Is Limiting The Unlimited The Way To Serve The Mobile Appetite?

The all-you-can-eat buffet has been described in Food and Wine magazine as "the epitome of American gluttony." That title is now in jeopardy.

To hear Apple and Google these days, mobile has become for some like the Bloomin' Onion, or the equivalent of 3,080 calories in one sitting. We know that we are full at 2,000, but we can't seem to help ourselves.

Social networks. Push notifications. Time spent watching videos. Netflix. YouTube. And more. Each adult mobile user in the U.S. spends 3.3 hours per day on mobile devices, according to Mary Meeker's latest report. According to the NPD Group, the average U.S. smartphone user now consumes a total of 31.4 GB of data on a monthly basis (including both Wi-Fi and cellular). Cellular data usage among consumers with unlimited plans is 67% higher than those with limited plans, per NPD.

How did we get here and what does this all mean for marketers?

First off, is the present any different than what we could've — or should've — imagined? We have given users unlimited data, high-definition large screens, content to entertain, inspire and teach, and access to almost anything wherever and whenever. Should we have believed that mobile users who have unlimited plans wanted just a few bites of the mobile's version Bloomin' Onion? Did we expect consumers to spend hundreds of dollars on a device to just keep it in their pockets? Have we not conditioned our customers and prospects to come to us on mobile any time and at all times?

Now Google and Apple, whose operating systems are in the hands of 99% of mobile users in the U.S., have introduced efforts to enable us to help ourselves. At its I/O conference in May, Google unveiled tools to help create balance. It said that 70% of users want help. Recently, Apple introduced Screen Time, which, when released this fall with iOS 12, will give Apple customers app and device usage information and lets them limit access if they want to cut down. Screen Time features include activity reports, app limits and new "do not disturb" and notifications controls designed to help customers "reduce interruptions and manage screen time for themselves and their families."

Notable for marketers, iOS 12 gives customers more options for controlling how notifications are delivered. Users will be able to manage notifications to be turned off completely or delivered directly to a special notification hub. Siri can also make suggestions for notifications settings, such as to quietly deliver them or turn alerts off.

Screen Time creates detailed daily and weekly reports that show the total time a person spends in each app they use, their usage across categories of apps, how many notifications they receive and how often they pick up their iPhone or iPad. People can take control of how much time they spend in a particular app, website or category of apps. The app limits feature lets people set a specific amount of time to be in an app, and a notification will display when a time limit is about to expire.

This changes everything for marketers. Or does it? It's always been about delivering value: quality not quantity. The fact that so much time is spent on mobile devices may indicate to some that marketers are succeeding. But the savvy marketer understands that these upcoming tools give consumers the power to shut off the unwanted features and to curate exactly the individual experience that they want.

Meaning, campaigns will be affected. In a nine-month period ending in March of this year, brands sent 300% more push notifications than in the previous nine months, according to Adobe. With consumers soon having the ability to dispatch pushes away from the home screen, more care and thought will be necessary to ensure that those messages sent to consumers are viewed in a timely and actionable fashion.

Measurement of programs will also need to be adjusted. A key metric since the iPhone debuted has been time spent. Clearly, marketers and developers must rethink the idea that it's all about how long they can keep mobile users engaged.

So is mobile going to give the gluttony descriptor back to the buffet? Time will tell. Surely, all-you-can-eat mobile usage works for tens of millions. Many are entertained, more productive and enjoy access to friends and family that can't be replicated elsewhere. Plus, their waistlines aren't affected.

It's all about choice and perceived value. The former will definitely be driven by the latter. Soon more than ever.

(first appeared at https://www.mobilemarketer.com/news/is-limiting-the-unlimited-the-way-to-serve-the-mobile-appetite/525428/)

Six Important Ways That Apple’s Revamped App Store Affects Marketers

Any objective list of visionary tech companies would include Apple. Yet during its most behavior-changing period – think 2007 when the iPhone came out – Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs and other senior executives failed to see all that was possible.

During a WWDC presentation detailing the massive changes coming to the App Store with iOS 11 this fall, it was revealed by product manager Pedraum Pardehpoosh that 20 years ago, Apple predicted 1,000 total apps eventually being created – just double what was available at launch in July 2008.

Instead, there are now 2.2 million apps in the App Store and WWDC was an opportunity to introduce efforts to not only enable more app development, but more discovery by visitors to a store that has overwhelmed even its creators.

Apple admitted that its first massive redesign has clear intentions – to make the App Store a daily destination, give voice to Apple’s growing editorial staff that is charged with presenting interesting apps, and to provide a focus on games and their significance. Overall, clarity and simplification are other goals for Apple’s redesign.

It is important for marketers to know how the revamped App Store will be affecting them, so I have outlined six important areas to consider.

1.     Mobile users have an ever-increasing appetite to watch videos. Apple says that customers download more apps when videos are present. To that end, app makers will be able to feature up to three videos and enable autoplay. If you don’t have video assets, I suggest begin creating them before iOS11 launches.

2.     Those creative sessions to deliver just the right app icon will still be important, but there will be additional opportunity to drive awareness and downloads with a new subtitle feature. Apple says more information about individual apps will help users “make the right decision” on which to download.

3.     Apple says that 50 percent of consumers who click on ads that they see in the App Store go a step further and download the app. The average cost per install of a Search Ad has been $1 since the option was made available last October. The clickthrough numbers are higher than expected which may be because beta advertisers are targeting highly specific phrases. Also, users are not yet accustomed to “ads” being shown and are treating the results as they do organic app store search click-throughs. For iOS 11, editorial content will be searchable, which will give marketers more incentive to get their apps featured.

4.     In-app purchase options will be more discoverable on the App Store and they will be searchable, providing a way for app makers to make a run at additional monetization.

5.     Marketers and developers will also see what was presented as a simplified app ratings and reviews program. No longer will ratings be hidden following an app update. Also, App Store visitors will be presented with other apps and/or games by the same developer. This is double-edged. While more discovery is a good thing, app makers will need to keep all of their apps fresh and be even more on top of ratings and reviews since the profile of one app will likely affect how visitors feel about others.

6.     Apple encouraged developers and marketers to reach out via www.appstore.com/promote to get apps in front of the editorial team. Selected apps may appear as part of a Meet The Developer column, App of the Day or Game of the Day tabs, and also via curated collections and lists.

Of course, for many, it will still be challenging to get seen in a store of 2.2 million apps and growing. However, the direction Apple is heading in offers more hope to those making apps and those looking to find ones that would interest them.

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First appeared at https://possiblemobile.com/2017/06/six-important-ways-apples-revamped-app-store-affects-marketers/

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Dolphins Are Mammals, But It Seems Something Fishy Happened At SeaWorld

Reversing the trend of lower tablet demand, a dolphin grabbed an iPad from a guest at SeaWorld Orlando.

Through the first week of the Olympics, males were posting on social media about Games’ sponsors about twice as often as females, according to Sprinklr.

I understand, but do not agree with, the rationale of NBC’s primetime delay of the Olympics on West Coast. But there is no doubt that delayed weekend day coverage in this era of real time info gathering is dumb.

The percentage of Apple Watch users who will buy the next version, especially sight unseen? There’s no way of knowing, but I'm in the “absolutely not” category. The first time produced nothing but anticipointment.

eMarketer predicts U.S. retail m-commerce will reach about $131B by year's end.

More than one-quarter of U.S. Internet users block ads, per the IAB.

For the seventh straight quarter, AT&T added more cars than phones and tablets combined, according to analyst Chetan Sharma.

Millennials are 3X as likely as Baby Boomers to use mobile banking, according to FIS.

Citing "limited effectiveness", Proctor & Gamble said that it will scale back on targeted Facebook advertising.

Fast Company wrote that "for now, Siri is as good as anything that’s out there." Parity has never been Apple’s aim.

76% of U.S. Internet users aged 13-24 say that they are “addicted” to their digital devices: CivicScience.

Unrelated, but the same percentage of U.S. online adults engage with companies on social, up from 68% last year.

There are three million active advertisers on Facebook with 70% outside the U.S.

Several more mobile payment deals were announced recently, but contrary to the hype, cash wasn't gone by Tuesday.

Apple’s App Store saw record-breaking numbers during July as developer payouts crossed $50B.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - The Eternity That Is 140 Seconds of Twitter Video

Twitter users can now post videos up to 140 seconds long. That’s an eternity given the human attention span is 8 seconds (per Microsoft) -- less than that of a goldfish.

77% of people read at least one review before downloading an app: Apptentive.

Last week saw the most-streamed NBA Draft ever on WatchESPN, with more than 557,000 unique viewers.

On average, 41% of retail marketing budgets are dedicated to digital, per the National Retail Federation.

Mobile accounted for 29% of travel bookings in the U.S. last quarter, Crieto reported.

Instagram has now snapped over 500 million users with 95 millions videos and photos shared daily.

59% of buyers prefer to do research online instead of interacting with a sales rep: Accenture. Many are “self-sufficient” mobile users. That has a huge impact on customer service, as I wrote in my The Art of Mobile Persuasion (www.artofmobilepersuasion.com) book.

54% of worldwide mobile display ads will be traded programmatically by 2018: Tapjoy.

HeyMarket, a mobile CRM for text messaging, stops you from drunk texting your customers. It has come to this.

More than three billion photos are shared daily on social networks , according to KPCB.

78% between the ages of 21 and 39 make the mobile payments generated in China: eMarketer.

99 of 110 top news outlets have more mobile web traffic than desktop, according to Pew.

Per comScore, mobile ads are more effective than desktop for conversions and brand lift.

Apple says that there are two billion Siri requests a week. What wasn't shared was the accuracy percentage.

I've never been accused of being a fashionista, so it makes sense that responsiveness in new Apple Watch OS excites me more than new bands.

66% of all email in the US opened/read on smartphones or tablets: MovableInk.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer: Floor Traffic Lights Installed For "Smombies"

The German city of Augsburg has installed floor traffic lights for smartphone addicts. According to a German newspaper that calls such addicts “smombies”, the move followed these accidents: a 15-year-old girl in Munich was run over by a tram while looking at her smartphone with headphones in; in nearby Augsburg, on two recent occasions, pedestrians have been hit by street trains while looking at their phones.

Facebook has passed 1.65 billion monthly active users with 54% accessing the service only on mobile. Meanwhile, the company reports $5.38 billion in revenue, 79% from mobile advertising.

Apple may be working on a way to show friends your autocorrect mistakes, the Verge reported. Apple’s autocorrect mistakes or mine?

DeWalt, known as a drill maker, has introduced a rugged MD501 smartphone.

Vendors shipped a total of 334.9 million smartphones 1Q16 up slightly from the 334.3 million units in 1Q15, marking the smallest year over year growth on record: IDC.

Amazon is liable for in-app purchases made by kids, a court determined.

Apple pointed to 451 research saying that there's "94 percent customer satisfaction for Apple Watch." They didn’t ask me, but I would definitely be in the other camp.

Despite a “down quarter”, Apple sold 395 iPhones per minute.

Unlockd raised $12 million to lower one’s mobile phone bill in exchange for viewing ads.

In 2016 mobile payment transactions could total $27 billion, up 210%, IBM reported.

Walmart Canada’s responsive redesign has boosted conversion by 20%, according to the company.

Interesting stats from Forrester: only 37% of brands use mobile paid search advertising; just 23% have unique mobile content; and just over one in five send push notifications.

comScore found that for every $6 spent online shopping in the fourth quarter of 2015, one of those dollars was spent viaa mobile device.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - How McDonald's Views Choice As The Killer App

For 43 years, the slogan from McDonald’s said,  “You deserve a break today.” These days, when it comes to patrons accessing product information and offers, the quick service restaurant believes that we deserve choice. Despite an impressive 10 million mobile app downloads, McDonalds has installed kiosks in its restaurants, too, giving options to its customers beyond cellphones and the traditional information found on boards behind the cashiers.

An example of my Apple Watch frustration? A gate change that doesn't come with tap when that’s exactly what's needed. Now, you have to notice. And often don't.

Mobile captures 2 out of every 3 digital media minutes in the U.S., per comScore.

One in five U.S. households have bought groceries online in the past month, according to eMarketer.

Apple will likely sell its one billionth iPhone later this year.

This is permission-based, but still raised more than one eyebrow - when you open the Domino’s app, it automatically sends you a pizza unless you cancel within 10 seconds.

78% of food shoppers say they want to save as much money as possible via mobile, according to Gfk. This is one constant in wireless era – pre-recession, during recession, post-recession, people want deals.

75% of consumers say relevancy matters when it comes to the rewards that businesses provide: Colloquy. The others didn't understand the question?

British mobile phone users’ movements could be sold for profit, as reported in The Guardian. That brings worries that location data will be used by criminals.

10 million did their taxes on mobile last year with Intuit.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says that the secret to a harmonious life is to stop obsessing over your smartphone. Many of us know this but won't/can't/don't believe that we can do anything about it.

Native ads will make up 63% of mobile display ad spend by 2020, a Facebook & IHS study finds.

52% of users view push messages as annoying, according to Localytics. Better practices, more value and education are keys to improving that number.

My eye doctor was appalled when I told him that his vendor was sending appointment text reminders at 4 a.m. to people who haven’t opted in. We will see if anything changes.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - On Mobile Procrastination For The Holidays

A tweet begins with "starting to think about your holiday mobile strategy?” Hello. Try to get going over a red Starbucks cup. And make it for 2016, but start now.

Speaking of which, mobile payments now account for 21% of transactions at Starbucks.

Adobe said that, for the first time ever, the majority of online holiday shopping visits in the U.S. – 51% -- will be on mobile devices. Adobe forecast almost a third of all sales taking place on mobile devices.

Digitally mature firms are three more likely to drive double digit revenue growth than other businesses: Forrester.

Mobile video ads are getting 66% of the total mobile ad spend, per AppLovin and AppsFlyer.

68% of adults now have a smartphone, nearly double the share in mid-2011, according to Pew. 92% of all U.S. adults own a cellphone of some sort.

According to Strategy Analytics, global shipments of smartphones grew by 10% from Q3 2014 (323.4 million units) to Q3 2015 (354.2 million). However, the 10% figure marks the slowest growth rate within the past six years since the global recession in 2009.

Amazon's Rich Koehler: "If it takes more than three taps to reach any part of your product catalogue, it basically doesn't exist.”

Apple has sold about 1.22 billion iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches, says VC Benedict Evans. Roughly 725 million are in use.

Fitness trackers and smart watches will make up two-thirds of wearable device shipments next year: eMarketer.

My diet must be taking.  I haven't seen a promoted tweet about gut bloat for two days.

The iPad tops the Best Buy survey of most desired tech gifts. Whoa, aren't tablets on decline given popularity of larger smartphones, and perceived "good enough" previous purchases?

Another tweet said that mobile is the operating system to our lives. I guess the "remote control for life" descriptor is old news.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - How Expanding Twitter Beyond 140 Characters Will Work Against Us

Twitter is looking to expand the 140-character limit with a new product, according to multiple reports. Sigh. I’m gearing up for 900-word essays on morning runs and lunch sandwich selections. Psst- here’s a lesson that I learned as reporter: "They settled World War II in 600 words". Stick to 140 characters. Or fewer.

Digital channels will influence 64% of holiday purchases, per Deloitte. In a year with only minor upgrades, Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s units on its first weekend.

From Apple CEO Tim Cook -- “There’s no doubt in my mind the best companies will be the most mobile.”

Those 35 and younger are three times more likely to consume video on smartphone, PC or tablet than on an actual TV, according to Tout.

More than 20 percent of Americans use wearables – Forrester.

Gartner: 89% of marketers say they expect to compete primarily on the customer experience by 2016.

“Ad blocking is a definitive sign that marketers have to get our butt in gear" -- AOL CEO Tim Armstrong.

Sheryl Sandberg told TV ad buyers that Facebook has a “Super Bowl on mobile” every day.

Facebook says it now has 2.5 million advertisers, up a half-million in the last six months.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Adblock Plus will allow an independent board to decide which ads are “acceptable” and allowed through its filter. Should be called “Adwesortablock”.

The average American spends almost 80% of time in their top three mobile apps: comScore.

Amazon, believed to know more about us than any other entity, sent me a burger offer. I haven't had one in over 20 years.

Pfizer introduced a smoking cessation research app.

Selfies have caused more deaths this year than shark attacks.

WebMD users can see their daily medication schedules right on their AppleWatch wrists.

Radar has turned the smartphone into a baseball speed detector: Engadget.

A Fan Boy No More

I never have exhibited the obvious signs of being an Apple fan boy – getting the company’s logo cut into my hair or having a Mac Mini serve as my toilet paper holder, for instance – but any review of my writings or tweets suggest that I have had more than a passing fancy for what comes out of Cupertino.

And I’m hardly alone.

There is so much trust in the Apple brand that it ranks first on the prestigious Most Valuable Brand list created each year by Forbes.

Even in my hometown of Seattle, where Microsoft has created loads of job opportunity and upped housing prices, Apple is the standard. That’s on display every day in the Bellevue Square mall where traffic is brisk in and out of the Apple Store while the Microsoft Store can often record visits in a single hour on fewer than 10 fingers.

I’ve owned no mobile phone but an iPhone since V1 was introduced in 2007. I’ve rushed to buy a new version at exactly the time each year when my carrier contract allowed for one. More than once, I have committed even before I could eyeball or touch one.

In the last decade, my purchases just for me have included two iPads, four Macbooks or Macbook Airs, and an Apple Watch.

But something changed for me this year. Or maybe it’s the fact that something changed with Apple.

The company that has defined dependable underdelivered. And, worse, it has made no apologies about it.

Specifically, in a bad way, its Apple Watch turned back time, producing an experience for me that was vintage BlackBerry 2004. Tasks have timed out. Buffering has felt as long as an Alaska summer day and night. Notifications have come at inexplicable times, like the requests to stand up while I was barreling down the freeway at 65 miles an hour.  

Some apps, including OpenTable’s, will not update. Even worse, on one occasion, I suspect that an effort to communicate with the app caused the battery on my Apple Watch to be depleted in less than an hour.

This isn’t the Apple that I know or want.

It was with through that lens that I listened in on this week’s Apple announcements.

--  Live Photos that have been positioned as a reinvention of the way we take and view pictures

-- 3D Touch that will change how we get in and out of mail, messages, apps, and more

-- Claims about the “revolutionary”Apple TV that reminded me of HBO’s ad campaign of several years ago. It’s Not TV. It’s HBO.

-- Even more dependence on Siri, which had been Apple’s biggest miss until Apple Watch came on the scene

-- A pencil that looks, smells, and writes like a stylus, yet is supposed to be so much more.

I’m not buying any of it. The age of innocence is over.

In the hours after Apple’s event, T-Mobile CEO John Legere texted, “Pre-order for the new #iphone starts at 12:01am on September 12. #getready #setyouralarm”

Ummm, nope. Those of you taking to his site or to apple.com at that hour will have one less competitor to be first with a new device.

Apple has built up so much good will, and has risen to the occasion much more often that not, that it certainly remains in the lead position when I’m considering new products.

But it has no lock on my thinking or my money. If that puts me in the former fan boy category, so be it.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - A Selfie Tsunami Is Just Ahead

iOS9, coming this fall, will put all of one's selfies in an album. I can see a massive increase in social sharing - "Here's when I was in the park." "Here's when the traffic light made me late for work". Help us.

Subway's new app gives customers the ability to build a custom sandwich and pay in advance via PayPal.

On average, each U.S. household will spend approximately $3800 on access and devices in 2015, per industry analyst Chetan Sharma.

More from his report:

U.S. consumers will spend more on wearables than feature phones in 2015.

The total number of connected devices around the world will reach 16 billion by the end of 2015.

Apple brings AT&T, Sprint Wi-Fi calling to iOS 9, per several reports.

Interesting stats given new competition with Apple Watch: Fitbit sold 4.5 million devices last quarter, with revenues up 235 percent from a year ago. That likely speaks more of the category growth than a choice over the Apple product.

49% of teens say that texting is the preferred way to get in touch with a close friend, according to a Pew report. Social media is second (20%), following by calling (13%).

CBS says Super Bowl ads are selling for $5 million per 30 seconds. Advertisers told Variety that the cost is between $4.5 million and $4.7 million. Regardless, is this year for a true mobile call to action in a spot? All we need is one big success to open the gates.

In the second quarter of 2015, approximately 58% of American smartphone owners also have a tablet (Kantar). Among iPhone owners, the number of tablet owners jumps to 65%.

Seen on bgr.com – “Upcoming new iPhone feature could make you fall in love with Siri all over again." My reaction? When were we smitten the first time?

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Will A Coming Ad-Blocking Option Limit Mobile Advertising?

With an ad-blocking option coming with iOS 9, some headlines have suggested that Apple will be taking a big bite out of the mobile advertising opportunity for marketers. The truth is that it’s too soon to tell.

For background, apps will be able to include “content blocker” extensions that define resources (like images and scripts) for Safari to not load. The biggest question is whether users will proactively elect to install and use the blockers. If they do, the thinking goes that fewer ads will be seen on Apple devices and the business return on ad spend in the channel will suffer.

But as a Forrester analyst and others have pointed out, it has taken massive security breaches involving worms, viruses and malware for consumers to take note of options to “protect” their environment. And, in alarmingly large numbers, users have ignored the calls to act.

The same is likely here.

Dads are four times more likely to buy things for their families via mobile than the average consumer: Millennial Media.

You can now order a pizza via a text message. Dominos is smartly giving consumers another purchasing choice and another reason to join its loyalty club.

In the last minute and in the next, 3.6 million texts will be exchanged by U.S. mobile users. Brands, it’s time to consider use of SMS-based loyalty clubs.

Apps are responsible for 42% of all mobile sales by the top 500 retailers, per Go-Globe.

Study: 99% of users ignore share buttons on mobile – Moovweb.

86% of consumers discover new brands or services thru their mobile device, according to Accenture.

On June 14, nine of the top 10 purchases on eBay occurred on mobile devices, totaling more than $1.7 million in transactions.

A Heinz QR code directed users to porn.

37% of users will think less of brand if its mobile app crashes or causes errors, per Dimensional Research.

20% are supposedly buying a spare band for Apple Watch. Me? I'm still trying to get fair value for what I spent.

Users get 14 times more views with a profile photo on LinkedIn than without.

60% of SMBs plan to purchase newspaper advertising, most allocating 20% their budget to newspapers: Borrell.

Starbucks Mobile Order & Pay has expanded to 3,400 additional U.S. stores.

Amazon is considering paying ordinary people to deliver packages. There’s a future for me.

Life With An Apple Watch - Too Personal and Lacking Benefits

To continue to call the mobile phone my most personal device is to ignore the You Did It notification that I received on my new Apple Watch while I was in front of a urinal.

Whoa, even double whoa, I thought at that moment, before I silently thanked the Apple developers in Cupertino for the positive reinforcement.

I now know that particular notification conveyed the fact that I had reached a stand-up goal set by my Apple Watch. But for the newbie, it did seem random and ill-timed.

And there has been more where that came from.

To sum up my first 10 days with Apple Watch, it has been about making time rather than saving it.

Simply and unequivocally, the user experience isn’t intuitive. That forces you to either seek out and read a long user guide or muddle through wondering when is the moment for the ballyhooed Force Touch, a swipe to the left, or a click or two or three of the newly-introduced-to-us Digital Crown.

Out of the box, my Apple Watch failed to tap my wrist and mirror my iPhone when a text message or email arrived. Ninety minutes and two Geniuses from the Apple Store later, a supposed software problem had been identified and solved and I was sent on my way with Mickey Mouse tapping a big foot on the watch face.

As I wrote in this space last month after ordering the device, one of the supposed benefits of receiving notifications on your wrist is the unmatched ability to inconspicuously sneak a look at information without having to pull out a smartphone.

But unless you want a push every time something in a game changes – heck, teams typically combine for more than 200 points in an NBA game – you are left to grab the info off of a Glance. It isn’t unnoticed by your companions when you have to stroke a finger up the watch to get to Glances, then move from one “snack” of information (say, a flight arrival) to another to see if the Clippers have blown another lead.

Many of us have been drawn to Apple Watch for its health monitoring capabilities. But context is absent and what is necessary.

On a cross-country flight last week, my heartbeat reading showed 94 and a fellow passenger with more of a medical background than me – that group is 98 percent of the population – went quiet when he saw the number. Through a discussion, we discovered that the 94 was the result of the activity boarding the flight and lifting luggage. Apple Watch retook the heartbeat and I was in the low 60s.

That episode reminded me of the time two Christmases ago when my new Fitbit Force showed that I had burned 861 calories when the most strenuous thing I had done was to push the button on my computer.

I considered it a Christmas miracle.

Or a sham.

Only later, after writing up my experience, did a friend call me out for not realizing that we burn calories even when we sleep.

And we’re supposed to know this how?

I’ve read more than my share of Apple Watch reviews. In many cases, users have experienced “light bulb” moments where the benefits of the wearable become apparent.

To date, I deem the information on my wrist to either be redundant or at most in the “nice to know” category. We’ve repeatedly said that our smartphones are within four feet of us nearly 24 hours a day. So it’s not like the Apple Watch has opened up a view on the world that has been missing or inaccessible.

Apple may very well have my back. At some point, I might see that and salute the company with my own version of “You Did It”. But now isn’t the time.

(article first appeared on iMediaconnection.com - http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2015/05/19/life-with-an-apple-watch-too-personal-and-lacking-benefits/)

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Flying High With Mobile Boarding Passes

Mobile devices will issue a third of all airline boarding passes by 2019: Juniper Research.  That would double the current number. It’s also a good lesson on the lack of absolutes – not everyone will adopt this technology or any other.

Smartwatch as "the remote control of our lives"? Jeez, we’ve heard that hype for years around the mobile phone.

An accessory needed for Apple Watch - restraint. Self-control on when/if to react to more immediate info will be as important as anything, IMO.

As has been case with beacons, we won't know how much consumers want delivered on their wrists until we test, ask and learn.

To me, the No. 1 question remains around Apple Watch - is it really solving a problem?

As Yahoo pointed out, you could buy the most expensive Apple Watch, or one of everything else Apple sells.

Selfie drones are on their way, according to VentureBeat.

The mobile ad spend in the U.S. is projected to grow 50% this year, vs. 1.1% for traditional media, per eMarketer.

Tablet shipments will grow just 2% in 2015, projects IDC.

49% of shoppers ages 20-29 regularly use a mobile phone in-store to compare prices, Gfk says.

Starbucks has expanded its mobile-ordering service across the Northwest.

100,000 Coke vending machines in North America will accept Apple Pay by year end.

A California court has said that cops need warrants to get phone location data.

More than 40% of all time spent on TV properties is on mobile: comScore.

60% of users now choose mobile devices over PCs for local search: Thrive Analytics.

In Q4 2014, 16% of smartphone owners said they had recently acquired their phones within the last 3 months, according to Nielsen.

In 2012, 24% of US consumers wanted to use their mobile to send money to friends. In 2014 it was 50%: Mobile Payments Today.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Ikea Brings New Meaning To "Charge It"

While the idea is noble, I have two problems with Ikea’s furniture that wirelessly charges devices. First, there is more than one charging standard and many phones will stay dead. Second, would there not be an electrical socket (or two or three) near the furniture? Isn’t the need more outside the home and office?

Selfie sticks are no longer welcome at the Smithsonian. From a new policy edict: “We encourage museum visitors to take selfies and share their experiences — and leave the selfie sticks in their bags.”

Do you want more battery life for your Apple Watch? The Reserve Strap is like a Mophie but it runs $249.

A security firm said that it found pre-installed malware on the Xiaomi Mi 4 smartphone.

A thousand new smartphones are shipped every 21.8 seconds, according to The Economist.

Google's wireless service will only work with the Nexus 6, per the Wall Street Journal.

Samsung has lost its “Next Big Thing” marketing chief. He had a humongous budget, but certainly got his company's products noticed.

77% of millennials have mobile-banked within the past month. 52% have done so at least four times: Lightspeed FSG.

More than 40% of all time spent on TV properties is on mobile, per comScore.

Target says that mobile accounts for 40% of its digital orders.

The most valuable users are acquired via mobile ads between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.: Fetch.

Mobile video ads will account for 26% of the U.S. video ad spend by end of the year, per eMarketer.

That Samsung Pay will be widely available is only part of the story of adoption. Consumers need education and assurance of security.

Almost 2 billion mobile phones were sold in 2014: Gartner. Google’s operating system was included on about 80% of all devices sold.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - How RadioShack's Mobile Strategy Led To Its Downfall

In doing research for my upcoming book, I learned that while many were too slow when it comes to mobile, RadioShack actually moved too fast. In 2009, it abandoned its core do-it-yourself customer in favor of mobility products.

"We completely pissed them off," Chief Marketing Officer Lee Applbaum said of the retailer's core DIY customers, who are (or now were) 55 year old Caucausian males with jobs or interest in engineering. "We had turned our back and were ignoring them. We had alienated the very consumer that had given us that core credibility in electronics."

As the mobility business grew, RadioShack’s core business fell from 38% of sales in 2009 to 32% in 2010. And despite going back to its roots, the drop continued all the way to bankruptcy.

More notes:

Thanksgiving was highest sales day during the holiday season for REI mobile properties. But Christmas Day saw the most traffic.

Just one-third of mobile users will buy apps in 2015, per eMarketer.

Tweet of the week from @BillGates – “Today, 2 billion people don’t have a bank account.  In 15 years they’ll be making payments with their phones”.

Only 47% of retail brands engage on Twitter when tagged in an @ mention, according to Brandwatch.

62% of consumers expect a brand to have a mobile-friendly website, 42% mobile app, 23% location-specific experience, says Forrester.

Tablet shipments fell 12% last quarter, its first-ever decline: Canalys.

Twitter says 36,048,635 tweets about the Super Bowl were viewed 2,500,732,548 times.

Apple Stores reportedly will be outfitted with safes to protect gold Apple Watches. No price has been given. Speculation centers on these being priced at several thousand dollars each.

Mobile will account for half of all U.S. digital commerce revenue within two years, per Gartner.

61% of mobile consumers want to call a business when making their purchasing decision, according to Marchex.

Facebook served 65% fewer ads last quarter but cost per ad was up 335%.

More than half a billion users only access Facebook from mobile.

Panera: 80% of mobile payments are from Apple Pay.

Meanwhile, Apple Pay is said to be coming to 200,000 vending machines, kiosks, paid parking, other self-serve locations.

Headline on TechCrunch - Microsoft Faces Stiff Mobile Challenge. Me - the things you learn on the net.

Starbucks' mobile app payments now represent 16% of all Starbucks transactions: Fast Company.

Last year, mobile apps generated the most revenue in Japan, South Korea and the U.S., says App Annie.

93% of all U.S. app downloads in 2014 were organic, down slightly from 95% in 2011 according to Flurry.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - When Mobile and People Do Good

Often dubbed the most personal device, mobile phones can also be among the most useful for serving others. The latest example is the Be My Eyes app that finds volunteers to view and provide information on photos or video taken by sight-impaired people.

Following a test in Portland, Ore., Starbucks Mobile Order & Pay will soon be available in over 600 stores in Pacific Northwest. The promise is that you get to order ahead of time and pick up with little to no delay.

Starbucks’ innovation has already made it the leader in sales at brick and mortar locations. The company says that it is averaging more than seven million mobile transactions in stores each week.

Meanwhile, a Deloitte study says in-store mobile payments overall are set to rise 1000% in 2015.

The National Hockey League will broadcast live GoPro footage during games.

Google may be close to launching its own wireless service using Sprint and T-Mobile.

Many envision a shakeout of mobile wallet players in 2015. The first domino? Amazon is said to be folding its app beta.

42% of shoppers would share mobile information for text messaging offers, per IBM. Yet we are still, after all these years, needing to convince marketers of the opportunity.

NBC will stream the Super Bowl, but not to all smartphones since Verizon owns the rights.

Intel generated $2.1 billion from the Internet of Things in 2014.

Tweet of the week from Laptop Magazine editor in chief Mark Spoonauer @mspoonauer – “Dear wireless carriers. Stop changing your plans every day. It's getting confusing for us, nevermind everyday shoppers.”

Last year, 38% of all online advertising was delivered on a mobile device: Borrell.

By 2019, the firm expects it to be 70%.

Facebook is nearing 1 billion mobile users worldwide, with much of the growth coming in developing countries on lower-end phones.

Retailers with the biggest share of mobile traffic tend to be in athletic apparel, footwear & cosmetics, says research for the 2015 Search Marketing 500.

Mobile accounts for nearly half of the paid-search ad spend, according to Marin Software.

A new survey by Harris and Dell finds tablets boost employee productivity by 20%.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Facing 2015 Head On

Touch ID is so 2014. Among the advancements expected at next week’s CES 2015 are additional mobile applications that combine biometrics and selfies to enable authentication and access. Hoyos Labs unveiled one 12 months ago or about the last time we attempted to log into a site and remembered both our user name and password. A faceoff is ahead with more competition and innovation.

Smartphones and tablets accounted for more than a third of online sales on Christmas Day as well as 57% of all online traffic: IBM. Those are big jumps vs. previous years.

Also, iOS sales were 4X Android sales on Christmas. That is consistent with Thanksgiving and recent holiday seasons.

Amazon: sales made from its smartphone app doubled this year: nearly 60% of customers shopped on a mobile device. Cyber Monday remained its busiest mobile shopping day of the year, with customers ordering 18 toys per second.

35% had troubles holiday shopping on mobile devices (SOASTA) in what was called "early stages" for retailers.

Tweet of the week: from @ChrisPirillo: BREAKING NEWS: Santa can't be tracked for the rest of Christmas because he had to turn off his GPS to save battery.

From The Verge’s review of the BlackBerry Classic: "The only problem with the screen is that you can't fit a big enough line of coke on it."

Only 12% of ages 18-29 say television would be hard to give up, according to Pew.

While I was out shopping, zero attention was given to Apple Pay at Macy’s’ point of sale. No signage or discussion from clerk. That's no way to speed up adoption.

Meanwhile, Apple Pay launched at Walt Disney World on Christmas Eve. Disneyland comes on in in 2015.

It was great to hear from Apple that a package I sent was on a truck for delivery. Not so great was getting a 5 a.m. text about it. Common sense, no?

Headline: Consumer Interest In Apple Watch Has Been Steadily Declining Since September. Is that a surprise given that it’s not on sale?

I received several impersonal holiday email, including one from FreeConferenceCall.com. Touching.

70% of executives surveyed, more than in the previous four polls, agree that mobile technology use invades time between work and leisure, per CNBC’s Mobile Elite report. Six in 10 access business content via their mobile device over the weekend. 

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Do Your Customers Practice "Click and Mortar"?

There are supposed mega dollars in same-day delivery, enough for Amazon, Google and others to make it a large emphasis. Among the hurdles is so-called "click and mortar”.  Who does that? As an example, 15% of target.com orders are picked up onsite with 80% being fulfilled within an hour.

Another behavior to keep an eye on with the same retailer - mobile app usage has increased 50% since Target rolled out in-store Wi-Fi.

A tweet I saw says that “cool kids buy shoes covered in poop”. It’s more evidence that Twitter is the land of never-ending learning. Aren’t you glad that I didn’t feature this one in the lead paragraph and accompany it with a picture?

About the argument about too many messages – a second one via beacons incents American Eagle Outfittter customers to try on clothes. The percentage who visited the fitting room area to try on clothes was more than double for those who received a beacon-enabled incentive offer versus for those users that did not.

Worldwide mobile device sales will hit 2.4 billion unit this year, Gartner says.

Starbucks “order-ahead” app will begin a test in Portland.

Retailers accepting Apple Pay at launch this week is a who's who. That was one of the battles. Customer usage is next.

Mobile will account for 44% of the programmatic ad spending this year, up to 56% next year, per eMarketer. The same source forecasts mobile ad spending to overtake desktop ad spending by 2016.

Fifty percent of marketers don't have a full understanding of their customer journey, according to an ANA/McKinsey study.

The "sweet" story of Bill Murray's recent first smartphone purchase of a BlackBerry couldn't be a paid endorsement, could it? Nah.

A tweet from Apple executive Craig Federighi – “News that Google will announce their new Nexus Tablet on Wed.  Hope they've got the 248 units they'll need  for opening weekend sales.” Ouch.

The mobile-only newspaper audience has doubled in the past year, eMarketer tells us.

We'll have zero bank tellers the same day we have a world with no cash. Never. There are no absolutes.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Beware of Self-Destructing Picture Apps

Have you heard about Xim from Microsoft, a so-called self-destructing photo app? It’s because the picture goes away over time, not because the images are of an act leading to one's downfall. I suppose that it could be both.

Download an app called Rest Room Gallery designed to show your artistic side while on the toilet. Then explain that to your wife. Ready. Go.

Is there bigger proof of the iPhone's allure than millions waiting for supply rather than buying something else? Last week, I went to an Apple Store that had received two units to sell for an entire day. And that was typical, according to an employee.

Tweet of the week? This one from @levie aka Aaron Levie, CEO of Box – “Jeff Bezos is opening a retail store and owns a newspaper. Turns out everything we thought about the Internet is wrong.”

As for my reaction to Amazon opening a physical store in NYC – the company is about selling stuff. The what remains the same here. This is just another how that will work out or won’t.

Over 65% of users use Facebook in a language other than English, the company says.

Half of the traffic on AT&T Wireless comes from YouTube & Netflix, the carrier reports.

With 7 billion mobile phones and a war chest to get things done, there is plenty of room for Google to create a messaging app that it hopes will rival WhatsApp.

Forrester says that mobile will be 40% of the online ad spend in 2015.

37% of SMBs claim that print newspaper ads are the best source for attracting customers, Borrell Associates tells us.

It has come to this for BlackBerry - Wall Street cheered an $11 million quarterly loss.

Digital video and mobile now make up 20% of Mondelēz's global spend, according to Adweek.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer: The "Just Shush Already" Edition

Twitter is testing a mute button to quiet your follows. This would be for temporary silence rather than a more final unfollow. Will hashtag be #shushalready?

I want a weather app to be simple. The latest ones are visually nice but make it harder to get basic info. Or is it just me?

Apple has 800 million iTunes accounts. The 800 million credit cards on file are more than any other company in the world.

And Apple says two-thirds of iPad registrations and one-half of iPhone registrations came from new users in the last quarter.

We're supposed to view wearables as inexact but needed? I don't understand that.

Sephora's mobile, online and in-store shoppers are 4X more valuable than single-channel shoppers, according to the company.

The reason why in-store mobile interaction is important to Walgreens? There are 45 million weekly in-store shoppers compared to 14 million online visitors.

More than 119 million people in the U.S. will watch video on tablets this year, eMarketer says.

Nielsen: The U.S. radio audience has hit an all-time high; 244 million (age 12+) listen to radio each week. The dummies said it was dying.

But the world is changing, of course – the average U.S. adult spends 5 hours 46 minutes with digital media - 2 hours and 51 minutes of that with mobile - per day, according to eMarketer.

80 percent of Twitter's advertising revenue now comes from mobile ad buys.

More from Nielsen: for the first time, a majority of Americans of all age groups own smartphones.

18-24 year olds are over 20% more likely to log onto Twitter via a mobile device.

70 percent of U.S. consumes will use a mobile device to redeem a discount in 2014, Accenture projects.

89 percent of mobile devices aren't recycled, according to Verizon.