Changing Media Summit – London
You probably know that EVG began life, in part, based on the travels of our intrepid CEO, Brice Bay. So it’s not surprising that various members of our team can be found on the move. Eric Ingrand is just back from a quick trip to London for the Changing Media Summit sponsored by the Guardian on March 23 and 24th.
We’d like to share what he thinks are two of the most interesting presentations. Foursquare CEO and Co-founder, Dennis Crowley gave the keynote address on day two: “The Future of Mobile, Social and Location,” which focused on the explosive growth of location-based services over the past year. Monetization is the current buzzword in the mobile world. Two-year old Foursquare may not be profitable today, but they’re thinking ahead of the curve as they work on brand partnerships, local advertising and local travel advice targeted to the more than 6.5 million individual Foursquare users.
On day two, “Breakout Session 8: There’s an app for that: How do you create, manage and monetize tablet, mobile and web-based apps?” addressed whether or not apps are a fad, how you get content right for specific applications, and if the apps need to function across multiple platforms. The high-powered panel included Ian Carrington, Head of Mobile, EMEA Google who noted that 40% of all tweets are from mobile users and 36% of UK phones are now smart phones. The panel further noted that eBay sells something every two seconds via a mobile device, and in 2010 reported selling a 1966 Corvette and a 23-ft boat via mobiles. As 4G technology grows, mobile usage is going to explode. Carrington also shared Google’s position when it comes to mobile: “If you don’t have a mobile strategy, you don’t have a future strategy,” and provided five arguments for the growing power of mobile:
• Devices have increased computing power
• Devices are more clever
• Increased connectivity with 5 billion mobile connections worldwide
• Decreasing costs for service
• The cloud offers phones infinite power from non-stop servers
Both sessions reflect the growing importance of mobile devices in our personal lives. Futurists are predicting that the Web will become 100% mobile in a few short years. And as things become more mobile, brands and businesses will need to think about marketing on local levels. Whether the mobile platform is Facebook, Foursquare, Google or Groupon, the businesses that offer local deals or incentives are going to be the ones who see success. But it is crucial to remember that this is not a one-way transaction. Brands must stay in touch with their audience with high-quality, unique and engaging content.
The changing nature of the digital world keeps everyone on their toes. Twitter is just five years old, (the first tweet was sent on March 21, 2006 by @Jack), and today it sees about 460,000 new accounts opened daily and almost 200 million users worldwide. There are more than 500 million active users on Facebook. People who use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active as non-mobile users according to Facebook.
The future is looking very mobile to us! So what’s your mobile strategy going to be?
Eric Ingrand
Director of Business Development EMEA
