Every week we see an new opporuntiy for gathering mobile insights from smartphone users. This week we did a test for a company that wanted to see if they could use thumbspeak app users to measure advertising effectiveness. First we asked our users how often do they use the cameras on their smartphones. We received over 5600 responses in under 24 hours. 45% use their cameras daily and 20% several times a day. People are also using the cameras for new ways too. For example, one user told us he uses the camera to photograph his parking location so he remembers where he parked his car. In addition to using cameras to take photos it is also a "note taker". Photos of packages, signs and advertising are being taken as reminders. Almost everyone has taken a photo and emailed it to someone.

We sent a survey to our users asking them if they would take a photo of what they were watching on TV, right now. We got 100 responses and photographs of TV sets in under 30 minutes. Imagine how a marketer could use this information by interacting with their audience at that moment.