MobileUX

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) just published their “Guidelines and Best Practices in Mobile Price Promotions”. The doc focuses on coupons and rebates delivered and redeemed through the mobile phone.

The goal as stated in the guidelines: “Our goal is to create an environment in which to launch and process mobile price promotions efficiently. This document intends to define the terms, general processes and best practices for all the parties participating in and enabling mobile coupons and rebates for uses to increase sales and promote.”

Guidelines can be found here: http://mmaglobal.com/mobilecouponguidelines.pdf

A recent IDC Report predicts the shift in smartphone operating systems over the next few years. Regarding sheer numbers, we are looking at 270 million smartphones being shipped in 2010, more than a 50% increase over 2009 shipments.  What this represents is the growing trend of smartphones replacing traditional features phones.  End users, particularly average and behind-the-curve users, are expecting more than just calls and texts from their mobile device.  Smartphone OS’s are capturing consumer mindshare at a rapid pace.

The report also highlights how the players in the smartphone market will be shifting share over the next 4 years.  The graph below highlights the changes, with  big winner being Android.

What is not clear from the report is what will happen once the iPhone OS, currently locked to AT&T, moves to other carriers in the U.S.  Android has done a good job of making it onto devices across all four main U.S. carriers, hence positioning themselves well for anyone on one of these carriers to have at least one, and in most cases many, Android options. But when the time comes when an iPhone is sitting next to the Androids at the Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint stores, will users be selecting Android devices over the iPhone?  Both are competitive on price and service plans. And even though Android is considered a more open platform, it has also introduced fragmentation across the OS and the Android Marketplace. And as far as overall usability, the iPhone is more polished and has less of a learning curve.

Granted the U.S. smartphone market is only a fraction of the worldwide market, so we can’t expect a radical shift once the iPhone breaks away from AT&T. But it will be interesting to see what impact it will have once the carrier playing field is level.

(image credit: John Brecher / msnbc.com)

Facebook is pushing the mocial envelope these days. At the MobileBeat 2010 conference in SF earlier this week, Facebook announced that it will be extending its Open Graph platform to mobile, moving away from an individual mobile app strategy and moving into a let’s-allow-facebook-to-be-connected-into-everything strategy.

What does this mean?  App makers will now be able to connect into the Facebook platform and incorporate data into their own apps, leveraging information such as friend recommendations.  It’s easy to imagine a scenarios that combine information from your friends with location-based services – say Foursquare but with your whole Facebook community and history.

For marketers this means greater opportunities to serve offers at the right time and place, but with the added benefit of having the backing of your friends. A hotel chain’s app that leverages a user’s Facebook community could connect friend-recommended POI’s and restaurants with discounts to stay in at a nearby hotel property.  Or a retailer could show you your friend’s reviews of the product you are looking at while on the showroom floor.  Pretty cool.

Facebook also stated that they have 150 million mobile users of Facebook and are growing.  A nice plus that they just implemented too is the ability to sign up for a new Facebook account completely on your mobile device.  Good call, and good move toward further breaking mobile’s tether to the desktop.

More info check out:  http://social.venturebeat.com/2010/07/13/facebook-mobile-platform/

Apple’s iPad has only been on the market for two months, but already it is changing how we engage with content. The iPad is poised to change the landscape of magazine publishing—both in how readers consume their favorite editorial content, and in how magazines, struggling with the decline of print readership and advertising, can grow their revenue streams in new and immersive ways.

After Steve Jobs announced the coming of the iPad in January 2010, the editors and publishers of Entertainment Weekly magazine wanted to create an iPad app to coincide with the launch of the new product. We positioned the opportunity for Entertainment Weekly as compelling, easily consumable editorial content tied to e-commerce—the magazine’s first step toward- redefining its future and creating a new business paradigm.

The app takes a simple and very popular feature of the magazine, “The Must List”— featuring the Top 10 pop culture phenomena of the moment—and presents it in a playful, interactive set of panels that makes excellent use of the iPad’s scale, touch interface and visual punch. (free download from iTunes)

I recently sat down with ZAAZ’s Jon McVey, Executive Creative Director, and Tim Klauda, Creative Director, to talk about their strategic and creative work on EW’s ipad app – hit up the ZAAZ Blogs for the full discussion!

When Apple officially introduced the iPad in January after months (years?) of speculation of a tablet-based computer, I heard and read more complaints about what it couldn’t do than what it could.   “Where is the file system?” “I can’t have multiple windows open at once?”  ”It doesn’t multitask?” Clearly Apple blew it by not providing a standard operating system on this new device.  A laptop replacement seemed to have been assumed.  And most of the arguments about the limitations of the iPad are true – it doesn’t run a full OS, and it’s not a replacement for your laptop. So isn’t the iPad just a big iPhone?

In January it was. At its unveiling we only had glimpses into what the iPad could do, including demonstrations of a handful of new apps and the ability to run all your favorite iPhone apps. But it didn’t seem to do anything really new, anything different from what the iPhone could already do.  And it was bigger and more expensive, and it couldn’t even make calls. Even the shape of the device looked like an iPhone. But when the iPad is released in two days, it will stop being compared to an iPhone or a tablet computer or a laptop – it will stand on its own. Here’s why:

Over the holidays my dad said he wanted to buy his wife a netbook so she could browse the web and share pictures with her friends and listen to music. He saw an inexpensive one at Costco –  a cheap option for the handful of tasks she needed to do. “Don’t worry,” my dad reassured me, “I have a friend at the office that will help install software and help with any issues.”  And last month my wife’s dad, a farmer in Central Oregon, recently decided it was finally time to dust off the used mac we gave him a few years back and give it another go. He was looking into taking a class at the local JC so he could learn (as he calls it) the “basics”, and then teach his wife how to use it.  These are not uncommon scenarios I’ve encountered over the years as the family IT guy. In many cases what they often needed was something that could do what they needed simply and easily, without the overhead, the viruses, or the steep learning curve.

I think the iPad ushers in a new way for us to think about computing, pushing us past the mental model of the file system, window and memory management, and other administrative elements. A recent post by Steven Frank sums this up well. For the majority of us that have grown up with computers, how we think about a computer now seems hardwired. But what about the new generation – the kids under say 7 or 8 –  that have played with a touch-based device like the iPhone and simply “got it”.  What is a computer to them? What is their model of how it works?  Similarly, how about the many people, my dad’s wife and father-in-law included, that have never taken an interest in computers or have decided the effort to learn and maintain them is often too great – what is a computer to them?

I’d argue that Apple’s big statement with the iPad, aside from it being lightweight and multitouch, it that they’ve pushed the OS further into the background and brought the content front and center.  In many ways they established this with the iPhone, but now they are taking it to a much bigger device, one that falls somewhere between a phone and a laptop. They have effectively hidden much of the OS from the user – users interact directly with the content – so that the majority of people that use it will never think about what is missing.

At ZAAZ, as we’ve been building for the iPhone and iPad, content as the interface has been a guiding principle.  When the iPhone came out, Tufte underscored the importance of removing administrative debris from the screen. On a mobile device, you don’t have the freedom to include multiple persistent navigation elements, controls, and menus. You focus on the content and you act on the content as directly as possible. This holds true for larger-screen touch devices like the iPad.

A recent Computerworld article speculates on the high interest in the iPad by the under-12 demographic.  The post was written more from a “will you get your kids one?” angle, but I think it points to a much larger fact – kids are going to grow up using more and more of these types of devices.  They already gravitate to the iPhone and it’s touch interface.  They are naturally going to jump to the iPad and other similar interfaces. Again, kids don’t care about multitasking or file systems.  What they care about is content.  And ultimately, that’s what we all care about too.

[cross-posted at ZAAZ Blogs]

My wife was talking to her dad this morning – he’s has a farm in central Oregon and isn’t into tech – and he said “we need to become more computer literate so we can communicate with the younger generation.” We’ve helped her dad and his wife in the past with getting them a computer and setting it up in the Internet – it has never stuck. But he continued “…well, you know Apple is coming out with a new kind of computer today…”

Now maybe he happened to be listening to NPR or glancing through the paper, but this was an unusual, albeit impressive, statement that i feel point to the secrecy and buzz (and buzz through secrecy) that Apple is very good at.

Because if you give a farmer in Central Oregon a computer…

Tomorrow is apple’s special event during which many are hopeful/expecting a new category of device to emerge. The tablet. Much as been written and speculated over the past few months (years even) about what this will be. Before tomoorow’s event hit, I wanted to put down my thoughts on what this thing might look like – not so much that i want to get my $.02 of speculation in, but rather to see how accurate a prediction I could make (maybe those are the same thing?)

So here goes:
- thin, aluminum device with a 10″ screen. As thin as an iPhone
- few hardware buttons or controls. Like the iPhone.
- runs a new version of mobile OSX – 4.0. This version will also run on the iPhone but maybe with slightly fewer features
- will run iPhone apps, but perhaps be more HD-like
- will connect in with iTunes and app store
- at least 32 GB flash memory (perhaps with 64 GB model for more $)
- weight around 16-20 oz (about 4 iPhones)
- 7+ hours of battery life
- wifi and Bluetooth
- GPRS radio for connecting to Internet and downloading content. On Verizon.

OK, that’s what I’m going with – let’s see how this looks tomorrow…

My colleague Chris gave a shout out earlier today about Techcrunch’s reported existence of an Android-powered device that will be offered directly from Google. There have been rumors for months about a Google Phone (even hints back when Android itself was first announced many moons ago.)  Now this device from Google hasn’t been officially announced – just tweets from some Google employees who have be using the device, and some rumors at this point.  The early impressions are very positive and the specs do look impressive: thinner than the iPhone, 1Ghz+ Snapdragon processor, unlocked, OLED display, great camera, sound-canceling technology.  This all sounds good, but good specs don’t necessarily make for a good mobile user experience. However, there are a few “features” of this device that stand out and stand to make the Google Phone a game-changer. Here’s why.

First, this is Google’s first hardware entry into the mass market. This puts Google in the position of owning both the software and the hardware, and being able to optimize the user experience.  They of course have to get it right – tight integration of all aspects of the device – but this puts them much more in the Apple and RIM (Blackberry) camp of being able to call the shots on all aspects of the device and how the user interacts with it.  The fast processor will help as well. My experience from owning a G1, and more recently a Motorola Cliq, is that Android needs something fast under the hood to make the screens and interactions move fluidly. Both of my Android devices get bogged down easily from background processes, screen refreshes, and network activity, which make for a painful experience at times. I’m particularly not very fond of the unregistered screen presses and choppy scrolling.

The second “feature” worth noting is that the device is rumored to be sold unlocked by Google itself. What is this a big deal, considering you can already buy many unlocked devices? Several reasons:

• Google will most likely offer an attractive and competitive price point. Google will want to get these devices into many hands, and may be willing to cover the subsidization costs (that the carriers normally absorb). If any of the free (read: company subsidized) products that Google currently offers is any indication, the Google Phone may carry stong price appeal in the market.
• The device-network balance will shift. By buying an unlocked device, you get to choose the device first and then shop for the carrier. This flips the model we are used to in the U.S. where carriers tend to have “exclusives” on mobile devices – subsidized devices in exchange or 1- or 2-year contracts – thus locking the user onto a particular network if they want a particular device. Want an iPhone?  You’re stuck with AT&T.  How about a Palm Pre? Hello Sprint. By putting the device first, you are able to select a carrier that meets your particular needs, be that best nationwide coverage, lowest-cost plans, discounted international calling, etc.
• Carrier contracts may change or (hopefully) go away. If you buy an unlocked phone and can go to any carrier, what will the carrier be locking you into a contract for?  If you are not getting the device subsidized by the carrier, they are really acting as your ISP and providing the data pipe. Aside from startup costs to joining a new carrier like porting your number or activating an account, the whole idea of the Early Termination Fee will become irrelevant.

Oh, and the Google Phone is rumored to have Google Voice included, which allow you to make VoIP calls and bypass many of the services offered by carriers such as visual voicemail, low-cost international rates, and built in SMS messaging – all additional charges by the carriers. Another thorn-in-the-carrier-side and disruptive  (did Apple/AT&T ever get around to approving Google Voice for the iPhone?)

I haven’t heard (beyond speculation) about ad integration.  It would seem that a phone built by Google would naturally integrate advertising (and they did just buy the mobile ad network AdMob.)  Perhaps the device will be free, but will have banner ads in your calendar and music player. Who knows – we will hopefully see soon.

With the Google Phone, I see several wins for users here – the potential user experience win that comes from tight hardware and software integration, and the potential consumer win that comes from changing established models in the wireless industry. These aren’t a given, but we’ve seen boundaries pushed by the introduction of the iPhone – perhaps Google can push them even further.

Wanted to toss these out since they are upcoming, interesting, and may touch on mobile (who knows – mobile and social are good friends.)

• Ignite Seattle on December 1st
• Social Media Club on Tuesday, December 8th

Both are worth checking out  and subscribing to their lists for future events.

Some of us at work were talking the other day about Android as an open platform and how it will continue to spread and if/how the user experience will fragment. Android is following the model of creating the OS that can be used by
whatever hardware company wants to use it.  I think openness in
general is good, but I wonder if mobile, because of its specific
constraints on screen size, form factor, usage patterns (e.g. on-the-
go, standing on bus, etc.) make usability THE most critical factor for
widespread adoption.  And if so, I wonder if the the Apple’s and RIM’s of the
world that tightly control the hardware and the OS will continue to
remain at the forefront and provide the best experience in the eyes
of consumers. This is not a plug for Apple, Blackberry, or any other vendor – rather it is a question about single companies controlling the user experience from end to end.

The other day I overheard  two people talking about a new Droid phone that one of them got. His main selling point when describing it was “…the iPhone has the
polish, but [the Droid] is a phone a techie will love.”  Makes me
think about how Android is already playing out to be a
different experience on the different Android devices like the
Motorola Droid, the Motorola CLIQ, the HTC Hero – something that is
easy for someone more technical to get their head around but not
necessarily something your average user will appreciate.

My colleague Ryan Turner pointed me to this Wired article that underscores the discussion.  I’m loving how the mobile market is growing. Yes, there are a ton of players now (even Samsung is in the smartphone OS mix with Bada), but it makes things exciting!