Time 12:04

UPDATE 3/28/10; Since production of this podcast, I’ve learned of two other web-based platforms that have iPhone and Android services they are iSites and Motherapp

Mobile is everywhere and that means should your company be there? I hesitate to say yes because I don’t think mobile is a must be for every company. I think mobile is not a platform but a condition, a relationship between information, consumer, location, and reaction to that information based on when and where it is received. Now if you view your consumer in that light and you provide information that has value in a given time and space, then by all means proceed to go, collect $200 and give Mobile Roadie a look.

Mobile Roadie is the Microsoft BizSpark Accellerator winner for Business Social Media category at the 2010 South by Southwest Interactive Festival. I wrote about them last week. I find them to be newsworthy because they cover both the iPhone and Android platforms right now the only web-based development platform to do so. Android is the current darling platform, having gained market share against the iPhone in February

The research firm Quantcast says Android phones are taking off at a much faster pace. Android’s marketshare grew 44 percent during the past quarter and almost 100 percent the past year as reported by Ed Sutherland on the blog Cult of Mac.

Some developers will say that that iPhone platform is a tough nut to crack and the problem with being a successful application on iPhone is the platform’s success. It’s a cluttered space for a developer. They are looking at the Android platform as ideal to launch a blockbuster app because it’s hungry for apps. Andrew Kameka of Androinica has 11 apps on his wish list for Android this year.

Distimo an analyst firm that covers mobile applications has iPhone and Android as the two fastest growing applications stores with Android having 57% of its apps available for free. I’ve embedded a great presentation given by Distimo co-founder Remco van den Elzen at the CTIA Wireless Conference earlier this month.

Lastly, I readily admit, I was also impressed by Mobile Roadie’s team. Last week I sent a question to support during a very busy time of the South by Southwest music festival, they got back to me within the hour and when I asked about an interview, their CEO, Michael Schneider, contacted me the next day, so that’s a pretty responsive company.

What’s your take? Will a mobile application be this decade’s answer to another website or is mobile a unique platform that makes sense for a small segment of entities?

The Marketing Edge coverage of South by Southwest was supported by Verizon Wireless in the Midwest. Verizon Wireless participates in local social media organizations and is a sponsor of Mobile March held on March 27 in Minneapolis. The day long conference is sold out, but we’ll bring you coverage on the Marketing Edge podcast.

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?