Mobile Marketing Universe

News from CES and Mobile 2012

2012-01-12T15:35:00.002Z

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.

Thinnest tablet ever
The Toshiba Excite X10 tablet is the thinnest tablet ever made with a 10.1 inch screen, 0.3 inch thin and 1.2 ibs weight.

Our take:
The Toshiba Excite X10 tablet is an alternative for the iPad2 and this could be Apple’s real competition. However it is unlikely that it can compete with Apple’s iPad3 which is expected in the next couple of months

Intel in partnership with Motorola Mobility
Being in partnership with Intel allows Motorola to use Intel’s Atom processors on their mobile computing devices. This includes smartphones and tablets for consumers and businesses during the next couple of years.

Our take:
Currently, Qualcomm and ARM dominate the mobile processor market and more competition is needed. This should lead to more innovation in the mobile processing space including better battery life and increased processing power.

Smartphone news

LTE devices across all price points
Most of the major device manufacturers announced LTE devices together with the carriers in the US including LG, HTC, Nokia and Samsung but also Huawei, ZTE and Pantech.

Our take:
Although LTE is important from a network capacity perspective an transition to GSM technology in the US the technology will not have much impact on consumers right now as 3G speeds are adequate for most smartphone usage. Nevertheless, the speed of the transition is impressive.

Nokia Lumia and Windows Phone
AT&T is launching the Nokia Lumia 900 in the US with LTE and stands firmly behind Windows Phone.

Our take:
This will bring positive media echo for Nokia Luma and Windows Phone devices. Uniqueness and differentiation is good news as it shows there is still room for innovation in the OS space. Thanks to this, Apple has not been able to steal the show like they did last year.

Sony Xperia S
Sony launches the first device without the Ericsson brand as a game focused device with Android.

Our take:
The device looks great with nice specs but we don’t believe it’s unique enough to compete against the top Android devices from Samsung and HTC.

Waterproof phones
Will waterproofing treatment make smartphones ruined by water damage history? The company HzO thinks so and announced a new technology for waterproofing that they want to license to phone manufacturers.

Our take:
This is probably one of the most exciting news for consumers coming out of CES. Many of us have dropped their phone in water or gotten it ruined by rain or water splashes. If the waterproofing works without having to turn the phone into a piece of rubber like previous attempts then this could be a big trend in the future.

Apps, apps and more apps
With over 100 great apps submitted for Mobile App Showdown here are 3 of our favorites:

CIA: Operation Ajax Amazes!
An app delivering a graphic novel with interactive sounds and animations, which seems like a unique way of mobile story telling.

SkyQ
SkyQ is an easy to use astronomy application that locates and identifies virtually any celestial object visible in the night sky with portable convenience right from the palm of your hand.

Swakker
Swakker lets you personalize your mobile messaging. Communicate in creative ways, like drawing in a chat and writing messages in the sky.

Biggest news of all
No show would be worthwhile without an app by Golden Gekko of course and to avoid disappointment Qualcomm showed off Golden Gekko’s augmented reality app for the National Guard. More about this later…

New Years wish for 2012 - take mobile seriously!

2011-12-24T08:01:00.000Z

"There is more money wasted in advertising by underspending than by overspending. Years ago someone said that underspending in advertising is like buying a ticket halfway to Europe. You've spent your money but you never get there." - Morris Hite

According to a recent study by eMarketing (http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008728) brands are are underspending by 10x on mobile vs time spent by consumers on the mobile compared to other channels. People spend a little over an hour of their of time (10.1% of total media consumption) engaging with mobile every day compared a combined total of 44 minutes a day with newspapers and magazines, 4.34 hours watching television, and 2.47 hours on the Internet. Despite this only 0.9% of media budgets are spent on mobile vs 24.7% on newspapers and magazines. And this is only the beginning since mobile usage is still growing rapidly which means that brands should be investing a higher proportion now to build a platform for the future.

We understand that mobile is a complex and sensitive channel for advertising but Golden Gekko, our competitors and colleagues in the industry have thousands of case studies with proven ROI showing the effectiveness of mobile.

So happy holidays and happy new mobile year and show that you are serious about mobile in 2012!

Mobile self-care platforms growing in importance

2011-12-20T08:03:00.001Z

77% of the world’s population is mobile. More than three out of four people are already signed up with a mobile provider. This leaves little space for mobile operators to grow by acquiring new customers and the market is driven by price competition: The cheaper the better.

Without obvious customer satisfaction issues with low price suppliers, it’s very difficult for mobile operators to offer competing products or services at higher prices. Generally, competing on price alone leads to disloyal customers, low margins and many sleepless nights for business managers.

This being said, the Mobile Marketing Association believes that operators in developed countries could run out of profit in the next two to four years if they do not change their business models.

So, now what?

Operators in mature markets are trying to find ways of reducing costs reduce churn and open new revenue channels.

Operators in emerging markets want to improve customer care, up-sell new services and keep customers engaged.

Innovative operators are taking it one step further. For example, today O2 has more than 25% of their active customers engaging every month through My O2, their self care platform.

My O2 is a platform for O2 subscribers where they can login to check their bill, update personal details, explore special offers, browse other products/service and interact with a virtual agent. Along with enhancing an operator’s service offering, there are clear business opportunities encouraging operators to offer this type of customer care tool:

Create transparency for users on there voice and data plans
Reduce customer care costs
Increase adaptation of new services
Improve customer satisfaction by providing help anytime, anywhere
Increase revenues by enabling customers to easily reconfigure plans or purchases additional services
How do we see it?

Mere churn prevention is probably the worst option as it is passive. Operators are at a critical point and need to be proactive if they don’t want to disappear. It should be about delivering services that are satisfying, desirable and engaging. An offensive value-added services strategy that delivers a compelling customer experience, one that enables operators to boost individual loyalty and the lifetime value of their existing customer base.

Built on years of experience with 20+ operators across the globe, Golden Gekko’s ‘Self Care’ app is designed around this premise. An opt-in app that not only reduces customer care costs, increase adaptation and cross-promotes services, but also collects valuable business intelligence that helps operators deliver better products, services and support to their existing client base.

Operators can’t rely on monthly voice or data plans – the end game is customer loyalty because customer loyalty means engaged clients, added spending, more renewals, customer referrals and lower acquisition costs.

Major Trends in the Mobile Industry

2011-12-14T12:14:00.000Z

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

How Operators tackle Customer Loyalty

2011-11-30T15:11:00.001Z

Without obvious customer satisfaction issues with low price suppliers, it's very difficult for mobile operators to offer competing products or services at higher prices. Generally, competing on price alone leads to disloyal customers, low margins and many sleepless nights for business managers.

This being said, the Mobile Marketing Association believes that operators in developed countries could run out of profit in the next two to four years if they do not change their business models.

So, now what?

Operators in mature markets are trying to find ways of reducing costs reduce churn and open new revenue channels.

Operators in emerging markets want to improve customer care, up-sell new services and keep customers engaged.

Innovative operators are taking it one step further. For example, today O2 has more than 25% of their active customers engaging every month through My O2, their self care platform.

My O2 is a platform for O2 subscribers where they can login to check their bill, update personal details, explore special offers, browse other products/service and interact with a virtual agent. Along with enhancing an operator’s service offering, there are clear business opportunities encouraging operators to offer this type of customer care tool:

• Create transparency for users on there voice and data plans

• Reduce customer care costs

• Increase adaptation of new services

• Improve customer satisfaction by providing help anytime, anywhere

• Increase revenues by enabling customers to easily reconfigure plans or purchases additional services

How do we see it?

Mere churn prevention is probably the worst option as it is passive. Operators are at a critical point and need to be proactive if they don’t want to disappear. It should be about delivering services that are satisfying, desirable and engaging. An offensive value-added services strategy that delivers a compelling customer experience, one that enables operators to boost individual loyalty and the lifetime value of their existing customer base.

Built on years of experience with 20+ operators across the globe, Golden Gekko’s ‘Self Care’ app is designed around this premise. An opt-in app that not only reduces customer care costs, increase adaptation and cross-promotes services, but also collects valuable business intelligence that helps operators deliver better products, services and support to their existing client base.

Operators can’t rely on monthly voice or data plans - the end game is customer loyalty because customer loyalty means engaged clients, added spending, more renewals, customer referrals and lower acquisition costs.

Do you know your mobile users?

2011-11-24T09:11:00.002Z

Men are from Android and women are from Apple? It’s not all that trivial, but when planning a mobile marketing strategy OS penetration is not the only parameter to consider.

iOS users do skew significantly different to Android users, let alone BlackBerry or Mobile Phone users. When focusing on the right target and how to approach the right audience, a mobile marketing strategy is more efficient to follow.

Though, truth be told, the difference in gender is actually one of the least significant discrepancies. iPhone users are 18% more likely to be female while Android users are 10% more likely to be male. So don’t be shocked if you see a hot chick pulling out an Android phone.

Here are some of the major points relevant for mobile marketers:

Money

To get right to the point: iPhone users have more money and like to spend it and not only on their mobiles. iPhone users are 67% more likely to have an annual income of $+200k , while 24% of Android users are likely to have an annual income between $+50k - $+100k. Apple lovers have a 29% higher balance on their monthly credit card (Pageonce) than Android owners.

Android phones are normally cheaper than iPhones, for which it doesn’t surprise that the Droid crowd is more likely hold their dollars together while iPhoners are 26% more likely to be spenders.

Trend Setter

A surprising 71% of Android users see themselves as followers. Steve Jobs has done a better job as role model, as 27% of iPhone users see themselves as leaders and 50% consider themselves as early adopters.

Interests

iPhone users are more travelers as50% are more likely to have visited more than 5 countries, while 71% of Android users are likely to never have traveled outside their native country.

The study conducted by Hutch breaks down the profile of different OS users and even specifies their favourite ice cream flavour, as can be seen in the infographic in their blog.

The point is though that Marketing is all about knowing your target group, where to find them and how to speak to them. Having a clear idea which device they are likely to use can save a lot of money when planning a mobile marketing strategy.

Knowing the triggers of each device user can also help you to design a more customized approach for each platform. For example, an Android user’s attention can be caught with discounts or special offers, while iPhone users are suckers for sleek design and innovation.

After all, mobile is an interactive medium. This means it is not just about emitting a message, it’s about creating a conversation and the best way to start a conversation is getting to know the other person.

Visit Hutch for more information on the survey.

Why media agencies avoid mobile

2011-11-09T13:57:00.001Z

Action speaks louder than words. Yet nothing but big words have been heard from the heads of WPP, Omnicom, Ogilvy and other leading media agencies extolling the potential of mobile.

Mobile marketing is experiencing healthy growth across Europe and North America. According to researches by IAB and MMA and many more, Ad- spending has increased by 60%- 70% in average.

However, we believe that the major part of these spends can be attributed to mobile and digital agencies that work directly with brands rather than to media planners who manage the majority of the media budget.

The main reasons are:

Lack of knowledge: Mobile is complex and hard to understand due to multiple OS platforms and channels (SMS/MMS, Apps, Mobile Web, QR codes, etc
Metrics: Metrics for mobile can be extremely detailed. It's possible to track results from display advertising or messaging to retail activation. Nonetheless, interpreting the data requires some understanding
Incentives: According to common conventions between brands and agencies, agency fees are based on media spending and not efficiency. This means TV, print and outdoor media are more profitable for agencies

When and how will this change?
Most media agencies have formed specialised teams for mobile. But those teams are small and often overstretched. We believe that it will take another 2-3 years before media agencies start taking mobile seriously. In the meantime they will lose business and the opportunity to learn from smaller more specialised agencies.

Airport Apps, A Win-Win for the Travel Industry

2011-10-26T09:27:00.002+01:00

Unpredictable weather, long security lines and extremely time sensitive logistical planning makes it easy to imagine that your last trip to the airport could have involved overstressed airport staff rescheduling a flight for a bunch of cranky travelers that cannot understand why they have to spend the night in Frankfurt and pay 10 euros for a 4-pack of batteries.
It’s not the same at every airport, but I have a feeling we’ve all been there at some point in our travel history. This being said, mobile apps provide airports with a huge opportunity to simplify the travel experience as well as provide travel services and tools to minimize stress.

Receive delay notifications on your mobile before leaving the house
Look for alternative flights when your flight is cancelled
Pre-purchase your ticket for the Heathrow Express on your tablet
Breeze through security with your digital boarding pass
Forward yourself your flight, hotel and car rental info an automatically create a travel itinerary
Snap a pic of your parking spot and tag on a map with GPS
Receive a discount coupon from Starbucks after checking-in at the airport via Facebook

What’s really exciting about this space is that all the features listed above already exist and would impact your travel experience in such a positive way. But if you took a second to think about what’s to come with NFC, QR codes and ERP solutions - mobile could literally revolutionize what we know today as ‘just another trip to the airport.’
Airport apps: It’s win-win
While the ‘Time Killer App’ you played during your 2-hour delay in Amsterdam was a life-saver, the reality now-a-days is that we are always connected to our mobile devices. Airports can take advantage of this opportunity to positively impact their bottom line pre-during-and-post travel by:

Leveraging the unique power of mobile to increase revenue generation
Creating a richer channel for affiliate merchants to reach the consumer
Anticipating delay drivers, plan preventive actions and take recovery measures
Providing cutting edge customer service

http://www.amadeus.com/airlineIT/the-always-connected-traveller/docs/mobile_infographic.jpg

This means push notifications for final boarding calls, rich promotional splash pages for seasonal offers, coupon system for airport shops, integrating booking engines for flights, hotels and transportation as well as providing city guides, airport maps and weather information for all arrival and departure cities.
How to get it right
This is a business critical app that would differentiate any airport from its peers if it effectively aligned business priorities with the evolving needs of their customers.

Accurate real-time data mixed with valuable content
Entice travelers to purchase and pre-reserve products or services
Ensure travelers get the most out of their airport visit

From there – the sky is the limit.

No NFC in the iPhone 4S

2011-10-07T11:59:00.003+01:00

I am currently working on a blog about NFC* in mobile marketing. Then Apple announced the iPhone 4S without NFC capability, which puts everything into a new perspective. Now it seems way more important to talk about what this means for the industry. The blog on NFC in mobile marketing will be published next week instead.

Seldom has one company’s decision meant so much for an industry as Apple’s decision not to support NFC in the new iPhone. So far the biggest short-term supporters of NFC have been Google with various initiatives. Several Nokia, Samsung and RIM devices are already available in the market. Apple, however, is extremely important, as the iPhone is a mass-market device with a large proportion of early adopters eager to try new things.

I believe that the consequences of the decision are:
* Many retailers will delay decisions to upgrade PoS systems for NFC for at least a year
* PoS payment solution suppliers such as Verifone are less likely to invest in pilot programs
* Other device manufacturers such as HTC and LG may delay embedding NFC chips as they wait for Apple
* Marketers are less likely to support mobile marketing campaigns leveraging NFC as most of them have an iPhone

Another consequence we will see is a slower transition to NFC compared to what many analysts and industry supporters expected. As of now, no one to my knowledge has gone as far as pronouncing NFC a dead standard- yet but I bet we will see some industry comments soon.

Was it unexpected or shocking news from Apple? Not really but considering the relative low implementation cost for Apple many people thought they would include NFC despite previous comments but maybe with some kind of restrictive use through Apple.

What does it mean for mobile marketing and payments? It will primarily delay the implementation of loyalty cards and mobile payment systems using NFC for about a year but in the long term we are still confident that Apple and others will support and implement NFC.

Despite this we will update you on future exciting opportunities with NFC in next weeks blog. Because we are still very excited about the long-term prospects.

* Note: For more about NFC read our previous blog post on http://www.mobilemarketinguniverse.com/?p=326

What’s New What’s Next? Mobile News And Trends

2011-09-20T14:32:00.000+01:00

As the name suggests, there is always a lot of movement going on in the mobile space. Mobile is said to be the fastest growing market in the world. Every moment there are new technologies, phones with new abilities, apps leveraging the new features, and much more.

Let’s have a look at what we believe to be the most important trends:

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

For more insights and details on each of these trends please contact us to set up a call or workshop.

Porting iOS (iPhone) Apps To Android And Blackberry

2011-08-31T09:04:00.003+01:00

Golden Gekko is often asked to extend an iPhone app to other platforms such as Android, Blackberry, Symbian, HTML5, etc.

So, why would they come to us if they’ve already developed an app with someone else? Usually, for one of the following reasons:

a) Current developer lacks skills and experience for other platforms than iOS
b) Unhappy with the existing developer
c) Concerned about the complexity of other platforms due to fragmentation
d) Want a long term development partner that covers all platforms

What is porting?

“Porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed…” and “Software is portable when the cost of porting it to a new platform is less than the cost of writing it from scratch. The lower the cost of porting software, relative to its implementation cost, the more portable it is said to be.” (source: Wikipedia)

In reality there is no such thing as porting from iOS to Android or Blackberry. The development environments are completely different, which means that unless you’ve planned for cross-platform development from the beginning you will have to start from scratch for additional platforms and the cost of pure development will be similar or sometimes higher than the first platform.

So what is the point of this blog?

Even though there is no easy solution to porting, there are lots of tips and tricks that make the process smoother, the cost lower and the app more successful:

1. Adapt existing Use Cases, Wireframes and Designs to the new platform

Even though the code cannot be reused, the overall concept of the app, user journeys, information architecture, designs, etc can. However, you need to make sure that the app is customized for the special attributes of each platform in terms of underlying OS concepts, navigation, screen sizes/resolution, limitations, additional features, etc. If you already have good documentation of the app, we recommend analyzing the deltas and describing the differences compared to the original app, keeping it trackable, so that future changes in the original app will also result in similar changes to the other platforms.

2. Sharing resources such as Copy, language files, graphical assets and media

This is where a lot of long term headaches and savings can be made. By sharing resource files where possible, you only have to update the content once and then automatically propagate to the builds for each of the platforms. Often this involves a scripted conversion step, but setting this up early is of great value for long term savings.

3. Backend communication and integration

If the app communicates with one or multiple backends then the API requests should be the same across platforms. In some cases you should consider developing a middleware that sits between the backends and the apps to avoid having to make changes to multiple apps if there is a change on the backend.

4. Code structure

To make it easier to maintain the code across multiple platforms make sure that you use the same or similar variables, classes, etc as this will save a lot of time for developers to make updates. You might also be able to reuse data structures and algorithms.

5. Preparing for tablets and other devices

Finally it is important to continue to plan for future platforms and devices becoming available. When specifying the new app for Android or Blackberry then also make sure that you consider support for Android Tablets, alternative screen sizes, new Blackberry’s launching, etc. Tablets especially require a modification of graphics, as well as user journeys, to make best use of the extra screen space.

If you have to reduce cost because of budget constraints you can:
a) Complement the existing app with an HTML5 mobile website - this doesn't replace having an app on the other appstores but is a good way of building a mobile presence across all devices
b) Use a cross platform web runtime solution such as Phonegap for Write Once Run On Multiple (WOROM) - this is always going to be a compromise compared to native apps but can be acceptable in certain cases

In conclusion "porting" or developing for multiple mobile OS is not an easy task but the effort, costs and timelines can be reduced and the result can be very rewarding, if planned and executed properly.

For more about porting to Android also read Techcrunch article "Porting iOS to Android pitfalls and perks"

For more information about how to develop and maintain applications across multiple OS contact us for a call or meeting.

Success criteria for a great mobile health app

2011-08-16T15:02:00.004+01:00

mHealth means health care via the mobile phone. A vague definition describing a big area, that, being still in its infancy, is believed to have great potential.

mHealth includes specialised hardware for medical purposes such as diabetes, heart monitoring and blood pressure as well as services like reminders for doctor’s appointments via SMS, public health information/alerts, health surveys, apps for doctors, apps for in-field training used by pharmaceuticals, wellness self-checks, remote diagnosis decision support apps, hospital management/administration, apps used in the field in developing countries and much much more.

So, what makes a mobile health service successful? Based on our experience from delivering mobile apps and services for the health sector for almost 5 years and speaking to our partners we have come up with the following 5 key success factors:

1. The mobile service needs to solve a problem and have a clear strategy
Make sure that there is a clear need for the service/application that you are developing and that the service fulfills that need. Relevant market research and insights, participatory user experience design, pilots and quick response to user feedback once the service has been launched are all key to success.

2. The app or service needs to be extremely easy to use
Nice animations, flashy colors and a beautiful layout for sure inspires usage, but more important is that the service is easy for the target audience to use. This includes making sure that navigation flows are logic, buttons are big enough to click on for people with any finger sizes, text is readable for users that lack 20/20 vision and that you can easily start over or go back if you get lost in the service without having to resubmit several pages of forms again.

3. The service needs to be available to a majority of the target audience and not just e.g. iPhone or iPad users
This is usually were the biggest mistakes are done. Developers and tech people seem to think that everyone has an iPhone. This might be sort of true if the target group are medical students or doctors in a first world country, but not if you are targeting a wider audience. mHealth goes far beyond mobile apps and can also be delivered using SMS, MMS, mobile websites, bluetooth and NFC.

A good example of how apps are usually limited to one platform is available here.

4. The service must be secure and reliable
According to some reports as many as 80% of all iPhone apps crash after 5 min use. They are usually poorly developed and tested by developers with limited experience. For medical purposes reliability is a prerequisite. Make sure that the app or services has been properly tested across all devices that you expect the target audience to be using.

The service also needs to be absolutely secure in case it stores or communicates patient data. This includes encryption of data in communication between the device and the server, encryption of data stored locally on the device and that the servers are bullet proof in terms of external access to any data.

5. Legal, compliance and regulatory approvals
When you plan for the launch of a mobile health service make sure that you include the time for approval by all stakeholders. Worst case you might even require regulatory approval by e.g. the FCC.

Golden Gekko has been delivering mHealth services in partnership with specialised businesses in this area for the past 5 years including tools to help people quit smoking, educational apps, health surveys, training of physicians, self-care applications and more with clients including Novartis, Unicef and GSK.

How to Find the Best Mobile App Developer

2011-08-03T15:53:00.001+01:00

How hard can it be to build a mobile app?

There are plenty of tools out there. The bottom line message: I can make an app. You can make an app. It might not do much, and it might not look good. But yes, anyone can make an app, it's easy. Apple and Android have all made app creation easy. Golden Gekko created Tino Mobile App Studio, a tool that lets everyone create a cross platform app without writing a single line of code.
But as they say: Anyone can be a painter, not everyone can be Picasso.
When you're looking for a mobile app partner, here are some things to keep in mind:

User interface design:

With mobile, less can be so much more, and figuring out the best bits you need, and more importantly the best bits you don't need is not easy.
A smaller screen makes it tricky to design the right user experience for an app. At some point you may think you have the best design. It will look good, and then you will see the right design...
At Golden Gekko, we design the best user interface we can, but the real work starts when the app is first seen by a user. Listening to the feedback of users makes sure we keep improving in the direction your users want us to improve. If anyone says they have the answer right off the bat, we offer a guarantee: they don't even know the question.

Cross platform support:

The above may sound hard. It is. Don't underestimate how hard it is to get a good first interface design. But it gets even harder. People assume you only have to do it once! But there are all sorts of platforms out there. You need to design the app to get the best out of every platform. Users expect their iPhone apps to fit in with the iPhone way, and their Android apps to fit in with their Android apps. Disappointed users quickly start to bring down ratings, and ratings drive downloads.

Orientation:

It's difficult to foresee every possible way a user may want to use your app. Many developers forget and upset users. When a user rotates the screen, the content needs to update in a way that maximises the new space. If your app looks the same but wider, you forgot. Spend the time, make it work and the users will thank you.

Reliability:

The most common negative feedback on the appstores is that the app crashes. The majority of apps are actually so poorly developed that they crash after a few minutes use. Motorola’s CEO claimed that many device returns were due to app crashes. There is absolutely no excuse for this. Users expect apps to be reliable, good quality code and testing procedures help ensure this.

Phone to tablet:

Just the same, but bigger? No. Please, go pick up a tablet. It's not a phone. Nobody should treat it as a phone. Early adopters of tablets are already getting frustrated with app developers not respecting the changing demands of the tablet world.
These are just a few of the high level things that we consider important for our clients to achieve the full potential of apps. There are many device and platform specific considerations, settings and bugs to consider. It's a topic that could fill a book.

So, what do we look for in a good mobile app developer?
The same things you need from any developer. Great problem solving ability, an awareness of user needs, knowledge of sound design patterns and awareness of sound coding architecture and practices. Quality code design never gets old.

At Golden Gekko, we focus on employing the best programmers we can find, whatever their specific background may be. The best programmers understand how to produce robust, extendable and re-usable code. If they have that, we can show them, through our user interface design team, exactly what we need to build.

Great developers are always a good investment. Cheap developers offer short term solutions, but the long term costs are significant. If you want to pay for the same job, over, and over again, then by all means go cheap. If you're looking to form a partnership, producing quality, market leading apps, that can take your customer loyalty to a new level, come see us...

And if you're a developer, and you know you're good, we'd like to hear from you...

A History of Mobile Marketing Apps

2011-07-28T11:55:00.006+01:00

Believe it or not, mobile applications existed before Apple told the world there was an app for that. Below are a few of the stories from the past 5 years of mobile app development at Golden Gekko.

It all began with a mobile cookbook
Golden Gekko was one of the first companies to believe in mobile marketing and to concentrate on the development of mobile marketing applications. In 2005, this seemed like an absurd idea to most people and businesses.
Arla Food Group, Europe’s second largest dairy company, was the first to make a bet based on the crazy an un-proven idea of mobile apps used in marketing presented by Magnus Jern, Jimmy Nordbeck and Daniel Karlström.
Arla’s website is among the most popular websites in Sweden. The Online Cookbook is one of the main attractions. To further extend the reach of the brand and to bring their services closer to their clients, Arla decided to explore the mobile channel.
The result was a mobile application, based on the online cookbook, including a selection of 330 popular recipes all including one or more Arla products. The app was produced for Java and compatible with over 800 phones covering 95% of all devices in use in Sweden at the time.
During the first 3 months, the mobile cookbook had more than 10.000 downloads and by 2007 Arla Mobile Cookbook was one of the most downloaded mobile applications in Sweden with over 80.000 downloads, mainly thanks to it’s exposure on more than 1 million milk bricks distributed in Sweden.
Read CASE STUDY

Mobile tamagotchi for Pop Idol
In 2008, the TV channel running the Swedish version of Pop Idol, approached Golden Gekko to promote the show. The application we developed was an early example of what today is known and buzzed as “gamification”. A Tamagotchi-type game allowed viewers to compete with other fans in managing a virtual idol.
In the first 4 weeks, Idol Manager had more than 15.000 downloads making it one of the most downloaded connected games ever launched in Sweden. 50% of users registered for the chance to win a date with an Idol and played the game at least twice. The app leveraged social network components at an early stage of their marketing exploitation: the average customer shared the app with about 3 people.
Read CASE STUDY

Mobile apps lead the way in mobile marketing
Golden Gekko stayed on the viral train when teaming up with Unilever to create an app for the Lynx effect campaign. The Lynx campaign's claim “Weapons of Mass Seduction” was also used as the motto of the app. Golden Gekko created an application that turned mobile phones into pulling machines and reached over 150k unique downloads. In 2009, the campaign was extended due to its great success. The Lynx campaign won lots of awards and fame for Golden Gekko and BBH and is still one of the most talked about mobile app campaigns in Europe.
Read CASE STUDY

Mobile apps accelerate to Formula 1
In 2009 Vodafone was the first to fully tap Golden Gekko’s cross platform competences. The Vodafone McLaren app was developed across iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Java and Symbian. It was launched for 10 territories and has hit over 520.000 successful downloads to date. 70% of the users reached were non-Vodafone customers. 1.2m sessions indicate that the average user used the app 2.3 times. Data that exceeded the agreed objectives and expectations for the app.

Building a business on mobile apps and mobile web
In 2010, Golden Gekko launched our first app for European Directories, the publisher of yellow pages in eight countries and our biggest client to date. Golden Gekko has now developed over 150 applications for them, including the 56 core yellow page apps and over 100 verticals, many of which are already in their second version. Today 1.7 million unique users make over 3 million search queries and generate more than 7 million page views in any given month. Since our cooperation began, European Directories has seen constant growth averaging 788%. For European Directories mobile has become a core part of their service offering and the fastest growing area of the business.
Read CASE STUDY

Consumers embrace the value of mobile coupons
Launched on the 14^th of July 2011, we supported O2 UK in the delivery of O2 Priority Moments across iPhone, Android, and the servers that tie it all together. Through the app, O2 offers real-time, location-based deals to their over 22 million customers, and the apps have already been downloaded 200.000 times in less than two weeks. For O2 this is only the beginning of the journey and we look forward to being involved in the growth of local offers services in the coming months and years.

Where are we going next?
Mobile has come a long way. It is believed to be the fastest growing market worldwide. Mobile Marketing has evolved tremendously since the first apps we launched five years back and so has Golden Gekko. We have multiplied our staff by 50 in only five years, now being a team of near to 150 talented and engaged people. We are prepared to keep moving at this pace and are excited about all the new and old things to come in the mobile universe.

Web or App? Mobile HTML or HTML5 Sites Vs. Mobile Apps Part 2

2011-07-21T15:11:00.002+01:00

Our clients, analysts, partners, media and technical nerds all agree on one thing: there is no agreement on mobile apps vs. mobile web. Last week, our Account Director Caroline van den Bergh spoke at the Getjar Conference in London to shed light on the current situation.

Her speech makes clear why there will be no winner in the near future:

1. Rate of Technology Improvement

- HTML5 is a common standard by WC3 that took 5 years to develop. Getting to the next major release of HTML will take just as long.

iOS and Android are proprietary development standards with at least one major and several minor releases a year (iOS 5 had more than 1500 new APIs)

Innovation will continue to happen at a much faster pace for apps than for the mobile web. To deliver the latest and greatest new features, hardware, user experience and speed, the only option is apps.

2. Discovery

It is still easier to drive traffic to an app than to a mobile website without spending money on advertising. An app is promoted through the appstores, especially when launched. External sites often review and suggest apps to their readers. This creates natural exposure, that is not present for sites.

3. Purpose

Frequently used utilities whose features don’t require an internet connection will benefit greatly from apps. Services that are almost completely updated every day such as news may be easier to deliver through a mobile website, although stickiness may increase with an app.

If you are a well known brand and want to benefit from the mobile channel you probably need to invest in both mobile web and apps. In terms of budget, mobile websites are generally much simpler and therefore cheaper. That said, a mobile website and an app of the same complexity will cost about the same, but you'll have to develop the app again for each new platform – porting between platforms simply doesn't get the quality level that our brands expect.

For more about the cost of developing mobile apps see our previous blogs.

To find out more about mobile web vs apps download the full presentation here.

Content Marketing for Mobile: Is Republishing RSS Feeds Legal?

2011-07-13T16:39:00.002+01:00

In mobile marketing, content is king. Content that provides added value, for example in terms of relevant information, is a strong incentive for customers to consume branded information. Republishing RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds is an easy and popular form to provide such content, but is it really legal?

Agathe Caffier, part of the legal department of Golden Gekko, takes a look at the legal situation when republishing RSS feeds:

- In a world where we are spammed by tons of information every day, RSS feeds simply make sense. I read this very interesting comparison on Master New Media website stating that RSS was like fishing. Their explanation was; “Just like when you go fishing, you give out a lot of free fish food in exchange for a smaller and very targeted crowd waiting to jump and bite your next unique offering. As for the fish gathering around your free food give out, RSS is a tremendously powerful vehicle not only to deliver more efficiently your content but also to enable a self-sufficient army of individual publishers, reporters, bloggers and other news publishers to further spread and deliver it to an infinite number of otherwise unreachable audiences out there.-

The question is: Once the RSS is published, can anyone republish it without permission?

Legally there is a debate. On the one hand some argue that the information contained in the RSS is protected under copyright law, hence cannot be freely republished. However this argument raises another issue. Since the Internet is global, it is unclear which national copyright law applies. On the other hand some say that by distributing your content via an RSS feed, you are giving an implied permission to the reader to republish it.

Some publishers get very irritated by the plagiarism of their RSS content. Websites use the published RSS feeds and republish them to generate traffic for their website or display their ads and hereby generate money.

I think the operative point is the objective that is pursued. If an RSS aggregator republishes the RSS with the intention of sharing information and makes a reference to its originator there are no legal caveats. The line is drawn where republishing is used for advertising or generating money purposes. In fact, you can now find in the terms and conditions of some news publishers' websites a section where with an explicit permission to republish the RSS under the condition that an appropriate attribution to the author is added when appearing on the website. Another possible solution is that news aggregators could contact publishers of RSS directly to obtain their permission for using their content.

In conclusion, if not explicitly indicated, the legal position of aggregation and republishing of RSS feeds is unclear. One should therefore always read the terms and conditions and respect the content author’s wishes. In my opinion republishing the RSS via an aggregator with no profit-making purposes can create a win-win situation.

Guide to Mocial: How to Get Social Media in Your Mobile Strategy

2011-07-07T10:59:00.002+01:00

“Social Media is like teenage sex, everyone wants to do it but nobody really knows how” (anonymous)

Social Facts

Facebook, Twitter and Co, are cues that make marketer’s hearts beat faster and hands get sweaty these days.

There are more than 500 million active users on Facebook who spend over 700 billion minutes per month on the social network. (Facebook.com) 140 million Tweets are send out each day and 460 000 new accounts per day are created.

Social networks have an incredible potential, not only in terms of reach. The activities on social networks are what marketers have always dreamt of: People share and recommend content voluntarily and publicly. An average user creates about 90 pieces of content each month and shares it with an average of 130 friends. About 30 billion web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc. are shared on a monthly basis.

Show me love

Sharing branded content is not only mere interaction with the brand, its evangelism. For a brand to show up on a fan’s newsfeed is like a public love declaration. The user publicly commits to the brand or product and lets all their friends know, they love them. The marketing effect goes way beyond multiplying impressions. As information usually is most trusted when it comes from friends, a shared link by a friend raises much more curiosity than any ad could ever do. And since humans are gregarious creatures, a simple “like” can create a form of “peer pressure” effect in favour of the brand.

Mobile and Social Media – the Arranged Wedding

Social media is moving mobile. One third of Facebook posts and half of all Tweets are already coming from a mobile device. And mobile has always been social. 91% of mobile internet access is to socialize. After gaming, social networking is the second most popular mobile app category. 20% of smartphone users check social media apps before getting up in the morning and last thing before going to sleep and night.

How to Mocial with Branded Apps

To leverage social media in a branded app it is not enough to just include a Facebook “share” button. Think social from the very beginning and include sharable content:

- Pre- produced content like news, blogs, videos, fun facts, other type of information

- App generated content like game scores, manipulated pictures, audio, etc.

Most importantly is to know your target group and consider which content they would share with others. Generally people are more likely to share content that is either entertaining or provides a real value in terms of utility or information. Most and foremost men like to share content that positions themselves as experts. Give them content that makes them look good! Women rather share content of common interest, information on social topics, local events, etc.

Golden Gekko has created some apps that have generated great viral effects and we are currently exploring more ways to mocial for our customers.

Case Study: Lynx Effect

Case Study: Vigorsol

See example from Heineken’s Star Player App

See example from Lynx Stream App

Yes we scan! Marketing with QR Codes

2011-06-28T11:37:00.000+01:00

About 2 years ago I dubbed QR codes* a dead concept outside of Japan.

To take off, the technology would need to be embedded in every smartphone operating system and two years ago this did not happen. Even though it is easy to download an app that reads QR codes using the phone’s camera, the app needs to be opened separately every time. To make it simple and encourage people to us it every day, the reader must be fully integrated with the camera.

Today penetration of QR code readers is as low as 1% in the US and Europe while it amounts to 70% in Japan (Source: IMC). This is slowly changing while more device manufacturers embed QR code readers directly to the phone. Based on current trends I might have been wrong. Examples of devices with embedded QR readers are the Motorola Droid and all Blackberry OS 6.x+, though slightly oddly placed in Blackberry App World rather than in the camera menu.

The big advantage of QR codes -when they work- is that they provide an instant method to interact with a brand without having to type a single letter or number. Just point your camera at it - that’s all!

Where to use QR-codes

1. Product Packaging

As they are still relatively new for the masses, QR codes on a product raise curiosity and call to action. Curiosity and the flair of “new and cool” increase the willingness to interact with the brand – a great opportunity that shall be rewarded from the brand side.

The code can redirect to a website or microsite, providing relevant information about the product without interrupting the package design too much. Or it can extend the brand experience in-store as well as outside. Coca Cola for example added QR codes to coke cans this spring in Germany, redirecting customers to a music portal. Selected music of participating bands added another sensual dimension to the coke experience and at the same time promoted the Coke Sound Up campaign they were running at the time. Read article

2. Outdoor and posters, TV ads

QR codes on posters or billboards can, just like in-store, provide more information about the car, TV-show, movie or whatever the product might be. Other than in- store though, users will expect something fancy to happen and might be disappointed to “only” find plain product info and package slips. The code can be used to distribute coupons, unveil videos or other digital gimmicks. Important is to raise curiosity for the content and give an idea what to expect.

Calvin Klein for instance got loads of media attention with giant billboards on popular places around the US, like Times Square, New York, featuring a QR code with the headline “Get It Uncensored”. The code gave access to a sexy mobile video with model Lara Stone and was a huge success. Read article

Paramount Pictures used QR codes to give by passers instant access to the trailer of the new Indiana Jones movie and at the same time provided coupons for popcorn at the theatre to drive traffic to theatres. See example

3. Magazines, Brochures, Business cards

Other than leading to a web- or microsite, QR codes can be used to invoke writing an e-mail, call a phone number or send a SMS message. “Scan to win” campaigns require the user to fill in personal information. Magazines and brochures therefore are the perfect medium since they are mostly read at a quiet, private place, where people feel save and are more likely to share those kind of info.

4. Indoor & Outdoor points of interest

Points of interest like Museums and parks can let the visitors decide for themselves when they want more information about a painting, the place or other exhibitions. It is a fun way to engage younger audiences that are already tight to the mobile medium and extend the available information, providing media like audio guides, videos, text and images.

The World Park campaign for example invited visitors of New York’s Central Park to interact with the park’s history and offerings. Over 50 QR Codes were placed all over the park and provided user with multi- media information about the current location. This includes former exhibitions, concerts, film scenes shot at the exact same spot, but also information about flora and fauna or the history of the park. Watch Video

5. Sharing

You want to share a great app or mobile website with someone right next to you. Rather than sending a text message or email with the link the app displays the QR code which the other person reads using the camera and the download starts or mobile website is displayed almost instantly.

Conclusion:

In conclusion there are some great opportunities with QR codes for mobile but we don't see a big boom in usage uptake in the near future. First device manufacturers must integrate the functionality into the core camera function of all their devices. In the meantime we recommend using a combination of SMS short codes, mobile website address, search and QR codes to help people easily find and access your app or mobile website.

QR codes are can work as a bridge between different marketing channels. It is an easy way to provide a multi- media and therefore more intense brand experience. Curiosity can be an engaging factor en be turned real interaction with the brand. Important to keep in mind though, that the delivered experience shall be coherent with the brand’s image. If you redirect to a website, it should be optimised for mobile, since otherwise the user may get frustrated.

- Call- to– action with coupons, vouchers, store locator, etc.

- Redirect to other media website, social media sites, etc.

- Give added value such as games, videos, pics, etc.

- Provide more information

And there are lots of other great examples in the blog post 101 uses of QR codes and 50 creative uses of QR codes.

* QR which stands for “Quick Response” was created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code).

For further reading Proximity London has a great article on QR codes available here:

SIME Barcelona Wrap Up: The Universal Yes, Press Release and Two Pizza Rule

2011-06-21T12:18:00.004+01:00

Amazon CTO, Werner Vogels, explains three keys to driving success at Amazon

Golden Gekko’s recently attended SIME Barcelona, an event that brought together thought leaders from around the globe to discuss the latest trends in digital. The event featured an impressive array of entrepreneurs, investors and marketing professionals from various industries including media, telecom, e-commerce and mobile.

The event was highly inspirational. Countless tales of entrepreneurial successes and failures make any corporate drone dream of quitting their job and founding the next Google in their garage. Highlights from the day included co-founder of Flickr, Caterina Fake. She candidly recounted how the start-up overcame early obstacles and financial woes (think - mortgaging the house to keep business afloat) to beat the odds. Now Flickr is one of the world’s most popular photo sharing websites. Another memorable story was told by John Hanke, VP of Geo at Google. Hanke vividly retold the story of pitching the “crazy concept” of a 3D map of the globe to Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Google Earth has now been downloaded by over 700 million unique users.

While these talks were inspiring, the highlight of the day and most tangible takeaways were delivered by Amazon’s CTO, Werner Vogels. Mr. Vogel outlined three bold management strategies that have propelled Amazon to success and could be worth considering for your organization as well:

· The Universal Yes – In order to encourage innovation and empower employees, Amazon has implemented a policy whereby all new ideas presented will be given the go ahead. If a co-worker disagrees with the idea, he/she must write a 6-page report outlining their reasoning. This a clear break from the traditional norm in large corporations where new ideas are many times suppressed or rejected with little explanation. This attitude has helped Amazon continuously to be a leader in innovation.

· Two Pizza Rule – Large, global corporations face tough challenges. In order to effectively tackle issues, Vogel argues that problems should be broken down and divided among smaller teams: teams no bigger than two large pizzas can feed. This way, teams can focus and isolate on a specific issue without being bogged down in corporate bureaucracy.

· Press Release – As everyone knows, Amazon prides itself on being customer centric. Before making a business decision, Amazon always asks, “How will this add value for our customers?” In this spirit, Vogel explained their atypical product development process, which starts with a mock press release and FAQ of the new product. Writing a press release and FAQ document before the development phase forces developers to envision the end result of the product and how it will be received by customers. This important step in the process helps Amazon align new products with customer needs.

Overall, SIME Barcelona was a great break from the daily grind to listen and reflect on the rapidly changing digital industry. It’s amazing to see how quickly the digital landscape is evolving and we were encouraged to repeatedly hear that mobile apps will be an ever-growing force. We look forward to attending next year.

By Anna Satterfield, Jeffrey McAndrew and Charles Murphy

Money in Mobile- Key Insights from the BLN conference

2011-06-17T09:43:00.002+01:00

The world becomes a bit more mobile each day. Brands need to catch up and show creativity in using mobile for business. The Business Leader Network, BLN, called for ideas and inspiration in a one-day conference in London, June 14th dubbed “Money in Mobile”. Renowned experts and entrepreneurs from the mobile business were invited to share their knowledge and insights with leading consumer brands, seeking innovative strategies for how to mobilize their brand.
I attended the seminar together with speakers from Google, Tesco and Snaptu (recently acquired by Facebook) and had a great discussion at the panel. Here are the most interesting insights:

Jeremy Coop from market research company Comscore shared his key insights:

Browser and Apps are head to head in general usage or traffic but there are enormous differences depending on the brand:
- Sky has 83% of traffic through apps
- BBC has 89% of traffic through mobile web

Operator are still among the top mobile websites
- Vodafone group was the 4th most visited mobile website in the uk (6th in time spent online)
- Telefonica/ O2 was the 5th (11th in time spent online)

Here is the graph for minute spent on mobile sites

Most used apps by reach and not traffic
1. Google maps
2. Yahoo weather (pre-embedded on all iPhones)
3. Facebook
4. Google (other)
5. Youtube
6. Ebay
7. Yahoo stocks
8. BBC
9. Sky
10. Whatsapp
11. Shazam

Social networking stats
- Social networking spearheads mobile usage, in Europe most and foremost the UK : 40% of mobile traffic in minutes is generated by Facebook, according to Comscore
- Apps drive social networking: 160% increase in apps vs 25% increase for browser the last year
- 96.6% of checkins are through Facebook. Checkins through foursquare feature second place with 2.5%
The minutes spend on Facebook from a mobile phone surpass thosem the page is being accessed from a Desktop Computer.

Other UK stats
- Every month mobile counts 13 billion page views
90% of iPhone users use apps vs 39% of Symbian users
- 70% of mobile users in Europe don't use apps (but 30% do)

Comscore and GSMA get mobile usage data from operators in the UK to track
top mobile sites.

Ilja from Getjar presented insights on how to make money from mobile apps. Here are some of the key things we picked up:

- Revenue from paid app is increasing but proportionally going down. Ads and virtual goods grow significantly from 2009 (4.1bn USD) to 2012 (17.5 Bn USD). The biggest growth is in advertising followed by virtual goods.

- The entire music industry generate 25bn USD per year in comparison

Brief guide on what monetization model should you use
- High Utility and low stickiness = paid
- Low utility, high stickiness and moderate user value = ad based
- High utility and high stickiness and high user value = Freemium incl. virtual goods, in-app payments and subscription

Other payment insights
- Billing conversion is a key component of deciding business model (paid vs ads)
- 7x higher payment conversion for one button purchase vs premium SMS
- Revenue share from advertising vs. paid model (e.g. India has very low pay-out)
- Marketability - potential reach should decided monetization method (free, freemium or paid)

Other key insights
- Angry Bird was the 57th game of a 10 year old gaming company and very carefully planned
- Symbian ad spend dropped to almost zero when Nokia announced the drop of Symbian even if it is in 2016.

Location Based Is Not A Service

2011-06-17T09:23:00.000+01:00

Ric Ferraro, Account Director at Golden Gekko, gives a resume of his speech at AppWorks in Oslo

OSLO- Appworks is one of the leading mobile conferences in Scandinavia (organized by Mobilen.no, famous for their Telecruise conference that takes place on a cruise ship) and it was a real pleasure to speak about Location-Aware apps during the 1-day event at the end of May.

The conference attracted a great mix of mobile entrepreneurs, developers and 'big guns' like Samsung, LG, Blackberry, Nokia and HTC, with a conference format running in parallel to a workshop format (Klubbscenen).

Location-based services were one of the main items on the day's agenda, so it was perhaps provocative of me to kick off my keynote by stating that Location-Based Services were extinct today. The reasons for stating this is that location is no longer a service but a feature that is embedded everywhere. You can see the full slide deck here:

App works olso location everywhere 05.2011 rf slideshare

View more presentations from Ric Ferraro

Location on mobile is also firmly in the mainstream today -with Facebook in particular achieving what Foursquare couldn't.I'm a big believer in the fact that contextual search (with mobile apps knowing what I'm more likely to be interested in according to time of day, previous searches, ambient temperature etc) will unlock the full potential of location. It is still early days for this, but as Google (and others) invest in research in this area and processing power on mobile devices keeps increasing, we will see some real examples of this soon.

There were some great presentations at the event by other speakers - I particularly enjoyed the ones by John Valentine (from SCVNGR), Megan Miller (on usability of iPad apps) and Ola Larsen (from RIM). Ola showed a video that I thought was pretty cool, on Hyper-Augmented Reality. You can see the video below and get an insight into what one version of the future of AR could be like. Enjoy!

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

Key iOS 5 Developer features - a CEO’s perspective

2011-06-09T15:59:00.001+01:00

Most of the news leaving the hallowed halls of the Moscone West building in San Francisco, where Apple’s Developer Conference - WWDC 2011 - is taking place, centres around the announcement of iOS 5 and its fluffy new features and services such as iCloud, iMessage, Newsstand, and Reminders. Surprisingly, very little has been reported on the major technical improvements in iOS 5 from a developer perspective. And iOS 5 has a lot of big improvements for developers.

Here are the features that I truly believe will make a major improvement to a developer’s life:

1. Notification Center

One of the main complaints over iOS in the last six months has been the inflation of push notifications that disturb the user experience with an iPhone or iPad. Notification Center in iOS 5 builds on the existing notification system with provisioning now built right into Xcode, making it easier to implement.

With the new Notification Center in iOS 5 you can display and manage notifications without interrupting the user. The user can see all notifications in a single place via the Notification Center from the home screen or from any app by swiping down the status bar. When the user gets a new notification it will briefly appear at the top of the screen instead of a popup. The lock screen also displays the notifications so you can respond to them quickly with just a swipe.

To read more about the Notification Center visit here.

2. Automatic Reference Counting (ARC)

I might be going out on a limb here, but in my opinion the ARC is what is normally referred to as garbage collector. One of the key complaints by Android developers, particularly when developing for iOS, is the difficult of memory management in iOS. This also affects users since apps constantly crash. With ARC though, the developer no longer needs to be an expert in memory management as the compiler does the job for you. In theory this should allow apps to run faster and more reliably. Whether it will make apps more stable in general or cause developers to become sloppy remains to be seen.

3. Twitter integration
To be fair this has been one of the main features discussed in the media. But I believe this is more due to the fact that the media loves Twitter. What they don’t say though is that Android has supported Twitter and other social networking integration for over a year, as Android allows apps to interact with each other. Nevertheless, iOS now provides the key features of Twitter as well. The deep integration allows the association of a Twitter account within iOS settings. So now the integration with an app does not have to be done by the user by logging in and or adding an account manually. Since most apps nowadays provide sharing through Twitter, this will enhance the user’s experience enormously.

4. Core Image

During the last year some of the coolest and most popular apps have been photo editing or photo filtering apps such as Instagram, Hipstamatic, Camerabag, Photogene and many more. Core Image provides a framework for editing images and videos, making it a lot easier to implement these features into any app. In addition to this, the framework is tightly integrated with the hardware to make performance even better.

5. OpenGL ES

The new OpenGL capabilities are what really excite game developers and 3D animators.

With the GL Kit in iOS 5 the capabilities for advanced rendering and texture techniques have become even better, and we are yet to see how those capabilities can be utilised.

6. PC Free

The sixth and last feature I want to highlight has little to do with the developer SDK but may turn out to become one of the biggest advantages. Today the majority of users upgrade to the latest iOS within the first couple of months. Some though, will still stick to an older version and cause headaches for developers in terms of backwards interoperability support. Hopefully PC Free will be so tempting a feature that only a small share of users will remain with older versions of the OS. Unfortunately, however, Apple also announced that the oldest iPhones cannot be upgraded to iOS 5 so some legacy issues will still remain.

So there you have a CEO’s perspective on iOS 5. Let’s start making use of it when it’s launched (hopefully) in September.

Golden Gekko is attending WWDC but it seems, playing with the SDK and Apple’s other new toys has kept them too busy to give us a full report yet.

NFC and Co.: The Most Promising Mobile Payment Solutions

2011-06-02T15:24:00.002+01:00

NFC has created a lot of buzz lately. But will Near- Field –Communication become the number one solution for all mobile payments? The last 6-12 months showed the mobile payment ecosystem is taking shape with or without NFC. As operators, banks and credit card companies still fight over the biggest piece of the NFC revenue cake, other standards as proprietary and complementary technologies are developing at a much faster pace.

The term “Mobile Payment” refers to all payments and transactions carried out from and through a mobile phone for services, content and physical goods.

1. Credit card payments
Credit card payment is without a doubt the most common mobile payment solution. Apple is one of the biggest providers, using iTunes as the standard method for all payments other than vouchers. Credit card payment is also the standard method for most if not all m-Commerce applications, including retailers, travel bookings and more. One of the barriers for making credit card payments through mobile apps easy, is the requirement of PKI certification. This usually costs the developer up to 50.000 euro or more. Most merchants and developers get around installing a proper in-app solution by using a website or mobile website for the payment part. The disadvantage hereby
is that the user in most cases has to enter a lot of data every time they make a payment.

2. Premium SMS payments
Still a very widely used payment method for micropayments is Premium SMS. It is broadly used for instance for parking, bus tickets, content purchases, vending machines, etc. To make this work operators in several countries (Finland, Sweden, Denmark, UK, etc) have changed their standard revenue share models and created what resembles a credit card payment. The main handicap is the limit of about 5 euro per transaction, which restricts long term growth. But the simplicity of premium SMS payments for small and simple things should not be underestimated.

3. Paypal
Paypal was actually founded based on the concept of mobile money transfers between PDAs before it was evolved to its current service. It’s deployment for mobile payment therefore means a return to its roots. Being an established brand with a trusted technology and over 100m users put Paypal into a pole position for becoming a major mobile payment player. Nevertheless most users have never made use of Paypal on their mobile.

Paypal is used as the standard method for Blackberry World. But still most Paypal transactions take place on eBay and Skype. Recently Paypal sued Google for copying their mobile payment technology. Paypal however, is not likely to benefit from the trial in terms of growing usage of the platform. Yet Paypal has a massive growth potential in the mobile payment space thanks to its secure and easy payments, leveraging direct links to bank accounts.

4. Google Wallet
Wherever there is an opportunity to collect customer data, Google will come running. For the last couple of years Google has slowly grown Google Checkouts as a solution for online stores. Now they are rapidly moving into the mobile payment space leveraging the growth of Android. The most recent initiative is a partnership with several of the top banks in the US, providing built-in NFC chips and NFC stickers attached to the back of Android devices. A lot more will certainly follow soon.

5. Square
Thanks to the partnership with and support from Apple, Square as become a leading player in the mobile payment space. One of the interesting things about Square is that it enables small businesses to accept credit card payments in a very cost efficient way. The only props needed are a standard iPad, iPhone or Android device and a small reader that can be plugged into the audio jack.

6. Local partnerships/ initiatives between operators and banks
Some markets have been quicker than others to establish mobile payment solutions. First and foremost Japan and Korea act as the leaders in this space. Similar initiatives in Belgium and France put those local markets ahead of the game on a European level. Partnerships and standards though are usually local with limited potential to grow beyond their domestic market.

Other interesting companies to watch for mobile payment include mFoundry, Zong, Boku, etc.

So what about NFC then?
NFC is really an enabler and not a mobile payment platform or method. The success of NFC will depend on device manufacturer adopting the technology as well as the integration of banks and credit card companies. It is also interesting to note that the implementations are primarily being driven by companies that monitor and store customer behaviour and data (e.g. Google). This may not always be in the interest of the end users. Nevertheless, penetration of NFC is increasing and we believe that it has a good chance to become a key enabler for mobile payments in the future. In the meantime however, mobile payments will happen with or without NFC.

How to Make Money off Apps: Monetising Models for Mobile Applications

2011-05-18T15:50:00.001+01:00

Frankly, most app and game developers don’t make any money with their apps. This is not very surprising, considering that:

- 250.000 mobile apps are already available on Apple Appstore and Android Market respectively

- Marketing an app can be expensive if you don’t know the tricks

- Size matters – it is easier to promote an app if you have 10 apps that you can cross-promote than if you only have one

AdMob App Usage Study Feb. 2010

There are 5 basic ways of monetizing apps:

1. Paid apps

The most direct way to monetize an app is to charge for it. Paid-for apps though, compete with a broad variety of free apps and free alternatives. Still, AdMob found that 50% of iPhone owners buy at least one paid app a month and the average paid iPhone app has sold 101,024 copies over a lifetime of 261 days. So despite a low average price of $ 2,33 per app developers can still hope for a decent revenue, if the content is relevant and offers great value to users.

2. Subscriptions

Instead of charging for one-time download, subscription models charge for content within an app. Particularly reasonable for apps that offer a lot and fast changing content like magazines or newspapers, virus protection, music streaming and more.

3. In-app payments/ sales

14% of the daily revenue on the Android Market is generated with in-app purchases, including the purchase of virtual goods, unlocking features, promoting oneself in communities, access to content and more. In-app purchases are available for iOS and Android and can be implemented in both free and paid apps.

4. In app advertising

If providing interesting content or offers, in-app advertising is great for apps with high and frequent usage such as news, sport, weather, social networking, etc.. Ad space can be sold via ad networks like AdMob, inMobi, iAd (Apple) etc. Customers are paying based on impressions or per click on the ad, so for this model to work, high usage rate is essential in order generate substantial revenues.

GomoNews have published a list of ad networks here http://www.gomonews.com/mads/

5. Sponsored apps

e.g. Timeout UK, Cocktail guides, Cookbooks, Racing games, etc. One of the most common ways of monetizing an app. If a company sponsors or fully pays for an app as a way to promote their brand, there is little risk for the developer, but also little space for unexpected wealth.

The most successful app developers such as Rovio (Angry Birds) use a combination of paid apps and free apps with advertising. The free app targets a wide audience and makes money through adverts and then promotes the full pro version. This is usually referred to as the freemium model.

Some key stats:

Apple has paid out more than $2bn to iOS app developers (Press Conference Apple, Dec 2010)[ii]
7% of iPhone and iPod touch owners have spent more than $50 on games in the last three months (DFC, March 2010)[iii]
iOS users have an average of 37 apps on their devices, compared to 22 for Android users and 10 for BlackBerry users (Nielsen, USA, Sep 2010)[iv]
The average smartphone owner downloads 15 apps to their handset, keeps 12 of them, and uses 5 every day (GfK, UK, Sep 2010)[v]
US iPhone users download 60 apps a year (YG, USA, Sep 2010)[vi]
iPod touch users that purchase paid apps spend $11.39 vs. $9.55 webOS vs. $8.36 Android, vs. $8.18 iPhone (AdMob, Feb 2010)

Some other key insights are:

To make money, the app needs to offer something beyond what other free apps in the same category offer
When offering a lite and a pro version of an app, it is essential that the pro version really offers more value than the lite version
Great ratings and updates are critical in keeping people buying apps
The majority of premium app revenue comes from games
Many apps generate a lot of revenue the first month when it’s new. Unless constantly updated and promoted it then dies a slow death

So how do you make money from mobile apps then?

The answer is simply that you can make money from apps through a combination of creativity, hard work and a bit of luck. The key ingredients to success however are:

a) Make sure you have a great idea/concept for your app to begin with

b) Know who your target audience is and come up with a marketing and PR plan focused on them

c) Try different types of monetising methods depending on the app and target audience

d) Experiment, experiment and experiment more with updates, pricing, marketing, etc

Good luck and tell us if you find a secret way of making money!

[i] http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2011/05/11/apps-with-in-app-billing-represent-14-daily-revenue-earned-through-android-market/

[ii] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/02/ipad-2-launch-apple-announcement-live

[iii] http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/dfc-reveals-iphone-gamers-spending-habits

[iv] http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/nielsen-releases-new-mobile-app-stats

[v] http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/brits-love-their-smartphone-apps-says-gfk-nop

[vi] http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/yankee-group-doubles-us-mobile-apps-revenue-forecasts

Why Android Tablet Apps?

2011-05-06T14:36:00.000+01:00

The iPad currently accounts for 90% of the tablet market, so why bother with Android? More than 20 device manufacturers have now announced Android tablets with prices ranging from 150- 700 USD. Key devices such as the Motorola Xoom are showing top quality design, and impressive hardware specs that are opening up interesting opportunities for our customers. At Golden Gekko, we're confident of strong growth in the Android tablet market over the coming months. Being first to market with quality offerings is a key recommendation for our customers. Supporting tablets, with the correct user experience will pay dividends:

• Impressing early adopters

• Being well situated for the users who are sure to enter the market in 2011

• Increasing your chances of being featured on the Android Market – our experience shows

this can have a huge effect on download figures

Key attributes of the Android Tablet

Golden Gekko has been exploring the tablet focused version of Android (Honeycomb) since it was first released to developers. We have also been observing the adoption of the technology, reviewing apps and experimenting with different user journeys.

The key enhancements, that we see adding true value to the Android experience are:

• We can now take advantage of the extra screen real estate, showing more complex pages. A common example is combining a list view on the left, with a map or details view on the right, allowing the user to browse the items they have, without needing to switch screens.

This level of interaction is simply not possible on smaller, phone sized devices.

• A new action bar has been introduced. This is a big change in the standard Android design pattern. We're also increasingly seeing this being applied to the phone variants of the apps.

Not quite everything is transferable, but it's a slick new option.

• Drag & Drop has been added, allowing for interesting new interaction between components

• Slicker animations are possible thanks to enhanced support from Android, and typically from the enhanced power of the tablet devices. Apps are evolving to feel more interactive with ever more impressive levels of polishing touches.

• We're seeing tablets being used in different ways to our phone apps. Typically, your phone is for when you're on the go, tablets for when can take your time over a coffee or a glass of wine. This allows for more in depth user journeys and more thorough integration with Social networks.

Image: An example screen-shot, showing the split screen approach. Notice the action bar introduced at the top of the screen. The soft keys in the bottom left have replaced the hardware buttons, and rotate with the device.

Key challenges

Adapting to the tablet world requires a fundamental shift in application planning. Many people will use your app on a tablet and on their phone. Ensuring a consistent user experience, while still taking advantage of the device capabilities will be a key factor in the success of your application.

For anyone used to developing iPad apps, the extra device burden that Android brings to the table will also come as a shock. Android tablets are becoming available in all shapes and sizes, with varying screen resolution, OS level and processing power. Thoroughly testing and optimising your apps for the full range of devices is a critical pre-launch step. A few bad reviews from users experiencing bugs or crashes can have a serious impact on the long term success of your app.

Update: What is the cost of developing a mobile app?

2011-04-20T10:42:00.001+01:00

Of all the blogs we’ve published over the last couple of years the most popular blog by far is What is the cost of developing a mobile app. This shows a clear interest in what budgets are and should be for mobile service development. The BBC has a great article on why brands must invest in mobile apps. The budgets indicated range from 20.000£ (ca. 23.000€) for simple apps to over 100.000£ (ca. 115.000€) for more complex apps per platform.

But the world of mobile application development is changing fast; here are our thoughts on what's changed since.

1. Overall trend

Generally the average cost per application is climbing due to a number of factors:

a. Complexity of the average project is increasing - more backend communication/integration and more complex features.

b. Scarcity in experienced iPhone and Android developers - there are lots of app developers available but few with skills and experience we need.

c. Higher quality expectations - in many cases, applications are becoming critical for success and sales of a business. Requirements on reliability and device testing therefore increased noticeably.

d. User experience is key to success – brands and agencies are paying a lot more attention to the importance of user experience including user interface design and performance.

2. Middleware to support backend integration

In the past most apps were stand alone pieces of software, such as iPint, Zippo, Barclays Waterslide, Malibu Bowling, etc. However, the majority of new apps require an element of social media, communication with content management systems, integration with m-commerce solutions and other interactions with existing legacy backend services.

Supporting these features often requires a middleware solution which can add considerable cost to development in the short term. Though, In the long run, it will save time, money and headaches as it is easier to maintain and to update. The middleware integrates into one or more backend services and provides a standardized format for the applications to communicate in. The result of which is that changes to existing backend services can easily be accommodated by the middleware without having to update previously released applications.

This is especially helpful in cross-platform projects which could have clients running on iOS, Android, Java and a mobile website. Middleware development can cost anywhere between 10.000€R for a fairly simple service, to hundreds of thousands for complex solutions with multiple backend services to incorporate.

3. Complexity of Android development has gone up slightly

To date over 100 Android devices have been launched. Fragmentation between devices has increased noticeably with developers needing to spend more time fixing and testing small discrepancies. The average cost of an Android project is currently 20-30% higher than that of iOS projects.

4. Automated tools can provide a cheaper alternative

Application development tools such as Tino and Mobile Roadie can provide a fast, low cost solution, but functionality is limited. These tools can be great to get an app up and running quickly but once you reach a certain level of complexity and customisation, these services are usually not sufficient.

5. Time to market continues to be very short

The pressure to deliver new apps and updates quickly means that off-shoring is not really an alternative. Experience shows that off-shoring takes 2-3 times longer due to requirements for more detailed specifications, longer feedback cycles, lack of proactive enhancements and challenges during acceptance.

Read more about the cost of developing mobile apps and mobile websites in our previous blogs:

What is the cost of developing a mobile website?

What is the cost of developing an iPad app or other tablet app?

The mobile OS battle is not over yet

2011-04-14T08:44:00.002+01:00

We frequently get told that developing for other platforms than iOS and Android is meaningless. Many declare all other platforms dead. For the last 3 years, we’ve been told that J2ME is dead. But still in 2011, on a worldwide base, there will be more J2ME enabled devices sold than smartphones. People have also been telling us that Blackberry is a dead platform, that Microsoft has zero chance to succeed in mobile, that no one will develop apps for Palm/HP WebOS and that WAC is a failure before it has even had a chance to launch.

We believe it is very dangerous to make statements like this. The industry moves extremely quickly and there are a lot of factors involved. This is why we believe that the mobile OS battle will continue for some time:

1. The operators/carriers don’t want Apple and Google to gain complete dominance

The operator device teams at operators made it clear during conversations at Mobile World Congress that they don’t want Google or Apple to dominate completely. They will continue to back Nokia with the Windows Phone, RIM with Blackberry OS, Limo as the operator partnership and WAC as a cross-platform development platform.

2. Failing is not an option

For RIM, HP and Microsoft failing is not an option. The Blackberry OS made RIM successful and this is what lead HP to acquire Palm WebOS. Microsoft is probably the company that has the most to lose. Their strategic deal with Nokia they has proven how far they are willing to go to achieve their objectives. If RIM fail with Blackberry OS they will go down for the count as a smart phone manufacturer.

3. Device manufacturers and OS developers have deep pockets

Nokia, Samsung, RIM, HP and Microsoft all have big cash piles to execute thei mobile OS strategy. They may not get the same number of app developers to adopt their platform as Apple or Google and they may fail in the long term. However, it does mean that they can invest huge amounts of money in marketing, pay developers for app development and get big brands and services such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Google, etc. to build for their platform. They will not give up in the next 2-3 years.

4. Consumers still want choice

There is still demand for different solutions by consumers. Not only is the mobile phone a fashion statement - people want different looking phones - but there is also a demand for different screen sizes, input mechanisms and shapes. A great example is Blackberry which has continued to be very successful among business users as well as teenagers thanks to the keyboard and great messaging services.

5. Money is not everything

Having said that several of the mobile OS players have very deep pockets money is definitely not everything. Nokia allegedly spent as much money on R&D for Symbian and Qt as Apple has on R&D. Despite this they failed. At the same time Palm WebOS, which is considered one of the most advanced smartphone platforms, was developed by a small team within Palm and with the distribution of HP it might succeed.

What do we bet on for the future?

Having said that the battle will continue there is no question about who is dominating at the moment. iOS and Android are currently the platforms of choice. Other platforms are prioritized, based on promotion agreements with the device manufacturers and carriers. We believe that there are great opportunities for differentiation and distribution by embracing the full mobile ecosystem.

Mobile App versus Mobile Website: Busting Myths

2011-04-06T14:25:00.001+01:00

Many brands find themselves debating whether to develop a mobile website, a mobile application or both. There are many things to consider when choosing a strategy.

A website optimised for mobile is an important part of any long term mobile strategy. For specific campaigns, and complex user interaction, an app often is a better solution. Apps deliver a richer user experience and can therefore create a more intense interaction with customers. A mobile website however, will give broader reach and as they are more accessible to search engines can be a great tool to point users to your service.

When should you develop a mobile website?

As the core element of your mobile presence in any long term mobile strategy
If you expect to get a lot of traffic through search

When should you develop a mobile app?

If the concept/service you want to deliver is too rich for a mobile website
If the app is used as a tool that complements an existing web online presence
To make the service more convenient for your users, often re-locating and re-loading a web site takes a lot longer than starting an app.

Common Myths of why mobile websites are better than apps

1. Mobile websites are much cheaper

A mobile website with the same functionality and similar user experience to an app will cost pretty much the same. Especially if you want to deliver it across multiple platforms. However, expectations for a mobile website are generally lower than for an equivalent app. So bringing down the functionality will also bring down the cost. Yet still, the service needs to be tested on the target devices if you want to be certain that it works, which can be fairly expensive.

2. Mobile websites always give access to a wider variety of devices

In theory WAP/XHTML should work on most devices. Differences in browsers, display resolutions, input methods (touch screen or keyboard), API differences, etc. still cause a lot of customization work per device group. For a richer user experience you need to invest in a platform that renders the mobile website correctly for each device.

3. HTML5 will solve all these problems

Unfortunately this is not the case since:

a) The browsers still vary significantly between different platforms, OS versions and in the case of Android between different devices. This is unlikely to change and creates a lot of work for effective QA.

b) The functionality supported by each device is different. HTML5 on mobile devices can integrate with parts of the native functionality such as Location, Messaging, Contacts, Accelerometer, etc.

c) The codecs for video in particular are different depending on the OS

4. It's easier to find a mobile website

If the mobile website is available among the top 5 search results on Google this may be the case. But even this can be challenging since websites and mobile websites are mixed. Also note that you need to implement redirects from your website to your mobile website so that the user gets the best customer experience.

5. A website bookmark is just as good as having the app icon on the phone

One of the greatest advantages of an app is that the icon is or can be visible on the home screen of the device and therefore always a few clicks away. Bookmarks are usually hidden considerably deeper down in the menu structure and therefore used less frequently.

6. People will just use the mobile app once anyway

Some mobile websites and mobile apps will only be used once. This has been the case for websites since the beginning and it will always be this way. But good quality apps and websites are already showing that when the service warrants it, users will come back again and again.

NFC for my mobile apps – how much does implementation cost and is it difficult?

2011-03-31T10:27:00.000+01:00

NFC has been around since 2003 but it´s not until now that technology and adoption are ready for commercial deployment. Google plans to embed NFC in the Nexus S, RIM in all their new devices and Apple want to equip the iPhone 5 with an NFC chip, despite rumours they would not. Nokia launches a series of devices including NFC, starting with the C7 and most other handset manufacturers will include NFC in their devices within the next 2 years.

According to Wikipedia: “Near field communication, or NFC, is a set of short-range wireless technologies, typically requiring a distance of 4 cm or less. (...) This enables NFC targets to take very simple form factors such as tags, stickers, key fobs, or cards that do not require batteries. NFC peer-to-peer communication is also possible, where both devices are powered.”

The technology will enable lots of new exciting mobile interactions. The main focus is on mobile payments. A complex eco-systems and infrastructures of mobile payments makes it more likely that the utilization will be in other areas first such as loyalty cards, identification, as travel tickets, enterprises and potentially micro-payments for vending machines.

What is the cost of implementing NFC in your mobile applications?

Android and Symbian already support NFC. iOS and other mobile OS are expected to add support this year. This means the implementation of the service on the application side is fairly straight forward. Make a call to the API to read a Tag (the target device) and then there is an open communication channel between the two NFC chips for whatever the desired interaction is.

Examples could include

a) Identifying a certain customer as having been in the store

b) Registering a discount coupon from a mobile app in a store

c) Checking in at the airport

d) Paying for a buss, taxi, tube, etc if the application is connected to a backend-server which supports this

e) And a myriad of other things

This means that the cost of implementing NFC in an application is very small compared to the cost of setting up a backend which could be hundreds of millions for a full scale payment platform that replaces credit cards. A simple NFC solution which reads an

NFC chip once to authenticate that the user has been in a certain store or redeemed a voucher could cost as little as 10-20.000 Euros to implement.

So what’s next?

During the coming years we will see thousands of different applications including NFC. Some of those will be groundbreaking and others will quickly be forgotten. Banks, retailers, transportation businesses, fast food restaurants and event companies will all launch pilots and some full scale implementations but it’s likely to be an evolution that replaces plastic cards over time rather than a revolution.

Golden Gekko is currently working on NFC trials with a couple of clients so please contact us for more information: info (at) goldengekko.com

Why did Facebook buy Snaptu for 70m USD?

2011-03-22T14:41:00.000Z

In the current smartphone hype everybody focuses on iOS, Android and HTML5 when speaking about mobile applications. Many might therefore wonder why Facebook would spend 70m USD on acquiring a company that delivers mobile apps based on Java ME (J2ME). Facebook has a simple reason: 95% of all phones worldwide are still non-smartphones. According to Sun there are currently over 2.1Bn Java ME enabled devices worldwide. Of all phones sold worldwide in 2010, 81% were non-smartphones. Smartphones still make up a very small percentage of all mobile devices in emerging markets, where Facebook now has their greatest growth potential with well over a billion connected feature phones. Other big online companies such as eBay, Amazon and Yahoo have also acknowledged this and currently invest in similar technologies in order to position themselves among consumers before they have a chance to upgrade their phones.

At Golden Gekko we believe that Java ME still has another 3-5 years potential for brands that want to reach mass market penetration and low end devices across the globe. Last year, for example, the Java ME version of the Malibu Bowling Game had over 5 million downloads in total; 1,3 million from the independent app store Getjar.

This doesn’t mean that Java ME is for everyone but it’s definitely not dead. One of the challenges for app developer has been fragmentation across devices. This meant that you had to develop 100s of different versions. Today companies such as Snaptu, Mobile Distillery and Golden Gekko have solutions that make this much easier.

For more information about the potential of Java ME please contact Golden Gekko.

How much does it cost to develop a mobile website in XHTML and/ or HTML5?

2011-03-17T11:50:00.000Z

One of the most frequent questions we get asked is: what is the cost of developing a mobile website? The answer is simple: It varies almost as much as the cost of developing a website. The price ranges from a few hundred to millions of Euros, but we will try to give a more constructive answer:

The key factors are:

1. Content/Service
What is the purpose of the mobile website? Is it an e-commerce site, a landing page, a news site, a social network, etc?

How much content does it contain? One page or hundreds of pages? The scope of the mobile website will provide a good starting point for estimating the cost of development.

Cost Range
- For a very simple mobile website a tool such as Netbiscuits could be used. Such a solution would cost a few hundred Euros
- If your site is a blog, for example, then it's possible that a free Wordpress plugin could be used to mobilise your existing website
- If the site includes more advanced functionality, then it needs to be custom built. The cost for this usually starts around 10.000 Euros

2. Design
Another important factor is the user interface design. Creating user flows, wireframes, mockups and designs could take several weeks, and therefore costs money.

Depending on the target audience you might want to implement two versions of the site. One optimised for XHTML and one for HTML5 compatible devices. While HTML5 supports a much richer user experience including animations, audio and video; XHTML should be optimised for speed and easy navigation rather than contain lots of graphics.

Cost Range:
- A simple mobile website whose design could be just a sketch that takes an hour to create would cost less than 100 euro
- For a sophisticated m-commerce site, intended to generate millions in sales, the cost and effort could easily rise to tens of thousands of Euros. Experienced user interface designers in London or New York frequently charge day rates of 1000 Euros. You get what you pay for.

3. Usability
Ease of use is not only about user interface design. It is also a matter of building an information architecture that it easy to navigate and optimised for the key use cases. The site should be tested with users and constantly improved over time.

Cost Range:
- Delivering excellent usability is an integrated part of good mobile website development. This means the cost cannot be isolated. However, if you consider your site business critical then plan for at least 2 weeks of user testing and enhancements before launch. You won't regret it.

4. Device support
One of the greatest challenges with mobile is device fragmentation. There are 10+ operating systems, hundreds of browser versions, 20+ display resolutions and lots of exceptions to take into consideration.

In theory HTML5 should resolve some of these issues. Unfortunately the differences are so big that you need to test and optimise your HTML5 site for each of those platforms.

At Golden Gekko we believe in testing on as many target devices and OS versions as possible. This means anywhere between two for an iPhone optimised HTML5 site (OS4.x and OS3.x) and 200 devices for a site that targets a broad spectrum of mobile devices.

Cost Range:
- Platforms such as the GG Server Platform and Netbiscuits provide rendering capabilities that optimise the site for each device type. The cost ranges from about 100 euro per month up to thousands but the service is well worth the money
- The feature set may differ between devices. E.g. some devices such as iPhone 4 have excellent java script support while others do not. Therefore add at least one week extra development time beyond the first platform

- The cost of QA / Testing vastly depends on the desired device support ranging from about 500 euro for a few days of testing on one platform to 10.000 euro for 3 weeks of testing across 200+ devices.

5. Search engine optimisation
One of the greatest advantages of a mobile website juxtaposed to a native app is that people can find the content on your site through search engines. All standard mobile websites can of course be crawled. Still, just like for the web, optimising the site for search engines can make an enormous difference.

Cost Range:
Search engine optimisations for a big mobile site costs between 3.000 and 6.000 Euros

6. Logging and Reporting
If you've invested lots of money in your mobile website you want to know how many visitors you attract. You are interested in where they come from, what they do, how long they stay, where they leave, when and how frequently they come, etc. Most mobile website tools provide some standard reporting services and stats but if you really want to understand the users and their usage patterns you might have to dig deeper and combine the data with other sources.

Cost Range:
- Standard reporting should be included in the development and hosting services for any mobile website project
- For customised logging the effort is usually one to two days to define the requirements and about one extra week to implement and test the logging

Summary:
So what is the total cost of developing a mobile website? Depending on what you what to do with it, user interface requirements, usability testing, device support, search engine optimisation and logging the cost could range from a few hundred Euros for a simple landing page to 100.000+ Euros for a complex m-commerce site.

Please don't hesitate to contact us for a quote specific to your requirements. info@goldengekko.com

www.goldengekko.com

Top 55 most downloaded Android Apps

2011-03-10T14:27:00.005Z

Thanks to our wide range of services around mobile apps we frequently get asked: what are the most downloaded Android apps? We expected this to be an easy task to find out but realised: it is not.

Android Market presents the most popular apps but that evaluation is not based on all-time download numbers or even on the download numbers of the current month. App aggregation sites such as Appbrain.com, AndroidZoom, Androlib or AppstoreHQ do not present any top downloads stats at all. The site that delivers the most appropriate numbers is Cyrket but their stats seem to be at least 6 months old based on our research.

Therefore we hereby present a list of what we believe is the top 55 of most downloaded Android Apps.

All-time popular Android apps:

Facebook, Facebook (Free)

Google Maps, Google (Free)

Angry Birds, Rovio Mobile Ltd (Free)

Pandora Radio, Pandora (Free)

Talking Tom Cat Free, Outfit7 Ltd (Free)

Handcent SMS, handcent_admin (Free)

Advanced Task Killer, ReChild (Free)

KakaoTalk, KakaoTalk (Free)

Bubble Blast 2 Free, Magma Mobile (Free)

Barcode Scanner, Zxing Team (Free)

Shazam, Shazam (Free)

Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Systems (Free)

Google Sky Maps, Google Inc (Free)

Lookout Mobile Security, Lookout Inc (Free)

The weather Channel, The Weather Channel (Free)

Slice It! ®, Com2uS (Free)

Jewels, MH Games (Free)

TweetCaster for Twitter, Handmark (Free)

Astro File Manager, Metago (Free)

Movies, Flixster (Free)

Live Holdem Poker Pro, Dragonplay (Free)

Robo Defense FREE, Lupis Labs Software (Free)

Angry Birds Seasons, Rivio Mobile Ltd

Alchemy, Andrey

Twitter, Twitter

Skype, Skype

Paper Toss, Back Flip Studios Inc

Gmail, Google Inc

WhatsApp Messenger, WhatsApp Inc

GasBuddy - Find Cheap Gas, Gasbuddy.com

WeatherBug, WeatherBug Mobile

Ringdroid, Ringdroid Team

Google Translate, Google

Solitaire, Ken Magic

Bible, LifeChurch.tv

Google Earth, Google

TiKL - Touch to Talk (PTT), TiKL Inc

Vaulty Free Hides Pictures, Threon Rogers

Free Music Download, Jeromy.Y

Evernote, Evernote Corp

Zedge Ringtones & Wallpapers, Zedge

MP3 Music Download, Hades Lab

Backgrounds - 10.000 Wallpapers, girls2you.us

Androidify, Google Inc

Air Control Lite, Four Pixels

GO Launcher EX, GO Launcher Dev Team

Anti-Virus Free, AVG Mobilation

ROM Manager, ClockworkMod

Opera Mini web browser, Opera

ES File Explorer, EStrongs Inc.

GO SMS, Go Dev Team

doubleTwist Player, douleTwist

Yahoo Mail!, Yahoo! Inc

Streetview on Google Maps, Google

Horoscope, Horoscope.fr

About the ranking: Since Google only presents indicative download numbers the list is based on the number of ratings (not the rating) for each app. This should be a very good indication based on our previous experience and benchmarking of our own apps as you can simple multiply the number of ratings with a number to get an indicative download number within +/- 10%. Therefore the ranking in the list is indicative and not absolute.

The king of marketing Sir Martin Sorrell speaks about mobile in a keynote at MWC

2011-03-02T12:38:00.000Z

It is always great to hear what the big boys have to say about the mobile world. Therefore, we were especially excited about Sir Martin Sorrell´s (CEO of WPP) speech at Mobile World Congress this year.

Here are a couple of the highlights:

- WPP sees huge potential for retailers and consumer brands to benefit from apps that tap into location and commerce. "Location targeting is the holy grail that we as advisers on behalf of our clients are looking for."

- "Applications will be a significant opportunity for retailers to open another virtual shop, with the added benefit of it being in consumers' pockets when they are out shopping."

- "Apps will always offer some features that mobile sites cannot, while remaining popular for regularly accessed content such as news, weather and train times."

- "It is likely that mobile apps will be the fat part of the curve in terms of usage, whereas the mobile internet will be the long tail."

It was refreshing to hear someone speak about the balance between apps and mobile websites, considering that marketers frequently take for granted that one will kill the other in a few years. Golden Gekko has always believed that they are complementary and don't compete. We recommend our clients consider both channels, depending on target audience, richness and purpose.

The speech also highlighted that the industry is still in its fledging stages and major advertising groups such as WPP have barely dipped their toes in mobile yet.

Mobile World Congress 2011: Wrap-up and Key Trends

2011-02-21T11:04:00.001Z

Yet another year of Mobile World Congress has passed. The 8th for me and the most positive in 4 years. People were optimistic about the future, there were lots of new exciting startups, we saw power shifts and power battles, and the overall message was: we are here to do business!

The key talking points:

1. Mobile OS wars
Some consider it game over, with iOS and Android the clear winners, but the other players certainly haven't given up. Two main factors keep adding fuel to the fire:

a) The operators don't want to become bitpipes
b) The handset manufacturers don't want to be relegated to hardware manufacturers

At the same time the handset manufacturers are launching a massive number of Android devices. Google, and hopefully the consumers, are currently the biggest winners from this. In the long run, it might result in less competition and innovation.

Operators hand have found that Android devices are very easy to sell, creating a nice counter weight to iPhone. Google, once again, is the biggest winner while the operators have little control over or little revenue from the services provided. This is why the operators have put a big emphasis on WAC (Wholesale Application Community) this year at MWC. With WAC, the operators could succeed in building up their own eco-system for developers, basing it on web standards. This could open the door to a role in the app value chain. In the background, operators are revising their device purchasing strategies, aiming for a good balance between iOS, Android, WM7, RIM and other operating systems such as Limo. More about this in another blog.

2. The power is with the developers
Possibly one of the most exciting developments is the reassignment of roles between operators, device manufacturers and developers. Just two years ago it was almost impossible for a developer to get on the carrier decks (i.e. sell content through an operator portal). Operators normally wouldn't respond at
all and when they did it was usually with great arrogance towards the developer or content provider. Today this has completely changed. Operators are screaming for apps for their appstores and do everything they can to attract developer attention including competitions, developer outreach programs and more. Many of the developers on the other hand refuse to even speak to the operators. They are happy with the existing appstore distribution channels, primarily Apple Appstore and Google Android Market.

3. Tablets, tablets and more tablets
One year ago all the visitors had notebooks, this year they had iPads. Even more prominent was the fact that almost every single device manufacturer presented a tablet of some kind this year including Motorola, RIM, HP, ZTE, Huawei, LG, Samsung, etc. According to Gartner, by 2013 media tablets such as Apple's iPad will have infiltrated 80 per cent of enterprises, and the increasing use of the devices, along with other mobile gadgetry such as smartphones, will be THE disruptive technology implementation for CIOs in the coming years. The question remains whether there is really a market for that many products?

4. Apps are KING
The "Content is king" trend goes in cycles. In 2000 AOL acquired Time Warner for 162 billion USD with the argument being that content would be the most important thing in acquiring and retaining customers. The same argument has been used several times since by mobile operators as well as handset manufacturers. Every 2-3 years they make a major investment and a few years later they get impatient and give up on the initiative. With the current app trend this is happening once again. Handset manufacturers are looking for exclusive apps that help differentiating their devices and appstores. Operators are looking for the latest and greatest apps for their appstores. This year content or rather apps were definitely king at MWC.

5. VAS and mobile marketing companies doing everything
- “What do you do?” I asked one of the companies in Hall 7 (the app and content area of MWC)
- “What do you want?” was the answer

Many of the companies at MWC still offer a little bit of everything to operators and companies. A typical offering by a mobile marketing agency (which they usually don't want to be referred as) includes messaging, text to win, CRM, search, mobile websites, video streaming, music, games, app development, mobile advertising, mobile social networking and LBS. Our experience is that it takes about 6 to 12 months for a sales or project manager to get to a base level in terms of knowledge about mobile apps alone. Imagine selling all of them. One expectation for next year is therefore more specialization and consolidation.

We definitely need a 12 month break now but already look forward to MWC 2012!

Will the WAC mobile app platform initiative succeed?

2011-02-09T15:56:00.000Z

Establishing a common standard based on web devlopment for mobile apps, or widgets as they choose to call it, is simply a brilliant idea. If you can enable web developers to develop mobile apps the potential is huge.

The Vodafone 360 platform, launched in October 2009, had the right strategy but poor execution. Nokia had already tried it and failed, and when Vodafone launched they did it with two vastly different versions of the runtime and various other shortcomings. Not only that. In parallel Orange, LG, HTC and RIM also launched their variants of web runtimes all with different APIs and configurations.

Joint Innovation Lab (JIL), set up together with China Mobile, Softbank and Verizon Wireless, was an extension to Vodafone 360 and never got much credibility in the market since nobody really believed that the other parties were truly engaging. In parallel with starting up JIL, Vodafone failed with the integrated device and software strategy which was the basis for 360. However, the web runtime development platform was working quite well, despite the fragmentation into two versions.

All of this might have changed with the Wholesale Application Community (WAC) announced at the Mobile World Congress. With 60 members now signed up, C-Level executives on the board and the freedom to run WAC almost like a startup it is now a powerhouse with potential to succeed. The specifications for WAC 1.0 and WAC 2.0 have been agreed, at least 3 software companies have implemented web runtimes, more are following, and most of the handset manufacturers will embed the runtime on the handsets sold through the operators.

The advantages for developers are obvious. Develop an app once which will run across Android, Blackberry, Symbian/Megoo and Windows Mobile. The apps will not be as good as a well implemented native app but the skill level required is lower and the effort vastly reduced. The platform also offers access to considerably more APIs than other cross-platform methods such as Rhohub and Phonegap that lack the power to influence handset manufacturers.

So why could WAC fail?

There are a few major stumbling blocks to WAC becoming an established
standard for mobile app development:

* The specifications are not followed by the developers of the runtimes (e.g. Opera, Obigo, etc), leading to fragmentation, so developers still have to test, tweak and optimise for different devices.
* Handset manufacturers (influenced by the operators) might not all embed the WAC compatible runtime which means that there won't be critical mass for developers to invest in developing for WAC.
* WAC doesn't get traction among developers and content providers fast enough, and with time, the operators get impatient and don't follow through on the partnership.

* Developers choose to develop mobile websites using HTML5 instead of
developing apps.

So what is the conclusion? The mobile app industry is
moving so fast at the moment, and still accelerating, so there are many uncertainties about who will succeed or fail in the long term.

Only time will tell...

Disclaimer: Golden Gekko has developed over 30 web runtime apps paid for by operators and other organizations and would therefore profit from the success of WAC.

Why HTML5 sites for mobile require a mobile specialist

2011-02-02T12:06:00.004Z

Although several mobile browsers now support HTML5 this is a version of HTML5 adapted for mobile:

A. The design and user interaction of a mobile site is completely different to its equivalent website. The use of the touch screen, the smaller screen size, different usage occasions and scenarios require a user experience designer with experience in mobile

B. The browsers vary significantly depending on the OS – for example iPhone vs. Android but also between different Android devices. Resolution/ screen size and layout (landscape vs. portrait) may differ from device to device

C. The functionality of HTML5 on mobile devices can integrate parts of the native functionality such as location, messaging, contacts, accelerometer, etc.

D. Each OS requires particular encoders for video

E. Android in particular has differences depending on the OS version (1.6, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and soon 3.0) which means that the mobile site needs to be tested across all device versions

In summary there is currently not one version of HTML5 but several. For a mobile implementation of HTML5 you need someone with experience in mobile development. Before there is a stable development standard for mobile sites, there is still a lot of standardisation work remaining.

Top 10 Appstores Worldwide

2011-01-26T15:59:00.005Z

More and more appstores are coming online every month. Most publicity is about the Apple Appstore, Android Market and maybe Blackberry World and OVI. We thought it would be interesting to try to rank those appstores, including the independent ones. The figures are based on press releases, our own data from appstores, discussions with operators and handset manufacturers, and a few guestimates.

1. Apple Appstore
Recently announced 10 billion downloads across iPhone, iPad and iPod. An incredible figure that few would have predicted before the iPhone launch. Apple were the first to get mobile downloads into the mainstream and are still reaping the rewards.

2. Google’s Android Market
Over 2,7 billion downloads to date. With the ever growing number of Android handset models available, their download rates are increasing, we wait to see if they can catch Apple.

3. China Mobile Market
Although it just launched in September 2010, this is now believed to be the world´s third biggest appstore, based on the number of downloads in December 2010.

4. DoCoMo
DoCoMo has offered apps through i-mode for years and was the largest appstore prior to the iPhone era. With 40 million active customers, they are still one of the biggest appstores.

5. Nokia OVI
Despite the bad press, Nokia OVI continues to perform well, with rapid growth across the base and over 3 million downloads per day. Although,this includes any digital content, such as wallpapers, widgets and games.

6. Mobile9
Mobile9 doesn’t generate much publicity, but with twice the traffic of Getjar and more free copyright protected apps than anywhere else, this is an interesting one to follow. Including ringtones, wallpapers, etc, they now claim over 11 billion downloads, including digital content other than apps.

7. Getjar
Frequently reported as the world largest independent appstore with apps for all device platforms available, including iPhone (providing links to the iTunes store), Android, J2ME, Symbian, Blackberry and more. The independent store counts 1.66 billion downloads up to date.

8. Mobango
For long Mobango was a strong contender to Getjar, with a community based approach. After running out of cash, Mobango was acquired in 2010, so maybe there will be another boost? They report 750M downloads.

9. Blackberry World
RIM will tell you it’s about quality and not quantity. Despite over 50 million active devices the appstore downloads from Blackberry World are pretty low. Lately though, figures have been picking up. Blackberry World reports millions of downloads per day rather than total number of downloads but our estimate based on this is a total of somewhere between 500-700m downloaded apps since launch.

10. Verizon Wireless V Cast Apps

Verizon Wireless have continued to go their own way, with a combination of closed portal (V Cast) and openness, giving access to the Android Market. V Cast is believed to provide by far the biggest carrier appstore in the US.

Others include Vodafone 360, Telefonica/O2 mstore, Orange Application Shop, 3 App Store, AT&T AppCenter, Sprint, T-Mobile, TeliaSonera, Windows Phone Marketplace, Palm App Catalog, Samsung appstore, Sony-Ericsson Playnow, HTC, PocketGear, Mobilerated, Zed, Jamba, Buzzcity, Opera, Facebook, Cydia (Apple Jailbreak appstore), Cellmania, Handmark, Javaground, Mobiles24, OnMobile, Ondeego

We also expect initiatives from Amazon, LG, Lenovo, Mozilla, WAC (Wholesale Application Community), Sun/Oracle Java, Acer, Asus and more.

Tell us what you think!

Top mobile viral marketing campaigns ever

2011-01-21T10:57:00.000Z

This blog is based on a presentation held at MediaPro in November 2010 with the headline “The most successful viral apps in Mobile history”. We had an amazing feedback on the presentation from clients and the audience. Therefore we want to reiterate the insights on our blog.

Everyone wants to know: what makes a mobile app or service viral? We hope to provide you with at least some of the most important success criteria. Our recommendations are based on the experience from launching more than 300 mobile apps over the past couple of years. Among them some extremely successful. In some cases the content was great but viral effects turned out rather moderate.

The top 5 viral marketing campaigns that we’ve launched during this period were:

1. Malibu Bowling Game for Pernod Ricard (Agency: Great Works)– bowl with coconuts and melons and play against your friends. The game reached over 6m downloads primarily in the US with no marketing other than appstore distribution

2. Cippi for Perfetti (Agency: BBH) – the first mobile farting application downloaded over 4m times thereof 2m in Italy which was the target market with minimum marketing effort via Vodafone Italy (watch on YouTube)

3. Lynx/Axe for Unilever (Agency: BBH) – mobile apps that turn your phone into a flirting machine resulting in over 0.5m downloads in the UK (watch on YouTube)

4. Who Killed Summer for Vodafone (Agency: OMD) – interactive mobile app for an online reality show which generated considerably more downloads and activity on the mobile than it did online

5. Du & Jag (You & Me) – one of the simplest apps ever with a test to see how well you match a girl or guy resulted in over 100k downloads in Sweden in only a few months in 2007

We will let the failures be forgotten in history for now…

So what are the key learning’s and tips from these?

1. Viral is about the physical sharing experience

Viral marketing online is very centred around sharing via Facebook, e-mail, instant messaging, Twitter and other channels. With the core function of a mobile phone being communication you would expect the same thing to be true for mobile. What we’ve noticed through research and focus groups however is that the most common sharing experience is physical. The user shows the game, entertainment or utility app to a friend who then also downloads it. In many cases the average user shares the app with 5+ people.

2. Make it easy to share

Having said that the most successful sharing experience is physical there is still a great amount of viral effects that comes from sharing online. Therefore it is key that it is easy and fun to share. There are a couple of important things to think about in order to encourage online sharing:

Make it clear what is shared – i.e. show how the other user(s) will receive the message by e-mail or Facebook
Integrate with the phone experience – use the phonebook to make it easy for users to share with their friends
Let the user decide how they want to share – allow the user to choose between e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Bluetooth, etc
Make it meaningful to share – ensure that there is an incentive to share whether it is to let the user impress their friends, a benefit to the receiver or an incentive to the sharer

3. Available on all/most devices

Less than 10% of the mobile users in Europe have an iPhone. So what happens if an iPhone user shares the app with an Android, Nokia or Blackberry user? Make sure that you support the devices that your target audience has.

4. Distributed through as many channels as possible

There are now well over 100 carriers, handset manufacturers and independent appstores (excluding Apple). Clearly some of them are more popular than others but distributing your app to as many of them as possible will give you much better reach which results in more downloads. In addition to this making sure that your app gets mentioned in blogs and other media can also make a big impact.

So in summary, what makes a successful mobile viral app campaign?

Make it a fun and useful sharing experience in the physical world as well as online
Make it easy to share and be honest about how it’s done
Ensure that your app/campaign is available to your target audience devices
Distribute through as many channels as possible

And don’t forget to share this blog!

Author: Magnus Jern (CEO Golden Gekko)

See the presentation on slideshare

Top 10 activities and predictions in mobile 2010 to 2011

2011-01-08T16:45:00.005Z

Once again it’s time for us to summarise the past year´s key trends and predict the future for 2011.

At the end of 2009 we looked back at the year that passed and forward to 2010 to identify some key insights and trends. Maybe we cheated but it looks like our crystal ball for 2010 was right on the spot for 4 out of 5 of ourpredictions.

Review of our predictions for 2010

1. Breakthrough for mobile marketing

Most importantly the breakthrough for mobile marketing and apps have now happened which led to a revenue growth of more than 125% for Golden Gekko in the middle of a global financial crisis. One key factor was that major brands such as GAP, Zara, Domino's Pizza and Mango launched m-Commerce initiatives which all surpassed expectations making the mobile platform a business critical channel.

2. Increased mobile platform fragmentation

We saw an increase in fragmentation, which came true with more versions and hardware configurations of Android, Samsung Bada, Windows Mobile 7, with renewed investments in Palm WebOS by HP and MeeGo announced by Nokia and Intel.

3. Android accelerates past iPhone

As expected Android surpassed iPhone as the most sold smartphone OS, while the iOS market share growth stabilised.

4. Mobile networks collapse under traffic load

Finally, several of the networks in the UK (O2) and US (AT&T) experience vastly reduced performance due to smartphones and dongles.

5. Improved efficiency in mobile service development

The one prediction which did not really materialize was improved efficiency in mobile service delivery through new tools and products. The reason is most likely that most of the tools and services are not good enough yet which could be a great opportunity for 2011.

The key trends 2010

1. Launch of the iPad and other tablets

In January Apple announced the iPad which has ever since been sold at an amazing rate although I think the usage patterns have surprised quite a few. Most of the usage takes place at home rather than while mobile. At the same time other manufacturers, despite promises, failed to bring out competitive devices during 2010 even though Samsung managed to sell about 1 million.

2. Microsoft Windows Phone 7

Maybe it was because expectations were low but reviews of the Windows Phone 7 operating system and phones have been very good. Unique user interface, great social networking integration, excellent SDK for app development and all in all the first real smartphone OS from Microsoft.

3. Launch of iAds

When Apple acquired Qattro Wireless the iAd formats with rich media had already been developed but Apple took it and turned it into a great new innovation. Although the impact in terms of mobile advertising was very small in 2010 iAds has set the benchmark for mobile ads for the next couple of years.

4. Launch of 50+ appstores by operators and handset manufacturers

The openness of Android is both good and bad in terms of security, fragmentation and developer control. One slightly unexpected result however is that everyone is now launching their own appstores. In 2010 Android appstores were launched by Vodafone, Telefonica, Verizon Wireless, Orange, Sony-Ericsson, LG, Samsung and many many more. We expect this trend to continue in 2011 making distribution of Android apps more challenging for developers but also giving them more opportunities to sell and promote their apps.

5. Blackberry proving that they can hold the fort

Many analysts thought that RIM was down for the count in the beginning of 2010 with the competition from iPhone and Android but over and over again they have beaten forecasts in terms of sales. Maybe there is demand for something different than the iPhone even though the app environment and browser is nowhere close even on the latest Blackberry 6 devices? And it will be interesting to see what is yet to come. In the past 12 months RIM have acquired one user interface expert (TAT), one SDK developer (QNX) to be used as basis for the new tablets and a couple of app developers (DataViz and Cellmania).

Our predictions for 2011 are

1. Smartphones for everyone

The price of Android phones is dropping drastically with the low end expected to reach 30-40 euro by the end of 2011.* You can already buy a ZTE Blade for about 120 euro with a specification similar to the Nexus One and other manufacturers such as LG, Huewai, Lenovo and Dell will launch low-end Android phones throughout 2011. In addition to this Nokia will continue to offer Symbian for as little as 50 euro and RIM will offer Blackberries at around the 100 Euro mark. There may also be some surprises from Apple with iOS and HP with WebOS. The exciting thing about the drastic drop in prices is that smartphones will reach mass market allowing businesses and developers to reach a much greater audience. The challenge will be to see if app usage is still sustainable or if the early adopters have a different behaviour.

* All quoted prices are list prices for an unlocked phone without contract. Prices with contracts vary depending on country and operator.

2. Mobile is going from a marketing to a business critical channel

In 2009 we talked about mobile advertising shifting to mobile marketing. Now it's time for the next phase. Based on soft launches in 2008-2010 many brands are now seeing mobile deliver substantial revenues with examples including Opentable, eBay, Amazon and Domino's Pizza. Retail brands such as H&M, Zara, GAP are now following suite with major investments expecting that the mobile channel could be as big as the web or even bigger.

3. Multi-platform strategies will be the key to successful mobile strategies

Although a lot of businesses are now turning to mobile web including XHTML and HTML5 as the base platform for their mobile business, downloadable apps continue to drive innovation and discovery. The app platforms continue to develop extremely rapidly with at least one major release per year from Apple, Google, HP/Palm with new functionality and business opportunities. Mobile web on the other hand is based on standards with considerably slower evolution since everyone needs to agree. Therefore the gap between native apps and browser based services will only get larger for now. Mobile browsers could potentially evolve as fast as the apps but then the advantages of standardised coding would disappear. In conclusion businesses and developers that want to stay ahead in mobile will have to develop for and support multiple platforms including XHTML, HTML5, iOS, Android and maybe Symbian/MeeGo, Blackberry and Windows Mobile 7.

4. Breakthrough for m-payments and NFC

With Google introducing NFC (Near Field Communication) support with the launch of Nexus S and Apple expected to follow with NFC on the iPhone 5 we expect a breakthrough for NFC and related services in 2011 although the eco system will take a long time to develop. In Japan NFC already has already replaced tickets and magnetic cards on the tube and allows you to pay for physical good in stores just like a debit card. And the potential services that can be offered are almost endless. NFC equipped devices should in theory be able to communicate or listen to RFID chips that are already everywhere. We could put sensors in flower pots that tell your phone when they need to get watered, products in the store could give you information instantly without the need for barcode scanning, the phone could store your loyalty cards for air miles or hotels.

The breakthrough in 2011 will be in terms of innovation and initiatives by major players rather than mass market adaptation which will still take many years.

5. Rapid growth for tools that improve mobile service and app delivery

This was a prediction for 2010 that did not materialise but we have not given up. Historically businesses that offer developer and service delivery tools in mobile have not been very successful with the greatest exception being Admob. The reason has mainly been that the buyers haven't had sufficient skills and knowledge to use self-service tools and therefore preferred to buy a full service offering making it difficult for mobile marketing companies to establish scalable business models. Another reason is that few marketing agencies want to use template based solutions something Golden Gekko has experienced with Tino as well as Mobile Rhodi with their service. In 2011 we believe that this will change with more experienced marketers and better tools. The main areas of development will be mobile ad serving (Adfonic), CRM and messaging services (e.g. texting.ly), mobile content management systems (thinkshed), self-service app development services (Tino and Mobile Roadie) and appstore distribution.

Happy New Year 2011!

How much does it cost to develop an iPad app or Android tablet app?

2010-12-10T17:30:00.000Z

Business Insider has a great article about the cost of developing one of the most popular and more advanced iPad apps available for download on the Apple appstore. This is by no means an indication of the average cost of developing an iPad app but demonstrates the range in cost between very simple apps of below 20.000 USD and the top utility apps at closer to 250.000 USD. On the other hand some of the top apps such as Google Maps, Facebook, BBC iPlayer have all costed considerably more to develop.

Generally the cost of adapting an iPhone app to iPad is about 30-40% on top of the original development costs but to develop an original iPad app with a rich and optimal user experience, the requirements are considerably more complicated. Just like for a website or an advanced iPhone or Android app the development team needs to

a) Start by coming up with the concept

b) Design the app including user interface, use flow, wireframes and creative assets/graphics

c) Produce a technical architecture and specification

d) Develop the app in various iterations of testing and feedback loops

e) Test it with real users as a beta to further enhance the app before public launch

f) Launch the app and continuously improve it

The cost of developing an Android tablet app is essentially exactly the same based on our experience although there are great synergies if planning and development is carried out on both platforms for the same service.

Read the full article on Business Insider:

http://www.businessinsider.com/cost-of-developing-an-app-2010-10

How to market and distribute mobile app

2010-11-29T11:51:00.006Z

You've developed a great mobile app for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Symbian, Palm WebOS, WM7 or any other platform and now you want people to download it whether it's free or paid for. Yet, even the world’s greatest mobile app will deliver no results unless you make people aware of its existence. Over the past year Golden Gekko has produced a basic guide based on 5 years of application development and distribution and over 50m downloads to date on how you get the most out of your mobile app through various different distribution channels.

The white paper is available in 2 different parts that will be published on the blog over the next month. The parts are:
1. Mobile App Distribution - Mobile Distribution Channels including Mobile Advertising, Messaging, Appstores, Search, Communities and Operators - Download
2. Mobile App Distribution - Other Distribution channels including Web, ATL, BTL, PR and sharing/viral - Download

Use links above to download white papers.

Mobile apps one of the 3 biggest drivers behind mobile data growth according to McKinsey

2010-11-15T08:55:00.000Z

When McKinsey talks business leaders and government officials listen. Therefore it was interesting to hear McKinsey Partner Venkat Atluri talk about the main forces behind mobile data growth on the McKinsey High Tech podcast a couple of weeks ago. Mobile applications were mentioned as one of the 3 key contributors of mobile data growth together with highly compelling devices and high speed networks. Although the research and interview doesn't bring any new insights to our industry it's amazing to hear that a business area that barely existed 3 years ago is now acknowledged as the driving factor behind the 100 Bn USD telecom industry.

Listen to the podcast here:
http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/hightech/HT_mobile_data/HT_mobile_data.html

Golden Gekko talking about iPad apps on Swedish Television (TV4)

2010-11-12T14:05:00.000Z

This week Golden Gekko attended Mobile Future and Mobilgalan in Stockholm and our sales and business development director Michael Eriksson had the opportunity to appear on the Swedish television channel TV4. The short appearance where he demonstrates the Mango iPad app is in Swedish and available here:
http://www.nyhetskanalen.se/webb_tv?videoId=1.1901850

The Beauty of Fragmentation

2010-11-07T17:54:00.000Z

Having developed mobile apps for over 5 years we have an enormous amount of good and bad experience from different platforms and fragmentation. So can there actually be good things about fragmentation?

Good

Working within standardisation is a slow and complicated process. To innovate, technology companies must sometimes divert from the standard
The agreed standard is not always the simplest or smartest way to do something. Therefore platform developers constantly strive to improve the future standards by implementing them as proprietary components before the standard has been established
Proprietary technology creates de facto standards – Microsoft Windows, iPhone OS and Adobe Flash are great examples of this
Differentiation is good – we want different screen sizes, keyboard inputs, sizes and colours. Not everyone wants a black or white iPhone

Bad

Applications have to be tested on all different variations of e.g. the Android or Symbian OS, display resolutions, user input methods (Touchscreen, QWERTY, etc) and hardware configurations
The cost of optimising and testing the applications is substantially higher for Android, Symbian, Web Runtime and J2ME due to fragmentation
The development phase is longer due to the time consuming additional device optimisation and testing that is required

At Golden Gekko we constantly work on improving our platforms and tools to get around these challenges and instead leverage the positive differentiation of fragmentation.

But the title of the blog was the beauty of fragmentation and not pros and cons or how to battle fragmentation. The following graph from Tweetdeck illustrates the enormous variety of Android devices now being used to download and use apps from the Android Market. Beauty or Beast? You be the judge.