Jun 2, 2013

Sound and Wearable Tech in Mary Meeker's Annual Internet Trends Report



I shared the report at the office early yesterday and had several conversations with people about the various sections, even the one about immigration policy -- I happen to be an immigrant, and so was the colleague with whom I ended up discussing the issue.
Technically we are one-percenters (slide 86).
From KPCB's description:
The report reviews the shifting online landscape, which has become more social and content rich, with expanded use of photos, video and audio.
Looking ahead, the report finds early signs of growth for wearable computing devices, like glasses, connected wrist bands and watches - and the emergence of connected cars, drones and other new platforms.
We are starting to see the emergence of sounds, especially in interactive experiences and tools, as well as the smart use of data to first standardize experiences, then personalize them. My take is voice is coming back to phones and tablets (as in text to sound).
The growth of tablets has been astounding, and I can see why.
TabletShipments
Although this is not just about iOS devices, the Apple products do take the lion share of the market in at least three important ways:
  1. sheer usage
  2. customer satisfaction
  3. eCommerce transactions
They are the key metrics Apple CEO Tim Cook (see video interview linked below) tracks to understand whether they are shipping the best possible products, and customers are happy.
Many believe we are just scratching the surface on sensor-enabled wearable technologies, and certainly they posses many positive attributes that make it convenient for people to adopt them.
SensorEnabled Wearables
However, they must do and thus be more for people if adoption is to go beyond the tech set. You first have to convince people it's so incredible that they want to wear it, said Cook.

The future of wearable technologies

TimCook_Apple_D11
The topic of the future of wearable technologies came up early on in the one hour plusconversation between Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher and Apple CEO Tim Cook at D11 (remind me not to become a famous tech CEO, she is a formidable interviewer!).
Is the future wearable? Cook's take:
I think so. I wear this. It’s a FuelBand. I think Nike did a great job with this. It’s for a specific area. It’s integrated well with iOS. There are lots of gadgets in this space now.
[As for] the ones that are doing more than one thing, there’s nothing great out there that I’ve seen. There’s nothing that’s going to convince a kid that’s never worn glasses or a band to wear one. So I think there’s lot of things to solve in this space, but it’s an area where it’s ripe for exploration. It’s ripe for us all getting excited about. I think there will be tons of companies playing in this.

I see it as something, as another very key branch of the tree. You think about the post PC era, and we really started talking about this several years ago. I think the iPhone pushed us toward that fast and the tablet accelerated it. I think wearables could be another branch on this.
The whole conversation is worth listening to. They touched upon a number of questions, including recent Apple-related news.
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I'll come back to the Internet Trends report with more thoughts and cross references. For now, I just wanted to highlight what Apple measures in terms of product adoption, and potential direction for the company around wearable technology based upon the answers Cook provided in the interview.
What are your thoughts and reactions?

How We Spend Our Time on Our Smartphones

We get it already. A lot of people have smartphones. Congratulations.
It’s best now to learn how people are using these phones because as marketers we can’t do much without the understanding of exactly where people are and, more importantly, why they are there.
Experian Marketing Services takes a look at smartphone use in a recent study. Here are a few findings.
Total-Time-spent-daily-using-a-smartphone-and-activity-share1
It’s almost a little surprising that the ability to talk is still the main reason to have a phone! Texting comes in a close second. What would be interesting to see is how these ratios change in various age groups. I would offer that my teenager stomps on that 58 minute mark and leaves it in the dust on a daily basis.
While an age breakdown isn’t part of this study there is a breakdown of these results between Android devices and iPhones.
Total-smartphone-time-spent-daily-and-activity-share-by-device2
So what can we conclude from this? Android owners are ‘chattier’? Not much really but it’s always fun to look at the Android v. iPhones ‘battle’ and then go off on tangents about who is better and why.
We’ll let you do that on your time though. In the meantime, do your habits, or more importantly your customers’ habits, mirror these findings or do they look different?

Top 50 Brands Rocking Facebook Marketing, May 2013 - Samsung Mobile Charges


It now requires more than 22.4 million fans to be part of the exclusive Top 50 brands on Facebook. The Top 25 did not see much change in rank from our April list, aside from Subway bumping Victoria’s Secret down one spot to #20.

Fast Moving Facebook Brand Pages

Samsung Mobile jumps up 7 spots to #19, gaining more than 2.16 million fans to do so. All posts this month revolved around the Galaxy S4 with a heavy emphasis on being at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Engagement, on a number of these posts, appears to be very high.
 samsung2 samsung3
Pepsi makes a much more impressive leap, gaining 7.14 million fans this month for a 73% fan base increase. The rise could be attributed to the possibility of winning Beyonce concert tickets, although the trend in new fans gained relative to 'People Talking About This' seems to suggest use of a tool used to generate reach.
pepsi facebook fan growth
The award for Unsung Hero this month goes to Snickers, gaining 3.9 million fans for a 66.4% increase in fan growth over the previous month. The trend experienced by Snickers this month, however, indicates use of a fan buy likely tied to the brand's release of its new Snickers Bites.  Notice the extreme plateau created in mid May.
Snickers Facebook Plateau

Fastest Growing Branded Facebook Pages

The fastest growing pages this month are:
  • Pepsi up 52 spots to #34 – grew 73%
  • Samsung Mobile up 7 spots to #25 – grew 12%
  • Sprite up 3 spots to #48 – grew 7%
  • Dove up 1 spot to #43 (still moving up after last months jump) – grew 5%

Biggest Losers

The pages that fell the most in the Top 50 this month include:
  • Down 4 spots: Zara
  • Down 3 spots: Google Chrome
  • Down 2 spots: Burberry, H7M, National Geographic, Louis Vuitton, Adidas

Top 50 Branded Fan Pages, May 2013

Current Rank (05/28/2013)
Rank by Fan Count (04/29/2013)Change in Rank Fans As of 04/29/2013 Fans As of 05/28/2013% increase
1Facebook1091,399,23692,124,0791%
2YouTube2074,028,21274,624,0111%
3Coca-Cola3064,157,79865,922,9883%
4MTV4044,796,97145,242,1491%
5Disney5043,951,36644,265,3681%
6Red Bull6037,615,20338,179,5572%
7Converse7036,376,96336,547,7170%
8Starbucks8034,409,18734,557,5380%
9Oreo9033,201,00433,397,3141%
10Playstation10032,216,83832,672,9831%
11Walmart11028,759,36929,517,0743%
12McDonalds12028,419,99528,725,0061%
13Blackberry13026,911,56027,768,2523%
14iTunes14026,251,72326,475,7651%
15Skype15025,478,65626,068,4582%
16Skittles16025,241,17725,331,4840%
17Pringles17023,561,61524,519,8214%
18Monster Energy18022,916,40923,039,4591%
19Samsung Mobile USA19022,688,02122,980,7161%
20Subway21122,010,45322,445,6582%
21Victoria's Secret20-122,216,07222,403,1271%
22Target22021,847,35421,853,7090%
23Xbox23021,469,12121,707,2901%
24adidas Originals24020,177,43820,376,2281%
Current Rank (05/28/2013)
Rank by Fan Count (04/29/2013)Change in Rank Fans As of 04/29/2013 Fans As of 05/28/2013% increase
25Samsung Mobile32717,575,05019,740,51212%
26Intel25-118,915,83319,637,7414%
27Cartoon Network27018,280,13718,701,8422%
28Nike Football28018,161,22918,647,4103%
29amazon29018,115,65818,567,3582%
30Zara26-418,317,60818,499,1611%
31Levi's30-117,903,71118,186,8402%
32Ferrero Rocher31-117,827,69617,911,5360%
33Nutella33017,344,23717,392,2950%
34Pepsi86529,727,02216,867,19273%
35Disneyland34-116,555,62716,707,4281%
36Windows Live Messenger35-116,510,85116,514,7920%
37Kit Kat36-115,367,83315,891,8533%
38Mozilla Firefox39115,146,42715,431,3272%
39Dr. Pepper38-115,193,01815,367,1871%
40Google Chrome37-315,215,64115,331,3891%
41Discovery Channel41015,049,24115,298,9822%
42Burberry40-215,113,89715,178,3710%
43Dove44114,233,78114,906,8575%
44H&M42-214,562,89514,837,1362%
45National Geographic43-214,449,61414,670,5132%
46Nickelodeon45-114,205,43814,556,4822%
47History46-113,918,57314,108,4451%
48Sprite51313,090,17614,018,4977%
49Louis Vuitton47-213,483,41813,843,7483%
50Adidas48-213,360,27413,652,5192%