via flowtown.com
Mobile market size is staggering [Infographic]
Too much mobile market info or data? Not sure of that, but I'd still recommend sitting down and strapping on your seatbelt before taking in this chart of the mobile market.
In Taiwan and Luxembourg the average person has more than one cell phones. Compare that that to less than every other person in the United States and it quickly becomes clear how far catching up the United Stats has to do in the mobile arena.
26% read news on mobile devices - Pew Research
A new report from the Pew Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism reveals that more than 1 in 4 Americans read news on mobile devices including Smartphones.
The report, "Understanding the Participatory News Consumer," studies the impact of digital media on news consumption and interaction behaviors. The part of the study that focused specifically on the growth of mobile devices reveals that more than 80% of adults now own cell phones and 37% use their phones to access the Web. According to Tom Rosenstiel, Director of PEJ, "Those numbers are only going to go up as the penetration of smart phones grows. The computer of the future is held in your hand."These figures mirror a recent report from the Federal Communications Commission, which studied both wired and wireless broadband connectivity in the United States. The FCC is currently pushing to expand the wireless spectrum available to mobile broadband providers in anticipation of strong growth in consumer demand for these services.The PEJ report highlights the importance of that trend to media organizations. "What the data shows is people are increasingly looking for news at their convenience, and nothing is more convenient than the device in your pocket," Rosenstiel said in an interview Friday.Another finding of the PEJ report: 46 percent of "on-the-go" news consumers are also "news participators," meaning they actively contribute to the creation or distribution of information by commenting on articles, tagging content, contributing images, videos and articles, or sharing a link with their social network. PEJ further identifies a highly engaged sub-group of mobile news consumers, about 13 percent of U.S. adult Internet users, who are characterized by daily news readership across multiple platforms including mobile, online, print and television.The study reveals that while those highly engaged consumers are reading a lot of news, they do so from multiple outlets on multiple platforms. Just 7 percent of Americans get their news from a single source, while 46 percent visit four to six sources, in print, Web, TV and mobile on a typical daily basis.Rostenstiel said the notion of foraging for news can be a positive one for news organizations. "People graze but they don't graze very far." He noted the average engaged news reader has a half-dozen sources they return to frequently. "So, while people are hunting for what they are interested in, they are not hunting everywhere. They are hunting among a landscape of sources they know and are familiar with."
Mobile Social Networking More Popular Than Desktop In The U.S.
A recent study from Ruder Finn shows that U.S. mobile users:
- spend 2.7 hours per day on the mobile web
- 91% socialize on the mobile web to vs. 79% of desktop users
- 45% post comments to social networks
- 43% connect with friends on social networks
- 40% share content
- 38% share photos
All these statistics support the finding from the Guardian that 50% of all the U. K. mobile usage goes to Facebook. This is another fact pointing us in the direction that real-time search, mobile and social media are all merging into one.
Forget Google Maps. I'll be switching to Bing Maps soon
via youtube.com
Awesome Flickr integration coming from Bing Maps soon. This will combine two of my favorite things: maps & flickr.
Why Google Buzz will be "Big in 2010"
Big in 2010
While writing this blog post, I have the 1984 cult classic "Big in Japan" from Alphaville stuck in my head. So, I encourage you to hum the refrain from "Big in Japan" in your head as you read this blog post.
I have been thinking about this blog post and what will be “Big in 2010” for a while now, but the recent announcement of Google Buzz really validated my thinking. The three big trends I’ve seen growing over the last 6 months or so are: Local, Mobile, and Real-Time. Stick with me and you’ll see why Google Buzz is the manifestation of these three trends into one application and will be “Big in 2010”.
I'll start off by talking about "Local." Towards the end of last year, local really started becoming more and more prominent - from the Google caffeine update that incorporates more and more local results via maps to local social media apps such as foursquare. Now, when you search for "pizza" you not only get the results of Papa John's, Domino's, and Pizza Hut, but also a map with local pizza place results. In addition, when you think about the much talked about and discussed Google algorithm (there are actually three different algorithms): the standard result page algorithm, the Google Maps algorithm, and finally the algorithm for Maps included on the Google Results page. With Google Buzz I can tag my updates with a location so they become searchable via location and by looking at a map. Want to see what people around you are saying? No problem anymore thanks to Google Buzz
Next up is "Mobile." According to some estimates, by 2013 more people will access the Internet via a mobile device than via a desktop. Beyond being portable and always in the pocket of your consumer, this trend is here to stay for good. There are close to 5 billion mobile phones worldwide. There are many different ways to market to mobile – from SMS and display ads to Apps. However, the most important thing is to offer your potential customers a mobile optimized experience, which may be a mobile website or a mobile app via iTunes or the Android Marketplace. Enter Google Buzz on your mobile device and you are catering to the heavy social users. No iPhone app for Google Buzz? No problem! Just like with Google Voice it runs via HTML 5 directly in the iPhone’s built in browser: Safari.
The final of the trends I want to talk about is “Real-Time.” Real-time search is here. It’s not the future anymore. All search engines are pulling in real-time results from all over the place, including press releases and Twitter. Most social media platforms offer real-time search, with Twitter being the most prominent. Just go to search.twitter.com and type in your brand or company and watch the magic happen. Real-time search can be scary. Real-time updates are what Google Buzz is all about, just like Twitter it offers a constant feed of what people are saying and sharing around you. It’s like having a constant conference call going on and listening in on what people are saying.
Below is the dissection of a typical search results page – notice the real-time results in purple.
How big are all of these three trends? Big enough that Google introduced its newest invention, “Google Buzz,” which incorporates and excels at all three of these trends in one application. So: are Local, Mobile and Real-Time here to stay? If Google Buzz catches on, it will defiantly continue to grow and be the “it” thing in 2010 – Or, “Big in 2010”.
In a nutshell, Google Buzz is the newest social network and sharing product built by Google. Buzz offers a stream of status updates, pictures, links, and videos from your friends. You can “like” these items and you can comment on them. Real-time updates from Flickr, Picasa, Google Reader, or Twitter can also be automatically imported into a Buzz stream.
Unbelievable Japanese Star Wars TV spot for “sea chicken”
via crunchgear.com
Star Wars has always been popular in Japan, so seeing Luke Skywalker and the gang in a Japanese TV commercial from the 1978 isn’t a big deal. But seeing the Star Wars franchise being used in this fashion to promote “sea chicken” (canned tuna) is just crazy - crazy Japanese TV commercial acting included.
The actors in the TV spot, are just look-alikes.
CSS3 replacing Flash? Watch an AT-AT Stomp All Over Flash
via gizmodo.com
Above is a still image of an AT-AT walker (on an Apple iPad). But, if you go here using any WebKit browser (e.g. Safari or Chrome), it comes to life like on Hoth. It looks like a cool Flash animation, except it's not, it's pure CSS3 magic (read about how CSS3 can replace Flash here).
(Link to AT-AT walker in all its CSS3 glory. Remember you need to be using a webkit browser).
"You'll Never Walk Alone" German Lyrics
After sharing the Mainz 05 pre-game ritual with some friends in the UK (Plymouth Argyle fans incase you were wondering) of standing up, stretching your Mainz 05 scarf above your head and singing "You'll never walk alone" with the other 20,300 fans (minus opposition supporters) I was encouraged to translate the song into German. (See a video of Mainz 05 fans singing it here). After unsuccessfully searching Google for the German Lyrics of "You'll never walk alone" I decided to translate them myself. I know that this amounts to blasphemy as "You'll never walk alone" is holy in soccer (football) circles. So, don't worry I'm not encouraging anyone to sing the song in German. The results of my attempt to translate this holy song can be seen below.
Wenn du durch einen Sturm geht Halt dein Kinn hoch Und habe keine Angst vor der Dunkelheit. Am Ende des Sturms Ist ein goldener Himmel Und das süße silberne Lied einer Lerche.
Lauf weiter durch den Wind, Lauf weiter durch den Regen, Obwohl deine Träume verworfen werden. Lauf weiter, Lauf weiter mit Hoffnung in deinemHerzen Und du gehst nie alleine, Du wirst niemals alleine gehen.
Lauf weiter, Lauf weiter mit Hoffnung in deinem HerzenUnd du gehst nie alleine, Du wirst niemals alleine gehen.
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