Nokia’s recent acquisition of Motally highlights the importance of analytics for mobile advertising to achieve its full potential and take its rightful place at the center of brands’ multichannel strategy.

Motally provides a mobile analytics service for developers and content partners to understand, track and report in-application user behavior. The services to be acquired by Nokia focus on in-application tracking and reporting.

“In-application analytics are a competitive requirement in the market and this acquisition is designed to enable Nokia to offer our developer and publisher partners a great solution,” said Mona Kokkonen, spokeswoman for Nokia, Espoo, Finland. “We believe that the acquisition adds tangible benefits to Nokia’s developer offering, through improved analytics that will enable the Ovi platform to better track and report user behavior for developers and content partners.

“Improved analytics will enable developers and content partners to optimize product offerings,” she said. “Improved analytics will enable developers and content partners to optimize apps and the user experience.

“We cannot comment on what we will do now with Motally on board, nor the financials.”

Handset manufacturer Nokia also runs a mobile ad network. Its subsidiary Navteq specializes in mapping and location-based mobile advertising.

Nokia has been trying to court developers to its Ovi platform to compete with rivals such as Apple’s App Store, Google’s Android Market and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry App World.

[Continue Reading]

How can you show your app to a large group? What if you want to show an app to a client, an investor, or at a trade show? Extensive Googling reveals lots of people asking the question, but no good answer.

iPhone app displaying its output on a TV

I’m the organizer of the Raleigh iPhone Developer’s Meetup and it’s basically impossible for our group’s members to demo their apps. The “crowd people around a phone” method breaks at around four people. And our last meetup had 20 people!

Why can’t we be like Steve, using our apps on our phone, with the display projected for all to see?

I have a solution, if you’re willing to make a special build of your app that’s not meant for the app store. No jailbreaking required! Although a willingness to use private methods is.

Update: There’s a new version for iOS 4.0 here: http://www.touchcentric.com/blog/archives/123

How It Works

Inside the iPhone SDK exists a private API for video output. A class called MPTVOutWindow will display whatever it contains via the video output dock connector. (Thanks to Erica Sadun who discovered this class and figured out how to use it!)

I created a UIApplication category (that is to say, an extension to the existing UIApplication class) that uses MPTVOutWindow to mirror the device display onto the TV display. The goal was to make it seamless — drop the file into a project, recompile, and go. And it’s really just that easy, with a couple of caveats.

Caveat #1: apps that use this won’t be allowed into the App Store. That’s because it uses a couple of private APIs (the MPTVOutWindow class and UIGetScreenImage()). But since you’re already an iPhone application developer, creating a private build for your own use is normal.

Caveat #2: it doesn’t copy parts of the screen that belong to OpenGL. The class could be extended to do that, if you needed to.

Update: actually, it works fine with OpenGL. I demoed an OpenGL game using this at about 20 fps.

Getting Started

First, get a video out cable. It’s the same cable you’d use to watch videos from your iPhone on a TV using the dock connector (note: headphone-jack video cables from older iPods do not work). Apple’s official cable, Apple Component AV Cable, is $50 for composite video. A similar cable is only $14.18 at MonoPrice.com. Component cables are also available. `

How To Use

Add the file UIApplication+TVOut.m to your project. Also, you’ll need the “MediaPlayer.framework” framework, which contains references to the private API we’re using.

Somewhere in your code you need to call start. Anytime after your app’s primary window has been created, call startTVOut:

[[UIApplication] sharedApplication] startTVOut];

That’s about all you need to do. The application category handles everything necessary to mirror the device’s display. The startTVOut method creates the MPTVoutWindow, adds the necessary subviews, rotates them to match your app’s orientation, and centers them to appear properly on the TV. A background thread copies the bits from your main display into a view in the MPTVOutWindow. (You can configure the frames per second in the #define at the top of the file. 12 fps works well for me.)

In my test app, I call it from applicationDidFinishLaunching:. One thing to remember about applicationDidFinishLaunching: is that it gets called before the runloop starts, so your primary window isn’t on screen yet. I call it with a brief delay to give the runloop a chance to get going.

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication*)application {
// give the runloop a chance to start
[[UIApplication sharedApplication] performSelector: @selector(startTVOut)
withObject: nil afterDelay: .1];
}

And actually, you don’t even need to call startTVOut. The category can start itself. The code includes an override for a private method called reportAppLaunchFinished:. This undocumented method seems to get called after the app has finished loading. (Being undocumented, I’m not really sure what it does, or what the negative consequences of overriding it has. As far as I can tell, it’s only used to clean up the Default.png display.) I’ve commented out that method, since it’s a bit mysterious. But if you uncomment the method, it will automatically start the TV out display for you. No changes to your code needed!

Mirroring Other Apps?

Since this code runs as part of your app, it stops running when your app stops running. So it’s not a general purpose full-time video mirroring solution.

However, using other private methods, it’s possible to launch other apps while your app remains running, thus mirroring whatever app is in front. I’ve managed to mirror Safari (launched using the private openURL:asPanel: method). I’m sure you can figure ways to mirror other apps using some of the private app launching methods.

Not for Public Consumption!

Since this uses private methods, it would almost certainly not survive Apple’s app review process. To avoid getting your app rejected, you should remove this code from your release builds. This is pretty easy — set the current target to Release and uncheck the checkbox next to the file’s name. Also, if you call startTVOut manually, you’ll need to put some #ifdefs around that call, so it won’t get compiled into release builds.

Great, Where’s the Code?

Grab the latest code from here:

http://groups.google.com/group/iphone-developers-nc/web/UIApplication_TVOut.m

If you have any comments or questions, feel free to email me.

– Rob

The Web Is Dead? A Debate How the Web Wins How Do Native Apps and Web Apps Compare?

Two decades after its birth, the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services — think apps — are less about the searching and more about the getting. Chris Anderson explains how this new paradigm reflects the inevitable course of capitalism. And Michael Wolff explains why the new breed of media titan is forsaking the Web for more promising (and profitable) pastures.

Read the article here!

]]> http://fivemobile.com/uncategorized/web-dead-long-live-internet/feed/ 0 http://fivemobile.com/uncategorized/5-arguments-mobile-indispensable-marketing-plans-2/ http://fivemobile.com/uncategorized/5-arguments-mobile-indispensable-marketing-plans-2/#comments Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:31:40 +0000 Nafis http://fivemobile.com/?p=815 By Vanessa Horwell [source]

As the readers of this column will certainly agree, mobile marketing is no fad.

Rather, I believe that mobile marketing will – and must – become a central part of every successful marketing and visibility strategy, and I think it is well on its way to becoming just that.

However, the integration of mobile marketing into existing marketing strategies on a large scale will not happen spontaneously.

Instead, it will come about through a concerted effort to educate companies and other organizations about the benefits and unique qualities of mobile outreach.

This is not to say that the mobile marketing industry will somehow foist preferred tactics on unsuspecting businesses. The integration of mobile marketing will occur – and is occurring – naturally, organically.

Teach reach
Enterprises across the nation and the world are already realizing the tremendous reach and penetrating power of leveraging the mobile device for marketing purposes, and they are coming to this realization by discerning the trends and facts on the ground.

Hundreds of millions of Americans – nearly 90 percent of the country – use their mobile devices every day, and a solid majority of them express a desire to receive marketing messages of some sort through their mobile.

Redemption rates for mobile initiatives dwarf those of traditional marketing programs. Indeed, the cost per impression of a mobile campaign is often far lower than that of a mainstream media advertising campaign.

But you know this already.

The role we must play as marketers and mobile industry professionals is that of educators for the rest of the business community that has not yet fully embraced mobile marketing, or that portion which subscribes to the notion that mobile is somehow just a flash in the pan.

It is our job, in other words, to convince organizations that sitting on the sidelines of mobile is not an option, and that doing so carries an opportunity cost too high to sustain.

More constructively, it is also our job to continue touting the best practice and most effective strategies to get the most out of mobile communications.

Since standing on the street corner wearing a sandwich board is out, this proselytizing starts at the level of existing and potential clients.

In that vein, here are five effective arguments to present to clients on why mobile marketing ought to be an indispensible aspect of their marketing plans.

It is where your customers are
As I mentioned, mobile phone saturation is nearly complete in the developed world, and the use of mobile devices is on the rise just about everywhere.

This makes the mobile landscape the place of residence for most – not many, most – of the world’s consumers. Engaging in a mobile strategy opens up this vast market to any business that wants to participate in it.

By nature, it is targeted, relevant and actionable
Much as email and Internet marketing redefined direct marketing, the mobile space is further expanding businesses ability to engage customers in ways that they find appropriate and attractive.

Importantly, the mobile medium reaches purchase-ready consumers directly at the point of sale.

When we said this in the past, it used to mean that customers could have a marketing message on their device when they physically approached a retail outlet.

Now, with the maturity of mobile commerce and the flourishing of the mobile Internet, it means that customers can conduct the entire transaction cycle on their mobile device, from marketing to purchasing to consumption.

It is cost-effective
Mobile marketing features some of the lowest cost per touch and cost per impression of any marketing medium.

Without naming names, one retailer executed a mobile campaign with triple-digit ROI for less than 2 cents per impression.

Marketers that provide tactics with these kinds of returns for clients are also reaping financial rewards.

Agency holding company giant WPP, which owns JWT, Ogilvy and Y&R, posted 2 percent revenue gains in one of the softest marketing spend environments in years arguably on the strength of its mobile marketing performance.

It is brand-friendly
Since mobile marketing is still relatively new in the eyes of most consumers, it transmits a sense of innovation and forward-thinking for the brand that uses it.

Combine that with the ability of mobile marketing messages to be well-branded – a goal for every mobile marketing initiative – along with the high levels of brand interaction associated with mobile applications, and mobile marketing becomes a panacea for companies trying to define or strengthen their brand.

It is versatile
Speaking of applications, it is easy to forget that these ingenious, useful and ubiquitous marketing tools are barely four years old.

The Apple App Store, which has almost 250,000 applications for the iPhone and iPad, was not even open for business until 2008, a good year after the first iPhone was introduced.

Now, applications are the darlings of the marketing and advertising world, and an indispensible aspect of the smartphone experience.

This demonstrates that marketing opportunities on the mobile medium grow and change almost daily, and mobile continues to provide new and better ways to get a message out.

It is, in other words, one of the most versatile marketing mediums currently available.

MOBILE MARKETING IS not the next big thing, waiting for the next next big thing to come along and unseat it. It is the big thing, the game-changer.

In technological terms, mobile is the next evolution in communications, one that is redefining how, where and why people connect with one another.

It stands to reason, then, that it should have a similar effect on marketing and advertising.

Trends everywhere are pointing to this evolution, and businesses are on the path to widespread adoption. There will never be a year of mobile, or even a half-decade of mobile.

Mobile marketing will be a consistent reality for all businesses, everywhere. So it is time to let them know.

Vanessa Horwell is chief visibility officer of ThinkInk, Miami Beach, FL. Reach her at vanessa@thinkinkpr.com.

The following is an interesting blog post from the Harvard Business Review that challenges the notion that customers prefer live one on on service as opposed to automated services. As it relates to mobile, this may further explain the popularity of self service apps that banks, insurance companies, and medical organizations are gravitating towards.

[Source]

8:36 AM Wednesday July 28, 2010
by Matt Dixon and Lara Ponomareff

Have you ever walked into an airport, seen that there is nobody in line at the check-in counter, but still made a bee-line for the self-service kiosk? Better yet, have you ever waited in line for an ATM machine even though there is nobody in line for the teller inside the bank?

If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, you’re not alone. Most customers these days demonstrate a huge — and increasing — appetite for self-service, yet most companies run their operations as if customers prefer to interact with them live.

In our research on this topic (which we discuss in our recent HBR article “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers“), we’ve found that corporate leaders dramatically overestimate the extent to which their customers actually want to talk to them. In fact, on average, companies tend to think their customers value live service more than twice as much as they value self service. But our data show that customers today are statistically indifferent about this — they value self-service just as much as using the phone. And guess what? By and large, this indifference holds regardless of their age, demographic, issue type, or urgency.

This attitude toward self-service has been a long time coming. Two-thirds of the customers we surveyed told us that three to five years ago, they primarily used the phone for service interactions. Today, less than a third do, and the number is shrinking fast.

What is it that makes self service so appealing? Maybe it’s the efficiency of the interaction — the airport kiosk is probably faster than interacting with a check-in agent — but that wouldn’t explain why we go out of our way to take care of our service needs ourselves. On a psychological level, it might have more to do with the unique element of control that self service affords. Or, maybe this self-service love affair is a product of our infatuation with gadgetry and electronic communication. All fairly benign explanations, to be sure.

But here’s a hypothesis that would be concerning if it’s right: maybe customers are shifting toward self service because they don’t want a relationship with companies. While this secular trend could be explained away as just a change in consumers’ channel preferences, skeptics might argue that customers never wanted the kind of relationship that companies have always hoped for, and that self service now allows customers the “out” they’ve been looking for all along.

For managers hell-bent on deepening relationships with their customers, that’s a sobering thought.

Consider this: Running your company as if customers want to talk to you isn’t just expensive, it’s potentially undermining your efforts to build longer-term loyalty. Our research shows that customers who attempt to self serve, fail, and are forced to pick up the phone are 10% more likely to be disloyal than those customers who were able to fully resolve their issues in their channel of choice. As one CFO remarked to us recently, “When you think about the relative cost of live service and the disloyalty effect of channel switching…it’s like paying your customers to be disloyal to you.”

How often does channel switching happen? All the time.

We found that a staggering 57% of inbound calls come from customers who first attempted to resolve their issue on the company’s website. And over 30% of callers are on the company’s website at the same time that they are talking to a rep on the phone. That’s a lot of frustrated customers.

What do you think? Are we simply seeing a change in customer preferences — or a relationship on the rocks?

Matthew Dixon is the managing director of the Corporate Executive Board’s Sales and Service Practice. Lara Ponomareff is a research consultant with the Customer Contact Council, a division of the Corporate Executive Board’s Sales and Service Practice.

Put safety first! Don’t forget to download ZoomSafer, the app that eliminates the temptation to text while driving and keeps you connected via hands-free services!

SAN FRANCISCO–Facebook’s Open Graph is the reason there are Facebook “Like” buttons strewn across the Web on sites that Facebook doesn’t operate. Eric Tseng, Facebook’s head of mobile products and a former product manager of the Google Nexus One phone, told the room at MobileBeat 2010 that Open Graph is going mobile.

What does this mean? Simply that as Facebook rolls out its Open Graph plug-ins to partners in the mobile space, many more of Facebook’s social tools (such as that “Like” button, for instance) will show up in unrelated mobile apps that don’t have their own social-networking tools.

The more interesting use case that Tseng outlined during his talk focuses on mobile marketing, a familiar theme at any mobile tech summit. Tseng painted a scenario in which friend recommendations aggregated from your existing network of Facebook friends are knit together with location-aware advertising. The idea is that geo-fenced apps that might push out coupons or other promotions to lure customers into a store could also incorporate friends’ thoughts, and even location–thus adding context and personalization to what may otherwise come across as a spammy, intrusive hard sell.

Facebook’s Tseng wasn’t specific about the time frame, but did mention that the rollout will be ongoing, predominantly as updates to Facebook’s kits for iPhone and Android developers. “Please, please start building that functionality into your apps today,” he told the crowd.

If Tseng’s appeal to developers is any indication, Facebook is banking on Open Graph to bring it greater domination than its current 150 million mobile users.

Jessica Dolcourt reviews the latest and greatest smartphone apps, in addition to a healthy dose of Windows software. Email Jessica or follow her on Twitter.

[Android fragmentation is only getting started. Research Director Andreas Constantinou breaks down the 3 dimensions of Android fragmentation and argues how Android will become a victim of its own success]

There’s been plenty of talk of Android fragmentation, but little analysis of its meaning and impacts.

As far as definitions go, the best way to look at fragmentation is not from an API viewpoint, but from an application viewpoint; if you take the top-10,000  (free and paid) apps on Android, how many of these run on all the Android-powered phones?

For Google’s Android team, fragmentation is what keeps them up at night. Fragmentation reduces the addressable market of applications, increases the cost of development and could ultimately break the developer story around Android as we ‘ll see.

Google’s CTS (compatibility test spec) is predicated on ensuring that Market apps run on every Android phone. Android handsets have to pass CTS in order to get access to private codelines, the Market or the Android trademark as we covered in our earlier analysis of Google’s 8 control points – and yes, Google controls what partners do with Android, contrary to the Engadget story.

The 3 dimensions of Android fragmentation
Many observers would point to fragmentation arising as a result of the open source (APL2) license attached to the Android public source code. Reality however is much more complex. There are 3 dimensions of Android fragmentation:

1. Codebase fragmentation. Very few companies have taken the approach of forking the public Android codebase, as permitted under the APL2 license; Google innovates so fast (5 major versions in 12 months) that once you fork, the costs of keeping up-to-date with Google’s tip-of-tree are increasing prohibitively over time (Nokia found out the hard way by forking WebKit and then regretting it).

The main fork of the Android codebase is by China Mobile (the world’s biggest operator with over 500M subscribers) who has outsourced Android development to software company Borqs. China Mobile cares less about keeping up-to-date with the latest Android features as the China market operates as an island where cheap, fake (Shanzai) handsets are predominant. Mediatek, a leading vendor of chipsets shipping in 200-300 million handsets per year plans to make Android available, which could mean another major fork. Cyanogen and GeeksPhone also fork the Android public codeline, but they are designed for a niche of tech-savvy Android fans.

2. Release fragmentation. Google has released 5 major updates to Android in 12 months (1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.1 and recently 2.2), all of which introduce major features and often API breaks. You may notice how accessing the Android Market from a 1.6 versus a 2.1 handset gives you a different set of apps. So much for forward compatibility. AndroidFragmentation.com (a community project) has documented several cases of release fragmentation arising from releases which break APIs (e.g. 2.0 SDK breaks older contact apps) or from inconsistent OEM implementations (e.g. receiving multicast messages over WiFi is disabled for most HTC devices).

Release fragmentation is the victim of Google’s own speed of innovation – and Andy Rubin has hinted there’s more major releases coming out in the next 6 months. It’s clearly a sign of how young, agile Internet companies know how to develop software much better that companies with a mobile legacy; major Symbian versions take 12-18 months to release.

Release fragmentation is particularly acute due to the lack limited availability of an automatic update mechanism much like that found on the iPhone. We call the phenomenon ‘runtime aging’ and it is directly responsible for increasing the cost of developing applications. Tier-1 network operators see handsets in their installed base with browsers which are 1-6 years old – that’s how hairy it can get for mobile content (and software) development companies. [update: we understand that certain Android handsets come with a firmware update (FOTA) solution available from Google and other FOTA vendors, but it is installed reactively (i.e. to avoid handset recalls) rather than proactively (i.e. to update all handsets to the latest OS flavour)].

Google itself reports that the Android installed base is split between devices running 1.5, 1.6 and 2.1 versions (or at least for those devices accessing the Android Market). The detailed breakdown as of mid May 2010 is as follows:

Release fragmentation is also arises out of Google’s elitist treatment of its OEM partners. Google will pick and choose which private codeline is available to which OEM based on commercial criteria (contrary to Michael Gartenberg’s story). Take for example how Sony Ericsson’s X10 (running on Android 1.6) came to market after the Nexus One (running on Android 2.1). Ironically, both handsets were made by HTC. [correction: the X10 was developed by Sony Ericsson Japan]

3. Profile fragmentation. Android was designed for volume smartphones. But it arrived at an opportune time – just after the iPhone launch and just as consumer electronics manufacturers were looking at how to develop connected devices. This resulted in two effects that Google hadn’t planned for:

- Android was taken up by all tier-1 (and many tier-2) operators/carriers hoping to develop iPhone-like devices at cheaper prices (i.e. lower subsidies) and greater differentiation. That meant that while operators funded Android’s adolescent years (2008-2010), they niched Android handsets to high-end features and smartphone price points.

- Android is now being taken up by 10s of consumer electronics manufacturers, from car displays and set-top boxes to tablets, DECT phones and picture frames. The Archos internet tablet was just the beginning. Each of these devices has very different requirements and therefore results in different platform profiles.

The timing of Android’s entry into the market has therefore resulted in two implications related to fragmentation.

Firstly, Android’s official codebase isn’t suited for mass-market handsets (think ARM9 or ARM11, 200-500MHz). To get to really large volumes (100M+ annually), Google will need to sanction a second Android profile for mass-market devices. This is a Catch-22, as a second profile is needed to hit large volumes, but it would also break the Android developer story.

Secondly, every new platform profile designed for different form factors (in-car, set-top box, tablet, etc) will create API variations that will be hard to manage. That’s one of the key reasons behind the Google TV initiative and the Open Embedded Software Foundation. However even Google can’t move fast enough to coordinate (manage?) the 10s of use cases and form factors emerging for Android.

All in all, Android fragmentation is going to get far worse, as Android becomes a victim of its own success.But hey, would you expect to have a single app (and a single codebase) that runs on your TV, phone and car?

And there the opportunity lies for tools vendors to provide app porting tools, compatibility test tools and SDKs to help bridge the gap across the eventual jungle of Android fragmentation. And for those looking to better understand the Android commercials we offer a half-day training course on the commercial dynamics behind Android.

What do readers think? Do you have any fragmentation stories to share?

- Andreas
you should follow me on twitter: @andreascon

iphone 4G from GON on Vimeo.

iPhone 4

HTC EVO 4G

Nokia N8

Palm Pre Plus

HTC HD2

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