The Growth of Social Media

Taken from hubspot 's article

The History of Our Social Media Obsession

http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-stats-infographic

Businesses continue to integrate social media into their marketing efforts at an impressive rate and many report that they have used social media to get more brand interactions, contacts, and new customers.

As companies continue to rely on social media sites to reach their business goals, it is important that they pay attention to the way social media demographics are growing and changing. Who is using social media? Which social networks do people use -- and how do they use them?

Search Engine Journal created the infographic, featured below, to help you answer all of these questions and more. Take a look at the infographic to discover a number of facts and statistics that you should know about how social media usage is changing.

Key Takeaways

General Social Media

• Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ are the top three social media sites used by marketers. (Tweet This Stat)
• 93% of marketers use social media for business. (Tweet This Stat)
• 72% of all internet users also used social media as of May 2013. (Tweet This Stat)
• 71% of users use a mobile device to access social networks. (Tweet This Stat)

Facebook

• There are now more than 1.15 billion Facebook users. (Tweet This Stat)
• 70% of marketers have used Facebook to successfully gain new customers. (Tweet This Stat)
• One million web pages are accessed using a Facebook login. (Tweet This Stat)
• 47% of Americans say Facebook is their #1 influencer of purchases. (Tweet This Stat)
• 23% of Facebook users login at least five time a day. (Tweet This Stat)

Twitter

• 215 million people use Twitter every month. (Tweet This Stat)
• Twitter is currently the fastest growing social network with a 44% growth from June 2012 to March 2013. (Tweet This Stat)
• 34% of marketers have used Twitter to successfully generate leads. (Tweet This Stat)

Google+

• There are 1 billion registered users on Google+. (Tweet This Stat)
• 70% of brands have a presence on Google+. (Tweet This Stat)
• The +1 button from Google+ is used 5 million times per day. (Tweet This Stat

Mobile TV Verizon try to attract audience whom have never paid for payTV

Taken from bloomberg.com 's article
Verizon Seeks Money in Mobile TV Where Rivals Faltered

By Scott Moritz and Olga Kharif
September 11, 2015

- Verizon Targets Youth With Ad-Supported Mobile TV
- Ad-supported TV and Web programs streamed to millennials
- Company says timing right to reverse mobile TV's failure

Verizon Communications Inc. is embarking on a plan to make money from delivering TV over mobile phones. Past efforts by rivals show the chances of success are slim.

So far, no one has been able to convince large numbers of consumers to pay for a mobile-centric video service. Software maker MobiTV Inc. pulled its IPO in 2012, citing “unfavorable market conditions.” Qualcomm Inc.’s Flo TV failed to attract subscribers and was shuttered in 2011. Dish Network Corp.’s Sling TV, which debuted in February to a surge in demand, saw growth drop by half last quarter. And both AT&T Inc. and Apple Inc. have postponed their streaming-TV services until next year.

Unlike those efforts, Verizon is giving away its service, starting this week, to teens and millennials, and will try to recoup some of the cost by selling ads. The company faces long odds: It must compete against the more-established, mobile-friendly streaming services of Netflix Inc., Hulu, HBO, Amazon.com Inc. and Comcast Corp., without those companies’ robust libraries of video content. It also won’t offer many live streams of sports and network programming, like the Oscars, and can’t provide users the ability to watch shows on their big-screen TVs at home.

Yet for Verizon, the goal is to attract an audience of teenagers to 30-year-olds, some of whom have never paid for cable or satellite TV. The company has amassed a roster of “best of” programs from broadcast networks, the Web, sports and live events to stream and will encourage users to share videos on Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. The company will make the go90 service -- named for the act of rotating a mobile device’s screen 90-degrees sideways for video viewing -- available to the public Sept. 28.

Youth Appeal

“Timing is everything,” said Brian Angiolet, senior vice president of product development for Verizon. “If you look at TV metrics, pay TV is in decline and that’s because the younger audience is finding different programming elsewhere. Now, with go90, users have curated shows that they can make into a common experience.”

The service is a pared-down version of what the No. 1 wireless carrier envisioned earlier this year. Back in March, Verizon was considering a subscription-based mobile-TV service with programming from the four major broadcast TV networks -- ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC -- including live feeds and on-demand offerings.
Go90 will now offer TV shows from networks including ESPN, Comedy Central and MTV, in addition to short Web videos from AwesomenessTV, Vice and others.

Subscriber ‘Gateway’

The company is trying to build an audience through a free service that can be “a gateway to a subscription business,” said Angiolet.

“If the audience is highly engaged with your product, then we feel the ad model will support the service,” he said.

As for data usage, the company still plans to charge for go90 viewing, but will offer 2 free gigabytes of data for three months to anyone who signs up, according to Alberto Canal, a Verizon spokesman.

Go90 isn’t exactly free, said Chetan Sharma, an independent wireless analyst. “Will consumers 11 free content for higher access fees? Depends on the exclusivity of the content,” Sharma said.

‘Right Time’

Mobile video is also still unproven as a means of acquiring and retaining customers, said Peter Csathy, CEO of Manatt Digital Media. But Verizon is introducing go90 at the “right time,” he said.

“Video is fundamentally important; it’s what draws people, especially young kids, to mobile devices,” Csathy said.

Mobile ad spending will increase by an average of 38 percent each year from 2014 to 2017, according to ZenithOptimedia, a London-based media research group.

This is one reason why Verizon bought AOL Inc. The company wants to use AOL’s programmatic advertising technology to insert ads in its go90 streaming service. Mobile phones offer a window into users’ interests: information about their age, location, favorite sports teams, foods and travel patterns can be collected and marketed. That info can give Verizon the ability to target more relevant ads to users where they happen to be.

Mobile Future

With mobile video, Verizon is trying to look beyond the maturing U.S. wireless business. The company is facing tough price competition from rivals like Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc. as well as shrinking revenues in its landline business.

Rival AT&T, facing the same market conditions, acquired DirecTV last month to become the largest U.S. pay-TV provider. AT&T also bought wireless carriers in Mexico and forged partnerships with automakers to connect cars to the Internet. Seventy percent of Verizon’s revenue last year came from its wireless unit, versus 56 percent for AT&T. Thus, Verizon’s concentration on mobile means it has much more to lose than AT&T if go90 sputters.

“It fits with Verizon’s overall strategy of hedging against a future in which pay TV becomes less important, but that still doesn’t mean it’s going to work,” said Jan Dawson, an analyst with Jackdaw Research LLC in Provo, Utah.

Other than being a broadband provider, Verizon doesn’t have an edge that helps it succeed in mobile video, Dawson said.

“The carriers have always wanted to be content providers, but they are passing through other people’s content one way and most of the money the other way,” Dawson said. “They’ve never been successful and aren’t likely to be.”

Bango expands into Asia

Taken from paymenteye.com 's article

Bango expands into Asia

27 Jul 15 | Author Ben Rabinovich
 
Bango plc, a mobile payments company headquartered in Cambridge, UK, has completed seven mobile payment agreements with Mobile Network Operators across Asia. This includes launching carrier billing routes for Indosat and XL in Indonesia, and Taiwan Star in Taiwan. The agreements will allow users to pay for music, movies and other entertainment media in mobile app stores such as Google Play or the Microsoft Windows Phone Store by putting the costs on their phone bills.

Asia has been a particularly active market recently, reflecting the huge appetite for smartphones and internet connectivity amongst young consumers in the region. In fact, the top five countries based on net additions of mobile subscriptions are all based in Asia. India has had over 26 million, followed by China with over 8 million, Myanmar (over 5 million), Indonesia (over 4 million) and Japan (over 4 million).

“The smartphone and app phenomenon has been extraordinary across Asia… In addition to the progress made in Asia already this year, we are working with operators in Vietnam, India, Bangladesh and Japan to deploy the Bango Platform in these markets,” said Ray Anderson, Bango CEO.

Indosat case

Indosat is a leading mobile operator in Indonesia, where the smartphone market is growing rapidly, having seen growth of 154% in the 12 months to July 2014.

Indosat has used the Bango Payment Platform to launch one-click payment for Google Play, Windows Phone Store and BlackBerry World. Bango’s partnership with Indosat is a long-term, strategic relationship, which demonstrates the continued benefit of a single point of integration to reach the range of app stores. Indosat was integrated into the Bango Payment Platform in 2012, and initially activated carrier billing for users of BlackBerry World and then Microsoft’s Windows Phone Store. In 2014 Indosat activated Google Play through Bango. The Bango Payment Platform manages the complexities of launching mobile commerce in a fast-developing market such as Indonesia, including compliance with local tax and regulatory requirements, as well as support for local currency (Rupiah). The result is an unrivalled speed to market and revenue.

After the Windows Phone Store activation in 2013, President Director & CEO of Indosat, Alexander Rusli said “we are happy to be partnering with Bango to make operator billing in Indonesia attractive for app stores and content providers. This partnership between Indosat and Bango is the first of its kind in Indonesia. This shows our commitment to providing the best value and experience for Indosat customers. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Bango, extending the reach of frictionless payment to all.”

Expansion Carrier billing from Fortumo and 1Pay in Southeast Asia

Taken from thepaypers.com 's article

1Pay expands its mobile payments service in Southeast Asia

Wednesday 7 October 2015 | 11:50 AM CET
 
Vietnam-based mobile payments provider 1Pay has teamed up with carrier billing provider Fortumo for expansion of 1Pay’s footprint in Southeast Asia.

Via this partnership, merchants using 1Pay will be enabled to collect payments from their users in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia by charging payments to the users’ phone bills.

This means that mobile phone users can make one-click payments through their mobile operator bill without the need for a credit card. Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia have a relatively low credit card penetration, therefore the new solution might be an alternative for paying for digital goods. For example, Vietnam stands at 2 % in comparison with Singapore’s credit card penetration rate of 35 %. Also, within the Asian region, Indonesia credit card penetration is 2 % while the Philippines scored 3 %. Thailand credit card penetration is at 6 % of its population while Malaysia and Singapore scored 20 % and 35 % respectively, according to Fortumo emerging markets payment index.

With less than 10 million people in these countries having access to credit cards, a majority of smartphone owners are unable to pay for online content through traditional payment methods. For this reason, Vietnam mobile payments such as these are said to benefit an estimated 350 million mobile phone owners in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Buying the future of video games, and of gaming profits, is in mobile

Taken from economist.com 's article
A crush on mobile
A big merger shows where the money is heading in the industry

Nov 7th 2015

COMPARE “Candy Crush Saga” with the “Star Wars” franchise and it comes as a shock that the casual game’s creator, King Digital Entertainment, would sell for almost 50% more than the $4 billion that Disney paid for Lucasfilm in 2012. But in paying $5.9 billion in cash and stock for King on November 3rd Activision Blizzard, a giant in video games for computers and
specialist gaming consoles, is doing more than buying another industry leader. Its purchase is an acknowledgment that the future of video games, and of gaming profits, is in mobile, where games are usually given away, and where their creators make money by selling extra features to the most enthusiastic players.

Mobile games have been by far the fastest-growing part of the market in recent years, and have broader international appeal because of the penetration of smartphones. By Activision’s reckoning, worldwide revenues from mobile games will almost catch up with those from PC and console games by 2019, reaching $55 billion (up from an estimated $36 billion this year). PC and console games’ sales are projected to reach $57 billion by then.

With “Candy Crush Saga” in its arsenal, Activision will have one of the most successful mobile games yet seen, access to an active monthly user base of nearly half a billion people and dozens of new foreign markets where smartphones, not consoles, are the game platforms of choice. Those users might enjoy mobile versions of some of Activision’s hits, like the “Guitar Hero” series. The combined company will become the world’s second-biggest in terms of video-gaming revenues, with close to $7 billion a year, placing it behind only Tencent, a Chinese gaming and social-media conglomerate.

Activision has flailed about in mobile gaming (even if it has had a recent hit with “Hearthstone”, a digital card game). Though King’s shares have weakened since it gave a profit warning in May this year, there are worries that Activision may be paying richly for its big move into mobile.

James Gwertzman, the boss of Playfab, a provider of back-office technology for game developers, says it is not clear if Activision and King can add that much value to each other’s gaming platforms, in the way that Disney can exploit the “Star Wars” characters and stories across its various businesses.

There is also no guarantee that King can establish another runaway success like “Candy Crush Saga”—although it has created a moderately successful sequel in “Candy Crush Soda”—or that the flagship “Saga” game will remain a hit. The faddish mobile game of the moment, like, say Zynga’s “FarmVille”, can give way seemingly overnight to new franchise hits—in its case, to “Candy Crush Saga” itself.

Though continue to increase, smartphone's e-commerce conversion rate still tiny

Taken from emarketer.com 's article
Ecommerce Site Traffic from Smartphones Up Worldwide

CONVERSIONS REMAIN TINY

Smartphones are continuing to make up an increasingly important ecommerce access device around the world, according to data from multichannel retail solutions provider Monetate.

image: http://www.emarketer.com/images/chart_gifs/198001-199000/198660.gif

In the US smartphones accounted for 22.9% of ecommerce site traffic on Monetate’s network in Q2 2015, up from 16.6% a year earlier. It also represented a quarterly gain of 2 percentage points in share.

Annual gains were even larger in Great Britain, where 30.5% of ecommerce site traffic came from smartphones in Q2 2015. That was up 12.2 percentage points since the prior year, though ti was down slightly since Q1 2015.

The worldwide share of smartphone traffic followed a pattern similar to that in the US.

Smartphones are not, however, as successful when it comes to closing the deal. The devices had just a 1.5% conversion rate in Great Britain, 1.2% in the US and 1.2% worldwide.

Multiple numbers for Valuation

Taken from Vision Mobile 's article

Messaging apps: From counting users to counting bots

By Michael Vakulenko on Oct 19, 2015

Back in 2008, Nokia sold 468 million phones making the company the undisputed king of the mobile phone market with over 40% market share. The same year, Apple sold little over 10 million iPhones and launched iPhone App Store with just 500 third party apps. By the end of 2010, when Apple App Store had over 300,000 apps, it became clear to all that the number of apps is much more important than the number of devices. Apps drive demand for phones creating network effects between users and 3rd party developers. Smartphone users attract developers. Developer create apps. Apps attract more users, which attract more developers.

A very similar dynamic begins to unfold in messaging platforms. Popular messaging apps evolve into developer-centric platforms having the same kind of network effect as iOS and Android. Soon we will compare messaging apps not by number of users, but by the number of bots/integrations available on the platform. Messaging users attract developers. Developers create bots. Bots attract more users, which attract more developers.

Messaging has emerged as a new interaction paradigm on mobile, with leading apps (Whatsapp, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, KakaoTalk, Line, Viber) amassing hundreds of millions of users. David Marcus, vice president of messaging products at Facebook says in his interview to the Wired magazine:

“The messaging era is definitely now. It’s the one thing people do more than anything else on their phone.”

So far, competition between messaging apps is based on number of users. In Q3 2015, Whatsapp (acquired by Facebook for over $19B) has 900 million monthly active users; Facebook Messenger – 700 million; and WeChat – 600 million. But now things start to change.

While Facebook leads in number of messaging users, Chinese Weixin, or as it is known in the West WeChat, is a clear leader in turning messaging into a platform.

WeChat at its core is a messaging app for sending text, voice, and photos to your friends and family, but it is also much more. Connie Chan, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, explains on the company blog:

“Along with its basic communication features, WeChat users in China can access services to hail a taxi, order food delivery, buy movie tickets, play casual games, check in for a flight, send money to friends, access fitness tracker data, book a doctor appointment, get banking statements, pay the water bill, find geo-targeted coupons, recognize music, search for a book at the local library, meet strangers around you, follow celebrity news, read magazine articles, and even donate to charity … all in a single, integrated app.”

WeChat achieves this by supporting lightweight apps that are called “official accounts”. There are well over 10 million official accounts on the platform: from celebrities, banks, media outlets, and fashion brands to hospitals, drug stores, car manufacturers, to internet startups, personal blogs, and more. These lightweight apps are approved to access exclusive APIs for payments, location, direct messages, voice messages, user IDs, and more. Essentially, WeChat is not only messaging app, but a developer-centric platform allowing developers to add value to the service.

Facebook has no choice but to follow WeChat. Facebook’s David Marcus said at the Code/Mobile conference in October 2015:

“Messaging is really, truly the next frontier. The Asian paradigm has shown there’s a there there.”

Having introduced Messenger platform at its F8 developer conference in March 2015, Messenger has adopted the WeChat approach and will now be open to 3rd party developers to build new “tools for expression” and also let users communicate with businesses through simple conversation threads.

WeChat and Facebook are not alone in their attempts to take messaging to a new level. Telegram, which started as a more secure Whatsapp clone, evolves into something much more interesting with the announcement of their Telegram Bot Platform. The developer-centric platform allows 3rd party developers to create Bots, which are simply Telegram accounts operated by software sporting AI-like features.

The same trend shows itself even in the more conservative enterprise space with Slack Technologies Inc. having risen to $2B valuation in less than 2 years. Slack is a messaging app for teams designed to enable integration of messaging with popular enterprise apps and services. The company has 1.1 million daily active users, but also 100 integrations with 900,000 integration installs on the Slack platform.
These range from Giphy gifs to expressing feelings to co-workers; to MailChimp email marketing service; Crashlytics to monitor mobile app bugs; Trello for tracking tasks or manage help tickets from Zendesk.

The Slack Platform also supports bot users allowing companies automate many processes. A bot user is a special kind of free user account optimized for writing automated bots that connect to Slack using the Real Time Messaging API. Users can interact with bots using direct messages or even invite bots to private groups.

For example, The New York Times data science team has built a Slack bot to help decide which stories to post to social media.
The bot, called Blossom, predicts how articles or blog posts will do on social and also suggests which stories editors should promote. All within the framework of the messaging app.

Slack evolves into an enterprise developer-centric platform. There are already several startup teams experimenting with building companies on top of Slack messaging platform.

Similar to what happened in mobile platforms, the basis of competition in messaging apps changes from the number of users to the number of bots (integrations) and the messaging apps themselves evolve into developer-centric platforms.

Today Whatsapp is the largest messaging network with 900M users. It does one thing, messaging, exceptionally well. But it increasingly starts to resemble Nokia. Nokia also did one thing, mobile phones, exceptionally well, but missed the transition to developer-centric platforms, where the winners are decided by developers.