Internet

Smartphones and Tablets have Doubled Our Time Spent Online

Phillip Nones Business, Marketing Communications, Social Commentary, Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

screenjumpersWhat a difference a few years makes.

Back in February 2010, Americans over the age of 18 spent a total of ~451 billion minutes’ time on the Internet, according to comScore’s Media Metrix research.

By comparison, in February 2013, the total time spent online had nearly doubled to ~890 minutes.

The vast majority of the increase is attributable to tablet computers and smartphones rather than PCs:

  • PC minutes rose from ~388 billion to ~467 billion (+24%).
  • Smartphone minutes grew from ~63 billion to a whopping ~208 billion (+230%).
  • Tablet minutes grew from zero to 115 billion (tablets didn’t exist in 2010).

In fact, taken together, smartphones and tablets now account for nearly 60% of the time online spent by people age 18 to 24.  On the other hand, smartphones account for a relatively small 25% of time spent online by Americans age 50 or older.

This age divide is also clearly evident in comScore’s estimated breakdown of platform adoption:

All American Adults

  • PC only:  ~30%
  • “Screen jumpers” (PC + mobile):  ~63%
  • Mobile platforms only:  ~7%

Young Adults (age 18-24)

  • PC only:  ~22%
  • Screen jumpers:  ~65%
  • Mobile only:  ~13%

Older Adults (age 50+)

  • PC only:  ~48%
  • Screen jumpers:  ~51%
  • Mobile only:  ~1%

The comScore analysis also provides some interesting stats pertaining to online share of minutes by the type of content being accessed.

Most online time spent on PCs:

  • Business/Finance (~68%)
  • TV (~68%)
  • News/Information (~62%)
  • Sports (~62%)
  • Retail (~49%)
  • Health (~54%)

Most online time spent on smartphones:

  • Radio (~77%)
  • Social Media (~58%)
  • Weather (~55%)
  • Games (~48%)

Tablets don’t lead in any single category, but score particularly well in these two:

  • Games (~34% of time online is spent on tablets)
  • TV (~20% of time online is spent on tablets)

More details and insights from the comScore report can be found here.

Evil eye? Google’s vision for the future.

Phillip Nones Advertising, Business, Marketing Communications, Social Commentary, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

pay-per-gaze creepy disturbingTo understand where Google is heading next in the world of advertising, consider this:  The company has just been granted a patent on its “pay-per-gaze” eye-tracking system.

You might wonder what that might be.

Pay-per-gaze is an ad system that utilizes Google Glass for tracking the ads that consumers see online and elsewhere.  The gaze-tracking capability comes from another Google innovation:  a head-mounted tracking device that communicates with a server.

According to the patent documentation, the tracking devices includes eyeglasses with side-arms that engage the ears of the user … a nose bridge that engages the nose of the user … and lenses through which the user views the external scenes wherein the scene images are captured in real-time.

And it need not be limited to tracking online advertising, either; pay-per-gaze functionality could potentially extend to billboards, magazines, newspapers and other printed media, Google notes.

But the idea is even more revolutionary than that:  Not only does it aim to measure how long an individual looks at an ad, but also how “emotionally invested” the consumer is by virtue of measuring pupil dilation.

So the tracking system not only will show how long someone looks at an ad, but also will measure the emotional response.  The patent also covers a provision for “latent pre-searching” which would display search results over a user’s field of vision using Google Glass or another wearable computer.

If all of this seems like “Big Brotherism” at its worst … you may well be correct.  But Google is doing its best to downplay such sinister connotations.  It’s emphasizing that users can opt out of “pay-per-gaze” tracking, and that all data will be anonymized.

But let’s get this straight:  The world’s biggest search engine was just granted a patent for the most “sticky” form of advertising possible – ads that literally flash in front of someone’s eyes.

And when we add in aspects like measuring pupil dilation, it won’t be long before Google will be able to determine how good eats, or good looks, are affecting our emotional response.

One wonders how much farther we can go with measuring advertising engagement and buying intent. 

Then again, we already have an answer, of sorts.  As early as 2000, experiments with electromagnetic brainwaves have shown that people can literally “think” instructions and thereby cause an action.

Imagine combining Google’s pay-per-gaze and pay-per-emotion with electromagnetic brainwave tracking.  Add in a credit card number, and there’s no telling what could happen just with a fleeting thought or two!

If all of this sounds creepy and disturbing … get used to it.  With the likes of Google and the NSA at the helm, “creepy and disturbing” may well become the “new normal” for society.

Consumers Still Finding Weaknesses in Brands’ Web Presence

Phillip Nones Advertising, Branding, Business, Marketing Communications, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Temkin Group logoThe most recently published Temkin Web Experience Ratings of more than 200 companies across 19 industries reveals continuing widespread disappointment with the quality of the “web experience.”

The Temkin Web Experience Ratings are compiled annually by Temkin Group, a Newton, MA-based customer experience research and consulting firm.  The ratings are based on consumer feedback when asked to rate their satisfaction when interacting with each company’s website.

Temkin ratings are established for companies garnering responses from 100 or more of the ~10,000 randomly selected participants in an online survey conducted by the research firm in January 2013.

Rankings are calculated via a “net satisfaction” score based on a 7-point rating scale from “completely satisfied” to “completely dissatisfied” by taking the percentage of consumers selecting the two highest ratings and subtracting the percentage who selected the bottom three ratings.

Just 6% of the brands earned strong or very strong “net” trust ratings, while ten times as many (~63%) were given weak or very weak scores.

And there’s this, too:  Not much improvement is happening.  More than half of the ~150 companies that were included in both the 2012 and 2013 Temkin evaluations earned lower scores this year than last.

Managing partner Bruce Temkin summarized it succinctly:  “The web is a key channel, but online experiences aren’t very good – and are heading in the wrong direction.”

The latest Temkin ratings give Amazon the top-rank position with a 77% overall rating score.  Other companies ranked near the top include Advantage Rent A Car, U.S. Bank and QVC.

At the other end of the scale, MSN, EarthLink and Cablevision earned the lowest ratings – MSN worst of all.

Indeed, the following industries had composite company ratings that ended up in the “very weak” column:

  • Airlines
  • Health plans
  • Internet service providers
  • TV service providers
  • Wireless carriers

Do any of these industries seem like ones that shouldn’t be on this list?

I didn’t think so, either.

Which ones are the industries that score best in the Temkin analysis?  By order of rank, they are as follows:

  • Banks
  • Investment firms
  • Retailers
  • Credit card issuers
  • Hotel chains

Come to think of it, I haven’t encountered problems online with companies or bands in any of these five industries.

It’s also interesting to consider which companies have improved the most over time.  When comparing year-over-year results for the ~150 companies that were included in both the 2012 and 2013 studies, eight of them showed double-digit improvements in their scores:

  • Blue Shield of California
  • Citibank
  • Humana
  • Old Navy
  • Safeway
  • Toyota
  • TriCare
  • U.S. Bank

On the other hand, a much bigger contingent of 21 companies saw their ratings decline by at least 10 points; the six firms that dropped by 15 points of more were these:

  • Bright House Networks
  • Cablevision
  • MSN
  • ShopRite
  • Southwest Airlines
  • United Airlines

You can view the scores (and trends) for all 200+ companies by clicking here to download the full report.

If you notice any rankings that seem surprising – or that don’t comport with your own online experiences – please share your thoughts and perspectives below.

Ziggeo: The HR Manager’s Newest Friend

Phillip Nones Business, Social Commentary, Uncategorized , , , , , , , ,

Ziggeo logoWho hasn’t ever interviewed someone and known within the first minute or so that the meeting was going to be a complete waste of time?

[Then the fun part was having to make inconsequential small talk for the rest of the interview just to appear civil!]

Unfortunately, this scenario happens more often than we’d care to admit.  And considering the effort involved in planning and conducting phone or in-person interviews, it’s a major waste of time and resources.

But now a company has come along that harnesses the Internet and camera technology to offer a different approach that I find pretty intriguing.

It’s called Ziggeo.  Founded by entrepreneurs Susan Danziger and Oliver Friedmann, it’s an online service that enables HR managers and others to screen job candidates and other people using video technology.

It’s as simple as posing a few questions on the Ziggeo site … then providing a Ziggeo link to the interested parties for them to respond.

Job candidates simply click on the link to receive the questions.  They respond with short video recordings, which the HR manager can view at his or her convenience.  It’s an efficient and inexpensive way to prescreen job candidates in the very first stage of the interview process.

Since most people have video capabilities embedded in their digital devices these days, they can respond easily without being impeded by a lack of technical tools.  And if candidates balk at participating … chances are those people wouldn’t have ended up on the short-list of finalists anyway.

Job interview via videoZiggeo has also incorporated a simple “rating” functionality into its system to make it easy to grade the quality of video responses, which would come in handy for people who are evaluating a large number of candidates.

I think this is a great way to separate the “wheat from the chaff” when it comes to people selection.  Plus, we get to see how people are responding to our own specific questions … not having to rely just on resumes, covers letters and the like.

While job applicants are probably the biggest potential uses, there are numerous other applications of the Ziggeo approach.  I can see it being used to screen all manner of people:

  • Interns
  • Casting calls
  • Babysitters
  • Adult/senior caretaking
  • Roommates and apartment mates

Ziggeo can also serve as a quick, easy and affordable method to “vet” video testimonials and media interviews.

Like so many other web-based offerings, Ziggeo offers different usage plans based on the level of need.  There’s a free plan that allows for video clips up to 20 seconds in length, as well as a “personal” paid plan that allows clips up to two minutes long.

The Ziggeo Pro premium-level service levels goes a lot further than that, allowing  for hundreds of videos up to 15-minutes in length plus multiple screening rooms, which should prove most popular with hiring practitioners and human resources departments at large companies.

I don’t have personal experience with this tool myself, but it seems like its positive attributes as a “first sort” for personnel selection would far outweigh any negative aspects.

What experience have readers had with Ziggeo or similar video screening services?  Would you recommend using them, or are there drawbacks?  Please share your comments here.

Welcome to Modern Times’ Newest Malady: “Digital Dementia.”

Phillip Nones Marketing Communications, Social Commentary, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

Digital dementia among young people: studies in South Korean, the U.S. and Germany confirmIt seems like a new “unintended consequence” of our digital age emerges every other week.  Recently it’s been a spate of warnings about the dangers of texting while driving.

And now we have reports of a condition dubbed “digital dementia” that’s supposedly plaguing teens and Millennials.

This phenomenon is being reported out of South Korea, a country that happens to have the highest rate of smartphone adoption in the world.  More than two thirds of all South Korean adults have a smartphone, and among teenagers, it’s nearly as high (~64%).

Indeed, according to the country’s Ministry of Science, smartphone adoption by South Korean teens has jumped more than 200% since 2011 when it was less than 22%.

So what is “digital dementia”?  It’s described as the deterioration in cognitive abilities that comes from an imbalanced development of brain functions.

Commenting on the use of smartphones and gaming devices among young people, “Heavy users are likely to develop the left side of their brains, leaving the right side untapped or underdeveloped,” claims Byun Gi-won, a physician at the Balance Brain Centre in Seoul.

According to Dr. Gi-won, such overuse results in symptoms that are more commonly observed in people who have psychiatric illnesses or have suffered head injuries.

The country’s Ministry of Science estimates that nearly one in five South Koreans ages 10-19 use their smartphone seven hours per day or more.  That’s up sharply from around 10% doing so just a year before.

Is the phenomenon of “digital dementia” among the young confined to South Korea or East Asia?  Manfred Spitzer, a professor of neuroscience in Germany, thinks not.  He’s the author of a book on digital dementia that was published in 2012, wherein he warned of the dangers of allowing children to spend too much time on electronic devices such as tablets, smartphones and game devices.

Dr. Manfred Spitzer, author of "Digital Dementia."
Do you recognize this face? Dr. Manfred Spitzer, author of “Digital Dementia.”

In fact, Dr. Spitzer maintains that deficits in brain development are irreversible.  His solution:  Ban digital media from German classrooms completely.

Dream on, professor.  That’s certainly not going to happen!

Likewise, we have a recent study from the University of Southern California at Los Angeles that points to increasing memory problems among people ages 18-39.  The UCLA report blames “modern lifestyles,” claiming that the many digital gadgets within easy reach of young people prevent them from developing memorization skills and other forms of focus.

On the other hand, that same UCLA study concludes that for some older patients suffering from mental decline, engaging in brain-fitness computer games like Luminosity or Posit Science’s Brain HQ have improved their language and memory skills significantly.

Considering that age-related memory decline affects as many as 40% of older adults, that UCLA finding may turn out to be as noteworthy on the positive side of the ledger as the South Korean one on the negative side about young people.

Like any other “transformational” technology, the digital revolution continues to play out in unexpected ways.  Somehow, I expect us to be hearing many more reports of this type as the years roll on.

Not that these theories of cognitive weakness don’t have their detractors.  You can read several strongly worded retorts here and here.

What do readers think?  Big news … or bunk?  Please share your thoughts here.

Optify Measures Social Media Activity in the B-to-B Market

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

Optify logoThis is my fourth and final post about the findings of Optify’s recently published business-to-business online marketing analysis.  The focus of this post is on what Optify found about social media usage.  (You can read my other posts on B-to-B web traffic and advertising here, here and here.)

Optify, which is a developer of digital marketing software for B-to-B marketing professionals, analyzes web behaviors and releases a report each year.  This annual “benchmark” report is particularly important in that the findings are reported from actual web activity, not from surveys.

The key takeaway findings on the social media front are these:

  • Despite all of the continuing hype, social media remains a very small fraction of traffic and leads to B-to-B websites.  In fact, social media has contributed to less than 5% of B-to-B web traffic and leads.
  • Facebook drives the more than half of the social media-generated web traffic to B-to-B websites, versus about one-third from Twitter and most of the remaining traffic from LinkedIn.
  • Visitors who arrive at B-to-B sites from LinkedIn are more likely to view more pages per visit (~2.5 page views on average) than visitors who come from Facebook (~1.9 page views) or Twitter (~1.5 page views).
  • Despite generating more traffic Facebook drives fewer actual B-to-B leads than either Twitter or LinkedIn.
  • At this time, Twitter appears to be the most lucrative social media source for leads, with a higher-than-average conversion rate of ~2.1% (defined as a visitor taking an action such as submitting a form).

Because of this last data point, Optify posits that companies should not shy away from considering social media‘s potential as a source for leads as opposed to being just an  awareness tool.

I’m sure Optify’s figures don’t lie.  But I for one remain unconvinced about social media’s lead generation potential in the B-to-B realm.

More B-to-B Web Behavior Findings from Optify

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , ,

Optify logoThis is my second post on the very interesting findings from Optify’s analysis of the behavior of visitors to business-to-business websites during 2012.

[Refer to my earlier post for a quick overview of salient “top-line” results.]

As part of its analysis, Optify uncovered some interesting factors pertaining to “organic” web searches, which represent ~41% of all visits to B-to-B websites.  Here’s what stands out in particular:

  • Forget all of the talk about Bing/Yahoo taking a bite out of Google on the search front. Optify found that Google is responsible for nearly 90% of all organic search activity in the B-to-B realm, making it the #1 referring source of traffic – and it isn’t even close.  (Bing’s coming in at a whopping ~6% of the search traffic.)
  • Organic search visits from Bing do show slightly better engagement rates in the form of more page views per visit, as well as better conversion rates (e.g., filling out a form). But with such low referring traffic to begin with, it’s fair to say that Google was — and remains — the cat’s meow when it comes to organic search.
  • “Branded” searches – ones that include the name of the company – account for nearly one-third of all visits from organic search. Plus, they show the highest engagement levels as well: ~3.7 page views per visit on average.

Optify notes a few clouds on the horizon when it comes to evaluating the success of a company’s organic search program. Ever since Google introduced its “blocked search data” securred socket layer (SSL) option (https://google.com), the incidence of blocked referring keyword data has increased rapidly:

  • Block referring keyword data now represents over 40% of all search queries.
  • Non-branded keywords that are known (and thus available for analysis) have dropped to just 35% of all organic searches.

Here’s the bad news:  As blocked keyword searches continue to grow in popularity – and who wouldn’t choose this option when it’s so easy and readily available – it’s creating a veritable “data oblivion” confronting marketers in their attempts to analyze and improve their SEO performance.

In a subsequent blog post, I’ll summarize key findings from Optify pertaining to paid search (SEM) and social media in the B-to-B realm.

Optify Measures the Current State of B-to-B Online Marketing

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

Optify logoEach year Optify, a developer of digital marketing software for business-to-business marketing professionals, analyzes web behaviors to develop a “benchmark” report on B-to-B marketing.

The annual Optify benchmark report is interesting in that the findings are developed not from surveys, but from actual web activity. 

Optify’s most recent report, released in early 2013, was produced using data gleaned from more than 62 million web visits, ~215 million page views and ~350,000 leads from more than 600 small and medium-sized websites of B-to-B firms.

Optify used its proprietary visitor and lead tracking technology to collect and aggregate the data.  U.S.-based B-to-B sites that garnered between 100 to 100,000 monthly visits were included in the research.

There are many interesting findings – enough to chew on so that I will cover them in several blog posts.  In all likelihood, some of the findings will confirm your perceptions … while others may be a tad surprising.

Web Traffic

As in business-to-consumer web marketing, there is cyclicality in web traffic in the B-to-B world.  But according to Optify, it’s almost the polar opposite:

  • Higher traffic:  January through March + September and October
  • Lower traffic:  Summer months + end of year

Source of Web Traffic

Optify found that the overwhelming amount of B-to-B web traffic comes from two main sources — organic search and direct traffic.  Other sources – particularly social media – are a good deal more peripheral:

  • Organic search:  ~41% of web traffic
  • Direct traffic:  ~40%
  • Referral links:  ~12%
  • Paid search:  ~5%
  • Social media:  ~2%

Lead Conversion Rate

Optify defines the “conversion rate” as the percent of web visitors who submitted a query or filled out some other type of form during a single visit.  Using this definition, Optify found that the average conversion rate was around 1.6%. 

But the best sources for lead conversions differ from the most prevalent sources of web traffic:

  • E-mail source:  ~2.9% conversion rate
  • Other referral links:  ~2.0%
  • Paid search:  ~2.0%
  • Direct traffic:  ~1.7%
  • Organic search:  ~1.5%
  • Social media:  ~1.2%

Page Views per Web Visit

Optify found that the average visitor viewed three pages on the website during their visit.

… But Big Variations

Optify found a good deal of variability in web activity.  To illustrate this, it has published findings broken out by medians and for percentile groups as follows:

  • Median visits per month per website:  1,784
  • 75th percentile of websites:  4,477
  • 25th percentile of websites:  339
  • Median page views per website visit (monthly average):  3.03
  • 75th percentile median page views:  4.04
  • 25th percentile media page views:  1.80
  • Median lead conversion rate (monthly average):  1.6%
  • 75th percentile median conversion rate:  3.3%
  • 25th percentile median conversion rate:  0.5%

There’s much more in the Optify report that’s worth reviewing … which I’ll share ina follow-up blog post.

Fourteen billion web pages … but you can get from any one to any other in 19 clicks or less.

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , ,
Opte Project Web Network Map
A visualization of the ~14 billion pages that make up the network of cyberspace. Red lines represent links between web pages in Asia … blue lines for North America … yellow for Latin America … green for Europe, Africa and the Middle East … white for unknown IP addresses.  (Opte Project)

There are an estimated 14 billion+ web pages in existence. But even with this massive number, you can navigate from any single one of those pages to any other in 19 clicks or less.

That’s the finding of Albert-László Barabási, a Hungarian-Romanian physicist and network theorist. He’s constructed a simulated model of the web, and in doing so discovered that of the ~1 trillion web documents in existence (this figure includes every image or other file hosted on every one of the ~14 billion web pages), most are poorly connected.

In other words, they’re linked to just a few other pages or documents.

But the web also has a smallish number of pages associated with search engines, indexes and aggregators that are highly connected and can move from one area of cyberspace to another.

It is these “super-potent” nodes that allow people to navigate from most areas to most others relatively easily.

Physicist Albert-László Barabási
Albert-László Barabási, physicist and network theorist.

Hence Barabási’s “19 clicks or fewer” finding.

He posits that the web mirrors fundamental human experience: the impulse for people to tend to cluster into communities (both real and virtual).

Thus, the pages that make up the web aren’t linked randomly. They’re part of an interconnected organizational structure that includes country, region, subject/topic area and so forth.

That interconnectivity is illustrated nicely in the Opte Project’s “map” of cyberspace. This endeavor, spearheaded by Internet entrepreneur Barrett Lyon, gives us intriguing visualizations of the web and how it is interconnected.

The resulting picture (see above) is impressive, visually arresting … and even a bit scary.

Internet Music Does a Number on Traditional Listening Habits

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,
Changing trends in music listening habits favor Internet radio and on-demand music services.
Changing trends in music listening habits finds Internet radio and on-demand music services growing at the expense of CDs and AM/FM radio.  Pandora radio users reflect the broader trend.

I’ve suspected for some time that the rise in popularity of on-demand music services as well as Internet radio are fundamentally changing how consumers consume music.

And now we have quantification showing the extent of those changes.

Marketing research firm NPD Group has just released results from a survey it conducted among American Internet users age 13 and older. It found that half of Internet users have listened to music on Internet radio or an on-demand music service at least once over the past three months.

User activity is split equally between Internet radio services such as Pandora, and on-demand services like Spotify and Rhapsody (about 37% each).

Internet radio appears to be growing in popularity significantly faster than the on-demand music audience. Internet radio audience increased ~27% over the past year, while the on-demand music audience grew by just ~18%.

By contrast, the audience fell in other categories – most dramatically in listening to CDs:

• Digital downloads: ~2% decline
• AM/FM radio: ~4% decline
• Music CDs: ~16% decline

Since finally breaking into the mainstream about three years ago, the Pandora Internet radio service has really taken a bite out of the conventional ways of listening to music. Moreover, about one-third of all Pandora users are now listening to music via the service in their cars. As a result, since 2009 the percentage of Pandora users who also listen to AM/FM radio has declined by ~10%. Even more dramatic has been the drop in Pandora users also listening to CDs on non-computer devices and/or on portable music players (-21%).

An intriguing  finding of the survey is that using Internet radio and on-demand music services has increased audience engagement with new music:  More than half of the respondents reported that these services have aided in their discovery of music that is new to them. 

Clearly, innovations such as Pandora’s “music genome” have made it easier and more fulfilling for listeners to broaden their musical horizons, branching out from musical styles that are familiar and most pleasing to them.

But an even more interesting finding may be this one: Two-thirds of respondents have used these services to rediscover older music – the music of their youth.

In this case at least, “what’s old is new again.”