Mobile Gaming Market Tops $800 Million in 2010

 AUGUST 18, 2010

Ad support will drive 12.3% of mobile gaming revenues by 2014

Casual gaming on the mobile platform has driven adoption of mobile games to more than a quarter of mobile subscribers and more than one in five members of the US population, eMarketer estimates.
This year, 64 million people will play mobile games at least monthly, a number that will rise to 94.9 million by 2014. eMarketer’s estimates exclude mobile users who play preinstalled games, which offer publishers decent brand exposure but little in the way of monetization opportunities.

 

While games are currently popular on both smartphones and feature phones, the composition of the mobile gaming audience will shift further toward smartphones as they increase in penetration across the population. According to comScore, smartphone gamers now account for 42% of the total. Still, both groups of gamers tend to prefer traditional casual games like Scrabble and Sudoku, though heavier gamers enjoy advanced offerings that are beginning to converge with console games.
eMarketer expects revenues from mobile gaming to reach nearly $850 million this year, with the vast majority coming from paid downloads. By 2014, mobile gaming revenues will top $1.5 billion.

 

Over the same period, ad support will nearly double in importance, accounting for 6.5% of revenues in 2010 and 12.3% of the total in 2014.
That makes for a sizeable mobile gaming market, but mobile still makes up only a small amount of all gaming revenues. According to TNS and Newzoo, just 4% of US video game revenues came from mobile.
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Source: http://www.emarketer.com/

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Steady Gains in Blogging by Marketers

AUGUST 17, 2010 

43% of US companies will be blogging by 2012

The personal blogosphere, while it still boasts million of online journals and participants, has largely stalled in recent years. Consumer use of social media has moved more toward social networking and microblogging, which seem to have eroded the perceived usefulness of full-fledged blogs. But in the corporate world, a different picture emerges.

In many studies, company use of social networks and Twitter does outpace the use of blogs, but for companies the platforms are not mutually exclusive. “Companies are finding that blogs fill a specific niche that other forms of social media do not,” said eMarketer senior analyst Paul Verna.

Because of the apparent staying power of blogs in corporate settings, eMarketer forecasts continued growth in company use of blogs for marketing purposes. This year, eMarketer estimates just over one in three companies have a public-facing blog used for marketing, a proportion that will rise to 43% by 2012.

“Studies have shown that marketers perceive blogs to have the highest value of any social media in driving site traffic, brand awareness, lead generation and sales—as well as improving customer service,” said Verna.

Surveys and studies of company blog use have estimated participation in a wide range, most likely due to methodological differences and the specific companies studied. For example, theUniversity of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research has found lower usage among Fortune 500 companies and higher adoption among the fast-growing private companies on the Inc. 500 list.

“There is evidence that smaller companies are embracing blogging at greater rates than larger firms,” said Verna. “This might be because larger, public companies—particularly in industries such as pharma and financial services—have more legal, logistical and regulatory constraints than smaller firms.”

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Check out today’s other article, “Holiday Shopping Gets Another Early Start.”   

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Twitter: 60 Percent Of Registered Accounts Are From Outside The U.S.

by Leena Rao on Apr 8, 2010


Twitter’s lead engineer for its International team, Matt Sanford, just posted an announcement detailing the microblogging network’s global growth. According to Sanford, over 60% of registered Twitter accounts come from outside the US. The growth in accounts internationally isn’t surprising, considering that we’ve seen Twitter’s worldwide unique visits rise as U.S. traffic plateaus.
Twitter also said that following the availability of its site in Spanish in November, the site saw a 50 percent boost in sign-ups from Spanish speaking countries. It seems that current events and political engagement seem to also precipitate growth for Twitter. Following the earthquake in Chile, signups spiked 1200% and nearly all of those were using Spanish as their language. In Colombia, signups are up 300% after politicians started using the network as a platform to speak to constituents.
India, which is a potentially huge market for Twitter, has seen accounts rise by nearly 100% since the beginning of 2010 because politicians and Bollywood stars have started using the platform to communicate to fans and constituents. Traffic has also grown after a partnership with Bharti Airtel, India’s largest carrier, to ensure that SMS Tweets are sent and received at standard rates.
International growth is also probably attributed to the availability of Twitter in German, Italian, French, which was rolled out late last year. Twitter crowd-sourced much of the work for these translations. Twitter is also available in Japanese.

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Socializing with the Fortune 500

MARCH 5, 2010

35% are tweeting

A longitudinal study from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research shows steady uptake of social media marketing activities by Fortune 500 companies, with Twitter a clear winner.

Fortune 500 firms increased adoption of public blogs from 16% in 2008 to 22% in 2009, according to the research. A plurality of these blogs belong to the 100 largest companies in the group, though smaller companies ranked 401 through 500 gained share from 10% to 18% of the total over the time period.

Even more Fortunate 500 companies have a Twitter account—35% (Twitter usage was not studied in 2008). Four out of the top five corporations on the list post regularly to their Twitter accounts. As with blogs, the top 100 companies have the greatest share of social media presence.

Many of the Fortune 500 are integrating their social efforts; 86% of those with blogs have a link to their Twitter account, for example. Three in 10 Fortune 500 blogs include video blogging, and 19% feature podcasts.

“The continued steady adoption of blogs and the explosive growth of Twitter among Fortune 500 companies demonstrate the growing importance of social media in the business world,” said Norah Ganim Barnes, senior fellow and research chair of the Society for New Communications Research and Chancellor Professor of Marketing at UMass Dartmouth, in a statement.

“These large and leading companies drive the American economy,” she said, “and to a large extent, the world economy.”

Previous data from the Center for Marketing Research showed thatFortune 500 companies were being outpaced by smaller, more nimble firms in the Inc. 500—a list of the fastest-growing private companies in the US. More than one-half of the group used Twitter in 2009.

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Check out today’s other article, “Clorox App Gives Consumers Content They Want.”   

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Few Companies Have Policy for Employee Use of Social Networks

FEBRUARY 3, 2010

The pros and cons of social media use at work

Social networks have the attention of businesses not just as a marketing tool but also as a liability. Lost productivity, security problems and reputation issues can lead companies to restrict employee usage of social networks despite their usefulness, according to the “Social Networks vs. Management?” report from employment services firm Manpower.

Worldwide, only one-fifth of the companies surveyed had a formal policy for employee use of external social networking sites. Firms in the Americas and Asia-Pacific were somewhat ahead on this front, but the majority of respondents in all regions had no policy in place. Among companies that did have a policy, 63% claimed it was effective in combating lost productivity.

While productivity may be a big concern for businesses, it’s not the sole one—reputation management is a potential problem associated with social media use. Despite stories about people being fired for committing social networking gaffes, just 4% of companies worldwide said their reputation had been hurt by employee use of social networks. That rate was doubled in the Americas but still represented only a tiny percentage of respondents.

Manpower warned that management should be willing to harness social media to increase productivity, rather than fearing it as a time waster.

“Corporate governance processes should not limit the creative and value-adding activities of employees,” the report says. “Rather, they should develop an atmosphere and promote a corporate culture that encourages such efforts.”

WorkPlace Media found that in May 2009, 78% of US at-work Internet users spent less than a half hour a day on social networking sites while at work, though 4% did admit to keeping the sites open all day.

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Check out today’s other article, “Consumers Slow to Take Advantage of Mobile Coupons.”   

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Younger Americans Still Fueling Facebook

JANUARY 12, 2010

One-fifth of kids go mobile

Americans are beginning their “always-on” habits at a younger and younger age, according to Mediamark Research & Intelligence’s (MRI’s) “American Kids Study.”

More than one-third of 10-to-11-year-olds in the US owned a mobile phone in 2009, compared with 20% in 2005. Ownership among kids ages 6 to 11 rose from 11.9% to 20% over the same time period.

In 2007, ownership among boys was 12.4%, while 18.6% of girls had a mobile phone. Penetration increased for both groups, but ownership among males increased faster, helping them catch up and narrow the gender gap to 18.3% versus 21.8%.

Kids with cellphones are still kids, though, and the top mobile activity by far was calling their parents. Using the phone to talk to friends and for emergencies was closely followed by text messaging, notoriously popular among young people.

“Preliminary data suggests that boys and girls may use their phones differently,” noted Anne Marie Kelly, SVP, marketing and strategic planning at MRI, in a statement. “Girls are more apt to make calls and send text messages while boys are more likely to instant message, access the Internet and download games, music and video.”

The Marketing to Moms Coalition found in summer 2009 that mobile devices accounted for the top two ways mothers communicated with their children under 18, with respondents talking to their kids on mobile phones an average of 5.1 times per week and texting their children 3.3 times weekly.

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Check out today’s other article, “Younger Americans Still Fueling Facebook.”  

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Internet Users Spend 13 Hours/Week Online

Adult internet users in the US are now spending an average of 13 hours a week online, and half of adult internet users have purchased something online in the last month, according tothe results from a recent poll from Harris Interactive.

Online Time Increases Over Years

The Harris Poll found that over the years the average number of hours spent online has increased from seven hours in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002, to between eight and nine hours in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.

In 2007, weekly time online increased to 11 hours. Last year (in October after the financial crisis broke and before the presidential election) internet users were online for 14 hours per week, double the amount of time spent 1999 to 2002, the poll found.

Online Time a Factor of Age

Despite these high overall usage numbers, people’s usage still varies greatly, said Harris Interactive. The poll revealed that one in five (20%) adult internet users are online for only two hours or less a week while one in seven (14%) are spending 24 or more hours a week online.

Not surprisingly, the tendency to be online varies by age. The age groups that spend the most time online are those ages 30-39 (18 hours) and those aged 25-29 (17 hours) and 40-49 (17 hours):

Half Purchase Online

Half (50%) of all those online bought something on the internet in the last month. This includes 62% of those ages 30-39 and 56% of those ages 40-49.

184 Million Online

The number of adults online, now 184 million (80%), has not changed significantly since 2008 and 2007, noted Harris Interactive.  This includes those online at work, at home, at school or any other locations. However, the number of adults who are online at home has increased to 76% this year, and 75% last year, compared with 70% in 2006, and 66% in 2005.

Harris Interactive noted that the increase in the number of hours spent online in the last two years compared with all previous years is striking and likely reflects a growing ability to use the internet, an increase in sites and applications, increased TV watching online and increased purchasing online. Hours online also may have increased because of the recession, since going online is, in many cases, more economical than going out.

About the poll: This Harris Poll was conducted by telephone within the US July 7-12 and October 13-18, 2009 among 2,029 adults (ages 18+). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region, number of adults in the household, number of phone lines in the household were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.

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Social Media Marketing Trends

Posted by Milestone Internet Marketing under Social Media, Social Networking   

Over the last several years, a great deal of social media testing and experimenting has been completed. Marketers have been working towards identifying how social media can help influence everything from brand loyalty to search engine placement. The growth of the major social media channels (including Facebook, Twitter, etc.) has continued to attract the attention of marketers across all industries.

A study by eMarketer showed that 39% of marketing professionals considered social media marketing to be very effective in influencing brand reputation while 53% considered it somewhat effective. The other top effects include increased brand awareness, improved search engine rankings and increased website traffic.

For the hospitality industry, we have found that aggressive management and involvement in the top social media sites can deliver significant results. With the inclusion of social media in the universal search results, the opportunities to saturate the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) are plentiful. We have seen significant improvements in search engine visibility for those hotels that incorporate social media into their marketing plans, and actively manage the channels in which they participate.

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Contributed by: Kimberly Ercius, Director of Business Development

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Social Network Spending Shifts

DECEMBER 22, 2009

Facebook is the go-to destination for marketers

2009 will end with major shifts in social network advertising spending. Facebook, at 350 million users worldwide, is the premier destination for marketers in the US and many worldwide markets. It will surpass its former rival, MySpace, in ad revenues in 2010, when marketers worldwide will spend $605 million on Facebook versus $385 million on MySpace.

“As more marketers incorporate social networks in their business, they will no longer look at them as siloed destinations. Instead, they will look to increase the impact of their social network presence by linking it to other marketing initiatives, both online and offline,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Social Network Ad Spending: 2010 Outlook.”

Earned media will be a key theme of social network marketing. Combining social with mobile as well as with local will also yield more advertising opportunities. eMarketer also expects social ad networks to increase in importance.

Overall, eMarketer predicts US online social network ad spending will reach more than $1.21 billion in 2009, an increase of 3.9% over last year. 2010 will see stronger growth of 7.1%.

With total US online ad spending falling this year, the increase in social network spending also means the sites will account for a greater share of the total, at 5.4%.

However, those figures only include paid advertising efforts, which represent just a fraction of all spending.

“When companies budget for social media marketing in 2010 and beyond, a substantial portion of their expenses will go toward creating and maintaining a fan page, managing promotions or public relations outreach within a social network, and measuring the impact of a social network presence on brand health and sales,” noted Ms. Williamson.

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The full report, “Social Network Ad Spending: 2010 Outlook” also answers these key questions:

• How much money are marketers spending for paid advertising in social networks?
• What percentage of marketers use social network marketing?
• Why is the concept of earned media important?
• How will social networks affect local advertising?
• Where do social and search intersect?
• Will social ad networks deliver results?

To purchase the report, click here. Total Access subscribers, log in and view the report now.

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