Cx3: Steve Jobs

A while since my last post, but the demonstrable influence of Steve Job's death has reignited my Cx3 blog posts - and in tribute, written and posted in totality using my iPad.

In the past few days, since Steve Jobs died, there has been an unprecedented global outpouring of grief, tributes and reflection. He is labelled a genius in parallel with Einstein and labelled the creator of the 21st century.

Steve Job's Apple empire touches the world, quite literally, as it shapes the way we behave and communicate today - providing platforms to connect, share, inform, inspire, influence, educate, perform and entertain.

I myself (as did many others) found out about Steve Jobs death via my iPhone and actively shared the news appropriately - via my iPhone, which can only be a fitting tribute to a man who revolutionised communication. Twitter recorded 10,000 tweets per second on news of his death - the highest ever.

Clips of Steve Jobs were shared including his Commencement speech at Stanford University 'How to live before you die' and multiple i-product launch performances, which have a presentation style of their own. The 'opportunity in death' that Steve Jobs actively talks about, provides the world with the opportunity to 'save to memory' recognition of a man's leadership genius, and a not-to-be-forgotten creative visionary.

Cx3: Foursquare times square equals...

...a massive great Foursquare tower in the middle of New York's Times Square!

The Foursquare advertisement has been erected over American Eagle’s Times Square store. It is reported that Foursquare has a deal with American Eagle opening it to multiple location brands, even though it’s already one of the retailers using Shopkick, a location-based rewards app for iPhone (see video below).



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Cx3 Blog entry. Get your racy Calvin Klein ad

Cx3: 2009 social media highlights

2009 is almost over, and no blog would be worth its salt without the obligatory picking out of choice highlights from the year - and Cx3 is no exception. Yes, I may be slightly biased with my selection towards the UK and my indulgance in the banal, but hey...it's Christmas!

Twitter
What can I say? 2009 was the year Twitter went mainstream. Twitter progressed from the techy early adopters to the majority in the product lifecycle. Why? Most noticably was an acceptance by traditional media broadcasters that Twitter was a powerful channel for real-time news distribution (that acctually beat them at their own game). The publicity and exposure Twitter received with the Hudson plane landing and Iran elections catapulted the Twitter communication channel into the spotlight. Secondly, the increased share of the iPhone in the smartphone mobile market allowed the mainstream masses access to a multitude of Twitter apps.

Susan Boyle
Who would have believed that Britain's Got Talent would be the source of the most watched video on YouTube in 2009. Susan Boyle, the fiesty wannabe singer from Scotland, became a worldwide conversational buzz overnight. Yes she didn't win the show (and maybe this was a blessing in disguise), but it's not stopped the '#susanboyle' having the UK's Christmas number one album in 2009.

#uksnow
Us weather obsessed Brits demonstrated our need to share our meteorological interest when, in February 2009, we suffered the worst snow for 20 years. The '#uksnow' hashtag trended on Twitter, and mobile pictures / videos were uploaded to Twitpic, Flickr, blogs, Youtube etc...The world suffered a global drift of British snow - what are we like? Sorry world.

iPhone
Ok, so I finally succumbed to Apple's charms and purchased the iPhone 3GS in July 2009. Seriously though, Apple has made a major dent in the share of the UK smartphone mobile market with the iPhone, and is doing the same in the US. The iPhone has been elevated to a desirable must-have object that is transforming the way we communicate..."What iPhone apps have you got?"

Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry has become the unlikely champion and celebrity spokesperson of Twitter in the UK. The expert wordsmith and linguist, has perfectly tweeted his intelligent wry wit to the score of 1,000,000+ followers. A worthy face to represent British Twits (that didn't come out right, did it).

Citizen journalism
The Iran election (influencial event rather than highlight), proved the demonstrable truth that Twitter had arrived as a channel for citizen journalists to broadcast real-time news worldwide, where traditional news broadcasters failed. The Iran election was also a milestone for integrated media channel broadcasting - BBC TV news adopted to broadcast YouTube videos when their reporters were denied access by the Iranian government, in order to sustain a newsworthy story.

Facebook v X Factor
The might of Facebook against the might of X Factor saw a historic battle to reach the prestigious number one spot in the UK Christmas singles chart. A Facebook campaign 'Rage Against The Machine for Christmas No1', created by Jon and Tracy Morter, was a reaction against X Factor potentially spawning the UK's Christmas number one single for the fifth year in a row. The Facebook campaign captured the public's imagination and Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing in the Name' successfully beat 'The Climb' by X Factor's Joe McElderry into second place by 50,000 copies.

2009 really has been a year where social media 'est arrivé'. In observing these choice highlights, there is a bridging commonality of the seamless social media integration with mainstream communication channels - predominantly broadcast and mobile.

Marketers realise that social media reaches an audience, and its dynamics sit within the holistic communications mix - let's see how marketers maximise the effectiveness of social media in 2010.

Merry Xmas!

Cx3: #iphone 3G S and #HTC Hero - no contest

HTC's Hero is based on the Google Android system, boasts greater personalisation and an angled design...and not much else. It's going to take more than an attractive handset to challenge the market position of Apple's iPhone now. The new iPhone 3G S is a must-have desireable and sustains the iPhone's iconic status as the smartphone of today and the future. With a PR buzz protecting the iPhone, competitors need to dent this before standing a chance of being a commercial threat.

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Cx3 blog entry: Smartphone market trends
Cx3 blog entry: Google G1 or Apple i-Phone...fight!
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPhone App Store success reported
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

Cx3: iPhone sales grow despite market downturn

Mobile phone sales have plummeted by a record amount in the first quarter of 2009 as the global financial crisis sapped demand, a research firm said.

The number of phones shipped worldwide in the first three months of the year dropped by 13% to 245 million units from the same period last year.

Strategy Analytics said all of the five biggest mobile phone-makers had drops in sales.

Bucking the trend is Apple's iPhone that had sales of 3.8 million, up from 1.7 million units the previous year - an annual gain of 123%.

"We expect Apple to launch one or more new models in the coming months as it seeks to maintain its breakneck growth rate," Strategy Analytics said.

Strategy Analytics said the previous worst quarter for mobile phone sales was in the third quarter of 2001.

Read the full BBC article: Mobile sales 'in record decline'

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Cx3 blog entry: Smartphone market trends
Cx3 blog entry: Google G1 or Apple i-Phone...fight!
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPhone App Store success reported
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

Cx3: 2008 - 2009 mobile trends

2008 was the year of the smartphone
The last 12 months has seen the launch of iconic devices such as the iPhone 3G, Google G1, Blackberry Storm and Nokia N97. 2008 also saw the emergence of the electronic ecosystems needed to get the most out of such handsets. However, the popularity of these devices has brought to light several problems that look set to become acute in 2009.

2008 mobile success factors
- Consumer social networking behaviour. Access to popular social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.

- Applications. Applications introduced a new content category. Apple said more than 100 million applications had been downloaded from its App Store between July and September.

- Speed. 3G started to deliver on its promise and has been attributed to the use of a technology known as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) - the original 3G service, but on steroids. The service speed is set to increase with the introduction of HSPA+ in 2009, which allows up to 42Mbps (the maximum at the moment is 7.2Mbps in the UK).

2009 mobile switch-off expected
Mobile analysts CCS Insight predict 2009 will see sales of handsets shrink. They say this slowdown could be blamed on the global economic downturn that will hit every part of the mobile industry.

Handset sales look set to dip in 2009 following years of growth. As a result it is essential mobile operators ensure that greater numbers of people pay for data traffic.

Read full article on BBC: Smartphones drive mobile markets

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Cx3 blog entry: Google G1 or Apple i-Phone...fight!
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPhone App Store success reported
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

Google G1 or Apple iPhone...fight!

Google launched its long-awaited G1 mobile phone this week. There is no doubt that the Google G1 is credible competition for Apple's iPhone, therefore, expect flying baubles at the annual Christmas bun-fight this year.

So what's so special about the Google G1? Well, Google has taken the best bits of iPhone touch and added some of their own, integrated a slide-out Blackberry-style QWERTY keyboard, increased the camera picture quality, and boasts a faster connection speed to the internet - oh yeah, you can also make a phone call if you so desire. The Google G1 may not be the design classic as awarded to the iPhone (Apple will always have that sewn-up), but to a customer audience whose priority is functional integrated communications, the Google G1 is a winner.

Apps and widgets will be key to maximising the G1's success as an integrated mobile communications platform and Google's Android system aims to achieve this. The Google G1 is affiliated to the T-mobile network, who have been busying themselves in developing their own version of the very successful Apple App Store. Google has the opportunity to leverage its existing application empire via T-mobile.

Skepticism of Google entering the mobile handset marketplace in order to extend its advertising reach is rife, but so what? Currently, there is a troublesome lack of mobile channel advertising regulation, and if this is tightened by Google entering into the marketspace, then surely this can only be positive?

However, and a big "however", as much as the Google G1 may be a strong player, network loyalty to O2 and aggressive churn tactics may determine that the Apple iPhone remains in consumers' pockets. To benefit consumer choice and ultimately integrated communication reach, exclusive handset-network affiliation needs to change.

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Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPhone App Store success reported
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

Apple iPhone App Store success reported

Apple have announced that its newly launched App Store that enables users to sell and buy third-party applications for the iPhone was making an average of $1m (£500,000) a day, and had served downloads for over 60 million programmes since its launch last month.

Apple's developer revenue-share programme takes a 30 per cent cut of all revenues generated from the applications. Chief Executive Steve Jobs said

"if sales continue at the current pace, the firm stands to make at least $360m a year in new revenue".

He also predicted that the Apps Store could eventually pull in up to $1bn.

T-mobile have already been prompted to work with developers to create their own version of the App Store.

Despite the reported success of the App Store, concerns have been raised about the validity of some of the applications and guaranteed quality assurance.

Either way widgets and applications that connect communication channels are here to stay.

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Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

iPhone: Driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

The latest report by Nielsen Mobile, Critical Mass - The Worldwide State of the Mobile Web, provides insight into today's mobile internet usage behaviour. Coming out of the report's statistical analysis, it states that "Mobile internet reached a critical mass this year, offering a large and diverse enough base of users to support large-scale mobile marketing efforts".

Globally, 16% of the US population browse the internet via a mobile handset, closely followed by the UK (13%) and Italy (12%). Nielsen found that 82% of iPhone owners access mobile internet, "making them five times as likely to do so as the average mobile consumer".

The report says that "PC internet users visit more than 100 domains per month, on average", however, 'mobile internet' users (in the UK) visited on average only 5.5 select websites per month...oh, to be on that precious '5.5' list.

The user profile of the iPhone owner has evolved over time. The first generation iPhone aligned itself with the lifestyle and psychological profile of early adopters:

- For 'Lifestyle seekers' it was new, shiny, latest 'to-be-seen-with' phone;
- 'Apple supporters' purchased the phone for its aesthetic appeal;
- 'Techies' purchased the phone to access the web and the widgets.

However, O2 then slashed the cost of the iPhone by £100 that opened up mass availability to wider audiences bringing the product into the mainstream.

The just released second generation iPhone comes with 3G, allowing faster access to the web. This can only support the growth of mobile internet usage that opens up opportunities for web marketing trends, whose target audience's contact point is the mobile phone. As the report says "Mobile internet users are 60% more likely to be open to mobile advertising than the average mobile data user".

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Download full report: Critical Mass - The Worldwide State of the Mobile Web (PDF 1.5MB)
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