Unfortunately, the festive season also goes along with depression, loneliness, desperation and despair. While the majority of people are merrily basking away in the sun, drinking, sharing and laughing with family and friends, there are the selected few that, even with people around, are desperately seeking for some solace.

When we read “the selected few”, the word niche should pop into our heads immediately. During the festive season, there is an opportunity for churches, social services and even welfare to tap into this niche and provide some much needed solace, inspiration and in some cases, life saving services.

[Why churches still don’t keep databases of its flock is possibly still due to the ongoing debate among religions over whose god is real. It’s all about prioritizing isn’t it?]

Pity, because an opt in text message service for people in desperate need of reassurance, faith and guidance during these testing times would actually serve a much greater purpose as the bickering over which of us will actually make it into the pearly gates.

This service could also be categorised to include suicide messaging, either distributing constant support messages or have an actual representative of the church in various areas available on call-out for severe cases where SOS messages are sent in.

Only last week I found myself in a conversation of a person whose friend’s parents were killed in a freak car accident, and while friends and family are there to offer their love and support, it’s often in silence that these people suffer. A message service for people in morning and despair would add much needed solace during a season in which we are to celebrate.

What about fun? Festive ringtones, MMS message templates, jingles and literature could all add additional value to every person’s holidays. I found myself sending fifty text messages this morning to friends, family and clients wishing them the merriest of Christmas. Adding a fun element to the church helps keep the relationship active while we are away.

There are so many opportunities to add value to people’s lives during a time when our peers, our god and our churches are so easily forgotten.

What do you think?

I’m away on vacation and what better way to entertain than to provide you with my “mobile and the holidays” snippets where I’ll explore the world of mobile communications, marketing and value added services that I pick up or conjure up during my vacation.

Getting right into it then. It is my brother’s birthday today and his phone has been ringing off the hook with text messages and congratulatory calls.

One such text message came through from his Medical Aid Service Provider. My immediate reaction was to commend them for the personal connection they have with each of their customers, if only until my brother mentioned that he had signed with another Medical Scheme more than a year ago.

Pity? Bad database management? Or a way to remind my brother that they’re still out there?

What do you think?

$1 000 000 000 000. Say it like you mean it: “One trillion dollars.” The mobile industry is the world’s latest trillion dollar baby. What’s more profound is that it was achieved in slightly more than ten years.

How does it compare?

1. 1. Combined with radio, the broadcasting industry is still nowhere near a trillion dollar industry, only about half of that.
2. 2. Advertising is worth roughly half a trillion dollars, in very round terms.
3. 3. The IT industry? Another half trillion there.
4. 4. Air travel is also in the half trillion dollar range.

Does anything compare?

1. 1. Cars,
2. 2. the global food industry,
3. 3. and believe it or not, the global weapons industry are all trillion dollar businesses.
4. 4. Now add mobile to that list.

Where there’s money, there’s people. And where there’s people, there’s a target audience.

Back in 2001 when I got my first mobile phone, text messaging and calling was the only luxury we had. Mobile content was a pipe dream. However, on the 5th of December 2008, exactly 10 years prior, the first downloadable mobile content was launched, the ringtone. Unbeknown to the world population at large, a booming industry was born that day.

For anyone, any business in whatever shape or size not yet fully convinced that the future of digital marketing starts and ends with mobile, allow me to highlight some examples of this ridiculously growing industry (This is a long post, but you WILL be wow-ed, so bear with me):

• 1. The latest numbers reveal that the total number of unique mobile phone owners is now 3.05 billion (46% of the planet’s population do have a mobile phone, even after we remove the multiple subscriptions).

 

• 2. There are 1.4 billion TV sets in the world. But there are 2 billion mobile phones with a colour screen and at least 2.5G network connectivity, meaning they can display “streaming” ie live TV and video.

 

• 3. Of the four digital camera giants, only Canon and Nikon remain in the camera business, Konica and Minolta no longer exist in the camera market; and the world’s bestselling camera brand, since 2004, has been Nokia. (I have a phone with a 5 megapixel camera)

 

• 4. Music on mobile phones today, at the end of 2008, is passing the 11 billion dollar annual revenue level. When we bear in mind, that the total global music industry is only worth 30 billion dollars - it means that more than one in three dollars spent on music globally, is spent on the mobile phone.

 

• 5. 50 Cents with his smash hit, In da Club, in 2003 earned more as ringtone than all other music formats combined - and most annoyingly of course the Crazy Frog - to the tune of 500 million dollars of global sales of their ringtones and related services in 2005 – that’s one ringtone earning more than all of iTunes’ global sales that year.

 

• 6. A third of the mobile phone subscribers on the planet sends MMS picture messages - that is 1.3 billion people for those who are counting. Comparing that with 1.2 billion active users of email, and suddenly MMS is very interesting indeed. Worldwide, you can reach a larger audience if you put your content (or advertising) on an MMS picture message, than if you put it into email.

 

• 7. This year mobile social media passed $9 billion and next year will easily cross the 10 billion dollar level of annual revenues. From zero to 10 billion dollars in six years. Mobile social networking is by far the fastest-growing billion dollar industry ever. For comparison, the online internet side of social media is three times as old, and still hasn’t passed a billion dollars in total revenues - where most of that is advertising revenues. Mobile social networking sites are making oodles of cash, and many have already become profitable in this very short time.

 

• 8. In the past ten years, mobile content has turned into a global giant industry worth over 71 billion dollars of annual revenues. That is as big as all Hollywood box office revenues, plus all global music revenues, and all videogaming software revenues - put together. Hollywood and music are 100 year old industries. Videogaming is a 30 year old industry. But mobile has already grown bigger than all three, combined, in only ten years.

 

• 9. There are under 500 million newspapers sold daily. There are 900 million personal computers connected to the internet. There are 1.3 billion internet users. And 1.4 billion TV sets. But 1.5 billion people will receive ads on mobile phones this year. How many more will receive them next year?

I have a tip for you today. If you walk down the road and spot a public pay phone, take a picture of it, because, like in Finland, they’ll all be gone pretty soon.

My second tip is to get with the times and comprehend the superpowers of the mobile industry. The future of mankind’s commercial business models will rely on a piece of equipment you will rarely leave home without.

Thank you to Tomi Ahonen for his articles, content which I shamelessly copied and shortened for the convenience of my readers. If there are two articles you have to read before Christmas, it’s these two.

My latest phone, the Samsung Omnia, was a relatively easy choice for me to make. It is fully touch screen enabled, running Windows Mobile 6.1 which gives me the opportunity to customize just about every component for comfort, a clear, large screen for adequate multimedia experiences and not to mention the Garmin GPS software that came bundled with the phone.

Over and above all this cool gadgetry however is the fundamental use of it as a business phone. Our vocations are different, granted, but for me to consider a mobile phone adequate for business, easy typing capabilities are essential. I thought I’d put the Omnia to the test using the (rather sensitive) touch screen keyboard.

Without any editing, this is what I managed. (I did not capitalize any words as I was going for speed rather than accuracy. Editing is a process in its own.)

This will bbe my first fuull blown blog post from my samsung omnia mobbile telephone. Ll’ve nnow had the privilege to play arouunnd for various weeks with diferrent setttings to comme to a point where i’m in a position to revview the word processing potential of the omnia ppocket pc as miniiature ccoomputing alternative for buusy exxeccutives.

It has takenn me a great while to come to terms with the touch screen adaptation of the standard phyysiical keyboard. While it’s a space and weight saving triumph for the mobile computing industry, the relative sized screens coupled with the odd fat fingered adult, makes it quuite tthe achilles heel of advvanced mobile computiing.

Iincluding in the downside of touch sreen capabbilities llie the issue of sensitiivity. Finding a keyboard software applicatiion tht works well for your fingers is one thing (i did not find the standard omnia keyboard all that useful, and coonsiderinng the omnia ruuns on windows mobile 6.1, it lends vast capalitiies for third party applicatiions), managing to tap the correct letter as often times as possibble is another. Not to menntion the accidental doubble tap of letters ddue to the sensitive screen.

This is not only a point in case for the samsuung omnia, mind you, but a well documented issue with even the top of tthe pops apple iphone. It’s a rather unpleasant situatiion and one that is hard to foresee the manufactuurers overcome.

Only stiking to the tyyppewritingg capabbiliities of the touch sccreen pocket pc’s, the questiion i ccertinly need to answer is this: is thiis an executive’s phone, someone wiith basic emailiing and word processing rrequiiremennts? Judginng from the spelling issuues iin this artticcle, you’ll have to say no.

Buut does the ffact that iit took me only 20 minutes tto type this chnge anything? You bbe the juudge.

With mobile phone technology advancing rapidly, the critical role of citizens in today’s society has changed dramatically. People are becoming more involved through the mere fact that they are able to connect to a plethora of platforms using an array of media at the drop of a penny.

Citizen journalism, a term phrased for a society able to capture breaking news and distribute it immediately has seen many organisations embrace this new form of reporting. Arab news corporation, Al Jazeera has started incorporating mobile reporting into their repertoire of services.

With the quality of the mobile phone’s camera, the ability to connect through 3G, GPRS and Wi-Fi and location based services such as GPS capabilities, accurate portrayals of global happenings can now be distributed to the news corporations in an instant.

During the recent Mumbai terrorist attacks, one such citizen managed to capture a burning Taj Mahal and uploaded the images to his personal blog via his mobile phone.

From the New York Times: “At the peak of the violence, more than one message per second with the word “Mumbai” in it was being posted onto Twitter, a short-message service that has evolved from an oddity to a full-fledged news platform in just two years.”

“Some people transmitted video from inside the Taj hotel to news networks via cellphones. And reporters used cellphones to send text messages to hotel guests who had set up barricades in their rooms.”

In a time where the mobile phone continues to serve as value added device, an enormous advance from simply making phone calls and texting merely ten years ago, the role of marketing and communications are changing.

The mobile phone forms a critical part of everyday life now and companies should realize the potential this device poses to them.