Messaging Tops Smart Phone Usage

A recent three-week study of how 150 smart phone owners use their devices shows that the users spend an average of just over 94 minutes a day using their phones, and more than a third of that time, or as much as 28 minutes, is spent reading, writing and responding to email.

The aggregated time spent on all downloaded add-on apps, including Facebook, WordswithFriends and Pandora, is the second largest, totaling just under 11 minutes. Voice calls represent 13 minutes a day worth of usage.

Yankee Group Research Report

App Battle Heats Up

Whether mobile apps are as strategic as most people think, or not, there is little question more resources are going into the battle.

Common Mobile App Mistakes Many Brands Make

Some day we probably will look back on the early days of mobile apps and have something of the same sense we did early in the development of the World Wide Web, when companies did things such as posting electronic versions of their brochures online, and basically left it at that.

So what are some common issues that Macroview Labs encounters when engaging with big brands that want to create mobile apps?

Common mistakes include duplicating a web site on the mobile screen. That does not take advantage of the capabilities a mobile has, such as cameras, bar code scanning, accelerometers and GPS, for example.

Companies design for the wrong users, the wrong devices or for use cases where mobile signal coverage is going to be an issue. Brands tend to want to recreate an ad experience, when the key thing is to engage users.

Aron Ezra, MacroView Labs CEO, has quite a lot of experience engaging with, and creating applications for, large organizations and brands ranging from major Las Vegas casinos to NASCAR, Elitch Gardens and the city of Arlington, Texas.

“Artwork is really important,” says Ezra, something you can verify yourself at http://www.macroviewlabs.com/work/sample. “Fresh content also is important, because you have to give people reasons to come back.”

Mobile Marketing and Technology

Windows Phone 7 Seems to be a Top App Developer Platform

Among publishers and developers, iPhone, Android, iPad, RIM and Windows Mobile were the
top five mobile application platforms of choice in 2010, according to Millennial Media. The Android, iPad, Windows Mobile, and Symbian platforms saw the most growth from 2009. The iPhone and RIM platforms saw year-over-year decreases.

Windows Phone 7 is tied for second place with iPad as the platform that will be added to most publishers’ and developers’ plates in the coming year. At 29 percent interest, Android is challenging the Apple iPhone as the top development platform.

Of those advertisers and marketers developing applications, the entertainment vertical is the most-active sponsor of new mobile apps, followed by technology, media, retail and consumer packaged good verticals.

Only 6.7 percent of developers use an internal sales force, as you might guess. Instead, developers sell using app networks, and rely on advertising networks to generate revenue.

The results were generated by surveys of  600 digital and mobile industry professionals in November
2009 and August 2010. In 2010, 41 percent of survey respondents classified themselves as an agency advertiser or marketer, 30 percent as an application developer, and 29 percent as a publisher.

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Moms text at home, use apps outside the home

We have a tendency to think of some products as "commodities." Even when that characterization is correct in some ways, it very often is not completely correct, with some important potential marketing implications.

Unless I completely miss my guess, I'd say the "Droid" and "Evo" probably appeal mostly to men, for example.

My unscientific sample suggests the typical first impression some women have is that the Droid and Evo are "heavy," the implication being that neither is a device  would prefer to carry and use.

The point, whether the characterization is mostly right, or not, is that user segments likely exist that service and app providers, as well as device manufacturers, have only begun to assess and design around. To be sure, a smartphone is a multi-purpose device. But most people have lead apps that are more important than most others, and could create opportunities to differentiate the end user experience.

Mobile Users Prefer Browsers over Apps

Although about a third of U.S. mobile phone subscribers used a downloaded application in August, according to comScore, and app downloads have shown impressive growth, many mobile device users appear to think browsers offer the better user experience.

Mobile users polled by Keynote Systems for Adobe reported a preference for mobile browsers to access virtually all mobile content. Games, music and social media were the only categories in which users would rather use a downloaded app than browse the mobile web.

Mobile Users Prefer Browsers over Apps - eMarketer

Mobile Gmail Now "Feels" More Like an App

Google has improved the performance of Gmail on an iPhone, suggesting that the performance gap between native mobile apps and web apps will grow smaller over time.

The new improvements make scrolling faster. In fact scrolling speed seems to match swipe gestures. This is helpful for long conversations where a few quick flicks will get you to the information you need much faster than before.

Also, toolbars stay on screen while users are scrolling, rather than moving down after each scroll. Being able to access toolbars from any point on the page should make it easier to triage email and move around the app.

Gmail in mobile Safari: now even more like a native app - Official Google Mobile Blog

Android Drives Use of Add-on Apps

Android users spend on average 42 minutes every day with add-on applications, like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and Skype, about 60 percent more than Blackberry, Windows Mobile or Symbian users, a study published by mobile analytics company Zokem indicates.

GSMA and Zokem: Android Drives the Use of Add-on Applications

Short Mobile App Shelf Life Isn't Necessarily a Bad Thing

Today the average smartphone has 22 apps on it, but the half-life of an app is about a month. In six months only five percent of them have been retained, according to Borrell Assoiciates.

That isn't necessarily a bad thing. The most-popular type of mobile app downloaded to smartphones is "games." People play them for a while, then move on.

Other types of content, such as movie or other content apps, will have a similar short shelf life. People watch TV shows or movies and then do not necessarily return to using them in the future. That's not a problem; it's an opportunity.

But the general observation still holds: few developers are likely to make much incremental revenue from their mobile apps. But that might not be the primary purpose for producing an app.

Promotion always has been a leading reason for advertising, and apps with short lifespan that promote purchases of movie tickets, content, games and other products still are worth doing, from that perspective.

Mobile App Stores Shorten Time to Market and Time to Payment

Mobile app stores have shortened "time to market" for mobile apps, especially compared to older distribution methods such as placement directly on mobile phones.

Mobile app stores also mean developers get paid faster, according to Telefonica.

Mobile Games Explain Much About Mobile App Disuse

You probably have seen statistics indicating that a typical mobile app gets used for perhaps a month, and then usage declines dramatically over the following two months. One reason is that so many mobile apps are either pieces of content or gaming apps, and will lose their novelty over time.

After looking at about 40,000 game titles, O'Reilly Radar estimates a popular game app, on average (median), spends about 15 days on the "Top 100" list.

Popular iPhone games stay highly-ranked only for a few weeks - O'Reilly Radar

Are Mobile Apps More Like Songs or Software?

Nobody knows yet how the mobile applications will develop, and how big a business it might become for various ecosystem participants. So far, the Apple App Store has sold about $1.4 billion in apps, of which developers keep about 70 percent.

Some developers can point to mobile apps as a significant revenue generator in its own right. Most cannot make that claim.  But some might suggest the developing business is quite a lot more like the "song" business than the software business, according to Getjar.

On average, it takes about the same time to write a mobile app as it does to compose a song, says Ilja Laurs, GetJar CEO. Both cost about the same to download, $1.90 on average.

Advertising and e-commerce will add some revenue on top of actual sales revenue. But at least so far, most "for-fee" mobile apps appear to sell like single songs, rather than productivity or other apps people use on their PCs.

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LeapFrog Explorer to Take Advantage of App Trend

LeapFrog Enterprises is unveiling a new "Leapster Explorer" touchscreen gaming system that supports downloading of apps using a wired PC connection.

The Leapster Explorer is a multi-faceted device, allowing kids ages four to nine to play games, read e-books, watch 30-minute videos, or download new educational apps.

 It connects to a computer via a universal serial bus cable. The device isells for $69.

Apple’s iPod Touch seems to be the driver, rather than the iPad, as the Touch has become quite popular with tweens, for example, and many parents will not want to pay $500 for an iPad. LeapFrog has half the market share for the educational gadget market in the United States.

The Explorer comes with its own customizable pet, such as a dog, which the child can name and use as a persistent avatar on the device, and which also can be uploaded to the online site LeapWorld.

About 18 Leaplet apps will be ready for the launch.

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Web Apps or Browser Apps?

In the "battle" between mobile apps and apps that run from inside browsers, Conduit, has found success with its cross-browser web application platform, and has announced support for Google Chrome.

That means publishers will be able to develop an application once for Conduit’s platform and have it work on Chrome and other major browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari.

Conduit has also made thousands of Chrome-compatible apps available at its App Marketplace, making it the largest source outside of Google for Chrome apps.

From May 2008 to March 2010, the company’s active users rose more than 500 percent, from under 20 million to over 100 million, and its revenue grew tenfold. From August 2009 to May this year, the amount of apps with over one million active users rose from single digits to over 40.

A recent Coca Cola Zero app was shown to over a million users within a day, and within ten days it reached more than 80 million people with nearly 1 million minutes of combined viewing time. That last statistic is worth considering. Many apps are ads, or simply links to web pages.

Conduit announces Google Chrome support for its massive web app platform | VentureBeat

Mobile Web Will Win Over Apps

As intrigued as most people seem to be with mobile apps, mobile browsers not only are likely to catch up, but the attraction of an app--that it executes properly on a mobile screen--will diminish over time as mobile Web devices and browser-based alternatives start to work as they would if the user were on a PC.

"I think its crazy that every brand, company, agency and corporation is having an arms race to pump out their app," says Chris Brashear. "Mobile browsing is cross platform, faster speed to market, less expensive and ready to explode," he says.

Mr Brand Manager: Put down the app and walk away… there are larger opps in mobile

Google Indexes Mobile Apps

Sometimes, when you use a smartphone, the best search result is not a web page, it's an application.

That's probably the reason why Google added an OneBox for iPhone and Android apps. If you enter a query that includes keywords like 'download', 'application' or 'app' on an iPhone or on an Android phone, you'll see a list of results from Apple's App Store or from the Android Market. link

As of today, if you go to Google.com on your iPhone or Android-powered device and search for an app, we’ll show special links and content at the top of the search results.

You can tap these links to go directly to the app’s Android Market or iPhone App Store page. You can also get a quick look at some of the app’s basic details including the price, rating, and publisher. These results will appear when your search pertains to a mobile application and relevant, well-rated apps are found.

Google Indexes Mobile Apps

21 Billion Mobile App Store Downloads in 2013

Mobile application downloads will  reach four billion in 2010, rising to 21 billion by 2013, says Gartner. Those downloads will be driven by worldwide smartphone shipments surpassing 390 million by 2013, growing at a rate of 20.9 percent per year.

According to Gartner consumers will spend $6.2 billion in mobile app stores during 2010, about 20 percent of all apps downloaded. There will also be $600 million dollars worth of advertising revenues generated by those downloads.

Gartner forecasts the total download revenue will increase to nearly $30 billion by 2013. The number of free or
ad-funded apps will increase to 87 percent by 2013. There also will be an increase of business models where the download is free, but there are additional charges associated with use of the applications.

In some cases users will have free access for a period, to be followed by purchase. In other cases users can use the free version, with limited functionality, but can get access to full functionality by upgrading for a fee.

Subscription services, or charging for content within an application are other revenue models. Some apps might also charge for access to new levels or areas within the application.

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Web Apps Will Catch Mobile Apps, Study Suggests

Count Global Intelligence Alliance as among the analysts who believe Web applications will be a viable competitor to app store programs over time, and that content distribution is likely to be a direct beneficiary of the trend towards using Web browsers to serve up mobile apps.

The same might be said for subscription-based mobile services such as news and weather as well.

Despite conventional wisdom, by 2013 HTML5 will enable Web-based apps to provide user experinces that rival that of mobile apps, GIA argues. But there are other reasons to believe Web-based apps will prove attractive. Web apps offer an architectural advantage, namely cross-device launches.  Mobile apps have to be adapted for each operating system, and often for discrete devices as well.

The Web also arguably is a better platform for subscription-basedservices such as communications, news, weather, financial services, retail and shopping, where user analytics are important. But GIA notes that smaller providers and pay-per-download services might well find the mobile apps route profitable, as such an approach can be directly tied to a clear revenue model.

But Web-based mobile apps will take a couple of years to develop. Right now, respondents surveyed by GIA say user adoption is about twice as high when using a mobile app approach. Some 47 percent of respondents reported that user adoption was higher when using a mobile app approach, compared to about 23 percent of respondents who said a Web approach produced higher end user adoption.

Web apps, on the other hand, are a bit more "sticky" than native apps, respondents report. About 27 percent of survey respondents said user activity peaked at initial download and then steadily declined. Only 15 percent of Web app developers said that was the case.

Likewise, about 23 percent of respondents indicated that user activity kept growing after download, compared to about 33 percent of Web apps users. Of course, that might be a statistical artifact produced by the different use cases.

To the extent that a mobile app provides access to "static" content, usage would decline over time, in much the same way that any user's viewing of a new movie will be highest at download and then drop off. Compare that to a cable TV subscription or news feed, that might be used on a continuing basis because the actual content is dynamic, rather than static.

The survey also found that end user session lengths tended to be longer for native apps, compared to Web apps. About half the respondents say native apps produce longer sessions. Only 20 percent of developers say Web apps produce long sessions. Of course, much depends on the type of application.

Many interactive or transactional apps will tend to last longer than many content delivery apps, if only because the transactional app will require time-consuming search and research. A user investigating air travel or lodging in a distant city might need to spend quite a bit of time conducting research, compared to a user playing a game or downloading a specific bit of content.

About 53 percent of native app developers reported that this approach cost more than creating a Web app, compared to 17 percent of respondents who said the Web app cost more than a native app to create.

About 43 percent of developers reported that maintenance and update of native apps cost more than a Web app approach.  About 24 percent of respondents indicated that a Web app approach was more costly to maintain and update.

About 60 percent of developers reported that a Web app approach was faster than a native app development approach.

U.S. Mobile Gaming Down 13% Annually, Feature Phone Drop is 35%, comScore is Still Bullish

You might not think a market that declines 13 percent year over year, and declines a whopping 35 percent, year over year, is a "growth" market. But that undoubtedly is the case. U.S. mobile gaming activity declined 13 percent between February 2009 and February 2010, posting a sharper drop of 35 percent among owners of feature phones, according to comScore. So why the optimism?

As it turns out, mobile gaming by smartphone owners increased 60 percent over that same period.
“Although the number of mobile gamers has declined in the past year, there is reason for significant optimism about the future of this market,” says Mark Donovan, comScore SVP. “As the market transitions from feature phones to smartphones, the dynamics of gameplay are also shifting towards a higher-quality experience," and that seems to be why smartphone gaming is up so much.

The inevitable ascent of the mobile gaming market depends not only on smartphone subscribers’ higher propensity to play games on their mobile devices, but also their heavier gaming activity across nearly every dimension, comScore says.

Smartphone subscribers (47.1 percent) are three times more likely than feature phone subscribers (15.7) to play games on their device at least once a month, comScore says.

They are more than five times as likely to play games almost every day and far surpass their feature phone counterparts across various methods of game play.

Smartphone subscribers also install significantly more games on their devices with 27.3 percent having installed at least one game compared to just 5.6 percent of feature phone subscribers.

A third of smartphone subscribers with games have more than five games installed on their phones, while less than one percent of feature phone subscribers have that many games installed.

“Smartphones offer a more accessible and compelling mobile gaming experience that is enabling adoption of this behavior, even among consumers who have not traditionally been gamers,” says Donovan.

And of course we haven't yet seen the impact of devices such as the iPad, which offer bigger screens and therefore potentially better gaming experiences.

Smartphone subscribers are more likely to play mobile games than feature phone subscribers across every gaming genre. The genre with the highest penetration among smartphone subscribers is arcade puzzle games at 12.9 percent, followed by card games (11.9 percent), word/number games (11.4 percent) and casino games (7.6 percent).

Another Reason Why Handset Suppliers Have Gained Value in the Mobile Ecosystem

The mobile user experience keeps getting more complex as mobile operators add spectrum bands, even though most users do not directly encounter any of the particular issues. The reason is that it is harder to maintain connections moving from cell to cell and network to network as new frequencies must be added.

Voice and Internet connectivity issues also become marginally harder as hanset antennae have to accomodate more signals at different frequencies. Also, mobile Internet handsets have to conduct all sorts of signaling operations to support social networking, email and other applications. And then there is the simple matter of different air interfaces.

New fourth-generation Long Term Evolution networks will make the problem worse, especially for "world phones" that are supposed to work in many regions of the world.

When GSM, the first "digital" air interface was firs used in Europe, there was only a single frequency band at 900 MHz band. Than an 1800 MHz band was added, then 2100 MHz.

In the United States, the 850 and 1900 MHz, 1700 and 2100 MHz bands are used. That has lead to "quad band" and "tri-band" devices. And now LTE frequencies will have to be added.

In Europe LTE will likely start on 2600 MHz and potentially also be used on 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz bands, with some use at 800 MHz.

In Japan, LTE will be used on 2100 MHz with an additional band likely to follow. In the United States, the situation is even more divergent. Verizon uses a 10 MHz block in the 700 MHz range.

Some other operators might launch LTE in the 1700 and 2100 MHz bands. Finally, there are rumors of Clearwire jumping from WiMAX to LTE in the 2600 MHz band but with TD-LTE.

So global roaming capabilities of devices will be challenging. So how does this all work out on the consumer end user front? First, cost becomes an issue. Battery life is affected. In some cases, there are form factor issues and reception issues, as the physical placement of the antenna makes a difference.

The potential band and technology combinations for GSM, CDMA, UMTS and LTE are huge, as air interfaces also are different between operators in the U.S. market. All of that means there also are volume manufacturing issues, as devices have to be customized to a certain extent, by operator and by intended region of operation.

All of that means some devices will work better, quite apart from the obvious user interface issues, because of hidden requirements such as the networks each device is intended to work with, signaling operations and even the physical placement of elements within each device.

More-efficient producers will have an advantage as well, as the complexity of these decisions will mean there is an advantage for manufacturers and designers that can leverage the customizing process.

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