Mobile Marketing

As bookstores and the printing industry continue to compete with e-books and e-readers, one publishing company  has come up with an alternative strategy by using new media to their advantage. Atria will publish the first print book to be outfitted with a smart chip, one that is read by smartphones and will offer additional information [...]

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.

AppNationSF brought together some great minds in the mobile space to assess the current app ecosystem and relay best practices to the audience to help them succeed. The overall take away was that product quality is of the utmost importance and that brands and indie developers alike should test what works for them.

Groupon New Zealand is revving their engines for a launch in the near future, although a specific date has not been set. The kiwi site is up and accepting sign-ups with a $10 voucher as an incentive for every friend you sign up. You can earn as much as $120 in vouchers. Groupon plans to grow by making initial deals available in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington.

LivingSocial is a relatively new social shopping company for local neighborhoods. Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO and co-founder LivingSocial says “With this investment we’ll bring LivingSocial to tens of millions of new members around the world and introduce innovative ways to connect our members to merchants.”

Launching a new ecommerce site can be tricky. Rebranding a well-known entity can be even tricker. Combine the two and things are bound to happen in unexpected ways. I received a press release telling me that long time mobile app marketplace PocketGear changed its name to Appia. It also changed its focus from sellings apps directly to consumers to a “white-label” app store platform for carriers and manufacturers. Pointing your browser at Appia.com results in arriving at the page seen to the left.

However, despite the change of name and focus, pointing your web browser at PocketGear.com reveals the consumer focused app marketplace is still in business too and does not redirect to Appia.com.

The press release goes on to say: Today the company also launched an updated developer portal (dev.appia.com) where developers can go to upload their apps for discovery, download and distribution globally. Unfortunately, pointing your browser to that URL results in an under construction page that redirects to the Handango Developer portal.

PocketGear purchase Handango in February 2010. Still, it could be a big confusing to the casual visitor to the site.

Like I said, launch a new website and rebranding can be tricky.

I was fortunate to be able to listen to and speak with Adam Brotman, Starbucks VP for Digital Ventures, at ThinkMobile West in San Francisco last month. He spoke about the SDN (Starbucks Digital Network) which was then in the process of getting ready for launch.

Get Ready for Starbucks Digital Network This Fall – Optimized for Tablets

Adam spoke about using Starbucks free WiFi service to provide premium content and a premium experience for Starbucks customers (and their children too). If you stop by a Starbucks in the U.S. today (October 20), you are in for a treat, the SDN launched today. Mashable got a preview of the launch from Adam yesterday.

First Look: Starbucks Digital Network Is Here

If you are in the U.S., you can see the SDN in action for yourself by dropping by any Starbucks with a WiFi network. You’ll find premium content like the Wall Street Journal and Zagat. SDN will also offer free selected iTunes downloads and documentary films (probably shorts). They also recognize that parents with childnre pass through their stores and have partnered with Nickelodeon to provide unrestricted free access to their programming while in a Starbucks stores.

FYI: mediabistro.com’s interview with Adam Brotman is found here:

So What Do You Do, Adam Brotman, VP of Starbucks Digital Ventures?

I didn’t quite understand MobileCommerceDaily’s headline at first.

Pizza Hut exec: Mobile to account for 50 percent of future orders

If you had asked me, I would have guessed that 50 percent of Pizza Hut’s take out orders already came in via cell phone calls. The point of the article is, of course, all about mobile apps, not mobile voice calls. Pizza Hut can do a lot more marketing and upselling via a mobile phone app as compared to a voice call to a local store or call center.

Pizza Hut launched their iPhone app in 2009 and is currently developing apps for Android smartphones and the iPad. The large iPad screen and large-ish 4-inch displays on some Android smartphones will provide a good way for Pizza Hut to promote their products.

Pizza Hut 1.25 (iTunes App Store)

Via ReadWriteWeb: Pizza Hut Says Half of Orders Will Come From Mobile [Update]

Starbucks switched their in-store WiFi Hotspot service to a totally free mode on July 1. They are teaming up with Yahoo! to provide free premium content sometime this fall. Starbucks CIO Stephen Gillett provides details on his blog:

Starbucks Digital Network (SDN) Details

The screenshot above shows what the SDN portal page looks like. WSJ.com, ZAGAT, Yahoo!, The New York Times, Rodale, PATCH.com, Donorschoose.org, Apple ITunes, AT&T, USA Today, and Nick Jr. Boost have been identified as content partners.

Via Businesswire: ADDING MULTIMEDIA Starbucks Defines Vision for Enhancing Customer Experience Through In-Store Digital Network

A portal with free premium content seems like a good deal on top of the already free WiFi hotspot service in Starbucks stores. I’m looking forward to taking a look at it when it launches.

You can find a podcast discussion I recorded in September 2009 with Starbucks CIO Stephen Gillett. We discussed Starbucks’ then new iPhone apps.

One of my favorite features in the 5th generation iPod nano introduced last fall is its ability to act as a pedometer (step counter). And one of the reasons I still use that feature even though I have a Fitbit activity gadget that provides more information is that Nike provided a free site that kept track of my cumulative steps (now nearing 1.2 million steps). I could also see a historical view of my steps for each day. Nike’s site was simple to understand and provided illustrated achievements to mark various step count milestones.

Nike changed all this earlier this summer by introducing a new horrible looking low contrast web site and an information free fictional metric called “Nikefuel” that does not even have some simply arithmetic relationship to a simple step count. For example, 5254 steps is equivalent to 421 Nikefuel units. Diving 5254 by 421 results in 12.4798.

Nike currently lets you switch back to the old site to get the old metrics. However, this will end on September 1.

I should also note that the login prompt on the right side of Nike’s initial screen doesn’t work. You need to click the login button in the left sidebar to login.

I’m going to retire my iPod nano’s step counting feature on September 1. Hey Nike! Thanks for ruining what was a simple and entertaining experience.

On July 9 the animated movie Despicable Me will be released to theatres in the United States, and Best Buy is launching a mobile app called the BestBuy Movie Mode app that coincides with the movie. The app, which is currently available for the iPhone and will soon be available for Android, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile phones, will provide on screen translation during the 3D end credits for characters in the movie called the Minions.

To my knowledge, this is the first mobile app that has a movie tie-in. What is not clear is whether this app will work with other movies or just Despicable Me. For a better understanding of how the app works, watch the following video.