The New York Times has an interesting story how the porn business is the lastest example how the Internet is shaking up well-established industries. It grew by just 2.4% in 2006, roughly the rate of inflation, to under $13 billion, according to Paul Fishbein, head of the AVN Media Network.
ReadWrite Web asked mobile Web expert Rudy De Waele about the trends for mobile Web in ’07. Here they are:
1. Flat fees will become more affordable bit by bit.
2. Thus, more user-generated content will become available to the phone; opening the way for mobile users to start using new web/mobile 2.0 services on their phones, such as podcasting, RSS feeds, more user-generated content to upload and use.
3. Big Media Youth Networks going mobile – MySpace, YouTube, MTV and many more players will resolutely go mobile; allowing users to upload pictures, videos and create/consume content straight from their mobile phones. And to share with friends (including mobile forwarding functionality).
4. Mobile search – the big players will start positioning seriously in the mobile market (watch out for deals with carriers/operators and device manufacturers)
5. Mobile ads – the market is growing at a rapid pace (just watch AdMob’s ad views ticker box daily)
6. QR codes will start to enter retail markets.
7. Mobile image recognition will pop up in mixed marketing campaigns.
8. Cell Phone memory card swapping – to exchange music/video files.
9. Multiple network download hotspots become available in urban zones – enabling ‘on the spot’ mobile download and internet access possibilities via wi-fi/wimax/bluetooth/nfc/etc…. (all build in or available immediately)
10. Rise of ‘smart client’ solutions, for convergence of content and application functionality on mobile devices in general.
Courtesy of mobile Web expert Rudy De Waele, here are 10 specific trends for mobile Web in ’07:
1. Flat fees will become more affordable bit by bit.
2. Thus, more user-generated content will become available to the phone; opening the way for mobile users to start using new web/mobile 2.0 services on their phones, such as podcasting, RSS feeds, more user-generated content to upload and use.
3. Big Media Youth Networks going mobile – MySpace, YouTube, MTV and many more players will resolutely go mobile; allowing users to upload pictures, videos and create/consume content straight from their mobile phones. And to share with friends (including mobile forwarding functionality).
4. Mobile search – the big players will start positioning seriously in the mobile market (watch out for deals with carriers/operators and device manufacturers)
5. Mobile ads – the market is growing at a rapid pace (just watch AdMob’s ad views ticker box daily)
6. QR codes will start to enter retail markets.
7. Mobile image recognition will pop up in mixed marketing campaigns.
8. Cell Phone memory card swapping – to exchange music/video files.
9. Multiple network download hotspots become available in urban zones – enabling ‘on the spot’ mobile download and internet access possibilities via wi-fi/wimax/bluetooth/nfc/etc…. (all build in or available immediately)
10. Rise of ‘smart client’ solutions, for convergence of content and application functionality on mobile devices in general.
Interesting. According to Marketing Vox the top cable and telephone service providers that make up about 94 percent of the U.S. market signed more than 2.5 million net additional broadband subscribers in the third quarter alone. The top 20 cable and telephone also account now for almost 60 million high-speed internet customers.
Apparently there are quite a lot of Europeans who seem to be very interesting what’s going on with the American blogosphere and the big media changes here. In just discovered a well-designed blog called ContentNext written by a European expat living in Los Angeles. One of his first post about the citizen journalism efforts of Reuters and Yahoo is quite interesting.
Staggering numbers!
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote an excellent article in the latest edition of “Rolling Stone” magazine. The whole piece is a must-read – I especially like the following paragraph:
A recent Indiana University study found that The Daily Show was just as substantive as network television news during the 2004 election. I’m not surprised that young people who watch it are well-informed. I read about ten newspapers a day and three newsmagazines a week, and I have my TV tuned to cable news all day, and I still find myself taking notes from The Daily Show.
Webpro News reports that Web users conduct over 500 million searches a day (who knows how they calculate such numbers), and that the number continues to rise. Wow!
The great site Modern Life is Rubbish has a great post about the current trends in blogging. He includes some interesting stats about the usage of blog software (almost half of the Top 100 blogs run on specialized or heavily customised software), monetisation (no.1: Adsense), language and topics. I was expecting that the share of personal blogs would be much bigger.
MarketingVox reports that DoubleClick’s fourth annual Touchpoints survey findings highlight the importance that consumers attribute to the internet in generating awareness and as a source of information for purchase decisions.
The survey reveals that consumers are more likely to “view through” an online ad than to click on one. A “view through” refers to a visit to an advertised website after the visitor has seen an online ad – but without having clicked on the ad, instead navigating directly to the site. The view through can occur moments after seeing an ad, or days or even weeks later.
It’s not clear if blogs are also included in ‘websites’, but I sure gadgets blogs like Gizmodo or Engagdet influence the purchases of their readers.
Software blog Download Squad gives the scoop on BlogMailr, a free tool that lets you add posts to your blog just by sending e-mails.