Archive for Mobile Research
by Darla Mack
August 4, 2008 at 12:11 am · Filed under Messaging, Mobile Research, Mobile messaging 2.0
We don’t need doctors or law officials to remind us that texting while performing certain actions may be hazardous to our health. Take driving for instance. We know that texting while driving is a definite “no no” and could result in an accident, but many motorists choose to take that risk on a daily basis.
In an article found on MSNBC.com, ER doctors continue to warn us of text messaging mishaps caused from driving, bike riding and even cooking.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has no national estimate on how common texting-related injuries are. But since 2005, the agency has received at least seven reports of serious texting mishaps, including a 15-year-old girl who fell off her horse while texting, suffering head and back injuries, and a 13-year-old girl who suffered belly, leg and arm burns after texting her boyfriend while cooking noodles.
Other reports include a 39-year-old man who suffered a head injury after crashing his bicycle into a tree while texting and a 16-year-old boy who suffered a concussion because he was texting while walking and banged into a telephone pole.
Since our attention is supposed to be focused on the primary task at hand, how is it that we succumb to the art of text messaging at the most inappropriate times. Is it because it’s something that will only occupy a small portion of our time? I mean some of us can compose and send a message in just a few blinks… but as you can see, that’s a few blinks too many.
Distractions as brief as 2 seconds can cause accidents or near misses while driving a car, according to a 2006 report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. Dr. Mary Pat McKay, an ER doctor at Prince George Hospital in Cheverly, Md., who has worked with the NHTSA, said similar lapses may be responsible for text-message mishaps during other activities as well.
image: Ariel Skelley / Getty Images stock
by Darla Mack
July 8, 2008 at 11:52 pm · Filed under MMS, Messaging, Mobile Research, Mobile messaging 2.0, Social Networking, mobile social networking
The most portable device in todays time is the cellphone. For basic everyday non-professional photography the cameraphone has been the most popular choice amongst young adults
In a survey compiled by Wirefly 45% of adult cell phone users report using their mobile cams at least once a week with many snapping shots ever day.
Young consumers ages 18-30 make up 63.8% that use their at least once a week, with 26.3% also snapping shots daily. Those figures fall to 40.7% and 13.2%, respectively, for consumers over the age of 30.
The survey also states that 73.5% adults age 18-30 assign photo IDs to people in their address book, while just 47.4% of the over-30 crowd do the same.
What message should this send out to handset manufacturers? Make better cell phone cams!! It’s clear that the demand is there.
Other interesting results from the full pool of respondents include:
96.3% of adult cell phone owners report that they have a cell phone with a camera.
19% of adults prefer to use their cell phone as their primary camera for all photography.
77.2% of photos taken remain stored in the phone, 45.4% are used as wallpaper and 38.6% are sent to friends via MMS.
20.2% of respondents say they have snapped a photo of an attractive man/woman, and 7.5% have photographed an unsuspecting stranger.
46.4% of all adults and 2/3 of adults age 18-30 say that they use their cell phone to snap self-portraits.
19.8% say they have snuck a picture while pretending to do something else.
13.9% of adults report that they have sent a flirtatious, suggestive, or nude photo - a figure that rises to 28.1% of respondents age 18-30.
via: Cellular-News
by Darla Mack
June 4, 2008 at 2:19 am · Filed under Facebook, M:Metrics, Mobile Research, Research, Social Networking, Studies + Research, Usage + Usability, mobile data statistics
In a release published by M:Metrics last month, a study shows that the American population spends over 4.5 hours browsing on their smartphones.
Looking at the trend it seems the most popular site visited by US users was Craigslist. To me, that’s surprising… then again I’m not a big Craigslist user. UK consumers favored Facebook, which was also another site visited by US consumers.
What is interesting is the time spent browsing. According to the data collected in March, US users spent an average of 1 hour and 39 minutes out of the month browsing Craigslist, while UK users spent an average of 1 hour and 45 minutes of their time browsing Facebook.
Not to take away from web browsing, but I hope developers are paying some attention to these trends. This would be the opportunity to create dedicated applications instead of having to rely on the browsers themselves. I know I’ve become a happy person since the Ebay application came out.
“People are becoming increasingly engaged in the mobile medium,” said Mark Donovan, senior analyst, M:Metrics. “Among smartphone users in the United States, mobile browsing has increased 89 percent year over year, and pageviews have increased 127 percent. Consumption is quickly evolving from brief transactions, such as checking the weather or flight status, to time-intensive interaction with mobile Web sites—even without an iPhone.”
by Debi Jones
January 18, 2008 at 3:07 am · Filed under Mobile Research, Mobile messaging 2.0, Research Roundup
The Mobile Research Roundup is a new feature for Mobile Messaging 2.0 (MM2) that will be published every Friday starting today. Mobile has finally crossed the chasm between the mobile industry and everyone else. Ubiquity of mobile devices above and beyond PCs with 3 billion mobile subscriptions versus approximately 1.1 billion PCs offers a market so large that even a small share of the market is attractive enough to activate budgets in the most prominent Internet companies, media organizations and enterprises worldwide.
The shear amount of activity around everything mobile in 2008 makes the task of keeping up near impossible. The Mobile Research Roundup at MM2 will deliver links from each of the MM2 writers to help you locate the interesting, important and insightful research on consumer behavior, market share or up coming technology developments from analyst firms, independent research organizations and academia.
Do let us know if you find The Mobile Research Roundup valuable and as always we are thrilled to hear feedback from our readers on how we can make MM2 better.
From Darla Mack:
Mobilizing the Mobiles: How Text Messaging Can Boost Youth Voter Turnout
From Russell Shaw:
In-Stat notes that the percent of companies using mobile data applications increased from 75% in 2006 to 94% in 2007, while enterprise use of smartphones increased 34% over the same two year period. The report also said that four horizontal applications, including wireless email, wireless Internet access, wireless instant messaging, and personal information management (PIM), have the highest penetration because they are easier to implement than the vertical market applications.
From Paul Ruppert:
Duh! Teens are Super Communicators
From the Pew Internet & American Life Project,the use of social media gains a greater foothold in teen life as they embrace the conversational nature of interactive online media.
From Debi Jones:
How America Searches: Mobile
Example findings:
1. Mobile is a search medium. 75% of those who access the mobile Internet conduct searches on their mobile devices.
2. Dedicated mobile Web sites a must. An overwhelming 84% of mobile searchers expect the sites they visit frequently to have a dedicated mobile version.
We don’t need doctors or law officials to remind us that texting while performing certain actions may be hazardous to our health. Take driving for instance. We know that texting while driving is a definite “no no” and could result in an accident, but many motorists choose to take that risk on a daily basis. 
