Hometown Glory

Smart with our phones & tablets: Houston ranked top mobile shopping-savvy cityin U.S.

Many shoppers cringe at the idea of queuing up on Black Friday, preferring another day indoors with the in-laws over the prospect of getting trampled in pursuit of a marked-down big screen.

Perhaps this fear highly affects Bayou City shoppers, who are accustomed to a wide berth: Houston has been named the top mobile shopping-savvy city in the United States in a report released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence.

According to the study, Houston has a mobile shopper savviness index of 120, with 77 percent of consumers in possession of a mobile device and 22 percent of shoppers influenced by mobile coupons (up from last year's inaugural report, in which the city also took No. 1). Mobile shopping means completing purchases on an phone or tablet device, or using one to research or shop for purchases later made in person or online.

Houston has been named the top mobile shopping-savvy city in the United States.

For the ranking, the IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence looked at ownership of a mobile device (primarily smartphones or tablets), propensity to be influenced by mobile coupons, ownership of a mobile retail app on a handset or tablet and ownership of a mobile social media app, then indexed each relative to the national average.

Seattle/Tacoma took No. 2 on the list, followed by San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.

Dallas/Fort Worth landed No. 8, down from No. 5 in the 2011 ranking, with 73 percent of consumers in possession of a mobile device and 18 percent of shoppers influenced by mobile coupons.

The report counts higher smartphone ownership as a factor in mobile shopping — 68 percent of Americans possess a device in 2012, and four of five of those owners shop on their device.

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”