Going by the numbers alone, consumers are already strongly responding to freemium apps, with 48% of revenue on Apple’s App Store coming from free apps that are supported by in-app purchases. If you include paid apps supported by in-app purchases, some of which have a nominal 99-cent base price, the amount jumps to 72%. The proportion is only slightly smaller on the Android Marketplace, where apps with in-app purchases account for 65% of the 25 top grossing titles. Whether the app is an online school platform where additional courses must be paid for or just a game where buying tokens cost real money, freemium models are certainly here to stay.

What’s more, according to IHS Screen Digest, the trend toward freemium apps will only gain momentum in 2012. “Smartphone users overwhelmingly prefer free apps to paid apps, as we estimate 96 percent of all smartphone apps were downloaded for free in 2011,” says IHS senior analyst Jack Kent. “In 2012, it will become increasingly difficult for app stores and developers to justify charging an upfront fee for their products… Instead, the apps industry must fully embrace the freemium model and monetize content through in-app purchases.” The most successful methods of monetization identified by the IHS study were virtual currencies, such as additional chips for poker, redeemable points, or in-game “gold.”. These virtual currencies reflected 63% of in-app purchases on the U.S. App Store at the end of the third quarter, according to IHS estimates.

Although the freemium model has been largely pioneered by free to play (F2P) games with optional paid currency and items, IHS suggests that “companies building other types of smartphone apps must adopt this strategy if they are to maximize their mobile app revenues.”

Wired’s Editor-In-Chief Chris Anderson explained why the freemium model is not only attractive to consumers, but profitable for producers in a 2009 talk at Y Combinator’s Startup School. In his estimation, free users aren’t freeloaders at all and it’s okay to let the minority of paid users subsidize the majority paying nothing. In a market based on social bonds, free users publicize the app more effectively than any advertiser by recommending it to their friends.

To hear it from the experts, freemium is a business model that can’t miss. However, a large cohort of would-be millionaires whose freemium apps were released to a chorus of one-star reviews on the App Store would disagree. What many developers fail to realize is that they need to make users fall in love with their freemium app, or at least see some value in it before they demand payment via in-app microtransactions or a paid “Pro” version of the app.

A quick perusal of some of the top grossing freemium apps on iTunes and their reviews reveals the not-so secret formula for a freemium app that charms customers instead of frustrating them: give first timers enough virtual currency to explore the game, allow the game to be fully enjoyed without in-app purchases, and don’t overwhelm users with intrusive or irrelevant ads. The more time they spend enjoying the app, the more likely customers are to pay a few bucks to skip the tedious parts or explore new add-ons.

Elaine Hirsch is kind of a jack-of-all-interests, from education to technology to public policy, so she is currently working as a writer for various education-related sites and writing about all these things instead.

The most common issues with meetings are…

-No clear purpose or objective.
-Not organized. No agenda.
-Too long.
-Boring. Nothing new or interesting.
-Not inspiring or motivating.
-Doesn’t start on time, stay on track, or finish on time.
-Lack of interaction.
-Allowing attendees to ramble and repeat the same comments and thoughts.
-Allowing attendees to ramble and repeat the same comments and thoughts (that’s supposed to make you laugh).
-Weak presenter (unprepared, not succinct, monotone, overly redundant).
-Repeating information for late arrivals.
-No specific action items or walk-away points.

Meetings are an opportunity. They’re an important part of how we connect (communicate), how we learn, how we encourage, and how we inspire.

If you’re running a meeting (fairly obvious)…

Don’t do the things that annoy people (review the list above). Be a grown-up. Respect your attendees by preparing well, communicating well, and valuing time (our most valuable commodity). Make it about making them better as a result of the meeting (and you’ll be better for it too).

If you have D-grunts on your team (people who are disgruntled and work to mess things up), don’t invite them if at all possible (then ask yourself why you’re allowing them to be on your team at all). Life’s too short to tolerate D-grunts.

If you’re attending a meeting…

Participate. Be a grown-up. Answer questions and be a part of the discussion where appropriate. Encourage the leader by being on their team and offering your thoughts and support. Forward this email if you think these ideas might help them. Avoid the D-grunts (those disgruntled people). They don’t make good things happen for other people (or you).

Running or attending, remember… Few meetings are perfect. Give people the break you’d like to be given.

That’s it. No filling or killing time. Meet. Connect. Learn. Inform. Bam!

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Good Luck!

According to the researchers, retailers who develop apps overcome challenges being presented by dramatic shifts in television viewing and barriers to advertising on mobile devices. Using the app, consumers “talk to the brand, not the other way around,” and consumers feel comfortable controlling how much information they reveal when they customize the app.

Read the entire article here

Web browsing was up 2.9% while downloading mobile apps saw the biggest increase (3.2%) to 43.8% in the most recent quarter.

No factors in this part of the survey showed a decrease. According to comScore 234 million Americans over the age of 13 use a mobile phone of some sort. 90 million of those mobile phone users, use smart phones which was up 10% from the previous quarter.

As that number continues to increase we will see things like downloading apps, listening to music and browsing the web, increase as well.

What is a bigger channel than the 1.7 billion people surfing the internet worldwide?

Yup. The answer is Mobile.

Our world now includes 5 Billion mobile subscribers! That is nearly half of the entire planet. And it is causing a revolution in business, in media and in the politics and policies that shape our existence.

The world has changed. And so must our marketing.

So it is time to give Mobile it’s due. It’s time to get started on your mobile action plan.

Today, our customers are increasingly reading their emails on a mobile device. If we are not offering a mobile-friendly version, we need to think about what that experience is like for them. And our customers are doing more social and web surfing on their devices. We need to think about what happens when they land on our web pages. Are they getting the content they want, when they want it?

According to this latest research from MarketingSherpa (above), the largest increase in online media consumption in the past year is happening with mobile apps, followed by online TV/media viewing and watching videos. The media consumption of our customers is shifting rapidly toward mobile devices and towards consuming entertainment on smart phones.

And as the chart above shows, the growth of mobile devices is happening in social networking but notice that there is also 25% growth or more in the categories of work and personal email, news and search.

Mobile is important. It is quickly becoming the most important channel for how our customers get their news, update their status, check their email and surf the web.

Still not convinced…consider these additional statistics:

* The Apple iPad reach $5 Billion in sales in just 3 quarters
* The Year over Year growth rate for tablet computers in 2011 is 200%
* 5 Billion apps were downloaded from iTunes in 2010
* IBM predicts that mobile apps will surpass traditional apps by 2015
* 72% of the U.S. workforce uses a mobile device and 82% of executives use a smart phone
* 50% of executives said they prefer to make a purchase via a mobile device over traditional web or phone
* And according to Morgan Stanley and Gartner, mobile will become our primary internet screen by 2015

The bottom line, is that we are “always-on, always connected and always working. (There’s that word again: “Ubiquitous”) We simultaneously live and work in 2 worlds at all times. We expect more control. We expect media we can manipulate. We’re impatient. And we’re demanding.”

Here are 5 mobile imperatives to get started:

1. Customize all your content to multiple devices. Think about web, email and stationary versus mobile content needs.
2. Identify how B2B Mobile Marketing programs can make our customers’ lives easier, better and faster.
3. Give customers what they want, when they want. Get creative with new ways, new tools and new content.
4. Re-think thought leadership and create mobile versions for all content and mobile-specific content programs to drive positive and unique interactions.
5. Extend your brand’s core business value through the use of strategic approaches to our mobile audience to drive revenue and profits for the business.

The bottom line comes from the imperatives to chart a new course in your Marketing: make your content mobile-friendly and integrate new mobile tools into existing programs to increase ROI.

Mobile is a business strategy not a tactic and I couldn’t agree more. I still feel the need to say that exact same thing about social!

In fact, social and mobile complement each other. In many ways they are two sides of the same coin…a coin that is changing the world and changing the way we market.

Now tell me what you think. Do you have a mobile strategy?

Where are you guilty of text messaging? In the comments section, tell us where the most inappropriate place you’ve ever text messaged is.

The company, according to reports, is hoping for the ads to beef up mobile traffic at a much lower cost.
The move by Google follows the decision taken last year in which it proposed to limit the ad servings on high-end mobile devices. These changes are basically aimed at providing consumers with an enhanced mobile surfing experience while making sure that sites optimised for Mobile devices get more exposure at comparatively lower cost.

In a recent study conducted by the search giant, it was found that 61 percent of the participants were unlikely to ever visit a website which they had trouble in accessing from their phones earlier.
Sonja Lee of Google product marketing stated on Wednesday that over 925,000 mobile devices were being activated each day. Also, according to the company, mobile queries on Google.com increased by nearly 300 percent in holiday season from 2009 to 2010. Subsequently, Google is looking forward to even a bigger growth in 2012.
The search giant also predicts that approximately 44 percent of all shopping related queries during the holiday season will come from mobile devices.