Last week we were at the Emirates Stadium with two of our clients from Betfair at the M-Football conference, a day of speeches and presentations on mobile’s potential as a media platform which adds to football fans’ experiences.
As a media platform, mobile has had… a number… of false dawns, a subject which many of the speakers acknowledged. But, driven by the iPhone, smartphones are not just now being snaffled in ever greater numbers, they are also being used. Have a peek at this nice slide – use of the mobile internet is now growing at a (much) faster rate than desktop internet grew in the 90s.
And with the content-fest that is the World Cup now just 139 days away, mobile marketers are smelling a big opportunity.
At Albion we reckon businesses like Betfair – online businesses which with no retail presence – are particularly well-placed to benefit.
But we also go with Tomi Ahonen, author and general guru on mobile technology: his view is that as a content platform (including branded content) mobile will be as different from the desktop internet as TV has been from radio. Mobile will borrow from what has worked online, just as TV thieved the soap opera as a format from radio. But mobile will invent its own new formats in the same way that TV invented new formats like music videos.
You can see the full M-Football line-up here and probably get some nickable slides from them if you ask nicely.
Glad you guys enjoyed it, just gutted I didn’t make it myself! Mobile is an incredibly influential platform, and yet people are still coming to terms with the huge variety of opportunities and channels that devices facilitate. Keeping my eyes out for some Albion mobile work
February 2nd, 2010 at 6:07 pm