IDC, says that, "the overall pace at which users are adopting mobile apps for a broad range of functionalities and just the sheer pace of innovation coming out of developers continues to amaze everyone. It's one of the brightest spots of mobile." In terms of innovation and choice, Ellison echoes a sentiment widely held among developers and many players in the mobile industry that, "nobody likes the idea of saying it's just two companies to choose from or two solutions. People like to feel they have choice. Competition keeps things fresh and moving forward." As for which vertical industries have seen the greatest momentum shift, Ellison sees near-term opportunities for mobile developers in retail shopping, healthcare, education and automotive, among others.
iOS Is Still The Most Valuable Platform (Opera via TechCrunch)
Opera released its latest State of Mobile Advertising report, which indicates that, despite the growth of Android and other platforms, iOS continues to dominate when it comes to monetizing mobile ads. And despite all the effort that has been put into mobile web sites, the majority, nearly 73%, of all mobile ad revenues are coming from mobile apps. iOS on average continues to drive the highest eCPMs (effective cost per thousand impressions) on its network. The iPhone accounts for just over 30% of all traffic, and 34% of all revenues, but its eCPMs are $1.48. By contrast, the eCPMs on the iPad are significantly higher, at $4.42, but it accounts for just 5% of all traffic on the network, working out to 18% of revenue.
Perhaps most importantly, it appears that eCPMs are falling, with the average eCPM across all iOS devices at $2.49 in the second quarter, compared to $1.64 today.
Apple's Loss In The Tablet Market Is Android's Gain (Strategy Analytics via TechCrunch)
Strategy Analytics published its numbers on global tablet sales for the quarter. Apple and the iPad remain in the lead with 57% of all shipments, but just as Apple missed sales expectations on the iPad, it also is losing some market share in the tablet market overall. Android picked up the slack to reach an all-time high of 41% of shipments on overall shipments of just under 25 million units.
Strategy Analytics calls Apple’s 14 million iPad shipment for the quarter "disappointing." It’s also a clear decline of 7% on the same quarter a year ago. And because the tablet market, even more than the smartphone market, has been a two-horse race when it comes to platforms, Apple’s loss has been Android’s gain. Note: Shipments refer to sell-in. Numbers are rounded. The definition of tablet does not include e-book readers.
25% Of Holiday Shoppers Will Use Their Mobile Device (Accenture via Los Angeles Times)
According to Accenture's annual consumer holiday shopping survey, 52% of shoppers would shop online on Thanksgiving Day if retailers offered discounts and 53% plan to go shopping on Black Friday, an increase from the previous year. The use of tablets and smartphones to shop is on the rise, and 25% of patrons said they would use them to buy gifts, compared to 17% in 2011. About 56% of consumers said they plan on "showrooming" this holiday season, where shoppers look at a product in the store, then compare prices and buy it online. About 27% of them plan to use their smartphone or tablet while they’re shopping.
Mobile Will Loom Large This Holiday Season (PriceGrabber via Marketing Land)
A new survey from PriceGrabber argues that mobile devices will play a major role in holiday shopping this year. The survey found that 31% of consumers "already have shopping-related apps on their smartphone," with 82% of those people planning to use them to save money over the holidays. Roughly a third of survey respondents said "they plan to download new shopping apps in preparation for the upcoming 2012 holiday season." Many marketers are held back from aggressively jumping into mobile by an apparent absence of clear ROI. However because mobile consumer behavior and usage are different than PC user behavior, we need new ROI definitions and concepts. Marketers who sit out mobile in the fourth quarter may find that they lose out on the ability to influence offline or in-store consumer purchases and lose out to competitors in online sales as well.
Mobile Will Transform Learning (Qualcomm)
Unfortunately, schools are not using mobile technology as well as they could be. If implemented correctly, the use of always-on, always-connected mobile devices can dramatically improve student success by providing unprecedented access to learning resources and the ability to collaborate with peers and advisers in and out of the classroom. The technology allows curriculum to be personalized for each student and enables real-time assessment of how each student is doing. Phones also allow students to work together after school. Using their laptops, teachers could send messages to students on their phones, giving them homework assignments and viewing their work. With over 6.3 billion connections globally, wireless technology is now the dominant way people access the Internet. So it isn’t difficult to imagine a day when mobile, as it has in so many other parts of our lives, has a presence in every classroom.
Mobile Changes Everything — And No One’s Safe (Wired)
The FBI recently put out a mobile malware alert, providing us with a sobering reminder of this "evil software" for phones and tablets. While these threats appear to have been developed for government surveillance purposes, they can of course be used by any organization. And therein lies the problem. Mobile malware affects all of us. These are some of the approaches security researchers have come up with:
- Monitor traffic on the network
- Bake control into the handsets
- Detect malware through device physics
If these techniques are made by approved external entities, they can verify devices are safe before letting users log in. This approach is ideal because control becomes aligned with liability.
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