For most of the people Web 2.0 is just a buzzword - round corners, a bit childish web design but nothing too special. But there are some key elements that make Web 2.0 different from yesterday’s web (Web 1.0). Major difference is that Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information - people are able to create their own content and be part of democratic and organic web.
Main keywords for Web 2.0 are openness, collaboration, dynamic, interactive, context sensitive services, third party content. Vast majority of the Web 2.0 doesn’t have a good business model behind it, although recently we have seen a bit more of the ones that do. There is also a tendency that services with a business model tend to move away from Web 2.0 ideology (openness, third party content, content sensitivity). I think that Google AdSense is the best example of Web 2.0 with a great business model.
But what comes next?
I’m not talking about major buzzword Web 3.0, but we may call it Web 2.5 at least ;). We are going to see business models behind wikis, podcasts etc, so that third parties would also be able to earn revenue. We already have some great examples in that field, but this will become a MUST feature in near future. I believe that creating opportunities for third parties is the next phase in the web and it is almost here.
Context sensitivity, third party content and long tail are creating opportunities for everyone who has ideas, knowledge and will to do something. Everyone will be able to benefit from their knowledge and experience, and what’s most important - the business doesn’t have any borders or limits. One is definitely sure, mobile services are involved as well.
I have written about pros and cons of mobile marketing, bluetooth marketing and gphone, but what is the future of mobile marketing now where Skype, Google, Yahoo! etc are trying to push the limits and bring it to the new level? It seems that 2008 may be a breakthrough for mobile marketing, but experts are in other opinion. David Verklin, CEO of Aegis Media Americas, has said that 2008 isn’t the year of mobile, 2009 will be. I think it is partly because things in mobile field have developed rapidly and people/companies just have to get use to that. At the same time majority of companies and people still don’t have a clear understanding, that is why we would need a year to digest all this information. Here are some key points why 2008 won’t be a mobile’s year.
1. Data prices are too high
2. To use newer products you can target only to people with new devices
3. Engagement post-click. Lack of ecosystem partners and campaign integration
4. Buyers still say it’s hard to make a deal
5. 2.5G isn’t fast enough
6. We still need to use mass media to drive people to concentrated places, i.e. from TV to web
But these are just a few aspects. Manish Jha the CEO of Vantrix said that his company deals with interoperability issues - they have a database of 13,000 phone types. Think about it. You may have enough of a headache building your website for PC and Mac. Or just on PC, for IE and Firefox. Or just in IE, 6 vs. 7. Think that’s bad? Try 13,000 phones.
It seems that 2008 will show us will mobile marketing stay in puberty or do a breakthrough in marketing field.
Usually people picture SMS-services as part of web 2.0 or just web based solutions, but actually it is just one side of the SMS-services. Since the number of mobile devices in increasing all the time, SMS-billing has become a value adding solution. Cell phones are always with people and that is why people can pay for park, pay in shops, order a lightening to ski-track etc all the time notwithstanding how much cash does they have in their wallet.
Finns have came out with a great idea (read a whole article). From January people who are driving along highway 1 can open public toilets by sending a SMS. They explained that as a result of continued and endemic vandalism, the Finnish Road Administration has developed a system which allows travellers to open the doors to roadside toilets only by sending a SMS message to the number given by the Road Administration. So if you want to smash the toilet you’ll have to pay for that, the best part is that it is also possible to find out who as behind the vandalism. But if it was me I would use prepaid card
Today i was searching some practical cases about how companies have used Bluetooth marketing. Among others i managed to find quite good success story video, have a look:
It made me think how can it work even better. When you are going to buy a car it is nice to get pictures and videos about the car, but how could Bluetooth marketing bring people to buy a car. Well, there are automated parking machines everywhere, why aren’t we integrating Bluetooth marketing with those. A lot of people have hands-free system in their car with Bluetooth nowadays, it means also that Bluetooth is enabled. Just push through any car related ads and it will most probably reach the audience. To be sure we could also make the car owner pay for the parking via Bluetooth or just give out 30 minutes free parking… car owner gets free parking via Bluetooth i think you follow the pattern now. I think i can bring people to buy cars, tires or whatever.So what are we waiting for, let’s integrate Bluetooth everywhere and see what happens - do we refuse to enable Bluetooth in the future or not.
To be honest i have never thought that gPhone is the next great super phone, but it is much cooler to say gPhone than Android- open source operating system for mobile phones by Google
Well at last Google revealed some information and presented finally their new system. If you pay attention then you’ll also find out how are they going to send ads to mobile users. Small hint - see how can they use the notification function. As always it is wise to hear what Steve Ballmer has to say about new products, since he always has something sensible to say. Watch the videos and find out what Android looks like and what Steve thinks about it.
Yesterday i was reading emarketer’s newsletter and found an interesting writing about Google’s plans and why they decided to come out with so called gPhone.
At the moment there are at least twice as many cell phones than pc’s. It is obvious that Google cannot grow fast enough focused only on the PC’s. Idea is that Google should extend search marketing to new interactive platforms.
The chart below shows money today and in the future that Google can and can’t reach with classic pay-per-click Web advertising.
However, Google can reach those offline companies by pay-per-action (pay-per-call) over the mobile phone. Mobile search, maps and other applications enable Google to push search marketing principles into areas where the PC-Internet just can’t reach.
At least for me it seems logical step to make. Google has managed to become a real market leader and pioneer in Internet (for PC’s), they have ideas, knowhow, money and courage to do something crazy. I don’t want to predict anything, but i would buy Google’s stocks with hurry
Fortumo was invited to present at Baltic Development Forum, a high-level summit of business leaders and politicians in Scandinavia and the Baltics, taking place this week in Tallinn.
Rain Rannu, co-founder and CEO of Fortumo participates at a panel “Young Leaders of Today and Tomorrow”. Matching with the vision of Fortumo, his presentation focuses on the role of entrepreneurship in creating growth in Scandinavia.
In addition to showing snippets of information on the Facebook mobile page (m.facebook.com), application developers could use the API to add SMS interaction to their applications. SMS is great for allowing instant communication with the users wherever they are. However, it has also proved of being one of the most accessible and convenient ways to collect micropayments from users. There are several successstories of social networking sites in Europe, that have made fortunes using one or two simple premium SMS services neatly tied to the otherwise free website. For example, you can make your photo appear on the front page for some time, by sending premium SMS costing let’s say €1. This amount is then added to your phone bill and mobile operator is sharing the revenue with the website.
Mobile apps may be a good way to monetize, though, Shen [RockYou co-founder Jia Shen] tells us: “Lots of people are thinking about how to run micropayments through phone bills” as high schoolers don’t have access to credit cards for doing things like buying Facebook’s virtual gifts.
At its current version though, Facebook Mobile API does not seem to support premium priced SMS, nor do they share any revenue with application developers, but I’m sure they’re thinking about it. As contextual advertising does not work, I think that SMS could become one of the easiest ways to monetize Facebook apps.
I was surfing around other day and found an interesting startup called trutap. Usually all the fancy apps and innovative solutions are for wider audience, but actually they are only available in bigger countries like US, UK, Germany etc. Cool is that people for example in Malta can also easily use tartup. Trutap should be available in 210 countries across the world at the moment.
Trutap is a free mobile service that combines all the elements of people’s social life into one application. With trutap users can connect and converse with friends and family, wherever they are, whenever they want. Users have the ability to use IM, group message, upload text and pictures to blogs and send pictures via a mobile phone. It leaves all the the doors open for the future, i wonder when will we reach to the point where there isn’t any difference whether you are talking to a person face to face or via computer, cell or with something else. At the moment tartap is in closed beta, so it is possible to show your interest and maybe they will let you in.
What is trutap?
* Combines all elements of your social life into one application, for the first time
* Offers the ability to IM (MSN, Yahoo!, AIM (AOL) and ICQ), group message, upload text and pictures to blogs and send pictures via a mobile
* Instant Messenger (IM) - access all accounts and converse with everyone at the same time
* Blog and Photo Sharing - supports Blogger, Blog.com, Livejournal, Flickr, Friendster, Xanga and others so text and pictures can be uploaded
* Messaging - picture messaging, online status and group message with ALL-Reply functionality
* No need for special configuration and easy to download
* trutap offers privacy - restrict access and even block users
* trutap will also be available via a web browser from a computer shortly
* trutap is free, fun and it works. Go on, you know you want it!
Some time ago i introduced a new device Bluepod Media had developed and talked a little about bluetooth marketing. I might have been a little too untimely with conclusions. So i decided to invest some time and find out useful things about bluetooth marketing.
First what is bluetooth?
Bluetooth is an industrial specification for wireless personal area networks. Bluetooth provides a way to connect and exchange information between devices such as mobile phones, laptops, PCs, printers, digital cameras, and video game consoles over a secure, globally unlicensed short-range radio frequency.
Bluetooth also said as Proximity marketing is the localized wireless distribution of advertising content associated with a particular place. The process of Bluetooth based proximity marketing involves setting up Bluetooth broadcasting equipment at a particular location and then sending information which can be text, images, audio or video to Bluetooth enabled devices within range of the broadcast server.
It used to be that due to security fears or a desire to save battery life many users kept their Bluetooth devices disabled. To overcome this problems marketers have combined bluetooth marketing with advising via traditional media - such as posters, television screens or field marketing - suggesting people to enable their Bluetooth handsets in order to receive free content.
Nowadays mobile phones seem to have usually bluetooth switched on by default. Many other devices like car kits and handsets are usually bridged over bluetooth, so users now leave bluetooth switched on for easy connection. How effective bluetooth marketing will become time will tell.
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