IHK

The Life of Steve Jobs…

IHK — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:13:06 +0000

Here is an interesting Infographic on Steve Jobs from Mashable.

RIP Steve – I’m glad I saw you at your last WWDC appearance.

Here is an early look at Google’s Flight Search

IHK — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:45:00 +0000

Google Search recently posted a blog around their new Flight Search.

Take a look – I think it has some very interesting features – but is this too much of a monopoly or something that fits into Google’s core business?

Just over five months ago, we welcomed ITA Software to the Google family. Since then, our engineering teams have been working closely together to build new travel tools that provide faster, more flexible, and more useful results to online travel searches. We wanted to give you an early look at some of what we’ve been able to accomplish so far.

Starting today, when you search for flight information on Google, for example “flights from Chicago to Denver,” you will see a “Flights” link in the left-hand panel. This link leads to our new Flight Search feature, and is offered in addition to the flight schedules which have been available since May. You can also access the Flight Search feature directly at google.com/flights.

With this first step in flight search that combines ITA’s expertise with Google’s technology, you will be able to:

Get super-fast results. Speed is critical to all the things we love on the web, and travel planning should be no exception. Making changes to dates, destinations, and filters should be as fast as we hope you’ve come to expect from Google.

See a simple list of the most relevant flights. Flight Search shows you an easy-to-scan list to help you get to your destination quickly and inexpensively.

Figure out when to travel. Quickly see which travel dates are least expensive by dragging the date selector forward or backward, or check out the bar chart to compare lots of dates at once.

Consider your destination options. Flight Search helps you explore possible destinations, letting you filter them by airline, flight time and price. For example, you can use the map and filters to see where you can go from San Francisco within 3 hours for less than $300.

Flights are chosen primarily based on cost and total travel time, while covering a variety of departure times and airlines. We automatically set the filters to focus on options which are reasonable in both price and duration, and you can always adjust the filters to show even more flights.

The selection of flight results is not influenced by any paid relationships. Airlines control how their flights are marketed, so as with other flight search providers, our booking links point to airline websites only. We’re working to create additional opportunities for our other partners in the travel industry to participate as well.

This is just an early look: the takeoff, not the final destination! You may notice that at the moment we include a limited number of U.S. cities and show results for round-trip economy-class flights only. We’re working hard to improve this feature and look forward to sharing more updates.

Don’t worry if you don’t see the Flight Search feature — we’re rolling it out over the course of the day. To learn more, check out this video:

Flying Social: How Virgin America’s First-Class Marketing Fuels Brand Awareness

IHK — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 23:51:46 +0000

A great article on Virgin America’s use of Social media. Sorry - I forget where this article came from – but enjoy

For those of you who have flown Virgin America, you know that its interpretation of “coach” is very “uncoach.” The cabin is illuminated with purple lights, the safety video is actually entertaining (and informative), beverage and food service is non-invasive and you can chat with fellow fliers via your personal touchscreen TV. It’s a snazzy airline, but beyond that, it has fully embraced technology and social media, going so far as to name one of its planes a hashtag, the#nerdbird.

Mashable spoke with Abby Lundardini, Virgin America’s director of communications, and Jill Fletcher, the airline’s social media manager, about why the brand is so social, how social has contributed to the company’s success and what innovative social media campaigns made the biggest impression.

“Social’s In Our DNA”

Why is Virgin so social? Well, social is in its DNA. “We’re the only airline based in Silicon Valley … and we launched the company in August 2007, when all of these channels were growing exponentially,” says Abby Lunardini.

Plus, in early 2007, when the airline was trying to get off the ground (literally), tech folks who were interested in seeing the Virgin America product — which focuses more on tech features and amenities than other airlines — and were eager to see it start flying.

In May 2009, Virgin America became the first airline to offer Wi-Fi fleetwide, in addition to outlets near every seat, so you can actually get work done on a cross-country flight without your laptop dying.

“A lot of our first support was from the tech community, and everything has stemmed from that,” Lunardini adds. In fact, the airline partnered with Klout last year to provide free flights to Twitter influencers, people who were bound to share their Virgin America experiences with their social networks.

Virgin’s proximity to tech giants like Google and Twitter has enabled the airline to forge strong partnerships within the tech space. These partnerships allowed the airline to team up with Google to offer free inflight Wi-Fi over the holidays, and to partner with Twitter for Promoted Tweets, as discussed below.

Aside from its location, though, part of the brand’s success is that, like other Virgin companies, the brand voice is cheeky, sassy and irreverent — a welcome change for passengers who are used to the grind of air travel. “In everything we do, we try to maintain that enthusiasm and tone,” says Jill Fletcher, who manages the content calendar and makes sure the brand is consistently active across all social media platforms.

And so, while Virgin fans and followers may not outrank those of the big boys like Delta and American Airlines just yet, the brand is seeing incredible growth and engagement. “We’ve grown tremendously in not only the revenue which we bring in, but also the number of fans,” says Fletcher. “We have one of the highest growth rates on Twitter and Facebook out of any domestic airline.”

While the brand is super social now, it wasn’t from the get-go — it took some time for that social DNA to really express itself. While the brand launched in 2007, its social accounts weren’t set up until 2008 and a dedicated team was not put in place until 2009. Since then, though, the social media campaigns have been fun, frequent and successful.

“We’re willing to experiment, and we’re kind of a little bit in the startup space having just launched four years ago,” says Lunardini. “We’ve seen a ton of promise on the guest care and consumer communications side, but also on the revenue side, and when we think something sounds interesting and might work with the business model, we’re definitely willing to think differently and take a risk.”

Taking to Twitter

Of all the platforms, Twitter is where Virgin America shines the most, and admittedly, it’s where it allocates more resources. “We see a lot more engagement on Twitter than on some of the other platforms, because it’s quick, and it’s easy to engage,” says Lundardini. “Also, we were one of the launch partners with Twitter for Promoted Tweets, and our following really took off from there. We started working very closely with Twitter and have done a lot with them.”For two years in a row, Virgin America has run hashtag sales, #FlyMoreGiveBack. Last year, Virgin America partnered with Twitter and announced the 24-hour sale, during which $5 per booking would be donated to an education charity. Lunardini says they raised $50,000, and the sale helped Virgin America nab its fourth highest sales day at that time. This year, the proceeds will benefit Stand Up To Cancer for collaborative cancer research. “Both years, we’ve used Promoted Trends and Promoted Tweets to amplify the message and really get the Twittersphere buzzing,” says Lunardini.

In honor of the company’s fourth anniversary, it hosted a Twitter scavenger hunt at a San Francisco Giants baseball game, tracked through the hashtag #FlyTheBeard, one of Virgin American’s aircraft. It was yet another fun way to celebrate a company milestone while rewarding the fans who helped them get there.

Embracing Daily Deals and Geolocation

When Virgin America announced last August that it would start flying to two new destinations in Mexico, itpartnered with Loopt for a “2-for-1 Tacos and Tickets” promotion. Virgin America invited people to search for two branded taco trucks in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and if they checked in using Loopt, they received a digital promotional code for 2 for 1 tickets to Mexico and 2 for $1 tacos.

To “add a crazy, Virgin flair to the event,” proceeds from the tacos were donated to a chihuahua rescue center. “It was our first foray into the geolocation space, and it was a really successful sale,” says Fletcher. “It was our fifth highest sales day in 2010, and we had more than 1,300 checkins in San Francisco within four hours, so it did really well.”

Virgin America also broke ground in the daily deal space in February, when it was the first airline to do aGroupon. The deal was $77 worth of airfare for $7, and it was a natural fit since the promotion was celebrating its new service to Chicago, Groupon’s home base. The deal sold out in eight minutes, says Fletcher. “It was incredibly well-received, so we’ve repeated those types of campaigns since then,” she adds. When the Dallas route opened, Virgin America offered 20% off for a $5 donation.

“The deal space seems to be what everybody is talking about right now,” says Fletcher. “We’ve gone on to work with other partners as well, such as Loopt deals — we did a a user-generated deal. And very recently we did one with Gilt City where we sold 3, 5 and 10-packs of [roundtrip] Main Cabin Select tickets.” To get an idea on pricing, the 3-pack ran for $427.

In April, the airline started offering points that were redeemable for prizes to customers who checked in to Terminal 2 in the San Francisco Airport on Facebook Places or Foursquare.

“Fun Is Something That Guides The Whole Virgin Brand”

Sure Richard Branson is one of the wealthiest men in the world, but part of Virgin’s success is due to some old-fashioned bootstrapping. “One of the things we’ve found is that even though it’s Virgin, we’re still a relatively small company, and our advertising budgets are not that big, so when we go into a new market, we like to do new and interesting things to amplify word of mouth buzz,” says Lunardini.

For example, when Virgin America announced service to Orlando, the team decide to play on the fact that Orlando is a destination for family vacations, since Disney world is there. So, the airline partnered with AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com to create a photo contest for awkward family vacation photos. Pics were voted on, and the winners got to fly the inaugural route with Branson himself. The promotion was inspired by the Virgin team’s “weird sense of humor, but it was really well received, and it was the first time we had ever partnered with a social meme site,” says Fletcher. Branson is pictured above ready to board the inaugural flight and fully embracing traditional family vacation garb.

Virgin America Just Gets It

“70% of our bookings come from our web channels, so our fliers are really social media savvy and tech savvy, so when something new comes out in the deals space or a geolocation product or something along those lines that’s innovative and interesting, we know that those types of campaigns resonate with our fliers,” Fletcher says. “We are relatively young and nimble, so we can try things very quickly and we really value innovating in the tech space.”

Talk about knowing your audience.

Why The iPhone Has The Potential To Crush The Android

IHK — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 01:09:53 +0000

Jason Collazo published a great article Why The iPhone Has The Potential To Crush The Android on Forbes recently.

I tend to agree with him: Apple will surpass Android in terms of Gross Revenue for 2012. I think Steve Jobs leaving Apple is much ado about nothing since the staff running Apple have been doing so for quite a while.

Android need a decent tablet, tighten up their app store submission standards, get all the crap out of the app store, and have a standardized way of upgrading the Android OS across various Telcos.

Let’s look at Android current selling points:

3D screens: who cares
Open source system: the average consumer does not care about this
NFC Capability: where is anyone using this?

I think Apple has the upper hand in terms of design and quality of apps. Let’s wait until iOS 5 is released and see what happens…

Original article:

Sometimes it’s the pressing question for the tech nerds among us (I’m counting myself, here): iPhone, Android or Blackberry? Lately the word has been “iPhone,” on the verge of the unveiling of its latest (and snazziest) version yet.

And word also has it that October will be when we see this baby enter the smartphone market. Yes, Steve Jobs may have disappeared from Apple’s helm, but all other signs seem promising for this multi-faceted and somewhat beloved company.

Meanwhile, standing on the other side, we have the upcoming release of the deliciously-named Android Ice Cream Sandwich Nexus Prime & Thunderbolt from Android. That sounds great, doesn’t it? Enough to make you pull out yourcredit card and preorder it right now?

Well, wait. The iPhone seems to have the upper hand against all possible competitors, new or already available en masse on the market.

How is this possible? The iPhone has a layer of secrecy around it that makes Fort Knox look like Wal-Mart.

One reason is the fact that the iPhone 5 was a much delayed release. Don’t youremember? The date’s been up in the air for as much as it’s been talked about. There’s even the possibility that it might come out as late as this November or December. Which would make sense, as the holiday hype would only add to the iPhone’s momentum.

And Apple, reportedly to the website TruthDive, is expected to sell some 25 million iPhones by the end of 2011. About 35% of the consumers on the prowl for a new smartphone will be taking an iPhone home with them, they go on to say.

Also, take this into account: the iPhone 5 surpassed its June/July launch date (yes, early this summer and now fall is here). A lot of current iPhone owners have had their contracts up for renewal for a considerable amount of time. These people are just salivating at the idea of the iPhone hitting their nearest Best Buy.

Combine that with the incredible fact that iPhone 5 is going to launch (at the same time) on both Verizon as well as AT&T, along with the possibility of Sprint. That gives the iPhone (slimmer and more convenient to carry this time) a definite fighting edge.

Sure, the Android might brandish near field communication (NFC) capability, 4G LTE, an open-source system, 3D display, etc, but don’t rule out the iPhone. Odds are the end of this year will prove to be good to dear old Apple, if they happen to play their cards right.

“I can’t wait to get my hands on a new iphone,” one of my friends said, when pressed about the topic. “Yeah sure, Androids are nice, but an iphone is an iphone!” And thus Apple fever is about at epidemic rates.

Mobile Marketing: You’ve Come Along way Baby!

IHK — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:56:11 +0000

Mobile Marketing has come a long way. The Tag group at Microsoft came up with a great info graphic on Mobile Marketing.

Check out the Tag Group: gettag.com

Moving to Silicon Valley for the boom? Look at this first…

IHK — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 17:15:42 +0000

Are you thinking of moving to a job in Silicon Valley….make sure you are getting paid well

Thank you to focus.com for the infographic!

PSFK’s Future of Retail Report

IHK — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 17:36:41 +0000

PSFK Future Of Retail Report 2011 [Preview]

View more presentations from PSFK

Lessons Learned from the KLM Surprise: Social meets Engagement

IHK — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 04:07:07 +0000

I was talking to someone from Twitter recently and the conversation sparked a memory of what KLM did last year. Take a look at this video to see what I mean:

The above video reminded me of trying to learn a good golf swing: it’s all in the follow through. KLM not only looked at social media, but also responded to people in real life instead of sending back an @ reply.

I don’t know if I would call the KLM program innovative, but I would place it in highly engaging.

Zappos has a great program of delivering happiness to their customers…and I wonder if there could be a connection to what KLM did.

Here is the article on the KLM campaign from Airline Trends:

10 November 2010 | Combining social media with real-world interactions, KLM has launched a very innovative campaign in which it randomly surprises its passengers at the airport. In what the airline calls “an experiment on how happiness spreads,” KLM has installed a ‘Surprise team’ for four weeks at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport which aims to delight passengers that have checked in at KLM venues on location-based social network Foursquare with little acts of kindness.’

Counter-Googling
How it works: As soon as someone checks in at one of KLM’s Foursquare locations at Schiphol Airport or other airports in KLM’s network, the ‘KLM Surprise’ team goes online to find more background information about the person (a.k.a. ‘counter-googling’). Since many people (especially those that already use Foursquare) have profiles on social networks such as Facebook and Linkedin or twitter frequently, it is relatively easy to find some interesting facts about a person in order to come up with a creative surprise. The KLM team then goes all out to try to contact the person before his or her flight leaves.

Little act of kindness
Some examples of the ‘free love’ KLM is spreading: On Monday October 25^th, the airline started the campaign with giving Tobias Hootsen, on its way to Dubai, a homesick package as he would be abroad for a long time. Another traveller, Willem van Hommel tweeted he would miss an important soccer game of his team, PSV Eindhoven, because he was flying to New York. The KLM team surprised him with a Lonely Planet of the city with all soccer bars marked in blue to make sure he wouldn’t miss the game. KLM passenger Dennis Claesen, meanwhile, was on his way to a conference in Boston when KLM surprised him with a handy notebook in which he could write down ideas. There was a personal message in it for a bit of inspiration. For more examples, follow KLM Surprise on Twitter or see the campaign’s Facebook page.

Journeys of Inspiration
With the ‘KLM Surprise’ initiative, the airline says it wants to add another dimension to its ‘Journeys of Inspiration’ campaign, by literally surprising and inspiring passengers during their journey. Furthermore, the airline uses ‘KLM Surprise’ as a pilot to experiment with new ways of online marketing and to learn how its audience responds to it. For example, the airline monitors how people respond to a surprise (re: ‘how happiness spreads’), for example whether they tweet about it or mention it on Facebook. KLM also follows what kind of conversation in the social mediasphere this creates in turn. The KLM Surprise campaign will run until the end of November when it will be evaluated, but the airline says it may continue to show up unexpectedly in the future.

Mobile Shopping Innovation – half way into 2011 – how are we doing?

IHK — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 05:21:57 +0000

I read a good article by Gary Lombardo (@garylombardo) titled: 5 Technologies That Will Change How Consumers Shop.

There is a lot of hype around how we, the consumer, will be shopping in the “future”. Let’s go down the hype list:

Mobile couponing – Good idea, but let’s face it, coupons are a pain to use and most people (40%ish) don’t redeem them. The one ray of sunshine that I have seen is American Express Link, Like, Love where it’s a paperless coupon that’s attached to your Facebook account. You can redeem the coupon at a store and an amount will be placed back on your card.

QR codes – you see QR codes *every where* but no one has found a good use for them yet. We really need the Mobile device manufactures embed a QR code reader on the phones so people don’t have to open up a reader to only be sent to another site.

Location Based Services – great idea and people constantly wave their arms around when describing what you can do with Location Based Services, but, honestly, who is doing anything with it? Localization is difficult because people want relevancy to what’s around them. People used to scoff at Librarians, but in reality, it will be people who know how to tag things so others can find them, that will save the day. We live in a sea of information, but without the ability to find what we want, then there really isn’t any point to offer Location Based Services.

Augmented Reality – this is more hyped up than the Electric car…and I’m still driving a gas powered vehicle…. But, I honestly believe my next car will be electric and I will be using Augmented Reality to help me make shopping decisions. But that day is not today…

Near Field Communications – go to Japan, see what’s possible and then wonder why the US isn’t doing more with NFC. Maybe you will have a better answer than me. I love the technology and would use it. I see the NFC readers in a lot of stores, but there seems to be a reluctance to rollout NFC payment systems.

Here is Gary’s article – read and let me know what you think:

The pace of innovation and change within multichannel retail is breathtaking. At the same time, it can also be a challenge to understand which technologies will have the most impact with consumers and should be considered by retailers as part of a multichannel strategy.

While there are many technologies that will change how consumers shop, five stand out:

1. Mobile couponing. Mobile couponing has been around for some time, but has seen limited effectiveness due to difficulty in making them relevant, personalized, and timely as well as a lack of consumer willingness to adopt them. However, mobile technology has changed what is possible and mobile couponing is now one of the top activities consumers who use mobile devices for shopping planned on doing. Retailers can now deliver coupons to shoppers on mobile devices based on location, past shopping behavior and preferences, moment of need, and that are paperless, making them convenient to redeem.

How to think about it: What will separate retailers who are successful with mobile couponing from those who are not, will be the approach they take to mobile coupons. Specifically, we believe that retailers who will succeed with mobile couponing are those who approach it differently. Consider integrating mobile coupons throughout the core mobile shopping experience, delivering them beyond traditional push approaches like SMS and rather through LBS, 2D codes, NFC as well as integrating mobile coupons through all touch points, including social networks.

2. 2D Codes. 2D codes suddenly seem to be everywhere—from billboards to magazines to in-store displays—mainly because they are a quick and relatively inexpensive way for marketers to connect the physical world to the online world. They are also effective. Retailers such as Barney’s New York have used QR codes to energize traditional media efforts, while others such as Columbia Sportswear have used QR codes to bring products to life to shoppers in-store.

How to think about it: 2D codes still have a number of challenges to overcome before reaching critical mass. Standardization of code technology (open QR codes v proprietary MS Tags), reader availability, and consumer awareness are the main challenges. They also face long-term obsolescence from NFC (see below), but that is a ways off in the future. 2D codes do not require a lot of time or money to implement and can have large potential returns, so experimenting with them while the cost of learning is low is worth considering.

3. Location based services. Utilizing location based services (LBS) to its fullest potential has eluded retailers mainly due to poor location technologies, cost, user experience, and consumer awareness and adoption. However, that is quickly changing with the emergence of mobile technology as an enabler (i.e. GPS, push technology, app multi-tasking), and the rise of consumer awareness (mainly led by the success of consumer apps such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and SCVNGR) as well as increased consumer willingness to receive location-based offers. Location-based services give retailers a way to take the in-store experience to a much richer, deeper level, which in turn increases brand loyalty and transactions. Examples include: using LBS to provide contextual and relevant offers as consumers are nearby or enter a location, greeting customers when they visit a particular location, informing them of in-store events (the Apple Store app is a great example of this), assisting in locating items (see Tesco’s Finder app), offering rewards for visiting a particular location and providing timely upsell opportunities so customers do not leave empty handed.

How to think about it: LBS is a reality today and will continue to grow in the future, so retailers should consider it part of the multichannel mix. LBS should be thought of in two buckets— third party services (or apps) and what can be provided in the retailer’s mobile shopping app. Third party services, such as Foursquare and Facebook Deals give retailers the opportunity to offer shopping incentives and should be viewed as a channel to reach consumers. Retailers should also seek to build LBS services directly into their own mobile shopping applications Also, looking for ways to integrate third party services into the retailers shopping app (such as ability to check-in on Foursquare directly in the retailers shopping app) represents another opportunity.

4. Augmented reality. We believe that augmented reality (AR) will be a disruptive technology that changes how consumers interact with their environments, being a primary conduit for connecting the digital world and the real world. While AR is in its infancy today, global revenue for augmented reality (AR) is expected to hit $1.5 billion by 2015, much of that coming from leading brands and retailers investing in AR apps and services. We’ve already seen some early successes with AR technology, such as Converse’s The Sampler mobile app, Ikea’s iPhone app, and Lego’s AR kiosk. Some have even yielded noteworthy results, such as Dabs Acer’s AR ad, where 70% of the users to the site chose the live experience and of those 13% converted—not bad results when compared to a normal low single digit conversion rate of most ecommerce sites.

How to think about it: Most early AR success is on mobile devices since it taps into the unique capabilities of mobile: personalization, context and immediacy. They also solve a practical problem for the shopper. Eventually, AR will propagate more widely to other multichannel touchpoints, including merging with other technologies such as LBS, 2D codes and NFC. Consequently, in the short-term, look for ways to use AR as part of your existing mobile native app while monitoring AR technology and consumer adoption for longer-term opportunities.

5. NFC. Perhaps more than any other emerging technology, near field communications (NFC) has the potential to be the most disruptive and have the biggest impact for retailers. NFC will impact much more than mobile payments. It will link together applications and services across different industries, including mobile commerce, mobile marketing, and mobile customer relationship management. For shopping, consumers will be able use NFC to check-in to locations, acquire and redeem loyalty points and coupons, learn more about products, and use it as a form of payment. However, NFC must overcome some challenges before it’s an every-day reality for consumers: standards must be agreed upon, the NFC ecosystem must be built out (device manufacturers including NFC chips in devices, merchants upgrading POS, financial institutions, network operators and others agreeing upon transaction flow and fees), and consumer awareness must be raised significantly. NFC is already used widely throughout Japan and increasingly in Europe. Device manufacturers will play the biggest role in pushing NFC forward in the US and into more wide scale use globally, along with mobile OS and payment providers, such as Paypal and Google. An early example of this is the Nexus S on Android being the first NFC-compatible device on the market. As more NFC devices ship and mobile payment providers push what is possible at POS in-store, NFC will start to realize its potential to transform how consumers shop.

How to think about it: While NFC has a ways to go before mass adoption, retailers should learn from other technologies, such as 2D codes and mobile point of sale (mPOS), as ways to learn consumer habits and apply those lessons to the NFC when the ecosystem matures. Also, thinking about NFC in terms of consumer interaction before driving transactions will help raise consumer uptake. For example, Google is using NFC-enables smart stickers with Google Places to help consumers learn more about local businesses as well as rate and review their products. Not only are local businesses providing valuable information to the consumer with the Google Places NFC stickers, but they are also helping consumers build trust of NFC technology and are paving the way for consumer trust of NFC for transacting in the future.

If you are going to dev something for a tablet – you better dev for iPad

IHK — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 07:22:16 +0000

Recently, Nick Bilton, wrote the following article for the NY Times: Tablet Buyers only Want the iPad.

This reinforces the rule: if you are going to dev something – dev for the iPad. I know Android is making in-roads to the tablet market and the decommissioned HP tablet is selling out, but, the numbers do not lie: it’s an iPad world – for now. If you have dev resources lined up and am weighing what device to dev for, you shouldn’t look too much further than the below graph. In my opinion, people would rather buy a used iPad 1 than a new Android tablet.

I think Android tablets will make a run at the popular iPad, but that day is not here yet.

If you have dev resources – then dev for iPad – it’s the smart choice – for now…

Here is Nick’s original article:

Robert W. Baird

According to a report issued on Wednesday, consumers who already own or plan to buy a new tablet are only interested in one thing: the Apple iPad.

The report, which was published by Robert W. Baird, a Milwaukee-based wealth management and analyst company, was conducted through a survey of 1,114 people, 98 percent of whom lived in the United States.

More than 50 percent of those surveyed, who were between 22 and 60 years old, said they already owned a tablet or were interested in buying one soon, with 95 percent of these respondents choosing the Apple iPad.

Although survey participants were allowed to pick multiple tablet choices, only 10 percent chose the Hewlett-Packard TouchPad as their tablet. A mere 4 percent said they would buy Research in Motion’s new BlackBerry tablet, the PlayBook. The Acer Iconia tablet, which runs Google’s Android software, barely scored 1 percent among survey participants.

Jayson Noland, an analyst and an author of the report, said it was very unlikely that any iPad competitors would be able to catch Apple in the near future. “I find it hard to believe that anyone can compete with the iPad,” he said in a phone interview. “I do think there are opportunities for companies outside the personal tablet category by offering a much much lower cost product that can be used in the workplace as a productivity tool.”

When asked if Google could compete with Apple by offering tablets running Android software, Mr. Noland said, “Unless a product comes out that is half the price of the iPad, and comes with good enough bells of whistles, then its highly unlikely.”

The survey also found that a 83 percent of tablet owners still plan to buy a PC computer in addition to their tablet. This means that tablet cannibalization of the PC computer is taking place at a very slow pace.