Frontiering Talk

Mobile browser Opera have released a demographic report which shows that 88% of their users are male.  14.7 million people used Opera Mini in May 2008, which is a 24.6% increase on the March 2008 numbers.

Their user base is also most popular in the 18-27 year old demographic.

2.9 billion pages were viewed in May, with an average of 200 pages per person.
This graph shows the increase in page views over the last 2 years.

With the July 11 release of the new iphone, I’d expect a continued increase in web access from mobile devices, and this will also spawn additional mobile centric content and services.

via ReadWriteWeb

Popular virtual world Second Life is now accessible from 40 mobile devices, with support for additional 3G and Wi-Fi enabled devices including the iPhone planned in the near future.

This is possible thanks to a free beta application available at Vollee,

The technology streams high-end services designed for the PC to mobiles adapting screen size and uses compression to reduce bandwidth.

This type of service will impress die hard MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Playing Games) enthusiasts, but  technologies like Vollee could potentially provide more reach to business web applications.

To help promote what is possible with the new digital economy, Bullseye has produced a limited run of T-shirts containing the Semacode of the Bullseye mobile site.

Here’s our creative director Kev proudly modelling the t-shirt, as I point my camera phone at the semacode, which takes my phone directly to the site without having to key in the full URL.

This link lets you tag any URL to create your own semacode.

Semacode readers are included on many new phones such as Nokia’s N95, but will also run on any recent camera phone if you download and install the free reader.

Here are some download links
Nokia http://mobilecodes.nokia.com/terms.htm
Other http://semacode.com/download
If you have web access from your phone you can simply go to http://www.i-nigma.mobi which automatically recognises if your phone supports the reader and provides a direct download (it’s about 400k).
Smartphones http://www.quickmark.com.tw/En/basic/download.asp

The uses for Semacodes are varied, but here are 2.

Print media.  Used in print media they can be used to link an article or ad to a particular website. Say you see an ad for a product  in a Health and Beauty magazine, the code could be used to enable people to directly go to a page containing more information about the product, a place to purchase or a page to enter a competition. 

Music. You have just released your first song and you want to provide people with a direct download to their phones. You create a semacode that links to the free song download URL.

One of the better April Fool’s stunts this year !

Here’s a video from Reuters explaining a concept phone now on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art demonstrates Nokia’s vision for how handsets might evolve.

The Morph concept is the result of a collaboration between the Nokia Research Centre and Cambridge University’s nanoscience centre providing a vision of a flexible, multifunction device.

A recent Nielsen study of more than 22,000 active mobile data users, shows gaining acceptance of mobile advertising in the US reports Marketing Charts.

23 percent of US mobile subscribers (58 million people) say they have seen mobile advertising in the previous 30 days.

Half of mobile data users (51 percent, or 28 million people) who recall seeing a mobile ad say they responded to the ad in some way.

However, just 10 percent of US mobile data (e.g., text-messaging) users say they think advertising on their mobile devices is acceptable - but an increasing number appear to understand the value proposition of ad-supported mobile content, Nielsen said.

Nearly 1/3 of mobile data users say they are open to mobile advertising if it lowers their overall bill, according to the survey.

Among other findings of the study:

• The number of data users who recalled seeing mobile advertising between the second and fourth quarters of 2007 increased 38 percent (from 42 million to 58 million).
• Teen data users (age 13-17) were the most likely age segment to recall seeing mobile advertising (46 percent recalled seeing some type of mobile advertisement, compared with 29 percent of all data users).
• 26 percent of those who saw an ad responded at least once by sending an SMS text message, the most popular ad response.
• 9 percent say they have used click-to-call to respond to a mobile ad (i.e., users follow a link on their phone to call a specific number).
• 13 percent (18 percent of males) said they are open to mobile advertising if it improves the media and content currently available.
• 14 percent said they are already open to mobile advertising so long as it is relevant to their interests.
• 23 percent expect to see more mobile advertising in the future (up from just 15 percent in Q1 2007).

Perspective:  The Australian market is probably 12-18 months away from these numbers, due to barriers such as access speeds and cost. 

Interacting without keyboards has become easier thanks to developments like the iPhone with its intuitive touch screen interface.  During its development, Apple patented every aspect of the proprietary technology, leaving little for other mobile-phone manufacturers to improve upon.
But Nokia has filed for their own proprietary “Touch User Interface”, which measures the hand and finger movements in a 3D space around the device. The Nokia S60 3D Touchless Device Control Interface.

Ultrasonic Transducers (USTs) arranged around the perimeter of the display allow the device to respond to hand and finger movements without requiring the user to touch the screen.

So you won’t have to clean your fingerprints off your screen !

As mobile phones and internet access from these devices gets faster, it’s no surprise that advertisers and consumers will start to interact more using them.

Perhaps this example in Japan is what we can expect in the near future. Called Chipuya Town (note site in Japanese), and modelled on the Shibuya shopping district of Tokyo, consumers earn currency by adding friends. This currency is known as Grooves and can be used to purchase accessories for your avatar, apartments and furniture etc.

What is most amazing to me is that Advertisers are paying $4,000 / month to advertise on in world billboards. Or for $8,000 a month, they can rent a virtual storefront including display of ads in and outside the store, hosting in-store promotions and even the hire of a truck to travel around the district handing out promotional material. The world was created by Japanese mobile tech company Media Grove.

Perspective: Whilst this is very Japanese, the main market being teenage girls, there are trends here that almost model the evolution of any new advertising medium. An area of interest is created where people congregate to consume or engage in it’s content. Then the area is developed with the help of advertising spend in return for opportunities to communicate to the congregated audience. I suspect it won’t be long before these worlds contain automated robotic avatar agents (let’s call them “Avaborgs”) that are programmed to market products and services. Do WOMMA ethics apply to Avaborgs? (grins)

Tags: avaborg, Mobile

Motorola has launched a wiki to enable consumers to share information with other consumers.

From the wiki it states …

“Because the possible applications for the Q will always expand, the “ideal” user guide would also be able to grow and change. This wiki is an attempt to do that. It’s a place to capture and share the knowledge of the greater community of Q users. If, for example, you have added a new application to your Q, you could post instructions on how you did it here, for the benefit of all Q users.

This site has been established by Motorola for the use of Q users. It has been seeded with the contents of the in-box user guide. Additional content will be provided by Q users as they explore the Q’s capabilities. ”

Perspective: We think this is a great initiative which recognises that Motorola consumers can indeed help co-write the useability manual for the Q smart phone.