April has been the busiest traveling month for me in years. A combination of conferences, client work and a work reward trip means that I’ll be physically in the office for three days this month!

My month began with a trip to Las Vegas for the CTIA Wireless conference. In the spirit of the week, I decided to try Air Canada’s new mobile check-in.  The way it works is that you check-in as usual on their website then in the final step you can choose to print your boarding pass or request one be sent to your mobile device. I entered my mobile number and waited. And Waited…. and waited.

My Air Canada mobile boarding pass never came.

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One of the problems we’ve had with mobile video is figuring what formats to offer the user and how.

On one automotive mobile site we offered two video types for download – but that assumed the user knew which one would work on their device. We also had to compress and shrink the video to the lowest common denominator so that it would fit on all devices.

What a pain in the butt… and try passing that off to your client as customer friendly!  

At CTIA this past March I had an opportunity to speak with Daniel Torras – the VP of Marketing and Product Strategy for vantrix – a company that specializes in mobile video solutions.

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At first glance, the pcEdge had a similar “wow” factor as the Polymer device that featured a roll-up / out screen as profiled here and seen as the WMC in February.

With only rumours of the 3G iphone coming in June and no sign of any real iphone killer or really fantastic next generation blackberry, this is the one device that stuck out the most to me this week.

It looks like a motorola razr – but much larger with an impressive 6 inch by 3 inch display and about 1/2 inch thick. That’s about double the screen space as the iphone.  It’s thin, it looks cool… but it falls short in my opinion of being a must have device.

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Today’s keynote address at CTIA was Sir Richard Branson who talked about doing things his way. He brought us on a 30 minute journey through the many bold successes Virgin has had. The highlight of his presentation was when he proclaimed that his next project once Virgin Galactic takes off is to build a modern day ”Noah’s Ark” for space that will send animals, seeds and 30 volunteers to travel to Mars for what he described could be a one way ticket.  

April fools joke or yet another bold project for the future?

Although his proclamation sounded more like a joke than a vision for the future – this wouldn’t be the first time he has gone against “the experts” to boldly go where no company has gone before (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Other things I’ve picked up on over the first two days:

1. If you lend you iphone to a stranger to make a local call, be sure to keep them within eyesight… or give them a quarter to make a call. Last night a stranger at an industry party walked away with my iphone. Good thing there’s an Apple store across the street from the hotel!
2. Much like the North American mobile industry, so much has changed in Vegas since I was last here two years ago. It’s truly remarkable to see the number of new buildings, casinos, and condos from 2 years ago. Even more remarkable are the massive projects currently under-way that will completely transform the infamous strip into something even more excessive. One project called the City Centre will have it’s own water treatment plant and power station. It looks like a series of 10 buildings that start at the strip and extend to the other side of the main highway. They have their own private monorail system for the place too.
3. Nothing new from blackberry this week…except a few more colour options for the pearl.
4. Although CTIA Wireless is the largest mobile event in North America, it pales in comparison to size and scale of the world mobile congress
5. 48 billion SMS messages are sent per month in the U.S.!!!

Time to catch a nap before heading over the i love the mobile web launch party!

Now that you know what 2-D codes are, the next question is… how do you get one for yourself?

It’s simple really.

1. Contact codes. If you are looking to add a 2-D code to your business card to impress your friends at home while running with the hip crowd at the next CTIA or WMC conference, check out the contact matrix code generator at mobiletag.com 
2. URL codes. If you are looking for a simple 2-D code that will simply redirect to a mobile URL, go to shotcode.com
3. facebook codes. Create a QR 2-D code like the one in this post that will redirect users to your facebook profile. To get your own, login to facebook and do an application search for “qr codes”
4. Phone number, text, or SMS codes. Looking for a simple 2-D code that will display a message, send an SMS or phone number? Check out this free QR-code generator.
5. Do a google search for “free 2-d code generator.”

Remember – having your own 2-D code is only step one. Unless you live in Japan, chances are you also need to download a 2-D code reader to your mobile device. iphone users can download imatrix to their phone through the installer application with a jailbroken phone. 

Do you want to learn more about 2-D codes? Be sure to check out the site of two industry leaders; Scanbuy and Neomedia.

SMS mobile marketing is so 2007. 

2-D codes will do for mobile marketing what web 2.0 site have done for digital media.

Many people buy Apple products because they are great fashion accessories.

The ultimate fashion accessory was big news last week as Steve Jobs announced the much anticipated SDK (software developer kit) for the iphone which will allow developers to create applications, utilities, and games leveraging the same platform Apple used to create their own widgets. Starting in June of this year, consumers won’t have to “jailbreak” their phone in order to customize it.

Also starting this June, enterprise users will no longer have to beg their I.T. / technical support department to open up the corporate email server to hackers and SPAM attacks in order for them to access their email from their nifty iphone.

The iphone will be getting some proper business chops.  

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Rogers is expected to go live shortly with a new data pricing structure that will offer unlimited data for just $20 a month under a new plan called the “communicate value pack” ….which is very similar to the ~20/ month plan offered by AT&T in the U.S. for those with an iphone.

Bell has been offering $7 unlimited data for months now – albeit on their slower 1x network.

This is good news for consumers in Canada looking for affordable packages….and certainly could be interpreted as a signal that the iphone will be coming to Canada this spring as speculated in this blog.

After calling Rogers today to change my data plan to their new $65 / 1 gig a month plan, I was enlightened by two things:

1. Their $80 / 500 meg plan a month was still the best plan available for a consumer mobile device on Rogers. The $65 / 1 GIG plan is available only for their Air Cards – or PCMCIA cards that you stick into your laptop to get Internet access when wifi is not available. Apparently switching to the Air Card program can brick your mobile device.
2. The Rogers CSR indicated that consumer data plans for mobile devices will be dropping again soon - most likely this spring.

Why wait until the spring to further reduce data plan rates?

The reason is simple - Rogers won’t lower their rates until they absolutely have to. Even with cheaper plans now available on Telus and Bell, there hasn’t been a notable customer migration away from Rogers. 

Everybody knows that Rogers will be carrying the iphone when it eventually comes here.

Rogers will likely continue to charge higher rates until the iphone arrives as Apple mandates that cheap or fixed rates are offered - similar to what we’ve seen from AT&T and other European carriers.

I’d wager a loonie that springtime will be our time to finally get the iphone.

Today Canadians everywhere waited with baited breath for news from the MacWorld 2008 Conference and Expo in San Francisco that the iPhone would finally be coming to Canada to a Rogers plan near you.

That news never came

Industry speculation is that Rogers won’t offer fixed or cheap data plans to match what other countries have offered. While you can get an all you can eat data plan for the iphone in the U.S. for around $20 / month, the best you can do right now on Rogers is an $80 monthly plan for 500 megs of data…which sounds like a lot, but wouldn’t be enough for those who want to take full advantage of the media rich features that come standard with the iphone.

Apple wants to control every part of the user experience – so getting an unexpectedly high bill for your fancy new iphone could negatively impact brand perception and advocacy for Apple. I certainly wasn’t thrilled with the $400 bill I received from Rogers the first month after hooking up my iphone on their network.

Now the good news

As reported in the Toronto Star this week, there is a chance that Telus will make the switch from CDMA (a common format in North America) to GSM – which has been adopted by the rest of the world.  An industry source also indicated to me this week that Bell is also investigating a potential switch to GSM.

The reasons are three-fold:

1. To get a piece of the global roaming fees that are currently exclusive to Rogers
2. To get access to a wider array of mobile devices that also offer more margin and more flexible terms
3. To compete with the pending new Canadian wireless carrier who is expected to build a GSM-based network as well

More Canadian GSM-based carriers mean more competition which means more choice and better value for Canadians.

It also means when new mobile devices such as the iphone burst on to the global scene, we won’t be the last industrialized country to get it.

It also means I will no longer be one of the few in Toronto with an iphone.. but I can live with that

It’s a silly excercise, but everybody does it.  After a banner year for mobile in Canada, here are 10 outrageous predictions for 2008:  

1. SMS third-party advertising – every SMS you send is 150 characters…most of which is sent as blank space. I predict new services will take advantage of this in 2008 to deliver SMS advertising to off-set mobile costs for the consumer (but only if they opt-in of course)
2. Mobile Web advertising will take a piece of your media buy. We’ve seen it happen with online media…now with more inventory becoming available off-deck, the time is right to test and pilot this channel
3. MMS Common Short Codes will finally arrive and usher us into a new era in Mobile marketing in Canada….or at least catch us up to the rest of the world.
4. Mobile payments (m-Commerce) will start to emerge from text books, blogs, and sales pitches.  Look for pilots from Interac, Visa and at least one of the major banks next year.
5. The iphone will finally arrive in Canada – but it will be the second generation 3G phone that will support higher internet access speeds and cool features like video calling. This will be offered exclusively on the Rogers network – but don’t be surprised if another non-mobile retailer offers them for sale first
6. Fixed or low-cost data plans will be universal across all carriers in Canada. It’s already started with Bell and Rogers now offers an $80 / month plan for 500 megs of data – plenty for most of us. It’s still a long way from other plans around the world that are 4 times cheaper or better, but it’s a start
7. Due to fixed or low-cost data plans, look for the mobile web to catch fire.  Marketing campaigns will start incorporating mobile web strategies as part of their marketing mix
8. A new mobile carrier will be announced. The Canadian government announced the opening of new spectrum and is reserving a piece of it for a new player and with special engagement rules that will make it easier for a new competitor to enter the market.
9. Google will continue its charge towards world mobile domination. Look for their gphone sometime in the 3rd quarter and look for them to either bid on spectrum in the U.S., buy a carrier like Sprint outright to own a piece without having to go through the auction process or leverage their new mobile platform called Android to get direct access to many subscribers across many carriers.
10. Social Networking will make the leap from desktop to Mobile as a primary interface / access point 

Even if only a few of these come to fruition in 2008, it will be a great year for Marketers and a great year for Consumers.

Happy Holidays!