Frequent traveler are the most connected worker

What is almost as important for business travelers as water and food? Smartphones and tablets. They are slowly placing themselves as top necessities. Being accessible at airports, at train stations, or on the tube is simply improving by mobile tools which make them the most connected power users of these tools. The question is whether mobile devices make them more effictient in their business efforts? I think they do…

Business Traveler’s Mobile Dependence Infographic created by PC Housing

Facebook & Mobiles: 488 Million Mobile Users

Can we believe that? Yes, we can…!

Facebook rocks our mobiles with 488 million mobile users of their 901 million registered users! Facebook finds and engages 54% of all its users on mobile phones, thus smartphones and tablets according to socialbakers. There are many apps out there in the world but Facebook knows how to engage their users.

The iPhone (19%) and iPad (5%) together get a share of 24%, Android 19% and the Blackberry even 8%. Would have been interesting how much of the 32% of the rest comes from Windows phones. Bearing in mind that almost 95% of all tablet traffic comes from iPads, this makes an impressive iPad usage market share for Facebook.

The US with 105.901.000 user, Indonesia 28.847.140 user and India 23.383.240 users are the biggest Facebook mobile countries. However, the Facebook mobile penetration is amazing in countries like i.e. Nigeria, South Africa and Japan with 70-80%.

Study shows that consumers are frustrated with online paying

How often do we stop our online purchasing process? How often do we not pay what is chosen to be in the basket? And how often do we leave an online shop frustrated?

In a recent study by Mastercard Worldwide conducted by Harris Interactive we acknowledge how consumers are feelings about online commerce, as well as their habits on mobile shopping. According to the report, U.S. consumers replied that one of their biggest issues is “entering payment, billing and shipping information.”

It is not surprising to anyone probably that the only other issue more annoying to online buyers is knowing still one that has not changed in 15 years: People would like to know how a product feels, fits or looks.

“Online and mobile shopping puts a host of new options at consumers’ fingertips, but the current checkout process needs improvement to fully realize the potential of these important retail channels,” Geoff Iddison, Group Executive E-Commerce and Mobile, MasterCard Worldwide

According to Iddison the study also shows that consumers want a simpler, faster way to enter account information and less time filling out forms.

The funny thing for me is that the world still wants something that does not exist (and which I have thought about inventing in the online advertising world, too): a trusted source that handles safely personal information in one place.

58% of online shoppers said they would like that easy access to information in order to simplify their online check-out experience across the Internet. Apart from that almost one out of four respondents replied they had abandoned a shopping cart before completing their online or mobile purchase. 

On the MasterCard company blog, Brian Gendron -a company spokesman- said the poll shows consumers want a simpler online payment experience. He mentions…

“Consumers still find that a lengthy checkout experience can cause frustrations, which can sometimes mean lost business for merchants when consumers fail to click ‘confirm purchase. Consumers want a simple and fast process to complete their online transactions so they can spend more time finding the exact products that they want.”

So, how about you and your online purchasing experiences? Would you say the study is correct in their findings?

Why retailers need to focus business on tablet users

It is kind of an open secret that tablets make you spend more money than you want. Some new infographic by Milo gives the proof, and it makes clear that tablet users are often more willing to spend more than shoppers using their desktop device or their mobile phones. The infographic relies on data from insights by eMarketer, comScore and Adobe. It states that by 2014 one in three US internet users (approximately 89.5 million) will have access to a tablet.

Obviously, young internet users are even more open to tablets and willing to use them for online spending. Already today, 79% of 18-34 year olds now using their tablet to go on online shopping trips. In the category of the 35-54 year olds this makes up 50%, and 43% for those 55 years old or older.

Although the laptop is still the online shopping device, the tablet wins against all the other mobile devices fur online commerce across all groups. However, tablet users are willing to spend more than mobile and desktop shoppers according to the data sheet. What is even more interesting for retailers, tablet users are more willing to make a quick emotional purchase than smartphone shoppers.

The average tablet user spent $123 in terms of visitors by average order value on online goods. Desktop and smartphone buyers in comparison spent $102 or $80. What is also interesting to see is that 31% of tablet users do price comparisons on their tablet before spending money in offline stores.

How about you? Have you experienced some similar tablet spending attitude for yourself, or your family?

Study: Working remotely = Telecommuting

The trend towards smarter working is on the rise. More and more companies think about trends like Bring-your-own-device (BYOD), and some even start talking about telecommuting which means working remotely.

No matter which phrase companies are using, managers start to trust in the productivity of their employees. They let them work from home. If this is a cost-issue, we don’t want to argue…

Now, the collaboration software company Wrike has published some insights about people working from home in a survey with 1,074 respondents. They were asking them a variety of questions about working from home. The key findings are…

- 89% of respondents said they consider the opportunity to work remotely as one of the three main perk…next to salary and reputation.
- 83% replied they work remotely from home – at least part of the day…
- 66% think their office might get fully virtual by 2015

Being an evangelist of the mobile and flexible workspace, there is a lot of experience about the Pros and Cons of the mobile workspace that will rule our future business. It takes some serious commitment and self-discipline to work from home and in mobile offices like coffee-shops. Nevertheless, it inspires your work, gets you in a new centre of attention in front of clients, and as it is new, some will be envy as you can be so flexible to go playing golf midday.

However, it is still a challenge as you can see from the infographic and the study results…

Augmented Reality for kids – Sesame Street

Qualcomm is always working on new opportunities for Augmented Reality. One of their latest kind of blew my mind. This new technology solution not only enables developers to create some new app in minutes, it also really connects the offline and the online reality.

Now, Qualcomm comes up with an Augmented Reality app for kids which is illustrated with the Sesame Street character Erni and Bert which Netbook News just published. Both characters come alive immediately when putting them on a specially designed board, or when you put a television screen on the board.

Just imagine what opportunities this offers in terms education and knowledge you can integrate in this technology. Smashing!

Cisco: By 2016, there will be 100 million smartphone users in the world

In 2010 Cisco predicted that internet video content would make up 57% of all consumer Internet traffic in 2014. They also predicted that online video (TV, video on demand, Internet, and P2P) is set to exceed 91% of global consumer traffic in five years. Although we cannot say yet, if this wll be reality, it is obvious that audio-video content on the web is on the rise.

As trends are chasing one another, Cisco is now foreseeing a future where by the end of this year, there might be more smartphones on the planet than humans. But they are going further: By 2016 Cisco sees a world with 100 million smartphones which means that there will be 1.4 mobile devices per capita according to their data.

Cisco finds the three main reason for groth in global mobile data traffic in the Middle East and Africa (groth rate of 104%) and Asia Pacific (84% growth). China will account for over 10% of global mobile data traffic in 2016 – more than doubled since 2011 then. Tablet traffic will grow 62-fold with an average traffic generation of 4,2GB/month.

And again it is the video traffic which they see as a massive argument for growth. With the increase of mobile network connection speeds, by 2016 two-thirds of the world’s mobile data traffic will be from videos. Cisco predicts a 25-fold increase in five years.

Spot On!
Today, many people have two devices – one for business, one for private use. The interesting part of this Cisco forecast is that the development of “Bring-your-own-device” (BYOD) could actually change our attitude towards the “multi-management” and “multi-ownership” of smartphones in the future which is already causing a headache for CIOs. Although, in our house, we have a ratio of 2,5 smartphones per capita, I am about to change it and would never again have more than one phone – whether self-employeed or working for a company.

How about you? How do you see the development and what do you think BYOD could become a turning page on this evolution of smartphones? Looking forward to your input…

Another day made of glass…

When we posted “A Day made of Glass” by Corning last year, we all got to know some intelligent opportunities how digital glass displays might organize our daily lives in the future. Now, Corning comes up with the next, extended version of their “Day made of Glass”.

Last year when we watched the video, we were wondering which technology and intelligence lies behind the highly engineering glass. Or which partners they might be using to create the technology intelligence in order to shape our modern world. This time a narrator leads us through the story to explain the details of the technology. The video gives us some clearer picture of what could be friction, and what (science) fiction. Bearing the new Samsung TV screen and Daimler’s DICE outlook in mind, we should be prepared for a future made of glass…

The Psycho short film Siri – What happens when Siri is taking over control…

Often shortfilms are a fantastic way to keep a storyline brief and sticky. In 3 minutes film makers create storyboards that is engaging and thrilling. Today, we have many 3 minutes film awards, i.e. here, here and here, and even Deutsche Telekom started a portal “3min” some years ago which was meant to carry only 3 minute films (…shame they have killed the project).

My Siri adventures were more or less as short and disappointing as some short films I have seen lately. And after 3 minutes I have often killed my Siri experience as it failed permanently from its linguistic capabilities. What happened was sometimes fantastic, outrageous and definitely something that I could not foresee…like the following short film Although it is not professional in production and gets out of the typical 3 minutes frame, I am sure you won’t be able to stop the video before it ends. Correct…?

Study: Web economy expected to double in G20 by 2016

We all know that the web economy is exploding at the moment in terms of activity and users. In the next four years the value of the web is expected to achieve a valuation sum growing from 2.7 to 4,2 trillion pounds. This means that the value of the web economy in the G20 countries is nearly going to double in the next four years.

The global web user base is expected to increase foe 1,9 to 3 million users by 2016 – almost half the world’s current population. All these findings are based on a new report commissioned by the Boston Consulting Group. Still, the report also states that there is at present no standard way of measuring the parts of web economy that is ‘digital’.

Boston sees the growth in the evolution of the mobile web access as 80% are assumed to access the web via smart mobile phones. Thinking back to 2010, which is just about two years back, mobile internet access accounted for just over 4% of the G20 economies. The study makers claim that each household has an approximate valuation of 2,000 pounds worth of purchases online before buying.

Some more key conclusions from the study…



- Digital transformation is key for companies. Companies have to build their digital assets and reduce the digital liabilities that limit their ability to tap rich opportunities. People, processes, and organizational structures need to change and adapt them to the digital world.

- IBM forecasts 1 trillion devices to be connected to the Internet by 2015. This has an effect on the ways companies interact with customers and run their supply chains but also how traditional industries have to build their business.



- Companies such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google shape the Internet, in China this might be Baidu and Tencent or in Russia Yandex.

- The power of digital experience goes far more local in terms of impact on everyday life, reflecting economic, political, national characteristics and social influences specific to individual countries.

- The “Millennials” have different expectations as employees, consumers, and citizens. TheArab Spring protests and grass-roots “occupy” movements in the West are the most visible manifestations of the power of the Millennials to shape society and commerce.

Spot On!
Seeing the rapid economical and market changes, the intensity of competition will improve and increase. Companies and brands will need to plan more flexible in terms of their strategic approaches how to reach clients than in earlier years when long-term planning cycles were the common status. Today, it will be important to create an adaptive strategy planing and restructuring process.

PS. A challenge might be if evangelist entrepreneuers like this guy spread market distraction and confusion….

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