Research-Write

VentureBeat: Real-time search startups blow away Google, Yahoo, and Bing at SMX West

I was struck by the difference in the approaches of the major search engines and the real-time search startups at SMX West. The startups are really thinking about how to make real-time search useful, while Google, Yahoo and Bing are just doing it. I don't believe just a real-time search stream is necessarily useful - what CrowdEye and Topsy are doing by ranking and archiving results is very interesting. Collecta has the ability to filter the stream by source, and OneRiot is pioneering ad delivery on real-time search results.

VentureBeat: Android and RIM eat into Apple’s share of mobile web

Data from Quantcast show that Android and RIM are gaining in share of mobile web consumption, but since the pie is getting bigger, it doesn't mean Apple is losing out.

VentureBeat: OS X share up 29% in past year, slowly chipping away at Microsoft

Quantcast data shows that OS X is gaining on Microsoft Windows in the US, but Microsoft dominates on a global basis.

VentureBeat: Twitter traffic up 9% after Google real-time search launch

I predicted that Twitter would get a bump in traffic when Google launched real-time search. It did. And now there's Google Buzz, so Google can add it's own traffic to the real-time search stream, thus keeping more visitors on-site.

VentureBeat: NYTimes.com metering plan, mobile app revenue

Here are my two posts from VentureBeat this week:

VentureBeat: Nexus One beat iPhone in search volume during launch week — will the hype last?

Today's VentureBeat post - Experian Hitwise data showed the volume of searches for "nexus one" was more than double "iphone" last week, but daily Google Trends data showed a fast decline for after launch day. What do you think it means for Google?

VentureBeat: Millions of 3-D displays on the way - but what will we watch on them?

You might be surprised to know that 158 3D movies were released in the 1950s, compared to only 45 in the 2000's. It puts all the hype around getting a 3D TV in a different light.

VentureBeat: Online holiday spending for ‘09 almost $30 billion

I covered the release of ComScore 2009 holiday shopping data, which showed a 4% increase in holiday spending over 2008. I found it interesting that the heaviest spending day was December 15, and that spending on jewelry and watches was up 20% over last year. 

For the article, I converted ComScore's table of data into a bar chart. Do you think it helps make sense of the data?

VentureBeat: Android and iPhone users are the most active mobile shoppers

I'm posting on a regular basis now to VentureBeat, and will repost on this blog.

Here's the link.

It seems to me that iPhone owners and Android owners are cut from the same cloth - they want the full mobile web experience - while Blackberry, Windows and Palm users mainly want email and some basic web features like news and social networking. The Comscore report "Android: Crashing the Smartphone Party" goes into this more deeply.