2015 YEAR IN REVIEW: MOBILE
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2015 YEAR IN REVIEW: MOBILE. The most important deals, releases, figures, moments and trends of the passing year. By Monika from mobee dick. Enjoy and have a great 2016!
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2015 YEAR IN REVIEW: MOBILE
- 2. NUMBER OF MOBILE-ONLY INTERNET USERS EXCEEDED DESKTOP-ONLY 1NO. For the first time in March, the number of mobile- only adult internet users exceeded the number of desktop-only internet users in the U.S. While the share of mobile-only users has climbed over the past year to 11.3%, the desktop-only population has drastically declined to just 10.6%. Of course the vast majority of the digital population (78%) is multi-platform and goes online using both desktop and mobile platforms. Even still, smartphones and tablets (particularly the former) have already become — our primary access point to the internet. Read more at ComScore. image source
- 3. MORE SEARCHES ON MOBILE THAN ON DESKTOP 2NO. In May, Google confirmed that mobile search queries (including mobile browser-based searches and those coming from Google’s mobile search apps) overtook desktop queries. More Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in at least 10 countries including the US and Japan. Google groups tablets with desktops. So this is just smartphones and does not include tablets. Mobile should be right now the “primary screen” also for search marketers. Read more at Google Inside AdWords. image source
- 4. FACEBOOK BECAME MOBILE-FIRST 3NO. Mobile DAUs were 934 million on average for December 2015, an increase of 25% year-over- year. This is 89,8% of all DAUs. Mobile MAUs were 1.44 billion as of December 31, 2015, an increase of 21% year- over-year. This is 90,6% of all MAUs. Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 80% of advertising revenue for the fourth quarter of 2015, up from 69% of advertising revenue in the fourth quarter of 2014. 51,7% of Facebook users access the social network only from a mobile devices! Read more at investor.fb.com. image source
- 5. THE DISRUPTION OF MOBILE VIDEO 4NO. In 2015 video become mobile first. 6 out of 10 people watch videos on mobile devices on a daily basis. Millennials are spending more time than ever watching short-form video content on their smartphones, and players like Facebook and Snapchat are reaping the benefits. These platforms — which capture billions of video views each day (8B on Facebook, 6B on Snapchat) — are competing to capture growing mobile audiences and challenging the historical dominance of YouTube. The ensuing bout will create a new set of opportunities for content creators and advertisers looking to cash in on the mobile video craze. Read more at Business Insider. image source
- 6. ACCELERATION OF MOBILE YOUTUBE 5NO. • YouTube overall, and even YouTube on mobile alone, reaches more 18-34 and 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the U.S. • The number of hours people spend watching videos (aka watch time) on YouTube is up 60% year-over-year, the fastest growth we've seen in 2 years. • Once users are on YouTube, they are spending more time per session watching videos. On mobile, the average viewing session is now more than 40 minutes, up more than 50% y/y. • The number of hours people spent watching videos on mobile is up 100% y/y. • More than half of YouTube views come from mobile devices. • YouTube’s mobile revenue is up 2x y/y. Current statistics are available here. image source
- 7. SHORT VIDEO ON THE RISE 6NO. • With iPhone 6S and 6S Plus came Live Photos. A Live Photo is a way to bring a photos to life by capturing a 3-second video when one’s taking a photo on their iPhone. It also captures audio at the same time. • In September, Giphy, the search engine for all things gif, released a Giphy Cam app that lets users create their own gifs to send or share on social media. • In October Instagram launched a new app, Boomerang, which allows users to create and share mini-videos. Boomerang takes a burst of five photos and stitches them together into a one-second. The video loops, much like a gif, plays the images backwards and forwards. • The new trend is beginning to stick with dedicated short video apps, rapidly gaining popularity. Instead of just taking picture, you can capture a moment, without actually doing anything more than pressing the shutter button. image source
- 8. LIVE VIDEO STREAMING ON THE RISE 7NO. • Periscope is a live video streaming app for iOS and Android developed since February 2014, acquired in January 2015 by Twitter and launched on March 26, 2015. • In August, it was announced that Periscope had surpassed 10 million accounts, just 4 months after it was launched. It was noted that over 40 years of video was being watched per day. • In December, Apple named Periscope as the iPhone App of the Year. The competing app Meerkat may have hit the market first, but Periscope really captured the zeitgeist. • It became a standard in 2015 that big companies such as ING, Wendy’s, T-Mobile, among others started to broadcast live their media conference calls, show company’s life behind the scenes, etc. Read more at Mashable. image source
- 9. THE ERA OF VERTICAL VIDEO 8NO. It started with Snapchat, where more and more of us are shooting video the way we naturally hold our phones — vertically. On Snapchat Discover, the default content formatting is vertical. Vervid was launched in the App Store on July 15th and is the self-broadcasting platform for the mobile era, with an audience that rarely — if ever — rotates their phones. Vervid wants to be 'the YouTube of vertical videos’. Vertical video is now becoming a format media outlets can no longer ignore on mobile. That’s a clear sign that our industry must develop creative content for this format. Read more about Vervid at journalism.co.uk. image source
- 10. 360-DEGREE VIDEOS 9NO. Since March YouTube is serving up videos that let you look in any direction, not just where the camera is pointing. As long as you’re using a Chrome browser, you can tap and drag to look around. Or, with the YouTube app, you can pan by simply moving your phone or tablet - it is easier on mobile. In September, Facebook unveiled its first collaboration with its Oculus division, bringing 360-degree videos to the News Feed on the web and Android devices. In November this feature was available on iOS as well. Now Facebook is testing 360-degree ads. 360-degree format is a gateway to the fully fledged virtual reality platforms, which seem to be the future of social networks. Read more at YouTube Blog and The Verge. image source
- 11. MESSAGING APPS EVOLVED INTO HUBS 10NO. Messaging has become a core hub of social activity. Messaging apps have now evolved into ecosystems for users to conduct payment transactions, consume rich-media branded content, partake in artificial intelligence and even play in-app games. The innovation in this messaging experience first started in Asia-Pacific (LINE and WeChat). In 2015 Facebook Messenger has achieved a growth spurt thanks to its laser-focused strategy which added new layers on top of the core messaging platform. Messaging is not just about connecting with a circle of friends. 2016 promises to herald exciting innovations in how users will use these apps as a hub for their everyday activity. Read more at Cnet.com. image source
- 12. JOTT 11NO. You might think there's no need for yet another messaging app. But, Jared Allgood, CEO and co-founder of Jott, said 31% of U.S. teens don't have text messaging abilities at school. The app's AirChat feature allows users to send data and texts without a connection to the Internet. Jott uses Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios to create a closed network with other devices that are within 100- feet of each other. A white-hot new app for instant messaging, Jott has nearly 500,000 monthly users and one million app installs after just three months on the market. Read more at money.cnn.com. image source
- 13. BUY BUTTONS IN MOBILE SOCIAL MEDIA APPS 12NO. Instagram announced a Buy Button in June of 2015, allowing anyone to click Shop Now, and purchase from their device. Pinterest also announced their Buy Button on their mobile apps in June. Google’s buy button, called “Purchases on Google”, arrived in July and it lets one buy directly from a search result page. Before them, Facebook began testing their buy button in July of 2014 as well as Twitter in September of 2014. The reason why all these large companies have announced buy buttons is because mobile eCommerce is a pain. These buttons will help improve mobile conversion rates, and they will only increase in popularity as they create less friction in the entire mobile shopping experience. Read more at Feedonomics.com. image source Twitter Facebook Google
- 14. BLIK - NEW MOBILE PAYMENT SYSTEM 13NO. BLIK is an innovative payment method and a milestone in the development of mobile payments, enabling millions of mobile phone users to make cashless payments in shops, withdraw cash from ATMs , make payments over the Internet, as well as to make mutual settlements between themselves (so called P2P payments), all using their mobile phone. Since February 2015 BLIK is available in mobile applications of 6 founding banks: Alior Bank, Millenium Bank, Bank Zachodni WBK, ING Bank Śląski, mBank and PKO Bank Polski. This is expected to cover more than 60% of Poland’s banking customers. Read more at Bank Innovation. image source
- 15. NOTIFY 14NO. In November Facebook rolled out a new app called “Notify” specifically to send users mobile notifications from publishers they care about, like BuzzFeed or CNN or The Weather Channel. Facebook wants to dominate their users lock screens. Facebook believes that mobile notifications are their own medium, separate from Facebook or any other news consumption platform. “People have different ways they want to consume information. Search is one way. Social is another way. And we think push notifications might be yet another. We see that as an evolving medium and want to be a part of that.” - said Michael Cerda, product director at Facebook. Read more at Re/code. image source
- 16. ‘THE MOBILEGEDDON’ - MOBILE SEO UPDATE 15NO. On April 21, 2015 Google began globally rolling out their mobile-friendly update. According to the update, mobile-friendly pages ranked higher in mobile search results and, as a result, pages that weren’t optimized for mobile experienced a drop in traffic from smartphones. Now searchers can more easily find high-quality and relevant results where text is readable without tapping or zooming, tap targets are spaced appropriately, and the page avoids unplayable content or horizontal scrolling. To help developers make their sites mobile- friendly Google released a set of guidelines and a simple mobile-friendliness test tool. Read more at mobiForge. image source
- 17. FLASH’S FINALLY DEAD 16NO. Google officially killed Flash advertising in its browser. As of September 1, any advertising that uses the technology requires the user to click it to play — it’ll otherwise remain frozen. A new setting, enabled by default in Chrome automatically optimizes plugins to save battery power and CPU cycles and specifically targeting autoplaying advertising. The change comes as Google AdWords now makes it possible to automatically convert advertisements created using Flash into HTML5, a friendlier and safer format for playback. Read more at TheNextWeb. image source
- 18. GOOGLE APP STREAMING 17NO. Read more at Marketing Land. With app streaming, Google will effectively broadcast what you’re looking for within an app, without requiring you to download it at all. If it works as promised, you’ll be able to browse within apps with the same type of experience that you browse web pages. In November a pilot test was started with nine publishers in the US, which are: Hotel Tonight, Daily Horoscope, New York Subway, Weather Channel, among others. Major companies like Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft are supporting “The web of apps” and that’s why over the past 2 years or so, they’ve all been pushing things like Google App Indexing, Apple Deep Linking & Universal Links, Facebook App Links and Bing App Linking. Google App Streaming is the next big step. image source
- 19. ACCELERATED MOBILE PAGES 18NO. AMP is an open-source architecture for fast mobile-optimized content. It’s based on AMP HTML, a restricted subset of HTML, and a well- defined set of custom elements and JavaScript- based components. The result is an incredibly fast browsing experience that loads minimal data over the network. AMP pages may be loading 4 times faster and using 8 times less data than traditional mobile- optimized pages. A better, faster mobile web is better for everyone, including users, platforms and publishers. Twitter, Pinterest, WordPress.com, Chartbeat, Parse.ly, BBC, Adobe Analytics and LinkedIn are among the first group of technology partners planning to integrate AMP HTML pages. Learn more at AMPhtml blog. image source
- 20. BEACONS FROM GOOGLE 19NO. Read more at TechCrunch. In July Google introduced a number of new products around Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons in an effort to challenge Apple’s iBeacon ecosystem. These new products include a new open beacon format, tools and APIs for building apps and services on top of beacons, and a new developer-centric service for managing and monitoring large beacon deployments. The first of Google’s new beacon products is a BLE beacon profile named Eddystone. What’s interesting, one of its frame type is used by the Physical Web project. Chrome for iOS and Opera now feature beacon scanners utilising Google’s Eddystone standard (as opposed to Apple’s iBeacon). Beacons arrived in the browsers! image source
- 21. FREE BUSINESS BEACONS FROM FACEBOOK 20NO. In June Facebook began mass rollout of free bluetooth beacons for business owners. This project is arguably Facebook's biggest dedicate hardware effort to date, aims to realize goal of massive localized data mining. The beacons will offer: • Prompts to like the business's Page • Check in reminders • Recommendations from your friends • Posts from the business's Page. Read more at DailyTech. image source
- 22. AD BLOCKERS WENT TO THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA 21NO. Ad avoidance isn’t really anything new but it went to the mainstream media in 2015. It happened mainly due to the fact that Apple added support for content blockers in iOS9. Up until then, while possible, it was less straightforward to block ads on Apple’s Safari browser for iPhones and iPads. And thus, the popularity of ad blocking in 2015 soared seemingly overnight. ’Google has the web, Facebook has its app, and Apple has the iPhone. This is the newest and biggest war in tech going today.’ (TheVerge) Read more at imore.com. image source
- 23. IPHONE 6S AND 6S PLUS 22NO. Read more at TechCrunch. image source Apple launches two new iPhones, the iPhone 6S and the iPhone 6S Plus. As expected from an ‘s’ year, the next- generation iPhones don’t look all that different from last year’s models. For the first time in years, Apple added more megapixels to the iPhone camera, offering a 12-megapixel camera. Apple introduced a feature called 3D Touch, which shows an extra dimension to the screen you’re used to. Using Force Touch, which is already available on the Apple Watch and on new MacBooks, users can hold down on various apps to both ‘peek’ and ‘pop’.
- 24. IOS 9 23NO. Read more at The Verge. iOS 9 is the ninth major release of iOS, the mobile operating system by Apple Inc. It is the successor to iOS 8 and focuses less on new features and more on under- the-hood optimizations, as well as battery improvements. iOS 9 is a much more stable experience than iOS 8 was when it launched, and there are a few new features here that are genuinely useful. During 5 days after its release iOS 9 had been installed on more than 50% of "active" iOS devices as measured by the App Store, making it the fastest adoption rate for a new operating system. image source
- 25. APLLE MUSIC 25NO. Read more at The Verge. image source Apple Music is a music streaming service released in June 2015. It is free for the first 3 months of usage. After that, Apple Music subscription would cost US$9.99 per month. Apple Music has to compete with the likes of Spotify, Rdio, and Tidal. Luckily it gained 10 million paying subscribers just half a year after launching. Apple Music just did in 6 months what took Spotify 6 years. In November Apple Music came to Android phones. It’s the first user-centric app that Apple has created for Android.
- 26. SAMSUNG GALAXY S6 AND S6 EDGE 25NO. After 7 straight quarters of revenue decline, Samsung finally managed to post a revenue increase in the 3Q of 2015. Its Galaxy S6 and S6 edge flagship smartphones marked a return to form for its stagnating product line with their impressive design and hardware characteristics, and success did come, even if modest. The price adjustments and timely release of the Galaxy Note 5 and S6 Edge+ that followed, along with the introduction of the price- conscious Galaxy A series, made a significant contribution towards Samsung's solid 2015 performance. The company is still the single most profitable Android device maker. Samsung has 23,8% of the global device manufacturers' market and still it’s the number 1 vendor. Read more at PhoneArena. image source
- 27. MICROSOFT DISCONTINUED PROJECT ASTORIA 26NO. Microsoft's Project Astoria was the codename for its Android app porting. In November Microsoft confirmed that its initiative to bring Android apps to Windows 10 is "not yet ready”. Microsoft points developers to other tools that will allow them to bring their apps to the Windows platform. Read more at The Verge. image source
- 28. BLACKBERRY WITH ANDROID 27NO. The BlackBerry PRIV, BlackBerry’s FIRST Android handset, was one of 2015’s most surprising and exciting releases. In BlackBerry’s statement, company CEO John Chen said that its BB10 operating system will take a back seat in 2016 as the company intends to launch two Android- powered devices to accompany the BlackBerry Priv. Despite the shift in direction, BlackBerry will continue to offer the BlackBerry Classic with the BB10 operating system, however, new phones won’t receive it. Read more at Mashable. image source
- 29. CONSUMER ADOPTION OF WEARABLES TOOK OFF 28NO. The wearable market increased almost 223% in 2015. 21% Americans now own a wearable device - a number that is expected to double in 2016. Since Apple Watch release, Samsung, Pebble and Motorola have released new flagship smartwatches of their own, while fitness-focused companies such as Fitbit and Jawbone have also been busy getting new devices out to consumers. According to Forrester's report, Fitbit is leading the charge, with 36% of the total number of wearables in use. The Nike Fuel Band and the Apple Watch are tied for second at 16%, while the now-discontinued Google Glass still accounts for 15% of wearable devices in use. Read more at ReadWrite. image source
- 30. THE APPLE WATCH DOMINATED THE COMPETITION 29NO. Apple has been selling its smartwatch since April, and already the company has sold 7 million units, according to data from Canalys. That’s more smartwatch sales than all of Apple’s competitors combined, over the previous five quarters. According to data provided by Strategy Analytics, Apple has 74% of the global smartwatch market. One of Apple’s closest smartwatch competitors is Pebble, which released the Pebble Time Steel watch in the third quarter. The new watch was a relative success and helped Pebble sell 200,000 total units. Canalys said that Apple was the only vendor to sell more than 300,000 units in IIIQ. Read more at Slideshare. image source
- 31. HOLOLENS 30NO. In January Microsoft revealed an early version of an augmented reality headset called HoloLens that creates interactive holographic imagery in the wearer's field of vision. Shaped like a pair of chunky wraparound sunglasses, Microsoft HoloLens is a cordless headset with transparent lenses – intended to offer a mixed reality where digital objects are laid over the physical world. Rather than creating an entirely virtual universe, like the Oculus Rift headset, HoloLens conjure high-definition digital holograms in existing spaces as if they are really there. Microsoft HoloLens devices will begin shipping in the first quarter of 2016. Read more at dezeen.com. image source
- 32. SAMSUNG GEAR VR 31NO. Samsung Gear VR is a mobile virtual reality device developed by Samsung Electronics in collaboration with Oculus VR. The Gear VR was first announced in September 2014. At that time the device wasn't yet ready for the masses. The first innovator edition of Samsung’s Gear VR was released in December 2014 mainly for early adopters. Finally Consumer Edition was released on 20 November 2015. Pre-orders for the device went live on Amazon, Bestbuy and Samsung on 10 November 2015 and the device was sold out on the day of release. Read more at Engadget. image source
- 33. NETFLIX WITH OCULUS VR 32NO. Netflix is heading into virtual reality. The streaming giant started partnering with Facebook-owned Oculus VR to release a virtual reality version of Netflix. It is available since September 24, on Samsung's Gear VR headset. Netflix will also head to the Oculus Rift, Oculus VR's headset, when it goes up for sale in early 2016. Read more at TechInsider. image source
- 34. NYTIMES DELIVERS GOOGLE CARDBOARD 33NO. Google Cardboard is a virtual reality (VR) platform, released in 2014, developed by Google for use with a fold-out cardboard mount for a mobile phone. It is intended as a low-cost system to encourage interest and development in VR and VR applications. This year on November 8, The New York Times included a Google Cardboard viewer with all home newspaper deliveries. Readers can download the NYT VR app, which displays journalism-focused immersive VR environments. Virtual Reality starts to go mainstream! Read more at NYTimes.com. image source
- 35. VR PHOTOS WITH CARDBOARD CAMERA 34NO. In December Google launched Cardboard Camera app for Android. The app turns the smartphone into a virtual reality camera. It’s simple to take a photo: just hold out your phone and move it around you in a circle. Later, when you place your phone inside a Google Cardboard viewer, you'll get to experience something new: a VR photo. VR photos are 3D panoramas, with slightly different views for each eye. You can look around to explore the image in all directions, and even record sound with your photo to hear the moment exactly as it happened. Since the app launch users have captured more than 750,000 VR photos. VR experience is for everyone! Read more at Google Official Blog. image source
- 36. NOW ON TAP 35NO. Read more at Bloomberg.com. Google announced a new feature 'Now on Tap’ within its Android OS which allows the Now service (a dashboard of notifications focused on your life and interests) to plug in as a layer that essentially hovers above any app running on your phone or tablet. Activated by the home button, it's always there. This means that you can get contextual search information around almost anything you're doing, provided there is text and data that Google can pull from the app itself. Developers won't have to make any changes to their existing software to allow the new service — dubbed Now on Tap — to bring search and context into the user's view. image source
- 37. RANK BRAIN 36NO. RankBrain is an artificial intelligence system that’s being applied to and used with Google’s current search engine algorithms to provide better results to user queries. Over time, RankBrain will learn more about how to appropriately handle different types of queries, correlating certain ambiguous phrases with more concise terms to better understand user intentions. These changes are significant to the average relevance of a search results page, and could dictate the future development of search algorithms altogether. Read more at Forbes. image source
- 38. VIRTUAL ASSISTANT ‘M’ 37NO. What can Facebook do for you today? - that’s the premise behind “M,” a new “personal digital assistant” that lives within Facebook’s standalone messaging app, Messenger. Unlike Apple’s Siri, Cortana or Google Now, you’ll primarily interact with M through text (although you can send M a voice recording). The assistant is powered by artificial intelligence, the advanced technology Facebook is developing to help its products think and act more like humans. Users can text “M” to ask for restaurant recommendations and make reservations. With the introduction of personalized recommendations and increasing relevancy for users through machine learning, the monetization strategy through tie-ups with retail and small-medium businesses is huge. Read more at Re/Code. image source
- 39. MOBILE PHONE ROAMING CHARGES WILL BE ABOLISHED 38NO. Members of the European parliament voted through new rules that will scrap mobile roaming charges and increased costs for calls, text and data while roaming with the EU. Mobile phone users who travel within Europe will only have to pay the same prices as they would at home, curbing the cost of continued mobile connectivity while abroad. Data roaming charges are set to be abolished within the European Union by June 2017. Read more at BBC News. image source
- 40. THANKS FOR READING! © The author of this presentation is Monika Mikowska. Monika works as UX Strategist at mobile UX Design studio, the mobee dick. Say hello at monika@mobeedick.com or follow her on Twitter.