Witnessing an explosion in mobile computers and the apps they support, one might forgive pundits and experts for fearing the fall of the open Web. New research from Pew, however, suggests that the Web and apps can -- and most likely will -- coexist. A majority of industry experts -- 59% -- agreed that the Web will be stronger than ever by 2020. Specifically, they believe that “the open Web” will continue to thrive and grow “as a vibrant place where most people do most of their work, play, communication, and content creation.” By contrast, this majority predicts that apps accessed through iPads, Kindles, Nooks, smartphones, Droid devices, and their progeny will be useful as specialized options for a finite number of information and entertainment functions. Last year, The Pew Internet Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center invited an unspecified number of experts and Internet stakeholders to predict where the Web was heading. The survey questions were written to generate detailed written responses -- not to derive a clear-cut statistical outcome -- so respondent choices should not be taken as a representative measure. That said, Pew and Elon found that some 35% of its expert respondents agreed with the notion that most people will prefer to use specific apps by 2020. By then, this minority expects, "most industry innovation and activity will be devoted to apps development and updates, and use of apps will occupy the majority of technology users' time.” Whether apps and the Web can exist together or not, mobile computing devices are clearly overshadowing their stationary counterparts. “Mobile tools such as smartphones, tablets, netbooks, and laptop computers are now a primary source of Internet connectivity,” according to Janna Quitney Anderson, the report’s co-author and an associate professor of communications and director of the Imagining the Internet Centre at Elon University North Carolina. The latest surveys of U.S consumers by Pew shows that nearly two-thirds connect to the Web via a smartphone, tablet computer, or an on-the-go laptop computer. By 2016, Cisco estimates there will be 10 billion mobile Internet devices in use worldwide. (Considering the world population is only expected to be 7.3 billion then, that will amount to 1.4 devices per person.) Targeted software applications -- tailored as they are for the mobile computing experience -- appear to be following mobile’s growth trajectory. Apple recently announced that 25 billion apps had been downloaded from its App Store, which opened in 2007, while Google’s Android Market hit 10 billion downloads late last year.
While 2D mobile barcodes are getting a lot of attention from magazine publishers and advertisers, Wired is experimenting with another print-mobile ad hybrid by including near-field communication chips in subscriber copies of its April issue, according to Ad Age. Wired is deploying the NFC chips in 500,000 subscriber copies of the magazine as part of an ad for the Lexus GS 2013. Readers with NFC-enabled mobile devices just hold the device near the ad to see a demo of the new Lexus model’s onboard Enform App Suite, which gives the driver access to apps from Pandora, Bing, and Yelp, among others. Ad Age reports that the ad also includes a traditional Web URL for readers who don’t have NFC-ready phones. Lexus national marketing communications manager Brian Bolain estimates that approximately 3 million U.S. consumers have NFC-enabled phones. NFC has been hailed as the next stage in mobile interactivity, allowing mobile device owners to perform a range of actions, including e-commerce transactions on the go or in retail environments. Forbes Guarantees Online Ad Views With some online publishers placing ads in less-than-prominent positions, advertisers are understandably skeptical about whether their messages are actually getting through. To address these concerns, Forbes has partnered with comScore to make sure that digital ads appearing on its network of digital properties are actually visible using comScore’s Validated Campaign Essentials (vCE). The new service is part of Forbes’ validated Brand Increase Guarantee (vBIG) program, which guarantees lift in certain key brand metrics to advertisers that spend $250,000 on ads over a 90-day period. With the vCE integration, Forbes will guarantee that impressions delivered as part of an advertiser’s vBIG program are in-view; advertisers will only be charged for ads that have had an opportunity to deliver the desired advertising effect. Forbes Media chief insights officer Bruce Rogers stated: "The comScore vCE technology provides much-needed transparency to accurately reflect the ads that are actually being seen.” More Mags Adopts Digimarc Watermarks Digital watermarks are another increasingly popular solution for integration mobile interactivity into print advertisements. A number of well-known magazines are deploying Digimarc Corp.’s digital watermarking technology in print ads, including Bonnier’s Saveur, which is using the Digimarc Discover Platform to digitally watermark a full-page advertisement for four brands of Starwood Hotels and Resorts in Hawaii in its April issue. Through the digital watermark, the advertisement features an in-app menu that allows the reader to view Sheraton, Westin, Luxury Collection and St. Regis properties in Hawaii; watch a video; make a direct call for reservations; and share via email, Facebook and Twitter. Newsweek is also employing Digimarc digital watermarks as part of an ad for the 2013 Lincoln MKS in its special “Mad Men”-themed “Heritage” issue, which is tied into the long-awaited return of the AMC series. Matz to Publisher, Everyday Food and Whole Living Alison Alder Matz has been appointed senior vice-president and publisher of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’s Everyday Food and Whole Living brands, the company announced this week. Matz comes to MSLO from Fairchild Fashion Media, where she was publisher of WWD Beauty Inc. and also served as general manager of Fairchild’s Summits division. Her previous experience includes associate publisher positions at Brides, Glamour, Teen Vogue and House & Garden.
The Internet has had no small impact on the hospitality industry, with half of hotel bookings now handled through digital channels compared to 1% a decade ago. But hotel companies for the most part have not focused heavily on developing a digital strategy and operations. Some stand out for digital innovation. A new study ranking more than 50 luxury hotel brands based on their Web site, social media, mobile and digital marketing efforts cited Four Seasons, Hilton, and Marriott as the top names in the business. The analysis conducted by digital think tank L2, in partnership with Buddy Media, assigned hotels digital "IQ" scores from 70 to over 140 corresponding to ratings from “feeble” to "genius.” Only the top three, for example, earned the “genius” label with scores of 140 or higher. Four Seasons edged out Hilton by 150 to 149, while Marriott had a score of 143. About a dozen, or 23% of the hotels studied were rated as “gifted” including Hyatt, Sheraton and Westin. The bulk of hotels (38%) were deemed “average” or “challenged” (29%), forming a bell curve in the hotel rankings. Only two were dubbed “feeble” -- Raffles and Rosewood. That’s a big improvement from last year, when a third of hotels scored in the “feeble” category for their digital dysfunction. A year ago, only 10% made the “average." At the high end, “brands that nabbed 'genius’ or 'gifted’ rankings experimented across platforms with tactics including concierge mobile applications, on-site user reviews, shareable destination guides, and programming on Instagram, Pinterest, and other emerging platforms,” stated the L2 report. Taking an in-depth look at the Four Seasons’ digital offering, the study highlighted its $18 million site relaunch, accounts on all the major social networks, and an integration with TripAdvisor that includes curated reviews on pages showcasing hotel properties. L2 also found that hotels with multiple brands significantly outpaced independent hoteliers on digital platforms, registering an average digital IQ of 109, versus 92 for independent private brands and 87 for independent publicly traded ones. Brands such as Marriott, Hyatt, Starwood and Hilton leverage technology investments across their portfolios through shared online and mobile platforms, digital marketing tools, and cross-selling. While hotels indicated that they would spend more than a third (34%) of online budgets on site upgrades and optimization, companies have been slow to adopt best practices, according to L2. Many hotel sites added the Facebook “Like” button last year and other social-sharing enhancements, but only 40% overall offer such features. Still, hotels continued to expand their presence on social media. The percentage of brands with both global and individual property pages on Facebook rose from 73% to 95% in the last year, while the proportion on Twitter rose from 56% to 70%. Nearly two-thirds have set up on newcomer Google+ and 60% are using Foursquare. Like social media, mobile has become an increasingly important channel for hotels. Two-thirds of brands now support a mobile-optimized site, with all of those providing mobile-booking capability. Companies with a strong mobile presence may be capturing the most profitable bookings, since 70% of bookings via mobile are for same day (high-price) stays. Android and iPad apps were the main focus of mobile development last year, mirroring the mass adoption of the Google operating system and Apple device, respectively. Regardless of platform, the study faulted luxury hotels for making limited use of user ratings and reviews, except for Four Seasons and Starwood. L2 noted that sites employing user reviews send 39% less traffic to online travel agencies, “suggesting that on-site reviews gave customers more confidence when booking.” That’s assuming, of course, the reviews were mostly positive.
African-Americans rely heavily on online sources for brand information, and 95% of the demographic does online research at least some of the time before making a purchase. Also, smartphones are becoming an integral part of the purchase process for African-Americans, who are using the devices to do things like in-store price checking, and redeeming e-coupons and online offers directly from their phones. These are some of the results of a first-ever study of African-Americans' brand habits. The study, by UniWorld Group, Inc. (UWG), also involves One Solution, the integrated corporate marketing arm of TV One, Radio One and Interactive One. The study also shows that African-American men 18-34 years of age are most likely to engage in posting and acting on recommendations on social media sites. African-American women are more likely to engage with a brand by "liking" it on Facebook, because of special offers, discounts and coupons. The study’s directors said the objectives were to understand where and how African-Americans get information about brands; how African-Americans who use digital and mobile technology to engage in online conversations about brands differ from the general African-American population; and to explore African-Americans’ usage of digital media. The companies said they garnered data from Radio One’s “One Community” panel, which purports to being the largest representative online panel of African Americans with over 10,000 members, and from Vision Critical’s Springboard America panel through email invitations. The final sample was weighted to reflect the age and gender distribution of African-Americans 18-64, based on U.S. Census data. Data was collected from November 10 to 30, 2011, with a total sample size of 2,032, per a joint release. “We developed One Community to help create and disseminate timely, quality research on the African-American population. Compared to other ethnic groups, this audience segment does not have the same volume of consumer research. We’re hoping to change that,” said Latha Sarathy, VP Insights & Analytics at Interactive One, in the release. UWG and One Solution say they will present this study initially at the Public Relations Society of America’s 2012 Digital Impact Conference in New York City on April 2.
The video everywhere and anywhere phenomenon is finally going to push digital viewing past disc-based experiences this year. According to tracking for IHS Screen Digest, online movie watching will surpass 3.4 billion views this year -- about 1 billion units of viewing more than the 2.4 billion views (or transactions). This represents monstrous growth in digital viewing, since only last year the viewing of physical video accounted for 2.6 billion views, compared to digital video at 1.4 billion. Internet viewing of video measured in movie views was up 135%, IHS says. IHS Senior Principal Analyst, Broadband & Digital Media Dan Cryan said in the report that the metrics mark a milestone in media history. “After more than 30 years of buying and renting movies on tapes and discs, this year marks the tipping point as U.S. consumers now are making a historic switch to Internet-based consumption, setting the stage for a worldwide migration of consumption from physical to online.” Cryan reminds us that even nine years after the arrival of the iTunes music store, CD sales continue -- and so the transition will be prolonged. Nevertheless, he says, "we are looking at the beginning of the end of the age of movies on physical media like DVD and Blu-ray.” The physical video market is comprised of sales and rentals of VHS, DVD and Blu-ray discs, while the digital segment includes electronic sell-through of video, Internet-based video on demand and subscription-based video on demand. It is this last category, not surprisingly, that is crushing the market for discs. IHS subscription video services accounted for 94% of all paid online movie consumption in the U.S. Only about 1.3% of video units consumed had been individually purchased. This itself is an interesting wrinkle in the market, since studios and even core video sellers like Apple seemed to be hoping for cloud-based lockers of videos. In this model, the habit of amassing video collections could be transported to virtual space. For now that model does not seem to have taken hold with video lovers, although a cloud-based approach would give them access to their content to see and share across devices. Instead, the critical cross-platform services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu Plus have seen enormous gains as they all migrate to portable devices. Still, disc-based viewing will continue to beat out Internet-based video viewing in terms of total time spent. Traditional media will see 4.3 billion hours, while online viewing will get 3.2 billion hours. And as in all other migrations from offline to online media, the total revenue of Internet-based video viewing will be a fraction of discs -- $1.7 billion compared to $11.1 billion. The disparity suggests to IHS analysts that Internet access to video via subscription might lead to online viewing sucking mindshare from other video viewing platforms without necessarily adding to revenue. With consumers always having something to watch via Netflix or Amazon, their need to seek out more lucrative sources like discs -- or even electronic sell-through -- diminishes.
In an App Store of over 500,000 selections, content discovery is notoriously hard. But it wasn’t hard for Congressional staffers to root out 34 sellers of social apps in the iOS market this week. The Energy and Commerce Committee’s head Henry Waxman and Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee ranking member GK Butterfield issued letters to some of the highest profile app publishers on mobile platforms yesterday, each asking in detail about the data the companies harvest from devices. The effort was sparked by the revelations last month that the social tracking app Path and other iOS apps had been shown to pull address book information off the devices on which they were installed. Subsequent reports showed that some apps could access a range of user data on phones, including photos, often without asking for permission. As part of its fact-finding effort, the Congressmen sent letters to the CEOs of some of the most popular apps they found in the social media category fo the app store. Letters were sent to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, Twitter’s Dick Costolo, foursquare’s Dennis Crowley, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Pinterest’s Ben Silbermann and many others. The form letters outline a litany of data and responses the committees are harvesting. The Committee is asking for the following information about specific apps named in the letters:
Electronic tablets, perhaps now even more so that chemical ones, are having a major impact on medicine and healthcare. New, improved technologies are coming out so fast and we are using them so intensively that our sense of time and space has been disrupted in ways that have nothing to do with Einstein. Today, as the world rushes to snap up Apple’s third-generation iPad, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on the speed and scale of what’s happened, and where it could lead. In barely two years, Apple has launched three versions of the iPad and is well on the way to becoming the healthcare industry technology of choice. Right from the launch of the first model in April 2010, healthcare professionals quickly saw the iPad as a version of portable untethered computing with great potential across the whole range of healthcare needs and settings. As I write this, thousands of HCPs are toting iPads and are enthusiastically swapping tips on smart ways to use them; you could find hundreds of healthcare-related articles and discussions about how the iPad is set to revolutionize healthcare. Within a year of launch, one survey found that 27% of American primary care providers and specialists had a tablet computer. Another found 22% had an iPad – and that was long before the launch of the iPad 2 in 2011, let alone the much-awaited new iPad. It’s not only an American phenomenon; a Q4 2011 survey by Manhattan Research found 26% of practicing physicians surveyed in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the UK said that they own an iPad. We’re not talking about the old familiar “early adopter” curve here; it’s not a few geeky and hip HCPs who are leading the charge. The University of Chicago’s Internal Medicine procured 115 iPads for its medical residency program in November 2010 and has created a blueprint for others to implement the iPad in a hospital setting. UC Irvine’s incoming medical students each get an iPad loaded with everything necessary for the initial year of course work. The Department of Veterans Affairs conducted a 1,000-iPad pilot test last year and shortly afterwards, in the fall, announced it would procure as many as 100,000 tablet computers, many for clinicians. The iPad is increasingly gaining fans in other eminent medical institutions such as Johns Hopkins, the Health Corporation of American, Mayo Clinic and Ottawa Hospital. This is to say nothing of pharma’s embrace as well, with tens of thousands of iPads now being deployed in the field at nearly every major pharmaceutical company. Gartner predicts that by 2013, iPad penetration among pharmaceutical sales reps will reach 85%. For perhaps the first time ever, sales reps and their physician customers are wielding the same device, creating new channel opportunities to transit information and experiences between them. There are plenty of factors contributing to the iPad’s current dominance of the field, and its likely continued preeminence if Apple continues raising the bar. As the market leader, it’s the “safe choice” for the industry, plus it has a far more mature ecosystem of apps and add-ons. Like all Apple products, the iPad is easy to use and like all Apple products it’s the industry standard in sleek design, desirability and coolness. IPad – as disruptive as x-rays In the mobile devices space, Apple has set a breakneck pace of upgrades and enhancements. The features of the new iPad make the two-year-old original’s look primitive, so it’s likely the 2014 iPad will make the 2012 version look passé. Right now that’s hard to imagine. With 2048 x 1536 resolution, quad-core graphics, 4g wireless, 5 megapixel camera, HD video recording and Bluetooth v4.0 Smart Ready connectivity, it already has more than enough to make it a healthcare professional’s dream machine. Key new features are the Smart Ready Bluetooth and the HD display. With low-power, energy-efficient BT v4.0, the iPad 3 (and the iPhone 4S) can act as receiver and hub for a whole new ecosystem of Smart Ready medical devices such as glucometers and heart-rate monitors. Many more will be developed. BT v4.0 enables 128-bit encryption, which goes a long way to allaying data eavesdropping concerns. With the HD display, healthcare professionals, patients and consumers can see the data and track trends in superfine detail. The intriguing question now is not whether, but how this sleek package of powerful technologies will disrupt healthcare itself. The industry is full of advanced science and technology but relatively few technologies have fundamentally changed the practice and outcomes of healthcare: vaccination, X-rays, blood transfusion, antibiotics and MRI scanning. At first glance there’s no comparing the iPad with those breakthrough medical technologies; what it offers is not preventive, diagnostic nor therapeutic. It’s not even a medical device. While the monitoring functions will be useful, they are likely to be “nice-to-have” add-ons to the core strength of the iPad, which is rich, powerful information and communication. In many respects the iPad is a state-of-the-art update of centuries of communications technologies (writing, sound recording, photography, video, telephony) integrated into one highly portable device. This is where the disruptive potential of the iPad lies; it’s not in its application in one specific medical domain; rather, it’s the application across all healthcare domains and settings. It’s not in individual product features and the uses they enable; rather, the ways those features are combined. Lastly, it’s not about enabling healthcare professionals to perform this or that task better; rather, it’s about their effectiveness across the board by enabling them to gather and access essential medical information faster, whenever and wherever they need it. We’ve been waiting for a revolution in connectivity and information to sweep healthcare – and it appears that the notion of the iPad as the conduit will indeed be rather easy for the industry to swallow.