Report identifies the 11 key elements for future of mobile

By Chris Hogg

Polar Mobile, a company that makes mobile applications for more than 150 customers including Time, BusinessWeek, and Sports Illustrated, to name a few, will release a paper today that will identify the top trends in mobile for 2011.

Digital Journal obtained a copy of the report ahead of its release.

Among the 11 major trends to watch out for in 2011: Security threats, major fragmentation across various platforms and devices, and massive growth for the tablet market. According to the report, social media will play an increasingly important role in mobile and marketers and businesses will need to start focusing on engagement rather than number of downloads.

“Mobile will start to become part of every business’ marketing and distribution strategy in 2011,” Kunal Gupta, CEO of Polar Mobile, said in an email statement. “That’s where we all spend our time and brands, marketers and publishers will want to capture that opportunity.”

Gupta was also a speaker at Digital Journal’s Future of Media event held in September.

Going into 2011, Polar Mobile says the following areas are key to the growth of mobile over the next year:

Mobile strategies will extend beyond iPhone and iPad. Polar Mobile says simply having an iPhone app is not a true mobile strategy.

Research firm Gartner forecasts mobile App downloads will top four billion this year and grow to 21 billion by 2013.

Furthermore, more than 1 billion smartphones are expected to ship by 2013, with players other than just Apple (Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Symbian, Samsung and more)

For developers working with Android, fragmentation will become a challenge because Google has released seven versions of its Android OS (1.1, 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.01, 2.1, 2.2) in less than two years.

Polar Mobile says older Android devices will suffer from performance lags.

Furthermore, OEMs such as HTC, Samsung, LG and Motorola each customize their version of Android to distinguish their phones on the market. This will compound the Android fragmentation problems.

Tablets are going to be a major part of the growth of the mobile industry. Polar Mobile believes tablets will become as commonplace as computers, appearing in every home.

Going into 2011, Samsung, RIM, HTC, LG, Acer, Cisco, Dell, Motorola, OpenPeak, Viewsonic, Apple and others will all have their own tablets.

Customers will be drawn to new distribution channels and have more options when purchasing tablets, from OEMs, carriers and retailers.

Apple is expected to sell more than 10 million iPads and Samsung is expected to hit 1 million units sold this year. Gartner believes more than 55 million tablets will be sold in 2011.

Right now advertisers, marketers and businesses typically focus on number of downloads rather than number of active users. In 2011, that will change.

Polar Mobile says most businesses have no clue what happens inside their apps, which is why most only report on the number of downloads. In 2011, improved analytics and tracking capabilities will allow companies to build products that promote user engagement, and enable them to tweak based on real-world feedback.

Companies will shift priorities to focus more on continued usage than number of downloads.

Like the Web, social will play a huge part in the future of mobile.

Polar Mobile notes that 35 percent of Twitter’s active members use the service on their mobile device.

[url=http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics t=_blank]According to Facebook[/url], there are more than 200 million active users who access the site via their mobile device and those users are twice as active as non-mobile users.

Polar Mobile says mobile consumption habits are different than online user experiences and social will play a role in making mobile unique.

With the rise of usage on mobile platforms, the world will see more mobile-exclusive brands and content emerge.

Polar Mobile says new, mobile-only brands will be launched by traditional publishers and niche and focused content will be used to create “greater user stickiness.”

Companies that expand on mobile will also be able to leverage new distribution channels to acquire new users.

Paywalls are going to suffer on mobile. Outside of iTunes, Polar Mobile says it’s very difficult to buy physical or virtual goods on your phone, and limited infrastructure will be the stumbling block for paid content.

Polar Mobile says the industry needs major infrastructure updates and billing improvements before paid content and micro-transaction businesses will see mass adoption.

Applications and mobile websites will be more intertwined, offering a better user experience. Polar Mobile says apps will leverage the mobile Web to scale utility and add custom features across multiple devices.

As the app and mobile web markets mature, average users eventually won’t be able to tell the difference between a mobile website and an app.

Apps will begin using near-field-communication (NFC) technology to enable them to become mobile commerce tools. For example, retailers will be able to use NFC to increase in-store purchases by pushing notifications to shoppers about deals or specials.

Polar Mobile says Android Gingerbread, the recent release of the OS, also supports an API for NFC, giving developers the tools they need to build functionality into apps.

In addition to NFC, RFID chips implanted in smartphones will turn them into payment tools.

Companies and individuals will need to pay more attention to App security and threats, as mobile adoption grows into 2011.

Polar Mobile says smartphones often store far more personal information than desktops that is easily accessible by mobile apps, and App distribution channels do not currently mandate security testing.

The company warns that nefarious developers could use techniques such as spoofing, tampering, repudiation, information disclosure, denial of service, and elevation of privilege to get personal information.

Finally, Polar Mobile says fragmentation across operating systems and devices will grow exponentially. Going into 2011, there will be a huge number of mobile platforms, including Apple iOS, Google Android, RIM BlackBerry, Windows Phone, HP Palm, Samsung Bada, Nokia Symbian and Intel MeeGo.

The device market will also expand, including smartphones, feature phones, tablets, smart TVs, automobiles, netbooks and browsers.

How media companies are harnessing the mobile space

By David Silverberg

In a panel discussion at NextMedia Toronto 2010, prominent decision-makers at some of Canada’s leading digital companies spoke on the various benefits of bringing their content to the mobile market.

Toronto’s Design Exchange was the site for a discussion on the various platforms available to media companies who want to bring their content to tech-savvy customers. Moderating the panel was Sara Diamond, president of the Ontario College of Art & Design. The speakers included: Candice Faktor, Vice President, Strategy and New Ventures, at Torstar Digital; Angus Frame, Vice President, Digital Media at The Globe and Mail; Marina Glogovac, Chief Marketing Officer, for Kobo eReader; and Matthieu Houle, Director, Mobile & Platforms for Yellow Pages Group.

The session began with Glogovac citing Verizon as a business role model, saying she admired how it transformed from “a sleepy carrier into a 3G powerhouse, unafraid to cannibalize its own business.” Torstar Digital’s Faktor then pointed out how businesses should realize there isn’t one centralized approach to mobile. “Each brand and business should look at the market to see how it’ll define their business,” she said.

Faktor hinted Torstar will soon be offering daily deals for mobile users, a connection that makes sense considering Torstar’s acquisition of group-buying company WagJag. A mobile push requires a multi-pronged approach, she said. “Torstar’s mobile experience is a collaborative effort between the content management system, the content producers and the ventures group making everything work. There are many challenges when you have a big organization such as ours.”

The Globe & Mail‘s Angus Frame said the past two years were “intense with lots of experimentation in the digital space.” The Globe and Mail views mobile as a “catchpoint” for its customers: users accessed their mobile apps when print readers usually put the paper down, such as in the evening and on the way to work. “It’s not a black and white transition, to engage with customers on different platforms,” Frame noted. He added its apps, such as the iPad app, also attracted traditional national advertisers as well as new Globe readers.

Houle stressed Yellow Pages Group is focused on local search, and they view the smartphone as the ultimate tool for search. “We don’t view phones as a major change to our business model but an extension and acceleration.”

At Kobo, an eReader company, Glogovac found male customers use their apps differently than women: men tend to graze, looking for how-to books. Women prefer longer-form content, such as novels. She also noticed baby boomers are still willing to pay for content, while younger users are more accepting of advertising but not keen on paying for content.

Houle’s free app, Urbanizer, was introduced to the NextMedia crowd: he said the app allows users to search for services nearby based on “mood”, such as looking for “trendy restaurants” or “intimate coffee shops.” He said Urbanizer “satisfies a customer’s basic need to search socially for bars and restaurants that might fit their needs.”

The panel was then asked about the skill sets their companies look for in new hires. Frame said The Globe and Mail has overhauled its “internal communications skills” and has focused on analyzing metrics to help the team better understand its digital potential. “Also, design is no longer a flat experience; we are designing so people can interact with our content and seamlessly move across different platforms.”

The single biggest change in this area is how publishers are talking to customers directly, Glogovac said. She said, as a marketer, she prefers avoiding traditional PR routes and instead would hire journalists and writers “who know how to talk to people directly.”

Houle ended the discussion by pointing out companies should be in control of the conversation between themselves and customers. That idea led Frame to mention how Facebook is both competition and complementary to The Globe and Mail‘s interests.

Faktor said media firms should find out where users gather. “Consumers are promiscuous and it is up to us to be there in different media platforms.”

Microsoft parters with Polar Mobile for smartphone apps

By Chris Hogg

Microsoft is teaming up with Canadian app developer Polar Mobile to create 500 applications for Windows Phone 7, Microsoft’s new mobile product.

According to a Globe and Mail report, Polar Mobile will build Windows Phone versions of its 350 existing apps available for BlackBerry, iPhone and Android users. The company will also build future apps for Windows Phone.

Polar Mobile is a Toronto-based company of 40 people. The company has made apps for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Time Magazine, CBS Sports and more. Kunal Gupta, the company’s CEO, was a speaker at Digital Journal’s Future of Media event in September.

The Globe calls the deal one of the largest ever in the Canadian app development industry and positions Microsoft to play catch-up to Apple, Google and Research in Motion on the mobile front.

“What has changed today versus two years ago is that they’re not selling phones on hardware and price,” Gupta told the Globe. “They realize that people are buying based on apps and content, and they see us as a one-to-many strategy.”

Polar Mobile has seen success in the app world because of its ability to produce mobile applications quickly. Unlike other app publishers that produce custom-made apps, Polar Mobile uses its “SMART News Platform” which is a template model. Customers provide the content but the overall framework of each app comes from the platform. The result is an app can up and running in a very short amount of time compared to custom-made apps.

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This blog post is part of the Future of Media‘s ongoing coverage and examination of what’s happening in the media around the world. If you have a story idea, please contact us.