A Wider Net

Sony has a really cool-looking mobile exhibit rolling around the country at >$4/gallon. I have to admit - it looks like a giant toy that I want to pick up and play with. It comes completely loaded with lots playable product demos in individually themed environments.

My only criticism, having not experienced it firsthand yet, is: In these days of ridiculous gas prices, thanks to the ultra-rich who continue to line their portfolios with speculated gluttony, and our fear of environmental Armageddon only surpassed by our fear of four more years of bush-alikes, why would you roll out an 18-wheeler the size of Delaware and drive around the country with a bunch of PlayStation’s? Compare that to Nintendo, who chose to associate themselves with a Smart Car in their launch campaign.

Having JUST co-written an article with Turtle Transit’s General Manager, Joe Doyon, in the May/June issue of Exhibit Builder Magazine about the use of smaller vehicles for mobile marketing, I’m a little sensitive to this sort of thing.

Compare:

Two gadgets launched this this week that are worth mentioning here. The first is very well-known - the iPhone 3G. The second launched the day after to considerably less fanfare, but has big potential: The new HP TouchSmart2.

The iPhone is the easiest to talk about. The stories of it’s runaway success are second only to the stories of how it has completely changed the cell phone industry in the United States. Now the iPhone 3G is poised for a worldwide distribution at a price point that may very well keep it sold out for the rest of the year. Adding a support for the high speed 3G networks, better battery life, true GPS, and a host of software improvements that will be shared with it’s older brother and the iTouch line of media players, the iPhone 3G is a significant evolutionary improvement to the iPhone. At $199 and $299 for the 8 Gigabyte and 16 Gigabyte versions it is now cheaper than the Motorola Razor (at launch) and more functional than any handheld gaming system, all mobile phones, and many, if not most, laptop computers currently in use today. Some of us were a little disappointed at the lack of Flash support, lack of streaming video from the onboard camera, and lack of a 32 Gigabyte version, but this is still the coolest smartphone on the planet right now.

The HP TouchSmart 2 greatly improves on the previous model in form factor, functionality, and price. At $1300, it’s a pretty easy way to add touch and gesture control to a trade show demonstration kiosk. Take a look at the video on this link, but make sure you have the sound OFF first. You have been warned.

Yesterday Apple held a town hall press conference to announce the release of their software development kit (SDK) that provides third party developers the opportunity to create and publish their own applications for the iPhone and iTouch devices. This conference turned out to be another major game-changer in the mobile phone industry and there were lots of big surprises. Since many of these announcements will greatly affect the business community, especially sales and marketing professionals, I felt it was worth reviewing the highlights for our readers.

At the top of the conference Steve Jobs announced enterprise support for the iPhone, enabling synchronization between iPhones and Microsoft Exchange. In fact, they appear to have integrated with Exchange more directly and fluidly than any other smart phone platform. Email, contacts, tasks, calendar will be very easy to handle on your iPhone, and all of the data can be remotely wiped for security protection. This makes the iPhone, with all of it’s multimedia presentation capabilities and it’s chic design prestige arguably the most desirable and most productive mobile work tool that you can fit in your shirt pocket.

And for sales professionals it gets even better: They demonstrated a Salesforce.com SFA application for iPhone. It apparently also links to the phone’s GPS-like mapping capabilities.

What exactly is the SDK? The SDK is a set of tools that allows developers to make applications for the iPhone. It costs $99 and if the examples in the press conference were any indicator, then they have made developing on this platform crazy simple. They demonstrated examples of what could be done in 2 hours, 2 days, and 2 weeks. None of the examples were ready-to-market apps, but they showed two very important things: First, the platform is powerful - more powerful than developers anticipated. It seemed to have no trouble rendering 3D games and animations. Second, the development kit is robust, making it possible to make the iPhone do just about anything.

Making it easy to develop applications is only part of their strategy. They also made it easy to publish those applications, easy to make money with them, and they even made it possible to obtain funding for their development. A new feature called the App Store allows iPhone users to download applications through their phone directly over wireless or sideways through iTunes. They share revenue with developers 70/30 - 30% goes to Apple and there are no additional fees. Developers set their own prices including, if they want, free, and if they choose to distribute free software, Apple won’t charge them or the end user a dime. What was not clear is what the developer will have to go through to get their content certified and on the store for users to download. Many people will be critical of this distribution method because it is far less open than the Windows Mobile platform which allows you to download applications from any mobile website. This is a mixed blessing - while Apple can control the applications this way, keeping buggy and malicious code from their platform, end users really want more control over where and how they buy content and applications for computing platforms. Regardless, they have made developing for the platform even more appealing by announcing a $100 million developer fund that should stimulate the creation of a good amount of quality software for the platform.

It didn’t take long for other software announcements for the iPhone to make waves, such as this one from Epocrates that provides doctors ready access to drug information.

Apple is clearly betting that mobiles phones represent the next generation computing platform (a common belief) and they want to own it. Decades ago computers evolved from room-filling monstrosities into desktop personal computers and for around 25 years we have watched them infiltrate every desk and home in the industrialized world. Apple may have had a chance to own that massive market 25 years ago, but many believe they handed it to Microsoft. Now Apple has stepped in with an absolutely stunning solution to the smart phone space. If they are correct, and if mobile phones are, in fact, the next mass market computing platform, then we may see their technology trickle down to the average consumer, much the way PC’s started in business and education and gradually made their way into homes. Then we, as marketers, will have a consistent small screen to work with instead of the wildly fragmented and closed systems currently offered to consumers through carriers like Verizon Wireless.

When you look at these announcements and compare them to their competition, they have suddenly made most of the major smartphone players irrelevant including Microsoft who watched their Windows Mobile platform drop behind the iPhone in the US market. Fake Steve Jobs said it well when he basically ranted that this announcement has killed, or re-killed, the rest of the smartphone players. While I disagree that this has killed Nokia, the rest should consider new day jobs. Seriously - who wants Windows Mobile now?

Is it enough for me to put up with the questionable AT&T network and the lousy track record they have for customer service dating back to Cellular One? No… But when the new iPhone comes out in the June time frame with 3G network support (fast data) and more storage space (32GB), then I may be sold, price depending. I fear the price will be astronomical. For the record - I still think the iPhone needs a keyboard like almost every other smart phone in the world including the probably-too-late Sony Xperia. It also needs more memory, a memory expansion slot, voice dialing, and 3G support. Let’s see how many of these things Apple addresses in June. I can live without physical buttons if they add decent voice control - an area into which Microsoft is clearly investing heavily. Sigh… I guess I have to admit that I really really really want one of these now.

Credit: Top image is from Engadget’s live blog post from the conference.

Motion Computing, maker of the impressive C5 medical tablet computer, has released a new rugged mobile tablet PC, the F5, an impressive field sales device. We have been fans of tablet computers for field sales and exhibit applications for many years. We find them to be excellent for one-to-one or one-to-few presentations and they make great tools to put in the hands of customers for impromptu interactive experiences.

The F5 is even better than your typical tablet because it was designed with this application in mind. For starters, they ruggedized it and made it fairly light (actually, it weights the same as the MacBook Air.) They added a handle to make it easier to carry and to hold. And they added extra features such as wireless internet connectivity, a camera, RFID and barcode readers, speech recognition, and even theft prevention to make it an outstanding device for the field.

Some applications for this are somewhat obvious: field presentations, data gathering, site surveys, and real time estimates with access to full CRM data. But I also see this as a great exhibit gadget.

Let’s imagine that you have a large trade show exhibit with many product groups. You can hand one of these devices to everyone who registers at the reception desk. They bring it with them as they tour the booth. After filling out some basic information, the device plots a tour through the booth and guides the visitor along. As they tour the booth, the tablet senses RFID tags and displays information about nearby products and how they relate to the specific needs of the visitor, based on the information they provided. Interactive activities may include video demos, 3D pen-based walk-through experiences of products or solutions, games, scavenger hunts, and augmented reality visuals (more on that on one of my next posts). At any point the visitor can opt to have product information sent to their office email or downloaded to a memory stick on their way out. The custom guided tour would provide great value to the visitor by tailoring the presentations to meet their needs, while providing tremendous measurement data for the exhibitor. Also, exhibitors may gather feedback and even content from visitors such as comments, ratings, photos, and videos, then share them on the show floor and online.

I will be writing more about this device as soon as we put it through its paces. In the meantime, you can get a chuckle at Engadget, where they compare the handle-held device to that other bit of hardware brilliance, the infamous Speak N’ Spell.

This is a “three-fer” post covering a three SMS solutions of note.

First, Airquake, a small incubatee of Atlantis Tech, has been offering SMS solutions for years now with a particular focus on large event SMS communications. Now they have added some great mini solution examples to their website (example shown). Each is interactive and I recommend giving them a try. They illustrate the use of SMS messaging for marketing better than any examples I have seen. You can also see through their demos, and the other examples below, how the use of SMS can establish a relationship with your customers. They become connected to you from a data perspective (you capture their phone and email information) and from an access perspective (they have access to information, products, and services anytime, anywhere). You can provide them with value on the go, thus creating the mobile component of the experiential marketing continuum.

Another example is Pangolin SMS - another SMS marketing veteran who offers solutions around everything from SMS interactivity at nightclubs and events to interactive television.

SMS Messaging is being used in all sorts of interesting ways now, especially in Europe. At a bar, you can order drinks without leaving your seat. At a conference, you can use text messages to send questions to the presenter, participate in polls, and check your agenda.

But the most intriguing use of SMS I have seen lately is the cool way that Finland has used SMS messaging to unlock public toilets. By capturing the phone number of the person unlocking the door, they cut down on misuse and vandalism by being able to identify who was there when the bad deed occurred. Well, they can identify whose phone opened the door, anyway. They also have found a way to restrict use of the public toilets to their own population - you have to know how to text message “open” in Finnish. Maybe it’s written on the door somewhere. I suppose if you stay in there too long, they probably charge you rent. I did some quick math, and I discovered that if they charged you by the minute, at a typical cell phone plan overage rate, it’s still way cheaper than a hotel. And you thought math would never come in handy.

Pizza Hut, the $5billion pizza giant (they are 50 times larger than Papa Ginos - who knew?), just added support for mobile phone orders. The next two largest pizza chains, Dominos and Papa Johns, had already entered that space to some extent.

Hungry football fans can order pizza using their mobile browser or text messages. Pizza Hut aims to receive half of their order via online or mobile within five years.

As a logical progression, soon we may see these pizza chains offering special code scan promotions that look like this:

Here’s how it works: Pizza Hut would print these on ads or coupons. Users simply snap a photo of the image using their phone and a free scanning widget they get from a company like NWW who makes ConnexTo. The system decodes the code and connects their phone to Pizza Hut where they can place an order and receive whatever promotion they were offered with the printed ad. These things can probably be highly personalized, so a digitally printed image on a postcard can tell the Pizza Hut system precisely who the buyer is, look up their buying history, and give them a well-targeted offer.

I guess in that last scenario you’d have to be careful not to share those coupons with your friends. They may discover your deep, dark secret passion for pizza with anchovies, pork rinds, pickled beets, and gummi worms.

If you scan the CES coverage, you’ll notice that cellphone manufacturers have done the expected - launched a ton of iPhone competitors with large touch screens. I suspect they also feel that consumers will see the big color touch screen and assume it has the same or better capabilities as an iPhone which, of course, it won’t. They will have advantages over the iPhone like qwerty keyboards, better carrier options, and in some cases, better 3rd party application support. But they won’t have the slick multi-touch user interface. That’s too bad, because I think that’s the ONLY thing that makes a touch screen on a phone worth all the fingerprints.

Check out the “small screen” phones with the big screens because that’s where your audience is increasingly turning their attention. Here are a couple to watch.

EDIT - ok, the Mylo isn’t a phone, so this note below really references an iPod Touch competitor rather than the iPhone competition. So you get two posts in one.

But my FAVORITE feature on the new crop of touch devices, so far, is found in the Sony Mylo below. It illustrates that Sony clearly had their marketing team involved too much in the design of the device, because they added a “BS” button:

I apologize - I’m a little late to the party with any mention of Google Android and the Open Social initiative that seems to be smashing Facebook with a book in the face. Honestly, things have been very very busy and I’m still digesting the big news from Google this past week.

Here are some of the recent happenings that I need to write more about, and a quick idea of what they’re all about:

Surface: Last Friday we were given a private showing of Microsoft’s Surface product. WOW. This is the most natural human-computer experience I have yet to encounter. I love this and can’t wait to offer it to customers for a variety of applications.

Google Android: This is a mobile operating system (sort of) and not the Google Phone everyone was waiting for. It has tremendous potential but was honestly a bit of a let-down. We have a while to go before the potential is realized, but it does appear Google is out to fragment another industry and keep it open (and keep it hooked on search). It may be the best thing to happen to the US mobile phone market ever, but I doubt Verizon is going to let it happen casually, since they will be less able to control the sale of overpriced ringtones and wallpapers.

Open Social - probably the biggest Google announcement - has immediate application. This initiative will (in theory) allow developers to make “widgets” or “applications” that work on any social network that supports the Open Social initiative. It will also allow users to share their data across all those social networks, making it easier to maintain just one “page” and “friends list”, etc. Social Network startup and emerging juggernaut Ning has already rolled out support for the platform, and almost 20 companies are on board immediately. Except Facebook. They’re clearly left out for a reason. Google seems to want people to stop flocking to Facebook and return to an open internet (where they still need Google and their advertisers). Open Social will be very important to marketers. More to come.

Today, I’m visiting Mobile Internet World and I may have a tidbit or two to discuss regarding the future of web marketing to handhelds.

Oh, I also recently visited Communispace in Watertown, MA - they have a truly remarkeable approach to building and maintaining highly focused and vibrant social communities for market research, brainstorming, and many other applications.

Catch you later.

The winners of the annual EIBTM Worldwide Technology Watch were announced last week. SpotMe 2, a handheld networking and communication tool, won top honors. The runners-up included nTAG, eTouches, Jambo Networks, and Jot Event Messaging Systems.

Shown below: The SpotMe 2

Complete details at MeetingsNet.

As this review points out, every living thing has heard of the iPhone. We are collectively the victims of another unstoppable buzz campaign from Apple. Like many reviews of this slick new device, the comments are mixed. The iPhone is slick, elegant, and potentially game-changing. At the very least, every handset maker in the world has been given a challenge to make better devices and for that we will all benefit. But, like the iPod, the device is technically imperfect and, like the iPod, competitors should be able to beat the iPhone technically and at lower prices. The question on every analysts mind must be: Will people continue to buy the iPhone despite the inevitable availability of lower cost, technically superior products, just because it’s an iPhone (just like they do with iPods).

I don’t have that answer of course, but I suspect iPhones will sell no matter what. In the meantime, the iPhone is among us, we have rumors of another iPhone right around the corner, and we have time to ponder it’s success from a marketing perspective and it’s usefulness as a marketing or communications tool.

As far as the marketing hype is concerned, we have only to look back at Macworld 2007 during which Steve Jobs finally unveiled the phone, after months (if not years) of endless and frantic rumors and speculation. I was a few hundred miles away at CES and once it was announced, that’s all anyone at CES was talking about. Steve Jobs had stolen the thunder of the largest consumer electronics event from hundreds of miles away. It was simply astonishing. Months later, on iPhone launch day, despite the over-abundance of iPhones at retail stores, the news media only covered the stores that had long lines filled with mattress-toting diehard fans, afraid to miss having their $1,975 phones on launch day. The media clearly loves Apple, because there were plenty of stores with plenty of stock and no rabid fans. Today, there are still iPhone stories in every magazine, newspaper, newsletter, and blog. Clearly Apple has a handle on brand loyalty and hype.

As a gadget, it’s has strong appeal despite its technical limitations, and because the price is out of range for most cellphone slingers, it has become arguably the hottest VIP gift you can give without wheels. And because it can display video and images so beautifully, it makes elevator pitches engaging. It’s the handset equivalent of a fancy car and a Rolex watch carrying prestige and gadget-chic. I imagine we will see at least one exhibitor at every trade show in America offering an iPhone giveaway, just like the iPods when they launched (before everyone got one).

For those of you simply hating the overpriced little thing, or if you are one of the unfortunate people charged with finding one for someone else, here’s a video you’ll love: The iPhone in a blender.