Stop Before You Download: Test Battery Drain Before It Takes Down Your Mobile Research
by Gregg Lavin, Co-founder and President
Most talk about mobile optimization tends to focus on responsive design and customized content (see Matt Dusig’s blog on Why User Experience is the Key to Quality). Consumers expect mobile sites to not only be catered to their eyes and thumbs, but also to their tablets and operating systems.
Scott Kevdon, the CEO of Urban Airship sums it up well: “Gone are the days when you could get away with just taking what works on the web and shoving it at mobile.”
Yet even though companies continue to invest more in mobile, there has been little discussion about one of the key issues of development that could make or break the experience as a whole, especially as it pertains to the Market Research industry: Battery drain.
A recent study by Stanford University on mobile-browser energy consumption highlights how even some of the most popular websites like the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) and Wikipedia fail to optimize for mobile. The study is a wake up call for the trigger-happy companies who go to market with their mobile offering without considering the consequences. The study warns that “sites who do not [consider this], end up draining the battery of visiting phones [which] can potentially reduce traffic to the site.”
No one is more aware of this than the mobile carriers themselves. Verizon just issued a warning to their customer base about “high risk” apps. We can only expect this type of communication to increase as more apps involve geolocation technology that drains the battery-life out of smartphones.
So how does this apply to the MR space? As more and more firms start turning out mobile research apps in response to client demand, it becomes even more critical that we, as an industry, develop apps that respect the integrity of our panel.
Big Data in Market Research: Big Deal or Big Hype?
Over the past year, big data has become part of everyday business vernacular. McKinsey has done an impressive job reporting on the topic, HBR has admirably attempted to tackle and dismantle it, and TechCrunch has campaigned to “kill” it, but what’s often lacking is the perspective of those who work in the thick-of-it daily.
Instead of waxing poetic on the future of big data, we decided to recruit our data experts-in-residence to weigh in on the discussion and provide a fresh take on this vast topic before it makes the Ridiculous Business Jargon dictionary. Here at uSamp, we’ve collected over one billion data points in the five-year lifetime of our company. In our big data blog series, we’ll look at the obvious and not so obvious truths from its predictive powers to its shortcomings. Is the revenue invested in mining big data a burstable bubble? What separates the men from the boys sitting on this wealth of info? Answers to these questions and more can be found in the following series of blogs.
by Siva Venkataraman, Director of Analytics, uSamp
Defining Big Data:
No other technology in the past few years has shown both the potential and hype in equal measures as “Big Data.” Yet the meaning of big data is ambiguous and not very well understood.
For some, big data means using new technologies such as map-reduce or Hadoop to crunch multiple petabytes of data; while for others – especially business folk – it has become more of a generic term for analytics, loosely used to describe any opportunities related to data.
Gartner provides a framework in defining big data as the “3Vs” – ‘Big data are high-volume, high-velocity, and/or high-variety information assets that require new forms of processing to enable enhanced decision making, insight discovery and process optimization.
However, none of these definitions offer a clear guideline to marketing executives on how much to invest in big data or to market researchers on how to use big data technologies to gain more insights about consumers and the market. A more useful way of thinking about big data is as a set of technologies that enable collecting, storing, and processing large volumes of unstructured data in an efficient way.
Professionals Agree Working Remotely Productive and Liberating [INFOGRAPHIC]
As technology has advanced, so has the ability to work outside of the office. Today, 65 percent of companies allow employees to work remotely versus 35 percent that do not.
The study conducted by uSamp using their B2B panel examined the office cultures and habits of 1,000 business professionals across the United States to find out how these workplaces compared. The research team at uSamp was able to analyze the data by company size, type of industry, type of organization, level in organization, education and age. The results may surprise you:
Link Dump: April 2013
Welcome to uSamp’s bi-weekly link dump: A compilation of all things trending in Market Research, Mobile, Social Media, Gamification and more. We hope you’ll find this aggregation as informative and entertaining as we do. Let us know if there are items that you’d like to see included in the next link dump!
President Clinton is still learning how to tweet.
Market Research
Flex, future researcher
Jeremy Rix follows Jay Simpson, fictional future insight executive, during a typical working week to see how the job might change in the coming years.
UK MR budgets up in Q1, says IPA’s Bellwether
UK — Market research budgets in the UK were revised up on balance in the first quarter of 2013, according to the latest Bellwether Report from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.
Is BrainJuicer ambitious enough?
Recent unflattering results from growth darling BrainJuicer surprised some observers, including Surinder Siama of innovation researchers mngful. So he asked BrainJuicer CEO John Kearon about what went wrong and what this means for BrainJuicer’s future.
ActiveGroup ‘to Close on Friday
US-based ActiveGroup, which provides video streaming to the market research industry, is reportedly to cease operations on April 5 after fourteen years in business. The firm is part of MVL Group, which also owns companies including PhoneBase and QuickTest/Heakin.
WorldOne Secures $35m for Physician Community
Healthcare research specialist WorldOne has secured $35m in funding, most of which it will use to expand its Sermo online physician community.
GroupM Consolidates Multicultural Insight Services
WPP’s media investment management group GroupM has expanded its line-up of multicultural insights services and brought them together in one until called GroupM Multicultural, led by Hispanic media specialist Gonzalo Del Fa.
Social Media
Social media drives increase in TV programme engagement says study
AUSTRALIA — Interaction with social media while watching TV drives a 9% increase in programme engagement according to research released today.
Stephen Colbert Helps Bill Clinton Send First Tweet
In a recent interview with Bill Clinton, Stephen Colbert tweets from @PrezBillyJeff on behalf of the former President.
Justin Bieber Twitter followers ’50% fake’ says report
Around 50% of Justin Bieber’s followers on Twitter are fake, suggests a report which looked into social media profiles on the microblogging site.
Five Social Media Lessons From the US Ambassador to South Korea
As the Korean peninsula teeters on the brink of war, US ambassador to South Korea, Sung Kim, has a bit of a social media mess on his hands.
Facebook Home Puts Facebook First and Everyone Else Second
“We’re not building a phone and we’re not building an operating system.” That’s what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday as his company launched Facebook Home, something that essentially turns an Android phone into a Facebook phone, and keeps you inside the social network in such a way that it might feel a little bit like an OS.
Facebook Expands Ad Targeting Based on Purchases
Do you buy a lot of children’s breakfast cereal? Then you might see some new Facebook ads for those products cropping up on Facebook thanks to a new program from the company called Partner Categories.
Twitter Shuts Down Ribbon’s In-Stream Payment Option Hours After Launch
Ribbon, a San Francisco payments company, made headlines early Wednesday with the launch of anew in-stream payment option for Twitter that lets users buy and sell items directly through the news feed on the social network. Now, just a couple hours later, Twitter has killed off the feature.
‘Facebook Home could change our brains’
Leading neuroscientist Susan Greenfield says Facebook’s new phone and app encourage us to live in the moment. That could change our brains, she claims.
Smartphone, Smart Research: Will The Industry Adopt Mobile Methodology Faster Than Online?
By Leslie Warshaw, Vice President, Research Solutions
Traditionally, the research industry has moved cautiously when it comes to embracing new technology. For example, it has taken a number of years for the industry to embrace the transition from paper to telephone to online. There are perfectly good reasons for this, which have to do with concerns about data integrity, validity, security, representativeness and the need to minimize disruption in trend measurement for our longitudinal studies, which were (and will always be) important measures for our businesses.
Now, with the huge growth in consumer smartphone usage and the variety of functions that the latest technology has to offer for collecting consumer and shopper feedback, we find ourselves at the beginning of another major shift in data collection mode. We have become an app culture. The growth in smartphone usage is even more intense than the growth of the internet in the late nineties – and that was considered an unprecedented phenomenon at that time. This begs the question:
Will it take the research industry years to embrace this latest mode or will the use of smartphone technology be incorporated into our research plans at a faster pace than online?
Big Data: How To Deliver Actionable Insights [Infographic]
uSamp’s one billion data points are comprised of the market intelligence that they have gathered into consumer behavior, purchasing patterns and brand affinity across numerous verticals from auto, tech, gaming, health and beauty, entertainment, and travel, among others. Each participant has volunteered an average of 150 demographic and psychographic profile questions. The automobile segment alone offers over 100 questions that goes beyond the year, make and model of a car. Information about top rental loyalty programs, favorite insurance providers, hybrid-enthusiasts and GPS software preferences color each profile, ultimately helping marketers, advertisers, and manufacturers better understand whether a muscle-car fanatic will ever invest in an electric concept car.
The customer intelligence derived from actionable data helps identify markets and customers, measure brand loyalty and pinpoint new trends; ultimately, helping companies understand what people think. Big data doesn’t come from one source, but from a multitude of sources – surveys, focus groups, mobile feedback, purchase history and customer service to name a few.
Link Dump: March 2 – 15 2013
Even The Pope Tweets! Image courtesy of USA TODAY
Welcome to uSamp’s bi-weekly link dump: A compilation of all things trending in Market Research, Mobile, Social Media, Gamification and more. We hope you’ll find this aggregation as informative and entertaining as we do. Let us know if there are items that you’d like to see included in the next link dump!
Market Research
Adapt to survive, warns latest Grit survey
US — Traditional researchers will have to move away from data collection if they are to survive in a world of social media monitoring, according to the latest survey on market research trends.
Shock of the New – an interview with Jane Frost
The MRS Annual Conference kicks off next week with sportsmen, artists, broadcasters and scientists on the agenda. But what does it all mean for research? Avery Dennison’s Edward Appleton asked MRS chief executive Jane Frost to explain all.
Social Media
The top 10 most irritating social media updates
A new survey has revealed the 10 most annoying types of social media update. How many are you guilty of?
Best Practices: Managing Mobile Research Projects [Whitepaper]
by Dinaz Kachhi, Sr. Manager of Research Insights, uSamp
It is not news that mobile has emerged as a key platform for data collection. It has the unique advantage of gathering in-the-moment feedback through multi-media such as photo, video and audio uploads. But before we get caught up in technological promises, it is imperative to take a step back and discuss how we can maintain the integrity and quality of our research. In our latest whitepaper, Managing Mobile Research Projects, uSamp explores the implications for researchers and project managers in terms of designing, targeting and fielding surveys. It is with this understanding of the nuances of mobile market research that we, as an industry, can create new standards and outline best practices that will define the future.
For the full report, please contact lauren@usamp.com, or visit our website to download a copy.
Geofencing Part III: Key Considerations
In our final installment, Allen discusses some of the implications of geofencing from battery drain to privacy concerns.
How do we address privacy concerns?
It is completely understandable that some people may have privacy concerns associated with geofencing. The way we address these concerns is by being fully transparent about exactly what information is collected. By educating users, we empower them to decide if and when they would like to participate, and are able to preserve their privacy choices. Our Mobile ArmyTM is our most valuable asset, and we take all steps possible to preserve our relationship.
Does geofencing cause significant battery drain?
Any app that uses your device’s location will cause battery drain. The more frequently that app checks your location, the more battery it will drain. After months of development and testing, however, we have established a geofencing solution that has almost no noticeable effect on battery life. To date, we have not received a single complaint regarding battery life from any one of our mobile audience members. If you are considering running a geofencing project, be sure to ask the technology provider what steps they have taken (if any) to preserve battery life, and then download their app so you can experience it yourself (more to come in a future blog by uSamp’s Co-founder & President, Gregg Lavin).
Geofencing Part II: Delivering Real-Time Insights
In Part I of our Mobile Research Trends series, Don’t Mess with the Geofence, our Director of Mobile Products for uSamp, Allen Vartazarian lays the groundwork for geofencing. Here, he explores some of the various applications, and we begin to see how geofencing might be the best way to capture in-the-moment insights.
One of advertising’s greatest pain points is measuring ad effectiveness from the point of impact to the point of purchase. What if we said that geofencing could link an ad’s influence to purchase behavior? Geofencing is a powerful tool that can provide this feedback while adding a whole new dimension to mobile research. Here are some ways that we are using geofencing to provide valuable insights today:
- Out-Of-Home Ad Effectiveness: By setting geofences around out-of-home advertisements, we know when someone in our Mobile Army™ (our robust mobile audience), is nearby and “exposed” to the ad. By setting geofences around specific businesses, agencies can better gauge ad effectiveness by comparing store visitation of exposed consumers to those who were not exposed.
- Real-time Feedback: Whether it be a trip to the grocery store, or a movie that just came out, its imperative to gather feedback as close to the time of the experience as possible. With geofencing, we can trigger an alert as someone enters or exits a location with an invitation to answer a few questions while the experience is still fresh in one’s mind.
- User Behavior Monitoring: We can track store visits, time on site and other key metrics vital to retailers and advertisers. Combining this with other collected data, i.e. web-browsing and purchase activity, helps identify the true impact of the OOH ad exposure.
These are just a few examples of geofencing applications. Imagine how geofencing can apply to competitive analysis, field research and in-store missions. The opportunities will continue to grow with the technology and methodology. Geofencing is truly an innovative method for gaining insight into customer behavior because researchers no longer have to rely on a user’s activation since surveys can now be automatically triggered.
Our final post will explore some of the challenges seen with geofencing, what can be done to address them, and why 2013 is the year of mobile maturity.
