Mobile Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing

I've been getting very close to most of the mobile platforms on the market today, and wanting to summarize my thoughts about their potential impact on mobile research. Seeing Samantha's February 25th post about smartphone market share, a brain-dump on the subject should dovetail nicely...

Looking back on key announcements over the past year, Google, Apple and more recently Microsoft have made the most significant splashes in terms of mobile innovation. However, when the dust settles we still see Nokia and Research in Motion (RIM) leading the charge with 47% and 20%, respectively, of the mobile OS market in 2009. Why is this the case, and what can we expect to see moving forward?

I believe the current mobile market is a race between 5 horses, but I will not count others out over the long term due to the still-early nature of this arena. The key players today are:

• Apple: since its release, the iPhone has set the bar for smartphone usability; its slightly thinner sibling, the iPod touch, is the definition of a sleek, modern Personal Digital Assistant (PDA); and the forthcoming iPad is one of the most anticipated products of all time. Simply put, Apple has a lot of swagger and momentum in the mobile space. But Apple runs a very closed environment that people either love or hate, and this creates opportunities for other more open platforms to shine. Also, while Apple has done very well in the consumer space, it has made fewer inroads into the enterprise, where RIM and Microsoft thrive.

• Research in Motion (RIM): the BlackBerry is one of the most impressive brands of our time. While RIM is often considered less marketing savvy than Apple, I would suggest that their marketing tactics have been every bit as effective as Apple's -- just different. Despite a barrage of criticism about the sexiness and usability of their products, RIM continues to grow and profit at an astounding rate. I personally questioned the usability of BlackBerry products compared to more elegant competitors like iPhone and Android, but I have come to appreciate them as solid, enterprise-worthy devices, and to see the company as a very savvy player in the mobile space. RIM has developed very deep roots with both wireless carriers and enterprise IT departments, as well as a powerful brand that is almost synonymous with thumb-typing on a mobile phone.

• Nokia: the Nokia/Symbian world is complicated. Having personally handled dozens of Nokia phones, I would summarize that their strength is in their diversity of offerings to multiple levels of the marketplace. This is also their weakness. With countless products, three current operating systems, and a solid-but-aging feel on much of their hardware, it is hard to believe that Nokia still outsells its nearest smartphone competitor at more than a 2-to-1 ratio. But while they are not as strong in North America, Nokia is a major player in Europe and downright dominant in many other regions of the world. It is hard to discount a company that produces over 1 million phones per day (yes, you read that correctly). With the incredible depth of carrier relationships and distribution channels which they have developed, Nokia's challenge now is to fill those channels with products that compete with their ever-growing range of competitors.

• Google: Google has garnered a lot of attention since announcing the open-source (and freely available) Android platform in 2007. By providing a smartphone operating system that is free and extensible, Android has garnered support from dozens of handset manufacturers including major players like Motorola and HTC. In contrast to Apple, Google's greatest strength (and weakness) is its openness. I am personally very impressed with most of the Android devices I have used, and as a consumer I have great optimism that Android will be a force to be reckoned with in mobile technology. But I also recognize that openness can lead to fragmentation, and I've heard a lot of grumbling from developers about the lack of standards on Android devices. As Microsoft learned when it allowed device manufacturers and wireless carriers to customize experiences based on its Windows Mobile platforms, I believe that the many emerging flavours of Android devices will make it difficult for developers to target. That said, I believe that Google's ability to integrate the mobile experience with all of their other web-based services will make it a formidable player in the mobile space, and I believe the fragmentation issue can be overcome as Google and other Android licensees learn to coexist.

• Windows Mobile: I recently spoke about the forthcoming Windows 7 Phone Series, so I won't repeat myself on the details. Suffice to say that I think Microsoft has re-entered the mobile race, and demonstrated that they are not planning to turn away from this increasingly important battlefield. Microsoft has learned a lot of lessons over more than a decade in mobile computing, and I believe their enterprise roots will serve them well as they re-assert themselves with a brand new mobile platform. What remains to be seen is whether Microsoft can garner enough consumer interest to unseat competitors in the mass market, or whether it will continue to play a more niche role as an enterprise solution.

I have not even mentioned the likes of Palm (webOS), Samsung (bada), Linux Mobile (LiMo), or expanded on the now open-source Symbian OS (the Nokia-bred OS that was recently spun off as a freely available platform). And there are others... but the rabbit hole is simply too deep to cover here, so I will get back to the purpose of my post: to discuss the impact of mobile platform trends on market research.

There are fundamentally two ways to engage people on their mobile devices in a data-intensive way: (1) via their web browser; and (2) using a downloadable application. 

• Mobile web browsers are improving in capability and usability, and are finally emerging as a lowest-common-denominator approach to mobile engagement. If you need to reach a lot of people in a relatively shallow way, e.g. to conduct a brief mobile survey about a product or experience, then a mobile browser may well be the way to go. Although mobile browsers are still fragmented, the emergence of mobile web technologies such as HTML 5, JavaScript, CSS and Adobe Flash are making it more viable to reach a wide mobile audience.

• Downloadable applications provide a richer user experience for applications such as diary studies and mobile panels, but they are typically harder to deploy to a broad range of users. Also dovetailing with Sean's recent post about quality over quantity, I would argue that in many cases a more select audience that is highly engaged is more valuable than a broad audience that is minimally engaged. It is these cases -- for example digital ethnography with alarms to trigger highly contextual questions at random times -- where mobile apps really shine.

Bear with me as I attempt to tie all of this information together...

The mobile jungle is in some ways becoming more wild every day, but I am also seeing signs that a handful of gorillas may be starting to establish some turf. While I don't believe that all five gorillas outlined here will win over the long term, each one represents sufficient market share and resources to be considered as key players for the foreseeable future. With that in mind, I think we will begin to see some stabilization of mobile platforms, resulting in more reliable ways to reach the masses via both web browsers and downloadable applications.

For the next while solutions focused on mobile research will have to choose between "wide and shallow" or "narrow and deep" -- i.e. either focus on reaching a broad range of people with a more basic level of engagement, or on providing a high level of engagement within a more narrow scope of users.  I don't feel that one is inherently better than the other, and both represent significant opportunities within the burgeoning mobile research space.

Over the long term the two paths that I have identified will converge. In the meantime, having invested a lot of time and energy developing methods to engage people in a deep and meaningful way, I am a big believer in the power of rich mobile applications. With over 3 Billion application downloads in less than 18 months, Apple has more than proven the viability of downloadable apps, and all other major platforms have since poured significant resources into their own mobile app stores.

Over the next while it is prudent to focus on the five key players I have identified here: Apple, RIM, Nokia, Google and Microsoft. But peripheral vision is often what sets the great apart from the good, so I allow my eyes to wander a bit in search of innovative smaller players that might just have a thing or two to teach the gorillas. 

With the announcement of Windows Phone 7 Series today, Microsoft has re-entered the heavyweight category of the mobile space in a big way.

With a completely new "minimalist" interface that incorporates Xbox Live and Zune music, and a fresh approach to social media integration, this new Windows platform could be as significant for mobile computing as the introduction of the iPhone was three years ago.

The video below gives a quick hands-on look at this new Windows platform:




I believe the Windows Phone 7 Series will bring Microsoft back from the brink of irrelevance in consumer adoption of mobile phones. Microsoft has long been a leader in mobile business computing, but without sufficient buzz in the consumer space it has been increasingly difficult for Windows Mobile phones to assert themselves against the likes of iPhone, Blackberry and Android. Much like Palm did last year with its webOS launch, Microsoft has reinvented itself in an impressive and refreshing way.

I was really pleased to see that the user experience for new Windows phones will be far more controlled than it was for previous generations of Windows Mobile devices. Whereas Microsoft has long supported a great deal of flexibility in how its mobile operating systems were implemented by device manufacturers and wireless carriers, they have stated that Windows Phone 7 Series implementations will adhere to standards around screen size, memory requirements and user interface. This is great news for mobile developers and end-users, and for anyone looking to engage mobile users, as it will result in a more consistent user experience regardless of brand or network.

Mobile phone ecosystems range from the tightly controlled world of the Apple iPhone/iPod/iPad to the wide-open universe that Google has created for Android.  Until today, I considered Microsoft to be near the "wide open" end of the spectrum, but with the arrival of Windows Phone 7 Series it appears that Microsoft has learned from its fragmented mobile past.

While we are seeing continued divergence in the mobile space with a frenzy of new platforms and manufacturers, I am optimistic that we are also seeing signs of consolidation and standardization. This will ultimately make it easier for businesses (and researchers) to engage people regardless of what mobile device they are carrying in their purse, pocket or briefcase.

I read a fascinating blog post from Michael Mace at mobileopportunity.blogspot.com, called "The mobile data apocalypse and what it means for you". I won't paraphrase Michael's comments, which were insightful as always, but I urge you to read the article if you are considering how to incorporate mobile technology into your business.

There is growing concern that wireless data usage is about to explode. The main culprits for this will be web browsing and multi-media streaming, which have grown by leaps and bounds since the launch of the iPhone. 

Personally, I agree with Michael that the doomsayers' estimates of expansion to the point of implosion will turn out to be far-fetched (I look forward to his next article on that subject). Smart people will find ways to reduce data usage and to solve the bandwidth problem, and may even allow unlimited data plans to be viable over the long term. But there is also little doubt that we are heading for at least some uncomfortable congestion on the wireless super-highway, and possibly worse.

I am often asked why downloadable applications will matter in mobile computing when the wireless web provides an easier and more ubiquitous solution to many problems. I am a bit fan of the wireless web, and I believe that any serious mobile strategy has to recognize the web browser as a key channel for communicating with people on mobile devices. But you can't beat the responsiveness and performance of an application that is installed on a device, just as Windows applications are still more usable in most cases than their web counterparts.

Hybrid applications are an ideal solution for many business tasks. E-mail software is a good example. While mobile e-mail is highly dependent on a wireless network, it also leverages the power and usability of the device on which it runs. The e-mail client connects to the network as needed to send and receive e-mails, but it does not depend on a persistent connection or clog up wireless bandwidth unnecessarily.

The mobile web is getting better everyday, and that is turning out to be a double-edged sword. As web usage soars with the explosive growth of Smartphone and Netbook adoption, the very thing that is driving that growth -- anytime, anywhere access to information -- is likely to cause some major hiccups along the way. I'm betting on the mobile web long-term, but in the meantime I'll be quite content to keep my data safe and sound on a mobile device, and run applications that use the inherent power of the computer that I call my phone.

If you're a real cheapskate like me, and you've been biding your time before making a new hardware investment, then look no longer. The next release of inexpensive smartphone technology for MCAPI interviews and diary studies has arrived.


Check out the unlocked Palm Treo 500 for $119.  Incredible.


Just make sure you're willing to live with a QWERTZ keyboard - (in Germany, they switch the Z with the Y.. go figure).

Some shameless promotion here, but with Techneos' new SaaS pay-per-complete options, there's never been a more affordable time to equip your field force or diary respondents with a world-class mobile interview system.

For many outside of our industry, Market Research has always been a fuzzy concept, and let's face it, a weird choice of career.

But no longer! A major Hollywood movie (Last Chance Harvey) features a market researcher as a main character.



But what is she doing with pen and paper? What an antiquated approach! We would expect her to be using a computer assisted personal interviewing system or some kind of PDA survey software, of course. Where are these movie script writers doing their research?

Legal Note: This post in no way confirms that my wife convinced me to watch a movie which could be described as a Romance Drama.

There has been a lot of discussion recently about Microsoft announcing that they will make Office applications available for Nokia phones.

I find myself asking: what took them so long, and who will they partner with next?

Microsoft has been running Office applications on Macintosh desktops for years, even though the Mac Operating System (OS) competes with Microsoft's own OS offerings.  Revenue from Microsoft's business software, anchored by its Office suite, is slightly higher than revenue from its "client-side" OS installations.  But more importantly, Office is where Microsoft really differentiates itself. While an Operating System is at the core of a computer, the applications are what make it useful.

In the mobile world, we are eager to see which Operating Systems will win out in the long run.  There are at least seven mobile Operating Systems -- iPhone, Symbian, Blackberry, Android, Windows Mobile, webOS and Linux Mobile -- fighting for market dominance in the burgeoning smartphone market.  For an application developer like Microsoft (or Techneos, for that matter), some form of hedging strategy is required to ensure that you don't tie yourself to the wrong horse(s).

In Microsoft's case, they appear to be acknowledging the need to hedge against even their own mobile Operating Systems. I don't see this as particularly surprising, or even as an indication that they are not committed to their own mobile OS vision. Love 'em or hate 'em, you have to give Microsoft marks for perseverance. I have heard rumours of Microsoft giving up on Windows Mobile for well over a decade, during which time I have also heard countless rumours about the demise (or sell-off) of Palm Inc., neither of which has happened. So while I would hesitate to predict the future of any mobile OS, I also don't put too much weight in any rumours that I hear.

The reality is that mobile computing is still in its infancy, and anyone who is in the smartphone market understands that the pie is going to get a lot bigger before the real champions are determined. What we are seeing now is a classic battle for early share of a market that is exploding before our eyes. For those of us developing applications, we need to stay one step ahead of the general population. We can't be living just in the present, nor can we look too far ahead. The value we provide is to navigate the ever-changing waters before us, acting as "domain experts" in fields that are not our customers' core competencies. For example, in the case of Techneos, we strive to be the most knowledgeable and well-equipped providers of mobile solutions for market and socio-economic researchers. We map our core competency (mobile) to that of our customers (research) to provide a unique and valuable offering.


So how does this all tie back to Microsoft? By decoupling its two greatest core competencies -- business productivity software and Operating Systems -- Microsoft frees itself up to fight the former battle irrespective of how the latter plays out.  In the world of mobile computing, this sort of multi-platform application strategy seems a lot more sensible today than an all-eggs-in-one-basket strategy -- even if the basket is your own Operating System!

Eventually, we will see a small group of mobile platforms emerge as clear leaders in the space. In the meantime, multi-platform mobile applications provide businesses with a comforting buffer between the volatile landscape of underlying technology and the business needs which drive their adoption of mobile computing.

I ran across this article in the most recent MRA Alert! magazine, discussing how Smartphones, and the desire for a richer mobile service experience, are changing how we look at the mobile phone.


MOBILE PHONES ARE SO MUCH MORE THAN JUST A PHONE

From text messaging to GPS to online banking to social networking to web browsing to gaming to online coupons to watching videos to, well, almost anything.

A quote from this same article says it really well:

"...the most dynamic and important technology platform today is mobile technology, and that from a marketing research perspective, it is becoming clear that mobile devices will be the next breakthrough research environment."


MOBILE RESEARCH GETS GOOD REVIEWS

Contacting people through their mobile device to conduct your mobile market research will also ensure a good response rate.

Robert Manchin, managing director of Gallup Europe, has found that respondents embrace mobile interviews. In a recent article, Pragmatism Over Ideology?, in the May 2009 Research World magazine, Manchin says:

"'We have quite a bit of evidence now that it's more personal because you are not losing someone at the first stage of sample selection (recruitment).' And people seem more likely to give up time on their mobile because 'dead time' is easier to find, such as while commuting or during breaks."


Survey conducting via mobile phones is certainly coming into its own. Why not look into mobile survey software for your future marketing research needs?

Mobile surveys might be the hottest topic in market research today -- and I've been waiting a long time to say that!

Since I developed my first survey software for Mobile Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (MCAPI) in 1991, I've been waiting for mobile research to hit the mainstream. From bleeding edge to leading edge, mobile surveys have always been viewed as an "opportunity of the future". If PDA surveys generated a bit of a wave back in the late 1990's, then Internet surveys were surely a tsunami... and now it's the marriage of mobility and high-speed wireless Internet access that is opening a whole new word of possibilities.

I had an opportunity to speak at the Mobile Research Conference in London last month. It was billed as the first ever conference dedicated to mobile research, and it was a very promising sign for this niche that Techneos has been working to fill for more than a decade. (In fact, it was at least the second such conference, as I also presented at the Association for Survey Computing conference on Mobile Computing in 2005).

While Techneos has been proving for many years that you CAN do serious research on a handheld computer, a much bigger opportunity for mobile surveys is emerging -- at long last! Ranging from photo diaries to mystery shopping to funky new ways to conduct customer satisfaction questionnaires--and lest we forget the good old face-to-face interview--surveys on mobile phones, Netbooks and other mobile devices will no doubt play a major role in the future of market research.

Hold onto your hats and join us for the ride! We're looking forward to the future that we first envisioned almost 20 years ago. Yikes, how time flies!