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17 December 2004
Firefox Adoption 1.4 - the day after the NYT ad
I woke up this morning curious about the number of people who had downloaded Firefox the day of the two-page Firefox ad on the New York Times and its explicit invitation to "Download Today from GET FIREFOX.COM".
Reading the Spreadfirefox counter, the ad seems to have had no impact at all. Compared to yesterday morning, the number of estimated downloads has increased of about 230 k, which has been the average in the past five days or so.
It is obviously too early to draw any conclusion on the impact of mass-media on what has been up to know essentially a tight development/diffusion process based on web-media and community. The next days will tell us whether traditional media campaigns can still make any direct contribution to adoption of innovations.
Posted at 09:56 AM in Innovations | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
16 December 2004
New York Times Firefox ad published today
Good timing for the publication of the Firefox ad on the New York Times, an ad paid for and designed by the Spreadfirefox community.
Since the 11th in fact the Spreadfirefox site counter has kept adding downloads but at a somehow slower pace. The average number of downloads has been about 200k per day over the past four days (from a low of 180k to a high of 230k) compared to 220k on average in the previous ten days
I'm looking forward to the immediate effect that the NYT Firefox ad will have on the number of people switching browser in the next couple of days and on the longer term viral effect it will hopefully generate.
There has been a precursor. The Mozilla Europe community financed and designed a Firefox ad which appeared on the December 2nd Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Does anyone know what kind of effect the ad had on Firefox adoption in Germany?
It seems to me very important to understand the roles that traditional mass-media and web-based community and one-to-one media play in the diffusion of innovation. Especially, as in this case, when they are combined.
Posted at 10:26 AM in Innovations | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
15 December 2004
MMS adoption and usage 1.2 - Malaysia
Much ado about MMS offers a very informative discussion of MMS adoption and usage in Asia, illustrated by the case of Malaysia. MMS offers were launched during the summer 2003 by the three Malaysian mobile operators: Maxis Communications, DiGi Telecommunications and Celcom. But uptake and usage have been below expectations.
On average active Malaysian MMS users send about two MMS per month (South Korean users send three MMS per month), what generates a small percentage (1.3%) of the total Malaysian messaging market.
Janice Chong, Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific analyst for telecom research, explains
Users generally feel there's no compelling need for MMS for peer-to-peer messaging, and it's generally considered expensive - especially among price-sensitive Malaysian subscribers, of whom 77.5% are prepaid subscribers
The barriers to adoption and usage are identified as
- high price, MMS vary between 50 and 80 sen per message, compared to between 3 and 15 sen for SMS messages.
- purchase cost and complexity of MMS-enabled mobile phones
- interoperability problems between operators
- subscriptions, most mobile users have prepaid subscriptions and seem to be satisfied with SMS; MMS seem to be gaining ground among postpaid subscribers
Regarding prices, a Gartner Dataquest research of 12 Asia Pacific countries finds an average price of 69.5 sen per MMS, with the lowest price in Japan, equivalent to 21 sen per MMS, and the highest in Australia, equivalent to RM 2.12.
Japan and South Korea are the countries where MMS adoption is significantly higher. In Japan, however, MMS trafic grew steadily for about a year, then levelled off and declined.
Posted at 12:06 AM in Usage of Mobile Phones | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
MMS adoption and usage 1.1 - UK
By mid 2004, in the UK there were 7.5 M cameraphone users, versus 3.5 M in 2003, according to the Autumn 2004 Mobile Phone Report by Market research Continental Research (via the BBC). Among them, they were 36% to have never sent a MMS. They were fewer, but still many (27%), to do so a year earlier.
Users who send MMS do so sporadically. In 2003, the average was 6.1 MMS per month per user; by mid-2004 it was down to 3.7 MMS per month.
Canalys, a Technology analyst, (via vnunet) reaches a similar conclusion:
There has been a huge rise in cameraphone shipments, but MMS usage has not exploded in the same way. Consumers are clearly drawn to the idea of having a convenient, ever-present digital camera built into their phone, particularly as the purchase price for many of them has been offset by upgrade subsidies. But that does not necessarily reflect a desire to send photos between phones, particularly if there is a cost attached to each message.
Earlier this year, the Guardian published the article Not so happy with the snappy based on the first Mobile Data Association industry-wide analysis of MMS:
- by the summer, in the UK there were more than 11 M MMS registered users, corresponding to nearly a quarter of all mobile users
- a quarter of all mobile users have sent at least one MMS during Q3
- Orange announced daily traffic of 125,000 MMS, with 700,000 customers sending at least one MMS a month
- O2 announced daily traffic of 100,000 MMS in the UK, Ireland and Germany
- T-Mobile announced customers had send 4.4 M MMS in 2003, compared to 2.98 Billion SMS
Quoting the Guardian:
while MMS is measured in millions, text messages are measured in billions
Posted at 12:06 AM in Usage of Mobile Phones | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
14 December 2004
MMS adoption and usage 1.0 - Sweden
Most telecom market analysts agree that MMS uptake is thin and much slower than the industry expected. Enpocket, a mobile entertainment and marketing services company, seems to be the only analyst to report growing user interest for MMS. Its quarterly Mobile Media Monitor US indicates strong and rapid MMS adoption among 25-34 years old (20%, double the adoption rate six months earlier). The report doesn't say much however on what MMS users do with them: if they just try them a few times, or use them on a more regular basis, as it happens with SMS.
A reminder
MMS have been commercially available for about thirty months. According to The state of MMS, Telenor Mobile in Norway was the first MMS operator in May 2002. Two years later, the number of operators to offer MMS was 210. Since launch, operators have been extremely cautious with publishing MMS usage and traffic data.
The only statement I could find (via Digital Media Europe) was issued by TeliaSonera and announced that:
- the number of registered MMS users in Sweden was 1 M in October, and 1.1 M in November, corresponding to roughly 30% of its customer base
- the number of MMS-enabled handsets on its network was 1.3 M
- MMS traffic was increasing from 2.3 MMS sent on its network in 2003; to 4.7 M during the first six months of 2004; to 3.8 M in the following three months of the year (Q3 2004)
- the majority of MMS combine text and images (78%), some also include sound clips (16%)
If the trend continues, this will correspond roughly to 10 MMS per year per MMS customer. This low usage is confirmed by the Swedish National Post and Telecom Agency (Post&Telestyrelsen) which in its Swedish Telecom Market 2003 analysis talks of 6.7 M MMS sent in the year in Sweden, a tiny fraction compared to the 1.82 Billion SMS Swedes sent that same year.
Posted at 11:14 PM in Usage of Mobile Phones | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
13 December 2004
Mobile phone subscribers, fixed lines, Internet Users - Worldwide
The International Telecommunication Union (via Reuters) reports stunning adoption numbers.
By mid-2004, the number of mobile phone subscriptions was nearly 1.5 billion, or the double with respect to 2000. Developing countries account for this sharp growth, or 56% of all mobile subscribers and 79% of overall growth since 2000:
- China had 310 M mobile phone subscribers by mid-2004
- Russia had 60 M subscribers, with a 80% growth in a year
- India had 44.5 M subscribers, with a 25% increase by Q3 2004
In the mean-time, the number of fixed-lines has increased from 1 billion in 2000 to 1.185 billion this year.
Internet users worldwide have expanded from around 400 M in 2000 to nearly 700 M by mid-2004.
Posted at 10:24 AM in Information Society | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
SMS Usage - UK
Research from YouGov (via The Register) provides us with an interesting update on SMS usage in the UK. The research was carried out for Tegic Communications, a predictive text software provider, on 2.680 mobile phone users.
SMS relationships
Among 18-29 year olds, they are 56% to have flirted using text messages; 19% to have said I love you for the first time; and 10% It's over.
SMS wishes
Many respondents use SMS to send wishes: they are 70% to wish Happy Birthday, and 56% to wish a Merry Christmas with a text message
SMS gender differences
Women use SMS more than men: they send an average of 19 SMS per week compared to 15; and for different purposes: they are 46% to gossip compared to 34% of men.
SMS at work
Among the respondents, 17% sent an SMS to inform that they were late; and 7% that they were sick.
SMS style
Only 13% of all respondents use text shorthand. There are more "shorthanders" (23%) among 18 to 29 year olds. The majority considers messages in shorthand hard to understand (54%).
Posted at 12:34 AM in Usage of Mobile Phones | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Little enthusiasm for new 3G mobile services - Europe
It seems that scarce enthusiasm for UMTS/3G mobile services is shared across a large part of Europe.
Earlier in the year, a Harris Interactive online survey (via The Register) of 10.581 adults (9.865 are mobile users) in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, found that nearly half of mobile phone users (49%) were not interested in 3G services. Interest was the lowest in the UK at 60%. Almost half the respondents (44%) said that they would not use their mobile phones for more than voice calls. Again, this was the highest in the UK at 54%.
Among the factors that seem to contribute to the resistance to the new service are:
- the belief that 3G will be expensive (55%)
- the lack of understanding of the service (52%)
- the fear of unreliable service (51%)
Posted at 12:04 AM in Usage of Mobile Phones | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack