Time 19:51

This is a two part series on the Marketing Edge highlighting mobile computing from the developers’ perspective and from the marketers’ perspective. I suggest that mobile is not a platform upon which to put information, but a condition that exists between data, a person’s location, and the action that person will take as a result of obtaining that information at that specific point in space. I could get into Einstein’s who spacetime thing, but you’d know I’d be blowing smoke so let’s not go there.

An example is if you received traffic information of delays relative to your location you are likely to take action. This is a different way to consider your information as a marketer, mobile becomes a dynamic concept of information in a specific context instead of a distribution channel. I also believe it further forces marketers to rank their information based on its value to the recipient rather than the quantitative measurement of eye-ball counting to determine effectiveness.

With that foundation, let’s first talk in part one of this Marketing Edge podcast about development with Minneapolis-based mobile developer Justin Grammens and founder of Recursive Awesome. He is one of the organizers of Mobile March, a day long conference on March 27 held in Minneapolis, at the Hilton Garden Inn Hotel.

Why should anyone care about development on mobile platforms? In part because more than half of web connections will be done over a mobile device by 2013, Gartner analysts assert the combined installed base of smartphones and browser-equipped enhanced phones will exceed 1.82 billion units and will be greater than the installed base for PCs thereafter.

This means mobile is a trend not a fad. So why talk on the Marketing Edge about development? Because understanding the dynamic competition among development platforms will guide marketing decisions. There is a battle raging for the platform upon which to develop applications and 2009 saw Apple overtake Windows Mobile operating system and Android burst on the scene with the power of Goggle behind it making 2010 an awesome year to be buying a smartphone. This year choice abounds and applications and network reliability will be a factor.

Lastly, mobile is a growth area for careers. Mobile development is the 2010 answer to web development in the nineties. It’s more complicated however, with more complex programming languages to understand and some developers might even say more complex rules for getting your application approved and sold.

Win a Mobile March Pass

Provident Partners will give one listener/reader a complimentary registration pass worth $20 to Mobile March, enter the drawing by sending an email to MarketingEdge AT ProvidentPartners dot Net with the words Mobile March in the subject line. Do it before March 24.

Do you view mobile as a different distribution channel or a completely different relationship between information and user?

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