Laptopdance: Results from the ‘Mobile and Wireless’ table

'The Mobile and Wireless table'

Read on for details about the most hotly debated Mobile and Wireless applications that were demonstrated at the Ryan*MacMillan Laptopdance for the recent Forrester Consumer Marketing Forum.

1. Inap: By using the GPS in your iPhone, iNap is able to monitor your location when travelling. Imagine a trip on a bus or a train, and being woken up with an alarm when you are geographically close to your destination – a really useful tool to ensure you never miss your stop. This application is a great demonstration of how GPS can be used on a mobile device to do more than simply show you your position on a map.
2. Tikitag: A recurring opinion around mobile applications is that they are often very interesting, but rarely useful or practical for a business. Tikitag is a utility that went someway towards dispelling this belief. It allows the user to tag objects with miniature stickers called ‘tikitags’, and use these miniature stickers to link real world objects to the online world. Effectively giving any object in the real world its very own RFID tag; creating an online profile for the object which can be accessed from anywhere in the world.
3. iPhone Accelerometer: This is a great feature on the iPhone that many people didn’t know existed, and a feature that received widespread positive feedback across the board. The appeal of the appications that used the accelerometer lies in their simplicity; rooted in the satisfaction the user feels as they throw a stick-man around their mobile screen or take a swig of beer from their iPhone. There is certainly a market for the possibility of brands creating simple accelerometer games that can be widely distributed; providing a unique marketing opportunity as well as providing consumers with a basic, but enjoyable gaming experience.
4. Get the Message: This recent Army marketing campaign received a very positive response, due to the simplicity of typing out a short message to a friend and the satisfaction you both feel when that friend receives a personalised live action video sent directly to their phone. The Army’s text to video ‘Get the Message’ campaign is a great demonstration of the the increasing number of ways in which one can now use the many different mediums available when sending and receiving messages.
5. Although not a specific application, there was a great deal of discussion at this table about how we can use social groups to source research for mobile product development. A head of e-commerce for a large bank pointed out how mobile phones could be used as a more secure payment system through voice activation. By joining or creating relevant online groups, this gentleman could then source and find out more about what a potential audience thinks of this proposal – which would go a long way in refining the idea and developing new ones. This is a perfect example of how Social Media can provide developers with new and effective ways of refining a product.