I never thought I would hear it, but the buzz on the streets of Essex, that trend-setting county just east of London, is that Research in Motion (RIM)’s BlackBerry handsets have now replaced Apple’s iPhone as the gadget of choice. I should immediately qualify this “finding” as purely anecdotal research, based on a conversation with my 13-year-old niece this past weekend regarding her latest phone, acquired because, as all parents will recognise, “all her friends have got one”. It doesn’t seem five minutes since she was demanding the latest iPhone, hence my surprise that the BlackBerry has risen so rapidly in the teenage desirability league table, at the expense of the apparently unstoppable iPhone. My colleague, Andy Brown, our resident RIM expert, assures me that the Canadian company has been promoting the BlackBerry as a consumer device for some years, largely by advertising it in the hands of celebrities. In spite of those efforts I would argue that it is still commonly perceived as a business-centric device. Nevertheless, consumer sales of BlackBerrys have been rising rapidly, contributing to RIM’s impressive overall performance in the mobile phone market. I was obviously keen to learn why today’s younger teenagers are apparently bucking the accepted trend towards using touchscreen, button-free devices. The QWERTY keyboard, according to my niece, is in fact one of the appealing features of the BlackBerry, since typing messages is so much easier. And it turns out that messaging appears to lie at the heart of RIM’s success in this segment: the ability for young friends to send each other messages using RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service, completely free of charge, has huge appeal to the device’s owners as well as their parents, concerned at rising monthly bills. So the obvious question is, what happened to the apparently eternal appeal of an unlimited choice of apps, as well as 4” touchscreen displays? At least for this small sample, it seems they are now considered of secondary importance. For my niece and her group of friends, the ability to stay in touch via near-constant, rapid messaging, and at zero additional cost, is what matters most. Whether that will be the case as they get older remains to be seen, but it’s a reminder that one device format is unlikely to suit the needs of all segments, however successful a particular product may appear. “With iPhone, every handset works the same,” said Apple’s Steve Jobs during yesterday’s results call. Yes, Steve, they do: and it seems, amazingly enough, that some people really don’t need it that way. Client Reading: RIM Announces PlayBook Tablet and Multiplatform Strategy

Social networks, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, which used to be a nascent Internet phenomenon only a few years ago, have now become an indispensable element for many of us in our daily lives. Accessing social networks and sharing information has quickly become one of the most important online activities for many Internet users around the world. With more than 500 million users globally, Facebook, the largest social network in the world, would be the third largest country by population, on the heels of India and China. And as a communication tool, social networks are already starting to replace or complement many of our existing online communication applications, such as email, instant messaging and news.   However, our just published report, “Global Social Network Market Forecast”, finds that there are significant regional differences in the uptake of different social networks as well as in business models for how social networks are monetized. Less than 40% of Internet users in Asia were regular social network users at the end of 2009 compared to approximately 60% in North America and Western Europe. Advertising remains the most widely recognized revenue model for social networks, despite that the highly commoditized social network ad inventory means that most social networks can only charge advertisers a fraction of the price other online publishers charges. Social games feed social networks with a cut of their virtual items sales, and social networks such as e.g. LinkedIn have for many years been successful at charging for a premium tier service, where recruiters and job-seekers can utilize the social network’s premium functions to reach their goals of finding a candidate or a new job opportunity. There are also different revenue models for monetizing social networks emerging in different regions. Whereas revenues from sales of virtual items are estimated to only represent around 9% of total social network revenues in North America this year, it is expected to represent about 22% of revenues in the Asian market. And while advertising has been and will continue to be the main revenue source for most social networks, revenues from selling virtual items and social network credits will likely ramp up more rapidly in Asia than in the Western World. Social networks, such as Tencent and Cyworld in Asia, already generate significant revenues by selling avatar accessories and virtual gifts. Nevertheless, based on the successful experience of these companies, we expect to see other social networks, both in Asia and in the Western World, to adopt the virtual items business model for gaining incremental revenues going forward. As the Asian Internet market continues to grow at breakneck speed, we projects that this region will represent the greatest growth opportunity for social networks over the next five years. Whereas Facebook has conquered most places in the Western World, it has struggled to gain traction in many Asian markets. We believe Facebook now needs to increase its focus and commitment to the important and rapidly growing Asian market if it wants to remain the world’s leading social network five years from now.

GLOBAL SOCIAL NETWORK USERS BY REGION, 2010 VS. 2015

Client Reading: Global Social Network Forecast

Hidden away in the depths of the European Commission’s latest household communications survey is a finding that should scare the 4X out of the cable industry: the percentage of EU27 households using cable TV fell by 4% between 2008 and 2009, from 34% to 30%. To put this in context, that means the cable industry lost around 8 million TV household customers in the space of just 12 months. The biggest winner has been digital terrestrial television. The share of households using digital terrestrial rose from 12% to 23%, while the proportion of those using analogue terrestrial fell from 41% to 34%. Satellite also made gains, increasing by 2% to reach 24% of households, and IPTV rose from 2% to 4%. Observant readers will have noted that we have reached a total of 115% of households. The survey allowed for multiple answers because some hosueholds use a combination of different TV access services, usually because they have terrestrial TV (analogue or digital) for one TV set, with cable or satellite piped to another. Cable’s decline has been little short of dramatic in Benelux. For years, visitors to those countries were told that the “only” way to receive television was through a cable network. Even though cable TV penetration strictly speaking never reached the 100% mark, it was certainly in the 90%+ range for many years. Now, according to the viewers themselves at least, cable is used by only 69% of Belgian households, a decline of 18% in one year. This was mirrored precisely by the increase in digital terrestrial usage over the same period. In the Netherlands, cable usage fell to 75% of homes, with digital terrestrial at 21% by the end of 2009. This is not the “cord cutting” which American cable operators are currently fretting over. Stateside, the hot issue is whether cable (and satellite) customers will switch to internet-delivered, OTT TV. In Europe, the threat from digital terrestrial television is currently much greater and already having a marked impact. Where cable used to provide the de facto option for “free”, commercially funded TV channels, it is losing ground rapidly to over-the-air services. The latter, of course, are genuinely free of charge (except for public service TV licence fees in some cases), in contrast to the “basic” fees cable operators have always charged. Here is yet another indication of the huge structural differences between the US and European markets, which strike me every time I travel between the two regions. A couple of days ago, during a meeting with a well-known US software provider looking to enter the European connected TV market, I saw another sign of how US companies can struggle to appreciate these variations when they visit Europe. It may have been more or less abandoned in the US, but free-to-air television in Europe is alive and well. Client Reading: Global Digital Television Forecast: 1H'10

The excitement around 3D has been palpable over the past year, beginning with the numerous announcements, roll outs and demos at CES.  The momentum continued through the spring and summer, with more service providers putting stakes in the ground, and carried over to this year’s IBC show, where Strategy Analytics hosted an analyst breakfast on the topic with Sky 3D head, Brian Lenz.  The verdict? Excitement and hype levels were skyrocketing.  The question remains, though, whether or not anyone can spin this into a viable and profitable consumer offering. Over the summer, we fielded a 4,800 respondent survey  in five countries (France, Germany, Italy, UK and US), asking individuals about their understanding of, interest in, and willingness to pay for 3DTV.  The results are covered in detail in report we just published last week.  Here are some highlights:

Translating 3D Excitement into 3DTV Viability is Challenge

Over 70% of those who have seen 3D in the movie theater are impressed by its quality, but only 55% of those same individuals say they’re interested in watching 3DTV at home. How can Service Providers translate the cinematic excitement around 3D into a viable residential business? We found a few barriers standing in the way, including a dearth of content in 3D, luke-warm consumer interest in paying, hardware issues (the need to wear glasses), and widespread market uncertainty.

Market Uncertainty is a Barrier

Respondents were asked a battery of questions around their perceptions of 3DTV, including availability, hardware requirements and potential health and safety issues.  While overall awareness is quite high, with 94% saying they believe it’s possible to see 3D films in a movie theater, on other questions, the market uncertainty is substantial. The most surprising, and most critical finding to both vendors and service providers alike, is the uncertainty surrounding perceived health risks. Overall, 70% of respondents said they were either unsure or believed that watching 3DTV causes damage to the eyes. We believe that this perception issue, which proved to be common across the five countries surveyed, is a key hurdle standing in the way of widespread adoption of 3DTV. Regardless of the validity of the belief, customer perception is what matters, and such widespread uncertainty could prove disastrous if not addressed appropriately.

Perceived Health Risk by Country (“3DTV Causes Eye Damage”) N=4,803

Source: Strategy Analytics

Target: Cube Tubers

3DTV, at least in the short term,  will be largely a niche application, attractive to only a subset of the general population. Through our survey work, we have isolated and identified this demographic as the “Cube Tubers,” and suggest that they should be viewed as a key target market for service providers and equipment vendors. These individuals represent between 8%-10% of the overall population, and are unique in their intentions to purchase a 3DTV in the upcoming year, and to be active premium/HD customers.  Cube Tubers,  who are predominantly young, educated married males, are nearly twice as likely as the average Joe to expect to pay for 3DTV.  Willingness or expectation of paying hits on an issue that many in the industry seem to be overlooking.  Few question the “wow” factor of 3D.  Rather, the question is, how do you make money at it? Client Reading: 3DTV: Will Consumers Buy It?

I was speaking on the panel at the OTT 'mashup' eventat Ogilvy's London Docklands headquarters last night, alongside Turner Broadcasting's Casey Harwood and Anthony Rose, CTO at the BBC's Canvas (now YouView) project, amongst others. As a first-time masher-up and intrigued at the possibilities for the format, the event turned out to be organised along relatively familiar panel debate lines. Casey and I began with introductory comments, and were followed by critiques from the other contributors. The session was then opened up to debate, including audience questions. All the time, running on a display behind us, was a Twitter feed of comments from participants in the twittersphere, as well, presumably, as a few of the 100 or so people who joined us in the traditional, physical fashion. The only problem was that the panelists had to turn away from the audience to see if any particularly fascinating Tweets had appeared, and if they ever did, it was noticeable that the physical audience's attention would be diverted to the ominous gap between the panelists and away from the speakers. The one recommendation I would make is that questions and comments from the virtual audience could have been added to the debate; it did rather feel at times as though we were being Tweeted at without right of reply. Nevertheless it was an interesting evening and I hope the audience found the debate valuable. my own contribution centered on a few relevant datapoints from our recent survey of UK TV and online TV viewers. In particular I referenced the fact that 13% of UK people are currently watching TV on the internet at least on a weekly basis. So we needed to bear in mind that the OTT phenomenon is still restricted to a relatively small proportion of the population, and most of that activity is taking place on the PC. The number of people accessing web TV on their TV set is of course even smaller: 6% of people are connecting a PC to a TV, and 4% now claim to use a dedicated internet TV device. Having said that, our work with early connected TV adopters within our Digital Home Observatory suggests that television behaviour can change rapidly once viewers have access to some of these emerging technologies. This segment is motivated by a desire for greater viewing flexibility and access to preferred content. They also still see weaknesses in current connected TV solutions, especially in the field of control devices and interfaces. The panel also touched on the issue of business models, and in response to the question of how things might look in three years I replied that the basic alternatives would not change greatly: television in the UK will still be funded by a combination of public service licence fees, advertising and customer payment of one sort or another. The mix may change slightly, and we may see greater variety in pay business models. But it’s important to remember that customers are very sensitive to their monthly bills. The impression is often given, especially by new entrants, that new payment models can somehow overcome consumer resistance to the size of the overall television bill. The reality is that 80% of UK customers check their bank statements every month, and a similar proportion prefer predictability in their monthly payments. 69% would agree to pay only for the shows they watch, but only if it reduced the overall monthly bill. All in all I agreed with Anthony Rose’s comment that too little emphasis in connected TV discussions has been put on live, scheduled television. The assumption seems to be that this traditional model will break down rapidly as various on-demand options become available, but this trend is likely to happen only slowly over a long period of time. Even for early adopters, scheduled broadcasting remains an important part of the overall mix. The overall message is one of increased fragmentation of delivery models and audiences. Client Reading: Profiling the Connected Media Consumer - UK