The past year has been very thrilling for the mobile industry, in particular for everything mobile apps. Every moment there are new technologies, phones with new abilities, apps leveraging the new features, and much more.
Here are the most important trends:
Mobile Advertising coming of age
Mobile Advertising is becoming serious business. Years ago telcos forecasted billions of dollars in revenue from mobile advertising. Now we finally see some results. O2 UK leads the way in Europe with O2 Media and their recently launched operator partnership. O2 Priority Moments is the first large-scale campaign leveraging permission based, hyper local targeted marketing.
Loyalty programs become hyper local
Loyalty programs are married to hyper local offers. One of the greatest differentiators for telco operators is the knowledge of profiles such as the whereabouts of their customers. This gives them the unique opportunity to combine this with personalised offers. Great examples of this include the loyalty clubs by Turkcell, O2 Priority Moments and AT&T Local Deals. Though those are already incredible services, these are still early days. Programs and content will become even more sophisticated.
Near Field Communication (NFC)
Near Field Communication (NFC), whose initial focus was on mobile payments is now shifting towards other utilities. App builders make use of NFC to simplify check-ins, execute marketing campaigns and drive the use of loyalty cards. Which is great since it is driving customer adaptation to the technology and paves the way for new forms of employment.
Mobile Self Care
Mobile self-care is a growing business opportunity. Several service providers like telco operators already have a substantial customer base that is accessing their account information through mobile apps and sites every month. Still, hardly any of those are leveraging this opportunity to cross-sell and up-sell other services to millions of subscribers. We are now finally seeing some interesting collaborations between the customer care departments and marketing.
Operator Appstores
Operators and device manufacturers launch their own appstores. Despite the challenges that many operators have faced there are some great success stories. For example, LG App Advisor, a hybrid solution that recommends the most relevant local apps for each market. Or Verizon vCast appstore, which achieved similar success. This shows that there is a demand for secure and trusted appstore providers.
The most frequent questions we get from clients and partners are:
What is the cost of developing a mobile app or mobile website? Read more
How do I port my iPhone app to Android and other mobile platforms? Read more
Should I go for a mobile app, a mobile website or both? Read more
How do I get social networking into my mobile strategy? Read more
What are the most popular appstores? Read more
News from CES and Mobile 2012
Without exception, CES generates a lot of exciting news for the mobile app space. Here's a quick summary of the key announcements in mobile this year.
Airport Apps: A Win-Win for the Travel Industry
Traveling can be fun..... if everything goes smoothly. But quite often, it doesn't. Airport Apps like the one made from BAA can improve the flying experience and avoid stress for passengers and employees.
