As an interactive agency, we at Squeaky know that our industry is constantly changing and being aware of what’s trending and what’s popular is an important contributing factor to how we go about producing great work for our clients. So we have put together a killer presentation that takes an in-depth look at vital statistics surrounding mobile marketing.
The mobile platform—as you may already know—is growing at an extraordinary rate in terms of users and more people are purchasing smartphones each day. Mobile devices are everywhere we look and have become embedded within our society so much that many of us have grown dependent on them in terms of storing our information. Think about it. How many phone numbers can you recall by heart?
Last year Apple blew everyone away with their new tablet and 2010 was appropriately dubbed the year of the iPad. This year however we can see an emergence of new tablets and mobile devices to compete with it (see 2011 The Year of Mobile). This is good news for marketers and advertisers because it creates a whole new interactive platform on which to engage your audience. These aren’t the—dare we say—lame, barely functioning devices of the Zack Morris era but rather devices that help to create a richer experience for the user as well as provide new ways for marketers to reach their audience and gather data.
Check out the presentation above and stay tuned for more in the near future.
When developing your web site it’s important to consider what platforms it will be accessible on and incorporating Flash typically means an exclusion of certain devices such as iPads and iPhones. Well, not anymore! It seems as though Adobe is attempting to do away with this issue by creating a new component that converts Flash to HTML5.
We all know that Adobe and Apple have been butting heads over lack of Flash on iOS devices for a while now and this announcement comes as a pleasant surprise to us. Rather than ignoring the issue Adobe is taking it head-on with this project in an attempt to make Flash viewable on all devices. Although this converter (Codenamed Wallaby) is still experimental it could be just the beginning of Flash converting software.
For developers and agencies such as ourselves, this could mean an easier way to develop mobile sites for our clients. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves because this software is only in the beginning stages and has a long way to go before it is widely adopted. Stay tuned.
Source: Nielsen
They’ve done it. Google’s Android OS has finally taken the lead in the Smartphone market share. While Apple and Blackberry RIM are tied at a solid 27%, Android OS has the lead at 29% of the market share (Nielsen).
It’s always good to know how the mobile market is divided so that we may efficiently market our brands to the largest, most relevant audience. This is especially true in terms of development as well. It would be silly to develop applications for let’s say, Windows Mobile OS right now since it has only 10% of the market share. We’re not saying its completely insignificant—because it’s not—but it would just make more sense to market or develop for a platform with a larger user base then port to one with less users.
One interesting difference is the fact that Android (Google) doesn’t develop and sell their own hardware like Apple and Blackberry. According to TechCrunch this puts the latter two in a better position but could Android’s presence on multiple smartphones be a contributing factor to its rapid rise? Will we see the same happen for the Windows Mobile OS? We are interested to see what changes a year from now.
Squeaky recently launched our first in-house product: Crowdbeacon. Crowdbeacon is a location-based service that answers questions about restaurants, shopping, services and activities in your immediate vicinity. The answers come from other users, local experts, business owners as well as tips pulled in from Foursquare and reviews from Yelp. It’s been almost three weeks since we launched (seems like three days!) so we wanted to give everyone an update.
So far we can honestly say we’ve been THRILLED with the response. We started Crowdbeacon with the thesis that location-based applications have a huge potential to deliver value to users where and when they need it—and after initial user feedback we feel this has been validated. People ask all kinds of questions like, “I just stained my shirt! Where can I find a blouse in midtown ASAP?” or “Anyone know a good, honest handyman for home repair?” and even, “Where can I find a dog park to pet a Husky?” To all of these questions and more, Crowdbeacon has been able to deliver. Our location-based and real-time results have a lot of users excited about Crowdbeacon. Tweets like this tend to get us excited as well:
“Posted a question on the Crowdbeacon app and got a damn fine suggestion in less than a minute. Sweet. #crowdbeacon” -@thebrownsquare
We’ve also had great input from ‘power-users’ who have been making suggestions to improve Crowdbeacon. We’ve since put those suggestions into action, allowing users who don’t have an iPhone to ask questions directly to the site, as well as making the app itself more user-friendly with an improved posting process and easier sign up.
Finally, our marketing and PR team has been doing a great job getting the word out. Articles about Crowdbeacon have been featured on TechCrunch, LifeHacker, GigaOm, Bloomberg, Thrillist, Killer Startups, and The Next Web. To top it off, we got a small bump in our numbers (wink, wink) after becoming a featured app on the Apple App store last Thursday!
As you can imagine, our team has been working ’round the clock (literally) since we realize there’s a long way to go. For everyone out there who’s been helping us spread the word and checking out the product—THANK YOU. We certainly couldnt have done it without your support.
Onward!
Last year was the year of the iPad. It was the hottest gadget out but it lacked competition. This year, manufacturers will be striking back with their own tablet PCs.
Now the mobile market consists of not only phones but these tablets and their toned down cousins, the e-readers (which have vastly evolved from the primordial Kindle). In 2010 85% of American adults owned a cell phone while about 4% owned a tablet PC or e-reader.
With further competition between manufacturers, these devices will continue to be improved in both performance and price and we predict they will continue to grow in ownership throughout the country as well. After all, when cell phones first came out only rich kids like Zack Morris could afford one but eventually they took off and became a huge deal.
What does this mean for marketers? It means there will be plenty of new mediums on which to market your product or brand. Developers can already include advertising within applications they develop for Apple’s lineup of products and we are certain there will be more of that to come with the release of these new devices.
Overall, the mobile market is a virtually untapped resource but continues to expand which means exciting new opportunities for us marketers to develop creative and innovative ways to reach consumers.
