IPTV is no longer tied to commercial bundles of high speed internet access, television and telephone (triple play), but the success of the technology continues to be dependent upon the strength of the home broadband connection.

The uptake of triple play offerings in the UK is somewhat sluggish compared with the US and other EU markets. However, along with the two established players, Sky (satellite) and Virgin (cable), the adoption of high speed broadband internet connection over recent years has led to the rise of various forms of bundled and unbundled internet protocol television (IPTV) services.

For the purpose of this article, IPTV as a term includes subscriber-based offerings requiring the installation of set-top boxes (eg BT Vision, TalkTalk TV, etc.), but also free or commercial services that offer some sort of live television, time-shifted TV programmes, and video on demand (eg BBC i-Player, ITV Player, Channel 4 on demand (4oD), YouTube, LOVEFILM etc.) relying on other customer-premises equipment (CPE).

Social media campaigns via popular sites like Facebook may be able to get ‘Rage Against The Machine’ to Number One in the music charts but they will have little influence on the outcome of the 2010 UK general election. In contrast, the televised election debates will prove a powerful platform for the three main political parties.

GfK NOP Technology research conducted online (so we would also expect a skew towards online sources) shows that TV debates have the most influence on how we vote as a nation. Despite the fieldwork for our survey being conducted after only the first of three televised debates on 16 April, they are still the number one source of information for the election on 6 May.

As an example of this contrast, official viewing figures suggest that around 8.4m viewers watched the third debate, vs. 3.2 m UK visitors to the BBC news website (with 350,000 streaming the debates online).

A recent UK study finds consumers have less faith in Facebook than either Microsoft or Google to keep their personal information private

Social networking sites typically involve disclosing often very personal information to your circle of friends and to this end, it is important to have faith that the social networking brand will respect the privacy of this information.  Recent research by GfK Technology indicates, however, that Facebook has lower levels of trust in keeping personal information private than either Microsoft or Google.  Given the remarkably high levels of usage of Facebook this is clearly a concern for the brand owners.

This illustrates the dilemma facing organisations such as Facebook – whilst consumer behaviour or personal information can be key to creating new services that are enjoyed by users, there is often a sense of unease about data being used in this way.  Furthermore, as is likely the case with Facebook, the illicit activity of unscrupulous users of the service (such as those posing as friends in order to conduct fraud of some description) has a knock-on effect for the brand.

Users of Google Chrome are young and heavy users of the internet. By attracting this demographic they are best placed to topple Internet Explorer from top spot in the browser wars.

We recently showed that Internet Explorer’s UK market share is being eroded by the recent EU enforced . Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome are the main beneficiaries as they continue to increase their share of the internet browser market, but where exactly is this growth coming from? We have used the GfK browser data to understand who exactly is using the different browsers and what this all means.

Since Windows introduced a browser ballot at the start of March, GfK Technology research shows that Internet Explorer has lost market share in the UK. Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox have been the main beneficiaries of this new EU enforced regulation.

It was inevitable that Internet Explorer would lose some of its market share when its users were offered alternative browsers at the start of March. The EU thought it was essential that consumers should be offered a choice of browser, to stimulate competition in the browser market.

Early data suggests that when faced with an option, UK consumers have opted for an alternative browser. As we approach the end of March we can see that since the beginning of the month Internet Explorer’s market share in the UK has dropped 5%, with Google Chrome and Firefox each gaining an additional 3% market share.

Availability of games still the biggest driver of hardware choice amongst gamers, but how is this going to change in today’s digital world?

With console manufacturers increasingly shouting about accessories such as motion sensors, blu-ray drives, huge storage capacity for media and a variety of online options for their new hardware, it’s important to reflect on the key reason why consumers buy consoles in the first place.

A recent survey by GfK Technology indicated that the list of games they can access is still by far the biggest driver when deciding which console to purchase next – 73% cited the range of games as the most important feature in influencing their next console choice.*

With this in mind, we thought we’d take a quick look into the software side of video games and try to predict how things will develop in the short term. Having asked a series of dedicated gamers, here are our three favourite ideas:


1. Trading of digital games

The mainstream consumer generally opts for a device that integrates lots of functionality. If the ‘third device’ with greater functionality does take off, eBook readers will, more than likely, become a niche product.

I love the idea of an eBook reader especially one with an ‘always on’ 3G connection. The battery life is superb, lasting in many cases well over a week and the e-ink screens are almost essential for prolonged spells of reading. I like the idea of receiving my favourite newspaper and other magazine subscriptions directly to a device all ready for my morning commute.

However, my desire to own an eBook reader is not driven by a personal urge to carry around a library of novels.  It is actually for business purposes. I could make better use of my commute by catching up on the news and reviewing work documents. Indeed, having access to meeting documents or presentations on an eBook reader whilst travelling to a meeting would be highly convenient.

The launch of the Wholesale Applications Community is potentially a substantial challenge from network operators to the dominance of Apple. Managing consumer demand and the consumer experience are likely to be key.

Recent news that 24 leading network operators are launching The Wholesale Applications Community, a mobile apps store which aims to make it easier for developers to build and sell apps “irrespective of device or technology”, begs the question of how consumers will respond.

It’s certainly a tough market for network operators with recent research by GfK Technology showing handset manufacturers dominating the apps market and indeed, a recent report by Gartner gives the somewhat startling statistic that Apple is responsible for 99.4% of mobile apps sales in 2009.

The four key factors that GfK Technology consider to be critical in driving the potential success of this sort of store are:

We often seem to think that the Apple App Store has a dominant market position for mobile devices helped in no small part by the extensive press coverage it seems to attract. Recent research by GfK Technology (1,000 online interviews conducted in Jan 2010) suggests, however, that the apps store market is in reality more varied with a wide range of stores competing for business.

The Apple Apps Store does indeed lead the market but with 39% of consumers (that downloaded an application for their mobile device in the last 3 months) using it rather than a convincing majority. That’s not to say that they are better than other stores at extracting money from consumers or encouraging repeat visits but in terms of where individuals do their mobile apps shopping, they still have some way to go before taking the majority of the market.

Mobile devices continue to be a significant advertising channel according to recent research GfK Technology recently undertook in the UK.  The proportion of consumers who had received some form of mobile advertising stood at 47%, fairly consistent with the findings from Q2 ’09.  The big shift is perhaps the growth of iPhone as a staggering 84% of iPhone users say they have seen mobile advertising in the last 3 months vs. 45% of all other mobile phone users.

SMS continues to be the dominant form of mobile advertising with 38% of UK consumers receiving at least one in the last quarter.  It’s therefore not surprising that network operators are putting significant investment into this area with O2 launching their SMS marketing service, More, in December and Orange partnering a trial with Blyk mid ’09.