New Twitter stats: 15% of online adults use Twitter, 8% do so on a typical day
We’ve got brand spanking new Twitter numbers out today! As of February 2012, overall Twitter adoption by online adults is at 15%, which has remained steady since May 2011, when overall Twitter adoption by Internet users was 13%. Notably, though, the % of online adults who use Twitter on a typical day has doubled since May 2011 and has quadrupled since late 2010—at that point just 2% of online adults used Twitter on a typical day. Now, 8% of online adults use Twitter on a typical day.
More key findings:
- African-Americans continue to use Twitter at very high rates—28% of online African-Americans are Twitter adopters, and 13% use the service on a typical day.
- Usage by young internet users (those 18-24 years old) increased dramatically over the last year, with nearly one in three now using Twitter.
- Our data also suggests that these trends are deeply intertwined with mobile Twitter usage on smartphones. Fully 20% of smartphone owners use Twitter overall, and 16% use the service specifically on their cell phones.
(via pewinternet)
Source: pewinternet.org
How We Watch From Screen to Screen
The average American watches nearly five hours of video each day, 98 percent of which they watch on a traditional TV set, according to the Nielsen Cross-Platform Report, released today. Although this ratio is less than it was just a few years ago, and continues to change, the fact remains that Americans are not turning off. They are shifting to new technologies and devices that make it easier for them to watch the video they want, whenever and wherever they want.
TV is Still the Center of Viewing
In the past year, the number of homes with an HDTV grew by more than 8 million to 80.2 million, leaving little doubt that the TV screen remains the dominant platform on which to consume video content. But the means by which the content is delivered appear to be shifting.
Traditional—live and timeshifted—TV viewing remains the primary role of the TV, accounting for more than 33 hours per week despite a decline one half of one percent in time spent compared to Q4 2010. To fill the gap, consumers are finding new ways to use their TVs.
Game Consoles Now in Nearly Half of TV Homes
Consoles have become strategically positioned as a secondary gateway to TV content, and can now be found in 45 percent of TV homes, an increase of three percent over last year. With Netflix and other streaming apps, Blu-ray players, social gaming and point of purchase seamlessly integrated into game consoles, it is no surprise that consumers are relying on their consoles to perform double (and triple) duty. These new activities are adding up and contributing to the growth of content consumption. Interestingly, households without children are leading the way in new game console adoption, demonstrating that game consoles are appealing to a range of audiences for a variety of purposes.
Mobile Viewership Small but Growing
With improving screens, Internet connectivity and the advantage of being “the best screen available” while on the go, smartphones are increasingly becoming portable TVs. In fact, 33.5 million mobile phone owners now watch video on their phones—an increase of 35.7 percent since last year. While mobile phones won’t replace other screens anytime soon, they are part of the ever-increasing number of ways in which consumers consume content.
Smartphones Vs. Tablets
The rise of e-reading
21% of Americans have read an e-book. The increasing availability of e-content is prompting some to read more than in the past and to prefer buying books to borrowing them.
One-fifth of American adults (21%) report that they have read an e-book in the past year, and this number increased following a gift-giving season that saw a spike in the ownership of both tablet computers and e-book reading devices such as the original Kindles and Nooks.1 In mid-December 2011, 17% of American adults had reported they read an e-book in the previous year; by February, 2012, the share increased to 21%.
The rise of e-books in American culture is part of a larger story about a shift from printed to digital material. Using a broader definition of e-content in a survey ending in December 2011, some 43% of Americans age 16 and older say they have either read an e-book in the past year or have read other long-form content such as magazines, journals, and news articles in digital format on an e-book reader, tablet computer, regular computer, or cell phone.
Download the full Pew Internet Research report here
Gartner predicts top 10 mobile technologies
The top 10 mobile technologies that will change business, as described by Gartner research VP, Leif-Olof Wallin
HTML5
By 2015, Gartner predicts HTML 5 will deliver 50% of allapplications that would have been native in 2011. Wallin notes, however, that while HTML5 is often presented as the solution to all problems, it will not be the only solution for some applications, since it is not yet fully standardised. Wallin warns developers and business to expect fragmentation and to adapt applications accordingly.
Near-field communication
“This is really great technology that has unfortunately just taken forever to mature,” says Wallin, adding that it will undoubtedly become the leading ‘touch to act’ tech. According to Gartner, near-field communication (NFC) will enable numerous capabilities such as payments, ticketing, vouchers and coupons, check-in services, access control and information sharing. “There is already support from key platforms and vendors such as Android, Nokia and RIM,” notes Wallin.
Wallin, however, warns that m-payment solutions won’t happen readily and commercial and technical battles are expected to emerge between banks, network operators and Internet mega-vendors.
Platform independent AD tools
Gartner says no single mobile platform will dominate, and HTML5 alone will not satisfy all cross-platform development needs. As a result, there is opportunity in recognising that operating systems are not the only platforms one should be independent of.
According to a February report from Nielsen and NM Incite, social networking applications accounted for 5.5% of time spent on mobile phones in October 2011, compared to 13.3% for text messaging.
Texting remained the most common activity, used by 74.6% of US mobile subscribers, up 3.9% from 71.1% for the three-month average ending in October.
There are 6.8 billion people on the planet. 5.1 billion of them own a cell phone, but only 4.2 billion own a toothbrush.
Tablets: the perfect shopping device
Modern tablets have only been on the market for less than two years, but they have quickly become potent shopping tools that generate an outsized effect on online commerce. Last year was the year that the tablet became an online retailer’s best friend as it emerged as the preferred device for many shoppers to make their purchases.
The latest data came earlier this week from Adobe Digital Marketing Insights (pdf), which found that tablet users spend over 50 percent more for each transaction at an online retailer compared to smartphone users and 20 percent more than traditional computer users. Adobe found that the average order value for tablet users was $123 on average per purchase, 54 percent more than smartphone users ($80) and 21 percent more than computer users ($102).
Adobe also found that tablet users were three times more likely to buy something than smartphone users and nearly as likely to convert to a purchase as traditional computer users. Tablet users now make up 4 percent of all total web visits to retailers, up from 1 percent a year ago. Adobe gathered the data from 16.2 billion visits to the websites of more than 150 retailers in 2011.
The data is consistent with other findings in the previous months that indicate just how tablets are able to create a bigger commerce effect despite its smaller reach. Last year Forrester reported that tablets accounted for 20 percent of e-commerce sales, even though only 9 percent of shoppers own tablets.
Source: GiGAOM
A Tweeting Cabbie’s Growing Business
| special to arstechnica
“Can you pick me up at my place in 15 minutes? Text me when you get here.” No, this isn’t a text message to a friend or a call to a car service—it’s a direct message sent through Twitter to a driver of a Chicago cab. Rashid Temuri, who goes by “Chicago Cabbie” online (@ChicagoCabbie on Twitter) has taken what would otherwise be considered a traditional taxi business and integrated it with social media in a way that is still exceedingly rare in the service industry. How much better can it be interacting your clients through Twitter, FourSquare, Facebook, or Google Latitude? Apparently a lot—Temuri is not only seeing success from his social media strategy, he’s building a loyal repeat customer base because of it.
Here’s how Temuri works: he, like most other licensed cabs in the US, works through a dispatching company (in this case, Flash Cabs). Normally he would put himself “on call” when he’s on duty, meaning the company can send him to pick someone up when the client calls in. But instead of doing that, he has been posting when he’s available on Twitter—for example, here’s one of his recent tweets:
“Good morning #Chicago!! It’s a wet wet day here. 41°. Take $5 OFF the meter from now till 2PM to any airport from anywhere. :-) #ORD #MDW”
In addition to tweeting, he also allows clients (or potential clients, as the case may be) to follow him on Google Latitude or Find My Friends so that people know wherever he is at any given time and can contact him when they need a ride. He offers free WiFi within his cab for iPhone and iPad users (“Don’t use your limited data!” he says), and plans to soon offer free WiFi for regular laptop users. Sometimes, as seen in the tweet above, Temuri gives discounts for his social media followers, and he always remembers who everyone is.
