Week of September 14, 2009

More on Music & Mobile

Friday, September 18, 2009

Yesterday we pointed out that US consumers lag behind many other countries in listening to music on mobile devices. This information forms an interesting backdrop to Nokia's decisions to delay the launch of its "Comes With Music" service in the US. We described this service at length last year. It launched in the UK and other territories in 2008, but so far, results have not been what they expected. The US launch is now tentatively set for 2010.

In the meantime, the land grab for market share in this space is getting more intense by the week. Spotify launched its iPhone app recently, even though the service is not yet available in the US. And Rhapsody, which is very much a player in the US, just released its own iPhone app.

Music Via Mobile

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Music listening on mobile phones is much less common in the US than in other countries, according to Forrester Research. Despite the rapid adoption of iPhones and other music-enabled devices, Forrester's figures indicate that 90% of US mobile users never listen to music on their mobile phones, unlike their counterparts in other major territories. For example, 26% of Britons listen to music on mobile, as do an astounding 70% of Chinese. Furthermore, 60% of US mobile users expressed no interest in purchasing music via their mobile phones.

Forrester attributes the dismal US numbers to the fact that the music companies and the mobile carriers have focused on their business models, rather than on the customer experience. The situation in Europe and Asia has been different, but Forrester says that the revenue overseas is still very small. Even with little interest expressed so far by US consumers, Forrester predicts that music purchases via mobile will hit $263 million by 2013.

Online Video Viewing Way Up

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

ComScore's latest data shows that July set a record for Internet video watching in the US. Their numbers show that 158 million people watched video online, breaking the record of 157 million set in June. The major driving forces were major events including the death of Michael Jackson and the controversy surrounding the Iranian elections. Google's sites accounted for 39% of all video viewing, with 99% of that number coming from YouTube. Viacom Digital came in second place at 4%.

Here are some of the other impressive numbers from July:

* American viewers streamed 21.4 billion videos for the month

* 81% of US Internet users watched online video sometime during July

Small Businesses Shift Ad $ to Online

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Recently we pointed to a study showing a shift of ad dollars from traditional media to online. Another study, this one by market research firm, IDC, gives some additional perspective on the overall advertising downturn, showing that online ad spending dropped 7% in the US (5% globally) in the second quarter. The IDC study included a number of other interesting facts and predictions about the state of online ad spending, including these:

* Display (banner) ads dropped 16%

* Classifieds were off by 16%

* Google had the only good news, posting a tiny gain in Q2

* Worst hit was Monster.com, down 31%

* 3rd Quarter spending will likely be off by similar amounts

Small & Medium Sized Business Shifts to Online

Monday, September 14, 2009

The Kelsey Group, a division of BIA Advisory Services released a study which claims that, for the first time ever, online advertising has surpassed traditional media advertising with small and medium-sized businesses. According to their figures, 77% of small and medium-sized businesses used online advertising in August 2009 (up from 73% in August of 2008). Use of traditional media advertising declined from 74% to 69% in the same period.

The study also quantifies the overall decrease in ad spending. They show it falling 23.5% from year to year. This makes sense as shifting advertising from traditional media to online is not a dollar for dollar proposition. In fact, even though more small and medium businesses are using online, the total dollars invested in online advertising amounts to only 36.8%.