Mobile Fix – Facebook phone; Apps v browser; and Social TV

In the latest Mobile Fix, Simon Andrews, founder of the full service mobile agency addictive!, discusses the potential of a Facebook phone, considers the on-going Apps v browser debate as well as the combination of TV and social, and explains why Japan is a hugh influence on mobile…

Facebook Phone

So the big question this week was whether Facebook was working on a phone. Techcrunch said they were. Facebook said no. Then Facebook said well, actually, we are – sort of.

As we predicted back in February, Facebook need to be platform agnostic but they also need to be a key player in this space. As we’ve highlighted in the past, they have 150 million mobile users  – who are more engaged than their PC users – and they plan to reach billions through mobile. And Places is a mobile play.

They see a real opportunity to be the mobile platform that people build applications on – opening up similar possibilities to the apps developed for Facebook itself.

And there are some quick wins – how about integrating your contacts with your Facebook friends and really getting location working…

Apps vs browser

We still see too much energy wasted on arguments over whether apps will win out over browser based content or vice versa.

Smart people know that smart brands will go for a blended approach; every brand needs a mobile optimised site to maximise reach and they’ll supplement that with either fat apps or thin apps. These take advantage of native OS opportunities and the discovery opportunities of appstores – plus the presence on the homescreen of the user – the most valuable real estate there is.

Therefore the question becomes; what is in the cloud (accessed through the browser) and what is cached (stored within the app)?

Yes, developing this blend of content and services across different platforms isn’t cheap, but smart brands recognise the scale of the opportunity and build a business case to justify the spend.

Right now, data shows that lots of mobile traffic is driven by apps – but that’s largely because too few brands have mobile sites. And new research from Deloitte shows that people are still buying smartphones for the hardware (features, cost, quality etc).  Just 18% said apps and their functionality influenced their buying decision.  But once they have the phone, it’s apps that are changing their habits – so apps are not going to go away.

The way to judge a mobile strategy is therefore asking; Will it Blend?

Japan

Despite all the talk about the Galapagos effect, Japan remains a huge influence on mobile around the world. The ecosystem evolved from i-mode by NTT DoCoMo and is a huge influence on everyone in the space – there are many who think Apple’s success is based on adapting what works in Japan for the rest of the world.

ComScore have now extended their mobile measurement tools to Japan, enabling comparisons to be made between markets and there is some fascinating data here; nearly 60 million mobile users in Japan accessed the browser on their mobile device, equating to 59.3% of the entire mobile audience, while more than 42.6 million users accessed a mobile application (42.3%).

Social TV

One of the reasons why TV is pretty healthy right now is that event programming has become really popular. You can timeshift The X Factor or Strictly but much of the fun (?) comes from the shared experience – and social media has hugely amplified this.

Whilst social tools like Twitter are now a big part of Saturday evening viewing for many, it’s becoming harder to use them usefully – during the Lady Gaga appearance on MTV recently there were over 9000 tweets a second!

Consequently, we are seeing new tools emerging that look to combine social and TV.  ABC have launched a programme specific iPad app that uses the audio signal to sync the app with the show – a little like how Shazam are using their technology to get involved in the TV ad business.

There is quite a lot of action around this space and the smart people from Area Code are launching a social TV service called Starling – still in stealth mode but Kevin Slavin is in London next month to attend a promising event called 2Screen.

We’re very interested in this space so we’ll be there…

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