SEO Werkt!

Most of us are doing a large percentage of things in our work that we are CAPABLE of performing, but which don’t really hit our sweet spot. This makes work a drag.

And sometimes we have the responsibility for things we really don’t do well at all. In these cases, work becomes a drogue (that’s the parachute deployed behind a speeding vehicle to brake it).

After a while, this leads to a lot of blurred lines, and we can’t really articulate what our professional sweet spot truly is.

But then there are those intoxicating moments when you’re doing what you know you’re meant to do. Work becomes pleasure, it is like a drug you want to keep taking. Alas, those moments seem few and far between.

So, let’s pretend that it’s possible to build your career on your sweet spot (note: I believe we should go beyond pretending!). How do you identify what transforms your work from a drag to a drug?

1. It “feels” like a fit. The best analog is a great pair of shoes. There are rows and rows of (shoes/work roles), but then you slip on a pair and, as you walk in it, you KNOW. This. Is. The. Fit.
2. You make impact. When you’re working in your sweet spot, your strengths are at full flow. You’re not just filling time, you’re making a difference.
3. You hear feedback. The people around you notice and affirm what you’re doing.

Work that is a drag or a drogue means you’re investing your time and effort into something that diminishes your impact on the world. And lessens your own happiness. Is that a good choice?

As a professional, your first and highest priority should be to discover your purpose and areas of genuine strength. To get sold on yourself. It may take some time to shape an optimal career track around them. But if you don’t do this, guess what? No-one else is going to do it for you.

They’re happy to trade you their money for your hours. Even if it’s a drag.

Decide. You’re going to fill someone’s else’s role. Or you’re going to Role Your Own.

(Image credit: Wikimedia)

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Is your work a drag? Hire Steve Woodruff for Clarity Therapy!

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For the past few months I’ve been on the hunt for a new apartment, and I’ve learned something very important. A relatively high percentage of the listings searchable on Craigslist, StreetEasy, etc. are expired. Brokers leave up listings for apartments that were rented a long time ago to generate leads, and as I’m personally struggling through the mess of it now, I find it despicable.

But a new startup has just launched here in NYC that aims to connect an owner with a renter in a transparent, verified way. RentalEngine, which has just entered public beta, allows users to search all of the major listings sites in one interface.

The difference between this, and say a Nestio, however, is that RentalEngine’s system filters out listings that may have missing or false information, or may have already expired.

Vacancy is nearly guaranteed.
The site also offers management features, which allows you to store the listing, enter notes on it, and rate various features of the building and the unit.

This not only helps RentalEngine understand what you’re looking for, but it lets you collaborate with roommates, significant others, etc. RentalEngine will also notify you through email if a listing fitting your requirements becomes available.

The company has raised $150,000 in funding thus far, and the site was seeing approximately 100 unique visits/day before launching into public beta.

Click to view slideshow.

It’s interesting to watch the impact that the mobile device explosion has on various industry verticals, and especially so in e-commerce – a market that has yet to take full advantage of the platform by offering mobile-friendly websites and apps. But that’s not stopping people from shopping on mobile by any means. According to new data from e-commerce technology company Monetate, top e-commerce websites receive 3.31% of their total visits from Android smartphones, which is up from 1.76% last year. iPhones, on the other hand, account for 5.41% of those sites’ total traffic, up from 2.45% a year earlier.

But even though the iPhone base delivers more visitors, it’s Android users who convert better. 1.26% of Android users convert as compared with 1.00% of those on iPhone.

Here’s another figure to throw into the mix: on tablets, Android users again are converting at higher percentage points, with 3.58% converting compared with iPad’s 3.19%. However, the iPad is driving the most tablet traffic to these sites. 88.31% of tablet visits to these e-commerce sites are from iPad, while Kindle Fire and other Android tablets now account for 10% of the market share. Seeing the chart below, you can tell that Android has made some headway into eating into iPad’s dominance here.

We asked execs at Monetate why they thought Android users were converting better (percentage wise), and they noted that the difference between the platforms was nominal, but interesting. They’re not sure why it’s the case, however. Could it be that iOS users have other means to shop, such as through native apps? Monetate CMO Kurt Heinemann hedges a guess.

“Android devices come in many different configurations whereas the iPhone only comes in one size, he says. “A large portion of Android devices that have been released over the last year have had larger screens and provide a better web surfing experience than a smaller iPhone. With a larger screen and the ability to display more website real estate the user has a more comfortable and less frustrating experience which results in higher conversion.”

In case you’re wondering what websites we’re talking about here, Monetate can’t talk in specific out of respect for its customers’ privacy, but it aggregates data from its top  150+ e-commerce customers and samples from over 100 million shopping experiences to reach these figures. Its customer lineup includes QVC, Urban Outfitters, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Best Buy and Brooks Brothers, to give you an idea of what types of sites may be included in this study.

While Apple and Google battle for market share in terms of traffic, the company’s report found that mobile is one of the fastest-growing customer segments today, and it’s now suggesting to its customers that they experiment with offering alternative ways to allow visitors to checkout without having to pull out a credit card. For example, try PayPal, Monetate tells its customers. It’s also stressing to its e-commerce customers that they need to invest in both web analytics and usability testing to make their sites work better for mobile shoppers because, by doing so, they have a real opportunity to increase their average order value significantly.

Globally, the speed for broadband connections is steadily on the rise: according to Akamai’s Q1 2012 State of the Internet report, it’s now at 2.6Mbps, compared to 2.3Mbps in the last quarter, and a rise of 25% on a year ago and a reversal of the 14% decline of last quarter. South Korea continues to remain the connection king, with an average connection speed of 15.7Mbps. The U.S., meanwhile, doesn’t make it into the top-10 countries (it’s ranked 12th) but at least it’s speeding up: it is now at 6.7Mbps, up by 29% on last year and 17% from the previous quarter.

But as broadband continues to improve, so do attacks. Akamai notes in its study that attack traffic is on the rise, concentrating in particular regions and ports, with Asia Pacific, led by China, accounting for 42 percent of attack traffic originating from Asia Pacific; and the top 10 ports for attack traffic accounting for 77% of all attacks (up from 62% last quarter).

After Asia Pacific, Europe accounted for 35% of all attack traffic originations, while North and South America accounted for 21%. Africa represented less than 1.5% of attacks. However, although the Americas appear to account for less attack traffic, in fact the U.S. ranked second to China on an individual country basis, with 11% of all attacks; China accounted for 16%.

Other notable figures:

The Internet continues to grow: Akamai notes that it registered 666 million unique IP addresses from 238 countries and regions connecting to the Akamai Intelligent Platform in Q1 2012, a six percent increase over Q4 2011 and 14 percent increase compared to Q1 last year. More growth is happening in smaller countries than in larger ones. In the wake of the global launch of IPv6, Akamai says that the number of unique IP addresses from the top 10 connecting countries was at 66%, but that this is down by about one percent on the quarter before. China, Brazil, Italy and Russia are all growing at rates of 20%.

Broadband high and low: Akamai’s seeing enough growth at higher broadband speeds that it’s now breaking out progress in this area. It notes the number of countries where people are using broadband at speeds of 10Mbps or higher is now at 10%, a rise of 19% on last quarter. South Korea, being the world’s broadband leader, has high-speed broadband penetration of 53%. Japan is at 37%, Hong Kong is at 28%, Latvia is at 26% and the Netherlands is at 24% penetration for high-speed broadband.  Overall, 125 countries are seeing increases in speed over last year, Akamai notes, with only 10 countries seeing declines. Given the speeds below, you can see why Google’s fiber project is so compelling and has so many people excited at what it might bring next.

Mobile broadband: Germany takes the crown for fastest mobile broadband at 6Mbps. Worldwide some 65 carriers had speeds greater than 1Mbps. Interestingly, only three carriers analysed had connection speeds below 500kbps, meaning those carriers that are upgrading to mobile broadband seem to be doing it in a largely unified mass, with less speed fragmentation than we’re seeing in the area of fixed broadband. Akamai doesn’t name and shame the slowest providers — or say who the best ones are.

As for how we are using mobile broadband, this graphic that Akamai presents of the last five years shows just how much data is growing with respect to voice usage:

Attack traffic by ports points to Conficker Worm rising again: Akamai notes that Port 445, used for Microsoft-DS, accounted for a disproportionate 42% of all attack traffic, up from 25% in the previous quarter. It notes that Port 445 is associated with the Conficker worm.

It appears that this increase was largely attributable to significant growth in the percentage of attacks targeting Port 445 (42 percent of observed attack traffic), after seeing declines over the prior several quarters. As has been noted in past reports, Port 445 is associated with the Conficker worm. It was the most attacked port in seven of the top 10 countries generating attack traffic, Akamai notes. Attacks on web-based applications, represented by Port 80, actually decreased by three percentage points globally, but that was the second-most targeted port in the U.S., Germany and Brazil, Akamai notes.

Figures out today from eMarketer estimate that in the U.S., just under 82 million consumers, or 26% of the population, will access social networks from their phones this year, rising to nearly 117 million by 2014. But if you are a social networking startup that sees that low-penetration figure as an opportunity, be aware that at the moment Facebook has all but cornered the market, and that the market is slowing down. Facebook today accounts for 85% of all mobile social networking activity, and that proportion is only growing: eMarketer projects that Facebook will account 87.4% by 2014 — or four out of every 10 mobile users and nearly two-thirds of smartphone users.

Meanwhile, growth in social network on mobile is slowing right down, from 50% in 2011 to 18% by 2014.

Basing estimates on a variety of survey and traffic data from research firms and regulatory agencies, historical trends, company-specific data, and demographic and socioeconomic factors, eMarketer analysts found that smartphones are completely dominating social networking activity in the U.S. at the moment.

Some 95.5% of all users are checking and updating on their statuses on higher-end devices, it says. In other words, the different efforts we’ve seen from the likes of Twitter and Facebook to make their services friendly to lower-end devices are almost certainly mainly being utilized outside the U.S. Overall, in a separate piece of research, eMarketer notess that 116 million people in the U.S. will own and use a smartphone monthly this year, 43% of them Android devices.

EMarketer projects that by 2014, the percentage of people in the U.S. using social network sites on their phones will remain a minority activity, with 36.2% of users accessing sites (among the mobile population, the number is about 10 percentage points higher, at46.3%) . This shows that while the figure is growing, and indeed needs to be a consideration for companies like Facebook, PC-based access will continue to account for the majority of use in the U.S.

Indeed, eMarketer estimates that the number of Facebook mobile monthly active users this year will be around 70 million people. That works out to less than half of the 186 million MAUs that Facebook reported for June 2012 in the U.S. and Canada (Facebook’s worldwide MAU figure for June 2012 is 955 million).

Although we are still at a relatively young stage in the market, the landgrab for social mobile might at the same time be closing off: eMarketer notes that growth is slowing down by quite a lot in the next few years.

In 2011, it was growing by 50%; this year that will come down to 40%, and by 2014 “the number of mobile social networkers will increase by just 18%” although it does point out that this is “still in the healthy double digits.” It notes that mobile Facebook usage (as it dominates the space) “will have a similar growth trajectory.”

I know the title of this post might sound funny, but this is actually a very serious problem in Russia, where a lot of people have to fight to enjoy a safe outdoor life. In order to get the attention of the public opinion on the problem of street fights in public entertainment spaces in Ekaterinburg, local magazine It’s My City took over the media spaces on the streets where the army was rehearsing the Victory Day Parade.

The banners along the parade itinerary got a lot of media attention, and the campaign successfully managed to push the City to increase safety on the streets, with the percentage of fights dropping by 75%.

Way to be creative and effective in finding new and alternative media spaces!

The agency is Red Pepper, Ekaterinburg, Russia.

We have seen reports from Strategy Analytics, IDC and Canalys detailing how many smartphones that handset makers shipped in the last quarter (the takeaway: Android is still on top, with Samsung the chief benefactor); today, Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, WPP’s market analytics business, has released its rolling monthly update on how that translates into on-the-ground sales in some of the biggest markets in the world. The results give more weight to Samsung’s current domination; and underscore how important it is for Apple to “wow” the market next month with the launch of a new handset.

Kantar, which bases its conclusions on millions of interviews with consumers every month (1 million in Europe alone, it notes), found that Samsung is currently the top-selling brand in Europe at the moment, thanks in part to a successful launch of the S3 in May, but also aggressive pricing in a region hit by economic pressures. Samsung accounted for 45% of all smartphone sales across the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain in the last 12 weeks that ended July 8. Arch-rival Apple, in contrast, accounted for just 16% of all sales in the region, Kantar analyst Dominic Sunnebo tells me. In fact, Apple has declined in every market Kantar surveyed, except for the UK and U.S.

Android’s share of sales across the big-five European countries is now at 66%, a big jump from 43% a year ago, Kantar notes. In Australia, Android took 60.5% of all sales in the period, and in the U.S. it accounted for just over 51% of all sales.

Apple’s lackluster performance in Europe is something that Apple itself highlighted during its last earnings report, blaming the economy and people holding off on purchases until the next iPhone release. Kantar showed that as a result of these factors, Apple took between 4.3% and 11.4% fewer sales in the last 12 weeks than it did a year ago across the markets of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Australia — with Australia accounting for the biggest of those declines.

Interestingly, despite Android doing so well globally, it actually declined in one key market: the U.S. its 51.5% share of the market is actually 5.3 percentage points down on a year ago. Was this because the Galaxy S3 launched later there, I asked Sunnebo? No, he says, it’s about consumer preference and price:

“An important point here is that there is very little difference in price between an Apple iPhone or an Android phone in the U.S., so the choice is made purely on what the consumer wants, not what they can afford,” he tells me, “whereas in Europe, Apple continues to command a price premium over Android. With recessionary pressures as they are in Europe this is likely to have an impact.”

Indeed, he notes that the S3 is more of a brand pusher than a direct sales generator: “While the majority of noise is focused on big-name products such as the S3 or S2, it’s easy to forget that Samsung is selling smartphones across all tiers,” he notes in the report. Kantar says that in the UK, for example, Samsung accounts for five of the top 10 best-selling smartphones in the UK, “with even the smartphone/tablet hybrid Samsung Galaxy Note making it into the top ten.”

In the U.S. Apple’s share of sales went up by 9.5 percentage points to account for 38.2% of all sales in the period. The UK was not as strong but also increased: up by 2 percentage points to 22.9% of sales.

Kantar notes that a lot of this appears to be about people holding off from purchases until the next iPhone comes along. “Kantar Worldpanel ComTech data clearly shows that the proportion of Apple consumers who have owned their device for at least 18 months and not upgraded has increased markedly over the last quarter, indicating current owners are holding off upgrading until the release of the iPhone 5,” Sunnebo writes.

Indeed, the Apple brand continues to command “high loyalty”: in the UK 80% of consumers who own an iPhone have bought another; and 92% say they plan to stick with Apple when they next upgrade. “With this in mind, any dip in Apple share is likely to be short-lived with the release of an updated iPhone in quarter three bringing momentum back to the Cupertino giant,” he concludes.

Other brands. The story is not great. While Apple’s declines may be short-lived, RIM’s seem more indicative of a longer-term issue. The only country where it has managed to stave off market share declines is in France, where it only accounted for 9.2% of sales. In the U.S., which used to be RIM’s proud, top market, it only accounted for 3.7% of sales. Ouch. The UK is the only market where RIM managed to go into double digits for sales, with 10.9% of sales in that country, although that is half of what it was last year.

The story for Windows Phone is similar to that of iPhone and iOS, notes Kantar — that is, people appear to be holding off for Windows Phone 8 releases. That’s happening on a much smaller and more depressing scale, though. Windows Phone did not break through even 5% of sales in any market Kantar researched, as you can see in the full tables below. And just as RIM has a (sort of) break out market in the form of the UK, Symbian is still seeing a bit of life in Italy, where it accounted for 12.8% of sales, although that is a decline of more than 22 percentage points on last year.

Sometimes companies do something just to feel like they’re making progress, even if that something makes no sense. That’s the only way I can rationalize what Google is doing with the latest twist on its Wallet initiative.

Wallet previously allowed consumers to load their credentials from select Citibank MasterCards onto their phones so they could make payments at brick-and-mortar merchants. It supported only a few phone models and was usable at only a small percentage merchants. None of the cards I regularly carry in my wallet, including a Citibank Visa, qualified. With yesterday’s announcement, Wallet still only supports a few phone models and merchants. But now you can load your credential from any major credit card.

The way Google is going about this doesn’t even make a small amount of sense.

It’s creating another layer of cost for itself and increasing its liability. At the same time, it is potentially depriving customers of rewards that are increasingly common on credit cards.

Despite what Google likes to claim, paying with Google Wallet isn’t as simple as tapping. The real process is: unlock your phone (if you have a security lock), launch the Wallet application, enter your PIN, select the card you want to pay with and then tap. When the first tap fails, tap again. And then again. In a recent test, it took me six tries to get an NFC tap to take.

Behind the scenes, the way the new Wallet works is that there’s a proxy credit card. When you make a purchase at a merchant, the merchant doesn’t see your credit card. They see a proxy credit card. Then Google turns around and bills your actual credit card. (Your credit card number is stored in the cloud and used by Google to do this.) At a minimum, this adds another layer of interchange fees, which Google is eating.

It also shifts liability to Google, because Google is the merchant of record. If you have a problem with a transaction and you contact your credit card company, they go to Google. Google then has to go to the original merchant.

The only possible justification for this service, other than showing “progress”, is to get consumers’ credit cards on file.  But there are much cheaper and better ways to do this.

Consumers also potentially lose out on rewards. Many credit cards, like Chase Freedom and Discover, offer bonuses for spending in certain categories. For this quarter, Discover is offering 5% cash back on gas, theme parks, and movies. But as far as Discover knows, your purchase was with Google and likely won’t have the right merchant category code that is used to determine whether your purchase qualifies for the bonus. My Citi Foward card offers the equivalent of 5% back on all purchases at restaurants.

It’s a lose, lose.

If this takes off, it has the potential to cost Google a lot of money. But it’s so stupid that it won’t take off.

Filed under: VentureBeat

In de tweede helft van 2011 was dit percentage 73%. De grootste groep kijkt digitaal via de kabel.

Lees verder

Facebook posted quarterly earnings today and dumped a load of data into analysts’ laps.

User numbers hit a new high, with 955 million worldwide visiting the site at least once a month. And earning are slightly above estimates, coming in at $1.18 billion in revenue and 32 percent year-over-year growth. Over half a billion are coming from mobile devices.

One of the most interesting slides in the company’s quarterly earnings release, however, is this one:

Just two years ago, the United States and Canada made up 30 percent of Facebook’s users. Fast-forward to today, and the percentage is a little bit different: under 20.

Not only has the percentage changed, but the growth rate is almost negligible: only about 35 percent user growth over 24 months for the world’s social utility. That compares to 170 percent growth in Facebook’s “rest-of-the-world” category, which includes Africa, and 165 percent growth in Asia.

Even stodgy old Europe has 63 percent growth.

On the one hand, this is expected and normal. North America has a limited population, about 350 million, of which Facebook has about a 53 percent penetration rate. That’s slightly up from about 50 percent at the end of 2011.

On the other hand … why are those missing 164 million people not on Facebook? It’s a question the company should ponder … particularly because US and European internet users are worth more to advertisers than any others. Internet users are valued at perhaps $1,200 to advertisers, with Facebook making about an annualized $5 as of the first quarter of this year, and Google collecting $20 per user per year.

But not all internet users.

Zambia’s average annual income is $1,600. In the Phillipines, a college professor might make $500 dollars a month. I don’t think Barney’s New York is banging down their doors to sell $5,000 Gucci bags. Not too many iPhones being sold in Cambodia.

The point?

As Facebook’s growth has transitioned largely to the developing world: Asia, Africa, Oceania … the average value to advertisers per user is going down. Just check another slide from the Facebook deck:

The biggest chunk of Facebook users — “rest of world,” at 268 million — accounts for the smallest slice of Facebook’s revenue, $113 million. In fact, if you do that math, you can find the average value to Facebook, per quarter, of each user:

• US/Canada: $3.20
• Europe: $1.43
• Asia: $0.55
• Rest of world: $0.44

The good news is, if this quarter is any indication, Facebook could be bringing in about $12 per US and Canadian user per year. But there’s also bad news … and that’s everywhere else.

Europe can probably be fixed with more time and attention than the US-centric Facebook has given it so far. Starting an office in London may help with that. But Asia? And the rest of the world? Those per-capita incomes aren’t coming up to U.S. standards any time real soon.

And that’s one of the reasons Facebook’s stock is getting hammered.

Image credit: Sergej Khakimullin/ShutterStock

Filed under: mobile, social, VentureBeat