musings of a social architect

animals on the underground

One of the ongoing themes in my life is finding patterns among seemingly random data. In that spirit, I offer you  animals on the underground -- a clever and delightful take on visual pattern recognition. Enjoy!

Growth in mobile content: women and older folks?

Via MocoNews, I ran across this M:Metrics study showing that women are outpacing men in the rate that they're purchasing mobile content. Here's the stats:

The number of females consuming ringtones and games grew by 27 percent and 21 percent, respectively, year over year. Corresponding numbers for males were growth of 15.4 percent in males downloading ringtones and a decline of 11.3 percent in the number of males downloading games. Females now account for a clear majority, or 55 percent, of ringtone purchasers. While males still have a higher propensity to download games, the ratio of male to female game downloaders has dropped from 61 percent male in 2005 to 54 percent male in 2006.

Interestingly, this same study also showed high growth in an older, often-neglected market segement:

While starting from a smaller base, the 35-to-44-year-old segment has had the highest growth for games and ringtones. Consumption among teens has lagged, with the number of teen ringtone purchasers remaining relatively flat, while teens engaged in downloading games fell by a whopping 30 percent.

LINK

Newfangled Tamagotchi from Holland

Yesterday, a reporter from Cnet called to discuss a new "virtual parenting" simulation game from Holland called Eccky. The premise of this game is that two people  "seed" a baby with their characteristics, and then "raise" the kid together, Tamagotchi-style. Eccy's unique twist is that this game is played within MSN Messenger; the child appears as a Messenger contact that's driven by a chat-bot.

Once "born," the unique Eccky (which is derived from the Japanese word, ecci, meaning "naughty") has its own profile page and is added to the MSN Messenger contact list of each parent. The virtual child grows and ages three years for every one day of game play. As an Eccky ages, its vocabulary matures. Within six days, the Eccky turns into an 18-year-old with an individual character and leaves the nest, thus ending the game. Players are rated at the end of the game by the happiness of the child, which is measured by attention and game play. For example, if the parent neglects to command the child to go to the bathroom when it's full, or forgets to feed the Eccky, then the child's happiness rating suffers.

In addition to IM communication with the child, you can also send and receieve SMS messages. It's a fascinating concept - you can read more here (I'm quoted near the end of the article).

Books that help you make games

Next Generation has just published a list of 50 must-read books for everyone in the computer games industry - and I'm proud to say that my book has made the list. Although it's now out of print, you can purchase and download an electronic copy directly from the publisher.

Those Teens, they Love to Text

Not surprisings, a recent study of U.S. teens by cellphone retailer Let's Talk listed texting as the most-wanted, must-have cellphone feature. Yet another reminder of how central this activity is in teenagers' lives. (Reposted from textually.org, my favorite mobile-centric blog)

The aggregate responses for teens in terms of their most important cell phone feature:

* Texting -- 49%
* Camera -- 25%
* Games -- 12%
* Music player -- 5%
* IM -- 5%
* E-mail -- 2%
* Video -- 2%

In a related survey by cellphone retailer Carphone Warehouse, British teens reported that their social life and feelings of safety were enhanced by having a mobile phone. The survey stats also showed heavy use of texting, even during classes @ school. Those teens, they sure love to text.

The Mobile Life Survey, commissioned by Carphone Warehouse, quizzed 1,250 people aged 11 to 17. 80% of the young people who took part in the research said they felt safer having a mobile and that they had a better social life as a result. The survey added that texting was the preferred method for youngsters to contact each other, rather than phone calls. On average, they send or receive up to 10 text messages a day - three times more than their parents.

78% of 11 to 17-year-olds believe having a mobile has given them a better social life as it meant it was easier to keep in touch with their friends... many young people - especially teenage girls - admit they would feel unwanted if the day passed without their mobile ringing. Among those quizzed 26% said they would feel left out, compared with just 11% of parents.

Our Changing Media Habits: Surfing the Web vs Watching TV

A recent study found that college students are more likely to spend time on the Net than traditional media like TV and radio. Furthermore, these students are likely to be multi-tasking (i.e. surfing the Net) while watching TV or listening to the radio.

This definately mimics the changes that are happening in our house. We rarely watch TV without a Net-connected laptop handy. Sometimes it's a multi-tasking situation - I'll be reading email and catching up on Blogs while watching a show with my family. But even more often, I'll find that we want to lookup background info on whatever we're watching, to enrich the experience. For example, this weekend for Family Movie Night (our Sunday evening ritual) we watched The Secret Garden, an exquisite and moving version of the beloved children's book. As the opening credits were rolling, Gabe asked me "Who were the Warner Brothers?" -- so I looked them up on Wikipedia, and read a few excerpts from the article to my family while we were waiting for the movie to start. During the movie, I checked my email occasionally, and then I read reviews of the movie on Amazon and RottonTomatoes during the closing credits. While reading reviews, I stumbled upon a prolific reviewer named MovieMom who's reviewed a lot of family films -- and based on her recommendations, made some notes on what to rent for our next Family Movie Night.

So that's how Net-surfing enriches the TV viewing experience in our house. Here's some stats from the college study.

The study found that about 34 percent of college students recently reported spending more than 10 hours a week online, while only around 19 percent say they devote at least the same amount of time to watching television or listening to the radio. For the report, Burst last month surveyed 800 college students between the ages of 18 and 24.

The findings confirm other recent reports concluding that college students are heavy online users. For instance, earlier this month Alloy Media   Marketing reported that students spend 3.5 hours a day e-mailing, instant messaging and Web surfing, and 6.5 hours a week on social networking sites...

...many college students who watch TV or listen to the radio are multi-tasking at the time. Around 64 percent of respondents report using the computer when viewing TV, while around 60 percent use a computer while the radio is on.

In the same study, Burst also examined what factors persuade students to change brands. Better price was the single most important consideration, cited by almost 61 percent of respondents. Friends' recommendations also were influential, with almost 49 percent of respondents saying such recommendations influenced decisions to change brands.

Learning about the Nintendo Wii

Here at ShuffleBrain, we're starting to get into Wii game development. Over the next few weeks, we'll be learning more about the interface, features and processing capabilities of this exciting, innovative new platform. Today's project was to review some recent Wii videos that showcase various games and channels. Here's a few good ones we found - well worth watching if you're interested in the Wii. Happy viewing!

Wii Gameplay Footage

Wii Bowl Demo

Wii Channels Demo

Wii Interface (avatars and photos)

Wii Mii channel

Wii Photo channel

Wii Weather channel

Sportingo mixes UGC with professional editing and content

Boy, this really IS the age of UGC (user-generated content). Techcrunch reports on Sportingo, a new Sports-oriented site that blends UGC with professional editing and licensed stats and photos. What's interesting to me about this model is the blend of UGC, professional editing, Digg-like game mechanics, and an advertising revenue model.  Definately a development to keep an eye on.

...The company’s editors write headlines, fix grammar, approve tags for consistency, apply search engine optimizing metadata to each article, attach relevant statistics and photos licensed from outside vendors and determine placement of the stories on the Sportingo site....Reader interaction with each story will also impact the placement of stories...The revenue model is entirely based on advertisements...

User contributors develop reputation through reader ratings of their stories, with status levels starting at Rookie and moving up to being in the Sportingo Hall of Fame. High status contributors will gain privileges like private meetings with athletes and editorial control over their own sections of the site. Unlike many similar sites, there’s no revenue sharing plan for contributors.

...From sports to personal finance and investing, there are a number of startups right now trying to bring structure to topical and prolific segments of the blogosphere, but Sportingo’s investment in editorial control and outside resources that require professional development could really offer users a chance to participate in a very compelling sports journalism community. We all know about the many shortcomings of mainstream media, but the pitfalls of pure user generated content are becoming more evident as well. This kind of hybrid is quite intriguing.

LINK

In search of phone ideas, Korean firms turn to amateurs

Via textually.org, I ran across this report about Korean handset makers turning to amateur designers to spice up their new mobile phone lines. Korea has an advanced mobile phone and Internet culture that gives us Stateside folks a glimpse into the future. It's especially intriguing that LG is using mobile-centric Net communities to recruit "prosumers" for future cellphone design work - kinda like American Idol for cellphone designers :-)

Pantech Group, Korea's No. 2 handset maker, turns to its "designer community" for new ideas.
Since 2004, the cell phone maker has selected a couple of dozen students every year to fill this group, which works as a pseudo in-house research unit. The students not only receive hands-on training from actual designers, but also get to develop their own ideas and make proposals to the company. Pantech provides students with office space and funds to conduct research on design-related issues.

So far, 55 students from 20 universities have been involved in this group, of whom 10 went on to work as designers for the company. The IM-U140, a digital multimedia broadcasting phone slated for release later this week, was designed by a member of the designer community.

... LG Electronics also has plans to create a team that can brainstorm about cell phones, in conjunction with Cetizen, the largest Internet community site for mobile phone users, it will recruit what it calls "Cyon Prosumers.

Mobile Phone Ads taking off in Japan

Accordingly to this report, 54% of Japanese mobile phone users consume advertising on a mobile phone at least once per week. This is a heartening statistic; although Japan is a far more advanced mobile phone market than the US, it's also a harbinger of things to come. As advertising becomes a viable revenue model for mobile entertainment services, I think we'll see an explosion of interesting services emerge.

Right now, the US mobile industry's ability to launch compelling, profitable services is hampered by consumers' reluctance to pay for services up front. The Internet has taught us to expect free services; why should we pay for something on mobile that we can get for free on the Net? Furthermore, it's often difficult to cancel a subscription  you no longer want - and that makes people reluctant to sign up for subscriptions in the first place. I'm speaking from direct experience here - I've spent FAR too many hours on the phone with Cingular, trying to get them to remove subscriptions from my mobile bill that I couldn't get rid of. I  sometimes see services that I'd like to check out - such as Limlife's Daily Dose - but there's no way that I would subscribe (especially at $9.99 per month) because I have no confidence that I'll be able to cancel my subscription without a major hassle.

Google has done a great job integrating relevant, unobtrusive ads into their search products (less so with their site-based AdSense program).  I don't want my mobile services littered with intrusive, annoying ads - but I would welcome a free service that was monetized with integrated, relevant, perhaps even personalized ads (if the privacy issues can get worked out). If I decided to follow some of those ads, and found that I could actually buy stuff using my mobile phone... that would be super-convenient. For a busy working Mom like me, convenience, utility and trust are key factors in getting me to become loyal to any service, mobile or otherwise.