As the popularity of smart phones continues to rise, it was only a matter of time before the mobile screen began to catch up to the big screen in terms of usage. A new study conducted by a mobile analytics firm, Flurry, points out that approximately 50 percent of mobile consumers are utilizing mobile apps during TV’s prime time.
Flurry also reports that mobile applications currently reach more than 20 million U.S. consumers per hour and the number of active iOS and Android devices in the U.S. is estimated at 110 million. These numbers reflect a significant impact to prime time viewing habits.
For TV broadcasters, prime time is 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. In radio, programming and advertising are all about morning “drive time.” On the Web, the popularity of social networks like Facebook, instant messaging like Skype and video-on-demand services like Hulu are pushing up usage in the evening.
So what time of day do mobile apps find their biggest audience? A new study by the mobile analytics firm Flurry shows the audience for iPhone and iOS apps rises steadily during the day and peaks at about 9 p.m. That’s when half the U.S. app audience is using apps. “Mobile consumers are using apps either instead of, or along-side prime-time television and the Internet,” stated a Flurry blog post on the study.
The finding contributes to a growing body of research suggesting that two-screen viewing is becoming increasingly common while people are watching TV. The relative size of the TV audience during prime time was larger than that for mobile apps, at more than 60%. But app usage remained higher than TV from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and higher than the Internet almost all day. The Internet’s reach peaked at 7 p.m., when 40% of the audience for that medium was on the Web.
One of America’s famous music and film festival’s South by Southwest (SXSW) interviews the founders of GroupMe. Jason Kincaid on techcrunch.com posted an entertaining, yet interesting video posted about GroupMe.
Founders Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci of GroupMe set up a free grilled cheese and beer stand conveniently located outside the main convention center at SXSW. Learn how things have gone for GroupMe so far in Austin, why they chose to give away grilled cheese sandwiches, and adventures in Phish concert parking lots.
GroupMe is a popular group messaging system that allows you to effortlessly group text with the people in your life that are important to you. It’s your real-life network, in your pocket. It’s totally free and works on every phone.
Interactive television experts came to join forces at SXSW in Austin, Texas to discuss the future of social TV. Television has slowly been trying to transform “traditional TV” into social TV by integrating social media with popular television shows. In an article written by David Alexander on mashable.com, he posts an interesting video about how the conference provides a better insight to combining social media and television.
Panelists, which ranged from the likes of Chloe Sladden of Twitter to Gavin Purcell from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, discussed ways in which they incorporate social media into popular television shows such as “No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain” and “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”
Fred Graver, the senior VP of Travel Channel, spoke to the audience about his initial skepticism regarding the integration of Twitter into “No Reservations.” “It wasn’t a no brainer for us.” said Graver. “The whole thing here is if you have 36-48 hours before the show premiers, do you want to spend your time talking about Tony (Bourdain) live-tweeting? And that was a big discussion but we decided, yes lets do it.”
Doing it proved to be successful for Graver and the Travel Channel, with “No Reservations” currently at more than 1 million “likes” on Facebook and an increasingly active Twitter following.
Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, confirms the fall release of Google TV. This new device will integrate Internet content and television. Apple’s announcement of a similar product has generated conversation about the two options. Read this article by Christina Warren at mashable.com to get the facts about Google’s latest development.
The Apple TV refresh isn’t the only new connected device headed to living rooms this fall; Google CEO Eric Schmidt has reaffirmed his company’s plans to release the Google TV set-top box in the U.S. later this year, with launch in the rest of the world coming in 2011.
First officially announced at Google I/O, Google TV aims to bring Internet video to the living room. Users will be able to search the web and switch back and forth between web video, TV and other content all from the remote control.
Valerie Jennings 
Cassie Stubs
Katie Stumpf
