The missing link in the coming mobile revolution is the payments piece. Various people and players have been struggling for years to come up with a solution that works across handsets, networks and operating systems. Then there's the issue of security and making sure that everything works as planned.
Currently, Amazon and EBay have made huge strides in making mobile payments, not just a reality, but a highly lucrative part of their business models. Although, huge these two players represent a tiny fraction of the universe.
This could be about change thanks to a company called BOKU, who have just started participating in a trial with AT&T. The system can work across platforms and is very simple from the user perspective.
"The process for making a payment is simple and convenient - users simply click BOKU to purchase and then 1. Enter their mobile number, 2. Receive a text message to confirm, and 3. Reply with the letter “y.”
BOKU has certainly attracted a lot of attention, including- Apple's.
It remains to be seen if the company waits to seize the big prize of offering its services across networks and handsets or goes for a quick sale.
If it's the former, there's the potential of this new service to radically change the mobile advertising space. If there's a simple, easy-to-use payment method advertisers will have opportunities to sell direct and making the advertising market instantly viable.
Posted by Ed Cotton
The beauty of mobile is that it unshackles people from their desks and lets them roam the real world and still have real-time access to their interactive world.
This is going to be an area where we will see artists and brands try to mine. This is not about just simply running ads on mobile devices, but creating new experiences by merging the real with the interactive and mobile.
One nice example is Musicity, a project from Jump Studios in London, that encourages users to experience buildings and architecture in a new way. Users access Musicity through a mobile application that shows them the geographic location of MP3 files they can play.
These locations are famous and important buildings and the tracks will only play when the user is at the location. It's basically a self-guided walking tour with a twist.
This is just the tip of the iceberg; the ability of mobility to reach users with unique content and experiences, based on their precise geographic location is going to be a gold mine for those with the imagination to exploit it.
Posted by Ed Cotton
"I used to write
I used to write letters
I used to sign my name
I used to sleep at night
Before the flashing lights settled deep in my brain
But by the time we met
The times had already changed
So I never wrote a letter
I never took my true heart
I never wrote it down
So when the lights cut out
I was left standing in the wilderness downtown
Now our lives are changing fast
Hope that something pure can last
It seems strange
How we used to wait for letters to arrive"
It's obvious that for an email and texting generation, letter writing can look quaint and old-fashioned, but that doesn't mean it can't be lamented. However, technology's advance is rapid enough to even make texting look quaint within the next 5 years.
Tom Foremski's latest blog post makes a quantum leap by connecting the advances in low cost HD video recording with the rise of the cloud, where it takes you is always on personal recording devices that become personal protectors.
"A personal fly will be able to wirelessly record many hours of video and audio onto a flash memory chip; some "flies" will use the cell phone in your pocket to send continuous video and audio data to a cloud-based storage service.
If you were mugged, your personal fly would record the event and police could use its images and audio to track down the mugger.
- A criminal could try to destroy the flash card storing that video -- but since some personal fly devices send their data into the cloud, a criminal could never be sure that destroying the chip covered their tracks.
Thus, all people wearing a personal fly would be protected as if they were all storing their data off-corpus.
- A personal fly might even be equipped with a panic button alerting the police, and local public surveillance cameras to retain their video footage to track escaping assailants.
-
Children will be a prime market. Parents will use these inexpensive
personal security devices to protect their kids. It might even be
considered neglectful if parents didn't protect their children with such
devices."
I am not so sure if Foremski's vision will see the light of day, I am sure certain people feel their security and safety is under threat, but they have other ways of protecting themselves. Maybe parents want them for kids, but I am not sure.
What's more likely is a world where video conversations happen on a more frequently, they won't replace texting or email, but they are likely to be the way most voice conversations happen.
There will be challenges for this technology because it's likely much of it will be stored in the cloud and archived. It will be interesting to see how this gets used- if it gets pulled for evidence in trials and if people use it to prove themselves in corporate situations. It's a notch up from email and could have powerful consequences for court rooms and boardrooms.
Beyond that, the idea of waiting to see someone will be antiquated, anyone and everyone will be instantly accessible and there will be significant marketing opportunities for brands to do something with video calls- all brands must have video phone numbers.
However, we aren't quite there yet and people still need to feel confident enough to video chat and video call, they need to know some kind of protocol and they need to create some rules for themselves.
There are massive opportunities here for hardware manufacturers and retailers of mobile devices to fill the void in this respect and teach people how to use the technology to their best advantage.
Posted by Ed Cotton
(2) The same thing is happening in the world of non-traditional media channels, the stuff that folks used to consider the peasantry to the royalty that was television, has grown to become big media in it's own right.
What I find especially interesting is that given how fast these channels have grown, they are still regarded by many in the marketing world as niche. The longer they think that way, the more opportunity there will be for the smart ones to leap ahead.
Just consider some of these numbers for a second...
Facebook now has 500 million members..
There are over 3 billion mobile phones in the world- and anyone who doesn't believe Google won't play a part in this new world had better think again, Android shipments for Q1 2010 grew by a staggering 851% in the US.
Twitter has just recorded its 20 billionth Tweet, that's 2 months after it reached 15 billion and five months after it reached 10 billion.
These numbers are huge and should send shivers down the spines of anyone who is trying to capture the attention of consumers by conventional means and it's now starting to show.
Data from the latest Nielsen survey shows that time spent on social media increased by over 40% in the past year.
It's time to stop considering social and mobile as niche additions to media plans if budgets allow and to move them up to the front and center of your thinking.
Posted by Ed Cotton
King suggests that the branch infrastructure could be one of the first things to disappear.
"Even if only 50 per cent of cash transactions are replaced by electronic stored value cards, debit cards and mobile wallets in the next five to ten years, the current ATM and Branch infrastructure that supports cash becomes almost untenable from a cost burden perspective. If you no longer need to go to the ATM to withdraw physical cash or currency, then everything you do on the ATM today can be done on your mobile App phone. If branches no longer need to deal with cash, then a large part of the reason for their existence disappears."
The branch has been the most visible form of brand communication for most banks through history and the point of physical connection and a demonstration of their strength and security. Take the branch a way and you have a whole new world.
Just as an example- take a look at these images of the old Williamsburg Savings Bank to see just how the branch was used to communicate the brand's power in an almost regal or Church-like manner. Ironically, the bank no longer exists and is now used as the site for a weekend flea market.
Posted by Ed Cotton
Both organizations are seemingly desperate for creative thinking that can help re-energize their withering franchises.
Sony has a couple of bets placed in the key areas of 3-D TV and is targeting $11.3 billion in 3-D related sales by 2013. Sony basically controls this world from broadcast outwards. It's morphing the now successful Playstation Network into a fully blown multi-media entity that goes way beyond its gaming roots. The company sees it as a way to sell everything from networked devices to content for the network. This will become even more of a challenge, since its arch rival Apple is now poised to enter the space.
The company's music division is also struggling adapting to a changing world and is opening itself up to a host of new ideas. It recently signed a deal with American Idol's Simon Cowell, recently helped some authors complete a sell-out stadium tour and is acting as a cultural consultant for one of Argentina's provinces.
Nokia is just reeling from Apple's onslaught and although the brand has huge levels of recognition and market share outside the US, it's starting to see Apple and Google as a considerable threat to its business. The company has a new head of Mobile Solutions, who made his task very clear on a blog post.
"Yesterday was the first day in my new job. I’m fortunate to say that I must have one of the most exciting jobs in the business. As head of Mobile Solutions, it’s my aim to ensure Nokia stays as the market and intellectual leader in creating the digital world. I’m under no illusions; it’s no small task.
Over the coming months, we’ll be advancing current projects and working to simplify the way we work in order to deliver products and services faster, and with a laser focus on quality.
I am committed, perhaps even obsessed, with getting Nokia back to being number one in high-end devices. Achieving this will require performance and efforts over and above the norm. This is a role I’ve personally been preparing for over the last 20 years. We have all the assets — including R&D and product development - at our disposal under one roof - to produce killer smartphones and market-changing mobile computers."
These legacy companies are going to have a tough time turning their business around because of the pace of the forces that are against them.
Twenty years ago, it might have been an easier task to re-position and bring a corporate giant back from the brink, but today it's that much tougher. The companies are so much bigger, so generating massive change inside an organization is almost impossible and then there's the technological landscape that's constantly shifting.
Both Sony and Nokia stood on the sidelines as their businesses shifted from hardware to software and were incapable of change because they lacked the core skills required.
The only way these guys will survive is by creating open cultures that encourage more risk taking and experimentation. Having success in the outlying areas will shows insiders the possibilities and become infectious.
Product and service excellence will be mandatory and then there's the small issue of brand. Both these brands are in the fashion business and have to recognize they need to re-inject the magic that surrounds their products; the products have to "wow" which makes marketing's task that much easier, it just has to cleverly amplify the good news. In recent years, both brands have been guilty of over-promoting products that simply can't live up to the hype.
One open opportunity for both brands is to engage their communities and outsiders more. With Apple operating a very closed and controlling culture, Sony and Nokia have a chance to do something very different.
Posted by Ed Cotton