Mobile trends for 2012

The Mobile device….always on, connected 365 days a year. Consuming information where, with who and when you want it. Making decisions to go where you want or to buy what you want; on the spot. Finding out what is happening around you and connecting with your friends 24/7. This is what consumers are doing at the moment and in the rate smartphones are being sold, it is almost inevitable that this will become the standard. Brands go where the people are; so lets look at my top 5 mobile trends for the coming year…

The first 3 ones are a must do, due to the increasing market penetration of smartphones and the changing way consumers are taking in information.

1) Location Based
Connect with your consumer when they are looking for a place to eat, where they can find a certain product or if they are looking for a good deal. Location Based marketing will enable brands to deliver your consumers a service in the context they require in that specific place and time. It is expected to grow to 1,4 billion users by 2012. You can target your audience in their context, their age, gender, where they are, what their personal preferences are and locking into their specific intention at that time. Send them on a treasure hunt and reward them for their compliance and input.

2) Social Networking
This trend goes hand in hand with the previous; location based marketing. At this moment this is the fastest growing category on mobile phones. We have established that there is no use describing what kind of target groups use social media, more relevant is finding where we can pinpoint passion groups. People will be sharing what they are doing, how they are experiencing it and whether they endorse your product, service or event or not. It is likely to evolve to an infrastructure provider, turning into data warehouses and providing user data and access to consumers.

3) Mobile Search
Pulling your consumer through the marketing funnel is slightly different to pushing them; they will be influenced by their peers and in the consideration phase they will tap into the web to find the information they need. They will go online directly to look for better deals, they will actually do so even whilst talking to your sales rep. Search will empower your consumer to immediately buy tickets, make a reservation or to validate what they are told. Where do they land? I hope on your mobile site, your mobile site has another set-up than your regular site. They will dismiss your brand if you do not provide them with the information they need. If you do not have a mobile site… get one now!

The next 2 trends are for the ones who are already in tune with their consumers on this medium.

4) Object Recognition
We see a lot in a day and are encountered by things we find remarkable, interesting or compelling. A lot of these things are not tagged or we don’t know what they are, where to find it, how much it costs or where it can be bought. Thanks to great camera’s, 3G networks and Mobile search we can now create applications that recognize the things are surroundings in front of us. We can instantaneously tap into our needs, inspiring people to a whopping call to action.

5) Mobile Commerce and Mobile Payment
Though not evolved into a full extension of e-commerce, mobile commerce is a force to be reckoned with. Enabling consumers to immediately purchase the product or service they are interested in, is offering them full convenience and propelling them through their decision making process.  Think of the conversion rates you can achieve… facilitate your consumer to do unpack offers, promotions and location based incentives. In order to get consumers on board, payment solution providers need to address ease-of-use for users and ease-of-implementation for customers without compromising security.

Convenience, customer experience and flawlessness are three keywords in making your mobile offering succeed. When is the last time you have used your mobile to check-in, share your status, search for information or to engage with your peers? Wouldn’t it be great if every brand or organization would offer you a good experience?

A quick CES update : Infographic

Most mentioned brands -

Hottest Topics -

Overall Leaders -

courtesy – Mashable

New ways and means – Question Box

In remote parts of the world, finding an answer to a trivial question isn’t as easy as taking out your smartphone and searching for it on Google. Access to a phone or an Internet connection is scarce for many people living in nonindustrial cities or rural areas. California NGO Open Mind hopes to bridge this knowledge gap with Question Box.

This simple “telephone intercom service” features a built-in handset and only needs mobile phone coverage to work. Anyone can ask a question by simply pressing down a button, which in turn connects them to a live operator on the other line. The operator can speak the local language and search for answers in real-time by accessing the Internet or computer databases. It’s a simple yet effective way to provide reliable information and sources to the rural population.

Question Box is currently expanding its presence in Haiti, India, South Africa, Malawi, Kenya, and Sierra Leone with funding from the Grameen Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The next generation of Question Box will feature solar panels and can be easily moved and reprogrammed for local needs.

These are new ways and means we are developing to penetrate rural markets with the use of simple technology and applications. This is turn will accelerate the technology adoption curve of this un-touched population driving new opportunities and a highly innovative ecosystem.

Branding in the Social Media Age – Infographic

A really good infographic from AYTM – an online market research firm.

The SoLoMo Battle

Facebook has acquired location sharing service Gowalla for an undisclosed sum, CNNMoney stated on 2nd December. Facebook has declined to comment on the deal, but I think the battle for SoLoMo between Facebook and Google has really started.

Most of Gowalla’s employees, including founder Josh Williams, would move to Facebook’s offices in Palo Alto. There the team will work on Facebook’s Timeline feature, which launched at this year’s F8 conference and is gradually rolling out to Facebook’s 800 million members.

Gowalla is an Austin-based company that launched as a location-sharing service back in 2009. But it never got the same sort of traction that New York-based rival Foursquare saw. Today, we can see that the Gowalla app has 10,000 daily active users connected to Facebook againstFoursquare’s 560,000 daily actives.

Facebook also has its location product Places, which it changed a few months ago to scrap the check-in feed from its mobile platform. Instead, Facebook users must add a city location or tag a specific Place in their Wall or Timeline posts.

Here is what I think: Facebook scrapped its product called Places and might now use Gowalla for check-ins and to fuel its product Timeline. So the bigger picture could be: expect to have your local check-ins back in your Facebook Timeline soon. And since Google bought Zagat this year, Google is also working on GEO locations and trying to finally fuel its social search product.  Facebook is heavily investing in its SoLoMo proposition: Social + Local + Mobile. And so is Google. Interesting to see who will win the domain Local Search in the near future.

What do you think?

2011: The year of Social Media

I am sure we all agree that social media is fully ingrained within most of our lives and affects our behaviour to quite an extent today. As the year draws to a close we can easily say that also was a year which saw the rapid adoption of social media across the globe. This shows no signs of abating as a phenomenon even though new and old platforms keep cropping up and vanishing simultaneously.

A recent video infographic by a Dutch company, Video Infographs,  presenting the latest data in The World of Social Media 2011. Nicely aligned stats of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+ and some more.

Video infographics are a pleasant, but for those who like to go more in depth, here are two recent “traditional” reports worth reading.

The first one, from Nielsen -  Social Media Report: Q3 2011, brings some interesting insights:

• Females and 18-34-Year-Olds are most active social networkers
• Men are more likely to visit LinkedIn and Wikia
• U.S. Internet users spend more time on Facebook than any other web brand
• Mobile social media use is on the rise
• Social networking app usage up 30% from 3Q 2010

You can access the full Nielsen Social Media Report: Q3 2011 here.

The second is from comScore: The Social Media Landscape, with more details on theEMEA region and focus on social networking trends, social and mobile, altogether with social and advertising. Here are some key quotes:

• In September 2011, 82.1% of worldwide users visited a social network , that’s 1.6 billion visitors
• 18.8% of total time spent Online was on a social network
• Europe has highest proportion of social networking activity worldwide
• Friends of fans are a major, often untapped, source of additional reach and effectiveness

And of course a link to the report comScore: The Social Media Landscape

Looking forward to see the data for the whole 2011 in January and then a comparison to 2010 numbers. What are your expectations about the future in terms of social networks, e-commerce and obviously social commerce?

Social Commerce – A timeline

Providing a social shopping experience for consumers through social networks seems like a no-brainer, especially with only one king to rule them all: Facebook. Social Commerce is one of the big trends at the moment, like social media it is here to stay.

The friendly people at Useful Social Media visualized and shared the social commerce timeline. It started back in 2007 as virtual gifts were sold on Facebook. Brands and businesses  are riding the wave of social commerce and are trying to eat a piece of the pie.

Top brands like Coca-Cola, Walt Disney and Starbucks jumped on the social commerce boat already. Is your brand or business active in social commerce yet?

Google+ Brand Pages will be better than Facebook’s

Google has finally unveiled brand pages for Google+, allowing businesses and brands to join Google’s social network.

“So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people,” Google SVP of Social Vic Gundotra said in a blog post. “But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”

The new Google+ brand pages look similar to Google+ Profiles, except for the little square icon that designates that it’s a Page rather than a Profile. Users can add brands such as Fox News, the Dallas Cowboys and Angry Birds to their circles, check out their information and browse their photos. When users add a brand to their circles, it increases that brand’s follower count.

Converting Facebook’s 750 million active users to Google+ will be a long, difficult battle for the search giant. But converting brands to Google+ will be much easier if Google+ is able to solve advertisers’ biggest problems with Facebook — such as post-click engagement tracking, paid search inefficiencies and limited customization. Here is why I think Google+ will win this battle.

1) Better Search Integration - A major challenge with driving paid search ads to a Facebook page is that the Facebook.com domain generates a lower click-through rate (CTR), most likely due to people finding the domain irrelevant to their query. The low CTR makes for a low quality score in Google’s auction-model, which typically increases cost per click for paid search ads driving to Facebook versus a unique brand domain. Google+ will obviate this problem for all brands saving them paid advertising dollars and giving them better rankings.

2) Better Customization - Facebook ad types are limited to just ads, sometimes with a video or poll, allowing for few branding or creative opportunities. Looking at the design of Google+ personal pages, it looks like there will be opportunities for custom skinning of your brand page and for display or rich media ads. This will be much alike the branded YouTube channels that we see around today.

3) Better Analytics - People who have used Google Analytics know how detailed the data is, including metrics like time spent on page, top content, referring sites and geographic information.  Google Analytics is integrated into Google+ brand pages, so that brands can gain valuable insights into who their fans are, what content their fans are consuming, and where they are coming from.

4) 2nd mover advantage - Facebook pioneered one-on-one connections between a brand and its fans through social networking, and will continue to be valuable for inherently social brands like musicians and celebrities. But for less social industries such as insurance, health and say, batteries, Google+ provides a platform that is open to conversation and focuses on providing branded content and valuable information in one place. Facebook’s successes and missteps offer invaluable lessons, giving Google second-mover advantage in creating a brand page based on brands’ need for more customization, a hub to aggregate content across the web, strong search presence and user-engagement data.

What do you think?

Google launches new Android OS – making NFC more intuitive

Google just released its new OS called the Icecream Sandwich along with the Galaxy Nexus phone. The interesting part is that it will be open sourced unlike the last released Honeycomb OS which means all OEMs and not just Google partners will be able to offer it across their devices. It is the first time some one has used face recognition on a device to unlock it for its user. The video camera also allows users to save photos while recording with just a tap on the screen again something which I thought is a good utility for photo enthusiasts. It also features a better voice input system that takes continuous dictations and converts it to text simultaneously. Yes, this release has been packed with some good features but the one that stood out for me is “Google Beam”.

Google Beam is the Google version of near field communications which allows information sharing between two apps. In a scenario where you would like to transfer some information to your friend who also has a Galaxy Nexus phone, you just tap the two and watch the information flow. If you are playing a game and would like to share it with your friend, just tap the phone again and it invokes the Android market where your friend could download the game. It would be interesting to see it being used for transfer of information from one phone to another, replacing bluetooth. Google plans to open up the API for developers to use, and this phone could help NFC go mainstream outside of Japan. It would be interesting to see how mobile payment companies leverage this integration – perhaps enabling P2P payments with just a tap of two phones?

35$ tablet launched in India: War for the Cheapest tablet intensifies

The world’s cheapest tablet was unveiled today and will go on sale in India this December retailing at 35$. This particular model, however, is aimed particularly at students, and is the result of collaboration between the government and IIT Rajasthan. The tablet will be manufactured by Datawind, a UK-based company that is known for manufacturing the Pocketsurfer, a hand-held device to surf the web.

 

The tablet actually costs around 3,000 INR to manufacture, but the price difference will be paid by the government as part of an ambitious plan to make information and communication technologies an integral part of education. The tablet will run on Google’s Android platform, have WiFi capability for Internet access and cloud storage. It will have 256 MB of RAM, a 2GB SD memory card, a 32 GB expandable memory slot and two USB ports.

As far as the mass market is concerned the current cheapest one is the Beetel Magiq which retails at 8,999 INR currently. We also hear that a Hong Kong based tablet manufacturer (Iberry) plans to topple this by launching a 7 inch version set to be priced at 6,999 INR. Of course, there are other low-cost Android tablets as well such as Mercury’s mTab (Rs 9,499), Reliance (Rs 12,999) and MSI Energy’s 7 and 10 (Rs 13,999 and Rs 14,999 respectively).

According to CyberMedia Research (CMR) nearly 158,000 tablet computers were sold in the country in the nine months up to June 30, with Samsung leading the market followed by an unlikely BlackBerry pushing Apple to a not so enviable third spot. According to CMR analysts India should see shipments rise to 275,000 units by the end of calendar year 2011, at which point of time there will be an estimated 35 vendors selling as many as 90 models.

I believe that the launch of low cost tablets bundled with affordable data services on 3G and BWA networks can be expected to give a fillip to India Tablet shipments in 2012 and beyond. With their competitive prices, the new rivals have opened a whole new mass-market in India. The $35 computer, if it takes off, will serve to reinforce that trend.