While researching a presentation I am giving in one week at the National Forum on Criminal Justice and Public Safety I came across some awesomely fresh mobile marketing data. The mobile data report I found was released by mobiThinking and it provides key insight into apps, mobile internet usage, mobile user behavior and much more.
Here are a few bullets I found to be extra intriguing: (all information provided below came from the mobiThinking “Global mobile statistics 2011: all quality mobile marketing research, mobile Web stats, subscribers, ad revenue, usage, trends…” report)
1.) There will be over 500 million m-payment, m-banking, NFC users by 2015
2.) There are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers (that’s 77 percent of the world population).
3.) Half a billion people accessed mobile Internet worldwide in 2009. Usage is expected to double within five years as mobile overtakes the PC as the most popular way to get on the Web.
4.) Android is expected to become the top OS for new smartphones in 2011.
5.) SMS is the king of mobile messaging. 8 trillion text messages will be sent in 2011.
But consumers are also embracing mobile email, IM and MMS rapidly.
6.) Mobile ad spend worldwide is predicted to be US $3.3 billion in 2011 sky rocketing to $20.6 billion in 2015, driven by search ads and local ads. In the US over half of U.S. mobile ad spending is local. Asia – Japan particularly – continues to dominate global mobile ad spend.
7.) Over 300,000 mobile apps have been developed in three years. Apps have been downloaded 10.9 billion times. But demand for download mobile apps is expected to peak in 2013.
8.) 1 in 4 mobile apps once downloaded are never used again.
There is plenty of other mobile data in the report by mobiThinking including mobile usage behavior and more mobile marketing critical details. If your into internet marketing you will want to pay special attention to point #3 above, one day in the not too distant future people will use a smartphone or tablet to access the web (mobile web) to browse the internet.
Tell me what you think about this report and are you making changes in your internet/mobile internet marketing plans?
About two months ago I was minding my own business blogging when I received an email from PayPal, or at least I thought it was from PayPal. The email looked completely authentic down to the crappy little copyright information at the bottom of the email. The email was what appeared to be an official communication from PayPal that my account had been charged over $400.00. My heart was racing because I did not pay anyone $400. I immediately called PayPal, to plead my case and they told me nothing was wrong, no charges had been made to my account and not to worry about this. They told me to email this to my internet hosting company. Kind of silly since the email looked official and from PayPal. Someone attempted to get information from me by “Phishing” or “spoofing.”
But what in the world do these terms mean, they sound more like words from a children’s book or game. Phishing is when someone tries to get critical information from you through a bogus pop-up or fraudulent email. They will indicate in either form of communication that you need to provide your account information, pin code, etc or some dire consequences will occur. Spoofing, similarly is when someone sets up a false website to mimic an official website or a false email with the same intent. Again, in spoofing the goal is to get the victim to provide critical account information or personal information to be used to commit financial crimes against the victim.
I am on Twitter everyday, throughout the day and I am sad to say, but I do not usually use my “Direct Message” function anymore due to the incessant phishing attempts. Typically, there is a very short teaser “Direct Message” that will try to lure you into their trap. I just don’t even respond to DM’s anymore because of this. Just today I saw a message from a woman who had her Twitter account hacked through a successful “Phishing” attempt through her DM. In this case the scumbags only hacked into her account and caused an inconvenience for the victim. But, mark my words the people trying to get your information through “Phishing” and “Spoofing” are trying to get data for identity theft, credit card fraud, etc. They are relentless and they will not give up, so if you feel the hair on your neck go up when you are about to click a link in an email, then don’t delete the email. If the email is that important you will get a phone call from your bank, credit card company, etc to get the correct information.
Here are some tips to avoid becoming a victim of “Phishing” and “Spoofing”, take caution and be careful. Over the next few years there will most likely be a huge spike in traditional known fraud such as these methods as well as new out of the box fraud ideas. Why? Because there are more and more people joining social networks and providing email addresses and personal information. Unfortunately criminals are opportunistic and this gives them information to work with in their criminal endeavors.
By the way, I have since received about 6 false PayPal emails each instructs me to do the same thing, provide them with key account information. The most important thing to remember about this article is no bank, credit card company, etc will ask you to provide critical information such as passwords or pin numbers, bottom line. Be vigilant, be careful.
Apparently there are still a lot of corporations that are very disconnected from their employees. The most disconnected corporations are those whose employees are their number one resource to generate revenue yet they don’t listen to them. The end result is a canoe going up a creek with holes in it and no one has a paddle, I think we all have heard that expression before. But why is there such as disconnect? Complacency.
An environment exists where corporations are so fixated on generating revenue that they unwittingly overlook there finest resources, their people. They create great operational plans that in the board room make fiscal sense, but the human element is left out of most of their slick equations. I don’t have an MBA and frankly I don’t want one. I appreciate the folks who have worked hard to accomplish an MBA, but if we all had an MBA then no one would think like the employees the resources who generate revenue. Corporations that get it are communicating with their employees and actually listening to what the employees say. The “I get it” corporations are not complacent, they are fostering a sense of communication that exists in social media. A give and take communication environment that creates trust (see Chris Brogan) , which makes employees feel important, wanted, and happy.
As social media changes our culture people expect more honesty, trust, and respect in their communication with others. People are quick to cue in on less than honest communication or complacent communication that makes them feel unimportant. People are expecting honesty in the communication they receive from their employers. No, this is not where I play a few versus of Kum-bi-ya. The idea of an employer providing honesty in their communication with their employees is not science fiction. Take that a step further and show the employee that you are listening to them. That what they say is actually important and you will win that employee over. Jump up to the next level and implement an employee idea (only good ones) and you will score a huge morale victory with your employees.
Funny that people don’t want to feel like they have no say in the work place. People spend more time at work than they do at home, so it is only natural that they want to find value and importance from their employer while working. I don’t care how sucky or unimportant the job is you can still and listen to an employee. It just may so happen that the garbage man has an operational process improvement that will save money or the police officer on the beat has an “out of the box” idea to reduce crime. Maybe the employees that work at your corporation have the next great idea to help your company generate revenue from streams never considered. Maybe that sound corporations hear is their employees talking about these ideas, but because they are not listening there missing out.
The US army with approximately 1,050,000 active duty soldiers is keeping up with social media when a lot of others are still trying to figure out what a Tweet is. The Army’s brand for their social media efforts is appropriately called Army Live. Social media/new media’s use is only limited by one’s closed mind. In this case the folks at the US Army are paying attention to the communication change that is occurring through web 2.0 and they are responding.
The US Army has no less than 18 blogs on their blog roll and they are all related to the US Army. The blogs range from specific units, the reserves, Army medical (Tricare), Army ROTC, Army Corps of engineers, etc. I will guarantee you by this time next year they will have twice as many blogs or more. But the US Army is not only blogging they are active on no less than at least 8 major social media websites to include Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to name a few. The way the US Army is leveraging social media is very customer service based. They are reaching their members through social media because that is where a lot of their members are spending time.
The use of social media by the US Army is very smart on their part. They realize by offering social media as a communication tool (not the end all be all) that they are empowering their members. How are they empowering their members? By allowing them to blog and express their feelings, their worries, their questions in an open forum. A forum where others in the US Army may also have the same issues and can commiserate with or provide advice to the blogger. The US Army has developed specific rules and procedures for the blogging process, which clearly defines right and wrong behavior while participating in Army Live. One of the biggest takeaways the US Army’s social media efforts is increased morale by their members and as the credit card commercial goes, “that is priceless.” Some takeaways by US Army personnel: a feeling that someone is listening to them (better communication), they are better informed on pertinent army issues, and they are able to keep up with their families through a single expansive US Army social media network.
The US Army is a progressive government agency, especially since their main function is protection of the United States. One would think, the US Army may not want to have a very public image displayed through social media. I think they are being realistic, but cautious. Social media/new media communication is a cultural change, which frankly not even the US Army can stop. Since they cannot stop it they are using social media as a tool to help their communication efforts. I applaud the US Army for their social media implementation and I look forward to watching how they use social media in the future.
Some of today’s hottest social media stories and what not:
[Facebook 5] This is a very interesting article and one to watch. Basically, it is a legal proceeding determining if Facebooking messages on your own time is a private discussion. I hardly think this argument is going to fly since everything said on Facebook is open and recorded. Problem is I am not a judge, jury, or an attorney and these issues will be evolving in the future to determine the answer to the question posed.
[Obama Slips Off Record, Twitter Kicks In]This article from Social Media Law Student blog raises another very hot button issue and shows how “social media” spreads like wild fire. The article is about Kayne West’s poor behavior at the MTV VMA awards last week. President Obama was caught off camera, but recorded and overheard calling West a “jackass”, while true this is hardly something one would here the president say. A reporter did hear this, Tweeted about it and the match lit the gas. Yes, even after ABC asked reporter Moran to delete the Tweet it was too late. The post from the Social Media Law Student is rather long, but worth the read and definitely hang in there to the end where you can see a rather humorous fake Twitter feed, hilarious.
[Scott Monty, On Social Media Experts] Scott presents a very important question, “what makes a social media expert?”. Scott who I trust, presents his readers and now you with 6 very good social media books from tried and true social media experts. I picked up Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel to continue my search for the “social media grail”.
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