Study Indicates Recent Increase in Mobile App Usage

Since emerging into the mainstream as a dominant communication source a mere 15 years ago, there is no doubt that the Internet has continued to rapidly evolve. From early online online directories and search engines to the now popular array of social media venues (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc), the web’s popularity has increased significantly.

More recently, however, a new platform shift is taking place. A recent study conducted by Flurry, indicates that a new generation of consumers now expect their smartphones and tablets to come with instant broadband connectivity so they, too, can tap into the Internet and communicate via social media platforms while they are on the go. Hence, the recent increase of mobile apps being developed.

The report compares how daily interactive consumption has changed over the last 12 months between the web (both desktop and mobile web) and native mobile apps.  For Internet consumption, Flurry built a model using publicly available data from comScore and Alexa.  For mobile application usage, they used Flurry Analytics data, now exceeding 500 million aggregated, anonymous use sessions per day across more than 85,000 applications. They estimate this accounts for approximately one third of all mobile application activity, which was scaled-up accordingly for this particular analysis.

Some interesting findings from the study:

• The average user spends 9% more time using mobile apps than the Internet.
   
• Users now spend over 81 minutes per day on mobile applications.
      (growth rate of 91% over the past 12 months)
   
• Users now spend 74 minutes on the Internet a day.
      (growth rate of only 16% over the last year)
   
• Games & Social Networking apps deliver the most engaging experience on mobile phones today.  
      (combined, these two categories control 79% of consumers’ total app time.)

As a category, social networking commands the second largest allocation of consumers’ time.  Games are also the top categories on both Android and iOS platforms.  

What does the shift from Web to Mobile mean for the planning world?
As interactive media usage continues to shift from the web to mobile, you may be wondering how this translates to public engagement in the planning world? From our perspective, the best strategy for building your project’s online presence and encouraging community participation is by combining Web and mobile sites to encompass every type of user. Trends show, as we’ve seen from the Flurry study, that the public is definitely motivated by and moving in the direction of utilizing the web on-the-go. However it is a good idea to begin with a robust website that provides all the tools you need to share key information and then incorporate a mobile site or theme for your initiatives before moving into building mobile applications.