Those of you that have been using smartphones and PDAs for some time will no doubt be aware that the Microsoft Windows mobile platform has been around in various flavours for a number of years now.  For many people, the first experience of a handheld device that did more than just make phone calls (the term smartphone was not in use back then) was with devices such as O2’s XDA and HP’s iPAQ and these machines all ran early versions of Microsoft’s mobile OS (e.g. Windows CE, Pocket PC etc.)

Over the ensuing years we’ve seen a proliferation of sexy new handsets with all sorts of clever advancements in the underlying hardware capabilities and Microsoft’s software platform has slowly evolved into today’s Windows Mobile 6.5. Read more »

Opinions are like the nose on your face – everyone has got one. In the mobile world opinions seem to change on a regular basis so in this blog I’m not even going to proffer one save only to say the stats are getting bigger and more impressive as time creaks forward. So in keeping with the predilection for bite size pieces of information here we go then:-

Mobile apps (Juniper Research) The global market for mobile applications is expected to more than triple from just under $10 billion at the end of 2009 to $32 billion in 2015. By the end of April 2009, Apple had confirmed that downloads from their App Store (to iPhone and iPod Touch combined) had just passed 1 billion; by early-April 2010, this number had exceeded 4 billion. Read more »

It would appear, that in matters of debate, I favour the alternative. Having been roundly thrashed proposing ‘the future of marketing was digital’ at the B2B Conference last year, imagine my enthusiasm when I was asked to propose the motion at the recent IDM B2B Conference, ‘This house believes that mobile marketing will be a crucial channel for B2B brands in the UK in the next 12 months’. I politely declined.

My reluctance to take the stage and wave my arms around in a passionate display of mobile affection wasn’t so much the fear of defeat (and the motion was squarely defeated…), it was more a response to the depressing realisation that the B2B industry is catastrophically unable to respond quickly to game-changing shifts in market development. Read more »

Earlier this week it came to my attention that the public’s honeymoon period with Apple’s iPhone may be finally drawing to a close.  NPD Group, a US market research company, reported that during the first quarter of this year, sales of Android-powered smartphones overtook sales of the much loved iPhone for the first time.  Following an online survey of 150,000 consumers it found that 28 per cent of smartphones sold between January and March 2010 were Android based whilst iPhone sales during the same period accounted for 21 per cent.  With 36 per cent the US market leader is currently Research In Motion (RIM), makers of the popular Blackberry range. (Windows Mobile lags way behind the others with a mere 10 per cent.) Read more »

So as we at Mobestar bring another major brand kicking and screaming into the world of mobile the eternal question is asked “Why is it so hard?”

It really should not be the case when you have nearly 3,500,000,000 mobile phones in worldwide circulation and mobile has long been acknowledged as the marketeers ‘silver bullet’ for global domination.  So with apologies to Tom Waites : it  really is Big in Japan so why not here in Europe?  Japan has much higher mobile Internet penetration than the US or Europe. This high usage of the mobile Internet (and mobile data generally) means mobile advertising/marketing is considerably more advanced than elsewhere. Read more »

Today is Retro Mobile Marketing Day and we have compiled a collection of tips & tricks on Interactive SMS Marketing / Text Message Marketing.  These are all from personal experience gained over the years, during which time we have seen countless marketeers make the same mistakes over and over again.  So apologies in advance if this is all a little passé for you but a little extra homework never hurts.

Most of these are pretty straightforward to follow, and have been written in an attempt to show you just how easily you can improve on your campaigns, or, if you’re just starting out, what to look out for, when buying and setting up mobile marketing campaigns.

First, some background, for those of you not entirely familiar with the concept of Interactive SMS Marketing.  It’s called interactive because consumers are required to initiate the process of participating in the campaign, by sending an SMS to a short code, or virtual number, starting with a predefined keyword, and usually followed with some other text. Read more »

Firstly let me apologise for the gap between the last blog and this one.  I have broken the first rule of social media and not blogged regularly and often so I must beware of the wrath of the social media guru and await my fate.  To mitigate my heinous crime I must plead to general busy-ness and overwork – an office move, Barcelona, expectant customers and multiple software releases that have all taken their toll.  However, I have to admit to being very, very angry!  Most of the talk in Barça concerned apps. – iPhone vs. Android vs. the Okey Cokey 2000.  These days you have to wade through tons of virtual media hype to get sensible ‘non-app’ comment.  To cap it all I had a meeting with a new customer who wanted to base his new, exciting and pre-revenue business around the iPhone.  I tried to remonstrate “You are spending millions on this business and you want to balance it on a device which has 2.7%, and descending, of a 3.5 billion device market.  Why?”, “But I love my iPhone” he said. Read more »

The sentiment expressed in this trusty old adage seems to sum up nicely the current yardstick for success in the mobile applications market.  It was only last November when Apple announced that over 100,000 apps were available in their burgeoning App store, clearly an impressive number.  However, barely three months have passed and now the fact that the total has risen to over 140,000 is being widely trumpeted.  Amongst all the ballyhoo accompanying the launch of the new iPad, I gather that another 40,000 apps have been added since November and the total continues to grow unabated. To quote another old adage, the subtext seems to be “never mind the quality, feel the width” and this strikes me as both rather odd and in danger of missing the point.

The conclusion that we are expected to reach appears to be simply “the more apps the better”.  Please don’t get me wrong – choice is clearly a good thing, Read more »

I am deeply, deeply cross about the car parking charges at my local train station. There isn’t a bus I can take to the station, I can’t be dropped off every day and I have no friends. I have to drive to the station. And park. They put up the price of parking every year – I can’t understand why, it’s hardly a high maintenance facility. I’m so cross about the parking that, despite the operator’s attempts to make me pay for parking using a mobile phone, I have resolutely refused. I want them to have the inconvenience of counting the coins that I so religiously pump into the machine every day. It’s not easy, let me tell you. I stagger around most of the week, bow-legged under the weight of silver coinage collected to feed the ‘No Change Given’ monster. It ruins my svelte trouser line.

The other day, however, I was caught short. Being able to muster only £4.50 of the requisite £5.50, I was forced to concede and call the parking hotline. Imagine my surprise when I completed the entire registration and parking transaction in less than two minutes – entirely without defaulting to ‘operator assistance’. RingGo has the best voice recognition system and user experience I have ever encountered on a phone. I was so impressed, I did it again a few days later from a different station and I audibly squeaked with excitement when the automated voice recognised me, my car and my new location using geo-positioning on my mobile. I simply confirmed and was on my way, barely breaking stride. Read more »

You do not need a university education to know that one. Neither is the iPhone the only smart phone in the world. I am getting a little peeved by having to explain this simple but obvious truth and with every new sales call I am asked to attend (frequently becoming fewer unless I am able to contain the tantrums). However, such is the splendid job that our chums in iPhone’s marketing department have done that many would think the Motorola, Nokia and Samsung have ceased to exist. I am not going to attempt to redress the balance created by the iPhone phenomenon but I will only say that there is another world out there. Not only is the empire(s) fighting back but there is evidence that ground is being made up. Whilst I am eternally grateful for the advent of the iPhone – (how else would this mobile world have ignited) – there is a lot more to mobilising your brand than producing a nice looking app. Read more »