Musings about Mobile Marketing, Technology and mHealth

3 reasons why mobile & cross-device advertising is bullsh1t!

2016-12-13T15:34:00.001-06:00

DISCLAIMER: The following thoughts are of my own and not of my employer.

Spoiler...it's about knowing who the person is, their past behavior and their current context.

Reason 1: Can you think of a time you were using your mobile device and sitting at home or work? How about a time where you used a tablet or laptop while on the go? I'm betting that this happened more than a few times this year. Conventional thinking in the marketing and advertising industry is to make assumptions of current location context based on the device that is currently being used...I call bullsh1t!

In a Harvard Business Review article from 2013, there are 7 motivators for engaging with a mobile device. A shocking stat is that "68% of consumers’ smartphone use happens at home. And users’ most common activity is not shopping or socializing but engaging in what researchers at BBDO and AOL call 'me time.'"

How many pitches have you heard about mobile advertising being the Holy Grail of messaging people on the go? I guess it is effective, (of reaching a max of 32% consumers). So if mobile & cross-device advertising is BS, then what? People-based marketing? From what I'm hearing in the industry, every vendor is already pitching people-based marketing. It's the same pitch, over and over again.

Reason 2: Have you ever let your children use your phone? How many ad impressions do they get?

Reason 3: Some people never buy on a mobile device, some do. Millennials use Smartphones when booking and researching travel, and tablets as a travel device are rising. 49% of Millennials use smartphones when planning trips and 35% book journeys. OK agencies & brands, next time you hear the same pitch, stop them and ask them these tough questions:

Where's their people graph data coming from?
What is the scale of that data based on the type of audience targeted?
How far back does can the data be mined?
What does their targeting entail?
How do they handle optimization?
Is it manual or automated?

If the vendor is actually performing people-based advertising, they should be able to deterministically tell you who the person is, their past behavior and their current context. If anything, you might see some great tap dancing. So next Monday, when "Sally" flies by a Dunkin Donuts at 50 mph on the highway on the way to work, you'll know that she actually buys and makes Folgers coffee at home and not waste an ad impression on her.

In the next article, I'll dive deeper on how viewability and how that's BS too...stay tuned! Follow me to stay to get a preview of the next article @davidshuip on Twitter.

Mobile Rehab

2013-07-04T07:26:00.005-05:00

I have five mobile devices in my bag right now. Yes. Five. Of course, I'm an anomaly...I work in mobile marketing and emerging technology, so it's normal to see me juggling a few devices here and there.

Having worked in mobile marketing & technology for over 12 years, I've always been amazed at the promise of mobile. I was texting before there was SMS interoperability in the US. I created my first WAP site in 2001. I purchased the first Sony Ericsson Bluetooth headset and the first color screen phone, the T68i in 2000. I'm as big of a mobile nerd as you can get.

I've always hoped that someday, all consumers would own a smart and connected device. I salivated at the marketing opportunities that the mobile internet could bring. The possibilities were endless. With the recent adoption of mobile in the past 3 years, this has all come true. I received my wish. Mobile IS here.

Here's my dilemma, now, I see a sea of mindless people zombie-ing across down, crossing streets without noticing oncoming traffic. I see mobile app notifications interrupting intimate conversations, dates and meetings. I see an increasing ADHD in our youth and our addiction to instant gratification. Are we slaves to our mobile devices?

Are we heading down an inevitable path towards Idiocracy?

I've recently read some commentary about early adopters moving away from technology and simplifying their lives. Enter Mobile Rehab.

What is Mobile Rehab you ask? It is disconnecting and turning off the phone. It's at least having the will power to NOT pick up the phone every time it buzzes. It's not Foodspotting every single meal you've had this month or tweeting every single thought in your mind. It's not showing off everything you've ever purchased or show how exotic you're vacation is. Yes, I'm telling you this from my experience. I've been guilty of all of the above, but I'm not proud of it.

Some have said that the connected mobile device feeds the seven deadly sins. I'm starting to see why. While I still believe in the promise of mobile technology, I hope people will start being more cognizant of their mobile use. The analog world has a lot to offer too! Face to face conversations, sharing physical photos and actually discussing your favorite products and articles...like this one :)

Now go forth young Jedi. Spread the message and rehab.

StartupBus Midwest Represent!

2013-03-02T09:27:00.002-06:00

StartupBus 2013 starts tonight with a meet and greet with team members. I'm so proud to be representing the MidWest region and the great city of Chicago!

I have so many ideas on what problem to solve that I'm up at the crack of dawn. Ultimately I want to create a concept that solves two major challenges in the current US market: mobile and healthcare. mHealth is a hot topic right now and one that is primed for disruption...ask any VC.

What's wrong with Healthcare in America you ask? Read this and tell me it doesn't upset you.

So I've started noodling an idea around and will hope my other bus-mates will feel as passionate about fixing healthcare as much as I am.

Let's join together and make the US WHEALTH.EE again. More to come, follow this blog if you want to join me in my journey.

-David

The Rise of the Enterpriseneur

2013-02-24T14:52:00.001-06:00

Since I was a wee little lad, I've been fascinated with entrepreneurship. My parents immigrated to the US about 30 years ago and I've watched them work hard. They worked so hard in fact, that they had to sacrifice time with my sister and I. All of this was with hopes that we would get a proper education and "make something of ourselves".

Throughout my career, I always thought it would result in being the "king of my own castle" and creating a successful business. I've spent the first 10 of my career years paying my dues in the marketing & technology industry while simultaneously studying the art and science of Entrepreneurship. Now, I feel like I understand where all of this has brought me to..."Enterpriseneurship".

I'm not sure if this term is coined yet but if not, you've heard it here first folks :)

I work for an innovation group at a large enterprise in Chicago that I love. When asked whether or not I'd ever start my own business, I've come to the conclusion of "No"*. I feel that I have the same challenges that most entrepreneurs have, but placed in a much better position to succeed than a start-up with zero traction trying to bootstrap their way to success.

Here's why I believe in "Enterpriseneurship":
-Existing customers that will have immediate impact based on our work.
-Access to resources unheard of at a bootstrapped startup.
-The ability to balance personal life and still put out great work.
-If the product doesn't validate, I'm not out of a job.

Now, with that said, working at a large enterprises not without its challenges:
-There will be politics. Any time you're trying to disrupt an industry or business group, you may experience resistance.
-Business goals and ROI must be defined at the being of product conception (no shiny toys for the sake of shiny toys).
-No Multi-Million Dollar exits.

I still believe the pros outweigh the cons. Ultimately, I want to be challenged, create amazing products and make life better for other people. Applying entrepreneurial passion in a large org is challenging and that's what keeps me going. I'm fortunate because I have great leadership that understands the value of innovation.

What do you think of Enterpriseneurship? Hopefully we can bring the "sexy back" to big business.

-David

(*unless I get a multi-million dollar valuation *wink*)

How to correctly hire a Mobile Marketing Pro

2013-02-11T11:24:00.000-06:00

In the current state of the Mobile Marketing, Advertising & Technology, there is hype. In my opinion, hype builds fear, and as a result, fear builds budget and headcount at many brands.

With all the hype in the past 3 years in Mobile, how do you know what to look for when hiring a mobile person?

Here are my thoughts based on my past 12 years across the Mobile Marketing ecosystem:

Are you looking for a mobile technology, operations or marketing person? Although these are starting to merge, having one individual with strength in all disciplines is still somewhat rare still these days. Those with previous Brand & Agency side experience will be best suited across tech, ops and marketing.

Regardless of your mobile maturity state, every brand needs someone to lead the Mobile Marketing & Operations efforts. I'd like to stress the Mobile Operations part. Without product, brand and data integration from a mobile perspective, all the marketing & display ads in the world will not provide the long term benefit that brands are expecting.

A growing number of people have Mobile on their resumes, but it is unlikely that they will have complete ecosystem experience. Here are the questions I'd ask if I was hiring:

What was their role in their Mobile programs?
How many mobile products or campaigns have they launched?
Where in the mobile ecosystem do they have experience?
How did they measure their campaigns and were the campaigns successful?
How integrated were the campaigns to CRM systems?
Was there an established Brand Specific Mobile Playbook or were decisions made on the fly?

There are plenty of more questions I'd ask. In an effort to keep this post short, I'll stop it here, but I'm more than happy to hear your feedback.

Responsive Web Design - Not The Holy Grail

2013-01-02T14:50:00.000-06:00

Friday, December 28, 2012

by J Schwan from Solstice Consulting

http://jsblog.solstice-mobile.com/2012/12/responsive-design-not-holy-grail.html

Responsive Web Design (RWD) is increasingly becoming legacy web designers' answer to solving usability for mobile devices. While responsive design may make sense in some instances, in a majority of cases, it simply doesn't.

First a quick Wikipedia explanation of Responsive Web Design:

Responsive Web Design indicates that a web site is crafted to use fluid proportion-based grids, to adapt the layout to the viewing environment, and also use flexible images. As a result, users across a broad range of devices and browsers will have access to a single source of content, laid out so as to be easy to read and navigate with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling.

This sounds great in theory. A single front end code base to cover all screen sizes: big browser, tablet and smartphone. This paradigm may work well for content-focused sites (i.e. a marketing campaign landing page or a blog) but it's applicability doesn't extend much beyond that.

Think Tasks Not Content

Most sites aren't made to simply consume content; they provide self-service capabilities, user and social interactions and integrated feedback mechanisms. In these cases RWD patterns fall down. The tasks users expect to complete in the mobile channel will often be decidedly different than in the big browser. Users are often looking to do a subset of their normal tasks on a mobile device, or a different set of (mobile only) tasks all together. They will also expect to perform these tasks in a more streamlined manner. Responsive Web Design may address changes in page layout but it doesn't address significant changes in a site's information architecture, or the workflow a user may follow to perform a particular function. Take a look at the difference in American Airlines big browser and mobile web layouts for example:

The design of the mobile site (information architecture, features and workflow) are considerably different than the big browser site. Even the tasks are different (i.e. Mobile Boarding Pass). RWD only addresses a small part of this equation. Using a RWD pattern in this case would actually require quite a bit more development than managing separate front-end code bases for the two channels.

The Native App Channel

Responsive Web Design patterns also do not effectively address the native app equation. Whether or not a company is looking to invest in native apps now, eventually they will need to. If they want to save money, companies need to think about native apps while they are laying down the architecture for their mobile web channel.

The best way to lay the groundwork for native is by building a mobile site that utilizes an ajax-enabled mobile web framework (i.e. JQuery Mobile or Sencha Touch) that integrates with back-end content and services via web services (typically JSON). Sites that utilize an asynchronous web service interaction model can reuse their mobile web services in the native channel. This gives you the flexibility to build fully native applications in the future without incurring additional server-side development cost. This pattern also sets the stage for integration with future human-computer interfaces like augmented reality devices and the internet of things.

There is a place for RWD, but its functions are limited to content-focused sites. Arguably, even in those cases the cost savings will quickly diminish as the features and user experience of the two different channels inevitably diverge.

Be careful of web designers pedaling legacy web techniques to solve future platform problems. We need to utilize next generation patterns and technologies to take advantage of next generation opportunities.

MobileX Cincy Conference 2012

2012-06-20T14:43:00.001-05:00

For those interested in my latest presentations on mobile that I gave at MobileX Cincinnati please see below:

MobileX Corporate Track Breakout 1 - David Ip, BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois - Mobile Marketing, Enterprise Uses http://mobilexconference.com/cincinnati2012/david-ip-bluecross-blueshield/

Marketing and Social Media Track Breakout 4 - David Ip, BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois - Mobile Marketing, Demystifying the Hype http://mobilexconference.com/cincinnati2012/david-ip-bluecross-blueshield-former-aol-marketing/

Enterprise Panel Discussion with:
Eric Bishop, Rockfish,
Robb Moretti, Verizon,
Ben Love, Vantiv
http://mobilexconference.com/cincinnati2012/enterprise-panel/

Milk, Eggs, Bread: Mobile Food Shoppers Still Need It Simple

2012-05-09T12:39:00.005-05:00

by Steve Smith,

There is nothing more basic, boring or essential than a shopping list. We write them on our hands, on the backs of envelopes, dictate them to Siri or just tell our spouse to “remember to remind me.” For all of the wonderful gadgetry we now have to bring to the store aisles, it turns out that even shopping apps still need to get the basics right -- milk, bread and eggs.

The folks at Coupons.com just updated their very popular grocery companion, Grocery IQ, to version 2.6. They passed along some data that is as interesting as it is essentially boring. The most common items added to shopping lists in the app are:

Milk
Eggs
Bread
Bananas
Onions
Tomatoes
Butter
Apples
Toilet Paper
Potatoes

Yes -- unsurprising, but also instructive. Mobile apps are at their best when they are facilitating rituals and patterns that we already have. The staggering blandness of the typical American’s food shopping list reminds us how basic and predictable many of our core needs can be. My guess is that the majority of us make our mobile lists using the built-in notepad on our deck.

But what marketing benefit is there in that? Much of the list Grocery IQ supplied is made up of staples from which few of us has a brand knowledge, let alone a preference. The challenge for the modern shopping app is to keep it simple and find ways of weaving marketing offers into a process that most of us reduce to scrawling on a post-it.

Sure, there are focused and serious grocery consumers -- the ones who digest the weekly circulars. For them, perhaps the art of finding the best bargain is a job unto itself. Apps like Grocery IQ are made for them. This is a widely reviewed and generally popular app. It ranks 48^th in popularity in the free section of the iPhone Lifestyle category. An app that actually snaps images of physical coupons for use in-store is well ahead of it at #2 right now. Clearly, there is a battle of feature sets going on.

The version 2.6 upgrade launching today for iOS pours on the bells and whistles. Voice recognition allows the user to dictate multiple items for the shopping list. Predictive searching will make it easier to build brand-specific lists. And you can keep the list synchronized across mobile and Web, and even among other members of the family. Coupons in the database also will be matched up with items on your shopping list.

This may all be too much for me. Siri will likely remain my shopping buddy. But for that important niche of semi-pro food shoppers, third parties are fighting to get into their proactive habits. I am still undecided on whether some of these mobile tools will become standard for many of us. Will we build shopping lists by scanning UPC codes on our shelves? Will we do it if it packs coupons and savings into our store loyalty cards? Obviously, some people are already doing this in their apps.

But I think most of us do a bother-to-benefit calculation on a lot of this stuff. I am old enough to remember how Personal Information Managers (remembers PIMs?) Like Lotus Agenda and GrandView were going to hyper-organize our lives, help us filter out the clutter, etc. But all of these apps also required some organized input of data to work their magic. Most of us discovered that hyper-organizers worked best for the already hyper-organized –- those who had the discipline and the stamina to do the front-end input work. Many of these shopping apps seem to understand that legendary problem with any kind of digital organizer, so they are trying to make the input experience smoother and the back-end value more obvious.

I will try to live up to the digital expectation.

“Siri, remind me to put my loyalty card number in that shopping app…tomorrow.”

Instagram Deal Sharpens Facebook's Mobile Focus

2012-04-10T15:16:00.002-05:00

by Mark Walsh, Yesterday, 5:04 PM

Aiming to remain a key hub for sharing photos, Facebook acquired mobile photo application Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock. The transaction -- Facebook’s largest to date -- also underscores the company’s efforts to bolster its mobile offerings.

Instagram will continue to operate as an independent business under the same name. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post that the acquisition would enhance the ability of Facebook users to upload and exchange photos among family and friends.

“We need to be mindful about keeping and building on Instagram’s strengths and features rather than just trying to integrate everything into Facebook,” wrote Zuckerberg. “That’s why we’re committed to building and growing Instagram independently.

"Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people.”

Launched in October 2010, the Instagram app now has more than 30 million registered users.
Last week, the company extended the service to Android phones after becoming one of the most popular and best-rated apps on the iPhone. Zuckerberg called the deal an “important milestone” for the company; it’s never before acquired a product with as many users as Instagram.

He also suggested that Facebook will not be pursuing many more deals of this scale in the future. Previously, the social network made smaller acquisitions including startups, such as FriendFeed, Hot Potato, Rel8tion and Snaptu. Often these deals were designed to pick up engineering talent or technology rather than a well-known consumer brand like Instagram.

Given its rapid growth, Instagram is one of the only recent startups that represented a credible threat to a core element of the Facebook experience: photo-sharing. The acquisition not only removes a competitor but better positions the company for the expansion of social networking to mobile devices.
Facebook's 845 million users include more than 400 million mobile users. And the latest data from comScore shows that more than a third (36.1%) of U.S. mobile users access a blog or social network on their phones.

The deal comes as Facebook prepares for an IPO to raise up to $5 billion, which would make it the largest Internet offering to date. The IPO expected this spring would value Facebook at between an estimated $80 billion to $100 billion. The Instagram acquisition could make Facebook even more attractive to already eager investors.

For its part, Instagram raised $40 million last month at a reported valuation of $500 million, despite having no business model. In his own blog post Monday, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom reiterated that the company isn’t going away like prior Facebook acquisitions.

“We’ll be working with Facebook to evolve Instagram and build the network. We’ll continue to add new features to the product and find new ways to create a better mobile photo experience,” he wrote. At the same time, Zuckerberg said Facebook also plans to keep existing Instagram features, like the ability to post to other social networks.

Inside Facebook reported that Instagram has been working on a version of its app for Facebook’s new Timeline feature. The app built with Facebook’s Open Graph platform would allow users to automatically post photos they had taken. Brands could also tie Instagram into their own apps on Facebook.

“The biggest benefit will be to highly experiential brands like Nike and Red Bull -- their brands are at the heart of life in-the-moment worth capturing,” said Dave Marsey, senior vice president and media practice lead at Digitas. “Uniting Instagram with the Timeline, for example, creates a more real, engaging experience.”

To that end, Vitrue last week added a feature to its social media marketing platform that lets brands build Instagram functionality into their Facebook pages. But Facebook clearly trumped that move with its Instagram acquisition.

Hardly Hungry: Fandango Posts Record Mobile Ticket Sale Weekend

2012-03-27T13:14:00.002-05:00

reposted from Steve Smith

Mix a youth-oriented, ravenously awaited film blockbuster with the medium of choice for a new generation and you have a record waiting to be broken. With the premiere of “The Hunger Games” last week, the mobile and online movie guide and ticketing service Fandango set a new record for its mobile ticket sales over the weekend.
The last blockbuster to set that mark was “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2” last year. “Fans have given it our highest ‘Must Go’ rating, with Web and mobile ticket sales still going strong on Monday,” Fandango EVP and General Manager Rick Butler stated yesterday. The ticketing service polls users on their response to recent films, and found that 62% of the “Hunger Games” fan base planned to see the movie more than once.
Mobile helped drive Fandango to an overall personal best for the weekend. In addition to record mobile sales, the company says that 22% of all ticket sales for the new movie came through its advance ordering system.
This is the largest share of movie tickets Fandango has seen in the dozen years it has been in business. The scale translates to about 17 tickets sold a second. March 23 marked the single best selling day ever for the company, beating the previous record for the opening day of the 2008 “Dark Knight.”
Fandango is present on almost all mobile devices, including iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7. It claims over 30 million visitors each month across Web and mobile. In recent months the company has initiated a paperless ticketing model that bypasses the box office altogether and shows a QR code receipt for m-payment to the ticket taker just before entering the theater.

Facebook buys some time but hasn’t solved mobile

2012-03-06T08:30:00.000-06:00

By Tom Krazit

Last November after our paidContent Entertainment conference in Los Angeles, I got to talking with a gentleman in the advertising business who went off on a bit of a wine-fueled rant regarding some mobile advertising executives. “They think they can just slap a QR codeon a print ad and say, ‘There, that does it, now we have a mobile strategy’,” he said, going on to bemoan how stupid all those other ad executives are but leaving me with an important point.

Following Facebook’s advertising event in New York (covered ably by Ryan Kim here) I was reminded of that conversation. Rather than presenting some sort of new innovative mobile ad unit or technique, Facebook’s first mobile ads will simply be an extension of its Sponsored Stories ad product to the mobile screen.

That’s not really a mobile strategy: it’s a desktop strategy that’s moving onto the mobile screen because of looming pressure from investors and desperate brands looking to reach consumers on their mobile devices, where they are spending more and more time.

As Facebook knows as well as anyone in mobile, with 425 million mobile users and a far-reaching plan to build out the mobile Web, mobile advertising has huge promise but no one really has any idea how it’s going to work. About $4 billion will be spent on mobile advertising in 2012, according to IDC, but display advertising on mobile is a very difficult proposition given the limited real estate that marketers have to utilize. The market is so up in the air that the Internet Advertising Bureau held a contest to pick five innovative mobile ad formats and received a wide range of submissions.

So it’s not entirely fair to ding Facebook for deciding to just move Sponsored Stories into mobile: as Peter Kafka at AllThingsD points out, Twitter is basically doing the same thing. There may not be a better way to reach mobile consumers at this point, but this is something that may not sit well with Facebook mobile users, who tend to freak out when the company changes even the smallest feature.

There is a huge opportunity for someone with Facebook’s size, reach and mobile expertise to develop a killer mobile advertising strategy, much the same way Google changed the way online advertising was bought and sold with its search engine and ad auctions. Unfortunately, what Facebook rolled out Wednesday falls short of that goal.

What’s true, however, is that the Sponsored Stories move will buy Facebook some time to really nail the mobile advertising experience in a way that turns on advertisers without turning off consumers. Just don’t call it a mobile strategy.

Pew Claims Smartphone Tipping Point Passed

2012-03-04T09:58:00.000-06:00

by Steve Smith

More American adults now own smartphones than feature phones, according to Pew Internet & American Life Project. While 46% of adults now have a smartphone, only 41% say they own some other kind of phone.
These stats skew a bit higher than some competing surveys, such as a recent comScore report that pegged smartphone ownership at about 43% and a Yankee Group report that also showed feature phone ownership at 51% versus smartphone ownerships at 43%. Nielsen recently said 48% of American mobile customers now have smartphones. Pew says that since it focuses on respondents 18 and older, its overall numbers may be on the higher end when it comes to advanced devices because other surveys tend to capture teens.
Pew, which bases its research on interviews and polls of over 2,200 adults, compares its sample to a May 2011 survey and sees very rapid growth in smartphone adoption. Just last year, they saw the split at 35% smartphone and 48% feature phone. Not only have a substantial number of people upgraded, according to these stats, but overall cell phone penetration has edged up. In May 2011, Pew found that 17% still said they had no cell phone of any kind. For February 2012, that number has declined to 12%.
While Android seems to dominate handsets in many other surveys, Pew said that 20% of its respondents described their phones as Android-based (up from 15% in May) and almost as many -- 19% -- called their phones iPhones (up from 10%). BlackBerry continues to lose share, down to 6% from 10%.
Perhaps most revealing about Pew’s metrics is the broad scope of the smartphone growth demographically. Clearly moving beyond the early-adopter slice, smartphones are showing double-digit gains in all age groups except the 55+ segments, where we still see only 31% of 55- to-64-year-olds and 13% of 65+ groups with advanced devices. When it comes to income level, the high end of $75,000 and above still shows the deepest penetration of smartphones, with 68%, but even households with $30,000 and up are now in the 46% smartphone penetration range. Parsed along ethnic lines, the White/non-Hispanic segment is showing the greatest growth (+15 points to 45%), largely because Black and Hispanic segment have always been the earliest smartphone adopters, and 49% in both demos now own advanced devices.
For marketers, the Pew metrics suggest they have not only a critical mass to target with mobile campaigns, but a reliably broad base from which to target.
The full report is available at the Pew site.

10 Things to Plan for When Developing a Mobile App

2012-03-02T09:14:00.000-06:00

February 24, 2012 by David Tucker

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David Tucker is a principal architect at Universal Mind. As the resident Apple and Adobe expert, he works closely with Universal Mind’s clients to develop rich user experiences that leverage many of today’s exciting new development platforms. Follow David on Twitter @mindmillmedia.

Many companies have mobile apps at the top of their to-do lists, but while churning out a quick app is fairly straightforward, developing a strategic application or digital “solution” is considerably more complex. Smart planning is essential.

Here are 10 things to consider before developing your app.

1. Agree on goals for the program.

When developing a digital solution strategy, first examine your organization’s goals for the program. Are you looking to be seen as innovator, or fend off competition by showing progress in the space? Simply showing initial momentum and previewing the future roadmap can often place you ahead of the competition. Should your digital solutions help build customer loyalty and enable greater customer self-service, or is your highest priority to create new revenue streams? Once you’ve agreed on the goals, prioritize them so you’ll know where to start.

2. Understand your target users.

The next step is to understand who your target users are, their goals and requirements, and the technologies they use. This process includes researching the platforms your users are most likely utilizing, then gaining an understanding of each user experience. Every device is different, and every user has multiple needs. For example, a person might typically use an online banking application to pay a bill, but he might use the bank’s mobile application to find the closest ATM.

3. Build a user testing focus group.

Spending time with your target users is the only way to ensure you really understand what they are looking for in a mobile application. As you move through the process of discovery, you can discuss ideas with this group on a daily basis. Focus groups can provide value from the far beyond the initial discovery phase.

4. Identify a minimally viable solution set.

Don’t try to tackle the whole problem at once. Instead, companies should identify a minimally viable solution and start there. In other words, release a basic but functional app as a foundation, then take advantage of the efficient upgrade paths most devices offer to provide regular updates. This enables you to enter the market more quickly and refine as needed. Plus, periodically giving your users access to new developments ensures your organization stays top-of-mind.

5. Plan for multiple releases.

With mobile applications, releasing the initial version is only the beginning. Statistics show that many users will re-engage with your application when new features are added. Spread key functionality across the first handful of releases to keep your users engaged. Be careful not to release too often, lest users feel bombarded. In many cases, a 2-3 month window between major releases will keep your users engaged over a longer period of time.

6. Balance your users and your business.

Balancing business drivers with real user needs can be difficult. In many cases, the two are at odds with one another. Therefore, arm yourself with the right information to make smart tradeoffs. Collect research such as user studies, expert opinions, and business viability and technical feasibility studies. This body of data can then be weighed to achieve the best balance between user-centric solutions and business-value gains.

7. Know what is out there.

Spend time exploring apps in each of the platforms you plan to support. Each platform offers different interface paradigms and a different collection of applications. Experimenting with the most popular applications will help you understand not only what is possible on the platform, but also the user’s expectations. If possible, use a different mobile platform device during the exploration process.

8. Bring your IT team into the discussions early.

The far greater technical challenge is tying your backend business processes to a digital solution that encompasses smartphones and kiosks, for example. The technology infrastructure for a multichannel solution goes well beyond the platform you choose for front-end development. In order to be successful, companies must consider how to architect data delivery and API management as well as security, scalability, content aggregation, device optimization, API translation, etc. Bring your IT team into the discussion before you get too far down the planning path.

9. Decide on a technology you can live (and grow) with.

As the mobile space matures, there will be many more application develop choices. In many cases, your goals will help determine what you choose here. For example, if your goal is to reach as many users as possible across all platforms, you may choose an HTML framework with little hardware integration. If your goal is to provide deep hardware integration for augmented reality technology, then you’ll probably develop a native application. Decisions around technology can directly affect your app’s functionality.

10. Plan to analyze.

The final step in the process is determining how to measure success. With a morass of potential features, devices, platforms and technologies, success can be challenging to define, but it will affect your ultimate strategy. Consider the following questions.

Will this increase our transaction volume and, therefore, revenue?
Will this increase customer adoption and retention?
Will this increase our brand recognition and loyalty?
Will this decrease our costs?
How many people do we want using our app?
How do we want to integrate the solution with our social media program?
How will we integrate with our existing analytics tools?

Why Windows 8 Is Microsoft’s Most Vital Launch In Years

2012-02-29T16:49:00.000-06:00

Microsoft Windows was a fact of life for an entire generation raised on the PC. But we live in a different world now, and perhaps nothing underscores how much that world has changed more than the fact that the version of Windows that Microsoft is getting ready to launch this year is its most important product launch in decades.

It has been 17 years since the general public was genuinely excited by a new version of Windows: people actually lined up to buy Windows 95 like it was the iPhone or something. Years of meandering followed: Windows ME was a joke, Windows XP was an updated but essentially similar experience to Windows 95, Windows Vista was an attempt to correct XP’s security issues but turned into a joke of its own, and Windows 7 was what Vista should have been yet failed to inspire. In the meantime, Apple and Google captured the attention of software developers and the public with mobile computers built around iOS and Android.

But Windows 8 is going to be different. Tomorrow morning in Barcelona (at a telecom industry conference, of all things) Microsoft is going to unveil the Consumer Preview Edition of Windows 8, and if it arrives on schedule and without incident later this year, it could accelerate the world’s transition toward a mobile-first vision of general purpose computing.

Windows 8 is a huge development for Microsoft in several ways:

The Windows user experience has been radically overhauled with the Metro user interface, which has been a critically acclaimed (if not revenue-generating) part of the Windows Phone design. Metro will be unfamiliar to the millions raised on the concept of the “Start” button (now the Windows logo button on Windows 7) in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, but it allows Microsoft to embrace a new era of computing that is more and more about the touch screen.
Microsoft developed a version of Windows 8 for ARM processors, a chip brand unfamiliar to most average computer users but which is at the heart of nearly every single smartphone and tablet sold over the last several years. Even though Intel seems to have finally gotten its act together in the power-sensitive mobile space, ARM is an industry standard for mobile processing and will allow PC companies like HP to build power-efficient tablets in hopes of competing with the iPad.
Microsoft has always had a big problem: introducing radical new changes in Windows breaks a lot of business applications that were built for previous versions, which has led the company to move slowly through transitional periods. Windows 8 represents one of the biggest leaps forward for mainstream Windows developers in what seems like forever, but Microsoft had no choice but to include a “Desktop” user interface version of Windows 8 that will run old applications. The transition between Metro and Desktop could be jarring, and conservative support for Metro may not expose as many Windows 8 users as possible to the best parts of Windows 8.
Applications written for the Metro user interface will be sold through the Windows Store, as opposed to the more traditional shrink-wrapped or downloadable software sold for Windows. Sharing revenue with Microsoft will be a new experience for the Windows development community, although it’s established practice for iOS developers and Microsoft will actually take a smaller cut than Apple once an app’s revenue passes $25,000.

Read the full post on GigaOm...

How I lost my virginity to AT&T

2012-02-26T11:23:00.003-06:00

Last month, I decided to travel to Las Vegas to compete in the AT&T Developer Summit Hackathon, hosted during CES 2012. While driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, I was brainstorming all kinds of ideas for apps that could run on AT&T’s new mHealth APIs. After working in the Healthcare insurance field for the past year, I was certain that I could think of something that would work.
The AT&T Hackathon invited mobile app developers to a day-long developing session where they were given free access to AT&T’s new APIs, gadgets, as well as guidance and expertise from AT&T’s app development experts. The top three teams, selected at the end of the session, were given the opportunity to pitch their ideas to about 3,000 developers during AT&T’s Application Developer Summit the following day.
The Hackathon environment was intense and competitive. There were about 200 developers, designers and suits pitching ideas, designing, coding and networking intensely all day and night. There was a $20,000 prize at stake so people wanted that seed money to jump start their entrepreneurial endeavors.
For the 1st Place the team received:
• $20k Cash Prize
• Featured in AT&T TV commercial
• Video Interview with Andrew Keen posted on TechCrunch
• Six (6) month membership in Alpha API program where we help setup networking events where you get to rub elbows with significant peers
• Three (3) days of AT&T Foundry business and technical support
• One month feature in AT&T Promotional Widget (platform dependent)
• “Back-Stage” meet and greet with Developer Summit Band Nickelback
• Microsoft Xbox 360 + Kinect for the entire team
In the end, we ("Team Ouchie") came up with an HTML5 Mobile Web app that enabled people to find their nearest urgent care facility based on their location and symptoms via Voice and Image Search. Although we weren't selected as finalists, the learning experience of working with super talented folks was epic. I certainly see this app out in the marketplace someday.
Should we pursue finishing the app? Let us know your thoughts!

Fast Pitch by finalist Jane Zhu

The formation of teams - think geek speed dating.

To give you an idea of how many people were trying to form teams.

The "Ouchie" team hard at work.

The final presentation pitch to judges.
"When you get hurt, you'll be grouchy...but that's OK, because you've got Ouchie"

Thanks to Kevin Roche for taking all of these fantastic photos! Here's the plug for Kevin: www.kevinroche.com

comScore Releases the “2012 Mobile Future in Focus” Report

2012-02-23T11:49:00.000-06:00

Report Offers Insights on the Mobile and Connected Device Landscape in 2011 and What They Mean for 2012

RESTON, VA, February 23, 2012 - comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the2012 Mobile Future in Focus report. This annual report examines the mobile and connected device landscape, covering several mobile markets measured by comScore, through an exploration of key trends driving smartphone adoption growth, mobile media usage in categories such as social networking and retail, mobile ecosystem dynamics, and shifts in multi-device digital media consumption in 2011. The report highlights insights primarily from mobile markets in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada.

“2011 proved to be a groundbreaking year for the mobile industry, with smartphones hitting the mainstream, tablets emerging as a formidable fourth screen, and consumers increasingly integrating mobile behaviors into their lifestyles. As the industry continues to innovate and more consumers look to multiple devices and platforms to consume digital media, we expect the mobile and connected device landscape to be shaken up even further in 2012,” said Mark Donovan, comScore Senior Vice President of Mobile. “As mobile channels present a more personal, social, and ubiquitous experience to consumers, advertisers and publishers have an opportunity to better engage target audiences, given an understanding of how to connect and leverage the unique characteristics of these emerging platforms.”

To download a complimentary copy of 2012 Mobile Future in Focus report, please visit:http://www.comscore.com/2012MobileFutureinFocus

Key findings highlighted in 2012 Mobile Future in Focus include:

Smartphones Gain Adoption Among ‘Early Majority’, Driving Mobile Media Consumption
Nearly 42 percent of all U.S. mobile subscribers now use smartphones, along with 44.0 percent of mobile users across the EU5 (comprised of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK). Mobile media use – defined as browsing the mobile web, accessing applications, or downloading content – saw increased growth as a result, surpassing the 50-percent threshold in many markets, supported by the proliferation of high-speed networks and increased public WiFi availability.

Smartphone Platform Wars Intensify As Android and Apple Take the Lead in Most Markets
The Google Android and Apple iOS smartphone platforms emerged as the leaders of the U.S. smartphone market in 2011, with Android just a few points shy of capturing half of the smartphone market and iOS accounting for nearly 30 percent of the market. In the EU5, Android saw similarly significant gains, unseating market leader Symbian in 3 out of the 5 European markets measured.

Surge in Mobile App Usage Shapes a Dual Mobile Browsing Experience, Fueling Category Growth
In 2011, both the U.S. and EU5 saw the growth in mobile app use exceed the growth in mobile browser use, leading to both markets seeing the same percentage of their mobile audience use both apps and browsers to access mobile media. Health ranked as the fastest-growing mobile media category in the U.S. in 2011, followed by Retail and other commerce-related categories such as Electronic Payments and Auction Sites.

Mobile Retail Information Leads to Emergence of Smartphone Shopping Behaviors
More than half of the U.S. smartphone population used their phone to perform retail research while inside a store in 2011, illustrating the emergence of savvy smartphone shoppers who bring online shopping behaviors in-store – a trend seen in other markets as well. At the end of 2011, nearly 1 in 5 smartphone users scanned product barcodes and nearly 1 in 8 compared prices on their phone while in a store.

Mobile Devices Fuel Social Networking On-The-Go, Driving Real-Time Online Interaction
64.2 million U.S. smartphone users and 48.4 million EU5 smartphone users accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile devices at least once in December 2011, with more than half of these mobile social networking users accessing social media almost every day. While mobile social networking users showed the highest propensity to read posts from people they knew personally, more than half of those in the U.S. and nearly half in the EU5 also reported reading posts from brands, organizations, and events.

Mobile Connectivity and Connected Devices Encourage Cross-Platform Digital Media Consumption among ‘Digital Omnivores’
Tablets quickly rose in popularity in 2011, taking less than two years to account for nearly 40 million tablets in use among U.S. mobile users and outpacing smartphones which took 7 years to reach the same. By the end of 2011, nearly 15 percent of U.S. mobile users also had tablets – a trend seen across other markets as well.

Nielsen: Smartphone Penetration Reaches 48%

2012-02-21T14:30:00.002-06:00

by Mark Walsh via Mobile Marketing Daily

U.S. smartphone penetration is nearly at the halfway mark as of January, according to the latest Nielsen data. The 48% of American adults with smartphones is up from 44% in the third quarter of 2011. It likely reflects a bump from the record 37 million iPhones that Apple sold worldwide in the fourth quarter.

Nielsen tends to be the most aggressive among research firms when it comes to estimating how many Americans have smartphones. Most put the level closer to 40%. comScore, for instance, estimated smartphone penetration as of December at 42%. The Nielsen findings are based on a survey of 20,000 mobile users.

Younger adults are more likely to have smartphones. The 24-34 age group had the highest proportion of smartphone owners at two-thirds. That was followed closely by people ages 18-24, at 62%, and people 35-44, at 58%.

Looking just at consumers who bought smartphones in the last three months, the pattern was similar. Eight out of 10 people 18-34 have gotten smartphones in that period, leading all other age segments.

But Nielsen noted income level is also a key factor in how likely someone is to own a smartphone. When both age and income are both taken into account, older subscribers with higher incomes are more likely to have a smartphone. For instance, those in the 55-64 age bracket making over $100,000 a year are almost as likely to have a smartphone as those 35-44, making $35,000 to $75,000 per year.

In the same vein, people 45-54 making more than $100,000 a year are almost twice as likely to have a smartphone as those in the same age group making $15,000 to $35,000 a year (60% versus 32%). When combining age and income, those 25-34 making more than $100,000 had the highest proportion of smartphone owners, at 80%. But among people in that age range making only $15,000 to $35,000 a year, more than half (58%) had a smartphone.

Who Is Watching Video on Their Mobile?

2012-02-20T14:41:00.000-06:00

– via Comscore

For the three month average period ending June 2011, more than 16 million mobile users in the U.S. watched TV or video on their mobile phones. Males made up a significantly larger percentage of the mobile TV/video viewing audience (61.8%) compared to females (38.2%). Users age 24-34 accounted for the largest share of viewers by age representing 31.8% of the total mobile TV/video audience, while those age 18-24 accounted for 21.9% of viewers and the 35-44 year old segment represented 20.6%.

An App for That - For all the talk about games and social, the utilities most users can't live without are weather related

2012-02-17T15:01:00.002-06:00

via Adweek

People use their phones to entertain themselves and stay connected, but most of all, they put them to practical use. According to Forrester Research, weather-related apps were downloaded by 51 percent of mobile users, edging out games (50 percent), social networking (47 percent) and navigation apps (39 percent).

It wasn't always so: games and other casual-use apps used to be the most popular, but they've dropped behind weather and navigation apps in the past year, according to Mobilewalla, a platform that ranks apps.

Add caption

The Mashable SXSWi House Returns to Austin in 2012

2012-02-16T00:00:00.000-06:00

The Mashable SXSWi House Returns to Austin in 2012

It’s that time of the year again, where members of the digital and technology communities come together in Austin, TX for the SXSW Interactive festival, March 9-13.

Amid five days of panels, presentations and networking opportunities, Mashable will be hosting one of the biggest and most memorable events at the festival: the Mashable SXSWi House.

Working with SXSW and our partner sponsors, on Sunday, March 11 from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., we will offer an exciting evening of music and networking with an open bar. Joining us will be San Francisco-based DJ duo A Plus D of Bootie, who will be spinning their world famous mashups at the Mashable SXSWi House. In addition, the Mashable editorial team will be in Austin in full force.

Last year, Mashable was named the most buzzed-about brand during SXSWi, and this year we’ll have some fun surprises for the SXSWi community that we’ll be announcing soon.

Details

Date: Sunday, March 11, 2012
Time: 9 p.m. – 2 a.m.
Location: Buffalo Billiards, 201 6th Street, Austin, TX
Socialize: Follow #MashHouse on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Plancast and Instagram

RSVP Policy
The event is open to all 21+ SXSWi badge holders. Please RSVP on Eventbrite.

Facebook Cites Mobile Expansion As 'Risk' To Its Future

2012-02-02T15:31:00.000-06:00

Via Steve Smith from MobileInsider

Funny thing about the 425 million monthly users of Facebook on mobile devices: they don’t monetize well, and Facebook itself admits it is unsure when and how they will. In all of the press attention to the size and overall prospects for Facebook’s new public form, the elephant in the room that seemed to elude notice was sitting in every analyst’s pocket. In fact, in yesterday’s SEC filing for its proposed initial public offering, social network and mobile Goliath Facebook underscores the prospect that its massive popularity on devices could pose a business risk. Do a search of “mobile” in the filing with the SEC and see what you get.

In two separate paragraphs under the requisite “Risk Factors” litany of things that might go awry in the business plan, the company admits that its strength in mobile could prove a weakness if people abandon the desktop. “Growth in use of Facebook through our mobile products, where we do not currently display ads, as a substitute for use on personal computers may negatively affect our revenue and financial results,” the filing states.
Facebook reveals that it is touching 425 million monthly active users at this point, meaning that about half of its members are accessing the network regularly on devices. The company says it fully expects the rate of growth in mobile access to exceed overall growth in the member base. “Although the substantial majority of our mobile users also access and engage with Facebook on personal computers where we display advertising, our users could decide to increasingly access our products primarily through mobile devices. We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven.”

Until now Facebook has not run its ads into the mobile stream via its apps or mobile sites. Nor has the company been forthcoming in laying out its mobile monetization strategy. At the very least, Facebook appears to be laying down a clear challenge to itself to make this platform work or suffer real damage.
To be sure, virtually every aspect of the Facebook business plan has stated risks, and it is the function of the “Risk Factors” section of an IPO filing to call out every contingency. But risks to other areas of the business, like the core ad product, currently have solutions in place that are generating business. The absence of a mobile monetization strategy is an obvious hole in the Facebook strategy.

Further on in Facebook’s filing we see how the company’s need for a mobile strategy is even more pressing as it expands worldwide. Mobile platforms are responsible for much of its growth in daily active users. The company says that mobile is critical to increasing its engagement with users and its ability to grow the base especially in emerging markets.

Some hint of future monetization comes when the filing reiterates the business risk of members replacing desktop access with mobile access, which Facebook anticipates to be the case. “The number of ads that we deliver to users and our revenue may be negatively affected unless and until we include ads or sponsored stories on our mobile apps and mobile website.” To channel our recent President, the implications of this statement depends on what your definition of “or” is.

The implication is that Facebook may still be undecided about how it plans to monetize the mobile channel, whether through migrating its current ads or leveraging new models like brand “stories.” In other words, Facebook is in the same bind that earlier mobile social networks have been in. They enjoy massive inventory on a medium where people are even more reticent than they are on the desktop to click away from their core social experience in order to pursue an advertiser’s message.

For almost a decade, “community” areas of most Web sites were regarded as an ad effectiveness hole. Tossing an intrusive ad into a social exchange online is roughly the same as putting a commercial in the middle of a phone call. People are focused on one another, not on an interloping brand. Some communities tried to fix this with broader community section sponsorships that kept a single brand ever-evident.

In mobile we saw companies like MocoSpace ratchet through models that included brand profile pages. Mobile dating sites would slip interstitials into the pile of profiles that mobile users would flip through as they triaged prospects to contact later. Some of these networks like MocoPay and airG have settled on virtual currency and gaming as monetization strategies. Certainly that is one strong possibility for Facebook as it brings its apps into the mobile space. Curiously, I couldn’t find any mention of virtual currency attached to mobile platforms in the IPO filing.

Later in the IPO filing, the company addresses the mobile advertising opportunity directly, providing an even more explicit indication of where it is leaning:“We believe that we may have potential future monetization opportunities such as the inclusion of sponsored stories in users’ mobile News Feeds.” In other words, the answer is Twitter’s answer.

So from all indications in the IPO, we will be seeing ads interspaced with the notes you share with family and friends. Arguably, Facebook isn’t Twitter. Twitter is more of a broadcasting medium, while Facebook relies on more defined and controlled circles of friends. There is a level of intimacy here that Twitter does not seem to have. Ads in feeds just doesn’t seem to me to be the kind of sophisticated leadership position one might want from a $100 billion dollar company that has as many mobile users as just about any entity on the planet. Let’s hope someone in Zuckerberg’s dorm room is thinking harder about this issue than it appears.

BitShare - If you need to ‘avoid the ghetto’, don’t worry, Microsoft has you covered

2012-01-30T14:40:00.000-06:00

BitShare - If you need to ‘avoid the ghetto’, don’t worry, Microsoft has you covered

Whither Mobile?

2012-01-25T13:53:00.001-06:00

By Layton Han via Engage: Marketing Affluent

It’s hard to imagine that any brand could be holding back on its mobile marketing initiatives. The growth pattern is too fast; the consumer behavior migration too sudden. Some evidence is showing up, though, that high-end brands might be underestimating the affluent customer segment when it comes to mobile. This could be a big mistake.
First: The evidence. A mid-January survey by luxury branding "think tank" L2 shows that high- end brands are way behind the curve for mobile marketing. Only two-thirds of prestige brands maintain a mobile-optimized site, and one-third of these mobile development efforts do not yet support commerce. Of the top ten brands that were recognized for outstanding mobile presence by L2, only one travel brand made it: InterContinental. Now, it’s understandable that mobile commerce may not have reached effective scale for many top-end brands. In fact, Unity Marketing’s Pam Danziger has said that mobile is more likely to be used for social networking by affluent customers and, as of yet, mobile hasn’t reached critical mass for shopping.

Which is not to say that it won’t get there. Mobile has continually surprised even the most aggressive analyst predictions. A mobile presence for high-end brands will be necessary. Even if affluent behavior on mobile devices hasn’t been thoroughly scrutinized, there’s no reason to believe that this customer segment won’t show the same level of intense growth and intense usage. I see a lot of the travel segment as our company expands into new verticals, and I can tell you that mobile devices will be a key hub in the audience targeting and affluent behavioral segmenting that is so important to catching up to the customer, where the customer wants to be.

But high-end brands should not look at mobile as a fixed target. In fact, the best is yet to come. We’re currently working on creative and advertising strategies that can enhance branded app experiences through uses of an embedded browser. We’re also working with several leading local deal aggregators and national advertisers to optimize the mobile experience with user data and online campaign performances. It will support various mobile actions such as click to call, click to download, and click to purchase. Right now those are very important for the travel vertical. They will be important in every vertical as mobile achieves scale.

Another recent survey illustrates this point. Cars.com teamed up with Nielsen last week and found that mobile shoppers for the automotive category are younger, with individuals 34 years of age or younger representing 40% of the respondents. Most are in the market for a new car (73% of recent purchasers bought a new vehicle) and are more affluent, with 79% reporting a household income over $50,000. That’s not the top end of the affluent spectrum, but it is an indication that brands need to get mobile and commerce-enabled.

Layton Han is CEO of Adara Media.

5 Flaws in Your Mobile Marketing Strategy

2012-01-23T11:48:00.000-06:00

by Scott Forshay via Mashable

Scott Forshay is a luxury and premium brand marketing consultant and mobile strategist who’s been featured in PSFK, Luxury Daily, Fashion’s Collective, Business of Fashion and The Wall Street Journal. He is the creator and editor of mobi.luxe, and can be followed on Twitter@mobiluxe.

The hyper-connected consumer of today has little patience for clutter or noise. His smartphone is the compass with which he engages the world, the persistent interface that guides him through the ever-evolving digital landscape. How then, as marketers, do we evolve in order to not only keep pace with the mobile revolution, but also to utilize it as intended?

The smartphone is intensely personal, intimately integrated into our social graphs, superior in its contextual awareness of time and space, hyper-connected and nearly always within arm’s reach. The smartphone has, in essence, become a natural extension of our human selves.

Yet, despite the newfound wealth of opportunities available to mobile marketers, we have been consistently and fundamentally flawed in both strategy and execution. Quite simply put, we’re doing it all wrong.

1. Flaw: De-Emphasizing the Unique Nature of the Medium

Although they share a common infrastructure, mobile is not the traditional web. In fact, the two have few equivalents in the stationary web world. The stationary web is exactly that – inactive. With that said, why would mobile design, which should be focused on creating an experience unique to those who are actively on-the-go, be constructed with an inactive model in mind?

Mobile events are inherently transitive in nature. The different elements of the medium — constant connectivity, location awareness, personalization and social connection — add affinity to consumer/brand interactions and empower the medium uniquely as an events-driven interface. These features form the foundation for consumer interaction — a tight, relevant orchestration of branded communications among increasingly interconnected brand advocates.

2. Flaw: Treating Connected Consumers as Stationary Targets

Mobile consumers are moving targets; therefore, marketers must consider the variability of exchange. Where is the consumer right now? What is she interested in? How can I compel her to visit my store location? What can I reward her with to increase her loyalty to the brand? What can I do to make her feel included? How can I use the medium to make her encounter the brand more efficiently? What experience can I provide to her that she would feel compelled to share? When viewed through this lens, the possibilities for engaging consumers are limited only to the imagination and ingenuity of the brand.

3. Flaw: Ignoring the Power of Contextual Relevance

The mobile medium represents the most powerful mechanism for delivering contextually relevant, consumer-brand marketing communications. To take advantage of its unique capabilities, however, successful marketing strategies must evolve alongside these communicating customers. The digital natives of today’s hyper-connected world seek contextual relevance when engaging with brands. Their experiences are defined not only by the message itself, but by the context in which the message is presented.

Marketers who effectively tackle today’s mobile variables will provide consumers with unique experiences that are differentiated, highly relevant and intensely personal. Only then will we collectively realize the power and influence of marketing in the moment.

4. Flaw: Employing Old World, Unidirectional Strategies

Effective consumer engagement can no longer take an unidirectional mindset. Today’s digital natives are constantly presented with a dizzying array of branded digital touchpoints. They are expecting consistent yet unique communication and brand message.

Brands are now challenged to become adept transmedia storytellers, to create a message that syncs with the communication medium in which it’s delivered. Brands must move beyond simply marketing to people but, instead, must master marketing to a context that is determined by device or platform. They must consider the specific medium which they choose to engage.

5. Flaw: Not Offering Value in Exchange for Value

Establishing consumer relationships through mobile marketing, as with any successful relationship, inherently requires a mutual exchange of value. Whether consumers are opting-in for brand communications via SMS or engaging with the brand in a single instance by scanning a QR code, the onus is on the brand to deliver value in return for customers’ time and information.

Without the perception that value is mutual, the relationship becomes essentially one-sided and unrequited. The customer may attempt to end the relationship — perhaps permanently. Regardless of the strategies or technologies employed, successful mobile marketing relies heavily on a fair and evenly balanced value exchange between consumer and brand. Given the intensely personal nature of smart devices, coupled with the fact that the device is nearly always within arm’s reach, it becomes extremely important that mobile marketing avoids being intrusive and irrelevant.

Conventional marketing wisdom advocates a right audience + right message + right time methodology, designed to entice a stationary audience. In mobile, the same principles don’t necessarily apply. Rather than marketing at the target with brand-centric storytelling, wherever and however she may encounter you, allow the tale to travel along with her as she goes. Communicate the narrative, allow the mobile medium to reveal ensuing chapters in a continuum of branded engagements.

Windows Phone's Siri rival off to a good start

2012-01-05T11:47:00.001-06:00

by Lance Whitney January 4, 2012 6:18 AM PSTFollow @lancewhit

(Credit: Averotek)

Move over Siri. Windows Phone now has its own voice assistant, dubbed Ask Ziggy, and it seems to be a hit.

Except for some negative comments here and there, many reviewers on the MarketPlace page for the free app christened it with 4- and 5-star ratings, resulting in an average of 3.5 stars.

"Off to a great start," said one commenter. "As a proof of concept it's funny to see how Apple's 'amazing' interface can be rivaled by a single developer. Looking forward to future updates."

I ran a quick, informal competition between Ziggy and Apple's Siri, giving Siri--which debuted on the iPhone 4S in October--the same voice commands issued to Ziggy in the video displayed below.

Ziggy functions similarly to Siri at following basic voice commands. You can ask Ziggy to phone a contact or dial a specific number, and e-mail or text someone with a certain message.

You can ask Ziggy to provide directions, find local businesses, tell you the weather, perform calculations, and handle a variety of other tasks. A help page set up by the developer offers suggestions on what you can ask Ziggy.

In performing calculations, Ziggy announced the actual result, while Siri displayed the result from a Wolfram Alpha search. When Ziggy was asked for an antonym for "fatuous," she responded with several suggestions. When I asked the same question of Siri, she simple displayed a single phrase from Wolfram Alpha with no other choices. But when asked for directions, stock prices, and other basic information, both Ziggy and Siri were about on par. Both apps also direct you to the Web if they can't come up with an answer on their own.

Ziggy does offer at least one option missing in Siri. You can change Ziggy's voice to male or female. That capability seems appropriate since Ziggy is undoubtedly a reference to the computer in the 90s time-travel series "Quantum Leap." Initially referred to as a "he," Ziggy was later revealed to have a female voice and personality, courtesy of her creator.

Microsoft's mobile OS already includes its own voice recognition feature called TellMe, but Ziggy is developer Shai Leib's attempt to bring voice assistance to a higher level, as profiled in astory by enthusiast site WP Central.

Also trying to play catchup with Apple, Google is reportedly working on its own voice assistantfor Android phones. Named after the late "Star Trek" actress Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, who provided the voice of the computer in several of the series, Majel could start talking to Android users sometime early this year.

Next up for Ziggy
Leib, Ziggy's creator, told CNET that he's been excited about speech recognition on mobile devices and saw the benefit of a speech-driven instant answer app that can also handle routine phone tasks. Obviously aware of the comparisons with Siri, Leib said that he's working hard to add more features to Ziggy to make it unique. Creating more voices and having Ziggy speak the answer to each question are two enhancements in the works.

In development on and off since November, Ziggy went live on the Windows Phone Marketplace late December. Since then, Leib has been submitting updates every week and is currently waiting for version 1.3 to be approved. To keep up with the demands of developing the app, he's also looking for investors.

What's next for Ziggy? Leib said that he's trying to expand her grammar so she can carry on more of a conversation. He's also eyeing support for other languages and is looking to integrate Ziggy with other apps.

Updated 10:15 a.m. PT with comments from Ziggy's creator.