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What mobile advertising can learn from The Daily

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Google recently announced that the mobile sector is growing faster than they ever predicted. CEO Eric Schmidt told the audience at the Internet Advertising Bureau’s Annual Leadership meeting keynote that YouTube is seeing 200 million mobile playbacks a day. He went on to state that the number of mobile searches during the  Super Bowl were more than double for Chrysler when compared to desktop searches, and more than 9 times for GoDaddy. (The video is posted at the end of the article for your edification).

This is due in no small part by the explosion of mobile devices and smart phones. A recent Gartner report shows that the worldwide mobile market has reached 1.6 billion units in 2010 with smart phone sales growing 72% resulting in 297 million units. And if we are to believe the experts, this market is only going to grow further. 

On Wednesday, with the announcement of the iPad 2, we found out that Apple has sold over 100 million iPhones and 15 million iPads so far. The iPad number is incredible especially when you consider the ridicule the iPad met with over its name when it first came out. There were even some people saying that the iPad would fail miserably. Goes to show you that you shouldn't believe everything you read (unless you read it here). 

So as organizations enter this new mobile world, the question remains: How do you create an effective a mobile campaign? Simple: by scraping everything you know and starting over from the ground up. 

The solution for creating a successful mobile campaign lies in what The Daily has done for news. Over the past year, many newspapers made the mistake of trying to simply take their offline product and cram it into this new technology. The Daily looked at the problem differently. They looked at the technology first. Then they adapted its product, news, to take full advantage of the technology. 

In essence, it has taken a commodity, digital news, and rethought it for a new era and a new device. The result is an amazing experience.  The same has to be done when developing a mobile advertising campaign. You have to look at from what works best on the platform as opposed to trying to make old techniques fit new technology. 

For example, most mobile advertising still relies on banner ads, an invention carried over from laptops and desktops—which was just an extension of traditional print ads and TV spots. But we now have tablets and smart phones that are more powerful than the computers that put a man on the moon. Your mobile advertising should take full advantage of the tools and technology mobile provides.  Maybe that's iAds. Maybe that's Google Mobile Ads. But maybe it's something brand new. 

And this is not to say that banner ads are bad. In some situations they work well. But new tools demand a new way of doing things. Effective solutions don't rely on old ideas. Effective mobile solutions come from rethinking the problem from the ground up. 

So perhaps 2011 will be the year you dip your toes into the mobile advertising waters.  And if you do, remember The Duffy Agency can help you make a big splash. 

What are your thoughts on mobile advertising? What successes and best practices have you found?

 

 

Kevin Duffy is the Creative Director for The Duffy Agency's Boston office.

Twitter 2010: The year Twitter grows up

Twitter has had an extremely good year. In four years the microblogging site has gone from niche to mainstream. It’s difficult these days to find a website that doesn’t have a Twitter linking badge or watch a TV show and have it not mention the site. As 2010 draws to a close, it’s a good time to look back at the year that was. 

In 2010, Twitter had on average 213.4 million visitors a month and 26 million unique visits making it the 10th most visited site on the web. By the end of the year, they are projected to have sent over 29 billion tweets and have 90 million tweets a day. 

Over the course of the year such influential people as Bill Gates, Dalai Lama, Hugo Chávez, Kanye West, Tiger Woods and Donald Rumsfeld have joined the site. British Petroleum used the site to communicate the oil spill efforts and Wyclef Jean used Twitter to raise money for Haiti. 

One of the main complaints with the site has been how limited it has been. The site has grown and flourished thanks to third party apps. This year Twitter changed all that. They kicked things off with their geolocation project called @Anywhere. That was quickly followed up with official apps for the Blackberry, iPhone and Android phones and the iPad. 

They weren’t finished yet. Next they focused on improving the built in features. New features like “Reply to All,” “Who to Follow” and “Auto completion” were added and before they were finished a whole new interface was introduced to praise and condemnation. Finally, they started rolling out profile analytics.

In the course of a year, Twitter has had incredible growth, undercut the third party apps that built their business model on Twitter and got into a bidding war that raised its value to $4 billion. Not bad for a company that just a year ago seemed to be drifting with no real business plan. 

Check out the infographic created by Flowtown that covers the year that was.  Where do you see Twitter going in 2011?

 

 

 

 

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.

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An Internet guide to Thanksgiving

In the United States, Thanksgiving is this Thursday, November 25. It's a holiday that is rife with overindulgence, football, and family (and all the unhealthy dynamics that family represents). It falls between Halloween and Christmas and like other middle-children, it seems to get ignored and forgotten—especially on the Interwebs. So I thought we should shower some deserving attention on this gastronomic holiday with some Thanksgiving related things I found around the 'net.

Can you feel the spirit of giving thanks?
 

And don't forget to leave a comment and share your Thanksgiving traditions.

Apps

• Top iPhone apps dedicated to the Thanksgiving bird
  
  
• Top 10 best free Thanksgiving iPad apps
  
  
• 6 best Thanksgiving apps for iPhone
  
  
• Top 5 android apps for surviving Thanksgiving
  
  

Fun and games

• Turkey ShootOut 3-D game
  
  
• Thanksgiving eCards from Jib-Jab
  
  
• Wild Turkey Gobble
  
  

Food related

• A listing of savory and sweet Thanksgiving side dishes
  
  
• Turkey recipes from Butterball
  
  
• The best way to roast a turkey
  
  
• How to carve a Holiday turkey
  
  

Misc.

• Weird Thanksgiving day facts

7 Ways Smart Phones are the Wallets of the Future

Remember what it was like in the old days (circa 2000)? You needed multiple arms to juggle the myriad of electronic  gadgets and accessories we all carried around. You had your laptop, cell phone, PDA, and other bright, shiny accessories. Nowadays, everything is just consolidated into our smart phone. So why not your wallet?

The trend is starting to take hold and major retailers are coming on board. Here are 7 ways that mobile payments are hitting the mainstream.

Last week, Starbucks expanded their mobile payment option to almost 300 locations in New York. The app was developed to take the place of the Starbuck's payment card and allows users to simply scan & pay with the barcode scanner-friendly design on their phone.. 

PayPal has developed a two-click mobile payment system called mobile Express Checkout. Many of the merchants using the beta-test version of the application have reported great success—doubling sales in some instances.

Earlier this year, Twitter creator, Jack Dorsey, developed a new mobile payment application and portable card reader called Square. that allows users to accept credit card payments with their  mobile phones. Simply swipe the card through the gadget that attaches to the phone's headphone jack and money is transferred from the card to your Square account.  

Another swipe device that came out in August is the Complete Credit Card Solution from financial software giant Intuit and Mophie, makers of the JuicePack battery for iPhone. Unappealing name aside, it's similar to the Square device. though little has been heard or seen of the device since its unveiling.

Mobile point-of-sale (POS) is another technology that retailers are investigating. Bling Nation came out with a new Mobile POS product a few months ago. The technology uses a sticker, or BlingTag, embedded with an RFID device and near field communication (NFC) to authenticate transactions  between your phone and a Bling Nation payment console. Simply hover/swipe your tag-emblazoned smart phone over the console and your purchase is completed. 

Late last week, AT&T announced deals with several mobile payment providers that would allow AT&T mobile users to buy online goods and services with their phones, the costs of which would then be added to  their monthly cell phone bills. Deals such as these could pose huge threats to the VISAs and Mastercards of the world—essentially turning telecommunication providers into financial brokers and payment processors. Verizon and T-Mobile, seeking to establish the aforementioned efficiencies, are also rumored to be looking for a deal.

Now you can buy the stuff you really want

At the end of August, the young startup Cimbal announced the launch of its software-based NFC Payment Network, which seeks to satisfy all the above. A consumer- and merchant-friendly software-only approach to mobile payments, the company is currently working with department stores and grocery retailers. CEO Christopher Boone tells Mashable that they aim to make Cimbal’s mobile payment solution available at these merchants as soon as Q4 of 2010. 

The process of morphing your smart phone and your wallet has  really hit its stride over the last few years. Finally, timing and technology seem to be in sync. It doesn't hurt that a report from Juniper Research shows that mobile payments  are expected to be over a $200 billion market by 2012.

Have you tried a form of mobile payment? What do you think?  

 

Tweet

Is Twitter biting the hand that feeds it?

 

We’ve been watching and writing about Twitter for over a year now and a recent Mashable article highlights some of the concerns we’ve seen with recent Twitter developments. Earlier this year, Twitter held its first developers conference, Chirp. It was there that the microblogging site announced its first app – an iPhone app called Tweetie. 

 

With this announcement, Twitter said loud and clear that they aren’t just going to sit back and let others dictate how their site is used. Overnight, Twitter killed a whole burgeoning development segment. Third party app developers went on alert and some were sent running scared. Venture capitalist took notice as well and funding for Twitter based apps dropped from $21.6 million between June 2008 and May 2009 to $10.4 million between June 2009 and May of this year. That’s a 50% drop in early-stage investment over the past year.

 

Twitter has seen rampant site growth and third party app development over it’s short life. If it wasn’t for the company allowing anyone and everyone to build on top of their system, they wouldn’t be the powerhouse site they are today. The microblogging site owes its success to the independent developers that created applications to make the user experience more rewarding. 

 

Twitter has added Android and BlackBerry apps to the smartphone mix, effectively cornering the market. Their iPad app has all but killed development in that area and the addition of the Tweet Button ousted Tweet Meme and other sites that do the same. So far, we haven’t seen Twitter purchasing additional apps, but we wouldn’t be surprised if they develop more location based systems a la Facebook and Foursquare, purchase an official url shorting system and photo sharing app, as well as better use of analytics and trending topics. All of these areas seem natural for Twitter expand into. 

 

With less focus from developers on Twitter apps, we could be coming to an end of the golden age of the site. If developers perceive the site as a direct challenger, the site will be left to develop their own apps and this will stagger innovation and creativity that has, to date, been one of the defining characteristics of Twitter. Could this be the beginning of the end of Twitter’s market dominance or is this just a bump in the road we try to figure out Twitter’s next move?

 

Foursquare: Changing the way marketing works

There has never been a better time for marketers to directly influence a buyer’s decision. Through mobile apps, businesses can build brand loyalty and add value to the user experience. Smart marketers are now adding simple location-based services to their toolbox.

Location-based apps are the hottest thing going right now. Leading the pack is Foursquare. Foursquare isn’t the first location-based app on the market, nor is it the biggest, but what it does have going for it is that it’s the current media darling. The star of this year’s SXSW, this app is proving it’s not just for letting people know where you like to eat and shop.

The system is simple: you check-in to a location, earn badges for multiple check-ins and score points which, in some instances, can lead to real-world rewards from retailers. Local restaurants and bars have started offering free drinks, appetizers and discounts to the person that checked in the most to their establishment. Now you’re seeing the likes of Bravo, Virgin Airlines and Harvard University taking advantage of app to further reward customers. We searched the web to find examples of companies using this simple app in ingenious ways and found four great examples. 

Harvard University has teamed up with Foursquare to create a campus-based game that rewards students who check in to locations with badges and helpful bits of information. The idea is to encourage students to connect with others and explore more of the campus. It’s a brilliant way for freshmen to learn about the university and connect with more people.

During New York Fashion Week, fashion designer Marc Jacobs created a “Fashion Victim” badge. It allowed customers during the week to check-in at any Marc Jacobs store to unlock the badge. Four people who unlocked the badge in New York received passes to attend the Marc Jacobs fashion show. 

Shoe phenom Jimmy Choo has established a treasure hunt around London using Foursquare. A pair of Jimmy Choo trainers check-in at a location somewhere in the city and whomever checks-in and says, “I’ve been following you” to the pair of trainers before they leave the location will win a pair of Jimmy Choo training shoes. People can track the trainers through their Foursquare user page and their Twitter profile.

Desperate to stay relevant, The Wall Street Journal has created special badges that provide interesting facts about New York City and reviews of local business and movies. It’s always great when a print giant like the WSJ embraces new media instead of fighting it like so many other print outlets. 

Hopefully you now feel inspired to craft a location-based campaign of your own. Feel free to share any bright ideas.

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.

The top 5 Twitter apps for Android

The smartphone app battle has heated up with legitimate rivals to the iPhone hitting their stride. Apple’s App Store continues to overshadow the competition with downloads in the multiple billions, but Google’s Android Market has emerged with a strong collection of its own mobile apps, along with the advantage of having multiple mobile phone brands running the OS. With around 300 million downloads under its belt, Android Market is building up steam. 

Seeing that Android has a prominent place in the future of mobile devices, we picked up an HTC Desire to discover firsthand what it’s capable of. First order of business: finding the best Android app to run our Twitter accounts. What we found was there is no app that truly stands out as the best overall, but there are apps that excel at meeting specific needs. Below you’ll find 5 of the best apps out there and which type of Twitter user they best serve.

 

The Official Twitter App – For the user looking for basic functionality 
The official Twitter app is surprisingly bare bones, seeming to not even try to compete with the feature-rich apps from third party developers. But for basic functionality, it serves its purpose extremely well. Its interface is one the best looking of the apps we tried and everything works smoothly. Still, its lack of features is a big turn off for all but casual users. Twitter’s official app was only recently released, so keep your eye on it as they are sure to launch updates with expanded features. Since the HTC Android phones come preloaded with Peep, which has the same basic functionality, there is no reason to add this app.

Seesmic – For the user looking to balance features and speed 
 More often than not with mobile apps, having loads of features means sacrificing at least some speed. Seesmic manages to offer a host of functionality without getting bogged down. Some of these features include geotagging, lists, search and multiple retweet styles. Seesmic also gives you a widget for your desktop. There are a lot of features in there for free that usually only come with the premium version of apps. If we had to pick an over all best Twitter app for Android, it would be Seesmic. 

Twidroid – For the user looking for the maximum amount of features 
Twidroid boasts a wide array of functions, including the fan-favorite slidescreen integration. It also allows linking up with other services like TwitPic, Posterous and bit.ly, among others. But for the full experience, including multiple accounts and customizable themes, you need to upgrade to Twidroid Pro. Even the free version is far ahead of most other apps in the range of features, so if you’re looking for the app with the most flexibility, this is it.

Hootsuite – For the professional user with multiple accounts and tweeters 
Hootsuite is the best bet for professionals using Twitter for marketing. You can schedule tweets from your Android phone and manage multiple accounts, which includes the ability to give multiple people access to those accounts, adding and withdrawing access as you see fit. The Android version works best in tandem with the desktop version, so if you’ve been using Hootsuite to manage your accounts, this is the best way to go mobile with your Twitter use. And thanks to Hootsuite’s acquisition of Swift - the speediest Twitter for Android app around - the app doesn’t lag despite being feature heavy.

Touiteur – For the user looking for the prettiest interface 
Touiteur (which we eventually realized is supposed to sound like Twitter, but more French) has by far the slickest and most polished interface of any app we looked at. With animated menus and transitions in a compact, streamlined design, Touiteur is a dream to use. But the glitz comes with a couple catches. The features are quite limited in the free version – you’ll have to pay get link shortening, widgets and multiple account support. And if it’s speed you’re after, this isn’t the app for you, it’s noticeably slower than most of the others. But we’re almost inclined to say it’s worth it.

Developers are starting to put serious effort into creating apps for Android, as these great options showcase. Do you have a favorite Twitter app that we missed? Let us know.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

5 ways to create your own iPhone app

 With the explosion of smart phones over the past year, more and more companies are moving beyond websites and social media to embrace the mobile revolution. This year looks to finally be the year of the mobile phone that people have been predicting for the past five years. Last year, if you didn’t have a Twitter account and a Facebook Fan Page, you weren’t in the game. This year’s must have property is an iPhone app.

iPhone apps are a great way to enable brand/consumer interaction and building brand equity. Most businesses think an iPhone app is financially and technically beyond their means. The good news is both of those issues are no longer true. I looked around the web and noticed there are several sites that allow you to create your own iPhone app and publish it either for free or for a small fee.

I set out to discover what options non-developers have for creating iPhone apps without spending too much. I sat down with my co-workers and created a wish-list of qualities that businesses might want in an iPhone app-creating-tool. We wanted:

•        an easy-to-use interface for both creating and updating apps
•        to get the hang of it quickly
•        the software to be web based
•        to integrate Twitter (in-app)
•        to link in YouTube (in-app)
•        to link in Flickr (in-app)
•        Facebook groups (in-app)
•        to enable RSS-feeds (blogs)
•        a high level of customization (interface and design)
•        unlimited updates
•        analytics
•        the ability to make an Android version

The evaluation method was simple. I visited each site and registered. I took a screenshot of a relevant part of the interface and then spent some time playing around with it. A decent site should be able to explain itself in that time. After using the application, I rated each site against my wish list.

  

Buildanapp is a pretty barebones app-creating tool. It allows you to classify the app from 17 different categories, such as Professional Service, Government Organization or Business Directory. The customization is limited to being able to upload your own graphics, such as background and app icons as jpg files or by direct input. At the moment, RSS-feeds are not supported, but according to Buildanapp this function, along with Twitter integration, will be added later this month. Linking URL’s is supposedly supported, but I couldn’t get it to work.

 

Pros: Multiple platforms (iPhone, Blackberry and Windows based), easy to use

Cons: Too basic, no RSS, no natural way of integrating social media

Price: $7.99/update, $19.99 to post to Apple app store

Rating:
 

  

Kanchoo is rich in content management and text formatting tools, making the app well suited for news distribution. Graphics like button icons, backgrounds and splash pages are pretty much the only things you can customize, which is a shame since it’s an excellent way for a company to present themselves. Kanchoo takes some time to get the hang of and the interface is overly complex. To preview your app before you submit it, you need to download software.

 

Pros: Very useful if you’re working in the news industry

Cons: Takes time to learn, expensive

Price: Initial submission fee 88$. Hosting is 28$/month.

Rating: 

MobileRoadie creates apps for the iPhone and Android phones. The tool is highly customizable, allowing the creator to integrate the most popular social media assets, a store, RSS, a wall for user/brand interaction, geo segmentation and stats on number of downloads and what excerpts are most popular. A fun and easy app well worth checking out – if you’ve got a chunk of change to burn.

 

Pros: Easy-to-use, social media friendly, rich features

Cons: Too expensive

Price: setup fee $499. Hosting is $29/month.

Rating: 

 

 

Mobbase is an app positioned for musicians and their fans, but this web-based service includes many features applicable for brand promotion as well. The app is extremely customizable, allowing you to define all the graphics including individual backgrounds on every page, the design and layout of the buttons, splash pages, bottom bars, etc. The service integrates most of the desirable social media tools such as Twitter (sorting by username, @mentions and #hashtags), videos (YouTube: entire channel, specific video or tags), photos (“sets” if you’re using Flickr or Albums with Picasa), blogs and RSS (two streams) in a natural way, along with a few other interesting features.

 

Pros: Highly customizable, easy-to-use, social media friendly
 
Cons: Can’t change name of buttons, analytics only tracks number of downloads

Price: $20 activation fee + $5/month for first 500 downloads, $1/month for every 1000 downloads after that.

Rating:
 

 

Swebapps is a rich app-creating tool intended for companies. Choose whether you want 4, 6 or 8 buttons and select among more than 30 features, including Facebook, a portfolio, Twitter and podcasts. There is an extra analytics feature called app-tracker that measures not only the numbers of downloads, but what buttons are used the most. The service is very intuitive and simple while still offering a lot. 

 
Pros: Intuitive and easy-to-use, good analytics, client signup, many RSS feeds

Cons: Rather expensive, can only add one Twitter account

Price: $50/button, $10 app tracker, hosting fee $25/month

Rating:

 

Conclusion:

All the app creating apps tested were useful, but it comes down to what your ambition level is, how much you’re willing to spend and who your target is. The most social media friendly were Mobbase and Mobile Roadie. These were also my personal favorites, as they enable a great deal of customization and have loads of interesting features to get my creative juices flowing. The other apps had some great features – especially the analytics with Swebapps. But Mobbase takes home the gold as Mobile Roadie and Swebapps are priced much higher without offering a whole lot more.