I must admit, I am quite taken with the Palm Pre. The hype, predictably, has been enormous. And the handset itself is very well put together. Online reviews rave about it. After playing with my friend’s new Pre, I have to agree with them: it is one cool handset.

But before the Pre could bask in the media spotlight for long, Apple whooshed in two days later to announce its newest iPhone, the 3G S, and that the 3G would sell for as little as $99.

So how has this move affected overall interest in the Pre?

This chart shows the percentage of people viewing the Palm Pre who also looked at the Apple iPhone 3G S online in the same week. Interest in the Pre is defined here as anyone who looked at a Pre-related webpage hosted by Palm or Sprint (or both). Similarly, interest in the iPhone 3G S includes anyone who viewed iPhone 3G S-related web pages at Apple or AT&T (or both). Before the announcement of the iPhone 3G S, interest traffic for the iPhone represents the iPhone 3G.

Here we see that:

• Before the iPhone 3G S was officially announced on June 6th, only about 2.5% of people who looked at the Palm Pre online also viewed the iPhone 3G
• However, once the iPhone 3G S announcement was made, traffic to the iPhone 3G S by Palm Pre shoppers jumped 104%, signaling that the Pre definitely had to share the limelight with the new iPhone 3G S
• By the time the iPhone 3G S was available, just a week after it was announced, consideration of the device by Palm Pre shoppers dropped by about 25%

While the decrease in cross shopping seems to suggest that the iPhone 3G S will not continue to distract Pre shoppers, handset interest data shines a different light on the situation. Interest in the Pre predictably shot up during the week of its launch and the week after as marketing efforts and press coverage reached a fever pitch. However in the second week after launch, Pre interest dropped sharply to levels it had prior to launch, as shown in the chart below.

This suggests that the Pre may indeed have lost its thunder online, though it is unclear at this point if interest has transferred to the iPhone 3G S or simply faded away. Certainly, consideration of both models decreased after the initial excitement of the Palm Pre’s launch and the iPhone 3G S announcement passed, which could indicate that distinct fan bases have emerged for each phone.

Still, much remains to be seen over the next few weeks, as each phone works to establish and sustain its fan base. There are also more opportunities to drive online interest in the Palm Pre to counter the iPhone. Selling the device online is one possibility. Encouraging development of more applications to rival the iTunes App Store by releasing the software development kit more broadly (which Palm says they will do “by the end of this summer”) could also entice consumers.

Challenging the iPhone’s dominance is no small task, but we’ll be watching over the next few months to see if the Palm Pre is the device that will rise to the occasion.

Over the next two years, I could save $721 in cell phone bills if I switched to a 1000 anytime minute individual T-Mobile plan plus 300 text messages and unlimited web.

That’s according to BillShrink.com, a site that tells you which wireless carrier could save you money when you enter information about your cell phone usage, what you are paying, and where you use the phone. The site offers a similar service for saving money on credit card bills, as well as helping users find the cheapest gas. To give you a better sense of what the BillShrink.com results look like, I’ve included a screenshot of my top result.

BillShrink.com has recently been given a lot of publicity due to its relationship with the wireless carrier T-Mobile, as T-Mobile consistently - though not always- comes up as the best value for a wireless shopper. Billshrink.com is prominently featured in T-Mobile’s new online and TV ad campaign (alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones) that encourages anyone and everyone to use Billshrink.com to see which service and plan will save them the most money while providing them with ample coverage.

So how has this relationship affected T-Mobile and BillShrink.com? Is it a mutually beneficial relationship, or is one side reaping more benefits? We can start by looking at traffic to BillShrink.com over the past year.

• From this chart we can see that T-Mobile appears to have had a large impact on traffic to BillShrink.com. Though T-Mobile started including links on its site for BillShrink.com in March, it’s clear the largest impact occurred when it began its broader campaign in May.
• In addition to an increase in traffic, we can further tell this relationship with T-Mobile has impacted Billshrink.com as 43% of visitors to Billshrink.com used the Wireless Plan area of the site in May, compared to only 22% using the wireless area in March.

Looking at data on Compete.com, we found that the T-Mobile campaign seems to be giving Billshrink.com a significant boost: the carrier accounted for 12.8% of all referrals to BillShrink.com, and was the destination site for 7.4% of all visitors to BillShrink.com.

All this data certainly tells me that the T-Mobile relationship has benefited BillShrink.com. T-Mobile, however, is the one that went out on a limb by telling consumers to check this site and see which carrier will save them the most money. So has this campaign benefited T-Mobile too? To get a sense of the impact, we looked at how many T-Mobile shoppers are also visiting BIllShrink.com.

This chart is looking at the volume of T-Mobile.com visitors also visiting BillShrink.com, represented by the blue bars and mapped to the right axis. The diamonds represent the % of overall T-Mobile.com traffic that also used BillShrink.com in the given month, and is mapped to the right axis. So what does this chart show us?

• Since the relationship began, there has been an increase in T-Mobile.com visitors also using BillShrink.com, shown by the blue bars. Unfortunately for T-Mobile, even with a 211% M-O-M increase in the volume of visitors visiting both sites in May, this still represents less than 2% of overall traffic, shown by the diamonds.
• Breaking this down a little further, we found that 49% of the T-Mobile.com visitors also using BillShrink.com in May were T-Mobile Customers, which is likely not the target group T-Mobile is hoping will use BillShrink.com.

To further investigate the impact on T-Mobile, I also took a look at how many of the T-Mobile.com visitors also using BillShrink.com went on to purchase within the same month (either a phone and plan or an upgrade) on T-Mobile.com. The results were negligible, indicating sending T-Mobile shoppers to BillShrink.com has not yet had an impact on shoppers purchasing on T-Mobile.com.

So it seems as though this relationship is mainly benefiting only one side, but there is an important additional factor we should not ignore. I’ve been in three T-Mobile retail stores lately, and all of them have computers set up for shoppers to use BillShrink.com (though we should note we cannot track activity on BillShrink.com from T-Mobile stores). I imagine this is a very powerful tool for T-Mobile Sales reps, as it is hard for a shopper to argue that they need to continue to shop when BillShrink.com is showing them T-Mobile will save them the most money. I have a hunch that BillShrink.com is actually having a larger impact on offline sales than we’ve seen online so far.

This campaign only truly began in May, so in the coming months we will be watching to see if it starts to have a bigger impact on T-Mobile.com sales. Still, T-Mobile’s use of Billshrink.com in its campaign was creative, and in the long run will likely benefit the carrier as T-Mobile continues to promote it heavily and more shoppers continue to use BillShrink.com. T-Mobile has found a way to promote its value and its growing coverage area while using an independent company to validate its claims.

So, now that I know I could save $700 over the next two years by switching to T-Mobile, am I going to? To be honest, I replaced my 1st generation iPhone with the 3rd generation iPhone last Friday. For me, more went into my wireless phone and plan purchase decision than just the cost.

BillShrink.com may not have convinced me to switch, but I have no doubt that for many wireless shoppers finding the best value is the most important thing in their wireless phone and plan decision, and BillShrink.com will likely help them in that decision.

Last week, Sprint and Palm released the Pre to rave reviews that praised the device for being the first true competition to the iPhone juggernaut.

Palm and Sprint drove substantial traffic to their web sites with the announcement of the Pre at CES in January, in a move similar to Apple’s unveiling of the first generation iPhone at MacWorld two years earlier. Nearly 400,000 people visited Pre-related pages on Sprint.com and/or Palm.com the week of the announcement.

After months of speculation from industry analysts and consumers, Sprint and Palm announced on May 19th that the Pre would be available for purchase on June 6th. As one might expect, visitors to the Pre pages on Sprint.com and Palm.com jumped after many weeks of flat traffic and jumped again the week the device finally became available for purchase.

This chart shows the number of people researching the Pre and the original iPhone, indexed to the device’s launch week. As you can see, the Pre may be getting a healthy amount of interest from consumers online, but it doesn’t rival the interest seen in the original iPhone launch. Likewise, Sprint and Palm’s traffic spike the week of the Pre launch didn’t match the massive jump Apple experienced upon the iPhone’s release.

• Aggregate traffic for the Pre from both Sprint and Palm’s web sites increased 84% the week of launch to over 475,000 unique visitors.
• Traffic to Apple.com’s iPhone content increased 102% the week of the iPhone launch to over 750,000 unique visitors. Note that this is just traffic to Apple.com – this number would be even higher if AT&T’s traffic was included.

Apple’s relentless hype machine and strong brand equity played significant roles in this major increase, but a significant factor may have simply been the relative sizes of the websites involved, as you can see in the following chart.

The truth is that Palm.com does not attract visitors at comparable levels to Apple.com, and, to a lesser extent, the same can be said about Sprint.com compared to Wireless.ATT.com. However, considering the relative sizes of these sites, Palm and Sprint did a solid job at driving interest in the Pre and are already reaping the benefits of this highly anticipated launch.

The next real challenge will be sustaining interest and sales of the device – one great sales week hasn’t propelled any of the previous iPhone challengers to the top of the heap.

Bob Stohrer of Virgin Mobile talked with the Digital 180 series about the unique marketing challenges facing a company that operates without a customer contract. He also shared his thoughts on finding the optimal media mix and the importance of churn reduction.

To hear more insights from some of the top marketers in various industries, check out the Digital 180 channel and check back with the Compete blog for new interviews.

On Saturday, Palm released the Pre, the latest in a long line of potential iPhone killers. While the iPhone was not the first device to offer a touchscreen, its popularity has made the technology more common on major release Smartphones.

Many factors have an impact on consumer choice, particularly when buying something as complex as a mobile phone; price, network coverage, carrier, applications, and many others. But what about touchscreens? How interested are consumers in touchscreens versus a more traditional QWERTY keyboard? Touchscreens create a lot of interest, but are they top of mind for the average mobile phone shopper when they’re ready to buy?

This chart covers share of online interest in phones with a physical QWERTY keyboard or touchscreen on the “Big 4” carriers’ sites during the first quarter. Each bar represents one week.

Our data show that in the first quarter of 2009, touchscreens and QWERTY keyboards weighed in almost equally when it came to online interest. We’re also seeing that:

• Share of interest is trending upward for both features overall this quarter, although touchscreens have experienced a more consistent upward trend
• Share of interest in QWERTY phones averaged 37% and touchscreen phones 35% this quarter

But, according to our Q1 survey data, when it comes down to the purchase decision, touchscreens are not as important – at least not yet.

QWERTY keys were “important” or “very important” to 44% of those surveyed, while 37% said the same about touchscreens. We can see in the chart above, however, that 23% of respondents said that QWERTY keys were “very important”, compared to just 15% for touchscreens.

It’s not that touchscreens aren’t desirable for consumers – wireless shoppers on the web are clearly looking at phones with this feature, as we saw above. Still, they aren’t quite as influential as QWERTY keys when it comes to picking a specific phone to buy. Interest in these features and in Smartphones generally has been increasing.

It’s also important to note that while the data in the second chart shows us that QWERTY keys and touchscreens were important for 44% and 37% of shoppers, the corollary is that they weren’t important to 56% and 63%, respectively, when it came to their purchase decision.

So, even though a lot of the hype on advanced Smartphones is about touchscreens, QWERTY keyboards are actually a more important factor for most people when it comes to the purchase decision. Still, the majority of consumers don’t think either feature is important to their purchase decision.

In this tough economy where people are looking for value, the challenge for device manufacturers and carriers remains convincing consumers why these features are must haves for every wireless shopper, not just the early adopters.

How did the cable provider Comcast try driving engagement with its brand and ultimately online conversion through social media?

As I continued my analysis from my last post on Comcasttown.com, I wanted to see how engaged Comcasttown.com visitors were and if the experience drove more online conversion on Comcast.com. Last time, I highlighted how Comcasttown.com integrated with Facebook.com. In this post I thought I would see if Comcasttown.com’s engagement is even close to Facebook.com engagement as well as compare it to Comcast.com engagement.

Comcasttown.com averaged 1.1 visits per person in March and a little over 3 ½ minutes per visit. These numbers suggest the site was more of a one hit wonder than an engaging experience. Compare that to Facebook.com which averaged nearly 17 visits per person and 17 minutes per stay for the month. This isn’t surprising when only 5% of the Comcasttown.com visitors registered on the site and only those that registered could truly interact with the virtual world.

OK, so this isn’t much of a surprise when comparing Comcasttown.com engagement to Facebook.com engagement, but how did Comcasttown.com compare to Comcast.com? Comcast.com attracted more repeat visits with 3.6 visits per person compared to 1.1 for Comcasttown.com. However, Comcasttown.com visitors spent nearly a minute more on the site checking it out. Unfortunately, visitors did not necessarily return to the site within the same month.

While Comcasttown.com did not reach very many consumers, 2.5% of those who visited the site, submitted an order for digital voice, internet, cable TV, or a bundle of those services on Comcast.com in the same month. This conversion rate was nearly 50% higher than Comcast.com’s overall conversion rate in March 2009.

While Comcasttown.com’s visitors aren’t very engaged on the microsite, they are interested in purchasing Comcast’s services online. I have to wonder though if it was worth the cost to develop the microsite and the integration with Facebook for the limited number of consumers the microsite reached.

This analysis was performed using Site Profile on Compete.com and a combination of Compete’s Marketing and Landing Page Effectiveness intelligence.