A telling moment at the South by Southwest Interactive 2010 festival was when Mobile Roadie was one of the winners of the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator award. Mobile Roadie enables users to build mobile applications and submit them to the iPhone App Store and the Android App Market. Mobile Roadie started by developing mobile applications for bands, and rapidly expanded to business, media, sports, and other organizations including churches. AdMob, a research firm, did a study released in January 2010 that showed Android and iPhone users spend an average of 80 minutes per day using applications.

The Mobile Roadie platform cut its teeth in the entertainment industry, being the platform for Ashton Kutcher and Taylor Swift, but they were quickly approached by a wide range of customers from businesses to churches. I use this event to underscore the increasing trend of smart mobile devices and the voracious appetite for information, entertainment, and social connections on-demand. That’s all mobile is, information on-demand. This is a natural progression for a society that inhales its fast food and as no time for the morning paper.

Scott Raney, a partner at Redpoint Ventures commented about SxSw in a Wall Street Journal blog saying, “Mobile in general was a big topic of conversation. People really do believe in these platforms and that they can do a lot of interesting things with them. You’ve got pretty broad platforms and faster network speeds.”

Mobile is a Condition

As you look at whether your business or organization should include a mobile application as part of its marketing mix, consider the relationship of the information you would offer, the consumer, the location of the consumer, and what the reaction will be once that information is obtained. In the case of SxSw, mobile apps like Levi’s Fader Fort highlights the popular hang out sponsored by Levi’s during the music festival in Austin, Texas. The Levi’s Fader Fort has a popular application built by Mobile Roadie.

The Levi’s Fader Fort is the setting for big name bands and those whose names are yet to become known. Given that attendees are always on the move, the best way to connect with that audience is with a mobile application. Information that has value in that environment includes band schedules at the Levi’s Fader Fort, sample songs, interviews with band members, and the social component for others using the app to comment. Thumbs up or down for a band performance may well change the direction of a small mob within a square mile.



Raney summed it up best echoing what many digital marketers are saying, “If I’m going to do something it’ll be predominantly mobile, or if it’s a traditional online experience, from the ground up I’ll think about mobile.”

Mobile adoption by businesses, venture capital, and developers is occurring at light speeds compared to other platform transitions, radio, TV, and Web, for instance. The SxSw Interactive panels and hallway conversations point the direction of where the consumer wants to go, the mobile web and applications is the next, like right now, big thing.

Is mobile in your planning either with an application or a mobile website ?

Provident Partners donates a food item for every comment received on this blog.

Verizon Wireless sponsored the Marketing Edge coverage of South by Southwest.

Time 10:15

Kansas City social media practitioners shared gems at our South By Southwest tweet up yesterday, thanks to local organizer  Lisa Qualls of Fresh ID.   As Rick Mahn and I make our way to the SxSW tech festival  we are asking consumers and producers of social media about the state of the medium, and how businesses are using it (or not).  Also how consumers are interacting with each other and with brands.  The dynamic debate among this group was outstanding.  

As a journalist of these issues,  as well as a practitioner, these gems of opinions from others are data points I keep in mind as I assess recommendations for companies.  There is no “right way” to do social media, and each case, each company culture has a different perspective, which is why this summary should be viewed as a pantry of good quality raw ingredients, and not a recipe for the one size fits all social media strategy.  Some ingredients may be right for some, companies may have the budget to use them all, some may not. 

1. Measure everything, apply tools like Google analytics, www.bit.ly and www.idek.net (last one shared by Bestofjess ) to every link.  – Really I say?  Really, the fact is whether you are an individual blogging about a passion or a Fortune 500 company selling cars, measuring is one of the major ways you know that what you intended to communicate is what the recipient receives.  Don’t leave it up to the response mechanisms like comments to determine whether you have engaged or not.  Measurement to me in social media is like watching someone’s body language when you are having a conversation.  Those gestures, facial expressions and twists and turns are cues which impact the next message you send.  
2. Explain stuff until people understand it.  Regardless of the “advanced” level of the group there is always something new for anyone in the group to discover.  Whether it’s, “this is an RSS feed”  or this is the beta version of Google buzz, heck, this stuff is being made hourly, there are no experts on everything.  There is constant learn and props to groups like the Social Media Club and Social Media Breakfast who are in local communities creating forums for learning.  Bless you. 
3. The relationship between data, individual, and their location is a condition I call mobile which is powerful.  Mobile services interacting with location based applications like Yelp, Layar, Foursquare and Gowalla (to name only a fraction) come as close to getting inside your head as we have today.  An example raised at the Kansas City meeting was telling.  Jenn Bailey was traveling in New York City, stopped in a couple of shops and local landmarks checking into Foursquare at each location.  After her fourth stop she received an invitation that went something like this “You’ve been busy this afternoon, must be tired, stop by our restaurant and we’ll buy you a drink.” 

   As the group concluded, we’ll give up a little privacy to gain something that  may well be very relevant to us at that point in time and space.   The huge increase in smartphone sales is simply making this relationship easier and putting the power in the hands of consumers as they interact with a society on the move.  Analysis predict 50% of web connections will be made via mobile device by 2012. 

You can see the discussion at the Twitterface page created for the event.   Twitterface is a neat application that allows companies to create a brand experience with streaming video, which is also recorded, and the social media stream.