location based services

Unhealthily Obsessed with Mobile Content - 5 Percent Of Broadband Users Use Mobile Internet—Survey

Research firm Media Screen has released a report (Netpop Pocket) measuring the rate at which general broadband users use the mobile internet. “Broadband users represent an important audience to track as they have historically driven innovation of online applications by being the first to adopt and embrace new services on the Internet,” says Jean Durall, Media-Screen’s director of research services. It may also be that broadband users spend more time on their computer than the general population, reducing the need to access the internet via mobile. Although more than 60 percent of broadband users currently own an internet-enabled mobile phone, only five percent use the mobile internet. Over 50 percent of respondents to the survey (of 4,000 broadband users in the US in July last year) said that the mobile internet does not “fit with their lifestyle”, a response Media Screen puts down to a marketing emphasis on youthful MySpace users and executive roadwarriors. Those users perform an average of 3.3 online activities on their mobile device versus 13.4 activities on their laptop/desktop. The main activities were: Sending email 47 percent Playing games 27 percent Read the news 16 percent Watch TV programs 13 percent The survey showed that 58 percent of respondents had an internet-enabled mobile device but didn’t use it to go online. Pricing and packaging issues are also noted as holding back take-up.