Mobile Groove

It’s a busy next couple of days as I put the final finishing touches to my mobile advertising webinars. First is my contribution (together with Dusan Hamlin, Managing Director of the agency Inside Mobile) to Multi-Channel Advertising, a webinar taking place this Wednesday at 10:00 am CET (GMT +1:00), organized by Mobixell, a provider of a comprehensive range of mobile media solutions enabling service providers to deliver mobile messaging, mobile advertising, and mobile TV. (You can register here.)

The webinar dovetails well with my mobile advertising projects, including Mobile Advertising Research U.K., a research project MSG has undertaken to expertly document the state of the mobile advertising industry in the U.K., identify growth opportunities in the emerging mobile advertising marketplace, and benefit stakeholders, shareholders, and consumers worldwide. It draws upon primary research, including in-depth interviews with 15+ mobile executives, agencies, and mobile networks, including an interview this week with Freddy Friedman, Mobixell Head of Advertising. With my MSG hat on I will also request a later briefing with Mobixell (for MSG) to discuss recent news, new customers, and the role of mobile in a multi-channel advertising strategy.

I’ve also wrapped up my contribution to a series on audio-visual presentations on mobile advertising produced by Henry Stewart Talks (HST), which will likely go live in early June. HST, a company with a 35-year tradition, provides access to world class seminars by leading thinkers and authorities from around the globe in one online resource.

The company commissioned me to summarize the findings of both volumes of my extremely popular mobile advertising white paper series (sponsored by Bango): Mobile Advertising for Newbies, which provides a how-to guide to mobile advertising and analytics; and Mobile Advertising For The Masses, which examines the market opportunity for running campaigns in a mobile social networks.

I am pleased to have the opportunity (as part of HST’s Marketing & Management series) to educate the marketplace about mobile advertising and the pivotal role of mobile analytics.

Fresh from Mobile World Congress (MWC), and energized with ideas, insights, and a slew of exclusive interviews. I’m also inspired by the positive response to the Netsize Guide 2009, a comprehensive mobile almanac I wrote that has already been downloaded a whopping 2,000+ times since it formally launched last Tuesday during MWC. Some of you twittered that you had difficulty downloading the 360-page tome, but those issues have since been resolved. It seems that no one expected so many people to access the guide over such a short period of time.

Another surprise, numerous requests during the launch party for me to autograph copies. We captured it all on film as the MSG team – coordinated by our own Stuart Willett – was on-location conducting interviews with a who’s who of attendees including Blinck, Irdeto, T-Mobile Hungary, Universal McCann, Velti, YouTube, and Zed. A special treat for me: Connecting with Thomas Husson, Forrester Senior Analyst, and a colleague whom I highly respect.

In a special contribution from Mippin, a mobile portal providing mobile phone internet users access and enhanced discovery of optimized content for mobile phones, we look at Mippin Mobilizer, the company’s PC-based tool allowing publishers – including MSG – to mobilize and monetize web content to target new and existing internet traffic from mobile phones. Justin Baker, Mippin Marketing Manager, explains the process of mobilizing MSG step-by-step.

When Peggy recounted the main points of her recent – and extremely pragmatic –mobile advertising white paper and hinted that the next step might be to mobilize MSG, we decided the timing was right to provide publishers with a how-to guide to mobilizing their content using MSG as a real-life example.

And what better time that the week of Mobile World Congress (MWC), an event that showcases the best in the mobile space and celebrates an astounding 4 billion connections.

Behind the scenes, sparks continue to fly, prompted by the MSG exclusive interview with Jonathan Bulkeley, Scanbuy CEO. His only formal response to a recent and controversial CTIA white paper — work-in-progress that outlines the ecosystem and infrastructure needed to make 2D barcodes a viable business – counts 8 11 in-depth comments from industry insiders and executives. It will take a few design tweaks before comments feature on the MSG home page, but the debate is too good to miss. Check out the discussion here and the post that started it all here.

My last post on 2D barcodes sparked an interesting debate on the recent CTIA white paper, a work-in-progress that – though a step in the right direction – prematurely calls a winner in the barcode battle, and patently fails to detail the contribution of each company/player in the emerging ecosystem. I am pleased at the amount (and quality) of feedback I received, both in the form of comments on MSG and in personal emails asking to take the discussion off-line, and overjoyed that companies have asked me to elaborate my arguments in a white paper, a proposition I am seriously considering.

But today I can say the response to my post (and the observation that key stakeholders such as advertisers should be consulted at this stage) is finally complete. Scanbuy CEO, Jonathan Bulkeley – who has so far respectfully declined opportunities to formally respond to the CTIA white paper – has reached out to MSG to set the record straight and provide his side of the story.

Mobile changes all the rules, allowing us to live, work and play in a new collective state of hyper-connectedness. Add the ability of the mobile to blur the boundaries of the virtual and physical worlds – and we witness a shift that will affect every industry that relies on the Web for communications, business growth and interactive marketing.