To kick off our new regular series of trend watching here in DIG-IT, what better place to start than with a round-up of the key trends that are shaping the industry? Speaking at MIG's Interactive Media Lunch in June, Gareth Jones, Acting Editor of Marketing and Revolution magazines, Tom Dunmore, Consulting Editor for Stuff magazine and Gary Thompson, Director of product development at News International, share their views on the key things shaping where technology and consumers are heading.
So, here are the ten key things reshaping the worlds of technology, marketing, communications, interaction, media and, well, the way we all live…
- Smartphones
Smartphones are everywhere. Neilson Netratings' now infamous prediction is that by Q3 2011, more people in the US will have a smartphone than a 'normal' phone. Already the UK has 24% penetration of smartphones. Now we are starting to see tablets taking off too. "And brands need to take note, as smartphones are reshaping how people use the web and interact with companies," says Gareth Jones from Revolution magazine. "But the handsets aren't the only factor," says Jones: which brings us neatly onto…
- M-web
"Using the mobile web used to be like being continually punched in the face," says Jones. "Now the process has got a lot slicker thanks to smartphones and better user interfaces, as well as mobile 'broadband'." In fact, there are now more people accessing the web using mobile than PCs globally, says Neilson Netratings, with 1.3billion on mobile and 1.2billion on PCs. This all points to how m-web, driven by smartphones, has become the key contact and often retail channel and will continue to grow in the coming months.
- Social media
The main driver of m-web is social media, with Forrester Research finding that 40% of 16-24 year olds do social networking on mobile in the UK (it's about 7% in other European countries btw). This growth in mobile social networking is impacting everything from brands, marketing, retail and even government. But it isn't just about Facebook and Twitter, the long tail of bloggers and microbloggers all constitute mobile social networking and are becoming a powerful recommendation and marketing channel, as well as being fun.
- M-commerce
One of the chief beneficiaries of this growth in mobile social networking is the world of retail, with e and m-commerce both reaping the rewards. "M&S have led the way with m-commerce, recently rolling out a full m-web based m-commerce service that ties in directly to its existing e-commerce offering and what it does in store in with catalogues," says Jones. But this is still early days in the m-commerce world. It's a nascent market, but with smartphones, m-web and social media it is tipped for massive growth.
- Apps
Love them or loathe them (and most fans of m-web fall in to the latter camp), apps really have caught the public imagination. They offer a simple gateway to the mobile web and went a long way to stop getting online with a mobile "like being punched repeatedly in the face".
Current thinking is that apps are an ideal way to get consumers into the whole way of m-web thinking, acting as a simple way to get online to update them or for extra content. They are also starting to become something of a marketing and advertising boom in their own right.
- Advertising
"The interruption ad model is being turned on its head," says Jones. "It's no longer like Mad Men on TV: you don't turn up, create a massive TV ad, show it to 100million viewers and go and get drunk. Digital fundamentally changes the rules on advertising and brings in a new contract between brands and consumers." These days, the thinking goes, people invite brands in and mobile will reinforce this way of thinking and brands will adapt. Mobile advertising will be a key channel in the very near future, agree our experts.
- Location based services
The most exciting part of mobile and marketing is what you can do with the location information of mobile, says Jones. To date uptake as been small, with only 3.3million people using LBS in 2009, but brands should take it seriously because it will be a really useful tool. Shoppers already get discount vouchers texted or even bluetoothed to their phones when they are near certain shops and there are plans afoot to let shoppers enter what they are looking to buy and route maps will be created to take them where they need to go to get what they want at the best price.
- Augmented reality
A tad over-hyped perhaps, and no one has yet managed to properly exploit AR, but it offers so much to mobile marketing and advertising, m-commerce and entertainment, as well as social networking. Hold you phone up with the camera on, and a whole new layer of information and reality is laid over the top. "It gives you a whole back story for goods, buildings, places and people and can launch mobile search," says Stuff's Dunmore.
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July 2010
