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Top 5 Web Trends of 2009: Mobile Web & Augmented Reality

cgseo — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:00:00 +0000

This week ReadWriteWeb is running a series of posts analyzing the five biggest Web trends of 2009. So far we've explored these trends: Structured Data , The Real-Time Web , Personalization . The fourth part of our series is on Mobile Web . We're including Augmented Reality in this category, as we think it's a key element of where the Mobile Web is heading circa 2009. In April we reported statistics from browser company Opera showing large growth on the Mobile Web. According to Opera, there was a 157% increase in usage of their Opera Mini web browser from March 2008 to March 2009. What's driving that growth is devices like the iPhone, new mobile operating systems like Android, and hot applications like Augmented Reality. Sponsor Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we'll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb! Apple Dominates Mobile Web, But Android on The Rise... We named Apple our Best Bigco of 2008 , mostly due to the success of the iPhone and accompanying App Store. By most statistics, Apple is in a fairly dominant position in the Mobile Web. At the beginning of the year we reported data from AdMob (a leading mobile advertising marketplace) showing that Apple has a 48% market share of smartphone traffic in the United States. That figure doesn't just come from the iPhone, but the iPod touch too. By June 2009, Apple's share of smartphone traffic in the U.S. had surged to 64% . Perhaps more significantly though, Apple's share of worldwide smartphone traffic had increased to 47%. This is important, because internationally other smartphones were utilized much more than in the U.S. before the iPhone arrived. However, Apple can't afford to rest on its laurals. Google's mobile OS Android has been making rapid progress. According to the latest Admob statistics available, for July '09 , requests from the Android Operating System increased 53% month over month and Android now has 7% worldwide OS share. The iPhone OS dropped slightly to 45% worldwide and 60% in the U.S. Bigco Initiatives & Trendy Startups All of the big Internet companies have strong Mobile Web initiatives. We discussed Apple and Google above. Yahoo continues to push Mobile Web , which currently goes under the OneConnect brand. Microsoft has announced a number of mobile initiatives this year, including a mobile version of Microsoft Office and MySpace bringing its platform to Windows Mobile phones. Earlier this month Facebook announced a mobile expansion of their Facebook Connect platform . "Facebook Connect for Mobile Web" enables developers to add a Facebook Connect button to their apps in order to make them more social. Probably of most interest is watching the up and coming Mobile Web startups. We've had our eye on Brightkite for some time, but perhaps the trendiest startup right now is Foursquare . It's a location-aware social app for the iPhone, but only available in a limited number of countries currently. Augmented Reality Augmented reality, the addition of a layer to the world on your mobile device, has been a very hot trend this year. As we noted in August , it is in everything from mobile apps to kids toys. Many people think that "AR" will soon be talked about by everyone the way they used to talk about "social media" and "Web 2.0" before that. That remains to be seen, but there's no denying there is a lot of interest in AR right now. As we reported at the end of August, the AR apps are starting to flow into Android (the early leader in this space) and iPhone devices. We reported that the Paris Metro Subway was apparently the first AR-enabled app to be accepted into iTunes. Then came a new Yelp app with AR , which any 3Gs owner can turn on by shaking their phone. Presselite , the company that made the Paris Metro Subway app, followed up with a London Bus app for the App Store. Conclusion Clearly mobile devices are an increasingly important way to access the Web. Many of our readers have smartphones nowadays, a good proportion of them being iPhones or Android devices (our statistics prove this). And there is no shortage of mobile web applications flowing into the App Store and Android's marketplace - not to forget Nokia and other prominent mobile manufacturers. What's perhaps most encouraging however, is the entirely new class of mobile apps we're seeing. Augmented Reality is the most obvious example. It's been a big year for mobile, with much promise to come. ReadWriteWeb's Top 5 Web Trends of 2009: Structured Data The Real-Time Web Personalization Mobile Web & Augmented Reality Internet of Things Discuss

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Top 5 Web Trends of 2009: Mobile Web & Augmented Reality

Analysts Predict 1 Billion+ Mobile Web Users by 2010

cgseo — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:24:52 +0000

According to the recent predictions from analyst firm IDC, mobile web usage is set to explode over the course of next year due to market forces like the tripling of iPhone applications, the quintupling of Android applications, and the introduction of Apple's long-rumored tablet computer. This statement was made among the firm's many year-end predictions released in a report which offered a broad overview of what's to come in 2010 in terms of the IT industry, cloud computing, the mobile web, and the overall technology marketplace. Sponsor Mobile Web Continues Growth One the more notable predictions in the near 20-page report is in regard to the growth of the mobile industry. Under the headline "Mobile Devices on a Path to Eclipse PCs," the analyst firm claims that in 2010 mobile devices will become more strategic platforms for both commercial and enterprise developers. However, the report backs away from the implications made in that eye-catching title by clarifying that they're not (yet) predicting the "death of the PC," rather that mobile devices will no longer be seen as "subservient to PCs." Instead, says IDC, mobile devices will be viewed as primary client platforms. However, IDC does believe that in 2010 mobile devices will eclipse PCs in several areas - or at least come very close. For example, the firm claims we'll see over a billion mobile devices connected to the web by year-end. That's almost as many mobile devices as internet-connected PCs, the latter which will total 1.3 billion. Also, the growth rate of mobile devices is 2.5 times that of PCs. For the most part, the growth will be spurred by the proliferation of smartphones such as Apple's iPhone, RIM's Blackberry as well as the lines running Nokia's Symbian operating system (OS), Windows Mobile, and Google's Android OS. In 2010, 200 million more smartphones will ship, representing 16% of the market. By 2013, that figure will rise to 20% or more. In addition to the sheer number of phones produced in the coming year, application development will continue to see explosive growth too. IDC believes Apple's iPhone will have 300,000 applications available by year-end (up from the 100,000 they have now) while Android will offer 50,000-75,000 (up from 10,000 now). They also believe that Google's strategy with Android - that is, an open OS that can run on different hardware - will help make it a strong iPhone competitor. Apple "iPad" Will Launch Of course, the one prediction which everyone wants to know about is the Apple tablet. IDC dubs the device the "iPad" and says it will be more like an oversized (8-10 inch) iPod Touch than a downsized Mac computer. The device will allow for web surfing, videophone applications, gaming, reading books, magazines, and newspapers, and watching videos. Last year, IDC said the iPad would not arrive in 2009 - and since it's now December, they appear to have been right. Now they claim 2010 is finally the year for its launch. They also note that it would not be surprising to see Microsoft launch its own tablet device next year too. In addition to the introduction of the so-called "iPad," IDC says the netbook market will continue to grow with major manufacturers expanding their lineup to include different pricing levels for the ultraportable machines. This "good, better, best" lineup will allow netbooks to move away from being just considered value-oriented systems (cheap with low performance) to being decent alternatives to traditional notebook PCs. Do You Agree? The IDC report involves predications of what's to come, but it was created after studying this year's data in detail and extrapolating on that to peer into the future. We think their findings sound credible - even the one about the mythical "iPad," although that may just be wishful thinking on our part. Do you agree with these predictions, too? Share your thoughts in the comments. Discuss

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Analysts Predict 1 Billion+ Mobile Web Users by 2010

Your Favorite Mobile Apps: Facebook, Tweetie, Google Maps, Foursquare, and More

cgseo — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:00:00 +0000

Last week we surveyed you , the ReadWriteWeb community, about your favorite mobile applications. We asked for your top 5 mobile apps and ended up with nearly 200 different mobile apps in the post and comments! Today we reveal the full results, including the most popular mobile apps of our tech savvy readers. Earlier today our resident Mobile Web expert Sarah Perez listed ReadWriteWeb's top 10 Mobile Web products of 2009 . As for your choices, we discovered that you like social networking on the go (Facebook, Foursquare), Twitter clients (Tweetie, Twitterrific), Google (Google Maps, Google Mobile), and innovative mobile-focused apps (Evernote, Shazam). The top 16 is listed below, with commentary. Also at the bottom of the post you'll find a spreadsheet of the entire list. Sponsor Top Mobile Apps of RWW Readers Facebook 32 Tweetie 24 Google Maps 14 Foursquare 10 Evernote 8 Shazam 8 Google Mobile 7 Echofon (Twitter client for Mac) 6 Gmail Mobile 6 Pandora 6 TweetDeck 6 Twitterrific 6 Dropbox (to sync files) 5 Kindle 5 Spotify 5 Yelp 5 Many of our readers use iPhones, so the above list features more iPhone apps than apps from Android, Blackberry, Nokia, or other phones. Facebook was the most popular mobile app listed by you all. Facebook has been improving their iPhone app all year and this survey shows that our readers are liking those iterations. As Sarah Perez noted earlier today , "if any application deserves an "app of the year" award, it's Facebook 3.0 for iPhone." Not far behind Facebook was Tweetie, a popular mobile Twitter client which released a major new version of their app in September. Tweetie 2 introduced features like video tweets, offline mode, geolocation, and more. Other mobile Twitter apps to be mentioned multiple times include Echofon, TweetDeck and Twitterific. Google has always been popular in our Mobile apps surveys, since we began doing them in 2007 . They're listed 3 times in the above list, including at number 3 with Google Maps. Several mobile-centric apps (i.e. apps developed specifically for mobile, rather than the desktop computer) made our top 16 list. Foursquare is a trendy new mobile social network, Evernote is a great note-taking tool, Shazam is a head-scratchingly good app for identifying songs - to name just a few. Click here to see a Google spreadsheet featuring the entire list of nearly 200 mobile apps listed by our readers. SEE ALSO: Top 10 Mobile Web Products of 2009 Discuss

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Your Favorite Mobile Apps: Facebook, Tweetie, Google Maps, Foursquare, and More