The future of mobile – can anyone really accurately predict it? It’s a tough one as mobile usage trends throughout the world vary considerably. However, with the exciting technological advancements of recent years, the once, seemingly unachievable and futuristic predictions of mobile experts, are now one by one, fulfilling their prophecy.
So what are the most notable mobile trends for 2010 and beyond?
Mobile Apps
It had to come first in the list right? Still a huge growth area, the flexibility and uses for mobile apps never cease to amaze. With over 100,000 applications in existence and in excess of 1bn downloads, iPhone applications are very much leading the pack in terms of sophistication and popularity. With diverse uses; from the Sleep Cycle app, which monitors your sleep patterns and wakes you when you are in a lighter sleep stage, ShapeUp, which helps you track and plan daily calorie intake, through to HootSuite, for managing your social network updates, such as Twitter, LinkedIn etc; iPhone applications really are penetrating every aspect of our professional and private lives. How long before we have an app which tracks our children’s whereabouts or allows us to scan the barcodes of empty cartons to reorder our groceries?
Augmented Reality
It’s still early days in terms of the practical application of many augmented reality applications, but the potential when mobile meets AR is pretty exciting! A few recent apps have started to show more than just a novelty appeal and are actually beginning to be useful too. Some of the best include:
TwittARound – the application takes your view of your surrounding via your iPhone camera and overlays nearby tweets over the image – not sure how useful it is right now, but very cool!
Nearest Tube – it does just what it says on the tin! It helps you find your nearest tube station and identifies your location based on what the application sees through your iPhone camera.
TAT Augmented ID – almost scary in its capabilities, TAT Augmented ID uses facial recognition technology from Flickr to identify a person’s face and then display information such as their contact information and online profiles from various social networks – possibly more novelty than useful at this stage but the potential with this type of technology is huge!
Mobile Commerce
Mobile ecommerce is an area which has received a lot of air time recently, with many discussing the merits and potential that it holds for retailers. With mobile ecommerce a largely untapped market, retailers that take note of the growing power of mobile will gain huge competitive advantage over their rivals. Waitrose / Ocado was the first grocery store to launch an iPhone application (July 09) that allows you to do your grocery shopping on the move, regardless of whether you have an internet connection, and I suspect others won’t be too far behind – this is definitely a case of ‘watch this space’.
So there you have it, a quick summary of what I see to be the most exciting areas of the future of mobile for the year ahead – I am certain we are going to see many great things appearing on our mobiles, and I for one, can’t wait to give them a go! Anything that makes my life easier, saves me time or money, or just gives a bit of entertainment is a hit in my eyes!
Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby
Showing posts with label iphone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iphone. Show all posts
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Mobile Apps Advertising - could be better?
So this week's New Media Age lands on my desk this morning and I read, with a certain level of surprise, the cover article, outlining recent concern on the use of mobile application advertising.
The article highlights, that whilst many well-known brands are embracing the opportunity that advertising in iPhone and other mobile apps may bring, their approach could not be described as particularly well-thought out.
That is not to detract from the 5% of brands that appear to be doing it right, but what of the other 95%?
NMA quoted fairly shocking figures, with up to 30% of ads within mobile apps linking to flash sites which cannot be displayed on an iPhone, and the majority linking to sites not optimised for mobile. If only 5% of advertisers are actually linking to a mobile-enabled site, what sort of user experience are the other 95% giving the consumer?
In a world where both time and financial resources are increasingly scarce, it seems crazy to waste both, with a poorly planned and executed advertising campaign that just doesn’t make sense. So how has this happened?
In defense of the brands, it appears that Google’s launch of AdSense for Mobile Apps has caused this potential issue, with all ads booked via Google automatically running within apps unless the advertiser opts out.
Google probably should have made this clearer to advertisers upon launch to ensure the appropriate changes could be made to the search campaigns. However, contrary views suggest that mobile browsers are sophisticated enough to handle standard, non-mobile-enabled sites, therefore suggesting no change is required.
But if they are offering anything but the best possible user experience throughout their campaign, surely brands should not settle for this?
Marketing budgets are often fought very hard for, both to get and to retain, and if achieving anything but the highest possible ROI, they are certainly not doing their budget-holders, brand or objectives any justice. More worryingly, they could also be causing damage to their brand.
It will be interesting to see how industry bodies respond to the COI’s request for guidelines on advertising in mobile apps.
Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
The article highlights, that whilst many well-known brands are embracing the opportunity that advertising in iPhone and other mobile apps may bring, their approach could not be described as particularly well-thought out.
That is not to detract from the 5% of brands that appear to be doing it right, but what of the other 95%?
NMA quoted fairly shocking figures, with up to 30% of ads within mobile apps linking to flash sites which cannot be displayed on an iPhone, and the majority linking to sites not optimised for mobile. If only 5% of advertisers are actually linking to a mobile-enabled site, what sort of user experience are the other 95% giving the consumer?
In a world where both time and financial resources are increasingly scarce, it seems crazy to waste both, with a poorly planned and executed advertising campaign that just doesn’t make sense. So how has this happened?
In defense of the brands, it appears that Google’s launch of AdSense for Mobile Apps has caused this potential issue, with all ads booked via Google automatically running within apps unless the advertiser opts out.
Google probably should have made this clearer to advertisers upon launch to ensure the appropriate changes could be made to the search campaigns. However, contrary views suggest that mobile browsers are sophisticated enough to handle standard, non-mobile-enabled sites, therefore suggesting no change is required.
But if they are offering anything but the best possible user experience throughout their campaign, surely brands should not settle for this?
Marketing budgets are often fought very hard for, both to get and to retain, and if achieving anything but the highest possible ROI, they are certainly not doing their budget-holders, brand or objectives any justice. More worryingly, they could also be causing damage to their brand.
It will be interesting to see how industry bodies respond to the COI’s request for guidelines on advertising in mobile apps.
Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Monday, 27 April 2009
Top Web Trends... for the immediate future
1. Broadcast/Audio Revolution....
What’s after Twitter? Maybe Qik.com? 12 Second TV and Audioboo are the next thing to fuel our egos or the need to tell the world what we are up to via video or audiomicro blogs, watch this space for further updates.
2. Mobile Revolution
As predicted by us only a couple of years ago, we are now en masse handsets with the ability to successfully render actual websites, we have a little way to go, but be under no illusion it’s the beginning of the end for WAP and small screens are already getting larger. With many websites (such as Facebook and Twitter) seeing a large proportion of their users engaging via mobile, the significance of mobile internet users should now be grabbing your attention, if it hasn’t already. Your customers (or fans as we often call them) and other website visitors are no longer limited to the PC or laptop. Start thinking about how you can capitalise on this. So could an iPhone App, Android App or Blackberry App transform the way your customers or employees engage with your brand or business?
3. The Cloud
If there is one way to start thinking green, think about where and how your website is hosted. Using the Cloud can be much more power efficient. It’s huge and we love it! Giving sites quicker loading times, a more cost efficient service and better reliability, The Cloud is here to stay (for the time being anyway). We’re looking forward to further advances and a maturation of the marketplace starting with the Open Cloud Manifesto, giving true scalability and cross-platform compatibility – you can find out more about this in our blog article on the Open Cloud Manifesto.
4. SAAS
Possibly one of the most significant trends on the web today, Software as a Service is fast becoming an internet phenomenon. Closely related to The Cloud, SaaS provides software to users without the need to physically buy the software, use hard drive space or implement updates. Providing a dramatically improved user experience, variety of subscription models and greater control for the software provider, SaaS is set to make it big in both the software and gaming worlds. You can find out more about it in our blog article.
5. On Demand Services
We’re familiar with on demand TV both on TV and online. Extending this model further, there has been a recent increase in a variety of other on demand services, partly thanks to the increase in popularity of SaaS. With gaming, music, software (to name a few) all seeing a rise in usage, and with the recent high profile launch of Quake Live, on demand services will continue to grow in terms of reach – potentially extending into other areas of our physical lives as technologies become more sophisticated. Playstation ‘home’, the equivalent of Second Life could be the perfect place for these environments to develop.
6. Social Media Mashups
Mashups come in all shapes and sizes, with social media mashups providing a host of additional opportunities for brands to engage and interact with their consumers. The applications are virtually limitless… If you’re in retail marketing you’ll know that people buy online (and offline) based on recommendations and reviews – fact. So, imagine taking all the positive talk on your brand from the social media world and showing it next to the relevant products on your ecommerce site – starting to get excited by this…? You can read more about mashups in our recent blog article.
7. Brand Buzz Monitoring
“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person”, although said by Bruce Lee in relation to martial arts is very applicable to your brand online. More so than ever before, your brand is not in any way, shape or form limited to the parameters dictated by your brand guidelines. Your brand is a product of the input of thousands, maybe millions of people from around the world giving their opinion of your brand, publicly loving or hating it, praising or complaining about it and the chances are, you probably don’t even see the majority of this – the brand you’ve created and you see is likely to only be the tip of the iceberg. Brand buzz monitoring gives you the ability to not only monitor your complete brand (warts and all) and its mentions online, it also gives you the opportunity to respond and interact with all that touch your brand. The value of this is, frankly speaking, invaluable, and with many brands enthusiastically embracing the huge potential of brand buzz monitoring online, now is definitely not the time to be left behind! To find out more about buzz monitoring and social media ROI, read our recent blog article.
8. Web 3.0 (update)
Web 3.0 is all about getting your computer to act on your thoughts to help you get things done without you having to do anything...it’s early stages but it’s certainly exciting. For starters it’s worth checking out Gazaro, a brand based search engine that keeps an eye on product pricing to keep you up to date with the best prices. Another of these new wave search engines worth watching is Evri, not new but an early semantic search engine.
9. Pervasive Web
Very much linked to Web 3.0, it’s almost here and when it does go mainstream, the pervasive web is going to make a pretty huge splash in the same way Twitter did at the beginning of this year. We’re keen on Ztamp:s, part of the Nabaztag’s growing line of accessories. They can get your umbrella to tell you the weather forecast or your coffee mug to read out the latest business news! Sound too futuristic to be true? You can check out Ztamp:s and the rest of the accessory range on Ztore.
10. Simplicity
It doesn’t always have to be about an all singing, all dancing, cutting edge website (of course we love those too), but to quote Einstein “simplicity is the ultimate complexity”. Some of the most successful things online have been born out of the simplest ideas – just think about Google and Twitter! A great site we’ve come across recently is Domai.nr – really useful in a world where it is increasingly difficult to find the perfect domain name.
If you'd like to talk to us about any of the above, or any other aspect of your brand's online presence, then give us a call on 01252 70 11 11 or drop us an email.
What’s after Twitter? Maybe Qik.com? 12 Second TV and Audioboo are the next thing to fuel our egos or the need to tell the world what we are up to via video or audiomicro blogs, watch this space for further updates.
2. Mobile Revolution
As predicted by us only a couple of years ago, we are now en masse handsets with the ability to successfully render actual websites, we have a little way to go, but be under no illusion it’s the beginning of the end for WAP and small screens are already getting larger. With many websites (such as Facebook and Twitter) seeing a large proportion of their users engaging via mobile, the significance of mobile internet users should now be grabbing your attention, if it hasn’t already. Your customers (or fans as we often call them) and other website visitors are no longer limited to the PC or laptop. Start thinking about how you can capitalise on this. So could an iPhone App, Android App or Blackberry App transform the way your customers or employees engage with your brand or business?
3. The Cloud
If there is one way to start thinking green, think about where and how your website is hosted. Using the Cloud can be much more power efficient. It’s huge and we love it! Giving sites quicker loading times, a more cost efficient service and better reliability, The Cloud is here to stay (for the time being anyway). We’re looking forward to further advances and a maturation of the marketplace starting with the Open Cloud Manifesto, giving true scalability and cross-platform compatibility – you can find out more about this in our blog article on the Open Cloud Manifesto.
4. SAAS
Possibly one of the most significant trends on the web today, Software as a Service is fast becoming an internet phenomenon. Closely related to The Cloud, SaaS provides software to users without the need to physically buy the software, use hard drive space or implement updates. Providing a dramatically improved user experience, variety of subscription models and greater control for the software provider, SaaS is set to make it big in both the software and gaming worlds. You can find out more about it in our blog article.
5. On Demand Services
We’re familiar with on demand TV both on TV and online. Extending this model further, there has been a recent increase in a variety of other on demand services, partly thanks to the increase in popularity of SaaS. With gaming, music, software (to name a few) all seeing a rise in usage, and with the recent high profile launch of Quake Live, on demand services will continue to grow in terms of reach – potentially extending into other areas of our physical lives as technologies become more sophisticated. Playstation ‘home’, the equivalent of Second Life could be the perfect place for these environments to develop.
6. Social Media Mashups
Mashups come in all shapes and sizes, with social media mashups providing a host of additional opportunities for brands to engage and interact with their consumers. The applications are virtually limitless… If you’re in retail marketing you’ll know that people buy online (and offline) based on recommendations and reviews – fact. So, imagine taking all the positive talk on your brand from the social media world and showing it next to the relevant products on your ecommerce site – starting to get excited by this…? You can read more about mashups in our recent blog article.
7. Brand Buzz Monitoring
“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person”, although said by Bruce Lee in relation to martial arts is very applicable to your brand online. More so than ever before, your brand is not in any way, shape or form limited to the parameters dictated by your brand guidelines. Your brand is a product of the input of thousands, maybe millions of people from around the world giving their opinion of your brand, publicly loving or hating it, praising or complaining about it and the chances are, you probably don’t even see the majority of this – the brand you’ve created and you see is likely to only be the tip of the iceberg. Brand buzz monitoring gives you the ability to not only monitor your complete brand (warts and all) and its mentions online, it also gives you the opportunity to respond and interact with all that touch your brand. The value of this is, frankly speaking, invaluable, and with many brands enthusiastically embracing the huge potential of brand buzz monitoring online, now is definitely not the time to be left behind! To find out more about buzz monitoring and social media ROI, read our recent blog article.
8. Web 3.0 (update)
Web 3.0 is all about getting your computer to act on your thoughts to help you get things done without you having to do anything...it’s early stages but it’s certainly exciting. For starters it’s worth checking out Gazaro, a brand based search engine that keeps an eye on product pricing to keep you up to date with the best prices. Another of these new wave search engines worth watching is Evri, not new but an early semantic search engine.
9. Pervasive Web
Very much linked to Web 3.0, it’s almost here and when it does go mainstream, the pervasive web is going to make a pretty huge splash in the same way Twitter did at the beginning of this year. We’re keen on Ztamp:s, part of the Nabaztag’s growing line of accessories. They can get your umbrella to tell you the weather forecast or your coffee mug to read out the latest business news! Sound too futuristic to be true? You can check out Ztamp:s and the rest of the accessory range on Ztore.
10. Simplicity
It doesn’t always have to be about an all singing, all dancing, cutting edge website (of course we love those too), but to quote Einstein “simplicity is the ultimate complexity”. Some of the most successful things online have been born out of the simplest ideas – just think about Google and Twitter! A great site we’ve come across recently is Domai.nr – really useful in a world where it is increasingly difficult to find the perfect domain name.
If you'd like to talk to us about any of the above, or any other aspect of your brand's online presence, then give us a call on 01252 70 11 11 or drop us an email.
Monday, 1 September 2008
Love Gadgets? Love the Web? (Part 2)
So here we go, an update of the latest gadgets over the last 3 months since my last entry.
Neural Impulse Activator
“Heralding a new era in gaming”, their words not mine, the OCZ nia is a new approach to gaming. Currently working with many released games ( Unreal is the most well known) the headband works in tandem with your mouse to give you better reaction times when eliminating alien races.
Apparently with “ no-gel required” it will translate the electrical biosignals of your body directly into computer commands to take advantage of total immersion into game play.
www.ocztechnology.com/products/ocz_peripherals/nia-neural_impulse_actuator
Wi-Fi T-Shirt
Not new but worth a mention, these wi-fi enabled t-shirts light up when in range of a wireless network. I know only a handful of people brave (or just not with it) enough to wear one.
www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/illuminated/991e/
Super Slim Hard Disks
Samsung, the people behind the ultra slim hard disks inside the Macbook Air and Ipod, have released the disks for sale as an independent peripheral device, albeit only in the Far East at the moment.
Not much bigger then a credit card, the devices are pricey (to be expected) and range from a cheap 20GB version for $45 through to a more established 120GB verion for $300.
www.everythingusb.com/samsung-black-edition-120gb-usb-hard-drive-15285.html
So that's it on gadgets for now - watch this space for future Love Gadgets? Love the Web? updates.
Steve Furminger
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