High-end mobile apps largely ignored, survey finds

The survey also found that the traditional young person domains — social networks, blogs and online sites — remain in the realm of the 18-to-24 year olds. This group was 10 times as likely as those over 55 to use social-network sites and seven times as likely to write blogs or contribute to other online sites.

In terms of CE products, some vendors have explored adding wireless connectivity as a way to generate more revenue. On the mobile handset front, turning unused mobile apps into profit-generating opportunities may come from how the apps are marketed and to whom. More likely, however, it will come from improving the user experience, Puri said.

“We believe it’s a lot about the user experience — properly designing that experience and also thinking about how to segment the experiences based on the customer,” Puri said. “I think the fact that older generations actually have more time and income but are not using technology in the same way indicates that there’s an opportunity to design those experiences for them. Certainly, create a new market opportunity. In terms of the youth, there is more of an opportunity to think about how do you monetize those experiences.”

Opportunities from advertising will help drive and monetize the adoption of mobile applications such as video and games, especially considering that Gen Y has proven much more open to it than their parents’ generation. Mobile is still the wave of the future; it will just take longer than some expected, Puri said. Consumers are largely creatures of habit, especially in an increasingly price-sensitive time. Mobile apps will start to really take off with experimentation, new revenue models and time.

“We expect that over the next 10 to 15 years, there will be a shift in the behavior, but it won’t be as quick as everybody thinks and some in the industry hope, as they try to develop these new apps and seek to monetize their content in different ways,” Puri said.