Bob Rinderle / Business & Beyond

Mobile Workstyle

Surprised that anyone finds public transportation to be the most productive place to work. (Click on the image twice to enlarge)

 
Source: Gist http://blog.gist.com/2011/08/09/the-mobile-workstyle-infographic/

More Attention Going To Mobile, Internet

In 2010, only mobile and the internet realized positive growth in terms of time spent with major media for U.S. adults, according to eMarketer.  Quite a remarkable drop for TV and video.

 

Mobile Year In Review, 2010

 

Bedrooms: More SMS, Less S&M

A Retrevo survey reveals that 16% of people think it is fine to text during sex.

"Social media is embedded in our lives. It's why people go to a restaurant and check Foursquare before they sit down with their friends," said Manish Rathi, co-founder of Retrevo, a consumer electronics shopping and review site, as reported in Ad Age. 

Bedrooms are the place to get social, but not necessarily for sex.  Retrevo found that 48% of social-media users check or update Facebook or Twitter once they are in bed, and/or before they get out of bed in the morning. That number jumps to 76% for the 25-and-under crowd, with 19% of millennials claiming they check in whenever they wake up during the night.

In-bed social media users also scan the news before leaving the sheets, although increasingly their news does not come from network morning shows; 17% check in before they turn on the TV, and 16% rely on Facebook or Twitter exclusively for their morning news.

"It's what they want to know - it's local and it ties into their social graph," Mr. Rathi said. "Will it replace 'Good Morning America'? Maybe not, but it might play an equal role, especially with breaking news as we've seen."

image credit: Gawker

192K Touch Based Devices Sold Every Day

Touch interface units are growing 3X faster than the display industry, and revenues are growing 10X faster.  Nokia projects that more than half their phones sold this year will feature touch.  And the most dramatic example is the iPad, having reached 1 million units sold in just 28 days.  http://bit.ly/9cYb2h

iPhone Leads Apple Revenue

The iPhone generates over 40% of Apple's revenue, according to data from Silicon Alley Insider. 

One Touch Governance

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, stranded in New York City, has been governing the country from his iPad, according to Fox News.  

Stoltenberg, in America for President Obama's nuclear summit, was delayed in NYC as thousands of flights to Europe were cancelled due to volcanic ash from the exploding Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland. 

"Due to the delays, I'll be working from New York," Norwegian newspapers reported the president as saying.  

This is one smooth dude. 

Holy Mobile!

Holy Mobile! One out of every seven minutes of media consumption takes place via mobile devices, according to research findings from Universal McCann and AOL.  A few key facts:

• 80% of smart-phone users are satisfied with the quality of the Internet on their mobile devices   
• 81% of mobile users use their devices while shopping 
• 95% of users use mobile media to fill downtime 
• 77% use TV and mobile at the same time to enhance the overall media consumption experience 
• 55% participate in social networking via their devices 
• 38% say they have taken action based on mobile ads  

Stuart Rodnick, senior director of strategic insights at AOL, said that mobile is leading a "social transformation." 

The Smartphone is Dead

Bye-bye smartphone.  The term is no longer useful as all phones become smarter and Internet-enabled, according to a Forrester report, “The Smartphone Is Dead: Long Live Smart Phones and Smart Gadgets.”

“Yesterday’s smart high-end phone is today’s mid-range phone and tomorrow’s entry-level phone," stated Ian Fogg of Forrester.

As a replacement for the catch-all phrase, three separate categories are gaining traction: openness and extensibility; utility and entertainment; consumption and creation.

Victoria’s Secret is the latest to embrace mobile, as the retailer quietly launched a marketing initiative that uses the mobile Web and SMS text messages to promote its products and on-the-go shopping. A dedicated mobile Web site also targets its mobile database of opted-in consumers with exclusive offers, event coverage, and new product information.  The program was launched, interestingly without comment by Victoria's Secret, via Useablenet.

Organizing People, Not Information

For those questioning how quickly digital communications will change with the rapid adoption of mobile led by the iPhone and the surge in social media, check out this cover story from a few years ago; much has changed in a short period of time.  (As I recall, the article was favorable towards Terry Semel.)

Jeffrey Rayport has a good piece in BusinessWeek about the shift towards the social web.  Among many valuable nuggets, I was most taken by his closing sentences:

"As the social Web emerges, the players that own and harness social applications will be positioned to reshape the Web in ways we can only imagine today.  Google's oft-cited mission has been 'to organize the world's information.'  The new goal is to organize the world's people."