Content That's Worth Paying For

I found this terrific INFOGRAPHIC that explains a shift in our buying behaviors.  For the preceding decade, content has been available for free online, both legally and illegally. But people are now buying content because technology is making content more convenient, attractive, relevant and emotional. From iTunes to Amazon, from Netflix to the New York Times.


The infographic is really an advertisement for an upcoming trade show / industry event put on by Business Insider. It's relevant to Adva Mobile Artists because monetizing your mobile fan base has always been the cornerstone of the mobile marketing platform we offer. Here's what the infographic says about content purchases, and how it relates to your Adva Mobile marketing platform:

1. Paying for Content is more convenient: We'll pay for flexibility across devices. We've learned to make micropayments, and pay from our phones. The Adva Mobile Storefront makes it easy for fans to purchase your digital content and physical goods right on their phones. 

2. It's Attractive: the visual web is here, so we can see what we're buying online. Freemium models have taught us to accept higher quality when we pay. The Adva Mobile Storefront lets you distinguish between content you want to give away and content you want to sell, and images associated with the product are presented on your store.

3. Your Content is more Relevant: Your data is everywhere. But options for your fans are scarcer as the big content providers scale back their free services. That gives Adva Mobile Artists more power to engage fans with free and paid for content and products, tailoring bundles to drive revenues. 

4.   We're buying on Emotion: With so much information, and the deluge of choices, we choose purchased based upon how they make us feel. Your Mobile connection to your fans is personal to them and their phones are always with them.

Although mobile purchases are billions of dollars today, we're just at the beginning of a revolution that will see more purchases being made using your mobile phones. Adva Mobile Artists can take advantage of this trend -whether through linking to iTunes and Amazon or using your Adva Mobile Direct to Fan Storefront. Every Artist should have items for sale on their mobile site and Apps.

You can see the infographic in more detail at  http://www.businessinsider.com/infographic-content-40-and-ignition-2012-8#ixzz24ORjyS3c

Nuggets from the "Meeker" Report

We've been followers of the Mary Meeker Report for a number of years now. Mary used to do this report when she was at Morgan Stanley and is now at Kleiner Perkins. Think of it as a State of the Union address, but for the Web.

The report, co-authored by Kleiner digital team member Liang Wu, is an in-depth exploration of the global population online: what they’re doing, where they’re going and how they’re consuming the bits and bytes of the Web. This year’s version was released at the D10 conference in May.

It's 112 slides, but you can go through it fast, especially the interesting middle section on re-imagination.
http://kpcb.com/insights/2012-internet-trends

Some of our favorite nuggets:


Mobile use is exploding, and it can be leveraged for revenue.

Who’s online: According to Meeker’s presentation, there are 2.3 billion global Internet users in 2011 — an 8 percent year-over-year growth rate since 2008, largely driven by emerging markets. Meanwhile, there are 1.1 billion global mobile 3G subscribers. Of the top 10 countries addding users to the Web over the 2008-2011 period, China ranks first and India second — with the U.S. coming in 8th. However, the U.S. comes in second in terms of total Internet users in 2011.

Apple: In terms of mobile device sales in the Apple universe, the iPad left its “siblings in [the] dust,” according to the report, with sales growing at three times the pace of the iPhone and all but obliterating iPod sales — the device that started the iRevolution in Apple’s mp3/mobile product universe.

We're noting this also at Adva Mobile, and our soon to be released next version will deliver HTML5 mobile sites to render correctly on iPads.

Android: The report finds that global shipments of phones on the Android platform have grown four times faster than iPhone over the past 13 quarters. But mobile phones still dominate smartphones, with 6.1 billion mobile phone subscriptions in the world, relative to 953 million smartphone subscriptions.

This is why we're bigger proponents of Mobile Web than Apps - you need both, but there are 6 times as many people who can engage you if you have mobile web compared to just an App.

The tablet market grows: In the U.S. tablet ownership is on the rise, with 29 percent of U.S. adults owning a tablet — up from 2 percent less than three years ago.

Mobile, mobile, mobile...: The good news in the report? It’s all about mobile, which accounts for 10 percent of Internet traffic. (In December of 2009, mobile accounted for only one percent of Web traffic.) And with this growth comes cash, with mobile monetization “growing rapidly.”  And when it comes to getting the biggest bang for your advertising buck, the Web — particularly mobile — is where advertisers should turn. Where not to go? Print (of course).

Lot's more nuggets in the report, including the re-imagination section. And thanks to the fine article by Emi Kolawole in the Washington Post for organizing a summary of the key points.