Through Black Friday and Cyber Monday, we heard a lot about the phenomenal popularity of the Nintendo Wii this holiday season. But are shoppers also showing interest in the smaller cousins of the consoles: portable gaming systems? And who is winning that battle for consumer interest?

Sony PlayStation and Nintendo are the major players in this market - with the PSP and the DS, respectively. To get a read on how online interest in these two brands shaped up in 2008, I looked at portable gaming interest in 2008 on two major consumer electronics retailers’ websites, Best Buy and Circuit City. Specifically, I tracked hardware and software for the PSP and DS and other legacy devices by these companies.

• The Nintendo portable devices have consistently generated more traffic than PlayStation across these two retailers’ sites.
• Interest in the PSP has been slipping on these sites. More than twice as many people looked at the Nintendo portable gaming products than the PSP last month.

Although this data is taken from just two (albeit large) retailers, the relative popularity of the Nintendo products is worth considering. Despite recent updates to the PlayStation product and its ability to play movies as well as games, it can’t seem to edge out the DS in terms of interest or sales. In October, Sony released a new iteration of their product, the PSP 3000, but most of the media interest that month was focused the new Nintendo DSi, despite its 2009 release date. Sales figures tell an even more dramatic story. According to NPD, the Nintendo DS broke U.S. hardware sales records, moving 1.56 million units in November alone. In the same period, the PSP sold 421,000 units.

So why is the DS outperforming the PSP? Available game titles and brand loyalty are probably factors, but that doesn’t completely explain such a large gap in both online interest and sales.

Part of the explanation may be in the appeal of the DS to new audiences of so-called “non-traditional” or “casual” gamers,which seems to be part of Nintendo’s DS marketing strategy. There have been several efforts to expand the market for the device, like adding games like Brain Age for more mature audiences and partnering with with the online handbag rental company From Bags to Riches to appeal to women.

This philosophy is also apparent on Nintendo’s site. When this post was written, the main page for the DS featured pictures of four female celebrities with the text, “See Who’s Playing Nintendo DS! America, Carrie, Liv and Lisa play, do you?”. Clicking on the image takes you to a microsite called iplayforme.com with stories and videos about how women use the device. I couldn’t find anything comparable on the PlayStation site for any particular PSP audience.

Would marketing to “non-traditional” player segments help the PSP in 2009? We’ll wait and see, but no matter how the PSP is marketed, overcoming the popularity and momentum of the DS will be an uphill battle.

Although they won’t get as much fanfare as the iPhone or the Wii, especially this holiday season, laptops remain a necessity. When it comes to purchasing one, consumers have a dizzying array of choices, everything from brand to operating system to size to where to buy.

To get a general idea of where laptop researchers are going online, I looked at where people who used terms including the word ‘laptop’ on major search engines were directed. The chart below shows the top 10 sites that these people were referred to by keyword share, or the percentage of all traffic generated by searches including the keyword ‘laptop’ that went to a particular site.

• Manufacturers hold two of the top three spots: Dell, with nearly 5% keyword share, and HP, with just over 2.5%.
• Aggregator sites, such as Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon and Nextag where you can shop from a variety of vendors for a variety of models, are popular, capturing 9% keyword share within the top 10.
• Review sites like notebookreview.com and CNet, also appear in the top 10 list as consumers rely more and more on third party sites for advice.
• The variety of sources in the top 10 search-referred domains suggests that researchers are turning to different kinds of sites both to gather information about laptops and to buy them, online or off. What does this mean for players in this market?
• Dell and HP are doing something right. The prominence of Dell and HP suggests that their search marketing strategies, and likely the strength of their brands, are driving traffic to their websites. The next closest manufacturer by keyword share is Apple, ranked 12th, followed by Toshiba (#14), Lenovo (#22) and Acer (#29).
• Online researchers want options. Whether they’re out to compare features or price, the strength of aggregator sites suggests that people want to evaluate models, compare cost, and have flexibility to browse across brands and price levels.
• Review sites are getting attention. Even though sellers’ sites often provide user reviews, the presence of CNet and notebookreviews.com in the top 10 suggests that many consumers are looking for professional and peer reviews from a third party source.

Laptops may not be the flashiest item on the CE holiday list this year, but they are becoming an increasingly important tool at work and at home. With a better understanding of how people look for laptops on the web, manufacturers, retailers, and advertisers can reach consumers online, whether they’re just browsing or ready to buy.

Going to the Consumer Electronics Show? Catch Adam Guy’s presentation on Shifting Content Across Time, Place and Device at CES on January 9th. Contact Elaine Warner to set up a meeting at the show.

While Smartphone owners may use email, calendar and contacts most often, the people I know can’t live without at least one other feature of the mobile web. Some love their GPS, others like a constant feed of sports scores, others want to be able to see their Facebook friends’ status updates at all times. My personal favorite convenience is being able to look up movies and showtimes when I’m away from my computer.

Now that I have a Smartphone, I tend use both it and my PC to make movie plans. So I wondered if other Smartphone owners are doing the same thing, and if iPhone owners were behaving any differently. Is mobile information changing how we’re using the internet on our computers to plan a night at the movies?

To answer these questions, I took a look at some of the survey and clickstream data from Compete’s recent Smartphone Intelligence study.

As we can see from the chart, not all device owners behave the same way. About 2.5 times more iPhone owners said they looked up movies and showtimes on their phone at least three times in a month.

But what about online behavior? On average, iPhone and other Smartphone owners both look up movies and showtimes on their computer about 3.8 times a month. iPhone users, however, spend about 20% less time doing this on their computers.

So, iPhone users are looking up movies and showtimes more often on their phones. They’re performing the same task on their computers just as frequently as Smartphone owners, but not spending as much time on it. Why could this be?

The behavior of the iPhone users may be rooted in demographics and functionality. The demographic part of the explanation is that iPhone owners who responded to our survey were slightly younger than the other Smartphone owners. Thirty percent of iPhone respondents were under 34, compared to 22% of Smartphone respondents. Most theatrical audiences also tend to skew younger.

The other factor influencing behavior of these groups on the mobile and fixed internet may be the availability of applications and the relative ease of the mobile web browsing experience. The new Smartphone I recently bought has a lot of great features, but movie and showtime application choices are limited. A quick check of the iTunes Application Store yielded five choices, four of them free. Making the mobile web easier to navigate has been a key feature of the new Smartphones – like the G1, the Storm and the Bold – but many devices are behind the iPhone in this regard.

So what does all of this mean? Clearly, looking up movies and showtimes on the personal computer isn’t disappearing anytime soon, but it is possible that the availability of better mobile options will lead people to use that channel more often, creating new possibilities in location-based and mobile advertising.

See you at the movies.

On Friday, the much-anticipated Blackberry Storm went on sale. Like many other recent Smartphone releases, the touchscreen, media player, and web-browsing features led to comparisons with the iPhone 3G.

Sales figures were not available at the time of this post, but we did get a sense of the online interest for the Storm versus the iPhone by looking at the number of people who researched the devices on the carrier and/or the manufacturer’s site in the weeks before the release.

The Storm may have started with less momentum than the iPhone 3G did, but it made significant gains in the weeks before it went on sale.

Note: Data shown for the iPhone is from June 8 to July 12th, 2008. Data shown for the Storm is from October 19th to November 15th.

Although data for the Storm release week of November 16th was not available at the time this post was written, we can see in the the chart that the Storm actually attracted more online interest the week before its release on the carrier and manufacturer’s site.

Of course, it would be difficult for any device to generate the same sustained interest that the iPhone 3G has enjoyed over the past several months. However, this data does suggest that it is possible rival interest in the iPhone 3G and for a significant lift in interest to happen the week before release.

Next week, we’ll have the data to see how much interest the Storm generated at release. Even if it doesn’t match iPhone interest, RIM’s first touchscreen device caught consumers’ attention in a significant way. Now let’s see how that interest translates to sales.

Need more data on Smartphone users? Contact Compete for details on Smartphone Intelligence.

The Apple iPhone’s Application Store is considered an innovative step forward in creating a true convergence device. Although mobile apps are not new, from the T-Mobile G1 to the Blackberry Bold, everyone is hopping on the bandwagon.

But are iPhone owners really interested in mobile applications any more than other Smartphone users, or is it just hype? To find out, I looked at some survey data from Compete’s new Smartphone Intelligence product.

Source: Smartphone Intelligence

• Smartphone owners are more likely to bypass applications altogether: 34% of Smartphone owners have not added an application to their phone, versus just 7% of iPhone users.
• iPhone users are more likely to have added a number of different applications to their device: 72% had more than five applications on their phones, compared to only 23% of other Smartphone owners.

So why are iPhone owners adding more applications? It may be partly who they are; the device attracts young, tech savvy consumers. But part of the application appeal may be how easy it is to find and add them to the iPhone. Google and Blackberry are now both trying to emulate Apple’s App Store success with their latest Smartphones by opening their operating systems up to developers and creating their own marketplaces.

But will non-iPhone users eventually embrace applications to the same degree? Quite possibly. As Smartphone customers replace their devices, they’ll be looking at a variety of new models featuring convenient applications marketplaces and a diverse collection of content from many developers. Bigger screens and wi-fi connectivity, which make both entertainment and information-related applications richer, will likely become standard in high-end phones.

The evolution of the mobile phone into something more than just a communications device will reach a whole new level. But for now, the iPhone is leading the applications rush.

To learn more about Smartphone Intelligence, join us for a free webinar this afternoon at 2:00 p.m. EST. To register, click here.

AT&T has been expanding its wi-fi footprint in 2008. Last week, AT&T announced that it was buying Wayport, a wi-fi service provider. Back in February, the telco became Starbucks’ new wi-fi partner, providing access in thousands of U.S. locations.

With more and more wi-fi enabled devices in consumers’ hands - from laptops to smartphones to portable gaming consoles - the race is on to become the provider of choice.

What factors influence consumer choice when it comes to wi-fi? Results of a recent survey by Compete suggest that low price, speed, and convenience will attract the most customers.

• Most wi-fi users are price sensitive; more than 60% said that low price was a key factor in choosing which wi-fi hotspot to use
• Convenience is important; about half of respondents said connection speed and availability were important factors in their choice
• The provider is not as important, although finding their wireless carrier hosted connection was a more important factor for consumers than locating a hotspot hosted by their broadband carrier

What are the implications for wi-fi service providers?

The bad news is that, as providers extend their coverage and more options become available, customers probably won’t make a special effort to use a particular provider unless they know they can get fast and inexpensive, if not free, service where they want it. Although there may be some opportunities to have partnerships similar to the one between AT&T and Starbucks, those are relatively few and far between.

The good news is that the increasing number wi-fi enabled mobile phones coming on the market - and possibly the lighter, more portable laptops - will increase the demand for wi-fi over time. Even though they may not be able to charge high access fees carriers might consider the opportunity to offer wi-fi, bundled with data and wireless subscriptions, to bolster consumer loyalty, and ultimately revenue.

Increasing consumer adoption has created opportunities for providers to jump into the market with new solutions. Chances are the cheapest, fastest and most convenient choices will come out on top.