Data and trends from the iTunes store

To tie in with their 25 billionth app download (made by Chunli Fu of Qingdao, China), Apple have released the top 25 rankings for their paid and free apps within the UK iTunes App Store. Some interesting (and in some cases unexpected) things have emerged. Data below is correct as of March 6th. Where apps [...]

The perception of disruption

Network effects hasten the rate of innovation. Therefore, the rate of technological change is faster now than it has ever been (at least if my memory of Solow-style exogenous growth models is correct. This tends to be iterative. Small, continual improvements that improve the efficiency of processes and provide new opportunities for people to achieve [...]

Fighting potential irrelevance

Disclaimer: My employer, Essential Research, has worked with several of the UK network providers in the past, and hopes to do so again in future. All opinions expressed in this blog post – and this blog in general – are my own. The first to market isn’t always the ultimate category “winner”. There were cars [...]

The general public doesn’t need an iPad

Steve Jobs’ powers of presentation and salesmanship have been well remarked upon. However, one statement in his recent keynote address launching the iPad jarred for me. All of us use laptops and smartphones now Who is this “us”? The people in the audience? The people in Apple’s target market? Because it certainly isn’t everyone. Data [...]

IAB Mobile Forum

Last Wednesday I attended the IAB‘s mobile forum (presentations are uploaded here). It was an illuminating afternoon, though mainly in terms of what I didn’t take away. Mobile is still nascent as a media platform, and the industry understanding of it is still at a fairly basic (in my opinion) level. Most information on how [...]

Foursquare uses for my iPhone

In my post on mobile yesterday, I mentioned that the mobile internet is changing people’s conception of what a mobile can do. Initially, a mobile phone was purely about communication. This is no longer the case. Broadly speaking, there are four main ways in which a mobile phone is now used: Communication Information Entertainment Utility [...]

A new era for mobile?

I’ve been speaking to a lot of people about mobile recently – partially because I have finally got an iPhone, but primarily because I am working on a project around how mobile phones fit into the media landscape. Mobile phones as a technology are unquestionably mainstream, and have been so for about a decade. There [...]

Google Android and the Mobile Internet

I consider myself competent when it comes to navigating the internet. But mobile phones and the mobile web are alien to me. This may soon change. My current contract expires early next year. Previously, I have been happy with my low-price/basic-handset tariff. But the one-two punch of the iPhone and G1 is winning me over. [...]