What mobile application users will pay for

Mobile phone applications that are addictive (games), persistent (social networking apps) or lengthy and easy to sample (books) are the best performing paid applications, according to new research from Distimo. The company looked at free and paid applications available from the iTunes App Store, the Android Market and the BlackBerry App World.

According to Distimo's rankings, the six best-performing application categories (with similar-ranked categories noted on one line) are:

1. Games
2. Social Networking
3. Books, entertainment
4. Navigation, productivity
5. Education, lifestyle, utilities
6. Business, finance, music, news, photography, reference, sports

You can read more on this research here.

The company also compared the average prices for the top 100 mobile applications in all three stores. The average price in the iTunes App Store was $3.42, followed by Android at $4.30 and BlackBerry at $5.61.

Telecom operators not innovating enough to compete, beat rivals

A recent Accenture report finds that telecom service providers are losing what it calls "the innovation battle" due to flaws in how they think about and formally pursue innovation within their companies.

The report is a compendium of several Accenture surveys with business executives across the globe and across a broad range of industries. Click here for a good summary of the findings, and access the complete findings and Accenture's summary here.

Accenture says that telecom service providers are focusing on small, incremental changes at the expense of radical innovation that will help them better compete with a larger and growing suite of competitors. Among telecom operators, the report says that 42% focus on small changes like price points versus breakthrough products or business models.

According to an Accenture analyst: "The [telecom] industry is dialing in too extreme a fashion toward incremental, tactical and cost cutting improvements rather than having a more balanced mix of more breakthrough, new business model, new product category type of innovation.... “It is helping them ride out the recession but not preparing them to compete."

The report pinpointed three main problems:

1. Companies aren't managing innovation as a process, with dedicated tools, oversight and budgets;
2. Innovation is too often stuck in departmental silos with little input from outside the company (peers, customers and complementary organizations like large research universities);
3. Innovation goals focus only on minor changes and fixes.

Other really interesting findings include:

• To explain new product or service launch failures, responding companies cite their inability to meet customer needs (57%), being late to market (54%), incorrect pricing (52%), lack of a new or unique value proposition (50%), supply chain issues (44%) and incorrect forecasting (43%);
• 50% of high-tech executives said they spent less on innovation during the current recession whereas several other industries increased or maintained their innovation spending.

Very good stuff, especially in an industry where technology breakthroughs (LTE, WiMAX, femtocells, FMC, UC...) should hold the promise for breakthrough applications and revenue streams versus me-too products sold mainly on price.

Where the opportunity is; household spending is up for entertainment services

Recession be dashed.... American consumers' spending on subscription media services are up 7% from a year ago to an average of $115 per month per household.

Spending on these services, tracked by research company NPD in its "Entertainment Trends in America" study, includes monthly expenditures for television, mobile phone data (but not voice), Internet access, Netflix and similar video services and online gaming.

"Despite concerns that the recession would cause consumers to reduce spending on entertainment subscription services, most forms of subscription entertainment are doing just fine," says an NPD analyst.

Mobile phone data plan expenditures are one of the big growth areas; 9% of U.S. households subscribe to a data plan compared to 6% a year ago. By comparison, Netflix-type DVD subscriptions are in 14% of U.S. households, up from 12% a year ago.

Other penetration rates from NPD's data, most of which will filter into forecasting work I'll be doing over the next few months:

• 81% of U.S. households subscribe to a TV service (basic/premium cable, telco TV or satellite);
• 76% have Internet access:
• 17% subscribe to an online music service or satellite radio;
• 14% subscribe to online gaming.

Hungry? Opted in? Have I got a slice for you...

A new survey by Juniper Research says that consumers are redeeming mobile phone coupons at six times the rates typical for traditional paper coupons.

Redemption rates for paper coupons is typically 1% or less, according to Juniper. The company's survey of mobile users in the U.K. identified more than 3 million mobile users who redeemed coupons sent to them via their mobile phones, which worked out to a redemption rate of more than 6%.

According to a Juniper analyst, "This means that retailers and brands have the opportunity to exploit the mobile channel via personalized coupon offers direct to the ultimate personal device - the mobile phone."

The survey also showed that more than 75% of the mobile users questioned were aware of mobile coupons and that once having received them "there was a strong chance that they will redeem them rather than merely ignore them."

Read more about the survey results here. When coupled with mobile location-based services, you get the oft-salivated-over pinnacle of personalized marketing, the mobile 20%-off pizza coupon sent to a phone just as the hungry, opt-in user walks by Sal's Pizzeria at noon....

Sometimes it's hard to decide, but we go online when we need some help

A newly released survey of business execs shows the growing influence of online social networks in executives' business decisions. Three-quarters of respondents say they rely on professional online networks to support their business decisions.

The survey of 356 business professionals was conducted in collaboration with the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) and had these objectives:

• Is social media typically seen as a trusted source of information for business professionals?
• Does social media offer effective tools to access information and advice and to enable professional collaboration?
• How do these tools compare with those available with traditional off-line networking?
• What tools and sources of social media do business professionals rely on when they make decisions?
• Will social media change the business and practice of enterprise-level operations?

 For more information on the study and its results please click here.

The study's authors point to six key findings from their work:

1. We've entered the era of social media peer groups -- professional decision making is becoming more social. Business professionals want online collaboration as they make decisions, but they don't want to be marketed or sold to while doing so.
2. The average professional belongs to 3-5 online social networks, with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter leading the pack.
3. These professional networks are emerging as decision-support tools, not just personal branding and selling tools.
4. Professionals trust online information almost as much as information from in-person sources; 92% say they strongly/somewhat trust offline sources, and 83% say they strongly/somewhat trust online sources.
5. The reliance on web-based professional networks and online communities has grown significantly over the past three years.
6. Social media use patterns cut across age and organizational categories. Younger (age 20-35) and older (age 55-plus) professionals are more active users than middle-aged business professionals. And, there are more people collaborating via web-based communities than by company-sponsored intranets.
   

Smartphones, video are growing trends in mobile web access

Touchscreen mobile smartphone users are browsing the web an average of 38 minutes each day, more than half the duration for laptop PC users, according to a mobile metrics study just released by Bytemobile.

Video is quickly dominating mobile web traffic, accounting for 39% of mobile network volume; one mobile video surfer, notes the report, consumes the same amount of data as 10 to 15 web surfers.

Other facts and figures from the Bytemobile report -- important if you're planning mobile network capacity, honing mobile network marketing plans for 2010 or looking at ad placement opportunities -- include:

• Laptop PCs still account for 94% of mobile network data traffic;
• The average mobile web video was 5 minutes long, but half were played for under 1 minute, with most users viewing only 10-30 seconds (so place those ad early...);
• About one-third of video use today is on YouTube; another third is adult content, and the rest is lumped into the "other" category.

Read more on Bytemobile's mobile analytics here.

Top fix for mobile retailers: improve customer experience

A survey of more than 4,000 consumers who had recently visited a mobile operator's retail store indicates that one in four interested customers leave without making a purchase -- making improved in-store experiences and better integrated back-office systems the top recommendations for helping mobile operators become more competitive.

The survey was commissioned by Amdocs, which sells retail mobile operator software platforms, and conducted by JD Power (read more about the survey here). Specific survey results include:

• 60% of customers who visit a retail mobile operator store said they planned to buy a new phone and service plan;
• 25% of those customers left without making a purchase, citing poor a customer experience;
• A smartphone sale can take up to 15% longer than a traditional mobile phone purchase, adding complexity and more "exit points" for confused or unhappy customers.

Tech sales message not loud and clear

Tech product and service sales pitches are laden with technical jargon and acronyms that only confuse potential customers and can delay or stop buying decisions, according to a recent survey cited by BusinessBrief.com (click here for the full article).

Only 3% of the prospects surveyed said they fully understood most of the terms used in tech product and service sales presentations. Aside from basic befuddlement, the confusion led prospects to believe that the products or services would be hard to install and maintain.

The article has some common-sense advice for acronym-happy salespeople -- don't rely on sales literature to build your presentations; test your pitches on customers with a range of technical backgrounds; speak about your products and services in the same ways your customers do; and watch for furrowed brows, wandering (or closed) eyes and other body language that says your message isn't being received.

Don't leave 'TV everywhere' money on the table

About 23% of web video viewers would be willing to pay an extra $10 to $15 per month for "TV everywhere" services that offers access to cable TV programming on PCs or mobile devices, with 77% uninterested or noncommittal about paying.

These results were part of a survey of 1,300 U.S. Internet users in late August 2009 commissioned by Digitalsmiths, a provider of media analysis and video publishing services. According to an article in Multichannel News, these results were similar to those from a January survey where about 28% of broadband users said they would be willing to pay at least $10 per month for a service that ports linear pay TV to PCs.

U.S. MSOs like Time Warner and Comcast are exploring "TV everywhere" services that would be included at no charge as part of monthly cable TV subscriptions.

For more on the survey see the Multichannel News article here.

Consumers say they want mobile health care apps

Results from a CTIA-sponsored mobile health consumer survey released in early October 2009 show that 40% of U.S. consumers would embrace mobile health care products and services that complement their health provider visits, and 23% said they would turn to mobile health care applications if they would help reduce or eliminate doctor visits.

The consumer segments most responsive to the potential benefits of mobile health care applications were caregivers, the 30-44 age bracket, Hispanics and African Americans.

The survey indicated that 19% of consumers would upgrade their current mobile data plans to use mobile health access and applications, and 14% would upgrade their mobile devices. The appeal of mobile health care is in the following areas:

• To enable more home-based treatment (68% of respondents said this area is why mobile health care would be appealing);
• For patient monitoring (57%);
• Improved patient safety (57%);
• To help simplify health care (51%).

Rural consumers said they would benefit most from mobile health care.

For more on the CTIA survey's results, click here to see the article in Fierce Wireless.