Texts From Last Night to Be Made Into a TV Show | GeekSugar Texts From Last Night, which lets you submit, well, your texts from last night, not only has its own Blackberry app but now is getting its own show in Fox. Primarily, the show will focus on post-college twenty-somethings that are trying to figure out their lives, with texting and crazy events from the night before taking center stage.
Julia Allison Shills For Sony | FishbowlNY
In an effort to help itself to tech-savvy, style-conscious young women, Sony has enlisted infamous lifecaster Julia Allison to appear in its ad campaign as a brand ambassador (along with Justin Timberlake, Amy Sedaris, and Peyton Manning.)
Beloit College Mindset List
Beloit College has released their Mindset List, a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college. Some insights: " The migration of once independent media-radio, TV, videos and CDs-to the computer has never amazed them. They have grown up in a politically correct universe in which multi-culturalism has been a given. It is a world organized around globalization, with McDonald's everywhere on the planet. Carter and Reagan are as distant to them as Truman and Eisenhower were to their parents. Tattoos, once thought "lower class," are, to them, quite chic. Everybody knows the news before the evening news comes on."
Twitter's New Terms of Service | Twitter Blog
Twitter has made revisions to its terms of service to "reflect the nature of Twitter and convey key issues such as ownership." Highlights include: Advertising—In the Terms, we leave the door open for advertising. We'd like to keep our options open as we've said before. Ownership—Twitter is allowed to "use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute" your tweets because that's what we do. However, they are your tweets and they belong to you. APIs—The apps that have grown around the Twitter platform are flourishing and adding value to the ecosystem. You authorize us to make content available via our APIs. We're also working on guidelines for use of the API.
Mobile Offers: Impulse Buys Work Best | MediaPost Publications
According to Compete's quarterly "Smartphone Intelligence" survey, nearly one-third of all smartphone owners are comfortable or very comfortable receiving targeted marketing on their device. Of them, nearly half are receptive to location-based offers at restaurants (or other offers to pursue at their leisure) and 45% would use mobile grocery coupons.
Fox’s Fringe “Twitter on TV” Experiment Irks Fans | Mashable
Fox's “tweet-peats” was a major fail. The premise was to combine reruns of Fringe and Glee with producers and members of the cast tweeting commentary as the episodes rolled. However the tweets obscured much of the screen, making the shows unwatchable.
Mobilize: The Dawn of Location-Aware Mobile Ads | GigaOm
Panelists at the Moblize 09 conference say we should expect to see location-aware ads on the iPhone in the next six months, and perhaps even location will be on every phone by the end of year.
Google Plans Tools to Help News Media Charge for Content | Bits Blog - NYTimes.com
Google is planning to roll out a system of micropayments within the next year and hopes that newspapers will use it as they look for new ways to charge users for their content. The system will be an extension of Google Checkout, a payment system that Google rolled out in 2006 as a PayPal competitor.
Mobile service searches for files back home | CNET MyCopernic on the Go lets you remotely search for and access files on your home or office PC. By subscribing to the $9.95-per-year service, you can find and view files on your PC from any remote device--desktops, laptops, or smartphones including Apple's iPhone, Palm's Pre, or BlackBerrys.
Facebook @Mentions: Five Ways They Could Impact Twitter | Mashable
Facebook announced that they will be supporting @mentions, popularized by Twitter, in status updates. The feature, which Facebook calls "tagging," allows you to not only reference friends, but groups, pages, and events. This is on top of other recent moves by FB to halt Twitter, including real-time search and their FriendFeed acquisition. Here Mashable outlines some potential implications for users, developers, and brands.
Kickin’ It Old School: Facebook Lite Launches In The U.S. And India | Techcrunch
Facebook has released "Facebook Lite"--a more stripped down version of the site--for U.S. users to test out. Originally intended to be used in countries where high speed Internet connections are sparse or non-existent, apparently Facebook has realized there’s a real desire among all its users to have a simpler version of the service.
What's next in mobile user experience? Augmented Reality | Demystifying Usability
Good overview of AR's potential from a UX perspective: "Augmented Reality is set to revolutionize the mobile user experience as did gesture and touch (multi-modal interaction) in mobile phones. This will redefine the mobile user experience for the next generation making mobile search invisible and reduce search effort for users."
We have a double feature today! The first post is from Kristina Horner who delivers a powerful video piece on why brands and bloggers need to work together. The second is from Meghan Keane, who discusses the potential of mobile donations and their implications for mobile payments. Enjoy...
Social vs Brand
This is a very passionate video response by YouTube blogger Kristina Horner about communities working with brands.
‘Kristina is a 21 year old girl from Seattle who is currently studying at the University of Washington, but in her spare time you can find her making videos for YouTube, playing music, or writing. She’s in a band that plays music about Harry Potter and through that, has traveled all over the country (and sometimes further) playing shows and attending conferences. In the past year she’s also been to numerous YouTube related gatherings and events and loves meeting new people and seeing new sights. Kristina has a slight addiction to broadcasting her life and thoughts in various forms on the Internet.‘
Motivated by criticism of her partnership with Ford for the (pretty smart) FiestaMovement work. Kristina argues that for both bloggers and brands to be successful they need to accept the fact that traditional advertising is not-effective (and often rejected) in social spaces. But, brands and publishers like Kristina can easily find win-win situations when brands support their work without compromise. If you work in ‘advertising and or marketing’ and struggle to understand the social media space, have a butchers:
PSA's Come to Mobile. Along with Additional Purchasing Options. by Meghan Keane
How do you get people to start charging purchases on their mobile phones? Have them to do it for charity.
This week mobile gaming company Cellufun will launch the first ever mobile public service announcement campaign. In conjunction with The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, Cellufan is offering free in-game advertising, as well as mobile donation opportunities to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).
The mobile PSA could be very profitable for the ASPCA. But it's also a smart move on Cellufan's part. Getting new groups of users to spend money through their phones will help pave the way formonetizing the mobile web.
Cellufun allows users to play social games, connect with friends and shop for virtual goods. The service has over 7 million unique monthly mobile visitors, who generate more than 220 million monthly impressions. The average user spends about 6.9 hours using Cellufun. The company estimates the value of the PSA campaign to be more than $10,000 per month.
"Cellufun’s social games — such as Mobile Pet Online and Cellufun Farming — provide not only entertainment, but the perfect venue for raising social awareness by partnering with leading charities and non-profits,” said Neil Edwards, chief executive officer of Cellufun.
Clearly the ASPCA thinks that mobile is a place that has fundraising potential. In addition, it's a great way for Cellufun to get its users accustomed to parting with a little extra money on their mobile devices. Already in the gaming space, these users aren't exactly shy about such things, but for the mobile space to reach its potential as a marketplace, users who have historically been uninterested in buying ringtones or purchasing gaming software need to start getting comfortable with giving money on their phones. And that's already happening.
Apple's App Store has gotten hordes of iPhone users to purchase products on their cellphones, and a key to tapping into the monetization potential of mobile will be proving to people that cellphones are a safe and easy way to make purchasing decisions.
Already consumers are getting more comfortable with many mobile decisions that they skipped on the computer. One proof of this is the fact that mobile Internet usage is far more diverse than the way it has typically worked online. For starters, African Americans are the group quickest to adopt mobile Internet usage this year.
Last week, a Pew Research Center survey found that 32% of Americans have accessed the Internet through a mobile device this year and 48% of African Americans are using their mobile phones to access the Internet. For many groups — especially low income users — the cellphone is the way that they access the Internet altogether.
John Horrigan, associate director of the Pew Internet Project, tells the New York Times:
“The cost of broadband and personal computers drives some users to adopt mobile Internet instead of the traditional wire-line,” Mr. Horrigan said. “It might make sense to invest the money in a smartphone and a monthly plan that enables you to do so many different things, like make calls and send e-mails.”
In addition, consumers who are sympathetic to a cause might make a spur of the moment purchasing decision that they would hesitate on for something more frivolous — from gaming to paid advertising. And once a purchase has been made in a new environment in a space that a consumer trusts, getting them to buy something again is that much easier.
Free Gifts to Students Who Agree to Receive Ads on Their Mobiles [The Guardian]
Orange is launching a plan that will give concert tickets, accessories, and even bill discounts for 16-24 year olds who receive ads on their phones ( in form of texts and market surveys). The carrier hopes to attract more of Gen-Y, by going to their interests...and their wallets.
Camera Phones Can Help Diagnosis [E-Health Insider]
Camera phones can help doctors understand certain conditions a little better. By taking a picture of a visually apparent condition, users can offer doctors ways of knowing how the condition evolved and what it might be.
Pedal Power for Kenya's Mobiles [BBC News]
Two Kenyan students have developed a way of charging cell phones with bicycles. Looking to market the idea, the use for it in many countries around the world in undeniable, further integrating mobile into daily user life.
A Statistical Look at Urban Indian Mobile Users [Priyanka’s Blog]
Key mobile data from one of the largest mobile using nation. Noteworthy: Orkut is the favorite social network accessed through mobile, 45.6% use Google mobile, 86% have participated in SMS contests, and Internet and SMS are the two main factors in choosing a carrier in India.
Mobile Coupon Users Want More Junk [Marketing Charts]
New data from the U.K. takes a look at what mobile coupon users prefer to see when it comes to mobile ads. 30% said they don't enjoy drink promotions, 76% thought the redemption process was easy, and the whole survey was done via SMS.
French Government Building a Mobile Portal [Mobile Industry Review]
To offer all citizens access to public and general services, the French government is launching Proximamobile. The idea is to offer a mobile portal of applications and services for the public at large, developed by the community.
Well, That's the End of Flip: iPods to Get Cameras [Fast Company]
After the announcement that the iPod Touch will get a mic so it can call, it seems that other basic functionality of cell phones are coming to the whole gamut of iPods.
Twitter Takes a Step Toward Commercial Accounts [NYTimes]
Twitter released its Twitter 101 web pages and slideshow to show how businesses can profit from the service. It's a first step in eventually creating business accounts that will offer more features than normal ones and help Twitter monetize.
We observe emerging mobile technology, cultural trends, and consumer behavior, then connect the dots to generate mobile strategy and intelligence for leading global brands. This is what we're seeing and thinking.
