Uneven Distribution.

The Evolution of Mobile

May 20th, 2008

I was interviewed for a B&T article on mobile this week. Afterwards I collated a few of the ideas I was talking about, to check I made some form of logical sense. So here they are. Most of it is just one-line thoughts, I don’t think there’s a single thread running through everything that culminates in any solid conclusion, and there’s probably even a few contradictions in there.

What is holding up mobile advertising in Australia?

Clients - It’s still very new territory for them, and mobile is a very personal space.

Users - In Australia mobile web use is very low. Yet we have more than 1 mobile per person. This is an issue with the public understanding what is possible. I think a lot of this has been confused by each telco pushing it’s own portal, and also the high data charges. And yet there is no real reason for the telco’s to start lowering data rates and encouraging people to leave their portals.

Agencies - Thinking of mobile early on is, not surprisingly, a rare event in Australian agencies these days. Mobile is most often brought onboard when it comes to mechanics for entry or extension, but rarely as a device that can really contain an idea. I don’t think we need to be doing mobile for the sake of doing mobile, but we need to be aware of it and it’s possiblities. At NetX we’re always looking out for ways to push mobile along as much as we can, and while I certainly wouldn’t say this will be ‘the year of mobile’, we’re certainly pushing more and more mobile ideas.

Convergance and location awareness isn’t just about advertising. An open standard for location awareness could finally make mobiles make our lives easier. My Skype would appear on my big screen when I’m at it, my small screen when I’m out. I wouldn’t get work emails when I’m up at my beach house, but I would get family ones.

Thinking of mobile as the internet on a small screen will fail. We don’t have the surplus space that we have on websites (or in print, or on the highways, or in bus shelters).

Content, as always is King. When you have your own channel, you don’t have to worry what channel to be in. So in this sense, if you have the right content (sports results for example), you’re crazy to not be in there.

We’re not as aware of how people are using mobile as we are with the web. The generational gap is bigger than we’ve had with the web up until now. It’s much harder for creatives and suits in agencies to bridge the gap between brand marketers and the people actually using mobile in ways in which advertising becomes viable.

Bandwidth will increase. The convergance of a mesh wifi network and the mobile network will happen, giving us the bandwidth in our hand that we have at home.

The kids are ahead of us. We (anyone over 18) might get freaked out by the possibility of location aware applications, but the younger generation will take it up. They don’t have a past reference point to base their anxieties on.

Always online. Location awareness, constand feeds of information, just like you get RSS feeds now. Maybe everyone will have their own mobile portal? Widsets have begun this, Android may continue it.

Mobile may well be about marketing, while large-screen is more about engagement and entertainment.

Colloboration/Content creation is something that is easy for mobile users. But not necesarilly with the whole world, mobile is about a smaller network of friends.

Standards are also an issue. The variety of screen sizes and phone capabilities means it’s hard to design and build for mobile. iPhone and Android will help this. There should be a point soon where Android, iPhone and Blackberry devices are prevelant enough that we can start thinking about consistent experiences.

Like the web, banking may well be the application thats pushes the mobile web into the mainstream.

Data is currently the biggest hurdle. Until we have reasonable or unlimited data available on our mobile devices, talking about how the platform will evolve is moot. There is an element of consumer education in this regard. Much as AOL and Compuserve acted to confuse the consumer into thinking that their walled gardens were ‘the internet’, the telcos are firmly fixated on their own mobile portals. Unfortunately it’s much harder to setup a telco than an isp, so I’m not entirely sure how this issue will resolve itself. In the meantime I think we should all just continue pushing good mobile ideas, because the more that get out in front of the consumer, the more they’ll start thinking of their mobiles as more than a phone and telegraph service.

Keeping Up With The Joneses Genes: Why 2008 will be the tipping point for life online

January 9th, 2008

So everyone is busy talking about what’s going to be the big thing this year. There are going to be some cool things happen on the digital frontier, but what will cause possibly the biggest impact online will likely be nothing more than how people use the internet. People are finally realising how cool the internet is. It’s not something in their peripheral vision anymore, it’s something that is unquestionably and unremarkably part of people’s lives.

The thought of a computer as a singular object that we must dedicate our full attention to in one session will shortly be gone from the mainstream mindset. Not long ago you were an uber-geek if you pulled out your mobile at the pub to pull up wikipedia and settle an argument (more to the point, you were an uber-geek for having internet enabled on your phone). Today it’s almost second nature, and these people aren’t geeks in the slightest.

Sometime in the not too distant future you’ll probably start to get sick of how often you hear 23andme.com mentioned. It’s sites like this that perfectly demonstrate what I’m talking about. Or perhaps the fact that the ESPN NFL mobile site had more views last week than the regular site (4.9M views in 24 hours). Or maybe Apple’s projected sales of 10 million iPhones. People (real people, not just geeks) have absorbed the online world into their mindset to the point that online services and information are front of mind when they need anything.

The flurry of internet-based startups and mountains of cash poured into them in the last few years means that the tech industry is well and truly ready for this. Yes, a lot of these companies will die, but a significant amount will rise to the top and join the ranks of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to continue to challenge the oldschool media empires. Unsurprisingly this industry is already a few years ahead. I’m pretty sure my parents won’t hear about twitter, seesmic or etsie for a while still, but the technology and general way of thinking that services like this will produce will probably affect us as much as Amazon, Google and eBay have up to the present day.

But what does this mean for those involved in the online advertising and marketing of real-world brands? Scarily, the majority of big brands just aren’t ready for this. They’re not in any position to take advantage of the way people are going to start thinking about and using the internet. They’re dismally 1.0. There are not enough great services being offered by brands, not enough integration into the social graph, and not enough conversations with customers. There’s plenty of talk about how bad the music industry has handled the online space, and the sad fact is that most big consumer brands aren’t that far behind.

The parallels with the music industry probably shouldn’t be taken too far though. The only thing we really share with them is overprotective lawyers and uninformed high-level decisions makers. In short people have been too precious about their brands and too cautious about doing anything new, with the attitude that the online space was still niche enough to ignore.

And now the time has come. The good news is that because no one has really done anything, everyone’s on the same page. There is still plenty of room to make a move and really get brands online. But if it doesn’t happen soon than a vast majority of people will become comfortable with the way they live online, and that won’t include any sort of dialogue or experience with brands.

Note: Through all of this I’m talking about developed and mostly English speaking communities. Many Asian countries are in a slightly different space right now, and Japan is on a whole different highway. Meanwhile in developing countries, further adoption and reduced costs of technology will likely make a far bigger impact on the world as a whole than being able to get my genetic profile from 23andme.com. I hope.

A few links…
Marshall Kirkpatrick’s fantastic article on RWW, “Ten Common Objections to Social Media Adoption”
Jeremiah Owyang’s great summary of the Many Forms of Web Marketing for 2008.
Everyblock.com has had a lot of hype, and will probably get it’s fair share of press when it finally launches.