Weather #2 in Latest ComScore Data

Great presentation from ComScore captures the rise of the tablet. It also shows weather #2 most consumed content on mobile. Weather consistently appears in the top three each year.

QR Codes NOT Going Mainstream

Reposting this excerpt from StoreFrontBalkTalk...

I often thought QR codes were just for geeks. Then I started seeing them all over America, not just in The Bay area, Mountain View and New York City. So, I thought they were going mainstream. Maybe not.

Survey: 83 Percent Of Young Shoppers Can’t Handle QR Codes
Written by Evan Schuman

August 17th, 2011

Given the current retail fascination with QR codes—with recent trials at Tesco on subway walls, Macy’s on products, American Express on beer cans and eBay on practically everything—it stands to reason those little boxed lines are doing rather well.

A recent credible survey, however, found that not only are most younger consumers oblivious to what QR codes are, but the many who do know what they are can’t get them to function. In short, 83 percent of the 1,300 14- to 24-year-olds surveyed couldn’t access a QR code regardless of how good the offer was. Looks like some people skipped an important step in product rollout.

That news is pretty bad, given the strong mobile interest—or general high-tech and experimentation comfort level—of that demographic. If they’re confused or apathetic, the numbers won’t likely get better as surveys examine consumers in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond. This particular survey was conducted between May 20 and May 30 by Youth Pulse (a.k.a., YPulse), which tracks marketing trends among the 14- to-24-year-old segment.

The survey breakdowns also hold little optimism. Some 64 percent said they had no idea what a QR code was, even when shown a picture of it. That picture part negates the possibility that they knew what QR codes were and had to use them but simply didn’t recognize the name.

Read more: http://storefrontbacktalk.com/e-commerce/survey-83-percent-of-young-shoppers-cant-handle-qr-codes/#ixzz1XlQwDtLe

Outside.in and DataSphere Revisited, Briefly

I haven't posted anything for a long time. I have been far to busy in my new job, however, I spotted this video from Borrell and Associates in preparation for their conference in New York and had to post it. In it, Mark Josephson, CEO of outside.in, discusses the company's local media strategy. A year ago, DataSphere made a big splash at Borrell's Local Online Advertising conference. This year, Outside.in is poised to get a lot of that attention. And their pitch sounds kinda familiar --

"The local advertising universe is incredibly fragmented. And our core competency since day one has been organizing fragmented sources of content and information by location. So, we spent the first part of our life doing that around content..... And we build hyper-local and neighborhood focused sections for lots of publishers across the country and we are now starting to do the same thing for local advertisers by bringing all of the disparate channels together in a way that makes conversion and success happen for those advertisers. "

The local space has gotten VERY crowded in that just the past year but that hasn't stopped Outside.in or DataSphere from continuing to forge ahead encroaching on the same space from slightly different directions.

Headed to WDT Inc.

I am thrilled to announce I am joining the team at WDT Inc. to focus on mobile and location based services. WDT has been an innovator in the Internet space introducing disruptive technology and I hope to continue that tradition.

Placecast Awarded Best Use Of Location

Another deserved award for PlaceCast...

Placecast’s ShopAlerts Becomes Official Honoree Of 2010 Webby Awards For Best Use Of GPS Or Location : Mobile Marketing Watch - The Pulse Of The Mobile Marketing Community: "Placecast, who’s been piling up the awards for its innovative use of digital marketing to drive consumers to physical environments, has been named a Webby Award Official Honoree for 2010 in the “Best Use of GPS or Location Technology” category."

LR Says Engagement is Key, But Misses on Strategy

In a recent post, Lost Remote tells local media that social success, "comes, not from pushing people to the site and then converting them into viewers (damn near impossible) but from their engagement with individual stories." In other words, get social and measure success based on engagement.

This is a great post and local media should be engaged in social for the reasons LR states. There are, however, additional goals that should be part of a more comprehensive FB and social strategy. Local media should be looking for ways to track, convert and monetize those users. Simple examples include, embedding tracking pixels in links from FB posts to measure ROI; when driving users to pages make sure to include opportunities for sign up for e-mails and newsletters, which creates new opportunities for advertising; and include advertising on your FB page/tabs. Most media companies are just posting news and watching the friends/likes climb, but they need to be taking a more active role in measurement, conversion and monetization.

AP Wants to Drive Mobile Deals For Members

Paid Content reports AP wants to strike mobile deals for members. This just sounds like an organization trying to find relevancy while in decline. I certainly hope local media doesn't rely on AP to negotiate deals for them. Media needs to move quickly and aggressively into mobile and AP is not known for either of those traits.

PaidContent: [AP] authorized management to negotiate business models and develop platforms with content distributors, search engines, device manufacturers and others on behalf of members and the news industry. That mandate does not include pricing."

Location-Based Ads More Effective

This research reinforces what PlaceCast found with their GeoFencing tests .. LBA is very effective ---

U.S. Consumers Significantly More Likely To Respond To Location-Based Mobile Ads Than Other Mobile Ad Types | Wireless Week: "The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) (www.mmaglobal.com) and its official research partner, Luth Research (www.luthresearch.com), today released the latest Mobile Consumer Briefing, a monthly survey of U.S. adult consumers about their mobile marketing behaviors and opinions. Available exclusively to MMA members, the new survey shows that nearly one in four U.S. adult consumers uses mobile location services, with usage highest among Apple iPhone owners."