Technology

I’m obsessed with device usability, and high on that list is the graphical user interface. Marketers focused on phones and mobile Internet devices emphasise their understanding of the impacts of the user interface and everything stacked up behind it, but what about the possibilities of mobile sensory marketing? Future mobile devices will be able to sense their surroundings: sight, sound and smell. We already have forward thinking companies like Mobile Acuity interpretting still images taken by mobile phones for consumer engagement objectives, but what would you do with smell!? ...

The second convergence conversation of 2008 will be on the potential impact of converging technologies on education. What’s being talked about? Jim Knight, the schools’ minister, recently announced that he wanted to allow parents to access ‘frequently-updated information on children’s achievement, progress, attendance, behaviour and special needs wherever, whenever parents want, using password-protected, secure, online systems’. Here then is the potential impact of convergence on the delivery of education. ...

Following my earlier post from the Mobile World Congress , another gadget update… Philips spun off Polymer Vision in 2006, and February last year the company announced that their first product would be the Readius. At this year’s show, the company demonstrated the final commercial product for the first time. Slated for a “mid-08” launch, it will be very interesting to observe how retail categorises the device, and its rate of uptake. Is it a phone? No. Is it an eBook; well yes I guess, but not in the same vein as Amazon’s Kindle or the Reader Digital Book from Sony . The Readius measures just 75mm x 21mm x 15mm closed, sufficiently compact to slip in a breast pocket or a handbag’s phone pocket with ease. Well, unless you store your phone there of course. But the screen (aka epaper) has to be seen to be believed. It is so un-screen like that I assumed at first I was looking at a mock-up! It’s pretty damn fascinating, and considerably more akin to the pleasure and ease of reading paper than looking at a LCD. ...

There were no female passengers on the plane. I kid you not. It could only mean I was headed for a gadget fest. The 2008 Mobile World Congress is buzzing. No signs of a recession here. It’s particularly buzzing about, yet without mentioning, a company that’s not even here. Apple. Whilst official company statements make no comparison between Sony Ericsson’s 10 new phones and the iPhone, Samsung’s 8 new phones and the iPhone, or Nokia’s 4 new phones and the iPhone, the overarching message is clear. The market will not coalesce on one style of phone. Variety is the spice of life. So up yours Apple. The mobile phone, or “device” more generically, ranks amongst people’s most personal possessions. It’s up there with your wallet and keys on leaving your front door, and the variations of mobile device will continue to be as diverse as the variations in everything else we consider personal. Clothes. Cars. Furniture. Mobile devices will never share the same hardware platform, or the same software platform, but they do universally represent the greatest and most enticing conduit to the end-customer the marketer has ever known. For both B2B and B2C, for advertising, interactive dialogue and customer engagement. ...

So Ofcom has given the BBC the go ahead to start a high definition channel later this year. Whilst I recognise that anything the BBC does these days has to be scrutinised for “public value” by the BBC trust, but this decision also had to be reviewed by Ofcom with the purpose of assessing the marketing impact. Ofcom has concluded that the launch of the free-to-air channel is “unlikely to have significant negative market impacts”. ...

Niels Bohr said “It is very difficult to make an accurate prediction, especially about the future.” As we ruminate on our 2007 predictions we also consider another of his insights… “Your theory is crazy, but it’s not crazy enough to be true.” Only time will tell! Every year we take stock of the trends of the past twelve months, and take time out to map ahead. We’ve distilled some of our favourites here for your consideration today and possible derision twelve months from now… ...