BII MOBILE INSIGHTS: Be Brilliant At The Mobile Marketing Basics

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Key Takeaways From GigaOm Mobilize 2012 (GigaOM)
Some of the more poignant thoughts from GigaOM's Mobilize conference exemplify a few key themes:

Don’t count out HTML5 just yet
The “point of sale” is now everywhere
Video is becoming a primary mobile activity
Connected homes will only appeal if the solutions are simple and add value
Developers need to consider the broadband for their software needs

The future is fast approaching as we’re watching improvements in mobile broadband networks, better software tools, smarter app discovery engines, and hardware cycles that are revving faster than ever.

How To Make Mobile And Social Work (BI Intelligence)
Skyrocketing social networking and mobile usage has led many to speculate on the key business model for mobile-social services. The most common answer is local commerce. But, checking in is not becoming a mainstream activity and local couponing experiments aren't working so well. Here's how it could work:

What is social discovery?
Contextual relevance
Services and experiences, not goods
Brand advertising
Affiliate payouts

In a research report on Mobile and Social from BI Intelligence, we analyze how another potential solution, social discovery, could become the future for mobile social-apps. Access the full report here.

Getting Brilliant At The Mobile Marketing Basics (ClickZ)
Marketers are simply scared of the unknown. They think branching into mobile is going to come with a whole host of other complications that they don't need to deal with on desktop. That may be true, but there is also a whole host of opportunity as well. So start simple with the basics:

A mobile-optimized website
Mobile-optimized emails
A mobile search presence
A mobile ad "pilot" campaign

It's not a lot of additional effort to bring your mobile presence up to benchmark, and the pay-off for your brand could be huge.

Is The QR Code Market Worth It (eMarketer via Social Media Today)
QR codes are the major link between:

Print Media
Online Media, and
Smartphones

eMarketer shows that the usage of QR Code is in a steady pace:

Mobile QR Code Usage

And nearly half of the respondents were strongly interested in discounts via scans:

QR Interest

That said, poorly aligned consumer-brand expectations for mobile barcode-linked content and inadequate user experiences are driving consumers away from mobile barcode use. So if you're using QR codes, you might be wasting your time.

Build A Mobile App That People Want (GigaOM)
It doesn't have to be so difficult. You don’t need to be some kind of infrastructure-loving genius to build a mobile app; and really, you shouldn’t have to be. That was the message from Kevin Lacker, the CTO and co-founder of Parse, who gave some tips on how to build engaging apps. First, to help drive adoption of your app, or at least distribution, he recommended integrating with Facebook. He also said that to keep users coming back, implementing some sort of push notification could make sense. If Parse or other platform plays like it are a success, then mobile development and supporting those apps could be as easy as setting up a Tumblr. Imagine what kind of world that would be.

You Know Who Gets Mobile? eBay Gets Mobile (All Things Digital)
While many other companies are fretting about how they will make money from mobile, roughly 16% of eBay’s revenue this year will be coming from mobile devices. The average transaction on eBay’s mobile apps runs between $30 and $45, in contrast to companies that sell 99-cent mobile games or virtual goods. On the high end, more than 9,000 cars are sold every week through the app, some of which are priced above $100,000. Most sales are coming from the iPhone out of all the smartphone apps, and a lot of transactions are also coming from the iPad and the mobile Web. Check out the infographic:

ebay's mobile platform