The share of U.S. adults who own tablet computers nearly doubled from 10 percent to 19 percent between mid-December and early January, while the same growth spike also applied to e-book readers, which also jumped from 10 percent to 19 percent over the same period. The driving force behind the surge in ownership, Pew said, was the relatively low cost of tablets like the $199 Kindle Fire and the $249 Barnes & Noble Nook tablet, as well as the price of some e-readers dropping below $100.

The new data comes after a period — from mid-2011 into the fall — in which there wasn’t a lot of change in the ownership of tablets and e-book readers, Pew said.

We already had an inkling that the Amazon Kindle Fire sold very well in its first few weeks on the market; a Barclays analyst has estimated that Amazon sold 5.5 million Kindle Fire tablets last quarter, and predicts that Amazon will sell 18.4 million Kindle Fires this year, giving Amazon half of the non-iPad tablet market.

Also not entirely surprising: Households with higher incomes bought more tablets, while women’s ownership of e-readers increased more than men’s. More than a third of those living in households earning more than $75,000 — 36 percent — now own a tablet computer, Pew said. Ownership of e-readers among women grew more than among men, from 11 percent to 21 percent; compared to a 5 percent increase for men, with just 16 percent of them owning e-readers.

Anecdotally, those cheaper tablets still are harder to spot “out in the wild” than the iPad, as my AllThingsD colleague, Peter Kafka, notes here, whereas iPads seem to be popping up everywhere, from the airport to the gym. Personally, I know a handful of female adults who got either Kindle Fire tablets or less expensive Kindle e-readers this holiday season.

The Pew report comes from the combined results of two surveys — one conducted Jan. 5-8 among 1,000 adults age 18 and older; and another, conducted Jan. 12-15 of 1,008 adults, with a margin of error of +/- 2.4 percentage points. The study is part of Pew’s research, supported by funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to look at how tablets and e-readers are impacting libraries.

(Photo courtesy of DJ Murdok/Flickr)

The stock fell $1.36, or roughly 6.6 percent, to $19.27 a share.

In November, the company’s stock priced at $20 a share and has been fairly consistent since, except for one major hiccup late last month when shares dropped as low as $15.

But it’s almost as if investors were looking for a reason to dump the stock — the survey released today by Susquehanna Financial Group and daily deal industry tracking firm Yipit was largely positive. It found that 80 percent of merchants said they enjoyed working with daily deals sites, such as Groupon, LivingSocial and others.

Some of the more negative points included concerns about the high level of discounts associated with featuring a daily deal and low repeat rates from consumers who purchased vouchers.

The response the market may have found the most alarming was how often merchants were comfortable running deals. The survey found that 52 percent of the merchants had no plans to feature deals in the next six months, and only 24 percent intend to offer one in the same time period.

But realistically, most small-to-medium-size merchants could not offer deals more often than once a year, given that it typically takes that long for vouchers to expire. Most customers redeem the coupons over several months.

The survey polled nearly 400 merchants that had run daily deals in the past with companies such as Groupon and LivingSocial, but only 100 responded to the questions.

It’s not clear if Netflix’s recent series of snafus are Amazon’s gain or not. But in a just-released report by ForeSee, one went up and one went down.

It’s an easy guess which was which.

In the well-known customer satisfaction survey of the Top 40 online retailers during the holiday season — which ForeSee has been conducting twice a year for the last seven years — Amazon rose to its highest spot ever, while Netflix’s score dropped significantly.

Amazon got an 88 out of 100, up two points, while Netflix dropped seven points to 79. The survey noted that “Netflix saw scores drop in every single element of the website that ForeSee measures, including site content, site functionality, merchandise, and prices.”

Ooops.

(Netflix fared better with customers in another poll last week, conducted by Citigroup. As Peter Kafka noted: “They’re less happy than they used to be. But they don’t seem to be going anywhere.”)

But in the ForeSee survey, Netflix moved from being a consumer darling to just another face in the crowd. It garnered the average score, which is also 79, a number that has risen from 74 since 2005.

But Netflix was not the only online retailer hit. Also down: Gap.com (down 6 percent to 73), and Overstock.com (down 5 percent to 72).

But on the up: TigerDirect.com (up 8 percent to 79) and J.C. Penney (up 6 percent to 83).

In general, ForeSee concluded that consumers are starting to get the hang of this e-commerce thing, and have become less price-sensitive, too.

And here’s a pretty chart explaining it all (click on the image to make it larger):

In a post last week about what could be in a Facebook smartphone — one in a series about the mobile efforts at the social networking giant — AllThingsD.com asked readers if they wanted one or not (we also offered a “maybe” option, as you can see below).

And, after almost 1,500 responses so far, it seems most people had no interest in such a device from Facebook, with almost 81 percent giving it the nix.

Slightly less than 8 percent wanted one, with 12 percent saying that they would possibly consider it.

Apparently, Google Android and Apple iPhone have little to be worried about, for now.

View This Poll

Related Posts on the Facebook Phone:

1. It’s Finally Real and Its Name Is Buffy
2. Forking Android Offers Both Promise and Pitfalls
3. The “Slayer” That Wasn’t
4. If It Comes, Will It Already Be Too Late?
5. The Facebook Phone: Why Would You Want One?

Full Facebook Phone Coverage »

A new survey conducted by ChangeWave and RBC Capital Markets found that five percent of 2,600 respondents had either already preordered or were “very likely” to buy the Fire, exceeding the four percent who said in 2010 that they were very likely to buy the iPad. Another 12 percent said they were “somewhat likely” to purchase the Fire, again surpassing the nine percent who said the same thing of the original iPad prior to its launch.

And of the five percent of “very likely” buyers, 26 percent said they would delay their iPad purchase to buy the Fire.

If those metrics are surprising, they really shouldn’t be. The Fire’s low price, relative to the iPad, is obviously a major attraction — $199 to the iPad’s $499. And — thanks to the iPad — consumers are now familiar enough with the tablet category to be comfortable dropping $199 on the Fire.

That said, the pent-up Kindle Fire demand on display in this survey suggests that Apple may finally have a true tablet rival with which to battle, as RBC analyst Mike Abramsky observes:

“Tablet contenders (Xoom, Galaxy Tab, PlayBook, etc.) have failed to gain appreciable traction against iPad’s estimated 67 percent share, and iPad 2 should be a popular holiday purchase,” he writes. “However, strong early Fire uptake seems likely, raising speculation Apple now faces a real tablet contender.”

Yahoo — which has been trying to right itself after a series of missteps and an ever-weakening business — took another direct hit yesterday, as it got dinged in a high-profile annual survey of the Top 100 global brands.

According to Interbrand’s “Best Global Brands 2011,” Yahoo dropped 11 percent in brand value — calculated as $4.4 billion — in the year in which it fell from No. 66 to No. 76.

Way to go, Yahoo marketing! I think that pricey “It’s You” advertising campaign might not have worked.

Meanwhile, Apple broke into the Top 10 list for the first time, vaulting from No. 17 to No. 8, rising 58 percent in brand value to $33.5 billion.

Other tech companies did pretty well in the Interbrand poll — which is the gold standard of the state of brand health with consumers — especially compared to Yahoo (whose brand value high was in 2007 and which is now back at 2001 levels).

For example: IBM kept its No. 2 spot, with brand value rising eight percent; Microsoft fell three percent, but maintained its No. 3 place; Google stayed at No. 4, up 27 percent; and Amazon rose 32 percent and reached No. 26 from No. 36.

Even troubled companies prevailed over Yahoo’s twin declines: Hewlett-Packard held on to its No. 10 slot, with brand value up six percent; Research In Motion dropped only five percent and two slots, from No. 54 to No. 56; and Nokia fell from No. 8 to No. 14 and saw its brand value decline 15 percent.

Most interesting, perhaps, about the 12-year-old survey: Six of the Top 10 brands are tech companies.

So says a new Citigroup survey of 1,800 consumers in the U.S., the U.K. and China. The research offers lots of interesting data points about tablet adoption in general (summary: Still an iPad market, not a tablet market) and we might come back to some of those later on. For now, a few things that will interest people who pay attention to the media business.

For instance:

All tablet users use apps (of course), but iPad owners are much more likely to pay. Citi says 81 percent of iPad owners report that they’ve paid for an app, while only 43 percent of the users of “other” tablets (read: Android) have done so.

But all tablet owners are still most interested in free stuff:

People who plan on buying a tablet are most likely to do so because they think it’s a cool toy. That’s even more true now than it was last year.

And people who have bought a tablet don’t end up doing much work on it, unless Web surfing and email count as work (which, admittedly, could be the case):

And while Netflix CEO Reed Hastings says the iPad isn’t a big deal for his users, they seem to disagree — nearly a third of them use the service on their device.

The results are in for AllThingsD’s survey of readers to determine the best (and snarkiest) moniker for the $12.5 billion Google bid for Motorola Mobility.

And the winner, by a huge amount, is Googorola, with 53.2 percent of more than 1,000 votes, with second place going to ScrewYouApple at 14.9 percent.

It was followed by: GooMo (6.7 percent); Gotorola (5.8 percent); MoGoo (4.9 percent); Motoroogle (4.6 percent); Motoogle (four percent); Moola (2.8 percent); YouTooMicrosoft (1.1 percent); MaBell (0.8 percent); AlsoNokia (0.6 percent); and NotSoMuchHP (0.6 percent).

Here’s a colorful chart to peruse:

One of my favorite things about any giant mess o’ acquisition is the opportunity to give it a really snarky nickname.

And this $12.5 billion Google bid for Motorola is just about the perfect storm for a new coinage.

So please take this survey early and often:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Related posts

• Google: We’re Spending $12.5 Billion on Motorola to ‘Protect’ Android
• Motoogle: BOOM! The Mobile Business Just Got Completely Blown Up
• Google’s Motorola Deal Will Spur Antitrust Regulators to Action
• Watch Google Android Kingpin — and Motorola Acquirer — Andy Rubin Unplugged (Video)
• Defense Spending: Google Arms Itself With Moto Patents
• Is Google’s Motorola Deal the Break That Windows Phone Needed?
• Should Google Keep Motorola’s Patents and Sell Off the Hardware Business?
• Motorola Could Get Google Closer to Your Living Room — If the Cable Guys Play Along
• U.S. Carriers Silent on Motoroogle, but France Telecom Gives It a Thumbs Up
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• More Google news
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According to a new survey by Experian’s PriceGrabber division, 35 percent of consumers plan to purchase the next iteration of the iPhone upon its release. Of those, 51 percent said they’ll buy the iPhone 5 within the first year of release; 30 percent said they will purchase it before the end of 2011; 14 percent plan to buy it within the first month; and seven percent within the first week.

Driving that purchasing intent: The iPhone 5′s rumored new features, specifically improved battery life, a larger screen, 4G network compatibility and an improved camera. Of the 2,852 U.S. respondents surveyed, 55 percent also hoped for a price reduction.

“Our survey data confirms the strong following Apple has built around its iPhone, with more than one-third of consumers planning to upgrade to the latest model only a little over a year following the release of the iPhone 4,” PriceGrabber general manager Graham Jones explained. “Anticipation and brand loyalty are certainly high, but in today’s 24-7 work culture and uncertain economic environment, consumers are cautious to look for a reasonably priced phone that will perform optimally over an extended time period.”

But many of those same companies tend be much more optimistic about smartphones: The platforms seem manageable and finite, and consumers seem willing to pay for stuff on an iPhone or Android that they’d never shell out for on their laptops.

I think that conventional wisdom is overblown — more wishful than realistic. Still, it’s the conventional wisdom among many media executives I talk to.

Here’s a nice illustration of that, via a new Accenture survey. The consulting firm asked “130 leaders and decision-makers in the Media and Entertainment industry” about their digital content plans, and found a pretty strong consensus — they think consumers and dollars are going to flock to mobile in the next couple years.

What about the iPad and any other tablets? We’ll assume that the big media guys are including tablets in the “mobile/wireless” answer in the second poll question. But note that they’re clearly less enthusiastic about tablets, compared to phones, in the first question.

Accenture notes that if you carve up responses by industry, things change a bit. For instance, publishers who embraced the iPad (and the Kindle, and the Nook) from the get-go think that tablets will be the favorite device for 36 percent of their customers in the near future.

Groupon’s S-1 filing for an IPO last month certainly got a lot of ink.

Unfortunately, much of it was negative, focused on several controversial parts of the document. Most scrutinized were large slugs of money taken out of the social buying site by its founders, as well as aggressive accounting terminology to make large losses look less, well, large.

Rattled by the intense media and analyst reaction to the filing, sources said the Chicago-based company commissioned a poll of its consumers and merchants to gauge the impact.

One source familiar with the survey said that top execs and its board wanted concrete reaction from key constituencies, instead of relying on “noise from the echo chamber” of Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

And, said several people who had seen the poll, it should probably come as no surprise that the impact of the drumbeat of Groupon-is-doomed news on merchants and consumers was low, with only one percent saying that they had formed a negative opinion of the company from the filing.

That, of course, does not mean that those important groups for Groupon aren’t disgruntled about a whole laundry list of other issues.

But — for now, at least — an S-1 with some warts isn’t one of them.

Whatever the case, Groupon will continue to face scrutiny as it moves to amend the filing after comments from government regulators, and also when it reports its latest financial results soon for the three months ended June 30, 2011.

And those are numbers that everyone will surely be paying attention to.

Sort of true, says Nielsen.

Nielsen’s latest survey of “connected device” owners–basically, people who own smartphones and iPads–shows that they’re willing to shell out money for movies, music, magazines, etc. Sometimes. If the price is right.

Essentially, Nielsen finds the price point sweet spot is $9.99 a month or less for monthly subscription services. Except when it’s not: For news, streaming radio and sports services, most people say they won’t pay anything at all.

Here’s the question Nielsen asked device owners: “For each of the media content types that you could potentially access through your connected devices, please indicate how much you would be willing to pay for a monthly subscription to access it.”

And here are the results (click the image to enlarge):

Caveats: Again, this is what people say they’re willing to pay, not what they’re actually paying for–it’s poll data, not sales data.

And because it’s about subscription services, much of this is theoretical, anyway–most of the content people are getting on their phones and tablets comes via free apps, or those paid for with a one-time purchase.

But we should be getting real world data we can match up against this survey data soon: Apple has started to roll out its subscription services via iTunes (next month is a crucial deadline for content owners who want to distribute subscription services on iOS) and Google’s Android is headed that way, too.

A survey found that although independent developers make far less money than salaried employees, they felt the industry was more innovative than ever, calling 2010 “the year of the indie.”

Electronic Arts echoed those sentiments yesterday after it announced that it had acquired Firemint, a 60-employee game studio in Australia known for its blockbuster iPhone hit Flight Control.

EA Interactive’s EVP and GM Barry Cottle said the videogame industry will continue to see a flurry of smaller mobile and social acquisitions as larger studios see the value in picking up small, creative teams of developers. “We are always on the lookout.”

The survey’s results and EA’s perspective contradict what Nintendo said earlier this year during its keynote at GDC, the annual game developers conference. Nintendo’s President Satoru Iwata warned that there will be consequences to developing free or very low cost titles.

“The majority of people here are creating games for social and mobile. I fear our business is dividing, and that threatens the employment for those of us who make games for a living,” he said.

If Satoru was addressing the indie developers in the crowd, it’s true that they make less money. However, it’s also these developers who are the most optimistic–and represent potential acquisitions for more established game makers.

With the rise of open platforms, like social networks and mobile, developers can make original games on very small budgets that can reach millions of consumers through these channels. Likewise, new business models that allow consumers to play games for free have spurred adoption among those who were never willing to invest in an Xbox, Wii or PlayStation.

Game Developer magazine, which released results of its 10th annual salary survey, found that salaries of all types of developers increased over the year-ago period.

Developers working on console, emerging social and online titles saw a 7 percent salary increase in 2010 over 2009, reaching $80,817. Meanwhile, independent contractors earned an average of $55,493.

At the bottom of the ladder were self-identified “independents,” trailing with a $26,780 average. However, those indies also saw a nice salary boost, earning some $6,000 more compared to the year earlier.

Furthermore, the study said that while salaried game developers earned vastly greater average income, they had a bleaker outlook on the industry. Anecdotally, the survey’s respondents said that working in the traditional structure is “frustrating,” lamenting that larger studios are “trimming talent” and crunching harder.

Photo Credit: Roberta W.B.

SurveyMonkey, the quiet but profitable and fast-growing Web survey company, is buying online forms start-up Wufoo.

While the terms of the transaction for the Tampa, Fla.-based Infinity Box–makers of Wufoo–were not disclosed, sources said the price was $35 million in cash and stock.

Besides bringing together two delightfully kooky start-up names, the acquisition gives the Palo Alto, Calif.-based SurveyMonkey another tool to expand its offerings.

The Silicon Valley company’s most recent purchase was telephone-polling firm Precision Polling. And, in January, it acquired a minority stake in ClickTools, a U.K.-based survey provider on Salesforce.com’s AppExchange.

Here’s the official press release:

SURVEYMONKEY ACQUIRES WUFOO

Leader in online surveys adds leader in online forms to expand services for customers

Palo Alto, Calif. and Tampa, Fla., April 25, 2011– SurveyMonkey, the leader in Web-based survey solutions, today announced the acquisition of Infinity Box Inc., the makers of Wufoo, a web application to create online forms. As part of the transaction, the entire Wufoo team will relocate to Palo Alto to join the combined company and help fuel SurveyMonkey’s continuing growth. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Wufoo was created in 2006 to provide an easy and efficient process for creating online forms, one of the most essential and commonly used interfaces for collecting data on the web. The application’s HTML form builder automatically builds the database, backend and scripts needed to collect and understand data so users can create surveys, contact forms, registrations and other forms without writing code. In addition, customers frequently use Wufoo’s forms to process online transactions. With Wufoo, a process that previously required hours of work by web developers can now be done by anyone with web access in a matter of minutes.

“Wufoo is the market leader in online form creation and a perfect fit for SurveyMonkey,” said Dave Goldberg, SurveyMonkey CEO. “From the product and business model, to the team and culture, we are absolutely delighted to welcome the company into the SurveyMonkey family and look forward to increasing the reach and scale of an already outstanding product through our platform.”

“Everyone at Wufoo is very excited about joining the SurveyMonkey team, and the expansion opportunities for our business that will result from this combination,” said Wufoo co-founder Kevin Hale. “By leveraging SurveyMonkey’s international resources, knowledge scaling infrastructure and expertise with large data collection systems, we will be able to increase the scope, performance and reliability of Wufoo’s services.”

The acquisition will allow SurveyMonkey to offer online forms, in addition to surveys, to collect users’ insights and data. Over the past two years SurveyMonkey has continued to enhance services by actively evaluating opportunities to partner and invest in complementary businesses. In January, SurveyMonkey announced it had formed a strategic partnership with ClickTools, a leading survey provider on salesforce.com’s AppExchange. In 2010, SurveyMonkey successfully completed a $100 million debt financing and also acquired telephone-based survey company Precision Polling.

“Apple’s dominance in the mobile and online music markets is going seemingly unchecked, coupled with rising interest in the iPhone and iPad,” said analyst Gene Munster. “In our most recent survey, those who plan on purchasing an iPhone in the next six months was up to 37 percent, an all-time high in our surveys. We believe the teen demographic is a critical component of long-term growth in the mobile market, and Apple is taking its lead in music and leveraging it in the mobile category.”

Apparently, it’s not only in Google’s pond where Facebook fishes for talent–the social networking giant has recruited Microsoft’s global advertising head Carolyn Everson as one of its top sales execs.

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the hiring, after a query this afternoon by BoomTown. Everson will be VP of Global Sales at the Silicon Valley company, although is likely to be located in New York.

The move will surely cause some tensions with the software giant, which is both a prominent partner of and investor in Facebook, especially since Everson was only hired at Microsoft last June after a long search.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg addressed that issue in a statement:

“Microsoft was one of our earliest partners and is still one of our most valued. We have a long and strong relationship that includes search ads on our site, a social layer on Bing search results and a deep and popular integration with Xbox. They are a leader when it comes to unlocking the power of social for their already popular products and services. We look forward to continuing to expand our relationship with them.”

A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment.

Despite the possible awkwardness between Facebook and Microsoft–hey, we stole your top sales exec, but you rock!–the move to Facebook is a big opportunity for Everson.

But, according to sources, the former MTV Networks ad exec had become frustrated by the intense focus on pushing traffic to Microsoft’s Bing search service from its MSN portal at the expense of premium ad sales.

In addition, with the massive search and advertising partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo now in place, Everson was also not able to offer search advertising from Microsoft to marketers in packages. Yahoo is now in charge of that offering.

Everson will essentially be replacing longtime and well-regarded Facebook ad exec Mike Murphy, who left the Palo Alto, Calif., company last fall. She will report to former Googler David Fischer, VP of Advertising and Global Operations.

But it was COO Sheryl Sandberg, said sources, who was most focused on Everson. In fact, she just “friended” Everson on Facebook this week, as did another top ad exec, Tom Arrix.

Having a top exec who is amenable to and well known by Madison Avenue is key for Facebook as it ramps up its business, in anticipation of an IPO next year.

Despite being private, Facebook has recently been valued at between $50 and $60 billion by investors, who have been eagerly buying up shares of the company on secondary markets.

Under Murphy and Fischer, ad sales have been doing well already. Facebook’s share of online display advertising has more than quadrupled, from about three percent to almost 14 percent of the nearly $9 billion U.S. market, according to a recent survey.

In growing so quickly, Facebook has grabbed ad revenue–reportedly $2 billion last year–from old online powerhouses, especially Yahoo and AOL, and is also in a big fight with Google over premium ad sales.

Facebook’s surging usage and engagement are the reasons for the increased interest from advertisers, as well as its global growth in both market share and mindshare of consumers.

Thus, the search for a Murphy replacement was far-ranging, and included interest in a number of prominent ad execs from traditional media giants and also ad agencies.

The appointment is a big move for the dynamic Everson, who has mostly worked in the mainstream media for much of her career.

Everson came to Microsoft from a job as EVP of Strategy and Operations for the MTV Networks U.S. ad sales department.

Interestingly, she was also on the short list of candidates Yahoo was once perusing to fill the key U.S. ad sales job after Joanne Bradford departed for Demand Media.

Morgan Stanley recently surveyed 50 enterprise CIOs about current and future tablet deployments and came back with some pretty astonishing findings: 21 percent of them are already purchasing tablets for employees and 51 percent expect to begin doing so in the coming year. In total, 67 percent of the CIOs surveyed said they’re either planning to deploy tablets or provide support for employee-owned ones this year. Now the scope of these deployments remains to be seen, but the fact that so many are being budgeted suggests the tablet is gaining meaningful traction in enterprise.

And if you’re dubious of that claim, consider this: Pads accounted for 29 percent of new enterprise activations of Good Technology software in December 2010, up from 25 percent the month prior. Clearly, there’s growing corporate interest in the tablet, which means there are growing opportunities for companies that provide enterprise software solutions for it–mobile security vendors like Check Point, desktop virtualization companies like VMware and cloud-based applications outfits like Salesforce.com.

According to a global survey of 1,300 companies by Korn/Ferry, though 98 percent of companies believe a CEO succession plan to be important, only 35 percent currently have one in place. And 49 percent haven’t had one in place for the last three years.

That’s something shareholders calling for Apple to disclose its succession plan annually might want to keep in mind as they prepare for the company’s annual meeting later this month. On this issue, Apple is actually a leader in corporate governance. And it does have a good rationale for keeping its succession plan private:

• A written succession plan would give Apple’s rivals unfair advantage by publicizing its objectives and plans.
• Identifying potential successors to Steve Jobs would invite other companies to recruit those people away from Apple.

Sound reasons and ones that seem to outweigh the main reason for making it public: Making nervous shareholders less nervous.

A few key findings from the survey:

• People estimate they need 711 wireless anytime minutes per month, but in truth they need quite a bit less. BillShrink found 651 minutes to be the average.
• The average person uses 1,555 text messages per month, yet most consumers believe they use 2,566. (1,555 per-month is the average!?!)
• People assume they need 54MB of data per month, yet most need 81MB. Ironically, most tiered carrier plans start at 150MB.

What’s driving these disparities? Consumers’ skewed perception of their wireless needs, obviously. But the carriers are to blame too. Their tiered pricing plans might offer more choice, but they also make it tougher to assess our voice, text and data needs, and make it quite a bit easier to overpay for them.

The company asked 500 people at 300 companies, many of them large companies with 10,000 or more employees, about the benefits they were seeing from using social business software, which in this case is Jive, naturally, though an independent firm did the survey itself.

Some of the results were a little vague. For instance, respondents reported a 39 percent increase in “employee connectedness.” Others were more concrete: Jive users generated 32 percent more ideas, sent 27 percent less email and found answers to questions 32 percent faster

And there were benefits for customers. For one thing, employees spent 42 percent more time communicating with them, which in turn led to a better rate of customer retention, 31 percent, while the volume of support calls dropped by 28 percent and sales to new customers jumped by 27 percent.

The survey also found that 83 percent of companies in the survey are preparing to deploy some kind of social enterprise solution across the entire company this year. That finding is at least validated in part by a Gartner study that forecasts spending on enterprise social software will grow a little more than 15 percent this year to reach about $770 million.

Jive, you’ll remember, is the company that landed a $30 million venture capital investment from Kleiner Perkins last summer, and hired former Mercury Interactive head Tony Zingale as its CEO.

BoomTown’s Kara Swisher visited its offices last August, and her video interview with Zingale and Ted Schlein–Kleiner partner and Jive director–is below:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110131/in-case-you-needed-reminding-social-enterprise-software-is-going-to-be-big/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110127/a-challenge-for-mobile-ads-clumsy-clicking/ http://allthingsd.com/20110127/a-challenge-for-mobile-ads-clumsy-clicking/#comments Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:10:42 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://emoney.allthingsd.com/?p=2060 With 10 billion applications downloaded to Apple’s mobile devices alone, there needs to be a reliable way to monetize that traffic.

But there could be a problem: Fat fingers.

According to a survey released today, 47 percent of mobile app users say they click or tap on mobile ads more often by mistake than they do on purpose.

Accidental clicks obviously come with the territory. Today’s smartphones often have large displays, but it’s still to easy to accidentally click on a banner instead of a link.

In fact, screen limitations led Steve Jobs to criticize seven-inch tablet screens recently (vs. the iPad’s nine-inch screen), by saying users will have to file down their fingers to achieve ultimate accuracy.

Apple is only one of many companies that are investing heavily in mobile with the hopes that it will produce the next big advertising goldmine. While filing down fingertips isn’t a practical solution, there is a way to avoid spending on clumsy clicks.

To do so, advertisers are increasingly paying for mobile ads based on action, like a user providing an email address or watching a video. The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Pontiflex, which is pitching its own solution for this problem.

It measures advertising through what it calls “cost per lead,” meaning advertisers don’t pay until users sign up and share their contact information.

Other findings from the survey:

• The vast majority of apps that are downloaded are free–95 percent of mobile app users download free apps, while only 41 percent pay.
• 71 percent of mobile app users said they prefer ads that keep them within the app they are using, instead of ads that take them to the browser.
• 96 percent of mobile app users with a household income of $75,000 or greater said they use free apps.
• Almost two-thirds of mobile app users selected ads that contain coupons, deals or newsletters as their preferred in-app mobile ad type.

Photo Credit: herbrm.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110127/a-challenge-for-mobile-ads-clumsy-clicking/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110127/verizon-iphone-sales-potentially-huger-than-huge/ http://allthingsd.com/20110127/verizon-iphone-sales-potentially-huger-than-huge/#comments Thu, 27 Jan 2011 12:30:59 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=56517

It’s indisputable that Verizon is going to sell a lot of iPhones when the device finally arrives on its network. The question is how many? And the answer is as varied as the research houses trying to pinpoint the number. On the low end, analysts have been calling for nine million, and at the highest end, 12 million.

Until today, when R.W. Baird & Co. analyst William Power reset those parameters with a bullish new potentiality: 23.8 million iPhones sold to Verizon subscribers in the first year.

That’s about double the top end of the range I mentioned (it’s also more than a quarter of Verizon’s current subscriber base). But according to Power–who cautions that this is a “directional number” and not a forecast (there are constraints around how many devices Apple can actually ship)–a recent Baird survey of 1,000 smartphone users supports it. From the survey:

• 29 percent of current Verizon feature phone owners said they will “probably” or “definitely” upgrade to the Verizon iPhone in the next three months. The carrier has roughly 64 million postpaid feature phone users, so that’s 19 million potential iPhone upgrades, assuming eligibility.
• 25 percent of Verizon’s current smartphone users said they will “probably” or “definitely” switch to the iPhone. That’s 4.8 million additional potential iPhone sales, again assuming eligibility.

Grand total: 23.8 million potential Verizon iPhone sales–from the carrier’s installed base alone. Add to that the 5.6 percent of current AT&T iPhone users who told Baird they planned to switch to Verizon and that number rises to nearly 25 million.

Which sounds fantastical, seemingly even to Power, who is standing by his current forecast of 10 million iPhone activations at Verizon. But it does suggest, strongly, that demand could be far greater than anyone has anticipated.

That’s great for Verizon (though perhaps less so for its network) and even better for Apple. Not too bad for AT&T, either. Doesn’t bode well for Android handset makers like Motorola Mobility, though. As CEO Sanjay Jha said during an earnings call yesterday, the company has already seen a slowing of device shipments around news of the Verizon iPhone. “Since the announcement of the iPhone, we have seen some slowdown in our sell through of devices at Verizon,” Jha said. “There was anticipation of devices coming to Verizon even prior the announcement of the iPhone.”

Below, a carrier-by-carrier breakdown of interest in the Verizon iPhone. Each pie chart represents the base of subscribers at each carrier who plan to purchase a smartphone in the next three months. Note: the 25 percent / 29percent numbers above refer to the percentage of the total base of Verizon respondents (i.e. Verizon respondents who plan to purchase a smartphone in the next three months plus those who don’t).

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110127/verizon-iphone-sales-potentially-huger-than-huge/feed/ 10 http://allthingsd.com/20110126/microsoft-consumers-should-think-twice-before-broadcasting-location/ http://allthingsd.com/20110126/microsoft-consumers-should-think-twice-before-broadcasting-location/#comments Wed, 26 Jan 2011 23:16:38 +0000 Ina Fried http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/?p=3035 As more and more services tap into location-based data, consumers need to take steps to make sure they are aware just how broadly they are sharing that information.

That was one of several points stressed by Microsoft Chief Privacy Officer Brendon Lynch, who sat down with Mobilized ahead of his appearance at a Churchill Club event Wednesday night focused on location-based services.

Among the company’s recommendations is that consumers think twice before taking actions such as broadcasting their location when they are alone or sharing geo-tagged photos of their home or children.

Microsoft did some research in December that found that three in five consumers are aware of location-based services and roughly half say they have used such a service, with one in 10 of those surveyed saying they use such services on a daily basis.

While the most common reported usages were for things like navigation, traffic and weather, about 18 percent of respondents said they were using a service like Foursquare, Facebook or Google Latitude that broadcasts their location.

The software maker is releasing the results later on Wednesday ahead of Friday’s commemoration of Data Privacy Day. This year, the company decided to focus its efforts on location-based services.

“This is a high-stakes, high-value data element,” Lynch said.

Lynch also noted that people sharing location with their social network might want to review just how wide that network is.

“I actually believe [sharing of] location data is a situation which probably should cause people to really go review that list,” he said.

And while there is a responsibility on consumers to be more aware, Lynch said, those building services and products also need to do their part.

“You can build it into the experience to actually make people aware that this is going to happen and they have a role to play in the choice,” he said.

Microsoft’s research found that privacy concerns are a barrier for some to adopting location-based services, particularly in the U.S. About half of overall survey respondents said they would be more comfortable with such services if they had more information on just who was seeing the information being shared.

The company also found that while 94 percent of consumers find location-based services to be valuable, they weren’t terribly willing to pay, and those who were often weren’t willing to pay more than $10 for such services. That seems to indicate more promise for advertising-funded services, especially since nearly half of those who have seen a location-based mobile ad have taken action on the ad–vastly higher than the response rates seen on traditional online ads.

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