iPhone

BlackBerry in 2013 … like Studebaker in 1965?

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1965 Studebaker Commander station wagon
The end of the road: The 1965 Studebaker Commander station wagon.

BlackBerry has announced that it will finally introduce its new Z10 touchscreen smartphone model in the United States next week, in conjunction with its AT&T program.

That’s about a month after sales of the Z10 began in the United Kingdom, Canada and several other countries.

Does this signify a comeback of sorts for BlackBerry?

If it does, it will be a dramatic reversal of fortune, as the company has been on a steady downward trajectory ever since the release of the first Apple iPhone in 2007.

But speaking as the owner of a BlackBerry device, I have to admit that the company has seemed to be hopefully behind the curve for quite a few years now. And this latest, last-ditch effort is coming up against stiff competition, such as Samsung’s new Galaxy smartphone which is debuting at the very same time.

BlackBerry’s recently installed CEO, Thorsten Heins, has stated publicly that the company has to regain some of its market share in the U.S. in order to be successful.

But the news on this front doesn’t look promising at all, as corporate accounts — long the company’s bread-and-butter busines– appear to be falling away.

In February, The Home Depot reported that it was replacing all of its company-issued BlackBerry devices with iPhones.

And just last week, Yahoo announced that it will be phasing out its app for BlackBerry devices as of April 1st (yep, you got that right: April Fool’s Day).

Also, as of last September Yahoo no longer offers BlackBerry smartphone options to its own employees – just as with The Home Depot.

Rather than endorsements, these seem more like ringing indictments.

For those of us who love our BlackBerry keyboards, the company is promising that a keyboard version of the new smartphone (the Q10) will be available in the United States by this summer.

The question is, will it be too late by then?

We’ll know that answer soon.

Smartphones surge … and phone apps follow right behind.

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Smartphones surge in the marketplace ... phone apps right behind them.Media survey firm Nielsen is reporting that as of the end of 2009, about one in five wireless subscribers in the U.S. owned a smartphone. That’s up significantly from the ~14% who owned them at the end of 2008, and adoption is only expected to accelerate in the coming months.

So what’s going on with phone apps, now that a larger chunk of the population is able to download and use them? Nielsen is seeing about 15% of mobile subscribers downloading at least one app in a 30-day period.

Perhaps not surprisingly, those who own iPhones are more apt to download apps compared to people who own Android phones, Palms or BlackBerrys. Far more apps have been developed for the iPhone, although Android is feverishly trying to catch up.

Which apps are most popular? It goes without saying that games – free and paid – are quite popular. But the four most popular apps are Facebook, Google Maps, the Weather Channel and Pandora.

And where are the news apps in all this? Not even on the radar screen, it turns out.

… Seems people are getting more than enough news blasted out to them 24/7/365 without needing to sign up for a special app to deliver more of it — thank you very much.

Google Goggles: The Innovations in Search Marketing Just Keep on Coming

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Just when you thought there were no new breakthroughs to be had in search marketing … along comes Google Goggles. It’s a new “visual search” application focusing on computer vision for mobile phones, currently in development and testing at Google Labs. An early version has already been unveiled by the Goggles product development team and been released to Android mobile users.

What does Google Goggles do? It allows anyone to search on a cell phone simply by snapping a picture of an object. Once the picture has been taken, it is “read” by Google’s cloud, algorithms search for the information, the matches are ranked and detailed search results appear on your phone – just as if you had typed in a search command.

Because this is far easier to show than to explain, Google has issued a short video clip that features several members of the development team demonstrating how Goggles works. Currently, the app works well with inanimate objects such as DVDs, books, and physical landmarks. You can even point your phone to a store building while using the geo-targeting feature, and search results pertaining to the store and its merchandise will appear on your phone.

What doesn’t work so well are items like food, plants, animals and people … yet. Give it a few more years, and no doubt the brains at Google will have figured out those challenges as well.

While at present Goggles is available only to Android phone users, it is Google’s intention to develop and offer the program to other popular mobile platforms. So iPhone and BlackBerry users needn’t worry.

Incidentally, Goggles isn’t the only new development in search that’s happening right now. Google is also working on creating real-time translation in multiple languages by speaking a query into a search engine app. (The audio is translated into a digital request before being processed and returning results.) And developers at Ball State University are working on devices that can “read” search commands simply by the flick of a finger or by waving in front of the screen.

What’s next? Search results appearing after someone merely thinks about making a query?

It’s official: Clickthrough advertising effectiveness on mobile devices is somewhere south of atrocious.

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As usage of the Internet on mobile devices like the Apple iPhone has become more prevalent, many businesses have been wondering how important it is for them to cater to these users through the creation of web sites that are optimized for mobile display.

Although creating a mobile version of a web site doesn’t have to be a major undertaking, it is “yet another task” to add to the marketer’s never-ending to-do list. So, just how important is it?

Chitika, Inc., a Massachusetts-based online advertising network, has analyzed the behaviors of “mobilists” and found some interesting results when it comes to their viewing of advertising and taking action. In tracking more than 92 million ad impressions served up by browsers, it turns out that mobile internet users clicked through at a far lower rate than those viewing ads on desktop machines.

How much lower? The overall clickthrough rate for mobilists was 0.48%, compared to a clickthrough rate of 0.84% for non-mobile users. That’s a serious difference, and gets about as far in the basement as you can go.

But why are the numbers so abysmal? More than likely, several factors are at work. First, consider the ways people use their mobile devices. It’s usually because they want to know something immediately … and it’s at times like those that folks are less inclined to get sidetracked by clicking on advertising links. By contrast, the “immediacy” factor with non-mobile devices often isn’t as acute.

Also, consider the load time on mobile devices – rather much slower. For that reason, mobile web content tends to be less informationally rich — or compelling in its appearance — thus decreasing its “stopping” power.

What this means for advertisers is that the key for succeeding in the mobile space is catching consumers at just the right time, not happening to catch them at any time. Easy enough in theory … but would anyone care to volunteer for putting this into practice? Best of luck to you.

From the perspective of the media purveyors, the Chitika findings certainly won’t make their task of attracting additional advertising revenues in the mobile sector any easier. Perhaps that’s why The Wall Street Journal announced last week that, beginning in November, it will be charging mobile users a weekly fee to access its content on mobile devices – and those fees will be charged to WSJ subscribers and non-subscribers both.

It’s further proof that relying on display advertising revenue simply isn’t cutting it as a practical business model in the mobile environment.

Surprising Findings about Smartphone Apps

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iPhoneWith the explosive adoption rate of Apple’s iPhone smartphone since its release a little over a year ago – more than 25 million phones to date – it couldn’t be long before researchers would start examining user behavior and study the most popular applications that are being used.

Indeed, there are already hundreds of “for free” and “for fee” applications that are available for use on smartphones.

So what are most popular iPhone apps? You’re to be forgiven if you think of music or games, because that’s certainly where most of the press hype has been. But in fact, the most popular iPhone apps are all about … the weather.

That is right. In a recent report issued by online market research and analytics firm Compete, staid and unexciting weather apps were cited by ~40% of respondents as one of the three top iPhone apps they used.

The next most popular application cited? Facebook (by ~25%). By contrast, game applications were cited as a top three-category by only ~20% of respondents, and music apps even lower still.

So much for iPhone users demonstrating cutting-edge online behavior!

In a related analysis, online analytics firm Pinch Media found that most iPhone apps aren’t setting the world on fire in terms of their popularity. The Pinch analysis found that iPhone users are quite fickle: Only ~20% ever return to a free app after downloading it. And a month later? The return rate drops to a paltry 5%. (The percentages are even lower for paid apps.)

These stats have implications for third-party advertisers on smartphone app programs. For many, it may make more sense to advertise on The Weather Channel or other less flashy but more frequently used apps than going with high-sizzle gaming applications that might be used only a handful of times before they’re replaced by the “next new thing.”