The Ericsson survey includes a portion of the response from Sean, a 16-year-old male who is clearly meant to represent the typical American teenager:

When I get up, I turn off the alarm on my phone. I set it for 6:25 every morning. So I get up and turn that off. Then I check my email, clear all the emails from the morning. I usually make about two phone calls in the morning, one to my mom and one to my grandma. I usually check the Internet, like Facebook.

via One-Third of Americans Use Phone Apps Before Leaving Bed – Nicholas Jackson – Technology – The Atlantic.

Social networking was the biggest draw for people with a 56 per cent increase over the same time last year with almost 58 million mobile subscribers checking their friends status updates, shortly followed by classifieds growing by 55 per cent with 17 million users and online retail seeing a 53 per cent rise from the previous year.

Europeans are big on using their phones for mobile gaming with 25.3 per cent.

Mobile Activites Stats

Above statistics shows the usage of SMS, Connected Media and Email still being the top among users.

Another very interesting insight provided is about device and time of day analysis on reading habits of users. Stating relative readership among BlackBerry users increases in morning, while iPad users read more news at night and users prefered to read news online in afternoon.

“Freemium” Model Gains Ground for Games and Apps

With hundreds of thousands of apps available for mobile consumers to choose from, most publishers are moving toward a free app, ad-supported model or a “freemium” mix of ad-supported and paid content.The shift is evident in the general app ecosystem and in particular in the mobile games environment.

Concluding that 2011 set to be transformative year for Mobile.

*Images are from Comscore Reports.

• 81% of respondents feel social media offer valuable learning opportunities for employees

• 98% of respondents agree that social media are changing how employees are learning and accessing information.

Lot is said about Social Media or Informal Learning offering valuable learning opportunities for workforce, BUT lower productivity, security and quality of source is still a significant concern.

I guess the most simple solution to this concern is to provide the worforce with similar platform to socialize & interact. At the same, keeping it secure and offering better quality content for your workforce.

One of the Top 3 reason why workforce enjoys social media learning is- Learning is in bursts.

If someone asks you to read a book/even a article on say “Teamwork and Leadership”. By the thought of reading the book, general psychology is, “It will require quite some time.” and your immediate response shall be, “NOT Now! Maybe later, I have important tasks at work.”

But, when we receive tweets on one Tip at a time on “Teamwork & Leadership”, I am sure most of us go through even 20 such tweets during our work course. And also implement a few. If these tips are interesting enough we might remember and we go ahead and read full article/book. Or when most of our peers recommend or talk about it,( man being social animal, he wants to be accepted in the group) hence we go through the course.

Thus social media learning in a way helps us learning in bursts and even market to us some learning course of our interest, in fun-filled way.

Some simple solutions can be your own  organizational podcast channel, corporate Mobile Learning channel, Corporate social networks, which offer social media benefits with secure, quality content.

Do share your thoughts on which mode helps you learn in day to day life.

P.S. For more details on survey, click on survey link.

Little confused about what is this hype all about? Mobile Revolution ??

Lots of talk about different options to get involved with mobile but

“What is suitable for my business?”

In this article we will see different variations possible (Also considering Indian MSME market ) to get into mobile world. We shall see the difference between them. And some examples. Lets us make this simple.

Why you should market your business on the mobile web?

• Mobile penetrationis growing exponentially. If we thought WWW (World wide web) was big; then consider this, there are 4 billion mobile phones in the world i.e. about 4 times the number of PCs.

Myth Buster

• With new and smart phones reaching the masses, consumers are exposed and addicted to various features like messaging, camera, music, social needs, status quo, easy purchase, easy payments etc.
• MostBrands are planning or have launched their mobile web presence.  Now smaller businesses are following their footsteps.

How can you make your business presence on mobile web?

• SMS Advertisements: I agree its easy and cheap way to send bulk black & white text messages about your products/services. It is kind of one way communication channel for mass communication needs. {I’m writing this keeping in mind that Indian SME’s are also reading this blog, as many of them have asked me @ bulk SMS services for marketing}. Largely SMS marketing is not considered while evaluating options for mobile world.
  

It is good for situations like:

1. To send redeemable coupons, vouchers to your customers to boost sales
2. Send Ads to create brand value.
3. Send alerts & to do corporate information transmission.

But beware, with bulk SMS market been flooded, most of us think it as SPAM messages and delete them the very moment we receive it. Bulk SMS were ideally suited for alerts {delay in flights, bank transactions, emergency} but lure of business meant the means to cross over the dark side to SMS spam and marketing.

Need some examples where mobile is being used in business:

• Mobile Website: Like a website, you can get done your WAPsite.                   “Whats the difference?” The difference is the screen size, navigation, other features. the site you made for your web/desktop audience will not exactly map to mobile browser, making it very difficult for user to scroll through the page, large images and find the exact links to call or connect to you. A WAPsite takes into consideration all these aspects.
  

While making a mobile site consider following points:

1. Consider about screen size, mouse movement, navigation, camera, messaging.
2. Keep it fast. Avoid large images, animation {flash is not supported on all phones}
3. Keep it simple. Short sentence, easy connect action {Contact links to call/SMS directly}
4. Dont overspend on mobile site.It should be in continuation of your corporate look.
   

There is no sense making a mobile website and nobody knows about it.

How to promote your mobile website:

1. Put it on your .com {Desktop website} when anybody open your desktop website, they immediately get to know about mobile one and easy switch.
2. Put it on all your promotions { brochures, business cards, email signature, etc}
3. You can start a mobile only promotion. Special offers/coupons on mobile website.
4. Do some PR about your mobile website, you are among the early adopters, sure it will make news at least locally
5. Text your key customers.

“At PayPal, when we look at our merchants’ numbers, we’re seeing the impact of mobile commerce jump:Our mobile transactions show dramatic growth, increasing nearly six-fold, from $25 million in 2008 to $141 million in 2009.” – Courtesy Mashable

For smaller business, who are looking for out of box ideas to attract new customers, this is very attractive medium. New customers will like to browse and check if they find something of their interest, they would prefer mobile browser i.e. website instead of downloading whole application.

BUT the biggest obstacle to mobile web is connection, coverage, speed and data plan. This will be impacted with adoption of 3G.

Ok, now we know about SMS marketing, Mobile Website, “What’s this Application Store? This is making lot of buzz in news these days? Whats the difference between Website and Application? What should I use and Why?”

It’s an era of web2.0 and above i.e. not just brand communicating to their audience but and era where Businesses listen to their audience’s voice, interact and have complete involvement.

• Mobile Applications: The user testing of people attempting tasks on their mobile devices shows that the apps have much higher usability than the websites.

BUT After a new version of application is placed, it requires all existing users to upgrade to get it. This is more adapt for close user group.

The team from Deltecs viz. Divyesh Kharade and Kinjal Vora traveled to SNDT on a rainy Monday morning to SNDT and were quite glad to see the students there waiting to absorb all they could on the innovative topic of Mobile Learning. As the session moved ahead the topics covered were Introduction to Mobile Learning, the need for Mobile Learning, different approaches of Just-In-Time learning, challenges faced currently, different learning needs Mobile Learning is applied to, successful case studies done by DRONA (Flagship Mobile Learning product by Deltecs), comparison between Instructional Designing for ILT | e-learning | M-learning followed by a demo of the DRONA Authoring tool.

This was quite an interactive session with the proactive audience, since we were amazed by the questions the students were asking. Right from content based questions, to process based questions to technology based questions. Notable among them were, people asking what kind of devices this will be supported on, pre-requisites on the mobile phones, type of content that can be supported, collaborative learning tools on mobile etc. We have always endorsed that content for mobile learning should be created and not converted, and instead of focusing on constraints the focus should be on objectives and goals of training which answered most of their questions.

The Head of department at SNDT quoted “This is an upcoming trend in not only the instructional designing field but also the learning and training industry around the globe, and we felt a need for our students to be updated about the way in which the industry is moving. Leading Organizations around the world are adopting M-Learning in different forms, right from their mobile workforce to their senior management and this session definitely gives our students an edge while they enter the industry”

All in all it was a fabulous interactive session and we look forward to conduct similar sessions not only for SNDT but also other instructional designing institutes around.

Jinen Dedhia, Director – Product at Deltecs InfoTech, was named a finalist for Young Entrepreneur Award 2010 for Interactive category by British Council.

Young Creative Entrepreneur Award by British Council aims to reward creative entrepreneur based in India for their contribution to their respective sectors. The YCE award programme goes beyond simply recognising the achievements of these entrepreneurs by providing them a platform to begin a dialogue with their UK counterparts.

Jinen come across as a very passionate, go-getter with clear vision and aim for his company Deltecs InfoTech. He started at the age of 23, quitting a cushy IT job at Wipro to follow is dream. Deltecs envisions’ an organization which creates products & solutions that help people optimize their time effectively and provide better experience. Deltecs provided Enterprise Mobile Learning Solutions to organization across the world. Its flagship products Drona and Drona VCast are won prestigious awards.

“To be named a finalist for this prestigious award is a tremendous honour,” said Jinen. He added, “We are extremely proud of this accomplishment and we look forward to enjoying many more years of continued growth and offering improved and advance mobile solutions to people across.”

Jinen is among the 6 finalist for YCE – Interactive Entrepreneur Award.  Winners across seven categories – Publishing, Performing Arts, Design, Fashion, Interactive, Screen and Communications will be announced on 1^st September 2010, Wednesday, at New Delhi.

To checkout more about YCE- British Council Awards click here.

About Deltecs InfoTech:

Deltecs offers DRONA, India’s only purpose built development and delivery platform for mobile learning. DRONA enables corporates with a complete end to end infrastructure and a turn key solution to take their training to their employees’ handsets. It presently caters to product trainings, sales trainings, mobile assessments centers, senior management Video Casting trainings in association with leading content partners worldwide.

Deltecs InfoTech is shortlisted as finalist for Microsoft Canaan TechSparks 2010 !

Microsoft Canaan TechSparks 2010, the YourStory flagship event in association with CNBC Young Turks, is a pan-India hunt for top product startups in the country. Out of 208 companies that registered for this program,  18 companies were shortlisted . These companies presented  their pitches to an impressive gallery of investors, technology enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, corporate honchos, media, students, and others. A keynote and a panel discussion comprising the best of the minds in the investor space preceded the pitches.

In its efforts to contribute significantly to the entrepreneurial spirit and to help entrepreneurs find the right platform to grow their businesses, YourStory took firm steps in connecting entrepreneurs to investors, networks, and media after watching the activity for quite sometime from sidelines.

Guidewire Group from US was for the first time bringing in the G Score rating and presentation methodology to TechSparks.

A panel discussion comprising Alok Mittal, MD, Canaan Partners; Charles Assisi, Resident Editor, Forbes India; Girish Joshi, Head, Microsoft BizSpark; and CV Prakash, Gradatim IT Ventures engaged in a panel discussion on “Product Technology: Investment, Opportunities and Challenges.

Below is the excerpt from article on Deltecs published on YourStory.in

Thursday, 26 August 2010 12:49 YourStory Team Entrepreneurs – TechSparks Entrepreneurs

The Basic fact of corporate life is that everyone needs training, and the basic fact of life in India is that everyone has a mobile handset. If you put the two together then you have a winner of an idea, only problem is that Divyesh Kharade has beaten you to it. He is the entrepreneur with the amazing business idea of putting corporate training on mobiles. The founder of Deltecs InfoTech Pvt. Ltd told us more about DRONA, India’s only purpose built development and delivery platform for mobile learning.

They were also among the top 17 Tech Product companies in India competing at the recently held YourStory.in’s Microsoft Canaan TechSparks 2010.

What areas has Deltecs successfully merged to become a crossover technology company?

Deltecs offers DRONA, India’s only purpose built development and delivery platform for mobile learning. DRONA enables corporates with a complete end to end infrastructure and a turn key solution to take their training to their employees’ handsets. It presently caters to product trainings, sales trainings, mobile assessments centers, senior management Video Casting trainings in association with leading content partners worldwide.

How does DRONA bring corporate training to the mobile handset arena?

We presently have 3 flavors of DRONA viz. DRONA-Basic is for basic training and assessments starting from even basic phones. DRONA-V-Cast is a video casting solution for Senior Management training specifically on Blackberry phones. DRONA-Mobile Assessment Centers is specifically a mobile assessment solution which comes along with hardware.

Presently we have 20+ corporate customers on SaaS as well as enterprise levels with number of users using it around 40,000 and growing.

How does training over your medium score over others? What is the business principle here?

While targeting the Learning and Training/HR department in any organization who are generally technologically challenged. The users of our tools are content, admin and training management teams in these corporates. We basically address each and every stake holder in the training life cycle of an employee. Also if you see our competitors they are all e-learning players and provide customized M-learning solutions while the customers that we have spoken to prefer a vendor who has 100% focus on M-Learning, where we fit the bill. On top of it we provide a one fit all productized solution for which our turn around time to enable a customer is less than 10% of what our competitors give.

The business model that we follow is in 2 ways:

To read further…_