MarCom Professional

I’ve made it one of my goals recently to try and get a bit more involved with local events and the local community, meet new people and get contacts in the industries I’m interested in. Cambridge is a good place to do this as it hosts many events and meetups, catering to technology geeks, creative people, internationals and whatever else may take my fancy.

So I started going, and I’m really enjoying it so far, most recently at last week’s CamCreative MeetUp.

But surprisingly, there’s one thing that has made the biggest impact on my experience of the events so far: More...

I got involved in a debate around 1D and 2D (or QR) Mobile Codes some time back on a Guardian blog (I know, my life is pretty new media rock and roll these days). Anyway, 1D codes are your standard flavour barcode, found on a can of beans and pretty much all FMCG goods, as well as CDs, books etc. 2D or QR codes are those square blocky codes, found on the cover of Wired Magazine and all over Japan.

Quite a lot of fuss was made over 2D codes some time back, as they looked like a great way to short-cut to content. We even used them in a beautiful looking campaign for Sony Music. The main issue with 2D QR codes is that they require not only a barcode app on the device, but the creation of a specific code for whatever content you want the code to reveal. More...

 
Casual gaming has driven the adoption of mobile games to more than a quarter of mobile phone subscribers and more than one in five members of the U.S. population, according to the latest eMarketer estimates.

This year, 64 million people will play mobile games at least monthly, a number that will rise to 94.9 million by 2014. eMarketer's estimates exclude mobile users who play pre-installed games, which offer publishers decent brand exposure but little in the way of monetization opportunities.

While games are currently popular on both smartphones and feature phones, the composition of the mobile gaming audience will shift further toward smartphones as they increase in penetration across the population. More...

eMarketer reports that mobile data traffic has grown because of the popularity of smartphones and unlimited-use mobile data plans for netbooks, laptops and other devices.

Coda Research predicted in March 2010 that data traffic from mobile handsets in the U.S. will surge to 327 petabytes per month in 2015, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 117 percent.

And ABI Research reported in May that smartphones and connected computing devices would contribute 87 percent of all mobile network data traffic in the U.S. market.

The mobile service provider response was tiered pricing plans. As an example, after years of offering unlimited data at a fixed price, AT&T introduced tiered pricing for new customers. More...

Mobile marketing needs certain conditions to flourish – in Australia the mobile ecosystem is restricted due to a number of significant factors. Having recently returned back to the UK after 5 years I am surprised at just how restrained it was back in the land down under. Especially since consumer behavior does not reflect this – not by a long shot.

Mobile penetration in Australia is currently at 113% with over 10.5 million people with 3G connections, that’s more than fixed broadband connections in the home. A staggering figure and one that would lead you to believe that this nascent technology should be a dominant force on the landscape – sadly this is not the case. More...

Developing for mobile has long been seen as a fragmented activity. “I want to take my brand or product onto the mobile channel, whilst maintaining the richness that the PC internet has allowed me”. “How do I do this?” “Oh, it’s not that easy. I have to develop for each mobile platform?” “There are so many”. “How much will this cost?” “Is a Mobile Internet site the way to go?” “Maybe I will leave it for now.”

With the launch of’ Smartphone’ mobile phones (55 million handsets in Q1 2010 worldwide), in particular Apples iPhone and more recently Googles Android , we have seen a huge move towards development of mobile applications. More...

Nokia is the world`s largest mobile phone manufacturer, consistently out-selling its rivals over the course of many years. It has not earned this title lightly, as it has managed to cater to every niche in the market and even invent a few of its own. As such its mobiles appeal to the gadget fiend and the mainstream user alike. The N Series phones are at the top end of Nokia`s line up and over the years they have built up a large following, with new handsets arriving regularly to refresh the range. Here is a quick overview of the N Series Nokia phones that are on the market today.

Nokia N900

The Nokia N900 arrived at the end of 2009 and it was the first N Series handset to sport the Maemo operating system rather than the Symbian platform of which Nokia has been a patron in the past. More...

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today outlined the impact the first three generations of Apple’s iPhone have had on the European mobile market, in light of record pre-sales and extraordinary consumer demand for the iPhone 4, which launches tomorrow.

The iPhone currently represents just 4 percent of the EU5 (U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Italy) mobile market, but 18 percent of the overall EU5 smartphone market. However, the iPhone has facilitated fundamental change in mobile user behaviour and ignited fierce competition among device and operating system (OS) providers. More...

f you’ve been keeping up with the current marketing trends, you should be in the process of exploring how to utilize social media to benefit your business. By now, most of the “how to use” social media content is everywhere especially from reputation resources such as Mashable, Social Media Examiner or Twitip to name a few.

While most large organizations such as Fortune 500 companies are slow in adopting social media, many have started pilot programs to experiment with this new tool.  Brands such as Dell, Coke Cola, Ford, Starbucks, Zappos, Best Buy and even sports league like NBA and NFL have found rapid growth by allowing fans to engage directly with athletes. More...

U.S. mobile phone service subscribers are finally becoming more sophisticated, like their counterparts in other more advanced mobile markets, using their smartphone applications (apps) at a higher rate.

eMarketer reports that according to the latest comScore study, the total number of mobile app users in the U.S. increased by 28 percent from April 2009 to April 2010.

Several app categories saw usage grow much faster. Social networking apps grew their user base by 240 percent during the period, to more than 14.5 million mobile users. Other categories gaining in user adoption include weather apps -- at more than 18 million and maps at about 16.8 million. More...