Social Media Mobile Apps Are Still the King: Survey

A study done by SurveyMonkey revealed the top 30 downloaded and most used apps on the iOS and Android app stores. The study showed that social media apps ruled over mobile games in the first half of 2016.

“Only 2 games were able to make it into the top 10 of most downloaded apps”

First the games. The 2 games that made it to the list were Slither.io and Color Switch. Pokemon Go wasn’t included in this survey because it was released on 6th July.

The social media app that took the first place in the ranking was Facebook Messenger, with Snapchat coming in second, Facebook third, Instagram fourth and Color Switch coming in at fifth position.

Here is a graph showing the 30 most downloaded mobile apps in the first half of 2016:

In the most used apps section, the top 5 positions were taken by  Facebook, YouTube, Messenger, Google Maps and Play Store (in that order). The first 12 apps in this list are all owned by either Google, Facebook or Apple. The one that breaks the chain is Snapchat, coming in at number 13.

“40% of the most-used apps come pre-loaded on the mobile operating system”

SurveyMonkey also mentioned that the reason many of the most-used apps are owned by either Google, Facebook or Apple is that they come pre-loaded in the majority of the devices that hit the market. That translates into them being used more rather than being downloaded from the app store. This alone highlights the importance of Android and iOS to Google and Apple.

“The most-used apps are also the most downloaded apps, but not all downloaded apps are the most used.”

The reason games didn’t make it to the top of the charts is that no particular game is dominant. Consumers definitely like to play games on their smartphones but with dozens of titles being released on the app store, it is difficult to keep up with each and everyone of them and so very few games get to be the “most-used”.

Unless you consider the Pokemon Go phenomenon that’s all too recent that is.

Cyber Crime Bill to Become a Law in Pakistan from August 1st: Anusha

Minister of State for Information Technology and Telecommunication Anusha Rehman said that the amended “Electronic Crime Bill 2016” will be made a law next week to affectively deal with cyber crimes in the country.

“The amended Bill will be presented before the National Assembly on August 1 (Monday) and would get an easy sail to become a law”, Anusha Rehman told this correspondent here on Friday.

After passing the Bill from the Senate, it would be sent back to the National Assembly as amendments are being made in the Bill. The Bill would come into law, after passing it from the Lower House.

It must be noted that Senate’s Standing committee on IT, headed by Shahi Syed, gave substantial input and made amendments in 16 different sections of the bill to safeguard common man.

The minister, on the other hands, refuted the Opposition party’s claims of bringing 50 amendments in the Electronic Crime Bill and said these minor amendments were made in 8 different sections only (which were in addition to 16 amendments that were made by standing committee).

“These were slight amendments/changes in only eight sections and would not affect the basic purpose of the Bill”, said the minister.

She also criticized Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Chairman Pakistan People’s Party for his objections on the Bill at the eleventh hour while saying that the Party had nominated Senator Farhatullah Baber who gave a significant input in the Bill.

She said that a meeting with the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate of Pakistan Aitzaz Ahsan held before presenting the Bill in the House, where the later raised concerns about the repercussions of the proposed law on electronic media, but he was told that electronic media do not fall in the ambit of Cyber Crime Bill.

The minister said that the proposed law would help in reduction of women harassment. Women living in rural areas some times fall prey through internet/social media/computer and get victimize, however this law would help in reduction of such crimes.

IT Minister said that internet is the engine of economic growth in the modern world and any country cannot afford to block it every time; however there was need of such legislation to resolve the issue permanently.

Currently Pakistan has no law to comprehensively deal with the growing threat of cyber crime. Telecommunication laws have no such provision to deal with traditional online crime, said the minister, adding that effectively addressing these unique and unprecedented crimes with similarly unique and necessary procedural powers requires a completely new and comprehensive legal framework that focuses on online conduct of individuals/organizations in the virtual world.

She further said that the legislation therefore, establishes new offences including illegal access of data (hacking), as well as interference with data and information systems, specialized cyber related electronic forgery and electronic fraud, cyber terrorism (electronic or cyber attack on the critical information infrastructure), unauthorized interception conducted by civilians, use of malicious code viruses, identity theft etc.