Sometimes it seems like the only thing anyone talks about anymore is mobile. And that’s for good reason – the marketing intelligence firm eMarketer recently published a remarkable statistic – people are now spending more time consuming information on their phones than from printed media like newspapers and magazines. Mobile and print were neck in neck in 2010, but mobile jumped dramatically in 2011. This isn’t a surprise at Ask.com, where we’ve seen over 1 million downloads of our iPhone app since it launched in late 2010. Our recently-released Android app is on a similar trajectory, growing users at a rate of about 45% each month.

Despite the buzz about mobile, eMarketer’s report suggests that TV is still going strong.  Adults in the US are actually watching 10 minutes more TV per day this year than they were in 2010. This is also great news for us, since we’re stepping up our TV advertising in several cities in 2012. If you live in San Francisco, Atlanta, Seattle, Dallas, Chicago, Philadelphia or Washington, DC  you may notice commercials for Ask.com during one of your favorite shows starting in January. Let us know if you see them! 

Click here to read more about the eMarketer study. 

Ann Semeraro, Director, Consumer and Market Insight

Ask.com was honored to be one of the local businesses representing innovation at Oakland Mayor Jean Quan’s reception for the Women and Economy Summit at the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference Friday night.  Mayor Jean Quan and a committee of distinguished Oakland women leaders in exports, innovation, and education hosted more than 400 international delegates to the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation, as well as local representatives, at a City Hall reception on Friday, Sept. 16. The reception follows the three-day international APEC Summit for delegates of 21 Pacific Rim economies held in San Francisco.

Lisa Kavanaugh, Robbie Waeschenfelder and I managed a booth for Ask.com, handing out some awesome red baseball caps, touting Ask and networking with a few notables, including Pandora’s Jessica Steel, Executive Vice President of Business and Corporate Development. As we listened to Mayor Jean Quan, Governor Jerry Brown and others speak that night, we couldn’t help but feel very excited to be part of Oakland’s thriving community.

Angela Loeffler, SVP of People Operations