GVSU Mobile Applications and Services Lab

If the Droid sales keep their current pace, it should be able to surpass one million units sold before Christmas, let alone New Year.

increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, and create ongoing customer conversations

“A lot of consumers used mobile as a price-comparison shopping tool—mobile price-comparison and geolocation features show promise for retailers.”

The mobile-phone transaction increase supports the assertion that buyers shopping at brick-and-mortar stores were price-checking products with their mobile phones and then buying items wherever they were least expensive.

“The ultimate competition between industry players is for control of the ‘ecosystem’ and user experience, and the owner of the ecosystem will benefit the most in terms of revenue and user loyalty,”

Ms. Shen said. “We predict that most users will use no more than five mobile applications at a time and most future opportunities will come from niche market ‘killer applications’.”

If Microsoft is looking for a differentiating feature for a mobile platform, promoting .NET makes a heck of a lot of sense…particularly if Silverlight is supported in the next version of Windows Mobile (which based on this year’s PDC, seems to be turning into a development platform in its own right).

XBOX is confusingly closed. For the only true TV-attached device in the Microsoft product catalog, it is perplexing to me that XBOX isn’t trying to encourage third-party developers to make non-game network-capable apps that run on the XBOX (well, unless you are Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, or another “big” company).

“The Deloitte Holiday Survey found that one out of five, 19 percent, plan to use their mobile phone to assist them in their holiday shopping,” she said. “The popularity of mobile usage is evident across all age groups, with 39 percent in the 18-29 age group and 19 percent of respondents in the 30-44 age group [are comfortable with mobile commerce].”

http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2009/07/google-app-engine-for-java-sdk-122.html: "At long last, the dev appserver has a data viewer. Start your app locally and point your browser to http://localhost:8080/_ah/admin to check it out."

According to Muse, ShopSavvy currently boasts over 3 million users who are on average performing 26 product scans per month.  These are impressive statistics when you consider that the application is available for only one platform at the moment.  But another interesting statistic, especially for retailers, is that 91% of scans are performed by users who are in a store and in “buy mode”.  

The application itself is compelling enough to the current crowd of Android owners - 75% of them have installed and used ShopSavvy.

This research proves once again that social media has penetrated parts of the business world at a tremendous speed. It also indicates that corporate familiarity with and usage of social media within the Inc. 500 has continued to grow in the past 12 months.

This research should put an end to the argument over the relevance of social media in the industrial sector. In fact, it appears that by percentage, B2B is ahead of B2C in some key categories.

This research should put an end to the argument over the relevance of social media in the industrial sector. In fact, it appears that by percentage, B2B is ahead of B2C in some key categories.

Point Inside: Fact: stepping foot in a suburban mall can drain your vitality in a matter of seconds. And though I don't think a deep disdain for the concept of indoor shopping complexes and what they've done to the very fabric of the American town was the driving inspiration behind Point Inside, they're definitely onto something: With hundreds of mall maps that look a lot like those big directory signs, this app gets you in and out of your local mall as quickly as possible, all for free. Could use a few hundred more maps—some of my old tweenage haunt

Droid vs. iPhone: Them's fightin' words

A couple of parting observations about the passion of the comments about this phone: They suggest the Droid has quickly emerged as the phone around which iPhone critics have coalesced. It's emerging as the preeminent un-iPhone or even anti-iPhone. The comments are further evidence that no community of observers takes a closer and more critical interest in how we test and assess than smart-phone fans. We've experienced that in the past, when we updated the methodology and presentation of our smart-phone Ratings (available to subscribers) in response to the changing nature of these devices.

If the iPhone didn't finish off Windows Mobile in the smartphone market, the Motorola Droid may. Windows Mobile is losing the last vestiges of its mojo

In August, according to AdMob, Windows Mobile had only a 4 percent share of the mobile OS market worldwide, down from 7 percent in February

So the Droid may not be the iPhone killer but rather the Windows Mobile slayer. Microsoft, of course, will always have the unassailable PC franchise. But, wait, isn't Android coming to Netbooks next year? Maybe the real battle royal for Microsoft is yet to come.

According to a new study from Pew Internet and American Life Project, technology does not lead to social isolation, as many often suspected. Instead, researchers found that online participation and mobile phone usage leads to people having larger and more diverse core discussion networks.

On average, a person spends 195 days of the year having mobile phone contact with others, but face-to-face interactions occur on about 210 days per year.

In addition, mobile users have around 15% more family members with whom they can discuss important matters and tend to have 25% more core network members who are not family members. Overall, those who use mobile phones have core networks that are 12% larger than those who don't.