(You can read the full version of this article in the latest edition of GfK TechTalk here.)

Most of us love getting a link to a piece of internet material which we find amusing and then forward on to our friends. It’s harmless and generally leaves us with a good feeling so it is easy to see why many brands are so keen to get in on the act.  It’s also perhaps not unreasonable to expect digital viral material to potentially work well for technology companies given that the target market is likely to be spending more time online.  Of course some brands do this extremely successfully, but many others try and fail – so what makes some succeed while others get consigned to the outer reaches of YouTube?

To try and answer this, I spoke to Dr Dominic Yeo, an academic at University of East Anglia with a particular expertise on this aspect of consumer behavior about research he had conducted whilst pursuing his PhD at Cambridge.

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.

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

The shape and direction of the digital music industry can be hard to evaluate at the best of times. This week saw BSkyB give up on their Sky Songs service just a year after launching it [1], while Spotify continues to grow a paying subscriber base (albeit not yet to a level deemed profitable) [2]. Given these contrasting fortunes, it seems an appropriate time to revisit demand for streaming services, and see whether they’re any closer to establishing the mass-market audience the model relies on.

With growing smartphone and tablet ownership, and increasing connectivity of home stereo/entertainment systems, the notion of being always-on and seamlessly interacting across multiple devices is becoming a way of life for many consumers. Within this context, a service offering unlimited access to any song, artist, or label catalogue, across any internet-enabled device, can surely have never been a more enticing proposition?

Facebook’s new email service, which combines a variety of communication methods, has been hailed to be the next Gmail- or even Email-killer, but recent GfK NOP data shows otherwise – that Facebook Messages is likely to be used alongside current email and instant messaging clients, and is unlikely to replace them, at least in the short term.

Known before only as “Project Titan”, the new Facebook messaging service is said to combine email, SMS, chat and Facebook email; users will also have the option to have a @facebook.com email address. Launched on 15 November this year, the service is, at present, by invitation only, but users can apply for an invite on the popular social networking site.

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.

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.

The internet has become such an integral part of life today that two out of five UK users would give up their television before their internet connection, if they had to choose between the two; according to a new survey from leading research agency, GfK NOP.

The ‘Connected Life’ study reveals that a staggering 41 per cent of UK internet users agree that “If I had to choose, I would rather keep my internet connection than my TV” – of which almost half said they ‘agree strongly’ with that statement. Only 29 per cent disagreed, and 31 per cent had no strong feelings either way.

Babita Earle, Divisional Director at GfK Technology comments: