Analytics
Latest
Wolfram Alpha expands Facebook analytics, takes a closer look at your social relationships
Have you ever wanted to know if you're the most popular amongst your group of friends? Or which of your pals lives the furthest from you? These are questions that can't be answered by Facebook's latest Graph Search, but they're perfect for the stats geeks over at Wolfram Alpha. The group started mining Facebook for data last year, but have recently expanded its analytics to include a closer look at your social relationships. Namely, they've identified five "network roles:" social insiders, outsiders, neighbors, gateways and connectors. Insiders share the same friends while outsiders don't, neighbors don't have a lot of buddies outside of your network while gateways do, and connectors are those that bridge two networks together, like a college buddy who went to the same high school. Combined with location, age and other info, this data unlocks an array of potential visualizations color-coded by different categories, letting you see patterns you might not have noticed before. If you think the analysis ends there, think again; by enabling a "Historical Analytics" feature, you'll be allowing Wolfram Alpha to continually collect your info so you can see how your Facebook profile changes over time. If you're not creeped out by that notion, jump on over to the rightmost source link and fill in the appropriate details to see just how well you know your "friends." Note: It seems that Facebook has limited Wolfram's API calls, so you might get an error when accessing the tool for now.
iPhone 5, other phones are consuming far more data than tablets
While it might seem logical that, since tablets are better suited to web tasks than smartphones, data consumption would be skewed towards slates. But new data from Arieso suggests the opposite. According to the firm's lastest figures, smartphones including the iPhone 5 handily trumped tablets when it comes to data usage, suggesting that users' data habits don't scale along with the size of a device's screen. The report followed the habits of 1 million mobile users over a 24-hour period in November 2012. According to the report, iPhone 5 users best all other smartphone and tablet demographics in terms of downloaded data, while Samsung's Galaxy S III takes the top spot for data uploads. The iPhone 5 accounts for 50 percent more data usage than the iPhone 4S, and roughly four times as much as the iPhone 3G. "For the first time, smartphone users are consistently consuming more mobile data than tablet users," the report notes. "Out of the top 10 most voracious devices (excluding dongles) six were smartphones, three tablets and one a 'phablet'. Tablet users placed fourth, eighth and ninth." Another interesting figure points to a small segment of users consuming massive amounts of data compared to the rest, with 40 percent of all data being consumed by just 1 percent of users. [Via TechCrunch]
Google+ Pages gain interaction with those beyond their circles, will get analytics soon
Many running Google+ Pages for their companies have likely been frustrated by the lack of interaction with some of their fans -- if visitors haven't already put the brand in a circle, they've been off-limits regardless of their interest. A quiet change may have just opened the floodgates. Pages can now share, comment on and +1 posts from those who weren't already followers. Google hasn't made the change official, but it is promising a feature that's ultimately complementary: Pages should get their own analytics for demographics and social activity in the "coming weeks," giving owners an idea as to who they're attracting. While we hope that the loosened restrictions don't lead to unwanted conversations in our feeds, they're undoubtedly valuable to companies that just want to share good news or offer a helping hand.
Flurry: Santa crammed more tablets than smartphones into Christmas stockings
Assuming you were a non-naughty-lister who didn't get the proverbial coal lump, it looks like that gift under the tree was more likely a tablet than a phone this Noël, according to Flurry. The analytics outfit said that just over half of December 25th activations were slates, and we can't imagine too many gift-getters letting their new devices simlessly fester in a box over the big day. Overall activations more than doubled from last Christmas, and were up 332 percent on that single day from the first 20 days of December, combined. As might be expected, Apple came up big with iPad sales, but Flurry said that Amazon was also a winner with its 7-inch Kindle Fire HD tab, showing a "several thousand percent" increase over baseline activations. None of this likely comes as a huge shock to our readers, who rather overwhelmingly said that they'd rather have a Nexus 7 tablet than a pricier RAZR M as a gift if they toiled at Google.
Cisco acquires WiFi data firm ThinkSmart Technologies
Networking kingpin Cisco announced on Wednesday that it had acquired ThinkSmart Technologies, a company that analyzes location data by using WiFi technology. ThinkSmart's tech reviews a network's infrastructure by evaluating the movement of its users, traffic patterns and hours of operation. The firm then uses these analytics to help companies optimize network and staffing configurations for business operations -- a long way of saying that it's smart enough to tell a company how to better manage information flows through a network. The terms of this deal have yet to be released, but Cisco seems to think this was a smart pick up.
iOS and Android make for fastest tech adoption ever
Mobile marketing and analytics firm Flurry has another great research post up, this time about the speed of adoption for both iOS and Android. This one goes a little far into comparing apples and oranges, so to speak, but it's still interesting. Flurry notes that both iOS and Android app usages has blown up in the last few years, so much so that it's seeing traffic increases of over a few hundred percent from the past year in places like China, Brazil, and Chile. Flurry now estimates that there are over 640 million iOS and Android devices running apps worldwide, and given the huge growth of that number, as well as the big numbers behind app and data usage on those devices, these smartphones are being adopted by users "10X faster than that of the 80s PC revolution, 2X faster than that of 90s Internet Boom and 3X faster than that of recent social network adoption." Unfortunately, Flurry doesn't share the exact numbers behind those stats (not to mention that it's hard to compare numbers like that anyway, given how tough it is to calculate in numbers what a "revolution" in the tech sense actually means). But the point is clear: The current smartphone growth is a huge movement in the tech industry, and is taking place on a much faster and larger scale than ever before.
Roambi adds app publishing tool to analytics lineup
The iPad's ongoing march into the enterprise means that sales, presentation and analytics apps are perpetually hot on the App Store and in business deployment plans. The make-the-numbers-shiny analytics crowd has gravitated towards apps like MicroStrategy, QlikView and IBM's Cognos Mobile to help translate raw data into comprehensible and actionable information. One of the leaders among the BI app contenders is MeLLmo's Roambi, with a slick set of interface presets, a comprehensive list of data origination points (SAP, Google Docs, Salesforce.com and many more) and a free version to let prospective buyers kick the tires. The Roambi platform has evolved quickly, adding more views and features to satisfy users; last year, the company introduced a publishing platform (Roambi Flow) to let enterprise users deliver interactive documents from their business data, and Roambi Present to add dynamic content to Keynote or PowerPoint decks. Now Roambi is taking the next step by giving customers the opportunity to publish their own standalone iPad apps with the Roambi visualization engine. Roambi ESX is the new offering, and it allows Roambi licensees to package their data, static content and those pretty dynamic graphs into apps of their very own. The App Store revenues, if any, go to the publisher (after Apple's 30% cut); the app itself will be "gray label," carrying the branding of the source firm and a "powered by Roambi" notice. Roambi's plan for this meta-platform is to empower the traditional publishers of business data -- who still send out a lot of CDs and flash drives laden with Excel spreadsheets, PDFs and PowerPoint decks -- to move a part of their business onto the App Store and the iPad. The existing barriers to custom app development begin to fall away when publishers don't have to hire Xcode-savvy developers just to get their existing products into app form. The pricing for the Roambi ESX platform isn't public yet, but like most of the company's offerings it is likely to be scaled appropriately for big business rather than consumers. Interested potential ESX customers are encouraged to contact the company directly for more details.
Gmail Meter brings detailed analytics to your inbox
Just in case a constantly increasing unread messages counter isn't providing enough details about the flow of messages to your inbox, the Official Gmail Blog has pointed out the Gmail Meter tool for detailed monthly activity breakdowns. A Google Apps script developed by Romain Vialard, it can show you stats on volume, daily traffic, traffic pattern, email categories, time before first response, word count and thread lengths; providing an even deeper dive than Google's own Account Activity dashboard. Setting this up on one's account requires setting up a Google docs spreadsheet and then installing the script on it and requesting a report, there's a YouTube video embedded after the break and a tutorial linked below to help you along. On the plus side, now when someone asks "why haven't you responded to my email yet?", you can show them they're still well within the average time before first response window.
Flurry's analytics: Apple's App Store revenue still leading, but Amazon Appstore close behind
Not like we haven't seen this dog-and-pony show before, but Flurry's latest round of analytics -- which measured revenue of 11 million daily active users from mid-January through the end of February 2012 -- shows Amazon's Appstore pulling in a shocking amount of revenue given the short life that it has lived. Apple's strength in sales has been well documented, but the latest report shows that for every $1 generated in the iTunes App Store, $0.89 is being spent in the Amazon Appstore. Looking more broadly, the numbers show that just $0.23 are generated in the Google Play halls for every $1 spent in the App Store, but that's hardly a new phenomenon; the ease of sideloading (amongst other factors) has raised complaints from Android developers for years now. Flurry's conclusion is that Google's core strength simply isn't in running a store -- something it's about to do once more with Android slates -- while both Apple and Amazon excel in doing just that. Curiously, Windows Phone and BlackBerry were left off of this report, but we're hoping to see those cats thrown in the next 'go round. After all, RIM sure seems certain that its developers are making out just fine.
Google dives into personal analytics with new Account Activity feature
We recently saw Stephen Wolfram reveal what he called the personal analytics of his life (built from decades of meticulous data collection), and it looks like Google is now going some way towards making that easier for you to do yourself. It rolled out its new Account Activity feature today, an opt-in tool (still technically in beta) that tracks your activity across Google's services and delivers a report each month on your internet use. That includes things like the number of emails sent and received, your most contacted email addresses, information about your search history (if you have it enabled), stats from Google Latitude, and the different browsers and devices you've used to sign into Google services. What's more, that's apparently just the beginning -- Google says it plans to incorporate even more services over the next few months.
Stephen Wolfram reveals the personal analytics of his life
Stephen Wolfram may now be best known as the creator of Wolfram Alpha, but he's been involved with data in one way or another for decades, and it turns out he's been collecting plenty of data about himself all that time. Now, he's taken things one step further and made some of that data public, offering a detailed analysis on his blog of his daily email and phone use, and even things like steps, keystrokes, and the occurrence of years in the 230,000 odd pages of documents he's scanned. What's perhaps most interesting, though, is that Wolfram only sees this as the beginning of personal analytics. He eventually hopes to be able to ask Wolfram Alpha all sorts of things about his life, with it not only able to "act as an adjunct to my personal memory," he says, "but also to be able to do automatic computational history -- explaining how and why things happened -- and then making projections and predictions." Interested in doing the same thing yourself one day? Better start hanging onto all that data.
Carrier IQ opens up IQCare diagnostics platform to smartphone users
Carrier IQ has announced the extension of its IQ Care platform to enable mobile operators to share the insight gained with its customers. The analytics software measures diagnostic information on your phone relating to network usage, battery life and dropped calls. Previously it's only been available to customer care agents as they remotely diagnose your phone during a support call, but the platform is now being opened up so that data can be viewable on open customer service portals. It's hoped that people will learn how to resolve network issues, the company remarking that 40 percent of smartphones are returned, only to be found not to have any faults at all. It'll launch in the second quarter of the year and you can find out a whole heap more if you head on past the break.
BioWare: Average SWTOR play session tops four hours
Star Wars: The Old Republic players are consuming game content in four- to six-hour sessions on average, according to Kotaku and BioWare bigwig Greg Zeschuk. "When they play, their sessions are absurd," he said recently. Zeschuk goes on to say both that the retention is a sign of the title's addictive "just-one-more" gameplay and that the firm is pulling an "intense amount of analytics and telemetry" from the title. Finally, he hints at the theory that most SWTOR players are happy due to a general drop in forum tomfoolery. "You can tell when things are going really well in the game," Zeschuk explains. "The amount of forum chatter drops. People don't go to forums. They just play." Take that as you will, and let us know how long your average SWTOR session lasts.
Carrier IQ issues lengthy report on data collection practices, sticks to its guns
After having already tried to explain itself with metaphor, Carrier IQ is now taking its floundering PR campaign back to basics, with an ostensibly thorough primer on its practices and a slightly less convoluted defense of its privacy standards. This morning, the controversial analytics firm released a lengthy, 19-page document that attempts to explain "what Carrier IQ does and does not do." In the report, titled "Understanding Carrier IQ Technology," the company explains the benefit it offers to its clientele of network operators, many of whom rely upon Carrier IQ's diagnostic data to make sure their infrastructure is up to snuff. It also provides a breakdown of how it collects data, as well as a defense against Trevor Eckhart's findings, though, as you'll see, these arguments likely won't put this saga to bed anytime soon. Read more, after the break.
Supercurio brings Carrier IQ detection to the people, pitchfork optional
While the Carrier IQ saga continues to unfold, our eForensics ally, François Simond (supercurio) has cooked up an app for any Android device users wanting to check if the analytics company has its fingers in his or her privacy pie. Not only is the unfinished app available for download now, but the open source code is also up for anyone looking to improve on the developmental release. Wannabe Carrier IQ investigators can hit up both at the source links below.
Carrier IQ: What it is, what it isn't, and what you need to know
Carrier IQ has recently found itself swimming in controversy. The analytics company and its eponymous software have come under fire from security researchers, privacy advocates and legal critics not only for the data it gathers, but also for its lack of transparency regarding the use of said information. Carrier IQ claims its software is installed on over 140 million devices with partners including Sprint, HTC and allegedly, Apple and Samsung. Nokia, RIM and Verizon Wireless have been alleged as partners, too, although each company denies such claims. Ostensibly, the software's meant to improve the customer experience, though in nearly every case, Carrier IQ users are unaware of the software's existence, as it runs hidden in the background and doesn't require authorized consent to function. From a permissions standpoint -- with respect to Android -- the software is capable of logging user keystrokes, recording telephone calls, storing text messages, tracking location and more. It is often difficult or impossible to disable. How Carrier IQ uses your behavior data remains unclear, and its lack of transparency brings us to where we are today. Like you, we want to know more. We'll certainly continue to pursue this story, but until further developments are uncovered, here's what you need to know.
StatCounter: Chrome leapfrogs Firefox for the first time, still trails Internet Explorer
StatCounter has just released its latest global report on web browser usage, and it's something of a doozy. According to the analytics firm, Google Chrome overtook Mozilla Firefox for the first time this month, becoming the world's second most widely used browser. During November, Chrome accounted for about 25.7 percent of the global market, up from a measly 4.66 percent in 2009, and slightly higher than the 25.2 percent that Firefox pulled down this month. It still trails Internet Explorer, however, which enjoys a healthy 40.6 percent market share globally, and a 50.7 percent share in the US. As the above graph clearly demonstrates, though, both IE and Firefox have seen notable declines in recent months, though the latter still has a slim lead over Chrome in the US market, with a 20.9 percent share, compared with Google's 17.3 percent cut. For more country-specific stats and crunchy numbers, check out the source link, below.
Got Klout? You may qualify for a free Windows Phone
Turns out that Microsoft's hoping to get some influential people on board with Windows Phone, and it's choosing a unique strategy to do so. It's partnered with Klout, a service that uses social media analytics to weigh the influence you have on your social network, to give away 500 free devices -- along with VIP passes to one of five Windows Phone launch parties across the country -- to those who qualify through Klout Perks. The winners appear to be determined by their Klout score and if they live in the same city as one of the five shindigs. But it's clear that the Windows giant wants to be heard, and it might just work: according to Klout's official blog, "top influencers are trusted by their audience to share their real opinions and more and more brands are recognizing this power." In short, Redmond's banking on the possibility that some mightily influential people will have great things to say about its product. After all, word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool. Head to the source link to find out how to learn if you're one of the lucky 500.
Study: Average customer spends $14 in freemium games on iOS and Android
This is pretty crazy news from mobile analytics firm Flurry: The average customer in a freemium game on iOS and Android spends $14 in any given transaction, according to their latest data. The same study already revealed that in-app purchases have overtaken standard purchases when it comes to mobile apps, but this set of data shows that when customers do bite the bullet on in-app purchases, they're taking much bigger bites than a lot of people might expect. 13% of those who spend money on freemium games are spending over $20, which means that these players are extremely committed to the games they're actually shelling out money for. And when the standard purchase price of a console videogame at a retail store is around $60, it's not hard to see why very committed players are willing to spend $20, $40, or even a full $60 via an in-app purchase on a game they love and got for completely free. Those high numbers make the average that high value of $14. Keep in mind, however, that this is the average for in-app purchases only -- including players who don't spend any money in these apps would bring the average way down, as this is still only a small percentage of players spending money to begin with. In fact, Flurry found that half of all freemium revenue is actually generated by this 13% who spend high amounts of money on these games. That means that freemium developers are getting a large part of their revenue from a relatively few big spenders, customers who really love the games and are willing (or able -- it's unknown how many of these players are spending their parents' or someone else's money here) to shell out a lot of cash on the title. This is really interesting information, and it shows that freemium gaming, while still popular, is still dependent on just a few customers with lots of money to spend.
Verizon iPhone 4 responsible for 32% of US iPhone 4 traffic
Data from mobile app analytics firm Localytics suggests the Verizon iPhone 4 now accounts for 32.3% of the U.S. iPhone market share. The CDMA version of the iPhone has been steadily climbing since launch, while the AT&T iPhone has apparently declined. Verizon confirmed during its Q2 earnings conference call that it activated 2.2 million iPhones in the first few months after launch. The debut of the iPhone 4 was the most successful handset launch in the carrier's history. Localytics attributes this rise to Verizon's unlimited data plan, a feature the company ironically discontinued this week. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues in July and August now that the unlimited plan is unavailable. It's also possible the rumored fall launch of the iPhone 5 may slow the uptake rate of the fourth generation handset. [Via AppleInsider]
