Mobile Groove

The Mobile Mavens are back for the first monthly podcast of 2011 with a look at how universities are harnessing mobile to connect with students. A raft of recent press and reports shows that universities are becoming more creative in how they use mobile – specifically text messaging — to connect with Millennials on their mobile phones.

From alerts about course materials and exams to invitations to join mobile forums and continue class discussions, mobile is front of mind with an increasing number of institutions and educators.

BTW: A great way to keep up with this exciting progress is simply to follow #mlearncon (as I do) on Twitter. That’s where the discussion that began around the awesome conference (of the same name) organized by eLearning Guild continues.

People want what they want. As a result, they have come to expect – even demand – content and services in tune with their lifestyles and life stages. On mobile – the fiercely personal device we take with us everywhere – the requirement for relevancy is even greater, which is why personalization is poised to become a mobile megatrend. Put another way, personalized recommendations and schemes that effectively expose us to the content we are most likely to appreciate (content ranging from websites to marketing messages to mobile apps) are gaining traction.

One mobile operator that “gets” the strategic importance of personalization (if only to satisfy our own requirement for convenience and reduce the heavy-lifting when it comes to choosing our entertainment) is CSL, the leading mobile operator in Hong Kong with 2.6 million subscribers.

Social and mobile are combining to create some amazing experiences. From location-linked games to social shopping schemes, there is money – and competitive advantage – in harnessing location information to power our interactions with the people and communities around us. This trend also turns up the pressure on companies to focus on the quality of the data and develop new ways to get us involved in creating and curating our own local maps and information.

This is just one of the topics heading the agenda at Navigation Strategies USA,

We wrap up 2010 with a special holiday edition of the Mobile Groove podcast looking at the mobile stats and trends that really matter with mobile author and authority Tomi Ahonen. He connects the dots inQ4 results to name the top smartphone makers and reveal the magic number Apple has to beat in holiday shopping sales to become the number two after Nokia.

We also discuss Tomi’s recent response to Robert Scoble (via his blog Communities Dominate Brands) and why Tomi can be so sure Nokia will maintain it’s global lead (even though Tomi openly admits Nokia is “invisible” in the North American market). The answer lies in the numbers, and Tomi dissects the figures from analyst houses IDC and Strategy Analytics to determine Apple, RIM Blackberry and Nokia market share in the regions (North America, Europe, ROW- Rest Of World).

In line with our focus on barcode innovators we wrap up the week with an exclusive interview Mike Wehrs, CEO of Scanbuy, a market leader whose solution consists of a multi-barcode reader application and a code management platform.

Over the last year Scanbuy has positioned itself at the forefront of new applications and activities to link the common 1D barcodes (UPC) to digital information and destinations. Scanbuy has also put out new releases of its ScanLife barcode scanner software for the Android, BlackBerry and iPhone operating systems – so they read 2D barcodes and 1D barcodes from packaging and traditional media.

We’re back with the last podcast of the year to analyze the rapid (and rather unexpected) advance of mobile commerce and review the mobile website launched by U.K. retailer Marks & Spencer’s (M&S) earlier this year.

In line with the focus on last-minute holiday shopping I join with my colleagues — Kim Dushinski and Linda Daichendt – to look at the stats that speak volumes (literally) about the shift to mobile shopping (or at least using our mobile phones to research purchases).