New comScore report: Mobile's Hierarchy of Needs

I just got an email from comScore announcing the release of a new global report, ‘Mobile’s Hierarchy of Needs’. They tell us that this new report traces the global evolution of smartphones and tablets as they’ve become consumers’ primary digital tool, revealing specific behaviours for which these platforms are important to their daily lives. Data from 9 markets (USA, Canada, UK, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Mexico, China and Indonesia) demonstrates audience and consumption trends, along with regional differences in digital landscapes.

Key insights revealed in ‘Mobile’s Hierarchy of Needs’ include:

• Mobile devices account for more than 60% of all digital minutes in all 9 markets, led by app usage.
• The share of consumers abandoning desktop altogether varies dramatically by geography – from just 7% in the UK, to 70% in Indonesia.
• Messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, QQ Instant Messenger and Line account for nearly 1 in 7 minutes in certain markets and led to a decline in standard SMS messaging.

I thought it was worth a look. You can download the report here: Mobile’s Hierarchy of Needs report.

They have a bunch of other free whitepapers you may also find useful, including this recent one about Mums in the UK and their online behaviour, especially on smartphones.

What does the skills gap look like in the mobile sector? Have your say!

As a long-serving veteran of the mobile marketing, advertising and media community, I have seen how the sector has evolved over time from its lowly beginnings with SMS. I spend time mentoring and meeting under-graduate and post-graduate students of business and marketing and I'm always surprised at their lack of awareness of the opportunities in the mobile sector. I'm also painfully aware of the lack of teaching on the topic at undergraduate and post-graduate level. And I'm wondering if that is having an impact on the innovation (or lack of) in the sector and in turn, if that means we're missing a trick somewhere. And that's why I've set up this survey.

A couple of years ago, the Mobile Marketing Association published a report on the opportunity in the mobile sector in the US, and as part of that, highlighted the skills gap. I can remember thinking it looked pretty stark at the time - a huge opportunity on the one hand but not enough people with the right skills and attitude to deliver on the other.

I know this is partly addressed by companies with their own in-house training, but I'm wondering what else can be done to both make the sector more attractive to both new graduates and more experienced people looking for a career change and also make sure that the people coming into our industry have the skills and tools they need.

To that end, I have a first meeting with a senior academic from one of the fastest growing universities in the UK on Monday 10th October 2016 to discuss the skills and teaching gap in mobile marketing, mobile advertising and mobile media and to see how we can address that. And I'd like to hear your opinion on what they are.

Whether you're a seasoned professional with a decade of experience under your belt, or you're new to the sector, I'm interested in your point of view. If you are hiring, what skills are you looking for? If you're new to the sector, what would have been helpful for you to learn before you started the job?

Although this questionnaire is geared towards the UK market, I'm also interested in hearing opinions from our friends in other countries since it's a global industry.

This questionnaire will remain open past the meeting date so don't worry about filling it in after 10th October! The conversation will be ongoing, as we work towards understanding and addressing the skills gap. If the form below doesn't work properly, please use this link instead.

Meeja–The Times They Are A-Changin’

Apologies for being a bit slow on the blogging front recently. I just got out of the habit. However, I’ve been busy squirreling away lots of articles and links to follow up on with blog posts should the moment come to blog.

As many of you already know, I do consulting work with media owners of all types and sizes, helping their senior teams get their heads around what’s happening in mobile and social and how it is impacting their business and what they might do about it. I recently did a talk to a group of Nordic media owners who were pretty horrified that I rarely went directly to an online or mobile newspaper to read it but followed random links from people I followed on a variety of social networks and as such, wouldn’t necessarily know which publication or which journalist I was reading.

Don’t get my wrong, by all accounts, media consumption of all types is in rude health when it comes to mobile and online. What isn’t so healthy are the business models to pay for that as well as the fact that many outlets are still focused on print as the main product despite declining revenues. And that’s the challenge that media owners face. The existing business models are in (fast) decline and the news ones are not (yet) replacing those revenues often coupled with a reluctance to change or move with the times.

If you’re interested in where mobile meets media, the future of advertising, the future of journalism and the like, the following links will probably be of interest.

Why tablet magazines are a failure by Jon Lund. Jon’s key point is to encourage media owners to build for the web rather than tablet app only. But while he’s telling us that, there are some really interesting case studies quoted and some rather useful numbers if you need to persuade your boss to move with the times.

The Financial Times to move to single global print edition. This is a very interesting move by the FT. They’re changing their workflow and product focus to reshape the paper for the digital age. Although the printed paper is still part of their multi-platform operation, the shift in how they’re managing it all shows a keen eye on the future and they’re changing before their hand is forced. Smart move, I say.

Ken Doctor highlights what’s coming for media owners in 2014. It’s not news to those of us who’ve been working in mobile and media for a while, but I suspect, the pointers are a bit scary for a lot of media owners who haven’t yet started the change process or haven’t invested in preparing themselves for the future.

Josh Marshall doesn’t believe in Flipboard’s model for media owners and he tells us why, even as far as calling Flipboard a scam. I understand where he’s coming from, but what he doesn’t talk about is who and where his audience is and what their needs and wants are, what their reading habits are and how that matches with TPM’s offering. It’s still early days for Flipboard and its ilk, but I don’t think services like them are going away any time soon.

Canada’s Globe And Mail’s CEO tells media owners ‘we have to think more precisely about what it is that will make people pay’. There are some useful pointers in this article explaining some of the things G&M are doing to get readers to pay for content.

How much are you willing to pay for digital news? There’s still no definitive answer to this, but this article (and the links within it) highlight some of the key issues faced by media owners (yes, it’s getting a bit repetitive isn’t it – the need to innovate, the acceptance that the print decline is real and not stopping, that the digital ad sales aren’t replacing print ad sales etc.).

Attention v. Relationship Economy – this article explores they way that media owners could or should be thinking about how to monetise. And I think I agree with the author, Jeff Jarvis, that it’s about the relationships newspapers have with their community of readers, advertisers and more.

Long story short…

• digital media consumption is high
• mobile set to overtake desktop very quickly
• tablet magazines probably won’t save your business
• media companies need to restructure
• we need some new ways to advertise (I still don’t understand why we’re shoe-horning old ways into new media)
• we need to create and try more new business models
• no-one has the definitive answer
• And as Bob Dylan sang many years ago, ‘The Times they are a changin’’.

Kenco Rappor–mobile marketing from the archives

Below you will find the front and back scan of a sales promotion leaflet that came with Kenco Rappor packs that were new to the market back in 2002. It tied in with the theme of the recent TV campaign that was used to launch the product the previous year. The innovative element of the product was about the new pack format on offer – the fact that the instant coffee granules were in stick format to offer a single serving and designed specifically to appeal to younger customers. More on that rationale about the campaign here. An example of one of the TV ads used can be seen here if you’re interested.

Anyway, it’s fair to say that mid-2002 is still very much early days for mobile marketing. Errors in execution were certainly made – even with the limitations of the time. For example, we already had shortcodes and the mechanic was a bit complicated and fairly meaningless if you hadn’t seen or remembered the TV advert. And the leaflet was folded really really small to fit in the tiny sample size packs they were giving out.

Feel free to discuss what you would do the same or differently.

You can see larger versions of these graphics on flickr in my mobile marketing set.

Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2013

The rather good Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2013 is out now. It’s quite a long report – you can download a copy here and below you’ll find the PowerPoint charts that support the report.

I won’t lie, there’s a lot to read here and, clearly, a lot of work went into it and I will be taking my time to go through it all.

The short version based on what I’ve read so far is…

• News is becoming more mobile, more social, and more real-time
• Digital patterns becoming more entrenched – particularly amongst the younger half of the population
• Audiences increasingly want news on any device, in any format, and at any time of day.
• Digital revolution is not proceeding at an even pace in all countries.
• Social media take-up varies across countries
• Ever-greater competition and more disruption to business models to come
• More people say they've paid for digital news in the past 10 months so there’s still hope

Some of these points are no surprise to those of us working in mobile. And it just confirms that the pace of change is fast. Even if you’re not in the newspaper industry, I think this is worth a glance as it reveals some key trends that are relevant and of interest to other sectors.

Based on the methodology, the UK findings are perhaps the most pertinent as that’s where there were the highest level of respondents. Of course, they did only survey a limited amount people so it’s a representation but the data was weighted to targets set on age and gender, region, newspaper readership, and social grade to reflect the total population of each country. The sample is reflective of the population that has access to the internet.

As if you need any further convincing that now is the time to get your mobile strategy sorted, maybe this reports will be the nudge you need if you’re not already on the case.

Interested to hear your thoughts and examples of other recent reports that back up or contradict Reuters’ findings.

 

Reuters digital news report 2013 from Nic Newman

Think luxury brands can’t do mobile?

Well, think again. Luxury brands have historically been a bit sniffy about getting into mobile feeling that it wasn’t their thing and that mobile media, specifically, mobile advertising, wasn’t appropriate for high-end brands – the banner ad is too small, SMS has no visuals, how do you convey the brand without the large-scale visuals you see in glossy magazines.

Well, British luxury firm, Vertu, who hand make their high-end handsets in the UK, would beg to differ. They worked with Amobee for to drive traffic into their new stores and promote their new smartphone campaign and it was both highly successful and won a rather fabulous Communicator Award. It was a smart campaign using location targeting, rich media, SMS (targeting customers who had roamed – as in travelled abroad and used their mobile – 3 times or more, customer insight and sponsorship to reach its goals. View more about the campaign in this video.

Not only that, but British Vogue is getting in on the act. (There’s a theme here… maybe Brits are leading the way in luxury on mobile?) This lovely video, ‘Typecast and Vogue’, is from the recent Brand Perfect event in New York where Paul McKeever talks very eloquently about British Vogue’s acclaimed digital revamp and how cross-platform typography helped it break new ground. Highly recommend watching even if you’re not a luxury brand.

Working in the luxury sector? Not gone mobile yet? Then these links may be worth a read too.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/top-10-luxury-brand-mobile-campaigns-of-q1-luxury-daily

http://www.luxurydaily.com/what-are-luxury-marketers-missing-on-mobile-web/

Current State of Play in Publishing

I was lucky enough to be invited to New York last week by one of my clients, BrandPerfect, to help with the launch event for their latest research report ‘Adventures in Publishing: The New Dynamics of Advertising’. [It’s a free download, registration on BrandPerfect required].
The report takes a look at the current state of online consumer publishing and the opportunities that are or could be available for brand advertisers. 100 leading consumer titles from the US, UK and Germany were audited to see what their current digital offerings were for readers and advertisers. And it’s an interesting read.

It probably comes as no surprise that almost all magazines lacked a full cross-platform experience. The few titles audited who were doing a good job here include Vogue UK, Maxim UK and US, CountryLiving and a good selection of Hearst’s US titles.The picture gets a little more complicated when it comes to ad formats as there was little consistency in what publishers offered advertisers, despite standards already existing for desktop and mobile. And of course, we don’t know the ROI here – the report is just looking at what’s on offer. Insight into the audience, how they spend their money as well as knowing the types of advertisers, their spend and what’s working may change the picture and explain the rationale behind the strategic decisions made by the publishers. Still, it’s plain to see from the tables in the report that it’s not easy for an advertiser to plan, buy or measure their advertising across channels and across a range of titles.

We know that eyeballs have already migrated en masse to mobile channels and we can see that the advertising dollar will follow that – albeit at a slower pace than consumers to change but publishers don’t appear to be keeping up as well as they might.

The report suggests that HTML5 may be the answer which brings us back to the old web vs apps debate. I don’t think that one size necessarily fits all and much as I’m a strong supporter of web on mobile devices rather than apps, it doesn’t always suit the business or its customers to do that. Consumer insight is key to making those decisions as well as balancing resources and finance to do that.

We still have a long way to go when it comes to working out the future of digital advertising. It’s an emotive subject. At the Heroes of Mobile Session a couple of weeks ago (read about it and listen to the podcast here), Amanda Singleton from Qustodian was passionate about her hatred for Facebook advertising yet I find the sponsored pages interesting in many cases and seem to fit my profile pretty well. These have led me to discover things I would never have found out about otherwise. And this stuff has to be paid for somehow.

I also lament the fact that I can’t save an ad. In a magazine, I will often flick back to see an advert or something I may have missed once I’ve finished the article I’m on. I cannot do that in a digital environment. And if I’ve clicked forwards to read something and then go back, the ad that was there is long gone with no way of retrieving it.I think we’re missing a trick here by not fully understanding what worked in print advertising to work out how that behaviour might be translated to the digital environment. Instead, we’ve become reliant on the quick hit – the banner ad, the immediate call to action, the buy now, call now, direct response scenario. But as any brand marketer will tell you, that’s only one type of advertising with the primary goal of sales. not all brands are looking for that all of the time. Of course ROI is important, but I know from my own clicking habits, that it takes more than one click for me to take action and that it’s just part of the journey to finding out about new brands or services and eventually buying from them.

Interestingly, Hearst reports just now that they've appointed a President of Digital.

Have a read of the report and see what you think. It’s one of a series of useful quarterly reports available free to BrandPerfect members.

Hints & Tips for Winning Awards

I’m very lucky to judge many different awards ranging from mobile industry specific ones like the Meffys and the Effective Mobile Marketing Awards to ones that are not immersed in mobile like the Sony Radio Academy Awards and the Wirehive 100 to innovation awards like Vodafone Mobile Clicks and Vodafone Foundation Smart Accessibility Awards. As such, over the years, I’ve seen many awards entries and see what a winning entry looks like.

Since it’s the run up to the Effective Mobile Marketing Awards, David Murphy, Editor, Mobile Marketing Magazine, asked a selection of judges to join a Tweet Chat to discuss this year’s entries – what was good, what was lacking and what we’d like to see more of. It was a really interesting discussion with Rob Thurner, Russell Buckley, myself and James Cameron. You can see the collection of tweets over on Mobile Marketing Magazine http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.com/content/awards-preview-judges-twitter-panel

Some common mistakes creep in to these things. Often the task of filling in the form is delegated to someone junior or someone who has not been hands on with the campaign. I still see a lack of evidence. Saying something along the lines of ‘the client was really happy with the results’ just doesn’t cut it. You could have the coolest sounding concept, but if you can’t tell the judges what the results were, then we can’t judge you and your entry will be discarded. I also see entries that have not answered the questions and also have clearly been cut and pasted from a case study or press release which means it can be harder to discover the nuggets of information that you need to judge one entry over another. And I see entries for categories where I really can’t see the connection at all. So my advice is, keep it to the point, answer the questions and justify why you deserve to win the award with actual demonstration of innovation, originality, effectiveness etc. And include the numbers. The information is kept private and is not published. Be proud of your work and take the time to communicate why it’s so good with the judges. Make our jobs harder each time!

If you’re interested to see who made the shortlist (and there are some fab companies and campaigns on that list), you can find more information here http://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/awards/ and you can also book your tickets to the Award Ceremony on 29th November. I think there are a handful of tickets left. If the last two years are anything to go by, it should be a good night.

I recently talked about this stuff for the MEFFYs too on video which you also may find useful.

So for the next time you enter an award, best of luck and don’t let yours be the entry that gets discarded for not completing the entry form properly.

New York Times–a look at their business model

Many of you know that I work with media owners as a consultant to help them navigate their way around the new mobile and social environment. As such, I like to keep up to date with key insights and information which is why I enjoy reading the Monday Note. Today’s Monday Note article about the New York Times was particularly pertinent and reiterated to me a few key points.

• Advertising revenues are dropping. It’s a case of ever-diminishing returns – whether that’s print or digital. For the NY Times, ad revenues are down –9% across the board, print is down –11% and digital ad revenue is down by –2.2% (for the second quarter in a row).
• Costs are not decreasing. Increased people costs coupled with increased cost of printing
• Circulation is up - hurrah – by 7% on last year. This is mainly due to the rise in digital subscribers – double hurrah! This sounds like good news, doesn’t it? Well, unfortunately not. Circulation figures do not offset the the loss in advertising revenues. Jim Follo, CFO, says on their business model ‘When advertising revenue goes down, 90% of the decrease translates into a margin loss, but circulation revenue gains generate additional costs’. Oh dear.

I don’t know if at some point those figures change and the circulation model does eventually offset the advertising losses. The article suggests that the paywall strategy is a work in progress and that growth abroad, particularly in China, may yield results.

I wonder if we’re not being brave enough in our thinking. I wonder if it’s time to reinvent advertising altogether. Mobile advertising is huge and growing. Yes, we know that, but since there is limited screen real estate. That means there’s a limit to how many ads can be served and the old metrics just don’t wash and actually, the formats and metrics feel a bit tired. And I have seen nothing around measuring the serendipity of advertising – i.e. the ad that wasn’t targeted for you but was relevant in that moment as you needed to buy someone a gift or had a very specific, unexpected need that wouldn’t fit your big data profile.

Equally, I’m hearing anecdotally, that young people are tuning ads out and actively ignoring them. This begs the question of how are they going to find out about new brands (for the young in the UK are hugely brand savvy), new trends, new music, new whatever if they’re limited to their social streams? And what does that mean for marketing in general? Does advertising still work anyway? And in a perfect world, what would advertising and marketing look like in say, 2030? We are lucky to be living in an age that can invent its own future. So why isn’t advertising being reinvented?

Will it be down to context, location and big data? AR, QR, rich media formats, is that enough? Can you even remember an advert you saw in the last day, week, month? Will discovery of new stuff be reliant on a few key trendsetters in our circles being given ‘perks’ and freebies via the likes of PeerIndex, Klout and its ilk and then they talk about those things in their social stream (admittedly early days for these services but you can see where they’re going)? Are innovations like kiip, qriously and LoopMe enough? If we are questioning the future of newspapers and media in general, shouldn’t we also be questioning the future of advertising too?

References and resources:

The Monday Note: The New York Times Shifting Model http://www.mondaynote.com/2012/10/28/the-new-york-times-shifting-model

LoopMe Launch http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2012/10/29/loopme-unveils/

Mobile Marketing Magazine Issue 11. Off Deck (last page): Helen Keegan calls for mobile advertising to reinvent itself http://issuu.com/davidmurphy/docs/mm_issue_11

Newspaper Extinction Timeline (PDF). This shows the death of newspapers in their current format by country. It’s a sobering infographic http://futureexploration.net/Newspaper_Extinction_Timeline.pdf

Newspaper Death Watch blog http://newspaperdeathwatch.com/

Heroes of Mobile Day: London Edition 17 Oct

Following on from the great success that was Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival in Barcelona earlier this year, we’ve decided to do some smaller scale events starting in London to keep the buzz going and help build up to the main event in Barcelona next February.

With that in mind, we have three discussion panel sessions happening at Mozilla HQ on St Martin’s Lane on Wednesday 17th October. All being well, these will be live webcast, but if you’re in London, you can join the audience as well and participate in a bit of networking at the same time. Each session will run for about 45 minutes with some time for refreshments before and after. You’re welcome to come to one, two or all three sessions, as you wish. They’re free to attend but we are limited in space as we want to keep the atmosphere intimate and to encourage discussion and questions from the audience.

State of the Mobile Nation

This session is sponsored by our friends at Hotwire PR and chaired by Russell Buckley. The discussion will be a review of where we are and where we’re going in the mobile industry and what that might mean for your business. More details and RSVP here. Doors open at 09.30 for a 10.00 start.

Mobile Advertising Will Eat Itself

This session will also be chaired by Russell Buckley and look at the latest innovations (or not) in the world of mobile advertising. More details and RSVP here. Doors open at 11.00 for a prompt 11.15 start.

 

(Mobile) Money Makes the World Go Around

This session will be chaired by Tim Green and will take a look at the world of mobile money, from payments to mobile wallets to the future (if any) for NFC and more. Details and RSVP here. Doors open at 12.30 for a prompt 13:15 start.

We will be finished by around 14:00 but you’re welcome to stay for further networking and refreshments. There is free Wi-Fi at Mozilla Space London and you’re welcome to stay to do some work if you wish.

About our sponsors

Hotwire is an integrated PR and communications agency. Founded in 2000, the agency spans a number of industries including telecoms, media, marketing, consumer, technology, financial services and cleantech. Quickly becoming a global offering, Hotwire has offices in the UK, across Europe, Australia and the US. Suffice to say, the team are passionate about all things mobile and will be on hand to chew the fat with you.

Mozilla Spaces are open working environments where Mozillians can hack,code, design, research, create, engage and contribute to building a brighter future for the web and they are hosting this session. You may be familiar with Mozilla's brilliant Firefox browser for desktop and mobile and more recently, they announced their Firefox OS for mobile. 

And there’s more… Swedish Beers is 11 years young and we’re celebrating!

To round off the day, we’ll be celebrating Swedish Beers’ 11th Birthday Party at The Nordic Bar from 18.30 with our friends from Millennial Media, LoopMe Media, Yuilop and Inspiring Interns. Again, free to attend. No formalities, no presentations, just good company, good chat and some free drinks (beer, wine and soft drinks a-plenty courtesy of our sponsors). More details here.

Carnival of the Mobilists #277

 

Yes, it’s come around again and I’m this week’s curator of the Carnival of the Mobilists and what a week it has been. Plenty going on in the world of Nokia and RIM. Innovation is being supported with various awards and accelerator programs. And mobile is still most definitely big news. So here’s my round-up.

Awards and other Programs for Mobile Entrepreneurs

The Annual Effective Mobile Marketing Awards are open for entries until 10 August. There are 20 categories and they are free to enter and are global. Disclaimer, I’m a judge and I co-hosted the awards last year.

The 9th Annual Meffys are open for entries until 19 July. Just a few days to go so don’t delay. These are global awards with special categories and prices for start-ups. More details here. Disclaimer, I’m a judge.

Russell Buckley tells us about UK accelerator programme, Springboard, why he supports it (including investing in it) and what the opportunities are for mobile entrepreneurs this year with the very first mobile-focussed accelerator. Closing date to apply is 22 July so not long to go.

QPrize is now open for entries too. This is Qualcomm Ventures seed investment competition. I don’t know much about it yet (I’m doing a bit more research into it), but just highlighting it for reference.

Handset Wars

Goodness me, watching the demise of Nokia and now RIM is not a pleasant experience. The chatter about both is endless at the moment. How to you make head or tail of it? Are both dead in the water? Will we see them fight back? Will they be bought, die or rise from their ashes like a phoenix? …

Tomi Ahonen thinks Stephen Elop is the worst CEO of all time. With Nokia’s share price at an all time low of $1.92 at the time of writing, Elop and the Nokia board certainly have some serious questions to answer. This one isn’t so much as a blog post as an essay so don’t expect a quick read. Grab a cuppa and set aside some time to read this one and take in the comments too. I have friends at Nokia. I have friends who have been made redundant from Nokia. I have a drawer full of beloved Nokia phones. I like Windows Phone too. I don’t want to see Nokia die but there’s no denying they are in deep, deep trouble.

And then there’s RIM. Another one who has been in the wars lately. Delaying the BB10 launch is a bit of a nightmare. There were 5,000 enthusiastic developers who went home from BlackBerry World in Orlando and many hundreds, if not thousands returning home from various BB10Jam meet-ups globally with their prototype devices and told their friends and family they were excited about the upcoming launch of BB10 for Christmas. BlackBerry hasn’t just let down their developer community, they’ve let down their loyal customers who are desperate for an upgrade if they haven’t jumped ship already to Android or iOS. There are three articles of note I’d like to point you to on this one. First is untether.tv’s post which takes a look at the numbers and thinks RIM needs to focus on saving the company, Terence Eden ponders how to solve a problem like BlackBerry and Michael Selvidge thinks RIM can be saved in three easy steps. What do you think?

Then there’s the story of Maemo from Randall Arnold. Do any of you remember that OS? I do. I had a Nokia 770 and if I remember rightly, Rovio of Angry Birds fame was developing games on that platform. Is there hope for Maemo to come out smiling out of the Nokia warzone?

Mobile Marketing, Advertising and Commerce

For the first year at Cannes Lions, there was a section for mobile. Finally, advertising agencies are catching up with their clients and taking notice of mobile as an integral part of any marketing campaign. This is a major step forward. Hey, I may even be tempted to take a trip to Cannes next year to check it all out. In the meantime, Andy Favell from MobiThinking has done a very comprehensive round-up of the winning entries (including their videos and case studies) and also the stats behind the awards. Both make for a good read. Again, this is something worth setting aside some time for but if you’re in the mobile marketing game, this one is for you.

Global Mobile Commerce: Removing Payment Friction & Boosting Customer Engagement by Diarmuid Mallon is a guest post on Mobile Groove and is the first of a series of articles which will form part of the Mobile Commerce Guide 2012. Common sense tells us that by making it easier for customers to buy they will buy more. You wouldn’t have a front door to a shop that took five minutes to open so why would you make the payment options overly complicated? It’s very, very easy to click away from a purchase.

Mobile Apps and Games

Here are a couple of good articles that should get app developers thinking and help then on their way to making more money for them and their clients. First up is a piece from CodeNgo which looks at the opportunity of making sure your app is available in different languages. The stats make sense to me. Next is one from the mainstream Techcrunch, but it was a good one so I’ve included it: 8 Ways Mobile Developers can Make the Most Money on Apps. Sensible advice indeed.

Missed out on Google I/O? Never fear, Tom Hume was there and he’s got some thoughts about the new Google Nexus tablet and the role it will have. A game changer? Maybe… have a read.

Mobile Games has been a hot topic recently around Technokitten Towers, not least, because I was helping the Mobile Monday Shoreditch team get set up and their first event was the A to Z of Mobile Gaming. You can read a round-up of the evening here and it includes links to video vox pops from the night too. We also enjoyed some AR gaming on the night and playing games on BlackBerry Playbooks. Well, MobyAffiliate has gone the extra mile and taken a comprehensive look at the companies in the mobile and social gaming space and written it all up for you to create a guide to the sector ‘The World’s Top Mobile Social Games Developers, Publishers and Platforms’.

Further Food for Thought

A couple of podcasts you might be interested in having a listen to or watch are the Disruptive Social Care Podcast where I was a guest last week and talked about the role of mobile in healthcare and the importance of making websites and services accessible on mobile and accessible to those with disabilities or impairments amongst other things with Shirley Ayres and Stuart Arnott.  Then there’s this one from Hashbang TV where Elizabeth Varley tells the TechHub story. OK, the latter isn’t mobile specific, but it’s still relevant inasmuch as it’s the story of an entrepreneur focussed on supporting tech start-ups. And both podcasts are about disruption in some shape or form.

And finally, some food for thought from Antoine RJ Wright. Were Mobile Phones the Wrong Turn? Antoine ponders if we haven’t missed the point with mobile technology and that perhaps it needs a rethink as we’re asking devices (read battery life and bandwidth) to do more than it can really deal with.

Post of the Week

My post of the week has to go to Andy Favell for such a comprehensive round-up of the Cannes Mobile Lions. It’s in my sweet spot of mobile marketing and it’s great to see it entering the mainstream in this way and it’s great to get up close and personal to such a variety of case studies. What’s your post of the week?

Next week

Next week’s Carnival will be hosted by Martin Wilson of Indigo 102. And you can also support the Carnival of the Mobilists by liking us on Facebook, following us on Twitter or sharing this post.

All photos sourced from Flickr and used under Creative Commons Licence.

FT.com and its latest thinking about mobile

I attended a very interesting event this morning where Rob Grimshaw, MD FT.com, shared some details of their current mobile and technology strategies. I’ve known the FT.com mobile team for many years and they’ve always been ahead of the game when it comes to new formats and paying for content. (I’ve always kept a close eye on them as advising media owners is a large part of the consulting work I do.) Some argue that it’s because they have a niche that they’re successful. Others think that it’s because they deal with financial information specifically. it could be said that their audience is particularly tech-savvy having a higher than average income and fond of their new gadgets. I’m sure that some or all of those will play their part. Rob was asked about why other newspapers are trailing behind when it comes to technology and he felt it was as much to do with confidence and culture change rather than anything to do with technology. Maybe that’s easy for him to say since they have a long heritage in offering digital services and so have probably been through that culture change some time ago. That said, the confidence is a different matter. Rob cited The New York Times as a paywall success story as it now has more digital subscribers than print ones in just 12 months. Not bad going. I guess the point is that if your customers wouldn’t pay for your content, maybe it’s not good enough anyway. Or the flipside of that is if your content is good, then your customers will pay for it. Glass half-empty vs. glass half-full.

Grimshaw tell us other newspapers may be struggling as it’s more to do with confidence in your offering and thinking about culture change rather than technology change. There was a lot to take in, but since it was partly a press event, there were some journalists there who took more notes than I did. Well worth a read.

There were a couple of other points that I found particularly pertinent. Firstly, it was recently reported by New Media Age that FT.com reckons 60% of its revenues will come from mobile by 2020 and Rob confirmed this figure at the session. This is probably just as well since it’s expected that print newspapers will be irrelevant in the UK by 2019 [links to a pdf]. Rob also went on to say that he wasn’t sure how much of a business they would have in print circulation in 10 or 20 years time (cost vs. reward being the issue alongside declining overall print readership in news generally). If that’s the case, then I wonder if that figure is too conservative. Friend and colleague, Russell Buckley, certainly seems to think so and I have to agree with him. His article explaining why its too low is well worth a read.

The other interesting point was about Google+. It’s often dismissed as a desperate attempt by Google to join the Social Media Revolution. But maybe it has legs? Social Media is as important as mobile to FT.com and often comes hand in hand. FT.com amassed 500,000 followers on their G+ page in just six months and currently standing at over 860,000 at the time of writing. This compares very favourably with their current Facebook Page following of 325,000 and FT.com’s Twitter followers numbering 668,000 over a longer period of time. Is this simply down to the power of the suggested user functionality on G+ or are G+ members avid newsreaders? I don’t know. It’s worth further investigation I guess.

And finally, on technology and platforms and tablets… HTML5 is at the core of the company’s products. By building in HTML5, it means that for both Android and Windows 8, 90% of the code is written so making the native app isn’t so arduous. There was also a big thumbs for Windows 8 by Rob. He feels that the tablet space is still in its infancy and that there is scope for there to be 2 or 3 strong players in the sector. Although Apple currently has this sewn up with the iPad, Rob thinks the Windows 8 launch towards the end of the year will be very interesting. This is because Microsoft has put thought into the relationship between the tablet and the desktop and built that into the design and UI. I must admit, I have a tablet with Windows 8 installed on it and I like it. It feels more grown up than the iPad somehow, and certainly you can have more clout when it comes to memory and speed as there will be more choice with specs. And actually, more consumer choice is a good thing overall. One device does not fit all no matter what the Apple fan boyz and girlz say.

A lot more was covered in the session – APIs, internet TV, new advertising formats and more - which, happily for you dear reader, two journalists attending wrote up. Links below for you.

http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/ft-com-expects-half-its-audience-to-be-mobile-within-three-years/s2/a549415/

http://www.onemanandhisblog.com/archives/2012/05/ft_mobile_event_analysis_life_in_api_tim.html

Brand Perfect hits San Francisco–a round-up

I was fortunate enough to be a facilitator for last week’s Brand Perfect event in San Francisco. I’ve worked in mobile marketing for 12 years now, but I still enjoy hearing about case studies and examples from other parts of the world. It’s also very useful to understand the differences (and similarities) of creating and running mobile marketing and media initiatives in different parts of the world. And there was a good crowd there to explore all of that.

The event was organised by Monotype Imaging. Not necessarily a familiar name to the mobile industry but perhaps it should be. They have several mobile solutions for network operators, handset manufacturers, creative agencies and app developers. Worth a look, with flexible pricing structures and solutions.

Anyway, I digress. The day involved a selection of keynotes looking at design, what’s happening in the mobile sector, the challenges of running mobile services, some insight into what’s possible and a look at the role of typography. In the afternoon, we divided up into groups to work on an actual brief from the University of San Francisco. This gave us a chance to put some of the learning from the morning into action – to think about design in a wider sense beyond look and feel, to distil the brief into the most important points and to focus on those and to think creatively in cross-disciplinary teams to come up with a solution. It was a fun thing to do and something I enjoyed being part of.

I’ve done a storify of the day collating some of the best tweets, resources, pictures and video clips. There are further videos to come – they’re in editing at the moment. And I’m hoping some of the presentations will make their way online too. I’ll add the links as and when that happens. In the meantime, have a look at the storify and the flickr photos below.

Personal lessons learned and some reflections on the day:

• It’s still early days for mobile marketing and media and there is still much to experiment with
• We need to do more experimenting. We have a great opportunity to reinvent marketing and advertising with this medium. It would be tragic to miss out on that.
• There’s a knowledge gap with brands, marketing people, retailers, media owners and traditional agency types. Developer relations programs from handset manufacturers et al tend to focus almost exclusively on programmers and the technical end of the spectrum. These are not always the decision makers and they are also not necessarily the ones coming up with the creative ideas. Developer relations needs to adapt and extend to other communities of interest.
• We need to forge better relationships between designers, developers, brands and commercial teams. We cannot work in silos when it comes to mobile initiatives as these touch too many parts of the business. There is a translation process that needs to happen and we need to learn and benefit from understanding the differences and being able to play to each others strengths. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
• It’s very easy to get hung up on ‘mobile’ being just about the web, apps and banner ads. There’s so much more to it and we do need to remember that. There’s another level of data and tracking available with mobile usage and additional features and capabilities that are simply not possible from a standard laptop.
• The mobile phone is the primary digital access point for a great swathe of customers and growing. Are we really taking this into consideration when designing products and services.
• Mobile services are not one-offs – they need longer term support and management for them to succeed.
• Be useful, relevant or entertaining. Customer service is a winner. We are dealing with people here ultimately. Let’s humanise the experience rather than reducing it to ones and zeros.

The event will be heading to London in the next few months and further cities around the globe. More info at http://www.brandperfect-tour.com/

 

Brand Perfect Tour's San Francisco set

Created with flickr slideshow.

Brand Perfect Tour hits San Francisco

I’m very pleased to tell you that I will shortly be heading to San Francisco, on of my favourite cities to visit, and while I’m there, I will be one of the facilitators at the Brand Perfect Tour event on 8 May 2012. I was involved in the London event last year and this time, we’re in search of seamless brand experiences on mobile. The event is aimed at brands, retailers, media owners, agencies and developers. And whether you’re a veteran or a newbie to this world of mobile marketing, you’re sure to get something out of it. With a mix of keynotes, discussion and hands-on exercises, there’s plenty to get your teeth into.

We’ll be talking with major brands, agencies and expert developers about where opportunity in the mobile channel really lies:

• How should a brand view the mobile channel in their marketing mix?
• What are the challenges and rewards?
• What are the success stories that show the way forward?
• How do you plan and implement a mobile strategy to reach the mass market that’s on-brand?
• What are the technologies involved and what can brand owners expect to be able to deliver?

Then put it all together by working in cross-disciplinary teams with your peers covering the business, design and development elements of creating a mobile experience based on a real brand brief. You'll not only have plenty of great ideas by the end of the day; you'll have made a lot of new friends tool.

The event is free for brands, retailers and media owners to attend.

If you're an agency or developer and you bring a brand buddy with you, then you both attend for free.

If you're a journalist or blogger and would like to cover the event, please get in touch with me for a press pass. I have a few available. Otherwise, the ticket price is USD395

Registration is required: http://www.brandperfect-tour.com/events/next-stop-on-the-tour/

Spread the word and see you there! You’ll also find Brand Perfect Tour on Facebook, the event is also listed on Facebook and LinkedIn to make it easy for you to add to your calendar and share with friends and colleagues. And you can follow the twitter action here.

Oh, and there are some super pictures from the London event in November for you below from photographer Paul Clarke. And you can view some of the London presentations here.

Created with flickr slideshow.

The Best of British Apps

You can’t move these days for mobile apps. There is an app for everything and sometimes it’s hard to see the wood for the trees. But never fear, Stuart Dredge, journalist and app fanatic has just done a report on the Best of British Apps and it’s rather good too. As you can imagine, many of my friends and colleagues are included as being Best of British which is very gratifying.

Well worth a read anyway. Enjoy. http://www.theappside.com/2012/02/24/free-report-from-the-appside-best-of-british-apps/

Swedish Beers–the Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival Edition

As some of you know, I do like a good party, and the annual road trip to Barcelona is a great excuse to have one. So Swedish Beers is back with a vengeance and is now part of the Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival too. It seems to be a lot of people’s favourite networking party of the week and so we’re back to bring you more beer, more cheer and more chat. We’re in danger of this year being better than ever thanks to our very generous sponsors. I know for a fact there’ll be even more beer for starters. So let me introduce them to you…

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Our lead sponsor this time around is Millennial Media. They're big fans of Swedish Beers and sponsored our London come back party in the summer. And in return, we’re big fans of theirs too. The company is really going places and the team will be on hand to chew the fat about mobile advertising and will have a bountiful supply of free beer tokens. As lead sponsors, it really will be a bountiful supply! You couldn't be in better hands with Gavin, Stephen, Mack and the crew. They definitely know how to have a good time. http://millennialmedia.com/

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Next up is AQL. So good they had to sponsor us twice. And we're very glad they did. Adam Beaumont and his fine team will be there to talk all things mobile messaging and voice communications with you . There's not much he doesn't know or can't do with mobile messaging. Oh, and yeah, he'll have one or two beer tokens in hand too. http://aql.com/

Newcomers to Swedish Beers are Pearson. Yes, that's right, the parent company of FT.com, Penguin books and much more besides. They're exhibiting this year at Congress and are particularly interested to talk about mobile technology in emerging markets as well as innovations in eBooks and the like. The FT.com team will also be on hand to tell you about their adventures in HTML5 and their dealings with the behemoth that is Apple. http://pearson.com/. We're also very pleased that they're sponsoring the overall festival too.

Up next is Apadmi. Fans of Swedish Beers for many years and now it's their turn to join the party as a sponsor. Garry and the team build mobile apps and solutions and very experienced at it they are too. They're also great fun and have kick-started the mobile networking scene in Manchester by taking the lead in setting up Mobile Monday Manchester. http://apadmi.com/

Madmaker is launching very soon and is a do-it-yourself mobile ad maker - you see what they did there with the name? I've seen the system in action and it's really very neat. Oystein, Andy and the team from Boost are behind this new product and will be at Swedish Beers to give it a proper Nordic vibe as they hail from Norway. Oh, and they know a thing or two about mobile marketing as well so will be happy to chat away about that with you until the wee hours about what's hot and what's not in the sector. You'll also find them at 2F33 in the MWC exhibition too.

Like our previous events, this is a relaxed evening, no formalities, no presentations, no business cards thrust in your face as soon as you arrive. Just come with an open mind, be prepared to see friends old and new, talk nonsense, enjoy a drink or five and have yourself a good time. Oh, and leave the ties, the corporate personas and the sales spiel at the door please.

The Swedish Beers crew will be on hand – Helen, Jenny, Gabriel, Shafiq, Cat, Sarah, Russell - and the friendliest bar staff in town at our regular haunt, Dos Trece, are all waiting to welcome you. The venue holds about 300 or so folks at any one time so there’s plenty space for everyone. There will be bars upstairs and downstairs so please make full use of both floors so that more people can enjoy the fun.
No need to RSVP unless you want to. There's no guest list, no tickets and there's no guaranteed entry. Just come and go as you please. But if you would like to RSVP, you can over here on Facebook. You'll see some familiar faces there I'm sure.

It is likely to get a bit busy at times. But don't worry, people will be coming in and out all evening. That’s kind of the point as we know there’s always a lot going on and you might want to check out more than one party. If it's very busy, there's no need to queue to get in. Just check out one of the other bars nearby and come back a little later when it's a bit less frantic. Dos Trece is where the action will be. We'll be open from 7pm until the wee hours so there'll be plenty time for you to drop in and say skål.

We don't have a cloakroom so we don't recommend you bring your laptops or briefcases with you - it's a liability in Barcelona I'm afraid – especially at this time of year and they’ll just get in the way of your enjoyment of the evening. Drop them at your hotel or apartment first. You won't need them anyway what with this new fangled thing called the mobile phone ;)

So just to recap:
What: Swedish Beers Mobile Networking
When: Wednesday 29th February 2012 - 7pm until we run out of steam
Where: DosTrece, Calle Carme 40, 08001 Barcelona

DosTrece is behind La Boqueria market and the nearest metro station is Liceu. Just walk up La Rambla, walk past La Boqueria and Teatro Grec, then take a left at Calle Carme (or Carrer del Carme) and DosTrece is at number 40 (Google map here). (They also have free Wi-Fi if you want to demo your latest phone app.)

**********Keep in touch***********
Email: Just add your email address to the Feedblitz box at the top of this blog and you’ll get all my blog posts (and therefore event notices) to your inbox. Or go to http://swedishbeers.com and your email address to the Feedblitz box at the top left there.
Twitter: Follow us at http://www.twitter.com/swedishbeers
Facebook: Like us http://www.facebook.com/SwedishBeers or join the group

Swedish Beers is proud to be a Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival event.

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

Tuesday Tidbits

There’s a lot I’m thinking about and reading at the moment so here’s a few to share with you for your delectation.

The Copyright Industry – A Century of Deceit. A succinct take on the role of copyright (or not) in the 21st Century. Take a look at the comments too. In this networked world, the concept of copyright is questioned. https://torrentfreak.com/the-copyright-industry-a-century-of-deceit-111127/

A lovely little journalism project with the indigenous people of the Northern Territory in Australia. Using mobile technology, they’re creating video journalism. Take a look http://ntmojos.indigenous.gov.au/

The future of news and why ‘digital first’ matters… this article is alluding to the fact that news is now a process not an artefact and there’s a need for mindset change to accompany this. http://gigaom.com/2011/11/21/the-future-of-news-and-why-digital-first-matters/

Fights erupt at Black Friday across the US. For those not familiar with Black Friday, it’s the frenzy for the sales immediately after Thanksgiving. If you thought the first day of the sale at Harrods or Selfridges was crazy, then you need to take a look at this storify of this year’s shenanigans Stateside. I’m glad it’s not like that here in Blighty (at least so far). http://storify.com/cbccommunity/black-friday

Videos of the presentations at the recent Noah conference looking at investment, M&A activity and innovation in the tech world. Lots of case studies and discussion. Worth a look. http://www.youtube.com/user/NoahAdvisors

The team at 33 Digital have taken a look at the top 10 future trends in social media and have compiled a little report looking at it. Mobile obviously features heavily including some thoughts on automotive and tablets.. Definitely worth a look and it’s free. http://www.scribd.com/doc/73580666/10-Social-Media-Trends-for-2012-33-Digital-and-Hotwire

In case you didn’t catch this already, this is my friend, Mauricio’s, talk about his adventures in rehab following a stroke at the beginning of the year. A compelling personal story coupled with insight into the role of technology as part of his and his fellow patients rehab. Definitely there are lessons to be learned here. http://vimeo.com/32533686

Five tips for mobile app success from the Vodafone developer relations team. In short, they are

• Tip 1—Solve a user problem
• Tip 2—Differentiate your solution
• Tip 3—Do one thing well
• Tip 4—Use the power of mashups
• Tip 5—Iterate and increment

This seems like sensible advice to me and Vodafone goes into more detail about each point here to coincide with the launch of their refreshed app shop, Appselect.

And now for something completely different but no less important… Stan Collymore shares his own experience about depression. Worth a read for both sufferers and non-sufferers to get a wider understanding of the illness. There are also some useful links too. http://www.twitlonger.com/show/ecoqm1

Internet Week EU–Mobile Best Practice Panel

It was a busy week last week – it was Internet Week in London and there were a ton of mobile events as part of that. I moderated two sessions, participated in a round table, went to a dinner and attended two mobile conferences. Even by my standards, that’s quite a lot. There were some recurring themes though…

• Mobile is still being placed in a silo and not prioritised despite proven results. I heard tell of a bank wanting a mobile presence but not willing to put any budget behind it. Another tale of a large retailer whose mobile commerce offering is highly successful but has been ignored in all the above the line marketing for their Christmas push.
• Ad agencies are one of the barriers – inability to make margin or add value in a mobile proposition; lack of technical knowledge or expertise; blinded by the iPhone; unwillingness to change their way of working to incorporate mobile thinking to be at the heart of the strategy rather than an add-on
• Mobile marketing budgets are still relatively small as compared with above the line or even social media budgets (despite ~50% of social media being consumed on a mobile device)
• Clients lacking technical knowledge and lacking in consumer insight means that mobile initiatives are tactical rather than strategic.
• Arguably, mobile commerce is core business to many organisations now (in the same way as having a bricks and mortar store or an ecommerce offering), but is not treated as thus
• We’re still talking about statistics to prove that customers have gone mobile. Surely we know this already and we should be moving on to talking about what we do, how we do it and what we learned in the process?
• There is an obsession with direct ROI in mobile initiatives and a fast one – a few months, maybe a year. Yet in publishing, a new print magazine would not be expected to break even for three years. The mobile experience is more complex than just looking at the number of hits or click throughs and we should be applying research methods from other marketing and commerce disciplines rather than transplanting online advertising models.
• Accessibility is barely on the radar at all. It seems to be perfectly acceptable to alienate a large proportion of your customers because they don’t have your preferred device, so what chance do people with impairments or disabilities have when it comes to the big guys making their mobile sites and services more accessible?! Oh, and there are at least 54m disabled people in the US and over 6m of them here in the UK.

Much of this, and more, was discussed in my Internet Week panel session last Thursday at The Hospital. My fellow panellists were James Pimentel-Pinto from full-service mobile agency, AgencyMobile, Shawn Thomson from Largetail, consultant Andrea Bauer and Andy Smith, formerly of Admob (Google) and now with mobile couponing specialist Eagle Eye. There were also some interesting questions and comments from the audience. So if you have 40 minutes or so to spare, you may want to take a look or have a listen. Comments and questions welcome.

What’s on in mobile in the next month or two…

We’re definitely in the middle of events season and there are a whole bunch of events coming up in October and November 2011 in the mobile world that I’m attending or involved with in in some way that I thought you might want to know about…
19 to 21 October Like Minds in Exeter – ‘Innovation+Opportunity | How to build brands, businesses and communities for the future’ is the theme for this year’s event which is something close to my heart and close to the hearts of the clients I work with. Although this is not a mobile event per se, I think it will be of interest to mobile start-ups and SMEs. The three day event looks to be a good mix of keynote speakers, immersive sessions and chances to meet and network. And it’s rather refreshingly being held outside of London. You can find out more and book your tickets here: http://wearelikeminds.com/events/exeter. And before you ask, no I don’t have a cheeky discount code for you!
24 October – AppFusion ‘How to work with the Big Names’ takes a look at how to work with big name celebrities and brands as a mobile developer and entrepreneur. Organised by the lovely Jason Dunne, it’s free to attend (although you do need to RSVP as places are limited) and starts at 7pm at Club Bond on Kingly Street. More information and sign up here: http://www.meetup.com/AppFusion/events/35435792/?a=ce1.2p_grp&rv=ce1.2p
27 October – the BrandPerfect Tour – Adventures in Mobile hits Berlin. This is organised by Julie Strawson and her team at Monotype Imaging, alongside event partners Fjord, Y&R Brands, University of Reading and RIT and is aimed at brands, agencies (digital, above the line, sales promotion, direct marketing et al), developers and designers to get their heads round what a mobile strategy looks like in the iPhone era. Speakers include Romy Kraus, Sergio Falletti, Aral Balkan and more. It’s not free to attend but I believe it’s good value for money because of the combination of conference style and learning workshop which means you should get more out of the day than your average conference. There are still some free tickets available for press and bloggers. Please get in touch with me if you’d like to be considered for one of those. Otherwise you can buy your ticket here.
31 October – it’s the final of the ICT KTN / UKTI competition to win a free place to exhibit at Mobile World congress 2012. You’ll see pitches from the shortlisted candidates and they’ll get a grilling from the judges. Winners will be announced on the night. Free to attend but RSVP is required here.
3 November – Effective Mobile Marketing Awards Dinner. I’m a big fan of Mobile Marketing Magazine and they’re behind the annual EMMAs awards and this is one of my highlights of the year. I’m lucky enough to be involved in this as a judge for the second year in a row and it was a tough task this year. There were so many good entries, it was a close call in some of the categories. I know it’s going to be a good night out – I’m privy to some of the plans. It’s being held at the rather wonderful Delfina on Bermondsey Street (I had lunch there today and it was smashing). But if you want to join the fun, you’ll have to get your ticket. There aren’t many left so best be quick if you want to participate.
7 November – I’m headed for the Shoreditch Roundabout and the techhub lunchtime mobile meet-up. I’m not sure what I’ll be speaking about yet, but it should be a fun session and it’s free to attend (at least as far as I know). You’ll also find that BlueVia are doing their office hours that morning too so you can get a double-whammy of mobile goodness. If you’re not familiar with the techhub vibe, this is a good chance for you to see how it all works and to see what’s on offer for tech start-ups of all descriptions. I recommend you give it a look. Registration isn’t open at the time of writing, but when it is, you’ll find it here.
9 November – I’m moderating a panel at the Mobile Squared Roadshow. ‘What’s the Mobile Squared Roadshow when it’s at home?’ I hear you ask. Well it’s a whole day of mobile marketing conferencing and networking. You get to hear from a wide variety of speakers looking at everything from the mobile consumer to the potential of augmented reality. And what’s more, it’s free to attend. Yes, that’s right. It’s free to attend. For a whole day. So sign up, come on down and join the conversation.
11 November – After something more developer and entrepreneur focussed and covering all things web and mobile? Then the Power of One event is for you. And what’s more, there’s one speaker’s slot available for a tech start-up to talk about what they’re up to. There’s no need for a business plan, there’s a short form to fill in. If you win, you’ll get 20 minutes of prime time to pitch your business to an audience of 300 including investors and key influencers. Not only that, everyone who submits an idea to pitch will get a discount code (and it’s a significant discount) for a ticket. Not that they’re expensive at £99 + VAT in the first place and I’ve spotted a cheeky discount code promoted on twitter – use the promo code BLUEVIA to get a 50% discount. More information and buy your tickets here.
And it doesn’t stop there…
15 November, you’ll find me at the London edition of the BrandPerfect Tour. I’ll be speaking and moderating a panel looking at ‘to iphone or not to iphone, what is the strategy?’ (I paraphrase here, but you get the gist). Other toptastic speakers on the day include old friends Ilicco Elia – ex Reuters and now head of mobile at LBi, Stephen Pinches from the FT and the inimitable Romy Kraus. It’s being held at the rather lovely Century Club on Shaftesbury Avenue. No free tickets or cheeky discount codes, but it’ll be a great day with that mix of workshop meets seminar meets conference with some networking and banter thrown in for good measure. Again, there are some free press and blogger tickets available. Please get in touch with me if you’d like to apply for one of these.
The Europas hit London on 17 November. This will be a big bash to celebrate European tech start-ups and will probably end up being the start of the Christmas party season. It should be lots of fun and jam-packed with tech entrepreneurs, investors, pundits and various hangers on. I know last year’s party was a blast. Prices start at £90 + VAT for tech entrepreneurs and you can get them here.
The following week may well find me in Oslo and possibly Amsterdam speaking at a couple of conferences, but I’ll let you know about that once they’re confirmed. And then maybe I’ll go into hibernation for a couple of weeks!