Trending this month

Trending this month


March 31, 2014

US Cities Churning Out Highest Millionaires per Capita

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The top 5 States in US for churning out millionaires

Last year, almost 5.2% of the US’ 119.2 million households had more than $1 million in investable assets, according to [pdf] a study from Phoenix Marketing International (PMI). But those per capita figures varied widely from one state to the next, with the top state by this measure having more than twice as many millionaires per capita as the bottom state. From 2006 through 2013, three different states have held the top rank, while one has lagged at the bottom each of those years save for 2012.
In 2013, New Jersey and Connecticut each moved up a spot, taking the second and third positions respectively. Each of their millionaire household ratios (7.49% and 7.32%) would have taken the top spot in any of the prior 7 years, a function not only of rising millionaire ratios across the country, but also of above-average growth in those states.
Rounding out the top 5 in 2013 were Hawaii (7.18%) and Alaska (6.75%), with Massachusetts narrowly missing out (6.73%) after taking the 5th spot in 2012.

America’s 10 “Most Powerful” Brands of 2014

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Coke, Hershey Tops US Brands
America’s 10 “Most Powerful” Brands of 2014:



 Coca-Cola has topped therankings since their inception in 2008, while Amazon is this year’s fastest riser, up 25 spots to 91. The overall BrandPower average score for the top 100
rankings is at its highest point this year since 2009, fueled by an increase in
familiarity rather than favorability.

 About the Data: Drawn from CoreBrand’scCorporate Branding Index (CBI) for close to 1,000 companies across 50industries.



70% of 2.4billion Internet users access the web via Mobile

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The making of the mobile web

Mobile traffic jumps. as pc traffic declines

The Mobile World getting smaller: The majority of the world online population is doing that via the mobile .  These 5  Statistics below  shows how much the world is shrinking as more and more users  connect online 

1)There are over 2.4 billion Internet users in the world, of which 1.5 billion access the  Internet through their mobile devices either as a primary or a supplementary device 

2)In less than 7 years, the number of smartphone users has already crossed 1 billion as  against 1.5 billion PC users. The PC shipments declined by 10.9% in Q2 2013, the  sharpest decline since 2001

3)Shipments of Android-powered Internet devices exceeds that of Windows-powered devices

4)Average time spent on mobile (non-voice) globally has already grown to 82 minutes per  day

Yahoo Buys Social Data Visualization App Firm Vizify

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Yahoo takes over Vizify social graphi app







that Yahoo has acquired it and it is shutting down. Vizify was a social technology app that helped users
 better visualize and graph their social lives via an infographic  and tag clouds in the format of a personal website 


Vizify  was founded in 2011 is an app which turns your social media data into interactive infographics and videos. It became very popular at the end of 2013, when it turned many people's twitter
feeds into a 30 second video clip demonstrating their most popular posts and their most interactive friends and fans.


Earlier the start up company had raised $1.46 million in its life. Given that its last round of funding
came in 2012, the takeover by Yahoo makes sense as it will “ get the funding
and the attention, without which it would have closed down

March 29, 2014

March 25, 2014

Google and Facebook Fights it our for the Mobile Marketplace, control 70% Mobile Ad Market

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faceoff between Google and Facebook After controlling the online Space.Facebook and  Google are both Jostling for  the next big "  Technology  Space.. which is the Mobile Marketplace



Starting off in 2007 by opening it across all users .Facebook's late push into mobile advertising is paying off big time. Less than two years after the company began serving targeted ads to mobile users, the social network is by far the second largest player in the quickly growing market.  According to Analysts Facebook  is set to  rake in $6.8 billion from mobile ad sales this year, trailing only Google which remains the clear industry leader.

eMarketer's data shows how heavily concentrated the mobile ad market is. In the past year, the Top 4 ad publishers accounted for more than 70 percent of mobile ad revenues and, perhaps even more impressively, Google and Facebook alone pocketed two thirds of every dollar spent on mobile advertising in 2013.


The Cost of Gaming Devices : PS 4 Costs in Latin America vs US

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Infographic: A PS4 Costs 4x as Much in Brazil as in the U.S. | Statista
PS 4 prices Across Nations :
High import fees have resulted in Brazil having the most expensive PlayStation 4 prices anywhere in the world. In fact, the Sonyconsole actually costs four times as much as in the United States. The PlayStation 4 also has a high price tag in another South American nation, Argentina, while Sony’s native Japan has remains the cheapest place to purchase one.

March 21, 2014

India Consumer electronics facing heat from ecommerce upstarts

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ecommerce in India

Indians Unfolding Online Consumers




The Davids  of Indian Ecommerce Start Ups seem to be standing up against the Goliaths , The Consumer Electronics OEMs as Consumer Electronics brands like Lenevo, Samsung, Dell. Apple, LG, Motorola and HP  are up in arms against Online  ecommerce Portals .. that seem to capture a part of their online pie via predatory pricing"

India’s $500-billion (around Rs 30-lakh-crore) retail sector already seems to be facing the heat from the much smaller e-commerce segment, the present size of which, excluding online travel, is a mere $3.1 billion (Rs 18,600 crore). 

Joining technology product companies’ online versus offline battle, Lenovo India on Wednesday issued an advisory to its buyers against doing business with e-retailers.

Dubbing e-commerce players like Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal as “not authorised resellers”, Lenovo has put a notice on its website urging consumers to buy products only from its exclusive stores or its own e-commerce portal. In doing so, the Chinese electronics maker joined Japanese counterparts Toshiba and Nikon which put out similar advisories earlier."


Facebook To Slash Your Page’s Organic Reach Even More |

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Facebook Is Reportedly About To Slash Your Page’s Organic Reach Even More | WebProNews: "Facebook is showing Pages’ organic posts to fewer and fewer people as time goes on.

In December, the company pushed out an algorithm change to its News Feed, which severely impacted the organic reach for many Pages, but recent research from Ogilvy shows it was already getting bad before that, and is on a steady path downward with reach as low as 6% of Pages’ audiences by last month."

Now, Sam Biddle at Gawker’s Valleywag is reporting that it’s about to drop even further:

March 20, 2014

80% of LInkedin Lead Conversion happens between 1 to 4pm

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 Conversion Time period   from Linkedin Post 

Can you predict at what time your consumers will "  convert during your marketing campaigns ? Is it possible for business to know during which part of the engagement process a lead is likely to be converted ? well if you think this was  never possible ,  It actually can  !

According to recent post by  Oktopost, B2B leads are most likely to convert between 1 and 4 PM at Linkedin
 Here are the most popular posting methods on LinkedIn to generate leads, followed by conversions: 

  •  Discussion Groups – 96.22 percent of posts, 86.30 percent of conversions
  • Company Pages – 0.59 percent of posts, 10.07 percent of conversions
  • Personal Profiles – 3.20 percent of posts, 3.63 percent of conversions 
That means ' discussion" about  your Posts "  create the maximun buzz across linkedin  and are the " best qualifiers for a lead "

Also interestingly "The average length of a B2B-related LinkedIn post is 248 characters, and one out of every three posts contains a question mark in its subject line."

source :80% Of Social Media B2B Leads Come From LinkedIn (Infographic): "



March 19, 2014

Biggest Smartphone Markets in US : Dallas and Washinton DC tops

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Smartphone penetration continues to grow, exceeding 65% of the US mobile subscriber market during the fourth quarter ( between Oct 2013-2014 Jan), according to comScore. 

A recent report  from Nielsen pegs smartphone adoption a little higher, at 67% as of November 2013. to  January 2014 period )The study identifies the leading 10 markets in terms of penetration rate: 

Topping the list is D and number 1  in the charts was Dallas, with 76% penetration..Closely following were Washington DC and Los Angeles (each at 75%), with San Francisco (74%) and Miami (73%) rounding out the top 5

4 December 2014 – the day Google predicts mobile queries will reach 50%

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Global Mobile search will finally match the Global Search via Desktop . And brace yourself for the date , as this is going to happen right this year ( 2014 )4 December 2014 – the day Google predicts mobile querieswill reach 50% | The Drum: "Google has put a date on when

searches made on mobile devices will equal desktop – 4 December 2014. This was announced by Google’s global agency business leader Kelly Twohig  who stated that " This is the day we’ll see queries made onmobile devices reach 50 per cent and 50 per cent from desktop."

A recent research published by  ' Comscore also projects the same   saying that by December this year ( 2014) 40% of display ad impressions will be on mobile phones and added that by the month, 40 per cent of all video views will be on mobile.


Meanwhile according to the above chart by BIA Kesley :  shows that the number of mobile searches is going to surpass the number of searches done from desktop computers by 2015 and keep  rising from there . This is  being led mainly by the  " Smartphones and Tablets and the convergence of Digitally connected Devices  across a "common Mobile OS Platform (  Android/iOS/ Windows 8)

Mobile Web Access Speed show 30% Rise

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The Speed by which consumers surf the web via mobile has shown a marked increase .. this year "Mobile browsing got significantly faster over the last 12 months, according to a new report from Google, and the average page load times on mobile are now comparable to desktop page load times. On mobile, web pages now load about 30 percent faster than a year ago, . In Desktops the size of the average web page increased by over 56 percent in the last 12 months.


According to google ,a mobile page should not take more than 7-8 seconds to load 

A  Recent report ( via marketingcharts )  "claims that the average time it takes to load a Fortune 100 company homepage on a smartphone is about 5 seconds,



The report is based on aggregate data from Google Analytics’ Site Speed reports,Technically this reason for the ' downtime for mobile web load time is  due to the fact that  limited CPU capabilities of mobile devices, the high round-trip times of mobile networks, and the rapid growth of mobile usage, it is even more critical to understand and optimize for mobile performance than for the desktop..The average time it takes to load a Fortune 100 company homepage 






     

March 18, 2014

Why Retail Apps continue to grow 3 times than other Mobile Apps

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Mobile shopping and the rise of retail apps
The Rise of Retail App and what is Power the Rapid Growth

With the Growth of Mobile Commerce, the growth of retail Apps has surpassed any other mobile apps . As Smartphone penetration  begin to gain critical mass and surpass 50% across the globe, The biggest winner would be the “ retail Apps “,  (According to comscore ,(as of   January 2014 )US ,had crossed 65% mark in Smartphone penetration).

3 Reasons why Retail App Continues to See Exponential Growth

  While the Mobile Web has been the single largest factor  to power the rapid rise of the retail app , there are other factors at play  on  why Retail App has seen a phenomenal growth than other Mobile Apps 

1)For one the growth of Mobile commerce.. meant that “ more consumers” started shopping for apparel, merchandise, books, consumer  electronics among a few.  .As Mobile sites became easier to use, with faster loading times, consumers started to experiment ... With the zooming growth  and penetration of Smartphones, connected devices including tablets, the supply side also grew, as consumers could simply download an App.. check its rating.. decide on the “ options and place an order in a jiffy

2)More Brick and Mortar Stores moving to Online Marketplace . With more retailers moving to :’  the mobile web , and as more physical stores expands into  the mobile ecosystem,  by launching a mobile website and a Mobile app, The supply side tends to increase ...  which in turn causes the demand size to increase ( More mobile sites with their ap, leads to more options for user, which in turn “ leads to creation of more Retail Apps


3) Smartphone Penetration : Also The   EU Countries (  (Spain, Germany, Italy, France and the UK) have already reached  50% Smartphone penetration .. which in turn  will " continue the Power Mobile Commerce  ,leading to  an exponential growth in "Retail Shopping Apps '" a next finave years. Mobile applications will be part of the amazing growth.ion

Smartphone Penetration in Italy at 64%,Retail apps show highest growth

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In Italy Smartphone users represent 64.1 percent of the total Italian mobile audience, an increase of 23.5 percent from the previous year. 

 Mobile commerce   Shopping /Online Retail)  is already playing a major role in online retail in Italy. The increase in smartphone usage has been instrumental in driving online retail  sales in Italy according ti Comscore ) Among them are

  1. "  Usage of retail apps  showed the strongest year-over-year increase of 74.8%  followed by the Health category with 66.6% growth. The e-payments and money transfer category came third with 65.2 %  and over 2 Million additional users over the last year
  2. Among those, the  Financial and retail / m-commerce/related services belong to the most popular usage categories accessed by Italian smartphone owners. Online retail sites and apps were visited by 23.8 percent of smartphone owners, followed closely by shopping and price guides (22.6 percent). Accessing electronic payments or money transfer services  via  smartphones has also been popular, with 21.7% t of Italian smartphone owners using those services 

Smartphone Among the Most dominant among Multi Screen users,

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New Study from Millward Brown Identifies Multiscreening Opportunity for Marketers




MEDIAVATAAR - Smartphone Now Dominant Screen in Most Markets: "With multi screen users spending five hours daily consuming seven hours of screen media, marketers have unique opportunities to connect with people and drive brand growth says Millward Brown's 2014 AdReaction Report. All screens, though, are not created equal. The study, released today, analyzes multiscreen use and behavior across 30 countries, and explores consumer receptivity to advertising on TV, smartphones, laptops, and tablets. The findings help marketers build integrated media plans that take advantage of each screen’s strength and drive brand growth."



'

Simultaneous multiscreening accounts for 35 percent of screen time, and includes a mix of “meshing”, the use of TV and a second screen for related content (14 percent), and “stacking”, the use of TV and a second screen for unrelated content (22 percent). At 65 percent of screen time, “shifting” among individual screens throughout the day remains the dominant form of screen use. When consumers port an individual task across screens, they most often begin on TV and move to a smartphone, but all screen sequences are possible.



However in one of the most surprising research findings" show that  TV remains strong for brand building, and in particular drives salience and affinity and But Consumers Remain More Favorable Toward TV Advertising


March 16, 2014

Desktop Search to Decline $1.4 Billion as Google Users Shift to Mobile

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Desktop Search to Decline $1.4 Billion as Google Users Shift to Mobile - eMarketer: "Desktop search in the US is poised for a significant decline this year as paid clicks on Google shift toward mobile devices, according to new figures from eMarketer. US mobile search ad spending grew 120.8% in 2013, contributing to an overall gain of 122.0% for all mobile ads. Meanwhile, overall desktop ad spending increased just 2.3% last year, according to eMarketer."

Why Social Media Advertising Failed and is Bound to Fail ..

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7 Social Media Ad Trends for 2014 

Social Media Today in 2014 still exists .. But it does so just as a media without " all its hyperbole and hyphenation" as  it starts getting back to the " meaning of the word "Social"
However its not the same  during the hey days of 2007 to 2010  ( so called hey days ) when social advertising meant "that any " users can be targeted as " Male or Female, with a male or female child, either having baseball as his interest, and  " all  Latins  wanted to dance like Jennifer Lopez .. Its good that the sheen has come off " Social Media "Space

This is good because of 2 reasons.

1)It will help Brands, agencies and Consumer to understand more of each other. The biggest problem is that  we do not have any insights into  "What is social for a consumer might not be so for an agency, or a Brand.. The social  space unlike  Local cannot be based as " a conduit for " segmentation at all times, sometimes or most of the times

2)Business models do not work on social .. The social is just another ordinary platform to enable Business meet their objectives . Making money ' when other users talk about my brand without getting inundated with  a notification .. asking me 20 times if i have received a notification " that I have received a notification . from a friend whom i met during the summer of 99" has a new family member and had used "  a product".. Can I be asked .. if I can ask my other online acquaintance " to use the same product' on which I haven't the  remote idea.....

 I am sorry " If people just tell me " They liked an particular thing  from a store.. an feels that  I need to check it out .. and within a week, if a friend talks about a similar experience .. I will buy it..  That is Social ..Media be dammned ( if might be in a car, bus, at a grocery store or at places where i have no business to be ) !!

Dont mix up " Thoughts " with Feelings 

What Does 365%, Increase in Facebook CTR Means to Advertisers

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Social web vs ecommerce referral


Social Share of Facebook as a Referral Traffic source


Social Media Referral  and their  Growth share 

There's no doubt on the fact that the Social web is " truly here  and its  rocking”  as it starts getting better in 2014.  Last year  during Q3,2014 ,Social  has in a way completely taken over the web, especially during the holiday season , as shoppers took to online and mobile to shop

Since the whole of last year and  Q3, last year, had seen  surge in social traffic referrals, powered by Facebook, as more advertisers pumped money during the Holiday season... This years  the CTR of FACEBOOK during the holidays was it its highest at 365%

Generally the Shopping Season sees a big increase in traffic in most of the estores " however last year had " the traffic surge in web, powered  the CTR Ad rates for Facebook   which increased more that 360%  a record since Facebook  has come into existence

In terms of " Revenue per visit from Social channels  (RPV) numbers up across the board: This is how the sites stack up

b) Tumblr jumped 340%  (YoY), 
c)Pinterest by 244 %  ( YOY)
d) Twitter by 131% (Yoy)
e)Facebook by 72%

The latest figures come from Adobe’s Social Media Intelligence Report, which noted Facebook is facing increased competition with share of referred visits to retail sites growing the fastest year-over-year for Twitter and Pinterest, up 125 percent and 89 percent respectively. It’s worth noting this contrasts quite a bit with Shareaholic’s Q4 2013 numbers, which show Facebook’s lead is not under threat.

Why Digital Agencies Are Getting Away in spite of increasing online spends

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Effectiveness of Digital Ads by Augustine Fou from Dr Augustine 

Inspite of the increase in advertising dolllars the corresponding increase in paid traffic has not increased much both from an advertisers and Publishers perspective .. While brands can drive higher traffic to their site via ( ppc, display, social ) the quality of traffic is something that " agencies" do not wish to talk about . This is not only digital agencies .. mind you. Most of our Digital marketers .. remain tight lipped on " the quality of the traffic" and instead talk about " the increase in quantitative web traffic ...

The above insight  shows why  Marketers and Brands and  Agencies need to change their perspective  and focus on both " the qualitative part as well as the " Quantitative part 

March 12, 2014

March 11, 2014

Indian Mobile and web Classified Start Up" Quikr" valued at $250 million, raises $90million Funding

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Swedishfirm Kinnevik to invest $90 million in Quikr"Online and mobile classifieds venture" Quikr" has raised $90 million ( 550 crore) from a group of investors led by Swedish investment firm Investment Kinnevik in a deal that marks the largest round of funding for an internet services company in India.


The investment was spread across two rounds, with existing investor Warburg Pincus providing the initial investment in September last year, according to a person with direct knowledge of the transaction. The latest deal, signed last week, values Quikr at over $250 million (Rs 1,530 crore).





The  Indian Internet space , along with increasing Mobile penetration is driving startups  to essentially base their business models into two broad  Spectrum – those trying to build products and usage organically, and those doing arbitrage (buying traffic from Adwords, and selling to advertisers


According to CEO of quikr , its gets 32million  unique visitors every month. Alexa shows a traffic rank of 13 in India and 276 Global rank which is certainly more than impressive. And thats where "the Brand' makes a difference  to investors .. Its not that their business model is unique .. but the sheer scale of traffic . which makes Quikr  as the number ' no 1 Mobile Classifieds site ( Justdial is not exactly into the mobile space .. its business started off as an Offline venture )


Around 160million US Owns Smartphone,Cross 66% Penetration

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160 million Now access Smartphone


The US finally crossed the figure of 65% Smartphone Penetration  with with a 66.8 % mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in January, up 7 percent since October,2013 compared with January 2014

Currently  159.8 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones  with Apple and Samsung leading the pack with a combined share of 67%


Top Smartphone OEMs

3 Month Avg. Ending Jan. 2014 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Oct. 2013
Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Age 13+
Source: comScore MobiLens

Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
Oct-13
Jan-14
Point Change
Total Mobile Subscribers
100.0%
100.0%
N/A
Apple
40.6%
41.6%
1.0
Samsung
25.4%
26.7%
1.3
LG
6.6%
6.9%
0.3
Motorola
7.0%
6.4%
-0.6
HTC
6.7%
5.4%
-1.3


In terms of Smartphone Manufacturers  "Apple ranked as the top OEM with 41.6% U.S. (smartphone subscribers (up  by marginally approx 2%  from October). 

Samsung ranked second with 26.7% (up 1.3% ), followed  by LG with 6.9 percent (up 0.3%), Motorola with 6.4% percent and HTC 5.4%

Top Smartphone Platforms
3 Month Avg. Ending Jan. 2014 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Oct. 2013
Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Age 13+
Source: comScore MobiLens

Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
Oct-13
Jan-14
Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers
100.0%
100.0%
N/A
Android
52.2%
51.7%
-0.5
Apple
40.6%
41.6%
1.0
BlackBerry
3.6%
3.1%
-0.5
Microsoft
3.2%
3.2%
0.0
Symbian

Smartphone Platform Market Share
Android ranked as the top smartphone platform in January with 51.7 percent market share,
followed by Apple with 41.6 percent (up 1 percentage point), BlackBerry with 3.1 percent, Microsoft with 3.2 percent and Symbian with 0.2 percent.