Check it Out – Who is Really Checking in?

Allison Howen — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:30:00 GMT

Mobile has been one of the hottest topics in the tech industry for some time now, but there are still many uncertainties as to exactly how consumers are utilizing their devices. This information is especially important for Web workers who want to optimize their brand’s presence for multi-channel users.

A new study from research company Pew Internet provides insights into how these devices are being utilized by consumers, including statistics on location-based and geosocial services, which can be valuable features for local businesses to leverage within their mobile apps.

The survey reveals that 74 percent of smartphone owners use their devices to get real-time, location-based information such as directions or recommendations that are related to their current location, but only 18 percent are using geosocial services to check-in or share their locations with friends. Both of these statistics show an increase in usage since 2011, when only 55 percent of smartphone users were utilizing location-based services and 12 percent were using geosocial services.

The uptick in usage of these services is a good sign, especially for businesses looking to capitalize on local and social via mobile devices. For example, location-based services can provide a consumer who is searching for “pizza” with directions, reviews and information for local pizzerias, which can be influential in increasing the foot traffic at local pizzerias.

On the other hand, geosocial services provide businesses with better word-of-mouth advertising via the customer check-ins that businesses accumulate on social networks such as Facebook, Foursquare and Gowalla.

And while the uptick in these location-based and geosocial services is important to note, Web workers should also know what demographics are leveraging these services. Women under the age of 30 are the most likely to use both location-based and geosocial services, while college graduates and those with a household income of at least $75,000 are more likely to use location-based services.

Conversely, consumers without college experience and those with a household income of less than $40,000 are more likely to use geosocial services.

It is safe to say that usage of location-based and geosocial services will continue to grow, especially as smartphone adaptation continues to gain momentum and as more consumers realize exactly what these services can do – such as find them local businesses to visit or offer them coupons as an incentive to check in on a site such as Foursquare.

Faster Page-load Times with Cotendo

Linc Wonham — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 02:00:00 GMT

Slow-loading mobile websites and applications can be significant revenue-killers for any Web business – just ask the majority of consumers.

One company striving to reduce page-load times and speed up the delivery of mobile sites and apps is Cotendo, which recently launched its Mobile Acceleration Suite (MAS) of products. Designed to accelerate mobile content and to integrate with Cotendo’s other content-acceleration technologies, MAS offers Web businesses and application developers a new way to ensure their content arrives faster and more reliably to end users’ mobile devices.

“While using Cotendo services we’ve seen up to a 33-percent performance improvement on our site,” That’s huge because our customers expect instant response when downloading apps to their handsets,” says Allan Moger, operations manager for GetJar, the world’s largest open app and entertainment store for smartphones with more than 2 billion downloads.

“Aside from the performance benefits, we chose to use Cotendo services because they understand the importance of the mobile space and are ahead of the curve in improving services for the mobile industry.”

Cotendo’s Mobile Acceleration Suite offers mobile-specific solutions that also leverage the company’s other services for content acceleration such as Dynamic Site Acceleration, CDN Load Balancing, Advanced DNS services and the Cloudlet Platform – the first CDN-integrated High Performance Cloud Application Environment.

If slow load times are getting you and your customers down, visit Cotendo for more information about the Web and Mobile Acceleration Services suites.

'Net Features : mobile acceleration suite

Check it Out – Who is Really Checking in?

Faster Page-load Times with Cotendo