A new report from e-commerce platform maker Demandware dug into today's mobile shopping trends among consumers and found that retailers are falling short of delivering the experiences customers want. Although there's high demand for things like barcode scanning, branded applications, mobile checkout, price comparison services, mobile coupons, access to mobile product information and more, many retailers simply aren't offering these types of tools to their customers.
Online social networking sites have often been accused of separating people from the real world, and providing them with the illusion of connection through virtual relationships which aren't the equivalent of their offline counterparts. But that's not actually the case, a new study says. Facebook users actually have more close relationships than non-users, and are more trusting, more politically engaged and get more social support than other Internet users.
According to a report from CNBC, Facebook is planning a Q1 2012 IPO which could be "pegged at north of $100 billion." The social networking company's IPO may be triggered by a section of the Securities and Exchange Act known as "the 500 rule," which states that a private company with over 500 investors must begin to release quarterly financial information to the SEC, just as public companies do, CNBC explains.
This news comes alongside a second report, which states that Facebook's growth is slowing down in certain key markets, including the U.S.
Social media monitoring firm SocialNuggets was tuned into Apple's developer conference (WWDC) this week, and specifically the news revealed during CEO Steve Jobs' keynote address. The firm's goal was to see what Internet users had to say about all of Apple's new products and services.
To reach its conclusions, SocialNuggets monitored over 12,000 social media mentions, blog posts, forum postings and other online mentions. The results are not surprising. For the most part, the reaction to nearly all of Apple's announcements, from iOS 5 to iCloud and beyond, was overwhelmingly positive.
According to social media software maker Wildfire, the top 10 spots for Facebook check-ins include several airports, Disneyland, Times Square NYC and, um...Facebook headquarters. That's right. Out of Facebook's nearly 700 million users around the world, the offices of Facebook are seeing enough check-ins to make the company's top 10. What does that mean for Facebook Places? Is the service not seeing the adoption Facebook would like?
Did you know that men aged 30 to 49 do more mobile shopping than their peers? Or that 50% of Groupon's business over the next 2 years will come from mobile devices? Or that Starbucks has seen over 3 million micro-payment transactions? These are the sorts of tidbits of information that a new infographic on mobile shopping and e-commerce trends helps to visualize.
In the United States and Western Europe, the Internet is ubiquitous. Or, at least it seems that way. But, did you know that New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, South Korea and Japan all have higher rates of Internet penetration than the U.S.?
That is what an infographic from public relations and research company Edelman tells us about Internet usage in the Asia-Pacific region. New Zealand is the most digitally connected country in the Pacific Rim with an 85.4% Internet penetration rate. No wonder our founder, Richard MacManus, hails from there. Check out the rest of the infographic after the jump.
Streaming music services like Spotify, MOG, Rdio, Grooveshark, Slacker Radio and others are making headlines for their innovations in today's digital music economy and its extension onto our mobile devices, into our homes and even into our cars. But when it comes to who's paying for the premium (i.e., "paid") level of these services, a new study shows that it's often indie music fans who are footing the bill.
How big is YouTube? It's biiiiig - 3 billion views per day big. On this, YouTube's sixth birthday, the Google-owned video sharing service released a few impressive stats (via infographic, of course), detailing its impressive numbers. Today, users upload more than 48 hours - yes, two days worth! - of videos every minute. This represents a 37% increase in the number of uploads over the last six months and a 100% increase over last year.
Location-based media company JiWire has released a new report detailing the mobile shopping trends among the "on-the-go" audience, which JiWire defines as people using tablets, smartphones or laptops away from their home or workplace. According to the study, 79% of these users are becoming more comfortable making purchases on their mobile devices, even for big ticket items over $1,000.
It also found that these consumers are heavily engaged with local deals services like Groupon and LivingSocial, for example, and had a high demand for tablet computers.
