iPhone 2.0, Android, Flash Lite 3.0, Streaming Video, Electronic Wallets, Mobile technology is growing rapidly and becoming an intrinsic part of consumer mentality. Hear the experts discuss the role of mobile in today's lifestyle, discuss emerging technology, and predict national and international trends.
Rob Gonda Dir of Mktg Strategy & Analysis, Sapient
Juan-Carlos Morales Creative Dir, Sapient Interactive
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North America is far from cutting edge when it comes to mobile
3x more mobile subscribers than internet subscribers
Mobile is everywhere and will become the primary device - Japan is already living it.
In Japan mobile is integrated into lifestyle and North America is trying to catch up.
iPhone isn't catching on in Japan since they have had this technology for so long. It's simply not special there
iPhone is creeping close to 5% of web traffic and North America is catching up quickly
In a very short time, iPhone has taught people to augment their normal lives with the internet
Google Android is important as a counter-point to iPhone.. especially since it is Open Source
Android is lagging behind due to the fact that T-Mobile is a small-ish carrier
As more devices use Android, penetration will improve
Not having Flash on mobile devices has not turned out to be a big problem at this point... but it could and will change a lot in terms of mobile experience
Flash is important on Mobile in order to help content creators/owners reuse existing content
Full fidelity HTML experience on mobile was a key break through... can actually make the experience on mobile better than on desktop in some cases.
All future mobile devices need to match iPhone capabilities
Over time, traditional web sites and mobile sites will come together and building a mobile UI will just be what you do over the next few years. Sites will need to work everywhere.
7 - 8 million Flash enabled phones by end of year. Flashlite, etc.
Big difference between North America and other places is the power/control of the carriers. In North America they have A LOT of control that limits the devices
Mobile apps and app stores are emerging everywhere - iPhone, Android, Microsoft, etc.
Currently only 20,000 apps in iPhone store. Should be hundreds of thousands but Apple holds tight control over what gets in there
Talk of abilities around using mobile devices to do things like pay for purchases via mobile device. Apple, carriers, etc. have infrastructure but are not doing it right now. Pretty common place in Japan now.
RIM/Blackberry seems to be out of phase with the rest of the mobile world. Will be interesting to see where they end up.
Mobile is unique from the web due to fact that there is a culture of willing to pay for things. Unlike the "everything should be free" culture on the web, people are more than happy to pay for apps. eg. tweetie, etc.
Facebook has over 300 million mobile users
Merging the real world with the virtual world is a key trend in the near future.
Location based data is another big trend. Imagine going to a restaurant and instantly being able to know what you friends have eaten there, reviews, ratings, etc. All automagically on your mobile device.
A big part of mobile is finding was to use existing technology in a more creative way - GPS data + mobile internet + etc.
Mashing up public sources of info with mobile technology. Imagine being able to take a picture of a building + GPS data to instantly get a huge dump of info about that building/location/etc.
Use of real world visual queues in order to connect people with information. Imagine taking a photo of a product package on your mobile device and be instantly connected to that products website for more info.
You'll be seeing marketing campaigns, etc. where you take a photo of a physical real world poster that will be recognized by your device and then brought to an online campaign where you can enter a contest or interact with a brand/info source
No matter where you go you WILL be able to easily access additional information. Humans like to be able to digest information and mobile is key to allowing people to control the amount of information they get and where they get it.
Pictures, QR code, embedded inaudible audio signals, etc. will be the key
A potential mobile game changer is battery charging technology. Once you don't need to worry about your battery EVERYTHING will be mobile. People are working on this.
Andre
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