Looking Forward to ‘Mobile University’ One-Day Event

March 4th, 2010 by Zak Dabbas | 216 VIEWS | No Comments »

We’re excited about the Mobile University event that’s being put on by the Heartland Mobile Council. The one-day Chicago event promises to address the importance of a long-term strategic approach to mobile marketing, as well as demonstrate how to integrate mobile into your business.

Here’s a description of the event by the Heartland Mobile Council:

“Mobile University 101 is the interactive one day educational event that will address the importance of a long-term strategic approach to mobile within your business. Whether you’re interested in creating a mobile marketing campaign, or understanding the various kinds of rapidly evolving mobile technologies, Mobile University is the place to get started with a mobile strategy, and begin to leverage mobility to improve your bottom line.”

There are going to be some great educational topics covered at the event, and both Ryan and I will be leading a break-out session focused on different ways to successfully integrate mobile within an overall marketing strategy.

Pre-registration tickets for the event are $99 and can be purchased here.

If you’re interested in reading the official release for the event, click here.

Tags: ie
Posted in Design, Mobile Marketing, Punchkick Interactive

Hiring an iPhone Developer? Read This First.

December 28th, 2009 by Zak Dabbas | 816 VIEWS | No Comments »

The Business Insider has posted an article titled How To Hire A Great iPhone Developer and it features a few quotes from our creative director, Ryan Unger. It’s a good read with some valuable insight, so feel free to give it a look.

Tags: business insider, developer, iPhone
Posted in Apple, Design, Mobile, Mobile Marketing, Punchkick Interactive, iPhone

Mobile Coupon Redemption Value to Approach $6bn Globally by 2014, According to Juniper Research

November 4th, 2009 by Ryan Unger | 1,135 VIEWS | No Comments »

Hampshire, UK – 4th November 2009: A new report from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com), forecasts that consumer usage of mobile coupons will generate close to $6 billion globally in retail redemption value by 2014.

Juniper Research’s new report – ‘Mobile Coupons & NFC Smart Posters: Strategies, Applications & Forecasts 2009-2014’ cautions that user apathy amongst the wider public, as well as lack of willingness to change and learn a new method of making financial transactions are potential stumbling blocks. This is despite NFC trial results which show very high levels of user acceptance.

“Marketers can use the mobile device as the ultimate personal marketing channel. It is almost permanently switched on and physically with the consumer. This makes a great opportunity for brands and marketing agencies to access clients immediately, driving footfall and encouraging an instant decision,” explained Howard Wilcox, Senior Analyst at Juniper Research and lead report author.

Smart posters with embedded NFC tags will bring to life static billboards, creating immediate interaction between potential customers and their prospective purchases. By simply passing their device close to the tag, users can take away a coupon or product information that can result in purchase decisions.

Further findings from the Mobile Coupons and Smart Posters report include:

ARPU from NFC coupons and smart posters will exceed ARPU from NFC payment transactions
The vast majority of mobile coupon redemption value will be generated by the Far East & China, Western Europe and North America in 2014

The report, launched globally today, contains comprehensive six year forecasting for all the key market parameters including users, redemption rates, values and incremental ARPU for all mobile coupons, NFC coupons and NFC smart posters.

The Mobile Coupons & Smart Posters whitepaper and further details of the study, ‘Mobile Coupons & NFC Smart Posters: Strategies, Applications & Forecasts 2009-2014’ can be freely downloaded from the Juniper website.

Tags: consumer, coupon, coupon redemption, Juniper Research, juniperresearch, marketing channel, mobile device, purchase decisions, redemption value, report
Posted in Coupons, Mobile Marketing

Get Well Soon, iPhone 3G Network!

September 8th, 2009 by Zak Dabbas | 1,443 VIEWS | 1 Comment »

When I first got my iPhone some two years ago, I rarely experienced connectivity issues. In fact, I was pretty proud of the fact that my phone and data service were so consistent. Flash forward to today, and I’ve moved from Cleveland (population: 500,000) to Chicago (population: 2.9 million), and the number of iPhone users has increased many, many times over.

Increasingly, I can’t hold on to a call. No joke—I drop calls every single day. And 3G data service? At this point, I feel like I’ve won the lottery when I see that beautiful little 3G icon instead of the letter “E” at the top of my screen. The other day, a friend of mine received nine visual voicemails all at once…and they had been left by recipients four days prior!

Make no mistake. Despite these issues, I absolutely love my iPhone. And thankfully, a recent article over at the NY Times has shed some light on why these issues are occurring.

You can read the article here.

Clearly, no one could have predicted the success of the iPhone. With a little patience, it looks like all of these issues will be ultimately resolved.

Tags: 3G, chicago, Cleveland, connectivity issues, iPhone
Posted in 3G, AT&T, Apple, Mobile, Mobile Marketing, iPhone

Apple Leads Cell Phone Industry with 32% of the Total Industry Profit

August 30th, 2009 by Ryan Unger | 1,491 VIEWS | No Comments »

Question: How does a newcomer introduce just one cell phone, and absolutely obliterate their competition with respect to profit?

Answer: They build an iPhone.

Top Cell Phone Manufacturers' Estimated Revenues Compared to Apple's

In the cell phone game, the Apple iPhone only accounts for 8% of the total industry revenue, but 32% of the total industry profit. How they managed this feat is quite simple. They pull in a 40% operating margin, in an industry that averages only 7.5%. The next most profitable company in the industry, RIM, only takes in 20.7% operating margin.
[ iSmashPhone.com ]

Tags: Apple, Apple iPhone, cell phone, cell phone manufacturers, iPhone, operating margin, revenue, RIM
Posted in Apple, Mobile, Statistics, iPhone

Microsoft and Nokia Join Forces to Create Microsoft Office Apps for Mobile

August 12th, 2009 by Zak Dabbas | 1,275 VIEWS | No Comments »

Microsoft is teaming up with Nokia to develop mobile versions of its hugely popular software titles for Nokia devices. This sounds like a very promising union, and I’ll be excited to see what develops.

You can read the story here.

Tags: Apps, Microsoft, microsoft office, mobile versions, Nokia, office apps, popular software, software titles
Posted in Microsoft, Nokia, PDA, Smartphone, Symbian

3 Rules for Keeping My iPhone Applications Organized

August 3rd, 2009 by Zak Dabbas | 1,942 VIEWS | 1 Comment »

I can still remember the good ol’ days, when the iPhone had no downloadable content. You had one home screen with all of your Apple-bestowed icons in a single place–no organization skills required.

Those days are long gone, and with a slew of amazing iPhone apps comes a puzzling question: How does one best organize the plethora of applications downloaded to an iPhone? In the past, I’ve tried sorting my apps in a million different (and often bizarre) ways, and frequently found myself looking at friends’ phones, trying to figure out the logic they’d applied to their own apps.

After some careful consideration, I’ve finally settled on my favorite way to sort iPhone app icons. Of course, these methods are purely based on my personal taste and strange sense of “logic,” so take this post with a grain of salt. That said, without further delay, my 3 Rules for Keeping My iPhone Applications Organized:

My iPhone's Home Screen

1. I am an Apple purist at heart, and in a nod to the 1st gen iPhone, I keep the original twelve iPhone icons on my home screen (note: these are in addition to the four app icons found on the dock at the bottom of the screen). These icons are: Messages, Calendar, Photos, Camera, YouTube, Stocks, Maps, Weather, Notes, Clock, Calculator, and Settings. The reason for doing this is two-fold. First, I find that through years of using my iPhone, I’ve genuinely memorized the location of these twelve apps. Clicking on them is second nature to me. The second reason I like this organization scheme is that having twelve home screen icons on your phone leaves a nice empty row between the upper twelve app icons and the home row. I find this aesthetically pleasing–to me, it beats having a home screen crammed to the brim with icons.

2. Apple has provided us with five more application icons since the first gen iPhone. These icons are: App Store, Compass, Contacts, iTunes, and Voice Memos. Based on my logic in Rule #1, one could reasonably argue that these Apple-given icons should be on the home screen of the phone (they are Apple-bestowed, of course). This would be a fair argument, except that there’s no way to fit them all on the home screen. For this reason, I opt to treat these five application icons the same as I do any other downloaded iPhone apps. Doing this still supports Rule #1, which aims to keep my iPhone home screen organized and uncluttered as it was in its first release.

3. Finally, the piece de resistance. For ALL application icons not located on the initial home screen of my iPhone, I simply arrange them alphabetically on secondary home screen pages. This way, I don’t have to wonder where an app should be located and any hesitation I have to download millions of apps is squashed. I’ve tried all sorts of ways to sort my downloaded apps, but nothing is as fool-proof and easy to remember as this method. My experiments with attempting to sort apps based on categories like “utility” or “games” have always ended up failing. Alphabetizing is simple through and through.

…Phew. I hope this makes some semblance of sense! Do you have a better method of organizing your iPhone icons? If you do, feel free to share with me. I’d love to hear your thoughts as I continue in my quest to find true iPhone nirvana.

A Secondary Screen on My iPhone

Tags: App store, Apple, Apps, icons, iPhone, iphone apps
Posted in AT&T, Apple, iPhone

From Amazon to Zillow, the Top 26 Autocomplete Keyword Suggestions in Google

July 29th, 2009 by Ryan Unger | 1,233 VIEWS | 2 Comments »

As with many other Web sites, Google.com offers its users a convenient way to find what they’re looking for using a feature called autocomplete. Autocomplete does just what it says—it automatically completes a user’s search form based on the popularity of possible keyword suggestions. For example, as you type “m,” “MySpace” is displayed because “MySpace” is the most searched term that starts with an “m.” If you follow that “m” with “obile mar,” “mobile marketing” is shown because it’s the most searched term that starts with “mobile mar,” and so on.

I’ve compiled a list of the top 26 autocomplete keywords from a to z. I’ve also cross-referenced this list against Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) costs, and came up with some really interesting results.

Key Findings:

It would cost between $611,930 and $922,680 to own the first PPC position of the top 26 autocomplete keywords.
“Quotes” is by far the most expensive of the top autocomplete keywords, costing ≈$23.67 per click, or ≈$374,755 per day for the first PPC position.
The next three next most-expensive CPC keywords are “orbitz,” “gmail,” and “netflix” at ≈$4.79, ≈$4.30, and ≈$4.04, respectively.
The three lowest-cost keywords with respect to estimated cost-per-day based on clicks-per-day are “facebook,” “photobucket,” and “zillow.”
ALL of the following keywords do NOT break 1,000 paid clicks per day: “facebook,” “irs,” “photobucket,” “realtor.com,” “southwest airlines,” “usps,” “xm radio,” and “zillow.” The obvious assumption is that users searching those keywords ignore the sponsored links and just go organic.

PPC Costs for the top 26 autocomplete keyword suggestions

Tags: autocomplete, cpc, google, keyword, keyword suggestions, ppc
Posted in google, search engine marketing

Texting + Driving = Uh Oh.

July 22nd, 2009 by Zak Dabbas | 2,698 VIEWS | No Comments »

The New York Times has posted a driving game that measures how your reaction time is affected by external distraction (i.e., text messages on your mobile phone). After playing this game for a few minutes, I can definitely say that I have a new appreciation for states like California and New York, which have banned cell phone use while driving.

Think you can multitask while driving? Click here to prove it.

Tags: game, mobile phone, SMS
Posted in Games, Mobile Marketing, SMS

The 5 Commandments of Mobile Web Design

September 20th, 2008 by Ryan Unger | 16,816 VIEWS | 5 Comments »

Mobile Web Design A one-size-fits-all approach to solving problems rarely seems to work in the real world, and the mobile Web is no different.

Up to this point, most mobile sites have been developed by re-hashing traditional Web content and squeezing it onto the small screen—an unfortunate “Mini-Me” approach to mobile Web design. The result? While the traditional Web becomes more useful and creative every day, the significance of the mobile Web has largely stalled. The mobile Web has yet to realize its awesome potential, and the problem isn’t a technology issue like you may be already thinking. The problem is design, or rather, a lack thereof, within the mobile medium.

1. The Mobile Web is Not the Little Sister of the Traditional Web.

What makes a mobile site so different?

It’s not the screen size—it’s the intent of the user. Very often, traditional Web users browse the Web for entertainment or to kill time. Even when traditional users need to perform work-related tasks, they are easily sidetracked by Twitter, YouTube, or any of the thousands of social networking sites.

Mobile users, on the other hand, typically browse the mobile Web when they are in need of specific information. These experiences tend to be much shorter than they are on the traditional Web, and users rarely browse for entertainment purposes. Let’s just be honest with ourselves—if a user could be in front of a computer, that’s where he or she would be.

Suppose that you were offered a chance to view a new Red Hot Chili Peppers music video on your phone. Would you actually navigate to the video and watch it, when you could just as easily view it on a speedy home computer? Re-purposing traditional Web content and stuffing it into a mobile browser is a recipe for disaster. Instead, it’s time to look at the mobile Web as a uniquely distinctive medium.

2. Give People What They Want, When They Want It.

All mobile Web users across the globe want the same thing: the ability, at any time, to easily access any information.

What this means for mobile Web designers and developers, is that first and foremost, we need to approach mobile Web sites as an information-architecture problem, and NOT as a technology problem. Mobile Web sites should be formatted in a way that allows users to easily navigate and make decisions. Users don’t want to dig through the clutter of a traditional Web site to find the tiny link they were looking for.

Companies that merely ensure their existing Web site is viewable on mobile phones, have, for the most part, wasted their time and money. This is primarily because this type of mobile Web site will likely be hard to navigate through, or be terrible looking. All too often, users get frustrated when they can’t find the content they are looking for. This fact is exactly why wireless carrier “decks” exist.

3. Build Unique Mobile Content, or Don’t Bother Building Anything at All.

Mobile is a unique medium and it should be designed with this idea in mind. If you are not willing to rewrite, modify, or create custom mobile content, then don’t bother creating a mobile site in the first place.

This point is best illustrated by an example:

A university could easily mobilize its existing Web content to create a mobile Web site, but do freshman really need to be able to schedule classes from their phone when they are lost in the Quad? The answer should be, obviously, no.

Wouldn’t the university mobile site be more effective if it was limited to custom information that is relevant for on-the-go students—such as mobile maps, a one-click phone number directory and faculty office hours? The answer is yes.

4. Make It Useable. Make It Useable. Make It Useable.

Mobile Web sites MUST always work on every phone. Period.

What this means is that mobile Web designers need to consider multiple screen sizes, as well as multiple technologies. A mobile Web site should dynamically transcode content such as forms, images, videos, ringtones and layouts, so that any user, with any phone, can enjoy a seamless browsing experience. Users should never have to tell a mobile site what kind of phone they have—it should already know.

Consider that for the traditional Web, designers and developers need to account for differences between Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Opera, screen sizes, color depth, Flash versions, and more. Why would mobile be any different?

5. Don’t Forget About Design. Seriously.

Mobile Web surfers are still consumers, and consumers are deeply impacted by design. Don’t believe this? Allow us to introduce you to a fine company called Apple.

Because the concern at the forefront of people’s minds has been technology, brands and agencies often neglect the importance of design in the mobile space. It is almost assumed that because the mobile Web has to work on every mobile device, it can’t also look great. We couldn’t disagree with this mindset more.

When a mobile marketing firm approaches a mobile Web design project, it should design a series of visual layouts for a client that illustrate how the mobile site will look on a variety of different devices. For example, our firm refines a selected visual design concept into a WML layout (old school WAP 1.0), an XHTML-MP (WAP 2.0) layout at several different screen sizes, and (when possible) an iPhone-specific layout. The goal here is to ensure that no matter what phone is viewing the content, it will look its absolute best.

In Summary:

1. Think about the mobile Web in a new way. Get creative.
2. Clear and concise information-architecture specific to mobile is an absolute must.
3. Create compelling mobile content or don’t bother at all.
4. Mobile sites have to work—always. No ifs, ands, or buts.
5. It’s called mobile Web DESIGN. Not mobile Web cram-it-on-the-screen.

About Punchkick Interactive

Punchkick Interactive is America’s first design firm to focus exclusively on full-service mobile marketing. The firm specializes in creating text-message campaigns, mobile games, Flash Lite content, branded mobile Web sites, custom BREW and Java ME applications, iPhone apps, mobile media distribution systems, Bluetooth proximity marketing campaigns, and more. For additional information about mobile marketing visit http://www.punchkickinteractive.com or call (800) 549-4104.

Tags: Design, development, Mobile, mobile design, Mobile Marketing, mobile technology, mobile web, mobile web design, WAP, web, wml, xhtml, xhtml mp
Posted in Design, Mobile, Mobile Marketing, Punchkick Interactive, WAP, iPhone

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