In the latest issue of Fortune Magazine, Jessi Hempel writes about how Blackberry is able to stay at the top of the smartphone industry in an article entitled, “How BlackBerry Does It”. With all of the hype that iPhone brings, it is interesting to note that Blackberry still crushes it. In fact, as of May 2009, BlackBerry had 3 out of the top 5 selling phones in the US. Here is how it was ranked:

• In 2008, a total of 1.19 billion mobile phones were sold worldwide, according to IDC, of which some 155 billion were smartphones, or 13%.
• In 2013, IDC predicts that 20% of the 1.4 billion phones sold will be smartphones, or 280 million.
• As of Q1 2009, Nokia owned 41% of the global smartphone market, RIM owned 20%, Apple owned 11% and 28% was owned by others.
• Apple boasts some 65,000 apps, Android has 5,000+, and BlackBerry has about 2,000.
• Juniper Research estimates sales of mobile phone apps could hit $25 billion in 2014, up from $7 billion last year.

While I don’t like it (because I am an android user), it is pretty cool. Nissan just announce today that they will be revealing their zero emission electronic cars on Aug. 2nd. Imagine never having to go to the gas station again. Imagine while you are at work, sitting in the parking garage is your car; a car that is charging up while you work. All of this will soon be a reality in 2010. In San Francisco there is even a push to put in 1 billion dollars in funding to create an electric car charging grid that would allow parked cars to hook up to charging stations. The thought is that there would be a large grid around the surrounding areas of San Francisco. Figures . . . nothing cool ever happens in Orlando. haha.

I digress. Along with the electric car release, there will also be an iPhone application that controls your car. The application will be able to tell you how much battery is left in your car and if it needs charging. The application will also display the current temperature in your car and will be able to control your A/C. Pretty cool. Now all I need to do is to create a car remote converter that will allow all cars to be able to interact with the iPhone.

Earlier today, the New York times posted an article asking why the Japanese cell phone technology has not gone global. In these tough economic times, the once booming mobile tech companies of Japan are now looking for additional streams of revenue. Can they take their cell phone technologies overseas and into the US and even the European markets? Here is a description of one of the phones in Japan (from the article):

The Sharp 912SH for Softbank, for example, comes with an LCD screen that swivels 90 degrees, GPS tracking, a bar-code reader, digital TV, credit card functions, video conferencing and a camera and is unlocked by face recognition.

Pretty cool stuff. Why isn’t that technology already here? Well in the past there were three defining reasons (according to a post written by
Kent German, CNET’s cell phone guru) : 1.) Competing networks, 2.) Carrier Control, and 3.) Cultural differences.

1.) Competing networks

In the past there were several different networks that a cell phone could get signal from. There was GSM (used strictly throughout Europe) which was used by T-Mobile and AT&T; and there was CDMA, which was used by Sprint, Verizon, and a lot of smaller companies. By having two different network types it slowed down the process of making phones because manufacturers had to make them for the different networks. Furthermore, this is the reason whey you can get signal in some places but then not others.

Furthermore, a unified network allows development for faster services like 3G. This is why Europe has had 3G waaaayyy longer than we have in the US. They have a GSM network that spans the continent.

2.) Carrier Control

In other countries, buying a phone is independent of choosing a carrier. One simply goes to the store, buys a phone and then chooses the carrier they want. In the US it is the opposite. The phone is already tied to a carrier. Notice that all the carriers give you a limited range of phones to choose from. Also, buying a phone that is GSM enabled overseas, doesn’t necessarily means that it is compatible over here. Carriers have choice control.

3.) Cultural Differences

Mobile advancement and development in places like Japan are advantageous for several reasons. One, the culture there is one of public transportation and dense city life. For these reasons, people are on the move a lot while having extra time. Furthermore,  there are less network access points to create since the population is dense. In the US, we are more prone to using the land line because people are not on the move as much and when they are they are driving most of the time because our land developments tend to be spread out (for the most part). This culture however is quickly changing because of the possibilities that are capable on a phone. No longer is it just used for calling people. If that was the only function, it would definitely not be as popular today.

Apparently so. This upcoming fall semester, the University of Florida is requiring their first year pharmacy students to either have  an itouch or an iphone. University of Florida is apparently the second university in the country to require their students to make such a purchase. Check out the pharmacy web page  that proves that it is a requirement:

Below are some excerpts from the Alligator (University of Florida’s independent student newspaper).

“These are the instruments at the forefront that are developing applications for medical uses by the hundreds,” said College of Pharmacy Dean William Riffee, an iPhone user. “We want our students to become adept at using these mobile devices early on because we see this as the future in pharmacy practice.” Pharmacists in the future will rely on these devices to access patient medical records and verify prescriptions, he said.

“…Students will use iPod touches or iPhones to participate in interactive quizzes during class and download free applications that will help first-year pharmacy students learn the names of various drugs, Munyer said.

He also said the college is developing a simulated patient that students will be introduced to at the beginning of class. Students will receive updates and messages about the status of the patient and its therapy throughout the semester.

“The primary learning objective here is to help our students learn the process of caring for and monitoring patients over different periods of time,” Munyer said.”

Full article here.

Satterfield v. Simon & Schuster

For all of those mobile marketers out there who are starting their own mobile business or mobile campaign, make sure you follow the rules when it comes to sending out messages to people. The cell phone has great potential and a lot of the potential is bearing fruit, but since the phone is such a personalize item, people who abuse the personalization will definitely go down.

If you haven’t already heard, there was a case going through the judicial court system that pitted a consumer vs. a mobile marketing provider. The story goes as follows:

1.) A woman visited a website which was giving away a free ring tone. The woman entered in her name, email address, and age.

2.) The woman then clicked on a box that read “Yes. I would like to receive promotions from Nextones affiliates and brands.

3.) She clicked submit and agreed to the terms and conditions of the service.

4.) A separate mobile marketing company purchases a list of mobile numbers from a mobile number aggregator that works with Nextones. The mobile marketing company wants a list of 18-50 year olds that are open to mobile marketing for a mobile campaign for a Stephen King book release.

5.) The book release message is supposed to be sent out to 100,000 people in that target age group at 12:30pm, however there is an error in the mobile marketing company’s system and they sent out 20,000 messages (at 12:30am) via the interenet to a mobile aggregator who then sent it to the cell phone companies for them to distribute.

6.) The woman received the text. The woman got mad.

7.) The woman sued.

There were a couple of arguments from the woman’s side. The first argument was that she was not supposed to get any messages from other people that were not Nextones. This was thrown out because, upon sign up for the free ring tone, she initially clicked on the box that said she did want to be sent promotions from Nextone affiliates and brands. The second argument was that the text message sent out violated the TCPA. Under the TCPA, Telephone Consumer Protection Act, automatic dialers were not allowed to call cell phones or any common carrier services that charged the consumer for the call. The judge however ruled that the computers that ultimately sent out the message, were not automatic dialers.

If it had gone the other way, then the mobile marketing industry would have been obliterated. Had it gone the other way, all future text message campaigns would be violations of the TCPA. Good thing it didn’t. Now to make sure that mobile marketers are protected, there is a mobile advocacy coalition being formed. For more info on that or on the case itself visit this website.

I share this story because every mobile marketer should know what is going on. By knowing what is going on, you know what not to do. It just so happens that the companies that were associated with this case made sure that they followed all the rules. Awesome. But what if they didn’t? Then not only would they have lost the case but there also would be a movement to further restrict mobile marketing or even worse, ban it.

Remember the famous line from Uncle Ben in the first Spiderman movie, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” Additionally, everyone think about the end user. The last thing we would want is to turn mobile advertisements into a barrage of useless messages and pictures. I don’t want that on my phone and neither would you.If you haven’t already visit the mobile marketing association’s website and read the best practices document that they have put together. This is a document created by some of the best in the business so this is something you should adhere to as well. Get it here.

Mobile Phones are one step closer to being the only thing you will ever need. Yesterday, DOCOMO, Japan’s largest cell phone provider announced their plans to release a cell phone remittance service. DOCOMO cell phone users will be able to send money to another DOCOMO user using just their cell phone. The a payer can send up to  is $208 per transaction and payee can receive up to $2080 per month. When a user sends money, they put in the phone number they want to send it to. That money can either be deposited in a bank account or to the recipient’s cell account to pay for their bill.

The service was envisioned by DOCOMO to be used by people to pay friends and family. For instance if you are at dinner with friends and no one has any cash on them, one person can just take the bill and everyone else just transfers what they owe, using their phone.

However there is some fees for the service. It costs the payer about a dollar to send it and the payee about sixty cents. This is per transaction of course. Maybe they should look into a percentage charge up to a certain limit. If I owed a friend five dollars then I would definitely not send it through DOCOMO remittance but if it was $200, I would have no problem.

Nonetheless, it is cool stuff

Check out more.

Now when you go to Disney with the family and your flight does not match up with your room check-in, you might be able to check into your room early. Disney just announced that they will let you sign up to get a text message sent to your phone whenever your room is ready. No need to call the front desk or an 800 number. Just wait for the text while you are at one of the parks or while you are shopping.

Want to see what else Disney does with mobile? Check it out.

In the latest issue of Press Time, the magazine for the Newspaper Association of America, Jim Conaghan makes a statistical argument that teens really do read the paper.

Conaghan is the NAA’s chief economist and vice president of research and in the article he reviews the findings of the latest data on teen newspaper usage. The data provided by TRU (www.tru-insight.com) reports that out of 2,000 teenagers surveyed, 73 percent of them read the newspaper and 69 percent visit newspaper websites. Also, noted was that about 25 percent of the teens surveyed read the paper two to three times weekly and 38 percent visited online websites that frequently.

Conaghan makes an argument that teen usage is definitely a market that cannot be overlooked and I would have to agree. It is ultimately the young users that determine the future of the newspaper’s products. By cultivating a culture of young readers, how can the newspaper ever go away?

Newspapers know this already. An example is the development of Newspapers In Education (NIE). This program gives the paper to primary and secondary schools for various programs to get kids accustomed to the paper.

Another example of behavioral marketing is when Nestle introduced coffee to Japan. Years ago Japan was known for its dependence to tea. Initial attempts to introduce coffee to the Japanese market failed miserably, so in order to penetrate into the market Nestle created a more subtle introduction. Instead of the coffee drink, Nestle pushed coffee flavored products like candies to get people “hooked” to the taste. Over the years, the coffee taste became more and more accepted as a flavor and when Nestle introduced coffee for the last time, it was a success.

Let’s take it back to newspapers. What is the future of the newspaper as a media entity? More and more the newspaper is being read for leisure and news is being accessed on the Internet. How do newspapers take advantage of this movement?

The key is to embrace the movement and run with it. The physical paper is not going anywhere anytime soon. However, in order to leverage the newspaper as a brand, every delivery medium has to be leveraged. This means print, net, and mobile.

To reach the younger customers, newspapers have to focus more on local news that pertain to them since getting your national news has so many competitors. The newspaper’s website has to focus on creating a social presence. The websites should stop focusing on just providing information, but instead, be able to really connect stories to real people.

Lastly newspapers need to leverage mobile phones to interact with the previous two mediums. Look at the popularity of twitter. People like being updated on what’s going on with other people, groups, and anything that pertains to them. However, note that too much info is not an update. What used to be a quick two paragraphed email to someone is now perceived as an epic novel. Twitter is the perfect example of the success quick updates because they limit updates to 140 characters. It’s time to leverage mobile to provide these quick updates to your users. Does age matter? No. The Nielsen Company did a survey and found that, out of those surveyed, the cell phone users 65 and above received on average 14 texts per month. So yes, even grandma get texted.

How are you implementing mobile to leverage your brand?

Wanna have some fun? Check out these articles from 2004. They discussed how teens read the paper.

According to data from comScore, the number of users that use their cell phone to access news sites on a daily basis has more than doubled over the past year. In 2008, 10.8 million users accessed news sites via their phones and in 2009, that number has more than doubled to 22.4 million.

To put it all in context, the total number of mobile users that have accessed the news via their phone was a total of 63.2 million. The number of total mobile phone users is about 263 million. This means about a quarter of all cell phone users access the news with their cell phones and about 8.5% access it daily.

See the full article here.