The news organization's tablet usage (mostly iPad) begins first, at five in the morning, with print following shortly thereafter. As people transit to and arrive at work those consumption methods fall precipitously.

Subsequently, mobile phone and desktop access rise, then hold steady throughout the remainder of the working day. Tablet usage begins to pick up again in the evening, and usage of WSJ Live, the company's streaming video app, peaks in the evening at 10pm.

Shapira said that this is evidence of either digital video consumption replacing television, or, additive second-screen viewing. 

In either case, this level of advanced penetration of owned properties throughout an array of devices and content-formats is an impressive success for the 123 year old brand. 

In part, the success of these products is no doubt attributable to the company's aggressive participation in numerous public-ish social media channels. According to a shared slideshow from March, the company maintains over 100 Twitter accounts, with over 2m followers.

Social sharing within Facebook is the largest source of traffic referral, and the company maintains 14 brand pages with 600k likes. The company has additionally embraced Pinterest, and is active on Instagram, where it has over 15k followers.

As brands consider implementing content strategies, they would be wise to pay attention to publications like this. At one point, the Wall Street Journal was just a newspaper. Now, it has the potential to poach eyeballs away from TV advertisers.

It isn't that every brand should desire to become a full-fledged news service, it's that the opportunity to deeply penetrate into the lives of consumers is there, for those who can figure out how to do it.

There has been a great deal of attention and research directed at the multi-screen recently, and with good reason. 65% of the respondents with a tablet in our study said they were likely to be using a second device while watching television...and that number goes up for those 18-44 years old.

Even most people with only two screens (TV + computer) are more likely to be online while watching than not (52%).

The Multi-Screen Marketer explores some of the effects of these behaviors, and tries to lay out an approach for publishers and advertisers.

How does the distraction of the second screen affect attention? 

When someone has another device at the ready, their attention can shift from the screen the moment they lose interest. Whether it's a commercial break or just a break in the action, they're off and mentally running. Studies have already shown that commercial blocks invite the heaviest multi-screen behavior.

We wanted to measure how this could impact advertiser recall. Respondents were asked to identify their favorite television program, and then asked if they could identify specific advertisers associated with it. We expected that the less people fit the mold of the multi-tasker, the more they would recall, but that's not what we found.

Overall, 46% of survey takers were able to identify between one and three advertisers. Surprisingly, four screened respondents (TV, computer, smartphone and tablet) were more likely (53%) than those with only two screens (42%). Again, younger tablet owners did even better...61% could recall at least one advertiser.

Of course, this doesn't capture some very important pieces of information; we don't know anything about messaging recall or sentiment. You can be sure that studies will fill in these gaps.

Does the type of content (TV program) correlate with multi-screen behaviors?

Television programs aren't all the same, even if it feels that way when you've got a remote in your hand. Respondents were asked to identify their preferred program types (procedurals, sports, reality, etc.) and given three randomly chosen questions about their behaviors from a total of six possible questions (to avoid overload).

Three of the behaviors were "commercial" - related to online shopping, product searches, etc., while the others related to general online surfing and searching for media-related information.

Findings are broken down in detail within the report but one of the highlights was discovering that independent drama (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, etc.) is a hotbed for both commerce and non-commerce related second screen behaviors.

People are somewhat more likely to shop for products they've seen during the program (show + commercials) and to do things like connect on social networks, than during any other program type. At the other end of the spectrum are procedural dramas.

Where are we headed?

Connected TV is already here, but few people have bought them so far, and those that have often aren't using them to their full potential.

We asked respondents to describe television of the future and the televisions of the future, and to gauge the impact of these expected changes. At the top of the list is the ability to watch anything, anywhere, anywhen. Not surprising and unlikely to be fulfilled any time soon, because of the basic business models of the primary players.

The second highest priority is for a television that listens and more importantly, does what we tell it. Voice recognition scored well, as people acknowledge that between multiple remotes, hundreds of channels and piles of accessories, it can be complicated to find or record the content we want. 

Other top priorities center around the multi-screen experience. People expect to be able to watch programming on any device, and then move it simply from one device to another as they travel.

Naturally, we gravitate to the best available device, but often that is the most available device. Watching a film on a smartphone is sub-optimal, unless you're on a subway, in which case it's sublime.

Other Findings

The Multi-Screen Marketer looks at a number of other topics including how social is really a private activity, how multi-screeners use online information during the purchase process and how TV viewing is shared among devices.

Thanks to the sponsorship of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the report is available to all Econsultancy members, bronze and higher.

The purchaser reigns supreme

For Redken, a hair-care brand and L’Oreal subsidiary, the purchaser rules the day. The company demonstrated its commitment by funneling funds toward a third-party research effort last May before it embarked on a large mobile initiative.

It was a key decision that helped the company better understand its industry; for instance, Redken learned that 16% of the hair-care sector uses iPads and tablets, with the former predominating. Of that percentage, 44% skewed towards a younger age bracket. 

The company also learned that 63% of hair-care professionals owned smartphones, a finding that had Kress skeptical. Hairstylists have “always been late adopters,” she said. “They don’t sit at a computer. They’re never online.” Not so the modern stylist.

The findings prompted the company to design mobile strategies unique to its three target groups:

1. Cosmetology students,
2. Hairdressers.
3. Consumers.

However, this still allowed it to apply an overall strategy to make the most of Redken’s existing network and existing purchaser behaviors. Next the company identified business objectives for each group because, like its mobile strategies, no one objective unified all.

Approach to students

For its student target group, education was Redken’s goal. The company used its nationwide network of franchise schools, and because it had learned that iPads predominated among that group, created an educational site designed especially for that device.

Emphasizing responsive design in its approach and understanding that visual learners compose its audience, Redken produced 100+ videos for the site and partnered with YouTube to stream the videos in a cost-effective manner. 

The results?

The company has saved on textbooks it formerly published for its schools. Redken has also saved on time and labor because it finds it easier to update the site than to revise textbooks.

Plus, applications to its schools are up, and the company can now capture student data in a way not available to it in the past.

Approach to stylists

Although stylists are now online more often, they’re still on their feet during most of the workday. That understanding pushed Redken to focus their attention on apps informed by stylists’ habits and what actually takes place in a salon.

Following the customer journey, for example, a stylist’s client would first decide on a color shade. Hair swatches are typically used during this step, but Redken created an app that displays different hair colors:

Most people follow routine and gravitate toward the same 10-15 shades, but Redken wanted to expand that selection to include its underperforming products so it began integrating those products into the formulas for the dyes that stylists would have to mix.

Finally, its app incorporated a look-book feature that allows stylists to capture cuts and dyes they’ve done in the past to not only show off their work, but also to give clients options.

Throughout the mobile push, the company was focused on frequency or how many times their app was used, not how many times it was downloaded. “We didn’t want to just have a download party,” said Kress.

The results?

Redken saw a 13% increase in the usage of its underperforming products, as well as an 18% jump in the sales of new products. (The app gave the company another forum in which it could showcase new products, Kress said.)

It also saved costs because the company no longer had to print books that featured its hair-color formulas.

Approach to consumers

Here Kress was adamant about Redken’s attitude toward the wide swath of consumers it targets (women age 18 and older): “We are not ecommerce,” she said. “We believe in the hair stylist and the hair professional, so it’s really about driving consumers to the salons and services to buy our product”.

To that end, the company had to make a choice: Did it want to focus its attention on a mobile website or an app to get consumers to salons?

Redken chose the former, with Kress supporting Redken’s decision by leaning heavily on the recent finding that more Facebook traffic arrives via the mobile site than through the company’s app.

She explained how Redken partnered with Google for paid search and SEO, which yielded the perhaps unsurprising finding that Saturday is the most popular day for mobile traffic seeking salons.

Other results?

The company learned that 18% of traffic to Redken.com is via a mobile device. There’s also been a 22% rise in visitors using the company’s salon-locator feature.

Conclusion

1. Know your audience. Conduct thorough research, said Kress. While ComScore data is valuable, you shouldn’t rely on it alone.

2. Understand the technology but don’t get caught up in it. The hype around Pinterest is exciting and important to follow, she said, but marketers should be more cautious in their approaches.

3. Evolve. Of all the platforms, Kress believes mobile changes the fastest, and marketers should be flexible about their strategies and workflow.

Not buying or licensing Google's technology in 1998

In 1998, Google's two young co-founders approached Yahoo when they were making the rounds for backing in Silicon Valley.

According to a book written by John Battelle, that opened the door to an investment, licensing deal or an outright acquisition of the duo's technology. But Yahoo (and other major players) weren't interested.

Turning to Google for search results in 2000

Two years later, at the height of the first .com boom, Yahoo saw that search was becoming far more important than it had anticipated and it looked to third parties for search technology while it worked on its own.

One of those third parties was upstart Google, which it struck a deal with to power search on yahoo.com. That deal, of course, was far more favorable to Google than any deal would have been in 1998.

Paying billions for Broadcast.com in 1999

While Yahoo's 1999 acquisition of Broadcast.com for $5.7bn didn't kill Yahoo, it is arguably one of the worst-timed acquisitions in tech M&A history, and one has to wonder how the ill-fated acquisition impacted Yahoo in subsequent years.

Not buying Google in 2002.

According to reports, Yahoo had the opportunity to purchase Google for $5bn in 2002. Although that price was high for Yahoo in relation to its own value at the time, it would prove to be the last chance Yahoo would have to acquire Google.

It didn't, and the rest is history.

Failing to take full advantage of its Overture acquisition

Google AdWords may be the king of pay-per-click advertising, but the model was pioneered by Overture, a company Yahoo acquired in 2003 for $1.4bn.

As part of a patent lawsuit settlement, Google obtained a perpetual license to a key Overture patent that would spell trouble for AdWords. The price: 2.2m shares of Google stock.

While there were questions about the legitimacy of Overture's patent, and some suggested it would be found to be invalid, in retrospect, Google got a bargain of a settlement.

Hiring Terry Semel as CEO

Some consider Yahoo's second CEO, Terry Semel, the worst tech CEO in history.

While that may not be entirely fair, one thing is hard to dispute about Semel's reign at Yahoo: with his total compensation pegged at some $500m or more over his tenure, he has done far better than the company he ran.

Botching the Flickr and Delicious acquisitions

While there's no denying that Web 2.0 upstarts Flickr and Delicious wouldn't have saved Yahoo, the company's failure to manage the assets it purchased, particularly given its built-in audience, represented another huge missed opportunity that could have helped Yahoo find its way on the modern internet.

This excellent article from gizmodo looks more deeply into this. The restrictions on Flickr's mobile development is a particular missed opportunity, opening the door for the likes of Instagram. 

Not buying Facebook

If watching as its Flickr and del.icio.us acquisitions stagnated or went south wasn't bad enough, Yahoo's failed attempt at acquiring the social networking behemoth adds insult to injury.

As the story goes, Yahoo was nearly able to acquire the popular social network in 2006 for $1bn but due to a faltering stock price, Yahoo lowered its offer to $850m, allowing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to walk away from the deal.

This Friday, Zuckerberg and company will take 900m-plus user strong Facebook public at a valuation exceeding $100bn.

Rejecting Microsoft's buyout offer

Yahoo has made plenty of bad moves in acquiring (or not acquiring) other companies, but its crowning failure was its handling of its own potential sale.

In 2008, the Redmond software giant, eager to compete with Google, was willing to pay $44bn for Yahoo, but thanks to what many considered gross incompetence, Yahoo's board rejected the offer.

Today, Yahoo's market cap sits at just below $19bn.

Partnering with Microsoft

Months after having failed to make it to the altar with Microsoft, the worst financial crisis in decades hit. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, must have breathed a sigh of relief and he capitalized on his luck by inking a partnership that gave him most of what he wanted without having to buy Yahoo.

While this deal may have been a convenient way to turn back the hands of time for Yahoo, at least partially, it was a far better deal for Microsoft, and didn't help Yahoo answer any of the fundamental questions crucial to its future.

They must be:

• Authentically mobile.
• Simple to understand.
• Easy to action.

By adhering to these rules, services cater to the consumer need for mobile activities that fill the “interstices” in our days.

Some of the businesses doing best in mobile are those that started off filling the gaps – YouTube, Facebook, Path and also Twitter.

Daisley said businesses need to seize the opportunity in the interstices and “think about how you can harness the gap”.

He highlighted Angry Birds - which recently achieved 1bn downloads - as a service that succeeded by being inherently mobile. Twitter also published impressive mobile stats this week – 80% of its 10m active UK users access their account through mobile.

The focus on 140 characters also fits the second rule of being simple to understand. Daisley said the average email takes two days to be opened, whereas SMS messages are opened in four minutes.

While email used to be much quicker than old ‘snail mail’, you’re now better off posting a letter than sending someone an email. Marketers need to take this into account with mobile marketing, as short interactions are more effective. People look at their phones 150 times a day - once every 6.5 minutes. It’s about fast, easy interactions.

Daisley said this focus on short engagement had inspired Twitter’s ad strategy.

Promoted Tweets achieve engagement levels of 1%-3%, compared to an industry average 0.05% CTR for display ads. He highlighted a Promoted Tweet campaign run by Lynx, which achieved engagement levels of 6%.

However it should be noted that an engagement on Twitter refers to when someone “retweets, replies to, clicks or favourites your Promoted Tweet.” Therefore, there are more opportunities for engagement than on a simple CTR measurement.