Best of 2013 Entertainment & Tech poll results

The Hobbit sequel, GTA V, Apple and iPhone 5 are all winners in our Best of 2013 poll conducted by Harris Interactive in early January 2014.

The results are based on a nationally representative sample of GB consumers aged 16-64. All the poll results were based on unprompted, spontaneous answers provided by those surveyed.

The categories were:

• Movie of the Year
• PC/Console Game of the Year
• Band/Artist of the Year
• Device of the Year
• Technology Brand of the Year

Click here for the full and free report.

The full free report can be downloaded here.

iPad 2 tops our all-time list of tablets, phablets and smartphones - will the iPad Air better it?

Here's another snippet from our series of Harris Buzz reports, this time looking at our all-time list of excitement for tablets, phablets and smartphones.

Apple dominates the top of the list, but interesting to see the rather old (but still available) iPad 2 ahead of more recent releases. Maybe Apple needs to do a little more than release a quicker, thinner iteration, as I suggested in a previous post.

We'll be measuring the buzz for the new iPad Air in the next edition of Harris Buzz, released later this month.

	% of GB public aged 16-64 excited about this
iPad 2	29%
iPhone 5	25%
The New iPad	25%
iPad	24%
iPhone 5S/5C	21%
4G UK	21%
iPhone 4S	21%
Samsung Galaxy S4 unveil	20%
Windows 7 Mobile	20%
iPhone 4	20%
iPad Mini	19%
Kindle Fire UK	19%
Samsung Galaxy Note	19%
UK’s first 4G network	19%
Amazon Kindle Fire	19%
Nexus 7 tablet	18%
Samsung Galaxy S3	18%
Nokia E7 smartphone	17%
Sony Ericsson Xperia Play	17%
Microsoft Surface preview	16%
BlackBerry PlayBook	16%
Samsung Galaxy Tab	16%
Samsung Galaxy Note 3	15%
HTC One launched	15%
Apple iCloud	15%
Nokia/MS partnership	15%
Samsung smartwatch	13%
Apple iOS7	13%
Samsung Galaxy Note 8 unveiled	13%
Microsoft Surface launched	13%
Apple Siri software	13%
Samsung curved screens	12%
Tesco launch Hudl tablet	12%
BlackBerry 10 revealed	12%
Optimus 4X HD	12%
Nokia Lumia launched	12%
HP TouchPad	12%
Motorola Xoom	12%
Xperia Z1 goes on sale	11%
Nexus 4	11%
HTC One unveiled	11%
Nexus 10	11%
HTC Flyer tablet	11%
Microsoft buy Nokia	10%
Lumia 920	10%
Roaming costs capped	10%
Nokia 808 revealed	10%
KitKat Android	9%
Nokia Lumia 925 slim	8%
Sony unveils Xperia Z	8%
Sony "touchless" display	8%
Nokia Lumia 1020	7%
HP Slate 7	6%
Dell Streak	6%
Huawei Ascend P6	5%
O2 Tu Go app	5%

Why has Apple become so BORING?

I'm a geek. I'm the type of person that used to livestream Apple events to see what goodies lay in wait, even though I'm far from an Apple fanboi and the only product I own is an ageing iPod touch.

They were genuinely interesting viewing for a geek as Apple continued to push boundaries and surprise the viewer.


I've now stopped bothering watching Apple events.

Yesterday's event gave me even more reason to skip following them. A new 5S with, surprise surprise, a new chip and a fingerprint reader. Plus a "cheaper" iPhone 5C. I'm yawning as I write this. It's a big bunch of meh. The iOS7 update is an improvement but, in my humble opinion, the UI has been surpassed by Android years ago for usability and eye-candy.

Don't get me wrong, I think having a fingerprint reader is both neat and addresses a real problem with mobile security and privacy. But it's not something that produces any kind of emotional response whatsoever. Nor are chip updates, which are entirely expected.

Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps a cheaper (but still very expensive) iPhone 5C will tear open new markets both here and overseas. Who needs surprise and innovation if the profits pile up. We'll be testing this in new research - the new iPhone 5S and 5C will appear in next month's Harris Buzz report, which measures the familiarity and excitement of new technology and entertainment releases.

And maybe I'm wrong and the iPhone 6 and upcoming iWatch will be revolutionary and I'll get back to thinking that Apple really is the innovative company I thought it once was.

Samsung Galaxy S4 buzz significantly trailing iPhone 5

The latest Harris Buzz report for April is now available. See here to download the full, free report.

This is now our 27th edition of Buzz. Each month we take a national poll via the Harris PollTM Omnibus and test awareness and excitement of the latest news stories and releases in technology and entertainment.

One of the most interesting releases we tested in the latest report is the unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S4.

We can take a look at whether it's created the same sort of Buzz as other flagship phones, including the iPhone 5.




Let's take a look at where Samsung's new flagship smartphone ranks for excitement against some other notable smartphone and tablet releases over the last couple of years...

Samsung are the leading smartphone seller right now and it launched the Galaxy S4 with a heap of razzmatazz. We see its Excitement Buzz towards the top of the list but not right at the top. iPhone 5's buzz at its time of release is significantly higher.

I thought the S4 announcement was significant in that I can't recall a launch from any other smartphone/tablet company that could rival it for the level of anticipation it generated, aside from iPhone and iPad announcements. And the launch could hardly be described as subtle - it was a huge fanfare event from Samsung.

While Samsung is substantially outselling Apple in the smartphone business, we do see however that it still needs to catch up for Excitement in the general market. Bear in mind this is national polling, not polling of smartphone purchase intenders. Apple has now had a solid five years or so of fanfare events to launch its mobile products, so Samsung needs to continue to generate the same sort of buzz for its launches in the future.

The full report, which also includes a host of other launches and news stories (see below) can be downloaded for free by clicking on this link.

And here is the full list of stuff we included in the April Buzz report:

·         BBC Television Centre closes with Madness concert

·         BBC to premiere a new Peter Kay sitcom on BBC iPlayer

·         BioShock Infinite video game

·         Comic Relief 2013 raises record £75m

·         The Croods movie

·         Dell company receives bid for a takeover

·         Gears of War: Judgement video game

·         New David Bowie album ‘The Next Day’

·         O2 launches ‘Tu Go’ app to challenge Skype

·         Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone unveiled

·         SimCity video game

·         Trance movie

·         Yahoo! buys teenager’s Summly mobile app for £18m

iPhone 5 tops the Buzz list for October

The latest monthly Buzz report is now available - click here to download it for free.

As usual, we measure the awareness and excitement of the latest news and releases in technology, telecoms and entertainment.

I don't know about you, but the iPhone 5 launch (and the iPad Mini one too) left me feeling a bit meh. That said, October's Buzz report shows the iPhone 5 topping our poll of what's got the Great British public excited in the world of tech and entertainment.

Indeed if you look at the "all-time" list below, you'll see the iPhone 5 beats the iPhone 4 and 4S.

Top ranking for Excitement Buzz (all-time list)

All the previous Buzz reports can be found here.

As a teaser, November's Buzz report will include iPad Mini, Windows 8, Surface, 4K TV, Skyfall, Xbox Music and a lot more.

Do tablet and smartphone owners care about physical media?

Another snippet here from our report on tablet and smartphone users, this time taking a look at the preference for either physical or digital media. We gave people three options across a range of different media - that they prefer physical, prefer digital or if their preference is split between the two.

What do we see? When compared to smartphone users (which is now a mainstream audience), tablet owners are much more digital, even when it comes to books and magazines.

Music and photos have long since migrated digital, so it's no surprise to see these spiking for digital among both types of owner. Films and printed media remain more physically-biased for smartphone owners, but we see clearly how the impact of a tablet can make very large dents in these areas.

There isn't a single type of media for which tablet owners express a greater preference for physical media over digital - digital always "wins".

As the market for tablets may double in 2012, expect to see the the digital migration for entertainment accelerate. Just as well things like Ultraviolet are coming through for film, as well as more established services like LOVEFiLM and Netflix.

See more about the full report (which is free to download) by clicking here.

Tablet research - profiling tablet owners

Here's another snippet from our Touchscreen Life report, a major research study on tablets and smartphones.

Here we take a look at the profile of tablet owners in the UK.

There's so much more in the report. And it's free to download.

Click here for more information.

Tablet research, smartphone research - the full report and infographic

We released the all the findings of our tablet and smartphone research study today. Titled "Touchscreen Life", it is a major report on tablet and smartphone usage in the UK.

It's all free and for public release.

Click here for everything (full report, summary report & infographic)
Click here for the full report (12MB, 180+ pages)
Click here for the summary report (20+ pages)
Click here for the infographic or click on the image on the left
Click here for our press release

You'll find an incredibly rich and informative amount of information in the full report. Here is a list of what we cover:

• Device ownership (not only tablets/smartphones but a range of consumer tech)
• Ownership profiling
• General usage (basic services)
• "Next Gen" services - familiarity, usage & appeal (e.g. NFC, Visual Search etc.)
• Wave-and-pay
• Interactive advertising
• Device dependency (also see my earlier post on this)
• A focus on Windows 8
• Security, privacy and trust
• A focus on the cloud
• TV and film
• Apps and gaming
• Music
• Gambling
• Physical vs. digital media
• Consumerisation of the workplace
• Deep profiling

If you would like to find out more, get in touch. My contact details are on the right-hand pane.

Tablet research - Nexus 7 trails iPad by a large margin for awareness & excitement

The latest Harris Buzz report is available, the 17th edition - click here to download the free report.

As always, we look at 13 new releases and technology/media/entertainment news stories in July, including Andy Murray's sobbing exit from Wimbledon, measuring awareness, discussion and excitement on a nationally representative GB Harris Poll sample.

We also covered the Nexus 7, the first tablet from Google, a 7 inch device made by Asus. For me, this is the most interesting story because we can compare its Buzz with that of all three iPads. We always test at time of   launch, so all the results are comparable.

What do we see for the Nexus 7? Let's take a look at awareness and excitement.

For familiarity we see Apple's products topping the list with the last two iterations building on the media frenzy of the first. Nexus 7 is the most recent tablet and its level of awareness is more comparable to that seen for Galaxy Tab, Playbook and Touchpad. I've put the date of the fieldwork (when we measured awareness) on each bar to be absolutely clear how these are benchmarked. Apple's lead (from iPad 2) is not quite double that of Nexus 7, but it's not far off that mark.

Now let's look at excitement. Below you'll see the iPad reigning supreme, well ahead of the rest. Nexus 7 is again roughly on par with the Galaxy Tab.

What does it mean for Google and Nexus? And for any tablet maker other than Apple for that matter? Well, Apple's grip on the market has been firm, and it remains so. We shouldn't take this, in any way, that the Nexus 7 is a failure. It's not. It's been critically acclaimed and it's sold out. But these graphs do show what a steep hill Apple competitors have to climb to gain the attention of the public and the mainstream tablet buyer.

And this data also shows that it is the iPad that retains the most excitement when people think about tablets. There's something about the iPad that generates a buzz that other manufacturers are yet to match.

All the Buzz reports from which this data is mined can be found here.

EURO 2012 tops our buzz list for June and SmartGlass pips Wii U

Harris's latest Buzz report is available. Click here to download, it's free as usual.

Not only did EURO 2012 top our list for June, it also tops the our all-time list for excitement of everything we've covered in entertainment, media, technology and mobile in the last two years.

We also covered Microsoft's Surface, SmartGlass and Xbox Music, as well as the E3 reveal of the Wii U console. We'll cover these again closer to launch. In the report you'll see SmartGlass ahead of Wii U right now, but it's early days and I'll be blogging about this particular mini battle later this week.

Here's a full list of what we covered in late June. As usual the buzz report looks at awareness, level of discussion and excitement.

• Apple reveal a new line of MacBook computers
• Diablo 3 video game
• EURO 2012 football tournament
• Flame internet virus steals data from sensitive Iranian & Israeli organisations
• Internet “trolls” (people who abuse others persistently online) to be identified under new measures
• Microsoft announce SmartGlass for smartphones and tablets to work in union with an Xbox console
• Microsoft announce Xbox Music streaming service
• Microsoft reveal “Surface”, their own brand of tablet computer devices
• Prometheus movie
• Rock of Ages movie
• Stars perform at Queen’s Jubilee concert
• Stone Roses band reunite and tour for the first time in 16 years
• Wii U gaming console is revealed

Connected TV research, Smart TV research - is it the year of connected TV

Harris released a nice new research report on Connected TV. The full report is free - click here to download it.

It looks at Connected TV, who's using it, who's not and why not, and it includes our list of the 7 things that need to happen for it to a better hold of our living rooms.

Will it take a new television set from Apple to set the market alight?

It's based on a Harris Poll survey in GB, including over 500 connected TV owners.

An article based on the report is also available on Brand Republic, Media Week, Marketing Magazine, CampaignLive and PRWeek.

If you want to know more, get in touch - contact details on right hand pane.

Prometheus, Diablo 3, Wii U, SmartGlass, Surface and EURO 2012 all in the upcoming Buzz report

Here's a teaser for what we're including in the upcoming Harris Buzz report from Harris Interactive. It will be out in a week or so and as usual I'll post a link to the full, free report here.

Here's what we're asking the GB general public about:

• Prometheus movie
• Rock of Ages movie
• Diablo 3 video game
• Wii U gaming console revealed
• Microsoft announce Xbox Music streaming service
• Microsoft announce SmartGlass for smartphones and tablets to work in union with an Xbox console
• Apple reveal a new line of MacBook computers
• ATMs may soon operate without a card, using a smartphone instead
• Stone Roses band reunite and tour for the first time in 16 years
• Stars perform at Jubilee concert
• EURO 2012 football tournament
• Flame internet virus
• Internet "trolls"  to be identified under new measures

I will post a link to the report when it's ready on this blog. All the previous Buzz reports (all 15 of them) can be found here.

iPad research - The New iPad tops our April Buzz poll

Here is a link to download the full free April Buzz report from Harris - click here. See the prior post to see everything we measured.

No surprise to see The New iPad topping our list for Excitement Buzz in April. 

The question is how well does the New iPad do compared to iPad 2 and the original iPad.

Let's take a look at the Buzz results. Below are the Buzz scores achieved by the three launches and in each case the fieldwork was conducted with nationally representative sample (base>1000) in GB at the time of each launch. We use the Harris Poll to do the surveys.

The New iPad, despite having the same familiarity level as iPad 2, doesn't quite achieve the same level of Discussion and Excitement Buzz.

All these scores are high and they remain the highest Buzz scores for any tablet we measured. We've yet to see any Android tablet match these scores. And while the scores for the New iPad trail that for iPad 2, it will do little to dent sales and Apple raking in the cash.

But perhaps Apple need a little more than a spanking new HD screen in their 4th generation iPad next year to push these Buzz even higher?

Buzz report bonanza - two new reports available

It's been a while since I've updated and there are two new free Harris Buzz reports available to download.

Buzz#10 - the November 2011 report is available here
Buzz#9 - the October 2011 reports is available here

Here's a summary of all the news stories and the brands we've measured in these two reports:

As always, get in touch if you want to know more. My contact details are on the right-hand pane.

Harry Potter tops all-time list of Buzz excitement

The latest Harris Buzz report is available - click here and as usual it is free to download the full report.

In this edition (the 8th edition) we look at the public's awareness and buzz for the latest tech, media and entertainment news, including the newest Harry Potter film, the furore over phone hacking and the release of Google+.

The excitement for the last installment in the Harry Potter series tops our all-time list of excitement. The full all-time list ranked by excitement is shown below - and see the full report for the full story.

Get in touch if you want more details - contact details on the right-hand pane.

Tablet research - Tablet special Buzz coming soon in early July

A quick post to alert you to the July edition of Harris Buzz. This will be a free report to download and I'll post a link on this blog for you to download.

The July edition of Harris Buzz is a bit of a tablet special. We have reprises of all the major competitors to iPad and iPad 2, both of which we covered in previous editions of Buzz and you can download any of the previous reports here.

In the July Buzz edition we will be looking at:

LA Noire video game

Portal 2 video game

Fable III video game

HTC Flyer tablet device

Motorola Xoom tablet device

Blackberry Playbook tablet device

Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet device

Nintendo 3DS

Orange/Barclaycard launch “pay-with-mobile” Quick Tap payment service

Twitter users warned over super-injunction infringements

Apple announce iCloud music streaming and online media storage service

Nintendo unveil new “Wii U” console (follow-up to Wii)

Sony unveil new “Playstation Vita” handheld gaming device (follow-up to PSP)

The report should be available to download for free next week.

Get in touch if you have any queries - my contact details are on the right-hand pane.