06/11/09 by David Wachs | Blog, Industry Blog | No Comments »
In the mobile industry, there’s a term for the mobile sites available directly on the phone, via the menu system. It’s called “on deck” content, which is nestled safely in the carrier’s ”garden”. On AT&T this garden is called mmode, on Verizon it’s VCast… each carrier has a marketing term, but they’re all just beautiful gardens. Oh the garden! Like the Garden of Eden, what a safe place it is! Where you can run free and frolic among $2.99 clips of Saturday Night Live and Bollywood, yellow pages search results, and ESPN news. Where everything you could ever need is just 5 or 6 clicks away! Why go outside the garden? Why look elsewhere when everything you want is available there? I mean, that wacky joke of the day page is all I need! And the carriers want me to stay here! I’m sure it’s out of their benevolent love and acts of kindness! I’m sure it’s not due highly profitable contracts and revenue share agreements!
And then there was the shiny fruit…It beckons you. Tempts you from the tree of knowledge. With its curves and its shiny screen. It’s an Apple on the tree. And now the Apple only costs $99!
You touch the Apple. And then everything you now know changes. The garden walls collapse and you have the entire internet in front of you. You now realize there’s life outside the walls. There’s more than one place to get those Bollywood clips! And they’re FREE or at least cheaper because they don’t have to rev-share with the carriers!
It was only a matter of time, really. The death of on-deck. Of course, technology and market demand trump contracts. And those precious on-deck deals are slipping away.
With the new $99 iPhone (which I think is more impactful than the expensive 3GS) and other powerful and cheap “superphones”, we’re seeing more and more a democratization of the mobile experience. More people can afford it, more people can explore it, and more people can finally leave Eden and see what the mobile internet is about, and not just what the carriers are paid to show us.
04/15/09 by Cellit Staff | Blog, Marketing Blog | No Comments »
Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry series of phones, announced the creation of the Blackberry App World, a mobile application which allows Blackberry users to easily download special applications and software for their devices. This is only the latest entry into a growing list of companies trying to provide venues for both paid and free applications for mobile phones.
Recently, the Wall Street Journal had a great article about whether small businesses should invest in a mobile website (see article). In it, the author, Roger Cheng, suggested that the business pay attention to their customers – and if the customer experience could be improved by doing so, to go ahead and consider it. In much the same way, I would encourage small businesses to also think about mobile phone applications.
Ask yourself: Will my target consumer have reason to interact with me while they are on the go? I’m online all day at work, and have access at home – so it’s not often that I want to conduct research or order products via my phone. Rather, it’s when I’m in transit, or stuck on the train – or, as happens often, waiting for a meeting to begin, that I find myself playing on the phone. During those juncture moments, are your target customers going to want to interact with your business? Facebook, Twitter, AIM (all social networking companies) are perfect examples of great mobile applications that target activities I’m most prone to want to conduct in those brief down moments on the go.
Ask yourself: What information can I provide them quickly and easily that would be beneficial on a phone? Addresses, hours, directions and some other ‘critical’ information usually provides me with enough detail to get through 90% of my needs for most businesses. However, special circumstances do indeed warrant more in-depth information. When purchasing /renting a home, attempting to make dinner reservations, or finding out bar specials and entertainment offerings – obtaining more information while on the go becomes a defacto must have. For Rent Magazine has identified that their users need apartment information and specs on their mobile devices; MGM Grand realized that their consumers (travelers) wanted to interact with their entertainment, dining and other services while on location (and thus, not near a computer) at their facility.
As Cheng points out, the answers to your consumers questions will define your need to invest in either a mobile WAP site or a mobile application. There are additional considerations to think through, as the multitude of mobile platforms makes designing an application for all phones extremely expensive. However, if you again apply consumer logic to the decision process – it’ll guide you to the right mix of features, functionality, and platform.
02/08/09 by Cellit Staff | Blog, Industry Blog | No Comments »
I was riding the EL home the other night, and sat next to a guy reading diligently on his Kindle (Amazon’s attempt at making a Ipod-like device that revolutionizes e-books). Without trying to be obvious, I was fascinated by how friendly and intuitive the device was. Through a click of a button, he was able to turn pages as if he was reading a book.
This is a mobile blog – so why do I write about the Kindle? Well, Google has just announced something dramatic that potentially trumps all the inroads that the Kindle has made. Just last week, Google made available 1.5 million e-books that are available online, for free, to users of their Android operating system (the Google Phone) or to users of Apple’s iPhone.
Granted, these books are all in the public domain – so while there are some great classics, there are plenty more that are obscure and haven’t been in print in many, many decades. Eventually, this model could be extended to include more recent titles as part of an ecommerce solution.
The implication is clear, however. The phone is the new laptop; and the addition of features like e-books is only more proof that this little tool is becoming an increasingly important portion of consumers lives.
10/10/08 by Cellit Staff | Blog, Industry Blog | No Comments »
Although most in the wireless industry thought it was inevitable, it is still significant that, according to new data from NPD Group, the iPhone has already become the top-selling handset in the United States. This achievement is all the more remarkable when you consider that Motorola’s Razr, the handset that the iPhone displaced at the top in the third quarter of 2008, has held the top spot for 3 years straight.
NPD analyst Ross Rubin called the ascension of the iPhone over the Razr “a watershed shift.”
While the mobile internet had been a feature that most consumers could live without until recently, it has clearly become such an essential tool for mobile subscribers, along with text messaging and other advanced data features, that even phones as expensive as the iPhone are selling in record numbers.
“Four of the five best-selling handsets in the third quarter were optimized for messaging and other advanced Internet features,” said Rubin.
The analyst said he discerned a growing divide in the handset market between voice-centric phones and those optimized for data and Internet usage. Fully 30% sought a device with a QWERTY keypad, up from 11% in the prior year. U.S. carriers combined now offer 50 models of smartphones, while in Europe that number is nearly 250 models.
Cellit is heeding the call for robust mobile campaigns which incorporate consumer’s new thirst for more interactive mobile experiences. While text-messaging remains the backbone of Cellit’s suite of services, new features, such as WAP sites and custom iPhone apps have been added to their repertoire to engage the consumer in ways that simply weren’t possible until smartphones and other data-enabled devices appeared.
