Posts Tagged ‘Mobile’
A little break, but not from my BB
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Life, Local Search, Mobile, Mobile Web, advertising, marketing, social media
Last night Ryan Seacrest was on Larry King, and was speaking on a variety of issues, including the usual useless gossip, but he also touched on his BlackBerry Addiction. Larry asked him about the several businesses he runs and how he manages to keep them all together and when he sleeps. His response was basically that he turns his BlackBerry to silent, but wakes up routinely to check it through the night. I was watching this with my girlfriend and she informed me that Ryan’ BlackBerry use sounded an awful lot like mine.
Took a fairly last minute trip to North Carolina to visit my Grandmother, and we crushed the BlackBerry on the way here. Same old stuff for me that I’ve written about before, but it emphasizes how relevant it truly is. AT&T has announced that it will subsidize the release of the 3G iPhone this summer by as much as $200. BlackBerry announced its new “Bold” device (with 3G). Overall, the market for mobile phones and web-rich devices is growing enourmously. If people are able to buy iPhones for 2 or 3 hundred dollars, imagine how many they will sell.
Once everyday people, not just the early adopters and business savvy customers, but everyday Jones is able to access rich, mobile internet - then we will see the explosive growth in mobile advertising. I’m very excited to see what happens in the 4th quarter this year…
Mobile is Progressing
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Local Search, Mobile, Mobile Web, advertising, marketing
This week I saw a few examples of how mobile is finally beginning to cross the chasm between innovators and early adopters. Large players are seeing a shift in their advertising dollars, Google announced it was making a major partnership with Sprint, and launched their international portal for iPhones, iMedia Connection came out with a great overview of mobile barcodes, and also yesterday my BlackBerry was with out data for about 4 hours and I kind of freaked out.
The combination of these events, along with specific posts from two of my favorite bloggers (David Berkowitz on privacy and Darren Herman on privacy) led me to the conclusion that we are near the tipping point of doing something great with mobile (working on a very cool new mobile tool for our company).
If you read David and Darren’s posts, you’ll see that they feel strongly about privacy and the prospect of invasion of your personal space on a cell phone. I don’t see mobile marketing being a success if its seen as an invasion; however, mobile marketing becomes a success when marketers are able to reach people as they are in transaction mode. Transaction mode being any of the following: “Lets find a hotel nearby,” “I’m hungry,” “I’m thirsty,” “I really want one of those…” etc. As marketers see the value in reaching users searching for this information, and the mobile device becomes more of a “pocket” notebook computer more dollars will flow across the mobile airwaves.
As the devices transition, the dollars will transition behind them.
A Mobile Weekend
Posted by Jamie Hutson | Filed under Local Search, Mobile, Mobile Web
I spent this absolutely beautiful weekend in NYC. My college roomate’s 25 birthday party Friday night, and an afternoon and evening of exploring the upper east side with my girlfriend. Almost everything we did was facilitated by my mobile device (Verizon BlackBerry 8830). I love this phone, its my second BlackBerry and a HUGE upgrade from my last.
Regardless of the device, we used it for just about everything we did (even a bit of navigating in Central Park). On the train we read about a dozen different reviews to get a sense for what we were in for. We used its GPS functions to give us directions to the Club we went to Friday night (Azza @ 55th and Lex), after we got in the cab. Saturday, we looked up the Pope’s schedule using the browser (yes we saw him in the flesh, along with his 4 block motorcade). Then we found an excellent Brasserie on 79th Street using the Google Maps App. As we waited for our food, we looked at a Map of Central Park to figure out the best path for where we were heading (Belvedere Castle - man what a beautiful day). On our way home, we looked up Movie Showtimes.
The point of this story is that in the past 48 hours I used a mobile device to facilitate 3 transactions, and to find and research essential information that I otherwise would have had to look up prior to leaving my apartment. Each one of those was an opportunity for an advertiser to reach me, while I was interested, while I was about to make a purchasing decision, literally at that moment. How valuable would it have been to the Brasserie across the street from the one I found online? - $38. How much was it worth to Azza to get us there and not have us stop somewhere else? - way more than $38.
Why are people still so bearish about mobile? Nearly everyone in NYC has a mobile device capable of using the internet, millions of people are purchasing them everyday, and the state of Mobile in Japan and in Europe is way ahead of ours. And the Instant return for advertisers must be so appetizing to marketers.
The iPhone, BlackBerries, and all the new broadband capable mobile devices are facilitating easier access to valued information via the mobile web. Once marketers figure out how to reach this growing base of mobile users (which they are beginning to , see Amazon), its going to get hot. And quickly. Mobile has to be the next arena of growth, because everyone else is doing it.
Almost everything I do, I use my mobile device to help me do it better or faster. I read the news, blogs and email. I get directions to my appointments and meetings, I get the latest scores on demand.
There is so much that I do that I am transitioning to my phone. Remember when people started transitioning to the web? I see that happening with mobile.
