The growth of the mobile industry shows no signs of slowing down. Smart phones are becoming the norm in North America, and elsewhere they are replacing computers. Tablet sales continue to grow at a rate of 150%  led by the enormous success of Apple’s iPad. (85% of the market). 25 billion apps have been downloaded to these devices to date, with games being the most popular category.

Further Google Android has garnered 53% of the smart phone market surpassing Apple iPhone market share, while Microsoft, who has teamed up with Nokia, is fighting for its piece of the pie with its soon-to-launch, Windows 8 platform. Are they too late for the party? Time will tell.

So with so many people using mobile phones and applications where is the mobile marketing opportunity for your business in 2012? Here are a couple of tips to get your started:

1. Have a Mobile Site

Mobile search will continue to grow and your first course of action should be to ensure your company has a mobile web presence. This is different from your website as a mobile site is lighter and easily rendered on mobile devices.

2. Build your mobile marketing customer database

This can be done in many ways and by experimenting with the various mobile technologies from SMS, QR Codes, NFC,  proximity marketing methods etc.. Think integrated strategies when building your database. A good mobile marketing strategy firm like Firo Communications can help you with the strategy, build and manage your mobile database, and optimize on the best combination of mobile technologies to ensure maximum promotion and engagement for your brand.

3. Decide on whether building a mobile app is right for you

In 2012 the flurry of activity around the application development market will continue as consumers look for more ways to streamline their busy lives, and to have fun. The almost 900 million dollar mobile gaming market in North America (soon to be 1.5 billion by 2014 according to emarketer) cannot be underestimated. This is where a lot of innovation and revenue will be focused in 2012.  You might find advertising in games would deliver better ROI next to your objectives than spending the dollars on creating your own application.

4. Measure what matters

Mobile analytics is very different from web analytics due to the strange environment. There are 1,000s of handsets, many different browsers, cookies are not supported, and IP addresses are not supported or accurate. It is important to clearly define your objectives and from there you can prepare the reports that matter to you. In mobile you can take advantage of image tags, link redirection, geolocation info, handset info, operating systems,  etc…

2012 is a brave new world for mobile marketing solutions and technologies are constantly changing. I invite you to call us at Firo Communications at: 1800 980-4146 ext 5 to discuss how we can assist you in harnassing the mobile marketing opportunity.

Apple has been secretly tracking user location and this has created quite a controversy over location privacy. Pete Warden, founder of Data Science Toolkit and a former Apple employee, and Alasdair Allan, senior research fellow at the University of Exeter say that Apple has been collecting this kind of data since iOS4.

Did you know that each iPhone or 3G iPad collects about 100 locations daily? And if this is not disconcerting enough, “if you lose your phone, then all your movements for the last year are on that phone, and can be taken off,” says Allan. Apple has even built an app that helps you take a look at your own data. You can find the app on the Internet at the O’Reilly Radar, along with a video interview with the researchers.

In its defense Apple released a statement saying the data file uncovered by researchers is not a log of a phone’s location, but “a list of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers nearby”. This apparently helps the device establish its location without having to listen for faint signals from GPS satellites. But this controversy over location privacy has  drawn the attention of the US Congress who has seized the opportunity to make sure federal privacy laws keep up with technology.

The issue of data privacy is not a new one. Security experts have been warning us about this for over a year. However, this new discovery raises questions about how much privacy you implicitly surrender by carrying around a Smartphone and, how much responsibility really lies with Smartphone producers in protecting the sensitive data that runs through their devices.

According to a CBS News report “researchers emphasize that there’s no evidence that Apple itself has access to this data. The data apparently stays on the device itself, and computers back the data up. Tracking is a normal part of owning a cell phone. What’s done with that data, though, is where the controversy lies.”

As the researchers themselves state, Apple doesn’t seem to be doing anything controversial with the data. However the fact remains: we are carrying around GPS, navigation and Internet able Smartphone’s. We are sharing our location through social sites like Foursquare, Gowalla and other location-based services without an understanding perhaps of the ramifications.

In my opinion Smartphone developers have a responsibility to educate consumers when it comes to privacy issues and consumers have a responsibility to protect themselves. But living in the Facebook Age where the social experience is built around sharing I am wondering how important privacy is to the next generation of consumers?

Change is accelerating all the time but no media channel is seeing a faster pace of change than the mobile media channel. It is hard to believe that it was only 1995 when Netscape went public with 75% of all internet users which were at that time based mainly in the United States. However, with the advent of the Mobile Internet more people globally are accessing the internet via mobile phone. This trend will continue and by 2014 the mobile internet will surpass desktop internet access. Growth has been strong, up 13% year after year since 2009. 48% of the worlds’ internet users are in five countries China, United States, India, Brazil and Russia. China has surpassed the United States in internet usage.  Researchers say internet adoption via mobile phone is ramping fast because of the proliferation of smart phones lead by the Apple iPhone.

According to Forrester’s 2007 Study on E-Commerce penetration online in the hot categories including: computer products, event tickets, books, music videos, and gift cards 20% of overall sales came from the internet.  In the toy, video game, baby product, consumer electronics, office supply, flowers and cards, jewelry, apparel, footwear, and movie tickets categories online sales represented 10-20% of overall revenues.  The adoption to mobile shopping is going to be a lot faster.The mobile internet is expected to lead online commerce in a much faster time frame – especially if you consider Rakuten in Japan as the example.

Each major computing cycle stage has seen ten times the adoption rate by users than the earlier stage. Mainframes (1960s) were replaced by Mini Computers in the (1970s), followed by personal computing in the (1980s) to desktop and internet computing in the (1990s). We are now in the mobile internet computing age (2000) – a time of unprecedented change and over ten times adoption rates.

Six trends are emerging at once which is further accelerating the development of the mobile web and adoption of mobile marketing

1. 3G – hit 20% penetration worldwide in 2010 and is now considered mainstream

2. Social Networking– the mobile phone allows content creation right from the handset because it can take photos and videos and these pieces of media can be posted immediately. Some brands have over 2 million Facebook fans that are starting to communicate via mobile messaging

3. Video – according to Cisco traffic will grow over mobile networks due to the rise and demand for mobile video streaming

4. VoIP / Google Voice – has become extremely popular amongst users. If Skype was a carrier (which it is not) it would be the largest in the world.

5.  Impressive mobile devices – iPhone and Android are leading the pack in terms of innovation but others are developing some interesting personal computing devices

6. Emergence of Location-based mobile services – Gilt, mobile coupons, push messages (i.e.txt from eBay letting you know where your bids are at), provide immediate gratification to on the go consumers.  While mobile app development has mainly been in the gaming area as the industry emerges we will see more mobile apps focused on productivity and business applications.

Increasingly mobile phone usage is becoming more about Data than voice.  A couple of years ago a typical mobile user spent 70% of their time on voice while today less than 40%.

North America is 5 to 10 years behind Japan in revenue through the mobile marketing. This is largely due to the monopolistic hold the carriers had. With change and more competition from overseas coming in we can expect to see a quickening to catch up to the rest of the world.

If 2009 was about Facebook and Twitter going mainstream, and 2010 was about Foursquare and social media going mainstream, then hang on for 2011 because its going to be about the continued ubiquity of the Smartphone. When you combine the Smartphone with the speed that social networking is growing there exists some lucrative opportunities ahead for businesses to connect.

Enter Geofencing…What is a Geofence? Well first of all this isn’t something entirely new. The practice of limiting mobile employees to a specific geographic location by tracking their whereabouts via GPS has been around and utilized in several industries for years. A Geofence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area. It can be dynamically generated as in a radius around a store or point location, or based on zip or postal codes, neighborhoods, sales territories etc..  However, there is an interesting aspect to Geofencing from a marketing perspective when you consider what happens when you combine this technology with the functionality of a Smartphone connected with our social networks.

When someone enters a Geofence the location-aware Smartphone can inform them and provide location-based messages via SMS. This is only effective if we permit these messages because with any good technology that makes use of your personal information (i.e. where you are physically located), there are concerns about misuse of information. However, if used with consent and the proper applications are accounted for then the advantage of location-based services far outweighs any issues of misuse.

Foursquare which boasts 100,000 new users each week requires that you “check-in” to activate the application. This is more and more becoming the norm with the first wave of location-based applications. Footprint Feed will broadcast your whereabouts and messages with links to your Facebook, Twitter, RSS and Google Buzz accounts with your permission.

So here’s the scoop. Apon entering the stadium to watch a football game you are welcomed to the Stadium’s Geofence over your cell phone. If you choose to answer a few questions you have the opportunity to be entered to receive coupons for drinks, receive contest entry forms, or let your social network know where you are. Maybe someone you know is in the crowd and you can hookup at half time? Kinda cool when you think about it.

There is no question that the future points to more personalized and permission-based advertising anywhere and anytime over our cell phone, but developers are still limited by what handsets will accommodate, and of course there is the issue of battery life to contend with.

Regardless, the future is not far off when your Smartphone will not just handle your communications needs but will soon be running everything in your household including your wife to the door. Here’s the picture. Imagine as you drive home from the office and enter your home Geofence that your Smartphone automatically sends an SMS text “Honey, I’m home”;  or notifies the dog through a song played on his collar that its time to retrieve your favorite slippers. And if this isn’t enough imagine your automatic martini shaker being activated from your Smartphone to create your favorite tasty beverage? Ah…the good life. Hey, its just a ring away.

I had previously written about what a game changer the iPad is but this video really proves the point. Enjoy!