Tag: Android

Who is #3?

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global mobile

Android and iOS account for almost 90 percent of the global smartphone market. They control a similar share of the U.S. smartphone market, the world’s largest by revenue.

In a recent report from BI Intelligence (www.businessinsider.com), it is clear that we live right now in a mobile world dominated by Google and Apple.  Can there be a number 3?

  • Microsoft – It launched Windows Phone in 2010, and tablet-friendly Windows 8 this year. It is experienced in building developer communities. However, Windows Phone has so far only managed a paltry 3 percent platform market share.
  • Amazon – A smartphone would be a natural extension of Amazon’s distribution empire, and its Kindle Fire tablet play. Amazon has 106 million unique visitors accessing its sites, many of them with credit cards on file.
  • Samsung – Its dependency on Android may become a liability and push the South Korean manufacturer into the platform business. Samsung’s strength is its hardware sales prowess — Samsung shipped over 56 million smartphones in the third quarter of 2012.

Blackberry? Dead.  Check out John Belushi and insert Blackberry for Niedermeyer.

Webman

 

Should mobile devices be allowed in meetings?

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No!

When you are in a meeting it is your responsibility to participate.  That is why you are there.

In order to effectively participate, you need to follow the conversation closely and consider every point being made so that you can comment and add value to the meeting.  If you are not prepared to add value, why did you go to the meeting?  If you are multi-tasking your ability to add value drops dramatically.

Always focus on value creation and making a difference.  If you are reading your tiny screen, you are not contributing and it is obvious to everyone else in the meeting that you are not contributing.

When you are juggling e-mails, calls and texts your IQ falls 10 points.  Don’t let your IQ fall 🙂

Webman

Mobile E-Mail

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As mentioned yesterday, mobile access to e-mail is exploding, now accounting for nearly 33% of initial e-mail access points. Folks are on-the-go and reading their e-mails within a much different context than reading on their laptop/desktops. Walk around your office and notice how many people are heading to or in meetings with just their mobile device. If they are like me, the amount of time spent looking at an e-mail is getting shorter and shorter, while the volume of e-mails continues to escalate on a daily basis, making the right offer, at the right time to the right person a rapidly changing target.

If you are like me, your e-mail evaluation process has changed from scan, read, delete to scan, delete, read so the need to capture my attention in the headline or in the first line of the e-mail has become even more important as this is all that is visible on the screen. so not only has it become difficult for companies that I have opted into for offers, but for companies that are trying to acquire me as a customer for the first time, they must really capture my attention immediately. If not, delete for them.

One of the challenges for enterprise or company e-mail providers are the variety of capabilities that are available through each of the mobile service/technology providers. This is extremely important to understand as the ability to reach consumers B2C (mostly via the Apple IOS or Google Android platforms) is significantly different that a company that is trying to reach business customers B2B (Many businesses still use Blackberry but not sure for how long). Take a look at the following infographic for the differences across each of these platforms.

So make sure you are taking these platform differences into consideration when planning your campaigns. Thanks again to the folks at Litmus for the cool infographics. www.litmus.com

Have an awesome day.

Webman

Draw Something – Part 2

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We covered Draw Something last week, but so much is happening so fast we needed to do a quick follow-up.

Quick reminder – Draw Something is a highly addictive social drawing game available for Apple iOS and Android Devices.  You draw and guess words, play cooperatively with friends or competitively with rivals.

Here is what the app looks like when you download it:

So what are the updated statistics:

  • Launched 7 weeks ago
  • 20 million daily active users
  • 37 million downloads
  • 3 billion drawings since launch
  • 1 billion drawings last week
  • 2,000 drawings per second
  • Number 1 app in 85 countries

Check out these Draw Something drawings – these folks are good.

Mine definitely do not look like these – LOL

Go and download the app from the Apple or Android stores and give it a try.

Enjoy.

Webman

Draw Something – WOW

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There is an app for that! Well we have heard that many times.  In the Apple app store there are now over 500,000 apps.  Enter the App Store and you will find apps in many categories such as games, lifestyle, social networking, productivity, education and many, many more.  Many of the apps are free, but these apps come with the ever present advertising, which I find annoying. If you have the $0.99 or the $1.99 pony it up to eliminate this clutter. For those of you with Android phones, there are now over 415,000 apps in that store as well.

The app market is big and getting bigger everyday.  The market size now exceeds $10 billion and is growing at 100+% per year.  Nice.

And games like Angry Birds are just amazing with regard to the shear number of downloads and people playing.  Angry Birds has been downloaded 600,000,000 times.  Hey Mario, we hardly knew ya.

When it comes to growing really fast though, we are watching a new app called Draw Something growing at a rate that may be unprecedented.  If you do not know what Draw Something is, ask your kids because they are likely playing it.  Draw Something is a highly addictive social drawing game available for Apple iOS and Android Devices.  You draw and guess words, play cooperatively with friends or competitively with rivals.  How fast is this growing?  Draw Something launched in February. Here are the statistics in 6 weeks:

  • Number 1 app in 80 countries
  • Downloaded more than 20,000,000 times
  • Generates $100,000+ in revenue per day
  • Has 12+ million users per day

Now for some staggering statistics about Draw Something:

  • AOL – 9 years to get to 1 million users
  • Facebook – 9 months to get to 1 million users
  • Draw Something – 9 days

Check out the video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rCoRZbyLWE

Download the app and have some fun!

Enjoy the weekend.

Webman

iPad vs Kindle Fire

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New iPad vs. Kindle Fire: Which Tablet is Right for You?

I have written about the iPad a number of times. One of my followers, Michael, is considering taking the plunge and buying a tablet.  He wanted to know the differences between an iPad and a Kindle.  So here we go Michael.  Not that I am trying to influence you in any way but Apple sold about a gagillion new iPads since the new one launched.  Not that I am trying to pressure you in any way or influence your decision 🙂

Headline – Two completely different products.  The new iPad with it’s coolness factor, new retina display, apps, and overall capabilities including as a reading device, etc. is a game changer but not as friendly to your budget while the Kindle Fire is more budget-friendly and primarily serves as a reading device.  So let’s take a look at the various factors to consider when you’re looking for your next tablet:

Media Content and Reading Experience

Both the new iPad and the Kindle Fire offer awesome content.  

Amazon offers more than 100,000 movies and TV shows to rent or buy, and Amazon Prime users can access unlimited free streaming for over 10,000 titles; Apple offers no such program. The iTunes store has more than 15,000 movies and 90,000 TV episodes. Both Amazon and Apple tout music collections nearing 20 million songs. Impressive.

When it comes to the music, Apple has the benefit of iTunes, with special features like Genius and iTunes Match. Amazon allows a little more breathing room for playback on other devices; from phones to other tablets to internet-enabled TVs. Apple is more restrictive, limiting media to its own devices.

Then there are books, newspapers, and magazines. Amazon’s selection is superior, but since you can get the Kindle App for your iPad, there really is no advantage there. The iPad retina display, with its 264 pixels per inch, game changer and not on the Fire

Specs

A quick summary for you:

Chart

The iPad offers 4G LTE connectivity.  Both access all wireless hot spots of course so you need to decide if you want the data plan on the iPad as this will add additional costs

If you want your new tablet to replace your digital camera, then the iPad’s new 5-megapixel camera will be a big factor. No camera on The Kindle Fire. Battery life will likely be longer on the iPad too, but that’s because it’s a bigger tablet that can house a bigger battery.

Software and Apps
The Amazon Appstore is very good, with thousands of choices, but it can’t compare with the more than 170,000 native iPad apps in the Apple App Store.  

It’s hard to argue with the simplicity and elegance of Apple’s iOS. It is just better.

Pricing and Value
The Kindle Fire costs $199, while the entry level 16GB iPad will cost $499. If your intentions are purely casual, like light Web browsing, email, and Angry Birds, then the Kindle Fire will likely suffice. But if you want your tablet to replace your laptop, or at least come close, the iPad is more powerful, feature rich, and offers a superior, tablet-optimized app selection.

Both great products.  Time to decide which one is right for you.

Webman

Sunglasses at Night

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Looks like many people will start wearing glasses soon.  Not because their eye sight is deteriorating, not because the baby boomers are getting older, not because lasik surgery has been discontinued but because we will be able to use sunglasses now instead of our smartphones.  What?  I am just getting the hang of this smartphone thing and I can already move on.  Not totally, but once you read this, you might say, COOL, I need a pair of those.

In an article published in the New York Times recently, people who constantly check a smartphone for bits of information will soon be able to retrieve most of that information from a pair of Google-made glasses that will be able to stream information to the wearer’s eyeballs in real time.  The glasses will use an Android-based operating system and look like a pair of Oakley Thumps.

The glasses will have a low-resolution built-in camera that will be able to monitor the world in real time and overlay information about locations, surrounding buildings and friends who might be nearby. The glasses are not designed to be worn constantly,but will be more like smartphones, used when needed.  The glasses would tap into a number of Google software products that are currently available, but will display the information in an augmented reality view, rather than as a Web browser page like those that people see on smartphones.

Apparently Apple is working on a product as well.

I wear my sunglasses at night So I can so I can Watch you live and breathe your story lines
(And) I wear my sunglasses at night So I can so I can Keep track of the visions in my eyes
While she’s deceiving me It cuts my security (has) She got control of me I turn to her and say
Don’t switch the blade on the guy in shades, oh no Don’t masquerade with the guy in shades,
oh no I can’t believe it You got it made with the guy in shades, oh no
(And) I wear my sunglasses at night So I can so I can Forget my name while you collect your claim
And I wear my sunglasses at night So I can so I can See the light that’s right before my eyes

Sunglasses at Night – Corey Hart

The glasses will have a unique navigation system, one that uses your head to scroll and click. They will send data to the cloud and use things like Google Latitude to share location, Google Goggles to search images and figure out what is being looked at, and Google Maps to show other things nearby.  Privacy hounds will have a field day with this one.  Now they are going to track whatever we look at.  Gentlemen, this could be a real issue.

So get ready for the next thing everyone.  Soon you will see everyone in glasses rolling their heads in all sorts of new ways to scroll and click.  I wonder what will happen when you roll your eyes?  🙂

Webman

Smartphones – Connecting with your customers

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The news about smartphone penetration continues to be incredible.  Adoption rates continue to climb and more importantly, your key customer targets, people between the ages of 18-44 are using smartphones more than ever.  The question for your business is what are you doing to reach your customers and prospects?

Nielsen’s third quarter survey of mobile users reveals that while only 43 percent of all US mobile phone subscribers own a smartphone, a mobile phone with a powerful operating system, the vast majority of those under the age of 44 now have smartphones. In fact 62 percent of mobile adults aged 25-34 report owning smartphones. And among those 18-24 and 35-44 years old the smartphone penetration rate is hovering near 54 percent.

As a smartphone owner, my behavior has become more and more mobile and my tolerance for non-mobile sites is near zero.  Using a browser on a mobile device?  How bad is that?  Have you downloaded an app?  Well 30 million apps are downloaded worldwide every day.  What are you waiting for?

40 percent of 45-54 year-olds reported owning a smartphone, as opposed to a more basic feature phone.  The segment with the second fastest-growing smartphone penetration rate is those aged 55-64. Smartphone penetration among this older group is only 30 percent, but it jumped 5 percent this quarter.  The baby boomers also are going mobile.

Your ability to connect and stay relevant to your customers and prospects is changing rapidly.  Are you keeping up?