Forrester’s
recently completed DTV, DVR and HDTV forecast demonstrates some important
dynamics of technology adoption.  The first is that the pace of technology
development continues to accelerate.  When analog television was first
launched, it took nearly 20 years for color TVs to penetrate more than 50% of
American homes.  Forrester’s data shows that HDTVs will reach 50% of US
households in 2010, roughly 13 years after the first HD sales.

The news that Spotify’s mobile app is now available for the Android platform, coupled with an anticipated Autumn US launch, are both part of the music service’s inexorable rise and media interest.  Spotify undoubtedly has momentum and potential in abundance.  But, even without considering the issue of cash burn, it is also important to keep a sense of scale. Spotify has done a great job of acquiring a sizeable audience after a short period of time, but needs many more users before it can be considered on a par with some more established services that get a lot less attention (these days at any rate).

In the chart below I have mapped the number of users of Spotify and a number of other key free music services, each from launch.  What is clear is that Spotify has made a solid start is growing at a stronger rate than Pandora was at the same stage.  If Spotify ever reaches Pandora’s scale and business model viability, it will rightly be considered a success.

But it is also clear that other services like Last.FM and imeem grew more quickly.  And just to put the absolute scale of Spotify into perspective, the Pandora iPhone app alone is mapping almost exactly in line with Spotify’s entire user base. (No coincidence of course that Spotify see the iPhone app as a crucially important ticket to further success).

[Posted by Henry Harteveldt]

Hello again.

I'm wrapping up my report on why travelers post their ratings and reviews. This was the winning topic that we asked our eBusiness blog readers to vote on. Thanks again to those of you who voted.

The good news is that travelers are more likely to post content like ratings, reviews, and pictures on travel Web sites to share good news with their fellow travelers, rather than bad news. I hope that's because more travelers interact with travel firms that exceed their expectations, rather than travelers having low expectations and simply pleased that nothing went wrong. The reality is likely a mix of both.

If you're a travel eBusiness or marketing professional, I'd sincerely value your opinions about user generated content (UGC) -- primarily ratings and reviews -- for one simple reason. I want to be sure that we write the most useful possible report. Among the questions we'd appreciate your input on are:

[Posted by Reineke Reitsma]

After two weeks of holiday, I found the following interesting article in my inbox from Edward Keehnen, a Dutch researcher who did a PhD. on the decision behavior of young and older Dutch consumers.

His results show that both young and older consumers regard themselves as quite experienced buyers (61% and 67% respectively). For older consumers the level of experience has increased in the past ten years, and they also feel they are more experienced than their kids. But despite this level of confidence, when they are buying goods or services they tend to feel lost in the richness of choices: About 40% of Dutch consumers over 50 feel lost when shopping for insurances, and this goes up to a high 51% for consumers between 20 and 26 years old.