I am Helen Keegan, a veteran of mobile marketing, advertising and media since 2000. This is my diary and musings about mobile since 2004. I am part consultant and part events organiser in London, Barcelona and beyond (Swedish Beers and Heroes of Mobile). I write here about mobile technology and media and other things I'm interested in like theatre, art, crafts, business and life.
The recent frenzy around the augmented reality PokemonGo mobile game can’t have escaped most of you. Whether it was you, your friends, your colleagues or your children who were hooked, there’s no doubt that PokemenGo had an immediate impact with some crazy scenes of mass PokemonGo players from across the globe. In case you missed the frenzy, my friend George did a little video about it to help explain the overnight sensation that was 20 years in the making.
I must admit, I did succumb, briefly, to see what all the fuss was about. It was kinda fun to play in Central London and it was kinda fun to compare which Pokemon you had with friends. But outside of that, not so much fun when you’re outside a big city due to lack of Pokestops and lack of Pokemon to actually catch that weren’t Rattatas, Spearows or Pidgeys. It also slowed down my walking when I’m actively trying to increase both my step count and the effort I put into my steps.
When PokemonGo first hit the market, you could see people playing locally where I live as it turned them into Pokemon zombies wandering aimlessly near Pokestops searching for rare virtual creatures. But that’s all but stopped now from what I can tell as the novelty has worn off. I deleted the app from my phone last week. The vibe was over.
It seems, however, that I was wrong. Brands are now getting in on the act and coming up with their own PokemonGo inspired geo-targeted treasure hunts.
The first is a game from betting company, 888Sport, imaginatively entitled 'Free Bet Hunt'. Instead of hunting Pokemon, you can hunt free bets around football stadiums.
FreeBetHunt is not quite as pretty as Pikachu's virtual playground. However, that may not matter. I’m not exactly the target market for this as I neither bet nor have any interest in football despite my surname being the same as a famous footballer of the late 20th Century. So, is this a winning strategy to get football fans betting more? I don’t know. How interested are 21st Century football fans with virtual treasure hunts? I guess time will tell. I welcome your comments on that score. I do applaud 888Sport on their speed to market though and their willingness to experiment with new technologies.
More info on how to play here (you need to be over 18 and have an 888Sport account and have deposited actual money in it in order to qualify).
I certainly didn't think much about it. I vaguely knew that there were competitions for some of the bigger computer games but it didn't really cross my mind to think about it much. Until the last few weeks, that is.
I mentor a couple of Masters students from the University of Westminster every year. It's where I studied as a mature student and this is my small contribution towards giving back to the university. This year, one of the students I'm mentoring is a massive e-sports fan so we've been talking about it a lot. Coincidentally, the BBC has just shown a fantastic documentary about e-sports, The Supergamers, which you can catch on the iPlayer for the next 4 weeks. They also have a brilliant primer, in case you were wondering about it.
Did you know that 10s of 1000s of people attend live games and millions watch from the comfort of their own screens? - yes, they're watching teams of people play a computer game.
Did you know there were salaried professional players?
Did you know that the prize funds can run into tens of millions of £?
This is big business.
There's something that feels instinctively wrong about (mostly) young people devoting their time and energy to what boils down to pressing buttons on a computer screen. Of course there are cognitive skills involved. Many of these games involve strategy decisions and being able to work in a team. Your reaction speed is critical (and this reduces as you age) and your career could be over by the time you're 22.
And how can this be considered a sport? I mean there's no physical activity, is there? Arguably, your brain power and reaction speed will be enhanced if you're also physically fit. But it appears that many of the professional players are just like other teenagers and live on junk food, sleep in late and don't do much in the way of getting outside in the fresh air to exercise, preferring instead to slump in front of the TV or a computer screen.
It got me thinking about why I value, say, playing rugby as being a 'better' activity than being the best at League of Legends? What makes it better (or not)? It's arguably healthier to be outside in the fresh air and the physical movement is a good thing about playing rugby. But there are risks of being physically damaged - broken noses and cauliflower ears are common features of rugby players. And in both activities, players need to spend hours and hours of their time devoted to playing, practicing and analysing their performance in order to improve for next time. Is it a better use of your time to hone your rugby, football or netball skills as against honing your computer gaming skills?
It also got me wondering what the role of mobile devices might be in all of this. In terms of fan engagement during tournaments, I'm sure there's a lot of scope. The vibe and scale of these tournaments feels like a cross between a gladiator fight in a Roman Amphitheatre and a Premiership football match. The emotion of the fans is very real.
If you dig a little deeper into e-sports, you'll see that it's growing at phenomenal speed and that it's now a multi-billion $ industry so it isn't going away anytime soon. I wonder how soon it will before some of the e-sports teams and tournaments will become household names as familiar as Manchester United or the Boston Red Sox?
(File under 'stuff young people do but I don't really understand yet'. See also How to Snapchat like a teen.)
A friend shared this video on Facebook earlier today and it raises (again) many concerns that I've had over the last year or two regarding social media scoring, gamification and how our data is used.
Games, gamification and addiction
I've thought for some time that the flashing lights on our mobile screens are as addictive as slot machines. There are many games that require little or no skill whatsoever but just requires you to push your finger around a screen and in return you get the dopamine rush of a virtual reward. Whether that's a reward in game points, being told you're a winner, it amounts to the same thing - a bit of your screen lit up, and in turn, parts of your brain lit up. A cursory search on Google brings up many articles and research studies about this addiction.
And this addiction is starting at a very young age - children are playing digital games from being toddlers and the addictive nature of these games is apparent when you see how a child behaves when they're told to stop playing or their device is taken away.
At the same time, games can be great fun and are a way for many people to relax. So it's not all bad, as long as we're aware of when it may be getting out of hand.
Social scoring
And then we come on to social scoring. There are several companies like Klout, PeerIndex and their ilk who score people base on their activities on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. I've never been much bothered about my score but these are the social media equivalent of our credit ratings which brands and agencies can use to target for 'blogger outreach' or product promotions. Indeed, I'm sure these scores now feed into our credit rating as well and also feed into job applications and more. I guess that's a feature of living in the modern world and I can't say it's something I'm particularly happy about, nor do I feel I can do much about it either.
Sesame Credit
China takes these two concepts to the next level. Sesame Credit, the brainchild of Alibaba and Tencent, is a combination of social scoring, credit scoring, gamification (or the addictive nature of gaming) to promote and encourage 'good citizenship'. In China, that means compliance, falling in line and not criticising the government or those in power. The video above explains it very well and the BBC covered it a couple of months ago. The Chinese seem to have taken to the system like a duck to water and freely share their current score. Although it's not currently compulsory to participate, according to the video and the BBC, it will be compulsory by 2020.
What about the UK?
Well, I don't foresee that there will be a compulsory system imposed here, but the UK government has been spying on us via our telephone and internet activity for the last 15 years and keeping records on millions of British citizens according to El Reg. I'm sure every government is doing something similar.
Oh, and don't forget that the advertising industry is busy watching us too. Check out The Secret Life of Your Mobile Phone video below and catch the stage show if you can. It's brilliant. There's an audio available of their show at The Hay Festival (£1 to download).
See also You are Your Phone on how the pattern of smartphone use is the pattern of the self.
Big Brother Is Watching You? You betcha. Merry Christmas!
I've been gallavanting in Ireland at the rather marvellous Electric Picnic, and then had a bout of laryngitis and now I'm kinda back with a few links for you on a Monday. Of course, there's a ton of stuff I still need to catch up on but there's the day job to think about too. So you'll have to do with a few links until I magically find some time to blog more.
Stephanie from Atlantic Records dropped me a line to tell me about the mobile marketing she's doing for Yung Joc, a top-selling US hip-hop artist (no, I hadn't heard of him either, but then I guess I'm the wrong side of 22, much to my chagrin). Stephanie tells me, "to be a hustler, you gotta know how to trade like one. With the rise of the digital age, trading cards are shedding their physical skin and moving to the mobile world, Yung Joc style. Collect, trade, and redeem Yung Joc wallpaper for your cell phone and you could win a grand, or a call from Joc himself. Sign up for Yung Joc trading cards at cards.yungjoc.com or Text JOC to 87233 (TRADE). Get 3 cards straight to your cell for only a $1 a week. Collect all 42 and you just earned yourself street cred and an A in Hustlenomics. Competition is for US residents only.
And while we're talking about gaming and gambling, did you know there's new legislation covering this area in the UK. And as legislation is such a minefield, the nice folks at Million 2-1 (the lottery and games company), have created a lovely free guide to the new regulatory framework covered under the directives and legislation laid out in the new Gambling Act (effective September 1, 2007). Well worth a read if you're looking to do anything using premium rate SMS and telephony.
Got a Nokia N-Series phone? Like Audi? Then you might like this. Nokia users will be able to download one-minute clips from longer Audi Channel programmes such as Anatomy of Fear , which provides a scientific look at the emotion as we take celebrities Lady Isabella Hervey and Oliver Skeete to Dubai for a series of psychological tests to push their limits, and R10 v Harrier, which features the Le Mans winning Audi R10 going headto-head in a sprint race with an RAF harrier jet at RAF Wittering. The service is fully on-demand, so users can download the clips whenever they want using the N-series Plus service (which I've never heard of until now, and I've had a N-Series phone for over 18 months). The Audi Channel - a 24-hour non-subscription service on Sky Digital channel 884 and at www.audi.co.uk - will now also be available free to users of peer-to-peer network Joost, and Nokia N-series mobile phones.
Some of these links are a little out of date as I've been away from my puter but I thought it was worth capturing them anyway just for the record. They're in no particular order...
Mobile music price scandal (well billshock based on data charges) is a hot topic. Flat rate, easy to understand data plans are the answer IMHO and although we're moving towards that, we're not fully there yet.
"The survey, carried out by research company GfK NOP, found that 64 per cent of users admitted to being annoyed by marketing offers received from mobile service providers. The survey also found that 70 per cent of phone users found the offers irrelevant to them.
The strategy of texting or phoning users with unsolicited offers appears to be failing with only 11 per cent of the 752 respondents surveyed buying products as a result of receiving an offer from their operator."
Of course, what they're missing here, is that an eleven per cent response rate is very high compared with other marketing methods. And in fact, if a network operator is sending a message to their own customer it isn't *legally* spam although it may be perceived as spam by the recipient if it's unwanted.
Mobile advertising is working according to 2ergo and o2 (well we kinda knew that already from Admob's success with serving over 5 billion ads to date...)
World of Warcraft is working on a full mobile solution for their WoW gameplayers and has set the ball rolling with an interim solution for keeping up to date with what your character is up to. I wonder how long it will take for the experience of WoW, Second Life et al to become fully mobile?
Buy a domain, reboot your server, add emails, pay your bill, get support and more - on the go - from the world's first iPhone enabled web hosting control panel. Simple, intuitive and 100% iPhone compliant, with more to come from MediaTemple. Is this innovation or fad?
Mobile gaming and LBS Have you played The Journey II yet? It's a mobile game - designed for Symbian phones (so that'll be Nokia Series 60 phones then).
"The Journey II" interweaves your real environment with the setting of a thrilling detective story. To solve the mysterious case, you have to go outside and walk around, literally. This concept makes "The Journey II" the world's first location based mobile adventure game!"
If you have tried it, do let me know how it worked. [Via Tom Hume]
Text to Win Sales Promotion Coca Cola Company's new text to win a Wii campaign goes live on 14th May until the beginning of July 2007. Running on 182m cans and bottles of Fanta, Sprite and Dr Pepper, you have a chance to win 10 'ultimate Wii Games Rooms' which consists of a Nintendo Wii Console, Wii Sports game, Samsunb 26" LCD TV, a mini fridge and a case each of 330ml Fanta, Sprite and Dr Pepper. The campaign is heftily supported by above the line advertising and extensive PR as well as the Get Up and Play website. You enter by texting in the unique code on the underside of the ring pull or on the back of the bottle label.
I wonder what the chances are of you actually winning anything bearing in mind the promotion is printed on 182m cans of drink...? I'll give it a go when it goes live and see what the interaction is like. Wouldn't mind winning one of those Wii Games Rooms myself!
Has the bluetooth permission marketing conundrum been solved? TeriMobile claims to have sorted out the permission aspect of bluetooth marketing. They've offered me a trial of the service and I haven't had time to take them up on the offer yet, but if anyone else has, or has a comment about the service, please do let me know via email or by leaving a comment her on the blog.
Movers and shakers Angel Gambino (ex MTV) and Laurence Pichot (ex Orange) have both joined Bebo recently - Angel will be driving their music strategy and Laurence will be looking after marketing and partnerships. And Hugh Griffiths (ex O2) joins Microsoft (seems to me to be the 'live' division which covers off MSN Messenger amongst other things). Seems with Microsoft's recent acquisition of mobile advertising firm ScreenTonic and Hugh's appointment, they are, at long last, taking mobile seriously.
I wonder how long it will be before we get these in the UK? In Japan, DoCoMo has released a handset on to the market with motion-senser gaming capability. Now that's very cool. I think. I'm not quite sure how this motion senser stuff will work on a phone as part of the appeal of the Wii is that there's a screen that you're aiming at and others can see what you're doing.
At World Telemedia last week, the bright sparks at ARN recruitment bribed one of the team's nephews to borrow his Wii and they set it up on their stand so you could play Wii Sports. And it was a great hit too with the expo delegates. And it's great fun to play judging by how long people were hanging around to join in and play golf and ten-pin bowling.
DoCoMo seems to be innovating a lot in the handset market with recent phones having a touch sensitive screen and another that gives off a scent when you use it. Whatever next!
It seems, however, that I was wrong. Brands are now getting in on the act and coming up with their own PokemonGo inspired geo-targeted treasure hunts.
