Welcome to this week’s Carnival of the Mobilists #221. It’s my first time hosting, and I’m glad to have this opportunity to showcase the best and brightest bloggers covering the mobile space. Thank you to all of the dedicated people who not only blog, but connect with one another to share ideas and introduce their readers to the work of our esteemed colleagues. Without further ado, here we go…
Readers are given a cultural lesson on Chinese New Year gift-giving customs as the backdrop for the ‘missing million’ in iPhone sales. Tomi Ahonen explains, “Forecasters predicted over 1 million less iPhone sales (some even 2 million below) what actually happened. I was also wrong obviously as nobody saw the increase in sales for the after-Christmas quarter.” The mystery is solved, along with a lively debate in the comments section in Apple to thank Year of Tiger for China Surprise in iPhone strong quarterly sales on Communities Dominate Brands.
Payment via mobile phone are headed to countries that don’t already have it, and Simon Judge gives his top observations of the Mobile Monday London’s treatment of the subject in Mobile Money on MobilePhoneDevelopment.com. It looks like operators are concerned about liability while third party developers lead the way.
It’s clear from a number of posts this week that many mobile developers and mobile marketers are still coming to grips with mobile, especially when it comes to deciding whether to create apps for particular smartphones vs. mobile websites that can be viewed regardless of which phone or mobile device the audience is likely to have.
A shattered iPhone graces Mobsessed.co.uk‘s Carl Martin’s post Evidence against the iPhone Mobsession. He argues that since there is a scant 4% iPhone ownership in the UK, money spent marketing iPhone apps would be put to better use on a mobile website. He backs up his rationale with a presentation by Ewan MacLeod of Mobile Industry Review. Elsewhere on his site this week, he marvels at a University student’s use of an iPhone adapted via WiFi to run a remote controlled car. Perhaps that iPhone money should go to R&D then, Carl? iPhone + Virtual Reality Headset + Wifi + REMOTE CONTROLLED CAR = WIN
The Carnival welcomes newcomer Helen Lynch of with a pair of articles with a corporate perspective from Amdocs. Are service providers ready for the smartphone revolution? and So Many Devices, So Little Time by Mike Couture. The articles are two sides of the same issue: people who buy smartphones and don’t know how to use them, and the difficulty companies have in supporting smartphone users in their call centers.
When considering mobile design, “accessible” needs to mean more than just accomodations for physical handicaps. Economic and technological differences must also figure into the equation. Belen Pena reminds us that most people accessing the internet – as much as 87% globally – are not using smartphones. There is a distinction between inclusive design and accessible design in Narrow mobile strategies are a terrible form of exclusive design.
Beware: there is a lot of misinformation about the market share of smartphones and some handsets in particular. This doesn’t matter if your mobile strategy targets all phone users equally, but if you are prioritizing one handset, you must know the facts.
Here’s the thumbnail version of this in-depth report:
Mobile subscribers will surpass 5 billion in 2010
Half a billion people accessed mobile Internet worldwide in 2009
By 2011, over 85 percent of new handsets will be able to access the mobile Web
The number of 3G handsets is growing fast
Mobile devices sales fell slightly in 2009, while smartphone sales showed strong growth albeit from a small base
Estimates for expenditure on mobile advertising and marketing worldwide ranged from US$1.4 billion to $7.5 billion in 2009, all analysts forecast rapid growth
How will consumers use their mobiles?
The top five mobile network operators worldwide that derive more of their revenue from data than other operators are all Asian
I throw my hat into the ring with Social Media: Playtime is Officially Over. Since social media is mobile, and concerns mobile marketers, brands and developers, the YouTube video is a very enlightening two minutes for people who think Twitter is just to tell people what you had for lunch. (It’s a little loud, you might like it better with the sound off.)
Our mission is to support non-profits by bringing mobile capabilities to non-profits, helping them to reach millions more people in need by leveraging mobile devices, networks and innovative applications they will create in partnership with social entrepreneurs.
Thanks for reading, and be sure to visit the links of our contributors to expand your knowledge of what’s going on in mobile today. To see a complete list of archives, or to submit your site in the future, please visit Mobili.st (not .com).
You may have noticed an ad over on the sidebar for SDCA.mobi. You may also notice that the site is a bit of a mess right now. That’s actually my site, and it’s a mess because I am taking my own advice and creating new, relevant information that people in San Diego might want to find on a mobile site. This latest version is being updated in response to the overwhelming popularity of a local Social Media contest that took over the San Diego Twitter community this month.
The contest is called “Champions of Social Media,” and thanks to you wonderful readers and a heck of a lot campaigning by my friends, I am in the finals for the contest in the “Blogger of the Year” category. You can learn more about this great community-building contest at InfluenceSD.com or by searching Twitter for the now-ubiquitous hashtag #InfluenceSD.
So, what does one have to do with the other? Simple. This contest has raised awareness of the sheer number of people involved with Twitter in San Diego. It’s pretty difficult to keep track of how many of us there really are. So, being the mobile web development proponant that I am, I’ve started tinkering with an already useful site, and have begun a beta test (well, it’s more like alpha just yet) to invite these newfound celebrities and friends to help each other find one another.
Are you in San Diego? Do you use Twitter? Do you live somewhere else and want to watch the progress of a mobile directory before your very eyes? If so, have a look at the site and join the brand-spanking-new SDCA Facebook Fan Page to find out more and to suggest some categories. Of course, you’re also welcome to suggest categories in the comments as well.
The mobile web is officially open to the masses, as evidenced by all the mobile sessions at this year’s South by SouthwestParty Conference. Plain old-fashioned WAP design is out. It’s time to step up the game on creating striking, captivating, eye-catching mobile design.
Need inspiration? Here are some mobile design showcases to get you going. These links are all desktop sites with rich graphics, so if you’re reading this on your mobile phone, consider yourself warned about huge graphic download sizes if you don’t have an unlimited data plan:
SmashingMagazine.com‘s mobile design trends. Stay on SmashingMagazine.com for awhile, because it has all kinds of free downloads for icons, fonts, graphics, textures, tutorials, and WordPress themes. It’s a designer’s dream site.
If you’d rather have a how-to manual, Nokia has produced a comprehensive mobile visual design guide for newcomers on their forum, Forum.Nokia.com. They also have mobile web templates and code that you are welcome to use at will, provided you follow the very generous terms of their license agreement.
Go develop, and tell us what you made.
A message from mobiEnthusiast.mobi
Blogging as mobiEnthusiast, I’ve been nominated for a Champions in New Media Award for Blogger of the Year. Would you please vote for me? You don’t have to register or login or do any of that, just click the arrow next to my picture. When the arrow turns green, your vote counts. Comments are optional but appreciated. Voting ends 24 March 2010, so please vote now while it’s fresh in your mind. Thank you, thank you, and thank you!
– Holly
VisionMobile invites you to the biggest mobile developer survey to date – 400+ developers, 8 platforms, 35+ data points, sponsored by O2 Litmus. Join in and enter a draw to win prizes. Register visionmobile.com/developers and see complete details at the survey page
.
This survey covers all 8 major platforms; iPhone, Android, Symbian, Java ME, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Flash Lite and mobile web. The research has been kindly sponsored by O2 Litmus, so that the results may be widely published in Q2 2010. The survey close date has been extended to March 26.
The survey will answer some very interesting questions like:
How do the developer pain points vary across the Symbian, iPhone, Android et al ?
How do App Stores compare to other go-to-market channels?
Do developers really care about network APIs, or standardisation?
Have your say on the future of mobile development and find out what other developers think. Participants receive summarised copy of results.
[Note: most links in this post are not mobile friendly]
Here’s a shoutout to James Pearce and Andrea Trasatti for making a fantastic mobile plugin for WordPress (and another for Drupal) and for getting said WordPress mobile plugin returned to the download section of WordPress.org. Let’s give James his due (and traffic) and let him tell you about it in his own words on Tripleodeon.com.
Incidentally, James is updating the plugin, so watch for it in the next few days. James and Andrea, you rock!
There have already been more than 200 submissions for the Mobile Premier Awards. Participation is free and open to any startup with a mobile angle. To sign up entrants simply need to create their own company profile on dotopen.com and select the awards they want to compete in. Visit how to sign up for the mobile premier awards and how to create a good company profile. The deadline for entry is December 31st 2009.
Categories for Mobile Premier Awards include:
Innovation – The best grassroots startup innovation chosen by their peers
in partnership with MobileMonday
Marketing – The best startup in Mobile Marketing
in partnership with the Mobile Marketing Association
Entertainment – The best startup in Mobile Entertainment
in partnership with the Mobile Entertainment Forum
User Experience – The best startup in Mobile User Experience
in partnership with MEX.
Social Change – The best startup using mobile for social change
in partnership with MobileActive.org
Female Entrepreneurship – The best woman-lead mobile startup in partnership with Women 2.0 and the Women in Mobile Data Association
Good luck to everyone who enters.
Thanks to Rudy De Waele , @mtrends on Twitter for spotting this one and Tweeting the link.
Just in time for Black Friday shopping (the day after Thanksgiving when many stores have sales), the US PIRG presents ToySafety.mobi.
According to the site,
ToySafety.mobi is your mobile source for Toy Safety information and is published each year along with U.S. PIRG’s annual survey of toy safety “Trouble in Toyland.”
ToySafety.mobi gives shoppers and parents advice about choking hazards, noise hazards, and other considerations for selecting toys. There is also a contact form to report an unsafe toy to be added to the database.
The outbound links on the site are helpful, but not all are mobile friendly, such as the official US Government’s recalled toy database.
Back when I was dating, the cardinal rule was to never phone after the first date until at least three days had passed. The phone was too personal for such a quick contact and you could be seen as too aggressive or worse, too desperate.
Times have changed. Now it is OK to use your phone for contact immediately after the first date, provided you don’t speak into it. Texting something pithy or witty that night, or the following day, can often be viewed as a positive addition to the dating experience.
Now let’s move to the end of the relationship. Breaking up over the phone is not as good as breaking up in person, but not nearly as bad as – OMG! – breaking up via text. Same phone. Same message. Completely different level of cultural acceptability.
We respond to text messages faster than emails, and BBMs faster than texts. Same Phone. Same message. Same textual appearance. Different accepted practice.
It is OK to whip out the phone (among some dining parties) at a restaurant to perform certain tasks – like looking up a sticking point in the conversation – but not others, like answering an email or playing a game. Same phone. Same amount of time “away” from the conversation. Different effect on your friends.
The list goes on and on. What is it about the mobile phone that generates this long list of rules and practices that is not present on our other media?
The mobile phone is not “the third screen.” It is a very personal, interactive, communication ecosystem of which the screen is just one visual component. The mobile phone has developed, and is continually developing, behavioral mores and cultural norms that have very serious implications for marketers. Violate one of those norms, and the consequences can be severe.
Marketers who continue to treat the mobile phone as yet another screen to “repurpose content” or as a quick campaign add-on to “target a hard to reach audience”, do so at their peril. It will be the brands that actively leverage the behavioral use patterns of the mobile phone and their attendant cultural norms that will succeed.
Marshall McLuhan said “The medium is the message” and he couldn’t be more right as it pertains to the mobile phone. The emerging customs, lifestyle behaviors and prevailing standards associated with the use of the mobile phone are unique, real and significant.
When mobile-specific behavior and culture is taken into account, the mobile phone shines as a brilliant addition to a well crafted overall brand marketing strategy – witness AT&T and American Idol.
When ignored, it can have the potential to undo the hard earned trust of the very same brand. AT&T found that out when it violated customer privacy expectations by using the American Idol list. And worst of all, most of the customers who chose to break up with the AT&T brand as a result, didn’t even bother to inform them by sending a text.
This post is one of the ten reasons why mobile advertising has not reached its potential. You can access the other nine at www.mobilemandala.com
DUBLIN and WASHINGTON – Oct.13, 2009 – dotMobi, the company behind the .mobi top-level Internet domain, today announced the availability of its one-of-a-kind mobile keyword and .mobi domain bundle for Chinese brands and businesses, offered in partnership with China-based mobile keyword vendor Huarui.
Currently, more than 50% of China’s 1.3 billion citizens are estimated to be mobile subscribers – a figure that will quickly grow with the advent of 3G networks, which are just now arriving in China. And as with other countries, 3G mobile network speeds will drive the growth of mobile Web use. dotMobi’s unique mobile keyword and .mobi domain bundle is designed to meet the needs of businesses in that burgeoning mobile Web environment.
Trey Harvin, CEO of dotMobi, said, “The packaging of mobile keywords and .mobi domains is a global first. This gives Chinese site owners the flexibility of using the .mobi domain to help ensure successful discovery by search engines, while using both the .mobi domain and matching keyword in advertising efforts.”
Keywords – memorable words that a user can type into a mobile phone instead of a number – are very popular in China. And specific to the Chinese market, dotMobi will offer Web addresses in Chinese characters. These addresses in non-standard language characters are known as Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). The use of Chinese-character IDNs will allow Chinese-language mobile Web sites to be found more easily by search engines. According to Analysys International, more than 270 million Web searches were performed on mobile phones in China in the second quarter of 2009 – double the figure from a year earlier, which highlights the importance of search for the Chinese mobile Web.
“Huarai is pleased to work closely with dotMobi in bringing a unique solution to market for local businesses as well as global brands doing business in China. With 700 million Chinese mobile subscribers, a rising number are using the Web on their phones as carriers in China roll out 3G services. Being able to find content that works on mobile phones is extremely important, given the ongoing rise in mobile Web users, and that is why Huarui is happy to be collaborating with dotMobi,” said Mr. Ma Yanli, CEO of Huarui.
Availability
The dotMobi / Huarui bundle of keywords and Chinese-language .mobi domains will be available in a special sunrise period beginning at 4 a.m. UTC on October 29, 2009, and will finish at 4 a.m. UTC on November 28, 2009. Immediately after on November 28, 2009, general registration will commence, and the keyword / Chinese-language .mobi domain bundle will be available at standard prices.
More information for registrars is available by sending an email to IDNCHINA@dotmobi.mobi.
About dotMobi
Headquartered in Dublin, dotMobi is a worldwide leader in enabling the development & discovery of quality mobile content through innovative services, helping businesses and individuals reach the world’s billions of mobile phone users. dotMobi spurs mobile industry innovation by giving content providers the tools they need to ensure the Web will work on mobile phones with speed, accuracy and relevant content.
dotMobi is backed by leading mobile operators, network & device manufacturers, and Internet content providers, including Ericsson, GSM Association, Hutchison 3, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Syniverse, T-Mobile, Telefónica Móviles, Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), Visa and Vodafone.
For information on .mobi domains and all dotMobi services, visit http://mobiDomain.com, and on mobile devices, visit http://mobiDomain.mobi.
For more information, please contact:
Vance Hedderel
dotMobi
+1-703-485-5563
vhedderel@dotmobi.mobi
Gareth Davies
Edelman for dotMobi (Europe)
+44-20-7344-1216
gareth.davies@edelman.com
Danielle Siemon
Edelman for dotMobi (US)
+1-650-762-2947
danielle.siemon@edelman.com
Note from mobiEnthusiast: Thank you to Mobility.mobi forum member ChineseDomain, who offers this additional clarification:
From the above link, you will know who is CATR, China Academy of Telecommunication Research (CATR) of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII).
HuaRui (北京华瑞网研科技有限公司), its English name is “Beijing RITT – Net Technology Development Co., Ltd”. There are few materials about it and only have Chinese Websites http://www.rntd.cn.
From the Chinese Introduction of HuaRui, it is an Join-venture company under CATR. The 12114 Chinese wireless keywords operation is under HuaRui. HuaRui manage the whole 12114 wireless keywords database. The China IDN.mobi and Wireless keywords bundle API/management is developed by HuaRui.
Note: there are several wireless keywords in China, 12114 is the one controlled by HuaRui. HuaRui and CATR are only company, not MII.
It is just like the “Name” of a domain, but it has no extension. It has to be used with SMS service number, i.e. 12114 here.
Wireless keyword is an addressing technology established on the quick access in wireless Internet by mobility equipment. This technology is the simplest method for acquiring wireless website address. Wireless keyword establishes the bridge of wireless information communication between the Internet and mobile terminals so as to fundamentally solve the basic problems of the development of mobile informatization. The extensive application of this technology will enable mobile terminal users to acquire rich information from the wireless Internet with Chinese input method.
For Chinese IDN and Wireless keywords bundling, it means the 12114 wireless keywords, not others
How it works?
Send the “Keywords” with “Operations” to 12114 by SMS, then you will get what you you want by SMS. For example:
1. get the WAP url: send keywords “当当” to 12114, you will get the WAP URL of “当当网”(dangdang.com) by SMS in your mobile
2. vote: send “some keywords” with “your prefer name”, then you vote it by SMS.
3. Get the bus route: send “some keywords” with “start station” and “end station”, you will get the route from “start” to “end” by SMS.
4. Any more you want? It can. Donate Money, buy books, buy tickets…
It require backend application to support complex wireless keyword features.
Do you blog about mobile? Need some exposure for your blog?
I run the blog MobiEnthusiast.mobi. Lately, I have been involved in many projects and do not have time to give it the attention it deserves. For example, there are two major mobile conferences going on right now, one in London and one in San Diego, and they didn’t get covered due to time constraints. MobiEnthusiast gets decent traffic, though, and I would hate for it to fizzle out.
If you blog about mobile, and would like to make a guest post about something of interest to mobile internet readers, I invite you to submit a proposal for an article for publication.
There will not be monetary compensation for the article, but you will get author credit and a link back to your site. The exposure is considerable:
MobiEnthusiast had readers from 99 countries last month, and is featured on Guy Kawaski’s Alltop, dotMobi’s MobiThinking, DNJournal Resources, and other similar sites. Your blog entry will also be tweeted through my @mobienthusiast account, which has over 4,000 followers (I routinely block bots and sp*am accounts).
Ground rules:
1.) Must be mobile related
2.) Can’t be a sales pitch
3.) Must be business- and family-friendly (teens and kids find our site sometimes since we cover apps in their age group)
4.) Must link to a business- or family-friendly site
5.) Can’t be political (again, readers from 99 countries don’t always agree on politics)
I reserve the right to edit for grammar.
One article per week will be submitted for inclusion in Carnival of the Mobilists.
Interested? Send me a message on LinkedIn or email it to information [at] mobienthusiast.mobi.
