Carnival of the Mobilists #259

Doesn’t time fly. It doesn’t feel like over 6 years since the Carnival of the Mobilists first started and here we are in 2012, and celebrating the Chinese New Year and the start of the year of the Dragon. A year of positive change so they so. And if there’s one thing I know about mobile, it’s that it is a constant state of change. So without further ado, let’s have a look at some of this week’s blogging on mobile.

First up, we have James Coops from Moby Affiliates giving us the lowdown on who he thinks will be the top mobile advertising companies of 2012. It’s an interesting list and there are plenty companies there I’ll be keeping an eye on.

Following the mRetail Summit, David Murphy, editor of Mobile Marketing Magazine, wonders who is advising Lloyds on their mobile advertising strategy. With a string of schoolboy errors in just one campaign, one wonders who signed this one off. Anyway, let others learn from their mistakes. You may also be interested in some of the comments on this article here.

So what’s the story with mCommerce and mRetail? VE Interactive tells us ‘Just 18 months from launch, the use of tablets for online shopping has almost equalled that of mobile phones and it is growing even faster than the mobile.’ And ‘According to the Logan Tod & Co’s 6th Annual Online Future Shipping Index, 14 per cent of respondents used an iPad or other tablet device to make a purchase in the run up to Christmas and 15 per cent of respondents used a mobile to purchase an item.’ Impressive figures certainly.

VE Interactive also thinks there are 6 distinct customer market segments for mobile apps. What do you think? Are they right? Are there more, less, different? Certainly one for discussion I’d say. I think I’m in the ‘never gonna buy an app anytime soon’ category. Wondering if that’s the biggest segment…

Newcomer to the Carnival, FJ from Tech Socio Tech, has been thinking about dating and how the kindle might be keeping us from finding our soulmate. The title of the post may seem flippant, but this is a very interesting read on changing habits due to adoption of new technologies. My favourite post of the week.

I was thinking about longevity and business this week with Kodak recently filing for bankruptcy protection. It occurred to me that we seem to expect businesses to last forever, when in fact, history tells us that the average corporate entity lives for about 40 years. I also found out that one of the oldest companies in the world, the UK’s Royal Mint, is in mortal danger due to mobile payments. Have a read and let me know what you think. There are some comments about the post over on G+ too which are worth a read.

Untether.TV’s latest mpulse video has Kevin C Tofel, purveyor of all things mobile at GigaOm, talk about his16 2012 mobile predictions, Peggy from MobileGroove jumps into some surprising consumer behaviour desires and Rob tries to make sense of the mess that has become RIM after the CEO shakeup. Available in audio and video here.

Long-serving mobilist, Tom Hume, sheds some light on network operators and identity with the recent hoo-ha about customers telephone numbers being passed on to third parties. Is this a missed opportunity or a storm in a teacup? http://www.tomhume.org/2012/01/network-operators-and-identity.html

Ajit Jaokar, another regular contributor to the Carnival of the Mobilists, is talking about Apps for Smart Cities this week. There’s a shout out for speakers and details of an upcoming event he’s involved with in Amsterdam, but more interestingly, for me at least, is some context behind the event with an explanation of what the vision is for apps for smart cities and it got me thinking as to what impact that could or should have on our daily lives. Will the internet plus internet of things = the wisdom of the earth as the Chinese premier recently suggested?

And for some light relief, my friends Kate Imbach and Tom Conrad made a little video which seems to be quite a hit. If you’ve ever worked with tech start-ups, read Techcrunch, hung out in Silicon Valley or watched The Big Bang Theory, then you’ll get it. My favourite quote in it is ‘this app is so elegant’. What’s yours? Are there any they missed?

Well, that was the week that was the last week in January 2012. We’re already one month in and just a month to go until Mobile World Congress and (shameless plug) the Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival in Barcelona. But never fear, there will be more carnival goodness next week over at Antoine RJ Wright’s blog. Until the next time…