Mobile Groove

In the last shopping days before the holidays my guest is Michael Becker—North America Managing Director for the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and a leader in the mobile marketing industry. He’s active in the industry as an entrepreneur, an academic and a recipient of  the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation Rising Stars Award for his tremendous contribution to the mobile and direct marketing industries.

I caught up with Michael (@mobiledirect) earlier this week to discu…

On the heels of SXSW it’s clear that SoLoMo is a fact, not a fad. I catch up with BJ Emerson , VP of Technology at Tasti D-Lite, the frozen treat chain with a cult following among health-conscious consumers as well as celebrities. The company doesn’t just get So Lo Mo — it has literally written the book on it, and will be releasing The Tasti D-Lite Way :Social Media Lessons for Building Loyalty and a Brand Customers Crave a bit later this year — so watch this space.

BJ, a champion of SoLoMo and an authority on the ways companies can and should harness mobile and location to super-charge Social CRM, spoke at dozens of industry events in the last year, where he discussed the importance of moving beyond mobile integration of loyalty and rewards programs to really understanding the emotions consumers feel and want to express as they engage with brands on this deeply personal level.

The approach certainly delivers results. This last year went on record as the “greatest growth” year in the history of the 24-year old brand. The brand —whose popularity has grown largely by word of mouth — is a veteran when it comes to customer engagement and social media marketing. Beyond U.S. growth, Tasti D-Lite is also expanding internationally, opening locations in Mexico, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.

In brief: Steve Ives, Taptu CEO, recounts the key takeaways of the new report showing the growth of Mobile Touch Web sites outpaces the growth of apps in the Apple and Android app stores why commerce rocks on the Mobile Touch Web PLUS a look a the Virtual Roundtable and what mobile industry entrepreneurs, authorities and pundits think about the Mobile Touch Web and the potential impact on how we live, work and shop.

Taptu, the search and discovery engine that indexes touchscreen content, reports that the Mobile Touch Web – websites and destinations created specifically for access via touchscreen devices such as the Apple iPhone – has grown 35 percent since last quarter. Unlike other mobile Web content, this content stands out through finger-friendly layouts and light-weight pages that are faster to load over cellular networks. The report, which covers January 2010 thru April 2010, also shows Mobile Touch Web sites rose to 440,100 from 326,600 in January.

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In brief: Building on the tremendous positive response to a recent talk on app marketing I catch up with Mike Lurye, Director of Product Marketing at Amdocs Interactive, to connect the dots in the models that will enable a developer/retailer ecosystem, pave the way for a Long Tail of app

It’s a milestone day for the fledgling app space. We have a solid report from esteemed colleague Chetan Sharma that gives a good overview of the size of the global mobile apps economy and some valuable insights into the regional

Next week MSG’s new contributor Eliza Dashwood takes the helm to summarize the industry stats and reports that matter most. In the meantime, Smaato, mobile ad optimizer and mobile advertising agency, has given MSG exclusive access to latest