A very nice surprise to the year is being named the #1 mobile company to watch in 2011 by Business Insider.  You can read the article here.  Comes as a surprise…one of those nice surprises!

Look out 2011.

You ain’t seen nothing yet

In a recent blog we spoke about QR codes, two-dimensional codes that smartphones with cameras can ‘scan’ with detailed information delivered directly to that phone.

We contacted the National Post who have been deploying QR codes in their various newspapers since April of 2009.

According to Jonathan Harris, VP Digital Media, the Post was the first newspaper in North America to pioneer this latest advertising techno advancement.

Well Jonathan, here comes image recognition, and it will probably render QR codes obsolete, even thought the vast majority of Canadians haven’t even heard of QR codes …  such is the pace of technology.

Google is experimenting with, (sorry Beta testing), Goggles. Naturally this latest technology is closely linked with Android, the company’s mobile OS. The concept is simple – the technology fascinating. By simply focusing the camera of a smartphone on a label, a building, a book; the software recognizes the source and provides instant information to the users.

Snapnow is another image recognition provider. It describes itself as, “a mobile visual search service, which lets you search for mobile web content based on images you capture with your camera phone.”

As with QR codes, Japanese consumers are at the leading edge of acceptance and use of image recognition technology. Skin care supplier, Guthey-Renker is using the Snapnow technology,

Tom Garofalo, Executive Vice President of Asia Pacific for SnapNow said, “This is the first partnership of its kind anywhere in the world. By combining print, TV and real world consumer touch points we allow customers to connect to and purchase products directly through their mobile phones using our image recognition technology – without requiring any kind of symbol or code. This takes mobile commerce to a whole new level.”

Snap2Travel is also a player. The Snap2Travel app allows you to take a picture of a page or image in a holiday catalogue, put in your dates and receive real-time prices. If you want to book there and then, you’re connected to your default travel agency, all over your mobile phone.

So if you were considering QR codes, you might want to take a step back and spend some time exploring image recognition.  We are and have some exciting new ways to make it drive a great user experience and increase ROI

Stay tuned as we continue to spotlight the latest in mobile technology.

Barcodes are one dimensional, while QR codes (quick response) codes are two-dimensional. Data can be read, not just in a line, but also up and own.

Japan has been using QR codes  for almost a decade. Bus stops, print advertising, store windows, almost everything you can imagine, carries a QR code.

About a year ago, Google launched a QR initiative at the local level.

Over one million businesses in the U.S. have listed themselves with Google, according to Michaela Prescott, head of geomarketing at Google.

The idea is to give those businesses a set of metrics from which they can make business decisions about expanding delivery areas, advertising in certain areas, or what people are looking for in a local pizza joint.

QR codes on products or advertising can bring detailed information directly to the smartphone, or redirect the buyer via the smartphpone to a website for far greater information about the specific product than simply price.

“There is no issue in terms of Mobile Fringe incorporating QR codes into our mobile marketing apps,” says Steve Sorge, CEO of Mobile Fringe. “It makes a ton of sense. Trouble is, most Canadians have little knowledge of QR codes.”

There has been little said in Canadian media. Advertisers seem wary. To make matters worse, most smartphones cannot read a QR code unless additional software is downloaded and installed (some Android phones have this software pre-installed).

The National Post has been a Canadian pioneer featuring QR code ads along with instructions: Step I, download the software, in this case Scanlife. Step 2, take a photo of the image using your smartphone. Step 3 information retrieved will direct the viewer to a website for additional relevant content.

In June of this year, the Canadian Tourism Commission stepped into the QR game, though this QR initiative was aimed at US citizens, not Canadians.

Travel ads were placed in newspapers including the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times. The ads were a paper version of an online travel blog with QR codes linking to mobile videos allowing readers to view hundreds of videos from destinations across Canada.

Unilever has just launched what is described as the largest mobile bar code campaign in the US. The ads focus on men’s grooming brand Axe, featuring a line of deodorant body-sprays, deodorant and hair care products.

“2D bar codes are a great way to instantly connect a brand with a mobile consumer,” said Neil Strother, Kirkland, WA-based practice director of ABI Research. “One caution is that the technology has to work well and you have to quickly educate the consumer how to use it.”

Mobile Fringe is confident more Canadian media, like the National Post, will experiment with QR codes, but is it too little too late? Look for our second post on this subject in the coming week

We’d like feedback from you.

• Have you heard of QR codes?
• Why is Canada so far behind other nations?
• Will QR codes break through into the Canadian marketplace?

Twentieth Century Fox recently ran an SMS campaign which ultimately was deemed by the US court to violate that country’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

This is a lesson for all. Even the big guys can get tripped by a rash decision based upon enthusiasm and a desire to stay one step ahead of the competition.

A recent article in Mobile Commerce Daily indicates “60 percent of consumers receiving location-based SMS messages open them immediately…”

The article goes on to say, “In our most recent research, 75 percent of consumers found this kind of messaging useful.”

That folks, is a very compelling business model.

The use of SMS is the most popular form of mobile marketing from an industry perspective. In Canada, the adoption rate is slower. As usual, we Canadians tend to be a bit more conservative than our US cousins.

Still, the message is obvious: look before you leap.

If SMS looks appealing, then get in touch with us.  We know it, use it, and can show you how to get the most out of it when looking at the entire mobile space.

Take a look at what we have to offer … before you take a leap of faith.

To paraphrase the movie ‘Field Of Dreams’, building an app, is no guarantee anyone will come.

Mobile Fringe offers the total package, from development, to promotion, implementation, training … and if need, ongoing management of the site.

If you choose to ‘go it alone’, be smart. Develop a marketing plan. There are well over 200,000 apps in the wild and they are multiplying like rabbits.

1. Promote your app on your website, newsletter, etc…

Use the now ubiquitous ‘Available on the App Store’ logo. It’s a simple one-click window to your app.

2. Take a long hard look at your own eco-system.

Use Twitter and Facebook, They are excellent low-cost vehicles to build awareness.

3. Think in terms of your audience:

Who are you trying to reach? What is the appeal: age, sex, location, interests?

Your app might appeal to a ‘vertical’ group, a subset of the population that is interested in a specific subject or lifestyle. Targeting a vertical group is somewhat easier than broadcasting the population at large.

4. Inevitably you’ll need to develop a Public Relations plan.

That can mean a Media Relations, or Community Relations program. There are various subsets within the realm of Public Relations. In other words, pick the audience that will give you the best return on your investment.

5. Other issues to consider:

• Brand image
• Platform: iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, or all three
• In-app purchasing or inclusion of advertising within the app
• Free ‘lite’ version, plus a full-blown version with a retail price
• Location-based capability and other services provided by API’s
• Updates and enhancements
• Service fees, if the data needs to be update frequently
• Copyright

Developing the app is often the easiest part of the marketing process. If the foregoing seems daunting, then contact us.

Mobile Fringe can provide a comprehensive consultation service. We can walk with you through the entire process.

For the past 10 years it’s been a downward spiral, as readers leave the print medium getting their daily news fix from TV and the Internet.

For the most part, a magazine ad isn’t much different than a website pop-up ad.  Both get roughly 3-10 seconds of your attention? You look at the ad, absorb the message and move on.

The net worth of a print ad is based on the number of readers, and to some degree the profile of those readers. While an ad within a web page is more often than not, priced on a ‘per click’ or ‘per impression’ basis.

Now let’s look at the latest medium of advertising – the Apple iPad.

The iPad is a radically different medium.

An embedded app within a Apple iPad e-magazine isn’t a flat page. It’s interactive. It might not be an ad in the traditional sense, but instead an embedded video. More to the point, this ad can incorporate buttons that take you to other embedded videos and other segments germane to the subject matter.

An ad within the iPad environment is like a worm-hole, particularly when it appeals to a vertical audience like high-end car buyers, health nuts or sports fans. Click on an ad and it isn’t a one-step process. Done well, the reader is drawn into another world, free to explore without limitations.

Advertising within an iPad is multi-directional. It’s non-linear. You can move forward, go back or even up or down. Emotive advertising within the iPad has the ability to take you into another world. And you can stay there as long as you like.

And how do you put a price tag on that experience? It wont be cheap, because it’s far more than a passing 10 second glance.

Current advertisers are paying upwards of five times more to advertise in iPad based newspapers and mags. However, most ‘experts’ feel the rates will fall as the novelty wears off.

We beg to differ. We thinks rates will continue to climb as advertising better understand and explore the ‘worm-hole effect.’

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata apparently told company executives that Apple is its “enemy of the future.”

Apple’s encroachment into the handheld gaming market has been substantial. The iPhone and iPod touch made up 19 percent of portable game revenue in all of 2009 compared to five percent the year earlier.

When the iPod touch was introduced, most of us saw the ‘touch’ as a emasculated iPhone. The media generally ignored it.

Now we see it as a stand-alone device with unique qualities. It’s a great handheld game player, a truly portable computer, one that slides into a pocket or purse. Plays virtually every of the 200,000 apps now available through the App Store. And it’s free of cell carrier contracts. You can even buy it at Costco.

Here is another view of the ‘touch’: think of it as a compact iPad.

It has the same operating system, plays the same apps, costs a whole bunch less and again there is no monthly contract. Granted there is less real estate, but that’s an advantage, not a disadvantage.

iPad critics wonder how people are going to lug this about. It doesn’t fit in a pocket. It’s too big, the claim. Others say the iPad is too heavy. Your arm gets tired when reading a book.

Okay, how about something smaller, something less expensive, something that’s light and portable?

Here is our take on this chameleon. Apple will introduce a slighter smaller iPad … or a slightly larger iPod touch. It’s ll about perspective. Remember all those early reports about a seven inch touchscreen? Maybe it’s another addition to the iPad ‘touch’ family.

Are you an extra large iPod touch? Yes I am.

But aren’t you supposed to be a whole new platform? Yes I am.

Then what are you? I am both.

Canadians, like the rest of the world have been relegated to 2^nd class citizen status.

To paraphrase, Seinfeld: No iPads for you.

Impatient to get our hands on the iPad, we drove to Buffalo during the 3^rd week of April and bought four of the 32G iPads. There were no lineups, but the Buffalo store only had five of the Wi-Fi versions left. The 3G versions had yet to be introduced.

Initial impressions?

Here’s what our number one tester had to say:

A lot has been written about the iPad, with much of the commentary touching upon the same points:

• It is heavier than you would expect.
• It’s fast, way faster than a laptop when launching apps and surfing the Net.
• The super-sized screen attracts a lot of fingerprints and smudges.
• There is an emotional attachment, a bonding that occurs between the device and the user.
• The screen is really bright.
• The extra real estate makes a huge difference.

Typical of early Apple launches, it’s missing a number of major features.

Keynote files import but with omissions and problems. Apple has posted a advisory on best practices.

There are have been early complaints about iPad apps are dramatically scaling back or even blocking their video when on the 3G-ready iPad.

A lawyer claims the iPad helped him successfully win a $300,000 lawsuit. Schools are discovering new uses. And those in healthcare are also discovering ways to implement the iPad.

Here are key findings:

• As a show and tell device this has it all
• The simplicity of it is the attraction
• easier to read articles, blogs and websites than iPhone
• it really does belong in a category of its’ own
• iPad apps that make use of new screen space can make people more productive
• taking email and notes on the device just feels right
• watching video on sites like youtube and vimeo even more enjoyable
• takes mobile computing to another level where a laptop can not.
• has the possibility of taking the web from 2.0 to 3.0
• easy for anyone to use
• opens up possibility for different usage
  - an architect at a construction site viewing blueprints
  - mechanics using it for engine diagrams and diagnostic tests
  - students carrying this one device, rather than heavy text books
  - doctors being able to grab patient data at any time any place within a hospital
  - etc…
• changes the idea of the way we use and view the internet

There are considerably more apps listed in the US Apple Store than there are in the Canadian version.

The gap is so significant, a pseudo-black market is emerging where Canadians are finding loop holes in Apple’s registration system in order to download apps currently unavailable north of the border. Even the Globe & Mail recently ran an article in its business section provided instructions on buying a pay-as-you-go MasterCard at a Canadian national pharmacy chain, then using a fake US address to gain access to the US Apple Store.

Why is that? Why are US software developers and corporations ignoring the Canadian market? Is it a simple matter of ‘out of sight, out of mind’? Or is it related to copyright, trade issues or language and cultural issues.

Whatever the reason, many developers and corporations are missing out on an important market. Canada’s population, GPD and other economic measurements, positions the Canadian market on a par with California. Typically Canada is 10% of the US regardless of population, GDP, car sales etc.

That’s a big market, too big to ignore.

In fact, the Canadian mobile market appears to be maturing at a slower rate than in the US. Mobile marketing tools such as SMS messaging, coupons and bar code scanning all appear to be months, if not years  behind the US adoption rate.

Is that bad?

We don’t think so. In fact it suggests that the smart marketer ought to exploit these differences between the US market and the Canadian scene.

Now is the time to step forward and reap the rewards in the relatively untapped Canadian market. And Mobile Fringe is your doorway to the Great White North.

Come on in, eh.

There is no question, pace of technology has, and continues to be exponential.

Perhaps more important is the realization that each new technology does not erase older forms of media, but simply creates an environment of accommodation. Each medium shuffles awkwardly until all it finds a comfortable spot in the pecking order.

Currently we are witnessing print, specifically newspapers and books,  frantically trying to establish a new business model for themselves. Mobile, the newest member of this family is creating a lot noise and discomfort for the older siblings.

First:

The print medium has been around since the 1500’s. Gutenberg is given credit for the 1^st printing press in 1450.

Second:

Recordings of music using wax cylinders came into being around 1880, thanks to Thomas Edison.

Third:

Motion pictures, or film, impacted our society in the early 1900’s. A Trip to the Moon and The Great Train Robbery hit the silver screen in the 1903.

Fourth:

Radio came into our lives around 1920.

Fifth:

Television became a social phenomenon in 1950.

Sixth:

The Internet arrived in 1990.

Seventh:

In 2000, the world welcomed the mobile cell phone – Look out world.