Daily Bits

Arnold Zafra

AdMob: 11 Phones Account for 96% of Android Traffic

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Mobile analytics firm AdMob has just released its March 2010 Mobile Metrics Report and I can’t help but cringe over the fact that while the Android OS is enjoying significant traffic it is still falls inferior over the iPhone OS. According to AdMob’s report, while the Android OS is steadily gaining traffic while it tries to reach the iPhone’s status, the fact still remains that there are more mobile phone helping the Android OS achieve this feat.

In fact, 11 Android devices account for 96% of the Android platform’s overall mobile traffic. Total Android phones currently available in the market is around 35 handsets from several phone manufacturers. In contrast the iPhone is running on devices developed by one manufacturer.

Looking at the specific Android platforms and their share of market will give us the Android 1.5 with 38% of market share, Android 2.0/2.1 gets 35% of the share and Android.6 getting 26% of the market share.  In terms of manufacturers, both Motorola and HTC tops the list with 44% and 43% of March 2010 mobile traffic.

Other key results of the AdMob report include:

  • Motorola Droid was the leading Android handset in March 2010 generating 32 percent of Android traffic, while the Google Nexus One drove only two percent of Android traffic.
  • At least 54 percent of Android traffic came from devices with a QWERTY keyboard.
  • Three devices – the iPhone 3GS (39 percent), second generation iPod touch (25 percent) and iPhone 3G (20 percent) – generated 84 percent of total iPhone OS traffic.
  • iPhone 3GS traffic share has increased from 30 percent in September 2009 to 39 percent in March 2010. The 1st Generation iPhone only generated 2 percent of iPhone OS requests in March 2010.
  • Total worldwide traffic in AdMob’s network increased 18 percent month-over-month.

3 Reasons Why Foursquare Should Not Sell Out

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With its userbase already reaching 1 million this week, coming from a 170,000 membership during the last quarter of 2009, there’s no doubt Foursquare is the hottest and fastest growing location-based social networking service right now. With 20 employees running it, it is not so surprising that talks are already popping out regarding possible sell-out.

And if you’re still doubting whether Foursquare is hot right now, what if we tell you who the rumored buyers are. Well, some of the major players who are reportedly eyeing Foursquare include Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook. Yahoo was rumored to be willing to buy Foursquare for $100 million. Now, the question is not whether Foursquare will sell out, but rather should Foursquare sell out?

I don’t think so. And here are 3 reasons why Foursquare should not sell out.

1. Location-based social networking is hot and still growing

Both three major social media players namely, Google, Twitter and Facebook are gradually exploring the location-based social media sphere. Google is slowly evolving its Buzz service to have the same cool features as Foursquare. Twitter has activated geolocation of tweets and Facebook has been trying out these feature as well. As for Foursquare, it’s the very essence of its existence – location aware social sharing and networking. Foursquare just need to ponder on why the three major players are wanting to have Foursquare feature’s to understand that it’s going to be the next big thing in the social media ecosystem.

2. Along with growth is the commercial revenue potential

Foursquare currently offers free advertising to small shops and restaurants as it generates revenue from selling ads business chains. It recently launched Foursquare for Business where it gives simple self-service tools that would allow business manager to cook up various kinds of special gigs that would attract customers to business establishments. This is a good start at trying to tap on a business model. Once this service goes viral and businesses spread the word out how Foursquare is helping out drive in customers, you can just imagine how big it will be for Foursquare. Location-based social networking and recommendation site has all the potentials to bring in revenue whether be it for ads or other means. And Foursquare is already ahead of the game. [Read more…] about 3 Reasons Why Foursquare Should Not Sell Out

7 Reasons to Work in the Cloud

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The following is a guest post by Selena Narayanasamy. An avid lover of all things caffeine, Selena  currently does SEO and is a social media marketer/analyst as well as a writer. She has multiple degrees in business, marketing and finance. Along with all this, she also writes for Searchenginejournal.com and is growing Esvienne.com, her own personal social media and tech blog.  Twitter- @esvienne

The cloud is something that has been all around us for quite some time now, but we may not have noticed. Many of us didn’t think we needed to utilize the cloud; and we’re right. We have our own ways of managing tasks and information, from planners to our cell phones. There are certain markets that should be using the cloud, specifically small and large businesses. Since the cloud is ever-changing and nothing solid, it’s often confusing to a company who may be considering a work-flow overhaul and is looking at different options. There are 7 reasons in specific to use the cloud:

1. Employees are utilizing the same resources:

This can bog down your network and kill all chances of getting a good system flowing. Frustration with editing and slow resources can add stress to employees and hinder their abilities to work effectively and efficiently. Having many tools available in the cloud will allow there to be a place where everyone can work and collaborate freely. You won’t have to keep asking and waiting for someone to email you a document or a zip file. [Read more…] about 7 Reasons to Work in the Cloud

Google Buzz Posts Are All Auto-Feeds

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Here’s an interesting look into the current buzz being posted on Google Buzz. The study was conducted by Post Rank which tracks engagement activities on over two dozen social networks and recently added buzz posted on Google Buzz.

During their analysis of  Google Buzz feeds, Post Rank found some interesting points regarding all the noise that have been building up on Google Buzz.

Turns out, approximately 60% of the content on Buzz is from Twitter! Many users have hooked up their accounts to automatically repost their content from Twitter either directly, through FriendFeed, or via another service.

The runner up to Twitter? Another set of bots! This time, it’s automated alerts from feeds, e.g. CNN publishes a new story and a bot pushes it out to the Buzz stream. All in all, those two sources account for almost 90% of the Buzz stream, and even in the remainder there is a long tail of Google Latitude updates, ping.fm, and others. Unfortunately, there just doesn’t seem to be much original and/or human-generated content in Buzz. Perhaps you shouldn’t hurry to install that Buzz button on your site just yet…

What does this all mean. If you’re a social media marketeer eyeing to implement some marketing campaign on Google Buzz, well you might want to hold back for awhile as there is no clear chance that your campaign would reap higher engagement.

It seems that the activities on Google Buzz right now are all automated. Well, of course you might be engaging with “real people” in your own Buzz streams and that’s pretty understandable since you’ve selected people to follow on Google Buzz yourself.

But then as what Post Rank’s study yielded, majority of Google Buzz posters are actually non-human.

Text Messaging Among U.S. Teen Explodes

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Following our recent coverage of  how young online people value their privacy, here comes another report centering on the same demographics this time looking into the exploding text messaging habit of U.S. teens. The study, conducted by Pew Internet shows how teen-agers have embraced text messaging and made it as their main communication medium among circle of friends.

According to the study, some 75% of 12-17 year-olds now own cell phones.  And those phones have become indispensable among teens when communicating with their friends. Around 72%  of American teens engaged in text messaging. Even more interesting is the fact that more than half or 54% to be exact of American teens are daily texters. In fact, texting has overtaken other forms of interaction and communication among American teens today.

Other key findings of the Pew Internet study include:

  • One in three teens sends more than 100 text messages a day, or 3000 texts a month.
  • Calling is still a central function of the cell phone for teens and for many teens, voice is the primary mode of conversing with parents.
  • Girls more fully embrace most aspects of cell phone-based communication.
  • For parents, teens’ attachment to their phones is an area of conflict and regulation.
  • Most schools treat the phone as a disruptive force that must be managed and often excluded from the school and the classroom.
  • Cell phones help bridge the digital divide by providing internet access to less privileged teens. Still, for some teens, using the internet from their mobile phone is “too expensive.”
  • Cell phones are seen as a mixed blessing. Parents and teens say phones make their lives safer and more convenient. Yet both also cite new tensions connected to cell phone use.
  • Cell phones are not just about calling or texting – with expanding functionality, phones have become multimedia recording devices and pocket-sized internet connected computers
  • 4% of teens say they have sent a sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude image of themselves to someone via text message

So there. Now you know what your kids are up to in case they use their mobile phones more often than you’ve expected.

Are You Going to Play FarmVille on Your iPhone, iPad or Android Phones?

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I was supposed to cover something else but stumble upon this post and of course, it’s about so FarmVille, so I should cover it first. Anyway, Mashable is running this report saying that Farmville may soon be coming to the iPhone, iPad and Android devices.

Of course you know Farmville, right? If you’re on Facebook and you have not played Farmville even just for once, chances are you’ve received updates from your friends saying that – so and so have harvested something from their farm. Yes, that’s Farmville folks.

Anyway, one proof cited by the report is the blog Supererogatory found out that the domain names farmvilleandroid.com, farmvilleipad.com and farmvilleiphone.com have been registered under DNStination which happens to be the registrar of FarmVille.com.

If those domains were not enough to convince you that FarmVille is coming to mobile platforms, how about a Zynga spokesperson response to Mashable’s inquiry saying – “Zynga plans to expand to various mobile platforms. We cannot provide additional information at this time.”

That’s pretty obvious, right? Unfortunately, the Zynga spokersperson did give out any other detail. But it’s probably enough to elicit some excitement among FarmVille users and fans which currently number around 80 million right now.

Are you ready for FarmVille mobile? Will you play FarmVille on your mobile phones?