2021

By 2024, mobile workers (employees who use mobile devices like smartphones and tablets for work) will account for over 60% of the total U.S. workforce, according to research from IDC. A large percentage of the mobile workforce will continue to work from home even as the mandatory COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and closures are lifted.

With the increase of workers at home, and a large number of companies announcing hybrid work plans, employees are increasingly juggling work and personal life on a single device. Many are struggling to find the right balance between creating separation of work-life balance and maintaining privacy.

As researchers on the Android Enterprise team, we are always curious about the various needs and expectations of mobile employees who use their smartphones for both work and personal purposes. So we began a research project to understand the elements that comprise the ideal smartphone experience. 

Our qualitative research shed light on the importance of work-life balance, privacy and wellbeing. We partnered with experience management firm Qualtrics to assess and quantify the qualitative findings through a study with more than 3,000 smartphone users around the world. 

Managing work and personal life on a single smartphone

The study revealed that 68% of employees use one smartphone for both work and personal purposes, while 32% use two smartphones, though not always simply one for work and one for personal use. Looking across the two groups, 85% of employees use at least one smartphone for both work and personal use. 

To get a bird’s-eye view on the needs of people who use a single smartphone for both work and personal use, the team surveyed both users of the Android work profile — a dedicated space on Android devices where work apps are kept separate from personal apps and data — and non-work profile users, including those on other mobile operating systems.

Since the Google News Initiative was created in 2018, we have strived to meet publishers wherever they are in their digital evolution. We’ve worked with thousands of publishers on specific business challenges, like digital subscriptions and advertising revenue, and provided tools like News Consumer Insights to help publishers grow their online audiences. In 2020, we launched the GNI Digital Growth Program, a free initiative aimed at empowering small and mid-sized global news publishers to grow their businesses online. 

We’ve learned over the years that the shift to digital doesn’t happen overnight, so we shaped the Digital Growth Program to provide multiple entry points to support publishers’ digital transformation, wherever they may be in the process. This includes live workshops and expert panels where participants can learn from various subject-matter experts and ask questions, interactive exercises that provide personalized recommendations, playbooks that dive deep into business topics relevant to news organizations, and collaborative Labs that tackle specific business problems with like-minded participants and experts. 

To date, more than 8,600 participants from more than 130 countries have been trained through the Digital Growth Program, across topics like reader revenue and audience development. This spans live and on-demand sessions in English, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, French, German, Polish, Italian and Czech. 

We’re continuing to expand the program to new topics and regions, including on June 1, launching the advertising revenue workshops and playbook(register here).  To date, the program has resulted in publishers all over the world showing measurable growth in their digital businesses. 

La Prensa in Panama took part in our Subscriptions Lab and increased digital subscribers fivefold. A core pillar of their strategy was to make their subscription product more accurately reflect their brand, ultimately moving business-related content behind their paywall to increase revenue. The publisher’s participation in the Lab gave them more confidence to make strategic decisions based on sound analysis and effective tools. 

The Telegraph Herald in the United States ran a number of experiments as part of our Subscriptions Lab, including launching targeted email pushes, implementing a new pricing model and testing higher rates. As a result of the Lab, they experienced a 25% increase in digital subscriptions, a 28% increase in newsletter subscribers and a 19% increase in subscriptions conversion rate. The Telegraph Herald gained a newfound confidence and ability to advance experimentation and revenue growth as a result of their participation.

The Vermont Digger leveraged the GNI Sponsorships Lab to understand the power of virtual events. The Digger team ran a lively, three month virtual event series that successfully brought in one large sponsor to support the full series. As a result of their participation in the Lab, Vermont Digger grew their annual sponsorships revenue by 71% and increased average client revenue by 61%. They did all of that despite the impact and stress of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Attending the GNI Digital Growth Program workshops helped Italian publishersIVG.it and Genova24.it refine their offering to readers and increase the number of paying members. Through participation in the same program, La Cronica in Spain was able to better analyze reader engagement and grow revenue. 

Business Insider Japan, a participant in the GNI Subscriptions Lab in Asia Pacific, aligned its organization’s thinking around digital subscriptions, using new benchmarks and key metrics that the business had not previously considered.  Due to the program, the organization was able to grow digital subscription revenue and month-end digital subscribers by nearly 25% each. 

In the past two weeks, we have kicked off newAudience Development Labs in North America and South America in partnership with INMA and News Revenue Hub, with another set to launch in Asia in July 2021. And in Europe, we will be launching new programs throughout the year in partnership with FT Strategies.

This bulletin includes coordinated influence operation campaigns terminated on our platforms in Q2 2021. It was last updated on May 26, 2021.

April

• We terminated 3 YouTube channels as part of our investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to El Salvador. This campaign uploaded content in Spanish focusing on a mayoral race in the Santa Tecla municipality. Our findings are similar to findings reported by Facebook.

• We terminated 43 YouTube channels as part of our investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to Albania. This campaign uploaded content in Farsi that was critical of Iran’s government and supportive of Mojahedin-e Khalq. Our findings are similar to findings reported by Facebook.

• We terminated 728 YouTube channels as part of our ongoing investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to China. These channels mostly uploaded spammy content in Chinese about music, entertainment, and lifestyle. A very small subset uploaded content in Chinese and English about protests in Hong Kong and criticism of the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings are consistent with our previous reports.

Studies show that regularly writing down your thoughts and feelings can improve your mental, emotional and physical health. Despite all of journaling’s benefits, it can feel like an insurmountable challenge. 

While writing by hand is therapeutic for some, many may find it uncomfortable and tiring. Others may find an inventive way to leverage Google Doc, Keep, or Sheets to log their thoughts, but these tools are not optimized for the struggling journaler. In reality, the challenge may not be journaling itself but creating and customizing a routine that helps you get into a rhythm and document your day in the ways most useful to you.

A few months ago, I decided to put this theory to the test by building my own journaling app in AppSheet, Google Cloud’s no-code application development platform. It lets me customize my journaling experience the way I want, I was able to build the app without writing any code, and it’s been extremely useful.

The journaling app, built with AppSheet, has a form that makes it easy for me to log my moods and activities, write a few notes, and add photos. I’ve also added a list and a calendar view so I can read through previous entries.

With AppSheet, anyone can create their own custom apps, connected directly to their data in Sheets — no technical background needed. To help you create your own journaling app, without writing a single line of code,  I’ve made a tutorial video.

And that’s just a starting point. From there, try adding your own customizations, like your own activities, notification and text message reminders and charts to show trends over time. 

AppSheet lets you build and use your own personal apps for free. For example, you can build a custom workout app to help track your progress at the gym or you can build an inventory management app to keep track of inventory at your local community events. These are just a few ideas, but feel free to explore our app templates library or start with your own ideas.

Hopefully creating a custom journaling app inspires you to start writing — and dive into no-code app building at the same time.

Ready to use AppSheet? Get started now.