Monthly Archives: February 2011

mobile, PR & marketing, Strategy 1 Comment

Mobile media and PR

I am not a PR person, nor do I play one on YouTube. But it isn’t hard to see that mobile media is rapidly altering all parts of the media landscape — not just news and entertainment, but also public relations, media relations, and marketing communications.

This week I’m speaking at several sessions about the implications of mobile media at the Annenberg school for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Their event is Mobile News Week 2011.

On Feb. 28 I’m addressing two PR classes. I’ve done a little research to spot some trends and resources, in addition to the mobile overview I posted earlier: The mobile landscape: 10 things media pros should know.

Here are some interesting tidbits about mobile and PR…

Continue reading →

journalism, marketing, mobile, PR & marketing 3 Comments

The mobile landscape: 10 things media pros should know

What’s the current state of mobile media, what might the future hold, and what should media and communications professionals know about it? This week I’m speaking at a boatload of sessions on these topics at the Annenberg school for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Their event is Mobile News Week 2011.

Many of these sessions involve me explaining important trends and context likely to affect how people use phones as media tools. Here are 10 key points I think are worth noting…

Continue reading →

advertising, business, media evolution, mobile, publishing, Strategy , , , , Leave a comment

Why the Qualcomm-Opera Mini deal could mean a boom in mobile web traffic

Earlier this week, Qualcomm announced a deal to make Opera Mini (a really slick, lean, fast mobile web browser) the default browser on its  BREW MP platform for feature phones.

So a new slew of cheap handsets with much better browsers will be hitting the stores as early as this summer.

Over on the blog for House of Local (a media consultancy I work with), I wrote about why this is such a big deal:

See: Qualcomm, Opera deal means cheap phones will be doing LOTS more web surfing

And for the Knight Digital Media Center, I explained why news organizations should care about this development, and start taking lean mobile more seriously in their mobile and business strategy:

See: Qualcomm, Opera deal could dramatically boost mobile web audience

The point is: Do you want to get most of the mobile audience now? Or neglect that audience so much that they decide you’re not worth their time?

This year is the big opportunity for building mobile audience. Smart publishers should try to not get their heads stuck up their apps.

accountability, collaboration, mapping, mobile , , 2 Comments

Mobile users team up to map wireless network coverage, quality

If you’re shopping for a wireless carrier, one of your first questions is (or should be): Which carriers offer the best coverage in the locations where you spend most of your time?

You could try to figure that out by looking at the coverage maps the carriers all provide, but take that information with a big grain of salt. Those maps often overstate the reach, strength, and quality of their coverage, and they don’t give detail down to the block level.

On CNN.com Tech today, I wrote about two projects where mobile users are creating their own maps of carrier coverage:

Crowdsourced maps help mobile users compare network reliability

These efforts are handled via iPhone and Android apps — which means that BlackBerry, Palm, and feature phone users can’t participate in making these maps. But the maps (which you can view on Open Signal Maps and RootMetrics) are potentially useful to anyone.

…Well, at least, to anyone in a major metro area, so far. There’s sparse reporting from other regions, but the more people who use these apps, the better these maps will get.

I really like these projects, not least because they’re an important way to hold wireless carriers accountable for delivering the speed and coverage they advertise. They’re also useful if you want to figure out whether your carrier is throttling your data.

accountability, culture, data, ethics, events, government, journalism, tools, transparency 1 Comment

Sunshine Week, March 13-19: Acceptable advocacy for journalists

For several years, I’ve loved Sunshine Week — a campaign by the American Society of News Editors to call for more government transparency.  It’s one of the few times that journalists and news orgs are willing to engage in direct activism, which makes for a lot of amusing verbal gymnastics.

Today at the Knight Digital Media Center, I wrote about new advocacy/awareness tool from Sunshine Week: a model proclamation that news orgs and other activists/advocates can customize, publish, and challenge specific government officials and agencies to adopt. It gets into specifics, at least to some extent.

See: Sunshine Week shows how to call for open government

It’s a good start, but here’s what else I’d love to see from Sunshine Week…

Continue reading →

government, mobile, problems , , , , Leave a comment

How Obama’s national wireless initiative could make the digital divide worse

I’ve long been annoyed by, and concerned about, the long-term implications of the digital divide. Today, my mobile blog post on CNN.com Tech is: Obama wireless initiative silent on net neutrality.

President Obama announced this initiative last week. The intent is to bring wireless broadband to 98% of Americans. That’s great, but my point is: What if most of the people in range of those networks can’t afford to use them fully, or at all?

This is likely, since the new Open Internet Rules passed last December by the FCC largely exempt US wireless carriers from key net neutrality requirements. This leaves the door open for wireless carriers to charge mobile customers extra to access just about any site or service at an acceptable speed.

In my article, I explain how that might happen, and what it could mean for people who can’t afford to take full advantage of those networks.

business, mobile, Strategy , , 1 Comment

MetroPCS takes leapfrog approach to wireless network technology

Last week on CNN.com Tech I wrote a story about an interesting new offer from MetroPCS: No-contract smartphone may lure first-time users. In a nutshell, this discount carrier (which is one of the most popular carriers here in Oakland, CA), which previously has offered only feature phones and low-end BlackBerries, is starting to offer an unlocked smartphone running Android 2.2 under an affordable no-contract plan: $50/month for 1GB data, and $60/month unlimited data. (Plus unlimited talk, text, etc. on both plans.)

This is not the first discount wireless carrier to offer a no-contract smartphone. But it is the first such offering from a carrier that has already rolled out its high-speed LTE network in 13 metro areas.  And here’s why that’s interesting in terms of business strategy, and for consumers…

Continue reading →

business, mobile, publishing, research, statistics, Strategy , , , 1 Comment

ComScore Digital Year in Review 2010: My takeaways

Last week, ComScore published its big annual Digital Year in Review statistics compilation for 2010. I covered this report for both CNN.com Tech and the Knight Digital Media Center. While the report covers many media, communications, and tech topics, I focused on what it had to say about mobile.

My key takeaways…

Continue reading →

business, mobile, news business, publishing , , , Leave a comment

Coming soon from Yahoo: Personalized mobile content platform

Say what you will about Yahoo, but I’ve always liked that they’ve generally realized the value of reaching out to feature phone users — who, according to ComScore’s latest numbers, still comprise three quarters of the current US mobile market.

For instance, Yahoo apparently has deals with many wireless carriers to have its mobile offerings listed in the default menu options for feature phone web browsers. This generates a lot of traffic to Yahoo News — and in turn, to lots of news sites.

Now they’re cooking up something else that should interest news and content publishers who are considering their mobile strategy. Today on the Knight Digital Media Center site, I wrote:

Yahoo to launch personalized mobile content platform

The bottom line for news orgs:

Feature phone users are especially likely to desire content personalization, given the difficulty of navigating and searching web sites from those devices. If this Yahoo platform makes that easier for consumers, and if Yahoo offers some fair revenue opportunities for news publishers, then a platform like this might be a useful complement to a news organization’s own direct mobile offerings.

Yeah, I know at Mobile World Congress next week, Yahoo’s official announcement will make this sound like it’s all about smartphones and tablets. But I hope some people will be asking about how this platform will work with Yahoo’s mobile web offerings — and whether it will include support for Javascript-based apps that can run on many feature phones.