Mobile Fix – Facebook; Patent wars; New SMS and New TV
In the latest Mobile Fix, Simon Andrews, founder of the full service mobile agency addictive!, discusses the issue of patents; the reinvention of SMS; and the promise of combining TV and interactivity…
Facebook growing
Techcrunch ran a bullish piece predicting that Facebook will be bigger than Google in 5 years. Davide Grasso, Nike’s chief marketing officer, says Facebook “is the equivalent for us to what TV was for marketers back in the 1960s. It’s an integral part of what we do now.”
Facebook groups launched this week, and have had a mixed reaction.
And whilst the tech, commercial and mobile skills of the Facebook team are well recognised, we should also give props to their legal people too – they seem to be hoovering up patents that could threaten FourSquare and the other location players.
Patent wars
The whole issue of patents look to be growing in complexity and keeping lawyers off the breadline. Apple have a number of people chasing them over patent infringements – with Nokia, Motorola, Kodak and others making claims. They were told to pay $625 million this week for three apparent infringements.
Best practice – some case studies
Whilst too many branded apps are little more than poorly thought out tactical plays, some people do get it right.
As retail recognises the power of mobile, the case studies from Google and Shop.org are interesting
And we’re seeing early marketing uses of Facebook Places – and some interesting tools are launching such at Tagoo in Singapore, which lets retailers identify and reward Facebook fans in their stores.
New SMS
We’re fascinated by the chance to reinvent SMS as a tool for Dialogue. Some new research from the IAB and the DMA in the UK demonstrates that permission SMS (and MMS) perform really well and we’re seeing developers start to expand the functionality of SMS – from Twilio as a way to combine SMS with web services and now a start up called Fast Society, that enables group SMS.
New TV
Ever since red button TV in the UK (where we did more brand iTV campaigns than any other agency) the promise of combining TV and interactivity has captivated people. With YouView a matter of months away in the UK and Social TV getting lots of interest, the announcements by Google this week of their partnerships around Google TV accelerate the pace of change in TV. Google have partnered with Amazon (for a video on demand service), NBC and the NBA amongst others and are looking to differentiate their offering from the much rumoured Apple TV.
We’re fascinated by this new world where applications start to connect users and brands across all three screens. This new environment will lead to new business models and new opportunities to build a dialogue with your most valuable customers – and to new threats to established players.
We produce Mobile Fix every week, reflecting the significant news in mobile. The content is also added to the addictive blog, where you can comment. If you’d like to know more about any of these topics or share your thoughts let us know.
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