Some of us here at We Love Mobile luuurve the iPhone. Whereas some of us not so much. I’m not going to bore you with the oh so familiar iPhone pros and cons, we’ve heard it all before. Despite not actually owning an Apple iPhone myself, I’ve caught wind of this little craze called iPhone Magic. It’s basically the ‘art’ (don’t know if I can call it that) of performing magic tricks or illusion with your iPhone. Sad or cool? Or just geeky? You can be the judge of that.
It even seems that big brands are waving the iPhone magic wand and getting in on the action. Carling has released a free branded application for the iPhone & iPod Touch. The application/game uses the devices accelerometer feature (the mechanic which detects handset movement) to allow the user to slide a pint glass across a pub bar. Having completed this, you are then rewarded with a virtual pint of Carling. I’d say it’s pretty cool, have a look. You can read more about it here.
All in the name of research, we’ve found some other fun iPhone Magic tricks to share with you. They’re of varying quality, but are at least inventive!
Those crazy Finns. Would you believe that there are such things as SMS loans companies that operate in FInland? Yes, companies specifically set up to organise a loan to help you meet the cost of your texting habit. In fact, Finland boasts 40 such companies. FORTY. Apparently, it’s a national problem in Estonia too. Read more about this bizarre phenomenon in the Baltic Business News.
Hot on the heels of the Buzzcity stats we reported on yesterday, we’ve also now seen the latest Admob stats for June 2008 (full report here). Developing countries such as Indonesia are also showing massive growth, but as an interesting counterpoint to Buzzcity, Admob has been also been seeing substantial growth in the UK and USA.
UK ad requests grew 16.3% in June to 228 million. The two most popular handsets being the Nokia N95 and the SonyEricsson K800i. These are both what I would describe as high-end handsets, not the type of phone generally used by the mass-market and mostly the preserve of early tech adopters. I doubt these consumers are using their phones as their sole access route to the internet, so compared to mobile internet adopters in Indonesia, say, the UK user profile is probably rather different.
Looking at pure volume can be misleading. The value of the users, especially to those looking to generate revenue from mobile advertising or commerce, is another matter. In terms of value, a UK served banner is going to be worth a lot more. On Buzzcity, for instance, you can buy Indonesian clicks for as little as £0.02, but for any meaningful volume in the UK, you’re looking at £0.10.
It’s quite interesting that many mobile start-ups recruit consumers in developing countries and then quote quite substantial user numbers. In terms of basic ad revenue, however, 5,000 UK users are going to be worth around 5x more than Indonesian users, so for 5,000 UK users you’d need around 25,000 Indonesian users to match ad revenue (assuming similar CTRs). As many mobile services are funded and developed on the basis that they will ultimately generate revenue from subscriptions or advertising (or both), their potential should not just be judged in terms of raw subscriber numbers, but the actual long-term value of these subscribers.
Back to Admob and Buzzcity, it is perhaps worth noting that the significance of their respective networks should not be judged on raw volume, but on the value of the traffic. Right now, Admob is beating Buzzcity in terms of absolute volume and while Buzzcity may be growing faster, Admob’s strength is also underpinned by significant growth of higher value traffic in the US and UK.
Think the mobile internet is for high-income early adopters and tech-savvy youth? If you’re talking about Western countries, then you might be right. But if you look at the latest stats from Buzzcity’s my Gamma network, then you can see that mobile internet has gained mass appeal in developing nations and is continuing to grow.
BuzzCity is an ad and publisher network, much like Admob, but with a focus on social network publishers in developing countries. Buzzcity believe that mobile social networking is connecting the unwired in places like Indonesia, India and South Africa as well as among blue collar workers in developed markets like the US and UK.
The latest stats from Buzzcity show strong growth globally. They delivered close to 3.9 billion advertising banners with Indonesian growth continuing to dominate in terms of overall traffic. A closer look at their Q2 stats shows growth in almost every territory, including some of Europe, but it is clearly developing nations where they are seeing substantial traffic gains.
There are two real tangible facilitators for this growth. Firstly, these countries don’t have the fixed-line infrastructure or home PC penetration, so while PC web use is constrained, mobile surfing is accessible to all. Secondly, although most subscribers are on ‘pay as you go’, data charges are relatively low, so mobile surfing is also affordable. However, feeding this boom must be a real demand for mobile internet services, especially social networking.
It is this last point which is particularly interesting because I think it says something about the societies themselves, as well as the nature of mobile. Mobile is allowing peer to peer communication that would otherwise not exist, and in many cases communication that might be frowned upon in societies that are still fairly conservative (I am thinking India here in particular). Mobile is not just taking the place of the PC, it is dispensing with it althogether - people are effectively leap-frogging the PC web and going straight into mobile communities and communication. Mobile is therefore emerging as the principal means of accessing the internet in these territories. Its not convergence, but the emergence of a new channel in its own right.
We are so PC web focussed in the West that its hard to imagine the internet without a computer. But for social networking and many other non-business applications (content snacking and informal communications) a phone makes more sense. It is likely that developing countries are actually showing us the future, a future where, for most people, mobile internet is the internet and the ‘old fashioned’ PC is relagated to the study, the office or the attic!
Is there no end to the supreme power of the text message? Now it seems that even the Pope has got in on the act. Hundreds of thousands of young Catholics have gathered for the opening of World Youth Day (no, I didn’t know it was happening either) - a festival aimed at revitalising the church. And what’s one of the easiest, quickest and cheapest ways to reach the masses? With a text message, of course.
Pope Benedict XV1 texted thousands of young pilgrims, urging them to renew their faith. “Young friend, God and his people expect much from u because u have within you the Fathers supreme gift: the Spirit of Jesus - BXVI,” read the first of the Pope’s messages.
Surely this is only the beginning. I foresee a Popemobblog, mobile snaps from the Popemobile, an MMS daily Bible serialisation and a mobile internet site - www.vatican.mobi.
Read more about the Pope’s visit (and the protests going on) over at Reuters.
As I glanced through my regular Monday morning news feeds from various e-magazines about mobile advertising and marketing, one particular piece caught my attention. In between all the stories about the 3G i-phone launch and the varying views on what it can and cannot do (saddo’s) I read a very interesting piece in MobileMarketingWeekly about Fiats new mobile portal (http://mobile.fiat.co.uk). This is not the first time Fiat has gone mobile so I was eager to see the output.
The portal is the work of AKQA Mobile (one of our industry friends). On a basic level, the site is swift to use, provides clear instructions and very detailed illustrations. The store-locator tool and the ability to arrange a test-drive are quite slick and easy to use. Overall, the site is certainly above average for a car manufacturer. The automotive industry has been embracing mobile internet and mobile advertising (Jaguar, Peugeot etc), but rather than being a campaign micro-site for a new model launch, the Fiat effort actually covers their entire range. As such, it is perhaps one of the first real permanent and comprehensive UK automotive brand sites.
One thing I noticed, however, was that the site does not yet appear on a google mobile search for ‘Fiat’, either in the natural search results or the paid for ads. A missed opportunity for increasing traffic, perhaps?
That aside, this site is a definite step forward, so congratulations to AKQA and Fiat.
There’s a big bru-ha-ha going on at the moment about tougher penalties for people who cause accidents and death by dangerous driving. It’s now felt that causing death while reading or writing text messages on a mobile phone should attract a term of up to seven years.
Wonder what they’d do with this guy in India …. watch it and worry.
Here at We Love Mobile we’ve been working hard on our brand spanking new mobile Internet site. Sorry, it’s not live yet… we just thought we’d give you a sneak preview. You see we’ve been taking great care over our little mobi site. We don’t cut corners. We want our mobile Internet site to be a really cool example of what mobile sites can be. Mobile is its own medium. Far too often people think of it as an extension of online. When it comes to building a mobile Internet site people think “hey let’s just shrink our online site into a phone”, no. Mobile has it’s own set of rules. A desktop computer with a 17” display isn’t the same as a mobile phone with a 2.2” screen right?
Okay, so we don’t want our site to take ages to load. We want it to comply with the W3C mobile standards (those guys know what they’re talking about). We want it to be optimised for high, medium and low-end handsets. We want it to be easily navigated, a good user experience. To have a good amount of content, not too much, but not too little! And of course, we want it to look really, really nice. Now that’s not too much to ask for, is it? Watch this space for a live launch.
Chris
Mobile Design and Development
www.welovemobile.co.uk
EA Mobile has released a set of mobile games, available on the Apple Store. These games are developed for the iPhone and iPod Touch devices. The titles are some familiar ‘old school’ games. Scrabble, Sedoku and Tetris.
See http://www.eamobile.com/Web/ for more details.
No mention of any advertising commercial models to fund the games is provided. Let’s hope this is coming later.
I’m off to laugh at the queues on Oxford Street for the new 3G iPhone. Or maybe I will end up in the queue.
Si
Business Development Director and Technical Advisor
www.welovemobile.co.uk
I read with interest the Mobile Marketing Magazine call for more case studies for mobile marketing campaigns. It is true that there is a lack of examples, at least, those that show results that are favourable. The idea proposed by MMM is to draw out case studies from agencies and brands. They have teamed up with the Mobile Marketing Association who will review these campaigns, and state what they liked about them.
We Love Mobile is currently developing case studies that we will be submitting for inclusion.
Another industry development that will help in promoting the advantages and benefits of campaigns using the mobile channel. We love mobile…..
Si
Business Development Director and Technical Advisor
www.welovemobile.co.uk
