Makers gunna make…
Anyone familiar with how we run Labs knows we make a concerted effort to learn by making. The thoughts published here and elsewhere, as well as the community’s feedback, often spark ideas that we bring to life internally for no reason other than a love of doing. For us, our curiosity was both in what we did and why we did it the way we did. Today, we’re announcing the latest output of that addiction.

While You Were Off is our venture into developing a mobile specific web application. We created it to learn more about the staged process of creating such an app in an MVP-minded way. It’s especially important because more and more often, applications are running free of the device and powered by cloud services. While You Were Off (#WYWO) embraces this idea as it serves you the content you missed while your phone was offline. It features two feeds: 1) a World Wide Web (WWW) feed that taps into a curated list of APIs that we feel best represent “internet culture” and 2) a personalized Your Wide Web (YWW) feed that runs the same algorithm to display the “most interesting” content from your specific social networks.

Determining the need…
A common feeling most of you are familiar with is the pseudo-anxiety one feels awakening your dormant mobile device after it’s been offline. It’s that “post Airplane Mode tingle” we’ve admitted to one another while traveling together. We all scramble to quickly catch up immediately on email, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. We felt a need for a mobile tool to quickly reconnect and get back up to speed with the internet with one click of the WYWO icon.

So we built it. And what better place to start than the beloved pink While You Were Out corporate memo pad? We even tried to pay homage to its charming name and anachronistic style.  The difference is this version of the pad is specifically built for iPhones.

A model to vet native app development…
Native application development can be a costly risk. Although we have no revenue or brand expectations, we see this as an opportunity to explore a model a client may find useful. We saw an opportunity to use modern web application development as a way of vetting an application’s value by putting it in the audience’s hands first. This method allows us to test in the wild.

We can optimize the experience based on consumer behavior and use that data to inform a future build, be it further web app development (including an Android version), or an eventual native app. We’ve focused on building this simple application in a way that lets us easily track performance and usage to bring about the natural parallel behaviors between web & native apps.

Pull out your iPhone and point it to http://wywo.me to give it a whirl. Once you play with it, we would love your feedback on what you like, how we can make it better, and how you are using it. Use the comments below to send us your thoughts. Thanks.

May 1st 2012, #wywo claims the Mobile Site of The Day @FWA

It’s normally an absolute pleasure to speak to your peers about a topic of your choosing. A pleasure that turns to butt clenching FEAR when your know your peers are going to JUDGE you, in a contest against other speakers who are funnier and cleverer than you will ever be.

The Battle of Big Thinking event format focuses the mind then, but perhaps not necessarily on the big thoughts.  For, as the review contends, this year there was a heavy emphasis on execution and perhaps less on the idea.

Mine obviously was the exception…

For years we’ve been talking about and developing communications for the shortening attention spans of consumers. We are bombarded with statistics about the average dwell time on a web page (43 seconds according to Comscore) or the lifespan of a tweet which, if it isn’t retweeted within 60minutes, will never be, according to Sysomos.

Today, we’re ascending the slopes of Mount Sinai, the computer ready in our pockets and the promised land of ubiquitous always-on connection is on the horizon. But before we get there maybe there is a place for long-form communications to occupy us at those times where we can devote our attention to a piece of content but cannot easily surf away when our attention wanders.

Certainly the uptake of instapaper and its integration into all sorts of web and mobile apps suggests that people are saving more articles to read later and longreads recent revamp makes it even simpler to get long form textual content onto your mobile device.

So is the decline of attention as inexorable as previously thought? As well as video we are both producing and consuming more text than ever and today’s devices allow comfortable on the go reading of long-form narrative.

Time to consider whether a digital communications strategy needs to allow for both a wide, shallow spread and a long, deep dive.

Long live attention.

“The best camera is the one you have with you.” (Chase Jarvis, see: http://j.mp/ad29YM)

Powerful technologies and tools for creativity and filmmaking used to be exclusively in the hands of professionals. The cost of entry was high and the learning curve steep. With the recent launch of Apple’s 4th generation iPhone, consumers can now carry in their pockets a device fully capable of capturing, editing and publishing HD videos. This is an exciting prospect – no more grainy, pixelated, thumbnail-sized videos of our funniest or most beloved moments or the latest breaking news story.

Imagine what Gordon Gekko could achieve with this.

Only a few short days after iPhone 4 hit the marketplace, an exceptionally impressive example of the film-making potential of the device surfaced. This film, “Apple of My Eye” directed by Michael Koerbel, was shot and edited entirely on an iPhone 4 in under 48 hours.

“Apple of My Eye” – an iPhone 4 film – UPDATE: Behind the scenes footage included from Michael Koerbel on Vimeo.

The gap between professional and consumer production quality is narrowing and we’re excited to see what people will create with these new tools. Even just a week after the new iPhone4 launched we’d started to notice a new strand of film-making emerging using the new technology. Following a quick Twitter exchange between Craig Elimeliah at Freedom & Partners, Ben Malbon and myself, F&P were able to quickly design and develop a platform to showcase our appreciation for the power and creativity that the iPhone4 offers in the area of movie-making.

We’re calling it The iOScars.

In the spirit of leading by example, here’s one I shot during a weekend trip.

So do you have an iPhone 4 and a story to tell? Let’s see what you can do.

http://www.theiOScars.com

@TheiOScars

CREDITS

Craig Elimeliah (@craigelimeliah)

Seth Weisfeld (@seth_weisfeld)

Ben Malbon (@malbonnington)

Rina Miele (@honeydesign)

Brian Kadar (@briankadar)

Slide 7 is especially impactful. I was born on the left hand side of the chart, probably around when there were 5 million computing-capable units globally. On the right, just ten years from today, the forecast is for 10 billion+ units. Extraordinary.

Came across this today. Tweet-o-Meter (link) is the beta version of a platform created by University College London’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis. The Tweet-o-Meter supposedly updates every ten seconds (not sure it does quite do that right now), showing the number of tweets in each city per minute. The ambition is to log and analyze all geo-located tweets in these major cities. Once logged, they will be used to show Twitter activity over time and space. Various kinds of maps will be the main output. I imagine a variety of delicious visualizations will be forthcoming.

We are possibly attracted partly by the simple analogue-feel, dial-based interface. But we’re also struck by yet another work-in-progress attempt to bring life to the data spawned by Twitter (see also Getting to Know Your Twitter Followers & Why that Matters from earlier this week).

Tweet-o-Meter is part of a broader project called NeISS (National e-Infrastructure for Social Simulation), another UK Government-funded project. Read more about it here.

And of course it also reminds us of of the work by Google’s Aaron Koblin on visualizing SMS messages sent on New Year’s Eve in Amsterdam in 2007 (see below). We imagine as Tweet-o-Meter moves forward through beta they’ll need to figure out how to marry Koblin-esque visualizations to their gushing pipe of data. Bringing magic to the mayhem.

Amsterdam SMS messages on New Years Eve from Aaron on Vimeo.

Amsterdam SMS messages on Queen’s Day from Aaron on Vimeo.

Ed: We loved Peter’s winning talk on mobile for the UK APG’s Battle Of Big Thinking (#bobt) at the end of last year so much, we managed to persuade him give us a little more background to his thinking. For the slides and unmissable video of his presentation on the day, please go here.

The Context

The annual APG Campaign Battle of Big Thinking event puts the fear of god into its participants. Speaking to 200 of your peers is bad enough, but then having them vote on whether you were any good – well, it focuses the mind somewhat.

Knowing I would be the 18th presenter of the day, and the audience would have just enjoyed a decent lunch with a glass or two of wine, I suspected that a slightly less sober approach might appeal.  I think I hoped a little humour might impair rational evaluation whilst promoting positive feedback. That’s my excuse for being light on intellectual content.

The Title

Most of it is, isn’t it?

Year of Mobile?

Mobile Marketeers are pretty smug about their chosen medium.  They’ll present graphs going up – massive penetration…..increased usage…most pervasive technology on earth….never more than 1 metre away, 24/7. They wear these stats like a cloak of invincibility but the numbers serve only to highlight the meagreness of mobile marketing efforts to date.  It has rarely been worthy of the hype.

Perhaps though this IS the year. In the last few weeks $1 billion has been spent acquiring mobile advertising networks. The most successful advertising operation in history has launched a device to go toe-to-toe with the game-changing iphone.  C E (-reader) S was all about leveraging the ubiquity of connected life.  Apple are about to launch a mobile, 3G/Wi-fi tablet thing.  We know the turning point has arrived because the Analysts have arrived in force.

The year mobile begins to deliver on its marketing potential happens to be the same year consumers decide they can rely on the channel to be more than a pure messaging tool. We’ve now got connected services that ‘just work’.  To voice & text  add google maps, mobile facebook, twitter clients and Jamie Oliver.  Every time you reach for your iphone and check the weather/train timetables/what else that bloke from The Wire was in – congratulations you’ve just brought the year of mobile a little closer.

I remembering questioning the credibility of a company without an email address, then without a website. That will soon happen as users start getting used to optimised mobile experiences, and shun brands/services that don’t operate via the channel.

If you work in one of those traditional digital agencies prepare for a lot of work on that presentation layer.

Futurologists

I wish I was a futurologist.  Or an analyst.  The Mystic Megs in this business are able to fantasise with impunity.  At least Arthur C Clarke made it interesting – space elevators anyone?  Predicting the future is incredibly easy.  Getting it right is incredibly hard. A reminder: pontificating about the distant future does not establish an agency as ‘cutting edge’.  I recently read a collection of the best technology writing from last year.  None of it was about the future. In the words of the editor “who needs the future? The present is interesting enough on its own”. I’m not even sure we have the time to speculate any more.

Gambling

My time as a pro gambler taught me a number of things. I don’t enjoy gambling was the main thing.  Clearly our business is nothing like gambling.  Clearly.

Advertising + Mobile

Confession.  I find banner ads quite dull. On this issue I find myself at one with the consumer.  Given that $1b has been bet on mobile banner ads this position may prove to be acutely naive and detrimental to my career development.  No matter.  Banner Ads never made any one happy.

Csikszentmihalyi

Psychology is back in fashion. It’s cyclical.  In times of crisis we get back to basics. What do people really want?  How do people actually behave and make decisions?  There is an intuitive sense that mobile is such a personal medium that understanding human motivation is key to its use.  Isn’t it obvious? I do do stuff with my phone – it is used to fulfill some pretty fundamental needs.
I have done Csikszentmihalyi a tremendous disservice of course and one of his Optimal Experiences could never be delivered by a mere mobile campaign. However if you believe that experiences are heightened through the act of participation, rather than as a passive witness, then mobile does offer an intriguing opportunity to engage.

Happiness

Moments of real delight are rare.  So rare that sharing a chuckle with your family whilst watching an animated meerkat can be a memorable shared experience.  There are a set of other experiences – delivered only via mobile – that can quite easily be created by a brand and that I believe are more powerful. I get a little kick out of driving through Spain using the phone sat nav, or watching my nephews laugh uncontrollably at a talking hamster, or knowing the time of the next train on the platform at Kensal Green (no indicators).  These experiences make me feel good. I wasn’t watching them.  I wasn’t being told anything. I was in them.  In my own physical world.

The most powerful demonstration of mobiles potential is at this crossroads of the digital and the physical worlds.  This is the place that you can create delightful experiences.  A brand can aspire to do no more than that.

Presentation slides and video of Peter’s talk at APG’s Battle of Big Thinking 2009.

Source: Flickr, Dipanker Dutta (cc) http://j.mp/5eiDFA

Brands in India are still struggling with advertising on the internet, even as mobile services steadily explore new territory.

Both mobile and the internet comprise what is popularly known as ‘digital’, yet unlike in Western markets such as the UK or the US, the former is much more powerful and prevalent than the latter. The reason for this is primarily the drop in the cost of mobile usage over recent years, versus the increasing cost of broadband usage. As this blogger says:

“What the Indian telcos should do is adopt a model that was instrumental in driving mobile usage in India. Drop the price points so that even the average person (living on Rs. 100 per day), would find Internet usage compelling, useful, and not frustrating. If they were to adopt a mass usage policy and not price their broadband products based on margins, I believe that in 5 years, India could have at least 100 million broadband users (via DSL, cable modem, Mobile 3G, wiMax, etc.).”

The mobile industry in India is witnessing rapid changes, with voice and messaging charges dropping drastically. Tata Docomo started the concept of “pay per second” not too long ago, which was replicated within a fortnight by all other major players like Vodafone, Reliance and Airtel. Less than a week ago, Reliance (the largest CDMA player) introduced the option of choosing between 1 paise per sms (a measly 0.02 cents) or 1 rupee for unlimited SMS per day (2 cents per day).

The interesting paradox is that while basic call and text charges have dropped to unbelievably low prices, GPRS costs have yet to come down. Therefore, the trend suggests that the evolved value-added services (VAS) will definitely grow at a much lower pace, as those costs aren’t coming down as steeply: accessing services on the phone still costs a lot in India, even though phone tariffs are amongst the lowest in the world.

As more and more people in the country jump on the mobile phone bandwagon, from small villages to large metros, innovation is growing apace. Consider, for example, the new business deal between DirecPay, a bank-neutral payment aggregator service from Times of Money (part of the Times Group, India’s largest media conglomerate) and PayMate, a wireless transactions company. The deal will provide an extended mobile payment facility to merchants who sign up, and with the current rate of penetration of the mobile device in the country at 35% (the number of GSM users alone is at 335.5 million currently), it is likely to bring even more consumers into the considered set of e-commerce users, as Avijit Nanda, the President of Times of Money says.

Mobile phones in India are also extremely powerful social and commercial tools. Nokia handsets are the instruments of choice of the majority of the population in the country (the company owns about 65% of the market share).

Where educational iPhone apps are less than 1000 in number (737 in November 2008) and certainly not as popular as gaming and entertainment apps in the Western world, in South Asia, Nokia has understood the market and is investing in Mera Nokia, a tool that provides farmers with useful crop-related information, Nokia Life, which offers agriculture, education and entertainment service apps specifically targeted at the market in smaller urban and rural areas, Nokia Tej, a mobile order management system, and Nokia Point and Find, a context-aware service that recognizes objects through barcodes and GPS. (Nokia has embarked on the last two as part of the Progress Project, in partnership with Lonely Planet). Airtel (another popular Indian mobile operator) and Thomson Reuters also offer services similar to Mera Nokia.

Source: Flickr, Kiwanja (cc) http://j.mp/7RNCLV

If the market offers a completely different set of challenges, the only way to counter them is to understand how to leverage the instrument that is clearly succeeding. We imagine something along the lines of the Blyk model would work well here: where advertisers subsidize the cost of mobile usage via targeted advertisements. It may even be possible to build a two-tiered offering like Spotify has for it’s Premium and regular (free) offerings. What Hugo Barra, a Product Manager at Google says is particularly resonant in this respect:

“People will not want to pay for services that they can get for free, and the services will be free because there is a massive opportunity for advertisers to come onto the mobile platform. This is still untapped. Thanks to the proliferation of location information, specific advertising, and I mean non-intrusive advertising can easily come onto the mobile.”

Another opportunity that can be tapped into is the growth of social networks in the country. India is now only behind the US in Twitter usage, and it is 5th in the world in Facebook usage. An interesting model would be to explore a hybrid that combines the extensive usage of mobiles and social networking.

The big players are already realizing the opportunities for promoting social networking services. For instance, Aircel Telecom launched the biggest advertising burst in the telecom category (before Tata Docomo) by showcasing Facebook on mobile while Airtel has launched a campaign of 4 TVCs promoting the use of Twitter. Here is some of the creative from those two campaigns:

According to a 2009 Trendspotting report, online ad spend is only 3% of the total ad spend in India, compared to 8-20% in developed markets.  But advertisers are evolving in their use of the online medium by going beyond banner and keyword advertising to creating campaigns that leverage social networks and connectivity, while the use of the mobile phone for advertising is still very rudimentary (mostly used for text-based promotional offers). The increasing use of the internet and especially social networks on the mobile would automatically mean that the online advertising approach gets extended to the small mobile screen as well: 63 million Indians already access internet on mobile as compared to 45 million on the PC (Source: IRS and TRAI estimates).

What’s fascinating – and perhaps instructive – for those involved with making sense of all this in Western markets such as Europe and North America, is how telcos and marketers in India seem to simply be jumping over some of the phases and issues the typical North American marketer might face. Despite the fact that in many ways the technologies at their disposal are less sophisticated than in Western markets, they seem further ahead in terms of mobile utility, mobile commerce & micro-payments, and in many cases more adventurous as far as advertiser-funded mobile platforms are concerned.

We have much to learn.