Today comScore is excited to announce the U.S. launch of Mobile Metrix 2.0, the next generation of mobile audience measurement. Mobile Metrix 2.0 provides mission critical insights into the behavior of the most active mobile media consumers: smartphone owners. Mobile Metrix 2.0 is based on passive behavioral data collected from a 10,000+ person panel (whose members have agreed to install comScore’s measurement software on their mobile devices). When combined with data from comScore’s census network of tagged sites and apps, Mobile Metrix 2.0 delivers our clients an unprecedented view of the U.S. mobile consumer.

Five years ago this month we released the world’s first syndicated service based on panels of metered-smartphones, but much has changed in the past half-decade. In 2006 there was no iPhone, no Android platform, and if you were one of the few people downloading a mobile app you were likely running it on Palm Treo or a Symbian smartphone. But the biggest change has been the explosive growth and mainstreaming of mobile devices—there are now more than 106 million smartphone owners in the U.S., a majority of people acquiring a new phone are buying smartphones, and sometime this year most Americans will have one of these powerful devices in their pocket.

Smartphones have changed the way people use and consume digital media, becoming a critical channel for publishers and an increasingly important platform for marketers who want to deliver ads, offers, and other messages to consumers. Mobile Metrix 2.0 lets publishers, marketers, and agencies find and understand their audience in mobile. In addition to unduplicated audience sizes and demographic profiles, Mobile Metrix 2.0 provides granular data on audience engagement — such as time spent browsing sites, using apps, and total duration — and does this at the total market level and at the platform level for Android, iOS, and RIM smartphones. We can observe, for example, how usage of the top mobile publisher properties is divided between the mobile browser and apps.

The fundamental innovation in Mobile Metrix 2.0, though, is the application of our patent-pending Unified Digital Measurement (UDM) methodology to mobile. UDM unifies our mobile panel data and the vast dataset generated by our census network of tagged sites (both ‘classic web’ and mobile-optimized) and apps, providing the most granular and accurate metrics available today.

At comScore we’ve always strived to provide powerful analytics that help our clients improve and optimize their decision-making in an inherently complex digital universe. Mobile Metrix 2.0 delivers the actionable data and intelligence needed to accomplish just that.

In case you missed it, we recently released a study showing the first holistic analysis of cross-platform digital media consumption in the U.S., entitled Digital Omnivores: How Tablets, Smartphones and Connected Devices are Changing U.S. Digital Media Consumption Habits. The study brings together insights from across the comScore mobile suite of products and provides a first look at survey-based behavioral data on tablet use.

In the report, we explore the increasingly fragmented digital media landscape shaped by the widespread adoption of smartphones and entry of tablets and other web-enabled connected devices. As people become increasingly connected through the use of these devices, we are witnessing the transformation of consumers into digital omnivores able to engage seamlessly with a steady stream of digital content across different platforms. Below we will share with you a few key highlights of the broader trends we’re seeing, and tomorrow I’ll be conducting a webinar that will dive deeper into this topic. Below we will share with you a few key highlights of the broader trends we’re seeing, which I also presented at a recent comScore webinar on the topic. You can find the Digital Omnivores webinar presentation here.

Digital Omnivores Are a Global Phenomenon
An analysis of ten selected global markets in August 2011 showed a notable percentage of Internet traffic (measured as browser-based page views) coming from non-computer devices. Singapore led among those markets with more than 7 percent of all Internet traffic in the country coming from smartphones, tablets and other connected devices.

While mobile phones continue to be the main driver of non-computer traffic around the world, it is interesting to see tablets contributing a sizeable amount of traffic for a few mature technological markets. In Canada, tablets drove nearly 40 percent of all non-computer traffic.

Tablets on the Rise, Fueled by iPads
Although tablets have yet to be widely adopted, they already contribute nearly 2 percent of all U.S. Web browsing traffic, driven almost exclusively by the iPad, which currently accounts for more than 97 percent of all tablet traffic. More notably, iPads have also begun to account for a higher share of Internet traffic than iPhones (46.8 percent vs. 42.6 percent of all iOS device traffic), despite accounting for only half of the number of iPhones in use.

iOS Accounts for Largest Share of Connected Devices in Use and Non-Computer Traffic
The iPad significantly contributes to giving iOS the largest share of non-computer devices in use. The pie chart on the left illustrates each platform’s share of devices in use and shows iOS accounting for the highest share at 43.1 percent. The chart to the right shows the share of non-computer digital traffic driven by various platforms and reveals an even stronger position for iOS as it drove nearly 59 percent of non-computer traffic in August 2011 – again, buoyed by the iPad. While the iPad has thus far not seen a substantial competitor in the marketplace, this week’s launch of the Kindle Fire is likely to rapidly change that picture.

Implications for Advertisers and Publishers
These are only a few of the insights contained in our Digital Omnivores report, which you can download here. Advertisers and publishers are often left to wonder what digital media fragmentation means for them. While a multi-platform environment may seem chaotic, complex and difficult to navigate, it is actually presenting opportunities never before thought possible. Each platform represents a unique canvas for media engagement, which provides new opportunities for creativity in advertising. Brands that carry their message effectively across these media touchpoints are best positioned to create long term loyalty and high engagement with their audiences. The digital omnivore is now among us, and learning how to satisfy this complex media appetite is our challenge.

For more information on the webinar we recently presented, please visit Digital Omnivores: Key Insights into Today’s Connected Consumer.

At Apple’s unveiling of the iPhone 4S today at their headquarters in Cupertino, we were excited to see comScore’s data featured prominently for the second time in a major Apple presentation. Previously, as part of the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) keynote presentation in June, the same chart was used to illustrate the prominence of the Apple iOS in having the largest current mobile installed base of smartphones and connected devices.

Source: Apple, Inc.

This chart, which was derived from data in comScore’s syndicated MobiLens service, illustrates each platform’s share of the total universe of smartphones and connected devices in use (excluding feature phones and devices such as e-readers that are not running on an OS capable of running applications). The iOS share accounts for each iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch in use. Similarly, the Android share accounts for phones and tablets running on the Android platform. In sum, this chart shows that out of the total universe of devices running on these mobile platforms, the Apple iOS currently has the largest share of the market at 43 percent.

Now that it has been confirmed that the iPhone 4S will be available on the Sprint network, how might Apple’s share of this pie change? Which market segments traditionally underserved by the platform are now within reach? Read our recent report on the impact of the next iPhone on the telecom industry at large.

Earlier this week, Apple sent out an invitation confirming the topic of discussion for its heavily anticipated media event on October 4 – the iPhone. As the buzz surrounding the purported release of the next generation of iPhones escalated in recent weeks, comScore has been studying the potential impact of a new iPhone on the mobile industry at large. We’re pleased to report that comScore’s analysis of the implications the iPhone 5 could have on the operator landscape is available for download here.

In the report, we analyzed the current mobile industry to see what is at stake for each of the players involved.

• Sprint has been rumored to be the next carrier to host the iPhone. What sectors can Apple hope to reach with Sprint that might currently be under-served by Verizon and AT&T?
• What does the entry of a third player mean for Verizon, which just recently joined AT&T in carrying the iPhone in February?
• As the original carrier of the iPhone, does AT&T continue to hold any advantages over other carriers providing the iPhone?
• This next release from Apple comes at a time when the Google Android platform has captured the largest share of the smartphone market in the U.S. What does Apple stand to gain with the potential iPhone 5 release?

Our answers to these questions and more can be found here. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the iPhone announcement next week and what it will mean for the mobile landscape. Stay tuned for additional insights from comScore as we find out more about what’s next for the iPhone.

Download the “iPhone 5: Implications for the Operator Industry” report here.

Last year, comScore marked another mobile first with the release of the GSMA Mobile Media Metrics (MMM) product suite in the United Kingdom. This remarkable collaboration among comScore the GSMA mobile trade association and UK mobile operators provided, for the first time, a view of mobile browsing behavior based on a census of mobile operator traffic.

Last week, we marked the first full day of summer by announcing the immediate availability of MMM application reporting. By providing media owners and agencies a view into both browsing and connected application usage, MMM offers a significantly more complete and more granular view of mobile media consumers and their habits. For the first time the market is able to see the audience reach of mobile apps together with a measure of the media consumed by users; media owners are able to characterize their properties by traffic and audience profile from both browsing and application use.

This initiative and its underlying technology and expertise are relevant far beyond the UK market. The ability to process, analyze, and report on massive amounts of network operator data in a way that resonates with the needs of media buyers is on public display in the GSMA MMM product suite, but it’s a capability comScore has demonstrated and deployed to operators in a wide variety of markets. It’s not simply a technology and measurement win—the solution has passed the muster of strict EU privacy regulations and a third-party audit.

The mobile market - and particularly the smartphone and connected device sectors - are growing dramatically. It’s a challenge to accurately and meaningfully measure a phenomenon as important and dynamic as mobile, which is why comScore has focused on investing in and building out an array of measurement approaches. Network census, as illustrated by our work with the GSMA and the UK operators, is a key component of this strategy, as is our sophisticated MobiLens survey and our work to provide content owners and app developers with the tools to properly tag their sites and apps.

Over the next several months we’ll be enhancing our products in the UK, the U.S. and other global markets with mobile data from tagged sites and apps. Content publishers who wish to participate - and provide advertisers with independent third-party metrics to help evaluate and justify their marketing spend - are invited to see what we have to offer at direct.comscore.com.

On Monday, we were especially pleased to see comScore’s data featured prominently in the keynote kicking off Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco. There’s nothing like a 20’ tall pie chart to make a data wonk smile!

The chart, entitled “Mobile Installed Base,” was used to illustrate how the iOS has the largest platform footprint in the U.S. Since there have been a few questions floating around the web about what this data represents exactly, we thought it would be worth taking a moment to explain. This particular data representation is based on comScore’s most recent U.S. data on the current installed base of smartphones and a subset of “connected devices,” which is a new category we began reporting on earlier this year. The iOS data includes the three primary devices on which the platform resides: iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches. Similarly, the Android slice includes Android-based phones and tablets, while The RIM slice includes Blackberry phones and Playbook tablet. The Other slice includes smartphones or tablets running Windows, Symbian, WebOS, or other operating systems. (Excluded from this chart are eBook readers, which to date have not been broadly and easily addressable by application developers.) These data are published monthly as a standard part of our syndicated MobiLens service which is available in the U.S., United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Japan, and Canada.

As smartphones become ubiquitous and device manufacturers follow Apple’s lead with the release of an array of tablets and other networked devices, consumers are increasingly connecting to their digital world while on the go or sitting on the couch. This is a shift that we’ve anticipated for some time at comScore. Through MobiLens, our Media Metrix Total Universe reports, and other products to be released later this year we’re focused on providing clients with industry-leading insight on these powerfully disruptive trends.

A very straightforward premise underlies the work we do as a mobile team at comScore: collect the best possible data about the dynamic mobile market and turn it into actionable insight that our clients can rely on to run their businesses.

But while our focus is simple, the mobile space we’re measuring is increasingly complex. It’s a landscape filled with multiple device platforms, competing content ecosystems based on both device technology platforms and operator networks, and emerging classes of devices such as tablets and eBook readers that further complicate what we think of as “mobile.”

Our approach to this complexity has been to thoughtfully measure the mobile market using an array of methodologies and data sources including a metered panel of Smartphones (Mobile Metrix), a sophisticated, multi-market online survey (MobiLens), and a census of mobile operator network traffic (GSMA Mobile Media Metrics).

This week we’re providing clients with an additional source of data as we debut mobile-optimized tagging for publishers.

While mobile page views to PC-optimized Web pages are currently included in the “Other” category as part of the Media Metrix Universe report, this new extension of our Unified Digital Measurement™ initiative provides a mobile-optimized tag designed to fully measure the traffic to mobile-optimized Web sites and applications. For example, while mobile traffic to www.nytimes.com is tracked by existing comScore tags, our mobile tags are designed for mobile-optimized sites such as m.nytimes.com or nytimes.mobi.

Our internal research has demonstrated that mobile platforms such as Android, iPhone, and RIM often elicit behavior very different than PCs and that there are even substantial differences between different versions of the same platform. Audience measurement support is uneven across devices and each platform handles cookies differently or doesn’t accept them at all. The comScore mobile tag was developed to capture traffic across the major smartphone platforms, hundreds of feature phones, and mobile devices including iOS, Android, RIM, Palm, Windows, and Symbian operating systems.

This granular measurement of the mobile Web will be complemented later this month when we debut application analytics for Apple, Android, and RIM platforms, which will take us yet another step closer to rounding out a more comprehensive picture of the mobile media landscape.

comScore’s mobile Web tagging is simple to implement and is available today at no cost to publishers worldwide. For more information, please contact your account representative. Not a client? For more information and to participate, please email mobiletaginfo@comscore.com.