Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

This article was originally published at AdAge.com, where we contribute content for the Digital Next blog.

In the 1995 film Johnny Mnemonic, the title character, played by Keanu Reeves, has a cybernetic brain implant that stores vast amounts of data. Today, we all have this capacity, but the mechanism is in our hands, not our heads. Smartphones are helping us become, well, smarter – both expanding our memories and giving us access to the web's collective knowledge.

In many ways, the mobile device has become a mnemonic device - literally a tool to help us remember things. We might email information to ourselves, keep grocery lists on our mobiles, or performs a search to recall a fact. Increasingly, though, we simply take photos. We snap pictures of things we want to remember later or share with others. What was that book I wanted to get? What's the name of that restaurant? What do you think of this shirt? We are all developing photographic memories.

This behavior is increasingly common across age groups and income brackets. Cameras are now standard on mobile phones and as a result, they are now one of the most often used features. 85% of all mobile users worldwide have taken a photo with their phones, making it the second most popular mobile content activity after texting (88%), according to eMarketer. iPhones are the most popular camera used to take photos posted to Flickr.

This reasoning behind this is simple: When you're on the go—in a "mobile environment"—it's much quicker to snap a photo than to type in text, and the phone is a camera that's always on us. I'd even argue that's why photo-sharing apps like Instagram and Path are becoming so popular –we're creating quick, expressive status updates through pictures. Forget 140 characters, a picture is worth a thousand (at least). Rising generations will rely more heavily on graphics and imagery, and it will affect the way they perceive the world.

Several companies have taken notice of this behavior and developed innovative tools around it. Evernote's service lets you store photos with tags and also makes printed and handwritten text inside your images searchable, so you can find them quickly. Amazon Remembers, part of Amazon's mobile application, lets you create visual lists of things you want to remember while out and about. If it's a product, Amazon will even try to look up what it is. Interestingly, there's no artificial intelligence at work here; it's all done by humans through Mechanical Turk.

Google, on the other hand, is pioneering technology that conducts visual searches. Through a recognition algorithm, the Google Goggles application can identify different kinds of objects and places, such as landmarks, logos and books. The company recently announced some experiments they are doing with brands—Disney, Diageo, T-Mobile, Delta and Buick—that link product recognition to advertising. Snap a photo of the ad and unlock content such as recipes, movie trailers, or nearby locations. Right now, there needs to be a call to action on the creative, but in the future, every ad could be recognizable and the behavior becomes automatic.

I'd place my bets along with these companies – that visual memory and search is the future, and that images will rival text as the preferred input mechanism on mobile. So, in order to stick in consumers' heads, brands will need to get in their phones.

Emerging applications and services will certainly help marketers do this. Looking forward, I imagine Google could tie the visual product search technology they acquired with Like.com to Google Goggles. Snap a photo of a pair of shoes or a jacket you liked, and the service recommends a similar one you can buy. Social shopping could extend into brick and mortar stores; take a photo of a jacket and your friends will know exactly what it is and where they can find it. Visual search will also become key to social media monitoring. Brands can see when people are posting and sharing photos of their products online.

Today, there are some low-tech ways brands can "optimize" their products and ads for cameraphones. One is to simply produce creative that invites picture taking and sharing. I recently passed a couple ads on bus shelters that beckoned passersby to take a photo. One was a boxing gym in Brooklyn that offered a discount if you brought in a picture of the ad. The other, for a vacation destination, had a blank space for you to get in the photo to put yourself in the scene.

In stores, I've actually seen employees tell people poised to take a picture that photography and video was not allowed. This was not in storage rooms or behind counters either, this was someone snapping a photo of a menu board. Retailers should not only refrain from discouraging this behavior, they should make it easier for people to do it. Simply positioning products and signage in a way that invites a good shot could make a difference.

Since people often share the photos they take, why not encourage it? In dressing rooms, there could be signs suggesting people take photos of their outfits to get friend's opinions, or upload them to a service like Fashism. Customer service departments could even suggest people send in photos, rather than ask them to describe their problem.

Our mobile devices will continue to become our second brains, and they will never forget. Better make sure your brand is ready for its close-up.

1. Foursquare's New Partnership With PepsiCo Takes Focus off Places

"The platform enables users to link their Safeway loyalty accounts to Foursquare, and earn rewards from check-ins. It is designed to be scalable, which means any other national retailer--perhaps even Walmart--could link its existing loyalty program to Foursquare."

2. Offline, meet online: a marketing experiment with Google Goggles

"We’re working with five brands—Buick, Disney, Diageo, T-Mobile and Delta Airlines—to extend some of their offline marketing to the mobile web. They have “Goggles-enabled” some of their print ads, movie posters and other media. When users take pictures of these with Google Goggles, they will be recognized by the app, and users will have the option of clicking-through directly to a mobile destination from the brand."

3. Mobile User Experience Trends on the Horizon

"Touchscreens are a more natural way to interact with the digital world, and are proliferating. Children are having their first digital experiences with touchscreens on their parents' mobile devices, which are defining their future interface expectations. There have already been stories of children trying to use the familiar pinch-to-zoom gesture on the physical Polaroids in family photo albums."

4. QR Codes: A Point of View

"America is now undeniably on the cusp of a new mobile age, which is the result of a confluence of smartphone innovation, advanced mobile infrastructure and consumer-centered application development... In the Digital Lab white paper, we take a look at the origins, mechanics, applications and prospects for QR/2D code technology and share our take on whether it will have a place in the American marketing landscape for years to come."

5. Domestos unveils app to track toilet flushes

"The 'Flushtracker' app lets users follow what happens when a flush leaves their toilet. When users type in the toilet’s location and the time they last flushed, the app reveals the position, speed and distance traveled by the flush... It aims to raise awareness of the fact that more than 2.5 billion people have no access to clean and private toilet facilities and are more vulnerable to diseases as a result."

6. In Italy, secret pop-up restaurant gives directions via SMS

"On the designated evening, an SMS arrived revealing first the location where aperitifs were to be served. Next, an hour before dinner, a second text message told participants where to pick up their table, chairs and chosen meals. Finally, after that a third text message revealed at last the location of the dinner."

7. Starbucks is 2010 Mobile Marketer of the Year

"Given the nature of its business and the length of time people spend in its locations, and how people use Starbucks for numerous types of computing, whether it be using a laptop or, often, a mobile phone, the brand has made its offering a beacon for that, leveraging a wide variety of mobile experiences..."

8. 3 Degrees of Wikipedia [iPhone]

"If you go to Wikipedia, and try to navigate from one article to another you will probably learn plenty about both subjects. More importantly, you are very likely to remember the learning because our memory works through connections. Created by Ivan Zhao, Three Degrees of Wikipedia makes this into a social game."

9. Gravity - Helping the right information find you

"Your Interest Graph is your own personal electromagnet. It pulls the best stuff to you based on your interests and leaves all the noise at a safe distance where it can’t distract you. We build your Interest Graph by analyzing social data (like tweets, retweets, status updates, likes and shares) to create a holistic picture of who you are and what you’re interested in."

10. Different Approaches to Mobile App Design

"Figure out if you need a native app first. Web apps can be a viable solutions in many cases. Unless your solution requires access to OpenGL, hardware access, or device content –you might not need a native app. Web apps can store data offline, access GPS info and more enhancements are coming... If you do need a native app, there's three approaches to consider: One Trick Pony, OK Corral, or Trojan Horse."

Tweetworthy is a weekly roundup of the most shared tweets from @MobileBehavior. You can follow us on Twitter here.

Early last week Extra Reality announced a new augmented reality platform called Popcode. It improves the mixed reality experience using image recognition.

Popcode shows the camera picture on your phone's screen just like when you go to take a photo. But view a picture or poster with augmented reality content and it comes to life on the screen - the app adds extra content as if it were actually there in the world around you.

[It uses] what is known in the trade as a Markerless Augmented Reality platform. That means you can add additional content onto any image (providing it has enough texture). You do not need to print large black-and-white markers to be able to add Augmented Reality (AR) content to the world using Popcode.

With Popcode, taking part in an augmented reality experience feels smoother and even magical. Like we've seen with apps like Google Goggles or kooaba, computer vision could let us leapfrog barcodes entirely. In 2007, the BBC described this as "hiding messages in plain sight." This could change the way we interact with everything from paper maps to everyday t-shirts.

Click here for a few examples by Popcode.

Building upon its visual search capabilities, Google Goggles now provides Android users with visual translation. By simply taking a picture of a word or phrase, Goggles will recognize the text and give the option to translate.

Here’s how it works:

* Point your phone at a word or phrase. Use the region of interest button to draw a box around specific words
* Press the shutter button
* If Goggles recognizes the text, it will give you the option to translate
* Press the translate button to select the source and destination languages.

The first Goggles translation prototype was unveiled earlier this year at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and could only recognize German text. Today Goggles can read English, French, Italian, German and Spanish and can translate to many more languages. We are hard at work extending our recognition capabilities to other Latin-based languages.

Technology is changing the way we navigate today's global culture. We see auto translation already happening on the desktop web (see Google Chrome). Toshiba is trying to tackle automatic mobile voice translation, but with 6,000-plus languages this still remains a difficult task. Written language is relatively standardized, so Goggles translation and apps like PicTranslator, while not perfect, are a lot more possible.

Computer vision gives mobile devices the ability to capture and analyze the real world, extending our innate abilities. With mobile translation apps, future generations may not see foreign languages as much of an obstacle. This is the Singularity, folks.

[via googlemobile]

1. Retail Evolves: Shop Out In The World With Visual Search http://j.mp/9TaDmq

2. Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" in Twitter twist http://j.mp/dauhLi

3. Barcodes help objects tell their stories http://j.mp/bhOXuk

4. Postcode Wars: London Is Your Game Board With Nike GRID http://j.mp/d2lwcA

5. History Helps Turn Foursquare Into a One-Player Game http://j.mp/dplGNE

6. iPad + Skype + retro handset = ridiculously fun mobile phone http://j.mp/aq071f

7. Google will make Goggles a platform http://j.mp/dzc8yL

8. Consumer Reports calls out Microsoft for “advocating sexting” in Kin ad http://j.mp/dvAncI

9. Boy Scouts Add a New Digital Badge http://j.mp/coF8Oq

10. Perspective: Miso's Somrat Niyogi on "Checking In" to Entertainment http://j.mp/aRx555

Tweetworthy is a weekly roundup of the most shared tweets from @MobileBehavior. You can follow us on Twitter here.

Search continues to develop, as users are eager to find information that is most relevant to them. Google goes real-time, Aardvark crowdsources, and Bing does images. With powerful sensor technology packed into consumer mobile devices we see a Search 2.0 taking shape, one that takes elements of the physical world to serve a mobile audience.

We’re already seeing elements of this emerge: voice-to-text technology is making it possible to completely skip the touch screen keyboard; Google’s voice search recognizes what you say to pull up results; apps like Shazam and Midomi run recorded music across their database to match and present an exact artist and song. Soon it could be possible to determine location based on sound levels and texture being fed in through a microphone. This kind of data is beginning to be collected by companies like NoiseTube.

The phone’s camera is also a sensor being used for search, as we’ve seen in new augmented reality applications. Zehnder’s Voodoo Experience helped users find information about performances, attractions, and services within a specific venue. Using Foursquare on Layar brings a similar experience to finding nearby restaurants and bars. Google Goggles lets users snap shots of landmarks, books, or art to pull up search results. Whisper Deck introduces a more experimental interface for accessing information using augmented reality. With physical goggles and microphone, users can immerse themselves in data while away from the computer.

These new methods for search add a new dimension to finding what we want, when we want it. Advertisers would be wise to start thinking about these new modalities and how they can best serve information to consumers through them. While brands sometimes insist on creating an entirely independent store locater app, perhaps it would be wise to simply boost their presence in paths already being used by consumers for discovery and navigation.

Location is finally becoming central to our digital identities and our connected selves. Consumer mobile devices are now packing in GPS functionality, on-the-go data consumption is at an all-time high, and location-based social networks are growing fast. This trend is going to impact marketing dramatically in the coming years, mostly because it provides a point of context.

Media planners understand the importance of context. The environment of an outdoor placement or the juxtaposition of an online banner ad can make or break a message's success. To best target an audience, knowing their location is incredibly important. It can be argued that it is the most critical piece of information to know about someone.

With increasingly powerful mobile devices, we are in the early stages of creating what sci-fi author Bruce Sterling calls a spime – an always-on, broadband-enabled device that knows where it is in space and time. These ever-present devices will make sending a message to a receiver at a time of perfect reception entirely possible. Not only will this transform marketing, but it may actually improve the lives of consumers as well.

Currently the technology is rudimentary and fragmented, but several startups are attempting to simplify it. GeoAPI, recently acquired by Twitter, is creating a digital library of exact locations (currently it has 16 million). This geo-database can help a startup looking to get into location-aware services. Similarly, SimpleGeo sees itself saving developers months of work by building and scaling location infrastructure for them. Xtify lets you location enable your web application without writing any native mobile software. Atlas CT provides a number of SDKs and APIs for easy development of location-based apps. Other players like Navteq and Foursquare are crowdsourcing Points of Interest for their own APIs.

While these API services are paving the way for creating an open-source digital representation of our world, this information alone will not suffice. If networks were to push advertising based on location alone, it would most likely be spam. This is because location isn't the same as context, or the set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event or situation.

Developers are beginning to release examples of applications that combine location with a specific context. Happy Hour app takes the motivation of finding a quick drink and provides. GateGuru (think Yelp for the airport) drills down to an average user's layover experience. Brightkite is experimenting with targeting users with advertising through predicting context using past behavior. We are creatures of habit, and once enough check-ins are captured, ads can be served through pattern recognition.  Meanwhile. Foursquare uses a more social strategy to provide context.

At the end of the day, a vast amount of data is important, and this is a why all eyes are on Google this year. The company is pushing hard into the mobile space with its recent announcements for Google Goggles, Favorite Places, Nexus One, and even an attempt at acquiring Yelp. While these moves are impressive, they only scratch the surface of what the company intends on accomplishing. Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of Search Products and User Experience, has in mind the ultimate goal of intuitive search, or presenting information to users before they even know what they’re looking for. The only way to accomplish this is through taking a user’s total context, and that is only possible through powerful, always on, mobile sensors - our mobile phone. Essentially, Google hopes to bring its behavioral targeting of the web to the physical world.

Google is in the same boat as every other service hoping to target the future of mobile consumers. To be able to reach an individual in that moment where an advertising message is considered relevant is the next step in marketing. With startups and giants alike laying the essential locational groundwork and building upon it, perhaps this will be soon to come.