Our Wireless Media Lab team has just updated its consumer research stats on mobile internet usage.  We've found that the proportion of mobile device owners who use their phone to access the internet regularly has quadrupled in the US, and tripled in Western Europe over the past four years.  28% of US mobile device users, and 22% of those in W. Europe, now access the internet on their phone at least once per week.

However, the vast majority of mobile internet sessions continue to last less than 10 minutes on average - far shorter than the average time spent browsing on a computing device with a larger screen. This suggests that mobile web browsing remains predominantly a 'snacking' or 'time critical' behavior, whereas the PC/laptop is used for more leisurely or media-intensive usage scenarios.

For smartphone owners, person-to-person messaging, social networking and web searching are becoming predominantly associated with mobile activities, while other groups of behavior (e.g. media and entertainment related activities and more casual news and information gathering) are less likely to be undertaken using the mobile device.  For this reason, we recommend that mobile interface designers prioritize mobile experiences such as search, social networking, messaging and time-sensitive feeds of information on topics that match the interests of the individual user (e.g. sports, weather updates etc.).

Additionally, with the increasing penetration of tablets, it is clear that tomorrow's most useful experiences will be optimized across multiple screens, delivering and prioritizing the right type of information to the right screen at the right time to anticipate user needs.

Client reading - Mobile Internet and PC Browsing Behaviors Diverge

Kevin Nolan

Today I finally downloaded Midomi Ultra - the free update to Midomi. In January 2009 Strategy Analytics Wireless Media Lab published a user evaluation of music recognition services - Music Identification: Midomi Has More Options but Shazam More Intuitive Midomi Ultra has made three major changes that should improve and enhance the user experience. Firstly, all tag options (identify a song that is being played, sung or hummed, or saying or typing in an artist or song title) are now available from the same homepage. Midomi also provides the user with clear instructions as to how each tag option works. The second big improvement is the process for identifying music that is being played. Once Midomi Ultra has heard enough of the song to identify it, it will automatically stop listening, and take the user directly to the search results - eliminating 2 steps from the old process. The third big improvement is that Midomi Ultra automatically saves a history of tagged songs. The first version of Midomi required users to manually save any results, with many users accidentally deleting a song they had tagged as they did not realize they needed to save it, or by pressing the wrong button. While the original Midomi service functioned pretty well, the new and improved Midomi Ultra now offers a simpler user interface that is extremely intuitive, therefore providing an enhanced user experience.