Tag Archives: economy Blog

How the Internet is Further Concentrating the Wealth of the World

The internet has been the great disrupter for over 20 years now. But the greatest effects of the worldwide network we’ve come to depend on are yet to be seen. This article points to one — and it’s big.

Nintendo and its partners are rumored to be earning more than $1 million per day from Pokémon Go. That money is flowing away from small and medium cities and toward big technology companies concentrated in big cities.
Amazon is doing something similar, diverting business away from local retailers and sucking cash into its corporate headquarters in Seattle. Companies like Google and Facebook are drawing ad dollars that previously went to local newspapers and television stations.

The big tech companies are at the root of a new economy that is funneling real money in ways that we may not have expected or wanted. Check out how the success of Pokemon Go points to an economic reality that needs to be dealt with.

Read full article: http://cnb.cx/29BadMX

The Mobile Challenge and Opportunity

Everyone is talking about the shift to mobile. We can expect changes in how we do business and get information as smartphones and tablets proliferate. This article points to three strategic problems businesses must solve as workforces become more mobile.

Just as the internet fundamentally changed consumer behaviour and the way we do business in the 1990s, the continued rise of mobile is set to be a major disruptive force over the next decade … That is backed up by a recent Gartner survey of 2,000 chief information officers (CIOs) worldwide, with 70% putting mobile top of the list ahead of other trends such as big data, social media and cloud computing as the technology that will disrupt established business models most for the next 10 years.

Many economic benefits will drive the spread of mobile technology. For our businesses, it’s an excellent time to develop strategies to connect with customers and partners when they’re on the go.

Read full article: http://linkd.in/130cV6a

Apps vs Browsers? No Contest. It’s Apps!

When apps, those little applications that run on smartphones and tablets, first came out a few years ago, a debate arose over which were better, apps or mobile websites, and which would consumers prefer. Developers thought that offering tailored services through a browser was much more desirable, from both cost and usability standpoints, rather than apps, which users would have to update continually, and developers would have to maintain for several platforms. But consumers, hands down, have chosen apps. There’s something about these little one-trick ponies that people have come to love.

In this recent report from Flurry, a mobile analytics and advertising platform, it’s clear that apps command the most time spent on mobile devices by a whopping 4-to-1 ratio. Apps are obviously something consumers want.

Today, the U.S. consumer spends an average of 2 hours and 38 minutes per day on smartphones and tablets. 80% of that time (2 hours and 7 minutes) is spent inside apps and 20% (31 minutes) is spent on the mobile web. Apps (and Facebook) are commanding a meaningful amount of consumers’ time. All mobile browsers combined … control 20% of consumers’ time. Gaming apps remain the largest category of all apps with 32% of time spent. Facebook is second with 18%, and Safari is 3rd with 12%. Worth noting is that a lot of people are consuming web content from inside the Facebook app. For example, when a Facebook user clicks on a friend’s link or article, that content is shown inside its web view without launching a native web browser, which keeps the user in the app. So if we consider the proportion of Facebook app usage that is within their web view,  we can assert that Facebook has become the most adopted browser in terms of consumer time spent.

The article covers several additional points of interest regarding apps, but the takeaway is that it’s time to think about how to use apps to best serve customers. There’s also an opportunity to explore what other economies apps can provide. People are using them, so offering them will become a differentiator in the burgeoning mobile world.

Read full article: [no longer available]

What’s Up Asia

Asia is often touted to be an up-and-coming economic power. But we haven’t heard much about how Asians see themselves in the world economy. Mark Hurst, who writes the Creative Good newsletter and recently returned from a lengthy trip to Southeast Asia, offers some very interesting observations that should make us ask: if it’s true that market leaders generally stop innovating and become stagnant, can the same also be true for nations. Says Mark,

It’s hard to overestimate the feeling of energy, expansion, investment, and activity that pervades the region. As the US economy stagnates, money has flooded into southeast Asia trying to find better investment yield – and the aggressive work ethic of the region (long hours, highly competitive, focus on results) has been happy to make use of that investment.

Multiple times people told me, in effect, that they just don’t pay much attention to what’s happening in the US – or Europe, for that matter. Asia is taking the lead in the world economy, and while the US has some good ideas worth studying (and perhaps borrowing and improving upon), it is not considered the leader to be followed.

It makes one wonder, can Americans imagine what the world’s economic landscape will look like in 20 years? In 10 years? And are such seismic shifts simply inevitable?

In case you’re not familiar with Creative Good and their work in the area of customer experience, you can learn more and subscribe to Mark’s newsletter here: http://goodexperience.com