IDG News Service

Coming up on WTU this week sending cash via Gmail and more at Google IO, BBM coming to iOS and Android and Windows Blue to restore some missed features.

MediaPost

According to an industry analysis by Adobe Digital Index, mobile devices have changed the way consumers interact with businesses, making an understanding of the trends, strengths, and weaknesses of both tablets and smartphones important in serving mobile customers. Another perspective in the ongoing and growing interest in mobile marketing and advertising. In just three years, says the report, tablets have overtaken smartphones in the amount of traffic they drive.

Tablet versus smartphone growth

•           Globally, websites are getting more traffic from tablets  than smartphones

•           Internet users view 70% more pages per visit when  browsing on a tablet vs. a smartphone

•           While tablet and smartphone consumers are both mobile users tablet users actually behave more like PC users in the way they  browse and engage

Read more… 

IDG News Service

Coming up on WTU this week Sony bounces back, Intel debuts new chip architecture and a solar plane sets off on a historic journey.

IDG Global Solutions

To be a successful btob company, you need to combine marketing, sales, and mobile tools. That’s Digitas Senior VP/BtoB Global Practice Lead Dennis Reilly’s opinion as he explained to IDG Global Solutions Director Howard Sholkin. During a BtoB Digital conference in March 2013, O’Reilly was asked to describe what the best companies are doing…..

eMedia Vitals

Apple is rumored to be announcing the fifth generation of its iPad on June 18. Mobile devices account for an increasingly larger share of most publishers’ web traffic – including a whopping 65% for BuzzFeed.  Publishers are delivering 1.7 million digital editions a week built with Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite – a sixfold increase over the past two years.

It may be time to take this whole mobile thing a bit more seriously.

The elements required to justify greater investment in mobile development are falling into place. More people are reading digital magazines; Adobe says per-publication readership across its DPS-based publications has increased by an average of 80% over the past six months. More devices are coming to market, with models such as the iPad mini and Kindle HD extending into the mass market.

“People are more comfortable reading magazine content on tablets,” Lynly Schambers-Lenox, Adobe’s group product marketing manager for digital publishing, said in a recent interview. “That’s not surprising, and we expect it to continue.”

Read more… 

Social News Daily

The number of smartphone owners using mobile Internet shot up 45 percent from 2010 to 2012. You don’t need to be a business mogul to see the growth there, and you probably don’t need to be told that the trend shows no signs of slowing down.

For email marketers, this means that mobile optimization needs to happen now. The sooner, the better. An infographic put together by email marketing firm GetResponse illustrates the importance of mobile optimization sooner rather than later, offering some crucial demographic data and quick tips to painless implementation.

A few highlights from the infographic…

IDG Global Solutions 

That’s the key piece of advice for marketers this year from IDC’s Karsten Weide. He reported that mobile advertising grew 88% in 2012 to $4.5 billion from $2.4 billion in 2011.

At the BtoB Digital Edge conference in March 2013 in San Francisco, Weide spoke with IDG Global Solutions Director Howard Sholkin, who asked Weide for his predictions about digital marketing for the rest of this year…

Digiday

There is no Santa Claus. The tooth fairy isn’t real. And this is not the year of mobile. Mobile marketing, like a lot of other digital tactics, is full of myths and misconceptions. Digiday spoke to brand executives to get a sense of what these myths and misconceptions are. The gist: Mobile is a mindset, not a technology, and consumers are using their phones for more than just social networking and playing games.

Barbara Williams-Pamplin, mobile marketing global practice lead, Microsoft

The biggest misconception about mobile marketing is that due to the computing power of the current generation of smartphones and the tablet’s screen size, mobile-first experiences are not a priority. The misconception is based on the idea that viewing the “normal” Web is technically feasible on these devices, so there is no need to create experiences especially for these devices. However, that approach fails to take into consideration several facts. First, consumers don’t use all devices in the same way or for the same purpose, so content and input methodology needs are different. Also, consumers will move on to look for another source of info (competitor if necessary) if they are unable to find what they are looking for on the mobile site visited. And, lastly, a poor non-mobile optimized experience can and will negatively impact the consumer’s perception of the brand.

Read more… 

eMarketer

eMarketer has raised its forecast for advertising spending on Twitter for 2013 and 2014, estimating the company will earn $582.8 million in global ad revenues in 2013 before nearing $1 billion next year. More than half of that total will come from mobile, and mobile’s share will rise over the next few years. 

According to the new forecast, more than half of Twitter’s ad revenues—about 53%—will come from mobile advertising this year, up from virtually no ad revenue from mobile in 2011.

Advertising on mobile devices will be where Twitter sees the most incremental growth over the next two years. By 2015, Twitter is expected to pull in $1.33 billion in worldwide ad revenue, more than 60% of which will come from mobile advertising.

Read the full article 

Search Engine Watch

Whether you’ve already decided to go responsive or you’re still considering a responsive site redesign, there are some things you’ll need to look out for from an SEO standpoint.

Above the fold issues, content strategy, internal links, and mobile specifics can trip you up.

Before we begin, there’s an important distinction between cosmetic and full redesigns. This distinction primarily comes down to one thing: are URLs on your site changing? Changing URLs is a game changer and adds a number of steps that you need to take in order to have a successful transition from an old site to a shiny new one.

The following analysis focuses on common issues with cosmetic redesigns, moving from a non-responsive site to a responsive website design.

1. Above the Fold Considerations

Homepage Above The Fold Area (Desktop)

This is where it starts to get awkward with the web designers. The thing to keep in mind as project owner broadly, and as a SEO specifically, is to make your wishes known to the designers early in the process, prior to and during the wireframe process.

Continue reading…