Linkage on a Tuesday

A few things I've been reading and thought were worth sharing...

• A good read here from a Greek tech and food entrepreneur telling his story of idea to execution to early success to failure to learning to pivot to greater success. 

• How a fake food business won an award. A salutary tale of how to game social media via buying 'influencers' and what this means for your online marketing strategy. 

• Why am I being paid less than my male colleagues? TLDR probably because you never asked for more money and didn't negotiate. I've heard this before that women don't tend to negotiate. Men negotiate from their first salary so get ahead early on. It doesn't occur to women to do the same. A lesson in negotiation here for men and women of all ages.

• This next one isn't news to me, but it may be news to you and is one of the reasons why I keep banging on about gender discrimination. Having women on your team makes for a better business:

Companies with three or more corporate directors who are women (in at least four out of five years) outperformed those with no women on the board by 84% on return on sales, 60% on return on invested capital and 46% on return on equity.

Also

A 2009 study in Silicon Valley found that venture-backed companies run by women had annual revenues that were 12% higher, used an average of one third less committed capital and had lower failure rates than those led by men.

There's more in this article about addressing the gender gap in angel investing. 

•  This post from Terence Eden is great looking at user-centred design and creating personas when creating websites, apps and services. Entitled 'Debuffs, Enchantment, Equipment, and Players - an RPG Player's Guide to User Stories. I highly recommend.

Thanks for reading.

Friday Tidbits

I’ve been neglecting my blog in favour of Facebook and I think it’s time to get back to my blog and give it some tlc. I’m going to start with an easy post listing some things I’ve been reading and thinking about lately. So here goes...

Jakob Nielsen talks sense about UX in the corporate world. The older readers among you will no doubt remember Mr Nielsen from the early days of the web and his seminal book Designing Web Usability – The Practice of Simplicity. Well, he’s still around and still dishing out sound advice such as in this podcast and interview about how to tackle usability in the corporate world.

Male exec gets it completely wrong on diversity within the ad industry and has to resign his very senior and very well paid role within global ad agency. Read all about it here.

Brexit – A story in maps. This article is fascinating whichever way you did or didn’t vote. It’s not nearly as clear cut as we might have thought and the picture is more complex than London, Northern Ireland and Scotland are in and the rest of the UK voted out. It depends on which way you cut and interpret the data for a much more nuanced view. I don’t envy Theresa May and the job she has on her hands right now.

A great read on burnout here – a modern day and very real affliction. “Burnout is not simply a symptom of working too hard. It is also the body and mind crying out for an essential human need: a space free from the incessant demands and expectations of the world. In the consulting room, there are no targets to be hit, no achievements to be crossed off. The amelioration of burnout begins in finding your own pool of tranquility where you can cool off’.”

Mobile and media linkage for a Friday afternoon

It’s Friday afternoon, so maybe you’d like to line up a bit of reading for the weekend? If news and media are your thing, here are a few links that may be up your street. And a few other ones besides. Enjoy.

An Empirical study of factors that influence the willingness to pay for online news – I’ll be honest, I haven’t read this yet, but it certainly looks interesting. It’s on my reading list for my journey up to Manchester tomorrow.

Publishers just don’t get mobile. This is a piece by Jez Walters who wonders why publishers just don’t get mobile. It’s well worth a read. I would argue that it’s not just publishers who don’t get it, but they probably have most to lose right now by not getting it. I meet media owners all the time and some do mobile better than others and some put more resources and effort into mobile than others. Interesting times indeed.

Who killed magazines? Another piece looking at the demise of the mobile magazine app. It’s from a US perspective, but there are some good insights here as to what could kill your mobile app strategy before it has even started.

Decline of newspapers hits a milestone with lowest print revenues since the 1950s. Print ad-dollars are not being replaced by digital ad-dollars. As if we need telling again, but just in case you do….

Native advertising works at treat but is dependent on platform and device: ‘native advertising – where an ad matches the form and function of the user experience and feels less intrusive – is pulling up trees in terms of reader engagement and click-through rates (CTRs). Hearst Publishing, which has 300 magazine titles to its name, let the cat out of the bag with its disclosure that a native ad campaign within Harper's Bazaar achieved a CTR of up to 1.5%; that compares with the US industry average of 0.1% on traditional display ads.’ Read the article for more.

Nine lies we tell ourselves about mobile (especially pertinent for those who are newer to the sector). An excellent read.

Measure for measure, the difficult art of quantifying return on digital investments. This is an interesting read from CapGemini Consultants, but the irony is not lost on me about on their choice of medium to share this report. This e-book is unreadable on my laptop screen, let alone a mobile device. It’s easier to handle if you download the whole thing as a pdf rather than struggling with their ebook format. If you can bear to work through that, there are some nuggets in there.

We can’t escape that the World Cup is looming and as part of that frenzy, the IAB and OnDevice Research have created a rather lovely piece of work looking at the global mobile perspective of the World Cup 2014. If you are doing anything in sport and mobile, or your customers are, this is worth a look.

This week’s Mobile Fix from Addictive! is a cracker as usual. Well worth a read.

The New York Times innovation report is still on my reading list. Hopefully I’ll get round to this one at the weekend too.

Mary Meeker’s annual slidedeck of key internet trends is out. Essential viewing for anyone with even a vague interest in digital and mobile technology. Plenty ammunition in this deck to convince your boss to go mobile sooner rather than later.

And now for something completely different… LJ Rich, who some of you may know from BBC Click, has written up about what it’s really like to live with perfect pitch. It’s totally fascinating. ‘For me, a laugh is almost always in a major key – crying is almost always in a minor key, regardless of language’ and other gems. A must read.

Linkage ‘n stuff

Inevitably over the Christmas and New Year holidays, I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading stuff rather than writing stuff or doing stuff so here are a few links I thought were worth sharing.

 

13 Things to remember for 2013 is a lovely post from Documentally. It’s a reminder of the things in our life that really matter and what he’s going to do about it. Well worth a look to inspire you to think about how you want to live your 2013. I know it gave me food for thought and I will be returning to it during the year. http://documentally.com/2012/12/30/13-things-to-remember-for-2013/

Why the past always seems happier than the present http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-markman-phd/past-less-intense-than-present_b_987726.html?ref=tw I’ve had plenty experiences where I’ve not necessarily enjoyed them that much while they were actually happening, but I have enjoyed them a lot in retrospect. A bit weird that one, but maybe dining out on a story is sometimes more fulfilling?

Note to self: Productivity is about constraints and concentration. http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/productivity-is-about-constraints-and-concentration

The Anti-Social Era – Lessons learned from Vimeo’s founder http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/23/the-anti-social-era-lessons-learned-from-vimeo-founder-jake-lodwick/ There’s some good advice in this post. Worth a look.

Amazon is not a commerce company http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/30/amazon-is-not-a-commerce-company/ The author explains how Amazon is innovating and is a Big Data company and that businesses should be following its strategic path. Big Data seems to have appeared in a whole bunch of 2013 trends posts and when it comes to data crunching, Amazon probably has a head start.

Social media– some recent linkage

Sharing some links and some thinking about social media from the last week or two.

The biggest sites in social publishing – seems like the Huffington Post is ahead of the game by miles http://www.buzzfeed.com/mattbuchanan/the-biggest-sites-in-social-publishing

Pinterest is hot. I’ve just started playing around with it. I can see why it’s appealing to women. The shareability, the visuals, the ease of use – all make it a lovely site to play with. I’m currently using it as a digital scrapbook – Delicious on steroids if you like. And as a crafter, I’m really loving the access to a wide range of ideas and projects that I can both admire from afar, but also actually be able to do myself. So it becomes a source book of inspiration in much the same way as I used to subscribe to Essentials and Prima in the early days for their patterns so I’d always have something to inspire me when it came to sewing. Anyway, where you should be sitting up and taking notice, is that Pinterest had 18.7m users back in March of which 80% were women. And a picture really does paint a thousand words. Read more here http://jamiedunham.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/marketing-to-women-a-picture-on-pinterest-is-worth-a-thousand-words/

In other news, there’s been hot debate about the new promoted posts over at Facebook. There has been an outcry. I’m not sure why. The model has been working for mobile social networks such as Peperonity and Flirtomatic from day one. So I don’t get that side of the uproar. The side of the uproar I do get is the fact that Facebook may well be holding page admins hostage to their own fans. You’d think by liking a page that you’d get to see the stuff that was posted on their in your feed. But this doesn’t seem to be the case. I haven’t been monitoring it *that* closely for my Facebook pages for my blog, Swedish Beers and Heroes of the Mobile Fringe and Mobile Monday Shoreditch. And it’s hard to know how many of your likers are online at any one time to see something you post anyway. But the numbers are down and by paying, you guarantee that your post will be seen by x. For me, it’s not a lot of money to promote the odd item and is probably worth it for events and special one-offs. But it’s essentially a tax on being popular. The more popular you are, the more it’s going to cost. Seems a bit unfair but have a read of this article on Dangerous Minds and see what you think. http://dangerousminds.net/comments/facebook_i_want_my_friends_back

One of the things I’d like them to change back is the ability to message people who have said they’re coming to your event – especially when there are changes or when you’re running a new event. But I guess that’s one to tackle for another day!

Linktastic on a Tuesday

Here’s the lowdown on some of the things I’ve been thinking about recently that I thought were worth sharing.

Bees

Tweeting bumblebees. Just brilliant. A great project encouraging bumblebees to nest to arrest their decline in our urban and country habitats and learn about bees – both individuals and groups. And one of the outputs is tweeting bumblebees. What’s not to like? Check it out and I defy you not to be charmed by the project. http://niksargent.com/bumblebee

A framework for thinking about mobile apps – it’s not a comprehensive list, but it’s a good starting point. The comments are worth a read too. http://cdixon.org/2012/05/21/four-use-cases-for-mobile-apps/

Music and the planet

Your favourite track may destroy the planet. Or the environmental impact of streaming digital music. I wonder if this is music industry propaganda or if it’s actually grounded in fact. Forgive my cynicism, but the music industry is well-known for pushing its misinformed propaganda and treating music fans with disdain. Interested to hear your comments and thoughts on this one. http://www.2degreesnetwork.com/groups/information-communication-technologies/resources/your-favourite-track-may-destroy-planet_2/

Data vs. Emotion – A Media 360 Thriller

There’s a new debate in town which will run and run and it’s big data vs. emotion. No longer will we need to discuss the hackneyed web vs. apps story. We have a new one! Seriously though, this article really got me thinking. Marketing is both art and science and shouldn’t be mutually exclusive, yet they seem to be. This article sums up the debate succinctly http://mediablogged.mediaweek.co.uk/2012/05/23/data-v-emotion-a-media360-thriller/ and by chance I stumbled on another related article on being data-informed rather than data-driven http://andrewchenblog.com/2012/05/29/know-the-difference-between-data-informed-and-versus-data-driven/ . I’m a creative soul at heart so I hope that emotion wins out, but sadly, I fear data will be the ultimate victor. I just hope that doesn’t mean we lose out on serendipity and emotion. And maybe, just maybe, this is our chance to reinvent marketing altogether and combine the best of both worlds. Or is that a utopian dream?

NFC Ticketing Trials

Stagecoach is staging NFC trials for bus ticketing in Cambridgeshire. It’s a 3-month pilot programme in conjunction with Everything Everywhere to look at the validity of contactless payments for tickets. If it works, they will look to roll out in 2013. My initial reaction was, but what happens when your battery dies, but I’m reliably informed that the NFC chip will still work, it’s just you won’t see your app being updated at the same time. And my second reaction is, but what about pickpockets? We’re always being told to keep our mobile phones safe on London Underground. If we’re whipping out our phones to access the tube, then everyone will know where our phones are. Both points are probably irrelevant, but there’s still some way to go with this. I love my Oyster card, but I never use contactless payments for anything else – even though I could if I wanted to and even though I’m usually an early adopter of these things. Also, according to Dean Bubley’s tweets from today’s Open Mobile conference, NFC on mobile is still too slow and too clunky for mass adoption and is a technology that’s never going to happen. I think Visa and MasterCard would beg to differ so let’s see.

The Growing Epidemic of Page Bloat

Don’t do it. That is all! [Read this article if you need to add fuel to the fire] http://gigaom.com/2012/05/23/the-growing-epidemic-of-page-bloat/

And now for something completely different

Five secret London spots http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2012/05/18/annie-mole-of-london-blog-going-underground-chooses-her-five-secret-london-spots/ as spotted by my friend Annie Mole.

Welcome to 2012

And welcome to the Year of Mobile. Just joking! And I don’t have any predictions for you either. I think there have bee enough of those posts over the last week or two. I’m just going to share some of the things I’ve been reading or thinking about in the last few weeks, as much for my own benefit as yours.

On New Year’s Resolutions and the like…

Quashing the self-improvement urge http://zenhabits.net/improve/. “Quash the urge to improve, to be better. It only makes you feel inadequate. And then explore the world of contentment. It’s a place of wonderment.”

10 Lessons from the Treehouse http://danburgess.typepad.com/tap_tap/2012/01/10-things-i-learnt-in-costa-rica-.html One to keep coming back to to get some perspective. Thank you to Dan Burgess for sharing.

How to write 300,000 words in a year http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/how-to-write-300000-words-in-1-year/. I always mean to write more. When I get round to doing it, I really enjoy it. I know I have things to say and I know there are people out there who want to read that (well, at least a handful not including blood relations). I doubt very much that I’ll get the 300,000 words done, but I am making a conscious effort to revisit longer form writing. Much as a I love twitter and will continue to hang out there, I feel the need to do more blogging.

On mobile technology…

What is HTML5? A great intro video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzPxo7Y6JyA

Update Conference 2011 videos are up and are all pretty much mobile focussed. Probably worth dipping into. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4850B9F46ADEFBE2&feature=edit_ok

Some Facebook mobile app figures for you from Benedict Evans http://www.ben-evans.com/post/14858334056/facebooks-300m-app-users

From Simon Rockman: A Knight’s Fail. Why Jony Ive isn’t the most deserving person to get a Knighthood http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/fuss-free-phones-simon-rockman-10024919/a-knights-fail-why-jony-ive-isnt-the-most-deserving-person-in-the-10025118/ There’s a bit of a UK tech history lesson in there too so an interesting read.

Stephanie Rieger tells us about The Trouble with Android http://stephanierieger.com/the-trouble-with-android/ – or more specifically the problems around fragmentation with Android. Do take time to read the comments too.

On mobile marketing and media…

Upstream is taking the social media and gaming approach to recruit their next mobile marketing campaign manager. Could this be you? http://thechallengeupstreamsystems.com/ (Job spec here http://corp.upstreamsystems.com/marketing-campaign-manager)

Gigaom’s thoughts on paywalls http://gigaom.com/2011/12/30/was-2011-the-year-of-the-great-paywall-not-exactly/

Infographic: The bigger the screen, the bigger the click-through rate http://mobileindustryreview.com/2011/12/infographic-the-bigger-the-screen-the-bigger-the-click-through-rate.html I’d be interested to hear if other ad networks are experiencing similar results. Feel free to add a comment on the topic.

On work and economics and opportunity…

No, you can’t pick my brain. It costs too much http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2011/03/28/no-you-cant-pick-my-brain-it-costs-too-much/ (This is something I think about a lot and I’m going to point people to it when I feel like I’m being taken advantage of in the hope that contacts no longer take the pee on this one. A coffee and a panini is not a fair trade for an hour of picking of my brain.)

The over-justification effect http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/12/14/the-overjustification-effect/ “The Misconception: There is nothing better in the world than getting paid to do what you love. The Truth: Getting paid for doing what you already enjoy will sometimes cause your love for the task to wane because you attribute your motivation as coming from the reward, not your internal feelings.”

Seth Godin tells us this is the chance of a lifetime so, in other words, get on with it! http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/12/the-chance-of-a-lifetime.html

Mastering the art of Living Well by Umair Haque http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2011/12/mastering_the_art_of_living_me.html and the related Business isn’t as Profitable as Betterness http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679052/business-isnt-as-profitable-as-betterness and podcast, Economics for Humans, http://blogs.hbr.org/ideacast/2011/12/economics-for-humans.html

What I’ve been looking at today

Listen in to a real 10 year old girl talk about her real phone (in this case, the HTC Cha Cha) and how she uses it in real life. This is what I call consumer insight. http://soundcloud.com/salimfadhley/lilly-reviews-the-htc-chacha [via Ladygeek]

Smartphone and tablet stats – what’s really going on. A round-up by Stuart Dredge in The Guardian. Worth a read to get to grips with what the analysts are predicting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2011/aug/01/smartphone-stats-2011?CMP=twt_iph

I spotted this graph tweeted by @millsustwo showing their app sales for the last two weeks in July this year. The reason for sharing this is because UsTwo is regarded as a successful mobile app studio in London yet their sales figures from this image are somewhat mediocre and that is not a word I associate with the work coming out of UsTwo. Is this now the reality for iPhone apps? Is the gold rush over? Is this a reality check? Is it any different on any other platforms.

Links ‘n stuff for a sunny Wednesday afternoon in May

Some stuff I’ve thought noteworthy in the last few days and weeks for your delectation.

Bitcoin: most dangerous open-source project ever created..unstoppable..will change the world unless governments ban them. Well worth a read for the implications. Talk about disruptive…

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The BBC College of Journalism recently ran, what looked to be, a very interesting event called the Social Media Summit. Lots of good tweeting came out of it, including this great quote:

"Most organizations confuse Technology with Innovation. One is shiny things, the other is taking risks"

so you may be interested to take a look at some of the videos and reports of the day and you don’t need to be a budding journalist to get something out of them either!

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Quote of the Day: Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of someone else ~ Judy Garland via @QuotesPedia

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A truly inspirational tale for anyone going through any life-crisis, mid- or otherwise. http://www.problogger.net/archives/2011/05/18/how-to-quit-your-job-move-to-paradise-and-get-paid-to-change-the-world/ Hat tip to @J1M0T. And if you want some practical steps to help you along the way, then check out The Happiness Project. Hat tip to @Cait_tierney

More to come…

Links ‘n stuff

It’s the usual story… too many tabs open in multiple browsers, a ton of stuff marked to read later, yada yada. So here’s a few links that I think are worth sharing with you.

Publishing and Media

As some of you may know, I do a lot of consulting work with media owners in the UK and the Nordic region. As such, I have a keen interest in all things publishing and this is a post about innovation in publishing with some very interesting links http://neilperkin.typepad.com/only_dead_fish/2011/04/shorter-and-sweeter.html

Of course, the big question is why all this innovation comes from outside the publishing world and not from within. Is it just too hard to innovate from within?

And some recent conference quotes:

“newspapers must invest in content, sales & disruption – sell or outsource everything else” #linktotherest #naamxc11 #jrc via @jxpaton

#cms2011 percentage of music that is digital: 80% percentage of digital newspapers: 2% opportunity or impending disaster?” A quote from the recent Guardian Changing Media Summit which I attended.

Apps, apps and more apps

The world has gone app crazy. Or at least, the mobile press would have you think so. There’s a disconnect between the reality (90 % of apps are deleted, it’s hard to make money from apps, app stores are still ropey etc.) and the press but it’s still a very interesting area and one that if you’re in mobile, you have to consider seriously. But let’s get one thing straight… creating an iPhone app is not a mobile strategy. And it’s not just me who is saying that. Anyway, on to some app links..

Distimo and MEF have teamed up to publish the European App Store Market Report. Unfortunately, you can only download the whole thing if you’re a member of MEF but there are some interesting snippets they have shared including weekends are top downloading times, folks don’t want to pay more than £2 for an app, in-app payments are going great guns and UK developers are doing very well. More here http://www.distimo.com/blog/2011_03_distimo-and-mef-publish-european-app-store-market-report/

The new report from WIP also shows the growing importance of in-app payments as sales revenues are decimated on the appearance of competitors offerings which are free. Well worth a look if apps are your business and if you want to know more about how to monetise them. http://www.wipconnector.com/blog/entry/april_app_store_report_momentum_shifting_to_in_app_payments

And if you think you could make a million with an app, then take a look at this infographic http://designtaxi.com/news/34297/Who-Wants-to-Be-an-App-Millionaire/ – the app sales world is skewed currently. There’s no money in the long tail (yet) from what I can tell.

And if you’re new to the world of apps and you have an Android phone, then this blogpost about favourite apps might be worth a look. http://www.chromewalker.com/cw_six/?p=2307

As for me, I play WordUp and Solitaire, I use Gmail, Google Maps (although it doesn’t always work), Gentle Alarm, Foursquare (although that doesn’t always work either as it can’t always register my location) and the browser for pretty much everything else – twitter, facebook, train time search in the main. I’m told that my focus on the browser as the route to do all the stuff I want to do is unusual and sophisticated. I’m not sure that’s the case so I’m interested to hear about your phone life too.

Music and digital

We’re fed a line by certain circles in the music industry that it’s being killed off by piracy and the proliferation of digital. I’ve always been sceptical about this. As far as I can see there is even more music around now than when I was a teenager and folks are still as passionate about it. And more interestingly, is that there seem to be even more potential revenue streams and business models for music. That’s got to be a good thing, right? Well, I’m sure there are folks who would vehemently disagree, but a new paper by Joel Waldfogel suggests that my hunch could be right. http://torrentfreak.com/report-despite-piracy-music-is-more-alive-than-ever-before-110325/

Mobile marketing and advertising

Think it’s too tough to plan and buy mobile media? Then you might want to take a look at this new white paper from Mobile Squared and StrikeAd. http://strikead.squarespace.com/white-paper/

Heard the buzzword ‘gamification’? Want to know what that might mean to mobile marketing? Then take a look at this article – worth a read http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2011/03/the-gamification-of-mobile-marketing.html

Mobile Commerce

There are those who think mobile commerce is just a pipe dream. There are those, like Ryan Carson, who thought that people just wouldn’t want to use eBay on their mobiles (yes, I witnessed him say this at a Chinwag event). I knew he was wrong then. And he’s certainly wrong now. Hell, I expect he’s even using eBay on his mobile now. But if you’re in any doubt at all how important mobile is to ecommerce then please take note that PayPal’s *mobile* transactions exceed $6 million PER DAY. Don’t believe me? Then check out the article from their keynote at CTIA which also includes video clips from the keynote.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/2011/03/22/paypal-mobile-transactions-exceed-6m-per-day-ctia-keynote

And when dotcom poster child, Groupon, is getting into mobile, you know this thing is serious http://mashable.com/2011/03/17/groupon-now/ [Let’s see if this will disrupt how we think about location based services.]

And take note, Tesco advises that 1 in 5 of their visits to Tesco.com come from their iPhone app. That’s huge. Quote from the recent Retail Week event via @martinnewman: “1 in 5 visits to Tesco.com coming through their iPhone app #rw20”

I know I haven’t even got through half my links. More to come…

It’s Monday. It must mean there are mobile links to share.

In an attempt to put some sort of order into the chaos that are my twitter favourites, saved links and open tabs, here’s a blogpost outlining some stuff I’ve been looking at lately.

Venture Capitalist, Fred Wilson, explains where he thinks a mobile developer’s focus should be http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/12/where-should-mobile-developers-focus.html including insight into the different platforms and the somewhat controversial view: ‘I believe mobile economics will trend toward web economics. there aren't many paid web sites. freemium works, but often you are in a free model.' The comments are also well worth reading.

Bango releases it’s latest free Whitepaper on mobile analytics with interviews and comments from industry experts. It includes key factors driving successful mobile campaigns, and offer hints and tips for brands seeking to replicate this success. The report also highlights the common mistakes that result in lower than expected results, and examines the dangers of using PC web analytics to gauge the success of mobile campaigns. It also talks about the importance of feature phones and how the various smartphone platforms play out.

Stuart Rose, outgoing CEO of Marks & Spencer, warns that companies must radically change – and work together – and that business models must be geared towards sustainability and finite resources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/stuart-rose-radical-marks-spencer . This resonates with me on many levels.

The five myths of building a great mobile team are discussed on Techcrunch. The writer has come at this from a technical angle, and probably a Silicon Valley angle which is only a small percentage of the mobile market, and even with that in mind, I’m not sure I entirely agree. There is some truth to them though and it does make you sit up and think. I encourage you to read the comments which, for once on Techcrunch, are enlightening.

Ric Ferraro was sadly unable to get to his session at Mobile Monday Oslo recently, but has kindly shared the presentation he was going to give there. It’s about location and contextual search – worth a look.

And finally for this post, Ben Smith takes a look at why mobile data pricing is all wrong. When I get the chance, I’ll be adding my 2p too, and you should too, but in the meantime, you’ll just have to read the article (and comments to date).

Monday morning linkage – 11 Oct 2010

I’ve been offline for a couple of days – radical I know. But it means I have a bit of reading to catch up on. So instead of keeping it to myself, I’ll share some of the links I need to catch up on with you.

* 10 tips for designing PowerPoint presentations – I know this isn’t to do with mobile technology, but since most of you reading this are in business and therefore are likely to be doing presentations at some point or other, then this article is a great resource. And it also links to a crash course on colour theory.

* Got the Monday Morning blues? Fed up with the same old same old? Then give this article a read from the folks at Coolhunting. It might just inspire you to think and be different and do your own thing.

* Now on to mobile stuff – here’s a lovely article and really easy to understand graphs showing how market share for handset manufacturers has shifted in the last three years. Well worth a look.

* Next up is the presentation that Bryan Rieger gave at the recent Over The Air event in London to share Yiibu's experience in designing for the mobile web and the fact that it's not all about Apple and it's not all about Apps. The way the presentation is put together is also worth a look bearing in mind the link above about designing presentations.

Rethinking the Mobile Web by Yiibu

View more presentations from Bryan Rieger.

* Jolie O’Dell’s take on the state of web app start-ups (arguably applicable to many mobile start-ups too). Some of the language is NSFW.

* And finally, Some insight into DoCoMo’s mobile apps strategy and positioning including lessons from iMode. Worth a look.

Technorati Tags: mobile,mobile applications,mobile web,powerpoint,linkage

Stuff I’m looking at

It’s the usual scenario. I have too many tabs open so I’m sharing some links with you all so that I can close the tabs and get on with real work! They’re a bit random but, hey, I thought they were worth a look, so hopefully you will too.

The digital world makes us unhappy.

This post from cracked.com is well worth a read… 7 Reasons why 21st Century Living is Making you Miserable. I tweeted it a few days ago and it got a fair few retweets so I’m guessing it resonated with more people than just me. Hat tip to Tom Hume for sharing the link in the first place.

BA launches new mobile apps

I was lucky enough to be invited to the BA launch event for their new mobile apps and I got vox-popped. You can see the video clip here where I talk about their Android app. It was really interesting to spend some time with their developer and management team at the event to find out how and why they made the decisions they did regarding their new iPhone, Android and BlackBerry apps. Mobile web has been very important to them and the vast majority of their traffic comes from iPhone and BlackBerry. They will be developing that site, ba2go,  further (and incidentally, the mobile site works on a laptop too for use in flaky wifi conditions. Hurrah!). They also still run a SMS service so they really are thinking of their whole customer base. However, they feel there is currently more functionality with apps and they’re keen to give a great customer experience whatever the device or platform or real life situation. The iPhone app is currently the most advanced and includes a mobile boarding pass. The Android app will be brought up to the same functionality level as the iPhone app in a few weeks. And the BlackBerry app is a ‘SuperApp’ as it incorporates core BlackBerry handset functionality – in this case, the calendar function. All in all, I was really pleased to see how core mobile was to their overall customer service strategy and I thought their in-house mobile development team were great. Well done BA and thanks to Nuria for the invitation.

FT.com and Pearson talk mobile at Techhub

I also spent some time last week at Techhub at a roundtable that Pearson organised to discuss the latest mobile thinking with their FT.com mobile team. I’ve known Steve for some time now and it has been really interesting to see the FT’s journey from Java apps and a wap site 5 years ago to the dominance of iPhone and iPad today. The iPhone has far overtaken BlackBerry for mobile traffic – and this is the business community we’re talking about – it seems they can live without their qwerty keypad. And currently there is a good conversion rate too with iPhone customers to convert them to paid subscriptions.

There have been 370,000 downloads of the FT’s app for the iPhone since the app was launched last year, and “we see very active users, with lengthy uses per visit” Steve tells us. The FT’s app for the iPad, the only news app to win an Apple Design Award, has seen an average use of 23.3 minutes per visitor, and both the FT’s iPhone app and the new iPad app have been very effective in driving subscriptions to FT.com.

There’s no doubt that the FT is fairly unique in the media world having niche, valuable, time-sensitive, high quality content but it’s still pleasing to see how well they’re adapting to the new digital media landscape and exploiting the mobile opportunities. It was also good to catch up with the Elizabeth and Mike from Techhub. I have to say, it’s a great facility and the wifi is super fast and the coffee is great. Try it out if you’re after some co-working space in London. Oh, and Pearson is one of the sponsors of Techhub. Find out more about their involvement here.

Exploit your IP – a free event from DCKTN

And if you’re interested in IP and how to extract the value from your IP, then you may be interested in an upcoming *free* event from DCKTN. They have a one-day seminar coming up on 14 September. This event is focused on “unlocking” your intellectual property and other intangibles, and using them to create value through collaboration, licensing and fundraising. The programme is led by participants from key organizations in the community of innovation, including the Intellectual Property Office, UK Innovation Research Centre and IP Federation, and will use a combination of thought-provoking research, case studies and practical exercises to help you understand the potential, and the possible pitfalls, of an “open” approach for your IP. You can get more information in PDF format here.

That’s all folks.

Technorati Tags: BA.com,FT.com,DCKTN,mobile media,mobile applications

Random links… not necessarily about mobile

In fact, not about mobile at all, but more of a case of me keeping a track on what I’m looking at so I can find the links again! But rather than keeping it private, I like to share, so here you go…

Whilst in Spain, I was very spoilt with great coffee every day. You can’t go to a cafe in Spain and have a bad coffee. At least I didn’t manage to with Cafe Cortado coming out tops everywhere. But it’s not always guaranteed here in London. So I’m on a mission to find decent coffee shops and plan to work my way around some of the suggestions on this list here from Time Out. Then pal Carlo Longino of Mobhappy fame pointed me to this recent article from the New York Times so I have even more to check out. Now where’s the app where I can sort out all the places I want to go to at some point rather than the ‘where shall I go to today?’ and ‘what’s near me now?’ type app for my Nexus One or N95 8GB (yes, I’m using both simultaneously – I’m not ready to be weaned off my beloved N95 yet). 

Who knew there were so many legal freebies out there on the interwebz…? Well maybe you did, but I didn’t. This is all news to me. Well, not quite true, I knew it was kinda out there but didn’t know where to find it, but now I do. So I’ve been dipping into some of these selections which are just too good not to share.

http://www.openculture.com/2009/11/free_movies_online.html – I’m a big Cary Grant fan so very pleased to see some of his movies in the list.

http://www.openculture.com/2007/07/freeonlinecourses.html – just a great resource to learn about a huge range of things. No excuse to not expand the mind.

http://www.openculture.com/2006/10/audio_book_podc.html (actually, I’m enjoying some free audiobooks on my Nexus One too with the nattily named Audiobooks application).

http://www.openculture.com/2006/10/foreign_languag.html I say this every year after I’ve been at Mobile World Congress, that I really must learn Spanish. But I’m going to do it. I need to be able to ask for more than a beer, a coffee and some tapas. So I’ll be looking at some of the Spanish options available. It’s going to require some concentration to do this, but I’m willing to give it a go. The challenge will be turning everything else off so I don’t get distracted reading an email or web article in English when I’m listening to Spanish!

Right, back to the grindstone….

Technorati Tags: linkage,coffee,Spanish,language courses,podcasts,audiobooks,free films,Cary Grant,openculture.com

Some links for your delectation

New slides from Comscore’s GSMA Mobile Media Metrics (MMM) Mobile World Congress Seminar http://bit.ly/cXBF4A – good to see this initiative for measuring audiences and mobile marketing and advertising at operator level. One to keep an eye on.

John Strand on Nokia "....Bees don't go for the biggest garden, they go for the most beautiful flowers," http://bit.ly/aQ4t9m – a look at smartphone operating systems and who might win the race. (Thanks to Russell Buckley for the tip-off.)

Is a 21-hour working week a real possibility? Well the NEF seem to think so. And although I missed the event yesterday lunchtime at the RSA, the free accompanying report ‘The 21 hour society’ is worth a read. I’m eagerly awaiting the audio of the event to listen to.

My favourite post about Mobile World Congress 2010 from Tim Green at Mobile Entertainment Magazine ‘The Muggers have got into La Fira and stolen all the minutes from operators’.

Technorati Tags: linkage,mobile,MWC10,MWC,Mobile World congress,Comscore,Nokia

Monday Morning linkage – 27 April 09

How to make money on the mobile internet – a presentation round up from Sergio Falletti’s session at The Mobile Internet Forum in Vienna.

Comprehensive case study from Guinness and their use of mobile marketing for the Hong Kong Sevens (a rugby tournament for the non-rugby fans out there).

SMS biggest riser as mobile marketing recall increases significantly in early 2009 according to recent GFK research into advertising and marketing.

Rory Cellan-Jones meets Malcolm Barclay, the inventor of one of the many home-crafted applications being sold for the iPhone (short BBC video) and Rory also discusses the birth of the new mobile applications industry (including a short interview with James Whatley aka Whatleydude).

Are we living in a Totalitarian State in the UK? Political correctness going over the top? And what about the Government snooping on our every email, telephone call and web visit? [My personal opinion is that the government is neither equipped to deal with the data, nor has the justification to go down this track since there is no evidence to suggest it will make our lives safer and will be prone to abuse since it’s humans who will be running it not robots.] I agree, give us back our private lives.

Technorati Tags: linkage,links,mobile marekting,data,sms marketing,mobile internet,mobile web

Tuesday linkage

It is Tuesday right? And it is March already (how did that happen)? So it must be time for some links.

This is an interesting post from the Admob blog about iphone advertisers best practice. I would say that quite a few of those tips and hints are relevant for anyone doing stuff in mobile advertising. It’s not exactly rocket science (but then mobile advertising isn’t) but it’s good to be reminded of the simple stuff every now and then. And this is a great checklist.

Bango is also running an interesting experiment in running a mobile website, Mobislim. They have a real mobile website set up and are sharing all the analytics, results, learnings and more with their audience in a blog format. If you are a mobile webmaster looking to commercialise your offering, this is well worth keeping an eye on.

If stats are your thing then have a look at MSearchGroove’s post covering stats around mobile web traffic, mobile search and advertising. Peggy Anne Salz has some interesting insight and links to share.

There was a little flurry of excitement about Process Away recently and their iphone App. Agreed, it looks really good and looks like a great solution to be able to take payments at your live event without a huge investment in hardware, software, wifi and the rest. That I don’t doubt. But who are they and why would I trust them with my money? And even looking at the FAQs, that doesn’t reassure me much. Seeing as folks making business decisions about technology are very often  not technologists, the technology jargon about security is meaningless. Some explanation of who you are, some reassurance that customer’s money is safe, some reassurance of how the service is underwritten and this could be a real goer. Or am I being a curmudgeon here?

I’ve been asked to be a judge for 2009’s Mobile Messaging Awards which is very exciting. Get those entries in! I’m also judging this year’s Webby Awards… still very North American in its focus which is a shame as I firmly believe there is mobile talent beyond those shores. I guess there’s always next year to enter…

Technorati Tags: links,mobile,statistics,m-commerce,m-payments,m-retail,m-transactions,awards,160characters,mobile web,mobile internet,admob,mobile advertising,iphone

It’s Monday, there must be some (mobile) stuff going on

It’s Monday night and normally at this time, I would be concluding our Mobile Monday session in anticipation of chat and mingling at the bar afterwards. However, due to an inordinate amount of snow (there’s over a foot of it in my garden in South West London) and a distinct lack of public transport available, we’ve had to postpone tonight’s event until next week. So rather than deprive you of your mobile fix entirely, I thought I’d share a few things I’ve been reading about mobile-wise of late.

Long form video content appeals which surprises those who are still fixated on the ‘snacking’ element of mobile entertainment. Of course there is still a case for ‘snacking’ on mobile, but much mobile internet usage, especially since the advent of the iphone, is actually at home and complementing other media usage. There’s more discussion about there being more than one mobile context here.

If mobile entertainment, video or otherwise, is your bag, then you could do worse than head to London to see Ralph Simon in action at E.Factor’s event on 23rd February. It’s free for members to attend and £28 for non-members.

Tonight, we *had* planned to talk about the role of widgets in the future of the mobile web. Instead, you’ll have to make do with Vodafone Betavine’s widget competition. Betavine, a Vodafone Group R&D lab, is offering mobile developers a chance to win £20,000 in a new mobile widget competition. The competition opens today and runs until 30th April. The rules are very simple and seems like a great opportunity to me.

Opera claims that 9 out of 10 mobile internet users are male. I think this research is somewhat skewed. Research I’ve been looking at shows that smartphone usage, including the iphone, is heavily male skewed which probably explains the figures that Opera is reporting. Overall, however, the mobile internet is older and more female than you might expect. At least that’s what the nice people at m:metrics shared with me recently.

And last but not least…

Despite the snow, my friend, Oli Barrett, made a valiant effort at the crack of dawn to launch his Make Your Mark With a Tenner competition. Possibly not the best day of the year to choose to launch your new campaign, but nevertheless, it’s got picked up on by The Telegraph. It’s a really simple premise, 25,000 kids will get given a tenner and a month to go and make money with it. Oli explains it all here.

Technorati Tags: mobile,opera,opera mini,statistics,report,video,entertainment,mobile content,links,linkage

Linktastic on a Wednesday

I have too many browser tabs open so it's time to clear down a few by writing them up here. So forgive some of the randomness but I'm a bit short on time what with preparing for Barcelona Mobile World Congress and the like and I thought it better to get them down on the interwebz than forget about them.

First the bad news... it seems that in just two weeks, Informa has changes its mind over the state of the mobile nation and fears that the credit crunch is now hitting the mobile industry. The figures don't surprise me much as there's only so long you can keep up that kind of growth rate. What interests me more is how the credit crunch affects mobile marketing and media more specifically... time will tell I guess.

In other news...

Blyk discovers that young people want mobile data (no sh1t Sherlock?!). It always amazed me that Blyk didn't pioneer their service with mobile data from the outset. I understood the reason to be around the fact they couldn't get a decent wholesale data rate and it looks like that problem has been solved. Recent research I've been doing into the mobile audience shows the youth sector to be the fastest growing segment of mobile data users - I'm guessing primarily led by usage of sites like facebook, flirtomatic, peperonity et al on their mobiles.

The FT relaunches its mobile offering with a brand spanking new version with greater touchscreen elements. I don't have a touchscreen, so if you do, and you're trying ft.com on your mobile, let me know how it's doing. I've always been a fan of FT.com's mobile services so I have every hope that this latest iteration will be just as good.

Are you into location-based mobile services and location-based social networking for business or pleasure? Or just curious to know what's out there? Then this blogpost and useful list is well worth a look. I voted for Rummble and Dopplr, but then I am slightly biased since I'm a non-exec advisor to Rummble these days (amongst many hats I wear - good job I like hats ;))

In mobile marketing news, it appears that mobile marketing is burning hot in Japan and Rogier Bikker explains why. Meanwhile over at SMS is the New Black, Patrick shares with us a comprehensive case study of mobile marketing in use at Kraft Foods. Both posts are worth a gander.

I met with Ken Banks recently and a very nice chat we had too. His thing is about how to capitalise on mobile technology in Africa such as his Frontline SMS product (which is great by the way, how come more people don't know about it?). He also writes an interesting blog if you're keen to gen up on what's happening across the continent of Africa. I particularly liked this post on the social mobile long tail.

And last but not least, I recently discovered the Ladygeek blog and met with the lovely Belinda who's one of the ladies behind it. I'm a new fan! It really chimed with me as I've long been frustrated that women's technology needs are not well catered for, even in 2009.

Technorati Tags: mobile,links,linkage,industry,mobile marketing,women,location-based services,lbs,mobile social networking,economics,informa

A few links on a Wednesday evening

I have so many Firefox and IE tabs open that I thought I should share some links with you all of what I've been looking at over the last few days.

Estonia becomes the first nation with mobile voting. Ok, it's a small country, but still, an interesting development.

Youth are not interested in mobile marketing. Graham Brown from Mobile Youth shares his thoughts on the matter.

There's a job going for an artistic hermit at The Manchester Museum. Actually, it sounds like a really interesting project. I'm wondering how I could blag my way into that one.. how does one qualify as an 'artist' these days?

Over the past year, 300 pupils in the UK have been involved in an experiment to use mobile phones in lessons to record movies, take photos or set homework reminders. Reporter Anna Lacey visits Park House school in Newbury to find out whether the project has been a success for the BBC. I'm very pleased to see mobile technology being used for educational purposes.

Mobile Awesomeness - a showcase of top mobile websites from around the globe.

Taptu whitepaper on making mobile search social (they've also just raised a nice bit of funding too as it happens).

Insights into iPhone usage from Nielsen. It's US centric but it's still an interesting read even if you're not in the US.

Cellphone shopping makes wallets redundant in Japan from coupons to using your phone to pay for stuff. It's only a matter of time before it happens here in the UK too as the O2/Telefonica NFC trials were very successful.

Mobile beats full-fat internet in ROI study from Quattro and comScore. The most interesting point for me is that the comScore/Quattro Survey found a significant percentage of the audience to be “mobile only” visitors to the measured brand destinations. This is consistent with other research I've been looking into in mobile usage in the UK. There appears to be a growing band of mobile-web-only customers.

Technorati Tags: mobile,education,m-commerce,metrics,mobile web,mobile search,research,mobile marketing,mobile internet,wap,iphone,mobile youth,mobile voting