Mobile Groove

Beyond the athletes who will become household names over the next few weeks, the London Olympics are the coming-out party for multi-screen viewing.

Yes, the shift to multi-device multi-tasking is real — in fact, it’s a trend we have observed for months that will have a profound impact on mobile marketing. Already the Pew Internet and American Life Project tells us that half of all adult mobile phone owners now reach to their mobile devices to enhance and enjoy their television-watching experi…

Following a chain of successful events in the U.S., the Mobile Breakfast Series touches down in London for the first time Friday (June 29). The event — aptly titled Operators and OTT, (over the top) and organized by mobile analyst and authority Chetan Sharma­— explores how mobile operators can remain relevant in an industry where the spread of affordable bundles, the increased popularity of group messaging apps like WhatsApp and the advance of over-the-top players (Google Apple & Co.) …

The Asia10 markets (Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam) will collectively surpass the 1 Billion smartphone landmark in 2015, according to a new white paper published by mobile advertising company adsmobi. The forecast — which is based on the data provided by research company mobileSQUARED  — shows that the “continued rise in smartphones is encouraging a faster-than-expected adoption of mobile internet and app u…

CHETAN SHARMA MOBILE BREAKFAST SERIES PREVIEW: Frank Meehan, part of the Horizons Ventures VC team, tells us how mobile operators can stay relevant by moving innovation activities outside of the company (like Telefónica Digital), or by identifying and claiming a lucrative niche (example AT&T and its Digital Home connected home and security offer).

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While messaging traffic continues to grow, the revenue generated by mobile operators has declined significantly. So – What has c…

Mobile 2D barcode scanning is paving the way for a range of exciting and lucrative schemes hyperlinking our physical world of things (all objects including product packaging, printed media, TV, billboards, equipment – the works!) with a digital world or websites and destinations filled with information, advertising, applications downloads, coupons, processes and special offers.

The last weeks have seen a slew of announcements in this space, heralding a new phase in market development, new thinking about the business models (particularly the value to the enterprise) and new urgency in the race among companies across the emerging business ecosystem to get barcode strategies in place – fast (!).

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In brief: App stores are hot, but what are the challenges and where is the opportunity? This analysis draws from a variety of sources – including a recent Airwide Solutions survey, an exclusive interview with Vodafone UK’s Jonathan Kelly, and a thought-provoking post from Alfred DeRose, Co-founder & Managing Director of Tego Interactive, a Web and mobile product and services company providing development and integrated solutions for the needs of major brands, content publishers and mobile network operators – to provide some practical answers.

App store frenzy? That’s what comes across when you connect the dots in the raft of recent announcements. Mobile operators ranging from U.S. mobile operator Verizon Wireless (which has borrowed a page from parent company Vodafone to launch a carrier-wide app store based on Java ME that can target more than one device) to China Mobile (which tells TelecomAsia.net that it’s moving full-steam ahead on its Mobile Market app store where it plans to take 50 percent cut of app sales revenues) are jockeying for position and a piece of the action.

Interestingly, much of the operator excitement centers on the new mobile advertising opportunity app stores represent. As Jonathan Kelly, who heads up Vodafone UK Marketing, recently told me in a briefing: “I see some quite interesting opportunities in apps and widgets. A likely scenario could involve a sponsored widget, where the brand actually works with us to create a widget or application that we then prominently place in our app store.”

Beyond that, Jonathan sees other opportunities around actually embedding advertising within a widget. “You could have some sort of utility widget that’s providing weather, and there’s no reason why certain relevant companies may not wish to have some advertising embedded within that.”

At the other end of the spectrum, Apple’s App Store, RIM’s BlackBerry App World and Android’s Marketplace may have been the first to the party, but they have company. The recent JavaOne conference kicked off its annual convention by opening the doors of the Java App Store, a global marketplace for Java apps headed by Sun Microsystems. It comes on the heels of other app store news elsewhere in the industry including Nokia’s launch of the Ovi app store, a storefront offering available in Australia, Singapore, Spain, Italy, Germany, Russia, Ireland and the U.K, offering 20,000 titles (a fraction of which are apps) to an estimated 50 million Nokia devices globally.