Most people may not yet be using smartphones to pay for goods when they are out shopping, but that doesn’t mean that they are not glued to their handsets anyway. Some research out today from Google indicates that among smartphone owners, some 79% can [...]]]> By Ingrid Lunden - techcrunch.com

Most people may not yet be using smartphones to pay for goods when they are out shopping, but that doesn’t mean that they are not glued to their handsets anyway. Some research out today from Google indicates that among smartphone owners, some 79% can be classified as “mobile shoppers,” using their devices for some aspect of the shopping experience, from finding store locations through to finding goods. On top of that, among those who use smartphones for any kind of shopping or browsing, some 84% do so in physical stores. And when it comes to investing in experiences that consumers like, retailers should stick to mobile web sites: 65% of consumers prefer these to apps.

This means that while we are still slowly inching towards for one of the holy grails of mobile commerce — using devices for actual transactions at the point of sale — there are still plenty of retail opportunities to snag people along the way.

“Some stores promote their expanded inventory online or implement a price match guarantee to retain savings-hungry shoppers. Others are putting smartphones to use with QR codes that share more information about products, or apps with store maps and real-time inventory,” writes Adam Grunewald, Mobile Marketing Manager for Google, in a blog post. “Whatever tactics marketers choose, it’s clear that smartphones are changing the in-store experience, and that winning the key decision moments at the physical shelves mean owning the digital shelves too.”

And while Google didn’t spell this out, this research also speaks to how Google appears to be spending less time these days pushing its own mobile wallet solutions, and more time presenting itself as an enabler of more holistic mobile shopping experiences.

Working with retail research group M.A.R.C. Research, the Google Shopper Council surveyed some 1,500 consumers who indicated that they use their smartphones for some form of shopping activity. Apart from finding that the vast majority of them use the devices in stores, they found the average time spent on shopping-related activities devices was around 15 minutes. Within that, the most popular service was not so much shopping, as it was shopping around: some 53% of respondents said that they used their devices for price comparison searches. The second-most popular service was closely related: it was looking for offers and promotions (39%). After that it was store practicalities — finding store locations (36%) and opening hours (35%).

Google and M.A.R.C. also looked into how users were using handsets in the lead up to going to stores. As you would expect, some of those practicalities around store logistics are more popular at that time. (These results also closely mirror some of the predictions that Google made about how mobile shopping was likely to play out in the months ahead.)

In reality, retailers potentially are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to mobile commerce. Short of them gaining the expertise and making the investment to capitalize on this themselves, there are a number of third parties tackling the opportunity of targeting shoppers who use mobile devices, and capitalizing on it. Startups like Shopkick, which in January of this year told me it was already profitable, has built a business partnering with major retailers like Best Buy and Target to offer users deals on goods while they are in store, with the offers pushed to them just as they are in the vicinity of the products. Shopkick says that usage of its app contributed to some $200 million in sales in 2012.

On the other hand, there are others that are actually seizing the opportunity afforded by smartphone usage to offer users cheaper alternatives that can be found via e-commerce channels. When Amazon launched its price check app in 2011 — a way for shoppers to quickly look up items just before buying them in store to see if they can find cheaper alternatives online (and on Amazon) — Forbes noted that it “may be evil, but it’s the future.”

The Google research seems to indicate that there is a clear opportunity to target avid smartphone users, as well as to encourage people to use their smartphones more: in general people using their mobile devices for shopping turn out to be bigger shoppers in general, with those buying health and beauty products increasing their median “basket size” the most, by some 50%. (Incidentally, Google doesn’t give any breakdowns between how males and females fare in these categories.)

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Tablets are poised to bring in substantial revenue in the next few years as consumers increasingly become more comfortable paying for content, according to a new report from Juniper Research.

Juniper’s “Mobile Content Business Models: OTT & Operator Strategy & Forecasts 2013-2017” report looks [...]]]> By Lauren Johnson – mobilemarketer.com

Tablets are poised to bring in substantial revenue in the next few years as consumers increasingly become more comfortable paying for content, according to a new report from Juniper Research.

Juniper’s “Mobile Content Business Models: OTT & Operator Strategy & Forecasts 2013-2017” report looks at which types of content consumers will be comfortable buying via their smartphones and tablets. Additionally, the report looks at how carrier billing will impact mobile monetization.

“What’s particularly interesting is the way in which advertising has now become a fully-fledged content monetization model on the mobile – witness Facebook’s success in the space since it introduced advertising on mobile devices around a year ago,” said Dr. Windsor Holden, principal analyst at Juniper Research, Hampshire, England. “In that time it has generated around $850 million from mobile advertising – that’s an astonishing achievement.

“At the present time, smartphones outnumber tablets by approximately six to one, but within five years the ratio will be less than to three-and-a-half to one,” he said.

“At the same time, consumers are finding that tablets are far better for, say, watching – rather than snacking on – streamed video content. Hence, subscription and ad hoc revenues for video will be particularly strong here.”

Mobile revenue
Mobile content is expected to bring in $40 billion this year with the remaining $25 billion accumulating over the next three years, according to Juniper’s report.

In particular, revenue from games, videos and ebooks will all grow significantly as consumers become more comfortable buying digital content.

All three of these types of content point to increased tablet ownership as well as consumers using their tablets for longer periods of time.

In fact, 65 percent of handsets in the United States were used to access mobile entertainment services in 2012, according to the report. Forty-seven percent of handsets in Western Europe were used for the same reason.

Additionally, 75 percent of mobile devices in the U.S. and 65 percent of handsets in Western Europe accessed the Internet in 2012.

EBooks are the biggest form of revenue on tablet revenue currently, according to the report.

Gaming and video is also increasingly moving towards tablets and smartphones as consumers shift away from portable gaming devices.

Fifty percent of all mobile revenue currently comes from video and music, according to the report. This shows how the majority of mobile content is still being driven by small, incremental purchases such as a paid app or a music track.

Additionally, the growth of social and gaming is contributing to significant post-download monetization opportunities, such as in-app payments for game currency.

Fragmentation and visibility will remain a challenge for marketers with the increased mobile usage, according to the report.

Mobile payments
The report points to an opportunity with content monetization through carriers.

Revenue from direct carriers exceeded $2.3 billion in 2012 and will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 41.4 percent over the next three years.

Revenue from direct carriers will total $13.1 billion by 2016, according to the report.

The report then splits up the expected direct carrier revenue into eight key markets, with Western Europe as the No. 1 area where revenue will come from.

The Far East and China and the rest of the Asia Pacific region will also contribute to large portions of revenue from carriers.

While credit and debit cards will remain the primary billing system for over-the-top services, storefronts such as Google Play and BlackBerry’s App World are turning to carrier-based billing to drive revenue.

Operator billing also presents a few new opportunities for monetization.

For example, the payment method helps storefronts enable payment across a wide and diverse user base.

Additionally, direct billing can be helpful for developers and marketers to reach younger demographics that have lower credit card ownership.

Direct carrier billing is also effective at triggering spontaneous, quick purchases.

“Storefronts such as Nokia and BlackBerry have seen a huge increase in conversion rates when carrier billing is introduced,” Dr. Holden said.

“It means that the consumer doesn’t have to register a credit card, making it ideal for impulse purchases, while also allowing the unbanked demographics to purchase content,” he said.

Final Take

Trade organization the Mobile Marketing Association has commissioned a new study that projects the mobile marketing to add $400 billion in incremental output and nearly a million jobs to the U.S. economy by 2015.

While the findings are meant to induce marketers to spend more [...]]]> By: John McDermott – adage.com

Trade organization the Mobile Marketing Association has commissioned a new study that projects the mobile marketing to add $400 billion in incremental output and nearly a million jobs to the U.S. economy by 2015.

While the findings are meant to induce marketers to spend more on mobile, the study is also part of the MMA’s lobbying effort to illustrate the job creation prospects of mobile marketing and in turn, head off potential regulation.

“Asking a bunch of people who are unfamiliar with mobile marketing to set up digital policy might inhibit innovation,” MMA CEO Greg Stuart said. “Let’s not stifle job growth.”

Conducted by consulting firm mLightenment, the study predicts the number of mobile marketing jobs to increase from 524,000 in 2012 to 1.4 million in 2015. Mobile marketing spending is also predicted to increase, jumping from $6.7 billion in 2012 to a nearly $20 billion in 2015 for a compound annual growth rate of 52%.

The study projects sales via mobile devices will increase from $139 billion in 2012 to more than $400 billion in 2015.

While the overall spending and sales growth rates are predicted to correlate, the study also found that the return on mobile advertising spending will decrease slightly through 2015 as the smartphone market diversifies. The ratio of sales to spend will drop from $20.77 per dollar spend on marketing in 2012 to $20.25 in 2014.

To date, the smartphone market has skewed toward young, high-income consumers. As lower-income consumers become smartphone users for the first time, returns are likely to experience a small drop, the study predicted.

The findings that returns will decrease seemingly contradicts the study’s findings that mobile “defies the law of diminishing returns.” Per the report, the industries that spent the most on mobile also experienced the highest return from the channel.

“Historically, spending in all other mediums eventually flattens out and declines. We don’t see that curve in the data that we have,” Joe Plummer, professor of marketing at the Columbia University School of Business and one of the lead researchers in the study, said. “We looked at the sales of high-end and low-end spenders in mobile, and while the correlation is not 1.0, it was in a positive direction.”

Mr. Plummer said the study drew upon federal agency research, academic journals and primary research such as interviews and surveys. You can find the study in its entirety below.

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As marketers continue to hunt for ways to make mobile more contextually-relevant, the growth of voice recognition points to significant opportunities for marketers to tailor experiences at a more granular level.

Publishers, financial institutions and travel companies are all verticals that have recently leveraged [...]]]> By Lauren Johnson – mobilemarketer.com

As marketers continue to hunt for ways to make mobile more contextually-relevant, the growth of voice recognition points to significant opportunities for marketers to tailor experiences at a more granular level.

Publishers, financial institutions and travel companies are all verticals that have recently leveraged voice recognition to create personalized mobile applications. Additionally, voice recognition presents marketers with a way to break up advertising with unique mobile-only elements.

“For mobile advertising in general, it is unclear how well it is working,” said Peter Mahoney, chief marketing officer at Nuance, Burlington, MA.

“People are taking creative from other formats and shrunken it down – as a result, consumers haven’t interacted to the level that advertisers had hoped for,” he said.

“By giving people a way to have a dialogue, it is an actual way to interact with an ad in a format that is somewhat challenging on a smaller screen.”

Building a two-way conversation
One of the reasons that voice recognition is beginning to play a more prominent role in marketing is because marketers are increasingly getting a better understanding of consumers through data.

Per Mr. Mahoney, voice recognition requires that marketers not only have a significant amount of data about their consumers, but also that consumers have a strong understanding of the brand.

Voice recognition also has particularly strong implications for direct response advertisers to cut down on the number of steps required for a consumer to take.

Take an entertainment company, for example. Instead of directing consumers to a mobile landing page to buy tickets to a movie, a marketer could use voice recognition to let consumers directly buy a movie ticket from an ad.

Nuance recently rolled out a new voice-activated mobile ad format for marketers to create a two-way conversation with consumers. Nuance has partnered with agencies and ad companies including Digitas, Jumptap, Millennial Media and OMD to help bring advertisers on board with the technology.

A demo of Nuance’s voice-activated ad

“What these voices ads allow you to do is dynamically drive a personalized conversation and the ability to gather more data,” Mr. Mahoney said.

“You can calculate gender and say that it’s a man or woman to personalize the ad towards,” he said.

“You need to ensure that you have segmented your audience – you need to define offers and messages that are relevant to those segments.”

Lead by example
There have been a few interesting recent uses of voice recognition from financial institutions and publishers that are all geared at creating more personalized mobile content.

For instance, Hearst Corp.’s Esquire launched an app that solely relies on voice-recognition to help users find the right piece of style, fashion and drink content (see story).

The Talk to Esquire iPad app

Financial institutions and insurance companies that depend on users filling in multiple fields of information to access their accounts or file claims also have a big opportunity with voice recognition to streamline the mobile experience for consumers.

ING Direct Canada, for example, is experimenting with voice recognition in its apps so consumers can speak into their devices to complete banking transactions (see story).

Both of these examples point to voice recognition as being used as a part of more contextually-relevant messages, which is key according to Ron Croen, CEO/founder of Volio, San Francisco.

“In terms of technology, marketing through such experiences is not just about voice recognition – the transcription of words or the listening – but also about language understanding – what the user means or the understanding and about the response to what is heard and understood,” Mr. Croen said.

“When combined with an image of a real person, the interaction is more human and realistic. Users respond to such applications with more interest, cooperation and openness,” he said.

“As a result, in the future it will be used in applications for information sharing and gathering, customer service, product information, education, advice and coaching.”

Mobile challenges
Personalized, contextual experiences are the end goal for marketers nowadays.

However, few marketers are leveraging the core built-in capabilities of mobile devices such as voice to do this, especially on mobile sites.

A new report from Monetate and Econsultancy found that only 14 percent of marketers are personalizing their tablet sites, and 13 percent of marketers are doing the same with their mobile sites.

To compare, 43 percent of companies offer personalized experiences for desktop users.

Despite the lack in executions, 94 percent of companies surveyed in the report agreed that personalization is critical to current and future successes.

Part of the reason that marketers are wary about investing more heavily in digital with personalization comes from brands not getting significant ROI from Web, per the report.

“Consumers expect a consistent experience from a brand across all touch points, such as tablet, smartphone, in-store and desktop, although different devices serve different purposes,” said Marifran Manzo-Ritchie, spokeswoman for Monetate, Conshohocken, PA.

“When it comes to smartphones, consumers look for in-the-moment content that responds to their current situation,” she said.

“Mobile marketers that don’t tailor Web experiences for smartphones and tablets run the risk of alienating or losing customers.”

Final Take

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Gartner Research is reporting mobile CRM apps will grow 500 percent by 2014, another sign of a shifting market that has more to do with work getting done in the cloud more so than from a server behind the firewall.

This is buttressed by Gartner’s news that SaaS providers [...]]]> Alex Williams – http://techcrunch.com

Gartner Research is reporting mobile CRM apps will grow 500 percent by 2014, another sign of a shifting market that has more to do with work getting done in the cloud more so than from a server behind the firewall.

This is buttressed by Gartner’s news that SaaS providers will represent more than 50 percent of profits in the CRM market by 2016 and the steep decline in PC shipments that Gartner  reported yesterday.

Gartner reports there are 200 apps now in app stores. By 2014, there will be 1,200. Mobile apps will come in a variety of flavors, attacking specific aspects of the CRM experience. Gartner, citing a CIO survey of more than 2,000 people, predicts that vendors will need to build mobile apps around their specific strengths.

Gartner also reported that Salesforce.com remains the No. 1 CRM vendor with 26 percent growth and $2.5 billion in revenue last year. In contrast, Gartner states SAP grew 0.1 percent year-on-year and totaled $2.3 billion in CRM revenue.

That is a huge difference but reflects why consulting companies like Deloitte are focusing more on Salesforce for CRM integrations. The money is in hooking up SaaS environments to old-school legacy systems.

The rise of mobile apps comes with a decline in PC shipments. According to Gartner, “worldwide PC shipments totaled 79.2 million units in the first quarter of 2013, an 11.2. percent decline from the first quarter of 2012. Global PC shipments went below 80 million units for the first time since the second quarter of 2009. All regions showed a decrease in shipments, with the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region showing the steepest decline.”

Mobile’s rise also reflects the growing momentum for SaaS.

In 2012, almost 39 percent of the CRM software market revenue was delivered by SaaS. Gartner forecasts the market to increase 42 percent by the end of 2013. During 2016, more than 50 percent of the CRM software revenue will be delivered by SaaS.

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The overwhelming majority of retailers surveyed by mobile experience management platform Artisan say they expect mobile commerce to grow at a faster pace in their organisation than online commerce once did.

Of 200 retail executives working in the mobile marketing and mobile commerce areas of their [...]]]>

By Steve Smith – mediapost.com

The overwhelming majority of retailers surveyed by mobile experience management platform Artisan say they expect mobile commerce to grow at a faster pace in their organisation than online commerce once did.

Of 200 retail executives working in the mobile marketing and mobile commerce areas of their company, 84% said they anticipate the growth curve of mobile commerce to outpace the historic growth of e-commerce. More than half — 56% — say they were are investing more this year in mobile development and mobile marketing than they did in 2012. And a strong majority — 71% — say their native mobile app development will be the strongest touchpoint for engaging consumers in the next one to three years.

There is an ongoing debate, of course, among mobile marketers and retailers over where to focus efforts — the mobile Web or native apps. Mobile Web sites traditionally have been especially strong in acquiring new customers, because they are discoverable via search engines, and end-users themselves tend to look for brands by typing in the brand as a dot-com address in a mobile browser. Native apps, on the other hand, have proven to be much stickier than mobile Web sites, engage the loyal user more deeply, and offer a more seamless path to conversion and the sale.

Among the 200 retailers surveyed here, 72% agreed that investing in their mobile app experience would be among the top three priorities this year. Artisan, of course, is a company that develops a platform for mobile apps, and so the research is focused on this aspect of mobile marketing.

In their plans for managing and developing native apps, 67% of retailers said they would like to further personalize the experience, while 60% said they would like more capabilities for collecting user analytics.

Most mobile users prefer using apps over mobile sites for speed, convenience and ease of use. Specifically, 85% of smartphone and tablet users globally favored apps over mobile sites, according to more than 3,500 smartphone and tablet users globally.

That Compuware finding underscores the enduring consumer [...]]]> By Mark Walsh – mediapost.com

Most mobile users prefer using apps over mobile sites for speed, convenience and ease of use. Specifically, 85% of smartphone and tablet users globally favored apps over mobile sites, according to more than 3,500 smartphone and tablet users globally.

That Compuware finding underscores the enduring consumer embrace of apps, despite long-standing predictions that they will give way to an ascendant mobile Web. People are spending nearly two hours a day with apps — almost twice the amount of time compared to two years ago, according to app analytics and ad firm Flurry.

The mobile Web for most has not transformed into the fast, reliable experience promised by the emergence of technologies from 4G networks to HTML5. “That’s predicated a lot on the spread of HTML5 development, and responsive design elements, and those aren’t evolving perhaps as fast as people expected,” said Stephen Pierzchala, technology strategist at Compuware’s APM Center of Excellence.

As an example, he pointed to Facebook abandoning an HTML5 version of its mobile app in favor of building better-performing native apps for platforms like iOS and Android. That helps explain why global revenue from app stores is expected to climb 62% this year to $25 million.

But that doesn’t mean people don’t have issues with apps. Almost two-thirds reported a crash, freeze or error using an app, while 47% have experienced slow launch times, and 40% have tried an app that failed to open altogether. Most people (79%) will try a problematic app only once or twice after it failed to work the first time, according to the study.

The vast majority of users (78%) also expect apps to launch as fast or faster than the mobile version of a Web site — within two seconds. If not happy with the performance of an app, almost half (48%) would be less likely to use it again.

When it comes to choosing an app, the study showed that ratings are highly influential. Some 84% said user ratings posted by users in app stores were important in their decisions. “It takes a long time perhaps to overcome a serious influx of poor comments about a bad version. Even after the new version comes out, it may take a bit longer for people to trust that app,” noted Pierzchala.

In sum, the Compuware report advised that app developers focus on providing a core utility rather than “stunning visuals” to offer customers long-term value. Its survey covered mobile users in five countries — the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, India and Japan. Men made up 60% of respondents, and women, 40%. The largest segment (41%) had incomes between $50,000 and $90,000.

By Rimma Kats – mobilemarketer.com

It is evident that mobile has captured the attention of many top brands, and technologies such as QR codes and augmented reality have helped pave the way. Now, marketers are looking for the next big trend that will drive customer interactions and, ultimately, sales.

Mobile is [...]]]>

By Rimma Kats – mobilemarketer.com

It is evident that mobile has captured the attention of many top brands, and technologies such as QR codes and augmented reality have helped pave the way. Now, marketers are looking for the next big trend that will drive customer interactions and, ultimately, sales.

Mobile is becoming the go-to medium for many companies and marketers are integrating it into their day-to-day initiatives. In 2013, marketers must make a bigger investment into the space and look at new technologies to help develop deeper relationships with consumers.

“Mobile provides marketers a wealth of creative opportunities to get their messages in front of mobile subscribers – for example, geo-fenced advertising, scanable codes, Shazam, and interstitial ads on music and video apps,” said Tim Richie, vice president of North American sales and account management at Open Market.

“Ultimately, each of these technologies aims to do the same thing: drive consumers to action by putting a powerful message in front them when they are open to receiving it,” he said. “This trend and the technologies that support it will gain momentum in 2013, helping marketers deliver more value.

“Businesses are facing many technology challenges today – sharing data across systems and teams, managing multiple vendor solutions, and increasing user demands. This year, companies will look to consolidate systems, and leverage cloud-based solutions for cost savings and improved SLAs. Technology that is modular, flexible and enables a number of use cases will be most attractive to enterprises.”

Key message
To be most effective, marketers need to deliver a message that resonates with the consumer at a relevant time via the appropriate messaging channel.

The extent to which a marketer can execute on this objective dictates their success, per Mr. Ritchie.

Marketers should aggressively seek out flexible messaging systems that facilitate their communications to consumers across multiple channels.

“Over several years, marketers have struggled to identify how mobile fits into the marketing mix,” Mr. Ritchie said. “Initially, it was an interesting experiment, then Apple ushered in the age of mobile applications which became a key mobile strategy.

“Increasingly mobile has become a business-as-usual communication channel alongside more traditional communication and advertising methods,” he said. “The real growth in mobile adoption for businesses in 2013 won’t be sexy.

“Businesses will find ways to leverage mobile to replace or augment existing systems and processes to become more efficient and reduce costs.”

Mobile payments
Last year, many were speculating that 2012 was going to be the year of mobile payments and near-field communication.

That proved to not be the case.

However, mobile payments and NFC are seeing a great outlook this year.

Mobile payments will no doubt play a big role this year.

Consumers are becoming more comfortable making purchases using their smartphones and companies such as Starbucks, McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts are making it easy for consumers to order their favorite meals and beverages and pay for it using their mobile phone.

Furthermore, Apple has helped in making mobile commerce a success through its recent Passbook implementation, which helps build on loyalty.

“We should see more mass availability of mobile payments,” said Jeff Hasen, chief marketing officer of Hipcricket, New York.

“While its ridiculous to think that the mobile wallet will make cash extinct by Tuesday, businesses will successfully compete if they make the in-store buying experience painless through Square and the like,” he said. “The wallet hype will continue but is years from becoming a mass activity.

“Overall, mobile will get more of the marketing spend with those who succeed being more pragmatic than groundbreaking with brand new mobile products. SXSW will get lots of headlines, but it’s not the place to go to build a foundational mobile program.”

Integrated experiences
According to Wilson Kerr, vice president of business sales at Unbound Commerce, Boston, 2013 will be all about mobile-triggered consumer interactions.

“Now that having an integrated mobile commerce site is established as essential, my prediction is that the next big trend will be around tracked mobile-triggered consumer interaction, at the point-of-sale,” Mr. Kerr said.

“Brands and retailers can drive incremental, secondary, add-on sales and tracked consumer engagement by tapping real-world mobile ‘triggerpoint marketing’ opportunities,” he said.

“QR codes mean adding mobile triggerpoints at point-of-sale is easy and economical. NFC will start to become ubiquitous in smartphones in 2013 and, as such, is something smart marketers are learning about now.”

While most brand and retailer marketing departments lag behind, consumers are thirsty for more ways to interact and engage via mobile.

“The potential of mobile is no longer the story,” Mr. Kerr said. “The story is now the day-to-day reality, regarding the fact that mobile is poised to drive the lion share of tracked consumer interaction and related purchases.

“PayPal saw a 250 percent increase in mobile payments in 2012 and expects to process $20 billion in 2013,” he said. “Additionally, 15 percent of all ecommerce in 2013 will be conducted via mobile and tablet commerce is growing faster than mobile did.

“A mobile site is no longer something that can be covered by a screen scraped derivative of an ecommerce site. Mobile and tablet commerce sites should be powered by an API ecommerce integration, so they can be distinct channels with distinct mobile marketing opportunities.”

Existing technology
This year we’re going to see companies take the technology that exists and make more use of it, per Vanessa Horwell, chief visibility officer of ThinkInk PR.

“I don’t think we’re going to see an explosion of NFC, but we’re going to see more utilization,” Ms. Horwell said. “Also the key things we’re going to see will revolve around data and analytics.

“We know that consumers are engaged, but how are businesses and marketers going to use that data?” she said. “They have to do something actionable with the data.

“That’s going to be the challenge for any types of marketers. Taking action with all that information. That’s a key thing this year.”

Final Take
Rimma Kats is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York

Please click here to hear Rimma Kats final take video…

If the federal government is not able to hammer out a new budget deal before the end of the year, the results could be disastrous for the economy. However, the mobile industry is likely to not be affected as strongly as other industries, according to several industry experts.

Talk of the [...]]]> By Chantal Tode

If the federal government is not able to hammer out a new budget deal before the end of the year, the results could be disastrous for the economy. However, the mobile industry is likely to not be affected as strongly as other industries, according to several industry experts.

Talk of the United States going over the so-called “fiscal cliff” has reached a fevered pitch lately as warnings spread of the potential negative impact on the economy if no new deal is reached. The strong level of interest – during a time of year when many are with families and not glued to their desktop computers or other traditional sources of news – could give mobile a boost, as it is likely to drive up use of mobile sources for staying abreast of the latest developments.

“With regard to mobile publishing, the fiscal cliff is a top of mind topic that triggers both curiosity and concern increasing inquiries to news related sites,” said Harry Kargman, CEO of Kargo, New York . “ It will help increase adoption to mobile during this holiday season as many people in the business community who are on vacation will be compelled to stay connected.

“Mobile is a key medium to help concerned Americans stay on top of current events when out of the office and the fiscal cliff is certainly a compelling issue to watch,” he said.

The shift to mobile
Concern over the fiscal cliff could also accelerate the transition already taking place in the marketing sector, where ad budgets are increasingly shifting away from traditional media to digital and mobile media.

ZenithOptimedia recently revised its global ad expenditure projections downward, with traditional media earmarked for almost zero growth and Internet media at 15 percent growth.

However, mobile ad spend – while still a small percentage of overall budgets – is growing quickly and, with its lower costs and strong engagement rates, is likely to get another boost if no budget deal is reached.

“The reality is that with companies such as Mondelez committing 10 percent of its budget to mobile, there is a necessary shift from non-connect-screen advertising to connect-screen – mobile – advertising. This distinction is clear and growing with brands and retailers,” said Gary Schwartz, author of “The Impulse Economy” and “Fast Shopper, Slow Store .”

“Any negative news on the fiscal cliff will mean precipitous drop off on non-connected-screen media budgets,” he said.

“Brands will be looking to their agencies to show a ROE – return-on-engagement and drive to accountable conversion metrics. Two things that connect-devices with their social and proximal layers can deliver.”

Mobile momentum

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This is a guest post by Trak Lord – venturebeat.com

Augmented reality (AR) may seem like a futuristic concept, but it will be a reality of our digital lives in 2013. AR is a new technology that blurs the line between what’s real and what’s computer generated by enhancing what we hear, [...]]]>

This is a guest post by Trak Lord – venturebeat.com

Augmented reality (AR) may seem like a futuristic concept, but it will be a reality of our digital lives in 2013. AR is a new technology that blurs the line between what’s real and what’s computer generated by enhancing what we hear, see and feel. Next year, I predict that it will be everywhere. Here are my five reasons why:

The glasses are coming, the glasses are coming!

Whether it’s Google’s Project Glass or concept videos along the lines of “Sight”, the Internet can’t get enough of Terminator Vision. A few companies have however made some pretty impressive technological leaps this year: this fall, Vuzix debuted their monocular AR prototype for industrial use at the annual InsideAR conference; Innovega showcased their Augmented Reality contact lens prototype at the 2012 Consumer Electronic show, for which they’re currently seeking FDA approval; and researchers at the University of Washington successfully displayed a single pixel on an eye (albeit, that of a rabbit).

In the meantime, retails brands like Oakley and game favorite Valve were just as quick to throw their hats in the ring alongside patent applications from tech giants Apple and Microsoft. But don’t bother Santa with your letters – widely available (and affordable) wearable augmented reality devices probably won’t hit shelves until 2014.

Smartphones will be AR-equipped

We might not get Paul Smith AR goggles anytime soon, but expect OEMs, handset manufacturers and carriers to integrate optimized augmented reality, visual display and camera performance into the next generation of smartphones, because it’s basically already happening.

Premier-to-punchline-to-rising-star Nokia recently launched the City Lens app, exclusive to its Lumia suite of devices. UK-based chip designer ARM has had its eye on AR for a while, powering and optimizing experiences for its architecture found in the Samsung Galaxy SII, SIII and Note devices. And let us not forget Telefonica and their mad dash to serve mobile augmented reality advertisements to the entirety of their O2 network, alongside mobile coupons and location-based services.

Location, Location, Location

GPS and geodata were responsible early on for bringing augmented reality to the forefront. Applications like Junaio and Layar made a splash in the tech world, offering location-based navigational “channels” and “layers” where UFO-like billboards bobbed on the horizon, displaying information about your surroundings. In 2013 expect to see the next generation of those GPS-based experiences, incorporating not only data from on-board sensors like the gyroscope and camera, but other niche mobile technologies that rely on proximity such as NFC.

Companies like Hover are already deeply embedded in generating and augmenting 3-D maps of urban areas, and my company (AR firm Metaio) has successfully developed “snapping algorithms” that pull this kind of data from the cloud and tightly align it to the real world. Expect your city to get a lot more augmented in 2013.

The death of the gimmicky app

Disclaimer: there will always be marketers that abuse useful technology for their own nefarious, poorly designed purposes(re: QR codes), but expect to see brands move to better, faster and stronger apps that give their audience clear incentives for regular use. 3-D bunnies smiling at you from conference marketing material may have seemed novel at the time, but creating a new app for each one-off experience is neither scalable nor tolerable from a user’s perspective.

The 2013 IKEA Catalog app featured an augmented reality viewer that visualized furniture in 3-D and served related video and digital content to readers – and was the most downloaded branded app of 2012, even after launching in July. With that kind of success as a benchmark, expect other companies to start managing entire product lifecycles with augmented reality solutions- not unlike Mitsubishi Electric with their enterprise MeViewAR app that visualizes heating and cooling units in the real world. Mitsubishi Electric has already moved to the next phase for 2013, intending to visualize 3-D maintenance instructions for service technicians.

The birth of the elusive killer app

It doesn’t exist, and it probably won’t. Augmented Reality is a horizontal technology, which means that the nigh-limitless applications make it a challenging endeavor to develop the Evernote-YouTube-Wordpress-Instagram of Augmented Reality. We did however see the AR Angry Birds, and even if it isn’t official it’s still a pretty clear indication that a successful AR game could lead the way for massive adoption. There are already some good examples out there, like the new JengAR game that inserts the 3-D content into the environment itself rather than needing a printed image.

Expect more games to take this approach in 2013 as we move toward experiences that engage users in their actual surroundings. But the most amazing app for which the industry could possibly hope is only peripherally related to augmented reality. 3-D content is tough- it’s difficult and expensive and time-consuming to create, and may present the biggest barrier to producing augmented reality experiences. Augmented reality needs an app that easily generates 3-D content and exports it in major supported formats. Think “Draw Something” meets iMovie, in 3-D.

That would be something.

Trak Lord is the head of US Marketing for Metaio, the leader in augmented reality research and applications. Before joining with Metaio, Trak attended Dartmouth, where he first started working with augmented reality technology, only to relocate to Silicon Valley and consult for social media and augmented reality startups.

Since joining Metaio, Trak has traveled all over the world evangelizing augmented reality and Metaio’s research. He also manages Augmented Reality Blog, the most widely read source in the industry.  

When he’s not at Metaio, Trak enjoys vintage motorcycles, 19th Century French novels and coffee. Lots of coffee. 

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