Report: 80% of Mobile Video Views Happen on Apple Devices

By Ryan Lawler May. 23, 2011 on Gigaom

UPDATED Mobile video is still a small part of overall online viewing, but it’s a part that Apple dominates, according to a new report by video monetization startup FreeWheel. In its Q1 2011 Video Monetization Report, FreeWheel said the vast majority of video views that occur on mobile devices happen on Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

FreeWheel reported that four-fifths of all mobile video views happen on Apple iOS devices. The iPhone and iPod touch each account for about 30 percent of all video views that happen on mobile devices, with the remaining 20 percent being attributed to Android devices, according to the report. Other devices account for less than one percent of all video views on mobile devices, according to FreeWheel.

The video ad startup attributes Apple’s dominance in mobile video to the early lead the company had in the mobile video market and the longer period of time consumers have had to get used to watching video on its devices. FreeWheel also hypothesizes that greater viewership on Apple devices  represents the priorities of video publishers and mobile developers as well, who build for iOS devices first before moving on to other platforms.

The most surprising finding might be that despite having sold just 20 million tablets worldwide, Apple’s iPad already accounts for 20 percent of videos viewed on mobile devices, according to FreeWheel. We thought the iPad would be an ideal device for viewing video when it was announced, but the extent to which it has been embraced by even traditional video producers and distributors speaks to the power of the platform. TV networks like ABC and HBO have built applications for the iPad, as have pay TV operators like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and others.

While mobile video viewing accounts for just one percent of all online video views, according to the report, much of it was driven by news and live events. Mobile views peaked during Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, and also during the March Madness tournament, when viewers turned to their smartphones and mobile devices because they weren’t near a TV.

Update: As some commenters have noted, the data in this report only includes video views from FreeWheel’s ad clients, which include professional content creators and distributors. It doesn’t include user-generated content or videos from subscription or VOD services like Netflix.

Your iPad’s a Telephone With Google Voice

By Geoffrey Goetz May. 26, 2011 on Gigaom

Out of the box, Apple has you covered on your iPad 2 with FaceTimefor video chat with your friends, family and colleagues, so long as they have a FaceTime capable device and a Wi-Fi connection. But let’s face it, not everybody is on FaceTime, and certainly not constantly near a Wi-Fi hot spot. If all you want to do is replicate a phone connection, Google Voice along with a couple of native iOS apps may be just what you’re looking for.

What You Need

Google Voice Account. If you’re not already part of Google Voice, simply log into your Google account and sign-up for Google Voice (google.com/voice, but it’s U.S. only as of this writing). It will walk you through the sign-up process, including setting up a new number.

GV Connect. Google’s strategy for the iPad, including Google Voice, appears to be limited to Safari apps only. Google offers an official iOS-native Google Voice client for the iPhone, but GV Connect is a better option, as it has full support iPad support.

Talkatone. Neither the Safari interface that Google offers, nor GV Connect will make VOIP calls from your iOS device. To enable that functionality, you need to download and install the free, ad-supported Talkatone app.  Yes, this is an iPhone app, but you can control it from the iPad-friendly GV Connect interface.

How to Make a Phone Call

Once you have a Google Voice account, download and install both the GV Connect and Talkatone clients on your iPad, and set up each with your Google Voice account information. Then, in GV Connect, do the following:

1. Under Settings, set the Start Calls From setting to Google Talk.
2. Enable the Call using Talkatone setting.
3. Click on the telephone handset icon in the upper left corner to place a call.

While you are controlling your Google Voice account from within GV Connect, the VOIP call is actually being handled by Talkatone. Talkatone does claim to allow calls over 3G, but the quality of those calls are dependent on the network. I’ve only used it while connected via Wi-Fi.

How to Receive a Phone Call

To direct all your incoming calls to be received on your iPad. In GV Connect on your iPad, do the following:

1. Under Settings, set the Call Forwarding setting to Google Talk.
2. Make sure you are logged in to your Google Account in Talkatone.
3. Wait for an incoming call.

It’s that easy; just make sure you’re not logged in to Google Talk anywhere else. I tend to use the stock earbuds to avoid looking like a fool with the iPad pressed against my face, but unfortunately, Bluetooth headsets aren’t fully supported by either Apple or Talkatone. I have yet to completely dedicate my Google Voice account to exclusive iPad-only calling, but I’d love to hear from you if you end up using the solution described above as a total home or cell phone replacement.

ooVoo Releases Multiuser Video Chat App for the iPhone

By Ryan Lawler May. 26, 2011 on Gigaom

Online and mobile video chat provider ooVoo has just released a new app for the iPhone  that offers multi-platform video chat for Apple devices. By doing so, iPhone and iPod touch users now have one more way to launch multi-user video chat wherever they are.

The mobile video chat market is heating up, ever since Apple launched its FaceTime app with the introduction of the iPhone 4. Since then, a number of companies have sought to cash in on the phenomenon, including Skype, Tango, Yahoo and others. Like most of these video chat apps, ooVoo works on both 3G and Wi-Fi networks, and enables users to chat with friends on the web and on Android mobile devices.

The big differentiator ooVoo has is the ability to do multi-user chat. The app allows up to six different video chat partners to be logged into a call at once, and it does so with pretty fantastic video quality, even on mobile networks. In that respect, it primarily competes with Fring, which launched a multi-party, multi-platform group video chat app in early April.

There’s one other crucial difference: ooVoo’s user base. The company has long had a video chat application available on the desktop, where it mostly competed with Skype. But while Skype is used by many enterprise users and web-savvy professionals, ooVoo is being adopted by a very young user base, a trend being accelerated with the launch of its Android app. I have two teenaged sisters, and anecdotal evidence from their usage of the app shows that ooVoo is pretty cool with youngsters.

In a phone interview a few weeks ago, ooVoo CMO Matt deGanon confirmed my suspicions that the app has become a popular way for teenagers to keep in touch. According to him, about 57 percent of all ooVoo users are under the age of 25, and the overwhelming majority of that group are under 18. Surprisingly though, those teenagers aren’t necessarily using the app to just speak with their friends; deGanon said young ooVoo users were using the app to connect on social networks and meet new people live.

ooVoo has more than 25 million registered users now, but the launch of the iPhone app will surely drive that much higher. After announcing availability of the iPhone app to its 1 million Facebook fans, it has seen registrations at about three times its usual level, and expects to hit a record for registrations today.