1. Forced data capture: If our system has access it will automatically pull the type of phone and browser being used to access the website. The information gathered will include the location and time date stamps.
2. User data capture: By asking certain questions, we are able to analyse the facts inputted to gain informative stats that give us key insights into user behaviour allowing us to predict future trends and market movement.
Today, data and the unique interpretations thereof are one of the most sought after information types available to companies.
Student Brands believes this data should be free for everyone. We have gathered industry stats on varsity students for 2011 and 2012 across SA. Our data sample is pretty big and is taken from a sample of about 30 000 students annually.
We use Quick Response (QR) code technology to collect all our data. QR code in essence is a website address or URL that a smartphone camera can interpret quickly and direct the user accordingly. This technology has been around since 2004 but only started becoming popular in SA in 2010.
The code basically allows mobile websites to be scanned in on devices rather than having to physically type out the long web address. On Blackberry devices the QR code readers come as a standard built into the app store while other smartphones require a free downloadable app to scan these codes. Despite new technologies currently available such as: MS Tags; AR and NFC which are already in production, we believe QR codes still have a life span of about five years in SA.
In 2011 Student Brands data research found that mobile phone devices across the national youth market were as follows:
- Blackberry 66%
- IPhone 27%
- Android 4%
- Nokia 3%
2012 so far has revealed quite a statistical change.
- Blackberry with 70%
- Android 30%
- IPhone 11%
- Tablets had 16%
Ironically, despite all of Blackberry's outages and downtime around the world, they actually grew by just over 4%. This proves that the Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) is still a viable alternative because of SA's high data costs.
Another interesting fact is that many users are now starting to use tablets to scan codes. With more data analysis of unconfirmed data users we have found that users spend more time browsing a website on a tablet than on their phones.
