With increasing numbers of children using social networking sites, how do parents feel about their safety and is there anything they, or other parties, such as network operators, can do about it?

Nowadays, each week seems to bring with it a fresh load of news articles and stories about acting safely on the internet and the privacy of our behaviour online. As much as we’d like it to be restricted to just our friends or, in the case of online banking, the company we are paying money to, the personal  and banking details we happily share online always have the possibility of being viewed out of context, and by people we may not know.

Consumers are now using various connected devices to socialize, communicate and access a plethora of content and services. Smartphones have accelerated this trend and allow consumers to manage more of their personal and work lives without being restricted by location or time. Cloud based services are the next step in liberating consumers’ most loved content and service as the device is removed as a barrier to access. Network infrastructure is central to this shift to the cloud. 4G networks are the catalyst needed and security the hurdle to overcome. However, with learnings from the enterprise sector, security is not only an obstacle but can also serve as a driver for adoption.

Near Field Communication (NFC) – the technology that supports close proximity mobile payment services – has been around for many years. However, up until recently, the NFC-enabled mobile devices and service support needed to make such payments a reality have been lacking.

In this video blog, Ryan Garner looks at the barriers to adoption, demonstrating that Trust and Familiarity of supplier brands will drive consumer preference and arguing the need for co-operation between brands from different sectors.

To read the full report, please click here.
To read the report article in the Free TechTalk Magazine, please click here.

NFC technology has the ability to transform smartphones into virtual wallets, where users pay for transactions simply by waving their phone at an appropriate receiver terminal. However, it also has much wider applications, allowing for synchronised content and services across the mobile ecosystem [1]. The reward for owning this relationship in the mobile space is enormous, and as a result everyone, from mobile operators to device manufacturers, is fighting for a share.

The industry message seems clear; mobile payments will be big over the next five years – big news and big profits. The technology has been around in various forms for years and, now that leading names such as Apple, Google and RIM are designing and manufacturing NFC-equipped devices, many commentators predict that mobile payments will skyrocket [2].

However, while this will undoubtedly be a major growth area for the future, such reports seldom address the fact that the journey to full consumer adoption is not without its pitfalls.

Smartphones are competing with dedicated personal navigation devices (PNDs) for market share but recent research shows that PNDs are still preferred for in-car navigation. Smartphones can begin to win more market share by improving their user experience and integrating popular social networking and location based services.

Usage of mobile mapping and navigation services is booming. Almost a year ago Nokia announced that its mobile navigation service, Ovi Maps, would be free with a compatible Nokia handset. In the first week alone the service had been downloaded over 1.4 million times. According to Wikipedia Ovi Maps is now available in 74 countries and in 46 different languages. Similarly, Google now offers its mobile navigation services in 12 countries and it has proved a big hit with Google Android smartphone owners. Consequently, in the space of a couple of years the PND market has changed dramatically, with global in car satellite navigation providers such as TomTom and Garmin facing fresh competition from the all gadget devouring smartphone.

The television experience is constantly changing and evolving with the increasing number of devices and platforms available to watch video content. This year two of the tech giants, Apple and Google, have seriously entered the market to make the web accessible through your television screen. However, both have very different strategies as the battle over openness and control will play out through your television sets in 2011.

How IPTV has changed in 2010

Gone are the days consumers choose mobile phones based solely on their features and functions. New research by GfK[1] shows that smartphone owners in key global markets buy into the ‘experiences’ created by the mobile ecosystem and the majority (56%) are ‘keeping their options open’, when deciding their next smartphone purchase.

Every quarter brings new reports of rapid growth in smartphones sales but a key question left unanswered is what is actually driving purchase in the high end smartphone category? Understanding drivers of purchase is naturally a complex subject due to the sheer number of factors that influence consumer decision making. Looking back as little as 3 years ago, the primary focus for many consumers was acquiring a well designed phone packed with the latest technology such as Wi-Fi, GPS, high resolution camera and so on. In recent years, however, development in mobile hardware has slowed and is arguably becoming less important. Of course, consumers still want good looking handsets with the latest technology, but with so much choice and less differentiation the mobile handset is potentially becoming a more commoditised purchase.

Google has grown their share of the UK internet browser market by 6% year on year; equating to 2.3 million extra consumers who have switched from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Data from the GfK NOP Internet Browser Tracker in the UK shows that market share for all major web browsers has remained static since November 2009, with the exception of Google Chrome and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The graphic below shows that Internet Explorer’s lost market share has been Google’s gain:

Back in February 2010 Microsoft were forced to offer a choice of browsers to any consumers using one of their operating systems (i.e. Windows); the so-called ‘browser ballot”. GfK’s data suggests that since then many people in the UK have actually stuck with what they know, resulting in little movement overall. What’s particularly interesting is that Firefox has not been able to grow its market share, with Google capturing those interested in trying something different.

Consumer awareness and understanding of the concept of “net neutrality” is low. However, once the implications are made fully apparent, public reaction is very strong. It is therefore crucial that businesses and governments engage the public in a more open discussion.

Generally accepted to be one of the World Wide Web’s fundamental guiding principles, it appears that “Net Neutrality” may be under increasing threat from political, corporate and market forces. While debate continues as to its exact definition, “Net Neutrality” can be simply expressed as the view that “all internet traffic should be treated equally”; a principle that has resulted in freely available news and information, open digital platforms, globalised virtual communities, digital content sharing and the e-commerce revolution, amongst other things over the last two decades.