Tag Archive for 'iPhone'Page 2 of 2

How to Launch Your iPhone SDK Application

Published
by
3Cinteractive
on June 9, 2008
in Inside 3Ci and Marketing
. 0 Comments

A new wave of the cell phone market has begun: the release of the iPhone SDK. While there has been a small market for mobile based applications, entirely new companies, some supported by KPCB’s $100 million iFund, will be spawned to produce iPhone supported applications. While the actual extent of this marketplace is still unclear, it still hits with the same sincerity that something is happening in the mobile world. I’d bet it’s unlike anything we’ve seen before.

Mobile marketing and mobile content distribution functions at a more powerful level than electronic newsletter subscriptions. Undoubtedly, electronic newsletter subscriptions are key to maintaining close access to former customers, current customers, and future customers. At the touch of a button, businesses can easily deliver news to the e-mail boxes of subscribers. Therefore, users are receiving their content when you need them to, and not when they stumble upon it, many weeks later - if ever.

The truth is, those were valuable, back when users were subscribed to a select few lists and were more open to mass e-mails. Now users are opting out of these newsletters or driving them to their junk box; this brings new value to the RSS feed, allowing users to have yet another method to cleanly manage information they wanted to read while sparing their inboxes. While, the RSS reader is still increasing in value, it does not hit the key point of business marketing: reliably pinging your audience at the crucial moment - the tipping point.

Don’t forget: the iPhone has SMS!
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Mobile Marketing and Ideal Product Placement

Published
by
3Cinteractive
on June 5, 2008
in Advertising
. 0 Comments

In every retail store… in every marketing medium… marketers pay a premium to hold the ideal spot.

On the retail shelves at your local Apple store, third-party companies pay top dollar to be at eye-level. On the big-demo iPods plastered across the Apple store walls, artists paid even more to have their album listed on the static iPod screen. And on the box of that lovely music device that will fill the stockings of the rampant content generation… yep… someone paid to be there too.

The plethora of on-pack marketing agreements don’t sit with just the big companies with retail space or pretty boxes designed in California. In fact, the heart of Business 2.0 revolves around target marketing. Catch the eyes and ears of your market and provide them with offers your database knows they want.

It’s no different than the billboards on the highway, or the sponsored Google Ads. Behind all these product placement strategies are studies that show: being in the line of sight of your target market will increase your sales. Of course, these studies were merely supporting the gut-instinct of an innovator years before.

Companies have scrambled to bid on the box of one of the 110 million iPods sold since its release - a box that barely makes it through the first 24 hours of unwrapping. This is all because that lovely album art complete with the artist’s name and current hit single will be in the direct line of sight when that box first enters the recipient’s hands.

Product placement… despite being about the right place at the right time… for a few seconds at best… is a proven science. Imagine having the control to dictate the right place and the right time.

No more analysis for the right street corner… in the right city… at the right time… with the right distributer.  Enter… right here… right now… on a device that no one can ignore: their cell phone.

Could there be a better place than in your consumers pocket… and a better time than right when you want it?

So while some companies are still pushing the same research dollars into the same variable-filled marketing channels, the new-age companies are experiencing viral growth like never before, because there is no better place than everywhere 250 million subscribers are, right when you need them.

The next medium of product placement has arrived… in your future consumers’ pockets.

- Ainsworth

7 Reasons WAP is Flawed

Published
by
3Cinteractive
on April 25, 2008
in Trends & Research
. 7 Comments

I’ve had this sitting on a burner for a rainy day and Victor’s post on Mobile Marketing Watch was enough to bring it to the surface:

The prognosis on WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) hasn’t changed since the turn of the century. WAP technology had a premature introduction to the mobile phone as it came before the infrastructure and consumer interest supported it. The early complaints of WAP were closely related to those of the early internet, which left hope for WAP developers but, unlike the internet, WAP had to compete with a more complete sibling: the internet. In my mind, 7 key things pile in the barrel of WAP’s struggle:

7. Not Supported by All Major Carriers
WAP’s initial lax in the content delivery space was relieved by the WAP push. A WAP push allows content providers to deliver content to a mobile device using a WAP browser connection. In addition, the WAP push is a favorable alternative to MMS, a technology that is/was suffering from a lack of universal standards across the major carriers. But the major carriers have their own business to protect, so off-deck content delivery through WAP is not supported by all of the major carriers. This alone eliminates at least 30% of the mobile market. Imagine having a billboard that 1/3 of the motorists couldn’t read.

6. MMS is Next
Because MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) is not a ubiquitous mobile offering, mobile ASPs have relied heavily on WAP to deliver their content. Since the carriers have agreed to MMS interoperability, that is going to change. MMS allows sending and receiving of graphics, video, and audio clips - most of the information sent through a WAP push. There is very little that needs to be changed for WAP interoperability, instead it is limited by the carriers’ business decisions to block off-deck WAP delivery. MMS interoperability is a step up from the limits of WAP, by allowing users to be billed directly through SMS without the additional pain of a WAP download. There is potential for one bill, one technology, interoperable delivery.

5. Billed by Data Usage
Consumers are already wary of the premium paid for direct mobile content such as ringtones. Most of the paid ringtone services are charging a minimum of $0.99 p/ ringtone, which is the price of a full mp3 from iTunes. Consumers are still downloading ringtones despite the premium charge, however, many consumers are shocked to see WAP data charges on top of their premium sms charge. This will leave many consumers frustrated until unlimited data plans become more of the norm. People dislike being billed twice for the same content.
Continue reading ‘7 Reasons WAP is Flawed’