UK mobile marketplace development

http://mobilemarketingmagazine.co.uk/content/uk-smartphone-ownership-has-almost-doubled-2010-says-ofcom

In case anyone was in any doubt as to the mobile revolution taking place in this country. Check this article out.

I love Mashable as a rule, but...

...this article is just the worst article I think I have ever read.

Give the author an award for stating the bleeding obvious!

Latest mobile breakdown from the US of A

I don't normally post on US stats, as stats bore many people and US stats aren't UK stats. However, I have included these as they go some way to explain why I keep harping on about my dislike for people to equate 'Smartphones' with 'iPhones'. Increasingly (and in the US, rapidly so), 'Smartphones' should be equated, if with anything, with 'Android'. Additionally, people have a preoccupation with Apps. The second table reinforces the fact that SMS/texting is still far and away the most common function used on mobile phones (how much SMS/texting does Macmillan do?). Other research I've seen also notes that somewhere between 80 and 90% of all downloaded Apps are either games or social media Apps - so although there is an App phenomenon, it isn't a business-related one as yet. As UK trends do often reflect US trends (in the longer term), this really should make anyone stop and think before creating an iPhone App (and then decide not to!) and really should encourage us at Macmillan to more fully explore what SMS/texting services we can put together to meet some of the more practical (but perhaps less glamorous) needs of PABC.

Smartphone Platform Market Share
78.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in June 2011, up 8 percent from the preceding three month period. Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform with 40.1 percent market share, up 5.4 percentage points. Apple strengthened its #2 position with 26.6 percent of the smartphone market, up 1.1 percentage points from the prior reporting period. RIM ranked third with 23.4 percent share, followed by Microsoft (5.8 percent) and Symbian (2.0 percent).
3 Month Avg. Ending Jun. 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Mar. 2011. Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Ages 13+. Source: comScore MobiLens

Mobile Content Usage
In June, 69.6 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device, up 1.0 percentage points. Browsers were used by 40.1 percent of subscribers (up 1.5 percentage points), while downloaded applications were used by 39.5 percent (up 2.2 percentage points). Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 1.8 percentage points to 29.1 percent of mobile subscribers. Game-playing was done by 26.9 percent of the mobile audience (up 1.2 percentage points), while 19.0 percent listened to music on their phones (up 1.1 percentage points).
3 Month Avg. Ending Jun. 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Mar. 2011. Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers (Smartphone & Non-Smartphone) Ages 13+. Source: comScore MobiLens

Socially Searching

For a while now, Google have been basing a lot of the search results you receive on what your social links have been sharing, talking about and rating.

To see how influential your own social graph is to your Google Search results, try this search query:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=active&source=hp&q=macmillan&btnG=Search&tbs=frim:1

It’s just a Google search for ‘macmillan’, but the ‘tbs=frim:1’ bit at the end makes any Google search query only use your social influences.

You’ll see why you receive certain results by the line under each one saying things like:

Katie Smith shared this

Macmillan Cancer shared this on Twitter - 28 Jun 2011

Mike Hobday shared this on Twitter - 4 Oct 2010

Macmillan - Digital shared this

or my favourite:

Rebecca Cryan shared this on Twitter - 4 Feb 2011

Since each Google Search for the same term can now return completely different results for each user, influencing the usual ‘dumb’ search is becoming less and less important.  Queries like the one above, along with the work of Louise and Richard in Marketing, help us understand how our social interactions are influencing our search rankings… and for whom.

There’s more on this SlideShare presentation.

Would Monkeys Use Qype?

As a follow up to my previous article on colour theory and web design (The Thin Red Line), here's an article on why Macaque monkeys may be worried about searching on Qype too.  Now, that sentence has to pique your interest!


Stop On Red! The Effects of Color May Lie Deep in Evolution… - from The Association for Psychological Science

 

The Thin Red Line

When choosing colours for your website, make sure you understand the cultural and emotional relevance they may have to your users.

Qype, the user-generated local reviews site, uses red as an accent colour and as the text colour for it's field labels.

It confused me for a bit.

Let Them Tweet Cake

I'm celebrating almost a month - time flies - with the digital team at Macmillan after taking over as caretaker social media officer.  And I've been both immediately impressed and inspired by the approach they are taking to social media and their online community.

There was cake in reception when I arrived on my first day. Not for me, admittedly, it was one of the receptionist’s birthday - but quite a first impression.  And on being led through the greenery of the office for the first time I noticed sweets and cakes at the end of virtually every bank of desks.  It's obviously something that's encouraged I thought. Or a philosophy that breeds lots of micro-sugary actions.

And that's not the only thing I like that's being encouraged. What's really refreshing is the desire to involve staff in social media and encourage them to actively uphold the principles and values that underpin the organisation: the values that give them immense pride in the work they do.  By helping them to understand the tools they can use to communicate the brand.

But it's by no means about asking them to shout loud and demand action from supporters.  Nothing is demanded of any member of staff.  Simply, the language of social media is explained so that they can feel confident joining the conversation. And be sure of the place they're coming from when they engage in their social networks.  If they see something they like they can share it with confidence.

And it's an approach that I think will lead to an increase in inspiration being turned into action. Because when you do need action, when you do need a few ripples for a cause, you know the power of the people in your network, you know how to reach them, and all you need then is to ask them to have their cake and tweet it.

The real cost of social media

Here's an interesting infographic on 'the real cost of social media'.

I like the comment:
'Sleep is the real cost of social media.'

Internet World

Just a few notes from the seminars I attended on Tuesday 10th May...

Email, social and the art of storytelling - John Sadowsky.
John gave examples of a few companies that had effectively used storytelling in their marketing, across email and social networking sites, mixing and matching different things to get high response rates and engagement from customers.



Bike Friday sell folding bikes that business travellers can take with them anywhere. Lots of their email content is user-generated – sometimes they run contests for the best stories from customers about a place they’ve been with their bike, or a time they have used it, which people can add to the Facebook page.



The best one appears in the email with their regular promotional material. Customers also upload videos of how quickly they can collapse their bikes (apparently quite competitive!), to the Bike Friday YouTube channel. Though they have a small customer base, they have a very engaged community.

Mydeco.com is an interior design company who have an online area where people can decorate a room. Customers compare their ideas with others so there’s a lot of sharing ideas within the community. World class interior designers also take part. This looks like it would be fun to play with.

Filofax generates stories around questions asked on Twitter and Facebook pages e.g. How did you feel when you lost a Filofax? When did you get your first Filofax? This shows how 'online communities tell the world what a brand means' rather than brands telling communities.

Mathon is a French cooking utensils company that runs regular competitions for the most exciting/inventive thing people have cooked using its products. Has a big fanbase and buzzing facebook page. So, apart from the case studies, the main points John made were:

• Find a 'passion point' in a related activity to your company. Any company can do this, e.g. pots & pans = cooking
• Brands can co-create with communities. User-generated content is usually more credible marketing than company generated content, so mix the two

How participation is creating and deepening relationships with audiences, from Meg Pickard, Head of Digital Engagement at the Guardian.

This was a fast paced talk, with a lot packed in, so I would really recommend watching Meg for yourself than reading my slightly erratic notes!

7 Simple Elements

Whilst discussing primary and secondary buttons on websites (the kinds of chats we have here), I came across an informative article from Sun's Web Application Guidelines.  There are really good points and examples included in the body, such as:

"In some situations, such as where the user might lose a large amount of input data, present a confirmation alert before allowing a Cancel action. Also, when the meaning of the action is not clear, additional and/or different text may be used, such as "Cancel Wizard" and "Return to Wizard.""

7 Simple Elements

Seeing your brand 'out there'

It was great to see Macmillan's full brand title appear from the mists of keyword relationships, like a... thing... from... somewhere foggy...

Latest mobile trends

Went to a Mobile conference on Tuesday.

Picked up some stats and trends: comScore data mine is my favourite resource.

This infographic really clearly demonstrates the way mobile operating system sales are going.

A US stat, but we do tend to loosely follow the US example in many mobile respects.

The current thinking is simply that the range of handsets offering Android positions it as the operating system for the masses (1000% growth in sales over the last year), whereas Apple's iOS (used for the iPhone) tends to position itself as a top-end device, rather than a device that anyone can aspire to own (*only*(!) 200% growth).

Research also indicates that in terms of social media, mobile Facebook users are spending on average 46mins/day whereas desktop Facebook users only spend 31mins/day. Similarly mobile Twitter users are spending 16mins/day vs 6mins/day for desktop Twitter users. This kind of statistic greatly supports our move towards social media integration, especially with the Online Community, I think.

GMail Motion - Amazing New Technology We Should All Be Using

Motion Printable Guide

I recommend we plug this technology into all our websites as soon as possible.  Macmillan have already started to implement it, so we can start making mouse and keyboard input defunct.

Introducing Gmail Motion: http://gmail.com/motion

"If you don't have a mobile strategy you don't have a future strategy"

...so said Ian Harrington, Google EMEA's Head of Mobile at last week's Guardian-run Changing Media Summit 2011.

Throughout the two days Twitter's #cms2011 was buzzing, and the event's talking points of course included mobile delivery,  Paywalls (FT and Wall Street Journal have successful payment models already in place, when and how will others follow suit?), and Google showcased its OnePass innovation. Speakers included surprise star guest Arianna Huffington (who, pop trivia fans, apparently my dad used to hang out with back when she was a Stassinopoulos), alongside The Undertones' Feargal Sharkey (now CEO of UK Music),  The Guardian's brilliant Dan Catt, and BBC technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones.

For those of you who couldn't attend what was an expert-stuffed and soundbyte-heavy couple of days, I've summarised some of the most relevant talking points for our team, and some fun little tidbits as well:

1. We should be doing more with foursquare. I can hear a few of you groaning right now, but Dennis Crowley, foursquare's puppydog-like CEO did an impressively energetic job of telling us why we really should stick with it. His vision for foursquare is to be the new Microsoft 'Clippy' - but instead of being an annoying pop-up that pesters you at all the wrong times, its services will instead assist you when you're out, to remind you of places you've noted that you'd like to visit, foods you can eat, friends you could see in the area etc. Macmillan has plenty of opportunities to take advantage of foursquare asap in loads of ways. Big Mix and World's Biggest Coffee Morning are obvious starting points...c'mon, what's stopping us?
2. Ever heard of Stardoll? All the rage with fashion-conscious 9 year olds. I'd like to pick the brains of Stardoll's inspirational CEO Mattias Miksche for advice about how we can best manage our online youth forums, as he's been running an impressive show at Stardoll from the looks of it. He also had some fairly simple sounding solutions to some of the troublesome issues we often face on our online communities...
3. Giftastranger.net - I loved this idea from Happiness Brussels agency. If you didn't spot this when the  idea was originally released at the end of 2010, then take a look. Basically, they decided that instead of a company Christmas card they'd do something a little different: give people the chance to send a random gift to a random address anywhere in the world. What's more, the site itself is as simple as can be. Another one of Happiness's creations is the brilliant Talking Tree.

Facebook iFrame App: How to Make Custom Facebook Fan Page Tabs

A great tutorial on how to cope with FBML withdrawal and creating your own iFrame-based tab for your Facebook Page.

Facebook iFrame App: How to Make Custom Facebook Fan Page Tabs - from Silicon Beach Training

Really Good Article on Taps... Honest

Actually, it's about usability and how it applies to everyday life, how we can take this as inspiration and improve our web design in the process.

And it's about taps.

On the usability of taps and the lessons for web design - from Malcolm Coles

Born to be viral: Computer fights hacker attack

Reminiscent of the original (and best) Tron, here's and amazing video showing an actual virus attack a server.

These kind of attacks happen many times a second against servers all over the world.

Born to be viral: Computer fights hacker attack - New Scientist

Have Google Just Demonstrated the World's Biggest Social Network?

...or am I just nuts?

Probably

Have Google just shown their hand in the big social network gamble?  And has it been there all along?

Okay, so I may sound like an insane conspiracy theorist, but with the update of Google Profiles - the quiet backwater for the geeks and profileistas - Google seem to have shown us what a social network really looks like.

Gamers raise millions for charity

A great way and another channel for donating to your charities of choice - gaming.

I've bought the last two Humble Indie Bundles and will keep doing so as the money goes to worthwhile causes.  There's also opportunities to reach audiences that wouldn't normally respond to more traditional 'asks'.

Gamers raise millions for charity - from The Register

 

3D Infographic Maps Built with Lego

Hallelujah! OMG! LOL!

Two of my favourite things.  It can't get better than someone demonstrating data as infographics using Lego, can it?

3D Infographic Maps Built with Lego

Time 2 take UR pills, dear...

Monitoring and support for seniors via Mobile and SMS.

Old folks' phones set to take over from nurses - from The Register

 

ChildLine increases traffic by 900% thanks to Facebook

With Comic Relief just around the corner next month the charity sector is picking itself up after the busy Christmas period. However, although the Comic Relief website has been increasing its market share of visits to the charity sector in the last few weeks, the fastest climber last week was ChildLine.

ChildLine increases traffic by 900% thanks to Facebook

 

Latest update on mobile market changes

If you're thinking of buying a new mobile...

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This is a US view, but as I've said before, there are parallels with the UK.

In simple terms the Blackberry (RIM) is a dying device in the US. Only two years ago it was by a country mile the most popular mobile platform in the US.

The Android (Google) operating system is now eating it alive. See second table in the link.

And although Apple (iPhone) is there or thereabouts, growth-wise, it's stagnating (better than Blackberry's freefall though!).

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In Europe, where Nokia (Symbian) has historically ruled, it's marketshare is also being torn to shreds, predominantly by the Android, but also, for the time being the iPhone...

Usability for Medical Devices: A New International Standard

And this is where I get 'extra geeky'.

"A recently published international standard requires manufacturers of medical devices to follow a systematic usability process. To comply, manufacturers of medical devices will need to change the way they design, develop, test and manufacture their systems." - from UserFocus

Usability for Medical Devices: A New International Standard

Santiago Dreaming

I thought I'd dredge up a link from my blog archives that's just as interesting in today's social media environment.

"When Pinochet's military overthrew the Chilean government 30 years ago, they discovered a revolutionary communication system, a 'socialist internet' connecting the whole country. Its creator? An eccentric scientist from Surrey. Andy Beckett on the forgotten story of Stafford Beer"

Is This Y2K All Over Again?

Since the entire Internet is doomed, I thought I'd share this article from Lifehacker on what the impact might be for us mere mortals.

What Does the IPv6 Transition Mean to Me?

Google's Latest Algorithm Update 2011

An extremely useful and informative article from Silicon Beach Training in Brighton. It covers the impact that Google's search algorithm changes may have on your site.

Google's Latest Algorithm Update 2011

 

OpenDNS Report - 2010

Okay, so most of this is booooring, but just take a look at what businesses are blacklisting and filtering.

They really don't like social networks, so they block their staff's access to them, but they also seem to then have to add them back in using whitelisting.  This is presumably when business practices like Social Media engagement make it necessary to allow access.

So, here's to understanding how we engage through social media with businesses and corporate partners.

OpenDNS Report - 2010 - on Scribd

 

Google Art Project Launches

Google always find the very best way to represent information, be it search results; map information or e-mail message tags.  Their new Art Project is no exception.  It's the perfect way to enjoy the very best paintings online.

Google Art Project allows you to explore and view hundreds of masterpieces from galleries all over the world.  The method it provides for examining each artwork will be familiar to anyone who has used Google Maps: Drag and Zoom.  They are displayed on a black background to emphasise the colours on a screen and the details is absolutely amazing.

But, I'm sure the model sitting for this work should have completely removed her headphones before the artist started painting... how rude!

I LOVE this! - Google API and Developer Products

And it's all laid out as a Periodic Table.  Try hovering the pointer around a bit.

Google API and Developer Products

Cancer rates: see how countries compare worldwide

UK cancer rates have dropped, but how do we compare to countries worldwide?

- from The Guardian's DataBlog

Read the Article

Cancer Survivorship in the Age of YouTube and Social Media: A Narrative Analysis

http://www.jmir.org/2011/1/e7/

Is this the beginning of the end for the iPhone?

SMARTPHONE PLATFORM MARKET SHARE.

Latest stats from comScore in the US show that for the first time, Android has overtaken Apple in the smartphone market. Now just RIM (Blackberry) stands in its way and one more quarter should see it take pride of place as the the smartphone platform of choice in the US. This is a trend that is likely to replicate itself over here with a 6-12 month lag.

See second table on this page: http://comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/1/comScore_Reports_November_2010_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share