Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - This Just In: Size Does Matter

The No. 1 factor for Millennials and Boomers in determining which screen to use for an activity is its size, reports Millward Brown Digital. But, according to the new survey, for Gen Xers, it is speed and performance.

Japanese schoolgirls ages 10-18 spend seven hours a day on their mobile devices, according to security firm Digital Arts. It’s four hours for male counterparts.

A separate study by the University of Basel said that teenagers who used digital media at night had an increased risk for poor sleep and depressive symptoms.

Every hour, 148,400 smartphones are sold around the world, according to CTIA. For those challenged with math, that’s 41 smartphones moved every second.

There was a 15% increase in sales via tablets during recent East Coast snowstorm, per IBM.

This year, Groupon reportedly will launch a targeted deals product powered by beacons.

CBS forecasts 2016 Super Bowl ads to cost more than $5 million. No word on whether mobile will make the big game in any meaningful way.

iPhone 6 Plus owners consume twice as much data compared to other iPhones: Citrix.

JetBlue announced that it will soon accept Apple Pay at 35,000 feet.

73% of mobile searches result in an additional action such as a call, store visit, or purchase: Google.

How many knew this before Valentine’s Day? More than 60% of mobile dating apps put the users at a potential risk of cyberattacks, reports IBM.

Mobile now accounts for more than 60% of all digital media time spent: comScore.

Facebook delivers three billion video views per day, with 65% coming on mobile devices.

82% were likely to get a Valentine's Day restaurant recommendation or make a reservation via mobile, a Verizon survey says.

Mobile firms raised $4.2 billion in venture capital globally in January: Rutberg.

Seven in 10 mobile users would stop using an app if it uploaded personal info without permission, according to eMarketer.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Why Responsive Design Can Lead To Unresponsive Consumers

Coca-Cola's mobile chief Tom Daly chastises those who've considered their work done at the completion of a responsive design project.

“All responsive does is make the content show up on the screen, as if all screens were the same, as modality was the same, as if context was the same,” he said at Mobile FirstLook.

Lose weight or use the “wide selfie” mode? Samsung is marketing the feature available on Galaxy Note 4. Careful who you suggest needs one.

The mobile industry generated $3.3 trillion last year and created 11 million jobs, according to Qualcomm.

Google will stop selling the current version of Google Glass this week. In three days at CES, the largest gather of tech pros, I saw only two people wearing the spectacles.

56 percent of consumers expect brands to respond to their tweets within an hour, per Twitter research.

Time Inc. generated 100 percent revenue growth in mobile in 2014. It has 72 million mobile unique users a month, which is 80 percent growth year over year.

Tablets and mobile phones are not interchangeable for marketers, according to Forrester’s Julie Ask. Only 15 percent of tablets are always connected.

More from Forrester: 21 percent of U.S. consumers have an expectation of anything, anywhere, anytime. Another 29 percent are transitioning there.

Also, more than 40 percent of consumers are tired of pulling their mobile device out to see what happened. It’s an opportunity for tactile technology and signals.

Coca-Cola’s app strategy is a work in progress. Only two apps have ever had more than one million downloads.

Mobile is still a single digit percentage spend of Coke's overall global digital budget.

How’s $2,499 for a gold Apple Watch? For some, it will be about buying fashion and function.

Holiday shoppers tweeted more than 28 million mentions about their gift purchases - up 8 percent year over year, per SAP.

Just 11 percent of U.S. digital retail dollars are spent via mobile, eMarketer reports.

A London phone booth has been turned into a solar-powered mobile charging station.

Mobile app usage grew 76 percent year over years, Flurry research showed.

Google Play now has more apps than Apple's App Store, appFigures said.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Curves of All Kinds Were On Display At CES

There were lots of curves at CES - no, not those kind. OK, those kind, too, but curved screens caught my eye. Supposedly they help eye strain. The other curves cause it.

Holiday shoppers tweeted more than 28 million mentions about their gift purchases - up 8% year over year – SAP.

Lots of new interesting numbers from Pew -- Almost half (49 percent) of Instagram users are on the platform daily; 52 percent of online adults now use two or more social media sites, a significant increase from 2013; Facebook is still the most popular, but other platforms have seen a higher growth rate.

Despite slowing growth, tablets will pass the 1 billion mark in 2015, per eMarketer.

If your, ummm, behind is your best side, and, you want to, ummm, share it, you may like the Belfie Stick.

From a man on the street - actually a cabbie in Las Vegas, on the prospect of a smart refrigerator alerting him when low on milk or beer: "Why would I want that?"

There was signage at CES for a $33 Android tablet. That follows talk of a $25 smartphone.

58 percent prefer to look up info on mobile device while shopping, rather than talk to an in-store employee, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.

64 cents is the average consumer cost for cable per hour of entertainment, per Flurry. 18 cents for mobile.

Also from Flurry: app usage grew 76 percent in 2014 with shopping apps leading the way.

More surprising than seeing a large RCA presence at CES was news that it introduced new mobile devices.

Uber has been sued for allegedly violating TCPA rules and sending unwanted text messages.

From Nestle’s Pete Blackshaw: "Don't overthink it. Have simplicity in messaging, good search on your mobile website, plus sharing."

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - From Coins To Bitcoin For NYC Meters

New York City is weighing bitcoin and Apple Pay for parking meters. I grew up there needing quarters to fill ‘em so I could put my dimes in the Zerox machine in the library. Despite what you see from my pretty website picture, I'm as old as dirt.

Facebook is now operating at a $10 billion revenue run rate from mobile, per industry analyst Chetan Sharma. Twitter and Yahoo also exceeded $1 billion in mobile revenue for 2014.

Also from Sharma, Amazon led in mobile commerce with over $15 billion in revenues from mobile.

Holiday SMS promotions by major retailers dramatically plummeted year over year, BDO said. One third of marketers asked went the text message route in 2013. Only 7 percent said they would do so in the just concluded shopping season.

Kodak is reportedly back at CES with a cell phone. Given how late it is entering the game, Kodak isn’t likely to even be in the picture by the end of 2015.

After a long break, I resumed using Twitterific recently. Since, I’ve been getting daily short-lived “connection errors” on my Mac. At that point, it loses its “ificness”.

Tweet of the week - @helpareporter was “looking for burlesque stars to give ‘regular’ women tips on performing their own private dances”. Two comments: that story again? And how does one define a regular woman?

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, cellphones are involved in 1.6 million auto crashes each year.

In 2014, U.S adults spent 23% more time on #mobile during an average day than in 2013, says eMarketer.

Ericsson: "90% of the global population over 6 years old will own a mobile phone by 2020.

Companies that allow users to submit expenses via mobile have 28% shorter cycle times: Concur.

Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, is worth $3 billion and he still uses a flip phone, reports Business Insider. So does Indianapolis quarterback Andrew Luck.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Will "Text Neck" Be As Common As A Selfie?

A text neck “epidemic" due to excessive lowering of the head to look at our mobile phones? A medical researcher told the Washington Post that “it is an epidemic or, at least, it’s very common.” The web and Twitter went wild with the hype. Most of us read it with our heads down.

22% of men made a purchase on their smartphones last year, compared to 18% of women, per SeeWhy. Will that change this holiday season?

Square says the company will begin accepting Apple Pay next year.

Stop the madness – I heard a new mobile term “beacosystem” for players in campaigns involving beacons.

Another “say it ain’t so” mobile finding– Motorola says that spice isn’t just for your pumpkin latte anymore. MotoX has spice colored backs.

1 in 10 mobile ad impressions in retail leads to a store visit: iAd.

People are now spending more time with mobile devices than with television, according to Flurry.

Not just for newbies: 76-year-old retailer Nebraska Furniture Mart has deployed beacons.

Holiday web spending will rise 16%, comScore projects, with mobile growing 25%.

100% adoption of mobile payments? Ha. The day that there are no bank tellers.

ESPN has 94 million unique users via mobile — 76% of its digital users come through phones, tablets; 40% through apps, and 17% through ESPN Fantasy Football.

19% of shoppers plan to increase Cyber Monday shopping despite shipping costs and online security concerns: Kelly Scott Madison Holiday Shopping Study.

Over 50% of YouTube viewing happens on mobile.

Google is now highlighting mobile friendly websites in search results.

90% of the global population will have a mobile phone by 2020, says Ericsson.

Target has included product inventory search functionality into its mobile app.

In 2015-2016, the percentage of digital travel researchers using mobile will rise from 54.6% to 62.2%: eMarketer.

97% of fantasy football players make weekly changes to their teams using a mobile phone or tablet, according to Thinknear.

53% of Thanksgiving Day online shopping will take place via mobile: IBM. Because we’ll be too bloated to move to our computers?

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Assessing An App That Predicts The Second That You Will Die

The new Deadline app guesstimates your death day for you. I’m not sure why anyone would want this, but similar “forecasting” has been available online for years. But with this app, you can set up notifications to view a countdown clock to the second of your supposed departure from Earth. Just ate French fries? Whoops, there went another 12 minutes.

In Virginia, cops can force you to unlock an iPhone with Touch ID, but can't ask for your passcode, according to Engadget.

83% of U.S. consumers now stream TV, up from 74% a year ago: Magid.

Tweet of the week – from @jefftiedrich: Instagram is down. Can I come over and look at your food?

Half of YouTube's traffic is now from mobile.

A third who bought a wearable in the past year no longer use the device regularly, according to PwC. Is it a success that two thirds still do? I’d say so.

Facebook now makes 66% of its money from mobile.

“Expose” on bgr.com says that Tim Cook works hard at Apple and expects other to work hard, too. News here?

70% of consumers delete an email immediately if it doesn’t render properly on their mobile device, per Blue Hornet.

Mobile offers are redeemed 10 times more frequently than print offers, according to eMarketer.

Saying that it is not moving fast enough, Twitter has replaced its CFO, COO, and VPs of media, engineering and product — all in the past six months.

Dubbed Shazam for birds, an app called Warblr is able to identify a bird’s species by comparing sounds that users record to previously recorded birdsongs.

According to CEO Howard Schultz, the Starbucks app processed $1.17 billion in 2013, and the company has already processed nearly $1.4 billion in 2014. It is expected to reach $2 billion by the end of the year.

Next year should be even better - in the second half of next year, customers in select markets will be able to use the mobile ordering and payment app to have food and drinks delivered.

China has 600 million mobile uses (2X the U.S. population).

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - No, You Can't Drive A Truck Over Your iPhone

I’m guessing that beyond sitting on it, you can't drive an F-150 over an iPhone 6 Plus. But don't try it at home.

67% of moms entertain kids with mobile videos & games, up 2X from last year, Yahoo says.

The North American mobile industry accounts for 3% of the GDP, according to industry group GSMA.

Apple sold 39 iPhone 6's per second in its first weekend.

A Homeland mobile ad uses phone vibrations to set off a virtual bomb in your hand.

Nordstrom wants to text shoppers who are interested in certain merchandise. That makes sense. It gets us closer to one-to-one marketing rather than one-to-one list.

Mobile spending on branding-related objectives will grow faster than direct-response initiatives in the next year, Nielsen says.

Nearly 75% of consumers ages 18-44 access a social network daily, Adobe reports. Mobile is the most-used device.

Smartphone penetration has made it to 70% in the U.S., Nielsen tells us.

Here’s one to stump your friends at a dinner party - research shows Japanese travelers are three times more likely to book via mobile than Germans.

Mobile now accounts for more than 50% of ecommerce traffic, according to Shopify.

Gartner says that more than 75% of mobile apps will fail basic security tests through 2015.

Mobile search prompted 30 billion calls to businesses in 2013, reports Harte Hanks.

Pinterest is the most popular social media channel on mobile devices.

Over 30% of Staples' mobile traffic is tablet-driven.

Trend Micro says that 40% of mobile users do not use a password to protect their devices. I would’ve guessed 70%.

Reports say that approximately 85% of iPhone 6 buyers had previous Apple phones. That explains the record pre-order – it was something other than blind faith

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Do QR Codes Have Better Prospects Than The New York Giants?

QR codes have more doubters than the New York Giants, but they may have a better chance than the football team of having a successful fall season.

According to a new Adobe report, 76% of consumers asked said that their QR code scans brought them to a mobile-optimized experience. It provides a lesson about staying current on mobile activity. Report after report in the last 18 months or so put QR codes in the “can do without” pile.

My takeaway from Pew’s expert predictions that, by 2020, most people will adopt smart-device swiping for purchases? Maybe. Even so, will the payment companies and Apple, among many others, be patient for this to grow over a half-decade?

As Yahoo’s David Pogue tweeted, “This business of paying with your phone won't be real magic until it works everywhere (not just the 200K stores with receivers).”

More than three-quarters of the leading brick and mortar department stores use push notifications. Of course, that’s a tactic, not a strategy.

Customers are eager to share their location if you give them something in return, says Ryan Craver, who leads mobile for Lord & Taylor.

I’m not promising that I won't get an Apple Watch (I know myself and, ummm, time will tell), but I’ve been living with the feeling that I'm too connected at times. More often equals bad. Or at least stress that isn’t welcome at what could or should be off-times. I know, I know, it's all about self-control, right? Easier said than done, especially with the expectations of others.

I see that Rolex is advertising on the BBC homepage. Do you think that company feels breath on back of neck with Apple Watch. Probably just a little for now.

Even with an intuitive interface, education needs to come with Apple Watch and health apps. With my now departed Fitbit (it went back due to a recall), I was surprised to know that I was burning calories sleeping.

Speaking of education, the same goes for Apple Pay. My wife's first questions were around unintended purchases while walking by a terminal.

Is it wise for Apple to compel Apple Watch owners to also have an iPhone? Or does that limit sales by shutting out too many who carry other devices?

An app lets women call taxis driven only by women.

Twitter suggests that I follow Karl Rove. It is as clueless as TiVo suggesting poker matches for me, a non-card player. Recommendation engines leave a lot to be desired.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - The Smartphone Turns 20 And No Longer Connects To Fax Machines

The world’s first smartphone just turned 20. Yes, there was a smartphone before the iPhone.

The IBM Simon wasn’t called a smartphone, but it did feature software apps. It could also be linked to a fax machine. Young ‘uns, consult Wikipedia or a history book if you have never heard of a fax machine.

It was amusing to see some tech sites diss TMZ for showing and hyping supposed bogus iPhone 6 photos. Of course, hunting for clicks, the same sites went that route themselves.

Headline: Researchers Say They Can Charge a Phone With Ambient Sound. Me: consumers need a compelling reason to upgrade. A device that constantly has power is meaningful to many.

Half of Facebook and Twitter users get news on those sites, Pew reports. It was on Twitter that I learned about the deaths of Robin Williams and Michael Jackson, not to mention the ultimate fate of Osama bin Laden.

More than one in three seniors in the U.S. will make a digital purchase this year, eMarketer tells us.

Travel "deals" on Twitter remain a head-scratch - who do you know who will head to Ho Chi Minh on Friday as result of Wednesday night "offer"?

How many times are Promoted Tweets repeated? I wasn't interested the first, fifth or 20th time.

Real value - Google Now for Android shows alternate flights when yours gets delayed.

Lookout Mobile Security nabbed $150 million in funding. As was the case with PCs, consumers will be slow to protect their devices. This is an Enterprise play for now.

Apple supposedly wants to be a “hub” of health data and is in talks with top hospitals. Tracking will soon be more robust than calorie counts and steps taken.

More than half of 18- to 24-year-olds say they "never" unplug from technology, according to eMarketer. We at least have that in common.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Including Why The Point-and-Shoot Is Left Home On Vacation

Last week, I saw several 60ish tourists taking NYC photos of landmarks via tablets. The behavior looked funny, but if the oversized device worked for them and for others, who am I to argue? Nowhere to be found – the seemingly pre-historic point-and-shoot cameras. Approximately 144 million of those were sold in 2010, eclipsing all other years. Today? I know no one who has bought one. Do you?

Google is testing a method to bridge the ad-targeting gap between mobile web visitors and mobile app users, Advertising Age reports. Following a consumer from one screen to another is the next frontier.

68% of consumers engage in "content grazing" - multi-tasking using several devices at once, Microsoft Advertising found.

GroupM is seeing 20-30X lift on beacon beta testing. It was called “potentially transformative” by Jesse Wolfersberger (@jesseberger), Director of Consumer Insights at the company.

Nielsen says that 32% of mobile payers are age 25-34. 46% are multicultural. Hispanics have long led in early adoption of mobile products and services.

In the U.S. in Q2, smartphone penetration increased to 70%. Roughly 93% of the devices sold now are smartphones. Both stats came from leading industry analyst Chetan Sharma.

Looking to learn how to on adapt to the changing mobile shopper? I recommend following Ryan Craver (@ryanmcraver) of Lord & Taylor/Hudson Bay.

“Everything is a screen” - do away with the term “mobile”, urges Rachel Pasqua (@rachelpasqua), Head of Mobility at MEC.

Headline: Wireless Charging Is One Step Closer To Being Reality. My take? This is taking as long as improvements to in-air Wi-Fi.

Price savings more than privacy was on the minds when smartphone users were asked about receiving offers in-store, eMarketer said.

We're more than midway through 2014 and we're still being asked "why mobile?" Really.

The first video uploaded to YouTube was an explanation of what’s cool about elephants, Pew said. As I saw on safari during my “Mobilized Marketing” book tour, lots of things are cool about these majestic animals. I loved the experience.

First locker rooms, now the field - the NFL will let teams use tablets on the sidelines during games.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Where Mobile Stands In Lives of 18-24 Year Olds

18-24 year olds in a Bank of America survey are most likely to view their mobile phones as very important (96%) – more so than deodorant (90%) and their toothbrush (93%). Does that say more about the role of mobile or a gross decline in basic sanitary habits?

The core of an American soccer audience? About a quarter of Hispanics and young adults followed the World Cup very closely, according to Pew. Those demographics are highly engaged in mobile, too.

The U.S. mobile ad spending will surpass digital ads and print in two years, eMarketer forecasts.

Predictably vendors are talking up beacons.  My recent conversation with brands say that a robust testing period is needed first. I’ll do a webinar on the topic July 23 for Market Motive http://www.marketmotive.com/training/tutorials/conference-calls-and-workshops/workshops.html.

Shazam has moved inside movie theaters to give second-screen advertising another shot, Adweek says. You have a captive audience, so it isn’t as ill-conceived as one would think.

SAP says “the mobile revolution is now.” Jeez. Just what we need is more hype.

Mobile email opens have increased 400% in the last three years.

The average smartphone user has 21 apps and uses 8 in a week, Survey Analytics reports. Those numbers seem low on the total number and high on the weekly usage.

Separately, Apptentive says that only 4% of customers will still be using an app a year after they download it.

50% of Walmart smartphone owners use mobile to help them shop in stores, the retailer claims.           

Mobile device adoption will grow to 2.4 billion smartphone and 651 million tablet users by 2017, Forrester predicts.

80% of smartphone users want to interact with doctors on mobile devices, according to Cisco. Other than privacy concerns, why wouldn’t one want to do this?

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer: Wanna Pay To Experience My Life? Didn't Think So

An app on Google Glass will let people pay to watch a livestream of everything that you do. Name one person who would do that. In my case, neither my mom, wife, nor anyone else would.

I recommend that we get the basics right – location, device type, personalization and attribution - before we consider scented mobile ads.  This one smells like a gimmick.

Notifications via twitter.com rarely are accurate. When you look , nothing was retweeted and there is no new follower. What am I missing? Probably nothing.

Consumers choose brands that engage their passions 1.5 times more than those that just urge them to buy, Google says. That sounds low to me.

Another one that appears to be lacking? 62% of customers looking for a company on their smartphone expect a mobile-friendly website, according to Forrester.

In related news, 79 percent of mobile users who find a site difficult to use will leave and never return.

Kobe Bryant is reportedly among those pro athletes testing the capabilities of Apple’s  iWatch. Do you think that he put in a request to slow Father Time?

To those who believe all mobile rumors, remember that speculation about Amazon Fire pricing and supposed customer access to free data was dead wrong.

More evidence of convergence - SportsCenter now has a social media producer within ESPN’s control room for each show.

Too many pings or consumer value created? iBeacon has rolled out in 100 stores on one street in Europe.

What planet does this tweeter live on? “Can Facebook retool itself and dominate mobile or will it run its course?”

Gartner: 75% of mobile security breaches will be the result of mobile application misconfiguration.

Globally, the number of people who own use smartphones monthly is expected to increase more than 25% this year.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer -- Are Two-Year-Old Smartphones Useless or Good Enough?

I read on Business Insider where "80% or more of current iPhone users are due for a new phone because they're using old iPhones that are near the end of their useful lives." Says who? Two-year-old or more devices are “useless” for those with limited budgets?

Pew reports that 47% of those mobile users with a household income under $30,000 own a smartphone. Who says that they will put the next purchase of one before anything else?

Techcrunch took the same stance as I did. "The next two years will be the era of good-enough smartphones."

Integrated cross-platform ads are not driving reach, ROI: Nielsen. It’s the early days. The study doesn’t say that they won’t. It’s says that they aren’t.

That study aside, the obvious question from Mary Meeker's new Internet Trends report - with mobile adoption and usage so broad, why are brands slow to use the channel? Mobile now gets 11% of all the digital advertising spend.

Mobile advertising was up 47% year over year, Meeker noted.

The death of the tablet, eh? Tablet units are growing faster than PCs ever did -- +52% in 2013 , Meeker reported.

The U.S. market in on track to exceed $100 billion in mobile data revenues in 2014, analyst Chetan Sharma says.

As compelling as possible products that we'll see, I'm most intrigued by how ultra-strong personalities from Beats play within the Apple world.

A memorable tweet from Southwest Airlines: “You are now free to skip the printer: Mobile boarding passes land at all domestic Southwest airports!”

A new study says that 70% of retail marketers say personalization represents the future of marketing. Do the others think “one to all” will get it done?

Are these tons of World Cup apps meaningful or just for kicks?

Nearly a quarter of digital ad spending by U.S. healthcare and pharma firms will go toward mobile this year, eMarketer says.

Twitter Vs. SMS For SMBs

Regular readers know that I’m bullish on text messaging for small or medium-sized businesses needing to bring more customers more often.

There are tens of thousands of examples of SMBs seeing value in the development and nurturing of a permission-based database. One that I heard about recently is a tattoo shop in Utah that fills open appointment slots by sending out offers to opt-ins that get viewed and acted upon within minutes.

There are dozens of other examples in my Mobilized Marketing book. 

Of course, SMBs have alternatives. One is Twitter, a service that promises that it can help an SMB “connect with potential customers and increase your follower base.”

Follower bases are good, but what about the more customers, more often need?

Let’s take a look:

Twitter encourages SMBs to create a presence on the social network, then to integrate it across all marketing channels.

It recommends that businesses feature their @username on their website and ask customers to follow them. Further, Twitter suggests SMBs import an email contact list to follow and interact with customers. Also, it encourages businesses to join industry-related conversations and connect with influencers through hashtags.

Through a lead form, it offers a marketing “kickstart” with supposed easy tips, templates and a content calendar.

Twitter has dedicated account for SMBs (@TwitterSmallBiz) as well as a blog

https://blog.twitter.com/small-business.

Have you followed an SMB on Twitter?

Have you gone into a brick and mortar or bought on line after seeing a tweet from an SMB?

Do you know an SMB that is using Twitter and seeing success?

Is there an SMB that replaced a permission-based SMS club with Twitter and grew sales and loyalty?

Twitter says that it has 255 million active monthly users with 77% of the accounts outside the U.S.

There are 326 million mobile users in America, according to CTIA – The Wireless Association. comScore says that 75% text on a regular basis. Multiple studies report that approximately one-third of mobile subscribers are interested in joining a text club from a brand or business.

There just doesn’t seem to be any rationale for using Twitter and not text.

--

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program http://Goo.gl/t3fgW, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Making Sense of The Mobile Wallet Hype

One in 5 mobile handsets will have mobile wallet functionality by 2018, per Juniper Research. Functionality means squat without usage.

I have long said that we don't live in world of absolutes - no, tablets haven't become irrelevant. As far as the latest statistics, 18.5% of all marketing emails were opened on a tablet in Q1 2014, up 5% in 9 months.

A mobile vendor that I won't name (I have friends there) sent me email starting Dear Maryann. And they sell the concept of personalization.

72% of all tweets about a sporting event on TV is tweeted by someone under 35 years old (Nielsen).

Headline: Hispanic Consumers Embrace Mobile Technology. It's one thing in the industry that hasn't changed since I got in in 2005.

I saw where Fitbit has 50% of the world’s wearable market. Yeah, but we’re in second inning.

There’s news that Verizon is about to target its subscribers with ads. No one has more data on users than the carriers.

Facebook has launched new Shazam-like features. The jury is out on whether a big number of users want to access information this way.

YouTube reaches more 18-34 year olds than any cable network.

Citi saw the growth of mobile banking go from 22% to 59% in two years.

Gartner says that the global spend on mobile ads is expected to hit 18 billion, an increase from the estimated $13.1 billion last year.

15% of all e-commerce sales are estimated to come from mobile, McKinsey reports.

Tweet from Bill Murray – “Nuns in wheelchairs = Virgin mobile.”

Houston first responders and doctors in dispatch centers are using tablets in treatment of patients who don't need an emergency room trip.

A final few words from Arianna Huffington - "We take better care of our smartphones than we do ourselves." Are you guilty as charged?

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Focusing On the Unfocused Two-Year-Olds

Thirty-eight percent of toddlers 2 or under are using a smartphone or tablet, according to Common Sense Media. Try doing a “focus” group with this crowd.

Declaring jet lag “fundamentally a math problem,” researchers say they have devised a mobile app to overcome it. Entrain tells you when to get more exposure to light and when not to do so. I use the old-fashioned method – I have three dogs to tell me when to open my eyes. They never forget.

The American smartphone user spends 30 minutes a day updating social networks.

The spend on location-targeted mobile ads is expected to increase 55 percent from $2.9B to $4.9B in 2014 & reach $15.7B in 2018, Mediapost says.

The average U.S. mobile consumer spent 86 percent of time on apps, only 14 percent on mobile web, according to Flurry.

Half of U.S. millennials own a laptop, smartphone and tablet.

CNBC and others report that Amazon will announce its first phone, with a 3D screen, by June.

Meanwhile, the Amazon Appstore hits 200,000 apps, almost tripling in one year.

The $1,500 price tag, plus the use of technology that we know is evolving, are reasons to not buy Google Glasses during public sale this week. Still, there is some temptation.

Gaming apps accounted for 41 percent of downloads from the Apple and Google stores in February.

Twitter has 580 million inactive users.

A prototype charger can power up a smartphone in 30 seconds. The question is whether it can be mass-produced.

I see that Klout has redesigned its iOS app. I would be more excited if it redesigned Klout.

Turner says video streams of March Madness were up 42 percent.

There are now more mobile-only or mobile-centric homes in the US (55 percent; 133 million adults) than those with landlines, industry analyst Greg Sterling reports.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - The "BlackBerry Find" Edition

Nothing says that there are differences in mobile phone usage better than a photo that shows a teenager in England stuck in a storm drain trying to retrieve her BlackBerry. In America, a teenager would head down there and find hundreds of the less-than-popular device. Actually, he or she would never make the effort.

Eighty-five percent of time Twitter users spend on Twitter happens on a mobile device, comScore says. Also, mobile Twitter usage in big cities primarily comes from iPhones, according to a separate report.

Within days, there were 12 million downloads of Microsoft Office on iOS devices. As industry analyst Chetan Sharma points out, it was the most success Microsoft has had with mobile.

Forty-one years ago this month, the first cell phone call was made. The first mobile phones cost $3,300 each and had a battery life of about 20 minutes.

An Apple touchscreen patent shows the company supposedly has figured out when we’re mad at our iPhone. But what if we are mad at something else?

Are you marketing to older folks? Pew is out with a new report – 59 percent of senior citizens use the Internet; 77 percent have cell phones; 47 percent have broadband at home.

One third of wearable device wearers are ditching them, a new stat from Endeavor Partners says.

By the end of the year, there will be more active mobile devices than the population -- 7.3 billion.

The majority of global mobile video viewing in Q4 2013 was content more than 30 minutes.

Do you think March Madness took mobile users away from their devices? Hardly. Over half of U.S. smartphone and tablet users were using mobile to stay current.

In Nigeria, over 500 facilities are using mobile to diagnose and treat tuberculosis.

SMB mobile website adoption in America is now 23 percent, Hibu says.

YouTube gets 50 percent of time spent on mobile entertainment apps.

I wonder if my wife will be OK if I opt in for Hooters offers via SMS in the name of research.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Of WhatsAppitis and More Pictures of Little Jimmy

Can tapping out mobile messages damage your health? A Granada doctor diagnosed sore wrists as WhatsAppitis. The treatment was "complete abstinence from using the phone to send messages," along with anti-inflammatory drugs.

Twitter now allows picture tagging, up to 4 photos per tweet. Did you see my kid in his hat. And with his sister?

50 percent of users say mobile is the first and last thing they touch when awake. There are punchlines galore. Just not going there.

By 2015, 43 percent of business tablet users will print from mobile devices, HP says. What’s taking so long?

Mobile advertising and search investments by marketers are forecast to increase an average 55 percent annually in 2014, according to Jack Myers.

Millennial Media ‏says that mobile rich media can increase click-through rates by as much as 350 percent over standard banners.

Nineteen percent of Google’s ad revenue came from mobile search ads in 2013 with eMarketer projecting that it will rise to 30 percent over the next three years.

Rankings are subjective by nature but Amazon is only No. 18 on Fast Company’s most innovative list?

My Fitbit Force is being returned due to recall. Actually, that’s great news since innovation is happening fast in the wearables category. Will get more for less.

BlackBerry beat quarterly expectations and made progress on its turnaround. Who expected that?

LinkedIn profiles with images are 11 times more likely to be viewed than those without. I would’ve guessed 50-1.

Headline asked if sales of high-end smartphones have peaked. You get more today for less. That’s not hard to understand.

Report: Sprint to launch HD Voice nationwide by July. Voice is the killer app? In 2014?

Instagram now has 200 million users, including 50 million in the last six months.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - The "Monkeys Flying" Edition

NBC received the highest Opening Ceremony ratings in 20 years. I’ve loudly complained that we should be able to see it live on mobile, online, or elsewhere. Given the numbers, that will happen when monkeys fly out of our “you know whats”.

NBC not-withstanding, we live in a real-time world. Imagine if Twitter delayed tweets the way NBC delayed coverage.

Samsung reportedly gave Olympians phones because it didn’t want to see the Apple logo at the Opening Ceremony.

Amazon has updated its iPhone app to enable users detect and buy products using the camera.

In Starbucks, I observed a woman in her 70's sitting with girl under 10. Both were on iPhones. What generational technology divide?

Despite the hype, doctors still turn to desktops for most work purposes, ahead of smartphones or tablets, according to eMarketer.

Mobile advertising was more than 75 percent of Twitter’s total advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2013.

60 percent of mobile users expect a website to load in less than 3 seconds.

14 percent of people captured “naughty” content on a mobile device, according to McAfee. That depends on what your definition of “is” is.

Worldwide mobile data traffic will grow almost 11 times the next 4 years, Cisco says. Also, monthly mobile data traffic jumped 80 percent year-over-year in 2013.

25 years ago, half of the world's population had never made a telephone call, much less played Angry Birds.

70 percent of mining executives believe mobile devices have prevented accidents, according to SAP.

iPhone and iPad thefts alone accounted for 18 percent of all grand larcenies in New York City last year, according to the New York Police Department.

One billion people have tried Twitter and three quarters of them have stopped using it, according to multiple reports.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - The "Fat Chance" Edition

Headline – “Using smartphones too much may make you anxious, fat and a poor student.” So may Twinkies.

The text message turned 21 this week. With 160 characters, there is nothing sexy about text message marketing. Except that it works. In that regard, it likely leads in sex appeal.

Approximately, 100 million U.S. Internet users will log on to social networks via smartphones this year, according to eMarketer. Almost 80 million will use tablets to do the same, up 52 percent from 2012.

In five days, the video of the final play of the Iron Bowl was watched 2,245,386 times on Auburn's YouTube page.

Amazon, the king of personalization, delivered to me an offer for laser toenail fungus removal treatment. Flying trapeze lessons weren't available?

The tweets off of last week’s Amazon "news" drone on. Five years of this?

Text, coupons have replaced flash deals as a mobile holiday focus with just 5 percent of retailers using daily deals, eMarketer says.

Gogo tops my list of technology that needed major improvement in 2013 but failed miserably. Meanwhile, the company’s Twitter description says it’s “everyone’s favorite part of flying”. Someone has lost his or her mind.

Quote I read – “"Shopping is in the process of being forever changed by mobile." You think?

Smartphone sales have surged 61 percent in Southeast Asia. Android dominates with a 72 percent share, but that will change with Apple’s deal with China Mobile.

There are an estimated six billion mobile telephone devices used in the world today, and, for the first time, a small majority are smartphones.

In Japan, you can buy underwear for your smartphone. Some things should never come to America. This is surely one of them.