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?

Time 19:59

If you are business skeptical about social media here is a new way to look at it. What if someone wants to find a new widget (you make, sell or have something to do with widgets) and this person comes to your place. When they get there, they use their smartphone, one of more than 291 million sold in the third quarter of 2009 alone.

They will use an application for the Android and iPhone among others called Foursquare. This interesting application combines the use of the location of the phone, city maps, an increasing database of business, civic, and other locations, and taps the curiosity and competitiveness of human nature.

Here are some screen shots from Foursquare and how I use it. You can see when I check into a place, Starbucks for example, it give the number of times I have told others I am there, points for checking in, and when I do that more than others over a week’s time I can become Mayor of that location. A competitive or at least context reference point compared to your friends on Foursquare and others using Foursquare in that city. Foursquare has a variety of rewards like becoming a Mayor when you have checked in to a specific place more than others in that city, or earn badges for specific types of actions. In this podcast with Tristan Walker, vp of business development for Foursquare, we discuss ways retail and non profits are driving traffic to their venue.

Using the same incentive and reward concepts as scouting badges (or promotions, perks, and discounts, for big scouts) you can drive behavior. Hmmm that health insurance provider cutting those premiums for people who have the Gym Rat badge. The concepts are proven, the integration with other elements of technology and lifestyle are not.

The ability to share a piece of information when you are close enough to do something about it, that’s the logic behind Foursquare’s Nearby Special. I check in at a restaurant across from the Target Center in Minneapolis, and I see a message from the Timberwolves with a link to the game day media report and offers for that night’s game.

Today’s I’m attending the Social Media Breakfast Des Moines where will be talking about mobile applications and how the expansion of 3G networks and beyond, is creating innovation like Foursquare. Follow #smbdm on Twitter.

It’s early, so now is the time to push innovation with this application as a business. Foursquare is looking for what people, businesses, and organizations find of value in geotagging, crowd sourcing, consumer behavior, and demand creation. Foursquare will capture a marketer’s attention in the same way Twitter captured the attention of individuals. It’s a communications platform with plenty of potential uses, many of which are yet to be tried.

Robert Scoble reported this week on Foursquare releasing their API for developers to use with other applications. Ah, here is the catalyst of innovation, once you’ve created something people find interesting, give them the wherewithal to shape it to their needs. Innovation is like cookie dough, not cookies.

Scoble suggest in this post about how developers might use a Foursquare stream of individuals as a map of a lifestyle. Scoble refers to tracing the steps of noted wine expert Gary Vaynerchuk. I think if you are in New York City you might blurt out to your friend, ” Hey I’m going to have a Jimmy Fallon weekend,” and do the same things that he does an a weekend. Yes, this is a much better, honest form of celebrity endorsement.