How to Use Multimedia for Business Marketing
Cellit is featured in the INC 2010 Guide to Small Business Marketing using multimedia. INC is the daily resource for small business information for entrepreneurs.
From the Front Lines: Mobile Predictions for 2010
Well folks, it’s that time of year again. Time for another round of predictions. Looking back, it seems that the last time I ran through predictions was in (yikes) 2007! Many (actually most) of those predictions came true. This time, I’m going to expand my predictions to cover the entire mobile industry, and not just text messaging. As Cellit is a full-service mobile technology/mobile marketing company (covering text messaging, mobile web development, and iPhone/Android app development) so too are our predictions. Let’s get to them:
- Symbian will drop from first place to forth in global new smartphone sales. Lacking a competitive operating system, Nokia’s Symbian group will be trumped by Blackberry, iPhone, Windows and Android. Android will also overtake Windows’ position and become the third largest smartphone OS, after iPhone. Symbian will only beat out Palm, and Samsung’s Bada. (Hey, these are predictions people, so I don’t need to back them up with reasons for my forecasts!)
- iPhone app development will curb as companies come back to the mobile web. With over 100,000 apps out there, the novelty of a mobile app will compare poorly to the ROI. Thus, companies will turn to developing robust mobile web sites that support multiple platforms.
- Flash Lite will finally become an acceptable offering. I predict Android will be the first smartphone platform to support Flash, and other platforms will follow (first Microsoft, then Blackberry, with iPhone taking up the rear). This will lead to the next revolution in mobile “apps”, quite possibly more substantially than the iPhone app revolution.
- Bada will fail.
- The Twitter craze will fade. Marketers will realize catering to Twitter followers is a very specific demographic, and will turn their attention towards developing direct relationships, through text messaging or some other means. Hopefully, this will mean less “follows us on Twitter” ads everywhere.
- Text messaging adoption will continue to grow. We’ve only seen the beginning, folks. The power is the network. The more “texters” out there, the more people will want to learn to text. 1.5 TRILLION texts were sent in the US in 2009. Look for another 150% YOY growth. That’s right: I’m pegging 2010 at 2.25 trillion texts.
- Mobile CRM in 2010!. Companies will follow best-of-class leaders (like Chase, GPS Insight, Sam’s Club) in developing SMS-based interactions with their customers. It’s not about marketing anymore! It’s about developing deep relationships with customers via mobile interaction.
- Mobile companies will be top on the list to be acquired. As the economy turns in 2010, acquisitions should continue to be on the rise. Expect to see some of Cellit’s larger competition get acquired. If you had to ask me, I’d say iLoop and Vibes, as both have investors that will need an exit.
- Sombreros will be fashionably worn at the Cellit office. As Cellit continues to grow, we will be expanding further into Mexico, providing a “one stop shop” for North American messaging solutions. I know this probably isn’t pertinent to most of you, but man is this exciting for us here at Cellit! Plus, our sangrita consumption is going to skyrocket. Maybe an opportunity for some of our readers to go long in tomato juice futures?
- POS providers will begin integrating mobile couponing extensions into their offering.Cellit provides a suite of mobile couponing systems, from the Widgit POS overlay, to APIs for integration with mainstream and custom-built POS systems. POS providers will turn to companies like Cellit in the coming year to build the couponing modules directly in to their platform, which can serve as an additional recurring revenue generator for the solution provider.
Well, that’s it for this year. Many will come true, some will not. Regardless, it’s our intention to do our best in the coming year to helpyour mobile predictions come true. If there’s anything we can do, please do not hesitate to reach out. And, if I don’t get the opportunity to speak with you, please have a happy, prosperous and (most importantly!) healthy 2010.
Best always!
David
Going Mobile
Cellit is featured in the PMQ guide to going mobile for small, independently owned pizza businesses. The article is featured on pages 40-43 of the December 2009 issue.
All-In-One Devices And The Rise Of Augmented Reality
Mobile phones used to be just that… a phone that wasn’t tethered to a land-line. Early models came with a duotone screen, an alarm clock, and a four-function calculator. Text messages were unheard of, and the only mp3 players on the market were no-name brands and the first-generation iPod. Drive space was limited to little more than the capacity of the SIM card.
Lately, with improvements in miniaturization enabling us to hit the lower limit of comfortable cell phone size, electronics makers have been trying to cram every technology imaginable into the devices they sell. Today’s smart phones come with a multitouch-screen with millions of colors, camera, mp3 player, GPS, compass, accelerometers, 4GB (or higher) hard drive, and of course, microphones, speakers, internet, and text messaging.
Augmented Realty. For Rent apartment-finding Augmented Reality App written with Layar.
Similarly to how the six simple machines were considered the building blocks of early inventors, builders, and engineers, these phone capabilities have become the basic components of every popular phone application available in mobile stores. Google maps combines the GPS and internet capabilities to provide directions and location information. Shazam uses a microphone, mp3 capabilities, and internet access to identify and locate music. Thousands of other apps use every capability of the phone to meet practically every need available. Applications that don’t combine at least two of the capabilities of the phone are either novelty or incomplete.
One of the most impressive combinations of available technology has been augmented reality applications. Augmented reality, or AR for short, supplies you with additional data as you observe the environment around you. The concept for augmented reality has been around for decades. The head-up display has assisted military and commercial pilots for decades. And now, phones are capable of mimicking this behavior for the average person.
So, what’s needed for augmented reality? Well, for starters, a camera. The camera can see what you see, and provide an image to represent “reality” and augment with additional information. Unless you’re in a very limited environment, you’ll need internet access to pull down information about what you’re looking at. With its narrow angle of view, you need a compass to tell the application what direction you’re facing, and the accelerometers to provide information about vertical viewing angle. The GPS relays location information and pinpoints the location of points of interest. The combination of these technologies allows for a wealth of possible applications.
Despite the diverse mastery of technologies required to make an AR application, two prominent projects have already popped up in iPhone and Android stores. Yelp is credited with writing the first AR iPhone application, providing information about local businesses. Layar soon followed, with a free, open framework for searching for and creating your own AR applications. I took this opportunity to develop an apartment-finding application for For Rent Media Solutions (see picture above). It was easy, fun, and a great learning experience.
There’s some debate on how large this market will grow and what it will mean for businesses. As a pure technology guy, I appreciate the potential that it offers – and have confidence that the sales guys will find opportunities for the technology to provide value to brands.
So what’s next for mobile phones? What other technologies can we cram in there? An RFID reader? Infrared? Improvements in existing technology could bring us in some interesting directions… A better camera could read barcodes, and GPS improvements can provide better detail on your surroundings. Perhaps soon we’ll be able to create a 3-d model of our environment using our phone’s camera and GPS, just by holding up our phone as we walk through it.
We live in interesting, exciting times.