Facebook Has Greatest 'Active Reach' of Android Apps

Nielsen has published data on the Android apps with the greatest "active reach" by age group (US market). Active reach means "percentage of Android owners who used the app within the past 30 days." After the Android Market app itself, Facebook is dominant across age categories. 

After Facebook, Google occupies the next four slots with slight differences by segment. But basically it goes: GMail, Google Maps, Google Search and YouTube. In the top 100 free apps in the iTunes store, Facebook comes in at #24, Twitter at #48 and Google at #61. 

In September here's what Nielsen said about overall active reach of Android apps: 

Below is a chart (UK data from 12/10) that shows how dominant Facebook is in terms of time spent in aggregate minutes: 

Verizon Stuffs Google Wallet, Starbucks Proclaims Itself the Mobile Payments Leader

Starbucks issued a press release this morning that proclaimed the company the "mobile payments leader," which is probably not incorrect. Here are some of the numbers exposed in the statement:

• Mobile payments available at 9,000 US Starbucks locations (7K Starbucks, 1K Target stores, 1K Safeway locations)
• 26 million mobile transactions at Starbucks to date
• $2.4 billion in value loaded into various payment cards during 2011 (Starbucks payment cards are used for 25% of all US transactions)
• $110.5 million reloaded onto Starbucks Cards directly through the mobile app

These are impressive numbers and Starbucks is likely doing more to popularize and educate people about mobile payments than any other entity in the US. The company plans to expand its apps/mobile payments program internationally as well.

In a related story, VentureBeat reported this morning that US carrier Verizon, the first to gain access to an Android 4.0 handset (Galaxy Nexus), is effectively blocking Google Wallet. The Galaxy Nexus is the second US Android handset to include NFC capability. The blog received a statement from a Google representative confirming that “Verizon asked [Google] not to include this functionality in the product."

The motivation for the carrier's move is obvious: it has a competing mobile wallet/payments offering in ISIS, a joint venture with AT&T and T-Mobile. It's not clear how much "outrage" this will generate among consumers, given that most have not tried mobile wallets and are conceptually ambivalent about them according to several surveys.

According to a Retrevo survey, carriers are less trusted than Google or Apple to provide mobile payments functionality:

I'm very skeptical that carriers will be able to provide a good and highly functional mobile payments experience. Google is in a much stronger position to do so than the carriers (in the US or internationally). I've got a note in to Google and will update this post if I'm able to talk to them.

Siri Most Popular Feature on New iPhone

The firm ChangeWave Research surveyed Apple iPhone 4S owners (n=215) and found higher consumer satisfaction levels than for its predecessor, the iPhone 4. The firm discovered that 77% of owners reported being "Very Satisfied" vs. 72% of iPhone 4 owners. Siri apparently is a large part of that, as the most liked feature on the handset. 

The biggest frustrations or "dislikes" were: 

• Battery life issues (38%)
• Lack of 4G speed (30%)
• Screen size (11%)

After Siri, the best liked features of the iPhone 4S were:

• Ease of use (39%)
• Camera (33%)
• Faster browsing (24%)

This is the first emprical proof we have beyond media reports that Siri is really making an impact on people. 

Study: Tablets Are for "Couch, Bed and Kitchen"

Tablets are for fun, entertainment, relaxation, while laptops are for work says a new study from Google. The company is releasing some very interesting (and more nuanced) data today on tablet usage, which has come into sharp focus following all the post-holiday analysis.

The data in the Google study are based on self-reported dairies consumers kept over a two-week period (sample size undisclosed). Google found an emerging bifurcation between tablet and PC usage, as well as some other interesting consumer behaviors.The bottom line here is that tablets are used in the home primarily, mostly by one person for leisure activities and often along side other media. 

Most consumers in the study "use[d] their tablets for fun, entertainment and relaxation while they use[d] their desktop computer or laptop for work." Just over 90% of usage turned out to be personal (email is an exception perhaps). Google added, "When a consumer gets a tablet, we’ve found that they quickly migrate many of their entertainment activities from laptops and smartphones to this new device."

Other findings from the study:

• The most frequent tablet activities are: email, games and social networking 
• Usage was more compressed during the week and longer on the weekend (e.g., watching video)
• 42% of tablet activities happened during other tasks or along side other media (i.e. watching TV). Email, games, social networking and search are the tablet activities most frequently done in front of TV 
• Usage occurs mostly in the home, though some people use them on the commute and on vacation or work trips, “where they use them as a laptop replacement"
• Google also discovered most tablets were used by single individuals; a smaller percentage were shared with family members

Tablets are, according to Google, “mobile within the home, with the highest usage taking place on the couch, from the bed and in the kitchen" (see first graphic above).

Google also offers some implied recommendations for publishers: “For many people, websites and apps designed for smartphones just don’t cut it on tablets" In other words have sites and apps optimized for tablets. That's somewhat ironic given how few tablet apps exist for Android -- they're mostly stretched smartphone apps (which will change hopefully soon with Ice Cream Sandwhich). 

In a parallel vein, Google said that consumers expect more interactivity from ads on tablets:

Consumers are engaging with useful, relevant and rich ads that take advantage of the touchscreen interface on tablets. Some consumers expect more interactivity from ads on tablets than they do from ads on their desktop computer.

Interestingly, most activities carried out on tablets were limited to tablets, according to Google. Only 18% were conducted across platforms (on PCs or smartphones). 

With the iPad topping wishlists and millions of Kindle Fires being sold this holiday season the influence of tablets will only grow. This seems to be further confirmed by Google's finding that tablets were mostly used by one person. This argues for subsequent tablet purchases by other family members so "each can have his/her own." 

And in a bad economy those purchases will likely come at the expense of PCs. 

Cutting through the Cyber-Monday Hype

IBM, eBay, comScore and others have been pouring out data reflecting revenue gains over the weekend and on Monday for e-commerce and specifically mobile. In particular comScore says that Cyber Monday became the biggest online shopping day in US history clearing $1.25 billion. PayPal said that it saw a 552% increase in mobile payment volume vs. last year and a nearly 400% (397%) increase in mobile shopping.

There are a range of other statistics that reinforce the fact that there was a great deal of shopping on mobile devices over the weekend and on Monday.  

For example, IBM said the following about mobile shopping and mobile traffic over the weekend:

• Mobile traffic increased to 14.3 percent  . . . compared to 5.6 percent in 2010
• Sales on mobile devices surged to 9.8 percent from 3.2 percent year over year
• Mobile shopping was led by Apple (iPhone + iPad) . . . Android came in third at 4.1 percent. Collectively iPhone and iPad accounted for 10.2 percent of all online retail traffic on Black Friday.
• Shoppers using the iPad led to more retail purchases more often per visit than other mobile devices with conversion rates reaching 4.6 percent compared to 2.8 percent for overall mobile devices

IBM added on that on Cyber Monday mobile represented 7.7% of all online sales, up from 2.2% last year.

So what does all this mean exactly? As a basic matter, it means that people are using smartphones and tablets to shop for products and some are making purchases on them.

We need to ask several questions, however, before we can take the full measure of what happened:

• Were mobile devices being used mostly in the home?
• How much of the activity happened "on the go" and in stores? 
• What percentage of people started with a mobile device and finished on a PC (and vice versa)? 
• How many mobile purchases were made through mobile apps vs. the mobile web? 
• What percentage of "mobile" purchases happened on the iPad vs. smartphones?
• What percentage of mobile buying happened where the user had a stored credit card on file with the e-commerce site/app?   

Answering at least some of these questions will give us a better sense of what's really going on in terms of mobile behavior. Screen size, location, time and the immediacy of user needs are all variables that contribute to a larger consumer-behavior context. For example, a tablet (iPad) user at home is very different from a smartphone user in a store, and so on. 

While marketers and publishers can't address all these variables and nuances, they need to strive to better understand them to be effective and understand where mobile sits in the new cross-platform shopping paradigm.

Source: Google-AdMob, March 2011; Nielsen Q1 2011

Data: Mobile Shopping, Transactions Way Up from Last Year

Data released by eBay/PayPal and IBM today show some early holiday 2011 digital commerce trends. PayPal (and parent eBay) said that there were two mobile shopping peaks yesterday across its various sites. The first happened between 1pm and 2pm PST. The other occurred between 6pm and 7pm PST.

The most popular merchandise categories on eBay mobile were the following:

1. Clothing, Shoes & Accessories
2. Cell Phones & PDAs
3. Jewelry & Watches
4. Collectibles
5. Toys & Hobbies

The top mobile-purchased items in the electronics category were: 

1. iPhone Accessories
2. Apple iPhone 4 - 16GB – Black
3. Apple iPod Touch 4th Generation 8GB

PayPal also recorded a "511% [increase] in global mobile payment volume compared to Thanksgiving 2010."

IBM reported that "Thanksgiving 2011 sales were up 39 percent over Thanksgiving 2010." The company also said the following about mobile traffic and purchases yesterday:

• Traffic to retail sites reached 15.2%, up from 6.4% last year
• Number of consumers buying on mobile devices increased to 11.09%, up from just over 4% last year.

EBay has said that it will record roughly $5 billion in mobile purchases and PayPal will process $3.5 billion in mobile payments by the end of 2011. Of course these sites, and rival Amazon, are leveraging a huge installed base of users. These are not new mobile adopters but existing customers who are using mobile apps to carry out transactions. Both eBay and Amazon have invested heavily in mobile apps and their overall mobile user experiences.

All of this is helped quite a bit by consumer credit cards already on file. Most other retailer sites will see significant increases in traffic from mobile devices but not corresponding purchases. The reasons for this will be a poor mobile user experience and/or lack of a stored credit card number. One solution is Card.io, which captures credit card information through the smartphone camera, eliminating the need to key in 16 digits.

Amazon Might Own Android Tablet Market

I've not had my hands on an Kindle Fire but the reviews are generally fair to negative, except in the context of its price: "a good tablet for the price" is the consensus. And consumers are responding to that price in large numbers. Amazon will sell millions of Kindle Fire tablets to existing Kindle owners and to some would-be iPad buyers seduced by the $199 price and the assurances of the Amazon brand.

Amazon is also intending to release a larger version of the Kindle Fire next year, though it won't be quite as large as the iPad. Putting aside the Nook and hypothetical Windows tablets, Amazon's Kindle Fire is instantly the most successful tablet after the iPad by a huge margin.

Until someone else comes along with a cheaper, better Android tablet Amazon owns the market. So when the dust settles early next year after holiday sales are over it will effectively be a two tablet market: Apple vs. Amazon. I say "Apple vs. Amazon" because Amazon has effectively obscured all Android (and Google) branding. Most people buying a Kindle Fire don't know or care that they're buying an "Android device." 

It's possible that Samsung or HTC will build a competitive tablet featuring Android 4.0 ("Ice Cream Sandwich"). But the current crop of Gingerbread and Honeycomb tablets simply "blow" (as they say in the vernacular) by comparison to the iPad. It would also be very challenging for any Android tablet maker to match Amazon's pricing given that the company is effectively taking a loss -- sellig the device for less than it costs to make on the assumption that it will increase product and content sales for Amazon.

There is a scenario where wireless carriers give away some future, stellar Android tablet in exchange for two year contract commitments. However, consumers are basically loathe to enter into a second set of wireless contracts beyond the ones they already have for their smartphones. WiFi tablets are more popular than carrier-subsidized tablets. It's therefore a much longer shot.

Recent consumer surveys from Retrevo, Nielsen and ChangeWave have shown increasing demand for tablets, with the iPad leading the group but with Kindle also in the clear second position.

As tablets replace PCs for some people the question of how other PC OEMs repond to the Apple-Amazon challenge becomes a major, strategic question. As Samsung, Dell and others have already shown, they can't (so far) match Apple on quality or hardware-software integration. And they can't match Amazon on price.

Thus until the forseeable future it's a two tablet race. And right now Amazon owns Android. 

The Decline of RIM and 'Consumerization' of IT

One of the big trends of the past few years has been the "consumerization of enterprise IT." This manifests in various ways, including the emergence of enterprise "social" tools that mimic consumer sites and user experiences (e.g., Salesforce's Chatter). Another way in which enterprise IT is changing is that workers now have more choice about the devices that they can use on the network.

RIM's stronghold and bulwark against irrelevance had been the corporate IT department, but that's no longer the case. The iPhone is now the top smartphone in the enterprise according to a new survey, the iPass 2011 Mobile Enterprise Report (based on 2,300 responses from workers at 1,100 enterprises globally).

Below are a selection of data presented in the survey report:

• 95 percent of mobile workers now have smartphones, up from 85 percent in 2010
• 91 percent use their smartphones for work, compared to 69 percent in 2010
• Tablet ownership has grown to 44 percent of mobile employees, up from 33 percent in Q2 of 2011
• The iPhone is now the top smartphone in the enterprise with 45 percent market share among mobile workers, up from 31 percent in 2010.
• Only 28 percent of mobile workers are given no choice when it comes to smartphone selection; the majority of enterprises offer their employees some choice (62 percent) – 44 percent can select from a list of smartphones, and an additional 19 percent can use any device they choose to access corporate resources.

Current enterprise smartphone share:

Intention to buy smartphones in 2012:

Current tablet share in the enterprise: 

Another interesting finding is that a growing number of workers (especially younger workers) leave their laptops at the office more frequently. Roughly 42% of workers said they left their business laptops at the office at least several days a week because they have alternative devices at home. 

Question: Do you leave your business laptop at work on weekends/evenings and just use your smartphone or tablet?

In tandem with the above finding the survey discovered that roughly 25% of respondents said they were using their laptops less today than a year ago. 

Gap Enables Google Wallet in 65 SF Bay Area Locations

The Gap has enabled Google Wallet at 65 San Fransisco Bay Area stores (Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Banana Republic Factory Stores and Gap Outlet). You can still only pay with MasterCard and a Google Prepaid Card, which you can fill with another credit card. Eventually Google wall "accept" all sorts of cards into Wallet. 

To promote the initiative Gap is giving Google Wallet users 15% off. The deal is presented in the Google Wallet app, in the "offers" area.

Google doesn't "see" any of the transactions today (and may never see them precisely). It only knows a transaction was made and the city in which it was made. It doesn't know the amount, the item or the store. However the Gap, in this case, knows all that information. 

Beyond the fact that this represents a convenience for the consumer it offers a powerful analytics capability to the marketer. In the not-too-distant future brands and marketers will be able to track promotions and ads to the point of sale with services like Google Wallet. In a lower-tech way Foursquare offers a similar capability through check-ins. The larger point is that NFC, check-ins and point of sale integration are starting to enable marketers to get more visibility on online-->offline transactions (or traditional media to POS). This is a major development and the arrival of a new form of analytics. 

By the day there's some new mobile payments announcement it seems. Indeed, the world of mobile payments is starting to get pretty noisy and potentially confusing to merchants and consumers. Visa, Amex, Mastercard, Verifone, Google, Apple, mobile carriers, eBay/PayPal, Square, Intuit and others are all competing for consumer and merchant attention. While not all of these players are directly competing, many of them are.

On the merchant side there need to be standards or at least compatible systems to enable mass consumer adoption of mobile payments. Fragmentation or different standards and systems will confuse and frustrate merchants and consumers alike, and only delay adoption. 

Very small merchants and service providers will likely turn to simple-to-adopt services like Square. Larger entities will ultimately adopt NFC-based systems I suspect. Broad adoption by retailers like the Gap helps the cause accordingly.

See related: PayPal Brand Weakness Standing in Way of Otherwise Compelling Shopping Vision

Free Webinar Tomorrow: The Convergence of Local & Mobile Advertising

Tomorrow at 1 US Eastern, 10 Pacific is our free webinar: The Convergence of Local and Mobile Marketing. I'll be providing a broad market overview on the following issues:

• Smartphone and mobile Internet adoption
• Local-mobile user behavior
• Tablet adoption
• Mobile advertising projections
• SMB demand for mobile marketing  

AT&T Interactive’s Executive Director of Product Management Matthew Goldman will offer their view of the mobile market "on the ground." What are consumers really doing in mobile and what are they looking for? How are they responding to mobile ads? And, beyond surveys, is there truly demand among SMBs for mobile marketing? If so, where is that demand concentrated? 

We'll also take questions from the audience on these and related issues. If you're operating in the local-mobile segment or selling to small business advertisers you won't want to miss it.

To attend you must first register here. 

Windows Phones Will Be Most Directly Competing with Android

Windows Phone (especially after the 7.5 "mango" update) has received positive reviews -- some extremely positive. I have one of the Samsung Windows Phones and have been using it periodically for several weeks and can attest to some of the accolades. The browser for example is very fast. I also like the operation of email on the handset.

Some of the various reviews assert that the Microsoft OS has "caught up" to Android and iOS. And with the release of the first Nokisoft phones, the future looks much better for Microsoft's mobile efforts (and maybe for Nokia) than it did a year ago.

However, right now at least, the best prospects for Windows Phones are feature phone users upgrading to a smartphone. These are people who generally speaking haven't been living with and become "acculturated" to an iPhone or Android device -- although the iPod Touch and iPad expose non-smartphone users to iOS.

There's almost zero chance that an iPhone user is going to switch to a Windows Phone at this point. By the same token the chance that an existing Android user will switch is low, though not as low as with the iPhone. iPhone owners display greater loyalty than Android owners. By my logic, then, Windows Phones are most likely competing for attention from those individuals considering upgrading from a feature phone to an Android handset. (Although the iPhone 4 is now $99 with a contract.)

In addition, Windows Phones are probably not competing with the top-of-the-line Android handsets (e.g., Samsung Galaxy, HTC Rezound, Moto Razr). They'll be competing more at the entry level, although Nokia's Lumia handsets are not positioned as entry level devices. To win buyers, however, they'll need to be priced as though they were entry level smartphones.

Windows Phones must generate sales to show that the platform has traction in order to make their case to developers. Without developers and a sufficient supply of desirable apps, Windows Phone will remain a second-tier OS. For higher-end users, Microsoft also needs to "answer" Siri with some compelling voice capabilities in future updates. 

There's no word on precisely when the new Nokisoft handsets will be available in North America. They'll come first to Europe and then perhaps Asia and the developing world before the US market. This makes sense because Nokia's brand is much stronger in Europe and developing markets, where the company is known for cheap devices. 

To compete in the US these Nokia handsets -- and Windows Phones in general -- must be priced at or below $150, and probably $99, with a two-year contract. That's chiefly because they don't have the apps ecosystem to compete with Android. Until they do this is a major deficiency and competitive disadvantage. That's why price is key. But Microsoft knows all this.

If I were a US-based marketing executive for Windows Phones I would secure carrier relationships that allowed pricing at $99 (with a contract). Then I would target smartphone upgraders (low-end Android buyers) and make the case that the Nokia-made devices are better.

I would also be very aggressive with developers. For example, I would pay them to port over their most popular apps to Windows, which appears to be what Microsoft is doing. And I would allow them to keep 100% of the proceeds of app sales for the first year on the platform -- maybe the first two years. 

All of this positioning advice is just based on my instincts and market observations (rather than survey data). But Microsoft and Nokia need to "get it right" or potentially miss a window of opportunity. And without some initial success and perceived momentum, both developers and carriers will be less interested going forward. 

Why Kindle Fire Will Do Well: Price, Brand

By almost all measures Android tablets have been a flop so far. The most "viable" of the Android tablet family, Samsung's Galaxy Tab line, offers a weak software experience and poor hardware-software integration. But the Kindle Fire -- and to a lesser degree the Nook line -- may vindicate Android in tablet form.

However the success of those devices has little or nothing to do with Android. This is especially true with Kindle Fire. (Amazon has probably compensated for the software shortcomings of Android on tablets with its own layer on top of the OS.)

The apparent popularity of the Amazon device is about two things: its $199 price tag (the major driver of sales) and the Amazon brand. The latter gives consumers confidence that it will likely perform as promised and builds on Amazon's successful track record with Kindle.

According to Retrevo survey data, there's a sizable group who might substitute the Kindle Fire for the iPad during the holidays. 

While there have been other cheap Android tablets in the past, the difference here is that the Amazon brand and promise of content through Amazon Prime gives people confidence to buy it sight unseen. Amazon Prime would otherwise cost $79 per year. Indeed, with that factored in as "opportunity cost," Amazon is going be losing money on Kindle Fire. We should thus see the device more broadly as a marketing vehicle and loyalty play for Amazon. It will help Amazon sell more stuff in general. 

The survey also found that a meaningful number of people may add a second tablet to their growing inventory of gadgets. Here the 7" form factor and perceived benefits of having the Amazon device may cause people to buy a Kindle Fire if they already have an iPad. 

The anticipated success of the Kindle Fire tablet could light a fire under the 7" tablet segment more broadly but not unless those devices are priced competitively. Those 7" tablets (e.g., from HTC, Samsung) that cost more than $250 will probably sit on the shelves. And those 10" Android tablets that cost $499 or more will be seen largely as copies of the iPad and sit on shelves as well. 

The strength of the Amazon brand, the success of earlier Kindle devices and the aggressive pricing (including Amazon Prime) will create success where other Android tablets have failed. The Android "brand" may even be something of a liability in the tablet segment right now. And most Kindle Fire prospects and early buyers probably have limited or no awareness of the device's operating system at all. 

The 'Speech Interface' Now a Must-Have on Phones (and Tablets)

Earlier my colleague Dan Miller wrote up the news that Amazon had acquired speech provider Yap yesterday. So begins a ridiculous "Siri Killer" meme.

What's more interesting however is how Siri, less than a quarter out in its current form, is already reshaping the calculus of what features and capabilities mobile devices must have or offer their users. Call it the "speech interface."

Dan Miller, who is probably the foremost analyst-authority on voice and speech services, has much deeper knowledge of speech recognition and its related manifestations than I. However in my more limited experience I can tell you that Siri offers the best speech user-experience I've encountered to date. (Nuance provides the voice recognition for Siri.) 

As a long-time Android user I've had good experiences with Google's voice search and voice actions and I've had very frustrating ones. Siri (+Nuance) is better. And the way that Siri is integrated into the iPhone 4S (with more to come) is much more compelling than a voice overlay. Siri's "personality" matters as well. It's not only driving engagement and usage it has become a major differentiator and sales-driver for what was otherwise a less-than-compelling product release. 

Sure Android has "voice actions." But Apple has "Siri." You get the difference. 

Google and Microsoft already have considerable speech assets but both will need to "up their game" to compete more effectively. Accordingly we can expect more acquisitions in the voice segment as these companies (and others) create their own versions of the speech interface. This will eventually extend to TVs, cars and other "appliances."

I suspect "virtual assistant" Vlingo will be acquired, because it provides the "assistant" capability as well as speech recognition. (However litigation between Vlingo and Nuance operates as something of a cloud over any potential takeover.)

In a presentation I gave on a range of topics yesterday at the Local Social Summit in London I said Siri is to voice commands and “voice search” what the iPhone was to smartphones in 2007: a breakthrough experience that forces competitors to respond. I guess Amazon just did. 

Amazon, which doesn't have a smartphone, will clearly be integrating voice control and commands into Kindle Fire. Siri isn't yet available for the iPad but that's probably one of the new features that will be bundled into iPad 3. 

Is Siri Steve Jobs' Revenge Against Android?

In written testimony submitted to the US Senate Judiciary committee on antitrust, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt identified Apple's voice assistant Siri as a competitor in mobile search: 

Moreover, history shows that popular technology is often supplanted by entirely new models. Even in the few weeks since the hearing, Apple has launched an entirely new approach to search technology with Siri, its voice-activated search and task-completion service built into the iPhone 4S. As one respected technology site reported: “[E]veryone keeps insisting that Apple will eventually get into the search engine business. Well they have. But not in the way that everyone was thinking. Siri is their entry point.” Another commentator has described Siri more simply as intended to be a “Google killer."

The hyperbolic "Google killer" designation is invoked by Schmidt to show that Google is beset by competition on all sides. I've written previously that Siri may actually increase the number of Google searches coming from the iPhone, as people discover they can "search the Web for  . . ." Siri can also be used to search Bing or Yahoo, though most people continue to have Google as their "default" search provider on the iPhone. 

In the short term Siri doesn't to anything to degrade Google search query volumes. As I said it may increase them. Over time, as apps become integrated into Siri, people may use it as a tool to access their favorite vertical search or content providers for local, travel, health, weather and so on. In such a scenario (which is how the original Siri app was set up and intended to be used), Google could see less traffic. However that's speculative at this point. 

The way that Siri "harms" Google today is by making itself and not Google the starting point for mobile search and discovery on the iPhone. It hasn't become that for most users but it could in short order. Siri sits "on top" of Google (or Bing) just as Google sits on top of third party sites and content on the PC. 

In that way Siri supplants the Google brand and becomes the "go to" source for information for iPhone 4S owners. This is the way that Siri really damages Google, at least in the near term. It potentially does to Google what Google has done to so many third party content providers online.

I don't actually think that Siri is Steve Jobs' revenge -- he famously threatened to spend all Apple's cash reserves to destroy Android -- I just wrote that to get attention.  

Why QR Codes, NFC and Augmented Reality Will Disappear into 'Visual Search'

QR codes are proliferating yet it's not clear that consumers are "getting it." ScanLife, it is Q3 trends report, says that 2D or QR barcode scanning is growing dramatically:

• We have seen over 20 million scans in 2011, and that represents a 440% increase from 2010 through the same time period.
• The number of countries scanning in a single day increased by 66% in a year. Users are now scanning from 128 different countries daily, a testament to the expanding global footprint of this technology.
• The aggregated growth is also translating into a significant rise in the individual scans per code. As an example, the single largest marketing campaign this past quarter saw over 400,000 scans, compared to 65,000 a year ago. 

However US and UK consumer surveys indicate that most consumers don't know what a QR code is and only between 6% and 11% have ever scanned one (in the UK it appears to be 19%). According to comScore data, QR code scanners are mainly men and younger people (18-34) vs. other market segments.

Somewhat strangely, QR codes seem to polarize marketers. There are some very vocal and aggressive QR code detractors that consider the technology a failure. And many see QR codes as some sort of interim step before NFC technology become mass market. 

In a parallel vein there's augmented reality ("AR"), which is a "cool technology" chasing a mass market use case. AR continues to be more of a novelty than something really useful to consumers -- or marketers. But it has potential in many non-commercial and commercial situations.

Then there's NFC, which has been written about extensively in connection with the launch of Google Wallet and mobile payments. Beyond payments, NFC is also a marketing tool and can deliver content and marketing messages to a handset with a simple touch of the device on an NFC-enabled surface or receiver. Given that very close proximity is required to invoke NFC it's not a substitute in all situations for AR or QR codes, which can both work from a distance.

A category that will likely subsume and incorporate all these technologies and tools is "visual search." Exemplified by Google Goggles or Amazon's new "Flow" app, it simply asks consumers to position the handset/camera over or in front of an object and then delivers information: reviews, prices, nearby stores, additional content and so on.

The notion of "visual search" is conceptually simpler and much more consumer friendly than "Augmented Reality," "QR codes" or "NFC." For that reason I believe that visual search will become the metaphor or category name for a range of approaches and technologies that are collectively about getting information or content (whether commercial or non-commercial) into the handset through the smartphone lens. 

NFC, AR and QR Codes all wear their complexity on their proverbial sleeves, while the term "visual search" buries the technological complexity behind a very descriptive and easy to understand concept. 

Does the Market Want Another Open OS to Compete with Android?

I would argue that Android owes its success directly to the iPhone. Putting aside the claims that Android "stole" the iPhone's look and feel, carriers and hardware OEMs had no response to the iPhone in 2007 other than Android. Hence the carrier and OEM embrace of the Google OS. It was something of a marriage of convenience.

Despite the incredible success of Android, handset makers' relationships with the platform might be described as "ambivalent." They want to avoid becoming merely "commodity producers" of Android devices and reduced to the fate of their desktop brethren, which essentially became vendors of nearly indistinguishable "gray boxes" running PC Windows. Accordingly HTC, Samsung and Motorola have tried to develop, unsuccessfully I would argue, proprietary software on top of Android to differentiate from one another. 

While the new Windows Phone OS represents an alternative to Android, none of the hardware makers other than Nokia has enthusiastically embraced it. If it sells well for Nokia we might see that change. But there are those who also argue that Microsoft risks alienating other hardware OEMs with its Nokia favoritism. 

All this makes me wonder if the market wants yet another open-source OS as an alternative to Android. Reportedly Mozilla, maker of the Firefox browser, is working on a mobile operating system "based on the Web, as opposed to what the project’s wiki calls 'proprietary, single-vendor stacks.'” But this doesn't appear to be viable in the near term as an Android alternative.

What about WebOS? HP was going to kill it. But since the abrupt replacement of CEO Leo Apotheker with Meg Whitman many of his decisions are being reversed. The fate of WebOS is unclear right now and may be decided this year or early next. But what about making WebOS an open-source Android competitor? 

I'm not a developer or engineer but WebOS was and is positively regarded by the developer community; it has just been mismanaged and poorly marketed. But my view is that if HP were to turn it into an open-source mobile operating system there would be takers and it could gain new life. My suspicion is that makers would be interested in a high-quality alternative to Android to further diversify their handset lineups and give themselves some additional leverage vis-a-vis Google. 

WebOS's app ecosystem is paltry by comparison to iOS and Androids but that could be rectified over time. 

I think an open-source WebOS is intriguing; however HP doesn't have a direct way to benefit from it as Google benefits from Android with advertising. Whatever it decides about the fate of WebOS I hope HP doesn't kill it outright.

Google's HTGM Site May Help SMBs Go Mobile

This morning Google has launched a new site (HowToGoMo) intended to educate marketers large and small about the importance of mobile, and direct them to vendors that can build sites for them. I've written up the announcement and initiative generally at Search Engine Land.

The site offers mobile case studies, data on why you need a mobile site ("61% of users are unlikely to return to a site that’s not mobile-friendly") and the ability to see what your site currently looks like on a smartphone.

The most interesting part of the site from my perspective is a vendor marketplace together with a set of filters that help you choose one. The questions or filter fall into three categories: 

• Do you want to build it yourself? 
• How much do you want spend annually (less than $1K or more than $75K)?
• How quickly do you need one (one day, week or month)?  

There are 12 vendors that are likely to see a bunch of new leads from this site (Google isn't making any money from the leads). It will definitely help SMBs and enterprises accelerate mobile site adoption. As I wrote yesterday, In March of this year Google reported that the overwhelming majority (79%) of its top advertisers didn’t have a mobile-optimized site. But a new report from a firm called the Acquity Group found that 37% of the Internet Retailer 500 now do.

Just nine months ago, the overwhelming majority of small business (SMB) owners didn’t consider mobile an important marketing channel. In February 2011 we found that SMBs had very limited understanding and usage of mobile. Roughly 83% said they were not doing any form of mobile marketing.

However a more recent survey by Borrell Associates, among 484 small business owners, found that “four out of every five plan to spend money on mobile marketing this year; [and] on average these businesses expect to devote more than 20 percent of their ad budgets to mobile initiatives.” The survey also reported that 56% of these SMB respondents had been pitched mobile marketing solutions by “vendors or media outlets.”

In the larger context of yellow pages publishers and other SMB sales channels pitching mobile, as well as widespread adoption of smartphones by small merchants, this Google initiative -- especially its vendor marketplace -- will help speed SMB mobile site adoption. 

Study: 37% of Retailers Now Have Mobile Sites

Earlier this year Google reported that the overwhelming majority (79%) of its top advertisers didn't have a mobile-optimized site. However, a new analysis from the Acquity Group found that a substantial number (37%) of the Internet Retailer Top 500 companies now have a mobile site.

This is up from a level of 12% last year and only 4% in 2009. Those are dramatic increases, reflective of retailers responding to massive consumer adoption of smartphones. The study also reported that roughly 26% of retailers have at least one mobile app; and 18% had both a mobile site and an app.

While 37% have a mobile site, about 26% have one or more apps -- with the iPhone leading the way:

The "Top 10" mobile retailers were: Amazon, Armani Exchange, Barnes & Noble, Buy.com, Cabela’s, Gilt Groupe, The Home Depot, Newegg, Walgreens and Wal-Mart. Here's the hierarchical ranking according to Acquity's scoring: 

An interesting question is whether mobile revenues for these retailers are at all commensurate with their investments in the user experience. With Amazon at least, we know that has been true.