“2010 Mobile Influencers” is the sixth and last report from the series “2010 Influencers Series: Trend Predictions in 140 Characters“.

Findings: Major trends in 2010 Mobile:

Across many of these predictions, we have identified the following trends suggested to influence Mobile in 2010:

# Payment      # Commerce      #Metrics

# Advertising:  networks,  SMS, display, search, premium

# Smartphones: Apple, Apps, iPhone, Google, Android

# GPS      # Location      # Augmented Reality

# Gaming      # Music      # Video

I wish to thank all experts who participated in the 2010 Influencer Series, and submitted their insightful prediction tweets.

Many thanks to the TrendsSpotting team, and most to Apurba Sen, Nizan Malkit, Aviv Sher, and Yotam Shochat who made it all possible in such a short time.

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“2010 Tech and IT Influencers” is the third report from the series “2010 Influencers Series: Trend Predictions in 140 Characters“.

Findings: Major trends in 2010 Tech and IT:

Across many of these predictions, we have identified the following trends suggested to influence Tech in 2010:
@Clouds – free, private, public, green, data, identity
@Mobile – apps, store, iPhone, Android, Location (AR)
@Netbooks – cheap notebooks / smartphones, Google
@eBooks – Amazon, apps
@Social – enterprise, computing

TrendsSpotting Market Research is now running its third annual prediction reports following major trends in six categories. We will be featuring the predictions of digital and marketing experts on the big changes awaiting us in the coming year.
This year we are adopting a new “tweet style” format, easier for you to focus on, comprehend and forward.

Already released from the Trend Prediction Influencers Series:

@2010 Social Media (published also at NYTimes / RWW, Mashable, Examiner)

@2010 Consumer Trends.

@2010 Tech and IT.

@2010 Online Marketing.

@2010 Online Video.

@2010 Mobile.

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Google’s power lies in knowledge. The knowledge of what people search for.
Google shares some of this knowledge as it updates their tool – Google
Insights for Search .
With a posteriori examination of historical trends – it suggests a basic
model for predicting the next search trends.
We can now improve the understanding of consumer behavior in variety of
markets and geographical locations.

How does that work?

On many search trends queries, conducted on the Google insight for Search
website, you receive along with the historical data, a 12 month forecast. For good example search for  “iPhone“.

What’s behind Google’s forecasting model?

Google has characterized the predictability of a trends’ series based on its
historical performance. To do so they compared the discrepancy of forecasted trends, applied at some point in the past, to the trends’ actual performance. When the discrepancy between the forecasted trends and the actual trends is smaller than a predefined threshold, Google denotes the trends query as predictable.

Google’s research observations:

- Over half of the most popular Google search queries were found predictable in 12 month ahead forecast, with a mean absolute prediction error of approximately 12% on average. That means that nearly half of the most popular queries are not predictable.

- High predictable categories: Health (74%), Food & Drink (67%) and
Travel (65%).

- Low predictable categories: Entertainment (35%) and Social Networks &
Online Communities (27%).

- To earn more predictable indications – best to search for trends of
aggregated queries (”all categories” option): 88% of the aggregated category
is predictable with a mean absolute prediction error of less than 6% on
average. The larger the aggregation set is, the smaller would be the
variability of the aggregated time series

- There is a clear association between the existence of seasonality
patterns and higher predictability, as well as an association between high
levels of outliers and lower predictability.

For the above summary results of the 10 categories, the correlation between
the Predictability and the Seasonality Ratio is r= 0.80 while the Deviation Ratio has a (negative) correlation of r= -0.94 with the Predictability.

While TrendsSpotting is working on a new research on US Recession Trends
(you are welcome to contact us for more information) – we have
observed such trends, where seasonality seems high and predictability can
be inferred. Take the trend search for “gift” as a good example for the seasonality effect:

In many of the consumer industries we have followed, the recession has
definitely distracted seasonality and made forecasting abilities more difficult: Refer to the search for “flight” for example.

Whats missing in Google Insights for Search?

1. As I have pointed out some  years ago – Google Trends Search gives you
relative search volume only (relative to the total number of searches done
on Google over time). It doesn’t represent absolute search volume numbers.
2. While Google does calculate forecast parameters – how about releasing
the data on seasonality and deviation for the specific search?

A Market Research perspective:

I welcome Google for sharing more trends search capabilities.
I personally met a few of the Google Trends team and highly appreciate their work.

Web search trends are very important for the understanding of consumer behavior. In the many years I have worked as a market researcher, I have always preferred direct methods to analyze consumer behavior.
Compare that to surveys – those can tell you mostly about intentions (far future), about previous actions (depending on good memory skills that respondents  don’t have..), and perceptions (but not in a natural manner where one freely chooses to express her/his feelings). Surveys can indeed provide some indications and estimations for behaviors but they lack the means to reflect consumers’ real behavior.
In the last years, web metrics as search trends, blog citations
tools, and social media monitoring tools have captured my full attention. As a Social Psychologist – I find them to be valuable tools in examining people’s natural behavior. TrendsSpotting (company and blog) is all about making sense of it all.

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Just as Apple succeeded to light consumers’ enthusiasm once again with Apple’s tablet (Twitter tweets:  trend volume, mostly positive sentiments), Apple seems to be risking its well known reputation.

Since the launch of the iPhone, the Apple brand was influenced by negative attitudes towards AT&T, mostly for issues of connectivity and costs. Only thanks to its brands strength (high involvement among Apple’s fans, high emotional engagement, design and innovation credits) Apple’s brand image was protected.

It seems today this status quo might change as Google Voice service is getting pulled from Apple’s App Store. Reading the extremely negative posts and tweets (see some of the sentiments analysis here) I wonder if Apple is not risking too much.

Will social pressure work on Apple as it did for Facebook? or Digg?

Blocking Google seems a risky game even for Apple’s fans. Don’t you think?

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It’s almost the time to review Android . We reported earlier that Google’s announcement on Android raised lots of doubts & ambiguity over the web. Moreover this much touted “iPhone 2.0″ competitor demonstrated relatively low effect on web.

Last September T-Mobile launched the world’s first Android-powered mobile phone in partnership with Google & recently the software giant expected that around 18-20 phones from 8-9 manufacturers on the market worldwide will be based on the Android operating system.

Riding on the hype Android’s US market share on mobile OS surpassed 6%, its application store hosted around 5,000 applications (in comparison to Apple’s 50,000-plus) until this happened at the Computex Taipei electronics show in May 2009 :

Gartner announced Android running on devices was “snappy” & stopped endorsing the platform saying that Android is a work-in-progress. However, backed by the strong Google brand Android may be an alternative to Windows in Netbooks.

We have attempted to put in place the evidences for the hype cycle curve for Android & in the absence of a perfect measure we have relied on proxies to derive the Y axis of the cycle as ‘Expectations’ -more precisely the red trend line describes the summation of “shared interest indicator” & “market share”. We used Google Trends (US search volume) as an indicator of shared interest & Android’s OS share in US market as an indicator of market penetration & real progress.

So what can be learned from this Android graph and its “Expectation” measure ? Android appears to have had a plateaued growth to the peak of inflated expectations – followed by a quick fall since May end when its mobile OS market share nosedived to less than 1%. Possibly that’s an indication of Android approaching the trough of disillusionment.

Research firm Strategy Analytics have previously suggested that Android will be running on about 12% of global smartphones by 2012. Another estimates from IDC suggests that netbook shipments will grow from 11.4 million in 2008 to 22 million in 2009, a potentially massive growth area for Android.

Will Android find its slope of enlightenment & subsequently its plateau of productivity via netbooks growth (or smartphones) that remains to be seen, possibly when we revisit this trend again in future.

More on Gartner Hype cycle here.

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Introduction:

QR codes used as mobile tagging has started in Japan (2003) and since are  implemented in several fields of mobile marketing world wide. As marketing applications their uniqueness stems from their Quick Response orientation which allows customers to access real time information.

The QR code process:

Mobile users, taking a picture of the code or reading it with their cameras,  trigger an action leading to content download, a message or link.

QR Codes – Trends Review:

QR codes are offering endless marketing opportunities. Today – with the remarkable growth of mobile and smart phones – this potential can be easily implemented.

Follow the trend as it grow: see the rise in interest through Google search – world wide (since 2007) and in the US (since mid 2008).

Taking advantage of local targeting, mobile users (provided with a good motivation) can be directed to your brand ads and messages. You can bring your targets to a remarkable real time action, engaging with the brand and leading them to purchase. Moreover, QR codes embedded on packaged goods can provide information previously limited by space (ingredients, features,  recommendations etc.) As such it is an excellent real time marketing tool for retail.

Brands utilize QR codes in their marketing campaigns:

December 2005: Northwest Airlines advertising campaign (Tokyo’s streets and subways)

June 2008:  Adidas

November 2008:  Pepsi Max

May 2009: Coca-Cola Japan QR Code promotion (at vending machines)

June 2009: Speed Stick

Games:

Many games are using the QR codes to achieve a connection between location and information (location based games). In this direction, many urban games are being developed (for example: QR-Kill)

Television and movies:

• CSI New York featured QR code technology in the plot.
• Fox Searchlight Pictures were using QR Codes in its poster campaign for the about to be released ‘Notorious’

Music:

• The Pet Shop Boys featured QR codes embedded in their “Integral” video.
• iCandy – QR codes application that connects you to iTunes, Amazon, or Rhapsody.  With iCandy bands can now create merchandise (flyers, t-shirts, cards) which link directly to bands homepage or to their music.
• QR Code posters advertising UK dance music producer Grum are appearing all over North London.

Fashion:

• Instant Digital Window Shopping from Ralph Lauren Rugby
• The Lendorff Kaywa QR scarf
• SuitYourself – a fashion shopping application

Tourism:

The local information demand holds a promise for tourist initiatives. Have a look at Japan’s & Paris tourist maps, American Airlines boarding passes, playing cards as an aid for tourists in planning their tour (Japan).

QR codes and Education:

QR codes technology was already adopted for education purposes as teaching the periodic table of chemical elements, acquaintance with materials etc.

The Future of QR Codes:

TrendsSpotting believes that QR codes, as any other technology to trigger  information solutions for real time demand, will become popular and mainstream as the traditional bar code. Brands investigating this potential will learn the importance of location based needs and real time information. Here, sky is the limit.

————————————–

Comments:

1. It has been suggested that the iPhone’s low quality camera misses the potential of QR codes. Any idea if iPhone’s new models can improve this option?

2. To follow QR code news – we recommend 2d-code.co.uk. Also – have a look at Set (Japanese design agency specializing in QR codes branding).

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Back in June 2008 ,Google redesigned its favicon – from its original uppercase ‘G’ to small ‘g’ after 8.5 years. At that time, Marissa Mayer, Google VP explained that the new favicon was responding to the need to better adapt to new platforms, especially to iPhone and additional mobile devices.

However we indicated that majority disliked the new favicon & Google might attempt to arrive at next set of favicon via crowd sourcing route. Last week Google redesigned its favicon – again , this time via much anticipated user driven way. The new favicon is reinterpretation of André Resende’s submission & uses all the colours from Google’s logo, while keeping the same lowercase “g” . Marissa Mayer describes the new favicon distinctive in shape, noticeable, colourful, timeless and scalable.

In order to get a feedback on Google’s branding exercise & on its new favicon , we invited Bill Gardner – principal of Gardner Design , creator of LogoLounge.com & author of highly popular LogoLounge trend series.

When asked on if he could observe any trend on Google’s recent series of identity makeover, Bill answers “I think if I see any trend here it is the shift towards everyone believing they [Google] are an expert and a player in whatever field is in play.”

He continues :

“ Google is the 2 ton gorilla on the internet. No one competes with them. They are there because of good thinking, and good timing, not because of good marketing. If you owned the franchise on oxygen, the human race would love you regardless of your design prowess. Google, I believe, has always ignored expert involvement with their identity.”

Bill presents us the history of Google logo & favicon :

” The primary Google letterform is wholly unremarkable and was primarily designed by Brazilian, Ruth Kedar an artist and instructor at Stanford. It is well letter spaced and the face Catull was a nice selection, but the limit of design effort on this is some dimensional shading and the colors that the founders had requested. If a Fortune 1000 company came out with a new logo and it was as naive and light weight as the Google logo, they’d never hear the end of it. What does work is the open airiness and single concentration of the Google home page.”

“With that as the set-up for the favicon, no one but designers are really taking notice. A favicon does the same labor as a logo which is why most favicons are simply company logos. When a logo is a wordmark or does not work, companies avoid doing a favicon altogether, or they create a bastard graphic to plug the hole. A potential trend is the adoption of these default favicons as a logo since they often have greater visibility than other elements in a corporations visual brand”.

The Logolounge founder comments on André’s submission :

“His submission had a logical break out of the four color palette and used the

lower case “g” which has greater personality and more recognizable association with Google. It’s a pretty straight forward solution and the possibility that this basic solution already is in use and owned by someone else is high. Maybe the color breaks are different but I’ll bet that structure is already legally held by others.”

…and on Google’s new favicon :

“This modified solution is acceptable, but even it has unresolved issues.

While Andrés solution had a logical break for the 4 colors, the new solution does not. Thus the ambiguous color break between the red and the green. Is that break line curved or not and why or why not? What of the little middle dot on the left? Why doesn’t it align with the blue and yellow circles to create a comfortable left face to the favicon? I love working with negative space to complete a logo as much or more than other designers but this solution leaves you feeling awkward. All of this for me goes back to a feeling that Google still owns the franchise on oxygen and they believe they should know how to whip this solution internally and this is “good enough”.”

Bill sums it up:

“If this favicon does stick, I can assure you that someone somewhere will start to use it as a Google logo. It is only a matter of time. If they could just bring themselves to pry loose with enough money to hire someone that understands identity, to do it right. Too bad they once again, just settled for “good enough”. We will continue to look at their favicon like the Emperors New Clothes. Google prancing around in the buff because they are king.”

Do let us know your views on new Google favicon. And those who are eagerly waiting for LogoLounge 2009 Logo Trend Report it will be out in the early Spring and LogoLounge Book 5 will be released in June of 2009.

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Many of us came to believe that since Google is powering our search behavior– it has the power to predict the future.
We at TrendsSpotting used Google Trends to throw lights on brands , products, and of course the US elections.
We understand that it does not only reflect current needs and interests, but, if analyzed correctly it can help us build future patterns in any field you choose.
I find it amazing that by following human search you can actually decrease uncertainties and gain predictability even in fields which were perceived to lack human influence and control.

Today, by following the crowds, Google can share insights on the spreading of epidemics as the flu. It turns out that Google can accurately estimate current flu levels one to two weeks faster than any other professional report.
Marketing wise, health care and pharmaceutical companies can plan their marketing efforts more accurately, and effectively choose the right timing to advertise medicine and cold relief products.
Assuming marketing budget cuts– and a need for smart planning – the next graph indicates that it is much to soon to start advertising… (but for those of you in the health business – follow this trend as it will soon change its pattern!)

Current USA Google Trends Flu Graph

This comes as a strong evidence for Google as the perfect handy tool for marketers to plan their marketing activity by location and seasonality.

About Google Flu Trends:
Each week, millions of users around the world search for online health information. We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for “flu” is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries from each state and region are added together.

Google Flu trends works!
Comparing Google’s query counts with data from a surveillance system managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that some search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening. By counting how often we see these search queries, we can estimate how much flu is circulating in various regions of the United States. Google flu Trend results have been published in Nature.
During the 2007-2008 flu season, an early version of Google Flu Trends was used to share results each week with the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch of the Influenza Division at CDC. Across each of the nine surveillance regions of the United States, we were able to accurately estimate current flu levels one to two weeks faster than published CDC reports.

This graph shows five years of Google query-based flu estimates for the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, compared against influenza surveillance data provided by CDC’s U.S. Influenza Sentinel Provider Surveillance Network. As you can see, estimates based on Google search queries about flu are very closely matched to a flu activity indicator used by CDC.

Can Google search queries predict better than 1500 doctors?
CDC uses a variety of methods to track influenza across the United States each year. One method relies on a network of more than 1500 doctors who see 16 million patients each year. The doctors keep track of the percentage of their patients who have an influenza-like illness, also known as an “ILI percentage”. CDC and state health departments collect and aggregate this data each week, providing a good indicator of overall flu activity across the United States.
It turns out that traditional flu surveillance systems take 1-2 weeks to collect and release surveillance data, but Google search queries can be automatically counted very quickly. By making our flu estimates available each day, Google Flu Trends may provide an early-warning system for outbreaks of influenza.

Benefits to disease detection:
For epidemiologists, this is an exciting development, because early detection of a disease outbreak can reduce the number of people affected. If a new strain of influenza virus emerges under certain conditions, a pandemic could emerge and cause millions of deaths (as happened, for example, in 1918). Google’s up-to-date influenza estimates may enable public health officials and health professionals to better respond to seasonal epidemics.

Note:

If you remember Google’s team April 1st joke: “Google lets you see search results one day in advance” (Google predicts tomorrow) – well that’s probably no joke at all – it might as well be Google’s new business model..

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A Foxconn Taiwanese factory worker become an Internet buzz after a picture of her smiling and flashing a peace sign to a co-worker testing an Apple iPhone stayed on the phone that was sold to a man in Britain. The iPhone customer,  identified as “markm49uk”,  reported his finding on MacRumors.com along with posting three pictures of the “girl” he found on his phone. This set off a global chain reaction of media interest & culminating in the quest by China’s “Human Flesh Search Engine” to discover her identity.

China’s Human Flesh Search Engine is a poor translation of the Chinese phrase ren’rou sou’suo ??????, an increasingly frequent phenomenon of online crowds gathering via China’s BBS, chat rooms, and IMs to collaborate on a common task.

Some speculated the girl’s age to be about 12 or 13, and whether a harmless snapshot may be a small glimpse into child labor abuses.  A Gizmodo reader rated “iPhone girl” a 5.5 out of 10 on the cute scale.  Some people voiced concern that the woman could now lose her job while one dubbed it as a “nice personal touch “. Local netizens created a website for her, iphonegirl.cn, and urged netizens not to human-flesh search and publish her personal data. Amid the all speculations “iPhone girl” recorded over 20 million searches on Google’s Chinese search site, google.cn & became a fastest growing term in Baidu, making her an Internet Celebrity overnight.

“iPhone Girl” buzz in Blogs

The Internet breathed a sigh of relief when representatives from Foxconn confirmed that “iPhone Girl” was a worker at its plant and declared the photos were a “beautiful mistake”. China’s Southern Metropolitan Daily dubbing the mystery worker “China’s prettiest factory girl”, later reported that the woman was not fired.

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Mobile Web Activities: iPhone, Smartphone and Total Market: January 2008

Six months after the iPhone’s launch, Apple is generating another peak for its leading brand. On July 11, gadget lovers around the world crammed into stores to buy the latest super-fast iPhone 3G.

What have iPhone have achieved is not only well competing with dominant mobile companies, but also leading the whole category of Mobile Web: According to M:Metrics
iPhone is already the most popular device for accessing news and information on the mobile Web, with 85% of iPhone users accessing news and information in the month of January.
M:Metrics found that 31% of iPhone owners watched mobile TV or video (versus 4.6% market average). Usage of social networking is also popular among iPhone users: 49.7% accessed a social networking site in January, 12 times the market average.

Among iPhone owners – YouTube, Google Maps and Facebook are much more popular:
30.4% of iPhone users accessed YouTube (versus 1% total mobile market), 36% used Google Maps (versus 2.6% total market) and 20% accessed Facebook (versus 1.5% of the total mobile market).

iPhone users and the music market:
74% of iPhone owners were listening to mobile music in January (compared to 6.7% of the total mobile audience). Not surprising is the fact that 84% of iPhone owners who use an MP3 player use an iPod.

iPhone users demographic profile:
The demographic composition of iPhone users are similar to the demographics of other smartphone owners: they are more likely to be male, aged 25-34, earn more that $100,000 and have a college degree.

Methodology:
M:metrics survey of U.S. mobile subscribers is based on three-month moving average for period ending 31st January 2008, n = 31,389.

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