Amazon, Facebook and Google Chrome Among the Top Running Apps on Black Friday 2013

This Black Friday we used our powerful smartphone survey/research platform SurveySwipe to collect passive data while shoppers completed our mobile survey. Passive data collection is collected through a mobile application and runs in the background with the users consent. Data is collected from Smartphone sensors helping you analyze how people are using Smartphones in real life scenarios. The data is collected ongoing based on the triggers and variables you set to collect. Some of the variables that can be collected through passive data include: accelerometer, GPS (location tracking), app census, app usage, battery life, memory, 3G/4G network connection, wifi connections, disk space, gyroscope, IP addresses, retina display, SSID and operating systems. By collecting apps running and operating system variables we were able to conclude the following items from our passive data collection study. 

#1: Apps Running While Our Survey Was Being Taken on Black Friday 2013

Amazon, Facebook and Google Chrome were among the top applications running while respondents completed our Black Friday 2013 survey on the SurveySwipe mobile application. Being Black Friday, it was interesting to see that Amazon was among the highest running application (11%) at the time of the survey being taken. Just behind were Facebook (9%) and Google Chrome (9%). We can assume that users were shopping on Amazon for deals and comparing prices throughout their Black Friday shopping experience. IBM's Benchmark featured on TechCrunch concluded Black Friday 2013 online sales were up 20% and that 25% of online traffic on Black Friday was contributed from Smartphones. As we all know, many of us close our mobile apps when we are not using them. Apps that track your location or send frequent updates and push notifications have been deemed notorious for draining the users battery life. At a larger scale of data collection and triggers being set to collect passive data more frequently, these numbers could very well increase. 

#2: Respondents Operating Systems From Our Black Friday 2013 Survey

From the chart above, we were able to conclude that 82% of mobile survey respondents were using an Android Operating System while only 18% of survey takers were running iOS. On the chart, 8-19 are Android OS indicators and 612-704 are iOS indicators. Android 16 (29%) was the most widely used OS, followed by Android 15 (16%) and iOS version 7.0.4 (10%). Knowing the operating systems is important to know areas where you may be falling short. For instance in the next study we perform, we will want to find a way to recruit more iOS users to download the application and complete our mobile survey. Measuring the operating system is also a great way of measuring retention and engagement with our audience based on their operating system. Over time measuring the operating system values you can begin to answer questions such as:Are Android users more likely to return to complete future surveys? Are iOS users harder to engage or more likely to delete the application and taper off?

Learn More About Passive Data Collection

Check out the replay of an educational webinar presented by Survey Analytics CEO Andrew Jeavons titled "How to Collect Passive Data from Smartphone Users." The webinar provides an overview of passive data collection and the variables (data points) that can be collected from Smartphones. Great use case scenarios in multiple industries are covered as well as the concerns about security and privacy from this data being captured. Passive data can be collected through the SurveySwipe application, through a white-labeled SurveySwipe app or within your own existing application through API/SDK. Implementation methods, reporting and the business decisions that can be concluded from this data are also covered in the webinar. 

Catch the replay here.