New research sensation

Over 400 people turned out in London yesterday to see Comscore and the GSMA launch Mobile Media Metrics  - research that users operators data to see what people really do on mobile. We see this as a huge step forward for mobile – which is now the best researched medium in the UK – and the research will roll out around the world in coming months.

Our favourite quote – “Whilst smartphone users represent just 29 per cent of the UK total mobile Internet audience, they accounted for 47 per cent of total page views, and 51 per cent of the total time spent online in December 2009.”

Closely followed by the fact 5 million people in the UK access Facebook on their mobile!

http://www.mobile-ecosystem.org/?p=1521

Are QR codes finally going mainstream?

With publishers now testing QR or 2D codes and Google using them for their favourite places we think widespread adoption of these codes is imminent. The key thing holding them back seems to be a lack of a true standard – too many vendors are pushing proprietory codes and readers are of varying quality. In (unscientific) testing we found QuickMark (http://bit.ly/c48EC1) to be the best iphone QR reader. Any other suggestions?

http://bit.ly/d43zga

http://bit.ly/6zEBXf

Is it all about touch?

Some good new thinking around the idea that the real step change with smartphones is touch – and that the debate around apps vs browser is really about touch vs mouse

http://ow.ly/13HZb

Mobile to pass PC as the main way to access the web – by 2013?

New Gartner data is even more aggressive that Morgan Stanly about the switch from PC to mobile. With other data suggesting smartphone sales soared by 30% on q4 last year that doesn’t seem outlandish.

http://bit.ly/b9NmdE

http://bit.ly/a9KoFo

Innovating in mobile

With all the evidence that the mobile media is big enough to warrant serious investment from brands we should remember that much of the advertising tools are pretty rubbish. The formats are drawn from the PC web and don’t work. So we see a major role for us over the coming years is to innovate in terms of formats and how mobile is used as a marketing medium. This article has some good commentary on what the vendors are doing (registration required)

http://bit.ly/cpRKgq

So the new news is the ipad

Does it live up to the hype? Maybe not , but the ipad looks like it will define the inbetween market. Having spoken with major publishers within the last week there is a big focus on how these devices and mobile in general will allow press publishers to evolve. Most if not all publishers lost their character when they went on the web and smart publishers see touchscreen as a way to get that character back – and evolve their product to suit the mobile age. As an example of what this might look like take a few minutes to watch this

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntyXvLnxyXk

and more on the ipad here

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/technology/companies/28apple.html?ref=technology

Apps – a $30billion market by 2013?

A new Gartner report is bullish about apps – predicting massive growth. As the ipad is another device that is focused on apps ,we share this enthusiasm. But many apps will be little more than posh bookmarks, helping people navigate to browser content (where html5 will enable much of the functionality of apps). The real issue is between what’s cached and what’s in the cloud (and therefore realtime)

http://mobile.venturebeat.com/2010/01/22/revenue-from-mobile-apps-set-to-quadruple-from-2010-to-2013/

Mobile metrics

Understanding just what people are doing with mobile is key to developing useful mobile strategy and there are lots of people looking at this space. ComScore announce the results of their partnership with the GSMA next week in London (and we’ve seen a preview which suggests they have some really good stuff). Talking with Neilsen, I understand that they are very active in this area too and have some interesting projects in development.  And we now have some new players like Ground Truth…

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=121235&nid=110390

iphone users outnumber Twitter users

We did some number crunching at Addictive and found that more people have iphones than there are Twitter users; and the total number of smartphone users is around the same as the total number of Facebook users. With all this natural symmetry maybe brands should shift focus from Social to Mobile – we think so.

http://www.addictivemobile.com/blog/2010/1/27/smartphones-bigger-than-social.html



We'll be automating distribiution of this shortly so if you'd like to get it by email let us know.

One of the things I find surprising is how many marketing people diss iphones and apps as a niche market.

My favourite was hearing that the buzz around apps is driven by the fact creative directors have iphones yet don't realise that nobody else does. Of course now you can buy an iphone on Orange, Vodafone and at Tesco (and it is rumoured that TMobile and Virgin will get you one if you shout loud enough) as well as O2, that myth is evaporating.

But I was delighted to see some new data which shows that more people have iphones than use Twitter;

Admob have an interesting post showing Apple had shipped 78million devices by the end of 09

And BBH Labs pointed out research showing that Twitter had 75 million user accounts at the end of 09. And the research points out that in December only 17% of those accounts actually tweeted - supporting their view that;

A large percentage of Twitter accounts are inactive, with about 25% of accounts having no followers and about 40% of accounts having never sent a single Tweet.

Add to that one of my favourite stats - since the start of 2007 Canalsys data shows that over 350 million smartphones have shipped. So the number of people with Smartphones is around the same as the number of Facebook users.

Now I'm a big fan of Twitter and Facebook - and social in general - but this data supports my view that brands would be much better off investing in a smart mobile strategy than jumping into social.

And the future of social is all about mobile any way.

To help people keep up with the relentless pace of change in mobile we're starting a short, quick fix of mobile news that we think is significant. If you're in the mobile business it will probably seem a little Janet & John, but we think it might be useful for people at agencies and brands who aren't fully focused on the sector.

We'll do this on a regular basis, so if you or anyone you know would like to receive a copy drop a line to simon (at) addictivemobile (dot) com.

And we'll post it on here too.

addictive - Mobile Fix – January 21

Mobile search just got smarter

In the US Google search will now give search suggestions based on your location

http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/01/optimized-search-suggestions-using- your.html

Mobile sector consolidation - M&A news

Google bought Admob and Apple bought mobile ad network Quattro. Mobile adserving company Amobee recently acquired media exchange Ring Ring, and now the mobile browser firm Opera is set to purchase adserving company Admarvel

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/187254/opera_acquires_mobile_a dvertising_company_admarvel.html

iphone puts the ‘i’ in ‘wide distribution’
iphones are now sold in the UK by Orange, Vodafone and Tesco as well as by their original supplier O2 – and it’s rumoured that both Virgin and TMobile are supplying iphones to their top customers who threaten to leave. Vodafone claim to have shipped 50,000 iphones on the first day.
In France the switch from an exclusive supplier to wider distribution led to a 100% increase in iphone market share. Will we see the same in the UK?

http://www.cbronline.com/news/vodafone_not_expecting_to_repeat_o2_iphone_ problems_190110

Map it out...
Maps on mobiles are big business – with Google being the key player. But Nokia spent $8 billion acquiring Navteq and now releasing Ovi maps – and navigation - free to anyone with a Nokia phone. Obviously they see a revenue stream in location specific advertising; we can expect maps to become a sub set of the search business with local retailers like coffee shops paying to be found by people in their neighbourhood.

http://maps.nokia.com/explore-services/ovi-maps

Mob shopping - retail goes mobile
We’re seeing more and more high street brands adopting mobile strategies. Teen favourite Abercrombie & Fitch are the latest with an app and a mobile site. Site content features the latest collections, and a storefinder. We’re hoping their strategy extends to mobile search advertising – we see that as a major play for both retailers and brands to drive local footfall to shops and stockists.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/abercrombie-fitch-adds-additional-sales- channels-with-mobile-commerce-offerings/

Mobile banking set to overtake online by 2015
With an influx of newly released banking iphone apps we’re starting to see the promise of mobile money. Although emerging markets already have established money transfer service. A survey sponsored by Visa suggests rapid growth.

http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/mobile-banking-will-exceed-online-services- by- 2015-mercatus/

Darren Herman ran this cloud on his excellent blog -  having aggregated over 25 tech/media focused 2010 trends forecasts and we thought it worth borrowing.

As you might expect mobile is right in the centre as the key trend (and Fred Wilson also put mobile first in his predictions) - and the overall impression supports the Golden Triangle.

Now we all just need to make sure these predictions come true.

A fascinating new report from mobile browser firm, Opera shows just how global the growth on the mobile internet is.

We were particularly interested in the figures for Africa; there are lots of great case studies on the use of SMS across Africa but we know see that the mobile web is strong there too. Lots to learn from these markets.

And in the report we see which sites are driving the growth;

Facebook has taken the lead in Africa; it is the most popular site visited by Opera Mini users in 6 out of 10 countries and the #2 site in three of the countries where it is not #1. Google is also very popular, and is ahead of Facebook in a few of the top 10 African countries. Yahoo and Wikipedia are also ubiquitous in the top 10 lists of the various African countries.

We're great fans of curating content, and so we've put together this playlist of soulful christmas songs from YouTube. It's an alternative to the rubbish played in every shop at the moment.

Because it's a selection of what is already on YouTube we can't edit the graphics - so it's one to listen to rather than watch.

It's about an hour long and we find it's best enjoyed with a large glass of NZ Pinot Noir.

Have a good one.

Does your heart sink every time you get invited to another meeting? Are your days filled with long meetings that should be short? And are some of them totally unnecessary?

Yawn no more – we've just launched Meeting Magician- a fun iPhone app that makes meetings fun again.

Having spent 3 years at Mindshare/WPP either in meetings, on conference calls or on planes, I reckoned people needed some way to ease the pain of this way of life. Red wine works really well on planes but oddly enough is frowned on in meetings (although it has helped me through a few conference calls).

So this app lets you play buzzword bingo when the powerpoint bores get going. It gives you a word of the day to slip into the presentation or the chat with the boss - and you can share your success story with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

You can find out just how much money is being wasted in a meeting with our calculator - estimate the average hourly rate of the people in the meeting or on the call, key in how many people are taking part and the calculator shows you second by second how much is being wasted. You can share the excess stories on Facebook and Twitter - we expect our friends at Goldmans and Credit Suisse etc to get quite competitive over this.

And when you think you really can't take a meeting, set up a lifesaver fake call - just programme the app with the time you want to be called and choose who you want to the call to be from - and hey presto  - your phone rings and you have the perfect reason to escape.

You can get it here - just 59p/99c as an opening offer. And for all you corporate types with the Blackberry - don't worry help is on its way - the BB app will be available early in the New Year. And an Android version is planned too.

And as a further incentive - we offer a money back guarantee. If you have the app on your phone the next time we meet, I'll buy the tea/ beer - so you can't lose.

Please let us know what you think - we're interested in thoughts as to what we add on the next version ( we already plan to add a way to play buzzword bingo with the others in the meeting) - and please write a review on the app store.

Download here.