Google+ has updated it’s app for iPhones – here is a screenshot from my iPad 3

Even though the app is not universal – you can see Google+ has high-res / retina display assets and so it renders quite ‘crisp’ even at 2x zoom on the iPad.

This is great job using fonts and HTML elements so the overall effect is impressive.

Damien Saunders

Android Mobiles are taking over the world … and that seems to be supported by the latest statistics or trends. If you’re thinking about mobile marketing .. and wondering ‘what is all the fuss about Android’, then this presentation is for you.

Only the latest Android Insights and Statistics

• 10 billion app downloads (December 2011)
• 200 million activated devices (November 2011)
• 400,000 Android Apps (December 2011)

We can only wait for the next Google I/O conference to confirm how these numbers are growing!

Damien Saunders

Good mobile insights and statistics are hard to find unless you pay for them … that’s why I’ve just updated my Key Trends and Usage Insights to include data for the UK.

UK Mobile Trends and Insights

UK total mobile users 80m  (penetration is over 100% of the population)

UK smartphone penetration 46%

UK smartphone app usage 50%

Need Help?

Check out my other presentations or contact me for more information.

Damien Saunders

WordPress makes it easy to publish your site for mobile users. It’s best that you always test your changes on smart phones but did you know that you can check most changes on using your Apple Mac?

Mobile Internet Solutions

WP TouchPro is one of the best solutions to make your site ready for the mobile internet and smart-phone users. The key reason it is so good lies in the fact that it combines both a plugin and has it’s own mobile specific theme.

Out of the box, it will redirect popular smart-phones to a mobile version of your site with lots of options to change logo’s, CSS styles and support for custom pages, menus and more.

Testing Tools

Safari for Mac – Developer Tools

Safari for Mac has a hidden set of developer tools. To enable these:

• Go to Preferences
• Select Advanced
• Check ‘Show develop menu in menu bar’

Now just chose from the User Agents menu and enter your site URL in the address bar.

Did you know …. You can also use the Inspect Element tools to better understand CSS and check other changes on your site.

XCode – iOS Simulator

XCode is not only great for developing apps for iOS devices, it has the iOS simulator which allows you to preview and test your website on an iPhone or iPad.

XCode is now free – so you can download it from the App Store and once that is done, open the app iOS Simulator.

Did you know … WP TouchPro supports web app mode – which means you can set your own icon for the home screen on iOS devices.

Damien Saunders

So you’ve built a great website for your clients and they’re happy to see its getting lots of good traffic. Now your client wants to know how to make their website mobile.

Depending on the CMS you used to build the website – WordPress or Drupal for example, be sure to setup a mobile browser plugin that renders your website smartphone and mobile friendly.

For anyone building a website from scratch – mobile browser detection is done in the same was as detecting say IE6.
You only need to write a small script which detects the browser user-agent as a mobile and directs it to a webpage just for mobile.

It’s been common practice for a few years to actually redirect mobiles to a mobile friendly site like m.yourname.com or mobile.yourname.com or (hiss boo) wap.yourbrand.com, but CSS and scripts can do this better.

For a dynamic site with a CMS and blog it’s easier to load a separate set of CSS styles that renders the your website for narrow and small screen and at the same time you can use this to cut out all that flash stuff that doesn’t render on iPads or other iDevices.

Damien Saunders

The Definitive Guide to Foursquare has been updated for 2011 … and will be sent out this week.

This guide contains all you need to know to get started with marketing using Foursquare. It covers:

• Statistics you need to know
• Ideas for making your business marketing with Foursquare better
• What key incentives you should have to reward Mayors
• Tips for tracking and monitoring
• much much more …

This presentation will be sent out for free to registered members – it’s not too late to register now

Damien Saunders

Redmine is described as a flexible project management web application SaaS. I’ve been using it for the past 5 months within a mobile marketing agency – where its used for testing, operations, work orders, issue management and its wiki is used for documentation.

Redmine can not be compared to other bug track, issues or fault management systems like JIRA or CRM platforms with helpdesk tools. It’s flexible, but that comes with a price. The unassuming website for Redmine gives you a quick feel of the platform.

Things I learned – Right-Click Contextual Menu

Redmine has a hidden right-click contextual menu – which allows you to access the bulk edit tools and to quickly assig, close or update any of the logged issues.

I wish I’d known that from day one .. but at least in the past week I’ve found it useful to quickly update several hundred work issues.

Custom Fields – Use them

Custom Fields provide the easy way to make Redmine grow and fit your business – using custom fields made it a breeze to cross-reference mobile app platforms, test status and more.

Custom fields need an Administrator account to be created – and make sure to set the field to be searchable so that its contents are indexed!

Damien Saunders

Do you do mobile app testing? Then maybe you need a getting started checklist to help you with your device settings. One thing has not changed in the (nearly) 10 years since mobile internet got started – we still have to check and change device settings.

Check .. Does the mobile operator name show in the status bar?

• if it says No Carrier it wont work

Check … you have a data connection – can you open any app or browse to a web page.

• if there is no H or 3G or E symbol then you need to check the data connections

Check … Dial any number from the phone ..

• if it tells you have No Credit or Number Restrictions then you’ll need to fix this

Check .. Dial *#100# press Send .. the USSD command will run and the notification will show your phone number

Now you can open your mobile app to check that you can login ok and everything is working right.

Damien Saunders

I’ve been on the lookout for this prediction … in 2010 Gartner predicted Worldwide Mobile App Revenues of xx Billion … for 2011 the prediction is for this to exceed $15 billion

2010 Where are the results!

Given that Apple, Android, RIM, Nokia and a whole stack of operators and 3rd parties run mobile app stores – it’s extremely difficult to find out how good Gartner is at forecasts. Or is this just a large number guestimate?

Average Revenue per App

What Gartner do go on to say is that App Downloads should reach 17.7 billion, which puts an average app price of just 0.84 USD. Now its far easier to guess downloads as regularly Apple and others give updates on the billions of App Downloads.

Free vs Paid-For

Lets make some guestimates about App revenues

• 100% of apps paid for = avg gross revenue of 0.84 USD
• 80% of apps paid for / 20% are free downloads = avg gross revenue is 1.02 USD per app
• 50% of apps paid for / 50% are free downloads = 1.69 USD per app
• 20% of apps paid for  / 80% are free downloads = 4.28 USD per app

80% of app downloads being paid for is probably way off the mark. It’s more likely to be 80% of downloads are free. This implies an average app price of 4.28 USD per app – there are not many apps around $4 or $5 there are however plenty of mobile games around this price point.

Android Market Revenues are a problem

If you are following discussions about Android Market you’ll already be aware that stagnating sales revenue is a problem. The handsets are selling well, but many Android customers are not switching to paid for app buys in the same way as Apple has managed. Perhaps its the lack of a good desktop client for discovery? Perhaps its to do with the Haves and the Havenots – implying that those with the cash to burn buy an iPhone first.

Source: Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Application Store Revenue Forecast to Surpass $15 Billion in 2011

Damien Saunders

WordPress is a very comprehensive all-round tool for websites – and its not just for blogs. If you’re starting out with WordPress and need your site to look smooth on a mobile phone like the iPhone or any big screen Android mobile then you’ll need a plugin for this.

The best plugin for WordPress that handles any mobile device is easily WPtouch iPhone Theme. Once the plugin is installed and activated its working for you straight away.

The difference can be noticed immediately – no longer does your site display in all of its ‘wide screen’ glory – a new layout theme is implemented but only for smartphone devices

The team behind this plugin now have WPtouch Pro version which I hope to try out soon.

Have you tried WPtouch iPhone ? Let me know?

Damien Saunders

Foursquare is still the UK’s most popular location based check-in game to play on your mobile. I’ve said it before that Foursquare would come out on tops over Gowalla and Brightkite.

These maps (thanks to Checkin Mania) indicate the difference in the number of locations that users have submitted to each service. The growth from crowd sourced locations and points of interest reflects in the growth of that services usage (ie the most popular service gets the most contributions from users) The point of reference is London Borough Market – one of the more famous places in London to visit.

Aside from this, a fairly random survey of people using these ‘games’ showed a considerable higher interest in Foursquare then Gowalla. Gowalla was growing in awareness, but people I’ve asked complained it was slower than they expected.

Finally … if you’re getting started in social media marketing – don’t spend your money on a campaign only for one social network – spread it around so that everyone can join the game.

Foursquare on Checkin Mania

Gowalla on Checkin Mania

Brightkite on Checkin Mania

Damien Saunders

A short guide to mobile marketing is as short as it can get – and provides just enough insights, trends and key facts to help make the most of mobile marketing. What’s included in this is 8 quick suggestions how to include mobile marketing in your marketing strategy.

Damien Saunders

A short guide with b2b marketing tips for improving your content sales and improve your content using mmCHANNEL’s new API.

1. Got an upcoming marketing campaign? Need Content?
Now any marketing campaign can include digital content like tones, songs, games from a selection of mmCHANNEL manages.

2. Drive traffic to your website or fanpage
You can setup a content shop in your existing website using the mmCHANNEL b2bAPI with no need to build any other platforms

3. Increase your depth of content catalogue
You can extend your content shop and use the mmCHANNEL b2bAPI to include all the digital content that we manage.

4. Refresh your mobile strategy
Mobile Content – for sale or free to download – is a great way to get people coming to your mobile site and the mmCHANNEL b2bAPI allows content downloads by SMS or from a mobile internet site

5. Its cloud computing but not as we know it
Because the mmCHANNEL b2b API is available everywhere in the world you can think of this as cloud computing with the difference that people are there to help you all along the way.

Call or email me to find out how to do this.

Damien Saunders

Newsrob is my favourite application for Android mobiles, it’s been covered in my 10 Best Android Apps list a few times. Newsrob integratess with your account for Google Reader (which allows you to manage and read all your RSS feeds). Newsrob recently turned 1 and celebrated by introducing a Pro version and an Adfunded Free Version.

What’s fantastic about Newsrob Pro

Newsrob Pro has a new feature that is great for any social media or mobile specialist. Newsrob Pro allows you to now share your articles with comments. In the free version you can only add it to your shared list.

The Newsrob Share with note is saved in the client until it next syncs with Google Reader.

Newsrob Free Version

The Adfunded Free Version is still the best Google Reader app. No features have been removed in the freeware version. The advertising is intrusive but you don’t notice this when you are on buses or the underground and ads only show on navigational menu pages. In the first image you can see the space that is ‘reserved’ for banner ads.

Newsrob has many helpful timesavers such as

• Press the Star icon to indicate an article that is important to read again or print out at the office / home
• Share by E-mail, Gmail to send that article straight to your colleagues
• Offline sync / wifi download, so you can read articles anytime anywhere
• Share Socially if you have Seesmic installed on your phone you can share the article you are reading there.

Damien Saunders

Should you be worried that you don’t have an iPhone app? Do you know if you’re website works on a mobile? what about mobile SEO? It is very important for CEO’s and CMO’s to add mobile to their communications and marketing strategy.

The fact that most companies have yet to build a mobile website shows you are not alone and many companies want to know what they should do first.

• Build an app.
• Build a mobile strategy or
• Build a mobile website

Considering each approach …

Why Build a Mobile app

Answer Yes to these questions and you’ll know that building an app is right for you:

1. Is your company always first to market?
2. Do you want to get some PR effect?
3. Interested in winning a Mobile or Advertising industry Award

Developing an app for iPhone is the natural option for good PR or getting Marketing Awards. You can build apps and games for iPhones, Android, Nokia and many other smartphones.

Carefully consider too if you need to build an app for widescreen devices like the iPad or Smartphone netbooks.

Building a branded game or app for mobile is a good approach to complement a social media, viral or email campaign.

Develop a Marketing Strategy for Mobile

Want to understand mobile better, then consider how ‘mobile’ fits in your marketing mix. Could you get better PR? Leverage a viral campaign? Link mobile to your social media approach? Or want smartphone users to find your brand. I suggest you build a mobile website and look at your customer relationship marketing strategy.

Build a Mobile Website

Yes just do something. You can start by building a mobile friendly site, build an app and start to learn from them. Stay motivated and maybe expect the same results as the early web pioneers. Once you’ve done something you’ll still need to promote it.

So what were the 3 approaches to mobile marketing strategy again?

1. Build an App

2. Develop a Marketing Strategy plan

3. Build a mobile website

Of course whatever you do, you need to learn, get insights and leverage your stats tools, get feedback from customers and users and don’t expect to get to the top of the iTunes store unless you have a big budget.

Now tell me what you think?

Damien Saunders

Sony Ericsson delivered a blow to Microsoft on Tuesday when it unveiled its latest Xperia handset, which unlike its Windows-powered predecessors is based on Google’s Android operating system.

Called X10, the flagship smartphone comes with a new Sony Ericsson-designed user interface that aggregates the user’s contacts and communications from the likes of Facebook and Twitter into a single address book.

The system is akin to HTC’s Sense interface, and Motorola’s Motoblur interface, both of which feature on the respective companies’ new Android phones.

“It’s time for Sony Ericsson to put more focus on the smartphone market and Android is a good platform for them to do this,” said Roberta Cozza, principal analyst at Gartner.

source: http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=450402&mail=128&C=0

Damien Saunders

With the boom in the number of apps in the App Store (over 100,000) and total downloads in excess of 2bn … someone has got to be making money … right?

In part, the iPhone does offer a better platform for apps – it’s about to overtake RIM as the leading consumer smartphone, sold more than 34 million units and got some of the highest mobile internet usage rates we’ve seen so far.

It’s not fair to say that Developers, Ad agencies or Brands are making money out of the app store.

The problem is discovery – you have to do a lot to get your app to the Featured or Popular lists and that has got to start with spending money on good PR and a Viral / Word of Mouth campaign. For small time developers and startups, who might not account for these costs – they do expect GOOD PR and WoM to equal GREAT results.

Whatever you spend on building the app and promoting the app is not going to be made back in app revenue, consider that the majority of apps are given away for ‘free’. How does anyone make money?

I attended the NMAlive workshop in London last week which looked at Why You Need an App … I agree with all the presenters, which is you have to do something mobile … but expecting it to be a new revenue stream from Day 0 is misleading.

Damien Saunders

Balsamiq – I love it – the fonts and stuff can seem a bit cheesy … but I’ve take to this like a duck to water. Its much more useful than powerpoint, visio or other tools as its designed for wireframing.

Being built on Adobe Air means anyone can use it.

my phoney cellfone

It’s very quick to create a UE design and while I couldn’t find a template or mockup for cell phone / mobile phone. I now made my own.

You can get my balsamiq mock fone here

Damien Saunders

From today 3 UK will reward customers with cashback for referrals.

Join 3’s Free Agent team and get paid for promoting our free SIMs online. You get £5 cash when each friend first tops up their SIM by a minimum of £10, and they get an extra £2 credit. There’s no limit to the amount of money you can make.

see also: http://freeagent.three.co.uk/

Damien Saunders

Giffgaff will reward subscribers with cash rebates when they distribute its SIMs, help other members via its forums and suggest ideas which are then implemented by the company.

source: http://www.nma.co.uk/

Damien Saunders