Community Mobilization

Mobile Search and Phone Type

One of the critical trends to marketers in mobile usage is the increase in web enabled phones, and what their users are doing with them. With the advent of mobile data transfer phones have become extensions of personal computing. A recent eMarketer.com article details the  usage purpose of mobile internet on iPhones, Smart phones, and standard web enabled mobile telephones.

Of particular interest is the utilization rates that are significantly higher across the board for iPhone users. The curious question for me is, "Is it the phone, or the people?" Is there such a fundamental difference in the personalities of the individuals who buy iPhones than the rest of the smart phone audience, or is the technology just that much simpler to use that it entices people to use the net more often and for more things.

Either answer brings a lesson for awareness and marketing campaigns. If it is the people then there is a clear target audience built right into the product. Find ways to capture the high tech high propensity users and go forward with developing campaigns for them and only them via their favorite communication device - their iPhone. If the answer is it is the technology the obvious course is to identify upcoming direct competitors and link your self to those potential markets and for get about the demographic. If I had to wager a bet I'd say it is the people not the technology but only time and telephone company records will let us know for sure.

More mobile advertising

Continuing the Mobile theme for the week here is are some thoughts about the direction of Mobile Marketing. To sum it up in one word ... up. In a Wall Street Journal Article Advertisers to Consumers: We'll Text You, the journal provides numerous examples of how mobile phone marketing is taking off. One of the attractive elements of the cell phone text messaging system is that it is an opt in system - so customers are asking for the advertisements. To me the opposite should hold true - that the customer can turn off adds from any one vendor at their convenience.

Cell marketing company 4infor, a startup, recently entered into a partnership with Yahoo to deliver advertising. They are looking to grab a piece of the estimate $6 billion dollars of cellular based marketing. Part of this push will be the integration of traditional media and cell phones to create focused campaigns. One thing that is could throw a wrench into this plan is the social push back, that the mobile phone is a personal space where as radio, television, billboards and other spaces are public and advertisers are not welcomed to intrude. Blyk is a British telephone company that offers free cellphone plans with advertising on their mobile handsets.

Text messages and Philanthropy

The first time I saw txt messaging and fund raising it was back in 2005 around the Tsunami relief efforts. I do not remember the amount of money raised or the methodology through which they raised it (direct billing or carrier collected). Recently I have been reading information on the Chronicle of Philanthropy site regarding the advances by Mobile Giving Foundation and how they worked with the United Way on their Super Bowl campaign, which raised about $10,000.

The statistics are pretty clear that the mobile device is going to be the 1st piece of computing technology for an overwhelming percentage of the population of this planet. Our friend Katrin Verclas from Mobile Active.org has really embraced this idea with their efforts to turn the mobile phone into a change agent through awareness, education and activism.

Brightkite looks a lot like Dodgeball

I just got an invitation to join Brightkite, a private beta location based social network. From the outset the system seems to mirror Dodgeball, a three year old Mososo built by friends Dennis Crowley and Alex.

After playing with Brightkite I really do not see a whole lot of difference between it and other mososos I have seen in the past. The infuriating thing that this system may prevent is what Dennis calls the Ex-girlfriend situation. Once in a circle, always in a circle. It is the quintessential example of how technology does not always play nice with the social realties and proclivities of users.

I will give Brightkite a point for integrating other social space lists to help you connect with existing connections in new spaces. One of the more frustrating things when you experiment with a new system is trying to hunt down all of your real friends. I put in my Twitter user name and found a number of folks I would like to know their whereabouts, particularly during a conference. The heart breaking thing is that Verizon does not support the Brightkite platform yet. But like most innovations most people 'get it' after a while.

Games in the Wild

I am a sucker for real life interaction facilitated by technology. That is why I was so stoked to see this article about a company in the UK that is using geo-location to create interactions with the real world. Locomatrix is aimed at getting kids into interesting areas and playing cames with each other. using geo-location on their cell phones. They have preset games and mazes like Fruit Farmer and others. It reminds me of work on other projects such as Area Code.

Fitness on your Cellphone

Computational power continues to shrink and the eventual reality is that  our computing devices will follow suit. To a point we will be able to cram a movie theater, a home stereo a camera and a telephone into one ... But even more important is when we begin to include our health monitoring devices into the cellphone / smart phone package. The Micoach is a all in one device in conjunction with Adidas that incorporates fitness training programs into a fully loaded cell phone. The brains of the system is a Samsung phone that gets linked to a pair of shoes through rfid or blue tooth for tracking exercise. Available only in Europe at this point, look for Micoach and other integrated devices to help keep us healthier longer.

Mobile Active

Mobile active.org There is a complicated ecosystem of many stake holders including carriers, customers, and content generators. Spam is a major concern of carriers as well as customers to avoid sms spam. SMS is the king in countries outside of the

US

because of cost of voice. SMS is cheap and voice is expensive and unreliable. Lots of mobile innovation is based by the capabilities of the audience. Short code vs. 800 number. ‘Say Now’ Campaigns are looking the use of voice on the mobile – asterisk as an open source PBX. It is being used with mobile to help route people to critical information in specific languages. SMS was the major mode of communication in the Thai demonstration not only because it is inexpensive but also because it is fast and viral.

Part of the appeal of mobile is it is inexpensive but the challenge is balancing the intrusion of the SMS and the call with he privacy rights and desires of the customer.

 

Teen Communication Modality - A Look Forward

They say you can take a good guess about the future by looking at those who will be in charge then, and if that holds the Pew study on Teens and Social Media is pretty  telling. It focuses on the fact that social media gained a greater foothold in teen life as they embrace the conversational nature of interactive online media. the study found that 39% of online teens share their own artistic creations online such as artwork, photos stories, or videos. They are creating a culture and location of sharing work unlike anything mass media could ever have dreamed.

Even more telling is that girls (who we knew communicated more than boys) are taking it online too. Girls continue to dominate most elements of content creation. Some 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys, and 54% of wired girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys. And the most interesting statistic to me is HOW the teens are communicating when they communicate. Social portals and networks WAY out pace face to face (duh - we have global friendships now) but face to face is higher than e-mail. The killer app is dying! Amazing. Asked about the communication they have every day with their friends, the multi-channel teens say:

70% talk daily with friends on a cell phone
60% send text messages daily
54% instant message
47% send messages daily over social network sites
46% talk to friends on a landline phone
35% spend time with friends in person daily
22% send email every day to friends

Utterz - Multimedia Microcasting

My great friend and colleague Jemarion just turned me onto Utterz, a multi media micro-casting site. Right now I am in the process of exploring Utterz and will certainly be loading it onto this blog for trail and investigation. My initial impression is that it allows users to upload micro-casts (snippets of media)including text, audio, pictures, and video. In short the system is creating a DIY multimedia empire building kit that fits into the palm of your hand... literally ... use your mobile phone to transmit the minutia of life or capture the gleaming moments. The challenge of course will be filtering the best from the rest.

IBM Lists Next 5 Trends

IBM released their take on the next 5 big innovations. They website has a number of report links at the bottom with  research on the trends but what is interesting is that I did not seem to see them tied together in any way. I am real disappointed that they did not take a few of the major issues facing the world and overtly showcase how any one or combination of trends would make an impact on them. Health care, global warming, aging populations, water shortages are all major global concerns that are easily tied into the Next 5 but I believe that IBM did not want to go to far out on the limb to showcase the great impact that these advances could have.