Two Posts in One: Mobile & Kids
There are two topics that I want to address but don’t have enough time to write two distinctly different posts. So, I’ll write them in bullet format here:
- Mobile: There’s been big announcements recently about an all-you-can-eat voice plans from Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T. This is big news and I’m actually shocked that it has not been talked about more. There are many implications of this but what I foresee is that the mobile world realize that they have more money to be made in data opportunities and/or people aren’t using all of their minutes and they are downgrading their accounts, thus losing revenue. From my days in web hosting, an all-you-can-eat plan is appealing to the majority of users but they use less than 20% of resources allocated each month.
- There is no doubt that mobile is going to be big. It is already big. I’ve been giving presentations recently where I hold up my iPhone and ask the difference between that and a regular desktop computer. No one seems to be able to tell the difference in terms of functionality other than hardware specs and a few applications it cannot run. I can blog, tweet (twitter), email, facebook, markup documents, spreadsheets, listen to music, maps, sms, get stock prices, surf the Internet, etc. Sounds like a desktop, eh?
- I’m seeing dozens of mobile companies pop onto the radar screen trying to do anyting and everything in the mobile space. Bad idea. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Concentrate on one thing and do it well.
- Kids: Over at Conversation Agent, Valeria talks about a recent interview between Kawasaki and Ballmer in which Kawasaki mentions that 14 year olds have no idea about the history of Microsoft and that they think Halo and Xbox are pretty cool… so MSFT is pretty cool. Those of us who have been around and out from under a rock know that MSFT has had a less than cool reputation but that fundamentally does not matter to certain audiences…
- A fascinating point of view and one that I totally agree with, but one that I’ve not stood back to analyze. Different audiences see brands in different light. Even though something is the same (the same game, the same service, the same product, etc), to different people, it means different things. There are many ways to utilize this in marketing
Just a few thoughts – wanted to get them out today. Comment – I’ll respond…