• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, December 31, 2014

As the year draws to a close, looking at what interested you the most in the world of mobile commerce this year comes down to one word: beacons.

Looking back at the most read columns here, 7 of the top 10 focused on beaconing.

The most popular MobileShopTalk column was about the purchase of Shopkick by SK Planet, South Korea’s largest mobile carrier (Shopkick Bought for $200 Million).

Interestingly, the second most read column also involved Shopkick, this time around the company-announced deal to install beacons in Macy’s stores (4,000 Beacons Coming to All Macy’s Stores).

Following the two Shopkick stories as the most read of the year was one involving QR codes, in which we detailed how QR code pioneer Scanbuy launched a new platform for commerce in relation to scans (QR Codes: Moving Beyond the Scan).

And then beacons take over in popularity.

Next in interest level was the one about Lord & Taylor introducing the first complete and major beacon rollout at a retail chain in North America (Lord & Taylor Goes All In on Beacons; Urban Outfitters Launches).

This was a follow-on story to the eighth most read story, in which the retail chain became the first to start a large-scale beacon deployment in select stores in the U.S. and Canada (Lord & Taylor, Hudson’s Bay Go Big on Beacons).

One of the most read columns focused on the beaconing of the stores on the mile-long, upscale Regent Street in London (The Great iBeacon Rollout: 100 Stores on One Street).

Next to that one in popularity dealt with the results of one of the early studies around the effectiveness of beaconing. The study of 100,000 mobile shoppers showed beacon-triggered messaging causing an interaction rate five times higher than traditional push messages without location context.

That study also found a precipitous drop-off rate of app usage if beaconed more than once during an in-store shopping trip (Beaconed Once: 45% Engagement; Beaconed Twice: 313% Drop in App Usage).

Another beacon-related article involving research also made the top 10 list. That mid-year study projected 30,000 active beacons in the U.S. by now, 80% of them in retail stores (Beacons, Beacons, Everywhere Beacons).

(Also relating to the interest in beacons, another MediaPost IoT:Beacons conference is being held Feb. 10 in Chicago.)

One of the few non-beaconing columns among the most read featured a global study by PwC, which found about the same number of daily shoppers prefers using a mobile browser as an app (More Mobile Shoppers Like Convenience of Websites Over Apps).

There also was high interest in yet another beaconing story, this one dealing with how a company can tap into beacon networks to capture specific information about where a consumer has been. The idea is to combine that with other consumer data to serve more relevant ads (Post-Beaconing Begins; Location Info Capture Now, Used Later).

What will draw the most interest and be the most read during the next year is anybody’s guess.

But it is safe to say there that beacons likely will be in the mix.

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Check out the coming MediaPost IoT: Beacons conference agenda for Chicago Feb. 10.