Mediaboss Marketing

LONDON--(Marketwire -06/15/12)- New research by mobile interaction specialist tyntec has found that 66 percent of UK mobile phone users aged between 16-24 access Facebook, Twitter and other social networks at least daily via mobile, as opposed to just 37 percent of Americans in the same age bracket. The results, from a survey of 2,000 UK and US mobile users, show the so-called 'millennial' demographic in the UK to be more advanced when it comes to using emerging cloud-based mobile services.

According to the survey conducted by YouGov, UK users are the heaviest users of social networks via mobile devices. 15 percent say that they use these platforms on smartphones more than five times a day, compared with eight percent of Americans. Regardless of nationality, all users named SMS as the most-used smartphone feature besides voice calls, outpacing apps and mobile email.

Untapped potential for messaging services such as WhatsAppThe study also revealed an untapped potential for OTT (over-the-top) messaging services such as WhatsApp, with 27 percent of UK and 40 percent of US millennial consumers unaware that such applications even exist. A high proportion of the younger UK (52 percent) and US (61 percent) users were also interested in having SMS integrated into social networks.

The 2012 YouGov survey, sponsored by tyntec, quizzed more than 2,000 UK and US respondents across various regions about SMS adoption, smartphone usage, mobile social networking and free/low cost calling and SMS alternatives.

tyntec CEO Michael Kowalzik said, "It is interesting to note that for both UK and US users the results show that a good proportion would use SMS if integrated into social networks. This indicates a trust level and familiarity with SMS which presents huge opportunities for Internet players and operators alike."

SMS offers huge opportunities for Internet players and operatorstyntec's tt.One solution allows carriers and Internet companies to deploy OTT services quickly and easily, allowing both to capitalise on new revenue streams. The solution bridges the telecoms and web worlds with mobile phone numbers, enabling seamless communication with SMS and voice across several platforms, systems and apps.

For further survey figures please click here.

About tyntec

tyntec is a mobile interaction specialist, enabling businesses to integrate mobile services for a wide range of uses -- from mission-critical applications to internet services. We reduce the complexity involved in accessing the closed and complex telecoms world by providing a high quality, easy-to-integrate and global offering using universal services such as SMS, voice and numbers. Our products serve a broad range of business requirements are all backed up by an advanced and reliable infrastructure. Founded in 2002, and with more than 150 staff in five offices around the globe, tyntec works with 500+ businesses including mobile service providers, enterprises and internet companies. tyntec is a global mobile interaction service provider, offering high-quality mobile messaging and information services to mobile network operators, enterprises, mobile service providers and internet companies.

View original post here:
Pan-Atlantic Survey Finds UK Youngsters Embrace Mobile Social Networking More Than US Counterparts

While much attention overseas has been focused on the ups and downs (mostly downs) of Facebook's recent initial public offering, the Japanese media have been subjecting online gaming and social networks to increasingly critical scrutiny. The issues raised range from complaints over lax privacy safeguards and exploitation of minors by predatory businesses to reputed ties to organized crime.

"I don't wanna become a Facebook fool," rants Michiyuki Shimizu in Sapio (June 27). The freelance writer cites Facebook's growing reputation as a home wrecker. It seems a survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers found that 81 percent of attorneys questioned replied that in divorce cases they had handled over the past decade, text messages sent via social-media sites were submitted as a source of evidence, with the trend accelerating over the past five years. (In another survey in the U.K., a review of divorce claims showed that in 5,000 cases, references to Facebook appeared in 33 percent.)

When such a trend becomes conspicuous in other countries, Japan is seldom far behind. Shimizu cites the unhappy tale of a 40-year-old Osaka doctor who was moved to engage an investigative agency when he noticed his spouse appeared suspiciously enthusiastic over Facebook. A computer-savvy private eye managed to hack into her account (her password was her own birthday) and found amorous exchanges between the wife and a female physician. One read, "Let's both dump our hubbies so we can be together." Further probing determined the two women were also engaging in clandestine romantic trysts. Data captured off the screens were submitted as evidence in the divorce suit.

"What really makes Facebook so frightening," writes Shimizu, "is how it blurs the boundaries between public and private. You might disclose something about your company to an intimate friend; that raises the possibility it will be spread to a 'friend of a friend.' "

Yu Arai, a researcher on cyber security, is quoted as saying it's becoming a common practice of industrial spies to tap into SNS relationships as a means of uncovering corporate secrets.

The May 25 issues of Shukan Asahi and Nikkan Gendai both scrutinized the social networking site called "Ameba Pigg," whose users some 1.4 million of whom are estimated to be under age 15 assume the guise of cute little avatars. The avatars hang out in a virtual Shibuya and Roppongi and suavely attired males can befriend females, inviting them to accompany them to a notorious subsite called Pigg H, where private rooms are furnished with beds presumably for a session of cybersex.

Apparently some of the girls enticed to go along by offers of gifts are minors masquerading as adults, so we may be looking at a new form of virtual enjo kosai (teen prostitution). Nor is it entirely safe because it's confined to online. As IT journalist Toshiyuki Inoue explains, "Once the participants become friendly, they can exchange email addresses under their real names and possibly even meet in person."

Complaints over minors running up high charges for online gaming has led the major players in the industry, including such companies as Gree and Mobage (DeNA), to adopt self-imposed restrictions designed to discourage access by minors.

As potentially traumatic as addiction may be for the younger generation, Nikkan Gendai (June 12) notes that even middle-aged salarymen can become hooked on SNSs, which can lead to serious depression.

"The first sign of trouble is insomnia," says psychiatrist Joji Suzuki. "We need to watch out in particular for people who can't walk someplace without constantly checking their smartphone, or who constantly interrupt whatever they're doing to check their phone."

View post:
Social networking, online games in Japan media's sights

WASHINGTON Some are already anticipating the Supreme Court's ruling on President Barack Obama's health care law as the "decision of the century." But the justices are unlikely to have the last word on America's tangled efforts to address health care woes. The problems of high medical costs, widespread waste, and tens of millions of people without insurance will require Congress and the president to keep looking for answers, whether or not the Affordable Care Act passes the test of constitutionality.

With a decision by the court expected this month, here is a look at potential outcomes:

___

Q: What if the Supreme Court upholds the law and finds Congress was within its authority to require most people to have health insurance or pay a penalty?

A: That would settle the legal argument, but not the political battle.

The clear winners if the law is upheld and allowed to take full effect would be uninsured people in the United States, estimated at more than 50 million.

Starting in 2014, most could get coverage through a mix of private insurance and Medicaid, a safety-net program. Republican-led states that have resisted creating health insurance markets under the law would face a scramble to comply, but the U.S. would get closer to other economically advanced countries that guarantee medical care for their citizens.

Republicans would keep trying to block the law. They will try to elect presidential candidate Mitt Romney, backed by a GOP House and Senate, and repeal the law, although their chances of repeal would seem to be diminished by the court's endorsement.

Obama would feel the glow of vindication for his hard-fought health overhaul, but it might not last long even if he's re-elected.

The nation still faces huge problems with health care costs, requiring major changes to Medicare that neither party has explained squarely to voters. Some backers of Obama's law acknowledge it was only a first installment: get most people covered, then deal with the harder problem of costs.

Visit link:
Q&A: Supreme Court's decision on Obama's health care law unlikely to be the last word

The co-founder of Carphone Warehouse, a Tesco (LSE: TSCO.L - news) board director, and the woman credited with the recent success of Mulberry, the luxury handbag maker, have all been recognised in the Queens Birthday Honours.

Charles Dunstone, who set up Carphone Warehouse from his sitting room in 1989, has been given a knighthood for services to the Mobile Communications Industry and to charity.

Sir Charles, as well as being chairman of both Talk Talk and Carphone, is also chairman of The Princes Trust. Im very surprised, he said last night, adding that he would celebrate in Ibiza, where he was staying for a friends birthday party.

Lucy Neville-Rolfe, one of Tescos longest-serving executives, has been made a Dame for services to Industry and voluntary service. Dame Lucy, who started her career in the Downing Street policy unit under Sir John Major, is Tescos director for corporate and legal affairs and runs the supermarkets charitable events such as its sponsorship of Race for Life. Its wonderful news. My father will be the happiest 91-year-old in Britain, she said.

Emma Hill, the creative director of Mulberry, who has been behind the surge in growth at the Somerset-based company, which makes 3,500 ostrich skin handbags, has been awarded a CBE.

One of the Citys most senior figures, Brian Winterflood, who started his career as a blue-button messenger on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: LSE.L - news) floor in 1953 has been awarded an MBE.

So too has husband and wife team Timothy and Kit Kemp, who run the Firmdale Hotel Group, which owns a number of boutique hotels in London including the Soho and Covent Garden Hotels.

See the original post here:
Queen’s Birthday Honours: Carphone Warehouse founder knighted

Bliss ... Es Boldado from Cala d'Hort. Photo: Alamy

Simon Hughes discovers the best stretch of sand in the world - and it's in Ibiza, the party capital of the world.

It is easy to develop misconceptions about Ibiza. Dubbed the undisputed party capital of the world, the island is often used as a byword for excess. The British television documentary Ibiza Uncovered - featuring a series of inebriated, semi-naked 20-year-olds cavorting about in beach bars - has a lot to answer for. It was a little disconcerting to witness similar scenes on our easyJet flight to the island, even though it was a 6am midweek departure from Gatwick.

So, it was with some trepidation that I first set foot on Ibizan soil two hours later. Despite the promises in the hotel brochure of a more refined experience, I was still expecting to have my senses assaulted by thumping music and hordes of overexcited partygoers, to be confronted by the stench of fried food and to be unable to see the sea because of all the great lumps of concrete masquerading as hotels hugging the coastline. And, in order to escape all this, I was also bracing myself for an interminable journey on meandering roads stuck behind a succession of hired Seats, each occupied by bewildered drivers all trying to find the same strip of already overcrowded beach using badly drawn, misleading local maps.

Advertisement: Story continues below

Cala Comte beach, Ibiza. Photo: Alamy

I was right about one thing. The maps are badly drawn and misleading. Perhaps this is a prerogative of a holiday island to ensure visitors have trouble finding the good places, allowing the locals to get there first and bag the best spots. But in every other way my preconceptions were way off beam.

With a job (covering cricket) that follows the sun, I have spent the past 20 years inadvertently searching for the best beach in the world. Somewhere that had everything. A pretty cove that had reliable weather and iridescent, safe, crystal-clear sea and powdery sand; which had some shade but was not overlooked by apartment blocks or overrun by hawkers, jet-skis, or people in general; where you could sidle barefoot into a simple, airy cafe selling interesting food and local wine and later stroll along the beach to the headland to watch the sun go down.

I have tried all the obvious places: France (too crowded), Italy (too expensive), South Africa (too many sharks), Australia (too many Australians. NOTE FROM ED: don't you mean British backpackers?), Greece, the Caribbean, Portugal (all boring food), mainland Spain (too man-made), New Zealand (iffy weather), Thailand (too touristy), Sri Lanka (too hot), Cornwall (too cold.) I could go on. And then ... a blissfully easy drive from Ibiza Airport, I found it. Within five minutes of leaving the airport you are driving alongside low, bush-clad hills and glinting salt lakes with few other cars, and within 10 minutes you are parking under conveniently located wooden awnings and emerging through tall trees onto a beautiful curving swathe of sand lapped by calm blue water. This is Playa des Salinas.

A bar at Salinas beach, Ibiza. Photo: Alamy

Continued here:
Life's a perfect beach