AvantGo Conducts PDA User Survey

Posted By: Ryan Monday, February 24, 2003 11:00:31 AM

AvantoGo has released the results of it's 2003 Mobile Lifestyle Survey. The survey was entirely delivered and carried out on respondents PDA's running MyAvantGo software. The survery sought to highlight the trends and demographics among those who regularly carry and use a personal digital assistant (PDA).

The results may surprise brand managers and marketers looking to reach that key male, age 25-50 audience. The study found that mobile device users in 2003 are mostly male, well educated and well paid with varied interests in sports and travel, for example.

"They are an elusive group for marketing professionals to reach -- 25- to 50-year-old males -- yet they can wield significant influence on the purchasing of products and services," said Neil Versen, vice president of sales at AvantGo. "This survey shows that My AvantGo, a proven marketing medium that literally puts information in the palms of customers' hands, has captured them and their buying habits."

Profile of a Mobile User in 2003: He's Male, Educated and Active
Of those surveyed in the 2003 Lifestyle Survey: Eighty-four percent are male. Sixty-nine percent are between 25 and 50 years of age, with 40% between 35 and 50. They are well educated with more than two-thirds completing college, a masters or a PhD degree. Over half have an annual household income above $60,000, with a full 26% over $100,000. And, if you think they are just geeks, think again. They are sports fans, watching football (51%), basketball (28%), baseball (23%) and NASCAR (13%), and on any given day you may find over 80% of them participating in outdoor sports, including golfing (19%), hiking (17%) and cycling (15%).

Other characteristics of the mobile user in 2003 include:

They come from a variety of industries, and the majority of these PDA users own both their homes and their cars. However, nearly a third are in the market to purchase a new vehicle in less than one year.
They travel for both business (with 12% averaging more than 10 business trips a year) and for pleasure (with 24% taking over three vacations per year).
When they aren't traveling, they are busy using wireless services from a variety of carriers and a combination of their desktop and laptop computers to conduct online purchases of books (60%), PC software (56%) and CDs/music (49%). In the next six months, among the items they intend to purchase are new PCs, appliances and cameras.
Of course, they all own a PDA that almost two-thirds purchased for themselves, while others were a gift or provided by their employers.

About the Mobile Lifestyle Survey
The 2003 Mobile Lifestyle Survey is based on responses from 1,450 My AvantGo users. The self-administered survey was completed over a two-week period in February 2003 and delivered on mobile devices via the My AvantGo service. Respondents were self-selecting. To request a copy of the survey results, visit avantgo.com.

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Web page and PalmOS 5

NikMan @ 2/24/2003 11:37:21 AM #

Am I stupid or not? I cannont easily find on their page a link to download client! Also I think their site is totally not understandable!!!

Where is PalmOS 5 program too?

RE: Web page and PalmOS 5

Ben S @ 2/24/2003 11:41:17 AM #

http://www.plkr.org

:-)

RE: Web page and PalmOS 5

nakolo @ 2/24/2003 11:45:28 AM #

http://avantgo.com/support/beta_news.html

All you ever wanted to know about their OS5 beta (or at least what they have to say about it at this time). Not bad.

----------------
TT First Adopter, Purchased 10/29/2002
Palm III, IIIc, T|T

RE: Web page and PalmOS 5

gfunkmagic @ 2/24/2003 12:00:50 PM #

Nikman,

you need to setup an account before you can download the client. Here is the link:

https://my.avantgo.com/register/account_form_1.html

RE: Web page and PalmOS 5

NikMan @ 2/24/2003 12:25:29 PM #

I found it all on their web site, thanks anyway. I just wanted to say, that their page is not easy to use.

Plucker is great, I have used it on my old palm, but for Palmos 5 it is not ready..

my favorite is Pendragon browser, but their palmOS 5 is still in beta and it will be on compatible with without any new functions or better graphics. I really like to see high density icons:)

RE: Web page and PalmOS 5

ganoe @ 2/24/2003 12:51:40 PM #

> I just wanted to say, that their page is not easy to use.

Their page is plenty easy to use. If you don't have an account, the software would be fairly useless anyhow.

RE: Web page and PalmOS 5

Ben S @ 2/24/2003 1:42:49 PM #

>Plucker is great, I have used it on my old palm, but for Palmos 5 it is not ready..

It works fine in OS5: http://hires.plkr.org/ . I've been using it since December without any problems. There's also an ARM-native ZLIB library, so performance is much improved on compressed documents.

RE: Web page and PalmOS 5

Haber @ 2/25/2003 8:34:24 AM #

I've been using AvantGo for a year or two, and I can attest that the website is difficult to navigate and non-intuitive. It can easily have someone running in circles unless they know exactly what to do.

RE: Web page and PalmOS 5

Lucky Bob @ 2/25/2003 3:23:50 PM #

I went to re-download Avantgo last week, and I found they had changed the lay-out of their website. It took me forever just to find where to download the service!

(Why do some people say you can kill two birds with one stone when it's hard enough killing one bird with two stones?)

RE: Web page and PalmOS 5

Jeff_T @ 2/26/2003 11:13:54 AM #

I think the train passed without Avantgo since the day Hi-Res was introduced and until today, Avantgo has been unable to add Hi-Res functionality.

With the introduction of other offline readers ( http://www.plkr.org - http://www.iSilo.com - http://www.handStory.com ), and the forming of mobile user communities ( http://www.turcic.com/forums ), I think Avantgo will have a real hard time to catch the train back.

RE: Web page and PalmOS 5

adamm @ 2/27/2003 4:00:33 PM #

Hey Avantgo, want a *really big hint* on how to support OS5 hires?

http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/docs/palmos/Bitmap.html#1096227

RE: Web page and PalmOS 5

Impartial @ 2/27/2003 6:03:52 PM #

lol

---------------------------------------
You may imagine that this is a witty statement, if you like.

How long will Avantgo offer its free consumer service?

gfunkmagic @ 2/24/2003 1:33:45 PM #

I keep hearing rumors that Avantgo will start charging for their service soon? Is this true? I recall that Avantgo was acquired by Sybase last year... How will this affect things in the future?

RE: How long will Avantgo offer its free consumer service?

abosco @ 2/24/2003 3:22:37 PM #

Well they offer 2 MB free and 8 MB for $25/yr already. It was a shock when they did that so IMO, they won't go any lower. From what I hear, getting an AvantGo channel is expensive, and there's so many channels available that it's a wonder that they're not too profitable. Well, I hope it stays free for 2 MB. I, for one, think the service is good.

-Bosco
Proud Member of the Top Non-Mods
Members: abosco and ImpReza M3

RE: How long will Avantgo offer its free consumer service?

HiWire @ 2/24/2003 5:57:25 PM #

If they do start charging for 2MB downloads, somebody should start coding a free solution that munches web pages nicely into your Palm with an easy-to-use interface - if this doesn't already exist.

I find AvantGo's current service to be slow in response and when I'm picking channels - probably because their servers are constantly under load.

Palm m505 User

RE: How long will Avantgo offer its free consumer service?

ozz @ 2/25/2003 12:05:03 AM #

I have been using Avantgo for at least 2 years and I really like the program/service. There are many interesting and useful topics. When I have some spare time during the day, I browse their newspapers, movie reviews, weather channel and even PalmInfoCenter.com! Have you tried CoolQuiz.com channel? Fun.

RE: How long will Avantgo offer its free consumer service?

anjrober1 @ 2/25/2003 8:21:22 AM #

Hey HiWire,
As mentioned above, check out plucker (www.plkr.org). Freeware alternative to AG. Not exactly AG, but close and free.

RE: How long will Avantgo offer its free consumer service?

radleyp @ 2/25/2003 10:38:19 AM #

I gave up on AvantGo a long time ago. Plucker is a good alternative. A better one is iSilo, which costs $, but IMHO, is very worth it. At the Turcic.com site you can get a whole series of preformatted websites which are far better than their AvantGo equivalents. AvantGo has only one advantage, which is that it has a conduit. If you can remember to convert your files - which for me is now a habit - you do much better with iSilo. I should also point out that on a Palm or Sony with a card, you can mount the card, and just drag and drop the files onto the card. AvantGo's card loading is awful. PDR

RE: How long will Avantgo offer its free consumer service?

GPG @ 3/2/2003 10:09:12 AM #

I have just joined this august body and was not aware of some of the other options. However, I have found that with a great deal of diligence that I have successfully created an AvantGo account and created a channel that allowd me to do one of the things I most wanted to do...Create quizzes on Handysheets (Hi-Ce)and provide them to students on their handhelds. I would not say that it was an easy process, but it is one that works well once completed. I am a director of economic education at the Boston fed and we are developing a new economic education program which overtime will incorporate handhelds adn this type of quizzing capability in a museum'like setting.