It was 25 years ago and if you wanted to make a phone call you had to do like Clark Kent’s Superman and head for the nearest phone booth and not ‘change’ into leotards and wear your undies outside of your pants but fumble for coins (if you had them) and make that urgent business call.
The next challenge was often to find one that hadn’t been vandalized.
Telecommunication companies are removing them and placing them in warehouses ready for recycling or they are sold at auctions for collectors to restore and revive.
The old style phone booths are often displayed as antique pieces in the corner of bars or designer stores as memento and memorial of a bygone era.
The Computer in Your Pocket
How times have changed.. the mobile phone is now your computer in your pocket, your road map to your latest appointment or your movie channel for watching the latest video online. No longer do you have to wait to get home to find out the latest scores you can Google them and even watch the highlights. Contacting your friends is now a choice of do I, SMS, call or Facebook them? Waking up in the morning is quite often not an exercise in turning on the kettle but but logging into Facebook while your head is still on the pillow to check out the latest news from far flung friends and family or polish your ego by quantifying how many new friend requests you have received in the last 8 hours.
The Authors Dilemma
Your books now arrive via ‘bits and bytes’ rather than UPS and if they don’t arive in 2 minutes you start to get worried about the strength of the wireless link or even if you are connected to the world wide web. Publishers and authors are now wondering if they should sell a Kindle version of the book or not, or run with the hardcover release first. Pens must be concerned about their shelf life as iPads are replacing notepads in board rooms and coffee shops. Libraries are desperately trying to work out new business models as people no longer trawl the aisles but stay away in increasing numbers to find their information online while they ride the bus.
So what does the latest research from Nielsen reveal after speaking to 12,000 mobile connected device owners about what we are doing with the 3 mobile gadgets that are changing habits, keeping our eyes ever averted downwards and transforming the way we consume and share information and content
The Tablet
Is the tablet a fad or a revolution? At this stage it is looking like the latter despite critics promoting it as a passing distraction such as Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer (Microsoft don’t make one at the moment so maybe he just has iPad envy) . So where and why are we using iPads?
- 70% of people use them while in front of the TV
- 57% while in bed
- 44% of people use them with friends and family
- 42% use them while waiting for something
- 25% in the bathroom
- 24% use them in the meetings or classroom
- 21% while shopping and running errands
- 20% when commuting
The question for marketers here is “How can I engage with the tablet user while they are watching TV and simultaneously on the iPad?”
The eReader
The eReader market is growing at 300% year on year when you compare the first 3 months of 2010 to February, 2011. So where are people using the Kindle and its competitors such as the Noble and Barnes ‘Nook’
- 35% of people use them while in front of the TV (compared to 70% on the tablets)
- 61% while in bed
- 17% of people use them with friends and family
- 32% use them while waiting for something
- 17% in the bathroom
- 10% use them in the meetings or classroom
- 9% while shopping and running errands
- 11% when commuting
The eReader is certainly the king of the bedroom and the only question to ask is will the market over time sustain 2 devices (the tablet makes it into the bedroom 57% of the time) for reading as the price of tablets surely will reduce reduce significantly over time.
The Smartphone
The smartphone that is connected to the internet and provides a multimedia mobile device anywhere and at any time is impacting our lives maybe more than any other man made object in history… (well apart from the car, the printing press and the television)
- 68% of people use them while in front of the TV (compared to 70% on the tablets)
- 51% while in bed
- 58% of people use them with friends and family
- 59% use them while waiting for something
- 28% in the bathroom
- 23% use them in the meetings or classroom
- 59% while shopping and running errands
- 47% when commuting
What is obvious is that the smartphone is our most pervasive mobile gadget but what is also evident is that the eReader is a bedroom favourite and the new phrase that may be heard between partners could be “Not tonight darling I’m Kindling”