BII MOBILE INSIGHTS: When Will We Be Able To Vote From Smartphones?

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7 Questions To Ask Before You Build For Mobile (iMedia Connection)
When it comes to mobile strategy, do you look first to the cool new things you can do, or to the reason behind your mobile presence? Here are 7 questions to ask yourself that will help you create an effective mobile strategy:

What does your target demographic love?
Are you creating a consistent voice across all channels?
What role do your apps and mobile web play in your sales funnel?
How do your apps or mobile web help and hinder the buying process?
Will your customers' initial experience drive loyalty?
Do you know the top 3 behaviors your customers want to conduct online?
How can you take advantage of "quirks" of your demographic?

The interview was conducted with Ryan Wein who has spent the past several years spearheading e-commerce development at Kia Motors America.

Branding In The Mobile Web, Challenges And Opportunities (Dragon Rouge)
It’s practically impossible to ignore users that browse on a mobile device, especially for corporate and product brands. Branding meets usability with responsive web design (RWD). It's an approach to web design in which a site is crafted to provide an optimal viewing experience across a wide range of devices. An essential prerequisite for RWD are media queries, a concept which allows different designs depending on certain characteristics of the output medium. By keeping content and functionality consistent across devices, RWD helps to deliver a seamless customer experience, to enhance brands and boost ROI while lowering development costs. It focuses on giving customers the content they want, on a device they prefer, allowing companies to show or hide content and features that may or may not be relevant based on the screen size displayed. This ensures that customers always have easy access to the most critical content and features, on every device. While not for every brand because there are other options (HTML5, web apps, native apps, etc.), RWD is worth checking out.

Small Business Strategy: 10 Trends to Watch (Brian Solis)
As you read this, the business landscape is shifting right under your company’s foundation. How customers make decisions, how they discover, communicate, and share, how they influence and are influenced, is evolving considerably. At the heart of this customer divide is technology. To what extent disruptive technology impacts your customer landscape, differs from industry to industry and it is your research that reveals where to concentrate and balance your focus and investments. Here are 10 trends to watch, all with mobile implications:

Social networks and how they’re connecting to influencers and businesses
Geolocation check-in services to share locations and earn rewards or opportunities for discounts
Crowdsourced discounts and deals and what’s valued and why
Social commerce services and how they create personalized experiences worth sharing
Referral based solutions to make informed decisions
Gamification platforms and why rewarding engagement improves commerce and loyalty
How your consumers using mobile devices today and what apps they’re installing
The online presence your business produces across a variety of platforms such as tablets, smartphones, laptops and desktops.
The consumer clickpath based on the platform consumers are using
The expectations of connected consumers

The connected customers does not replace your traditional customer, they simply introduce new opportunities to grow your business.

Mobile Marketing Use Rises Among Small Businesses (eWeek)
Small businesses are focusing more of their budgets on websites and other web properties, such as social networks and mobile optimized sites, according to research firm BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor (LCM). The report found SMBs spent, on average, $1,190 in these media and marketing areas during the previous 12 months, up from $876 in the fourth quarter of 2011. Small businesses are also turning more to mobile platforms and the advertising and promotion formats that ride on them. In the latest survey, 14.7% of respondents reported having a mobile website, with another 22% saying they intend to add one within the next 12 months. That figure represents a healthy rise in the percentage of SMBs that reported having a mobile website during the fourth quarter 2011 survey (8.7%).

Tips For Optimizing Mobile Device Security (RingCentral)
Bring your own device (BYOD) policies are fast becoming the norm in the corporate world. The trend, also known as the consumerization of IT, is being driven by the enormous popularity of web-enabled mobile devices and employees’ desire to work outside the strictures of 9-5 office life. Thus, in the modern workplace, robust mobile-device security is a necessity. How can you lock down the devices in your office? Here are some suggestions:

Ensure employee devices are up-to-date
Require employees to activate lock screens
Report stolen or lost devices immediately
Discourage employees from downloading unsafe apps
Install security software
Limit device access to networks

Another good idea would be a mobile device registration program that requires personal devices to be registered with IT.

BYOD Beware! (MaaSters Center)
To illustrate some of the concerns workers have about employers having control over their personal smartphones and tablets, I've included the infographic below. The majority are concerned about moderation of on-device activity and the privacy of data contained thereon.

byod device concerns

ELECTION BONUS: Why We Can't Vote Online In The 21st Century, Yet (Digital Trends)
When you use the Internet for everything from ordering pizza to shuffling around thousands of dollars between bank accounts, why can't you use it to cast a simple vote? The reasons, of course, are complicated. The most appealing arguments in favor of online voting are lifting voter requirements, convenience and cost amongst others. Things, however, are complicated in the U.S. First of all, we have no national election system. Another key issue is voter validation. And what about securing online voting systems? Online voting lies at a peculiar intersection of technology and public policy: even if we have all the software and connectivity necessary to operate widespread electronic voting, implementing it will probably involve at least as much politicking as technology. So we'll wait for the time when technology will prevail but in the meantime, kudos to all who voted yesterday the old fashioned way.

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