Phones account for the majority of non-computer traffic. Mobile devices drive 4.4% of total digital traffic, tablets contribute 1.9%, and other non-computer devices send 0.5% of traffic.

The comScore data come from a recent report entitled Digital Omnivores: How Tablets, Smartphones and Connected Devices are Changing U.S. Digital Media Consumption Habits. The white paper is available for free (with registration) from comScore's website.

We reported earlier this year that worldwide mobile data traffic is expected to increase 26-fold to 75 exabytes per year (!) by 2015. That's 19 billion DVDs, just to give you a sense. To put it another way, that's 75 times the size of the entire Internet in the year 2000. The mobile revolution is underway, and it behooves those who make Web content to get onboard.

How do you split up your Web use between desktop/laptop, mobile and tablets? Tell us in the comments.

Instead, Gartner reports that Android overtook Symbian in unit sales, but Symbian is still slightly ahead in terms of market share. IDC also reported that Symbian is the "market leader" at present.

That's not to say that Android isn't growing meteorically - Gartner reported that Android as an operating system grew 888.8% in 2010 and is now in the number two position worldwide. Its fourth quarter sales were driven by broad availability of devices from companies like HTC, Samsung and Motorola.

Symbian's market share dropped in the fourth quarter to 32.6% (32.6 million units), allowing Android to take over in unit sales. However, says Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner, "the Symbian OS is also used by Fujitsu and Sharp as well as in legacy products from Sony Ericsson and Samsung. This aggregated volume kept Symbian slightly ahead of Android."

Nokia shipped 461.3 million units in 2010, a 7.5% drop since 2009. In market share, Nokia dropped 6.7% since 2009.

Meanwhile, the number 3 and 4 slots were held by RIM and iOS, respectively. RIM sold 47.5 million units - up 38.2% over last year. But its market share declined from 19.5% in Q4 2009 to 13.7% in Q4 2010.

Apple sold 46.6 million units in 2010, up 87.2% from 2009. It has maintained its 16% market share in Q4 2010.

In addition, IDC positioned Nokia as the top vendor in smartphone shipments and market share in its recent report too.

It's also a major increase from Cisco's report last year, which forecasted an increase to 40 exabytes by 2014.

Compared with Last Year

In last year's annual snapshot of mobile data traffic, Cisco had predicted traffic would jump from 0.09 exabytes per month in 2009 to 0.2 exabytes per month in 2010, and by 2014, it would reach 3.6 exabytes per month.

Those figures (at least for 2010), were right on the mark - even a little lower than what the actual data collected ended up showing. According to this latest report, the monthly data traffic in 2010 was 237 petabytes per month, while Cisco had predicted 204.8 petabytes previously (0.2 exabytes = 204.8 petabytes).

By 2015: 6.3 Exabytes per Month

Now Cisco is extending its earlier forecast to 2015, the year when mobile data traffic will reach 6.3 exabytes per month,  a compound annual growth rate of 92%.

By 2015, there will be more than 5.6 billion personal devices, like smartphones and tablets, connected to mobile networks as well as 1.5 billion machine-to-machine nodes - a stat that's equivalent to nearly one mobile connection for every person on earth, says Cisco.

Today's average mobile connection generates 65 megabytes of traffic per month, which is about 15 MP3 music files. By 2015, that will increase 17 times to 1,118 megabytes per month, or 260 MP3's.

Growth Trends: Mobile Video, Tablets

The continuing mobile data surge comes from, in large part, mobile video traffic. This traffic is expected to represent 66% of all mobile data traffic by 2015.

Also expected to grow dramatically is tablet device use, which will increase 205-fold from 2010 to 2015, the highest growth rate for any device category. Combined with smartphones, laptops and other portable tablet devices, this group of personal devices will account for 87% of the global mobile traffic by 2015.

Tablets in particular will generate 248 petabytes per month by 2015 - that's more than the entire global mobile network did in 2010 (237 petabytes per month)! The same will also be true for machine-to-machine connections - 295 petabytes in 2015.

Contributing to the increased consumption, too, is the increasing global mobile network connection speeds. The average connection speed doubled from 2009 to 2010 and will increase 10-fold by 2015.

By Region

Mobile data traffic is now outpacing fixed broadband traffic, says Cisco. Last year, it grew 4.2 times as fast. The regions with the highest growth rates are the Middle East and Africa, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 129%.

Latin America will have a 111% CAGR, Central and Eastern Europe will have a 102% CAGR, Asia-Pacific a 101% CAGR, Western Europe a 91% CAGR, North America an 83% CAGR and Japan a 70% CAGR.

For a more detailed look into these findings, you can download the full report from Cisco.com here.

Says Nielsen, "this race might still be too close to call."

However, as noted above, the margin of error is too close to really give the winning title to any of the three.

The stats are remarkably different when looked at in terms of recent acquirers (as defined by Nielsen, "recent" means within the past 6 months). Here, you can more clearly visualize Android's dramatic rise over the course of 2010, from June to November, the months which Nielsen analyzed. Clearly, more new smartphone users are choosing Android (40.8%), instead of BlackBerry (19.2%) or Apple (26.9%).

Nielsen doesn't go so far as to speculate on why Android is gaining, but it could very well be the lower price points for Android devices that seal the deal for many consumers. Some Android phones are priced so low - for example the $179 Huawei Ascend on MetroPCS or the $99 (with rebate) Samsung Intercept on Sprint - that they're almost comparable to feature phone prices. Considering that, up until recently, roughly two-thirds of the market consisted of feature phone users, pricing has been a critical component in mobile phone choice. But now, thanks to the availability of more low-cost phones combined with the new, lower-priced data plans offered by many carriers, smartphones are becoming more affordable for price-sensitive consumers.

So Who's Winning? You Are.

Although much of the focus of today's news is on who's winning the smartphone race, the real answer is simple: it's the consumer, of course.

Smartphone adoption is increasing in the U.S. In November 2010, 45% of recent acquirers chose a smartphone, said Nielsen, compared with 34% back in June. It's obvious that the demand for smartphones is growing as the race between the different platforms heats up, with each trend fueling the other. For consumers, this means the manufacturers and operating system makers will battle for their attention - a battle that will bring new and better hardware, more features and functions and even more price drops. Sounds like a good time to buy a smartphone, if you haven't already.

Opera served 340 billion pages during the first 11 months of the year compared with only 129 billion pages during the same period in 2009. There are now 80 million users on the mobile Web using Opera's Mini browser - a 91.8% increase from last year. And Facebook and Google are still top Web destinations, but the two have swapped the number 1 and 2 slots as 2010 draws to a close.

Growth from Nov. 2009 to Nov. 2010

According to Opera, 80 million of its users surfed over 44.6 billion pages in November. Page views have gone up 137.3% since November 2009.

Users of Opera's Mini browser generated over 677 million MB of data for mobile operators worldwide in November, a 137.6% increase in data traffic since November 2009.

In both developing markets and established ones, mobile Web usage has grown substantially since last year. To give you an idea, since last November, page views are up 60.5% in Indonesia, up 123.8% in Russia, up 416.9% in India, up 82.3% in China, up 135.3% in the Ukraine, up 302.2% in Belarus, up 114.1% in South Africa, up 369.4% in Vietnam, up 404.1% in Nigeria, up 1,535.9% in Brazil, up 99.5% in the U.K. and up 103.1% in the U.S. (Several more countries statistics are listed in part two of the report here, including a detailed spotlight on Latin American countries).

2010 Trends

Opera ended this month's report by taking a look back at year-end trends. It looked at top sites, top handsets, growth rates and data increases.

Globally, Facebook and Google remain the top two websites people access from their mobile phones, but last year Facebook was number one and Google was number two. This year, those spots are reversed with Google coming in on top.

Social networking sites like Twitter, Orkut and Live.com and video viewing site YouTube.com also saw increases since November of last year. And in case there's any doubt about Nokia's place on the worldwide stage (at least in terms of Opera users), its handsets took 25 out of the 30 spots on the top handset makers chart for the year. Only Samsung, LG,  Sony Ericsson and Apple had a showing here. And since Opera now has an iPhone application, the iPhone registered on the chart in the fifth slot.

In determining regional growth, Opera looked at combined user, page-view and data-transfer statistics for top countries in various regions. Latin America saw the most growth in 2010, followed by South Asia.

The full report is available online here.

However, in the U.S., it's Android that's number one, with 43.6% market share lead.

Another factor that bodes well for Android is the broad range of price points available for Android devices, from high-end products like the Samsung Galaxy S or HTD Desire all the way down to affordable "budget" devices like the LG GT540 Optimus or Huawei's Vodafone 845. The Optimus, incidentally, will be coming to Walmart in the U.S. for only $0.97 (with a two-year contract agreement), according to leaked news from unofficial T-Mobile blog TMoNews.com this morning. 

For Apple, there is some good news - it has now jumped ahead of Blackberry maker RIM with a 26.2% market share in the U.S. compared with RIM's 24.2%. Worldwide, Apple reached 17% share, beating RIM's 15%.

However, Canalys's headline for their report - "Apple takes lead in the U.S. smartphone market" -  is a little misleading, since, as noted above, the Android OS now has a 43.6% share in this country. Apple's U.S. "lead" here is a title that comes with qualifications: among companies who ship their own hardware, Apple leads. But Android wins it overall in the U.S., and, if the trend continues, may even rival Nokia for the number one spot worldwide at some point in the future.  

Prior to this quarter (Q3 2010), RIM held the number four spot. It's now at number five. Apple's move up the charts also ousted Sony Ericsson, which has now exited the top five altogether.

In total, Apple shipped 14.1 million units over the past three months.

For comparison purposes, the top three vendors, Nokia, Samsung and LG Electronics shipped 110.4 million, 71.4 million and 28.4 million units, respectively. Number five RIM shipped 12.4 million.

Combined, all mobile phone vendors shipped 340.5 million units this quarter, up from 297.1 million units in the third quarter of 2009.

What's perhaps even more remarkable than the rankings alone are the numbers associated with growth. Apple has grown 90.5% year-over-year. The leader Nokia, has grown just 1.8%, however. And LG has dropped to -10.1%. RIM is more than just hanging in there, though, with 45.9% growth, and Samsung, a popular choice for Android smartphones, has grown 18.6%. It will be interesting to revisit these numbers again at year-end - especially if Samsung ships its supposed "Nexus Two/Nexus S" Gingerbread phone before the close of 2010.

The report delves into everything from mobile use to media consumption and PCs to social networking. The takeaway, says Forrester, is that Gen Y "lives and breathes" a digital social life, Gen Xers are masters of the functional benefits of technology, but those older are much more reserved in nearly all areas.

"In almost every online or mobile behavior, Gen Yers lead the adoption curve," explains Forrester, summarizing the differences between the generations. The youngest members of this group don't remember life without a mobile phone or a time when texting or email was unavailable. Gen X, despite having a longer "tech memory" than its younger counterpart, still rivals Gen Y in many areas. This slightly older group tends to use the Internet and computers more functionally. For example, 26% of Gen Xers go online for information about food and cooking, 61% use it for news, 65% use PCs to manage photos and 53% email photos at least once per month.

Boomers fall behind on the technology adoption curve, but spend more money on everything tech-related from telecom fees to online shopping purchases. Seniors, however, lag ever further behind. 80% still subscribe to a local newspaper, for instance. But in other ways, they're catching up: 40% own an HDTV, one in five uses the Internet for reading news and one quarter for travel planning.

Devices: Gen X Leads

When it comes to devices - think HDTVs, digital cameras, PCs, gaming systems - Gen X leads the way, says Forrester. Their households are the most likely to have these devices in them.

When it comes to the household PC (meaning "personal computer" not necessarily "Windows machine"), Gen X and Boomers tend to use theirs for practical matters like word processing and household finances. They're also more focused on PC health, regularly scanning for malware and backing up files.

Mobile: Gen Y Leads

Meanwhile, on the mobile front, the 49 million Gen Yers lead the other generations, using their phones for everything from product research to social communication. Along with Gen Xers, Gen Yers are the most likely group to own a smartphone with an unlimited data plan. One fifth of Gen Y uses their phone for maps and directions now, while Gen X is generally more interested in checking news, sports and weather.

85% of Gen Y sends and receives text messages, while 68% of Gen X does the same. Only 15% of Seniors use SMS, however.

37% of Gen Y surfs the mobile Web. Mobile "Facebooking" is also more popular with Gen Y, with 27% participation, compared with 18% of Gen X. Seniors on Facebook, supposedly a growing trend on the desktop, is not so prevalent on mobile - only 1% use Facebook or other social networking sites from their phone.

Overall, 23% of Gen X and Y owns a smartphone and 17% of Americans do.

Online: Gen Y Surfs, Gen X and Boomers Shop

Internet use has surpassed TV viewing for Gen Y for a few years now, but this is the first time that Gen X can say the same. Younger Boomers (45-54) also now spend equal amounts of time online versus on the Web. TV viewing still beats Web surfing for older Boomers and Seniors though.

The survey found, too, that Gen X does the most online shopping, but Younger Boomers spend the most. In fact, Boomers were the only generation that spent, on average, more than $600 online in the past three months.

Forecast: eReaders are "Device of the Year," but Few Use

Forrester says that eReaders have drawn a lot of hype over the course of the year, but in reality, only a small percentage of the population currently uses them. However, the analysts forecast that another 6.6 million will buy an eReader by year-end. 8.3 million will buy a netbook or mini PC, though, in the same time frame.

Netbook and mini-PC purchases will outpace eReader sales until 2014, when both slow to 1% growth rates. Laptops will also decline to 2% growth in 2014.

This data seems in opposition to earlier reports from NPD that stated netbook sales have gone negative. This recently led to some controversy when the Wall St. Journal quoted Best Buy CEO Brian J. Dunn remarking on the netbook's decline, saying its sales have been cannibalized by the iPad. Dunn later explained, by way of a Best Buy press release, that "the reports of the demise of [notebook and netbook] sales are grossly exaggerated." It appears that Forrester agrees with this statement, given this new report's data.

Conclusion: Gens X & Y Outpacing Others

Forrester concludes that Gens X and Y are "setting the example of how future digitally native generations will live," with both generations "outpacing Boomers and Seniors on almost everything technology-related."

Statements like these tend to rile up the tech-savvy Boomers and Seniors who read this blog, often leading outraged comments about the wrongness of the data. In this case, though, Forrester analyzed 30,064 households containing 37,226 individuals to reach these conclusions, a sample size which seems sufficient enough for this analysis. Any generation will have its outliers, of course, from the digitally-adept Grandma to the Gen Yer who refuses to Facebook. Plus, anyone reading this article is at the top of the curve, no matter what the technology in question is, we would bet.

Image credit, top: flickr user Paulo Fehlauer; charts: Forrester

Not surprisingly, the company found that Android has seen rapid growth thanks to the launch of new devices, Apple is still the top manufacturer and iPads are having an impact on mobile Internet traffic worldwide.

Before delving into the numbers themselves, it's important to note how AdMob generates this data - it uses its own network of ad requests, a metric which provides a slice of smartphone pie, but not perhaps the best snapshot of the industry as a whole. Some contend that AdMob's data slights that of RIM (makers of Blackberry), but even if so, there's still relevance to be found within AdMob's numbers, given their wide sampling. Changes within its network can speak to wider industry trends, which is worth examining.

Another important item of note is that AdMob was acquired by Google, makers of the Android operating system. The acquisition was announced back in November of 2009, but it took until May for Google to close the deal, due to a pending FTC inquiry into anti-trust matters. The regulatory body unanimously approved the deal in late May, citing Apple's entry into the mobile ad market industry as evidence of competition.

AdMob notes that the majority of the data in the report pre-dates the Google acquisition.

Just the Highlights

Disclosure out of the way, here are the latest findings, highlights first:

• 92 countries generated more than 10 million request in May 2010, up from 27 countries in May 2008
• Nokia leads in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe
• Apple leads in North America, Oceania and Western Europe
• In May 2010, smartphones generated 46% of traffic in the AdMob network, up from 22% 2 years ago
• 24% of May's traffic was via Wi-Fi
• Mobile Internet Devices (including the iPad, PSP and iPod Touch) consistently have accounted for 10% of traffic over the past year
• 57% of Apple devices in AdMob's network are outside the U.S.
• Traffic from the Android platform has grown 29% month-over-month since May 2009
• iOS and Android users spend 79 minutes per day using apps
• iOS and Android users download about 9 apps per month

Android Gains Thanks to New Devices

The introduction of numerous Android-based phones has allowed the mobile OS's market share to increase dramatically over the past year, AdMob finds. But what's most interesting is seeing what those gains look like, graphed out.

In this chart, for example, you can see a sharp increase in Android's market share while Apple's iOS market share drops. In February, Apple appears to have a 50% share, but by May, it's down to 40% worldwide.

And as of May 2010, 7 of the top 10 smartphones run Android, notes the report. These include the Motorola Droid, HTC Magic, HTC Hero, HTC Dream, Motorola CLIQ, HTC Droid Eris and Samsung Moment. The top smartphone, however, is still Apple's iPhone. Nokia's N70 and 6300 have also remained in the list over the past two years.

The report also looks at how both Apple's iOS and Google's Android OS register higher mobile Web and mobile app usage, relevant to their actual market share.

While again, AdMob's numbers are not meant to be definitive, there is a notable trend here - Android is gaining, and gaining fast. Worldwide, however, Apple still dominates while Symbian dominates in particular regions...at least for now.

However, as Getjar founder and chief executive officer Ilja Laurs told the BBC, feature phones should not ignored either. "It is almost as if these phones don't exist. We know smartphones are an extremely important phenomenon, but in terms of consumer mindshare and revenue share, feature phones represent 90% of the global market compared to 10% for smartphones and data cards."

He also made the bold prediction that "mobile apps will eclipse the traditional desktop Internet," even going so far as to say that "mobile devices will kill the desktop."

Just the Stats:

Here are a few other highlights from the report (via Paid Content and TechCrunch):

• The annual growth rate for mobile app downloads is 92%
• By 2012, off-deck, paid apps will be the biggest source of revenue
• In 2009, mobile operators accounted for more than 60% of apps' revenue
• By 2012, mobile operators will account for less than 23% of apps' revenue
• The app store growth (8 to 38 by 2012) is an increase of 375%
• Average app selling price is $1.09 in North America, $0.20 in South America and $0.10 in Asia
• Revenue opportunities in Europe will grow from $1.5 billion in 2009 to $8.5 billion in 2012
• Revenue opportunities in North America will grow from $2.1 billion to around $6.7 billion in 2012
• Apps are most popular in Asia where they account for 37% of global downloads this past year
• Users spent the most for apps in North America where they account for over 50% of revenue

Analysts Agree: Apps are Big Business

A report earlier this year from research firm Gartner predicted that application stores are expected to generate revenues of nearly $7 billion over the course of 2010. That figure is a combination of the $6.2 billion spent purchasing the mobile applications themselves combined with an additional $.6 billion generated through advertising revenues from in-app ads. The Gartner analysts also predicted that mobile application stores' revenue will grow to $29.5 billion by the end of 2013.

Another forecast from research2guidance estimated the smartphone application market will grow from $1.94 billion in 2009 to $15.65 billion by 2013.

Although these aren't exactly apples to apples comparisons, the overall trend is apparent: app stores are growing rapidly and generating massive revenue streams. 

Today, only 55% of boomers consider their mobile phone a necessity, a number which likely shocks younger generations whose attachment to their handheld device is so strong, they claim to "feel naked without it."

The delay with which baby boomers embrace new technologies isn't limited to the mobile web - this is just the next item in a series of technology trends where boomers seem to lag behind. Outside of the pro-social media analyst group Forrester (whose reports we desperately want to believe), most studies show boomers have been slow to adopt new technology, be it social networks or smartphones.  

Although as of summer 2009, older users were joining Facebook in record numbers, even outnumbering high school students on the site, it took a long time for them to get there. This group of technology users is definitely not filled with early adopters. Instead, boomers need to wait and see the benefits of a new technology before signing on, or so says eMarketer, the analyst firm who released this latest mobile web report. On Facebook, that benefit was likely the "network effect" - enough of their friends urged them to join at the same time as their younger family members were busy posting photos and videos of the boomers' grandchildren, something boomers didn't want to miss out on.

Stats on Boomers and the Mobile Web

As for the mobile web, although the technology in question is different, the desire (or lack thereof) to participate is the same. Until the boomers see a real need for the mobile web, smartphones and the accompanying mobile apps, they'll get by just fine without it, thank you very much.

A few key stats from eMarketer's report:

• 85% of baby boomers own a mobile phone, but the majority own feature phones (non-smartphones)
• 55% consider their mobile phone a necessity
• Boomers make up only 19.6% of touchscreen phone users
• Boomers make up only 21.1% of smartscreen phone users
• Younger boomers (ages 45-54) are more likely to own a smartphone or touchscreen phone than older boomers

Things are Changing

As Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst, kindly puts it, "boomers are underrepresented among smartphone users." The good news is that's starting to change. Slowly but surely, boomers are becoming more interested in smartphone devices. Phillips notes that their interest is influenced by the prevalence of smartphones in the marketplace combined with a down economy which is forcing boomers to forgo retirement. Because many smartphones have a business aspect to them, boomers are starting to see the appeal of these devices.

However, the most important factor slowing their adoption is price. As carriers reduce prices for both phones and data plans, many more boomers will join their younger counterparts to become mobile web users themselves.

Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we'll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb!

The eight technologies identified include the following:

Bluetooth 3.0

This is one of the no-brainers on the list. The Bluetooth 3.0 specification will be released this year and devices will start to hit the shelves by 2010. At this point, it's expected that the 3.0 spec will include faster speeds, reportedly transferring files at 480 megabits per second in close proximity and 100 megabits per second at 10 meters. It will also feature an ultra-low-power mode that Gartner predicts will enable new peripherals, sensors, and applications, such as health monitoring. The technology will be backwards compatible, allowing old devices to communicate with new ones, so there's no reason for it not take off in the upcoming years.

Mobile User Interfaces + Mobile Web/Widgets

Mobile user interfaces and mobile web/widgets were listed separately, accounting for two items on the list, but we think they can be lumped together. They all point to how mobile computing is rapidly becoming a new platform for everything from consumer mobile apps to B2E (business-to-employee) and B2C (business-to-customer). (Gartner did not include B2B on their list.) Modern day smartphones like the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, the upcoming Pre, and others deliver better interfaces for browsing the web, thus making it accessible to more people. Widget-like applications, including those that replicate thin client technology, will become more common especially in B2C strategies. Yet the mobile web still has challenges ahead. For example, there are no standards for browser access to handset services like the camera or GPS, the report notes.

Location Awareness

Location sensing, powered by GPS as well as Wi-Fi and triangulation, opens up new possibilities for mobile social networking and presence applications. Technology's earliest adopters are already familiar with social networks like Brightkite and Loopt which let you reveal your location to a network of friends. But we're still on the tip of this iceberg. Take for example, the iPhone IM client Palringo, they're just now adding location services to their application. This allows users to see how far away their contacts are, introducing a whole new dimension to mobile communication. Over the next year or two, this sort of technology is expected to become more commonplace, but it will also raise questions about privacy. Will you want your network of online friends and acquaintances to really know your exact location? Will turning off location awareness signal that you're up to something sneaky (so asks the suspicious wife, husband, boss, etc.)? As a society, we will have to answer these questions and more in the near future.

Near Field Communication (NFC)

NFC is a technology that provides a way for consumers to use their mobile phones for making payments, among other things. It's something that has taken off in many countries worldwide, but certainly not all, and definitely not in the United States just yet. Unfortunately, Gartner predicts that the move towards mobile payment systems will still not occur this year or the next in mature markets like the U.S. and Western Europe. Instead, NFC is more likely to take off in emerging markets. Other uses of the technology, such as the ability to transfer photos from phone to digital photo frames, will also remain elusive to more developed markets.

802.11n & Cellular Broadband

802.11n, a specification for wireless local area networks (WLANs), initially gave us pause. Although not ratified as an official standard yet, the technology is already commonplace. However, until it "goes gold" so to speak, it won't really infiltrate the mobile world. Even the ubiquitous iPhone only supports 802.11 b/g at the moment. 

On the flip side, the other Internet connection technology, cellular broadband, has the potential to make Wi-Fi almost unnecessary, at least for achieving high speeds. In addition to mobile phones, laptop makers will likely continue to incorporate this technology into their netbooks and notebooks using modern chipsets that provide superior performance to our current crop of add-on cards and dongles.

Display Technologies

Display technologies will also see improvements in the upcoming years. New technologies like active pixel displays, passive displays and pico projectors will have an impact. Pico projectors - the tiny portable projectors we saw being introduced at this year's CES - will enable new mobile use cases. Instant presentations in informal settings could become more common when there isn't large, cumbersome equipment to set up. The different types of display technologies introduced in 2009 and 2010 will become important differentiators between devices and will impact user selection criterion, says Gartner.

For more information on these above technologies, you can read through the full report available here on Gartner's web site.

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments on how you think the mobile space will be impacted in the future.

Who Pays, Who Doesn't

The European Commission's Digital Competitiveness Report (PDF) is a comprehensive annual resource which looks at everything from broadband penetration to use of social networks and more. One of the chapters in the latest report, published earlier this month, deals specifically with online entertainment.

In this chapter, the EU study reports on the state of the online entertainment industry, revealing factoids like "less than 5% of Europeans have paid for online content in the last three months."

The most interesting results from the report, though, are not the details about who pays, but about who doesn't. Among the non-payers, factors like lower prices would convince about 30% to pay while things like better quality, wider choice, better availability, and others would convince between 15-20%. Yet one figure stands out: only around 20% of online users would pay for online content if all the other free options suddenly disappeared.

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Not to Blame, Says EU

The impact of this finding didn't escape the notice of the EU researchers, who go on to point out that this seems to mean, contrary to what industry execs say, illegal copying is not to blame:

"...the low percentage of individuals that consider the possible lack of freely available online content as a reason for paying, calls into question the argument put forward by representatives of the content industry that European consumers will in the long term suffer from a lack of commercial availability of high quality content if the current model of audiovisual content distribution, based on illegal copying, is not curved."

Instead, what seems to be happening is that people pay for their internet connection and then gorge themselves on the abundant free content that's available online. Because there's so much out there which costs nothing at all - from web news to streaming video to software applications - internet users tend to balk at the idea of actually having to pull out their wallets to make a purchase. It's the internet itself that has led us down this path to a place where old monetization models simply no longer apply.

What's the Answer?

The report goes on to look at the business models of all sorts of content sites in detail including online news/newspapers, video, movies, music, and online games. While the ways consumers access these different types of content may vary (RSS for reading news, streaming videos, downloading music), the findings are relatively consistent across the board. With only a few exceptions (Apple's iTunes Store, music-based games like Guitar Hero, etc.), many of the current business models are not sustainable.

So what's the answer? There isn't really a good one just yet. Many businesses try "freemium" models which convert power users to paying users. Other sites try sustaining themselves on online ads (which is difficult to do in a down economy). But the best ideas for new business models may very well be the ones that haven't even been thought up yet. The only question is whether or not they'll be discovered in time before more content-producing industries fail.

Image credits - used freely thanks to the Internet and Creative Commons: downloading, flickr user Arenamontanus; I love P2P, flickr user Brocco Lee; p2p logo, flickr user jatop

Amazon currently has the lead among early eBook adopters. Once eBooks become mainstream, however, Rotman Epps argues, this lead could easily dissipate. While Rotman Epps doesn't talk a lot about hardware devices in her report, the reality is that the Kindle isn't exactly a major step forward in the history of industrial design. Early adopters and 'tech optimists' (as Forrester likes to call them) are willing to look beyond this, but in the mainstream market, hardware design might play a major role in consumers' buying decisions.

The Next Wave of eBook Adopters

According to Forrester, the next wave of eBook adopters tends to read more books per months than early adopters and will probably consist of younger males who are less likely to be married and have children. The problem for eReader manufacturers, however, will be to get this group to buy dedicated devices. Rotman Epps argues that a large percentage of this group will probably read eBooks on devices they already own (like the iPhone), unless prices for eReaders come down significantly (under $100).

It's All About the Price

Forrester's Rotman Epps argues that the high price of eReaders is currently holding back mainstream adoption. A $99 device, Rotman Epps notes, would bring a lot of additional readers to eBooks and eReaders. Most importantly, though, the eBook and eReader market is still in flux. As the next generation of readers is likely to be very different from the previous generation, Amazon will have to work hard to keep its current lead.

Can Amazon Hold On to Its Lead?

Unlike Rotman Epps, however, we think that Amazon will likely be able to hold on to its current lead. After all, it has already forged strong - though sometimes contentious - relationships with most publishers and it currently offers the best integration between its store and its eReader. Barnes & Noble's new eBook store will be a strong contender here, though we have yet to see the Plastic Logic eReader device that B&N will use to compete with the Kindle. Sony, too, is making a major push in the eBook market again, though in terms of mindshare in the US, Amazon and the Kindle are currently the clear leaders (both in the mainstream and among early adopters).

While "Later Adopters May Not Be As Loyal To Amazon.com" makes for a good subtitle, the next generation of eBook adopters is just as likely to consider Amazon as the natural place to go to for eBooks, especially given that the company is already the #1 online retailer for regular books.

What About the B2B Market?

The Forrester report only focuses on consumers. We would argue, however, that there is also a large professional market for eReaders, where the current price isn't too big an issue. Just last week, for example, iRex, an eReader manufacturer that mostly aims for the B2B market, announced the launch of its electronic flight bag for pilots - which is basically an iRex eReader with Jeppesen's charts loaded on them.

What's the Killer Product for eReaders?

The Forrester report argues that once eReaders hit the $100 barrier, users will quickly start to adopt these devices. But is price really the only issue here? Are there any other "killer apps" or devices that could drive mainstream adoption even before $99 eReaders become a reality?

Our own Dana Oshiro just argued in our backchannel that a subscription book club (maybe run by Oprah) could bring a lot of new users to eReaders. And then, of course, there is still the mystical Apple tablet that might make for a great eReader - among other things - and which will surely cost more than $99.

Would You Buy an eReader?

What is holding you back from buying an eReader? The iPhone? The price of the current generation of eReaders? Or the well-designed reading solution called 'the book'?

Kindle DX and Texbooks

The new Kindle DX is geared towards the textbook market, but Forrester warns that universities will be slow to adopt the technology. The schools that Forrester talked to had no plans to encourage students to use the Kindle and the current pilot project only involves a small number of students (50 at Pace, for example). Of course, this is also a classic chicken and egg problem. Textbook publishers will look at the adoption of the Kindle in schools and are unlikely to invest heavily in this technology unless they see a growing market for their content, while students are unlikely to show interest in eReaders unless all of their textbooks are available in this format.

Looking into the Future: Price, Color, Video - and the End of the Chain Bookstore

Forrester also predicts that the eReader market will soon expand beyond books, especially once eInk technology becomes more mature and maybe even allows for color reproductions. Forrester's Sarah Rotman Epps expects that newspapers, magazines, comics, and business and personal documents will also soon become more important, especially as other vendors besides Amazon start to produce more compelling devices and user experiences.

We received this report just after we wrote about Google's expected entry into the eBook market this morning, but the report clearly vindicates Google's interest in this market. Forrester thinks that other players like Apple, RIM, Borders, and Barnes & Noble might try to enter this market either with hardware products or by offering distribution platforms. Epps, however, argues that while traditional chain booksellers will try to enter the eBook market, their real estate holdings will weigh them down and make it hard, or even impossible, for them to compete with Amazon.

Overall, we agree with Forrester's assessment of the eBook market. Obviously, we are still very early in the eBook and eReader cycle. It will be interesting to see if any new players will be able to establish themselves in the next year or so, or if we will see a convergence between dedicated eReaders and other mobile devices. Wattpad, one of the larger mobile eBook players, just released an interesting metrics report (PDF), and this company sees about 78% of its eBook usage within the U.S. from iPhone users. Consumers are clearly interested in eBooks, but they are also willing to try out new devices. Even though the Kindle has virtually locked up the market today (at least in the U.S.), the business is still small enough to allow other players to successfully enter the market and be able to conquer the mainstream market.