Bluetooth and Online Marketing

Late Apple chief Steve Jobs received top honors among video game industry professionals in a new survey that shows Jobs to be the “most influential person” in the video game industry today.

The survey of 1,000 industry insiders gave the top spot to Jobs, who “won” the poll by plurality with 26 percent of the vote.

According to the London Games Conference, which sponsored the survey, here are the top five winners:

• Steve Jobs 26%
• Gabe Newell 16%
• Shigeru Miyamoto 7%
• Tim Berners-Lee 4%
• Mark Zuckerberg 3%

Similarly, here’s what the respondents said were the top five products to shape the modern video game landscape:

• Apple’s iPhone 17%
• Nintendo Wii console 7%
• Xbox Live 3%
• The original PlayStation console 3%
• Steam 2%

“In just over three years the iPhone and the App Store have transformed what consumers expect of games, and how the industry makes and sells them – today, download games have come to the fore. Steve Jobs, the iPhone’s driving force, was the ultimate independent developer – uncompromising in his vision, with unquestionable influence, and hugely artistic and commercial results,” says Michael French, editor in chief, MCV, the leading trade magazine of the video games industry.

The folks behind Yelp – the uber-popular digital destination for detailed local business reviews – have announced that a customized version of the Yelp mobile app is now preloaded on all Samsung Exhibit II 4G, T-Mobile myTouch and T-Mobile myTouch Q smartphones.

Since being founded in San Francisco in July 2004, Yelp has become a widely recognized, trusted, and digitally ubiquitous resource for digging deeper into the quality and general reputation of a business and its services.

According to details made available today by Yelp, the new app for T-Mobile Android devices features some pretty nifty filters to make searching for a business (and its associated reviews) even easier and faster than it already is.

Additionally, there is a new “saved search” functionality, which allows users to save search filter settings (e.g. open now, free wifi, price range, and outdoor seating) and use the same criteria over and over without having to re-enter the specific filters, for frequent searches.

“As smartphones become more ubiquitous we’re finding that increasing numbers of consumers are turning to Yelp on their mobile devices to find amazing businesses nearby,” says Andrea Rubin, Vice President North American Marketing. “Through this relationship and the new features we’ve created for T-Mobile users, we hope to increase the ease of use and decrease the amount of time and taps that it takes for someone to find a great local

Groupon is enjoying the largest IPO by an Internet company since Google.

According to an insightful new report from Bloomberg Friday morning, Groupon is entering Wall Street with financial guns a’ blazing.

Groupon has raised $700 million in its initial public offering, according to an unnamed source close with Groupon who spoke with Bloomberg. If accurate, that figure would represent a 30 percent larger chunk of funding than that which Groupon sought.

With that much cash behind the venture, the biggest online-coupon provider has topped earlier valuation projections and now sits at $12.7 billion.

The Chicago-based provider of online daily deals sold 35 million shares at $20 each, said the person, who declined to be identified because the information isn’t public. Groupon had offered 30 million shares for $16 to $18 apiece.

The shares trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol GRPN.

For now, Groupon is offering only a small percentage of its stock to the public (4.7 percent in total).

It is shaping up to be a banner year in mobile sales for eBay. This week, the online marketplace’s CEO, John Donahoe, revealed that eBay will have done $5 billion in business this year via mobile phones. eBay owned PayPal isn’t far behind with $3.5 billion in mobile payments for the calendar year.

The smartphone boom and corresponding popularity of eBay’s mobile applications have made this impressive feat possible. Donahoe admits that that eBay’s applications for iOS, Android and Windows Phone have been downloaded in excess of 56 million times.

“We are seeing profound change in how consumers are behaving and will behave. We believe we are at an inflection point,” Donahoe reportedly said this week at the Open Mobile Summit. Our perspective on mobile is that it’s not incremental, it is another screen in the shopping experience. It’s a consumer that is coming back more frequently and shopping more because now it can be done at any time of the day. We know it is driving consumer engagement and customer value.”

The eBay chief added that e-commerce is a $350 billion business, representing 4% of total retail. The industry is losing its “e,” Donahoe suggested, noting that retail and e-commerce are now becoming fused together as “the line between online and offline is blurring.”

“We believe that there will be more changes on how consumer shop and pay in the next three years than there have been

On Thursday, Hipcricket announced its successful partnership with the sparkling water gurus at Perrier for a new mobile marketing promotion.

Hipcricket is providing the mobile components of Perrier’s latest Le Club Perrier promotion.

Hipcricket created mobile websites in both English and French, integrated QR codes, and employed interactive voice response (IVR) technology.

The Le Club Perrier summer campaign focused on a YouTube video that changed and evolved as the number of people who viewed it increased. Knowing that many consumers would view the campaign via mobile, Perrier turned to Hipcricket to deliver a mobile-optimized experience.

With assistance from Hipcricket, Perrier built both English and French mobile landing pages that emulated the YouTube experience on mobile devices.

“Consumers could join the party by scanning mobile QR codes or texting “PARTY” to 492837,” the company recapped in a press release Thursday. Perrier advertised the promotion at numerous retail locations where its beverages are sold.

“We wanted our Le Club campaign to tell a story — to be seamless, memorable and viral. To do that, we needed social media, and we needed mobile,” said Michele Vieira, Perrier Brand Manager. “The mobile interaction was critical and Hipcricket was able to help us develop the type of engaging experience consumers remembered and

The folks over at Microsoft Tag have put together a new infographic detailing the explosive growth in mobile coupons, along with some interesting usage stats and predictions.

Consider this — a full 20% of smartphone users currently acquire and redeem mobile coupons on a regular basis, with that number expected to grow to 30% by 2013. In addition, a full 10% of ALL mobile phone users redeem mobile coupons on a regular basis, growing to 16.5% by 2013. These are pretty powerful numbers when looking at the big picture, and even more powerful when you look at the engagement rates mobile coupons generate.

People love saving money, and having the ability to acquire, store and redeem coupons directly from a device we all carry around with us everywhere we go is a powerful thing. Take a look at the graphic below and see if it falls in line with your own usage of mobile coupons.

Square has unveiled a new app for iPhone users called Card Case. Acting like a digital wallet, the new app enables users to complete purchases at participating stores without even having to retrieve the device from their purse, pocket, or coat.

“This is truly the simplest way to pay,” said Megan Quinn, director of products for Square.

The app opens a tab with the merchant for payments to be made automatically when the user is in close proximity to a store that uses this particular service.

This is made possible by Apple’s new iOS 5, which delivers a state of the art location-based mobile technology.

When a user is ready to make a purchase, the customer simply states their name. The store employee at the point of sale or cash register can then verify the user’s face on their side of the app. Subsequently, the charges are issued and the money is automatically withdrawn from the debit card or credit card associated with that individual user’s app.

According to the folks at Square, the service is available at some 20,000 outlets nationwide that have already signed up to accept Card Case payments.

Read more... [Square Rolls Out Sophisticated Mobile Payment Solution for iPhone]

The “younger” mobile users among us (those aged 25-34) are big fans of smartphones, it seems.

According to Nielsen’s third quarter survey of mobile users, while only 43 percent of all US mobile phone subscribers own a smartphone, the overwhelming majority of those under the age of 44 now have smartphones.

62 percent of mobile adults aged 25-34 report owning smartphones. And among those 18-24 and 35-44 years old the smartphone penetration rate is hovering near 54 percent.

The latest report from Nielsen also shows that roughly 40 percent of 12-17 year-old teens and 40 percent of 45-54 year-olds reported owning a smartphone, as opposed to a more basic feature phone.

After younger adults, the segment with the second fastest-growing smartphone penetration rate is those aged 55-64. Smartphone penetration among this older group is only 30 percent, but it jumped 5 percent this quarter.

“As the smartphone market continues to expand,” the report reads, “Android remains the most popular smartphone operating system in the United States, with 43 percent of the market, while Apple is the top smartphone manufacturer, with 28 percent of smartphone consumers sporting an Apple iPhone.”

To read more from the report, click here.

The long wait is over. On Thursday, Google rolled out its official Gmail app for Apple’s mobile device line – iPhone, iPod touch, and, of course, the iPad.

In a blog post today on the official Google Mobile Blog, Matthew Izatt, Product Manager for Google, says the new app will make accessing your email more convenient than ever.

“We’ve combined your favorite features from the Gmail mobile web app and iOS into one app so you can be more productive on the go,” Izatt writes. “It’s designed to be fast, efficient and take full advantage of the touchscreen and notification capabilities of your device. And it’s one more reason to switch to Gmail.”

According to the features outlined so far, Google is obviously concerned with speed, as the folks behind Gmail admit that “We want to give you the information you need quickly, with minimal effort and distraction.”

Among the time-saving features advertised:

• Get alerted to new messages with push notifications and sounds
• Find an email in seconds with search across your entire inbox
• Autocomplete

Is it the mobile industry driving the growth of NFC or are consumers the primary impetus for NFC gaining ground in every direction?

According to “Mobile Payment: Technologies and Business Models,” a new report from Parks Associates, NFC (Near Field Communication) will become a standard feature on smartphones over the next few years as consumers respond to the convenience of the “mobile wallet” for making payments.

In a press release issued Wednesday, the international research firm reports its latest findings, which reveal that almost 50% of U.S. smartphone owners find an NFC-enabled mobile wallet application appealing.

“The convenience of e-Wallet solutions, specifically for eliminating the need to carry multiple or any credit cards, is driving the majority of consumer interest,” says Harry Wang, director, mobile research, Parks Associates.

Already 16% of smartphone owners use PayPal or other types of e-Wallet solutions as their preferred method for mobile payments, and one in four Millennials regularly use their mobile phones to research products or services prior to a purchase.

These factors will create a commerce opportunity on smartphones of more than $800 billion U.S. in 2015 and boost business for merchants, retailers, financial institutions, and mobile carriers. Industry heavyweights Amazon.com and eBay reported robust mobile

Talk about a strict social media policy. As it turns out, Apple fires employees who criticize the Apple brand on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social networking site for that matter.

Word surfaced this week that Apple reportedly maintains a very strict policy when it comes to social media use among its employees. One report Tuesday suggested that Apple will fire any employee who utters a negative word about the company and its brand through social media channels.

“In general,” reads a new report from ifoAppleStore.com, “Apple retail employees are allowed to post on the Internet, but cannot include the company’s name or mention their employment at Apple.” News of Apple’s stringent policy surfaced following an employee’s termination after posting critical comments about Apple online. The Apple employee in question (named Crisp) appealed to a UK labor advocacy following his dismissal for “gross misconduct.”

Jamie Hamnett of the law firm Addleshaw Goddard LLP says Apple “made it absolutely plain throughout the induction process that commentary on Apple products, or critical remarks about the brand, were strictly prohibited.”

Hammett noted that the tribunal took into account that such comments “would be particularly damaging for Apple as image is so central to its success.” Therefore, “Apple successfully argued that it was justified and

3Seventy, a leader in mobile marketing and mobile CRM engagement solutions, has launched a new weekly video series aimed at offering quick and straight-to-the-point updates on the latest trends, tips, tricks and tactics in mobile marketing and mobile engagement.

Each video is led by 3Seventy VP of Sales, Andy Kennedy, who has a long history as a sales and marketing strategist — particularly in the mobile space. The video series grew from a need for a new kind of mobile marketing resource — one that differed from the endless stream of re-hashed and less-than-stellar whitepapers and other content we see everyday.

Each video in the series is 60 seconds or less in length and dives right in to what matters most for brands, publishers and others wanting to leverage the mobile channel to engage users in new and creative ways.

The first video in the series [embedded below] provides a quick intro into the mobile engagement space and provides a quick introductory glimpse into custom mobile apps, the broader mobile ecosystem at work and the various methods and channels of engagement available today.

Mobile Marketing Watch is honored to be the home of 3Seventy’s new weekly video series, which begins today and will run weekly on Tuesdays. More information on 3Seventy can be found here, and each video in the series will also be hosted on 3Seventy’s

To gear up for the pan-European release of the movie Green Lantern this summer, mobile advertising powerhouse Millennial Media teamed up with Warner Bros. and their agency, Odyssey Mobile Interaction, to create a unique rich media mobile campaign to drive engagement and mobile views of the film’s trailer.

It was determined that Millennial wanted to give consumers a visual experience that was reflective of a superhero film like Green Lantern, and decided to deliver an expandable rich media banner that let consumers “imprint their fingerprint” on the ad to bring up an HD trailer for the film. Since the film was released across Europe at different times during the summer, it required staggered and localized campaigns to support the unique release schedule. As such, the initial campaign launched in the UK in mid-June, and crossed Germany, France and Spain before ending in Italy at the end of August.

The collective campaign turned out to be extremely effective, as consumers responded positively to the interactive nature of the creative. In the end, a total of 20 percent of consumers who clicked on the banner engaged with the “fingerprint scan” and over 70 percent of those users went on to watch the trailer. Chris Gale, of Odyssey Mobile

The iPhone 4S is has already shattered all previous iPhone sales records. Incredibly, during the new iPhone’s first week of availability (in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., France, Germany, Japan), more than four million units were sold.

And just one week ago, another 22 nations were added to the list of iPhone 4S-carrying markets – a list poised to grow even further next week.

Beginning Friday, Nov. 11, the iPhone 4s will arrive Hong Kong, South Korea and 13 additional countries (Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Malta, Montenegro, New Zealand, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Romania and South Korea.)

As of this writing, the iPhone 4S is available in 29 countries. Apple says the iPhone 4s will be for sale in 70 countries total before the end of 2011.

For residents of Hong Kong, South Korea and the other nations listed above, pre-orders begin this this Friday, Nov. 4th. However, Apple announced on its website today that pre-orders are not available in Albania, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malta, Montenegro and Panama.

During Apple’s earnings call earlier this month, CEO Tim Cook said he believes the current quarter will bring with it all-time record quarterly iPhone sales.

The mobile and social spaces are being lit up by big bucks from some heavyweight Hollywood hitters who find the mobile channel an exciting place to put their money.

On the heels of Justin Timberlake’s recent multimillion-dollar investment in MySpace, actor Leonardo DiCaprio is investing in visual social media platform Mobli.

Mobli announced today that DiCaprio was party to the company’s latest round of seed financing, which drew a reported $4 million.

If you’re unfamiliar, Mobli is a photo-sharing app that allows its users to share moments by seeing and absorbing “the world through other people’s eyes.” Dissimilar to conventional photosharing apps, Mobli is comprised of subject-based channels and filters (like people and places).

Although DiCaprio is among the first prominent investors to personally invest in the platform, a host of celebrities – including David Arquette and Paris Hilton – have made a splash on Mobli, drawing no shortage of user interest among the masses (the company says it now sees 10,000 new users a day).

“Mobli allows people from all over the world to share moments,” DiCaprio said following the announcement. The actor will assume an advisory position with Mobli in return for his investment.

Mobli is presently available via app for the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.

According to the latest data released from independent mobile advertising and data company Millennial Media, the iPhone and its tablet sibling, the iPad, have earned some fairly lofty placements across a broad variety of mobile advertising statistics.

The Mobile Mix Q3 Report reveals that iOS impressions grew 60% year-over-year, from Q3 2010-Q3 2011. In particular, iPad impressions grew 456%, and iPod Touch impressions grew 30% year-over-year.

Not to be outdone, the iPhone accounted for 54% of the iOS impressions on Millennial Media’s platform, while iPod Touch and iPad combined to make up the other 46%.

Android, however, was still the leading OS on Millennial Media’s network in Q3 with 56% of the smartphone/connected device impressions. Android made up 15 of the top 20 phones on Millennial Media’s network. HTC had 6 of those phones, and grew over 100% year-over-year as a manufacturer.

When breaking down ad spend on applications, Android apps had a 49% share. This was a 20% growth quarter-over-quarter.

Apple represented 41% of the Application Platform Mix, ranked by ad spend, in Q3. Music & Entertainment took over as the leading Apple application category, despite gaming still leading the iPad application category. In Q3, Apple Mocial (Mobile Social Networking) applications grew 36% quarter-over-quarter.

In Q3, Millennial Media reports, smartphones grew 7% quarter-over-quarter

Square has announced that it will bring its popular credit card reader for smartphones to Walmart stores across the U.S.

Square – which was launched by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey – said the platform’s expansion into Walmart territory will boost the number of retail outlets where it is sold to more than 9,000.

Square, which launched publicly one year ago, has close to $140 million in funding, according to regulatory filings highlighted today by Bloomberg.

Square’s technology lets U.S. businesses handle payments via Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPad, as well as devices running on Google Inc.’s Android software. The card reader plugs into the headphone jack of the mobile device and lets merchants swipe customers’ credit and debit cards.

The reader is sold for $9.99, a low price that underscores the real financial incentive to Square – boosting transaction frequency, which drives the bulk of revenue as merchants cough up 2.75 percent of the amount paid to Square.

Square says it is now processing more than $2 billion in payments annually.

The co-founder and CEO of Siri – the popular voice recognition technology that defines the new iPhone 4S – joins the growing list of top leaders to part ways with Apple this year.

Dag Kittlaus is widely credited with developing the voice recognition technology that has quickly become the most talked about new feature of the iPhone 4S.

Kittlaus has led the speech recognition efforts for Apple since Apple bought Siri in April of 2010. He had been Siri’s CEO since 2007. Before that, the Norwegian-born Kittlaus was an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Stanford Research Institute and had also worked at Motorola.

Kittlaus is said to be parting amicably with the tech giant, reveals Kara Swisher of All Things D. “There were several reasons for the departure, which was amicable and has been planned for a while, sources said,” Swisher adds. “They included Kittlaus’ family being in Chicago, a desire to take time off and an interest in brainstorming new entrepreneurial ideas.”

According to Swisher, Kittlaus has already left Apple. His departure came shortly after the iPhone 4S was formally introduced on October 4th.

Since early 2009, the rumor mill has suggested that Apple is planning to create and launch connected-televisions in the near future.

On the heels of reports last week that late Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed in his new biography that he had “cracked’ the formula for an integrated futuristic connected television set, the rumor mill is once again grinding out speculation about Apple soon launching a branded HDTV.

“I’d like to create an integrated television set,” Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson. “It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud… It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”

On Monday analyst Gene Munster with Piper Jaffray revealed that sources close to Apple confirmed that the company has been building prototype models of the new high-definition television set since last month.

Munster believes Apple could use the new Siri voice activated system “to bolster its TV offering and simplify the chore of inputting information like show titles, or actor names, into a TV.”

“We believe that of the estimated 220 million flat panel TVs sold in 2012, 48% or 106 million units will be internet-connected, of which Apple could sell 1.4 million units,” Munster writes. “We believe an Apple Television could add $2.5 billion or 2% to revenue in CY12, $4.0 billion or 3% in CY13 and $6.0 billion in CY14.”

Pageonce – the daily finance service for mobile devices – announced Monday that it is launching the first and only mobile bill pay service that gives consumers remote control over when and how they pay their bills.

According to a description of the service outlined in a press release from the company today, Pageonce allows users to view all their bills and pay from any account, all in one simple app anytime, anywhere.

Pageonce Money & Bills already lets users automatically track all types of bills and alerts them when a bill is due. Now Pageonce gives users the option to pay immediately from their choice of accounts via their smartphone.

Pageonce makes paper bills, checks and stamps, and logging into several different websites for online bill pay, obsolete — helping users save time and avoid annoying late and overdraft fees.

Pageonce collects all the information about a user’s bills, including payment due date, amount due and itemized details, and presents them in format optimized for smartphones. Before a bill is due, users will get an alert that allows them to pay now in three steps: (1) Select how to pay (2) Enter the amount (3) Tap to pay.

“Pageonce has been helping millions of users stay on top of all their money and bills through a simple and smart mobile interface,” says Guy Goldstein, Pageonce Founder and CEO. “Now we’re empowering people to DO their finances directly from their smartphone. Paying bills is our first step in building the Wallet of the Future.”

It was announced today that mobile location-based infrastructure provider Location Labs has acquired two companies — mobile development platform Wirkle and group messaging provider Volly.

Location Labs has largely been known to provide an underlying location-based infrastructure for mobile apps, but has recently transitioned into a provider of specialized location-based services for niches such as family safety and safe driving. Both Wirkle with its development platform and Volly with its group mobile messaging solution fit nicely with Location Labs’s future plans, making both acquisitions timely and relevant for the company.

It seems Location Labs was also interested in the talent associated with these startups, with the company saying new engineers and product managers acquired through Wirkle and Volly will be focused on “strengthening investment in its Safely suit of services — which includes services to allow parents to keep tabs on their children, as well as other family and driving safety programs.

“We looked at many different mobile companies and were extremely impressed by the talents and mobile expertise of Wirkle and Volly. These acquisitions of IP, products, and team

The folks at Jumptap – an industry leader in targeted mobile advertising – has published their latest MobileSTAT Report covering network data for the month of September 2011.

According to the freshly unveiled findings, rich media ad units provided a significant lift in click-through rates.

In an experiment, Jumptap reviewed more than 300 million campaign impressions, across several major Fortune 1000 advertisers that ran both rich and standard media with similar creative and messaging. The results were striking; campaigns run with rich media ad units showed prominent lift over those with standard media.

Here’s what Jumptap discovered:

• One major retailer saw a 337 percent lift in CTR over their standard mobile banner campaign.
• A popular luxury auto manufacturer saw a 357 percent lift in CTR.
• An advertiser for a new theatrical release picked-up a 340 percent lift in CTR.
• A quick service restaurant acquired a 455 percent lift in CTR.
• A major athletics manufacturer saw lift of 214 percent in CTR.
• A consumer electronics company experienced a lift of 362 percent in CTR.

“The demand for relevant, dynamic content is growing. Advertisers want targeting combined with ad units that engage consumers and promote brand awareness,” said Paran Johar, CMO, Jumptap. “With ad units that facilitate user interaction including video and audio, rich media offers higher performance levels and greater measurement.

According to the findings of an insightful new report from comScore, 72.2 million Americans accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile device in August 2011.

Not only does that figure represent a whole lot of people, it also reveals an audience size increase of 37 percent over the past year alone. The study similarly showed that more than half read a post from an organization, brand or event while on their mobile device.

“Social media is one of the most popular and fastest growing mobile activities, reaching nearly one third of all U.S. mobile users,” says Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president for mobile. “This behavior is even more prevalent among smartphone owners with three in five accessing social media each month, highlighting the importance of apps and the enhanced functionality of smartphones to social media usage on mobile devices.”

Nearly 40 million U.S. mobile users, more than half of the mobile social media audience, access these sites almost every day, “demonstrating the importance of this activity to people’s daily routines,” comScore suggests.

Research also indicated that although more people accessed these sites via their mobile browser, the social networking app audience grew five times faster in the past year. While the mobile browsing social networking audience grew 24 percent to 42.3 million users in the past year, the mobile social networking app

On Thursday, international news organizations and media outlets were largely dependent on mobile phones and social networks to gain insight into what proved to be the final moments of former Libya strongman Moammar Gadhafi’s life.

From CNN to BBC, gruesome photos (taken via mobile phone) of an apparently lifeless Moammar Gadhafi were used to underpin reports that the former leader had, in fact, been killed in crossfire earlier that day.

According to CNN’s coverage, the mobile phone images were not only instrumental in proving Gadhafi’s death but also further weakening the late leader’s lingering supporters.

The images will be a big blow to the morale of his supporters, who have been clinging to the hope he would seize power again, during the weeks he has been on the run.

Five years ago, images also taken from a mobile device were released of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein at his execution. Unauthorized cell phone footage showed the world Hussein’s final moments on the gallows. This incident followed other images that surfaced three years earlier of Hussein’s two sons, Uday and Qusay, who were killed in a firefight.

Shortly after the images were released publicly, former CIA Director James Woolsey told CNN: “I think it’s necessary for the world to see and particularly for the Iraqis to see that

As part of its recent report on mobile usage, location-based ad-network JiWire put together an interesting infographic that details how the Millennial generation (those between 18 and 34) engage with their mobile devices.

The company found that Millennials own 2.4 connected devices on average, and of those who connect to JiWire’s free Wi-Fi networks, 62% percent are using smartphones and nearly a third are using tablets. It was also found that twenty-eight percent use location-based apps multiple times per day for locating stores (54%) and points of interests (46%), as well as connecting with others (40%) and checking in (32%).

Click the infographic below to view full size:

It was announced today that mobile analytics powerhouse Flurry has introduced Analytics 3.1 — the latest version of its popular analytics suite for mobile apps.

Version 3.0 was just launched in August, and the 3.1 update adds three unique time-based metrics to its reporting capabilities for mobile app developers. Analytics 3.1 introduces day-parting, lifecycle and hourly stat drill-down features, allowing deep insights into app usage that were hard to come by before. Let’s take a closer look at the new metrics . . .

Day Parting (a.k.a. Time-of-Day) Metrics – The time-of-day feature allows companies to take a snapshot over any time period (e.g., one-month) and view key stats over a standardized 24-day. With this, they can study time-of-day trends such as peak acquisition, usage and purchase times.

Lifecycle Metrics – Top apps frequently update their apps with new features, and run ongoing acquisition campaigns. To measure the impact these activities have on increasing user engagement and retention, Flurry introduces Lifecycle metrics. The lifecycle view enables a developer to select any cohort of users, defined by numerous tracked characteristics, and accurately measure its usage (and churn) over time.

Hourly Drill-Down