Here’s some of our takeaways from this study that can help you with your mobile strategies:

• If you have a great app, you’ll raise your revenue ceiling with a “freemium” vs. a premium model.
• Apps with in-app purchases are monetizing at more than double the rate of those without this feature.
• For 2011 iPad downloads are up 200%, and up 70% for iPhone
• Tablets will continue to convert notebook and smartphone owners at faster rate, and eventually represent 60% of the PC market by 2015
• Revenues from iPad apps are now contributing to 30% of overall iOS revenue -
• The iPad generates 2.4X more revenue per download than iPhones/Touches.
• Norwegians love premium apps

These figures and estimates are likely conservative given the upcoming changes to Apple’s desktop platform, OS X, where they’ve just announced they are dropping the “Mac” name from the OS, and are incorporating more and more iOS features in the next version due out this summer.

Check out the infographic below:

With all the attention circulating around Facebook’s IPO disclosure, this quote was “best in show” in our opinion:

We all know that radio, like many other industries, has struggled in the area of monetizing its digital platforms.  CPM’s are lower than over-the-air advertising, sellers aren’t well-trained, and even the agencies have trouble figuring out how to make the various channels work.

But this admission got my attention because it’s not from a radio CEO – it’s from Facebook’s IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

So what gives here?  Mobile advertising is exploding and Facebook’s got 425 MILLION monthly mobile users – and they haven’t figured out how to monetize it?  And this may turn out to be a $100 billion company!

Maybe Facebook can take a lesson in mobile revenue generation from good old radio.  While it’s still the second inning, our jacAPPS division has seen numerous examples of radio successfully leveraging mobile platforms, sales infrastructure, and relationships to make money.  An increasing number of avails are coming with mobile requests, and radio has done a better-than-average job of responding.  While it’s not going to enable radio to blow through its sales goals, it’s the beginning of a mobile revenue stream.

What’s impressive about radio’s initial success in this space is that it is coming from a wide variety of sources and solutions.  Pre-roll advertising, in-app streaming ads with graphics, and display ads provide a baseline revenue source for radio stations.  We’re well-structured to sell these platforms because they parallel our traditional spot-selling strategies.

The better news is that we’re beginning to see radio stretch itself and provide higher level – and higher dollar – mobile solutions for its advertisers.  Last fall, Entercom stations in Seattle and Portland (see above) sold a creative and multi-channel mobile promotion to Papa John’s, enabling listeners to order pizza directly through their smartphones.  It generated a significant amount of new digital revenue and it works on all levels – there’s a great listener benefit that takes advantage of the smartphone’s assets, it’s additive to the app, and the stations involved got a huge revenue shot.

The 2 Live Stews in Atlanta do a weekly feature called “Cocktail of the Week.”  By partnering with Crown Royal, the station got a significant buy and took the concept to mobile, providing drink recipes.  It’s a great example of “pinballing” – taking an on-air feature, driving listeners to the mobile app, and providing a great benefit for them.

And coming out next month is a platform created Publink from friends of ours in public radio (see below).  It will be rolled out to public and commercial radio in the next month or so, and is a scalable and robust combination of Groupon and AroundMe.  It’s great because it enables local stations to penetrate businesses that aren’t typically on the radio (either because of lack of budget or desire or both) by providing coupons that can be changed remotely by the business and appear in the app.  Features include geo-location, social sharing, and other key elements that we believe will become a major new revenue source for radio.  And these types apps allow the industry to better compete with national sites like Groupon and Living Social.

And radio isn’t done yet.  I’m spending more time than ever talking to jacAPPS clients about new revenue generation ideas, such as entertainment guides, ski condition apps, festival and concert apps, and other ways of not only connecting with listener communities in the mobile space, but generating sponsorship revenue at the same time.

The NAB recognizes this opportunity, too. I’ll be on a panel on this topic at their April convention in Vegas.  The mobile future for radio is bright.

So I don’t know what’s taken Facebook so long to monetize mobile.  They may be the smartest guys in the room, but even they admit they’ve been stymied by the ability to generate revenue in this dynamic space.  And while radio hasn’t totally figured it out (frankly, we’ve just scratched the surface), we may actually be further along than the hottest story on Wall Street.

But that won’t last long.  Radio needs to dedicate research, development, and expertise to identifying the best sales structure that can generate mobile revenue.  Do we train traditional sellers or hire dedicated specialists (I lean toward the latter)?  The industry needs to conduct usability and audience testing to determine the optimal approach to not only the design of station apps, but these other platform opportunities as well.

What does the mobile consumer want, and how can radio best give it to her?

Radio is perfectly suited for a happy mobile revenue future at a time when its meat and potato inventory is not as in vogue as it once was.  Agencies want integrated packages, or marketing opportunities that combine the best of mobile and social.

Yet, radio has it all – cume, brand image, awareness, local knowledge and presence, focused target lifegroups, and a sales infrastructure that can be re-aligned and re-focused.  Radio stations have deep contacts at ad agencies and with local businesses.  Companies like Groupon, Facebook, and even Pandora are essentially starting from scratch.  But they’re moving quickly.

Radio needs to enhance its advantages as much as it needs to embrace change.  The industry has proven that it is more successful – even at this early stage – at generating mobile revenue than even Facebook.  But not for long.

Mobile is the future for Facebook.  And radio.

Full Article Here

• 38 percent of cell owners used their phone to call a friend while they were in a store for advice about a purchase they were considering making.
• 24 percent of cell owners used their phone to look up reviews of a product online while they were in a store.
• 25 percent of adult cell owners used their phones to look up the price of a product online while they were in a store, to see if they could get a better price somewhere else.

Full Story Here

The data was obtained by tracking usage over 140,000 different applications.

Flurry says the Facebook app has been a large driver in shifting usage away from the web and onto apps. For the full story, please click here.

Games and Social Networking categories capture majority of app users’ time.  Gaming accounts for nearly half their time using, with a third using apps built around Social Networking apps.

Ultimately, these two categories account for nearly 80% of the time that users are engaged with their apps.  It’s important that you consider aspects of these two categories (especially Social) to include in your app projects.

*(It’s worth noting that Flurry does not track Facebook usage, so the Social Networking category is actually likely considerably larger.)

There’s no doubt that both have strengths, and that each has its own limitations.  Regardless of the technology, what’s ultimately at stake is the Customer Experience and what will make the best end-user product and enhance usability and allow you to reach the largest – and most appropriate – audience.  In most cases integrated HTML5 pages into native apps can offer a solid approach that benefits everybody.  But ultimately “gut” and emotion becomes a big part of the conversation.

One of the key factors missing from the discussion is typically actual analytics and data to help frame the topic.  New data from app analytics firm Flurry finds that mobile users are spending more time with native apps than mobile web browsing, widening a gap that appeared last summer.

Flurry posits that a good amount of the change could be due to higher usage of Facebook in apps – notably with the recently released Facebook iPad app:

Our analysis shows that people are now spending less time on the traditional web than they did during the summer 2011. This drop appears to be driven largely by a decrease in time spent on Facebook from the traditional web.  In June 2011, the average Facebook user spent over 33 minutes on average per day on the website.  Now, that number is below 24 minutes. Time spent on the web without Facebook has grown at a modest rate of 2% between June 2011 and December 2011.

Regardless of Facebook’s actual impact, the continued growth of native apps relative to the mobile web is a trend very much worth watching and studying as we determine the best approaches for mobile strategies.

Full Story/Interview Here

As Chris Woodyard writes for USA Today – Ford Motor will announce it is doubling the number of apps available for its Sync in-car infotainment system at next week’s International Consumer Electronics Show. Mercedes-Benz and Kia will also reveal the first apps for their respective infotainment systems.

Woodyard writes, “Using apps behind the wheel, however, isn’t the same as ambling down a sidewalk with a smartphone. Automakers are being careful to roll out only those they don’t think will raise issues about driver distraction. Most of the existing apps are automotive versions of ones available to all smartphone users. Many in the next wave will be specifically aimed at enhancing the driving experience.”

For the entire article, which include some auto app possibilities, please click here.

As we have opined in this blog in the past, radio stations and companies that have taken the leap into mobile would do well to do more than build apps. That’s a start, but it means little without crafting strategies and tactics that drive downloads and usage. That planning is a big part of what we’re doing here at Jacobs Media and jacAPPS.

Google reported 3.7 million Android applications just on December 24-25, so think of the millions of other folks who got a new smartphone or tablet over the holidays as new cumers moving into your metro. They now have these cool new devices and they’re dying to use them. I get hit with the question all the time: “Any cool new apps you’d recommend?”

Well, if your station (or company) has a mobile application, why wouldn’t you focus your promotional energy on these peak times when consumers are even more likely to download apps? Like right around Christmas and Hanukkah?

So to see if that strategy works, we pulled app download data from more than 250 of the jacAPPS apps we’ve developed during a two week run, starting on December 5 and going right through Christmas. Here are the results:

This is no surprise. Now think about how much higher radio could have driven downloads (and usage) on Christmas Eve/Day and beyond with a targeted series of promos or better yet, a dedicated email blast about your apps that included links. Talking about your app, encouraging downloads and listening, and making new smartphone and tablet owners feel good about their purchase is as important to your internal marketing as playing Christmas music, A-to-Z, or anything else you were programming or promoting late last month. Timing your messaging to the times when new smartphones are being taken out of their little boxes is just smart.

This is what we’re doing at Jacobs Digital – an extension of our programming consulting specifically for mobile/social/digital – that works with radio to create strategies that make sense. We get together with radio management teams to set priorities, create digital hierarchies, and to work with staffers to achieve goals. And we do more than talk about what to do. We roll up our collective sleeves and build, create, and innovate.

I’m not going to tell you that our execution is perfect, but one brand at a time, we are making progress in helping radio brands craft coherent digital schemes. Radio should enjoy the fruits of the technology movement rather than sitting on the sidelines wondering what to do next or simply taking a shotgun approach that gravitates to the bright, shiny object that is generating buzz.

It’s time to end these random acts of digital.

Broadcast radio needs a true digital strategy.