Why Twitter's lifespan is limited

Social media researcher Danah Boyd notes the iPhone may be the tipping point for social media in mobile, creating cluster effects in which groups of people can step beyond 1to1 interaction to all do the same thing. In simple terms, mobile devices today are hamstrung by being one-on-one devices -- I can call or text you, and you me, but there are very few ways (other than Twitter) for groups of like-minded people to harmonize together.

The iPhone will change that because it is the first mobile device to build critical mass as the same software platform with the same wireless carrier.

So where does this lead? Expect to see a series of social media "hubs" emerging on your cell phone:

1. Faux web. Initially, we'll get rough translations from current tools on the internet. Think Twitter on the your cell, followed by Facebook.
2. Mini hubs. But mobile hubs will then open the doors to entire new social media platforms. Think of cab drivers creating their own SM hub to share news and traffic in major cities.
3. Wireless locks. Wireless carriers will sniff an opportunity to, yes, try to lock you in. The wireless industry has battled customer churn for years, and just as today's "rollover minutes" and termination charges are all positive or negative attempts to stop you from switching from Sprint to T-Mobile, wireless social media hubs will be irresistible tools for carriers. Expect to see AT&T and Verizon launching social media mobile portals, and trying to fill these walled gardens.
4. More ads. Advertisers, having difficulty with poor mobile response rates, will try to leverage emerging mobile hubs as a new ad format.
5. Unexpected success. Eventually, some kid in a garage will break through with the new killer app. Mobile devices have vastly new potential, especially location-detection services today and two-way video transmission tomorrow. GPS and video create a much more personal way to communicate; today's stars, Twitter and Facebook, use neither and so will not win on mobile.

We can't wait to see where this goes. As Danah Boyd notes, we're all growing a bit bored, so please, carriers and developers, don't screw this up.

Photo: Thomas Hawk

Why mobile advertising may not work

A new cell phone with a mirror: it's a perfect analogy for why mobile advertising is being ignored.

You've probably heard that mobile ads will be the next big thing, with some analysts predicting the market will grow from $900 million in 2006 to $19 billion by 2011. Yet observers like Thomas Curwen, director of planning at Publicis, note that marketers are still just testing with small budgets despite the fact that 58% of Americans have used cell phones for non-voice activities such as texting or watching videos.

What gives? Why has half the United States already used cell phones for internet-type services, yet internet-type advertising remains stagnant on cell phones?

Curwen suggests it's because brands have not yet created good content for mobile, but we think it's the mirror. People using mobile have different modality -- they are creating and receiving content that reflects themselves, not hunting for the world's information on computer screens. Just as social media sites such as Facebook have some of the worst performance in internet advertising, social tools that fit in your pocket underperform because you use them differently. When you make or receive a Tweet or text message or phone call, you do it entirely for you.

With mobile, we're not looking at content and ads. We're looking in the mirror.

Tiny devices are by nature selfish instruments, and that is a wall for advertisers who exist solely to take your mindset offtrack to their own message. Sure, some GPS-served ads that point to coffee shops may work. The fluid iPhone, emerging video transmission and flexible interfaces may unlock ad doors. But the combination of small screen sizes (which hold less ad inventory) and a different mindset among mobile users (who are moving fast and creating snippets of content) mean mobile advertising has a stiff uphill battle ahead.

We're not saying mobile ads won't grow. We're just saying, if half a nation's population has used a communications medium and advertisers haven't yet made it work, something is amiss.

Samsung Instinct takes on iPhone. Video at 11.

Samsung began selling an iPhone competitor today in the U.S. complete with touchscreen, searchable voicemail, music, GPS ... and with better-than-Apple features in maps, video capture, and the ability to watch live TV.

The real story here isn't that Samsung's Instinct is $70 cheaper for a few more functions. It's video -- the ability to capture moving images that is beginning to creep into every portable handset. As the world of web and telephony converge into small glass screens, video capture is the revolution, because it is an entirely new way for people to create and share content.

What happens when everyone can broadcast images from everywhere? And what happens to advertisers who count on intercepting and interrupting current video content, when they can no longer get in the way?

Why is Google advertising outdoors?

Google is now running transit ads in San Francisco and Chicago to promote its Maps program, which is steadily gaining market share at the expense of MapQuest. "Because they've been extending their portfolio of solutions, there's now a mass of things they offer that perhaps many people haven't gotten to know about," Nigel Hollis, top analyst at Millward Brown, told AdAge.

The outdoor media push may indicate Google thinks Maps will be a killer mobile app -- the first main tool consumers will use when they finally get handy with GPS on their cell phones. The internet is becoming untethered, and you can dial in from your hip. But if you're standing outside, you'll need good old billboards to trigger the message.

Via Shelton.

Will the web in your pocket replace your PC?

Our column for BusinessWeek on how advertisers may be squeezed by new mobile devices stumped some readers. Many commented that people just won't put up with ads on cell phones; others said mobile ads will have higher response rates; still others suggested that cell phone use will be additive to web use, so really there will be no reduction in overall ad inventory.

Shelly T said the entire column was surprisingly thin, uninteresting, and poorly thought out. Yikes!

But when we see new mobile concepts like this BenQ Siemens Black Box, where the very interface layout changes depending on the function you are using, we can't help but believe mobile devices will replace some old-school PCs.

One way to think of mobile replacing PCs is it is not an either-or proposition. Even if time spent on Google and content web sites diminishes 10% or 20% due to people spending hours on iPhones, that will create huge cascades across web business models.

All content media is supported by advertising; and advertisers invest their dollars like you invest in a portfolio of stock funds. For example, look at the current death spiral in newsprint. As readers abort print for online news, response rates from newsprint ads decline. A marketer with $1 million to spend looks at the $350,000 allocated to newsprint and thinks: Hmm. I better trim that to $250,000 next year, and invest the $100,000 remaining in my internet ads, which are pulling better responses.

Slight shifts in media performance create a migration pattern among marketers, and suddenly the cash flow of one medium is threatened. Have you ever wondered why it takes three page views to navigate on a weather site to find a five-day forecast? Because each page has 15 slots for ads, so three views equals 45 ad placements. When people use iPhones to get weather in one click, all that ad inventory -- and cash for the web site, and results for marketers -- will go away.

Mobile is coming. Get ready. That BenQ phone is looking mighty fine.

Google, mobile, and the erosion of 95% of ad inventory

So. What happens to Google if consumers really move to cell phones for internet searches, and 10 out of 11 prime ad slots disappear? What would happen to your business if you had to kiss 10 out of 11 customers good-bye?

It's pretty obvious, folks. Cell phone screens are small. About 95% tinier than the big window on your desk you now use to access the web. Now think, how does Google make money? By selling pay-per-click "sponsored link" ads on its search results home page. The typical Google page has 11 slots for advertisers. The typical mobile phone Google page has one slot. (Yes, there are "next page" positions, but most consumers never click there.)

This is no pie-in-the-sky threat. Vic Gundotra, chief of Google’s mobile operations, said yesterday that web searches from mobile phones should outnumber web searches from traditional computer screens in just a few years. Google made $16.5 billion in revenue in 2007 largely from pay-per-click internet searches, and it still has no viable mobile model in sight. Gundotra also noted that Google has seen 50 times more searches from iPhones than any other mobile handset -- meaning touchscreen devices are the tipping point for consumers learning to really adopt the internet via cell phones.

Investors are currently stoked that Google is pushing Android, above, a consortium to develop a touchscreen mobile interface. We think Google is leaping into mobile OS in pure defense, desperately trying to figure out how to get more ad slots onto tiny glassy cell screens. Search will still work brilliantly from your handset. But you'll find fewer paid results from advertisers when your screen is 95% smaller, and that cuts to the core of Google's business. Expect to see a new mobile interface soon in which users can flick through a series of horizontal "pages" ... and expect to see more visual real estate on mobile get eaten up by ad inventory. Google's life depends on it.

6 reasons why the Skyfire mobile browser could unlock cell phone advertising

At last, something that looks almost as good as the iPhone interface but works on your old-fashioned smartphone. Skyfire is a new browser for mobile that will give you the real web, with web pages that actually look like web pages, on your current cruddy cell phone interface. If this takes off, it could be a tipping point for mobile web usage.

Connect the dots to see why mobile will be big for advertisers:

1. New positioning systems can now track you even indoors.
2. New RFID radiofrequency identification chips are as small as powder, meaning everything -- from products to dollar bills -- will soon be embedded with tracking dust that provides ID and location.
3. Microsoft has a patent app to combine feeds on where you are and what you're watching for improved ad targeting.
4. Once we get a ubiquitous mobile advertising interface, advertisers can serve just-in-time ads based on what you watched, what you bought, what you're doing, and where you are going.
5. Forrester predicts mobile ad revenues will top $1 billion by 2012.
6. Google's Eric Schmidt concludes, dude, it's gonna be a huge revolution.

But hey, we could be wrong, sometimes tipping points don't work. Try the Skyfire beta yourself here.

Cloudy outlook for U.S. mobile (or why your iPhone makes a nice paperweight)

Hate to rain on the tech parade, but it seems U.S. mobile marketing is not yet ready for prime time. The trouble is pinch points in adoption -- this month the AMA's Marketing News will condemn slow bandwidth, shoddy devices, and multiple platforms as a drain on the potentially fruitful medium.

Only 15% of U.S. citizens have accessed the web via cell phone. Here's why:

1. Multiple platforms make creating ACCESS to the mobile internet difficult
- More than 700 mobile phone models are available in the U.S., meaning developers are hamstrung writing for scores of formats.
- Google's Android consortium, meant to speed development of a common mobile ad platform, won't be ready until at least summer 2008.

2. Shoddy devices make getting ON the mobile internet difficult
- Yeah, your phone has a camera. So pick it up now and try to get on the web. We think the command is in the nested menu under "download ringtones."
- OK, the iPhone is beautiful. But in 2G. Punch in CNN.com from 10 miles outside any city, and call us after the page loads.

3. Slow bandwidth means even if you CAN get on, you may die trying
- Most U.S. cell phones still use 2G -- second generation networks that operate at about 10 kilobits per second -- instead of 3G, which transmit data at 5-10 Mb per second. Remember waiting for web pages to load at home on your PC dial-up modem in 1997? That's where U.S. cell phones are today.
- 80% of Europe, by comparison, was on 3G networks by the end of 2005.
- This is why the French drink champagne and we Yanks drink beer.

Jupiter says many marketers are allocating 0.5% to 3% of their ad budgets to dip their toes in the mobile water. But Bain & Co. predicts it will take 3 to 5 years for U.S. mobile internet usage to rise to 40% of cellular subscribers. We love the idea of mobile advertising, but it won't work until the audience begins to tip.

PS the AMA article isn't online yet but you might find it in a few days here.

ESPN mobile makes a forward pass

Adweek tells us traffic at ESPN's mobile web site briefly surpassed its regular web site as football fans dialed in from cell phones -- a groundbreaking achievement for mobile media. Sports seems to be leading the mobile internet industry. In Europe, soccer turned out to be the killer app: back in August 2006, when one European soccer league began mobile broadcasts, the number of total users tracking sports from cell phones leapt from 3.6 million to 4.1 million. In the U.S., 9 million of the 32 million people with mobile internet now visit ESPN.

This growth creates opportunities for multiple ad impressions from different angles. Ed Erhardt, chief of ESPN ABC Sports customer marketing and sales, says many sports fans multitask, tracking games from TV, laptops and cell phones simultaneously. The hottest trend in U.S. mobile media is fantasy football, up 48% year over year. Maybe your brand should set up a team.

The big trouble with Google's little mobile ads

See that little iPhone "sponsored link" ad at top? That's all you get with Google's new iPhone app. Google redesigned its iPhone web interface yesterday. Instead of the "real web" -- the actual HTML screen you'd find on your personal computer -- Google has mobile-fied a new version just for iPhones, with larger type, a cleaner search window, no need to zoom in, and five friendly tabs for home, Gmail, calendar, Reader, and "more."

Trouble is, this clean new design shrinks the space allocated for competing advertisers. On regular Google web pages, there are three slots at top and several more down the right side for advertisers to jockey for position with PPC text ads. Hunt for "kitchen cabinets" or "bariatrics surgery" and 9 or 10 providers vie for your attention. With this new iPhone app, we see ... one little slot.

There's lots of talk about the Google redesign, including some hinting that Google is dumbing down the iPhone interface to make way for its Android consortium in the near future. We think the real story is Google is strangling the very channel that made it successful by limiting advertising slots. This design move may have been unavoidable as consumers move to smaller internet screens ... but if inventory gets too tight, advertisers may search elsewhere.

Nokia's 'Comes with Music' phone threatens advertisers

Nokia has launched a cool phone that comes preloaded with a year of free access to more than a million songs. What's missing from all the buzz is this points to the new threat to advertisers: Channel disintermediation.

In simple terms, advertisers and consumers have long had an unwritten bargain: We'll subsidize what you see (say, on TV), and in exchange, you will put up with our ads. It works for both sides, because consumers like free radio and subsidized cable or print, and advertisers can live with the small fraction of consumers who respond to each ad.

But what happens when the channels disappear?

With this new phone, a teenager doesn't have to shop for tunes anymore; she already has access. Now, imagine the world 10 years from now if flash drives progress to the point you can buy a stereo preloaded with every song ever recorded. Sony might charge your credit card a fee so you could access the songs -- but now you no longer need to go to the web site or CD store to shop. It's already in your home or pocket.

The brilliant improvements in technology are creating storage devices that ironically may pull people away from the internet. If advertisers can't find a way to intercept people by injecting themselves between demand and content, some of our ballyhooed new world of internet and mobile marketing may just go away.

CueCat is dead, but marketing stupidity lives on

All this talk about mobile marketing trying to beep people as they drive by the mall so they'll stop reminds us of something. The :CueCat!

:CueCat was a bizarre little barcode scanner that magazines began promoting in 2000 to connect print advertising to web sites. The idea was you'd be sitting at home, reading Forbes or Time, see a killer ad, and the ad would have a special bar code on it. Excited, you'd walk over to your computer, swipe the barcode with your :CueCat reader, and -- yes! -- your computer would immediately flip over to the appropriate web site. It was so convenient ... provided you walked to your computer, had the PC on, had the :CueCat tethered correctly, etc. etc. etc.

:CueCat died an ugly death because of complexity and privacy concerns. Luckily today's marketers are much smarter, building simple response pathways such as DRTV ads that required YouTube videos training you how to record the ads and slow them down, billboards that broadcast radio AM signals, and mobile marketing ads that beep you as you drive by malls encouraging you to stop and ... oh, never mind.

He's not asleep, just waiting for the phone to load

There's a lot of talk about mobile ads, but here's a report that gives us pause. PC World has rated top mobile internet sites based on how many seconds they take to load, and on whether they load at all before crashing.

Google and Facebook: 7 seconds
ESPN: 15 seconds.

Think about that. A leading electronics magazine is reporting on mobile internet use not based on formats, or innovation, or response rates, but just whether the pages will load in less than a minute. The U.S. is still in the Dark Ages of mobile technology.

Fortune tells us a Broadcom Chip has cleared the way for a 3G iPhone. We can't wait.

See Dick run. See Dick watch video.

InformationWeek tells us sales of multimedia cell phones will reach 300 million units in 2008, exceeding traditional television sets. By 2011 90% of cell phones will play MP3s and video. This means movies soon will be in your pocket or on your wrist more than on big screens, and advertisers will continue to migrate more dollars to mobile video, search, and web formats. Media buyers should start testing mobile formats now to get ahead of the curve. Even if Ben Hur looks like Toy Story on your wrist.

Make the logo Apple

Witness a beautiful new cell phone design -- smaller than the iPhone, with a modern touchscreen interface that does more than respond to taps, recognizing proximity to your face so you can answer calls just by holding the phone up to your cheek. It's fantastic. Revolutionary. And it came out in ... August 2006.

Trouble was, the phone was called the Synaptics ClearPad, not the Apple iPhone, and so it didn't benefit from the Steve Jobs reality distortion field. Hey, that's all cool, because we credit Apple with making touchscreens wildly popular, and in a year or so every new mobile device will surely have one thanks to the marketing-PR juggernaut of the iPhone launch in 07. But it does prove that there is no first-mover advantage in the new century ... second movers get all the credit, especially if they use an Apple logo.

Google Maps now pumping gas

Google Maps is coming to 3,500 gas stations in the U.S. Now consumers, while filling up, can check a flat-screen for how to get to Grandma's. Google won't serve ads, but retailers can profit from coupons tied in to the directions.

As prices for flat screens come down, the internet will not only move off desktops to mobile, but consumers may begin giving up control of the gadgets that allow them to access the Web. Today, we all want to own the flat-screen TV, PC, or mobile device in our pocket. But soon, flat-screen access to information will be at locations all around us. Will be interesting to watch what happens to hardware sales as devices become commodities, and our access points into the Web proliferate.

What Would Google Do?

For the total scoop on the Google Jesus phone, check out the Q&A with Android co-founder Rich Miner. One promising development: Miner confirms Google will use the same Webkit browser technology Apple put in the iPhone, meaning tiny flat screens that surf the real Internet will soon be in every coffee shop.

Our shocked surprise at the Google phone

So a Google phone prototype arrived in the mail today, sent to us by Rich Miner, former colleague at Android in Boston, and it's a beaut -- designed by Taiwanese HTC, with a user interface you wouldn't believe.

Just kidding. Sure, Android and HTC are in on this game, but we think Fake Steve had the best take when he called it releaseware. Google has cobbled together a consortium to use an open standard OS for cell phones that will run multimedia files such as video, and have a user interface with a prominent "search" box. Google's software also apparently improves the web browser, so you can scroll around real web pages like the iPhone. And there will be some form of QWERTY input that allows users to type text rapidly. Wow. Google-powered cell phones will access the web allowing people to search by typing and also watch little videos. Does this surprise anyone?

Google does internet advertising. The internet is moving to mobile devices. Advertisers spent $421 million on mobile ads in 2006 and the market is expected to grow to $5 billion per year by 2011. Google wants to make money. Next.

If you see a knockoff, you're missing the point

Sure, it looks like an iPhone, but designers who complain about the mimicry are missing the news. Verizon's sexy Voyager, due Thanksgiving, matches Apple by giving U.S. consumers the real internet via cell phone -- not the resized, reordered images of WAP pages, but a full HTML browser. Since we predict this phone will be cheaper than Apple's, and avoid the glacial EDGE network, consumer adoption should spike.

Evidence? Most cell phones in the U.S. have some access to the internet, including the one probably in your pocket. But 75% of us don't use the mobile web -- the WAP interface is too archaic, logging on too difficult, screens too small, and networks below 3G too dang slow. Unless you love ESPN or trade stocks, you probably have never booted the browser.

Now, as handset makers emulate Apple and give us real HTML, the internet will become truly unplugged. Early reviews say the Voyage interface is not as clean as Apple's. No matter. Competitors will pile on. About 50% of children in the U.S. now have cell phones, and you know they'll want the Web for Christmas. Apple will respond with a 3G iPhone that actually takes good pictures. Advertisers, stayed tuned -- Google will soon be in our pockets.

Tori and Lyle and Thelonious. Click click.

Starting Tuesday, Starbucks will allow coffee drinkers in 600 U.S. cafes to download the song "Now Playing" with a click on their Apple iPhone. Will this change the world? Will marketers now embrace "impulse media," and every company soon target cell phone and MP3 users with one-click impulse offers? Will U.S. tax forms next year have only one box at irs.gov, click here, to pay what you truly deserve?

Dunno. Don't talk to us. It's a new week and we're too busy downloading iTunes drinking lattes.

BTW, this proves Apple's use of flexible software in the iPhone is really a new platform for marketing. The first iPhone software update went out last week. Suddenly, you have a new way to buy (be sold) songs at point-of-sale retail. Wonder what marketing gifts/gimmicks lie in store for iPhone users in next round of software upgrades?