Wireless Surveys

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. 

A lot of our clients immediately jump to the concept of "reach" when they first begin to think about mobile research and wireless surveys. They worry that only a small percentage of their panel might be willing to take a survey on their phone, and they think that hard-to-reach groups (like teens) are the perfect audience for mobile research. 

Sure, using consumer engagement techniques that make your interactions more personal and portable should make them inherently more relevant, thereby increasing response and reducing churn.

But that's not what's really exciting about cellular surveys. My favourite conversation with clients is the one when the light goes on the realization sets in that mobile research is about so much more than putting traditional online surveys on a small screen.

What's really exciting is the new reality that as researchers we can take advantage of the billions of dollars that device manufacturers pour into R&D. Built-in functions such as taking photos and capturing GPS coordinates are just the beginning - even so, these basic capabilities provide us with some pretty astounding options for gaining insights from targeted mobile groups and communities!

So how many people do I need in my mobile panel? I by no means decry the important science of sampling, but check out this article that explores how big the ideal online research community should be, and hopefully you too will start to become a believer in quality over quantity.

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.

It's an exciting day!

Our SODA Mobile Access Platform brings wireless surveys to Blackberry, Nokia mobile devices and more.

Read the full news story here.

Check out our website for more information.

I've found myself pondering the effect of mobile technology on the future of research, and figured it warranted a blog post.  I've been involved with both handheld surveys and wireless technology for most of my career, and throughout that time I've been amazed at both how quickly and how slowly things change.

Mobile technology itself moves incredibly quickly, but adoption of technology can range from lightning fast to incredibly slow. Market research professionals are analytical and pragmatic by nature, so it is understandable that researchers have been slower to embrace new technology than many other industries. Ironically, market research is often a key driver for decisions which drive technological advances, yet it can take years for those advances to be reflected back into the research process itself.  

Methodology is central to any decision relating to survey research methods.  When new techniques are introduced to "improve" tried-and-true processes, it is important for researchers to understand all of the implications of the potential change before implementing it en masse.  So research about research, or more specifically about new techniques for conducting research, is very important. But this is easier said than done, as most researchers are so busy generating revenue through existing methods that they lack time to explore new ones.  The academic community breaks a lot of ground in this regard, but it takes time for academic research to reach--and to be embraced by--the commercial market research sector.

Recently I have seen mobile research being embraced as a reasonably mainstream approach for survey data collection.  It is still "leading edge", but it is no longer "bleeding edge" -- at least for face-to-face interviews and diary studies.  While the application of mobile survey software is still a niche play today, we are about to see it extend beyond its traditional application to touch every other aspect of survey research -- including web surveys, phone surveys, mystery shopping and other methods.

What intrigues me more than anything is where this bottom-up thinking will really lead the research industry. While we are busy planning for the evolution of survey research to involve mobile technology, I believe it is equally important to see things from the top-down: i.e. to realize that researchers are losing control of people's attention, and consumers are increasingly recognizing the value of their opinions.  Will the methodologies of today be effective in the future, or do we need to reshape our thinking to embrace emerging realities?

I believe the future of mobile survey research looks a lot different than the past.  We will not simply see old methods enhanced by new technology; entirely new methods will emerge around the cultural phenomena that shape our societies around the globe. There is no limit to the opportunities that will be enabled by social networking and location-aware technology, which will be bundled into mobile technology that will make today's most impressive devices seem as archaic as early PCs appear today.

Those of us who wrap our arms around the cultural changes that emerge as a result of new technology, rather than just trying to shape new technology to meet old and tired methods, will realize amazing new opportunities for mining insight from consumer opinions. There will be many false starts and a lot of experimentation, but in a few years we will look back at the way we did things in 2009 and be amazed by how dramatically human communication -- and in turn market research -- have changed within a very short time.

I'll share some of my predictions on this blog over the coming months. Today I just wanted to get the thread started with some background thoughts...

Of the 234 million mobile users in the U.S., around 30 million are now using Smartphones. With the sky rocking sales of Smartphones its worth looking into which OS platforms are gaining steam. Since Techneos is built around the ability to integrate on multiple platforms (WM, Palm, Palm OS etc) it’s good to know where the trends are going. Thanks to a report published by FierceWireless we have the numbers. This list, which compares May Smartphone OS statistics with those from February, does not reflect the introduction of the Palm Pre or the iPhone 3GS.


Android

797,633 U.S. users in May, according to comScore (up from 427,914 in February).
Android stats

• Introduced: Announced in Oct. 2007. First Android device available in Oct. 2008
• Number of applications available: Android Market currently has more than 6,300 free and priced applications.
• Number of handset makers supporting it: 10
• Iconic device: HTC Magic

Symbian

889,232 U.S. users in May, according to comScore (up from 888,532 in February).
Symbian stats

• Introduced: 2001
• Number of applications available: Symbian does not have its own app store, but supports the app stores of its many OEM and operator partners.
• Number of handset makers supporting it: 7
• Iconic device: Nokia N97

Palm OS (Access)

2,406,244 U.S. users in May, according to comScore (up from 2,398,755 in February).
Palm OS stats

• Introduced: 1996
• Number of handset makers supporting it: 20, over the course of its lifespan
• -conic device: Palm Centro

iPhone (Apple)

5,744,018 U.S. users in May, according to comScore (up from 5,258,504 in February).
iPhone stats

• Introduced: Jan. 2007
• Number of applications available: More than 65,000 in the App Store.
• Iconic device: iPhone 3GS

Windows Mobile (Microsoft)

7,040,584 U.S. users in May, according to comScore (up from 6,807,554 in February).
Windows Mobile stats

• Introduced: June 2003
• Number of handset makers supporting it: 56
• Iconic device: Touch Pro 2

BlackBerry (RIM)

12,202,058 U.S. users in May, according to comScore (up from 9,668,977 in February).
BlackBerry stats

• Introduced: The Java BlackBerry OS was introduced in 2000.
• Number of applications available: More than 2,000 apps available the BlackBerry App World.
• Iconic device: BlackBerry Tour

It seems as though reseach online has recently reinvented themselves. They were always a great source for information, but they seem to be exploding with news and original content lately.

A recent article titled "Survey Geek vs. The Cord-Cutters" offers an audio interview with self-confessed 'survey geek' and blogger, Reg Baker.  There are also great links to relevant articles on the cell-only population and the affects on research. You can listen to it here:



This interview is great in my opinion, particularly in that he begins by describing the "cell-only" problem in terms of the sampling frame. He also eloquently yet concisely descsribes the issue of bias due to undercoverage, and how the target group of the research and the topic may affect results. Not to mention cost and data implications of doing a survey on mobile phone. Reg also identifies the "wireless mostly" problem. I won't replicate every point here in text, but here's a researcher who knows his stuff.

Brilliantly, he surmises (and hopes) that researchers will adapt to the problem by matching the method to the problem - execute "fit-for-purpose methodology decision", to paraphrase slightly.

But one thing stuck out to me... there's no mention of three significant and growing ways to conduct a mobile device survey, cellphone survey, mobile marketing survey (mobile research by whatever name you choose): WAP, SMS and Survey Applications.

Check out the latest numbers from CASRO. You might find it's worth getting ahead of the curve by adding other mobile techniques to your methodological tool box.

Mobile is mandatory. 

You can't get away from it and the evidence is everywhere. Even the University of Missouri has made smartphones mandatory for journalism freshmen!

And everyone now agrees that "Mobile" is more than 'my cell phone'. Mobile is changing the way we live. Business and society is seeing the benefit, but we are also seeing the pitfalls.

Rapid growth of the use of the wireless Internet is causing wireless broadband services to slow down and interrupt from data overload, and according to one report, the result is that mobile broadband sales are slowing. Don't get me wrong - there is still impressive growth overall, it's just that the growth is slowing as consumer frustration sets in.

There's more than an inconvenience factor... now we have to worry about 'cellphone elbow'. Doctors are indeed seeing more instances of this.

As people get more engaged with their devices, I'm betting we'll see more opportunities for doing deep and personal research with respondents, as can be done when people are recruited for a targeted, self-completed digital ethnography. 

Regardless of the specific research techniques to be employed, we will undoubtedly begin to see advances in the sophistication of mobile market research methods arising from this cultural shift.

In the meantime, watch this space for more updates on what fabulous new ailments arise as a result of increased mobility of the population!

Having been in the mobile survey software industry for over 10 years, I've heard many opinions on mobile research but one that comes up more often than most is - "why not just do web surveys on the phone?"  It's a very good question and in certain cases, it's (only now) quite possible, but there are a number of factors why it is generally not the right choice:

Layout and Design
Due to the huge variation in mobile device screen size and layout, web content can appear very differently from device to device.  This can affect how the user interprets the survey and can even affect results if choice lists that fit on one screen vary from user to user.

Wireless Speed and Reliability
With the advent of 3G, we are now seeing exciting new wide area wireless data connection speeds.  The throughput that is now capable rivals even some home desktop connections. However, regardless of the speed, mobile wireless still suffers from a few problems:

1. Mobile devices are mobile - they move.  And because they move, the connection signal varies in strength, leading to lost or dropped connections, not to mention dead zones.    
   
2. Slow response time.  Wide area wireless connections suffer from high "latency" - the time it takes the device to send or receive data to the internet.  This does not include any delays in getting the data through the Internet, processed by the server and returned to the device.  It does not matter if the amount of data is 1 byte or 1MB; radio latency is the same regardless.  

The problem here is that waiting causes huge frustration and lost productivity and in extreme cases the user simply gives up.

Wireless Cost
Cost of wide area wireless is coming down all the time but it is still quite expensive compare to desktop connections and is still usually charged/measured by the kilobyte.

Battery Life
It's a factor most people don't consider but to use wireless connections actually uses the battery.  The more data that is sent and received, the more battery power consumed

There is an alternative to mobile web surveys, it's to have an application running directly on the device that is dedicated to presenting surveys.  This "smart" client applications can be a much better approach:

1. Layout: applications can provide consistent look and feel across many devices.
    
2. Speed: Extremely responsive - no navigation delay.
    
3. Cost: Only uses internet connection when necessary.
    
4. Cost/Battery: Does not depend on having an internet connection to function.
    

For example, have you ever tried using a web email application on your mobile device?

With the release of the much anticipated Palm Pre this past weekend, Entryware software is now available on one of the hottest devices on the planet.  The Pre, which is the first smartphone launched running Palm's new webOS Operating System, is receiving rave reviews from the likes of Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal and David Pogue of the New York Times.

Techneos worked with Motion Apps to ensure that Entryware Version 6.3 survey software was one of a handful of applications certified at launch for use on the Classic Emulator, which runs Palm OS applications on webOS devices. Mobile surveys have never looked so good!

Also watch this space for more news about Entryware software.  We have been hard at work making Entryware look and feel better than ever on a wide variety of Windows Mobile and Palm OS devices.

Here are a couple articles of interest I ran across this week:


Despite Recession, Global Wireless Infrastructure CAPEX Should Grow at Least 1.5% in 2010

Worldwide capital expenditure on wireless infrastructure should post a year-over-year growth of 1.5% between 2009 and the end of 2010...


Quantifying the Mobile Apps Revolution

49% of phone owners report using apps on their phone for more than 30 minutes a day. People have always valued their mobile phones, but to this point applications have been very focused. Now we see an incredible diversity of app use...

I ran across this article recently that highlights the results of a report that the Center for Disease Control put out on wireless substitution (aka canceling your land line for a cellphone).

There were some very interesting results:

• Over one in five U.S. households (20.2%) are cellphone-only, an increase of 2.7% over six months ago.
• One in every seven homes (14.5%) took all their calls on cellphones despite having a landline.
• More than three in five adults living only with unrelated adult roommates (60.6%) were in households with only wireless telephones. This is the highest prevalence rate among the population subgroups examined.
• Nearly two in five adults renting their home (39.2%) had only wireless telephones. Adults renting their home were more likely than adults owning their home (9.9%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
• Men (20.0%) were more likely than women (17.0%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.
• Adults living in poverty (30.9%) and adults living near poverty (23.8%) were more likely than higher income adults (16.0%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones.

This information is certainly handy to market researchers as it helps them figure out the best groups of people to use mobile marketing surveys on rather than other survey methods.

But then I began to wonder, why would the CDC need to do such an in-depth study on mobile phone usage? Shouldn't they be focusing on health-related data collection?

Well, it turns out that most major survey research organizations, including the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, do not include wireless telephone numbers when conducting random-digit-dial telephone surveys. Therefore, the inability to reach households with only wireless telephones has potential implications for results from health surveys, political polls, and other research conducted using random-digit-dial telephone surveys.

So, to combat this problem, the CDC conducts in-person surveys to collect information on health-related issues. During this interview they also take the opportunity to collect information on household telephones: is your family wireless-only or landline. This information is released via the report above twice a year.

I think it is great that the CDC is aware of this problem, but why keep conducting random-digit-dial telephone surveys if you've already proven with your own study (not to mention all the other mobile phone vs. landline statistics that are out there) that you will get biased results?

Seems pretty obvious here that the best answer for the CDC, as well as the other major survey research organizations, is to switch to mobile data collection.

Exciting news on the Palm front.  Together with Sprint, they have announced that the Pre Smartphone will be released in the US on June 5th.  This amazing new webOS device will also be available through Best Buy, Radio Shack and Walmart.  Starting price is US $199 with a 2 year wireless plan after mail-in rebate.

I can't wait to see mobile surveys running on these cool new cell phones. Stay tuned for more information on our plans to support webOS devices running Entryware software.

A recent study is claiming that mobile web browsing is 30% slower than typical online browsing.

I'd like to learn more about this study... Most desktop users (in North America, anyway) now browse with high speed Internet. But many only access the Internet at work where they have T3 speeds (learn more about T1 vs. T3 here). On the other side of the spectrum, some still use dial-up.

On the mobile side, some users have 3G, and some only browse when their HTC TyTn finds a WiFi connection.

Smartphone users are increasingly allowing their devices to be absorbed in to their daily lives. In particular, a new study shows the mobile web is popular with commuters. I'm one of those who browses on the way to work - I regularly browse mobile cbc.ca and The Onion Mobile, among other small screen friendly sites.

But The Onion recently eliminated their nice clean text only WAP site, and now forces me to download images. I could set my browser not to download images, but other mobile sites are more sparing with their use of jpgs, and I prefer that because like all consumers, I'm impatient but still want a good experience. I can only get through about half the content that I could before in the same amount of time, and I wonder if the flashier site is worth it.

Perhaps they are just staying ahead of the curve, but it's frustrating. And when users get frustrated, they go elsewhere.

What I'm really wondering is whether the stat is much worse than 30% for most of the population, given how bad mobile browsing is on some phones.

It just made me think about the implications for mobile market research. We need to make sure we present our mobile survey participants with fast-to-load and easy-to-navigate surveys, otherwise they're not going to participate in another cellphone survey until the wireless web catches up with the regular web for all users in every city on every phone.

I want to expand on my recent post about viability for wireless surveys on respondent devices...

People carry their mobile phone with them just about everywhere they go, and they increasingly view their mobile device as more than just a phone. The landscape is ripe for survey conducting anytime, anywhere, so why hasn't mobile market research completely blown up yet? 

If you take the cost of wireless data out of the equation, then the answer largely lies with the vast array of devices on the market.

Compare the infrastructure question to telephone surveys. Every landline phone transmits voice - it's the main purpose of your home phone. You have decisions to make regarding your CATI software, RDD and sampling strategy. And getting people to pick up and stay on the line and talk to you is a problem, but when you place that call, the phone on the other side will work no matter what brand of phone is in use.

Now move to the Internet... On the web, you have respondents choosing to interact with you through Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and now Chrome. Your email invitation might get filtered out as SPAM, but there's a relatively small number of permutations that your survey software has to deal with when it serves up questions and answers on a computer screen.

Executing on a cellular survey provides a completely unique challenge. The number of devices, operating systems and even capability within a company's product line are staggering. Add to this that some users might only be able or willing to respond to you by SMS, not over the web, and it becomes clear that choice in the mobile marketplace is a problem.

Corporations don't develop with the notion that compatibility with their competitor is good. In the ever-changing world of mobile devices, they just want to get the next handset out, and get it out fast. Things don't always work as you'd expect...



I wish I could link to the source, but hearsay will have to do for now. At a recent wireless summit, a prominent panelist mentioned that when Transformers the Movie came out, they wanted the accompanying wireless app to work on every mobile device. It took 20,000 versions.

So which methodology do you choose if you want to reach respondents?

Do you go with a strategy that takes advantage of the iPhone, which sold 3.8 million phones in the first quarter this year, or do you choose an application that has been customized to excel on a wide variety of devices, or do you go with SMS - something everyone can use, but limits your research options?  It's a tough choice, because your sampling strategy needs to be considered in tandem with your method of data collection.

Will the market eventually show convergence, or will mobility follow the laws of entropy? Only time will tell...  

A recent post on this blog linked to some interesting stats:

• Worldwide mobile phone penetration continues to climb at a break-neck pace, with 4.1 billion mobile subscribers at last count (that's a global penetration rate of 61.1 percent).
• 1.27 billion fixed line subscribers (18.9 percent global penetration)

In areas like North America where traditional telephone research is a hefty percentage of the data collection that gets done, researchers might have a heart attack for the implications on their sampling plans! It's tempting to think that maybe moving to cellphone survey are just around the corner to relieve our response rate woes! 

Being at a company that specializes in wireless surveys, we're in a very exciting time. But I also have to have a dose of realism - Not all phones are created equal. 

In this story about Smartphone viruses, I learned that Smartphones currently make up about five per cent of the total mobile market, and the most popular smartphone operating system, Symbian, has 64.3 per cent of the smartphone market (3.2 per cent of the entire mobile market).

The line between smartphones and feature phones is blurring with the entry of WebOs, Android and the like. But have you ever browsed the mobile web on anything other than a Palm, Windows Mobile, iPhone or Blackberry? It's miserable.  My Samsung SPH-a920 is awesome - I'd recommend it to anyone, as long as you don't brwose the mobile web.

Setting aside connectivity problems for a moment, and just thinking about the hardware people own, wide acceptance of a mobile phone survey via the mobile web is probably further away than we would like to admit. Perhaps survey applications, text msg surveys and IVR will be our best options for doing a cellular survey in the short to mid term.

As a follow-up to my previous post about the Palm Pre Smartphone, we are increasingly excited about bringing mobile research to this exciting new hardware platform.  More news is emerging about the ability to run Palm OS applications on Pre devices--such as this Youtube video showing some flashy gaming examples, or this FAQ that provides more technical information about exactly what features are supported.

Planned for release in the US later this quarter, Entryware software running on the Palm Pre should be a great solution for mobile surveys.  A beautiful screen, slide-out keyboard and both WiFi and 3G wireless options make the Pre an ideal device for conducting surveys in the field.  And its multi-tasking operating system will enable researchers to get very creative with third-party applications.

The Pre's interface operates like a deck of cards, so you can run a questionnaire on one "card" while running other applications (e.g. videos or location-based services) on different cards. Palm's new Synergy communication infrastructure and built-in GPS system also open up innovative new ways to manage your interviewers, respondents, mystery shoppers, etc.

We plan to turn this amazing new platform into an ideal solution for mobile market research.  Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available.

I recently wrote a post about a client who asked me about Palm, Market share of mobile devices, and what device to choose for their PDA Survey Software. Hopefully that helped spur thoughts on the state of the market today, but what's in store for the devices researchers will choose for tomorrow's Mobile Research?

In September 2008, professor Randall Stross from San Jose State University did an interview with the CBC where he noted that devices are getting ever more capable.

"There's no question that Google sees the biggest opportunity for growth is mobile access to the internet. Phones are becoming ever more capable of performing the same work that we use our desktops for. There's a whole new category of phones now, beyond the smartphone, that is designed from the ground up to interact with web services"

According to a CTIA wireless surveys, mobile data service revenues increased 39% in 2008 over the previous year and amounted to almost 22% of all wireless service revenues.

Steve Largent (President and CEO of CTIA-The Wireless Association) had this to say about the survey on mobile devices:

"Wireless technology is an integral part of everyday life for more than 87% of the U.S. population; changing and improving the way we connect and interact with the world around us. The wireless industry consistently evolves, innovates, competes and grows every year at a rapid pace, and 2008 has carried on this remarkable trend."

With mobile device usage on the rise, have you looked into doing your market research via wireless surveys?