Mobile Marketing Blog by Punchkick Interactive

You really do learn something new everyday.

Apparently, “[m]obile banner ads…produce click-through rates that are ‘exponentially higher than online’ banner ads, where CTR has fallen to about 0.3%; mobile banners produce an overall click-through rate of 2%, even ’slightly higher for entertainment brands.’

Very interesting stuff. 

Read the full article here.

Very recently, Punchkick Interactive was asked to create a mobile marketing campaign by a client representing Motel 6. The goal of the campaign was to influence the buying behavior of Hispanics who are traveling on spontaneous road trips.

The SMS campaign integrates with traditional radio advertising, and offers travelers a way to sign up for alerts of fun events in their destination city. Travelers who sign up receive three days of event information. Mobile Marketer wrote a great article summarizing the details of this campaign.

Read the full article here.

An new Experian study revealed a number of mobile marketing and text messaging statistics that I have not seen before. The short list is outlined below:

• By early 2006, thirty countries had exceeded 100% per capita cell phone usage
• In 2006 there were about 241 million mobile phone users in the United States — or, approximately 80% per capita mobile phone penetration
• According to industry estimates, it won’t be until 2013 that the US will top 100% per capita penetration
• Two thirds of mobile phone users are “active users of SMS text messaging.” What does that translate to? Approximately 1.8 billion people are actively texting today
• Globally, there are twice as many active users of SMS as are active users of email
• In the U.S. alone, roughly 300 billion text messages were sent in 2007
• SMS is typically read within an average of 15 minutes after receipt and responded to within 60 minutes
• While 65% of e-mail is spam, less than 10% of SMS is spam
• 19% of text messagers say they use text messaging as a means of communication between themselves and colleagues
• 62% say they use text messaging to communicate with friends
• 55% say they use it to communicate with their significant others

Source: Mobile Marketing Watch

We are working on a project for a client that has a very troublesome requirement as part of the custom content management system—the ability to enter ANY image URL into an HTML text field for use within a custom Flash application that we built.

This is troublesome because although the client does own the rights to the images they are using, they do not have any easy way to implement crossdomain.xml policy files on their image servers.

SO, we needed to come up with a workaround—hence the example below. Please keep in mind that this is just an example and the version optimized for other image types/videos/error checking/etc. is not posted.


<?php

// GET THE PATH OF THE TARGET IMAGE
if (isset($_GET[”img”])) {

    // READ THE CONTENTS OF THE IMAGE
    $handle = fopen($_GET[”img”], “rb”);
    $contents = “”;
    while (!feof($handle)) {
        $contents .= fread($handle, 8192);
    }
    fclose($handle);

    // DISPLAY THE IMAGE
    header (”Content-Type: image/jpeg”);
    echo $contents;
}

?>


College@Home created a list of 50 useful iPhone tips for librarians and researchers, and it actually brought up a few points directly related to mobile marketing…

2. Creating a texting service for patron questions. Giving patrons the option of texting in their questions to the library can make it easy for those who prefer to avoid telephone conversations the ability to get quick and easy answers to simple questions, and if librarians within your library are using iPhones they can respond to questions in between checking in or shelving materials and other tasks.

5. Check how your site looks on an iPhone. Many sites don’t quite translate well to mobile devices like the iPhone. Check how your library’s webpage looks by using an online tool like iPhoney or by checking it yourself on an iPhone.

7. Optimize your site for mobile devices. If you’ve checked out how your site looks on an iPhone and the result is not so great, consider creating a special page for mobile users to access your site. Many libraries are already doing so to maximize the usability of their webpages by patrons.

18. Track requests. You can use your iPhone as an easy way to alert patrons that their requests have arrived whether by phone, email or text and you can record and keep track of these requests as well.

23. Create content that’s easy to browse over an iPhone. If you’ve decided to develop a version of your site that’s more easily compatible with mobile phones, consider scaling it down the the basics. Simple search tools and information will be easiest to browse on the go.

Get the full list here

This is just a quick note for all you mobile marketers out there. A very specific text string in an SMS message will not work on the Palm Treo—regardless of wireless carrier.

The issue is as follows. Sending a link WITH “http://” but WITHOUT “www” will not work. For instance, “Visit http://groups.google.com” won’t be delivered. However, “Visit http://www.groups.google.com” will be delivered. Very strange, but very fixable.

This is very exciting news as I can’t think of a single thing that could more quickly expand the reach of Flash Lite.

Sony Ericsson announced today at its Developer World conference plans for a new technology that bridges Adobe Flash Lite and Java ME development platforms.

The technology, called Project Capuchin, allows Java ME (formerly known as J2ME) applications to use Flash Lite as the front-end interface for mobile phone applications.

“In using Flash, you typically can’t access properties of the phone. But with Capuchin, you can get at information and applications in the phone and use that info with the Flash display,” said Christopher David, director of long-term platform planning at Sony Ericsson.

The Java ME/Flash Lite connection will be a two-way street, so both can invoke the other, according to Ulf Wretling, director of Sony Ericsson Developer World. But most importantly, Flash content is packaged as a Java JAR file for use on Java ME-compatible mobile phones.

Read the full article on InternetNews.com

I just stumbled across a great game on ilovetypography.com called The Rather Difficult Font Game. If you’re a fellow typophile, you should check it out. And, should you have the hardware, there is also an iPhone version to play with as well.

It would seem that WiMAX’s impact on mobile technology in the United States might be closer than we all originally thought.

NextWave Wireless Inc. (Nasdaq: WAVE), a global leader of all things WiMAX, announced that it has retained Deutsche Bank and UBS Investment Bank to explore the sale of its extensive spectrum holdings in the United States. NextWave’s U.S. spectrum footprint covers over 251 million people in the United States and includes major markets such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Denver, Houston, and Detroit.

What drove the surge? Possibly Allen Salmasi, chief executive officer and president of NextWave Wireless, when he remarked:

Since the completion of the recent 700 MHz auction, we have received multiple offers for our U.S. spectrum assets. [N]ow is the perfect time for us to sell these valuable assets while network operators are trying to finalize their band plans and spectrum holdings for their continuing 3G and planned 4G rollouts. Monetizing the value of our substantial spectrum assets would allow us to further strengthen our balance sheet, retire debt, and continue the commercial introduction of a wide range of innovative wireless broadband and multimedia solutions such as our high-performance WiMAX and RFIC chipsets, advanced multi-mode, multi-band TD-CDMA, WiMAX and LTE enabled base station platforms, breakthrough MXtvTM and TDtvTM mobile television systems.

Four days ago Twitter was just a word that floated around the Web. It meant nothing to me. Well, that’s not 100% true. To me it meant, ‘terrible-waist-of-time—and—a-bad-idea-to-boot.’

That has all changed. Three days ago I visited Twitter.com because I figured that I should at least know what it was before I publicly bashed it—and boy am I happy I did.

It all started back when I saw the awesome Common Craft video, Twitter in Plain English (again, that was just three day ago). Since then, I have grown to love Twitter. I am still in awe at how incomplete one feels without hearing the beloved tweets.

Click to play

I should add that I am aware that Twitter is not the newest tool on the block, and I know that I am probably the last geeky-type to blog about twitter—ever. But alas, that is okay. I just hope that my new favorite pastime doesn’t become my old waist of time.

Help keep Tweeter in my life by following me.
I use twhirl on my Mac to read the micro-blog of the future (that’s what I am calling Twitter).
All the Twitter tools and mashups in one place.
p.s. I now also love Common Craft because they are super clever. Watch the video if you don’t believe me.

Adriana Gil Miner created a great video for her blog, Digital Ecologist, outlining today’s issues with SMS spam, privacy, and how mobile marketing law in the United States may be influenced over the next several years by the CAN SPAM Act. This follows up on Pogue’s Post about The Worst Spam Ever.

Learn more about Punchkick Interactive’s mobile marketing capabilities.

Punchkick Interactive has officially been approved by Apple to become part of the Apple iPhone Developer Program, and we are curious as to the number of other developers who were also approved—so, we decided to start a tally.

If you have been approved by Apple to participate in the iPhone Developer Program, then leave a comment. We will update the tally here daily.

1 developer has been approved.

As a bit of background, U.S. applicants rejected received an e-mail stating: “Dear Registered iPhone Developer, Thank you for expressing interest in the iPhone Developer Program. We have received your enrollment request. As this time, the iPhone Developer Program is available to a limited number of developers and we plan to expand during the beta period. We will contact you again regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time. Thank you for applying.”

Applicants outside the United States received an e-mail stating: “Dear Registered iPhone Developer, Thank you for expressing interest in the iPhone Developer Program. We have received your enrollment request. At this time, the iPhone Developer Program is only available in the US and will expand to other countries during the beta period. We will contact you again regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time. Thank you for applying.”

Learn more about Punchkick Interactive’s iPhone software development capabilities.