The rising mobile addiction of 21st-century moms

A lire sur: http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/the-rising-mobile-addiction-of-21st-century-moms

By Staff reports, May 16, 2014

By Yariv Ron

Mom, no mobile phone at the dinner table! Ever imagine the day where you would hear that?

Well, as weird as it sounds, that day is here. Twenty-first century moms have an active social media presence: commenting, liking, tweeting, posting and sharing. Hours are spent comparing prices on Amazon, shopping on Gilt and planning vacations on TripAdvisor.

New Flurry research on the growing phenomenon of mobile addiction has found one truly surprising fact: moms are more likely to be mobile addicts.

According to Flurry, a mobile addict is a consumer who launches applications more than 60 times per day, six times more than the average consumer. Today, there are 176 million mobile addicts, up from 79 million last year, a figure that represents a whopping 123 percent growth.

According to the research, moms are 10 times more likely than the average female user to be a mobile addict.

And this is not as surprising at it may seem at first.

Over the past couple of years, we have seen a clear growth in the number of U.S. mother smartphone users.

According to the BabyCenter 2013 Mobile Mom report, in 2013 87 percent of mothers in the United States had a smartphone, up from just 59 percent in 2011.

And these ladies were not shy about their reliance on the device. Forty-six percent of the mothers admitted to being addicted to their smartphones, describing that the phone was with them while shopping, watching television, driving the car, sleeping in bed and cooking in the kitchen.

Maybe it was due to the fact that this survey focused on the younger moms, and included expectant females and mothers with children under age nine.

Some of these women are part of the millennial generation, a group with an estimated buying power of $170 billion per year, according to comScore. Given the strong impact that this generation has on brands, it is important to understand how these women use their smartphones.

These new “Millennial Moms” are in their 20s and 30s, super career-focused, and pushing the traditional boundaries of society, often raising children on their own.

These moms are always on-the-go, using technology to simplify their over packed lives. The smartphone is an extension of the woman herself, present in every aspect of her life, including planning, researching, shopping, communicating and educating.

Millennials spend about 14 percent more time on their mobile devices in an average week than other generations.

For millennial moms, much of this time is spent shopping, with 81 percent describing that shopping is the No. 1 way that they use their smartphone, according to “Moms & Media 2,″ a Meredith Parents Network Survey.

Given the mom mobile addiction pattern and clear preference of younger moms for mobile shopping, it is crucial for publishers and developers to understand how to reach and engage these women.

Travel, hospitality brands hop on board with Google Glass

A lire sur: http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/travel-hospitality-brands-hop-on-board-with-google-glass
By Lauren Johnson

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May 16, 2014

The TripIt app

OpenTable, TripIt and foursquare have all rolled out efforts for Google Glass, highlighting the role that utility plays for marketers developing wearable initiatives.

All three companies have been added to MyGlass, which is a portal that houses all of the apps found on the device. Travel and hospitality brands tend to be some of the most forward-thinking marketers in mobile in terms of marrying up utility with conversions, so it is not surprising that many are viewing wearables as the next iteration of their strategies.

“Glass presents an exciting opportunity to think about how traveling should work,” said Amy Jackson, director of public relations at TripIt, San Francisco.

“If you think about the predicaments you’re in when you travel — having to carry multiple bags, pull out a boarding pass, move through line after line – these are all moments where having something that guides you through your trip, without requiring you to reach in your pocket or bag could be incredibly helpful,” she said.

Wearable traveling
Synching up a TripIt account to the device pushes travel information to Google Glasses so that consumers can view their travel information quickly. The app refreshes Google Now content as well so that a traveler’s information is all in one place.

The app pulls in car rental, hotel and travel reservations once a consumer has landed.

The foursquare app leverages location to let consumers view a list of nearby places that they can then check-in at.

At the same time that foursquare is pushing check-ins via wearables, the company is splitting up its business into two separate mobile apps to focus more heavily on discovery rather than check-ins (see story).

OpenTable is tapping Google Glass to trigger last-minute restaurant reservations. Via the app, consumers can view a list of nearby restaurants that they can then make a reservation at.

Making restaurant reservations and reading reviews continue to be some of the most popular features that consumers are accessing on smartphones, making the switch to Google Glass a logical choice for OpenTable.

OpenTable’s mobile efforts already include a suite of applications and a mobile site and speak to the growth in mobile development beyond smartphones and tablets.

MyGlass also includes several travel-related apps from Google, including Google Now, Maps and Search.

The TripIt app

Building in utility

Despite being a new platform, a small handful of brands have begun rolling out Google Glass apps.

The majority of these efforts suggest that keeping the experience simple will be key in how marketers approach the platform going forward.

For example, the state of Utah rolled out an app in February that lets consumers view transit information (see story).

Fidelity Investments rolled out an app last fall that lets users view a hands-free display of quotes from the major stock indexes in the United States (see story).

Since wearables are more intrusive than other types of marketing, brands should be hesitant when entering this space and make sure that utility is first and foremost the goal behind these efforts.

“With TripIt, we’re always thinking about how traveling should work in pursuit of ‘the perfect trip,’” Ms. Jackson said.

“When my flight is delayed, why should I have to rely on monitors or gate agents, when a notification can arrive on my device – and in the case of Glass, without reaching into my pocket?” she said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York

How IKEA is boosting in-store traffic via mobile social geotargeted ads

A lire sur: http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/how-ikea-is-boosting-in-store-traffic-via-mobile-social-geotargeted-ads
By Chantal Tode

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May 16, 2014

IKEA uses mobile social to drive store traffic

An IKEA store saw a 31 percent lift in store traffic from 22- to 25-year-olds and an 11 percent lift from 26- to 35-year-olds following a geotargeted Facebook ad campaign that ran in the social network’s News Feed.

Overall, the IKEA store saw an 11 percent increase in store visits among more than 172,000 consumers who were served the ads compared to an otherwise identical group of the same size who had not seen the ads. The results suggest that Facebook ads are driving foot traffic for retailers.

“Marketers have not yet been able to directly link Facebook ads to in-store traffic and sales at this point,” said Brian McDaniel, account supervisor at iProspect. “That said, the consumer has their mobile with them at all times and advertisers can pick up on their activity based on location.

“By knowing where they are, you can then target them with specific messaging related to a nearby store with the intent of raising awareness of an in-store promotion and driving the sale,” he said.

“For the majority of our clients, we focus on how Facebook can drive their eCommerce site. However we  douse Facebook to promote store openings for brands ranging from teen specialty to luxury. The sophisticated targeting allows us to do this successfully for very different brands with very different target audiences. Targeted can be accomplished not solely on interests but household income and affinity with complementary, non-competing brands.”

Social, local, mobile
While the spend on Facebook advertising has been quickly growing because of the amount of time that consumers are spending there, there has been a lack of quality data about how effective these ads are.

The question of effectiveness has been particularly thorny on mobile, where much of the time spent on Facebook is happening, because of the complexity of the ecosystem.

For bricks-and-mortar retailers, being able to drive traffic into stores is important because this is still where the lion’s share of their sales are happening. As a result, many are looking beyond simple social advertising and at strategies that combine location and mobile with social for the biggest impact.

The IKEA iPhone app

The geotargeted IKEA campaign delivered ads on Facebook in the British city of Cardiff during December 2013 and January 2014, with 1.4 million impressions served overall.

The ads were created by IKEA’s social agency Isobar, which is part of the Dentsu Aegis Network.

The additional store traffic generated by the campaign helped the campaign deliver a return-on-investment of 6:1.

User insights
To determine the effectiveness of the campaign, Vizeum and iProspect – also part of the Dentsu Aegis Network – teamed up with Facebook and British wireless carrier EE to anonymously match Facebook use and EE data.

EE analyzed device activity within a geofenced area around the IKEA store, removing staff, people who lived in the area and passersby. The EE data combines anonymized and aggregated mobile Web and location data for user insights.

IKEA has been quickly building up its mobile chops.

Last summer, the chain enhanced the shopping experience for its product catalog using augmented reality (see story).

IKEA also introduced an iPhone application that lets consumers browse its collection and find in-store items (see story).

“Paid social is now a must for marketers given that most people/consumers live & breath social on a daily basis,” said Brittany Richter, supervisor of social media at iProspect. “Retailers should first understand what they want to gain out of their social channels – awareness, likes, followers, driving traffic to the brick & mortar site or driving sales on-line.

“Retailers have a major opportunity to get creative with targeting segmentation, breaking down their larger target audience in to different segments, and targeting them with personalized content,” she said. “These platforms know a lot about their users, and advertisers should be using that to the brands’ advantage by serving relevant and somewhat personalized content that resonates and inspires or motivates action.

“There is also opportunity, especially planning for Holiday, to target not just those who purchase, but those who influence the purchase, or gift their purchase, adding an additional layer of personalization.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York

Vers une médecine prédictive personnalisée

A lire sur: http://www.atelier.net/trends/articles/vers-une-medecine-predictive-personnalisee_429338

Par Kenza ADEÏDA 14 mai 2014 

La recherche en biologie s’intéresse de plus en plus aux relations causales entre maladies et facteurs environnementaux grâce à l'évaluation des niveaux d’exposition.

Les expositions environnementales affectent la santé tout au long de la vie: substances chimiques toxiques, radiations ionisantes, germes, microbes, parasites, etc. Celles-ci peuvent être liées à l’habitat ou à l’environnement professionnel par exemple et peuvent se caractériser par des nuisances telles que le bruit ou l’insalubrité, la contamination de l’eau, pollution de l’air ou encore les changements climatiques. Toutefois, leurs mesures sont très complexes et présentent plusieurs défis. En effet, les variations dans l'espace et le temps, la multiplicité des agents environnementaux et l’insuffisance des outils de mesure posent des difficultés pour obtenir une analyse précise. Un éventail d'outils existe déjà: modèles mathématiques, enquêtes à travers des questionnaires, mesures de biomarqueurs dans le sang, les urines et les cheveux. Cependant, ces derniers, n'intégrant ni la totalité des expositions ni d'autres facteurs tels que les conditions de vie n'apportent pas un rapport complet. Avec le développement de la recherche en épidémiologie moléculaire, de nouvelles pistes s'ouvrent. Ainsi, le concept d'exposome -évoqué pour la première fois en 2005 dans un article du Dr Christopher Wild- propose une approche plus globale des effets des expositions aux agents chimiques, physiques et infectieux sur la santé de l'Homme. Dans ce cadre là, plusieurs initiatives de recherches se sont développées en Europe et aux Etats-Unis dont EXPOSOMICS. Ce projet soutenu par la Commission Européenne et réuni autour d'un consortium installé à Imperial College London a pour ambition d'utiliser la technologie des smartphones pour aider l'évaluation des expositions environnementales.

Le smartphone comme système de surveillance

Cette discipline combine alors des méthodes de biologie à des outils de biotechnologies et de bio-informatique, le tout dans une démarche épidémiologique. Deux PME, l'une spécialisée dans les capteurs et le développement des technologies smartphones, l'autre dans l'intégration de données complexes se sont associées pour développer l'initiative EXPOSOMICS. Ainsi la technologie développée dans le cadre du projet collectera des données d'exposition - polluants atmosphériques, de l'eau- et ce pour chaque individu. Ces données pourront alors être mises en relation avec les changements biochimiques et moléculaires qui s'opèrent dans le corps et provoquent des maladies chroniques et graves. Pour cela, la technologie s'appuiera sur la technologie des smartphones -capteurs, systèmes de géolocalisation, satellites- afin de générer un "Personal Exposure Monitoring”, c'est à dire un système de surveillance de l'exposition personnelle. Ce système, couplé aux outils existants tels que les biomarqueurs, apportera par la suite une aide précieuse aux scientifiques pour l'estimation de l'impact de l'environnement sur les maladies.

Une avancée pour la santé publique

Dans l'état actuel des choses, il n'existe pas de mesures précises des liens entre les exposions environnementales et les maladies. De ce fait, l'estimation réelle de la morbidité et de la mortalité liées à ces expositions est difficilement réalisable. Vient s'ajouter à ce constat le fait que l'exposition dans les pays développés se fait à faibles doses et sur la durée, ce qui complique davantage l'analyse. Aussi, faibles doses riment souvent -à tort- avec faibles risques dans les estimations, ce qui peut entraîner des erreurs dans les statistiques et amener des études à conclure qu'il n'y a pas de lien entre l’environnement et la pathologie étudiée alors que cela est faux. Ici, l’analyse précise des expositions devient un enjeu crucial dans le domaine de la santé publique. De plus, l'étude de l'exposome individuel laisse entrevoir la possibilité d'un diagnostic personnalisé et préventif en matière de santé environnementale.

*«Enhanced exposure assessment and omic profiling for high priority environmental exposures in Europe»

Google va-t-il confier le volant de sa voiture autonome à des constructeurs tiers ?

A lire sur: http://www.usine-digitale.fr/article/google-va-t-il-confier-le-volant-de-sa-voiture-autonome-a-des-constructeurs-tiers.N262303#xtor=EPR-4

Par Sylvain Arnulf - Publié le 14 mai 2014, à 16h30

Google va-t-il confier le volant de sa voiture autonome à des constructeurs tiers ? © Google

Google estime que dans six ans, ses voitures autonomes  seront accessibles aux conducteurs lambda. Mais selon le Wall Street Journal, le géant américain s'interroge encore sur le business model  lié à cette technologie : doit-il créer lui-même les Google cars ou fournir la technologie à des constructeurs-tiers ?

Pour Google, cela ne fait guère de doute : dans six ans, ses voitures autonomes (surnommées "Google cars") seront en vente pour le grand public. Mais il reste "beaucoup de chemin à parcourir" pour accomplir cet objectif, reconnait dans le même temps Arturo Corral, un pilote d'essai de Google interrogé par le Wall Street Journal. Même si la technologie s'est considérablement perfectionnée, il reste des obstacles à franchir : le système n'est pas opérationnel lors de conditions météorologiques difficiles (pluie et neige), par exemple, et certains de ses composants-clés sont très onéreux. Google promet que les prix chuteront lorsque la production de série sera lancée.

CONTACTS AVEC PLUSIEURS CONSTRUCTEURS

Quelle est la meilleure façon de commercialiser cette technologie prometteuse ? Selon le WSJ, la question divise au sein même de Google X, la division du géant de Mountain view qui supervise ses projets les plus innovants, parmi lesquels la "Google car". "Nous réfléchissons aux moyens de mettre cette technologie sur le marché", explique le chef de projet Chris Urmson. "Nous sommes en discussions avec plusieurs constructeurs automobiles", ajoute-t-il, sans citer lesquels.

Google n'a pas encore décidé quelle serait son approche : concevoir lui-même les Google cars de série, ou bien confier cette tâche à un ou plusieurs constructeurs partenaires. Le logiciel et l'OS (système d'exploitation) qui sont au cœur de la sa voiture autonome pourraient également être vendus sous licence à des fabricants, comme Google le fait avec Android pour les smartphones. L'entreprise est d'ailleurs en pleine expansion sur le marché des systèmes embarqués automobiles.

Découvrez notre infographie "Quels OS dans quelles voitures ?"

Si Google décide finalement de concevoir lui-même la voiture, il n'y a pas de temps à perdre, étant donné les délais de conception et d'industrialisation. L'objectif d'une mise sur le marché aux alentours de 2020 pourrait alors s'éloigner.

Lire l'article "Google talking to auto makers about self-driving car" sur le site Wall Street Journal Digits

Big data definition fractures technology market

A lire sur: http://searchbusinessanalytics.techtarget.com/feature/Big-data-definition-fractures-technology-market

Ed Burns, Site Editor

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. -- The term big data, and some of the general concepts that define it, may be on its way out, but predicting what will replace it and when remains a challenge.

At the MIT CIO Symposium, there was near unanimous agreement that the accepted big data definition, despite its ubiquity, has little meaning for businesses, and focusing on the idea rather than specific business needs may be dangerous.

There are new technologies coming on the market so fast and if we don't really align our organization we can get ourselves painted into a corner pretty quickly.

Darrell Fernandes,
Fidelity Investments

"The term is useful at some level, but I think if you can't turn it into business value, you're losing," said Darrell Fernandes, CIO of strategic investment products and data at Fidelity Investments. "Big data as a term doesn't connect to business value. The term can hurt us at times if we can't derive the value that we want."

Fernandes said he prefers to talk about "eKnowledge," which refers to information derived from data analysis that connects to business functions.

The debate encompasses more than just nomenclature. Popular use of the term big data came into vogue around 2010. At that time, businesses started to see an explosion in the number of tools available to help them manage and analyze data, including new database technologies like NoSQL and Hadoop, advanced data mining software and, most recently, user-friendly self-service analytics tools. As vendors tried to define big data through their own unique products, it created a data management and analysis ecosystem in which every action related to data requires its own tool.

Fernandes said this can be frustrating. Prior to the growth in big data and its related tools, it was much easier to know what his company needed. Mostly this involved a simple relational database. But now, with so many new tools coming to market, he feels forced to reassess his business's needs on 18-month cycles or shorter.

"There are new technologies coming on the market so fast and if we don't really align our organization, we can get ourselves painted into a corner pretty quickly," he said.

But as the market for data management and analysis tools matures and moves away from general interest in big data, Fernandes expects to see a lot of consolidation. Individual vendors may offer tools that manage data effectively on the back end while also providing easy-to-use data exploration and visualization tools on the front end. Currently, businesses would be hard-pressed to find one vendor capable of delivering on all these needs.

This consolidation could alter the shape of the data analytics workforce. Currently, businesses that want to do deep analytics need at least one data scientist on staff. Doctorate-level data scientist Puneet Batra, founder of organizational learning startup LevelTrigger, formerly served as the lead analytic scientist at Aster Data (which was eventually bought by Teradata), said the need for data scientists like himself is coming to an end. As self-service tools become standard components of vendors' analytic software packages, businesses won't need people with backgrounds in statistics and the scientific method. These things will be baked into the technology.

"My first priority is to put lots of people like myself out business," Batra said.

How long it will take to complete this transition from a fractured technology market to a more unified big data definition is anyone's guess. Tom Davenport, fellow at the MIT Center for Digital Business and professor at Babson College, said he predicted at the Symposium last year that the term big data would have fallen out of use by now -- a prediction which obviously has not come to pass.

While big data as a general concept may provide little business value, as a term it has proven durable.

Former shadow IT worker helps bring analytics data into the light

A lire sur: http://searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com/feature/Former-shadow-IT-worker-helps-bring-analytics-data-into-the-light

Craig Stedman, Executive Editor

For nine years, Ryan Fenner worked in a group that developed and managed business intelligence systems at Union Bank outside the IT department's control. Now he's helping clean up some of the consequences of such efforts, as the technical leader on a data warehousing project aimed at bringing BI and analytics data generated by that group and others like it into the bank's corporate IT fold.

The project isn't designed to fully do away with shadow IToperations at Union Bank, which is based in San Francisco and has 400-plus branch offices in seven states. Fenner, who moved into the IT department in late 2012, said some of the groups will remain in place and continue to build BI and analytics applications for business units. The goal is to get the key data they're working with into centrally managed data marts, and eventually into an enterprise data warehouse(EDW), so it can be properly cared for.

Ryan Fenner

Fenner learned the need for such care firsthand several years ago, when the bank's risk and compliance department flagged his shadow IT group for data quality problems. He said the various DIY operations sprung up because there wasn't a strong central focus on BI and analytics -- but the informal processes ended up creating data consistency and accuracy issues. "A lot of innovation comes out of shadow IT, and they provide a lot of value to the business," Fenner said. "But you do need governance on that data."

He started his career on a traditional IT track, graduating from college with a degree in management information systems and initially working as a business analyst and then a systems analyst. His first job at Union Bank involved rewriting Microsoft Access desktop applications to run on a SQL Server system. Along the way, he became familiar with running queries and building reports in SQL Server -- and then a shadow-y opportunity came knocking.

Do what you need to do

Business executives in the bank's consumer lending unit were looking for better BI data to aid in decision making, and they tapped Fenner and two colleagues to start producing reports for them. He said the execs gave the new team "tons of cash" to fund its work and free rein on how to proceed: "They said, 'We need questions answered and we don't care how you do it -- just do it."

A lot of innovation comes out of shadow IT. But you do need governance on that data.

Ryan Fenner,
Union Bank

Six months later, the group was expanded to support the company's entire retail banking business. Eventually, it cast quite a long shadow, employing more than 100 people at its peak. That pales in comparison to the size of Union Bank's IT department, which currently has about 1,300 employees. But it was a sizable operation.

And it was fun to work for, according to Fenner. Using SQL Server as their BI platform, he and his co-workers got to do "cool things" in direct support of business needs, with a heavy focus on analyzing sales and marketing data. But after a management change, the work "morphed into more of a traditional IT role," he said. Meanwhile, the IT department also got new management and became more focused on supporting BI processes. So Fenner decided to leave the shadows behind and take a new job in IT as a vice president and enterprise data solutions architect.

First priority: Getting a handle on analytics data

Officially, he's in charge of enterprise architecture. But, for now, architecture strategy is mostly taking a back seat to the tactical concerns of the data warehousing project. The project team deployed an initial data mart for Union Bank's consumer loan servicing department in late April, building it on SQL Server using data warehouse development tools from WhereScape. Fenner said he expects the reporting system to be migrated to Pivotal Software Inc.'s Greenplum analytical database later this year, again with WhereScape's tools. Other data marts will follow, and the bank ultimately plans to construct a full-fledged EDW on Greenplum that will incorporate the marts and several Oracle-based data warehouses built by the IT department.

MORE ON MANAGING BI AND ANALYTICS DATA

Watch a video Q&A with IT exec Sam Strum about managing data warehouse and BI projects

Get tips from consultant William McKnight on how to avoid data warehouse performance problems

See why consultant Wayne Eckerson says big data vendors should stop bashing data warehouses

Fenner is applying some familiar concepts from his shadow IT days to the initiative. For example, he isn't a big fan of traditional requirements gathering and waterfall development. In his old group, he said, "we went out and sat with the business people and just built the applications," using Agile development processes. The data warehouse project team is adopting a similar approach.

Things aren't all sweetness and light on the project. The bank isn't looking to pull all of the analytics data generated by shadow IT operations into the new data marts and the EDW -- only information that it views as an enterprise asset. Fenner gets to make the call on what qualifies, even if current data owners would prefer to keep it to themselves. "There are some groups that don't want to work with us," he said. "We have to make sure we prevent that kind of thing."

But if everything works as planned, Fenner added, the end result will be stronger data management that improves data quality without shackling the analytics capabilities of BI teams embedded in business units -- still enabling them to deliver "beautiful innovation and a lot of business value."