It was great to see another big turnout this week at Mobile Monday Toronto with over 200 people packed into the Mars venue on College street for the second month in a row.

This month’s event featured Tyler Lessard who is the Director of blackberry alliances & developer relations at RIM.

The session provided some updated information on the BlackBerry Developer and Partner Ecosystems, and the upcoming BlackBerry Application Storefront

Here are some of the highlights:

• App store is scheduled to launch in March 2009
• Apps can be ad supported
• Developers can distribute apps any way they wish… and do not need to be exclusive to their App store.
• Not intent on blocking Apps… but they need to be mindful of Apps that may impact network stability. Does this mean Adult oriented Apps will be accepted?
• North America, UK or English speaking Europe will be the first priority
• Expansion into broad set of languages with an international platform will roll out “soon” after initial launch
• Developers can choose what carrier and device to optimize for… one sign that it’s difficult to build once for all? Why else would you need that?
• Alerting feature on device will enable one-click to update Apps
• No mention of whether or not subscription fees will be possible, but developers will be able to set their own price (including zero)
• Consumer storefront is the primary focus – and App categories will reflect that
• Payments will be made through paypal
• Push to Java apps coming soon – which will be fantastic as Apps can auto-update without forcing user to go through multiple-steps
• Today they have over 100,000 developers on their platform and expect that to grow once the App store is released
• Tyler spoke to the growing importance of context, personalization and social integration

One of my favorite quotes from the evening was when Tyler said he believes the App store will change the way people use their mobile device. I couldn’t help but think… ummm hasn’t that already happened?

Even though RIM is a bit late in coming to the App store party, they have an opportunity to capitalize on  industry momentum – assuming they have applied sufficient energy into usability and focus on launching with a deep and rich applications.

Here we go again…  here are my 10 informed best guesses on what will happen in the Canadian market place this year. Click here to see how I did against last year’s predictions. 

1. It will be the year of the App store. Every manufacturer in the smartphone space will have a mobile application store, but Apple will continue to dominate the market because they are the only ones who focus on usability first
2. There will be several new models of the iphone announced and launched this year – including a “nano” version.  I predict that copy & paste will still not be among one of its many features
3. Palm Pre will do better than any Android device. Friends, peers and industry pals all mocked me for predicting that they would make a come back when I published some predictions in August, but I’m sticking with this one
4. Mobile security and privacy will become a big focus for marketers and the industry as more people use feature rich smart phones (25% of Canadians are already on them)
5. Mobile payment systems will finally reach retail as both MasterCard and Visa should be ready to go  
6. MMS will fail to reach its promise as the market shifts to the mobile web for richer experiences
7. Both Bell and Telus announce GSM compatibility / network infrastructure upgrades in order to get a piece of the lucrative GSM roaming market and to counter efforts by new regional and national carriers who will be entering the marketing in Q4
8. Microsoft will release a new OS for mobile that includes a 2d code reader that supports their own proprietary M-Tag.  This will finally bring 2d codes into the mainstream in North America
9. All major Canadian news / content websites will have a specific mobile enabled website
10. 40 Billion SMS messages will be sent in Canada – up from about the 20 Billion fore-casted in 2008.

What do you think? Feel free to comment /add your own predictions.

Q:Do you think there is enough saturation in the market from pdas that support them to make branded widgets/applications a viable option for clients? How do we position this in a world where everyone watches tv but only a small percentage use PDAs?

A:The first thing you need to do is not think of mobile as a one to many medium. Because relevance and context are key, there are very few widgets or applications that everybody would want or need.  The closet thing i’ve seen to a mass appeal widget are the weather widgets. The Weather Network now has both a blackberry and iphone widget and they are doing really well

The key to developing a mobile widget or application is to first understand your target audience and validate that you would be fulfilling a need by creating a widget.  If your target audience is not primarily on a smartphone / pda device, chances are you would have better success building out a mobile website or even an sms based application… or maybe even something on the old desktop interweb!

Having said that, last month the new 3g iphone was the top selling mobile device in the U.S. – outselling the Motorola Razr for the first time. This is significant because the iphone is more expensive – and it’s offers the richest user experience for mobile web, widgets, and applications. 

What does this mean? Soon we will not be distinguishing between smartphones and others as all phones will come feature rich no matter what shape / form they take.

In regards to the comment about television – keep in mind that consumers are multitaskers. Chances are they are watching tv and checking their email or sms on their mobile device at the same time. Many also have their laptop open too.

If you’re an agency lucky enough to control the entire marketing mix, be sure to include a call to action in your television commercial to drive them to web, mobile web, or sms. This will make an old medium like television more measurable – and you get to start or continue a conversation with a consumer beyond your 30 second spot.

Q: Are there certain age groups or regions that have been more responsive to mobile marketing and how would you predict this to change?

A: Just like the interweb, the younger generations were the quickest to adopt SMS and are still the most likely to respond to a call to action via sms

Having said that, keep the following three things in mind:

1. Parents and grand parents are fast growing segments for SMS because they’ve realized that in order to stay somewhat in touch with their kids and grand kids, they had to learn how to text. As a result, SMS adoption is penetrating all demographics and should no longer be considered a tween or teen obsession only
2. How many of your friends have blackberries? Ever notice that they are emailing their co-workers & friends as often as the kids sending SMS back and forth? With RIM having around 40% market share in Canada, there are lots of people who are exhibiting the same behaviours and dependancies on mobile as those who are more SMS reliant.
3. We’ve found that the “professional age” demographic is far more likely to go on to the mobile web than other demographics. The reason is that many of these folks are using PDAs (like blackberry) that come with nicer & larger screens and data plans that are paid for by their company.

Response rates for mobile marketing can be good or great across all demographics. It’s not unusual to get 6% on well targeted mobile campaigns for example.

The key is knowing your audience and understanding how to deliver your message in the most audience relevant context (sms, mobile web, bluetooth etc…) with a relevant message.

With 3.3 billion mobile devices in use worldwide today, mobile is already a mass medium and marketers who figure out how to integrate mobile into their marketing mix now will be at a huge advantage tomorrow when mobile goes from experimental to essential.

This is an excellent question posed by the panel audience earlier this week.

The short answer is – nearly 100% of mobile devices in Canada have a mobile browser.

Every new device comes with one and consumers are updating & replacing their devices faster than ever. It used to be that every 2-3 years a consumer would update their device. Now it’s about every 6-9 months. Also, thanks to Stephanie at Yiibu for this link which shows device market share by Country.

Having said that, keep in mind that the mobile web experience varies greatly from device to device. You can design and develop sites that will work just fine on every device if you follow the standards laid out by the W3c and dotmobi.

Unlike the interweb where we are often designing for the lowest common denominator, you can design for the highest common denominator for the mobile web.  We can auto-detect your device before serving content so that you can serve up a very rich experience for smartphones (i.e. bb bold, iphone) and a more basic experience for your standard clamshell device for example.

Data plans in Canada have come way down in the last year. You can get unlimited data plans for as low as $7 / month from Bell and Telus for your flip phone, and as low as $30 / month for your smartphone from Rogers.

Summary: The mobile web is a viable channel to extend your message.  Be sure to design for mobile and user context instead of trying to cram an interweb site into a smaller screen.

Although it’s impressive that the iphone outsold the blackberry and it’s also impressive that the gphone has 1.5 million pre-orders, keep the following in mind:

1. RIM has not been able to launch the Blackberry BOLD in the U.S. (the largest market for them) due to issues AT&T has been having with certifying it. If the BOLD had been on sale the last few months as expected, the numbers would look very different
2. RIM is releasing a few new consumer driven devices over the next two months including the new clam-shell pearl, a curve with push to talk, and the thunder – RIM’s touch screen version meant to compete with iphone head-on
3. Don’t confuse pre-orders by a carrier with sales to consumers. They’re very different… and most initial reports on the gphone say it’s no iphone killer as it’s heavier, clunkier and the interface is nothing new or innovative. No word yet on who will be the first carrier in Canada to carry it either.

2009 is shaping up to be the year of the smartphone as all the major players are releasing “iphone killers” and you can expect Apple to have a few surprises of their own. More competition and choice can only mean good things for consumers. 

The Blackberry Storm was formally announced this morning to the press and on their fan page on facebook.

Many had been predicting that a touch screen interface added to an already impressive blackberry architecture would be the perfect storm of form and function to take on the iphone. 

Although initial images and specs look impressive, I have some concerns over its ability to truly compete in the consumer smartphone space: 

1. No Wifi – I don’t know how any manufacturer can release a consumer smartphone device and not offer wifi. It’s in the Bold – why not the Storm? It’s possible that the Canadian versions will include Wifi, but the versions being released on Verizon and Vodafone do not have it
2. It weighs more than the iphone and has a slightly smaller screen. Although it looks like the sleekest blackberry to date, it needs to compete in the cool department and wear as well as the iphone as a fashion device
3. No app store – or equivalent. The ability to personalize and customize an iphone through the dummy-proof app store is a huge contributor to the success of the iphone. Microsoft and Nokia are building their own app stores, where’s the bb store? 

Having said that, the storm addresses one of the biggest complaints from iphone users – adding tactile into a touch screen. Apparently the new touch screen will mimic hitting a real keyboard – but on a touch screen.

This will make a lot of people happy (assuming it works well), although I don’t know why they chose their “suretype” keyboard as the default interface. This is the same interface found on the Pearl where 2 letters occupy each key.  Turning the phone horizontally switches the keyboard to full QWERTY – which is a great feature and something iphone users have also been asking for. 

The storm comes with an impressive radio frequency capability – meaning it will work virtually anywhere in the world out of the box. This is especially useful for the business traveller. 

Mac owners will be able to sync to the Storm without a third party suite via the BlackBerry Media Sync program for Mac.

Similar to an iPhone, Media Sync will let users choose to sync all or only some play lists, and will give a certain amount of control over storage. Owners pick whether to load music to built-in memory or an add-in card, and have an iPod shuffle-style ability to reserve a certain minimum of free memory on their BlackBerrys for more essential info.

Should you buy a storm over a 3g iphone? 

I will definitely be picking one up when it hits retail in Canada – which should be in about 6 weeks.

About a month ago I managed to get my hands on a hot new Palm Centro -  the smallest and lightest Palm OS based smartphone to date.

This was a trip down sentimenal lane for me as my Palm treo 650 was my first smartphone and it remained a favourite for nearly two years until it started falling apart from use and abuse… although I still fire it up once in a while for a few games of bejeweled – which was never as fun to play on my iphone or blackberry. 

Here are some things I really like about the Centro: 

1. Better battery life than previous generations. Even with tones of texting, I can gets a good two days on one charge – far better than the iphone or my blackberry bold. 
2. Document viewer is awesome – it essentially brings full Office 2007 support to the Centro with ability to view, edit and create native documents. PDF files are also easy to view out of the box
3. Touch screen is great. They’ve always had this, and it still rocks.
4. Full keyboard – I could never get used to the 2 letters per keys on the blackberry Pearl – so it’s nice to have what feels like a reasonably sized keyboard for a device that is about the same size. 
5. Easy to carry – feels more like a phone than a mini-computer
6.  Micro SD slot – but you have to take the back cover off to get at it 
7. Simple Email setup
8. Lots of free apps – but having been spoiled by the Apple App store – finding them just isn’t as easy 
9. Screen is amazingly sharp, much nicer than the treo 

What could be improved:

1. Back cover is a pain in the butt to put back in place. It didn’t slide very easily and it takes way too long compared to my other devices
2. More applications would be great – and an easy way to find them. My favourite application was maps. I liked to plot where I was going, plotting it against my current location, and trying to beat the estimated time maps returned
3. Bigger screen. Some of those buttons could be moved to the side of the phone or eliminated making the screen that much bigger… although for those looking for a smaller smartphone, the trade-off may be worth it
4. No wifi (boo!) or true GPS
5. Decent camera, but it could use a flash
6. Still freezes sometime. This is alleviated by plugging it into a computer or doing a soft-reset
7. Touchscreen needs to be re-calibrated every once in a while

Should you buy one? 

If you prefer a smartphone that looks more like a real phone… the Centro is a great option for you to consider. It’s got a great price point ($99) and gives you pretty much all the features you get with the blackberry pearl – minus the instant email and sleeker design.

Having a full keyboard is also refreshing.

For those who have been following my blog for a while will recognize this phrase “user experience will trump superior technology – every time.”

Apple has proven this again and again… and this past week as the world rushed to get their second generation or 3G iphone (and crashing Apple’s itunes server in the process!) it will again be the user experience not the technology that will give this device staying power.

Don’t get me wrong – a thinner version with better reception and real GPS is super awesome – but it’s what comes with the new software OS that really makes this device a consumer’s (and potentially a marketer’s) dream.

The 2.0 OS software on the iphone is backwards compatible with your first generation iphone – so the 200,000 or so first generation iphones in Canada will be able to upgrade and enjoy many of the benefits of the second generation device.

Specifically as a marketer, I’m most excited about the App store – think of it as itunes for software designed specifically for your iphone. No longer will you have to jailbreak your iphone to customize and personalize it to meet your needs. Like itunes, you’ll be able to select what apps (games, productivity software etc…) you want and let the app store do the rest.

iphone apps are like widgets for your blackberry – but far easier to download

Smart marketers will also leverage the localization capabilities of the device to bring you a mashup of something truly useful.

Marketers who think mobile marketing is all about text to win campaigns are missing out on the r/evolution of interactivity.  If you’ve hired one such company to work with your brand or agency, you need to rethink your strategy before submitting those 2009 budgets which are due shortly…

What was cause for celebration a few weeks ago has turned into a national embarrassment and another reminder that the Canadian mobile marketplace is not yet a very competitive one.

The new plans announced by Rogers are not consistent with plans being offered south of the border by AT&T or in other countries where plans include unlimited data for around $30/month.

The Rogers iphone plan starts around $60 before system charges and other fees. It does include talk time… but only 150 minutes.  You also have a data limit of 400 megs of data… which is not a lot considering the iphone is heavily dependant on data for all their widgets and the average iphone user uses 8 of them on a regular basis.  

Americans on AT&T get 3 times more talk time and unlimited data for about the same price 

Even the Rogers heavy usage plan doesn’t offer unlimited data. Since the announcement and subsequent consumer backlash, they have now indicated that customers can use other “smartphone” plans instead of the announced iphone plans. For example, I could transfer my blackberry rates (~$100/month for data alone) to the iphone. Again, no big deal and still substantially more expensive than other iphone plans offered in other countries.

Wait at least a month if you still really want one and here’s why…

Bell just announced that they will be releasing the new Samsung Instinct on August 8th which will include an unlimited data plan. The Instinct is a touch-based phone like the iphone and offers many of the same features. The user experience isn’t quite as great as the iphone… but it’s a great alternative. Thanks to Kate for sending a tweet on that announcement yesterday!

I wouldn’t be surprised if Telus came out with a similar data plan for their HTC or other smartphone products too… which means Rogers will likely update their plans if they don’t reach their targets with the iphone.

There are two more reasons to wait to buy that iphone…

1. The Rogers deal to sell the iphone isn’t exclusive – which means another GSM provider can sell it. With at least one new carrier coming to Canada after the current spectrum auction finishes up in the next few weeks, it’s almost a certainty that they’ll be GSM based. Expect them to be in market later this year or early next
2. The iphone is a great device… but what makes it really super awesome are all the utilities, enhancements, and UI hacks available for those who were brave enough to jailbreak it.  As of today, there is no jailbreaking solution for the new 3G iphone… but it’s only a matter of time

If you haven’t made the dash to Buffalo or some other U.S. border town already to buy a first generation iphone, you can probably stand to wait a month or two for better rates and more flexibility in customizing & personalizing it.

In the meantime, feel free to join the following online petitions against the new Rogers plans:

• 
• Petitiononline.com