Mobile Fix: All they wanted for Christmas was a mobile company

Simon Andrews, founder of the full service mobile agency addictive!, on mobile agencies, mobile payments and Apple’s Premiership rights bid…

The news that Walmart has bought a mobile agency this week has been widely reported, as has the news that the Financial Times has bought the firm that developed their highly successful HTML5 web app. But we also see that the Mirror Newspaper has bought a mobile focused agency and Deloitte have bought a Seattle app development firm called Ubermind too.

People who really get mobile (and can develop smart thinking and doing) continue to be the exception rather than the rule; but smart companies are recognising the competitive advantages that can be gained through the strategic use of mobile.

The FT and Mirror news confirms the trend we are seeing for marketing services offered by people other than traditional agencies. US publisher Meredith bought mobile agency HyperFactory a while back and Adobe bought search firm Efficient Frontier late last year.

Mobile payments solving the wrong problem?

Being in start-up bootstrapping mode we don’t get taxis that often, but the other day we found ourselves in one of the Vodafone enabled black cabs where you can pay with your mobile. But when we asked the driver if anyone had paid with their mobile he said no.

Paying for taxis isn’t a problem. But often finding a cab is. Why doesn’t Vodafone solve the real problem by launching a version of Uber or Hailo? Knowing that your operator can help you get a cab would be a great service and could perhaps drive loyalty better than the chance to win tickets to events. This type of service provides a context for mobile payments by solving a real problem.

And the news that Brits can now pay for coffee with the Starbucks app prompts a similar thought. The problem with getting a coffee at Starbucks isn’t paying for it – it’s ordering the coffee and waiting for it. New York Starbucks employ people to work the queue, asking what you want and shouting the order to the barista. Of course it doesn’t quite work and it’s really annoying.

So why doesn’t mobile solve the real problem – recognize you’ve entered the store, asking whether you want your usual and transmitting that to the counter. Quick, efficient and pretty easy to do.

Solving the real problem creates the context for the mobile payment. And is much more likely to drive usage.

Apple to bid against Sky for Premiership rights?

As the speculation about Apple making a big play in TV builds, there are rumours that they will bid for the TV rights for the Premiership. As Sky have proven, making big investments in very attractive content can pay off and the additional opportunities to use the content on mobile and digital makes the investment even more attractive to people like Apple. Especially as Sky are already seeing some success with sport on mobile. We have also seen YouTube provide live coverage of the IPL cricket with considerable success.

Could they also drive some new business models? There is a lot of thinking around the idea that (some) clubs would make more money by selling to fans direct. Could Apple use their learnings from iTunes etc to facilitate this?

The availability of must see content on digital drives the decline in cable, according to the Deloitte report in the US – with 11% saying they are considering cancelling a paid for TV service because most or all of their favourite shows are available online – and 9% already have. Smartphones and tablets are a small but growing part of this.

New York VC Fred Wilson has started to use the hashtag #screwcable to reflect his frustration with old media thinking being made redundant through digital.

And Sky say that they think 2012 is the year of the tablet so we can expect more developments in this area.

Apple to relaunch iAds?

With a new guy running the iAds team and a mysterious event announced for later this month we may be seeing a rethink on iAds from Apple. Could they open up the format to other people to sell? Or even extend the service to non iOS devices? Would the data they’d get on Android etc (plus the revenue) make that worthwhile for Apple?

Finally

We spent Christmas in Sri Lanka and got some first hand experience on how mobile is impacting emerging markets. The guy who ran the surf shop is also a fisherman and told us that when someone spots a large shoal of fish they now ring their friends and tell them to launch their boats. The President sent a New Year message to all the population by SMS. And smartphones are being pushed hard too – at the coolest new restaurant in Colombo the waiter takes the order on an iPhone.

We also saw that FourSquare has amazing coverage – everywhere we went was on their database, with mayors and tips; they are a truly global business now. And we used Path a lot to document the holiday and share with friends – and without the use of the FourSquare API the service just wouldn’t work.

Back in London, we have some spare desks at the moment in our very cool offices on Clerkenwell Green. If you’re interested get in touch.

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