jatiN mahindrA doT coM

Consumers Getting More Comfortable with Mobile Shopping

As you know, smartphone usage is on the rise, and that means more opportunities for businesses to sell to customers via their mobile devices. We often hear about how important mobile is to the marketing strategy and especially future strategies, but how much are consumers really into shopping from their phones? Retrevo shared some findings with us, and concludes that consumers are increasingly warming...

Good News for Google Buzz – Social and Email Top Mobile Priorities

An interesting study has been released by PR firm Ruder Finn, which finds that 91% of mobile phone users go online to socialize, compared to only 79% of traditional desktop users. Meanwhile, Americans are spending an average of 2.7 hours on the mobile Internet. "Mobile phones have become the way people organize their lives—managing finances, connecting with friends, purchasing products—and...

More Marketing Dollars Shifting from Offline to Online

Econsultancy and Exact Target have released a report based on joint research, polling over 1,000 marketers about their brand reputation strategies. The research found that marketers are slashing their budgets for radio, TV, and print, while looking online to build their brand reputation. The firms say the research indicates there will be a 17% surge in digital marketing spending this year. "The...

As Companies Relax on Social Media, Threats Increase

Even as social media has grown to be a much more widely accepted form of communication among businesses over the years, there is still plenty of data out there depicting the flaws and setbacks that can occur when social networks are used in the business environment. Just as with email or web surfing in general, there are security concerns, and a new report (pdf) from security firm Sophos claims that...

Skype Sees Big Jump in International Calls

Skype announced that its share of international calling minutes has jumped by 50% year-over-year. This data comes from a new report released by research firm TeleGeography. According to this report, Skype’s share of international calling minutes jumped to 12% from last year’s figure of 8%. Telegeography says that the volume of traffic routed via Skype is growing at an "astonishing"...

66% of Government Agencies Use Social Networking

A recent study came out this week from the Human Capital Institute and Saba about government organizations’ use of social networking and collaboration tools. The study looked at the effectiveness of social networking in conducting government work, how agency type affects the use, and perception of social networking, and the future expectations and barriers for its use. "This study looks...

Enterprises Seeing Increased Complexity at Data Centers

Symantec has put together its "State of the Data Center" report, which is the product of a survey of 573 businesses in 26 countries. "Although mid-sized enterprises tend to evaluate and adopt new technologies at a faster rate than larger organizations, they still face similar data center complexities that are compounded by adopting new initiatives," says Deepak Mohan, senior vice...

Google Shows How People Have Been Searching

Before 2009 came to a close, Google provided a look (as always) at the most searched for terms of the year. It showed the top ten fastest rising and fastest falling terms on both a global scale, and in the U.S. Globally, "Michael Jackson" was the fastest rising, while "Beijing 2008" was the fastest falling. In the U.S., "Twitter" was the fastest rising (just above "Michael...

Does an Organic Search Presence Help Paid Result Performance?

A study from a couple of NYU Stern professors has found that organic search engine results can play a direct role in whether or not a paid listing is clicked. Basically, if this research is any indication, if your business has both a paid result and an organic result appear at the same time, you have a better chance of your paid result getting clicked than if the organic result had not appeared. Seen...

Google Finds Moms to Be Search Pros

Google recently partnered with BabyCenter on a joint research study looking at how moms use search. Google says they arrived at four truths about moms and search: 1. The stork delivers search 2. Moms become black belts in search 3. Search is Mom’s GPS to Store 4. Search is Mom’s back up brain. "These truths reveal to marketers that motherhood creates a unique search window during which...

40 Million Reasons You Need a Mobile Web Presence

Opera is reporting that usage of its Opera Mini mobile browser has jumped 11% in just a month, around the world. In addition, they say data transfers have gained 16%. About 40 million people used Opera Mini in October, according to the company. That’s an 11.3% increase from September 2009 and more than 155% compared to October 2008. page-views and data transfers increased at an even more impressive...

Mobile Banking Trends Accentuate Mobile Growth in General

Mercatus released the results from an interesting survey about the mobile offerings of banks. According to the firm’s findings, banks that offer mobile financial services can increase their new customers acquisitions by as much as sixty percent. Mercatus also found that the current pace of mobile adoption is exceeding that of past innovations, such as ATMs, debit cards, and online banking. About...

Is Retargeting the Most Under-Utilized Marketing Strategy?

Advertise.com and the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) have shared some interesting findings from a survey about online ad technology. The two organizations found that there is a lot of untapped opportunity for retargeting in online advertising. Retargeting is basically when you market your product from a different angle or to a different market altogether. There’s a...

Portuguese Internet Users Reached Nearly 4 Million in September

comScore released findings this week from a study of the online habits of Portuguese Internet users. Interestingly, they found that the Portuguese Internet audience grew to nearly 4 Million users in September. Over 3.8 million people age 15 and older accessed the Internet from a home or work location in Portugal in September, viewing an average 1,843 pages and spending an average 1.9 hours online per...

Yahoo Survey Finds Optimism for Holiday Online Retail

Yahoo conducted a survey of small business online retailers to find out how they think they’ll perform this upcoming holiday season compared to previous years. "Surprisingly, based on the current economic landscape, the results show an optimistic outlook, with over 60 percent of the Yahoo! merchants surveyed expecting sales to be the same as most years or even stronger," a representative...