Just as marketers are finally figuring out what the heck facebook is and why they should be embracing the platform as a way of reaching & engaging their customers and potential customers, there is a new trend developing that may impact facebook and other social mediums…

Enter social aggregators.

Aggregators won’t replace facebook - but much like RSS feeds have supplemented users visting websites directly, social aggregator services could mean marketers looking to reach and engage people through social media sites like facebook will find a smaller direct audience to engage with.

I’ve signed up with socialthing and others are raving about feedfriend. Both do about the same thing - they take updates from all your social media sites like flickr, facebook, twitter, yelp, linkedin and stream them as one interface in something called a “lifestream.”

The idea is great - instead of checking for updates on multiple sites, you can get them all at once - much like how i use Netvibes or Protopage to aggregate all my RSS feeds.

Personally I get everything I need from Netvibes. 

I can add twitter or facebook status updates to Netvibes… and i don’t really care for the extra features social aggregators include such as comments on the different feeds. When I also consider the fact that most of my friends aren’t as geeked out as I am on ‘web 2.0′, it makes even less sense. Just getting my friends on facebook was a monumental task.

Having said that, the mobile interface for Socialthing is a thing of beauty.

They also have an optimized interface for the iphone which makes checking out lifestreams on the go a pleasant experience.

I have a hard enough time keeping up with my RSS feeds (270 currently) - I’m not sure I have enough time (or care enough) to follow the lifestream of every person i know. Having said that, it could be really useful if you are stalking following a few choice people…

How can marketers get in on this?

Websites got around a similar issue when RSS feeds became popular by not including all the content in the feed - so users who liked the lead content were driven back to the site… where sponsored ads could be displayed in all their glory.

One suggestion - build your own branded social aggregator…. and include your own relevant content as one of the feeds.

I could see this working really well for Automotive, Financial, Pharma, Retail… well pretty much any brand looking to participate in & influence a person’s lifestream.

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!

As predicted, the CWTA has reported that the total number of SMS (text messages) sent in 2007 exceeded 10 billion!

Approximately 10.1 billion messages were sent in 2007 - up from 4.3 billion in 2006 or an increase of 133%

1.2 billion messages were sent in December alone. With total volume more than doubling every year since 2002, it’s amazing to think we could reach 20 billion messages sent in 2008.

I’m looking for specific demographic details to follow… although it’s safe to say that with over 10 billion messages served last year, this is no longer just a young person’s channel.

More and more of our client are now following recommendations to extend “interactive” marketing programs with mobile / SMS.

We just launched a contest as part of our launch of mastersgolf.ca this week which includes a mobile / SMS component. If you can predict the top 10 finishers on the 08 Masters Leader board, you win $1,000,000.  I’m looking forward to see how participation in mobile compares to the pure online option. Stay tuned…

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.

Once upon a time, direct mail was the most cost effective way for national customer acquisition campaigns.

Rising postal and production costs drove many marketers to telemarketing.

Thanks to VOIP and off-shore outsourcing, it was possible to achieve better ROI by calling every household in Canada a few times a year from India then to send direct mail pieces.

All that is about to change again.  

[Read more →]

I’ll be getting on a plane Sunday afternoon to Barecelona, Spain for the 2008 Mobile World Congress - formely known as the 3GSM.

My plan is to blog at least once a day with summaries, points of view and perspective on a variety of mobile related topics including: 

1. How MMS is working as a marketing device in Europe
2. Applications of LBS (location based services) in Asia
3. Bluetooth marketing messaging in Africa
4. Mobile Search
5. Mobile web vs. Mobile widgets
6. Mobile advertising platforms, case studies and trends
7. Mobile Social Networking
8. Demos of 4G technology
9. New devices, or device trends
10. Off-deck content and applications

The plan is to also attend several events related to the conference including the Mobile Monday Peer Awards, Mobile Entertainment forum, Canadian breakfast forum, Mobile Jam session and the GoMo News blender.

Do you have other topics you’d like to hear about while i’m there? Send me an SMS, comment or email me through the contact form on this website.  

As reported in mocoNews.net, Nokia is in talks with facebook to both port their platform to Nokia and to potentially buy a share. With around 40% of the world hand set market, Nokia could significantly increase facebook’s exposure in Europe.

This proves that just because you build it, it doesn’t mean they will come.

Partnering with facebook to get their mobile platform on every Nokia device could mean their own mobile social network Mosh will never make it out of beta as it has not been successful in capturing significant mind share. This follows another mobile social networking flop from 2007 - the Sprite yellow yard.

Looking at the failure of mobile-centric social networks just re-enforces my point of view that mobile can’t be treated as a stand-alone channel. It’s a natural extension of interactive (web & email) and works best when supported by a multi-channel marketing plan.

This will almost certainly remain true until the mobile web catches up to the “desktop” web in terms of consumer usage and adoption.

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!

In the past few months we’ve been watching as Google, AOL, Yahoo, and Nokia have been making moves to extend or enter the mobile advertisting space.

Microsoft has decided to also join the party and has started placing ads on their U.S. MSN mobile page to follow efforts already made in Belgium, France, Spain, Japan, and the U.K.

The Bank of America will be one of the primary buyers of ad space - supporting their innovative mobile banking website and experience at bankofamerica.mobi. Paramount Pictures and Jaguar are the other two primary buyers.

Microsoft also plans to bring new features such as astrology, movie tickets through movietickes.com, ringtones, wallpaper, games and video clips on MSN Mobile via an agreement Microsoft has with Thumbplay.

Although Microsoft is late to the game, the mobile advertising space is still young and relatively small.  This is not like the nineties when Microsoft had to catch and kill Netscape who already dominated the browser market.  

Here are the latest stats from facebook as noted from last week’s Toronto breakfast on their enhanced marketing platform:

1. 1 in 4 Canadians (or 8 million) are now active users. There are 57 million active users worldwide
2. 65,000 new users in Canada added each day on average
3. 12 billion page views on facebook in Canada every month
4. Average Canadian views 62 pages on facebook on each visit
5. 65% of Canadians go to the site at least once a day - compared to 54% in the rest of the world

Other interesting tid bits…

1. It took the ilike application 4 days to get 1 million users to install their application on facebook. This demonstrates the power and reach of building an application that is relevant to users
2. There are now over 80 applications with at least 1 million users
3. Applications are not advertised - people find out about them through the mini-feed

Currently facebook insights (their marketing dashboard page), beacon, pages, and social ads are not supported on their mobile platform. Look for updates to the mobile platform to incorporate these new services in 2008.