Here it is, the May Bank Holiday edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists. For those not in the know: it is a weekly write-up of the best and brightest in the world of mobile-(related) blogging and is being hosted each week on another blog; this week it’s me…
The easiest way to follow the Carnival every week is to subscribe to the Twitter stream of the formidable Peggy Anne Salz.
So here’s what this week has in stock for you:
James Coops from Mobyaffiliates provides us with an excellent overview of mobile affiliate networks, a fairly fresh approach to carry the multi-billion dollar online equivalent to mobile.
Jay Ehret asks the question that normally costs a round, namely “Is it the Year of Mobile yet?“. And he has a refreshingly clear look at it: a) it is impossible to throw all of the various mobile marketing things (SMS, mobile web, LBS, mobile wallets, m-commerce, etc) into one bucket, and right he is!, b) he reckons that it is certainly time for mobile now since low entry barriers and cost basically make it a ride you cannot lose.
Dr Jim Taylor delights us by adding a few more acronyms to the mix: NEI is the new TMI. The “I” stands for information and Jim looks how the wealth of available information and the way people handle it may reflect upon larger sociological developments. Very thoughtful stuff!
Ajit Jaokar from the OpenGardensBlog looks at the decline of fixed line and wonders if we’re all erring, namely because the wires are needed to take the data load off (hyper-)broadband mobile networks. He then wonders if one shouldn’t think mobile and fixed-line as one and design accordingly.
Peggy Anne Salz points us to a podcast on app store marketing. With nigh on 70 app stores and gazillions of apps, discovery, marketing and sustained usage are issues central to the distribution (and revenue!) strategy of every app developer (I for one certainly bookmarked it).
Tego Interactive’s Alfred de Rose queries whether Apple needs an iPhone in the enterprise (he thinks it doesn’t, and his arguments are very noteworthy!).
And, finally, Rudy de Waele announced the next edition of the wonderful event that is Mobile 2.0 Europe, which will take place in beautiful Barcelona – and not in rainy February either but on 17 June. Book your tickets here. Next to it, there will be the AppCircus, a unique traveling showcase of the most creative and innovative apps presented by their creators at top events around the world.
And that’ll conclude this week’s carnival. Make sure to clue yourself up, read, listen, ponder, share and discuss!
Next week’s edition will be hosted by James Coops at his MJelly Blog.
This week’s Carnival of the Mobilists is live and, amongst other great posts, includes my take on the tremendous value to be unlocked by mobile “2.0″ over the coming years.
Now, since I hope you have read that one previously, here are (some) of the posts you shouldn’t miss either:
- Looking at the value of location-based mobile advertising;
- Affiliate programmes as an (additional) business model for app developers;
- App or not – again…
this time though the question is raised by none other than the Chief Communication Officer of DDB Worldwide; - Some posts looking at services of network operators (might that have let the chasing-Apple-craze impact other service offerings?);
- Judy Breck, keeper of the tents emeritus, looks at how mobile leverages learning…
It can all be found over at Indigo 102, namely here. And now go there, and enjoy yourself!
This week, the Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted by Phil Barrett on his blog “Burning the Beacon” (I like the title). He gives us the heads-up on posts covering things (seemingly) mundane as SIM cards, a look at augmented reality (also check my post on this here), mobile learning and on how to connect with young users in today’s world. Oh, and speaking of today’s world, he also features a post pondering the implication of technology in our lives. Go on then, head over here and read it!
After a little over 2 years on Blogspot, I decided it was time to grow up and move to my very own domain.
I will now blog over here. All old posts have been imported and are part of this blog though links to (even older) posts will still refer to the old location.
Expect a few more refurbishments to take place over the coming weeks and stay faithful!
Thank you!
This week’s carnival (a week after the real one) is hosted at the aptly named Golden Swamp. Make sure to go there and check out what the mobile blogging world has to offer to you!
This week’s Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted over at Dennis Bournique’s WAP Review. Read it here to get an inspired overview of last week’s posts on all things mobile!
Happy new year, everyone! And to get you a good and informed start into 2009, here’s a pointer to a nice new service from Hungry Mobile, a blog run by Jan Rezab: he asked a few of us to contribute short assessments to a question he will ask once a week. Contributors include content industry executives, publishers, mobile marketing gurus, bloggers and mobile evangelists, and this should allow for a quick take from an inside circle of multipliers (as I think you call them/us) on various bits and pieces of our industry. I am chuffed to be asked to take part but I am also horrified that he allows us a full 400 characters per answer (not words, characters!).
It’s been a while, 3 1/2 months to be exact, since I last found the spare moment to post to my blog. The main reason for the busy, busy time that forced me into blogging silence can be found here. I hope you will not expect me to comment further on this: I had made it an unwritten rule not to cover things directly involving my day job, and this must remain so in particular in this specific instance, which I trust you appreciate.
However, since this deal is done now, I am looking forward to sharing my thoughts with you again. Stay put and thanks for being so patient!
I’ve been a fan of those “bloggers on speed” of the likes of Jaiku, Twitter, etc for a while but I am not entirely happy with the interfaces yet: the services live of proximity and timeliness in that is then that they unfold their true power. Otherwise, the old-fashioned web accessed from an old-fashioned computer with 10x more bandwidth and a proper keyboard might actually be superior. Mobile blogging however is relatively clunky so far. There are a few guys out there who offer mobile little J2ME apps, (mobile) browser plug-ins, widgets, you name it (see for some solutions here) but, let’s face it, they’re not really as slick and seamless as they could (and should?!) be. Tellingly therefore, both Twitter and (now Google-owned) Jaiku use SMS as the prevailing interface to communicate with the world through their networks via your mobile phone. Is that really it? Look at the Facebook Blackberry app: so slick in comparison!
UI, accessability and discovery are the key drivers for mass user adoption – and this what all social media lives of (apart, perhaps of the institution of marriage, which seemingly works best in micro-communities of 2), so why do they not tackle this bit more aggressively? The answer might be that, whilst they realize that mobile is a major contributor to their value-add when compared to other web apps, they are not actually mobile companies; they are web companies.
The idea of utilising the power of web 2.0 and its wealth of widgets and applets contributed by a gazillion of independent developers and fan boys might all be very well but it slows adoption: Facebook apps only became successful after Facebook itself was such a huge community, they did not drive that growth (although they now arguably contribute significantly). Therefore, it would seem to me, it would be required that the originators/owners of those networks contribute more energy and resource into optimizing the user interfaces to use the actual service before falling back on third-party add-ons. Alas, it is impossible to find a Google widget (for iGoogle or Google Desktop) even for Jaiku, which Google acquired. Tellingly, the only available widget was produced by fans… There’s quite a bit to be done, I think…
Mobile bloggers who read this and have not yet registered (well, can you then really be mobile bloggers?), note that Rudy de Waele, mobile blogger extraordinaire, with the generous support from his people at MyStrands hold yet another Mobile Sunday ahead of this year’s Mobile World Congress (I am still itching to write 3GSM…) in Barcelona, more specifically on Sunday, 10 February.
Mobile Sunday is, in their own words, “an unofficial, informal and generally cool and funky gathering of mobile bloggers and their chums”, and, yes, I’ll attend in the vain hope that something cool and funky will rub off…
You’ll find the registration page here.
See you all in Barcelona!
What’s mobile in the following? Well, Nokia is involved and it is a development that would surely affect the mobile screen! A survey commissioned by Nokia found that, by 2012, one quarter of all media will be created and consumed from within a circle of peers rather than from traditional media. The ongoing rise of social media then, which the survey dubs “circular entertainment”.
In the course of the study consumers from 17 countries were interviewed about their digital behaviors and lifestyles signposting emerging entertainment trends. Combining views from “industry leading figures” with Nokia’s own research from the 900m people that use their phones , Nokia apparently “constructed a global picture of what it believes entertainment will look like over the next five years.” Bless them…
Nokia’s VP multimedia Mark Selby said that “[t]he trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups – a form of collaborative social media.” So the NY Times‘ executive editor, Bill Keller, was right when he suspected that the “media tsunami” that is aggregated and re-purposed content today is threatening the place of traditional media.
The chaps from the Future Laboratory, who conducted the survey, went even further: “Key to this evolution is consumers’ basic human desire to compare and contrast, create and communicate. We believe the next episode promises to deliver the democracy politics can only dream of.” So Bush and Putin aren’t all that scary after all? Phew!
I have some doubts if the survey really captures the mainstream, or otherwise society is further than I would have thought. These are the numbers they posted (based on the 9,000 consumers they surveyed):
- 23% buy movies in digital format
- 35% buy music on MP3 files
- 25% buy music on mobile devices
- 39% watch TV on the internet
- 23% watch TV on mobile devices
- 46% regularly use IM, 37% on a mobile device
- 29% regularly blog
- 28% regularly access social networking sites
- 22% connect using technologies such as Skype
- 17% take part in Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games
- 17% upload to the internet from a mobile device
A simple test: if the above was representative, then a cool 1.1 billion (!) people regularly upload to the Internet from a mobile device and we would have more than 1.8 billion regular bloggers and mobile TV is a massive reality with 1.5 billion consumers using it (that would be 55% of all mobile users today). Hmmm. Hey guys, where are you???
It goes on: as part of the research Nokia says it has identified four key driving trends, which are – apparently – Immersive Living, Geek Culture, G Tech and Localism. What? You don’t know what G Tech is? Yes, it is derived from the coveted G Spot and here’s what it is (according to Nokia): “G Tech is an existing social force in Asia that will change the way entertainment will look. Forget pink and sparkly, it is about the feminization of technology that is currently underway. Entertainment will be more collaborative, democratic, emotional and customized – all of which are ‘female’ traits.” Localism of course is the intrinsic interest in the locale (which is easy when you live, as I do, in the town of Ian Curtis, the unforgotten lead of Joy Division but what do you do when you live on Exit 7 of the Interstate 40 West in Oklahoma?).
With all due respect to Nokia, a company I really and truly greatly respect: this looks both a bit airy-fairy to me and bears succinct resemblance to a result-driven PR release. Or am I wrong in suspecting that Nokia has a certain vested interest in pushing location-sensitive content and information? What was the price of Navteq again? $8.1bn? Ah, I see…



