ThinkMobile Conference Recap

This is the year for mobile. Apparently that’s been said every January since the infancy of the industry, but here’s 5 themes from this past week’s ThinkMobile conference that hint it’s true this time.

Forget the PC, your mobile device is the most personal thing you own:

It’s with us almost every waking hour of our lives. We don’t leave home without it. It’s with us when we’re at our computer and lays with us when we’re watching TV. It follows us to the bathroom and gives us directions to to the nearest subway. Its alarm wakes us up, that little screen the first thing we see every day. If you’re anything like me, then that’s about 18 hours a day with unfettered access to calls, txts, web browsing, app engagement, mobile shopping, etc. That’s an awful lot of time.

And it all ours. Laptops, TV’s, iPods, camera, we share those. I’d lend my laptop away for a day or two, but never my phone. Because we personalize it more than any other device we own. We add cases, stickers, trackballs, and applications. As Jordan Berman of AT&T said in his ThinkMobile keynote, “mobile is the remote control for your life.” And your life only.

Mobile gets social media out of the house.

In his keynote, Dopplr CEO/co-founder Marko Ahtisaari made it clear mobile and social media were destined to be intertwined. The main social media actions – status updates, photosharing, casual gaming, and friending – are highly mobile oriented. Twitter was the first to really harness the power or mobile, Facebook already has applications built soley for mobile devices, and the rest will follow.

Ahtisaari sees the real power of the merge in location (or place = location+culture) based media. Twitter where you’re going from your mobile device and see what friends are heading there as well. Use your mobile device to see which Facebook friends are currently at the concert you just walked in to. Rate the restaurant you just left via your phone and get recommendations from your social graph or where to go next.

Both mobile and social media are expanding rapidly, jump on board where they converge.

Mobile let’s marketers get to you, anywhere.

Direct mail, we’re over it. Banner ads, losing relevancy. Search marketing, we’re trending towards spending more time on mobile than the computer. Mobile is the most direct, personal and (soon to be) trackable marketing platform, and we’ve just scratched the surface.

People might not check every email, but it’s rare we disregard a text message. Display banners on mobile sites are already showing greater conversion than their online banner ad bretheren. Engagement campaigns tying txt to live events and in-store promos have been all the buzz. So what’s next?

* Google is making it easier for marketers to implement and track mobile ad campaigns across multiple carriers and ad types. Robert Victor, of Google owned Doubleclick mentioned a full scale ad-placement and analytics engine is in the works. Even better, it should sync with Google Analytics and Google AdSense, meaning simplified metrics across mobile and web. Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo are working on much of the same.

* Stephen Slezak, and Digby are optimizing current eCommerce sites for mobile devices. You’re in transit and an email pops in with a special offer good for 2 hours. You won’t be able to get to a computer, but the link takes you to a Digby designed mobile site that makes purchase a breeze. Digby’s best campaign bailed out guys last V-Day with its 1-800-FLOWERS site.

* Many advertisements now have mobile ’shortcodes’ for special deals or more information. Companies are creating their own mobile sites (Sophia Stuart said Hearst Magazines Digital Media has 9 mobile sites which get 5MM page views and 350k unique visitors a month). Pre-roll ads can now be tagged to streaming video on phones. Your phone can find you deals in the supermarket. The list goes on.

While other ad channels are having trouble lately, there is no reach issue with mobile, only more and more options.

Mobile means you can be entertained, anywhere.

Soon everything will be able to be stored or streamed on your mobile device, and everyone’s rushing to capitalize. CBS has a $4.99 iPhone app that broadcasts all 64 NCAA toury games real time to the phone. Pandora just built apps smartphone users to stream their personal radio stations from their phone. NBC set up a simulcast of 24 hour Olympics coverage last Winter, allowing smartphone users to catch Michael Phelps from their handheld.

As consumers get used to this, they’ll want more. All companies will have to learn how to entertain their customers on the go.

Mobile is so much more than just a phone.

Mobile is becoming a convergence of almost every other piece of electronics you own. It’s a TV, a camera, a radio, a window to the web. The best thing? The iPhone, Google Android, and others allow anyone to build new features for the devices and add them as applications. Apple has more than 27,000 apps in the iPhone store. Many of them are free, but the ones that aren’t have brought in $800MM in revenue to split between Apple and the App developers.

Soon your phone will be able to do almost anything you want it to and you will be able to determine just what that is.

5 Things: From Mitchell Baker @ Mozilla

Mitchell Baker is impressive. Her creds: Chairman – former CEO – of Mozilla Foundation, responsible for the creation of Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. She’s also a trained lawyer,  extremely sharp, and knows how to control a room. An Example; yesterday’s talk at Columbia J-School’s Stabile Student Center. I had to go. Firefox has shaped the way I interact with the web. Plus, I take whatever opps I can to learn from smart people.

Here’s 5 things Mitchell’s talk taught me and how they apply to whatever you’re working on (quotes are paraphrased):

1. “Most people don’t know there’s a difference between a browser, search, and Google.”

Firefox is used by approximately 250MM people in the world. 30% of Mac users make it their default browser over Safari. 20% choose it over Internet Explorer on PCs. Seem small? Most people don’t even know it’s an option. Default browsers Safari and IE come loaded on our computers as pre-installed windows to the web.

Think about it this way instead. Mozilla’s small non-profit has been able to reach and convince 250MM people worldwide to try a variation of something they already have on their computer. This, at a time when most people don’t even know why that matters. It’s happened because the people that use it love it and force their friends to download.

Apply this: Many people might not know enough to understand why your product is better than the competitions. They’re not stupid, they just never needed or wanted that education. But being far better than your competition can make you stand out to those who do know, and there’s a good change they’ll tell (or force) their friends to take action on your behalf.

2. “It’s important to understand the power of distribution.”

It doesn’t matter how good your product is if it never reaches people. Mozilla’s lived off the WOM from it’s evangelists, but distribtion on Mac and PC operating systems is the real prize. Firefox may be included in upcoming Microsoft and Apple operating systems if the EU and US DOJ have their way. Plus, Mitchell made sure to tell us, one company only has data for their company, distrubution channels have data for many. That’s a huge benefit in the digital age, where constant optimization comes from instant data analysis.

Apply this: Keep distribution in mind when your making anything for a mass audience. Always remember that the distributors may have far more data to draw on that you do.

3. “People won’t pay to view websites, but they will trade some personal info and usage data, and that allows us to make our products better. We’re always trying to figure out the right balance there.”

Yes the web tracks what you do. Scary? Sort of. It also makes our lives a lot easier. Stored passwords we don’t have to remember. Easier to navigate websites as designers gather more data about where our eyes move on the page. Suggestions for new products based on what you’ve bought in the past. We can get everything for free. On the web we pay with our attention and information.

Apply this: There’s an abundance of information about your past, present, and future clients on the web. Find out how to find, gather, and organize it to interact with them.

4. “Firefox has 200 employees and more than 10,000 worldwide volunteers.”

10,000 people work on Firefox for free. The whole thing is a massive, worldwide, group project. Mozilla will occasionally fund get together and conferences in different countries to introduce the volunteers to each other, but most of the collaboration happens over the web. They’ve designed unique rules for idea submission and acceptance. The whole thing is based on recognition and respect in this online community.

Apply this: If people love your business, they’ll help out for free. Treat them right, give them a opportunity to be recognized for their work and a forum to meet each other, and they’ll deliver for you.

5. “Mozilla funds itself via search ads”

Most of Mozilla’s money comes from that little box on the top right of Firefox. Google gives them a slice of whatever ad revenue they make from the searches.

(Google Search in Firefox ^^)

Apply This: Support Firefox. Don’t go to Google.com to search, do it from the browser.

–

Keep learning from Mitchell on her Lizard Wrangler Blog.

See more Columbia J-School events here.