Smartphones Study: Social sports fans love their smartphones infographic

According to a Sept 2011 Nielsen study smartphones have grabbed 40% market share in the U.S. That means 4 in 10 Americans who own mobile devices own smartphones. The other six own feature phones for now at least. Nielsen projects that smartphones will pass feature phones in the U.S. and reach 50% market share by Christmas 2011. This is all the more amazing considering only 21% of American wireless subscribers were using a smartphone as of the fourth quarter 2009. Data such as these are sending marketers into a frenzy as they rush to engage consumers in this new and exciting channel.

Given this rapid adoption of smartphones by average consumers, we were curious to see if social sports fans (i.e. fans who follow pro and college sports team on Facebook and / or Twitter) were adopting smartphones at similar rates. Turns out they’re not. Sports fans adopting smart phones WAY faster the mainstream average. In some cases, 9 of 10 avid fans already have smartphones. So for any sports marketer who didn’t get out of bed this morning thinking about smartphones, then consider this your wake up call.

Check out the graphic, then meet me at the bottom of this post so we can consider some of the implications of these data.

So what does this data mean?

As you can see, fans who follow American team sports on Facebook & Twitter are in some cases 2x more likely to own smart phones than average. In some cases, nearly 100% of survey respondents indicate smartphones ownership! That’s staggering. And for sports marketers who still thinking the iPhone is the only game in town, it’s not. While more Twitter followers own iPhones, more Facebook fans own Androids. And since Facebook has more people, Android has actually surpassed iPhone overall.

So what does this mean for your organization?

The answer to this question will depend on the state of your current mobile strategy. If you don’t have a mobile strategy, you better get one since your most avid fans are adopting smartphones at alarming rates that far exceed the national average. If you’re not there, you’re missing an important opportunity.

If you’ve only got eyes for iPhone, you better get serious about the Droid too since as of this minute, more fans have Androids than iPhones. (Before worrying about iPad, perhaps consider do something for Android phones first).

And get ready for a long and exciting road ahead

It’s early days for both social media and smartphones, and these are just a couple surface level insights. For deeper “ah ha” moments, you’ll want to dig through some of the other 50 questions in the Social Sports Poll so you can see how fans answered questions about not just how they use their smart phones, but how they use social media overall.

More information about the Social Sports Poll:

The Social Sports Poll is an ongoing, global survey of people who are following sports properties on Facebook or Twitter. Coyle Media manages the Poll and creates the survey which is distributed directly by sports properties to their fans via Facebook and Twitter updates. The Poll has been fielded by more than 20 sports properties across three continents so far, and over 20,000 completed surveys have been collected. To date we have fielded two waves of research, keeping the number of participating sports properties small, and tweaking the questions to yield the best data. Now that we’ve got the survey in good shape, we plan to expand.

Will you join the Social Sports Poll?

In 2012, Coyle Media will be opening up the Social Sports Poll to all comers. Any sports properties with sufficient numbers of social media followers is invited to join the poll. As the number of participating properties increases, not only will we collect more data, but we’ll be able to make better assessments of the data and draw more accurate insights for all Poll participants. We believe that sports properties (and the sports industry) will benefit from working on this collective (i.e. crowdsourced) research initiative.

The Social Sports Poll will provide track important digital media trends in a sports context (e.g. the percentage of smartphones, use of check-in, content sharing, social commerce and mobile Commerce), and it will help sports properties to strengthen content and engagement strategies in Facebook, Twitter, mobile E mail and Web channels.

Drop me a line

If you’re interested in learning more about the Social Sports Poll, or in getting your property involved, please drop me a line via my contact form. I will make sure you get more details, and send you our schedule of survey dates for 2012.

Remember, despite their widespread adoption among avid sports fans, smartphones are just beginning to make their mark on sports marketing. Sports industry pioneers doing amazing things, but the rest of the industry is just waking up to the possibilities. Time to make the donuts!!

Home safety - Home surveillance Cameras Options

The modern explosion of high tech gadgets to the shop has sparked much interest in the field of home surveillance Cameras. Online sales has made home and office surveillance easy and inexpensive. With a uncomplicated Camera system, monitor and recorder you can have instant surveillance principles set up that discourages would be intruders like the plague.

There are many options ready to you for home surveillance Cameras. One of the most beloved methods is that of the secret Camera or the nanny camera. This allows you to examine and or record surveillance discreetly without letting the observed know they are being watched.

One of the benefits of the nanny camera is that it requires diminutive to no factory and is even ready in a wireless solution. Since many of these cameras run on batteries it is imperative that you check them out from time to time to insure the batteries are functioning. Although the secret camera has coined the nanny camera it is also an effective explication when you want to conceal the camera.

This raises the interrogate of legality of spying on people without there knowledge. This can be a tricky situation. In general spying on unaware people would be illegal if you invaded there privacy but would not be determined illegal if you were checking on your babysitter watching your children because privacy is not a factor.

Because there are so many options ready to you in home security cameras it can sometime seem overwhelming. In this case you should take a breath, relax and determine what you want you are trying to accomplish with video surveillance. Once you have figured out what you are finding for you can undoubtedly find many solutions by surfing the internet.

In conclusion, there are many options ready to you to protect yourself and your house from the costly to the elaborate. You owe it to yourself and your house to be protected. See our choice of affordable home surveillance cameras today and never leave your home unprotected again.

Blogroll:

The Best Safety Devices – Fake Surveillance Camera

Fake security cameras for the home – a visual deterrent

Surveillance cameras for home – Get your house and family protected now

Technology for Your Safety: Wireless Home Security Systems

Top Rated Home Security Systems

Buyer’s Guide: Surveillance cameras purchasing tips

iPhone review: Six iPhone 4S features you may have missed

Despite its superficial similarity to the iPhone 4, three landmark features set the iPhone 4S apart from its predecessor: Siri, the new 8 megapixel camera, and the much more powerful A5 processor. The iPhone 4S also comes with a few more subtle design tweaks that differentiate it from the iPhone 4, and you might miss some of those changes if you didn't have an iPhone 4 and 4S sitting side-by-side for a comparison.

Antenna Improvements

Phil Schiller actually did talk about the new antenna in the iPhone 4S during the most recent Apple event, but the changes to the iPhone's antenna aren't really obvious until you have the handset in your hands. One of those changes literally requires you to hold the device in your hand before you'll see it: the dreaded "death grip" of the iPhone 4 is gone in the iPhone 4S.

A well-known and widely (over)publicized shortcoming of the iPhone 4's antenna design caused it to attenuate wireless signals when held a certain way. Bridging the black gap on the lower left side of the iPhone's antenna band would cause signal strength to drop for some users. This so-called "Antennagate" dominated headlines about the iPhone 4 for months, and Apple eventually addressed the issue by providing free bumper cases to affected users.

Since I use my iPhone left-handed and without a case, with the iPhone 4 I always had to be mindful of how I held it. 3G signal strength at my home wasn't the best with my old wireless provider -- I'd get one or two bars if I was lucky -- so accidentally bridging that gap would cause my signal strength to drop to zero within a minute or less.

That's no longer an issue with the iPhone 4S. In fact, to get the signal strength to drop at all I have to hold the phone in a very unnatural two-fisted grip that requires bridging all four of the black antenna gaps at once. The "death grip" is a thing of the past.

The improved antenna design also equates to much faster 3G speeds, improved call quality, and lightning-fast Wi-Fi signal acquisition. 3G download speeds on my iPhone 4S are anywhere from two to four times faster than my iPhone 4 on the same network, and the murky "bottom of the ocean" call quality I got on the iPhone 4 was replaced with crystal-clear voice quality on the iPhone 4S. The newest iPhone also latches onto a Wi-Fi signal much faster than my iPhone 4 ever did, with essentially zero delay in connecting to networks it's connected to before.

Many critics lambasted the iPhone 4's antenna design in the wake of "Antennagate," but the iterative update of the iPhone 4S / ipad Accessories / iPad Cases antenna shows that Apple has shaken out any deficiencies in the design.

Shifted Controls

One consequence of the antenna re-design is those antenna gaps have been shifted around. Rather than the asymmetrical three-gap design of the GSM iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S has four gaps arranged with bilateral symmetry, essentially identical to the gaps on the CDMA version of the iPhone 4. As a result, the mute switch and volume controls for the iPhone 4S have been shifted downward toward the dock connector by about a millimeter compared to the iPhone 4, similarly to how the CDMA iPhone 4's controls were altered.

As a result, many (if not most) cases designed for the GSM model iPhone 4 won't fit the iPhone 4S, including Apple's own bumper cases. Cases designed for the CDMA iPhone 4 should fit the iPhone 4S just fine. So should "universal" cases designed for both the GSM and CDMA versions of the iPhone 4; these cases feature slightly larger cutouts for the mute switch and volume buttons, so they should fit the iPhone 4S without issue.

Quieter Vibration Motor

Apple has swapped out the old vibration motor in the GSM model iPhone 4 with one that's either similar or identical to the one in the CDMA iPhone 4. The new motor features a smoother vibration which doesn't rattle the phone itself quite so much. The result is a much quieter vibration, one that you might not even hear from more than a few feet away if your iPhone's lying on a table; if you're holding the phone in your hand, you might barely hear the vibration at all.

Depending on your needs, that might not necessarily count as an improvement. If you loathe ringtones and instead listen for your iPhone rattling across a table or other flat surface for your notifications, this change may disappoint you. Personally, I appreciate the new vibration, because the old one always sounded as though it was trying to shake the phone to shreds.

The quieter motor in the iPhone 4S doesn't mean the phone's vibrations are weaker than those of the iPhone 4. I held the 4S in one hand and the 4 in my other; the strength of vibrations felt essentially the same, with the only difference being a distinctively loud BZZZZT coming from the iPhone 4.

Audio Improvements

The speaker on the iPhone 4S is NOTICEABLY LOUDER compared to the one in the iPhone 4. In some cases it's almost too loud; high-pitched notification sounds from apps like Tweetbot definitely have a piercing effect on my eardrums with the alert volume turned up all the way, which was never an issue with the quieter iPhone 4. The obvious upshot of the louder speaker is it'll be easier to hear ringtones and other sounds when you're in an environment with lots of ambient noise.

Despite that increase in overall volume, the speaker in the iPhone 4S also seems to produce sounds with higher clarity than the iPhone 4's speaker. Audio that used to overdrive the iPhone 4 speaker and make it sound "clippy" now sounds much clearer on the iPhone 4S speaker. Music and games sound much better on the iPhone 4S, but the improved speaker clarity also means some ringtones or other media may actually sound worse than on the iPhone 4. For example, I sourced some of my custom ringtones from low-fidelity mp3 audio files; while they sounded fine on the iPhone 4 speaker, the flaws in recording quality are much more obvious on the iPhone 4S speaker, with very audible background hiss in some cases.

Audio playback through both the iPhone 4S speaker and attached headphones produces a much less trebly sound than the iPhone 4. Music playback quality on the iPhone 4S also sounds subtly improved even through the included Apple-branded earbuds. Based on these sonic differences in music playback between the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, I suspected the iPhone 4S had a different audio processor; information in iFixit's teardown confirmed that though the audio codec chip is from the same manufacturer (Cirrus Logic) as the iPhone 4, the part number for the iPhone 4S is different. It's likely the updated audio codec chip is also part of the reason the iPhone 4S speaker sounds clearer than the iPhone 4.

Your personal tastes may vary from mine. It's possible we could review the same hardware and come to entirely different conclusions about whether the iPhone 4 or 4S sounds "better" over headphones. There's no mistaking the improvements in sound quality through the built-in speaker on the iPhone 4S, though; it sounds markedly improved compared to the iPhone 4.

Bluetooth 4.0

The iPhone 4S is the first iPhone to support Bluetooth 4.0, a low-energy Bluetooth spec that allows devices to sync via Bluetooth while consuming far less power than traditional Bluetooth devices. This low-power version of Bluetooth doesn't support voice -- headsets and other voice devices still have to transmit over one of the higher-power specs -- but it does support transmission of data from other peripherals like heart rate monitors, watches, and input devices like keyboards or game controllers.

The applications for health and fitness-related gear are virtually endless. As of now, many third-party accessories require a proprietary receiver to send data to an iPhone, or else they transmit via one of the older, more power-hungry Bluetooth specs. Using Bluetooth 4.0 would allow these devices to communicate directly with the iPhone, without the need for an intervening dock connector dongle, and such devices could have tremendously increased battery life compared to those currently on the market.

One example of a device that could greatly benefit from Bluetooth 4.0 is Jawbone's Up health monitoring band. The Up monitors a great deal of user health data, but syncing that data to the iPhone requires plugging a connector into the iPhone's headphone jack. Using Bluetooth 4.0 could theoretically allow a device like the Jawbone Up to be in constant communication with the iPhone 4S without the need for users to sync data manually.

Another possible implementation of Bluetooth 4.0 would be a wristwatch that can display certain kinds of information transmitted to it from a synced iPhone (notifications, for example), and send basic commands back to it, such as controlling music playback. This has been a popular dream of geekier users ever since the current iPod nano debuted; once it became clear the nano could be used as a watch, people almost immediately leapt to the next-level idea of using the nano to control another device and/or display data transmitted to it.

Not many Bluetooth 4.0 devices exist on the market as of yet, but expect to see a lot of them hitting the market once the standard becomes more widely adopted. The low-power spec allows devices powered by standard watch batteries to run with lifetimes measured in months to years rather than the hours to days of battery life current devices get.

Video Mirroring

The iPhone 4S is the first iPhone to support mirroring to an Apple TV via AirPlay, at 720p resolution. It also supports video mirroring or video out at 1080p resolution via Apple's Digital AV Adapter or VGA Adapter, the same connectors that allow for 1080p mirroring on the iPad 2. Video mirroring to an Apple TV will make it much easier to share content with people sitting nearby, and it also has great applications for gaming.
None of these features are anywhere near as headline-grabbing as Siri, but the minor details that you might not even notice are often where Apple's products excel. The iPhone 4S is no exception.

Tablet review: Online video viewers watching longer on tablets

As many consumers hungrily await tomorrow's release of Amazon's Kindle Fire, there is evidence that tablets may be reshaping online viewing habits.

Tablet users averaged 30 percent more viewing time per session compared with desktops, according to data released this week by Ooyala, a provider of video services to major brands. Tablet users also tended to be more engaged, finishing videos at nearly twice the rate as desktop users.

For each minute of video watched on a desktop, tablet users watched for one minute 17 seconds, an average of 28 percent longer than desktop viewing. Video completion rates on tablets were also 30 percent higher than non-tablet mobile devices.

While online viewers were more likely to turn to laptops or desktops to watch short clips, the data suggests that viewers are turning to tablets, mobile devices, and connected TV devices and game consoles for medium and long-form videos. Videos 10 minutes or longer accounted for 30 percent of hours watched on mobile devices, 42 percent on tablets, and 75 percent on connected TV devices and game consoles.

The study also found that viewer engagement was "generally higher" for long-form videos. Mobile users tended to complete three-quarters of a long-form video at a rate of 20 percent, compared with 18 percent for desktops.

Meanwhile, viewers on connected TV devices and game consoles completed long-form content at a higher rate than viewers who watched on any other device. (A study released earlier in week found that video game consoles have become the most popular way for U.S. consumers to watch online entertainment content on their TVs.)

Apple's iPad / iPad Cases was the most popular tablet for viewing online video during the third quarter, accounting for 99.4 percent of displays and 97.7 percent of total plays.

iPhones accounted for 56 percent of video plays, compared with 36.8 percent for Android-powered smartphones. However, Android edged out iPhone in total video minutes, delivering 49 percent to iPhones 44 percent.

The data was collected from a cross section of the company's customer and partner database, which features more than 100 million unique monthly viewers in more than 100 countries.

The study comes out as Amazon get's ready to ship its Android-powered Kindle Fire--the Internet retailer's first foray into the tablet market, which has so far been dominated by the iPad. But analysts believe the Kindle Fire's low $199 price tag--most tablets retail for around $500--could help make it the first legitimate competitor in an area where many other high-end Android tablets have missed the mark.

How to secure your iPhone's Internet connection?

If I had a buck for every time I've reminded someone to pay attention to how secure his or her Internet connection is, I'd be able to buy Apple, Google, and Microsoft — and have enough spare change for a cup of coffee.

In other words: The importance of securing your data can never be emphasized enough. Especially not when it happens to be International Fraud Awareness Week.

So let's talk about staying safe on one of the more popular mobile devices — the iPhone.

Just like your laptop, tablet, or other mobile device, the iPhone is incredibly vulnerable when you decide to use a public Wi-Fi network. Someone could hijack your Twitter or Facebook accounts, steal passwords, or even take a peek at your email and instant message conversations.

So what can you do to stay safe? You can create and maintain a secure Internet connection by using a virtual private network (VPN). And while that sounds like it'd be difficult to set up, it can actually be done with just a few taps and an app called Hotspot Shield VPN.

Hotspot Shield VPN comes from AnchorFree, a company known for its desktop VPN software, and it can be downloaded from the Apple App Store. The app itself is free, but the associated service will cost you $1/month or $10/year. (There's a free 7-day trial available if you want to give the app a shot before shelling out cash.)

Once installed, the app will run in the background and keep your Internet sessions safe. It will protect third-party apps, the iPhone's built-in Safari browser, and even encrypt your iMessage conversations.
It's worth pointing out that using a VPN service means you are trusting a third-party — such as AnchorFree — with all your data as everything passes through the secure tunnel created by the software. That's quite a leap of faith, but AnchorFree has a pretty solid history when it comes to keeping Internet browsing sessions private and secure. Its desktop software does occasionally include what some folks consider to be (optional) adware.

How to Getting along well with iPhone 4S's Siri

The more I use Siri the more I discover that the personal assistant can do for me with the iPhone 4S. Here are some simple areas that Siri is making a contribution in my daily life.

Siri is the voice assistant introduced with the iPhone 4S designed to make the user’s life easier. Through natural commands spoken into the phone, Siri jumps to provide assistance or information as required by the request. Siri isn’t able to do everything, nor to understand some requests, but the technology is imnpressive in how often it works as intended. I find myself using Siri more and more the longer I use the iPhone 4S, and have run across some useful things.

Reminders. Siri works with the reminders in iOS5 to make sure you don’t forget to do something. These are the first thing that most iPhone 4S owners get familiar with, and the longer I use Siri the more use I get out of reminders. I use it all the time for simple things.

My wife asks me to check the dryer in an hour and I tell Siri to “remind me to check the dryer in an hour”. Today I told Siri to “remind me to turn the crock pot down at 3″ and my dinner was saved.

I am getting good at not just using Siri for timed actions like those above, but for lots of other functions. I often tell Siri to “remind me to note fact A” for anything I would normally jot down on a post-it note. This is so easy to do I never forget simple things like this, now that I have a personal assistant.

Information requests. Like most folks I have become dependent on web searches to get information I need. Siri has assumed a big role in my quest for information, both searches I used to do on Google, “ipad 2 cases”, and others that are less structured.

Sunday I wondered how my local NFL team’s schedule looked the rest of the year so it was “Siri, show me the Houston Texan NFL schedule”. Siri fired up a Google search that took me right to the remaining schedule I needed.

These are very simple examples, but I am gradually coming to depend on Siri to get me more specific information through Apple’s integration with Wolfram Alpha. Preceding a request with “Wolfram” instead of Siri tells Siri I want her to use that service to look for the information I am requesting.

I am finding this useful in researching topics for writing projects, as well as stuff I am simply wondering about. “Wolfram, who played in the 1983 World Series” yields everything you want to know about that event. Every day I am finding I end up thinking about something like this and Siri gives me the exact information I am wondering. You can also preface a question with Bing or Yahoo, if you want those services to be used.

Sending text messages. I don’t text a lot of people, primarily just family members. In the beginning I would tell Siri to “Send a text to Sheri” along with the line of text I wanted to send. As I used Siri, I realized she could learn how those who I text frequently are related to me. Now I simply state “Text my wife I will be running late” and after once telling Siri which contact that meant all future texts go straight to Sheri. I’ve done the same thing with my brother, daughter 1, daughter 2, etc. Since getting the iPhone 4S I find I text folks more often, due to how easy it is with Siri.

I also use Siri’s ability to send text messages to tweet occasionally. I set up Twitter to allow tweeting via SMS, and trained Siri what number that was. Now I tell Siri to “Send a text to Twitter” followed by a short tweet. Nice and simple and totally hands-free. You can also configure Google+ and Facebook to allow you to post updates using this method.

Making phone calls. I use Siri more and more to initiate phone calls, especially in the car. I know I shouldn’t make calls while driving but I admit I do that once in a while. It is so easy to tell Siri to “call my brother at home” and have the call started with no further action on my part.

The same method is good for getting contact information I need. Asking Siri “what is Matt Miller’s address?” is a lot easier than manually finding it in the Address Book. I can even ask Siri what so-and-so’s birthday is and get the date.

Setting alarms. When I need a more persistent reminder than the Reminders app provides, I now use Siri to set alarms to bug me. This is as simple as “Wake me tomorrow at 6:30″ or “set an alarm for 6:30″. That gets the nagging iPhone alarm set to disturb me appropriately.

Scheduling. Siri is especially good at scheduling meetings and events. “Meet with Bob today at 3″ gets the appropriate event in my schedule. I really like the ability to ask Siri “What does my schedule look like on Thursday?” and having it shown. This is where the natural language of Siri really shines.

Siri is far from perfect, but as I use it more I am getting better at figuring out what type of natural language commands work best. I can state confidently that I am using the iPhone 4S and Siri more than I have used any other smartphone, because I am finding more things Siri can do for me all the time.

Apple makes contact: 'iOS 5 bug causes iPhone 4S battery issue'

Apple finally speaks out over the battery issues some customers have suffered with iOS 5 powered devices: In short, there’s a fix, but not for a while.

Apple has made contact with the outside world to confirm that iOS 5, its latest mobile operating system, released only a fortnight ago, is causing battery issues with iPhones.

“A small number of customers have reported lower than expected battery life on iOS 5 devices”, the company told AllThingsD, adding: “We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.”

Apple did not comment beyond the statement.

The Cupertino-based giant is seeding a minor update to developers, iOS 5.0.1, which amongst other things will address the battery life issue.

Also in the update, multitasking gestures will be fixed for the first-generation iPad, resolve some issues with Documents in the Cloud, and improve Siri for Australian users of the iPhone 4S.

But many will be angered that the update “will take weeks”, as many struggle to gain any more than 12 hours out of their iPhones in a single day.

Apple has been deathly silent over the battery issues, which threatened to replicate the issues that the company had with the iPhone 4 in ‘Antennagate’. But the company’s response has been less than ideal, as it has not publicly acknowledged a problem until now — over two weeks since the problems began to emerge.

Within a few days of antenna-related issues reported in the press with the iPhone 4, the late Steve Jobs discussed with reporters at a special press event how the company would fix the problem — not only with the smartphone itself, but its reputation amongst its customers; something the company holds seemingly ahead of anything else.

Users instead were left to scramble for their own solutions, with many finding resolve in a location-based setting deep within the operating system. Thousands of users left comments of anger and frustration, along with tips and advice for fellow iOS 5 users in the Apple support forums since the problems were first reported.

Despite the problems with battery, and some other minor bugs along the way, the iPhone 4S has been the most popular selling smartphone the company has ever produced, selling millions in the first week alone. Sprint and AT&T reached record sale highs.