Apps, 'Appless And The Great Unwashed

If you think you are going to make your fortune by producing an app and selling it to the multitudes consider this: out of the thousands of apps available, the average mobile user tends to only use between 22 and 28 apps a month.

Research has shown that young users (18-24) spend more time using apps which comes as little surprise, but they use fewer on average than the 25-34 age group.

Earlier in 2014 comScore released statistics that showed social media apps as being the most popular -  Facebook, YouTube and Gmail.

2013 produced a similar result (see below).

Most popular smartphone apps in the United States in 2013

But if you are thinking of developing an App and want to know what type of app people are interested in, take a look at AppBrian Stats which lists the top Android searches.

Music, hacking and password breaking apps figured prominently when I last looked which speaks volumes (if you'll excuse the pun) for the use of apps in general.

Top  Android searches over the last two weeks

Perhaps the final word on Apps and the pervasive nature of their use in society are the recent findings from a Bank of America study.

Apparently mobile phone users would rather give up alcohol, television or chocolate than lose the use of their mobile devices. 47% of U.S. consumers are so wedded to their smartphones that they couldn't last a day without them.

Bank of America Study

The bank also found that there folk use their mobile banking apps to "perform more sophisticated transactions, such as mobile check deposit" while the younger set would rather forgo using deodorant or toothbrushes than lose the use of their smartphone.

Perhaps it would be wise never to mingle in a crowd of young smartphone users if you are fastidious about personal hygiene!

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In A Buying Mood - Pinterest Vs Facebook

If you are selling something and planning to use social media to do so, does Facebook or Pinterest offer the best chance of delivering what you want?

New research from Bizrate Insights has found that 69% of consumers who have visited Pinterest discovered something they then purchased or wanted to purchase.  This compares to only 40% for Facebook.

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Even more compelling was the finding that 70% of consumers use Pinterest to get inspired about things to buy and 67% use this social media platform to keep track of things they like.

You may use Facebook more to maintain friendships, but Pinterest is clearly out in front when it comes to selling. Both are sites which online consumers use to connect with people who have similar styles and interests. Pinterest though is more often used as a destination for shopping inspiration, tracking, and product discovery.

It also seems that brand building is better on Pinterest than on Facebook.  Bizrate reports that:

"A greater percent (55%) of Pinterest users have engaged with retailers and brands via Pinterest, compared to the percent of Facebook users that engage retailers or brands on Facebook (48%).  But how customers engage differs for each of the two platforms.  Pinterest users are more likely to be “Creators”: adding and sharing retailer/brand related content, while Facebook users are more likely to be “Participators”: interacting with promotional activities developed by retailers and brands."

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The reach of Facebook still blitzes Pinterest but awareness of the latter is trending upwards rapidly.  36% of online consumers had heard of Pinterest in March but by August this figure had risen to 46%.

The reports data from September 2012 showed that 63% of online consumers had a Facebook account and only 15% had a Pinterest account.  Facebook is not sitting twiddling its thumbs when it comes to luring purchasers. They are testing a new feature, "collections", that lets users create wish lists of products by clicking on "want" or "collect" buttons.

PCWorld believes that the want button, if adopted permanently, could drive a lot of traffic to brands on Facebook and encourage impulse purchases.  They could be correct in this assumption and if it does it will have some serious implications for Pinterest.

But Pinterest is on the right growth projectory with a recent ComScore study putting it in the top 50 most-visited Web sites in the US for the first time, with 25 million unique visitors in the month. Ranked at 50th it still has  along way to catch Facebook which is ranked 4th in the same survey.

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Vietnam Thinks Local & Excels In Online Video Use

A recent survey from comScore revealed some interesting data about the popularity and growth of online video in the East Asia region.

In June of this year 83.1 percent of the world’s online population watched online video from a home or work computer. That represents 1.2 billion people worldwide age 15 and older undertaking this activity.

In the same month 197.5 billion videos were viewed online globally.  The average viewer watched 159.4 videos in June of 2012 and it is a particularly popular past time in Asia.

A significant factor in this development has been increased broadband access and content availability which has resulted in higher online video viewing activity.

It should be noted though that these results only present part of the picture, as they relate to video watching using a PC and do not include other platforms or situations such as viewing a video in an Internet cafe, on a mobile phone or tablet.  Given the impact of mobile not having this data included is a flaw.  Where too are South Korean and Thailand both of which are heavy users of broadband & mobile technologies?

The key findings from the survey were:

• Vietnam has the strongest reach of online video viewers in the Asia-Pacific region
• Vietnam has the highest video viewing penetration (89.8 percent ) and  Indonesia  had the lowest (66.9 percent ).
• Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and New Zealand all exceeded  the global average for online video penetration
• China was the leader when it came to the largest online video market by audience size.  It hads 266.2 million unique viewers (79.4 percent reach).  Next was Japan with 61.5 million viewers (83.7 percent reach) followed by India with 44.6 million viewers (73.1 percent reach).
• When it came to online video engagement, the average Japanese viewer watched 242.5 videos per month, Hong Kong viewers watched 180.7 videos, Singapore 158.1 videos and Australia 151.4.
• Google sites are the top video destination in Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam thanks to its ownership of YouTube
• Facebook.com ranked as the second largest video viewing destination in the Philippines and the third ranked destination in Indonesia and Taiwan
• VEVO and Viacom Digital were in the top five  video viewing destinations in both Indonesia and the Philippines
• Yahoo! Sites are big in Taiwan, ranking second. Tudou Sites come in 4th ranked and Youku Inc.5th.
• Local providers always excel in Vietnam so it is no surprise that VnExpress, Vega Corporation (Clip.vn) and Tuoi Tre Online securing places were all in the top five in the rankings.

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Seven Places Where Facebook Isn't Number One

Clearly Japan is still more enamoured with Twitter than they are with Facebook but the latter is catching up fast. A year from now it is quite possible that Facebook will supplant Twitter as the social media platform of choice.

According to comScore who conducted the research in 40 markets, Facebook reached 55% of the world's online audience in October 2011.  It also accounted for three of every four minutes spent networking on social media platforms, and one of every seven minutes on the entire web.

There are six other countries where Facebook is yet to rule.

• In Brazil, Orkut still reigns (232 average minutes per visitor) but Facebook (205 average minutes per visitor) is catching up fast. 298.5% growth in Facebook usage over the past 12 months.
• In Poland the indigenous Nasza-Klasa.pl is about to lose its ranks as #1 to Facebook
• In Russia Facebook does not get a look-in. 

• Naver.com Cafe and Cyworld are vying for top spot in South Korea
• Facebook is not number one in Vietnam although it should be noted that comScore does not collect data from that country
• It doesn't have a presence in China

And here is how Facebook has risen in recent years, overtaking locally-grown platforms

Facebook growth remains highest in countries that are often termed "developing markets" e.g. Indonesia, India, Brazil and the Philippines.

The only country in the world where Facebook's presence over 12 months has actually decreased is Canada, which a -1% growth over 2011.

And lest we forget, the global audience for Facebook currently stands at 797,952,700.

The Power of Like

Our Facebook Habit

 

Social networking use has doubled since 2007. Non-social sites are fighting a losing battle when it comes to online user preference.  As this chart clearly demonstrates Facebook is not just growing in addition to the rest of the Web, it is actually taking patronage away from other sites and growing at the rest of the web's expense.

Ben Elowitz, Founder and CEO, Wetpaint defines the 'rest of the web' as:

"the 'document Web,' based on how Google and other Web architectures view its pages as documents, linked together. But increasingly, it might as well be called the “searchable Web” since it’s accessed predominantly as a reference, and navigated primarily via search".

Instead of the searchable web we now have a fully connected digital life.

As Elowitz explains:

"Now, the Web knows who we are (identity), is with us at all times wherever we go (mobile), threads our relationships with others (social), and delivers meaningful experiences beyond just text and graphics (video)."

The implications of this quantum shift for publishers of content are profound.  The old searchable web as we knew it is struggling, while the new, connected social web is sweeping all before it.

Facebook is the new docking station for our human interaction as Search Engine Optimistion (SEO) a la Google is becoming increasingly less relevant.

Facebook is already receiving three times more users minutes per month than Google acording to ComScore and this trend will continue.

Facebook is now #1 in the advertising campaigns although competion remains fierce.

Other social network platforms also struggle to catch up with Facebook although LinkedIn, Tumblr and Twitter all hit record highs in May, 2011.

LinkedIn now attracts 33.4 million U.S. visitors, more than Twitter’s 27 million and Tumblr’s 10.7 million. Tumblr is the fastest-growing of the three companies though, boasting 166% growth in the last year. LinkedIn’s U.S. audience rose by a strong 58% in the last twelve months. (Source: ComScore).

The once popular NING platform ceased to be a free option in 2010 and has just announced a 27% increase in its base fees for their NINGPlus subscription.  This is guaranteed to turn off even more of its former users as such platforms wilt in the shadow of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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