What Are Cell Phones Made For?

The answer seems obvious: to call! But this fact seems not that obvious for most cell phone companies. Indeed, technology is getting more and more portable, and therefore there is a large effort by handsets producers to promote other uses for cell phones. Also, phone companies are marketing a lot their 3Gs plans, and other services using these new technologies as new ways to generate growth.

Indeed, According to a new report by The NPD Group, 45 percent of U.S. mobile phone users prefer to use their mobile phones to make calls, and not for other available multimedia features. Only 20 percent of mobile phone users prefer to use their phones as an all-in-one multimedia device for music, videos, Web surfing, and other activities beyond making phone calls.
Moreover, let's not forget that smartphones, which are the most advanced kind of cell phones in terms of other apps (email, Internet, PDA, and multimedia) only counts for 13% of the cell phone market.

Actually, I believe that this fact is one of the main reason why mobile marketing (or m-marketing) is struggling right now. Potential is huge, the technology is constantly improving, but it doesn't seem that customer's interest is there yet.

New operating systems like Apple's or Google Android are great because they provide an easy interface to benefit from these new technologies. But I believe there is still a great effort of education ahead of us, in order to help customers understand how to use these new technologies and get the best out of them.

Video Games Market Attracts More And More Adults

The video games market is expanding at a very fast pace. Actually, this is the hypest entertaining market nowadays. What is great about video games is that it is very hard to counterfake, which limits the possibilities of illegal copies.

Emarketer published some good charts about how adults now love video games.

We can see that video games customers are a very heterogeneous population, with all type of social classes and ages. Actually, I believe that we can give a lot of credits to Nintendo for having expand the video games interest to the older and newer generation.

Maybe this is a good sign that with the lower interest for television and the segmentation of the media consumption, video games might rise as the next mass media! Who knows? Thus it confirms the reason why a lot of advertisers are willing to get some advertising spots in the most prestigious video games.

Here is an example from one of the master of marketing, Barrack Obama, that proved during the campaign his excellence in using new media to get exposure.




In matters of fact, this chart shows well that while households are looking after their spending budgets, video games seem to be less likely to experience budget cuts than other categories. If people are not going out anymore due to the recession, video games might gain marketshares upon other entertainment possibilities.

How I Would Really Innovate If I Were EA Sports

Do you know EA Sports?It has for many years run the successful FIFA, NBA Live and Madden's franchises. This can be considered as the leading company in the sport simulation industry.

But there is always the same problems with NBA Live's games, that I am of course a fan of: there is not much new things from a version to another. Indeed, except new rookies that got into the league, couple of new fun games which you get bothers in couple of minutes, and of course a few better graphism, nothing new. That is I believe one of the problem of Electronic Arts? How could I be sure to get my customers to renew their game version, instead of them renewing it every 2 or 3 years?

No real innovations
There is something also I don't like about this game: Players' and teams' stats. Indeed, the game is edited prior to the season's start. Therefore, stats of players and how good they are is determined by the previous year's results. But most of the time, what was true during the previous season is not true the next one. Players are getting better, or have injury problems, and so on. It is supposed to be more realistic, but actually, by only releasing one new version per year, the game is getting up to date very quickly as the NBA is full of trades, new players coming from Europe or D League, and unexpected talent.

My idea
Therefore the idea would be to get some accurate stats and team rosters by providing a subscription service. This service will help people to get accurate team rosters:

• The video game would download the up to date rosters, including injured players, new signed and injured ones.
• It will adjust players' ability to their monthly performance. It will take into consideration their teams results, but also their scoring, rebounding stats and so on.
  
• It will create new players that were not in the league at the beginning of the year

This new feature would help players to keep an up to date stats. That would actually be a real innovation, will improve consumers' experiences, and also take the best out of a technology that is at this time already available.

What do you think about it? I believe anyway this will be implemented within the next few years, as it is getting more and more common to get new features through video games' hardwares that are now connected on the web.

Mobile Buzz Marketing Campaign By Citroen

Citroen is one of the leading French car manufacturers. In order to advertise its new car model, the C3 Picasso, Citroen set a mobile buzz marketing campaign, edited by Visualmobile, a French company speacilized in Iphone applications.

The French start up created an Iphone application where you could drive a Citroen C3 Picasso on your Iphone. The application gives you the image of the car, and it drives where ever you are pointing your Iphone at. All of that is added to the wheel that is moving while you are turning, the sound of the engine, and so on. Here are couple of pics:



This is a good example of mobile buzz marketing campaign, using the Iphone technology. This is actually probably the first mixed reality application ever on an Iphone. Hopefully we will see more and more of those type of marketing campaign in a near future.

I'd like to have the feedback of people that might have downloaded the app.

Thank you to PPC, on whose blog I have found the information. Here is the original article (in French).

Read & Go: Orange Working On The Next Generation Of Newspapers

FrenchTelecommunications operator Orange is investing on Read & Go, a new technology that aims to revolution the consumption of Newspapers. Indeed, the newspaper industry has been deeply hurt by the arrival of Internet and the profusion of free information on the web. Newspapers corporation are still struggling to adapt their business model, and some of them are still pursuing massive job cuts.

Information consumption on the Internet not the best solution
However, consuming information on the Internet has not all the advantages that the old fashion newspaper had. Indeed, reading on the computer is not as comfortable as reading on the paper would be. Also, because of the large amount of information proposed on the web, it is hard to get the big picture of what is going on. I am actually reading a book called "the paradox of choice: When more is less", where the theory is that in our modern society, the existence of a vast choice is overwhelming and counter productive.

I know RSS feeds exists and aggregators like Netvibes or Google Readers work great, but let's be honest, their use is still confidential and did not yet spread out on the mass market. Also, I believe their use has some limits, especially while not on the computer. I also feel we should not be forced to live in front of a computer, especially in order to consume information. Now that TV, videos, radios and news are on the Internet, we spend too much time in front of our machines, time that is not necessary.


Orange's Read & Go
The Read & Go device looks like a blank sheet. It is supported by the electronic paper technology which provides the same reading comfort than the regular paper, even in the sun and limit the battery consumption.
The device is equipped with Wifi and a 3G connection in order to get the information right when it is up. Actually, the device proposes a mix between the paper edition of the newspaper added to the RSS feed of the website, in order to get both the quality of analysis of the newspaper and the reactivity of the website.

My opinion
The device should be available by 2009, and I believe you'll need to subscribe to a specific plan (wether a 3G wireless connection or a plan with the magazine). I really like this idea because I am convinced that we haven't found yet a viable way to consume news on a daily basis, as the information on the web is way to much time consuming. Also, I really like the electronic paper technology that provides great comfort while reading for long periods (whether it is books or news).

Orange Read & Go
par edupin

The PSP Case Study: When The Technology Overwhelm You

You probably know about the PSP. The PSP is the "Playstation Portable" of Sony, a mobile video game hardware that was suppose to revolutionize the market. Actually, the first time I have seen the PSP in a commercial, I was very impressed. It was in the US, in 2005, and I was impressed by the technology improvement, compared for instance to the Game Boy advance, which owned the leading technology at this time. Moreover, not only you could play high quality video games, you could also use the PSP to listen to music, but (and I believe that was the main strength), you could watch movies on the go.

The technology overwhelmed the project: But in fact, the PSP is not really a success. First of all, it has been right away attacked by hackers, that would allow users to unlock their PSP to get free games on the web. Secondly, a part of the business model was based on the UMV movies you could buy. That was some kind of mini DVDs you could buy to watch thanks to the PSP. But actually the format was not that good, only supported by the PSP, and also it was very expensive to buy a UMV especially because you most of the time was watching it only once, and you didn't have such a quality that a DVD on a large screen could deliver.

The new mobile technology turned the PSP obsolete. Now don't get me wrong, the PSP is a great video game hardware. I own too of them. I play most of the time and I am happy with it. However, some new mobile technologies and apps appeared with the development of the cell phone market, and that deeply affected the interest in the Sony device. First of all, some new interfaces appeared. The Nintendo DS propose a little stick to play with, which improve the gameplay. Secondly, the Iphone has the tactile technology that is creating a great buzz, and a lot of developpers are now working on games for this cell phone.

Also, most of the new cell phones propose even more complete apps. Whereas the PSP offers you to play, watch movies, and also listen to music, most of the smart phones, Blackberry and Iphones proposes you on top of that phone option, already equiped GPS, and Internet navigation.

PSP is trying to catch up with the market, but the options are not build-in, meaning the interface is poor (especially to watch TV and surf on the web) and implies you hang around with adds on at all time.

Conclusion
I believe the PSP was indeed a revolution, but might have come too early on the market, and because of it, is now somehow obsolete.

The New Citroen Concept Car on Gran Turismo 5

French car manufacturer Citroen has been the main sensation of the Paris Motor Show. They presented their new concept car, the Citroen Gran Turismo, a futurist car that reminds a little bit some Lamborghini's models. You can check out this magnificent model herein.

Citroen had a great idea in order to create a buzz around this car and get it popular to the teenager population. Indeed, if you own GT5 Prologue, a famous racing video game, you could drive with this model, as it has been added up to the game.
Not all players will have the opportunity to test the car as to unlock it you need to have tons of credits (to earn while racing). But as the car is beautiful, I think it is worthwhile.

That is a great idea to communicate with the GT car lovers via a game they love to use.

Here are some images of the car in the game, racing vs a Ferrari F2007.

What cost the Vista fiasco?

Is Windows Vista a success? This is what Microsoft's managers try to show, despite all the critiques and the apparent weaknesses of the operating system. Businessweek explains how much the Vista fiasco has cost so far to Microsoft.

Here are some of the evidences listed in this article:

• Companies expect to install Vista on only about 10% of the PCs they already own, compared with estimates last year that they'd be able to do so on 27% of their machines.
• "Dampening" adoption of Vista by corporate customers will shave $395 million in revenues and 2¢ a share in earnings from the company's financial results for the 2009 fiscal year.
• companies expect just 26% of their PCs to be running Vista by the beginning of 2011, down from an estimate of nearly 68% of computers by respondents to a similar survey a year ago.
• Sales of desktop Windows fell 2%, to $4.03 billion, and contributed to flat revenues (BusinessWeek.com, 4/25/08) during Microsoft's third quarter, reported Apr. 24. Shares of Microsoft closed June 11 up 18¢, or 0.65%, to 27.89. The shares are down nearly 22% this year.

Windows persists to tell people Windows Vista is not a failure, but the launch of a new operating system version next year is a clear evidence Microsoft had to make changes. I understand that such a big company, with investors high interest on the stock exchange market, can't really admit a failure, especially that important (the operating system is the milk-cow of Microsoft).

I wish them to succeed with this new version though, and that they'll be able to make the proper changes.

New technologies to enhance loyal customer shopping experience

On Feb 2008 French Marketing Direct Magazine wrote an article titled: "Grocery retailing: Towards high tech loyalty".
First the article overviews the different techniques used by retailers to get their customers loyalty (coupons, cash back, gifts...). What is interesting in this part is that customers are primarily asking for money back as a reward. That makes sense as their first priority is to find the best deals.

But later in the article, the different experts solicited to establish this report are focusing on the future of loyalty programs.
I particularly appreciate the point of view of Christophe Lucas, manager at K Agency 360: "Loyalty programs cover both the beginning and the end of the relationship, but the customer relationship on site has not been considered enough". The client is contacted prior to come in the store, with promotions and coupons, and then after the visit to tell him to come back. But what about while shopping?

There is no distinction between a loyal and an average shopper. However, one of the best way to differentiate yourself on such a competitive market, where you have very few product differentiation either, is to provide to your client a top of the line customer experience. That is the reason why I think it will become crucial for retailers to focus on this issue, because it will probably turn into a key success factor shortly.

And this is where new technologies can help the retailers develop a specific customer experience for its loyal clientèle. Therefore technologies like the electronic cart, which allow the customers to receive specific offers during its shopping, can provide a real benefit to customers.
I think it is interesting indeed to think about how to enhance and differentiate the shopping experience of a loyal customer and an average one.

What do you think about it? How do you think it is possible to interact better with loyal customers?

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Microsoft Surface & Silverlight 1.0

A New record for High Tech Firm at the NYSE

It was on the news of the San Jose Mercury News of yesterday. VMware debuts in Wall Street exceeded the 2004 Google's launch, that represented the highest appreciation of a company. The marketshare of this new company from Palo Alto in the Silicon Valley have rocketed of 76% the same day of its launch! Google at its time realized a growth of +18+ its first day.

To be totally honest with you, I have never heard of this company before yesterday. I then decided to learn more about that. The firm, which is owned by EMC for 86%, is specialized in virtualization, which basicly means to turn hardware into software usable through the new technologies, such as Internet and mobile devices. One of the main use of these technologies are the desktop virtualization, that allows you to download your desktop onto any computer, and use your files, softwares and interfaces you are used to.

What will be the future of this new giant of the Silicon Valley? it will be interesting to follow this one up.

Large success for the Iphone

The Iphone has been a real success this week end. Indeed, 525000 of these phones have been sold since friday. Even though the product is expensive (between 500 and 700 dollars + a phone plan of $60 to $200 a month...), the expectation it created by developping an easyer ergonomy than the other phones has helped this machine success.