Recently, I spoke at the Forrester Consumer Forum here in Chicago, titled “Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.” I’d like to share with you some of the findings from my presentation, which focused on consumer trends in social networking.
I personally find the worldwide expansion of social networking sites fascinating. For example, it’s commonly thought that with the success of sites like MySpace and Facebook, the U.S. is the hub of social networking activity. However, Asia is not only the fastest-growing region for social networking, it is also the largest:
Gas prices are going through
the roof and the value of the dollar is dropping through the floor. As
a result, many economic forecasters are predicting doom and gloom for
the all-important 2007 holiday shopping season. Not eMarketer. eMarketer predicts that online holiday sales will reach $31 billion this season, up 18.5% over last year.
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Personalized e-mails boost open rates, according to a MailerMailer
study. The e-mail service provider found that personalized "subject"
lines in particular increased the number of times recipients opened
their mailings. The "subject" line is so important that, even when marketers have
recipients' permission, the wrong line can still mean trouble.
"The
e-mail’s 'from' and 'subject' lines become key elements that help
recipients quickly decide whether the e-mail is spam," said David
Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer.
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Since 2001, most Internet users say that they have continued reading the same amount of printed material, according to the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future. Three-quarters said so in 2001, and 70% did in 2006.
But the number of Internet users saying they spend less time with offline printed materials rose from 19.3% in 2001 to 23.2% in 2006.
In a statement accompanying the findings, the USC Annenberg Center said Internet users "are using printed materials less often and are instead seeking out that information online, frequently from the online versions of the same sources. Everything in our work strongly suggests that this trend will increase significantly."
A l'horizon 2015, le très haut débit (THD) représentera 27 % du total
des accès à l'Internet rapide en Europe de l'Ouest, soit 32,7 millions d'abonnés,
selon une étude prospective publiée par l'Idate. "Si le haut débit classique tiré
par l'ADSL restera le moyen d'accès dominant, le THD commencera à remplacer l'ADSL
à partir de 2010/2012", précise Roland Montagne, responsable de la practice Broadband
au centre d'études et de conseil spécialisé dans les télécommunications. Cette
évolution se caractérisera par la place prépondérante du FTTH comme technologie
du THD, avec une moyenne de 18 % d'abonnés à la fibre en Europe
en 2015, soit environ 21,5 millions d'abonnés, tandis que le VDSL ne représentera
que 9 % du total de la base haut débit.
Taken as a whole, consumers
from Western European nations such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain and
the United Kingdom are among the world’s keenest users of the Web.
But there are still differences in the rates of Internet usage and
broadband penetration from country to country. Take the UK, for
instance.
”Of the five major Western European nations, the United Kingdom has
embraced the Internet most avidly — it was the first of these countries
to see more than half its population online,” said Karin von Abrams,
eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report Western Europe: Internet Users and Usage.
“Though the French, Germans and Italians were slower to respond to the
Internet opportunity, all three have reached 50% penetration and even
Spain is growing now.” In fact, in Spain the online population is actually growing more
rapidly than in France, Germany, Italy and the UK in percentage terms,
although from a much smaller base. eMarketer estimates that this discrepancy will persist through 2011.
As other major European countries pass 60% online penetration, Spain
will struggle to reach this milestone. Meanwhile, the UK will race
ahead to reach almost 75% online penetration.
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Hyatt Place today announced the hotel industry’s first customized webpage populated with location-specific content using iGoogle1. This marks the first time a hotel brand is providing guests with the ability to immediately view relevant, local online content to assist them during their stay.
All guests taking advantage Hyatt Place’s complimentary Wi-Fi will now access Google’s services and view location-specific content immediately once they log in, including:
Major European brands are set to increase their mobile marketing, according to an Airwide Solutions-sponsored study by Vanson Bourne.
More than one-quarter of the 50 companies surveyed had already
launched live SMS text-messaging campaigns, and nearly one-fifth had
launched live MMS multimedia campaigns. "Among
the most important lessons learned so far is that the way in which a
mobile branding campaign works in delivering something of value to the
user is just as important as how a mobile campaign looks," said John du
Pre Gauntt, senior analyst at eMarketer.
"This lesson is more than just a question of technology," he said. "It is a
function of the interactions among all the players who collaborate to
deliver any mobile experience."
