02.11.2009The rise of mobile – no, really by Rob Smith
So, for the past five years, mobile has year on yeat been heralded as the next big thing and each year it has failed to deliver on those promises. I remember programming a WAP site for a company I was freelancing for at the time in 2001. It was exciting – a new platform that even my old Nokia 3210 could use and browse. It worked and was a good database driven site.
Problem was, no one used it. Not a sausage.
Fast forward ot the present day, and things truly are different. The statistics are for once, backing things up. Thanks to new devices (most notably the iPhone) we have a rapid march of smart phone adoption and a real and present possibility that mobile will finally repay it’s promises.
Recently, as an Insider event hosted opposite Manchester’s rapidly growing Media City development, 2ergo predicted that within 18 months, smart phone adoption would reach the critical mass needed for mobile applications to become commercially viable. I think they are right. ChangeWave has conducted some recent research on smart phone adoption:
It’s moving up fast. Add to the fact that 11.6% of others ar planning on buying a smartphone in the next 90 days and you can see where this is going. Of course it will slow down. The iPhone and other smart phones are still generally too expensive right now to knock out the true mass market mobile phones. Therefore there’s the gap in the market for, in effect, an iPhone Lite. Which of course has already been rumoured about.
The point here is that true, useful mobile marketing is around the corner, and the statistics actually show it this time. Start planning your organisations mobile strategy now, and be prepared for the opening up of a while new channel that location and context aware.
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