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Search Results for: "DATA"

Would-Be Buyers of E-Book Readers Want to Get the iPad

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Hot on the heels of the just announced pre-order and availability dates of the Apple iPad, here comes an interesting report from a survey conducted by  ChangeWave Research. According to the report – 40% of would be e-reader buyers would like to get the iPad than the Amazon Kindle, Sony E-Reader or Barnes and Noble’s Nook.

ChangeWave surveyed 3,171 consumers right after Apple announced the iPad sometime in February.  Respondents were presented with the features and capability of the iPad before they were asked if they are keen on getting it.  The results showed that 4% respondent that they will most likely buy the iPad, while 9% answered somewhat likely.

Quite interestingly, the percentage of those who answered that they are most likely to buy the iPad is almost the same percentage as those who plans to buy it prior to the iPad’s launch. This means that after knowing about the specs and features of the iPad, those who wants to get it remains the same.

To make more meaning to their data, ChangeWave also compared pre-launch demand of the iPhone and the iPad and found that the pre-launch demand for the iPad is greater than the pre-launch demand for the iPhone.

Another interesting findings of the report showed that current Kindle and other e-book readers replied that they would have bought the iPad if it were already available when they purchased their current e-readers. So, this somehow shows how the iPad will affect sales of existing e-books since potential buyers might also consider getting the iPad instead.

So, let me now turn the table to you our dear readers. If you are planning to get an e-book reader, will you consider getting the iPad or the other e-book readers available in the market today?

Mobile Phone is the New Social Connector

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Ruder Finn, an independent PR company published some interesting findings of their new study – Mobile Intent Index. The study measures, well mobile phone users’  intent for accessing the Internet via their mobile devices.

According to the report, the average time spent by Americans on the mobile Internet is 2.7 hours. And what do they do during those times?  To socialize, manage their personal finances and push their advocacy.

Contrary to what we may have believed all along, mobile phone users do not access the Internet via mobile phones for educational purposes or for creative expression.  The study also found out that usage by gender and age differ. That is men access the mobile web to “escape” while women to “make others laugh.” Now that seems rather vague, right?

Another interesting finding of the report is the fact that immediacy is the major factor why users access the Internet via mobile.

“Our survey data shows that people use their mobile phones out of necessity for instant access to the Web whether it’s to conduct business with the most recent information or advocate on the spot on issues of pressing concern and breaking news,” said Marty McGough, director of Ruder Finn Insights

The study also highlights the fact that mobile phone apps are continously increasing with 61% of the respondents saying that they have downloaded an application at least once per month, and 36% of the respondents saying that they have downloaded applications from social networking sites at least once per month.

As a mobile connector, mobile phone access is used primarily to:

  • Instant message – 62%
  • Forward e-mails (58%), content (40%) and photos (38%)
  • Post comments on social networking sites – 45%
  • Connect to people on social networking sites – 43%

Interesting findings, right? So, which of these connectivity features do you do on your mobile phone?

Social Network Users are Predominantly Young Middle-Aged Folks

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First of, I really have to commend the folks at Royal Pingdom for coming up with such a comprehensive study on the demographics of social network users. It’s a pretty good study with just about enough statistics that will really give you a good grasp of who are really into social networking today. So, what do they find out? Majority of the social network users are predominantly middle-aged folks who belong to the 35-44, not that tech savvy youngsters that we may all have thought before this study.

The study took stock of site demographics information for the United States which they gathered using Google’s Ad Planner service and then made additional calculations to come up with their final data. The report includes age data of members from 19  social networking sites including -Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, Digg, Slashdot, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Friendster, Last.fm, Friendfeed, LiveJournal, Hi5, Tagged, Ning, Xanga, Classmates.com and Bebo.

So, some interesting highlights of the report include:

  • 25% of social network users belong to the 35-44 age group
  • 3% of social network users belong to the 65-older group
  • 65% of the users are in using Twitter and/or Facebook
  • Bebo and MySpace are both widely used by users age 17 or younger

Those were just some of the key findings of the report. If you want to learn more, just check out Royal Pingdom.

Meanwhile, what really puzzles me is the fact that if  the predominant users of Facebook are age 35-44 how come I still see tons of Mafia updates, senseless trivia questions, virtual gifts and other utterly unimportant stuff from my Facebook contacts?  Does this mean that Facebook users are into the site not for business and social networking purposes but rather to while away time?  Where is the maturity there, friends?

iPad Frenzy is Spiking Interest to iPhone OS Anew

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Mobile Analytics company, Flurry has released some interesting data points relating to the sudden spike in the number of iPhone developers adding their mobile tracking code to new projects.  Flurry observed the sudden spike especially when the hype over the launch of the Apple iPad started to build up prior to the launch in February. The very controversial iPad if you still remember will be running on the same OS used by the iPhone.

Flurry observed that the number of developers adding their analytics tracking code to new iPhone OS apps projects increased by three-fold in January as compared to what was supposed to be a waning interest as observed in the early part of December. During that time, developers seem to have been focusing more on the Android platform.

The mobile analytics firm attributes the spike, which incidentally they claim is the biggest so far in the company’s history to the imminent arrival of the iPad. According to Flurry:

“Historically, Flurry has measured surges in new application starts within its system in anticipation of new device launches, including for the Motorola Droid and iPhone 3GS. As such, we hypothesize that excitement generated by Apple’s iPad event in January is driving this growth. For developers who get a jump on customizing their applications for the iPad, there may be an opportunity to stand out early on, and earn more downloads.”

So, are apps developers actually jumping onto the iPad bandwagon and preparing their applications in time for the release of the iPad? Well, Flurry’s data seem to show that this is happening. But, we have yet to see and March is just a couple of weeks away.

Google Chrome 4 Supports Greasemonkey Scripts

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If you’ve been using Google Chrome 4 as your web browser, you’ve probably installed several extensions right after it was launched recently. But if you feel like that currently available Google Chrome extensions is not enough, how’s 40,000 more extensions sound to you?

Yes, believe it or not there are around 40,000 new extensions which you can install/activate on your Chrome 4. Well, thanks to Greasemonkey user scripts which has just been supported by Chrome. If you’ve been using Firefox before, you’d know that these scripts lets you customize web pages through simple Javascripts

Actually the 40,000 extensions are basically the converted user scripts available on Greasemonkey before. And with Greasemonkey enabled, you can practically use these user scripts on your Chrome browser after it is converted into Chrome Extension.

Installing these  scripts is just like installing or activating the usual Chrome extensions. That means the process can be done easily.

Of course there’s caveat emptor here. These scripts are very powerful and even has full access to your data, so be cautious of what scripts your are going to activate. In addition, some Greasemonkey may not work with Google Chrome 4 just yet.

So there. To make Google Chrome 4 more fun and useful either you check out the extensions gallery or get more Greasemonkey scripts.

Report, Corporate Security at Risk Due to Attacks on Social Networks

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Hope that this news doesn’t get into your company’s IT administrators as I’m pretty sure their first reaction would be to block off your access to social networking sites, if they haven’t done so yet. A new report by IT security and data protection firm Sophos, showed that there is an alarming rise in cybercriminals attacking corporate staff coming from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

The Social Security report is part of Sophos’s 2010 Security Threat Report which surveyed more than 500 organizations and explored current and emerging computer security trends.

The report found out that 57% of users report they have been spammed via social networking sites. This is an increase of 70% from last year’s data. As for malware, 36% of users reported that they have received malware via social networking sites. This is 69.78% increase from last year’s data.

The report also revealed 60% of the respondents naming  Facebook as the biggest security risk for the company followed by MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn. While this is understandable considering that Facebook is the largest social networks in terms of  membership, LinkedIn however could provide the most vital information about corporate individuals since it is more business oriented and information shared by its members can provide a corporate directory which cybercriminals will be more than be happy to exploit.

Another interesting point to note here is that Sophos found out that 49% of the firms surveyed have allowed their staff free access to Facebook. So while companies are loosening their attitude to staff activity on social networks, there goes your friendly malware, spam, phisers and identity theft threatening to spoil the party.