It’s two for the price of one – as the itinerant Carnival of the Mobilists touches down at mobiThinking, we bring you an eclectic mix of the best mobile blogs for the first two weeks of March.
First up, we have an avalanche of mobile stats and analysis from Tomi Ahonen’s Communities Dominate blog The State of the Union blog for Mobile Industry. This is a must-read piece for any marketer that wants a true picture of the mobile business. Did you know that the global installed base of smartphones is 19 percent and that Nokia’s Symbian still has the largest share (just ahead of Android) or that SMS has overtaken voice as the number one activity on mobile devices?
Well, some brand marketers are clearly getting the message… After flirting with apps, it seems that brand marketers are re-embracing text as the most important channel. But SMS should focus on customer engagement, rather than just being one-way conversation, i.e. more than just a money-off voucher, points out Mobile Insider’s Steve Smith, and their role model should be Obama 2012. Read: From Obama to Brands: Leveraging Participatory Engagement .
A sobering piece by Matt Kapko at Eye on Mobile highlights the plight of those workers at Foxconn in China who make sought-after mobile devices for Apple, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and many more, in The real human cost of our mobile devices. Foxconn employees regularly work 12-hour shifts at a starting salary of US $1.78 an hour… so how many hours must they work to buy an iPad (assuming they don’t eat)?
Peter-Paul Koch on the QuirksMode blog is frustrated with mobile manufacturers – and smartphone OS and browser vendors – for a different reason. In Web developer relations management in the mobile world he details those vendors who are and aren’t willing to provide developers with the devices they need to ready their mobile Web sites/apps for the different platforms. Nokia – along with RIM and Opera – get the thumbs up, which provides a handy link to the next piece.
Prompted by the announcement of Nokia’s 808 Pureview, Hoista at Sticky Smartphone, brings a fascinating picture-led history of cameraphones in Evolution of the Cameraphone. So can you now really trade in your camera and phone, for a single device? Read Hoista’s related post Nokia 808 Pureview.
It is amazing how far the mobile business has come in so little time – as Tomi Ahonen graphically illustrates in the first post. But it isn’t just the mobile manufacturers or operators (see below) that are driving this business there is a huge mobile ecosystem out there, including a growing number of mobile agencies that are helping to mobilize brands – and other businesses with SMS, mobile Web etc.
James Coops at Mobiaffiliates has started making a useful List of mobile marketing and advertising agencies. He’s counted 88 so far, and since 40 of those are in the UK, we’d guess there are a lot more, so contact him if your mobile partner isn’t included.
One of those agencies listed is Addictive… and conveniently our next piece is from Simon Andrews on the Addictive Mobile blog. He says It’s time for mobile operators to innovate. If operators are to avoid becoming dumb pipes for the real mobile innovators and counter falling voice revenues, they must create more value-added services. Andrew’s gives lots of examples, including mobile wallets (m-wallets).
When it comes to m-wallets and contactless payments (NFC) the country to look at, as with most good things mobile [where did the cameraphone originate anyone?] is Japan. Lars Cosh-Ishii of Wireless Watch Japan ponders whether Felica – the m-wallet/contactless payments system found in 70 million mobile phones in Japan (i.e. dwarfing any NFC deployment in the West) – has plans for overseas expansion, in The Global Push for Felica NFC.
In Windows 8 – 2012’s Biggest Mobile Milestone TheFonecast.com’s James Rosewell considers the impact of Microsoft’s new operating system for tablets, ultra books, desktops, laptops, right the way up to 82” big screens. Windows 8 will bring phone-like technologies, such as touch, to the PC world.
David Rogers at the Mobilephonesecurity.org blog uses an anecdote about RIM’s Porsche software exhibit at MWC to illustrate that security is only as good as its weakest link.
Thanks to all of the mobilists for the brimming inbox of excellent submissions this week. Sorry to all of those who didn’t make it in this time – due to the number of submissions, we were forced to play by the rules, i.e. only 10 allowed. Of these, we are forced to select the post of the week, but we couldn’t pick between the one that made us think the most, Matt Kapko – the more people that write about this subject, the more likely it will be that companies will source more responsibly – and the one that educated us the most, Tomi Ahonen.
• If you blog about mobile, you too can submit your most recent post to the next carnival, via mobilists(at)gmail.com.
• Next week, Carnival #265 will be hosted at MobileGroove, home of the excellent M-Pulse show.
• If you missed it please also see Carnival #263 over at MobyAffiliates.
• Be the first to know when mobiThinking adds new stats, guides, competitions etc… follow mobiThinking on Twitter: @mobithinking.
And don’t miss:
• Most popular content on mobiThinking in 2011
• Mobile events 2012: best conferences, great discounts and free tickets
• The insider’s guide to mobile device security
• The mobile city project – the blueprint of a truly mobilized city
• The insider’s guide to device detection
• The insiders’ guides to world’s greatest mobile markets
• Guide to mobile agencies
• Guide to mobile ad networks
• Guide to mobile industry awards
• The big compendium of global mobile stats
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