I am Helen Keegan, a veteran of mobile marketing, advertising and media since 2000. This is my diary and musings about mobile since 2004. I am part consultant and part events organiser in London, Barcelona and beyond (Swedish Beers and Heroes of Mobile). I write here about mobile technology and media and other things I'm interested in like theatre, art, crafts, business and life.
I’ve been staying with my Mum for a few days. My father died earlier this year and we’re all still grieving and getting used to him not being around. It’s a little bit weird to be sitting at his desk, in his chair, using his things – where he would have been writing (there’s a lovely large ink blotter on the desk) and of course, where I’m tapping away at my laptop with a mobile phone also close to hand.
I happened to glance up from my screen and in the letter rack I spotted this clipping. My Dad’s written on it ‘Times July 1’. I don’t remember being in it so it was a bit of a surprise to see it. My father clearly took the trouble to buy a copy of the newspaper (he was a Telegraph reader as a rule) and then cut out and kept the clipping. It’s at least 5 years old – maybe older judging by the picture. I’m touched, and a little bit teary, that he did that.
And then I read the piece and I stand by my words. I think it’s from a talk I gave at a conference but I don’t remember. As it doesn’t appear to be available online, I’ve transcribed it here:
‘The future of mobile is that mobile will just be a normal part of the marketing mix. It will be almost invisible, in that people won’t know whether they are browsing on the mobile web of (sic) the ‘full fat’ web; they will just be looking at Facebook or the BBC, or checking email, so their consciousness of how they are doing that will disappear. The focus will be on making brands’ services and products accessible, however anyone wants to get hold of them and that’s the priority. Mobile technology is moving forward, and there are some exciting innovations around and we will see mobile being used in some interesting ways in the future, but we should not get carried away with the new shiny thing, when a good, reliable mobile website and old fashioned SMS are still really important. There is a lot of mileage left in messaging for customer service, saying thank you, getting feedback, the simple things. It’s not about push advertising, it’s about having a proper relationship with customers who want to have a relationship with you. It’s easy to get carried away with the technology, but good marketing begins and ends with good service. You have to make it easy for people to find and buy your stuff and do it again.’
Mobile Web Best Practices is a great resource that helps you work out strategy, user experience, visual design and development by asking the right questions and pointing you to useful resources to aid your thinking. Well worth a look.
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/
I’ve been a regular columnist for Mobile Marketing Magazine for some time now and have been a judge for their awards both this year and last year. Even better though, this year, I got to present the awards alongside David Murphy at Delfina. This was a great honour for me, made even better as I knew so many of the entrants and winners personally. So here’s my blog post rounding up the occasion. If you have time to read through to the end, you’ll see the list of winners and finalists and also some information about why they won and videos where there are videos available. These make for good case study examples in many sectors and in many countries. They’re not limited to the UK. Special thanks to David Murphy and John Owen for including me in the proceedings. And thank you to the sponsors, Upstream, Propel and OpenMarket for supporting such a great initiative.
I’ve only just spotted that the video from the event is up now which I’ve included here.
The photos are also up on flickr and you can see the set below
And of course, last but not least, details of all the winners
Winners include: The Guardian; Sainsbury’s (Groupe Aeroplan); BSkyB; Pepsico (Rabarba); Auto Trader; New Look (MIG); TripAdvisor; British Airways (Incentivated); Debenhams; Chiltern Railways (Masabi); Disasters Emergency Committee (OpenMarket); Txtlocal; Sony Columbia Music (Fetch Media); Buongiorno; Mippin; Rippll; Flexion.
Most Effective Mobile Site
Winner: The Guardian for The Guardian Mobile Site Summary: Developing the mobile site is part of The Guardian’s Open Strategy. Its core purpose is to increase the reach of the brand. The aim is to deliver text and image content in a fast, fresh site that will appeal to readers on any handset in any country. Results: Since launch in March 2009, m.guardian.co.uk has grown into the UK’s number one mobile content service for the digital newspaper industry, achieving over 7 million unique browsers and page views of more than 36 million per month. It accounts for around 12 per cent of The Guardian's total digital traffic and has seen a 233 per cent increase year on year. m.guardian.co.uk has also seen strong growth in its global audience, particularly from the US (2.12m unique browsers) and Canada, Ireland, Australia and India. Combining targeted mobile ad solutions with rich-media formats has allowed The Guardian to grow advertising revenues by more than 80 per cent year on year. Finalists: bemoko/Macmillan Cancer Support for Macmillan Mobile Site Found/Autoglass for Smashing the Glass Repair Market on Mobile Incentivated/Centaur for Marketing Week Live! New Look/MIG for New Look’s Mobile Commerce Site Somo/Audi for Audi Mobile Site
Most Effective Mobile Sales Promotion/Direct Response Campaign
Winner: Pepsico/Rabarba for Pepsi Content in a Bottle Summary: Unique codes were found under the lids of Pepsi bottles. Consumers who texted the unique codes under the Pepsi can lids won: a) one month free Premier League Live Football subscription from Turkcell including live goal videos, breaking news and information about their favourite teams of choice; b) one month free Ring Back Tone (RBT) subscription from Turkcell, so when people called them they would hear one of five different tracks instead of the usual ringtone; c) each participant also won 12 hours of free airtime from Turkcell. Results: During the four-month period, 3 million people participated in the campaign up to four times each on average; totalling up to 11.5 million participations. At the end of this campaign, Pepsi reached its highest market share in the last eight years.
Highly commended: Found/Autoglass for Smashing the Glass Repair Market on Mobile Finalists: OpenMarket for Disasters Emergency Committee East Africa Drought Appeal Pharos Mobile for Burger King Monopoly Madness Saudi Telecom Company/Upstream for 100 BMW X5 *100 Days Turkcell/Aerodeon/Shell Turcas for Shell FuelSave Fuels
Most Effective mCommerce Solution
Winner: New Look/MIG for New Look’s Mobile Commerce Site Summary: New Look launched its fully transactional mobile website in April 2011. The HTML5 and CSS3-based site was designed and built by Mobile Interactive Group (MIG) and integrates into New Look’s back-end systems. Key features include fast one-click checkout for registered users; engaging zoom functionality; easy to browse products in one, two or three column formats; seamless viewing with accordion navigation to reduce page refreshes and single consumer shopping basket between the website and mobile site. Two sites were built – one for high-end devices and one for low-end devices. The redirect automatically detects the user’s device and serves the best mobile experience for that specific device. Results: In three months the mobile site delivered 24 per cent increase in mobile visits, 60 per cent increase in orders and 45 per cent increase in revenue. • See this video demo Finalists: Pizza Express/2ergo for Pizza Express iPhone App Usablenet/JD Sports for JD Sports Fashion Mobile
Most Effective Mobile Advertising Campaign
Winner: Fetch Media and Sony Columbia Music for the launch of Calvin Harris & Kelis single Bounce. Summary: The only promotion for the new Calvin Harris single was via mobile advertising. The campaign objective was to drive engagement and purchase of the new single so moving it up the charts and encouraging more radio play, thus making it the summer anthem of 2011. The media targeted was Shazam, Ministry of Sound and MTV. A rich-media HTML5 ad campaign was specially built for MTV, using a ball bouncing in the banner, once visitors tapped on the ball, they were exposed to a full screen expandable ad inviting them to watch the video and buy the single. Results: The campaign received more than 8 million impressions within 10 days. 30 per cent of the people who clicked through the ad watched the video or clicked to iTunes. The single went straight into BBC Radio 1’s A List and charted at number 2 in its first week in the iTunes chart.
Finalists: Found/Autoglass for Smashing the Glass Repair Market on Mobile NAVTEQ Media Solutions/Peugeot for Peugeot Hyper-local Advertising Campaign Nokia/Pring for Nokia Eidi on Pring Vogue Turkey/Rabara for Vogue Turkey’s 1st Year Anniversary Campaign Warner Bros/Millennial Media/Odyssey Mobile Interaction for Green Lantern
Most Effective Mobile CRM/Enterprise Messaging Campaign
Winner: Incentivated and British Airways for British Airways SMS Customer Service Messaging Summary: BA’s text service, available for UK- and US-registered mobile phones, allows passengers to get up-to-the-minute flight information for yesterday, today and the next 14 days, direct to their mobile, using the dedicated shortcodes. Messaging services include the following notifications: disruption to service; online check in open; lost baggage warning; standby notifications for staff; maintenance messages for staff; flight information services for people meeting a passenger. Highly commended: Ericsson IPX/Velti for A&N Mobile CRM Finalists: MePlease for MePlease SmartLinks Nokia/JWT/Bemoko for Nokia Source
Most Effective Mobile Ticketing Solution
Winner: Masabi/Chiltern Railways for Ticket Machine in Your Pocket Summary: In May 2011, Chiltern Railways was the first rail operator to go live with the full barcode ticket system provided by transport-ticketing specialist Masabi and ticketing services provider Atos. Rail passengers with smartphones or feature phones can buy and receive rail tickets through one transaction for any rail journey in the UK. Barcodes can be securely validated on the train using the guard's portable ticketing machine. Unlike most commercial booking services, the Chiltern Railways application does not charge a booking fee and is free to download. To get the application passengers just need to text “Chiltern” to 88600 or search the relevant app stores.
Finalists: Movement/Virgin Media for mTicketing at V Festival: Our Garden Safaricom M-Pesa/Redsky for Safaricom M-Pesa Ticketing
Most Effective Mobile Charity Campaign/Solution
Winner: OpenMarket for the Disasters Emergency Committee East Africa Drought Summary: More than 10 million people in East Africa have been left in need of food, water and emergency healthcare because of one of the worst droughts in 60 years. Working with the Disasters Emergencies Committee (DEC), OpenMarket supported the UK appeal by enabling SMS donations via its mobile payments and campaign management platform, CMX2. TV and print media ad campaigns encouraged people to donate £5 (US $7.83) directly to the appeal by texting ‘HELP’, ‘CRISIS’, ‘AID’, ‘DONATE’, ‘HELP’, ‘SUPPORT’ or ‘AFRICA’ keywords to 70000. Results: More than £1,200,000 (US $1,878,798) has been raised via SMS donations since DEC launched the Appeal in June 2011. This is 500 per cent more than DEC had raised from text donating in the past. The campaign also allowed donors to opt-in to Gift Aid, meaning that individuals can increase their donation by 25 per cent if they opt in to the HMRC Gift Aid scheme – 60 per cent of donors subsequently opted in. Highly commended: M&S/Oxfam/Profero for the One-day Wardrobe Clear out Finalists: Bemoko/Macmillan Cancer Support for Macmillan Mobile Site DIDMO/Salvation Army/GetJar for Salvation Army Daily Cup Social Justice National Geographic/Velti for The Last Lions Safaricom M-Pesa/Redsky for Kenyans for Kenya
Most Effective Mobile Application – b2b
Winner: Auto Trader for Dealer Portal iPhone App Summary: The Dealer Portal Mobile app allows dealers to manage their advertising any time, any where on their iPhone. Dealers can take photos of their stock on their iPhone, view their forecourt and edit adverts, all on the move. A ‘Profit Indicator’ helps dealers calculate the margin they’d make, with a suggested price. This is based on real-time, accurate, market-based information and helps to reduce the risk associated with purchase and increase the likelihood of making a profit. To ensure that enough dealers had iPhones, Autotrader ran a promotion which gave away a free iPhone to dealers who purchased a particular mobile advertising product bundle. 1,250 dealers took up the iPhone offer. Results: 1,788 dealers have logged onto the app since launch, representing about 19 per cent of the online Dealer Portal users. 66 per cent of app users return each month; 40 per cent of app users uploaded an advert in August 2011.
Finalists: Egencia for Egencia Mobile iPhone App Global Bay for iPad Retail App O2 Media/Golden Gekko for O2 Media App IDG Global Solutions/OMG/HP for IDG/HP ROI Resource Centres Safaricom M-Pesa/Redsky for M-Pesa Buy Goods
Most Effective Mobile Couponing or Barcode Campaign
Winner: Groupe Aeroplan for Sainsbury’s Mobile App Summary: The Sainsbury’s mobile app (for iOS, Android and Nokia) launched in August 2010 provides collectors of Nectar loyalty points with their points balance and exclusive offers. It consistently generates significantly higher response rates than other Sainsbury’s direct marketing channels. Sainsbury’s and FMCG suppliers provide the offers that are displayed on both the Sainsbury’s and Nectar apps for four weeks. The offers can be targeted by gender and category (i.e. targeting customers that mostly shop in certain aisles e.g. pet, baby, alcohol, and integrates with the Sainsbury’s Feed Your Family for £50 campaign via a meal planner for recipe inspiration. Shoppers can also purchase general merchandise through the app and will be able to buy food soon. Finalists: Incentivated for M&S Mobile Loyalty Program ScanBuy for Taco Bell – Unlock the Box
Most Effective Mobile Application – b2c
Winner: Debenhams for Debenhams iPhone, Nokia and Android App Summary: Launched in October 2010, the app offers the full Debenhams range for sale with delivery to the customer’s door or collect from store. They can view multiple product images with zoom capability and tailor searches using the ‘narrow the selection’ button were they can filter by type, brand, colour, price, and size. This was the first app on the UK high street to include a barcode scanner that acts like a virtual shopping assistant. The app also allows Debenhams to push location-based offers to customers that are near the stores. Results: The app paid for itself within three weeks of launch. In the first 6 months the app had been downloaded 500,000 times and delivered over £1.5 million (US $2.35 million) in sales.
Finalists: AKQA/Random House for Nigella Quick Collection iPhone App Future Platforms/Orange for Official Glastonbury App Grapple for Premier Inn Mobile Pizza Express/2ergo for Pizza Express iPhone App Poynt for The Poynt App
Most Effective Location-based Service/Campaign
Winner: Rippll for Rippll GeoWave Summary: Rippll GeoWave is a technology platform for running location-based mobile advertising campaigns. Rippll provides simple-to-use ad serving tags to publishers and ad networks turning regular ad campaigns into location-based ad campaigns. Rippll GeoWave allows ads to be served in specific regions, such as near the advertiser’s store and allows for different advertising messages to be served in different locations. Map-based reporting shows where the ads are working best so publishers and advertisers can optimize campaigns. Rippll works with ad networks 4th Screen Advertising, YOC and StrikeAd to place tags in mobile publishers such as The Guardian, EBuddy and The Sun. Rippll has run location-based campaigns for TGI Fridays, McDonalds, IKEA, HMV, Dove and eBay among others. Highly commended: Grapple for Fable III Kingmaker Finalists: Found/Autoglass for Smashing the Glass Repair Market on Mobile Mazda/Joule/Mindshare for Mazda MX5 Facebook Deals NAVTEQ Media Solutions/Peugeot for Peugeot Hyper-local Advertising Campaign NAVTEQ Media Solutions/Spur Restaurants/Wand for Spur Restaurants Location-Aware Mobile Ads
Most Effective Tablet Application
Winner: BSkyB for Sky News for iPad Summary: Sky News for iPad is an app built around live events and breaking news displayed chronologically on a timeline that is updated as the news day unfolds. Technology developed by Sky lets users rewind live video to the start – even if the app was not active when the event commenced. Each story is supported by a number of modules that deliver editorial depth and context. Modules include interactive stills, image galleries and graphs, as well as bespoke HTML content created on a daily basis.
Highly commended: DK/AKQA for The Human Body App Finalists: Auto Trader for Auto Trader iPad App Financial Times/Assanka for FT Web App Somo/Audi for Audi UK’s Guide to Le Mans 2011 Tigerspike/Telegraph Media Group for TMG iPad App
Most Effective Mobile Advertising Platform or Network
Winner: Txtlocal for Txtlocal Control Panel Summary: 75,000 use the Web-based Txtlocal control panel to send in excess of 25 million text messages every month. Txtlocal allows business to text thousands of people within minutes from as little as UK £0.025. (US $0.038) Txtlocal also enables companies to set up a shortcode to solicit opt-ins to text campaigns or build a mobile Website for recipients of messages to click through to further information. Results: Using Txtlocal, The English National Opera could advertise last-minute ticket deals and minimise revenue lost from empty seats. Two ENO campaigns delivered £8,000 ($12,530) gross profit from a £500 ($783) spend on text credits. Papa John’s Pizza increased sales 31.7 per cent during a three-day text campaign promoting a discounted price offer. Subway used Txtlocal to inform its customers of special-offer meal-deal promotions generating a response rate of 24 per cent. Domino’s Pizza received 10-12 per cent redemptions from a text campaign delivering £10,000 ($15,661) of sales from a £350 ($548) investment.
Luigi uses Txtlocal to increase customers from Txtlocal Limited on Vimeo. Finalists: Adfonic for Adfonic Blismobile for Blis App Zone madvertise for madvertise Mobile Advertising Marketplace Placecast for ShopAlerts by Placecast Smaato for Smaato Open Mobile Advertising Platform (SOMA)
Most Effective Campaign from a Mobile Operator
Winner: Buongiorno for Recharge and Win Summary: Recharge and Win is a fully managed revenue stimulation and loyalty program that rewards prepay customers each time they top up. After topping up the customer receives a code allowing them to enter a WAP competition/game to win a reward/prize such as free SMS/Minutes, physical prizes or a paint-ball experience. Buongiorno Recharge and Win customers include Optus Australia, O2 UK, Proximus Belgium, O2 Germany Telecom New Zealand and TIM Italy. Results: Recharge and Win helps operators increase the monthly spend of participants by 9 per cent and reduce churn among participants by 25 per cent.
Highly Commended: Saudi Telecom Company/Upstream for Win 100 BMW X5 in 100 Days Finalists: BigTime/MTN Zambia for Mega Millions Promotion Future Platforms/Orange for Official Glastonbury App Orange Romania/Velti for A New Day, a New Life
Most Effective Mobile Travel and Tourism Solution
Winner: TripAdvisor for the TripAdvisor App Summary: TripAdvisor is a free travel app for iPhone, iPad, Android, Nokia, Windows, Palm available in 123 countries in 20 languages. The app includes a “Near Me Now” function, so travellers can determine what hotels, restaurants and attractions are nearby and a search engine to find cheap flights. The iPhone and iPad 2 version includes “Live View”, an augmented reality feature that allows travellers to view TripAdvisor’s 50 million traveller reviews and opinions of hotels, restaurants and attractions superimposed over what they see through the camera of their mobile device. Highly commended: Crafted Media and Colchester Zoo for Colchester Zoo Mobile App Finalists: Incentivated/British Airways for British Airways SMS Customer Service Messaging RedFish Media for MGM Luxor Las Vegas Mobile Alerts
Most Effective Mobile Payment Solution
Winner: Flexion for Flexion Wrapper Summary: Flexion’s wrapper technology creates a small amount of code that is ‘wrapped’ around mobile content such as games or apps, enabling a range of additional services, such as in-app billing, DRM, content discovery and on-device retailing. Content owners can create customized pricing options and promotional models, such as free trials, rentals, bundles and discount and loyalty schemes. The wrapper technology increases conversion rates for apps, by allowing people to try before they buy. Results: Four million wrapped products are activated every month. Flexion has reached a total of 40 million customers. Consumers have spent a total of UK £27 million (US $42.34) globally on the Flexion platform in the last three years.
Finalists: Bango for Bango Payment Flexion for Flexion Wrapper Payment One for Anyphone Safaricom/M-Pesa for M-Pesa Buy Goods Txtnation for JunglePay
Most Effective Mobile Publishing Solution
Winner: Mippin for Mippin App Factory Summary: The Mippin App Factory allows anyone to build an app in just 5 minutes. App Pack prices start at UK £10 (US $15.68) – that includes a Web app for iPhone and Android app, a java launcher and mobile website. Native apps cost £500-£2,000 ($784-$3136). Results: Over 40,000 apps have been built on App Factory implementations in the last 18 months. The most successful of these are OK! Magazine app (downloaded 475,000 times) and the Daily Star app (downloaded 300,000 times).
Using the App Factory to develop a web app for an RSS from WAC Apps on Vimeo. Finalists: Rippll for Appsplash Vodafone/AMVG for vRead Wapple for Canvas, Architect and Exhibit Woodwing Tablet Publishing Solution • 2010 Winners include (brand/agency): M&S (MIG); McDonalds (NAVTEQ); Unilever Cornetto (BlisMobile); Procter & Gamble (Sky Sports); Skåne (Ericsson IPX, LINK Mobility); ClearMen (Turkcell, Rabarba); MTN (Upstream); SwiftKey (TouchType); M&S (Incentivated); Lions Baseball (Fancharge); NXP SemiConductors… Full details and video case studies here.
Some of you may know that I’m currently working on some accessibility workshops and that this is a new area to me. I’ve always been a bastion of common sense, but accessibility, for whatever reason, this hasn’t really been of any major (or minor) concern. I’d always thought it was about disability and I’m not disabled. Most people aren’t disabled so not something for me to worry about. Or so I thought.
I consider myself pretty normal. I’m of average height, average build and weight, average fitness level and so on. I do need glasses though. Not that much. Only if I’m really tired, if I’ve been working at my computer too long, if the print is really really small or if I’m in low light (restaurant menus in Italic script in low ‘romantic’ light are my nemesis these days). It’s an age thing. As you get older, your eyesight deteriorates little by little and for me, that process has just begun. And it isn’t going to get any better I don’t suppose. But I’m not used to wearing my glasses as I don’t need them all the time so I forget to carry them with me a lot of the time.
It’s not that big a deal, right? I can still do everything I used to be able to do. I only need glasses for a smidgeon of my time. And it can’t be that big a deal when we’re talking technology? Or so you’d think. My experience with mobile devices and my not-quite-as-good-as-it-used-to-be eyesight is pretty appalling:
Going to a website on my phone and being forced to view the mobile version where the font is fixed and is too small (only by 1 or 2pts) to read without my glasses. Why can’t I zoom in or increase the font size?
Going to a mobile site where having squinted at the article I’m reading, only to find that I can adjust the font size right at the bottom. That should be at the top, no? There’s little point in struggling to read the page only to find at the bottom, I could have made it a whole lot easier for myself.
But neither of those are as bad as the app situation. Oh my word. That is simply horrid and a frustration. And I’m speaking having used apps regularly on Android, Windows Phone 7, Nokia N95 and N8, Android and Palm Pre II. Why can’t I increase a font size in an app? Why does the font have to be so small in the first place?
It really is ridiculous. I shouldn’t have to put my glasses on to read my phone. Are you telling me that in this day and age, that this can’t be sorted by a bit of up front thinking about design, usability and accessibility? Isn’t technology supposed to make life easier? Isn’t mobile technology about the convenience of it all. It sure ain’t convenient for me to have to dig around for my glasses just so that I can read your dumb app or game. And I can’t imagine what it’s like for people with a more serious impairment or disability.
So, app developers, accessibility isn’t just about the disabled minority. It’s about the able-majority. Your day to day customers. If you’re taking the business of apps seriously, then it’s about time you took your customers seriously too and took some simple steps to address this. Maybe the first step is to read up on this over at the Vodafone Foundation Smart Accessibility Awards website and maybe attend one of the upcoming workshops in Edinburgh, Belfast or one of the other cities we’re visiting.
And if you’re in the fortunate position of already having done something fantastic in this area, don’t forget to enter the awards. Let’s hear it for the good stuff out there.
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.
Tomi’s done it again. He’s published his 2010 Almanac – a veritable smorgasbord of stats, information, graphs, charts, facts, figures and insight into the world of mobile. It’s 180 pages of mobile goodness, including 84 charts, sized to work as an ebook on your smartphone as well as your laptop. Very neat.
It is, in my view, essential reading for anyone with an interest in the world of mobile. Data in the e-book includes - Size of Mobile Industry; Customers; Handsets and Smartphones; Mobile Messaging including SMS and MMS; Mobile Internet; 7th Mass Medium; Music on Mobile; TV and Video; Gaming; Social Networking; Other services including News, Jokes, Adult, App Stores etc; Mobile Advertising; Voice calls; Enterprise services; Network Infrastructure; Digital Divide; and a Historical Timeline.
There is tabular data included - Index of Mobile Leadership for the 30 most advanced countries; major comparative data on 60 major mobile countries; the 25 countries with largest subscriber counts and 25 with highest penetration rates per capita; plus 25 countries with highest rate of 3G migration. Plus the 20 biggest mobile operator Groups.
The whole document is available for immediate download, has been released today, and costs only 9.99 Euros. The only place you can order it (it is not available at major booksellers like Amazon) is Tomi’s company website.
I have way too many tabs open on more than one browser so it’s time to get through them and share them here with you.
Motorola goes carbon free with the Motorola Renew. I didn’t spot this when it was announced in January and since Climate Change is such a big deal then I think mobile phone companies (network operators and hardware manufacturers) will have to be more transparent over their green-ness. Recycling phones alone is not going to be enough.
An interesting essay on mobile widgets and their impact on our personal timelines and communications from mobile futurist Paul Golding.
Turkcell puts mobile marketing at the centre of its strategy. Here’s an explanation of Turkcell’s Tone ‘n Win from MobiadNews.
The Gizmodo lowdown on the various mobile application stores, including iphone – essential reading for anyone venturing into distribution via any of the app stores. And if app stores are your thing, then there’s a comprehensive review of the Blackberry app store from Terence Eden. Meanwhile Urban Spoon, an iphone app, is acquired. And if that’s not enough for you, then Pinch Media shares some of its secrets regarding the iphone App Store.
Investment in digital infrastructure could save or create 700,000 jobs in the UK with links to the relevant reports via the LSE (that’s London School of Economics).
Vodacom Thumb Wars – a mobile reality series. Teams will travel across South Africa, relying on their wits, Vodacom’s advanced communication technologies and their Samsung mobile phones as they take part in the treasure hunt of a lifetime launching on 4th June. An interesting concept, but is this simply extreme product placement or engaging television?
Had enough of reading blogs about mobile, then how about making some skittles vodka instead? Or I believe crushed fisherman’s friends mixed with chilled vodka is popular in Finland – what’s the name of the drink again?
Or if you’re suffering from hayfever, like I am, then I can highly recommend Luminescents very own Hayfever Relief tea. It is the proprietor’s own recipe and he blends it himself so it may not always be in stock. I bought some from his shop at Merton Abbey Mills and it’s been brilliant! I haven’t had to take any anti-histamines since I got it.
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).
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.
Vodafone UK and Mobile Monday London today announce Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009, a competition to inspire start-up businesses and individual developers to create and deliver a new mobile site or service – all creative ideas are welcome.
Mobile Clicks 2009 is run jointly with Vodafone Netherlands. If you wish to enter, please visit www.vodafonemobileclicks.com. The final will be held in Amsterdam in September and will feature three finalists from each country. The first three winners will be awarded a total sum of €150,000.
Last years’ Mobile Clicks’ winners included Nulaz, a location-based social networking service merging Google Maps and Facebook to allow people to see where their friends are, share locations and view local information, Tipspot a new online city guide service and Map the Gap, an idea-sharing application for mobile phones.
The competition consists of three selection rounds, running from April to September 2009. The panel of judges will include mobile internet experts from Vodafone as well as other industry leaders. The winner will be announced in Amsterdam in September this year.
The rules are pretty simple:
Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009 is open to any individual residing in the Netherlands or the UK from the age of 18 years and to Dutch and UK-based start-up companies, businesses, institutions and all other organisations.
Participants must be or must have the intention to become a start-up enterprise/business in the field of mobile internet products or services. Start-up means that the enterprise/business cannot be older than three years since its inception.
Each participant may submit only one entry.
(Previous Dutch) Entries from Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2008 are allowed to participate again in Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009
Registration for this contest is now open. Registration for the Netherlands will close at April 30th, 2009 and registration for the UK will close on May 14th, 2009.
We’ll have more details about the competition up on the Mobile Monday London website as and when they happen and we’ll have some Vodafone people on hand at our upcoming events too. In the meantime, head over to Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009 and see how you can get your hands on some of that €150, 000 prize fund to kick start your business and get your service to market. The closing date for UK entries is 14th May 2009 so get your thinking caps on. Good luck!
According to a press release I got from Bango today, the USA has knocked the UK off the top slot for mobile web browsing with 29% of the worldwide traffic, according to data released today by Bango. And the good news for content providers is that the growth in traffic is being matched by the growth in users paying for content on the mobile web.
“With 245 million subscribers, it was only a matter of time before the US became the number 1 country in the world for mobile web browsing,” said Anil Malhotra, SVP of Marketing at Bango. “When it comes to payments though, the US is accelerating faster than any other country and now accounts for 57% of payments worldwide.”
The statistics also show that while some countries such as India and Indonesia have a good appetite for browsing on their mobiles, it doesn’t always convert into purchases. In fact, only five countries in the Top 10 browsing chart are also in the Top 10 payments chart – USA, UK, Portugal, South Africa and Spain. All worth noting if you’re in the business of selling mobile content.
No matter how high the browsing rate, it is only converted into a high purchase rate where people have a good disposable income and can pay for content on their phone bills. In regions such as India, South Africa, Indonesia and Egypt the driver for mobile browsing is a lack of fixed-line broadband and PCs for accessing the internet which means that the mobile device is the only way people can get onto the internet. Which begs the question as to how this activity can be monetised. What advertising works in these markets and does the ad-funded model stack up economically?
The press release goes on…
“Many people simply have no idea that they have visitors from mobile devices accessing their PC website - these mobile visitors are simply invisible to them,” continued Malhotra. “Part of the problem is lack of awareness and to help, we have created a short video at www.bango.com/mobiletracking which explains how you can get a good grasp of how much mobile traffic you have.” And to save you the trouble of heading there to see it, you can see it here.
The February Bango statistics identified mobile web browsers from a total of 208 different countries and using 1,811 different handsets. View a sample of the mobile traffic going through the Bango system at http://bango.com/live/ (this is pretty cool actually to see the real live traffic. Admob does something similar.)
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…
Happy New Year to everyone from technokitten in London Town. I hope all the hangovers are put to rest and you're all raring to go for a wonderful 2009. Yes, the holiday break is over and it's time to get the mobile ball rolling again with the first Carnival of the Mobilists roundup for 2009.
A look to the past and future
Inevitably with New Year there is always an element of looking back on the year just gone as well as a look to the future, and our mobile bloggers are no exception.
Looking forward we have some very interesting posts indeed: Chetan Sharma has completed his 2009 predictions with aplomb by compiling the thoughts of a wide variety of mobile industry folks (including me, in case you were wondering). Rudy De Waele has given us (well me at least) a lot of food for thought with his take on what 2009 will bring. I'm just hoping he knows as many start-ups as I think he does so that number 10 doesn't sound so terrifying. C Enrique Ortiz discusses the future for Mobile Applications in 2009 (including the ongoing debate between native and web apps) whilst Frederic Guarino tells us why 2009 is the year of the Mobile Web.
In terms of mobile development, Tom Hume (rightly) questions mobile context and argues there is more than one mobile context and asks you which one/s you're going to choose. There are interesting things afoot with barcode ticketing for UK railway companies according to Masabi. Vision Mobile tells us about the Adobe Mobile Packager and what that means in terms of where the desktop and mobile environments are headed.
The Industry
Ajit Jaokar over at Open Gardens shares his theory about Net neutrality being like capitalism... covering global connectivity, the fact that human nature is to gravitate towards freedom and what impact that has on MNOs in the mobile broadband world and beyond whilst Steven Hoober of Little Springs questions where the device ends and the network operator starts and what that means for customer service.
This is a hard one with such good quality posts and writers this week (as ever). For predictions, then you really must read both Chetan Sharma's and Rudy De Waele's posts. And personally, I'd like to see more discussion around Tom Hume's post on there being more than one mobile context. Perhaps some of you may indulge me?
I was just browsing the MyMart blog and spotted that Ralph Lauren has set up its own m-commerce site and is allowing customers to buy from it from a small selection of their ranges. You can reach the mobile site via QR code, texting in to a shortcode or going directly to the URL http://m.ralphlauren.com.
There is a common misunderstanding by high end fashion companies that their customers somehow aren't digitally minded and wouldn't dream of using the internet. I've no idea where they get that from but it certainly isn't true - Net-A-Porter and Vertu are testament to that. So I'm very pleased to see that Ralph Lauren is getting in on the mobile act.
I think the QR code thing is a bit of a red herring at the moment. The readers aren't embedded on most phones and it's a bit of a hassle to get the reader, download it, remember where it is, open the reader application, open the shutter and then take the picture of the barcode when it would be easier to text in to a shortcode or go directly to the URL. [Of course, it's a different thing once we have the software pre-installed and deeply embedded so our phones *know* when it can see a QR code and automatically give us the option to use it or not.] I digress.
I'm not a Ralph Lauren shopper (well save for a lovely pair of RL shades I got at TK Maxx and a liking for the RL fragrance Romance) so am probably not the target audience. The thought of wearing crisp white pants and a blue, red and white polo shirt fills me with dread. But I know others feel differently about these things otherwise RL wouldn't be doing nearly so well.
Anyway, I thought I'd take a closer look at the site to see what I liked (or not) about it.
First off we have the opening page. And it's just a list of banners rather than words or words and banners. And they're very difficult to read as the writing on them is tiny. If you're not familiar with RL, these may be a bit confusing anyway. There are written links further down but they don't relate to the banners and don't shed much more light.
Rather confusingly, the first option is for the QR code information. Now it seems to me that if you have found your way to the RL mobile website already, the chances are you don't need to use a QR code to get to it. As you can see below, the introduction doesn't help much either as you have to do more clicking to get to the information.
Leaving that to one side, I have a glance around at some of the other pages.
It's not particularly inspiring and I'm not convinced huge amounts of time was spent putting the offering together.
The Definitive Guide to Ralph Lauren Style is useful and is good 'snacking' information.
The sales info is not terribly exciting - they're assuming the customer knows all about the brand and collections already, and quite frankly, I have no idea about the different collections so it would be useful to have a few words (and I mean just a few) to explain the difference between RL_Classics and The Ralph Lauren Collection as an example.
Now maybe most of the customers who find the RL mobile site are existing RL customers and know what they're after and what they're looking for without having to browse around. In which case, the site needs a search facility. The scenario is that you're looking at Vogue, Tatler or some other fashion magazine and see the Ralph Lauren advertisement with the bag you absolutely must have *now* and you're short on time. A search facility to enable that sale would be invaluable. And when you consider the price for each item in stock, a handful of sales are very important (dresses at $2,000, sandals at $700 and an imported bag at almost $20,000 and the basic polos at $75 it soon mounts up).
On the actual shopping page for the polo shirts, you were given the option as to what colour you might want and asked you your size, but there was no link to a size guide. And for the really expensive items, wouldn't you want a bit of personal service and be connected by telephone to your local sales advisor?
So, 10/10 for bothering to do something on mobile but 5/10 for implementation. More thought needs to go into who the customer is, when they might use a service like this and what service that should actually be.
the 'I love mobile web awards but only if you're *not* a woman and only if your site is on a dotmobi URL'.
Informa Telecoms has organised the Mobile Web Europe conference and in its usual inimitable style has failed to recognise the other half of the sky (to quote John and Yoko). It's a 3-day conference covering all aspects of mobile web (and apparently the *only* mobile web event you'll ever need), sponsored by dotMobi and at the time of writing have only THREE women speaking during the whole event so that works out at one woman per day. That really is unacceptable in this day and age. There are plenty women out there worthy of participating at this conference. Informa really must try harder to find them and engage them. I'm not expecting half the panellists or speakers to be women, but I would expect more than a token one a day. Of course the male speakers are interesting and relevant, but to only have one woman per day is ridiculous.
Then this is compounded by only allowing entries if your site is a dotmobi site. So this rules out everything else that is mobile web. It doesn't seem right to me. The mobile web *isn't* all about dotmobi. And no matter how much money you throw at a conference or awards ceremony, being exclusive in an inclusive, connected world is just barmy. A different thing if it was billed as 'the dotMobi awards for dotMobi customers'.
T-Mobile as a network operator has pioneered, to some extent, the mobile web by being an early adopter of fixed rate mobile data plans. They also opened up their portal to the wider web rather than focussing on creating and managing their own portal. I stick with them because T-Mobile has been value for money so far.
But I reckon there are some very weak links in the organisation for this to happen:
Message just received via SMS: "From 28 July we're increasing the charges for calling some numbers beginning with 08. For full details please visit our website at t-mobile.co.uk/08"
Can someone tell me why this information couldn't have been put into a mobile friendly page with a direct link so I can check it there and then? After all, it's only a list - there's nothing complex in there. And where do they get off putting up their prices anyway for this without any explanation as to why beyond 'according to OFCOM guidelines' with no link to said guidelines. In some cases the cost has gone up 400%. I find it hard to believe that OFCOM has been telling network operators to *increase* their prices. Details below:
08xx number changes To make things clearer for our customers, we have aligned our 08 number charges with local and national calls to follow the latest Ofcom guidelines. These calls aren't included as part of your allowance in any of our price plans.
The table below will give you an overview of how your price plan has been affected by the change, the 08xx numbers affected and details of how the prices are changing. 08 number changes
0870 / 0871 / 0844 / 0845
Tarriff Current Charge New Charge Flext 10p 20p Combi 10p 30p Solo 10p 30p Everyone Off-Peak 10p 30p off peak / 5p on peak My Faves 10p 30p Freetime 10p 40p off peak / 5p on peak Family 10p 20p Relax 10p 12p Just SIM 10p 30p Web'n'Walk / Data Plans 10p 20p N.b. Call charges are in pence per minute. Changes will all take affect from the 28th July 08. If you have any additional queries please contact Customer Services by dialling 150 from your mobile phone.
BIG FAT FAIL T-MOBILE Of course this isn't the first time, and probably not the last. I have countless useless marketing and service messages from T-Mobile - the most memorable being the one promoting Euro 2004 England football content. My surname might be Keegan, but I'm not related to the footballer and it doesn't mean I like football. I've never suggested I'm into football for one minute and my footie-mad pals would concur. But even if I was a football fan, they sent the message the day *after* the match that England *lost*. When will they ever learn...?
Oh yeah baby! It surely is. When I walk down the street or sit on the bus, folks are casually chatting about doing stuff on the mobile web. The combination of the launch of the iphone advertising campaign for O2 (which shows lots of commonly used websites rendered beautifully on the iphone) and the launch of facebook's mobile web version, it feels like the mobile web is taking off.
However, not everyone is singing from the same hymnsheet. The much respected Russell Beattie has closed down Mowser, his reasons being that it wasn't making money and he no longer believed in the mobile web anyway. Or words to that effect. I read his blog post on the topic thoroughly and chatted with a few colleagues on the topic to get their reaction. They were both pretty bullish about the mobile web and felt that Russ had got it wrong this time and that maybe Mowser was always destined to fail. Bad news for Mowser, but good news for the mobile web in general.
And it would seem that the latest round of statistics from the GSMA, Admob and m:metrics would suggest that all is well in the land of the mobile web.
First off, the GSMA announced that there are 3 billion active mobile subscribers globally. Yes, that's right THREE billion.
M:metrics shows us (full press release and tables here) that consumption of mobile media is pretty healthy too with 36% of 18 to 34 year old males in western Europeaccessing mobile media and 9% of them responding to a text message advert (versus a 4% market average).
Interestingly, U.S. mobile users are more active consumers of mobile media, as unlike Europeans they use SMS less frequently for news and information retrieval and are more likely to have data plans, which directly impacts mobile content consumption. Among Europeans, the UK has the highest percentage of mobile media users, at 26.8 percent, while Germany and France lag, at 18.4 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively.
And in the UK, mobile media is attracting a highly desirable audience that is 44 percent more likely to be defined as ‘cash rich, time poor ‘than the market average and data from TGI M:Metrics confirms that one third of all UK mobile media users agree they are tempted to buy products they’ve seen advertised.
Meanwhile, over at Admob, they've just released their March report where traffic is up 10% on the previous month, 24.5% of ad requests globally were from smartphones and the Nokia n70 moved into the top spot for India. Interesting stuff. Read the full pdf report here.
And if those stats aren't enough, then check this post out from mjelly. 10 reasons why the mobile web isn't dead including the fact that 17 million Brits played on the mobile web in December 2007, 500k sites have been built on Peperonity, Admob publishes 2.5billion mobile web adverts monthly, flirtomatic mobile traffic triples their pc web traffic and getjar has delivered over 100m mobile downloads in the last 2 years.
Pah, doesn't sound like the mobile web is dead to me Mr Beattie.
Vodafone is linking up with DatingDirect to offer mobile dating. I thought they must have already been doing mobile dating, but clearly not. And by the sounds of it DatingDirect is having troubles of its own if you read the comments on the link above so I wonder if Vodafone has chosen the right partner. Hmm. Elsewhere, Mobestar has teamed up with Bone Fish to offer mobile dating using its mDate service.
Mig33 is doing exceptionally well with 400 million customers in 200 countries for its mobile messaging service. "Simply download the application onto your mobile phone, and you’ll be connected to everyone around the world through the most popular online services. So you can IM, visit chat rooms, send email, share photos, SMS and, of course, make cheap calls—all from your mobile phone." More info at Mig33's website. Of course, they also have 10m dollars in the bank, so that's going to help get the service out there.
Meanwhile, MVNO Amp'd is shutting up shop leaving thousands of customers network-less. Customer services stopped yesterday and the service will shut down completely at the end of the month.
Incentivated is ramping up its recruitment. Skandia Cowes Week is using SMS for research purposes. A series of short questions relating to that day's sailing will be sent via text message to each of the competitors. Questions will be asked on numerous topics, including the quality or difficulty of the course, the accuracy of the weather forecasts and the standard of stewarding.
And finally, young Britons prefer meeting face to face than using digital methods. Get away! You mean young people prefer going out socialising, going to gigs, dancing the night away, chillin' at a festival and hanging with their mates than spending time in front of a computer screen. Well I'm not sure I actually needed a research paper to tell me that. But there are some other findings that you might find interesting in there.
Bill Thompson discusses security risks in the new i-phone and the wider implications of a networked customer base and how the corporates need to adapt to our needs and not the other way round. I think he has a point but it's a challenge.
The BBC suspended all phone competitions last week and is under scrutiny from Ofcom for malpractice over the phone lines and fake competition winners to a variety of programmes including Children in Need, Comic Relief and Blue Peter. The media has also responded.
Any phone can be a credit card as the clever folks at Masabi has come up with a new way to manage secure transactions using your mobile phone using just 3kb of handset memory.
Desperate for the loo? Don't know where your nearest one is? Then help is at hand with Mizpee. Trouble is it only works in the US and I find it hard to believe they have every single loo in the US on their database. But hey, maybe they have. Anyone tried it?
User generated content, social media and how to make money from it. Well these were the topics tackled by the w2forum last week. Unfortunately, no-one had any definitive answers as it's still too early to know how best to monetise this area.
"Roy Vella, Head of Mobile Payments at PayPal, summed up the feeling in the room when he pointed out that none of the best-known social networking sites on the web, such as MySpace and FaceBook, were initially about monetisation, and that “the monetisation stuff” is only happening because there are so many eyeballs. “You want to know how do big companies make money out of all those eyeballs” said Vella. “The answer is, I don’t think we know yet.”
Vella also warned brands that they would need to exercise caution if they were going to try to establish a presence on social networking sites, mobile or otherwise. “If you threw a party and a corporation showed up, how would you feel about it?” he asked. “It’s a new space, and we all have to tread carefully. The way to succeed is the way it has always been – to delight customers.”
I’ve been staying with my Mum for a few days. My father died earlier this year and we’re all still grieving and getting used to him not being around. It’s a little bit weird to be sitting at his desk, in his chair, using his things – where he would have been writing (there’s a lovely large ink blotter on the desk) and of course, where I’m tapping away at my laptop with a mobile phone also close to hand.
